When flames erupted from the aft end of the skyclipper cockpit, the shock wave slammed into Leto like a meteor.

A burned and broken mass of flesh smashed into the front viewing wall beside him, then dropped to the floor. Too large for a child, too small to be a man— a whole man— it left a smear of blackened bodily fluids.

Searing heat roared around him as the air crackled with flames. The rear of the dirigible blazed, engulfed in orange fire.

Yelling uselessly in horrified confusion, Leto wrestled the rudder controls as the wounded skyclipper bucked and reared. Out of the corner of his eye, he couldn’t stop looking at the broken form beside him.

It twitched. Who was it? He didn’t want to know.

A parade of awful images assaulted his retinas, one at a time, lasting the merest fraction of a second. Behind him, he heard a screaming wail that changed abruptly, then dwindled as the flailing silhouette of a man was sucked through a gaping blast hole torn in the bottom of the cabin. The man’s entire body was in flames. It had to be either Rhombur or one of the three guards.

Victor had been at the center of the explosion. . . .

Gone forever.

The crippled skyclipper began to plummet, losing buoyancy as the flammable gas was consumed inside the dirigible’s body. The fabric tore away, and yellow-white fire towered higher. Smoke filled the cockpit.

Leto’s flesh was hot, and he knew his fine black uniform would soon be in flames. Beside him, the wreck of the unidentified body made a mewling sound of pain. . . . He seemed to have the wrong number of arms and legs, and his face was a bloody mass of twisted, unrecognizable flesh.

The skyclipper was crashing.

Below, pundi rice paddies spread out in sinuous rivers, jewel-like ponds, and peaceful villages. The people had gathered, waving pennants to greet his passage. But now, seeing the fireball overhead like the hammer of God, they scrambled for shelter as the skyclipper died in the air. The smaller escort craft flurried around the flaming vessel, but they could do nothing but follow.

Leto tore his mind from its stunned paralysis—Rhombur! Victor!— when suddenly he saw that the airship was hurtling toward one of the farming villages. He would crash in the midst of the gathered people.

Like an animal, he wrestled with the rudders to change the angle of descent, but the flames consumed the hydraulic systems, ate away the buoyant enclosure. Most of the villagers scattered like a panicked herd; others stared helplessly, realizing they could never get away in time.

Knowing in his heart that Victor must be dead, Leto was tempted just to let himself vanish in the bright flames and the explosion. He could close his eyes and lean back, allowing gravity and heat to crush and incinerate him. How simple it would be just to give up. . . .

But when he saw all those people down there— some of them children like Victor— Leto forced back his despair, leaned forward, and fought the controls. There had to be some way to alter course and avoid the village.

“No, no, no . . .” he moaned deep in his throat.

Leto felt no physical pain, only grief that ripped through his heart like a knife. He could not bear to consider all he had lost, could not waste a moment of reflexes and skill. He was fighting for the lives of the people who believed in him and relied on him.

At last one of the rudders turned, and the skyclipper’s nose tipped upward the barest fraction of a degree. Tearing open an emergency panel below his controls, Leto saw that his hands were red and blistered. All around, the flames grew hotter and hotter. But he reached inside and tugged on the curved red levers with all his strength, hoping the escape cables and controls remained active.

As the blaze in the rear of the skyclipper increased, metal clamps thumped open. The tattered dirigible sack split free, disconnected from the cockpit cabin. Guidance sails broke away and flew off in the winds, some singed, some already on fire, like flaming kites without strings.

The cockpit cabin dropped off, and the remainder of the dirigible sack— suddenly freed of the weight of passengers and the thick-walled cabin— rose like a comet blazing in the sky. Correspondingly, the self-contained cabin dropped at a steeper angle. Glider wings extended, snapping into place, braking the descent. Damaged suspensor mechanisms struggled to function.

Leto pushed hard against the control grip. The hot air seemed to be melting his lungs with every breath he gasped. The tangled trees bordering soft islands in the rice marshes rose up at him. Their thorns were stiff fingers with sharpened ends, a forest of claws. He loosed a wordless howl. . . .

Even the Old Duke’s end in the bullring would never be remembered as more spectacular than this final flash of glory. . . .

At the last possible instant, Leto added just a little lift and power, as much as he could wring from the damaged suspensors and engines. He skimmed past the crowded village, singeing ramshackle roofs, and crashed into the rice marshes beyond.

The cockpit cabin hit the saturated ground like an ancient artillery shell. Mud, water, and shattered trees sprayed up into the air. The walls folded and collapsed.

The impact hurled Leto from his seat into the front bulkhead, and then dropped him back down to the floor. Brownish water poured through ruptures in the cabin until finally, with a groan and a shriek, the wreckage came to a rest.

Leto slipped into peaceful darkness. . . .