The princess said nothing, entirely breathless after the chase. I, who do not breathe, was slightly more verbose, pointing up the stairs after us and asking the Man in the Moon for aid in dislodging the murklugs.

  The murklugs were still descending the stairs in a great crowd, pushing and shoving, each trying to get in front of the other. They cursed and swore, and clawed and snapped, and occasionally ripped apart each other’s language; one plunged from the stairway down onto the floor, having made the mistake of remarking that he was dead tired. His body hit with a meaty thud, and lay still.

  The Man in the Moon looked at the creatures and sighed, pulling a staff from out of thin air.

  “I care not for semantic trickery,” he idly remarked, banging his staff on the ground once. “Begone from my sight, and return only once you know what ‘sight’ is.”

  And the murklugs disappeared, even the one on the floor evaporating in a fine mist.

  “Now,” said the Man in the Moon cheerily, his movements betraying his real annoyance. “We can have a proper chat, and you can answer my question.”

  And he turned to face us.

  The Man in the Moon is a strange fellow to gaze upon. A little rough about the edges, his clothes old and worn, with bits of straw unaccountably hanging out from his overalls. His skin glows softly, flickering into darkness in waves across his body, and his face is hidden under his farmer’s hat.

  “So, my question - How are you today? And, perhaps, another question - Can I offer you refreshments?”

  I shook my head - a vampire needs sustenance but rarely, and he was unlikely to have what I needed - but thanked him kindly; the princess took him up on his offer.

  As the Man in the Moon prepared cakes and tea we told him our story - from the most immediate troubles with the murklugs, back through to my journey to the Northern Wastes, and even earlier than that, to the very start of my journey.

  I am still unsure if I made a mistake here, for I did not ask him about the initial object of my journey - namely, to prove the inexistence of humans. This object came up again and again during the telling of my story, even guiding its contours, but I made no move to ask for his own thoughts upon the matter.

  This was not because I was uninterested - quite to the contrary - nor because I thought the Man in the Moon incapable of contributing to my search - again, quite to the contrary. Rather, the question did not come up because there was a far worse question tickling at the back of my mind.

  It had been bothering me since my train stopped in Galton, had grown in intensity after my experiences in that town’s university, and had voluminously swelled during my journey through the Far Leprous Hills and the Jungle of Unk.

  Something was not right with the world. I couldn’t put my finger on it - perhaps it was the many-sided beings, who live on the moon and ought not be seen on earth. Or perhaps it was the demon Kruller, who had created homunculi using spellforms not seen even in the university at night, when the scholarship grows far weirder and altogether more uncanny.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Or perhaps it was the automatons, who had accosted me in Galton and whose origin I had yet to uncover. In any event, certain questions stood out in my mind - why had belief in vampires been declared illegal? And, more importantly, why was the staff at the university of Galton replaced by automatons? And - if I could verge slightly into the conspiratorial - were there any threads that tied these events to the others I had experienced, or was this merely a result of the unstable times?

  As the Man in the Moon was said to be famously wise I decided to ask these questions of him. He pursed his lips and sat down in his rocking chair, motioning for us to likewise sit.

  After a protracted moment of us scanning the room, searching for other chairs, he waved a hand, and two more rocking chairs sprung into being.

  “You asked the right questions, and unfortunately I can offer you an answer. Your troubles do have one cause, tying back to the first man who recognised you for a vampire - the dean. Or, rather, the one who built him.

  “He came here a year ago, climbing the thread of moon moth silk at the back of the Most Westerly Point. He never gave me a name, and I doubt he had one - he was one of those faceless fellows who stalk round the margins of history, wreaking destruction wherever he goes. But his purpose was clear: he wanted to replicate the many-sided beings who live on the moon.

  “I told him this couldn’t be done. None now live who know where the many-sided beings who live on the moon came from, nevermind who know how they came into being. Still, he was not to be dissuaded. He told me that he would replicate the many-sided beings, master their ever-changing essence, and use it to make his nation altogether more… He didn’t have a word for it.”

  The Man in the Moon took a sip of his tea, clearly lost in thought. The light coming from his skin shook stormily, as if being covered by clouds.

  “When he left I thought the matter was done, and indeed it looked all but finished - till slightly over half a year later, when the many-sided beings began to behave funnily. They went haywire, behaving in all sorts of jagged and discomfitting patterns, and some even descended down the thread of moon moth silk to the back of the Most Westerly Point. Worse yet, when I descended the thread myself for my regular new moon outing, I found that much of fairyland was the same - wild, and full of a nameless terror that gnawed at the heart.

  “I tracked down the trail of the many-sided beings, through the Far Leprous Hills and up north, towards Galton. As I went the pit of dread in the depths of my stomach grew deeper and deeper, for I knew but one person from the Northern Wastes, and he was the one I wanted to be least involved in this mess. Unfortunately reality rarely follows our desires, and upon my arrival in the city I was able to swiftly confirm my worst suspicions.

  “He had engineered, through magical arts that remain known only to himself, control over the many-sided beings - and indeed over a great many other creatures of the Other Side - and while he had failed in his quest to replicate them he had done something much worse. He had replicated, in a hellish form, their lack of essence, building from this discovery mechanical nightmares with no gaze and no thoughts, no touch and no hopes, who existed in a processive series of transformations devoid of any meaning.”

  Another sip of tea. This time the Man in the Moon remained lost in thought, brooding. At last I could take the silence no longer and, all breathless with anticipation, inquired, “But how did he do it?”

  The reply was simple.

  “He is old and he is cold, and he has stolen a sliver of the moon.”

  No more detail did the Man in the Moon give us. After the end of a long, long silence, he merely remarked, “And I would like you to get it back.”