Rachel gazed up at the immense Maze-forged automaton that had once been her friend. He had shifted position, maneuvering himself so that his knees pinned down Menoa's great warrior more firmly, pushing its useless wings to one side. He still held the other arconite by its neck, but had driven his free hand down into the earth to form the prison that had snared Hasp.
Hasp slumped to his knees. He picked up a whisky bottle from the ground and poured two inches of the foul liquor down his throat. Then he crawled forward and tried to squeeze his shoulders between the bars of his impromptu cage. His cassock had parted, revealing his chest, and his glass breastplate smouldered like a furnace in the night. He tore at the ground beyond Dill's fingers with bloody red gauntlets.
“Hold him there, Dill,” Rachel called out, turning away. “Thank the gods you still have your wits. Just hold him fast!”
She returned to the soul room to find Mina pressing up against the glass sphere. The thaumaturge had her eyes closed and was whispering urgently to the ghost inside. She didn't even turn around as Rachel approached.
“Hasp is indisposed,” Rachel announced.
Mina held up a hand, continuing to whisper for a moment longer, then she took a deep breath and turned away from the sphere. “I can't get through to it,” she said. “This angel's soul has been too badly corrupted. It shares Menoa's chaotic vision.”
“Can we break the sphere?”
The thaumaturge shook her head. “These materials were forged in the Maze, so their strength isn't limited by the physical properties of this world. Their power is derived from those fragments of Iril that Menoa bound to each angel's soul. Matter thus became a con-sequence of will, and Menoa has simultaneously reinforced and subjugated this angel's will.” She thought for a long moment. “This sphere isn't glass. It isn't even real. The angel's soul is little more than a vessel to hold the power Menoa placed there. To damage an arconite, you'd have to convince the arconite that it can be damaged. And that isn't going to happen, not with Menoa's tentacles lodged in the thing's mind.”
“But Dill isn't like that. He has free will.”
The thaumaturge snorted. “Don't go telling Dill he could be damaged. If he stops believing he's invincible, then we're really in trouble.”
“But, in theory, we could free Dill's soul from its own prison?”
A dangerous smile came to Mina's lips. “Now why would you want to do a thing like that, Rachel Hael?”
Rachel said nothing.
“When we were in Hell,” Mina went on, “Hasp allowed Dill to absorb power from another piece of the shattered god. Menoa used that fragment to transform Dill into his thirteenth arconite. Dill is far more vulnerable than this warrior, but he's stronger, too. The very fact that we're now standing in this skull is evidence of our friend's superiority.”
“Because he believes in himself?”
Mina shrugged. “And because Hasp trained him.”
Rachel sighed. “Well, he can't hold this monster down forever.”
From behind them came a scuffing noise, as of someone moving through the crawl space located between the jaw and the soul room. Rachel wheeled suddenly and held out her arm to warn Mina to back away.
Oran crawled into the chamber, then stood, frowning at the bizarre machinery. He saw the two women. “What the hell are you two doing in here?” Then he noticed the sphere and hissed. “What is that?”
“The soul of this machine,” Mina explained. “An angel of the First Citadel.”
The woodsman approached. He stared at the ghostly figure floating within the glass, then at Rachel. “My men are drinking again. Is this really the victory they believe it to be?”
“It's an impasse,” Rachel said, “for as long as Dill is able to restrain this thing. But we don't know how to destroy that sphere.”
Oran grunted and raised his steel hack. “Stand aside and let me try.”
Rachel glanced at Mina, who simply rolled her eyes.
The big woodsman took up a stance before the glass globe. He hefted his rude blade and brought it down in a ferocious swing against the glass. The impact tore the weapon from his grip and sent it clattering away into the shadows. But the glass remained completely unmarked.
Oran bent over, red-faced, wringing his hands.
“The angel knows it is indestructible,” Mina explained. “Paradoxically, it's that very belief that makes it so. This whole…” She swept a glassy hand across the room. “… construction, this machinery, the engines, they're all functionally meaningless. They exist solely to create an illusion of power and strength for the soul to adhere to. The golem sees itself and believes that this physical form requires a power source, and so Menoa has given it simple engines, pistons for muscles, and chemical blood to move its hideous limbs. None of this is actually required, and yet none of it can be physically destroyed. The whole creature is a bizarre paradox of faith and form and uselessness.”
Oran scowled at her. “Your witch-speak means nothing to me, woman. My men are out there now binding the creature's limbs with rope.”
“A complete waste of time.”
“Then what do you suggest? Exactly what are you doing in here?”
The thaumaturge looked away. “I was trying to plant doubts in its mind, to challenge its faith in itself and thereby weaken it. I attempted to persuade it that it could be defeated.” She lifted her gaze back to him. “But I failed, because its master has corrupted its will.”
Oran growled, “What about its instincts?”
“What do you mean?”
He grunted. “In conflict, a warrior follows his instincts, woman, and those instincts are driven by naked fear and rage, not by wits or will. A charging aurochs can rout armed forces easily strong enough to take it down. The death of a leader destroys morale and hope. It all stems from fear. Most battles are not won by skill alone, but by the control of men's instincts.” He spat at the glass sphere. “Hasp could have told you that. If you want to defeat that thing, scare it out of its wits.”
Rachel nodded. “He's right, Mina. Its soul is naked before us in there, and that makes it vulnerable to fear. If it perceives danger, it might react instinctively. Menoa might control its consciousness, but—”
“All right,” Mina snapped. “I get it.” She glared at Oran. “What do you suggest, then?”
The woodsman crouched and examined the lower curve of the globe. It stood upon four small crystal pedestals. He rose and walked around it, then kicked one of the supports. Then he dragged a hand across his stubbled jaw and said, “Burn it. Cook the fucking thing in its own pot.”
So his men brought jars of lamp oil and animal fat from the Rusty Saw's own supplies. They filled the arconite's mouth with firewood collected from the surrounding forest. They built a pyre under the soul sphere and drenched it with the oil and fat. And then they lit it.
Flames licked the glass. Black smoke pooled under the concave ceiling and soon began to fill the whole chamber. And within its glass globe, the arconite writhed and mouthed screams in silent terror.
Rachel watched in horror. “Can it really feel heat through the glass?” she asked Mina.
“No,” she said. “It merely thinks it can. But that's good enough for us.”
They retreated back along the crawl space before the air became unbreathable. Oran's men came last, piling more wood and oil into the soul room as they backed out. Soon the whole chamber blazed like the belly of a kiln. Back in the jaw Rachel stood with the others and watched the entrance to the low passageway through which they had crawled, while the fierce red glow cast their shadows high across the interior of the arconite's maw.
They climbed out into the cool night.
At Rachel's instruction, Dill released the automaton. He shifted his great bulk, moving his knees slowly from the fallen giant's back.
“It's working,” Mina said. “As long as that fire keeps burning, its Icarate master can't relay its thoughts through the angel's soul. The arconite can't function.”<
br />
“We're torturing it,” Rachel said.
“Technically it's torturing itself. We're just giving it the means to maintain its own illusion.”
Rachel turned away in disgust. “Don't even start that shit with me, Mina.”
The thaumaturge laid a hand on her arm. “We need to keep it burning, Rachel, for as long as it takes to get away from here.” She turned to Oran. “Two or three volunteers should be enough to keep the fire stoked. If we allow the flames to die, that thing is just going to get up and come after us again.”
The woodsman chose three volunteers from the men who had assembled around them. They would be paid in gold and left with enough provisions for a week. Only after that length of time would they be permitted to abandon the fire. They asked for whisky but Oran refused to give them any. “You'll get drunk and fall asleep and the fire will die. Keep it burning until we're long gone. When we see you next, every last man of us will be buying you a glass.”
The men clasped arms and Oran left them to their hellish cave, where they had promised to keep the soul of an angel in agony for the good of their fellows.
Now, with one plan under way and the majority of Oran's people returning to the Rusty Saw, the assassin and the thaumaturge turned their attention to Hasp.
The god still sat within the bone cage of Dill's fingers. Mud stained his ragged cassock and spattered his glass bracers and greaves. His coalred eyes seemed unable to focus on anything but the empty bottle in his hand. Rachel noted with irony that he had merely passed the cheap liquor from that glass container into another. He looked old and sick, perilously close to death. Yet some of the earlier rage had now left him.
“Hasp?” Rachel said.
He closed his eyes and his head slumped forward. “Let me out,” he moaned.
“We can't do that yet.”
Hasp gazed down at his bottle. “I don't…” He sniffed and rubbed his forehead. “… feel compelled to do anything violent.”
“How do I know that? The last order you—”
His head snapped up. “The last fucking order urged me to kill the women within the arconite. But you're not inside it anymore.” He took a heavy breath and then his head fell back into his hand. “All the whisky in the world,” he said, “doesn't dull the fucking thing's claws. I would have broken your necks.” His fingers made vague shapes in the air and then he let out a miserable sigh. “And I would still be trying, if the parasite had any wits of its own. If you've any sense, the pair of you should kill me now.”
Mina's brow creased. She looked at Rachel.
“Let him go, Dill,” the assassin ordered.
Dill hesitated.
“Let him go!”
Dill lifted his hand, freeing Hasp. The god remained on the ground for a moment, then picked himself up. He didn't look at either of the women, but slouched back towards the tavern with his head held low. Ranks of Oran's men parted before him, falling silent as the glass-skinned warrior passed.
Anchor fell from the Midden and into the strange, gulping funnel. He sensed pressure on his chest as the living iron constricted around him, but then it released its grip, and he plummeted.
The spirits who had been guided here by the Non Morai reacted fearfully to the big man's presence. A gale tore at him, full of their rushing whispers. Golden motes of light and curved metal walls flashed upwards.
He dropped past windows and portholes through which he barely glimpsed rooms. They passed in the blink of an eye, like sudden memories.
Anchor came to an abrupt halt as the rope attached to his back snapped taut, a sudden jarring that tore the breath from his lungs. Somewhere overhead the Rotsward had come to rest against the mouth of the funnel. The big man hung there for a few moments, gazing down at the horizontal beams of light that crisscrossed the dark shaft below. He could not see the bottom. He glanced up and spied a similar sight: Light from many windows cut across the narrow space, illuminating dust motes and lozenges of the rusty shaft interior.
He wrung his hands together, swung himself over to the side of the shaft, and smashed a fist through the nearest window. Beyond lay a room no larger than a cupboard, full of old boxes and chests. Something wailed and shuffled deeper in the shadows, but Anchor paid it no heed. He took a deep breath, then pulled himself further down the shaft, breaking more windows to make handholds for himself.
From overhead came the sounds of crumbling stone, rending metal, and screams. Anchor just bulled his muscles and dragged the Rotsward even further down through the living fabric of Hell. The landscape above would move, or be destroyed. He didn't care which.
After a while he began to hum an old shanty he'd once been taught by Pandemerian fishermen off the Riot Coast. The rhythm of the song matched his exertions. Heave the anchor, pull her up, he sang in his head, smash that window, pull me down. Chunks of bloody masonry from the Maze above fell constantly, battering his harness and shoulders. Smash that window, pull me down.
Eventually he reached the bottom. Here the shaft opened into a larger chamber below, a metal sphere perhaps fifty feet across. Anchor heaved in enough slack from the Rotsward's rope to allow himself to drop down into that gloomy space.
He landed on a pile of detritus that had been shaken loose by the skyship further up the shaft. Four circular steel doors, one at each compass point, offered potential exits from the chamber, but only one of them was open. In this doorway stood a little girl.
She was about eight years old and painfully thin, dressed in a stiff black dress with white ruffs at the neck and wrists. Her huge blue eyes regarded Anchor from under a burst of blond hair. In her sticklike arms she cradled an odd-looking spear, with a glass bulb at the rear and a fragment of clear crystal at the business end. This weapon made an intermittent crackling sound, like footsteps on gravel.
“You're not a ghost,” she said.
“No, lass.” He beamed at her. “I'm John Anchor.”
“What you doing in my ghost trap?”
“Your ghost trap?”
She shifted uncomfortably. “Mr. D's ghost trap, I mean. You're not even supposed to be here anyway. Why have you got a rope on your back?” She jabbed her spear at the mounds of rubble all around him. “And what's all that stuff there? Mr. D won't be pleased about that at all.”
“Where is Mr. D?”
“Back in the shipyard, of course,” she said. Suddenly she blinked. “You're not here to trade for those Icarates, are you?”
Anchor raised his brows. Had she meant trade on behalf of the Icarates? Or did she actually expect him to trade something in exchange for Menoa's priests? Was it possible that this Mr. D could be holding Icarates as hostages? Anchor was curious. And what did the girl mean by the shipyard? This whole operation clearly had nothing to do with King Menoa. “The Icarates?” he replied. “Yes, I am here to trade.”
Now she looked uncertain. “Maybe I don't believe you.”
Anchor shrugged. “Why else would I be here? Mr. D won't be very happy if we keep him waiting, will he?”
She bit her bottom lip and looked at the rubble again. “All right,” she said. “Let's go then. You'll need to leave that rope behind because otherwise I won't be able close the Princess's door.”
“The rope stays,” Anchor said.
She glanced back nervously, then shrugged and walked away.
He followed her out of the chamber, ducking inside the open doorway, but then stopped when he saw what awaited him on the other side.
It almost looked like the interior of an airship envelope. A series of concentric steel rings ran along the inside of a long metal hull that tapered to points at both ends. Anchor was standing at one of the narrow ends. In the center of this enormous space a complex clockwork engine squatted amidst a tangle of pipes. The engine ticked steadily as its many wheels and shafts rotated. Various metal racks stood amongst the pipes, each holding what appeared to be coloured glass bulbs. Anchor shook his head. It could almost have been an airship. And yet the entire floor
was covered in grass.
He plucked a blade of grass and sniffed it, then rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. Grass. A whickering sound from the front of the vessel made him look up. In the distance, just past the widest part of the hull, stood two ponies, a tan-and-white and a chestnut. The animals eyed him warily.
“What are we going to do about that rope?” The little girl was looking behind him, when her eyes suddenly widened. “Who's she?”
Anchor turned to see Harper duck inside the open doorway. The metaphysical engineer stepped over the Rotsward's rope and looked up at the girl. “Hello,” she said. “My name's Alice. What's your name?”
“Isla.”
Anchor smiled at Harper. “Cospinol didn't warn me you were coming down.”
“You've been blundering through one soul or another since you jumped into that funnel,” she said. “I think he's worried about speaking through the rope. Too easy for someone to overhear him.”
“Thank the gods for small mercies, eh?” Anchor waited a moment to see if Cospinol would respond to his jibe. When his master remained silent he grinned wildly. Finally, some peace and quiet. He'd only had to come to Hell to find it.
The little girl had noticed Harper's tool belt. “Are you a Mesmerist?” she asked. “You've got a Locator, and a Screamer, and what's—”
“And you have a ghost lance,” Harper said, nodding at the girl's spear. “Where did you get that, Isla?”
“It's Mr. D's,” she said.
“Mr. D? Is he—”
“We're off to the shipyard to speak to him about those Icarates,” Anchor interrupted. “Isla is going to take us there now.”
Harper nodded slowly. “Right.”
Anchor stepped past the engineer and heaved the door shut behind her. The rope didn't break—but the door itself buckled. He got it closed, more or less, and forced the handle down into a bracket in the metal frame. Then, hoping that Isla hadn't noticed, he said, “All good and shipshape. This is a ship, yes?”
“She's called the Princess,” Isla said. “And she's not a ship.” She giggled, and then ran over to the massive engine, and began to pull levers. “Mr. D made her for me,” she called back. “He calls her a submarine.”
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