Screams filled the inner sanctum as the Breath’s blinding light illuminated the walls. A sea of people pushed and punched their way toward the staircases, held back by only a handful of guards.
Haliden found an opening and squeezed his way toward the staircase on the right, where a single guard stood before a large, wagon-sized steel hatch.
“We have two venermin!” he gasped.
The guard drew his blade. “Come any closer and I’ll cut you open.”
Haliden raised his hands. “I’ve come too far to let it all burn. Please, friend.”
The guard glanced past Haliden and the mobs at the two wagons marooned in the entranceway.
“Y-your mark?” the young man stammered.
Haliden lifted his sleeve, revealing the raw brand.
The guard stared at it for a couple of moments then pounded on the steel door three times. Seconds later, a large wheel spun in its center, followed by a rusty screech as it slowly opened.
A nervous looking man peered from the crack. He looked between Haliden and the wagons. “You’re serious, Stent?”
“We’ve got two more,” the guard replied. “Get things ready. And tell the others to get out here.”
“Piss on that!”
The young guard reached through the crack and grabbed his companion by the throat. “You’ll do it now, or you can roast outside with the others!”
“Okay! Okay!” the man spat. “For fuck’s sake!”
Moments later, the door opened and a line of men clad in thick black armor poured out. Several pushed past the crowds and took up positions behind the rear wagon, while the rest lined up in front of them.
“Get ready!” the young guard cried.
The armored men rushed forward, plowing a path through the refugees.
“Faster! Damn it, faster!” Haliden cried as he pushed alongside them.
Screams erupted behind them as the tunnel completely collapsed.
“Seal the Maw or we all die!” someone shouted.
Haliden and the guards pushed the wagons through the steel door into a torchlit chamber beyond. They were moving so fast, though, the wagons slammed into a stack of crates, shattering them to pieces.
“It’s done,” the young guard cried as colored parchments and feathers drifted to the ground. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
Haliden fell to his knees, gasping as the armor clad men fled past. Thousand of crates and steel chests were stacked all around him, many branded with identifying house marks: Hem Town, The Fells, Breeders Nook, Garim Way. Places he had neither heard of nor seen. Even the primitive tribal clans of Delwin and the Wavering Stretch were represented by handmade stone boxes.
And then there were the garna-barra chambers. Dozens stood in the center of the room, enormous, gleaming boxes encapsulated in Tritan crusher seals and covered in meridium infused glyphs. These had come all the way from Alimane’s great cities and treasuries, where they would eventually be returned once the Breath petered out.
But there were lesser models as well, the garna-barras of the poor. Unlike the larger chambers, these were simple four by four boxes wrought from shoddy steel and welded together in primitive forges. Most wouldn’t survive a brush fire, let alone the Breath.
But someone carried them all the way here, Haliden thought. People who thought them important enough to risk their lives for.
“Let’s go!” a guard yelled behind him. Two of his companions were already sealing the steel door.
“Wait!” Haliden cried. He ran over and thrust his arm through the shrinking crack.
A scrawny guard stood on the opposite side, pushing against him.
“Stop, for fuck’s sake!” Haliden cried.
The boy shook his head. “There’s no time. I’m sorry!”
“Wait! Please!” Haliden cried.
The boy met his eyes for an instant, but then turned and fled into the dark.
Desperate, Haliden tried to push with his legs and arms. But the door wouldn’t budge.
Something clicked outside, followed by a loud, metallic groan.
“Try now!” a frightened voice said through the crack.
Haliden pushed again and, to his relief, the door slowly opened.
“Harder!”
Haliden grunted and strained until he finally slipped through and fell to the ground outside.
“Fool,” the guard said.
Exhausted, Haliden slowly looked up at his savior. It was the young guard who had first opened the door.
“Thank you.”
The boy nodded. “We still need to reseal it.”
The two strained and grunted, inching the door forward until it finally clicked shut and locked.
“If you want to live, follow me,” the boy said.
Haliden followed him up the flight of stairs, leaping over bodies and discarded belongings.
Beneath them, refugees pushed past the remaining guards and stormed the stairs.
“Go! Go!” the boy shouted.
Haliden glanced over his shoulder. A handful of refugees were clustered by the counterweight system, manually pulling down the Maw.
Moments later, the massive gate slammed shut, crushing several people.
Elated cheers erupted across the chamber as darkness engulfed them. But the celebration was short-lived.
Small patches of orange, glowing light blossomed across the massive gate.
It’s not going to hold, Haliden thought. Molten steel was already dripping in several spots, sizzling and popping as it touched the damp ground.
Other people saw this too and rushed the staircases.
“Keep going!” the boy cried.
A thick, iron door stood ajar a hundred steps above, a single guard standing beside it.
“I’m closing it!” the man screamed.
Haliden struggled up the remaining steps, his lungs and leg muscles on fire.
Behind him, rays of light began shooting through the Maw. One hit a man and woman running behind him, slicing them both clean in half. Another cut a man down mid stride, his severed torso spilling organs across the ground.
Dozens more soon erupted through the gate, eviscerating a group of women huddled behind a pile of overturned crates and beheading several people on the left stairwell.
Haliden pushed past the stunned guard and fell into the room beyond.
“Look!” someone yelled behind him.
Haliden turned. The entire Maw now glowed bright orange, buckling inward at its center.
“Shut the damn door!” Haliden shouted.
The guard stood frozen, staring at the light. “This is devils’ work!”
Haliden scrambled onto his feet and grabbed the guard. “On three we shut it or we die!”
The man nodded. “Okay, okay!”
“One, two… three!”
The heavy door inched forward, its ancient, rusty hinges squealing as red rust drizzled onto the floor.
“Harder!” Haliden growled.
Muted screams blossomed on the opposite side, an ocean of horror and desperation crashing over them as the Maw collapsed like melted wax.
“Come on, damn it! Close!”
There was a loud click, followed by a sudden drop in air pressure.
And then the chamber fell silent.
Haliden stumbled away from the door, exhausted and dazed. His face and back were covered in burns, and a large ball of light hovered in his vision.
“What now?” someone asked.
Haliden blinked until his eyes slowly adjusted to the room’s meager torchlight. Dozens of faces surrounding him, all tear streaked and burnt.
“We wait,” he said.
“For what?”
Haliden sighed. “I really don’t know.”
31
Haliden wept, staring at his bloody hands. He could still hear the screams outside as men and woman melted or burst into flames. But there was nothing anyone could do for them.
A handful of survivors stood in the flickeri
ng torchlight behind him. They were a mix of women and children lucky enough to have reached the stairs before the Maw succumbed.
“What did we do to deserve this?” Haliden breathed.
An elderly woman covered in soot and burns stepped forward. “Be silent!” she said, gesturing at the handful of children clustered behind her. “They need hope now, not tears.”
Haliden turned away, ashamed.
“How will we know when it’s over?” a man asked.
Haliden shook his head. “We won’t.”
The elderly woman approached the door. “Be silent, you two! Do you hear that?”
“W-what?” the man asked.
There was a sudden gasp, like a thousand souls sucking in their last breath.
Haliden winced as his ears popped.
It had grown eerily silent outside the door.
“Get back!” the elderly woman said.
Patches of white light began blossoming across the steel door.
“Oh, gods! Oh, gods!” the man whimpered.
“Move!” Haliden screamed. “All of you! Get out of here!”
The refugees scrambled to the rear of the chamber, stumbling over each other as tiny light rays erupted through the door.
One hit the elderly woman in the face, punching a two inch hole clean through her skull; another sliced a man’s leg off, the severed limb cauterized and smoldering beside him.
Haliden dived to the ground just as one erupted over his head. It was the purest white he had ever seen, blast furnace hot and burning anything it touched.
His head down, Haliden made his way to a stairwell situated at the back of the room.
The gates… they’ve all failed.
A man rushed past, his right arm dangling by a thread as blood splattered the stairs. More rays cut through the door and walls behind him, some reaching as far as the small landing forty steps up, where a woman lay against the wall with a coin-sized hole burned clean through her forehead.
“Milane!” Haliden cried as he took the steps two at a time. “Milane, I’m here!” His voice rebounded off the granite walls, unfamiliar, uncontrolled.
“Milane!”
When he finally reached the top, he found himself standing at the head of a long, torchlit corridor. The eerie blue meridium flames reflected off the wet granite walls, highlighting the dozens of steel doors lining either side.
Haliden pushed on the closest one but it was locked. He checked three more until he finally found one that opened.
He froze in the doorway, chilled by what he saw.
A dozen bodies lay side by side on the floor, black veils draped over their pallid, sagging faces. Beside each lay an empty vial, the seal cracked and dotted with viscous yellow fluid.
Haliden quickly shut the door. But the next two chambers were the same: men, women, and children, all laid out atop straw mattresses, their eyes cloudy and gray, yellow fluid dripping from bloody nostrils and gaping mouths.
Farther down the line, he came upon a large banquet room with three enormous tables covered in exotic foods: broiled duckling with marmalade glaze, cured laptane flanks seared and peppered with shoots of sweet-sing and dried blueberries, smoked venison wrapped in bacon and thyme. All picked over and eaten before the great leap into the unknown.
There were also rows and rows of priceless wine bottles, each bearing the mark of master vintages: Algian berry, Isle white merlot, Crown Chesin melon blended with cinnamon and true-grass. A king’s ransom, Haliden thought.
“What a waste,” he mumbled. To make the journey all the way here only to commit suicide in the Block’s embrace?
Madness.
Dazed, he stumbled into the hall.
“Milane!”
Steam now filled the air, an acrid vapor that burned both his eyes and lungs.
“Milane, I’m here!”
Footfalls echoed behind him, followed by indiscernible shouting.
Haliden’s heart pounded in his throat. The voices were growing louder, closer.
“Stop!”
Haliden froze.
A man stood behind him. “What are you doing here?”
Haliden turned. The man was middle aged and chubby, dressed in a lavish silken tunic with gold bands wrapped around his forearms and throat. His pants were made of some exotic, gleaming fiber and his shoes were cut from the finest laptane skin Haliden had ever seen.
Royalty, he thought.
“Answer me!” the man shouted.
“I’m a runner.”
“Show me your mark then!”
Haliden pulled up his sleeve.
The man stared at the brand and shook his head. “You shouldn’t be here. This is the Trenemy Gulch. Only statesmen and their families are allowed here.”
“Dead statesmen, you mean.”
The man nodded. “A privilege they paid well for.”
Haliden stared at him, shocked.
“Ten thousand coinage, Circle mint,” the man continued. “And all I had to do was prepare a simple cocktail of arsenic and lemon water.”
Haliden lowered his sleeve. “I—I need to find someone. A woman.”
The man laughed. “Don’t we all.” He turned to leave. “I suggest you find a quiet corner and die as best as you can, runner. The Block is failing.” And with that, he was gone.
Haliden walked for what felt like calls, navigating the dense warren of chambers and tunnels as steam and smoke nipped at his heels.
He found more bodies, many suicides hanging from wall sconces or lying prone beside empty vials of arsenic laced juice. But some had blades jutting from their chests and skulls.
Of the living, though, he found none; the claustrophobic tunnels were silent, every chamber still and abandoned. His mind swirled with possibilities: had his section been cut off from the rest? Was he buried alive somewhere deep inside the Block? Perhaps he was dead already, cursed to wander the Block for all eternity.
“Milane!” he cried again and again as he ran.
An acrid, hot breeze rushed down the tunnel, followed by a blinding orange light.
“By the gods!”
A pillar of fire ran at him, howling and clawing at the coiling flames.
Haliden pressed his back against the wall as the figure passed. Pieces of burning clothing and flesh trailed in the man’s wake, vanishing into the distance.
Haliden fell to his knees and vomited. For a time he did nothing but stare at it, his final meal splashed across the granite floor.
But then a sound rose above his breaths: whimpering.
Haliden slowly stood, his heart pounding in his ears.
Another whimper, followed by a groan.
He limped toward it. As the sound grew louder, the smoke thinned, revealing a door standing slightly ajar at the end of the tunnel.
His breath held, Haliden pushed it open.
The air inside was cool and damp, the smell of cinnamon incense lingering like a fading dream. In the center of the chamber stood a small altar covered in coins and empty wine glasses.
Haliden froze.
Behind it, two figures lay silent and still, covered in silken death shrouds.
Slowly, he knelt down and pulled the veil from the closest figure’s face.
I am wrath, he thought, the words echoing over and over in his soul.
For it was him. The bastard. The knight.
Yumen.
Fear quickly gave way to blind rage as he stared at the man.
My enemy.
The dead knight’s skin was pale as milk, his lifeless eyes wide and foggy.
“You got off easy,” Haliden whispered. He withdrew his blade and raised it above the knight’s chest. But before he could bring it down, a hand touched his ankle.
“I knew it,” a voice whispered.
Haliden dropped the knife.
Her eyes were wide and bloodshot, her skin white and covered in sores. But it was her. His Milane. And she was alive.
“How?” she said.
&
nbsp; Haliden stared at her, his breath held. This can’t be. Her cheeks had been dimpled and supple, but this woman’s were sallow and covered in oozing sores. And of her once black, silken hair, only a few patches remained, revealing a scalp covered in scars and blisters.
Tears rolled down Haliden’s cheeks. “World’s end,” he whispered. He cupped her face. Was she even real?
I no longer care…
Her eyes trembled. “World’s end.”
The air grew hotter as smoke and ash flowed through the open door.
“I’m sorry,” she wept, blood trembling on her lower lip.
Haliden caressed her emaciated body into his chest. “There’s nothing to forgive.”
She looked deep into his eyes, weeping.
Haliden kissed her. The past three turns dissolved in that moment, taking with it all his anger and resentment.
For they were one again, a long lost key opening a forgotten door. He had forgotten how gentle her touch could be, how mad it drove him whenever she grasped his shoulders and neck. Everything came alive again, his passion, his inspiration, hope and love.
And then, as quickly as it began, Milane broke away and coughed.
Haliden took her hand and squeezed. “If only you knew how much I missed you.”
She forced a pained smile. “I shouldn’t have listened to him. But it was all ending. All of it.”
Haliden’s heart ached. After everything he’d been through, every awful footfall to get here, she was leaving him again. And this time to a place where he could not follow.
“Be still,” he whispered. His throat closed up as tears rolled down his cheeks.
She gently laughed. “We blew it, didn’t we?”
Haliden forced a smile. “Me with my brush and you with your knight.”
She squeezed his hand harder. “It was a wonderful ride, though.”
Haliden nodded. “It was.”
She smiled. “I would ask how you got here, but time is not a luxury I posses.”
Haliden wiped his eyes. “You might not believe me if I told you.”
She tensed as a spasm rippled across her body.
Haliden gripped her helplessly as foam bubbled through her clenched teeth.
She stared at him, pain and regret trembling behind her eyes.
Haliden's Fire Page 28