Rachel pushed through the falling fragments, and stepped out into Heaven.
Anchor had brought Mr. D's customers, an entire city of them, to confront the Lord of the Maze. The city's buildings housed demons, and they shambled or crawled across the surface of Hell, consuming canal walls under their foundations and dislodging cornerstones from Menoa's own queer structures, causing them to howl.
The Riot Coast giant himself stood grinning upon the top of the long metal hull of Isla's subsurface vessel. Alice Harper had found a deck chair from somewhere, and now reclined in it, studying another one of her infernal Mesmerist devices and scanning the bottled soul she had taken from D's Emporium. Dozens more bottles rolled about inside an overturned cabinet they had found amongst the wreckage. They weren't as refined as the soulpearls Anchor was used to, but they were a hell of a lot better than nothing.
“Any luck?” Anchor said.
She made a noncommittal gesture. “He's intact and he's dreaming,” she said. “But I still need to find a host for him.”
“Is that the Ninth Citadel?” Isla asked excitedly, peering out from behind Harper's deck chair. “It's really big, isn't it?”
“Aye, I thought it might be,” Anchor replied. “Menoa strikes me as that sort of god.”
Isla wrinkled her nose in distaste.
All around the submarine rumbled the vessels of other demons who had collected souls for Mr. D. Harper had said that they were some of the oldest and most powerful creatures she'd ever scanned, but you wouldn't have thought it to look at them: wiry old men and carefree children, weak-eyed scholars and dizzy maidens, they seemed ill-equipped to take their ships to war. Anchor had protested, but Harper insisted on engaging their help. They were willing enough to fight, though, and Anchor couldn't deny them that right.
Mr. D's customers were another breed altogether. Demons grown fat from their years of trading at that strange emporium, these creatures wore castles like men wear clothes, towers and canting stacks of stone and glass of every shape. They had fashioned these environments for themselves from living memories, and now moved them by will alone. The ground shuddered wherever they passed. Icarates and Soul Collectors fled through the passageways ahead, many of them falling under a bow wave of rubble.
Anchor turned to Harper. “It would be good to have seen Hasp's castle here. Was it as grand as these?”
“Grander, and more dangerous,” the engineer replied. “He fled farther than anyone thought possible, and then turned the building against Menoa's hunters. I'd never seen anything like it.”
“Ha!” Anchor took another bottle from the cabinet, uncorked it, and drained its contents. The soul within the liquid soon took the edge off his appetite, restoring him to full vigour. He felt strong again.
“You shouldn't drink so much,” Isla said.
“I know that, lass.” He tossed the empty bottle away. “This is gut-rot.”
But it was strong gut-rot, and that's all that mattered to him right now.
The vanguard of this bizarre and rambling army smashed through yet another wall, the metal vessels ploughing into a compound full of dark barrow-shaped structures. Here the Icarates had mounted resistance.
Men in bronze plate armour threw spears up at the intruding constructs. Gladiators, they were, by the look of them, part flesh and part metal. Anchor had seen the arenas where Soul Collectors gathered. At a run, they broke around the Princess, looking for a weakness, a place to scale her smooth hull. The submarine slid ever forwards, tilting up over one of the barrows and then slamming down again. Harper's deck chair slid to one side, but she grabbed hold of the cabinet to stop herself from falling any further. Anchor took Isla's hand.
“I won't fall off,” she said.
“No, but I might.”
She grinned and held on to him more tightly.
“Here.” Harper handed one of her Mesmerist devices up to the big man. “I've adapted this Screamer to rattle Menoa's soul. He'll try to change you, and he'll succeed unless you're fast. You'll have less than a heartbeat to activate the thing. It should disrupt his concentration enough to let you get closer.”
“How long do I have?”
“I don't know. Moments only. But you won't surprise him twice.” She looked up, past him. “Iolites, John.”
A great flock of glass lizards flashed in the fierce red skies above. They were almost invisible: a swarm of scintillations—now like sunlight on a fast river, now like burning cannon powder—and Anchor heard the sudden crash of their wings.
Nearer than they look …
Anchor pushed Isla aside, and seized a crystal claw as one of the Iolites dived at his head. The winged lizard let out a shriek, a clash of chimes as it thrashed its wings against Anchor's shoulders. Anchor whirled the beast around his head and then threw it hard into the rest of the flock. Lights sparkled, and though he couldn't see individual creatures, he heard a smash as the Iolite he had hurled struck another. Fragments of glass showered the Princess.
“John!”
Another of the winged demons was clawing at the harness on Anchor's back. The wood shuddered violently, but it was a construct of will and would not break while the big man remained alive inside.
Isla let out a wailing cry.
And then a sudden shriek pierced the musical tinkling of the Iolites' wings, followed by a concussion so intense that it compounded the air in Anchor's ears. Harper was holding up a second device, seemingly identical to the one she had given Anchor. Overhead, the Iolites shattered: Glass feathers exploded everywhere, catching the light from the red sun like puffs of blood.
“My other Screamer,” Harper said.
“One use only, eh?”
“No, but they take a few moments to recharge. Handy for Iolites and lesser constructs, but these won't put off Menoa's Icarates too much. The red priests will simply bend the Screamer's will to their own. The device then turns traitor and refuses to cooperate.”
“Give me my fists any time.” Still, he tucked the other Screamer into his wide belt, as a moment of freedom against the Lord of the Maze was better than nothing at all.
Their creaking, shambling revolution had reached the outskirts of what Anchor took to be the industrial quarters encircling the Ninth Citadel. Great hulking structures now loomed over Isla's metal ship. To the left and right the rest of the army continued to rumble forward in a broad arc, punching through every obstacle in its path.
But here they met the bulk of Menoa's forces. Icarates and creatures of war waited in the flooded channels around the fortress itself. Thousands of humans, beasts, phantasms, and machines. And more…
Harper saw the red figures at that same moment: imitations of Cospinol's gallowsmen and slender angels. “Gods, John, we didn't account for this,” she said. “What the hell is the river doing here?”
“Protecting Father.” He drank another soul, threw the bottle away, and then slammed his palms together. “It is good for a better battle, yes?”
“They'll tear this ship to pieces.”
No sooner had the words left her mouth than the king's creatures attacked. Icarates lashed whips that drove aurochs and human, shade, or demon warriors forward. Dogcatchers sniffed the air and gnashed their teeth, eager to be unleashed. The Non Morai had to be forced forward by their masters, but then howled through the air in a frenzied gale, their vapourous forms seen only when one did not look directly at them. The river men came more slowly, almost lethargically, loping through the shallow channels of their own god, red weapons and claws dripping.
Harper whispered orders to her Screamer.
Anchor grinned savagely. Then he ran forward along the Princess's hull and leapt down to meet his foes.
He landed up to his knees in the flooded thoroughfare and strode forward, pushing against the sucking mire. The Non Morai reached him first, screaming past on either side. Anchor flailed his fists at them, but struck nothing but air. The shades fell back, howling with manic laughter. When he looked at them direct
ly, they vanished, only to gather again at the edges of his vision. Tall winged men with red smiles brushed their cold fingers against his arms, sending jolts of pain across his flesh.
“Damned things,” Anchor growled. “Like big wasps.”
He scooped up handfuls of the red water and threw it at the vapourous forms. It stuck to them like paint, revealing them wherever they hovered. He lunged, but they fluttered away in terror, no longer willing to engage with him. Whenever he met their eyes, they simply turned and fled.
The dogcatchers were more difficult to deter. A pack of these skinless demons came tearing down the channel towards him like wild beasts, their teeth snapping up at the dark giant. But these creatures were merely flesh and bone, or whatever passed for that here, and Anchor knew how to deal with them. He seized the first of them by its neck and broke it quickly, then hurled the corpse over the nearest wall. Another leapt at him, but met Anchor's fist. It dropped into the river with a splash, even as he tore the guts out of two more and turned in time to see the others loping away.
An armoured aurochs thundered towards him, a monstrous horned thing like the god of all bulls.
Anchor crouched, arms splayed, and met its charge with his own, slamming into the beast as it lowered its head to gouge him. It skidded backwards three paces and bellowed, but Anchor now had his arms wrapped around the creature's neck. He tightened his grip and lifted, heaving the beast up over his head and casting it down behind him. It scrambled in the bloody waters, snorting and huffing and trying vainly to regain its feet.
Anchor turned to see what came next.
The Icarates had so far held back their human slaves and machines, clearly unwilling to throw any more against the giant until they had to. Instead they now let the River of the Failed go forth.
It had adopted mostly the shapes of sword-wielding angels, a lesson learned from Carnival, and for the first time Anchor was worried. He knew he could not defeat this foe, and he wasn't sure if it would react to his orders as before. He called back over his shoulder to Harper. “You have something to hurt these things, eh?”
“Anything I do is more likely to piss them off.”
Anchor crooked his neck so that he faced the river men and yelled, “Stop there! Stay where you are or I'll beat you blue.”
The Failed did not even pause.
Anchor took a step back, glancing around for some way to evade them. He heard Isla's ship grumble to a halt behind him.
And then something in the skies caught his eye, a fleeting shadow.
Carnival landed hard in the channel between Anchor and the approaching warriors. Jets of bloody water leapt from the impact. She flexed her wings and straightened.
The Failed finally halted.
She watched them for a long moment, without speaking. Finally, she said, “Go back.”
The red figures hesitated.
She took a step towards them and snarled, “Or stay.”
Anchor felt the river pulling at his shins, drawing back towards the king's citadel. Red waters frothed and gurgled all around him, as scores of warriors simply collapsed back into the mire at their feet. A wave swept back up the channel, draining away from the scarred angel. Swelling as it retreated, it surged over the Icarates and their human slaves.
Carnival then strode forward.
And Menoa's priests turned and ran.
The mountain summit on the far side of Ayen's temple was not the same one Rachel had left behind. The black rock plateau looked identical, and the cairn behind her had not changed either, but now a sea of cloud hung below the mountain itself while the skies above it boiled with fire.
Great permanganate and silver blazes soared over her, undulating slowly against a vast black and starless void. She was still moving at unnatural speed, so she had no way to determine the true frenzy of these heavenly flames. But her slowing heartbeat would show her soon enough.
In the center of the plateau, a withered old woman dressed in tattered sackcloth sat upon a three-legged stool. The hollows of her eyes stared intensely at the newcomer.
Rachel approached in measured steps, aware of the strain she was putting on her muscles, and desperate to maintain her heightened state for as long as possible. She had mere moments left before Time returned to its normal pace.
The old woman raised a hand. “You must not rush,” she said. “I won't allow human tricks. Not here.”
Impossible. The woman could not have spoken at this speed. Had the focusing already worn off? Then why was Rachel still standing? She listened for her heartbeat and heard nothing. She opened her mouth.
“Ayen?” Her voice sounded normal.
“Did you really think you could kill me?”
A crash sounded behind Rachel. She spun round in time to see Hasp bursting through the temple door. Red eyes blazing, he rushed towards her.
She tried to focus, and failed.
“Wait,” Ayen said.
Hasp stopped. Halted three paces away from Rachel. He glared at the goddess, his face a hideous mask of glass and blood, his eyes like wounds.
“A parasite in your head?” Ayen observed. “How quaint. I could blink and extinguish it for you.” Her wrinkles parted to reveal small yellow teeth. “Shall I do that, demon?”
Rachel stared at her.
Ayen stood up. “Can't the demon speak?”
“He's not a demon,” Rachel said.
“Why else would Iril hide his mind from me if not to hide his murderous intent?”
“He's—”
The skies erupted in sudden blazing fury. Ayen screamed, “He is a demon and an assassin, and I can smell the Maze on his flesh.”
“No.”
Fires raged across the black void, bathing the mountaintop in a riot of clashing colours. The goddess shut her eyes and howled and thrust out her hands as if to ward the two intruders away.
“You know who he is,” Rachel said.
“I do not know him.”
Another, calmer voice came from behind Hasp. “Mother?” Alteus Menoa stood outside the temple door.
“Alteus?” Ayen opened her eyes.
“Go back to sleep, Mother.”
“Remove these people, Alteus.”
“You know who he is,” Rachel insisted. “His mind is hidden from you, but mine isn't. You know who he is.”
The flames in the sky diminished. Ayen sat down on her stool and stared at her hands for a long time. Finally she said, “How old is the world now?”
Menoa hesitated. “The world is still young, Mother.”
“No,” she replied quietly. “Tell me the truth, Alteus. I have been waiting here for a billion years, and now every soul in Heaven is dead.” Her tone became mournful. “Can't you see that?”
“Go back to sleep, Mother.”
“I won't wait for eternity again.”
Menoa walked towards her. “No time has passed since you purged Heaven,” he said, “not a single day. You're just confused. Go to sleep, and I'll close the door behind you.”
“No time?”
Hasp said, “You cast Time out of Heaven with the rest of us. Ulcis… Cospinol… Rys… Sabor… Mirith… Hafe… and me.”
She looked up. “Hasp?”
He nodded.
Menoa put his arm around the old woman. “I must go now, Mother. Time—”
“Time?” she said, her voice hardening. “Time doesn't exist here, Alteus. I waited forever for your return. I watched Heaven wither and die. I…”
“Just a short while longer—”
“No!” The goddess shook him off and stood up again. “I can't take any more. You don't know what it feels like to spend eternity alone… with all that misery and regret.”
“Regret?” Menoa said. “They all betrayed you.”
“I forgive them.”
“No, Mother.”
“I forgive them, Alteus. I don't want to stay here alone anymore.” She started to walk away, but then faltered and almost fell.
Rachel ru
shed over to support her. The goddess felt as light as a cloud in her grip.
The old woman's thin fingers trembled on the assassin's arm. She lifted tearful eyes to meet Rachel's own. “Will you help me outside?” she begged.
Rachel put her arm around her. “Of course I will.”
The goddess of light and life sniffed. She glanced at Hasp again. “Let's see what's become of the world.”
Rebecca woke with a feeling that she was in deep trouble yet again. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass window in the eastern wall of her cell. Her gluey eyes took a moment to focus on the smashed panes. It had been a charming representation of a field of flowers before she'd broken it. Motes of dust now drifted before the glass blooms, changing from pink to blue to gold.
She yawned and rose from her bed and flexed her wings. The water bucket lay on its side next to a rumpled heap of her clothing. She dragged on the leather tunic and breeches, kicked open the door to the balcony, and strolled outside.
A hot afternoon. The flagstones warmed her bare feet. She gripped the iron railing and gazed out over the chained city.
Smoke rose from the smouldering remains of Bridgeview, where Deepgate's arsonist had been busy again. There would be a body down there, she felt sure, the corpse torched to hide the method of his death. Not that the Presbyter of the Church of Ulcis would do much to investigate the crime. They knew more than they would ever admit.
Town houses crowded beside the chains in Lilley and Ivygarths, their white facades dappled by the shadows of trees. Beyond that lay the industrial Warrens, encircling the wealthier districts like a fuming collar, all chimney pots and slate. The League of Rope looked tired today, racked with gaps and gashes and even more dilapidated than usual. The scroungers hadn't even bothered to repair the damage from previous months.
A rattling sound came from the rear of her cell, followed by a series of sharp knocks on the stairwell door. “Rebecca? Are you awake yet? Do you know what day it is?”