John, they're rising fast. Drag the Rotsward down towards you. My gallowsmen have centuries of saved anger to spend.
Anchor felt a twinge of disappointment, but he was neither proud nor selfish enough to deny his master's gallowsmen their share of sport. He gripped the portal spine between his knees and then tugged on the skyship rope. Again and again he pulled on that briny hemp, allowing a great loop of it to sag into the portal below him.
After a while the rope continued to fall past him without his aid; he had given Cospinol's skyship enough momentum to descend on her own. He looked up to see a vast dark moon burgeoning in the heavens above, the edges made ragged by countless crosshatching gallows.
And when he looked down again, he saw the opposition Menoa had brought to meet him. Not warriors. Not Mesmerists, either.
Something far worse.
Cospinol's cries of dismay traveled down through the skyship rope and into Anchor's mind. How could he have gathered such a force so soon? Are these creatures the Larnaig fallen returned to haunt us? There are too many!
From the depths of the portal surged a vast and ragged army of cripples. Most appeared human, or partially so, but their faces reminded Anchor of the scribbles of a delinquent child. Their twisted limbs flapped and groped at the portal waters, arms and legs that appeared to have been broken and allowed to set crooked. Rags trailed behind their torsos like bloody bandages. Many had been stretched, twisted, or punctured, as if forged by instruments of torture. Others were part beast—dog- or apelike—their toothy grins and impassive eyes mere parodies of humanity. Yet more were simply children.
Harper recognizes these creatures, Cospinol said in a weary and doom-laden tone. She says they're known as the Failed, John. The Mesmerists broke them so badly that their minds became useless. He paused. Those Icarate priests abandoned them, leaving their souls to cascade down through Hell and form a river. Menoa should not have been able to recruit these creatures from their grave. They do not suffer men or gods. They can no longer be persuaded.
Dread filled Anchor's heart. He gave up counting their numbers. There was no honour to be found here. These pitiful creatures swam in currents of madness.
He waited, a great solitary figure limned in the long amber light, clutching the portal spine as tightly as if it had been a life rope. What could Menoa hope to achieve by sending this force here to die so senselessly?
The Failed propelled themselves upwards through the debris field in ways that suggested unfamiliarity with their own flesh, their arms and legs writhing like the tentacles of strange cephalopods. Some wore useless armour made from broken mirrors or feathers stitched with colourful thread, while a few gripped weapons drunkenly by the blade or hilt or guard, as if someone had thrust unidentifiable objects into their uncertain hands. They breathed in the portal water and clutched wildly at the tiny motes of light around them, and many dropped their swords and knives in doing so.
Did they understand battle?
By now the Rotsward was looming directly overhead, and its gallows spanned the watery sky, its timbers aglow like gold bars in the slanting amber light. Anchor gazed numbly up at the vessel. This was the first time he had seen Cospinol's skyship without its cloak of fog. He had imagined something grander. An agglomeration of corpses and pieces of debris had snagged on the underside of her hull, and her gallowsmen had begun to struggle and kick against this refuse. Other slaves moved quickly amongst the gallowsmen, cutting them from their nooses with knives so that they might fight.
The skyship rope hung loosely below Anchor, and scores of the Failed had reached that rope and were clinging to it, some gnawing on it or hacking at it with blades. They had distinguished it as something alien amongst the floating debris and so set upon it with a common purpose.
With the lowest of the Rotsward's gallows still three hundred yards above Anchor, the first of the Failed swam closer. Their outstretched fingers groped for him.
The Riot Coast barbarian finally pushed himself away from the portal spine. He grabbed the first hand that drew near and pulled his opponent towards him, then broke the thing's neck and shoved its corpse away without giving any more heed to it. But the victim with the broken neck flailed his arms, turning in the clear water, and came back at Anchor again. He had bitten his tongue, and a ribbon of blood now trailed from his backwards-lolling head.
Anchor was now right in the midst of six or seven foes. Grim-faced, he set about the fight methodically. He snapped their bones and smashed their skulls with his fist, then kicked their broken bodies away with the thoughtless efficacy of a fisherman gutting his catch. The broken-necked man lunged for him again, his head lolling. Anchor grabbed the thing's jawbone and twisted the head all the way around, tearing it off.
Still it lacked the sense to die.
The headless creature swam back towards the big Riot Coaster. But Anchor was brawling with a dozen foes by now and he lost sight of the thing amidst flailing limbs. Those whom he thought he had already killed returned to fight again, while yet more swam up from the depths to join them. He broke them all and threw them back but they would not die. Three half-naked wretches set upon the decapitated head with savage blows, yet without a glimmer of thought or emotion in their bovine eyes. From the depths thousands more swam closer.
Anchor had underestimated Menoa. These foes lacked the wits to fight with any skill, yet that hardly mattered if Anchor could not destroy them. The waters all around him were already thick with fragments of them, and still more arrived with every passing moment. He could barely see through the gore. This battle was hopeless. Eventually the Failed would overwhelm him, suffocate him, drown him.
Despair filled his heart. With a powerful kick, Anchor propelled himself backwards away from the portal spine. Scores of clammy fingers fumbled over his skin, grabbed his harness, pulling him back. He closed his eyes and thrashed his arms, dragging himself backwards through the strangely airy water. He almost cried out. The desire to open his mouth and breathe became intolerable.
Cospinol's voice shuddered through the skyship rope. Control yourself!
And do what? Fight? Ripping this army to pieces was achieving nothing. Couldn't Cospinol see that?
The sea god must have realized his servant's plight, for he said, Get up here, John. Swim to the Rotsward. We need to think about this carefully.
Anchor bulled free from the mass of figures, propelling his huge body upwards. He swam through a detritus of broken mirror shards, fingers, and feathers. In the spinning silvered glass he glimpsed reflected a hundred calm eyes.
One of the Failed tried to pull down on the Rotsward's rope, but Anchor barely noticed this. He kicked a Mesmerist bone sphere out of his way and surged up through the debris field, leaving countless outstretched hands grasping for his heels.
The skyship was still sinking towards him and he didn't have to swim far before he reached the lowest gallows. Not all of his master's dead warriors had been cut loose, yet all stopped their silent howling to watch the tethered man rise amongst their ranks. Anchor's rope grated across the timbers behind him, dislodging some of the debris the vessel had accumulated. He moved faster, pulling upon the spars to quicken his ascent, weaving through that great crosshatched scaffold like a bobbin through a loom.
By now the Failed had reached Cospinol's gallowsmen and a fight was under way. Most of the gallowsmen fled, but some remained trapped in nooses and fought; these men were soon relieved of their souls.
Anchor reached the Rotsward's hull and kicked up from a horizontal joist and swooped over the drowned balustrade. The Failed were still busy with the gallowsmen and had not followed. Dragging his great rope over the midships deck, Anchor headed for a hatch in the weather deck at the stern of the vessel. He yanked it open and peered down into the dark bowels of the vessel. Which way to Cospinol's cabin? He tried to remember.
He had not been here for over three thousand years.
When he finally opened the correct door, he found Cospinol and Alic
e Harper waiting for him. The metaphysical engineer was drifting about a foot from the floor; her red hair floated behind her like an underwater fire. She smiled with full blue lips, then pointed up at the ceiling. The god of brine and fog floated up there, gently flexing his great grey wings to keep himself level.
Anchor and Harper swam up to join him.
The uppermost foot or so of the cabin held an air pocket. Anchor broke the surface of the water to see Cospinol's bedraggled face looking back at him. The tethered man's head knocked against a roof joist. There was a splash and then Harper emerged, too, her hair now lank and dripping.
God and slave regarded each other.
“You can breathe if you wish,” Cospinol said. “The air is rank and probably poisonous by now, but I don't suppose that matters much to any of us.” He gave Harper a nod. “More important, it carries sound.”
Anchor coughed and spat out water, then looked around him. “You have really let this place go, eh?” He took a deep breath, and then wished he hadn't. The old sea god was right about the air.
“The Rotsward still exists because we will it to. If it's old and rotten, then what does that say about us?”
Anchor snorted a laugh.
Cospinol smiled. “It's good to see you again after all these years, John, though I wish the circumstances were different. This battle is clearly not one you relish.”
“These cripples lack the brains to know when they're dead,” he grumbled. “This is no battle, Cospinol. It is butchery.”
“And with little purpose,” Cospinol agreed. “I'm not convinced that this enemy can be destroyed, not here at least. If all of them were present, then perhaps, but these few thousand…” He gazed down into the waters under his neck.
Anchor frowned. “What do you mean if all of them were present?” he said. “There are already thousands down there. That is the problem, yes? Too many foes?”
Harper shook her head. “You can't kill them,” she said, “because they are not individuals. They share a common will, perhaps even a common soul.”
Anchor didn't understand.
“It's like a colony of ants,” she explained. “The group purpose is greater than any of its parts. But in this case, the colony is sentient. The Failed are not an army—they are a single entity, a god if you like. These crippled warriors may not even be aware that they are part of an idea that is larger and more complex than their individual selves. Destroying a handful of ants doesn't much harm the operation of the colony, and it has no effect on the idea of a colony. While any of the Failed remain, the idea that gives them power is unassailable.”
The big man grunted. “So we must kill them all?” he said heavily.
“That's the problem,” Cospinol said. “They aren't all here. Menoa's Icarates tortured these people until their minds broke. Without minds they could no longer maintain their individual shapes in Hell. Their physical bodies dissipated and dripped down through the Maze, forming a vast subterranean river. But now the River of the Failed has become sentient. It is rising again—a new god with a single mind that is able to give shape to its legion components once more. To destroy the Failed, we must destroy the whole river. But how does one destroy a river?”
Anchor felt somewhat relieved. He had shed enough blood for one day. “So what do we do?”
“Reason with it,” Harper said.
Anchor grunted. “Before or after it finishes slaughtering Cospinol's gallowsmen? It hardly seems capable of listening.”
“This is only a tiny part of it,” she retorted. “A handful of ants separated from the colony. If we reach its source, its mind, we might be able to talk some sense into it. After all, Menoa convinced it to fight for him.”
The god of brine and fog suddenly looked old and weary. “That's what frightens me. What Menoa has done here would seem to be impossible. The Lord of the Maze shouldn't be able to influence the Failed. His own Icarates ruined those people to begin with. The priests damaged them until they simply could not be damaged anymore, and now their Mesmerist techniques are useless. If Menoa has made a bargain with this new god, then he must have tricked it in some way.”
“You think it is still afraid of him?” Anchor said.
“Perhaps,” Cospinol replied. “If it doesn't know Menoa is no longer a threat, then we have a chance. But I'm worried it's more complicated than that.” He shook his head.
A sudden burst of white light flashed under the surface of the waters. Harper lifted out a small silver and crystal device, smeared away water from its face, and then studied the readout. “They're on the decks now,” she said.
“Well?” Anchor turned to Cospinol and raised his eyebrows. “One way or another, this portal is soon going to look like meat broth.”
The god of brine and fog pinched his nose and then sniffed. “I will not continue to harm such a pitiful creation for no good reason,” he declared. “If King Menoa spoke with the source and survived, then so can we.” He looked hard at Anchor. “Break the spine of the portal. We're more than halfway down now. When it collapses the blast should scatter the Failed and throw us all into Hell.”
“You don't know that!” Harper protested. “We might end up back on earth, or…” She wrung her lifeless hands. “… somewhere, anywhere in Hell. A million leagues from Menoa's citadel! Nobody has ever broken a portal before.”
Cospinol looked to Anchor.
The big slave grinned. “I've no wish to kill any more of these cripples,” he said. “If there's still a chance to reach Hell without further bloodshed, then I do not mind a bit of a walk at the other end.”
Cospinol nodded.
This time the tethered man did not attack his foes. He met dozens of them in the Rotsward's passageways and shoved them all aside. And when he finally burst out onto the Rotsward's deck, twenty of the enemy erupted out into the waters ahead of him.
Anchor swam.
The portal spine had already been weakened by the passage of the arconites, so it would have torn apart before long. Now Anchor simply helped that unnatural process along. With hundreds of the Failed clawing at his back and harness, John Anchor grabbed the burning membrane in both his fists and pulled.
White light erupted from the sundered material. Anchor felt the water around him contract, a sudden momentous pressure on his flesh and bones. The force of it would have crushed a normal man.
But John Anchor had not been a normal man for thirty centuries and, when that sudden implosion reversed and then burst outwards again, he merely clenched his teeth and closed his eyes, suffering the blast because he had no choice in the matter. He had long ago decided not to succumb to something as foolish as death.
In that first instant, a thousand tons of debris and bodies battered against him and threw him backwards. He felt the skyship rope slacken behind him, and then snap taut again, slamming him hard against his harness.
He was falling.…
And when at last he opened his eyes, he saw the crimson skies of Hell churning around him. Far below, the Maze stretched to the horizon—an endless labyrinth of gemstone-red canals and rotting black walls. Temples and ziggurats squatted on outcrops of dark stone or in glutinous pools. The scene was hazy with flies and hot gusts of vapour and yet the atmosphere up here remained as cold as frozen blood. He cast his gaze around, hoping to spy the Ninth Citadel or the Processor from where the Icarate Prime controlled their murderous giants.
But those structures eluded him. Menoa's fortress was nowhere in sight. There was nothing below him but a million leagues of Hell.
Dill heard the musket shot, a sudden crack. It rang out over the logging camp and reverberated in the drab grey mists. The body he occupied did not belong to him, and therefore he knew that the pain he felt in his heart could not be a physical reaction to his distress. But it still hurt.
He reached down towards the inn on the ground below him, but then stopped. His hand would not fit through the door without ripping the building to shreds.
“Dill, wai
t!” Mina's shrill cry emerged through his teeth. “Let us down.”
Dill stared down at the shingled roof. To hell with it. He leaned forward and dug both his huge hands into the earth on either side of the inn, and lifted the whole building clear of the ground. The chimneystack leaned away from the side of the logbuilt wall and then fell and shattered against his thumb, but the walls and roof remained intact.
Screams came from within.
Dill held the tiny inn upon his two upturned palms. It rested upon a fat clod of earth and grass that he had scooped up along with it. He raised it close to his face and peered through one of the windows.
An empty room.
He turned the building slowly around in his hands.
“Dill!” Mina cried. “Open your goddamn mouth, and let us out of here.”
He opened his mouth and then brought the building and that great lump of compacted earth nearer to his jaw. Mina and Hasp clambered across the barrier of his teeth, while mud and rock slipped through his bony fingers and spattered across the ground a hundred feet below. Hasp ran inside the building and Mina followed. Dill tilted the inn so that he could peer through the open doorway.
The Lord of the First Citadel went sprinting up the stairs from the main saloon. A sudden lurch made him growl and clutch the banister to steady himself. Mina stumbled across the sloping floor, and called out, “Dill, for the gods' sake try to keep this building level! I break too easily.” Hasp had, by now, reached the top of the steps and disappeared from view.
Dill rotated the building carefully in his hands. Most of its windows were shuttered. He could not find an opening that looked in upon the upstairs landing, and with both hands full he could not flick open any of the shutters without dropping the entire inn. Its little sign flapped against the wall above the door.
He almost roared in frustration. For all his great size, he was useless.