Alan Campbell - Iron Angel

A door to Hell lay deep in the abyss below this very city, in the darkness below Ulcis’s palace. The god of chains had warned her of its existence. The things down there would tear you to pieces, he’d said. Had last night’s phantasms found a way through this door? Were they refugees driven from the Maze?

Or advance scouts?

Rachel shuddered. The gloom down there was as darkly crimson as a well of blood. They are making demons for the war to come, Dill had said in the temple antechamber. A red veil heralds their coming.

A sudden, loud creaking sound came from behind her and, with a pang of dread, Rachel turned away from the window. A thin crack had appeared along the interior wall of her cell, just an inch above the edge of the floor, and now five yards long.

Shit.

The spire was clearly breaking up.

A tremor convulsed the room. Broken furniture shifted, settling deeper into the sunken floor that had formerly been a ceiling. The crack widened suddenly to the width of a finger, and shot through another five yards of stonework, instantly doubling in length. Now it stretched along two of the walls.

Rachel gazed in horror.

So this is how it was to end for her? She would return to the abyss after all: one more skeleton on Ulcis’s mountain of bones. And Dill, up in the cell above, would join her soon. A profound sense of melancholy struck her. The young angel had never shown signs of growing weary of her failure. But now? How could he forgive her now? She buried her head in her hands, exhausted.

And she waited.

Another rumble. The crack opened another inch, tracing a jagged line on a third wall as the mortar between its stonework split.

A sudden anger gripped Rachel. She rose and jumped up and down on the floor, stamping her weight down, kicking the now useless pile of smashed furniture to one side. Why shouldn’t it be over now ? Why did she have to sit here and patiently wait for the end to come? Could she not at least be in charge of her own destiny?

Rachel picked up the chair leg she’d set aside in readiness and smashed it hard against the floor. Then she deliberately drove it deeply into the widest part of the crack, trying to prise the gap further apart. Nothing happened, however; the hanging tower would split under its own weight or not. Her efforts made no difference.

Suddenly she paused, breathing heavily, still staring at the piece of wood in her fist. Then she looked at the mound of debris…at the tapestries, at the broken furniture, and the heavy iron chandelier.

Gods below! How stupid I’ve been!

Rachel moved quickly. She snatched up a corner of the nearest tapestry and dragged it clear of the pile. About two yards wide and twice as long, it depicted a battle scene of archons and heathens, like most of the others in the temple. The cloth was ancient; the weave thin, frayed, and undoubtedly priceless. Good. Next she pulled out pieces of furniture, jagged panels, drawers, part of a bed, a chair back curved like a lute, kicking most of this stuff aside. She needed something to use as a grapple.

The sound of rending stone drove her to greater urgency. Along the wall, the crack had widened again.

The chandelier! She grabbed at it and pulled, but it was secured to the floor by a yard of stout chain. She heaved, then let it drop again when it refused to budge. No time to mess with it. With the stout wooden leg in one hand, the U-shaped chair back in the other, and one end of the tapestry bundled under her elbow, she rushed to the inside corner of the room, beneath the erstwhile door. She wedged the chair leg between the rough cornerstones where the two walls met, four feet above the crack and the same distance below the door, then stepped back and kicked it securely into place. Then she pulled down on it, testing this makeshift perch with her weight. It moved a little, settling into the rough stonework on either side, then held firmly.

Another crack. The gap now traced a line around all four walls. At its narrowest, it was as thin as a hair, but closer to the window it was large enough to push a fist inside. The floor could fall away at any moment.

Rachel hooked the chair back over her wooden perch, then, still holding on to the tapestry, hopped up beside it. She still had to fashion a rope, but reasoned that it was better to undertake that task while sitting safely above the disintegrating floor.

The weave parted with disturbing ease. It was almost rotten. Rachel considered fetching another tapestry-there were two more that she could see-but then rejected that idea. The floor had already become too dangerous to risk setting foot upon again. She’d have to make do with what she had. She separated the cloth into six long strips which she then draped over her makeshift seat for fear of losing them. Next she plaited two lengths of rope from three strands each, tied them together, and then bound one end to the curved chair back and the other to her perch. This would give her a long enough line to swing beneath the wall once the floor fell away. With a bit of luck she could then snag one of the stairwell wall sconces on the opposite side and pull herself up.

Until then all she could do was wait.

So she held the rope firmly, and waited.

And waited.

After several hours Rachel began to feel foolish. She eased herself forward, keeping most of her weight on the wooden perch, and pressed the toe of her foot gingerly against the floor. It felt solid, unyielding. Still gripping the rope, she carefully placed her other foot beside the first. Still no movement.

She then gave the floor a gentle kick.

Nothing alarming happened.

So she slid fully down from her seat and stood there, clutching the rope.

She jumped.

And then leapt again, bringing all of her weight down to bear upon the floor. The sound of her wooden heels striking stone resounded through the chamber, before the room settled to silence again. Rachel sighed deeply. She tied the rope around herself and sat down on the floor. It was already becoming very gloomy outside.

The Rookery Spire held together all afternoon. The crack in the wall did not lengthen and floor did not fall away from underneath the waiting assassin. She watched the red mist darken further outside the window. Somewhere overhead the sun would be dropping low in the sky, casting the shadow of the abyss’s rim over Deepgate. The ghosts would return soon, and now Rachel’s cell had a broken window.

She tried calling out, but nobody came. So she watched the door and waited, flipping the glass-shard knife between her hands.

Eventually, a key rattled in the lock.

Rachel tensed. She’d have one chance at this. The Spine would be wearing leather armour, which might be enough to deflect or break her fragile blade. Better if she aimed for the neck. If she could sever the carotid artery, death would come quickly.

The door opened.

Rachel lifted her arm to throw, but stopped.

A child stood in the doorway, a boy of about nine or ten, holding a water bladder. He was painfully thin and pale, dressed in a sleeveless brown jerkin and breeches, a cheap imitation of a Cutter’s training armour. His short red hair had been hacked roughly, probably with a knife, but it must have been beautiful once. Puncture marks and bruises marred his arms, evidence of Spine torture, and his eyes were as empty and haunted as any Adept’s. He hardly seemed to see her. They had tempered him.

“You must not approach the door,” he announced in a high clear voice. “I will throw you the water, and you must catch it. If it bursts there will be no more water for you today.”

Despair swamped Rachel. She had a clear shot at the boy’s neck. The glass blade remained steady in her hand. Yet she hesitated. A child? Had the visitor been an Adept or even a Cutter, it would already have been too late to make a throw. But this boy obviously lacked the training and reflexes to react to this situation. He had been ordered to deliver water, and instructed on what to say. All he could do was obey.