David Chandler - A thief in the night

When the light came within a foot or so of his face, Malden saw what he was touching. A thread, just like the others, stretched across the room. Except that where the others were bright red, this one was dyed black. It had been invisible in the dark room. Which was the point. Anyone foolhardy enough to try to climb through the red threads wouldn’t be expecting a thread they couldn’t see.

Malden would have laughed in admiration, if he dared move at all. Balint truly was a master-she had hidden a cunning and undetectable trap by concealing it inside a blatant one.

Moving very slowly, he craned his neck back to release the pressure he’d put on the black thread. Then he stood up, making sure to look above his head for any more black threads he might have missed.

There was one right above him.

Looking to the sides, he spotted more of them-and those were only the ones his light could illuminate.

Taking a deep breath, he started forward again, climbing through the threads while avoiding so much as touching any of them. Checking for black threads slowed his progress to a crawl-and with every minute that passed, Balint and her men were getting farther away.

He kept expecting Cythera to call to him, demanding to know what was taking so long. Worse, the slow pace was taking a toll on his muscles. Malden had trained his body to be a fine instrument. He had spent years climbing spires, jumping across rooftops, and most importantly, running very fast whenever the authorities came for him. Yet he had spent little time training himself to hold perfectly still in contorted positions. His legs were beginning to cramp from being held in unnatural attitudes, and his arms had started to shake.

It was not much farther, he could see. The threads stopped directly before the machine they controlled, and presumably after that he would be able to move normally again. Still, he just wasn’t sure he would make it. He stopped to rest for a moment-only a moment, he promised himself-and to study the threads.

He was close enough now to see the deadly component of Balint’s trap. The machine looked like an oversized wine press, of the kind that used a screw to push a wooden plate down on a pile of grapes. This one seemed to have far more gears and counterweights than any wine press he’d ever seen, however, and the plate was made of metal and lined on its crushing side with thick pyramidal teeth. Underneath the crushing plate lay a piece of corroded yellowish metal, presumably taken from one of the scrap piles along the walls.

Malden couldn’t figure it out until he remembered what Slag had said about not touching anything. That yellowish metal piece of junk was made of pure arsenic.

If he put too much pressure on one of the threads, it would dislodge the shim and thereby the lever on the side of the press. The crushing plate would come down and pulverize the arsenic. Malden had enough imagination to envision what would happen then-the arsenic would be reduced to a fine powder that would billow through the foundry and hang in the air as dust. Extremely poisonous dust. He would breathe in enough of it to render him completely, irrevocably, and mercilessly dead.

He went back to searching for black threads.

His next move required him to bend double and lift one leg over a thread, then squeeze his torso through the gap between two more. He sucked in his stomach and swiveled through the air, then put his free hand down on the floor and twisted his legs up, through the air, and between the threads. Next came a place where he had to lie down all the way on the floor and roll sideways under a black thread, and then Malden heard a sizzling sound, and looked up to see that one of the threads was glowing a dull orange.

He stared at his lantern and realized the awful truth. He must have inadvertently gotten the candle flame too close to one of the threads. Now it was smoldering. In the span of a heartbeat or two it would burn clean through-and release.

“No!” he shouted, and reached for the burning thread so fast he completely missed seeing a black thread next to his free hand. It caught between two of his fingers and he tugged it hard as he tried to extricate himself.

The shim popped free and hit the floor with a dull sound. Instantly the lever on the side of the rock press swung forward, then flew back on a spring. The mechanical parts of the machine began to ratchet and whir. The crushing plate, with terrible slowness, began to descend toward the lump of arsenic.

Malden yanked Acidtongue out of its scabbard and ran forward screaming. Threads both red and black parted before him with a sound like bowstrings twanging. His feet pounded at the floor as he poured on more speed.

The crushing plate was only inches from the scrap metal. It was moving faster now, as the gears and counterweights added force to its descent.

Malden jumped forward, Acidtongue pushed out in front of him like an extension of his arms. His feet left the ground and he arced through the dark air, and after that there was nothing he could do but hold the sword out straight, as far as it would go — so that its point smacked against the piece of arsenic a bare instant before the crushing plate made contact. The chunk of metal flew out of the press and slid across the floor. Malden yanked the sword backward, tiny droplets of acid flecking his tunic. The crushing plate slammed down with stunning force on nothing at all.

Malden’s body completed its arc through the air by smashing him, face first, into the side of the rock press. His skull rang inside his head like a bell as he reared back, unable to believe he was still alive. That the air around him was not deadly poison.

Then his heart started beating again, and he whooped in triumph.

Croy desperately needed to rest. Yet he would not, not until Cythera and the others were safe.

Morget, on the other hand, had never seemed so vital. “I am a hero now!” he exclaimed, hefting Dawnbringer over his head. “I will be a great chieftain. You will see. Everyone will see!” he proclaimed.

“I’m sure your reign will be a glorious one,” Croy agreed. He glanced up at the ledge, high overhead, through which he had entered the throne room. He did not relish the prospect of climbing up there again. The only other option meant proceeding through the arch ahead of him-through which the demon had entered. One way was as good as another, he supposed.

“Many nations will fall before me,” Morget told him. “Men will bow when I approach. Women will want to make love to me.”

“That’s often more trouble than you’d think,” Croy warned him. He had some experience in that realm. “Especially when they’re already married to other people. Hark at this arch-do you think it will take us back toward the central shaft?”

“They will clamor for my central shaft,” Morget laughed. “Yet I promise you this, brother. No matter how she begs, I will lay no finger on your bride.”

Croy inhaled deeply. That was coming very close to impugning Cythera’s honor. If Morget took his jest any further, he would be required by his own honor to respond. He had no desire to have to duel Morget just then, however. He wasn’t sure he could lift Ghostcutter without exhausting his meager reserves of strength. “We should be quiet now,” he told the barbarian. “The girl you saw will have had time to reach others by now. We could walk into an ambush in the next room.”

“I will be as silent as death, my mother,” Morget assured him with a great bloodcurdling laugh. “I promise.”

Croy shook his head but said nothing. He headed through the arch, the tiny light of his candle throwing long shadows into the room beyond. He could not see the walls of this new chamber at all, nor its ceiling. Just as on the top level, where they’d faced the revenants, the light made a small island in a sea of darkness.