Tom Lloyd: The ragged man

'Must let you pass?' the woman said. 'You walk these slopes out of choice, and the folly is your own – but I am a Mercy. Lord Death alone commands me.'

Mihn ducked his head in humility. 'That is so, but it is written that all those who name you may ask a boon of you. This I so do, Kenanai the Mother, to pass uncalled and unharmed.'

The Mercy was silent for a while as she stared at him. She betrayed no emotion but he assumed she was confused by his presence; such a thing had never happened before for those asking a boon of the Mercies in myth had always been immortals.

Eventually Kenanai lowered her hand and the horn vanished. She gestured after the spirit, indicating that he could pass.

'It is granted.'

A low rumble echoed across Ghain's slopes and she too disappeared, leaving the pavilion empty and still but for the flickering light of the lanterns. Mihn climbed the steps and as he crossed the pavilion he whispered an ancient prayer to the Mercies. When he reached the other side he stopped and looked around. The soul he had helped was nowhere in sight, though he could see the trail in the dust left by the chains. Other than that, Mihn could see only the empty landscape – broken boulders, dust and dead trees – for miles in all directions.

'"This journey I walk alone,"' he quoted grimly. 'And how alone I feel now.' He continued his ascent, choosing his path as carefully as he could, keeping a look-out all the time. Occasionally creatures flew or scampered across his path – many-limbed beings like horrific spiders the size of small dogs and crawling bat-winged monstrosities – and once he saw a daemon marching grimly across Ghain's jagged landscape: a fat figure as tall as he, with four spindly arms, each dragging an ancient weapon behind it. His heart jumped as the daemon paused and looked up, as though sniffing the air, but whatever it had noticed, it wasn't enough to make it linger there for long.

Each time he saw movement he would stop and crouch, trusting the witch's magic to keep him safe. Each time, he was passed by without note. Distance proved meaningless in this blasted place, where a dozen steps felt like a mile. All Mihn was certain of in this strange domain was that no time was passing as he walked. After a score or more miles he was no less exhausted by the journey than he had been when he started. Though the neverending heat and the fear Ghain itself engendered sapped his strength, the exertion of walking had no discernible effect, he was glad to discover.

Another of the Mercies' pavilions was passed, then another, and another. After some indeterminate period of time he had counted off six, and he knew he was close to his goal – though before he could reach the one that remained, Mihn would have to cross the river of fire called Maram – the barrier that kept the daemons of Ghenna within the Dark Place. A new fear started up within him: worry that a bargain the witch of Llehden had made had in fact not been kept and the next step of his journey would be all the more risky. It was a gamble he hated to have been forced into, and while he knew it had been necessary, Mihn couldn't help but wonder what sort of chain it might add to his own burden of sins.

At last he came to a peak, where indistinct clouds raced close overhead. His human senses saw it as a great crater at the peak of Ghain, within which the ivory gates of Ghenna's entrance were to be found, but he knew it was not so simple – not even by digging down through the rocky slope of Ghain could one break into the Dark Place; it took an immortal's eyes to fully behold the mountain and the Dark Place within.

He stood at the peak of the slope and looked back over the empty miles he had walked, then down at the swift, churning river of orange flames no more than a hundred yards off. As Mihn tried to follow Maram's twisty path, he found the effort hurt, and his vision became blurred. Maram obviously didn't like to be stared at.

He gave up and concentrated on the two constructed features he could see: a silver pavilion, bigger and more magnificent than the rest, stood just the other side of a thin bridge that crossed Maram. Mihn knew from the myths he'd studied that the bridge was only a hand-width wide, and covered in nails to tear the feet of sinners. Aside from the pavilion, the other bank was hidden by impenetrable shadows, though Mihn felt a subconscious horror at what lay beyond.

The scene was exactly as the stories described, but nothing could prepare a man, not even a Harlequin, for the sight of it. For a moment he forgot his mission and simply stared: at Maram, at the nail bridge, at the Dark Place beyond… until a soft moan broke the silence and awakened him from his reverie, enough to stir him into movement. He scrambled down the slope towards to the edge of the river, where a figure stood, ghostly of form and clad in tattered rags, the soul of a woman. The chains she was dragging were far longer and heavier than those carried by the first soul Mihn had met – despite the Mercies, there remained dozens of sins unforgiven by Lord Death. Mihn could see half-a-dozen were the pitted iron of murder.

The soul was walking towards the bridge, compelled, as all souls were. Mihn watched, shaken, as she ground to a halt, turning about in confusion, as a shapeless but unmistakably malevolent black mist swirled about her feet.

He saw her walk a few yards back the way she had come, head bowed and feet dragging with exhaustion, before being turned again, and again.

After a while Mihn approached, with great caution, watching the black mist in particular. He knew the threat it posed, but he was far more afraid that the scent of the soul's many sins would attract Ghain's many torments.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he felt the words catch in his throat, the bile rising, for all that he knew how necessary this was. The soul's journey up Ghain's slopes must have been long and hard, attracting each of the thousand torments like moths to a flame, and it was impossible to tell how many years it had felt like to her.

The passage of time in the afterlife bore little relation to that of the Land, and Ehla's bargain, suggested by Daima – who knew the lay of Ghain better than most mortals – might have kept the soul walking for centuries more, especially given the weight of her sins. That she was a grievous sinner, one ineluctably bound for the Dark Place, made Mihn feel no better about inflicting further cruelty – even more since the first Mercy had told him judgment was not his to mete out.

Mihn reminded himself of the choices involved and called out, 'Duchess, turn around and close your eyes to it.'

The soul turned, as though waking from a dream.

'It – It is everywhere,' she sobbed eventually. 'I cannot…'

'Close your eyes,' Mihn commanded, 'and walk.'

After more wails of protest he repeated himself, and this time the soul did as he ordered. Almost instantly the swirling blackness around her stopped its darting movements and rose up angrily. For a moment Mihn thought it was about to take form and attack him, but instead it raced away, disappearing into the distance.

'Now cross the bridge,' Mihn told the soul.

The soul that had once been Duchess Lomin, quietly executed for heresy and treason, began to trudge wearily towards the bridge. She stopped as she reached it. The bridge was roughly built and insubstantial, just a thin, nail-studded walkway, with a single handrail on the left-hand side. She started to gather the chains dragging behind her, intent on draping them over the rail, until Mihn called out again to stop her.

'You must carry your sins; you must bear them, or risk the boatman dragging you from the bridge.'

On cue a scow appeared from nothing, racing towards them on the fiery tumult below. Standing at the prow was a single figure swathed in red robes. Its face was hidden by a veil and a jewelled pouch hung from its waist: the Maram boatman, neither daemon nor God, but a being of power whose true name was hidden to mortals. The Maram boatman was one of the few beings in existence that bowed to no authority. To see behind its veil was to see horror itself, so the legends said, and to be dragged into the river by the pole with which it propelled the scow was to become fuel for the flames.