Tom Lloyd: The ragged man

The figure raised its pole as it reached them and swiped at the handrail where the duchess had been about to heap her chains. The pole caught only air, and the boatman flashed on underneath, a deep laughter echoing all around.

Reluctantly the soul started across the bridge, her chains heaped in her arms. Mihn watching as she laboured across, blood from her torn feet and arms dripping into the river below. He was horrified when he saw the trapped souls in the flames, leaping and fighting to lap up the falling droplets of blood. He looked away, at the pavilion at the other end of the bridge, only to see a shifting mass of darkness that was just as terrible.

This close Mihn could hear the screams ringing out from Ghenna's ivory gates, the hoarse voices of the damned, the yammer of the Dark Place's foul denizens. Jagged metallic sounds echoed discordantly over the river of flame, heavy thumps like huge hammers and screeching like the scrape of knives. He suppressed a shiver and walked to the end of the bridge.

The ghostly soul of Duchess Lomin had reached halfway, wailing piteously as she walked, but he willed the sound into the background, just another cry of the damned. The bridge of nails was nothing to what awaited her in Ghenna, and the time for pity was gone. Once her soul was near the end of the bridge Mihn readied himself and checked for the boatman again. It was nowhere in sight, but that meant little.

He took a deep breath and leaped up onto the single handrail, and as he did so, the boatman appeared again, poling the scow along with deceptive lethargy. Mihn wasn't fooled; he had seen how quickly it could move, but he forced himself to ignore it. He looked down at the rail beneath his feet. It wasn't wide, but at almost the width of his foot it was thicker than the cable every Harlequin learned on.

'A shame I was only passable at wire tumbling,' Mihn muttered to himself, 'but this will be easier – and it did teach me to be good at grabbing the rope before I fell.'

He took a pace forward, testing his bare feet on the wood. It bore him easily enough, so before he could think any more about the consequences he set off at a brisk trot, his arms held wide for balance. The boatman underneath carved a path through the fire as it brought the scow sharply around. Mihn kept his eyes on the rail under his feet and the dark shape of the Maram boatman in his peripheral vision. The scow darted forward, racing to intercept him before he reached the other side, and Mihn slowed his pace a fraction, measuring out his steps as the little boat reached the bridge and the boatman raised his pole like a lance to snag Mihn's legs.

At the last moment Mihn flipped his body forward, tucking his head down and throwing his legs over. Distantly he heard a screech as the pole caught only the wood underneath and then his feet were over, landing safely on the rail again as he dropped into a crouch. The boatman shot past underneath and jerked hard back around. Mihn stayed where he was, watching it come back on-path with unnatural speed to try the tilt again.

The end of the bridge was still a distance away.

'I'm not going to make it in time,' he murmured.

The boatman turned again, running alongside the far bank of the river behind him.

Damn, it is learning from its mistakes. He didn't wait to watch any more but broke into as fast a run as he dared. He guessed the boatman could cover the distance in a matter of seconds.

Something different then, he thought, picking a spot ahead. He scampered forward until, without warning, he dropped onto his belly and wrapped arms and legs around the rail. He felt the pole whip over his head and dip as fast as the boatman could manage, but it was quick enough only to skim Mihn's cropped head and then it was gone.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the scow turn again to avoid colliding with the bank, but now there was no time to waste. He jumped up and raced for the end of the bridge – until, in his haste Mihn misjudged the last footstep and slipped sideways, crashing to the ground at the steps of the silver pavilion. He lay on his back a moment, panting, staring up at the darkly boiling sky above before a bright flash of light prompted him to scramble up again.

In the centre of the pavilion stood the soul of Duchess Lomin, still laden with the massive chains of her sins, while beside her was the last of the Mercies, a tall, bearded man wearing a crown. His hammer was pitch-black, but no less ornate than those of the other Mercies Mihn had passed. With a solemn flourish the man brought the hammer on the ground behind the soul, not apparently caring that its sins were still held tightly to its chest.

That done, he reached out his right hand, but instead of a silver-chased horn, a twisted spiral of carnelian appeared in the Mercy's hand and he sounded a deep, forbidding note. Mihn felt his breath catch as an answering note came from within the darkness beyond. He crouched at the foot of the stair to watch. This close to the pavilion he saw the roof and pillars were not pristine but scored and scratched: it was so close to Ghenna that even Death's authority was not untouchable.

At first nothing happened, then a great hot wind began to whip up all around. Mihn screwed his eyes as tight as he could against the dusty whirlwind. With mounting dread he felt the swirling darkness being driven up and away, and he opened his eyes in time to see for the first time the entrance to Ghenna.

No more than fifty yards away stood several enormous barred gates, each apparently carved from a single piece of ivory, and set into bare rock. The entrance to Ghenna was a humped peak in the centre of the crater, curved around the level plain that stood between the gates and the Mercy's pavilion. Each gate was hinged at the top and opened outwards, but they opened only for those who'd sold their soul to one of Ghenna's inhabitants. The bars were slightly curved, the smooth flow to the design suggesting an organic creation rather than the rigid regularity of a human construction.

The journals of Malich Cordein had named the three main gates for him: Jaishen Gate, the smallest, was on the left; the largest of them all, Gheshen, was in the centre, with Coroshen on the right. There were three other gates, each around fifty feet tall – less than half the size of Jaishen's – that Malich had called the borderland gates, opening to the parts of Ghenna where no master ruled and the daemons fought a never-ending war of attrition.

Mihn scanned each of the main gates in turn. He had no idea which would open to admit the soul. Malich himself had dealt with a prince of Coroshen, the domain that existed nearest to the surface, but Duchess Lomin was of the Certinse family and he guessed the Certinses would have sought help elsewhere – if ever there was a family to play two sides it was theirs.

'Mihn, you must move,' Mihn growled to himself as the soul walked out of the pavilion and stopped. He urged it on until at last the soul began to stumble towards the gates. 'They are creatures of darkness; they turn away from the light. You need to go closer to them.'

Against every natural instinct, against the terror that was welling up in his gut, Mihn followed his own advice and forced himself forward. The ground was hot now, enough to scorch his feet, and the air was growing foetid and sulphurous, but he ignored the increasing discomfort, intent only on the gates ahead. One began to open, and Mihn threw himself forward, just in time to grab the bottom rung of the Jaishen Gate before it lifted away. He swung his leg over the smooth ivory and hauled himself up until he was sitting on the lower bar.

As he looked around he noted to his relief there were no sounds of alarm, no hungry calls of delight at the sight of an undamned soul. It looked like the old myths had once more come to his aid: the denizens of Ghenna did indeed turn their faces away from the light of the last pavilion. Mihn wasted no time as the gate continued to rise; he could see patrols of minion daemons, armed with harpoons or huge barbed fishing lines – the sort of weapons that had damaged the pavilion, he now realised. The daemons were only at ground level; a skilled climber like Mihn might be able to make his way up, and avoid the guards and hunters entirely – or so he hoped.