Deadhouse Gates

He blinked. 'Let's get the old man on his feet, then.'

Heboric's eyes were blistered shut, weeping grit-filled tears. Slow to awaken, he clearly had no idea where he was. His wide mouth split into a ghastly smile. 'They tried it here, didn't they?' he asked, tilting his head as they helped him forward. 'Tried it and paid for it, oh, the memories of water, all those wasted lives …'

They arrived at the place of the breached ceiling. Felisin laid a hand on the quartzite column nearest the hole. 'I'd have to climb this like a Dosii does a coconut palm.'

'And how's that done?' Kulp asked.

'Reluctantly,' Heboric muttered, cocking his head as if hearing voices.

Felisin glanced at the mage. 'I'll need those straps from your belt.'

With a grunt, Kulp began removing the leather band at his waist. 'Damned strange time to be wanting to see me without my breeches, lass.'

'We can all do with the laugh,' she replied.

He handed her the belt, and watched as she affixed the binding strips at each end to her ankles. He winced at how savagely she tightened the knots.

'Now, what's left of your raincloak, please.'

'What's wrong with your tunic?'

'No-one gets to ogle my breasts — not for free, anyway. Besides, that cloak's a tougher weave.'

'There was retribution,' Heboric said. 'A methodical, dispassionate cleaning-up of the mess.'

As he pulled off his sand-scoured cloak, Kulp scowled down at the ex-priest. 'What are you going on about, Heboric?'

'First Empire, the city above. They came and put things aright. Immortal custodians. Such a debacle! Even with my eyes closed I can see my hands — they're groping blind, so blind now. So empty.' He sank down, suddenly racked with shuddering grief.

'Never mind him,' Felisin said, stepping up as if to embrace the jagged pillar. 'The old toad's lost his god and it's broken his mind.'

Kulp said nothing.

Felisin reached around the column and linked her hands on the other side by gripping two ends of the cloak and twisting them taut. The belt between her feet hugged this side of the pillar.

'Ah,' Kulp said. 'I see. Clever Dosii.'

She hitched the cloak as high as she could on the opposite side, then leaned back and, in a jerking motion, jumped a short distance upward — knees drawn up, the belt snapping against the pillar. He saw the pain rip through her as the bindings dug into her ankles.

'I'm surprised the Dosii have feet,' Kulp said.

Gasping, she said, 'Guess I got some minor detail wrong.'

In all truth, the mage did not think she would make it. Before she had gone two arm-spans — a full body's length from the ceiling — her ankles streamed blood. She trembled all over, using unimagined but quickly waning reserves of energy. Yet she did not stop. This is a hard, hard creature. She surpasses us all, again and again. The thought led him to Baudin — banished, likely to be somewhere out there, suffering the storm. Another hard one, stubborn and stolid. How fare you, Talon?

Felisin finally came to within reach of the hole's ragged edge. And there she hesitated.

Aye, now what?

'Kulp!' Her voice bounced in an eerie echo that was quickly swept away by the wind.

'Yes?'

'How close are my feet to you?'

'Maybe three arm-spans. Why?'

'Prop Heboric beside the pillar. Climb onto his shoulders-'

'In Hood's name what for?'

'You've got to reach my ankles, then climb over me — I can't let go — nothing left!'

Gods, I'm not as hard as you, lass. 'I think-'

'Do it! We have no choice, damn you!'

Hissing, Kulp swung to Heboric. 'Old man, can you understand me? Heboric!'

The ex-priest straightened, grinned. 'Remember the hand of stone? The finger? The past is an alien world. Powers unimagined. To touch is to recall someone else's memories, someone so unlike you in thought and senses that they beckon you into madness.'

Hand of stone? The bastard's raving. 'I need to climb onto your shoulders, Heboric. You need to stand firm — once we get up we'll rig a harness to pull you up, OK?'

'On my shoulders. A mountain of stone, each one carved and shaped by a life long since lost to Hood. How many yearnings, desires, secrets? Where does it all go? The unseen energy of life's thoughts is food for the gods, did you know that? This is why they must — they must — be fickle!'

'Mage!' Felisin wailed. 'Now!'

Kulp stepped behind the ex-priest and set his hands on Heboric's shoulders. 'Stand steady now-'

Instead, the old man turned to face him. He brought both wrists together, leaving a space between them where hands should be. 'Step. I'll launch you straight to her.'

'Heboric — you've no hands to hold my foot-'

The man's grin broadened. 'Humour me.'

Something pushed Kulp beyond wonder as his moccasined foot settled into the firm stirrup of interlaced fingers he could not see. He placed his hands on the ex-priest's shoulders once again.

'Straight up you'll go,' Heboric said. 'I'm blind. Position me, Mage.'

'Back a step, a little more. There.'

'Ready?'

'Aye.'

But he wasn't prepared for the immense surge of strength that lifted him, flung him effortlessly straight up. Kulp made an instinctive grab for Felisin, missed — luckily, as he was then past her, through the ceiling's hole. He almost fell straight back down. A panicked twisting of his upper body, however, landed him painfully on an edge. It groaned, sagged.

His fingers clawing unseen flagstones, the mage clambered onto the floor.

Felisin's voice keened from below. 'Mage! Where are you?' Feeling a slightly hysterical grin frozen on his face, Kulp said, 'Up here. I'll have you in a moment, lass.'

Heboric used his invisible hands to swiftly climb the makeshift rope of leather and cloth that Kulp sent snaking down ten minutes later. Seated nearby in the small, gloomy chamber, Felisin silently watched with fear racing unchecked within her.

Her body tortured her with pain, the feeling returning to her feet with silent outrage. Fine white dust coated the blood on her ankles and where the pillar's crystalline edges had scored her wrists. She shook uncontrollably. That old man looked dead on his feet. Dead. He was burning up, yet his ravings were not just empty words. There was knowing in them, impossible knowing. And now his ghost-hands have become real.

She glanced over at Kulp. The mage was frowning at the torn shambles of the raincloak in his hands. Then he sighed and swung his gaze to a silent study of Heboric, who seemed to be sinking back into his fevered stupor.

Kulp had conjured a faint glow to the chamber, revealing bare stone walls. Saddled steps rose along one wall to a solid-looking door. At the base of the wall opposite, round indentations ran in a row on the floor, each of a size to fit a cask or keg. Rust-pitted hooks depended on chains from the ceiling at the room's far end. Everything seemed blunted to Felisin's eyes; either it was strangely worn down or the effect was a product of the mage's sorcerous light.

She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself to fight the trembling.

'That was some climb you managed, lass,' Kulp said.

She grunted. 'And pointless, as it turns out.' And now it's likely to kill me. There was more to making that climb than just muscle and bone. I feel. . emptied, with nothing left in me to rebuild. She laughed.

'What?'