Deadhouse Gates

Kulp grunted. 'Well, it's not been defaced — you can see the back of the throne, and it looks as weathered as everywhere else.'

'There should be the Unaligned — can you detect those?'

'No. Perhaps around the sides and back?'

'Possibly. Among them you'll find Shapeshifter.'

'All very fascinating,' Felisin drawled. 'I take it we're to enter this place — since that's where the wind is going.'

Heboric smiled. 'Aye. The far end shall provide our exit.'

The interior of the temple was nothing more than a tunnel, its walls, floor and ceiling hidden behind packed layers of sand. The wind raised its voice the farther in they went. Forty paces later they could discern pale ochre light ahead.

The tunnel narrowed, the howling wind making it difficult to resist being pushed forward headlong, and they were forced to duck into a shambling crouch near the exit point.

Heboric held back just before the threshold to let Kulp pass, then Felisin. The mage was the first to step outside; Felisin followed.

They stood on a ledge, the mouth of a cave high on a cliff face. The wind tore at them as if seeking to cast them out, flinging them into the air — and a fatal drop to jagged rocks two hundred or more arm-spans below. Felisin moved to grip one crumbling edge of the cave mouth. The vista had taken her breath away, weakened her knees.

The Whirlwind raged, not before them but beneath them, filling the vast basin that was the Holy Desert. A fine haze of suspended dust drifted above a floor of seething yellow and orange clouds. The sun was an edgeless ball of red fire to the west, deepening its hue as they watched.

After a long moment Felisin barked a laugh. 'All we need now is wings.'

'I become useful once again,' Heboric said, grinning as he stepped out to stand beside her.

Kulp's head whipped around. 'What do you mean?'

'Tie yourselves to my back — both of you. This man's got a pair of hands and he can use them, and for once my blindness will prove a salvation.'

Kulp peered down the cliff face. 'Climb down this? It's rotten rock, old man-'

'Not the handholds I'll find, Mage. Besides, what choice do you have?'

'Oh, I simply can't wait,' Felisin said.

'All right, but I'll have my warren open,' Kulp said. 'We'll fall just as far, but the landing will be softer — not that it'll make much difference, I suppose, but at least it gives us a chance.'

'You have no faith!' Heboric shouted, his face twisting as he fought back peals of laughter.

'Thanks for that,' Felisin said. How far do we have to be pushed? We're not slipping into madness, we're being nudged, tugged and pulled into it.

A hot, solid pressure closed on her shoulder. She turned. Heboric had laid an invisible hand on her — she could see nothing, yet the thin weave of her shirt's fabric was compressed, slowly darkening with sweat. She could feel its weight. He leaned close. 'Raraku reshapes all who come to it. This is one truth you can cling to. What you were falls away, what you become is something different.' His smile broadened at her snort of disdain. 'Raraku's gifts are harsh, it's true,' he said in a tone of sympathy.

Kulp was readying harnesses. 'These straps are rotting,' he said.

Heboric swung to him. 'Then you must hold tight.'

'This is madness.'

Those were my words.

'Would you rather await the D'ivers and Soletaken?'

The mage scowled.

Heboric's body felt like gnarled tree roots. Felisin clung with trembling muscles, not trusting the straining leather straps. Her gaze remained fixed on the ex-priest's wrists — the unseen hands themselves were plunged into the rock face — while below she heard his feet scrambling for purchase again and again. The old man was carrying the weight of the three of them with his hands and arms alone.

The battered cliff was bathed in the setting sun's red glare. As if we're descending into a cauldron of fire, into some demonic realm. And this is a one-way trip — Raraku will claim us, devour us. The sands will bury every dream of vengeance, every desire, every hope. We will all of us drown, here in this desert.

Wind slapped them against the cliff face, then yanked them outward in a biting swirl of airborne sand. They had entered the Whirlwind once again. Kulp shouted something lost in the battering roar. Felisin felt herself being pulled away, raised up horizontal by the frantic, hungry wind. She hooked one arm around Heboric's right shoulder.

Her muscles began shuddering with the strain, her joints burning like fanned coals. She felt the harness straps around her tightening as they slowly, inevitably, assumed the strain. Hopeless. The gods mock us at every turn.

Heboric continued the climb downward, into the heart of the maelstrom.

From inches away, Felisin watched as the blowing sand began abrading the skin stretched over her elbow joint. The sensation was nothing more than that of a cat's tongue, yet the skin was peeling back, vanishing.

Her legs and body rode the wind, and from everywhere she felt that dreadful rasp of the storm's tongue. I will be nothing but bones and sinew when we reach bottom, tottering fleshless with a rictus grin. Felisin unveiled in all her glory …

Heboric stepped away from the cliff face. The three of them fell in a heap onto a ragged floor of rocks. Felisin screamed as the stones and sand pressed hard against the ravaged skin of her back. She found herself staring back up the cliff, revealed in patches where the gusting sand momentarily thinned. She thought she saw a figure, fifty arm-spans above them, then it was swallowed once more by the storm.

Kulp tugged at the straps with frantic haste. Felisin rolled clear, pushing herself onto her hands and knees. There's something. . even I can feel it-

'On your feet, lass!' the mage shouted. 'Quickly!'

Whimpering, Felisin struggled upright. The wind slapped her back down in a lash of pain. Warm hands closed on her, lifted her up into the crook of rope-muscled arms.

'Life's like that,' Heboric said. 'Hold tight.'

They were running, leaning into the raging wind. She squeezed shut her eyes, the agony of her flayed skin flashing like lightning behind her eyelids. Hood take this! AM of it!

They stumbled into sudden calm. Kulp hissed his surprise.

Felisin opened her eyes on a motionless mist of dust, describing a sphere in the midst of the Whirlwind. A large, vague shape was tottering towards them through the haze. The air was redolent with citrus perfume. She struggled until Heboric set her down.

Four pale men in rags were carrying a palanquin on which sat, beneath an umbrella, a vast, corpulent figure wearing voluminous silks in a splash of discordant colours. Slitted eyes peered out from sweat-beaded folds of flesh. The man raised one bloated hand and the bearers halted.

'Perilous!' he squealed. 'Join me, strangers, and take leave of yon dangers — a desert filled with beasts of most unpleasant disposition. I offer humble sanctuary through artful sorcery invested into this chair at great personal expense. Do you hunger? Do you thirst? Ahh, but look at the wounds upon the frail lass! I possess healing unguents, I would see such a delectable morsel with skin smoothed once again into youthful perfection. Tell me, is she perchance a slave? Might I make an offer?'

'I am not a slave,' Felisin said. And I am no longer for sale.

'The reek of lemon is making my blind eyes water,' Heboric whispered. 'I sense greed but no ill will. .'

'Nor I,' Kulp said beside them. 'Only … his porters are undead, not to mention strangely … chewed.'

'I see you hesitate and I applaud caution at all times. Aye, my servants have seen better days, but they are harmless, I assure you,'