minute we walked in here. It's after something more… I don't know what, though I reckon it has something to do with her being a Sister of Dragons. Despite appearances — i.e. being as mad as a fish — she's someone who might be able to stop all this stuff going down. I think it knows that… it knows what she's tied into…'
'The Blue Fire?'
'Yeah. That's the thing that's going to win the war. She's a part of that somehow, and it wants to get at the Blue Fire through her. That's what I reckon,' Matt concluded.
Jack stopped running and stared at his friend. 'You know a lot you've not been telling.'
Matt turned, his expression dark. 'Don't tell me you can read bloody minds, too?'
'No, but…'
'Good. Now keep up.' He ran ahead, his loping gait uncannily easy.
They rounded a corner and came up sharp. A figure was spraying dripping slime as it separated from the wall. Its fluid shape gradually settled into a bulky, muscular form that was still partly human, but with the characteristics of a bull. It moved to meet them, white eyes glaring out of its broad, black face.
'What is it?' Jack gasped.
'It's this place,' Matt said, 'whatever's here… whatever intelligence. It takes on these forms to communicate with us… in a manner we can understand.'
'Goooooo bacckkkkkkkk…' The crackling words were so alien they were almost incomprehensible, but they got the gist of it from the thing's threatening posture as it positioned itself in the middle of the corridor.
'Well, that's a good sign,' Matt said. 'We must be getting close to somewhere important if it's telling us to go away.'
Jack clutched at his arm. 'Aren't you scared?' Matt gave a defiant smile that raised Jack's spirits. 'Let's see if it can be hurt.' He gripped his sword with both hands and rushed the beast. His first blow slammed into the middle of that broad head with a sticky crunch as if he were chopping rotten wood. The beast didn't respond in the slightest. It stood there, staring with eyes of cold maleficence, as Matt wrenched the sword free and attacked again. For ten minutes, he hacked at it until there was nothing left. And still the pieces with the eyes stared at him. They said: You cannot harm me. You cannot defeat the House of Pain.
Matt rested on the sword amid the gruesome remains and mopped the sweat from his brow. 'Well,' he said between deep breaths, 'I suppose the answer is no.'
Jack ventured closer, dismal once more. 'What are we going to do?'
'We're not going to give up, so don't even think it.'
A soft susurration crept along the corridor from behind them. Matt looked towards the sound, his mind racing. Purple mist, still thin at that point, drifted into view. 'Looks like they got through,' he said quietly. There was no way back.
'Mahalia,' Jack said desperately. He started to move towards the mist until Matt caught his shoulder.
'Don't even think it. You won't be able to do anything. Besides, she's smarter and tougher than you. She'll be one step ahead of them. She's probably taken one of the side tunnels.'
Jack looked up at the man he now trusted more than any other adult, and wanted to believe.
'Come on,' Matt said. 'The only way is further in.'
They jogged down the corridor with Jack throwing backward glances as they ran. The further they progressed into the structure, the hotter it got, until they felt as if they were closing on some enormous furnace. A rhythmic thudding could be heard dimly through the walls, the vibrations running up through their legs and into the pits of their stomachs. It echoed the thunder of several thousand legs behind them, marching down the endless dark tunnels. 'Matt?' 'Save your breath.' Sweat burned Matt's eyes, and however much he wiped it away, more flowed down. 'No, it's important. Whatever happens, don't let anyone take me prisoner again. I couldn't bear it… not after all that time in the Court of the Final Word.' 'What do you expect me to do?' 'Whatever you have to. Will you promise me that, Matt? Will you?' There was a silence so long that Jack thought Matt wasn't going to answer, but then he said, 'Yeah. 'Course. You can count on me. Now… no more fatalistic talk, all right? We've got a job to do.' The darkness ahead slowly unveiled a figure. Matt came up sharp, holding out an arm to stop Jack running into it. 'Gooooooo bacckkkkkkkk…' This beast was shaped like a giant spider, but still with human characteristics at the centre of its eight spindly legs. It skittered around the corridor, white eyes glaring. 'Jesus H. Christ, how many of these things am I going to have to chop to pieces before we get to where we're going?' Matt muttered bitterly. 'It can see into us, can't it?' Jack said. 'Part of it's human, to communicate, but the rest of it is something it knows will scare us.' 'It doesn't scare me.' Matt brandished the sword again. 'To answer your earlier question.' But just as he was about to attack, he sensed movement in the shadows behind the spider-thing. 'What's there?' he asked himself. The motion was at ground level, like the tide rolling in, but it was impossible to pick out detail from the darkness. Watching it approach, so chaotic, so relentless, made them shiver. The spider-thing gestured with a human arm attached to its torso. 'Disssseeeeeeeeeeeaasssse…' 'Disease,' Matt repeated, his mind turning rapidly.
The plague demons swarmed around the feet of the spider-thing, not slowing, but dancing, twisting, cruelly in every aspect of their tiny forms.
'Back!' Matt whispered, mesmerised by the sheer number of the approaching demons.
'What?' Jack said, dazed.
'Back!' Matt thrust the boy the way they had come. 'Don't let them touch you. They're something to do with the plague.'
'The Whisperers-'
'I know!' Matt snapped. 'But I saw another way… I think.'
They ran as fast as they could until Matt halted at a slit in the meaty walls.
'What is it?' Jack asked.
Matt stuck his hands into the slit and pulled back flaps to reveal a gap. Jack hesitated, but the sound of the swarming plague demons approaching rapidly concentrated his mind. He forced his way into the slit and pressed on, the meat folding around him. Matt followed.
They emerged into a chamber filled with a pale grey light emanating from a source they couldn't see. Instantly, the atmosphere in the room hit them like a wall. They both experienced a grief so deep it felt as if their hearts were being torn open. Tears welled up in their eyes unbidden, burning tracks down their hot cheeks. In a sudden rush, Jack had an overwhelming sense of his mother, though that memory was impossible. He felt her joy at his birth, swooping, swirling, transcendent, and then the bitter, brutal comedown into devastating misery when he was stolen from her by the gods. Bereft and directionless, her death came soon after, violent and pitiless. Every negative emotion cut him like a knife. He saw it through her eyes, felt it as she did, and in some way he was convinced he was responsible for it all. The full force of the emotion came like a storm; he wanted to kill himself.
Matt gripped his arm so tightly he squealed. 'Focus on me. Don't feel anything. This is why they call it the House of Pain.' Matt dragged him across the room.
When they reached the other side they saw plague demons forcing their way through the meaty flaps. They weren't going to give up, ever.
'We don't stand a chance,' Jack whined.
'Shut up,' Matt snapped, 'or, God help me, I'm going to punch your lights out.'
'Don't take me into another room like this,' Jack pleaded.
There was another slit nearby, but Matt ignored it. Instead, his attention was drawn by a small orifice halfway up the wall. Beyond it was a tunnel barely big enough for them to squeeze into; it pointed upwards.
'There,' Matt said. Before Jack could protest, Matt boosted him into the opening, then pulled his way in afterwards. 'Don't hang around!' Matt yelled. 'Those little bastards aren't going to slow down!'
They had to force their way along the tunnel, dragging with their fingers and pressing with their toes, wriggling like snakes and driving their shoulders against the resistance. It felt like crawling through hot flesh, so tight all around that there were moments when they thought it would close in and suffocate them. It pressed hard on their backs, their heads, and every second they choked for air, terrified it would soon close in completely and they would be trapped, unable to go forwards or back.
It was unbearably hot and pitch black, and they had no sense of direction. The tunnel undulated and twisted, at times so sharply they had to fold in two to get around corners. And all the time, Matt could hear the sound of frantic scrabbling behind him. Only the desperate fear of what was coming at their backs prevented them from
