for Logen Ninefingers, say that he has poor luck.
He crawled his free hand up the pitted stone until he found a shallow ridge to cling to. He lifted himself inch by inch towards the edge of the block above. He flexed his arm and started to drag at Ferro’s wrist.
There was a horrifying scraping and the stone underneath him jolted and tipped slowly upwards. He whimpered and pressed himself back against it, willing it to stop. There was a sickening jolt and some dust filtered down into his face. Stone squealed as the block swung ever so slowly back the other way. He lay there, gasping. No way up, no way down.
“Ssss!” Ferro’s eyes flicked to their hands, gripped tight round each other’s wrists. She jerked her head up towards the edge of the block, then down towards the gaping crack behind.
“Have to be realistic,” she whispered. Her fingers uncurled, letting him go.
Logen remembered hanging from a building, far above a circle of yellow grass. He remembered sliding back, whispering for help. He remembered Ferro’s hand closing round his, pulling him up. He slowly shook his head, and gripped her wrist tighter than ever.
She rolled her yellow eyes at him. “Stupid fucking pink!”
Jezal coughed, turned over, and spat out dust. He blinked around him. Something was different. It seemed much brighter than it had been, and the edge of the crack was much nearer. Not far away at all, in fact.
“Uh,” he breathed, words failing him. Half the building had collapsed. The rear wall was still standing, and one of the pillars at the far end, broken off halfway up. All the rest was gone, vanished into the yawning chasm. He staggered up, wincing as his weight went onto his bad leg. He saw Bayaz lying propped against the wall nearby.
The Magus’ withered face was streaked with sweat, bright eyes glittering in black circles, bones of his face poking through stretched skin. He looked like nothing so much as a week-old corpse. It was a surprise to see him move at all, but Jezal watched him raise one palsied hand to point towards the crack. “Get them,” he croaked.
The others.
“Over here!” Ninefingers’ voice came strangled-sounding from beyond the edge of the crevasse. So he was alive, at least. One great slab was sticking up at an angle and Jezal shuffled gingerly towards it, worried that the floor might suddenly give way beneath him. He peered over into the chasm.
The Northman was lying spread out on his front, left hand up near the top edge of the tilting block, right fist near the bottom clutched tight round Ferro’s wrist. Her body was out of sight, her scarred face just visible. They both looked equally horrified. Several tons of stone, rocking, ever so gently, balanced on the finest of margins. It was plain that it might easily slide into the abyss at any moment.
“Do something…” whispered Ferro, not even daring to raise her voice. Jezal noticed that she did not suggest any specifics, however.
He licked at the slot in his lip. Perhaps if he were to put his weight on this end it would tilt back level and they could simply crawl off? Could it possibly be so straightforward? He reached out carefully, thumbs rubbing nervously against fingertips, all suddenly weak and sweaty-feeling. He laid his hand gently on the ragged edge while Ninefingers and Ferro stared, holding their breath.
He applied the very slightest pressure, and the slab began to swing smoothly downwards. He put a little more weight on it. There was a loud grating sound and the whole block gave a horrifying lurch.
“Don’t fucking push it!” screamed Ninefingers, clinging to the smooth rock with his fingernails.
“What then?” squealed Jezal.
“Get something!”
“Get anything!” hissed Ferro.
Jezal stared around wildly, saw no source of help. Of Longfoot and Quai there was no sign. Either they were dead somewhere at the bottom of the chasm, or they had made a timely bid for freedom. Neither one would have much surprised him. If anyone was going to be saved, Jezal would have to do it by himself.
He dragged his coat off, started to twist it round to make a kind of rope. He weighed it in his hand, shaking his head. Surely this would never work, but what were the choices? He stretched it out, then swung one end over. It slapped against the stone a few inches short of Logen’s clutching fingers, sending up a puff of grit.
“Alright, alright, try again!”
Jezal lifted the coat up high, leaning out over the slab as far as he dared, and swung it down again. The arm flopped out just far enough for Logen to seize hold of.
“Yes!” He wound it round his wrist, the material dragging out tight over the edge of the slab.
“Yes! Now pull it!”
Jezal gritted his teeth and hauled, his boots slipping in the dust, his sore arm and his sore leg aching with the effort. The coat came towards him, slowly, slowly, sliding over the stone, inch by torturous inch.
“Yes!” grunted Ninefingers working his shoulders up the slab.
“Pull it!” growled Ferro, wriggling her hips up over the edge and onto the slope.
Jezal hauled for all he was worth, eyes squeezed almost shut, breath hissing between his teeth. A spear clattered down beside him and he looked up to see a score or more Flatheads gathered on the far side of the great crack, waving their misshapen arms. He swallowed and looked away from them. He could not allow himself to think of the danger. All that mattered was to pull. To pull and pull and not let go, however much it hurt. And it was working. Slowly, slowly, they were coming up. Jezal dan Luthar, the hero at last. He would finally have earned his place on this cursed expedition.
There was a sharp ripping sound. “Shit,” squeaked Logen. “Shit!” The sleeve was coming slowly away from the body of the coat, the stitches stretching, ripping, coming undone. Jezal whimpered with horror, his hands burning. Should he pull or not? Another stitch pinged open. How hard to pull? One more stitch went.
“What do I do?” he squealed.
“Pull, you fucker!”
Jezal dragged at the coat as hard as he could, muscles burning. Ferro was up on the stone, scrabbling at the smooth surface with her nails. Logen’s clutching hand was almost at the edge, almost there, his three fingers stretching, stretching out for it. Jezal hauled again—
And he stumbled backwards, holding nothing but a limp rag. The slab shuddered, and groaned, and tipped up. There was a squawk, and Logen slid away, the ripped-off sleeve flapping useless in his hand. There were no screams. Just a clatter of tumbling stones, then nothng. They both were gone, over the edge. The great slab rocked slowly back and lay there, flat and empty, at the edge of the crack. Jezal stood and stared, his mouth open, the sleeveless coat still dangling from his throbbing hand.
“No,” he whispered. That was not how it happened in the stories.
Beneath the Ruins
“You alive, pink?”
Logen groaned as he shifted his weight, felt a lurch of horror as stones moved underneath him. Then he realised he was lying in a heap of rubble, the corner of a slab digging hard into a sore spot in his back. He saw a stone wall, blurry, a hard line across it between light and shadow. He blinked, wincing, pain creeping up his arm as he tried to rub the dust out of his eyes.
Ferro was kneeling just beside him, her dark face streaked with blood from a cut on her forehead, her black hair full of brown dust. Behind her a wide vaulted chamber stretched into the shadows. The ceiling was broken away above her head, a ragged line with the pale blue sky beyond it. Logen turned his head painfully, baffled. No more than a stride from him the stone slabs he was lying on were sheared off, jutting out into the empty air. A long way away he could see the far side of the crack, a cliff of crumbling rock and earth, the outlines of half-fallen buildings jutting from the top.
He began to understand. They were underneath the floor of the temple. When the crack opened up it must have torn this place open, leaving just enough of a ledge for them to fall onto. Them and a lot of broken rock. They couldn’t have fallen far. He almost felt himself grinning. He was still alive.
“What ab—”
