Iron Angel

body began to change again. Her exoskeleton crackled with energy then burst apart, spilling out convulsing innards which swelled and took on new forms.

All around her the world seemed to shrink as she grew in size. Multiple views blurred together into one solid image. She sensed her wings dissolve and the tiny fibrous limbs re-forming into human flesh. She knew Menoa had returned her voice when an agonized scream finally burst from her throat.

But then the king raised a hand, halting the transformation process.

She cowered before him, a thing of shivering misshapen flesh, and tried to keep hold of her sanity.

“Perhaps I should place you inside a witchsphere,” Menoa said evenly, “to share eternity with eight mortal sisters. You would see…wonderful sights.”

“I’ve done…everything you’ve ever asked of me,” she gasped. Something on her shoulder burst, drenching her twisted back. “Has my service displeased you?”

He chuckled. “No, but stasis bores me. You have the potential to be so much more than you are.” He strode towards her, his claws extended like a brace of scalpels. “On your world, am I regarded as a butcher or a visionary?”

Despite her crippling agony, the king’s question was absurd enough to make Harper suppress a laugh. This monster cares about how others perceive him? The thought occurred to her before she had a chance to stop it, and yet Menoa did not appear to have read her mind. He was waiting for her reply.

“My Lord,” she said at last, trying to control both the pain and the cynicism in her voice, “perceptions of you change frequently.”

Evidently this pleased the king, for he made another gesture that restarted Harper’s transmutation. She cried out again as her limbs bent into new shapes.

“Good,” Menoa said. “To confound our enemies we must never cease to adapt.” His black glass mask shone in the bruised light. “While your service to me has occasionally been reluctant, Alice Harper, it has nevertheless been satisfactory. You Pandemerians have grown used to stagnation, yet you understand the traps and dangers of the living world so much better than my Icarates. Now I require more from you.”

As Harper’s body continued to change, she realized that something was wrong. Her arms and legs felt… unusual. She was already a foot taller than she ought to be, and this transformation showed no signs of halting. What was King Menoa doing to her? What was she becoming?

The king turned away again to stare out across the Maze. “Your new form will surprise and delight you,” he said.

16

DILL

In Dill’s dream he was fighting amid a whole crowd of people. Men and women of all ages jostled him and yelled and brawled with one another. Fists flailed all around him. Boots kicked him in the shins and stomach. Greasy fingers grabbed his hair and yanked him down towards wet red earth. He broke free for an instant and found himself staring up at a featureless grey sky. Then someone stumbled against his wings, and Dill fell back under the crowd. A knee struck him on the temple, driving him deeper into the morass. He clutched at a ragged, sweat-soaked shirt, but its owner tore the shirt away and stamped on the angel’s face. Dill looked beyond the boot up to a grizzled, grinning face, and a broad white chest, muscled like an ox.

Then powerful hands hauled him upright.

“The trick of surviving a portal,” roared a deep voice from behind the angel, “is not to let the other bastards smell your fear. That, and to smash their poxy faces in at any chance you get. Hah!”

A metal gauntlet lashed out across Dill’s left shoulder and punched the grizzled brawler in the face, shattering the big man’s nose.

His rescuer was a huge angel clad in old, battered steel armour. A giant, he towered over everyone else, including the man he’d just struck. Wild grey hair flew about his shoulders as he lifted his now limp quarry and then threw him far into the crowd.

The battle-archon laughed. “We’re all ghosts here, lad, trapped in the same lousy dream. The battle is merely a contest of will. Now watch this! You can find weapons if you use your wits.”

He stooped and grabbed the ankle of an old woman who had fallen. She wasn’t moving. Grinning, the archon swung the woman like a club, smashing a path through the terrified crowd. Spatters of blood flew everywhere. “You see?” he boomed. “Easy as you like.” Then he tossed the old woman’s bloody corpse away like a soiled rag and said, “Aye, aye! There’s a better one.” Now he picked up a soldier dressed in rusty chain mail and proceeded to use him like a mace.

“The armoured ones are best,” the archon yelled. “It nips a bit when you get hit in the face by a body wearing a hauberk.”

Dill paused to catch his breath. “Who are you?”

“Just an old dead god,” he said, “sent to watch your back and make sure you reach Hell in one piece. Look at that fellow! Fancies himself as a pugilist, I reckon.” He pointed to a scrawny man who had one arm wrapped around a young woman’s neck and was desperately beating her in the face. “Think you can manage him on your own?”

Dill’s first punch split the thin man’s lip. His target looked up, dazed, then he saw the two angels, dropped his victim, and tried to force his way back through the crowd. A haggard greybeard with feverish eyes took him down before Dill could get another blow in. The battle-archon’s laughter roared out across the panicked scrum. There was space around them both now. The archon’s blue eyes, full of humor, looked down at Dill. “You don’t get dreams like this in Heaven,” he said, “which is why I never liked the fucking place. Come on, we’ll be through the portal soon. It would be a shame to waste another moment.”

And so they fought together. Or rather, the battle-archon smashed through the crowd like a bull through barley, and Dill kept close behind him, kicking and punching whenever the opportunity arose. Everyone became a target. Fists pummelled flesh on all sides. Blood and sweat soaked the young angel’s tattered mail shirt. Elbows shoved him this way and that as the crowd ebbed and surged, but he kept on fighting.

It was a battle without the clash of weapons or war cries or curses, an oddly silent brawl save for the occasional grunt or moan. Overhead the sky darkened to the colour of lead and then of onyx. The participants were by now exhausted, yet they remained determined. Something drove them to fight, and none would yield, because there was nowhere for them to go, no space to retreat to.

Dill fought on. He fought breathlessly in the growing darkness, wanting to impress his new companion. He broke noses and pulled at lank, stinking hair, and delighted in the thrill of it.

Men pushed past or fell and disappeared. He punched leering faces until he could no longer tell one from another. The crowd became a blur, a single beast with ten thousand eyes and teeth and sweating limbs. He kicked and kicked at it, and broke its bones. But it had so many bones. It was endless.

And it never stopped fighting back.

The young angel took as many blows as he dealt. Bruises soon throbbed on his chest and arms. His knuckles bled. He saw his own feathers being stamped into the mire underfoot. Sweat poured freely from his brow till it filled his eyes. He could not say how long he battled…

Abruptly, he woke up.

Dill realized he had arrived in Hell again. Nothing was different except, perhaps, that this time there was less space.

He found himself trapped in a viselike gap between two encroaching walls. Rough stone pressed his cheek, his ribs, and his wings, pinning him in place. He could not turn his head. He wiggled his boots, but sensed nothing but air underneath him. Had the gap between the walls been a few inches wider, he might have plummeted.

To what?

His death?

But he was already dead. He remembered this clearly from the first time: the gloom, the wait, and then the