Iron Angel

King Menoa had turned Harper into a machine, a combination of interconnected tools for hunting, trapping, and torturing errant souls. He had provided her with a cowl so that she might hide the potential of her vast and hideous crystal skeleton from the particular soul she was supposed to pursue-yet there was no way to hide the knowledge of what she’d become from herself.

All resemblance to a human had been stripped away. Now she towered over her own king, at least five or six times Menoa’s height. Her increased stature would allow her to gaze far across the landscape of Hell, and yet she could not lift her eyes from the sight of her own body. Conjoined transparent sections now curled down all the way from her waist, like the tail of a serpent sculpted from glass. Crystal gears moved inside her pelvis and midriff, sending vibrations up through her ribs and chest. To replace her arms Menoa had given her three long, thin glass limbs, each of which culminated in a different object: a spear, a sceptre, and a mirrored shield. Intricate Mesmerist machinery turned inside the sceptre, emitting occasional pulses of white light.

“I have improved you,” the king explained. “The sceptre acts as both an Oracle and a Locator, while the remaining limbs are designed for combat. Your spear can induce pain on many levels, and will inflict visions upon any creature you confront. Of course the shield offers physical protection, and yet much more…it is a rather special device.”

Harper lifted the shield and gazed down at her own reflection in the mirrored glass. “My face…” she cried in a voice which sounded like crystal bells chiming.

“Beautiful, is it not? You wished to keep your original form, and I have obliged. Now you exist as a combination of old and new.”

Harper’s new skull was a bulb of clear glass, moulded to resemble her face. The transparent eyes, cheeks, nose, and mouth were fixed in an immovable expression of rage-a frightening grimace, yet not nearly as terrifying as the object trapped within the glass.

It was a manikin, the tiny shivering figure of a woman in a Mesmerist uniform. She was curled up very tight with her arms wrapped around her legs and her head buried between her knees. Harper lifted her shield for a closer view. She could not see the little woman’s face, but she recognized her nevertheless.

“She represents the core of your soul,” Menoa said. “And yet I have given her the human weaknesses you still yearn for in Hell. Hunger and thirst will slowly kill her while she remains trapped.” He turned suddenly and walked away from Harper. “Go find the angel and bring him to the Processor,” he called back. “For your own sake I suggest you do it quickly.”

Dill opened the door. Already standing there with his hands on his hips, and clad in his old metal armour, was the battle-archon from Dill’s dream. The big angel frowned merrily down at him, his huge grey wings folded behind his back. A series of connected stone chambers stretched far into the gloom behind him. Each room appeared to be full of weapons, shields, and training blocks, like an enfilading sequence of soldiers’ barracks.

“Stay right where you are,” the archon demanded. “We’ll talk here at the door if you don’t mind. You just stay on your side, and I’ll stay on mine. For either of us to cross this threshold would be improper at least, and probably obscene. The castle behind me is the incarnation of my soul, just as the rooms on your side of the door are the incarnation of yours.”

“Who are you?” Dill asked.

“I’m Hasp,” said the angel, grinning.

“Hasp?” Dill gave him a blank look.

The archon’s frown deepened. “You don’t know who I am?”

Dill shook his head.

“Hasp, youngest of Ayen’s seven sons, Lord of the First Citadel. Is your mind addled?”

The young angel said nothing.

The god looked incredulous. “Light and Life, lad! What have Ulcis’s priests been teaching their temple archons? I’m his bloody brother-your own god’s brother.”

“I didn’t know he had one.”

Hasp shook his head. “I should have expected this. Your ancestors were not any wiser than you. It’s the same every time we find another Deepgate angel down here.” He sighed. “My brother liked to keep his little secrets, see? Stifling knowledge to keep the humans in their yokes. Anyway, it hardly matters. Ulcis was my brother, and Callis was one of his sons. So you must be my great-great-nephew or something like that. Welcome back to Hell.”

“My body was stolen,” Dill said. “By a shade, an archon. He said he was from the First Citadel.”

Hasp looked uncomfortable. “Sorry about that, but we saw a chance to get a message out when the portal opened. A lot of shades were pouring out of Hell, and we felt desperate enough to attempt to send out one of our own. You’ll get your body back sometime. As soon as Trench delivers his message, your body will be free of him again.”

“But I’ll be down here!”

“It didn’t stop you before,” Hasp said. “The last time you arrived in Hell, you vanished again before any one of us could reach you.” The god chuckled. “That made us sit up, I can tell you. We were hoping you could explain that little trick to us.”

Dill recalled his last time in the Maze. He had been trapped in a cramped cell, without room to extend his wings. He remembered the agony whenever he tried to move, and terrible dreams that had haunted his sleep. Each time he’d woken, it was to discover that the cell had changed in some subtle way. Finally he’d opened his eyes to see Rachel…who had brought him back to life with Devon’s angelwine.

Still, the young angel didn’t feel comfortable divulging too much to this strange god. He glanced behind the armoured archon at the vast network of chambers, the tapestries and racks of ancient weapons. This was a part of Hell new to him. “It’s so different from before,” he said.

Hasp nodded. “The Maze changes all the time. Your immediate environment is only a manifestation of your eternal consciousness-your soul, if you like. Handy if you learn how to manipulate it, so long as you keep your chin up.” He laughed. “Just don’t get any suicidal thoughts, or the walls of your prison are likely to grow knives.”

Now the god was peering into Dill’s own chamber. “Those portraits on your walls…” he said quietly. “They… they actually seem to be looking at me.”

Dill turned. “They do that.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must know. This is your soul.”

Dill shrugged. “I’ve never seen those faces before.”

Hasp stared for a minute longer, his expression growing darker. “Ask them.”

The young angel felt suddenly reluctant to comply. Something about the portraits frightened him. “They’re just paintings,” he muttered.

But Hasp clearly wasn’t convinced. He moved closer, until his armoured bulk filled the doorway. Dill sensed the god’s presence as a pressure building against his soul.

“Speak if you have the wits to do so,” Hasp demanded of the paintings. “Who are you?”

Thirteen voices whispered together. “A Cutter by…Lisa, a maid…I don’t…hop-keeper…My name…potboy… where is this…? Why? Daniel Crook…Who are you…? The pain…” And on it went: a torrent of hissed statements and queries.

“Enough!”

The paintings fell silent.

Hasp stepped back from the doorway. “Those portraits are other souls bound to your own,” he said to Dill. “You’re sharing this part of Hell with thirteen other people.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

The angelwine! Devon’s elixir had contained thirteen souls, power enough to resurrect Dill. But now that the angel had died again, these same thirteen had accompanied him back to the Maze. Dill looked up in horror at the painted faces. Each one of them gazed down at him with a different expression ranging from curiosity to evident anger.

Hasp frowned. “I need to get you out of here,” he said. “If the Mesmerists get one whiff of this-and believe me, they will-they’ll roll through here like a mountain of bones to capture you.”

“Out of here? Where?”