Ishbel reached the foot of the stairs and dashed across the foyer toward the door.
But just as she reached it, the door exploded in flames, and Ishbel reeled back, crying out in horror as the heat scorched her face and hair and clothing.
She realised her dress was afire in several spots and she beat at the flames, terrified, unable to reason her way out of it, sure that, this time, she was going to burn to death within the charnel house of her father’s abode.
Then, before she could successfully beat out her flaming skirts, the walls burst into fire.
Chapter 23
The Brunelle House, Margalit, and Darkglass Mountain
Ishbel could not think. She was caught, back in her parents’ house, but this time she was caught in the hell she had always feared — the crowd outside had set fire to the house, and she was trapped.
No one can save you now, Ishbel, the One said in her mind.
She was going to burn, this time.
All your family are dead. All the servants rot. No one can save you now, Ishbel.
Ishbel was crying, her hands beating futilely at the flames on her skirts, beating out one fire only to find that another had sprung up in a different place. There was no time to think. She could feel the rat scrambling about on her shoulders, whispering away in her mind, but Ishbel was so terrified that she paid it no attention.
What use courage now, when she was going to die? Ishbel had always feared death by burning . . . it had been her lifelong worst nightmare, and that terror now so overwhelmed her that she was incapable of thinking —
Gods, even the stone flagging was now alight!
Courage! the rat screamed in her mind.
It is pointless, Ishbel responded. Look, my hands are blackened now. I will burn, and you with me.
She could not speak, for the air was now so overheated it had burned her throat and lungs.
Her legs were now enveloped in pain as her skirts roared into full flame, and Ishbel held out her arms, knowing that in another moment she would be a pillar of fire.
Courage, the rat whispered, and Ishbel thought she would take a bit of that courage, just so that she would die more easily. She calmed her mind and shut out the sound of the One’s laughter —
There is no one left here for you, the One said. No member of your family left alive to aid you. Die, Ishbel. Die.
No member of her family left to aid her? The words tumbled about in Ishbel’s now calmer mind. She could feel her flesh burning, smell its stink, but she put the agony to one side and thought about it.
No family left alive?
“Yes,” Ishbel managed to croak out of her burning throat, the sound only a harsh cackle to anyone who might have been standing close. “Yes, there is.”
And then, taking all the courage the rat had to offer, Ishbel said, “Druse? Druse? Come aid me, Druse. Please.”
Druse, Tirzah’s father, still trapped within the pyramid. Her ancestor. Her family.
“Ishbel, my dear,” Druse said, throwing a blanket about her and smothering the flames. “I didn’t think you would ever call.”
“Druse .” Ishbel said, startled to find that her voice sounded normal, and then blinking in surprise as Druse lifted away the blanket to discover that her flesh and clothes were unmarked.
All the agony had vanished.
“It was but a ruse, Ishbel,” Druse said, smiling at her. “Now, do what you must to tear this horror down and free all of us who remain trapped within its vileness.”
He nodded at the door and Ishbel saw that it was unmarked.
And that the key sat in the lock, as her mother had always left it.
So that we might escape the faster, my dear, her mother had always said, if there were a fire.
Ishbel squeezed Druse’s hand, then she stepped toward the door.
High above, she heard the One shout.
Ishbel turned the key, and opened the door.
She found herself deep within DarkGlass Mountain once again.
Maximilian paced back and forth on the banks of the glass river, staring at the pyramid. He was desperately worried. Ishbel had been inside the pyramid for hours, hours. What was she doing? The One had vanished inside, and the pyramid had suddenly quietened. The lights had died, the pyramid had sunk back into darkness. Maximilian could see it now only as a great triangular blackness rearing into the night sky, blotting out the stars.
What should he do? Go after her? What was happening?
“Ishbel?” he said.
Ishbel heard him, but could not respond. She could only hope that Maximilian would stay where he was. To try and enter DarkGlass Mountain now would be death for him.
She stood deep within the glass and stone pyramid. In actuality she knew she would be standing within solid rock, but wrapped in power as she was, it appeared to Ishbel as if she stood in a chamber composed of black glass. The chamber was filled with floor-to-ceiling columns which shifted constantly. These columns were so crowded together and moved so abruptly that Ishbel found herself constantly having to move to avoid being crushed.
It was if she were inside a gigantic puzzle.
Every now and then Ishbel caught sight of the stone she was after — the foundation stone of the pyramid, and the stone which, if broken, would begin the unwinding of the mathematical formula that had constructed the pyramid.
With the unwinding of that formula, so would the pyramid itself unwind and be destroyed into dust.
The stone sat about twenty paces away, its location revealed every so often by the movement of the black columns. Unlike the rest of the chamber, this stone looked very ordinary . . . just plain sandstone, marked here and there with the chisels of the slave stonemasons, and speckled with their blood.
Courage in the dance, Ishbel, the rat whispered, and Ishbel almost jumped, for she had forgotten its presence. Courage in the dance.
The One was here, too. Ishbel saw him from the corner of her eye moving to her right some distance away, hiding among the columns.
Then again, closer now.
Ishbel began to slip in and out of the columns, using her power and intuition to understand which way they might shift at any given moment. Now and again they brushed at her skin, and Ishbel felt them rasp away the very top layer of her flesh whenever they touched her.
If she emerged out of this, then she would emerge scraped and bloodied.
Ishbel tried to move closer to the foundation stone, but, oh, it was so difficult. The columns themselves shifted so that she was constantly cut off, while the One seemed to glide among them as if they were his friends.
As likely they were.
Ishbel kept moving, one eye on the One, one on the stone.
The One was silent now, his eyes keen on Ishbel, moving as smoothly as she.
Ishbel slipped behind one pillar, then another. She felt as if she were a thread in a weaver’s loom, being twisted this way and that, never proceeding forward, only ever sideways.
She moved again, ignoring the sudden scrape of pain along her left arm where a column had caught her.
The only sound was the slight noise the columns made as they shifted, like leaves rustling in the breeze.
But these were not leaves and Ishbel knew if she made a misstep then she would be dead.
Yet even knowing this, Ishbel was calm. She was being tracked through the dancing columns by the One as Ravenna had once tracked her down into the Weeper’s soul, but this time Ishbel was stronger. She had survived Ravenna’s attempt on her life. She had survived her worst nightmare trapped burning to death in her father’s house.
This was nothing.
The One was very, very close now. Ishbel imagined she could feel his warmth as he neared.
Was he warm? Yes, he was. Ishbel remembered that his hand had felt hot against the clammy skin of her ankle.
Now and again Ishbel saw his hand slink out from behind a column and snatch at her.
But always she glided out of his reach a momen
t before.
The One was not using his powers here; Ishbel suspected it was because it would be too dangerous. They were within the living heart of DarkGlass Mountain, and Ishbel thought the One must be so tied to the pyramid that to use his power would be to risk the entire structure.
She thought he must be panicking and wondered to what that panic might drive him.
The rat gripped tight to her shoulder, and Ishbel thought that if she ever emerged from this she would do so bruised and bloody both from the constant scrape of the columns and the claws of the rat.
The One’s fingers grazed her flesh, just for an instant. Ishbel moved too quickly, scraping her right shoulder and arm badly on a shifting column.
Courage, Ishbel, the rat said.
Ishbel wanted to swat the thing against the nearest column, but managed to quash the urge.
Courage be damned. All she wanted was that stone, now so tantalisingly close.
She shifted twice more, then a third time, and suddenly she was beside the stone and looking at the One standing on the other side of it.
“I hope you enjoy your unravelling,” Ishbel said, and she dropped to her knees before the stone, placing both hands flat upon it.
Ishbel heard the sound of distant laughter and knew it to be her ancient forbears, Boaz and Tirzah, and with that sound Ishbel remembered what knowledge it was that Tirzah’s baby had imbibed from the pyramid when Boaz had done his terrible battle with it.
Then she knew what she could do with that knowledge when combined with her training as the Archpriestess of the Coil.
Ishbel’s hand moved in a complex tangle of movements over the stone and the One cried out.
Black inky writing appeared on the stone — hundreds of strange numerals and symbols that began to move and then lift off the stone to float in the air between the One and Ishbel.
She moved her hand again, and the symbols whirled upward.
Then Ishbel spoke a word that she had never heard before, but which now seemed to her as familiar as her own name. “Numestos.”
The One cried out again, utterly panicked, and lunged across the stone toward Ishbel.
She evaded him easily, concentrating completely on the task at hand. “Numestos!”
The symbols flew about the chamber, a thick ribbon of black twisting characters that moved about the shifting columns.
“ Numestos!” Ishbel cried a third time, then ducked as the ribbon flowed over her head to spin upward through the pyramid.
Be careful, she heard Ta’uz’s voice say in her mind.
Maximilian was frantic. He’d decided he had to do something — that he could not leave it a moment longer — when suddenly the pyramid glowed with a soft green light.
He stopped dead, his mouth slightly agape as he stared. DarkGlass Mountain looked stunningly beautiful, illuminating the nearby landscape with its soft light.
Then, as suddenly as the appearance of the light, inky black numbers and symbols started to race across the glass surface of the pyramid, winding up from its base toward the golden capstone.
Maximilian took a step forward, moving from the river bank onto the glass of the Lhyl, then another, then stopped, stunned by what was happening.
The symbols continued to wind up, up, up around the entire pyramid, drawing ever closer to the capstone.
They reached it.
There was a heartbeat where nothing happened.
Then the capstone went black . . . another heartbeat . . .
It exploded into countless pieces of glass, and Maximilian instinctively ducked as deadly shards rained down over a wide area.
Chapter 24
Darkglass Mountain
Careful, Ta’uz whispered, and Ishbel ducked as a column four or five away from her began to crumble.
The One was shouting, incomprehensible words that made little sense to Ishbel. He was finally bringing the power of Infinity to bear against what Ishbel had worked, but it appeared to be making the situation worse rather than better.
More and more columns were crumbling.
Then Ishbel heard a tremendous explosion far above.
The One screamed.
Careful, said the rat.
A torrent of symbols continued to flow out of the stone, winding up in a never ending ribbon through the pyramid. Now Ishbel heard other voices, unknown voices, murmuring in excitement.
All those the pyramid had destroyed over the millennia.
Suddenly something grabbed at Ishbel’s hand. It was the One, staring at her maniacally.
His grip tightened into a vice, and Ishbel cried out and tried to pull away.
“Don’t think this is the end of it, bitch,” the One rasped.
Ishbel stared at him in fright. Black fault lines were spreading through his flesh — she could almost hear them spread, as if cloth were being ripped into shreds.
“Don’t think this is the end of it,” the One said again, and his words terrified Ishbel for all the malice had gone from his voice and instead there was only cold certainty.
Then, horribly, he started to break apart. The process was aided by the collapse of a column of stone next to him that sheared away half of his head.
For an instant Ishbel was staring at a single black eye that returned her gaze unblinkingly, then another column collapsed and the One shattered into a thousand pieces.
Ishbel fell backward as the One’s grip vanished. She felt herself caught between two crumbling columns, then everything went dark and unknowing.
Maximilian paced back and forth, back and forth on the glassy river staring at the disintegrating pyramid. He’d been cut by several shards of glass from the exploding capstone, but had escaped serious injury.
The pyramid collapsed into itself, sending a dust-and-debris cloud flying upward and outward, although it stopped short of the far river bank and didn’t threaten Maximilian.
Where was Ishbel? Maximilian did not know if she had escaped the pyramid but was hidden by the debris cloud, if she was still inside but was protected by her power, or if she was still inside and not protected.
Anything but the third, please gods, anything but the third.
The continuing destruction of the pyramid was now almost overwhelming. It had been a massive structure, virtually solid stone and glass and it made a thunderous roar as it came down.
Maximilian stood helpless, not knowing what to do. He wondered if Avaldamon, Serge and Doyle had come out from their hiding hole and were watching this from the safety of the great courtyard of the palace of Aqhat.
They had been caught within the pyramid for what seemed to them an eternity. Their bodies had long been disposed of, but their souls had remained trapped within the entity that had murdered them.
There had been nothing but bleakness and hopelessness for them.
But now, feel the bonds unravel!
Now! cried the one who had once been Ta’uz. Go now! And as one the thousands of the murdered stood and shook off their bonds and walked out of the pyramid.
Maximilian saw them in the debris cloud, walking toward the river. They were not solid, not flesh, just disturbances within the dust that appeared as human shapes. As they drew closer to the edge of the debris cloud, so they began to dissipate.
But one remained visible long enough to make it halfway across the river.
The dust shape smiled at Maximilian. Thank her for us, it said. And tell her that Druse is finally on his way home to his family.
With that, the dust fell apart and Maximilian stood alone in the centre of the glass river.
Isaiah sat at his campfire with Lamiah, Hereward and several of the senior captains within the force. The mood was subdued, only the occasional word being spoken. Everyone was on edge both with the arrival of the juit birds (not dangerous within themselves, but hardly a sign of confidence in what might be happening in Isembaard) and Isaiah’s belief that a horde of millions of Skraelings was headed their way.
Isaiah’s sense of unease had been
growing all day. For most of the day, into the early evening, that had been attributable to the approaching threat of the Skraelings, but now Isaiah believed there was something else happening.
He had not been this nervous and this jumpy, well . . . not in his very considerable life span thus far.
Something bad was happening.
Or maybe good. Isaiah simply could not decide.
Hereward looked over the fire at him, then cleared her throat to say something.
Before she could speak, however, she suddenly gasped, her eyes wide, and clamped both hands to her throat.
Blood was pumping forth, drenching the front of her robe.
Maximilian was still pacing when, in one startling, stunning moment, he found himself being driven down through water.
For a moment he was so stunned he could not react, then he was trying to fight his way up through the water, struggling with the sudden, terrifying current, desperate for breath. Something seemed to be keeping him down; he didn’t know what it was, but it was starting to panic him.
Then suddenly he was free of whatever force held him and he was gasping for breath at the surface.
The Lhyl had returned to water.
The current was fierce, fiercer than Maximilian expected, and he wondered if the sudden release of the water meant it flowed far more violently than usual. He started to swim for the eastern shore, desperate to get to land and look back to see what had become of the pyramid, when he became aware that a rat was swimming in circles about him.
Watch out, said the rat, and suddenly Maximilian was hit from below by a large, solid object. It grabbed at his legs, then his hips, pulling him under, and as Maximilian sank yet once more, he found himself staring through the water into Ishbel’s eyes.
One more time, Isaiah found himself leaping about a fire and clamping his hands about Hereward’s neck.
What the fuck is happening?
She stared at him with wild eyes, her expression half of bewilderment and half of deep anger.