Part 14 (2/2)

. . . and stepped out of the dense light and into one of the black-gla.s.sed internal corridors of DarkGla.s.s Mountain.

She could hear the pounding of feet and knew that it was the One, coming for her.

”This way,” she said to the rat and walked down the corridor without hesitation, taking the first turn on the right, and then the third on the left.

Ishbel stopped, staring about her, unable to comprehend for the moment what had happened.

The pyramid had vanished, and she was now standing in the hallway that led to the kitchen in her parents' home in Margalit.

She could hear the faint sounds of a crowd outside, cries that the house be burned to save the rest of the city from the pestilence within the Brunelle residence.

I can smell corpses, said the rat.

”I can hear the crackle of flames,” Ishbel said, so horrified her voice cracked from the dryness in her throat and mouth.

Chapter 22.

The Brunelle House, Margalit.

Ishbel was eight, trapped in her parents' house in Margalit.

The bodies of her parents and aunts and cousins and all their servants lay strewn about the house, decomposing into noxious heaps of whispering blackened flesh.

She stood at the top of the staircase, both hands clutching white-knuckled at the newel posts, listening to the crowds at the front doors.

There is plague inside!

All are dead!

Burn the house! Burn the house, so that we might live!

”No!” Ishbel cried, her hands now shaking, her voice quavering in fear. ”No! I am alive! I am alive!”

She raced down the stairs, tripping once and rolling four or five steps to a landing, before picking herself up, bruised and sc.r.a.ped, and racing downward again.

Watch out, Ishbel. They are lighting the f.a.ggots right now.

Ishbel fell again in her terror, cringing against a wall.

The whisper had come from the body of a servant girl who lay in a doorway. Her name was Marla and she had always been kind to Ishbel. But now she was dead, her face half rotted away, her teeth poking out all green-stained and oddly angled. What was left of her face rippled, and Ishbel saw that the movement had been caused by maggots feeding deep within the girl's cheeks.

Watch out, Ishbel, the f.a.ggots are burning well, now.

It was not the corpse that whispered, but the silvered hoops in Marla's ears.

Watch out, Ishbel. It is getting awfully hot.

”No,” Ishbel whispered, backing away on her hands and knees, then turning so she could continue down the stairs on her bottom, too shaken to try to get to her feet, her breath jerking from her throat in terrified, tiny sobbing hiccups.

She slid down the stairs, her skirts tangling with her thighs and hips, one shoe half falling off.

Someone pounded on the front door, and Ishbel tried to call out, to let the crowd know that she was alive, that they must not set fire to the house, but as she opened her mouth she slid another turn of the staircase, and instead of words, nothing came from her mouth but a terrified squeal.

A man of gla.s.s stood four or five steps down. His flesh was formed of a pliable, and utterly beautiful, blue-green gla.s.s. Deep within the creature's chest a golden pyramid slowly rotated and pulsed.

His head was gla.s.s-like as well, his features beautifully formed, and his eyes large round wells of darkness.

They were staring at Ishbel with dark, malicious humour.

”I am the Lord of Elcho Falling,” the gla.s.s man said, ”and I am come to save you.”

He took a step upward, and Ishbel screamed, turning to scramble away as fast as she might.

”I am come to save you,” the gla.s.s man whispered, and Ishbel felt his hand close about her ankle.

She almost blacked out in her terrified panic, but just as the darkness was closing about the edge of her vision, a new voice spoke in her mind.

Courage, Ishbel. Remember who you are, and where you have been, and what your purpose is this day.

The gla.s.s man firmed his grip about Ishbel's ankle, and she knew that at any moment he would haul her down the stairs . . . but she tried to concentrate .

The gla.s.s man was not the Lord of Elcho Falling. He was the One.

Maximilian was the Lord of Elcho Falling.

Suddenly Ishbel was not eight, but thirty, and she rolled over onto her back and thrust her foot as hard as she could into the face of the One.

She did not manage to touch him, but he reeled back in surprise, and his grip on her ankle loosened.

Twist it, Ishbel! the rat said, scrambling for purchase on her shoulder.

”Oh, be quiet,” Ishbel muttered, and jerked her ankle free of the One's grip.

The One regained his balance and reached once more for Ishbel, still scrambling to get to her feet, but as he did so the stairs under his feet warped and curled, and he was no longer there.

What happened? said the rat.

”I unwound the staircase from beneath his feet,” Ishbel said. ”Now he's above us.”

Then she was on her feet and hurrying down the stairs, trying to get to the front door before the crowd outside set fire to the house.

Her terror had abated somewhat, but it was still there. The month she had spent among the rotting corpses of her family when she was eight had left an indelible scar on Ishbel's psyche. To merely recall the memory was unbearably painful.

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