‘I am sorry, Pearl, for all of this. For Dragnipur. For the horror forged by my own hands. It was fitting, was it not, that the weapon claimed its maker? I think, yes, it was. It was.’ He paused, and then brought both hands up to his face. For a moment it seemed he would begin clawing his beard from the skin beneath it. In shy;stead, the shackled hands fell away, down, dragged by the weight of the chains.
‘I too am sorry,’ said Pearl. ‘To see the end of this.’
‘
‘So many enemies, all here and not one by choice. Enemies, and yet working together for so long. It was a wondrous thing, was it not, Draconus? When neces shy;sity forced each hand to clasp, to work as one. A wondrous thing.’
The warrior stared at the demon. He seemed unable to speak.
Apsal’ara worked her way along the top of the beam. It was hard to hold on, the wagon pitching and rocking so with one last, useless surge forward, and the beam itself thick with the slime of sweat, blood and runny mucus. But something was happening at the portal, that black, icy stain beneath the very centre of the wagon.
A strange stream was flowing into the Gate, an intricate pattern ebbing down through the fetid air from the underside of the wagon’s bed. Each tendril was inky black, the space around it ignited by a sickly glow that pulsed slower than any mortal heart.
Was it Kadaspala’s pathetic god? Seeking to use the tattooist’s insane master shy;piece as if it was a latticework, a mass of rungs, down which it could clamber and so plunge through the Gate? Seeking to
If so, then she intended to make use of it first.
Let the cold burn her flesh. Let pieces of her simply fall away. It was a better end than some snarling manifestation of chaos ripping out her throat.
She struggled ever closer, her breath sleeting out in crackling plumes that sank down in sparkling ice crystals. It reminded her of her youth, the nights out on the tundra, when the first snows came, when clouds shivered and shed their diamond skins and the world grew so still, so breathless and perfect, that she felt that time itself was but moments from freezing solid — to hold her for ever in that place, hold her youth, hold tight her dreams and ambitions, her memories of the faces she loved — her mother, her father, her kin, her lovers. No one would grow old, no one would die and fall away from the path, and the path itself, why, it would never end.
She cried out in the frigid, deathly air. Such pain — how could she ever get close enough?
Aspal’ara drew herself up, knees beneath her. And eyed that pattern, just there, a body’s length away and still streaming down. If she launched herself from this place, simply threw herself forward, would that flowing net catch her?
Would it simply shatter? Or flow aside, opening up to permit the downward plunge of a body frozen solid, lifeless, eyes open but seeing nothing?
She had a sudden thought, shivering up through her doubts, her fears. And, with aching limbs, she began dragging up the length of her chains, piling the links on the beam in front of her.
Was the Gate’s cold of such power that it could snap these links? If she heaved the heap into that Gate, as much as she could,
And then?
She snarled.
She realized then that such questions did not matter. To be free, even if only for a moment, would be enough.
She continued piling up links of the chains, her breaths coming in agonized, lung-numbing gasps.
