The Ragged Man Part 3

'Venn, I'm lying dead on the ground ! ' Jackdaw shrieked hysterically, unheard by the others. ' Jackdaw shrieked hysterically, unheard by the others.

'So you are,' Venn said softly once the others were out of earshot, trying to hide the quick grin that stole over his face. 'Our master has quite a sense of humour.'

'Humour ?' Jackdaw screamed, 'my body is dead ! Merciful G.o.ds, I'm trapped inside your shadow, and I cannot feel anything! I'm a ghost, a living ghost!'

'Living? Oh, I don't think so, my friend,' Venn replied.

'Far from it,' purred a third voice inside him.

Venn froze, an icy twitch of fear running down his spine.

'Morghien will so relish having compet.i.tion for his t.i.tle.'

'Spirits below,' Venn breathed, stumbling in shock. The priestess gave him a puzzled look but Venn ignored it, as he ignored Jackdaw's sobs of terror. On the wind there was a faint smell, one Venn recognised all too well: the scent of peach blossom . . . despite the winter snow.

'Indeed,' said Rojak.

Mihn stepped through the black doors and for a gut-clenching moment everything went dark. There was a distant boom as the enormous doors closed again. After a while he realised there was some faint light on the other side. At first he could see little, though he could feel the oppressive presence of a vast slope, stretching up ahead. The incline was shallow, and more or less regular, but it continued endlessly into the distance with nothing beyond. A hot, sour-smelling wind drifted over him, and Mihn felt very vulnerable and exposed as he took in the boundlessness of the place.

Behind him came a great rasping noise, accompanied by a stench so foul he found himself gagging even as he ran blindly for several hundred yards, not daring to look back. Ancient, brittle bones crackled underfoot, and an awful whispery sound was interspersed with faint sighs and occasional groans. Daima had warned him not to linger there, nor to look back, but there was little need for her caution: Mihn knew full well the rotting corpse of a dragon was bound to this side of the doors and he had no desire to look upon it. Bad enough that he would have to if he returned.

As he reached a chunk of rock twice his height that was protruding awkwardly from the slope Mihn stopped, realising the bones underfoot had given way to grit and dirt. As he paused to catch his breath he felt the heat radiate out from the rock. Now he dared to look at his surroundings and take in the sight of Ghain, the great slope which all souls must walk before they reached either the land of no time or the punishments of Ghenna.

The darkness was not so complete as he'd first thought, more a ghastly red tint, and little by little he started to see some detail of the immeasurable mountain slope. Nothing was clear, but at least he could discern where the bigger stones lay, and the cant of the ground. Here and there boulders punctuated the jagged, stony slope. He crouched and ran his fingers through the dirt at his feet. It felt gritty, almost greasy on his skin, quite unlike the sands of a desert.

There were a few stunted trees but Mihn knew this was not a place where any real life could be sustained. Up above was a roiling mess of smoke-clouds that looked positively poisonous, far from the sort that might provide rain. He started out towards the nearest tree, but after a few hundred yards he began to make out shapes around its base and as he got closer he could see something writhing in its crooked, dead branches . . . He turned away at once, giving the strange sight a wide berth.

When he was safely clear, Mihn stopped and looked up the slope. He felt terribly alone, as fearful as an abandoned child, and part of him wanted to curl up in a hollow and hide from the dread that pervaded the slope. The quiet was broken only by tremors running through the ground and the distant moans of the d.a.m.ned drifting on the air, which was uncomfortably hot, irritating his eyes and throat. At last Mihn shook himself and started off again, trudging up the slope. He kept a wary eye open, checking in all directions every few minutes, but Ghain remained empty until he came to a hollow in the ground, a dozen yards across, below a level stone. From Mihn's angle it looked like a door lintel set into the slope and while there was nothing but the position of the stone to differentiate it, something made Mihn stop.

He checked his feet and palms, brus.h.i.+ng the dirt from his bare soles and ensuring the tattoos put there by the witch of Llehden remained unbroken. Rea.s.sured, he skirted the hollow and checked around. Some faint dragging sound seemed to accompany a tiny movement in the distance, but it was miles away and Mihn discounted the threat, at least for the present. He bent and picked up a large stone, hefting it to feel the weight for a moment, then hurled it into the hollow.

The dead soil exploded into movement, a grey cloud of dust erupting up as some hidden creature snapped at the stone. It clawed at the place where the stone had landed, then shook violently to bury itself once more in the ground.

Mihn gaped. Years ago a friend had shown him an ant-lion's lair, and whilst he had seen only the claw of whatever lay in hidden in Ghain's slope, it had to be several hundred times larger than the savage insect they'd teased out of the ground all those years ago. He s.h.i.+vered, and continued even more warily on his way.

Death was not a G.o.d p.r.o.ne to exaggeration. He had said there were a thousand torments lurking on the slopes of Ghain, and as he walked, Mihn began to wonder whether these were neither daemon nor Aspect: What if they are the mischief and cruelty of mortals given flesh? Or is all I see born of my own fears? What if they are the mischief and cruelty of mortals given flesh? Or is all I see born of my own fears?

He s.h.i.+vered and chanced a look behind. He felt like he'd walked several miles already and as he turned he saw, far away, the pitted stone construction that housed the door to Death's throne room, standing alone like a forgotten monument, forever overshadowed by the enormous, torn wings of a shape perched above it. The wings reflected no light, throwing off even Ghain's lambent glow.

Behind the gate a featureless wasteland stretched out into the distance: endless flat miles of red dust and rock. There was no escape from Ghain, this empty place that sat between the domain of daemons, Ghenna, and the implacable Jailer of the Dark. In the Age of Myths, the dragon had been too proud and too powerful to accept death, so the G.o.ds had chained it there, to prevent it from ever returning to the Land.

Mihn felt it watching him, its presence like acid on the breeze. Above his head something invisible flapped past with slow, heavy strokes. He shrank down instinctively but the sound of tattered leather wings soon pa.s.sed and he was left alone once more, feeling increasingly bleak.

He rubbed his palms together and looked at the stylised owl's head on each. While he hadn't seen what had flown past, it had been close enough to see him. Clearly the magic imbued into his skin by the witch was still working here.

Please let that continue, he prayed fervently. Without it I don't stand a chance. Without it I don't stand a chance.

How much the tattoos could protect him he didn't know, but he had no wish to find out what would happen if the magic failed. As he lingered, chilling howls rolled over the dusty slopes, provoking renewed fear. Mihn wondered how he ever thought what he was attempting was even possible . . .

But he walked on, glad to turn his back on the dragon. He focused on picking his way up the slopes rather than thinking too hard about the sounds that echoed across Ghain. Still he saw no others, neither torments nor trudging souls, until the slope suddenly levelled out for a stretch and he saw a silver pavilion emerge from the gloom.

Not far away was a figure, a man in rags, slightly transparent, who wore around his neck a collar with a dozen or more long chains attached; they were twenty or thirty feet in length, of all sorts of thicknesses and materials, and they dragged behind the soul along the ground. The soul was looking up the slope as he plodded slowly on, but he made no progress because one of the mult.i.tudes of chains had snagged on a stone.

Mihn looked around. He could see nothing else nearby, neither spirit nor daemon. As he neared the tormented soul he checked again, but there was no visible cover that some creature might lurk behind. The soul himself paid Mihn no attention as he tried in vain to march forward. The ground was flat and featureless, with no indication of lurking torment, despite the easiness of the prey - and Mihn suddenly realised why: they would not come within sight of Mercy's pavilion, for fear of the only Aspects that trod Ghain's slope.

Mihn had spent the last few days before his journey trawling his remarkable memory for stories of this place, anything that might help him survive his sojourn here. So it was apparently true that following Death's judgment, the Herald would affix a collar around each soul's neck, so they would proceed up Ghain's slopes dragging their sins behind them. There was copper for avarice, jade for envy, pitted iron for murder; a different material for each sin. Death had built seven pavilions on Ghain, and some of the sins could be forgiven at each. This was a journey all mortals made; some ascended only part of the way before they were borne off to the land of no time, while others were forced to travel untold miles to the fiery River Maram and across to the gates of Ghenna itself, before which the last of the pavilions stood. Even then, some sins were unforgivable, and the dead would be forced to continue onwards.

He crept closer to the chain, watching the soul carefully, but he appeared not to notice the not-dead traveller at all, not even when Mihn nudged the chain - ivory for malice of deed - off the stone. Once freed the soul continued to plod onwards, and as he began to approach the empty pavilion Mihn followed at a cautious distance, wanting to witness what would happen, despite his fear of being observed.

The pavilion was hexagonal, with a pillar at every corner supporting the scrolled roof, and an iron lantern hanging from each pillar. There were bee-shapes cut into the lantern sides, indicating that this was Death's province still, though only a few rays of light escaped.

The soul walked up the steps of the pavilion and across the centre, oblivious of his surroundings. In a flash of light a woman appeared at the spirit's side. She was robed in gold and white and carried an enormous golden hammer, which she smashed down on the trailing chains as they pa.s.sed her. One shattered in a brief blaze of light and faded to nothing. The rest remained unbroken, continuing to drag after the soul, who made no reaction. The woman lowered her hammer and turned towards Mihn as he approached.

'You should not have freed him. It is not your place to judge the dead,' she called to him.

'I did not judge,' he replied, bowing to her as he approached the steps. 'I merely showed mercy. There are many chains around his neck; he will not be escaping Ghain's slopes too quickly.'

The woman nodded approvingly. 'You bear no chains. Have you led a blameless life?' She stretched out her hand and a long curved horn chased with silver appeared in it. 'Few come to me this way; usually only children have no chains. Rarely do I have the pleasure of calling Death's attendants for a grown man.'

Mihn shook his head. 'My judgment is not yet at hand, Lady. You must not call them but must let me pa.s.s.'

'Must let you pa.s.s?' the woman said. 'You walk these slopes out of choice, and the folly is your own - but I am a Mercy. Lord Death alone commands me.' let you pa.s.s?' the woman said. 'You walk these slopes out of choice, and the folly is your own - but I am a Mercy. Lord Death alone commands me.'

Mihn ducked his head in humility. 'That is so, but it is written that all those who name you may ask a boon of you. This I so do, Kenanai the Mother, to pa.s.s uncalled and unharmed.'

The Mercy was silent for a while as she stared at him. She betrayed no emotion but he a.s.sumed she was confused by his presence; such a thing had never happened before for those asking a boon of the Mercies in myth had always been immortals.

Eventually Kenanai lowered her hand and the horn vanished. She gestured after the spirit, indicating that he could pa.s.s.

'It is granted.'

A low rumble echoed across Ghain's slopes and she too disappeared, leaving the pavilion empty and still but for the flickering light of the lanterns. Mihn climbed the steps and as he crossed the pavilion he whispered an ancient prayer to the Mercies. When he reached the other side he stopped and looked around. The soul he had helped was nowhere in sight, though he could see the trail in the dust left by the chains. Other than that, Mihn could see only the empty landscape - broken boulders, dust and dead trees - for miles in all directions.

'"This journey I walk alone,"' he quoted grimly. 'And how alone I feel now.' He continued his ascent, choosing his path as carefully as he could, keeping a look-out all the time. Occasionally creatures flew or scampered across his path - many-limbed beings like horrific spiders the size of small dogs and crawling bat-winged monstrosities - and once he saw a daemon marching grimly across Ghain's jagged landscape: a fat figure as tall as he, with four spindly arms, each dragging an ancient weapon behind it. His heart jumped as the daemon paused and looked up, as though sniffing the air, but whatever it had noticed, it wasn't enough to make it linger there for long.

Each time he saw movement he would stop and crouch, trusting the witch's magic to keep him safe. Each time, he was pa.s.sed by without note. Distance proved meaningless in this blasted place, where a dozen steps felt like a mile. All Mihn was certain of in this strange domain was that no time was pa.s.sing as he walked. After a score or more miles he was no less exhausted by the journey than he had been when he started. Though the neverending heat and the fear Ghain itself engendered sapped his strength, the exertion of walking had no discernible effect, he was glad to discover.

Another of the Mercies' pavilions was pa.s.sed, then another, and another. After some indeterminate period of time he had counted off six, and he knew he was close to his goal - though before he could reach the one that remained, Mihn would have to cross the river of fire called Maram - the barrier that kept the daemons of Ghenna within the Dark Place. A new fear started up within him: worry that a bargain the witch of Llehden had made had in fact not been kept and the next step of his journey would be all the more risky. It was a gamble he hated to have been forced into, and while he knew it had been necessary, Mihn couldn't help but wonder what sort of chain it might add to his own burden of sins.

At last he came to a peak, where indistinct clouds raced close overhead. His human senses saw it as a great crater at the peak of Ghain, within which the ivory gates of Ghenna's entrance were to be found, but he knew it was not so simple - not even by digging down through the rocky slope of Ghain could one break into the Dark Place; it took an immortal's eyes to fully behold the mountain and the Dark Place within.

He stood at the peak of the slope and looked back over the empty miles he had walked, then down at the swift, churning river of orange flames no more than a hundred yards off. As Mihn tried to follow Maram's twisty path, he found the effort hurt, and his vision became blurred. Maram obviously didn't like to be stared at.

He gave up and concentrated on the two constructed features he could see: a silver pavilion, bigger and more magnificent than the rest, stood just the other side of a thin bridge that crossed Maram. Mihn knew from the myths he'd studied that the bridge was only a hand-width wide, and covered in nails to tear the feet of sinners. Aside from the pavilion, the other bank was hidden by impenetrable shadows, though Mihn felt a subconscious horror at what lay beyond.

The scene was exactly as the stories described, but nothing could prepare a man, not even a Harlequin, for the sight of it. For a moment he forgot his mission and simply stared: at Maram, at the nail bridge, at the Dark Place beyond . . . until a soft moan broke the silence and awakened him from his reverie, enough to stir him into movement. He scrambled down the slope towards to the edge of the river, where a figure stood, ghostly of form and clad in tattered rags, the soul of a woman. The chains she was dragging were far longer and heavier than those carried by the first soul Mihn had met - despite the Mercies, there remained dozens of sins unforgiven by Lord Death. Mihn could see half-a-dozen were the pitted iron of murder.

The soul was walking towards the bridge, compelled, as all souls were. Mihn watched, shaken, as she ground to a halt, turning about in confusion, as a shapeless but unmistakably malevolent black mist swirled about her feet.

He saw her walk a few yards back the way she had come, head bowed and feet dragging with exhaustion, before being turned again, and again.

After a while Mihn approached, with great caution, watching the black mist in particular. He knew the threat it posed, but he was far more afraid that the scent of the soul's many sins would attract Ghain's many torments.

He opened his mouth to speak, but he felt the words catch in his throat, the bile rising, for all that he knew how necessary this was. The soul's journey up Ghain's slopes must have been long and hard, attracting each of the thousand torments like moths to a flame, and it was impossible to tell how many years it had felt like to her.

The pa.s.sage of time in the afterlife bore little relation to that of the Land, and Ehla's bargain, suggested by Daima - who knew the lay of Ghain better than most mortals - might have kept the soul walking for centuries more, especially given the weight of her sins. That she was a grievous sinner, one ineluctably bound for the Dark Place, made Mihn feel no better about inflicting further cruelty - even more since the first Mercy had told him judgment was not his to mete out.

Mihn reminded himself of the choices involved and called out, 'd.u.c.h.ess, turn around and close your eyes to it.'

The soul turned, as though waking from a dream.

'It - It is everywhere,' she sobbed eventually. 'I cannot . . .'

'Close your eyes,' Mihn commanded, 'and walk.'

After more wails of protest he repeated himself, and this time the soul did as he ordered. Almost instantly the swirling blackness around her stopped its darting movements and rose up angrily. For a moment Mihn thought it was about to take form and attack him, but instead it raced away, disappearing into the distance.

'Now cross the bridge,' Mihn told the soul.

The soul that had once been d.u.c.h.ess Lomin, quietly executed for heresy and treason, began to trudge wearily towards the bridge. She stopped as she reached it. The bridge was roughly built and insubstantial, just a thin, nail-studded walkway, with a single handrail on the left-hand side. She started to gather the chains dragging behind her, intent on draping them over the rail, until Mihn called out again to stop her.

'You must carry your sins; you must bear them, or risk the boatman dragging you from the bridge.'

On cue a scow appeared from nothing, racing towards them on the fiery tumult below. Standing at the prow was a single figure swathed in red robes. Its face was hidden by a veil and a jewelled pouch hung from its waist: the Maram boatman, neither daemon nor G.o.d, but a being of power whose true name was hidden to mortals. The Maram boatman was one of the few beings in existence that bowed to no authority. To see behind its veil was to see horror itself, so the legends said, and to be dragged into the river by the pole with which it propelled the scow was to become fuel for the flames.

The figure raised its pole as it reached them and swiped at the handrail where the d.u.c.h.ess had been about to heap her chains. The pole caught only air, and the boatman flashed on underneath, a deep laughter echoing all around.

Reluctantly the soul started across the bridge, her chains heaped in her arms. Mihn watching as she laboured across, blood from her torn feet and arms dripping into the river below. He was horrified when he saw the trapped souls in the flames, leaping and fighting to lap up the falling droplets of blood. He looked away, at the pavilion at the other end of the bridge, only to see a s.h.i.+fting ma.s.s of darkness that was just as terrible.

This close Mihn could hear the screams ringing out from Ghenna's ivory gates, the hoa.r.s.e voices of the d.a.m.ned, the yammer of the Dark Place's foul denizens. Jagged metallic sounds echoed discordantly over the river of flame, heavy thumps like huge hammers and screeching like the sc.r.a.pe of knives. He suppressed a s.h.i.+ver and walked to the end of the bridge.

The ghostly soul of d.u.c.h.ess Lomin had reached halfway, wailing piteously as she walked, but he willed the sound into the background, just another cry of the d.a.m.ned. The bridge of nails was nothing to what awaited her in Ghenna, and the time for pity was gone. Once her soul was near the end of the bridge Mihn readied himself and checked for the boatman again. It was nowhere in sight, but that meant little.

He took a deep breath and leaped up onto the single handrail, and as he did so, the boatman appeared again, poling the scow along with deceptive lethargy. Mihn wasn't fooled; he had seen how quickly it could move, but he forced himself to ignore it. He looked down at the rail beneath his feet. It wasn't wide, but at almost the width of his foot it was thicker than the cable every Harlequin learned on.

'A shame I was only pa.s.sable at wire tumbling,' Mihn muttered to himself, 'but this will be easier - and it did teach me to be good at grabbing the rope before I fell.'

He took a pace forward, testing his bare feet on the wood. It bore him easily enough, so before he could think any more about the consequences he set off at a brisk trot, his arms held wide for balance. The boatman underneath carved a path through the fire as it brought the scow sharply around. Mihn kept his eyes on the rail under his feet and the dark shape of the Maram boatman in his peripheral vision. The scow darted forward, racing to intercept him before he reached the other side, and Mihn slowed his pace a fraction, measuring out his steps as the little boat reached the bridge and the boatman raised his pole like a lance to snag Mihn's legs.

At the last moment Mihn flipped his body forward, tucking his head down and throwing his legs over. Distantly he heard a screech as the pole caught only the wood underneath and then his feet were over, landing safely on the rail again as he dropped into a crouch. The boatman shot past underneath and jerked hard back around. Mihn stayed where he was, watching it come back on-path with unnatural speed to try the tilt again.

The end of the bridge was still a distance away.

'I'm not going to make it in time,' he murmured.

The boatman turned again, running alongside the far bank of the river behind him.

d.a.m.n, it is learning from its mistakes. He didn't wait to watch any more but broke into as fast a run as he dared. He guessed the boatman could cover the distance in a matter of seconds.

Something different then, he thought, picking a spot ahead. He scampered forward until, without warning, he dropped onto his belly and wrapped arms and legs around the rail. He felt the pole whip over his head and dip as fast as the boatman could manage, but it was quick enough only to skim Mihn's cropped head and then it was gone.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the scow turn again to avoid colliding with the bank, but now there was no time to waste. He jumped up and raced for the end of the bridge - until, in his haste Mihn misjudged the last footstep and slipped sideways, cras.h.i.+ng to the ground at the steps of the silver pavilion. He lay on his back a moment, panting, staring up at the darkly boiling sky above before a bright flash of light prompted him to scramble up again.

In the centre of the pavilion stood the soul of d.u.c.h.ess Lomin, still laden with the ma.s.sive chains of her sins, while beside her was the last of the Mercies, a tall, bearded man wearing a crown. His hammer was pitch-black, but no less ornate than those of the other Mercies Mihn had pa.s.sed. With a solemn flourish the man brought the hammer on the ground behind the soul, not apparently caring that its sins were still held tightly to its chest.

That done, he reached out his right hand, but instead of a silver-chased horn, a twisted spiral of carnelian appeared in the Mercy's hand and he sounded a deep, forbidding note. Mihn felt his breath catch as an answering note came from within the darkness beyond. He crouched at the foot of the stair to watch. This close to the pavilion he saw the roof and pillars were not pristine but scored and scratched: it was so close to Ghenna that even Death's authority was not untouchable.

At first nothing happened, then a great hot wind began to whip up all around. Mihn screwed his eyes as tight as he could against the dusty whirlwind. With mounting dread he felt the swirling darkness being driven up and away, and he opened his eyes in time to see for the first time the entrance to Ghenna.

No more than fifty yards away stood several enormous barred gates, each apparently carved from a single piece of ivory, and set into bare rock. The entrance to Ghenna was a humped peak in the centre of the crater, curved around the level plain that stood between the gates and the Mercy's pavilion. Each gate was hinged at the top and opened outwards, but they opened only for those who'd sold their soul to one of Ghenna's inhabitants. The bars were slightly curved, the smooth flow to the design suggesting an organic creation rather than the rigid regularity of a human construction.

The journals of Malich Cordein had named the three main gates for him: Jaishen Gate, the smallest, was on the left; the largest of them all, Gh.e.s.h.en, was in the centre, with Coroshen on the right. There were three other gates, each around fifty feet tall - less than half the size of Jaishen's - that Malich had called the borderland gates, opening to the parts of Ghenna where no master ruled and the daemons fought a never-ending war of attrition.

Mihn scanned each of the main gates in turn. He had no idea which would open to admit the soul. Malich himself had dealt with a prince of Coroshen, the domain that existed nearest to the surface, but d.u.c.h.ess Lomin was of the Certinse family and he guessed the Certinses would have sought help elsewhere - if ever there was a family to play two sides it was theirs.

'Mihn, you must move,' Mihn growled to himself as the soul walked out of the pavilion and stopped. He urged it on until at last the soul began to stumble towards the gates. 'They are creatures of darkness; they turn away from the light. You need to go closer to them.'

Against every natural instinct, against the terror that was welling up in his gut, Mihn followed his own advice and forced himself forward. The ground was hot now, enough to scorch his feet, and the air was growing foetid and sulphurous, but he ignored the increasing discomfort, intent only on the gates ahead. One began to open, and Mihn threw himself forward, just in time to grab the bottom rung of the Jaishen Gate before it lifted away. He swung his leg over the smooth ivory and hauled himself up until he was sitting on the lower bar.

As he looked around he noted to his relief there were no sounds of alarm, no hungry calls of delight at the sight of an und.a.m.ned soul. It looked like the old myths had once more come to his aid: the denizens of Ghenna did indeed turn their faces away from the light of the last pavilion. Mihn wasted no time as the gate continued to rise; he could see patrols of minion daemons, armed with harpoons or huge barbed fis.h.i.+ng lines - the sort of weapons that had damaged the pavilion, he now realised. The daemons were only at ground level; a skilled climber like Mihn might be able to make his way up, and avoid the guards and hunters entirely - or so he hoped.

A condemned soul would stumble around in the darkness beyond the pavilion until it was snagged by one of those patrolling daemons and hauled through one of the gates into Ghenna, to the domain of whichever master the daemon served. There, the d.a.m.ned soul would have to face horrors unnumbered and untold, until the end of time or the fires of torment forged them into a new shape.

There were gaps in the gates easily large enough for souls to be dragged through, big enough even for daemons to step out from Ghenna - but they would not, not whilst the last of the Mercies stood, forever watchful, in his pavilion.

As the Jaishen Gate lifted, Mihn found it easy to climb the ma.s.sive ivory bars. The biggest were easily twice as thick as his own body and bore his weight easily. When he reached the side he looked down and saw two ma.s.sive, squat beasts standing below the gate, one end of a long iron bar strapped to their backs that lifted the bottom edge of the gate as they walked forward. From the way their heads swayed he guessed the beasts were blind - that was how they were able to face the light of the Mercy's pavilion. They sniffed at the stinking air, snuffling their way towards the soul of d.u.c.h.ess Lomin, limping onwards to its eternal d.a.m.nation. The beasts lunged at her, displaying rows of jagged teeth in huge mouths, but they could move no more than a foot before being stopped by the pivot mechanism they were harnessed to.

Excited howls emanated from deep within Jaishen as the gate began to close and darkness started to return. A pair of spindly figures quested out, advancing on the soul with hands covering their eyes. When they found her they ran exploratory hands all over the soul's ghostly body before grasping it firmly and dragging it further within. Somewhere in the depths Mihn heard a heavy booming, a steady rhythm that prompted high-pitched squeals from the long dark tunnel below him. The horn sounded again and the beasts turned to pull the gate closed. It was only when the darkness had descended fully that Mihn heard the soul's wailing renew.

Mihn clung tight to his perch, too focused on the task in hand to feel pity now. He had been studying the paintings of Elshaim, a necromancer-turned-prophet - the same painter whose works Malich Cordein himself had spent several years poring over - and it looked like he was right: the gate's gigantic hinges did did protrude, and as the gate closed, so a wide gap began to appear in between the ivory frame and the rock. protrude, and as the gate closed, so a wide gap began to appear in between the ivory frame and the rock.

Mihn slipped quickly into the gap as it opened up before him. He felt a fleeting flush of relief as he reached towards the rock roof and found it jagged and uneven, providing plenty of hand-holds for him to pull himself inside. Moving carefully, he advanced inside the tunnel, and he was several yards from the gate when Jaishen ground shut once more. As it closed, a bone-numbing tremor rumbled through the rock.

Mihn braced himself on the unnatural honeycombed rock and rested for a moment, focusing all his strength into calming the fear now burning inside him. That great grinding closure hit him like the kick of a mule, driving the wind from his lungs, leaving him shaking and gasping for breath.

Mihn had made it to Ghenna, and here he was, all alone in the Dark Place. Not even the G.o.ds could help him now.

CHAPTER 3.