The ragged man tr-4 Page 5

  'It appears so,' he ventured, thinking madly. 'Please, help me up.'

  He allowed the apprentices to slip their hands under his arms and bear him upright, tottering a little for good measure before adopting the same hunched posture imposed on him for months. Acting was part of a Harlequin's training, and Venn shuffled over to the corpse as like the man who had ventured outside a few minutes earlier as possible. The strain might have been lifted from his face, but he'd quickly realised a more gradual return to his former strength would be safer. Jackdaw's magic had not dampened their ability to question.

  'What was he doing here?' one of the apprentices asked in a whisper.

  'What's happening? What has happened to me?' Jackdaw wailed in Venn's mind.

  'Seeking me,' Venn said finally. 'The Land has sickened and men seek a cure to its ills. This man has followed his faith and given his life to call us forth.'

  'Should we leave sooner than the Equinox Festival?' Paen asked.

  Venn bowed his head. 'We will leave within the week. My time of testing is over; I will soon be strong enough to travel again.'

  'Venn, I'm lying dead on the ground! ' 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 Gods, 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 competition for his title.'

  '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 damned 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, brushing the dirt from his bare soles and ensuring the tattoos put there by the witch of Llehden remained unbroken. Reassured, 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 shivered, and continued even more warily on his way.

  Death was not a God prone 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?

  He shivered 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 Gods 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 passed 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.

  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 multitudes 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 passed 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 pass.'

  'Must let you pass?' 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 pass uncalled and unharmed.'

  The Mercy was silent for a while as she stared at him. She betrayed no emotion but he assumed 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 pass.

  '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 passed 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 passing 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 passed, 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 subcons
cious 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 passage 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.