Like a holy repository but the opposite, I would think, my girl.
No, no, that makes it sound so dull. It’s a reservoir, like a place to hold a great deal of water, only this is a reservoir for grimoires — books of demonology and the teachings of the arcane. And the swell and rise of the mortal understanding of all things finds its climax here.
So it was a room of evil. And writings about evil.
Overly simplistic, as always, snackling, and that is why you are worth nothing but to be devoured whole. Who are you to discount Viscoth’s Soul Anatomy or Corthasasm’s Holy Dissipation or even Fragralot’s The Debauchery of the Nine Saints and the Siphoning of Secrets Closely Held?
Based only on the titles, it occurred to me that if I were to light a candle and set it against those shelves, that act alone might elevate me to Sainthood.
Ha! That’s adorable. Look down.
It was hard to look down when I was hanging upside down. Much easier to look up into the complicated silver-edged buttressing where the shelves ended in the distant shadows of a wealth of fish skeletons large enough to swallow a whole horse. Easier still to view the central pillar that rose up in the middle of the cylindrical room. It was white and thick with carved statues of men and women who were half human and half creature. They were layered one above the other and all of them reached upward with hands and mouths as if waiting for the heavens to feed them … or screaming in despair, perhaps. I understood the sentiment. Oddly, the pillar did not contain books.
I tried to crane my neck to look down and only caught a yawning chasm of ghastly books falling away as far as the eye could see.
Exactly. They drilled to the heart of the rock. And what did they find down there in the bones of the earth?
The world was built in the bones of the God. Maybe that’s what they found.
Or is it built on the sediment of hell?
Fear quickened within me — partly in horror at his proposition, but mostly because Suture had shambled to the edge of the drop and was holding me over it. Emptiness yawned beneath me. And possibly so did the sediment of hell or whatever we’d just been talking about.
Breathe, Victoriana.
Breathe, my girl. Easy, steady breaths. Fear is not your friend today.
Friend or no, he was bent on having me.
Not before I do. No fear for you, little sweet. You are mine to devour.
Well, at least I was popular among the things that wanted to kill, rend, and tear.
Sooo popular.
The cliff edge was ringed by little walkways that were a touch more narrow than I’d like, and each one ended at an island. I turned my head to the side and realized the walkways were more like arms and the arms fit into the slots between the shelves. The ones that looped and wrapped every which way. So they accessed the shelves in some way, then. That’s nice. Maybe I’d get to see them operate before I dropped to my death.
The islands were ringed with railings, contained their own stacks of books — of course — and at the center, each one bore a small altar woven of bone. On each altar were candles. Unlit. But candles all the same. The same magic that preserved this place must have preserved them, too, or vermin would have eaten them centuries ago. There were dozens on each altar.
“When you’re all on an island, I can throw the switch and it will begin,” Sir Sorken called out, pointing at a complicated mechanism attached to his island on the far end of the semicircle.
I tried to trace the way the mechanism reached to each platform but I found it too hard to follow from where I hung. Sir Sorken leaned casually beside the switch — if that was what it was — and beside that was a handle attached to a gear, carved to look like leaping fish within delicate sprays of water rather than a practical machine. Of course.
“I think it’s important to balance out the weight,” Sir Sorken announced. “Just a theory, but possibly an important one when we dangle over a drop, hmm? Set the Poisoned Saint on his own platform, Sir Hefertus. I left room down at the end for him and the Beggar, but you’re the heaviest and I need you in the middle.”
Hefertus looked torn, glancing from the island platform on which he was meant to place Adalbrand to the island he was meant to occupy. They were very far apart. If he agreed, Adalbrand would be completely vulnerable.
As things stood now, the islands were as follows from Sir Sorken on one end to an empty island on the other: one, Sir Sorken on the far right; two, the platform he was indicating was for Hefertus; three, a platform holding the Majester that Sir Coriand was hurrying to join; four, a platform shared by Sir Owalan and the High Saint; five, the one meant for Adalbrand; and six, the empty platform — for me, perhaps?
“What about the dog?” Hefertus protested, hesitating.
“The dog will stay with me,” Sir Sorken boomed out as if he were pardoning the canine of his sins.
Ha. He wishes he had that kind of power. And that’s the thing with you paladins. You are so convinced of your worthiness that your arrogance trips you up, and oh, but it’s a delight to watch. Pure drama! Pure pleasure. Please don’t die, snackling. I’d hate to miss all of this.
Because of course I was only living to entertain him.
Cleft brought the dog over to Sir Sorken as Hefertus gently laid Adalbrand on his platform. At least he was kind to his friend, even if he was an idiot for not siding with me on this.
