Sorken’s laugh is punctuated by wracking coughs again. When he runs out, he wheezes in a gasp and then he speaks very clearly.
“Cleft. Kill him.”
My gaze is still locked on the golem. And I do not know if there is a person in that rock. Even after everything, I still don’t know. I do not know if he aches as we do, fears as we do, if he realizes how he is being used, or if he is only a mindless tool, but I know that if he redoubles his efforts, I will die here. And he has been ordered to do just that.
He lifts his fist and I draw in a breath, ready to try to leap and run again.
And then — slowly — he lowers his fist and stops.
“Deny your master and you will die,” Sorken says in a low voice. “You know this.”
But still, the fist does not move.
Cleft turns his head slightly, looking me full in the face, and I feel a rush of cold run over me as I realize what is happening. He has made a decision. He has chosen mercy.
It almost steals my breath away. Not a tool then. Not a tool.
My lips part and I begin to reach out a hand to him.
And then Sorken curses and the light vanishes from Cleft’s eyes. Suddenly. A candle snuffed out.
For a heartbeat, I can’t breathe.
I’m shocked by how watching that feels just like watching Owalan fall dead to the floor. A person. He was a person all along. I’m so stunned by it that it takes a second cracking sound for me to remember that the monastery is coming down around us.
My eyes linger on Cleft for a moment longer and then I’m moving, running to Sir Sorken, and sweeping him up into my arms. He screams — broken back — and I want to scream with him as the pain in my ribs where his knife scored me and the dog bite in my neck flare with the extra pressure of Sorken’s weight. It will have to wait. All pain will have to wait. I can heal him but I will not remain conscious if I try it, and who knows what this madman will do if I am at his mercy. Likely he’ll let us both be swallowed by this place.
I run, stumbling, my every muscle screaming. Sorken is old, but he is heavy — my weight plus another half if I’m any judge. And I am exhausted, blood flowing from my side.
Chunks of ceiling fall around us and the cracks of the floor are widening. Who knows how far down this place goes. If it’s anything like the rooms the trials were conducted in, then it will be a very long drop.
As I pass them, two of the gears in the floor pull apart. I have to leap over their teeth — well, more like barely stumble over them. My heavy burden is dragging me, pulling my strength, sapping my energy.
In my arms, Sorken lets loose a steady stream of curses, growing more vile the farther we go. I ignore him as I should have all along.
Ahead, Victoriana has reached the door. She looks over her shoulder at me. She is a black silhouette against a light more bright than I’ve seen in days. It blinds me.
“Go!” I call.
She hesitates, as if she will come back for me.
“Do not wait for me,” I order her, but even I can hear the strain in my voice. My strength is failing.
Her eyes widen, looking at something behind me. Likely, she’s watching the entire staircase collapse. I stumble two more steps, yelling, “For the love of the God, go, Victoriana!”
She leaps through the door with her dog, tumbles out of sight, and I breathe out a sigh of relief.
I can’t help myself; I look over my shoulder.
Where the stairway had been there is a yawning pit. Where the ceiling above it had been, most has fallen through, the ruins that were once above now falling to below. The Saints that ring the room are leaning forward — and once more they have changed. They no longer look like us. Their eyes are haunted. Something that looks like vines ripples through their skin and flesh, entangling them. They have too many mouths. Too many hands. Too many eyes.
I tear my gaze away as the first one tumbles, chunks of it breaking away. I have the most terrible feeling that the hands and feet depicted in stone are trying to claw out and stop its fall.
Looking back was a terrible mistake. The floor in front of me cracks and I trip, falling to my knees, dropping Sorken.
He screams and the crack parts so quickly that his lower body falls with it. His hands cling to the edge of the floor. Beneath him, the gears that turned the floor and the huge axle they theorized about are exposed. He dangles over them, eyes wild. And I do not see the murderer. I see only the man. I reach for his hand.
His eyes meet mine, harden, and deliberately, he lets go.
