Page 24 of Come Tumbling Down

“Nothing, unless they decide we’ve offended the Drowned Gods, which virtually never happens.”

Kade made a wordless snarling sound. Jack ignored him.

“The Drowned Gods are amiable monsters,” she said. “They sleep, and dream of worlds where fire is a forgotten impossibility, and occasionally they wake long enough to eat a few dozen villagers before going back to bed.”

“Wait,” said Christopher. “Are you saying they might feed us to their gods?” The question of whether the Drowned Gods might have eaten Cora was left mercifully unvoiced.

“Don’t be silly,” said Jack. “We haven’t earned the honor.” She pulled on the reins, bringing Pony and Bones to a halt, and called to the nearest acolyte, “Jack Wolcott, apprentice to Dr. Michel Bleak, and friends, here to see the High Priest about a little problem we’re having. Will you please permit us to enter?”

The acolyte made a garbled hissing sound. Jack rolled her eyes.

“That may be so, but we don’t have time for that, and your High Priest won’t be pleased if you keep us here long enough to endanger my chances. There’s a challenge beginning, and the entire protectorate is at stake. Your High Priest enjoys cheese, vodka, and fresh bread, none of which you’re very good at making here. If no one buys your chocolate biscuits, how will he be able to purchase his necessary luxuries?”

The acolyte repeated the terrible hissing and stepped aside. The other acolytes followed suit. Jack nodded, pleased.

“I thought that might be your decision. Have a lovely evening.” She flicked the reins, urging the horses toward the terrible maw of the black cathedral.

Sumi cocked her head. “Why is the village of scary fish-people where you get your chocolate biscuits?”

“It has something to do with shipwrecks and the tides, and to be quite honest, I don’t know. Every time I ask Dr. Bleak, he tells me it’s impossible to dissect the sea and orders me to leave it alone.” Jack’s face fell. “I suppose I’ll have to learn, if we can’t resurrect him. I suppose it’ll fall on me to be the one who knows.”

“A little knowledge never hurt anybody,” said Sumi.

“Perhaps not. But a great deal of knowledge can do a great deal of harm, and I’m long past the point of having only a little knowledge.”

Conversation died then, as the black cathedral swallowed them all alive. It didn’t move in any way in the course of accomplishing this feat; it simply lay in wait, the perfect predator, and let them escort themselves through its jaws.

The stone closed in around them, moist and jagged and dripping, drops of seawater falling from the vaulted ceiling to land on their arms and in their hair. Dots of bioluminescence lit the walls and spangled the dangling stalactites, which hung like so many vast, sharpened teeth. Jack drove blithely on.

“Who built this place?” asked Christopher.

“That’s a theological question,” said Jack. “Science says no one built it: erosion and time did the bulk of the work, and then a few faithful stonemasons came in and cleaned up the rough edges to make it suitable for their liturgical needs. Faith says the Drowned Gods are ageless and eternal, and could very easily have shaped the course of erosion while in this area, guaranteeing their faithful a place to worship.”

“What do you think?” asked Sumi.

“I think it’s not my place to comment on someone else’s religion. Science is my god. Lightning is my miracle, and storm clouds are my catechism. I don’t need anything else to give purpose to my days. I find my purpose in the scalpel’s shine, and the knowledge that I’m doing exactly what I was put in this world to do.”

Sumi gave Jack an approving look. “You’re like unnerving fudge with a chewy creepy center. School is a lot more boring without you there.”

“Perhaps, but I wager there have been fewer murders.” They had reached a rickety wooden suspension bridge, stretched across a canyon wide enough to almost qualify as an abyss. Jack pulled the horses to a stop again. This time, she tied off the reins before sliding out of the wagon and announcing, “We walk from here. Follow me, and try not to plummet to your deaths.”

“Ha, ha,” said Christopher flatly. When Jack didn’t laugh, he frowned. “That was a joke, right?”

“I’m not a comedian,” said Jack.

“We should at least go one at a time,” said Christopher. “That doesn’t look entirely stable.”

“We can’t.” Jack gave him one of those unnervingly anxious looks, the ones that seemed to be ticking off her remaining capacity to cope. “Splitting up here, this close to the Drowned Gods … when they feed, they feed on the unprotected. We go together, or we’re likely to disappear alone.”

“That’s fun,” said Sumi.

“I’m well aware of the situation, thank you,” said Jack, and stepped out onto the bridge.

It was narrow enough to sway with every step she took, and while there were rails, of a sort, they were made of braided rope, and didn’t seem nearly sturdy enough to keep her from losing her balance and falling to the water below. The water far below: the drop from the bridge to the surface looked to be around eighty feet, and there were … things … writhing in those depths, things that would have looked like the arms of an octopus, if not for the fact that each of them was easily as big around as Cora’s torso.

“This is terrible,” said Sumi brightly. “I mean, we knew it was going to be terrible when we followed a mad scientist and her dead girlfriend to a horrifying murder world, but this is bonus terrible. This is the awful sprinkles on the sundae of doom.” She skipped out onto the bridge, not seeming to care when it twisted and swayed under her feet. Christopher followed, his bone flute already in his hands, fingers moving through silent arpeggios to calm his nerves.

Kade was the last to leave solid ground for the swaying causeway. As bad as the bridge had looked from solid ground, it was worse. It shifted. It shook. The boards were damp from the ocean air, and his feet slipped and slid with every step, making him cling even harder to the ropes. If he missed a step, he’d fall, and if he fell—