Avery gestured toward the thing that had caught his eye. “Do you see that?”

Janx and Hildra looked. There, behind the throne, a small archway led out from the room. Wind gusted through it, and Avery could see the stormy sky and a narrow stone walkway spanning nothingness. They were in the hollow of one of the pinnacles of stone, and beyond lay sky.

“Where does that walkway go to?” he asked Janx, closest to the opening. Avery’s glasses had become wet and it was hard to make out details too far away.

“I don’t ... some building, I think,” Janx said. “I see a small round thing standing on a tall spit of rock.”

“Like a temple?”

“Chapel, maybe.”

“Yes, that makes sense. The monarch’s private chapel to the R’loth, just like Lord Haemlys had in Maqarl. And where there’s a chapel to them there’s an altar.”

“Likely.”

‘That’s where they mean to sacrifice us,” Hildra said. “Must be.”

“Yes,” Avery said. “They’ll finish with Layanna, then haul us back there, to the monarch’s personal shrine, and sacrifice us to Davic on the altar, once he’s available, probably after force-feeding you two seafood. That’s where we make our move, on the walkway. It’s their only weak spot. We’re only going to get one chance. Let’s make it a good one.”

“How?”

“The walkway to the chapel is very narrow, isn’t it? Only one person, or Magon, will be able to walk across at a time ...” He spoke on, and Janx and Hildra listened. In the background, Layanna’s screams reached a high note, then tapered off. She slumped, utterly exhausted, with blood pooling all about her on the floor and a satisfied Davic standing over her.

“Now, my dear, you will be eaten. Your knowledge will have to die with you, I’m afraid. You’re obviously too dangerous to be allowed to linger.” His face was still gray, and Avery thought he was trembling slightly. To the Speaker, Davic said something in their language, then told Layanna: “I must cleanse my system. My worshippers will start the ritual, but don’t worry, I’ll be along soon.”

He left the room, and the Speaker turned to the monarch. Both had stood near the stairs throughout the proceedings, gazing at Layanna’s torment impassively. Now one of the Magons hefted her up and slung her over his hard shoulder. At some unspoken signal, the Magons guarding Avery, Hildra and Janx grabbed them and hauled them forward, toward the one who held Layanna. The monarch and Speaker spoke to the gathering for a few moments, then the Speaker turned and led the way toward the back of the chamber, to the archway howling with wind. The Magon bearing Layanna went after him, and Janx, Avery and then Hildra were shoved after this one. The two guards, then the monarch, and several other Magons, perhaps their version of nobles or high-ranking priests—official witness to the holy sacrifice—took up the rear.

Wind shrieked around Avery as he stepped foot on the narrow stone walkway. Gooseflesh prickled on his arms, and his stomach flipped as he beheld the great distance below. The walkway, really a bridge over the howling abyss, led to a small, ornate chapel located, as Janx had said, on the tip of a long, narrow pinnacle of stone whose base erupted straight out of the foamy, chaotic sea thousands of feet below. Arcs of lightning blasted as the crests pounded the pinnacle’s base, and even from here Avery could hear the muted sound of thunder. A screen of cloud stirred around him, but he could see enough through it to be sick.

Leaning to the side, peering around Janx, Avery could see Layanna carried across the Magon’s back.

“Layanna,” he whispered, and her eyes fluttered. “Can you bring your other-self over, even for a moment?”

In a weak voice, she said, “Need ... food ...”

“We’ll have to do it ourselves, then,” Hildra said.

“Now?” Janx said, but didn’t wait for Avery to give the go-head. The big man lunged into action. His large hands reached in front of him, grabbed Layanna by the arms and hauled her off the Magon’s shoulders, in the same motion practically hurling her at Avery, who went down under her weight on the narrow walkway.

Before the Magon that had been holding Layanna could even turn around, Janx had wrapped his hands around one edge of the rear carapace, and, every muscle in his thick arms straining, heaved. The Magon resisted for a breathless instant, and Avery feared its great weight would be too much for Janx, but then it listed to the side, and with a last grunt Janx heaved it all the way over. A thin, high warble escaped its mandibles, and then it plummeted through the mist toward the sea far, far below.

Meanwhile Hildra had engaged the Magon behind Avery, and was giving an excellent account of herself, slashing at its joints with her hook.

At the head of the column, the Speaker spun to Janx, pincers clacking. Janx dodged one snap, stepped inside of the creature’s reach and jabbed him as hard as he could in the eye stalks. The Speaker issued an abbreviated scream and jerked backward, collapsing just inside the chapel’s doorway.

Janx leaped over Avery and Layanna and helped Hildra with the Magon immediately behind them.

Avery, horribly aware of the abyss to either side, feeling the cold wind screaming around him, carefully maneuvered himself and Layanna to a sitting position, then helped her to her feet. She couldn’t walk on her own, but her eyes were blinking and she seemed conscious. The walkway was too narrow for two Magons to walk abreast, but it was just barely enough for Avery and Layanna. With him half supporting her, they stepped into the interior of the chapel.

The Speaker had rolled into the shadows, but at their arrival it lunged forward, snapping a claw at Avery’s head. Avery just managed to throw himself aside. Layanna fell to the floor near the altar, a hexagonal block of living, sponge-like material, eager to soak up blood. Avery wondered if its roots went all the way down through the column of rock to the sea.

The Speaker came at him again, snapping with one pincer, then another. Wide-eyed, Avery ducked and danced back, his legs shaky again. He was in no condition for this, if he ever had been.

The Speaker, he realized, was blinded, or at least its vision had been damaged when Janx tore at its eye-stalks. It lunged and snapped more or less where Avery was, but it was not as accurate as it should have been. Alchemical lamps on tall black iron poles lit the chamber in low light, their red-orange fluid slowly moving in their thick, frosted globes as if the fluid was alive, filling the chamber in lurid, bloody illumination, weak enough to further hamper the Speaker’s sight. Of course, the creature did not need to be too accurate to cut Avery in half in this small room with a big hunk of sponge taking up the middle of the floor space.

Doorways yawned at all four sides, and Avery realized that this wasn’t because multiple walkways led to the chapel but so visitors could appreciate the view, or perhaps simply be awed by the sight of the sea, of which the chapel’s gods were masters. Either way, they provided excellent avenues by which to dispatch the Speaker. Avery attempted to lure it close to one archway, then roll out of the way when it drew close and push it over. The attempt worked, but the creature was too heavy. He shoved against its carapace, and it didn’t budge.

It swung. Snapped.

Sweat flying, Avery moved aside.

He wished Janx would show himself, or Hildra, but both seemed to be occupied on the walkway.

As the Speaker advanced, Avery grabbed one of the iron poles the alchemical lamps perched on and flung it to the ground. The globe burst. Avery leapt back, holding his hands before his face. Fire erupted at the Speaker’s clawed feet, dousing its lower extremities in flame. It yelled out and stumbled back. The fire followed it, eating at its legs and working its way up slowly, hampered by the shell. Alchemical flame was hard to put out.

Screeching, the Speaker retreated beyond the pool of fire. Flame still ate at it, but it did not consume it quickly enough to suit Avery. The Speaker moved the other way around the altar, stepping over Layanna’s unmoving body, and advanced on Avery from the other direction.

Tense, ready to dodge one way or another, Avery gave ground, feeling the blistering heat against his rear.

The Speaker stalked toward him, pincers snapping even as fire ate into its legs. The pain only seemed to fuel its hate. Avery backed away as far as he could before the flames blocked further retreat. Desperate, he looked around—

A figure rose behind the Speaker.

Even as Avery prepared to leap on the altar (praying it wouldn’t grab at him; it looked awfully alive) and roll away from the Speaker’s claws, Layanna threw herself onto the Speaker’s back. Growling, half-mad, she clambered up its carapace, grabbed a fistful of dark green stalks in each hand, and pulled herself up to the top. Then, with a savage gleam in her eyes that would have normally chilled Avery but which now cheered him, she sank her teeth into the back of the Speaker’s soft-fleshed head and began to chew.

Already insensate with pain, the Speaker thrashed and beat at her, but she was at an awkward spot for it to reach, and she easily avoided its snaps as she ripped and chewed at its flesh. Blood cascaded down its front and back, and Avery knew she’d hit a major vein or artery. At last strength fled the Speaker, and it collapsed, still twitching, on the altar, a sacrifice gone wrong. Crouching over it, careful not to touch the altar herself, Layanna continued to eat the Magon’s soft tissue even as flames consumed its lower half and the shrine filled with the stink of roasting turtle.

Avery stared at the grisly scene for a moment, then moved to the front doorway just as Janx and Hildra burst in, covered in blood, shirts and pants ripped, eyes wild.

“Fuck this!” Hildra said.

“Doc, we gotta get!” Janx said. “I can’t hold ‘em off anymore, and they’re drawing back to gear up for a rush, I think. If you’re gonna do something to the altar …”

That had been Avery’s original plan: to reach the temple ahead of the Magons and make a stand there. Perhaps threaten the altar somehow, before Davic arrived, and get them to back off. Buy Avery and the others time to figure something out. Perhaps find a way to lower themselves toward the sea.

Then, as Janx’s eyes adjusted to the gloom and smoke, he saw Layanna and said, “What the—? Is she—oh. Good.”

“Yes,” Avery said. The plan might have changed.

Peering out the door, he could see that the bridge was empty for the moment, but there was great activity in the throne room. It was probably Davic, having recovered from his illness, or near enough, coming to finish Layanna off.

Avery turned to her, busy eating. He knew that an intelligent being with the sea in its blood was the meal that would best feed her other-dimensional self, and he hated to interrupt her, but there was nothing for it.

“Layanna, we have to go.”

She continued chewing for a moment, then glanced up, her mouth and whole lower face coated in dark blood. It dripped down her chin and throat. Gore caked her hands. The air blurred around her, hinting at other-dimensional facets ready to be used.

“Are you ready?” he said.