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.
She was breathing too hard to answer. After she caught her breath, she said, “I can’t ... can’t fight through them all ... not with Davic ...”
“You don’t need to.”
He moved to the opposite archway and stared down at the sea. To the right stretched mountain walls and precipices, but to the left was the vast, roiling expanse of the ocean. The column of rock descended straight to the water, and its surface was rough.
“Is there any way you could climb down, carrying us?”
Dripping, Layanna moved beside him and glanced down. “No. I only fed a little. I’ll only be able to bring over my other-self for a few moments. It would take minutes of climbing even at my fastest to get to the bottom of this tower.”
A strange roar issued from the throne room, almost like the song of a whale, and lights flashed onto the bridge: Davic.
“I have an idea.”
The voice was Janx’s. He stared down from the archway facing the sea, between the one they stood at and the one leading to the walkway. They joined him and followed his finger, stabbing down toward the base of the tower.
“It’s deep here,” he said. “At the others it’s too shallow, we’d be dashed to hell and gone. But here, if you can push us out enough, darlin’ ...”
“Too shallow for what?” Avery said, then realized it. “Oh no. Tell me you’re not thinking—”
Janx grinned. “We’re gonna jump.”
“The impact’d kill us,” Hildra said. “Even I know that much.”
“Might kill us. Mebbe we’ll get lucky.”
Layanna rubbed her forehead. “Actually, there is a way.”
Another roar. Something thundered on the other side of the walkway. An odd reek met Avery’s nose, of salt and ozone and a hint of copper.
“If we’re going to do this, let’s hurry,” he said.
Layanna’s other-self erupted, filling the small chamber with weird lights, thrusting pseudopods, and grasping tendrils. She hefted Janx, Hildra and Avery up with her tentacles and prepared to throw herself into the abyss.
“The lamps!” Avery said, suddenly thinking of something. “Grab the lamps!”
Not bothering to ask why, she grabbed up two alchemical lamps, then coiled her body and shoved herself far out over the drop, far from the temple. Avery turned to see a bulky shape appear, aglow with amber and violet light, then the plummet began.
He threw back his head and screamed. The wind rushed in his ears, and he thought his heart would rip from his chest it beat so hard. He met Janx’s eyes, and the big man was screaming, too. There was exhilaration in his face, though, and Avery realized he felt it also. A deep joy of living ran through him, and adrenaline fired his every nerve and synapse.
