After this section the rooms grew larger. They contained tables and books, maps and lockboxes. This was where the business of the order was carried out.

“I don’t know if we’re goin’ the right way, Doc,” Janx said. “Seems like we’re deeper in this place than ever—”

He stopped. He had just opened a door that seemed to be a dressing room of sorts, with a mirror over a counter littered with razors and cream, even tubes of make-up, and several hanging bulbs. Sitting at the counter—and whipping her head toward the intruders—was Prime Minister Gwendolyn Denaris.

Chapter 8

Two guards flanked her, wearing robes and carrying heavy iron tridents on long poles. One had been bending over her, applying make-up, but he straightened and barked, “Who the hell are you?”

Avery’s gaze went to Denaris, wondering what in the world she could be doing here, half expecting that she would give the order to seize them. Had she been working with the Collossum the whole time? It seemed inconceivable, but then again little would surprise him at this point. Then he saw the bruise on her cheek (part of the reason for the make-up) and the haunted look in her eyes. These guards weren’t at her command; they were keeping her prisoner. And there could only be one reason for that.

“We’ve come to take her,” Avery said.

“Take her?” a guard echoed, furrowing his brow. Both had their weapons trained on the visitors, ready to jab.

“She’s to go to the ceremony, isn’t she?” Avery said. “To be given the Sacrament?”

“But only when the bell rings. And we’re to bring her.”

“Orders have changed. Didn’t you hear the bell? That’s why the singing stopped.”

The guard frowned. “We were wondering—”

“Well, then, hand her over, that’s a lad.”

The man traded a look with his fellow, then lowered his trident, as did the other. “Alright, then, but where’s your token?” he said.

“Token?”

“If you are about his business you’ll have—”

Denaris grabbed one guard’s trident, encumbering him. Janx leapt forward and smashed a fist across the other’s jaw, and while he flew backward, unconscious, Janx grabbed the first one by the neck and squeezed. There came a terrible crunch of bone and cartilage and the man thrashed horribly, then went limp, urine running down his leg. Janx liberated his trident and tossed him aside.

Avery helped Denaris up. “What—how—?”

“Later,” she said, shakily. “Let’s just get out of here.”

They reversed directions, then debated about which route led to the outer wall. Denaris guided, saying, “I had a sack over my head part of the time—I don’t know why; my end would’ve been the same anyway—but they took it off once I got inside and they’ve moved me around a bit since. I’ve got a feel for the place.”

“Why are they giving you the Sacrament?” Avery asked as they ran. “You haven’t ... ?”

“Converted? No! But they can’t sacrifice me without making me infected first, and why waste a chance for the bastard to show off his power? The Collossum, I mean. The Prime Minister taking the Sacrament, willingly or not—”

“Sacrifice you?” Janx said.

They took a door, heard noise down it, backtracked and took another.

“They’re planning to bring me to Haled’s Square tonight, give me to Admiral Haggarty. They’ll be a crowd, television crews, everyone in the country will see it. Haggarty will sacrifice me to the Collossum in front of everyone, publicly swearing allegiance to the Collossumist faith and turning the country over to them. Very symbolic, the end of democracy, the beginning of the rule of the gods. Of course, Haggarty plans to rule it under them, and with their power behind him he’ll be unstoppable. He’ll have to accept the Sacrament, of course, but they have ways of easing the passage of people they really want to survive.”

“I can hardly believe it,” Avery said.

“So that’s what the ceremony is,” Janx said. “But why haven’t we heard about this? It should be all over.”

“Only the faithful know,” Denaris said. “The general populace only know it’s some big event that will stop the coming of the—”

The half-rotted floor erupted before them, and a mass of tentacles struggled to drag them under. Avery reeled back, a yelp on his lips. A pink limb curled around his leg. Filthy water boiled right before him. Beside him the Prime Minister screamed, but no louder than Avery.

The tentacle pulled him toward the water ... pulled ...

The great squirming mass of the giant squid grew larger in his vision, glistening and foul, and as its bulk rotated Avery saw its terrible beak snapping, snapping ...

It looked like it could crush a man’s skull in one chomp.

Janx thrust with his trident, pinning the limb against the wall, ichor leaking from the holes. The tendril released Avery. The doctor stumbled back. More tentacles shot out. He grabbed Denaris out of one’s path, while Janx stabbed with the trident again, skewering the head portion of the beast—once, then again. Ichor stained the triple blades, but the cross-piece of the weapon prevented any of them from stabbing deep, and Janx ripped it free with a curse.

“Run!” Avery said, and they needed no encouragement. All three bolted the other way.

Glancing over his shoulder, Avery saw the squid submerge. Could it track them? Hear them? Sense their vibrations through the water? Perhaps through the posts that held the city up?

They reached an intersection of halls, and Janx said, “I think this way—”

The floor exploded in the middle of the intersection, blocking off the far route, and more limbs surged toward them, curling and grasping. Avery swatted one away, and Denaris stomped on one that snaked against the floor, going for her ankle. Janx launched himself on the head and stabbed repeatedly. The squid screamed and submerged. Janx threw himself off just in time.

Sweating and bleeding anew from the cut on his arm, the big man said, “Don’t think ... I can ... kill it ... Doc. Not with ... this thing.” He indicated his weapon.

“Maybe that won’t be necessary,” Avery said. “This way.”

He led them down a hall, turned right at the next intersection—just as the boards buckled in its center—and plunged through a doorway, then another, making his way through a series of rooms in what he hoped was the right direction. At one point he passed a man asleep in a hammock, then heard screaming moments later and knew that the squid still pursued them.

At last they burst out into the laboratory chamber. Avery had feared that the people who had found Gaescruhd’s body would have pushed through by now, but they’d gone another way, or perhaps they were still making their way in this direction. Avery could still hear them, shouting and swearing in the distance—and getting nearer. They were combing the halls, then, room by room ... and, yes, he could hear it, coming nearer.

Avery turned to the doorway, thinking to close it, then thought better of it. Janx was tearing at the cross-piece of his weapon, using his great strength to attempt to bend the iron so that it broke the side-points off.

“Take his knife,” Avery told Denaris, and while the whaler was occupied she plucked it from his sheath; Janx didn’t blink.

“To the body chambers, Gwen,” Avery said, indicating. “You take that one, I’ll take this one. Follow my lead.”

They leapt to the task, and not a moment too soon. The squid broke through the floor and shot its limbs out with blinding speed, using some of them to haul itself up halfway into the chamber, filling it with the creature’s awful reek. It must have been swimming in the sewers for weeks, even months, and was encrusted with foul growths and oozing sores. Avery wondered if the pollution had driven it mad; its eyes were bloodshot and wild. He desperately hoped not. Everything depended on it still retaining some reason.

As he and Denaris jumped toward opposite containers, each coffin-like construct holding a body that had had its skull sawn open, Janx climbed atop a table and continued bending and bashing his trident.