All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [242]
He didn’t want to look down, but he had to see where he set his feet.
Far below, orange and red liquid boiled and churned and popped. Drifting by were tiny dots of smoldering solid stone crust.
They passed the low midpoint of the bridge and started climbing back up. Eliot spied the top of the plateau again. There were people there—not the crazy fighting ones, but the working ones.
The damned formed a line, shuffled along with rocks, dragging, rolling, and shoving them along until they got to the edge . . . where they pushed the stones into the river.
Then they turned back, presumably to get another rock.
And much to his relief, not one of them gave Eliot or the others a second glance; in fact, they seemed to be going out of their way not to look at them.
Some wore rags, but most wore nothing. Their nude bodies were gaunt and reddened from the heat. They were bruised and scraped, and they all had burns—mostly on their hands and bare feet, but a few of them were completely covered in burn scars.
It reminded Eliot of Perry Millhouse, whom he and Fiona had killed in their second heroic trial. Perry Millhouse, who Eliot knew had actually been the Titan Prometheus, long fallen from power.
That’s where they’d met Amanda. Perry had kidnapped her and used her as bait.
He glanced back at Amanda. Her hair was plastered to her forehead and her cheeks flushed.
Funny, you’d think that someone who’d been the prisoner of a homicidal maniac whose preferred method of killing enemies was burning them alive would look a little less fascinated with fire.
They trod up the rest of bridge and stepped onto the plateau. From here, two bridges led to other mesa tops—both, more or less, getting them closer to the plains of the Blasted Lands.
“Which way?” Fiona asked.
Eliot stood on his tiptoes for a better look, which was when he saw the top of the adjacent plateau.
A thousand people crowded its edge—pushing and shoving to get onto the suspension bridge—running across, screaming and snarling . . . straight toward them.
61. An intriguing Chimera Heresy penned by Sildas Pious in the thirteen century pertains to Jörmungandr (aka the World Serpent). In Norse mythology, the giant snake is prophesied to emerge from the ocean, poison the sky, and then battle Thor (the god and the monster slay each other). This event supposedly occurs at end of the world, Ragnarök. In the Pious’s legend, however, valkyries with flaming swords and Christian angels fight the beast, chain it, and bury it under the earth. One of the chain links was forged into the Gates of Perdition. Centuries later, when Jesus Christ is said to have arisen and opened the gates of Hell, Pious explains these were the Dolorous Gates, not the Gates of Perdition. He claims that on the day the Gates of Perdition are destroyed, the Beast will rise, and it will signal both Ragnarök and the Christian Judgment Day, when the dead will be released from Hell. Gods of the First and Twenty-first Century, Volume 5, Core Myths (Part 2). Zypheron Press Ltd., Eighth Edition.
71
THE HEROIC STAND OF AMANDA LANE
Eliot didn’t understand why there were so many people—all angry at him.
What had he done?
Thousands crowded along the edge of the distant plateau. They raised fists, threw rocks, and hurled insults in a dozen languages.
Was it because he was alive? Or because he’d willingly entered Hell, and they’d all probably wanted out? Or maybe like Robert said: they were crazy.
Eliot faced the bridge connecting the two plateaus and turned up the gain on Lady Dawn to the halfway point.
Mr. Welmann’s eyes widened, and he reached to stop him.
Eliot couldn’t waste time talking. Mr. Welmann didn’t know what he was capable of. In fact, it’d be simple to stop them. If anything, that was the scary thing: how easy it’d be . . . and how much Eliot had enjoyed the destruction before in Costa Esmeralda.
He blasted out a power chord.
The other bridge wobbled and the slack stretched taut from the onslaught of sound. The damned on the bridge held up their hands to protect