CHAPTER ELEVEN - NYAYA

"What the devil was that?" Nyaya shouted, staring fruitlessly into dust cloud created by the sudden demolition. The darkness outside didn't help.

"I've no idea," Mnemon Dhana admitted. "Do you think that he's dead?" he added hopefully and then his face fell. "I still seem to be bound, so I assume not."

"Help me get him out of there," she ordered, moving forward cautiously. For all she could tell right now the floor might have given way or be about to.

The ghost shook his head, leaning upon the spread-the-water knife he was using as a crutch. "I don't have to take orders from you, peasent. And if he's not dead now, I hold out hopes for the near future."

"If he -" Nyaya coughed on the dust. "If he dies then what do you think will happen to us?"

"What more can they do? I'm dead, remember?"

"And we're your best chance of finding out who's responsible!" she stumbled on a slab of rock and caught herself on her hands and knees. That might be a safer way to do this, Nyaya realised and then winced as one hand encountered glass and she felt the sting of shallow cuts on her knuckles.

The ghost chuckled. "I've more hopes for my kin sending someone to obtain revenge," he told her.

Cursing the useless dynast, Nyaya scrambled forwards and her hand came down on flesh, not stone or glass. "Ghora."

"Ugh," the child-like voice agreed. "Nyaya?" He coughed twice and then she felt him move. "Ow. Son-of-a-strix, that hurts. What's happened?"

"I was about to ask you that."

"Help me up," the little man mumbled and she was easily able to haul his light frame off the floor, rising up to her own knees. "Dhana!" he shouted out. "Don't let anyone in here!"

The ghost cursed and she heard him moving away - the direction of the door to the chamber.

"I think I saw an arrow," Ghora told her, moving back and away from the edge.

"It'd be quite a shot to reach this high," Nyaya protested. "Unless maybe it was from another building."

"I think we're dealing with quite an archer. We're going to need another way out of here."

Nyaya waved her free hand to clear away the dust that was beginning to settle. "The only ways out of here are the door and -" she pointed back at where there had been a wall and a ceiling at one point.

"I know," agreed Ghora.

There was a clash of metal on metal from Dhana's position. The two exchanged looks.

"Well we are missing a ceiling," Nyaya suggested, pointing upwards. "If I can give you a boost, maybe we can get to the stairs on the next floor up."

"It means leaving Dhana behind," Ghora noted.

"He was more than willing to do the same to you."

"...I suppose we've asked most of the important questions," he conceded. "As you say then."

Nyaya looked up and picked a suitable place under what was now the edge of the floor above, moving under it and threw her sword up before cupping her hands into a stirrup. "Come on."

Placing one foot in her hands, Ghora stretched as she lifted, his hands just grasping the edge. He scrabbled for a moment, legs kicking, and then pulled himself over and onto the floor above.

"Give me a hand!" Nyaya called but the little sorcerer jumped aside and out of her view.

"You little sh-"

A black blur that might have been an arrow crashed into the floor above, smashing the section where Ghora had stood into fist-sized chunks. Nyaya threw her hands across her face as the stones rained down.

"Quickly," he called down, head re-appearing on the edge. One of his pale hands was braced against the edge but the other reached down to her.

Nyaya jumped up, seized his hand in hers and felt him strain to support her weight. They both cried out and then she stretched, managing to get her other hand onto the edge and secure herself. "I've got it."

Ghora let go of her hand, which joined the other gripping the edge, and caught the shoulders of her armour. Panting with effort, Nyaya pulled herself up and felt the grating of scales against the rough edge. A time or two she thought she'd gotten caught but desperate yanking by Ghora managed to bring her up to the point that her gut was over the edge, putting her centre of gravity onto their side.

Below there was a howl of pain that Nyaya thought might be Dhana's voice. She kicked ferociously and got her feet up.

It was tempting to take a moment to breathe, but there was no time and Ghora was running to the door of this chamber. Recovering her sword, she followed him. This is worse than guarding caravens on the trail to Gem, she concluded.

To her bemusement, the little sorcerer paid no attention to the stairs down and instead raced for those leading higher in the building.

"Where are you going?" she hissed, following him.

"It's probably Shatterer of Ways and his troops are probably good enough to remember to block the stairs as well as break into the room we were using. Our best bet for getting out of here is off the top."

"Won't that just make us more of a target for him?" Nyaya asked.

Ghora grinned, a trickle of blood reddening the left side of his face. Together with the still glowing black brand upon his forehead, it restored something of the mask he had affected when she last saw him. "Not with what I have in mind," he promised.

"Are you sure that you're in shape to cast a spell? You did get hit on the head."

He looked back, stumbled slightly on a step and then recovered himself. "I'd better be, hadn't I?"

"That is not - huff - very comforting." Her knee was protesting the pace but she forced herself to ignore it. Fatigue and pain had to come second to survival.

There was another crash from below and she felt the building quiver. "What was that?"

"I get the distinct suspicion that Shatterer of Ways has given up on hitting me specifically with his bow and is just going to bring down the top of the building," panted Ghora.

"Can't you do anything?"

"Yes! It's called running!"

Another quiver, and a few moments later a third went through the building. They were getting worse, but up ahead the ceiling of the stairwell was getting closer.

"Close enough?" asked Nyaya between breaths.

Ghora shook his head slightly and kept scrambling, now using one hand on the rail to haul himself up. "I think i... ow, I think I'll need a good night's sleep myself."

"Not - right - now." With a surge of effort, Nyaya moved up and caught him up bridal fashion. "How high do we - huff - have to get? The roof?"

"There or the floor below."

The stairs ended at a closed door that remained closed when Nyaya gave it a kick. The building shook then. No mere shiver.

"Well we'd better be high enough," she told him. "We're out of time."

Ghora nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

With a crash the wall of the stairwell blew in well below them.

Nyaya took her sword and started hacking at the door where she thought the lock might be, ignoring Ghora's chanting and the dark chains shattering around him as his essence flooded out around them. Either his spell would work or it wouldn't.

All that she could focus upon was the door.

The wooden door cracked and she threw her shoulder against it, hoping that it would be enough. It gave way - at least a little - and she backed up, hacking again to extend the crack.

There was a roar from below - something cataclysmic.

"I think that this is it!"

Ghora nodded and then brought the spell to it's climax. There was a wild cry from above, like a vast bird, and the floor lurched beneath them. Nyaya fell to her hands and knees, dropping her sword and having to scramble to catch it before it slid away.

Clinging to the stair rail, the sorcerer poked his head over the edge and looked down. "Oh. Well... good news, bad news."

"Is this really the time?"

"Okay... how are you doing at opening the door?"

Nyaya tried to get up and felt the floor lurch again. "What's going on?"

"The spell worked and the spirit I called up is carrying away the whole top of the building with us in it." He looked down again. "The bad news is that this place wasn't built to hold together without the floors below it and bits keep falling off. So we might want to get up to the top before this floor breaks loose."

"Can you at least hold it steady?" she asked, bracing herself with a hand on the doorframe to swing at the door again."

"Not really."

"Great." Nyaya smashed the sword into it again.

Letting go of the rail, Ghora darted across, careless of her backswing and produced a scalpel of black magic, which he jammed into the wood of the door.

"Are you crazy?"

He ignored her and dug into the door in a couple of places with it before crouching down. "Hit it again!"

Nyaya stared down at him for a moment and then drove the blade against the lock again. The wood snapped, breaking in a line from her own crack down through the spots where Ghora had stabbed it, and the door swung open. The two stumbled through into a large chamber that took up most of the floor with broken windows of stained glass looking in all directions. A separate stair wrought of iron led up to a gallery and then another spiral stair led up through the roof.

Nyaya caught hold of Ghora by the shoulder and half-dragged him towards the stair. The gallery above the stair was the same iron and she thought that it might all be one piece or at least bolted together to the poiint that it was. "Can you get the spirit to hold onto the gallery?" she shouted.

He looked up. "I might have to."

The frame holding the windows around the chamber snapped.

Nyaya flung herself onto bottom of the stairs, pushing Ghora up ahead of her. "Do it, do it, do it!"

The floor broke away below her and her feet slipped loose leaving her dangling by both hands from the lowest steps, legs swinging wildly a thousand feet above the City of Dead Flowers.

Then the gallery, stairs included, began to tumble lightly and Nyaya's stomach lurched. "Oh craaaaa-"

With a lurch, massive claws seized hold of the gallery and she got an impression of vast, house-sized wings flapping above.

Ghora clung to the stairs above her and looked down. "Hang on! I'll try to get it to shift it around to bring you up."

"Don't get too bloody creative!"

Ghora shouted up to the spirit - what else could it be? - and it slowly began to turn the gallery over in its claws until the back of the stairs came up under Nyaya and she slumped onto it.

"Ghora?"

"Yes?"

"Is there any reason I can't sleep now?"

He grinned broadly. "Go ahead, I may join you."

She gave him an odd look.

"Not like that, but it has been a long couple of days."

"Don't you need to... I don't know, keep the spell going?"

"Not as long as I tell it where to go."