surfaces — was made of bone.
Human bone. The small bones made up the objects, while the furniture and walls were made of tens of thousands of femurs and scapulas and skulls.
Her hand trembling, Ishbel lifted one of the objects, the pedestal belonging to a table lamp, and looked carefully at it. Each of the bones in its construction had writing inscribed into it.
I was once Ursula, mother of Claudat, wife of Imeldam. Now I belong to the One.
I was once Killony, daughter of Houral. Now I belong to the One.
I was once Mersiny, wife of Insharah, mother of Eleany, Faran and Jaillon. Now I belong to the One.
“Maxel,” Ishbel whispered, and dropped the object.
It shattered into dusty fragments at her feet.
“We need to get out of here,” Maximilian said, and, taking Ishbel’s hand once more, turned for where the door had been.
It was actually there. But in the instant after they’d taken their first step toward it, bones began to appear as if from nowhere and piled up at fantastic speed to cover the door completely . . . and continued to spill rapidly toward Ishbel and Maximilian.
The door vanished within a heartbeat, and the entire ground floor chamber of the Twisted Tower began to fill with bones.
Maximilian pulled Ishbel toward the stairs that led upward. They raced up them just in time, as the bones filled the entire first chamber.
Then the second chamber began to fill.
Avaldamon felt as though he had turned to stone in his horror. All he could do for the moment was stare; he could not move nor think. The massive structure of the Twisted Tower looked as if a gigantic fist was squeezing it from the very bottom. The tower was contracting, ever upward, as though that fist were trying to squeeze Ishbel and Maximilian toward the .
Avaldamon’s eyes drifted up to the window at the very top of the tower.
That window was death, whichever way he looked at it. Maximilian and Ishbel would die if they so much as looked through it, and they would also die if they were literally squeezed through it.
Everything here had been a trap set by the One.
By Josia.
Avaldamon could not think. He tried so hard to order his thoughts, but such was his state of shock — at what was happening before his very eyes and at the realisation of who Josia now was — that his thoughts felt as though they’d been buried in deep thick sludge —
A movement to his right caught his eyes.
Serge and Doyle, drawing their swords.
“No!” Avaldamon managed. “No.”
Thank the gods, his mouth and thoughts finally seemed to be working again.
“We have to —” Doyle began.
“No,” Avaldamon said yet again. “Touch that tower and you both die. Leave it to me. I am a Persimius and I was trained in the Twisted Tower. I know what to do. The thing is .”
He turned to look directly at Serge and Doyle. “The thing is, it will kill me, but at least in the doing I can stop this nightmare and hopefully free Ishbel and Maximilian.”
He stopped, expecting to have to field protests from both men.
Neither of them spoke. They just looked at him expectantly.
Avaldamon repressed a sigh. They were former assassins, after all. What was the value of human life to them?
“I will die,” Avaldamon said, “but I hope that Ishbel or Maxel, pray to the gods both of them, will live. Serge, Doyle, if they don’t, then you need to do something very, very important for me.”
“Name it,” Serge said.
“Get to Elcho Falling as fast as you can and tell whoever commands that citadel that Josia is now the One. The One has inhabited Josia. Do you understand?”
“It is a simple enough concept to grasp, Avaldamon,” Serge snapped. “Josia — the One — set this trap?”
Avaldamon nodded.
“Then go aid Ishbel and Maximilian,” said Serge, “and Doyle and I shall say prayers each day hereafter for the peace of your soul.”
Avaldamon grinned slightly. “I have died before, my friends. This won’t be as bad as the giant river lizard. And I have been to the Otherworld before, and I know who waits for me there. My royal Princess, my wife. I have little to lose in this action, my friends, and much to gain.”
He gave a nod at the two men, then Avaldamon turned and ran for Hairekeep.
“Maxel, what can we do?” Ishbel managed between gasps as Maximilian hauled her up one more flight of stairs. They could no longer afford to stop and