The chaos was one of panic: a desperation to escape the torrent of crazed vermin now converging on everything that moved. Acolytes struggled across the open space as though they were on fire, each enveloped in a mass of writhing fur. Some rolled on the floor, trying to crush their attackers. Yet the three Rshun stood amongst it all, unmolested.
'I did not expect this to be so easy,' quipped Baracha, which only an Alhazii could say while his ear dangled loose from his head.
The rats cleared a path for them as they trod through the mayhem. An enclosed spiralling stairwell occupied each corner of the temple space, three of them leading upwards. The nearest one, on their right, led downwards, however. The Rshun hovered next to it, peering into the gloom below.
'Slave quarters,' announced Ash.
'How can you tell?'
'The stink.'
The Rshun converged on the far end of the sanctum, before a shallow pool of water that extended across the entire floor, and separated the rest of the temple from the altar. They stopped to confer.
'You think Kirkus is still in the Storm Chamber?' Baracha asked, as an Acolyte charged past him and dived into the water. They all ignored him.
'We have no choice but to assume so.'
'There should be a climbing box,' said Baracha. 'All of these towers have one. Can you spot it?'
'There,' said Aleas, motioning to a door he could just discern in the wall behind the altar.
'We try the climbing box, then,' said Baracha. 'We'll never make it if we have to fight our way through every floor to get to the top.'
'Agreed.'
Ash mounted the thin bridge that vaulted the pool, his sword, even now, still in its sheath. Baracha stepped straight into the water and waded across. Aleas chose the bridge.
The twin doors of the climbing box were small, cast-iron, and firmly shut. There appeared to be no hole for a key, or any other obvious way in which it could be opened. 'Crowbar,' demanded Baracha with a snap of his fingers, hand outstretched.
Aleas began fumbling within his robe, till Baracha impatiently tore the front of the garment open to expose the harness. He snatched the crowbar from it, and set to working on the doors.
Still, they wouldn't open.
'We need to blow them,' he grunted, handing back the crowbar. Ash consented, and they took the remaining keg of blackpowder, set it against the door, soaked the fuse.
'Clear away!' bellowed Baracha as they scurried for cover. This time they had the good sense to cover their ears.
As the smoke cleared, a shaft was revealed through the blasted doorway. It soared straight upwards through blackness, as did the metal cable hanging taut to one side, and an iron ladder next to it.
'I was rather hoping we could hitch a ride,' observed Aleas drily.
'We climb,' rumbled Baracha.
*
Aleas went last, and he gritted his teeth with effort as he hauled his weight, hand, by hand up the rungs of the ladder. The shaft was illuminated partway by the light from below, but already he had lost sight of Ash in the murk above him, leading the way with Baracha some distance behind, climbing more slowly, because of his bulk. The shaft reeked of grease and was full of dust, so that Aleas stopped to sneeze more than once.
After a time, he was forced to stop and rest. The air rattled in his throat. His lungs were burning. He wiped his nose clean on his sleeve, and then crooked an elbow around a rung and locked himself in position by clasping both hands together. Aleas was strong and fit, but he wondered whether he could finish this climb. They were too far up now for the light penetrating the open door below to reach them, but his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, and he could see his master vanishing up ahead.
He had no choice but to follow, so he began to climb again.
It took him another four rests, with a great deal of hauling in between, before he rejoined his master. Baracha hung on the ladder in the dimness, waiting for him.
'What took you so long?' he hissed down.
'I was enjoying the sights,' said Aleas. 'And then, for the fun of it, I got to talking with a pretty girl from Exanse. Or was it Palo-Valetta? You know, I don't recall.'
'Pass the crowbar,' mumbled Baracha's voice.
Aleas did so, no easy manoeuvre with them both perched precariously on the ladder. He watched his master pass the crowbar on up to Ash, who was blocked from further progress by something solid spanning the shaft. Before long, chips of wood cascaded from above.
Aleas caught a fragment in his eye, and cursed as he blinked to clear it. For a moment his legs dangled freely.
'Aleas!' hissed his master in remonstration.
An entire plank of wood tumbled past then, bouncing off the side of the shaft as it disappeared beneath his feet. Two more followed, and then Ash was clambering up through the hole he had made, with Baracha following soon behind. Aleas, half blinded, pulled himself wearily up the final stretch. He grasped the edge of a jagged hole which had been hacked through the floor of a climbing box. Next moment, Baracha clutched him by the harness and heaved him right through, so that he hung there in his grasp, facing the big man, before his feet were set on the floor. He rubbed his afflicted eye, though that only served to make it worse. He could feel grime in his nostrils, sweat pouring from his skin.
The carriage was sealed with iron doors, a curved handle on either side obviously intended to slide them apart. Through them they could hear the muffled sound of bells ringing, and a voice barking orders.
Again, the crowbar failed to prise the doors open.
'Stuck fast,' gasped Baracha, while Ash studied a metal lever sprouting from one side of the cubicle. He pushed it up: the climbing box shuddered and rose by a centimetre. It clunked to a stop, then dropped back to its original position.
'We are not at the very top yet. This climbing box goes further.'
'So why doesn't it move?'
Ash stroked at a brass plate fixed immediately beneath the lever. All three peered closer, and saw that embedded in the plate were four brass tumblers, each stamped with a series of digits. Ash tried them with his thumb. They rotated, like tiny wheels on an axle, revealing different numbers as they moved.
'I've heard of this,' piped up Aleas. 'It's a number lock. You need to set the correct number on all four tumblers.'
Ash, thumbing through them, gave up with a wave of his hand. 'It would take a miracle to chance upon the correct sequence. I fear we are stuck.'
Even as he said this, the doors slid apart.
A dozen startled Acolytes stood blinking at the Rshun, who blinked back at them just as surprised.
Baracha, growling, grabbed the Acolyte closest to him and yanked him into the carriage. It broke the spell.
Ash and Aleas each grabbed a handle and began to close the doors, while the other Acolytes struggled to push their way through the narrowing gap. Fists crashed against Aleas' head, clawing hands grabbed for his hair.
Aleas strained against the handle while fending off an Acolyte; with blows impacting against his head, he saw glimpses of bared teeth, eyes widened in anger, a backdrop of bobbing heads and blades manoeuvring for an opportunity to strike. The doors were almost closed now. They were blocked by the shoulders and legs of a single Acolyte, who snorted through his nostrils at the effort of it, but still would not pull back.
'Arm yourself,' ordered Ash, as he wove his head back and forth from a lashing fist. The old man drew his blade at last as he jerked his head back from the point of a sword, and hacked down with his own. Blood shot into the climbing box, unreal, ghastly, bright.