«LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!»

Miriam added, «I know the closest exit.» I'd forgotten she was still with us, but thanked the gods of luck we had someone to show us an escape route. Without waiting for discussion, she took to her heels out of the machine room, leaving a trail of dusty footprints on the floor. Hezekiah followed, not even sparing a glance for the rest of us… not that we were dallying ourselves. As I staggered to my feet, I saw that Yasmin and Kiripao were already moving, Yasmin cradling Wheezle's small body in her arms. I didn't like the look of that – Wheezle hadn't moved under his own power for quite some time.

Still, only an addle-cove would mull that over in a room that was ripping itself apart… which was precisely what the machinery was doing. Steam roiled all around us, clouding the farthest reaches of the chamber; and every few seconds, a chunk of hardware would rocket out of the mists with the speed of a sling bullet. Gears… ball bearings… thick swatches of conveyor belt… lumps of debris, some smouldering, some crackling with sparks of blue lightning.

In its way, the destruction ripping through the room had an admirable kind of vitality. An elegant thoroughness. An unrestrained energy that didn't care a whit for any flesh and blood that happened to stand in its way…

«Get moving, you Sensate leatherhead!» Yasmin shouted from the doorway. «You want a slice-job from some flying camshaft?»

At that very moment a tiny cog whizzed past my ear, whirling as fast as a buzz-saw; and I acknowledged that some experiences are best postponed for one's golden years.

A minute later, we had caught up with Hezekiah and Miriam who were taking a breather some distance down the corridor. Hezekiah still held the grinder, which pleased me no end – without that «wee bauble», Rivi's plans would go nowhere.

«All right,» I said to the boy, as I drew even with him. «You want to tell me how you did that trick back there? One second you were behind me in the control room. The next, you were showering the Fox with his own dust. I thought Rivi had blanked you from teleporting.»

«I thought so too,» he answered, panting a bit after his run down the hall. «But…» He lowered his voice. «Oonah died right in front of us – she sacrificed herself. And then Miriam was watching me, as if she knew I'd do something to save everyone… I don't know, Britlin, it made me so mad and desperate, I felt this surge of energy, as if a little sun had caught fire inside of me. The next thing I knew, I was standing beside the Fox… and he'd left the grinder just lying on the floor while he was casting his spell… I didn't mean to kill him, Britlin, I just thought it would stop him from finishing the enchantment…»

Miriam took the boy's arm and squeezed it with fierce protectiveness. «The old berk had it coming. Barmy as a bison and twice as nasty.»

«You used to work for him,» Yasmin coldly reminded her. «And Rivi.»

«Yeah, well.» Miriam dropped her gaze to the floor. «I took Rivi's jink, sure… but I didn't give a tinker's about her cause. No one did. And Rivi didn't give a tinker's for any of us. You saw how she treated Petrov; she'd do the same to me as easy as breathing, and I'd return the favor if I could.»

«What a paragon of loyalty you are,» Yasmin muttered. Turning to the rest of us, she added, «Let's all bear that in mind, shall we?»

«Honored Handmaid,» Wheezle said, staring up at Yasmin like an infant in her arms, «we have greater concerns than this woman's feelings toward us.»

«That's right,» I put in, «like your state of health. How are you doing, Wheezle?»

«Most of me is doing well, honored Cavendish. However, I have no feeling in my legs.»

Hezekiah's face went pale. The boy whispered to me, «Wheezle hit that wall pretty hard…»

«I know… could be a spinal injury.» In a louder voice, I told Wheezle, «Don't worry – whatever it is, they'll be able to fix it in Sigil.»

«Indeed,» Wheezle nodded, «many of those in my faction have quite remarkable magic for curing —»

The floor suddenly heaved beneath our feet, whipping all of us against the left-hand wall. By luck, I happened to be standing between Yasmin and the wall's glossy steel, which meant I could cushion her and Wheezle from full impact. The experience was not quite so cozy for me – Yasmin was no featherweight debutante, starved down to look good in taffeta – but I'd had it easy so far compared to the others, so I couldn't complain about a few bruises.

A moment later, the floor's motion stopped; but the whole corridor remained slanted with a leftward slope of about five degrees. I didn't want to guess what was happening to the Glass Spider now that one leg was blowing its gaskets. Long ago, one of my father's friends had told me stories about all the planes, including the Plane of Dust: «There's places there, boy, where the dust runs a thousand miles deep. You can be walking along, dust only up to your ankles, and suddenly, the floor just drops away and you sink forever.» If the Spider's malfunctioning leg had somehow kicked us off the edge of safe ground into one of those dusty morasses…

«Miriam,» I said, «I believe you were showing us the closest way out?»

«Follow me,» she answered.

And we followed.

Corridors blurred by. At first we ran full speed, but another lurch from the Spider sent us toppling again, banging painfully into the metal wall. From that point on, we slowed to a nervous trot, as fast as we could go while still retaining some hope of staying on our feet at the next shudder. Three more times, the Glass Spider quaked; and each time, the floor tipped a little more sideways.

«This feels like a sinking ship,» Hezekiah blurted out as we pressed on after the third upheaval.

«I suppose you've been on a sinking ship,» Yasmin said.

«No,» Hezekiah replied, «but my Uncle Toby —»

«How far is it to the exit?» I interrupted: anything to avoid more about his sodding berk of an uncle.

«Not far,» Miriam answered. «Every one of the Spider's arms has a portal at the bottom end. The one back to Sigil is too far away, but there's a portal nearby that goes to Mount Celestia.»

I grunted in approval. Mount Celestia, the Plane of Lawful Good, was a bit restrained and conservative for my tastes, but it certainly qualified as a safe bolt-hole under the circumstances: the people were tolerant and friendly, the climate mild and hospitable. Sensates who visited there claimed it had the most boring night-life of any plane that wasn't actually encased in ice; at the moment, however, a short stint of tedium was just what I needed. No doubt we could find a portal from Mount Celestia back to Sigil, and then we could put this whole mess into the hands of Lady Erin.

We came to a spiral staircase just like the one we'd descended to get to this level. As each of us climbed, I waited for another Spider-quake, one vicious enough to toss us screaming off the steps; but the Fates were kind and we all reached the top before the next tremor hit. This tremor had none of the snap and tumble of the previous ones, but it seemed to go on forever: a slow and persistent drag that dropped one side of the Spider until the floors were all slanting at a tilt of thirty degrees.

«The ship is definitely sinking,» Hezekiah muttered.

None of us bothered to reply.

Miriam led us to the right, down a corridor that ran around the outer ring of the Spider's body. Looking out the window, I could see that the closest legs to us had lifted right off the ground – the opposite side of the Spider must have plunged so deeply under the dust that the legs on our side could no longer reach the surface. I took some comfort in that; on this side, we'd keep our heads above ground level substantially longer.