The Crooked Letter by Sean Williams Page A

light and a thin scream. The weight fell away. Seth collapsed on top of the wall in a cloud of settling smoke. The howls of his pursuers took on a frustrated pitch.

    ‘Thank you.’ Seth gaped up in amazement at his rescuer. Two enormously thick legs spread at an ungainly angle supported a barrel trunk and equally strong arms. A spray of blade-like protuberances — which Seth had initially mistaken for feathers — radiated from behind the creature’s head and spread in a crest down its back. They shook as the creature leaned over the edge of the wall and hissed a warning at the other monsters below. Seth glimpsed a forward-thrust face and wickedly curved canines, like those of a cobra.

    ‘We don’t have long,’ said the creature. ‘They’ll be up here in a moment, and more besides. Word is spreading of the chase you’ve given them.’ The snakelike head twisted to look over the other side of the wall. One thick hand reached down for him again.

    Seth didn’t want to tarnish his gratitude with second thoughts, but looking up at the being that had rescued him did give him cause to reconsider. Just for a moment.

    Then Seth took the offered hand and was hauled to his feet.

    ‘This way.’

    Only as Seth automatically went to follow did he realise what he had just done. The creature had taken his hand — his left hand, the hand that had been severed by the monster with the scissors.

    He stopped and stared dumbly at it, seeing by the distant firelight that it looked exactly as always. Had he imagined its severance? Had it grown back without him noticing?

    Both possibilities seemed beyond reason. Everything seemed beyond reason.

    ‘Where am I?’ he asked, his body dead wood, unable to accept the need to run now that the immediate urgency had passed. His mind was beginning to catch up. ‘What’s happening to me?’

    ‘This is the underworld,’ said the creature, thrusting its face into his. The yellow eyes were metallic and cold. Flat, brassy scales gleamed on taut skin. ‘You will find no welcome here.’

    ‘But you —’ Seth stared into the inhuman face. ‘You helped me.’

    ‘Yes. I was human once, and am now of the dimane.’

    ‘I don’t understand.’

    ‘You will have to. And you will have to trust me a moment longer, at least until we are out of immediate danger.’ The creature took him by the shoulder and shoved him, forcing him to run. The creature’s long, loping strides were perfectly accustomed to the low, inverted gravity. Seth had to concentrate to stay ahead. The impression of being upside-down and the surrealism of the view didn’t make it any easier. From the vantage point of the wall, he could see dozens of fiercely-shaped creatures still striving to catch him, leaping and scrabbling at the wall. Some worked together to scale the height, but competition from below always brought them down. In the distance, the lights atop the three needle-towers flashed in furious asynchrony.

    Seth felt the cool breath of the creature at his back. His thoughts were a tangle of frank disbelief and utter confusion.

    ‘My brother — he’s here too, I think. What if those things catch him? What will they do to him? What would they have done to me if you hadn’t saved me?’

    ‘Your brother is not here,’ came the blunt reply.

    ‘You know for sure?’ The Swede and the knife were as vivid in his mind as the massive creature at his back. ‘How can you know that?’

    ‘I feel it in the realm: under my feet, in my head, all around me. Your twin brother lives.’

    Seth had barely enough time to think — or duck — as, with a rattle of bones, a creature sporting scythelike hands and a nose as long as a railway spike scrambled over the wall nearby. Something liquid and red detached itself from Seth’s guide and shot with startling acceleration into the face of their attacker. It reared back with a howl, clutching its eyes. Seeing an opening, Seth swept its legs out from under it with a