the elevator doors opened, Fabrigas found himself looking into the First Chamber. In this ante-hall, so vast its walls and ceiling vanish into the haze, an army of proprietors waited, vainly, to petition the Queen for clemency from bankruptcy, and they spent the time by playing dice. The chamber was filled with the white-hot whizz of servos in fingers, the bony crack as steel-knuckled hands released the cubes against the marble walls. At the end of the day one merchant would be chosen at random and sent to see the Queen. If they could emerge from the penultimate chamber with their mind intact, and if the Queen liked their face, their livelihood would be saved. Many came running back screaming from the Third Chamber, and few had a face to please the Queen.
The noise of the dice-play crashed like a dying wave when the towering Fabrigas emerged from the gloom of the elevator car. The eyes followed him as he strode the long mile through the chamber towards a pair of brass doors wide enough to walk an airship through. The doors’ handles were a pair of dragons – actual size – caught at the apex of a violently sensuous embrace.
The Second Chamber is filled with frightening statuary of the Demon Backinell: the gathering whose chaos was supposed to have bred the conditions from which the order of the cosmos arose. These demons are engaged in activities from which imagination flees, andupon which a modest writer will not dwell. Here the frightening experience of universal chaos is mingled with the breath of infinite creation.
The door of the Third Chamber has statues of imperial authority: two owls without faces (justice), a great bear nursing a human infant (mercy), and two monkey demons tearing out the throat of a dragon (awesomeness). The visitor would need to leave their airship behind to enter this chamber. Why bring an airship in the first place? The chamber is smaller than the last, and silent – so much so that if you hadn’t already broken into a jog, you would. It is forbidden by law to tell you what’s in the Third Chamber.
The Fourth Chamber has delicate frescoes of grand royal conquests and in the scheme of the chambers is rather pleasant. Do not be lulled.
The Fifth Chamber is not pleasant. The Chamber of the Screw is entered through a circular door. The visitor finds himself in a rotating barrel: the inverse shape of a great invisible drill. The curling and ornately filigreed edges are blade-sharp, heated to smoking point. The visitor will find themself scrambling so quickly towards the tiny aperture at the far end they will not have time to consider what this chamber could possibly symbolise.
By the Sixth Chamber the visitor has noticed the successive narrowing and darkening of the chambers of the Queen. This chamber is cramped. The visitor can reach up to touch the ceiling, or out to touch the heads spiked upon steel needles. These are the lords, ladies, magistrates and judges who have disappointed Her. These heads are arranged as so: the first faces the wall, the second is turned ten degrees towards you, the third ten more, and so on, so the effect as you rush past – and rush you will, from a jog into a gallop – is of a single severed head turning to greet you. The floor tacks with blood and the stench is overwhelming.
In the Seventh Chamber the visitor finds their gallop halted by the fact they must crawl through this chamber on their knees, throughsticky sheets of spiderweb. The Queen’s legion of beloved spiders can grow as big as the human head.
‘My Queen,’ said Fabrigas, finally, as he emerged and swept the dust from the floor with his beard. ‘Word of your beauty has touched the reaches.’ He stood and took a small step forward and his cloth shoes slipped on the smoothly inclined floor. The Queen’s chamber floor, polished so it shone like an eye, swept down towards her throne – or, to be more precise, it swept down towards a large reservoir where her giant octopus, Leonard, lived.
The noise of the dice-play crashed like a dying wave when the towering Fabrigas emerged from the gloom of the elevator car. The eyes followed him as he strode the long mile through the chamber towards a pair of brass doors wide enough to walk an airship through. The doors’ handles were a pair of dragons – actual size – caught at the apex of a violently sensuous embrace.
The Second Chamber is filled with frightening statuary of the Demon Backinell: the gathering whose chaos was supposed to have bred the conditions from which the order of the cosmos arose. These demons are engaged in activities from which imagination flees, andupon which a modest writer will not dwell. Here the frightening experience of universal chaos is mingled with the breath of infinite creation.
The door of the Third Chamber has statues of imperial authority: two owls without faces (justice), a great bear nursing a human infant (mercy), and two monkey demons tearing out the throat of a dragon (awesomeness). The visitor would need to leave their airship behind to enter this chamber. Why bring an airship in the first place? The chamber is smaller than the last, and silent – so much so that if you hadn’t already broken into a jog, you would. It is forbidden by law to tell you what’s in the Third Chamber.
The Fourth Chamber has delicate frescoes of grand royal conquests and in the scheme of the chambers is rather pleasant. Do not be lulled.
The Fifth Chamber is not pleasant. The Chamber of the Screw is entered through a circular door. The visitor finds himself in a rotating barrel: the inverse shape of a great invisible drill. The curling and ornately filigreed edges are blade-sharp, heated to smoking point. The visitor will find themself scrambling so quickly towards the tiny aperture at the far end they will not have time to consider what this chamber could possibly symbolise.
By the Sixth Chamber the visitor has noticed the successive narrowing and darkening of the chambers of the Queen. This chamber is cramped. The visitor can reach up to touch the ceiling, or out to touch the heads spiked upon steel needles. These are the lords, ladies, magistrates and judges who have disappointed Her. These heads are arranged as so: the first faces the wall, the second is turned ten degrees towards you, the third ten more, and so on, so the effect as you rush past – and rush you will, from a jog into a gallop – is of a single severed head turning to greet you. The floor tacks with blood and the stench is overwhelming.
In the Seventh Chamber the visitor finds their gallop halted by the fact they must crawl through this chamber on their knees, throughsticky sheets of spiderweb. The Queen’s legion of beloved spiders can grow as big as the human head.
‘My Queen,’ said Fabrigas, finally, as he emerged and swept the dust from the floor with his beard. ‘Word of your beauty has touched the reaches.’ He stood and took a small step forward and his cloth shoes slipped on the smoothly inclined floor. The Queen’s chamber floor, polished so it shone like an eye, swept down towards her throne – or, to be more precise, it swept down towards a large reservoir where her giant octopus, Leonard, lived.
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