Oak dug the tips of his fingers into the small crevices between the stones, bracing his left foot against a windowsill. He leaned as close as he could to the corner created by the house and the street it was jutting out of, over the vast emptiness below.

  The slope was pretty steep already, and it would only get steeper. He had a long way to go before he would reach the church.

  Right hand secure. Left hand secure. Left leg braced. Push and pull. Nice and easy, slow and steady.

  The climb towards his last chance to escape the gloom of the City of God was plagued with a sad sort of irony. It had taken Oak most of his first climb up the side of the sphere, before he had freed Ur-Namma from the stone, to realize that he should have been climbing mostly with his legs instead of his hands. The hands were supposed to hold on, and the legs were supposed to push upwards. Dragging yourself up with your hands required a lot more effort in comparison.

  Thanks to his twisted ankle, he was now armed with knowledge he could not fully utilize. His right leg could not support his weight, and it dangled uselessly below him as he dragged and pushed himself upwards, inch by torturous inch.

  Oh fuck. Oh, no. Dear Corpse-God in Heaven.

  It had been a hell of a week. He was wounded and exhausted. Thirsty and hungry. But beyond all other afflictions, he was terrified. Oak had learned during his time in the City of God that he feared heights. Quite a lot. He really would have rather taken a second round with that chimera, if it had been an option. Monsters were easy. You could fight them, face them head on with magic and might.

  The climb was a different matter entirely. It was a battle against the self. Against his own fear and failing body. There was nothing to rage against, nothing to get his blood pumping. His only recourse was to encourage himself to keep going.

  As he climbed, he imagined what he might eat and drink when they finally reached civilization. Roasted chicken. Taters. Pork, cooked on an open flame, tender meat slipping straight off the rib. A pint of malt beer, a nice loaf of warm bread, and a good stew. A man could die for less.

  The city watched him and waited. The mists of Ma’aseh Merkavah clung to the bottoms of his boots, pulling him down. They crept along the slope, swirled around the houses, apartment buildings, and little shops. Faces appeared in the corners of his vision, voices whispered words of discouragement to his ears.

  “You have been forced to journey in the darkness, chased away from the light.”

  “You have been hemmed in with no escape, weighted down by chains of sin.”

  The voices came from nowhere and spewed their baneful despair at Oak without pause. They rose into a chorus, dripping with wicked joy, reverberating with mischief and mayhem. The Waking Dream of a mountain of corpses. A tomb turned into a ruined beast.

  “Your path is crooked, your sight blind. You will step astray and fall into the endless night.”

  “You will eat gravel, be trampled into dust. You will forget happiness and let go of hope.”

  The whispers of the mists stoked his fears and heightened his terror. When thoughts of food failed to lift his spirits, and the fear continued to creep in, Oak turned to other avenues to distract himself from the long drop below him. The feeling of rain on his skin. The sight of the rising sun, and the open sky high above. The ripples of small streams.

  Oak thought of the North and his homestead. The pines bending with gusts of wind, chickens prancing in the yard. A house filled with memories and comfort. Built by his old man. A place to plant his feet. A place he had called home.

  “You will linger homeless and heartless, your soul soiled with wormwood and poison.”

  “Your skin and flesh will be stripped away, your bones will be chewed up and broken.”

  It was hard to keep silent. Hard not to lash out at the words promising him torment after torment, but he managed it. His rage at the mists would have been a child's anger. Purposeless, only stoked to make him spend effort for anything but the climb.

  Instead, he thought of the boons Ashmedai might grant him once he got out of the city. One possibility, in particular, seemed priceless in his current circumstances. Without the Branch of Buer and the Boon of Demonic Constitution, he would have fallen long ago. Supernatural endurance and fast healing had fueled him during his journey in Ma’aseh Merkavah, and even now, they kept him moving upwards. Reaching for the next hold, digging his fingers into the gaps between stones.

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  He would ask for another boon from the same branch, that was certain.

  Oak came to the end of the row of houses he had been wedging himself against and gulped. Above him was another long stretch of open slope. He recognized the look of it. It had surely been one of those absurdly wide roads, before the summoning of the flesh of God had twisted the city upon itself. He and Geezer had crossed many of them on their journey across the city.

  By the Chariot, this is going to suck. Might as well get on with it.

  He took a deep breath and continued. Hold after hold, crevice after crevice. He climbed and climbed, while the mists following him hid the houses he had just passed from view. There was one thing to be grateful for. With the mists at his heels, looking down did not instantly make him want to throw up in fright.

  Sweat dripped down Oak’s forehead and into his eyes, as he secured his grip on the lip of a deep hole in the steep, almost vertical slope. A good, secure hold did wonders for the spirit, when one was hanging hundreds of feet above ground. The slope was treacherous. He wiggled his toes, digging his feet into tiny, slippery crevices. His left leg slipped. Oak jammed his right hand deep into the hole, and held on for dear life.

  For a couple of agonizing moments, he hung there in utter mindless panic, both legs desperately searching for something to stand on. His heart did its best to beat itself out of his chest. A small ledge, formed by a protruding cobble, came to his rescue.

  Shivering like a man in the grips of high fever, Oak tried to steady his breathing. That had been close. Way too close. It took some time before he tried to pull his right hand out of the hole he had jammed it in.

  With exaggerated care, he pulled.

  The arm did not move. Not because it would not follow his will, but because it was stuck. He was stuck. The mists whirled around him, mocking faces peering for a closer look.

  “You will pray for salvation, and no one will answer.”

  Oak was not proud of it, but in that moment he was reduced to a frozen wreck. High on the slope of the City of God, he shook in place like a leaf on the eve of autumn, waiting for the wind to snatch him away.

  What had the mists promised him? What had the city foretold?

  You will die here and take your place among our ranks. You will be bone-dust swirling in the wind. Forgotten grief lost to the wastelands of time.

  It hurt to admit, but the mists might have been right in the end. He pulled again, but the arm did not move. How could he extract himself? If he pulled too hard and the hand suddenly came free, he would fling himself off the slope, and break his body upon the streets below. The cobbles would get to taste his blood. If he did nothing, he would die here of thirst and hunger. Waste away, and leave a skeleton behind, hanging on the slope.

  No good choices. Just my luck.

  Oak was so tired. His body ached in half a hundred places, and he just wanted to lie down and rest. Sadly, it wasn’t on the cards. He tried to pull his hand free once more and found his limb would not obey him. The thought of falling from the slope because he pulled too hard refused to leave his mind. He sagged and panted for breath.

  Thoughts of power and comfort could drive him no longer. The fear was in his bones.

  Never before had he felt so hopeless. In that moment, a single kind word would have meant the world to him. There were none on offer. The mists were his only companion, and one could not rely on them for encouragement. He searched his heart for wisdom instead.

  Geezer, and Ur-Namma.

  They could not face all that was to come without him. For their sake, he needed to live. Still, his arm refused to budge. The heart of a selfish man would only move so much for the sake of others. Oak dug deep. There had to be something. Something that would force him to take the risk and free his hand. Something to give him the courage to face the moment.

  A realization bloomed. Ur-Namma was his only friend. The friends of his childhood were dead. Died one by one in the war. He had kept people at arm's length after that, and his many sins had not made it difficult. He had a fearsome reputation.

  The crushing weight of loneliness did not settle on his shoulders. Oak just noticed he had already been carrying it all this time.

  If he died here, on this slope, he could never forge genuine connections with others, never find more friends to cherish.

  If he died here, he would never be a better man, worthy of friendship or love.

  If he let his fear win, he would never step out of the Butcher’s shadow.

  It was unacceptable. Oak relaxed his right fist and made his hand as small as he possibly could. Bit by bit, he pulled his hand free from the stone’s grip.

  It felt like a victory.

  “By the fucking dead,” he said. “If I survive this, I will never climb a tree ever again. I won’t even climb a chair. I’ll sit down on the floor from now on.”

  It took some deep breaths and more courage than Oak had thought could ever be found inside his heart, but he pushed himself upwards, and reached for another hold.

  And another after that.

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