City of Golden Shadow Read Online Free Page B

had somehow betrayed her. He reached the door and flung himself through, skidding and then rolling on the smooth stone floor. The huge gate stood before him, and thank God, thank God, it was open!
    A hundred steps, maybe more, difficult as running in treacle. The whole castle shook beneath his pursuer's tread. He reached the door and flung himself through and out into what had been sunlight, but was now twilight-gray. The topmost branches of the great tree stood just above the edge of the clouds, a seemingly impossible distance away. Paul bolted toward it across the field of clouds.
    The thing was pushing through the door-he heard the great hinges squeal as it forced its way. Lightning-scented air billowed past him, almost knocking him off his feet, and a great roar filled the sky: the Old Man was laughing.
    "COME BACK, LITTLE CREATURE! I WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU!"
    Paul sprinted across the cloud-trail, his breath scorching in his lungs. The tree was a little closer now. How fast would he have to climb down to move beyond the reach of that terrible thing? Surely it couldn't follow him-how could even the great tree bear the weight of such a monstrosity?
    The clouds below his feet stretched and jounced like a trampoline as the Old Man stepped from the castle. Paul tripped and fell forward; one of his hands came down to the side of the trail, pushing through the cloud surface as through cobwebs. He scrambled to his feet and sped forward again-the tree was only a few hundred paces away now. If he could only. . . .
    A great gray hand as big as a steam shovel curled around him, a thing of cables and rivets and rusting sheet iron. Paul screamed.
    The clouds fell away as he was jerked high into the air, then turned to dangle in front of the Old Man's face. Paul screamed again, and heard another cry, dim but mournful, echo from the distant castle-the keening of a caged bird.
    The Old Man's eyes were the vast cracked faces of tower clocks, his beard a welter of curling, rusted wire. He was impossibly huge, a giant of iron and battered copper pipes and slowly turning wheels that steamed at every crack, every vent. He stank of electricity and grinned a row of concrete tombstones.
    "GUESTS MAY NOT LEAVE BEFORE I CAN ENTERTAIN THEM." Paul felt the bones of his skull vibrate from the power of the Old Man's voice. As the great maw opened wider, Paul kicked and struggled in the cloud of choking steam.
    "TOO SMALL TO MAKE MUCH OF A MEAL, REALLY" said the Old Man, then swallowed him. Shrieking, Paul fell down into oily, gear-grinding darkness.

    "Quit that, you bloody idiot!"
    Paul struggled, but someone or something was holding his arms. He shuddered and went limp.
    "That's better. Here-have a little of this."
    Something trickled into his mouth and burned down his throat. He coughed explosively and struggled to sit up. This time he was allowed to. Someone laughed.
    He opened his eyes. Finch was sitting beside him, almost on top of him, framed by the mud of the trench top and a sliver of sky.
    "You'll be all right." Finch put the cap back on the flask and stowed it in his pocket. "Just a bit of a knock on the head. Sad to say, it's not enough to get you home, old man. Still, Mullet will be pleased to see you when he gets back from shifting his bowels. I told him you'd be fine."
    Paul leaned back, his head full of muddled thoughts.
    "Where. . . ?"
    "In one of the back trenches-I think I dug this bastard myself two years ago. Fritz suddenly decided the war wasn't over yet. We've been pushed quite a way back-don't you remember?"
    Paul struggled to hold onto the diminishing tatters of his dream. A woman with feathers like a bird, who spoke of a grail. A giant like a railroad engine, made of metal and hot steam. "And what happened? To me?"
    Finch reached behind him and produced Paul's helmet. One side of the crown was dimpled inward. "Piece of shrapnel. But not enough to get you shipped back. Not very lucky are you, Jonesie?"
    So it had all been a