A Painted Goddess by Victor Gischler Read Free Book Online Page A

anything? You know.” He tapped the side of his head with a finger. “Something from up here?” Come on, woman. What’s the point of being a wizard if you can’t magic us out of this ?
    She nibbled a bottom lip, considering. “Maybe. But I’m pretty sure it would incinerate us too.”
    “And we’re still thinking the levers are a bad idea?”
    Something groaned, the sound of metal bending. The little room shook.
    Talbun raised her hands, doubt on her face. “I guess we’ve got to try something.”
    “Wait!” Brasley rushed to the cart just as the floor tilted again, almost knocking him off his feet. He rummaged the supplies in back and came out with a long metal pry bar. “I thought the supply vendor was just milking me when I bought these tools, but thank Dumo I did.”
    He waved Olgen out of the way and jammed the end of the pry bar into the crack where the doors met. He worked it back and forth until he edged it in a few inches, and then he put all of his strength into prying one way and then another, muscles straining, face going red.
    “Olgen, help me!”
    The young man crowded in and gripped the pry bar, adding his strength to Brasley’s. They gnashed teeth and grunted, and the doors . . . budged!
    “Keep going!” Brasley shouted. “We’re getting it.”
    The doors slid back haltingly, making an ugly scraping sound of metal on metal.
    “We may have knocked the doors off their tracks when the lift hit so hard,” Olgen said. “Probably there’s rust too.”
    “I don’t care,” Brasley said. “Just put your back into it.”
    There was another cracking sound above them, and the room shimmied, floor tilting slightly one way and then the other.
    “Hurry!” Talbun urged.
    “Oh, hurry? Really?” Brasley pushed the pry bar with everything he had. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
    Something gave and both doors slid to the side enough for Brasley and Olgen to get their hands and shoulders in. They pushed, the doors sliding rough until they were open enough for the humans, goat, and cart to get through.
    “Come on!” Brasley grabbed the goat by the reins. Olgen and Talbun went through ahead of him.
    Brasley backed through the doors and out of the lift, dragging the goat behind him. “Titan, you stupid beast, let’s go already.”
    Because the floor of the lift had tilted, it was six inches lower than the floor beyond the doors. The front two wheels stuck, jamming the cart in place. The goat kept on with its panicked racket.
    “Help me!” Brasley shouted. “It’s stuck.”
    Talbun and Olgen reached past him, each grabbing hold of the cart. They heaved and managed to pull the front wheels over the hump. Titan took that moment to discover a reserve of strength and bounded past them, pulling the cart into the chamber.
    There was a series of snapping sounds.
    Brasley leaned forward to look into the lift.
    The floor of the lift gave way, tumbling back down the shaft and taking the lantern with it. The floor bounced off the sides, shattering into pieces, plummeting, thick ropes and pulleys chasing after it. The falling lantern cast strange shadows. The lantern and debris seemed to fall forever until there was a final crash, the last echo rising until it reached Brasley in the darkness, and then all was silent.
    A long dreadful moment settled over the three.
    “Is everyone okay?” Talbun’s voice somewhere behind him.
    “I am, milady,” Olgen said. “Milord?”
    “Alive,” Brasley said. “Everyone stay put. The last thing we need right now is to trip over each other and break our necks. I’ll find one of the other lanterns.”
    Feeling his way in the dark took longer than he’d anticipated, but he found the cart, felt his way through the gear until he found the lantern and the flint and steel. He struck a spark, and soon they had light again.
    Brasley checked the gear while the others looked around to figure out what sort of place it was they’d suddenly found themselves. They’d