“I still can’t—” Veppers said.
“Sir! That bit of scenery; it’s moving. Look.”
“Shit shit shit!” she breathed, trying to move still faster.
“Lededje, are you—”
She heard steps, then, “Sir! She’s there! I can see her!”
“Buggering fuck,” she had time to say, then heard the creaking noise beneath her turn into a splitting, splintering sound, and felt herself sinking, being lowered, gently at first. She brought her hands in, unsheathed both knives. Then there was a noise like a gunshot; the wooden ledge beneath her gave way and she started to fall.
She heard Jasken shout something.
She twisted, turned, stabbed both knives into the plasticised canvas of the flat, holding on grimly to each handle as she pulled herself in as close as she could, her gloved fists at her shoulders, hearing the canvas tear and watching it split in front of her eyes, the twin blades slicing quickly down to the foot of the enormous painting where the jagged remains of the wooden ledge sagged and fell.
The knives were going to cut right through the bottom of the canvas! She was sure she’d seen something like this done in a film and it had all looked a lot easier. Hissing, she twisted both knives, turning each blade from vertical to horizontal. She stopped falling and hung there, bouncing gently on the torn, straining canvas. Her legs swung in space beneath her. Shit, this wasn’t going to work. Her arms were getting sore and starting to shake already.
“What’s she—?” she heard Veppers say, then, “Oh my God! She’s—”
“Have them rotate the carousel, sir,” Jasken said quickly. “Once it’s in the right position they can lower her to the stage.”
“Of course! Sulbazghi!”
She could hardly hear what they were saying, she was breathing so hard and her blood was pounding in her ears. She glanced to one side. The now broken length of wood she’d been sidling along had been attached to the bottom of the scenery flat by big staples sunk into the double-folded hem of the giant painting; to her right, just under a body-length away from her, some of these still held. She started swinging herself from side to side, her breath whooshing and hissing out of her as she forced her arms to stay locked in position while her legs and lower body pendulumed. She thought she heard the two men shouting at her but she couldn’t be sure. She swung wildly to and fro, moving the whole rippling extent of the scenery flat. Nearly there …
She hooked her right leg onto the ledge, found purchase and detached one knife, hooking and stabbing at the canvas above her, keeping the blade horizontal. Flat, angled down behind the canvas, the knife held; she hauled herself up until she was about midway between prone and upright. She brought the other knife out and swung it up too, still higher.
“Now what’s she—?”
“Lededje!” Jasken yelled. “Stop! You’ll kill yourself!”
She was upright, hanging by the two embedded knives. She swung up and out, stuck a blade in still further up. Her arm muscles felt as though they were on fire, but she was pulling herself upwards. She’d had no idea that she possessed such strength. Her pursuers controlled the machinery, of course; they could rotate the whole vast apparatus and could lower her as they wished, but she’d resist them to the last. Veppers had no idea. He was the one who still thought this was a game; she knew it was to the death.
Then there was a deep humming sound, and with a low, moaning noise, the whole scenery flat, and all the others around, above and below it, started to move. Upwards; hauling the scenery flat up into the dim heights of the enormous carousel. Upwards! She wanted to laugh, but had no breath for it. She was feeling for the knife holes beneath with her feet now, finding them, using them as footholds, taking some of the strain off her protesting arm muscles.
“That’s the wrong fucking way!” Veppers screamed. She heard Jasken shouting something too. “That’s the wrong fucking way!” Veppers bellowed again. “Make it stop. Other way! Other way! Sulbazghi! What are you playing at? Sulbazghi!”
The gigantic carousel continued to turn, rotating the sets and flats like a vast spit-roast. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that, as the whole assemblage rotated, lifting the backdrop that she was climbing away from above the stage itself, it was getting closer to the next flat, all of the stacked sets pressing in towards each other as they came to the horizontal limit of the space. The set closing in on her back looked plain and smooth and lacking in features; just another painted scene with a few thin supporting cross-beams and as hard to climb as this one. Above, she could see more complicated, three-dimensional sets, some boasting lights that must have come on when they’d turned on all the rest. She put her face against the canvas, stared through the knife hole she’d just made.