Chapter 20: Serenade me back to life

                                    

                                          
Time unknown
Dark Tower, Level unknown
Day and night blend together here. 
I've lost count of what day it is now. I want to say Thursday, but the hallucination spells on Level Seven messed with my mind, and it's all rather hazy and confused. For at least half a day, I was going up instead of down and completely lost track of when and where I was.
But, Diary, I think I'm getting close. 
For the first time in days, I have hope.
Because—
The whole time I've been down here, descending the levels, I never once encountered a prison cell. Just horrors and monsters and nightmares.
But a few minutes ago I passed a jail. A true jail cell, Diary, with bars and a captive and everything.
And—
Just now I heard a whisper from among the prison guards.
A whisper about a traitor—
—and Unmaking him today.
52 minutes before the end of things
Azerath's Cell
I am not smart.
I am not smart; I am not wise; I am not good; I am not useful. The things I am not could fill this whole miserable twisted prison and every cell inside it. 
But there is one thing I am, and that is furious. 
Actually, make that two things, for I am also very sad.
...And perhaps neither of these are particularly angelic feelings, but neither is wanting to take Belzifer by the ears and shake him until his head lolls, then torture him for hours before shoving him into the Machine of Unmaking, and that is an unholy, evil thought but I don't care. 
49 minutes before the end of things
Azerath's Cell
The cell we are in is a ghastly shade of white, hideous and horrible, as though every flicker of warmth has been sucked from its stones. 
Behind us stands the Machine of Unmaking, stark and towering.
And in the center of the room, me and Azerath.
But I should tell this properly. We don't have much time.
47 minutes before the end of things
Azerath's Cell
The whole thing was a trap, of course. 
Belzifer knew I was here all along.
I didn't realize it at first, though. Perhaps I should have realized. The key to Azerath's cell was too easy to find, the cell door too clearly labeled.
But I was tired. The eighth level had been hard, the ninth level harder. My hands, criss-crossed with gashes from myriad previous ordeals, fumbled with the doorknob to the cell. Angels bleed mana, and since the sixth level I had been leaving a faint trail of it, which had become heavier since Level Eight. These wounds were not serious. The deeper wounds were the wounds on my conscience, and I shall not speak of those again.
This is what happened. I slid the key into the padlock, fumbled the chain out of its moorings, and stepped inside the isolation chamber. For a moment I thought this was another test, and I'd gone blind. Every square inch of the chamber was painted a hideous white, with an unnatural brightness that suggested its tiles had been infused with mana to worsen the effect. White flooded my senses. The entire world blazed with it.