Marcus Stone, I sentence you to The Drop.

Those are the words that no one who lives in Spire ever wants to hear, and here was I on the receiving end of them. They are reserved for those who have been condemned to death for treason or, as more often is the case, some particularly heinous crime. Now, what classifies as heinous is up for debate, and that is decided by those we call Them Above. Mostly it is used to remove an obstacle to their designs, those that have gone up against the interests of one of them. Normally you never know what those interests are until it is too late. The real problem is that what is against the interests of one may be in the interests of others and you can easily get unknowingly caught up between the powers struggles of the various factions and cliques. It is why we who live below try to avoid any contact with Them Above it we can at all help it.

Once you have been condemned they really don't waste any time going about the execution. Their word is law and there is no appeal. As they see it, there isn't much point in keeping you hanging around.

That was how I found myself dragged up to the top of Spire, ready for The Drop. By that I don't mean dancing the gallows jig.

No, The Drop is special.

To understand The Drop, you must understand a bit around Spire itself. Spire, the impossible city, is a city that takes the form of, well, a spire. Of a kind. No one knows where it came from and no one knows how far down it goes, or it if has a bottom at all. Most of it is shrouded by the ever-present mists and clouds so that only the very top of Spire, where Them Above live, rises above it, in the light of the sun. If it even is a sun. Very few condemned prisoners have ever seen the sun before they are taken up to The Drop, not unless they have had business up top before, and that is a rare and not sought-after privilege. I know I hadn't. It is an experience that I don't recommend. After a life lived under the mists, the brightness of the sun hurts the eyes. Plus, there is the fact you are going to die. It does tend to spoil the experience somewhat.

Spire itself, well, no one really knows where exactly it is. The best that can be figured out is that it is in some weird extra-dimensional place, some random localised tangle of space and time that connects to many places but is hard to the point of impossible to get out of. Getting in, now that is another matter. Turn down the wrong misty street at night and you can stumble on in here, never to escape again.

Spire also stands alone. There is nothing else out there in the mists that anyone has discovered, no other cities or floating masses of land. Nothing but the things that live in the mists.

The further down you go in Spire, deeper into the mists, the darker it gets, and the stranger are the things that lurk in it. And the more dangerous. Go down too far, no matter how well prepared you are, and you never come back up again. No one has ever reached the bottom. As far as is known, it may go on forever, into absolute dark and terror.

Back up at the top of Spire, there is a balcony that protruded out over the edge, with nothing but the mists below it. There the condemned are taken, to be cast out over the edge, taking The Drop, ready for the long fall into oblivion.

Them Above are always eager for entertainment, and the spectacle of The Drop is one of their favourites. Crowds of them gather to watch, placing bets on what happens. Time to the first scream. Time to the first blood. Whether the victim will reach the mists before they die. I don't know the full details. I don't want to.

As I mentioned, there are things out there that live in the mists. Normally they stay away from Spire but the sound of the gong that announces a victim of The Drop being cast down brings them boiling up. They know what it means, that a new victim is being offered up. Sometimes they rise up out of the mists to snatch at the victim before they disappear from sight. Other times the victim plunges into the mists and all knowledge of what happens to them is lost. Perhaps the things in the mists get them. Perhaps, and more disturbingly, they go on falling forever.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I'm not sure which option was worse.

So, there I was, standing on the edge of The Drop, my hands bound behind my back.

My executioner for that day was to be an elf, that race that is so common among Them Above. If any could be said to rule Spire, it is the elves, and they are not kindly masters.

For the occasion he had dressed up, wearing his best uniform, one so pristine white that it gleamed painfully in the light of the sun, and his black boots and belt polished so that they all but glowed. It hurt just to look at him.

He hadn't stopped there though. No self-respecting elf would. There was enough braid and lacing on his uniform to do a haberdasher proud, with golden epaulettes on his shoulders, ribbons and glittering medals bedecking his jacket, red trim down the creases of his trousers and running around his peaked cap, and of course the sword at his side, the hilt a shimmering gold. He also had a sidearm at his side in a black leather holster, just a reminder that while looking like an overdressed peacock, he wasn't to be underestimated.

For all of that, he was still an elf. Vicious, sure, cunning, deceitful, malicious and vindictive, but not exactly an overly physical specimen, for all that the tailoring of his uniform tried to mask it. They are a spindly people, all arms and legs, with sharp edges to their narrow faces and ears, ones that highlighted their malevolence. I didn't doubt I could have taken him in a physical fight.

If not for my hands being bound, of course. And the sidearm. And most of all the escort.

Elves don't have muscles so they buy it. In this case it was a pair of ogres, the best muscle that money can buy.

Picture an ape. Now picture one that walks upright and is only marginally more intelligent and with slightly less fur. You more or less have an ogre.

The two with the elf were perfect examples of their kind, being big, burly, slightly stooped in posture, with overly long arms and blank looks on their faces. They looked like they had been sewn into their uniforms and what they carried could more truthful be described as small cannons than shotguns.

Ogres you don't mess with. They may not be the brightest of intellects, an understatement if ever there was one, but they were also very, very good at following orders, as long as you are patient enough in explaining the orders to them and don't use words that are too big. They don't have the imagination to consider not following orders. They also respond to threats with immediate, unrelenting violence, usually in the form of a beefy fist.

I was pushed by the elf right up to the edge of The Drop. Beneath my feet I could see the mists swirling around, lapping at the Spire. Heights never used to trouble me. After that experience things have changed. My vision swam as I stared down. The mists appeared to be a long way down below me, hundreds of metres, and yet I knew that it was only a small portion of The Drop.

The ogres halted a short distance back, slouching, watching on with blank eyes. One scratched under his armpit. The elf turned me around so that I was facing away from the fall. He barely reached up to my shoulder, hat and all. I wasn't much in the right frame of mind to resist.

"Any last words?" he inquired. He spoke in a manner that sounded bored with the whole situation, as if he wished it all to be done with so he could get back to his scheming and decadence. It was as if he had seen it all before and was simply going through the rites. He probably was, given how often they used the place.

"I didn't do it," was all that I could think of at the time. Hardly what you would call a memorable response to go out on.

He laughed, one that had a mocking edge to it. "They all say that. You were found guilty on the evidence presented. You were found standing over the body. You were found holding the murder weapon in your hand. A simple enough case I would say. And yet you continue to protest your innocence. Why should I believe you now?"

"They didn't give me a chance to tell them about the worms."

An arched brow rose on the elf's sculptured face and he stared hard at me, his violet eyes sharp as they considered me. "Worms you say? That is different, to be sure. I have not heard of that before." From a vest pocket it he took out a cigarette case and a lighter. He opened it and offered me one. I shook my head. He shrugged and closed the case, returning it to his pocket. From another one he took out a rosewood pipe and a pouch of tobacco. "You have me intrigued," he said, starting to thumb tobacco into the pipe. "Go on."

I looked down at the pipe and then to his face. I should have known better. You never want an elf to show interest in you. This one had. With everything going on I wasn't exactly considering my options, and besides, I wasn't quite ready to die then and there.

And so, I told him my story.