The Heretic Land Part 15

'This will be quick,' Juda said, though as he broke into a run and approached the Engine, he knew that was not the case at all. Once he touched it, he would be possessed, and time would be lost to him.

The sun was setting, but for the first time in years he did not fear the night.

The Engine looked as if it had grown from the land, an imposition that could have been grotesque, and yet Juda found it beautiful. Great metal limbs curved up and out from its main body, burying themselves in the rocky ground, and the stone had melted and reset around these piercings. There were five limbs, smeared and dulled with corrosion and swathed with creepers and a crawling, flowering cactus. The main body of the Engine was bulky and inelegant. It seemed to have tilted to the west over the centuries it had been here, and now it presented its uneven upper surface to the setting sun. There was no real order to its design, and that set it aside from the four other Engines Juda had seen. They had been curved and regular, whereas this was blocky, as if parts of it had been attached with no consideration to order.

Fine metal bracings arced way above the main structure, and something might once have spanned between them. There were rumours of flesh and blood in these things, long since rotted away. There was talk of a mind.

He walked around the Engine. Over time it had truly merged with the ground, sinking down, plants growing against it, and in a couple of places rocks had tumbled from the slopes above and impacted against the sh.e.l.l, shattering or coming to rest as they subtly altered the landscape. The Engine might have been here for ever, as much a part of the landscape as mountains and rivers and valleys. But Juda knew otherwise.

'Is there anything?' Bon asked from where he and Leki watched from a distance. But Juda did not reply. He felt a brief rush of anger at them for intruding on his moment, but then he simply shut them out. This was him, and his Engine.

Somewhere there would be a way inside.

He skirted the Engine twice more and sensed no dregs. It was not surprising. After so long, any dregs left outside would have faded away or been subsumed into the ground. But it troubled him, because it could also mean that this Engine had been explored and plundered. Even six centuries ago, there might have been people here who knew what to look for. He didn't know who a not the surviving Skythians, for sure, because that far back they would have been hauling themselves back onto two feet. But who did not really matter. The thought of missing out was awful.

'It'll be inside,' he said softly. 'Near the heart of the thing.' He had to find a door.

He felt Bon's and Leki's eyes upon him, but he ignored them. He circled the Engine one more time, and then started to climb. There was no way in at ground level.

The metal was rough to the touch, abraded, dented. Gra.s.ses and moss grew in pockets where windblown soil had gathered. He found handholds and footholds and hauled himself up, pressed close to the metal walls and feeling the subtle warmth stored in the Engine during the day. The sun was touching the ridge to the west now, and the huge device was releasing its heat. That's all, Juda thought. Nothing else. It's dead, now. But he remained alert as he climbed, expecting at any moment to hear the growl and grind of metal from inside, and the whisper of softer things, as it became aware of his presence.

'Juda, the sun,' Bon called.

'I'm fine.' He did not even look their way as he answered, because he was scrambling across an almost-level platform covered in moss and bird droppings, and something ahead had grabbed his attention.

Juda paused and took a pinch of scamp seeds from his pocket. Shadows danced at the extremes of his vision; bad dreams waiting to pounce.

I'll not sleep, he thought, determined. There's too much to do and see. He crunched the seeds between his teeth and closed his eyes at the fresh flow of scamp. When he looked again the shape was still there, atop the Engine. An invitation to explore. A warning to stay away. Juda was not sure which, and he did not care. He was going only one way.

The touch of magic was there, exposed to the elements for centuries and yet still so obvious. Elsewhere, the uneven upper surface of the Engine was spiked with the severed remnants of pipes and cables, and pocked with countless holes, most of them filled with dirt and home to a variety of heathers. It was an old Engine left to the elements, something out of its time, belonging to an age centuries old.

But magic did not age.

Juda went slowly to his knees, muscles weakened by desire. Leaving that last dreg at the camp to observe the slayers, he had been bereft, but had comforted himself with the knowledge that he would touch magic again. Facing it now, he almost wished he followed a G.o.d to thank. But magic was his G.o.d.

Thank you, Aeon, he thought, because if it were not for the Skythian's murdered deity, this dreg would not be here.

He crawled forward, past sharp protuberances and over dips in the Engine's sh.e.l.l that gave slightly beneath his weight. The smear of magic was settled in a circular pattern around what must have been a hatch to the Engine's insides.

'It's untouched,' Juda whispered. The reason for it being there a placed, or settled by accident a concerned him little. He was a Broker, and he knew what to do.

It was warm when he reached for it, like a living thing. He opened his mind and felt it touch him, an alien contact that was nothing to do with intelligence. He felt its weight against his skin as he pa.s.sed his hand through the pooled ma.s.s, and yet there was nothing solid. It was touching heavy gas, his skin having a memory of its own, and he scooped up the magic and twisted it, turning his hand back and forth and watching the absent shadow curling itself into a smaller shape. Another turn and it lay in the palm of his hand, a seed of potential.

Juda breathed heavily, grinning. The night probed at his mind, but now he felt strong enough to fight it. His Regerran curse sang, but he was not full Regerran, and the aggravating factor of his addiction had been sated. Tonight, he would fight the nightmares down.

The joy was more intense than anything he had ever felt before. He remembered his first o.r.g.a.s.m with another person, the girl giggling as he spurted over her hand and wrist. He recalled his first taste of silk wine, his first look at something undeniably beautiful, and the moment he had finally believed without question that magic could be his. None compared to this.

The dreg seemed purer than those he had touched before, and more filled with a potential that expanded even as he considered it. But there was no room in his mind right now to wonder why.

He tugged a small bag from his jacket and dropped the shrunken dreg inside, pressing it back deep into his pocket so that it could not slip out. There was no ma.s.s to the dreg, but it was a thrilling weight against his skin.

Removing the dreg had revealed an opening in the Engine. It had not been visible before, but Juda did not hesitate. He lowered himself inside, feeling around with his feet until he found something solid to rest against.

'Juda!' He twisted around and saw that Bon and Leki had come closer, but not by much. 'Stay away,' he said. He dropped into the Engine, and kept falling.

'What do we do?' Leki asked. She had come close to Bon again, clasping his hand as they watched. Bon felt sick, and wondered if Leki did as well. It was not a sickness born of fear or urgency, but something deeper. A sickness of the soul. They were close to something wrong, and Juda was revelling in it.

'Who have we allied ourselves with?' he asked softly.

'No one!' Leki said. 'We're allied with no one. We're following him, that's all.'

'He's mad.'

'Maybe.' She nodded at the Engine, the impossible machine. 'But haven't you always wondered?'

'No,' Bon said, 'I've always been completely sure.'

'But to see it,' she said. 'Unquestionable.' He looked sidelong at her and saw the open wonder in her eyes. He was glad, because things were changing for her as he watched. Beliefs hardening, solidifying, and hatred of the Ald and what they stood for taking on form. The existence of the Engines of magic had always been denied by the Ald, because to admit to them would be to admit the truth. And yet here was an Engine. Proof that the story of the Skythians causing the terrible plague of Kolts, not the Ald's forbidden use of magic, was a lie. It lay naked in the sun for anyone to see.

'Do you want to go closer?' he asked, and Leki shook her head. He was glad.

'No,' she said. 'I think we should just wait here until he comes out.'

'I can't wait all night,' Bon said. 'If he's crawled inside and fallen asleep, I can't wait all night.'

'He's found his drug; he'll be all right if he does sleep.'

'I don't mean that. I might be close to my son, Leki! I've thought him dead for years, and Juda has to keep his promise and lead the way.' Bon closed his eyes briefly against the dusk. A rush of images washed over him, all of them featuring Venden.

Even if Juda was telling the truth, after so long, there was no telling who Venden would be.

'So we wait a little while, at least,' Leki said.

'A little while,' Bon agreed. 'But then I'll be going in after him.'

They sat together in the long gra.s.s and watched the Engine. It was as dead, and as still, as a pile of rocks.

The Engine is alive! Juda thought, and his fall might never end.

There was no light within the Engine, and no way to see. His senses were smothered by the fall, though he could not feel s.p.a.ce pa.s.sing him by, nor time. He waved his limbs and opened and closed his mouth, striving for something solid or recognisable but finding nothing. He should have struck bottom long ago, unless the Engine was plugged into the heart of Skythe, and that metal sh.e.l.l on top was merely the head of a deep, perhaps bottomless hole into the land.

But there was no real sense of falling, and no idea that the bottom might be approaching.

Juda tried to shout, but he could expel no air. He tried to breathe in, but he could not fill his lungs. He could not tell whether or not they were already full. And then his hand brushed across something solid, and he recoiled with a terror he had never felt before. Not because it was alive and a threat to him, but because it was so, so dead.

Let me out let me out! he thought, but he had invited himself inside. His escape would be no one's choice but his own.

Slowly, light started building. His feet touched something solid, and the muscles in his legs flexed as he stood upright. He looked around in a panic, searching for that thing he had touched, the dead thing with rough skeletal promise, but he could not turn his head quickly at all, and he moved as if submerged in water.

Illumination grew, and with it understanding.

Juda was surrounded by magical dregs. Wisps and whispers of it pressed into his mouth and touched his eyes. Its touch was dreadful. Magic had always been strange to him, but here and now, he realised that there was so much more to it. These dregs echoed with awfulness, and he thought once again of Rh.e.l.li Saal's warnings to him. Don't give it a mind, or your own mind will be doomed.

'Crex Wry,' Juda whispered, testing the name. The dregs paused in their movements, as if holding breath. Juda held his own. Then they swirled again, parting to reveal what else shared the Engine's interior.

There were several bodies, and they wore uniforms of the old Ald priesthood, Fade sigils sewn into vestments that should have rotted away centuries before. Their hair waved to magic's rhythm of ebb and flow. Their empty eye sockets glared at him with the darkness of their deeds; he felt their horrible stares.

Juda wanted to scream, but he had no voice. Instead, he moved his arms, hands cupped, to try and swim away from the monstrous dead. But they surrounded him, and the swimming took him nowhere.

He could not breathe, scream, or move, but he could think. He realised that he was in the heart of the Engine. He understood that remnants of magic persisted here, in far greater strength than anywhere he had ever seen before. And he believed that this was but a shadow of what he would find around Aeon.

Working slowly, carefully, doing his best to keep fear at bay and remembering everything he had been taught by Rh.e.l.li Saal and the Brokers, Juda started to twist and turn the dregs of magic into his hands.

Always a mystery to him, the Engines were an enigma that kept him awake for those nights when he was not nightmaring. Now, he took time to try and make sense. He looked around as he collected, trying to pinpoint parts of the Engine that he might know. Between walls that looked less than solid, a white flame seemed to dance, spiked like lightning. That could be to honour Flaze, Fade G.o.d of fire. The ceiling above him was formed of a network of veins and fine limbs, opened into blooms that had long since petrified into metallic simulacrums of flowers. And that's for Fresilia, G.o.d of growth and life. From around his feet, water droplets rose to splash on the ceiling, defying the sciences he knew. Venthia, who lives in every drop of water.

The Engine was home to aspects of all G.o.ds of the Fade, some obvious, others less so. Though he was nowhere near devout, the idea that the Engines might bear some divine origins shook Juda somewhat. And yet, holy or not, he honoured the magic that resulted.

'Holy or not,' he said, thinking of the name of Crex Wry once more. Juda did not care about names or no names, minds or no minds. All he cared about was what the touch of magic could do for him. That was his true addiction, and his true need.

He swam through the Engine by collecting the dregs. It was the only way he could move, and sense time moving on. As the dregs lessened, and his bag began to fill, mad laughter echoed within the mysterious confines of that forgotten Engine. It sounded like a thousand men laughing, but it was all Juda's voice.

Chapter 12.

aeon Time moved on, but Bon could not approach the Engine. He paced back and forth at a distance, staring at the structure and fearing it. It was a monstrous creation, made more so by its persistence, because it stood testament to the evil it had perpetrated, while around it Skythe was far less than it had been. He feared the Engine so much.

But Venden might be close by. And the longer Juda remained inside, the more Bon knew he would have to enter the Engine to bring Juda back out.

He could not allow the half-Regerran to lose himself to madness.

'Stop pacing,' Leki said.

'It helps time pa.s.s quicker.'

'Does it?'

Bon stopped and looked at Leki. She was sitting on a fallen tree, chewing idly at a shred of dried meat.

'Don't you understand?' he asked, meaning Venden, and his hope, and his frustration now that discovery might be close. Leki glanced away nervously, still chewing. No, she did not understand.

'He'll be out soon,' she said. 'Juda!' She stood and cupped her hands around her mouth.

'Leki!' Bon said.

'Juda!'

He rushed to her and grabbed her arm. 'We don't know what's out there.' He waved at the darkness, growing rapidly deeper as the sun dipped below the horizon. All horizons were close in the mountains, and there could be anything beyond them.

'Make up your mind, Bon,' she said, exasperated.

's.h.i.+t.' Bon took several deep breaths, then marched towards the Engine. He expected Leki to call him back, warn him away. But she did not speak up. He wondered what she was thinking as she watched him approach the brooding construct, but realised he would probably never know. Whatever bond might be forming between them, Venden would always be there to prevent them joining fully.

Alive, Bon hoped. But even if he were dead, his son would remain a strong presence in his heart. He always had. New hope, whether proven or dashed, could never change that.

As he left Leki behind and approached the Engine, Bon felt as if he was moving from one world to another. Realities seemed to s.h.i.+ft, because the solidity of the Engine was something he had never expected to see. His beliefs were firm, but fed by rumour, old doc.u.ments, whispers. Fleeting things. Before him was something substantial. Proof.

The ground around the Engine was hard. He thought he heard his footsteps echoing, but it might have been a heartbeat, his own or another.

The Engine moved.

Bon's fear blossomed into terror. He crouched, trying to be nothing. He had no wish to draw the attention of the Engine, or whatever was moving within. He heard Leki s.h.i.+fting behind him, and hoped that she was hiding rather than coming forward. He would welcome her closeness, but not what it might cost them both.

Should have gone on without Juda, he thought, and the shadow upon the Engine stood, growing larger, silhouetted against the dark mountains as something darker.

'It's Juda,' Leki said, and Bon closed his eyes and sighed in relief. He stood as Juda climbed down the Engine's uneven side, jumping the final distance to the ground and landing with a thud. He straightened and turned back to the bulk, reaching out and laying his hand flat against its side.

'Did you find anything?' Bon asked, but Juda did not reply.

'It's dark,' Leki said. 'Do you need us to camp and tie you?'

'No camping!' Bon said, because they had to move on. Time teased.

Juda ignored them both. He stroked the Engine, his hand moving slowly, almost lovingly across its surface. He seemed larger than he had before he had entered. Bon frowned, squinting. Perhaps it was the darkness that made him grow.

He moved away from the Engine at last and approached Bon. He was moving like a different man; slower, more confident.

'We need to find your son,' he said.

'Yes!'

'The scamp is working?' Leki asked. She had come closer, and now stood beside Bon. He sensed her uncertainty.

'It's working,' Juda said. His voice slurred slightly, but it did not sound like tiredness to Bon. It sounded like he was drunk.

Juda kept his back turned on the Engine as he led them away, as if he did not wish to look upon it again. Bon and Leki followed, and Bon was glad to leave the thing behind. There had been something awful about it. Not because of what it had been and done, but because of what it was now. Bon could not shake that from his mind.

The Engine watched them leave, and he felt the cool strength of its regard.

'Is it alive?' he asked, but Juda did not reply. He walked silently ahead of them. Bon and Leki walked side by side, and it was only as he looked at her that Bon realised how tired he was. Even in the darkness he could see the weariness in her features.

'Do you think he found what he was looking for?' he asked Leki.