The Blood Debt Part 16

Sal came around the wing and stood in front of his old friend, forcing him to stop. Skender's face was lined with black markings that hadn't been there before.

*I can't let you fly like this,' he said. *That's what you're going to do, right? Fly over the edge and chase it?'

*I don't have much choice.'

*Sure you do.' Sal looked at the fragile-seeming wing. Its flying surfaces were intact, and the delicate struts holding the wing-shape hadn't buckled or broken. Numerous fine glyphs and charms had appeared on its surface, indicating that it flew by more than natural means.

*You could take someone with you,' he said, following his heart, not his head.

Skender's response was immediate. *No, Sal. I'm not going to take a chance with you. Chu and I were grumpy with each other; I talked her into flying over here; I didn't want to get her hurt, but she did. It was all my fault.'

*It's not that simple. You flew into the bubble around the Homunculus. That's why you crashed. If you just keep away from it, we should be okay.'

*But I wasn't flying it. Chu's a miner from Laure; she was doing the work. I was just telling her where to go.'

*So what makes you think you can do it now, with or without me?'

*I remember what she did.' Skender looked sick at heart, but he was weakening. No one wanted to go chasing monsters on their own.

Finally his eyes came up. They were completely black; all colour had vanished under the effects of the charm possessing him.

*Just tell me she's going to be okay. I couldn't bear it if - if she wasn't.'

Sal put a hand on Skender's shoulder. *She's got a nasty gash on her head and plenty of bruises, but I think she'll be all right. I'm worried about you. How are you feeling?'

*I'm fine. Just shaken. Look, you can't stop me from trying - and I won't stop you from coming, if you really want to, but don't tell me I didn't warn you.'

Sal took a deep breath. *That's settled, then,' he said. *Show me how to strap myself in and let's get going.'

Skender worked hurriedly to ensure that Sal was harnessed securely to the wing. Sal could hear his friend's laboured breathing in his ear, and quashed any visible sign of nervousness. Skender needed his support, not his doubts.

Sal only hoped that he was doing the right thing. With Highson found, there was no reason to stay behind - and if he went with Skender now, there was every chance he could track the Homunculus to Laure more quickly than Marmion and Kail.

His mind reached out for s.h.i.+lly. *Don't say anything, Carah,' he told her through the Change. *I'm going with Skender to help him find his mother. We're flying down into the Divide after the Homunculus.'

Sal knew that s.h.i.+lly didn't have any natural source of the Change, so technically she couldn't reply, but a moment later her voice burst loud and clear in his head.

*What? Are you crazy?'

Sal could tell from the flavour of her thought that she was Taking from Tom - using their friend's natural talent to do what she could not do alone.

*Don't worry. Tom dreamed it, apparently.'

*Well that makes everything all right.'

He forced himself to ignore her anger. There wasn't time to deal with that. *Look after Highson while I'm gone. And Skender's friend; her name's Chu, I think. Get them to Laure if you can. I'll meet you there afterwards.'

*Are you serious?'

*Okay, finished,' said Skender in his ear. For better or for worse, they were now strapped together under the wing. *This is going to be hard, but we have to get right to the edge and jump off as far as we can. From there, just hang on. I'll do the rest.'

*Okay.' They walked awkwardly forward.

*I have to go now, Carah,' he sent to s.h.i.+lly. *Sorry to leave you with Marmion. He's going to pop.'

*I can handle him. You worry about yourselves,' she said more evenly. *Just don't fall, Sayed. Come back to me in one piece.'

*Be sure of it.'

Her concern came loud and clear over the link in the seconds it remained open. He was glad when it closed, because he was able to concentrate solely on what he was getting himself into. Before him, the vast gulf of the Divide looked very deep and very rugged. There were far too many jagged rocks on which he and Skender could be dashed to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp.

But Skender's hands were covered with marks that weren't tattoos. He could feel the Change flowing through them. If Skender trusted the charms, so would he.

*I'm ready,' he said, gripping the harness with sweaty, bloodstained hands.

Skender's knees bent and Sal bent his too. Then they were jumping outward away from the safety of solid rock. A wall of wind hit them. The world flipped upside-down. Sal closed his eyes and hoped Tom had dreamed him surviving too.

First the shadow had taken flesh and come to life. That had been bad enough. Then more shadows had come out of the darkness and pressed in around them, yabbering at them, forcing them to connect. It was too much all at once. Flight was the only solution.

But for a moment the connection had been pure and powerful. Anger was a white-hot stream pouring through the body they inhabited, was.h.i.+ng away acc.u.mulated grief and confusion in a wonderful torrent. The air had been pure and the taste of iron-rich dust sweeter than any feast. Memories of life flooded back in. The world had been within their grasp, just for an instant.

And death. So long had they lived in the shadow of the void that the deepest shadow of all had seemed to forget them. Their beginnings stretched so far back as to be almost forgotten; their endings, likewise, had seemed an infinite distance away.

But even infinity had a way of drawing close, if stared at for too long. They were standing in it now, and death had almost reclaimed them.

Their new life had started with the light. It blazed like a sun at midnight, blinding them. They had woken, quivering and disoriented like a newborn, inside a body that wasn't designed for them, couldn't possibly contain them, and yet somehow held them, trapped together like twin yolks in an egg. They had panicked.

Then the light faded to black and a shadow had confronted them. Substance had overwhelmed them. Sensation flooded through nerves as new as dew. They felt air on their conjoined skin, heard sounds that might have been words, staggered on ground that felt as solid as the bedrock of eternity. They were in the world again. They were standing. They were alive!

But something was obviously wrong. The shadow hollered and fell away. Darkness pressed in again, and their panic deepened. The sense of wrongness grew stronger, took on a clear if distant form. It tugged at them, giving them purpose even as it sickened them, undermined any joy at being back.

They weren't the only things stirring in this strange, scarred world.

Their new body took some effort to coordinate, but it wasn't capricious. It possessed a strange internal logic that woke distant, disturbing memories.

One leg swung in front of another. Then another, and another.

They walked, and the cold, hard ground moved beneath them.

Darkness walked with them. Not the darkness of the void, but of pre-dawn gloom waiting in antic.i.p.ation of a sun that never came. Light seemed to radiate from their new body, illuminating the ground around their feet and anything that came within arm's reach. As they walked, they trailed a glowing path behind them. They imagined sometimes that they could see all the way back to where they had started, as if looking along an underground tunnel lit with phosph.o.r.escent mould.

All was not completely dark outside their elongated coc.o.o.n. The sun and moon shone wanly through the murk, and strange shapes brushed by them, unidentifiable but definitely there. Trees were skeletal cracks in their vision. Cliff faces and occasional ruined walls came into focus as the bubble of light touched them. Occasional glimpses of life stirred as creatures scurried out of their path, diving into undergrowth or under rocks as they approached. The new world was frightened of them, but why that might be they didn't know.

They walked on, never growing tired or hungry or thirsty. Their new body didn't need to sleep, and neither did they: they had slept an eternity already, and might never need to again. Entangled, they found it difficult to think separately, and remained that way as night and day rolled on around them. They felt they could walk from one side of the Earth to the other. Even in its strange state, the world and its sensations were a wealth of riches compared to the poverty that had preceded it.

Eventually they realised that they were being followed. Down the corridor of light behind them, a shadow had appeared, distant but definitely there. It haunted them like the ghost of their past, never quite coming into focus, never quite within reach.

They knew that there was much they had forgotten, or buried in memories that had lain stagnant for an age. Pieces were coming back to them - faces, names, and places that had once been important to them. With those fragments came a growing sense of dread at the thought of their destination. The wrongness seeped into them, sucking at their resolve like a whirlpool.

Their pace ebbed, although they made no conscious decision to slow down. The shadow behind them held less creeping horror than the wrongness ahead.

When the shadow came closer, it resolved into a man, a man with dark skin and greying hair, whose lips were cracked and whose eyes saw right through them. He was staggering, exhausted. They had to force him to stop and look at them, although what he saw they couldn't tell. They had no mirrors to see their new face, and they had pa.s.sed no standing water.

The man's lips moved, but his words made no sense. Why not her? he whispered urgently, his voice as ghostly as the world around them. Why not her?

They recognised him. That was the most startling thing. They knew who the man had been searching for and why his quest had failed. His desperation was naked before them, writ deep in lines and tear tracks.

He had delivered them into the world, and they supposed they owed him for that.

Many days had pa.s.sed since their awakening; a great distance had pa.s.sed beneath their implacably plodding feet. No other people crossed their path until a great gulf yawned before them, and they sensed a changing in the texture of the world. They were getting closer to their destination. Things were becoming increasingly strained.

Then - outrageously, unexpectedly - more shadows appeared. Things fell out of the sky. Fireworks. If their new body had had a heart, it would have been racing.

People they couldn't possibly recognise, but did, a.s.sailed them. Fractured memories coursed through them: one of three who were caught in the Way; one of three who escaped; darkness pressing in on every side; a hum that threatened to stamp their minds flat under the heel of eternity ...

A hint of loneliness had kept them talking when they knew they should be moving on. As a result, death had almost caught them. What did death mean in this strange new world, in their new body? What would it mean for the world if they were to die before their job was done? Would all their sacrifices have been for nothing?

There has been enough death. They knew that with a cold certainty that cut through their fear like a knife. And anger, sweet and pure, had fuelled the thrust.

They ran. They sensed the lip of a cliff before them as they fled the shadows, and jumped over it without hesitation. The glowing path winked out behind them as they plummeted to an invisible ground below. For a moment, they were back in the void, with no point of reference, tumbling and turning, limbs a-flailing.

Then the ground hit them, and the light returned. Ahead of them, unseen but deeply felt, lay their destination. Nothing would stop them from reaching it. Not the shadows, not death, and not the fear that gnawed at their insides like time's teeth at stone. The wrongness awaited them.

Unharmed, but not untouched, they climbed to their feet and resumed their journey.

The Duty.

*What do we mean when we say "destiny"? What is this thing called "fate"? A succour for the lazy- minded. A balm for the weak of will.'

THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 83.

W.

ith no small sense of misgiving, s.h.i.+lly watched Skender's flying wing drop over the edge of the Divide. Just like that, Sal was gone, and the G.o.ddess only knew if he would ever come back. So much had happened so quickly that she despaired of ever coming abreast of it all.

Deciding to head off at least one potential tirade, she explained the sudden change in events to Marmion.

*Sal and Skender are going after the Homunculus,' she said, stating the fait accompli baldly. He would just have to accept it. *They'll call us if they find anything.'

Marmion stared at her with fury in his eyes, but he didn't say anything at first. When he did speak, his voice was carefully controlled.

*And who is this Skender? Where does he come from and what is he doing here?'

*He's from the Interior,' she began.

*I could tell that by looking at him. Was his arrival here planned? Were you expecting him?'

*No,' she said with perfect honesty. *I haven't seen him in years. Apparently he's looking for his mother,' she added, remembering something Sal had alluded to.

*Here?'

She shrugged, knowing nothing more about the situation. *I guess when Chu, his friend, wakes up, we can ask her.'

*I guess we can,' Marmion said with acid sarcasm.

Kail whistled for attention. *Company!'

Heads turned. The tracker pointed at a billowing cloud on the north-eastern horizon. The sound of chimerical engines thrumming in the distance came dimly to her, now she knew to listen.

s.h.i.+lly's pulse beat a little faster, wondering who would be driving so close to the Divide. A delegation from Laure, perhaps, or further abroad? There was no way of knowing until they arrived.

The wardens turned their attention outwards, forming a protective cordon around the injured as the vehicles approached. Marmion held his pointed staff at the ready. Kail regarded the scene from his lofty perspective, showing no emotion at all.

As the vehicles drew closer, they resolved into open-frame buses, smaller than the Wardens' buses but no less rugged. Their engines roared and gouted clouds of white smoke. Men and women clung to the frames, shouting words s.h.i.+lly couldn't quite make out. They seemed to be jeering.

The buses fanned out, tracing a noisy circle around the wardens. There was no mistaking the threat. The new arrivals were sizing the wardens up, testing them.

Marmion refused to be provoked. He simply waited, a haughty cast to his round face.

Eventually one of the buses broke away from the others and angled inward. Spraying dirt behind its wide, corrugated wheels, it slid to a halt not far from where s.h.i.+lly stood. Its engine growled noisily. Fumes billowed from its exhaust.

The driver, a heavyset, bearded man with the broadest shoulders s.h.i.+lly had ever seen, stood up behind the wheel, his expression hostile. His pa.s.sengers hung from the frame of the bus, silent for the moment but with an air of readiness. Some scowled; others grinned. s.h.i.+lly saw the metal of weapons visible through their robes.

Marmion took two steps away from the rest of the wardens towards the driver - clearly the leader of the newcomers. The two men sized each other up from a distance, radiating indignation.

Before either could speak, a loud boom came from the Divide, as of a giant thunderclap. Heads turned. Lightning flashed down from an empty sky, the object of the strike invisible over the cliff edge. Black clouds boiled upwards out of the Divide, blotting out the sun. A cold wind rushed over them.

s.h.i.+lly covered her eyes. The wind grew stronger, making her stagger. Around her, wardens fell to their knees, clutching their robes and covering their eyes. Lightning flashed again, and the earth itself seemed to rumble.

Alarmed, s.h.i.+lly peered through her fingers at the newcomers. This had to be a trap. The wardens would be attacked while they were startled by the sudden squall. She found, to her surprise, that the people on the nearest bus were just as startled as she was. Voices raised in alarm, shouting words that the wind s.n.a.t.c.hed away. The driver regarded the unnatural atmospherics with a respectful wariness that seemed to be directed at Marmion, the only one of the wardens left standing.

They thought we did this! s.h.i.+lly realised.

The driver dropped back into his seat and, with a roar of engines, powered away. The other two buses broke their endless circling and fell into its wake. Without a rearward glance, the newcomers accelerated back the way they had come and vanished in a cloud of dust.

The storm ebbed quickly. The thick, black clouds became grey, then white, then blew themselves out with one mighty rush of wind. s.h.i.+lly felt cool dampness on her cheeks and forehead, and was amazed to find moisture condensed there. The dry, desert air suddenly tasted sweet.