by Tim Lebbon
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 god to thank. But magic was his god.
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 shell 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 – placed, or settled by accident – 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 passed his hand through the pooled mass, 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 orgasm 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 mass 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 grass 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 space passing 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 shell 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 Rhelli 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 c
upped, 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 Rhelli 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 god 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, god 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 gods 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 pass 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.
‘Shit.’ 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 shift, because the solidity of the Engine was something he had never expected to see. His beliefs were firm, but fed by rumour, old documents, 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 shifting 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.
‘I think so, yes,’ she said.
‘How do you know?’
‘A feeling.’
Juda led them higher into the mountains, the air grew cooler, and when the moon emerged from behind a bank of clouds it glimmered from the frost already forming on rocks and trees around them. The wildness of this place was palpable, but Bon felt in less danger than he had since arriving on Skythe, swimming towards the shore where murder was already happening. They had shaken the slayers from their trail, and he supposed that contributed to his more relaxed feeling. But it was also the fact that he had come here hopeless, and now bore hope. It lit a fire in his heart, and that was enough to see away some of the darkness, at least.
Close to dawn, Juda stumbled and fell. Leki ran ahead to him and Bon stood back, his hand stealing into his pocket to the small knife there. The man had not slept all night, and perhaps it was only now that his Regerran nightmare-curse would take him. One swipe at Leki, one punch or kick, and Bon would be on him.
But there was nothing uncontrolled about this fall. Juda pulled Leki down
beside him, and Bon crouched and knelt with them, waiting for the other man to talk.
Juda breathed heavily, looking around at the landscape. They had been descending for some time, and though frost still glimmered on trees and grasses scrunched underfoot, they were no longer in the heights. Below them were gentle valleys, not sheer drops.
‘What is it?’ Bon asked.
‘We’re close.’
‘How do you know?’
Juda ignored him. Instead, he felt around in his pocket, then brought his hand out fisted around something. He glared at Leki and Bon, the mistrust in his eyes sharp and piercing. He pursed his lips. There was sweat beaded on his nose, even though it was cold, and his eyes flickered left and right.
‘How do you know we’re close?’ Leki asked again.
‘Can’t you feel it?’ he growled, his aggression sudden and shocking. Bon brought the knife from his pocket, and Juda smiled. ‘You won’t need that.’
‘No?’
‘What good is a knife against a god?’ Juda opened his hand to reveal something small and black, like a seed or a chrysalis. Bon could not look at it properly; it seemed to change, flex, pulse, repulsing his vision even though it remained the same size and shape, and motionless.
‘What by the gods is that?’ Leki asked, but Bon already knew.
‘Wait here,’ Juda said. His voice was deep, and brooked no argument. He moved away, past a fallen tree trunk that was thicker than he was tall, and soon disappeared from view.
Leki was nervous. Looking around, fidgeting.
‘Can you feel it?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Something …’
Bon put his arm around her and pulled her tight. Dawn was breaking. He hoped today might bring Venden.
‘I wouldn’t want to touch what he has,’ he said. ‘I don’t even like being close to it.’
‘It has an odour,’ Leki said, wrinkling her nose as if she’d just stepped in shit.
Juda returned moments later, the thing no longer in his hand. ‘I’ll look ahead,’ he said, and he sat down with his back against the fallen tree and closed his eyes.