The Heretic Land

by Tim Lebbon

  There was a single stone bridge, in a bad state of repair and with its span holed in several places.

  ‘The water will be too cold to touch,’ Sol said.

  ‘We could send scouts along the river,’ Gallan suggested. ‘We might find somewhere safer to cross.’

  Sol examined the bridge, and ventured out onto the first of its three spans. Gallan and several others followed.

  ‘The surface is gone,’ Sol said. ‘But the sub-surface …’ He stamped his foot against one of the heavy blocks set into the bridge’s arch and, though it vibrated, it held firm. ‘The old Skythians built well,’ he said, surprised.

  ‘I still don’t like it,’ Gallan said. ‘We should try fording the river.’

  ‘No. You saw what just happened at the ice vents. I don’t want half my Blade freezing to death.’

  ‘Fine,’ Gallan said. ‘Just as long as you—’

  ‘I’m going first.’ Sol turned back and indicated his intent. They were all watching – the creatures as well as the soldiers – and he did his best to exude confidence.

  ‘If I fall, send in the lyon to fetch me,’ he muttered to Tamma as she came close to watch. She nodded, her hand loosening the lyon’s leash.

  Sol began his crossing. Tamma followed close behind, then other soldiers, following in Sol’s footsteps. Gallan remained behind, and would only begin crossing when Sol had reached the opposite bank. If the Blade was to lose its Blader, it would need its Side to take command.

  As he reached the bridge’s central point, and its highest span, Sol felt an unaccountable rush of enthusiasm and excitement. A breeze seemed to follow the course of the river, blowing snowflakes against his right side. The sound of the water rushing by below him was a thrill, an alien sound taking news of his presence from nowhere to somewhere else. He was here in the wilds of Skythe, looking for his love, commanding one of the finest Blades in the Spike, and at that moment everything felt fine, and his joy at existence was, briefly, as intense as it had ever been.

  Life was good.

  A rock shifted beneath him and he took a gentle, rapid step forward, not even looking back as he heard the sound of stone grinding against stone. There was no splash, so the block had not fallen. He knew that those following on behind would mark the loose stone and avoid it.

  He heard another sound, more familiar, from ahead of him. He looked up and peered through the snow at the opposite end of the bridge.

  A shire stood there, larger than any he had ever seen back on Alderia. It stomped its front hoof again, and sparks faded quickly in the snow covering the bridge stonework.

  Sol paused and looked around. The shire was unharnessed, with no sign of a saddle. Wild? he thought. Then he saw another shire away from the bridge, standing side-on like a phantom in the freezing, flowing mists. He raised his hand into a fist.

  ‘Tamma,’ he said softly.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She would have the lyon on a loose leash, now. Ready to send it, with the special touch she and it had between them, developed over years of being in each other’s company.

  Sol’s heart raced, but his thoughts were calm and decisive. Halfway across the bridge. Any sign of movement and we go back, defend that side.

  The mist came alive. Shapes rose from the snow on the other side of the river, twenty crouching silhouettes dark against the light background. The clear edges and points of the weapons they bore were obvious.

  ‘Stand ready!’ Sol shouted. The lyon behind him growled, and he felt the comforting heat of its breath against the backs of his legs.

  More shapes moved against the bridge’s sides, swinging over the crumbled parapets, clambering up from where they had been waiting slung beneath the old structure. Something cut the air past Sol’s ear. Someone grunted behind him, and a body slithered across stone and splashed into the water.

  Tamma let out an ear-splitting battle cry, and the lyon leaped past Sol as it dashed for the attacking shapes, wisps of flame sizzling falling snow around its head.

  ‘Ambush!’ Gallan shouted. ‘Defensive positions!’

  Sol drew his sword and crouched down, readying to back across the bridge so that they could fight on firmer ground. They look pained, deformed, he thought. But he had been a soldier far too long to judge the opposition by its appearance.

  It was only as he glanced over his shoulder, and saw Gallan and the rest of the Blade forming defensive positions around the end of the bridge, that he realised the ambush had come from both directions.

  Trapped above the river, Sol and his Blade prepared to face the attacking Skythians.

  Once landed on Skythe, each flanked by Spike escorts, the priests part company. None of them are sad.

  They have been together for many years in the deepest basements beneath the Fade Cathedral in New Kotrugam. The building is almost as old as the Skythian War, constructed soon after that triumph and added to countless times ever since, its deep parts all but forgotten by those who build, patrol and inhabit the newer structures above. Home to the three newest Engines, it was also a place where the Engines’ inspirations were gathered – carvings, ancient writings, broken parts of what might have been older, less effective Engines from thousands of years before, all brought to New Kotrugam from across Alderia. They were found in caves or old ruins, and they all provided information that went to make these the finest, most effective Engines to date.

  It was also home to the priests. They lived, ate and slept together, but their hearts and souls always belonged to the Fade, and to the Engines. The Engines are an addiction, and leaving each other now is no hardship at all.

  They take one Engine to the east, its priest riding alongside it in the wagon, praying to the gods of the Fade that its purpose will be fulfilled, its use is pure, and that she will be able to accompany the Engine until its initiation. Magic will flow, the priest thinks, and a tingle of anticipation flows through her, feeding her craving. She allows it, though she is meant to be devoid of physical desire. This is deeper than anything she has ever felt before. No one will know.

  She reaches out and touches the Engine. It seems to throb beneath her hand, though it has not yet been started. Perhaps it is the vibration travelling up from the wheels through the body of the wagon and into the Engine. Or maybe it is potential, an almost sentient delight in this thing’s ancient purpose almost being served.

  She knows this thing better than she knows herself. Its smooth carapace, connectors circling its round base, the skylines protruding from its top, all are familiar to her through sight and touch, smell and taste. She has rarely been more than a hundred steps from the Engine for the past decade of her life, and it feels like a part of her soul.

  The thrumming continues. The priest fidgets in her seat, glancing around at the Spike soldiers protecting her journey along the coast. It will be miles before they are ready to establish the Engine and prepare the rituals that will lead, eventually, to its purpose being fulfilled at last. She has a long time sitting up here.

  Still touching the Engine with her right hand, she slips her left hand beneath her robes and feels the growing warmth between her legs.

  Moving away from the beach in a north-westerly direction, the second Engine is accompanied by a priest who has spoken nothing but hymns to the Fade for almost forty years. He whispers the hymns when he sits beside his Engine, and mutters them in his sleep. The gods of the Fade are his companions, and more real to him than any of the soldiers trailing alongside the wagon, or the Arcanum engineer following on behind. The Fade are more known to him than the fellow priests with whom he has spent his life, kinder to him than the years, and more willing to listen to the constant, almost unending prayers he offers.

  The priest knows that they will travel west, and then north, before establishing the Engine. He is the Engine’s companion and Fade conduit, not its designer or engineer, and he only has a vague understanding of how and why the three Engines must be spaced such a distance apart. He has listened to talks of triangulatio
n, deep-core vibration, transmission, resonance, prashdial wavelength … he has listened, but smothered his confusion at such terms with more prayer, and more devotion to the gods that both he and this Engine device serve.

  He is honoured, and touched by greatness.

  One Blade has been dispatched north to locate the risen Aeon – the pretender god, the intruder, the bastard monster of heathen Skythe and unbelief – and the wagon he and the Engine ride upon is guarded by another complete Blade. The sound and smell of their animals of war have always troubled the priest, but right now he is glad of them. Skythe exudes wrongness, and has the stench of a dead land that should have ceased moving centuries before. The fact that it is dead, yet still exists, makes it all the more revolting in his eyes.

  He prays to the Fade, and feels the Engine vibrating through the heavy wagon’s wood. It seems to shiver in delight at what it is about to do. Its excitement is contagious. The priest’s erection shoves against his robes, and he makes no attempt to hide it. Sometimes he strokes himself in time with the Engine’s delight.

  The priest has heard chuckles from some of the Spike soldiers walking close to the wagon. He does not care. They do not understand. He prays to the Fade.

  Back on the beach, as the other two Engines are being moved away from the landings, the third Engine is being established.

  ‘Be gentle with it,’ the priest commands. His name is Hanx, and he has not moved from beside the Engine since landing. He has not lost contact with it, either, because it is already speaking to him. Beneath the hourly prayers he offers to the Fade gods, and the conversations he has with those who choose to come close – of all three priests Hanx is the most approachable, and the least affected – he can sense the Engine’s desire to free itself from inactivity.

  ‘I always have been,’ the engineer says. Hanx does not know the man’s name, and has no desire to discover it now. Though he has been close to the Engines for as many years as Hanx, his ministrations seem like abuse. There is nothing holy about this man. His is a harsh touch.

  ‘Don’t hurt it,’ Hanx says. ‘Treasure it. Honour it.’

  ‘I’m honoured,’ the man says dismissively. He is walking around the Engine, inspecting its outsides and adjusting certain spiral dials that might have collected sand or saltwater on their journey. ‘Please, Revered, leave me to—’

  ‘The Engine is ready,’ Hanx says. ‘It is eager. Excited. Don’t harm it.’

  The engineer stops on his next circuit of the machine and stands before the seated priest. Hanx senses his antagonism, and does not care. But the man knows how to treat a man of the Fade.

  ‘Revered, I’ve worked around the Engines since I was a boy, from the day I joined Arcanum. I know more about them than …’ Than you, Hanx knows he wants to say. ‘Than anyone,’ the man continues. ‘When the time soon comes, my touch will honour the Engine. It’s the Fades’ duty the Engine carries out.’ He speaks with little conviction.

  He’s just an engineer, Hanx thinks. He closes his eyes. ‘The Engine is already alive.’

  ‘No, Revered,’ the man says. ‘It’s just a machine. A device. When the time comes, I will give it the semblance of life.’

  ‘No,’ Hanx says, and he opens his eyes and smiles. ‘The Engines have always been more than that.’ He holds out his hand and touches the metal casing, feels the thrill that this engineer cannot, and promises the Engine that all will be well.

  A pulse, like an invisible nod, is his reply.

  Chapter 18

  north

  Venden had expected Aeon to head south towards the coming conflict, but instead it turned north, forging through the snow, over mountain ranges and across a frozen ocean before entering a land of volcanic eruptions and cascading glaciers. Steam and smoke filled the air.

  This is no memory, Venden thought, and Aeon went further, skimming across lakes of lava and passing by screaming geysers of steam and fire. Beyond, in a land untrodden by human feet, Aeon came to rest before a fallen tree, in the roots of which was entangled something that might once have been alive.

  Venden’s perception of the thing was confused. Aeon saw it as it was then, and as it had been before; a dead, skeletal thing, and a being that had once run and flown and burrowed. Its limbs had merged with the still-thriving wood of the fallen tree, and crawling things made homes within the spaces between bones.

  Crex Wry will rise, Aeon said. This was the language of mind, and Venden was a part of Aeon’s. The humans have new devices to conjure its sickened soul – what they call magic – refined and improved from before. But they have even less knowledge, and no belief. Crex Wry will rise, and this time it will not be put down again.

  We put it down before, a terrible voice said. It came from something not used to talking. Something dead.

  Venden drew back, terrified at what he had heard.

  Yes, Aeon said. Very long ago. And again six hundred years ago, it was confused, and the humans and their Engines put it back down before it was fully risen. But this time …

  The humans’ devices may not suffice, the voice said.

  Crex Wry is ready. This time, it will take the Engines quickly into itself. Make them its own.

  Once freed, it will not be beaten again, the voice intoned. There is only you left to fight back. The shape twisted into the tree roots seemed to move, and then the tree itself flexed and stretched, great cracking impacts echoing across the thunderous landscape.

  I came here to ask— Aeon began.

  Permission.

  I don’t require your permission, Aeon said. There was a note of anger in its voice, even superiority. But there was also respect.

  No, the voice said. The tree settled. The skeleton reflected fire. You need my advice.

  The two old beings – resurrected, and long dead – fell silent. The landscape spoke around them, uttering its own eternal monologue. It might have been moments or decades before Aeon spoke again.

  The fools might be stopped. There are humans.

  There are always humans. Or if not humans, then those that came before, and those creatures that came long before them. We have always known them, and they us. But none of them has ever made a difference.

  And did we? Aeon asked.

  The dead thing pondered, and the tree seemed to breathe with its eventual sigh. Given a chance, we would have.

  I have to give them a chance, Aeon said. They choose to call me a god, but it’s their own actions that will define them.

  How much of a chance? the old thing asked. How long can you give? Crex Wry cannot rise again. It must not. Last time it froze the heart of a thriving land; next time …

  It will not rise again, Aeon assured. But if I did stop them this time, they would have more reason to see me as an enemy. And they would try again, and again. Better I give the humans time to halt their own folly. A silent nod, as Aeon agreed with its own thinking. And imagine the results should they triumph?

  And you’re weak, the dead thing said. Even the tools of magic, the Engines, repel you.

  Yes, Aeon admitted. But the humans are stronger than you think.

  The dead thing mocked without speaking.

  You never did admire them, Aeon said.

  They’ve had their time.

  Perhaps, Aeon said. But should they make all the right decisions, they will move on. The advance will be huge. And I will be able … It trailed off, and Venden sensed the things that made it not quite a god. There was selfishness there, in its desire not to be involved. And there was a dreadful weariness.

  You have existed for so long, the old thing said.

  Alone, Aeon said.

  Something changed about the dead thing’s appearance tangled in the roots of that ancient fallen tree. The skeleton yellowed and crumbled in places, the tree fell to rot, and a distant volcanic explosion splashed it with reflected red light, like flowing blood. Venden saw it as it really was – dead, and long, long gone.

  Aeon fell silent.

  Fat
her will triumph, Venden said, every sense determined.

  Far to the south, his father’s burden increased a thousandfold.

  Bon was having trouble keeping up with Leki. He suspected it was her Arcanum training. They probably told her how to ride shires. Showed her how to send a racking. Revealed to her every cursed secret of every inner working of the Alderian empire and every creed, state and people. She galloped her mount ahead, and had not once looked back to make sure Bon was following. Maybe she knew. Maybe she was inside his head right now.

  I thought I might love you. He wondered if she heard that, or knew it. Still she did not turn around.

  Bon had ridden much smaller shires on Alderia. There had been a route that led from their village of Sefton Breaks and along the Ton River, heading towards Gakota but then veering across a shallow part of the river and snaking out towards a huge spread of farmland beyond. It had been a favoured walking and riding path for many villagers, and for the space of two or three years he and Milian had taken Venden with them. They’d borrowed shires from a neighbour’s farm, setting out early morning, lunching by the river, then exploring the farmland into the afternoon and evening. They’d watched crop gathering, and sometimes helped. Venden had caught insects on the wing and told his parents about them. Once, their son had gone swimming in a tributary of the Ton, and Milian and Bon had made surreptitious love beneath a blanket.

  Those shires had been small and tame, used to being ridden. These, he was certain, were wild.

  The beast beneath him bucked and snorted, spraying foam across its head and back as it ran. Bon held onto its mane, legs tight against its sides, his pack hugged around his stomach and pressed between him and the shire. His jacket was tied, the pocket containing Venden’s gift securely closed. Bon had not looked at it since, but it was the centre of his attention.