The twins let him think aloud. Their thoughts were full of dying cities and worlds rent asunder, of billions dead and more to come.
“They're too far ahead for us to catch up, even if we walk our mount into the ground,” the tracker said. “We can't steal a buggy because it won't work with you aboard. There's no point in calling Shilly or Sal, since Marmion won't believe them either, not without evidence. We don't have any other options that I can see, but to walk. Do you have any suggestions?”
Features blurred in the Homunculus's face as the twins shook their heads.
Kail nodded. “I've promised to get you to the mountains so you can deal with this thing, whatever it is. My path and my conscience are clear. I just wish there was more I could do to help the others. There has been, as you said, enough death already.”
The howl of a wolf cut the air like a knife.
“What?” asked Kail, head snapping around as the twins jumped in fright. “What is it?”
“Didn't you hear it?” asked Hadrian.
“Hear what?” The tracker's brows crinkled.
Kail didn't hear it, said Seth, his internal voice brittle. We're not imagining it, are we?
Perhaps he can't hear it.
It's just for us, then? A warning?
Or a threat, said Hadrian. Another thought struck him. Perhaps the time isn't quite right yet.
For what?
For the gloves to come off.
“We think we should get moving,” they told Kail. “Standing still for too long probably isn't a good idea.”
“Want to explain why?”
Hadrian tried to explain. “There might be people out there—”
“Things,” Seth added.
“—who remember us and the way the world used to be. Some of them good, some of them…less so. I'm not sure they count as evil, but they don't always want the same thing as us. And we hurt them, a long time ago.”
Kail studied their strange black features for a long moment. “You're not talking about this Yod creature. This is something else entirely.”
“Yes.”
“An ally of Yod's?”
“No.” Hadrian's memories of Volker Lascowicz's brutal death and the snarling of Upuaut, the demonlike creature that had inhabited him, were painfully clear to both of them. “Not an ally, but just as deadly.”
Kail nodded wearily. “Then I guess we need to get moving—and talking. The more you tell me, the more I'm going to understand. And the more I understand, the better I'm going to be able to keep us out of trouble.”
“We're trying,” the twins said. “We really are trying.”
“I know,” said the tracker, pulling a thick cotton cloak out of a pack and holding it up for them to slip into, two arms into each sleeve. “Believe me, so am I.”
“Things in nature change of their own accord. There is no mind in the flow of a river or the grasping of a tree. There is, simply, the Change. Yet minds as sharp as ours once believed in gods of nature, seeing the need for design where nature alone is sufficient. They could not grasp that mind can ride the crest of the wave of nature without itself driving the wave. A single breaking wave is the summation of an entire ocean and all the wind that blows across it; in one moment, it is more than a mind will ever be throughout a lifetime.”
THE BOOK OF TOWERS, EXEGESIS 1:7
Skender saw it first, for no other reason than his face happened to be closest to the water. With his body bent over the boneship's rough milky-white side and a rope firmly tied around his waist, he had little opportunity to look at anything other than the choppy, foaming water, relatively clear of debris since the flood eleven days earlier, but still an impenetrable muddy brown. He had no idea how deep it was, and preferred not to think too hard about that. He had no knowledge of sailing, let alone of large bodies of water in general. All he knew was that with every wave the boneship lurched from side to side and sent his stomach surging with it. His face burned when he thought of Chu, whose sense of balance had in no way rebelled at this mistreatment and whose sympathy had, to date, consisted of slapping him on the back and telling him, unhelpfully, that he couldn't puke forever. He wasn't so sure about that. The nausea showed no sign of abating. He wondered if he would ever eat again.
His only consolation was the memory of Gwil Flintham taking one look at the vessel bobbing precariously on more water than he had seen in his entire life, and swearing that he would never, ever set foot on it. If Skender had thought like that, he wouldn't have been feeling so miserable, but at the same time he would have never seen anything, never met Sal and Shilly, and never flown.
Far above, riding the turbulent thermals rising from the surface of the flooded Divide, Chu glided as freely as a bird under the warm afternoon sun. Dark, crumbling cliffs loomed on either side of the surging water and there were few places for the ship to dock. The boneship's crew had no way to see what was ahead, so Chu had volunteered to reconnoitre the shorelines upriver. Only her word, and the shadow of the Hanging Mountains growing ever-larger, reassured them that they were actually getting anywhere.
Skender tried his best to focus on the distant peaks—vast, immoveable, and shrouded in permanent cloud—rather than the rocking, rolling boneship and the water beneath.
Goddess, he thought, feeling as though he might throw up yet again. If you're going to kill me, do it now!
At that moment, something glassy slid through the water not a metre from his nose. It resembled ice but moved with a sinuous muscularity that made him think of a lizard or a snake. Its surface was carved with scales as perfectly hexagonal as honeycomb and worn with age. He froze in shock. One metre glided by, then two, before Skender thought to sound the alarm.
He hauled himself back into the boat, unable to take his eyes off the thing in the water below. It was still uncoiling. How long was it? He turned to shout a warning to where Marmion stood at the bow, bandaged arm held protectively to his chest, but the boneship shifted violently under him and he found himself dumped hard on his backside instead.
Everything went crazy. The boneship shook and rattled. “Whirlpool!” the cry went up; a warden ran by, leather-bound boot narrowly missing Skender's face; spray flew over the bows. Skender skidded from side to side across the slippery deck, unable to find purchase long enough to stand. Bilge water soaked him from head to foot.
Distantly, he felt a thunderhead of the Change building as the wardens concentrated on steadying the ship. Sal was in that blend of wills, and Highson Sparre, bolstering the reservoir stored in the hull of the boneship itself. Skender cursed himself, told himself to get his shit together and stand up. The rope around his waist tangled in his legs and he went down again.
A large hand grabbed the neck of his robes and hauled him to his feet. Startled, he windmilled and kicked frantically until his feet found something approaching a grip on the deck. The hand let go, and he clutched the tunic of the person who had rescued him. Kemp's broad, pale face beamed down at him, entirely too amused.
“Here.” The albino pressed the rope into his hands. “Hold this and try to stay out of trouble.”
Kemp went to move off, but Skender pulled him back. “Tell Marmion. This isn't just a current. There's something else. It—”
The boneship tipped under them, throwing more people than just Skender off his feet. Kemp went sprawling, and so did half the wardens.
“Hold tight!” bellowed Marmion from his position at the prow. “Concentrate! We'll ride it out!”
Skender couldn't blame him for thinking it would be that simple. This wasn't the first patch of restless water they had encountered on their journey; nor was it likely to be their last. The Divide was a nightmare of capricious currents and barely navigable hazards.
Gripping the rope tightly with both hands, Skender managed to bring himself vaguely upright again. He didn't stop to wonder at the disappearance of his nausea. In the face of a concrete threat, he didn't have time to be sick.
Another powerful jolt sent p
eople flying in all directions. A cry of pain testified that someone had gashed themselves on a bony protuberance. The bilge took on a reddish tinge.
“Listen to me,” shouted Skender over the cries of alarm. “Something in the water is trying to capsize us!”
Marmion, poised at the front of the boneship, glanced at him, then at the churning water ahead. Skender couldn't tell what he saw, but he raised his bandaged arm above his head and waved for attention.
“Sal! Up here!”
Wardens parted for Sal as he left the tiller and moved forward. Skender couldn't make out the words he and Marmion exchanged. The boneship shook again, and Skender hoped the crunching sound he heard wasn't bone breaking. Hullfish owed their buoyancy to bubbles of air trapped in their featherweight bones. If the attacker shattered enough of them, the boneship would sink.
Skender broke out in goosebumps, chilled by more than just the water. Water-sickness and giant snakes were bad enough; not being able to swim capped off the situation beautifully.
Marmion and Sal finished their hasty consultation. Nodding, they drew apart. Marmion called for his wardens to cluster around him. They made furious plans as the boat shook beneath them. Skender felt the flow of Change begin to shift into a new configuration.
Wind alone was insufficient to propel the boneship against the incessant current pouring down from the mountains. They relied on the efforts of the wardens to move anywhere but backwards. Following Marmion's instructions, the steady acceleration that had carried them from Laure suddenly ebbed. Skender felt the boat give itself completely to the current and begin to float downstream.
The mental effort made by the wardens didn't ease off, however. It was in fact redoubled. Skender looked around, saw their eyes closed in concentration. Some muttered words under their breath; some leaned with palms spread flat against the yellowish bone; others traced complex geometric shapes in the air with their fingers—employing whatever means suited them best to focus on their common purpose.
A handful of the shapes Skender recognised; he had glimpsed them in books and, once seen, never forgotten them. A sign for mastery over water came and went, followed by one controlling the flow of heat. A cloud of steam rose up from the surface of the boneship when Sal lent his wild talent to the charm, giving Skender a hot flush.
A new crunching sound arose from outside the boat. Not bone this time, but ice. The boat spun through a slurry of half-frozen water that cooled even further as the charm stole its warmth and sent it billowing in clouds to the sky. The bone deck shuddered underfoot, and Skender clutched the rope, wide-eyed.
Suddenly all was quiet. The boneship sat with its prow slightly upraised in a miniature iceberg that bobbed and spun gently on the surface of the Divide. The snake had been locked in the ice, trapped in midsqueeze.
“Good work,” said Marmion into the uncanny quiet. Apart from the sound of water lapping against the ice and people regaining their footing, the silence was complete. “Now, let's take a look at what we're dealing with.”
Wardens spread out around the edge of the boneship and peered carefully over. Kemp joined them, and so did Shilly, emerging from the hollow cavity at the heart of the bony hull, leaning heavily on her walking stick. She looked as startled as Skender felt. He had no intention of going any closer to the edge than he absolutely had to.
“Can you see it?” called one of the wardens.
“There's something over here,” someone else replied.
“And here,” said another from the far side of the boneship.
Skender pictured long, pythonlike coils entwined around the ship, frozen solid in the act of crushing it.
“What is this thing?” he asked.
“I've never seen anything like it before,” said Highson, standing at the tiller Sal had earlier abandoned.
“Want me to cut off a piece?” suggested Kemp, raising one leg to hop over the side of the boat.
Ice cracked and the boneship lurched. Kemp almost tipped out as one coil of the frozen serpent, then another, broke free of the ice. Hands clutched at Kemp and strained to pull his bulk back to safety. More cracking sounds came from all around the boat. Icy, translucent coils whipped and writhed. Cold splinters and cries of alarm filled the air.
The head of the snake appeared over the bows, a conelike, tapering affair boasting numerous writhing whiskers that shook itself free of the last of the ice with an uncannily doglike motion. Skender could see no eyes or nostrils—not even a mouth—but he had no doubt that it could see them. The whiskered head stabbed down at the boneship, narrowly missing Marmion. It emitted a keening, hissing noise more piercing than a whistle as it pulled back into the air.
The boat lurched free of the short-lived iceberg. Kemp had almost made it aboard, but slipped back as the boat tipped under him. Wardens pulled at his arms. A glassy coil flailed over Skender's head, and he ducked barely in time. Remembering his despairing death wish, he hastily retracted it. The last thing he wanted was to be killed by a monster.
The head rose up to strike. Sal pushed forward, mouth set in a determined line. The air crackled around him, ripe with wild talent. Shards of ice flashed into vapour where he stepped.
The snake sensed him and its screeching grew louder. It swayed to triangulate on its intended victim then lunged downwards.
Sal blocked the strike with his arms crossed in front of his face. The snakehead ricocheted away and, with a piercing snarl, struck at Kemp instead, impaling him on its whiskers as though they were the spikes of a mace. Kemp roared with pain and would have been thrown from the boneship entirely but for the wardens holding him fast.
The snakehead pulled free, dripping blood from its deadly whiskers. Kemp fell limp. Sal leapt over him and caught the snake about its throat. Although unable to get his fingers completely around the slippery body, the Change made up for what he physically lacked. With a loud cry, he wrenched it down and smashed its head against the boat's bony bulwarks.
A silent concussion pushed Skender off his feet and turned the day momentarily dark. The boneship skidded sideways, missing the cliff on the starboard side by the smallest of margins. With one startled squawk, the snake shattered into a cloud of fine sand and blew away on the wind.
Skender blinked dust from his eyes and hurried with Shilly to where Kemp lay on the rocking deck. The albino bled profusely from two wounds: one to his abdomen and the other to his thigh. Sal had dropped like a stone after killing the snake and lay next to him, unmoving. Shilly brushed long, mousy hair out of her lover's eyes and made sure he was breathing.
“Is he—?” Skender didn't know how to finish the question.
“He's still with us,” she said. Her brown eyes brimmed over with concern. “He'd never go that far again.”
Skender didn't hide his relief. Every Change-worker knew that the Void Beneath awaited those who took too much of the Change at once. That Sal had drawn so deeply as to knock himself out was worrying, but Skender believed Shilly when she indicated that Sal would recover. She knew Sal better than anyone, even Sal himself.
Kemp was a different question. The healer among the wardens, Rosevear, had stooped to examine him. A young man with dark skin and thick, curly hair, he was already sweating from exertion. “The wounds are very deep,” he said. “We need to stop him bleeding before I can do anything else.”
Rosevear Took from three of his colleagues to staunch the flow of crimson from Kemp's side. Afterwards, the albino looked even paler than usual. Skender sat by him, wishing there was something constructive he could do. Remembering the albino coming to his aid during the attack of the snake, a new sickness filled Skender's stomach.
Rosevear's will moved deep in Kemp's wound. A glassy shard as long and sharp as a toothpick emerged from his side and fell to the deck with a faint, almost musical sound. Marmion, closely watching the healer's ministrations, ground the fragment underfoot.
“Please, give me space,” Rosevear requested, leaning back on his heels and breathing heavily.
His hands were bloody. “A steady surface to work on would help, too.”
“Understood.” Marmion stepped back and waved at the wing circling anxiously above. “I'll see what I can do about that.”
At his signal, Chu dropped like a stone, tilting her wing and alighting at the last minute on the broad deck. A breath of air rippled across the boneship. Wardens took the weight of the wing from Chu's back as she unclipped her harness and hurried forward, brow wrinkled with concern.
“Skender, what happened? I couldn't see clearly from the air.”
“It's Kemp,” Skender explained. “He's been injured.”
“Kemp? Goddess.” For the first time, she seemed to notice the albino splayed on the deck. A complicated range of emotions played across her face. “Will he be all right? What can I do to help?”
“Tell us there's somewhere to dock not far ahead of here,” said Marmion, “or at least somewhere to shelter from the current.”
She nodded. “There's a subsidence just around the bend. I don't know how stable it is, but it could give you what you need.”
“Good. Thank you.” Marmion snapped orders to those wardens not assisting Rosevear. They moved off to rebuild the charm that propelled the boneship upstream while Rosevear worked on Kemp.
“You're okay, then?” Chu asked Skender, her deep, half-moon eyes studying his face closely. “When Marmion called me down, I thought—” She hesitated, seemed to gather herself. “Well, I didn't know what to think. That you'd puked your guts right out in all the excitement, maybe. I mean, this is the longest I've seen you upright in days. Could you finally be empty?”
She clapped him on the back, and went off to collapse her wing.
All right, Goddess, he thought with a wince. I've changed my mind—but this time I'm sure of it. You forget one little thing, and you pay and pay and pay. Spare me this torture!
The Hanging Mountains Page 2