The Hanging Mountains

by Sean Williams

  “Talk to me about the Change,” he said to Griel. “The Panic obviously use it, but I've yet to see anything like a mage or a warden—unless you count Vehofnehu. But he's something else, isn't he?”

  Griel's gaze flicked at him, then returned to sweeping the mist. “You're right. He's not a Change-worker as you're used to them. We don't really have them. We have Engineers who maintain the machines built centuries ago, machines designed to tap the mist, to turn it into water and to store the energy released for future use. Next time you see the city, look for the vanes hanging from the balloon supports. Each one is perfectly aligned with respect to its neighbours to maximise its potential. They are literally the city's lifelines. If you cut them, it would die as surely as if you'd cut my throat. We rely on chimerical energy for everything—from something as small as heating to as big as moving the city.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Sal. “Move the whole city?”

  “Of course,” said Griel. “It's not fixed to the ground. In theory, it can go anywhere in the mist forest, if the motivators are fully charged.”

  Sal pondered the things Griel had told him for several minutes, wondering at what it said about the Change and the people who used it. Sky Wardens and Stone Mages had long argued that there were only two major reservoirs in the world—those of sea and stone—but even they acknowledged such secondary sources as fire and air and Ruins. Lodo's heresy had been to claim the existence of a third major source, the beach, and to believe it superior to the others. Now Sal could add trees and mist to the list, along with blood.

  The Change was everywhere: that, Lodo had definitely taught him. Wild talents were supposed to be dangerous because they didn't worry about reservoirs or sources; they just tapped right into the raw energy and used it as they willed.

  It seemed to Sal sometimes that the only difference between him and every other Change-worker on Earth was that they had been trained to use the Change in certain ways, and he hadn't. Perhaps everyone could be like him, if left alone to develop their own way.

  But what would that mean? He had trouble controlling his wild talent. If everyone was like him, the world would be a chaotic, dangerous place, as it had been immediately after the Cataclysm.

  And therein, according to the Weavers, lay the reason for all the various schools and disciplines in the world. The Weavers believed that change was good only up to a certain point—and that they should be in charge of what changes came, and when they came. Without them, there would be no order, no certainty, no safety. Sal wondered what the ancient order was up to during these times of flood and disaster. If the Weavers hadn't heard about the Homunculus from Highson, they might not even be aware of the crisis taking shape in the mountains…

  The balloon murmured to itself as its propeller spun to keep it in position. With the wind blowing constantly down the ravine, it had to accelerate just to stay in one place. The wind, fortunately, also carried the stink of meat away, and soon Sal was able to forget the bait hanging metres from his feet. Time passed in a daze of anticipation and dread as he waited for the wraiths to come—which they could, at any moment, without warning. The mist gave everything a blurry, mystical atmosphere. If he squinted, he could have been rocking in a boat on the surface of a very clear lake, surrounded by steep canyon walls. The creaking of the balloon's stays sounded somewhat like oars.

  He half-smiled at the thought that they were indeed fishing—fishing in the air for a creature much more dangerous than a shark. When or if they caught it, he hoped Griel knew how to reel it in. Just in case Griel didn't, Sal kept the Change ready to call into service.

  The mist-shrouded sun appeared at the top of the narrow canyon, making the air thick and soupy and marginally less heat-sapping. Griel communicated with hand signals to Jao and Erged, and at one point drifted close enough to each to toss over supplies for lunch. When he approached Tom, the young seer was asleep again, catching up on that rest he had lost after the previous night's nightmares. Mawson stared back at them as inscrutably as a miniature moai.

  Blood and fire. Death in the mist.

  The memory of the thing that had attacked him and Marmion in the Divide was bad enough to give Sal nightmares, too.

  The strangler, the blood-red, the screecher, the black-hearted…

  Late in the afternoon, with the sun beginning to lose its brilliance through the eternal mist, a strange silence fell. It took Sal a moment to notice, but when he did it bothered him more with every passing second. No bird called; no creature stirred in the trees. Apart from the wind and the ever-present moaning of the moai, the ravine was suddenly, utterly still.

  He looked at Griel. The Panic had noticed too, and crouched forward on his seat, hands ready at the controls. Sal nudged Shilly, who had slumped against the gondola's lip. She jerked awake.

  “What—?”

  “Shhh.”

  The air felt as heavy as wool. Nothing disturbed its closeness. The longer the silence lasted, the more nervous Sal became. He leaned over the edge and saw the bait hanging untouched, but he half-expected something to rush out of the fog and snatch it away at any second.

  Griel waved to catch their attention and mouthed: Listen.

  The sound of something moving through the trees reached them from below. Something large, judging by the cracking and splintering of wood that gradually became audible. Sal glanced over the edge of the gondola again, but could see nothing below the bait but fog.

  He moved within arm's reach of Griel, and sent to him through the Change: “We need to go down.”

  Griel nodded, but still didn't move. Sal could understand his unwillingness. In the air, they had bows and slingshots poised to take down anything they couldn't deal with themselves. Lower, perhaps as low as the very bottom of the ravine, they would be entirely on their own, and less able to manoeuvre. The decision wasn't an easy one.

  The crunching sounds grew louder.

  Shilly's hand touched his, and he felt her Taking from him.

  “It's not cold,” she said.

  Griel looked at her, hearing her words through Sal. Her meaning was obvious. The wraiths brought cold and fog with them when they came near. Since the air was neither colder nor obviously foggier, maybe it wasn't a wraith crashing through the forest below, after all.

  With a nod, Griel touched the balloon's controls. Slowly, in near-silence, they began to descend.

  Sal didn't drop his guard. The obvious explanation was all very well, but if Shilly was wrong, the consequences could be terrible. They were, after all, hunting hunters.

  He leaned over the edge of the gondola while at the same time trying to keep as much of himself aboard as possible. Shilly did the same on the other side. The Change flowed around and through them in many different forms. Sal could tap into it in a moment and burn anything that dared approach.

  The crushing of trees continued. Below the bait, the canopy was impenetrable. Sal had only just come to terms with the size of the individual trees, so could barely imagine something large enough to smash through them. But something was definitely doing so. He could see the uppermost boughs swaying in response to the violence taking place further down. Clouds of leaves and flying insects rose up in outrage. The path the thing had carved through the forest was therefore easily discernible: a meandering line of broken branches and collapsed foliage stretching downhill into the mist.

  Griel halted their descent when the bait brushed the top of the canopy. It had provoked no obvious response from the thing below.

  “Remember to look up,” said Shilly, Taking from him again.

  He nodded. If this was a trap, it would spring from anywhere but the distraction below.

  That provoked an ugly thought. If the thing were to grab the bait and pull the balloon down…

  Griel was ahead of him. Tugging a lever sharply backwards, he disconnected the cable connecting the carcass to the balloon. The bait dropped into the trees, trailing the cable behind it. When both disappeared, the thundering cra
shes ceased.

  Sal held his breath. Directly below them, where the bait had dropped, was a creature large enough to make treetops sway and to smash a path through the forest. How would it react to the fleshy missile from the sky?

  After a second, the sound of its thunderous passage resumed.

  “I get the feeling we're being ignored,” said Shilly aloud.

  Sal agreed. “One of us is going to have to go down there and attract its attention.”

  “Both of us.”

  “No, Shilly.” Griel spoke without taking his eyes off the controls. “Just Sal. I want you here, with me.”

  Her lips narrowed. “If you're saying that because of my leg—”

  “Partly, yes. Partly because I want to be certain Sal comes back.”

  “I'm your hostage now?”

  Griel did look up at that, and regarded her for a full second as the balloon turned a half-circle beneath them. His eyes were unsympathetic, but not threatening either. “I prefer to think of it as giving Sal extra incentive to be careful.”

  Sal didn't see the point in arguing. “I'll be okay, Shilly. At the slightest sign of trouble, I'll either blow something up or run away. You can rely on me for that.”

  She wasn't so easily mollified. “I'm tired of sitting around while you do all the dangerous stuff.”

  “Don't worry,” said Griel. “I'm sure you'll get your turn.”

  Sal kissed Shilly quickly as the Panic tossed a rope ladder over the side.

  “Bring me back a flower,” she said.

  “Anything for the lady.” Sal swung his legs out of the gondola and tried not to think about the drop or what might be waiting at the bottom of it. The balloon had descended a considerable distance, but the top of the canopy could have been dozens of metres from the actual forest floor, for all he could tell.

  He descended rapidly, then slowed when he met the level of the foliage. Shadows reined below that point, and he took a moment to let his eyes adjust. The crashing of the thing was moving away from him at a steady pace, but was still fearsomely loud. The leaves shook.

  Pausing only to reactivate the camouflage charms he had inscribed into his skin, he climbed rung by rung down into the gloom, feeling as though he was slipping underwater. The air grew still. Leathery plants crowded him on all sides, sticky with sap and cobwebs. A tiny brown lizard clinging to a branch caught his eye. Instead of jumping away at the sight of him, it stayed frozen, bulging eyes watching him, unmoving.

  When he reached the bottom, he dropped onto a dense mat of rotting vegetation and fungus that might have been undisturbed for centuries. Nothing molested him, so he tugged the ladder three times and waited until it snaked up through the branches. He would call Shilly through the Change when he needed to ascend.

  The crashing sounds came from his left. Crouching, he proceeded to track its source, confident that the racket would cover his footsteps. Within moments, he found the broad swathe of destruction the creature had left behind. Splintered tree stumps, snapped branches, and crushed ferns lay in its wake. Vines hung limp like severed streamers. He checked for tracks, but found only broad, circular indentations that he didn't recognise. Each was wide enough for four of his feet, and lacked any sign of toe, hoof, or claw. Whatever made them was heavy enough to punch right through the undergrowth to the soil beneath and to crush rocks to powder. The pattern of footprints puzzled him in other ways, too; there seemed to be too many of them on one side, as though it had more than two legs.

  The trail led uphill, occasionally switching back on itself, avoiding the steeper areas. Sal couldn't see far ahead, so went carefully, mindful not to twist an ankle in the pothole-prints or to spear himself on a jagged splinter.

  “I'm following it,” he told Shilly, to allay any worries she might have felt. “Don't know what it is, yet, or where it's going. I'll call again when I do.” He wanted to ask her if she recalled the name of a giant creature spoken of only in stories about the Cataclysm. Elephand? Elevant? He couldn't quite remember it. There was no way she could reply, so he kept the question to himself.

  The creature, whatever it was, had a considerably greater stride than he did, and it didn't have to walk around pitfalls or stumps either. Although Sal started cautiously at first, soon he found himself scrambling just to keep up, hands and shins bloodied from fresh scratches. His breath came heavily in the thick, pungent air. The sound of thunderous footsteps reverberated in his head, drowning out any other thought.

  When it stopped, the silence crashed down like a lid over the world, and he froze in place, fearing he'd been discovered.

  Nothing jumped at him out of the undergrowth. He slowly let free the breath he had been holding and realised that he could still hear movement ahead, albeit not on the previous scale. He resumed the climb, sticking to the edges of the path rather than blundering right up its centre, and keeping his eyes fixed firmly forward.

  The trail turned at a sharp angle to avoid a stony outcrop painted green with moss. Sal brushed against it as he went by, distantly noting its coolness against his skin. Ahead, around the corner, he saw a giant moai jutting out of the steep hillside like a crooked tooth, surrounded on all sides by overlapping, cagelike tree trunks. Its wide eyes stared out through the trees at nothing he could discern. Its mouth hung open but uttered no sound.

  He didn't know he had seen the thing he hunted until it moved. And when he did see it, he dropped flat to the ground and didn't dare look up for at least a full ten breaths as he waited for the heavy footfalls to come his way, for its massive, alien shadow to creep over him…

  Nothing happened. He had, somehow, not been spotted. Raising his head slowly, he peered over a fallen log and gazed in wonder at the creature he had followed.

  The first thing he did was put all thought of animals out of his mind, legendary or otherwise. Flesh and blood had nothing to do with it, something he should have guessed much earlier. At least five metres tall, it stood on three thick legs, one at the front and two at the back. They supported a lean, cylindrical body that was barely thicker than one of the legs. From one end sprouted a rounded, stubby tail, almost crude in its bluntness. From the other, a straight, proud neck led to a triangular, tapering head that appeared to have no eyes, mouth, ears, or nostrils.

  Had it been an animal, Sal would have wondered how it sensed the world around it. He would have assumed it to be stumbling at random through the forest, lost in its own private misery.

  That it moved with the jerky, powerful grace of a man'kin, however—and the way it stood face to face with the moai, as though communicating with it—strongly suggested otherwise.

  Sal stared it for an unknown length of time, hypnotised by its size and strange form. Its grey skin was pitted and worn by age. Even in the shadowy depths of the forest he could see faint colourful markings that might once have been charms painted down its flanks. On the right-hand side of its single front leg was a crack wide enough to put an arm through. Through the crack, he saw only darkness, as though the creature was hollow.

  As he watched, it lowered its arrow-shaped head and began clearing the vegetation away from the moai. The giant head's eyes slowly closed. Its mouth sealed shut in a straight line.

  When the ground was clear around it, the massive, three-legged man'kin inserted the tip of its head into the earth at the moai's back, and pushed. There came a grinding, splitting sound. The great stone head tipped forward, further and further, until it overbalanced. With a mighty series of crashes, it tumbled down the side of the hill, all the way to the bottom of the ravine.

  Sal lay stunned into immobility as the echoes faded. The giant man'kin stood, braced firmly on its three legs, and peered down the slope where the moai had gone. Checking to see if the moai had been smashed to pieces, Sal assumed.

  Then its head tipped upwards, at the sky. Through the misty foliage, Sal glimpsed the underside of the balloon drifting above the treetops, and he sent a hasty message to Shilly, warning her to stay clear.


  “Whatever this thing is,” he said, “it's big and mean. Stay away until I tell you otherwise!”

  A faint whine came from the balloon's chimerical engine as it lifted up and out of sight. The man'kin's eyeless head swivelled to where Sal lay in the dirt, exactly as though it had heard his warning. He ducked his head down, hoping against hope that he hadn't been seen.

  A heavy crunching came from behind him. Footsteps, coming up the creature's path. With a sinking heart, he rolled over and saw two grotesque man'kin lumbering towards him. There was nothing he could do to avoid them. He lay in full view.

  One—a long-necked, short-winged gargoyle with a square face and pointed ears—thudded up to him. Its broad, lipless mouth opened.

  “Angel says run,” it grated past fangs longer than Sal's thumb.

  He prepared to do just that.

  Shilly hung half out of the gondola, trying desperately to see through the dense canopy what was happening below. Since the almighty crash of something falling down the ravine wall and Sal's warning to stay away, there had been no sound at all. She half-glimpsed shapes moving in the shadowy undergrowth, but she couldn't make them out.

  “We have to go down,” she told Griel. “I have to find out what's going on!”

  The Panic bared his teeth. “First up. Now down. What is this, Shilly? What are you playing at?”

  She wanted to tear her hair out. She pulled herself back into the gondola and limped forward. Grabbing his leather jerkin she pulled him close. “Does it look like I'm joking?”

  Griel's nostrils flared. “You're a human. Your face is small and flat. I can't read it half the time.” He brushed her aside. “All right. We go down, but not alone. I'm getting the others first. If Sal's in trouble, I'm not throwing you in too. I want Jao with you, at least.”

  Shilly couldn't argue with that, although the thought of abandoning Sal ached inside her. She went back to her seat as Griel twisted the controls, lifting the balloon upward so fast her body felt heavy. Streamers of fog whipped by them, thrown into disarray by their sudden ascent. She wished there was something more concrete she could do than wait.