The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  ‘I suppose I can expect no more of you.’

  With that, the mage was gone. Sal became aware that Marmion was sitting next to him and had placed his one hand on Sal's shoulder in order to listen in. The warden leaned away with a sigh.

  ‘Was that Skender?’ asked Chu anxiously.

  Sal shook his head.

  A series of complex emotions passed across the young flyer's face. ‘I hate this,’ she said. ‘I feel—’

  ‘Impotent?’

  She nodded.

  As Marmion began explaining what they had learned from Kelloman, another communication came through the Change. This time Sal took Marmion's arm.

  It was Highson, en route to the centre of the lake, with information about the balloon's crash site and much more besides. Sal's head began to reel at the news of the Angel, the glast, Mawson's beheading, Ice Eater attacks, and the absence of any survivors.

  ‘I think you'll have better luck tracking Shilly on the ground,’ Highson concluded. ‘The trail leads along the ravine and may end up underground, in the cave system. Obviously, we can't track them from the air.’

  ‘Understood,’ said Marmion. ‘We'll send Delfine and Heuve to the location immediately. When you reach the towers, report back to me. Don't take any action, whatever you do. It looks as though the Tomb is critical, both in our relations with the Ice Eaters and in the fight against Yod.’

  ‘Tatenen and the Old Ones want us to lock the twins and therefore the realms permanently together,’ said Sal. ‘If the twins and the Goddess do have some sort of connection, and if we can get into the Tomb, we might actually make this happen.’

  ‘On that point, there could be a problem,’ Highson said. ‘The twins appear to be on the verge of some sort of transformation. The Homunculus gives them the form by which they imagine themselves, so theoretically it could grant them each a separate body. What would happen to the realms then is anyone's guess.’

  ‘Keep them together as long as you can,’ said Marmion. ‘You made that thing, after all.’

  ‘I'll try,’ said Highson, sounding weary. ‘I'll try…’

  ‘We're going nowhere fast at this end, Highson,’ Sal added in what he hoped was a conciliatory tone. ‘It may help to remember that.’

  ‘That's not a terribly cheery thought, son.’ Highson did sound faintly better, however. ‘I'll call you when we have better news.’

  As Highson broke off communications, Sal realised with some surprise that his face had turned red. That was the first time Highson had so casually acknowledged his parenthood. Normally, they were so caught up in angst over mistakes made and opportunities lost that the issue was rarely raised.

  ‘Eminent Delfine,’ said Marmion, turning away, ‘I have a favour to ask of you. You too, Griel.’

  Marmion went about organising a party to search for the whereabouts of Shilly and the other survivors of the crash. Chu stuck close to him, determined not to be left out. Sal wondered what sort of Change-workers the Ice Eaters might be and if they would comprise a serious threat. Since leaving Fundelry, he had encountered people proficient in extracting the potential from blood, trees and fog, as well as the usual Stone Mage and Sky Warden reservoirs. Maybe they tapped into the cold, as their name suggested, to light their fragile-looking crystals. Nothing, he thought, would surprise him now.

  It came, therefore, as a complete shock to receive a third message through the Change, one that sent him lunging for Marmion's arm so he could hear too.

  ‘Sal, this is Kail. I've found Shilly. She's a captive of the Ice Eaters along with Tom and the empyricist. They're on the move. I'll give you directions. I think you need to get here soon.’

  For a moment, Sal was lost for words.

  ‘We're glad to hear from you,’ said Marmion, as coolly as ever. ‘We'll move out immediately.’

  ‘Good,’ came the reply. ‘They're planning something, and I think it's going to be big.’

  ‘I thought you were dead,’ Sal managed, feeling foolish even as he said the words.

  ‘It takes more than a fall to keep me down,’ said the tracker. ‘Thank the Goddess.’

  Sal could tell, even as Kail began describing the route and the landmarks they should look for, that the comment was more significant than it might ordinarily have been.

  ‘The nature of the alien is to stand apart

  until assimilated, to be different until accepted,

  to compete until allied with.

  The strange becomes familiar once it is

  known and understood—but we must never

  forget that a line existed no matter how smudged

  it has become.’

  SKENDER VAN HAASTEREN X

  The pounding of engines and clanging of hammers continued unchecked long into the night. Strangely soothed by the driving rhythms, Skender actually managed to sleep crouched next to the head of Kelloman's bed with the bilby curled on his shoulder, occasionally stirring when the creature licked his ear or shivered.

  Only when the rhythms faltered and stopped did he fully wake. A chorus of shouts rose up out of the darkness, indicating that something had gone wrong.

  He forced his knees to unbend and rose to his feet.

  Not a flicker of awareness crossed Kelloman's face as the guards approached. He was either still feigning unconsciousness or genuinely elsewhere.

  ‘What's going on?’ Skender asked. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘No, it bloody well isn't,’ said Treya, coming out of the darkness to stand with hands on hips in front of him. ‘Are you an Engineer?’

  ‘I do have some expertise in that area.’ He had read books on the subject in his father's library so therefore didn't feel he was completely lying.

  ‘Come with me, then,’ she said. ‘Watch the other one closely,’ she told the guards. ‘Collar her if she shows the slightest sign of waking.’

  ‘Yes, ma'am.’

  Treya turned and headed off into the darkness. Skender followed in the hope that he might find out where he was being held captive. As the faint glow surrounding Kelloman and the guards receded behind him, he struggled to see Treya's back, let alone keep up. He felt as though they were sinking down into a deep, lightless sea. The downward-sloping floor only encouraged that impression. From ahead, he presumed, still came the sound of people shouting, but a welter of echoes gave the impression that a horde of people surrounded him. The babble of voices made him feel much more nervous than wandering through the darkness did.

  Then the gloom peeled away, revealing a startlingly well-lit scene before him. The far end of the cavern ended in a massive masonry wall that sparkled like granite in the array of crystal-lights shining upon it. Numerous rectangular blocks, each as large as a camel's torso, fitted seamlessly together with tiny charms chiselled into every blunt face.

  He had seen such handiwork on the wall around Laure. Designed to protect the ancient city from the depredations of the Divide, it had been strong and yet flexible enough to hold back the full force of the flood. Why, Skender wondered, would anyone build such a wall inside a mountain?

  There were several other interesting features near this new structure that became clear as Treya led him closer. One was a series of lines etched into the wall that didn't match the pattern of blocks. It looked to Skender as though someone had pushed a cookie-cutter through the charmed stone to create a door without hinges or obvious handle. Another feature consisted of three fat pipes emerging from one of the larger blocks and snaking off into the shadows.

  To the right of the door crouched a squat black machine of uncertain provenance into which two of the pipes vanished. It had the look of something that had until recently been very active. Skender assumed this to be the source of the pounding.

  Around the machine's base stood a dozen men and women, some of them stripped down to their undershirts. The air was much warmer near the machine, and within just a few breaths Skender had broken out into a sweat. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt
such heat, and he breathed deeply of it even as he loosened the collar of his robes and tugged at his undergarments.

  ‘Orma!’ Treya called.

  The teenager crawled out of a hole in the machine's side. His face was smudged black. ‘Yes, Treya?’

  ‘You thought he could help,’ she said, indicating Skender. ‘Now tell me why.’

  ‘Because he's not from here,’ said the boy, wiping his hands and coming forward. His face revealed no sign of duplicity but his eyes were desperate. ‘If we can't fix the pump, then someone else must. If not him, who?’

  ‘I'm happy to take a look,’ Skender told Treya, quite sincerely. ‘You don't have to give me any tools yet, so there's no damage I could possibly do. Of course it would help,’ he added, ‘if you told me what this thing did.’

  ‘You can't tell by looking at it?’

  ‘Well, Orma did call it a pump so that gives me some idea. But a pump of air, water, oil, or what? From and to where?’

  ‘Water,’ Treya allowed him, ‘from the other side of the wall into the lake.’

  ‘Into the lake, huh? I'd have thought it full enough already.’

  ‘You don't need to know any more. Take a look or go back to your friend.’

  Skender shrugged and did as he was told, slipping out of his robes, feeling conscious of the hostile stares of the Ice Eaters watching him. The pump loomed over him as he approached the hatch from which Orma had emerged. Perfectly square and as wide across as his shoulders, it allowed access to the inner workings of the mighty machine. He nervously stuck his head inside and looked around. It wasn't as dark as he had feared. Tiny crystal-lights glowed in corners, casting multiple sharp-edged shadows everywhere.

  Someone pushed his back, and he stepped fully inside. There was a surprisingly large amount of room. Everything was metal and glass, with no wood or bone at all. It was definitely old—perhaps as old as the Cataclysm itself—but perfectly preserved. Screws were oiled and shining in the light; levers waited patiently to be pulled; glass dials gleamed, clean and perfectly transparent. A bank of switches, each labelled a different colour, hung in up or down positions.

  What any of it meant, Skender had no idea.

  ‘Well?’ called Treya after him.

  Tempted though he was to flick switches at random and thereby sabotage the Ice Eaters’ plans even further, he decided to do nothing at all.

  ‘It's quite beyond me, I'm afraid,’ he said, backing out of the hatch and into the relatively bright light, ‘but it all looks in perfect working order. If the problem isn't in here, I'd guess you have a blockage on your hands. Is there a way of checking the pipes?’

  Treya looked unimpressed by his suggestion. ‘Of course there is. It involves sending someone skinny down them. Are you volunteering?’

  ‘It's not my problem,’ he said, hoping she wasn't about to make it his problem. ‘If you won't tell me what you're trying to do with this thing, there's not much else I can offer you.’

  ‘Ordinarily there wouldn't be a problem,’ said Orma, tapping a wrench against his leg. ‘When the lake was frozen, the most we ever had to deal with was a bit of a trickle, but now the lake has melted and the tunnel is completely flooded—’

  ‘Orma.’ Treya silenced him with a look. ‘A machine is a machine. It works or it doesn't.’

  ‘Not if there's a lot of silt in the water,’ said Skender, ‘or even solid debris. What sort of tunnel are we talking about, exactly? If it goes under the lake, it could have had all sorts of junk flushed along it. That'd be what's blocking your pipe inlets. The only way to clear it would be to do it by hand.’

  ‘But we can't go in there while the tunnel is flooded,’ Orma said, ignoring Treya's warning. ‘You see our dilemma.’

  ‘Could it be as simple as reversing the flow?’ Skender suggested. ‘Blow the water back through the pipes for a bit to clear the blockage, then try sucking again. That might help.’

  Treya was growing visibly impatient. ‘You're no help at all.’

  ‘What you need is someone good with water,’ he said, deciding to play the only card he had left. ‘You know who's good with water? Sky Wardens. Even better are Sky Warden Engineers.’

  ‘Is there one in your party?’ Treya's eyes became tight and narrow like flint axe heads.

  ‘Do you think I'd be so stupid as to tell you if there were?’ He folded his arms. Both Warden Banner and Tom were qualified Engineers but he wasn't going to put their names forward to be captured by anyone. ‘You know, you could try asking for help instead of kidnapping people at random. The results might surprise you.’

  ‘I will not parley with people who plan to violate the Tomb,’ she said, taking his shoulder and turning him around. ‘You will go back to your friend and wait. Your fate will be decided soon.’

  That didn't sound encouraging. ‘We're honestly here to help, not to hurt you or your precious Tomb. Why don't you believe me?’

  ‘Because the word of one of your own tells me otherwise.’ She shoved him in the back. ‘Move.’

  Skender shrugged back into his robe and let himself be pushed back into the veil of darkness that protected the wall and its machinery from view. He tried not to let the situation get to him. He had, at least, learned something—that the Ice Eaters were trying to pump water out of a tunnel that had been flooded by the melting of the lake. More puzzling was why Treya thought that Marmion and the others wanted to damage the Tomb. As far as he was aware, that possibility had never crossed anyone's mind. Until the previous day, they hadn't even known it existed—so how could the Ice Eaters possibly level such an accusation at them and expect it to stick? Who could have done something so stupid?

  The answer leaned against a wall next to Kelloman's narrow cot, tapping her cane against the cold, hard ground. Shilly looked up as he approached and he saw such a terrible hopelessness in her eyes that all his joy at seeing her evaporated, and he had to fight a powerful urge to turn and run back into the shadows.

  ‘What did you tell them?’ Skender asked her. ‘What on Earth have you said?’

  The accusation in his tone almost made her cry. ‘The truth. And it's nice to see you, too.’

  ‘But don't you realise what you've done? Bad enough that your stunt with the balloon has left us stranded here, easy picking for this mad mob and their delusions of grandeur. Now you've turned them completely against us by spinning some nonsense about wanting to damage the Tomb!’ The guards scowled and the woman who had brought Skender out of the darkness looked as though she was about to object. He ignored them and ploughed right on. ‘The Goddess only knows how we're going to sort this mess out before Yod breaks loose and eats us all. Nice one, Shilly. Nice one.’

  She had never seen her old friend like this before. He could be irritable and tetchy, but never so outspokenly upset. That he was obviously tired didn't help, nor that he was surely worried about Chu. Shilly was tired too, and the grief of her older self, for Sal, still clung to her. The thought of what might have happened had she not told the truth was still very fresh in her mind.

  The Ice Eater called Mannie came unexpectedly to her defence—not Vehofnehu, whose plan it had been all along. The empyricist was still in a state of wordless shock. Tom hadn't woken and lay on a stretcher next to Kelloman, collared like Skender to prevent him from using the Change, his burned scalp covered in a rough bandage. She felt very much alone in the face of Skender's bitter tirade.

  Nothing and everything, the Goddess had said.

  ‘Shilly did what she had to do,’ the Ice Eater told Skender, ‘as anyone would in her circumstances. The Goddess would not blame her, I think.’

  ‘You believe the girl's story?’ snapped the woman with Skender. Shilly realised only then that the Ice Eaters had a way of communicating across distances similar to other Change-workers.

  ‘I do, Treya.’ Mannie inclined his head. ‘It's easier to accept than the lie it must otherwise be. Who would spin such a fabrication and expect us to believe it? As puzzled as I am
by her tale, I think we have to accept all of it—or none of it.’

  Treya raised her chin at the hint of challenge in Mannie's tone. ‘Have you never heard of a half-lie?’

  ‘Of course I have, but one lies to save one's life. If we're to believe you, Shilly lied about the Goddess for no reason at all, but told the truth and put her life in jeopardy. That makes little sense.’

  ‘Except to confuse or distract us while the others in her party go about their business.’

  ‘And what is their business, Treya? What have your spies reported?’

  ‘The winged one is flying across the lake even as we speak. It killed two of us when they tried to approach. The others are on the move. We are watching from a safe distance.’

  Mannie nodded cheerlessly as Shilly wondered who or what the ‘winged one’ was. Skender was still staring at her with hot betrayal in his eyes.

  ‘If the Goddess told you how to open the Tomb,’ she said through a mouth as dry as the desert, ‘it must've been for a reason. Have you thought about that?’

  ‘There are certain conditions,’ Mannie said, and might have said more had not Treya waved him silent.

  ‘We need explain nothing to you,’ the stern, middle-aged woman said. ‘You are the violators. Your lives are forfeit. While your people continue to kill us and threaten our sacred duty, you can assume only one thing: that your endings will come swiftly the moment you are no longer useful.’

  Skender looked shocked at this. Clearly no one had informed him before then of the Ice Eaters’ harsh penalties.

  ‘You're going to kill us?’ he asked, gaze dancing from Shilly to Treya and back again. ‘You can't do that. We're not the enemy!’

  ‘You still have value as hostages,’ said Treya, turning away from him. ‘Thank you for bringing her and the others here, Mannah. Their oddness only grows the more we learn about them.’

  She was staring at Vehofnehu as she spoke, and Shilly was surprised to see the empyricist react.

  ‘You don't know me,’ he said in a weak imitation of his usual bluster.

  ‘Of course I don't,’ the leader of the Ice Eaters said. ‘What manner of being are you?’