The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  Then it faded back to black. The Homunculus returned to its usual shape. Seth felt the essence of his brother—his soul, his being, his self— slip into the same space he occupied. It was like shrugging on an old overcoat, worn but not entirely uncomfortable.

  A strange sensation rippled through him. He felt like a pond someone had dropped a pebble into.

  ‘What was that?’ asked Hadrian.

  ‘Did you feel it too?’ Highson responded.

  ‘Both of us did,’ Seth said. ‘Was that through the Change?’

  ‘Yes. I think someone's watching us.’

  ‘Who? Where?’ Hadrian craned the Homunculus's neck for a closer look at the black sky.

  ‘I don't know, but I suspect we'll find out soon.’

  Pukje angled his wings to increase their rate of descent. Chill air rippled past them, fluttering Highson's robes like a sail.

  ‘If we can feel the Change,’ Hadrian said to Highson, ‘does that mean we could learn to use it, one day?’

  ‘Maybe.’ The warden studied them with a curious expression. ‘It would be an interesting experiment.’

  Seth didn't like the thought of being a laboratory rat. ‘We didn't have the Change in our world. We remembered it in stories about magic and wizards, but it hadn't worked since the last Cataclysm, when the realms were separated. The moment I died and the new Cataclysm started to bite, magic started working again.’ He had clear memories of Hadrian killing the draci that had inhabited Ellis's body and tried to suck the life out of him—memories that provoked a shudder every time they surfaced. ‘There was so much loose potential around that tapping into it was easy. All you had to do was reach out and take it. This world since then has had time to settle, to find its own rhythms. The potential is all bound up in special places: stone, fire, trees, fog, blood, Ruins, and so on. We have no idea how to tap into those sources.’

  ‘Sal could probably show you,’ Highson said.

  ‘Why Sal?’ asked Hadrian.

  ‘Because he's a wild talent.’

  ‘We tried to tell him that he was special,’ said Seth. ‘He could hear Upuaut when no one else could. He disagreed, though.’

  ‘He would. He doesn't like being the odd one out.’ Highson frowned. ‘But he is. He's tapping into something deeper than the rest of us. Not necessarily more powerful. Just…different.’

  The odd sensation swept through them again.

  Like a sonar ping, said Hadrian.

  That was an interesting analogy. Seth considered it while he studied the roiling exterior of the cloud column. A signal propagated through the Change would bounce off—what? Anything possessing the Change? But that could be a lot of things. Someone using the Change, then?

  The ping came a third time, then a fourth. The gaps between them were decreasing. That made Seth even more nervous than he had been. They weren't just being watched, but targeted.

  What was that you said about the ankh, Seth?

  A silver shape shot out of the clouds like a bullet. Three more followed it, then another two. Hadrian pointed, but Pukje had already seen them. His broad wings narrowed and swept back. Seth's stomach rose to his throat.

  ‘What are they?’ he cried over the rising wind.

  ‘Devels,’ Pukje rumbled.

  ‘Are they the same things that attacked the balloon?’ asked Highson.

  Seth peered up and behind for a better look at the creatures. These were child-sized with thin, rippling wings and needle-sharp proboscis. Their colouring reminded him of the Vaimnamne, the barrel-like steeds of the Second Realm. They glided in a fashion reminiscent of swallows, but when their wings flexed, eye-wateringly fast, they strained like bat wings, not the feathered variety.

  ‘No,’ he said in answer to Highson's question, ‘those couldn't fly.’

  ‘Perhaps these don't mean us any harm.’

  ‘Wishful thinking, I suspect.’

  As though the silver swallows could hear him, the flock banked sharply and emitted a flurry of rippling Change-pings. Seth tensed, feeling Pukje's muscles bunch in readiness. When the flock dropped their noses and dived, Pukje did the same.

  Suddenly, they were hurtling towards the sea. The wind whipped Highson's cry of alarm away, unheard. Seth clung to Pukje's broad back as the wind tore at him. The top of Tower Aleph swept by, and still Pukje dived. The surface of the lake bloomed before them with terrifying swiftness, going from smooth black to roiling waves and a forest of life-sucking tentacles in a matter of seconds.

  Highson's eyes were tightly shut, and would have been blinded by the screaming wind had they been open. More silver swallows had joined the first flock, diving like arrows after Pukje and his passengers. Seth wondered if the imp-dragon would be able to pull up before they hit. He couldn't decide which would be worse: the crushing impact with the lake's surface, having his will sucked away by Yod's black tentacles, or being impaled on the swallows’ wicked beaks.

  With a sinew-stretching effort, Pukje began to angle out of the dive. His wings shook and muscles strained. Highson and the twins endured a fierce battering on the imp-dragon's back. Seth closed his eyes too as the lake rose up before them. A foul-smelling mist greeted his nostrils, kicked up by the waves. He imagined black tentacles snatching at him like the cilia of sea anemone. Pukje tipped violently from side to side. His wings clapped like thunder. When Seth opened his eyes again they were flying low and fast across the lake, heading for the shore.

  Uttering a series of piercing shrieks, the swallows followed.

  ‘Not now!’ they heard Highson yell. ‘Your timing couldn't be worse!’ Talking to one of his fellow wardens, Seth presumed. He agreed totally with the sentiment.

  Pukje banked and dodged as the swallows grew closer. On the flat they had the advantage. Darting and weaving like deadly dolphins, they were coming inexorably closer. Their forward-thrust spikes now looked more like horns than beaks or noses. They tapered to points sharp enough to skewer an ice cube.

  Egrigor, said Hadrian, awkwardly shifting position inside the Homunculus. That's our only chance.

  I don't know. Seth didn't like egrigor. Twice Hadrian had used them and twice almost killed him. Those things are going to be hard to hit, and every miss is a piece of us gone.

  I'm not thinking of shooting them.

  What then? Sending them flowers?

  Hadrian didn't waste time responding. He was facing almost directly backwards, leaving Seth to the tricky job of holding on. For a moment, Hadrian did nothing at all. Seth could feel his brother concentrating. One hand came up to point backwards with fingers spread wide.

  A silver swallow darted closer, wings flexing and snapping like rubber sails. It didn't seem to have any mouth, or eyes, nose, ears, or any other recognisable feature. Just the spike.

  Hadrian's concentration peaked as the devel lunged. Pukje dipped and swung to the left. The tip of the spike passed over Seth's head with an audible hiss. Seth experienced the unforgettable sensation of part of himself disappearing—like a wisdom tooth being pulled, leaving a void behind—as a fine sparkling spray of filaments blossomed from Hadrian's hand. The swallow shrieked in alarm and fell away with red lines lacing its blank features and tangling its sinuous wings.

  Another darted closer. Hadrian sent another razor-wire net to greet it. That only sent the others into a fury, like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Their symphony of shrieks reached a new height, so loud it was almost physically painful. Hadrian fired two more nets into the vicious flock. Each one cost Seth more than he cared to think about.

  It's not enough, he told his brother. The shore's too far away. We're not going to make it.

  A rain of hail came between Pukje and the swallows, accompanied by a surge in the Change. Highson had joined the fight, using his knowledge of air and water to bring a fall of ice from the clouds above. Each stone was as large as a tennis ball, and jagged with it. The swallows flinched and fell back under the heavy pummelling, their flanks scored and bruised. One lost the tip of it
s lethal spike and dropped away, spinning out of control into the writhing black sea below.

  Still not enough. Seth could feel Highson flagging. It can't end like this. It can't!

  Then a stroke of lightning lit the sky behind them, shooting out of Tower Aleph and up the inside of the column of steam. Energy spread in waves across the cloud ceiling above them, reflecting off the silver skin of their pursuers. Pukje shuddered beneath them, as though gripped by a sudden weakness, then steadied. Seth looked forward in concern, but the imp-dragon gave no reason for the interruption. When he looked back, the silver swallows had fallen back. They disappeared a moment later into the darkness.

  ‘What happened?’ he shouted over the wind. ‘What scared them away?’

  The hail-fall petered out into normal weather. ‘Nothing I did,’ said Highson, looking as cautiously relieved as Seth felt.

  ‘It wasn't,’ rumbled Pukje. ‘The devels’ role is to protect the Tomb. We're far enough away now to appear less of a threat—especially when someone or something else might be attempting to get there another way.’

  ‘How did you know about that?’ asked Highson, startled. ‘That was Marmion who called before. The Ice Eaters are on their way.’

  ‘I didn't know. I just guessed,’ the imp-dragon admitted. ‘The pyrotechnics gave it away. The Tomb isn't a static, inert thing, you see. It retains the potential for the Flame and has links to the Third Realm. The colours we're seeing in the clouds reflect what's happening inside: orange for Gabra'il; green for the Holy Immortals. White is the flame. Something potent is happening or about to happen. It's letting off steam.’

  Pukje had gained altitude while talking in order to put him and his passengers well out of range of the black tentacles rising out of the water below.

  ‘We thought we were hidden from Yod,’ Hadrian said, ‘but the devels didn't have any trouble spotting us.’

  ‘Always the egotist,’ Pukje said. ‘They didn't see you. They saw Highson and me. Anyone strong in the Change will stand out like a beacon for kilometres around the towers. We know that now, at least.’

  ‘So how are we going to get back there?’ asked Highson.

  ‘Maybe we shouldn't,’ said Hadrian.

  ‘Ask Marmion,’ Seth suggested. ‘If the Ice Eaters have a way, maybe we can use it.’

  Highson nodded. ‘True. I'll call him now.’ With that, the warden fell silent and inward-focussed.

  Seth felt Hadrian's relief through the essence of the Homunculus.

  You can't run from Ellis forever, Seth told him. I don't understand why you'd want to.

  What do I have to say to her? Thanks for volunteering us for a thousand years of solitary confinement? Thanks for leaving us to blunder like idiots through a world we know nothing about?

  We don't know that. Let's at least hear her side of the story before passing judgement on her.

  Hadrian was silent for a moment. Not that it'll do me any good, either way. She's probably been dead longer than most countries survive. What difference will it make to curse her corpse?

  None at all, little brother, Seth told him. None at all.

  Sal slid through the closing gap with just millimetres to spare. Barely had he got his feet out of the way when the massive stone slabs slammed together, sending a deafening boom echoing through the space on the far side. Instantly he was plunged into foul-smelling darkness, spreadeagled in ice-cold, slippery mud. He rolled over and called on the Change to light the space near him.

  Someone clutched him in the darkness. A man's weight, smelling of leather and sweat, pressed him back down into the mud. Before he could resist, a leather band went around his throat and pulled tight. All sense of the Change evaporated.

  ‘Be still!’ hissed a voice in his ear. ‘Be still or they'll hear us!’

  Desperation in the man's voice convinced him to obey. The order wasn't a threat, but an entreaty. He forced his breathing to become slow and quiet like that of the man straddling him—deciding that he would learn who ‘they’ were before drawing attention to himself.

  Hurried footsteps splashed closer. Two people, Sal counted. One of them grunted as though agonised every other step. They came to within a half-dozen metres of the shut door, then stopped for several breaths, listening so quietly that Sal began to wonder if they had disappeared. He understood immediately what they were doing: they were checking to see if anyone had followed them through the door. Sal willed all evidence of his presence elsewhere.

  A bone knife slid back into its sheath with a silkily sinister sound. The two people turned and hurried back the way they had come, apparently satisfied. The man straddling Sal released a barely perceptible breath but didn't let him move until the sound of footsteps had faded into the echoing distance.

  A light flared far away, revealing the outlines of a long, sewer-like tunnel dripping with slime and mud, twice as tall as an average person. As soon as he could, Sal sat up to see better, but the source of the light was moving, taking the details with it. Before it faded entirely, Sal took stock of the man who had surprised him in the dark. He was an Ice Eater, dressed in clothes suitable for prolonged exposure to cold weather. His face had a hard look despite disproportionately large ears.

  ‘Who are you?’ the man asked him.

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question.’ Sal sat up and tugged at the collar around his neck. The Change returned in a welcome rush.

  ‘My name is Mannah,’ the man said. A tiny blue spark blossomed from a crystal he held in his right palm. ‘I intend to stop Treya from doing something stupid.’

  ‘I'm Sal. I've come for Shilly. Have the others harmed her?’

  ‘She's not with the others.’

  ‘But they took her. I heard—’

  ‘They did not take her.’ Mannah's voice was firm. ‘Treya would have no use for a hostage now, and she certainly wouldn't bring one to the Tomb. If Shilly had made it this far, she would be dead already.’

  Sal struggled to come to accept Mannah's news. ‘So she's back through there?’ He crooked a thumb at the door, hoping he didn't look as foolish as he felt. ‘Open it for me, then, and I'll be out of your hair.’

  ‘I can't open it,’ Mannah said. ‘I'm sorry. Treya has the only means.’

  ‘Then someone on the other side will have to break the charm.’

  He reached out for Marmion through the Change and found the warden in an agitated, abrupt mood. It took only a handful of sentences to learn that Shilly was slightly injured and that the door wasn't going to open any time soon.

  ‘The charms protecting it are old but very strong,’ the warden told him. ‘Banner is already at work on them. It'll take a while.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Only Banner could answer that question, and I'll not have you disturbing her.’ Marmion deflected his query with determined bluntness. ‘I want you to follow Treya and the others. Warn them, if you can, that opening the door at the other end will put them in grave danger. You too, so be quick about it, and be careful.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Don't argue, Sal. You're the only one able to do this. You act for all of us in there.’

  That thought remained with Sal as Marmion broke off the connection.

  ‘Looks like I'm going with you,’ Sal told Mannah. He wiped the worst of the mud from his face and clambered to his feet. ‘Lead the way.’

  ‘There's only one way.’ Mannah pointed along the downward-sloping tunnel.

  ‘Couldn't be simpler, then.’ Before they could head off, however, Sal took the man's arm. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

  Mannah shook his head. ‘No. We've never met.’

  Sal let the matter go. A strange sense of familiarity was the least of his concerns at that moment. ‘Go on, then.’

  Mannah dimmed the crystal to the merest glimmer and began to walk down the tunnel. Sal followed, ignoring a twinge in his side from the rough landing. For a good while they barely talked, concentrating instead on looking for signs
of their quarry. They didn't want to run into them suddenly in the gloom, and they certainly didn't want to encounter an ambush. Soon, however, it became apparent that Treya was moving with all possible haste for the far end of the tunnel, concentrating on speed rather than ultra-cautious rearguard actions.

  Mannah and Sal changed from a walk to a jog. The ground underfoot was slippery and unreliable, but running was in some ways easier than walking. A gentle downward slope tugged at them, encouraging them to lengthen their strides anyway.

  Sal found a steady rhythm and took some comfort from it. ‘What makes you think Treya is about to do something stupid?’ he asked. ‘We had her cornered back there. Why couldn't she just be running for her life?’

  Mannah glanced at him as though considering ignoring the question. ‘She's not the running type. She only ever does what she thinks is right—and usually she is right. This time, however, I believe she's being rash. If everything you people say is true and the Death awaits her at the Tomb, then all the efforts of my people will have been wasted. Only she can open the Tomb, just like only she can open the doors to this tunnel. She holds the secrets, as our other leaders have before her. To lose her would be to lose all purpose. I will save her and the rest of us from that fate.’

  Sal thought that reason enough, but his thoughts had become stuck on an earlier point. ‘If she knows how to open the Tomb, why hasn't she ever done it? Why hasn't someone before her?’

  ‘Certain conditions must be met.’

  ‘What conditions?’

  Again, Mannah hesitated. ‘I understand that one of your number is a seer. The boy Tom: he sees things in his dreams, correct?’

  Sal confirmed that.

  ‘Well, we had seers of our own: subtle minds who probed the fissures of the ice for meaning. At dawn and dusk at certain times of the year, sunlight hit the ice at exactly the right angle, making it glow. In that glow lay revelations, we're told, although all my life I doubted them. After all, if the Goddess herself didn't tell us about the opening of the Tomb, why should I believe anyone else? But the signs are coming true, impossible though they once seemed: the melting of the lake, the extinguishing of the stars, the slaughter of our people, the coming of strangers. Only one remains, the most mysterious of all.’