The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  ‘Don't tell me,’ Shilly said, hearing her voice echo faintly in the cavernous space. The sound of wardens and mages making slow headway seemed impossibly distant. ‘I've had enough bad news for one night.’

  I've had enough for a lifetime, girl, her future self snapped. Do you think you've got it tough? I've lived with what happens next longer than you've been alive. I've relived it every time I've seen through your eyes or put up with you arguing and telling me I'm being too hard on you. You don't know what hard is, Shilly of Gooron. You don't know anything.

  Shilly blinked back tears. Being told off by Marmion or Treya was one thing, but this was herself. ‘I tried to use the charm, but the Goddess stopped me.’

  So? Of course she tried to stop you. In the world that we—you and I—were trying to bring into being the Flame wouldn't burn and Ellis Quick wouldn't be a Goddess any more. Who wants to be no one? But now it looks like that's all we'll ever be. Even with me supporting you, we've still failed. Sal still dies and the world dies with him. The end.

  ‘No, you're wrong. Sal's not dead. He's going to stop Treya opening the Tomb and then we're going to rescue him. He'll be okay. You'll see.’

  Forgive me if I don't believe you. I've been you; I've thought those thoughts; I've seen it all go wrong. It doesn't take long—just like breaking our leg. It'll be over in a second. But the pain will never stop. You'll never be whole again, Shilly.

  Her view of the cavern swum through tears and something else: her future self's vision was creeping into her mind whether she wanted it to or not. She saw not the usual view of the workshop, but of the desert outside. Future-Shilly was walking across the hot sand, shuffling painfully on feet that ached and leaning most of her weight on her old stick—the one Sal had carved after the first was destroyed.

  Marmion's hand, she remembered: another wound that never had a chance to heal.

  Shilly shook her head. That thought hadn't been entirely hers. The boundary between the two of them was blurring.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, fighting to separate herself from the memories and feelings that would soon follow if she wasn't careful. Her future self was walking painfully but determinedly out into the heart of the desert. ‘The village is the other way.’

  There's no village. Nothing but bones there now.

  ‘There must be people out here you can get supplies from, then. Nomads or Clan caravans or someone like that.’

  Not any more.

  ‘So what do you think you're doing?’ A horrible realisation came to her then. Worry for her future self made all thoughts of her own predicament vanish. ‘No, you're not. You can't.’

  I can do whatever I want, girl. There's nothing for me back there. You have the charm, now, and whether you use it or not is up to you. Bartholomew is dead stone, like all the other man'kin. Yod's goons hunted them down, you know, because they could tap into the Third Realm. With the Goddess and the twins gone, they were just about the only threat left. Yod couldn't kill them itself, not when they lived in many world-lines at once, so the slaughter took a decade and required an army of bounty hunters and mercenary stonemasons and the like. But now they're all gone in this world-line, just like I'll soon be gone. And this world-line will wither like all the others, and you can go about your life without me bothering you any more. For what that's worth.

  Shilly wanted to reach out and shake herself across uncrossable gulfs of time and space. ‘You can't just give up. I won't let you.’

  It's my life. I get to say when it's over, not you.

  ‘But I am you. And you're me. You'll be killing both of us.’

  Don't be melodramatic. You're just upset, which I can understand. I'm not feeling so happy about things at the moment either. But the truth is that you're not me at all. We come from different world-lines and what happened here might not necessarily happen there. Sal might not get caught in the crossfire and Yod might not take the people left completely off-guard. It could happen. Maybe I'm wrong in writing you off so completely. Every time you roll a dice, after all, it comes up a six in one place as well as a one somewhere else. The man'kin knew that better than anyone.

  Shilly could see nothing at all of her cold world now. All around her was sand and shimmering heat-haze. Her mouth was dry and her head hurt. The urge to shake herself had passed. She wished now that she could put an arm around her future self and take some of her weight. She was so frail and old, and ache-filled in every possible way, inside and out. The chances were, though, that she would slap away any helping hand and insist on walking on her own—just as she would have as a young woman.

  ‘I can't stop you,’ she said, hearing her voice break. ‘You know I can't. So why are you here? Why are you showing me this?’

  I didn't come to you, Shilly. You came to me.

  ‘I did?’

  You're looking for answers to questions neither of us can put into words, although we try every day. Was there something else you could have done? Are you a bad person? Is any of this your fault? Did he feel any pain? It was her future self's turn to falter, literally stumbling as she crossed the top of a dune and thrusting out her stick to stop herself falling down the other side. Curse these old bones. Enjoy your youth while you can, girl. It doesn't last. Nothing ever does.

  She started off down the dune, her sandals dragging in the powdery sand. From their elevated viewpoint, Shilly could see nothing but sand to the horizon. She felt like a fish on a frying pan.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ she said.

  Why? And why are you apologising to me? I don't blame you for what went wrong in my world, just like you shouldn't blame me for what will go wrong in yours. Her future self had regained her usual impatience, and seemed happier for it. This crazy plan of ours was always a long shot. Save one world-line from Yod, we thought, and at least somewhere life would thrive. The futures we knew could be rolled back and undone. But who were we kidding? Yod is stronger than we are. Maybe not smarter, but it doesn't really have to be. An avalanche will kill you if you get in its way, for all that it's just a pile of rocks with attitude. Water will drown you, and fire will burn you. Being smart makes it harder to accept. That's all.

  Shilly couldn't stand the defeatism. In someone else, perhaps, but not herself. Was this really what she would become if she lost Sal?

  ‘I'm not going to give up,’ she told herself. ‘And I'm not going to stand here and watch you die. Starve to death in the desert if you want; shrivel up and crumble into dust, and vanish along with everything else you loved. But I'm still alive, and I can still fight. I'd rather go down with my friends beside me than alone and dead on the inside.’

  Her future self chuckled. What do you mean, starve to death? I have no hope of living long enough to do that. She stopped and looked up. The ghastly, perverted sun hung directly overhead, burning down on her with all of Yod's insatiable hunger. Dark tentacles writhed across the sky. And I'm not alone. I have you.

  Before Shilly could respond, a woman's cry alerted her to something happening in her world. Her senses snapped back into life, revealing a very changed view to the one she had last seen. The giant stone doorway hung open, revealing a glistening, dripping maw that stunk of rotten fish. Lidia Delfine and Heuve were the only people left in the cavern, apart from Shilly and the invalids. It was Delfine who had cried out. Shilly followed her startled gaze to the thing thundering into the cavern from one of the side tunnels.

  The Angel ran with its lumbering, three-legged gait, bearing the glast on its rounded shoulders like a strange, statuesque camel-rider. The glast acknowledged her with a half-wave, half-salute. In its hand it clutched something that looked uncannily like a human head.

  Shilly gaped, unable to do more than that, as the strange procession went by. Dimly, she acknowledged Heuve and Lidia Delfine draw closer to her with their weapons out.

  The Angel wasn't heading for them, but for the open doorway, black and forbidding. As it passed under its slimy lintel, she thought she heard the glast's un
earthly hiss rise in challenge. And then it was gone, with only the booming echo of its footfalls fading slowly into the distance.

  In its stunned wake, two voices spoke.

  ‘Was that what I think it was?’

  What the Goddess was that?

  The first belonged to Lidia Delfine. The second came from another time and place.

  ‘That was the Angel,’ Shilly said to both of them, ‘and the glast.’

  I know the Angel. The other thing, I meant. That one with Mawson's head in its hands.

  She felt herself being sucked back into the future, and this time she didn't fight it. Her older self had stopped dead in the desert, transfixed by the view she had received through the Change. A fitful wind had sprung up around her, raising sand in a yellow cloud.

  ‘Don't you know?’

  I know only that, around about now, you should be running. In a moment that damned fool Treya is going to open the door at the far end and Yod will kill everyone in the tunnel before coming out here and finishing off Kail and Tom. If you're still standing there like a dummy, it'll kill you too. Your only hope is to get the piece of the Caduceus out of Kail's pouch and hang onto it. Skender's mother will come looking for it eventually. She'll take you away—not somewhere safe, but at least out of immediate danger. It'll take Yod time to consolidate its ownership of the world. You can stay hidden for years, if you want to. The older Shilly looked up again at the sun. It had grown visibly larger. But I never saw that black glass thing before. What on Earth is going on there, Shilly? The wind grew stronger. Sand got in her eyes, making her squint. I guess you don't know, otherwise you wouldn't be gawping at it like a dummy too. It's nice to know the universe can still surprise us every now and again.

  Shilly remembered Banner once saying something similar to Tom. It seemed like everything since had been nothing but surprises, one after the other, some worse than others, but all of them leading her here, to this moment.

  Yod will kill everyone in the tunnel, her future self had said, before coming out here and finishing off Kail and Tom. If you're still standing there like a dummy, it'll kill you too.

  She didn't move, even though Sal was in terrible danger. The world of her future self had darkened as though a cloud had passed overhead. A false dusk descended across the land. The heat of the desert drained away. The elder Shilly didn't look up again. She didn't need to.

  May all your tomorrows be ones I never saw coming, she said. And if you see him again, tell him you never stopped loving him. In every possible world.

  Blackness reached down from the sky and enveloped the future. Shilly cried out in both lives as, in an instant, one of them was snuffed out. All sense of her other self instantly vanished, and she found herself back in the cavern with tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Lidia Delfine, standing with one hand outstretched, as though frightened to touch her. ‘What's wrong? Who were you talking to?’

  ‘She can't be dead. She can't be!’ Shilly couldn't stop the tears. She didn't know what she was weeping for—that which had happened, or that which might yet happen. Time was a knot around her pulled so tight she could barely breathe. ‘We should either run or stay put. I don't know which!’

  An ill wind roared out of the tunnel mouth, moaning like a giant in pain. The cavern filled with foulness so pure and bitter that it closed Shilly's throat. She staggered back with an arm flung up reflexively in front of her face, as if that could possibly do anything to protect her. Was this it? she wondered. Was this how the end would come for her and all she loved?

  A hand clutched at her leg. She looked down and saw Lodo—no, Kail—blinking up at her. He looked so old and frail, almost unrecognisable compared to the strong, tall man she had met not so long ago. His cheeks were hollow; his brown skin had turned sickly yellow. He looked strangely insubstantial without his hat. The pouch he wore around his neck—containing, she now knew, a fragment of the ancient artefact the bandit Pirelius had unearthed near Laure—was visible through his loosened garments. It would be a simple matter to take it and go, as her future self had told her she should do.

  But she couldn't leave him to die like that. She just couldn't. Even if it meant her own death too, she would stand at his side and do her best to protect him.

  His eyes flickered shut and his hand fell away.

  She stood and squared her shoulders. Then she turned to face the entrance of the tunnel, and waited.

  The roof of clouds turned fiery white as Pukje looked for somewhere safe to land. Hadrian glanced over his shoulder at the spectacle. The column of steam was burning again. This was the biggest eruption yet, bright enough to drown out the pale hint of dawn creeping across the sky.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Seth asked.

  ‘The Tomb is opening.’ Pukje's mighty wings flapped with a weary, strained rhythm. ‘I suspect so, anyway.’

  ‘No, I mean that.’ Hadrian's brother pointed behind them, at a different patch of the sky. ‘It looks like someone flying into the clouds.’

  Hadrian looked in the direction Seth indicated. So did Highson.

  ‘I can't see anything,’ said the warden.

  ‘Nor me.’ Hadrian squinted but could make nothing out.

  ‘Maybe I imagined it.’ Seth sounded uncertain. ‘It's gone now, anyway.’

  Pukje grunted and turned towards a clear patch of the shore, where a lone, black-robed figure stood waving with both arms to get their attention. At the sight of her, Hadrian felt a surge of recognition rush through him like an electric shock.

  Mannah smashed the crystal as soon as they reached the end of the tunnel. The only change it provoked in Treya and the other Ice Eaters was to encourage them to work faster.

  The tunnel terminated in a chamber almost identical to the one they had left behind. But in the same position occupied by the pump in the other cave was a cluster of pipes and inlet vents. The floor was thickly coated with mud, and water had already begun to pool in low-lying areas. Lank fronds dangled from the ceiling, dripping water that sounded like rain.

  In the wall opposite the tunnel mouth was another door. Treya and the others were busy scraping centuries of accumulated slime away so they could access the charms. On either side of the wall stood two intimidating statues, each of a muscular, snake-headed creature with gold eyes and a mane of broad scales. Wicked-looking canines jutted from their half-open mouths. They looked likely to waken at any moment and attack the intruders.

  ‘They're for show,’ Mannah whispered, watching from the sidelines with Sal and catching his concern. ‘Not man'kin. Just…dead.’

  Sal nodded. Anger still fuelled his determination to stop Treya and her minions. During the last leg of their journey, a strange wordless song had echoed down the tunnel from the Ice Eater contingent. The ‘Song of Sorrow’, Mannah had called it. It sounded to Sal as though Treya had already given up.

  ‘I don't think there's any point trying to talk to her. You've tried and she didn't listen. But that doesn't mean I should come out blasting, either. If I can keep the doors closed while the others catch up, that would solve everything.’

  ‘Do you think that'll be possible?’

  ‘I don't know.’ Sal felt strong, undrained by his earlier exertions. The well of his talent was becoming deeper the closer he got to the Tomb—or to the end of the world. Either way, the effect was the same. ‘Let's see exactly what I have in me, shall we?’

  Lacking Shilly's skill with charms or Marmion's discipline, he could do little more than follow his instincts. Pressing his forehead against the damp, cold stone of the tunnel, he reached out with arcane senses for the flaw in the bedrock's fabric that was the door on the far side of the cavern. It stood out like a burning brand, angular and laced with charms. He could see the way the charms naturally knotted together like the spring of a mousetrap: able to be positioned in such a way as to open and let people through, but naturally preferring to be closed. It would therefore take great skill to tease
them open but little more than brute force to keep them shut.

  Sal was ready. When Treya performed the sequence of charms that would ordinarily have swung the slabs apart, he applied an equal and opposite force to keep them together. Puzzled, she repeated the sequence. He maintained the pressure.

  ‘It's jammed,’ he heard her say to the others. ‘We must've missed something. Go over all the seams. Don't skip anything, no matter how small.’

  The Ice Eaters went back to work. Sal allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction but no feeling of victory. He had won a battle, not the war.

  ‘How long until Chu gets here?’ he asked Marmion.

  The reply was weak, barely audible. ‘She should be there now. Haven't you heard the charges going off?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You may be too deep in the bedrock,’ said Marmion, not terribly convincingly. ‘Anyway, we're moving at last. If you can hold on until we get there—’

  ‘We'll do what we can.’ Sal cut Marmion off as Treya triggered the charms again, more forcibly this time. The wall groaned, caught uncomfortably between their opposing wills.

  ‘I think that's the best she can do,’ Sal whispered to Mannah. ‘If so, we'll definitely be able to hold—’

  A sudden push from the other side of the wall cut Sal off. He frowned and returned his full concentration to the charms. Whatever was behind it possessed considerable strength and knew what it was doing. As hard as he could apply the pressure, it found a way to subvert it. Sal bent over double, waiting for the hum of the Void Beneath to warn him that he was taking too much. It didn't come, so he kept reaching. Then it occurred to him that he wouldn't hear the hum no matter how hard he pushed, because that had been Yod hoping to suck him in and drain his life away, and now Yod was not just in the real world but waiting on the far side of the door to eat him alive.

  That realisation gave him strength to try even harder. You act for all of us in there. Not caring if the Ice Eaters saw him, he staggered from the tunnel and stood facing the door, hunched over like an old man. He clenched his fists and strained. Charms smoked and glowed a fitful red. The massive slabs of rock physically shook. A smell like an overstrained engine filled his nostrils.