The Evolutionary Void

by Peter F. Hamilton

  Stupid, Edeard scolded himself. He abruptly sat down, cross-legged on the platform, and tipped his head back to gaze up at the sky. Gicon’s Bracelet was visible above the spikes in the western hemisphere, the planets gleaming bright just off the border of the Ku nebula’s marvellous aquamarine glow. Even though he knew exactly where to look, the Skylord wasn’t yet visible to the naked eye. Instead Edeard called to it. All of his mind’s strength was focused into a single thought of welcome, one he visualized streaming out through space. And, eventually, the Skylord answered.

  Finitan had retired to one of the houses which the Eggshaper Guild maintained in Tosella for its distinguished elderly members who’d retired from active duties. It was a big boxy structure, with a swathe of delicate magenta and verdure Plateresque-style decoration running round the outside of the third floor. There were no guards posted outside, only a ge-hound curled up beside the gate, who took one look at Edeard and yawned. Back when Edeard had arrived in the city, every large building had some kind of sentry detail. Families and guilds maintained almost as many guards as the city regiments. Now their numbers were dwindling, with old duties like the door sentry handed over to genistars once again.

  Edeard walked through the open wooden gates into the central courtyard where white and scarlet flowering gurkvine grew up the walls to the upper balconies, while a fountain played cheerfully in the central pond. Several ge-chimps were tending the heavily-scented flower beds, with another sweeping the grey-white flooring. He went up the broad central stairs to the third floor.

  A young Novice was waiting at the top of the stairs, her blue and white robe immaculate. She bowed her head slightly. ‘Waterwalker.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘A better day, I think. The pain is not so great this morning. He is lucid.’

  ‘He’s taking the potions, then?’

  She smiled in regret. ‘When he wants to, or when the pain becomes too much.’

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Finitan’s room had long slim windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. The walls and ceiling were white, while the floor was a polished red-brown, flecked with emerald in the shape of minute leaves, as if they’d been fossilized in the city substance. It was furnished equally simply, with a desk and several deep chairs. The bed was large, half-recessed in a semicircular alcove. Finitan was sitting up in the centre of it, his back resting on a pile of firm pillows.

  ‘I’ll be outside,’ the Novice said quietly, and closed the heavy carved door.

  Edeard walked over to the bed, while his third hand lifted one of the chairs over. He sat down and studied his old friend. Finitan was quite thin now, the disease seemed to be consuming him from within. Even so, up until a few months ago he had weathered it well; but now he was visibly frail. Blue veins stood proud from pale skin, and what was left of his fine hair was a faded grey.

  Edeard’s farsight examined the body, exposing the malignant growths around his lungs and thorax.

  ‘Don’t be so bloody nosy,’ Finitan wheezed.

  ‘Sorry. I just . . .’

  ‘Want to see if it’s retreating, if I’m getting better?’

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  Finitan managed a weak smile. ‘Not a chance, the Lady is calling. To be honest, I’m always quite surprised these days when I still find myself waking up of a morning.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  ‘For the Lady’s sake Edeard, accept I am dying. I did quite some time ago. Or are you going to start making politician’s talk about how I’ll be up and about soon? Cheer my spirits up?’

  ‘I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘Thank the Lady. Those bloody Novices do. They think it helps, while what it really does is get me depressed. Can you imagine that? I’ve got a gaggle of twenty-year-old girls fussing over me, and all I want is for them to shut up and get out. What kind of an ending is that for a man?’

  ‘Dignified?’

  ‘Sod dignity. I know how I’d rather go. Wouldn’t that be something, eh? Scandalizing everyone at the finish.’

  Edeard grinned, though he felt like crying. ‘That would indeed be something. Perhaps the doctor knows of some concoction that would give you a final burst of strength.’

  ‘That’s better. Thank you for coming, I appreciate it. Especially now, when you should be out campaigning. How’s it going, by the way?’

  ‘Well, Trahaval is a certainty. I’m not sure about me; in private my campaign people tell me there’s only a couple of per cent in it. Yrance might be returned as Chief Constable.’ He bit back on his irritation.

  Finitan smiled broadly and rested his head back on the mound of pillows. ‘And that annoys you, doesn’t it? That’s the wonderful thing about you, Edeard; after all this time the one thing you of all people cannot do is shield your emotions properly. It’s amazing that’s the only psychic ability you lack. So I can tell how it irks you, that you, the Waterwalker, should have to struggle for votes after all you’ve done for the city.’

  ‘It’s true I didn’t expect quite such a struggle, yes.’

  ‘Ha. You’re just angry because people have forgotten. Only forty years since the banishment, and you get taught in history class. That’s what you are to a whole generation, a boring afternoon stuck in school when they could be outside having fun.’

  ‘Thank you for that.’

  ‘Always does good to knock politicians down a peg or two.’

  ‘I’m not a poli—’

  Finitan chuckled, which turned to an alarming cough.

  Edeard leant forward in concern. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No I’m dying.’

  ‘There’s a difference to facing up to your fate and just being plain morbid.’

  Finitan waved him silent. A glass of water drifted through the air, and finished by his lips. He took a sip. ‘Wonderful, my psychic powers remain intact. How ironic is that?’

  ‘It’s not your brain that’s affected.’

  ‘I hate the brew they give me to numb the pain. It tastes vile, and then I spend the day dozing. I don’t want to spend the day dozing, Edeard.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What’s the point in that? My soul will soon soar free, why spend the time bedbound and humbled? I hate this existence, Lady forgive me, I want it to end.’

  Edeard could feel his cheeks flush, and knew Finitan would be scrutinizing his thoughts with expert ability.

  ‘Ah,’ the old man said in satisfaction, and closed his eyes. ‘So what truly brings you here?’

  ‘A Skylord is coming.’

  ‘Dear Lady!’ Finitan twisted round abruptly, and winced at the spike of pain the motion caused. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘The city revealed it to me. Then last night I spoke to it.’ He smiled warmly and gripped Finitan’s cold hand in his own. ‘It comes to see if any of us have reached fulfilment. It comes to guide our souls to the Heart.’

  ‘Fulfilment?’ There were tears spilling from Finitan’s eyes. ‘Do I look fulfilled? The Lady damn its arrogance. By what right does it judge us?’

  ‘Finitan, dearest friend, you are fulfilled. Look at the life you have lived, look at what you have accomplished. I’m asking you, I’m begging; go to a tower in Eyrie. Accept its guidance to Odin’s Sea. Show Makkathran, show the world, that we have become worthy again. Let people have that ultimate hope once more. Show them your way is the right way.’

  ‘A Skylord will never take my sorry soul anywhere other than Honious.’

  ‘Stop that; it will. Trust me one last time. You read my emotions, but I can see your soul, and it is glorious.’

  ‘Edeard . . .’

  ‘If you go, if you are worthy of guidance, other Skylords will know; they will come to Querencia again. Our lives will be complete. Everything you and I have achieved together, all that it cost, all that pain we endured to wrest the city from the grip of darkness and decay, will have been worthwhile.’

&nb
sp; For a long while Finitan said nothing. Finally, he sighed. ‘Honious take me, I’m dying anyway. Why not?’

  ‘Thank you,’ Edeard leant over the bed, and kissed the old man’s brow.

  The decision seemed to have cheered Finitan up. He pulled his pale lips into a rueful pout. ‘Well at least that’s the election over. What does it feel like to be Chief Constable?’

  ‘How do you see that? Have you got a timesense you’ve been hiding all these years?’

  ‘You’re going to be the Waterwalker again. You’re going to be the one who calls the Skylord to Querencia. Then in front of the whole city you’ll hoist me up to the top of the tower so I can be guided to the Heart. You, Edeard. Just you. Who’s not going to vote for a saviour like that?’

  Edeard announced the Skylord’s arrival that afternoon as he was making a campaign speech to Eggshaper Guild apprentices in Ysidro. There was silence in the hall at first as if his words hadn’t quite made sense. Then came a swell of surprise and incredulity. Longtalk calls shot out to friends and family. Dozens of hands were raised, and questions shouted.

  ‘It’s very simple,’ the Waterwalker said. ‘The Skylords are flying to Querencia again. The first will be here in just over a week. It will guide Finitan through Odin’s Sea to the Heart.’

  ‘How do you know?’ several apprentices barked out simultaneously.

  ‘Because I’ve been talking to it for the last few nights.’

  ‘Why is Finitan going to be guided?’

  ‘Because of all of us, he is the one who has reached fulfilment. The way he has lived his life is the example we must all follow. When the Skylord sees him, it will know the time has come for humans to be guided to the Heart once more.’

  Makkathran’s true currency had always been gossip and rumour, a currency inflated during election time when the prospect of scandal and impropriety was rife as candidates sought to defame their rivals. So news of the Skylord travelled as such momentous news always did in Makkathran, as fast as sunlight. Within an hour everyone knew of the Waterwalker’s amazing claim.

  The Astronomers Association promised they would find any Skylord approaching Querencia, and immediately started quarrelling among themselves about false observations. Mayor Trahaval carefully avoided direct comment or criticism. Chief Constable Yrance dismissed it as a ridiculous vote-grabbing stunt and his campaign team quickly spilled their ridicule around the city. A sign of the Waterwalker’s desperation, they claimed, a stunt, a lie. He’s past his prime. He’s delusional. A has-been. You need someone stable and practical, someone who produces actual results, a man like the existing Chief Constable.

  Under Dinlay’s direction a flurry of counterclaims were passed from district to district. The Skylord is real. It is coming as the Lady prophesised. Finitan will be guided to the Heart because he has lived a life of fulfilment just as the Lady said we should. Who else but the Waterwalker could summon our final salvation? He is the one we need to lead us. Edeard will lead us to the future we have spent so long trying to achieve.

  ‘You’d better be right about this,’ Dinlay said as he and Edeard arrived at the Eggshaper Guild retirement house five days later.

  ‘Have a little faith,’ Edeard told his old friend in a wounded tone. Out of all of them, Dinlay had always been the most loyal. He was also the one Edeard considered had changed the least over the years. Dinlay had been captain of the Lillylight Constable Station for eight years now. A promotion which that affluent district particularly welcomed; it was quite a catch having one of the Waterwalker’s original squad appointed to supervise the policing of their streets. Influence and status, to those residents in particular, meant everything.

  Dinlay, of course, had fitted in perfectly (as Edeard had suspected he would). There were a lot of formal social events which suited him. The station was organized efficiently. He was actively involved in the training of the new generation of constables, producing polite and effective squads. Prosecution lawyers achieved high success rates in court. Lillylight streets were safe to walk along at any time of the day or night. And Captain Dinlay was also newly engaged to one of their own. Again.

  Edeard led the way upstairs to Finitan’s room. The house’s chief doctor was waiting outside the door, flanked by two Novices.

  ‘I’m not sure this is in the patient’s best interest,’ the doctor said firmly.

  ‘I think that’s for him to decide, isn’t it?’ Edeard replied calmly. ‘That is his right at such a time as this.’

  ‘This journey may finish him. Would you have that on your conscience, Waterwalker?’

  ‘I will hold him steady, I promise. He will reach the tower in comfort.’

  ‘And then what? Even if a Skylord were to come, he is still alive.’

  ‘The Waterwalker has said a Skylord is coming,’ Dinlay said heatedly. ‘Are you going to deny your own patient the chance to reach the Heart?’

  ‘I can offer him certainty,’ the doctor said. ‘Not promises based on myth.’

  ‘This is not some election stunt,’ Dinlay said, his anger growing now. ‘Not a politician’s promise. The Skylord will guide Master Finitan’s soul to the Heart.’

  He really does believe in me, Edeard realized, feeling almost humbled by a trust that had lasted forty years. He wasn’t quite sure what to do about the stubborn doctor, who was only doing her job and securing what she believed was best for her patient.

  ‘Doctor,’ Finitan’s longtalk urged. ‘Please let my friends in.’

  The doctor stepped aside with a great show of disapproval. Finitan was sitting up in bed, dressed in the robes of the Eggshaper Guild Grand Master.

  ‘You look splendid,’ Edeard said.

  ‘Wish I felt it.’ The old man coughed. He gave a frail, brave smile. ‘Let’s get this over with, shall we?’

  ‘Of course.’ Edeard folded his third hand gently around Finitan, ready to lift him off the bed.

  ‘Master?’ the doctor queried.

  ‘It’s all right. This is what I want. I thank you and the Novices for a splendid job, you have made my life bearable again, but your obligation ends now. I would hope you respect that.’ There was just a touch of the old Master’s authority in the tone.

  The doctor bowed uncomfortably. ‘I will accompany you to the tower myself.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Finitan said.

  Edeard lifted Finitan carefully and manoeuvred him through the door. The small procession made its way down the stairs to the courtyard.

  Quite a crowd had gathered outside, eager and curious. They jostled for position on the narrow street, sweeping their farsight across the ailing Master. Finitan raised a weak smile, and waved.

  ‘Where’s the Skylord?’ someone shouted.

  ‘Show us, then, Waterwalker. Where is it?’

  ‘There’s nothing in the sky except clouds.’

  Dinlay scowled. ‘Yrance’s people,’ he muttered. ‘Have they no sense of decency?’

  ‘It is an election,’ an amused Finitan observed.

  ‘After today they won’t matter,’ Edeard replied.

  There was a gondola waiting for them on Hidden Canal. Edeard eased Finitan down on to the long bench in the middle, and the doctor made him as comfortable as possible with cushions and blankets. The old man smiled contentedly as the gondolier pushed them off down the canal. Folfal trees lined both sides of the canal, their long branches curving high above the water. With the warm spring air gusting across the city, bright orange blossom buds were bursting out of the trees’ indigo-shaded bark, producing a beautiful show of vibrant colour.

  They were watched every inch of the way; some kids even ran along the side of the canal, dodging the trunks and pedestrians to keep up with the gondola. Several ge-eagles flapped lazily overhead.

  The gondolier steered them down Hidden Canal then over to Market Canal until they were level with the Lady’s church. Hundreds of people were waiting for them around the mooring platform, keen for either spectacle or failure.


  The Pythia headed up the semi-official reception group at the top of the wooden steps, with her entourage of six Mothers waiting passively behind. She was new to the position, anointed barely three years ago. She didn’t have quite the vivacity of the previous incumbent, nor did she immerse herself in Makka-thran’s social events; but her devotion to the Lady was never in doubt. She had a zeal for the teachings which always made Edeard slightly uncomfortable around her.

  ‘Waterwalker,’ she said courteously. Her handsome face was impassive, as was her mind. Edeard walked up the steps while his third hand elevated Finitan behind him.

  ‘Any sign of it?’ Finitan asked.

  Kanseen, who was standing just behind the Pythia, took his hand and squeezed gently. ‘Not yet,’ she said sweetly.

  ‘It won’t be long,’ Edeard promised. But even he gave a nervous glance towards the Lyot Sea in the east. He’d longtalked to the Skylord the previous evening before the planet’s rotation had carried it out of sight. Several astronomers had claimed they’d seen it. Counterclaimed by Yrance’s campaign staff as cronies trying to curry short-term favour with the Waterwalker.

  Kristabel gave him an encouraging smile, but there was no way she could hide her concern from him. Macsen just rolled his eyes, his thoughts brimming with bravado and confidence which he hoped might infuse Edeard.

  The whole group walked over to the nearest tower, with Kanseen holding Finitan’s hand the whole time. The tower was a drab grey in colour, its crinkled surface beset with slim fissures whose sides were a dark red. Two angled gaps at the base led into the central cave-like chamber. A single thick pillar rose up from the centre of the floor, with an opening to the narrow spiral stair which snaked up to the platform high above.

  Even inside the thick walls, Edeard could feel a lot of farsight pressing against them as more and more city residents started to observe what was happening.

  ‘I’ll take you up by myself,’ Edeard said. He wasn’t entirely sure what happened around the top of a tower when the Skylord came to claim a human soul. The Lady’s book spoke of cold fire engulfing the bodies of those who’d been chosen for guidance. It didn’t sound good for the living.