Devastation

by Jane Dougherty

  “There. All gone.”

  “That means there is no way back to that time?” Jeff asked.

  “The path is destroyed,” Yvain replied. As far as he knew, there wasn’t a way back. This was the first time to his knowledge that the World Tree had willingly destroyed one of its own roots. But now was perhaps not the time to go into that.

  Jack finally broke his brooding silence. “And Earth, our world? Has that all gone too?”

  Yvain raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness, wishing there was a way of saying it that made the truth easier to bear. “You know the answer to that, Jack. You always have. Your world was doomed. Nothing could save it.”

  Jack chewed obstinately at a finger end. “None of it?”

  “There were other survivors. I heard them sometimes, in dreams,” Garance said.

  Jack’s face lit up. “Like those kids we heard at the lighthouse! Maybe now that the black fella’s gone, they’ll be able to get through!”

  “Maybe, if they got to a wormhole,” Yvain mused.

  Jack’s face clouded. “If they set off any time up to five minutes ago…”

  Yvain sighed. He knew what would happen to anyone who emerged into the path of the eaters of souls and their dead followers. But the reminder that the souleaters had been defeated gave a painful twist to his heart. He watched the tatters of the black slime fading out of sight into the north, and when he could see nothing more, he turned to Tancred. “Perhaps a message to Lutecia would get through now,” he said, his mouth dry with fear. The silence in his head since Alinor’s last message had given him little hope.

  “I’ll try,” Tancred said, looking around for a likely place to send his message from.

  “Not Alinor, though,” Yvain added quickly. Despite everything he knew, he continued to hope that Alinor was still alive. “Let’s wait a little longer to speak to her.” He couldn’t bear to have his hopes dashed, not right at the end.

  Tancred walked a little way from the group, looking for a piece of high land free of obstacles. An anguished silence fell. Jack watched Kat. Or rather, he watched Kat watching Tancred. Suddenly he got up and kicked a rock hard. The pain in his foot was the last straw, and he felt his face grow hot with the effort of holding back the tears of disappointment. Silently, Kat came to join him, leading him away from the pit that made them all feel uneasy.

  “I’ve been thinking, Jack—”

  “So have I,” he interrupted. “But thinking’s no good. I want to know. And you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?” He couldn’t bear to look at Kat, for fear his eyes would give his feelings away.

  “I like you, Jack. I like you a lot, but—”

  Jack groaned. “It’s that ‘but’. You don’t have to say any more. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t. I like you too, Kat. And I had thought that maybe, you know, that you and me… But it’s hard to say how much of what drew us together was just the circumstances. Given what we went through, it’d have been hard not to have got friendly, wouldn’t it?” Jack still half hoped Kat was going to contradict him. But she didn’t. She just gave his arm a squeeze.

  “I feel like I belong here,” she said. “I want to belong anyway. The last five years have been a nightmare. Things happened that I can’t bear to think about now. I need to forget a huge chunk of my life, pretend it never happened. I need a new start, Jack.”

  Jack nodded slowly. “And I’m part of the nightmare, right?”

  Kat smiled. “You’re the one ray of light in all that dark time. But Earth, our Earth, is finished. If I’m to cope in this new one, I need someone who belongs here, to show me how.”

  Jack glanced sharply at Tancred from beneath his lashes. Tancred was tall, capable, thoughtful, sensitive, and he was young. Jack sighed. He had only ever pretended to deny Tancred’s qualities. He just seemed to bring out the worst in Jack’s nature. He sighed again. He was just jealous. That was the long and the short of it, jealous that Tancred could end up happy without even really trying, and he, Jack… Well, all he’d ever really wanted was Molly. He felt the tears welling up again. At least this time he knew what he was crying about. Kat looked at him as if she was responsible. That wasn’t what he wanted at all!

  “You’re right to want to start again,” he said finally. “My problem is that all I ever wanted is back there. I don’t want to start again. I want it to be like before.”

  “No you don’t. I’ve heard you talking to Yvain about Lutecia. I’ve seen the enthusiasm in your face when you discuss how they do things in this world. You’ll be happy here if you try. Tully already is. Look at him.”

  Kat was right. Tully was radiant, and so tall! Jack couldn’t get over the physical changes that had affected all of them. It wasn’t just what they could do. It was the way they looked. Both Tully and Carla looked like heroes, in the style of Greek statues. But there was nothing cold or static about them. They glowed with an inner energy, more like icons, or the paintings in the churches of his boyhood. Jack couldn’t see himself, but he was aware of being stronger, of feeling things more acutely, of having more stamina, even his hair felt thicker. He felt renewed. He took a deep breath. He was a traveler.

  Leaving her mother holding her father’s hand, Carla went to sit with Tully. The bronze trumpet lay by his feet. The silver spear was propped against the tree trunk at his back. He raised his face to hers and smiled. “I told you everything would be all right.”

  Carla smiled back, but she couldn’t help but feel a hint of sadness. “Is it?”

  “We found your mother and rescued your father. We saved a world from the Apocalypse and sent Wormwood back to Pandemonium. What more do you want? Your own TV show?”

  Carla chuckled, but she didn’t feel like smiling. “I can’t help thinking about all the billions of people who died—all the animals, the trees and plants. Gabriella, Tattoo, Paris, Nonno Dario and Nonna Giulia, the mountains, Fermo, everything’s gone, Tully, Earth doesn’t exist anymore.”

  Tully put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. With a slight shock, Carla realized that her cheek rested against his now. Before, back in the Rex with Gary Cooper and Katherine Hepburn flickering across the silver screen, she had felt his breath on the top of her head, his lips nuzzling the hair of her brow. They had changed. Even their old bodies had been left behind in the lost world. The whole world had gone the same way as the fantasy world of cowboys and heroic settlers, as dead as the silvery Western plains and Gary Cooper. Carla felt such a deep grief for all that was lost, but—she turned her head to bury her nose in Tully’s hair that smelled of new grass—she had what was most important here in her arms. Tully cupped her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes, and she knew that he thought the same.

  Yvain sat alone, his head between his hands. Carla glanced at Tully then went to sit down next to Yvain. She could feel his distress and his fear. The air quivered with it. On the hill between the trees, she could see Tancred, his face turned toward Lutecia, his eyes closed in concentration. As she watched, he opened his eyes and started back toward the World Tree. Carla laid a hand gently on Yvain’s shoulder. She felt him flinch at her touch, then he seemed to pull himself together. Taking a deep breath, he raised his head then sat up straight. The lines etched round his eyes were deeper, two parallel furrows etched deep shadows on either side of his mouth. His eyes were pools of anguish, fixed on Tancred’s face.

  “Well?” Yvain’s voice was firm, but his face was deathly white.

  Tancred’s lips parted in a broad, joyous smile.

  * * * *

  In an antechamber of the Assembly rooms, Alinor and a thin-faced child peered across the park through the shattered glass of a window. Twisted railings and twisted corpses littered what had been green lawns. Before the gates that had been wrenched off their hinges lay the broken remains of the gazehounds and their handlers. Alinor placed a hand over her mouth to stifle a cry and the child put a comforting arm around her waist. The last rags of darkness ca
ught in the railings, fluttered in a fresh breeze, then flew free, carried away over the treetops. The first rays of the sun fell heavy and golden through the breaking cloud and a small group of men and women picked their way like sleepwalkers across the battlefield. Alinor held her breath.

  “Look, there’s Amaury!” Morgaine opened the window and waved. Alinor gave a sigh of relief, but the lines of tension did not leave her face. Morgaine stopped waving and put her head on one side, as if listening to a faraway sound. Her eyes glazed over as she stared into the middle distance, beyond the railings, beyond Lutecia. Then she plucked at Alinor’s arm.

  “I can see them too, Alinor.” Morgaine’s voice was firm and confident. “They’re coming home.”

  Alinor wrapped the child in her arms without a word and finally let the tears fall. Morgaine beamed with happiness.

  “Does that mean Jeff can go to school now?”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  The Last of Earth

  The terror of the last vision had faded, and Erelah was once more in control of herself. It was time. The minutes to the end of time were ticking past. She peered out of the cellar head and watched the last star fall. Dark shadows filled what had been broad avenues, and bands of dead souls wandered aimlessly, barefoot and ragged. The cold had no more hold over them, nor had the debris of masonry and broken glass the power to wound them. They stumbled along, sometimes trailing broken limbs, sometimes on all fours, muttering and wailing, searching for something they had forgotten, something that had been stolen from them. The eaters of souls filled the streets from side to side, sliding into broken buildings, seeping into cellars.

  If anything else lived in the city at the end of the world, it was silent. When Erelah saw the last star fall, she slid back into the cellar and closed the trap behind her. Rajeev raised his head. He saw the excitement in Erelah’s eyes, and his heart beat faster.

  “It’s time,” she said, in a voice that betrayed her exultation. As if in confirmation, a howl broke the silence, a sound that rose not from a living throat, but from the bowels of the earth. Rajeev’s eyes grew round with fear, and Sanjay’s eyelids flickered.

  “Quick,” Erelah ordered. “You take his arms. I’ll take his legs.”

  Rajeev looked at her questioningly.

  “Quickly,” she urged. “Earth is dying!”

  Scrambling across the clutter of the cellar to the cold boiler, Erelah and Rajeev dragged Sanjay to the black hole that twittered and muttered so loudly that they could almost pick out words in the jumble of sound.

  “The hole’s still too small! I think it’s even shrunk,” Rajeev almost screamed. “It’s hardly bigger than a rabbit hole now. We can’t drag Sanjay through there.”

  There was a scrabbling and scratching at the trap, then the sound of wordless screaming. Rajeev started in terror. Erelah straightened up, breathing hard,

  “Yes, we can. Watch!” She whispered into the black hole, “We are the last. We need to pass. It’s time!”

  Erelah frowned, and her eyes narrowed, peering unblinking into the swirling darkness of the wormhole. Rajeev knew she was trying to see whatever it was she dreamed of. He could only guess at the dream-landscape she’d searched, piecing it together out of fragments of his own memories—not the dusty cityscape of his schooldays in Paris but the bright colors and intense forest green of his childhood in India. That India was only ever the privilege of a few, for most it was dry and dusty and covered in industrial smog, but it was dead for everyone now. Perhaps that was what Erelah could see now, hot yellow sunshine and cool green shadows—Rajeev’s dreamworld, his own personal world that was lost. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and swallowed back his sadness. What he saw made him almost forget it.

  The muttering and babbling of the hole became a clamor, then a deafening roar as it grew into the mouth of a great tunnel that filled the entire wall. Erelah’s lips curled into a grin of triumph, and without taking her eyes off the wormhole, she grasped Rajeev’s arm hard. Rajeev let his own face light up with hope, and he was about to chatter an excited question, when a crash made them both spin around.

  The trap flew open and jabbering bodies fell through into the cellar, trampling and skittering. A deadly cold flooded the cellar as the ragged mob scrambled through the outer room. Rajeev gasped in terror as a rabble of maddened, mutilated bodies burst into the boiler room. Erelah grabbed Sanjay by the armpits and yelled, “Now!”

  Rajeev had just time to catch Sanjay up behind the knees as the wormhole roared like thunder and filled his vision, drawing him, Erelah and Sanjay’s inert body into its depths.

  Erelah woke in a heap on top of Sanjay, in a wild panic. The surrounding darkness was total, the stillness oppressive, like a suffocating blanket. There was a smell too, of earth and rotting vegetation, and a ranker smell that caught at the throat, the smell of flesh in decomposition. Rajeev gave a sharp cry when Erelah seized his hand.

  “It’s okay. It’s just me. How’s Sanjay?”

  Rajeev made a rasping noise as he cleared his throat. “I don’t know.” His voice was thin and frightened. “I can’t see him in the dark, but he’s still breathing. Did we…fall? It was like falling in a way, if you can fall without moving.”

  “More like everything else rushing past while we stood still. No,” Erelah corrected herself, “everything seemed to rush through us, as if we were full of holes.”

  “Atoms… We were just atoms dispersed in space.”

  “Well, we’re whole again now,” Erelah said, feeling quite matter-of-fact and businesslike.

  “And the wormhole has gone,” Rajeev said. He looked at Erelah, a question in his eyes.

  “That means everything is over,” she said gently. “There is no more Earth.” She stretched a hand out in front of her and moved forward cautiously until she touched a solid barrier of what felt like earth and stones and broken branches. She ran her hand up, around and down to the ground, then pulled back in disgust.

  “Ugh! There’s a sort of body on the ground!”

  “It’s a deer, a baby.” The voice was tired but firm.

  “Sanjay!” Rajeev croaked. “Hey, he’s awake!”

  Erelah backed away from the grisly discovery. “Great to have you back on board, Sanjay. How do you know it’s a deer?”

  “I saw it when I was asleep. It was in one of the awful dreams I had. Worms ate it. Giant worms. They left what they didn’t want here, then they filled in the hole.”

  Erelah gave a shiver and peered behind her, but there was nothing to be seen.

  “Then we’ll have to unblock it, won’t we? If we want to get out of here.” She didn’t need to add ‘before the worms come back’.

  It had once been a forest glade. The forest, in the eerie crepuscule, now looked like a battleground. A few trees still stood to mark the edge of the glade, but most were snapped off like branches broken in a gale or ripped up by the roots. Those still standing looked dead or dying, their leaves hung in dried brown bunches, the branches stiff and brittle as dead twigs. The earth was churned and soiled with an evil-smelling substance that Rajeev recognized with horror as the black slime. Above their heads dark clouds billowed, lit by a sinister green light, pushed along by a wind that raged through the sky, snatching at the tallest treetops.

  “Is this it?” Rajeev peered about wildly. “I thought you said we were going to a good place. This is no different. It’s still all dead.”

  “Shush,” Erelah said imperiously, “and listen!”

  Rajeev heard only the pounding of his own heart, but Erelah was listening for something he could probably never have heard anyway.

  “It is different,” Sanjay said quietly. “Feel the breeze.”

  Rajeev lifted his face to the breeze and closed his eyes, feeling a soft warm breath on his skin. The wind raged in the treetops, but what brushed their faces was a soft breeze that blew away the putrid stink clinging in dank places. Rajeev forced his weary features into a sketch of a smile. At least it was
n’t cold here.

  Sanjay stood and stretched, feeling the vigor returning to limbs that were wasted from years of lack of food, feeling a strength that he vaguely remembered from the time before the Abomination, when he could run and climb and shout and never be out of breath. But he had seen the worms. It was time to move—and quickly! He pushed the pile of stones and other debris back into the hole, dragging over broken branches and rocks to fill it in. He knew there was a way of blocking it completely and forever, but though he struggled, he couldn’t bring back the memory of the knowledge. Perhaps Erelah would know.

  He was just straightening up, feeling strangely elated—not at all like the half-starved, feverish boy who had been carried into the strange hole—when Erelah stiffened. Sanjay followed the direction of her gaze, all his senses straining. Then he saw it too, a churning in the air of the glade. He moved closer to Erelah and Rajeev. The moving air became a circle, then a sphere, then a tunnel, and he heard the familiar whirring sound. With a feeling of dread, he watched helplessly as the tunnel grew to fill the side of the demolished hill.

  * * * *

  “There are survivors in Lutecia!” Tancred’s face was alight with happiness. “And there are messages coming from all over Gaul. Samara and Nemeta in the north are no more, but all the cities south of Lutecia in a line from Condevic through Alesia to the river Renos are unscathed. I also picked up a strange movement in the air coming from the Bre Iarth. You remember, the hill Yvain brought you to? All the travelers coming from the west arrive there.”