by Tim Lebbon
Ramus looked up at her without really understanding what she was saying. His mind was on the Sleeping God, and if that meant the God knew how close he was and what he was thinking, so be it. Fallen, he thought, ignoring the throb of pain behind his eyes. If you fell, how far up do you have to rise? And now that he knew others had been here before him, it was not the fact that discovery no longer tasted so sweet that troubled him so much. It was the God, and only the God.
But Ramus's fascination was wearing down his caution. Always something more to discover, something more to explore . . . and he remembered the warning on the first page of his journal: Never wake the fallen.
The agony punched at him then, a pain like he had never felt before, pulsing in his head and driving him to the ground. He passed out before he struck.
HIS WHOLE BEING is restrained by something, hanging above a vast abyss, crushed beneath an uncompromising sky, harried all around by dangers he cannot see, feel or smell but which he senses with every nerve ending, every fiber of his dying body. He is no longer awake, yet he is aware of death more than he ever has been before. Am I really seeing this from Nomi? he thinks, and he tries to open his eyes. All he can see is a blur. It could be blinding light or crushing darkness, he cannot tell. He is not falling, but he knows that he is no longer in Noreela . . . and suddenly he feels a breeze on his skin and other things there, touching and probing. Still his vision is a blank, but he begins to smell, something animal and raw, and he can hear a clicking noise that sounds so much like communication.
He will never get used to living Nomi's nightmares. But whereas before they had given him some measure of sick satisfaction, now he is as terrified as she.
FOR A WHILE, after seeing them kill Noon and throw Beko and Rhiana from the edge of the cliff, Nomi went away. It was easy to do. She was exhausted from the climb, both physically and mentally, and closing her eyes seemed to give that exhaustion free rein to work over her body and through her thoughts. Her muscles relaxed, burning but no longer cramping with resentment at what she had put them through. Her hands were cool, fingertips boiling points of pain at the ends of sore digits. The wound on her leg where the thing had dug in its fingers was agony. Her bladder relaxed and she pissed, but as the warmth turned to cold in the strengthening breeze, she did not care.
She tried to project herself out and down, away from the awful place they had climbed into and back to the Noreela she was only just staring to know. But attempting that was no escape, because way below were broken bodies, one of whom she had perhaps loved. So she went inward instead of without, and deep inside there were many matters to settle. She briefly met Timal, but that innocent, beautiful young man was no part of what her life had become. He did not have the eyes to face reality, and Nomi could find nothing to say to him. He faded and Ramus was there, holding his head and accusing Nomi with his glare. I'm sorry, she said, but even the horrible illness she had passed on to him seemed irrelevant. The scheme of things, she thought, and the Ramus she dreamed of lowered his hand, smiled and nodded, understanding that there was far too much between them to let momentary weaknesses drive them apart.
She thought of Beko, but it was the sight of his shattered body that answered. His memory would come back to her, she knew. If she survived this, which was doubtful, she would think of him again.
Nomi stayed away for as long as she could, but she did not know how long that was.
When they started prodding her stomach and between her legs, she came back.
“PISS ON YOU!” she hissed. The thing stood back and looked at her. Then it crackled something low in its throat and turned away.
There were maybe a dozen of the tall creatures before her. They sat in pairs or alone, intermittent growls and clicks the only sign of their communication. They seemed confused and sometimes amazed, as though revelation after revelation were coming to them.
“Why don't you throw me too?” she shouted. “I'm tired of hanging around.” They'd tied her to a rough wooden frame, its four corners buried in the ground and various cross-posts supporting her feet, behind and shoulders. Her arms were stretched to either side and tied tightly, as were her legs. She could hardly move. Hanging here waiting to die, she thought, and she giggled again.
The cliff was maybe twenty steps behind her.
Nomi felt wretched and alone, and she could not hold down the terror. It was selfish, and painful, but fear of what was to come sickened her.
Another of the things stood and strode across to her, scratching at her chest through shirt and jacket. It came closer, sniffing, and she jerked her body, hoping to strike it in the face. But it was too fast, backing just beyond her reach.
Its hand darted forward and touched her stomach, and when she struggled again it turned around and stalked back to its resting place.
What are they doing? Nomi had no idea why she was still alive while all the others were dead. The things had been vicious and merciless in their attack, and then their execution of Beko and Rhiana. Why keep her? Why tie her up here like this? When she looked around at the wooden frame she could see that it was not new. Grass grew long around the feet, and a variety of plants sprouted beneath her, where birds had roosted and shit out seeds.
Whatever the reason, it could not be good.
At that moment, as if from nowhere, a face leapt out at Nomi from the hallowed halls of the Guild of Voyagers. A memory that confused her for a beat because she did not know why it had manifested here, and now. But then she understood. The face was that of Sordon Perlenni, the First Voyager, who had disappeared over a hundred and thirty years before.
It was his face that graced the wooden statue.
Oh, by all the gods, Nomi thought, Sordon Perlenni, what did you do?
Another creature appeared, carrying a cloth bag slung from one elbow and a broken jug in the other hand. It came straight to Nomi and offered up the jug to her mouth. She looked into it suspiciously for a beat, smelled only water, and then decided that mattered little anyway. If they chose to poison her now, so be it. She drank, swallowing the water and almost groaning at the fresh taste.
The thing pulled the jug away and opened the bag.
“You expect me to eat that?” she said, a laugh slipping into a sob. It held a small dead creature in its hand. The creature's flesh was purple and red—evidently recently skinned—and its head and limbs had been torn off. Try as she might Nomi could not identify it, but perhaps that was a blessing.
The creature pressed the skinned corpse against Nomi's mouth. She pursed her lips and clamped her jaw shut, trying to turn her head. But it grasped her chin in its other hand, forcing her to face forward while it worked the meat against her lips. She tasted its blood, rich and basic. She could smell it, and she could not prevent her stomach from rumbling, hunger rearing its head. She found it hard to breathe.
No one was coming to help her. She knew that, but the realization suddenly hit her hard. The Serians had been guarding her all the way from Long Marrakash. Konrad had died doing her bidding, Ramin was killed protecting her and now the others were dead as well, and their deaths made everything pointless.
When Nomi opened her mouth to gasp in a breath, the creature pressed the meat between her teeth. She bit down, groaning as she did so, shaking her head to tear a small chunk of raw flesh away.
The thing stepped back. It watched her, eyes never wavering. She could see no hint of emotion anywhere in its expression. Its face was as blank as a sheebok's, and that was what disturbed her most about these things. It was not the long legs and arms, the spindly necks or the scraps of clothes they wore. It was the lifelessness in such human eyes.
She started chewing. The thing clicked and growled, and a few of the other observers did the same. They seemed pleased.
The meat did not taste too bad, and Nomi swallowed quickly. Her feeder came forward again. The quicker I eat, the quicker this is over, she thought.
She closed her eyes and bit, trying to find her way inward once again
.
THE SUN WENT down and she could not sleep. They had left her clothed, but the garments were scant protection against the cool breeze that came from the east. She only hoped it did not turn into a gale. If they really were three miles above Noreela, she would freeze to death should the weather decide to roar.
Two creatures remained close by. They sat motionless thirty steps from her, one of them nodding its head and seeming to doze. She supposed they were guarding her, though the idea of escape seemed very foolish right now. The idea of dying, however . . . that felt like her future.
When night established itself fully and she heard things calling in the dark, she thought perhaps they had been left behind to protect her.
SHE DOZED BETWEEN gusts of wind, tensing and relaxing her muscles to try to encourage some warmth into her limbs. Her shoulders and shins hurt more than the rest of her, because even though she was tied to the frame, still they took some of her weight. She wondered how long she could survive up here. She was not sure how long she wanted to survive.
When the shape emerged from the darkness, she thought she was dreaming. It started as a shadow shifting against shadows, no secrecy in its movements, and nothing particularly threatening. Nomi squinted, looking to the left and right of the shape, but she could see no more.
There was little against which she could judge, but she was sure it was no taller than her. Beko! she thought, but that was a foolish idea. That was tiredness talking, and a nightmare awaiting her in true sleep.
“Ramus?” she said. Her guardians looked up but did not respond.
The shadow moved closer. Its pace was slow, as if its owner bore wounds.
One of the things sat up abruptly and turned around, but when it saw the shape it uttered a few clicks and slouched back down.
One of them, she thought. That's all. One of them come to poke and prod at me some more. Or maybe it's a child of theirs, come to mock this new pet.
As the shape passed the seated guards and came close, Nomi saw that it was a man. For a beat the truth did not register, could not, because it was too incredible. And when at last the man stood before her, Nomi stared down in wonder.
He opened his mouth and uttered a series of clicks, similar to the things that had captured her. It sounded awkward coming from his mouth.
It's him, Nomi thought, and perhaps this was still a dream.
“Who . . . is . . . Ramus?” the man asked. His voice grated from lack of use.
“It's you,” Nomi said. “Sordon Perlenni.”
The old man's eyes went wide. His beard was long and white, his hair matched and his melancholia was as heavy as the land beneath them, as dark as the shadows. “That is an old, old name,” he said.
Nomi shook her head. “Sleeping,” she said. “Dreaming. Nightmare.”
“Soon,” the First Voyager said, and his voice carried more sadness than she could bear. Asleep or not, Nomi Hyden began to cry.
They did not seem to mind when the old man sat on the timber frame beside her. He sighed as he settled, leaning his tall walking stick beside him.
“Tears,” he said. “I shed so many when I came here. None for a long time. None for . . . many years.”
“Your voice,” Nomi said.
Sordon nodded. “Rarely used. Forgive my hoarseness.” He did not look at her as he spoke, as though afraid to show her something, or to see something reflected in her eyes.
“They'll just let you sit here with me?”
“The Sentinels? Of course.”
“Sentinels . . .” Nomi said. “Guarding the Sleeping God?”
Sordon glanced at her, then away once more. I surprised him, she thought. He didn't think I'd know, and . . . he's Sordon Perlenni! He shouldn't even be here, he should be dead. He's almost two hundred years old!
“You should be—”
“Are you a Voyager?” he asked.
“Yes. You don't see the band on my arm?”
He looked, but seemed confused. “Band?”
“Guild of Voyagers,” Nomi said.
Sordon smiled behind his heavy beard. “So, they have a guild now.”
“You're the first,” Nomi said. “You started the Age of Expansion. You should be dead! Maybe I am.”
“No,” he said. “You're not.” He shook his head sadly. “I'm sorry about your friends.”
“How do you know?”
“The Sentinels told me.”
“Told you? Why? You walk among them, you talk to them, but . . . ?” Nomi realized she had so many questions that she could not find a place to begin. She felt tears threatening again but she swallowed them down. “Will you release me?” she asked.
Sordon looked directly at her for the first time. He glanced at the ropes binding her arms and legs, and she thought he looked briefly at her stomach. “No,” he said.
“What are they going to do to me?”
“When your child has grown, they'll tear it from you and hang it from a fetus tree.”
“Child?” Nomi shook her head and closed her eyes, and the tears came then whether she fought them or not. “I'm not pregnant.”
Sordon sighed. “If you weren't, you'd be at the bottom of the Divide with your friends.”
“Sordon . . .”
“You cry,” he said. “You rage. And when you've finished, I'll ask you once again who Ramus is. And then I'll tell you how I doomed this world.”
“HE FELL,” NOMI said. “He was a Voyager as well, my friend, and he fell. One of those bird-things knocked him from the cliff and his rope didn't hold.”
“You thought I was Ramus.”
“I thought I was dreaming.” Nomi's head was dipped and she looked down at her feet, not trusting her lying eyes. She guessed by his silence that he did not believe her, but she was not about to tell him the truth. Not yet. Not until he did the same for her.
He suddenly moved in close until she felt his old breath against her ear. “It cannot be woken,” he said. “It's fallen, and if it rises again . . . I will not permit it. And though the Sentinels are vastly weaker than they were before I came, they will not allow it, either.”
“Fallen?”
“The Sleeping God fell. It went mad, rampaged, and the other Gods fought to put it down. And it cannot be woken.”
“I'm the last of my group,” Nomi said, shocked, confused. “Not much chance of me fighting my way from here to wake it, I think.” And at the same time she thought, Does Ramus know? Did he know all along?
“Maybe,” Sordon said. “Maybe you are the last one.” But suspicion was obvious in his voice.
“So tell me,” she said.
Sordon Perlenni chuckled. “Guild of Voyagers,” he said. “Do they have their own building?”
“Yes. A big one.”
“And is my likeness hanging there?”
Nomi nodded. “It's how I knew who you were, when I saw the statue of you.”
“The statue,” Sordon said. “Which one? There are many. So many that I've never bothered to count. Statues and pictures, carvings and paintings. Of me.”
“Why?”
“To those discovered, the discoverer is sometimes a god.”
“But they're animals. They look human in some ways, but they seem wild.”
“They are now. But not always.” Sordon shook his head again. “What's the point? I could tell you, but nothing can absolve my guilt. And you, hanging there, can do little to help me.”
“Then cut me down!”
Sordon shook his head again. “They would be upon you before you hit the ground. They're fast and strong, and more intelligent than you think. They used to be so much better, until I came.”
“Tell me anyway,” she said. Whatever I can learn could help me, she thought. Any details, any clues as to how I could escape. Because now that Sordon was here and she knew that Ramus had not yet been caught, she suddenly found determination again, and a survival instinct that had been made lazy by being looked after. She wanted to live.
S
ordon Perlenni, the First Voyager of Noreela, settled back against the timber cross bracings of Nomi's sacrificial rack and looked up at the star-speckled sky.
“I HAD BEEN to the Divide before, when I was thirty, twelve years into my exploring. My porters were strong and determined, there was plenty of food and water and we had not encountered any marauders for a hundred miles. So we kept riding. And when we saw the Divide in the distance we stopped, turned around and fled. Such a massive barrier. So final. My porters were scared—they were from the south of Cantrassa, a wild place then as now, I suspect—and they had their myths, gods and superstitions. They thought that if we ventured too close to the Great Divide, it would fall and swallow us up, and then rise again that much higher. One of them believed it was built from the wraiths of all those who had died in Noreela's history, and that it was forever striving to grow.
“For me, I feared it was the end. If I continued walking south I would go as far as I could go, and that would be all of Noreela for me. Not that I'd seen all of it. No one can see all of Noreela, and that I'm still confident of, even now. There's more to the land than simply seeing, and traveling, and more to know than can be learned in a hundred lifetimes. But I was still young then, and as well as the fear, there was an idea that perhaps I could save it for later.
“So over the following years I explored the land, east to the sea, west to the sea and much of what lay in between. But as time passed, the Divide called to me, luring me back into its shadow. And at last, alone, I heeded the call.
“After a year studying many books back in Long Marrakash, I came down here with the idea that it may not be the end, but the beginning. If each wraith taken into the Divide made it grow, then it must have limits. I didn't believe that it was built on the deaths of Noreela, of course, but such thinking helped me come to a decision: that I must climb. And climb I did, without equipment, without weapons, with no idea of how far I would be climbing or what I'd meet on the way.”
