by Tim Lebbon
Nomi looked up, amazed, exposed. To her left, she could see where one of the fleshy pipes spanned the cavern, and molten rock now gushed from where it entered the cave wall. It sprayed down and out, and though she could not see where it struck the lake, she could see the clouds of steam rising up. The hissing was almost unbearable. She looked around, searching for where the other strange pipes led . . .
. . . and then she was no longer alone.
She felt its gaze upon her, piercing her skin and becoming a part of her, melting into her mind and casting Nomi aside. She sighed and slid down against the wall, but something closed around her chest and beneath her arms and held her there. Her head dipped and she saw the black flesh of the Fallen God. Each hair on that skin twitched and waved as if smelling or tasting, and something rippled beneath like a bag of snakes.
When she looked up, she stared into its face. You are fallen, she thought, because though she had never seen anything like it, its expressions were more human than she could have ever believed. Its six eyes exuded a sense of release. Its mouth hung open, dry lips cracking up and out in a triumphant grin. When its voice came, it shook the world, and it uttered dark promises she could never understand.
It lifted her and held her suspended above the roofless structure. She looked around at the storm—molten rock spewed from the places where pipes had once hung, the lake was a chaos of waves and violent steam columns, rocks cracked and tumbled from the walls and roof—then she turned and looked for the Sentinels.
They were still there. A few stood below and to her left, still on the shores of the small island. Others had turned to flee. A couple made it to the far shore; several were washed away by waves. Whether they drowned or were killed by the things living there, Nomi could not tell. She looked back down at the Sentinels that had remained. None of them had eyes for her. She and her unborn child were meaningless to them now, because their charge had arisen. She realized that they were talking, clicks and groans that she could barely hear above the chaos of destruction from around the cave. They seemed suddenly very determined and calm. Her skin crawled. Her breath came short and hard, and at first she thought the Fallen God was squeezing her tightly. But the claws around her were loose, suspending rather than holding her.
It rose, Ramus clasped in another of its several hands. Limbs writhed above and around it, more forced against the ground below, and it turned its great triangular head to look at the Sentinels.
One limb snapped forward and sliced a Sentinel in two. The others stood their ground, and when the God drew its limb back, it had turned from black to gray. But the God laughed—a terrible sound that made Nomi scream for the first time since it had emerged—and shook its arm. It shifted back to black.
They're trying, she thought. Doing their best to remember the words they were given to guard against its release. But they've changed too much.
The remaining Sentinels stepped forward, striving to form their mouths into shapes more used to uttering cries and hoots than complex sounds.
The God kicked over the wall of its prison. Stone tumbled and killed two Sentinels, and the others stepped aside. It reached down and picked one up, casting it across the lake, where something rose and snatched it from the surface. The remaining Sentinel stood its ground, brave and determined to the last, trying to utter lost words. The Fallen God picked it up and threw it hard, aiming for the closest gushing torrent of lava falling from the wall of the cavern. The creature disappeared in a flash.
“Ramus!” Nomi shouted, projecting her voice past the terror of what had happened. “Those words!” Whether he heard her she was not sure, because he was hanging limp in the God's hand and staring up at its face. Its head turned this way and that, eyes turning individually as if reveling in sensory input. A falling rock struck its back and shattered. Another bounced from its head and caused a huge splash as the lake swallowed it up. “Ramus!” The God turned its attention to her again, then looked across at Ramus in another hand.
And now what? Nomi thought. The water? The lava? Its mouth? She closed her eyes and wished a quick end.
She felt herself moved through the air and then she was still again, and when she opened her eyes Ramus was a handbreadth away from her. He stared at her, and she could not read his expression. Perhaps he was gone.
“Can you feel the power?” he asked, voice flat.
She nodded.
“No one should,” he said. “No one, not now, not ever. This is more than Noreela can take. What have I . . . ?”
“I tried to . . .” Nomi whispered.
Ramus closed his eyes and lowered his head.
The God pulled them apart again, then close together. It was as if it was testing to see whether they would punch or kiss. They did neither.
“Ramus,” Nomi said the last time they were close enough to talk. “You have to say those words. They're the language of the Sleeping Gods, and now you're the only one that—”
“You want me to destroy it?” he asked, aghast. And he glanced into the eyes of the Fallen God, which in turn examined them.
Yes, Nomi thought as it pulled them apart. Of course.
It strode across the lake and entered the tunnel. The ground shook around them, the air was on fire with the sounds of destruction, their way was lit by molten rock flowing across their path or visible through cracks in the walls, the earth quaked. Nomi thought, Yes, Ramus, destroy it. But when she spoke, she could not even hear herself. And she knew that, even if the tumult did die down for a moment, Ramus was far beyond listening.
_____
HIS GOD CARRIED him up, sprinting up the staircase it had taken Ramus so long to descend. The ground below them was in turmoil, and in the tunnel the God had walked through streams of lava, nudged aside cave-ins and ground on through an avalanche of dust, diamonds and bones from some hidden opening. It held Ramus and Nomi close to its chest and used its body to protect them from danger. Ramus pressed his face to its slick, dark skin. It was surprisingly soft. He thought he heard its heartbeat, but it may have been earthquakes thumping through its feet.
It emerged into daylight at the top of the tall pyramid, shouldering its way through the opening and knocking aside the stone canopy. It stood there for a while, relaxing its arms so that Nomi and Ramus swung by its sides. Ramus stretched down with his feet but could not quite reach the floor. And then it sighed. It was long and loud, like steam escaping a pierced chamber. It slumped slightly, relaxing, reveling in daylight for the first time in eons. Then it turned its huge head to the north.
Ramus looked past the God's stomach at Nomi. She hung limp in its grasp, hair falling across her face. He could not tell whether she was awake, or even if she was alive. Perhaps a rock had struck her. . . .
But no, the God was protecting them. Saving them, because they had saved it. Ramus wondered what came next.
A great explosion thundered in the south, rumbling through the air and following through the ground. The God staggered atop the pyramid and turned, allowing Ramus to see what had caused the noise. In the distance, over the heads of trees being consumed by fires from below, he saw the range of hills pluming flames and venting clouds of boiling smoke. Fireballs rose and rained down across the landscape, beautiful from this far away yet more destructive than anything Ramus had ever seen before.
The God made another noise, a long way from a sigh.
It turned north again, descended the building in several huge leaps and ran into the trees. Birds scattered before it or fell dead from the sky in shock. Other animals fled through the undergrowth or turned on one another. It paid scant attention to its surroundings, but when it stormed through the ruined village and emerged on the other side, a lone Sentinel stood ahead, stricken dumb and motionless with shock.
The God snapped it up in another limb and carried on running.
The Sentinel started clicking and calling, and Ramus saw fleeting gray shapes slicking across the God's pincers, but only briefly. It grumbled what could have been
a laugh, snapped a tree with one kick and crushed the Sentinel down onto the jagged stump. It was the last Sentinel Ramus saw.
You have to say those words, Nomi had said. They're the language of the Sleeping Gods. He looked up at the thing carrying them—Its massive head, six eyes, sturdy legs and the stumps of long-lost wings on its back—and shook his head.
“They won't work,” he said. He looked across at Nomi once more and she was looking at him. It was difficult to tell with the constant movement, but he thought she was crying.
Ramus was surprised to find his own cheeks damp with tears.
THE FALLEN GOD stood on the edge of the Great Divide and gazed down upon Noreela. The constant cloud cover was still there, but in the distance, the hazy horizon showed a smudge of dark green; and closer by, a slab of cliff had fallen away, forging a hole through the clouds that were still billowing. Far down, the ground. The Noreela this Fallen God had perhaps once known, before being sent down by its kin.
Nomi had no idea what it was about to do. It stood there for a long time, while all around it the tumult continued. The destruction was growing worse. The sky to the south was a furnace of towering clouds lit from within by unimaginable fires. From the east came a long, enduring grinding sound, seeming to shake the air in that direction so that it became blurred and indistinct. The noise went on and on, and Nomi hoped that Sordon Perlenni was already dead. Whatever he had turned into—whatever he had caused—she could not wish more suffering upon him.
Several miles to the west, another huge slice of cliff parted from the Divide and began to fall away. It seemed to take forever, lowering down first as though the trees and bushes on its surface wanted to become a part of the ground below. Several hundred steps below the level of the plateau, it tilted out, crumbling and breaking as it tumbled eventually into the soft cloud cover and disappeared.
Flocks of birds poured past above them, all heading north. The sky had grown dark, lightning sparked here and there and Nomi saw a thousand birds turned to ash. They drifted down, caught in thermals from Noreela below and held aloft for a final flight.
“What have you done?” a voice said, and she thought Ramus had come to his senses. Yes, she thought. Accept it and make it better. But Ramus was looking at her, and his mouth did not move as that voice spoke again. “What have I done?”
She looked around, trying to see past the thing holding her, and she spied a swish of white hair behind them. “Sordon,” she muttered. He came closer, staring up at the Fallen God with nothing but dread in his eyes. He was shaking his head slowly, grasping on to his walking stick with both hands, blood matting his beard from some injury. He did not look at Nomi or Ramus, only at the God. His mouth hung open, but he could say no more.
The God turned around.
It will know him, Nomi thought. It will recognize him. With one flick of a limb it had the First Voyager in its grasp, lifting him, twisting him this way and that as it examined him. And then it turned back toward Noreela and threw.
Nomi saw him fall.
“That was Sordon Perlenni,” Ramus said. He sounded as though nothing could surprise him ever again.
The God shifted forward, feet so close to the edge of the cliff that Nomi could look directly down. She saw the old man swallowed by the clouds. This is it, she thought. Whatever it's about to do, this is it.
“Drop me before you leap!” she shouted. “I want to die my own death.”
_____
HOLD ME WITH you, Ramus thought. He looked out and down, anticipating the rush of air as he and his God fell together. And hold me tight. I want to be there when you return to Noreela.
NOMI LOOKED AT Ramus and he looked at her, and she saw his right eye turn red as something gave out in his brain, blood gushing, pain twisting his face as the Fallen God rose onto its long legs and roared.
Kang Kang!
It relaxed again, breathing harshly, staring out and down with each of its six eyes. And then, having told Noreela its name for the first time in eons, it turned its back on that land and fled south.
Chapter 23
NOMI BORE WITNESS to the extinction of a world.
She was certain that Ramus was dead. That was the end of her world and the people she cared for, and to mirror that misery she watched the plateau they had found atop the Great Divide—bountiful, brutal, rich and mysterious—destroy itself. Those fleshy pipes that had pinned the Fallen God in place in that deep cavern must have been the final failsafe. But there was something wrong, and Nomi was becoming more and more aware of this with every mile the thing ran, every obstacle it overcame.
A boiling river, heated from below and breathing steam from several bubbling parts, was no barrier. The Fallen God strode into the water and waded across, holding Nomi and Ramus high. Nomi gasped for air and felt her throat scorching and her lungs filling with fluid, but at the other side of the lake the thing ran on.
A hill exploded and sent a landslide against the God. It stood its ground and the rocks and dust parted around its legs and hips. When the cascade was over, it hauled itself out and continued its journey southward.
A deep ravine, which the Fallen God vaulted.
A river of molten rock, which it walked across, leaping from one floating boulder to the next with an agility that belied its size.
It should have been destroyed, but it forged on. A score of times Nomi should have died, but somehow she survived. Protected by the God. Saved, for some special purpose.
Nomi had no desire to know what that purpose would be. But try as she might, she could not use on herself the knife she still clasped.
This is the final voyage, she thought. And there was some obstinate pleasure in knowing that even after all his years up here and his century and a half of being so revered in Noreela, Sordon Perlenni had never seen anything like this.
THE FALLEN GOD finally stopped running and sat on top of a hill. To the south a new volcano vented the land's molten guts, and everywhere earthquakes cracked the ground. Dust and smoke filled the air, and night fell before the sun went down.
It set Nomi and Ramus on the ground. There was nowhere to run, and it did not seem to be watching, but it took a long time for Nomi to find the courage to move. She crawled eventually to Ramus, enjoying the feel of cool, damp grass beneath her as the world around them sank into chaos.
Even when she reached out and touched him, she was sure that he was dead. Yet he was warm, and when she lay down beside him and hugged him close, he mumbled something in his sleep. She did not catch the words. She thought perhaps he was speaking another language.
WHEN RAMUS WOKE up, his God stood before him. He had been touched. He was blind in his right eye, but the pain seemed to be gone from his head, the weight that had been growing behind his eyes for years now absent. It left a hole which Ramus thought he might fall into, but as he sat up and blinked, he realized that he felt better than he had for a long time.
He leaned over to pay homage to the God, but it kicked him across the ground.
“Ramus,” Nomi said. Her voice came from above, and Ramus looked that way. Though it was still dark, there was enough light from fires and the volcano by which to see, and he made out Nomi's shadow grasped in the God's hand.
“Is this your nightmare?” he asked.
“No nightmare,” she said. “Real.”
Ramus touched his head again, amazed that he felt so different.
The God turned and began to walk away.
“Wait!” Ramus shouted.
It went south, striding across the summit of the hill and heading down its far side, to the burning forests beyond.
“Ramus!” Nomi screamed.
“Wait!” he shouted again, running after his God. “Don't leave me here, not like this. Not alone!”
Nomi screamed again, and he could see her hands stretching out as though he could jump up and hold them, pull her back to him, rescue her from the thing they had awoken.
He ran, but even walking, the God outpaced
him. Nomi's voice faded into the background chaos of the falling land. The God's shadow shifted left and right, and it was briefly silhouetted against a fire reaching hundreds of steps into the sky. Ramus stopped running. He thought he saw Nomi still in one of its hands, her hair flying and arms still outstretched.
“Wait,” he said weakly. “No. Don't leave me. Don't go. Not without me.” He sank to his knees and watched his God disappear into fire.
LATER—HE DID not know how much later—he rolled from his back onto his stomach and looked to the north. Something drew his attention that way, though he was not sure what. It was certainly not one of his senses, assaulted as they were by the destruction all around. Perhaps it was the new void inside his mind—that cured, hollowed place that left him feeling so lessened.
He saw three shapes drifting from north to south. He could not fully discern their forms, because they flew very high, above the clouds of smoke and steam, floating on distant air currents as yet untouched by chaos. His eyes stung from smoke and he wiped them, but his vision was no clearer.
They drew closer, and Ramus felt a sudden sense of history gathering around him: dreadful, powerful, endless, and way beyond the understanding of a simple human. He tried to avert his eyes. But he could not.
One of the shapes flew directly over him, high up, impossibly large, unknowable, distorted in his vision by the heat and smoke of the plateau's destruction. The other two drifted past to the east.
And in that moment, Ramus felt greatness passing him by.
HE WAS CERTAIN that he would die there on that hillside. But when he did not die, he started walking north toward Noreela. He expected death at any moment, but it stayed away. Three miles down, he thought. The cliff was three miles high, so it's three miles down. On the flat, I could walk that in a short morning between dawn and noon.
It took more than a morning. Daylight and nighttime were confused now, as the sky was blotted out by great sheens of dust, gas clouds rolled across the altered and still-changing landscape and the sun seemed to have hidden itself away. After what he judged to be the first day of his new voyage, spent walking through tunnels exposed to the sky and across grassy plains now hidden belowground, Ramus began to think the God had left him with something. After the second day, during which he descended a sheer cliff into a new valley of sharp rocks, venting steam pits and boiling lava pools, he became more confident of his survival. Rain fell and he gathered water from rock pools, and here and there he found strange animals killed in the chaos and ate their flesh raw. If it poisoned him, so be it.
