The Heretic Land

by Tim Lebbon

  ‘I found the second and third dregs inside an Engine,’ Juda said, and as the shock hit Bon so he heard Leki gasp.

  ‘You’ve actually seen an Engine?’ Bon gasped.

  Juda continued, ignoring the question and telling the story his own way, at his own pace.

  ‘I came to Skythe … on my own. The Brokers are an organisation. And no organisation can be as personal as you need to be about magic. As subjective. Because magic is a personal thing, like love or hate. I love differently from you.’ He pointed at Leki. ‘And you.’ He nodded at Bon. ‘And if either of you took to magic, your experience of it would be very different from mine.’

  ‘You won’t find me touching it,’ Leki said softly, but Juda seemed not to hear.

  ‘We’re close to the river,’ he said. ‘There’s a rope bridge a mile upstream.’

  ‘Can’t we walk or swim it?’ Bon asked.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to.’ Juda moved on, falling quiet and contemplative.

  Bon looked up at the cloudy sky, seeing the smudge of sunlight behind a spread of clouds and comforted by its presence. He had never worshipped the Fade sun god, Flaze, but it was a presence that no one could do without. It bathed his face with warmth, and as he blinked slowly he could almost be somewhere else. He had a sudden, unbidden memory of his wife falling, and his hand reaching out terribly slowly to stop her. How he had loved her. How he had almost feared her, on days when a distance hung between them. She had come into his life, and left it, entirely of her own accord.

  They reached the river without Juda saying any more, and Bon feared his revelations had ended. I want to hear about the Engine, he thought. I want to know where it was, what it was like. There had been much talk of the Engines amongst the circles he orbited – the devices used by the Ald, so it was said, to gather and channel magic during their attack on Skythe. They were almost mythical creations, product of stories told in the shadowy corners of bars and private meetings where fear kept watch at the doorway. Some said that there were ancient Engines, thousands of years old, buried deep in western caves on Alderia, and even older constructs had been taken apart, their elements broken down and melted and scattered to the winds. The further back in history Bon looked, the more mythical the Engines were. But here on Skythe they suddenly seemed so much more possible.

  It was obvious from first sight why they needed the rope bridge to cross the river. It was not too wide, and it flowed at a sedate rate, but something in there exuded menace. Silvery, sharp things with membranous wings, leaping above the waters and taking any unfortunate bird that happened to fly too low. The length of a person’s arm, Bon could see the stark glint of their teeth even from the river bank.

  ‘They’re only the ones that let themselves be seen,’ Juda said. ‘Sometimes, others come out. There are water pigs, similar to those on Alderia but twice the size, with ragged teeth that seep poisonous blood.’ He shook his head as he walked. ‘All gone wrong.’

  ‘What’s all gone wrong?’ Leki asked.

  ‘This place. Don’t you feel it? See it? The war did more than destroy millennia of Skythian civilisation and history. It set a rot in the land.’

  They walked until they saw the rope bridge – a rickety affair, half of its planks rotten and dropped away. To cover his fear Bon asked, at last, about the Engine.

  ‘They’re here, if you know where to find them,’ Juda said. ‘There’s the remains of one on the coast, maybe twenty miles from where you landed. And there are others. More whole.’ He tested a plank on the bridge and started across, walking quickly from plank to plank and gripping the rope rails. They were frayed, and strung with dried, crackly growths that crumbled beneath his touch.

  ‘More whole?’ Leki asked, probing.

  Juda glanced back at her but said nothing.

  Bon looked down at the river only a few steps below. Shadows moved across its smooth surface. They might have been clouds or reflections, or larger things beneath the surface.

  ‘So what was it like?’ he asked at last, because Juda seemed to be toying with them. But the man simply walked on ahead, checking each board as he stepped across and barely pausing to drop his weight.

  ‘I think we’ll see one,’ Leki said. Bon glanced at her, eyebrows raised.

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  Leki shrugged. ‘I’m good at reading people.’ She was staring down at the river, and there was a look in her eyes that Bon did not like. It resembled hunger.

  ‘And amphys can read the water,’ he said.

  Leki started across then, and Bon followed her footsteps over the swaying bridge. It reminded him of the feeling in the hold of that awful ship, and his stomach lurched.

  ‘You won’t be sick,’ Leki said, her voice almost a laugh.

  Bon paused, watching her increasing the distance between them. She moved with such grace, and even beneath her long coat he could see the delicate sway of her narrow swimmer’s hips. It had been a long time since he had been with a woman, and—

  Leki glanced back over her shoulder, mock-stern. Then she looked down and moved again, and Bon knew that she was looking between the boards, at the water. Using her strange amphy’s gift, she had sensed Juda’s intentions and let Bon know that she could perceive his as well.

  He smiled. And as he crossed he allowed his imagination to swell, seeing Leki lying naked in a warm bath of scented water, webbed hands closed around him and his fingertips playing across her breasts. He chuckled, the image helping him smother his fear of falling. But even if he did drop through into the river, he was sure that Leki would be there to save him.

  She had saved him before, after all.

  When he reached the other side, Juda was already heading towards what looked like a dozen mounds of moss-covered rocks. Leki was waiting for him, an enigmatic smile picking up the corner of her sensuous mouth.

  ‘So what else did you see?’ Bon asked.

  ‘Those mounds are the ruins of a Skythian village,’ Leki said. ‘He’s taking us there to … it feels like to meet someone. But the urgency’s growing in him, too. The slayers might be closing. And I think the Engine …’ She closed her eyes, frowning. ‘He won’t talk about them, because he’s going to show us. There’s rumour of an Engine beyond the marshes.’ She opened her eyes again. The frown remained. ‘And you. Your name, in his mind. He thinks you might lead him to magic.’

  Bon snorted, confused. But then he asked the real question. ‘And what else did you see from me?’

  ‘Something wet.’ Leki went after Juda, and Bon thought, I’m going to see an Engine!

  Following Leki, troubled by what she could see and yet aroused as well, he could not help dwelling on how much things had changed in a matter of days.

  Without Juda, the slayers would have butchered him if he’d even reached that beach. Without Leki, Bon might well have let them.

  Bon looked back the way they had come. The river whispered behind them, splashing now and then as sharp fish leaped at the sky. Beyond, the hillside they had descended looked innocuous enough. But when he looked up to the ridge and tried to spot where they had crossed, he could not escape the idea that there was constant movement up there. He squinted and shielded his eyes, even though the cloud cover reduced the sun to a smudge. The movement was too far away to focus on, and too uncertain to trust. It was as if the hillside was breathing, or shrugging, or trying to shift closer or further away. He might be seeing slayers reaching the summit and hurrying after them, or he might not.

  And then the fear of those slayers struck him again, the terror rich and heavy. He’d seen that terrible murder on the beach, but now he projected it onto himself, and the sheer unfairness of it was staggering, the taking of his life when that right should only be his. Until recently to Bon, death would have meant the end of the pain of loss, but now it was the end of hope. Because sheltering behind the grief from his dead wife and missing, probably murdered, son, there had always been a glint of hope that he might continue into the
future.

  Coming here, meeting Leki, had exposed it.

  He turned and sprinted after Leki, and as he caught up with her Juda was waving to them from beside a mound of tumbled stones.

  ‘Here!’ Juda said. ‘We can rest here, for a while. There’s things for you to see. And someone I have to meet.’

  ‘But we have to run!’ Bon said.

  ‘Yes,’ Juda agreed. ‘But I must see someone.’

  ‘Who is it?’ Leki asked.

  Juda looked away, scratching at his cheek. ‘Just … a man.’ He chuckled. ‘We can’t get where we’re going without his directions, but … he’ll see no one but me. I’ll be back soon.’ He left them there, ducking away between the mounds and quickly disappearing into the landscape.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ Leki asked, then when she turned to Bon her eyes opened wide. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Bon said. His honesty made him naked. Leki only paused for a moment, then came to him and squeezed his shoulder.

  ‘We’re in Juda’s hands,’ she said. ‘Let’s take a look around.’

  ‘Maybe he’s running on his own,’ Bon said. They knew Juda hardly at all, and could trust him even less. ‘They might be closer than we think, and he could have …’

  ‘He wouldn’t have brought us this far if he was going to give us up,’ Leki said. ‘Besides, I’m starting to think we mean more to Juda than he’s letting on. I don’t think he rescued us out of sheer benevolence.’

  ‘Aren’t you afraid?’ Bon asked. Weakness had always haunted him, whether or not others saw him in it.

  ‘Down to the tips of my toes,’ Leki said. She blinked, and her amphy’s clear film swept across her eyes.

  They moved past the mound of stones, and as they did so Bon made out a vague order to them. They were fallen, but the mound’s base maintained a regular shape, and some of those stones not smothered by moss or purple shrubs exhibited square corners, and even some faded sigils. History swamped this place.

  ‘A door,’ Leki said, pointing. Past a huge fallen tree, beyond a copse where a flock of birds seemed to be weaving back and forth between branches in an endless spiral, stood another old building, its roof and one wall collapsed. The doorway was swathed in creeping plants, but some of them were withered and dry, while others were green and lush.

  ‘We should wait for Juda,’ he said. ‘Ready to run.’

  ‘He said there was stuff we’d like to see,’ Leki said. ‘And we’ll hear him come back. We can’t go any further without him, and he won’t be long. Come on. Let’s see if anyone’s in.’

  * * *

  Juda did not have to travel far in order to try and feed his addiction.

  He had left his last dreg of magic behind and, ever since, a chill had set in him, a hollowness of loss which he knew he must fill soon, or die. Magic was his heartbeat, his breath. It had become his life.

  Away from Bon and Leki, he leaned against a fallen Skythe building and took in several shuddering breaths. Talking to them about magic had gone some way to holding back the grief, but the deep emptiness was growing. Unless he filled it soon, he did not think he could maintain his fragile hold.

  I’ve been just holding on for years, he thought. The promise of a big find had always driven him on, and now there was something about Bon and Leki that hinted at greater things to come. They smelled different, and Bon especially had depths that might hold secrets even he did not know. His name on the list of deportees marked for execution, and his crimes, had cried out at Juda.

  And here, he hoped to find out more.

  He moved away from the other two, assembling his pistol as he went and loading the pressurised steam valve. He would need the weapon if and when the slayers caught up with them, but it would likely do little good. Here was where it might benefit him more. If there were fresh rumours and whispers amongst the Skythians, he needed to hear them.

  He had become adept at recognising the gathering places of those wild, sometimes mutated Skythians left alive. They maintained a whispered communication with each other, stories spanning miles, rumours drifting with the winds, as if somewhere deep down they were trying to regain their former glory. He suspected this information exchange was instinctive rather than intentional, and sometimes it had been of use to him. But though the Skythians knew what was happening across their damaged isle, in Juda’s regard they were weak things, ill-suited to existence in the place they had once thrived. Time moved on, and he had no pity for them. Like any addict, his empathy had been suppressed by his cravings.

  Juda stalked. He went beyond the ruined village, glancing back frequently to make sure Bon and Leki could not see him, and found a trail. He paused and sniffed the air. Closed his eyes. Regerran blood pulsed through his nose, his sense of smell greater than most, and he moved off to the left, skirting around a hillock and then slipping down into a shallow ravine. A stream flowed along its bottom, heading left towards the river. In the stream squatted a lone Skythian male. The water washed around his ankles. He stared along the ravine towards the river, his purpose hidden.

  Juda looked around quickly, scanning the ravine’s sides in case there were others hidden away in small caves or lying in the fading light. But he was alone. He lifted the pistol and fired. The shot struck the Skythian’s left shoulder low down, and he fell forward, splashing face first into the stream.

  Juda grunted in satisfaction and reloaded the pistol as he approached the twitching figure. New metal shot, new steam valve, and when he was three steps from the whining man he pocketed the pistol, drew a knife and knelt beside him.

  Though his left arm was useless, the man had just managed to turn his face out of the water to catch a breath. Blood flowed with the stream. His hair was long and clotted with mud, his skin pocked with disease, left eye cloudy with cataract. He was trying to speak in their strange language, but the water garbled his words. Juda slid the knife between his ribs and leaned all his weight on it, and it was like putting a beast out of its misery. The man squealed, and then slumped down. His final breaths escaped in a series of bloody bubbles, which Juda watched disappear downstream.

  Heart hammering, he looked back out of the shallow ravine towards the ruins, but no one was watching, no one knew. I can’t leave them alone for too long, he thought. But this part was always over quickly.

  Knowing that what he did here was redolent of Wrench Arc behaviour – and still trying to deny to himself that he was one of them – Juda took the fleet clinger from the seam of his boot. Long, thin, incredibly hard and sharp, he had bought it from a Broker in New Kotrugam just days before leaving on his journey north. Used mainly by Spike interrogators and investigators, they resembled weapons, but were in reality sensitive devices designed to snag the final, fleeting thoughts of someone dying. Often those thoughts were random and useless. The trick to using the fleet clingers successfully was to feed the right impetus to the dying person.

  He plunged the object into the man’s ear and pushed it into his brain. Then he connected the trailing nark-gut lead to the top end, held his breath and pushed the needle on the lead’s other end into his own neck. He gasped as the cool metal slid home, the pain immediately simmering to white-hot. But he did not have time to hurt.

  Juda leaned over the stinking, dying man and whispered into his ear, muttering the Old Skythian word for magic over and over, and soon …

  He had done this five times before, without success. But this time he found something. This Skythian knew nothing of the magic Juda craved to quieten his soul, but he did know of other things, more incredible and valuable than any Juda had ever hoped to find.

  In his confused, dying thoughts, the man held rumours of Aeon’s resurrection, and whispers of the strange young Alderian who was bringing it about.

  Venden Ugane …

  As Juda fell back and tugged the needle from his neck in a spray of blood, he uttered a mad, high laugh at what might come next.

  Chapter 7

&nbs
p; heartbeats

  On previous journeys to search for and retrieve objects associated with the remnant, Venden had taken a whole day to prepare. The location would be a blur in his mind. The distance obscure, like tomorrow seen through a heat-haze. Since the first journey when he had discovered the cart upended at the foot of a small waterfall, he had taken it with him as much as possible, only leaving it behind when the terrain grew too uneven, the journey too long. But this time something pressed him to go alone and unhindered. He had the old clothes he was wearing, some food and water, two knives, some meagre camping equipment, a flint, and cooking implements he had fashioned from shreds of something melted. He had often wondered what they had been before. Perhaps he ate food with deformed cogs from the heart of an ancient Engine.

  He readied himself to leave before midday, and then stood close to the remnant, waiting for something else. It will show me where exactly to find the heart, how to retrieve it, how to transport it back here, he thought. But the remnant was silent and still, and he sensed a deep weariness cradling it against the cold, wet ground.

  ‘I’ll find the heart of you,’ he said. There was no response. ‘I’ll bring you back.’ Silence filled the clearing, seeming to steal the sound of movement from the orange spiders and the rustle of leaves on some of the withered trees to the north. Venden wondered where those sounds had gone, and whether anyone else would hear them.

  He reached out to touch the remnant, but was repelled. He frowned, but the closer he moved, the further away the shape seemed. It did not shift or flex, but its altered shape was beyond him.

  ‘I only want to touch you,’ he said, but his plea was swallowed by the silence.

  So Venden left the clearing, looking behind at the things he had brought back, which, together, went to make up Aeon. The reconstructed god looked more innocuous the further he walked, and by the time it passed out of sight, hidden behind a screen of low trees, he could believe that it was a dead thing that had been there for six centuries. Its bone was dulled and unreflective, giving back nothing of its surroundings. A fine camouflage, he thought, but it also left him feeling bereft. He might as well have seen himself fading into nothing.