by Tim Lebbon
Leki nodded, but he saw doubt cloud her expression.
They moved deeper, deeper. A solid waterfall threw off a haze as though its spray had also been frozen. Jagged razors of ice promised pain if they slipped. Deep fissures offered dark oblivion. They kept to the easiest routes, and it was almost as if their path was being illuminated for them. The air carried light tainted with the hues of deep time – heavy greens, blues, the solidity of ice formed from the ruins of Skythe’s dreams.
Bon listened for Venden. But his dead son only spoke to him again when they stood before the fallen thing, risen once more.
And Venden stood before them.
After Aeon’s words came the pain.
Venden’s physical passing had been brief but awful. He had felt his body coming apart, aware of the terrible damage being wrought upon the shell he had always known, the vessel that had been him. The realisation had been worse than the pain – that this was the end, and that the ripping, rending, splashing finality could never be reversed. Then had come the strange continuation as part of Aeon, not apart from it. His mind persisting, not entirely as it had been and yet still an independent glimmer in the ferocious blaze of Aeon’s new existence.
This was different. The agony of being brought together was a whole new order of pain, because it was not simply a fleeting moment in time. He felt flesh and bone and blood assembling, and every newfound nerve knew it to be wrong. His mind received each signalled agony and held onto it. Bones melded, blood liquefied and flowed, flesh knitted, skin and veins formed, and the most complex form in the world – a living, breathing thing – came into being from the body of Aeon. Venden screamed in his mind, and then realised that he could hear that scream as well, feel it itching his throat and vibrating through his chest, and taste the spray of blood that hazed the air before him. He took in a deep, juddering breath and screamed again, and he felt a wash of pity swilling around him as Aeon shifted position.
It was in his mind, as he had been in its own. It was a connection both physical and ephemeral. He was still a facet of Aeon, a Venden-shaped projection like a limb giving itself to another use, with thin fleshy constructs connecting them. He had his own face, his own hair, and looking down across his naked body he was struck with a startling familiarity. It’s been so long since I have seen myself, he thought, although perhaps it had only been a day. Being a solid thing felt so wrong.
Venden opened his mouth to cry out again, but then the pain began to subside. His naked and bloodied body swaying in that freezing cavern. The mass of Aeon was behind him, and before him were great ice walls glimmering with their own inner light. He shivered. A mist of warm air drifted across him from Aeon to swill the blood from his skin.
Aeon wants me as myself for when my father comes, Venden thought.
‘Venden Ugane,’ he said, his voice barely a croak. He said his name again, more evenly. And again. By the time he heard scrambling footsteps descending towards the cavern, he could almost believe he was himself again.
‘There have been rumours of Aeon,’ the figure said, and Leki caught Bon beneath the arms as his knees weakened.
It was not quite his son. The body was there, and the shape, and Bon even recognised the casual, slightly arrogant stance that had always made him believe his son viewed all others around him as fools. But this was not only Venden, because there was something stretching away behind him. Veils of skin, veins, and streaks of something that did not belong in or on a person’s body.
These fragments connected him to Aeon.
‘There it is,’ Leki whispered in Bon’s ear, as if he could not see.
In the half-light, Aeon’s true shape and size were ambiguous at best. It was huge – much larger than the shape they had seen in that clearing further to the east. Long, low, with heavy limbs that seemed to anchor it to the cavern floor, its body performing a gradual change into ice where it touched, it had blended itself with the frozen heart of the land.
‘Rumours,’ Venden said again. His mouth moved, but did not quite match the words. His eyes shifted left and right, alighting finally on Bon. They did not change. They did not smile.
‘There have always been rumours of Aeon,’ Bon said. ‘I was one who believed.’
‘Belief is immaterial,’ Venden said. ‘Faith is meaningless. Human things, and humans …’ He blinked, frowned, then continued. ‘What matters is that magic cannot be allowed. Crex Wry must not rise.’
‘Venden—’ Bon began.
‘I am Aeon.’
‘Son,’ Bon whispered. Leki leaned into him, her contact welcome, fresh.
‘They will raise magic against me,’ Venden said, ‘as they did before. Before, they caught me by surprise. This time I will be more able to withstand it. But also, magic itself will be more ready.’
‘Ready for what?’ Bon said.
‘To hold on, and not be put back down by their … Engines. Ready to gain a foothold, so that Crex Wry can claw its way back. And if it does …’ Venden’s face creased as if in sudden pain, and Aeon shivered.
‘We’ll do anything to stop you raising your Kolts again,’ Leki said. Bon flinched at her aggression, but he could not help admiring her as well. In the face of this thing, she still spoke what she thought.
‘More rumours of Aeon,’ Venden said.
‘Your death brought the Kolts,’ Bon said, appealing for the whole truth. ‘Didn’t it? The magic destroyed you, and polluted the whole of Skythe, and created those things that wiped out everything they touched?’
‘It can say whatever it wants,’ Leki said.
‘Rumours,’ Venden said, and the smile in his voice was chilling. ‘The truth matters little to those who can only lie.’
‘And you can’t?’ Leki scoffed.
‘Aeon has no need of lies.’ Venden shimmered before them, seeming to blur as if the ground moved. Bon had felt nothing. His legs were firm. He blinked, and Venden was still again.
‘You do lie,’ Leki said. ‘It’s revenge you want, and—’
‘Magic must not be touched,’ Venden said, harsher. ‘It is the dark soul of a fallen thing.’
‘Like you?’ Bon asked.
‘Nothing like me,’ Venden said. ‘Crex Wry is …’ He raised his arms slowly, and veils of thin skin connected them to the sides of his body. ‘I can show you.’
Bon stepped forward without hesitation.
‘Bon, no!’ Leki said.
He didn’t answer, but walked across the frozen cavern floor to the simulacrum of his son. One more chance to touch, however strange the touch might be. One more chance to let Venden know that his father loved him.
‘Bon!’ Leki said again.
‘Don’t you want to know?’ he asked without turning around. As he reached for Venden’s right hand, he heard Leki’s cautious footsteps behind him, and saw her reaching for Venden’s other hand.
‘Oh!’ Leki gasped. Bon glanced sidelong at her – her eyes were wide, jaw slack, and she was looking past Venden at the massive shape beyond. Her fingers were splayed around Venden’s, the thin webbing enveloping his hand. Bon thought perhaps she might be reading his blood, and then—
A lurch. Dislocation, confusion, and he is amongst a landscape in turmoil. Mountains shaking, valleys folding, rivers boiling, lakes erupting. The sky is on fire and the land flows, malleable and not yet set, and a figure stands solid within the upheaval. A terrible, powerful sentience oversees everything. It has intelligence of an order and type that Bon cannot understand. It has intentions beyond the scope of mere human ken. But he knows its ambition is not pure, and the sense of wrongness exuding from the vision sets his skin on fire. It is shattering and mind-blowing, like the worst nightmare that can never be explained, but which comes again and again. A personal horror, but one which Bon knows will be personal to everyone who touches it. He vomits, but has only a distant awareness of the acid tang spewing from his mouth. The image is everything – timeless, terrible, violent, merciless. The shape stands tall and strong
. Its personality sets the world aflame.
The vision was snatched back as quickly as it had been granted, and Bon fell to his knees before Venden. The stink of vomit, the chill of ice, he wiped his hand across his mouth and tried to catch his breath.
‘By all the gods,’ Leki whispered beside him, but she was using a curse that had no meaning.
‘No,’ Bon gasped. ‘No, only one of them.’
‘There stands Crex Wry,’ Venden breathed. ‘And magic is its lifeblood, its blackened soul. Take the message to leave magic where it belongs – down, in knots that must not be unpicked. Aeon will go its own way, in peace, as ever it did. It wanders the world, from the brightest day of creation to the darkest of end times. Quash rumours of Aeon. Speak the truth.’
‘If we believe you—’ Leki began, but Aeon spoke over her again.
‘Aeon has no need of lies.’ Venden’s hand holding Bon’s changed, skin and bone melding and deforming into something else, leaving an object resting in Bon’s palm. It had no weight, and was faultless. ‘A gift from Aeon’s heart. This is all I can give, for now.’ And suddenly Venden cried out and tugged Bon close to him, cheeks touching, his voice his own.
‘Father, Crex Wry seeded the Fade to aid its own resurrection. It—’ His voice was cut off, snatched back with a deep groan, and replaced once again by that almost-Venden voice which was all Aeon. ‘Now close your eyes.’
Bon’s heart leaped. Confusion reigned, and he obeyed as Venden began to disintegrate. He heard the sound of something splashing, and then Leki’s gasp.
‘Bon,’ Leki said, nudging him. ‘Look.’ Bon looked, and when Leki squeezed his hand he squeezed back.
Venden was gone, subsumed once again. Only ten steps away from them, Aeon was moving. Its incredible bulk shifted with endless grace, flowing like smoke made solid, making no sound as it lifted from the floor of the frozen cavern and moved away from them. Bon was certain there was no tunnel before it, yet it disappeared into the ice wall, pulling itself through with slow, gentle movements from its strange limbs.
In its wake, it left a perfect tunnel leading upwards.
‘Our way out,’ Bon said.
‘So we can deliver its message quicker?’ Leki asked, doubt still staining her voice.
Bon held his hand out to show her what he had been given. The object was a smooth, round bone, imperfect in shape, yet not apparently removed from any other body part. There were no joints or knuckles, no broken connections, no way in. It was the size of his fist, and still warm.
‘What is that?’ Leki whispered.
‘Perhaps something to help,’ Bon said. ‘Leki, you heard it. You saw. Didn’t you feel how dreadful that was? Didn’t it … make your skin crawl?’
Leki was pale, eyes flitting left and right as if trying to find reality.
‘If your people raise magic—’
‘Then why doesn’t it stop them itself?’
‘It’s trying,’ Bon said. ‘Maybe it’s weak, or unable, or knows that Crex Wry will defeat it. So it’s trying, by asking us to help.’
They stood silently for a while, and for the first time Bon heard water dripping somewhere in the darkness. A sign of change.
‘What did your son whisper to you?’
‘That Crex Wry seeded the Fade to aid its own resurrection.’
Leki was contemplative, silent.
‘I’m taking the message,’ Bon said, slipping the object into his pocket. ‘South, to your Ald.’ He knew how useless such a gesture would be. If they didn’t kill him on sight, what chance did he have of making them believe him? A madman, a criminal who had escaped a death sentence, rushing from the wilds to plead with them to keep their Engines down.
Unless …
‘And you’ll come with me,’ he said.
‘Me.’ Leki was looking into the darkness after Aeon, frowning, yet her eyes were wide with wonder.
‘You’ll come and tell them what Aeon showed you and told you. Tell your husband.’
Leki blinked a few times, bringing herself back to the present. She knelt and touched the ground, ice shards sparkling like rare gems, splaying her hand so that Bon could see faint light reflected through her webbing. She breathed deeply for a moment, then seemed to slump down to the ground.
‘Leki?’
‘I can’t read it,’ she said. ‘It’s … unattainable. But, yes, Bon. I’ll tell Sol what happened here.’
‘Then we should go now,’ Bon said.
‘They’ll have landed, formed a bridgehead, started advancing inland. And they’ll have the Engines. When they don’t hear back from me they’ll ground them anyway. Two along the coast, one far inland to give a triangle. Then they’ll fire them up, and direct magic against Aeon.’
‘Then there’s no time to waste.’ Bon turned and started away from her, glad for her fear. It would help them both.
They moved quickly, following the route Aeon had forged. When they emerged from the fresh wound in the land, there were three Skythians waiting. Between them, two large shires stomped their hooves against the icy ground. It was still snowing.
The Skythians watched them in awe. All three stared at Bon’s jacket pocket.
‘Aeon wants us to hurry,’ Bon said. They walked forward together, kicking through fresh snow.
In the east, sunrise set the snow-covered horizon aflame.
Chapter 17
inland
Juda was aware of being watched even before he opened his eyes.
It took a while to place himself. As he rose from the deepest sleep he had ever known, crawling up out of the solid darkness, a shocking memory from childhood presented itself – he is a child, holding a knife to his wrist, ready to vent the Regerran blood that marks him as different in the eyes of other children.
I’m more different than that, Juda thought, and he opened his eyes at last.
The darkness was heavy and slick. The sort of darkness he might imagine inside a decapus’s stomach, or the innards of one of the bigger spinebacks that patrolled the sea beyond the Duntang Archipelago. He took in a deep, shuddering breath and gasped it back out, and his hand went to his left armpit. As memory of the wound returned, so he found that he could see more.
Inside the Engine, he thought. His heart stuttered, his eyes fluttered as if sprinkled with dust, and he pressed his hand to the wound. It ached, but there was no harsh pang of agony as he’d been expecting. His bloodied shirt was torn around his shoulder, and he worked his hand inside the tear to feel the knotted flesh beneath. The injury was obvious. Scar tissue marred an area from beneath his armpit halfway across his chest, a swathe of hardened skin where the poison-tipped arrow had sliced and bruised.
It should hurt more. He examined his senses from an objective distance. He could taste staleness, hear his own pulse throbbing at his ears, and when he lifted his hand and scratched at his cheek, pinched his skin, he could feel it.
He remembered those weird limbs that had attended him. They were nowhere in sight now, retreated back to the shadows whence they had come. Perhaps they had been the shadows themselves. Inside an Engine that sang with memories of magic, anything might be possible.
‘I have more dregs,’ he whispered. He sat up slowly and reached for his shoulder bag. Dragging it closer, he disturbed the broken arrow that lay across it. Juda paused and leaned across, closing his eyes as a faint threatened. He bit the inside of his lip hard enough to taste blood, then picked up the arrow.
It had been inside him. It was the front part, the head a viciously barbed triangle of shaped iron, rough holes punched through its two wings to help it grip inside a flesh wound, or bite into bone. There were also depressions in the metal where poison paste would be applied before combat. The wood of the shaft was much heavier than it appeared, darkened with his blood, and where it had been snapped off the splayed splinters promised more pain.
Juda slipped the arrowhead and short length of shaft into his pocket. He had never been one for totems or charms, but he
felt that he should keep this. One day he would show it to someone and tell his story.
He started hauling himself upright, holding onto a network of smooth pipes that lined the wall by his side. The wall was metal, warm, and uneven like a living thing’s body. The pipes flexed.
‘You’re what I’ve wanted for ever, and I have to start you,’ he said. The Engine did not reply. Nothing moved. It had saved him when he had submitted himself to the safety of its womb, fixing his wound and supplementing the dreg he had pressed to his open flesh, the poison negated, pain lessened. Now he felt its awareness around him. It carried weight.
He moved through the Engine. There was no sign of those old priests’ bodies, floating as they had been before like hesitant bats. He thought perhaps they had gone down into the guts of the Engine. Swallowed. The idea was unsettling. But the confusion he had felt on arrival seemed to have flittered away with the pain, and now he knew where to go, and what to do. He was being guided, and observed from the shadows. It was a sense of calm contemplation, not something insidious, but he could not see what it was.
The insides of the Engine were mysterious to him, its workings unknown. He could not shift the idea that it had been built to be entered, and that the route he was following was designed for someone to maintain the Engine, or to initiate it from the inside. But how to do so was a mystery, and he wondered why he had ever believed he could figure that mystery out.
Juda was being urged up, and out.
He climbed over metallic structures, felt the flexible give in other parts that seemed like soft, stretchable wood, and he could not shake the idea that the Engine smelled of … something once alive. But not dead, he thought. Just sleeping. He turned a smooth corner and came across the first areas of frozen snow. It had been snowing when he entered the Engine, and it must have blown in behind him, flitting down through the entrance and settling on the innards. Freezing, layer upon layer of new snow falling on top, freezing again, it formed a solid mass across the Engine’s insides that provided a slippery, dangerous climb towards the top.
