Who could it have been? asked Seth within the private space of the Homunculus. Kybele and Agatha are dead. Sheol is destroyed. A memory came to him, communicated to Hadrian as clearly as if it had been his own. Could it be Horva or another of the Holy Immortals?
It could be anyone, Hadrian said, not wanting to entertain too many outlandish possibilities. He had enough in his head as it was.
“How big is the world?” he asked Kail. “You're a tracker. You must know that much about it.”
The big man's lips curled up on one side. Not quite a smile. “You'd think so. I can walk from Kittle to Moombin blindfolded, and draw the Strand from memory for three thousand kilometres. I can tell you a species of grass from a single straw, and identify a beast from one glimpse of its spoor. There are patches of the Broken Lands no person alive has seen but me—so yes, I know a lot about the Strand, but little outside that area. That's the truth of it. Could you tell me how big your world was?”
That, the twins had to admit, they couldn't.
“But what shape is it?” Hadrian pressed, sensing he was on the brink of something important. “Is there ice to the south and tropics to the north? Or the other way around? It would help to know which hemisphere we're in.”
“Hemisphere?” Kail repeated.
“You know…north or south.”
“There's talk of ice in the mountains and you know which direction they lie in: northeast, where this shadow of yours is growing.”
“That's not what I mean. Every big mountain has ice and snow. Are there poles where there's snow and ice all the time?”
The tracker shook his head, genuinely failing to understand.
Hadrian gave up. That line of investigation was going to get them nowhere, like the others. So it went: every time he probed at the nature of the world, they hit a fundamental failure of comprehension. It was like trying to explain the finer points of Beethoven's Fifth to someone completely tone deaf. Either the twins weren't asking the right questions, or Kail was failing to grasp their meaning.
“Tell me this, then,” he said in desperation. “What would happen if you walked in a straight line forever? If you just started walking one day and didn't stop, where would you end up?”
“Where I started,” said Kail without hesitation.
“So the world is round. We've worked out that much, at least.”
Kail was shaking his head before Hadrian had finished the sentence. “It's not round. There's no edge to it.”
“Not round like a plate. Round like a ball.”
“Why would it be like that?”
“Because…” The twins were momentarily lost for a deeper explanation than because that's the way it has always been. Things changed; they knew that with certainty. There was no always.
“We don't know,” said Seth. “We're just trying to make sense of the sky.”
“Sounds to me like you need an empyricist, not a tracker.”
“What's that?”
“Someone who studies the sky.”
“Like an astrologer?” Seth asked.
“Astronomer,” Hadrian corrected him.
Kail was unfamiliar with either of those words. “There's an empyricist in the Haunted City. Never had much to do with him, though, since our fields were so different. A strange man with strange thoughts. No idea where you'll find one like him out here.”
Astrologer, oastronomer, empyricist: the three words had a kind of rhythm to them, Hadrian thought—philosophically speaking, anyway. Astrologers had plied a very real trade prior to the Cataclysm-before-last, when the First and Second Realms had been one. After the sundering, astronomers had come into their own, for the world no longer operated under “magical” rules and instead had succumbed to descriptions that didn't take into account the will and desire of observing humanity. Now the two Realms were closely interacting, if not actually joined, and a new science was required.
“I'm tired,” he said. “I'm tired of feeling confused all the time and it being our fault doesn't help at all. It was either that or let the world end.”
“Some choice,” agreed Seth.
“How did you know you had a choice?” Kail asked. “Were there creatures like man'kin in your world who could see the future?”
“No. There were the Sisters, though. And Sheol and the Third Realm.”
Kail looked momentarily nonplussed. “There were three Realms?”
“Still are, I guess,” said Seth. “But this Goddess of yours only knows what has happened to the Third.”
Kail shook his head. “I'm as lost and tired as you, I'm afraid. Unlike you, though, I need to sleep on a regular basis, and I relish the thought of doing so flat on my back for a change, rather than in the saddle. Do you mind?”
“No,” the twins said. “Go ahead. We'll keep watch.”
“Wake me if you hear anything. Anything at all.”
They nodded, and the big man lay on his side with his head on a sack of camel food. Within a minute, he was breathing heavily.
Hadrian envied him that ability. Even in life, he'd been a light and restless sleeper. He remembered that clearly. Too many thoughts going around in his head, over and over into the small hours of the morning. He found it no easier with two-heads-in-one.
The fire crackled. Its heat dispelled Hadrian's fear of Upuaut, but only slightly. He wondered what the wolf-spirit was doing at that moment. Lurking just outside the campfire circle, peering in at the people warming themselves and talking about things they barely understood, or prowling the landscape of the new world, tearing throats and cracking bones in endless frustration?
Maybe we're going in the wrong direction, Seth said. Maybe we should go to this Haunted City of theirs to talk to the empyricist before blundering into something we can't get out of.
No. We have to keep going. There isn't time to screw around with other stuff. Yod is waking. I can feel it, and so can you. If we're not there when that happens…
What?
I don't know. Something bad. It'll eat everyone, like it tried to do before.
Just because it's awake doesn't mean it's free.
We freed ourselves eventually. It will, too.
That was a chilling thought, one that made the twins shiver in rare synchrony. Seth's memories of the Second Realm were vivid: Yod, the giant black pyramid growing fat on the dead, surrounded by monsters who thought nothing of sacrificing every creature they could find to their master's insatiable appetite.
The world is changed, Hadrian thought, but it's still a food chain. Eat or be eaten; kill or be killed. Will it never end?
Only when everything is dead. Seth's words were blunt. Is that how you'd rather things were?
Hadrian thought about it. No, he said. But part of him wondered.
The fire burned on. At midnight, with the moon riding high among the strange gleaming stars, Kail woke and they resumed their journey into darkness.
“Where there's a way, life will take it.
When a way can't be found, mind will make it.”
MASTER WARDEN RISA ATILDE:
NOTES TOWARD A UNIFIED CURRICULUM
The mist grew thicker as Skender fled with the others up the Divide. There was a path along the constricted water channel, one built up over the previous days from debris and made smooth by settling mud. Still holding Chu's hand tightly in his, he blindly followed those ahead, fearing an arrow in the neck at any moment. All he could hear was the squelching of feet and the grunting of breath. Winded, frightened, and shocked by everything he had seen, it was all he could do to keep his mind on not falling over on his face.
Finally they paused to catch their breath under an overhang large enough to hold all of them at once. Chu let go of him and bent over double, wheezing. The two foresters who had been carrying her wing dumped it unceremoniously at her feet. The message was clear: he and Chu would be carrying it the rest of the way. Skender acknowledged them with a breathless nod.
There were six foresters—Delfine, He
uve, Navi, and three others—plus three wardens—Marmion, Banner, and Eitzen. With Skender and Chu, that made a party of eleven. It wasn't much of an army if the Panic followed. Heuve stood, powerfully poised, all bearded chin and muscles, at the edge of the overhang watching the way they had come. Periodically, he scanned the cliff faces too, no doubt wary of another vertical ambush. How Heuve saw through the thickening fog, Skender didn't know. He could barely see as far as the river's edge.
“I can still taste,” Chu said, “that fucking mud.”
He relished the opportunity to clap her between the shoulders in mock sympathy. “There, there.”
She looked up at him with a baleful gleam in her eye. “Don't push your luck.”
“You call this luck?” He indicated the chaotic scene around them. Cut off from the boneship; chased by legendary half-humans; threatened with expulsion if he hung around Chu; and, yes, he could taste the mud too, cloying and foul at the back of his nose. “I'm sorry, but nothing you could do will make this any worse.”
She laughed at that, perhaps a touch too loudly, then straightened. Grabbing his face in both hands, she kissed him hard on the lips. Caught totally by surprise, it was over before he could decide whether to recoil or kiss her back.
“There,” she said, as though in satisfaction. “We're alive and we're together. Things could be a lot worse. Eh, Heuve?”
The bodyguard didn't demean himself by so much as looking at her. “The Outcast will not speak unless spoken to.”
“Or what? You'll spank me?”
A muscle in Heuve's left cheek twitched. Instead of responding, he took back the knife he had given Skender and turned to address Lidia Delfine, who had been checking the well-being of the others. “Eminence, we appear to have left the enemy behind.”
“They let us go,” said Marmion, grey-faced and holding his injured arm close to his chest.
“I agree.” Delfine tugged off her cap and scratched at the tightly bound hair beneath. “Furthermore, I think they were keeping us busy while the rest of them dealt with that ship of yours.”
“You think that was the real object of their attack?” Marmion looked at her askance.
“You tell us,” said Heuve in a low rumble. “You've yet to be entirely clear on why you're here in the first place.”
Delfine silenced him with a wave of her hand. “The moment for accusations and recriminations is not now, Heuve. There'll be plenty of time for that in Milang.”
Chu's attention pricked at the mention of her surname. “Milang?”
Delfine looked at her. “You've heard of it?”
“It's my surname.”
“Unlikely.” Delfine dismissed the matter by turning pointedly to Marmion. “It's not safe here. We'll keep moving, deeper into the forest. Are you coming?”
“I believe we have no alternative,” the warden said, glancing at Chu and Skender, “for the moment.”
Skender bit his lip on another protest about Sal and the others. If Delfine and her band of soldiers were still wary of going back, what could he and a trio of drained Sky Wardens do in their place? He didn't think being a Stone Mage would count for much among the Panic.
At that moment, Sal's voice came to him through the Change.
“Skender, can you hear me? You don't have to say anything. Just let me know you're listening.”
He turned his back on Marmion and the others as they argued about where to go and how long it would take. His reserves were low, but he tried to signal that he had heard as best he could.
“We're okay,” Sal continued after a moment, as though he had received Skender's faint call. “The Panic have us. No one's been harmed. I'll keep you informed if things change. Tell Marmion to keep on going without us. We'll catch up later. Okay?”
Skender resisted the impulse to try to send No, it bloody well isn't okay. We're in unknown territory at the mercy of strangers! What else could possibly go wrong?
Then the memory of Chu's kiss returned to him, and he flushed. His lips still tingled. We're alive and we're together. Things could be a lot worse.
He sent a weak affirmation. It was the best he could do.
“Can I ask you something?” He broke into the huddle to address Lidia Delfine. “You just said ‘deeper into the forest.’ Does that mean we're officially in it now?”
“Of course. It's all around us.” She looked at him as though he was mad for asking.
Chu and the wardens peered out as one from under the overhang. With the glowing brands close at hand, the misty night was impenetrable. Even so, they had seen no sign of vegetation during their mad flight up the Divide. From the bottom of the mighty canyon, they could have been anywhere on the arid plains to the west of the mountains.
“You'll see,” Lidia Delfine said, glancing at Chu and frowning, “but for now, we press on. Dawn is an hour away. We must be well out of danger by then.”
“Is sleep an option at any point?” asked Chu, barely smothering a yawn.
“No,” Heuve stated flatly. “The Pass is no place for the soft.”
“Or for people with a sense of humour, obviously.”
“This is no laughing matter.”
“No, and I can see why her so-called Eminence brings you on these trips. Life must seem pretty good back home compared to being with you.”
The bodyguard stiffened. For a horrible moment, Skender fully expected him to pick her up by the throat and strangle her on the spot.
Instead, he turned his narrowed gaze out into the mist. His jaw muscles clenched and unclenched. If a dozen Panic had chosen that moment to appear, Skender wouldn't have liked the chances of any of them walking away intact.
The Eminent Delfine put a calming hand on his shoulder, an unexpectedly intimate gesture. “We leave now,” she said. No one argued. Skender offered Chu his hand again, but her mood had soured. She strode off ahead of him, head down and concentrating on not slipping in the mud.
The way became increasingly difficult as the night wore on, not least because the path was treacherous and visibility poor. The constant roar of water rushing by made conversation difficult. Constrained to a relatively narrow channel, the flood foamed and fought just metres away, dowsing them all with spray. Exhaustion and sensory overload soon took their toll, reducing Skender's world to that directly in front of him.
It came as a complete surprise, then, when the party suddenly slowed and began climbing the cliff wall to his left, heading for the top of the Divide wall. Cut into the stone was a series of deep notches, providing a means of getting to the top. He forced his aching muscles to keep moving up in the hope that it would all be over soon. When they were out of the Divide, there was a chance they could sleep. That was what Heuve had implied, and he didn't seem the sort to lie about anything, on principle.
Skender crawled over the top of the Divide. The edge was as bare as the edge at Laure or Tintenbar or the Lookout, but as his gaze rose from the ground immediately ahead of him and penetrated the swirling fog all around—beginning, even then, to glow with sunlight creeping around the mountains to the east—he saw the first low bushes and vines of a mat of vegetation that rose and thickened into a wall of fern and branch not five metres from him, hugging the sides of the steepening foothills. Trees rose up like statues within the undergrowth, supporting a canopy that looked well-nigh impenetrable. It extended upward as far as he could see, vanishing into the impenetrable fog, utterly fecund and utterly unbelievable for someone raised in a desert.
So much life! He couldn't see over or through the overlapping boughs. For the first time, he could appreciate how it might be possible to lose oneself in such a profligacy of plants.
Still, he thought, how deep can it go? A dozen metres or so? Perhaps twenty? Not much more, surely.
Delfine and Marmion stood to one side, conferring as the last of the foresters and Banner climbed up from below. Marmion looked pale and drawn after the long, one-handed ascent. Chu stared at the wall of forest with an unreadable expressi
on. She said nothing, and Skender was wary of approaching her.
Heuve ascended last. Taking one long look down the stone ladder he declared with confidence that they had not been pursued.
“Good,” said Delfine, flexing her left arm and wincing. “That's one thing to be thankful for.” Her cool façade broke, just for a moment, and Skender glimpsed the grief she felt at leaving her friends behind. She had already lost a brother. He considered telling her about the message from Sal, but he didn't want to give her any false hope.
“The path is clear,” Heuve stated, inspecting a patch of the forest wall that looked no different from the rest. “We should keep moving.”
“How far is Milang?” Skender asked.
“Half a day's march,” said Delfine.
On the other side of the forest, Skender assumed. Once they were through the trees and out in the open again, the only thing they would have to worry about was the increasing gradient.
“I need to rest,” said Marmion. “You can go on without me if you like—”
“Of course we won't. You're injured.” Delfine dismissed the suggestion out of hand. “There's an arbour along the path. We'll pause there to regain our strength. Will two hours be long enough?”
“It will suffice.” Marmion accepted the offer with a nod. “Thank you.”
“I'll lead the way. Please, all of you, do not leave the path—for the safety of the forest, as well as your own—no matter what you might see or hear.”
That puzzled Skender until they had broached the outer fringes of the forest and plunged inside. It was dark in there, and full of life. Everywhere he looked, plants crowded, blocking out the first glimmerings of dawn and choking any possible attempt at passage. The path beneath his feet was little more than a rut wide enough for one small person; roots snaked across it, always ready to snag an unwary foot.
He preceded Chu through the wild growth, holding one end of the wing behind his back with patient familiarity. Getting it up the cliff face had been a chore, but one he shouldered as his due. Leaving it behind for the Panic to claim as booty wasn't an option. Although it had been Chu's decision to come along on Marmion's expedition, he would still blame himself if anything happened to the wing or to her.
The Hanging Mountains Page 10
