The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

  Darkness walked with them. Not the darkness of the void, but of pre-dawn gloom waiting in anticipation of a sun that never came. Light seemed to radiate from their new body, illuminating the ground around their feet and anything that came within arm's reach. As they walked, they trailed a glowing path behind them. They imagined sometimes that they could see all the way back to where they had started, as if looking along an underground tunnel lit with phosphorescent mould.

  All was not completely dark outside their elongated cocoon. The sun and moon shone wanly through the murk, and strange shapes brushed by them, unidentifiable but definitely there. Trees were skeletal cracks in their vision. Cliff faces and occasional ruined walls came into focus as the bubble of light touched them. Occasional glimpses of life stirred as creatures scurried out of their path, diving into undergrowth or under rocks as they approached. The new world was frightened of them, but why that might be they didn't know.

  They walked on, never growing tired or hungry or thirsty. Their new body didn't need to sleep, and neither did they: they had slept an eternity already, and might never need to again. Entangled, they found it difficult to think separately, and remained that way as night and day rolled on around them. They felt they could walk from one side of the Earth to the other. Even in its strange state, the world and its sensations were a wealth of riches compared to the poverty that had preceded it.

  Eventually they realised that they were being followed. Down the corridor of light behind them, a shadow had appeared, distant but definitely there. It haunted them like the ghost of their past, never quite coming into focus, never quite within reach.

  They knew that there was much they had forgotten, or buried in memories that had lain stagnant for an age. Pieces were coming back to them—faces, names, and places that had once been important to them. With those fragments came a growing sense of dread at the thought of their destination. The wrongness seeped into them, sucking at their resolve like a whirlpool.

  Their pace ebbed, although they made no conscious decision to slow down. The shadow behind them held less creeping horror than the wrongness ahead.

  When the shadow came closer, it resolved into a man, a man with dark skin and greying hair, whose lips were cracked and whose eyes saw right through them. He was staggering, exhausted. They had to force him to stop and look at them, although what he saw they couldn't tell. They had no mirrors to see their new face, and they had passed no standing water.

  The man's lips moved, but his words made no sense. Why not her? he whispered urgently, his voice as ghostly as the world around them. Why not her?

  They recognised him. That was the most startling thing. They knew who the man had been searching for and why his quest had failed. His desperation was naked before them, writ deep in lines and tear tracks.

  He had delivered them into the world, and they supposed they owed him for that.

  Many days had passed since their awakening; a great distance had passed beneath their implacably plodding feet. No other people crossed their path until a great gulf yawned before them, and they sensed a changing in the texture of the world. They were getting closer to their destination. Things were becoming increasingly strained.

  Then—outrageously, unexpectedly—more shadows appeared. Things fell out of the sky. Fireworks. If their new body had had a heart, it would have been racing.

  People they couldn't possibly recognise, but did, assailed them. Fractured memories coursed through them: one of three who were caught in the Way; one of three who escaped; darkness pressing in on every side; a hum that threatened to stamp their minds flat under the heel of eternity…

  A hint of loneliness had kept them talking when they knew they should be moving on. As a result, death had almost caught them. What did death mean in this strange new world, in their new body? What would it mean for the world if they were to die before their job was done? Would all their sacrifices have been for nothing?

  There has been enough death. They knew that with a cold certainty that cut through their fear like a knife. And anger, sweet and pure, had fuelled the thrust.

  They ran. They sensed the lip of a cliff before them as they fled the shadows, and jumped over it without hesitation. The glowing path winked out behind them as they plummeted to an invisible ground below. For a moment, they were back in the void, with no point of reference, tumbling and turning, limbs a-flailing.

  Then the ground hit them, and the light returned. Ahead of them, unseen but deeply felt, lay their destination. Nothing would stop them from reaching it. Not the shadows, not death, and not the fear that gnawed at their insides like time's teeth at stone. The wrongness awaited them.

  Unharmed, but not untouched, they climbed to their feet and resumed their journey.

  “What do we mean when we say ‘destiny’? What is this thing called ‘fate’? A succour for the lazy-minded. A balm for the weak of will.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 83

  With no small sense of misgiving, Shilly watched Skender's flying wing drop over the edge of the Divide. Just like that, Sal was gone, and the Goddess only knew if he would ever come back. So much had happened so quickly that she despaired of ever coming abreast of it all.

  Deciding to head off at least one potential tirade, she explained the sudden change in events to Marmion.

  “Sal and Skender are going after the Homunculus,” she said, stating the fait accompli baldly. He would just have to accept it. “They'll call us if they find anything.”

  Marmion stared at her with fury in his eyes, but he didn't say anything at first. When he did speak, his voice was carefully controlled.

  “And who is this Skender? Where does he come from and what is he doing here?”

  “He's from the Interior,” she began.

  “I could tell that by looking at him. Was his arrival here planned? Were you expecting him?”

  “No,” she said with perfect honesty. “I haven't seen him in years. Apparently he's looking for his mother,” she added, remembering something Sal had alluded to.

  “Here?”

  She shrugged, knowing nothing more about the situation. “I guess when Chu, his friend, wakes up, we can ask her.”

  “I guess we can,” Marmion said with acid sarcasm.

  Kail whistled for attention. “Company!”

  Heads turned. The tracker pointed at a billowing cloud on the northeastern horizon. The sound of chimerical engines thrumming in the distance came dimly to her, now she knew to listen.

  Shilly's pulse beat a little faster, wondering who would be driving so close to the Divide. A delegation from Laure, perhaps, or further abroad? There was no way of knowing until they arrived.

  The wardens turned their attention outwards, forming a protective cordon around the injured as the vehicles approached. Marmion held his pointed staff at the ready. Kail regarded the scene from his lofty perspective, showing no emotion at all.

  As the vehicles drew closer, they resolved into open-frame buses, smaller than the Wardens’ buses but no less rugged. Their engines roared and gouted clouds of white smoke. Men and women clung to the frames, shouting words Shilly couldn't quite make out. They seemed to be jeering.

  The buses fanned out, tracing a noisy circle around the wardens. There was no mistaking the threat. The new arrivals were sizing the wardens up, testing them.

  Marmion refused to be provoked. He simply waited, a haughty cast to his round face.

  Eventually one of the buses broke away from the others and angled inward. Spraying dirt behind its wide, corrugated wheels, it slid to a halt not far from where Shilly stood. Its engine growled noisily. Fumes billowed from its exhaust.

  The driver, a heavyset, bearded man with the broadest shoulders Shilly had ever seen, stood up behind the wheel, his expression hostile. His passengers hung from the frame of the bus, silent for the moment but with an air of readiness. Some scowled; others grinned. Shilly saw the metal of weapons visible through their robes.

  Marmion took tw
o steps away from the rest of the wardens towards the driver—clearly the leader of the newcomers. The two men sized each other up from a distance, radiating indignation.

  Before either could speak, a loud boom came from the Divide, as of a giant thunderclap. Heads turned. Lightning flashed down from an empty sky, the object of the strike invisible over the cliff edge. Black clouds boiled upwards out of the Divide, blotting out the sun. A cold wind rushed over them.

  Shilly covered her eyes. The wind grew stronger, making her stagger. Around her, wardens fell to their knees, clutching their robes and covering their eyes. Lightning flashed again, and the earth itself seemed to rumble.

  Alarmed, Shilly peered through her fingers at the newcomers. This had to be a trap. The wardens would be attacked while they were startled by the sudden squall. She found, to her surprise, that the people on the nearest bus were just as startled as she was. Voices raised in alarm, shouting words that the wind snatched away. The driver regarded the unnatural atmospherics with a respectful wariness that seemed to be directed at Marmion, the only one of the wardens left standing.

  They thought we did this! Shilly realised.

  The driver dropped back into his seat and, with a roar of engines, powered away. The other two buses broke their endless circling and fell into its wake. Without a rearward glance, the newcomers accelerated back the way they had come and vanished in a cloud of dust.

  The storm ebbed quickly. The thick, black clouds became grey, then white, then blew themselves out with one mighty rush of wind. Shilly felt cool dampness on her cheeks and forehead, and was amazed to find moisture condensed there. The dry, desert air suddenly tasted sweet.

  Static electricity crackled from her fingertips as she took Tom's arm. He had let her Take from him before, so she felt comfortable doing it again.

  “Sayed, was that you?”

  Sal's reply was faint and fragmented. “—didn't want to give you a fright.” He sounded a thousand kilometres away. “Sorry—rough—”

  Although she was concerned for him, she didn't want to distract him from his immediate situation, whatever it was. “Save your strength,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure.”

  His thoughts slipped from her mind, but the niggling sense of him remained. While that tickled at the underside of her mind, she would know that he was alive, somewhere.

  Marmion turned to face the rest of the search party. He looked unsettled rather than angry. The latest twist in events had temporarily overwhelmed his predisposition to outrage.

  “That's our cue to get moving,” he said. “We need to uncover the buses and get them over here. Our immediate priorities are the injured people in our care. We'll either have to treat them here or find a way across to Laure—and it looks like we're going that way anyway, if we're to retain any chance of heading off the Homunculus. Whoever those people were—” he indicated the ruts left by the newcomers’ wheels with a jerk of his head, “—I think we'd be best served by avoiding them in the future.”

  “You'll get no argument from me,” said Shilly.

  “I presume that was Sal,” he said to her, lips twisted as though he had tasted something particularly noxious. “That little display.”

  She explained what little she had learned about Sal and Skender.

  “Well, next time you hear from him, tell him to tone it down. We're not a carnival.”

  Shilly choked back a comment that she didn't care what Sal did or what it looked like to others; he could stitch the Divide back together from end to end, just as long as he was safe.

  Tom accepted her thanks for using his talent. She could tell he felt the drain of it, and resolved to let him recover before trying again. Pale around the cheeks, he hurried off to collapse the hide and fetch the buggy, while she checked on Highson and Skender's friend, fighting exhaustion of her own.

  Sal's father lay limply on his side, protected by a makeshift sunshade. His skin was peeling from long exposure to the sun and his eyes had retreated into their sockets. Consciousness seemed to have fled for good after his brief awakening, but his pulse and respiration were steady.

  Skender's friend had the more obvious injury, but she was already beginning to stir. Shilly joined the warden caring for her, ready to offer help if needed. Her leather attire had been torn and scraped through to the skin in several places, but it had undoubtedly saved her from more serious injuries. Her face and throat were splattered with dried blood. It was hard to see what she would look like without the cloth wadded against her right temple, but Shilly made out thick black hair, almond eyes, and a proud nose. Full lips and warm, light brown skin suggested that her ancestry belonged to neither the Interior nor the Strand. Shilly remembered from years ago a taxi driver telling her about a yellow-skinned people who lived in the tops of giant trees.

  Missing mothers, Shilly thought, flying wings, and strange girls from the East…what have you got yourself mixed up in this time, Skender Van Haasteren?

  The young woman moaned and tried to brush away the hands at her head. Her eyelids fluttered. “What…? How…?”

  “Take a deep breath,” said Shilly, leaning close. “You're in safe hands. Your name is Chu, right?”

  Her eyes flickered open, revealing irises so brown they were almost as black as her pupils. “Yes,” she said, wincing. “Who are you? Where am I?”

  “My name is Shilly.”

  “What happened to…?” She sat up, eyes widening in alarm as she looked around. “My wing! Skender!”

  “They're both okay,” Shilly soothed her, hoping she was telling the truth. “Skender's gone after his mother. We're meeting him later.”

  “But I had everything…” Chu looked at Shilly, crestfallen, then at her torn clothes. “It was all going…” Without warning, she burst into tears.

  Shilly did the only thing she could think of: she took the girl into her arms. Chu didn't resist, and Shilly brushed away the warden—a young man whose name she had forgotten—when he tried to hang on to the dressing still pressed to Chu's head. She held it in place as Chu wept into her shoulder.

  Around them, the wardens assembled an impromptu camp, positioning the two buses and one buggy in a triangle around the two patients. The sun had crept higher into the sky and burned down with growing force. Two of the wardens took the raw material of the hides and reassembled it into a temporary sunshade. Shilly was heartily glad of it when its shadow fell over them. The dry, ovenlike heat was getting to her.

  Finally Chu eased off. She sat back and wiped her nose, unable to meet Shilly's eyes as she assumed responsibility for the wadding at her head.

  “Does it hurt?” Shilly asked her.

  “Like anything,” she said. “I'm sorry. I've no idea who you are, but you must think I'm a total freak.”

  “I've seen much worse.” Shilly shrugged. “And besides, any friend of Skender's is a friend of mine, freak or otherwise.”

  “You know him?”

  “Used to, years ago.”

  A flash of something very much like jealousy passed across the young woman's face. “How?”

  “He helped Sal and me in the Haunted City,” Shilly reassured her. “Sal's with him now, making sure he's okay.”

  “The Haunted City?” Chu winced and held the wadding tighter to her scalp. Her jealousy intensified, if anything, and Shilly realised that she had misinterpreted where the emotion was directed, and at whom. “He really does get around, doesn't he?”

  “Those were exceptional circumstances.” Shilly wondered how much Skender had told Chu about the old days. “I really don't know what he's been up to since then. Life has been—well, complicated.”

  Chu was beginning to take in more of her environment, looking around in confusion. “Seems like it still is. Are these Sky Wardens?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you a Sky Warden?”

  “No way. You're from Laure?”

  Chu nodded, and winced. A look of dismay crossed her fine features. Shilly thought she might cr
y again. “I don't know how I'm going to get back if Skender has my wing.”

  That problem had occurred to Shilly also. It was all very well for Sal and Marmion to talk about going to the distant city, but getting there wasn't going to be easy.

  At least Chu didn't seem angry about Skender's actions. Concerned, yes; hurt, even; but Shilly was spared having to justify the actions of someone she hadn't seen for five years.

  “We'll take you home,” she said, “if you show us a way across the Divide.”

  Chu looked cautiously hopeful. “There's a road. It's pretty old, though, and supposed to be unsafe.”

  “Our rides have come a long way. They're pretty tough.”

  “That wasn't what I meant.”

  “Oh.” Shilly didn't know what lived on the bottom of the Divide, and she was in no particular hurry to find out.

  “We saw other vehicles out here,” she said. “Three of them. They've gone now. Do you know anything about them?”

  Chu shook her head. “Skender and I saw them from the air. He thought they were coming from the Aad, but I don't see how that could be possible.”

  “The where?”

  “The other half of the city, where the Divide cut it in two. The Aad's a Ruin, and a dangerous one. No one goes there.”

  “And if the road to Laure isn't used very often, that means they probably didn't come from there, either.”

  “I guess so.”

  Shilly took a moment to collect her thoughts. Things weren't quite adding up right.

  “Excuse me,” she said, waving for the young warden to resume his ministrations, “I have to talk to someone.”

  Chu nodded wearily as Shilly went to find Kail.

  The tracker had wandered off to peer over the edge of the Divide. During daylight hours he wore a wide-brimmed hat that kept his face in permanent shadow. A spreading patch of sweat darkened the back of his cotton shirt.

  He looked up as Shilly approached.

  “No sign of them,” he said, pointing down into the baked rip in the land. “Look for yourself.”