The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

  Their destination—the wrongness—hung over them like a storm front, deep and dark and growing larger every day. Even when they stood still it seemed to grow, responding to their presence. The air was thick with hunger. It made their head hang.

  Don't slow down! The shadow at their back shoved them again. Keep moving!

  More words fell into place. Your name is Pirelius.

  So what if it is?

  You remind us of someone. A wolf. What was the name of the man we hurt in the cage?

  Forget him. He's irrelevant.

  The twins remembered the feel of bone and gristle under their joined fingers. It had sickened them, even though they understood the necessity for it. We could have killed him.

  And I could kill you. Remember that.

  It's wrong to kill.

  Goddess! Am I going to have to gag you?

  The twins fell silent, not because of Pirelius's threat, but because the man had triggered another memory. Pirelius wasn't the first to mention a Goddess, but it hadn't seemed especially significant before.

  Peace, Seth, someone had told them, once. This is neither our first meeting nor our last. In your future, the Goddess awaits.

  They didn't know who had said the words, although an image of a woman, glowing, green, came with an exhortation to remember. Remember what? The details didn't stir.

  Who is the Goddess? they asked Pirelius.

  All they received in reply was a snarl and another poke with the knife. Their captor picked up the pace and began to sing words the twins hadn't heard since the misty days of their former life. The bizarre juxtaposition of the exotic and the familiar made their minds spin.

  Half a league, half a league,

  Half a league onward—

  Far overhead, the blimp ploughed silently through the air, visible as a faint smudge against a midnight sky. Terror and loathing brought a kind of connection to the world, the same as anger, but it was fading. Resignation took its place, and the world was grey by that light.

  “Body, mind, will: on these three pillars rests all life on this Earth. The Change works through them in an act of glorious, ongoing combustion that casts light on dead matter and drives the shadows back into the night.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 252

  Climbing a rope ladder was a lot harder than Skender expected. He swung crazily beneath the heavy lifter, wishing there weren't so many wardens watching him, making encouraging noises and reaching to help him when he came in range. He felt dizzy and winded when he finally hauled himself over the edge of the gondola and collapsed with no grace at all onto the wooden floor. There were so many legs. He worried about the ability of the dirigible to keep its numerous passengers in the air.

  “Here.” A young warden offered him a hand and helped him to his feet. “You're safe now. Let me take a look at your face. That's a nasty bruise you've got.”

  Skender fended off the warden's ministrations. He could feel the dirigible turning under him, heading back for Laure, no doubt.

  “Wait!” He pushed through the crowd to the front. “We can't leave yet.”

  “Grown attached to the place, have we?” asked a familiar voice from the pilot's position.

  “Chu!” She looked exhausted, and the bandage on her head was brown with dirt and dried blood. They eyed each other warily. “I didn't expect to see you here.”

  “Why not?”

  “You're already in enough trouble, aren't you?”

  “I guess this rescuing thing is becoming a habit. You can pay me double.”

  The dirigible was turning.

  “Wait. Don't take us to Laure just yet. We have to head up into the ruins, towards the tower.”

  “There's no tower any more, stone-boy. The man'kin brought it down.”

  “But you know the direction, right? We just need to go back for a second.”

  “Go back?” The officious, balding warden who led the expedition from the Haunted City squeezed into the front of the gondola. Eisak Marmion, Skender remembered. His eyes were a startling cerulean in colour. “Under no circumstances are we going back. We have to follow the Homunculus!”

  “I know, but not yet,” Skender insisted. “Chu, your wing is hidden in a safe place. I can find it for you.”

  “My wing?” She looked up at him with her eyebrows raised. Behind the expression he glimpsed disbelief, relief, caution—a welter of complex emotions. “I'd assumed you'd mangled it and left it in a ditch somewhere.”

  “Why would I do that? Sal and I have been lugging it all over the Divide. I knew you'd kill me if I didn't bring it back in one piece.”

  “I've trained you better than I thought, clearly.”

  “I'm sorry,” said Marmion, “but the wing is irrelevant. We have to keep on this heading. We can't take any more risks.”

  “Who's flying this thing?” Chu asked him. “If I say we're going to get my wing, that's exactly what we're doing.”

  “Then you'll be doing it without my help. I will refuse to give you the directions you need to fly.”

  “That doesn't matter. Skender, do you still have that licence of yours?”

  He felt under his robes. The bandits had paid no attention to mere paper when they had searched him. “Indeed I do.”

  “Good. Put it on and do your stuff. If the man'kin have stomped on my wing, your luck is going to change fast.”

  Skender plastered the licence to his chest while the warden went off smouldering. The tattoos spread across his skin and vision, bringing the winds over the ruins to vivid life. Despite his many aches and pains, he felt good. His mother was safe; Chu was safe; and so was he. He felt bad about Rattails and what they had had to do to escape, but all they needed to do now was get back to Laure, and everything would be fine.

  “Take us up the ridge and you'll catch a current right across the city.” She made room for him on the seat next to her, and he squeezed in. “Then it's clean flying all the way.”

  Shilly didn't want to let go of Sal's hands, but she had to so he could be checked over. He seemed fine to her, despite the dried blood covering him: a little rough around the edges, and he definitely needed a wash, but they all needed one, she supposed. His long dark hair was full of dust, and he was sunburned even through the charms. He would have freckles when the redness faded. She would like them, even if he didn't.

  His blue eyes didn't leave hers. They warmed her.

  “I missed you,” he said.

  “I worried about you.”

  “You shouldn't have. I always knew you'd rescue us in time.”

  She feigned puzzlement. “Really? That wasn't the deal, as I remember it. You were supposed to meet us in Laure.”

  He waved away the point. “Details, details.”

  The warden declared him fit and gave him a bottle of water. He swigged, and managed to spill most of it when Marmion jogged his shoulder from behind.

  “Where to now?” Shilly asked the balding warden. “Ready to face the music in Laure?”

  “Don't even ask,” Marmion muttered as the heavy lifter swung around.

  “We should look for Kail and the Homunculus,” said Sal. “They're both still down there somewhere.”

  “I know exactly where Kail is, thank you very much. He's doing his job, as we should be.”

  A small piece of the puzzle fell into place. Shilly remembered the lone figure she had seen watching Sal and the others from a distance. “Kail is still tracking the Homunculus, isn't he? He was keeping back in case it made a break for it. When it did, he followed.”

  “No,” said Sal. “That's not how things went. The Homunculus isn't running away at all. It's been taken hostage by Pirelius—the man who kidnapped Skender's mother and the others. It's his prisoner.”

  “No honour among thieves, huh?” she asked.

  “I don't think they knew about each other,” Sal said. “In fact I'm certain of it.”

  “The Homunculus wasn't coming to the Aad after all?” Shilly abandoned her
previous theory with a slight feeling of foolishness. “I was so certain of it.”

  “Laure it is and always has been,” said Marmion. “And here we are chasing after some fool girl's lost property!” He stormed off to bother someone else. Shilly was glad to see him go. The blue of his eyes had faded along with the mote of light in his torc, leaving both dark and glowering.

  “Listen,” Shilly said to Sal in a low voice, with her mouth right against his ear. “Your father woke last night. He told us what the Homunculus is.”

  “It's from the Void,” he said, nodding. “Skender says it's actually two people in one body—twins from before the Cataclysm.”

  “Twins?” She knew she shouldn't be surprised that he knew as much as her, and more besides. He had been with the Homunculus on the ground, whereas she had been hearing about it secondhand. “There's so much to catch up on,” she said.

  Sal nodded distractedly. He had her stick in his hands again, and he stared at it, not her, as he asked, “How is Highson? Is he well?”

  “He'll be okay.”

  “You don't sound certain of that.”

  She took Sal's hands off the stick and put them back in hers. “He's had a tough time of it. You'll have to be patient with him.”

  “We could take him back to Fundelry with us. That's the perfect place to recuperate.”

  Shilly thought of Tom and his prophecy regarding the ice cave. She knew better than to relax just yet, or even to think about home. Although she missed the workshop and the friends she had left behind, they still had to get back to Laure—and only the Goddess knew what sort of reception awaited them there.

  “I'd rather just be here and now for a bit,” she said, “if that's okay with you.”

  Sal smiled, and kissed her.

  The heavy lifter headed deeper into the Aad, then dipped over streets Sal thought he recognised. It took him a moment to realise what was going on. When ropes went over the side, followed by Skender and two wardens, he understood.

  The propellers thrummed as Chu held the dirigible in position, defying the prevailing winds. Sal kept an eye out with the others for man'kin or bandits, but apart from some rogue statues disassembling walls several blocks away, the ruined streets were clear. The bandits appeared to have completely vanished. They were either dead, Sal thought, or had gone to ground.

  Although he knew he was safe in the air, he was still relieved when Skender and the wardens returned, carefully suspending Chu's wing on a rope between them. He couldn't see the flyer's reaction, but he could tell that Skender was pleased with himself.

  “If we're finally done here,” shouted Marmion from the rear of the gondola, “perhaps we can get moving!”

  Chu tilted the dirigible into the wind and gave it its head. They were soon rising high above the Aad and picking up speed.

  Sal stretched his legs out as far as he dared. Compared to his one brief jump with Skender, this was a much better way to fly. But he didn't feel relaxed. They had forgotten something important; he was sure of it. And not just the Homunculus, temporarily abandoned to its fate…

  “You can see the damage so much better from up here,” Shilly said, her chin propped up on the edge. “The man'kin could flatten a city in days, easy. No wonder people in Laure are so scared of them.”

  Sal picked out the spoor of several mass-migrations hanging in plumes over the mighty canyon. He wondered what held such allure for them in the west, and how it related to the enigmatic Angel.

  He told Shilly about the artefact they had found in the bandits’ lair. It seemed reasonable to assume that it had been there ever since the Divide's formation, since without it the man'kin would have destroyed the ruined city years ago.

  “So this Polonius guy—”

  “Pirelius.”

  “Whatever. He was just taking advantage of something he found? It wasn't part of a big plan or anything?”

  “He didn't strike me as much of an original thinker.”

  “I'll bet it was him and his gang who buzzed us after you and Skender went after the Homunculus. They were probably coming to warn us away, not to meet anyone.”

  “What happened? Did he attack you, like he did Abi Van Haasteren?”

  “No. You scared him off with your little storm trick. Otherwise we might have ended up down there, too.”

  Sal didn't know exactly what had happened to Skender and the others in the cells, but the thought of Shilly in the hands of the bandits made his stomach turn. Kemp had a thick bandage around his throat and seemed to be sleeping with his head lolling half out of the gondola. Skender's mother was still being cleaned and treated; Sal heard grim mentions of broken ribs and stitches were being sewn by the wardens looking after her. Shom Behenna's eyes were open, but he wasn't looking at anyone in particular. His fists were tightly clenched, constraining a powerful rage.

  Sal caught Tom's eye, and nodded. The young Engineer pointed at the view over the side of the gondola.

  “Ah,” said Shilly, noticing. “His dream.”

  They were above the edge of the Divide, flying much higher than Sal and Skender had the previous day. Sal could see where they had laid the ambush for the Homunculus and where they had jumped off the edge. The creek they had followed to the Aad was a tiny track barely visible from the air.

  His eyes drifted southward, to the plain rent in two by the mighty canyon. Parched landscape stretched forever to the south. Somewhere out there, at the end of a very long journey, was Fundelry and their home. If he let his eyes unfocus, he could almost see waves in the shimmering mirage that lay at the limits of his vision. He wished he could step through a Way and breathe deep of the salty air, just for a moment. It would steel his nerves for what lay in store for them.

  Chu turned the gondola so it was heading north, to Laure.

  “Why wasn't Marmion surprised about Kail?” Shilly asked him.

  “I guess Kail talked to him when the Caduceus broke, just like I talked to you,” he said. “Now Kail isn't affected by the wake because he isn't in it. He could've been keeping Marmion up to date the whole time you were coming.”

  “That would explain why Marmion agreed to leave so readily. I thought he caved a little too easily.” She looked annoyed at herself. “He could've said something, especially if he knew you were alive. That selfish bastard was just covering his hide. If things went wrong, he could always blame me.”

  “Unfortunately,” Sal said, “that does sound true to character.”

  She shook her head. “Just when I think he might have a little bit of Lodo in him, somewhere—”

  “Don't, Shilly. He's not Lodo, and he never will be. The fact they're related doesn't mean they're at all alike. Look at my relatives, for instance.”

  She smiled wanly. “True. But I can't help wishing, you know? He's the closest thing I've got to family, apart from you. It'd be nice if blood did run true, just this once. Is that too much to ask?”

  “Maybe.” Sal's experience with family had been universally bad: not just the Syndic wanting to control him, but a grandmother deep in the Interior who had tried to do the same. He felt no kinship with these people, whom he hadn't known existed until five years earlier. He owed them nothing.

  His real father, however, was a more complex issue.

  A small commotion drew their attention back to the distant ground below. Skender had spotted the wake of the Homunculus. Several brass telescopes—standard equipment on the heavy lifter—were being passed among the wardens. Sal heard references to Kail and man'kin, and he eagerly took his chance to look when his turn came.

  He saw three people on the rugged, red-earthed ground, not far from the Aad. Two walked ahead of the third: Pirelius and the Homunculus, followed by Kail. Even the tracker looked tiny from that height. All headed towards Laure. Behind them were several man'kin. More converged on the three travellers like feral dogs to unattended cattle.

  Sal passed the telescope to Shilly, who confirmed his impression.

  “We have t
o rescue it,” he said. “Them. Whatever.”

  “How?” she responded. “If we come within a hundred metres Pirelius will cut its throat. And even if he doesn't, how would we get away? It would kill the charms as soon as we brought it aboard.”

  A ludicrous image of the Homunculus dangling from a rope ladder all the way back to Laure occurred to him. He quashed it. “We have to do something.”

  “And we will, but not now. In a strange way, it's probably safer down there than it is up here.”

  “How do you figure that? If Marmion wants the Homunculus dead, all Kail has to do is attack Pirelius. Either he beats Pirelius to it and kills the Homunculus himself, or Pirelius holds good to his threat and kills the Homunculus for him. It's a win-win situation.”

  “Not for Kail,” she said. “Killing the Homunculus makes them all vulnerable. You said it yourself: the only thing keeping the man'kin at bay is the wake, so neither of them will want to get rid of it.”

  The thought reassured him somewhat. Brother or half brother or whatever, he still felt guilty at abandoning the Homunculus. Later, he promised again. Later.

  “I talked to Kail after you left,” she went on, “and he seemed reasonable enough, within reason. He's Marmion's man through and through. He'll obey orders even if he doesn't want to.”

  “He probably saved our lives back there.”

  “Maybe because Marmion hadn't ordered him not to. He didn't step in when Kemp was under the knife, remember.”

  “I assumed that was because there was nothing Kail could do about it. If Pirelius had so much as jumped, he'd have cut Kemp's head half off.”

  “He would have done it,” said the albino from the far side of the gondola. “He would've done it just to hurt you. Pirelius is crazy. I'm surprised he didn't do it anyway.”

  Sal sensed that the wound to Kemp's dignity ran deeper than the shallow cut to his throat. Beside the albino, Mawson sat squarely upright, watching the world with the patience of stone.