The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

  “It's good to see you again, Mawson,” Sal said to break the tension. “You've obviously been keeping busy.”

  The bust didn't look especially pleased to see him. “You gave me the freedom to pursue my own interests. I do so to the fullest extent of my abilities.”

  “Why the Surveyors? I didn't know you were the curious type.”

  “This world has many secrets. Some have dwelt long enough in the dirt. Some must never be uncovered.”

  “I'm sure the Surveyors don't see eye to eye with you on that last point,” Shilly said.

  “That is correct.”

  “Was it you who brought Skender's mother here, then?” Skender had looked around, twisting in his seat to overhear the conversation. “Did you tell her there was something to find?”

  “I did not.”

  Abi Van Haasteren stirred. “We came here for the Caduceus,” she said, her left eye fluttering open. The right was swollen shut. “There are references to it in several very old texts, but only one talks about its final resting place. I deciphered it two months ago. As soon as I could put an expedition together, we came to claim it. I didn't know it had already been found.”

  Skender peered askance at her. “The Caduceus? But I thought you came here to meet the Homunculus.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Well, it was coming to the Aad, and so were you.”

  “That's the extent of your reasoning?” An affectionate smile took the edge off her rebuke. “No wonder you're not a Surveyor.”

  Skender's ears went bright pink. “I should have guessed there was more to it when Pirelius got so angry at you for trying to steal from him.”

  “We weren't stealing from him. Not knowingly, anyway. And it wasn't me he was angry at. It was the Magister.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. “He wasn't one to talk much about his reasons.”

  “At least you know the Caduceus is there for certain, now,” said Shilly. “You can go back to get it once things settle down.”

  Abi Van Haasteren nodded. “Believe me, I'd like to.”

  Skender was still frowning. “So the twins are going to Laure, as everyone first thought. What could they possibly want there? They've been in the Void Beneath since the Cataclysm. The city didn't even exist when they were born.”

  There was no sound apart from the droning of the engines. Sal hadn't absorbed all the facts that had been thrust upon him in the previous hours. They were slippery, and didn't quite fit together. Shilly had explained that his father had been trying to rescue his mother from the Void. The twins Highson had summoned by mistake originated in a time before his world had even existed. This was worse than ghosts and golems. This just didn't make any sense.

  “Maybe Highson isn't telling us everything.”

  “I don't know about that,” said Abi Van Haasteren, “but I know what's waiting for us in Laure. The Magister has placed the people we left behind under house arrest and impounded our vehicles.”

  “All of them?” asked Skender.

  Shilly nodded.

  “Great. Now we're really stuck here.”

  “How do you know this?” Marmion asked.

  “The quartermaster is an old friend. I called ahead to let him know that we were safe, and he gave me the news.”

  “I didn't know he was a Stone Mage,” said Skender.

  “He isn't. He studied at the Keep for a while when I was a student, then followed his own calling. The yadachi don't encourage other forms of Change-working in their city, but he always had a penchant for things that fly. They welcome his skills and tolerate his methods.”

  Sal didn't know who they were talking about, but put that mystery away with all the others. Someone would fill him in while they travelled.

  “I guess we know what we're getting into, now,” Shilly said. “The question is: what are we going to do about it?”

  “We'll think of something,” Marmion said, his expression dark and determined. “Just take us back to Laure as fast as possible, Chu. That's where the Homunculus is headed. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can sort this mess out, once and for all.”

  “The Change can be used for evil, but it is in itself neither good nor evil. Would one fault the morals of a stone, or cast blame upon the actions of the wind?”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 256

  The return trip took much longer than when Skender and Chu had flown over with the wing. The heavy lifter was slower and loaded down to boot, so they barely outran Pirelius and the twins below. Skender found himself missing the forced intimacy of that first flight. Chu was kept busy constantly adjusting the trim of the heavy lifter. It took much more than just a raised arm or outstretched leg to bring it back on course. How she kept track of the many levers and handles he didn't know.

  Noon came and went. When not attending to the winds ahead, he watched the ground creep by beneath them. Having been down there, he could better comprehend the scale of the wrinkles and cracks that seemed so minuscule from the air. He could also appreciate the mass and momentum of the man'kin migrations as they crawled like ant swarms along the Divide floor. He was heartily glad to be no longer within their reach.

  From his elevated position, he could see that the migrations’ dust trails were bending north, also heading for Laure. When he swivelled to quiz Mawson about it, he found the man'kin being interrogated by one of the wardens, who was frowning as most people did after talking to Mawson for too long.

  “What do the man'kin want?” Skender asked into a break in the conversation.

  “We want the same thing you do,” said Mawson. “To survive.”

  “But what can kill you, apart from a sledgehammer? You don't need to eat, drink, or breathe. You don't die of natural causes. The only disease I've ever known you to suffer from is mould.”

  “We are mortal. We begin and therefore we must end.”

  “Is that why the untamed man'kin are afraid of the Homunculus?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could it kill you?”

  “It does, every time we fall under its shadow.”

  Skender nodded, wondering if he was beginning to appreciate the problem. When a man'kin became tangled in the wake of the twins, it ceased to be. That the man'kin returned to life when the twins moved on was irrelevant. For an awful time, a living mind was reduced to nothing. That would be worse than sleeping, worse even than the Void Beneath. Who wouldn't be afraid?

  “What about the Angel?” he asked. “Can you tell me more about that?”

  “The Angel is necessary,” said Mawson, his heavy stone features wrinkling into a frown. “It is the gathering point, the focus.”

  “Of what?”

  “Of us.”

  “Do you mean the man'kin, or humans, too?”

  “The Angel draws many kinds towards it. We will not all survive without it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the Angel is essential to our survival.”

  “Why?” he asked, even though he knew he would probably regret it.

  “Because without it we will not all survive.”

  He shook his head. Man'kin didn't see the world the way ordinary people did. Their sense of logic and causality wasn't so much circular as bound up in loops. They saw the future, past, and present all at once, but not just one discrete version of the future or the past. It depended, apparently, on which way they were looking—when “which way” had less to do with the orientation of their gaze than with what they were trying to see.

  “Can you be any clearer than that?” he tried.

  “To me it is perfectly clear,” said the stone bust with eyebrows raised. “Your questions are as obtuse as ever.”

  “Skender!” called Chu. “Stop chatting and get those eyes of yours pointing forward.”

  Skender did as he was told. “What?”

  “See anything unusual?”

  He looked around, studying the flow of the wind. The heavy lifter was nearing the
Wall. The currents were chaotic there, but for the moment the dirigible was in no danger.

  He looked behind them and saw nothing out of the ordinary there, either. Pirelius and the twins had taken to a creek bed, as he and Sal had. That he couldn't see them was no cause for alarm; at least one warden watched them at all times, tracing their every movement via a telescope focused on the Divide floor. He was sure he would've heard if something had gone astray.

  “No, why?”

  Her stare challenged him to try again. “What about the other flyers?”

  “What about them? They're—” He stopped in midsentence, realising then what she was hinting at. “They're gone! What happened to them? Where did they go?”

  “They flew away.”

  “Why?”

  “I don't know, and I don't like it.” Chu gripped a lever tightly in both hands. “Keep an eye out. I think something's up.”

  He agreed. Without the mocking calls of Kazzo and his buddies, the sky had fallen eerily silent. Chu seemed apprehensive as she worked the controls, which he could understand. Casting her lot with the Sky Wardens had seen her wing returned, but now she was tangled up in their messy quest. She had helped them cross the Divide and steal the heavy lifter; if they were in trouble with the Magister, so was she.

  Her nervousness was infectious. Skender kept his gaze moving, looking everywhere for anything out of the ordinary as the charm-painted Wall grew steadily larger ahead.

  “I wish we could just fly away,” he told her, feeling a sudden and almost overpowering urge to be reckless. “Leave everything behind and keep on going.”

  “Why don't we?” she responded, adjusting the heavy lifter's trim with a deft tug on the controls before her.

  “Marmion would freak, for a start, and Dad would be unhappy if I left the buggy behind. How much fuel does this thing have, anyway? My home is a long way away from here.”

  “Let's go to the Hanging Mountains instead,” she said. “To hell with Marmion. We could just dump him and run.”

  Chu's grin told him she didn't expect him to take her seriously. He didn't doubt, though, that the sentiment was an honest one, and he was genuinely tempted by it. He had rescued his mother; the twins were irrelevant. What else did he have to hang around for?

  The suggestion drew his gaze to the northeast, where the grey wall of mountains seemed to hang on the edge of visibility. A shelf of white cloud obscured the largest peak, like a single blossom on a stunted branch. He wondered what the fog forests and the balloon cities really looked like.

  Reality intruded in the form of turbulence as they entered the complicated airspace over the city. He laughed at himself and his notions. First a date, then an adventure that practically amounted to elopement? Yeah, right. If the Magister kicked Chu out of the city or made life too uncomfortable for her to stay, then maybe she'd leave, but not before. While she had a shot at getting a licence, she would stay exactly where she was.

  Thinking of the licence reminded him that he had a job to do. The heavy lifter rocked as the winds around them surged and roiled. Skender gave Chu an update on the currents ahead, and she adjusted course, aiming roughly for Observatory Tower, where she had unsuccessfully tried to steal eagle eggs. When he next looked at her, her grin had faded.

  The gondola shuddered more strongly than before. A puff of cold brushed Skender's cheek.

  “This feels wrong,” said Chu.

  “Your bones again?”

  “Yes. Are you sure you can't see anything?”

  He couldn't honestly be sure. The wind tumbled around them, looking much the same as before, but he wasn't as familiar with the ways of the city as she was. He could be missing the obvious.

  A splash of red caught his eye in the city below. He looked down, through the wind. One of the city's weather-workers, the yadachi, stood on a pole, arms outstretched and mouth open. The crimson-robed figure appeared to be staring right at them.

  The sight accompanied another gust of wind. Skender shivered. A second yadachi became visible to his left, also with arms outstretched. The weather-worker's mouth hung open, wailing an endless prayer to the sky for clemency.

  Or for something else entirely, Skender thought. The heavy lifter rocked violently as a new force struck it from the side. Skender hung on tight. The gondola swayed violently, prompting cries of alarm.

  “What was that?” Chu yelled, wrestling with the controls.

  “The yadachi! They're doing something to us!” That he couldn't see it didn't prove him wrong. The yadachi had made his licence using the sample of blood he had given them, so presumably they knew how to interfere with it from a distance. Again the gondola bounced. “We have to land!”

  Marmion came forward through the crowded gondola, steadying himself against the increasing turbulence with every step. “Your mother reports that the hangar is guarded,” he said. “If we try to land there, we'll be arrested immediately.”

  “On what grounds?”

  “We've been charged with trying to bring a man'kin into the city without permission. And we're guilty as charged.”

  Skender thought of Mawson. “Sure, but—how did they know about him?”

  Chu scowled. “Kazzo must have told them, the little shit.”

  “However they knew,” said Marmion, “it presents us with a problem. Is there somewhere else we can put down?”

  The dirigible shook. The sky quaked. “Under this kind of attack? No. It's too risky. We could blow sideways and tear the bladder.”

  “What about Slaughter Square?” asked Skender.

  “Not enough clear space there, either.”

  “So we just turn around and go back? Or give in?” Marmion's expression was grim. “I don't think so.”

  Chu thought for a moment as the many spires and towers of the city drifted by below. They looked very sharp.

  “I suppose we don't need to land as such,” she said. “Tell the quartermaster that if he doesn't want to see the heavy lifter damaged, he should meet us at the top of the armoury. We'll be there shortly.”

  “What does this mean?” asked Marmion.

  “No backing out now,” she said, so softly only Skender could hear her, then, more loudly: “Have the ropes ready. We'll be getting off soon.”

  Shilly hung on tightly as the gondola rattled around them. The sound of creaking wood and flapping canvas made it hard to talk, so she didn't quite know what was going on. The spars and stays of the dirigible were sparkling as though wet with dew. That she understood. Someone was using the Change against them. By the way Sal's hand tightened around hers, she could tell that he had noticed, too.

  Sal's lips moved, and she leaned in closer to hear what he had said.

  “Welcome to Laure,” he repeated into her ear. “Are they always this friendly?”

  “Wait until they come for the Blood Tithe,” she said, showing him the small cut on her wrist. “They really know how to lay it on.”

  The heavy lifter descended in fits and starts, approaching the hangar it had departed from. The attack eased off as they grew nearer. The meaning was obvious: do as we want and we'll give you less grief.

  Marmion took a message to Abi van Haasteren then relayed a reply back to Chu, but Shilly couldn't hear what was said. He also spoke to Banner, who began issuing orders among the other wardens.

  “Get ready,” Banner said to Shilly and Sal. “We're going to be using the rope ladders.”

  “Great.” Her leg was still painful from the overexertion prior to their departure. The thought of having to go through all that again was an unhappy one. “This should be fun.”

  Her jaw clicked painfully shut when the heavy lifter lurched upwards and to the right, sending wardens staggering and clutching for handholds. The gondola tilted at a sharp angle for at least ten seconds before levelling out. The glimmer of the Change immediately brightened and a renewed battering hit the hull.

  “Sorry about that!” called Chu from the front, barely audible over the dirigible's m
any complaints. “Just wanted to throw them off for a second. Now, get ready to move when I say so. We might not have long. And be careful! It's a long way to fall.”

  Shilly searched the buildings around them, wondering where they were headed. One stood out from the rest: a tall, blocky structure with what looked like ramps protruding from its summit. Several flyers swooping around it scattered as the heavy lifter approached.

  “Oh, no,” she breathed, realising what Chu had in mind. The heavy lifter couldn't land up there, but it could come close enough to allow people to disembark. Unless the turbulence kept up and Chu was unable to hold it completely steady…

  A shadow fell over them. The light turned brown. She had barely enough time to recognise the signs and cover her face before the sandstorm hit. The city's weather-workers clearly had more in their arsenal than just air.

  A barrage of choking and cursing filled the gondola. Shilly tried to peer out between slitted eyelids, but the onslaught was too intense. Stinging grains peppered her forehead and cheeks, reminding her of her dream of the buried shape in the dunes. She didn't know how Chu was supposed to see, let alone pilot the heavy lifter in to dock.

  “Right!” shouted Sal, standing. “This is something I can help with!”

  “Not too much,” said Shilly, clutching his hand and keeping her face covered. “If we can't see out, that means they can't see in.”

  He squeezed back to show that he understood. Through their touching skins, she felt him gather his concentration to form an image in his mind. It was a simple one, based on a charm every weather-worker knew: two pairs of parallel lines crossing to make an X. But he had altered it to suit their needs. The end of its delicate lines curved inward around the central area like the fingers of a clutching hand.

  “Better this way,” she said through the Change, showing him a subtle variation that would work even more effectively. “Are you feeling up to it?”

  Instead of answering, he reached out to touch the world, and it instantly responded.

  She felt a bubble open up around her. The sand and noise fell away, allowing her to breathe properly. Wiping grit from her eyelids, she blinked and looked around. She was standing in a sphere of clear air with Sal and Abi Van Haasteren's left leg. Sal flexed again, and the bubble expanded. She saw its edges sweep outwards into the swirling sand. Where the bubble reached, the storm instantly dissipated.