The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

“The alarum,” came the reply from a thick-moustached man with flour on his hands. “It only sounds when the city is in danger!”

  “From what?”

  “The man'kin are attacking!” The baker hurried off and ran into a house on the next corner. The sound of his door slamming was audible along the street.

  “Man'kin attacking?” Skender looked puzzled. “The Magister wouldn't raise such a panic over Mawson, would she?”

  “I very much doubt it.” Sal thought of the man'kin migrations in the Divide and the way the Aad had been taken apart, and he shivered.

  Shilly looked up the street then back the way they had come. Her expression was one of deep concern. “I think we need to find out what's going on outside.”

  “When we catch up with the others—”

  “We'll probably be arrested.” She studied Skender a moment. “You've got the city map in your head, right?” He nodded. “There must be a way onto the Wall. I bet we can see everything from up there.”

  Skender looked uncertain. “I don't know, Shilly. If the man'kin are really attacking, then the Wall is the last place we want to be.”

  “That depends on how you look at it.” She glanced at Sal, who nodded. “Standing here all day isn't going to help anyone, that's for sure.”

  “All right.” Skender thought for a moment, rubbing a hand through his thick brown hair. His fingers left brown smudges on pale skin. “Yes. Let's keep going the way we were for a bit, and then take a right instead of a left. That should put us on the right road.”

  “How far?” she asked.

  “A fair hike. Half an hour's walk at least.”

  Shilly irritably tapped the ground with the tip of her cane. “Too long.”

  “We could hail a lift,” Sal suggested. “Do you have any local money, Skender?”

  Skender turned out his pockets, resulting in barely enough spare change for a game of two-up.

  “It's okay,” he said in the face of their disappointment. There was more than a hint of resignation in his voice. “I know what to do.”

  “A Stone Mage?” Shilly said in disbelief as the cab rattled its way through the streets of Laure. “They'll believe anything here, obviously.”

  “Well, I am a Mage,” said Skender defensively. “Almost.”

  “And I'm almost sure that charm you performed was just an illusion. What happens when our driver realises you've cheated him?”

  Skender shushed her in case the man steering the cab heard her over the combined racket of the alarum and the engine. “Yes, that's all true. But he wanted proof, and it was the best I could think of. Hopefully he'll be well away from us when it wears off.”

  Skender avoided Sal's speculative gaze and tried to get comfortable on the worn leather seat. In lieu of a fare, the driver had wanted a charm to fix a spreading bald spot. Lacking time for the usual restorative tattoos—which rarely worked anyway—Skender had simply fooled him into feeling hair where there wasn't any. It wouldn't be long before his fingertips revealed the trick.

  And now, somehow, Shilly had made him feel guilty about it.

  He forced himself to concentrate on their travel instead. The cab was rattling through side streets toward the outskirts of the city, where it had been built up along the sides of the Divide. The Wall itself was sacrosanct, as far as development was concerned; no one built there. Every other surface around it was encrusted with housing blocks and apartments, all craning for a better view over the city. Remains of the original settlement, the Old City that had subsided after the coming of the Divide, were visible among the newer buildings: stubby, round-edged structures with slits for windows and low roofs. From a distance, a strange mould seemed to have covered the ochre stone from top to bottom in squiggly patterns.

  Skender was glad they hadn't walked. The roads were increasingly winding and steep—a fact he hadn't truly appreciated from the air. They hung on to straps and each other as the cab's spluttering alcohol engine strained to maintain walking pace up the steepest stretches. Skender stuck his head out at one point to look back the way they had come. The expanse of the city lay below them, smudged brown in the wake of the sandstorm. The heavy lifter was nowhere to be seen. Only a couple of flyers circled over the towers, braving the aftershocks of the unnatural weather. Skender didn't envy them.

  “Any word from Marmion?” Shilly asked.

  Sal shook his head. He had tried to contact the warden through the Change to let him know what they were doing, but Marmion either couldn't or wouldn't reply. When they tried Skender's mother, her response had been curt.

  “Can't talk. Yadachi waiting for us at the hostel. Keep your eyes open, and don't worry.”

  They were on their own. Skender's doubts rose sharply. Obeying his mother's request was going to be difficult, if not impossible. What those bloodsuckers were doing with her and Chu and the rest of the wardens just didn't bear thinking about.

  The cab squeaked to a halt three-quarters of the way along a service road leading to the top of the Wall, the driver protesting that he dared go no further while the alarum was sounding. Skender thanked him as they got out and stretched their legs. His tailbone was numb from the constant bouncing. Shilly mimed brushing, as of an errant fringe, and the driver gratefully mimicked her actions, thinking he was adjusting his new locks. She gave him a thumbs-up, then turned and shot daggers at Skender.

  “I give in,” he said as the cab spluttered back down the hill. “I'll send him the proper fee later.”

  “How?”

  “His registration number was on the dash. There'll be records somewhere.”

  “Good enough.” She pointed up the road with her cane. “Let's keep moving.”

  They hurried up the steep slope, the powerful lowing of the alarum goading them on. “I don't know what you think we're going to do up here,” he said, daunted by the height. It felt like weeks since he and Chu had retrieved the wing from storage at the very base of the Wall. “Dropping rocks on their heads isn't going to bother man'kin terribly much.”

  “It might make them think twice.”

  “It might just make them angrier.”

  “If you're not careful, I'll drop you on them instead.” She tugged at the curls of her short hair, taking her frustration out on herself. “Honestly, Skender, I don't know what else to do. But I know I'm not going to just sit around and wait for someone else to fix the problem. It's not that I don't trust the Magister to do it right—it's just that I don't trust her to do it well. If you know what I mean.”

  Skender thought he did. The sharp-taloned woman occupying the throne of Laure was bound to have numerous tricks up her black sleeve. That only made him more nervous. He was certain she wouldn't lose any sleep if a couple of out-of-towners got caught in the crossfire.

  “Hold up,” said Sal as they rounded a corner. The way ahead was blocked by a heavy gate and several Laurean guards looking menacing in their uniforms.

  “A welcoming committee,” said Skender.

  “I think not.” Shilly barely broke step. The guards arranged themselves in a line across the gate as the trio approached, their expressions a mixture of cautiousness and forbidding determination.

  “Stop right there,” said the leader, a broad-shouldered woman with a red fringe poking out from under her close-fitting helmet.

  “It's okay,” said Shilly, coming to a halt in front of her. “We're only here to observe.”

  “No one's allowed through. It could be dangerous.”

  “We can look after ourselves.”

  “Spare me the arguments. I've heard them all before.”

  “This happens every day, does it?” Shilly didn't back down from the guard's unblinking regard. “We might be able to help.”

  “How?”

  “I'm not going to lie and tell you we're something we're not,” she said with a glance at Skender, “but we're more capable than we look.”

  “You'd have to be.”

  “And someone we know is out there, in the Div
ide. Don't we at least have the right to find out if he's okay? You can come with us if you want to make sure we're not up to no good. Give us a break, will you?”

  Behind the guard's bluff demeanour, Skender thought he detected a hint of uncertainty. But orders were orders, and she clearly intended to follow them.

  “Sorry. You'll have to leave. Come back after the emergency is over and you can have a look around.”

  “Listen,” said Shilly, taking a step forward and poking at the woman's breastplate with her right index finger, “if you think we're just a bunch of stupid tourists with nothing better to do than—”

  Strident honking and the chugging of an engine behind them interrupted her. Skender turned to see a battered two-seater cab approaching along the road. A blond youth hung out of the passenger side, waving a flat leather case in one hand. The driver stopped honking when it was clear he had gained the guards’ attention, and slid to a gravelly halt in front of them.

  The youth hopped out of the vehicle and hurried to where the guards stood in his path.

  “Make way, make way!” he yelled, producing a piece of paper from the case and thrusting it into the face of the woman confronting Shilly—the guard blinked, startled, and took it from him. “My name is Gwil Flintham and I come with the authority of the Magister! These people are to have the run of the Wall. They are not to be interfered with. Is that understood?”

  “Uh—” The guard frowned at the form, with the regal seal of Laure prominent at top and centre. Skender didn't have time to read what it said—it was snatched back too quickly—but it had the desired effect. “I guess you'd better go through, then.”

  She gestured and her contingent of guards fell back. The gate swung open with a deep groan.

  “Thank you,” said the mysterious Gwil Flintham with a short nod. “Wait here. We'll call if we need anything.”

  Skender kept his lips carefully buttoned as they bustled through the checkpoint. He could feel the eyes of the guards on them. Only when the gate clanged shut and he was certain they were out of earshot did he dare whisper to Shilly, “Who is this guy? Do you know him?”

  She made introductions with an amused gleam in her eye. Gwil Flintham, former gatekeeper and recently assigned to keep an eye on Marmion and his gang, looked as though he couldn't decide whether to faint or crow with delight.

  “When we received word from you,” he explained as they walked the last hundred metres to the top of the Wall, “Marmion didn't know what to do. Yadachi were waiting for him and everyone at the Galah. The Magister herself was on her way to deal with them; it looked pretty bad. Still did, when I last saw. But we couldn't leave you out here on your own. You wouldn't get very far without the right kind of authorisation, and I was the only one who could leave the hostel. So I faked the paperwork and came after you.”

  “Thank you,” said Sal.

  “My pleasure.” The gatekeeper's eyes were wide and his cheeks were bright pink splotches in otherwise pale skin.

  “We'd better move quickly. If the guards back there check on us, we'll be in big trouble.”

  “We're going as fast as we can,” said Sal.

  “I know. But still…”

  They came to a series of broad stone steps that wound backwards and forwards up to the top of the Wall. Natural rock blended by degrees into massive, granite slabs that could well have outlasted the Cataclysm. By the time Skender reached the summit of the stairs, he was in awe of the masons responsible. Each corner was carved with a delicacy that belied the weight of the slabs; the seams were almost invisible, such was the perfection of every edge. Tiny, ornate seals no larger than his thumbprint had been carved into the centre of each block. Time hadn't worn them away, but the meaning of the complex figures eluded him.

  The view from the top was spectacular. The Wall curved ahead of him, a graceful arc isolating that corner of the Divide from the rest as effectively as a dam. To his left were the towers of the city, reaching upward for the sky, and to the right was a red and gold wasteland. Two parallel handrails ran along the top of the Wall, protecting pedestrians from a fatal misstep. Gwil unhesitatingly led the visitors between them. A fitful wind snatched at Skender's robe, making him acutely conscious of where he put his feet.

  This is stupid, he told himself. I've climbed cliffs higher than this in the middle of the night. There's nothing to be afraid of.

  But there was, and he knew it. Back home, the cliffs were natural, not built; there were plenty of handholds; and falling was the only thing to worry about. In Laure, there were hordes of man'kin at the bottom making angry sounds that vibrated through the stone and up his calves.

  He hugged the right-hand rail and peered as far over the edge as he dared. The air below was hazy with dust and difficult to see through, but he glimpsed enough to be certain. The stony mass that milled at the base of the Wall was larger than all the previous migrations put together, and more were on their way. The crowd stretched as far as he could see, and in it he saw no sign of Pirelius and the twins.

  “Why?” he asked, wondering if the vibration he felt beneath his feet really came from the horde below. “What are they doing here?”

  “They don't like us,” said Gwil. “They never have.”

  “But why now?”

  “I don't know.”

  Skender remembered what Mawson had said about the man'kin in the ruins. “Maybe their success in the Aad has gone to their heads. They've come to free the stones they think you're imprisoning in Laure and the Wall.”

  “How? The charms painted on the Wall aren't the only defences we have. The stones themselves are charmed, just like the gate some of you came through yesterday.”

  Shilly stopped to examine a tiny sigil carved into one of the giant slabs. Her fingers softly caressed the ancient grey stone. “You're right,” she said, “but why would the builders do that?”

  She reached out a hand to steady herself as the Wall jolted beneath her. Skender staggered and grabbed the nearest handrail for balance. The hollering of the man'kin rose up over the howling of the alarum.

  “What's going on?” asked Gwil.

  “I think,” Shilly said, “that coming up here might have been a very bad idea.”

  “What?” Skender couldn't hide the panic in his voice. “It was your idea in the first place.”

  “Well, I've changed my mind.”

  “Why?”

  “The man'kin are talking—talking to the stones.”

  Sal knelt next to Shilly. Instead of helping her to her feet, he put one hand flat against the stone, as she had.

  Skender gripped the rail tighter as another rolling wave spread through the Wall. His palms tingled where they touched the rail. He felt disoriented, confused. His voice seemed to come from a very long way away, swallowed up in the roar of the man'kin like a bush in a landslide. “What are they saying?”

  “I don't know yet,” said Shilly, “but whatever it is, the stones are listening.”

  “Only the very brave and the very mad find no fault in their actions.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, EXEGESIS 4:11

  Shilly saw it perfectly in her mind. She didn't need the Change to enhance her natural vision; the Wall was crawling with it. All she had to do was touch the stone and reality came crashing in on her.

  People didn't build doors out of glass because it was brittle and would shatter at a solid blow. Doors were made of wood, which was flexible and able to absorb an impact.

  It was the same with the Wall. Stone was strong and heavy but not terribly flexible. If struck hard enough, it, too, would shatter. For a wall on the scale of the one protecting Laure, built to resist an enemy more powerful than the average battering ram, shattering was a real risk. If all the stones were bound together as one, joined into a single, rigid shield, there was a small—but not zero—risk of someone striking it just the right way to bring it down. Even the repeated cycle of night and day could cause it to crack and split.

  The solution lay in the
sigil beneath her hand. She could read the truth of it in the way the stones nestled against each other, even if she couldn't decipher the signs themselves. They were bound together, linked by the charms, but not permanently. There was some give in the joins. They could flex and shift as necessary. The determining of that necessity was not left up to the architects, who knew that time might allow such knowledge to fall into disuse and disappear. That ability was imparted to the stones themselves.

  Shilly understood this in a flash. It made sense, and it matched what she felt beneath her fingertips, and through the Change.

  The stones were alive, and they could move.

  The voices of the man'kin had a strident, hypnotic rhythm.

  A shudder knocked her feet out from under her, sending her sprawling onto her backside. Sal fared no better. Gwil yelped like a puppy as he danced to keep his balance. Skender clung to the handrail for grim life.

  It was too late for them to run. They could only hang on and hope. The clamour of the man'kin and the wailing of the alarum were lost under the grind and groan of shifting rock. Shilly squeezed her eyes shut. She tried not to wonder what it would be like to fall to her death or to die in an avalanche—or both at once, as was likely when the Wall collapsed. Each time the stone beneath her lurched, she expected the world to drop out from beneath her and the end to begin.

  Sal's hand found hers and gripped tight. She heard a keening sound and realised that it came from her own throat.

  Not long enough, she wanted to shout. The unfairness of death gripped her. I'm too young to die!

  Then the turbulence began to ease. The rocking and swaying settled down to a trembling vibration, as though the Wall was quivering with exhaustion. The sound of stone sliding against stone ceased.

  She dared to open her eyes.

  The first thing she saw was a heavy lifter riding the wind high above her, its polished wood catching the bright sunlight. A crimson standard hung from the front of the gondola, and she knew that the Magister was aboard.

  Reconnoitring, she wondered, or fleeing? There was no way to tell.