The Blood Debt: Books of the Cataclysm Two

by Sean Williams

  The man'kin shook him so hard his teeth rattled in his head. The world swung jarringly around him. When it settled down, he was staring to the east, at the Hanging Mountains. The sun was fading into the west, wreathing them in shadow. The ridge of clouds he had seen from the heavy lifter was still banked hard against the distant peaks—a permanent fixture, perhaps—but now something else was visible. A tendril of white led down from the mountains. It looked like the mountains had grown a tail. The tail wound through the foothills and out into the plains, following a zigzag course that reminded him of something he had seen before. It took him a moment to remember where.

  The white tendril was following the path of the Divide, as he had seen it from the wing. It wasn't actually white, but dirty brown with a foaming edge. The foam reflected the sky back at him, making it appear bright against the surrounding plain. The leading edge was growing visibly nearer.

  “Oh, shit,” he said, the enormity of what he was seeing momentarily freezing his capacity for thought.

  “Skender?” called Shilly from far below. “Answer me!”

  “You can put me down now,” he told the man'kin.

  “LOOK?”

  Skender took in the face of the giant creature as it deposited him gently back on the Wall. Its face wasn't built for expressiveness, but now he could see that it was worried, not angry.

  “Yes,” he said. “I looked, and I saw.” He recalled the man'kin shouting among themselves as they argued over whether or not to kill Sal. The Angel says we must keep moving, one had said. And the stone pig that had spoken to him afterwards had tried to explain: We are saving ourselves.

  “That's what you're doing in the Divide, isn't it?”

  “ANGEL.”

  It could take a while for the creature to build up the verbal momentum to complete a sentence. Skender turned instead to Sal and Shilly, who had left the guards standing at a cautious distance and pressed forward to help him. Gwil Flintham was a dot in the distance, still running.

  “I'm okay,” he told them. “I think this big lug was sent up here by Mawson. There's something coming down the Divide, out of the mountains. It's huge, and it's frightened the man'kin.”

  “Frightened them?” echoed Shilly disbelievingly.

  “ANGEL SAYS.”

  “Remember that the man'kin don't see time the way we do. They see it all at once, in a big tangle, and it's hard for them to tease out individual threads. Before we left the Aad, Mawson told me that he and the other man'kin were afraid of the one from the Void, the Homunculus. That's what I thought he meant, but I was wrong. They know that when the twins come, something else, something terrible, is going to happen. And it's on its way right now.”

  “ANGEL SAYS RUN.”

  “What is it?” asked Shilly, glancing at the man'kin then back at Skender. “Can we stop it?”

  “I think it's a flash flood—and a big one. We need to let the Magister know. If it comes this far and hits while the Wall is breached…”

  It wasn't a thought he wanted to complete aloud. He wasn't familiar with rivers that flowed the year round, but had seen sudden surges tear down a watercourse that had been dry for months, tossing boulders as though they were pebbles and ripping trees right out of the ground. The tiniest chink in a bank or dam could be widened in an instant under the force of such a deluge. Nothing could withstand it.

  In his mind, he pictured the city flooded as a wall of water burst through the hole made by the man'kin. He felt ill. Chu and his mother were down there, along with thousands of other people. He couldn't stand by and let them die.

  “That's what we missed,” said Sal, looking annoyed at himself. “Down in the Divide, the man'kin told us they were running. I thought they were running to something, not from something. We have to help them.”

  “How far away is it?” Shilly asked. “How much time do we have?”

  “I don't know exactly, but it was moving fast. Minutes, not hours.”

  “Would the Wall withstand it, even intact?”

  “I suspect there's only one way to find out.”

  “The man'kin sure picked a shitty time to attack,” fumed the leader of the guards, who had come up behind them and overheard the conversation. “If it wasn't for them, we'd be perfectly safe.”

  “And what about them?” Shilly snapped at him. “They're living things, too. I bet the Magister wouldn't have willingly given them refuge, not in a million years.”

  “Well, they've killed all of us now, haven't they?”

  Skender shook his head and held up one hand.

  “Listen,” he said. “Can you hear it?”

  Both Sal and Shilly looked along the Divide to the east, straining to hear what was coming.

  “Wrong direction,” he said, pointing the other way. “Listen closely—and if you don't hear it, that's a good thing.”

  “You're starting to sound a lot like Mawson yourself,” Shilly said in brittle tones. “Want to explain what you're talking about?”

  “The fighting's stopped,” he said, pulling them closer to the twisted rail. “I'm starting to think that it never really started.”

  Shilly felt hundreds of pairs of eyes turn to look at her as she peered over the edge of the Wall. The man'kin horde had overrun a large swathe of the city's slums, filling every niche and nook with their presence. They sat on roofs, windowsills, and doorsteps, and straddled the meandering roads. None of them moved, except those at the very edge of the slum area, where city guards still objected to their presence. Their territory was no longer expanding, however. For the moment, they seemed content to simply occupy what they had taken.

  All of them were looking up at her and the man'kin who had climbed high to deliver its message.

  ANGEL SAYS RUN.

  They weren't running now, and that could only mean one thing: it was too late to run any further.

  “We have to close the Wall, and fast,” she said, feeling the certainty of it right down in her bones.

  “There are still more coming through,” Skender objected, pointing.

  “I don't care. If they don't shut it soon, everyone will die.” Goddess, she thought, if the man'kin are scared, then we don't stand a chance! “We have to get word to the Magister.”

  “And tell her what?” asked Skender.

  “To stop Pirelius!” said Sal suddenly, squeezing her arm painfully tight.

  “Why?”

  “The Magister has sent him and the Homunculus to block the tunnel so the man'kin can't get into the city.”

  Skender's eyes widened. “If the twins are in there, the man'kin won't be able to fix the breach. The stones won't move.”

  “Exactly.” Sal thought for a second. “I'll call Kail and see what he can do. You two think of a way to stop the Homunculus in case he fails.”

  “There's one easy way,” said the guard, hefting one of the globes.

  “What's wrong with you?” Anger flared deep in Shilly's gut. “The Homunculus and the man'kin both deserve to live as much as you do. Try dropping anything else from up here and you'll follow, okay?”

  “It might come to that,” said Skender. “Killing the twins, I mean, if we can't think of anything else.”

  “Then we'd better make sure we do.” She put a hand over her eyes, wishing the sound of the alarum would let up just for a moment. The pieces of a plan rattled around in her head but weren't falling into place as fast as she would have liked. A lot depended on how much time they had left.

  Sal was communing with Kail again and his absence unbalanced her. She wanted to talk to him, ask him if her ideas might work. But she didn't dare break his concentration until she had something definite to give him.

  Vacillation wasn't an option.

  She took her hand away from her face. “Right. We talk to Mawson and the other man'kin through our friend, here.” The giant man'kin towered over them, as immobile as a rock but watching them closely through deep-set eyes. “We need to tell them that the flood is on its way. They h
ave to start closing the tunnel, if they aren't already.”

  “I think we'd feel it if they were,” Skender said.

  “True. So they aren't. You pass on the message while I think.”

  Skender turned away to talk to the man'kin. Shilly put her hands on the guardrail and leaned out over the Divide side of the Wall. The scene below was one of chaos and broken earth. Man'kin still pressed against the opening to the tunnel, although the mad crush had faded. A dense pall of dust hung over them. She could see Pirelius coughing as he manhandled his prisoner towards the entrance to the city Wall. His pace was slow but steady. He was only a couple of hundred metres away.

  As she watched, the heavy lifter monitoring the scene tilted upwards and gained altitude in a hasty spiral. The Magister and her crew were checking the news themselves, she assumed.

  There had to be a way…

  “Tell me something,” she said to the guard she had snapped at earlier. He was still holding a globe in his hand, and was probably just as willing to lob it down on the Homunculus as he had been before. “How are the charms on the Wall maintained?”

  The guard looked over the edge. The giant signs were extremely foreshortened from their point of view. “We send crews down once a month. Are you thinking of changing them, to resist the flood?”

  She shook her head, although she had briefly considered it. She doubted anyone could repaint the charms in time, even with all the resources of the city behind them.

  “You said you send them down, not up. So there must be ropes around here, somewhere.”

  He nodded, pointing at a hut near the far side of the Wall.

  “Get them for me. We're going to need them, and soon.”

  “But—”

  “Quickly!”

  Shilly thought for a second that the guard might actually salute as he turned on his heel and hurried away, calling for his fellows to help him. Any amusement she felt was almost instantly crushed by the knowledge of what she had to do next.

  “It's confirmed,” said Kail. “They see it, too.”

  “Of course they do. Why would we lie?” Sal didn't try to hide his irritation, although he could understand both Marmion and the Magister being cautious before accepting such drastic news on his word alone. “The next step is to ask Pirelius to turn back.”

  “The Magister doesn't want to do that. She thinks Pirelius is lying—letting her believe that he's helping her, when in fact he intends to hold her to ransom at the very last.”

  “So she's going to do nothing, and assume he'll do the right thing without realising it?”

  “That's her plan.”

  Sal couldn't tell through the Change whether Kail approved or disapproved. The plan did make a kind of sense, though. From Pirelius's point of view, the only threat to the city was the man'kin. He didn't realise that, in fact, it was he who might be critical in the crisis. If he was to find that out, he really could hold the city to ransom.

  “I don't like the idea of risking everything on Pirelius unintentionally doing what we need him to do.”

  Kail didn't respond. When Sal sought the tracker out again, a stream of images and sensory impressions was all he received.

  The Wall—so close now that it and the sides of the Divide blocked out most of the sky. This was the first time Sal had seen the city from that perspective, and he was startled by how forbidding it looked. From above, its architecture had seemed sweeping and bold. From below it was simply brutally functional.

  Sal still couldn't see Kail, although he had to be well within eyeshot. It occurred to him that the tracker must be using a charm to hide from sight. Glamours weren't complicated, but they could be draining. Kail was also relaying information to him, and probably hadn't slept for almost two whole days. Sal felt new respect for the man.

  Pirelius looked around as though sensing he was being followed. The bandit was in a bad way, wearied and battered by his long trek through the man'kin horde. Sunburn on his scalp pulsed red and a streak of dried blood stretched from the corner of one eye into his beard. But his pace was unchecked, as was the ferocity with which he forced the Homunculus ahead of him. A steady stream of invective, punctuated by the occasional blow, rewarded the twins for their compliance.

  Occasionally Pirelius looked up at the heavy lifter, still cruising weightlessly overhead. He did so with a naked shrewdness that told Sal that the Magister was almost certainly right. Pirelius was the very picture of obedience. It was too much to believe.

  He became aware of movement beside him. Dropping out of the vision, he turned to see three guards hastily affixing a complicated series of grapnels and pulleys to the guardrail in front of them. Shilly oversaw their efforts closely, although it was clear they knew what they were doing.

  “What's going on?” Sal asked, noticing a large coil of finely spun rope lying to one side, next to a pair of leather harnesses.

  “I don't trust Marmion any further than I can throw him,” Shilly said. “He'll pick up Kail, yes, but I'm sure he'd rather watch the Homunculus drown.”

  “Who's going to make him do the right thing?”

  She squared her shoulders. “Me.”

  “What?” Skender, who had been eyeing the harnesses with some reservation, looked up in surprise. “Don't be ridiculous. It'll be me if it's anyone.”

  “Why?” she asked, ears reddening. “Because I'm a girl and a cripple?”

  “No! Because I'm a climber and you're not.”

  “But it was my idea.”

  “So? You're needed up here. You're in charge. And Sal has to convey messages to Kail. It makes sense that I go. Doesn't it?”

  Shilly's lips tightened, and Sal knew from long experience that she wasn't arguing because she thought she was right.

  “I'm not afraid of going.”

  “Who said you were?” Skender rolled his eyes. “This is no time for pride, Shilly. Just let me do it.”

  “All right, all right,” she said, and Sal could see the relief her back-down brought. “But you've got to be careful. How could I face your mother if anything happened to you?”

  “Don't worry about her,” Skender said, “because nothing's going to happen to me.” He turned to the guards. “Are you ready yet?”

  “Almost.” The leader tossed him a harness. “Put this on and we'll hitch you up.”

  Sal and Shilly helped Skender thread the leather straps around his waist, thighs, and shoulders. They were designed for someone about his size—the smaller the better for such labour—and all the clasps looked well maintained. A complicated series of brass loops and stays connected it to the rope.

  “Take this,” said the guard as he attached Skender to the assembly. He clipped a pouch containing three flags to the harness. “Red for up, green for down, white to stop. Got that?”

  Skender repeated it word for word. “What if I drop the flags?”

  “You can't. They're all connected.”

  “But if—”

  “Don't worry. You get into a scrape, kick out from the Wall and that'll be our signal to haul you up.”

  “I'll be keeping an eye on you,” said Sal, “through Kail.”

  “Couldn't he do this?” asked Skender, a flash of nervousness showing.

  Shilly shook her head. “I don't entirely trust him, either.”

  Skender resigned himself to his fate. “Right, then. I'm ready.”

  “Wait,” said Sal as Skender walked, jingling, closer to the edge of the Wall. “You might need this, too.”

  “Hey!” Shilly exclaimed as Sal took her walking stick from her and handed it to Skender.

  “I'll make you a new one,” he said to her. To Skender, he explained: “It's a reservoir of the Change. I've been stocking it up for ages. I doubt you'll need it, but just in case…”

  Skender's gaze danced between him and Shilly. “Thanks. I promise I'll bring it back.”

  There was no more time for talking as Skender put himself into the hands of the guards. They gave him gloves and
showed him how to grip the rope. He adopted a wide-legged stance and backed up to the edge. When the last of his guiding hands fell away, he leaned out and down, while two of the guards operated a mechanical winch to gradually pay out the rope.

  “A reservoir?” said Shilly to Sal as their friend disappeared out of sight. “You never told me that.”

  “I never needed to. And that's a good thing, right?”

  She punched his arm. “Let's get back from the edge. Things could start shaking again any time soon, and you're going to have to keep me upright now.”

  He did as he was told, while at the same time dipping back into Kail's senses.

  The Wall was a vast, solid mass. He could barely make out Skender against its sheer enormity. The sky at the top seemed impossibly far away. The heavy lifter had fallen back, cautious of coming too close lest a stray gust of wind sent it crashing into the stone. Pirelius picked his way over ground heavily scarred by the passage of the man'kin. Ahead, the tunnel gaped like a mouthful of jagged teeth.

  Sal felt a vibration through his fingertips that he at first assumed was the stone of the Wall moving again. But it lacked any of the grinding, scraping sounds that had accompanied it before. Only gradually did he work out that its source wasn't his fingers at all, but Kail's.

  The flood was coming.

  “There are many ways of existing. Some creatures have no minds at all, or none that we would recognise as such; others are just minds, cunning intelligences hovering on the edge of the world. The rule common to all is: like devours like.”

  MASTER WARDEN RISA ATILDE: NOTES TOWARD A UNIFIED CURRICULUM

  Skender clung tightly to the rope and tried not to look down. This wasn't remotely like climbing. He was utterly at the mercy of the thin strand linking him to the apparatus at the top of the Wall. The guards turning the winch far above maintained his rate of descent. If the rope snapped, he would plummet instantly to his death. There was nothing he could do but dangle and hope for the best.