The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  Seth took one last look at where the balloon had crashed. The wreckage wasn't directly visible, just a lingering red glow that flickered and faded even as he watched.

  The sound of beating wings drew their attention back to the shore. The creature was coming in low and fast, just metres above the ground. As it approached the cave it tilted backwards, and angled its cavernous wings to catch the air. Two wide-spaced eyes in the beak-nosed face shone silver in the reflected mirrorlight. Strong legs pedalled as the ground came within reach, bringing it to a running stop a short distance away.

  The motley group cautiously approached the creature. Chu stared at the winged beast with a shocked, fascinated expression that didn't change as it folded its wings and turned to allow its passengers to dismount. Sal and Highson rode without bridle or harness, hanging on by little more than determination and a rope around the creature's belly. One end of that rope swung free, reminding Hadrian that there had been a third member of the hunting party that had set out after Shilly and the man'kin, the day before the balloon had left Milang.

  Sal dropped to the ground with a tired, pained expression. His cheeks were pinched red with cold. Marmion walked up to him, hesitating only briefly when the winged beast brought its head around to examine him.

  ‘You have a story to tell, no doubt,’ the warden said.

  Sal nodded. Hadrian was shocked by how thin the young man had become in so short a time. His thick clothes and stubble were encrusted with dried blood.

  ‘What was that flash?’ Sal asked. ‘Was it your doing? It almost knocked us right out of the sky.’

  ‘We don't know what caused it, yet.’

  Rosevear helped Highson down from the back of the beast, which shifted from foot to foot like an impatient horse. Sal's father moved slowly, stiffly. He looked older than Hadrian had ever seen him. ‘We lost Kail.’

  Marmion nodded once, his expression rigid. ‘Sal told me as you were landing.’

  ‘And we've lost the balloon,’ said Griel. ‘I hope you have access to more creatures like your friend here.’

  ‘I think he's the only one,’ said Sal, acknowledging the Panic soldier with a nod. ‘This is Pukje. He's…not what you expect.’

  Hadrian felt himself smile tightly. I knew it.

  The broad head came around to focus on them. ‘Two for the price of one, eh?’ said a familiar voice, barely deepened at all by the larger throat and chest cavity. ‘Fancy that.’

  ‘And you've put on weight.’ The twins walked down the slope to confront the creature that had helped Hadrian escape the Swarm and meet his brother in the Second Realm. ‘So you're a dragon, now.’

  ‘I always have been.’

  ‘How can that be possible?’

  Pukje's tail swished across the dirt. ‘I did say you were better off not knowing.’

  ‘You've met?’ asked Marmion, looking from one to the other with a frown on his face.

  Hadrian nodded. ‘Before the Cataclysm. He's a friend, sort of. He saved my life twice, maybe three times. Although he definitely had his own reasons for helping me, he wasn't on Yod's side. That was good enough, back then.’

  ‘We thought we saw him once,’ added Seth, ‘not long after the flood. Upuaut said that he was about. With the crunch coming, I guess he was always going to show up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To make sure things go the right way,’ Pukje said with a wink.

  ‘The right way for who?’ asked Chu.

  ‘That's the question,’ said Sal dryly. ‘What's going on here? You've obviously been in the wars too.’

  ‘It could take us all night to catch up.’ Marmion rubbed at the stump of his missing hand, swaddled in a thick sock. ‘There's only one thing you need to know right now. The man'kin have stolen the balloon and crashed into the crater wall. We think Shilly might have been aboard.’

  Sal straightened. The fatigue on his face vanished. His jaw tensed. ‘Where?’

  The twins indicated the direction in which they had seen the flash. ‘There's a landmark, but it'll be difficult for you to find in the dark.’

  ‘I don't care.’

  ‘Wait until morning, Sal,’ said Marmion. ‘You need rest, and getting lost won't help anyone.’

  ‘Those scissor creatures…’ Banner began, then stopped at a look from Marmion. ‘Well, there could be more of them out there. Someone needs to warn her.’

  ‘Can you find that landmark?’ Sal asked the twins with his hands on his hips.

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then you're coming with us.’

  ‘I need to eat,’ said Pukje. ‘This body doesn't fly on goodwill, you know.’

  ‘You'll be fed when you come back with Shilly,’ Sal said as though talking to a small child. He looked up at the dragon's back. ‘How many people can you carry?’

  ‘Three. The twins count as two.’

  ‘You'll have to stay behind, Highson.’

  Sal's father shook his head. ‘I'm not doing that.’

  ‘But there's no room—’

  ‘There's no room for you, Sal. You need to stay here to tell Marmion about the plan. That work is more important than anything else.’

  ‘It can wait.’

  ‘No, it can't. If Yod breaks free, Shilly's dead anyway. We all are. Hard though it is to accept it, you know I'm right. And you also know that you can trust me to do everything in my power to bring her back to you.’

  Father and son glared at each other, perfectly matched in height and determination.

  ‘I've seen the lengths you'll go to,’ said Sal. ‘I'll not have that on my conscience.’

  ‘The lengths I'll go to?’ A frown flickered across Highson's face. ‘I don't understand.’

  ‘Come on. You know what I mean: my mother, the Void, the Homunculus—all that. Shilly wouldn't need rescuing if you hadn't made almost exactly the same promise five weeks ago.’

  The frown only deepened. ‘I have no idea what you're talking about, Sal.’

  ‘How can you say that?’ Anger turned to puzzlement. ‘There's no way you could just forget her.’

  ‘Unless someone made him forget,’ Pukje rumbled.

  Puzzlement turned to shock. ‘Oh, Goddess! The Old Ones and their price. Tatenen said we might not work it out straightaway. They took your memories of my mother.’

  Highson had turned as pale as his dark skin possibly could. ‘I can't remember what she looked like or where we met—what she did, what she liked, how she smelled, where she came from. It's all missing. I didn't even notice it was missing until just now. How is that possible? I don't even know her name!’ Highson's jaw worked and he turned to Sal in supplication.

  ‘Her name was Seirian,’ his son said. ‘And she is dead. I'm sorry.’

  The tension between them melted. Highson took Sal's hand and held it, visibly shaking.

  Did he just say ‘Tatenen’? Hadrian asked Seth. And ‘the Old Ones’?

  ‘Whoever's going after Shilly needs to go soon,’ Highson said. ‘She could be hurt.’

  ‘I know.’ Sal's eyes gleamed in the mirrorlight. ‘You go. I'll wait here. Call me when you find her.’

  Highson nodded once, gravely.

  ‘Are you willing to do this?’ Marmion asked the twins.

  I'm glad someone thought to ask, said Seth in the privacy of their joined minds. What the hell is going on here?

  Shhh. ‘Yes,’ said Hadrian. ‘We're happy to help.’

  Pukje opened his massive wings in order for them to mount. The twins could feel the imp's dragon body shaking with fatigue, but they climbed aboard with few reservations. Finding Shilly was important. Finding out what had happened on or in Tower Aleph was more important still. Who knew how close Yod was to making its final move?

  Highson and Sal gripped each other's gloved hands for a breath, then let go. Pukje took five lurching steps to get up to speed. With a grunt of effort, he dragged himself and his passengers into the air. The twins resisted the temptation to look over their s
houlder at the people they were leaving behind, and hung on tightly, remembering what Sal had hinted about Kail. Lost, they wondered, or dropped?

  Highson wriggled forward so he lay next to them.

  ‘It's strange,’ he shouted over the wind, ‘I remember you and that body you're in perfectly well, but I can't remember why I made it. Did it have something to do with Sal's mother?’

  Hadrian didn't know how to answer. What to tell a man whose driving passion had evaporated in an instant? Highson stared at the twins with the frightened, angry look of someone whose life has begun to unravel in front of his eyes. The twins recognised that feeling; they had experienced it on making the connection between the Goddess and Ellis Quick.

  ‘Yes,’ said Seth, shortly and simply.

  ‘Will you tell me—?’

  ‘Later. That's enough for now.’

  Highson nodded, although it was clear he didn't want to let it go, and slid back to his original position.

  ‘Take us to the left a bit,’ called Hadrian to Pukje, and the imp-dragon did as he was told without question.

  They flew on in silence, each bound up in their own private thoughts.

  Sal watched Pukje carry his father and the twins away with a sourness in his stomach that had nothing to do with air or altitude sickness. How would it feel to lose all memories of a loved one? How would he feel if it had happened to him and Shilly? Perhaps, if she had died, he would be relieved of the grief and loss, but how could he mourn someone he didn't remember even knowing? He could only grieve the part of him that had been taken, without really knowing what it was.

  Pukje vanished into the darkness and distance. Sal turned to face the gathering of humans and Panic, all of them looking as dirty and disoriented as he felt.

  ‘If we're going to talk,’ he said, ‘let's do it under cover. I'm sick of being cold.’

  ‘I'll second that,’ said Chu, shivering inside her leather flyer's uniform, even with extra layers over the top to keep her warm.

  ‘Also, our new friends the Ice Eaters may know what's going on out on the lake,’ Marmion added, looking harried. ‘I don't mind admitting that I'm at a bit of a loss at the moment.’

  They retreated through a series of tunnels in the side of the crater. They looked superficially the same to Sal's untrained eyes, but even he noticed simple, angular marks at each intersection that acted as guides for travellers. An upward-pointing triangle, he soon worked out, meant this tunnel leads uphill; a spiral indicated that the way ahead looped back on itself. Occasional crystals, mounted firmly in the stone, glowed icily as they passed.

  ‘The Ice Eaters charted the tunnels hundreds of years ago,’ said Warden Banner as they followed the winding underground path. She still walked with a crutch but made good speed alongside the others. ‘They only use them in emergencies or during particularly severe winters.’

  ‘I don't see how it matters,’ grunted Heuve, holding one end of Chu's wing behind his back. ‘Unless we end up living here because we can't get home.’

  ‘We'll get you home,’ said Griel, glowering from under his shelf-like brow. ‘Or we won't. And if we don't, it won't matter because we'll all be dead.’

  ‘Quiet, both of you,’ said Lidia Delfine gruffly. Her leather uniform was splattered with something that looked very much like dried black blood.

  ‘Why are they called Ice Eaters?’ asked Sal to change the subject.

  ‘As near as I can tell,’ said Banner, ‘it's because the lake used to be frozen solid. Instead of fishing, they'd mine the ice for food. Fish and other creatures were trapped in the lake during the Cataclysm, you see, and preserved perfectly for centuries.’

  ‘Hence the lack of boats,’ said Rosevear.

  ‘Until the ice melted,’ said Marmion, ‘and the water burst its banks.’

  ‘Bringing all manner of creature downhill.’ The stocky Engineer nodded. ‘Like hullfish.’

  ‘And the glast.’ Small details suddenly became clear to Sal. So many of their problems centred around a lake few people had known existed until hours ago. ‘So what made it melt in the first place?’

  ‘Something to do with Yod,’ said Marmion. ‘It has to be. The twins recognised the towers from their worlds. The man'kin stole the balloon to get out there. The Death emerged from the lake. It all comes back to Yod.’

  Sal blinked. For a brief moment, things had seemed to be coming together so neatly. Now he was confused again. ‘The Death…?’

  ‘In a moment…’ Marmion replied softly. ‘We're almost there.’

  At the head of the group, Lidia Delfine held up her right hand, palm forward.

  They all came to a halt.

  ‘The Ice Eaters usually place a sentry at the intersection,’ she explained in a tense whisper. ‘There's no one there now.’

  Heuve put down his end of the wing and drew his sword. Creeping past his fiancée, he took the lead. Griel shadowed him, hook in hand. The two—so different in form, but united by stealth and purpose—moved silently ahead to inspect the intersection.

  A moment later, Griel returned. ‘No sign of anyone,’ he said. ‘I suggest we continue, but cautiously.’

  ‘No one at all?’ asked Chu.

  The Panic soldier shook his head and padded back to where Heuve stood, waiting.

  ‘You told me Skender was here,’ Chu said to Marmion, her tone accusing.

  ‘He was.’ The warden shushed her. ‘Let's not jump to any conclusions. Sal, you bring up the rear. Keep an eye out for anything. Anything at all.’

  Rosevear picked up the other end of Chu's wing. The flyer looked frustrated and angry, and Sal felt much the same way as they slowly moved on. He still didn't know what an Ice Eater looked like, so he could only follow his instincts if confronted by anything different or strange. But he was still a little frazzled after the dramas of travelling with Pukje, meeting the Old Ones, and losing Kail. He didn't want to lash out by reflex, only to regret it later.

  The stretch of corridor around the corner was very different to the one they had left. Lit by crystals and warmed—literally and metaphorically—by brightly coloured wall hangings, it led to a series of chambers where twenty or more people had obviously been living: cushions and bedding filled two low-ceilinged rooms, and another contained food, eating utensils and low mats where diners might sit.

  A haze of incense and smoke filled the air. Nothing seemed disturbed or damaged. The only unnerving detail was a complete and utter absence of life.

  Heuve instructed everyone to wait in one of the larger chambers while he and Griel scouted the rest of the rooms. They returned within minutes, shaking their heads.

  ‘No blood, no signs of struggle, and no bodies,’ the bodyguard said.

  ‘Not the Death, then,’ said Marmion, rubbing his scalp with his one hand.

  ‘Not unless they saw it coming.’ Banner eyed the entrances to the chamber as though expecting something to burst out of them at any moment.

  Sal pointedly cleared his throat.

  ‘The Death is part of Yod,’ Marmion explained. ‘Black tentacles that kill if they touch you. They come out of the lake but can't reach as far as the caves. The Ice Eaters have lived here since Yod began to stir—or at least they did.’ Even Marmion seemed subdued by this development.

  Which was hardly surprising, thought Sal, if Yod could make a whole group of Ice Eaters flee so completely and suddenly.

  ‘Why not try calling Skender?’

  ‘I have already, with no success.’

  ‘So I'll try.’

  ‘There's no point,’ Griel stated flatly. ‘All we can do is wait here and see if anyone—or anything—comes back. We've nowhere else to go. Without the Ice Eaters or the balloon, we're effectively stranded.’

  ‘But we can't just let Skender go,’ Chu muttered angrily. ‘What if he's hurt—or worse?’

  ‘You can only hope that he will be all right,’ said Sal, not hiding the bitterness in his voice. He was uncomfortably familiar with how Chu must
be feeling. ‘It's no consolation, I know, but it's better than nothing.’

  The flyer stared at him tight-lipped, then turned away.

  Sal focussed his attention back on Marmion. ‘Tell me everything you know about the Ice Eaters.’

  The warden shook his head. ‘Unfortunately, we already have.’

  ‘Then let me tell you about the Old Ones and the Goddess and this tomb we're supposed to find. I know we've got our work cut out for us,’ he said, looking at everyone in turn, ‘but if we never start we'll never finish. And I for one don't particularly like that thought.’

  Marmion raised his injured arm, uncannily as though pointing at Sal. For one surreal instant, Sal thought he felt an invisible finger poking him in the chest.

  ‘Just tell us what you know,’ said the warden. ‘Then we'll decide what we think.’

  Startled, Sal stammered through a quick explanation of everything that had happened to him in the last seven days, acutely conscious of Heuve, Griel and Banner watching the entrances to the chamber through every word he spoke.

  Skender did his best to stay upright, but the hands shoving him in the back made it difficult. The third time he fell over, he threw caution to the wind and finally lost his temper.

  ‘Will you stop it?’ he demanded of his Ice Eater captors once he was back on his feet. ‘If you want me to walk, just show me the direction and let me go. I'm not trying to run. I'm not trying to fight. Why do you want to make it harder for me to obey you?’

  They relented, but only slightly, and only because Treya intervened. ‘Let him walk freely,’ she said after checking his bonds. The ropes were so tight he had long ago lost all feeling in his hands. ‘Keep an eye on him. At the slightest wrong move, remind him of the wisdom of behaving.’

  The two giant men grunted obediently. They had a distinctly fishy, sweaty smell that made Skender wrinkle his nose.

  ‘I don't know why you're expecting me to betray you,’ he said, genuinely puzzled. ‘You're the ones who turned on me. One moment you want to be buddies. The next you're taking me prisoner and hightailing it, leaving everything behind. What's the deal?’

  ‘It was a mistake to treat with you,’ said the middle-aged woman, her eyes as hard as ever. ‘If we'd known of Marmion's plans at the start, we would have rejected you utterly. No wonder you kept them secret from us.’