The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  When Hadrian came close to Seth, Hadrian's features stabilised into the mirror image of his older self.

  He's seeing me, Seth understood. We're reinforcing our memories, helping us rebuild each other in our own minds.

  ‘What happened?’ Kail asked Ellis from the space between the Tomb's curving walls, from the real world. ‘What did you do to them?’

  ‘She turned us into ghosts,’ Seth told him, doing his best to ignore Hadrian and the feelings of terror and entrapment welling within him. ‘We're trapped in here, just like we were in the Void.’

  ‘At least you're alive,’ Ellis insisted. ‘That's something, isn't it?’

  ‘For now,’ Seth said. ‘But you'd better think of something else, or it's not going to last long.’ He could see the stress and fear on his brother's wrinkled face, perfectly mirroring his own. Choosing imprisonment in a Void was one thing; being confined against their will was another entirely.

  ‘I'm sorry,’ said Ellis. ‘Hang in there. We still need you to keep the realms together.’

  ‘What about you?’ Hadrian asked her. ‘Do you still need us?’

  She didn't reply.

  ‘So now what do we do?’ asked Lidia Delfine. ‘We've got the Homunculus, but we don't have Yod. The golem said it had gone. Where? And how are we going to find it?’

  The twins watched impotently as Ellis turned her mind to more immediate concerns. Seth kept a restless lid on his churning emotions as, beside him, his brother reached out and took his hand.

  Skender stared at the forlorn figures of the twins with a feeling of helpless despair. They were separated at last, but still trapped together. Perhaps they always would be, cursed by fate or some unseen design to be linked in a way he could never understand. Embedded in the icy blue walls of the Tomb as they were, their features were partially obscured, but he could tell how similar they were. He recognised the faces he had glimpsed in the Homunculus, long and lined from hundreds of anxious years in the Void.

  What, he wondered, if they were all similarly cursed? Was Highson always going to lose the woman he had loved? Was Marmion always going to have authority snatched away from him in times of crisis? Was Skender Van Haasteren the Tenth always going to be lonely?

  He crouched on the floor of the Tomb cradling Chu in his arms. She hadn't moved since Shilly had got her breathing again. Her flyer's uniform was wet and heavy; her skin was cold to the touch. He tried to warm her with his body, holding her as close as he could and rocking her gently. With what little strength he had, he willed her to get well, hoping against hope that if her flesh was strong her mind would return. The bilby sat with him, sensing Skender's distress. Every few breaths, it licked at Chu's cheek as though trying to get a response.

  Skender's memory haunted him with images of her in the clutches of Upuaut, filled with a dark malevolence that was as alien to her as manners. Its casual discarding of her body, once it had finished with it, was surely only the last in a series of insults and injuries inflicted upon her. Black bruises mottled her throat and cheeks, as though she had been brutally beaten.

  If she didn't get well, her flesh might linger in a passive state forever—like the body Kelloman inhabited—and Skender swore that he would do everything in his power to spare her that awful fate.

  ‘Yod won't have gone far,’ said the Goddess. ‘Since the topography of the Second Realm in its present form has no centre, the Tomb is free to move from place to place. Given a bit of a nudge, it should be able to—yes, here we go.’

  Skender felt the floor move beneath him as the Tomb lifted from its stony resting place. He put out a hand to steady himself. The crystalline walls dimmed in brightness, allowing a glimpse of the waters, frozen in mid-churn outside. The twins stood silhouetted against the murky backdrop, momentarily distracted from their situation by the new development.

  ‘What shape is the world?’ Hadrian asked the Goddess.

  ‘Flat and curved at the same time,’ she said. ‘It'll hurt your mind trying to picture it.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Well, if you walk in a straight line in any random direction, you'll eventually end up back where you started. But there's no horizon like there was in the old First Realm and you can't see across to the other side of the world like you could in the old Second Realm, so that means the world is also flat. The curvature occurs in another dimension, one we can't see or measure. We can only see its effects on a world we think is flat.’

  ‘But the sun and the moon—’

  ‘Very different phenomena from the ones you knew. And the stars in the sky aren't real stars, either. They're echoes of the world below. If the realms were fully joined, what you saw in the sky and what happened in the world would be intimately connected. Now, things aren't quite so clear. So neither astronomy nor astrology work. It's much more complicated.’

  ‘To this,’ said Vehofnehu, ‘I can attest. Things were simpler when the worlds were separate.’

  ‘Simple is boring,’ said Pukje, standing up on the glast's shoulder so he towered over the Panic empyricist. ‘Simple is machines and modernism and mass media and marketing. There's no magic. There are no miracles. Do you really want to go back to those terrible days?’

  ‘Yes, if gods and sacrifices and holy wars are the alternative.’ Vehofnehu's expressive face twisted into a bitter sneer. ‘What you propose is madness.’

  Shilly raised a hand. ‘Let's not do this now.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sal agreed. ‘We've got a lot of work to do before we have to make that decision.’

  ‘Do you really think you're up to it?’ Skender asked Highson, unable to repress a measure of scepticism. ‘Sticking the equivalent of a god inside the Homunculus sounds impossible to me.’

  ‘Any more impossible than sticking two twins into one body?’ Highson shrugged. ‘In principle, it couldn't be simpler. The Homunculus takes the shape of the mind inside it, regardless of the mind. The tricky part comes from getting it in the right place. The charms I used on the twins were first devised by a mage called Roslin of Geheb. They're old but effective, designed to trap golems, anchor loose spirits, that sort of thing, by locking mind and vessel together.’ Highson indicated the golden sphere floating weightlessly before them all. ‘The Homunculus needs to be in contact with the mind it's intended to house. With Yod, I guess that will mean those black tentacles we saw coming out of the lake—although how we're going to bring the two together, I don't know.’

  ‘There's a way,’ said the Goddess, ‘but we'll talk about that in a moment. What about the parchment?’

  ‘That fixes the charm in place. It needs to go in there too, as the Homunculus takes its shape.’

  ‘Can we do both at the same time?’

  Highson nodded. ‘There's no reason why not.’

  ‘We could attack from two sides at once,’ said Kail. ‘I'll volunteer to be the second person.’

  ‘No.’ Marmion stared down the tall tracker. ‘It'll be me and Mage Kelloman.’

  ‘What?’ The mage looked as startled as if Marmion had goosed him. The bilby twitched at the alarm in his voice. Skender absently reassured it with a pat.

  ‘You're less at risk from Yod,’ the warden explained. ‘You can return to your real body in an instant, should something go wrong.’

  Kelloman scowled, but didn't argue. ‘All right. But why you? What do you have that the others don't?’

  ‘I have…means.’ Marmion's truncated arm shifted awkwardly.

  ‘It should be me,’ said Highson. ‘I know how.’

  ‘Exactly. That makes you indispensable. If we fail and you die, no one will know. We have to be prepared for a second attempt.’

  Highson looked as though he was about to argue, but the sudden emergence of the Tomb from the waters distracted him from the subject.

  Soundlessly and without any apparent effort at all, their crystalline vessel levitated into clear air. They were still inside the tower, but had risen above the water that rushed in to fill it up. Di
rectly above, Skender could see the black and grey of frozen storm clouds covering the sky, or so it looked to him at first. As the Tomb continued to rise, floating past the oddly striated interior walls of the cylindrical tower, the view above came into focus.

  ‘Goddess,’ breathed Shilly. Then she realised what she had said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It's all right,’ said Ellis Quick. ‘I understand completely. I've seen this in the world-tree before, and it frightens me too.’

  The Tomb bobbed out of the top of the tower as gently as a soap bubble and drifted to rest on the nearest edge. Skender barely noticed. He was looking at the ghastly black shape stretched across the sky like an enormous, hundred-legged spider hugging the underside of the clouds. It was frozen in place, as were the clouds themselves and the waters of the lake below, but he could see motion implied in every curve of every limb. The creature wasn't resting after having leapt out of the subterranean den where it had been patiently gathering strength for its big push. It was intent on embarking on that big push with all its will and hunger. It was on the move.

  ‘That's Yod?’ asked Hadrian.

  ‘It took the shape of a pyramid in the Second Realm,’ said Seth. Both twins, imprisoned in the walls of the Tomb, were craning upwards at the sight. ‘But the tentacles are the same.’

  ‘It takes many shapes,’ the Goddess said, ‘depending on circumstance and desire.’

  ‘What will it look like when we put it in the Homunculus?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine. First we have to lure it down here. That means rejoining the world-line and, for some of us at least, leaving the Tomb. Marmion, Highson and Kelloman—you'll be among them. Not you Skender, or Sal and Shilly, or me. We need to stay in here.’

  The mention of Skender's name surprised him. ‘Why not me?’

  ‘I have a purpose for you later,’ said the Goddess. ‘Those outside will be bait.’

  ‘In so many words.’ Kail didn't flinch from the truth.

  ‘This isn't a time for niceties. The glast will wait in here until we get a clear response. Remember, the tentacles work by reflex not conscious will, so they will home in on life but shy away from anything threatening. The timing is going to be critical.’

  ‘Can we trust that thing?’ asked Heuve, scowling in the glast's direction. ‘I haven't exactly heard it volunteering to help us.’

  ‘I trust it,’ said Sal. ‘If we ask it, it'll help.’

  ‘Would you stake your life on that?’

  ‘Yes. If I was allowed to.’

  ‘Now, don't be grumpy about that, Sal’, said the Goddess. ‘You've been a hero once already today.’

  The lake's surface began to move and Yod stirred into hideous life. Its tentacles undulated across the sky like long black pennants. A strange groaning noise came from the air.

  ‘Tell Marmion and Kelloman what they need to know,’ the Goddess told Highson. ‘Then we'll set the trap.’

  Sal's father nodded. ‘All right.’ He put a hand on each of Marmion's and Kelloman's shoulders. Their eyes took on a look of distant focus. ‘Here's the charm. You apply it like this.’

  ‘That seems rather crude,’ said Kelloman disdainfully. ‘Shouldn't it be like this?’

  ‘The Roslin Codex specifically states that that won't work. You have to do it the hard way in order to make it stick. However, there does exist a short cut, one I found in a later text…’

  While the three men conferred via the Change over the subtleties of forcing Yod into the Homunculus, Skender shifted Chu to a comfortable position and silently wished there was something more he could do. He felt impotent and left out, and had felt so ever since Chu had knocked him unconscious to keep him from joining her on her suicide mission. Things might have been much worse had she not done that—certainly one of them would have ended up dead, for the golem only needed a single body—but that was little comfort.

  He almost jumped as the Goddess herself squatted down next to him and whispered in his ear, ‘Keep an eye on things for me, Skender. Someone needs to do that. Let me know if you see anything unusual.’

  ‘Okay.’ Skender didn't know how to feel about being directly addressed by a woman worshipped in absentia for a thousand years. ‘I'll do that.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She stood and waved a hand at a section of the blue crystal wall. It folded back on itself in a complicated geometrical fashion, letting in bitterly cold air and a smell of rotting fish. The groaning noise became louder.

  Marmion, Highson and Kelloman finished their conference. The one-handed warden stepped into the exit, holding the piece of black parchment between his fingers.

  ‘Who's coming with us?’ Marmion called behind him. ‘No blame to anyone who wishes to stay here. This is one order I won't issue.’

  Lidia Delfine stepped forward, shrugging her bodyguard's hand off her arm. ‘I'll do my part,’ she said. ‘Heuve, you don't have to.’

  ‘My place is beside you, Eminence.’

  Griel also volunteered, his leather armour creaking.

  ‘I'll not let a human stand in the path of danger while a Panic falls behind,’ he said with good spirits.

  Kail joined them, along with the Ice Eater called Orma. Marmion ordered Rosevear back when he tried to stand with them.

  ‘The injured will need you more than we will,’ Marmion said. ‘Thank you,’ he told those who had gathered by the door. ‘I'll feel safer with you behind me.’

  The glast came forward, issuing a soft hiss from its fleshless mouth.

  ‘Not yet,’ said Marmion, waving his one good hand at it. ‘Wait until I call. Will you do that for us? Will you come when I call?’ He spoke loudly, as though to someone hard of hearing.

  The glast nodded once.

  ‘Thank you too.’ Marmion smoothed the front of his robe. Without any further ceremony, he stepped outside.

  Kelloman followed, his host body pale and tight-lipped, the golden Homunculus gripped tightly in one hand. The rest came in ones and twos, forming a small, lost-looking group on the top of the tower wall. With thudding footsteps, the Angel joined them, but still they looked helpless against the vast creature floating high in the sky above.

  The people remaining inside the Tomb exchanged glances. Sal looked frustrated and worried, a younger version of his father.

  ‘I should be out there with them,’ he said. ‘I might be able to help.’

  ‘No.’ The Goddess stood firm. ‘You can't fight Yod using the Change—not in its present form, anyway—and there's no protection you can offer the others, no matter how badly they might need it.’

  Shilly took his hand, but he wouldn't be soothed. Skender sympathised. Watching the group outside take a position a few metres from the Tomb, with Kelloman and Marmion a little further away, was like watching a man on a trapdoor with a noose around his neck. Marmion, with his one remaining hand, tugged the sock off his stump and waved the truncated limb as though returning circulation to the missing fingers.

  ‘Here it comes,’ said Seth from his position inside the Tomb wall.

  Skender looked up, feeling guilty that he hadn't been as vigilant as the Goddess had asked him to be. He didn't see what Seth was referring to until it came between the Tomb and the glowing patch of cloud the sun was hiding behind.

  A single elongated streamer of black curled away from the rest and with unhurried deadly grace stretched down to investigate.

  The curving lip of the tower's uppermost edge was broad and level enough for six people to stand with arms outstretched. It had seemed much thinner from a distance. Stepping out onto it, Kail shivered, wondering what on Earth had made him volunteer to attract the attention of a vastly hungry god. He possessed nothing but the clothes on his back and the pouch around his neck—and his wits, he supposed, although he had come to think that they might have been scrambled, either by the fall from Pukje's neck, or perhaps even earlier. For the first time in his life, he wondered if he might have a death wish. In the past, he had notic
ed a certain bitterness in his temperament or an occasional unwillingness to live as others did—but that, surely, wasn't the same thing. To die was a definite act. To go on living, whether one was happy about it or not, required only that one did nothing definite at all.

  He reached for the pouch as he had many times in the previous days, holding it for luck or comfort. Through his gloves he felt the same tiny vibration he had noted before.

  The fragment of the Caduceus was buzzing for attention. That was how it seemed to him, at that moment—as if a tiny creature was trapped inside the pouch and doing all it could to attract his notice. Absurd, of course, but a seductive thought, once he'd acknowledged it.

  The note from Vania that he had carried for years was the first thing he saw when he opened the pouch. He didn't need to read it; the words were burned in his mind. This could have been your home. It wasn't signed, for she had known that he would recognise her writing. He had found it tucked into his bedroll the night after he had left her village, and part of him, unjustly, had been angry at her for interfering with his kit. More angry at that than at the rebuke in the note, or at himself for leaving her, and he had almost turned back to confront her. Within a day the scales had tipped the opposite way; his dreamed-of return would have been to apologise and ask her forgiveness. But he had kept to the road, plodding ever forward to the next destination, the next person or thing to be tracked. He followed; that was his job. It wasn't up to him to take the lead.

  And here he was, hoping to save the world and perhaps himself as well.

  How did dying fit into that plan, he wondered. What possible redemption had he planned for himself in this life, if the Goddess and the twins and their strange talk of Third Realms and world-trees and the like were to be believed?

  He didn't know, but as he took off his gloves and reached into the pouch to take out the letter, his fingers brushed the fragment wrapped within, and a chimerical shock ran down his entire body.

  ‘Kail? Kail! Is that you?’

  The voice exploded through him, one he had only overheard in a dusty ruin half a world away but recognised instantly.