The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  He resisted letting her go, clutching her more tightly than ever. She pulled him to her as though afraid he might slip from her grasp and vanish into the darkness. The smell of her was rich and powerful, even through the accumulated stinks of fear and blood and exhaustion. Their lips met with a sensory rush that seemed to light up the room. He experienced one moment of pure, unalloyed gratitude, then all thought fled.

  Afterwards, they lay in the furs of their old bed, holding each other, relishing sensations and desires ignored for far too long. Shilly felt scars on her lover's body, and her own, that hadn't been there just a few weeks earlier. His freshest wounds still wept blood in bright red drops. It seemed an eternity since the last time she had held him like this. She hadn't realised just how much she had needed it. Needed him.

  ‘I need a bath,’ he said, smelling under his armpit.

  She was glad he hadn't sniffed hers. ‘I have a better idea.’

  Still without lighting the glowstones, they gathered up some lighter clothes and left the workshop. Outside, the dunes were warm from the day's sun. The sky was beginning to fade to red in the west. They followed a well-worn route to the beach and dived into the surging sea. Clean salt water washed away the dirt of travel and the sweat of their lovemaking. Weightless, her lame leg was no disadvantage, and for once the ache of it was absent. She dived under and shook the dirt from her tangled hair. At some point she would need to brush out the matted curls or cut it right back. At some point…

  She caught herself thinking about the future and knew that there was no use delaying the inevitable any longer. No use, and every danger. Who knew what was taking place on that far-off lake shore, as mages argued with wardens, Panic with forester, golem with Goddess, and everyone tried to find out where she and Sal had got to? Who knew how little time they had?

  The sun disappeared into the west with an explosion of oranges and reds. They dried and dressed and headed through the dunes for home. With every step she took she encountered something familiar: birdsong, bushes she had planted herself to protect the dunes, the feel of sand between her toes. It was all so real and vivid. Before she was even halfway home, she was overwhelmed with the need to weep, and she stopped, clutching her walking stick, and breathed deeply.

  Sal walked on a couple of steps before noticing. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

  ‘Did we even leave?’ she asked him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did I dream it? Did it really happen?’ A wave of dizziness rolled through her, and that was as frightening as the tears welling up in her eyes. What was happening to her? Why was she only now falling to pieces? The thought of Kail lying dead on the floor of the Goddess's Tomb now seemed utterly unbearable—along with the Holy Immortals trapped in their terrible loop of time; the twins and the Homunculus; Highson and Marmion's ghost hand; Kemp and the glast; Chu's possession by the golem and Vehofnehu's failed plan. All of it seemed entirely too fantastical to be true. Too fantastical and too awful.

  And now this, the moment she had been dreading.

  ‘It really happened,’ said Sal, coming to stand close to her, without touching. ‘It's still happening.’

  ‘It'll never end,’ she said, feeling a wail at the back of her throat aching to be set free. ‘We can't stay here. We have to go back. We're trapped.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ She felt his gaze moving across her face as keenly as if he was stroking her with his fingertips. ‘You know, I was thinking while we were swimming that maybe this is why we've always been able to feel each other, ever since we first met. That connection we have probably comes from this moment, here and now, at the end of the world. If that connection exists because of the decision we have to make, then I think we've come out ahead.’

  She was unable to keep it in any longer. The tears started coming and she couldn't stop them. Finally he held her, resting his cheek against her damp hair and letting her cry into his shoulder. It seemed to take forever to get herself under control and she loved him for not saying anything, not trying to soothe her or tell her everything was going to be all right. If this was the moment that had brought them together, echoing backwards in time like Sal's wild talent and the path of the Holy Immortals, who was to say what might lie beyond it? They could fail to agree on what was best for the world, and the argument could tear them apart.

  She held him tightly until her sobs subsided, then went to let him go. But he didn't release her, and she realised only then that he was shaking too and needed to be held just as much as she did. So she held him as the night descended softly over the dunes and the sounds of darkness closed in around them.

  At the entrance to the workshop, buried under sand and unnoticed on their earlier exit, they found a letter addressed to them from Thess. Shilly's friend had left it a week earlier for them to find when they returned. It wasn't long, little more than a note outlining the latest developments in Thess's relationship with a local fisherman and making the point repeatedly that Sal and Shilly were greatly missed. It was a welcome dose of normality, and a reminder that there were other concerns in the world than theirs.

  But theirs, Sal thought, would be the world's concerns soon, especially if they made the wrong decision.

  Shilly read the note twice before folding it up and putting it into the pocket of a clean dress she had donned on getting back to the workshop. ‘I miss them,’ she said. ‘Not just Thess. Everyone here. They're so important.’ She looked for a moment as though she might cry again, but she didn't.

  Sal had found some edible provisions in one of the cupboards and he continued chopping and dicing to make impromptu soup while she gathered herself together. A saucepan of clean water was already bubbling over red-hot glowstones that stank of burned dust. He thought of Pukje telling him that Tatenen—the prison of the Old Ones—was his proper home, and he repressed a smile of bafflement.

  ‘You know I think about family a lot,’ Shilly went on. ‘We both do, even if you won't admit it.’ Her smile had watery highlights but she ploughed on. ‘I remember when I thought Marmion was Lodo's nephew. That showed me just how much it meant to be able to connect with someone that way. It's not about feelings, Sal, and it's not just about blood, since Kail was related to Lodo, not me. It's about roots, the knowledge that you're more than just floating over the world. You're in it and part of it, and you'll be missed when you die.’

  ‘That certainly sounds like us,’ Sal said, tipping the ingredients into the pot and giving it a stir. He wondered if she knew about Marmion's death, and decided that just then might not be a good time to tell her if she didn't.

  ‘It is us,’ she said, nodding. ‘I think I realise that now. Stuck out here, it's been easy to forget that the world hasn't forgotten. There's Highson and Skender and Alcaide Braham and now all these other people we've met. They won't forget us any more than we'll forget them. I get that now.’

  He added a generous pinch of spice to the mix and breathed deeply of the aromatic steam. ‘You're going somewhere with this,’ he said. ‘Aren't you?’

  She nodded. ‘Not very far, I'm afraid. How can we make a decision like this, on everyone's behalf, without consulting them? That's what I ask myself. But we could spend a lifetime asking for advice and still not come to any conclusions. Some will want the realms united, some divided, and both camps will have good arguments.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Sal cut in. ‘Honestly. Right now. Don't think about it. Just tell me.’

  ‘If it was just you and me, I'd say let's join the realms. I could never take your wild talent away.’

  ‘And I'd want to give it to you,’ he said. ‘You deserve it.’

  ‘Do I?’ She didn't look relieved that they had agreed. ‘What makes you say that?’

  He shrugged. ‘I don't know. Maybe just that you'd be so much better at it than me.’

  ‘But maybe that's why I shouldn't have it. There's such a thing as being too good at something.’ She busied herself finding bow
ls and spoons and wiping them clean. ‘Anyway, it's not just us. It's everyone, and the old gods, and all the chaos that would ensue. I don't think I could live in that world. I don't think many people could.’

  ‘And we don't need wild talent at all, now Yod is dead.’

  She nodded. ‘So we can safely break the realms apart, like all my other selves originally wanted.’

  ‘Is that what your head says, not your heart?’

  ‘Maybe. Can you imagine life without the Change? Without Sky Wardens and Stone Mages and weather-workers and Weavers?’

  ‘And no golems, either.’

  ‘Well, that's one thing in its favour.’

  He stirred the pot in silence for a while. ‘Do we really need to do anything at all, now? I mean, Yod is gone so it really doesn't matter.’

  ‘The twins,’ she said. ‘They're not in the Homunculus any more, and they're not in the Void. The Goddess has them safe and together right now, but that might not last. If they go their separate ways, if they die, there's nothing left to hold our world together.’

  Sal tasted the soup, mindful of burning his tongue. ‘Yes, I'd forgotten about them.’

  ‘I think we need to make this decision, not them. It's our world now. That's what the glast meant, I think. That's why this moment is so important.’

  He added one last dash of salt to the pot. ‘It's done.’

  She smiled a lopsided smile and handed him her bowl. ‘Our last meal in the old world. It'd better be good.’

  ‘You know the odds on that. Could we change the world into one where my cooking is good?’

  Her smile broadened. ‘No charm's that powerful.’

  Halfway through the meal, Shilly saw Sal's face twitch. He covered it up by taking a mouthful, but his expression remained wooden.

  ‘They're calling you, aren't they?’

  He nodded. ‘They want to know where we are, how long we'll be—all that.’

  ‘What are you saying in response?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘You should let them know we're okay.’ She swallowed a spoonful of the soup—which, in spite of their jokes and the scarcity of provisions, was the best meal she'd had in many weeks—and thought some more on the subject. ‘You can also tell them to be patient and stop bothering us.’

  ‘They're just worried.’

  ‘Well, they'll have to stop worrying. We'll decide in our own time, thanks very much.’ She felt a twinge of guilt at being so brusque. The others were, after all, waiting on a Cataclysm that would, either way, destroy the world they knew. But the decision wasn't theirs to make, and they had no right to rush her. Would they rather she tossed a coin?

  That reminded her of Mawson influencing the roll of a dice, and she shivered, wondering how far the man'kin would go to preserve their own futures.

  But then she thought of the Angel trapped in the rubble and the way it had protested that it didn't want to be rescued. The Angel will not die, Mawson had said, even if its life here ends.

  How nice, she thought, to be so sanguine about the possibility of death, of ending…of change.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she asked Sal, feeling suddenly bone-weary of the situation. The thought of tossing a coin was perversely tempting. ‘How are we going to resolve this?’

  ‘I don't know,’ he said, pushing his soup away unfinished. He looked pale in the light of the glowstones. They had both lost colour in the mountains, although her skin remained much darker than his. ‘But we can't just sit here forever. We have to do something.’

  ‘Give me a suggestion and I'll happily consider it.’

  ‘I'm not the one with the brains,’ he said with sudden irritability. ‘I'm just the grunt, remember?’

  ‘Great. You're giving up—just like that.’

  ‘What do you mean, “just like that”? I've been thinking about this as hard as you have been.’

  ‘Really? I don't see any other versions of you weighing in with anything useful. At least mine were trying to help.’

  ‘And a fat lot of good they were too, unless you count nightmares and obsessive visions as useful contributions.’

  ‘They died trying to save us.’ Her throat locked up, and the anger that had been rising to a crescendo suddenly collapsed into grief. ‘They died, all of them. And so did you, Sal. So did you.’

  ‘Hey, I'm sorry.’ He came around the table, his face a picture of worry, and put his arms around her. ‘I'm sorry. Don't cry.’

  She wasn't going to cry. All her tears were gone. But she pressed her face into him anyway and breathed deeply of his smell: salty and masculine and everything she imagined when she thought of home.

  The light of the glowstones changed colour from a warm yellow to a cold, crystal blue.

  She looked up, blinking with surprise, and saw four people standing in the workshop where there had been none before. Three, she corrected herself. One wasn't a person at all.

  ‘I knew you were here,’ said the Goddess. The bright spark of the Flame hung weightlessly in the air, between her and the glast. The twins stood to her right and behind her, side by side like watchful uncles. ‘I also knew you'd be finding this difficult. We've come to offer our advice.’

  ‘To make the decision for us, you mean,’ said Shilly with a flash of irritation.

  ‘No. I've already decided my future, and it makes no difference to me what you do with yours.’ The short woman with the hazel eyes and long, brown-grey hair tilted her head and smiled. ‘I mean that in a purely pragmatic sense. Of course it does matter to me what you do, or I wouldn't be here now. But I'm not going to force you into anything. I can't, anyway.’

  ‘What about you?’ Shilly asked the glast, which still looked exactly—and unnervingly—like the old Kemp but had at least donned a robe to cover its nakedness. ‘What's your agenda?’

  ‘I wish to convey a possibility,’ it said, ‘and I wish to tell you why I have stayed in this world when I could easily find another to live in, somewhere else in the universe.’

  ‘Could you really do that?’ asked Sal.

  ‘At any time.’ The glast stated the fact bluntly, without smugness, and Shilly found herself believing it without question. ‘Like Yod, I was born between worlds and am constrained to none. I live where I choose.’

  ‘Tell us, then,’ she said. ‘What makes us so lucky?’

  ‘Because I like it here.’ The glast ignored her dig and answered her question matter-of-factly. ‘This world is rich and complex. The interplay between its fundamental forces is benign to life, but not too benign, either. A struggle remains within and between species that ensures one does not dominate too much. Yod would have upset that balance, and that is why I intervened. I intervene again because I fear that it is about to be disturbed once more, even if for the best of reasons. I will not stop you from making a decision I do not think is right, but I will leave if it doesn't suit me. I would rather not. As I said, I like it here.’

  ‘So what's your point?’ Shilly pressed. ‘Say what you're going to say and leave us to it.’

  ‘I like it here,’ the glast repeated for the third time, ‘just the way it is.’

  Those five words hit Shilly with the force of a physical blow. She felt her spine straighten and her eyes widen. Her hands gripped the table.

  ‘No,’ she said. Wrenching her gaze from the glast to the Goddess, she asked, ‘Could we do that?’

  ‘It's your charm,’ said the Goddess. ‘You can do whatever you want with it.’

  ‘Do what?’ asked Sal. He stood stiffly at her side, radiating confusion. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The third option,’ said one of the twins. Hadrian, Shilly guessed. ‘There's always a third option, if you look hard enough.’

  ‘It's the magic number,’ said the other twin, with more bitterness in his voice. ‘Three, not two.’

  Now Shilly felt like she was missing out on something, but she shrugged that aside for the moment.

  ‘Don't you see, Sal?
’ she said, looking up at him. ‘We're not limited to one or the other. There's a middle ground, one we didn't see because it's right under our noses. We don't change anything. We keep it exactly as it is. But we don't let it stay that way just because that's the way the twins made it. We make it stay that way. We take what happened by accident and make it permanent.’

  ‘Our improvisation,’ said Hadrian.

  ‘Your decision,’ said the Goddess.

  ‘Just the way I like it,’ added the glast.

  Sal felt his face turning red as understanding dawned. It was an interesting solution to the problem. He could see that now he could see it. He simply wished he'd thought of it earlier and saved them the agony of indecision.

  But would it really save them anything? Did having a third option make things easier or harder still?

  ‘By uniting or separating the realms,’ the glast said, ‘you are in effect levelling the playing field. This is Kemp's metaphor. But life doesn't care about fairness. It thrives on randomness, variations, uncertainty. That's why this world is so rich with possibilities. That's why I believe it should remain unchanged—in order to maintain its mutability, as revealed by the process you call the Change.’

  ‘You're saying,’ Sal said, ‘that we should use Shilly's charm to keep the realms just the way they are. Side by side; neither completely joined nor completely separate.’

  ‘Could, not should,’ said the Goddess with a nod. ‘The realms are like soap bubbles. They can float separately through the air. They can meet and become one bigger bubble. Sometimes they simply touch. Such conjunctions are rare—’ The glast nodded at this. ‘—but they do occur. And sometimes the worlds within are stronger for it. Have you heard of hybrid vigour? It's where two species are bred together to create a new one containing all the strengths of its parents. That's what this world could be like, permanently. If you so wish.’

  ‘I could do it,’ said Shilly. ‘I can see how the charm could be remade to maintain the world as it is. It'd be tricky, but I could do it.’

  ‘Is this what you want?’ asked Sal, feeling dizzy at the sudden turn of events.