The Devoured Earth

by Sean Williams

  ‘It's not just up to me, Sal. We have to agree, whatever we decide to do.’

  ‘Do we?’

  ‘Yes. I need you to put the charm into effect.’

  Sal ran a hand across his face. He didn't know why he was resisting what seemed on the surface to be a perfect solution. Maybe because it was too perfect. Maybe because Shilly should have thought of it first. The Goddess claimed not to care what they decided, but he couldn't believe it was that simple. At least the glast was upfront about what it wanted.

  ‘Nothing would change,’ he mused aloud. ‘Nothing at all?’

  ‘There would still be Stone Mages and Sky Wardens and man'kin—and golems, yes, and all that lot. Everything would keep going just as it has for the last thousand years. There'd be no Cataclysm. No lives would be lost.’ She looked up at him with shining eyes. ‘Don't you see how simple it is?’

  ‘Yes, I see that.’ But there was something missing, something nibbling at his unconscious. He thought aloud: ‘You told me,’ he said to the Goddess, ‘that I have my wild talent because of this critical juncture. In the world-line next door, you said, the realms are joined. Some of that has leaked over into this world-line, into me, and that's why I got stronger the closer to this moment we came, when all the various world-lines are closest together. But if we don't join the realms, and this world-line drifts away from the others, what'll happen then? The juncture will be behind us. Behind me.’

  ‘You will lose your talent, yes,’ the Goddess said. ‘I won't hide that from you. It'll take time. Years, probably—as many years as you've had the talent already, at least—but the end result will be the same. It will be gone, and all that'll remain is your natural ability.’

  ‘Do I have any?’ he asked her, conscious of Shilly watching him closely.

  ‘I don't know, Sal. Only time will tell.’

  He nodded, feeling better for having worked out what was bothering him, but worse for the knowledge. They now had three options, and in two of them he would lose the only thing that had ever made him special.

  Then he felt bad for worrying about that. Did he have the right to choose his own fate ahead of that of the entire world?

  ‘I know you've been pressured to do one or the other by various parties,’ said the Goddess. ‘I don't want to apply any more pressure. I just want you to be aware that there's always another choice. Maybe there's a fourth that no one here has thought of. Maybe a fifth, a sixth…’ She shrugged. ‘At some point, though, you have to stop looking and settle on one.’

  He nodded. There is only one path, the Old Ones had told him. ‘Want to give us a moment?’

  ‘Of course.’ The Goddess didn't look surprised at his request. ‘Take as long as you need. You can get back on your own, I presume.’

  ‘Yes. Might as well use my talent while I've got it.’

  Shilly took his hand as the light of the Tomb began to dim. The blue tinge left the air and the four figures faded away like smoke.

  ‘Handy trick, that,’ Shilly said. ‘Beats the crap out of flying.’

  ‘Is there anything she can't do?’ Sal let go of Shilly's hand and rummaged in a cupboard on the far side of the room. His voice came to her over the clinking of glassware. ‘Why doesn't she just make the decision herself rather than lumber us with it?’

  ‘I don't think she can make it, Sal. It takes the right sort of mind and the right sort of talent. We have that, you and I, not her. She has her own mind and her own abilities, and I'm sure they'll be needed too, just as they were a thousand years ago.’

  He returned holding two glasses and a bottle of sweet golden wine.

  ‘Are we celebrating?’ she asked.

  ‘Not necessarily.’ He smiled wearily and poured them a measure each. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think I'll be glad when we've decided, whichever way we're going to go.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  They clinked glasses and sipped. To Shilly the wine tasted slightly off, but she drank it anyway.

  ‘I wonder,’ he said, ‘if it'd be lazy or cowardly to keep things the way they are.’

  ‘Would we be taking the easy way out, do you mean?’

  He nodded.

  ‘What's wrong with that?’

  ‘I don't know.’ He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

  ‘There's nothing wrong with wanting things to be simple for once. It's about time life dealt us some decent cards.’ She put down her wine glass. ‘Making a decision to keep things unchanged is as much a decision as one to turn everything upside down. Every day we stayed here in Fundelry instead of coming out of hiding was a decision like that—and it hasn't always been an easy one to keep making. It wasn't just habit, and neither is this. We'd be making a conscious effort to stop the world from falling apart, either way. We'd be sending a message to everyone who lived in the world before the Cataclysm, before Yod was imprisoned, saying that things aren't ever going back the way they were, so get used to it. The twins, Upuaut, the Old Ones, Vehofnehu—that's all they go on about. Winding back the clock to a version of the world that they used to like. Well, maybe we don't want that. That's our decision, not theirs. All the different versions of me never worked that out, but here, in this world, I have.’

  ‘You feel so passionately about it?’ Sal hadn't interrupted her long speech, and even when she had finished he waited a second or two before saying anything. ‘Are you certain it's the right thing to do?’

  ‘I guess…’ She hesitated. ‘I guess I do.’ Nervousness replaced the certainty that had crept over her while thinking aloud. ‘What about you? Do you disagree?’

  ‘No.’ He reached across the table and took her hands in his. ‘I guess I don't. You know me: I always want something to blow up or I don't feel like the job's been done right.’

  She smiled with relief. ‘What are you talking about? You got to blow up plenty, this time.’

  ‘Yeah, but…’ He dismissed her rebuttal with a roll of his eyes. ‘Screwing up the whole world with one decision? I'd never top that.’

  She leaned over their glasses and kissed him. That eased the tightness around his eyes.

  ‘I'll always love you,’ she said, ‘whether you have your wild talent or not.’

  He looked slightly startled, then smiled. ‘The same goes for me. I'll always love you whether I have my wild talent or not.’

  ‘Then it's decided.’ Her stomach felt empty, even though they had just eaten. ‘Should we go back and give them the news right away?’

  ‘Not just yet. I'm sure there's still a lot we need to think through. Is it just a matter of waving your hands and making it so? Do we need a permanent record of the charm in order to make the effects permanent? How will we stop someone like the Old Ones coming along and undoing all our good work? They're still out there, along with everyone else who'll disagree with us. Just because we've got rid of one enemy doesn't mean others won't arise.’

  ‘Yes. You're right.’ Shilly eased back into her seat and rubbed her aching thigh. ‘I'm sure the rest can look after themselves for a little while longer.’

  ‘I'm sure you're right,’ he said with a smile. ‘In this world, you usually are.’

  ‘Broken then remade, like this sinner's weak

  flesh, Sheol awaits in the guise of a tomb.

  The body within is untouched by the fire of time;

  to ash and dust it has never returned.’

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 37

  ‘Is it over?’ asked Seth as they left Sal and Shilly's strange underground home. ‘Are we done now?’

  ‘Not quite,’ said the Goddess. ‘We've got to take this good fellow back to the summit. She indicated the glast, who stood with an uncanny absence of body language not far from the Flame. Both of them seemed to glow in the light of the entrance to the Third Realm. Neither Seth nor Hadrian was touched by its light. As ghosts, they were immune.

  Seth remembered the first time he had seen the Flame. Meg, one of Ellis's two sisters, had touched th
e singularity while touching him, and he had felt a profoundly unnerving sensation.

  You feel the tug of fate, Ellis's other sister, Ana, had said, the one fate we can ever be sure of, which is that we will die. Eventually our sojourn in the realms comes to an end, and we dissipate into the void from which we sprang. That is the fate awaiting all—even us—and the Flame reminds us of this, even as it reminds us that the route taken to that end is infinitely variable.

  Two of the Sisters of the Flame had met their ends in or shortly after the Cataclysm Yod had tried to wreak upon the world. Only Ellis remained. The fate of him and his brother therefore rested entirely in her hands.

  ‘Are we your prisoners, El Salvador?’ he asked.

  ‘No. Now, quiet. Do you think doing this is easy?’

  Seth couldn't tell. To all appearances she wasn't doing anything at all. But the walls of the Tomb had replaced the view of Sal and Shilly's home. Strange lights and shadows played around him, making him shiver. He sensed an odd kind of motion as though the world, rather than him, was moving. He tried not to think too hard about that. If he did, it made him queasy.

  Eventually the crystal veil parted, revealing the view across the lake once more. The clouds had blown away, replaced by brilliant stars and a sliver of a moon. It looked cold out there, and he saw more than a few wardens and mages shivering as they went about the clean-up operations. Huge black-smoking bonfires burned the remains of the devels. Occasional flashes of light came from the hunt for stragglers in the labyrinthine crater walls. Two blimps still circled the area, but the rest had landed and swayed against their moorings.

  Panic and forester soldiers roamed everywhere, assisting as ordered by Abi Van Haasteren. The Panic leader, Oriel, strutted self-importantly around the scene of the final battle, accompanied by the Sky Wardens’ Alcaide. They appeared to be identifying the dead and according them a measure of dignity, depending on individual customs.

  Seth had overheard Skender talking with Chu days ago about burial rites. Few in the new world had a belief in the afterlife, but disposal of the dead was still a serious business. Stone Mages were cremated and their ashes set adrift on any one of several significant desert winds. Sky Wardens were interred in the sea. Chu had explained that the bodies of Laurean citizens were drained of blood before being turned into fertiliser. The blood, in turn, was leached of every last drop of water, leaving the family with dust to dispose of or to keep if they wanted. Others had joined in the conversation, including Lidia Delfine and Griel. Foresters, it turned out, were buried in the root systems of special trees so the vital essences of their bodies could be reabsorbed by the forest. Mourners carved the names of their loved ones into the bark of the burial trees; some such trees were hundreds of years old, and carried the names of the long-lost dead ever higher into the canopy.

  Of all the people in the expedition, only the nonhuman Panic seemed unfussed about what happened to a body after the person within had departed. Some were mummified, others simply bound in cloth. All were dropped into the mist from the underside of the floating city. The only concession made to dignity was a temporary cessation of sewage and garbage disposal while a funeral took place.

  Skender had looked to Seth and Hadrian for insight into their world's traditions. The best Seth could come up with—thinking of coffins, vultures, cannibalisation, embalming and more—was to say, ‘It varied’. He had always joked that he wanted his ashes put in a rocket and fired into the sun. Instead, his body had been burned in pieces in a hospital furnace. Had it made a difference? Maybe not, except to Hadrian who had been magically healed by one of Seth's finger bones. Still, he thought as he watched the natives of the new world lay out their dead, it would've been nice to have some sort of ceremony. He should be grateful, he supposed, that he hadn't been eaten by Upuaut and Lascowicz for lunch.

  Seth thought of Kail and a similar conversation in the mist forests, and grieved.

  The strangest thing he saw on the killing fields was Kelloman bumping into his former host. The hefty mage had put the bilby in a cage immediately on hearing what now inhabited the young woman's body. Staring into a face that had for two years been his own, he seemed momentarily nonplussed.

  ‘If you harm her—’ the mage had started to say, but the golem had simply pushed by, its laughter cruel.

  The Tomb descended to ground level and the crystal walls faded to nothing. The walls were still there; they just couldn't be seen. On the first occasion this had happened, Seth had made a fool of himself by trying to run to freedom. No matter how he had run, he remained as trapped as ever.

  ‘Seeya, big fella,’ Ellis said as the glast stepped outside. It headed towards Griel and the others, offering nothing in response.

  Seth suddenly remembered the glast's original body. Not the first body it had entered this world through, but the one on which it had modelled its final form. Seth wasn't certain of the young man's name; Kemp, perhaps. Kemp's body, transformed so as to be almost unrecognisable, would be among those waiting to be disposed of. The glast now had the Homunculus and that was all it needed.

  So many dead—and so much body-swapping, too. It was difficult sometimes to keep up. At least now, he told himself, the slaughter perpetuated by Yod's rule would stop. That was something.

  He felt no pride at all. They hadn't done anything, it seemed to him, except be couriers to deliver the glast's new body. Was that what Ellis had seen in the future for them? Was that why she had condemned them to a thousand years of the Void with no one but each other for company?

  End it now, he wanted to tell her. Put us out of our misery. Lay us down with the other old men in their rows and pieces, and call time for the Castillo twins. Last drinks. Last dance. Last call. The very fucking end.

  But the words never left his lips, and all he could do was wait.

  Hadrian watched his brother pacing the edges of their prison and wondered with no small amount of impatience what was bothering him this time. Why was he always the oil on Seth's stormy water? Maybe it was time for him to raise some weather too.

  ‘Are you keeping us here for a reason?’ he asked Ellis. ‘Beyond acting as sticky tape for the realms until Sal and Shilly get their shit together, I mean.’

  ‘A reason? Of course I have a reason,’ she said. ‘Be patient.’

  She was alone with the Flame and her ghosts, Hadrian realised, for the first time. Something went out of her as the walls closed in around her. A pretence, an illusion. She literally sagged and looked in an instant ten years older.

  The world disappeared. The Tomb moved again.

  ‘Where are we going now?’ he asked her in a gentler tone, already regretting his snappy question.

  She turned to look at him. ‘To the base of Tower Aleph. There's something you've forgotten. Something important.’

  ‘What?’ asked Seth, stopping in mid-circuit opposite Hadrian. ‘What did we forget?’

  ‘You left something behind,’ she told Hadrian. ‘Not you, Seth; just Hadrian. But the three of us are going to get it together. Then I'll tell you what I have planned.’

  ‘Why not tell us now?’

  ‘No,’ she said, shooting him a look with some of her usual spark. ‘Just hang on, will you? I promise you'll understand when it's in front of you.’

  Hadrian waited out the short journey with apprehension barely in check. He couldn't think of anything he had taken through the underground tunnel to the Tomb's original resting place. He hadn't been carrying anything at all. The only possession he and his brother truly had in this world was the Homunculus, and that had already been taken from them.

  ‘All this moving around is tiring, you know,’ Ellis said. ‘It's tricky, especially if I have to go underground, like now. But that's not necessarily a problem. I can freeze time and catch my breath while the rest of the world is still. That's how I got so much done after the Cataclysm. I could be everywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted, pretty much. About the only thing I can't do is be in two places at onc
e—and you can fake that if you're careful. Do you see now why they call me the Goddess?’ She half-smiled. ‘But it all comes at a cost. The more time you freeze, the older you get compared to the rest of the world. I spent twenty-five years of my life settling things down after you two entered the Void. Outside, just fifteen years passed. I was glad when it was over and I could sleep.’

  ‘Did you actually sleep,’ Seth asked, ‘while you were in the Tomb?’

  ‘One full night,’ she replied, ‘that lasted a thousand years.’

  The blue glow of the crystal walls began to fade. Hadrian peered outside to see where they were, but discerned only darkness at first. Then the faint outlines of a blocky stone chamber became visible. The space was much smaller than Sal and Shilly's workshop had been. It was, in fact, barely large enough to contain Ellis and a squat brick structure in its centre. Seth and Hadrian both moved closer as the stone walls took substance and shape around them, shining damply with the light of the Flame.

  The central brick structure was about the same size and shape as a barbecue the twins had had in their backyard while growing up. It wasn't red, however, but a dark slate-grey colour. The lid consisted of a solid slab of black volcanic stone. It was the most ominous chunk of rock that Hadrian had ever seen.

  Ellis regarded it balefully. ‘This is it,’ she said.

  Hadrian frowned. ‘I left this here?’

  ‘No. I made sure it was interred properly, right at the base of Tower Aleph. This chamber is charmed against intrusion, and watertight. The air in here won't last forever, but that won't bother you, I suppose.’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘It might be bad already. We shouldn't stay long.’

  She rolled up the sleeves of her black robe and began shifting the slab away. Hadrian wished he could do more than watch, but as a ghost there was no way he could help. A strong sense of dread was rising in him. Whatever lay under that slab, he was more and more certain that he didn't want to see it.

  Ellis turned red in the face but didn't let up, even though the slab probably weighed more than she did. The grinding noise it made filled the cramped space around them. When it had moved a full hand's-breadth, the edge of a hollow within came into view. Hadrian moved around to the far side and hugged his spectral flesh. The cavity opened wider with every heave and push from the straining Goddess until it overbalanced and tipped with a crash to the floor, shattering into two uneven pieces.