The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One

by Sean Williams

  “Well, you can see the world around you. You can understand me. You have a keen sense of your own presence.”

  Seth's left hand unconsciously clenched. “What do you mean, I can understand you? Of course I can understand you. You're speaking English as well as I do.”

  “I'm not speaking any tongue you would know, Seth.” The great snakehead turned to glance at him. Xol's eyes gleamed brassily. “And you are not speaking mine. You understand me because I wish you to, just as you cannot understand our pursuers because they do not wish you to. This process is called Hekau.”

  “Is it telepathy?”

  “No.” The hard eyes would allow him nothing familiar. “It is a skill you will need to understand in order to hide yourself. As it is, you are vulnerable here. Your ignorance betrays you. Your presence resonates through the realms. Those Yod-dogs back there would hunt you from one end of the underworld to the other, given the chance. You have much to learn, and I will teach you what I can. I would prevent you from becoming like me.”

  Like me…

  “What are you?” Seth asked.

  “I told you.” The creature's gleaming eyes reproached him. “I am of the dimane. We oppose the daevas—the ones who hunt you as they hunt all who are new to this realm. We are merciful where they are cruel. We are free where they are slaves. We know what it is like to be victims.”

  “You said you were human once. You didn't look like this then, did you?”

  “Of course not. In every physical sense, I was perfectly ordinary.” The great snakehead dipped in what might have been a humble bow. “My face in the Second Realm is to my previous face the way my previous face was to my skull. It's a whole new layer and a deeper truth at the same time. I can't explain it any better than that.”

  “There's more,” said Seth, wondering if he had misheard the word demon twice now. Was that what a “dimane” was? “You're not telling me everything.”

  Xol hesitated. “No,” he said, “there's another reason why I helped you. I understand what you're going through better than you think. I had a brother once—a twin, like yours. Now he is lost to me, and I alone remain.”

  The reminder of Hadrian distracted Seth from his own predicament. He ran in silence, wondering how his brother was coping. There was no way of telling if he was hurt or in trouble. Had he recovered from Seth's death? Had he had time—as Seth hadn't—to truly absorb the truth?

  Seth wondered what had happened to Xol's brother, and what made him look the way he did.

  “We are not actually speaking,” Xol went on, resuming the lesson. “There is no air, and we have neither lips nor tongues to speak with. We are incorporeal beings who interpret an incorporeal world through the filter of who we once were. In the same way that your perception of the First Realm was an artifact constructed by your body of flesh and blood, now this world is an artifact of your self and will. But it's not an illusion; it's all very, very real. It's both real and in your mind at the same time.”

  “Thanks. That's cleared up everything.”

  “I will explain as I can,” Xol said almost crossly. “Don't expect it to be easy. It takes months for a child to walk, remember.”

  Seth was somewhat mollified, but he had no intention of waiting for any mystical knowledge to drop conveniently into his head. One of the first things he asked his guide was whether he could be killed when, to all intents and purposes, he was already dead. The answer was a definite yes.

  “You're alive, Seth, in the Second Realm. And if you're alive in any realm, you can be killed. It's as simple as that.”

  “But my hand—”

  “The ways of the First Realm are not relevant here. In time, you will unlearn them and find new ones to take their place.”

  Finally, the end of the wall came into view. The largest crack Seth had yet seen opened up before them, deep and forbidding. Long-limbed, tapering shapes flailed within it, rising and falling like translucent solar flares.

  “Where are we going?” he asked as they ran towards the crack.

  “The underworld has nine districts,” said Xol. “We are leaving the district ruled by Culsu—a fallen elohim who, like all the underworld deii, now serves the Nail by breeding daevas to hunt the newly dead. We are approaching the border of Fene, the district of Nyx. The borders are restless, changeable places. With luck, we will be able to pass through unchallenged.”

  Seth ignored the many things he hadn't understood in Xol's explanation. “And without luck?”

  Xol didn't reply. Seth tried not to feel apprehensive as they neared the massive rift. A green shooting star flashed out of the void and arced over their heads. It impacted with a low, booming tone against the roof's surface to his left. Members of the hideous horde following them broke away to converge on the point of impact.

  “I still don't understand how I can see when there's no light,” Seth said in confused irritation. “What do things really look like here? Does anything solid lie under all this, or is it just an illusion?”

  “I don't know, Seth,” said Xol. “What colour is red? I am no more able to answer that question here than I was in the First Realm. Was there any fundamental reality underlying the experiences of your past life? It could all have been a dream.”

  “Within a dream?”

  Sharp-tipped teeth gleamed in a faint smile. “Perhaps.”

  A second shooting star, orange, followed the first. The hounds of hell howled in chaotic unison.

  “Is it the same for everyone?” asked Seth. “Does everyone who dies come here?”

  “Most, yes. Those who are human, anyway.”

  “What else could they be?”

  “There are creatures who live only in their particular realms. They do not rise or fall on death. They simply die, or go to places humans cannot follow. Creatures who live purely in the First Realm are called genomoi. Their counterparts in the Second Realm are daktyloi. Humans are a mixture of both.”

  “Body and soul,” Seth said.

  “Not soul,” Xol corrected him. “Physical body and psychic body.” Xol brought them to a halt as another shooting star traced a faint purple line across the void. A red one followed almost immediately.

  “They're coming faster,” said Seth, sensing his guide's attention on the gulf ahead and the bridge that looped down into it.

  “So is the chance for escape.”

  Two more stars made an asymmetric X low over the horizon, where the underworld faded into black. The needle-tower lights and the howling of the daevas grew more frantic as, suddenly, the sky became bright with multicoloured comets, raining down on the dark, firelit land.

  “Now!” Xol took Seth's hand and yanked him irresistibly to the edge of the wall. While their pursuers were distracted, they leapt off into space—and dropped, Seth realised with a plummeting feeling, into the heart of the abyss.

  “They say people lived in cities before the Cataclysm. They also say that the only people who died during the Cataclysm were those living in the cities—but that's like saying that someone was fortunate only to lose a limb in an accident. How does one function when one has lost so much? One can never be whole again.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 126

  Hadrian woke with tears on his cheeks (and a memory of torches burning in darkness fading in his mind) to the sound of an engine rumbling through the streets. He lay frozen, unsure whether it was real or not. There were too many echoes. It sounded like a dream, rising out of the silence to fill the emptiness around him. It ebbed and flowed in irregular, liquid waves, like the growling of a powerful engine. It throbbed.

  It was getting louder.

  He wiped his eyes and sat up. Although his skin crept, he forced himself to ease slowly out of his hiding place and peer around the dead fern. Long shadows spilled across the tiled foyer floor, over coffee tables and couches, unfinished drinks and even an abandoned set of luggage. Honeyed light spoke of sunset behind the buildings outside, above the city canyons and artificial ravines. A
gain Hadrian thought of empty movie sets, abandoned for the night. But the set wasn't empty. He was in it—and so was something else.

  He eased to a window and peered over its bottom edge. The street was exactly as he had left it. The cars hadn't moved. A line of wilting trees hugged the base of an enormous Art Deco bank headquarters across the way. Its angular stone lines cast a glowering ambience over the road below, making the darkness thicker somehow, more threatening.

  The rumbling sound made him think of tanks. That he wasn't the only person left in the city should have relieved him. Instead he was reminded of Pukje's talk of invasion and slaughter. He wasn't going to run blindly out onto the street and wave down the first person he saw. Who knew what else was waiting for him out there? Better to stay in the hotel, he decided, until the sun came up and it was safe to move again. There would be unspoiled food in the restaurant or bar fridges. He could clean his teeth using complimentary guest toiletries. No one would know he was there if he stayed low and kept quiet. He could find another police station if he was really worried, and steal a gun. Later, perhaps, he could climb the stairs to the top of the building and work out exactly where he was…

  A rock smashed through the window behind him, showering him with splinters of glass. He gasped and covered his face with his hands. His instinct was to stay down. An apricot-sized stone skittered along the foyer floor, ricocheted off a wall, and came back to rest at his feet. He picked it up. A deep ridge ran in a continuous groove around it.

  Whoever was throwing them hadn't smashed any other windows apart from the one behind which he was hiding.

  They, or it, knew he was there!

  The throbbing of the engine snarled and grew louder.

  Hadrian made sure Seth's bone was still in his pocket, then untucked his head and scrambled away from the window. A fourth stone sent more glass flying in jagged splinters. Seth sprinted for a corridor leading deeper into the hotel. Patches of light led him to a No Entry door, which ended up in the kitchen. He ran through it and headed for what looked like a supply entrance.

  The double doors swung open into a long, narrow alleyway, lined with bins. He chose a direction at random—left, downhill—and ran along it. The air was thick with the smell of rotting vegetables. Spindly fire escape ladders crouched overhead like giant praying mantises, waiting to snatch him up into their jaws. Behind them, the distant sky was deepening to blood red.

  There was a right turn ahead, and he headed for it, skidding on a puddle of brackish water. The new alley was narrower than the first and lined with pipes and drains. The throbbing of the engine seemed to fade but he didn't let up. He ran a short distance down what was little more than a fault in the cityscape, a crack between buildings that served no visible purpose. That slender crack opened into an alley almost identical to the first he'd followed. The space above his head was lined with laundry, hanging still and flat in the lifeless air.

  He took the next corner, a short access road leading to a major thoroughfare. There was light ahead, growing brighter. The sound of the engine was suddenly deafening. He ducked behind a battered blue Dumpster.

  Always hiding, he thought. Is this what Seth would do? Remembering his fantasy of Seth uniting survivors of the apocalypse around a BBQ, he wished he could go to that world instead of this one. Seth could have the commendation. He could have anything he wanted. Anything was better than being afraid all the time.

  And haunted by the presence of his dead brother…

  He peered nervously around the Dumpster as something low and sharklike slid into view at the end of the alley. Its headlights were two round, bright eyes casting brilliant cones across the street. They belonged to a car unlike any he had seen before. Its chassis was broad and streamlined but much longer than a typical sports model. Steel-grey and a peculiar mix of matte and reflective, like brushed aluminum, the bodywork blended seamlessly into a reflective wraparound windshield behind which any number of people could have been sitting. There were no handles, no grille, no side windows, no license plates. Just vast automotive power that set his teeth vibrating, resting on four wide, midnight-black wheels.

  The stone in his hand suddenly burned him, as though he had picked it up from a fire. He dropped it with a yelp and clutched his singed hand to his chest.

  The car stopped. He cursed and crouched right down, so he could only just see around the Dumpster. The throbbing engine noise hammered directly into his skull, making him dizzy. It seemed incredible that the driver could have heard his cry over that racket, but why else would the car have stopped where it had? Why was this car working at all?

  When the thunder suddenly ceased, it felt to Hadrian as though the world ceased with it. He held his breath as low-frequency echoes tailed off into silence. The headlamps stayed on, slicing the darkness with two thick beams. A click of metal on metal accompanied the door swinging open. One flat-soled black boot descended from the interior of the car, then another. Their owner stepped away from the car and the door shut. Hadrian edged back, completely out of sight. Every muscle in his body tensed, ready to run.

  Footsteps sounded, drawing nearer.

  “Don't be frightened.” A woman's voice, deep and rough-edged, filled the vacuum left by the rumbling of the car. “I've been looking for you. I want to help.”

  Hadrian was disinclined to trust anyone under the circumstances, but the decision to run didn't come easily. The woman knew he was there; that much was obvious. She could probably find him again, in time. He was tired of running, of being in the dark, of not knowing where he was.

  “I have something for you,” she went on. Her boots crunched on the rough ground. “This was someone you knew, I think.”

  There was a wet thud. Hadrian gasped in horror as a severed head rolled into view. Matted white hair flopped in a foul tangle; slack skin shook in a grisly parody of life. There were deep scratch marks on its temples and scalp. Dark blood stained its lips, teeth, and tongue. It tipped onto its side and came to rest on one ear, oozing.

  Hadrian stared at it, frozen. He recognised the face. Its features were burned into his mind. The man they belonged to had been very much alive the last time Hadrian had seen him.

  The head belonged to the man Lascowicz had called Locyta—the man who had killed his brother.

  Horror urged him to move, to get away fast. The Swede had been a murderer, but whoever had ripped his head off could be far worse.

  He burst out of cover and ran, urging his cramped legs to carry him as fast as they could along the alleyway. A patter of footsteps followed him. He sprinted for the nearest intersection, a few metres away. Escape depended on getting out of the confined space and he took the turn skidding.

  Something short and squat-featured appeared in his path, arms spread wide to obstruct him. He cursed it—they had cut around the block in front of him!—and used his mass to force past it, but its small hands gripped tight, clung to his shirt, and tried to tangle its legs in his. He flailed at it, but was unable to shake it loose. He could hear it grunting as it clung to him, surprisingly heavy and strong for something no larger than a child. Another sprang at him from the shadows, then another. He found himself overwhelmed by the creatures. He stumbled, fell, and couldn't get his legs back under himself.

  They pinned his arms and rolled him onto his back. A larger version of the things, more than human-sized and clad in a long charcoal greatcoat with a black woollen cap low over its brows, loomed over him. Shaped like a sullen man with lumpy features, it tugged off the cap to reveal a bald, egglike head. It clicked its fingers. Hadrian's captors fell away. He scrambled backwards, into a wall.

  The owner of the boots strode into view. A middle-aged woman with spiky white hair and cappuccino skin, she barely reached the shoulders of the man beside her. She was dressed in practical black pants and a high-necked grey wool jumper. Her eyes matched the jumper, with no discernible colour. Her expression was aloof but not uninterested.

  “Get up,” she said, “and get in t
he car.”

  “Why should I?”

  She smiled, and her face took on an entirely new cast. It showed appreciation of a joke he hadn't intended.

  With one hand, she tossed something into his lap. “I don't think you have any choice now, Seth.”

  He caught the object automatically. It was the stone he had dropped when it had suddenly burned him. The stone that had given him away.

  “I'm not Seth,” he said as he had many times in his life.“I'm Hadrian.”

  “Well.” Her smiled only widened. “I had a fifty percent chance of—”

  She got no further. The ground jumped beneath them, as though the Earth had lurched in its orbit. The woman staggered back a step and the enormous man steadied her. The buildings on either side of them rocked on their foundations, emitting a thousand tiny noises as brick, glass, and aluminum frames shifted slightly. Dust rained down on them.

  The woman regained her balance and looked up at the distant rooftops. “It's started.” She stepped forwards and held her right hand out and down. “My name is Kybele, Hadrian. You aren't safe here. You'll never be safe in the city, unless you're with me.”

  “Safe from whom?”

  Kybele wiggled her fingers in an unmistakable hurry-up. “If you get moving, I'll explain. You're in no danger from me, I swear.”

  Hadrian hadn't forgotten the head, still lying in a sticky pool by the Dumpster. The ground shuddered beneath them with less violence than before, but for longer.

  “You killed Locyta?”

  “No, but I'll admit to wanting to at times. Get in the car, Hadrian, or I'll have my friends here carry you.”

  The smile was gone now, and became a frown as the ground rocked a third time. The buildings rattled again. Something smashed. Only then did Hadrian stop to think about the danger of being in a cramped alleyway during an earthquake. The woman, whoever she was, was risking her life by lingering to offer him help. If she'd wanted to take him by force, as she had implied, she could have done it easily.

  He took Kybele's hand—noting the cool, dry texture of her skin and a wide, beaten gold bracelet around her wrist—and let himself be pulled upright. Their eyes ended up at the same level. Hers were so grey they resembled stone.