If the town seemed strange to him, the sky was stranger still. The sun hung directly overhead, as it had been before. Yet he had been travelling with Xol and Agatha for what felt like hours. What were the odds, he wondered, that he should look up exactly at noon both times?
Sun and sky. His mind knew instinctively how to interpret what he saw above him. Only with the greatest of effort, and in the face of incontrovertible evidence, could he convince himself to see things differently. Directly above wasn't a blue sky dotted with cirrus, as he was used to, but another landscape entirely. He saw fields and hills and lakes stretching up across the dome of the heavens, hazy like an impressionist oil painting. The landscape curved up around him, and met itself on the far side of Sheol.
Any lingering doubts that he was somewhere completely alien to everything he had ever known were dispelled in that moment. The Second Realm was the inside of a giant sphere, a hollow world with life clinging to its inner surface. Sheol hung in its exact centre, its light shining on every square metre of the world around him. That was why it was still noon. It was always noon in the Second Realm. Twilight, sunrise, sunset, night—no such things existed in the world Agatha called home.
He realised then that his mind was losing its capacity for wonder. How could he stand in the place where legends were born and not be accepting? He was beginning to allow each new amazement with numb finality.
Finality, but not fatality, he hoped.
“The Second Realm,” said Barbelo in response to his inappropriate yellowcake thought, “is built on the persistent illusion of self. The shape humans are born into in the First Realm is given to you whether you want it or not. You carry this shape here, after your death, and it holds for a while. But it will not hold forever. Here, there is no escaping who you are—for that is all you are. Your true shape reveals itself in time. The more you try to hide your true shape, the more it erupts from within you. You will see.”
He bowed his head in something like apology, embarrassed that his concentration had lapsed and fearful that he might have insulted something that, by the only frame of reference he truly understood, might be a god.
“We have witnessed disturbances in the underworld,” said Agatha, her narrow, limber frame bent in obeisance. “At first we thought it was just the usual provocations, but I sense direction behind it. Misdirection. Our attention is being diverted while darker work is put into effect.”
“Unrest is spreading,” Barbelo agreed. “I have received reports of strange magics in the nether regions, of fractures in Bardo and armies massing to take the leap. I fear for both realms if the distance between them shrinks sufficiently. Baal is too somnolent to resist a major incursion, I think.”
“Yod will still need the support of the elohim—and more, if the Cataclysm is to last. What of the Fundamental Forces? Will the Sisters stand against the Nail? Will the Eight? Will the handsome king?”
“The alignment is only now beginning to shift deeper in-realm. Those alert and sensitive to such things will know, but some may stir slowly.” Although no expression appeared on the golden statue's soft-featured face, Barbelo's voice was full of warning. “It is our duty to alert the old ones. Who can stand against Yod and hope to prevail? Without them, no one.”
Xol nodded grimly, and Agatha allowed a frown to break her adoring mask. Seth looked on, following the discussion with some difficulty. Yod and Barbelo were enemies; that much was clear. Who the Fundamental Forces were—the Sisters, the Eight, and the handsome king among them—he didn't know, but they sounded important. The Nail, he had learned, was another name for Yod, and the elohim were a superior breed or class of daktyloi, the inhabitants of the Second Realm: high ranking but not as powerful as the deii who ruled under Yod. Bardo, if he remembered correctly, was the black void that lay between the First and Second Realms, which Seth had crossed after being killed by the Swede.
He did know that the topic of discussion wasn't the one he'd been promised.
“What about Hadrian and Ellis?” he asked. “How can we make sure they're safe?”
He felt Barbelo's attention turn on him again, and his scalp prickled.
“Your brother's fate is out of our hands,” said the statue. “Were he in this world, we could protect him as we intend to protect you. But he is not, so we cannot.”
“There must be something you can do,” he insisted.
“We have connections,” said Agatha. “Some have helped us establish networks in the world from which you came. They are being mobilised as we speak to look for your twin, among other things. It may be that one of them has already found him, and will keep him from those who would do him harm.”
“Can you take me back there?”
Agatha shook her head. “No. That isn't possible. You are human; you can only go forwards. What you ask for is as impossible as returning to the womb.”
“The Sisters could do it,” said the dimane, his crest rattling.
Agatha looked at him in surprise.
“The Sisters can do many things,” said Barbelo, “not all of them to our benefit. You know that well. We should appeal to them only as a last resort.”
A stubborn silence fell. Seth wanted to press the point, but it was difficult to contemplate defying Barbelo. Her presence was authoritative and confident in her temple, where he felt neither.
“What about Ellis?” he asked instead. “What can we do for her?”
“That depends on what happened to her,” said Barbelo. “If she is dead, she will be here somewhere. We can seek word of her in the underworld. She may have escaped the daevas with the help of the dimane. If she has not…”
She didn't need to finish. Seth had seen enough of the underworld to know what chance she had on her own. He imagined her falling helpless and frightened into a clutch of the scissor-wielding creatures then being snipped up into pieces so Yod could devour her along with all the others dying in the Cataclysm.
He shook his head to dispel the image. “What if she's alive? Can your spies in the First Realm find her as well as Hadrian?”
“They can try,” Agatha replied. “There are no guarantees. She is not like you; she is not driving the engine of the Cataclysm and will be harder to locate as a result. Our resources will be stretched thin trying to find Hadrian.”
“You're saying she's not important.”
“Yes.” Agatha's stare was hard and unforgiving. “That is what I am saying.”
“She's important to me.”
“I am aware of that, Seth. That's why we're having this conversation.”
“I want to do more than just talk!” This was the real source of his frustration. Since arriving in the afterlife, he had done nothing but run away or be led from one place to another without having any say at all. If they thought he was going to accept that state of affairs indefinitely, they were wrong. “I want to do something to help Hadrian and Ellis. I don't want them to end up in Yod's hands or belly. I want to fight back.”
They were all staring at him, and he belatedly remembered to maintain the shield around his thoughts that prevented them from openly reading his mind.
“There are ways to fight,” said Barbelo, the statue's tenor voice wrapping itself around him like a skin. “I have not always been this way. The Second Realm has not always been like this, either. There was a time when Yod was not dei, when Juesaes ruled from Elvidner and we did not depend on the First Realm for sustenance, for prey. I stood at Juesaes's side and our light bathed the realm. The light and our love for each other spawned a new being, Gabra'il, and he was to us as perfection, the best of us combined.” Barbelo's tone was wistful, yearning. Agatha's expression was rapturous. “He was strong, perceptive, desired. The Sisters adored him. He played with the handsome king as friend and equal.
“It wasn't to last.” The mood changed to one of bitterness. “Gabra'il fooled us all. He it was who summoned the Nail. Without him, Yod would never have found a foothold in the underworld, never have had the opportunity t
o grow strong, unnoticed, before bursting like a canker from Abaddon and overrunning the world. Gabra'il stands now at its side, Yod's prime minister and chief traitor. He thrust Juesaes into the devachan and hunts me to my death—or would, if he could. I remain as proof. Not all have forgotten the way things were. Not all will stand silently by, as atrocity after atrocity is committed in the name of an alien's hunger.”
“Alien?” interrupted Seth, thinking he had misunderstood.
“Yod is not from this realm,” said Agatha. “We do not know from where exactly it originates, but it is not part of the natural cycle.”
“And all it wants to do is eat people?”
“Its desires are the same as any dei: to grow, to acquire, to control, to own.” Barbelo sounded weary. “Its power to pursue these desires soon outstripped any we could muster to stop it. It has no natural enemies here. We are only slowly rising to meet its challenge.”
An awful noise erupted from the antechambers of Barbelo's temple, cutting Barbelo off. To Seth it sounded like the essence of alarm: klaxons and screams and ringing bells all mixed in a hideous cacophony. They turned as one to face the door. The sound was repeated.
“We are discovered!” Agatha's calm façade turned to an expression of complete alarm. Her hands came up, fingers spread.
“Not so,” said Barbelo, “or we would already be dead. Go find out!”
Xol and Agatha hurried for the exit, and Seth automatically made to follow.
“Stay, Seth!” Barbelo called after him. “Whether it is Yod or not pounding at my doors, it will certainly not be to your benefit.”
“Then I should definitely help,” he said, excitement flooding him at the thought of finally finding an outlet for his frustration. “I don't like sitting back and letting others do the fighting for me.”
He hadn't intended it as a barb, exactly, but he sensed Barbelo curl around herself as he left the room, like a slug whose belly had been pricked.
Seth ran after Xol and Agatha, through the winding marble corridors and rooms. There are ways to fight. The dimane's crest was spread wide and high, making him look larger. Agatha's back radiated urgency and determination as her long legs propelled her ahead of the others.
At the entrance to the temple's antechambers, they joined a group of white-clad attendants. Slim, tall, and waxy, their eyes were like pearls and their hands had too many fingers for Seth's liking. As one, they pressed themselves against the entrance, now sealed against the intruder as though it had never existed. With unnatural hands splayed on apparently solid marble, their fingers entwined in a spindly net, they hummed an intricate, overlapping melody that made Seth's head spin.
The alarming noise came again, painfully loud now he was so close to its source. The entrance visibly bulged and the attendants doubled their efforts. Xol joined them with feet placed firmly on the floor and arms ahead of him, leaning forwards as though into a heavy wind. Agatha closed her eyes and rattled off a string of sharp, barking syllables that Seth completely failed to understand. The noise ebbed and, with a sharp smell of burning plastic, the entrance returned to normal.
“What is it?” asked Seth. “What's out there?”
“Egrigor.” Agatha's expression was fierce. From the folds of her tight-fitting garment, she produced a series of silver rings, which she slipped on her fingers one by one. “Our enemy sends splinters of itself to strike at our heart. It will mourn their loss.”
“Yod has plenty to spare,” said Xol. “What form have they taken? How should we resist them?”
“We shall soon see.”
“Tell me what to do,” said Seth, pushing himself forwards. “I want to help.”
“Stay out of the way,” Agatha said. “You are a liability. They will not want to harm you, but they may threaten you to distract us.”
Glowering and hurt, he stood behind her as the creatures on the other side of the entrance wailed again and the humming of the attendants strained to counter it. Xol's shoulders shook, and Agatha's voice took on a sharper edge. The air seemed to curdle as those on the inside resisted those without. He was witnessing a true battle of wills, Seth realised. It wasn't immediately clear who would win.
The stalemate ended abruptly. The cry of the attackers reached a new note, and the defenders staggered back. The wall's smooth bulge crumbled into lumpy foaminess, which split and peeled away as easily as cheese. Xol abandoned his defensive stance and stood firm with arms outstretched. Agatha drew a complex tangle of lines in the air with the tips of her fingers. The lines persisted, shining orange-red, and clumped in elongated webs like fiery silk. As the wall finally gave way, they whipped forwards and struck the creatures that came through it.
Whatever Seth had expected, it wasn't this. The egrigor were more geometric shapes than living things, and they flew in a manner somewhat like a cross between wasps and frisbees, each tilting and swooping around a central silver disc that was as large as a dinner plate. On the top of each disc was a wickedly pointed gold triangle that rotated independently of the disc. Underneath the disc was a flexible, rubbery blue square that flapped as the creature swam through the air. Seth couldn't see what connected the three layers together; there were too many in the fast-moving swarm for him to gain a lingering study.
Agatha's silken whips struck three from the air as they rushed through the opening. Xol's broad hands smacked two more to the ground before the attackers rallied. There were many more where those five came from. Barbelo's attendants fell back with their strange white hands over their faces as a swarm of egrigor snipped at them, the points of the triangles tearing off chunks of bloodless, bleached flesh that fell to the floor and shattered instantly to dust. One of them flew at Seth, and he felt savage barbs slash across his upraised arms. The wounds burned like acid.
He cried in pain and fell back. The air was thick with the egrigor, swooping and stabbing, emitting a high-pitched whistling noise that grated on his ears. Barbelo's attendants keened with fear but did their best to join hands and bring down individual attackers, one by one. Agatha's rings changed from silver to bright yellow; she snapped words at the egrigor, making them wobble and slam full-tilt into walls. Xol grunted as one of the angular shapes threatened to buzz-cut his spines back to their roots. The palms of Xol's hands flashed red, and the creature disintegrated in midair.
At Seth's shout, both Agatha and Xol had backed closer to him, trying to defend him. Now understanding just how vulnerable he was to an attack, Seth was happy to accept their help. The egrigor, despite Agatha's assurance that they wouldn't want to harm him, were persistent and seemingly inexhaustible, and he was soon at the centre of a concerted attack.
Building-block shapes swooped and darted around him like a storm of multicoloured crows. Pieces of them fell from the air as his defenders stabbed and cried out in strange languages, forming decaying drifts underfoot. The one that had cut him—tasted him?—returned with many more of its kind, and they were determined to get closer. One snuck past Xol's powerful swipe and fastened itself to Seth's right shoulder.
Many things happened at once that he only understood later. He felt a cool tingling that was not simply a material sensation as the egrigor's square base stuck itself to his skin. He recoiled and went to pull it off with both hands. The triangle “head” of the creature spun viciously, and his sense of balance spun with it. The world blurred and turned around him. When he recovered he was down on his haunches, steadying himself with one hand. The creature was no longer spinning. His shoulder was more than just numb: he couldn't feel it at all. His right arm hung uselessly at his side.
“Stay down, Seth!” Xol shouted, distracted by another wave. “They can't keep this up forever!”
Egrigor crowded his defenders. Red light flashed and voices snarled in defiance. Agatha stabbed and slashed with fiery, electric talons. Geometric shapes went flying in all directions, but for every one that fell two more swooped in to take its place. The air was full of their whistles. The one on Seth's should
er peeped loudly, insistently, calling its kind to the attack. Seth again tried to get rid of it, but the world spun even more violently than before and he recovered his bearings only to strike the floor with a solid thump, completely sapped of strength.
The creatures weren't just flying; they were crawling along the floor, too. Eyes widening in horror, he saw four of them slither around Xol's stamping feet and rush to where he lay. A blue square curled to wrap itself over his face and smother him. He managed to roll away from it, but could do nothing more than that to defend himself. Cool surfaces found and clung to his neck, lower back, and left thigh. He couldn't feel anything at all below his shoulders. His mouth opened in a vain attempt to cry out. The numbness crept up his neck, into his face. Sound ebbed. His vision started to turn black around the edges.
They're killing me! he cried in the silence of his mind. They're sucking me dry!
It came to him in a flash that the latter was exactly what they were doing. They were draining him, emptying him—not of blood or breath, but of will. That was the only thing with currency in the Second Realm. Will was everything, and only those with will survived.
He remembered—feverishly, desperately—a young woman he had seen in the streets of Bethel. She had been reaching for a crystal gourd on a shelf almost but not quite out of her reach. Her clutching fingers touched the sides of it—but passed right through as though either she or it were made of smoke. Seth had stared at her, wondering whether he should help her or not. Before he could decide, she walked downcast through the wall and disappeared, like a ghost.
“Newcomers to the realm,” Xol had said, “start off as wraiths, and only become whole when they learn to enact their will upon the world.”
Will stops someone from touching that which belongs to another, Xol had said, earlier still, or from touching those who do not want to be touched.
The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One Page 14
