The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One

by Sean Williams

  “Hold tight!” called Nehelennia to ship and crew, her voice barely audible. “It will pass!”

  He felt his thoughts begin to dissolve, and he distantly wondered what would happen to Hadrian if he were to drown. Would the link between them fail, allowing the First and Second Realms to bounce back to their normal states, or would Hadrian be dragged down with him, like a man tangled in an anchor chain?

  Nehelennia was right. The flood finally reached a thunderous peak, then began to ebb. The tugging current eased, and Seth didn't have to maintain his grasp with such desperation. His sense of down slowly returned and his body sagged back to the deck. Within moments, he was able to stand securely. The surface of the “water” passed over his head and slid slowly down his body.

  That it wasn't water was obvious now that the current had eased. It was milky white in colour and shot through with millions of minuscule bubbles. He felt as though he was swimming in lemonade.

  The sound ebbed, too, leaving a ringing emptiness in its wake. Shouts and moans—his own among them—sounded thin and empty compared to the cacophony that had passed.

  “‘Woe to the multitude of many people, who make a noise like the noise of the seas,’” Seth overheard Synett say as the man let go of his pole and gathered himself together. “‘God will rebuke them, and they shall flee far off. They shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the whirlwind!’”

  Synett looked up and caught Seth watching him. A chill went down Seth's spine at the emptiness in the man's eyes. As Synett stood up, Seth saw bloodstains soaking through the bandages and bloody handprints where he had gripped the pole.

  The scaffold shook as Nehelennia and Agatha descended. More sisterlike than ever, the two of them rushed across the deck to check on the pilot, who had fallen from his perch and lay huddled in a fetal ball, keening. He had avoided being swept away only by tumbling hard against the rear of the ship and becoming stuck there. Ten crew members rocked their poles and crooned softly to the ship, which quivered faintly underfoot, recovering from the ordeal. Seth noted with a sinking feeling that two of the ship's crew were no longer at their posts.

  “What was it?” he asked, crossing to where Nehelennia and Agatha had helped the shaky pilot to his feet and were soothing him softly. “Were we attacked? Is Yod trying to drive us back?”

  Nehelennia hissed at the name of the ruler of the Second Realm. “Speak carefully here, boy. Words have power.”

  “I don't think it was an attack,” said Agatha. Her expression was puzzled and shocked. “The wave was—unlucky.”

  “Unlucky?” asked Xol.

  “Surges happen occasionally. They're inevitable down here.”

  “I've never before seen one this large,” snapped the captain, “and I've been riding the filth Abaddon belches for longer than you've existed.”

  “Barbelo received reports of strange magics at work,” said Agatha. “Waste from the Nail's stronghold is rich with the by-products of its slaughter. The numbers of dead have increased sharply in recent days, and therefore the remains of its victims will be more plentiful. We must be careful in the future lest we run into more such dangers.”

  Seth grimaced at the thought that they were sailing on the leftovers of the dead; an effluvium of nightmares, broken promises, and failed hopes.

  “Yuck.”

  Nehelennia studied her passengers, her expression as sober as an abbess on Judgement Day.

  “I'm more certain than ever that I have no part to play in your venture,” she said. “We're bound by kinship, Agatha, but I wouldn't follow you to my death.”

  “Surges will help hide the evidence of our presence,” Agatha said. “That increases our chances of avoiding discovery.”

  “It's not discovery I'm worried about. Already I have lost two of my number. How will Hantu Penyardin prevail if we're struck again?”

  “We will help you,” said Xol. “I will take one of the empty places.”

  “You don't have the skill required,” the captain stated bluntly, “and I'll still be one short.”

  “Then I'll do it too,” said Seth. “I mean, I don't know the first thing about steering a boat, here or in the real world, but I can try.”

  “This is the real world, boy,” scolded Nehelennia, “and I don't need the help of the very one whose existence threatens to destroy us all.”

  “But the offer is worthy,” said Xol, “and a good one. Seth is strong. His strength will make up for our lack of talent. We will assume your risk as our own.”

  The captain seemed slightly mollified by the dimane's words. “Very well. If we must persist in this insane venture, I suppose we have no choice.”

  With a glare at Seth, she clambered up the side of the scaffolding and began issuing orders to the crew.

  “Be patient, my friend,” said Xol softly, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing firmly, “and accept my thanks, at least, for your offer. It was boldly given.”

  Seth was feeling a little less confident now that he had time to think about it. While he waited for someone to tell him what to do, he strode across the deck of the ship and up a series of notches to where the pilot normally sat. The view from the prow was impressive and oppressive at the same time. The pipe was half-filled with the clear froth that had risen up in the wake of the wave. The walls swept upwards in a smooth semicircle from the surface of the “water” and closed seamlessly overhead. The way was not lit, and was dark even to eyes that needed only the will to see. It stretched ahead of him in an almost perfectly straight line, wriggling slightly as it vanished to a point on the brink of infinity, at Abaddon, where Yod lived.

  The quivering beneath him had ceased, and so had the rocking motion. Hantu Penyardin seemed perfectly becalmed. He wished he could achieve the same mental state.

  I'm the strong one, he reminded himself. I killed egrigor. I can do anything I put my mind to.

  He only hoped that included steering a monstrous ship through the effluent of the dead, right into the home of the one he wanted most to avoid.

  “Gods come and go. They are wolves in the night. We mourn them at our peril.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 223

  “Come,” said Xol, and Seth roused himself from the pilot's perch and descended to the deck. He wasn't predisposed to brooding; that was more Hadrian's territory.

  “Don't look so nervous, boy,” said Synett. “I've seen them do it many times. It's not so hard.”

  “Why didn't you offer, then?”

  “Because I don't have to.” The man's smile was mocking.

  Xol didn't give him a chance to respond. “You and I must take our places. The ship will leave immediately; the pilot is in position.”

  Agatha was in the process of coaxing the pilot into the spot Seth had vacated. “What do we do?”

  “Follow the song,” said Xol. “Follow the others. We'll see.”

  Determined to hide his nervousness, Seth approached one of the unmanned staffs. The remaining crew members—stocky, well-muscled daktyloi with faces distinguished by broad tattoos running from their eyes to their chins—watched him and Xol as they stood awkwardly astride the bumps joining the staffs to the deck. Seth gripped the bony stalk in front of him with one hand. It was warm beneath his fingers and quivered as though attached to a distant engine. He felt like he was holding onto a giant plunger.

  When the pilot was in place, Nehelennia climbed to the top of the scaffold with Agatha behind her. Synett watched with a faint look of envy.

  ‘“Three things are too wonderful for me,’” the man said. “‘Four I do not understand: the way of an eagle in the sky; the way of a serpent on the rock; the way of a ship in the high seas; and the way of a man with a maiden.’”

  The ancient words struck a chord with Seth. The Second Realm may have been shrouded with mystery that at times seemed utterly impenetrable, but the First Realm was no different. It was not that he understood the world he had lived in; he had simply become accustomed to it.
Who was he to say that this arrangement was strange or unworkable? To the crew of this ship, sails and rudders might seem just as peculiar.

  His grip tightened around the quivering staff, waiting for what came next.

  “Hantu!” cried Nehelennia, and the pilot's song began. Softly at first, but growing in volume, a melody unwound from the pilot's throat like the opening notes of a Middle Eastern chant. There was no clear key and no obvious words, but the rhythm was seductive. It caught the ear and drew it on to the next phrase, and the next, winding around itself like cords in a rope. Seth was aware of the crew members listening to it intently, standing at their stations with their hands on their staffs, ears cocked and bodies poised.

  He listened. The song drew him into a quiet space. All other noise faded. The only sound was the melody weaving extended knots and eddies around his heartbeat, which thudded softly in the background like a muffled drum…

  Then the tone changed, and he responded without thinking. His elbows dipped and his shoulder muscles flexed. The staff tipped left, and his back twisted to add his weight to the push. Something resisted beneath the surface of the deck, as though he was stirring a giant spoon through a vat of porridge. The song changed again, and he pushed the staff forwards, swinging it in a wide circle. Beside him, Xol's scaled back flexed and writhed. The crew members were moving too. He felt their emotions and personalities combine as though in a dream: some were human, others not; some were happy, others sad. They melded together in a smooth, seamless dance, guided by the pilot's song. Beneath them, goaded by their movements, the ship responded.

  Seth's sense of self melted and spread through the keen awareness of the pilot, crouched at the prow of the ship like a figurehead, to the ship itself. Vast muscles flexed, flailing fins and turning tentacles like corkscrews. The deck moved beneath them, thrusting forwards on a surge of animal strength. Fluid banked up at the prow and formed a wake behind the stern. Hantu Penyardin was on its way.

  Seth barely had time to analyse what was going on, or to wonder at how he had become so easily embroiled in it. He was caught up in the dance, enjoying the way the staff moved under his hands and thrilling at the song as it flowed easily through him. He wanted to sing along, to take up the melody and add his own notes to it, but he knew that that wasn't his function. His job was simply to keep time with it. The smooth swing and tilt of the staff was enough. There was joy to be found in the simplicity of the task. He was able to let everything else go and simply be, at one for the moment with his new life.

  Hantu Penyardin and its passengers rode up the waste pipe to Abaddon on pure willpower. He could feel the ship's progress in the way the fluid roiled against its sides and in the turbulence of its wake. He grinned savagely at the strength under his fingertips. Even when another surge—smaller than the first but still large enough to fill the pipe from side to side—rushed over them, they were able to ride it out in safety.

  “‘O afflicted one, storm-tossed and not comforted!’” shouted Synett in the second surge's wake, but Seth didn't hear the rest. Something about laying foundations with sapphires, and building walls out of precious stones. It didn't seem particularly relevant, and he wondered if the man was quoting the Bible to reassure himself. Synett surely couldn't believe that the words still applied.

  The pipe narrowed gradually around them, and the depth of the fluid upon which the boat rode became increasingly shallow. The echoes of the pilot's song took on more complex harmonics as the ship occupied more and more of the pipe's cross section. The lowering of the “waterline” bothered Seth until he guessed that the source of the fluid wasn't a reservoir at the top of the pipe, but pores opening in the walls of the pipe themselves. That made him feel as though he was riding through a part of something living—like a vein or an intestine—and for the first time in the entire journey, he felt claustrophobic.

  “Hantu!” Nehelennia cried out to the ship, and the pilot banked it smoothly to port. The melody thrilled through Seth, urging him to tug the staff without truly knowing what was required of him. His body moved of its own accord, while his mind blissfully listened and watched, amazed by the artistry of it all.

  Only one single note of unease marred his submersion in the song. If I can be so easily swept aside by a song, he asked himself, how long will I last in the face of Yod itself?

  A long time ago, or so it seemed, Hadrian had stared at his palm, wondering at the patterns traced out by the deep wrinkles in his skin. It did resemble letters, and he didn't blame superstitious people for wondering at the meanings contained within. It was like trying to read a message in a completely different language, one in which even the alphabet was unfamiliar.

  But turning his hand over had been an even greater revelation. He was so used to taking the back of his hand for granted. Apart from veins, it was just skin; palmistry had nothing to say about that particular feature, ignoring it as irrelevant. Only that wasn't true at all. There were far more lines on the back of his hand than on the front—thousands of them creating tiny diamonds and wedges that came and went as he flexed his fingers. His knuckles were a nightmare of complexity. Tendon and bone slid smoothly beneath amazing details, the like of which he had never noticed before. No wonder palm readers were mute on that side of the hand, he'd thought. How could anyone begin to understand it?

  He felt the same as he dived with Kybele into the interstices of her domain—the boundless city—leaving his body behind, clutching the statue's metal plaque. The tangle of lines seemed infinite at first glance. They met at every possible angle, creating blocks of every conceivable shape. There were perfect squares, elongated triangles, lopsided hexagons, flattened circles—and nowhere, it seemed, did any of the shapes repeat. It was a lunatic's mosaic, created with the intention of driving a critic mad.

  But there was order, deeply buried. He sensed it in the way Kybele swept through and over the city, moving from place to place with apparent abandon, but actually following a determined path. The rules were complex; he didn't hope to understand them, but he could see that here the roads formed a back-to-front N, and there the intersections traced out a shape much like a figure 4 with a curl on the diagonal.

  The patterns stretched almost as far as his disembodied eye could see. Viewed from above, he could glimpse the lay of the land underneath the city. It was clearly fragmented, a fact hidden by the grid of roads. Riverbanks, hills, cliffs, plains—there were buildings everywhere; not a single hectare was spared. At the very edge of his vision he thought he saw a dropping off of complexity, as a real city might blend seamlessly into suburbs, but he couldn't discern any precise details. He could have been imagining it—putting a ceiling on the size of the grid because he simply could not accept that it was limitless.

  “Is this a map,” he asked Kybele, his voice echoing through the magical space she had taken him into, “or is it the real thing?”

  “What do you think?” she responded.

  “I think…” He swept his gaze across the endless streets. “I think it has to be the real thing. There's never been a city like this before. It's all jumbled up. You couldn't have drawn a map from scratch in so short a time, not even magically.”

  “You're telling me what magic can and cannot do now, are you? You who knew nothing about it just days ago?” Her tone was amused even if her words were reproachful. “You are, in fact, quite right. The city has only just crystallised into this shape, and it is a mess. Once, before Seth died, I could travel from place to place via subtle links connecting them. There were hidden paths beneath the surface that crossed the spaces between as though they weren't even there; every city had them. Some were populated with genomoi who would as soon cook you as grant you passage, but needs must when the devil drives.” She shrugged philosophically. “Now all the cities have merged into one and the old maps are useless.”

  They swooped to a different part of the city. Slender skyscrapers pierced the sky like stalagmites rising in clumps over a brick-and-glass sea. A steel bridg
e crossed what might once have been a bay or harbour but was now another bricked-in suburb of the city, as if twentieth-century modernists had colonised a crater on the moon. Hadrian saw dozens of examples of the circular Kerubim-eyes gazing blankly over the cityscape. From his bird's-eye view he could sense a pattern to their placement; invisible lines of force traced a complex design between them. Whenever he and Kybele came close to such a line, he sensed her magic grow shaky and heard a rising hum like radio interference.

  “Okay,” she said, “help me look for Ellis. You know her form, her pattern. If she's in here somewhere, you can show me where to find her.”

  “How?”

  “Concentrate on your memory of her. Build a model of her in your mind. Hold her there for me, and we'll see what we can see.”

  He did as instructed, remembering Ellis as he had last seen her: on the train, her face contorted with horror and grief.

  “Not like that,” Kybele said instantly. “That is an extreme instance, a slice of her life that doesn't tell me anything about who she normally is. We don't know what she's doing or feeling now. We can only guess. If she's here at all, we need the whole of her to find a match.”

  Like performing a conjurer's trick, he thought. “Is this your watch, sir?”

  “Concentrate,” said Kybele, her mental voice cutting smoothly across his own. “Please, we don't have all day.”

  Chastened, he tried again. He thought of Ellis, of the many ways he had known her during their travels together. He pictured her in her travel clothes: simple khaki pants with a red sweater and a bulging backpack slung over her shoulders. In cold weather she wore a knitted hat her grandmother had made for her when she was in high school. Her shoes were well worn, sturdy hiking boots of a brand Hadrian didn't know; that, he assumed, meant that they were expensive. There was evidence of wealth in other items of her clothing, too: a diamond ring she took off her right middle finger when walking through seedy areas, hanging it around her neck on a silver chain instead; a mobile phone, small and flat enough to fit into a wallet, that hadn't once been out of range no matter where they went; an exquisite tattoo on her left shoulder blade that depicted a coat of arms: three crossed swords in front of a ram's skull, with a gold pennant waving beneath them. Perhaps the family had lost its money, or else she was learning to do without it by choice.