The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One

by Sean Williams

  He pictured her, not upset or angry—or sad, as he felt at remembering her—but filled with happier emotions like amusement, curiosity, understanding, even joy. Her chin was broad, making her mouth seem smaller than it actually was. Her smile, when she flashed it, always surprised him: her teeth were so perfectly even and white. Europe had been one big playground for her, and the twins were her playmates. They shared everything: food, transport, bills, beds. They exchanged dreams in the morning and nightmares at night. They drew up complex itineraries that they planned to follow once they'd finished with Europe. Even though, deep down, he had suspected that it wouldn't happen, that they would self-destruct long before then, he had gone along with the game. And why not? That was what holidays were for: to escape from the familiar, from the life left behind.

  “Not too much detail,” warned Kybele. “I don't need—or want—to know everything you did together.”

  He felt himself wince with embarrassment, somewhere outside the illusion. He pared back what he had in his mind to a single image of her lying on a couch in Brussels, her brown hair spilling in a fan across the cushion and her knees up. She was reading a trashy thriller. Her expression was one of blank concentration, all artifice forgotten as she revelled in the story. Her T-shirt had ridden up, exposing the softness of her belly. He could smell her from across the room, a fresh, feminine pungency refusing to be swamped by the harder, sharper smells of the two boys who shared her space. He breathed deeply, wishing he could capture that scent and keep it for later. She had looked up questioningly, and smiled…

  And they were moving. Kybele's representation of the city swept out from under him like a movie's special effect. His breath caught in his throat, and he forced himself to concentrate on Ellis, not the vertigo threatening to overtake him. Buildings swept by, vast angular boxes bereft of details, or loomed up ahead like gravestones in tight-fitting rows, then were gone, flashing by with impossible rapidity. The sky was a featureless black—timeless, starless, oppressive—and Hadrian feared for a moment that it was going to suck the two of them up into its infinite vacuum, where they would be lost forever.

  They changed direction in an instant, without consideration for inertia or acceleration. He pictured them as supersonic angels rocketing across the heavens, following the image of the woman they sought. And still the city kept on coming. It didn't seem reasonable that there could be so much city, even across the entire Earth. Perhaps, he thought, they were going in circles, spiralling in on the object of the search.

  If, in fact, Ellis was even there. He had not forgotten the possibility that she might be dead. It had been in the back of his mind ever since he had awoken in the hospital. He had ignored it on the grounds that this was the safest course of action—at least ignorance gave him an opening for hope—but the fear of knowing, one way or the other, had never truly gone away. It returned now as a cold stab to his guts. He only really wanted to know for certain if it was good news.

  “Something…” Kybele's whisper interrupted his grim musing. He felt her tasting the streets as they rushed by, dipping down with her mind as though with a giant tongue. Through her he sampled brick and glass, metal and plaster. There were no people abroad, but he felt the minds of other creatures roaming the sidewalks and alleys. There was a feral strangeness to their minds that made him hope Ellis wasn't among them. He wondered if that was why he hadn't seen any survivors from outside the city: the new inhabitants were keeping them at bay while Yod's plan unfolded.

  “Yes, definitely something…” Their pace slowed, then quickened, then slowed again as Kybele caught faint hints of Ellis's presence. He was also picking them up now: faint snatches of her scent on the fitful breeze; the gleam of her eyes reflected in a wall of mirror-finished windows; musical echoes of her voice along an empty lane. She was definitely nearby, or had been recently.

  A cluster of high-rise buildings called to him. There was something about them, some feature of symmetry or orientation that made them stand out from the rest. Kybele had seen it too, for she turned that way and guided them closer. The buildings were shaped in a square with two roads making an X from corner to corner. Each edge of the square was a thick wall of buildings, jealously guarding the interior from the outside. With irregular rooftops making crenellations against the sky, the arrangement distinctly reminded Hadrian of a castle.

  One skyscraper in particular he recognised: a giant narrow spike with protruding flanks on two sides. He had seen it in pictures of San Francisco and even knew its name: the Transamerica Pyramid. He was struck as always by the stark statement it made: it seemed to hook the sky and draw itself upwards to infinity. On each side of the flanks, two wide circles stared out over the city: the eyes of Yod.

  Kybele took them over the square once, then a second time. The view down on the X was dizzying. There was a circular space at the intersection of the two roads: a roundabout or park dotted with trees. The taste of Ellis became even stronger.

  “I think we've got her,” Kybele said.

  They dropped like stones towards the park. Hadrian tried to contain his excitement, just in case Kybele was wrong, but he was unable to. As they descended, the impression of her became overwhelming, until it seemed like he was falling into her: her smell, the sound of her breathing, the feel of her skin against his…

  The park ballooned in front of him. Seen through Kybele's magic illusion, the world looked very different to the one he was used to. Shapes overlapped in shades of mustard and green, translucent, almost a videogame effect. It took a moment to orient himself as Kybele brought their disembodied points of view to a sudden halt. There were trees, statues, benches—and people.

  One of them was Ellis, glowing like a beacon in the dark-cast world. She was standing in a small group—no more than a dozen, although it was hard to tell precisely how many there were. Their semitransparent bodies blended into one another, confusing him with half-glimpsed skeletons and cords of smoothly flowing muscles. Faces were a nightmare of details, macabre, alien shapes with big eyes and grinning teeth.

  Some of those teeth were sharp.

  “Hadrian, wait,” Kybele warned as he went to move forwards. The spell resisted him and he pushed harder against it. Ellis was twisting too, trying to move, but glassy hands held her still. Her mouth opened and closed; he couldn't hear what she said. She was trapped. He needed to help her. There had to be a way, magical or otherwise.

  A large figure stepped forwards, putting himself between Ellis and Hadrian. Wide, forwards-facing eyes bored into his from a face that looked hauntingly familiar, although he couldn't immediately identify it. A dark shape clung to its transparent skin, sweeping around and around it like a cloak of black smoke, and it, too, had eyes: two slivers of bright, white ice. Hadrian saw a similar effect around one of the people holding Ellis still: a white shape rising thin and predatory over the shoulders and skull of its bearer. It glowered at him with orbs of blood.

  The two black shapes radiated such malignancy that he stopped pushing forwards. For a moment he was caught between the urge to flee and the need to help Ellis.

  The man who had stepped forwards smiled. The blackness spiralled tighter around his broad shoulders. Hadrian heard a low growl, and shuddered. He knew that sound.

  “Don't you hurt her,” he said. “Don't you dare!”

  The spectre he now knew to be Lascowicz laughed. The possessed detective's voice came as though from a long way away.

  “If you want her, come and get her. We will be waiting.”

  The energumen clapped his hands together and the illusion collapsed so suddenly that Hadrian was physically flung away. He landed flat on his back with the sun glaring directly into his eyes.

  A sound ascended from the void, and Hadrian's mind flew with it. Droning, rising and falling as slowly and magnificently as deep-sea swells, it buoyed him ponderously through the emptiness. Weightless he rode its gentle crests and troughs, forgetting who he was and all he had strived for. And when it came to
an end, he wasn't where he expected to be.

  “Hantu! We're here. Stand down, Xol and Seth. Your efforts are no longer required.”

  Disappointment filled Seth as the pilot's song came to an end and his senses returned to normality. His body felt heavy and tired. The air was dense and suffocating, without the song to enliven it; the ship had returned to being a walnut shell floating in a thin scum of lemonade. He already missed the immediacy of his task, the feeling that nothing else mattered: not Hadrian or Ellis or Yod.

  He listlessly stepped away from the base of the staff and looked around. The smooth pipe wall was broken by a line of black circles: eight tunnel mouths, smaller in diameter than the pipe they joined, led up, down, left, and right, and all points in between. The pipe itself ended in a domed cap, studded with strange knobs that resembled elongated rivets or button-capped mushrooms.

  “That wasn't so hard, was it?” asked Xol, clapping Seth on the shoulder.

  “No,” he said with absolute honesty. It hadn't been hard at all. Being swept up in the pilot's will, surrendering control to another, had felt like being physically carried. If only he hadn't been left with the strange sensation of not quite fitting into his body any more…

  “It was easier than I expected,” answered Nehelennia for him. “You're right about this one, Xol. He has a fire in him.”

  “Not a fire, I think, but stone.” The dimane watched him with open appraisal. Light gleamed off the tip of his darting, pointed tongue. “One pole of a magnet.”

  The metaphor made Seth frown. A magnet with only one pole was an incomplete thing. He didn't feel incomplete.

  “Where do we go from here?” he asked. “I presume this is the end of the line.”

  Nehelennia pointed a long, square-nailed finger at the horizontal tunnel leading leftwards. “That way will take you to Abaddon. Its end is guarded by fomore, but it is not protected by other means.” Her hand came down, and her eyes locked on Seth. “There is no point fighting who you are. That is the one battle you will always lose.”

  With that small civility, she turned away and went about the business of tending her ship. Agatha thanked her, but received only a dismissive gesture in response. Seth puzzled over her parting words as he, Xol, and Agatha climbed up to the pilot's station and leapt from the ship to a broad shelf at the base of the side tunnel Nehelennia had indicated.

  I'm Seth Castillo, he told himself. I know exactly who I am.

  Synett seemed torn for a moment, then followed.

  “‘Learn where there is wisdom, where there is strength, where there is understanding,’” Seth heard him say, “‘that you may at the same time discern where there is length of days, and life, where there is light for the eyes, and peace.’”

  As the four of them filed silently into the tunnel mouth, Seth caught one last glimpse of Hantu Penyardin, sitting solidly in the shallow fluid with its tentacles floating flaccid at its sides, and bade it a silent farewell. Nehelennia stood proudly atop its scaffold, her expression mournful, and did not wave—

  —as though she knew he was looking through eyes that did not belong to him.

  “Wh—huh?”

  Hadrian woke to a shaking from the Galloi, who tossed him from side to side as lightly as if he was a doll. Hadrian pushed himself away. His head throbbed with something deeper than pain. The stink of rot was thick in his nostrils.

  His sense of balance reeled as though he'd been sailing on rough seas.

  “You'll be okay,” said Kybele. Through a persistent dazzle in his eyes, he saw her standing by the paint- and thread-daubed statue, her hands on her hips. “Are you back with us now?”

  Hadrian blinked up at her. Back with us? He'd been dreaming about Seth and a giant walnut. Something about lemonade. A wave of genuine sadness, despite the dream's content, momentarily pushed more recent events to the back of his mind.

  They returned in a rush.

  “Ellie—we saw her!” He forced himself onto his hands and knees, then with the Galloi's help he got to his feet, excitement and alarm filling him in equal measure. “They're holding her hostage! We have to get her back!”

  “We will, Hadrian. I promise.”

  “When?”

  “Be patient. This isn't something you can rush blindly into.”

  Hadrian turned away, wanting to strike out but knowing Kybele was right. Tackling Lascowicz head-on was only going to get Ellis killed. That didn't change the fact, though, that she was trapped and he had to do something about it. And soon.

  “You are helping me, aren't you?” he asked.

  “Of course, dear boy. I haven't gone to this much trouble just to abandon you when you need me most. I'm here to protect you from yourself, as much as from anything else. Since I know I won't be able to talk you out of rescuing Ellis—”

  “No way.”

  “—then I really have no choice.” She came around in front of him. Her Mediterranean features radiated amusement and confidence. She looked fazed neither by what they'd discovered nor by the task that lay before them. “We'll do what we can as soon as we can. I have some ideas.”

  Kybele snapped her fingers and the Galloi walked back to the car. She held Hadrian's gaze for a moment longer, then followed the Galloi. Hadrian tilted his head back to stare at the sky, stretching sore muscles and taking a second to wonder how they were going to get Ellis out of the clutches of a killer like Lascowicz. The vision of the false detective with an evil wolf-spirit curling around him was still shockingly vivid in his mind.

  “What if we fail?” he called after Kybele.

  “This is my city,” she said without looking back. “Only a fool would resist me here.”

  “To the east there is a child's story of a giant wolf that hungered for the peaceful realms. To the west women sing songs of mourning for three wise sisters who governed the old world from the heart of the sun. To the south men share cautionary tales about brave stone warriors who once served the queen of the cities. To the north ugly goblins are said to have visited the homes of those in strife or mourning. If legends are the dreams of nations, then these are our nightmares. What grain of truth lies at their hearts, we may never know.”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, EXEGESIS 25:1

  “‘I have set my face against this city for evil and not for good, says the Lord: it shall be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he shall burn it with fire.’”

  Synett's quote required no explanation. Seth, too, had felt compelled to make some sort of statement since arriving in Abaddon. The city was as large and filthy as any in the First Realm, and seeing it Seth realised just how protected he had been to date. If this was what Yod had made of the Second Realm, he could understand Nehelennia's and Agatha's fear of what Yod might do if given power over two realms. Bethel, weird and crowded though it had been, was a country village in comparison.

  Oil-slick shadows slid over every surface like thunderclouds in a grey sky. Long, black roots coiled through the walls, literally holding the city together. Bulbous, branching structures reached for the light of Sheol, crowding what little exposed space there was above head-height; their bases narrowed to tapered points and balanced, precariously, on the scarred and blackened surface of the realm beneath. Holes opened in that surface, either to admit waste or emit foul yellow clouds that never quite dispersed, and Seth watched his footing closely to ensure he didn't slip into one. Where the yellow clouds met, they joined and spiralled up through the interlinked towers to the sky. There, violent weather awaited them. Instead of clouds, the sky above Abaddon attracted vast blurs and stains that swirled and mingled like petrol in water. Tortured hurricanes snaked down in swirling whips, then retreated with deafening booms. Larger, more stable storms—which Xol called “’twixters”—clustered around the larger towers and rotated with grisly splendour through the sky.

  Strangest of all, though, was what lay at the heart of the city. Visible despite the vast numbers of tapering charcoal towers that clustered around it, was a wid
e-based ziggurat thrusting out of the ground with gross architectural bluntness. In the real world, it would have been more than several Olympic swimming pools across and twice again as high. Its angles were severe, and its surface was a deep matte black. The oppressive edifice was clearly the focus of the city. A deep rolling rumble came from it that made his toes and belly tingle. It was big and vile and dominated the skyline from every angle.

  “Is that where Yod lives?” he asked, fighting the pall of gloom it cast over the city.

  “Lives?” Agatha shot back without the slightest trace of humour. “That is Yod.”

  He looked back at the ziggurat, then to Xol, who nodded.

  Seth could say nothing for a long while. His enemy was stranger and more terrifying than he could have imagined.

  “How do we kill it?” he asked Xol during a brief period when the vast edifice was out of sight.

  “I don't know,” admitted the dimane. “Yod hungers, so perhaps it can starve.”

  “Is that the best you've come up with in all these centuries?”

  Agatha looked pained. “It is alien, remember. Its nature is hidden from us. We do what we can.”

  “The realm is in even bigger trouble than I thought.”

  She didn't argue the point.

  They continued along tightly confined paths through districts Seth assumed were slums. Creatures of all shapes and sizes gathered in them, some squabbling over scraps of translucent refuse that peeled from the bases of the towers, others prowling in outlandish gangs with forbidding attitudes. A few accosted strangers in incomprehensible tongues. A bare minority did nothing at all, except—or so it seemed to Seth—to imitate Barbelo's state of transcendent immobility.