The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One

by Sean Williams

  “This is a disturbance of the realm,” said the kaia leading him.

  “What sort of disturbance?”

  No answer. When it had eased, the rough-skinned, grey creature simply resumed walking.

  Seth hesitated, then followed. He hoped he would find an answer at the end of the stairwell, where Agatha and Xol were waiting. He presumed he was being taken to a lookout of some kind—perhaps something as simple as a slot cut in the roof that would allow them to see the city outside.

  When they reached the top of the stairs, he found himself in a low, domed room that was barely high enough for him to stand. There was no slot, not even a peephole. It looked like nothing so much as an awkwardly shaped attic, fit for storing junk.

  It was dark but not empty.

  “Seth?” asked Agatha. “Is that you?”

  “It's me.”

  “One moment,” said the kaia. “We are recalibrating the instrument.”

  What instrument? Seth was about to ask when a patch of bright light appeared directly above his head, blinding him. He ducked and edged away. Dimly he saw the kaia point, and the patch of light—a circle as large as a manhole cover—swung down to eye level. The light faded from bright white to a more tolerable blue-purple. Seth's eyes adjusted, and he realised that he was looking out at the world beyond the kaia's hideout. Through the hole he could see over the tops of Abaddon's tortured spires to the blurred and distant landscape on the upwards curve of the Second Realm.

  “Aren't we taking a bit of a risk?” he said. “If someone sees us looking out—”

  “We are not exposing ourselves,” said the kaia. “The instrument is entirely self-contained.”

  “Do you know what a camera obscura is?” asked Xol, standing beside Agatha on the far side of the room. Agatha, now fully recovered, was as crisp and clear as a high-resolution snapshot.

  Seth nodded, although his understanding was vague. He had read about such things at university then promptly forgotten them. “Sort of like a telescope, except the image is projected onto a screen.”

  “This is similar.” The kaia pointed at the circle and, by simply moving its hand, swung the view around to the far side of the dome. “The view is narrow but sufficient.”

  Seth concentrated on what he was seeing rather than how he was seeing it. The image was perfectly clear. There was no pixellation as with television or computer monitors and its light didn't cast a shadow.

  A new disturbance rolled through him. He leaned against the dome for balance.

  “I see it,” he said, studying the image. “It's like a wave spreading out from Abaddon. A ripple.”

  “The Second Realm draws nearer to the First,” said the kaia, “and vice versa. Bardo and the underworld are distorting. The pressure is becoming acute.”

  Seth tried to imagine it, first as two balloons—a red one and a blue one—pressing against each other, with Bardo and the underworld squeezed between them. Then he tried to wrap the red balloon around the blue, while simultaneously wrapping the blue around the red. The image disintegrated, as surely the balloons would have in real life. The contortions were too great. No wonder the realm was straining.

  Agatha was a thin-lipped and anxious witness to the stress her realm was under.

  “How do we move the image?” he asked.

  “By willing it to move,” was the answer.

  He should have guessed. Experimentally, he pointed at the circle and tried to drag it across the dome. It obeyed without any resistance. The view swept across the sky, taking in a large black patch that might have been the ice desert Synett had described. There were dots that looked like cities, and long, straight lines that he guessed were roads or canals.

  “Can we zoom in?”

  “No. The image is as you see it.”

  He followed a series of irregular triangles as they swept in an arc around a giant, conical mountain capped with snow—or the detritus of the clouds he had seen in Synett's vision. A thick swathe of green overtook it, then that, too, disintegrated into scattered streaks and patches. Forest? Jungle? There was no obvious way of telling. Landscapes overlapped with few definite edges, not confined to continents and islands as they were on Earth. The surface of the Second Realm was like a canvas on which godlike painters had gone mad for millennia, splatting their wild ideas across each other's work, creating a work of art of incredible complexity.

  It occurred to him only then that the Second Realm had no obvious poles. With Sheol shining equally across its entire surface, there would be no seasons, no night. Ice or deserts occurred for reasons other than weather patterns and rainfall. The creatures who lived here had an even greater impact on the shape of their world than those on Earth.

  And it was beautiful, now that he saw it with his own eyes. The colours were brilliant and incorporated frequencies that had no place in the usual spectrum. The patterns he saw ranged from the intricately fractal to the boldly geometric. Everywhere he looked there were new details to wonder at. What was that cluster of glassy domes on the far face of the world, looking like soap bubbles stuck to the side of a bath? Or those brown plains that rippled up and down as he watched?

  He swung the circle too high and brushed the edge of Sheol. Light burned into his eyes, blinding him again. He cursed and looked away. The afterimage stayed with him, although he had no physical retina. There were shapes hidden in the light: strange symmetries that folded and rotated through impossible angles.

  When his eyes had recovered, Xol and the kaia were studying Abaddon's skyline again.

  “We are scattered across the realm,” said the kaia. “We have seen many of the things of which Barbelo spoke: armies gathering, forces brewing. There is no place for anyone to hide from what is to come.”

  Xol nodded. “Even if Yod is defeated, that is so. There was balance before, an equilibrium of sorts. That has been disturbed. It will take a long time to put it right.”

  Like last time? Seth wanted to ask him, remembering what Synett had said about the repercussions of Cataclysms lasting centuries.

  “Every second we waste,” said Agatha, “the greater the damage. The realm will heal, but at what cost?”

  “This is new,” said the childlike creature, indicating a starkly symmetrical structure squeezed in among the others. A slender pyramid, its surface was as white as Yod was black and gleamed under the supernatural light. The ground around it heaved and shook as though revolted by the intrusion.

  “I recognise it,” said Seth, as amazed by the admission as the others who heard it. “That's the Transamerica Pyramid, a building in San Francisco. What's it doing here?”

  “Someone is turning the Kerubim back on their master,” said Xol, nodding. “It seems that Yod's incursion into the First Realm is not proceeding without a hitch or two.”

  “That's what's causing the disturbance?” Seth asked. He didn't know what a Kerubim was, but he understood the second sentence well enough.

  “Yes.” The kaia swung the view to another quarter of Abaddon. A ’twixter had broken free of its moorings and was causing havoc everywhere it went. The black whirlpool had sucked up large swathes of the city and flung them into the sky. A massive new cloud was forming around it, casting a dark shadow beneath. Lights had sprung up in that shadow: not streetlights, for they had no reason to exist, but long, glowing filaments that sparked where they crossed. They looked more like exotic forms of life than part of the city's infrastructure.

  Lastly, the kaia focussed the camera obscura on Yod itself. The vast black pyramid dominated the city's skyline like a cancer, radiating wrongness in every direction. Waves of energy poured off it in a ghastly halo, staining the very fabric of the realm.

  At sounds from the stairwell, Seth turned to see another kaia ascending with Synett.

  “We've received a message,” said the man urgently, “from Barbelo.”

  “What does she say?” asked Agatha, moving forwards.

  “Anything about Hadrian and Ellis?” asked Seth
just as urgently.

  “Nothing about them,” the man said, brushing the front of his white shirt with bandaged hands. “She has explored our options and has come to a decision. Our best chance of defeating the Nail lies with the Sisters.”

  You're enjoying this, aren't you? Seth thought, disappointment at not hearing anything about Hadrian and Ellis making him bitter. You love the fact that, at this moment, we're all in your power.

  “How does Barbelo propose we summon them?” asked the nearest kaia.

  “We don't. We go to Sheol ourselves.”

  Xol nodded, eyes downcast, as though given a death sentence. Agatha's expression was even grimmer than usual. Seth remembered Barbelo saying that they would only go to the Sisters as a last resort.

  “‘Sheol,’” quoted Synett, “‘the barren womb, the earth never thirsty for water, and the fire that never says, “Enough.”’”

  “I did suspect it might come to this,” Agatha said. “It's too dangerous to stay here. Yod will find us sooner rather than later. We must move inwards. Perhaps that will be unexpected. I don't know.”

  “How will we get there?” asked Seth, wondering if they were supposed to travel by balloon from the surface of the Second Realm to Sheol far above, or on the backs of giant spirit-birds…

  “There are several ways,” said Synett, “but just one that is open to us from here.”

  “The Path of Life,” said Agatha.

  Synett nodded. “It's a risky course.”

  “It is all risky,” said Agatha, “and we must risk all in order to succeed.”

  “Do you know the route?”

  “Parts of it, although I have never traversed it myself.”

  “Why is it risky, exactly?” broke in Seth. “I'd like to know more about where we're going, given it's my life you're gambling with.”

  “And ours,” said Xol softly.

  “And ours,” said the second kaia. “We will guide you to the end of your quest. We know the way.”

  “The Path of Life is the route followed by the Holy Immortals,” Agatha explained. “The Immortals travel in the opposite direction to humans through the three realms. The path they follow is a dangerous one, although they themselves are not likely to forbid us from using it. The things we'll encounter along it are what we must worry about.” She sighed, and looked wearily down at her feet. She seemed uncertain for the first time since Seth had met her. That, more than anything, unsettled him. “The Path of Life runs through Tatenen. The Eight will judge and test us before they allow us by. If they allow us by.”

  “And who are the Eight?”

  “They are among the Fundamental Forces, the old ones who predate the realms. It's said that they fought in the war between Ymir and his shadow, but which side they fought on is not known. Although their power is severely curtailed of late, I fear that we will not all pass their test.”

  “Only one of us needs to pass,” said Xol, looking at Seth.

  The stare made him feel uncomfortable. “There's no point in me going to Sheol if I don't know why I'm there. You said that only the Sisters could send me back to the First Realm. Is that what we're going to ask them to do?”

  “That's one possibility,” Agatha confirmed.

  “But they didn't do that for Xol's brother,” he said. “What if they screw me around, too?”

  Xol stared at him, and for once he found the dimane's broad fanged face utterly inhuman. Whatever empathic channel had been open between them had slammed shut. Suddenly, he was staring at a shark—a shark he couldn't read at all.

  “You know nothing about what happened to my brother.” There was a dangerous edge to Xol's voice that hadn't been there before. His dagger-sharp crest was rising in challenge. “Perhaps you think otherwise. You shouldn't believe everything you hear.”

  “I have no choice when you won't tell me anything,” Seth said, feeling embarrassed and defensive.

  “I hoped not to have to.”

  “And what? Spare me the agony of knowing what might happen to me?”

  “Not for that reason. I am—shamed by my past.” Some of Xol's humanity returned. He, too, looked tired, but there was a sympathetic edge to it. “All right, Seth, I will tell you. I have to. You need to know if the Sisters are truly our only hope.”

  “Good.” Seth let some of the tension drain out of him. “Thank you.”

  “But not now,” said Agatha, glancing at the two of them in concern. “The longer we wait here, the more chance there is that egrigor will find us. Now we know where we have to go, we must make haste.”

  “We are ready,” said the first kaia. “Seven of us will travel with you.”

  “Barbelo asked me to go as well,” said Synett. “I'd be just as happy not to, though, to be honest.”

  “You'll go if that's what she wants you to do.”

  Agatha was firm on that, although Seth would have gladly left the man behind. He was gratified by the grimace her decision provoked.

  “‘A prudent man sees danger and hides himself; but the simple go on, and suffer for it.’”

  “There'll be no hiding from what's to come, if we fail,” said Xol, exhibiting a very human look of irritation.

  Synett smiled, his point apparently made.

  “Does an ant comprehend a war between humans taking place over its nest?

  Does a crow question its good fortune as it feasts on the flesh of the dead?”

  THE BOOK OF TOWERS, FRAGMENT 189

  Hadrian and the others emerged from the tunnel into another subterranean parking lot. This one was seven floors deep and wide enough to hold hundreds of cars, its ceiling low and vaulted in heavy concrete like a tomb. The sedans and SVUs resembled gleaming sarcophagi placed neatly in rows, regularly polished by some macabre undertaker. They seemed to be resting, biding their time for the opportunity to swarm—driverless, empty windscreens as blank as a madman's stare—out of their parks and into the eerie streets.

  Kybele navigated unerringly, swinging her massive vehicle easily up winding ramps. She extinguished the lights as she approached the final floor. A faint spray of starlight wound its way down from above, painting every surface it touched translucent silver. There was no sign of water; clearly the storm hadn't reached this far.

  Kybele pulled the car into an empty parking space tucked unobtrusively under a ramp, and stilled the engine. As its reassuring rumble died away, a new sound took its place: wind moaning in the distance, transmitted to them through the bare concrete spaces. It made the skin on the back of his neck prickle.

  “What is that?”

  “That's what we've come to find out.” Kybele climbed out, and the others followed. Hadrian grabbed Utu and did the same. “We're very close to where we saw Ellis,” she explained. “Keep low, and try not to draw attention to yourself.”

  Hadrian stared up at the giant bull-man. Gurzil stood a full hand taller than Hadrian, even though he was stooped like a hunchback, with his horned head thrust forwards from his ridged, muscular back. His nostrils were flared, and Hadrian did his best not to stare at what hung between his legs.

  Gurzil grunted acknowledgment. “Maybe we'll meet some Feie along the way.”

  “They'll be behind us,” Kybele said, “so don't drag your heels. I don't want any fighting until I say so. Then there will be plenty for all.”

  In a line, with Hadrian behind Kybele, and Gurzil and the Galloi bringing up the rear, they walked quietly up the ramp. The moaning sound grew louder as they approached the exit of the parking lot. The boom that had normally separated the street from the interior was bent back like a paperclip, and the attendant's station looked as though an elephant had broadsided it.

  The street outside was deserted. Ribbons of reflected white light flickered across shards of broken glass and chrome fenders. The source of the light was not immediately visible, and Kybele approached the open space cautiously, waving the others back. She peered around the edge of the entrance, and studied what she saw for some time. Then she
called them to her, and they silently approached.

  Hadrian peered around the brick corner at an amazing sight. The white spike of the Transamerica Pyramid was wreathed in coils of living gas—enormous wisps of white steam that wound themselves in knots from its half-kilometre-high tip to its crosshatched base. They moved like Chinese dragons in rut, tangling and untangling almost playfully and emitting the moaning noise that was setting his teeth on edge. While the storm hadn't broken on this side of the city, its forces were certainly massing: vast thunderheads converged over the top of the skyscraper, bunching up in a lumpy column that shed giant sparks into its strange dragonlike companions. Thunder rolled low and ominously, more felt than heard; the sluggish peals overlapped each other and their echoes, resulting in a steadily rising subsonic symphony. Strange discharges lit the tower's four faces from within, as though its lights were being switched on and off. Although they watched from several blocks away, it seemed to Hadrian that there were shapes in some of the windows, looking out over the city and only ducking away when the lights came on behind them.

  On the shoulders of the giant structure, the eyes of the Kerubim burned a bloody, baleful red.

  “The fool,” Kybele breathed beside him, her voice barely audible over the moaning of the steam-dragons and the rumble of thunder. “He's attacking the Kerubim!”

  “Who is?” he whispered back. “Lascowicz?”

  She ignored him. “I don't like this,” she said. “If the eyes fall, they'll kill everything for blocks around them—including us, if we're still here.”

  “It'd take a lot of grunt,” Gurzil said.

  “I know, and you'd need a bloody good reason to try.”

  “But what good will it do him?” Hadrian asked, still unsure who “he” was. Lascowicz attacking a Kerubim would be like one regiment of an army attacking another. “There are plenty more where this one came from.”

  “They contain a lot of energy,” Kybele said, her eyes fixed on the pyrotechnics unfolding before them. “Unleash it the right way, and you can control it. Or try to.”