The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One

by Sean Williams

  He put as much conviction as he could into his words, although every instinct warred against them.

  “Definitions, huh?” She lowered herself minutely, so her body was brushing against him. He strained upwards, and she pulled away. “I don't see the point in splitting hairs at a time like this. Do you?”

  He shook his head, wanting her, needing her despite this strange new tack. He didn't know where it was going, but his anticipation was mounting.

  She laughed low in her throat. “I've had you in the palm of my hand ever since we met.” As if to prove her point, cold fingers encircled him, raised him into position. “You might not want to admit it, but you'd do just about anything for me right now.”

  He was rigid under her, trembling. He could feel her sliding against him. She was cool and moist, rocking gently back and forth. Although he was too caught up in the sensation even to nod, inside he was screaming: yes, yes, yes!

  “And unless you cough up something new about Kybele in the next thirty seconds, I'll finally take my fill.”

  She plunged down onto him, and he gasped at the bitterness of her. Instead of warm, enfolding flesh, she was like the inside of a fridge. His mouth opened in an O of surprise and shock. He tried to pull away, but the hand that had guided him into her was suddenly at his throat, forcing him down.

  “Stay still,” she whispered. “Or talk. It's your choice.”

  He flailed helplessly, pinned beneath her. The voice belonged to Ellis, but it was no longer her speaking. It was something else, something inside her. The realisation that he had been tricked yet again made him feel colder than her insides, even as her legs wrapped around his thighs and he failed to buck her off. She pressed herself around him and made a moaning sound like a territorial cat. It grew louder as he fought her, tearing at her. Her bloodstained shirt came away, exposing a knife wound to her chest that leaked old brown blood.

  He managed a raw, anguished scream. His mind couldn't form the words to say that he didn't know anything about Kybele. It all seemed desperately unimportant at that moment. The iciness of her was spreading over him. He could no longer feel his hips. She, on the other hand, was growing warmer, and her back arched as she sucked the life from him. Her moan threatened to become a joyous wail. He remembered the bloodless Bes lying in the hallway outside the safe in which he'd woken, and the words she had used on finding it: Looks like it made a tasty snack. She would know, and he was just the latest morsel.

  He reached for her mouth, her eyes, and she snarled, “Stop that. It won't make any difference.” She reached under the mattress and produced the same knife Bechard had held to her throat in the rotunda. She leaned back so she was still impaled upon him, but loomed over him, her face out of reach. The tip of the blade flashed down at his left nipple before he could try to roll her over. It stopped just short of his skin.

  “If you don't behave, I'll stab you through the heart,” she said. “Although I'd be pleased to keep it beating a little longer, stopping it won't ruin my fulfilment. Your blood will be warm whether it moves of its own volition or not. Like hers was, for a while.”

  He bucked, sobbing, and she slit his nipple in two. The pain was sharp, blinding. It had an oddly anaesthetising effect, giving him something immediate to worry about rather than the thought of what was happening to the rest of him.

  It made him hate. She wasn't Ellis. She wasn't Kybele, either, but he hated the thing inside Ellis's body for betraying him just as much as if she had been.

  He froze, trying in vain to feel his fingers.

  “Good boy. Now, where were we?”

  She closed her eyes, and he felt himself ebb into her. His life was draining away: the cold was spreading. He tried to reach out, knowing that if he was to have any chance of surviving, he had to move now—but his arms lay limp on the bed. He had left his charge too late. His sight was going grainy. Even the fear was beginning to fade.

  I am the weak one, he thought. Just like Seth always said.

  The creature inside Ellis's body bent down to lick the blood from his left breast, and in doing so moved Hadrian's right hand just enough. His fingers touched cool metal.

  We fight! said Utu, and suddenly the staff was in his hand and swinging upwards. It carved a silver streak through the air, as bright as a meteorite in a black sky. He didn't see where it hit, it moved so fast, but hot moisture splattered across his face and chest, leaving him in no doubt that it had hit. She screamed and he tried to pull out from under her. Utu wouldn't let him go. It swung again, and again, and finally the weight on his hips fell away.

  Utu dropped onto the bed, inert. Hadrian sobbed helplessly on his back, utterly drained. What strength she hadn't taken, the staff had used up. Ellis's body lay on its side, facing away from him. Dark blood seemed to cover everything. If she woke now and killed him, he would be glad.

  He was having trouble breathing. His eyes crossed and uncrossed with the effort of looking, but eventually he managed to focus. The handle of the knife protruded from his left breast—and he knew then that she might as well have drained him dry. She had killed him anyway. It was all over. He had lost everything.

  There was no pain, only the ignorant striving of his body for breath. He wished he could switch it off and be done with it. There was no point.

  A bubble of blood burst from his gasping lips.

  Everything went black.

  The hum shrugged him out of himself and carried him off into the darkness. It was calm and peaceful there. The pain was a long way away. He seemed to be floating, like a speck of pollen among the branches of a giant tree. He could have drifted forever were it not for the voices.

  “I don't want to talk about it.”

  “But, El—”

  “I don't trust you, Seth. And why should I, when you've been part of this all along, ever since you were born? I know you didn't know either, but that doesn't change a thing. What else don't you know? How else am I going to be hurt? I've already died once because of you. I've been murdered. Can you blame me for wanting to keep my distance?”

  “Will you at least tell me how you got here, after you died?”

  “I came out in the wrong spot, falling, and Shathra tried to take me down with him. The Ogdoad wouldn't let him through, so we had to come back up here. What more do you want to know?”

  “But—”

  “Don't, Seth. Not now. You were the last person I expected to see. Let me get over that shock before you give me another.”

  Seth fell back, fuming. He could see her point; he just couldn't accept it. After all they'd been through together, turning their backs on each other seemed wrong.

  He couldn't force her to talk to him; trying would only make it worse. He would have to be patient, in the hope that once they got to the Sisters everything would be sorted out. Or until her veil literally parted. Whatever she was hiding under the layers of fine, black fabric, he would have to wait until she chose to declare it.

  That plan might have been enough, had not Horva's prediction that the Cataclysm wouldn't be undone still rung in his mind.

  “Careful along here,” said Shathra. The monk indicated a stretch of narrow scaffolding that led along the spine of the skyship. There was a handhold overhead—a rail fixed to the metal surface—but that was the only precaution taken to make the way any easier. Horva went first, walking briskly across the five-metre gap with her hands moving out of time with her steps. Ellis went next, taking the crossing more slowly but just as surely, not missing a beat. Her all-black veil whipped back and forth, flaglike, in her wake. One of the monkey crew scampered over after her, not bothering with the handhold. Then it was Seth's turn.

  He didn't look down any more than he absolutely had to. Far below, another pod of the giant mantas flew in two distinct formations around each other, as though playing a game. They were tiny in the distance, and the surface of the Second Realm was even further away. He didn't need the reminder of how far he would fall if he slipped.

  Halfw
ay across, he stopped dead, struck by a sudden disorientation.

  “Seth, what is it? Are you all right?”

  Horva's voice barely registered. He was overwhelmed by a series of horrific images: a knife sticking out of his chest; Ellis's bloodied body; a snake coiling and uncoiling around his throat while a wolf grinned savagely from afar.

  This is what's happening to Seth, Hadrian told himself in amazement as the dream folded and bent, curling about itself like a serpent eating its own tail. This is real.

  But how could he accept it when his brother looked the way he did?

  My brother's a monster, he whispered to himself.

  He supposed he'd always known that.

  Something was tugging at him. He resisted it, resenting the intrusion. He wanted to stay with Seth. There was pain in his old life. There were things far worse than monsters. He was—

  “—incomplete, you idiot. Don't you see? You can't die yet. You have work to do!”

  Sense returned to Hadrian's body in a violent rush. The voice was harsh, insistent, familiar. His muscles were burning. His chest was full to bursting with something that wasn't air.

  He vomited blood. Small but strong hands kept him down, stopped him from moving too much. A narrow, ugly face appeared before him.

  “Be still. It's enough that you're back. I can do the rest.”

  The hands moved from his chest to the knife sticking out of it. The misshapen little man on the other end of the hands muttered to himself. Searing pain spread from the wound to Hadrian's spine and from there all through his body. He felt as though his nerves had been doused in acid. He wanted to scream but could do little more than utter a weak, despairing cry.

  With a wrench the knife came out. He felt instantly much worse.

  “Charms can only do so much, my boy. I have to stop the bleeding. Can you give me something to plug the wound?”

  “B—bandages,” he tried to say, but the word barely emerged from his lips.

  “Not that sort of plug. One of significance is what I require, if you know what I mean. Can you think of nothing that might be suitable?”

  He wanted to complain that it was too much to ask. He was barely there at all, let alone capable of advanced thought. Blood pulsed out of the wound in his left breast in a thick stream. An ordinary person would have been dead long ago.

  But he wasn't an ordinary person. He was a mirror twin. Irrespective of magic, the Cataclysm, Yod, Lascowicz—any of that—he still lived by virtue of the fact that his heart wasn't where it should be. It was on the right side of his chest. The knife had therefore ended up puncturing his lung instead of stopping his life cold.

  One of significance…

  “Pocket,” he breathed.

  “Eh? Speak up.”

  “In my…” He waved feebly with his right hand at where his pants lay under the body beside him.

  The little man scrabbled for a moment. “Ah, yes. Beautiful. Is this what I think it is?”

  He held up Seth's bone in one hand as one would a gem.

  Hadrian nodded.

  “Good. Now hold still. This is a tricky operation, and I'm afraid it's going to hurt like damnation.”

  Hadrian closed his eyes as the little man straddled his chest. He was beyond caring what further indignities he suffered, but he did care about the pain. His body felt overloaded in every respect. How much more could it suffer? His heart was hammering out of time like a drummer on speed. He half-expected it to stop at any moment.

  But his mind was still working, refusing to let go. He smelt mildew, the bottoms of drawers that hadn't been opened in a long time.

  “Pukje,” he said. “You're Pukje.”

  “Got it in one, boy.”

  “You said—”

  “I said keep still.” The ugly little man drew lines in the blood on his chest, creating patterns where there had previously only been gore. A strange thrill travelled through Hadrian, rushing from his head to his feet. He began to feel almost good.

  Then Pukje hammered Seth's bone into the hole in his chest, and the world exploded into pain.

  Seth came back to himself at the feel of Shathra's hand on his shoulder. The Immortal steadied him while at the same time keeping one hand firmly on the rail above.

  “Easy, Seth. Take a deep breath and you'll be all right. There's no hurry.”

  “It's not the height,” he protested. “And besides, there's no air here, really.”

  “The mind remembers breathing just as it remembers falling. You might as well use one against the other.”

  Seth looked into the Immortal's cool jade green eyes, and nodded. The sure knowledge of what was going to happen to Horva and him in their near future reminded him that he wasn't the only one with problems. He had to pull himself together before he took someone else down with him.

  The hand at his shoulder vanished as the Immortal's timeline adjusted. It reappeared before him, offering to help him across the rest of the distance. He ignored it and made it on his own.

  “It was Hadrian,” he said when he reached the relative safety of the far side. They were still suspended like monkeys in the scaffolding of the skyship, but at least there was more between them and open air than a thin plank. “I'm getting glimpses of the First Realm through his eyes.”

  “Is he okay?” asked Ellis. He couldn't see her expression, but he heard her concern.

  “Yes,” he said, unable to keep the despair from his voice, “I think so.”

  There was no way he was going to tell Ellis about catching a glimpse of her mutilated body, lying next to Hadrian. He could barely bring himself to think of it.

  “The realms draw inexorably together,” said Horva, taking Shathra's hand and holding it tight. “The connection between you and your brother grows stronger as a result.”

  “So why don't we get moving?” he asked. “Why are we stuffing around here when we should be on our way to the Sisters and fixing things once and for all?”

  The harshness of his response surprised even him.

  “Grow up,” said Ellis. “If it was as easy as that, we'd be there right now, and none of us would have to put up with—”

  “Let's not argue,” interrupted Shathra. “The king is moving the ship as quickly as possible. When we arrive at the next juncture, we will all be free to leave. In the meantime, we occupy ourselves as best we can. There is a lot to be said for motion as an alternative to ruminating on what we've thought too much about already.”

  The two Immortals avoided each other's stare, and Seth didn't look at Ellis. He couldn't see her face, but he knew her well enough to be able to read her body language.

  “Lead on, then,” she said. “Play tour guide for us if it makes you feel better.”

  “Thank you.” The Immortal bowed, immune to her disdain. “If you follow me and look down to your right, you'll see where the crew sleeps. They're awake now because we're moving, but during quiet times this area is usually full. The king and the pilot sleep with the others. They don't have separate quarters as humans would on a First Realm vessel.”

  Seth looked obediently down at a series of hammocks. Narrow and uncomfortable looking, they had no provisions for privacy. He wondered where the crew bathed and toileted, and was about to ask when he remembered that this was the Second Realm: few of the old rules applied.

  They had been following the central screw back to the rear of the ship. It turned ponderously beneath them, an improbably long cylinder two metres in diameter that looked as though it was made of solid iron. It rotated once every second, and Seth had yet to see what its purpose was or how it was powered. He assumed it drove some sort of propeller at the rear or fore of the ship—or perhaps both—although he had seen no evidence of such from the outside.

  Dotted here and there throughout the scaffolding were Holy Immortals, bathing the skyship's interior in their light. It took Seth a while to realise that, without that light, the giant space would have been in permanent shadow. Few places in the Seco
nd Realm could boast that, with Sheol constantly overhead, and he presumed it was deliberate. There was no sign, though, that the crew minded the illuminated visitors in their midst.

  Seth wondered if the pun on “illumination” was deliberate.

  They traversed the entire length of the skyship's roof, coming at last to the enormous tail. The fins were hollow but inhabited. They appeared to be full of water. Seth saw dots moving in the water: living things, perhaps, like krill but much smaller. The air smelled of metal.

  “This is it,” guessed Seth, unable, distracted though he was, to ignore the flow of will around him. “This is what makes the ship fly.”

  “No,” said Horva, who had been on his left a moment ago but was now on his right. “This is the thing that stops it from falling.”

  “Same thing, isn't it?”

  “Not in the Second Realm. For something to fall, it must be willed to fall. It won't just fall on its own. The skyship simply removes that will.”

  “Whose will?”

  “Sheol's. Just as the devels in the underworld draw newfound souls towards them, creating a gentle semblance of gravity, so does Sheol use will to keep people away. It is this force that orients us inwards in the Second Realm, gives us a sense of up and down. It is this force that must be overcome in order to fly.”

  “Okay.” Seth accepted another assumption overturned. “That sounds crazy but consistent.”

  “In practice it's actually not that simple,” said Shathra, picking up the explanation. “The skyship employs the power of a captured ekhi to repel Sheol's will. You've seen these creatures, no doubt; they orbit Sheol and will lure anyone who comes too close to their deaths.”

  Seth nodded.

  “Well, this particular ekhi is attached to the skyship at either end. It lies stretched flat across the roof over our heads, so it faces permanently towards Sheol. The axle—which the crew call the Goad—keeps it in a constant state of tension, making it easier to control. The creatures swimming here are its food supply. Its diet is sufficiently rich to keep it alive but too weak to lure any of the crew to disaster—although it's said that all who come here have difficulty leaving. The ekhi's yearning to reach Sheol is the thing that ultimately keeps the skyship afloat.”