“Jesus.”
The body twitched at the sound of his voice. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out of it except thick, black blood.
“Hurting the body doesn't kill the thing inside it, although it can slow it down for a while.” Pukje clung to his shoulders like a child and whispered in his ear. “You have to kill it magically.”
“How?”
“See if you can work that out. You're in a better position to do that than you've been told. No one's wanted you to know what you're capable of, just in case you turned on them.”
Hadrian twisted his neck in a vain attempt to look at the imp on his back. “Are you sure that's not what you really want from me? To turn on your enemies?”
“If I did, I wouldn't be encouraging you to leave the city. Would I?”
Hadrian accepted that, although inside he didn't feel powerful. He felt hollow and bruised. Too many betrayals in a short time had left him cynically sure that Pukje would betray him, yet at the same time he felt inured to the possibility. He would deal with it when, or if, it happened. He was getting plenty of practice at doing that.
Of more immediate importance was the draci. He had to face it. He couldn't bear the thought of leaving it behind in Ellis's body. It was a foul violation, and he wanted to erase it from the face of the First Realm.
Looking at the body in better light—or perhaps with hindsight and a willingness to open his eyes to the truth—he could see the thing coiled within it, wrapped up like a snake in a burrow. It wasn't something physical—there were no special-effect bulges in Ellis's throat or stomach—but it was there all the same, like a foul smell in the air, or poison dissolved in water. At Pukje's encouragement, his sight was unfettered.
The draci was a creature of constant motion, curling and uncurling with relentless determination. If it could find a way out, it would leave immediately and find something else to inhabit. Whatever he did, he couldn't let that happen. He couldn't let it remain free to kill again.
A dulcet evil, ill and blind…
The image of a snake in a burrow returned, although he knew it couldn't be literally true. Ellis's body had felt perfectly normal in his arms, apart from being too hot at first then cooling as the draci's energy ran low. There had been no suggestion that something metaphysical lurked inside it. The snake image therefore was purely metaphorical. Could he use that metaphor against what it was trying to describe, he wondered? If he treated the draci like a snake, maybe it would respond as a snake would respond.
Snakes were cold-blooded. They couldn't regulate their temperature.
Taking the metaphor to its absolute limit, he stepped forwards and, with his thumb, drew three lines on the body's stomach (not Ellis's stomach, he told himself firmly), making a star. With his index finger, he drew another star, overlapping the first, and another. Not sure exactly where to go from there, he simply expanded outwards using both index fingers, building on the six-pointed symmetry as best he could. He kept expanding until his fingers grew numb with cold and his breath frosted in the air.
“A snowflake,” whispered Pukje. “Very good. Did you know that, with a triangle around it, the first symbol you drew once meant ‘extreme heat’?”
He shook his head, too busy concentrating to have a conversation. He couldn't see the lines he was drawing on Ellis's debased body; there was too much blood. But he could feel them. With every addition, the creature grew more sluggish, more crippled by frost. Real or imagined, actual or metaphorical—it didn't matter either way. It was having the required effect.
He kept drawing even when the draci stopped moving, just in case it was faking or merely quiescent. His elaborate hexagonal motif stretched from her throat to her hips, and looped down both her sides. When he sensed the creature slipping away, decrepitating into nothingness, he broke symmetry to touch Ellis's lips and her eyes in one last farewell.
He stepped back and wiped frozen tears from his cheek. The taste in his mouth was bitter.
I did that.
“Nicely done,” Pukje said. “Your intuition is acute and your will strong.”
“Spare me the compliments. Just tell me which way to run.”
“Out the door would be the first step, my boy. Out the door, and quickly.”
He didn't look back. A wind was rising when he hit the outside, throwing dust and light debris into the air. The night was deep and starless. He felt as though there might never be a dawn again.
Left, an instinct told him, so he went that way before Pukje could tell him to.
The night grew darker. Behind them the wind made a sound like a rising howl.
While they waited for the skyship to reach the next juncture, Seth found himself at a frustratingly loose end. Ellis was avoiding him, and so was Xol. All attempts to communicate with either of them were gently but firmly rebuffed. Agatha was in an attitude of prayer, still recovering her strength, and the kaia just stared blankly at him. Horva and Shathra were busy with the other Immortals, rushing about like bees preparing for a mating flight.
He asked for permission from the king to explore, intending to find someone who would talk to him. Once he was away from the others, he headed for the upper levels of the scaffolding, seeking out the crew member who had greeted him on his arrival at the skyship. She had no distinguishing features that he could remember, beyond a scent of raspberries. He followed his nose and trusted in his will to find her.
She was rotating a handle at the base of the skyship, right on the edge of the void. The handle turned a screw that placed pressure on the ship's metal skin, deforming it. A line of crewmen performed similar tasks along the ship's starboard side, relaying instructions to and from the pilot by calling to each other in a strange hooting code. Wind swirled around them, brisk in the wake of the skyship's leading edge. Turbulent gusts encouraged Seth to hang on tight as he came up behind her.
“I want to ask you something,” he said. One of the kaia followed him, dogging him to make sure he didn't fall. It maintained a discreet distance once he made it clear he needed some privacy. “Something the others won't know the answer to, and might not tell me even if they did.”
She didn't look up from her work but her posture wasn't unwelcoming. “Feel free, Seth. I'll answer if I can.”
“You might not know either.” He hesitated. “I feel awkward coming here at all, and worse for not knowing your name. Everyone seems to know who I am…”
“My name is Simapesiel,” she said over her shoulder. “What do you wish to ask me?”
“It's about Shathra and Horva.”
She turned then. “You want to know what happens to them, and why.”
Her eyes were a startling shade of blue. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because—” It was hard to explain. He didn't know where to start. He simply remembered Shathra's words on leaving Horva: We're nothing more than puppets, dancing at the Sisters’ whim. Those words bothered him, made him even more nervous of where he was heading than before.
Does he know who he is?
“It's about destiny,” she said. “You're grappling with the notion that you might not have free will, that all has been determined in advance, as it appears to have been for Shathra and Horva, and that nothing you can do will change your own fate.”
He nodded. She had come as close to summing up his feelings as he was ever likely to get. What has been done cannot be so easily undone, Horva had said. There had to be a way around that.
“Shathra left Horva,” he said. “I know that. I saw it happen. Now it's in their future, and they don't know about it. Could they avoid it even though I saw it happen? Is there anything we can do to help them?”
Simapesiel looked sympathetic. “All who serve with the handsome king grapple with this question. The Immortals are regular guests here. Their lives are intricately tangled with our own. Trying to unravel those tangles has led some to madness. It's a path not lightly trodden.”
“You must have an opinion on the s
ubject,” he pressed. “There must be an answer.”
“Some answers aren't simple, Seth. We are limited beings, and the universe is boundless in its complexity. Maybe the deii understand these matters; maybe they are confounded by mysteries like this at some point in their long lives. I don't know. I'm just a sailor on a ship in the sky. Survival on a day-to-day basis is enough for me.”
“That's the answer, then? We can't know if trying to make a difference will actually make a difference, so we shouldn't try at all?”
“Let me tell you this.” Simapesiel took one of his hands in hers. Her skin was calloused but soft like cured leather. “From your point of view, Ellis and Shathra arrived together; from Shathra's point of view, he left with her. From Ellis's point of view, she fell into the Second Realm and was caught by Shathra; from his point of view, Shathra left Horva here to take Ellis to the point at which she departed the Second Realm. Both routes led via Tatenen and the Ogdoad, who would not let them pass. Both routes were taken by people believing they had free will. Which is right and which is wrong? Perhaps both are right and both are wrong. I cannot say.
“But I do know that we feel as though we make our own choices, even if we wonder that we do not. That is the only freedom we have in this realm. Choices literally change the course of universes. Decide to get up early one morning, and you miss the accident that would have killed you ten minutes later. Befriend the wrong person and he or she might betray you. Our lives are filled with choices, and the question, ‘What if I had chosen differently?’ is perennial. Some say that for every choice between two options, two lives have diverged from each other: one in which the first choice was taken, the other following the second.”
“Parallel universes,” said Seth. “Quantum physics and all that.”
“Perhaps. And perhaps these multiple universes explain why it seems that this universe—the only one that this version of me can see—is altogether unlikely. There has to be one such universe out there somewhere; I just happen to be in it.”
Simapesiel smiled as though enjoying a long-favoured joke.
Seth had a hard time appreciating the humour. He could easily see how trying to untangle such a web of causality might lead someone to mental breakdown, and finding succour in bizarre multidimensional theories wasn't really solving the problem. If he had become so confused after only a few hours, what would it be like to cross paths with the Immortals many times in a long life? How did the king keep track of it all?
“So what happens to Shathra after he meets—met—Ellis?” he asked, determined to find his way to the heart of the problem. “Where does he go from there?”
“He vanishes from our knowledge. Without the grace of the king, he cannot interact with people moving in our direction through time. He is lost to us.”
There was room in Seth for sympathy. He imagined Shathra walking through the realms, able only to look at the worlds around him but never to interact. It would be a lonely, frustrating existence. Unless there were others of his kind following similar routes, perhaps even entire populations of people living backwards through time, invisible to people like Seth. That was a very strange thought.
“What about Horva?” he asked.
“The Holy Immortals have been here for several days,” his ape friend said, bending back to her chore. “Maitreya, their leader, comes through here regularly, too, but didn't come this time. I don't know why; perhaps this is connected to the Cataclysm. Your future is their past, Seth, in whatever universe. What will happen at Sheol has profoundly affected them. They have much to decide before leaving—into our past, their future. They have ways to chart, decisions to make. They do so with the assistance of the king, who is to them a prophet. With his guidance they will begin their trek anew, just as we will do in our future, with their guidance.” She shrugged, indicating her powerlessness in the face of such mysteries. “We balance precariously on the cusp of causality. To either side lies insanity. We strive not to fall. Sometimes I wonder that we do not. Perhaps that we don't is the proof that all things are determined in advance; perhaps it is proof that all things are malleable. I cannot tell the difference.”
He nodded in resignation. They were all primitives poking at a radio to see how it worked. The more they studied it, the more confusing it became. Continuing to poke would probably just electrocute them.
There was one other thing that bothered him.
“Why wouldn't the Ogdoad let Ellis and Shathra pass?” he asked.
“I don't know,” she said. “I can only assume that either or both of them failed the test, but for what reason I cannot say. Perhaps the king can help you there.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” Simapesiel's expression was affectionate. “Go in peace, Seth Castillo. Don't worry about destiny too much. I'm sure you'll find the rest of you soon.”
The rest of me? he echoed as he climbed back to the nose of the skyship. What did that mean?
A shudder rolled through the scaffolding. He stopped in midswing and hung on tight. The kaia came up beside him to offer support if he needed it. The structure quaked as though a god had gripped it and given it a good shake.
“We near our destination,” said the kaia. “The disturbances will increase. We must hurry back to safety.”
Not an attack, then. That was some relief. When the shaking eased, he forced himself to move. Around him, the crew was moving too, either forwards to the nose or up to their sleeping area. Battening down the hatches, he thought. He glanced behind him for Simapesiel but could no longer see her among the rest of the crew.
“It's the next junction,” said Agatha when he joined them. “We're almost there.”
The shaking had grown worse with disconcerting rapidity. The skyship was shaking from prow to stern and seemed at risk of rattling itself to pieces.
Agatha looked as weary as she had before, as though all her praying had been for nothing.
“What's causing this?” he asked. “Are we in any danger?”
“We are near the Wake,” said Horva.
“Imagine a waterfall of air,” said Shathra, “but rising instead of falling. That's what we're heading into.”
Seth had a mental image of ascending in parachutes or kites up a column of raging wind, much as they had on their escape from Abaddon but minus the magical wings to save him if he fell. It was just ludicrous enough to be believable.
“The entrance to the last juncture lies within the Wake,” said Agatha, sensing his unease. “I'm told there'll be no flying this time.”
“That's a relief,” he said. “I'm getting a little tired of having nothing under my feet.”
“You are welcome to stay as long as you like,” said the king from his wooden throne. “I enjoy the company of humans. They bring a refreshing perspective to life in the realms.”
“Thanks,” said Seth, thinking of the hordes following hot on their heels, “but we need to finish this before thinking about taking a break.”
“Next time, then. If there is a next time.” The king clapped his hands and the speaking tube dropped down to him from the ceiling. “Take us in,” he ordered. “Our guests are ready.”
The bell rang. The slope of the floor beneath him steepened further, and the shaking became much worse.
“Be calm,” said the king comfortably from his throne as everyone around him staggered. “This will last but a moment.”
The skyship tilted again. Seth grabbed the nearest person for balance, and was leaned on in turn by Ellis. Her veil swung and shook but didn't part.
After a minute of wondering if they were really going to make it, the skyship finally levelled out. The shaking faded into silence and Seth let his grip relax.
“We're here,” said the king, tucking the toothpick behind his ear and climbing out of the throne. “Come with me, all those who wish to disembark.”
He led them not down to the hooks swinging from the skyship's gaping belly, but upwards to the Goad. The giant axle was mot
ionless, adding to an eerie stillness filling the interior of the ship. Everything was deathly quiet, which was, in its own way, worse than all the rattling and shaking.
The king rapped on the side of the Goad. It rang like a giant bell, deep and resonant, and a hatch popped open in its side, wide enough to admit a full-grown person. The king lifted himself nimbly through the hatch and motioned for the others to follow. It wasn't as easy as the king had made it look. Seth only made it with help from below. Xol's wide shoulders barely fitted.
When they were all inside the Goad, cramped like rabbits in a hutch, the king scampered up the hollow centre with them in tow.
Seth did his best to keep up, but couldn't find a gait that didn't either bang his knees or bump his head. It was claustrophobic and dark. The only light came from the Holy Immortals, and that was dimmed by the bodies on either side of him.
“I can't see a damned thing,” muttered Ellis from behind him.
“So why don't you take off the veil?”
“You think I wouldn't if I could? This is part of me now, and there's nothing I can do to get rid of it.”
“That's your stigmata? The veil?”
“Got it in two. But hey, you're not one to criticise. I doubt your stigmata would ever set the fashion world alight.”
He stopped and turned. “What do you mean? Why do people keep saying stuff like that to me?”
Her black-shrouded face was invisible in the darkness. “Like who?”
“Nehelennia started it, then Synett had a go. The Ogdoad said something about completion. Simapesiel said that I had to find the rest of me. What do all these people know that I don't?”
She hesitated. “Well, if you don't know I'm not sure I should be the one to tell you.”
“Tell me what? There's nothing wrong with me! And I should know; I've checked.”
“I think that's the point, Seth. You're not all there. And you can't see it.”
The Crooked Letter: Books of the Cataclysm: One Page 37
