Fallen (48 page)

The thing pulled the jug away and opened the bag.

“You expect me to eat that?” she said, a laugh slipping into a sob. It held a small dead creature in its hand. The creature's flesh was purple and red—evidently recently skinned—and its head and limbs had been torn off. Try as she might Nomi could not identify it, but perhaps that was a blessing.

The creature pressed the skinned corpse against Nomi's mouth. She pursed her lips and clamped her jaw shut, trying to turn her head. But it grasped her chin in its other hand, forcing her to face forward while it worked the meat against her lips. She tasted its blood, rich and basic. She could smell it, and she could not prevent her stomach from rumbling, hunger rearing its head. She found it hard to breathe.

No one was coming to help her. She knew that, but the realization suddenly hit her hard. The Serians had been guarding her all the way from Long Marrakash. Konrad had died doing her bidding, Ramin was killed protecting her and now the others were dead as well, and their deaths made everything pointless.

When Nomi opened her mouth to gasp in a breath, the creature pressed the meat between her teeth. She bit down, groaning as she did so, shaking her head to tear a small chunk of raw flesh away.

The thing stepped back. It watched her, eyes never wavering. She could see no hint of emotion anywhere in its expression. Its face was as blank as a sheebok's, and that was what disturbed her most about these things. It was not the long legs and arms, the spindly necks or the scraps of clothes they wore. It was the lifelessness in such human eyes.

She started chewing. The thing clicked and growled, and a few of the other observers did the same. They seemed pleased.

The meat did not taste too bad, and Nomi swallowed quickly. Her feeder came forward again.
The quicker I eat, the quicker this is over,
she thought.

She closed her eyes and bit, trying to find her way inward once again.

THE SUN WENT
down and she could not sleep. They had left her clothed, but the garments were scant protection against the cool breeze that came from the east. She only hoped it did not turn into a gale. If they really were three miles above Noreela, she would freeze to death should the weather decide to roar.

Two creatures remained close by. They sat motionless thirty steps from her, one of them nodding its head and seeming to doze. She supposed they were guarding her, though the idea of escape seemed very foolish right now. The idea of dying, however . . . that felt like her future.

When night established itself fully and she heard things calling in the dark, she thought perhaps they had been left behind to protect her.

SHE DOZED BETWEEN
gusts of wind, tensing and relaxing her muscles to try to encourage some warmth into her limbs. Her shoulders and shins hurt more than the rest of her, because even though she was tied to the frame, still they took some of her weight. She wondered how long she could survive up here. She was not sure how long she
wanted
to survive.

When the shape emerged from the darkness, she thought she was dreaming. It started as a shadow shifting against shadows, no secrecy in its movements, and nothing particularly threatening. Nomi squinted, looking to the left and right of the shape, but she could see no more.

There was little against which she could judge, but she was sure it was no taller than her.
Beko!
she thought, but that was a foolish idea. That was tiredness talking, and a nightmare awaiting her in true sleep.

“Ramus?” she said. Her guardians looked up but did not respond.

The shadow moved closer. Its pace was slow, as if its owner bore wounds.

One of the things sat up abruptly and turned around, but when it saw the shape it uttered a few clicks and slouched back down.

One of them,
she thought.
That's all. One of them come to poke and prod at me some more. Or maybe it's a child of theirs, come to mock this new pet.

As the shape passed the seated guards and came close, Nomi saw that it was a man. For a beat the truth did not register,
could
not, because it was too incredible. And when at last the man stood before her, Nomi stared down in wonder.

He opened his mouth and uttered a series of clicks, similar to the things that had captured her. It sounded awkward coming from his mouth.

It's him,
Nomi thought, and perhaps this was still a dream.

“Who . . . is . . . Ramus?” the man asked. His voice grated from lack of use.

“It's you,” Nomi said. “Sordon Perlenni.”

The old man's eyes went wide. His beard was long and white, his hair matched and his melancholia was as heavy as the land beneath them, as dark as the shadows. “That is an old, old name,” he said.

Nomi shook her head. “Sleeping,” she said. “Dreaming. Nightmare.”

“Soon,” the First Voyager said, and his voice carried more sadness than she could bear. Asleep or not, Nomi Hyden began to cry.

They did not seem to mind when the old man sat on the timber frame beside her. He sighed as he settled, leaning his tall walking stick beside him.

“Tears,” he said. “I shed so many when I came here. None for a long time. None for . . . many years.”

“Your voice,” Nomi said.

Sordon nodded. “Rarely used. Forgive my hoarseness.” He did not look at her as he spoke, as though afraid to show her something, or to see something reflected in her eyes.

“They'll just let you sit here with me?”

“The Sentinels? Of course.”

“Sentinels . . .” Nomi said. “Guarding the Sleeping God?”

Sordon glanced at her, then away once more.
I surprised him,
she thought.
He didn't think I'd know, and . . . he's Sordon Perlenni! He shouldn't even be here, he should be dead. He's almost two hundred years old!

“You should be—”

“Are you a Voyager?” he asked.

“Yes. You don't see the band on my arm?”

He looked, but seemed confused. “Band?”

“Guild of Voyagers,” Nomi said.

Sordon smiled behind his heavy beard. “So, they have a guild now.”

“You're the first,” Nomi said. “You started the Age of Expansion. You should be dead! Maybe
I
am.”

“No,” he said. “You're not.” He shook his head sadly. “I'm sorry about your friends.”

“How do you know?”

“The Sentinels told me.”

“Told you? Why? You walk among them, you talk to them, but . . . ?” Nomi realized she had so many questions that she could not find a place to begin. She felt tears threatening again but she swallowed them down. “Will you release me?” she asked.

Sordon looked directly at her for the first time. He glanced at the ropes binding her arms and legs, and she thought he looked briefly at her stomach. “No,” he said.

“What are they going to do to me?”

“When your child has grown, they'll tear it from you and hang it from a fetus tree.”

“Child?” Nomi shook her head and closed her eyes, and the tears came then whether she fought them or not. “I'm not pregnant.”

Sordon sighed. “If you weren't, you'd be at the bottom of the Divide with your friends.”

“Sordon . . .”

“You cry,” he said. “You rage. And when you've finished, I'll ask you once again who Ramus is. And then I'll tell you how I doomed this world.”

“HE FELL,” NOMI
said. “He was a Voyager as well, my friend, and he fell. One of those bird-things knocked him from the cliff and his rope didn't hold.”

“You thought
I
was Ramus.”

“I thought I was dreaming.” Nomi's head was dipped and she looked down at her feet, not trusting her lying eyes. She guessed by his silence that he did not believe her, but she was not about to tell him the truth. Not yet. Not until he did the same for her.

He suddenly moved in close until she felt his old breath against her ear. “It cannot be woken,” he said. “It's fallen, and if it rises again . . . I will not permit it. And though the Sentinels are vastly weaker than they were before I came, they will not allow it, either.”

“Fallen?”

“The Sleeping God fell. It went mad, rampaged, and the other Gods fought to put it down. And it
cannot be woken.
”

“I'm the last of my group,” Nomi said, shocked, confused. “Not much chance of me fighting my way from here to wake it, I think.” And at the same time she thought,
Does Ramus know? Did he know all along?

“Maybe,” Sordon said. “Maybe you are the last one.” But suspicion was obvious in his voice.

“So tell me,” she said.

Sordon Perlenni chuckled. “Guild of Voyagers,” he said. “Do they have their own building?”

“Yes. A big one.”

“And is my likeness hanging there?”

Nomi nodded. “It's how I knew who you were, when I saw the statue of you.”

“The statue,” Sordon said. “Which one? There are many. So many that I've never bothered to count. Statues and pictures, carvings and paintings. Of me.”

“Why?”

“To those discovered, the discoverer is sometimes a god.”

“But they're animals. They look human in some ways, but they seem wild.”

“They are now. But not always.” Sordon shook his head again. “What's the point? I could tell you, but nothing can absolve my guilt. And you, hanging there, can do little to help me.”

“Then cut me down!”

Sordon shook his head again. “They would be upon you before you hit the ground. They're fast and strong, and more intelligent than you think. They used to be so much better, until I came.”

“Tell me anyway,” she said.
Whatever I can learn could help me,
she thought.
Any details, any clues as to how I could escape.
Because now that Sordon was here and she knew that Ramus had not yet been caught, she suddenly found determination again, and a survival instinct that had been made lazy by being looked after. She wanted to live.

Sordon Perlenni, the First Voyager of Noreela, settled back against the timber cross bracings of Nomi's sacrificial rack and looked up at the star-speckled sky.

“I HAD BEEN
to the Divide before, when I was thirty, twelve years into my exploring. My porters were strong and determined, there was plenty of food and water and we had not encountered any marauders for a hundred miles. So we kept riding. And when we saw the Divide in the distance we stopped, turned around and fled. Such a massive barrier. So final. My porters were scared—they were from the south of Cantrassa, a wild place then as now, I suspect—and they had their myths, gods and superstitions. They thought that if we ventured too close to the Great Divide, it would fall and swallow us up, and then rise again that much higher. One of them believed it was built from the wraiths of all those who had died in Noreela's history, and that it was forever striving to grow.

“For me, I feared it was the end. If I continued walking south I would go as far as I could go, and that would be all of Noreela for me. Not that I'd seen all of it. No one can see all of Noreela, and that I'm still confident of, even now. There's more to the land than simply seeing, and traveling, and more to know than can be learned in a hundred lifetimes. But I was still young then, and as well as the fear, there was an idea that perhaps I could save it for later.

“So over the following years I explored the land, east to the sea, west to the sea and much of what lay in between. But as time passed, the Divide called to me, luring me back into its shadow. And at last, alone, I heeded the call.

“After a year studying many books back in Long Marrakash, I came down here with the idea that it may not be the end, but the beginning. If each wraith taken into the Divide made it grow, then it must have limits. I didn't believe that it was built on the deaths of Noreela, of course, but such thinking helped me come to a decision: that I
must
climb. And climb I did, without equipment, without weapons, with no idea of how far I would be climbing or what I'd meet on the way.”

“You came alone?” Nomi said in wonder. “No ropes?”

“I had my shoes,” Sordon said. “Good grip. And I had gloves that preserved my fingertips, and a belt looped three times around my waist, which I used on several occasions to tie myself around a suitable rock. I don't need to tell you about the difficulties of the climb, I'm sure. Or the things that inhabit the cliffs.”

Nomi nodded.

“I climbed in almost the same place as you. That was the silent influence of the Fallen God, though back then I did not know its nature or form. And when I reached the top and stood here in amazement, the Sentinels emerged from their settlements and converged on me. This was a very different place back then, and the Sentinels were very different as well. They looked much the same as they do now—a strange race, for sure—but they were far more . . . civilized.

“Word spread, and more Sentinels came from all along the Divide. I was nervous but not afraid, because they exuded an air of wonder. They were
amazed.
It was obvious to me then that I was the first to reach the top of the Divide, though perhaps not the first to try.” He looked into the distance, as though the past still existed there. “You know, there were tens of thousands of them back then, their society as diverse as Noreela's. They walked tall and with grace, and were dressed in fine clothes, and carried their young in slings across their chests. They had art and writing, music, strange technologies I couldn't begin to understand, and still don't now. They worked with water and steam, air and fire, and they could do miraculous things. They taught their young to read. They could have taught us so much.”