The Crooked Letter (33 page)

His guide trudged on with eyes downcast.

‘I promised you on my brother’s name,’ Xol said in a low voice, ‘that I would help you to find a solution that didn’t require Hadrian’s death.’

‘I remember, but —’

‘I will keep that promise. That is all you truly need to know.’

* * * *

The expedition followed fetid, narrow lanes through Abaddon. The buildings around them grew taller and more elegant, their sides ribbed and curved as though they had been grown rather than built. The buildings swayed and shuddered every time one of the realm-warping distortions swept through them. The effects were so severe that at one point they were forced to stop walking entirely and huddle together as the world quaked. Fortunately, the city’s inhabitants seemed more distracted by such symptoms of Yod’s master plan than by wanted fugitives roaming the streets. When the worst of it had passed, they continued unhindered to where the kaia had arranged for them to begin the second leg of their journey to Sheol.

For several blocks now, Seth had become aware of a growing darkness and a rising noise. The sound was deep and bone-shakingly loud, as though from a giant engine idling nearby. He didn’t realise what it was until they emerged from a secluded lane into a relatively clear area and saw the ‘twixter anchored at its centre. The giant rotating storm hung overhead, its funnel swirling with black violence. Its throat narrowed to a furiously spinning tube barely two metres across, pointed at the ground like a terrestrial tornado. Five curving spines arched gracefully out of the ground near its mouth, keeping it contained and fixed to a point just over head-height. Seth could see the distortion the ‘twixter made on the world as it sucked air into its hungry maw.

Four kaia dressed in concealing black robes hurried out of a nook further round the clearing, and joined them where they stood gawping at the storm’s mouth. The kaia bore a sack each. Wordlessly, they produced a number of complex-looking harnesses from the sacks and handed one to each of the voyagers. Seth, although he had grave misgivings, did as instructed, looping the straps over his shoulders and around his thighs. When in place, three small pouches nestled down his spine, from the small of his back to his coccyx. They were warm and vibrated slightly.

‘Are these what I think they are?’ His words were swept away by the storm so even he barely heard them.

‘This looks dangerous,’ shouted Agatha, her words amplified by will and echoing in Seth’s skull, ‘but it doesn’t have to be. The seraph do it as a sport all the time! There are races, duels, ballet —’

‘Have
you
ever done it?’ he shouted back.

‘Never!’ The woman’s skin was pale, belying her confidence.

‘Xol?’

The dimane shook his head. ‘I do not fare well in high places.’

The kaia checked their equipment, fussing at clasps with tiny hands, then showed them how to activate the pouches. Seth watched as Agatha’s wings spun into life, astonished by their beauty and fragility. They were little more than shimmers, glimmering gossamer wings vibrating so fast he could make out neither their exact shape nor their size. The air around Agatha’s back was suddenly a haze of energy, a gravity-defying blur that lifted her ever so slightly off the ground, so her steps bounced and sent her golden hair flying. Her expression was one of surprise and not a little alarm.

Xol was next. The dimane, too, looked distinctly uncomfortable as the wings blossomed behind him; his spines stayed carefully flattened against his skull and neck. Then it was Seth’s turn, and he was surprised by the violence of the wings. They sent powerful vibrations through every bone in his body, rattling his teeth and spine. Synett, next, took an experimental leap into the air and flailed, off-balance, when he took too long to come down.

Feeling as though he had a bulging sack full of helium strapped to his back, Seth followed the others out of cover to the base of the storm. His senses were overwhelmed by noise and vibration. The whole world seemed to be shaking — and that only became worse as they neared the mouth of the ‘twixter. Its blackness was absolute. He found it increasingly difficult to keep his footing, the closer he came.

Agatha kept him back as the first of the kaia approached the mouth, wings a vibrant blur.

‘Follow as best you can,’ she shouted in his ear, ‘and don’t worry about getting lost. We’ll find you wherever you end up!’

He nodded, although his attention was entirely focussed on what happened to the kaia. It braced itself in a crouch with its wings oriented towards the mouth. It edged backwards, arms outstretched, then froze as the current took it. Even though Seth was anticipating the moment, the suddenness of its disappearance took him by surprise. One moment the kaia was there in front of him, every muscle poised in a delicate balancing act; the next it was gone, whisked up into the turbulent, thunderous storm; where precisely it went and what happened to it was impossible to tell. Above was only the black ceiling of clouds, rotating ponderously anti-clockwise.

A second kaia moved forward. Seth didn’t know if it was possible to be airsick in the Second Realm, but his stomach was cramping up at the mere thought of following. The wings and harnesses seemed far too fragile to survive the currents raging inside the ‘twixter. He could feel the realm warping around it, strained beyond imagining by the forces the ‘twixter exerted. He would be like a hummingbird in a hurricane — lucky to survive for an instant before being ripped to pieces.

The second kaia vanished into the mouth, a parachutist in reverse. A third kaia moved forward, then abruptly stopped in its tracks and waved for Seth.

‘What? No, you go!’ He resisted the small hands pushing at him from behind. ‘I’m not ready!’

‘We have no choice,’ shouted Xol, leaning close. ‘Fomore!’

Seth twisted and saw a dozen glowing wraiths converging on their location. They were already so close that he could see their mouths — too full of long, slender teeth to close properly.

‘I’ll jump with you,’ Xol said, pushing him forward. ‘Quickly!’

Seth forced his nervousness down. Faced with a choice between the emissaries of Yod and an unknown fate inside the storm, he supposed the latter was marginally less horrible. It was with the deepest misgivings that he took Xol’s hands and edged crabwise into the uprushing wind pouring through the mouth of the funnel. Xol’s flat eyes were shut and his grip was almost painfully tight; it didn’t inspire confidence.

He had barely enough time to steady himself when the ‘twixter took him. With an ear-popping jolt, he was yanked off the ground and swept up into the mouth of the storm. He tried to cry out, but the air had already been sucked from his lungs. He was spun like a top, tumbled end over end with his wings screaming like buzzsaws behind him. Xol was wrenched from him. In the darkness, there was no way of finding him again.

Up and down lost all meaning. He was at the mercy of the storm’s funnel. He could only hope that he would soon find clearer skies and gentler winds, where his wings would finally be of some good. Although they strained and stretched, they were as useless as a surfboard in a tsunami.

Something bumped into him in the darkness. He clutched at it, hoping it was Xol or one of the kaia, but when he pulled it to himself a sickening light came with it. The fomore grinned at him, eyeless but able to see him all too well. Its limbs were like bony twigs under his hands; cold leeched into him from its hideous body; vile gel-like sheets whipped around them both, trying to tangle him in their ectoplasmic folds.

Seth reacted instinctively, clenching his fists around its limbs and kicking out at the thing. His connection to the First Realm served him well, as it had with the egrigor. The fomore’s flesh snapped under his hands like kindling. It screamed and he released it to roll away in darkness.

The coldness remained, though. His fingers were numb where they had touched the fomore, and nothing he did brought feeling back.

Seth forced himself to stop looking for Xol and to stop fighting the storm. He relaxed into the wind, letting it whip him around and upward. Streaks of light appeared in the darkness, long and tapered, shaped by the flows of the storm. They looked like threads of cream being stirred into black coffee and steadily became both more numerous and brighter, until he could see his unfeeling hands held out in front of his face. The notion of up returned, and with it came a violent dizziness: he was spinning end over end several times a second.

He spread his arms and legs, hoping to slow his tumble even slightly. The wings responded with a furious buzzing — audible even over the deafening roar — and for the first time they had a measurable effect. He felt himself steadied and lifted outward, away from the centre of the storm. The current became less urgent, and he was soon able to approximate some sort of control over his flight. There was still insufficient light to see beyond the storm itself, but some of its geometry became clearer to him and he was able to navigate.

A brassy speck appeared in the distance, waving. Seth waved back, recognising Xol’s colouring even if he couldn’t make out his features. The relief at seeing the dimane was stronger than he had expected.

Just as he was beginning to feel confident of surviving the experience, the storm changed pitch around him. The winds shifted violently, tipping him upside-down, then onto his side. A knot of turbulence formed around him. He struggled, but the gusts were so powerful they were almost solid, almost —

His mind baulked at what occurred to him then, but he forced himself to consider the possibility seriously. He had seen far stranger things.

The gusts felt like fingers, the knot a giant hand. He was being tipped from side to side as though for inspection. His wings snarled at the constriction. He could feel them getting hot where they touched his back.

A distant shout came to him over the wind. Three bright points were converging on him. More fomore had followed him into the storm’s heart. Already capable of flight, they didn’t need harnesses and the like to navigate, and they swooped up to him like sharks. Dagger-sharp claws angled to stab him. He struggled to free himself before they arrived. His only hope lay in fending them off before they impaled him.

But the storm resisted.

Do you fear them?
said a voice in his head. Compared to the sound of the wind, it was almost soft, like the sighing of a breeze. But it was powerful despite that.
You can’t be a saraph, then
—
and now that I taste you, I do see that you’re different. You have an unusual quality.

‘Let me go!’ Seth kicked against apparently solid air, but to no avail. The fomore seemed to sense his difficulty, and grinned wider. Their teeth gleamed like mouthfuls of broken glass. ‘You have to let me fight them!’

Now, now,
the voice chided him none-too-gently.
Let me look at you, first. I am
—
curious.

‘If you don’t let me go, there’s going to be nothing here to be curious about.’ To his right, Seth could see Xol urging his wings to travel faster, but it was clear he was going to arrive too late. ‘Please!’

Ah, yes. Now I know who you are.
The voice sounded pleased with itself.
You’re the cornerstone, the one they’re all looking for.

There was no point in denying it. ‘Yes, that’s me. And they’re coming for me now. Will you just let me go so I can stop them?’

I should hold you for them, so their master
— our
master
—
can stop looking.

A chill went down Seth’s spine. The fomore were just metres away. Even if he was freed now, his chances of getting away were vanishing. ‘No, don’t —’

But I wouldn’t do that.
The air flexed again, and the fomore slammed into an invisible barrier. Screaming thinly, briefly, they were crumpled up into balls and scattered to the wind, glittering frostily.

‘Please,’ pleaded Seth again over the straining of his wings, ‘let me go.’ There was a different fear in him now. Not of capture but of pointless death. He was utterly in the storm’s power. If it grew tired of him or irritated with him —

A roll of thunderous mental laughter interrupted the thought.

I do not wish to kill you, human. That would truly bring the wrath of our master upon us. But I would not let them have you, either.
The voice sneered when it spoke of the fomore.
I have no love for their kind. Their stings may be small, but they prick me willingly enough. I am a citizen of this city, like any other. I have rights.

Seth accepted as fact, then, his assumption that he was talking to the storm itself, not some air-spirit inhabiting it.

Do you like what you see?
asked the ‘twixter, its atmospheric muscle bunching and swirling.
Am I not magnificent?

‘Magnificent and amoral,’ said Agatha, rising on buzzing wings from beneath the knot of air holding Seth captive. ‘You and your kind would flatten the city in a day, given the chance.’

Seth tried to reach out for her, but he was held fast.

Such biting honesty. Yes, we would raze this town to the ground
—
and that would be no terrible thing, I feel. Others see differently. I hope their time will pass soon.

‘Perhaps it will,’ she said.

Is that the end you strive toward?

‘If I said it was, would you let him go?’

The storm roared.
You dare to bargain with one such as I? Your impudence astounds me. I should crush you both! And your friends!

‘You’re bluffing,’ said Agatha, ‘and so am I. While I’m grateful to you for saving Seth, in truth I can promise you nothing in return. My mission is to save the realm, not to strike deals with entities such as yourself.’

Peals of laughter echoed around them.
Oh, you are a true entertainment! I should keep you here for my pleasure. You are not empty-handed, not by any means. I will let you pass and take my fill at the same time. Go about your mission, small ones. I will remain here in the hope that your efforts will result in my freedom.