The Crooked Letter (50 page)

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 mid-swing 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 forward 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 upward to the Goad. The giant axle was motionless, 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.’

‘But where? What’s missing?’ He held his hands up in front of him; they were barely visible but definitely present. ‘Which bit has gone? Is it something small? It couldn’t be large or I’d have noticed it. Or have I forgotten about it? Is that it? Have I been magicked to forget?’

For a second he seriously wondered if there was a part of his body that he hadn’t missed because he no longer knew it was supposed to be there. But that was silly. There were people around him and he could see that they had the same number of arms, legs and fingers as he did. There was nothing they had that he didn’t.

Before Ellis could answer, if she actually intended to, the king boomed from further up the tube: ‘Keep moving along! We’re almost there!’

Seth reluctantly shelved the problem and turned to crawl on. He felt excluded from a terribly subtle joke, one he knew existed and was probably at his expense, but one he couldn’t for the life of him understand. He wasn’t blind or deluded. If there was something wrong with him, something missing, he would know. He was sure of it.

But he couldn’t ignore the fact that people had all come independently to the same conclusion: he wasn’t complete somehow.

He’d be damned before admitting that it was Hadrian he needed to make him whole.

Something clanked ahead, and suddenly the tube was full of light. The king had opened a hatch at the end of the Goad. Fresh, cool air sighed around them; Seth hadn’t noticed how stuffy it had become. With a soft grunt, the king grabbed the edge of the tube and hauled himself up and out of sight. The sound of his footsteps rang along the top of the Goad, banging and scuffling. One of the kaia followed him. Agatha, the next in line, took a look out of the hatch and visibly blanched.

The king’s head poked down from above. He and Agatha exchanged words too soft to hear, then she pulled herself together and nodded.

‘What is it?’ called Seth to her. ‘What’s out there?’

She looked back at him. ‘Do you trust me, Seth?’

‘Of course. Why?’

‘I wasn’t lying about us not having to fly.’

Agatha got her long legs beneath her, so she was crouching on the edge. Without a word, she leapt into space and dropped instantly out of sight.

‘No way,’ said Ellis.

Seth was hypnotised by the circle of sky where Agatha had been. ‘You didn’t know? I thought you’d been this way before.’

‘I was out cold, still freaked out by dying and all — remember? Shathra carried me.’

Seth didn’t gainsay her account, remembering how precipitous his own arrival in the underworld had been. Ellis had somehow plunged much further into the realm on her death, bypassing the underworld entirely; that could have had effects he could barely imagine.

Another kaia was next. This one jumped after Agatha rather than climb up top. Two Immortals followed. Then it was Seth’s turn.

He inched forward to the edge and peered over. The Goad ended in empty air. There was nothing around him but space. The Wake formed a curved, wispy wall in the distance ahead of him, like cirrus cloud wrapped in a wide, vertical cylinder. Beyond that ...

‘Believe me,’ said the king, ‘it’s there.’

‘What is?’ He looked up at the cheerful simian face, leaning over him from above.

‘The entrance to the Path of Life.’ One wrinkled pink finger stabbed down into empty air and the vast curve of the Second Realm beyond. ‘This leg requires a leap of faith. I tell you that it will catch you as it caught the others. Will you trust me?’

Seth’s mouth was dry. He looked back down, and wondered what would happen if he said ‘no’. Would the handsome king push him out of the Goad and make him fall?

Not for one instant did he consider that the king might be lying; truth was written all over his features. But falling was hardly an improvement on flying.

‘I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘First, though, I want to see something.’

He pulled himself out of the end of the Goad as the king had, but didn’t heave himself right up. It was enough to look along the pipe through which they had crawled at the majestic bulk of the skyship, looming fat and wide behind them. The Goad stuck out of the front of it like a bee’s sting, tapering to a blunt point where the hatch opened. The first kaia crouched on it like a surfer, feet spread to keep itself steady on the curved surface. The thing Seth particularly wanted to see — the ekhi — was visible as a sheet of mirror-finished life stretched taut over the back of the skyship. It rippled and flexed, sending sun-bright reflections of Sheol in all directions.

‘It’s already growing restless,’ said the king.

‘I know.’ He could feel its yearning to break free and dance around the bright light in the sky. Sheol was close, glaring down on him with painful brilliance. He couldn’t look up for fear of being blinded.

He turned to squat back down, then stopped. ‘What’s that?’ he asked, pointing at a black spot caught in the turbulent flow of the Wake. It was tiny in the distance, but distinct.

‘If I had to guess,’ said the king, ‘I’d say it’s your pursuer. He or she got past the kaia, so it’s entirely possible that they’ve made it this far.’

‘Even without the Vaimnamne?’

‘Even so.’

Seth admired their persistence, even as he despaired of shaking them. A renewed sense of urgency filled him.

‘I’m going now. Thank you.’

‘You are welcome, Seth Castillo. Should our paths ever cross again, I will be glad.’

Seth backed down into the opening at the end of the Goad.

Ellis had moved forward and looked nervously over the edge. There was only just enough room for both of them to crouch there, side by side. He thought of Agatha, potentially leading the expedition into disaster but forced to trust the handsome king when he said that they would be safe. At the end, she had been utterly alone, confronting a terrifying gulf with no one to support her.

‘Let’s jump together,’ he said.

‘Why? I can do it on my own. I’m not afraid of heights.’

‘Not for your benefit. For mine. If I die again, at least I’ll have some company.’

She laughed. It had a slightly hysterical edge, but she did take his hand. ‘On the count of three, then.’

‘To hell with that,’ he said. ‘Let’s just do it.’

She laughed again as they hurled themselves into the open air.

* * * *

‘The oldest stories depict hierarchies in heaven:

gods above us, and gods above them; and so on

beyond the bounds of comprehension. At each

degree of ascension, a whole new pantheon is

revealed. It is no wonder, then, that when the

uppermost fell, the entire world fell with it.’

EXEGESIS 10:7

ut of the city.

It sounded so easy, Hadrian thought as he ran, but it wasn’t. The forest of buildings rose and fell in an apparently endless wave across the land; roads looped back on themselves, crisscrossing and undulating with no obvious symmetry; signposts referred to the old world and had no lingering significance; the new mystical signposts said nothing about the world outside.

He felt like a lab rat in a maze — only most lab rats didn’t have to worry about cats chasing them as they ran. And the maze wasn’t in the process of being demolished by two scientists fighting in the lab outside. The imp clinging to his back like a child going for a ride had mentioned that Mot and Baal were running rampant, and he could believe it, judging by the sounds of destruction he had heard during the night. As the two elder gods slugged out their differences in the city’s skies, the landscape beneath was paying the price.