The Crooked Letter (57 page)

‘As though ...’ He didn’t finish the sentence. It sounded stupid enough in his mind.

‘As though someone just walked over your grave?’ Ana asked.

He nodded, surprised. His mental block was intact, despite the shocks he had received. She couldn’t possibly be reading his mind.

‘You feel the tug of fate, the one fate we can ever be sure of, which is that we will die. Eventually our sojourn in the realms comes to an end, and we dissipate into the void from which we sprang. That is the fate awaiting all — even us — and the Flame reminds us of this, even as it reminds us that the route taken to that end is infinitely variable.’

‘Not “infinitely”,’ Meg corrected her.

‘No, sister, not “infinitely”, but enough to make the pill taste a little sweeter sometimes.’

With a faint tearing noise, Agatha climbed into the centre of the sphere from below, her face pale and strained.

‘They’re fighting!’ she said.

Hadrian didn’t need to ask who she meant. Meg clapped her hands and the floor became translucent. Xol and Quetzalcoatl were slightly around the curve of Sheol’s inner surface, trading furious blows. The pike lay to one side, knocked out of Quetzalcoatl’s hands. They moved like snakes, darting and striking barehanded with sinuous grace. Their spines flattened when lunging forward, stood up when retreating. They were rippling, muscular alien warriors that were, at times, extremely difficult to tell apart.

‘Those idiots,’ Ellis exclaimed. ‘What is it with twins? Why don’t they ever get along?’

‘They say that about sisters, too,’ said Ana.

‘I tried to stop them,’ Agatha said, ‘but they wouldn’t listen to me.’

Xol caught Quetzalcoatl in the ribs, raking him with sharp claws. Quetzalcoatl roared and twisted, surprising Xol by grabbing him and pulling him in closer. Long fangs stabbed deep into Xol’s shoulder.

Real flesh or not, the cry of pain was utterly genuine.

‘I can’t stand by and watch this,’ said Seth. ‘Isn’t there something we can do?’

‘Nothing,’ said Meg.

‘But Quetzalcoatl’s your ghost: You made him like that!’

‘It was his decision to remain here. He chose of his own free will. What we made of him changed none of that.’

‘Xol murdered him,’ Ana added. ‘This is the punishment he meted out.’

‘Well, I don’t think it’s fair.’ The glibness of the Sisters’ response only infuriated him more. ‘I don’t care what Xol did in the past. He’s helped me, and he deserves my help in return. How do I get back down there?’

The Sisters exchanged a glance. ‘You will it, of course,’ said Meg.

Of course.
Seth channelled his anger at the Sisters and himself into determination to help Xol. Ellis went to say something — perhaps to call him back — but he was already falling. The light of the Flame faded as he slipped wraithlike through the floor and the surface of the sphere. Illusory gravity took hold of him as soon as he was outside the curved mirror surface. He did his best to turn a headlong plummet into a more controlled tumble.

He hit the ground hard and lost his balance on his right side. The missing hand was troubling him, but he couldn’t dwell on it. Xol and Quetzalcoatl glanced at him. The four flat eyes were unwelcoming. He didn’t let that stop him either.

He stumbled to where the glass pike lay and picked it up with his remaining hand. Tucking the thick shaft under his other armpit, he swung it up and around before Quetzalcoatl could break free.

‘Let him go,’ he ordered. The weapon was surprisingly light. Its point looked sharp enough to spear molecules. He edged two steps closer so a lunge would take Quetzalcoatl in the belly.

‘No, Seth,’ said Xol’s brother. ‘You do not understand.’

‘I understand well enough. Do as I say, Quetzalcoatl, or I’ll pin you like a butterfly.’

‘Your threats are empty. I do not fear death — at your hands or any other’s.’

‘No one wants to kill you. There doesn’t have to be any fighting at all. Let Xol go and we’ll get on with things.’

‘There is nothing to get on with,’ said Xol. ‘You’re here now. I’m no longer needed. I can finish this, forever.’

Xol twisted in his brother’s embrace, flexing his powerful shoulder muscles to bring Quetzalcoatl’s throat within range of his dagger-sharp teeth. With a snarl he bit down. Seth reacted instinctively, swinging the pike from Quetzalcoatl to Xol and stabbing forward. The point dragged along Xol’s scalp, tearing it open. Bright electric blood poured down Xol’s face.

The dimane roared like a wounded elephant and loosened his deadly grip on Quetzalcoatl’s throat.

‘Hey!’ Seth stabbed again, forcing the brothers apart. Xol groaned, full of anger and despair. ‘What’s going on? You’ve killed him once already! Isn’t that enough?’

‘It will never be enough,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Not while his brother remains a ghost.’

Seth looked over his shoulder, expecting to see one of the Sisters standing behind him. Instead there was a brown-skinned woman with spiky white hair. He had never seen her before in any life.

‘You
are
the ghost, I presume,’ she said to Quetzalcoatl. ‘Right? It’s best to be sure. I’ve made that mistake once already this week.’

Quetzalcoatl ignored the new arrival. The ghost moved to his brother’s side, as though to offer him aid, but Xol shoved him away.

‘Who are you?’ Seth asked the woman.

‘A friend of life,’ she said. Her eyes were as grey as her jumper and as hard as granite. ‘I’ve been following you.’

He understood immediately where she fitted into recent events: the dark figure crawling across the crystal face, destroyer of the kaia and briefly glimpsed passenger of the Wake: vanguard of a vast number of people trying to reach Sheol.

He swung the pike around so its point was between her and him. ‘Following me — why?’

‘I want the same thing you do: a better solution.’ She indicated Xol and Quetzalcoatl. ‘Look at these two. They’re useless, trapped in their pointless feud — and so they will remain unless one of them takes drastic action. It can’t be Quetzalcoatl; he’s confined by the Sisters to Sheol. It can’t be Xol, either; he’s unable to kill himself without causing another Cataclysm, one between the Second and Third Realms. His punishment, therefore, is that he cannot die. Not unless they
both
die and move on to the Third Realm together. Otherwise, Xol and Quetzalcoatl are as trapped as each other.

‘So it is with the First and Second Realms. We’re going to need some serious lateral thinking before we get out of this mess.’

The Sisters appeared soundlessly between them.

‘You are not welcome here,’ said Ana to the woman.

She sighed. ‘Seems I’m not welcome anywhere at the moment.’

‘For good reason.’

‘Give me a break, will you? I didn’t jump Bardo, crawl through the underworld, and bravado my way up here to hurt anyone. I just want to talk.’

‘What did she do?’ asked Seth. ‘Who is she? Why is she unwelcome?’

‘My name is Kybele,’ said the woman. She indicated the two guardians of the Flame. ‘Count them. There are usually three hags up here, glowering down from their perch.’

‘Kybele murdered our sister,’ Meg explained, without looking at her.

‘Your sister got in the way,’ Kybele retorted. ‘I didn’t strike the killing blow.’

‘You ordered it,’ said Meg.

‘And we are not required to hear you,’ said Ana. ‘Your place is in the First Realm.’

‘Not now the realms are merging. Can’t you feel it? They’re close enough now that even a full genomoi like me can make the leap. Yod is doing the same as we speak. What’ll become of your perch when the two become one? Where will you crows sit then? Times are changing — and this is our best chance to choose what they’re going to change
into.
You know I’m right about that.’

Surprisingly, it was Quetzalcoatl who spoke up in support of her argument. ‘She speaks the truth,’ the ghost said. ‘Your rules hold only as long as the realm supports them.’

‘This is the case. But what about you two?’ Ana asked the dimane and his brother. ‘Will you settle your differences now or later?’

Xol had turned to stare at Quetzalcoatl. Although blood still dripped from the gash down his face, Seth thought he glimpsed the return of hope.

‘Later,’ said Xol. ‘I won’t raise my hand unprovoked again.’

Seth truly understood then: it was Xol who had attacked Quetzalcoatl, not the other way around. Xol had killed his brother in the First Realm and was punished forever. The only way to free his brother was to kill him again, and then himself again.

Seth wondered what would have happened if his and Hadrian’s fight in Sweden had gone further than it had. Would they have been similarly punished?

I
would prevent you from becoming like me,
Xol had told him, seemingly a lifetime ago. Seth now knew what he meant: trapped by the Sisters and his own actions in an eternity of guilt and shame. The fact that Seth had died first didn’t mean that he still couldn’t be caught in the noose of twinship.

Seth put down the pike.

‘Very well,’ said Meg. She clapped her hands, and all six of them were transported instantly to the chamber of the Flame.

‘Nice,’ said Kybele, looking around with sharp eyes. ‘Lucky it’s a bit sparse up here. You seem to be having quite a party.’

‘This is no party,’ said Horva, her usual serenity marred by a look of anxiety. ‘The world will be forever altered, no matter which way through time one travels. We stand on the threshold of a new age.’

Kybele bowed in apology. ‘I’m sorry, Holy One,’ she said. ‘I meant no disrespect. What you say is quite true. This is a turning point. I would never counsel that we treat it as a joke. The opposite, in fact. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

Ana nodded, her solemnity only matched by that of her sister. ‘A difficult choice lies before us. We must make that choice with our eyes unclouded. Seth.’ She indicated that he was to step forward, and he did so, the hollow stump of his arm hanging limply at his side. ‘Your fate lies at the heart of that decision. Do you understand what you are here to do?’

He nodded. ‘To convince you to send me back to the First Realm.’

‘And do you know what that means?’

‘When I go back, the Cataclysm will be averted.’

Meg tilted her head. ‘If only it was that simple.’ She took his damaged arm and held it up so that he couldn’t avoid looking at it, at his hollowness. ‘Your stigmata reminds you that your fate is intimately linked to that of another. Your brother, although separated from you for the moment, cannot be forgotten in our struggle to determine the future. Not just the future of the realms, but
your
future. That which awaits you is variable, but it cannot be faced without him. He is as central to this matter as you are.’

Seth knew all this, but he still bristled slightly. It seemed that he’d been hearing more about Hadrian than himself lately — and he was the one making the effort to fix the situation. Hadrian had done nothing but make it worse.

‘Why does he need to be involved? If you send me back to the First Realm, that puts the link between us back the way it was.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Ana, ‘but if we do not send you back to the First Realm, what happens then? He should have the opportunity, just as you do, to remedy whatever situation arises as a result of your decision.’

He frowned, and not just at the thought that the Sisters could decide to keep him in Sheol against his will. If Hadrian chose to remain in the First Realm, it would ensure that the Cataclysm took place as Horva had said it would. The realms would collide, and Yod would win. But if Hadrian decided to come to the Second Realm, either as Xol had, or as another of the Sisters’ ghosts like Quetzalcoatl, then the Cataclysm would be over. Hadrian would save the day.

His brother comes,
the Ogdoad had said.
We will be saved, then.

It was hard not to feel bitter. Seth was the one who had died, who had been turned into some bizarre hollow man, who had had a hand taken from him, who had lost everything he ever loved. Why should Hadrian get all the glory?

He felt Ellis watching him. He did his best to rein in his resentment.

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘Hadrian should have a chance to fix things, too. I suppose that’s fair.’

‘Fairness does not concern us,’ said Meg, letting go of his arm. ‘We are interested only in balance. In symmetry.’

‘Before we go any further,’ Ana went on, ‘you must understand the true nature of choice, and what choices
exactly
will be open to you. In the Third Realm, you come face to face with, not just the choices that lie before you in your life, but every possible choice in every possible life. From the viewpoint of the Third Realm, a human is like a vast tree or anemone with trillions of branches, constantly splitting and joining up again, creating a maze so complex you can barely conceive of it outside the realm. This is your life-tree. You glimpse it sometimes in dreams or visions, but it is gone as quickly as it comes. The architecture of your life-tree, exposed in the Third Realm and determined by choice, is not something you can properly grasp in the worlds you presently inhabit. It would be like trying to explain to a snail what “up” means.’

‘We can try, though,’ insisted Meg. ‘In the First Realm the universe is defined by matter and energy and the way they interact. In the Second Realm, will, and the people who wield it, define the shape of the universe. In the Third Realm, the universe is nothing more or less than the complex, convoluted maze formed by just one life. Remember how many choices you made today and imagine each one as an intersection on a road. How many intersections would you have at the end of the day? How many after a year, after a lifetime? A human soul can lose itself for an eternity in such a labyrinth of possibility — and many
are
lost this way. Some souls seek out prosperous branches and return to the First Realm in the hope of enjoying them. Others search for answers to questions that have troubled them in their previous lives. Many take the only escape they can: back into life randomly, no matter where it leads them.’