The Devoured Earth (3 page)

Skender came and sat next to them, pulling his black robe tightly around himself in order to keep the draughts off his stockinged legs.

‘What do you think?’ he asked them. The white-skinned young mage wasn’t looking at them or his girlfriend, for a change; his attention was firmly fixed on the dark edifices visible through the windows.

Only then did Hadrian realise that they had almost reached the end of the cleft. People peered and whispered excitedly among themselves at glimpses of their destination. His first impression was that a whole other range lay in the misty distance — as though they had crossed one barrier only to encounter another just as large beyond it. Then he realised that the northern and southern ends of that range curved westward to form a giant circle.

‘A crater,’ Seth said. ‘Like a volcano, only much bigger.’

‘I’ve read about volcanoes in
The Book of Towers
,’ Skender said. ‘They’re mountains that vomit fire, right?’

Seth nodded, studying the far side of the crater with a sense of unease. The jagged peaks were white with ice and snow as though dusted by a giant baker.

‘A volcano with a lake in it?’ asked Chu, overhearing and pointing ahead and down. Just coming into sight was the shore of a mighty body of water. The crater was flooded, filled halfway up its steep sides with run-off from the surrounding peaks.

‘How could there be a lake up here?’ Skender asked. ‘Why hasn’t it frozen over?’

‘Both good questions,’ said Warden Banner, seated not far from them with a crutch held tightly in her hand. Since breaking her leg during the attack of the Swarm on Milang, she had been confined to light duties. ‘Here’s another: are those houses down there?’

Sure enough, on the southern shoreline of the lake huddled a cluster of low, black-roofed dwellings, perhaps forty in all, with a long, narrow pier protruding into the water.

No, the twins told themselves on a closer inspection. Not into the water. The shoreline had dropped precipitously in recent times, by the look of the frosty mud caked below its original high-mark. Now the houses stood twenty metres back from the shoreline and the pier led to nothing but more mud. There were no boats visible anywhere.

‘Who would live up here?’ asked Griel.

‘Maybe no one, now,’ said Marmion, and Seth could see his point. No smoke issued from the houses; no people walked the village’s narrow streets.

Skender looked disappointed. ‘I was expecting something grander, I’ll admit.’

‘Be careful what you wish for,’ Hadrian told him. ‘I’ve had enough excitement for one lifetime.’

‘Two, even,’ Seth added.

‘True, true,’ Skender said. ‘Do you recognise anything? Is any of this familiar to you?’

Hadrian shook his head.

‘Look at the lake,’ said his brother, pointing with one black finger. ‘They’re not islands.’

Attention shifted from the village to the centre of the lake. Three broad columns stood out of the water, dozens of metres high and as black as jet. One loomed higher than the others, its top truncated as though sheered off by a giant knife. The light caught it and radiated sickly gleams.

‘Tower Aleph,’ Seth said. ‘That’s from the Second Realm.’

‘So you
do
recognise something?’ Marmion asked, peering as closely at the twins as he was at the distant structures.

‘What Seth’s saying,’ said Hadrian, ‘is that these are the tops of three towers Yod was building before it made the big leap. They were supposed to act as bridges across Bardo when the Cataclysm took effect. We stopped Yod in its tracks, of course, so I guess these got stuck halfway too.’

‘I’ve never heard of them,’ said Skender. ‘You’d think they’d be mentioned in
The Book of Towers
.’

The twins had no opinion on that, just a similar, nagging feeling of being left in the dark. Skender glanced at his girlfriend at the other end of the gondola and the Asian-looking miner from Laure winked back at him. Embarrassed, the twins looked away. The mutual attraction between the two young lovers reminded them of cold nights in Europe and an unhappy ending in Stockholm, long ago…

Something moved in the corner of Hadrian’s eye. On the already receding flanks of the cleft, a long-limbed grey figure broke cover and took a running leap across the space between it and the gondola. The twins barely had time to recognise the terrible shape before another followed. There was no mistaking their intent. The two hideous creatures leapt with limbs flailing and steel-grey teeth bared. Long-bladed scissors opened and closed where hands should have been.

‘Watch out!’ Seth yelled.

Then all was breaking glass and shrieking wind, and the terrible clash of blades snipping at everything in reach.

Devels? Here? Impossible!

Seth ignored his brother’s mental protest and pushed Skender behind him. His hands went through the young mage’s back until Hadrian added his own impetus to the shove. They forced their way up the aisle to where Panic and wardens struggled with this new danger. Both groups were exhausted from the long ascent. Any reserves of strength they possessed would be sorely tested.

Seth and Hadrian pushed through with necessary brusqueness. The two scissor-handed devels lunged and snapped at anyone within reach, issuing terrible, ear-piercing howls. One of the balloonists fell back with her throat fatally cut.

A roar came from one side, where the forester Heuve slashed ferociously back at the nearest devel. The bodyguard looked almost grateful for something to do, but the expression was soon wiped off his beardless face — almost literally when a pair of blades barely missed his nose. Only a wild lunge backwards saved him. A skilful parry from Lidia Delfine defended his exposed stomach from another slash. Together, the two of them drove their adversaries back to the fore of the gondola, where Marmion and Chu were guarded by Griel. Seth shouted at one of the devels and lunged to keep its attention firmly on him. While it was distracted, Griel rammed the point of his hook deep into its spine and twisted. Black blood sprayed in a thick arc across the inside of the gondola, befouling the air with a potent chemical stench.

The second creature slashed a hole through the ceiling and leapt outside. The twins snatched at its heels too late, and clambered after it, wary of the blades that instantly snapped at their emerging head. The creature snarled at them, prompting memories of crossing Bardo to the Underworld. Then, a creature identical to the one he was following had taken Seth by surprise and cut off his hand. The hand had grown back almost instantly, restored by the persistent impression of himself that was more important in the Second Realm than actual flesh and blood — but that hadn’t lessened the shock and pain Seth had experienced.

The memory gave him an idea. As the blades snapped at them again, he raised his right arm and thrust it deliberately between them.

The blades bounced off his skin with a shower of sparks, repelled by the Homunculus’s rock-solid maintenance of his sense of self. The devel shrieked in frustration. Seth twisted his arm to free it, and lashed out with a clenched fist for the creature’s face.

It recoiled with a hiss. Together, Seth and his brother slithered out of the gondola, mindful of their footing on the ice-rimed wooden exterior. Three metres above them, the giant bladder strained and rocked, held down by dozens of thin, charm-strengthened cables. Strange geometric shapes raced across the balloon’s light brown skin.

The remaining devel raised its scissor-handed arms and faced the twins. Wind snatched at them as they planted their four feet wide and held their arms high.

‘Who sent you?’ Seth shouted. ‘Culsu? Yod?’

Grey eyes blinked at them. They didn’t doubt that it could understand them. They had seen enough of the new world to know that Hekau worked just as well as it had in the Second Realm: anyone who wanted to be understood
could
be understood, regardless what language they were speaking.

For a second they thought the devel might reply. It hesitated, tilting its head to one side as though wondering who or what they were.

Then it reached out with both arms and began snipping cables.

‘No!’ The twins jumped forward, knocking the creature flat on its back. It didn’t retaliate. In its brief moment of consideration it seemed to have decided to care less about its own life than bringing down the gondola. Even as it sprawled across the slippery roof, its scissor-hands snapped at every cable and wire within reach. Each sharp twang sent a nail of fear through the twins. How many cables could snap before the whole contrivance unravelled, sending the gondola tumbling down to the unforgiving rock below?

The balloon shuddered. Its angle of flight steepened upwards. The twins threw themselves bodily at the devel, knowing they had to deal with the threat quickly.

The roaring of propellers grew louder as the twins wrestled with their assailant, tumbling from side to side through the forest of cables. With a snarl, the creature slipped free and lunged for a dense knot near the rear of the balloon. The twins caught it in a flying tackle, sending it skidding across the slippery gondola. The points of its scissors struck off splinters of ice as it sought to find a grip. The attempt failed. Emitting a high-pitched cry, it slipped over the side and was sucked into the balloon’s rear-port engine.

Propeller blade and scissor-creature met with a powerful explosion. The twins ducked instinctively. Shrapnel whizzed past them, ricocheting off the gondola and arcing into open air.

When the echoes of the explosion faded, they raised their heads to inspect the damage. All that remained of the propeller and its chimerical engine was a smoking black stump. A high-pitched whistling came from several jagged tears in the balloon.

‘Crap.’ Seth drove them back to the hole in the gondola. Griel needed to be told about the damage. The balloon shook and rolled, already destabilised by the severed cables.

‘I know, I know. I’m doing everything I can,’ said the Panic soldier as they dropped into the gondola’s chaotic interior. The pilot console was emitting a persistent chiming sound; needles dipped and shuddered on every gauge.

‘Is there anything we can do?’

‘Just hold tight. I’m going to try to bring us down safely.’ Griel tugged at levers and pushed buttons. The balloon swayed giddyingly.

Seth filtered out the sound of people shouting in order to concentrate on what lay through the shattered windows ahead: the crater lake and its dark ruins.

‘I’d be happy to land in one piece,’ said Marmion, gripping a black-stained wooden pole for balance.

‘Give me space and I’ll do what I can.’ Griel waved them away. Chu pressed forward from where she had been standing with Skender. The twins noted her shaking hands and ashen skin. The cold air rushing through the gondola was taking its toll on those less hardy than the Homunculus.

‘If there’s anything we can do,’ Hadrian started to say again.

‘There is,’ said Marmion, pulling them towards the rear of the shaking gondola. ‘You can tell me what those things were, just in case there are more waiting for us when we land.’

The balloon shook and canted downwards. The twins did their best to ignore it. ‘It’s a devel,’ Seth said. ‘They lived in the Underworld before the realms were jammed together. These particular devels were ruled by a minor dei called Culsu.’

‘A dei?’ The warden’s expression was simultaneously worried and puzzled. ‘Is that something like a god?’

‘Someone probably worshipped them at some point. I don’t know. Their job when I knew them was to cut up the souls of the dead as they tried to get to the Second Realm. The remains would be given to Yod to eat.’

‘So ultimately they worked for Yod.’

‘Yes.’ Seth watched black-spattered Lidia Delfine focussing an eyeglass on the lake’s dark shoreline. It was growing visibly closer. ‘I guess they still do.’

‘Do you think there could be more of them?’

‘I’d be amazed if there weren’t.’

Griel had taken a measure of control over the balloon. With a discernible effort, it was turning towards the nearest village. Seth swallowed his misgivings. There might still be people around, huddling for shelter from the cold and the devels. They might need help as badly as the expedition when it landed among them.

‘Take your seats,’ called Griel from the front of the gondola. ‘We’re going down.’

‘And by that,’ said Chu, ‘he means, “Hang on tight. We’re going to crash!”‘

The balloon lurched and tilted so steeply that even the Homunculus’s four legs had trouble keeping purchase. Seth was dismayed to see how quickly they had fallen in such a short time. He and Hadrian helped the others to safety, then took a position of their own towards the rear. Through the cracked window beside them, he could see the black scar left by the destroyed engine and the slopes of the crater rising up to meet them. There was no sign of more devels — or anything worse.

If the towers are here
… Hadrian began.

Then Yod might be too
, Seth finished.
We’ve known it would be around somewhere. Doesn’t change anything
.