The Devoured Earth (31 page)

Pukje had gained altitude while talking in order to put him and his passengers well out of range of the black tentacles rising out of the water below.

‘We thought we were hidden from Yod,’ Hadrian said, ‘but the devels didn’t have any trouble spotting us.’

‘Always the egotist,’ Pukje said. ‘They didn’t see you. They saw Highson and me. Anyone strong in the Change will stand out like a beacon for kilometres around the towers. We know that now, at least.’

‘So how are we going to get back there?’ asked Highson.

‘Maybe we shouldn’t,’ said Hadrian.

‘Ask Marmion,’ Seth suggested. ‘If the Ice Eaters have a way, maybe we can use it.’

Highson nodded. ‘True. I’ll call him now.’ With that, the warden fell silent and inward-focussed.

Seth felt Hadrian’s relief through the essence of the Homunculus.

You can’t run from Ellis forever
, Seth told him.
I
don’t understand why you’d want to
.

What do I have to say to her? Thanks for volunteering us for a thousand years of solitary confinement? Thanks for leaving us to blunder like idiots through a world we know nothing about?

We don’t know that. Let’s at least hear her side of the story before passing judgement on her.

Hadrian was silent for a moment.
Not that it’ll do me any good, either way. She’s probably been dead longer than most countries survive. What difference will it make to curse her corpse
?

None at all, little brother
, Seth told him.
None at all
.

* * * *

Sal slid through the closing gap with just millimetres to spare. Barely had he got his feet out of the way when the massive stone slabs slammed together, sending a deafening boom echoing through the space on the far side. Instantly he was plunged into foul-smelling darkness, spreadeagled in ice-cold, slippery mud. He rolled over and called on the Change to light the space near him.

Someone clutched him in the darkness. A man’s weight, smelling of leather and sweat, pressed him back down into the mud. Before he could resist, a leather band went around his throat and pulled tight. All sense of the Change evaporated.

‘Be still!’ hissed a voice in his ear. ‘Be still or they’ll hear us!’

Desperation in the man’s voice convinced him to obey. The order wasn’t a threat, but an entreaty. He forced his breathing to become slow and quiet like that of the man straddling him — deciding that he would learn who ‘they’ were before drawing attention to himself.

Hurried footsteps splashed closer. Two people, Sal counted. One of them grunted as though agonised every other step. They came to within a half-dozen metres of the shut door, then stopped for several breaths, listening so quietly that Sal began to wonder if they had disappeared. He understood immediately what they were doing: they were checking to see if anyone had followed them through the door. Sal willed all evidence of his presence elsewhere.

A bone knife slid back into its sheath with a silkily sinister sound. The two people turned and hurried back the way they had come, apparently satisfied. The man straddling Sal released a barely perceptible breath but didn’t let him move until the sound of footsteps had faded into the echoing distance.

A light flared far away, revealing the outlines of a long, sewer-like tunnel dripping with slime and mud, twice as tall as an average person. As soon as he could, Sal sat up to see better, but the source of the light was moving, taking the details with it. Before it faded entirely, Sal took stock of the man who had surprised him in the dark. He was an Ice Eater, dressed in clothes suitable for prolonged exposure to cold weather. His face had a hard look despite disproportionately large ears.

‘Who are you?’ the man asked him.

‘I was about to ask you the same question.’ Sal sat up and tugged at the collar around his neck. The Change returned in a welcome rush.

‘My name is Mannah,’ the man said. A tiny blue spark blossomed from a crystal he held in his right palm. ‘I intend to stop Treya from doing something stupid.’

‘I’m Sal. I’ve come for Shilly. Have the others harmed her?’

‘She’s not with the others..’

‘But they took her. I heard —’

‘They did not take her.’ Mannah’s voice was firm. Treya would have no use for a hostage now, and she certainly wouldn’t bring one to the Tomb. If Shilly had made it this far, she would be dead already.’

Sal struggled to come to accept Mannah’s news. ‘So she’s back through there?’ He crooked a thumb at the door, hoping he didn’t look as foolish as he felt. ‘Open it for me, then, and I’ll be out of your hair.’

‘I can’t open it,’ Mannah said. ‘I’m sorry. Treya has the only means.’

‘Then someone on the other side will have to break the charm.’

He reached out for Marmion through the Change and found the warden in an agitated, abrupt mood. It took only a handful of sentences to learn that Shilly was slightly injured and that the door wasn’t going to open any time soon.

‘
The charms protecting it are old but very strong
,’ the warden told him. ‘
Banner is already at work on them. It’ll take a while
.’

‘How long?’

‘
Only Banner could answer that question, and I’ll not have you disturbing her
.’ Marmion deflected his query with determined bluntness.
I
want you to follow Treya and the others. Warn them, if you can, that opening the door at the other end will put them in grave danger. You too, so be quick about it, and be careful
.’

‘
But—
’

‘Don’t argue, Sal. You’re the only one able to do this. You act for all of us in there.’

That thought remained with Sal as Marmion broke off the connection.

‘Looks like I’m going with you,’ Sal told Mannah. He wiped the worst of the mud from his face and clambered to his feet. ‘Lead the way.’

‘There’s only one way.’ Mannah pointed along the downward-sloping tunnel.

‘Couldn’t be simpler, then.’ Before they could head off, however, Sal took the man’s arm. ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’

Mannah shook his head. ‘No. We’ve never met.’

Sal let the matter go. A strange sense of familiarity was the least of his concerns at that moment. ‘Go on, then.’

Mannah dimmed the crystal to the merest glimmer and began to walk down the tunnel. Sal followed, ignoring a twinge in his side from the rough landing. For a good while they barely talked, concentrating instead on looking for signs of their quarry. They didn’t want to run into them suddenly in the gloom, and they certainly didn’t want to encounter an ambush. Soon, however, it became apparent that Treya was moving with all possible haste for the far end of the tunnel, concentrating on speed rather than ultra-cautious rearguard actions.

Mannah and Sal changed from a walk to a jog. The ground underfoot was slippery and unreliable, but running was in some ways easier than walking. A gentle downward slope tugged at them, encouraging them to lengthen their strides anyway.

Sal found a steady rhythm and took some comfort from it. ‘What makes you think Treya is about to do something stupid?’ he asked. ‘We had her cornered back there. Why couldn’t she just be running for her life?’

Mannah glanced at him as though considering ignoring the question. ‘She’s not the running type. She only ever does what she thinks is right — and usually she
is
right. This time, however, I believe she’s being rash. If everything you people say is true and the Death awaits her at the Tomb, then all the efforts of my people will have been wasted. Only she can open the Tomb, just like only she can open the doors to this tunnel. She holds the secrets, as our other leaders have before her. To lose her would be to lose all purpose. I will save her and the rest of us from that fate.’

Sal thought that reason enough, but his thoughts had become stuck on an earlier point. ‘If she knows how to open the Tomb, why hasn’t she ever done it? Why hasn’t someone before her?’

‘Certain conditions must be met.’

‘What conditions?’

Again, Mannah hesitated. ‘I understand that one of your number is a seer. The boy Tom: he sees things in his dreams, correct?’

Sal confirmed that.

‘Well, we had seers of our own: subtle minds who probed the fissures of the ice for meaning. At dawn and dusk at certain times of the year, sunlight hit the ice at exactly the right angle, making it glow. In that glow lay revelations, we’re told, although all my life I doubted them. After all, if the Goddess herself didn’t tell us about the opening of the Tomb, why should I believe anyone else? But the signs are coming true, impossible though they once seemed: the melting of the lake, the extinguishing of the stars, the slaughter of our people, the coming of strangers. Only one remains, the most mysterious of all.’

‘And that is?’

‘The mirror that is not a mirror. So the seers say. The Tomb will open and our destiny will be complete when we step through the mirror that is not a mirror.’ Mannah glanced at Sal. ‘Do you know what that means?’

Sal shook his head. ‘I’ve no idea. I’m sorry. Perhaps one of the others will know. Sky Wardens use mirrors for all sorts of things.’

‘Perhaps.’ Mannah snorted. ‘How
could
you know? You didn’t even know we existed until a day or two ago. We are as far outside your experience as you are outside ours. We are only together now because we have to be.’

Sal was stung by the dismissal. ‘All my best friends were strangers once. Some I never expected to like at all. Allies come in all shapes and sizes.’

They ran in silence for an uncomfortable time. Then Mannah sighed. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t judge too hastily. That would make me as bad as Treya. I am simply… overwhelmed. Please forgive me.’

‘You’ve done nothing wrong.’ Familiarity still nagged at Sal. Somewhere he had seen Mannah before. But where?

Sal stumbled slightly as the floor of the tunnel levelled out, but quickly regained his rhythm. He had no way of estimating how far they had travelled or how much tunnel remained. Presumably it led to the centre of the lake, where the Tomb lay buried under Yod’s drowned towers, but Sal had no real perception of how far that was by foot. He had sailed many times in his years at Fundelry, after conquering his fear of the sea, but he had never travelled
under
a body of water before. Rather than talk, he decided to conserve his strength.

‘
We’re arranging a distraction,’
said Marmion later in his strange subterranean journey. Treya seemed as far ahead as ever; the only sounds were their damp footfalls and heavy breathing.

‘
How long
?’ Sal sent back. The bedrock around him was making communications difficult, but he was strong enough to punch through the obstructions.

‘I was going to ask you the same question.’

‘
We’ll probably give each other the same answer
—
that we’re going as fast as we can
.’

‘
Understood
.’ Marmion’s mental voice carried an edge of unease. ‘
We’re still working on the lock. Banner is making progress, but it could be half an hour before we can come after you
.’

‘
How’s Shilly
?’ Sal asked, caring less at that moment about doors than the woman he loved.

‘Recovering. So are Kail and Tom. We were lucky not to have any more serious injuries than that.’

Sal nodded, grateful for that. He was still recovering from the news that Kail had survived the fall from Pukje’s back and had tracked Shilly and the others to the underground cavern. Without Kail, Shilly would most likely be dead at Treya’s hands, along with Tom and the Panic empyricist. Despite their past awkwardness, he now owed Lodo’s nephew more than he could possibly repay.

‘
Where’s Highson
?’ he asked Marmion.

‘On his way back to shore. He’s unharmed, but I gather it was close. The Tomb is guarded by devel creatures sensitive to the Change.’’

Sal didn’t try to hide his feelings at that news. Relief mingled with nervousness made his stomach flutter.

‘
Tell Shilly
—’ He stopped, uncomfortable with relaying anything intimate through the warden. ‘
Tell her to get a move on. We’re going to pieces without her in charge
.’

‘
Tell me yourself
.’ Her voice came through Marmion as clearly as the warden’s had. ‘
And so I gather. I can’t leave you lot alone for a moment. I’ll never do it again
.’

Warmth filled Sal. ‘
That’s good to hear
,’ he said, thinking it the understatement of the millennium. ‘
Listen, I’m here with a guy called Mannah. Do you know him
!’

‘Mannie? Of course I know him. He saved my life.’

‘But before that. Have you ever met him? He says he doesn’t know us, but I’m sure he’s wrong. It’s driving me crazy trying to work out who the guy is.’

She thought for a moment. ‘
Someone from the Haunted City, perhaps? It was a long time ago, but that’s all I can think of
.’

‘
What would a Sky Warden be doing up here, masquerading as an Ice Eater
?’ A thought occurred to him. ‘
Perhaps the Weavers sent him to keep an eye on things
?

‘That’s a theory. Maybe Highson will know.’

‘
Wait.’’
Sal wrenched his attention away from the conversation. Mannah had slowed and was raising a hand for Sal to do the same. ‘
Something’s happening. I’d better go. Take care
.’

‘You too.’

‘What is it?’ Sal whispered to his companion.

Mannah waved for Sal to be silent and his footsteps became slow and wary. The crystal-light went out.

Sal froze in his tracks. A grunt of surprise came from further along the tunnel. Light flared anew. Sal saw Mannah holding another Ice Eater in a chokehold. Bright red blood glowed in the crystal-light, soaking through the small man’s heat-preserving robe and staining the wall behind him.