The Heretic Land (26 page)

Slowly, light started building. His feet touched something solid, and the muscles in his legs flexed as he stood upright. He looked around in a panic, searching for that thing he had touched, the dead thing with rough skeletal promise, but he could not turn his head quickly at all, and he moved as if submerged in water.

Illumination grew, and with it understanding.

Juda was surrounded by magical dregs. Wisps and whispers of it pressed into his mouth and touched his eyes. Its touch was dreadful. Magic had always been strange to him, but here and now, he realised that there was so much more to it. These dregs echoed with awfulness, and he thought once again of Rhelli Saal’s warnings to him.
Don’t give it a mind, or your own mind will be doomed.

‘Crex Wry,’ Juda whispered, testing the name. The dregs paused in their movements, as if holding breath. Juda held his own. Then they swirled again, parting to reveal what else shared the Engine’s interior.

There were several bodies, and they wore uniforms of the old Ald priesthood, Fade sigils sewn into vestments that should have rotted away centuries before. Their hair waved to magic’s rhythm of ebb and flow. Their empty eye sockets glared at him with the darkness of their deeds; he felt their horrible stares.

Juda wanted to scream, but he had no voice. Instead, he moved his arms, hands cupped, to try and swim away from the monstrous dead. But they surrounded him, and the swimming took him nowhere.

He
could not breathe, scream, or move, but he could think. He realised that he was in the heart of the Engine. He understood that remnants of magic persisted here, in far greater strength than anywhere he had ever seen before. And he believed that this was but a shadow of what he would find around Aeon.

Working slowly, carefully, doing his best to keep fear at bay and remembering everything he had been taught by Rhelli Saal and the Brokers, Juda started to twist and turn the dregs of magic into his hands.

Always a mystery to him, the Engines were an enigma that kept him awake for those nights when he was not nightmaring. Now, he took time to try and make sense. He looked around as he collected, trying to pinpoint parts of the Engine that he might know. Between walls that looked less than solid, a white flame seemed to dance, spiked like lightning.
That could be to honour Flaze, Fade god of fire.
The ceiling above him was formed of a network of veins and fine limbs, opened into blooms that had long since petrified into metallic simulacrums of flowers.
And that’s for Fresilia, god of growth and life.
From around his feet, water droplets rose to splash on the ceiling, defying the sciences he knew.
Venthia, who lives in every drop of water.

The Engine was home to aspects of all gods of the Fade, some obvious, others less so. Though he was nowhere near devout, the idea that the Engines might bear some divine origins shook Juda somewhat. And yet, holy or not, he honoured the magic that resulted.

‘Holy or not,’ he said, thinking of the name of Crex Wry once more. Juda did not care about names or no names, minds or no minds. All he cared about was what the touch of magic could do for him. That was his true addiction, and his true need.

He swam
through the Engine by collecting the dregs. It was the only way he could move, and sense time moving on. As the dregs lessened, and his bag began to fill, mad laughter echoed within the mysterious confines of that forgotten Engine. It sounded like a thousand men laughing, but it was all Juda’s voice.

Time
moved on, but Bon could not approach the Engine. He paced back and forth at a distance, staring at the structure and fearing it. It was a monstrous creation, made more so by its persistence, because it stood testament to the evil it had perpetrated, while around it Skythe was far less than it had been. He feared the Engine so much.

But Venden might be close by. And the longer Juda remained inside, the more Bon knew he would have to enter the Engine to bring Juda back out.

He could not allow the half-Regerran to lose himself to madness.

‘Stop pacing,’ Leki said.

‘It helps time pass quicker.’

‘Does it?’

Bon stopped and looked at Leki. She was sitting on a fallen tree, chewing idly at a shred of dried meat.

‘Don’t you understand?’ he asked, meaning Venden, and his hope, and his frustration now that discovery might be close. Leki
glanced away nervously, still chewing. No, she did not understand.

‘He’ll be out soon,’ she said. ‘Juda!’ She stood and cupped her hands around her mouth.

‘Leki!’ Bon said.

‘Juda!’

He rushed to her and grabbed her arm. ‘We don’t know what’s out there.’ He waved at the darkness, growing rapidly deeper as the sun dipped below the horizon. All horizons were close in the mountains, and there could be anything beyond them.

‘Make up your mind, Bon,’ she said, exasperated.

‘Shit.’ Bon took several deep breaths, then marched towards the Engine. He expected Leki to call him back, warn him away. But she did not speak up. He wondered what she was thinking as she watched him approach the brooding construct, but realised he would probably never know. Whatever bond might be forming between them, Venden would always be there to prevent them joining fully.

Alive, Bon hoped. But even if he were dead, his son would remain a strong presence in his heart. He always had. New hope, whether proven or dashed, could never change that.

As he left Leki behind and approached the Engine, Bon felt as if he was moving from one world to another. Realities seemed to shift, because the solidity of the Engine was something he had never expected to see. His beliefs were firm, but fed by rumour, old documents, whispers. Fleeting things. Before him was something substantial. Proof.

The ground around the Engine was hard. He thought he heard his footsteps echoing, but it might have been a heartbeat, his own or another.

The Engine moved.

Bon’s fear blossomed into terror. He crouched, trying to be
nothing. He had no wish to draw the attention of the Engine, or whatever was moving within. He heard Leki shifting behind him, and hoped that she was hiding rather than coming forward. He would welcome her closeness, but not what it might cost them both.

Should have gone on without Juda
, he thought, and the shadow upon the Engine stood, growing larger, silhouetted against the dark mountains as something darker.

‘It’s Juda,’ Leki said, and Bon closed his eyes and sighed in relief. He stood as Juda climbed down the Engine’s uneven side, jumping the final distance to the ground and landing with a thud. He straightened and turned back to the bulk, reaching out and laying his hand flat against its side.

‘Did you find anything?’ Bon asked, but Juda did not reply.

‘It’s dark,’ Leki said. ‘Do you need us to camp and tie you?’

‘No camping!’ Bon said, because they had to move on. Time teased.

Juda ignored them both. He stroked the Engine, his hand moving slowly, almost lovingly across its surface. He seemed larger than he had before he had entered. Bon frowned, squinting. Perhaps it was the darkness that made him grow.

He moved away from the Engine at last and approached Bon. He was moving like a different man; slower, more confident.

‘We need to find your son,’ he said.

‘Yes!’

‘The scamp is working?’ Leki asked. She had come closer, and now stood beside Bon. He sensed her uncertainty.

‘It’s working,’ Juda said. His voice slurred slightly, but it did not sound like tiredness to Bon. It sounded like he was drunk.

Juda kept his back turned on the Engine as he led them away, as
if he did not wish to look upon it again. Bon and Leki followed, and Bon was glad to leave the thing behind. There had been something awful about it. Not because of what it had been and done, but because of what it was now. Bon could not shake that from his mind.

The Engine watched them leave, and he felt the cool strength of its regard.

‘Is it alive?’ he asked, but Juda did not reply. He walked silently ahead of them. Bon and Leki walked side by side, and it was only as he looked at her that Bon realised how tired he was. Even in the darkness he could see the weariness in her features.

‘Do you think he found what he was looking for?’ he asked Leki.

‘I think so, yes,’ she said.

‘How do you know?’

‘A feeling.’

Juda led them higher into the mountains, the air grew cooler, and when the moon emerged from behind a bank of clouds it glimmered from the frost already forming on rocks and trees around them. The wildness of this place was palpable, but Bon felt in less danger than he had since arriving on Skythe, swimming towards the shore where murder was already happening. They had shaken the slayers from their trail, and he supposed that contributed to his more relaxed feeling. But it was also the fact that he had come here hopeless, and now bore hope. It lit a fire in his heart, and that was enough to see away some of the darkness, at least.

Close to dawn, Juda stumbled and fell. Leki ran ahead to him and Bon stood back, his hand stealing into his pocket to the small knife there. The man had not slept all night, and perhaps it was only now that his Regerran nightmare-curse would
take him. One swipe at Leki, one punch or kick, and Bon would be on him.

But there was nothing uncontrolled about this fall. Juda pulled Leki down beside him, and Bon crouched and knelt with them, waiting for the other man to talk.

Juda breathed heavily, looking around at the landscape. They had been descending for some time, and though frost still glimmered on trees and grasses scrunched underfoot, they were no longer in the heights. Below them were gentle valleys, not sheer drops.

‘What is it?’ Bon asked.

‘We’re close.’

‘How do you know?’

Juda ignored him. Instead, he felt around in his pocket, then brought his hand out fisted around something. He glared at Leki and Bon, the mistrust in his eyes sharp and piercing. He pursed his lips. There was sweat beaded on his nose, even though it was cold, and his eyes flickered left and right.

‘How do you know we’re close?’ Leki asked again.

‘Can’t you
feel
it?’ he growled, his aggression sudden and shocking. Bon brought the knife from his pocket, and Juda smiled. ‘You won’t need that.’

‘No?’

‘What good is a knife against a god?’ Juda opened his hand to reveal something small and black, like a seed or a chrysalis. Bon could not look at it properly; it seemed to change, flex, pulse, repulsing his vision even though it remained the same size and shape, and motionless.

‘What by the gods is that?’ Leki asked, but Bon already knew.

‘Wait here,’ Juda said. His voice was deep, and brooked no argument. He moved away, past a fallen tree trunk that was thicker than he was tall, and soon disappeared from view.

Leki
was nervous. Looking around, fidgeting.

‘Can you feel it?’ she asked.

‘No.’

‘Something …’

Bon put his arm around her and pulled her tight. Dawn was breaking. He hoped today might bring Venden.

‘I wouldn’t want to touch what he has,’ he said. ‘I don’t even like being close to it.’

‘It has an odour,’ Leki said, wrinkling her nose as if she’d just stepped in shit.

Juda returned moments later, the thing no longer in his hand. ‘I’ll look ahead,’ he said, and he sat down with his back against the fallen tree and closed his eyes.

‘We should go,’ Leki whispered to Bon. ‘I fear this. Something isn’t right. Something is wrong. We should go.’

‘After we’ve come all this way?’ Bon asked, his voice low. He did not take his eyes from Juda.

‘You only have his word that your son—’

‘I told no one his name,’ Bon said. ‘Yet he knew.’

‘And you trust him?’

‘No. But I can’t just run away from this. Not after we’ve come this far.’ He glanced at Leki, saw that she was shivering. She didn’t seem to him like someone easily scared. ‘What is it?’

‘Can’t you feel it?’ she whispered.

‘I feel hope.’

‘No,’ she said, waving one hand. ‘No, no.’ She gestured at their ice-speckled surroundings, fine webbing between her fingers transparent in the rising sun.

‘Just hope,’ he said, searching for something else, not finding it.

‘I think it’s
terrible
.’ She pressed close to him, sounding so wretched.

‘Leki—’

‘It’s here!’ Juda
shouted. He stood, eyes wide and a grin making a mask of his face. ‘It’s so
close
!’ He dashed around the fallen tree, staring across the wooded hillside towards a depression in the land. He looked back at Bon and Leki, but his eyes barely settled on them. ‘So close,’ he said, quieter and almost to himself.

‘Venden?’ Bon said, but he knew that was not right. Leki had pushed away from him and moved forward, reaching for Juda.

‘What’s close, Juda?’ she asked.

‘Aeon,’ Juda said. ‘The murdered god.’ He laughed, and several large birds took flight from a nearby tree. Another laugh chased them away.

‘Aeon,’ Leki said. It was not a question. As Juda broke from her and ran, she turned to face Bon, and her expression of hopeless terror made his heart sink.

‘Leki?’

‘Again,’ she said. ‘If it’s really true, then it’s all going to happen again.’

Venden could not bring himself to touch the heart. Every other artefact he had found and brought back to the remnant, he had excavated from the ground, dragged from their hiding places, and manhandled onto the cart. He had felt no fear whilst doing so, and no sense of being disrespectful. But the heart, he could not touch. It was Aeon’s centre, lost for generations. And it was still wet.

When the figures who had brought it vanished, dusk allowed mysterious lights in Kellis Faults to rise, drifting like mist with a sense of direction. Venden dragged the blanket from the stretcher, and the heart came with it. He felt observed in everything he did more than ever before. Trying to ignore the
sensation, he folded the blanket’s corners and tied them together.

The heart was lighter than he had expected.
As heavy as light
, he thought, turning his back on the city where wraiths might dance. He tied the blanket sling to the saddle and mounted the shire, expecting it to be skittish and unresponsive bearing what he had loaded onto it. But the creature seemed unconcerned.