Half Discovered Wings (55 page)

It occurred to him
that this must have been how Caeles felt when the magus approached
him in Pirene. Caeles must have known that the old errant signified
the beginning of his end, but between themselves Caeles and the
magus had communicated the importance of the magus’ undertaking.
Caeles was to die so that Gabel’s true self would be
reawakened.

What
better target for this rage
, Gabel
thought,
than the monster I killed before
the winter?

Before he could lurch toward Teague, the magus put out a
steadying hand.

‘What?’ Gabel sneered. ‘Is he part of your plan
too?’

‘Knowing how best to avoid a catastrophe is not the same as
having a plan,’ the magus replied with a scowl. ‘You thought you
knew how to protect your loved ones back in Niu Correntia: kill the
theriope that was threatening them. But did you kill
it?’

‘It’s never that
easy!’

‘Of course not. Do not
presume that it was easy for this man to surrender to the curse’s
base instincts.’

‘Until the end, I
always struggled,’ Teague said, but then admitted, ‘but I could
have done more.’

‘No-one would agree that you don’t deserve to die again,’ the
hunter told him, and lunged past the magus’ outstretched arm and
struck Teague across the cheek with his fist.

Teague’s young body adjusted to the shock, but not before it
collapsed. A smudge of blood transferred from his lip to the hand
he tested it with. It had split from the bottom all the way inside,
against his teeth. Gabel didn’t think that Teague’s expression then
was one of anger. The young man was looking at him with
poorly-concealed guilt and fear.

The magus looked
disgusted with Gabel, so much so that the factotum took a step back
so that the old man was between him and Teague. The magus spoke as
Teague got back to his feet.

‘You
also presume that he does not feel guilt for his actions, now that
the curse has been removed from him,’ the magus said.

‘There’s no guarantee
that he’s free of it.’

‘I guarantee it
myself,’ the magus. ‘Hadentes has stripped him of it.’

‘Then…’ Gabel said with great effort, ‘…then perhaps you’ve
paid your dues, William. Things seem bleaker than when you left,
and I must … force myself to be more lenient than I was then. You
may help me, if you wish.’

He extended
his hand for Teague to shake.

‘
Finally,’ said a quiet voice from behind the trees. It was
Rowan. She leant against a giant hollow trunk, looking at them from
under a ragged fringe. ‘Finally, our numbers are swelling
again.’

~

The next time the night settled in and they had once more set
off, Gabel ordered a halt, claiming that he could hear something.
It was the sound of a ringing bell. Since there was no path to
speak of in the first place, they had nowhere to hide, and so
waited in the undergrowth for the carrier of the bell to
arrive.

It was dark, just two hours from dawn, and the air was hot
and thick. The steady chiming that now came at them from somewhere
out of sight made Rowan shiver. She stood by the magus and drew
from his seemingly concrete confidence.

He seemed as unaffected about this as he did by William
Teague’s reappearance. Rowan could not believe how forgiving he and
Gabel were toward the man. Had he not killed
two
of Gabel’s loves? Rebekah and
Bethany? And yet Gabel seemed to restrain his rage so that Teague
could help them against Tan Cleric. Rowan could not understand why.
Was this danger so great?

A figure unravelled itself out of the hot mist, walking
toward them. He or she was alone, and was swathed in loose cowls
and a shawl. A heavy hood concealed the face and muffled the voice,
which trembled when it said, monotonously,
Unclean
…
Unclean
…
Unclean
…

‘
Step back,’ said the magus, and they moved aside. The figure
stopped a few metres away from them, giving them a wide berth, and
looked up.

‘
Good morning to you all,’ she said in a dry voice. The bell
tinkled on her staff. ‘Please step aside; the route here is the
easiest to travel, and I have neither the strength nor agility to
go leaping giant roots.’

‘
Are you alone?’ asked Isaac. ‘Which way are you
from?’

‘
From Shianti, less than a day away,’ she said, one eye peeking
out from underneath the hood. Her face was covered in bandages,
save for the space around the mouth and eyes. There was a space
over her nose for her to breathe, but there didn’t seem to be much
under the bandage there. Her lips were cracked and peeling. ‘I have
left the city. Sickness has taken the place. I have enough for
myself already.’

‘
My lady,’ said the magus. He stepped forward and took her
bandaged hands in his, and kissed her on the cheek. She seemed
taken aback, but didn’t have the strength to pull away.

‘
Do you know what you do?’ she croaked in alarm.

‘
Don’t worry about me,’ replied the magus with a smile.
‘There’s a colony just to the south of here, where there are
others. Find company there, my lady. It isn’t far.’

‘
Thank you,’ she said, pulling slowly away. The magus released
her hands, which had only seven digits between them. ‘You’re too
kind, stranger.’

‘
I’ll come and visit you shortly,’ he promised quietly. ‘Wait
for me at the colony.’

‘
My name is Greeley,’ she said and bowed. ‘Thank you again.
I’ll surely wait for you.’

She ambled off into the rainforest, picking her slow way
through the ferns and roots, moving around branches and leaves
instead of pushing them aside, and rang her bell, calling,
Unclean
…
Unclean
…

‘
She said Shianti is just
a day away,’ Gabel
said to the old man.

‘
We must move quickly,’ said the magus. ‘I fear we shouldn’t
have lingered so long in all those warm beds we found along the
way. Comfort has hindered us. We should camp only for an hour
tonight.’

They climbed a short hill where the trees parted and they
could see the sky, and made their fire. It would be the last they
would sit by before their journey back –
assuming they survived that long
.
Rowan thought about this as she lay down, unable any longer to sit
up or stand, and quietly asked the magus to feed her bread. She
would not let Gabel near her. She no longer trusted him.

~

Gabel watched
Rowan from the very top of the hill, taking in
with unambiguous sorrow her thin limbs, her pallid face, her
horrible, butchered hair and her irreversible physical weakness.
The steaming forest floor put heat to his eyes, and he blamed the
moisture there on the mist.

He was
standing, simply watching, when a great succession of white flashes
came from close to the west. At first it seemed that it was
lightning, but the light was too bright and spun in a rhythmic
stutter that was wholly unnatural. He tilted his palm over his eyes
and looked to the floor.

‘
Cover your eyes!’ yelled the magus from halfway down the hill.
‘Don’t look at it!’

The lights bleached the skies, tearing colour from all the
scenery. Then they stopped, and with a terrific crash a single beam
of sunset-orange luminescence spewed upward through the atmosphere,
a fiery column that pierced the clouds. It stayed there, pulsing,
and they looked upon it in fear.

‘
What is it?’ Gabel yelled.

‘
It’s a sign!’ cried William Teague, pointing.

Rowan was
murmuring quietly. The magus, who had been kneeling beside her,
stood and looked at the great light now that the flashing had
subsided.

‘
It is the Hahnium,’ he said. ‘It’s been activated.’

‘
Then why are we still alive?’

‘
It’s yet to fulfil its purpose,’ he muttered. Rowan was
grasping at his coat, and he looked down to comfort her.

‘
A sign,’ Teague said, walking up to Gabel. ‘Pillars of cloud
and fire, Joseph. Don’t you understand?’

‘
I don’t understand
you
,’ Gabel said. ‘You’ve
transformed, William.’

‘
It’s all your fault,’ he said with a smile,
putting a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m sorry for the pain I caused
before all this. About Rebekah
… and Bethany. They were everything
to you, Joseph, and I destroyed them.’

‘
Your curse is dead
, according to the magus. Do not
expect me to forgive you entirely, or even a little. You infected
Rebekah and made me kill her. She was with child, William, did you
know that?’

‘
I did not
,’ he said, almost expressionlessly, but
Gabel could sense that he was shocked and ashamed. No, he was
disgusted. Gabel liked that.
Let the bastard suffer for what he did.

‘
And out of malice you took Bethany from me,’ he
continued. ‘Out of
spite
. I only hope that your curse has truly left you.
Do not forget that my pistol carries a few rounds
still.’

‘
I would expect it. And I
’m not entirely certain that
the curse
has
left me. There was something horribly familiar about the
spirit that visited me just before we met—’

‘
Gabel,’ cried the magus, ‘come here quickly! It’s
Rowan.’

Gabel came down and lifted her up. Her eyes were wide, and
she tugged at his jacket with spasming fingers. ‘Joseph,’ she said,
eyes rolling left and right in their sockets.

‘
What is it? What’s the matter with you?’

‘
Joseph!’ she cried.

‘
The light,’ the magus said quietly, and maybe it was the
pillar of fire or the moonlight, but he looked very pale. ‘Joseph,
she is blind.’

*

Thirty-One

THE BEATING OF
WINGS

Gabel gently touched her closed eyelids. With the tips of his
fingers he stroked her face, feeling how dry the skin was. How
prosthetic. He knew that he’d never thought this before; he’d
touched her skin several times when he’d carried her, and again on
the
Tractatus
. He
hadn’t known. Nor had Doctor Fenn in Goya. Rowan was a more
sophisticated machine than Gabel had ever heard of, different from
Caeles in any number of ways. That must have explained why her
heartbeat sounded human, and Caeles’s hadn’t. But none of that was
stopping her from deteriorating, which she did with every passing
minute.

He
recalled how she had first arrived at Niu Correntia, which had
become her hometown. Two and a half years ago Father had found her
on the outskirts of the town, totally engulfed by her amnesia.
Finally this made sense: she must have reawakened, a machine on
standby somehow startled into using its last reserves of energy,
which staggered toward the first sign of civilization. She had only
enough strength to make it to Shianti. Not even enough to rekindle
her stored memories…

He lifted her, pulled her closer, and he realised how light
she had become. He took both her weakly flailing hands in just one
of his own and stopped them from moving, tried to steady her. Her
mouth formed shapes but she wasn’t speaking. He shushed her and
held her, and told her to be calm.

~

He carried her on his back as they continued moving. None of
them had slept. Isaac walked by the magus and asked twice about
Sarai – what she had said, what she had done during the time they
had known one another. The old man told him she had been brave in
battle, and compassionate when need be, and at this Isaac was
content. He still wore her clothes.

They were only
hours away from the city, and estimated that they would arrive with
the dawn. Gabel, with Rowan as his burden, noticed how the trees
were thinning; the forest grew away from the great crater as if it
was polluted, the ground offering only saplings and ferns, and a
few small yet colourful flowers.

The pillar of
light definitely came from the crater, and though some trees still
obscured their view, it was close enough to half-blind them.

They came to an area that smelled of death. The sun was
almost set as they walked through the remnantss of a secret
battle.
Caballeros
knights lay dead on the ground, heads still inside the
helmets that lay several feet away from their bodies. Their armour
was deeply dented and scratched; blunt and broken broadswords lay
on the ground, blood-coated.

It looked like an argument amongst the knights had led to
battle, and there were no survivors present. Those who had won must
have either died from their wounds, or left. Several horses were
milling around, nosing their deceased owners or chewing on the
plantlife. Each of the five travellers took a horse and moved on,
saying little. Rowan sat silently on the back of one of the smaller
animals, tied by its reins to Gabel’s own.

They moved through the edge of the rainforest until they
passed its boundaries, and could see the city of Hermeticia.
Surrounded by roasting desert, dense forest and protected by
the
Caballeros de la
Muerte
, it rarely had visitors – now, it
would get even less. A large wooden sign attached to a stake had
been hammered into the ground, and on it there was a red cross: a
warning of plague.