The Crooked Letter (22 page)

‘Nehelennia will see reason,’ said Xol. ‘You are as much a victim of the Nail as the rest of us.’

Seth kept a tight lid on his thoughts, not wanting anyone to witness the hurt and shame the argument awoke in him. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was just trying to stay afloat. It certainly wasn’t his fault that Yod was using him to destroy the world. He was the victim as much as anyone else.

Xol was the only one, it seemed, who understood.

Eventually, Nehelennia had capitulated. With poor grace she had turned away from Agatha and begun yelling at her crew.
Hantu Penyardin
had become a hive of activity as it pulled away from the ladders allowing access to its cup-like interior and the pier to which it was moored. Agatha came back to stand with Xol as their journey began. She looked bone-weary and sad. No words were spoken. When the others weren’t looking, Seth checked his body again for marks that hadn’t been there before, but found none.

* * * *

Hantu Penyardin
rode neither an ocean nor river, such as the one through which Seth had arrived in the Second Realm, but the contents of an enormous black pipe that led deep underground to the heart of Abaddon. On their departure, before entering the pipe, Sheol had been partly obscured by dark shapes analogous to storm clouds that had swept across the sky from many directions simultaneously. A dark mist trailed in their wakes, curling and entwining when their paths crossed. As Sheol dimmed, a pall had fallen across the land, an almost physical chill.

The afterlife had weather. That Seth had never expected.

Bony staffs twirled and dipped as the pilot sang the ship’s tentacles into the correct rhythm. Xol explained that Nehelennia would take them to Abaddon via the relatively safe route of the city’s underground waste disposal tunnels. The journey wasn’t expected to take long. Seth waited nervously in his spot on the ship’s scaffolding, at a safe distance from the disgruntled captain.

There was another passenger on the ship, a solidly-built black man to whom Seth hadn’t been introduced. He had joined them just as the ship was about to cast off, scaling the ladders and leaping aboard with smooth grace. Bald and dressed in loose-fitting white shirt and pants, he greeted Nehelennia with a brisk nod and said that he had been sent by Barbelo to convey messages from her to the group of travellers. Xol explained that Barbelo had several such agents in the Second Realm, individuals she had nurtured to ensure communications utterly impervious to Yod via a variation of the egrigor principle. Agatha acknowledged him with a brisk hello, and he had remained at the base of the scaffold since then.

Seth didn’t think of him again until they were well and truly on their way. His mind was heavy with all the talk of stigmata and Yod. Restless, he climbed down from his perch to stretch his legs. His muscles weren’t sore, and he was pretty sure that the need for exercise had vanished in the Second Realm along with the need for food, but the habit remained. He felt penned in by strangeness, unable to relax. Like a tiger pacing a cage, he couldn’t get his mind off places he would rather be, things he would rather be doing. He wondered what Hadrian was doing, and where Ellis was. Was she dead too, unmourned by anyone other than himself?

‘Unfinished business?’ asked the man as he lowered himself to the base of the ship and tested its coral-coloured surface beneath his feet.

Seth looked up. The man straightened from a crouching position and watched him warily. Seth returned the compliment. The man’s clothes were almost too pure, their whiteness unblemished by the slightest scuff or stain, a stark contrast to the deep brown of his skin. His nose was broad and strong, his mouth wide and masculine. If he’d had hair, he would have looked like a salesperson.

‘What do you mean?’ asked Seth in return. Two levels up, Xol kept a close eye on their interaction.

‘We all have unfinished business. There’s always something we left behind or didn’t complete. What was yours?’

Seth hesitated, flustered by the man’s directness. There was no doubt that he meant ‘left behind’ in the First Realm sense, as someone might talk about a deceased’s debts or grieving family.
I’m the deceased,
Seth thought numbly.
The nearly departed.

‘I left a friend,’ he said. ‘She could be in a great deal of trouble.’

‘Because of you.’ It wasn’t a question, and Seth bristled at the man’s tone. Nothing that had happened was his fault. Being a mirror twin was out of his control, as was Yod’s insane plan to reunite the realms by killing him.

‘Not because of me,’ he snapped. ‘She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. We all were. We’re innocent.’

‘Everyone says that.’ The boat rocked beneath them, and the man put out a hand to steady himself. Seth noticed only then that his hands and wrists were heavily bandaged. ‘Yet we are all steeped in guilt.’

‘Speak for yourself.’

‘There’s no shame in guilt,’ said the man. ‘Guilt is a form of purity. Acknowledging it makes you free. “How we are ruined! We are utterly shamed because we have left the land, because they have cast down our dwellings!”‘

Seth stared at the man for a long moment, unsure what to say, deciding in the end to be blunt in return. ‘What are you? An egrigor or something?’

‘Neither. I’m human. My name is Ron Synett. I killed a man, before Jesus washed me clean. You might have heard of me. There was an appeal against the death sentence, a campaign.’

Seth kept his hands at his sides, slightly afraid that he would be offered a bandaged hand to shake. ‘I’ve never heard of you.’ Feeling something more was required, he added, ‘Did you get your pardon?’

Synett glanced around, his mouth a sardonic knot. ‘Does it look like it?’

Seth felt a rush of embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. That was the Book of Jeremiah I was quoting before. Old Jerry was full of fire and brimstone, but me, I’m not much for that any more. There aren’t many of us lost types around here. We’re mostly picked off in the underworld. Lucky for the elohim, or they’d be up to their harps in our regret.’ Synett studied him closely. ‘“But where are your gods that you made for yourself? Let them arise, if they can save you, in your time of trouble; for as many as your cities are your gods, O Judah.”‘ He nodded. ‘Unfinished business, for sure. I reckon you know a thing or two about regret, my boy.’

What’s he seeing?
Seth asked himself, unnerved by the man’s scrutiny.
What can he and Nehelennia see in me that I can’t?

‘Hantu!’ came the captain’s brisk cry from atop the scaffolding. A string of urgent commands followed. The pilot’s song took on an imperative edge, and the bone-staffs circled and swayed like tree trunks in a violent storm. The ship listed suddenly to the left, and Seth became aware of a distant roaring.

Xol dropped heavily down beside him. ‘Something is coming.’

‘More egrigor?’

‘I don’t think so. This feels different.’

The dimane’s golden eyes danced nervously across the ceiling of the pipe. The roaring noise grew louder. Synett clung to the base of the scaffolding, wrapped both arms around the nearest pole and looked fearfully over his shoulder.

‘Do you know what this is?’ Xol asked him.

The man shook his head. The roar was already loud enough to make speaking difficult and showed no signs of abating. To Seth it sounded like a giant flood bearing along the pipe towards the ship, threatening to capsize it.

‘Hang on!’ shouted Xol, indicating that Seth should imitate Synett. ‘We will ride it out, whatever it is!’

Seth clutched the pole next to Synett. The dimane placed his feet wide apart on the deck and did the same. The air around them seemed to shake as the noise reached a painful crescendo, blasting the ship and all its contents with a single sustained note.

The ship rocked beneath him, riding a rolling surge. Then the prow suddenly dipped, and a heavy wave surged over it. Seth had barely enough time to grip the pole tightly when something very much like water rushed into him and tried to snatch him off the deck. He shouted in alarm, and heard Xol doing the same. The fluid pummelled him, grasped at his legs, tried to carry him off. He willed his hands to remain locked around the pole with all his strength, and they held firm even as something crashed heavily into him then vanished with a wail into the torrent.

‘Hold tight!’ called Nehelennia to ship and crew, her voice barely audible. ‘It will pass!’

He felt his thoughts begin to dissolve, and he distantly wondered what would happen to Hadrian if he were to drown. Would the link between them fail, allowing the First and Second Realms to bounce back to their normal states, or would Hadrian be dragged down with him, like a man tangled in an anchor chain?

Nehelennia was right. The flood finally reached a thunderous peak, then began to ebb. The tugging current eased, and Seth didn’t have to maintain his grasp with such desperation. His sense of down slowly returned and his body sagged back to the deck. Within moments, he was able to stand securely. The surface of the ‘water’ passed over his head and slid slowly down his body.

That it wasn’t water was obvious now that the current had eased. It was milky-white in colour and shot through with millions of minuscule bubbles. He felt as though he was swimming in lemonade.

The sound ebbed, too, leaving a ringing emptiness in its wake. Shouts and moans — his own among them — sounded thin and empty compared to the cacophony that had passed.

‘“Woe to the multitude of many people, who make a noise like the noise of the seas,”‘ Seth overheard Synett say as the man let go of his pole and gathered himself together. ‘“God will rebuke them, and they shall flee far off. They shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the whirlwind!”‘

Synett looked up and caught Seth watching him. A chill went down Seth’s spine at the emptiness in the man’s eyes. As Synett stood up, Seth saw bloodstains soaking through the bandages and bloody handprints where he had gripped the pole.

The scaffold shook as Nehelennia and Agatha descended. More sister-like than ever, the two of them rushed across the deck to check on the pilot, who had fallen from his perch and lay huddled in a foetal ball, keening. He had avoided being swept away only by tumbling hard against the rear of the ship and becoming stuck there. Ten crew members rocked their poles and crooned softly to the ship, which quivered faintly underfoot, recovering from the ordeal. Seth noted with a sinking feeling that two of the ship’s crew were no longer at their posts.

‘What was it?’ he asked, crossing to where Nehelennia and Agatha had helped the shaky pilot to his feet and were soothing him softly. ‘Were we attacked? Is Yod trying to drive us back?’

Nehelennia hissed at the name of the ruler of the Second Realm. ‘Speak carefully here, boy. Words have power.’

‘I don’t think it was an attack,’ said Agatha. Her expression was puzzled and shocked. ‘The wave was — unlucky.’

‘Unlucky?’ asked Xol.

‘Surges happen occasionally. They’re inevitable down here.’

‘I’ve never before seen one this large,’ snapped the captain, ‘and I’ve been riding the filth Abaddon belches for longer than you’ve existed.’

‘Barbelo received reports of strange magics at work,’ said Agatha. ‘Waste from the Nail’s stronghold is rich with the by-products of its slaughter. The numbers of dead have increased sharply in recent days, and therefore the remains of its victims will be more plentiful. We must be careful in future lest we run into more such dangers.’

Seth grimaced at the thought that they were sailing on the leftovers of the dead; an effluvium of nightmares, broken promises and failed hopes.

‘Yuck.’

Nehelennia studied her passengers, her expression as sober as an abbess on Judgement Day.

‘I’m more certain than ever that I have no part to play in your venture,’ she said. ‘We’re bound by kinship, Agatha, but I wouldn’t follow you to my death.’

‘Surges will help hide the evidence of our presence,’ Agatha said. ‘That increases our chances of avoiding discovery.’

‘It’s not discovery I’m worried about. Already I have lost two of my number. How will
Hantu Penyardin
prevail if we’re struck again?’

‘We will help you,’ said Xol. ‘I will take one of the empty places.’

‘You don’t have the skill required,’ the captain stated bluntly, ‘and I’ll still be one short.’

‘Then I’ll do it too,’ said Seth. ‘I mean, I don’t know the first thing about steering a boat, here or in the real world, but I can try.’

‘This
is
the real world, boy,’ scolded Nehelennia, ‘and I don’t need the help of the very one whose existence threatens to destroy us all.’

‘But the offer is worthy,’ said Xol, ‘and a good one. Seth is strong. His strength will make up for our lack of talent. We will assume your risk as our own.’

The captain seemed slightly mollified by the dimane’s words. ‘Very well. If we must persist in this insane venture, I suppose we have no choice.’

With a glare at Seth, she clambered up the side of the scaffolding and began issuing orders to the crew.

‘Be patient, my friend,’ said Xol softly, putting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing firmly, ‘and accept my thanks, at least, for your offer. It was boldly given.’

Seth was feeling a little less confident now that he had time to think about it. While he waited for someone to tell him what to do, he strode across the deck of the ship and up a series of notches to where the pilot normally sat. The view from the prow was impressive and oppressive at the same time. The pipe was half-filled with the clear froth that had risen up in the wake of the wave. The walls swept upward in a smooth semi-circle from the surface of the ‘water’ and closed seamlessly overhead. The way was not lit, and was dark even to eyes that needed only the will to see. It stretched ahead of him in an almost perfectly straight line, wriggling slightly as it vanished to a point on the brink of infinity, at Abaddon, where Yod lived.

The quivering beneath him had ceased, and so had the rocking motion.
Hantu Penyardin
seemed perfectly becalmed. He wished he could achieve the same mental state.