The Crooked Letter (44 page)

They walked another hour before exhaustion got the better of them. Ellis was pale by the thin, cloud-filtered light. She looked as bad as he felt. They found a furniture showroom and dragged a mattress into an office out the back. There, with the door shut, they lay down in the clothes they were wearing.

‘What do you think Kybele will do now?’ Ellis asked, worry naked on her face. ‘Will she come after you — after us?’

‘I have no idea,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t really part of the loop.’

‘She never told you what her plans were, where she was headed?’

‘Not until I needed to know. I asked often enough, but she wasn’t terribly forthcoming.’

‘I guess you’d always been pretty obedient.’

He couldn’t see her face, didn’t know if she was joking. ‘I didn’t have much choice, Ellie. I’m not Seth.’

‘You’re not Seth,’ she said, ‘but you’re still here. That counts for something.’

‘I suppose. Wherever here is ...’

He fell asleep almost instantly, and dreamed of a woman veiled entirely in black, as though in mourning. Even her eyes were hidden. When she parted the veil to let him in, a swarm of angry bees rushed out and stung his face. The bites swelled and his throat constricted. His only regret as he choked to death was that he couldn’t see her or call her name.

He woke with a fright to find Ellis huddled into his embrace as though desperate for warmth. He held her gently, taking comfort from her presence. They both stank. They were filthy. They were hopelessly lost, and had no idea what to do next.

But they were together. That was the main thing.

He slept again, and this time didn’t wake until nightfall.

* * * *

The eighth juncture in the Path of Life took the form of a giant copper skyship that was part rocket, part barge, and part blimp. A stubby, almost squat body tapered to a long spike at its front and sprouted structures at its rear that were too short to be wings yet too long to be fins. Its lower decks were open to the sky below, little more than scaffolding. The interior was shaded from Sheol above by the interior of its curving hull, like an upside-down rowboat. Cables and hooks dangled from the scaffolding, the purpose of which only became clear as the swarm of Vaimnamne approached.

Seth watched with mounting anxiety as Xol, Agatha and the others grabbed at the hanging cables as they flew by. Once hooked, they were wrenched off the back of their rides. The crew of the ship reeled them in one by one, swinging precariously over the realm far below, and led them off through the scaffolding while the Vaimnamne rocketed away.

He prepared himself to grab a hook as his ride approached.

‘May all your decisions be wise ones, Seth Castillo.’

The voice of the Vaimnamne was mournful, as though it held little hope for its species’ survival.

‘I’ll do what I can,’ he promised.

‘That is all we can ask of anyone.’

Then they were among the cables. They whizzed by him, too long, too short, or just out of reach. He heard Xol shouting, telling him what to do, but he didn’t reply. He only had a few seconds to accomplish the dismount. He couldn’t afford to be distracted.

There.
Directly ahead was a cable in the right position. The hook at its end was as long as he was, and thankfully less sharp than it had seemed from a distance. He braced himself, and jumped a split second before his ride reached it. Momentum — and will, he supposed — carried him safely across the gap. The hook caught him under the right shoulder. His hands gripped the cable tight. He swung violently to and fro.

With a jerk, he began to ascend. By the time his oscillations had settled down, the swarm of Vaimnamne were far away, and he couldn’t tell their leader from the rest. He watched them recede with a feeling of deep sadness. His fate was inextricably linked with that of many other beings. That it wasn’t his fault or choice didn’t change the fact.

Hands clutched at him as he swung into the belly of the skyship. The crew consisted of hairless pink-skinned apes dressed in leather uniforms, their long arms and prehensile toes perfect for clambering around the enormous interior of the skyship. Seth caught a giddying glimpse of the giant space as he was hurried to the nose of the ship, guided by strong hands and feet from one handhold to the next. There were few floors and little in the way of defined levels. A giant screw turned lazily up the centre. Green light bathed everything, making the skin of the apes look sickly and the copper roof corroded. The light came from several sources high up in the structure, too high for him to make out clearly. The glow was bright enough to see by, but soft like that of glow-worms or fireflies.

‘We thought you’d never make it,’ said one ape to him.

‘So did I,’ he replied. ‘There has to be better ways to travel.’

Her laugh was a staccato bark, rough but not unfriendly. She smelt faintly of raspberries. ‘The Vaimnamne are accommodating, but not intended to be used as rides. They’re actually seeds. If one breaks orbit and strikes the ground, it grows into a mountain. Sometimes mountains flower into volcanoes that fling new seeds up into the sky. So the cycle of life turns, magnificent in its single-mindedness.’

She patted him on the rump and swung him up into a large hollow space in the conical nose of the skyship. Xol, Agatha and the others awaited him there, seated on the floor before a large ape occupying a wooden throne. Seth gratefully put his feet down on a solid surface and allowed himself to stop clinging to the nearest handhold.

‘Thanks,’ he said to his guide. She saluted cheerfully and clambered up into the scaffolding.

‘Welcome, Seth Castillo,’ said the seated ape. He was dressed in blue and green silk robes and had a simple iron band around his hairless head. His eyes were hard and glassy, with glowing red pupils, and his toes constantly tapped the floor. Occasionally, he cleaned his teeth with a small pick he produced from behind one ear. ‘I am the handsome king.’

Seth was unable to completely repress the urge to bow. The term ‘handsome’ was quite appropriate; there was something charismatic about those eyes, that confident demeanour. Ordinarily, Seth was sure, his mere presence would capture the attention of everyone in the room and hold it indefinitely.

But on this occasion the king was completely overshadowed by the person standing at the king’s right hand, bathing him with liquid green light.

‘Ah, yes,’ said the king, following his gaze and indicating the glowing woman with one long-fingered hand. ‘This is Horva. She is one of the people you call the Holy Immortals. They are my guests here — ever have been and ever will be. It is my pleasure to call them friends.’

The glowing woman bowed. Had she not moved, Seth might have suspected that she was made entirely of light green jade. Jade that glowed brightly enough to cast shadows in daylight, but didn’t hurt the beholder’s eye or obscure any of her finely cast features. She did look like a monk, albeit a young one, an impression supported by the flowing robe she wore, with a length of it draped over one shoulder, toga-style. She was bald, and her expression radiated gentle friendliness muted by sadness. The reason for the latter was not immediately obvious. He hoped it had nothing to do with the Vaimnamne.

‘Hello, Seth,’ she said. ‘We have someone in common, although you do not know it yet.’

Seth didn’t know what to say to that, beyond a simple ‘Hello’ in return.

‘These are revolutionary times,’ said the handsome king, ‘and they will test us all before they pass. Even me.’ He crossed his legs and scratched his chest under his robes. ‘The war spreads, putting the very existence of the realms in jeopardy. On whose side do we fight? Or should we not fight at all? These are difficult questions.’ He waved a hand at Seth. ‘Sit, please. You make me restless.’

Seth dropped awkwardly into a cross-legged position between two of the three kaia.

‘I’m sorry we left you behind,’ said Agatha. She was fuzzy around the edges again, exhausted, but some of the excitement of riding the Vaimnamne still clung to her. ‘It was unintentional.’

‘Not your fault,’ he said, explaining briefly what the leader of the Vaimnamne had told him.

‘They are a fickle breed,’ opined the king, ‘and a nervous one. Life has survived upheavals in the past. It will survive into the future.’

‘I’m sure some extra effort on our part wouldn’t hurt,’ said Agatha.

‘There is no shame in acknowledging one’s limitations.’

Xol shook himself as though waking from a sudden light sleep. ‘We need to keep moving,’ he said, looking at Seth then away. ‘There are forces working against us. We must at least match their effort.’

The king beamed expansively. ‘Take comfort, my friends. The altitude is restorative here, so close to Sheol. We bask in the light of generations. We have all the time in the world to be who we are.’

Xol sighed. His crest hung limp across his scalp and down his back. He closed his eyes and placed his hands in his lap. Seth was a full body’s length away from the dimane, but he could feel his pain clearly. It wreathed him like smoke, mournful and forbidding.

‘What is Sheol?’ he asked, focussing on problems with relatively clear solutions. The little he knew about the place they were heading to had been gathered in glimpses and hints since his arrival in the Second Realm. Xol had called it the heart of the realm, and had added that it took life rather than gave it. That was all he knew, and the Vaimnamne’s advice that he should find out where he was going was both fresh in his mind and eminently sensible. ‘Why do the Sisters live there?’

The handsome king turned to him. ‘Why does one live anywhere? We are creatures of habit as well as action.’

‘The function of the Sisters is to serve the Flame,’ said Horva rather more helpfully. ‘It cannot exist without them, and they cannot exist without it. They guard and maintain the Flame just as it protects and preserves them. Their relationship with it is a symbiotic one.’

‘Where does the Third Realm fit in?’

‘The Flame is a gateway to the Third Realm. The gateway exists independently of the Sisters. We pass through it on our journey through the realms, but it is dangerous. Those who pass through it do so at their own risk.’

Seth thought again of Xol’s brother, whom the Sisters had turned into a ghost.
He asked to have his choices taken away,
Xol had said. ‘What’s on the other side?’

‘There are no words for it in your mind.’

‘Nonsense.’ The handsome king tapped the arm of his chair with his toothpick. ‘What about “destiny”? Or “fate”?’

‘These words imply that there is but one destination for our lives, one fatal conclusion.’ The Immortal shook her head. ‘The Third Realm shows us otherwise. Destiny is the shape of this life from beginning to end, as viewed from the outside. From this external vantage point, one might even call it memory, not destiny — memory of the future as well as the past. But there exists an infinite number of memories for all of us. At every moment, we ride the crest of an unfolding waveform with no beginning or end, twanging like a wire in every direction at once. We are complex, multi-dimensional beings — a fact the Third Realm reveals unquestionably to be true.’

The king laughed in wonder. ‘We have grappled with this issue for half an eternity, my friend, and I am still boggled by it,’ he said. ‘You say that I will never understand the Third Realm until I go there. I tell you that I am in no hurry to leave this realm, and anything I cannot name is of no use to me. Thus we reach an impasse. Marvellous! Yet I remain in agreement with you, young Seth: I want to know. Such questions occupy my mind when they should not.’

Horva opened her mouth as though to continue the good-natured argument, but was stopped from speaking by a bright flash of reddish light. It muddied her pure green glow and cast a fleeting frown across her features. The king leapt to his feet. Seth looked for the source of the light, and found to his surprise that it was the kaia. They were glowing as they had under Tatenen’s hand, but not as brightly: the features of all three of them seemed to shift and flow as though the normally cold stone of their bodies had turned to lava.

‘What assails you?’ asked the king. ‘Are we in danger?’

‘It is the one who remained behind,’ said the kaia nearest the throne. ‘We are challenged.’

‘By whom?’ asked Agatha, thin eyebrows drawing together.

‘Their identity is obscured,’ said one of the others. Heat crackled across its skin. The few remaining threads bound around them burned to ash and fell away. ‘We are diminished.’

Seth didn’t know what it meant until Agatha bowed her head and said, ‘I’m sorry.’

The red glow began to fade.

Seth understood then. The kaia abandoned on the funnel had been attacked by the person following them. Attacked and defeated. The loss, this time, was significant enough for the kaia to acknowledge it.

‘You’re being followed by someone powerful, then,’ said the king with a grave look on his face. ‘I will move us out of the Vaimnamne’s path, so your pursuer will be thwarted from using them next time they orbit.’ He snapped his fingers, and a long flexible tube dropped from the ceiling. He grabbed the end of it and held it to his lips.

‘Take us up,’ he said, ‘but not too high. We need to stay on the Path.’

A bell rang in reply and the tube withdrew. Seth felt his stomach grow heavier as the skyship ascended. A multitude of creaks and metallic pops accompanied the change in direction.

‘You look anxious, Seth,’ said the king. ‘Don’t be. Your friends must rest. They do not have the reserves you do; their strength will be needed for the last legs of the Path of Life. In the meantime, if you like, Horva here will take you on a tour of my wonderful vessel. I know she has much to tell you.’

Agatha nodded her approval, but Seth hesitated, unwilling to be separated from his companions. He wanted to talk to Xol. He wanted to know if there was anything about the dimane’s past yet to be revealed; he wanted to know what had happened to Moyo, the woman with whom Xol had conspired to kill his brother; and he wanted Xol to know that, if it was shame making him act so moodily, Seth understood; he knew all too well where the impetus for such an act could come from. Being a mirror twin wasn’t easy for either the older or younger brother. It was frustrating and confusing, forever feeling as though every action was being echoed or imitated. Seth may never have followed through on the occasional murderous impulse he harboured for his sibling — but who knew what might have happened in Sweden if the situation with Ellis had been allowed to play out to the end?