The Crooked Letter (47 page)

‘But —’

‘Don’t, Seth. Not now. You were the last person I expected to see. Let me get over that shock before you give me another.’

Seth fell back, fuming. He could see her point; he just couldn’t accept it. After all they’d been through together, turning their backs on each other seemed wrong.

He couldn’t force her to talk to him; trying would only make it worse. He would have to be patient, in the hope that once they got to the Sisters everything would be sorted out. Or until her veil literally parted. Whatever she was hiding under the layers of fine, black fabric, he would have to wait until she chose to declare it.

That plan might have been enough, had not Horva’s prediction that the Cataclysm wouldn’t be undone still rung in his mind.

‘Careful along here,’ said Shathra. The monk indicated a stretch of narrow scaffolding that led along the spine of the skyship. There was a handhold overhead — a rail fixed to the metal surface — but that was the only precaution taken to make the way any easier. Horva went first, walking briskly across the five-metre gap with her hands moving out of time with her steps. Ellis went next, taking the crossing more slowly but just as surely, not missing a beat. Her all-black veil whipped back and forth, flag-like, in her wake. One of the monkey crew scampered over after her, not bothering with the handhold. Then it was Seth’s turn.

He didn’t look down any more than he absolutely had to. Far below, another pod of the giant mantas flew in two distinct formations around each other, as though playing a game. They were tiny in the distance, and the surface of the Second Realm was even further away. He didn’t need the reminder of how far he would fall if he slipped.

Halfway across, he stopped dead, struck by a sudden disorientation.

‘Seth, what is it? Are you all right?’

Horva’s voice barely registered. He was overwhelmed by a series of horrific images: a knife sticking out of his chest; Ellis’s bloodied body; a snake coiling and uncoiling around his throat while a wolf grinned savagely from afar.

* * * *

This is what’s happening to Seth,
Hadrian told himself in amazement as the dream folded and bent, curling about itself like a serpent eating its own tail.
This is real.

But how could he accept it when his brother looked the way he did?

My brother’s a monster,
he whispered to himself.

He supposed he’d always known that.

Something was tugging at him. He resisted it, resenting the intrusion. He wanted to stay with Seth. There was pain in his old life. There were things far worse than monsters. He was
—

* * * *

‘— incomplete, you idiot. Don’t you see? You can’t die yet. You have work to do!’

Sense returned to Hadrian’s body in a violent rush. The voice was harsh, insistent, familiar. His muscles were burning. His chest was full to bursting with something that wasn’t air.

He vomited blood. Small but strong hands kept him down, stopped him from moving too much. A narrow, ugly face appeared before him.

‘Be still. It’s enough that you’re back. I can do the rest.’

The hands moved from his chest to the knife sticking out of it. The misshapen little man on the other end of the hands muttered to himself. Searing pain spread from the wound to Hadrian’s spine and from there all through his body. He felt as though his nerves had been doused in acid. He wanted to scream but could do little more than utter a weak, despairing cry.

With a wrench the knife came out. He felt instantly much worse.

‘Charms can only do so much, my boy. I have to stop the bleeding. Can you give me something to plug the wound?’

‘B-bandages,’ he tried to say, but the word barely emerged from his lips.

‘Not that sort of plug. One of significance is what I require, if you know what I mean. Can you think of nothing that might be suitable?’

He wanted to complain that it was too much to ask. He was barely there at all, let alone capable of advanced thought. Blood pulsed out of the wound in his left breast in a thick stream. An ordinary person would have been dead long ago.

But he wasn’t an ordinary person. He was a mirror twin. Irrespective of magic, the Catastrophe, Yod, Lascowicz — any of that — he still lived by virtue of the fact that his heart wasn’t where it should be. It was on the right side of his chest. The knife had therefore ended up puncturing his lung instead of stopping his life cold.

One of significance ...

‘Pocket,’ he breathed.

‘Eh? Speak up.’

‘In my ...’ He waved feebly with his right hand at where his pants lay under the body beside him.

The little man scrabbled for a moment. ‘Ah, yes. Beautiful. Is this what I think it is?’

He held up Seth’s bone in one hand as one would a gem.

Hadrian nodded.

‘Good. Now hold still. This is a tricky operation, and I’m afraid it’s going to hurt like damnation.’

Hadrian closed his eyes as the little man straddled his chest. He was beyond caring what further indignities he suffered, but he did care about the pain. His body felt overloaded in every respect. How much more could it suffer? His heart was hammering out of time like a drummer on speed. He half-expected it to stop at any moment.

But his mind was still working, refusing to let go. He smelt mildew, the bottoms of drawers that hadn’t been opened in a long time.

‘Pukje,’ he said. ‘You’re Pukje.’

‘Got it in one, boy.’

‘You said —’

‘I said
keep still.’
The ugly little man drew lines in the blood on his chest, creating patterns where there had previously only been gore. A strange thrill travelled through Hadrian, rushing from his head to his feet. He began to feel almost good.

Then Pukje hammered Seth’s bone into the hole in his chest, and the world exploded into pain.

* * * *

Seth came back to himself at the feel of Shathra’s hand on his shoulder. The Immortal steadied him while at the same time keeping one hand firmly on the rail above.

‘Easy, Seth. Take a deep breath and you’ll be all right. There’s no hurry.’

‘It’s not the height,’ he protested. ‘And besides, there’s no air here, really.’

‘The mind remembers breathing just as it remembers falling. You might as well use one against the other.’

Seth looked into the Immortal’s cool jade-green eyes, and nodded. The sure knowledge of what was going to happen to Horva and him in their near future reminded him that he wasn’t the only one with problems. He had to pull himself together before he took someone else down with him.

The hand at his shoulder vanished as the Immortal’s timeline adjusted. It reappeared before him, offering to help him across the rest of the distance. He ignored it and made it on his own.

‘It was Hadrian,’ he said when he reached the relative safety of the far side. They were still suspended like monkeys in the scaffolding of the skyship, but at least there was more between them and open air than a thin plank. ‘I’m getting glimpses of the First Realm through his eyes.’

‘Is he okay?’ asked Ellis. He couldn’t see her expression, but he heard her concern.

‘Yes,’ he said, unable to keep the despair from his voice, ‘I think so.’

There was no way he was going to tell Ellis about catching a glimpse of her mutilated body, lying next to Hadrian. He could barely bring himself to think of it.

‘The realms draw inexorably together,’ said Horva, taking Shathra’s hand and holding it tight. ‘The connection between you and your brother grows stronger as a result.’

‘So why don’t we get moving?’ he asked. ‘Why are we stuffing around here when we should be on our way to the Sisters and fixing things once and for all?’

The harshness of his response surprised even him.

‘Grow up,’ said Ellis. ‘If it was as easy as that, we’d be there right now, and none of us would have to put up with —’

‘Let’s not argue,’ interrupted Shathra. ‘The king is moving the ship as quickly as possible. When we arrive at the next juncture, we will all be free to leave. In the meantime, we occupy ourselves as best we can. There is a lot to be said for motion as an alternative to ruminating on what we’ve thought too much about already.’

The two Immortals avoided each other’s stare, and Seth didn’t look at Ellis. He couldn’t see her face, but he knew her well enough to be able to read her body language.

‘Lead on, then,’ she said. ‘Play tour guide for us if it makes you feel better.’

‘Thank you.’ The Immortal bowed, immune to her disdain. ‘If you follow me and look down to your right, you’ll see where the crew sleeps. They’re awake now because we’re moving, but during quiet times this area is usually full. The king and the pilot sleep with the others. They don’t have separate quarters as humans would on a First Realm vessel.’

Seth looked obediently down at a series of hammocks. Narrow and uncomfortable-looking, they had no provisions for privacy. He wondered where the crew bathed and toileted, and was about to ask when he remembered that this was the Second Realm: few of the old rules applied.

They had been following the central screw back to the rear of the ship. It turned ponderously beneath them, an improbably long cylinder two metres in diameter that looked as though it was made of solid iron. It rotated once every second, and Seth had yet to see what its purpose was or how it was powered. He assumed it drove some sort of propeller at the rear or fore of the ship — or perhaps both — although he had seen no evidence of such from the outside.

Dotted here and there throughout the scaffolding were Holy Immortals, bathing the skyship’s interior in their light. It took Seth a while to realise that, without that light, the giant space would have been in permanent shadow. Few places in the Second Realm could boast that, with Sheol constantly overhead, and he presumed it was deliberate. There was no sign, though, that the crew minded the illuminated visitors in their midst.

Seth wondered if the pun on ‘illumination’ was deliberate.

They traversed the entire length of the skyship’s roof, coming at last to the enormous tail. The fins were hollow but inhabited. They appeared to be full of water. Seth saw dots moving in the water: living things, perhaps, like krill but much smaller. The air smelled of metal.

‘This is it,’ guessed Seth, unable, distracted though he was, to ignore the flow of will around him. ‘This is what makes the ship fly.’

‘No,’ said Horva, who had been on his left a moment ago but was now on his right. ‘This is the thing that stops it from falling.’

‘Same thing, isn’t it?’

‘Not in the Second Realm. For something to fall, it must be willed to fall. It won’t just fall on its own. The skyship simply removes that will.’

‘Whose will?’

‘Sheol’s. Just as the devels in the underworld draw newfound souls toward them, creating a gentle semblance of gravity, so does Sheol use will to keep people away. It is this force that orients us inward in the Second Realm, gives us a sense of up and down. It is this force that must be overcome in order to fly.’

‘Okay.’ Seth accepted another assumption overturned. ‘That sounds crazy but consistent.’

‘In practice it’s actually not that simple,’ said Shathra, picking up the explanation. ‘The skyship employs the power of a captured ekhi to repel Sheol’s will. You’ve seen these creatures, no doubt; they orbit Sheol and will lure anyone who comes too close to their deaths.’

Seth nodded.

‘Well, this particular ekhi is attached to the skyship at either end. It lies stretched flat across the roof over our heads, so it faces permanently towards Sheol. The axle — which the crew call the Goad — keeps it in a constant state of tension, making it easier to control. The creatures swimming here are its food supply. Its diet is sufficiently rich to keep it alive but too weak to lure any of the crew to disaster — although it’s said that all who come here have difficulty leaving. The ekhi’s yearning to reach Sheol is the thing that ultimately keeps the skyship afloat.’

‘So if something killed the ekhi,’ Ellis said, ‘we’d fall. Sheol would push us away from it.’

Shathra acknowledged the question with a nod. ‘It is worth noting that this is the fourth ekhi employed by the king in that capacity. The others were released upon showing signs of weakening. If you are concerned about this ekhi’s health, I can assure you that it is ill placed. I vouch for it personally.’

‘Shathra is a sky-herder,’ said Horva with pride. ‘No one knows more about the skies of the various realms than he.’

Shathra’s eyes seemed to see through her, to the vistas hidden by the shell of the skyship. ‘I yearn to float among the clouds of the First Realm again, unhindered by the laws we normally live by. Perhaps that time has come at last.’

‘The Cataclysm?’ asked Seth.

‘Indeed. For too long have we been shackled. Now, thanks to you —’

‘Shathra.’ Horva shook her head slightly, not in denial but to warn her Immortal companion not to say too much. ‘Mulciber is coming.’

There was a complicated moment as several different timelines merged. A metallic ringing came from behind them. Seth turned and saw one of the handsome king’s crew members swinging hand over hand along the path they had followed.

‘You need to come back,’ Mulciber said. ‘You have to see.’

‘See what?’ Seth asked.

‘Barbelo has sent a message.’

‘What does it say?’

‘Just come and look. It’s easier than explaining.’

They had no option but to do as he said. Seth hurried back the way he had come, regarding the roof above his head in an entirely new light now he knew that it was actually a rack built for an angel.

* * * *

The handsome king and his guests were gathered around a glass porthole set in the floor of one of the rooms Seth had passed on the way to meet Ellis. The mood was grim; he could feel it as soon as he walked through the door.

‘War,’ said the king.

‘So what’s new?’ Seth responded.

‘Against us.’ The king pointed at the porthole.

Seth and Ellis stepped forward to see. They found themselves looking down at the surface of the Second Realm. The view was magnified and clearly magical, for several layers of skyship stood between the lens and the outside air. The image it displayed was distorted around the edges, but otherwise perfectly clear.