The Devoured Earth (14 page)

‘Because you come to us when we’re separated from the rest of the expedition. Because you expect us to make a decision that will affect everyone without consulting anyone else. Because it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that you’ve been following us, just waiting for an event, like the avalanche, when you knew we couldn’t refuse your help and so would be indebted to you. Because if your motives were entirely pure, why wouldn’t you have approached us days, even weeks ago? And why has no one here ever heard of you and your withered totems before? If they were really the gods’ gods, shouldn’t we at least know their names?’

Tatenen bared his teeth. ‘Speak with respect, human.’ The sharp end of the amber staff swung up to point at him. ‘You should tread lightly on my soil. We have power here.’

Pukje hushed him, and the staff came slowly down. ‘No one’s saying you can’t consult with the others. We’d prefer it if you did, to be honest. As you say, this isn’t a decision one should take lightly — and it’s not even one you have to make right now. You can decide when I complete my bargain and take you from here to the lake where the Goddess’s Tomb lies submerged. Will that go some way to assuaging your fear?’

Kail could only nod, although his mind wouldn’t be eased until they did reach the top of the mountain.

‘As to why we didn’t approach you before…’ Pukje put his hands on his hips and stared up at the tracker. ‘Well, do you blame us for waiting? Your suspicion warrants every effort we took to maximise the chance that you’d listen to us. I mean, if everything had been going well, would you have come here, to this isolated fragment of a dead world and the creatures imprisoned on it — even for a moment? No, you had more important things to worry about. You would have marched blindly onward, unaware that the answer to everything had just passed you by.’ The little man injected a note of scorn into his voice. ‘Your scepticism, natural though it might be, would’ve killed us all.’

‘Did you trigger the avalanche?’ asked Highson Sparre, and Kail was surprised to see his own suspicions magnified a thousandfold on the face of Sal’s father.

‘No,’ said Pukje.

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘That’s your prerogative,’ the imp said icily. ‘But the fact remains —’

‘The fact remains that creatures like these are mentioned in
The Book of Towers
.’ Highson encompassed the ring of ghastly faces with a sweep of his right hand. ‘We are taught that the gods were evil — or at the very best, self-serving. They didn’t care about us, no matter how much we cared about them. Why would the gods’ gods be any better for us? We would be fools to let them back into our world.’

‘Fools, eh?’ Pukje surprised Kail by laughing. ‘No, I’m not mocking you, Highson Sparre. Well, perhaps a little. Don’t you see what those edicts handed down to you in
The Book of Towers
really are? They’re memories of another time, and they are not always relevant today. There have been other such edicts, you know. Several Cataclysms ago the edict was to worship no other god but the one true god — who turned out to be Yod’s servants in the First Realm. Why did such an edict survive for so long when complete obedience to it would mean the death of humanity? Because humans are creatures of habit — and habit is impossible without memory.

‘So,
The Book of Towers
tells you that gods are bad. Well, yes, that’s perfectly true, if they behave like Yod and the other gods used to. But, you see, bringing the three realms together won’t just make the Old Ones powerful: you will be powerful, too. Keep them apart and you will die as you have always feared you would, under the boot heel of a hungry god.’

‘I want to talk to them,’ said Sal. ‘I want to hear them speak. If these Old Ones really want us to help them, they should be prepared, to give up a little. We’d be doing their dirty work, after all.’

Pukje glanced at Tatenen, who thought for a moment then said, ‘You do not know what you ask, wild one.’

‘I know exactly what I’m asking for. A few words won’t cost much, surely.’

‘The Old Ones are unlike you. Their words are not simply words, but trials. To converse with them might mean your death. There will definitely be a price.’

‘What sort of price?’

‘I cannot say.’ Tatenen looked nervous. ‘That depends on the judgement the Old Ones cast.’

Kail stepped forward to confront the tall man. ‘I’ll take that risk.’

‘It’s all or none, I’m afraid,’ said Pukje, blocking Kail’s way with one hand raised. ‘Believe me. You don’t need to do this. Tatenen speaks for the Old Ones. His word is theirs.’

‘I have no reason to believe you,’ Kail said. ‘And words can easily be bent.’

Highson agreed. ‘Bent and tied in knots even by people who think they’re doing the right thing. I know all about that.’

Sal nodded. ‘You’ll let us talk to them, or we’ll never do what you want.’

Tatenen bowed in submission. ‘Very well, wild one.’

‘My name is Sal.’

‘Your name is irrelevant. Who you are is all that matters.’ Tatenen straightened and waved Sal forward. ‘Step closer.’

Kail, with no small amount of admiration, watched Sal approach the tall man. The young man walked with his long hair hanging freely. Nervous though he must surely have been, it didn’t show, not even when Tatenen gestured for Sal to stop and raised his free hand to cup Sal’s forehead. Sal froze but didn’t flinch as the hand — which surely must have been as cold as ice — brushed his hair out of the way and touched his skin palm-first. All he did was close his eyes.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

Then Tatenen removed his hand and Sal stepped back, blinking rapidly. ‘What?’ He raised a hand to the place where Tatenen had touched him and looked around at the faces surrounding them. ‘Oh, that was weird.’

‘Are you all right?’ asked Highson, gripping his shoulder.

‘I’m perfectly fine,’ he said. ‘I’m certain of that much.’

‘Now you,’ Tatenen told Kail.

The tracker swallowed his concern and did as Sal had done, stepping forward until Tatenen raised a hand. The tall man’s bright green eyes seemed to consume the world. Kail almost pulled away from the hand at his temple, disturbed by the intimacy of Tatenen’s touch. He knew he shouldn’t, but the reflex was there.

Then it was too late.

‘We are the Old Ones,’ whispered a voice, ‘the architects of the devachan.’

‘Born in darkness, invisible, vital,’ came another, as subtle and insidious as poison gas, ‘we ruled the voids surrounding the realms and the immortal depths of space.’

‘We are ancient beyond measure, beyond time itself.’

‘We are the Eight, and so we will remain until Ymir returns to set us free.’

Kail’s eyes rolled. He was frozen solid where he stood, alone on the broken stone ground, which now appeared to be hanging unsupported in space, surrounded by nothingness. Everyone else had vanished. The faces of the Old Ones were the only things moving in the universe: they sagged and jerked as though on the verge of collapse. Their eyes dripped thick, slow-motion tears and their teeth turned black with decay. A stench so dense and liquid it could have been a living thing coiled around Kail and made his throat constrict.

He could say nothing as the Eight conversed among themselves.

‘A lonely man.’

‘Loveless.’

‘No loyalty in him.’

‘And yet loyal to the idea of loyalty.’

‘He is conflicted.’

‘Who does he long for?’

‘What does he want?’

‘If he doesn’t choose a side soon, it will be chosen for him.’

Kail struggled against the paralysis gripping him.
Loveless? No loyalty
? He wanted to defend himself, to argue against such arbitrary summations of his character, but all he could do was listen.

‘His heart would side with the girl.’

‘His head will see reason.’

‘It always does.’

‘But his own brand of reason.’

‘Convenience.’

‘Cynicism.’

‘Isolation.’

‘Out of the emptiness such things come, and to emptiness they inevitably return.’

The faces slumped towards him as though melting from a heat he couldn’t feel. Their mouths gaped; their ears ran like thick mud. The stench grew stronger and stronger until Kail couldn’t breathe.

‘He has learned some lessons.’

‘He is proud — perhaps
too
proud.’

‘As are we, with good reason.’

‘The road he follows is long.’

‘He walks with his companions but his feet do not touch the ground.’

‘He has a long way yet to go.’

‘The price is not his to pay.’

‘
We are decided
.’

The world returned, first with a shock of cold where Tatenen’s hand still pressed against his forehead, then with a rush of fresh air. He took in details: Sal and Highson were staring anxiously at him; Pukje watched with a guarded expression from the sidelines; Tatenen’s green eyes still threatened to drown out the wonder of the mountainous backdrop; and the Old Ones had returned to their former frozen state. Tatenen’s hand fell away.

Kail stepped back, understanding why Sal had seemed so shaken by the experience. He felt drained, rattled, and simultaneously nervous, as though something had reached into his mind and stirred up all the things he preferred to keep buried in its depths.

A lonely man.

Loveless.

No loyalty in him.

Tatenen turned to Highson. ‘And finally you, sire of the wild one.’

Highson squared his solid shoulders and came forward.

Sal watched helplessly as his father submitted to Tatenen’s frigid touch. The memory of his own experience was still piercingly vivid: the eight decaying faces; the slithering, insinuating whispers; the complete inability to move or respond to anything the Old Ones said.

Such anger.

Such impatience.

Who does he long for?

He doesn’t know himself as well as he thinks he does.

And ultimately the strange and definitely threatening feeling of having passed under the gaze of something large and unknowable, something against which he must have seemed less than an insect.

He hugged himself, feeling the cold right down into his bones. The sun was fading to red in the west, casting a bloody veil across the mountains. Soon it would be night and they would have to think about taking shelter. A nagging sickness roiled in his guts — either the lingering after-effects of their flight, or a new symptom of their increased altitude — and he dreaded travelling anywhere. Yet the thought of staying any longer than they had to on this fractured, unnatural fragment of an ancient world made him uneasier still.

Highson blinked and stepped free of Tatenen’s touch after barely a dozen breaths. His own encounter with the Old Ones had seemed to drag forever.

‘It’s done,’ said Tatenen. He gripped his staff with white-knuckled hands, as though worried about how the three of them would react. ‘You have been tested by the Eight and found worthy.’

‘Did you get what you wanted?’ asked Pukje, surprising Sal by running around him and leaping onto his back. The strange creature, lighter than a cat and smelling faintly of mildew, crawled up onto his shoulders, where he crouched and peered over into Sal’s right eye.

‘Uh…’ Sal didn’t know what to say or do in response to the strange assault. ‘I couldn’t really ask any questions.’ Highson and Kail shook their heads in agreement. ‘But they did tell me to believe you, I think.’

The imp-dragon speaks truly
, they had whispered at the conclusion of their examination of him,
but he hears not
.

There is only one path.

Pukje’s face broke into a wide smile that was no less ugly for being at such close quarters. ‘Excellent. We can get moving, then.’

‘I want to try calling Marmion first,’ said Kail.

‘You can do that from the air,’ said Pukje.

‘What’s the big hurry?’ asked Sal as the imp dropped from his shoulders and ran behind him.

‘Time is passing. Events don’t stand still at your convenience. Keep looking forward, now. I’ll be ready in a moment.’

‘What about the price?’ asked Highson, a worried look on his face. ‘They told me that I’d be the one to pay.’

‘If they said so, it is already so,’ Tatenen stated.

‘I’ve already paid?’ A deep frown creased Sal’s father’s features. ‘How?’

‘You might not notice, at first.’ The tall man bowed his head. ‘Accept this offering, lords of the ancient world. Take what is yours in accordance with the rights once bestowed upon you by all of creation, and allow these humble travellers to do your bidding.’

With those words, the eight hideous faces faded away like mist under bright sunlight. Sal hadn’t realised how silent the day had become until the whistling of the wind returned, and he shivered, feeling suddenly exposed.

Highson crossed to where their packs lay in a bundle. A frown settled on his face as he hastily rummaged through his belongings, seeking the thing that the Eight had taken. Sal knew everything in his father’s pack, since there had been little privacy during the long climb and each had helped the others pack and unpack many times. It contained nothing of any great value, he assumed, to creatures that had once been gods.