Beyond the Wall of Time (54 page)

Halfway up she turned and snarled at him. “Don’t think I can’t tell what you’re doing. You’re sending me strength, curse you.”

Hugging the wall just below her, he offered no comment apart from a bland smile.

I could never give myself to you
, she thought.
Not when I have no idea what is going on behind those black eyes.

*   *   *

The opening led to a narrow corridor, barely wide enough to squeeze through. Stella barked the skin on both knees trying to
ease her way past one sharp, stony obstruction.

“All this is new,” Noetos said, indicating the tunnel they were navigating. “The rock is clean. No growth, no patina.”

“Get on, rock expert,” his son said to him, a smile on his open face.

Now there’s one I could have fallen for seventy years ago
, Stella admitted to herself.

“It’s the Children’s Room!” Lenares said, her voice drifting back down the corridor to where Stella laboured.

“So we’ve found the House of the Gods?” Kannwar called out.

“Oh yes,” came the reply, from Duon this time.

“Huh,” said the Undying Man under his breath. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

“What wasn’t possible?” Stella asked him.

“To get into one of the Houses apart from using the proper entrances.”

“If you were so doubtful, why did you suggest we all climb up here and risk breaking our necks?”

He smiled crookedly. “I was curious.”

After assembling in what Lenares had called the Children’s Room, the travellers stood and stared at what lay around them.
Even those who had been here—wherever it was—before found themselves astonished anew at the room; and those who had not—Cylene,
Cyclamere, Bregor and Consina—wandered around the space with their mouths open. Of them all, Cyclamere looked the most troubled.
Keppia had forbidden this place to the Padouki. It would no doubt take him time to overcome his unease.

“The child who grew up here must have been enormous,” Bregor said, one hand resting on a bulbous object twice his own height
that might have been some sort of baby rattle.

“Children, I think,” Kannwar said. “My suspicion is that the House of the Gods was built by the Most High as a place to raise
his two children, the Son and the Daughter.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Lenares protested. “The Son and the Daughter were selected as adults from the world of men.
How could they have become children?”

“Things were likely much more… fluid back then. Just because Keppia and Umu were adults doesn’t mean they didn’t have to become
child-gods. And I’m not entirely sure, Lenares, that either Keppia or Umu were ever what we’d call human.”

He crossed the room to a pile of rocks. “Counting devices, if my guess is correct. Stones from an abacus.”

Bregor grunted what sounded like suspicion, if not outright disbelief, but he did not follow it up with a question. Still
in awe of his lord, no doubt. With reason.

The feature of the room that bemused Stella was the open sky above. She knew they ought to have been deep beneath the limestone
hill in Zizhua Valley, but that didn’t seem to make any difference to the House of the Gods. It seemed as though whenever
someone crossed the threshold of the Godhouse they were transported somewhere else.

Lenares came and stood next to her as Stella stared into the cloudless night pierced with stars. “Is it even night in the
Zizhua Valley?” the cosmographer wondered aloud, echoing Stella’s own thoughts. “Where exactly are we?”

Stella smiled tiredly at the woman. “What surprises me is that there might be more than one entrance to the House of the Gods
in each continent. Seduced by the symmetry, I suppose. Three continents, three entrances, I thought. The place you told me
about in Elamaq, by the river… ” A glance at the cosmographer, an unspoken encouragement to supply the name.

“Marasmos,” Lenares said. “But you’re forgetting Nomansland. There was an entrance there too.”

“Hmm. Two in Elamaq then, and two in Bhrudwo: Patina Padouk and Zizhua. I wonder where in Faltha the entrances are, if there
are any at all. I would surely have heard of them.”

Kannwar spoke from just behind them. “My guess is that the entrances themselves are fluid. The Patina Padouk entrance is fairly
recent, I’m certain of that. It was negotiated with the Padouki in return for… a favour. I suspect neither of the younger
gods has been back to Faltha since the Most High brought the First Men north with him after their eviction from Elamaq. No
gods, no entrances necessary. “

“So they just wither away from lack of use?

”Kannwar shrugged. “Perhaps we ought to search the House for any unwelcome guests,” he said, raising his eyebrows in Lenares’
direction.

She heads the group in name, but he is the real leader.
Stella frowned.
Has there ever been a time when Kannwar didn’t get his own way? Aside from the climax of the Falthan War, of course. And in
his choice of consort.
That was entirely within her own control. She hoped.

“We must find Umu,” Noetos said. “Shall we split up to search for her?”

“No need for that,” Lenares said smugly. “As soon as we entered the House of the Gods I could tell she was here.”

“So what do we do then?” Seren asked on behalf of them all. On Stella’s behalf, at least.

“Everything depends on the huanu stone,” said Lenares.

Mustar grunted. “But we defeated Keppia without the stone. Why not do the same to Umu?”

“Because we received help from Mahudia and all the newly dead.” Lenares frowned. “Mahudia has sacrificed herself by becoming
a living tourniquet, holding Keppia on the other side of the Wall of Time. We might be able to muster enough strength to drive
Umu out of the world, but it would only be temporary. What we need is something to heal the breach in the wall. Since the
breach is magical, and the huanu stone can undo magic, it seems we have a weapon that can win us this battle.”

Stella cleared her throat. “Umu saw what happened to her brother. Do you not think she has thought long and carefully about
how to avoid a similar fate?”

“So we will exercise caution,” Kannwar said to her. To them all. “But we are here now, and have an opportunity without parallel.
We must strike.”

“But we need a plan,” Stella tried to argue.

“No plan long survives a change in circumstance,” Noetos said, glancing across the room at his old tutor, the Padouki Cyclamere.
“What is most important is that we remain flexible.”

“I still want to know how the huanu stone can be used to heal the hole in the world. And if it can, why we haven’t used it
before.”

Stella thought her questions were perfectly legitimate, even pressing, but the others had already moved on.

“Follow me,” Lenares commanded, waving her hand at them.

Oh my
, Stella thought worriedly.
The last time we found ourselves in the House of the Gods we needed the intervention of the Most High himself to survive—and
we did not survive intact
. Had everyone forgotten Torve? There he was now, walking awkwardly after Lenares. What might happen this time?

The first serious check came as the travellers passed through a narrow corridor between the Orange Pool Room, in which mist
rose from a small pool and allowed itself to be sculpted into ever-changing shapes by a slight breeze, and the Room of Nine
Ponds, where each pond was overlooked by a shady palm tree. Lenares had led most of her charges over the threshold when they
felt a sudden shift. Looking behind her, Stella realised the rooms had changed position relative to each other. The Rainbow
Room had taken the place of the Orange Pool Room. Who had been following her? Noetos, Cylene, Anomer, Arathé, Cyclamere and
Duon, who had no doubt gone… somewhere with the Orange Pool Room.

“Damn,” Kannwar said as Stella explained what had happened.

“Indeed,” said Consina. Others nodded their agreement. “Noetos’s huanu stone is crucial. Now it is lost to us.”

“For the moment only, surely,” Lenares responded. “The rooms do all connect up. We just have to be patient.”

“My fear,” Kannwar said slowly, thinking it through, “is that Umu has control of the mechanism for changing the position of
the rooms. She has isolated Noetos, and now she can play with the controls, dividing us into smaller and smaller groups.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” Lenares said, her face turning pale. Then she brightened. “I bet the mechanism is in the Throne
Room. I bet that’s where she is. That’s where we need to go.”

“Perhaps,” said Kannwar. “But we must be cautious.”

Caution, as Stella anticipated, turned out to be Kannwar assuming the leadership from Lenares and instructing them to run
between rooms. She doubted the cosmographer was aware of the subtle change, but everyone now addressed their concerns to the
Bhrudwan lord.

They had no defence, however, against a repeat of the shifting rooms. They lost Sauxa, Seren and Moralye between the Standing
Wave Room and the Sculpture Room, and then the remaining group was divided neatly in half as they tried to hurry into the
Rainbow Room from the Rotten-Egg Room: directly in front of Stella the corridor went blank and was replaced by the Children’s
Room, taking Mustar, Sautea, Bregor and Consina with it.

“This is deliberate,” Lenares said, clearly distressed. “Umu is separating us out.”

“But you told us the House of the Gods was different in Patina Padouk than in Marasmos,” Kannwar said. “Surely—”

“It didn’t change this quickly. Umu has been too clever for us. We should never have come here.”

“All that matters now is to find Noetos,” Stella reminded them, “and then the Throne Room. The others will find us eventually.”

“If they are still free,” Torve said.

Lenares grunted agreement. “If they are still alive.”

“What do we do now?” Seren asked.

“Find the others,” replied Sauxa.

“Stay put until the others find us,” Moralye responded at the same moment.

The three of them stood panting in the middle of the Standing Wave Room, looking at each other with wide and troubled eyes.
The room loomed over them; it had been given its name by Lenares because of the walls, which bent inwards in uncannily realistic
replications of breaking waves, complete with foam and even drops of water that seemed to hover in the air.

“We have no magic between us,” Moralye reminded them. “Every time we cross into a new room there is a chance we might encounter
the Daughter. I do not want to face her without the protection of our fellow travellers.”

“We may have to take the risk,” Seren said.

“Oh, Most High,” Sauxa breathed, his eyes widening further.

The scholar and the miner turned to the plainsman, then followed his gaze up, up to where the standing waves shimmered, transforming
from stone to water, and came crashing down on them with a thunderous roar.

A moment later the water pulled back, draining towards the walls, and the standing waves were restored, leaving an empty room.

“The only way we can beat Umu is to split up,” Anomer argued, as they prepared to leave the Sculpture Room. “We need to make
this more difficult for her. The more variables we introduce, the more complex her problem.” Cyclamere nodded his agreement
with this plan.

“She’s a god,” Duon said, but the thought was Arathé’s. “We won’t confuse her.”

Cylene glanced around the Sculpture Room, her face anxious. “I don’t want to be separated from the rest of you. I don’t want…
I don’t want the Daughter to find me.”

“I can understand that,” said Noetos.

Arathé screamed.

She had brushed past one of the sculptures—an evil-looking thing, a tortured melange of human figures—and now was held firm
by the merest contact. Sand began to flow upwards from the floor, coating her legs.

Duon cried out, grabbed at her and shouted again, this time in horror. Within moments he too was falling victim to the sand.

From the corridor between the rooms Noetos bellowed his rage, slapped a hand to his belt and pulled out the huanu stone. Took
a step forward, then vanished along with Cylene as the rooms rearranged themselves.

His mouth open in shock, Anomer watched, impotent to interfere, as the sand crawled its way up his sister, the Padouki warrior
and the captain, swarming like a plague of insects. Covering? Absorbing? Knee, waist, chest, neck, mouth, eyes. Within minutes
Arathé, Cyclamere and Duon had vanished, their increasingly desperate cries for help choked off, replaced by two new sculptures.

Anomer srood miserably in the centre of the room, alone save for the remains of people unfortunate enough to have been ensnared
by the sculptures. These he cringed away from as he settled to wait for help. A hissing sound drew his gaze downwards. Sand
had begun to climb his legs.

Torve had been taken by the orange pool. He’d stepped in it and the contact had started a whirlpool that had torn him from
his feet, then pulled him around and around until he’d disappeared. Lenares had caught only the end of it as her Torve had
not cried out, unwilling, it seemed, to see her caught in the same snare that had taken him. She’d shrieked in rage, but that
had not stopped the water pulling him under.

The pool had instantly returned to its calm state, but Lenares had not dared the water. Forces far beyond her understanding
were at work here.

She bit her lower lip, fighting panic. One hand went to her hair, twirling it in an automatic comforting motion. “Clever Umu,”
she said. “We will have to go on without him.”

She expected an answer like,
How can you be so callous?
and was fully prepared to argue that he had merely been taken by the water, which did not necessarily mean he’d been killed.
There had been no change in the nodes and threads she could see, which implied he was still alive. She hoped.

But there was no answer.

She glanced up: Kannwar and Stella had already gone on to the next room.

Oh dear.

There seemed little doubt as to what would happen next. The House of the Gods—or someone manipulating it—had divided them
and was now picking them off one by one. She was on her own now. When she walked through the corridor to the next room, she
had no doubt she would still be on her own.