Brink (The Ruin Saga Book 2) (32 page)

But Billy only registered it obliquely, somewhere deep behind the glare of the grey smattering of great stone slabs ahead.

She took out the map and looked at the winding red path scrawled over it. A luscious waft of lavender and tea leaves swept from the ancient frayed paper as she traced her finger along the route, westward away from the Arch toward the blown-up caricature of the strange stone circle now before her.

She held the map in her hand. It felt better there, promising that the way ahead was the right way. The only way.

As she drew closer, her chest started tightening. The stone circle was old. Very old. As old as the vanishing Arch, maybe. And just as tied to the itch in her feet, the Panda Man, the ghosties and the Light, all of it. A place where power thrummed in the air. Things hid there, she could tell, hiding just out of sight in the same way the Arch had;
between
spaces, in such a way that one might think they would come into sight if they could only turn their gaze through that extra impossible dimension.

She thought of the sign she had seen so many miles behind her, beaten and weathered, but still legible:
Salisbury - 4m

Now she remembered something else, a brown sign that had hung just below it. She had read that too without knowing it, and her mind had squirreled it away for later. Now a key had been turned, and that memory had popped free. She read the vivid memory as easily as the map in her hands.
National Heritage Site - Stonehenge

That was this place. She knew it.

“Stonehenge,” she whispered, working her mouth around the words, tasting them.

Yes, that was it. It fit.

“You’re just full of surprises, little girl,” the Panda Man said. She could have sworn she even heard the wet slick of his parting lips this time, but when she turned her head, there was nobody there.

She kept walking, and the stones grew larger. The itch grew stronger until it reached into the pit of her stomach and climbed her back to paw at her matted hair.

There’s so much
else
here. I just can’t see it.

She wondered whether other people who didn’t have the itch—Sammy, the medicine woman, had called it the Light—would have felt it, too.

Whatever it was, the air was dripping with stories, whispers of things past, elsewhere, and those yet to come. And the Panda Man was with her every step of the way, though she couldn’t see him any more than any of the rest of it. Like all those hidden treasures, he was hiding just out of sight. But it didn’t bother her anymore. It was just another step on the path back to Daddy.

And taking these steps felt right. It was a funny thing to hold a candle inside her that muttered this secret truth, but she knew the candle told no lies. If she took a single step in any direction from true, it would be bad. And not just for her.

I don’t care about that. Or anyone else. I need to get back to Daddy. And if the Panda Man won’t let me go until all this is done, then I’ll do it as fast as I can.

But all the same, her mouth fell open and her pace slowed to a crawl when she passed the first of the great grey stones. The ones on the outside were arranged in a wide, incomplete circle, rough rectangular blocks three times as tall as Daddy. Some had yet more horizontal stones on top, bridging a pair of the ringstones. Inside the ring were a few more scattered here and there, most standing but a few lying on their sides. All were covered in thick dewy moss, and the far side seemed half-buried in mud and detritus carried by the plain’s high gales.

She passed under one of the capped ringstones and was momentarily reminded of the Arch. These stones were far lighter, different altogether, but they were kindred, touched by the same
otherness
. The itch was unbearable now, a searing scream that set the skin of her legs on fire and climbed her spine in undulating waves. The air buzzed with something that made the hairs on her arm stand on end, and even the greasy locks on her head crackled and started to float into the air.

Finally, she came to stand in the centre of the broken ring, turning in slow circles, blinking slowly. Enger Land had buildings much bigger than this—she had seen more than she could count in the distance since she had left the cabin—but this seemed larger than even the thin, shiny spires poking up above the old ruined cities. Its nakedness, and the weathered ruggedness of each block, made it all seem more impressive.

The Old People Daddy had told her about from Before hadn’t built like this. They had used bricks and plaster and metal and glass, just like Daddy and Grandpa had on the farm. Stones like these were older, even. The bigness of time and all the people who must have come this way before her was all too much.

Last week I thought it was only me, Daddy, Ma, Grandpa, and the weekend traders in all the whole wide world. It seems like forever ago.

“Getting them to build this thing was a real arse-ache,” the Panda Man said. And this time he was there, standing right in front of her with his hands thrust into the deep pockets of his black overcoat, looking up around at the stones just like her. He rolled his eyes. “All they had to do was haul a few stones, follow the blueprints. The
whining
I had off those lazy savages, you wouldn’t believe.” He grinned and laughed at her, as though they were sharing a private joke. “And after all that, they went and started worshipping the damn thing, flocking from far and wide like it was something sacred, something special and new and unique. If they only knew about the others …” He shook his head and turned to her. “You made it.”

Billy could only blink. The thrumming was still up around her head, turning the space between her ears to dancing mush. It was hard to think.

The Panda Man gestured around him. “I’m sorry you had to walk so far, but there was no other way.”

“No other way for what?” she said. Her voice sounded muffled and far away, as though from beneath a heavy blanket.

“To show you things you need to see, and to get you where you need to go.” He cleared his throat and beckoned her farther into the circle, breathing deep, like he was drinking in the strange buzzy static. He looked stronger here, his eyes sharper and more alert. But it was more than that; he was more
there
, more solid.

Suddenly her annoyance pierced through the static veil, and she bunched her fists. Daddy’s face floated in front of her eyes. Then she was yelling. “Why did you have to pick me? Where are you taking me? Who was that other man? And the archway? And why are all these silly birds following me? And when can I go home?”

His brow creased in annoyance, and he flapped his hand impatiently. “Questions, questions, they’ll only lead to more questions. Try not to get too bogged down in the many and various weirderies of this freak show.”

“But—”

He gave an exasperated sigh, his shoulders dropping. It was an odd sight to see such childishness from that wolfish predatory face. “Fine!” He counted off his answers on the fingers of one hand, holding each digit in the other hand as he gave each answer. “You’re special. To a place far from here for starters—then, if we can put a lid on this shitstorm, a whole lot farther. Him: sometimes a friend, sometimes an enemy, most of the time a colleague, and all of the time a pain in my bloody backside. The Arch is another tip on the iceberg I’m trying to show you, so don’t bother asking. The birds follow you because you’re marked, just like He is—was.”

“Who’s He?”

“What did I say about questions leading to questions?” He held his arms wide. “There, you happy? Time’s a wasting’. We have to get on with the great dance of destiny, weave the threads of the great Web, serve the Pendulum’s swing, and all that jazz,” he added with an ironic theatrical twirl of his hand, rolling his eyes once more.

She crossed her arms. “Fine. But you didn’t answer my last one. When can I go home?”

The Panda Man hesitated. “In time,” he said with a winning smile. He really was a beautiful man, like Prince Charming. But it was just a sheen, a pretty wrapper laid over a Big Bad Wolf.

Daddy had a phrase for it, for the wagon-men who came through on the farm road to trade potatoes and barley for cloth and tools:
Wolves in sheep’s clothing.

He had covered his pause fast, recovered like a practiced showman. But still, that pause had been there.

He was a liar. She knew that without even thinking about it.

But I knew that already. I’m here because he said Daddy would die if I didn’t, and that’s all. Stop asking silly questions and do whatever he wants, then go home and get to Daddy.

He must be so sick by now.

A mental flash of pale see-through skin, cracked bleeding lips and skin turned blue. The sound of rasping breaths. A whimper.

No, no. Daddy’s fine. It took Ma but Daddy’s fine. I just have to get back. Get back now!

“Fine,” she snapped, and looked up around at the ringstones. “What is this place?”

The Panda Man looked pleased. Was it because she was curious or because she hadn’t asked more about going home?

It didn’t matter.

Hurry. Hurry.

“This is an outpost,” he said. “A meeting place, a temple, a looking-glass, and a doorway. It can be whatever we need it to be.” He gestured all around. “Special places like this are all around. Most people could look their entire lives and never find most of them—only people with the spark of Light like you can even get to them—but we need places like this to keep eyes and ears in this world—keep our foot in the door, so to speak.

“You had to deal with my colleague because you went into a dark zone, a place I can’t go. Once upon a time, I could see every inch of this thread of the Web, but things have gotten so damn brittle.” He looked troubled for a moment. “Things are going downhill fast now, for everyone. That’s why we’re here. We need to act.”

Billy listened impatiently, tapping her foot.

I don’t care about that. Just let me go home.

The Panda Man huffed, sensing her exasperation. “I forgot how little you people can care for the Pendulum’s swing, blind as you are.” He cocked his head, and for a moment, she saw that same old predatory leer, like he was a wild dog fixing to gobble her up. “So small … like bugs on a windshield.”

She blinked, waiting. Maybe he really would gobble her up now.

And if he does? There’s nothing I can do.
“So get on with it.”
That’s what Grandpa would say.

She waited, and then he was holding out his hand and that leer was gone. “Come on, take my hand. Let’s go for a ride.”

“Where?”

“You need to see some things to believe them. And no matter how much
Daddy
and
Grandpa
told you about all those people walking around Before, I bet your little mind just can’t wrap itself around numbers like that. Hell, I bet you don’t even believe them. Not really. How could you?

“So, here’s me offering a little enlightenment. Take the hand.” He waggled his fingers, then stepped forward and grasped her smooth, uncalloused palm.

As soon as her skin touched those alabaster spider-leg appendages, cold unlike any she’d ever felt bolted up her arm and crawled across her neck and head in a creeping wave, then the world was gone. The stones, the windswept grassy plain, even the pale blue sky. All of it vanished with the coming cold, and total blackness took its place.

She was rushing headlong through some other space outside all of New Land, all the vast emptiness through which she’d been wandering. And yet somewhere in all that aberrant nothing, she felt the others. All the others.

Every single human being who had vanished all those years ago. She didn’t know how she felt them—it wasn’t sight or touch or hearing, but a melding, an extension, of all three—or how she knew who they were, but she knew.

They were screaming. Each writhing body and wailing voice blurred into a stabbing, maddening medley of misery that sent her stomach turning over and her heart hammering. She was flying over the top of an endless wriggling carpet of their tortured bodies.

Oh God, there are so many. So many people. There can’t be so many, can’t be. More than lots. More than hundreds. More than thousands. Numbers can’t go that high—what comes after thousands? So many!

“You see?” The Panda Man’s voice, hollow and icy as the frost gnawing at her bones, sounded from beside her, though she could see nothing in this inky void she was flying through at such an impossible rate. “This is why you hauled your sorry little behind so many miles. You had to see it for yourself. Language is a fickle thing when it comes to this kind of heady crap.”

Oh God, Oh God, there are so many SO MANY. Make it stop, please take me away, take me back, please don’t make me watch—

The Panda Man spoke on, audible despite the billions of wailing voices and her own screech of agony. “Would you have believed this without seeing it? Would anyone?
Could
anyone?”

All that screaming. The racket, the sticky chaos of all those moving limbs. The smell of them, the trapped festering stink of myriad unwashed droves. She would go mad if she stayed. It would only take seconds, and then she would be cuckoo, loopy-loo. It would all go away.

Just take me home let me go back go back now I want my Daddy please let me see him just for a second please help DADDY!

A moment passed when even all those wailing voices seemed nulled by the strength of the Panda Man’s reticence. Then he said, “I brought you here to show you this because you have a rare opportunity to make big changes, and not only for those poor bastards trapped here. For everyone.”

They’re trapped. Taken. Chained up like animals and put to work.

But for what? And by who?

She didn’t know. But behind all the pain and confusion and darkness, she felt something bad: evil. That was the only word for it. It was just a distant echo, a fingerprint, but even that was blinding, nauseating. It would swallow her up if she concentrated on it too long.

I can’t do it. Take me back—take me back now!

The Panda Man’s droning voice went on calmly. “You can help everyone, right a balance bigger than all of us, more than this one petty little corner of reality. But I had to show you this because it can only be your choice. If you want to go back to your Daddy, I can’t stop you. But he will die, and the sickness in him will work its devilry on you just the same.”