The Crooked Letter (20 page)

I do not want to be touched!
In his mind he clenched his fists and stamped down with his feet.
I do not want to be touched!
He thrashed his head and gnashed his teeth.
I do not want to be touched!
He pictured himself as a schoolchild throwing a tantrum, as Hadrian once had when denied a chocolate bar that Seth had bought with his own pocket money.
I
do not want to be touched!

His sight returned. He was upright, somehow, and his arms and legs were outstretched as though prepared to star-jump. Egrigor clung to him like parrots at feeding time. The whistling had become a dense chorus, rising and falling in liquid waves. He flexed his arms as best he could. They moved stiffly, thanks to the creatures stuck all over his skin, but purposefully. The chorus dissolved into a thousand alarmed chirrups as he swung his arms down and stood normally. Or tried to.

Only then did he realise that he was hanging several metres above the ground, out of reach of Xol and Agatha’s grasping hands. He felt the furious tug of war taking place all over him, invisibly, as the egrigor tried to drag him away from the people who were trying to keep him safe. He kicked and the egrigor gripped him tighter, lifted him higher. Their collective will resisted his efforts to break free. He was squeezed like putty in a child’s fist. His senses came and went. The distance to the ground made his head reel.

Falling can’t hurt me,
he told himself,
not unless I allow it to.

Feeling the beginning of hope, he wrenched his fingers free and began pulling egrigor off him.

I do not want to be touched!

He grabbed and pulled indiscriminately, and more often than not his numb hands came away empty. But he did make some progress. Discarded egrigor fell in ruins, fragments disintegrating even further as they crumbled apart, so that no more than grains of dust reached the floor. The more that fell, the more his sense of self returned and the lower he sank toward the ground, where he wanted to be.

When his feet were finally back on solid earth — or whatever the hollow world of the Second Realm consisted of — Xol was instantly at his side cutting a path through the agitated swarm.

‘You are stronger than they expected — than I expected!’ The dimane was weary but excited.

‘For now, the overlapping of realms works in our favour!’

There wasn’t time to ask Xol what he meant. The egrigor were beaten back, dispirited by his resistance, but there were still many of them and Xol and Agatha cut wide swathes through their numbers. Barbelo’s attendants rallied, weaving webs in the air to fill the gaping hole where the door had been. As the gap narrowed, the remaining egrigor panicked and flew about in a fluster. Seth snatched them out of the air and screwed them up into balls. They felt like puff pastry and left a faint tingling residue on his recovering palms. With each one he killed, his sense of will grew stronger.

Finally, the breach was sealed. The last five egrigor flew in a furious circle to avoid capture. Xol caught one and held it tight, ignoring its struggles, while Agatha and Seth finished off the rest.

‘Let’s see who sent them.’ Barely had the dust settled than Xol was striding up the corridor, back to Barbelo. Seth followed mutely, still assimilating what had happened. His skin was covered with thin red gashes, but no blood appeared to have been spilled. He watched himself closely for any dizziness or loss of control that might indicate that he had been poisoned. His head, so far, seemed clear.

The golden statue radiated gratitude and relief, but said nothing about their victory. ‘Bring the egrigor to me,’ she instructed as they approached. ‘Let me taste it.’

Xol pressed the wriggling creature against Barbelo’s glowing chest and held it there for a minute. It squirmed but could not resist him. With a faint whine, it collapsed in on itself and dissolved like butter into Barbelo’s golden skin.

‘This was an attack,’ Barbelo said, ‘sent by our enemy.’

‘Ah, no surprises there,’ said Seth. ‘I presumed they weren’t friends of yours.’

‘An egrigor is a thought-form,’ said Agatha matter-of-factly. One by one, she removed her silver rings and placed them out of sight under her top. ‘They don’t have independent existence, and will fade when cut off from their source.’

‘The Nail itself?’ asked Xol.

‘Yes.’ Barbelo’s voice was solemn. ‘They were sent to find Seth, not to attack me, but the effect is the same. They are drawn to him, and therefore to me while he is in my presence. More — and worse — will follow.’

As the thought of things worse than egrigor, Seth shivered. Although he seemed to have mastered the means of their disposal, it hadn’t come easily. The next attack might not allow him enough time to work it out.

‘What do they want?’

‘To keep you safe,’ Barbelo answered him. ‘I know it sounds strange, but that is all Yod desires. While you are protected, its plan to unite the realms holds.’

‘Does Yod think we’d consider killing Seth,’ Xol asked, ‘or using him against it in some way?’

‘We’re hoping to do exactly that,’ said Agatha. She added, ‘The latter, of course,’ when Seth glared at her.

‘We accomplish the opposite while we all stay in one place.’ Seth felt Barbelo’s attention sweep over him as she considered their options. ‘We have no time to stand pondering this matter. We must move Seth elsewhere.’

‘Yod’s egrigor will seek him out no matter where he is.’ Xol’s voice was chillingly matter-of-fact. ‘He will not be safe in the Second Realm.’

‘Yet here he will remain,’ Barbelo said. ‘We will hide him to the best of our abilities, even if we cannot provide absolute certainty.’

‘Where?’ asked Xol. ‘This building is compromised. Elvidner is a blasted ruin. Your allies are scattered, dispirited.’

‘Exactly. So our choices are desperate ones. I must consider them carefully. For now, there is but one possibility: into the throat of the beast.’

‘Abaddon?’ Xol looked shocked. ‘That would be unexpected, yes, but very dangerous.’

‘Indeed.’

‘Do I get a say in this?’ Seth asked, unnerved by Xol’s response.

‘Why?’ asked Agatha wearily. ‘Our time is limited. You would do better simply to trust in our decisions.’

‘I’ll ask
you
the same question,’ he shot back. ‘Why? You lot aren’t exactly filling me with confidence at the moment.’

‘You haven’t the slightest concept of what we’re facing! Your presence here foreshadows the death of the realm, yet you expect us to treat you as one of us. What gives you the right to claim our allegiance? All you do is bring danger and despair upon us, you arrogant, stupid boy!’

Seth flushed. Xol held up his hands. ‘Arguing with each other solves nothing. Seth, you have reserves we did not expect you to tap so easily, but your ignorance puts you at risk. Staying at our side and learning from us will only increase your chances of remaining at liberty.’ He turned to Agatha. ‘My friend, if you disagree with Barbelo, you too can leave at any time. You are under no compulsion to help us now. You have delivered us this far, and I am grateful.’

The woman shook her head. ‘I cannot do that. I know too well where this fool of a quest is going to take you. You will need my help to get there — and to survive it a second time. Who else would be mad enough to accompany you?’

‘Any discussion of your destination is premature,’ warned Barbelo. The golden statue regarded them all with a fierce intensity. ‘I will consider your options while you make haste for Abaddon, and communicate with you along the way. Yod is not the only one who can cast egrigor across the realm.’

‘We dare not travel in the open,’ said Xol. ‘We will have to find other means.’

‘Such means exist,’ said Agatha, ‘but they carry their own brand of peril.’

‘Can we call on your kin for aid?’

‘They will be reluctant,’ she said, glancing sourly at Seth, ‘but they will see the desperate reasoning behind my request.’

‘Go now,’ said Barbelo. ‘I know that you are equal to this venture. The Realm must not fall.’

Xol seemed disappointed; his blunt features and narrow lips turned down, exposing the fangs of his lower jaw. Whatever he had been expecting from Barbelo, he hadn’t got it. Agatha, too, looked as though she had hoped for more, but she bowed deeply before the golden statue and expressed her thanks for what help they had received.

The statue was silent as they were ushered from the room. Agatha’s stiff-necked figure led them through the maze of corridors, back to the point where the egrigor had attacked.

Seth forced himself to forget about what she had called him this time —
you stupid, arrogant boy
— and concentrated on what they needed to do next.

‘What did you mean,’ he asked Xol, ‘about the overlapping of the realms working in our favour?’

The dimane glanced distractedly at him as the three of them stepped out into the narrow cul-de-sac that concealed the entrance to the temple of Barbelo. There was no evidence of the egrigor attack, or that they were being watched. None that Seth could see, anyway.

‘Your link to Hadrian does more than just bring the realms together,’ Xol said. ‘Although you are of this realm now, while Hadrian lives you remain irrevocably linked to the First. He in return is linked to the Second. This linkage will manifest in unpredictable ways. Were you an ordinary traveller, the egrigor could have stolen you away with impunity; you would not have been able to resist their collective will — the will of Yod, in effect. You, however, treat them as though they were physical objects in the First Realm; because of your connection to Hadrian your old reflexes, in conjunction with your growing will, make you stronger than you ought to be.’

Seth pondered this. He remembered successfully kicking the scissor-creature and other denizens of the underworld. The daevas had been surprised; they had definitely felt his presence. He also remembered taking Xol’s hand when it was offered to him on the wall. To him, such acts had seemed perfectly natural. The young woman in the streets of Bethel, trying in vain to interact with the world around her, was what he should have been: a wraith, helpless and hopeless in a world beyond his comprehension. Easy picking for Yod and its splinters.

He vowed not to take the Second Realm for granted any longer. He would never understand the way people interacted around him if he didn’t accept that they obeyed rules fundamentally different to the ones he had known.

‘Is it like this with all twins?’ he asked Xol. ‘Was it like this with you?’

The dimane shook his head. ‘I will tell you the story of my brother when I am ready. We have Abaddon to prepare for. I must conserve my strength for that.’

Seth nodded, although he still felt enlivened by the will of the egrigor he had absorbed during the skirmish. Or was it more than that? Did he profit from increased reserves of physical energy while Hadrian remained alive in the First Realm?

Your presence here foreshadows the death of the realm ...

Seth walked silently with his guides, wondering what benefits of the link his brother was enjoying.

* * * *

PART THREE

AKASHA

‘When we look back into our history and find not

one Cataclysm but many, what are we seeing?

Proof that the stories of the Goddess are false, or

confirmation that Hers is a story that has been

thousands of years in the telling?’

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
EXEGESIS 12:22

he famous prow of the longboat towered over them, curled like an unfolding palm leaf. Its rich, dark wood didn’t look like it had been buried for eleven hundred years. Hadrian hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this gleaming masterpiece, carved with animals and other motifs. It looked as if it had been built yesterday. The sheer size of the thing amazed him.

‘It’s all about power,’ Seth pronounced, standing next to him in a similar state of awe. ‘Glory, victory, all that. Whoever he was, he was definitely showing off.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hadrian, unable to take his eyes off the stark vertical needle of the mast. It had been underground five times longer than his country had existed! ‘I think it’s kind of sad, really. He might have been the richest man in the world, but he couldn’t take any of it with him. All that’s left is a boat.’

‘That’s more than most people get.’

‘Do you think it still floats?’

‘If
you’re
ever displayed in a museum,’ said Ellis, coming around the Viking ship’s wide flank, ‘you’d better hope people read the pamphlets better than you do. They say
she
was a queen. She must have been pretty amazing to warrant something like this.’

‘She’s still showing off,’ said Seth.

‘And she’s still dead,’ said Hadrian.

Ellis made a mock-disgusted noise. ‘I don’t know why we bothered to come to Oslo. It’s wasted on you boys.’

‘Don’t be so hasty,’ Seth mused. ‘Vikings were cool, pillaging and plundering all over the place.’