The Crooked Letter (30 page)

‘There’s going to be one giant catfight when they reach the surface,’ Kybele said, her expression amused. ‘Whoever’s trying to take charge won’t be able to miss them, and won’t let them go unchallenged. That’ll give us an opportunity to get to where they’re keeping Ellis.’

Hadrian hefted his staff. ‘Just us?’ he asked, remembering the eerie ghost-shapes inhabiting the bodies of Lascowicz and Bechard.

‘We’re meeting Gurzil on the way. You’ll like him.’

Her edgy excitement was, in a way, worse than the thought of the energumen. There was a hunger to her that he didn’t like. He hoped, not for the first time, that the ends justified the means.

‘Why exactly,’ he asked, ‘will I like him?’

‘Because he used to be human,’ she said. ‘Just like you.’

‘As in “human” or “used to be”?’

She had grinned wolfishly and didn’t answer.

* * * *

Hadrian’s stomach rumbled. The Galloi produced a bag full of chocolate bars and handed it to him. There was water in a half-empty bottle in the back. He felt drained, even after forcing himself to eat, and assumed that it was an after-effect of the battle. When he closed his eyes, instead of bodies piled high in the cool-room he now saw stone faces smashing into shards under liquid silver light. Utu lay at his feet, its thin carvings dull. The silver threads connecting it to his hands had faded within minutes of him letting go. He absently rubbed where they’d been, unnerved by the speed and proficiency with which the magical weapon had obeyed his will. It had returned to looking like a blunt crowbar as soon as the fight was over, and remained that way now.

The old laws are returning,
Kybele had told him.
Because of you.

The idea of magic was seductive and wondrous, but it was disturbing, too. He had never felt at home in the old world — the world that told him he was half a person, the reflection of his brother — and in this new world he was defined by exactly the same parameters. He had been cut free from his brother, and the universe was literally rearranging itself to bring them back together. How could he possibly defy that?

They came to a flat stretch of segmented concrete that looked more like a drain than a road. Kybele gunned the engine and sped the car along a gentle right-hand curve. Every twenty metres or so, a black niche swept by, carved out of the concrete walls for no obvious purpose. The openings didn’t seem to hold doorways or tunnels leading elsewhere. Hadrian saw no pipes or switches in their depths. He was distantly reminded of stone shelves in Parisian catacombs, on which bones had been piled long ago. He imagined eyeless skulls staring back at him from the hearts of the alcoves, hidden in shadow ...

One wasn’t empty. As the car swept by, red eyes blinked back at him, and something large and dark leapt out from its hiding place. Hadrian swiveled in his seat, catching a glimpse of a broad-shouldered beast with a low, forward-hanging head and two blunt, curled horns. It landed on all fours in their wake, then stood up on its hind legs and roared.

Kybele pulled the car around in a skid to face the creature. The sound it made was barely audible over the screeching of brakes. It roared again, and Hadrian winced at the sight of sharp teeth gleaming in its long, rectangular mouth. He reached belatedly for Utu. Then the headlights hit it full in the face, and it turned away with one arm over its eyes. Thick hide shone redly in the light. Its upper limbs were bony and taut with sinew. Instead of fingers it had a hoof that split into three segmented digits, each terminating in a wicked point. Its shoulders were as broad as a bull’s, and its thighs were enormous. A chain mail smock swung and glittered with every movement.

The car screeched to a halt. The smell of burning rubber was thick in the confined space. Kybele killed the engine, and waited.

The creature straightened. Its face reappeared from behind its arm. Broad, moist nostrils flared. Its voice was gruff.

‘You’re late.’

‘I came as quickly as I could,’ Kybele replied. ‘Get in.’

Hadrian realised then that this was the mysterious Gurzil they were taking with them to recover Ellis. ‘Human?’ he whispered to Kybele as the massive creature came around the side of the car, hooves emitting a deep clop with every step.

‘Used to be,’ she whispered back. ‘Remember?’

‘I’m not likely to forget now.’

Gurzil opened the door behind Kybele and swung himself inside. He wasn’t as tall as the Galloi but was at least as massive. The car creaked under his weight.

‘Phew. What have you been drinking? Ouzo?’ Gurzil’s cavernous nostrils flared at the smell of the Bes. Bovine, bloodshot eyes blinked at Hadrian. ‘This, I suppose, is the twin.’

‘I’m Hadrian,’ he said before Kybele could answer, responding to the challenging tone with a question of his own. ‘Do you live down here?’

‘This is my labyrinth,’ was the reply. ‘I am the Minotaur.’

Kybele laughed mockingly. ‘You’re not going to scare him, Gurzil, so save your energy. You’ve got bigger things ahead of you.’

‘Enerrrrrgumen,’ the deep voice rumbled, almost drooling the words. ‘Swarrrrrm.’

‘But first, Gurzil, a woman to rescue.’

‘Is she a virgin?’

‘I don’t know. Is she, Hadrian?’

He ignored the question, irritated by their crass mockery. Kybele started the engine with a growl that barely covered Gurzil’s bellow of laughter, and took them back the way they’d come. Hadrian reached into his pocket to clutch Seth’s bone, and seemed to feel a faint, reassuring tingle in response.

They’d travelled barely a minute when they encountered resistance. Rounding the wide bend of the passage, they found the way ahead full of translucent, glimmering figures. Instead of slowing, the car surged forward. The figures exploded out of their path, boiling up the walls and onto the ceiling. They had high, domed foreheads and bulging, glassy eyes. Their forked tongues flickered in anger as the car swept by. Kybele reached under the dash and hit the switch to raise the roof.

‘Feie!’ she shouted. ‘Following us, damn them!’

Hadrian twisted to look in the side mirror. The creatures were as pale as starlight. Out of the blaze of the headlights, they seemed to glow with their own, horrid luminescence. Their limbs were slender but strong, and their fingers nimble. From within thin, hanging garments, they produced delicate slingshots and bows. Projectiles rattled on the roof as it rose into position. The side mirror smashed, and Hadrian jumped.

‘Let me at them!’ Gurzil rumbled. ‘It’s been long years since I picked fey flesh from my teeth!’

‘Not now,’ Kybele told him, keeping the pedal firmly pressed to the floor. ‘You’ll have time for that later. Worry about what they’re doing here, first, before picking a fight.’

‘You think someone sent them?’

‘Of course. Why else would they be so deep underground? They never stray far from their precious moon without a good reason — or powerful coercion.’ Kybele’s expression was thoughtful. ‘Whoever they’re siding with, it’s clearly not us.’

‘The Wolf?’

‘Unprecedented, but far from impossible. Alas.’

Hadrian thought of werewolves and moths seeking the light of the full moon. He didn’t know what phase the moon was in, above-ground — if the moon even followed phases any more. With magnetic north shifting and all of nature’s laws no longer reliable, it probably wasn’t safe to take anything for granted.

The car hurtled along at dangerous speed. They passed the junction at which they had joined the curving passage, but didn’t take the turn. Although no slope was detectable beneath them, Hadrian received the distinct impression that they were spiralling slowly upward to the surface. This was borne out by graffiti — a scattered tag or two at first, then a multicoloured stream — and an increase in the amount of detritus littering the way ahead. Kybele jerked the wheel to avoid rubbish and structural debris, sending Hadrian bouncing from side to side. Behind him, the two unlikely silhouettes of Gurzil and the Galloi rocked in time with his motions.

She was eventually forced to slow their headlong pace. At one point the heavyweights in the back seat had to climb out to clear a wall of tangled tree roots that blocked the way. The Galloi used his lituus to carve through the gnarled plant matter while Gurzil simply ripped with his clawed hands. Great clods formed mounds behind them. Startled insects staggered out, waving feeble antennae at the bright light. Hadrian felt sorry for them, ripped violently out of their comfortable, familiar world as he had been. He hoped their tiny, primitive brains were better able to deal with the change than his was.

* * * *

A surging, sickening sensation swept through the kaia’s refuge, as though a rising and falling deep-ocean swell had picked it up.

‘What’s that?’ Seth paused halfway up the spiral staircase and looked worriedly around. The walls and ceiling stood firm. It wasn’t an earthquake, then, but something far stranger. He staggered down a step. Although the floor didn’t move beneath him, he had trouble keeping his balance. ‘Have we been found? Are we under attack?’

‘This is a disturbance of the realm,’ said the kaia leading him.

‘What sort of disturbance?’

No answer. When it had eased, the rough-skinned, grey creature simply resumed walking.

Seth hesitated, then followed. He hoped he would find an answer at the end of the stairwell, where Agatha and Xol were waiting. He presumed he was being taken to a lookout of some kind — perhaps something as simple as a slot cut in the roof that would allow them to see the city outside.

When they reached the top of the stairs, he found himself in a low, domed room that was barely high enough for him to stand. There was no slot, not even a peephole. It looked like nothing so much as an awkwardly shaped attic, fit for storing junk.

It was dark but not empty.

‘Seth?’ asked Agatha. ‘Is that you?’

‘It’s me.’

‘One moment,’ said the kaia. ‘We are recalibrating the instrument.’

What instrument?
Seth was about to ask when a patch of bright light appeared directly above his head, blinding him. He ducked and edged away. Dimly he saw the kaia point, and the patch of light — a circle as large as a manhole cover — swung down to eye level. The light faded from bright white to a more tolerable blue-purple. Seth’s eyes adjusted, and he realised that he was looking out at the world beyond the kaia’s hideout. Through the hole he could see over the tops of Abaddon’s tortured spires to the blurred and distant landscape on the upward curve of the Second Realm.

‘Aren’t we taking a bit of a risk?’ he said. ‘If someone sees us looking out —’

‘We are not exposing ourselves,’ said the kaia. ‘The instrument is entirely self-contained.’

‘Do you know what a camera obscura is?’ asked Xol, standing beside Agatha on the far side of the room. Agatha, now fully recovered, was as crisp and clear as a high-resolution snapshot.

Seth nodded, although his understanding was vague. He had read about such things at university then promptly forgotten them. ‘Sort of like a telescope, except the image is projected onto a screen.’

‘This is similar.’ The kaia pointed at the circle and, by simply moving its hand, swung the view around to the far side of the dome. ‘The view is narrow but sufficient.’

Seth concentrated on
what
he was seeing rather than
how
he was seeing it. The image was perfectly clear. There was no pixellation as with television or computer monitors and its light didn’t cast a shadow.

A new disturbance rolled through him. He leaned against the dome for balance.

‘I see it,’ he said, studying the image. ‘It’s like a wave spreading out from Abaddon. A ripple.’

‘The Second Realm draws nearer to the First,’ said the kaia, ‘and vice versa. Bardo and the underworld are distorting. The pressure is becoming acute.’

Seth tried to imagine it, first as two balloons — a red one and a blue one — pressing against each other, with Bardo and the underworld squeezed between them. Then he tried to wrap the red balloon around the blue, while simultaneously wrapping the blue around the red. The image disintegrated, as surely the balloons would have in real life. The contortions were too great. No wonder the realm was straining.

Agatha was a thin-lipped and anxious witness to the stress her realm was under.

‘How do we move the image?’ he asked.

‘By willing it to move,’ was the answer.

He should have guessed. Experimentally, he pointed at the circle and tried to drag it across the dome. It obeyed without any resistance. The view swept across the sky, taking in a large black patch that might have been the ice desert Synett had described. There were dots that looked like cities, and long, straight lines that he guessed were roads or camels.

‘Can we zoom in?’

‘No. The image is as you see it.’

He followed a series of irregular triangles as they swept in an arc around a giant, conical mountain capped with snow — or the detritus of the clouds he had seen in Synett’s vision. A thick swathe of green overtook it, then that too disintegrated into scattered streaks and patches. Forest? Jungle? There was no obvious way of telling. Landscapes overlapped with few definite edges, not confined to continents and islands as they were on Earth. The surface of the Second Realm was like a canvas on which godlike painters had gone mad for millennia, splatting their wild ideas across each other’s work, creating a work of art of incredible complexity.

It occurred to him only then that the Second Realm had no obvious poles. With Sheol shining equally across its entire surface, there would be no seasons, no night. Ice or deserts occurred for reasons other than weather patterns and rainfall. The creatures who lived here had an even greater impact on the shape of their world than those on Earth.

And it
was
beautiful, now that he saw it with his own eyes. The colours were brilliant and incorporated frequencies that had no place in the usual spectrum. The patterns he saw ranged from the intricately fractal to the boldly geometric. Everywhere he looked there were new details to wonder at. What was that cluster of glassy domes on the far face of the world, looking like soap bubbles stuck to the side of a bath? Or those brown plains that rippled up and down as he watched?