The Crooked Letter (38 page)

The end came suddenly. One moment, he was squinting to avoid disorientation; the next, he was walking on a surface that sloped gently upwards, carved from the same brown-with-black-whorls material that the entrance to the hole in the sky had been made of. The slope grew steeper and became stairs that were just a little bit too long and high to have been built for a person of human height. Seth had to strain to keep up with the kaia, who, despite their smaller stature, leapt up the steps like gazelles. Multi-coloured threads trailed behind them from where their raiment had come unravelled in the storm.

The staircase wrapped around itself in a spiral. The echoes of their footsteps rang like handclaps up and down the curled shaft. If anything was waiting for them at the top, it would know they were coming well before they arrived. But the eagerness of the kaia to climb the stairs was infectious and no one suggested slowing down.

They climbed.

The stairs brought them to the centre of a flat shelf atop a floating island. Seth felt the change in the air as they neared the summit: it was colder, and the light was brighter, harsher. He moved off the final step into a steady wind blowing from his left. He shivered and put his arms about his naked chest, wishing he had a coat — and, if he did, that it would make a difference.

The kaia had spread out ahead of him. Seth cautiously followed, taking in the view around him. The shelf was carved out of the top of a ragged hill, a weathered outcrop of light brown rock perhaps a kilometre around that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an ancient, baked land like Iraq or Turkey. The ground beneath his feet was smooth, made from many wide, rectangular slabs polished by centuries of footsteps. If there had ever been a design carved upon them, it had been long since worn away.

He walked nervously to the edge of the shelf and looked over, wondering what the underside of the island looked like. The sides of the hill sloped down into nothing. If it had been an island, water would have lapped where air and the view of the realm below took over; underneath might have been raw bedrock, dangling precipitously over the distant surface of the Second Realm as though it had been ripped out of its proper place and cast carelessly into the sky.

There was no sign of the staircase they had ascended except the uppermost steps in the centre of the island. There was, likewise, nothing visible to indicate what held the island suspended in mid-air. Magic, he assumed. Someone’s will.

Seth felt, without looking, Xol come up behind him.

‘What is this place?’ he asked, turning. The sky above, where it surrounded Sheol, was oddly dark.

‘This is Tatenen, the Raised Land,’ said the dimane in hushed tones. All nine of them were out of the staircase now. Synett was looking around in awe, his hands clenched in front of him as though he was about to spontaneously orate.

‘Sort of like Atlantis, but the other way around?’

Xol shook his head. ‘Its origins are unknown to me.’

The five kaia had arranged themselves in an outward-facing circle. They seemed to be waiting for something.

‘This isn’t the end of the line,’ Seth said. ‘Agatha said that we’d be judged here by the Eight — whoever they are.’

Xol nodded. ‘And tested, too.’ The dimane radiated uncertainty, and Seth remembered his opinion on whether the expedition would be allowed through the Raised Land.
Only one of us needs to pass.
It wasn’t a cheering diagnosis when viewed from the top of a floating hill with a cold wind blowing right through him.

‘Couldn’t we just sneak past?’ Seth asked. ‘I mean, it’s not as if there’s anyone here to stop us.’ Filled with a strong urge to press onward — before they found themselves unable to move at all — he went to go to Agatha to suggest that they find the next leg of the Path and get going.

‘There
is
someone here,’ hissed Xol, taking his arm and holding him back. ‘They simply do not wish to be seen.’

Seth pulled himself free. ‘There is? They don’t?’ Irritation rose in him. ‘Well, if they won’t show themselves, I don’t see why we should give a damn what they think of us. Hello?’ He cupped his hands and shouted into the wind. ‘Hello! Come out where we can see you!’

The response was totally unexpected. The sky folded around the stone shelf and eight faces congealed into view. They were enormous and hideous, stretching high above them like giant Easter Island moai. Their solemn faces were leathery and long and gleamed with greenish hues. Downward-drooping mouths competed with bulging eyes for the most frog-like features. They had scales, and two narrow slits for nostrils. Four of them displayed smoothly flowing tattoos that curved and tangled in eye-bending ways. The other four had sharp, sharklike teeth. Sheol shone weakly between them, casting strange shadows down their wrinkled, lumpy visages.

Seth stared up at them, certain in a very old part of himself that these giant, awful creatures were about to bend down and eat him.

‘Your mouth is quick to move, boy,’ said a voice from the shelf of stone on which he stood, ‘but your mind is slow. One doesn’t hurry the Ogdoad. They come in their own time — and they always come for those who dare to follow the Path.’

‘We dare,’ said Agatha, bowing deeply before the man who had appeared in their midst. He was as tall and thin as she was, but dressed in a tan robe. He held a yellow staff shaped like a long teardrop: blunt at the top, but narrowing rapidly throughout its length and ending in a point that looked as sharp as a sword. It was entwined with scraps of snakeskin and appeared to be made of resin. His hair was white and cut short, and he wore about his temples a gold crown surmounted at the front by a broad, flat disc. Its sides and rear bent outward in numerous curved horns. It looked brutal and very heavy, like the staff.

‘We apologise for our hastiness,’ Agatha continued, straightening. Her tone was uncharacteristically deferential — not worshipful, as it had been with Barbelo — almost afraid. ‘Our quest is urgent.’

‘Your quest is irrelevant here,’ came the haughty reply.

‘We also came to warn —’

‘Your warnings are irrelevant, too.’

‘Who do you think you are?’ asked Seth, stung by the tone he was taking with Agatha.

‘I am called Tatenen, as are the stones upon which you stand,’ said the man. ‘I am the guardian of this great rock which separates the earth from the sky. If I live, it lives; if I grow old, it grows old; if I breathe the air, it breathes the air. I am he who the iron obeys, the Lord of Tomorrow. I am he who tamed the Old Ones.’ His eyes flashed an astonishing green. ‘Do you still not know who I am?’

Agatha shot Seth a warning look, which he ignored.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Do
you
know
me?’

‘I will soon.’ The man called Tatenen gripped his staff in both hands, as though he was about to lift it up and swing it about his head. ‘I am the voice of the Old Ones. They speak through me. You will speak through me, too, if you desire to survive your testing. You will not directly address them again. Is that acceptable to you, boy?’

Seth shrugged, feigning indifference although he could feel the power of the man’s will radiating from him.

‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘Shall we get on with it?’

Tatenen pursed his lips and turned back to Agatha. ‘You wish to pass. There is always a cost. Are you prepared to accept this cost, even if it is your own life?’

‘Yes.’ She bowed again. ‘I accept.’

‘Good. Then we shall begin. The many-in-one first. I think.’ Tatenen strode to the nearest kaia and cupped a palm behind its small head. He closed his eyes and went very still. The kaia didn’t move. Its blank eyes remained open and empty.

For a long minute nothing happened. Seth shivered from the cold and waited impatiently for Tatenen to finish whatever he was doing. That Tatenen was somehow reading the minds of the kaia seemed a safe assumption; that this was integral to the judging process, likewise. But it didn’t make for interesting — or reassuring — viewing.

As time dragged on, he noticed a strange thing: the kaia’s cold grey skin had begun to glow. Golden fissures formed and spread across their features — all five of them at once — as though Tatenen had somehow woken a fire within them. The fire spread and grew, until it seemed that they were made entirely of molten lava. It grew in brightness, a fierce, intense white replacing the golden hue. The multicoloured threads draped across them blackened and smoked.

Tatenen took his hand away from the head of the kaia. The glow immediately began to fade. The transition from beings of molten light back to grey happened with startling rapidity, and it seemed to Seth as if they sagged slightly as they assumed their former appearance.

‘Interesting,’ Tatenen pronounced, as though voicing his opinion of a glass of vintage wine. ‘You next, daughter of the realm.’

He repeated the procedure with Agatha. She didn’t move as his hand reached for the back of her neck and he searched her mind for whatever it was he wanted. She didn’t glow as the kaia had. When it was over, she stepped away and looked at no one.

Then it was Synett’s turn. Blood from the bald man’s stigmata showed through his bindings as Tatenen approached.

‘“May the Lord grant you wisdom in your heart,”‘ he said, ‘“to judge his people in righteousness.”‘

‘Which lord is this?’ Tatenen responded. ‘Amun? Kuk? Hauhet? Naunet? Is it the Old Ones you worship?’

Synett shook his head. ‘These idols are unknown to me.’

‘They are more than idols, you fool. They hold your life in their hands.’ Tatenen’s hand snaked around the back of Synett’s neck. The man stiffened but did not flinch. Again Seth waited, growing increasingly restless, as the examination took place. Each one seemed to take longer than the last.

When it was finally done, Synett expelled an explosive breath and stepped back, looking relieved.

Tatenen faced the two left to examine: Xol and Seth.

‘The young, hollow man.’ Tatenen turned to him. ‘Present yourself.’

Seth stepped forward, refusing to bow. Instead of touching the back of his neck, Tatenen’s hand went across Seth’s forehead. The man’s skin was cool and smooth, like finely sanded wood. He couldn’t bring himself to look Tatenen directly in the eyes. Instead, he focussed on the bulbous end of the staff, which stood almost eye-level with him. He saw feathers in its translucent amber depths, and long, curved bones: the remains of a bird, Seth thought, frozen in mid-motion. The bones looked as if they might reassemble at any moment and fly up into the sky.

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

‘Born in darkness, invisible, vital,’ said another, ‘from the voids surrounding the realms to the immortal depths of space, we ruled.’

‘Amun and Amaunet.’

‘Huh and Hauhet.’

‘Kuk and Kauket.’

‘Nun and Naunet.’

‘We are the Eight, and we will remain the Eight.’

‘Forever, or until Ymir returns to set us free.’

Seth turned his gaze upward to the source of the voices. The eight Old Ones, whom Tatenen had called the Ogdoad, were leaning over him, staring at him with their bulging eyes. The faces twitched and flexed with exaggerated vitality; their skin glowed with a faint purple sheen.

‘And who is this?’

‘It is the twin.’

‘Which twin?’

‘The particular one, of the moment.’

‘A mess of contradictions,’ said one of them.

‘No different from the others.’

‘No different from anyone.’

‘Even we are conflicted at times.’

‘But such division ...’

‘Does he know who he is?’

‘Does he believe in anything?’

‘Does he desire her simply because his brother desires her?’

‘Does he want to live?’

He tried to open his mouth to answer the Old Ones’ questions, but it was frozen shut. All he could move was his eyes. When he rolled them to look at the others, he discovered that they had vanished: Xol, Agatha, Synett, the kaia — even Tatenen himself. He was alone on the stone shelf under the fierce gaze of the Eight.

You will not directly address them again.
Seth had incorrectly assumed that to be a warning or a threat. He mentally cursed Tatenen for taking away the only thing he had left: the ability to protest his treatment. He couldn’t break the charm in the same way as he would fight egrigor. He was trapped.

Of course I want to live,
he yearned to say.
Why wouldn’t I?

‘He is passive.’ The voice of the giant being was conversational, as though discussing an interesting specimen confined to a laboratory cage. ‘He walks among predators and sees not their teeth.’

‘His mind is closed.’

‘Yet the world turns around him.’

‘And we turn with it, for good or ill.’

‘Our fate is bound.’

‘We have much yet to do.’

‘We must decide.’

‘Should he follow his fate, or perish here?’

‘He does not see the path before him.’

‘The other would have served better, in his place.’

There was no mistaking who ‘the other’ was: it had to be Hadrian. They were saying that Hadrian would handle the Second Realm more successfully than himself.

‘All are fragile, including the ones who make us so.’

‘This one in particular.’

‘He has suffered much.’

‘We all have.’

‘His misery is not yet complete.’

‘We cannot deny him completion.’

‘Nor us the chance to attain our own fate.’

‘His brother comes.’

‘We will be saved, then.’

‘We are decided.’

Seth reeled back from Tatenen’s hand as the Eight resumed their previous dispassionate attitude and his companions reappeared. His skin was hot where the hand had touched it. His head throbbed powerfully, as though his skull was contracting and relaxing with every heartbeat.

He barely noticed as Tatenen turned to Xol, the last to be tested.

‘Coatlicue’s other son.’ Tatenen raised his hand, and Xol leaned forward. ‘You did not visit us the last time you came this way.’

‘Forgive me,’ said the dimane. ‘I was in a hurry.’