The Crooked Letter (64 page)

of stone and subsumed the Powers of Places into the landscape they inhabited, making them amenable to human will. Still others tell how the Mistress of the Veil re-established order in a fragmented world, teaching her subjects the ways of and guiding them toward mastery over the Change, so no deity would ever rule them again.

The legends have one thing in common, no matter how widely separated in origin they might be. They all say that as long as Sheol still exists, somewhere, so does she, even unto today.

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
EXEGESIS 14:24

More Lost Minds joined them, sucked into the void by their efforts to complete the artificial ravine. It soon became apparent that the Change — the word they used for magic, as the twins did — was not limitless, that over-exertion came at a cost. Those who pushed too hard and could not repay the cost were sucked whole into the pocket of nothingness trapped between the two realms. The twins did their best to soothe the fears of their new companions, although in reality they had no genuine succour to offer. There was only the void, and them.

Reminded of who they had been, the twins tried to explain why they had done what they did; why halting the Cataclysm in mid-process had been such a good idea. If the First and Second Realms completely merged, Yod would win. If they went back to being completely separate, Yod would just try again — and win. If, however, the realms stayed exactly where they were, half-merged, half-separate, Yod would be caught in mid-leap, unable to do anything at all. It would be imprisoned in a kind of solitary confinement not dissimilar to the one the twins found themselves occupying.

Xol had said:
Yod hungers, so perhaps it can starve.
That thought gave the twins comfort in the long dark.

But that wasn’t the only thing the twins had done. By removing themselves into the void, the twins had put the two realms into stasis, of a sort. The realms existed side by side instead of as one or completely apart. Although there was a lot of crosstalk between the old ways, the natural laws of the new world weren’t completely fixed. Change —
the
Change — ruled where matter and will, separately, had once held sway. A kind of magic had returned to the world after an absence of many hundreds of years.

Their guests listened to their story with amazement. Tales were told of the Cataclysm and the old world that had preceded it, but nothing like this was ever mentioned. Only in the legendary Book of Towers, a piecemeal account of the old times, did anything remotely like it exist, and that had long been regarded as little more than legend.

Some of the Lost Minds expressed anger and dismay at the decision the twins had made, for it had caused great hardship. Others, however, praised their decision, for without it the Change would not exist as they knew it, and neither would the world they had previously occupied.

Their guests listened and all sought a means to tell the world beyond the void. No way to leave was ever found, however, and no way to speak to the outside. The Lost Minds were trapped, and would remain that way for the rest of their lives.

* * * *

Time will not wear down Her memory or tarnish Her monuments. Her deeds echo along the halls of the ages. The world will not forget the deeds of She Who Walked the Earth, nor of those who walked with Her: Shathra the Angel, who saved Her from the ceaseless champing teeth of the underworld; Xolotl the Penitent and Quetzalcoatl the Slave, who died at each other’s side during the Dissolution of the Swarm; the ghosts Anath and Megaira, who whispered advice in Her sleep; and the unnamed murderer She forgave, and whose words She blessed.

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
FRAGMENT 278

The twins withdrew into themselves as the Lost Minds argued about them. Their memories, their story, had long been dammed up by time and forgetfulness. It was all flooding back now. They had done and seen so much: bent worlds to their will and travelled the darkest of ways; conversed with gods and with those who would be gods; walked in the company of monsters and angels; had been tangled up in secret histories about which they had previously known nothing. They had killed.

It rapidly became apparent that the Lost Minds’ life sentence was not just that. It was a death sentence, too. First Yugen lost her name, then her memories began to fade. Once gone, those memories could not be reclaimed — and soon others began to experience the same symptoms. The drone of the void stamped heavily upon them. As time passed their thoughts and speech grew faint, and they dwindled to nothing. One by one, the Lost Minds flickered and went out.

The remaining Lost Minds learned the hard way that the secret of survival was to tell and retell the stories of one’s life. If one’s story was forgotten, one died. Passing from memory was the same thing as passing out of life in the strange world they clung to.

The only thing saving the twins from such a fate was the ankh that had once burned on Seth’s chest. This gift from the Ogdoad, the architects of the devachan, was all that staved off oblivion.

FORGIVEN, the Eight had said.

The twins retreated again, not cheered by the realisation of how casually they had been spared. Forgetting would have been easier somehow — until the time finally came to remember everything. If only, they sometimes thought, they could have had it both ways.

* * * *

There are tales of My Redeemer I will not relate. The sleepers will one day awake, and the world will know of them. The Lady saw what would happen in those times, although of this She never spoke. Who can know what might he undone when the quick returns for the dead?

I write on, though my hands grow tired and death calls me once more. I write new words for a new age: Her words, from the dawn of our world. They are as relevant now as they ever were. May they continue to give comfort to those who are lost, as I was.

THE BOOK OF TOWERS,
FRAGMENT 42

The flood of doomed minds eventually slowed to a trickle. Someone must have worked out the danger, the twins assumed, and taken steps to avoid it. Still, the void was rarely empty, especially during times of great trouble, and there seemed to be plenty of that. They were never completely alone.

Time dragged on, and on, and on.

‘You wanted this.’ The twins watched from the depths of the void where they hid from the tragedies and frustrations of the Lost. It was difficult enough knowing that the people who joined them were doomed to fade away and die. Watching it happen and being responsible was utterly intolerable. ‘This is what you asked for, and you got it in spades.’

‘We
both
asked for it.’

‘It’s not as though we had much choice.’

‘I tell you: we were doomed from the start.’

‘We were,’ agreed his brother, ‘but not at the finish. There’s still hope.’

‘Hope? I’ve forgotten the meaning of the word.’

‘Well, it hasn’t forgotten you.’

There was a long silence during which Seth reiterated the choice he had made:
to fix the fucker who did this.

‘I’m glad you’re here, Hadrian.’

‘Me too,’ came the reply instantly out of the dark. ‘Me too.’

* * * *

To be continued in
Chimaera,

Book Two of The Cataclysm

* * * *

Appendix One

* * * *

Appendix Two