The Devoured Earth (52 page)

The faces of the two humans in front of the alien changed in ways expressing dismay and alarm. Behind them, an animated murmuring rose up. Exactly what the newcomers had expected, it certainly wasn’t this. The end of the world, perhaps, but not the chance to literally build a new one.

‘If you are gods,’ it told the two, ‘the time has come to act as such.’

* * * *

THE DECISION

‘A crooked mirror casts a crooked reflection.

So too in all things. We reflect the architecture

of the world-tree
—
and we, in turn
,

are its architects.’

SKENDER VAN HAASTEREN X

al resisted the impulse to turn and run. He had known this moment was coming ever since Shilly had started walking down the hill. Tom’s awakening only confirmed it. The seers were seeing again. The time that he had been dreading for two weeks had finally arrived.

Kemp is the only thing who stands between you and Shilly when the end comes
, Tom had said when Kemp had been killed by the glast. On that day, the path of their particular world-line had been decided.
Whoever wins gets to choose the way the world ends
.

Sal could tell without looking at her that Shilly was worrying about exactly the same thing.

All around them, wardens and mages were talking excitedly. Relieved by the defeat of Yod, their interest was aroused by so many new apparitions: the Homunculus, the glast, the Goddess, Pukje. They could babble on forever, he knew. An argument had already sprung up between the Alcaide and Skender’s father, which Abi Van Haasteren was moving in to resolve.

He saw Highson standing with Rosevear over one of the bodies at the centre of the former battlefield. The healer wore a haggard, haunted expression that Highson’s face echoed perfectly. Sal wondered who they were looking at.

Feeling Shilly’s gaze on him, he turned back to her. Perhaps, he thought, it was time to trust his instincts.

‘We need to get out of here,’ he said to her in a voice too soft for anyone to overhear. ‘Do you remember how to open a Way?’

‘What?’ She frowned. ‘I don’t know. We’d need a familiar destination, somewhere we can picture in our minds.’

‘I know. Like last time.’

He saw understanding dawn on her face.

It seemed an eon ago, their flight from the Haunted City with a dying Lodo in their arms, but the memory was burned into his mind. He would never forget that bittersweet farewell, the realisation that he was both gaining and losing something incredibly precious.

Freedom was a tricky thing. He knew that now. It carried a heavy price and could be lost in a moment, like love and respect, and safety, and happiness. He had been happy in Fundelry, and safe, but to be in such a situation had meant turning his back on Skender and his real father, on the ability to roam and on the chance of a proper education.

And it had, ultimately, led to this moment, where he stood on the shore of an ice-rimed lake preparing to make the greatest decision of his life. And all he could hear was the arguing of the very people he had been hiding from for five years.

‘Let’s go,’ he said, and took Shilly’s hand in his.

* * * *

Shilly felt as though the world was about to drop out from beneath her. Did Sal know what he was asking of her? To reach back five years and put into effect one of the most complicated charms any Change-worker could employ was inspired madness — but it was exactly the kind of madness she had been asked to perform by the Goddess, by the glast, by her other selves in innumerable doomed worlds.

So… why not?

She squeezed his fingers as she searched through the mental images required. What she didn’t remember precisely she could patch together well enough. Visualising their destination was the least of her worries — as was the concern that they might be followed. Of all the people in the world, they were the only ones who could go where they were going, just as they were the only ones who could decide what needed to be decided.

The pressure was intense. Part of her wanted to disappear completely, as she and Sal had done once before, and leave the decision-making to others. But that was not even remotely possible now. Everything had to be taken into account. She needed, more than anything else, time to
think
.

When the charm was ready, she signalled to Sal by squeezing his hand again. He took her in his arms and held her for a moment with her head against his chest and his nose in her hair. They breathed together, twice, then stepped apart. Their hands remained tightly clenched, and she could feel his palms beginning to sweat.
Nervous, my love
? she wanted to ask him.
You should be. One slip and we’ll end up in the middle of a mountain
.

The charm turned in her mind like the world’s most precious jewel. A floodgate opened between them, and all Sal’s strength flowed into her. She was a spark whirling up into the hot air above a bonfire. Stars turned around her. Every thought was exhilarating.

I
could have this
, she thought as the Way opened before them.
I could have this forever, for my very own
.

Then the smell of the sea struck her nostrils and all doubt vanished.

* * * *

Sal saw the circular hole open up in the world before them, peeling away the view of the lake and the gutted remains of Yod’s servants and replacing it with a dark, close space illuminated only by the small amount of light coming down a chimney on the far side of the room. Little was visible, but he knew the outlines of the room exactly. His heart hammered on seeing it.

Behind him, gasps of surprise rose up as others saw the Way. He heard Highson calling his name. Sal turned and raised his right hand with palm outward. The warning was obvious.
Come no closer
. The Alcaide’s face turned a familiar red behind the vivid outrage of his scar.
Eluded again
.

Shilly tugged his left hand, and he let her hurry him down the Way to where their home waited. A familiar stuffiness greeted him at the end of the short, circular passage. The smell of it, even after so long shut and empty, made him want to drop to the ground and kiss the dusty floor.

At the other end, grey daylight made the battlefield look almost too real to accept. Had they really been there just a second ago? The hubbub grew louder, more urgent. Two wardens went to follow. Highson put himself between the crowd and the entrance with arms held wide.

Sal took that as his cue and broke the charm. The Way collapsed like a tornado blowing itself out. In an instant the tunnel shrank to nothing with a sound like a hundred hands clapping. Facing him in the gloom was nothing but a wall-hanging Sal had woven from thick dyed threads.

‘We did it,’ Shilly said. ‘We really did it.’

‘We sure did.’ He didn’t find the fact hard to accept, but the reasoning behind it was more difficult. Had he really jumped halfway around the world in order to get a little peace and quiet? How much simpler could their trip have been, when they had first set off, if they had been able to visualise their destination so easily!

The thought of what had to come next was heavy in his mind.
Whoever wins
… He didn’t want to argue with Shilly. They had argued enough in their time together. He just wanted to hold her, to waken the lights in their home and to find something to eat. He wanted to revisit their old life, just for a breath or two, before the new one came crashing in. This might be the last moment of stillness they ever found. For so long Fundelry had been their refuge. There was a freedom in hiding which was very different to the freedom of an official pardon. Broader horizons meant greater responsibilities. Greater responsibilities were heavier burdens. As it was he felt bent over with the accumulated weight of his life. More baggage he didn’t need!

He resisted letting her go, clutching her more tightly than ever. She pulled him to her as though afraid he might slip from her grasp and vanish into the darkness. The smell of her was rich and powerful, even through the accumulated stinks of fear and blood and exhaustion. Their lips met with a sensory rush that seemed to light up the room. He experienced one moment of pure, unalloyed gratitude, then all thought fled.

* * * *

Afterwards, they lay in the furs of their old bed, holding each other, relishing sensations and desires ignored for far too long. Shilly felt scars on her lover’s body, and her own, that hadn’t been there just a few weeks earlier. His freshest wounds still wept blood in bright red drops. It seemed an eternity since the last time she had held him like this. She hadn’t realised just how much she had needed it. Needed
him
.

‘I need a bath,’ he said, smelling under his armpit.

She was glad he hadn’t sniffed hers. ‘I have a better idea.’

Still without lighting the glowstones, they gathered up some lighter clothes and left the workshop. Outside, the dunes were warm from the day’s sun. The sky was beginning to fade to red in the west. They followed a well-worn route to the beach and dived into the surging sea. Clean salt water washed away the dirt of travel and the sweat of their lovemaking. Weightless, her lame leg was no disadvantage, and for once the ache of it was absent. She dived under and shook the dirt from her tangled hair. At some point she would need to brush out the matted curls or cut it right back.
At some point
…

She caught herself thinking about the future and knew that there was no use delaying the inevitable any longer. No use, and every danger. Who knew what was taking place on that far-off lake shore, as mages argued with wardens, Panic with forester, golem with Goddess, and everyone tried to find out where she and Sal had got to? Who knew how little time they had?

The sun disappeared into the west with an explosion of oranges and reds. They dried and dressed and headed through the dunes for home. With every step she took she encountered something familiar: birdsong, bushes she had planted herself to protect the dunes, the feel of sand between her toes. It was all so real and vivid. Before she was even halfway home, she was overwhelmed with the need to weep, and she stopped, clutching her walking stick, and breathed deeply.

Sal walked on a couple of steps before noticing. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

‘Did we even leave?’ she asked him.

‘What?’

‘Did I dream it? Did it really happen?’ A wave of dizziness rolled through her, and that was as frightening as the tears welling up in her eyes. What was happening to her? Why was she only now falling to pieces? The thought of Kail lying dead on the floor of the Goddess’s Tomb now seemed utterly unbearable — along with the Holy Immortals trapped in their terrible loop of time; the twins and the Homunculus; Highson and Marmion’s ghost hand; Kemp and the glast; Chu’s possession by the golem and Vehofnehu’s failed plan. All of it seemed entirely too fantastical to be true. Too fantastical and too awful.

And now this, the moment she had been dreading.

‘It really happened,’ said Sal, coming to stand close to her, without touching. ‘It’s still happening.’

‘It’ll never end,’ she said, feeling a wail at the back of her throat aching to be set free. ‘We can’t stay here. We have to go back. We’re trapped.’

‘Maybe. Maybe not.’ She felt his gaze moving across her face as keenly as if he was stroking her with his fingertips. ‘You know, I was thinking while we were swimming that maybe this is why we’ve always been able to feel each other, ever since we first met. That connection we have probably comes from this moment, here and now, at the end of the world. If that connection exists because of the decision we have to make, then I think we’ve come out ahead.’

She was unable to keep it in any longer. The tears started coming and she couldn’t stop them. Finally he held her, resting his cheek against her damp hair and letting her cry into his shoulder.

It seemed to take forever to get herself under control and she loved him for not saying anything, not trying to soothe her or tell her everything was going to be all right. If this was the moment that had brought them together, echoing backwards in time like Sal’s wild talent and the path of the Holy Immortals, who was to say what might lie beyond it? They could fail to agree on what was best for the world, and the argument could tear them apart.

She held him tightly until her sobs subsided, then went to let him go. But he didn’t release her, and she realised only then that he was shaking too and needed to be held just as much as she did. So she held him as the night descended softly over the dunes and the sounds of darkness closed in around them.

* * * *

At the entrance to the workshop, buried under sand and unnoticed on their earlier exit, they found a letter addressed to them from Thess. Shilly’s friend had left it a week earlier for them to find when they returned. It wasn’t long, little more than a note outlining the latest developments in Thess’s relationship with a local fisherman and making the point repeatedly that Sal and Shilly were greatly missed. It was a welcome dose of normality, and a reminder that there were other concerns in the world than theirs.

But theirs, Sal thought, would be the world’s concerns soon, especially if they made the wrong decision.

Shilly read the note twice before folding it up and putting it into the pocket of a clean dress she had donned on getting back to the workshop. ‘I miss them,’ she said. ‘Not just Thess. Everyone here. They’re so important.’ She looked for a moment as though she might cry again, but she didn’t.

Sal had found some edible provisions in one of the cupboards and he continued chopping and dicing to make impromptu soup while she gathered herself together. A saucepan of clean water was already bubbling over red-hot glowstones that stank of burned dust. He thought of Pukje telling him that Tatenen — the prison of the Old Ones — was his proper home, and he repressed a smile of bafflement.