The Devoured Earth (57 page)

Further down, where the land began to level out, lay the dead in two rows. Skender walked along the aisle between them, feeling terribly sober. Wardens and mages rested together with wounds gaping or no visible wounds at all. Even in its final extremities, Yod had been able to extract the will from its victims with a single touch. Many had died that way, alongside those who had been stabbed or crushed or dropped from a falling blimp. Skender saw Orma and another Ice Eater, then a third, and he realised with a sinking feeling that the entire community which had lived on the shore of the lake at the top of the world was gone. Not one had survived to rebuild and repopulate their homes. That saddened him and made him feel guilty — he had, after all, convinced Orma to return to the secret cavern with him instead of running away — even as he wondered what sort of life they would have had, now that most of them were receding into the past as the Holy Immortals and the mission given to them by the Goddess was null and void. There was no reason to stay behind, except out of sentimentality.

Kail and Marmion were at the very end of the upper row. Marmion’s half-lidded eyes gleamed in the mirrorlight, as though he might open them at any moment and sit up to bark an order at someone. Skender realised that, against all the odds, he would miss the bald warden. He had been a unifying force at the end, knowing when to stay quiet and when to speak up — unlike the Alcaide, who seemed to revel in getting, and keeping, people offside. Kail was someone Skender had barely known but he had liked him well enough. The double loss had left the Sky Warden survivors — Banner and Rosevear, the only two out of those who had set off in pursuit of Highson Sparre weeks ago — in a sombre mood. Banner in particular found consolation hard to come by.

‘It’s a black day,’ said an unfamiliar voice with very familiar tones. ‘I daresay no one feels terribly much like celebrating.’

Skender looked up and saw Mage Kelloman standing not far away, looking exactly as Skender had imagined but still jarringly unfamiliar in his own body. Despite two years of inactivity, it retained its bulk and ruddy cheeks. Whoever Kelloman had paid to look after it had done a good job.

‘I daresay not,’ Skender said with a sigh. The bilby twitched in his arms. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked it. ‘Are you hungry?’

The twitch became a squirm as Kelloman came closer. The mage looked down at it with an expression Skender didn’t immediately recognise, then reached out with one meaty hand. Skender let go of the animal and watched in amazement as it jumped the short gap across to Kelloman and burrowed into his robe.

‘It recognises you,’ he said in open surprise.

Kelloman didn’t respond immediately. Only then did Skender realise that the mage was moved by the bilby’s acceptance of him. His expression was one of
fondness
.

‘It appears I made one friend while I was in the forest,’ he said.

Skender took the large man’s upper right arm in one hand. ‘You earned more than that tonight.’

‘You’re too kind, boy.’ The mage blinked and looked around, at the bodies and the bonfires, and the work continuing elsewhere. ‘Your parents probably wouldn’t like you wandering around like this.’

Skender almost laughed. ‘It’s a little too late for that.’

‘I mean —’

‘I take your meaning, Mage Kelloman. It’s okay. I’ll find them and put that worry from their mind.’

He caught sight of his father’s high forehead moving through a throng of Sky Wardens, but his mother was still absent. ‘What about you? Do you think your exile will be over now?’

‘Goddess, I hope so.’ The mage managed a brave face. ‘I may be no beauty, but it’s nice to be back in my flesh again.’ He patted his belly. ‘I’ve missed the taste of
real
food.’

‘Come to the Keep,’ Skender said. ‘We set a pretty good table, for a school.’

‘That’s your destination?’

‘For a time. I think that’s wise, at least until I graduate.’ He wasn’t thinking about the long-term at all. ‘You could come for that, at least.’

The grimace softened. ‘Thank you,’ the mage said again. ‘I’ll bring this little fellow along too, if it doesn’t get tired of me.’

Skender held out his hand, and they shook. ‘Got a name for it?’ he asked as he headed off.

‘A name?’ Kelloman held up the bilby and looked it in the face. ‘Well,
her
name was Leanda. Perhaps that would be suitable.’

‘Whose…? Oh, I get it. Do you think she’d like her pet being named after her?’

Kelloman looked impatient and annoyed at himself. ‘Emu’s armpits, I hadn’t considered that. I’ll give it some more thought.’

Skender stuck his hands deep into his robes and walked down to stare into the restless, cold water.

* * * *

A Panic scout had been sent an hour earlier to investigate the remains of the three towers. She reported that the top of only one had survived Yod’s fall from the sky; it protruded like a broken fingernail from the dark lake, barely visible from the shore. Nothing stirred on the shattered walls or in its hollow core, but the ruin would be treated with extreme caution for a while yet. No one knew how many devels had flocked in support of Yod’s big push, or where they might be hiding now.

Waves licked at the shore with a syncopated, uneasy rhythm, as though the lake was still perturbed by the creature that had briefly inhabited it. Skender soon tired of the view and retreated to higher ground. He wasn’t ready to return to the tent where Chu lay unconscious. Being away from her accentuated how dead inside he felt from passively sitting and waiting. She had given no sign that she would ever awake; he had nothing, yet everything, to hope for. The situation was wearing him down.

Instead he found a vantage point well away from the main action and sat there, holding himself to keep his body heat in and tugging his beanie down over his ears. He felt as though he was waiting for something, but he wasn’t sure what it might be, or if he would even know it when it came.

‘Why am I here?’ asked a voice out of the darkness behind him.

He turned so fast he almost slipped and fell down the slope. Ever since the golem had threatened him in the forest, he had been wary of unexpected voices in the night.

It was only Highson Sparre. Skender had mistaken him for a rock.

‘Scaring the crap out of me wasn’t your intention, then?’

‘No. I’m sorry.’ Highson unfurled his arms from the blanket he held around himself and scuttled closer without standing up. ‘I meant: why am I still alive? Why aren’t I one of the ones down there?’ He pointed at the lines of bodies. ‘Like Kail, or Marmion, or —’

‘Stop it. Are you saying you deserve to die?’

‘No. I’m just not sure I deserve to live.’

‘Since when has being alive depended on that?’

They sat in silence for a long while, Skender thinking about the possibility of Chu never coming back — but definitely deserving to, in his opinion — and Highson maybe thinking about the wife he had forgotten. Skender wondered how he would feel if Chu died and the Old Ones took his memory of her away. How could he grieve for someone he had no memory of knowing? How would he know if he felt
better
for not knowing?

Either way, he decided, there would be a gap in his life that would be difficult to fill. Or heal.

‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do now,’ Sal’s father said. ‘My whole life feels up in the air. I have no purpose, no plan. I must’ve had one at some point, since I worked so hard to make the Homunculus and everything, but what it was I can’t remember. Or did I never think about what came after Seirian was free? Did I never really expect to succeed?’

Skender shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Highson. You must have plenty of options, though.’

‘I can’t see any.’

‘Well, you have skills few others have. You haven’t forgotten them, have you? Master Warden Atilde might let you teach.’

‘Only if the Alcaide approves.’ Highson looked gloomy at that prospect.

‘Or you could become a golem hunter. I remember looking at the Roslin Codex once, back at the Keep. You’ve got all the right skills to do what he did. And there’s at least one rogue golem on the loose now.’

‘Upuaut?’ Highson’s aspect became more thoughtful at that suggestion. ‘That’s true. But golems are notoriously hard to track. Without some sort of connection or clue…’

His voice trailed off. Skender watched him, wondering what ideas were turning through the mind of the man who had, ultimately, made it possible for Yod to die. Without the Homunculus at hand, the world would have been battling an untouchable ghost.

A shiver of shame went through him. Skender remembered all too well his willingness to give up everything in order to serve Yod, in any capacity — even as a food source. It had been a close call for him and everyone touched by that terrible, alien charisma. For the first time he had understood why beings of power such as Gabra’il and Upuaut could be drawn in, even though the only possible reward in the end would surely be death. He almost felt sorry for them.

Then he thought of Chu’s bruised face and neck, and all thought of pity evaporated.

‘Come on.’ Highson stood without warning and reached down for Skender’s arm. ‘You’ve given me an idea.’

Skender let himself be hauled to his feet and dragged uphill. He knew better than to protest.

Highson’s jaw was set in a way that reminded him distinctly of Sal. Nothing would deflect either of them when they settled on a particular course of action. All Skender could do was go along for the ride.

When they came to the healing tent, Highson pulled back the heavy fabric and ducked his head to enter. Skender followed, blinking at the impact of warm air and intimate human smells. Rosevear looked up and nodded in welcome. The healer was weary. There was even more dried blood on the front of his robe than there had been earlier in the evening.

‘Where’s Chu?’ asked Highson.

Both Rosevear and Skender pointed at the same time, indicating the stretcher in the corner where the unconscious flyer lay. Skender’s heart lurched at the sight of her sallow skin and her sunken eyes. Her condition had not changed in the slightest.

‘Can you help her?’ he asked Highson as the warden crouched beside her and took one of her hands in his.

‘If we’re lucky, I can help both of us. Come here.’ He waved Skender over. ‘Upuaut is very old and cunning, even for a golem. It has tricks we can’t imagine. But because Chu wasn’t a Change-worker, taking her over must have been very difficult. I don’t believe Upuaut could have achieved it while she was conscious, not without killing her, and she’s patently not dead. Her personality is too strong. It must’ve waited until something knocked her out before moving in, then stopped her from regaining control once it had its way. She was under its thrall for several hours, in which time her mind, denied its proper seat, could have gone anywhere.

‘Our job,’ Highson concluded, ‘is to find her and bring her back.’

Skender nodded. So far Highson hadn’t told him anything he hadn’t already guessed. ‘And how does that help you?’

‘She of all of us is closest to the golem. It’s touched her in a way we will never know. I won’t pretend that living with that scar will be easy; no one emerges unscathed from such an experience. But it gives her an edge, too. She knows Upuaut, now. She’ll recognise it, no matter what form it takes. She might even be able to track it.’

Skender could see where he was going. Bring Chu back and he could use her to hunt the golem and bring its depredations to an end. But would she want to? Would it be asking too much of someone who had once been its victim, one of the very few who had survived?

He told himself not to put the caravan before the camels. They had to bring her back, first. ‘How can I help?’

‘Guide me in finding her, just like she’ll guide me in finding the golem. You know her best.’

Highson waved him closer. Skender knelt next to the stretcher and made himself comfortable on the hard ground. Highson took one of his hands and placed it on Chu’s forehead. Skender’s other hand Highson himself took, forming a circuit between the three of them. Already, Skender could feel a ripple of the Change flowing through him: in through his right hand and across his chest, then out through his left.

Chu didn’t react in any way to the subtle invasion. Her chest rose and fell with a gentle, steady rhythm. Rosevear was observing closely, making sure they did nothing to hurt his patient. He didn’t interfere, though. Skender knew that he had tried everything in his power to bring her back. All he could do now was watch and hope.

‘Hold on tight,’ said Highson. ‘If you get lost, wait for me to find you. I won’t be far away.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But —’

He didn’t finish the sentence:
Where exactly are we going
? Suddenly, as though a wave of tar had crashed over them, the world went black. The bottom dropped out of Skender’s stomach and he fell down through it into nothingness, and kept falling, weightless and disoriented, until he thought he might never stop.

The touch of Highson’s mind steadied him.
Do you know where we are
?

It feels like the Void
. He remembered the talk he’d heard after Highson rescued the twins from the Void Beneath. The hum every Change-worker feared when they pushed themselves too hard was gone forever.
Rosevear’s already looked in here for Chu and didn’t find her
.

He doesn’t have the experience I have. And he doesn’t have you to help
. Highson’s mind roamed ever deeper into the endless dark.
What’s your heart-name? Mine is Guin if you ever need to call me
.

Galeus
, Skender replied without hesitation, even as he cursed the fact that yet another person had learned his secret.

What about Chu? Does she have one?

At this Skender did hesitate. What right had he to divulge that information to someone who barely knew her? She had only relented and given it to him a second time after days of argument and tension.

But this was different, he told himself. This was about more than privacy and identity. This was life versus death. If they couldn’t call her she might never come back to her body, and in the Void Beneath the only way to call someone was with their heart-name.