The Devoured Earth (47 page)

Hadrian surprised him then. Instead of arguing, he put his arms around Seth from behind and hugged him. Instantly Seth’s anger evaporated, and a new and equally powerful emotion — grief — rushed in to take its place.

‘Your problem,’ Hadrian said, ‘is that you think we’re the same as everyone else. We’re not. We’re mirror twins. That sets us apart, just as if we were incredibly tall or congenitally blind. There’s no point fighting it. We can only adapt and live in our own way.’

‘You would call
this
life?’ Seth waved to encompass their Tomb-wall environment.

‘Well, it’s not death, and it might not be permanent. Don’t rattle the cage until we know it
is
a cage. That’s all I’m suggesting.’

Seth nodded, feeling exhausted from the emotional roller coaster. More than anything, he just wanted to sleep. Being back in an illusion of his body brought back memories of hostel beds in Europe: stale-smelling and lumpy, but as luxurious as anything he could imagine at the moment. He could barely remember a time before that: at home in Australia with their mother, in a normal life, a normal world.

Not normal, he corrected himself. Hadrian was right. They had never been normal. The Castillo twins had always stood apart — and not just because society saw them differently. They were different right down to the bone.

Perhaps the idea of ‘normal’ was fundamentally invalid, anyway. The face of the entire world had changed many times. Change was the only constant.

‘Look,’ said Hadrian, pointing outside the Tomb, back the way they had come, where the mist was settling and Yod’s final form was becoming clearer.

In shape it looked something like a sea urchin, one with thousands of spines clustered in five broad patches at each corner of its black body. The knobbly carapace undulated like a manta ray’s, and was at least a hundred metres across. Every movement kicked up powerful waves, making it difficult to see exactly how it held itself up, but it seemed to Seth that its underside was spined as well.

‘Jesus,’ he breathed. He could see no eyes or mouths — indeed no obvious front or back at all. And the shape was still changing: five slender limbs, reminiscent of shark-fins, were rising up between the stalk-clusters and curving inwards like teeth. ‘What’s it doing?’

‘Growing,’ said Hadrian. ‘Becoming.’

‘Becoming what?’

‘I don’t know. Whatever it wants to be, perhaps. It wasn’t like us. It never had a real body, so it’s building a form that suits its needs, evolving right in front of our eyes.’

‘It needs to stay alive,’ said Seth, trying to put himself in the position of the alien invader. ‘That means not being crushed as it fell, hence the shell. Then it wouldn’t want to drown, and the stilts help with that. They’d also give it a way to move.’

‘Which I think it’s trying to do.’

Seth could hear the concern in his brother’s voice. ‘Move where?’

‘One guess.’

‘After us?’

‘We put it in the Homunculus. If anyone can get it out, it’s us. Maybe it just wants to stop us before we do any more damage. Or maybe it wants revenge.’

‘It took us ages to get used to things after we got our new body,’ Seth said.

‘We might be able to use that to our advantage. And the ankh. The Tomb will be harder for Yod to find while we’re inside.’

Hadrian waved his hands to attract Ellis’s attention. She came over and stood before them, gliding through the others as though they didn’t notice her.

‘I don’t know what you guys have planned next,’ said Seth, comfortable being the spokesman, ‘but I suggest you get a move on. That thing isn’t sitting on its hands — or whatever it uses for hands.’

Ellis nodded. ‘I know, and the solution is temporarily out of
my
hands, now. The board is set; the pieces are in play. I’m just one of those pieces, as you have been. We can but sit back and watch the conclusion.’

‘Nonsense. You’re the Goddess. You can tell them what to do.’

‘Should I do that, Seth? Should I take over the world as someone like Yod or Tatenen would and solve every problem for the people who live here? Or should I just solve the important ones, and leave everyone to squabble over unimportant things? I don’t think that sounds terribly satisfying for any of us, even if it were possible, and I don’t think they’d truly want it. I brought them where they needed to be, and now I take them elsewhere. The rest they can work out for themselves, or else they won’t be worth saving.’

Hadrian reeled. ‘That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?’

‘You say that in the face of Yod, who would eat everyone alive if given the chance? I can’t do anything more. Accept that, and let’s move on.’

‘Hadrian and I aren’t going anywhere,’ said Seth, feeling his anger stirring again. ‘Thanks to you.’

She sighed and lowered her head. Weathered hands rubbed at her temples. ‘One way or another,’ she said, ‘I promise to resolve your situation.’ Her hazel eyes came up and looked at both of them in turn. ‘When this crisis is past,’ she added. ‘Should our friends here lose, the matter will be somewhat academic’

‘Yod will get the Flame?’ asked Hadrian.

‘And you really will be ghosts.’ Called by one of the others, she went to turn away, but stopped and added, ‘And by that, I mean dead. But I suppose that might still count as a resolution. What do you think, Seth?’

She had moved off before he could come up with something to say.

I think someone at least owes us an apology
. But he kept that to himself, knowing he was being petulant. The universe didn’t have to apologise for what happened to him. And ultimately it had been his choice — his and Hadrian’s — to follow the path they had taken the last time they had seen the Flame.

I know what I want to do
, he had told her then. But he couldn’t apologise to
himself
. That was just ridiculous.

There’s no point fighting who you are. That’s the one battle you will always lose
. So the captain of
Hantu Penyardin
had told him an aeon and a lifetime ago. If he couldn’t fight and he couldn’t apologise, what was he supposed to do?

‘Acceptance sounds to me like letting people walk all over you,’ he told his brother.

‘I don’t think you’ve ever done that.’ Hadrian looked sad and frustrated. ‘But it happened, anyway.’

* * * *

Skender felt the Tomb change course and looked away from Chu’s sleeping form to see a cliff face approaching on his right. Somehow they had travelled from the centre of the lake without him being aware of it. There had been a moment when he had sensed Sal and Shilly talking about him through the Change, but beyond that he had been totally focussed on trying with the small amount of the Change he possessed to bring Chu back.

He cursed his inattentiveness to the world around him. The Goddess had asked him to keep an eye on things. She must have done so for a reason. She never did
anything
without a reason.

If she had arrived in time, he thought, before Marmion had sent Chu and Skender on their mission to distract Yod, perhaps Chu would be well now…

Stop it
, he told himself.
Things could be worse. Chu could be dead. The plan to embody Yod could have failed. It could be coming to eat us all right now
.

When he looked back the way they had come and saw the giant spiny monster rising out of the deep, he quashed any further reassurances along those lines. Flocks of flying devels, tiny in the distance, circled the vast carapace like seagulls over a fishing catch.

Easing Chu into a supine position, he stood. His knees were stiff and sore from crouching for so long. Among the shocked faces and earnest discussions, he saw Warden Banner sitting alone, rubbing the leg that had been broken in Milang.

‘Are you feeling all right? I can call Rosevear for you, if you want.’

She shook her head. ‘I’m just strengthening the binding charm on the break. It’s been knocked around a little in recent times and I don’t want it to give out on me now.’ Her smile was genuine but weary, just like the curls in her hair. ‘Fat lot of good I’m going to be in a fight, either way.’

‘Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’ll hold your own.’

‘I’m not a warrior. People train for years to do stuff like that. I was just along to fix the engines.’

She indicated the Tomb with a wave of one hand. ‘If this thing even has engines…’

He understood her feelings of uselessness all too well, but wouldn’t let her indulge them. ‘You’re an Engineer. I haven’t even passed my final examination.’

‘Titles don’t mean anything. It’s what’s inside that matters.’

‘When something like
that
is coming after you,’ he said, jerking a thumb at the ungainly behemoth following them across the lake, shape visibly changing as it came, ‘I don’t think what’s inside me is going to do anyone much good.’

‘To the contrary, you might be exactly what we need. Look at that stone shelf, where the shore is narrowest. See how the shelf is leaning out slightly from the crater wall? It’s balanced quite delicately. If we could find a way to break that balance and send it crashing down into the lake, we could trigger a wave big enough to give that thing reason to pause.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. Don’t underestimate the power of water. Get it moving en masse, and nothing will stand in its way.’

Skender studied the rock formation near the one identifying the resting place of the crashed balloon, but lacked the skills required to see the subtle interplay between mass and gravity that kept the slab in place. ‘How would we break the balance?’

‘You tell me. I don’t know anything about the properties of living stone.’

He studied the cliff face, thinking hard, and came up with several complex charms that might do the trick, if Sal was behind them.

‘There’s only one catch,’ he said. ‘We’d need to be in contact with the stone to make it work.’

‘That’s all right. I’m sure we could get out of the way in time.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Look down there.’

She looked where he pointed to the lake shore below. A contingent of earthbound devels was following the Tomb’s progress.

‘That’s not fair,’ she said. ‘Can’t we get a single break?’

‘It would seem not.’

The devels had been seen by others in the Tomb. Marmion emitted one of his ear-splitting whistles.

‘That’s the last time I’ll do that, I promise you,’ he said, trying for humour. ‘We’ve come to the end of the road. This is where we’re going to put our foot down and say “enough”. The job’s not yet finished, and I for one won’t be leaving until it is.’ His dark eyes scanned the weary group gathered before him, looking for signs of dissent. He received none, not even from Pukje. ‘Now, we’ve had word from the outside world, and we may receive some help, but I think it’s best to assume we won’t get it. We do possess resources we haven’t fully drawn on yet. I have some thoughts, and from what I overheard Skender and Banner talking about, they do too. Don’t be afraid to suggest or try something — anything — that might buy us some time.’

‘How long do we have to hold?’ asked Lidia Delfine.

‘An hour or less,’ the Alcaide said. Sal stood with his arms folded next to Shilly. Their expressions were identically dispirited.

‘That’s not so long,’ said Highson. ‘We can easily manage it after everything else we’ve done.’

The look on Lidia Delfine’s face told Skender that she disagreed, but she kept her mouth shut — as did Griel and all the other seasoned fighters in the group. Skender understood why. He had read enough history to know that wars could be won or lost in seconds, and that half an hour could be half a lifetime on a battlefield.

‘I want the Tomb near the base of the crater wall to act as a last-ditch defence and a shelter for the injured,’ Marmion said. ‘The rest of us will stand before it. Everyone who can fight will, or they must leave what little protection we offer. The time for fence-sitting is past.’ At this he looked specifically at Pukje, who saluted mockingly. ‘Finally, remember that Yod isn’t an animal, and it isn’t stupid; it’s big and it’s slow, but it might have things in its favour that we can’t begin to imagine. Don’t underestimate it. That mistake could be our last.’

He looked at Sal and Shilly, as though checking to see if they had anything to add. They didn’t. The Goddess stood to one side, flanked by the ghostly twins in their crystal prison. She had nothing to say either. Skender tried to read her mood, but failed.

‘We came here with a common purpose,’ said Griel. The Panic soldier’s leather armour was scuffed and scratched, but he stood proudly at the centre of attention. ‘I’m not leaving until I see it done.’

‘For everyone in the forest,’ agreed Lidia Delfine.

‘For everyone everywhere,’ said Rosevear.

‘For everyone we’ve lost,’ said Orma, the young Ice Eater.

‘And for those we can still save,’ added Skender, feeling his face flush. Embarrassment didn’t stop him from saying what he knew to be true. If he had to stand over Chu and fight off the devels with his bare hands, he would do it.

‘Thank you,’ said Marmion. The bald warden was visibly moved beneath his usual bluster. There might even have been tears in his eyes. ‘Bring us down, Ellis. There’s no point delaying any longer.’

The Goddess nodded and the Tomb began to descend. The slab of stone loomed over them like the prow of a giant ship, its sides worn smooth by time and the elements. The thought that this might be the last thing he ever saw made Skender feel sick.

The Tomb settled on a shelf of stone by the chin of the old man’s silhouette. A hole opened in its side, letting in bitterly cold air and the cries of approaching devels. A distant booming, like surf crashing to shore but with a more rapid, syncopated rhythm, could only be Yod, Skender realised. It hurried towards them, making surprising speed on its hundreds of stilt-like legs. Tall antennae waved and probed the air, seeking them through senses unknown.

Marmion led the way outside, flanked by Lidia Delfine and Griel. Skender came in the middle of the group, holding a long-bladed knife Heuve had given him. The devels were downslope, roughly fifty in number and of all shapes and colours. He tried not to think about them any more than he had to. Sword and hook and the warden’s skills would keep them at bay for a while. He and Banner had more important work to do.