The Devoured Earth (55 page)

‘All this moving around is tiring, you know,’ Ellis said. ‘It’s tricky, especially if I have to go underground, like now. But that’s not necessarily a problem. I can freeze time and catch my breath while the rest of the world is still. That’s how I got so much done after the Cataclysm. I could, be everywhere I wanted, whenever I wanted, pretty much. About the only thing I can’t do is be in two places at once — and you can fake that if you’re careful. Do you see now why they call me the Goddess?’ She half-smiled. ‘But it all comes at a cost. The more time you freeze, the older you get compared to the rest of the world. I spent twenty-five years of my life settling things down after you two entered the Void. Outside, just fifteen years passed. I was glad when it was over and I could sleep.’

‘Did you actually sleep,’ Seth asked, ‘while you were in the Tomb?’

‘One full night,’ she replied, ‘that lasted a thousand years.’

The blue glow of the crystal walls began to fade. Hadrian peered outside to see where they were, but discerned only darkness at first. Then the faint outlines of a blocky stone chamber became visible. The space was much smaller than Sal and Shilly’s workshop had been. It was, in fact, barely large enough to contain Ellis and a squat brick structure in its centre. Seth and Hadrian both moved closer as the stone walls took substance and shape around them, shining damply with the light of the Flame.

The central brick structure was about the same size and shape as a barbecue the twins had had in their backyard while growing up. It wasn’t red, however, but a dark slate-grey colour. The lid consisted of a solid slab of black volcanic stone. It was the most ominous chunk of rock that Hadrian had ever seen.

Ellis regarded it balefully. ‘This is it,’ she said.

Hadrian frowned. ‘I left this here?’

‘No. I made sure it was interred properly, right at the base of Tower Aleph. This chamber is charmed against intrusion, and watertight. The air in here won’t last forever, but that won’t bother you, I suppose.’ She wrinkled up her nose. ‘It might be bad already. We shouldn’t stay long.’

She rolled up the sleeves of her black robe and began shifting the slab away. Hadrian wished he could do more than watch, but as a ghost there was no way he could help. A strong sense of dread was rising in him. Whatever lay under that slab, he was more and more certain that he didn’t want to see it.

Ellis turned red in the face but didn’t let up, even though the slab probably weighed more than she did. The grinding noise it made filled the cramped space around them. When it had moved a full hand’s-breadth, the edge of a hollow within came into view. Hadrian moved around to the far side and hugged his spectral flesh. The cavity opened wider with every heave and push from the straining Goddess until it overbalanced and tipped with a crash to the floor, shattering into two uneven pieces.

Ellis fell back, gasping and wiping her hands clean. Dust left broad streaks on the front of her robe.

‘There,’ she said. ‘Recognise it?’

The light from the Flame wasn’t at the right angle to fully illuminate what lay inside. All Hadrian could make out was a rounded shape swaddled in grey cloths, filling the small space within.

He shook his head.

‘I’m not surprised,’ she said. ‘It’s been down here ever since the Cataclysm.’

Seth was looking from him to the sinister shape with a look of deep concern. ‘What is this place?’

‘It’s a tomb,’ she said. ‘It’s
the
Tomb, if you really want to know, the real purpose for me being where I was. Back in the old days, this wasn’t a lake. It was the depression left in the landscape after Yod failed to make the leap. It’s also where I emerged when Sheol broke up, so it seemed the obvious place to return when my work was over. By then I’d already found it.’ She indicated the object with a wave of her right hand. Her left was around her chest, keeping her warm. ‘Xol helped me build this enclosure, and I parked myself on top. Nothing could bother it while I was there. That seemed the least I could do.’

Hadrian nodded, finally picturing where they were. At the bottom of Tower Aleph’s hollow core had been a square dais on which Ellis’s tomb had sat. They were inside the dais itself, under a mountain of rubble, no doubt, and many dozens of metres of water.

The rest of her words were slowly sinking in. If the Tomb hadn’t actually been for the Goddess, he asked himself, then who or what lay within it?

The rounded shape couldn’t threaten him. It didn’t move. He couldn’t even smell it. But he was filled with an urge to get as far away from it as he could, and to never stop running.

You left something behind
, she had told him.

‘It’s me, isn’t it?’ he said.

She nodded.

‘When I went to the Second Realm to meet Seth, I never came back to my body. Are you telling me it was just left… here?’

Another nod.

He pictured his original body lying where it had dropped, exposed to the elements and to all of nature’s predators. ‘I’m going to wring Pukje’s neck,’ he said. The imp had been there, urging him to make the leap to Seth and to
do the right thing
. The expectation, obviously, hadn’t gone both ways. ‘I can’t believe he just left me to die.’

‘He didn’t exactly do that,’ Ellis said, reaching into the cavity to pull back the dusty cloth.

Hadrian flinched, expecting to see scraps of skin and bones bearing no resemblance to the person he had once been. But what he saw was entirely more shocking. The body — he couldn’t think of it as
him
— was thin and hairless, and its skin was deathly pale, but it looked like that of someone who had died that very day. Sitting upright in a foetal position, with its head tilted to one side and resting on bony knees, its eyes were gently shut as though sleeping. Its mouth hung slightly open. There was no sign of decay anywhere.

‘Impossible,’ he managed.

‘Didn’t you ever hear of those monks or priests who died but didn’t rot?’ Ellis asked them. ‘This is exactly the same thing. When people transubstantiated directly from the First to the Second Realm, they occasionally failed to cut the cords connecting them to their old body. Their flesh, although empty, remained vital or in stasis for centuries, waiting for the missing mind to return. Sometimes devels or other creatures would get inside, but most of the time the bodies just lay there, unchanging. Some people called them “body-statues”. I think of them — of yours in particular — as anchors.’

Seth looked up at that. ‘That’s why we drew the realms together even when Hadrian was in Sheol with me. His body was still in the First Realm, connected to him all that time. Even when we were in the Void, it’s been sitting here, waiting.’

‘It’s not
anything
, really,’ Ellis said. ‘It’s just tissue — meat kept alive by an echo of your will, Hadrian.’

‘Why didn’t you bring me here sooner?’ He felt oddly betrayed, and worse, disappointed for a reason he couldn’t immediately define. ‘Or even tell me?’

‘The time wasn’t right. We were fighting a war, remember?’ Ellis met his accusing stare without flinching. ‘Besides, you and Seth were safely in the Homunculus, and separating you prematurely would have been dangerous for everyone. The world needed a controlled Cataclysm, or none at all.’

‘But now…?’ Hadrian had trouble finishing the sentence.

‘It all depends on what Sal and Shilly decide,’ she said, ‘but whichever way they go, you’ll be free of that responsibility. And that presents us with a number of options.’

Hadrian felt Seth staring at him. Not angrily or hatefully, but with a new, uncertain anxiety.

‘If Hadrian goes back into his body, what’ll happen to him?’ Seth asked Ellis. ‘Will he die?’

‘No, but he’ll probably be quite weak for a bit. And he’ll be vulnerable to all the usual things: injuries, sickness — and death, of course.’

‘But he’ll be alive.’

‘Yes.’

‘And I’ll be stuck in here.’

‘With me. Doesn’t that make you feel any better?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well, thanks.’ She shot him a humourless smile. ‘That’s not the only option, you know. You can both go into the body, just like you were in the Homunculus. But it won’t be the same. You’ll have to share the connection with it. You’ll be closer and more reliant on each other than ever before. Does that sound more attractive to you?’

Seth glanced at Hadrian, then away. ‘No. What else?’

‘You could take the body and Hadrian could stay here. That’s possible, although more difficult.’

‘And creepy.’ Seth shivered. ‘Any more?’

‘We permanently sever Hadrian’s connection to his corpse and remove the last anchor holding you to the First Realm.’

‘Kill me?’ asked Hadrian, feeling slightly shocked by the suggestion.

‘Not you. Just your old body. You’d miss it as much as you miss the Homunculus.’

Hadrian didn’t want to say it, but he did miss the artificial body that had been their home for over a month. He missed its strength and reliability. And despite himself he missed the closeness he had shared with Seth. For all their bickering and disagreements, he had become very used to being with his brother. He felt unbalanced now without that constant, ready intimacy.

But he wasn’t certain about the idea of being crammed with Seth into one all-too-human body. That sounded like a recipe for extreme disaster.

‘I suppose we should look at this as a positive development,’ he told Seth. ‘For a while there, I didn’t think we’d have a choice — beyond death or
this.’’
He tapped his chest to indicate their current status as ghosts in the tiny space of the Tomb.

‘
You
have a choice,’ Seth grated. ‘I can only go along with what you decide.’

‘Do you think I won’t make you part of the decision? Do you really think that?’ A sudden, hot anger coursed through him. After all they had been through, did his brother not know him at all? ‘Damn you, Seth. Take the body, if it means that much to you. It’s yours. Do whatever you want with it, whatever will make you happy — finally. Take it and get out of here. Go on.’ Hadrian circled the close confines of the stone chamber, following the invisible curves of the Tomb. When he came within range of Seth, he physically lashed out, pushing his brother with both hands. Seth was taken totally by surprise and staggered backwards, losing his balance and tripping over his feet. ‘Get the hell out,’ hissed Hadrian, standing over his fallen brother. ‘We don’t want you.’

A strange thing happened. Seth burst into tears. The first sob exploded out of him like a sneeze, and then it was as though he couldn’t stop. He hid his face behind one arm and rolled away. ‘Don’t,’ he stammered. ‘Don’t say that.’

Hadrian was as shocked as though Seth had vomited. His anger evaporated in an instant, replaced by contrition and shame. He went to help his brother up, but Seth pushed him away. ‘I didn’t mean it,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

‘You did mean it,’ Seth said, his words muffled by his arm. ‘Neither of you want me here. Both of us are useless, but I’m the most useless of all. No one — and nobody —’

Hadrian forced his way through Seth’s guard and took hold of him as though they were wrestling. He didn’t need to hear the rest of the sentence to know what his brother was feeling, even if he couldn’t say it.

Nobody wants me.

‘It’s not true,’ he said as firmly as he could. ‘It’s not true. Or if it is, it’s only because you act like
you
don’t want
us
.’

Seth’s hands gripped Hadrian’s arms, but instead of pushing him away they pulled him closer. That said more than words, and in an instant all their differences were forgotten.

‘I don’t mean to rush you,’ said Ellis after an unknowable length of time, ‘but could you make a decision before I freeze to death?’

Hadrian felt Seth’s hands loosen, and he sat back, wiping his eyes. He almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Who knew ghosts could cry? Even if the tears were just illusions, they felt as real as the emotions that prompted them.

‘Right,’ he said, facing Ellis as Seth got himself together. It didn’t take long. Seth’s hand came down on Hadrian’s shoulder, but he remained sitting on the floor.

‘Is it still my decision?’ Seth asked.

Hadrian nodded. ‘Go ahead.’

‘We kill it,’ he said. ‘We let it die. We break the connection. However you want to put it. This —’ He waved a hand dismissively at the squat barbecue-shaped structure and the body inside it. ‘— hasn’t been part of us for a thousand years. It might look like us after a bath and maybe a good feed, but neither of us gave it a second thought for a thousand years. Why should we start now? It would be hypocritical of us to pretend it meant anything.’

‘Does it matter to you, Hadrian?’

He shook his head, knowing in his heart that that was the only honest answer he could give. It mattered in the same way as a photo of an old girlfriend mattered, or a pair of lost shoes. He felt a connection with it from the past, but it wasn’t him. It wasn’t who he was now.

‘I think it’s time,’ he said, ‘to put that part of my life behind me.’

‘Even if the alternative is to stay here, with me?’

‘Sure. Taking no steps forward is better than taking one backward. Don’t you think?’

Ellis looked immensely relieved. ‘What about a step sideways? How would that sound?’

‘It’s a little hard to answer that,’ Seth said, ‘when I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Her smile widened as she raised her hands in front of her, one on either side of the Flame and brought them together with a single loud clap.