Beyond the Wall of Time Read online

  Noetos’s grim expression sobered further. He had not thought of the implications.

  “Stella pulled me down on top of her,” he said, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt. “She didn’t say why, but she held the huanu stone to herself until it had… ”—he choked—“until it had burned out every bit of magic from within her.”

  “And from the two other gods within her,” Lenares added.

  “Two?” Sauxa said, clearly struggling to follow the explanation. “But I thought Keppia had already been banished?”

  “Not Keppia,” Lenares said, demonstrating uncharacteristic patience. “The Most High.”

  Noetos groaned. The ends of his fingers tingled with the shock. “I killed the Most High?”

  The Undying Man came and knelt by the dead woman, his hand resting on her cheek.

  “Not the way I’d planned it,” he said to the room at large in a voice laden with despair. “Not that my plans mattered in the end. I was the dupe all along, it seems. How long have you been planning this?”

  And so, amid the turmoil and doubt, the gift of revenge came to Noetos late and completely unexpected, a drop of blessing amidst darkness. He had denied himself his revenge and would never get another chance. Had to take this one.

  “Ever since we learned who you were,” said the fisherman. “It was Stella’s idea really, to pretend to be attracted to you.” He shook his head, hoping he wasn’t overdoing it. “She suffered dreadfully. Often cried about how horrifying she found it all.”

  “Misdirection,” breathed the Undying Man in wonder. His frame seemed to shrink as he absorbed the news. “I recently told her I’d seen through her ploy when she falsely accused Deorc those many years ago. And all the while… ”

  “… she was deceiving you,” Noetos finished.

  Behind him, Lenares was about ready to explode, Noetos could feel it. The others might understand what he was doing, or at least not interfere, but Lenares would demand the truth be spoken. Keep quiet, girl, he willed.

  The door opened. Everyone’s head swung in its direction. Cylene came in, her eyes wide. Immediately Lenares went to her. The fisherman breathed out in relief. This mattered. It mattered very much. He would comfort Cylene in a moment. For now, he had a revenge to complete.

  “Most of us were in on it,” he continued, waggling the fingers of his right hand behind his back, indicating for the others to hold their peace. “Save a few we couldn’t trust to keep quiet,” he added. “Our apologies, Sauxa. The Undying Man was to be our lightning rod, drawing the attention of the great powers.”

  The Lord of Bhrudwo looked sick. “You convinced the Most High to go along with this?”

  Oh. Noetos had forgotten about the Most High. He searched desperately for further invention: he’d never been quick on his feet…

  “I needed no persuasion,” came a voice from everywhere and nowhere, accompanied by an increase in the pressure in the room, as though the spaces between them were now overfilled. “I called you, Kannwar, to serve me. Two thousand years ago you turned me down, as was your right. This time… I had a different role for you. A lesser role.”

  “You’re bitter?” the Undying Man said, incredulity written on his face. “You used me as a dupe in some sort of revenge on me?” His face turned red.

  “Not at all,” the voice said smoothly. “But you assumed you were the centrepiece of my plan. I made no such assurance. A vital part, indisputably, but not at the heart. That place,” he said, his words freighted with emotion, “went to my beloved Stella.”

  At the mention of her name, everyone fell silent.

  The Undying Man, a very much reduced figure, shed tears as he straightened the red dress he had given Stella to wear, reaffixed a button that had come undone, and wiped the blood from her face. Something inside him seemed to have broken, or at least was in the process of breaking; no one thought to correct his misapprehension or to shore him up.

  One by one the travellers came and bowed over her hands, now clasped between her breasts, covering the spot where the huanu stone had burned her.

  There were no words, so none were said.

  The dying embers of Deorc’s soul try and fail to reconnect with the burnt-out remnant of his mind. If he can find even one place to attach himself he can begin the long healing process all over again. Seventy years isn’t a long time to wait. He’d wait double that time, more, to live again. Ten times as long to have another chance at revenge.

  The Undying Man took to his body with a sword, but the attack was irrelevant, the action of a frustrated man, and the fool must have known it. Deorc’s magic-infused body can’t be killed that way. He severed the eye-stalks, though, and Deorc—better call himself Husk, given the circumstances—can see nothing. Has to try to read air vibrations through his skin, and given the condition of that skin, cut to shreds by the Undying Man’s blade, he is unable to hear a great deal.

  He hears the Most High, though, and begins to piece together what has happened. Umu has been trapped, subjected to the huanu stone—the stone he expended so much energy to bring here!—and is now beyond the Wall of Time. This pleases him, though he wishes he had been the agent of her destruction. And in the doing Stella has died. Sacrificed herself. So says the cosmographer girl. Rage at this burns in the fading core of his soul. He wants to lift up his accursed limbs and stamp on her body; stamp and stamp and stamp until she is nothing more than a stain on the floor. But her body is well beyond his reach. As is his own.

  Ah, Deorc, says the Most High, reaching into his mind and scooping up his soul in his hands. Are you interested in a chance to redeem yourself?

  As long as I get a chance to heal, he says in reply. And to himself he says, Give away anything, patience, wait, wait. Bargain. Stay alive.

  Stella speaks to him, her words a burning in the heart of his guilty soul. Come with us, Deorc, and be part of the repairs to the hole in the Wall of Time.

  No! How could he bear it? To share a place of healing with her. The eternal shame! He keeps all of this out of his reply. How long until I could return here?

  Never, the Most High states. You are near death. Even the old magics binding you together will not hold you much longer. Spend your death wisely, Deorc, in a way you never spent your life.

  I want nothing to do with your plans, Husk replies, and waits for the counterarguments.

  So be it, comes Stella’s reply with the finality of a closing door.

  I…

  Silence.

  CHAPTER 21

  SON AND DAUGHTER

  CYLENE EMBRACED HER SISTER, her hands gripping Lenares’ shoulders tightly, undoubtedly leaving bruises.

  “I’m sorry, I’m so s-sorry,” she kept saying, not listening to what Lenares wanted to tell her.

  “Sh, sh,” Lenares said. “Nobody thinks badly of you. None of us would have gone through that door if we had once been possessed by a god, knowing that the god’s vengeful sister waited there.”

  “I k-kept thinking of the way he hurt me,” Cylene sobbed.

  Lenares shushed her some more. “In the end you came through the door, sister. That took bravery.”

  Cylene grimaced. “It wasn’t bravery. It is too hot out there. I could feel my skin beginning to crisp.”

  “That, we need to tell the others,” said Lenares.

  “What has happened here?”

  Lenares sighed. The story would be told again and again, she had no doubt, until it achieved the status of a legend, and was disbelieved as often.

  Best to get it right, to confirm all the facts with the chief participants, before telling the story again.

  “We’ve won,” she told her sister, her voice fierce with emotion.

  “What’s it like out there, Cylene?” Seren asked. “Can we reach the base of th’ tower?”

  The travellers turned to Cylene. Many of them had forgotten about the fire burning below. Until now. Seren’s words started many of them thinking about life beyond the hole i
n the world.

  “The fire has consumed the accommodation floor,” Cylene said. “I could go no lower.”

  “It must be running out of material to burn.”

  “I would not be so hopeful, Noetos,” Moralye said. “There is a great deal of flammable material in a library. If there is a scriptorium associated with the library downstairs, there will likely be chemicals that could feed a fire for days.”

  “Then let us hope the Undying Man does not have a scriptorium.”

  The man in question raised his head from his vigil beside Stella’s body. “A scriptorium and a storeroom for rare manuscripts,” he said. “All gone.” He turned back to his deathwatch.

  “Come then, Lord of Bhrudwo,” Noetos said. “Help us down from this tower.”

  The face turned again. “I’m not sure I can. Holding people above the ground for any length of time is impossible for most magicians, and very difficult for me. I doubt even Umu could have done it.”

  “So if it is merely difficult, why not try?”

  “You are persistent,” said the Undying Man. “Like your grandfather, you get what you want by pig-headedness. But not in this case. I could perhaps transport one person down through hundreds of paces of air to the ground. No more.”

  “Do it then,” the fisherman said. “Send someone off to seek help.”

  “What help could this person find? That is, presuming they don’t just run for their own lives?”

  “You’ve maintained a poor view of us; in line, no doubt, with your view of yourself.”

  That one stung the Bhrudwan lord. His numbers, Lenares noticed, had thinned out considerably.

  “There is no need to send anyone,” Lenares said. “All we need do is wait here until the fire burns itself out.”

  Noetos scowled. “If we have to wait for days, as Moralye indicated, we will die of thirst.”

  Lenares frowned. “Then Kannwar can send someone to bring water to the base of the tower. Surely he can lift up a few jars of water.”

  “If he can lift water,” Mustar said, his voice hesitant in case, no doubt, he was about to embarrass himself in front of all these clever people, “then why not lift up a rope?”

  “Ah,” said Noetos. “I knew I employed you for a reason. Someone who can think!”

  The travellers clustered around the Undying Man, entreating him to exercise his magic and lower Mustar to the ground.

  They received an abrupt answer. “Let him climb down the outside of the tower. It is not far.”

  Mustar leaned back from peering out of the window. Stepping carefully around the body of Husk, he returned to the others. “There is much smoke coming from the windows below, and I thought I could see some movement in the stonework. It definitely appears as though the wall of the tower is bowed outwards.”

  “We will try to lower you down,” Anomer said, indicating his sister.

  The Undying Man sighed. “Don’t be such fools. You will get him so far, then the strain will be too much. One of two things will happen: either one or both of you will have the magic torn from you, or, more likely, you’ll let him go. Even twenty paces is a long way to fall.”

  He stood. “I’ll lower one person. After that, I will grant you no more favours.”

  “Less of a favour and more of an obligation, I would have said,” Noetos growled.

  This earned him a strangely nervous glance, but no rebuke.

  “Very well,” Lenares said. “Who is the least heavy among us?”

  “I am surrounded by the weak of mind,” Kannwar complained. “Small variations in weight account for little. It is the distance without support that matters. Here, Mustar. Prepare yourself.”

  With no further warning the young fisherman rose into the air, then was ejected through the open window. Lenares bit back a scream. “Perhaps the rest of you ought to find out if the stair will see you to the ground,” the Undying Man said. “Whatever you do, get out of my tower. I wish to be alone.”

  He turned back to Stella. “And no more words,” he added.

  Lenares leaned as far as she dared out of the window, but could see nothing in the darkness except shreds of mist and the twinkling of stars high above.

  “Our lord is right,” Sautea said. “We should at least try the stair.”

  The moment he opened the door Noetos realised they had made a mistake. The door swung out seemingly under its own power as the fire-driven wind sucked at it—and them. The travellers stumbled forward, some of them already choking on the thick air.

  “We need not all go,” he said. “If there is a clear way down, we will return and fetch the rest of you.”

  “Who goes?” Anomer asked.

  “You and I, of course,” said Noetos. “And Cyclamere.” He glanced around the assembled travellers. “The three of us ought to be enough.”

  “And if you get to the bottom, only to find soldiers lined up against you?” Duon asked.

  “Then we surrender. But not before we’ve secured help for you—and, coincidentally, for the Lord of Bhrudwo.”

  “He’s beyond help,” Duon remarked. “Seems he wants to burn with his dead ladylove.”

  From somewhere far below came a low rumble. A moment later the grey darkness flickered.

  “Stay out on the landing as long as you can,” Noetos told Duon. “But if it is a choice between the flames and the wrath of the Bhrudwan lord, dare the latter. You can’t reason with flames.”

  “More chance than with that man,” said Duon, but he nodded.

  Cyclamere led the way down the stair. Within twenty paces they had lost sight of those waiting above; already Noetos’s eyes had begun to sting.

  “Smoke is bad enough,” he said, “but there are foul chemicals in the air.”

  “Talk as little as possible,” Cyclamere said. He might as well have told him to keep his mouth shut.

  They descended a hundred steps in relative silence, their careful passage punctuated by the occasional rattle or crash from below. But before the second hundred steps had gone by they began to see a deep orange glow below them. Far too soon, Noetos thought.

  “Touch the wall,” Anomer wheezed.

  Noetos did so, and snatched his hand away. The stone was scalding hot.

  The next hundred steps were a descent into a roasting nightmare. There was plenty of light by which to see the walls buckling outwards, almost melting as they watched. Noetos felt his skin drying, and wondered how soon before it began to burn.

  “Not halfway yet,” Cyclamere said. “How hot must it be below?”

  Noetos did not want to give up, not when their only other possible means of escape from the tower depended on a man who might well have been driven mad. But there seemed little chance—

  Ten steps above him the wall suddenly slumped outwards. The stair cracked, then gave way, the stone falling into the orange glow below. Frantic, Noetos glanced upwards: Anomer stood two steps above the failure.

  They waited far longer for the crash than Noetos thought plausible, but when it came it was little more than another hollow boom.

  “Do you think,” Anomer said, his eyes white in a blackened face, “that the other sounds were made by falling stones?”

  Noetos nodded.

  “We need to get back up to the top.”

  He nodded again.

  “You could jump,” said Anomer, eyeing the five-step gap.

  “Take ten steps up the stair, Anomer,” said Noetos. “Please.”

  The wall hadn’t finished moving. A section the height of a man was moving outwards, slowly folding on itself. The treads under his son’s feet were beginning to crack.

  “Please!”

  Anomer did as he was told, walking backwards, not taking his eyes off his father.

  With a snap three more steps broke away.

  From further up the tower came a rumble, then a crack. A moment later a whole section of stair dropped past them, the trailing edge taking Cyclamere on the back of his leg. The man didn’t even have
a chance to cry out: he spun from the stair and plunged down into the smoke.

  “Oh, Alkuon, no,” Noetos groaned. “Not Cyclamere.”

  “Father,” Anomer said, and the fisherman heard the strain in his son’s voice. “I have him. Let me link to you—I can’t hold him on my own.”

  He opened his mind to his son and was immediately flooded by sensation. Panic from Anomer, driven frantic by the sudden demand on his magical powers. An answering power from far above, also laced with fear—and not as strong as Noetos might have expected.

  We have problems of our own, Father, Arathé said, her voice weary, even resigned. The floor is settling lower—something below us has given way, we think. We fear it is about to collapse.

  Then get back in the room!

  We cannot. The Undying Man has barred the door.

  Let him go, Noetos said to his son. Send your strength up to your sister. They need you now.

  But, Father, Cyclamere is in terrible pain. The fire, it is burning him. I can’t let him go now!

  Then pull him up, son.

  Up came Cyclamere. Or what was left of him. The fire had burned the hair off his body and fused his clothing to his skin. Large sections of his torso had turned bright red, and both feet were black. Noetos struggled not to faint, so dreadfully did the man suffer.

  “Let… me go,” Cyclamere rasped through blackened lips.

  “Aye,” Noetos said, bowed once to his old tutor, and nodded to his son.

  The far edge of the floor had begun to smoke, as though it was about to catch fire. Arathé could feel her hair scorching; how must it be for her father and brother far below? While Duon hammered at the door behind them, demanding admittance to the lookout room, Arathé fed all the strength she could spare to the two men fighting their way back up the stair.

  She had tried to re-establish the ties she had made to the soldiers’ essenza, in the hope of exploiting them a third time, but too few threads remained. Most of the soldiers, it seemed, had died because of what she had done. Were she to try distributing the effects of the fire among the handful still alive, she would succeed in killing them and the travellers both.