The Heretic Land Page 5

  The world lit up. The Engine howled like an impossible beast in pain, its limbs flexing and then rising, issuing a terrible glow that grew brighter and brighter. The ground shook. Sand made fluid by the movement rippled like water away from the Engine, and Milian felt her daemon shiver with something that might have been fear.

  The enemy dropped their weapons and took several steps back towards the sea, an unconscious retreat towards their homeland across the water. Their eyes went wide in fright … and then awful acceptance.

  Milian pursued them, and then the Engine exploded. The blast threw her far out past the beach and over the water, and behind her the land had come alight. The whole stretch of coast she could see had blossomed into bright white flame, the fires blasting way above the cliffs, spiralling up and out from the Engine on the beach and splashing across the land. Molten rock flowed, trees exploded, and the atmosphere itself thudded with shock after shock. As she dropped, another body fell with her, and they both flitted through the air as if carried by giant hands. Just before she splashed down she saw the ruin of the man it had once been. His body was split by some vast impact, his head a dangling mess pinned with crossbow bolts, and the dregs of his daemon hissed away to the air.

  She thought, How much of that is in me? Then, moments before she struck the water, something struck her.

  The touch of Aeon was unmistakeable. As a holy woman she had imagined its touch, but actually experiencing it was undeniable, and shattering. It scorched the daemon within her to nothing, instantly ridding her of the thing that had turned her, for a time, into a beast. A moment of joy followed, quickly subsumed by sadness because—

  She hit the violent surface of the sea, but hardly noticed.

  —Aeon was no more. Object of Skythian worship for millennia, a passive god that observed but did not intrude, exuded power but did not demand fealty and fear, she sensed its passing as surely as she felt this single shard of it passing into her. It parted her soul and settled inside, and the shard became the centre of her perception.

  They killed it! she thought, hardly believing. They murdered Aeon! With the cataclysmic power that had just blasted from the Engine on the beach, what was left of Skythe now? What was left of anything?

  There is always something left, a voice had said, and Milian opened her mouth to gasp. Water flooded in, but she did not drown. I have you, the voice continued. The voice of her god. And you have me. This shard is a part of me, and will become a seed. But it will take time. The material part of Aeon is ruined. But … will you carry this shard of me?

  Milian could not believe that Aeon was asking her permission. But she agreed silently, and felt her god acknowledge.

  What was the daemon? she thought. Was that born of the Alderian Engines?

  I must rest, Aeon said. It sounded pained, and shocked, and its voice was growing more and more distant. I must … recuperate …

  And me?

  South, away from Alderia, Aeon said. And when you reach land, you must rest also.

  For how long?

  Until I am ready to wake.

  They destroyed you, Milian thought, and her tears mixing with vast seas could have been endless.

  Nothing is for ever, Aeon said, death least of all.

  With her land aflame behind her, Milian sank into the water until darkness flooded her.

  In the cave, back in the present and away from those distant memories for a while, Milian blinks sore eyes. Pain is better than no feeling at all, so she blinks again. Sand in her eyes, or salt, and she goes to lift her hand and rub them. Her hand refuses to move, but there is pressure in her shoulder. Her stomach muscles flex. She is coming alive again, but …

  No sign of the shard. No sense of Aeon.

  Perhaps I am dead. Landed in the sea after the Engine erupted, sank, settled on the seabed and dreamed of Aeon. And the movements I feel are the sea creatures of the Duntang Archipelago tasting my eyes and tongue, my skin, rooting in the wounded flesh across my chest and stomach and hips …

  This is real, however, and the movements she feels are her own. These thoughts are level and unpanicked, not the drone-like ravings of the murderous thing she had once been. And the old memories carry a story that is not yet finished.

  As she sank into the sea, saltwater soothed her wounds. She only noticed them as the pain receded, and awareness returned to her as her senses became more deprived – sight limited by darkness, hearing by the pressures of depth. Above her she saw the remains of the ruined man drifting down towards her. A cloud of blood softened his outline, and past him the sea’s surface shone and glimmered with an unknowable light-show. It looked both beautiful and deadly.

  A large shadow flitted quickly through the water, streamlined and sharp, and snatched the man’s remains from within the spreading cloud. The shadow disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, leaving only an echo of the dead man’s presence slowly dispersing into the water.

  Am I bleeding too? she wondered. It seemed an age since she had thought of herself, though she knew it had only been hours since the daemon had come – those shockwaves that had seemed to thump through the air, the land, the rock of the world itself, and then the thing ripping into her, fixing against her soul with barbed tenacity.

  She opened her mouth to cry out at the horror of what she had done, but the last of her air had already escaped her lungs. She sank deeper, coming to rest on the ocean floor. Something large and flat moved beneath her feet, and in the faint light she saw only a hint of the wide, circular creature as it glided gracefully into the obscure distance.

  I should be dead! she thought, and a wave of heat closed around her from the direction of the land. Whatever was happening back there was also forcing heat into the endless sea. She turned slowly, raising her hands to protect her eyes and face from the swarm of creatures fleeing away from the land and towards her. Jellyfish slicked by, trailing tentacles that set fire to her skin wherever they touched. Tiny fish nibbled at her eyes and lips. Things with shells almost as large as her sprung along the seabed, landing around and upon her and leaping again, their spiked feet piercing her thighs and ankles. Sharks arrowed by, a sea snake curled around her flailing arm, fishes nibbled at her bleeding flesh. There was no pain from the bites, though the jellyfish caresses burned so much she was amazed her skin was not aflame.

  Something inside hurt worst of all. The shard – silent now, and buried deep – reminded her of madness and the things she had done, and then it prodded home again, a terribly sentient pain that seemed to speak to her and guide her, demanding something she barely understood.

  She tried to breathe, but water filled her lungs. Death surely circled her but, like the dozens of arm-sized bone sharks that formed a dark cloud above her head, it did not close in entirely. The shard of Aeon warded it and them away, and she felt it urging her onward. Away from the land. Out across the ocean floor. South, it had said. And when you reach land, you must rest also. Hundreds of miles south was Alderia. All that was left of Aeon wanted to hide under its enemy’s nose.

  Her body leaking blood and tears, senses all but useless the steeper the seabed sloped down, creatures investigating this intruder in their midst, Milian followed the shard’s bidding.

  She walked across the seabed, leaving both madness and sanity behind. In their place settled a curious, distant calmness, as though both fear and normality were being crushed from her by immense pressures. Soon, the glare of fires was lost above and behind her. The darkness welcomed her in and down.

  Great things moved in the waters around her, and in the ocean floor beneath. Eyes sought, nostrils flared, other organs sensed her heat and electrical charge, her womanhood and the memory of the songs her mother sang, echoes of her past drawing giant star-nosed slugs that fed on pain. But these things would mostly move aside as she approached, or fade back to their own nebulous pasts at the last moment. They were confused, and then forgetful. She was there, and then she was not. The shard of the dead god within was protecting he
r.

  She fell into chasms and was lifted by warm tides. She passed the rearing edifices of the islands of Duntang Archipelago, and avoided their rise towards land. She stumbled through seaweed forests for days, avoided the sharp beaks of decapuses and the poisonous spines of sand spites, and once she saw a deep pirate swimming rapidly away from her. The waving weed fronds rose high above, shifting slowly back and forth to the sea’s beat, which might perhaps have been the pulse of the whole world. But, for her, such musings were rare. She continued to exist because the memory of the dead god Aeon was within her, and rarely did she consider what purpose she might be travelling towards.

  She could not count the days. But at some point in her journey she felt the urge to stop for the first time, crawl down among the broken ruins of old ships that had been swept against an undersea cliff by ancient tides, and hide. The sea itself seemed to pause in its constant movements – there were always currents, cool and cold contacts, but now everything was still. She sat silently for a long time. Crawling things investigated her and moved on.

  And then something came close.

  She never saw what it was, but she felt it, probing at her thoughts with a mind utterly alien and cold. Its presence pervaded the whole area, and she saw several fluorescent fish swimming so hard away from it that they simply died, slowing and sinking to the seabed, their lights fading to nothing. The shape passed close by, sending a heavy, cool wave across and through the piled wrecks. They moved as though unsettled by the massive thing’s presence. It took a long time to drift past, and the sense of size was staggering. Even after it had gone she remained where she was for some time, unsure of exactly who she was or what she was doing anymore.

  Then she was moving again, and the memory of her ruined god moved with her.

  Much later, when so much time had passed that she could no longer recall the origins of her journey – not then, at least – the sea floor began to rise.

  She emerged eventually into sunlight, onto the strange shore of a continent she had never visited before – Alderia. The beach was cracked with spreads of melted, glassy sand, glimmering black in the daylight. Bright blue birds plucked insects from the wing. A slow mammal walked along the beach on four wide feet, not seeming to notice her. Way behind, the horizon glowed with a sickly heat. She was very, very tired, and the world was so far away. She had no wish to see any more.

  She found a cave in the cliffs at one end of the beach, its entrance barely exposed even at low tide. It went deep, and so did she.

  In that same cave now, she can hear the sea. It is distant, but comforting, a constant that would sound the same one age to the next. And now there is the faintest light as well, bleeding in somewhere and reflecting and refracting through the cave to where she lies. She is all but buried after being there for so long. Even the cave feels new, reshaped around her over time as seasons and years have come and gone, rocks have fallen, and the sea has done its timeless, erosive work.

  It will take some time for her to find herself again. Her mouth is moist once more, but her eyes are still gritty and sore. She can feel the weight of slumped organs in her body, though her muscles seem to be reacting to her commands, doing their utmost to obey.

  She thinks her god’s name, but Aeon is silent. She probes for it, but there is no response. Perhaps over the time she has been hidden down here, it has faded away to nothing. It was a mere shard of what Aeon had once been, after all.

  Some time later, Milian Mu sits up at last.

  Chapter 3

  adaptations

  Venden Ugane dropped the cart’s reins and fell upon a red-spined snake, one hand clamping hard behind the powerful jaws, the other pressing down halfway along its length, trying to prevent the creature’s thrashing and avoid it curling around his arm. A year ago he’d witnessed a specimen smaller than this wrap itself around a hillhog and squeeze until the swine’s guts exploded from its arse.

  ‘Calm it, for the bastard gods’ sakes!’ he hissed. The snake seemed to weaken, and then its movements drew to an abrupt halt. He’d seen serpents feigning death before, a defence mechanism or a hunting ploy. He would not lessen his grip.

  ‘Fifteen spines. Shorter than they should be. Won’t catch anything with them.’ He lifted the head and pressed, its dislocated jaw dropping open under the pressure. Sickly yellow venom dripped from its long fangs, and he was careful not to breathe in any of its fumes. ‘Teeth should be longer to break through a hillhog’s hide. Hogs growing heavier and tougher. Don’t adapt, don’t survive.’ He stood slowly, then heaved the snake down the hillside. It twisted and rattled through the air, then fell in a clump of bushes and slithered away. He watched it go, wondering how it could still be alive and whether its offspring would persist for long. It was far from a perfect specimen, but then he was already certain a perfect specimen would no longer exist. On Skythe, perfection was further away than anywhere else. The snake hunted imperfect prey, living among flora that barely understood seasons. That confusion led to beautiful landscapes of many colours – lush greens and blooming wonders, as well as the autumnal hues of orange, red and brown. But such beauty was unnatural, and wrong.

  His mind never still, Venden enjoyed retroscrying; trying to discern how these animals and plants might have been in the past, and how perhaps they should have been in the present. And he could sometimes retroscry back to the point when everything had changed – when Alderia’s assault had blighted the land, and polluted it for centuries to come.

  Back where he’d come from the idea that Alderia had implemented magic was a forbidden concept, but here there was no one to forbid. Not this far north, at least. On the southern shores there were the slayers, and some people still foolish enough to fear uttering the truth. But here he was deep in the heart of Skythe, and deep in the wild past.

  The war had changed things more than most people could ever believe. Discovering the truth was a challenge that had become a personal quest since he had come here to live, and every oddity he found only served to pique his interest more. Back on Alderia, his interest had necessitated the gathering of forbidden information – parchments, diagrams, whispered rumours passed on in dingy basement rooms. He had never questioned his strange interest in a war six hundred years old, not even when he was a child. But coming to Skythe meant that he could wander the corrupted site of the war and discover evidence for himself, and his fascination seemed like the most natural thing in the world. It was what he had been born to do, and he felt more at home than ever before.

  Especially since discovering the remnant, when in a flash his life had taken on new meaning. Since then, his retroscrying of local flora and fauna had become little more than a way to pass time during his journeys. What he sought now was something far less known.

  Venden picked up the cart’s reins and started hauling it forward again. He had come this way once before on one of his scouting trips for further remnants, but any tracks he had left behind had been wiped away by the weather. The gentle slope of the hillside was relatively free of trees and rocks, and a good route along the valley towards his destination. Soon he would drop down to the valley floor and follow the river. The cart was small, light, but it was the object on it that might cause him some problems. It had taken eight days to come forty miles, and now he was almost home.

  Memories of his previous life – the sad, wasting man who was his father; the dead mother – came clearer in dreams now than in waking hours, an indication that he was leaving his past way behind. It was a long time since he had whispered apologies to his father before dropping into a peaceful sleep.

  Sometimes he thought to whisper to that void hiding inside of him instead, but he had long given up trying to understand.

  The cart bumped, and the thing it contained thudded against the timber sides. Venden glanced back at it. Every time he looked, his stomach dropped and he felt sick. It was a sickness at his loss of control, at the feeling of being controlled. He should never have known where to travel to f
ind it.

  It had been the same with every other remnant.

  The memory of his long journey north from Skythe’s southern shore, and what he had found close to the source of the river, was as fresh now as the time he had first relived it. Each recollection seemed to make it more real, as if his mind was solidifying his experience to hold back the subtle madness he felt. Everyone blessed with genius is also tainted with madness, his father had told him on the day Venden was accepted into the Guild of Inventors. But that was a continent, and a lifetime, away.

  ‘I’m not mad,’ he said to the wilderness. Each reiteration chipped away at his confidence in the idea, and the watcher inside had never deigned to offer an opinion.

  All through his journey north from Alderia to Skythe, he had suspected that he was being drawn to something. After many days stowed away on the supply ship – fearing capture, stealing food – the open freedom of this strange land had refreshed him. It washed out the fears that had built in him, and the regrets about what he had done. And finding himself somewhere he had dreamed of for years, it had not been difficult to follow the lure.

  He guided the cart down the gentle slope, turning so that he was behind it and the weight of its contents pulled it down. Staring at the shape exposed to the harsh sunlight, Venden felt that shiver again, the mysterious sense that this hidden thing was always meant to be found by him. The first time he touched it, the smooth shape seemed to fit his hand perfectly, as if he had always known it. It had lain in the ruin of an old Skythian temple for centuries, buried beneath a fallen wall, swathed with sickly crawling plants, patiently waiting. It had taken only a morning to pull back the rubble and cut away the plants that sought to smother the object, and it had felt like granting freedom.

  The length of his arm but slightly thicker, the spine-like object had fourteen protuberances down both sides, each of them as long as his thumb. They were round and smooth, and pocked with between three and thirteen holes. These holes had been home to crawling things, but since loading the object onto the cart they all seemed to have crawled away. The central trunk was almost circular, with one side slightly heavier than the other. If cut it would have the cross-section of a seagull’s egg, but Venden would never try to cut it. He wasn’t certain it could be cut – even after so long, its surface was completely unscarred by anything time, or the falling temple wall, had thrown at it.