The Blood Debt Part 20

*It's obvious that we don't.'

*We must run.'

*From what? One of us?'

The pig didn't answer. It, too, went to leave.

*Wait!' cried Skender, exasperated. *Where are you from? Where are you headed? What's this Angel thing you keep mentioning?'

The pig half-turned. *You do not see time the same way we do. We see one event in its entirety while you follow it from beginning to end. We see the many ways future and past diverge from the present while you see only one path. You ask me to explain things you cannot understand.'

Sal remembered Mawson saying as much, years ago. He gave in, knowing that arguing with man'kin rarely got him anywhere. *Thank you, anyway, for saving us.' He a.s.sayed a clumsy bow towards the pig, and hoped he didn't look too stupid.

*We are saving ourselves,' said the man'kin. *You are needed in this world. Anyone with eyes can see that.'

The pig trotted heavily after its fellow, leaving Sal and Skender trapped in the Homunculus' wake, more puzzled than ever.

The Road.

*Humans haven't conquered the Earth.

We merely inhabit it. That others share our illusion of primacy only reinforces its falsehood.'

THE BOOK OF TOWERS, EXEGESIS 6:9.

S.

hilly ate a quick meal while Chu explained the way across the Divide. The food Marmion's party had brought with them was simple and healthy: porridge and conkerberries, soaked in water, accompanied by acacia seeds. It didn't make much of a breakfast, but Shilly was grateful for it. Her whole body ached from lack of rest.

*There's a way down the Divide wall a couple of kilometres southwest of here,' Chu said through a mouthful, wincing as the motion tugged at her injured scalp. The top half of her leather uniform was torn in several places, so she had removed it and now wore a white undershirt, trusting to a henna charm Shilly had drawn on her right shoulder to keep sunburn at bay. Her wound had been salved and bound; much of her head was covered with a cream-coloured bandage, like a Surveyor's turban. *I've seen it from the air but don't know how pa.s.sable it is. If we can follow it down the cliff, there's a road that leads straight across to Laure. We call it the Fool's Run.'

*For any particular reason?' asked Marmion.

*What? Oh, the obvious one.' Chu was unfazed in the face of the warden's confrontational mood. *My advice would be to keep your foot to the floor and your fingers crossed.'

*What's the main threat?' asked Kail pragmatically.

She shrugged. *I don't know. To be honest, I've never met anyone who tried the Run in either direction.'

*So it could be all hearsay.'

*Could be. We could stroll across at our leisure and encounter nothing more dangerous than a flat tyre.' Her dark, uniquely shaped eyes held a grim amus.e.m.e.nt. *Are you a dice-playing man, Habryn Kail?'

*No, I'm not.'

*Good. This is one bet I'd leave for others to take.'

*Any word from Sal?' asked Warden Banner, her round cheeks pink and eyes tired.

Shilly shook her head.

*We must act,' declared Marmion, *on the a.s.sumption that his attempt will fail. If he succeeds, well and good, but I am not a dicing man either. We'll take this Fool's Run to Laure and wait for the Homunculus there. Being on the wrong side of the Divide doesn't frighten me. We're not completely powerless. I trust, though, that there will be no more surprises in store for us,' he added, looking pointedly at Shilly.

She bit her lip, tired of arguing with the man. When they were safely behind the charmed Wall of the distant city, she and Kail could work out what to do about getting to the Aad in time to help Sal, and Skender, with or without Marmion's a.s.sistance.

And anyway, she grudgingly acknowledged, a very small chance existed that she could be completely wrong about the Homunculus. If it was heading for Laure, as Marmion still believed, and she convinced him to concentrate on the Aad, thus allowing the Homunculus to slip past them, he would have good reason to be angry at her. Tackling the problem on two fronts did make more sense.

*I think,' said Chu, *we'd be stupid not to expect a surprise or two. That's the one thing you can be sure of, so close to the Divide.'

Once again, Shilly and Tom led the way in the buggy, with Banner and Chu as their pa.s.sengers. The young flyer gave directions, pointing over Tom's shoulder at the terrain ahead. Shilly had little to do but watch Tom drive, so her thoughts inevitably wandered to Sal. She had grilled Tom for more information about what had happened to Skender's mother, but his replies had been vague. Pigs and rabbits played a part, apparently. She could make no sense of it.

Highson Sparre lay on a makeshift stretcher in the back of one of the buses, tended by the same warden who had treated Chu's head wound. His name, she had remembered, was Rosevear and, although he looked young, Shilly had to admit that he knew what he was doing. Shilly hoped Highson would wake soon, and that she would be there when it happened.

They drove several kilometres along the southwestern leg of the Divide, away from Laure. The morning grew hotter and the far side of the canyon vanished into a shimmering curtain. If she squinted, Shilly could almost make out several black specks suspended against the blue sky. More flyers, she supposed. When she asked Chu what they were doing, she learned that the flyers - or *miners', as Chu called them - were actually scavengers picking at the past, taking what they could and turning a profit from it.

She marvelled at the revelation, but she didn't question it. There seemed to be little else around for the city to exploit: no fields, no rivers rich with fish, no nearby trade routes. It was either grave-rob or die.

*There,' said Chu finally, pointing. *That's it.' Ahead, a broad cleft had been taken out of the lip of the Divide. Tom brought the buggy to a halt. They jumped out to take a look.

Shilly regarded the weathered carriageway with suspicion. Rocky, and water-scarred, it snaked laboriously down the side of the canyon wall, switching back on itself to form a series of long, not-quite-parallel lines that led tortuously down to the bottom of the Divide. It seemed to be both intact and wide enough for the buses along its length, but Shilly didn't have an Engineer's eye. To her, the distance to fall if something went wrong seemed very, very great. There were no railings.

*The gradient is worrying in places,' said Banner, pacing back and forth in order to view the road from a number of different perspectives. *There are protective charms to overcome. They've kept the road pa.s.sable, but it's going to be tricky.'

*It's either that or fly down,' said Chu with a grimace. *And I don't think any amount of charms will make those wheels of yours airworthy.'

Tom was so caught up in the problem that he missed her joke. *No, but we can make them groundworthy. Lower their centre of gravity; beef up the suspension; encourage the wheels to improve their traction. There are ways.'

*I guess there'll have to be, but I still think I'll walk behind you. No offence.'

*None taken,' said Banner.

Shilly considered her options. She shared Chu's anxiety about the vehicles slipping, but the descent was awfully long for someone with a bad leg.

*I'm going to sit in the back with my eyes shut and fingers crossed,' she said. *Don't expect me to take the wheel at any point.'

*No worries,' said Banner. *You won't have to.'

Marmion's buses rolled up behind them and the discussion was repeated, with the same conclusion. Several of the wardens volunteered to walk with Chu - ostensibly to lighten the loads but perhaps out of shared nervousness.

*Just don't pull too far ahead,' said one of them. *We don't want to be left behind.'

*That,' said Kail, his all-seeing gaze following the many switchbacks all the way to the bottom, *is unlikely to be a problem.'

Banner took the wheel for the first leg, inching the buggy onto the incline with exaggerated caution. Shilly did exactly as she said she would, at first, lying on the back seat and keeping her eyes firmly closed. But she soon found that entirely too nerveracking. Each jerk and jolt sent her heart pounding, and it seemed to take forever to reach the first bend.

She ended up opening her eyes and fixing her gaze firmly on the far side. Laure itself wasn't visible, apart from the summit of a single tall tower, but she could see smoke rising in streams from behind its protective wall. The plumes flattened out as they hit fast-moving air at a higher alt.i.tude and were swept away to the east.

As her eye wandered in that direction, she caught sight of a cloud within the Divide. It hugged the southern wall near the Aad but its source was hidden to her eyes. She watched it, wondering if it had something to do with Sal, and noticed that it seemed to be drawing nearer. Whatever caused it was inching along the Divide.

Not *inching', she corrected herself. At that distance, the base of the cloud was probably a hundred metres across; it would be moving as fast as a person could walk. She resolved to keep an eye on it during the descent.

Her world soon became one of tense tedium. The buggies never moved much faster than a sluggish stroll, and the group of wardens bringing up the rear first caught up with then overtook the buggy.

Shilly listened to their conversation with a feeling of jealousy but had no real urge to join in. She was content to listen to Chu describe life in Laure as she pa.s.sed while Shilly rested her legs.

It didn't sound like much, if Chu's opinion was accurate. She described a town that had been isolated for too long; everyone knew everyone else; someone such as her, whose family had moved there three generations earlier, was still regarded as an outsider. Nothing changed; the rain rarely came; life was always on a knife-edge; the young of each generation invariably hoped to get away but always ended up becoming as inward-looking as the parents they had rebelled against. To Shilly it sounded no different to Fundelry, only on a larger scale.

Not once did Chu mention the yadachi or the blood rituals that Banner had mentioned the previous night. Perhaps, Shilly thought, she was trying not to scare her new companions away. That would make sense, given that she had no other way of getting home. When she raised her arm to point at something down in the Divide, Shilly thought she glimpsed a line of old, small cuts up the girl's arm, but she didn't have the stomach to ask about them.

Somehow, after an hour of slow but steady descent, she managed to nod off. The gentle rocking of the buggy as it traversed the difficult road overcame her anxiety and lulled her into a shallow, dreamless sleep, with Sal's pack behind her head as a pillow.

When she stirred, the buggy was still and everyone had gathered at the nearest bend to look northeast at the same cloud of dust she had spotted earlier.

Shilly wiped grit from her eyes and took up her stick. The cloud was much closer. She could make out vague shapes at its base, but she couldn't tell what they were. Some of them looked like people.

*Man'kin,' said Kail, lowering a bra.s.s telescope from his eye. *A thousand or more, travelling as one.'

Even Chu seemed surprised by this declaration.

*This isn't a common occurrence, I take it,' said Marmion.

*No,' she said. *They often travel in pairs, and we occasionally see groups of a dozen or so, but never this many at once.'

*Maybe they're lost,' said Shilly.

*Wherever they're going,' said Kail, *they're heading right for the Fool's Run.'

*Of course they are.' Marmion ran a hand through his thinning hair and turned to look downward. *No walking from here on. We'll have to step up the pace.'

Shilly followed the direction of his gaze. They had stopped roughly halfway down the canyon wall. The Fool's Run was faintly visible below - a thread stretching across the floor of the Divide, deviating only to avoid the largest of obstacles. One stretch pa.s.sed across the remains of a giant beast, slicing without pause right through a ribcage large enough to enclose a small town.

The gathering dispersed. Tom took the wheel of the buggy and gunned the motor. Chu slid into the rear seat with Shilly and couldn't hide her nervousness as they recommenced their descent.

This time, sleep wasn't an option. Tom rode the brake, accelerator and steering wheel with furious intensity, incessantly adjusting their course along the weathered road. The constant change in momentum was as unsettling as their increased pace. Shilly tried her best not to look over the edge at the still substantial drop to the bottom of the Divide, but she found it impossible to avoid completely. There was something hypnotic about the drop and the way it decreased, metre by slow metre. She felt strangely as though they were tunnelling deep into the Earth. The rocky cliff oppressed her as much as the drop on the other side. She was being crushed between them, like a bug between two fingers.

*G.o.ddess,' she groaned at one point, *how much longer?'

*We're getting there,' said Banner - giving her information she could see with her own eyes but couldn't truly accept.

Shilly sank back into her seat and quashed the thought that she would never reach the bottom, that they would go slower and slower the closer it came, leaving her stuck on the cliff face forever.

They surmounted one significant obstacle - a landslide that had blocked the last two legs of the road and needed to be cleared before any of the vehicles could pa.s.s - and then they were down. Not a moment too soon, Shilly thought. The man'kin were thundering closer with every second. It was clear that the wardens had been seen. Several of the ferocious-looking creatures had broken free from the leading edge of the horde and were running headlong towards them.

As soon as the second bus - the one carrying Highson Sparre - safely descended, Marmion urged them onto the Fool's Run.

*Go!' he shouted, waving. *Go!'

Tom put his foot down hard on the accelerator. The wheels threw up stones in their wake. Shilly held on as the buggy leapt forward like a goat freed from its post. The road - mercifully level and straight - swept by beneath them.

Tom whooped with excitement, but Shilly didn't share the sentiment. Three of the leading man'kin changed course to intercept them further along the road. One had the shape of a bare-breasted woman running on all fours, with the hindquarters of a lion and a naked child riding her back. The second possessed scales and a broad bearded mouth filled with sharp teeth; two curving, spiked horns grew out of its head. The third was only vaguely humanoid, its limbs jointless, flexing and whipping like snakes as it ran, its bullet-shaped head menacingly featureless.

The man'kin put on a surprising turn of speed. Shilly clutched the buggy's metal frame. It was going to be close. The shouts of the man'kin rose above the whine of the engine. This surprised her, as they looked so feral as to be incapable of language. It was hard to make out the words they called until the fastest was close enough to strike.

*More humans!' screeched the b.e.s.t.i.a.l woman. *Why won't they leave us alone?'

It lunged at them. Tom jerked the buggy out of range. The man'kin shrieked and fell back as they accelerated along the road. The other two had already diverted their attentions to the bus behind them. It dodged a clumsy attempt by the horned man'kin to spike its metal side. Peering over the back of the buggy, Shilly saw wardens on the back of the bus scrambling to get out of range of the snarling beast. Kail wrenched the bus from side to side, slamming into the whip-creature and sending it flying. Then he too was past the main threat.

The second bus wasn't so lucky. The b.e.s.t.i.a.l woman had planted itself in the centre of the road, head dipped low to ram. In a desperate attempt to avoid the collision, the driver turned the wheel too far and lost control. The bus skidded off the road in a cloud of dirt and threatened to tip. *Don't stop!' yelled Shilly, although the driver couldn't possibly hear her. If the bus came to a halt it would bog for sure in the powdery soil.

She could make out Marmion yelling instructions from the front pa.s.senger seat. Behind him, the wardens had linked hands and seemed to be shouting. As the bus stabilised, wheels spinning, slowly dragging itself back to the road, the horned man'kin tossed its head and charged.

Two things happened in quick succession. First, the wardens in the back of the bus raised their hands as one and brought them down again, hard. Shilly felt a ripple flow through the Change, although she couldn't see what had happened. Only as the horned creature's feet scrabbled for purchase on the suddenly slippery sand did she realise: the wardens had frozen the traces of moisture lying under the ground's topmost layers, rendering the creature unable to find its footing.

It tried nonetheless. Its legs kicked and its spine twisted. Instead of spearing the bus with its deadly horns, it merely broadsided it, sending it wobbling again.

Then the slender whip-like man'kin placed itself between the bus and the other man'kin. It flailed at the horned creature, and drove it off howling in pain and anger. Its blows drew bright sparks from the wide stone back.

The wheels of the second bus found purchase on the road at last and fishtailed out of reach of the b.e.s.t.i.a.l woman. The man'kin child on its rump shook its fist as the wardens sped away. Shilly could see its mouth opening and closing but couldn't hear the words. Its face was a mask of fury.

As the man'kin horde receded into the distance, Shilly felt more puzzled than relieved. Why had one of the man'kin defended the second bus against its fellows-? What had the b.e.s.t.i.a.l woman meant by more humans?

*Sal!' she said. *It was talking about Sal! We have to go back!'

*No! Keep driving,' said Chu, her eyes still fixed on the man'kin astride the road, her face pale with fear. *Keep driving!'

Banner reached back to grip the young woman's shoulder. *It's okay,' she said. *We're not going to stop for a good while yet.' When Shilly went to protest, she added, *We can't go back. You know that. The road will be thick with man'kin by now. To turn would kill us all.'

Shilly forced herself to see the sense in Banner's words. No word had come from Sal, but the certainty that he was alive burned in her. She clung to that knowledge like a life preserver.

Chu remained tense, but she too nodded and pretended to relax. Shilly could see her hands shaking where they rested in her lap. Only then did she realise something.

*That's the first time you've seen a man'kin up close, isn't it?'

Chu nodded. *They're not allowed in the city. They're dangerous.'

*Not all of them are,' said Shilly, thinking of Mawson. *They're like people. Some are good, some bad. Did you see the one that helped us out back there?'

*It was horrible,' she said with a shudder.

*Looks can be deceiving.'

*As long as there's a wall between me and them, I'm happy to be deceived.'