The Blood Debt (60 page)

The stone shadows knew. That much was obvious. They used words the twins hadn’t heard for eons, words that had presaged the death of one of them and the end for everyone.

Tiden har kommit. The time has come.

In that moment, the twins understood that they couldn’t walk through the world like a ghost any longer. It might feel nebulous and strange to them, but it was powerfully real. For all that they might want to rush headlong to their fate, those around them might have different ideas. They needed to see things more clearly, lest they lose their way.

The time for thinking is over. If you won’t kill it, I will!

So much violence. So much anger.

You! You have destroyed me!

All directed away from the thing that really mattered ...

You must have rescued me for a reason.

The fire crackled and popped like a living creature. It was the first truly vivid thing the twins had seen since entering the world. Its manifold golds and crimsons blended in a superb alchemical mix that told them they had made the right decision. They were connecting, slowly but surely. They had taken a step that was at least as important as any physical journey.

It’s the right thing to do,
said Hadrian.
You know it as well as I.

Yes, but I’m the one who remembers dying,
Seth replied.
That’s what we’re risking now.

Have to risk all to gain all.

There’s no ‘all’ for us. I know that as well as you do.

They looked out at the world through their strange, alien skin. New puzzlements greeted them. They could see the stars now, but they looked wrong, somehow — brighter and sparser, as though there were fewer of them, and closer to the Earth than they remembered. The horizon was less distinct, although that could have been the immensity of the desert around them, confusing their eyes. Sunrises and sunsets looked strange.

The precise nature of the world eluded them still. Where did the Change fit in? What happened after death with the First and Second Realms so closely aligned? Who was the Goddess?

Instead of answers, the questions raised names from the distant past. Kybele. Agatha. Barbelo. Simapesiel. Ana. Meg. Horva. Ellis.

Yod.

As the strange stars slid westward across the sky, the twins thought they saw something fly overhead, like a distant golden bird, catching the light of an invisible sun. It reminded them of someone or something they had once known. Another name: Pukje. Another voice from the past...

Would you believe me if I told you it was a dragon?

A
real
dragon?

Is there any other sort?

The golden speck circled once, then angled off to meet the darkness looming in the northeast, urging them to hurry.

* * * *

To be continued in

The Hanging Mountains

Books of the Cataclysm: Two

* * * *

Glossary

Alcaide
— The position of Alcaide is equivalent to grand chancellor or highest judge of the Strand, and is currently held by Dragan Braham.

Book of Towers
— A collection of tales and commentaries concerning the Cataclysm and related matters, gathered down the centuries. It contains legends and fables from the times before and immediately after the Cataclysm, and maps of the changing world. Scholars invariably disagree over what is real and what is imagined. The argument will no doubt rage for centuries to come.

Broken Lands
— Regions of fractured landscape left over from the Cataclysm. Such regions are scattered apparently at random across the world, but may be subtly connected. One of the five great ancient cities moves between various Broken Lands, changing location every few years. The relocation has never been witnessed by human eyes.

Cataclysm
— The catastrophe that marked the beginning of the world as understood by Sky Warden and Stone Mage, and other chroniclers of human events. The cause of the Cataclysm, along with knowledge of the times that preceded it, is lost. Much has been said about it, and such stories, along with speculation concerning their veracity, have been collected in the multi-author account known as
The Book of Towers.

Conclave
— The term used to refer to the Sky Warden community as a whole. The Conclave maintains a strict hierarchical structure within itself, dominated by three family lines: Air, Cloud and Water.

Divide
— A vast, jagged, human-made canyon that separates the Interior from the Strand. Its origins stretch back to the days shortly after the Cataclysm, when the world was rife with the Change and the chaos it brought. Some say it was created to keep Stone Mage and Sky Warden teachings separate, others that it served as a repository for the new and dangerous creatures that walked the Earth. Whatever purpose it serves, bridges cross it at only two points, Tintenbar and the Lookout, and both are heavily charmed against hostile use of the Change.

Fundelry
— A small but locally important fishing village on the section of the Strand known as Gooron.

Ghost
— The common name for the bodiless minds imprisoned in the Haunted City. On two occasions in recent times, a ghost or ghosts contacted human residents of the island and used them to facilitate a bid for freedom. On both occasions, the ghosts turned on their liberators, with lethal results.

Golem
— When a Change-worker over-exerts themselves, they run the risk of vanishing into the Void Beneath and becoming the opposite of a ghost: a body without a mind. Such empty bodies can be inhabited by golems, fleshless minds with a hunger for experience. Such inhabitation is invariably fatal in the end, for the golem’s human host.

Haunted City
— The capital of the Strand. A mysterious place, which humans inhabit only by default, its crystalline towers are cages for ancient ghosts who seek forever to escape.

Interior
— The vast inland state to the north of the Divide, dominated by large, underground cities and people with light-coloured skin.

Keep
— A prestigious school for Stone Mages situated in a cliff-face retreat connected to the city of Ulum by a space-bending Way. The Van Haasteren family, with their hereditary recall, has administered the school for generations. The current principal is the ninth in the line.

Man’kin
— One of the many castes of intelligent beings to walk the world since the Cataclysm. Animated, self-aware statues with an ability to see all times as one, the man’kin have occasionally been tricked into acting as advisers for their human ‘masters’. Rogue man’kin are feared everywhere, as their strength and indifference to human affairs make them capricious and formidable foes.

Nine Stars
— The ancient, arcane city deep in the desert of the Interior where the Stone Mage Conclave meets every full moon to make decisions and cast judgments.

Novitiate
— The training ground for those with talent in the Strand. It is situated on the same island as the Haunted City and currently overseen by Master Warden Risa Atilde.

Ruin
— A location, usually rich or poor in the Change to some notable degree, with close ties to the past. These may include cities, isolated buildings, mine shafts, roads, harbours, and other relics of ancient civilisation. They are often places of great danger, to be approached with caution.

Selection
— The process by which those with innate talent or strong Change-sensitivity are discovered in the Strand. Selectors visit every village at least once a year, testing candidates and taking the successful to attend the Novitiate in the Haunted City.

Sky Warden
— Those trained in the Change who rule the Strand. They traditionally wear blue robes and crystal torcs. Their charms often involve feathers and wood, and have efficacy over water and air. They claim to draw their powers from the deep reservoirs of the open ocean, so they are most puissant near the coast.

Stone Mage
— Those trained in the Change who rule the Interior. They traditionally wear red robes and tattoo signs of rank on their skin. Their charms often involve stone and metal, and are effective over fire and earth. They claim to draw their powers from the red heart of the desert, near the site of the ancient city known as the Nine Stars.

Strand
— The nation known as the Strand encompasses one vast stretch of uninterrupted coastline along which are scattered numerous villages. Each village is run by a group of ten elected Alders, who in turn elect a Mayor. The Mayors then elect Regional Governors who meet once every four years in the Haunted City with representatives of the Sky Wardens to discuss governance of their nation. The highest rank obtainable in the Strand is the Alcaide, closely followed by the Syndic.

Surveyor
— A member of the multi-disciplinary and bipartisan corps dedicated to research and exploration of the historically active sites known as Ruins. To be a Surveyor is to be regarded as both supremely talented and foolhardy, and perhaps a little reckless.

Syndic
— The Syndic is the Alcaide’s chief administrator, a position currently held by Nu Zanshin, aunt of Highson Sparre and great-aunt of Sal Hrvati.

Synod
— The body of select, high-ranking Stone Mages that cast judgments every month from the city of the Nine Stars.

Ulum
— One of the great cities of the Interior, in the Desert Port Region.

Void Beneath
— The emptiness connecting all things, and into which the minds of Change-workers might disappear if they exert themselves too greatly. Even partial exposure to the Void may irreversibly corrode memory.