The Hanging Mountains (24 page)

‘How?’

‘There are ways. They pass through time in the opposite direction to us, that’s all. To them, everything is reversed. We come, and they think we are going. They leave, and we see them arriving. That’s why the man’kin can talk to them. Our stony brethren exist outside of time as both we
and
the Quorum know it.’

Sal nodded in understanding, remembering the strange speech of the glowing figures and Mawson responding to them in kind.
I
talk to them the same way I talk to you,
the man’kin had said.
Only backwards.

‘Where do you fit into all this?’ he asked the empyricist.

‘I?’ The elderly Panic male raised his eyebrows as though Sal had accused him of a crime. ‘I don’t fit into anything. I am merely an observer.’

‘How is that possible? Earlier, you said everything is connected. So did Tom. If that’s true, you must be connected too.’

Vehofnehu barked in amusement. ‘Indeed I did say that, young human. And indeed it is true. I am connected in ways you couldn’t imagine. So are we all, in our unique ways. Who can say what effect our actions will have on the world? What changes we might wreak with a single word, the slightest gesture? Even a lack of action can make a difference. Mere observation, my friends, is a powerful tool.’

As he spoke, the mist globes dimmed and darkness fell in the circular room. Sal reached out and found Shilly’s hand. He clutched it tightly, feeling the night outside creep through the clear glass windows, bringing with it a chill of the mind rather than the body. He shivered.

Vehofnehu’s observatory rose above the all-encompassing cloud cover. No wonder, Sal thought, the climb to its summit had taken so long. The sky was visible in all directions except to the north-east, where the shoulder of the mountains loomed. Apart from the mountains, under the cool, hard light of the stars Sal saw nothing but clouds.

Even after a lifetime spent in the borderlands or on the far fringes of the Strand, he felt that he had never seen the stars so clearly and in such quantities. Uncountable, unchartable, they reminded him of glowing grains of sand scattered across the surface of an icy black sea. They gleamed and glittered; they held his eye and threatened to hypnotise him. In the sky he saw nothing familiar, only alien forms. He didn’t see shapes, as some people claimed to. Stars weren’t clouds in which one could see camels, fish, buggies, even faces, as high-altitude winds moulded them. He didn’t possess the visual knack needed to connect all the disparate dots into a whole picture, although he suspected Shilly probably did. He saw the broader brushstrokes instead, the patches of relative light and dark. The metaphors and similes he called on to describe them came from his knowledge of the world below: reefs and rivers where sprays of stars clumped together; barren fields where few congregated. In the former he glimpsed wonder, and a mystery he doubted he would ever fathom. Through the latter he felt as though he could see forever, to the emptiness at the edge of creation.

The moon rode low and dark over the horizon. Skulking, Sal thought, as though afraid of coming out into full view. He was glad for that. Had it been full, the spectacle of the stars would have been much reduced.

‘As below,’ announced Vehofnehu, ‘so above. In recent times, the sky has been highly active. Instead of the usual tides, I have witnessed ruptures representing dramatic events in the world around us: significant births and deaths; disasters natural and unnatural; happenstance and circumstance that will affect many, in ways even I cannot always see. Your blossoming, Sal, was visible in the stars, as is the awakening to power of all wild talents. The making and waking of your Homunculus, Highson Sparre: that too I have seen reflected in the sky above me. Reflected, I say; not
directed.
The stars control us no more than sea or stone. But it is possible, I believe, to see in their movements a glimpse of what might be — just as the close examination of people enables one to guess what they will do next. Tides, yes. And tidings. The two are connected.’

‘You mentioned natural disasters,’ said Sal. ‘Does that mean you saw the flood?’

‘Of course. It came to me as a mighty concatenation.’ The empyricist was in silhouette beside him, one long arm gesticulating in a vain attempt to convey what he had seen. ‘A juncture I have never witnessed before, and did not see coming. The sky shuddered, and shudders still, for those with eyes to see it. It quakes for what has been, and what might yet come.’

‘Oriel and the other Heptarchs believe the end times are here,’ said Griel.

‘They aren’t alone in believing that. Am I right, Highson Sparre, when I say that your leaders suspect the same?’

Highson acknowledged the guess as true, even though he knew as little about it as Shilly. If the Weavers had told him more, he wasn’t letting on.

‘They are correct in thinking so,’ said the empyricist. ‘The stars and the Quorum deliver the same message. We would be fools to ignore them.’

‘So we sit back and let it happen?’ Sal heard the frustration in Shilly’s voice, but was too exhausted to be sympathetic. ‘We watch the world end without doing anything at all?’

‘For me, in this age and place, doing nothing suits me. Sooner rather than later, perhaps, I will play more of a role.’

‘So there
will be
a later?’ Sal asked. ‘I thought that wasn’t guaranteed. Tom can’t see anything beyond a certain point. Neither can the man’kin.’

‘There will always be a later,’ said Vehofnehu. ‘Not all of us will be in it, however.’

‘That’s just splitting hairs,’ said Shilly with an irritable snap.

‘Not to some. To golems, say. Or glasts.’

‘Who’d want to live in a world full of golems and glasts?’ asked Rosevear.

‘Golems and glasts, of course. And probably ghosts too, for all we know.’

Shilly sighed and rubbed at her eyes with one hand. Sal could tell that she was tired. It had been a long day for all of them. ‘So what do you advocate for
us?’

The empyricist waved his right hand and the mist lights came back up — not as brightly as they had previously been, but seeming so to Sal’s eyes.

‘Forces from before your time are stirring,’ Vehofnehu said. ‘Ancient, dark things that do not belong here and now. You have met one of them.’

‘The twins.’ Shilly stood and leaned on her cane.

‘Yes, and others. One rises from the depths of stone: this one must be stopped, lest a fate worse than any Cataclysm befalls all of us. The three-in-one sleeps in an icy tomb, awaiting only the call to awake. Nine hunt the trees beneath us, killing all who cross their path. Ah ...’ The empyricist put shaking fingers over his eyes. ‘I see too much. Beings I had thought best forgotten are in motion again, just as the Quorum said they would one day be. I didn’t believe them, and now it will cost us all.’

‘Peace.’ Griel came to the empyricist’s side and steadied him with both broad hands. ‘You have done all you could. It’s not your fault Oriel and the Heptarchs won’t listen.’

‘Fools,’ the empyricist said in a softer tone, letting himself be guided into a comfortable chair. ‘We were fools. We should’ve killed it when we had the chance, and hang the consequences.’

Sal glanced at Shilly, who shrugged. Griel handed Vehofnehu a glass of water and stood protectively over him as he recovered.

‘Perhaps we should leave,’ said Highson, looking to Griel for guidance.

‘You will soon enough,’ said the empyricist, straightening. ‘But not tonight. Tomorrow you hunt the hunters. To do that, you will need all your strength.’

‘Hunt who?’ asked Shilly, frowning. ‘What hunters are you talking about?’

‘The creatures that have been preying on both kingsfolk and humans of the forest in recent times. They must be stopped. With each blood meal they grow stronger and more daring, and hungrier still. If unchecked, they will sweep all life from the forest. You, Griel, will lead the expedition to rid us of them. The Heptarchs need not know.’

Griel hesitated, then nodded. ‘You’re talking about the wraith, aren’t you?’

A brisk nod. ‘Not just one wraith. These are the nine I spoke of.’

‘I have authorisation to pursue that end.’ If Griel seemed at all perturbed by the thought of hunting
nine
of the things that had attacked the Sky Wardens at the base of the forest, he showed no sign of it. ‘Am I to go alone?’

‘No. You will take the others. You’re all connected, yes indeed. Fail in this instance and all will fall. I will remain here with the glast, so none but me will be infected should it break free.’

‘And who will stop
you,
when you become a glast?’ asked Rosevear.

‘If that looks likely, I will sever the way you came up here. You may have noticed,’ said the empyricist, beginning to regain his former garrulousness, ‘that it is much more than an ordinary stairwell.’

Among the nods of agreement, Highson said, ‘Yes. It’s a Way.’

‘And Ways can be sealed.’

Sal understood, then, why he had felt a moment of disorientation while climbing the endless stairs. Ways connected widely separated points by means of a much shorter tunnel — such as the one connecting his and Shilly’s underground home to the beach near Fundelry. Although that tunnel was scarcely three metres long, the workshop was in fact a hundred kilometres west, near a town called Tumberi. So, if the empyricist cut the Way connecting the top of the tower to its base, he would effectively isolate himself from the rest of the Panic.

Shilly looked unhappy. Sal couldn’t tell which part of the plan upset her the most: leaving Kemp and Vehofnehu behind, or going out into the forest to hunt the wraiths while the issue of the Homunculus remained unsolved. He wasn’t certain himself.

Before anyone could object, an ear-splitting cry came from a forgotten corner of the observatory. Sal jumped to his feet, picturing wraiths and glasts, the Change already stirring at his command.

Highson did the same, moving spryly despite his age. The hook at Griel’s side came out of its sheath with the sound of an indrawn breath.

All they saw was Tom, eyes wide with fright and one hand pointing up at the stars.

‘Tom!’ Shilly hurried to him. ‘What’s wrong? What can you see?’

The young seer blinked furiously, noticed her at his side, and lowered his hand. It shook like that of an old man.

‘Blood and fire,’ he whispered. ‘Death in our midst. In
the mist.’
He shuddered all over. ‘I’ve seen them. So has Skender. It’s already happened, will happen again. Fire. And blood!’

‘Easy,’ she soothed him, warning the others away. Sal forced himself to back off. A nightmarish vision, not an actual attack, but no less alarming for all that.

‘Do you have a name, Tom?’ asked Vehofnehu softly. ‘Can you tell us the names of the things we face? The nine?’

Tom squirmed as though the dream still had him in its grip. ‘Hard names. Cold names. The strangler, the blood-red, the screecher, the black-hearted —’ He drew a sharp breath.
‘The Swarm.’

Vehofnehu nodded as though all his worst fears had been confirmed.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I remember now. That was what they were called ...’

* * * *

‘Are you going to lie there all day or do you have something in mind?’

Kail took his time answering. He wasn’t just weighing all the options one by one. He was absorbing everything his senses told him. One of the first rules of tracking was to look everywhere a trail
shouldn’t
be as well as where it should. Much could be learned from the periphery. Before considering a particular decision, he would examine every possibility once, and then again on the assumption that he had missed something the first time. Then if the decision he made turned out to be wrong, at least he would know that he had done his best with the information at hand.

From the lip of the cliff where he lay stretched flat on the ground, the Homunculus likewise beside him, he could see down to where white water churned and roiled, stirred up by the waterfall to the north. At the base of the falls, rocking sluggishly from side to side, was the boneship, apparently abandoned to the elements. A splash of blood surrounded the body of a man splayed across its roof. Despite the wounds he had suffered, visible through Kail’s spyglass as dark rents in blackening skin, there didn’t seem to be enough blood by half. That worried him.

Looking further afield, he saw signs of fighting: more blood; scuffed earth; a broken arrow; even a gleaming knife left behind by mistake. A night fight, then, and one conducted on several fronts. Above the falls, where a broad lake lapped against a muddy shore, he saw more signs of recent disturbance. How long ago, precisely, he couldn’t tell, but judging by the condition of the body on the roof of the boneship, no more than a day, maybe less.

Closer at hand, literally within arm’s reach, he had already noted footprints and handprints along the Divide’s edge, which meant that whoever had attacked the boneship had done so from above. Tree trunks some metres back from the edge bore marks of ropes and pulleys from which the attackers had descended. That they weren’t quite human tracks also worried him.