The Temporal Void (54 page)

Kazimir stared at the terribly familiar pear-shaped torso, with four gristly ridges running its length. Four stubby legs protruded from the curving base, while arms branched out of the body just above the legs, each one ending in an efficient quad-pincer arrangement. At the top of the body four small mouth trunks were open, drifting in zero-gee like seaweed in a slow current. Between them were the sensory stalks, rigid in death, each one fused to a neat electronic module.

‘That can’t be,’ Crispin exclaimed. ‘It can’t! We contained them all twelve hundred years ago. All of them.’

‘It is,’ Ilanthe said emotionlessly.

‘Yes,’ Kazimir said, fighting both shock and a tinge of fear. ‘An immotile. The Ocisen Empire has acquired Primes as its allies.’

*

The noise of ice crystals smashing themselves to sparkling dust on the ground crawler’s metal shell was making conversation difficult inside. Even under the constant barrage by the wild elements, the vehicle hadn’t moved. It was wedged fast in the fissure, with its narrow front windows covered by dirty granules which had filled the gaps around it. Minor quakes continued to shake it about, but they only seemed to tighten the fissure’s grip. Several times, the thick metal bodywork had groaned in protest.

Corrie-Lyn sat awkwardly on top of the two forward seats, a blanket wrapped round her shoulders. Inigo was using an auxiliary console to squat beside her.

‘Why did you never dream again?’ Corrie-Lyn asked.

‘The Waterwalker’s era was over,’ Inigo said. ‘You know that. There were no more dreams to be had.’

‘But if you had one following his ascent to the nebulas, there must have been others. You said it came from a descendant. He had many children.’

‘I . . .’ Inigo shook his head. His eyes glinted in the console’s moiré radiance as he gazed at his old lover. ‘We witnessed everything we needed to. I sustained hope in billions of people for centuries. That’s enough.’

Corrie-Lyn studied the face looming above her. So familiar, yet the darkened skin and bad brown hair made him seem colder somehow. This wasn’t quite the old Inigo she’d known and loved.
After all, it’s been seventy years. Dreams don’t always end like the Waterwalker’s did. And I dreamed so hard about this moment.
‘Please,’ she began.

The atmosphere howled at a volume which was painful on her ears. She gripped the chair, fearful that this was the final quake, the one that would send them falling into the planet’s imploding core.

‘It’s all right,’ Inigo’s soft voice reassured her. ‘Just the storm.’

She grinned uncomfortably. That voice hadn’t changed, and the reassurance she gained from it was immeasurable. So often she had heard his strident messages to the devout gathered in Golden Park, and equally the tenderness when they were alone. Every time it contained total conviction. If he said it was just the storm, then it was so.

‘Can you dream again?’ she asked.

The cabin lights flickered. Red warnings appeared on the console as the tortured air outside wailed stridently. Inigo’s fingers stroked her cheek. ‘What is it you want?’ he asked, his mind lustrous with compassion.

‘I want to go to Querencia one last time,’ she told him. ‘I want to walk through Lillylight’s arcades, I want to take a gondola ride down the Great Major Canal, I want to stand on Kristabel’s hortus as dawn comes up over the city.’ She gripped his hand. ‘Just us. Is that such a terrible thing to ask?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s a beautiful thing to desire.’

‘Take us there. Until the end.’

The tears were full-formed now, rolling down his cheeks. ‘I can’t, my love. I’m so sorry.’

‘No,’ she cried. ‘Inigo, please.’

‘We can dream any of the Waterwalker’s dreams together. Any. Just pick one.’

‘No. I know them all. Even his last one. I want to know what happened after. If you won’t take me there as it is now, then show me that final dream you had.’

‘Corrie-Lyn, do you still trust me?’

‘Of course.’

‘Then don’t ask this. Let us visit Edeard when he drops Master Cherix into Birmingham Pool, or as he confronts Bise and the regiment in Sampalok. They are such wonderful times. He shows people their future can be different to the one they thought they were condemned to.’

‘Why?’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me why.’

The storm noise ended. It cut off so fast that Corrie-Lyn thought she had suddenly gone deaf.
This is it. No regrets. Well, not many
.

‘Oh shit,’ Inigo was looking up towards the rear of the cabin.

‘It’s all right,’ she said valiantly. ‘We’re together.’

‘Uh huh.’ He shook his head, straightening up.

Corrie-Lyn wriggled into a precarious near-sitting position. ‘What?’

‘The Lady must hate us; she’s guided us to a genuine fate worse than death.’

‘Inigo, what are you—’

A blinding green flash filled the cabin. Corrie-Lyn squeezed her eyes shut in reflex. Her optic nerves were shining a blazing white and scarlet afterimage into her brain. She yelled in panic as some potent force slammed her sideways, sending her tumbling painfully down the side of the chairs to jam herself into the narrow space below. Her good arm waved round frantically. ‘Inigo!’ Then she was abruptly aware of a fearsomely cold air flowing across her. She drew a shocked breath, feeling it freeze-burning down her mouth and throat. Her vision was slowly recovering. She blinked to see Inigo braced on the console above her, clad in a shimmering force field. He was still looking up. Almost dreading what she’d see, Corrie-Lyn followed his gaze.

The rear two thirds of the ground crawler’s cabin had completely vanished. Where it had been, grey ice particles were drifting slowly downwards through a funereal sky. Behind them, slivers of purple static writhed across the broad force field dome that now encased them in a bubble of serenity. A human figure was silhouetted against the curtailed storm, an integral force field providing additional protection from the wicked elements. Corrie-Lyn blinked again, trying to gain some focus through the sharp scintillations of her bruised retinas. Secondary thought routines in her macrocellular clusters managed to resolve the man’s features.

‘Oh Lady, fuck it,’ she groaned, and slumped back down.

‘Well, well,’ Aaron said cheerfully. ‘Fancy meeting you two here.’

At night Makkathran’s grandiose rooftops shimmered like moiré silk as gentle nebula-light burned through the skies above them. Amid that soft sheen, the streets themselves were sharp orange threads of radiance forming an intricate filigree across the circular metropolis poised beside the sea. Floating high above the crystal walls it was possible to see a new radiance complementing the city’s nocturnal lustre. If you knew how to look.

Far, far down at the limit of perception the faint light was just available. Small wisps of darkling iridescence emerging from the apex of buildings into the balmy night air. They trailed gauzy tails as they drifted upwards. It was as though Makkathran was exhaling a phosphorescent rain into the heavens.

The souls of the dead called out in joy and wonder as they began their flight into the awesome abyss of night. He could hear their voices as they passed him; the relief at being free of the body, of pain and misery, the regret for those they left behind, the thrill at the song which summoned them ever upwards. They called out to each other, eager to share the adventure of their newfound freedom. Some formed packs, twisting together into brighter nimbi to soar above the clouds in an exuberant celebration of liberty, others remained alone, revelling in their independence.

Occasionally, as he cast his sorrowful gaze downwards, he could see some souls linger. Distraught at their death, they yearned to remain among their loved ones. Unseen, unheard, the frail spectres grew wretched and dissolute as those they adored above all remained ignorant of their presence; the single comfort of knowing lost to false hope. Their grief was overwhelming, threatening to drown him if he immersed himself among them for any time. So he looked up again, at those who cast themselves longingly into the sky, wishing beyond reason that he could catch the faintest hint of the song sung from the heart of this universe. If he just strained, reached out . . .

Edeard woke with a start, sitting up in bed, his skin slick with sweat, heart pounding, gulping for breath.

Beside him, Kristabel rose to put her arms around him. ‘It’s all right, my love,’ she cooed. ‘Just a dream.’

‘Every night,’ he moaned, for that was what he’d dreamed or been shown since his fall from the Eyrie tower. ‘Will this plague ever leave me? I’d willingly rejoin my old dreams in exchange for this curse.’

‘Old dreams?’ Kristabel ordered the ceiling to brighten. Perfect white light revealed the maisonette around them.

The sight of it, the normality, immediately made Edeard feel foolish. ‘I’m sorry. I always had dreams. But these!’

‘The souls again?’

‘Yes,’ he said weakly. ‘I see them rising, and I can’t hear the song they’re following. So I try and listen, and . . .’ He shook his head in annoyance. ‘Sorry.’

‘Stop apologizing. I’m just worried for you, that’s all.’

‘I’ll be all right,’ he flopped down, and glanced at the narrow window. ‘What time is it?’

‘Hours before dawn.’

‘Huh! It might not be a dream then. I always visualize the city at night.’

Kristabel rolled on to her side, where she gave him a concerned look. ‘Can you farsight any souls right now?’

‘Not sure.’ He closed his eyes, and stretched out his farsight. The dark shadows of city buildings slipped through his perception, fizzing with the sparkle of slumbering minds. Makkathran’s all-encompassing thoughts were easy to discern, pervading the structure of everything, but strongest beneath the streets and canals, down amid the levels where pipes and tunnels and strange threads of energy wove around each other. They were faint, elusive even, but tangible enough. Of the souls which he knew must be there, he could find no trace. ‘Nothing,’ he said in defeat.

‘It’s not a contest. You haven’t lost anything.’

‘But I’ve sensed them twice.’ Edeard stopped to think. ‘I was close to the body each time, very close.’

‘What are you saying? You want to go to a hospice?’

‘No,’ he lied.

Kristabel gave him a suspicious glance. ‘Humm.’

‘I wonder if I should see the Pythia again.’ He didn’t like the idea. Their last meeting hadn’t been particularly pleasant for him. During the gentle questioning that had gone on for what seemed like hours, he’d felt awkward and defensive. The authority she possessed made him feel like a small child who’d committed some transgression then been hauled up before a loving but stern parent.

‘What would she be able to teach you?’ Kristabel asked, with more than a touch of scorn.

‘Nothing, I suppose.’ After that unsatisfactory meeting, he’d carefully read the Lady’s scriptures again. It was the first time he’d read them properly since Sunday lessons at the Ashwell Church with Mother Lorellan. All he’d ever done then was learn passages by rote, never knowing their meaning.

Re-reading the scriptures was something of a revelation. They were hardly a religious text, rather an imprecise diary written in a very flowery prose, followed by what amounted to her thoughts on how to lead a better, more fulfilling life. Only the Skylords bound the two sections together. Vast airborne creatures who sailed sedately between Querencia and the nebulas; a migration whose purpose was unknown, but served to guide human souls to the Heart. However, according to the Lady, only souls that had achieved what she termed ‘fulfilment’ would be taken. Reading through her homilies, he couldn’t help but think of an elderly spinster aunt telling her relatives about how to be a good family. Be polite, be nice, be considerate, be charitable. Or maybe life was just very different back then – though he suspected not, judging by the diary part. At least that was interesting, though it only began as Rah caught his first glimpse of Makkathran from the mountains. All the Lady ever said of the ship that brought them to this universe was that Rah was leading people away from the turmoil which followed their landing. Beyond that, the past was never mentioned. She was admiring of Rah’s perseverance as he broke through the crystal wall, making the three city gates. The wonder they all experienced that first time they sailed into the port seeing a fully built, yet deserted, city where they could make their home. How, as they floated along Great Major Canal that day, a Skylord was soaring above the towers in Eyrie. How it agreed to guide the soul of a dying friend to the Heart which lay beyond Odin’s Sea.

The Lady went on to describe the founding of the city Councils, and the emergence of the Guilds, and how other refugees from the fallen ships sought them out, while others remained outside the walls and grew jealous. The petty and bitter disputes between city and country over whose law should prevail. She never saw the end of those quarrels, the final treaty to enshrine the rights of both provinces and city; and her disappointment in the seemingly interminable squabbling was reflected in her later writing; the years when the Skylord visits became less frequent. When she asked them why they were abandoning humans they told her it was because people were incomplete, their souls too immature to be taken to the Heart. The Lady felt shame for her species. Humbled that they would wither and die before the Heart accepted them, she devoted the remainder of her life to elevating humanity, to installing a sense of purpose and dignity into life through her teachings. Along with a now-ailing Rah and the last few Skylords to visit Makkathran she cajoled the city into creating the central Church in Eyrie.

When it was done, when she saw the embryonic Church swelling up out of the ground, she joined Rah on the top of Eyrie’s highest tower, and let her soul slip from her body, so they could both embrace the guidance of the Skylord and travel into the Heart together.

No Skylord had been seen above Querencia ever since.

‘That’s good,’ Kristabel said. ‘I don’t want you to turn to people like her for answers. They’re the past. If you’re the person I think you are, the one I believe in, you make your own decisions.’