Part 17 (1/2)

'There's no more magic!' Juda shouted, his voice a wretched cry.

Previously so static, the scene exploded into movement.

Juda's heart strived to betray him, but he grasped on to life. Holding it tight, dear to him, even though his reason for being seemed so small now, and so pointless.

Because there was no magic here.

The dregs sat in his bag, weak, pitiful echoes of what had been. They might show him sights from afar, perhaps. It could be that, used properly, the magic would heal one wound, or cause another.

But the great magic he had expected to discover the moment he found Aeon ... there was none.

And there never had been.

'There's no more magic!' Juda said. It did not sound like his voice, though it came from his throat. It was the sound of a man bereft, the whimper of a wretched someone who has discovered one of life's truths is a lie. Life is dead, moving is stillness, love is hatred ... Aeon is not magic. It might have been used to put the G.o.d down, but it had never been wielded by the destroyed deity.

The ground here, and the air, was as empty of magic as anywhere Juda had ever been.

Behind him, along the valley where a stream cut down from the hillsides with deceptively cheerful music, he heard movement. Stamping feet, harsh breathing. The clank of metal against metal.

Juda could not turn to look, and the noises were remote to him. Everything was remote, all reality circling the huge empty s.p.a.ce that had formed inside him. It was the void where all his desires had dwelled, along with everything he had ever lived for. The Brokers sought magic like people who climbed mountains or navigated long rivers a they wanted it because it was there.

But Juda sought magic to live. It had become his heartbeat, yet to be found. It was his love and desire, waiting for him in the wild. It was- The movement came closer, and he slowly looked up.

The female slayer emerged from behind a copse of trees further down the valley. She ran at him, unhitching the bow from over her shoulder, sweating and foaming at the mouth like a s.h.i.+re that has been pushed too far, too fast.

The male slayer was close behind, swinging his pike from his shoulder and aiming it as he ran. There was a burst of steam from its end, a low whistle and a heavy impact against Juda's booted foot, twisting his ankle. The stench of sh.e.l.lspot poison wafted around him and scorched the insides of his nostrils. A finger's width higher and the shot would have broken through skin and flesh and killed him.

Juda did not care. He stood and stumbled into the clearing, and all eyes turned to him. The young man on the s.h.i.+re, Bon behind him, Leki sheltering against the cliff from the thing at the centre of the clearing ... none of it mattered. Tears blurred his vision, so he only caught a shadow of Leki rus.h.i.+ng across towards Bon.

'Behind him!' she screamed. 'They've found us!'

I've found them, Juda thought. He imagined himself in the belly of the Engine once more, swimming in dregs and thinking himself immersed, but really only touching ancient, ineffectual echoes of what magic really was a Crex Wry, another fallen G.o.d. Perhaps the dregs were its final, dying exhalations. Perhaps Juda had spent his whole life chasing ghosts.

And in a flash of revelation he knew, suddenly, what he had to do.

He turned to run, and something punched him in the shoulder. Blood sprayed the air before him, turning his view of the bleached, dead G.o.d red. He looked down at the arrow protruding from his armpit and it did not matter. The pain was fuel to him as he ran.

He touched the wound with his dreg-soaked right hand, and the heat began to fade.

Yes, he thought, now I know the way.

Another arrow hissed past his ear and tugged at his hair, and behind him he heard a scream.

Everything is moving so slowly, Venden thought, and he nudged the s.h.i.+re closer to the remnant. The creature was antsy, but Venden exuded calmness and control.

The man rushed across the clearing, and his raised hands seemed to blur with the air. Venden's shadow winced back, shrinking deeper within him, but it quickly rallied and came to the fore again. He felt its shock, and knew that it did not mind him knowing. Even great things cry, have fear, and become triumphant.

'Almost there,' he said softly, and something whistled at the air. An arrow struck the running man and he barely seemed to notice.

Venden saw the things rus.h.i.+ng towards the clearing. He knew what they were, but they were as much removed from his world as his father. Aspects of long ago.

The running man seemed mad. Tall, thin, he had the look of obsession about him, and addiction, and his right hand was opaque with something revolting. It repulsed the remnant and the shadow within Venden, but the man was beyond noticing. He was raving, laughing and crying as he held this strange hand to the arrow wound, and then rushed from the clearing without a backward glance.

The woman to Venden's left shouted something, then dashed towards where Venden's father still stood.

Another arrow slashed at the air. Beneath Venden, the s.h.i.+re screamed and reared, the shaft buried deep in its broad, muscled neck. Venden felt a stab of pity for the creature that had carried him so far, but the shadow smothered such emotion and urged him onward.

Through the shouting and screams and growing chaos, Venden felt a calmness that even drew a smile to his lips as the s.h.i.+re stumbled forward into a fall. He grabbed the tied blanket in one hand, holding tight, and felt movement from inside. Impossible, wonderful movement.

There was a brief pull from behind him as he heard his father's voice. He did not understand the words a it was a shout, a warning, or perhaps an exhalation of loss a but as Venden experienced a sinking feeling inside, the shadow bore him up and held him in its caring embrace. Without using words, it told him that everything would be all right.

The s.h.i.+re fell and Venden tumbled from its back, but it no longer mattered.

He reached out his hand.

'Behind him!' Leki shouted as she ran from beneath the shelter of the cliffs. 'They've found us!'

Bon had already seen the slayers further down the valley, the shot from the pike, and the arrow that burst from Juda's armpit in a spray of blood. He had seen Juda running on, face mad, hand pressed to the wound. And he had already thought, It's all over now, as his son Venden urged the animal away from him and towards what might be a G.o.d.

The female slayer fired another arrow, and although Bon could barely believe she could aim over such a distance, this one flicked past Juda's face and struck Venden's mount.

The animal screeched, stumbled, and tipped forward as its front legs folded.

'Bon, we've got to go now!' Leki said as she reached him. She grabbed at his arms, nails scratching through the material of his s.h.i.+rt.

'I can't leave-' he began, but Venden was already falling, the wrapped object swinging in one hand, his other hand reaching for the object he had been riding towards.

Juda fled the clearing, bleeding, laughing or crying.

And the slayers were upon them. The female paused just by the howthorn bush where they had been waiting moments before, and the male caught up with her. They stood apart so as not to offer an easy target for whatever weapons their prey might bear. They sweated, snorted, steam rising from their sun-darkened skins, foam bubbling on their chins, and they were more base than animals, less human than a rock or tree.

'Too late,' Leki said. She shrugged off her coat and stepped forward, entwining her fingers and stretching her arms above her head.

'What?' Bon said in confusion.

Venden crawled from beneath the fallen s.h.i.+re and reached out to touch the object that had stolen his mind.

'Venden!' Bon called, and the female slayer came for him. She raised a hand to brush Leki aside, her arm thick and spiked with heavy bands of rough metal. Her eyes were on Bon Ugane a her target, her quarry since the beach, in her sights now and destined to evade her no more.

Bon tensed himself to fall to one side, knowing it would be useless. He would be dead within moments. He had found his missing son, and he would never have a chance to hold him close.

And then the slayer grunted and fell to one side. Leki was upon her, punching and kicking so quickly that Bon could barely see the movements. The slayer lashed out, recovering quickly from the shock, but perhaps not fast enough. Leki a a blur, a flitting thing a stabbed again and again with one of the slayer's own knives, plucked from the murderous thing's belt. Her victim groaned as black blood splashed the gra.s.s. Leki hit the ground, leaped, slas.h.i.+ng and kicking.

The slayer staggered backwards across the clearing with her arms waving around her head as if at an annoying insect. None of her punches or kicks touched Leki.

Bon was unsure what was happening, though he had an idea. It was crazy, and it was shattering, because it suggested things about Leki that he had no wish to confront. But the only people trained in such forms of combat were soldiers in the Ald's own army, the Spike.

Leki paused briefly, squatting in the gra.s.s with legs splayed, head down, hand held out and covered with black blood. She was panting, eyes wide from the fight. She glanced once at Bon, and then leaped into the fray once more.

The female slayer was more prepared this time, but her wounds were already wearing her down. She glistened with leaking blood. One arm hung loose and useless. Leki flitted around her on light feet, stabbing and slas.h.i.+ng.