Part 16 (1/2)

Sal came around the wing and stood in front of his old friend, forcing him to stop. Skender's face was lined with black markings that hadn't been there before.

*I can't let you fly like this,' he said. *That's what you're going to do, right? Fly over the edge and chase it?'

*I don't have much choice.'

*Sure you do.' Sal looked at the fragile-seeming wing. Its flying surfaces were intact, and the delicate struts holding the wing-shape hadn't buckled or broken. Numerous fine glyphs and charms had appeared on its surface, indicating that it flew by more than natural means.

*You could take someone with you,' he said, following his heart, not his head.

Skender's response was immediate. *No, Sal. I'm not going to take a chance with you. Chu and I were grumpy with each other; I talked her into flying over here; I didn't want to get her hurt, but she did. It was all my fault.'

*It's not that simple. You flew into the bubble around the Homunculus. That's why you crashed. If you just keep away from it, we should be okay.'

*But I wasn't flying it. Chu's a miner from Laure; she was doing the work. I was just telling her where to go.'

*So what makes you think you can do it now, with or without me?'

*I remember what she did.' Skender looked sick at heart, but he was weakening. No one wanted to go chasing monsters on their own.

Finally his eyes came up. They were completely black; all colour had vanished under the effects of the charm possessing him.

*Just tell me she's going to be okay. I couldn't bear it if - if she wasn't.'

Sal put a hand on Skender's shoulder. *She's got a nasty gash on her head and plenty of bruises, but I think she'll be all right. I'm worried about you. How are you feeling?'

*I'm fine. Just shaken. Look, you can't stop me from trying - and I won't stop you from coming, if you really want to, but don't tell me I didn't warn you.'

Sal took a deep breath. *That's settled, then,' he said. *Show me how to strap myself in and let's get going.'

Skender worked hurriedly to ensure that Sal was harnessed securely to the wing. Sal could hear his friend's laboured breathing in his ear, and quashed any visible sign of nervousness. Skender needed his support, not his doubts.

Sal only hoped that he was doing the right thing. With Highson found, there was no reason to stay behind - and if he went with Skender now, there was every chance he could track the Homunculus to Laure more quickly than Marmion and Kail.

His mind reached out for s.h.i.+lly. *Don't say anything, Carah,' he told her through the Change. *I'm going with Skender to help him find his mother. We're flying down into the Divide after the Homunculus.'

Sal knew that s.h.i.+lly didn't have any natural source of the Change, so technically she couldn't reply, but a moment later her voice burst loud and clear in his head.

*What? Are you crazy?'

Sal could tell from the flavour of her thought that she was Taking from Tom - using their friend's natural talent to do what she could not do alone.

*Don't worry. Tom dreamed it, apparently.'

*Well that makes everything all right.'

He forced himself to ignore her anger. There wasn't time to deal with that. *Look after Highson while I'm gone. And Skender's friend; her name's Chu, I think. Get them to Laure if you can. I'll meet you there afterwards.'

*Are you serious?'

*Okay, finished,' said Skender in his ear. For better or for worse, they were now strapped together under the wing. *This is going to be hard, but we have to get right to the edge and jump off as far as we can. From there, just hang on. I'll do the rest.'

*Okay.' They walked awkwardly forward.

*I have to go now, Carah,' he sent to s.h.i.+lly. *Sorry to leave you with Marmion. He's going to pop.'

*I can handle him. You worry about yourselves,' she said more evenly. *Just don't fall, Sayed. Come back to me in one piece.'

*Be sure of it.'

Her concern came loud and clear over the link in the seconds it remained open. He was glad when it closed, because he was able to concentrate solely on what he was getting himself into. Before him, the vast gulf of the Divide looked very deep and very rugged. There were far too many jagged rocks on which he and Skender could be dashed to a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp.

But Skender's hands were covered with marks that weren't tattoos. He could feel the Change flowing through them. If Skender trusted the charms, so would he.

*I'm ready,' he said, gripping the harness with sweaty, bloodstained hands.

Skender's knees bent and Sal bent his too. Then they were jumping outward away from the safety of solid rock. A wall of wind hit them. The world flipped upside-down. Sal closed his eyes and hoped Tom had dreamed him surviving too.

First the shadow had taken flesh and come to life. That had been bad enough. Then more shadows had come out of the darkness and pressed in around them, yabbering at them, forcing them to connect. It was too much all at once. Flight was the only solution.

But for a moment the connection had been pure and powerful. Anger was a white-hot stream pouring through the body they inhabited, was.h.i.+ng away acc.u.mulated grief and confusion in a wonderful torrent. The air had been pure and the taste of iron-rich dust sweeter than any feast. Memories of life flooded back in. The world had been within their grasp, just for an instant.

And death. So long had they lived in the shadow of the void that the deepest shadow of all had seemed to forget them. Their beginnings stretched so far back as to be almost forgotten; their endings, likewise, had seemed an infinite distance away.

But even infinity had a way of drawing close, if stared at for too long. They were standing in it now, and death had almost reclaimed them.

Their new life had started with the light. It blazed like a sun at midnight, blinding them. They had woken, quivering and disoriented like a newborn, inside a body that wasn't designed for them, couldn't possibly contain them, and yet somehow held them, trapped together like twin yolks in an egg. They had panicked.

Then the light faded to black and a shadow had confronted them. Substance had overwhelmed them. Sensation flooded through nerves as new as dew. They felt air on their conjoined skin, heard sounds that might have been words, staggered on ground that felt as solid as the bedrock of eternity. They were in the world again. They were standing. They were alive!

But something was obviously wrong. The shadow hollered and fell away. Darkness pressed in again, and their panic deepened. The sense of wrongness grew stronger, took on a clear if distant form. It tugged at them, giving them purpose even as it sickened them, undermined any joy at being back.

They weren't the only things stirring in this strange, scarred world.

Their new body took some effort to coordinate, but it wasn't capricious. It possessed a strange internal logic that woke distant, disturbing memories.

One leg swung in front of another. Then another, and another.

They walked, and the cold, hard ground moved beneath them.

Darkness walked with them. Not the darkness of the void, but of pre-dawn gloom waiting in antic.i.p.ation of a sun that never came. Light seemed to radiate from their new body, illuminating the ground around their feet and anything that came within arm's reach. As they walked, they trailed a glowing path behind them. They imagined sometimes that they could see all the way back to where they had started, as if looking along an underground tunnel lit with phosph.o.r.escent mould.

All was not completely dark outside their elongated coc.o.o.n. The sun and moon shone wanly through the murk, and strange shapes brushed by them, unidentifiable but definitely there. Trees were skeletal cracks in their vision. Cliff faces and occasional ruined walls came into focus as the bubble of light touched them. Occasional glimpses of life stirred as creatures scurried out of their path, diving into undergrowth or under rocks as they approached. The new world was frightened of them, but why that might be they didn't know.

They walked on, never growing tired or hungry or thirsty. Their new body didn't need to sleep, and neither did they: they had slept an eternity already, and might never need to again. Entangled, they found it difficult to think separately, and remained that way as night and day rolled on around them. They felt they could walk from one side of the Earth to the other. Even in its strange state, the world and its sensations were a wealth of riches compared to the poverty that had preceded it.