Part 21 (1/2)

s.h.i.+lly dropped the subject, knowing it would take more than words to convince Chu. The young flyer turned her attention forward, closing herself off to further conversation.

Banner still twisted to the rear, and s.h.i.+lly realised that she was looking at something behind the buggy. At the same time, Tom eased off on the accelerator. s.h.i.+lly turned to look too, fearing that a new man'kin threat had appeared. The truth was much less exotic. The first bus had fallen behind, allowing the second to overtake. It was difficult to see what was going on through the dust the buggies kicked up, but she could make out Marmion waving impatiently for them to continue. Maybe, she thought, they had wanted Highson safe in the middle of the convoy rather than at the end. Or perhaps she was just being charitable, and Marmion was worried about no other skin than his own.

Banner nodded and Tom increased their speed. They continued on across the bottom of the Divide, leaving Sal and Skender far behind.

The Ruin.

*Put behind you all thoughts of the outside world, for such are distractions and dangerous. The rules you knew are irrelevant. Those who enter a Ruin should do so only in the clear and certain knowledge that they may never return.'

THE SURVEYOR'S CODE.

S.

kender stood facing the blank stone wall and resisted the urge to kick it. He and Sal had tracked the Change-dead spoor of the Homunculus across several kilometres to its terminus just short of the Aad. Instead of following a straight line - as Sal explained that it had from almost as far away as the Haunted City - it wound its way around and between obstacles, sticking close to the wall of the Divide where possible. Towards the end, for no apparent reason, it had kinked to the right and headed for the cliff. There, abruptly, it ended.

*I can't see a door,' Skender said, tracing his hands over the rough sandstone. Layers of ancient sediment hung before him, preserved for eternity - or would have been but for the great rending that had separated the cliff face from its match on the far side of the Divide.

*And we can't find a hidden door by using the Change because the Homunculus has sucked it dry.' Sal paced back and forth at the edge of the wake, testing for any sign of an opening: a sliding stone, a trapdoor, anything. *But there must be one!'

Skender succ.u.mbed to frustration and kicked the stone. That gave him a sore toe to match his headache, but it seemed appropriate. Their search had come to a dead end.

He turned away from the cliff and looked around. The sun was fading into the west, casting a shadow across the floor of the Divide. Soon, that shadow would hit their location and they would lose any chance of finding an entrance.

Look on the bright side, he told himself. The tide of man'kin had finally run out. A few last stragglers had eyed the humans hatefully as he and Sal had continued on their way, careful never to leave the safety of the wake. A couple had tried to engage them in conversation, but they rarely said anything of relevance. One declared that the mysterious Angel had told it about them, but nothing else had been forthcoming. Who the Angel was, how the Angel could possibly know about Sal and Skender and why that detail was important, remained a mystery. After a while, Skender had stopped responding to calls for attention from the stony ma.s.s of man'kin.

As he stood gazing out across the Divide floor, he saw another cloud on the far side of the mighty canyon, along the eastern leg. At the rate it was moving, it would encounter the Wall protecting Laure before nightfall. Skender hoped the city's defences were ready for an onslaught.

*There has to be a way in,' he muttered, turning back to the problem at hand. *We're just not seeing it.'

*We could wait until the wake fades and try then.'

*How long would that take?'

*A few hours, perhaps.'

*The Homunculus could be anywhere by then. And if the wake has faded, how are we going to follow it?' Skender pointed at the second cloud on the far side of the Divide. *Anyway, I'm not sure I like the idea of being defenceless with so many of these things roaming around. I think we should just think harder.'

Sal sighed and sank to a crouching position with his back against the stone. *I'm very nearly all thought out, I'm afraid.'

Skender could see that his friend was exhausted. Sal had explained that few people in the wardens' search party had slept the night before; the summoning of the storm had drained him further. There were heavy bags under Sal's eyes; his attention occasionally drifted.

Skender lifted the water bottle from around his neck and offered it to Sal. The container was more than half empty, but it was the only reward they had for pressing on. No plants grew on the bottom of the Divide, so they couldn't even chew leaves or twigs for moisture.

Ignoring his own thirst, he considered what they knew. The Homunculus had an agenda of its own, one which involved the Aad. Towards the end of its journey, it had obviously made a beeline for the Ruin. The wall couldn't be the dead end it appeared to be, otherwise what was the point of coming here? The Homunculus couldn't have doubled back on itself, since it would have encountered Sal and Skender along the way. So it had come to the wall for a reason. They just had to find that reason ...

His gaze drifted upward to where the sunlight cast the top of the cliff in brilliant gold, and he wondered if he should step out of the wake and study the complex weave of air through the charm of the licence. He immediately knew he didn't need to.

He laughed, but the news wasn't all good. *I found it!' he told Sal, pointing up. *See?'

Right at the top of the cliff was a spur of rock from which projected a metal hook.

*A rope would have been tied to it.' Sal climbed to his feet and put his hands on his hips. His head tilted back to study the new development. *Or a rope ladder. Either way, the Homunculus climbed up there and reeled the ladder in behind it.'

*And here we are,' said Skender, *stuck on the ground in its wake.'

Sal nodded. He moved back several metres, trying to see what lay at the top. *There doesn't seem to be anything else up there.'

*I think that's the idea. We wouldn't have noticed anything if the Homunculus hadn't led us here. It's the perfect place for a hideout, or the entrance to one.' He looked to his left, at the pile of rubble that was the Aad's doorstep, half a kilometre away. *I can see only one way open to us at the moment, if we're going to go up there.'

Sal sighed again. *I think you're right, my friend. We can always double back when we're at the top.'

Skender put a hand on Sal's shoulder to stop him as he went to pick up the wing and head off on their new tangent. *There's something else we should think about. The ladder can't have been hanging around forever, waiting for the Homunculus to come along. The miners would have seen it. Who put it there, and why?'

Sal sighed wearily. *Yes, that did occur to me. There's no way we can know right now, unless you've had any other blinding revelations ...?'

Skender shook his head. *Alas.'

*Then we'll just have to keep our eyes peeled.' Sal handed him back the water bottle. *Let's get going before I fall asleep on my feet.'

Skender agreed wholeheartedly. They had no idea what they were heading into, but the Divide definitely wasn't safe, and he had no desire to experience it after nightfall.

The wing slotted into well-worn grooves in his fingers. He hoped Chu would appreciate the effort they were making to look after it. That hadn't been the deal at all, he thought, as they raced the encroaching shadow for the entrance to the Aad.

Sal sighed with relief as they left the Homunculus' wake. The very moment they did so, the normal background potential returned and the familiar tingling of the Change hit him. He felt in tune with the world again and revitalised for it. The wing wasn't as heavy; his feet no longer dragged. He could think again.

There was likely more to come: significant Ruins were steeped in the Change. He automatically a.s.sumed that the Ruin Skender called the Aad would be like any other. But as they reached the tumble of masonry at the base of the city, there was no surge in the Change. It was, if anything, ebbing away. He stopped to see if the Homunculus was nearby, but he couldn't see or sense it anywhere, and Skender's wind-seeing charm, which had returned upon leaving the wake, discerned no distinctive spoor of the creature. This was something else.

As they climbed the rubble towards the ruined city proper, Skender's black markings faded, and Sal's connection to the world faded with it.

*It's a Change-sink,' he said, feeling the weight of exhaustion settle over him again like a heavy blanket. *A natural blank spot.'

Skender was nodding, touching the deadened stone of a tumbled column as though it might rear up and bite him. *No wonder no one comes here. The air feels smothered.'

*Do you want to keep going?'

Skender didn't hesitate. *Of course. Don't you?'

Sal nodded, although he would have done anything rather than keep walking. Fatigue had taken root in his bones again. He had forgotten how it felt to be awake.

They climbed higher, to what might have once been street level. It was hard to tell exactly how the original city had stood because the ground had tilted under it and most of the buildings had collapsed as a result. Mounds of rubble lay between Sal and Skender and a relatively intact portion of the city. It was clear, though, that what Sal thought of as a city was really a slice chopped out of a larger metropolis. The Aad lay open to the Divide on three sides and had decayed heavily around those borders. Only the very heart of it retained any structural integrity at all.

Skender had described tunnels gaping open to the Divide near Laure. During their ascent, they had seen nothing of the sort. Sal suggested that they had been covered over by landslides and were now only accessible from within the ruins. Skender didn't have a better solution, but he did look disappointed. It would have been much easier for him, Sal supposed, if they'd found his mother on their own. They could have dispensed with tracking the Homunculus.

The Change-sink in the Aad wasn't as deep as the Homunculus's wake, but it nonetheless cut them off from everything outside the city.

*Where do you think the heart of it is?' Skender asked.