28
There was too much.
Vintage could barely move an inch without feeling the need to retrieve her notebooks and inks, to make quick sketches and observations. There was an extraordinary wealth of knowledge here, much more than she had expected – Godwort had made much deeper progress into the body of the Behemoth than he had reported, the old swine. There was too much, but every moment they were inside she was aware of the terrible danger they were in, and she had the distinct sense that her luck was now the thinnest piece of fragile ice, and they were edging out further and further over an abyss.
So as they climbed down into the ragged hole torn by Godwort’s men, she didn’t pause and make drawings, but held her breath, listening closely. She doubted even Tormalin – perhaps especially Tormalin – realised how much danger they were actually in.
Learn what you can and be quick, she told herself. Gather your clues, take them with you. We can come back. Do not test your luck. And on the back of that thought, as it was so often, was the memory of Nanthema. Did she die exploring a Behemoth, just like this, or did she tire of her human companion and find some new bit of Sarn to explore?
‘I don’t like that smell,’ said Noon. She was carrying Vintage’s travel lamp, its small yellow flame lighting the girl’s face more than the narrow tunnel. A curl of black hair had fallen from her cap to rest against her forehead.
‘Yes,’ agreed Tormalin. ‘It smells rather like you did when we found you in the Shroom Flats.’
‘Now then. It could simply be that Godwort’s men left some food supplies down here before they left,’ said Vintage. The greyish matter under her feet was springy, and faintly tacky. She kept expecting her boots to come away with a sucking noise. ‘It’s not necessarily something awful.’
‘Hmm,’ said Noon. Ahead of them, Tormalin stopped and raised his hand.
‘Careful,’ he said. ‘It drops away sharply here.’
Vintage shuffled forward, keeping her centre of gravity low, and peered over the edge. They were hanging above what appeared to be an egg-shaped chamber, the smoothly curving walls formed of the greyish translucent blocks and lit with the dimly glowing nodules. There was a rope ladder next to them that ran all the way to the bottom, and there something sat, a shining something that was difficult to look at. It fluttered and pulsed with a sickly pink light, and for a frightening moment she thought it was a parasite spirit, but then she narrowed her eyes and saw that no, it was all sharp angles, and it was unmoving.
Reaching over, she tugged on the rope ladder. It was attached to a pair of wooden stakes that had been driven deeply into the yielding grey flesh.
‘I’d say that looks sturdy enough, wouldn’t you?’
Noon looked sick, the corners of her mouth turned down. Tormalin didn’t look much happier.
‘How much do you pay me again, Lady de Grazon?’
‘Enough to get your bony arse down there, my darling.’ Without waiting for an answer, Vintage took hold of the rope ladder and began to climb down, willing the thing not to fall to bits. She caught the look of exasperation on Tormalin’s face, and then he was lost to sight.
‘Fine. One at a time, though,’ he said from above. ‘We don’t want to break this thing with all of us on it.’
Vintage made short work of the rope ladder – one didn’t grow up next door to the vine forest without becoming an accomplished climber – and found herself standing in front of the light-filled object. It was a tall, jagged crystal, twice her height and wider at the base. It was pale pink in colour, but its smooth surfaces winked and slid reflected light around her, as though it were in motion. Looking at it made her feel mildly queasy. She glanced up to see Noon making her steady way down, her cap now pushed back from her eyes to reveal the bat-wing tattoo on her forehead.
‘What is that?’ she asked when she got to the floor.
‘Well, that’s quite the mystery, isn’t it?’ Vintage reached over and squeezed her hand briefly, noting the flicker of surprise that passed over the girl’s face. This one wasn’t used to human contact, she reminded herself, and felt a pang of sadness. ‘I haven’t seen anything like this on any of my own expeditions, and nothing in Godwort’s sketches either. Tor? What are you doing?’
‘Making bloody sure this ladder is secure before I come down there.’ Moments later he climbed down, his long figure strangely awkward on the swinging rope. Noon had approached the giant crystal, her hands held cautiously in front of her as though she expected it to burn her, and then she gasped, taking an involuntary step backwards.
‘Fire and blood, there’s a whole world in there! What is this thing?’
‘What?’ Vintage jumped forward, peering closely at the crystal. It was as if its clouded surface cleared – a hand wiped over a misted window – and an alien landscape was revealed, stretching off into the distance. She saw a night sky pocked with fiery stars she didn’t recognise, and a desolate land of white rock and craters. Her stomach dropped away. There was another world in here with them, just beyond the surface of the crystal, and the effect was dizzying. She almost expected to feel cold air on her cheek, to hear the desolate howl of the wind, deep within the heart of the Behemoth. Nothing moved in that terrible landscape. She reached out one hand, meaning to push her fingers against the slick surface, but a hand settled heavily on her shoulder.
‘Don’t,’ said Tormalin, his voice utterly serious for once. ‘You know better than that, Vintage.’
She pursed her lips and nodded. Noon had walked off around the other side of the crystal, circling it like a wary animal. She disappeared from sight, and almost at once they heard her give a startled shout.
‘What is it?’ Tor was there before Vintage, one hand on the pommel of his sword, but she almost collided with him as, suddenly, he was brought up short. Noon stood staring at the crystal, her face drained of colour. There was a body standing half in and half out of the structure, and it was all wrong. Vintage pressed her fingers to her mouth, feeling her bile rising in her throat.
‘By the roots,’ cried Tormalin, his voice oddly breathless. The crystal continued to flash and flicker at them. ‘What is this thing?’
The corpse had been a young man with unruly black hair and a comely face – they could tell this because the half of his body that stood in the alien landscape appeared to be untouched, his smooth skin clear and unblemished, his eyes so glassy they almost looked wet. The half of his body that was still in the chamber, however, was a terrible emaciated thing of bones, and flesh turned soft and black. The boy’s hand was curled against his thigh, and it looked like little more than a pile of brownish sticks, while his leg hung loose, at a strange angle inside his trousers.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ said Noon.
‘Oh my dear,’ said Vintage. Her voice didn’t sound like her own voice. ‘Me too, my dear.’
The boy had apparently been caught half in and half out of the crystal, as though he had been stepping into it at an angle and had been frozen in place. His head was entirely beyond the surface, as were his right arm and leg, while the line of the crystal ran from the left side of his neck – the ear there had only narrowly missed being left behind – down across his chest to bisect him neatly at the groin. Most of him was within the crystal. All of him was dead.
‘It’s his son,’ said Noon flatly. ‘Don’t you see? It – his face looks like him.’
‘Oh gods, Tyron, no.’ Vintage took a startled breath, and all at once she was very close to losing the small breakfast she had eaten that morning. She had only met Tyron once, years back when he had been no older than four or five. He had been mischievous, she remembered, peering out from behind his father’s legs, dark eyes full of curiosity. ‘How is it – how is it holding him there? Some sort of trap?’
‘Whatever it is,’ said Noon, ‘I think it’s broken. Look at the way it’s flashing. And there’s this stuff on the floor.’
Barely able to tear herself away from the terrible sight of Tyron, Vintage looked where Noon was pointing. It was the remains of a camp. People had stayed here for days, perhaps, trying to get him out, and failing. The horror of it washed over her, and she felt a steadying hand on her arm. To her surprise, it was Noon.
‘They found this chamber, and the extraordinary world in a crystal,’ said Tor. He was staring at the corpse. ‘Tyron Godwort wanted to be the first to explore it, perhaps, but when he entered it, whatever magic powered the thing failed. Or started working? Either way, it trapped him there, half in and half out. Did he die immediately? I don’t think so.’ He gestured at the camp, still not looking at them. ‘They thought it worth staying here, for days, in a hope of getting him free. Most of his body is on the other side – he would have been able to breathe, assuming there is something there to breathe, but not to eat or drink.’
Tor paused. Vintage felt a cold tingling sweeping up from her toes. Had he cried, and pleaded with them to help? Would they have been able to hear him, beyond the crystal?
‘They tried to get him out, but nothing could break it.’ There were hammers on the floor, several chisels. One of the hammers was broken, the head torn away from the shaft. ‘So, what? They waited. Perhaps, they thought, the magic would change, or break, or release him randomly. They watched and waited as one half of his body wasted away. Perhaps he asked them to kill him towards the end, but they wouldn’t have done that. There was still a chance.’
‘Stop it,’ said Noon. ‘Just stop it.’
Tor turned to them, raising a single eyebrow. ‘No wonder the old man can no longer bear to come out here. It is his son’s tomb.’
They stayed in the chamber for another hour, Vintage taking the pencils from her bag, meticulously recording as much as she could, the strange walls of the chamber and the incredible crystal at its heart. She and Tor walked around the other side, away from the corpse, but Noon stayed, sitting amongst the remains of the camp. She couldn’t help looking at the young man’s face, his eyes open and his head lolling awkwardly on his shoulder. Whatever the place was beyond the surface of the crystal, it had held the boy outside of time. There was no sign of corruption on that smooth face, no hint of the death that had claimed him – slowly, painfully – and yet he was dead. She wondered what that was like for Esiah Godwort; to know that his child was down here in the heart of the Behemoth. That he could come and look on his face any time he wanted, but that he would also have to face the terrible fact of his death. The bones and the running flesh. Tyron Godwort was a memory of himself, and his father was trapped by it.
Noon reached up and pulled off her cap, running her fingers through her hair. With some difficulty, she dragged her eyes from the still form of Tyron Godwort and looked at the strange landscape beyond him. A night sky, a desolate plain. Wherever it was, it wasn’t on Sarn. The thought startled her with how true it felt. Fire and blood, she was hardly the most well-travelled fell-witch, but everything about the alien place beyond the crystal felt wrong to her. After a moment she stood up, thinking of the suit of winnow-forged armour in the young man’s bedroom. She wished they had never gone in there; it felt like an invasion of a sort.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quietly, before walking around the crystal to join Tor and Vintage.
‘The place inside the crystal – I think it’s where the worm people come from.’ She cleared her throat. ‘I think it’s their home.’
Tor raised an eyebrow at her, but Vintage only nodded. ‘I suspect you are right, Noon, my dear. It’s no place on Sarn I’ve ever been and, of course, we’ve never known where the Jure’lia come from exactly.’ She paused, clutching her notebook, and Noon noticed that her normally neat and steady handwriting was wild and shaky. Noon pulled her hat back on. The room suddenly felt unbearable, a place of dead things and sorrow.
‘We should go back,’ she said.
To her surprise, Vintage agreed. The three of them climbed out of the chamber in silence, leaving behind the flickering crystal shard and its prisoner. Tormalin led the way out, following the corridors without hesitation. The closer they got to the exit, the more Vintage seemed to recover, some of her usual cheer returning to her voice.
‘We can come back,’ she said, patting Noon on the arm as they walked. ‘We’ve all had a shock, but we can rest, fortify ourselves. I want some time to think on the crystal, put it together with some other writings I’ve made over the years. I feel like it might be the key to the Jure’lia – who they are, what they want. That an unwary explorer can become trapped, stuck, in time. An overly curious person, perhaps, determined to find out –’ Vintage paused, and seemed to trip over her own feet. Noon grabbed her and saved her from falling, but as she helped her up, she noticed that she was trembling all over.
‘Vintage, what’s wrong?’
‘Oh my dear, I just had a thought, that’s all.’ Vintage smiled, but her face had gone an alarming shade of grey.
‘We need to get out of here.’ Noon looped her arm round the scholar’s waist, taking most of her weight. ‘Tor? Are we near the way out yet or what?’
Tor glanced back at them. He looked distracted himself, but he was standing in a ragged circle of dim daylight. ‘We’re so close we’re here, in fact. Come on. I want a glass of wine and a hot bath, and another glass of wine, in that order.’
Noon and Vintage hurried forward, stepping out onto the dark earth. The shattered remains of the head of the Behemoth stood opposite them, and the air at least was fresher. For a moment Noon felt disorientated. How long had they been in there? It felt darker than it should; they had entered the compound in the early morning, and now it felt like the early evening.
She looked up and saw a huge amorphous shape hovering over them, blocking out the sky. Baleful violet lights like diseased suns pocked its sides, and it turned its blunt head down towards them.
‘Run!’
Tor turned at her shout, his eyes widening as he spotted the parasite spirit above them. He drew his sword.
Half running, half falling, Noon dragged Vintage away from the wreckage, only for another shifting shape to rise up from behind a piece of debris that had fallen away from the main section. It was sinuous and lizard-like, a clutch of brilliant blue fronds where its eyes should be, and it rushed at them, hissing. There was a thud, and a bolt hit the thing in the neck before Noon even realised that Vintage had wrestled her crossbow from her belt.
‘There’ll be more of them,’ she muttered. ‘We really should go, my darling.’
Noon turned, looking for Tor. The giant parasite spirit that hung over the entrance to the Behemoth was shaped a little like a great long-legged insect, the main bulk of it out of the Eboran’s reach. Tor was pushing back a pair of parasite spirits with long, rabbit-like faces, multiple pink eyes shining brightly. The Ninth Rain flashed and danced, picking up and reflecting the eerie lights of the parasite spirits and driving them back.
‘Tor! There’re too many! We have to go!’
‘Quick,’ said Vintage, ‘to the other side. Perhaps we can lose them in there.’
Tor glanced at them over his shoulder, his mouth moving, but the giant parasite spirit that hung over them all had begun to make a low, desolate wailing noise, drowning out everything else. Noon turned, and with Vintage’s hand held firmly in hers, ran for the other half of the wreckage. More parasite spirits seemed to ooze out of the semi-dark, as if they were attracted by their movements. Barely thinking, she reached out and brushed the tips of her fingers across Tor’s hand as he came alongside her, siphoning off energy from him even as he shouted with surprise. She turned and threw up her free hand towards the approaching spirits, feeling the churning energy she had stolen boiling in her chest, and threw all of it with as much force as she could muster. A fat blossom of winnowfire burst wildly from her palm. It dissipated long before it reached the parasites, but they reeled back all the same. Tor had stumbled at her touch, but his face was set in grim lines, and he was still moving.
‘Good work, my dear!’ gasped Vintage.
Just as they reached the other side of the wreckage a creature like a translucent snake boiled up out of the ground, fizzing and sparking with orange and green lights. Noon cried out and tried to push Vintage out of the way, but the tapering tail of the parasite spirit whipped around and caught the older woman across the hand. There was a terrible sharp tearing sound, and Vintage hollered with pain.
‘What’s happened?’ Tor called, close behind them now.
‘Get inside, get inside.’ Noon pushed Vintage in front of her, almost throwing the woman into the shelter of the wreckage, before dragging her up a series of steps. More than anything she wanted to be away from the dirt – the spirit had just appeared from it, rising up like a flood water, and now nothing felt safe. ‘Up, up!’
They scrambled up the steps, Tor’s footfalls close behind them, until they found themselves on a platform looking back across at the other chunk of wreckage. This was the place where the two sections had once been joined, but now the walls ended in torn pieces. Below them, they could see around ten parasite spirits, writhing and wailing, obviously still searching for them.
‘Fucking fire and blood, we’re fucked.’ Noon took a wild breath, willing her heart to stop hammering in her chest. ‘Vintage, are you hurt?’
Vintage was leaning against the wall, her hand cradled to her chest. There was blood on her shirt. ‘I’d say so, my darling, yes.’
‘We should head deeper in,’ said Tor. He had appeared behind them, his face in the shadows as serious as Noon had ever seen it. ‘There could be a way out on the other side. Or we can cut our way out.’
He held up the sword, which was already caked in the oddly jelly-like blood of the parasite spirits – Noon had a moment to wonder when he had done that – when the narrow space behind him shimmered with ominous lights. He spun round, sword moving with precision despite the dark shadows under his eyes, and the parasite spirit that had followed them in screamed discordantly. Noon and Vintage took a few hurried steps back, taking them perilously close to the edge of the platform.
This time Noon saw Tormalin’s sword at work: the thin blade cut through the writhing spirit like it was butter, and the screaming grew so loud she felt a pulse of pain deep in her head. Part of the creature fell away, followed by a shimmering cloud of what almost looked like smoke, but the long fronds that formed part of its head shot forward, barrelling past Tor towards where she crouched with Vintage. The pair of them scrambled backwards, only to find that the giant parasite spirit, the one that had hovered over them as they left the wreckage, was now waiting for them, its huge bulk blocking any view of the outside world. For a few alarming seconds, Noon was faced with the shifting, amorphous texture of its body; she could see tiny lights falling inside it, as though it were made of the night sky. She turned back, and saw Tor battling with the other creature; despite how badly he had wounded it, the spirit’s fronds were filling the small space where they had taken shelter, writhing and whipping back and forth like a nest of angry snakes. They were trapped.
‘Burn them!’ Tor shot her a desperate look from beyond the fronds. One of them was sliding, tentacle-like, round his forearm, scorching the leather there.
‘I can’t!’ Noon felt a surge of frustration. She’d already spent the energy she’d stripped from him in her useless fireball, and now Tor was out of reach, trapped behind a wall of shifting fronds. Vintage’s energy would not be enough to harm the spirits.
Next to her, Vintage fired off one crossbow bolt after another, hitting a frond with every shot. Although each one she hit turned black and inert, the grasping appendages kept coming. Behind them, the giant spirit was pressing itself against the hole, and its body was slowly filling the space, like bread rising in the oven. The only light left was the light dancing inside the creatures just about to kill them. Noon thought of how they killed; of seeing Tor overwhelmed, of seeing Vintage turned inside out.
Reaching out behind her, she brushed her fingers over the smooth, yielding body of the giant parasite spirit, and she took. Ignoring how her hand turned cold and numb, she ripped the life energy from the creature with all her strength, and although she realised almost instantly what a terrible mistake she’d made, it was already too late. The energy slammed into her; at first at her summons, and then against her will. Bright light filled her, along with the sharp scent of sap and the sense of being high up, very high up, and surrounded by rustling and the feeling of breaking free, a terrible severing, oh lost, we are lost.
Noon stumbled away, breaking contact. Her body sang with a thousand voices, centuries of lost memories. It was too much. Dimly, through the cacophony that now inhabited her, she saw Vintage staring at her with horror, while Tor struggled, on his knees as the parasite spirit tried to tear him in half. Unable to do anything else, Noon raised her hand, feeling the winnowfire boiling into life inside her, and let it go.
The world was lost in green fire.