Free The Devoured Earth by Sean Williams Page B

time to leave.

    * * * *

    If climbing during daylight was nerve-racking, climbing at night was positively terrifying. Shilly didn’t know how the man’kin could find their handholds and toeholds by starlight, let alone keep to the route they silently agreed to, but somehow they managed it. She just clung tight to the near-vertical back of her steed and tried not to shake too much. Tom clutching her didn’t help either. With every sway and lurch of the man’kin, she felt him grip a little harder.

    Midway through the final stretch, a strange sound became audible through the thin night air. It was a woman’s voice, singing. The tune was haunting and exotic, following no familiar rhythm or key. Its words, also, were unfathomable. She wished — not for the first time — that Sal was with her, since he might have recognised it from his travels across the Strand. He might even have joined in, adding his soft baritone to the others now joining the original thread.

    The Holy Immortals were responsible for the song. Softly, sadly, their voices rose and fell in inconsolable unison. A lament , Shilly thought. That was what it sounded like to her. A song for the dead or dying. She remembered the one she’d seen earlier that day, weeping while others of her kind stood around in shock. What was happening to them? Why, after centuries of being one way, were they suddenly changing?

    She couldn’t possibly know, and it didn’t seem likely that she would ever find out. She forced herself to put that mystery — along with all the others — out of her mind as best she could. The long climb might be the last chance she had to rest before things reached a head. At the top lay possibly nothing at all, or anything at all, including Yod itself with maw open to swallow the world.

    She let the plaintive song carry her like the ebbing and flowing of a gentle sea. Her thoughts wandered to Fundelry, to the harbour, and the dunes, and the friends she had left behind there.

    Leaving home is the hardest thing to do , whispered the voice of her future self, half-in and half-out of her mind.

    Part of her knew that she wasn’t completely asleep and could wake at any moment, if she wanted to. But she didn’t, not yet. This was the first time she had felt that she could reply, and she wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. Why are you telling me this ?

    You’ll understand later.

    I don’t want to understand later. I want to understand now.

    You don’t need to. You have more important things to worry about.

    I know, I know. Draw the charm, save Sal, stop myself from becoming you … She felt instantly bad for the harshness of her tone. I’m sorry. I know you’re just trying to help .

    No, no . The response came heavy with infinite weariness. You’re right. You don’t want to become me. Why would you? I don’t want to be me either. It’s not an easy life .

    Do you have to do it alone? Why don’t you live with other people?

    How do you know I don’t?

    Because I’ve seen you, in your workshop. You showed me. There’s just you and Bartholomew —

    That’s not me. I’m another version of you, Shilly, the one making possible the link between our many selves. Without me, you wouldn’t see anything at all.

    Shilly’s head spun. Another version of herself? How many could there be?

    The task before us is too much even for two lifetimes , said this third version of her as though she had read her thoughts. Do you want to know why ?

    She nodded, and a new vision unfolded within her closed eyelids.

    Undulating orange sand stretched to a shimmering horizon under a sky as blue as coloured glass. The sun burned her head and shoulders, and she felt sweat trickling down her back and between her breasts. She wasn’t as old as she was in the other world; here she might have been no more than forty years, with back straight and hands steady. Her leg still ached, though; that seemed to be a constant, wherever and however she