The Hanging Mountains (39 page)

Griel spoke with longing and wonder — so much so that Shilly could barely credit it. His attention had shifted from the controls before him to the ancient memories he spoke of, and with it his posture had changed. He sat erect and twisted halfway in his seat to look at her. Light gleamed off the beads in his goatee.

‘Where did you hear these stories?’ she asked.

‘Vehofnehu told me when I was a child. I used to climb to his observatory instead of going to school. He tried to get rid of me, but I wouldn’t go away. I insisted on staying and watching what he did. When my parents found out, they were angry with him, tried to bring him before the Heptarchs for punishment. I had been earmarked for early service to the city, you see. My career lay before me, even then, and every day of missed study worsened my chances of advancement.’ He patted the stitched chest of his leather armour. ‘The Heptarchy was kinder then, more tolerant of Vehofnehu and his ways. I received special dispensation in exchange for a commitment to make up the study in my own time. That seemed reasonable to me. I worked hard and received a better education for it. Nothing I learned in school came close to that which Vehofnehu taught me. He said —’ Griel paused for a second, as though reconsidering what he had been about to say, then continued. ‘Vehofnehu told me that I should become his apprentice. The offer honoured me, but I knew my family wouldn’t approve. I chose the path they had laid out for me instead. Vehofnehu tried to change my mind. He said that age had taught him the wisdom of keeping a low profile, that more gets done in the shadows than in the light. We argued many, many times — and still do, when the mood takes us. Sometimes I like to stray from the traditional routes, as he taught me to do, but overall I feel I made the right decision. Vehofnehu, you see, can be wise and knowledgeable without always being right.’

Shilly nodded, reminded of Lodo. Although she had trouble picturing Griel as a child, his story was enough to make him feel more human to her. Or if not human, then at least comprehensible.

‘There it is.’ Griel looked over the side, indicating a valley of clouds that pointed away from the strengthening sun. A long, skinny shadow ran up the centre of the valley: a shadow cast by the top of Vehofnehu’s observatory tower. The Panic adjusted the balloon’s course and headed straight for it.

Amidst her relief they would soon be at their journey’s end, Shilly was glad she had some time remaining to take in the view. The clouds approached infinity in all directions, but shied away from the brink; to the south and west, they petered out into empty air. Beyond that point lay the barren plains of the Eastern Interior. To the north and east, vast grey shapes loomed: mountains, jagged and forbidding, topped with ice. Compared to them, the mountains shrouded by the eternal cloud cover were just foothills.

Griel brought the balloon around the observatory in an unhurried circuit. He seemed to be waiting for something — a signal from Vehofnehu, perhaps, that it was safe to land, but it either didn’t come or was too subtle for her to see. When he had gone around once, he came in closer, clearly intending to settle on the roof.

Shilly nudged Sal and reached further along the gondola to wake Highson.

‘We’re here.’

Sal blinked in the dawn light and looked blearily around him. A freshening breeze caught his hair and draped it across his face. He didn’t seem to notice.

‘Cold,’ he said, indicating the view.

Shilly thought of Tom and his dreams of ice, but did not pursue the worry that prompted.

‘How do we get in?’ Highson asked Griel.

The Panic’s attention was firmly back on the controls of the balloon.

Jao, stretching with arms that seemed to reach forever, answered: ‘There’s a hatch. I haven’t come this way before, but I have gone up on the roof from the inside. It needs to be de-iced, sometimes, to prevent the windows becoming coated. It’s a very dangerous job given only to the lowest ranking novices.’

‘A girl died here, once,’ said Erged through a yawn. ‘She slipped and knocked herself out. Vehofnehu had been sleeping and didn’t hear; he didn’t know she hadn’t come down. Only when her father came looking for her was she discovered, still on the roof, frozen solid with a pick in her hand. They say sometimes you can still hear her, when you’re out on the roof, hammering away to get Vehofnehu’s attention. And he always closes the windows on the warmest day of the year, just in case her spirit melts and comes to get him.’

Jao laughed. ‘They’re still telling that old yarn to novices? I thought it had died out when I was a kid. Mention it to Vehofnehu and he’ll tie your ears in knots.’

Erged flushed and ducked her red-frosted head in embarrassment, but Griel’s serious expression didn’t change.

‘It’s true,’ said Griel, as he brought the balloon around preparatory to landing. ‘The girl dying, I mean, not the rest.’

Jao sobered, studying Griel with a curious expression. ‘How could you possibly know this?’

‘Get Vehofnehu drunk and he’ll tell you all manner of things.’

Then the balloon was landing, and the time for talk was over.

* * * *

Sal climbed carefully over the edge of the gondola and placed his feet one at a time on the roof. Although Griel had tied the balloon down and assured everyone they were perfectly safe, he still didn’t entirely trust his footing. The wind seemed much more powerful here than it had been when travelling in the gondola, and much colder, too. The thought of slippery ice underfoot made him take every step carefully.

The hatch hung invitingly open on the other side of the slightly domed roof. Shilly already stood by it, waving him on, and he chided himself for being nervous. Clutching himself to keep the heat of his body in, he followed her as quickly as he dared and breathed deeply and gratefully of the warm air rising from the space below.

A collapsible ladder led down to floor level. The familiar space was in even greater disarray than he remembered, and contained no sign of either the empyricist or Kemp. A possible reason why became apparent when all of them were inside with the hatch firmly shut behind them.

‘I knew you’d come back here,’ said a voice from the stairwell. A large female Panic with her face set in a scowl stepped into view. Her weapon wasn’t drawn, but her right hand hung at the ready. Sal recognised her stormy mien, and the metal-clad ponytails.

‘Ramal.’ Griel didn’t sound especially surprised. ‘What did you do with him?’

‘The old fool? Nothing. He was gone when I arrived. I thought he’d gone with you.’

Griel shook his head. ‘He stayed behind to look after the injured visitor.’

‘Kemp,’ said Shilly. ‘His name was Kemp.’

‘He’s gone too,’ said the soldier.

‘Vehofnehu couldn’t have taken him on his own,’ said Highson. ‘He must’ve had help lifting him, at least.’

‘If not you, then who?’ asked Ramal.

‘Why are
you
here?’ asked Jao. ‘Have you come to arrest us on Oriel’s orders?’

Ramal snorted. ‘Naive and foolish I might consider you, but not dangerous, and my line still owes yours a debt of honour, Kingsman Griel.’ She bowed in grudging respect. Griel didn’t react in any visible way. ‘I’m here to warn you that Oriel is preparing a full offensive against the humans in retaliation for last night’s attack. The dead demand it, he says. Until the humans have suffered as we have suffered, we will not rest. Oriel has, therefore, ordered the city moved to a new location where it won’t be so easily found. Anyone who disagrees is being taken away as traitors. That’s what you’re strolling into. Are you sure you want to stay?’

Griel looked undecided. He glanced at Jao, who said, ‘We need to talk sense into
someone.
If we just walk away, we’re as bad as Oriel.’

‘Hardly,’ Griel snarled. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, you’re right. And where would we go, anyway? To Milang? The humans would have us arrested as spies, or worse.’

Ramal looked at them as though they were dangerously mad. ‘It’s your decision. But you won’t get far with these in tow.’ She flared her broad nostrils at Sal, Shilly and Highson.

‘Don’t worry about us,’ said Highson. ‘We’re not exactly helpless.’

Sal nodded. His reserves of the Change were fully recovered. It would feel good to be
doing
something. ‘What have you got in mind?’

‘Charm our way past the guards. Shilly can help design something for the three of us.’

‘Of course,’ Shilly said, ‘but to what end? Oriel won’t listen, and shouting on street corners is only going to get us arrested for sure.’

‘The Quorum,’ said Sal. ‘We’ll talk to them, see what they can do for us. They’ve come from the future. They must know
something.’

She looked at him, wide-eyed. ‘Yes. Yes, of course. And we can see if they know anything about Tom while we’re at it.’

‘All right,’ said Griel. ‘That’s what we’ll do. Ramal, are you going to stand in our way?’

The big female raised her hands. ‘I will let you get yourselves killed, if that’s what you plan to do.’

‘Thank you. You’re dismissed, then.’

Ramal bowed with the minimum of deference and headed back down the stairwell.

‘Right,’ said Griel. ‘You three get started on your charms while we try to work out where Vehofnehu might have gone.’

Sal, Shilly, Rosevear and Highson went into a huddle while the three Panic set about searching the observatory. Aiming for complete invisibility would be too draining, they quickly decided. Better to deceive an observer’s eye into thinking they were Panic than to cloud it completely.

While Shilly sketched the charm required on a scrap of paper, Sal crossed the room to talk to Griel. ‘We need clothing or armour — as much as you can find that’ll fit us. The fewer holes the charm has to patch, the longer we’ll be able to maintain it.’

Griel took him to a large chest near the entrance to the stairwell. It was full of clothes, redolent with the musty smell of the empyricist. ‘There might be something in here.’

‘Thanks.’ Sal began the slightly distasteful task of picking through an old man’s wardrobe. Gloves that looked like they might fit Highson, even with their short thumbs; a brown robe for Shilly decorated in gold thread with the tree motif of the Panic; a broad leather belt that barely went around his waist. There was nowhere near enough to act as an ordinary disguise, but sufficient, he hoped, to shore up the charm Shilly was designing. He tossed aside a pair of broad, open-toed sandals that would never accommodate human feet and an endless series of faded long-armed smocks.

At the very bottom of the box he found a battered iron circlet as wide across as his outstretched fingers. Although obviously very old, it showed no sign of rust and was surprisingly heavy. He weighed it in his hands for a moment, then, feeling no telltale tingle of the Change, slipped it onto his head, wondering if it would fit.

As soon as the cold metal touched his temples, a strange sensation swept through him. He felt suddenly hollow, like an empty bottle — and as soon as that feeling registered, something rushed into him, filling him up like water, right up to the brim. Every nerve tingled, from his fingertips to the depths of his stomach. Every sense thrilled. He wanted to leap to his feet and shout for the joy of it. Never before had he known such vitality, such inspiration, such
completion.

The voice that roared through him nearly knocked him off his feet.

// YOU COULD BE THIS POTENTIAL SUCH GREATNESS INSIDE YOU WAITING TO BE FREED SUCH STRENGTH //

He reeled from the sound of it, although he heard nothing at all with his ears. The stream of words dropped directly into his mind with the force of weights. They didn’t seem so much directed at him as granted him, as though a window had opened on the mind of something much larger than him, giving a glimpse into its incredible workings.

// YOUR POTENTIAL YOUR GREATNESS WHAT COULD BE I GIVE YOU I OFFER YOU YOUR STRENGTH AND SURETY //

Another window, another blast of pure, powerful thought. He understood then, that he was being offered something — a gift, perhaps, of power. He saw himself at the head of a mighty order, great and luminous, uniting the many disciplines of the Change across the Earth. Wild talent would no longer be feared or forgotten, an aberration left alone in the hope that it would burn itself out quickly. Instead it would become the norm to which everyone aspired. An era in which wildness was, if not tamed, then at least
used
— for wildness had its place in the world, and was dangerous only when misunderstood.

Beside him, Sal saw Shilly dressed in the finery of a queen, brilliant and insightful, the mind behind the power. The two of them would transform the Earth and its people into something wonderful and irresistible. Together, they would rule forever.

‘That’s not who I want to be,’ he said, hearing the words as though they came from the bottom of a well. ‘I know who I am. I don’t want all that stuff. I have everything I need already.’

The window remained shut, but the seductive vitality remained.

‘I’m serious. I had this choice years ago. I would’ve taken it then if I was ever going to. Don’t you think?’

// RELEASED //

The hole in his mind closed with a slam, and this time he
was
thrown off his feet, away from the crate and across the observatory, scattering chairs and maps and ornaments as he went. He skidded to a halt on his back, ears ringing. The crown flew from his head and skittered away, out of sight under a daybed.

Shilly was instantly at his side. ‘What is it? What happened? Are you all right?’

He looked up into her worried face, and felt himself break out into an inappropriate smile. He cupped her cheek, relishing the warmth of her, the feelings she evoked in him.

‘I’m all right. I touched something I wasn’t supposed to, I guess, and turned down an offer most people would kill for.’

She frowned and looked to Highson, as though wondering if he also thought Sal had lost his mind. Rosevear pressed forward to examine him, but Sal brushed the healer’s hands away. Physically, he was fine.

‘What did you touch?’ asked Griel, his face alien and unreadable.