world.
* * * *
Shilly and Sal stopped dead and looked around in alarm. Superficially, the night seemed no different from a second ago: there was no sound apart from the sighing of the wind; the multitude of stars still twinkled above. But something essential had been taken away from it. The Change was as important a part of the world as light, and without it Shilly felt like someone suddenly struck blind.
‘What did you do?’ she heard Sal ask Marmion.
His words fell flat and lifeless on her ears. ‘What have you done to us?’
‘Nothing,’ said the Warden. He had stopped walking and turned to face them. ‘You feel it, then.’
‘Of course we feel it.’ Sal looked around. ‘This spot is —’ He struggled for words. ‘— dead.’
‘Is it a Change-sink?’ she asked.
‘No, and it’s not just here,’ Marmion said. ‘The deadness extends all the way from here back to Guhida, to where we started. What you’re feeling is the wake of the Homunculus.’
The night seemed to close in around her, full of suffocating silence. She shivered, thinking of Larson Maiz, frightened to death by the thing Sal’s father had brought into the world, whatever it was. ‘It came this way?’
‘And recently, too. The wake has been getting stronger the closer we come to it. We’ve been measuring the width and the way it varies depending on the landscape and vegetation it passes through. It seems to spread further when there’s less around it — the earth and living things interfere with it, reduce its strength. We had no idea how strong it would become in the Broken Lands, and that was our mistake. While Kail followed the wake on foot, the rest of us were using the roads to cut in front of it, head it off. We must have just missed it. We crossed its path without warning, just over that hill. The buses died immediately, sucked dry of the Change. We lost contact with Kail. We were stuck.’
‘Did you see it?’ asked Sal.
‘No.’ Marmion shook his head. With his thoughts focused on something other than the two of them, the Warden seemed much less defensive, although never truly comfortable. ‘Nor did we see your father. We could only sit and wait for Kail to find us, in the hope that he could get the buses going again. He couldn’t. He’s never seen anything like this before. Neither has Banner. Hopefully, she and Tom can get us moving again soon, otherwise we’ll have to continue on foot, thereby losing our only advantage.’
His voice was full of frustration, which Shilly could understand. To have been so close to the Homunculus and then have it snatched out of his grasp must have been galling. And now she and Sal had appeared, adding to his problems.
‘Who is Kail, exactly?’ asked Sal.
‘Habryn Kail is a tracker from Camarinha. They get a lot of strange things spilling over from the Divide up there, and he knows the spoor of most of them. Or so he says. Seems to me there’s not much skill in following something that leaves a trail two metres wide and travels in a perfectly straight line.’ Frustration turned querulous. ‘You two, travelling on your own, would probably catch it quicker than we would with all our impedimenta.’
Shilly took pity on him. ‘But what would we do when we caught it? I presume you have some sort of plan.’
Marmion, barely visible against the stars, bent down and picked up a stone. ‘You’re still feeling the wake, right? This is several hours old. Can you imagine what it must be like standing next to the Homunculus?’ He issued a sound that might have been a snort. ‘None of us are keen to jump uninformed into that situation. Until we can see it, even from a distance, and maybe work out what it wants, we’re as much in the dark as you are.’
The Warden threw the stone into the blackness. It clattered and skittered away.
Shilly could appreciate his position. No living thing could get rid of the Change entirely as, by definition, that which
* * * *
Shilly and Sal stopped dead and looked around in alarm. Superficially, the night seemed no different from a second ago: there was no sound apart from the sighing of the wind; the multitude of stars still twinkled above. But something essential had been taken away from it. The Change was as important a part of the world as light, and without it Shilly felt like someone suddenly struck blind.
‘What did you do?’ she heard Sal ask Marmion.
His words fell flat and lifeless on her ears. ‘What have you done to us?’
‘Nothing,’ said the Warden. He had stopped walking and turned to face them. ‘You feel it, then.’
‘Of course we feel it.’ Sal looked around. ‘This spot is —’ He struggled for words. ‘— dead.’
‘Is it a Change-sink?’ she asked.
‘No, and it’s not just here,’ Marmion said. ‘The deadness extends all the way from here back to Guhida, to where we started. What you’re feeling is the wake of the Homunculus.’
The night seemed to close in around her, full of suffocating silence. She shivered, thinking of Larson Maiz, frightened to death by the thing Sal’s father had brought into the world, whatever it was. ‘It came this way?’
‘And recently, too. The wake has been getting stronger the closer we come to it. We’ve been measuring the width and the way it varies depending on the landscape and vegetation it passes through. It seems to spread further when there’s less around it — the earth and living things interfere with it, reduce its strength. We had no idea how strong it would become in the Broken Lands, and that was our mistake. While Kail followed the wake on foot, the rest of us were using the roads to cut in front of it, head it off. We must have just missed it. We crossed its path without warning, just over that hill. The buses died immediately, sucked dry of the Change. We lost contact with Kail. We were stuck.’
‘Did you see it?’ asked Sal.
‘No.’ Marmion shook his head. With his thoughts focused on something other than the two of them, the Warden seemed much less defensive, although never truly comfortable. ‘Nor did we see your father. We could only sit and wait for Kail to find us, in the hope that he could get the buses going again. He couldn’t. He’s never seen anything like this before. Neither has Banner. Hopefully, she and Tom can get us moving again soon, otherwise we’ll have to continue on foot, thereby losing our only advantage.’
His voice was full of frustration, which Shilly could understand. To have been so close to the Homunculus and then have it snatched out of his grasp must have been galling. And now she and Sal had appeared, adding to his problems.
‘Who is Kail, exactly?’ asked Sal.
‘Habryn Kail is a tracker from Camarinha. They get a lot of strange things spilling over from the Divide up there, and he knows the spoor of most of them. Or so he says. Seems to me there’s not much skill in following something that leaves a trail two metres wide and travels in a perfectly straight line.’ Frustration turned querulous. ‘You two, travelling on your own, would probably catch it quicker than we would with all our impedimenta.’
Shilly took pity on him. ‘But what would we do when we caught it? I presume you have some sort of plan.’
Marmion, barely visible against the stars, bent down and picked up a stone. ‘You’re still feeling the wake, right? This is several hours old. Can you imagine what it must be like standing next to the Homunculus?’ He issued a sound that might have been a snort. ‘None of us are keen to jump uninformed into that situation. Until we can see it, even from a distance, and maybe work out what it wants, we’re as much in the dark as you are.’
The Warden threw the stone into the blackness. It clattered and skittered away.
Shilly could appreciate his position. No living thing could get rid of the Change entirely as, by definition, that which
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