Sean Williams - Cataclysm 01 by The Crooked Letter

Author:The Crooked Letter
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The expedition followed fetid, narrow lanes through Abaddon. The buildings around them grew taller and more elegant, their sides ribbed and curved as though they had been grown rather than built. The buildings swayed and shuddered every time one of the realm-warping distortions swept through them. The effects were so severe that at one point they were forced to stop walking entirely and huddle together as the world quaked. Fortunately, the city’s inhabitants seemed more distracted by such symptoms of Yod’s master plan than by wanted fugitives roaming the streets. When the worst of it had passed, they continued unhindered to where the kaia had arranged for them to begin the second leg of their journey to Sheol.

For several blocks now, Seth had become aware of a growing darkness and a rising noise. The sound was deep and bone-shakingly loud, as though from a giant engine idling nearby. He didn’t realise what it was until they emerged from a secluded lane into a relatively clear area and saw the ‘twixter anchored at its centre. The giant rotating storm hung overhead, its funnel swirling with black violence. Its throat narrowed to a furiously spinning tube barely two metres across, pointed at the ground like a terrestrial tornado. Five curving spines arched gracefully out of the ground near its mouth, keeping it contained and fixed to a point just over head-height. Seth could see the distortion the ‘twixter made on the world as it sucked air into its hungry maw.

Four kaia dressed in concealing black robes hurried out of a nook further round the clearing, and joined them where they stood gawping at the storm’s mouth. The kaia bore a sack each. Wordlessly, they produced a number of complex-looking harnesses from the sacks and handed one to each of the voyagers. Seth, although he had grave misgivings, did as instructed, looping the straps over his shoulders and around his thighs. When in place, three small pouches nestled down his spine, from the small of his back to his coccyx. They were warm and vibrated slightly.

‘Are these what I think they are?’ His words were swept away by the storm so even he barely heard them.

‘This looks dangerous,’ shouted Agatha, her words amplified by will and echoing in Seth’s skull, ‘but it doesn’t have to be. The seraph do it as a sport all the time! There are races, duels, ballet —’

‘Have you ever done it?’ he shouted back.

‘Never!’ The woman’s skin was pale, belying her confidence.

‘Xol?’

The dimane shook his head. ‘I do not fare well in high places.’

The kaia checked their equipment, fussing at clasps with tiny hands, then showed them how to activate the pouches. Seth watched as Agatha’s wings spun into life, astonished by their beauty and fragility. They were little more than shimmers, glimmering gossamer wings vibrating so fast he could make out neither their exact shape nor their size. The air around Agatha’s back was suddenly a haze of energy, a gravity-defying blur that lifted her ever so slightly off the ground, so her steps bounced and sent her golden hair flying.

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