“All that I am, then, rests on your small shoulders, young breed. The Typhon is absorbing the old universe, from beginning to end. Our time and history are being broken up, dissolved—look out the window. The Chaos is just beyond the border of the real, waiting.”
Jebrassy forced himself to look over the curved, darkened, jumbled landscape. Outside the zone of lies, great high shapes stood up against the Chaos, difficult to make out, as if surrounded by fog. Defenders.
“Only three threads connect us to the broken past that will soon be upon us—your female, who will soon travel into the Chaos; you, and one other, a driven being, forced to abandon all principle, who cares little for any sort of existence—but who must return.”
Jebrassy frowned, trying to retrieve an elusive memory of hatred and pity. The epitome tapped the crystal window with a white finger. “The lives of you and your dream-partners are strung like beads on the cosmos’s remaining threads—heading for a collision. If all goes well, that collision will happen in Nataraja. That is where you will go—where all marchers have tried to go. There is no other destination.
“You must succeed where Sangmer failed.”
Jebrassy thought of the books and stories that Grayne had guided them to. “You’re the one who put the shelves in the Tiers—aren’t you?” he asked.
“One of me,” the epitome said. “Not very long ago.”
“How long?” Jebrassy asked, defiant.
“What if I said a hundred million wakes—could you count them, remember them all, even begin to understand how long that is?”
Jebrassy tried to stare a challenge. Finally, he glanced aside. “No,” he said.
“We are adapted to our time as well as our space. Even this epitome can hardly conceive of a hundred million wakes without external assistance, so don’t be embarrassed. And it was longer ago than that.”
CHAPTER 66
The Border of the Real
She was always going to do this.
She would always be doing this.
Tiadba had wanted to join a march long before she met Jebrassy; long before Grayne had instructed her to recruit the young breed warrior, long before she fell in love. And long before she lost her warrior. And here she was, wearing a suit of supple orange armor, feeling no fear, only that ache of grief and loneliness that would never go away—and the realization that this was what she had been made to do. To leave the Tiers, the city itself, and cross over the border of the real, beyond the reach of the Kalpa’s great generators…
To cross the Chaos and see what lay on the other side.
Pahtun took Tiadba and Khren aside and told them they were group leaders. “I’ll go as far as I can with you. But I will not go beyond the zone of lies. I must return. Our final battle is upon us.”
Tiadba looked to Khren and saw that he was intent on the trainer’s words. No sign remained of Jebrassy’s buffoonish young friend. He, too, was always going to do this. She wondered: Had all breeds been made this way?
Assisted by the four escorts, the marchers prepared to roll out the small wheeled cart that carried their claves and two portable generators.
Pahtun got to his feet and repeated what he had said earlier, so often it was almost soothing in its familiarity. “The beacon from the Kalpa is perpetual. From its pulse you will always know where lies the city. There are moments when the Witness seems to interfere with the beacon—perhaps deliberately—but you will regain the signal if you persist. All your suits possess the means. There can be no communication sent tothe city, ever—you must not alert the Chaos to your presence. There are vigilants, of all sizes and strengths, always changing but constant in their watchfulness. The Chaos is hungry.”
Khren stood beside Tiadba and glanced at her through his golden-colored face pane.
“And now—the time has come to tell you your destination,” Pahtun said. “It is the destination of all pilgrims since the time of Sangmer—the only other point on Earth where sense may still rule and where there may be help for the Kalpa. It is the rebel city called Nataraja. There, if all goes well, you will connect with whomever remains free of Typhonian rule. You will work with them and tell what you know, and follow their instructions. Believe me, young breeds, if I could go with you, I would.”
Tiadba brushed the leg pouch that contained her bag of books.
Pahtun seemed nervous, even guilty. He was repeating his instructions. “No one knows what awaits you. Your armor has reactive protection—it can learn faster than you, and will do all in its power to adapt and to protect you against the Typhon’s perversions. Your face panes will convert whatever passes for radiation into photons you can see, and that will do you no harm. Sometimes they may fail to find anything they know how to convert—and so you will see darkness or approximations based on recent events. The closer you are as a team, the more your suits can communicate and coordinate. It is unwise to straggle or scatter too far—but distance out there is difficult to judge, even with the best equipment.
“Temptations may exist. The vigilants will try to get you to switch off your generators and strip away your armor. Should you find their temptation irresistible, you will no longer be a breed, but become part of the Typhon’s misrule—an atrocity like those exhibited across so much of the Chaos. And some who have failed—even the greatest, the bravest—are used by the Typhon against the Kalpa.”
Pahtun struggled for words. “It is possible that the Defenders will fail, and you will lose the beacon’s guidance. The last option then is destruction. The armor will bestow this mercy.”
Tiadba’s suit no longer itched or chafed. She could not feel her skin—the furry bits that had bunched here and there and itched seemed to have been soothed. No doubt the armor was taking charge of all her sensations—perhaps she would soon become just a suit and not a living creature. What would Grayne think, seeing them now? How could they have been better prepared, better educated?
“We need to get moving,” Pahtun said, one hand touching his shoulder. The four escorts straightened and held out their staffs. “We have a brief opening, and we must pass through the gate before it closes.”
They began.
The halves of the marchers’ helmets swung from their neck-pieces with the rhythm of their steps. Their boots made soft, flat clicks. Together, they sounded like farm pedes crawling over dry, hard dirt. They walked for long miles beneath the huge central arch, one side illuminated by the wakelight of the far ceil, the other…not. The quality of sound changed in a way difficult to describe. Tiadba had spent her entire life in the Tiers listening to the hive-hum of voice and echo, all her fellow breeds speaking, moving, thinking.That now fell off into stony quiet and a new quality replaced it: destitute hollowness, bereft, lonely yet somehow proud—and more ancient than any of them could conceive.
The Tiers had always stood apart within the Kalpa, lower than any other level, yet special, different. How many marchers had performed this journey already, as scared as they were, as lonely and far from all they had ever known?
“It’s quiet,” Khren said.
Miles to go—hundreds, thousands. Who could know?
We’re leaving the Tiers behind forever.
We’re crossing into the Chaos.
Whether their eyes adjusted to the gloom or the air here was clearer, Tiadba could not say—but suddenly she could make out square, regular shapes lined up on each side of the arch—taller than the tallest of the blocs of Tiers.
“What are those?” she asked, keeping her voice soft. Out here she felt it might be even more important to show respect.
“The inner rank of reality generators,” Pahtun said. “They become active if the outer ranks fail.”
The floor was uneven, broken by periodic ripples as if it had buckled under awesome pressure. Here and there, scars and parallel scuffs marred the otherwise smooth surface. Perhaps intrusions had slipped through this way, touched down…and burned.