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Or would be here.
Maybe they would meet.
“I’m not sure I’d like that,” she whispered, still walking. “I’m already stretched thin.” She dropped again as something on the trod skimmed by, like a huge di
She decided against touching the blade, much less picking it up. Could be a trap. Then the hair on her arms pricked—something was watchingher—and she swung around, dizzied as the entire horizon seemed to careen this way and that—
And faced her first ancient breed. There wasn’t time to look away. A male, she guessed. Not alive. Not dead.
And not alone. There were hundreds just like him, crawling or walking over the ridge into the valley, a river of figures, each smaller than her—this one barely up to her shoulder—and festooned with scraps of what might have once been thick clothing—armor? Red, orange, green, and blue, now faded, ripped and hanging like tissue.
They were marchers. She was sure of it. Their faces drooped like soft wax, their eyes—
She could not look into their eyes. Failed, lost, changed. Like ants they flowed into the valley, trying to reach something in the center, a structure hidden by a trick of the light, unless—as she did, frightened—you spun around twice, flinching and leaping between each spin to evade those who trudged past.
And after the second rotation—she saw.
Like a huge house or castle, it rose from a shallow crater in the center of the valley—could it actually be that many miles wide, that many miles high?—shining and cold, like hoar-frosted green glass. Every bend of her head or twist of her gaze made it almost impossible to simply seethe structure again. Still, with effort and focus, its detail grew—and its true immensity became more apparent. It had to be a city.
The line of failed marchers were indeed like ants, flowing toward the bowl and the city at the center—where they would slide in and be pinched up by a predator, like an ant lion, while all around the arena the silent sculptures formed a nightmare audience, caught in mid-hope, mid-stride, frozen into something like stone.
A history lesson, she thought.
She moved along with the marchers. It was time.
Time to go down there.
Into the False City.
CHAPTER 86
The Kalpa
Ghentun’s relief at leaving the Broken Tower was clear even to his young companion. They said very little on their descent to the upper urbs, and Ghentun made no attempt to hide the city’s dismal realities—such as they were—from Jebrassy’s bright, curious eyes. If the Librarian could educate them in his selective way, then the Keeper could supplement that education from a more grounded perspective—by taking the long way down, and showing how dire the city’s situation had become. Jebrassy said little as they moved through the highest urbs and levels of the first bion, carried along and between and around the sinuous tracks and cha
The intrusions had broken through to all levels of the Kalpa. Many of the tracks and cha
“I don’t understand” was all Jebrassy managed as they descended below the Eidolon urbs and approached the ruins of the crèche.
“Welcome to all our lost worlds, high and low, young breed,” Ghentun murmured. “I’m more at home down here.”
They walked through the Shaper’s domain, now a shambles—barriers broken, machines collapsed in blackened piles of molten slag, but fortunately, no evidence remained of the lost young themselves. The many-armed Shaper had made an attempt at cleaning up after the most devastating intrusions. Clearly, however, there was no longer a crèche, and the umbers would never again deliver young breeds to the Tiers to be raised in the old way.
They stood silent before the Shaper, who gave Jebrassy a brief caress with one long, warm finger. The breed drew back in shock and embarrassment. But he could feel new knowledge filling his insides like a rich and energizing meal. It spread a cool, speedy lubrication throughout his being. He liked that sensation—but he did not enjoy the following awareness of how badly wrong things had gone, nor how ignorant he had been of the foundations of his existence.
He felt small, but not diminished. So much to tell Tiadba when they finally met again. Of that eventuality he was absolutely convinced, despite the gloomy presence of the Tall One—which puzzled him. He
would almost have rather made the attempt alone.
Could a breed and a Tall One—a Mender—ever act like equals? Jebrassy felt up to the task. But he wasn’t so sure the Keeper could actually keep up once they were in the Chaos. Ghentun issued his final instructions to the Shaper—using words Jebrassy could not understand, though he suspected they were not so much elevated or inaccessible as simply specialized.
“The last generation,” Ghentun said as they departed the crèche. “It saddens. But it’s long since time this was done with.”
“Why?” Jebrassy asked. “Weren’t the breeds worthy of being made?”
Ghentun looked down with puzzled respect. Perhaps the Librarian had been liberal with his information, or at least his allowance of sophistication. Either that or they had all underestimated the facility of their smaller charges—in much the same way Eidolons dismissed the abilities of Menders. The worst part of this start to their journey came when they passed through the Tiers. The Keeper had given Jebrassy his gift of invisibility.
A few breeds had survived. They wandered among the smoky ruins, dismayed at the destruction of their blocs and their meadows, yet still trying to put their lives back in order—but clearly that would no longer be possible.
While Jebrassy could hardly have understood the destruction wrought upon the upper levels, this hit him hard. This threw a dark pall over his sense of challenge and adventure. There would be no coming home—that had been clear to him from the begi
“I feel sad,” he told Ghentun as they descended to the flood cha
The hike along the black-streaked cha
“No doubt,” Ghentun said.
“How far?”
“We’ve come thirty miles. We have forty more to go before we pass between the i