I had thought the inside would be dark as a cave. My mind was full of the thought of animal lairs, pitfalls and just a general horror of lightless enclosed spaces. As I crossed out of that odd little room, I saw that in this, time had been my ally. The great shell of dirt and trees and vines that wrapped about the House had torn its metal skin many times, so that the dimness all around was pierced by shafts of daylight and the curved ceiling was scattered with artificial constellations. The roots had thrust in all over, but they had been cut back just as at the door, in what was surely an ongoing battle with nature.
I saw even then that Sharskin’s destiny had a deadline. One day all of this cave of wonders would fall in upon itself and be lost to the world, and if we had not regained the powers of our ancestors by then, we never would. The House had stood for hundreds of years, Sharskin said, and doubtless it would endure long past our deaths, but that is not the same as forever. There was no excuse for dragging our feet and letting the next generation of outcasts do the work.
The inside of the House was divided into many rooms, each connected by those same square doorways, some of which were still half blocked by doors that looked to have slid in from within the very walls themselves before becoming rusted into place. We saw just the first chamber of it then, a great arched space, the walls lined with strange blocky sculptures and, where the mould and moss had been thoroughly cleared away, decorated with little spiky pictures. Right then, though, our attention was on the occupants. Even as the two of us entered, others were creeping out from nooks and holes or ducking it from neighbouring rooms. They were men and some women, mostly young and one surely younger even than me, and every one of them bore the red Mark of Cain somewhere on their body. And they bore it proudly, wearing tunics open to show the blazon of it against their chest, going in breechclouts to display the crimson splash of it against their legs, wherever their lawgivers had chosen to mark them. I could only stare, because the contrast between Sharskin’s followers and the pitiful work crew at Orovo was staggering. These men were fit and strong, not the starved skeletons of those thrown away and left to die. They would have driven out the Harboons in a day, and given the good people of Orovo nightmares to see the Severed so powerful and so unified.
Their looks to Ostel and myself were hostile and suspicious, but that changed when Sharskin stepped in behind us. There were lots of hard grins amongst them then, and I saw them truly note the spatter of red up my face, the patterns on Ostel’s. We were immediately reclassified from intruders to comrades, our Severance not a sign of abandonment but a badge of brotherhood.
“My friends!” Sharskin called into that echoing space. “Welcome our new companions! Ostel and Handry, who were cast out from their homes but who were strong, as you all were strong. They survived even with all the world against them. They have earned the right to be among us and to know the truth of their inheritance!” A cheer went up, which was a long way from the reception I had become used to from any other group of human beings. Sharskin had walked past us to stand before his congregation and now he turned, his arms spread wide. “Look upon the House of our Ancestors! Man’s hands built this place. Everything you see was crafted by those who came before us. Those skills were ours once and they shall be again! See these marks?” And he pointed his staff at the spindly little pictures set into the walls. “Men set learning in these marks that I can unlock, learning the lawgivers and their ghosts don’t want you to know! You will learn so much here, my friends, but know this first of all. This is the greatest secret of our ancestors: we were not born to live as witless slaves of ghosts and wasps. We are humans, and it is in our power to remake the work. That is our gift; that is our duty.”
It was a speech he had surely given many times before, but I suspect he never tired of it. “Do you think a ghost came and told men how to build this House?” he asked us. “No! They discovered that knowledge for themselves, wrested it from the world with their own hands. Do you think a ghost led the way from their far home to this place? No! They studied the skies and made their own road, surviving terrors and hazards you cannot even imagine.”
I looked from him to his followers, then to Ostel, who was no help and saying nothing. Sharskin plainly saw my thoughts on my face because he nodded, kindly enough. “It’s a lot to take in, boy, isn’t it? You’ve questions, so many of them? Ask one now. Set your mind at ease. What’s the greatest thing you need explained?”
I took my heart in my hands, knowing that if I angered him, nobody would lift a finger to stop him killing me like he’d killed Menic. “How can you know this?” I asked.
His smile only broadened, though, a teacher with a quick pupil. It was the right question after all.
“The House of our Ancestors told me,” he explained reverently and, seeing my expression, “You think I mean a ghost, perhaps? Do you see in this face of mine any fit dwelling for ghosts?” And they all laughed, because it was hardly something you’d mistake. “Or you think I’m deranged, thinking a house can tell me anything? Is that why I was Severed in the first place, because my mind’s not right and I hear things that aren’t there? I don’t blame you for wondering, boy, but you only think that because you’re ignorant and born of ignorant folk, kept in the dark by the ghosts rather than allowed to ask proper questions. Handry, I understand you, I do! I’m giving you a hard meal, small wonder you cannot swallow it.”
At that, Ostel raised a timorous hand because his mind had very much been on something simpler than the wonders of the ancient world. Sharskin regarded him fondly. “You will learn the secrets of how this world was made,” he told us, “and how we were betrayed, but first we will eat.”
I would rather have learned. My shrunken stomach had been growling for a while, but hunger was an old friend after all, and eating had been no joy to me for a long time, save that concoction of Iblis’s. I readied myself for a handful of berries or grains that might or might not make me sick, and would fill my mouth with a bitterness I could never become accustomed to. I felt a sudden stab of longing for the meals and treats of my childhood. In that moment I would have traded all Sharskin’s brotherhood for the chance to go back.
Then one of his followers pressed something into my hand. It was a dense slab of something, shiny where the light touched it and nothing like food. I stared at it and at them, and Ostel tried to bite his and made a gagging sound as it deformed beneath his teeth without actually breaking.
There was some laughter, the sort that grows from seeing someone else’s misfortune, but then Sharskin struck his staff on the floor with a hollow boom, and one of his people came forwards and showed us that the shiny stuff could be peeled back like the rubbery bark of a tree, and within was something soft like clay. I met Ostel’s eyes and shrugged, and touched my tongue to it.
Sweet! So very sweet and good, and in a breath I’d taken a bite of it, expecting to have to chew away to make it palatable. It had no texture, though, and slid down my throat with blissful ease. I gobbled the finger-sized slab down, and then another, feeling it seem to swell within me, not to pain but to a welcome fullness. There were no cramps, no gagging. My body was not fighting to eject everything up or down. Sharskin looked on approvingly as Ostel and I gorged ourselves and, though we could not speak, our mute eyes shone gratitude back at him.