Rats and Gargoyles (36 page)

The black Rat exhaled. She smelt his breath, musky
and metallic.

"So. I take a great part in this, and as great a
responsibility. And, if I am honest, greater ambition–but I perceive you are
aware of the goads of ambition yourself." He looked back at her, nodded once.
"Oh, yes. It’s apparent, if not relevant. And, to fall to the matter in hand,
there have been others in as deep as I."

The White Crow shut her mouth, which she had not
been aware hung open.

"True. There were two other leads I’d have
followed, if I’d had the time: a Reverend tutor of the University of Crime, and
a priest from the Cathedral of the Trees." She paused. "Messire Cardinal, I
don’t know you, and I wish I did. I would like to know if
you
know what
will happen, now, with your plague-
magia
. "

Softly he stressed: "Not mine. Not mine alone."

"No . . ."

They stood in silence for a moment. The black Rat
snorted quietly, and gazed at the Guards manning the siege-engine with immense
satisfaction.

"I have some conception of what approaches. But
what is one to do? We have strange masters. And one may sometimes hope to outwit
them." Amusement, amazingly enough, in his voice. "Madam, having come so far and
so fast, and through such strange occurrences, I am ready to credit the
existence of an Invisible College. Tell me, if you hazard a guess, what is to
happen now?"

Fragile accord bound them for a moment in the
sunlight.

"I’ve . . . been away. Eminence, this is how it
seems to me." Her acute gaze flicked towards him. "I think noon will see another
true death. Caused by that
magia
which you, and perhaps his Majesty?
yes–which you have scattered under the heart of the world . . ."

He motioned with one hand, as if to say "Go on."

The White Crow took off her hat and fanned herself
with the brim, and replaced it on her head. The sun burned hot on her hair.
"Only I don’t know, messire, if you know all of what that
magia
is
intended for."

A sardonic stare met hers: as curious, and as
cynical. The White Crow swallowed. Her shirt clung to her breasts, wet under the
arms, her own sweat rank in her nostrils.

"I spoke with the Lady of the Eleventh Hour," she
said. "We all speak with Decans, your Eminence. Me with mine, you with the Decan
of Noon and Midnight, The Spagyrus."

"The Order of Guiry’s relations with The Spagyrus
have always been most . . . cordial." Cardinal-General Plessiez straightened.
"That really is enough, Master- Captain, unless you have practical advice for
me."

"You know what another death of the soul could do?"

"I conceive some idea."

"Truly?" She stared. "You knew what you were
doing?"

A chill entered the Cardinal-General’s voice. "I
believe I did."

Their fragile accord parted as spider-thread parts
in a summer breeze.

"I can’t believe that
any
one—"

The siege-engine shook, motor roaring.

The White Crow gripped the jutting shield-wall.
Plessiez’s warm body brushed hers as he grabbed at the same support. She twisted
to stare over her shoulder. The Lord-Architect had vanished: the engine-trapdoor
stood open.

"No
–I permit it!" Plessiez snapped an order;
the Guards remained at their stations. The motor coughed a cloud of blue smoke
and groaned as the wheels gripped the cobbles. Noise increased, plateaued. The
beaked rams swiveled as the siege-engine ground to point north-aust.

The White Crow regained balance, the weight of pack
and sword heavy on her. "You’ll allow this?"

The siege-engine thrummed, gathering speed. Streets
flowed past. She rocked with the velocity. Ahead the sky turns ashen with the
first finials of the Fane-in-the-Twelfth-District.

"It is no great detour. I have the time–and,
possibly, I admit, the necessity–to indulge my expert engineer. I regret," the
Cardinal-General’s voice rasped, pitched to carry over the metallic clash of
gears, still with a mockery in it, "I regret what you will find when we leave
you, madam. It has been so for five days, for all of us; even for your kind–the
Fane is closed to all entry now."

Zar-bettu-zekigal pushed past Andaluz, dodging the
Boat’s speechless passengers; and he shaded his eyes against the glare. A
Katayan woman of medium height and in her middle twenties walked down the
gangplank, peacock-blue satin coat and white breeches gleaming in the sun.

Her shadow lay on the plank, sharp-edged and blue.

"Elish? Oh, what! What are you
doing
here?
How come you’re on the Boat? You haven’t been through the Night!"

"I did die, little one. I’m back now."

Short black hair fell in curls over her pale
forehead, a lace cravat foamed in ruffles under her chin; and she whisked a tail
as black as her hair through the slit in the satin coat. "Father told me the
courtseers predict ill fortune for you. I came to do what I could. How else
could I get here and not spend a year traveling, except on the Boat?"

"Elish!"

Zar-bettu-zekigal flung her arms around the older
Katayan woman, hugging her violently. The older woman patted her back. She
raised her head, and Andaluz saw her smile as she met his eyes. He straightened
his doublet and executed his best formal bow.

"Madam, I take you to be from the South Katayan
court? May I, on behalf of the Candovard Embassy, welcome you here, and offer
you any assistance that you may need?"

"Sir, I thank you. I—" The Katayan woman pried Zar-bettu-zekigal’s head out of her lace ruffles.
"Zar’! Behave. What have you got yourself into
now?"

Still with her arm about the woman’s waist, the
young Katayan faced Andaluz. "This is my best full-sister, Elish-hakku-zekigal.
Elish, this is Ambassador Andaluz; he’s Lucas’s uncle. Oh, dirt! You don’t know
Lucas. Or messire the Cardinal. We have to talk! I’ve been working as a Memory.
Messire Andaluz, may my sister come in the coach with us?"

Andaluz smiled. "Of course, child."

"We’ll have to take Charnay up to the square with
us.
Charnay!
Get over here, you dumb Rat. And then there’s the
Hyena–Elish, you have
got
to meet her, she’s wonderful!"

The black-haired Katayan smiled tolerantly.

"Another one of your true loves, Zar’? Messire
Ambassador, I apologize for my sister. I would be extremely grateful for your
hospitality; there are matters that I wish to discuss. I have some informal
status as plenipotentiary envoy from South Katay."

Andaluz lifted his head, scenting on the breeze
something at once sweet and nauseous. It faded. He looked around at the sun and
the sea and the white marble of the docks, deserted now but for the last
travelers on the Boat, walking away into the city. The brown Rat had her snout
lowered, listening to something that the clerk explained with short abrupt
gestures. Andaluz saw both of them glance up the steps towards the airfield
sands.

"You’ve walked in on a critical moment, Madam
Elish-hakku-zekigal. I think the wisest thing that I can offer you and your
sister is the protection of the Embassy Compound."

"Oh,
what!"
Zar-bettu-zekigal stepped away
from her sister, planting her fists on her narrow hips. "I have to find the
Hyena and Messire Plessiez. I’ve got work to do!"

"I really would advise—"

A screech ripped into his ear. Andaluz jerked
around, one hand automatically clapped over his left ear, blinded by the sun off
the lagoon-harbor. A blaze of red and yellow flapped in his face. He stumbled
back.

A new voice called: "Careful! You’ll frighten him!
Here, Ehecatl; here, boy."

The brilliant-feathered bird scuttered in the air,
circled, and fell to perch on the shoulder of a woman who stood halfway down the
gangplank. Andaluz brushed furiously at his guano-spotted doublet and breeches.

"Madam, I really must protest!"

"Really? Then, please don’t let me stop you." The
woman tapped her way down the gangplank, leaning on a bamboo cane.

Andaluz looked down at her as she approached. Skin
shining a pale ochre, braided hair shining white, she stood barely as tall as
his collar-bone. Lines wrinkled about her eyes as she smiled up at him, a woman
some years short of sixty.

"Sir, I apologize. The journey’s been hard, and I
fear I’ve not arrived in time. Elish, help me with my baggage, please. I have
two trunks on deck. Can you and your–sister, is it?–fetch them down here?"

The young Katayan gaped, then followed the elder
with trepidation up the gangplank and leaned over to grab two cases, careful not
to set a foot on the deck of the Boat. Andaluz rubbed his mouth thoughtfully,
managing to conceal a chuckle.

"Sir, I don’t know who you are." The parakeet clung
to her shoulder, guano spotting the crimson, purple and orange-patterned linen
robes that swathed her. A small humming-bird hovered around her head, brilliant
blue; and from a fold in the robes at her breast a dusty sparrow peered out.

"Candovard Ambassador, madam. My name is Andaluz.
Welcome to—"

"An ambassador? How marvelous!
Just
the man
I wanted to see." She snapped her fingers. "Elish, help your little sister, will
you? Those cases must
not
be damaged, and they’re heavy. Now,
messire–Andaluz, is it?–kindly call me a carriage, and make sure that the horses
are lively. I’ve much to do."

The woman tapped past Andaluz, his clerk and the
brown Rat. Andaluz caught a glimpse of gold sandals under the trailing robes.
Sprays of scarlet-and-blue feathers had been braided into her long white plait.
Now three bright humming-birds hovered in the air around her.

"Make haste!" She snapped her fingers again, and
the two Katayan women fell in behind her, each with a small brass-bound trunk on
her shoulder.

"Madam, I—" Andaluz moved forward, and found
himself running up the quay steps to catch up with the woman. "I don’t think you
understand. It’s dangerous to be on the streets today. If you’ll come with me to
my Residence . . ."

Breath failed him at the top of the marble steps.
The small woman paused, looking up at him with eyes bright and amber as the
parakeet’s. Laughter shifted in the lines of her round face. Shadows fell across
her: high and distant, circling wings. Andaluz glanced up into an empty sky.
When he looked down, the shadows remained.

Speaking with an inborn respect for
magia,
he asked: "Lady, may I know your name?"

The older Katayan woman shouldered her trunk,
sweating in the heat, and said: "Messire Ambassador, this is the Lady of the
Birds."

"Luka to you, young man. Now . . ."

She smiled, disclosing crooked but white teeth, and
rested her light hand on Andaluz’s; a smile of such sweetness that he forgot his
breathlessness and concern.

"First," the Lady Luka said, "I need to find my
son. I believe he’s here in the heart of the world. You may know of him. He’s a
Lord-Architect. His name is Baltazar Casaubon."

The acolytes swarmed, their flight warping sky and
light.

Warm dust skirled about the White Crow’s ankles,
blowing across the lichen-covered steps. Heat slammed back at her from the
stone. Swinging the backpack from her shoulders and squatting, frog-like, she
rummaged for a strip of paper written over with characters.

"C,mon, girl, come
on;
you haven’t got all
day—"

Echoes of her mutter clicked back double and triple
from the Fane of the Decan of Noon and Midnight. Arches, pinnacles and
buttresses reared above and around, blackening all the north-aust sky. She
irritably rubbed the hair out of her eyes; pinned the thin strip of paper in a
tight four-way loop about the hilt of her rapier.

A cracked elderly voice called: "Here’s another
fool! Another one as mad as you are, young Candia!"

She risked a glance down the steps. The abandoned
scaffolding shimmered in the heat. The path ran back between pyramids of bricks,
gleaming like black tar under the sun; vanished among abandoned piles of
halfdressed masonry. At the foot of the steps of the Fane a man stumbled as he
walked, supported by the arm and shoulder of a white-haired woman.

The White Crow stood. "Get
up
here. No,
don’t argue; get up here in the shelter of the arch. I don’t know who the hell
you are, but if you want to stay alive to regret this,
move
!"

She slung the pack up on her shoulders and gripped
the hilt of her sword. The corded grip fitted her palm easily, smoothly; with
the hard feel of something right and fitting. She raised her head.

High above, circling, swarming, no larger than
birds or insects at this distance, acolytes flew restlessly up from pinnacles,
gutters, high Gothic arches. One beast swept low, gargoyle-wings outspread,
bristle tail lashing the air. High-pitched humming chittered in the heat.

"Oh shit . . .
move
!"

A small old woman in a blue dress limped up the
steps, one arm tightly hooked about a fair-haired man in his thirties. The White
Crow grabbed the man’s arm, thrust him under the overhanging carving of the
great arched door; reached a hand to the old woman and dodged back with her,
eyes still fixed on the sky. The acolyte hovered, wings beating, raising up
dust.

"Saw you on the road behind me. What in gods’ names
possessed you to come here?"

"We might ask you the same thing, missy."

The man’s voice, amazed, said: "She’s a
Scholar-Soldier."

Heat reflected back from the dizzying heights of
stone above, and from the great brass-hinged wooden doors. The White Crow
coughed, smelling a sweetness of roses. She risked an eye-watering glance at the
sun. Overhead: closing fast with noon.

"Not fast enough. Now, there’s an irony." Her pulse
thundered away the minutes, beating in her head. She fingered the talismans with
a sweat-slick hand,
magia
protecting against heat, not against fear. "And
if the damn place is closed anyway—"