The Unmaking (13 page)

Even as she said it, she realized she did not know the spells to open the vast iron door. There was no other way that she knew of for the dragons to get out. Charlie had gone. Suppose she was trapped here, with Nia and the Cra and the army of stone Mancers? Fear spread through her stomach, a cold sick ripple. But she began to walk back down the tunnel anyway and a hiss of smoke soared over her head. She heard the grating sound of scale on scale as more than one dragon lumbered to its feet, and the crash of claws on the stone floor of the cavern. They were coming with her. Not turning around, she walked back to the turn she had taken earlier and carried on straight. To her immense relief, the massive door at the end of the tunnel swung open with a groan as they approached, revealing a bright square of daylight. She did not know if it was the dragons performing this Magic, or even Nia sending her off on her quest, but it didn’t matter. Eliza turned, and now she could see the dragons filling the cavern. The one nearest to her was staring at her intently, its head hanging low to the ground. Each of its gleaming, kaleidoscopic eyes was the size of her head.

“May I...get on?” she asked nervously. The dragon stared. She walked around its head, noting the steam that furled from its pulsing nostrils and the teeth like sabers curving over its powerful jawbone. Its neck was long and serpentine, gold-spiked. She placed a cautious hand at the base of its neck, just before it broadened out into muscled, scaled shoulders. On one of the scales she noticed a mark that seemed to have been branded on to it. It was the character for fire.

“You’re Ka’s dragon,” said Eliza.

The dragon lifted its head ever so slightly, looking back at her, waiting. So she put her dagger away and took hold of one of the gold spikes with both hands. She braced her left foot against the creature’s neck and heaved herself up and over, so she was seated at the base of the neck, between spikes, her back against the one behind her, holding on to the one ahead of her. As soon as she was settled, the dragon lumbered towards that square of light. The Mancer Citadel could move from place to place in Di Shang but for some years now it had been perched on the edge of a cliff in the arid plains approaching the Western Ocean. The door opened onto a dizzying drop into a canyon. The dragon leaped through the open door, joyfully stretched out its huge wings and pounded the air. The other dragons, letting out sharp, whistling screams, followed close behind. All five of them, including the dragon that carried Eliza, swooped down into the canyon and soared back up, embracing the wind and spitting fire. Unlike the wild dragons Swarn commanded, these dragons spent most of their time in a dark cavern. No wonder the open sky seemed to bring them such delight. Eliza, too, felt a great release in leaving the conquered Citadel behind. A part of her wanted only to go and hide or return to Tian Xia and beg Swarn for protection as Charlie had told her to. But she knew Nia was not lying when she said the monster she had made was going to find Eliza’s mother. There was no time to go to Tian Xia, and hiding was not an option. It was not only her mother she had to protect. She was the Shang Sorceress. If the Mancers were all turned to stone there was only her to stop the thing before it hurt anyone. Nia knew her well and had created the perfect distraction.

As these thoughts raced through her mind, something struck her like a thunderbolt –
created
. I’ve
made
something special, Nia had said. Eliza couldn’t be sure that the thing was not Illusion but if Nia thought Eliza might have Faery blood with which to defend herself against Illusion it seemed unlikely she would rely on it. The ravens had warned her about Nia’s coming and about
Making
. Could it be that Nia had in fact
Made
a monster, just as that long ago wizard had Made the mortal dragons? If the thing was not an Illusion, what else could it be?

At her command, the dragons veered south over the parched earth. She kept an eye out for Charlie but did not see him and tried not to worry. Unlike her mother and all the people in the border towns between here and the desert, Charlie could take care of himself. He was a survivor, she told herself. The dragons dove in formation. Soon Eliza saw what they had seen. Nia’s creature was flying low to the ground in an odd sort of zig-zag, roaring occasionally.

Eliza kept the Onbeweglich Cord always looped at the back of her coat. They had been a birthday present from Foss. While Foss had no doubt been right that it was excessive to use such powerful bonds on Abimbola Broom, they would be useful now. If Nia had Made this creature, then perhaps catching and killing it would hurt her in some way. Two of the dragons were making for it at a terrifying speed. When they were almost upon it they each spat a long blade of fire straight into it. The creature seemed to draw the flames into itself, absorbing the fire into its burning body, trailing flames through the air and burning even more brightly in the seams and cracks between its seared flesh. Eliza’s dragon stayed above the others to give her a good view of what was happening. Fire would be of no use, obviously. The thing was already on fire; it was half made of fire. A third dragon dove into the thing and made to tear it apart with its vicious talons. The talons cut right through the monster but could not pull it apart. It was bonded tight by something else, something not physical. The burning flesh and bright, visible bone was severed in so many places and yet everything remained in place as if held together by some internal gravity. They had been flying low and the dragon hurled the burning beast to the ground. It tumbled and rolled and then rose upright with another roar, wings flexing. It was a roar of such unrelenting agony and rage that Eliza’s heart clenched and a sob rose to her throat. Another dragon made a pass over its head. The beast leaped into the air and scraped its spiked fists against the scales of the dragon’s belly. The dragon screamed and pounded its wings, rising out of reach, but the thing moved with it and drove several fists at once right into its chest. The other dragons all made for the thing at once and it fell away from them, spinning in flames as they breathed great balls of fire onto it. The hurt dragon crashed to the ground and threw its head back with a hideous scream. The monster was upon it in no time, slashing at its neck, and had to be pulled off by the three others while Ka’s dragon circled anxiously overhead with Eliza on its back. What Eliza saw below her was a simple stalemate. The dragons were faster and stronger and outnumbered Nia’s creation but the thing had one very clear advantage – it seemed to be indestructible. The dragons could tear it to pieces but it was already torn to pieces. They could burn it with fire but it was already burning. How could they destroy destruction embodied? They could delay it and hold it off but until they understood how it had been Made they could not kill it.

The hurt dragon was spitting blood now, thrashing its wings with rage. But Eliza knew enough from Swarn’s tales of dragon-killing to know it was not near death yet.

“Down,” Eliza told Ka’s dragon and he dove straight for the raging beast. As they approached, she felt her breath drawn out of her, the air growing hot and thin and then unbreathable. This was not like killing the Cra. She could not make an error here. She gave herself over to her Deep Knowing, whirled the Onbeweglich Cord over her head and let them fly, holding one end in her hand. The lasso at the other end looped neatly over the monster’s neck and Eliza pulled it fast. The dragon circled the thing at breakneck speed and Eliza wound the Cord around it. She had it, bound fast. But just as soon as she felt a surge of triumph the thing began to burn brighter inside, bleeding lava out between its cracks. It strained and strained and twisted and then burst free of the Cord, leaving the Magic rope she had used to lasso so many of the Cra in tatters. Ka’s dragon rose quickly out of reach of the thing. It did not pursue them. Eliza drew in a deep shuddering breath of air.

A new plan formulated quickly in her mind and she gave her commands now. “Dragons of the Mancers,” she called in the Language of First Days, fumbling for the right words, “Two of you must delay the monster. Drive it away from the...centres of living. One of you must go to the Xia Sorceress’s former prison in the, um, land of snow. Bring me the Book of Barriers.”

The wounded dragon was hunched on the stony ground now, staring up at her.

“Find refuge,” she called down as Ka’s dragon circled anxiously above it.

The dragons obeyed immediately, the injured dragon and one other veering north and two following the beast south. Nia’s creature was bounding along the earth now, using it wings to glide several feet with each stride before touching the ground again with scalding hooves. The two dragons might be able to slow it down for a while, Eliza reasoned, but they would likely tire more quickly doing battle. It could hurt them but they could not hurt it. They would need help to stop it. The Mancers could not help her and the journey to Tian Xia would take too long but there were still some powers in Di Shang she could call on.

Ka’s dragon looked back at her with one glittering eye.

“To Kalla,” she told it.

~~~

While Eliza flew towards the capital on Ka’s dragon, Nell was heading away from Kalla on a train to Elmount. It was one of the modern, high-speed
Confortare
trains. She had come out at the beginning of the semester on one of the old trains. It had been cramped and the air-conditioning had been broken but on the
Confortare
even the second class berths were relatively comfortable. A kindly attendant in a red blazer came around offering hot tea or coffee every hour or so. For the first few hours of the journey she enjoyed the view out the window of the world blanketed in snow, looking eagerly at the prosperous towns and cities they passed through. But now they were roaring along a black tunnel through the mountains and would be for some time.

End of term exams were finished at last and Nell was confident she had done well. Better, she hoped, than Oscar Van Holt, her main rival for top of the class. Now her mind was on other things, such as the outfit she’d bought in Kalla for Winter Festival, and whether Charlie and Eliza would be there or off on some adventure without her. Dearly as Nell loved her friends, it caused her no end of grief to be shut out of the Magic and excitement of their lives. Eliza was a Sorceress and Charlie was a Shade and their lives were entirely made up of strange adventures, whereas she, Nell, just had to go to school like an ordinary child. If they weren’t in Holburg, Winter Festival would be entirely spoiled for her. She would only be able to think of what she was missing. But if they were there, they would tell her fantastic stories and Charlie would take her flying when everybody else was asleep.

With nothing to look at out the windows now, Nell opened a novel on her lap and pretended to read, while actually examining her fellow passengers. The train to Elmount was mainly full of people returning to the archipelago for Winter Festival. Elmount was one of those cities that islanders and vacationers passed through but where nobody actually seemed to live. Although of course there must be people on the train going home to Elmount as well. Nell shared her berth with an elderly couple and a strange-looking young man with a pale, narrow face and a mop of dark hair. Every time she looked at him, he twitched nervously and glanced at her, as if he could feel her gaze.

The elderly man was reading a newspaper he’d bought at the last stop. Now he folded it up and put it away, saying loudly to his wife, “Nothing new here! Abimbola Broom’s trial and the Cra are still all over the front page, aye.”

Nell brightened immediately, leaning towards them. “What’s that about the Cra?” she asked. The woman looked disapproving, as if this was not a suitable subject for a young girl to take such an interest in, but her husband seemed quite happy to talk about it.

“Lah, you remember a couple of months back they
disappeared
. Mancers got them, that’s the official report, aye. Almost all of them, all at once, which makes you wonder... Lah, of course we owe our very world to the Mancers and so it doesnay do to sound ungrateful, but if they could just round them all up like that, why didnay they do it before, I wonder?”

“I’m sure the Mancers have reasons for everything they do,” said his wife placidly.

“Lah, that’s what’s in the
papers,
” said the man cheerfully, ignoring his wife. “But at the
newsstand
they were saying there’ve been attacks all over the Republic just today, aye. No mention of
that
in the papers. Say what you will about Abimbola Broom, but the papers have gone downhill since he was put on trial.”

“If it just happened
today,
how would it be in the papers already?” his wife asked pointedly.

“Attacks by the Cra?” asked Nell.

“Nobody knows,” said the man smugly.

The young man emitted a high-pitched laugh that made them all jump.

“Except those who were attacked!” he said. “
They
know.”

“Aye,” said the elderly man gruffly, as if he did not think much of this contribution.

“Whatever it is, the Mancers will protect us,” said his wife. “But it’s probably nothing, if it’s nay in the papers. Just gossip.”

“You said yourself, it cannay be in the papers yet if it just happened!” the man said belligerently.

Nell looked out the window at the roaring blackness. Part of her was very excited, as always when
Something Was Happening
, but at the same time her heart was breaking. If
Something Was Happening
, Charlie and Eliza would almost certainly be in the thick of it and would not come to Holburg.