“Hold!” Shadow’s voice rang out across the room. Mercy could see the disir clearly now, the rows of teats down her abdomen between the cracked leather harness, the razor-toothed mouth.
“Hold!” The blood, far more than the few drops that Mercy and Shadow had shed, boiled over the lip of the bowl and surged towards the edge of the circle, then beyond, a thin line of red reaching out to the triangle and extinguishing the fire. The disir sprang out, crouching for a moment, then rushing forward. Shadow’s blade was already out and Mercy freed the sword, stepped back, and came up against a wall of air. The circle was still holding her in; if she tried to strike, she was likely to hit Shadow. The alchemist cried out and struck down with the blade. But the disir had learned from the loss of her hand. Mercy could see the stump, wrinkled and seamed, looking like an old injury. The disir moved with unnatural speed, up the wall and across the ceiling like a spider. Shadow uttered an imprecation and cast a Name upwards: it missed the disir by inches and scorched itself into the ceiling to flare for a moment before flaking out into ash.
“Take the circle down!” Mercy yelled. Shadow did so, and she was free to move. She vaulted across the work table, sending an alembic crashing to the floor in a shower of glass and landing in a defensive sprawl as the disir dropped from the ceiling. As Mercy had already briefly grappled with it, she was almost prepared for the blast of cold that the disir brought in its wake. The disir raked out with long claws, but the lost hand was hampering it. Mercy, on her feet again, dodged back, slashing out with the Irish blade and severing the disir’s harness. A streak of welling black blood appeared in the sword’s wake and the disir hissed in pain. The blood spattered across the floor. The disir rushed at Mercy, who ran backwards and slipped on the pool of the mingled blood that had seeped from the bowl. She fell and the disir was on her, but there was a sudden blast of light and heat and the intense cold was blown back by warmth. The smell of roses was all around, sandalwood, myrrh, filling the laboratory in an intoxicating wave of perfume. Mercy gasped, scrambling to her feet. The disir was backing away. She heard Shadow say something, urgently, and turned to look at her, but the light was too bright, too blinding. Mercy threw an arm across her eyes but as she did so, she glimpsed the diminished spidery shape of the disir clambering up the wall to the high arched window. There was a shatter of breaking glass and the disir was gone, scrambling down the city wall.
Light, and a presence that filled the laboratory. Shadow was speaking, but Mercy did not understand the language. Something laughed and it was not human. Then it, too, was gone, leaving heat and the scent of roses in its wake.
“Shadow?” Mercy’s vision was still blurred.
The alchemist was huddled on the floor. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Shadow looked up and Mercy realised the alchemist was consumed with fury. “That was—well. Someone who has no business in
my
business.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“Suleiman the Shah. That was one of his spirits, his djinn. He saved my life—and yours. That means he’s bound me to him, when that has been the very thing that I’ve been trying to avoid.”
• Fifteen •
Deed reached Bleikrgard in a skating flurry of snow. It had begun to fall from the skies again, as Mareritt’s sleigh raced through the streets, the deers’ feet unnaturally sure on the icy stone. When they reached the looming grey stone palace, Mareritt brought the sleigh to a skidding halt and said to Deed, “Here we are.”
“I can offer payment—” Deed began. Resolutely, he did not look behind him again, to where the heads muttered and twitched.
“Oh, yes, you certainly can. And you will, but not now. I shall take my payment when I see fit.”
Deed did not wish to show how unnerved he was by this remark, nor could he—for he found he was already out of the sleigh and standing on the stone flags of the palace. Mareritt veered the deer about without another word and was gone into whirling white.
Deed was relieved to see her depart. He went quickly across the courtyard without looking back, but it seemed to him that he could still feel Mareritt’s gaze on his back and the sensation was an unfamiliar one, therefore unsettling. His pride was affronted and that made him angry, made him feel the disir bones start to thrust at his cheeks and rib cage. If anyone had been watching, which perhaps they were, they would have seen his eyes darken and his teeth grow sharper. Deed took hold of himself with an effort and forced the human semblance back.
The steps up to the palace were icy and needed care to negotiate. Reaching the massive doors, Deed knocked once, hammering the iron ring back against cold oak. The sound resonated throughout the courtyard like a rifle shot, though the snow muffled all else. Deed waited for a moment and then the door swung open.
He had been here many times before, but the hallway always looked different. Deed could not say why this was, although he suspected that it had to do with the magical overlay that Bleikrgard would have continuously deployed: the warding/guarding/binding spellcasting that kept the fortress secure. The exterior of the fortress was ancient, castellated, but the hallway was modern: a marble floor with the patina of ice, mirrored walls, a gleaming blue ceiling the colour of an arctic sky, and a soft illuminating glow which was diffused throughout the hall. No one was in sight. Deed walked along the hallway, catching glimpses of himself in endless mirrored permutations. He did not care to look directly at his reflection, in fear of what it might reveal. He had forced the disir-self back, but it might not last: Bleikrgard had a way of revealing weakness, not the disir-nature itself, but the loss of control.
He reached the end of the hallway. Here stood a wall that seemed made of ice. Deed placed a hand upon it and, as always, felt its cold beating into his bones. He did not fight it off, but tried to welcome it, let it enter into himself. The cold was so intense that he felt as if it was transforming him, taking him somewhere that was very far from Worldsoul, perhaps all the way down the storyway of the Dead Road to the wild old lands of Earth’s far past.
Then, it was gone. A dim blackness took its place. Deed smiled for the first time since Mareritt’s intervention. He took strength from the cold and the dark, drawing a breath of pine-scented, smoky air. He stepped forwards into the dimness and spoke.
“I am here.”
“Abbot General. Again, welcome.”
Light flared and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. The Lords of Bleikrgard, the lords of the north, were seated around the chamber. Nine of them wore business suits, of conservative and old-fashioned cut, with greater or lesser ruffs. The tenth wore rust-red armour, and carried a sword. The helm was down and Deed had never seen it raised, but he knew what it was supposed to contain. A skull, some claimed, but Deed thought this clichéd, and therefore tedious. The tenth lord was not human, Deed knew—at least, not any more. What he was, however, was open to some question.
The third lord spoke. “Abbot General.” The voice was weary, long since burned of any fire. “What did you have to tell us?”
“I have a proposition for you. Of all the Quarters of this city, the Court has greatest allegiance to the Northern. To yourselves. How would you like that power to spread?”
“Of course we would.”
“The past is stirring and the Ladies are coming to town,” the fourth lord, who was prone to oracular announcements, said. He smiled a sudden and terrible smile. The others ignored him, which was just as well, Deed thought.
Deed pursed his lips. “How would you like to possess the Library? And all the magic that it contains?”
The Lords drew forwards. “The Library, you say?” the second lord said.
“Yes. I can give it to you.”
Loki’s plan was bubbling beneath the surface of his brain. He could not reveal it yet, but they would trust him enough to believe that he could make good on his promise. He was Abbot General, after all.
“ . . . we need to take power, and that time is now.”
“Yours is a savage ancestry, Abbot General,” the third lord said. He meant it as a compliment, without reference to the disir: Deed had taken pains to keep that quiet, but he winced anyway.
“It’s a matter of family pride,” Deed said, modestly.
“We depend upon you, Abbot General.” That was the armoured lord, in a voice that sounded as though there were no larynx behind it.
“Whilst regional feeling may account for something,” Deed began.
“You will be paid, naturally. What currency do you wish?”
Deed showed teeth. “Blood.”
“From whom?”
“None of you. There are debts that I would like settled. I shall give you a list of names. If you have objections to any of them, then we can negotiate.” But he knew they would comply. He was their link to the oldest lord of all, he who lived in the wood, he who spoke chaos to the world. Deed was their link to Loki, whether they realised it or not, and thus they would do exactly what he told them.
Mareritt was a bad dream, nothing more. Deed walked out on a cloud of power; he had got what he wanted.
• Sixteen •
She must have slept, Mercy told herself later; must have done so, because she dreamed. She was standing in the entrance hall of the Library, one hand resting on cool marble. The other hand held a small book; it seemed she had been reading. Those who had interrupted her were walking down the middle of the hall and Mercy’s heart leaped to see them: they had come back, at long, long last. Their year’s absence was ended and they had come home. Smiling, Mercy swept down into a bow.
The Skein acknowledged her with their customary remote smiles. There were two of them, one male, one female. They were twice Mercy’s human height and their long robes fell to the floor as smoothly as water, a pale, fluid grey. The male Skein’s skin was night-black, underlain with gold, and black hair reached his waist, tied with a gilded thong. The woman was white: snow haired, paper pale. Her eyes were jade; his were azure. They were talking and laughing in their own unknowable tongue, a language in which every word held weight, and their long hands glided in graceful, sweeping motions, adding emphasis to their words.
“You’ve come back,” Mercy breathed, and bowed lower. But when she straightened up again, the hall was empty. The Skein had gone and the marble paving was blowing with dust and cracked with age. It frightened her so much that she woke into the unfamiliar confines of the guest house, and she did not sleep again.
• Interlude •
The Duke knocked, once. She had never been to this place before, but it seemed to her that there was something familiar about it, as though someone lived here whom she had once known. But she was used to palaces, mage-houses, fortresses, not ordinary apartment blocks.
The door opened. She looked through twisted coils of magic.
“You are a demon,” the old lady said.
“That is correct.” The Duke bowed.
“I’m afraid I have no intention of letting you in.”
The Duke had expected this.
“Not a problem. I have no intention of hurting you, however.”
“Then why have you come?”
“I am told that you know a great deal about this quarter, about its magic. I’m looking for someone. A djinn.”
The old lady laughed. “There are many djinns and ifrits in the desert. Have you tried there?”
“I’m reliably informed that this one is in the city itself.”
“I think your informant must be mistaken,” Mariam Shenudah said. “An ifrit in the city would cause a small sensation. They’re quite large, you know.”
“Nevertheless.”
“I can’t help you. I’m very sorry.” Then, guileless, she added, “Have you tried asking Suleiman the Shah? He’s
very
well connected.”
The demon grinned. “Perhaps a small social call is in the cards.”
Later, she crouched on the roof of the Has, tapping a brass fingernail against the tiles. It would not be wise even for a duke to try to break into the Shah’s palace, but there was more than one way to go about things. From a pocket of her armour, the Duke took a small golden fishing hook and a long line of thread, also gold. Then she cast about for the nearest storyway.
These were evidently rigidly controlled around the domain of the Has. She finally found one, the slightest whisper of an unfinished tale, so gossamer thin that it had crept unnoticed through a crack in the wards. The Duke raised the fishing hook, attached to its line, and dropped it down the storyway. She felt it slide into the Has, and be gripped by a strong rushing tide. The psyche of the Shah, a lodestone within the palace walls. Gremory let the hook be drawn along until it snagged.
The Shah was sleeping. She supposed he had to do that sometimes. His dreams were bloody, and the Duke smiled. A man after her own heart . . . maybe she’d come back later, pay a genuine social call. Some men were wary of demons, but her grandmother had been a succubus and she could still turn on the charm when she needed to. She sent her own mind down the line, slipping gently into the Shah’s dreaming psyche. She included a few erotic thoughts, just to distract him. But the Shah’s mind was well-guarded. It was like peering at a sealed leaden egg. The Duke cast about for cracks and at last found one in a dream: the Shah, possibly stimulated by her erotic thoughts, was dreaming about a woman. In the dream, she was behaving in a most wanton manner: Gremory wondered idly if this was actually true to life. She could tell that this was a real person, not a dream artefact. She watched with interest as the Shah demonstrated a variety of perversions, culminating as he cried the woman’s name and it snared on the demon’s golden hook.
Her name was Shadow.
• Seventeen •
Mercy had returned to her own quarter, with a promise to return. Shadow, left alone, spent the morning in a quiet, boiling rage that she tried to channel into restoring the damaged laboratory. It was mid-afternoon when some semblance of order had been attained, and her fury had abated a little. She was not surprised when the soft knock on the door came. She had been expecting it.