“So how come there are roads? Someone must have built them.”
The thing laughed. “Logical, aren’t you? It’s my world. I can shift the furniture around if I want to.” She saw the glint of his eyes, silver-dark in the long face. His jaw worked. She felt a sudden tug of desire and it made her skin crawl.
“Who are you?”
“I am a god. But currently, I am a god under restraint.” He nodded upward and she followed his gaze. High on the rock, something writhed. She saw a long sinuous shape: a serpent. “It’s sleeping. But when it wakes, it opens its jaws wide, wide, and the poison that has accumulated while it sleeps drips down onto me.” For a moment, he inclined his head and she saw a line of blackened, festering blisters running down the back of his scalp and his spine. She should have felt sorry, but instead there was only revulsion.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“No. It comes from an older magic than I, and I am among the oldest things in the world. I was born in the age of ice, very early, with my brothers and sisters.” A wolfish smile. “Only the sisters, these days. Well, mostly. And their daughters.”
“The disir.”
“As you say, the disir. That’s men’s word for them. They call themselves something else, but you won’t be able to pronounce it.”
Mercy suspected he was right and she knew who he was, now.
Loki.
After the first moment of realisation, she forced the name out of her mind, in case it provided a way in. “If you’ll forgive me for saying so, you don’t look very far from human. But the others—”
“The males are closer to men. To humans, that is, and their offspring are closer yet. The females—they have reverted, to an older type. We may be gods, but we still have genes.”
“You know about that sort of thing?”
“I know what the world knows. As the world changes, so I change. Besides, there’s not a lot to
do
here. I have to keep myself occupied.”
“Did you bring us here?”
“Us?” asked the creature, sly once more.
Mercy spun round and saw that she was alone. “Shit! Where are they?”
“Looking for you, I should imagine. I wanted to talk to you on your own, away from your colleague and the spirit.”
“Why?”
“I want you to do something for me.”
Mercy had the sensation of drowning, of events closing over her head. “What is it?”
“I want you to find a story for me.”
For a moment, Mercy glimpsed what he saw. The tree stretched before her: its root deep in the heart of the world, the fires of the world’s forge, and its crown in the stars. Its branches arched into air and then air’s lack: its fruit were planets. She saw suns spinning among its eternal leaves, moons hung cold from its shoulder—and she was whirled up into the branches, the pathways and permutations reaching in all directions, breaking, splitting, merging with each word spoken and each action done. It echoed in her head:
the tree is time,
and she knew then why that image had spent so long in the heads of men, why its power remained. She saw a man who was not a man, who was something else, not human, walking through the streets of Worldsoul. A man in a dark coat, dark-eyed, who smiled and spoke softly, who knew the words of magic that could change the world. She thought she’d seen him before. She did not know where for a moment, then it came to her with a rush of dismay: the fake doctor, Roke, who had taken her blood. Now she knew him for who he was: Jonathan Deed, the Abbot General of the Court.
“What story?”
“The legend of a Pass between the worlds. The story of an angel with a flaming sword and demons who roam within a garden.”
“I’ve never heard of that story,” Mercy said.
“No,” the god said, patiently, “that’s why I want you to find it.”
And in return
? Her thoughts must have showed on her face, because the god said, “Magic. I’ll give you power. It all comes down to power in the end. Stealing necklaces, stealing horses, stealing spells. I may be chained. Doesn’t mean I can’t act.” He gave a wolfish grin. “Doesn’t mean that at
all.”
“I—”
But the scene in front of her was gone. The rocks, the chained god—everything vanished. Mercy was left staring stupidly at a grove of trees. She turned, to find Benjaya.
“Thank the Skein! You’re all right.”
Benjaya gave her a look that suggested she’d taken leave of her wits. “What do you mean? You’ve just seen me.”
“Twenty minutes ago, perhaps. I was talking to the god and you disappeared.”
“What god? We haven’t lost sight of one another.”
Mercy felt as though she was going mad. “Perra? You saw?” But the
ka’s
golden eyes were blank.
“I saw only the trees, and you.”
Great,
Mercy thought. For all she knew, she’d imagined the whole thing. But then she looked down. A thin silver chain encircled her wrist, snicking against the ward bracelet: a fetter, a band. A slender key hung from it. She stared at it, stupidly.
“What’s that?” Benjaya asked.
“I don’t know—”
But they heard again the long, low cry.
“Wolf,” said Benjaya.
Mercy shook her head. “That wasn’t a wolf. I don’t know what that was.”
They headed back to the crossroads, swords drawn. The altar and the skull were gone. The road stretched, empty, to the bleak horizon. The cry came again, closer. Mercy and Benjaya began to walk, warily, along the road: at least they could see.
It was Mercy who caught the first glimpse of the thing, travelling fast over the moor. It was four-legged, but bigger than a wolf, perhaps the size of a horse. As soon as she’d seen it, she realised that there were others following it. Three dark shapes bounded behind. She could not tell what they were: they had long, sinewy legs and whiplike tails and they were thin to the point of emaciation. And therefore, probably hungry. Mercy looked back but the trees had vanished: they were standing on open ground. One of the creatures bayed, a low echoing howl. Mercy brought the sword up and she could see the thing closely now—all sinew, with a narrow questing head. It was vaguely doglike, apart from the size, and wan. Its ears were scarlet and it had no eyes. The dreadful head swung from side to side like a pendulum.
Mercy brought the sword up as the thing took a great leap, sailing over the side of the road towards them. The sword sang as it flashed through the air, but it did not connect. A white lightning bolt split the air between Mercy and the hound. The air was filled with bells and there was the sudden smell of blood and shit as the beast, bisected, fell in a heap of rubble by the roadside. A pale face was looking down at Mercy.
“Get in.”
The face and its owner were in a sleigh, drawn by deer. Mercy scrambled over the side and fell into the body of the sleigh, followed by Ben. Then, to her own disgust, she screamed. The sleigh was full of heads.
“Take care!” one said. It was the face of an ancient, wizened man, bound with silver. “You trod on me!”
“And on me,” said another, a redhead bound with brass.
“Sorry.” Mercy said. Familiarity was tweaking at her: she knew this, she had come across this story somewhere—but the sleigh was racing away, along the road and up. She looked back and saw the road fall away beneath them with dizzying speed, the hounds no more than white specks along its length. She struggled to the back of the driving seat, trying not to step on protesting heads.
“Who are you?”
The woman looked down at her from under a crown of pale hair.
“Aha,” she said. She reached into the tatters and rags of lace that she wore and took out a small golden phial. Tucking the whip under one arm, and transferring the reins to one hand, she took a stopper out of the phial and held it over Mercy’s head. “Sorry. But you’ll thank me later.” A droplet of liquid gold oozed out of the phial and fell between Mercy’s eyes.
The sigil should have protected her, but it did not. She was conscious of a sudden warmth, a cocooning, and then she was falling painlessly down into sleep as the sleigh sped on through the midnight air.
• Twenty-Seven •
Keep her away from me!
Shadow woke with a shock, flung awake with all her nerves jangling. It took her a minute to realise that the alarm was the ifrit’s, not her own.
“What are you talking about?”
“Keep her away!”
Her next thought was that the disir had come back. Shadow jumped off the bed, reaching automatically for the sun-and-moon blade.
“You won’t need that,” a voice said. In a shaft of moonlight, Shadow could see someone sitting in the chair by the window. She fumbled for the lamp and flicked it into light. On the table beside the bed, Shadow’s sigilometer was ticking off the scale.
“Who are you?” Then she realised, and bowed. “You are a demon.”
“I am a duke of Hell,” the woman said. She wore crimson armour and a great gold ring that reminded Shadow of the Shah’s. Her hair was unconcealed. A demon does not wish to hide her hair from the sight of God; a demon does not need to be concerned about modesty.
“Do I alarm you?” the demon said, with cool amusement.
“The thing in my head does not like you. That’s enough to predispose me in your favour,” Shadow replied. The demon laughed. It sounded genuine.
“I can see why you might think that.”
“Will you tell me your name?” Shadow asked, expecting the demon to say no. But the Duke of Hell answered readily enough.
“My name is Gremory. You may have heard of me.”
“Yes. Your name is inscribed in the
True Grimoire.
You find hidden treasure, and draw the love and desire of beautiful women. I’m afraid I’m not up for the latter.”
The demon laughed again. “You’re used to this, aren’t you? One can tell you’re an alchemist.” She uncoiled herself from the seat and walked across the room. She smelled of fire. “Those things are my main remit, it’s true, but I can do a lot of things. Demons like variety. You’ll be wondering why I’ve come to visit you.”
Back, back!
the spirit in Shadow’s head insisted. She ignored it.
“I’ve had a number of visits lately. From various . . . entities.”
The demon cocked her head on one side. “I gather it’s been quite the circus. Well, you need not worry. I have no plans to create havoc. On the contrary. I’m here to help.”
“Oh,” Shadow said. It sounded unconvincing. “I don’t want to seem rude, but . . . ”
“I understand.” The demon did not seem offended. She stared at Shadow out of cold red eyes. “You are acquiring powerful patrons, powerful enemies.”
“You’re telling me.”
“The Shah, the disir, the Court . . . ” Gremory’s voice was sly.
As she was supposed to, Shadow bit. “The Court? I know about the first two.”
“The Court is at the heart of things. The Court wants you.”
Shadow shook her occupied head in bewilderment. The spirit seemed to have gone to ground, for the moment, and that in itself was interesting. “What in the world does the Court want with me? It’s got its own personnel. They’re powerful magicians and their interests lie in the West, not here.” But she was not surprised to hear Gremory mention it. The Court concerned themselves with demons, with grimoires and Goetic magics.
“Yet you have attracted their attention. Or at least, the attention of one of them. A man named Jonathan Deed.”
“I’ve heard of Deed,” Shadow said, slowly. “But I can’t remember where.”
“Deed is disir.”
“What?”
“He is of that lineage. He’s a male, of course. They’re different. The females are more savage.” Gremory looked modestly down at her talons. Their scarlet colouring ran down into her long fingers as far as the first joint, as though her fingers were dipped in blood. She blinked and the talons changed to bronze, then back to blood. “Naturally.”
Shadow’s mind was working fast. “So there’s a connection. Did Deed send the disir? Why did it come after me?”
“I think Deed wants you. You ought to know how it works by now. The Court wants what Suleiman wants; he desires what the Court has. Each of them feed off one another—the Court and the Has. Under the Skein, it didn’t really matter: balance was kept no matter what. Now the Skein are gone and the city’s up for grabs. Guess who’s grabbing?”
“Makes sense,” Shadow said. “So the thing in my head—the ifrit? What does it want?”
“I don’t know,” Gremory said. “Shall we take a look?”
Being possessed by two entities was not a comfortable experience. Shadow sat, trying not to squirm, while the demon evaporated into smoke and drifted into her lungs, then into her blood, then into her mind. Shadow felt as though she was standing in a crowded elevator; one that might, at any moment, break a cable and start to plummet. She took a deep breath, willing stillness.
“I know you’re in here!” the demon sang, like a child playing hide and seek. “I can fi-i-i-ind you!”
Shadow, eyes shut, tried to look within. The ifrit, which suddenly seemed very small, was running, bolting down neural pathways, disappearing into the labyrinthine causeways of the mind. Shadow, pursuing, felt herself drop, as if she’d fallen down a well. Her eyes snapped open.
The laboratory was gone. The fronds of acacia waved gently above her head, higher than they should have been against a vivid blue sky. One of Shadow’s hands was raised, imprisoned in someone else’s. She looked up to see her aunt, familiar behind the lace-edged veil that she always wore. Behind the veil, her aunt smiled.
“Would you like an ice?”
“Yes, please!”
They walked along a sandy track, through a pair of ornate iron gates with curling letters above them. Shadow spelled the words with only a little difficulty:
City Zoo.
Her adult awareness had retreated, distantly watching: it was a little like being in a lucid dream, but with the sense of self dulled. Shadow was a child again, excited about the zoo and seeing all the animals.
“Can we see the tiger?”
“Yes, and the marmosets. You like those, don’t you? We’ve got all afternoon. We can see whatever you like.”
Shadow, happy, walked with her aunt along the track and they came to the first of the pens. A stout spotted hyena basked in the afternoon sunshine, fast asleep. Shadow did not like hyenas very much—they smelled—so they did not linger.