“But we don’t know who this female entity is?”
“No,” Mercy admitted. “Who or what. I wounded her, I’m sure of that.”
“Jonah’s still looking at the blood. Wasn’t able to give me any quick conclusions. Whatever she is, she disappeared as soon as she left the Library. The spell filters couldn’t hold her.”
Mercy swore under her breath. As soon as she’d heard the female had left the building, the gnawing worry had grown.
“That doesn’t surprise me,” Sulis said. She touched a bronze knob and the machine once more whirred into life, hissing with electric azure. “Actually, you can see from this that they’re functioning perfectly well. It’s just that with very old things, the magic’s correspondingly ancient. The filters can’t cope with it, because they don’t know how: the equipment’s too modern.”
“This is what pisses me off,” Mercy said. “We’ve got all these old texts—all these old
stories
—hoarded like a . . . a dragon’s gold, and no one seems to have
done
anything about them.”
Sulis did not reply, nor did she need to. It wasn’t as though the origins of the Library had been in any way scientific. The Skein had brought it through when the building had been set on fire—by enemies about whom the Skein had been remarkably closemouthed—the flames lighting the Egyptian night. Even though that was long ago now, they had just kept accumulating material. People all had their areas of expertise, but there was simply too much to analyse and it hadn’t been until relatively recently, Mercy reflected, that a proper cataloguing system had been brought in.
A different agenda for humans, was the charitable view. Charitable, but possibly not accurate.
“A collection, nothing more. But the Skein were able to handle it. And we—”
“Well,” Sulis said, mildly. “We’re doing our best.”
“But what if that’s not good enough?”
It was not until mid-afternoon that a positive sighting came in. Someone had seen an odd thing on Orchis Hill, crouching in a back alley. Mercy and Nerren got there as soon as they heard, taking the monorail from the stop at the back of the Citadel. It was the fastest means of transport they had, which wasn’t saying a lot. Mercy stared out of the window as the monorail creaked along, fingering the Irish sword, wondering how long it would be before the monorail fell into disuse. Its brass wheels clanked; the red velvet seats were faded and threadbare. Fireweed and oleander grew along the rusting tracks. Mercy saw a fox slink into the weeds, not hurrying, evidently undisturbed by the nearness of the rattling vehicle. What would it be like, to live in a city you could really change, that did not alter itself around you? Ask one of the Earthbound. Ask one of the Skein.
The monorail cranked on and Mercy grew more irritable with every passing mile. Through Sweetside, across the Lesser Channel, under the long-browed hill of Ferria Gracia with its white balconied buildings. Graffiti was inscribed everywhere along the sidings: curling, glowing words of power. Mercy winced. The Skein had ruthlessly eradicated this in their day, just as they had maintained the monorail, and made Worldsoul run efficiently. Had they really been kidnapped, as popular wisdom claimed? Or had they removed themselves, impatient parents casting their children into independence? It seemed impossible that she might never know.
Her meditations were interrupted by a gasp from Nerren. Towards the front of the monorail, the sky had turned to rose. Mercy had a moment to think,
But it isn’t sunset yet—
before she saw the molten core of a falling flower and the front of the monorail erupted into a tangle of twisted, screaming metal.
She was under something. It pinned her to a mass of soil and torn foliage. A hibiscus blossom was nodding like a sage’s wise head, inches from her ear—a white bloom, dappled with crimson. It took her a long moment to realise that the crimson was supplied by her own splashed blood.
“Nerren!” She tried to rise, but the beam, or rail, or whatever it was, held her fast to the earth. She ached all over and she could feel something wet running down the side of her face, but it did not seem as though anything had been broken. She could move both her head and her feet, and this boded well.
But Nerren did not reply. Mercy struggled to look up and found herself staring at the underside of the monorail, contorted into the air, a rearing caterpillar shape. The blast had bent it back on itself, so that the first of its three carriages was vertical. She twisted her head to the side and saw an outflung hand, very pale and still.
“Nerren!” Someone groaned and the hand twitched. Mercy exhaled in relief. Fragments of burning petal were still drifting down out of the smoky sky: the flower must have fallen only a little while before, and Mercy knocked unconscious for seconds. That was reassuring, at least; it explained why no assistance had appeared. Then she heard shouts. Turning to the other side, she saw a man running down the bank, taking great leaps and bounds down the steep siding of the monorail.
“Over here!” Mercy cried. The weeds were on fire, smouldering into dampness. He was a young man, wearing a workman’s tunic and boots. He tried, and failed, to lift the girder, grunting as he did so.
“Hey, careful!” Mercy said in alarm. She wanted to be free, but there was no point in her would-be rescuer undergoing a hernia for it. But more people were arriving now, at a slightly less precipitate pace, and she heard the clanging of an emergency bell. Then someone called her name.
“I’m here,” Mercy said. “I’m all right.” Not quite true, perhaps, but she did not want to frighten Nerren, whom she could see scrambling to her knees a short distance away. The girder was lifted up by a dozen hands and Mercy, disregarding offers of help, got to her feet and stood swaying.
“Hey,” Nerren said, and started to laugh. “Look at us. Black and white and red. We’re all fairytale now.”
Mercy, to her infinite disgust, felt the laughter and the light recede to a small pinprick point as she slid once more to the ground.
• Interlude •
He often walked to the edge of the world in the evening, heading out from the beehive hut into the nevergone. The garden was quiet, then, and there seemed to be something about dusk that dimmed the story-streams to calmer tides. He liked the peace, although there had been a time when he had not. Loneliness is something you can outgrow, given enough time.
He wondered, sometimes, whether it was possible to outgrow every emotion. Messengers were not supposed to feel hate or rage, but sometimes, in his younger days, he had been aware of a spark deep within like a burning coal, especially when he looked upon the Legions. Those had been the days of the great conflicts, the sweep of the wars, when the Legions had amassed on the edges of their fiery shores and a roar of defiance had been raised from thousands of throats. He had, so secretly that it was barely recognisable, exulted at the sight: the clashing spears and flashing banners against the cloudscape, the behemoths bellowing as they lumbered into position, bearing the castles of their dukes and princes upon their backs. The devil-beasts: great white gibbons with yellow eyes, unicorns with iron spikes jutting out of their bony skulls, the crab-men with their pincered arms and scuttling gait.
He had tried, as he had been instructed, not to look at the women, and had not always been successful. Manytongued the Beautiful, riding on her loping hydra. The War Dukes, clad in their shining armour, kissing their weapons. He had been taught to know that beneath the glamourous guises lay putrefaction and decay, but seeing them strut against the cloudscape it was hard to remember that . . .
Harder still, several thousand years later, in the depths of the quiet desert night.
When such memories rose to the surface of his dreaming mind, he tried to recall instead the memory of the Hosts: the ranks striding through the Gates and down the sunlit air. The warriors, fiery haired, bearing golden swords and silver bows, their calm faces shining with the rightness of their war. The heralds, sounding the charge. The Archmessengers, clad in sapphire and emerald, clear garnet and diamond fire, speaking courage to the troops.
But now the war was over and the Hosts had won.
He should not, then, still wake from dreaming of a red-clad War Duke with brass talons. Maybe it was evidence of senility, but he didn’t feel that old.
He stood at the edge of the world and looked down. The Pass was silent now, a guard patrolling along the farthest slope. He could see its fiery silhouette flickering against the shadows. Silent. But recently there had been a shift, a change. He could feel it in the green evening air, sense its presence, but he did not know what it heralded. He turned, walking back past the glimmering storyways to the peace of the beehive hut and his dreams.
• Eight •
Life was full of irony, Deed thought in frustration. He studied the message that lay before him on the desk, marked with a top-secret sigil. It had come in that morning, from one of the Library moles.
The Library. Trust Loki to manage to send something in through the
Library.
The disir had been disruptive, apparently, which came as no surprise. Mind you, Deed thought sourly, to the old codgers who ran the place, “disruptive” probably meant putting a book back in the wrong place or abusing your lending rights. The disir had not remained long in the place, anyway. She had fled, somewhere in the city. But where? They were likely, Deed thought, to find out reasonably soon. Wild disir were not unobtrusive.
He turned again to the report. The Librarian who had made the discovery had a name: Mercy Fane. Well, Deed thought, let’s see what we can find out about Miss Fane, shall we?”
The curse hung from the lower branches of a pine tree, about head height. It was made of feathers and bone, tied together with sinew. A shrew’s skull, the jaws curved in an elegant arc and ending in small razor teeth, surmounted it and it carried the rune for winter.
The shaman of the wolf clan studied it for some time in silence. He took a rattle from his pouch and shook it, making a dry sound of falling seeds in the still air. His grey pelt was starred with snow, as stray flakes drifted down from the pines. Then he turned to Mercy, dreaming, and said, “Of course, it’s an enemy’s work. The question is, which one?”
“No shortage of
those,
” Mercy heard herself reply. As with all dreams, she did not question how she knew this. “The White Owl Tribe, or the Shinbone People.”
“Not quite their style,” the shaman said. His lips drew back over his long teeth. “Look at the back of it.”
Mercy did so. The back was a small flayed skin, stretched out. She could see the remnants of black fur. “What does that mean?”
“It’s hunters’ work.”
“We’re all hunters, aren’t we?”
“Who hunts everything? Including the wolf clans?”
Mercy thought. “Death?”
“Nightmares. Everything is hunted by nightmares.”
“I don’t understand,” Mercy said.
“You don’t have to understand. All you have to do is remember,” the shaman said. Mercy once again surged down into sleep.
• Nine •
Shadow spent the evening in the laboratory, working on a summoning spell for a client. So much of this work required personal concentration—the will bound into sulphur and dragon’s blood and myrrh—that she lost track of the time. She was dimly aware of the sun slipping over the edge of the world, the blue fall of twilight, but when at last she looked up from the end of the preparation, night had fallen and the stars prickled out across the ridges of the desert. She was, she realised, hungry. And there was nothing in the place. Not even an alchemist can eat incense.
Shadow, frowning, investigated the ice-box. Bottled water, nothing else. She sighed. It meant a trip back to the Medina, to one of the all-night chaikhanas, and she was tired. She really ought to have got some stuff in the market. She’d learned long ago that you need to keep your strength up when you do this kind of work, need to keep grounded and earthed. Especially after the use of magic, which would take your light-headedness and spin you away, cause you to follow phantoms and chase illusion. Food would put a stop to that.
Shadow thickened her veil and stepped out into the warm night. The street was still busy: people strolling, bicycles, scooters. Shadow wove her way through the throng and back into the Medina. In a small chaikhana set into the Medina wall, she took tea and
ful mesdames
with pita. Thus sustained, she started back to the laboratory.
The attack came when she was almost back at the Eastern Quarter Wall. Shadow was not expecting it, but her instincts held sway. She was turning almost before the thing was upon her: a swirling form out of the blackness beneath the wall. The air around her was suddenly icy cold, a wind howling out of nowhere. She had a moment to reflect that it felt like the
harmattan
wind that blows from the desert, bringing madness in its wake, but where the
harmattan
was hot, this wind was nerve-chilling. It knocked her backwards, flung her against the wall, snatching her breath for a moment. Paradoxically, this probably saved her life—the wind pushed her out of the path of her attacker. The twisting form—darker than the night—took a mincing step forwards. Shadow’s blade was up. The entity spoke in a language Shadow did not understand but which she recognised to be a spell.
The air about her grew black as ink, but Shadow had magic of her own and this was her territory, her strength. She spoke a word, a name, and a lance of light shot through the gathering dark and stabbed at the eyes of her attacker. The thing gave a wordless cry, fell back, and Shadow drew back her sun-and-moon blade, twisted it in her hand and struck. There was a foul billow of cold smoke, making Shadow choke, and then the thing was gone. She had a glimpse of it scrambling up the city wall like a monkey, shrieking as it went. And when the normal lamplight was once more shining down upon the street, Shadow saw that it had left something behind.
A hand.
Some time later, she stood at the acid-stained laboratory table, staring down. The hand her attacker had left behind was a mottled black and white, withering as she watched, but it had not had the fleshy consistency of a human hand in the first place: more like a wizened claw. It had the normal complement of fingers, but an extra joint on each and long, black nails as hard as iron. Shadow pursed her lips and tapped a finger against the surface of the table.