Worldsoul

Twelve

Had she not been in pursuit of the creature from the Library, Mercy would have enjoyed the journey along the West-East Canal. She had done it before, and it never failed to be charming. The turrets and towers of the Western Fort were visible above its parkland, as the ferry drifted serenely onward, through rich areas and poor, past city streets and stretches of flower-filled wasteland. From this perspective, the city seemed strangely distant and calm, as if the disappearance of the Skein, the flower attacks, and all the other difficulties that were besetting it had been sealed away behind a glass wall. For the first time in weeks, Mercy felt herself beginning to relax, a completely irrational thing to do under the circumstances. She fingered the hilt of the Irish sword at her hip and pondered. Perra sat beside her on the bench as the ferry wallowed along the canal, occasionally rising up to gaze at some aspect of the changing view that had attracted its interest. Another ka accompanied a passenger, a woman in a blue headscarf with a tattooed face, but the two ancestral spirits ignored each other and now that Mercy thought of it, she had never seen kas in conversation. Perhaps it was considered impolite. She would ask Perra, when the occasion allowed it.

They were coming to the centre of the city now: the wide circular plaza known as the Heart of the World. Here stood the empty palace of the Skein, built aeons ago of red and black marble, mottled like flesh, its towers arching up into the heavens. A light still burned in the topmost tower, a sacred flame kept alight by servants in vigil for the day when their masters and mistresses returned. Before the palace stood a much more recent statue, a representation of the ship called the Barquess. Mercy thought of Greya, and sighed. The statue had emerged out of Worldsoul itself; it had not been commissioned or carved by human hand. One morning, a few months back, it had simply appeared. She watched the statue until it fell out of sight: the bronze sides of the ship gleaming in the morning sunlight, its vanes and sails shifting in the breeze.

They were now in the Eastern Quarter and already the architecture was different: domes and minarets, pagodas and turrets. Some of these buildings had been taken from Earth, others were more recent, but built on ancient lines. Originally, the different peoples of Worldsoul had lived in separate areas in their separate quarters, but without the tensions of Earth, ghettos had not proved viable and now everyone was more muddled up. A good thing, in Mercy’s view. She looked down on a street market as the ferry sailed along an aqueduct, the white roofs of the market stalls bright in the sunlight and allowing occasional glimpses of piles of eggplant, oranges, coriander, ginger… all the produce that had been brought in from the fields that week. Beyond the Eastern Quarter lay the Great Desert, the Khaureg, but to the south, the land was fertile. Mercy began thinking about supper: she had eaten out these last few days. It would be nice to have the time to sit down and eat properly at home…

Now the huge blue dome of the Medina was visible, rising above the rooftops, and Mercy became aware of a growing impatience. She had a mission, after all, unrelated to what was for dinner. The ka, seeming to pick up on her mood, sat up straight and stern.

“We are nearly there,” Perra said.

Mercy nodded. The terminal wharf of the Eastern Quarter ferry was now visible, a mass of cranes and scaffolding. The ferry sailed into dock with a brief flurry of activity as it was secured and then Mercy and Perra were heading down the gangplank.

“Do you know where this woman lives?” Mercy asked the ka.

“No, but it should not be hard to find her. She is an alchemist. She has… a certain reputation.”

“What kind of reputation?” Mercy asked, intrigued.

“A dangerous one.”

One did not simply enter the Eastern Quarter and start asking questions. First, there was tea. Despite her impatience, Mercy let Perra take the lead. The ka found a chaikhana, set into the wall of the Medina where it was safe for a Westerner to go. The heart of the Medina was, so Perra said, best avoided. Mercy was disinclined to argue. She took a seat at the back of the chaikhana, where she could see the door.

“What do we do now?” she asked, in an undertone.

“We wait,” Perra said.

Shortly afterwards, once tea had been brought, a man approached the table. He wore an elegant suit, black, with brilliant white cuffs. Sad eyes gazed at Mercy, from a patrician face. The countenance of the mysterious Dr Roke flashed briefly across Mercy’s mind, but this man did not, on second glance, bear all that significant a resemblance: it was the suit.

“Madam, forgive me. You are from the Western Quarter?”

“Yes. We’re looking for someone.”

“May I ask who?”

“We do not have a name for her. She is an alchemist.”

“Ah.” The man smiled. “Then there is only one person whom you can be looking for. She calls herself Shadow. Would you like me to introduce you to her?”

Mercy smiled. “Forgive me for my incredible rudeness, but what is in this for you?”

“I am a facilitator, you see. A number of individuals have me on commission. I effect introductions, engineer chance meetings, arrange coincidences and synchronicities. My name is Georgiou Sephardi.”

“So if you introduce us to the woman who calls herself Shadow, she will pay you?”

“If she considers you are worth meeting, yes.”

“Well,” Mercy said, after a pause. “Let’s hope that she will. Tell her that we know about the attack last night.”

Sephardi vanished into the maze of the Medina, while Mercy and Perra sipped tea. “This is going too smoothly,” Mercy said. “I don’t trust that.”

The ka managed a fluid shrug. “Such things happen with grace here.”

“So you say.” And then, because that sounded rude, she added, “I am sure you know this better than I, Perra.” The headache was coming back, like an oncoming warning of storms. Mercy frowned. Yesterday-and then, all of a sudden, she knew what was happening.

“Perra, quickly-outside!”

The ka did not question her. They ran for the door, startling the other customers of the teahouse, but it was too late. Mercy smelled an acrid, fizzy burning, heard a firework hiss, and felt an indefinable sense of wrongness that grew and grew until the explosion itself came almost as a relief. Not again… Mercy and Perra dropped under a table just outside the door and covered their heads. The world was swallowed in a billow of scarlet and for a second, Mercy thought that she had actually been blown up. But it was only the red awning of the chaikhana, torn free by the flower-blast and floating down to cover the wrecked frontage. There was a minute of intense silence, then screams. Mercy started disentangling herself from the collapsed awning, Unseen hands helped, until she was able to free herself from the weight of the material.

“Are you all right?” Sephardi did not have a hair out of place.

“Yes. Perra?” But she knew that the ka, being a spirit, would be all right.

“I am here,” Perra said.

“I lament,” Sephardi remarked, “my timing.”

“Maybe it’s not your timing. This happened to me yesterday. Are they following me around?”

Sephardi spread his hands. He was accompanied, Mercy saw now, by a woman. She was veiled: dressed in a grey tunic and silvery trousers that billowed like a bell. The veil itself covered her entire face, a gauzy blue mist, and nothing at all could be glimpsed behind it.

“This is Shadow,” Sephardi said.

“I’m Mercy Fane. This is Perra. We’ve come-” But there was a flash. Mercy, turning, squinted past the collapsed awning. A lamp hanging above the street illuminated the now-roofless interior of the chaikhana. A pool of light shone on overturned tables and utter chaos. A blossom drifted down, glowing like hot blood, and just as it reached the level of the lamp it burst silently apart, the crimson petals flaring out and setting fire to everything they touched. The awning ignited like dry tinder.

“Oh, shit,” Mercy said, retreating further into the street with the others. Bits of blazing fabric fluttered down.

The veil turned in Sephardi’s direction. “Do we not,” the woman said, “have emergency services?”

“I’m assuming that’s rhetorical,” he replied.

Shadow sighed, stretched out a hand, uttered a long liquid word and the flames subsided into ash.

The core of the blossom had embedded itself in the pavement with a soft, corrosive hiss. The glowing stamen was quivering.

“Don’t look,” Mercy said. She flung up an arm, shielding her eyes, and the thought rushed through her mind, This is too close, we’re going to get-

Her skin was suddenly flushed, her mouth filled with a dry desert heat. She could feel the ends of her hair sizzling. The afterimage of the flash, the white-hot flare of the core, still glared against her shuttered eyelids. But something was between the stamen and herself, a soft rustling wind. Shocked, her eyes snapped open to see she was enveloped in the azure gauze of the woman’s veil. Dark eyes, golden-black, heavily kohled, were staring into her own.

“Good to meet you, too, Mercy,” Shadow said, and to Mercy’s surprise, she was smiling.

They had been lucky, Mercy thought. Shadow stooped to pick up a charred curl. Perfect, the raised lines of the petal still clearly delineated, but as Shadow’s fingers closed a little, the petal disintegrated, showering into a stream of ash.

“Be careful,” Mercy warned, ”Handling those things can hurt you.”

Shadow nodded. “I’ve done it once before. I’m-good with fire.”

“So I saw.” The expression in those troubled eyes was still with her, burned onto her retina like the implosion of the core. “Your veil-”

Saved my life was one of those things better left unsaid. People could expect the honouring of obligations; you had to watch your spirit, living here.

Shadow made a negligent gesture. “It was for the benefit of both of us.”

“I think,” Sephardi said diffidently, “that perhaps we should find another teahouse.”

They followed a disconsolate crowd of those who had been in the teahouse at the time of the attack, those who had been walking by. Mercy looked at two blue faces, serenely displeased, then at a tall person in black, with a ridged and tattooed skull.

“Too many nightlighters living here,” Shadow said. She nodded in the direction of the skull. “But you can’t prevent people from going about their business.”

“I suppose not,” Mercy said. “And speaking of which… ”

“You’ll understand,” Shadow said, “that I’m reluctant to take you to my place. Besides, it’s a mess. May I suggest another chaikhana?”

“We shall be guided by you,” Sephardi told her.

Mercy was relieved that their short trip through the now-crowded streets was without further incident. People were beginning to congregate, knot, then disperse like a kind of tidal flow. Even without the aid of technology, news of the flower attack was spreading throughout the quarter. Shadow ignored covert stares and strode ahead, her veil billowing behind her.

The new teahouse was set into the wall of the Eastern Quarter. Mercy stepped inside to sudden coolness and peace. The chaikhana was spacious, with oak tables and low benches set far apart, and at the end it opened onto a balcony.

“Let’s sit,” Shadow said. Mercy followed her out onto the balcony and found herself gazing out across the expanse of the Great Desert. Dunes hummed and shifted in the tides of the desert, moving imperceptibly, but Mercy knew that if she was to look again an hour later, the landscape would have changed. A kite, in search of carrion, wheeled high above the sands. But the balcony of the chaikhana was shaded and cool.

“Here,” Shadow said to Mercy, “one is able to breathe.”

Mercy knew what she meant.

“Sit,” Shadow said, “Please. You are my guests here.”

“Thank you. By the way, they don’t have an objection to my being armed?”

“They’d consider you foolish if you were not.” Shadow ordered more tea and was still for a moment, gazing out across the sands. Then she said, “Rumour moves faster than anything. A pity they can’t harness it to drive engines.”

Mercy laughed. “They don’t refer to it as a ‘mill’ for nothing.”

“Sephardi tells me that you’re seeking information.”

“I’ll get straight to the point,” Mercy said. “Perra, my ka, heard that you were attacked last night.”

“Yes, I was. I defeated it. I don’t know what it was. It left a hand behind-I have it in a box, at my laboratory.”

“Left a hand?”

“I sliced it off.” Shadow drew a blade from beneath her veil and placed it on the table, turning it over quickly so that it flickered light and dark. “This is one of my weapons.”

“Impressive. What’s it made from?” She knew better than to reach out and touch, but Mercy could hear the voice of the blade, a whispering, and it spoke of darkness and light, noon and shade. The Irish sword murmured at her side.

“Meteorite iron. It was forged with moonlight and sunlight. It can cut through almost anything. I have many enemies. But I would not,” Shadow said, turning the weapon from side to side, “have wanted to go up against the thing I saw last night with any less a weapon. What’s your interest in this?”

“I’m with the Library,” Mercy said. “I let… the thing… loose.” She could see Shadow’s eyes on her, from behind the veil. It occurred to her that the other woman might easily think Mercy had sent the thing, and was now checking up on its success.

However, Shadow said, “But not deliberately, I think.”

“No. Not at all.” Briefly, she recounted to Shadow what had happened. When she had finished, there was a short silence.

“You don’t know what it is?”

“No, I’ve no idea. Except that it’s from the north. It wasn’t a Wolfhead. I know what those look like.”

“They are a civilised people.”

“Yes, they are.” Mercy was pleasantly surprised by this; there was a great deal of prejudice about the northern clans, a lot of misunderstanding. “But no, I didn’t recognise this thing and we can’t translate the text that it came from.”

“Then,” Shadow said, “I suggest we use other methods.”

From Shadow’s laboratory, hewn out of pale golden stone and with graceful arches, the view across the desert was angled but, by now, familiar. Mercy, Sephardi, and the ka stood across the room, as Shadow opened the leaden box. Shadow had been deceptive: the place was not a mess, and she had obviously made the decision to trust Mercy enough to let her into her home, at least for now.

Mercy was under no illusions. The alchemist did not know her, could not trust her beyond a certain point. Mercy had no doubt that Shadow did not leave her most interesting experiments in public view. She had caught a glimpse of other rooms in the walled-in apartment, doors that whisked silently shut. But the weight of the Library was a compelling authority: Mercy, as its representative, had garnered Shadow’s attention, if not yet her respect.

She watched as Shadow knelt and swiftly scratched a triangle on the wooden boards of the laboratory with the sun-moon blade. A moment later, and the edges of the triangle flared up into light. The alchemist was taking no chances.

Mercy and Sephardi were contained within a separate circle. The ka, not as subject to magical pressures, elected to remain outside, perching on the windowsill. Its small face was creased in a frown, or perhaps simply concentration. Shadow fetched the leaden box and placed it inside the triangle, then retreated to the containment circle and spoke a quick incantation. The lid of the box sprang open.

“What I am intending to do,” Shadow said, “is as much science as magic. I want to take a close look at this thing. That means building up an image from its DNA.”

Mercy nodded. “All right.”

She was unfamiliar with Persian magic, with the long streams of syllables, but this was ancient craft. It was linked to mathematics, to gematria, and to the stars, but the magic of the old lands from which this spellwork had come went further, all the way back to the Fertile Crescent, the dawn of Earth’s history. It harked back to the oldest goddesses, women who were half-bird, women who later became demons. Astarte into Astaroth, Prince of Hell. Lilith, and her storm brood of the deep desert. Cybele, Lady of Lions. Mercy did not know whether it was on these that Shadow was calling: in the teahouse earlier, Sephardi had described Shadow as a devotee of Allah, and devout. But she was also a magician, and magicians are pragmatic.

Gradually, drawn forth by words, spirals of DNA began to wind upwards in hologrammatic formation. Mercy knew that this was an illusion, but it was compelling. The DNA twisted, turned, and began to fill out into bone and sinew and flesh. As they watched, the figure that Mercy had seen in the Library began to take shape before them. Its bones were long and sharp, the dappled hide too tightly stretched over them so that the thing appeared lightly fleshed, mainly sinew. Its face was human, of sorts. The black eyes, whiteless, glinted with intelligence. Its long hair, also black and matted into ropy locks, fell down its back, Mercy was now able to get a closer look at the tattooed symbols covering its visible flesh. Runes and symbols, ancient in configuration. She said urgently to Sephardi, “Do you have a pen?”

When he complied, Mercy took a notebook from her pocket and began to note the symbols down as accurately as she could. Shadow made the image turn, and it did so, revealing glyphs and spiked sigils down the length of its spine.

“It’s definitely the thing I saw,” Mercy said.

“Good. It’s definitely the thing that attacked me. The question is: What is it?”

“I cannot help you,” Sephardi said. “I am not an expert on the north.”

“I know someone who is, though,” Shadow said. She turned to Mercy. “Have you finished?”

“Yes. Can it speak, Shadow? Can you make it talk?”

“No, this is just an image.” She sounded apologetic. “I’ve tried making them talk before.”

Mercy could not help having the disconcerting feeling that the thing was watching them, linked, somehow, to this conjured representation. But there was no awareness of them in its eyes. “This person you mentioned, who is an expert on the north. Where might they be found?”

Shadow laughed. “You’ll like this. She’s employed by the Library. As a consultant. She’s also Vice Chancellor of the University.”