Worldsoul

Twenty-Six

Mercy was worried about the airship. It had come out of nowhere, and it was anomalous to this primitive wintry world through which they now trudged. True, the airship had not come back, but it had been automatically hostile. On top of that, she was concerned about the disir themselves. This was their territory and even though they were supernatural beings-legends that had come from the minds of men-some laws of evolution still applied. She wondered what they were sharing their world with. She had the feeling she was about to find out.

With Benjaya and the ka, she had now been following the river for over an hour. The light had not changed and neither had the flow of the river, although the crack and creak of the ice was now more marked. She thought that the temperature had risen a little, as well. A spring, for this winter world? Somehow, that seemed unlikely. She could not help feeling that this was an ice age, and spring very far away.

Mercy’s feet were cold. So was her nose. She was hungry (the ka’s hunting had not yet produced a result) and tired, but she was not yet exhausted. She and Benjaya had given up conversation, but Mercy could hear the murmuring voice of the Irish sword and it was this that kept her going. Odd, that a weapon should be the link that, she felt, kept her attached to the Library, yet the Library was the thing she had sworn to protect and so it made a kind of sense. And the sword could not tire or falter, although it could be broken. It would not let her down. She gripped its hilt a little tighter and walked on.

The curve of the river took them along the shore of a rocky bluff, and then the ground evened out. Forest spilled down the slopes, encroaching onto the shore. Here was a scattering of pines, filling the air with a fresh astringent scent that wiped out the lingering odour of the disir. Mercy wasn’t even sure that she hadn’t imagined it. She turned to Benjaya.

“What do you think?”

Benjaya glanced nervously at the forest. “I don’t know. I don’t like the thought of being in those trees when it’s still half dark. You don’t know what might be in there.”

Mercy agreed, but there had never been any sign that it might get lighter.

“What are you thinking?” Benjaya added.

Instead of answering, Mercy turned to the ka. “How about you? Are you up for taking a look?” She did not like asking Perra to do her dirty work for her, but the ka was a lot less vulnerable than Benjaya or herself.

“I will try,” the ka agreed. It padded rapidly among the trees, leaving Benjaya and Mercy standing on the foreshore. Mercy peered into the clouds: there was no sign of the airship.

“I’m worried about getting back again,” Benjaya said, suddenly.

Mercy thought about saying something reassuring, but he deserved the truth. “So am I,” she said.

“It’s as though the city is bleeding people. First the Skein, then the Barquess. Now us.”

“We will get back, Ben. I’ll do my best.” But she’d told the Elders that she’d take care of it, and what if her best wasn’t good enough?

The ka appeared at her feet, as silently as it had gone. “There’s something in the forest. A road.”

“A road? What sort of road?” This land was too long-ago for any kind of buildings. Yet there had been the flying boat… “All right. Let’s take a look.”

It was made of stone flags and cut straight between the trees. She could see it vanishing off into shadow. It did not look right. It did not belong. The Irish sword twitched in her hand.

When she took a step onto the road, the sole of her boot rang out as if she was treading onto metal, a cold, metallic sound. Mercy swallowed. She had the sudden disquieting feeling that the road would snatch her away, whisk her into the darkness.

“Ben,” she said. “Let’s not lose sight of each other, all right?”

He gave her a rather odd look in reply. It should indeed have been obvious.

“I don’t know where it goes,” the ka said.

“Then we’ll follow it and find out.”

They had been walking for some time when Mercy became aware the world was changing around them. It was subtle, at first: the trees thinning out, a slight lightening of the sky above their heads. Then she realised that the road itself was altering, the stone becoming less rough and more cleanly cut. They crested a low hill and found themselves looking down on a crossroads. A black stone stood at its heart. The sword twitched in Mercy’s hand. This wasn’t the landscape they had left, the Ice Age tundra. It looked more like part of the Scottish highlands-rolling bald hills with scattered pines, shadowy beneath the ferocious stars. The bisecting road ran in either direction, across moorland, but the crossroads itself stood alongside a grove of trees. Benjaya and Mercy looked at one another. Crossroads meant magic: the threefold meeting-place of the Greeks, where Hekate’s offerings had been left, the junction where you meet the devil at midnight, a place of ritual and magic… They headed down into the scent of heather. Dark pools formed mirrors on either side of the road; sparse saplings gradually clustered until Mercy could see the crossroads stood in a grove of oak. Beneath her feet, the road changed, blackening. The oaks were heavy with leaf, a midsummer foliage. She stopped. She did not know what was in the grove, but she did not want to go any further. It felt ancient, laden with bloodshed like the site of a forgotten battlefield. She could smell meat on the air.

“If the disir are anywhere… ” Mercy said, then stopped. A breeze stirred the oaks, as if the word had become a wind. The sword twitched again like a hound straining at the leash. But if we don’t go, we won’t know.

“I will go,” Perra said.

Even though Mercy knew how hard it was to harm the spirit, she heard herself say, “No. We’ll go together.”

As they approached the crossroads, the smell of blood increased. There was no sign of anything amiss: nothing hanging from the branches. Mercy couldn’t help thinking of Roman descriptions of the druid groves of Britain, butchered meat dripping blood on the forest floor… this was not a productive line of thought. Besides, she couldn’t see anything.

Into the grove. The ka gave a compulsive shiver, as though wind had rippled over its fur.

“Perra? What is it?”

“Predators.”

“There’s an altar,” Benjaya whispered.

It stood at the centre of the crossroads, a slab of basalt four foot high and six long. It gleamed faintly in the light of the stars. A skull stood at the centre of the altar, shining. Mercy stared. The altar had a fascination, the kind of compulsion that she associated with controlling magic. Before it was the jawbone of a whale, an immense ragged white arch.

“It’s very old,” a sly voice said from the trees, making Mercy leap.

“Who’s there?”

“Come and see.”

She did so, hearing the others close behind her. Deep inside the oak grove, behind the bone arch, stood a rock, an outcrop of granite. Something stood before it and it was a moment before Mercy realised the figure was chained to the rock.

It wasn’t human. It was bigger than the disir she had seen, and it was male: a long white face, sharp-toothed, beneath matted pale hair. He wore leather rags, the remnants of armour. His nails had scored the rock: she could see the grooves. He smiled at her, head cocked to one side.

“I don’t often have visitors.”

The voice was sophisticated, resonant. It held promises and malice. It seemed to Mercy that she had heard it somewhere before, but not directly: like an echo through someone else’s voice. Warily, she stepped forward.

“Maybe this isn’t an easy place to find. Where are we?”

She wasn’t expecting an answer, but to her surprise, one came. “It’s called ‘the place of the crossroads.’ I’m afraid your ancestors were rather literal.”

“My ancestors?”

“This is the far north of the storyways, the far deep, but not as deep as where you’ve been. I can smell the tundra on you.” He raised his blade-like nose and gave a prim sniff. “An archetypal place, somewhere that’s found in the hollows of the head. You know how it works.”

“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.