Worldsoul

Twenty-Nine

Shadow did not like the idea of riding the demon. It seemed wrong, and there was a subtext to it with which she was not comfortable.

“You can walk if you want,” Gremory said. She looked at Shadow out of a sidelong black eye, flickering with red. As a camel, her coat was again a shining black, quite unlike any beast that Shadow had actually seen at the zoo: camels tended to be on the ragged side.

Shadow cast a glance at the shifting sands of the Khaureg. “You know that will take twice as long.”

“Probably four times. Up you get.”

Swallowing, Shadow placed a foot in the stirrup as the demon knelt. A moment later Gremory was rising again, hoisting her into the air.

“You’ve ridden us before, of course?”

“Yes.” It was easy enough, once one got used to the rolling gait.

It was now early morning. The demon had suggested that they set out at dawn, partly so that fewer people would see them, and also to make the most of the coolest part of the day. Shadow was naturally wary. She did not trust the demon. She did not know what Gremory’s real agenda was, as it was almost certain that the demon was lying to her. However, Gremory’s presence was a lot less irksome than the spirit’s: the Prince of the Air had vanished deep inside Shadow’s mind and clearly had no plans to come out whilst Gremory was there. Stay in your damned neural burrow, then.

It was some years since she had ventured into the deep desert, the Khaureg. She had been on a mission: to find a haunted knife and release the spirit that possessed it, and to kill the man who had imprisoned it there. That had been the sun-and-moon blade, which hung at her hip, but now she herself was the knife, and taken. She did not recognise any of the land through which they now travelled. The dunes shifted so much that the desert had altered completely and it would not be until they reached the low outcrops of rocks known as the Devil’s Ears that she could get her bearings. She knew better than to glance over her shoulder. The stories said if you did that, you ran the risk of losing the city altogether; it would shift and vanish into mirage. In this world, such stories had to be taken seriously.

Gremory seemed to know where she was going. She loped in a straight line, following the roll of the dunes. Occasionally her long black neck twisted round to observe Shadow with a mocking, knowing eye, as if checking that the alchemist was still on board. As the heat of the morning sun grew, Shadow fell into a kind of doze, almost a trance. She felt the spirit inside her, occasionally surfacing like a bubble from the depths of the sea. You stay where you are, she told it. It was difficult to reconcile this small inner presence with the memory of the huge ifrit in the cage, but Shadow knew that to spirits, size was an illusion. Only to humans did it matter.

Towards mid-morning, a shimmer appeared on the horizon. Shadow blinked behind the veil, trying to see whether it was mirage or real, but then it solidified and she recognised the ridge called the Devil’s Ears. Gremory’s head twisted round again.

“Nearly there.”

“Is that where we’re headed?”

“No. The person we will meet now is not the one I am taking you to see. It’s where we’ll ride out the heat.”

Shadow had been expecting her to head into the outcrop. There were caves here, occasionally occupied with mad old hermits who, for a few coins, would provide food and water. But the demon headed up into the heights instead, climbing towards the sun via a series of steps that were so worn they could have been natural. Perhaps they were. But the summit featured a low wall, and then a small collection of beehive-shaped huts came into view.

They were made of blocks of stone, covered with a plaster that must once have been white but which had now faded to a flaking honeycomb. Gremory knelt and Shadow dismounted, feeling uncomfortably stiff. She flexed her knees, stretched her shoulders, and when she turned back the demon was once more in the form of a woman, barefoot and wearing a flowing black robe. Shadow said the first thing that came into her head: “Are you tired?”

The demon laughed. “No, I do not tire. But thank you for asking.”

Shadow looked back across the desert. They were now far enough away for the city to be lost over the horizon, with no chance of an accidental glimpse. The desert rolled on in endless shades of light. Above, the sky was a harsh, burning blue and it was very quiet. She followed the demon, who cast no shadow and who left no footsteps in the sandy earth, around the side of one of the beehive huts. The place smelled of sunwarmed earth and mimosa; the trees nodded above the stone, humming with insects.

“Ator?” The word fell into the silent air. Gremory paused before entering the hut. “Are you there?”

It seemed too still for there to be a human presence, but then a voice croaked, “I’m here.” It took Shadow’s eyes a moment to adjust to the dimness, but when they did, she saw an old man sitting on a pallet on the floor. His hands were twisted and arthritic; his head was bowed beneath a crown of long, yellowing white hair which fell in knots and snarls down his back. Then he looked up and she saw his face was young. A terrible scar ran down from the left side of his forehead to the right side of his jaw. She would guess it was from a scimitar slash.

“Ator,” Gremory said again. His face held a weary resignation.

“Demon. It’s you.”

“I’ve brought a guest.”

His eyes were yellow, too, like a jackal’s, and hot. His gaze lingered on her; she could feel it through the veil and did not like it. It held a kind of bitterness, an amusement, something more.

“Not a demon.”

“No. I’m human. I’m from the city. I-” She had been about to say an alchemist, an assassin, but stopped just in time. She was not prone to spilling her secrets like water out of a cracked pot, so what was it about this unkempt person that had nearly drawn them out of her? He smiled, charmingly, but his teeth were blocky, with sharp incisors.

“My name is Ator.”

“I gathered that.”

“Tea?”

“Why not?” the demon said. She slid easily down to her heels. The black robe billowed around her like a personal night. After a moment, Shadow, too, sat. Ator poured a thin stream of brown-gold tea from a pot on the hearth, adding mint to the glasses. It was sharp, refreshing. Shadow listened while Gremory and the man talked, discussing people and places whose names she did not know in a kind of staccato, sparring shorthand. It had the tenor of a fencing match; Shadow felt that it would be wiser not to play. Wiser, in fact, not to open her mouth at all, given that Ator had already demonstrated an ability to worm information out of her. When they had finished the tea, Gremory stood.

“We’ll stay. For a few hours, then move on.”

“As you wish.”

Shadow felt the weight of his yellow gaze as they walked to the door: the sunshine should have hit her like a blow, but somehow it felt cooler and sharper.

“Guest quarters are down there.” The demon pointed to another hut, set among a grove of trees. Scrawny sheep meandered among the limewashed trunks. As they took the path that led down to it, out of the main compound, Shadow said in the low voice, “Your friend. Ator… ”

“No friend of mine.”

“I don’t think it’s sensible to go to sleep anywhere near him.”

Gremory swatted away a buzzing fly. “Him? He’s not allowed to leave the compound.”

“But-”

“Trust me. He can’t. He’s bound to it. That’s what annoys him so much.”

“Why?”

“If he comes out, he changes back. Forever.”

“And that would be to-?”

“What he was before,” the demon said, and marched down the path.

Shadow had not been expecting the demon to take a siesta, but there were two pallets in the guest hut, in a reasonable state of cleanliness, and Gremory lay down on the first without ceremony. She crossed her hands over her breasts, and her face stilled into expressionless marble. Shadow watched her for some minutes, but the demon did not blink and after a while, watching her began to feel intrusive, so she took the second pallet. She was not expecting to sleep, but the fatigue produced by recent events overtook her and she dozed off, awaking with a start some while later.

The sun had moved round, casting long shadows across the doorway of the hut. Something had woken her, with a note like a bell, and after a moment it came again: a cuckoo. Its two-note song fell upon the air. Shadow felt suddenly wide awake. She rose from the pallet and went out through the door, leaving the demon motionless within the hut.

The sheep had moved on, up the valley. She could hear the distant clank of a bell as they grazed. The sun was skirting the edge of the Devil’s Ears; she judged that it must be close to five o’clock. She looked back at the compound but there was no sign of movement. Then the cuckoo called again and she swung round. Someone was standing motionless on the other side of the valley. It was a woman, dressed modestly in black, with her face concealed.

“Who are you?” Shadow called, but the woman did not reply. Instead, she raised a hand and made a gesture in the air that Shadow could not interpret: it looked as though the woman had written a word. Then the figure was gone, abruptly, as if snuffed out.

Thoughtfully, Shadow went back into the hut to meet the demon.