Worldsoul

Five

The grove lay a short distance from the Dead Road. The mist gathered around him as Deed moved along it, not bothering to pretend to walk, just letting the Road carry him forward. Behind, in Worldsoul, the Court lay in the late afternoon light. Darya was still at the Library, hopefully far advanced in the process of beguiling its curators.

A crossroads, fog-wrapped, with the gate-stone rising from the white swirl. Deed stepped past its looming bulk and took the small path off the side of the road. He could smell the grove. Not far now. The path was overgrown with the ghosts of bramble and wild clematis, but Deed spoke a word and the spectral plants parted before him, withering back into the undergrowth. Then he glanced up and there was the grove: the bones arching up, the curve of immense jaws snatched from a sperm whale from the northern seas, inscribed with runes. Beyond were ribs, and at the centre of it, a skull mounted on a plinth as black and grainy as the crossroads stone. Deed bowed his head for a moment before stepping into the grove, not an action he cared to take, but one which was wise. Reaching up, he brushed aside the sprig of mistletoe, not the dull green of the Earthly plant, hanging on apple or oak, but white as snow, the berries veined with red.

The old god was waiting. He could smell that, too.

He came as close as he dared to the skull. The basalt in which it was set had partially grown up around it, but still could not quite dim its light. From certain angles-ones that Deed took good care to avoid-the skull shone like the sun. And so it should, given the fairness of its owner in life. Bright Baldur, slain with a mistletoe dart.

“My lord?” the magician said into the waiting gloom.

He came out of the depths of the grove in a clank of chains, true disir and one of the only and oldest males. Deed, accustomed as he was and knowing that the god was chained, still had to concentrate on standing fast, not running. He despised the weakness, but it was an old fear too deeply rooted to be eradicated by force of will. Loki’s narrow head turned from side to side, the white eyes gleaming. He wore ancient leather armour, still supple, with splits and rents where the sharp bones pointed through: the armour had been made for a man, ransacked in the long-ago when the gods had gone to war. It was hard to look Loki in the face and Deed centred his gaze instead on the disir’s hands, the long fingers and sharp silvery talons.

“You’re so like me,” the disir said, and chuckled. It didn’t sound remotely human and Deed remembered what his old mentor of the Sept had said once: They are beasts in the guise of men. The raveners, the scavengers of the battlefields, the initiators of war. Deed had taken care to keep his ancestry from the old man, and had been hard-pressed to school his face into polite interest when these words were spoken, which he supposed proved the old man’s point. The words rang cold in Deed’s memory and he forced his gaze upwards. Loki was staring at him, the disir’s head on one side.

“Well, now, little named one,” the disir said. “What have you brought me this time?”

Deed reached into the pocket of his coat and drew it out from its leather box. A scrap of flesh, green as mould and still wet. Scales shifted, opalescent in the bone light as the disir held out a taloned hand. The god never snatched. He took the flesh with a mincing, pinching movement and then it was gone.

“Not bad,” Loki breathed. “Rusalka?”

Deed nodded. His pocket still felt river-wet. “From the Northern Quarter, the forests.” The hunter had overcharged, too. Deed was not inclined to argue, at least, not just yet.

“So,” Loki said again. “You’ve brought me a little present. How kind.”

Deed took a breath, wondering if he’d have to invoke the old law, remind the god that an offering required a reply. But the disir took pity on him.

“What do you want, O my descendent? Answers? Or a question?”

“I’ve seen the Library,” Deed said. He felt he was radiating excitement. “As it first was when they stole it, not as it is now. The predictions didn’t lie. It’s there, in the past of the Liminality.”

“We knew that,” the god said, reproving.

“But no one has been able to see it. The Skein kept us out. And now-I saw it, Lord.”

The skull-face of the disir grinned wider. “But what are you going to do about it?”

“Get it back. Bring the Library of Alexandria through, replacing the version that now stands in the Citadel. Place it and the knowledge that it contains under the control of the Court.” Under the control of you. The subtext hung briefly in the air.

“Ah,” said the god. He knew damn well, Deed thought. Generations of preparation had gone into this. He just wanted to hear Deed say it. “How do you propose to do that?”

The Abbot General, at last, turned to face him. “I need your help.”

With the god within him, the Abbot General walked to the edge of the ridge and looked down. Loki was an uneasy rider; Deed felt like a horse whose reins were in a cruel grip. He did not trust the old god not to jerk them at a whim, tearing at the mouth. But for now, Loki’s presence was bearable. Just.

The encampment sprawled along the edges of a lake. It was ice-bound along its shore, but further out Deed could see the gleam of sullen water, greasy with cold. A low range of hills, furred white, ran along the furthest shore. Deed did not know where this corresponded to in Earth’s past: probably Lapland, or northern Russia. It didn’t really matter, this far back along the storyways: the tribes had held much in common.

It would be going too far to call them “tents.” They were stretched hides, tied to poles. The disir did not suffer from the cold, as humans did. There were no fires-they were afraid of fire, an atavistic dread that Deed felt superior in having conquered. The disir ate their food raw, and preferably bloody. At the far side of the encampment, a range of poles each boasted a severed head: some human, some not. One was a wolf’s and Deed could not help wondering if this had belonged to an animal, or one of the clan members.

“See her?” Loki whispered, inside his mind. There was the sound of smacking lips, a lecherous sigh. “Fancy a tumble in the snow, Deed?”

Deed did not. The disir was tall, well over six foot in height, and as gaunt as a goat. Her long face was tattooed in the tribe sigils and she had a long crest of hair, bound with an iron band, on the top of her head. She wore armour of skins, and her person clanked with hoops of silver, lead, and carved coal encrusted with protection runes. At her waist, she wore a small skull with a long snout and sharp teeth.

“Not my type,” Deed said.

The old god laughed. “I can see a little thing inside your mind: half-human, eh? So refined, with those tip-tapping heels.”

“Her name’s Darya. Don’t go imagining any great romance.” He’d have to take better care to school his thoughts.

Loki laughed again. “Does she change when you fuck her?”

“No more than most women.”

The god within nodded towards the tall disir. “She’s the shaman. Or one of them. You can see-she whispers with magic. She’s stolen power from animal totems, mainly bear, wolverine, raven. Anything that likes a fight.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Well, you see,” the god said, “this is nearly forgotten, this story. People have progressed too far.” He made Deed’s head turn, and spit into the snow. “They’ve forgotten these old tales of the old north lands. They remember me-quite well, actually-and the others, but the Vanir-not so much. Frey was fading even in my day. Anything further back from that, forget it. Literally. So you have a storyway on a siding, a tale that no longer grows, changes, moves. All these creatures are just hanging around here with nothing to do. Do you think that’s right, Deed? Do you think that’s fair?”

Deed shrugged. “I remember them.”

“Yes, but you’re not exactly some tribal chieftain, are you? You’re a descendant, partly human, mainly changed. I know you can show the teeth if you want to, and sometimes when you don’t, but there you sit, in your fancy clothes, in your smart office of the Court-not exactly roaming the tundra, are you? Not exactly hunting and gathering?”

“So what are you suggesting?”

“Deed, Deed.” The god’s chastisement was like having a slap to the brain. Deed reeled, and only regained his balance on the ridge with difficulty. “Look at the opportunities. There are thousands of the disir, all with raging aggression and nothing on which to vent it except bunnies. What does that suggest to you?”

“An opportunity.”

“Quite so. I’ve conducted a little experiment. Some days ago, one of those dear ladies strayed a little too close. So I sent her on a little holiday down a storyway, into your city. I wonder where she’s ended up?”

“Into Worldsoul?” Deed asked, in alarm.

“Quite so. I lost her after that. Can do the first push, but not much more.”

Deed was silent, and into his silence, Loki poured a plan. Then he sealed it, like someone putting a lead lid on a jar and welding it shut.

“You see,” he told Deed, just before the magician blacked out, “I don’t want you remembering everything. Some, but not all. That might lead you to tell other people, especially under duress. So you just go back to that city, and do my bidding, and everything will become clear. Eventually.”

Returning to the Court, Deed felt as if he’d been gone for years. The Dead Road was like that: it was one of the most dangerous storyways of all. He doubted that anyone outside the Court even knew of its existence, although perhaps some of the Eastern mages trod their own version. Had Deed been truly human, it could have snatched him away, showing him its beautiful, flower-filled face, leading him lost and uncaring until the moment when it revealed itself for what it was and spat him out.

Good thing he wasn’t truly human. He thought back to the meeting with Loki. He remembered that the god had told him about a disir, sent into the city. That had to be a priority: he made a note on official parchment, and sent it to the Sept. But for the rest-try as he might, he couldn’t uncork the jar of memory. The old god had programmed him, as neatly as if he were a computing machine. Deed was disir enough to resent this, but man enough to recognise the sense behind it: any conscious information can be extracted under enough torture. The trouble was, how can you trust a trickster god?

The answer was: you can’t.

He sat back in the deep leather chair of his chamber, nursing the whisky. It tasted of peat, of age, of blood. He savoured it with disir senses humans did not possess. Even the disir needed down-time. Deed adjusted the cuffs of his jacket, meticulously picked a speck of lint from the black velvet. He was slightly disappointed when Darya walked in, her clicking heel-taps muffled by the thick carpet. She was smiling, and for a moment, Deed felt something that might almost be described as affection.

“I spoke to True. A dear old man,” she said. Her smile grew sharper.

“You’ve got the permit?”

“Oh, yes, Abbot General. He was so helpful,” Darya said. She sat down opposite, sinking into the seat and taking the glass of whisky that Deed proffered. “We had a most interesting chat and he’s given me a letter. Also he talked to the Librarian in charge of the collection and she’ll make sure that everything goes smoothly tomorrow.”

“Very good,” Deed said. He turned the glass in his fingers, admiring the glow of the whisky in the subdued light. “This Librarian. Do we know anything about her?”

“I’ve done a search of known… personnel,” Darya said. “I can’t find a reference to her. Her name is Nerren Bone.”

“Ah, Darya, Darya. If she’s in charge of a collection like the papers under discussion, then she’s almost certainly one of the opposition. But she won’t be able to say the same about us. People are interested in that sort of thing for all manner of reasons.”

“And you, Abbot General?” Darya asked politely, after a short pause. “How was your afternoon?”

He shrugged, thinking of the bone grove, the red-veined mistletoe, the blade-presence of one of the oldest and most dangerous gods of all. “Oh, you know. Quiet.”