Tawaddud swings the carpet around. Arcelia and the Fast Ones have lost altitude: the bird glimmers against the long shadows of the Shade quarter at the base of the Shard. Tawaddud’s heart hammers so hard she feels it’s about to burst out from her chest. ‘They are headed for Qush and Misr,’ she says, pointing at the beehive-like clusters of the Fast One parasite cities close to the gogol markets, surrounded by thick clouds of the little folk, so dense the shapes they make look almost solid. ‘We’ll never catch them there.’
Tawaddud removes the jinn ring and thrusts it into Sumanguru’s hand.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We are not going to catch them in time,’ she says. ‘You have to fly. I’m going to try something.’
For a moment, the carpet spins out of control, but then the gogol rights it, eyes squeezed shut.
Tawaddud fumbles with her beemee, tries to ignore the wind and the fact that she is almost a kilometre up, carried by tiny robots the size of dust particles, holding hands. A trace of any entwinement always remains. The joints in her hands still ache. And up here, the athar is clear and pure: it will carry her thoughts far.
Arcelia, come to me.
Pain, a needle piercing her. Her will is not her own. Her wings ache.
Arcelia, turn around. The voice is a light above, like the Sun, warm and pure and clear. She fights the wind, fights the pain and the needle. Tawaddud.
‘Catch her,’ Tawaddud whispers to Sumanguru. Her own voice comes from far away. The ghost of a needle stings her spine. She ignores it and keeps calling Arcelia’s name.
‘She’s coming!’ shouts Sumanguru.
Tawaddud opens her eyes. They have descended, a mere hundred metres up, just above the white rooftops of the Shade Quarter. People point and shout. The carpet’s shadow and Arcelia’s are coming together below. She looks up. The golden bird is rushing towards them straight ahead, white toy soldiers struggling on its back. Sumanguru stands up on the carpet and stretches his right hand towards it.
A flash below, in the rooftop crowd. The cold thunder of the Anti-Name.
Arcelia and the Fast Ones explode in a shower of blue sparks.
The shattering of the athar link is a hammer blow inside her head. There is only lightning phantom pain in the wings she does not have, and then it’s dark.
The light comes back with a throbbing pain. There is a rough hand on her cheek, and suffocating heat. Human voices, the bustle of a crowd.
‘Tawaddud?’ Sumanguru says. ‘Can you open your eyes for me?’ There is a strange tickling feeling all over her body, like the brush of a spiderweb. She forces her eyes open. The Sobornost gogol is crouched next to her, running a hand across her body: it crackles with the angel-hair sparks she saw in the aviary.
‘Don’t be afraid, nothing is broken if the q-dot probes are to be trusted. I could not fly your toy worth a damn, but I got us down before it crumpled into dust.’
He helps her to sit. His face is bloody and his uniform is torn. They are both covered in white powder – inert foglets are the only thing that remains of the utility fog of the carpet. I must look just as bad. Images of the mad flight swim in front of her eyes, inducing vertigo. I can’t believe I did that.
‘I suppose I could have chosen a better neighbourhood to land in,’ Sumanguru says. He flashes a grin that looks unnatural, like a brief mask on his scarred face.
They are in a small square, near the gogol markets: a quarter that is a maze of marketplaces and cul-de-sacs. The streets here are narrow, and the whitewashed stone buildings lining them teeter under the weight of Fast One communities. A small crowd of gogol salesmen, craftsmen and merchants has gathered to watch them.
‘Did you . . . did you see where the shot came from?’ Tawaddud croaks. Her throat is dry, and she shakes. She tries to summon a Repentant, but all her jinn rings are just as dead as the carpet, killed by the echo of the barakah gun. Gripped by sudden fear, she fumbles with her athar glasses and studies Sumanguru’s Seals: apart from the slight unravelling in Alile’s palace, they appear to be intact, as are her own.
‘I was too busy trying to keep us in the air,’ Sumanguru says. ‘Whoever it was, clearly they were worried about whatever it is that the qarin knew.’ He looks at Tawaddud seriously. ‘That is something we need to talk about – but not here.’ He helps Tawaddud up. ‘Lean on me. We had better get out of here before the attacker decides to try their luck again.’
‘My sister and the Repentants will find us soon,’ Tawaddud says. ‘And your injuries are more serious than mine.’
‘I’ve had much worse, believe me,’ Sumanguru says, gritting his teeth. ‘It is just flesh. But you and I – we need to talk.’
The dense cable networks joining the houses together and connecting them to the City of the Dead for the jinni servants block most of the sunlight. The air is thick with the smell of human bodies, ozone and the high-pitched chirping of the Fast Ones who surf the crowd just above peoples’ heads with inhuman speed. Tawaddud flinches every time they pass. She aches all over, and has a splitting headache, not dispelled even by a Secret Name. She realises she has not eaten all day. At her suggestion, they stop in a street kitchen run by a thick-bodied woman in a headscarf.
They sit on the edge of the shopping square of Bayn-al-Asrayn, at the base of a Sobornost statue, and eat tajini. The hot spices and the chewy meat restore some of Tawaddud’s fortitude. Sumanguru eats slowly, an expression of nostalgia on his face. It is gone when he looks up again, replaced by his usual stern visage. He touches his chest wounds thoughtfully. They are bleeding slightly. He rubs his fingers together.
‘I underestimated you, Tawaddud of House Gomelez. I will not do so again. You got us closer to the enemies of the Great Common Task than I did. Also, you saved this sumanguru from truedeath. You have my thanks, and those of my branch.’
‘I thought your kind did not fear death.’
‘The Great Common Task is a war on death. A soldier who does not fear the enemy is a fool. So, I thank you.’ He inclines his head slightly.
Tawaddud feels self-conscious, all of a sudden. Her hair is messy and full of carpet dust, and her clothes are torn. How long has it been since she had a meal with a charming man that was not set up by her sister? Far too long. Except for the fact that, of course, they are eating cheap tajini on the street, the charming man is a Sobornost mass murderer whose body was fabricated from raw materials by nanobots only a few hours ago, and the only reason they are here is that her ex-lover the body thief has started killing Councillors.
And then there is Abu. I will think about him later. Still, there is something peeking through Sumanguru’s shell that makes her wonder. He was so afraid on the carpet.
‘Lord Sumanguru,’ she says slowly, ‘there was . . . something else I saw in the qarin’s mind.’
Sumanguru says nothing.
‘A Secret Name. I think Arcelia was keeping it for Alile. It may have nothing to do with her death, but clearly it was something important.’ As she speaks the words, the Name echoes in her throbbing head again, as if wanting to get out, delicate bell-like syllables full of a strange innocence.
‘Tell me about the Names.’
‘I thought you were briefed on the history of Sirr.’
Sumanguru narrows his eyes. ‘Sometimes, it is more important to hear how a story is told than what the story is.’
Tawaddud puts her bowl down. ‘The Names are words and symbols the Aun taught us, to control the athar and tame wildcode. Ancient commands for the systems of the Sirr-in-the-sky and the desert. Seals are special Names, unique and irreplaceable, protection from wildcode: only the muhtasib know how to create them.’