The third lord spoke. “Abbot General.” The voice was weary, long since burned of any fire. “What did you have to tell us?”
“I have a proposition for you. Of all the Quarters of this city, the Court has greatest allegiance to the Northern. To yourselves. How would you like that power to spread?”
“Of course we would.”
“The past is stirring and the Ladies are coming to town,” the fourth lord, who was prone to oracular announcements, said. He smiled a sudden and terrible smile. The others ignored him, which was just as well, Deed thought.
Deed pursed his lips. “How would you like to possess the Library? And all the magic that it contains?”
The Lords drew forwards. “The Library, you say?” the second lord said.
“Yes. I can give it to you.”
Loki’s plan was bubbling beneath the surface of his brain. He could not reveal it yet, but they would trust him enough to believe that he could make good on his promise. He was Abbot General, after all.
“… we need to take power, and that time is now.”
“Yours is a savage ancestry, Abbot General,” the third lord said. He meant it as a compliment, without reference to the disir: Deed had taken pains to keep that quiet, but he winced anyway.
“It’s a matter of family pride,” Deed said, modestly.
“We depend upon you, Abbot General.” That was the armoured lord, in a voice that sounded as though there were no larynx behind it.
“Whilst regional feeling may account for something,” Deed began.
“You will be paid, naturally. What currency do you wish?”
Deed showed teeth. “Blood.”
“From whom?”
“None of you. There are debts that I would like settled. I shall give you a list of names. If you have objections to any of them, then we can negotiate.” But he knew they would comply. He was their link to the oldest lord of all, he who lived in the wood, he who spoke chaos to the world. Deed was their link to Loki, whether they realised it or not, and thus they would do exactly what he told them.
Mareritt was a bad dream, nothing more. Deed walked out on a cloud of power; he had got what he wanted.
Sixteen
She must have slept, Mercy told herself later; must have done so, because she dreamed. She was standing in the entrance hall of the Library, one hand resting on cool marble. The other hand held a small book; it seemed she had been reading. Those who had interrupted her were walking down the middle of the hall and Mercy’s heart leaped to see them: they had come back, at long, long last. Their year’s absence was ended and they had come home. Smiling, Mercy swept down into a bow.
The Skein acknowledged her with their customary remote smiles. There were two of them, one male, one female. They were twice Mercy’s human height and their long robes fell to the floor as smoothly as water, a pale, fluid grey. The male Skein’s skin was night-black, underlain with gold, and black hair reached his waist, tied with a gilded thong. The woman was white: snow haired, paper pale. Her eyes were jade; his were azure. They were talking and laughing in their own unknowable tongue, a language in which every word held weight, and their long hands glided in graceful, sweeping motions, adding emphasis to their words.
“You’ve come back,” Mercy breathed, and bowed lower. But when she straightened up again, the hall was empty. The Skein had gone and the marble paving was blowing with dust and cracked with age. It frightened her so much that she woke into the unfamiliar confines of the guest house, and she did not sleep again.
Interlude
The Duke knocked, once. She had never been to this place before, but it seemed to her that there was something familiar about it, as though someone lived here whom she had once known. But she was used to palaces, mage-houses, fortresses, not ordinary apartment blocks.
The door opened. She looked through twisted coils of magic.
“You are a demon,” the old lady said.
“That is correct.” The Duke bowed.
“I’m afraid I have no intention of letting you in.”
The Duke had expected this.
“Not a problem. I have no intention of hurting you, however.”
“Then why have you come?”
“I am told that you know a great deal about this quarter, about its magic. I’m looking for someone. A djinn.”
The old lady laughed. “There are many djinns and ifrits in the desert. Have you tried there?”
“I’m reliably informed that this one is in the city itself.”
“I think your informant must be mistaken,” Mariam Shenudah said. “An ifrit in the city would cause a small sensation. They’re quite large, you know.”
“Nevertheless.”
“I can’t help you. I’m very sorry.” Then, guileless, she added, “Have you tried asking Suleiman the Shah? He’s very well connected.”
The demon grinned. “Perhaps a small social call is in the cards.”
Later, she crouched on the roof of the Has, tapping a brass fingernail against the tiles. It would not be wise even for a duke to try to break into the Shah’s palace, but there was more than one way to go about things. From a pocket of her armour, the Duke took a small golden fishing hook and a long line of thread, also gold. Then she cast about for the nearest storyway.
These were evidently rigidly controlled around the domain of the Has. She finally found one, the slightest whisper of an unfinished tale, so gossamer thin that it had crept unnoticed through a crack in the wards. The Duke raised the fishing hook, attached to its line, and dropped it down the storyway. She felt it slide into the Has, and be gripped by a strong rushing tide. The psyche of the Shah, a lodestone within the palace walls. Gremory let the hook be drawn along until it snagged.
The Shah was sleeping. She supposed he had to do that sometimes. His dreams were bloody, and the Duke smiled. A man after her own heart… maybe she’d come back later, pay a genuine social call. Some men were wary of demons, but her grandmother had been a succubus and she could still turn on the charm when she needed to. She sent her own mind down the line, slipping gently into the Shah’s dreaming psyche. She included a few erotic thoughts, just to distract him. But the Shah’s mind was well-guarded. It was like peering at a sealed leaden egg. The Duke cast about for cracks and at last found one in a dream: the Shah, possibly stimulated by her erotic thoughts, was dreaming about a woman. In the dream, she was behaving in a most wanton manner: Gremory wondered idly if this was actually true to life. She could tell that this was a real person, not a dream artefact. She watched with interest as the Shah demonstrated a variety of perversions, culminating as he cried the woman’s name and it snared on the demon’s golden hook.
Her name was Shadow.
Seventeen
Mercy had returned to her own quarter, with a promise to return. Shadow, left alone, spent the morning in a quiet, boiling rage that she tried to channel into restoring the damaged laboratory. It was mid-afternoon when some semblance of order had been attained, and her fury had abated a little. She was not surprised when the soft knock on the door came. She had been expecting it.
Before she opened the door, she reset the wards with a gesture of her hand and they burned a dull red around the frame. Someone was standing on the step: a woman in green.
“Yes?” Shadow said.
The woman bowed her head. She handed over a parchment scroll, tied with a black ribbon.
“Who has this come from? Is it the Shah?” Shadow demanded. The woman looked up and Shadow recognised the blind eyes: it was the mute serving maid from the Has el Zindeh. She bowed her head again and melted into the dimness of the stairwell, leaving Shadow clutching the scroll.
Some time later, she perched on the windowsill of the laboratory, looking out across the desert. The scroll sat beside her and she was tempted to fling it into the sands, let it be swallowed by nothingness and shift. But Shadow knew this was childish. It would accomplish nothing; the obligation set by the Shah would still remain. Had she not taken the vows that she had, Shadow would have simply ignored it, but by the initiatory terms of her training, she could not. She even wondered whether the Shah had summoned the disir himself. The timing did not add up, but the Shah had diviners, and more than that, understood people, damn him. Coercion and threats would have made Shadow dig her heels in: this, however, was a far greater compulsion.