The airship shot on, flying across the long river valley. They watched, unspeaking, until it disappeared into the distance. Mercy was afraid it would turn, but it did not. It vanished over the rim of the world, into night.
“Not very friendly,” Benjaya said.
“I wonder who they are? I’ve never seen anything like it before. Well, apart from the Barquess. That reminded me of the Barquess, somehow.”
“There are stories of flying galleons,” Benjaya said, standing up cautiously. “One of them sent an anchor down into a churchyard. In England. I read it in a book.”
“That wasn’t a galleon, but it’s the same principle, I suppose. This world is too old for those, though. They must be travelling through.”
“Question is, are there more of them?”
“I’m hoping that’s a no,” Mercy said.
They trudged on, descending the long slope by degrees and eventually finding themselves standing on the flat valley floor. It was tundra, spongy underfoot, and starred with lichen. Here, the snow lay in patches, exposing the permafrost. Mercy pulled her coat closer. The ka padded across the lichen, delicate as a cat. As they drew nearer to the river, Mercy could hear the creak and crack of the ice. The river was flowing swiftly, bearing its cargo of ice with it, and an icy breeze came off it that chilled her still further. There was a weird smell, too: something musty and organic. A moment later, she realised she’d smelled it before. It was the odour of the disir.
Twenty-Five
Shadow listened to the voice. In a way, it was reassuring to have this rider in her head, and that alarmed her more than anything. It was smooth, decisive, clear. It knew what it wanted and what it wanted was to be free of the Shah. In that, both Shadow and the rider were in accord.
“What are you?” But it had to be the ifrit, that inchoate thing of fire and flame.
“I am a word made flesh.”
“Yes, in me,” Shadow thought, tartly.
“Until I choose otherwise.” Smoothly, to conquer her rising anger, it added, “I understand. No one cares to be possessed. Who should know this better than I? I am the essence. You asked that I should be transformed into a human. This is so, is it not? You are human, and I am in you.”
And then she understood how the spell had gone so wrong. Be careful what you wish for. She was an alchemist, an agent of change-and now change had caught her in its web.
“What sort of spirit are you?” Shadow asked, through mentally gritted teeth. “Are you male or female?” Shadow was dreading this answer. The cool voice could have belonged to either gender.
“We are not like you. But you would see me as a man, were I to choose to appear to you in a form other than the one you have seen.”
Shadow, appalled, said nothing. The idea of having this male spirit within her was defiling, abhorrent. But at the moment, there was little she could do.
In the end, it told her what to do. She must go to the Shah, and tell him a tale. The ifrit would dictate it to her, it said kindly, as one conferring a favour. Ten minutes and already Shadow was sick of the thing, quite apart from any other considerations. She did not think that the spirit was the one doing the favour. But she did not have a choice. Shadow had essentially failed, and the Shah would not be pleased unless the situation was finessed.
And so she went.
“The spell was unsuccessful,” she said. “I have failed. I am deeply sorry.”
The Shah looked at her. “What has become of it, then?” he asked, deceptively mild.
“Rather than becoming human, it has passed into your ring,” Shadow said, prompted by the ifrit. “You will, of course, wish to check.”
The Shah gave a sad smile. “I wouldn’t want to doubt your word. Perhaps we can find a use for it.” He steepled his fingers, looking past her. “A truly captive spirit, within the ring. Such things have been known. Maybe this will be more useful than if it had become a man.”
You wouldn’t doubt my word? Hell. “Of course.” The Shah took the ring from her and held it over a flame. Shadow inclined her head, staring at her hands clasped in her lap as he inspected it. Shadow sneaked a look upwards and saw that the blue smoke from the flame was forming words, inscribed in azure light upon the air. A name, and also a spell. She tried to remember the name, but it drained out of her mind like water through a sieve. The Shah had set safeguards. She would have done the same. She was glad her face was concealed behind her veil and she knew that if the Shah penetrated it, she would be warned. But he was respectful, and did not. The veil did not protect her from the thing in her head, however.
Whatever the Shah had learned from the ring, he seemed satisfied.
“You’ve done your best. There have been-difficult-elements to this case.”
You’re telling me. “Thank you,” Shadow said. There was a pressure behind her tongue, as if the ifrit was willing her to say more. With an effort, she forced it back; she would not be a completely pliant puppet.
“Of course, you’ll remain on the payroll,” the Shah said now.
“Oh, good.”
She felt the Shah’s sharp gaze through the veil.
“I shall, also of course, be calling on your services again.” He handed over a small leather bag. It was heavy, and gave a metallic chink as she took it. Gold. How old-fashioned. But it was how you were supposed to pay an alchemist, in coin. Shadow murmured her thanks and, at a gesture from the Shah, rose to go. She needed to get out of the Has, for all sorts of reasons. She could feel the spirit looking out of the back of her head as she left, an odd sensation and intrusive.
“This will take some getting used to,” the ifrit said. Perhaps it felt the same way. She knew, without being told, that there were deep levels in her mind the spirit could not access, not without a proper set of keys. That was not beyond the realms of probability, either. But on the way through the bazaar she took care to focus on the purely quotidian: which spices were for sale, which pieces of machinery.
“How boring your life must be,” the spirit said, in wonder.
“I need the downtime,” Shadow said, and thought of different kinds of tea for the rest of the journey home.
Interlude
It was easy to succumb to despair. She had lived all her life under a benign hand. When doubts had come, or conflicts, she had been encouraged to express her own opinions, knowing that beneath the tightrope of uncertainty, there had been a safety net. She had loved her life. Her speciality had been in investigating the storyways to do with children-in-the-forest and even today Tope’s mind could be soothed by the thought of gingerbread houses, darkened pines, poisoned apples, mad old hags. So many of them, yet not a lifetime’s work, one would have thought, but there had been other stories, too. A worthwhile life, ever since she had trembled on the edge of her initiation at seventeen. That had been during the war-one of them-and she had been filled with an ardent blaze, a desire to keep this fortress of civilisation against what was coming at it out of the night.
Now the night was once more coming fast, it seemed to her, and there was nothing to hold it back. She knew she should have had more faith in the Library itself, in its capacity to remain a tower of strength. Because it was an open secret that the Library itself was a living thing, an entity with a myriad minds and a thousand tongues. She just hoped that this would be enough.
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.