With Benjaya and the ka, she had now been following the river for over an hour. The light had not changed and neither had the flow of the river, although the crack and creak of the ice was now more marked. She thought that the temperature had risen a little, as well. A spring, for this winter world? Somehow, that seemed unlikely. She could not help feeling that this was an ice age, and spring very far away.
Mercy’s feet were cold. So was her nose. She was hungry (the ka’s hunting had not yet produced a result) and tired, but she was not yet exhausted. She and Benjaya had given up conversation, but Mercy could hear the murmuring voice of the Irish sword and it was this that kept her going. Odd, that a weapon should be the link that, she felt, kept her attached to the Library, yet the Library was the thing she had sworn to protect and so it made a kind of sense. And the sword could not tire or falter, although it could be broken. It would not let her down. She gripped its hilt a little tighter and walked on.
The curve of the river took them along the shore of a rocky bluff, and then the ground evened out. Forest spilled down the slopes, encroaching onto the shore. Here was a scattering of pines, filling the air with a fresh astringent scent that wiped out the lingering odour of the disir. Mercy wasn’t even sure that she hadn’t imagined it. She turned to Benjaya.
“What do you think?”
Benjaya glanced nervously at the forest. “I don’t know. I don’t like the thought of being in those trees when it’s still half dark. You don’t know what might be in there.”
Mercy agreed, but there had never been any sign that it might get lighter.
“What are you thinking?” Benjaya added.
Instead of answering, Mercy turned to the ka. “How about you? Are you up for taking a look?” She did not like asking Perra to do her dirty work for her, but the ka was a lot less vulnerable than Benjaya or herself.
“I will try,” the ka agreed. It padded rapidly among the trees, leaving Benjaya and Mercy standing on the foreshore. Mercy peered into the clouds: there was no sign of the airship.
“I’m worried about getting back again,” Benjaya said, suddenly.
Mercy thought about saying something reassuring, but he deserved the truth. “So am I,” she said.
“It’s as though the city is bleeding people. First the Skein, then the Barquess. Now us.”
“We will get back, Ben. I’ll do my best.” But she’d told the Elders that she’d take care of it, and what if her best wasn’t good enough?
The ka appeared at her feet, as silently as it had gone. “There’s something in the forest. A road.”
“A road? What sort of road?” This land was too long-ago for any kind of buildings. Yet there had been the flying boat… “All right. Let’s take a look.”
It was made of stone flags and cut straight between the trees. She could see it vanishing off into shadow. It did not look right. It did not belong. The Irish sword twitched in her hand.
When she took a step onto the road, the sole of her boot rang out as if she was treading onto metal, a cold, metallic sound. Mercy swallowed. She had the sudden disquieting feeling that the road would snatch her away, whisk her into the darkness.
“Ben,” she said. “Let’s not lose sight of each other, all right?”
He gave her a rather odd look in reply. It should indeed have been obvious.
“I don’t know where it goes,” the ka said.
“Then we’ll follow it and find out.”
They had been walking for some time when Mercy became aware the world was changing around them. It was subtle, at first: the trees thinning out, a slight lightening of the sky above their heads. Then she realised that the road itself was altering, the stone becoming less rough and more cleanly cut. They crested a low hill and found themselves looking down on a crossroads. A black stone stood at its heart. The sword twitched in Mercy’s hand. This wasn’t the landscape they had left, the Ice Age tundra. It looked more like part of the Scottish highlands-rolling bald hills with scattered pines, shadowy beneath the ferocious stars. The bisecting road ran in either direction, across moorland, but the crossroads itself stood alongside a grove of trees. Benjaya and Mercy looked at one another. Crossroads meant magic: the threefold meeting-place of the Greeks, where Hekate’s offerings had been left, the junction where you meet the devil at midnight, a place of ritual and magic… They headed down into the scent of heather. Dark pools formed mirrors on either side of the road; sparse saplings gradually clustered until Mercy could see the crossroads stood in a grove of oak. Beneath her feet, the road changed, blackening. The oaks were heavy with leaf, a midsummer foliage. She stopped. She did not know what was in the grove, but she did not want to go any further. It felt ancient, laden with bloodshed like the site of a forgotten battlefield. She could smell meat on the air.
“If the disir are anywhere… ” Mercy said, then stopped. A breeze stirred the oaks, as if the word had become a wind. The sword twitched again like a hound straining at the leash. But if we don’t go, we won’t know.
“I will go,” Perra said.
Even though Mercy knew how hard it was to harm the spirit, she heard herself say, “No. We’ll go together.”
As they approached the crossroads, the smell of blood increased. There was no sign of anything amiss: nothing hanging from the branches. Mercy couldn’t help thinking of Roman descriptions of the druid groves of Britain, butchered meat dripping blood on the forest floor… this was not a productive line of thought. Besides, she couldn’t see anything.
Into the grove. The ka gave a compulsive shiver, as though wind had rippled over its fur.
“Perra? What is it?”
“Predators.”
“There’s an altar,” Benjaya whispered.
It stood at the centre of the crossroads, a slab of basalt four foot high and six long. It gleamed faintly in the light of the stars. A skull stood at the centre of the altar, shining. Mercy stared. The altar had a fascination, the kind of compulsion that she associated with controlling magic. Before it was the jawbone of a whale, an immense ragged white arch.
“It’s very old,” a sly voice said from the trees, making Mercy leap.
“Who’s there?”
“Come and see.”
She did so, hearing the others close behind her. Deep inside the oak grove, behind the bone arch, stood a rock, an outcrop of granite. Something stood before it and it was a moment before Mercy realised the figure was chained to the rock.
It wasn’t human. It was bigger than the disir she had seen, and it was male: a long white face, sharp-toothed, beneath matted pale hair. He wore leather rags, the remnants of armour. His nails had scored the rock: she could see the grooves. He smiled at her, head cocked to one side.
“I don’t often have visitors.”
The voice was sophisticated, resonant. It held promises and malice. It seemed to Mercy that she had heard it somewhere before, but not directly: like an echo through someone else’s voice. Warily, she stepped forward.
“Maybe this isn’t an easy place to find. Where are we?”
She wasn’t expecting an answer, but to her surprise, one came. “It’s called ‘the place of the crossroads.’ I’m afraid your ancestors were rather literal.”