“You would not wish to know,” the Duke said, her eyes glittering.
“I was just curious.”
Soon, they reached the final flight of steps and Shadow could feel the muscles of her calves vibrating as though they were the strings of a harp. She was in good physical condition, but even so, it had been a long way up to the top of the fortress and it was a long way down again, too. She felt she would be lucky to be able to stand once she reached the ground and, indeed, her first step was a stagger. Gremory caught her arm in a grip like a steel band.
“Take care. This is not a good point to show weakness.”
Grimly, Shadow nodded. She could see a shape moving beyond the trees: that distant figure. It would have been nice to think that it was just a gardener, but in Shadow’s experience, things rarely worked out under the category of “nice.”
There was no sign of desert sand beneath her feet. Instead, thick grass covered the ground, a dense vivid green and somehow unnatural. Shadow was not sure whether this could be attributed to her new senses or to something about the place itself. She could see cushions of moss and small starry flowers in the grass: there seemed to be a richness of species, as if different ecological layers had folded themselves into one particular space. Then her vision, quite suddenly, narrowed down so that she could see a tiny ant labouring up one of the blades of grass. Definitely the spirit’s sight, she thought, with its spatial differentials. With Gremory, she skirted the trees, trying to keep out of sight of the gardener.
She thought it had worked, until they were quite far into the orchard. Shadow did not recognise the fruit that grew on the trees: the leaves were like an apple’s, but the fruit was oval, small, the colour of sunsets, and they emitted a strong pungent fragrance.
“Do you know what they are?” she asked Gremory in an undertone.
“Don’t eat the fruit,” the demon replied.
“But you can see them, yes?”
“Yes. They grow on bones.”
Clearly Gremory was still apprehending the garden in a somewhat different way.
Shadow was tempted to pick one of the fruits, but reason told her this would be insane. She moved in and out of the trees, zigzagging, then movement caught her eye. She turned. To her dismay, the gardener was watching her.
It was a hunched, dark shape. The shoulders were massive in proportion to the rest of its body, tapering to a narrow waist and strong legs. She could see the small dark eyes, whiteless in its broad face. It looked more like an ape than a man, something primitive and ancient. It was watching her with a stillness that suggested intelligence, however, and when it saw that she had observed it, it began to bound forwards with long, loping strides.
Shadow drew her blade. She was conscious of the demon turning beside her, but Gremory’s hands remained at her sides. The gardener leaped. Shadow threw herself to the side, rolling out and down. Teeth snapped along her arm, grazing her sleeve and she thickened her veil to maximum across her shoulders and head. An arm like a club shot out and struck, knocking a numbing blow over her left shoulder. Her left arm grew limp; ignoring it Shadow feinted, then lashed out with the sun-and-moon blade. It hit home, just beneath the gardener’s collarbone, but there was no blood, just a small powdery shower. The thing’s lips, rubbery black like a dog’s, pulled back from its teeth and it gave a soundless growl, a vibration which Shadow felt rather than heard. Behind it, the demon took a dancing, mincing step backwards. Shadow took a chance and threw the blade. It struck the creature in the centre of its throat and should have severed the windpipe. The creature gave a breathy cough and spat something out into the grass: it looked like a small leaden cube. Shadow reached down and snatched it up with a corner of the veil, not wanting it to make contact with her skin. Then the creature fell apart. Its head burst like a melon dropped from a turret; its chest exploded, fragmenting outwards until only the legs were left, twin crumbling trunks which tottered and fell. Soon, the only thing left was clots of soil, dark in the greenness of the grass.
“Thanks for your help,” Shadow said sarcastically to the demon. Gremory shrugged.
“I didn’t want to steal your kill. You looked like you had it under control.”
“Well,” Shadow said, wiping the earthy blade on the grass. “Maybe I did.”
Thirty-Nine
Darya’s transformation was over almost as soon as it had begun. The teeth drew back, the bone structure returned to human-normal. Mercy’s hand, clasping the hilt of the sword, relaxed by degrees. Darya bent and swiftly took a book from the lowest shelf, near the back. She gave the impression that she knew what she had come for. She placed it inside her ruffled jacket and went quickly from the library. After a moment’s consideration, Mercy followed.
She knew relatively little about the lives of the members of the Court. Unlike Librarians, and other functionaries, they were a closed order, living mainly within the Court itself and its satellite houses. Their initiation practices were a closely guarded secret and said to be grim, but everyone said that about their own initiations, with a kind of magical machismo, so it was hard to know what to believe. As with any closemouthed system, rumours about it were rife.
Still, during the years of the Skein, the Court had contributed substantially to the upkeep of the city, working in many instances alongside the Library itself and reining in the more elaborate or obtrusive stories. Several rogue bits of legend had been tracked down by Court magicians and stuffed back into their ontological places, in more than one case saving the city itself from disaster. There was known to have been some exchange of manuscripts.
With the disappearance of the Skein, matters had gone downhill to some degree. Mercy supposed that this was only to be expected: two powerful organisations, plus a power vacuum at the top, do potential chaos bring. But because she had not been involved with the Court directly, and because the Elders of the Library would naturally not be inclined to confide issues of higher policy to their underlings, she wasn’t entirely sure how far things had gone.
She pursued Darya at a distance through another maze of passages. She had quickly lost any ability to discern direction and the lack of windows did not help. Darya was, however, heading upwards and this was helpful, if only because it reassured Mercy that she was heading back towards the roof.
A few minutes later, Darya dived through a doorway and vanished. Mercy, hovering at the entrance of the door, was surprised to hear the sound of weeping, although it took her a moment to work out what this was. It sounded like a gull or a mewing cat rather than anything human.
She peered through the door. Darya sat on a low couch, her face buried in her hands. When at last she looked up, staring sightlessly at the wall, Mercy saw that her face was sliding back towards disir: she no longer looked human. Miserable Darya might be, but Mercy had no intention of having her throat torn out in a misguided attempt at consolation. She shrank back against the wall. The sobbing died away to a hoarse rasp like the sound of a saw, then silence.
Mercy once more looked around the corner of the door. Darya was lying on the couch as though she had been thrown there. The tight skirt had ridden up over her long, spiny legs and her hair was a tangle. She looked like a broken doll and if Mercy had found another woman like that, she would have suspected rape at the very least. But she was sure that there had been no one else in the room.
“Perra,” she mouthed. “Watch for me.”
The ka gave a single nod. Mercy slipped into the room, holding her breath. The book which Darya had taken from the library lay on the floor by the couch; it had fallen from her jacket. Her heart hammering, Mercy whisked it up and fled from the room.