Worldsoul

There was a chance that Loki would be conscious of it, a little candle going out, but hell, animals died all the time. He hadn’t been aware of any tugs on the wyrd-web, but he’d taken good care to shut himself off from it, severing any connections that might have curled out, vine tendrils from his spirit. Old Loki was subtle, though. Deed still wasn’t planning on taking risks.

It was now obvious that Mareritt would not be mended by the time they reached the Pass. Mercy estimated this to be another thirty seconds or so. The Pass filled the sky: it was like flying into the sunset. As a child, and sometimes now, Mercy had hung out of the back windows of her house, looking into the shining crimson sky above the Western Sea and its the golden clouds of islands, wondering if she would ever visit them. A whimsical notion, but now here she was. These clouds were moving too fast to be islands, however. They were like boiling clouds of golden steam, laced with lightning fire. Mercy couldn’t help feeling if she took the sleigh into the middle of that, they’d all be fried.

Then the clouds parted and she gasped. There were gates in the Pass. They reared up in the form of columns of black cloud, soft as ink or soot, then hardening to the resemblance of stone. On a ledge on the left hand gate, someone was standing, holding a sword of flame.

“You’ll have to-have to-” That was Mareritt, from the back of the sleigh. Her voice was a reedy gasp, almost inaudible.

“What’s she saying?” Mercy called.

“You’ll have to stop the sleigh!”

“But what about the demons?” Mercy looked back. They were still being pursued, but the bulk of the swarm was still amassing, readying to pour through the Pass. The heads continued to spit fire. Shadow leaned over the lip of the sleigh. Her gaze was intent.

“Mercy, you’ll have to take us down to that ledge. We’ve got to go past the guardian.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“No, but I’ve got some suspicions.”

The sleigh soared downwards. Close up, Mercy could see that the columns were akin to basalt: if this was an illusion, it was a remarkably realistic one. Both the ledge, and the figure, were far larger than they should have been, but as the sleigh grew rapidly nearer they, too, adjusted in size.

Shadow said, “Guardian.”

He thought he’d been careful. He’d thought, too, that he knew these woods, and so he had, but that had been when the god had been kind, if you could call it that, still held him in grace. The world was a reflection of the mind of God, after all, and what kind of world can that be, when a god is cruel? Outcast from Loki’s dubious benignity, Deed found that he was lost.

Night had fallen some time before. He could still see the rift in the air, a sunset slash, far away to the west, but he was relying on his nocturnal vision in order to make his way through the trees. He was heading up into the mountain pass, the one that led, ultimately, to the mistfall bridge, and he had been on track until, suddenly, he wasn’t.

The forest had closed in. Even Deed was finding it difficult to make his way through the trees and it was first with relief, then a chilly dismay, that he stumbled out into a clearing.

But not just any clearing. He knew exactly where he was. The tall spires of trees, motionless despite the wind which had been whipping the branches of the pines into a shower of snow, the basalt rocks. The two wolves came out from the trees, closing in from different directions. Deed knew as soon as he saw them that they were not wolves at all, nor were they from the wolfhead clans, who paid allegiance to Odin. These were men, transformed into the semblance of beasts, and the process had not been painless. He could see the anguish and rage in their trapped eyes; knew, too, that they would not be able to do anything except the god’s bidding. They moved as stiffly as automata over the snow. One wolf’s mouth moved.

“Hello, Deed,” a voice said.

For a few minutes, Mercy was afraid that the sleigh might actually melt. The rock on which she stood was hot; she could feel it through the soles of her boots. She cast a nervous glance towards the sleigh, but although its runners had hissed and steamed as they landed, to her relief the sleigh remained intact.

She noticed that Mareritt, now apparently healed, took care to remain seated on the sleigh, or perhaps it was just that she did not want to relinquish her hold on the reins and the deer, whose silver-black eyes rolled in panic. Gremory, however, had joined Shadow and Mercy on the ledge, and the demon looked as though she was enjoying the change in temperature.

But it was the figure ahead of them who was worrying Mercy. He was tall, with pale fiery hair that streamed down his back, and teeth as long and sharp as a disir’s. His beautiful face was remote and sometimes it flickered, changing into fire. He wore robes as white as snow, but the sword he carried was a burning gash in the air. Mercy had never met an angel before, but she had a sudden apprehension of all that filled-with-awe business. Or make that fear. She swallowed hard and sheathed the Irish sword, which had become very quiet and still in her hand.

“You would pass through the gate?” the angel asked.

Shadow was staring not at the angel, but at Mercy. Meeting the other woman’s eyes, Mercy read the message in them: Don’t trust it.

“Will you let us?” Mercy said. Mareritt was staring at her, too, but Mercy could not read her expression. Perhaps she realised that an appeal from her would do no good. The demon appeared to think the same. She, on the other hand, was watching the angel, her eyes narrow red slits.

“Of course.”

Gravely, the angel inclined his head. “If you pay the fee.”

Mercy sighed. There always was one of those. “And what would that be?”

The angel looked her directly in the face. It was hard to withstand his gaze; Mercy felt her face grow hot, as though she stared into the sun. “A life.”

“What?” She was shocked into rudeness. “You’re an angel. You’re not supposed to ask for that sort of thing.”

“To do him justice,” Gremory said, as if commenting on some abstruse theological point, “it’s not really his decision. He’s just the enforcer. The gates run on older rules. Mind you,” the demon added, “I can’t say that there’s any love lost.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“I don’t know his name. I do know one or two of them.”

The angel’s gaze did not waver. “You have to choose.”

“May I have a word with my friend?” Shadow said to him.

The angel nodded.

She stepped over to Mercy and threw the ripped veil over them both. “I don’t think this will stop him hearing us-but anyway. The thing is, I’ve worked it out. The swarm’s hard behind. When they’re ready, when they’ve formed their fighting formation, they’ll come through here. It won’t matter to them if they have to sacrifice one of their number.”

“No, but it matters to us. Perra can’t die: the ka’s a spirit. Gremory won’t and anyway, she’s a demon. Mareritt’s a story.”

“So that leaves you and me. If someone dies, maybe they can ask that the gap be closed. We could have it both ways. We’ve got rid of the disir. Now we have a chance to close the Pass behind us.”

Mercy took a deep breath. Then she nodded. “I’m vowed to the Library. I swore I’d give anything to protect it, including my life. This counts as that. I’ll do it.”

At first, she thought that Shadow was going to protest, but then a change came over the woman’s face, rendering it unreadable. She said, “If that’s your choice.”

“I’m sure,” Mercy said, thinking, Fuck. All the things that she couldn’t now be able to do… but if they let the swarm through, she probably would have died anyway. “Let’s get it over with. See if it works, for a start.”

She ducked out from under the veil and began to walk across the ledge. The hot stone baked up beneath the soles of her feet and the air scorched her lungs. She opened her mouth to say, Take me…

… and the world disappeared beneath an enveloping blue. For a second, she thought that this was death: an