to devour its tail
the demiurges sing. And then the Dragon is upon him. It pours from the blackness like blood from a wound, a hungry absence of structure or logic. It bites into the warmind’s avatar with teeth made of madness.
Old branch memories and reflexes wake up. The warmind throws partials into the code thing’s jaws. The very presence of the Dragon is breaking the vir structure, giving him a way out. He flicks into the battlespace vir, downloads a gogol into a thoughtwisp—
—and there is a discontinuity. Suddenly, he is the gogol in the wisp, watching from afar as the Dragon devours his fleet. The oblast’s Hawking drive ruptures. From the thoughtwisp, the conflagration is redshifted into a gentle glow, but there is a furnace burning inside the warmind, even as the phantom pains of the tiny wisp vir crawl all over the body he no longer has.
The Universe that the quantum gods made is cruel and random. Before he reaches the nearest wisp router, the zoku ships come, survivors of the battle of the string. He tries to fight, to win a quick truedeath at least. But the zoku are not as merciful as him.
14
TAWADDUD AND THE SECRET NAMES
Tawaddud loves the way the Secret Names make her feel. When she was a child, learning them took endless repetition and practice, and stern instruction by Chaeremon the jinn. Meditating on the various forms of the Names, repeating their syllables, over and over. Tracing their interlocking geometries on sheets of paper until their shapes filled her dreams. The hard work had its rewards. Duny in particular delighted in playing with the Names. She would make outlandish cartoon images, receiving a stern warning from Chaeremon about body thieves, and rattle the jinn tutor’s jar with athar hands.
But Tawaddud would rather sit quietly on the balcony and listen to the words echoing in her head, over and over. The calm regal presence of Malik-ul-Muluk that made her feel like the queen of the world. The righteous red rage of Al-Muntaqim the Avenger. The gentle contemplation of Al-Hakim the Wise.
The common tongue nicknames given to them in the Book of Names capture only a fraction of their essence. The Names are the names of the Aun, and by calling them you control the world, access the functionality built into the foglets in Earth’s atmosphere, rock and water by the ancients. Tawaddud always feels they do not merely come from the outside, but that they wake something up inside her as well, like meeting old friends.
But the name she is shouting now with her mouth and mind as the Fast Ones attack is not her friend.
Her fear mingles with that of Al-Muhaymin the Guardian, whose touch turns the athar around her into a shell hard as stone. Lost old words from the Sirr-in-the-sky like
Sumanguru sways under fire. Red splotches blossom across his uniform. Then he is lost beneath a whirlwind of transparent wings. Tawaddud cries out and takes a step forward, but then two of the creatures whoosh down and hover in front of her.
By the standards of their kind, the Fast Ones are giants, both over a foot tall, clad in the white ceramic armour of the little people of the twin cities-within-cities of Qush and Misr. Their descent brings a rush of waste heat and a tangy smell of overclocked metabolisms. Their dragonfly wings are flashing blue-and-silver discs. The flywheels of their needle guns of ornate brass let out a high-pitched whine as they aim at Tawaddud’s head.
They stay still over a second, long enough for her to see their beadlike black eyes. They exchange a few words, chattering back and forth, voices shrill bursts of noise. Then they dart towards Arcelia the qarin, still sitting on its perch. One of the tiny warriors plunges a sharp spike into the back of Arcelia’s head. The metal bird beats its wings and rises up, a golden blur with two white riders. Tawaddud cries out as the bird flashes through the shattered ceiling.
The swarm clings to Sumanguru, making him a statue built of little people, screaming and chattering. Above him, a group of the creatures is laboriously manoeuvring into position, carrying a more substantial weapon.
Tawaddud shouts the first Name that comes into her head. It is Al-Qahhar the Subduer. The echo of the word spreads through the athar in ripples. A wave of confusion spreads through the swarm, and suddenly Sumanguru is free. The strange gun clatters to the ground. The gogol still holds his knife: its dazzling slashes leave a network of bright afterimages in the air. In seconds, he stands in the middle of devastation, covered in blood, transparent, wispy innards of Fast Ones and their chitin-like shells. The rest of the swarm scatters, joining the aviary chimera escaping their confinement.
For a moment, Sumanguru looks at himself with a look of utter disgust and confusion. He brushes some ichor away from his uniform collar and then rubs his fingers together gingerly.
‘Lord Sumanguru, they took the qarin,’ Tawaddud says. Arcelia is a golden pinpoint now, far above.
She whispers to her jinn ring and summons the carpet.
‘Lord Sumanguru?’
The gogol looks sick and confused. His chest is full of scratches and wounds from Fast One needles and swords, and there is a deep gash across his forehead. He shakes his head, and for a moment, the chilly look returns to his eyes.
Then he turns away and retches.
When he is finished, Tawaddud touches his shoulder.
‘Lord Sumanguru, the two leaders got away with the qarin. I’ve summoned the carpet: we can still catch them.’ She swallows. ‘Question them.’
Sumanguru kicks at the scattered tiny bodies on the ground in frustration. ‘What about these?’ he gasps.
‘They are all dead. The little people do not value their lives very much. Much like the Sobornost, or so I am told—’
Then she sees the gun on the ground. It is made from black wood, a gentle, curving shape with gold and brass mechanisms and wheels with symbols and Names carved on them. She picks it up: the grip is smooth and cool in her hand.
‘What is that?’ Sumanguru asks.
‘A barakah gun. A muhtasib weapon: it destroys Seals. It speaks the Anti-Name, the Secret Name of Death. They were going to use it on you.’
‘Wonderful,’ Sumanguru mutters. He frowns. ‘And why did they leave you alone?’
The arrival of the carpet interrupts him. It descends into the aviary slowly, a sheet of silvery mist. It hovers in front of them a couple of centimetres from the ground, undulating waves running through it.
‘There is no time. We have to go!’
She steps on the carpet, and Sumanguru follows, swaying slightly. At first, it is like standing on the surface of a waterbed. Then her footing becomes firm as the carpet compensates for her weight and invisible hands support her. It is made from expensive utility fog uncorrupted by wildcode. Still, it requires several low-level jinni bound to it, constantly cleaning and updating the athar spells. The ring in her finger turns it into an extension of her mind, making it feel like she is holding both Sumanguru and herself in the palm of her hand.
With a thought, she lifts them up from the shattered aviary and into bright sunlight, flying after the golden bird as if in a dream.
At first, it is hard to see Arcelia against the sun. The sky above them is clear and, amidst the blueness above, there are faint traces of the Gourd frame, the cage around Earth, white and silver lines like segments of some giant
