anatomical features and cladistic theory out loud.
It seemed to possess innumerable eyes, all of them reflecting the light radiated by the cage. All staring back at him. Examining him. And whether or not this was his paranoia, he couldn't tell, but it certainly seemed as if the giant spider knew exactly who Jeryd was.
*
Voland leapt out of bed as he heard the Phonoi make a screecownstairs.
Where was Nanzi? In a panic, and sensing something wasn't right, he scampered around the room hurriedly dressing himself. He darted away from the bedroom, still bleary-eyed, and called out for her. There was no reply. He stumbled downstairs.
There was no sign of her throughout the entire house in fact, so he hastened even deeper through the darkness, feeling his way along the walls to the abattoir with its familiar stench of death. He was met only with silence.
'Nanzi?!' he shouted urgently. 'Nanzi, are you there?'
'She's not here,' one of the Phonoi replied. It quivered in and out of ghost-form, first the face of a screaming child, then an old woman, then blackness.
'Sorry, sir,' another chimed. 'We know she's out. We sense her…'
'She's right across the city.'
'We sense she's trapped somewhere.'
In the stillness of the room the Phonoi began to glow uniformly. They shifted through the air, as they always did, drifting about in sharp bursts only to skim away into nothing at all. He wished they would stay still so he could establish some clear answers.
'Where is she?' Voland pleaded.
'Trapped is all we know,' the Phonoi declared. 'We simply feel it.'
'I need to get to her,' Voland ordered. 'Help me, please.'
'Anything for Doctor Voland,' they called out soothingly. 'Yes, anything at all.'
After a brief silence, a number of them took form and became one mass, then began to circle the room in rapid motion. They tightened their circuit around Voland, a strangling wind that settled underneath him, and around his waist. He felt a sudden lightness, and realized he was being lifted into the air then moved backward along the route he had taken to the slaughterhouse.
'She'll need clothes when she transforms…' Voland began.
They whisked him upstairs in a flurry, let him stuff a few of her garments into a satchel, then down again. It was dizzying.
Ahead of him a door burst back, and as he flew out suddenly into the streets of the city, people pointed and stared. The Phonoi tilted him upright, like he was walking on air, and he held on to his hat as they rose higher, heading to the west, above the snow-slick rooftops of Villiren, noticing the little street fires and torches and flashes of magic, the movement of customers to and from taverns, the patrols of soldiers… all becoming smaller with the distance.
He flew towards his lover.
*
Jeryd turned and pointed. 'Over there, in the distance above thooftops.' Something was moving across the horizon, a figure with aint white glow blurring its outline. It dipped back and forth, theoved steadily. Bats scattered from the crevices along its route, making their escape in erratic paths.
'What on earth do you suppose that is?' Bellis asked.
'It wears a top hat.' Abaris was peering through a small telescope. 'Blimey. Those are Phonoi around it, I'll wager.'
'Bugger, I hope not,' Bellis whispered. 'You sure, Abaris?'
'Aye, for sure,' the man replied, moving the brass tube in gentle pursuit of the moving figure. 'Quite an intensity of them, I'd say. They're helping him to fly.'
'What the hell are Phonoi?' Jeryd had moved with the Grey Hairs away from the cage, towards the edge of the rooftop, infected by Bellis's sudden nervousness.
'Spirit wraiths,' Bellis explained. 'Those blighters were once prisoners – murderers to be precise – who had their lives quite literally sucked out of them by means of ancient technologies. At a very creepy and unsavoury point in our history, I'd say.'
'I'm not sure I've a clue what you're on about,' Jeryd sighed.
'The process was intended to separate people's minds from their bodies, but it failed to produce any real results, so at the time led to the belief that mind and body were in fact one. Instead, it was the prisoners'… essence, for want of a less technical word, that was ripped from them, and distilled neatly into portable devices. That stolen essence is what comprises the Phonoi, making each of them a spirit of murder. And, pardon my language, but they're bloody nasty to deal with close up.'
And I used to think those nights in Villjamur were full of freak shows, Jeryd thought. This place is twice as bad.
'So we shall deal with this from afar!' Bellis immediately scurried back to her satchel, and began rummaging around inside. The figure was coming closer now, still hovering on that white wind. The Grey Hairs advised Jeryd to shuffle back towards the cage for his own safety. He was neither reluctant nor eager to do so, feeling so utterly out of place amid such weirdness. There were clearly things in this world of greater mystery than he knew how to deal with.
The old cultists took up position on the edge of the roof, each of them gripping an identical metal tube in one hand. Abaris seemed to pull a strip of material off his tube, amber dust from it caught up in the wind. They conferred. They clashed their relics like tankards in a bar. Suddenly something sparked up into the sky above, like a firework, carving the air with a scream, which faded as their missile penetrated the cloud base.
Thunder rolled in the sky, or something like it, and then came a glow that highlighted the dense layers of cumulus.
Well, I never… Jeryd thought, as if he could witness any more surprises tonight.
Swooping down from out of the clouds came a titanic skeletal form of a garuda, constructed entirely from a purple light. Only the edges of this being glowed; in the gaps where the meat should be, there was nothing.
It swooped down directly above their heads, then arced majestically towards the oncoming figure. Jeryd noticed how Abaris and Ramon were both grinding their relics this way and that, in the same manner, as if operating a kite.
As the electric garuda sailed down, forcing a current of wind, the figure spotted it and began heading away instantly, towards the east, no longer towards them, all the time chased by its relic-inspired pursuer. The hunt was fast and intense, their weird shapes skimming just above the tops of houses, ripping up roof tiles and stirring street detritus in their wake.
It was all over before the first minute was out.
The garuda opened a skeletal framework of jaws and consumed the figure whole, then turned slowly in a graceful arc back towards the rooftop where Abaris and Ramon were cheering loudly like a couple of kids playing games. They guided the apparition gently down towards the cage, murmuring brief orders and directions.
Jeryd edged backwards in alarm, wary of this construct. As it merged with the bars of light, the figure that had been pursuing them was deposited alongside the spider, his top hat falling to the floor beside him.
'Oh, well done, boys!' Bellis cried.
It was only then that the spider began to change shape, at first lurching and convulsing, then its limbs bending and contracting out of context.
You are absolutely bloody joking, Jeryd thought. That's impossible…
It contorted into his Inquisition aide, Nanzi, who was now naked, and upon seeing this, the man with the top hat immediately produced a satchel with some clothing in it. She hastily covered herself up, and then huddled alongside him. He placed his arm around her protectively.
The cultists and Jeryd stood in awed silence observing their catch.
'We've a fine brace tonight, then. Shame we couldn't trap the Phonoi, still, it's a fairly good haul even for us old things,' Bellis declared. Then, after a deep frown: 'I say, Jeryd, do you suppose these two know each other?'
