border in Kikkosico. Parliament sent the First Committee a list of towns and cities that would be gassed from the air, one every two days. Reudox was head of the list. We accepted their armistice the next morning.’
‘That’s horrible, Harry.’
‘As bad as it gets, old stick. But I am a scalpel, not the surgeon, so what do I know? Perhaps the Court could have stopped the war, but we’ve always been wary of being too hard-slap outside of Jackals; the world’s just too big, too complicated for us to act as high sheriff to every ha’penny kingdom and nation out there. When you’re faced with mob dynamics, taking the wolf without killing the flock is all but impossible. If our thinkers had spotted the trend early enough, maybe we could have landed Ben Carl a nice contract writing penny dreadfuls for Dock Street. Maybe we could have put
‘If he hadn’t written it, someone else would have.’
‘Which comes first, the movement or the man, yes?’ said Harry. ‘You’ve a fine mind, Oliver. It’s been wasted malingering in the shadow of Toby Fall Rise — if we get through this, I’ll have to see if I can change your fortunes.’
‘Does the Court of the Air take potential feybreed?’
Harry winked at Oliver. ‘You’ll be surprised at some of the people who turn up on the wolftakers’ pay-book. They even took me in.’
So they moved on. Past the destroyed villages and the roads overgrown with knee-high grass and brambles. Avoiding the shadows of aerostats and the silhouettes of red-coated riding officers traversing the hills and valleys. On the seventh night since they’d begun travelling overland Oliver was sleeping fitfully in his blanket roll. Images of Uncle Titus danced before him, puppet strings dangling from the sky where the unseen masters of the Court made him jig and jerk at their whim.
The Whisperer was trying to break through into his dream. Oliver could feel the pressure of the thing’s loneliness like a thousand-weight lifting stone from a pugilist’s pit pressing on his chest. The dream was not well formed enough for the Whisperer to break through, though; there needed to be substance to his dreamscape for the thing to appear.
‘Oliver,’ hissed the Whisperer. ‘I can’t reach you.’
‘What did you say?’ Oliver shouted into the emptiness.
‘She is here; by all that is holy, I can feel her coming.’
‘Who, Whisperer?’ said Oliver. ‘Who is coming?’
‘Her! HER. I am water in the ocean before her, spittle in a hurricane. Dear Circle — her perfection — makes me — an animalcule in the stomach — of the universe. So small-’
‘You’re breaking up, Whisperer,’ said Oliver.
‘Shadow — in — the — light.’ The Whisperer’s presence faded to nothingness.
With the press of the cold moorland wind, Oliver awoke. The flap of the tent had come loose. Harry was at the opposite end of the canvas cover, snoring loudly as usual, wrapped up in his bedroll.
The first glimmering of sunrise reached into the sky outside, fingers of orange and purple climbing down to the horizon. Two deer stood a hundred yards from their tent, a doe and a stag, cautiously sniffing the air. They seemed oblivious to the presence of the woman sitting cross-legged in front of them, protected from the chill of the morning by nothing more than a white Catosian-style toga.
Oliver threw on his long-necked wool jumper, pulled up his trousers and went outside. Something about the woman seemed familiar, almost mesmerising. He walked up to face her. ‘Who are you?’
‘Has it been so long, Oliver, that you have forgotten me?’ As the woman spoke, multicoloured lights started to circle in lazy orbits around her head.
‘It was you,’ said Oliver. ‘You who came for me in the land of the feyfolk, beyond the veil.’
One of the lights hummed and the woman smiled at it. ‘You see, I told you he would remember our visit.’ She turned back to Oliver. ‘I had a hard job, Oliver, convincing the people of the fast-time that your place was here, in your own world, with your real family.’
‘I asked you if you were a goddess or an angel,’ said Oliver.
‘And I said to you that if the angel had a hammer, and the hammer had a nail, I might be the nail.’
‘I thought it was a dream,’ said Oliver. ‘You, my time inside the feymist. Everything beyond the veil.’
‘The people of the fast-time move to a different beat, Oliver. The rule-set of their existence is beyond the ability of your mind as it exists here to process. I found it difficult myself to construct meaningful enough arguments to have you returned home by them. I hope you don’t miss your foster family inside the feymist too much.’
‘I hardly remember them now. But considering the life I have had here in Jackals, maybe you should have left me where I was.’
‘I promised your real parents I would save you, Oliver,’ said the woman, gently. ‘I made, well, you might call it a deal, with your father. If I had taken you out of the feymist too soon you would have died of shock. If I had left you beyond the feymist curtain for much longer you would have changed forever and your mind could not have adapted to life in Jackals again.’
Oliver looked back towards the tent where Harry was still sleeping. He knew the agent of the Court would not wake while the woman was here; she could move like a will’o-the wisp across the face of the world.
‘You’re the one the Whisperer was talking about.’
She nodded. ‘We have been playing a small game of tag, he and I, across the minds of the people of Jackals. Poor twisted Nathaniel Harwood, trapped in his decaying body and trapped in his dirty cell. The feymist curtain is a bridge, Oliver, and it seems every bridge must have its troll hiding underneath.’
‘Nathaniel. So that is his real name,’ said Oliver. ‘I wish you could help him.’
‘I am known as an Observer, Oliver, not an interferer. My interventions are discreet — no parting of the seas, no plagues of insects, no famines or resurrections. Free will, Oliver. You make your own heaven or hell here. Do not look to the uncaring sky for salvation, seek it inside yourself.’
‘What are you doing in Jackals, then?’ asked Oliver.
‘Trouble at the mill, young man. There are forces outside the system, unpleasant, foreign elements, that would love to burrow inside our universe, sup on it like parasites feeding on the flesh of a live hen. Not much room in their philosophy for free will, or any kind of will at all. Your people have met the agents of this evil before. In fact, it is better said that it was your kind’s belief in them that
‘Then you’re here to save us?’
She laughed loudly, as if that was deeply amusing, the funniest thing in the world. ‘No, Oliver. I am a nail, a tool. I can batten down the storm shutters, but I cannot divert the storm. I cannot save the village without annihilating it.’
An uneasy feeling crept through Oliver, an insight too terrible to contemplate. ‘You’re not here to
‘The rule-set can’t be changed from outside, Oliver. We simply will not allow it. Never. If it comes to it, if a corruption takes and spreads, everything will be wiped out, the board cleared of pieces, every piece of matter you have known or have touched, even time itself, will be erased. Nothing to be given over to the enemy — nothing!’
‘But we can stop the end of the world,’ said Oliver. ‘Free will. We can choose.’
‘Yes, but your people are always choosing to believe in the wrong thing, Oliver. The Circlist church was good; closer to the truth than your vicars and parsons realize. But the landlord doesn’t like her tenants inviting in troublesome guests. You know the sort. Angry types who get above their station, urinating against the walls, trying to grab the freehold and making threats. When the landlord sees that, she draws up an eviction order. And Oliver, trust me on this, your people don’t want to find out what life is like living rough on the street.’
‘So that’s it,’ said Oliver. ‘My whole life, I’ve just been a pawn in your game of gods?’
‘No, Oliver,’ said the Observer. ‘You are my knight, and more. And one I am very fond of. You get to choose your own moves — you all do. It would please me greatly if the game could go on forever. But that is rather up to you.’
‘You
