Worldsoul

core of a falling flower and the front of the monorail erupted into a tangle of twisted, screaming metal.

She was under something. It pinned her to a mass of soil and torn foliage. A hibiscus blossom was nodding like a sage’s wise head, inches from her ear-a white bloom, dappled with crimson. It took her a long moment to realise that the crimson was supplied by her own splashed blood.

“Nerren!” She tried to rise, but the beam, or rail, or whatever it was, held her fast to the earth. She ached all over and she could feel something wet running down the side of her face, but it did not seem as though anything had been broken. She could move both her head and her feet, and this boded well.

But Nerren did not reply. Mercy struggled to look up and found herself staring at the underside of the monorail, contorted into the air, a rearing caterpillar shape. The blast had bent it back on itself, so that the first of its three carriages was vertical. She twisted her head to the side and saw an outflung hand, very pale and still.

“Nerren!” Someone groaned and the hand twitched. Mercy exhaled in relief. Fragments of burning petal were still drifting down out of the smoky sky: the flower must have fallen only a little while before, and Mercy knocked unconscious for seconds. That was reassuring, at least; it explained why no assistance had appeared. Then she heard shouts. Turning to the other side, she saw a man running down the bank, taking great leaps and bounds down the steep siding of the monorail.

“Over here!” Mercy cried. The weeds were on fire, smouldering into dampness. He was a young man, wearing a workman’s tunic and boots. He tried, and failed, to lift the girder, grunting as he did so.

“Hey, careful!” Mercy said in alarm. She wanted to be free, but there was no point in her would-be rescuer undergoing a hernia for it. But more people were arriving now, at a slightly less precipitate pace, and she heard the clanging of an emergency bell. Then someone called her name.

“I’m here,” Mercy said. “I’m all right.” Not quite true, perhaps, but she did not want to frighten Nerren, whom she could see scrambling to her knees a short distance away. The girder was lifted up by a dozen hands and Mercy, disregarding offers of help, got to her feet and stood swaying.

“Hey,” Nerren said, and started to laugh. “Look at us. Black and white and red. We’re all fairytale now.”

Mercy, to her infinite disgust, felt the laughter and the light recede to a small pinprick point as she slid once more to the ground.

Interlude

He often walked to the edge of the world in the evening, heading out from the beehive hut into the nevergone. The garden was quiet, then, and there seemed to be something about dusk that dimmed the story-streams to calmer tides. He liked the peace, although there had been a time when he had not. Loneliness is something you can outgrow, given enough time.

He wondered, sometimes, whether it was possible to outgrow every emotion. Messengers were not supposed to feel hate or rage, but sometimes, in his younger days, he had been aware of a spark deep within like a burning coal, especially when he looked upon the Legions. Those had been the days of the great conflicts, the sweep of the wars, when the Legions had amassed on the edges of their fiery shores and a roar of defiance had been raised from thousands of throats. He had, so secretly that it was barely recognisable, exulted at the sight: the clashing spears and flashing banners against the cloudscape, the behemoths bellowing as they lumbered into position, bearing the castles of their dukes and princes upon their backs. The devil-beasts: great white gibbons with yellow eyes, unicorns with iron spikes jutting out of their bony skulls, the crab-men with their pincered arms and scuttling gait.

He had tried, as he had been instructed, not to look at the women, and had not always been successful. Manytongued the Beautiful, riding on her loping hydra. The War Dukes, clad in their shining armour, kissing their weapons. He had been taught to know that beneath the glamourous guises lay putrefaction and decay, but seeing them strut against the cloudscape it was hard to remember that…

Harder still, several thousand years later, in the depths of the quiet desert night.

When such memories rose to the surface of his dreaming mind, he tried to recall instead the memory of the Hosts: the ranks striding through the Gates and down the sunlit air. The warriors, fiery haired, bearing golden swords and silver bows, their calm faces shining with the rightness of their war. The heralds, sounding the charge. The Archmessengers, clad in sapphire and emerald, clear garnet and diamond fire, speaking courage to the troops.

But now the war was over and the Hosts had won.

He should not, then, still wake from dreaming of a red-clad War Duke with brass talons. Maybe it was evidence of senility, but he didn’t feel that old.

He stood at the edge of the world and looked down. The Pass was silent now, a guard patrolling along the farthest slope. He could see its fiery silhouette flickering against the shadows. Silent. But recently there had been a shift, a change. He could feel it in the green evening air, sense its presence, but he did not know what it heralded. He turned, walking back past the glimmering storyways to the peace of the beehive hut and his dreams.

Eight

Life was full of irony, Deed thought in frustration. He studied the message that lay before him on the desk, marked with a top-secret sigil. It had come in that morning, from one of the Library moles.

The Library. Trust Loki to manage to send something in through the Library. The disir had been disruptive, apparently, which came as no surprise. Mind you, Deed thought sourly, to the old codgers who ran the place, “disruptive” probably meant putting a book back in the wrong place or abusing your lending rights. The disir had not remained long in the place, anyway. She had fled, somewhere in the city. But where? They were likely, Deed thought, to find out reasonably soon. Wild disir were not unobtrusive.

He turned again to the report. The Librarian who had made the discovery had a name: Mercy Fane. Well, Deed thought, let’s see what we can find out about Miss Fane, shall we?”

The curse hung from the lower branches of a pine tree, about head height. It was made of feathers and bone, tied together with sinew. A shrew’s skull, the jaws curved in an elegant arc and ending in small razor teeth, surmounted it and it carried the rune for winter.

The shaman of the wolf clan studied it for some time in silence. He took a rattle from his pouch and shook it, making a dry sound of falling seeds in the still air. His grey pelt was starred with snow, as stray flakes drifted down from the pines. Then he turned to Mercy, dreaming, and said, “Of course, it’s an enemy’s work. The question is, which one?”

“No shortage of those,” Mercy heard herself reply. As with all dreams, she did not question how she knew this. “The White Owl Tribe, or the Shinbone People.”

“Not quite their style,” the shaman said. His lips drew back over his long teeth. “Look at the back of it.”

Mercy did so. The back was a small flayed skin, stretched out. She could see the remnants of black fur. “What does that mean?”

“It’s hunters’ work.”

“We’re all hunters, aren’t we?”

“Who hunts everything? Including the wolf clans?”

Mercy thought. “Death?”

“Nightmares. Everything is hunted by nightmares.”

“I don’t understand,” Mercy said.

“You don’t have to understand. All you have to do is remember,” the shaman said. Mercy once again surged down into sleep.

Nine