Worldsoul

Fort were visible above its parkland, as the ferry drifted serenely onward, through rich areas and poor, past city streets and stretches of flower-filled wasteland. From this perspective, the city seemed strangely distant and calm, as if the disappearance of the Skein, the flower attacks, and all the other difficulties that were besetting it had been sealed away behind a glass wall. For the first time in weeks, Mercy felt herself beginning to relax, a completely irrational thing to do under the circumstances. She fingered the hilt of the Irish sword at her hip and pondered. Perra sat beside her on the bench as the ferry wallowed along the canal, occasionally rising up to gaze at some aspect of the changing view that had attracted its interest. Another ka accompanied a passenger, a woman in a blue headscarf with a tattooed face, but the two ancestral spirits ignored each other and now that Mercy thought of it, she had never seen kas in conversation. Perhaps it was considered impolite. She would ask Perra, when the occasion allowed it.

They were coming to the centre of the city now: the wide circular plaza known as the Heart of the World. Here stood the empty palace of the Skein, built aeons ago of red and black marble, mottled like flesh, its towers arching up into the heavens. A light still burned in the topmost tower, a sacred flame kept alight by servants in vigil for the day when their masters and mistresses returned. Before the palace stood a much more recent statue, a representation of the ship called the Barquess. Mercy thought of Greya, and sighed. The statue had emerged out of Worldsoul itself; it had not been commissioned or carved by human hand. One morning, a few months back, it had simply appeared. She watched the statue until it fell out of sight: the bronze sides of the ship gleaming in the morning sunlight, its vanes and sails shifting in the breeze.

They were now in the Eastern Quarter and already the architecture was different: domes and minarets, pagodas and turrets. Some of these buildings had been taken from Earth, others were more recent, but built on ancient lines. Originally, the different peoples of Worldsoul had lived in separate areas in their separate quarters, but without the tensions of Earth, ghettos had not proved viable and now everyone was more muddled up. A good thing, in Mercy’s view. She looked down on a street market as the ferry sailed along an aqueduct, the white roofs of the market stalls bright in the sunlight and allowing occasional glimpses of piles of eggplant, oranges, coriander, ginger… all the produce that had been brought in from the fields that week. Beyond the Eastern Quarter lay the Great Desert, the Khaureg, but to the south, the land was fertile. Mercy began thinking about supper: she had eaten out these last few days. It would be nice to have the time to sit down and eat properly at home…

Now the huge blue dome of the Medina was visible, rising above the rooftops, and Mercy became aware of a growing impatience. She had a mission, after all, unrelated to what was for dinner. The ka, seeming to pick up on her mood, sat up straight and stern.

“We are nearly there,” Perra said.

Mercy nodded. The terminal wharf of the Eastern Quarter ferry was now visible, a mass of cranes and scaffolding. The ferry sailed into dock with a brief flurry of activity as it was secured and then Mercy and Perra were heading down the gangplank.

“Do you know where this woman lives?” Mercy asked the ka.

“No, but it should not be hard to find her. She is an alchemist. She has… a certain reputation.”

“What kind of reputation?” Mercy asked, intrigued.

“A dangerous one.”

One did not simply enter the Eastern Quarter and start asking questions. First, there was tea. Despite her impatience, Mercy let Perra take the lead. The ka found a chaikhana, set into the wall of the Medina where it was safe for a Westerner to go. The heart of the Medina was, so Perra said, best avoided. Mercy was disinclined to argue. She took a seat at the back of the chaikhana, where she could see the door.

“What do we do now?” she asked, in an undertone.

“We wait,” Perra said.

Shortly afterwards, once tea had been brought, a man approached the table. He wore an elegant suit, black, with brilliant white cuffs. Sad eyes gazed at Mercy, from a patrician face. The countenance of the mysterious Dr Roke flashed briefly across Mercy’s mind, but this man did not, on second glance, bear all that significant a resemblance: it was the suit.

“Madam, forgive me. You are from the Western Quarter?”

“Yes. We’re looking for someone.”

“May I ask who?”

“We do not have a name for her. She is an alchemist.”

“Ah.” The man smiled. “Then there is only one person whom you can be looking for. She calls herself Shadow. Would you like me to introduce you to her?”

Mercy smiled. “Forgive me for my incredible rudeness, but what is in this for you?”

“I am a facilitator, you see. A number of individuals have me on commission. I effect introductions, engineer chance meetings, arrange coincidences and synchronicities. My name is Georgiou Sephardi.”

“So if you introduce us to the woman who calls herself Shadow, she will pay you?”

“If she considers you are worth meeting, yes.”

“Well,” Mercy said, after a pause. “Let’s hope that she will. Tell her that we know about the attack last night.”

Sephardi vanished into the maze of the Medina, while Mercy and Perra sipped tea. “This is going too smoothly,” Mercy said. “I don’t trust that.”

The ka managed a fluid shrug. “Such things happen with grace here.”

“So you say.” And then, because that sounded rude, she added, “I am sure you know this better than I, Perra.” The headache was coming back, like an oncoming warning of storms. Mercy frowned. Yesterday-and then, all of a sudden, she knew what was happening.

“Perra, quickly-outside!”

The ka did not question her. They ran for the door, startling the other customers of the teahouse, but it was too late. Mercy smelled an acrid, fizzy burning, heard a firework hiss, and felt an indefinable sense of wrongness that grew and grew until the explosion itself came almost as a relief. Not again… Mercy and Perra dropped under a table just outside the door and covered their heads. The world was swallowed in a billow of scarlet and for a second, Mercy thought that she had actually been blown up. But it was only the red awning of the chaikhana, torn free by the flower-blast and floating down to cover the wrecked frontage. There was a minute of intense silence, then screams. Mercy started disentangling herself from the collapsed awning, Unseen hands helped, until she was able to free herself from the weight of the material.

“Are you all right?” Sephardi did not have a hair out of place.

“Yes. Perra?” But she knew that the ka, being a spirit, would be all right.

“I am here,” Perra said.

“I lament,” Sephardi remarked, “my timing.”

“Maybe it’s not your timing. This happened to me yesterday. Are they following me around?”

Sephardi spread his hands. He was accompanied, Mercy saw now, by a woman. She was veiled: dressed in a grey tunic and silvery trousers that billowed like a bell. The veil itself covered her entire face, a gauzy blue mist, and nothing at all could be glimpsed behind it.

“This is Shadow,” Sephardi said.

“I’m Mercy Fane. This is Perra. We’ve come-” But there was a flash. Mercy, turning, squinted past the collapsed awning. A lamp hanging above the street illuminated the now-roofless interior of the chaikhana. A pool of light shone on overturned tables and utter chaos. A blossom drifted down, glowing like hot blood, and just as it reached the level of the lamp it burst silently apart, the crimson petals flaring out and setting fire to everything they touched. The awning ignited like dry tinder.

“Oh, shit,” Mercy said, retreating further into the street with the others. Bits of blazing fabric fluttered down.

The veil turned in Sephardi’s direction. “Do we not,” the woman said, “have emergency services?”

“I’m assuming that’s rhetorical,” he replied.

Shadow sighed, stretched out a hand, uttered a long liquid word and the flames subsided into ash.

The core of the blossom had embedded itself in the pavement with a soft, corrosive hiss. The glowing stamen was quivering.