Gradually, drawn forth by words, spirals of DNA began to wind upwards in hologrammatic formation. Mercy knew that this was an illusion, but it was compelling. The DNA twisted, turned, and began to fill out into bone and sinew and flesh. As they watched, the figure that Mercy had seen in the Library began to take shape before them. Its bones were long and sharp, the dappled hide too tightly stretched over them so that the thing appeared lightly fleshed, mainly sinew. Its face was human, of sorts. The black eyes, whiteless, glinted with intelligence. Its long hair, also black and matted into ropy locks, fell down its back, Mercy was now able to get a closer look at the tattooed symbols covering its visible flesh. Runes and symbols, ancient in configuration. She said urgently to Sephardi, “Do you have a pen?”
When he complied, Mercy took a notebook from her pocket and began to note the symbols down as accurately as she could. Shadow made the image turn, and it did so, revealing glyphs and spiked sigils down the length of its spine.
“It’s definitely the thing I saw,” Mercy said.
“Good. It’s definitely the thing that attacked me. The question is: What is it?”
“I cannot help you,” Sephardi said. “I am not an expert on the north.”
“I know someone who is, though,” Shadow said. She turned to Mercy. “Have you finished?”
“Yes. Can it speak, Shadow? Can you make it talk?”
“No, this is just an image.” She sounded apologetic. “I’ve tried making them talk before.”
Mercy could not help having the disconcerting feeling that the thing was watching them, linked, somehow, to this conjured representation. But there was no awareness of them in its eyes. “This person you mentioned, who is an expert on the north. Where might they be found?”
Shadow laughed. “You’ll like this. She’s employed by the Library. As a consultant. She’s also Vice Chancellor of the University.”
Interlude
She had lived in this apartment for over twenty years, ever since Ibrahim’s death. It would have felt wrong to leave it, as though she were leaving him behind, and she was not ready to do that. Some women married again, but she knew that she would not: the inclination was not there. Besides, his spirit returned to her, on the great days, and although she knew he was at peace with God, she was always happy to see him.
If she had gone to live somewhere else, he would not have known his way around.
With care, because her joints were not good today, she re-arranged the roses in their bowl. Her daughter brought her these, grown in her courtyard garden. They reminded her of sunsets and she loved to look at them.
On this particular evening, she had left the windows open. A ward glistened across the open space, so she was surprised to turn and find someone there.
“Oh!” she said, relieved. “It’s you.” She put a hand to her heart. “For a moment, I thought it was Ibrahim. Or, Allah forbid, an intruder.”
“I am sorry,” her visitor said. “I should have knocked.”
She smiled. “On the air itself? Sit. Have some tea. Or at least, the pretence of tea.”
It was his turn to smile. “I like the smell. I’ll have some, if I may.”
She brought it on a silver tray and they sipped, inhaled, in silence for some minutes. Then her visitor said, “You’re wondering why I’ve come. I’m afraid it’s not good news.”
Her heart sank. “I thought as much. There have been signs, the usual portents. Someone saw a bloodstained lion in the Medina last week. People have had visions. There’s been a great deal of astrological mayhem going on: peculiar conjunctions of the heavens.”
“I can’t tell you what it heralds, because I don’t know. But there’s been a change at the end of the world.”
“That’s not good,” she said. “The end of the world-well, if you walk far enough away from there, you’ll end up here.”
“Something’s happening, Mariam,” the Messenger said. Against the brocaded cushions of the couch, she could see his faint illuminated transparency, visible only in certain lights. This was a projection, if a good one. Messengers can do that, dissolve and reform at will. “Something’s changing,” he continued. “The question is, what?”
Thirteen
Darya had done well in the limited time he had given her, but Jonathan Deed had no intention of telling her this. Instead, he frowned down at the collection of parchment that she now placed before him and said, “Is this all?”
She hid her feelings well, but he saw her mouth tighten a fraction and her fingers clench. “It was all I could find, Abbot General,” she said, with a deference which clearly did not come naturally. Darya was learning. Good.
“Very well,” Deed said, with a sigh. “I suppose it will have to do.”
He waited until her bone heels clicked away, then turned back to the parchments. These were fragmentary: Mercy Fane’s genealogy was likely to be held in full by the Library, as the Skein had liked to keep tabs on their personnel, but locating her personal details would be troublesome given the level of security. For the moment, he would work with what he had.
They knew that Mercy was descended from the Wolfhead clans, via Greya Fane. That didn’t mean very much: half or quarterbreeds didn’t usually exhibit the Wolf Clans’ particular brand of magic. As Deed knew well, that magic was heavily dependent on place, on the ice fields and pine forests of the north: wild magic, drawing on earth and sky and all the winds that blew.
So. Greya Fane. But what about the other mother, the woman called Sho? She would, Deed knew, have contributed to Mercy’s heritage-a magical binding, a connection, was usual in such partnerships, even though Mercy would have had a biological father as well and he would need to be taken into consideration. If they could ever find out who he had been… Sho herself was, apparently, missing. Looking at the partial family tree, Deed worked out that she had come from the Eastern Quarter, and that gave Mercy links with Eastern magic, too. An interesting combination and one that could prove powerful. Mercy would have skills in a number of areas, otherwise the Library would not be employing her.
“So,” Deed said, aloud. He looked up from the parchments, into a sudden shaft of sunlight. “Time to ask some questions.”
He did not enter the Northern Quarter by the usual route, the North Road that led up from the Heart of the World. Instead, he chose to slip into the Quarter at night, through the Ancestral Gate itself. He was entitled, and its magic would not snare him, but even so, Deed felt a faint prickle of what in a human might have been called fright as he stepped beneath its huge stone-and-iron portal. The ground beneath the Gate was red. This was not, Deed knew, symbolic.
In this district, the buildings of the Northern Quarter were massive, resembling forts, and the castellated pinnacles of the castles of the old Northern lords fragmented the skyline. It was cold, too: snow crunched beneath Deed’s boots as he made his way through the quiet, dark street. He was heading for Bleikrgard, the Pale Castle: not a trip he cared to make, because the northern lords were fractious and twitchy, disliking his kind. Insularity, Deed thought, had long been a problem, and would doubtless continue to be so long after he was gone. But when they had heard what he had to tell them… Loki’s plan still itched inside his subconscious, like a burr inside a shirt.
A silvery thread of sound broke the silence: sleigh bells. Deed stepped back into the shadows and waited. The sleigh came around the corner of the street, travelling swiftly. It was drawn by two white deer, with bells woven into their ruffed manes. A woman sat inside it, wielding a whip. Deed, in sudden alarm, took care to wrap invisibility about himself, drawing it up from the snow and the cold air, freezing the world around him, but the sleigh came to a halt nonetheless.
“It’s no use doing that,” the woman called. “You’re perfectly visible.”
