Worldsoul

glamour. I’m sure you are more sensible, Mercy.”

“I always thought of her as cautious,” Mercy said. “Annoyingly so, actually. But then she bolted into the blue on the Barquess, so… ”

“Maybe she’d learned from experience, at least until the Skein departed. But when I knew her, she courted risks like another woman might court lovers. There was a forest lodge, a cult dating back to ancient times. Blood magic and sigil magic. Greya became involved. I am telling you this not because of any interest in your family history, but because it relates to your current situation. Sephardi has spoken to me, about the thing you have both seen. I know what that thing is.”

“What is it?” Mercy and Shadow both spoke at the same time.

“Disir.”

Shadow saw that Mercy was frowning. “I know that word. I’ve heard it before, but I don’t know what it means. Is that thing a ‘disir,’ then? What are they?”

“They are the children of Loki, the lord of misrule and more than misrule. Their story says that they were born out of the drops of poison and blood that the god shed when he was chained, springing from the earth and the ice. Their name means ‘the ladies’ and they are essentially ancestral spirits, but some stories are not meant to last. They have curdled and turned foul, like sour milk.”

“And now one of them has escaped from an ancient text.”

“They have bred with men although the Wolf Clans would not touch them, and there are rumours that their descendents are active in Worldsoul. They reap chaos, they are dukes of blood.”

“We need a magic to stop it,” Shadow said. “We can’t have it running around attacking people. There are practical considerations here, regardless of its history.”

“I understand,” Mariam said placidly. She took a sip of tea. “There is a spell to bind them, but it is not easy. It’s blood magic, as I have said, and requires a commitment.”

Involuntarily, Shadow and Mercy glanced at one another. “Whose blood?” Mercy said.

“That would be yours. You released it, Shadow injured it. You both have a connection to it and thus, it is your blood which must be given, but given freely.”

“As long as it’s only a drop,” Mercy said, after a long pause. She did not seem keen; Shadow could not blame her. There was something in her expression which Shadow could not interpret.

“The same for me,” Shadow said.

“Then I will show you the spell,” Mariam told them.

Mercy and Shadow stood side by side that midnight, in the middle of Shadow’s laboratory. Shadow had put the veil aside. Out of respect, Mercy had glanced at her face only once, even though she had seen it before. The alchemist had the fierce profile of a falcon, a curving nose, high-angled cheeks.

She had asked the ka, privately, if the alchemist could be trusted. Perra had said that in its opinion, the answer was yes, but Mercy was still unhappy about the blood ritual. Maybe it wasn’t just Greya who was a risk-taker… the thought that she might be treading in her mother’s footsteps was a dismaying one.

The ka stood watch as Shadow once again inscribed a circle in fire and placed a silver bowl filled with water and roses before them. They spoke the spell together, Mercy trying not to stumble over the unfamiliar words, and then Shadow took the sun-and-moon blade and nicked first her own palm, then Mercy’s. The drops of blood fell, mingled, into the bowl and the roses went up in a hiss of flame.

“… and I abjure you now, in the name of Solomon the King and the Book of Solomon which holds all the names of God… ”

Shadow’s voice, quiet and firm, spoke through the sudden roar of fire. This was the old magic of Asia Minor, winding its way through Europe in the Renaissance and perhaps before, a magic of fire and bare rock and burning sky. Here, on the rim of the Great Desert, it seemed appropriate, Shadow’s voice whispering out of the ages and conjuring ancient names. Mercy looked down into the bowl and saw that the roses were gone; the bowl was bubbling with blood. Her sigilometer was ticking like a metronome, registering magic. Across the room, in the triangle, the writhing mottled form was once again appearing, but this time it was solid.

“Hold!” Shadow’s voice rang out across the room. Mercy could see the disir clearly now, the rows of teats down her abdomen between the cracked leather harness, the razor-toothed mouth.

“Hold!” The blood, far more than the few drops that Mercy and Shadow had shed, boiled over the lip of the bowl and surged towards the edge of the circle, then beyond, a thin line of red reaching out to the triangle and extinguishing the fire. The disir sprang out, crouching for a moment, then rushing forward. Shadow’s blade was already out and Mercy freed the sword, stepped back, and came up against a wall of air. The circle was still holding her in; if she tried to strike, she was likely to hit Shadow. The alchemist cried out and struck down with the blade. But the disir had learned from the loss of her hand. Mercy could see the stump, wrinkled and seamed, looking like an old injury. The disir moved with unnatural speed, up the wall and across the ceiling like a spider. Shadow uttered an imprecation and cast a Name upwards: it missed the disir by inches and scorched itself into the ceiling to flare for a moment before flaking out into ash.

“Take the circle down!” Mercy yelled. Shadow did so, and she was free to move. She vaulted across the work table, sending an alembic crashing to the floor in a shower of glass and landing in a defensive sprawl as the disir dropped from the ceiling. As Mercy had already briefly grappled with it, she was almost prepared for the blast of cold that the disir brought in its wake. The disir raked out with long claws, but the lost hand was hampering it. Mercy, on her feet again, dodged back, slashing out with the Irish blade and severing the disir’s harness. A streak of welling black blood appeared in the sword’s wake and the disir hissed in pain. The blood spattered across the floor. The disir rushed at Mercy, who ran backwards and slipped on the pool of the mingled blood that had seeped from the bowl. She fell and the disir was on her, but there was a sudden blast of light and heat and the intense cold was blown back by warmth. The smell of roses was all around, sandalwood, myrrh, filling the laboratory in an intoxicating wave of perfume. Mercy gasped, scrambling to her feet. The disir was backing away. She heard Shadow say something, urgently, and turned to look at her, but the light was too bright, too blinding. Mercy threw an arm across her eyes but as she did so, she glimpsed the diminished spidery shape of the disir clambering up the wall to the high arched window. There was a shatter of breaking glass and the disir was gone, scrambling down the city wall.

Light, and a presence that filled the laboratory. Shadow was speaking, but Mercy did not understand the language. Something laughed and it was not human. Then it, too, was gone, leaving heat and the scent of roses in its wake.

“Shadow?” Mercy’s vision was still blurred.

The alchemist was huddled on the floor. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Shadow looked up and Mercy realised the alchemist was consumed with fury. “That was-well. Someone who has no business in my business.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“Suleiman the Shah. That was one of his spirits, his djinn. He saved my life-and yours. That means he’s bound me to him, when that has been the very thing that I’ve been trying to avoid.”

Fifteen

Deed reached Bleikrgard in a skating flurry of snow. It had begun to fall from the skies again, as Mareritt’s sleigh raced through the streets, the deers’ feet unnaturally sure on the icy stone. When they reached the looming grey stone palace, Mareritt brought the sleigh to a skidding halt and said to Deed, “Here we are.”

“I can offer payment-” Deed began. Resolutely, he did not look behind him again, to where the heads muttered and twitched.

“Oh, yes, you certainly can. And you will, but not now. I shall take my payment when I see fit.”

Deed did not wish to show how unnerved he was by this remark, nor could he-for he found he was already out of the sleigh and standing on the stone flags of the palace. Mareritt veered the deer about without another word and was gone into whirling white.

Deed was relieved to see her depart. He went quickly across the courtyard without looking back, but it seemed to him that he could still feel Mareritt’s gaze on his back and the sensation was an unfamiliar one, therefore