Worldsoul

by a goddess: this one was multilayered and emergent into Earth’s present day, but at the bottom a thread disappeared into nowhere. Nerren sighed. “It’s slid past the Holdstockian layer into the nevergone. Looks more like a love story, though.”

“I’m not really interested in those,” Mercy said.

“What happened to what’s-his-name, by the way?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.” Mercy winced. That story, which had reached a conclusion shortly before the Skein had disappeared, had taken the pattern of all her other romances: Library coming first, everything else coming second.

Nerren seemed to understand this. She said, “Well, never mind that now, then. How about this?”

It was the story of a woman who tried to fly to the moon, in a chariot drawn by deer, or sometimes swans. It was very old, and petered out some three thousand years down.

“I like it but I can’t see how it’s relevant. What we’re looking for are legends of warrior women, ancient nightmares… ”

“Those all seem to be from around the Black Sea,” Nerren said. “We’d have to bring up another map.”

The oldest maps of the storyways were from the Middle East, with some from China. The Australasia department on the ninth floor was doing sterling work transcribing songlines, which were much older, but those responded to pictures, not text, and Mercy did not think they would be relevant to mainland Continental Ice Age myths. Eventually, she and Nerren gave up.

“We’re just going to have to go in there and have a look,” Mercy said. She watched as the sigilometer powered down and the map faded back into its parchment. “And keep our fingers crossed.”

Mercy took the Irish sword with her when she went back into Section C. She also took Benjaya, one of the more active of her colleagues. Benjaya was young, male, and keen, which were not necessarily good qualities, but Mercy felt that enthusiasm would make up the lack. She gave him a lecture anyway, as they climbed the stairs, about appropriate behaviour and lack of experience. Benjaya listened earnestly, but she had a nasty feeling that he might not have taken it all in. With Nerren recently injured, however, she needed someone who could provide backup and Benjaya, despite inexperience, had muscles. He was also on the Library’s fencing team and Mercy thought this was likely to be useful. He brought a sword of his own with him, a long whipping rapier which sang softly to itself, in a language that Mercy did not know.

The ka stood on a ledge of ice, small wings folded against the wind. Golden eyes were slitted, trying to see. To the left lay a long line of forest, shadow-dark. To the right stretched a broken landscape of ice, a wide tumbling torrent, and the glimmer of oxbow lakes. The sky was heavy with storms. As Perra watched, a vivid bolt of rose-coloured lightning broke the cloud and struck down into the forest. Perra heard something cry out, a long forlorn wail which did not sound human. The trees went up like torches, burning a strange, unnatural blue.

Perra had the feeling that this had happened before, many times. The ka, eyes closed, sent senses out into the overlight, the place which lies between the layers of the nevergone, and saw, very far away, a huge construction like a sundial. This confirmed the ka’s suspicions that this scene, unfolding now, was no more than a bubble in time, a trapped loop on endless replay.

Nonetheless, it was interesting. And something was running from the forest, a tall thing that loped swiftly over the tundra. Perra braced clawed feet against the ice, but this thing did not look like the disir. A narrow muzzle swung from side to side, scenting the air. It was dressed in strips of leather that hung down like moss; a clawed hand gripped a staff. It sang as it came, a plaintive wail that was nonetheless rhythmic and compelling. Perra felt a thread of old magic spiral through the air, conjured from ice and water and wind, and speaking to the far stars. The figure raised its staff and behind the ka, the rent in the air grew wide. Perra was lifted from the ledge and carried through. The rift snapped shut.

Mercy, stepping cautiously through the double doors of Section C, had to duck to avoid the flying ka. Benjaya cried out, lashing up with the rapier.

“No!” Mercy cried. “It’s Perra!”

She felt the ka’s passage merely as soft feathers brushing her face, and when she straightened up, she saw Perra sitting on the ledge above the door. The spirit looked slightly ruffled.

“Perra, what are you doing here?”

“This ka wanted to see what was here,” the ka said. “Now, it has seen.”

Mercy stared at her. “What did you see?”

“An age of ice.”

“Why was the rent still open?” Benjaya asked.

“A very good question.”

“You would not have been able to see it,” the ka said. “It was visible to me, but only in the overlight, not the everyday.”

Mercy sighed. “So all the time we’ve been thinking of the rent as closed, it’s been gaping wide open letting through who knows what?”

Nineteen

Deed had been more relieved than he cared to admit on his return from Bleikrgard. The meeting had gone well, better than he’d hoped, and despite the encounter with Mareritt, which still unsettled him, he thought he had the upper hand. That was the way Deed liked it.

This flying blind was making him nervous, however. He did not know exactly what Loki’s intentions were, although he thought they were now becoming reasonably clear.

The lid taken off the cauldron of the city by the disappearance of the Skein and a power vacuum in Worldsoul, with the Court facing powerful former allies turned enemies.

The chance to retrieve an earlier version of the Library and bring it under Court control.

The disir, trapped in their ancient storytime and awaiting the possibility of release.

You didn’t have to be a genius to put those things together.

Deed stood now in one of the Watchrooms, on the long gallery that went around the perimeter of the circular chamber. The walnut panelled gallery was lit by sconces, dim gaslight which flickered and hissed, but which proved as far as the spirits who inhabited the Watchroom were willing to go in terms of technology. Demons, so Deed had discovered, were conservative and slow to change. There was a moral there, but he was damned if he knew what it was. Well, probably damned anyway.

The triangle for the conjuration floated in the middle of the shadowy cloud that filled the inner part of the chamber. This was classical magic, very formal, tried and tested. The magician stood in a circle, bound about with the Key of Solomon. A triangle, inscribed with ward words, formed the holding pen for whatever was summoned through the overlight from the infernal regions of the nevergone.

Deed had done this on many occasions, and the process was one he considered routine. That did not mean that it was perfunctory: he took care to make certain that the chamber was as secure as possible. But there were two parts to this particular ritual and he wanted to make sure he got it right.

Demons do not come for blood, or death, or even pain. They do not need to. They come for one reason only, and that reason is curiosity. Deed made sure the spell he was reciting would pique the interest of any demon listening to it, but he had a particular target in mind.

As he spoke the words of the spell, he could feel the twitch and twinge in the overlight, which meant that he’d attracted attention. Whether it was the right attention remained to be seen, but he continued to speak and gradually, a shape began to form in the triangle. Its head was bowed. It wore a veil and a long mantle, both of crimson. There was a shape behind it, something not human, but as he watched, it dissipated like smoke. One hand, ringed with a great carnelian seal, gripped the veil at its throat.

Deed spoke a name. “Am I addressing Gremory, Duke of Hell?”

The demon looked up. He saw eyes like rubies, over the folds of the veil.

“Who asks?”