Worldsoul

The Irish sword was not the only weapon in her arsenal, Mercy reflected, and not all weapons are swords. The mind is the best weapon of all and thus she had taken herself early in the morning to the Library in order to do some emergency research.

Mareritt and the Order of the Court itself were the objects of her enquiries. A superficial search revealed a great deal about the Court, all of it on public display and none of it startling. Mercy could probably have amplified much of it herself, through common knowledge. That mean a deeper investigation, and she decided to leave this until a later hour and track down Mareritt instead. The nature of the woman who had come to visit her seemed to entail a focus on the Northern Quarter; there was something tugging at the edges of her mind, some half-recalled memory that rendered the name familiar.

The name meant “nightmare,” and it seemed this was what Mareritt was. But whether she was an avatar of that phenomenon, or an entity with the same name, remained to be seen. Mercy followed the trail down through the forest tracks of a dozen books, along a sequence of winding etymological trails, words which conjured snow and the scent of fir, fragments of legends which brought in the ice and the winter wind, just as the disir had done. She did not think Mareritt was the same, but she did not like the thought of the risk. She tracked her quarry down into story, running her to ground in fairy tale.

And the little boy took the spinning top and spun it as he spoke the magic words, and Mareritt appeared like sugar taffy curdling in the air. At first Jan was very frightened, but she spoke kindly to him and told him not to be afraid. Then she asked him to show her the golden ball that his stepmother had given him. When he put it into her hand, she uttered a word and a knife came out from the middle of the ball, as sharp as an unkind word. “If you had done as she asked you and thrown this to the dove, it would have killed her.” Jan did not say anything, but a tear came to his eye because of his love for the dove. “Don’t cry,” Mareritt said. “Come with me.” She took his hand. Her glove was as soft as silk but he could feel the coldness of her flesh inside it and her breath made patterns on the air, like flowers. She led Jan to the window and he could see her sledge hanging on the air: it was made of snowflakes and silver and it shone like the moon. The white swans that drew it stamped their feet upon the air and Mareritt helped Jan into the sledge. “We’ll rescue your dove,” she said, settling a fur robe around his shoulders, “and leave your stepmother to me.” Then the sledge sailed up into the clouds and-

That was all there was of the story. Mercy was sorry. She would have liked to know what happened next, a good sign in any tale. The legend suggested a number of things: Mareritt was honourable, perhaps fond of children, or at least willing to take their side. The wicked stepmother was, of course, a staple of fairy tales, often a witch herself. What had happened to the stepmother in this story, Mercy wondered? Had Mareritt breathed on her with a cold breath, brought winter nightmares to her bed? And what had happened to Jan? What did happen to boys in fairy tales who meet a fascinating woman? Did they become an army of acolytes, a loyal band of followers? Or were they damaged forever, like Kay with the Snow Queen’s splinter of ice in his heart? Thoughtfully, Mercy tucked the notes she had made into her pocket and placed the original fragment back in its place.

As she walked back down the stairs to the central hall, where the Great Book stood on its plinth, the birds whisked and whirled around her head. Jan’s dove: what had that meant? Had Mareritt saved it from the evil stepmother? Mercy stopped mid-step, looking up, and as she did so, the bird-ghosts began to change. From shadows, they became solid: some white, some black as soot and night. They began an aerial ballet, turning and twisting until they formed a column of light and dark. They soared up in a pillar of flight towards the ceiling, until they reached the roof, when the pillar broke apart and fell into a flickering mass of birds, shadows once more.

Mercy did not know what the behaviour of the birds meant. She had never heard of such a thing happening before. Was it a sign? Did it mean the Skein were coming back? Frustrated, because she had no time to spend thinking on the matter, Mercy headed out into the day, a plan forming in her head.

Across the square, the Court towered around the Citadel. It was massive, built of black stone and wood: Mercy was reminded of the birds, but usually she thought of the Court as a chess player, moving pieces around the city as if it were a huge chessboard. The official entrance was found between a set of stone columns, a pair of iron doors that were shut at twilight and opened again at dawn.

Mercy gave the Court a long, hard look, and then she walked on down into the narrow cobbled streets which led through the Quarter. At the bottom of the hill, there was a rickshaw with a golem standing placidly in the shafts. Mercy hailed it.

“Heart of the World, please.”

The rickshaw rattled across the cobbles, taking her past streets of ancient inns, their heraldic signs blazing, past colleges and galleries and markets, under the monorail line and over one of the many bridges which crossed the canals. Mercy stared at the back of the golem’s round head and tried not to think too hard about what she was going to do.

The dreams, of the north.

The disir.

Mareritt.

There was one place where answers lay. She’d found the address in Greya’s effects, after both her mothers had disappeared. It had been scribbled on a scrap of paper and it had been the only address that Mercy had not recognised among her mother’s things.

It had been the only address from the Northern Quarter.

When Mercy got down from the rickshaw, the ka reappeared out of the air.

“This ka is coming with you,” Perra said. Mercy felt a distinct relief. Perra was not a talisman, yet she could not help feeling that nothing too terrible could befall her if the ka was present. They walked across the square to where the monorail terminus for the North Road stations was situated; there was a train already in. Mercy paid the fare and they got on.

It took them past the empty palace of the Skein where the light still burned, past the statue of the Barquess. The scenery shifted and blurred in a small fold of time, and they were going up through the northern part of the Western Quarter, where the river palaces were distantly visible through the gaps in the parkland woods, up over the Speaking Cliffs and towards the Northern Gate, which was now visible on the horizon, towering over the surrounding buildings. The Northern Wall extended outwards from its nexus, heading right and left into the city.

When the monorail reached the Gate, it slowed to a halt. Guards got on, accompanied by security golems: this was not like crossing from West to East. Mercy had to hand over her sigilometer, which was checked, and her city pass. She was subjected to a scan of the eye, and then, to her great distaste, a drop of her blood was taken. After studying the results of that test, the guard unthawed noticeably and said, “Heading home?”

“Visiting family,” Mercy said. It might have been true, after all.

“Have a nice time.” After a quarter of an hour, when the other passengers were checked, the train slid through the Gate into winter.

The snow had melted to some degree, leaving patches of black stone along the pavement. Here, the buildings were massive-fortresses of wood, iron, and stone, away from the grace of the Eastern Quarter or the whimsicality of the Western-yet still impressive. Mercy still did not feel she belonged, however.

When they reached the first terminus, she got off the train. The person she was hoping to find was loitering at the entrance, reading a newspaper: a small middle-aged man with a long nose, and the universal badge of a City Reader on his coat.

“Good afternoon,” Mercy said. “I’m looking for an address.”

“You’re in luck,” the Reader said, folding his newspaper. “Maps won’t help you, but I can, and I can also tell you that there was a significant shift around the Black Canal region last night, resulting in a rearrangement of some blocks.”

“I rely on your expertise,” Mercy said.

“You’re very kind. Some people,” here his expression became bitter, “begrudge the expense and no doubt they are still wandering lost about the city. On Earth? Fine. Things stay put. Here they don’t.”

“I value knowledge,” Mercy said.

He nodded. “As a Librarian should.”

She showed him the address. His long nose twitched in surprise, like a mouse’s.

“This is old Mr Salt’s place.”