Weaveworld

Hobart’s eyes were already on her, and wouldn’t be dislodged.

Before making this appearance she’d watched the two figures at the summit intently, to see if she could make any sense of the politics between them. But their behaviour – or more particularly Uriel’s – confounded her. Surely the Scourge had as much appetite for the chase as Shadwell; but it seemed utterly distracted from the matter in hand, staring up at the sky as if mesmerized. Only once was it moved to show its fire, when – without any apparent cue – the body of the man it occupied spontaneously combusted, flames cocooning him until his clothes were burned from his back, and his flesh seared. He’d not moved an inch as the fire did its work, but had stood in the midst of his pyre like a martyr, gazing over the empty landscape until – again, without any apparent reason – the fire died.

Now, as she climbed to meet him, she saw just how traumatized Hobart’s body was. The flames that had enveloped him were only the most recent of countless assaults his flesh had endured. He’d been wounded several times, some of the holes ineptly sealed; his hands were horribly maimed; his face – hair and brows burned away – was barely recognizable. But seeing the way his eyes stared from his blistered features one impression was confirmed: he, and perhaps the force within him, was somehow mesmerized. There was no sign that he felt pain from his wounds, nor shame that he stood naked before her, not the glorious victim of his dreams but a column of wretchedness, stinking of death and cooked meat.

Meeting that blank stare the fear necessity had kept at bay so far rose up in her. Was it possible she could get beyond this trance, to the Hobart with whom she’d shared that story of Maiden, Knight and Dragon? If she could, perhaps she might survive this confrontation; or at least waylay the enemy long enough for the Kind to prepare new defences.

Shadwell had seen her now. Beside Hobart the man looked positively dapper, but his face told another story. His features, which had pretended so much in their time, were manic now, the sham of courtesy he produced for her more pitiful than ironic.

‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘And where did you appear from?’

His hands were plunged deep into his pockets to keep them warm, and they stayed there. He made no attempt to take hold of her, or even approach her. He knew, presumably, she could not escape the summit alive.

‘I came to see Hobart,’ she told him.

‘I’m afraid he isn’t here,’ Shadwell replied.

‘Liar,’ she said.

Hobart’s eyes were still on her. Was there a flicker of response in them?

‘I’m telling you the truth,’ Shadwell protested. ‘Hobart’s gone. This thing … it’s just a shell. You know what’s inside. And it isn’t Hobart.’

‘That’s a pity,’ she said, playing his civilized game while it gave her time to think.

‘No loss,’ said Shadwell.

‘But we had unfinished business.’

‘You and Hobart?’

‘Oh yes.’ She was looking straight at the burned man as she spoke. ‘I was hoping he’d remember me.’

At this, Hobart’s head sagged a little, then rose again: a primitive nod.

‘You do remember,’ she said.

The eyes didn’t leave her for an instant.

‘Are you the Dragon –’ she asked him.

‘Shut up,’ said Shadwell.

‘Or the Knight?’

‘I told you to be quiet!’ He made a move towards her, but before he could get within striking distance Hobart raised his arm and put the black stump of his hand on Shadwell’s chest. The Salesman stepped back from it.

He’s frightened. Suzanna thought. The stain of fear she saw around his head only confirmed what his face already admitted. There was more power here than he knew to handle, and he was afraid. But he wasn’t so cowed as to keep his silence.

‘Burn her,’ he said to Hobart. ‘Make her tell us where they are.’

Her gut convulsed. She hadn’t taken that possibility into account: that they’d torture her to make her tell. But it was too late for flight. Besides, Hobart showed no sign of obeying Shadwell’s instructions. He simply watched her, the way the Knight in the book had watched her: a wounded creature at the end of his story. And she in her turn felt as she’d felt then: both afraid, and strong. The body before her was a receptacle for devestating power, but if she could just reach into it – oh so gently – and speak with the Hobart whose secret heart she knew, perhaps, just perhaps, she could coax him into siding with her against the Scourge. Dragons had weaknesses; maybe Angels did too. Could she make him raise its throat to her?

‘I … remember you,’ he said.

The voice was faltering, and pained, but it was clearly that of Hobart, not his tenant. She glanced sideways at Shadwell, who was watching this encounter with bewilderment, then back at Hobart, catching sight, as she did so, of something flickering in the unsealed holes of his body. Her instinct was to step back, but he stopped her.

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t… leave me. It won’t harm you.’

‘You mean the Dragon?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The snow’s made it slow. It thinks it’s in the sand. Alone.’

Now the Scourge’s inactivity began to make some vague sense. Perched on the hill, surveying the wilderness of snow, it had lost its grip on the present. It was back in the void it had occupied for the millennium, where it waited for fresh instructions from its Maker. Shadwell was not that Maker. He was dust; human dust. It no longer heard him.

But it knew the smell of the Kind; it had howled as much from this very spot. And when the raptures failed – as soon they must – the wilderness would no longer keep it from its duty. Seeing them, it would do what it had come to do, not for Shadwell’s sake, but for its own. She had to get to it quickly.

‘Do you remember the book?’ she said to Hobart.

He took a moment to answer her. In the silence the furnace in his body brightened again. She began to fear that his words of comfort had been misplaced; that these two Law-givers were so much a part of each other that the breaking of one trance had alerted the other.

‘Tell me …’ she said. ‘The book …’

‘Oh yes,’ he told her, and with his recognition the light intensified. ‘We were there …’ he said, ‘… in the trees. You, and me, and –’

He stopped talking, and his face, which had been slack, suddenly contorted. There was panic there, as the fires rose to the lips of his wounds. From the corner of her eyes she could see Shadwell stepping back slowly, as if from a ticking bomb. Her mind careered around for a delaying tactic, but none came.

Hobart was raising his broken hands to his face, and in the gesture she comprehended how they’d been destroyed. He’d tried to stymie the Scourge’s fire once before, and his flesh had been forfeit.

‘Burn her,’ she heard Shadwell mutter.

Then the fire began to come. It didn’t appear suddenly, as she’d expected, but oozed from the hurts he’d sustained, and from his nostrils, and mouth, and prick, and pores, running in fiery rivulets through which darts of the Angel’s intention ran, still slothful, but growing stronger. She’d lost the race.

Hobart was not quite beaten, however; he was making one last, gallant attempt to speak his mind. The chattering ceased as he forced his mouth open. But before he could utter a word Uriel ignited his spittle. Fire licked up across his face, the geometries behind it sharpening. Through the flames Suzanna saw Hobart’s eyes on her, and as their gaze met he threw back his head.

She knew the gesture, of old. He was offering her his throat.

‘Kill me and be done,’ the Dragon had said.

Hobart was demanding that same kindness now, in the only way left to him.

Kill me and be done.

In the book she’d hesitated, and lost her chance to fell her enemy. This time she wouldn’t falter.

She had the menstruum as a weapon, and as ever it knew her intention better than she did. Even as her thoughts embraced the notion of murder it was flying from her, crossing the space between her and Hobart in a silver instant and snatching hold of him.