Chasing the Dragon (41 page)

"Sleep?"

But she wasn't listening to him; she was lost in her reverie. The
kettle began to steam and simmer. "The ghosts were dreams that had
been dreamed so much they were taking up spirit of their own, from
the glimmer, the golden fields. Yes. They were hungry, empty things
but with the chance to become. In the void they were strong enough
to take on matter out of the nothing, blurts of quantum particles, you
would say in human foolery, yes. Enough to be form. Then lose themselves again if there was no interest, nobody, nobody to see them, Mal.
And I went there and I saw ..."

But as she reached this part of her speech he was just for a fraction
of a second ahead of her, and if she hadn't stopped his hands were ready
to stop her somehow because she was about to say something dreadful.
He found himself staring at her, his arms out before him bursting the
seams of his linen jacket, hands become the grasping claws of a giant
cat. Jones was staring back, slack mouthed, her eyes as round as
saucers, but she was laughing, in a mostly silent, gasping kind of way.

"You know what I mean," she breathed, struggling to hold onto the
bar, her hands reclenching. "Yes, you do. So, I saw them, and Mal ..."
She paused like a child about to deliver the punch line, longing not to tell, not to have the delicious suspense and control be over and done.
"They ate me all up."

The kettle began to whistle, faintly at first, then louder and more
stridently. Jones was grinning at him, at his horror and his inability to
conceal it. "Choo choo!" she sounded softly, pumping her arm. She
laughed and, using the bar like a rail, swung herself around and lifted
the kettle off the hotplate. For a few moments she fought once again
with the teapot, the spoon, the teapot lid. Finally she was done.
Shaking as if she had the DTs she turned back. "Four minutes," she
said to herself. "Four minutes."

Malachi had brought his paws down and let them rest in his lap as
if they were his hands. Jones seemed lighter now, as if she had released
something that had been pressing on her a long time. She fixed him
with a more rational stare.

"That isn't all. Why I took the octo-thing. I got aboard the Fleet
after a time, to find my way out. I knew I could ride it. If it manifested
I could get out of there before it was too late...." She glared into his
eyes as if to dare him to contradict her, but he knew she was literally
correct. The half-formed things and all her own potential would be
stripped out in that place, mined like a seam of precious ore by the
rapacious foment of that which strove to become real. "So I got to the
Fleet and I found the ship. Temeraire. Yes. I got aboard her, stowed
away. I saw the Admiral-a boy, Mal, imagine it! A boy with ragged
trousers. He is hungry! They all were. So very hungry. But I was
lasting. Only down there, in the hold, in the dark, there was something else. Not a dream. Not a ghost." She fought to speak as if the
words had to be dragged up from below. "Not me."

Malachi could not move, dared not, in case he broke her fragile
control. She looked as if at any second she would shatter into pieces.

"He said I would die there." She kept gripping, working the warm
bar of the oven door. "But he didn't know I could be so quick. Didn't
know I was a walker. I tried to get out but ... I was lost. I hid in the rigging. I saw him go into the Admiral's cabin. He took him prisoner.
He took the Fleet. He took it, Mal. And they all obeyed him. And he
set sail. He was so glad. He had a chart. I stole a look. I saw what he
wanted. And he saw me. I picked up the octant. It was just there, just
lying there. He thought I'd gone but I was there. I got it and I ran and
we were close to the edge and I jumped, Malachi, I jumped like I never
jumped before and all my light ... everything ... I made it over. But
he was after me. He saw me, Mal. He knew me. He came after with
the whole Fleet, like a storm, like death. He wanted it. I didn't know
where to go so I came to you-you're the only one I know, only one
and you could have kept it, I thought maybe-so I came here and I
dropped it and ran thinking he'd follow." She stopped abruptly. "Four
minutes," she said and turned around to pour her tea, a little ritual of
cup, pot, jug, spoon that took her another four minutes to accomplish
while Malachi let his hairs subside.

"He came," she said, holding the stove. "But he couldn't cross. I
don't know why. Some of the Fleet were too slow to stop. They crashed
here. After me. They came too. He was strong enough to send them.
But not strong enough to catch me. Not that way. Except he has caught
me, Mal." And at this last her voice weakened and became a sob of rage.
"He has a hook in me, a claw, and it is scraping, scratching me away to
nothing. He can't come here, but I can't get rid of his grip. He is eating
me. They are. The Fleet will have me because he is its captain." She
paused and took a drink. It steadied her. She put the cup to her forehead, to her lips, back on the stovetop. "But I'll have a hand in getting
him," she said, more steadily now. She turned, cup in hand, and sat
down, for all the world like a normal woman, if an ill and sickly one.

"Understand he isn't human-he's something like a demon. Very
old, very cunning. He is strong. Stronger than you. He is like death; I
think perhaps he walks that path. His chart was of the Black, Malachi.
Do you know that? Of the Darkness Before and After, as if it was a
place and in dream it is a place, of course it is, could be, might be ... understand? He wanted to sail there. But he had other things, other
servants with him. Many. Very very many. I think he had been there a
long time and made and mastered things. Nasty things. They are like
this claw in me. Anyway, without his compasses he cannot sail true.
He will look for them if he can't make another. So his servants will be
on their way. If not here already. I'm sorry for that. But don't let him
have it. Don't make it easy."

Malachi shook his head, agreement. "But who-"

"If I say it I make it more true," she said, pleading with him to
jump to an understanding. "Do you see? If I tell you then the idea
spreads, becomes more real. It helps him to bring it to be. He is more
likely to succeed."

He knew this was true. "If you don't tell me then I can't do anything."

"I don't think you can do anything anyway, except run," she said.
She sipped the tea and rubbed her thin, hollow chest with the flat of
her hand. "All right. Shit to him. All right. But not in a way that
helps. He has this thing about the will to power. I'll call it that. I did
philosophy, you know. Read it. Nietzsche. But he's like that, like that
idea, something like that he's trying to do, but as far as he can go. He
would do anything. What he can't steal he will borrow and what can't
be borrowed he'll barter for or trick, and things that must be borne or
suffered he will do all. He was looking for the first impulse. There. Do
you know what I mean? What came before all the rest. What was first
in the order and has been forgot so long nobody ever thinks of it anymore. Before the Titans. Older. Oldest. He thought it was real and
even if it wasn't, angel, he was making it so with his map and his
search. He will open a way. Do you see?"

Malachi did know what this meant. "But that's crazy," he said,
almost ready to laugh. The Titans were demigods, the stuff of childhood fancy, of legend. Nobody even in Under believed such things
existed now, and maybe never had. It was from a time when everything
was in a state of much more profound unbeing, chaos and creativity in the fundamental states of aether and matter. It was the equivalent of
the first moments of the universe. You might argue and calculate about
it from the ancient radiation of those moments as it propagated
steadily through life and limb, but you didn't know for sure. The
Titans were guesses, faces put on forces that he doubted had anything
as sophisticated as a spirit of their own. Or they were all spirit. He
hadn't cared to pay attention in metaphysics, but he understood the
path Jones was pointing at. Force of will dreamed, dreams took on
spirit, spirit moved them to seek material form and articulate, actualisation occurred. Ghosts were the accidental by-product of this; snippets, by blows. There was a thing that apparently dreamed itself, however, was will first without mind. He knew about them and avoided
them, like he tried to avoid the Sisters. Dragons. Before the Titans
meant dragons-one in particular. The first one. The Dreamer. Night.

"It is," Jones said, crouching with her tea, inhaling the steam from
her cup. "This was his dream. I saw it. And he saw me. The fucker."

Malachi was so surprised. "But what for? Why would he
want ... ?"

"Becoming," Jones said into her cup. "Power. Absolute creative
authority to manifest ... anything."

By now his hands had returned to their apparent human form and
the holes in his sleeves no longer bulged with unsightly fur. He checked
his nails but they were smooth. Jones was shivering compulsively. Her
state made him afraid deep down, but here, in the house, amid the mess
and ordinary disgust of neglected things without power, he was able to
master it. He thought Jones was saying that this creature somehow
wanted to become Night. That was not possible. There were lesser
options, however. A servant of it? No. It had none. A channeler of it,
perhaps, a conduit for it. That was possible. But at what cost? He could
only speculate wildly. And then he looked at Jones again.

She smiled the smile that lies about all right and says not to worry,
because there isn't any point. Sadness overpowered him.

"Jones," he said, remembering the tough, arrogant, defiant girl
who had always played him to the hilt and taken everything like a
greedy thief. The one who would never stop or slow down for anyone.

She clutched her cup but spilled the liquid anyway, smacking at
the drops as they fell on her filthy clothes. "I'm done," she said,
looking at her hand tremble. "Funny. Not to mind though. I did it. I
found out about ghosts, how it all fits, what's made in the Void. I
found it. But"-she looked up at him, fever bright-"I never wrote it
down, Mal. I'm not good at writing. I never learned it. Isn't time now.
And Azevedo can't. She isn't anywhere long enough. Too much trouble
for her. Could ... I mean would ..."

"Yes," he said, leaning forward and taking her free, tea-wetted
hand in his own two. He held it tightly but the shake went all the way
to the bone and it couldn't be stopped. "I will. I'll make sure everybody knows about it, and that it was you who found it."

She looked at his hands as if she were puzzling what they were.
Her face reddened slightly and she pulled away. He resisted for a
second, then let her go.

"Can't I get you a healer? There's a place in the country. People like
you there. Nice people. Half-fey. Chosen. They might ..."

"Too late," she said. "Anyway. You know me. Don't like to hang
around. You should go. They're coming. They mustn't find that compass. I 'spect they will find it, but they should have to wait. Make them
wait. I want him to wait on my account." She was suddenly urging
him to go; he felt it like a push in the chest.

He stood up. "Do you need money?" It was such a crass thing to
offer, but he couldn't think of anything else.

"No, I'm fine," she said, nodding to herself, leaning on the stove
once more, her eyes half shut. "You go. I'll see ya."

He nodded. "See you."

Her eyes closed all the way and she began to rock gently. Malachi
slipped out silently and closed the doors after him. In the car he sat without starting it and glanced down towards the beach. The wreckage
of the Void ship was breaking up and crumbling, its attempt to be
metal failing under the ruthless scrutiny of the sun, wind, and waves.
He laid his forehead on the wheel for a moment, holding to it like
Jones held her bar. He felt time slipping away, sliding, hurtling him
towards unseen vertices, separating him from her forever. It wasn't as
if they'd been close. He didn't know why he was crying.

After a second he made himself sit up, turn the key, and drive. From
the dappled shadows of the woods things half-unmade stopped and
watched him passing. He couldn't help but see them from the corners of
his eyes. Their gaze was cold, silent, more still than that of living things.

Lila considered the situation. Teazle was stuck in the dreamworld, with
a good chance of dying before long, if the other statues here were anything to go by. But if she pursued him there was no guarantee she
wouldn't suffer the same fate. Maybe the mirror was only one way. Or
there could be a million other factors. No, it would be stupid to plunge
in. Possibly, she thought, without her spirit her body might do all
right on its own. She was capable of being a self-sustaining machine
that didn't require aetherial presence of any sort. She was sufficiently
remade to be sure that she could activate the Al to replicate her personality choices and run the show so that most people would never be
the wiser. It was an odd thought. If she became a ghost, the machine
could run itself. She didn't dwell on it.