Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five (31 page)

The demon runes skittered, dancing, popping. She knew that death was moments away but she didn’t know how it would come. She
felt unutterably stupid for not believing Malachi and taking his advice. But this paled in the face of the last moments. She
wasn’t afraid because it was too certain for that. Instead a sharp awareness came to her, so acute that time seemed to stretch
itself thin, longer and longer, and it occurred to her that if she were going to do anything it must be now, no matter how
pointless or idiotic it seemed.

‘Remember the dog!’ she shouted, waiting for the immaterial blades to cut her off from the world for ever. ‘Remember you were
running with your dog in the forests! Ilya!’

A vast agitation made the air thrum with a deadly, rising whine. Unstable to stable it went in a moment. Lila couldn’t see
anything but she felt pressure rise. The image in her mind was the blades of a food blender whirring up to maximum speed.
The sense of threat peaked and without knowing why she screamed, ‘Dar! What about Dar?’

In the context of the world Dar was ancient history. Zal’s ally, he had led Lila to find Zal and she had been forced to kill
him in repayment of this favour. Ilya’s hand had, metaphorically, been on the knife with hers. It was a raw wound to her still.
Perhaps the most raw. Any reminder was quick to flay the skin off it for her. She knew that it had been the same for Ilya.
It was their deepest bond, that moment of horror and shame was a blade that could cut through anything. It was her only weapon.

The whining of the spirit blades became a scream. The pitch of it rose and rose unbearably and without warning reached a febrile
height and then stopped. She felt whatever it was – she had no means of accurately describing it – shatter and the pieces,
sharp and tiny, go flying everywhere in a storm of hurt confusion.

In a split second of silence the room was empty once more. She felt that she was alone. As her senses returned to themselves
she realised that the silk throw covering the mirror had been ripped to shreds.

‘Lila?’

The voice scared her more than the huge show had done. She leapt a foot in the air, caught herself awkwardly in a panic and
felt herself flare hot with shock and fear. It came from behind her.

She could not turn to face the mirror, so she made herself stay where she was, in a half crouch. Her whole body burned to
escape but she did not move. It cost her every bit of willpower that she had. She knew the voice, sort of. It sounded like
Ilya, but it was odd, too high, too uncertain and the elvish accent of its Otopian was very strong. It was young, she realised,
that was it, and it was speaking to her from the mirror.

‘It’s me,’ she said.

There was a pause. ‘Where am I?’ the voice said.

‘Who are you?’ She didn’t mean to be so untrusting but there it was.

‘It’s me,’ he said, shy. ‘Ilyatath. Where am I?’ Now he sounded scared.

‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. ‘To me you’re inside a mirror. Mirror of Dreams. Do you know it?’

‘It’s so dark,’ said the boyish voice and it hesitated. Then, ‘Yes. One of the seven mirrors. I know it. Are you a dream,
then?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I summoned you here. This is Demonia. The mirror is in Demonia.’

Another pause, as this was digested. ‘Where was I, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said, honestly. ‘Some place beyond Last Water. Don’t you remember?’

‘Last Water,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Oh.’ This was sad, and final. ‘Am I dead?’

‘I really don’t know,’ Lila said. ‘You must remember something.’

‘Dar,’ the boy said. ‘I am old. But not here. I am dead, but not dead. Oh. Yes. I remember now. It was so long ago. Or yesterday.
And it is there still.’ He sniffled and she realised that he was crying and trying not to show it.

‘Ilya, something bad is happening to Alfheim, to Otopia and the other planes.’

‘They are coming through,’ he said. ‘The walls are breached.’

‘Who are they?’

He coughed a little and cleared his throat.
‘Betrayed. That is who they are. Thirst, that is what they are. I followed them and ran beyond Last Water. I tried to see
where they were going. They ran through my domain and I was nothing to them, not king, not shepherd, they did not stop for
me. I didn’t know what they were so I followed. They are spirits, like those of the beyond, but they have all that the spirits
crave
and do not have; will, integrity, focus, mind, power. They knew me, but they did not speak.’

‘You met them?’

‘We hunted each other.’ He was smiling, then he stopped. ‘They were better than I was, and my hounds. We stood in the forest.
They were old, so very old. Angry, so very angry. But there was a moment when we ran together, side by side and they knew
themselves to be elves again. I saw their faces. I talked, but they didn’t answer. Their eyes . . .’ He swallowed with effort.
‘Their eyes are terrible, Lila, don’t look at them.’

‘Did you?’

A pause. ‘Yes. Don’t you look at them. They do not live and they do not die. They are not of that form but their gaze is death
to the living. They consume souls and they possess what cannot be eaten until it weakens and falls apart. They took me beyond
Last Water and left me there when I did not satisfy them any more.’

‘Ilya,’ she said gently, trying to convey as much kindness in her tone as she was able. ‘The dead seem to be coming back.
What is happening?’

‘They are the host of the Betrayed,’ he said. ‘When people die their spirits pass quickly through my domain. Once they have
gone beyond it they don’t come back. But where I am king there are many spirits of many kinds, including those that fail to
pass and those that are yet to move in the other direction and become elements. The Betrayed are massing enough impulse to
break through into the material worlds and regain their forms there, otherwise they will have no effect on those planes. The
spirits you see returning are riders of their storm. They copy the patterns and memories of those passing who have died in
your reality, and remake themselves in their images on the other side.’

She steeled herself. ‘So it isn’t really . . . it’s not really them?’

‘In every aspect except for the spirit, it is probably an exact copy,’ Ilya said. ‘But there is almost no chance at all that
it is the same in its numinous or aetheric form. Mind, personality – these are things not of spirit, so they will be identical.’

She took the news with numb acceptance, moving on through the glum path of the facts. ‘They’re young,’ she said. ‘Not like
when they died.’

‘The spirit remembers itself in an archetype,’ he said. ‘Most people do not associate their true selves with their physical
age. The body,
the mind and the personality are one intricate device, a vessel for the spirit, a journey, a love. They feed and are fed
by it. Ultimately they part. One passes onward. One ends and is recycled.’

‘In Otopia it isn’t fashionable to talk about spirits like that. It’s like chatting about the existence of good and evil.
People think you’re nuts,’ Lila said, but she took his word for it.

‘Humans are in love with the machine because it is perfect and seems to offer the cure for every ill. They are at an elemental
stage of alchemical philosophy,’ Ilya said, and she could hear the dismissive shrug in the slight nuances of his emphasis.
He couldn’t care less. ‘I could hunt these stealing spirits down and bring them back to me. But I could not do anything with
the Betrayed. They are beyond my reach because they are wavewalkers. Is that why you called me?’ There was a hesitancy now,
a tentative appeal that she felt as clearly as if he had reached out to touch her.

‘It was one reason,’ she admitted. She was beyond lying to him, even to console him. Still, it was hard to tell the truth
and she didn’t know why. ‘But Malachi said you’d been out too long and were changed. I thought maybe you were lost and that
I’d like to find you. He made out that you were some kind of monster.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am. You saw it, before I got caught here.’

She was tempted to deny this, but resisted. ‘What was that?’

‘Beyond Last Water are the things of spirit that one would least like to encounter. Hungry, relentless, cold. They will consume
anything. They will attach to anything. I resisted them a while. I thought I was their master. They beset me and I fell. I
was consumed. If you hadn’t tricked them here, you would be theirs now because I would have killed you.’ He sucked his breath
in on the last word and waited.

She wanted to turn around, but she didn’t dare. ‘Why?’

‘In the world of the spirit no memories remain. I was only the walker of the dark valleys. Even that meaning was failing.
There was nothing except thirst and hunger and longing and shadow. I would have severed you from mortal things and taken your
body for my own. Ironic, wouldn’t it have been?’

‘What happened?’

‘When the mirror appeared we were caught. Only I could stay, because you summoned me. And here I am as I was in my dreams
– the dream you named.’

‘Can you get out?’

‘In death there are no dreams,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I want to. I
have been so far, so long. I never thought to get back to this place and these ways. I may never have the chance again.’

‘I need you, to track the hunters for me,’ she said.

‘They will kill you,’ he said. ‘They have no business with you. Leave
them.’

‘I have business with them,’ she said. ‘What happens if they manifest in Otopia, and Alfheim, and Demonia? What then?’

‘Then you will know what they want,’ he replied. ‘But you will not be able to stop them.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ she said. ‘But if you want to . . . will you die there, in the mirror, Tath?’

‘If I stay I will be only a dream,’ he said. ‘And without a dreamer then yes, I will be gone. I have no form to return to
unless I return to Faerie to my haunt at the Soulfall where the snow and ice remember me.’

She wanted to say he could ride with her, for old times’ sake, but she didn’t know how he would take it. She didn’t know how
she’d take it. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘One last journey, one last hunt, one more time. We can always die later. Why hurry?’

She had to grate her teeth as she said it because suddenly she was in tears and she wanted to sob. There was a pain in her
chest like a flat, crushing iron. The buzz in her skin spiralled inwards. She closed the fist of her will on the pain and
extinguished it. She knew that the dream he was in was his heart’s desire, no nightmare, but a heaven; a boy and his dog,
in the forests, running. He could stay there.

She said, ‘For old times’ sake. They’re in Alfheim, I’m sure of it. For Dar’s sake.’

There was a long pause, very long, in which she was glad there was no light at all to see by. ‘Very well,’ he said at last,
his voice small. ‘Call me, when you must.’

Then she was alone in the labyrinth. She ran out as fast as she could, given the low roof height, the twists and turns, the
yawning empty mouths of its pit traps. In the room above she stood and gulped the stinking lagoon air with gratitude.

When she arrived at the Sikarza house Zal and Teazle were on the roof deck. A drake was parked there, ignoring them and looking
over the city, its ugly head turned away. Its rider was arguing with Teazle. Drinks had been drunk and spilled by the look
of it, and insults were
being exchanged. Zal was a bystander, cup in hand, lounging back in a sun chair as he watched the proceedings. His air of
insouciance almost blanketed his exhaustion. Food was being brought out and laid with the golden plates, so Lila guessed they
were in for a long deal. She took a seat beside Zal and accepted a cup of wine from a server.

‘What gives?’

‘We’re buying a drake for me to commit suicide on in Alfheim,’ Zal said. He leaned forward to a box of smokes and picked one,
bit the end off it and lit it with one of the candelabra. The flames danced lazily. It was one of those windless days where
nothing seemed to move and the air sat over the lagoon like a toad on a rock. ‘Teazle wants to have an expedition to find
a better one but there isn’t time for that so he’s trying to find out if they have special stock they’re not letting him see.’

Lila looked at the drake on the deck. ‘What’s wrong with that one?’

‘It’s the trader’s own. They’re loyal. You can’t jump on and off like bicycles.’

She saw he was wearing the silver harness. ‘You got your present.’

‘Yes,’ he grinned at her. ‘Kinky.’

‘More than you know,’ she said, taking a sip of wine and finding she was thirsty and starving. She got up to reach the table
herself. Within moments she was stuffing her face with sliced roast meat. She picked up a beer jug by the neck and took it
back to her place with her.

‘You didn’t find him,’ Zal said, as a question.

‘I did.’ She met his iron-brown gaze and lost herself for a moment. ‘He will come when I call. I think.’

Zal watched her with narrowed eyes. ‘He was as Mal said?’

‘Yes. He was.’ She put emphasis on the final word and saw Zal take her meaning. ‘We will pursue this until we find out what
it is that the dark Titans are after and then we’ll decide if it’s worth being in Sarasilien’s pay. So far it is all hints
and coyness from every side but having seen Ilya I think I’ll take my chances as they turn. The whole game is like this place.
It looks civilised and regulated, if you’re standing at the top of the heap.’

‘That’s how you see it now, as a game?’

‘Players are crawling out of the woodwork,’ Lila said. ‘If it isn’t a product of a game, then it’s a sports field they want
to be on. What do you think?’

He discarded his wine cup and frowned. ‘I wonder at what people will do to pass the time. Life is here, and they manage to
be bored enough and cold enough to do all this. At such moments it is hard not to hate them.’ He’d fallen back into an elvish
way of talking, no shortenings, no common phrases. She wondered if he’d noticed. ‘I think they come for him.’

‘Who?’

‘For Sarasilien. And whoever else is still alive that was a part of their creation. That’s what I’d be doing if they made
me into a creature and sent me to hell to fight devils and left me to die.’ The throwback moment was gone, his everyday self
returned. ‘Wouldn’t you?’