Perdido Street Station (75 page)

"Yag," he
said haltingly. "Good to see you, old son. So glad...you’re
all right." He grasped Yagharek’s hand, and the garuda,
taken aback, did not extricate himself from the grip.

Yagharek felt himself
emerge from a reverie he had not known he was in, looking around him,
seeing Isaac and the others clearly, for the first time. He felt a
belated surge of relief. They were filthy and scratched and bruised,
but none of them looked hurt.

"Did you
see
it?" said Derkhan. "We’d just come up—it took
us ages to work our way through the damn sewers, we kept hearing
things..." She shook her head at the memory. "We found our
way up through a manhole and we were in a street not too far from
here. It was chaos, total chaos! The patrols were all running towards
the temple, and we saw some...that light-gun thing. It was quite easy
to make our way here. No one was interested in us..." Her voice
trailed off. "We didn’t really see what happened,"
she concluded quietly.

Yagharek breathed in
deep.

"The moths are
here," he said. "I have seen their nest. I can take us
there."

The assembled company
were elyctrified.

"Don’t the
damn cactus know where they are?" said Isaac. Yagharek shook his
head (a human gesture, the first he had learnt).

"They do not know
the slake-moths sleep in their houses," said Yagharek. "I
heard them shouting: they think the moths come in to attack them.
They think them intruders from without. They do not..." Yagharek
stopped, thinking of that panic-stricken scene on the top of the
cactacae sun-temple, of the helmetless cactus elders, the brave,
idiot soldiers charging up, lucky enough to have missed the moths,
saving themselves from pointless death. "They do not know how to
deal with the moths at all," he said quietly.

As he watched,
Pengefinchess’s undine swept over her shirt from below, wetting
her skin, rinsing the dust from her and her clothes, leaving them
incongruously clean.

"We should find
the nest," said Yagharek. "I can take us to it."

The adventurers nodded
and began an automatic inventory of their weapons and equipment.
Isaac and Derkhan looked nervous, but set their jaws. Lemuel looked
away sardonically and began to pick his nails with a knife.

"There is
something you must know," said Yagharek. He was addressing
everyone, and there was something peremptory in his tone, something
that would not be ignored. Tansell and Shadrach looked up from
carefully rummaging through their backpacks. Pengefinchess put down
the bow she had been testing. Isaac looked at Yagharek with a
terrible forlorn resignation.

"Three moths left
by the broken roof, dandling mindless cactacae. But there are four.
Vermishank told us. Perhaps he is wrong, or perhaps he lied. Perhaps
another has died.

"Or perhaps,"
he said, "one has stayed behind. Perhaps one is waiting for us."

The cactacae patrols
huddled together at the base of the Glasshouse, arguing with the
remaining elders.

Shadrach crouched
behind an alley, out of sight, and pulled a miniature telescope from
some hidden pocket. He flicked it out to its full extent, played it
over the congregated soldiers.

"They really don’t
seem to know what to do," he mused quietly. The rest of the
intruding gang were huddled behind him, flat against the damp wall.
They were as unobtrusive as they could make themselves in the moving
shadows cast by the elevated torches that sputtered and burnt above
them. "That must be why they have this curfew going on. The
moths are taking them. Of course, it may always be in place.
Whatever—" he turned to face the others "—it’s
going to help us."

It was not hard to
creep unseen through the darkened streets of the Glasshouse. Their
passage was quite unimpeded. They followed Pengefinchess, who moved
with a weird gait, halfway between a frog’s leap and a thief’s
creep. She held her bow in one hand, in the other an arrow with a
wide, flanged head for use against cactacae, but she did not have to
use it. Yagharek moved with her, a few feet behind, hissing
directions at her. Occasionally she would stop and gesticulate behind
her, flattening against the wall, hiding behind some cart or stall,
watching as a brave or foolhardy soul above her pulled back the
curtain from their window and peered into the street.

The five
monkey-constructs scampered mechanically beside their organic
companions. Their heavy metal bodies were quiet. They emitted only a
few strange sounds. Isaac did not doubt that for the cactus people of
the dome, the regular diet of nightmares would that night be amended
to include some metallic scuttling thing, some clattering menace that
stalked the streets.

Isaac found walking in
the dome deeply unsettling. Even with the red-stone additions to the
architecture and the spitting torchlight, the streets seemed
basically normal. They could have been anywhere in the city. And yet,
stretching over everything, creeping inwards from horizon to horizon,
encircling the world like some claustrophobic sky, the enormous dome
defined everything. Glimmers of light came through from outside,
warped by the thick glass, uncertain and vaguely threatening. The
black lattice of ironwork that held the glass in place ensnared the
little townscape like a netting, like a vast spider’s web.

At that thought, Isaac
felt a sudden shuddering lurch of emotion.

He felt a vertiginous
sense of certainty.

The Weaver was
somewhere nearby.

He faltered as he ran
and looked up. He had seen the world as a web, for a split second,
had glimpsed the worldweb itself, and had sensed the proximity of
that mighty arachnid spirit.

"Isaac!"
hissed Derkhan, running past him. She pulled him with her. He had
been standing still in the street, gazing skyward, desperately trying
to find his way into that awareness again. He tried to whisper to
her, to let her know what he had realized, as he stumbled after her,
but he could not be clear and she could not listen. She dragged him
with her through the dark streets.

After a twisting
journey, ducking out of sight of patrols and glancing up at the
glowering glass sky, they halted before a clutch of dark buildings,
at the intersection of two deserted streets. Yagharek waited until
they were all close enough to hear him, before turning and gesturing.

"From that top
window there," he said.

The swooping dome bore
down inexorably on the tail of the terrace, destroying the rooftops
and reducing the mass of the street’s houses to ever-more-squat
piles of rubble. But Yagharek was pointing at the end furthest from
the wall, where the buildings were mostly intact.

The three floors below
the attic were occupied. Glimmers of light spilt from the edges of
curtains.

Yagharek ducked back
around the edge of a little alley and pulled the others in after him.
Way off to the north, they could still hear the consternated shouting
from the confused patrols, desperate to decide what to do.

"Even if it wasn’t
too risky to get the cactacae on our side," hissed Isaac, "we’d
be
fucked
if we tried to get them to help us now. They’re
in a damn frenzy. One sniff of us and they’ll go berserk, hack
us up with those rivebows faster’n you can say ‘knife.’
"

"We must go past
the rooms where the cactus people sleep," said Yagharek. "We
must get to the top of the house. We must find where the slake-moths
come from."

"Tansell, Penge,"
said Shadrach decisively, "you watch the door." They looked
at him for a moment, then both nodded. "Prof? I reckon you’d
best come in with me. And these constructs...you think they’ll
be helpful, yes?"

"I think they’ll
be damn well essential," said Isaac. "But listen...I think
the...I think there’s a Weaver here."

Everyone stared at him.

Derkhan and Lemuel
looked incredulous. The adventurers were quite impassive.

"What makes you
say that, prof?" asked Pengefinchess mildly.

"I...I could sort
of...sense it. We’ve dealt with it before. It said it might see
us again..."

Pengefinchess glanced
at Tansell and Shadrach. Derkhan spoke hurriedly.

"It’s true,"
she said. "Ask Pigeon. He saw the thing." Reluctantly,
Lemuel nodded that yes, he had.

"But there’s
not much we can do about it," he said. "We can’t
control the bugger, and if he comes for us or them, we’re
pretty much at the mercy of events. He might do nothing. You said it
yourself, ‘Zaac: he’ll do whatever he wants."

"So," said
Shadrach slowly, "we’re still going in. Any arguments?"
There were none. "Right. You, garuda. You’ve seen them.
You saw where they came from. You should come. So it’s me, the
prof, the bird-man and the constructs. The rest of you stay here, and
do exactly what Tansell and Penge tell you. Understood?"

Lemuel nodded,
uncaring. There was a glowering moment with Derkhan, as she swallowed
her resentment. Shadrach’s hard, commanding tone was
impressive. She might not like him, she might think him worthless
scum, but he knew his business. He was a killer, and that was what
they needed right now. She nodded.

"First sign of any
trouble you get out of here. Back to the sewers. Disappear. Regroup
at the dump tomorrow, if need be. Understood?" This time he was
speaking to Pengefinchess and Tansell. They nodded brusquely. The
vodyanoi was whispering to her elemental and checking through her
quiver. Some of her arrows were complicated affairs, with thin,
spring-loaded blades that would whip out on contact to slice almost
with the savagery of a rivebow.

Tansell was checking
his guns. Shadrach hesitated a moment, then unbuckled his blunderbuss
and handed it to the taller man, who accepted it with a nod of
thanks.

"I’ll be at
close quarters," said Shadrach. "I’ll not need it."
He drew his carved pistol. The daemonic face at the end of the muzzle
seemed to move in the half-light. Shadrach whispered; it seemed as if
he was speaking to his gun. Isaac suspected that the weapon was
thaumaturgically enhanced.

Shadrach, Isaac and
Yagharek walked slowly away from the group.

"Constructs!"
Isaac hissed. "With us." There was a pistoned hissing and
the shudder of metal as the five compact little simian bodies came
away with them.

Isaac and Shadrach
looked over at Yagharek, then tested their mirror-helms to make sure
their reflected vision was clear.

Tansell was standing
before the little huddling group, making notes in a little book. He
looked up, pursed his lips and stared at Shadrach, his head on one
side. He looked up at the torches above them, took in the angle of
the roofs that loomed over them. He scrawled obscure formulae.

"I’m going
to try and get a veil-hex going," he said. "You’re
too visible. There’s no point asking for trouble."
Shadrach nodded. "Shame we can’t get the constructs as
well, really." Tansell motioned the automated apes out of the
way. "Penge, will you help?" he said. "Channel a bit
of puissance my way, will you? This shit is draining."

The vodyanoi crept over
a little and placed her left hand in Tansell’s right. Both of
them concentrated, their eyes closing. There was no movement or sound
for a minute; then, as Isaac watched, both their eyes fluttered
blearily open at the same moment.

"Extinguish those
damn lights," hissed Tansell, and Pengefinchess’s mouth
moved silently with his. Shadrach and the others looked around,
unsure what he was referring to, when they saw him glaring at the
flaming streetlamps above them.

Quickly, Shadrach
beckoned Yagharek. He strode over to the nearest lamp and linked his
hands, making a step. He braced his legs.

"Use your cloak,"
he said. "Get up there and smother the flame."

Isaac was probably the
only person to see Yagharek’s infinitesimal hesitation. He
realized the bravery he was seeing as Yagharek obeyed, preparing to
tangle up and ruin his last disguise. Yagharek undid the clasp at his
throat and stood before them all, his beaked and feathered head
uncovered, the enormous emptiness behind his back shriekingly
visible, his scars and stubs covered with a thin shirt.

Yagharek clutched
Shadrach’s linked hands as gently as he could with those great
taloned feet. He stood up. Shadrach lifted the hollow-boned garuda
with ease. Yagharek swung his heavy cloak over the sticky, spitting
torch. It snuffed with a burst of black smoke. Shadows fell on them
like predators as the light went out.

He stepped down and
Shadrach and he moved quickly to the left, to the other flame that
illuminated the cul-de-sac they crouched in. They repeated their
operation, and the little brick gully was doused with darkness.

When he stepped down,
Yagharek opened out his ruined cloak, charred and split and foul with
tar. He paused for a moment and tossed it away from him. He looked
tiny and forlorn in his dirty shirt. His weapons dangled in full
view.

"Move into the
deepest shadow," hissed Tansell, his voice grating. Again,
Pengefinchess’s mouth mirrored his own, and emitted not a
sound.

Shadrach stepped
backwards, finding a little alcove in the brick, tugging Yagharek and
Isaac in with him, flattening them against the old wall.

They pushed themselves
down, settled themselves and were still.

Tansell moved his left
arm out stiffly and slung the end of a roll of thick copper wire
towards them. Shadrach reached out and caught it easily. He wrapped
it around his own neck, then looped it quickly over his companions.
Then he slipped back into the darkness. At the other end, Isaac saw,
the wire was attached to a handheld engine, some clockwork motor, the
catch of which Tansell released, letting the momentum take the
mechanism, unwinding and dynamic.