Winterstrike (17 page)

There’s more where that came from,’ she said.

We looked up. A swarm of the things was flying at us. Rubirosa gave a yell and swung upwards with a knife: not an ordinary blade, but one that was filled with red fire, as though she held a
flame in her hand. One of the white things lashed through it and disintegrated into smouldering fragments on the deck.

‘Watch out!’ Peto cried. I turned. Three of them were whistling towards me and before I could duck, dodge or defend myself, they were passing through me as though I did not exist. An
unpleasant stinging sensation started to pass through my gut, but as soon as it had begun, it was extinguished. Abruptly, I felt something in my mouth. I put up my hand and removed three little
fragments, like splinters of burned wood, from the surface of my tongue. The remaining swarm was off and up into the darkness, to be swallowed by the shadows of the mountain wall.

This time, it was the turn of Peto and Rubirosa to gape at me.

‘How did you do that?’ Peto asked. ‘You have no mesh. I saw nothing.’

And you have no armour,’ Rubirosa echoed. ‘My own system read nothing in you.’ She sounded more offended than alarmed.

I smiled. ‘Oh, I have my own kind of protection,’ I said, and swaggered past them down the steps to below deck, leaving Peto to resurrect the wards of the barge. In fact I had no
idea how I’d done it. The only anomalous thing about me was that I still carried the Library. I fingered the sphere in my pocket, but it was the same temperature and consistency as
before.

‘I wish you’d tell me what’s going on,’ I whispered under my breath, but the Library was silent. The warrior did not come to me, and I did not dream of her for what
remained of that night.

In the early hours of the morning, however, I woke up again. Even in the relative safety of the cabin, my breath steamed on the air. Peto was fast asleep, wrapped in a huddle of blankets. The
marauder sprawled in a chair and at first, with a start, I thought she was awake, for her eyes were open. But when she made no attempt to look at me directly, I realized that she was still
unconscious. In sleep, her face had lost a little of its ferocity and she looked as peaceful and as fragile as a statue.

I was not, however, deceived. Rubirosa’s armour gave an occasional flicker, signalling that its haunt-capacity was once more working and would probably warn her if I made any move. I did
not do so. Instead, I put my hand down to where an uncomfortable sensation had awoken me. Inside the folds of my pocket, the sphere was icy.

I thought:
very well.
I pushed aside the blankets and made my stealthy way back on deck. Peto had done a good job with the wards, for they were once more up and running. Ahead, the
mountains floated on the morning shadow. Venus hung bright in the east. I took the sphere out, holding it in a twist of material, trying not to juggle it. At its present heat, I’d probably
drop the damn thing in the canal. I was surprised it didn’t burn its way through the cloth.

When I looked up again, I saw with a leap of the heart that the warrior was standing there. My relief at seeing her took me aback, but she was much more fragile than she had been, transparent,
like a real ghost. The sinews and veins of her exposed skin followed the distant striations of the mountains, as though she had been enfolded into the landscape.

‘I’m glad to
see you,’
I said. The warrior looked at me without recognition for a moment, then she took a deep rasping breath, more like one who experiments than one who
truly needs to breathe – for of course, she was not real.

Ah,’ she said. ‘
This
is where we are.’ Something like satisfaction flickered across her dead face. ‘I remember this place.’

‘You’ve probably got books about it,’ I said.

‘In
life,
I knew this place. I fought here. A sad sour place.’ The warrior frowned. I did not see how she could really remember, being no more than a simulacrum, but maybe the
Library contained some implanted memories to add to its verisimilitude.

‘It’s not the happiest,’ I agreed. ‘The ghosts, or whatever they were – did you get rid of them?’

‘They gave me energy.’

‘Well, that’s good. At least you’ve come back.’ I paused. ‘Why? Is it just because I’m the one with your projector, or whatever it is?’

‘I’ve been asked to help you,’ the Library said.

‘By whom?’

‘I am under orders not to say.’

‘That’s not reassuring.’

The Library’s frown deepened. ‘I can’t help that. They’re looking for you. Also, did you know there’s a bomb on this barge?’

Two pieces of bad news, not that either came as any great shock. ‘They. Who? The excissieres?’

‘Yes. I’ve been shielding you, and thereby, myself. It’s taken a lot of energy.’ The warrior’s form fluttered, as if about to dissipate into the morning mist.

‘Hey, don’t go,’ I pleaded. ‘I might need you around.’

‘I’m still here,’ the warrior said. Then she gave another breath like a sigh and disappeared, leaving me staring at the empty air.

FOURTEEN

The effects of the haunt-tech that Mantis and One had used to extract information from me – or whatever that alien vision had been – lasted for most of the night. I
was exhausted, and slept a fitful sleep even on the hard mattress they’d provided. I kept having broken dreams – of Calmaretto, of my cousin Hestia, who now looked at me across a great
span of land with sad dark eyes and mouthed words that I could neither hear nor understand.

Then, towards dawn, the effects of the tech and the drug ebbed away and I found myself awake and startlingly clear. I got off the bed, and although I was shaky, was able to stand without holding
on to anything and, shortly, to move about. I made a thorough investigation of the cell, which reminded me uncomfortably of searching Leretui’s locked room, back in Calmaretto. And like
Calmaretto, there was no sign of any way out. I could not have slid a razor’s edge between those slabs of honed stone and the floor was a seamless sheet of rock. The only opening was the
grille in the door, and that was far too small to clamber through. I sat back down on the bed, temporarily defeated.

The air shivered. For a moment, Alleghetta was standing before me. She did not look pleased. She said something I couldn’t hear and I could see the wall through her body.

‘Mother, what—’ But she was gone.

Then something knocked on the wall, a sharp, deliberate sound. Having little to lose, I knocked back. The sound came again, a quick tapping that, after a moment of incomprehension, I recognized.
It was the pattern of the bell of Ombre, the same precise rhythm that I had rung out across Winterstrike only a few days before. When it ended, I tapped it back again.

A pause. I wondered if this was going to continue indefinitely: it was the only code I knew, after all. But the knocking stopped and I heard an odd, half-familiar rustling. There was movement at
the grille. I saw a long, segmented body glide through the grille and down the wall.

I’d last seen that thing, or something very like it, disappear up the sleeve of a shrouded woman on the road out of Winterstrike. Involuntarily, I clapped my hand to my bitten arm. Next
moment, there came a hissing voice.

‘Stand away from the door,’ it said. ‘Let it do its work.’

The centipede dropped down onto the floor with a rattle. Its body broke into separate parts, neatly disjointing. The legs of each segment carried the body under the door in a sideways scuttle.
There was a moment of stillness, then the bottom of the door started to glow. I watched, fascinated, as the lower half of the door, then the whole thing, crumbled into ash and fell apart. I stood
in the centre of the room, staring out at the woman who stood on the other side of the door.

I’d seen her in a shroud, behind the brown veil. Now, the veil and her long sleeves had been pushed back and she stood revealed: slanting brown eyes in a skin that was not far from the
colour of her veil, the shade of mountain earth. Her cheeks were scarred, contoured in a series of spiny patterns and stained indigo, and the scarring continued along her arms. She smiled, baring
small pointed teeth, and said, ‘Well, so here you are.’

‘Who
are
you?’ I said.

‘A servant of the Centipede Queen,’ she said. She looked sidelong. A companion came out of the shadows, a smaller, older woman bearing similar facial scarring. ‘We ought to go.
They’ll be waking soon.’

The woman reached out and clasped my hand. Knowing what was up her sleeve, I took it gingerly. Her fingers closed over mine with a strength that hurt. I tried to free myself and couldn’t.
She pulled me through the door and out into the musty corridor. We ran along stone, under beams – some half-fallen – and through arches leading into endless rooms. The warren seemed to
go on for ever, but my rescuer appeared to know where she was going: I had no idea how. There was something faintly ignominious about being rescued.
Never mind,
I thought.
You’re
being saved. So shut up.

But saved from what, exactly? And saved
for
what?

The darkness grew until I could not longer see in front of me. The hand that clasped mine twisted strangely and I felt the tickle of spiny legs against my wrist. Next moment there was the rush
of cold fresh air against my face and I was abruptly released. We were standing on the hillside, among trees, with a cold moon above.

‘Come on,’ the woman commanded.

I followed her down the hillside, stumbling through untrodden snow, until we came to a ground car. It was an ancient object, rocking on its stabilizer jets, embellished in an ostentatious black
and gold trim. Most of this was flaking off.

‘Where did you find this?’

We borrowed it,’ the servant of the Centipede Queen explained. ‘It is the belief of the Queen that all property is hers by right.’

‘I see.’ How convenient. I climbed into the ground car, which was dusty and smelled of musk. The other women were already seated in it, one of them at the controls. She touched a
panel and the car glided away through the trees. I expected the bikes to come roaring out after us at any moment, but behind us the forest remained dark and still.

‘I’m afraid I’ve never heard of your Queen,’ I said, as much to fill the silence as to gain information.

The woman waved a hand, dismissing my ignorance. ‘Few people have, on Mars at least.’

‘And elsewhere?’

Again the smile. ‘On Earth, of course.’

‘Of course?’

‘The Queen is from Earth and so are we, her servants.’

That explained why I hadn’t recognized the accents, but not why these people from Earth were going out of their way to effect my rescue. Unless they had something else in mind.
‘Which part?’ I asked.

‘Khul Pak, in Malay. The north, from the islands.’

‘But what are you doing on Mars?’ Of course, people travelled between the worlds, but very few that I had met, even in the sheltered luxury of Calmaretto. It took money to travel so
far. Money and a very good reason.

‘The Queen is – looking for someone. An old enemy, returned.’

‘Do you mean Mantis?’

‘Yes and no. Mantis has taken an interest in you, however. She’s tried to capture you twice before.’

‘You’ve been watching me? Was that why were you on the pilgrimage?’ I looked around. ‘Is one of you the Queen?’

Sly looks and shy laughter. ‘Why, no. The Queen is in the west, not far from Caud. She sent us to—’ the woman paused.

‘To spy,’ the older woman said.

‘Fair enough.’ I suppose it was sad that this seemed so reasonable.

The woman shrugged. ‘It is a time of war. The Queen was concerned. We joined the refugees out of Caud, as a cover, telling folk we’d arrived there by mistake.’

‘So where are you taking me now?’ I asked.

‘To the Queen. She wants to meet you.’

‘Why?’

‘That’s for her to tell you.’

‘And what will she do with me?’ I was not sure I wanted to know, after Mantis.

‘Just to talk with you. Nothing more.’ The woman must have seen what I was thinking in my face, for she spoke reassuringly. As reassuringly as someone can when they have a foot-long
centipede sliding about in their clothes, anyway. I couldn’t help wanting to scratch.

The sky was starting to lighten above the trees. I didn’t understand why we hadn’t been pursued. It was beginning to dawn on me that I had become – in some way I did not
understand – a valuable commodity. Given what I’d just experienced, I didn’t think this was at all a good thing.

FIFTEEN

Obviously, I didn’t mention the Library’s reappearance to Peto or Rubirosa. Everyone was rather dour that morning, still suffering the after-effects of rogue
haunt-tech and disinclined for conversation. We reconfigured the barge’s stabilizers in silence and set off towards the mountains. The surface of the water was lightly iced over, not enough
to require a sonic ram, but enough to make it crackle as we moved.

As the barge glided on, Rubirosa finally spoke.

‘Last night. What was that all about, do you think?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Who drew those things to us?’

‘They were stray haunts,’ I said. ‘Plains remnants, bits of old histories, nothing more.’

‘Yes, but things like that usually avoid human contact,’ Rubirosa pointed out.

‘Do they? I thought they were common enough.’

‘Not the winged forms. I don’t think you realized this, but they’re very rare. I’ve seen them only once before, much further south. One of my contacts had managed to
catch a flock of them to power a – let’s just say it was a device, never mind what kind. She was stupid enough to get in amongst them; she thought she could cope. I saw what they left
of her. She was no more than a shell by the time they’d hollowed her out.’

‘Good thing you didn’t tell me that last night,’ I said after a pause. ‘I might have been put off.’

‘There wasn’t time,’ Rubirosa said, ignoring my attempts at wit. Her dark, delicate face was sombre as she stared out across the mountain wall. ‘I don’t think that
was a random incursion of loose haunts, my spying friend. I think someone was trying to kill us. Peto,’ she hesitated, ‘seems a placid enough sort, even if she does have some intriguing
defences. That leaves you and me.’