The Golden Yarn

  Fox pulled him to her, closed his mouth with her lips. She kissed the rain off his face, the tears, the rage, and Jacob returned the kisses, despite the Elf, despite his promise to himself, to her. Not lost. His. All his. For the first time and since forever. It had always been meant to be. Was that enough excuse?

  Behind them a wild gander rose from the dripping branches of a tree.

  The Destination

  The landscape outside the carriage window had again grown sparse and wide. A sea of yellow grass washing up against rugged mountains in the bluish distance. Woolly horses and camels grazing among the nomad yurts. The people had black hair and dark eyes. They claimed to be descended from a princess who’d been born as a wild goose. Kazakh. She’d even given her name to the whole country. Kaz for goose, akh for white.

  The Dark One now also traveled by day, asking every river, every brook, and the rain for the way. The answer was always just a direction. East. Always east. And Chithira drove the horses through a land filled with a magic so alien to the Fairy that she sent Donnersmarck into the villages and yurts to collect stories. He told her stories about a man who’d cheated Death for so long that in the end, Death turned into a snake and bit him. About men of gold, magic pillows made of black wood, eagle lords and rider hordes, but not a single word about the one she was seeking. They’d told stories about her in all other places, and the Fairy knew that meant she was getting closer. And still she felt her restlessness growing, fearing that the one who was following her might catch up before she reached her destination.

  But then—she didn’t know how—she suddenly knew she’d finally found the one she was looking for.

  Chithira felt it even before she did. He stopped the carriage before she could order him to do so.

  A giant spider’s web, woven more artfully than the most precious lace, stretched between two wild apple trees. Thousands of drops of dew clung to the sticky threads, catching the world’s reflection, and the spider sitting in the middle of the web was as green as the leaves of the trees between which she’d spun her silken trap.

  “Make way,” said the Fairy.

  The spider obeyed only after the Dark One touched the web with her six-fingered hand. She scuttled up the threads until she was hidden in the trees’ foliage. The giant web, now unguarded, stretched in front of the Fairy.

  Are you sure? she heard a whisper inside her.

  Who was asking? Not she. Not the one she wanted to be.

  She stepped through the web, felt the silk threads tearing, and the cold dewdrops rolled down her skin like pearls.

  Coward

  All those failed experiments to harness the magic of flying carpets for his airplanes—who would’ve thought they’d one day turn out to have their uses? One had to walk the pattern in a counterclockwise direction to erase its current destination. John struggled to drag the huge carpet out of the rib-cave. He had to hurry: the vixen could return any moment with Tennant or Jacob. It would be hard to forget the look in his son’s eyes. It had contained something John had never seen in Rosamund, despite all her disappointment. Rage. And an unwillingness to forgive.

  Forget it, John. He was good at forgetting, though he found it harder the older he got. In his mind, John was still lining up all the things he hadn’t said to Jacob: explanations, reasons, excuses... Again and again, in endless variations.

  The sky above the skeleton had turned a threatening yellow. Get out of here, John! But where to? Albion? He couldn’t go back there. Even if the Walrus was still alive, they were going to accuse him of giving their best-guarded secrets to the Tzar. No, even though he felt homesick for Albion and his lover, he wasn’t homesick enough to endure months of interrogations in the catacombs of the Albian secret police. There were too many countries that would welcome Isambard Brunel with open arms.

  Counterclockwise... It felt like he was massaging a furry animal with his bare feet. The pattern had to be walked with bare feet, another thing John had learned during his experiments. He forced himself to walk slowly. Flying carpets were surprisingly stubborn. There was a theory that they took on their creator’s personality. Hopefully, this weaver had not been too pig-headed.

  As pig-headed as his elder son. John had always admired that about Jacob. Rosamund hadn’t. The two had fought often. There had always been much love between the mother and her elder child, but they’d both struggled to show it. As though they’d been afraid of what the other would do with all that love. It was not true that his elder son resembled only him. Had Rosamund never noticed? Or had she been blinded by how much more Will was like her? Oh, how the memories kept sneaking out of that vault he’d built around them in his heart. No matter how tightly he thought he’d sealed it, the vault remained with his lost life inside. That’s what John liked to call it; it made it sound more tragic, more fateful. As though it hadn’t been he who’d discarded Rosamund and his sons like some old clothes he no longer thought suited him.

  Where had Jacob been headed with the carpet? Probably toward some treasure. He was always looking for something. Had he ever looked for his father? One of the questions John could’ve asked him, though it was doubtful he would’ve gotten an answer. Jacob’s pride was another trait John had always admired. With him, ambition had always been stronger than pride.

  John stared down at the carpet beneath his feet. Same procedure as always, John. Your answer to all problems: run.

  What if he stayed this time?

  What if he could win back the son he’d once loved so much? If he told him about the newspaper clippings he’d collected, of the treasure-hunting jobs given to Jacob only because of Isambard Brunel’s recommendation? Maybe he could even explain that he’d only left Rosamund because he’d realized she could be much happier without him. It was not the whole truth, but it was a part of it.

  So, he’d have to find a reason why the destination had been erased from the carpet. Maybe he could blame the rain.

  The warm breeze suddenly brushing across his naked feet felt strange on this cool day. John looked back at the skeleton. Was it still giving off warmth, after all these years? Dragon bones as a source of energy? John slipped his feet back into his shoes. That would be an amazing discovery! These skeletons were everywhere.

  The warm air seemed to be coming from the skulls. The first one had its jaws wide open. Something stirred between the teeth. John froze. A figure of glass. Through its limbs he saw bones and teeth, and the gray clouds. But then it suddenly grew a face, became more and more human. It was a girl. John reached for the pistol the Dwarf had given him. Not that he was sure bullets would harm it.

  He walked backward until he felt the carpet beneath his feet.

  The creature jumped off the bony jaw into the grass. The eyes—they were mirrors. And the skin... It seemed human, but the hands were sharp-edged, like cut glass, with silver fingernails. Yet the strangest thing was the face. It seemed to be a hundred faces in one. It looked as though a silver plate were being exposed repeatedly, every photograph slowly emerging from the previous one. Fascinating. John had never seen anything like it. This creature of glass and silver seemed to come from his world and time, rather than this one. No, it looked like a mixture of both, something he’d always dreamed of, but all his attempts to combine magic with technology had always failed. This one also seemed to have some problems. The face looked scuffed, and leaves were growing from the glassy shoulders.

  The creature was approaching him. It? She? Yes, it was definitely a she, as beautiful as a painting. She had now settled on a face. Of course, he wanted to run, and this time it seemed more than reasonable. And he was standing on a flying carpet. Say the words, John. But even his mind was paralyzed, which didn’t happen often.

  “Hello, John!” The girl stopped in front of the carpet. “Or shall I call you Isambard? What a strange name.”

  John almost reached out to see if the skin was warm. The breeze that had announced her had been warm.

  “You can call me Sixteen.” r />
  Her face changed again. Rosamund. A sick joke. But who was making it?

  “A good idea. Take the carpet, John.” Sixteen didn’t have Rosamund’s voice, but hers sounded almost as pleasant. “The horse lords in these lands don’t think much of engineers. Your profession means the end of their way of life. If they find you here, they’ll stick your head on a pike and let the eagles feast on your eyes.”

  Sixteen was very convincing. John scanned the horizon for riders. Sixteen what? Were there fifteen others, or was she the sixteenth model?

  She reached out. Being touched by her did not feel good. He felt like mercury was coursing through his veins. Sixteen no longer had Rosamund’s face. The new one looked scarier, but at least it didn’t make him feel so guilty.

  “Kneel.” She sounded impatient. Her fingers ran over her scraped cheek. Something was sprouting there, like a gray scab.

  John dropped to his knees.

  The carpet was already stirring. Sixteen whispered the words Jacob had used to wake it. The wet grass had made the carpet damp. It rose with a lurch.

  “Where to, John?” Sixteen called. “West? East? North? South?”

  She was now barely visible. He could see the grass through her limbs.

  John held on to the carpet’s edge.

  “Southeast! Alberica!” he shouted.

  Yes. The New World. It was different on this side. Different alliances. Three nations, a war of independence that had been only partly successful, and apparently there was another war brewing. What more could Isambard Brunel ask for? They were going to fight over his services, and the longing for progress was so much stronger there than in Varangia, where the Tzar couldn’t come up with a better use for him than to have him shot!

  John had always struggled with languages more than with numbers, but Sixteen’s pronunciation of the magic words was even more perfect than Jacob’s. The carpet flew a wide arch and then faced the wind head-on.

  John would’ve liked to ask Sixteen about her maker. Someone must have made her. There’d been an emptiness in her glass eyes—no soul, if there was such a thing. Fascinating.

  The Dragon skeleton had already vanished behind the horizon.

  One day he would explain everything to Jacob.

  Everything. One day.

  Different Paths

  Orlando was leaning against one of what had been the Dragon’s wings. The bones behind him spread out across the grass like an ivory fan. There were still a few goose feathers stuck to his clothes, but even without these, Fox could tell from the look on the Barsoi’s face that he’d seen what had happened.

  It had happened.

  Yes, Fox.

  A dream so often dreamed, a wish so often wished. Under Orlando’s eyes, Jacob’s touches turned to pitch and gold on her skin. Nothing made her happiness more real than his pain. Jacob left them. He disappeared between the Dragon’s ribs, sparing the other man the sight of him.

  Orlando forced himself to smile.

  “The Golden Yarn,” he said. “What can I say? Even Fairies are powerless against it.”

  Fox had never loved him like she loved him in this moment.

  But Orlando looked past her. Jacob was striding toward them.

  “Where is it?” There was something in his voice, and it had nothing to do with jealousy. “Where’s the carpet?”

  “Up in the air, I assume,” Orlando replied. “I’m afraid Isambard Brunel thought his own safety was more important than ours. At first I thought he’d taken the horses as well, but I found two over there behind the skulls. They seemed very frightened. Maybe he chased them away, though I can’t really make much sense of it.”

  She’d never seen Jacob paler, not even when Hentzau had shot him through the heart.

  Orlando, of course, had no idea how monumental a betrayal he’d just witnessed. Orlando knew nothing of fathers who betrayed their sons. He talked about his own father the way one spoke about parents whose love one never had to doubt.

  Fox felt Jacob’s rage as clearly as if it were her own. Pain, rage, fury, against himself, because he hadn’t foreseen what his father would do.

  As a child, she’d always believed there could be nothing more painful than losing your father to death. Jacob had taught her otherwise. Fox wished John Reckless into the deepest caverns his fears could imagine.

  “Did you see him?” Jacob asked.

  “Would I still be here if I had?” Orlando plucked a feather from his sleeve. “I would’ve flown after him. Damn fool. It’s going to be on my head if he doesn’t make it to Albion in one piece. How’s he going to find the way?”

  “Albion? I don’t think he’s going back there,” Jacob replied.

  “Where, then?”

  “Some place that won’t hand him to either the Walrus or the Goyl, somewhere that can afford to build his inventions.” Jacob didn’t sound like he was speaking of his own father.

  Orlando looked south, to where the mountains of Kazakh were rising in the distance. “Fine. So I won’t be returning Brunel to Albion. I’d better start looking for a new employer. The Shah of Bukhara is looking for spies.”

  Bukhara, Kazakh, Mongol... Fox knew little of the countries beyond Varangia. She wasn’t even sure whether they’d already crossed any of those borders.

  “I’d be grateful if you let me have one of the horses,” Orlando said. “The people around here would rather sell their children than their horses, and the next town is at least a hundred miles away. I could fly, but I fear the gander is no match for the double-headed eagles.”

  “Sure,” said Jacob, though he probably hadn’t even heard Orlando’s request.

  Fox lowered her eyes as Orlando looked at her. Was she going to see him again?

  Probably best not, his eyes seemed to say.

  Orlando picked a splintered bone from the ground. Like birds, Dragons had hollow bones. The resinous material on the inside was a very effective explosive.

  “Will you still look for the Fairy?” he asked. “Or are you done with that?”

  “The carpet’s gone,” Jacob replied. “I guess that makes us done with that, right?”

  “That depends. Maybe I know another way.”

  Orlando looked at Fox. Don’t hate me for not saying anything earlier, his eyes pleaded. You know why.

  Hate? She was grateful, even if Jacob would never understand that. The days in Moskva had been hers, hers alone. Not Jacob’s or Will’s. Hers. And those days had let her find again what she thought she’d lost forever in the Bluebeard’s castle.

  Maybe Jacob did understand. He didn’t ask Orlando why he was only mentioning this now.

  He just said, “And? What do you know? Did you tell Fox?”

  “How stupid do you think I am? What she knows, you know.” Orlando tucked the bone into his bag. “I assume she told you who the Dark One is probably looking for?”

  “La Tisseuse?” Jacob shook his head. “The Weaver? The Golden Yarn? You’re talking about the Dark Fairy, not some village girl dreaming of true love. If the Dark One’s looking for the Weaver, then it’s to convince her to cut Kami’en’s life thread.”

  Fox had never understood where Jacob’s anger came from. All that harshness with which he shielded his heart. He is gone, Jacob, she wanted to say. Your father is gone. Forget him. But she knew too well how difficult it was to forget.

  Of course, Orlando knew nothing of all this. He looked at Jacob as though he was doubting his sanity. Are you really that ignorant? his eyes jeered. Oh yes, very often, Fox wanted to reply. And I love him anyway. But Orlando knew that as well—and that “anyway” was at the core of love.

  “So? Do you want to hear it?”

  Jacob stared at where the carpet had lain in the grass.

  “No,” he said. “Fox and I are riding back to Schwanstein. The Weaver! If she really exists, then she won’t be any easier to find than the Fairies, and probably just as dangerous.”

  He looked at Fox. Let’s go. Anywhere. Never had
that wish to just turn and give up been clearer on Jacob’s face. His longing to just enjoy what they’d both been awaiting for so long, to forget the rest of the world, brothers, Alderelves, Fairies… just him and her.

  It was hard not to say yes. But she loved him. She knew how unhappy he would be. And that he’d never forgive himself for abandoning his brother.

  “Tell me,” she said to Orlando. “Tell me what you know.”

  Jacob turned away and disappeared behind the Dragon’s bones.

  Orlando looked after him.

  “I think I’d really like to duel with him,” he said. “Pity we didn’t get a chance in Privideniy Park.”

  He took Fox’s hand. “I can still shoot him if he makes you unhappy. No, not quite right. I will shoot him.” He bent to catch a spider crawling across one of the scattered bones. He opened his fingers, and it quickly ran up his arm. “The Weaver. Jacob is right. She’s not easy to find, and that’s putting it mildly. For mortals it’s almost impossible. But one of my first jobs in Moskva was to make a list of all the magical creatures the Tzar could use in a war against the Walrus. Crookback had just lost a few colonies to strange magic, and the Walrus was preparing his war against Circassia. As far as I’m aware, the Tzar only ever recruited one Baba Yaga, and not with much success, as we all know. But of course I also learned about the Weaver. The stories about her are as plentiful as they are vague, when it comes to exactly where she lives. I was about to put her on the list of fictitious creatures when I met a man in a pub who claimed his village had recently rid itself of a particularly nasty landowner by petitioning the Weaver to cut his life thread. You can imagine how this kind of magic could be very useful to any ruler in this world. But here comes the part that might interest you.” The spider crawled back down Orlando’s arm and onto his finger. “The Dark Fairy probably has her own ways, but for us mortals, even trying to find the Weaver can be deadly. Except if you ask a shaman. But not just any shaman...”