She laid her cheek against the bloodied rock, and made a low sobbing sound.
‘Where’s your sister?’ Suzanna said.
At this, the sobbing faltered.
‘Is she here?’
‘I have … no sisters,’ Immacolata said. There was no trace of doubt in her voice.
‘What about Shadwell? Do you remember Shadwell?’
‘My sisters are dead. All gone to sand. Everything. Gone to sand.’
The sobs began again, more mournful than ever.
‘What’s your interest in her?’ Nimrod, who’d been standing at Suzanna’s shoulder for several seconds, wanted to know. ‘She’s just another lunatic. We found her amongst the corpses. She was eating their eyes.’
‘Do you know who she is?’ Suzanna said. ‘Nimrod … that’s Immacolata.’
His face grew slack with shock.
‘Shadwell’s mistress. I swear it.’
‘You’re mistaken,’ he said.
‘She’s lost her mind, but I swear that’s who it is. I was face to face with her less than two days ago.’
‘So what’s happened to her?’
‘Shadwell, maybe …’
The name was echoed softly by the woman at the rock.
‘Whatever happened, she shouldn’t be here, not like this –’
‘You’d better come speak to the commander. You can tell it all to her.’
2
It seemed it was to be a day of reunions. First Nimrod, then the Incantatrix, and now – leading this defeated troop – Yolande Dor, the woman who’d so vehemently fought the reweaving, back when Capra’s House was still standing.
She too had changed. Gone, the strutting confidence of the woman. Her face looked pale and clammy; her voice and manner were subdued. She wasted no time with courtesies.
‘If you’ve got something to tell me, spit it out.’
‘One of your prisoners –’ Suzanna began.
‘I’ve no time to hear appeals,’ came the reply. ‘Especially from you.’
‘This isn’t an appeal.’
‘I still won’t hear it.’
‘You must; and you will.’ Suzanna responded. ‘Forget how you feel about me –’
‘I don’t feel anything,’ was Yolande’s retort. The Council condemned themselves. You were just there to carry their burden for them. If it hadn’t been you it would have been somebody else.’
This outburst seemed to pain her. She slipped her hand inside her unbuttoned jacket, clearly nursing a wound there. Her fingers came away bloody.
Suzanna persevered, but more softly.
‘One of your prisoners,’ she said, ‘is Immacolata.’
Yolande looked across at Nimrod. ‘Is that true?’
‘It’s true,’ Suzanna said, ‘I know her better than any of you. It’s her. She’s … lost; insane maybe. But if we could get some sense from her, we might use her to reach Shadwell.’
‘Shadwell?’
‘The Prophet. They were allies once; him and Immacolata.’
‘I won’t conspire with Corruption like that,’ Yolande replied. ‘We’ll hang her when the proper time comes.’
‘Well at least let me talk to her. Maybe I can coax something from her.’
‘If she’s lost her mind, why should we trust a word she says? No. Let her rot.’
‘It’s a wasted chance.’
‘Don’t tell me about wasted chances,’ Yolande said bitterly. There was clearly no hope of persuading her. ‘We move towards the Mantle in an hour,’ she stated, ‘if you want to swell our ranks, do so. Or else get about your business.’
This said, she turned her back on them both.
‘Come on,’ said Nimrod, and took his leave. But Suzanna lingered.
‘For what it’s worth,’ she said, ‘I hope we have time to talk, when all this is over.’
Yolande didn’t turn back. ‘Leave me alone,’ she said.
Suzanna did just that.
3
For several minutes after Suzanna’s departure from the prisoners’ compound, Immacolata sat in the murk of her forgetfulness. Sometimes she wept. Sometimes she stared at the silent rock in front of her.
The violation Shadwell had visited upon her at the Firmament, following as it had upon the destruction of her wraith-sisters, had driven her mind into a wilderness. But she’d not been alone there. Somewhere in those wastes she’d been reacquainted with the spectre that had haunted her so often in the past: the Scourge. She, who’d been happiest where the air was thickest with decay, who’d made necklaces of entrails, and soul-mates of the dead – she had found in the presence of that abomination nightmares even she’d prayed to wake from.
It still slept – which was some small consolation in her terror – but it would not sleep forever. It had tasks unfinished; ambitions unfulfilled. Very soon it would rise from its bed, and come looking to finish its business.
And on that day?
‘… all sand …’ she told the stone.
This time it didn’t answer her. It was sulking, because she’d been indiscreet, talking to the woman with the grey eyes.
Immacolata rocked back and forth on her heels, and as she rocked the woman’s words drifted back to her, tantalizing her. She only remembered a little of what the woman had said: a phrase, a name. Or rather, one name in particular. It echoed in her head now.
Shadwell.
It was like an itch beneath her scalp; an ache in her skull. She wanted to dig through her ear drum and pull it out, grind it underfoot. She rocked faster, to soothe the name away, but it wouldn’t leave her head.
Shadwell. Shadwell.
And now there were other names rising to join the ranks of the remembered –
The Magdalene.
The Hag.
She saw them before her, as clear as the rock; clearer, her sisters, her poor, twice-slaughtered sisters.
And beneath their dead heels she saw a land; a somewhere she’d conspired, to spoil for such a long, weary time. Its name came back to her, and she spoke it softly.
‘The Fugue …’
That’s what they’d called it, her enemies. How they’d loved it. How they’d fought for its safety, and in the process wounded her.
She put her hand out to the rock, and felt it tremble at her touch. Then she hauled herself to her feet, while the name that had begun this flood filled her head, washing forgetfulness away.
Shadwell.
How could she ever have forgotten her beloved Shadwell? She’d given him raptures. And what had he done in return? Betrayed and befouled her. Used her for as long as it had suited his purposes, then pitched her away, into the wilderness.
He hadn’t thrown her far enough. Today, she’d found her way back, and she came with killing news.
4
The screams began suddenly, and mounted. Cries of disbelief, then shouts of horror the like of which Suzanna had never heard.
Ahead of her, Nimrod was already running towards the source of the din. She followed; and stepped into a scene of the bloodiest chaos.
‘We’re attacked!’ Nimrod yelled at her, as rebels ran in all directions, many bearing fresh wounds. The ground was already littered with bodies; more were falling with every moment.
Before Nimrod could plunge into the fray, however, Suzanna took hold of his jacket.
‘They’re fighting each other!’ she shouted to him, above the bedlam.
‘What?’
‘Look!’ she said.
It took him only a few seconds to confirm what she’d seen. There was no sign of any outside attack. The rebels were at each others’ throats. No quarter was being given on any side. Men were murdering men they’d moments ago been sharing a cigarette with. Some had even risen from their death-beds and were beating at the heads of those who’d nursed them.
Nimrod stepped on to the battlefield and dragged one of these sudden lunatics from the throat of another.
‘What in God’s name are you doing?’ he demande
d. The man was still struggling to reach his victim.
‘That bastard!’ the man shrieked. ‘He raped my wife.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I saw him! Right there!’ He jabbed his finger at the ground.
‘There!’
‘Your wife’s not here!’ Nimrod yelled, shaking the man violently. ‘She’s not here!’
Suzanna scanned the battlefield. The same delusion, or something similar, had seized hold of all of these people. Even as they fought, they wept, and howled their accusations at each other. They’d seen their parents trampled underfoot, their wives abused and their children slaughtered: now they wanted to kill the culprits. Hearing this collective delusion voiced, she looked for its maker, and there – standing on a high rock, surveying the atrocities, was Immacolata. Her hair remained unbraided. Her breasts were still bare. But she was obviously no longer a stranger to her history. She’d remembered herself.
Suzanna began to move towards her, trusting that the menstruum would keep this terrible rapture from curdling her brains. It did so. Though she had to be nimble to avoid the brutalities on every side, she reached the vicinity of the rock without harm.
Immacolata seemed not to see her. Head back, teeth bared in a grin of appalling ferocity, her attention was entirely upon the mayhem she’d given birth to.
‘Forget them.’ Suzanna called up to her.
At these words the head dropped a fraction, and Suzanna felt the Incantatrix’s gaze come to rest on her.
‘Why are you doing this?’ she said. ‘They’ve done you no harm.’
‘You should have left me to my emptiness,’ the Incantatrix replied. ‘You made me remember.’
‘Then for my sake,’ Suzanna said, ‘leave them be.’
Behind her, the shouts had begun to wane, only to be replaced by the moans of the dying and the sobs of those who’d woken from this delusion to find their knives buried in the hearts of their friends.
Whether the rapture had faltered because Immacolata had done her worst, or because she’d responded to Suzanna’s appeal, was neither here nor there. At least the death-dealing had stopped.
There was a moment’s respite only, however, before a shot punctuated the sobs. The bullet struck the rock between Immacolata’s bare feet. Suzanna turned to see Yolande Dor striding through the mortuary that had once been her little army, taking fresh aim at the Incantatrix as she did so.
Immacolata was not prepared to play target. As the second of the shots pealed against the rock, the Incantatrix rose into the air, and floated towards Yolande. Her shadow, passing over the battlefield like that of a carrion-bird, was fatal. At its touch the wounded, unable to run before it, turned their faces to the blood-sodden ground and breathed their last. Yolande didn’t wait for the shadow to reach her, but fired at the creature over and over again. The same power that held Immacolata aloft simply threw the bullets aside.
Suzanna yelled for Yolande to retreat, but her warning went unheard or ignored. The Incantatrix swept down upon the woman and snatched her up – the menstruum wrapping them both in light – then threw her across the field. Her body hit the face of the rock upon which Immacolata had been standing, with a sickening thud, and dropped, broken, to the ground.
None of the surviving rebels made a move to go to their commander’s aid. They stayed – frozen in terror – as the Incantatrix floated, a yard above the ground, across the arena of bodies, her shadow claiming those failing few who’d not been silenced by it on its outward journey.
Suzanna knew that what slim chance of mercy she’d won from the Incantatrix had been forfeited by Yolande’s attack: she would now leave none living amongst her sometime captors. Without any time to formulate a defence, she threw the menstruum’s living glance towards the woman. Its power was minuscule beside that of Immacolata, but she’d dropped her guard after killing Yolande, and the blow found her vulnerable. Struck in the small of the back she was flung forward. It took her seconds only to regain her equilibrium however, and turn, still hovering like some perverse saint, towards her attacker. There was no fury in her face; only mild amusement.
‘Do you want to die?’ she asked.
‘No. Of course not.’
‘Didn’t I warn you how it would be, sister? Didn’t I tell you? All grief, I said. All loss. Is that how it is?’
Suzanna wasn’t entirely humouring the woman when she nodded her head. The Incantatrix made a long, soft sigh.
‘You made me remember,’ she said. ‘I thank you for that. And in return –’ She opened her hand, as if presenting some invisible gift ‘– your life.’ The hand became a fist. ‘And now, the debt’s paid.’
As she spoke she began to descend once more, until her feet were on solid ground.
‘There will come a time,’ she said, looking at the bodies in whose midst they stood, ‘when you will take comfort in the company of such as these. As I have. As I do.’
Then she turned her back on Suzanna and started to walk away. Nobody made any move to challenge her as she climbed the rocks and disappeared from sight. The survivors just watched, and gave up a prayer to whichever deities they held dear that the woman from the wilderness had passed them by.
XIII
A FLEETING GLIMPSE
1
hadwell had not slept well; but then he supposed aspirant deities seldom did. With God-hood came a great burden of responsibility. Should he be so surprised then that his slumbers were uneasy?
Yet he’d known, from the time that he’d stood in the watchtower and studied the Mantle of the Gyre, that he had nothing to fear. He could feel the power hidden behind that cloud calling him by name, inviting him to step into its embrace, and be transformed.
A little before dawn however, as he was preparing to leave the Firmament, he was brought unsettling news: Hobart’s forces in Nonesuch had been decimated by raptures that had driven most of them to lunacy. Nor was Hobart entirely free of the taint. When he arrived, an hour after the messenger, the Inspector had about him the air of a man who wasn’t certain he could trust himself any longer.
From elsewhere, the news was better. Wherever the Prophet’s forces had faced the native population in natural warfare, they had triumphed. It was only when the soldiers had failed to strike swiftly that the Seerkind had found a window through which to work their raptures, and when they had, the results were the same as they’d been in Nonesuch: men had either lost their minds, or woken from their evangelical zeal and joined the enemy.
Now that enemy was gathering at the Narrow Bright, warned either by rumour or rapture that the Prophet was intending to breach the Gyre, and prepared to defend its integrity to the death. There were several hundreds of them, but they scarcely constituted an army. They were, by all reports, an unarmed, unregimented collection of old men, women and children. The only problem they presented lay in the ethics of decimating them. But he’d decided, as his entourage left the Firmament for the Gyre, that such moral niceties were beneath him now. The greater crime by far would be to ignore the call he’d heard from beyond the Mantle.
When the moment came, as it soon would, he’d summon the by-blows, and let them devour the enemy, children and all. He would not shirk.
Godhood called, and he went, fleet-footed, to worship at his own altar.
2
The sense of physical and spiritual well-being Cal had felt when he woke on Venus Mountain did not falter as he and de Bono made their way down the slope towards the Firmament. But his fine mood was soon spoiled by the agitation in the landscape around them: a distressing, but unfixable, anxiety in every leaf and blade of grass. What shreds of bird-song there were sounded shrill; more alarms than music-making. Even the air buzzed around his head, as though for the first time he was alive to the news it carried.
Bad news no doubt. Yet there was not much of consequence to be seen. A few smouldering fires, little more, and even those signs of strife petered out as they approached the Firmament itself.
‘This is it?’ said Cal as de Bono led him through the trees towards a tall, but in truth quite unexceptional, building.
‘It is.’
All the doors stood open; there was neither sound nor movement from within. They quickly scrutinized the exterior, searching for some sign of Shadwell’s occupancy, but there was none visible.
After one circuit, de Bono spoke what Cal had been thinking: ‘It’s no use us waiting out here. We have to go in.’
Hearts hammering, they climbed the steps and entered.
Cal had been told to expect the miraculous, and he wasn’t disappointed. Each room he put his head into showed him some new glory in tile and brick and paint. But that was all; only miracles.
‘There’s nobody here,’ said de Bono, when they’d made a complete search of the lower floor. ‘Shadwell’s gone.’
‘I’m going to try upstairs,’ Cal said.
They climbed the flight, and separated, for speed’s sake. At the end of one corridor Cal discovered a room whose walls were cunningly set with fragments of mirrors, reflecting the visitor in such a fashion that he seemed to see himself behind the walls, in some place of mist and shadow, peering out from between the bricks. That was strange enough; but by some further device – the method of which was beyond him – he seemed not to be alone in that other world, but sharing it with an assortment of animals – cats, monkeys and flying fish – all of which his reflection had apparently fathered, for they all had his face. He laughed to see it, and they all laughed with him, fish included.
Indeed it was not until his laughter died down that he heard de Bono summoning him, his shouts urgent. He left the room reluctantly, and went in search of the rope-dancer.
The call was coming from up a further flight of stairs.
‘I hear you,’ he yelled up to de Bono, and began to climb. The ascent was lengthy and steep, but delivered him into a room at the top of a watch-tower. Light poured through windows on every side, but the brightness couldn’t dissuade him that the room had seen horrors; and recently. Whatever it had witnessed, de Bono had worse to show him.