The Storm Weaver & the Sand (Books of the Change)

by Sean Williams

  She felt a puff of cold air from an open tunnel as she passed, closely followed by the sound of rapid footsteps. She froze, and heard a rattling sound, like broken glass hitting stony ground. The shouting of the distant wardens resolved into words: “It’s doubled back!” Then the golem was among them—all wild eyes and equally wild hair, forcing them aside and running up the corridor and down another tunnel.

  Hot on its heels, bellowing like a steam engine about to blow, came the ice-beast. It shot out of the tunnel with a clatter of hooves. Frost-rimed hair and glass teeth caught and magnified the light. The scar in Shilly’s palm flared as she fell back before it, and the ice-beast reared with a shriek, sending a wave of damp, icy air rolling over her. The top of its massive head brushed the ceiling. One of the attendants pushed Sal and Shilly against the wall. The other attendant shouted in alarm as the ice-beast pounced and brought its angular, brittle mass down with a heavy crunch on him, piercing him through with its claws.

  Blood jetted from the dying man. Shilly screamed. There was an explosion of noise in the confined space. She felt herself lifted as though by a wave and flung along the tunnel into a confusion of limbs and robes. A flare of bright yellow light followed the blast of sound, and it didn’t subside quickly. Someone had brought the sun into the underground passages. Shilly smelt burning hair, and wondered if it was her own.

  Then the light was gone and darkness returned. All was confusion for a moment as the wardens picked themselves up. Shilly felt hands under her armpits and was hauled to her feet by Aron, dimly visible by the mirror-light. Her ears were ringing as she sought her crutch and put it back under her armpit, ready to run.

  “The creature—look!”

  She turned to look where Warden Beall was pointing. She saw Sal standing on his own by the body of the warden the ice-beast had attacked. He was slicked with gore, but standing upright, breathing heavily. In front of him, trembling on the brink of dissolution, stood the beast itself. It had melted, but an alien will kept its form intact. Its watery, shifting face was hunched low, level with Sal’s. They were staring at each other as though daring each other to blink.

  They held that pose for an instant until, with a loud splash, the creature fell shapeless to the floor and flooded away.

  The wardens rushed forward. Sal staggered back against the wall, one hand touching his forehead. He slipped to one knee and almost fell. The first warden to reach him took his weight and helped him back to his feet. The search party split into two groups: one to look after Sal and the other members of the party, the rest to continue searching for the golem.

  “How are you feeling, Sal?” the Alcaide asked, peering closely into his eyes.

  “I’m all right. That just took a little more than I expected.”

  “I’ll say. You’re completely drained. What on earth did you do?”

  “When we first arrived here, Atilde showed us how to make frost. I turned the charm around and used it as a weapon to melt it.”

  “That shouldn’t work.” The Alcaide looked, puzzled, at the puddles at their feet. It was red-tinged where blood from the fallen attendant had mixed with it. Rainbows danced on the surface, like oil. “That shouldn’t work at all.”

  “With enough effort, it will.”

  The Sky Wardens looked at Sal with a nervousness that he didn’t appear to notice.

  Shilly struggled to her feet, trying to come to grips with what had happened. Sal had killed the ice-beast by little more than will, but he had drained himself in the process and looked on the verge of collapsing. That she could understand. Her breath came in rapid gasps as her body recovered from the terror she had felt on seeing the ice-beast’s teeth and claws flashing over her.

  Excited shouts grew louder from a side tunnel. The search party was returning. The Alcaide rose from an examination of the dead attendant to see what they’d brought with them. Even Sal, still leaning against a warden for support, seemed to rouse himself.

  Two attendants emerged from the nearest side-tunnel, holding the golem tightly by the arms. Sorely weakened, Lodo’s body looked like a child’s in their hands. The malign intelligence controlling it didn’t even put up a fight. Not a physical one, anyway. The darkness in its eyes smouldered dangerously, though, waiting for its chance.

  The attendants hauled it before the Alcaide.

  “So you killed it,” the golem said, noticing the condition of the floor. “No, you killed it.” Its attention swung to Sal. “Powerful work. You must be feeling quite pleased with yourself. Quite drained, too. Under other circumstances, I’d happily take you up on the invitation.”

  Sal glared but said nothing.

  “The creature killed an innocent man,” said the Alcaide. “You summoned the creature and led it back to us. The blame lies on you.”

  “And how do you plan to punish me? Death?” The golem laughed, low in its throat. The sound turned into a hacking cough that tore at Shilly’s heart.

  “Confinement,” the Syndic said, her eyes glittering coldly in the mirror-light.

  The cough turned back into a laugh. “You’re too late for that, Syndic Zanshin. I can’t leave this body—and not for want of trying.”

  “Don’t play games with us,” the Syndic warned.

  “I’m being quite serious, and, of course, I’m telling the truth. Why do you think I summoned the beast? It would have made a marvellous home—the perfect vehicle for unleashing mayhem and terror on you all. But after all the trouble I took to obtain it, I found myself unable to cross over. I was—am—trapped in this body. Someone is holding me back.”

  “Who?” asked the Alcaide.

  “Who do you think? This body’s original inhabitant, of course. He doesn’t know when to give up.”

  A charge went through Shilly. Lodo was alive—and fighting the golem!

  “Why isn’t he letting you leave?” asked the Syndic.

  A dreadful sneer spread across the golem’s borrowed face. “To take me with him. When this body dies, as it surely will soon, he thinks to trap me in it, to drag me down with him.” The sneer became a snarl of anger. “He is a fool if he thinks that will kill me. It will just inconvenience me for a while. He is sacrificing himself for nothing.”

  Sacrificing himself? Shilly wanted to shout in denial, but she bit her lip. Now wasn’t the time to draw any attention to her. Everyone’s attention was on the Alcaide and the Syndic while they argued with the golem—as if arguing alone would ever be enough. The golem had had thousands of years of experience at using words to its own advantage. If it was ever going to give in—and give her Lodo back—it had to be threatened in a way that would really hurt.

  She knew what she had to do. She edged closer to one of the portable light-mirrors at the back of the crowd, where a warden had leaned it against the wall. She didn’t have a pencil, but there were other ways to draw. She bent down and wet her hands. Rubbing her palms on the walls gave her the dust she needed to create a small amount of mud. With her muddy fingertips and the image of the ghost in her mind, she quickly sketched a face on the glaring face of the light-mirror.

  A thrill of nervousness swept through her. This was deliberate necromancy. But she didn’t care what happened to her. As long as it worked, and it helped set Lodo free, that was all that mattered.

  It took her a bare economy of lines to give the ghost a body. If anyone noticed what she was doing, they didn’t try to stop her. All eyes were on the golem as it argued with the leaders of the Strand.

  Then it was done. She stepped back, wiping her dirty fingers on her uniform. She could see shadows shifting in the light, struggling to coalesce. They weren’t coming together the way they were supposed to. If they didn’t soon, people were going to notice.

  The process needed a kick-start. She leaned her hand, as though for support, on Warden Beall, who happened to be nearest. With a twinge of guilt, she Took from the
unsuspecting woman. The Change rushed through her in a glowing stream.

  She didn’t hear the voice shouting at her to stop until it was too late.

  Skender ran as fast as he could over the bare stone floors, not feeling the bruises on his feet. A rising dread had overtaken him as he followed the warden who had been left to guard the entrance to the secret tunnel, almost certain that he wouldn’t arrive in time.

  When he saw the lights ahead of him and heard the voice of the golem he put on an extra burst of speed.

  “Don’t do it, Shilly,” he shouted. “Wait!”

  Heads turned to see who had shouted, but one small figure at the back of the group didn’t look up. There was a piercing noise, as though a pane of glass had cracked, and a sudden flare of bright blue light.

  Skender pushed his way through the milling crowd. “Get away from it! Get away from it!”

  He felt hands trying to grab him, but he dodged them and burst out the other side. What he saw could have been absurd under any other circumstance. Shilly was staring in defiance at a female warden from whom, Skender presumed, she had Taken the Change needed to complete the charm. The warden had an expression of surprise and anger on her face. That changed to shock as the mirror beside them suddenly exploded outwards, showering them with glass.

  They recoiled. Skender skidded to a halt, feeling numerous sharp pains in the soles of his bare feet. The pain was nothing, though, to the horror he felt as the ghost stepped out of the hole where the mirror had once been.

  Tall, narrow-boned and as black as empty space, it uncoiled like a snake until it towered a full foot over anyone else in the corridor. Skender heard gasps from those around him. Its skin was smooth and flawless, like a baby’s, and it was completely naked.

  It blinked and stretched. Muscles rippled; joints cracked; new flesh gleamed in the blue light. Shilly stared up at it as though hypnotised by what she had brought into the world. Cold eyes fixed her to the spot.

  “I knew my investment in you wouldn’t be wasted,” it said in a voice that was surprisingly high-pitched.

  “I didn’t do it for you,” Shilly said. “I brought you here to kill the golem. Eat its mind. Free Lodo!”

  The ghost looked at the golem, then turned back to Shilly. “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?” she asked. “That’s why I brought you here. You owe me!”

  “I owe you nothing.” The creature grinned, exposing even, white teeth. “I have no debt to repay.”

  “But you told me I had to have a heart-name. You told me—”

  “I would have told you anything you wanted to hear. All that mattered was the summoning. Your heart-name just makes you more…substantial.”

  The ghost took a step forward.

  “Keep away from her!” Skender threw himself between them, uncaring of the glass stabbing at his feet. “Shilly, you don’t understand,” he said over his shoulder. “It tricked you. You have to get out of here.”

  “Why?” Her confusion and anger were naked in her voice. “How has it tricked me?”

  “It can’t eat just anyone’s mind. It can only eat the one who summoned it. It wants you.”

  The ghost’s grin widened. Its eyes seemed to bore past him, into Shilly.

  “How do you know this?” she asked weakly, gripping his shoulder.

  “I guessed,” he said, mentally cursing the fact that he had arrived too late. “That’s what happened to Sal’s mother.”

  The ghost laughed, and lunged for Shilly. She dodged out of its reach. Skender did his best to get in the ghost’s way. Instead, he was thrown aside, sent skidding across the floor, adding new scratches and cuts to his body. He rolled to avoid the feet thudding around him as wardens and attendants counteracted the unexpected new threat. Several sharp retorts sounded as the wardens used the Change in attack, but they were hampered by the close quarters: anything likely to damage such a monster would hurt innocent bystanders as well. The golem’s mocking laughter added a surreal counterpoint to Sal’s cry of alarm.

  Skender couldn’t see what was going on. He struggled to right himself. If he’d run faster, arrived seconds earlier—

  A desperate, horrified shriek from Shilly cut the thought in two. It climaxed in a terrible crunching sound that Skender could only assume accompanied the ghost’s terrible work. The sound of a body striking stone rang in his ears, and he felt physically ill at the thought that Shilly was dead, her mind eaten by the creature she had brought into the world to save her teacher. He didn’t want to know, couldn’t bring himself to look.

  Then a single word, spat through the noise via the Change, made him think again.

  “Bad!”

  Skender forced himself to peer past the wardens and attendants gathered around the scene. He saw the body of the ghost on the ground with its skull staved in. Aron stood over it, holding a blood-spattered Mawson to his chest. The giant teenager’s nostrils were as wide as his eyes as he panted for breath. The man’kin’s eyes were tightly closed, his expression one of utter horror.

  “Bad,” said Aron again, with less ferocity than before. The man-child gradually relaxed as it became apparent that the crisis had passed. He put Mawson gently on the ground at his feet, and extended a hand to help Shilly upright.

  The look on her face was one of absolute shock. While the wardens stood around her, frozen, she stared up at Aron, then at Sal. Then she seemed to crumple in on herself. Aron didn’t know what to do as she fell against him, clutching his robe. Sal went to her and awkwardly put an arm around her shoulders. Aron decided to hug them both, prompting a muffled half-laugh, half-sob from somewhere within his arms.

  Skender felt hands slip under him, helping him upright. It was Highson Sparre.

  “That was well and bravely done,” he whispered.

  Skender glanced at the gashes on his arms, then wished he hadn’t. There was blood everywhere he looked: on him, on the walls, on the floors. It couldn’t all be from him, he hoped. “I didn’t make it in time. If I’d only run faster—”

  “The attempt is what matters, not the outcome. You tried. That’s the main thing.”

  Skender nodded, knowing that Aron was the true hero. His solution had been direct and to the point. While the wardens had wasted the Change on an esoteric attack, he had simply done what needed to be done. A creature of flesh was vulnerable to an attack by brute force. All he’d needed was a weapon…

  If Mawson had anything to say about that, he still hadn’t recovered enough to talk. From the look on the man’kin’s face, Skender guessed that he hadn’t seen that outcome approaching at all.

  The Syndic was trying to impose some sort of order, but everyone was shouting at once. Two solemn attendants were arranging the pierced body of their fallen comrade; Warden Beall was trying to explain that she hadn’t volunteered her talent to Shilly; Master Warden Atilde and Skender’s mother’s friend, Iniga, had caught up and were demanding explanations. In the confined space, the noise was deafening.

  “Quiet!” The Syndic’s voice cut through the rabble. “I have no desire to spend a moment longer in here than I have to. If our business is concluded, we will proceed immediately to—”

  “Hell.” The sharp voice of the golem cut across her words like a serrated knife. It hung limp in the arms of its captors, barely able to stand. “You and your games, they sicken me.” It spat at the Syndic’s feet, creating a small splash. “I would happily leave you to them, if this old fool would let me.”

  “And go where?” the Syndic asked. “I don’t know about anyone else here, but I quite like the idea of you caught like this, trapped by your own appetite.”

  “I have no appetite,” the golem retorted, “only desires.”

  “Not for much longer, it seems.”

  “I cannot die,” it snarled.

  “But you can be weakened and hurt. That’ll do for m
e.”

  “In order for that to happen, the old man has to die. Remember?” The last was addressed to Shilly, not the Syndic.

  “Don’t answer it,” snapped the Syndic as Shilly disentangled herself from Aron and Sal and moved to stand in front of her teacher’s ravaged body, her hair bedraggled and her eyes bright red.

  “He can hear you, you know,” taunted the golem, lunging forward. “You can beg him to let me go, if you want him to badly enough.”

  The wardens holding the golem’s arms tugged it back.

  “Can he really hear me?” asked Shilly, red-eyed.

  “Of course. I can’t lie.”

  “Well, he’ll know I trust him not to let you go until Sal has regained his strength. Won’t he?”

  “Don’t listen to her, you old crank,” the golem shouted, rolling its head back to stare at the ceiling. “You listen to me. Let me out of here. Take your body back!”

  Shilly grabbed the rags that had once been Lodo’s Privity gown and thrust her face close to the golem’s. “I’m sick of being tricked,” she hissed. “I’m sick of being lied to. You’d take over Sal in a second if you could get out of there. That’s why you want me to talk Lodo into letting you go.”

  The golem said nothing. It just glared at her in mute defiance.

  “Not this time,” she said, pushing the golem away. “You can rot in there, for all I care.”

  The Syndic gestured. “Take it away,” she said. “Chain it somewhere safe. Get it out of my sight.”

  “Liar,” chanted the golem as it was dragged away. “You’re a liar, Carah of Gooron. A liar—liar—liar!”

  The echoes of its cries faded into the distance. When it was gone, it left extreme exhaustion in its wake. The wardens had failed to protect the children or each other, and it showed in their faces. The only person showing any sign of animation was Iniga, his mother’s Surveyor friend, who was peering with curiosity into the open doorways lining the corridor, her tattoos glowing faintly in the gloom.

  Shilly sagged where she stood, like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Sal went to her, but this time didn’t touch her. He just stood close and whispered something in her ear. She nodded, and leaned some of her weight on him. Skender would have joined them, but he was wary of cutting his feet any more than they already were. That was what he told himself, anyway.