Now, as she searched in vain for Perth, Maggie began to feel very tired. The effort of her ride through Dream had taken its toll on her weakened glam. Her ravens had vanished long ago; even the Red Horse was starting to show signs of fatigue.
She clenched her fists in frustration. Where was he? Didn’t he sleep? Had no one seen his face that day?
And then she found it – a wisp of dream, no bigger than a speck of down. A lawman off the night shift, reviewing his list of arrests for the day. The man was no dreamer, but he had sensed a strangeness in one of his prisoners. The memory had lodged in his mind; had become this broken fragment of dream.
Maggie grasped it eagerly. There was Perth, locked in a cell below the city roundhouse. She frowned. That was annoying. There was no sign in the lawman’s dream of either her sister or the Old Man, but Maggie was sure that by the time she and Sleipnir had finished with him, Perth would be more than willing to cooperate.
And so she spurred the Red Horse out of Dream into World Below, where the labyrinth that for three years had been her playground and hideaway was about to become the scene of one of the Middle World’s greatest escapes.
IT WAS LATE afternoon in World’s End. Almost twelve hours had already passed since Maggie had disappeared into Dream – a deeply troubling length of time for Adam and his passenger.
Where is she? WHERE IS SHE?
The Whisperer’s voice, angry at first, had dropped to a kind of plaintive drone. Adam ignored it. He didn’t care. In fact, if he’d heard that Maggie Rede had met with a fatal accident, he wouldn’t have cared at all – but for the fact that she’d promised him freedom from his passenger.
He had watched from his balcony as the sun rose high over the Universal City, and listened to the distant sounds of tradesmen, carts on the cobblestones, birds singing, delivery boys – all the familiar sounds of a life that now seemed very far away.
He found it hard to imagine ever going back to that life – harder still to remember that he had once been part of it. For the first time in many months he found himself thinking of Malbry. He’d been so eager to escape; to experience life in the city. Now he remembered Red Horse Hill, and Little Bear Wood, and the river bank where he and the other boys had played throughout the long sweet summers of his childhood. He thought of his mother and the Seven Sleepers Inn and his own little room under the eaves, and his toy soldiers lined up on the windowsill, and the plum tree that grew by his window.
All of it seemed so distant now – he’d had dreams that felt more real – and he was aware of a pain in his chest, a dull, low throbbing, like a bruise. Adam was not much given to thinking about his feelings. If he had been, he might have recognized that dull pain as homesickness. The Whisperer did recognize it, and its contempt was scathing. But over three years Adam had learned to tune out the sneering Voice in his head.
And so he just sat by the window and waited for Maggie to come out of Dream, unaware of the tears on his face, or the fact that his fists were so painfully clenched that his fingernails had scored the skin. In fact, he was so lost to the world that, when Maggie finally came home, it took him a moment to understand that she was not part of some waking dream, but the person he had promised to wed the following day at St Sepulchre’s.
She looked terrible, he thought. Her clothes were scorched, she was missing a shoe, her bergha had been torn off. A cut above her eyebrow had bled into her cropped hair; there was a bruise on the side of her face; her knuckles were shredded and bleeding.
‘What in Hel happened?’ Adam said.
Maggie gave him a tired smile. ‘Rough ride. I need to rest. Is there anything to eat?’
Adam looked around the room. ‘I … could get something from one of the chop-houses. But—’
‘Good,’ said Maggie. ‘I’m starving. But I’ve done it. I’ve dealt with everything.’
In Adam’s mind, the Whisperer was seething and buzzing with outrage. Am I to be her servant now? Am I to be at her beck and call? I DEMAND that she tells Me what happened! Tell her I will not be kept in the dark!
Adam relayed the message as tactfully as he could. ‘My master was wondering …’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘Tell him I did it. I fixed the Old Man. That’s all it needs to know.’
‘But how? Where is it?’ Adam wailed.
She shook her head. ‘I blasted it. Sent it to Hel, like the Magister said.’
‘WHAT?’ said the Whisperer. ‘You did what?’
Maggie could see Adam’s passenger watching her through Adam’s eyes. It felt as though she were looking into a pit of snakes and spiders.
Speaking low in Adam’s voice, it said: ‘But I wanted to see it done.’
‘I know you did,’ Maggie said. ‘If I could have brought him back—’
‘To have him in front of Me, helpless, fully aware of what he had lost, knowing that I and I alone was the one who caused his downfall. THAT was what I wanted, girl. THAT was what you and I agreed.’
Maggie could see the Whisperer’s rage building with every syllable. She knew she would have to be careful now: the creature was horribly alert, and would strike at the first sign of weakness. She faced it unflinchingly, even though her heart was ready to burst with fear, and addressed it in a voice that was calm almost to the point of indifference.
‘That would have been a bonus,’ she said. ‘But we have bigger fish to fry. We can’t afford the luxury of gloating over our enemies.’
Adam’s eyes widened in disbelief. ‘Are you presuming to lecture ME?’
‘Not at all,’ Maggie said, still holding the Whisperer’s furious gaze. ‘But you know the Old Man was dangerous. You saw how he tried to turn me. I couldn’t afford to let him live.’
She indicated her ragged self. ‘Look at me, I’m exhausted,’ she said. ‘A battle of wills would have finished me. And so I did what had to be done. I kept my promise. And you’ll do the same.’
For a long time the Whisperer glared at her from Adam’s eyes. Coolly, Maggie held its gaze, knowing that everything hung on this: her future with Adam; her child; her life. In twenty-four hours, she told herself, when she looked into those eyes, there would only be Adam looking back. The passenger would be gone for good, and there would be no more lies, no more fear …
‘And now I need to eat. To sleep. I need to have a hot bath. Tomorrow’s my big day and I don’t want to see or hear from you till then. Do you understand me?’
For a moment longer the Whisperer paused. Maggie could feel its anger, but there was something else as well: something like amusement; almost like satisfaction.
‘You’re growing up at last,’ it said. ‘Odin would have been proud of you.’
Then it withdrew, and Adam was back, his blue eyes wide and fearful.
‘You really did it? You killed that thing?’
‘I don’t want to talk any more,’ Maggie said. ‘Please, Adam. Leave me alone.’
At the back of his mind, his passenger’s Voice whispered a silent warning. No more questions. Do as she says. We can’t have her risking the baby.
Adam shrugged. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and get you something to eat.’
Maggie turned to hide her relief, and started to run the bath. Hot water splashed into the tub from a tap in the shape of a silver swan.
‘Then get me a dozen Fat Boys,’ she said. ‘And some roast lamb, and some fried rice – and bean soup – oh, and chestnuts. Pork dumplings, if they have them. Flatbread with olives and anchovies. Bacon rolls. Spiced chicken. Fish pie. Sausages. Fruit cake. And jam tarts. I’ve got such a craving for jam tarts …’
One day more, she told herself as Adam followed her instructions. After that she would be free. A wife; a mother; a child of the Folk. The Rider of Carnage would be no more, and all the events of the past nine days – her sister, the Red Horse, the Old Man – could be folded back into the Book of Words where they belonged, and just as quickly forgotten. As long as she could be strong enough. As long as this work
ed …
Please, make it work!
And as Adam scoured Examiners’ Walk for all the items on Maggie’s list, the reluctant Rider of Carnage stepped into the claw-footed bathtub and washed away the dust of Dream in a million rose-scented bubbles. After which, when Adam returned, she managed, in spite of her fatigue, to do more than justice to a meal that would have put the Queen of the Pigs to shame, then finally collapsed into bed, and slept without dreams until morning.
THE SUN HAD set on Cathedral Square, but Maddy had never felt less like sleeping in her life. Long after Odin’s birds had gone, she had remained by the fountain, watching the Saturday market-folk go by in a kind of dream-haze. As the shadows lengthened, the crowds began at last to disperse; but even as the people left, the square was alive with their signatures: vendors, hawkers, jugglers, thieves; sightseers, dancers, entertainers of all kinds. The day’s last wedding procession went by – the bride in white, with her long saffron veil, laughing and throwing flowers.
Maddy watched her go inside, hand in hand with her betrothed. Their signatures rose in the darkening air, entwined like columns of starlight.
That could be my sister, she thought.
She found that she was trembling. Tears were running down her face. She must have been crying for some time, she thought, because her skin was raw with it. Maddy Smith, who never cried, who never flinched at anything.
Pull yourself together, she thought. This is no time to fall apart. What was it Crazy Nan used to say? Desperate times call for desperate plans …
But what kind of desperation was this? Since when did one of the General’s plans involve her killing an innocent?
Well, perhaps not an innocent, Maddy thought with a wry smile. But Adam was no threat to the gods. He was just an innkeeper’s boy. To kill him would be murder – and if Maggie really loved him, then it would break her sister’s heart.
Could she do that to Maggie, even if the Worlds depended on it? And if she could, then how could her twin ever forgive the Æsir?
Maddy took a deep breath. Odin had asked her to trust him. But how could she trust him when clearly he didn’t trust her? If only he’d given a reason, she thought, instead of issuing orders in that typically imperious way.
If the wedding goes ahead, then everything we’ve fought for is lost.
But how could the wedding go ahead? The gods were only a few miles away. By morning they’d be in the city and the second Ragnarók would begin. The End of the Worlds was not going to wait for one little girl to get married. Especially if that little girl was also the Rider of Carnage …
Maddy frowned. What would happen, she wondered, if the Rider of Carnage didn’t ride? Could this be what Odin feared? This war was just a means to an end – its purpose: to regain Asgard. Could this be his way of making sure that Maggie was ready to fulfil her part of the prophecy? And if so, what about Maddy herself? Was she too just playing a role? Or could it be that both of them were nothing more than pieces – counters on a chequer board, set up by a master player whose only thought was to win the game?
Odin would never do that, she thought. That would be too cruel.
And yet, as her heart protested, the rational part of her knew that he could. Maddy knew Odin far too well to be blinded by her feelings for him. He could be cruel, manipulative; he could even be treacherous. Hard as it was to admit it, Odin had a long history of betrayal, violence and deceit. And now that he was back in the Worlds – albeit inside a stone Head – she guessed that he might be willing to do almost anything to regain his stronghold, his Aspect.
Maddy looked up and was startled to see that night had fallen on the square. A few bright stars pierced the sky; to Maddy they looked bleak and cold. She was hungry again, and tired, and stiff; stretching her limbs, she realized that she had been sitting there thinking for hours. And yet she felt better; lighter, somehow. As if she had come to a difficult truth. Her face took on an implacable look, which, if Adam had seen it, he would have recognized instantly.
Now was the time, she told herself, to decide who she really wanted to be. The Rider of Treachery? Maggie’s twin? Odin’s grandchild? Perth’s friend? The future of the Æsir? The defender of the Folk? Or something else entirely – something she’d chosen for herself?
Maddy stood up and started to walk. She knew just where she was going. Finally she’d had enough of messengers and mind games. Whatever her role in this circus, she would be no one’s instrument. If she had to choose between betraying her sister and betraying her tribe, then she was done with minions.
The ravens could go to Hel, she thought.
Maddy needed to talk to the Head.
When the ’bow breaks, the Cradle will fall …
Northlands nursery rhyme
OVER FIVE HUNDRED years had passed since the creation of the Universal City. The man who designed it was long gone; and the skills that had gone into its construction had been forgotten for centuries. But nothing is ever lost, they say, and if Maggie Rede had paid more attention to the contents of those dry old histories, instead of studying tales of adventure, she might have remembered the name of a certain architect, once a Professor of Mathematics at the University of Immutable Truths, who, at the end of the Winter War, had almost single-handedly re-designed and rebuilt World’s End, beginning with a single stone from the fallen Citadel, and, topping it with spires and domes, had renamed it the Universal City.
This man’s name was Jonathan Gift, and after his death he had been entombed in the city cathedral, whose giant crystal roof-dome had been his most ambitious undertaking. But by the time the Order emerged, the name of Jonathan Gift had been forgotten, and only his legacy had remained. His sepulchre – the Foundation Stone – had become a place of reverence throughout World’s End and the Southlands.
Carved with runes and canticles that no one now remembered, the Foundation Stone of World’s End – or the Kissing Stone, as it soon became known – had acquired a mythical status. Folk came here to be married, or blessed, to kiss the Stone for good luck; and there were reports of miracles, tales of unexpected cures – of voices and visions of Worlds Beyond.
These tales had become so widespread that at last the Order had declared Gift a saint – Saint Sepulchre, of the Holy Fire – and in the Good Book told the tale of how he, with the help of the Nameless, had rebuilt the city in seven days, on nothing but fasting and canticles.
Odin could have told them more. But right now Odin had problems of his own – his death being only one of them. Loki too knew the truth, although right now he had more pressing concerns than filling in the gaps in World’s End history. On the sixth day of their journey, with the spires of the city almost within sight, Lucky’s Pocket Pan-daemonium Circus had come to a frustrating halt.
That morning had brought a ground-mist that rolled over them as they approached. At first it had caused them no concern; the road was broad and well-travelled, and though they could barely see the verge, they all knew where they were heading.
But the mist was cold and persistent; it robbed them of their energy. Hughie and Mandy, in raven form, who until then had been in the air, settled on top of the wagon, feathers plumped against the cold. Angie joined them, in bird Aspect, bright colours muted in the fog. The demon wolves slunk closer and whined; even Jolly lost some of his natural aggression and stumped along behind his master, muttering darkly to himself.
‘More fog,’ grumbled Heimdall, moodily casting the rune Sól. ‘I thought we’d left that in Rhydian.’
Loki shot him a dirty look. ‘Like I needed reminding of that.’
Heimdall didn’t see the look, hidden as it was in the mist. In fact, beyond Sól’s influence, there was nothing to be seen, even through the rune Bjarkán, but a maze of jumbled signatures, and the mist that dampened everything.
‘All right,’ said the Trickster. ‘Let’s see what this looks like from the air.’
And so Odin’s ravens were duly dispatched to survey the terrain from above. Hours la
ter, they had not returned, and the mist showed no sign of lifting.
The gods travelled slowly. Hours passed. The mist, if anything, thickened.
Finally night began to fall.
‘Are we nearly there yet?’ said Jolly, whose stomach had been telling him that dinner time was long overdue.
‘Yes, for the ninth time,’ said Loki.
Ethel gave him a sidelong glance. ‘Something wrong?’ she asked him.
Loki shrugged. ‘No, not at all. What could possibly be wrong?’
In fact, he was feeling uncomfortable. The absence of stars made it hard to be sure, but Loki was almost certain that they should have reached the city by now. That morning they had seen it – its spires, its docks; even the ocean, for gods’ sakes – rising at them from out of the mist like one of the skerries of Dream – and now …
Nothing. Just endless road.
Something was wrong, he told himself; and as they continued through the fog (which showed no sign of lifting) he started to feel a growing unease somewhere between his shoulder blades. He blamed it on his frayed nerves, on the night, on fatigue, and then hunger; but when the Watchman called a halt some three or four hours later, Loki was finally forced to admit that on the only road to World’s End, the gods had somehow lost their way.
Everyone blamed him, of course.
‘This is ridiculous,’ Freyja said. ‘We’ve been going in circles for hours and hours!’
‘Not in circles,’ Loki said. ‘There’s only one road. We’re on it.’
‘Then why aren’t we bloody there yet?’ said Jolly, who wanted his dinner.
Loki shrugged. ‘Don’t look at me. I wasn’t driving. Maybe Shorty went to sleep.’
Sugar shot him a dirty look. ‘I did not go to sleep,’ he said. ‘And do not call me Shorty.’
‘Well, I say we just make camp here,’ suggested Njörd sensibly. ‘In the morning the fog will be gone, and we’ll be able to find our path again.’
Runelight Page 39
