‘ How – by killing me and bringing me here? ’
‘ Did I not say that the hunter had saved your life? I sensed the moment Aylesford’s dagger slid into your heart, Mr Quare. I watched your essence – your soul, for lack of a better word – crawl like a moth from its chrysalis. I called it to me, and it came, a poor blind thing drawn along a bloody umbilical. I grasped it in my hand. I hold it still .’
At this, he extended one hand. There, on a palm as black as midnight, sat a fragile moth the colour of blood – the only bit of colour Quare had glimpsed since he had awakened here. The sight of it sent a shock through him; though he had never before seen such a thing, still he recognized it, felt instinctively that it was a part of him. The moth seemed to recognize him as well. It fluttered its wings but could not rise from Master Magnus’s palm, as if held down by an immense weight. Its blood-red colour flared as it struggled, like a cooling ember fanned by a breeze, but almost at once the colour ebbed, fading from scarlet through rouge to a pale rose, as the moth subsided in exhaustion. Magnus closed his fingers around it, caging it within.
‘ I know about the dragon Tiamat and the compulsion laid upon you. But I have broken its hold. That jealous creature has no dominion over you any more – not as long as I hold this part of you, and you hold the hunter. Thus joined, no man or dragon can stand against us. We are invincible, Mr Quare! I will protect you from your enemies. From death itself. In return, you will be my agent in the world. My protector. My voice. And more. For you see, I cannot hatch from this egg alone. I need your help. I must grow stronger, and for that I require sustenance .’
Quare felt a chill. ‘ You mean blood .’
‘ Only then will I be strong enough to hatch. You will be midwife to that birth. That is your purpose, your glorious destiny! ’
‘ Glorious? It is obscene. Is that how you would usher in your bright and shining age of reason? On a tide of blood? ’
‘ There is no birth without blood. But I will kill no one .’
‘ No, I suppose that is to be my task .’
‘ You will carry me across the Channel, into the thick of the war. There I dare say we shall find a sufficiency of blood – blood that will be put to a better use than fertilizing some farmer’s field .’
‘ I won’t do it ,’ Quare said. ‘ The Master Magnus I knew would never have considered such a vile scheme. You are no longer the man you were – no longer even human – you have become what the others called you: Master Mephistopheles! If you are trapped here, so much the better. I will not help to loose you upon the world. Kill me if you like – I won’t lift a finger to help you .’
‘ We are both part of something greater than we were ,’ Magnus replied. ‘ Embrace that truth or fight against it – in the end it matters not. Our wants count for nothing against the needs of the dragon. That, too, I have learned. Now you will learn it .’
With that, Quare found himself back in his body. How much time had passed, he did not know, but he was still seated at the Old Wolf’s desk, grasping the hunter in his maimed hand. But that hand was no longer bleeding, though the wound had not healed. He could see the raw, ravaged flesh, the white wink of bone …There was the stub of his finger on the desktop, just where it had been sliced away … but now shrivelled and dark as a raisin, as if every drop of vitality had been drained from it.
The hunter had lost its crimson glow and faded to a pale roseate hue, like the moth that Magnus had held in his hand. Quare could feel the flutter of its pulse, twinned to the rapid beating of his heart as if it were some kind of parasite sucking the life from him. The ornate hands of the watch were crawling in no ordered progression, moving neither clockwise nor counterclockwise but instead seeming to quest about the face of the timepiece like the roving antennae of a blind insect, pointing with unguessable intent towards those strange symbols he could not decipher … could barely even focus on, as if they, too, were in motion, squirming to escape his sight. Once he had gazed admiringly on those hands, carved with such exquisite craftsmanship into the shape of a dragon, but now he felt only revulsion. He tried to fling the hunter away, but his fingers would not open. They disobeyed his will; they had another master now, it seemed. Nor would his arm obey his command to smash the timepiece down upon the desk.
He pushed the chair back and stood … then froze.
Bodies lay strewn about the floor – including, beside him, that of the Old Wolf. The guards were down, lying motionless as dead men. Pickens, too. And Longinus.
Father …
Either Magnus had lied to him, or Longinus had. But which one? What was the truth? If Longinus was dead, killed by the hunter, he might never know.
Quare moved to the older man and knelt beside him. He was breathing shallowly, his eyes open, the pupils dilated. Quare shook him by the shoulder with his free hand. ‘Longinus – wake up. Longinus!’
A faint groan was his only answer.
And what of the others? Quare moved from one fallen form to another, finding that all of them were, like Longinus, unconscious. He took the opportunity to rearm himself, then hesitated, debating what to do next.
‘ Waste not, want not, Mr Quare .’
The voice was as intimate as his own thoughts, yet entirely unnatural. It was as if a worm had burrowed into his brain – or, no, a tongue … He could feel it rasping repulsively across the inside of his skull. He bent over, retching, his stomach emptying. But he could not purge himself of the invader. When he was done, the voice returned.
‘ These titbits will lend savour to the coming feast .’
Now, just as he had been unable to force his fingers to drop the hunter, so, too, was he helpless to resist as a will more powerful than his own exerted control over his body. He – or, rather, the puppet he had become – drew his dagger and proceeded methodically to cut the throats of the guards. Quare’s right hand did not so much as quiver as it went about its grisly business, though he fought against it with every ounce of strength he possessed.
As before, the hunter drew the streams of blood into itself; he could not believe how much blood a human body held … nor how quickly it could be drained. Not a drop was wasted. And also as before, the timepiece began to glow as it drank, until it hurt to look upon. Yet Quare could not tear his eyes away. The fierce light shone right through the skin of his hand, so that he could see the bones, the veins, the blood within the veins. All the while, in his head, he heard the dragon singing. That was the only word for it. It was the same song that had called him here, only indescribably more beautiful … and terrible, as if he were watching a ravishing maiden bathing in a pool of blood. He felt himself stiffen within his breeches. Then, as had happened in the bath, when he had conversed with Tiamat, he was spilling his seed, convulsed with a pleasure that overwhelmed but did not eliminate the shame he felt. And the horror. For just as it drank the blood of his victims, so, too, did the hunter take into itself this other vital essence. Tears ran down his cheeks.
When he came to himself again, the blade was poised above the throat of the Old Wolf. His hand, which had been so firm, trembled now.
‘ Not him ,’ came Magnus’s voice. ‘ We do not need his blood. We do not want it .’
Quare realized with a jolt that Magnus was not addressing him. He was not commanding. He was entreating. It appeared that he, too, had a master. But if that master made reply, Quare could not hear it.
‘ Please, anyone but him! I could not bear to know his blood had a part in making us … ’
For a long moment, Quare’s shaking hand hovered over the exposed white flesh. Then, steady again, it lowered the blade, wiped it dry upon the Old Wolf’s waistcoat, and sheathed it. As the dagger slid home, Quare felt the control of his body returned to him.
‘ Best be off, Mr Quare ,’ came Magnus’s voice, restored to its customary authoritative tone. ‘ No time to dawdle .’
‘Who were you—’ Quare began.
‘ The dragon ,’ Magnus interrupted, and now Quare det
ected, or thought he detected, a hint of fear in the voice.
‘Why, you are as much in harness as I,’ Quare said.
‘ You understand nothing ,’ Magnus replied. ‘ Is the hand a slave to the arm? The arm to the body? The body to the mind? ’
‘Whom are you addressing, Mr Quare?’
He turned, startled, to find that Longinus had regained consciousness and climbed to his feet while Magnus had been busy pleading for the Old Wolf’s life – less, it seemed, out of any impulse towards mercy than from the same deep-seated hatred and sense of rivalry that had always characterized relations between the two men. ‘What?’
‘Who is it that is as much in harness as you?’
Only then did Quare realize that his half of the conversation with Magnus had been spoken aloud. He had assumed that the two of them were conversing mind to mind – but that was evidently not the case. Longinus must think him mad. And telling the truth would confirm his opinion. ‘Never mind that,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you later. We’ve got to get out of here before anyone else comes.’ It wasn’t his own safety that concerned him, but rather the bloodbath that would ensue if the hunter once more began to feed.
Longinus did not reply. Instead, he glanced about the room. ‘You have been busy,’ he said at last, inclining his head towards the nearest guard. ‘You seem to have overcome your squeamishness about cold-blooded murder. The Old Wolf would be pleased. Or perhaps not, seeing as how you have cut the throats of his personal guards.’
‘That wasn’t me. It was …’ He wasn’t sure how to explain.
‘The hunter?’
He was still holding the timepiece, his fingers locked around it. He raised it now, held it out before him as if in explanation. It was no longer glowing … and the hands had ceased their motion. It might have been no more than what it appeared to be. Except, of course, it wasn’t.
‘Your finger is no longer bleeding, I see,’ Longinus went on. ‘In fact, there is a conspicuous absence of blood all around, considering the abundance of slit throats. The hunter again?’
Quare gave a resigned nod.
‘You had best give it to me, Mr Quare.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Suddenly, Quare was facing a drawn sword. He had not noticed that Longinus, too, had rearmed himself. ‘The hunter, sir. Hand it over, if you please.’
Again Quare felt an invading presence slip into his skin like a hand inserted snugly into a glove. That hand drew his sword. ‘I cannot.’
Longinus nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. ‘Because you are in harness, as you said. The hunter controls you. That much is plain to see. And I see as well that there is no hope of mastering it. I was a fool to think otherwise. What is it, Mr Quare? Can you tell me that, at least?’
‘An abomination,’ he said. ‘It is no weapon. It is—’
‘Oh, my aching head!’
Pickens climbed to his feet, rubbing his head with one hand and looking curiously from Quare to Longinus and back again. ‘What the deuce is going on? For God’s sake, this isn’t the time to squabble amongst ourselves! You’ve got what you came for – can we please just get out of here?’
‘He’s right,’ Quare said, eyes fixed on Longinus. ‘Surely you can see that.’
‘’Course I’m right,’ said Pickens, stooping to help himself to the sword of one of the dead guards. ‘Afraid I didn’t see how you turned the tables, Quare, old boy,’ he added, seeming to take stock of the situation for the first time, ‘but well done. Well done indeed! Only, you forgot the Old Wolf. I’ll just carve him a second smile, shall I, and we can be on our merry way …’
‘No,’ Quare said, and this time, though it was his voice that spoke, the will behind it belonged to another. And that will was not Magnus’s, either. Magnus was part of it, but looming behind Magnus like a mountainous shadow was something stronger, vaster, older … and yet, Quare sensed – because he, too, was part of it – something that was still taking shape, not fully formed, simultaneously ancient and new, like a possibility that had existed from the beginning of all things but was only now on the verge of being realized. Of being born. ‘We don’t want this one.’
Pickens drew back. ‘Don’t we? Got something else in mind for him, Quare?’
‘Mr Quare is not himself,’ Longinus said, advancing upon him, sword at the ready.
‘Isn’t he?’ Pickens blinked owlishly. ‘Who is he, then?’
‘I should very much like to know that myself.’
It was the Old Wolf. He rolled to a sitting position, a pistol held in one meaty paw. This he kept pointed squarely at Quare’s chest as he heaved himself to his feet, his sweaty face grimacing with the effort. ‘Who are you, Mr Quare? Not the ordinary journeyman and regulator you have taken such pains to appear to be, I’ll warrant. No matter – you have caused me more than enough trouble. I find my patience has reached its end.’ And he pulled the trigger before Quare could say a word or so much as blink an eye.
The impact of the ball striking his chest knocked Quare off his feet. There was no pain, just an immense, stunning shock. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, gasping for breath and gazing up into Pickens’s battered face, which wore an expression of horrified concern that was anything but comforting. The stink of spent gunpowder was heavy in the air; a grey haze of smoke drifted before his eyes.
‘Quare! Good lord, man, are you all right?’
He managed to nod, sucking air into his burning lungs. Then erupted in a paroxysm of coughing.
‘Lie back, man. Lie back.’ Pickens was pulling one-handed at the shredded remnants of his shirt, frantically trying to get a clear view of the wound. ‘I … I don’t see any blood – yet how could he have missed at such close range?’
But he hadn’t missed. Quare could feel the ball lodged inside him, a heavy, aching wrongness lying alongside his heart. He felt, too, an urgent throbbing in his hand … the hand that held the hunter. He forced his eyes down. His whole hand seemed to be on fire, so brightly was the timepiece glowing. He could see the bones of his fingers. The hands of the watch had resumed their insectile back-and-forthing, as if they were not so much registering the time or anything analogous to time as he understood it but rather feeling out a path, like a blind man with a cane tapping his way through a maze.
Now Pickens noticed it, too. ‘What in the name of …?’ He drew back. But not far or fast enough.
Quare felt it happening, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. No warning he could give. His hand came up of its own accord and pressed the glowing hunter to Pickens’s chest. The man uttered a small sigh, shuddered once, then collapsed to the floor beside Quare. Where the hunter had touched, his shirt was shredded and blackened, as was the skin beneath. Quare gasped at the sudden absence of the ball from inside him, even as blood began to well up from a wound in Pickens’s chest that hadn’t been there an instant ago. And that blood streamed into the hunter like a river pouring into the sea.
Something snapped in Quare, then. He scrambled for the door on all fours, like a beaten cur fleeing more blows. He felt the hunter resist him, as if it were not finished drinking Pickens’s blood. But Quare was finished. He pulled away, and the hunter did not haul him back but let the leash play out.
Reaching the door, he stood on shaky legs to open it.
‘Quare!’
He glanced back at the forceful cry. On the far side of the room, Longinus and the Old Wolf were crossing swords – and the grandmaster seemed to be proving a formidable opponent despite his bulk; at least, neither man had yet drawn blood. Longinus seemed about to say something more, but now, seeing his adversary’s attention fixed on Quare, the Old Wolf struck, sliding his blade into Longinus’s torso. An expression of surprise and disaste came over the aristocratic features, as if to be skewered in this way were a faux pas of the very first order; then his eyes rolled up into his head. But his body had already responded like a mechanism designed for just such a purpose, and though the O
ld Wolf knocked the riposte aside, he was not able to avoid the thrust of the dagger held in Longinus’s other hand, which plunged into his side and remained there as the body of the man who had wielded it winked out of sight.
The Old Wolf gave a startled shout at this uncanny disapparition, then toppled to the floor with a crash as the drug coating the dagger took effect.
Quare did not wait to see if Longinus would return from the Otherwhere. The wound he’d received had appeared to be a mortal one … but Quare had experienced too much of late to place any credence in mortality. Nor was he thinking clearly enough to consider what he should do now that the Old Wolf was once again helpless before him. Instead, the sight of the blood leaking from the Old Wolf’s side inspired only a frantic need to get away before the hunter could begin to feed again. He turned back to the door, wrenched it open, and staggered through.
A pair of guardsmen lay unconscious or dead just outside; he didn’t stop to check their condition but stumbled past them down the corridor , until he reached the closet by which he, Longinus and Pickens had entered this floor of the guild hall in quest of the object he now possessed – or, rather, that possessed him. He ducked inside.
The candle Longinus had lit was still burning, and by its light Quare opened the hinged false front of the stacked barrels that concealed the mechanism responsible for bringing them all here. He stepped in without hesitation, and the platform, registering his weight, began to descend into darkness.
When it stopped, he fumbled about his person until he produced the vial Longinus had given him – he shook it, and in the bloom of greenish light beheld the storeroom and the still-unconscious bodies of Master Malrubius and the guardsman. He feared the hunter would add these men to its ever-growing list of victims, but it seemed sated for now – though it also seemed to Quare that he could sense the watchful presence of Magnus and whatever entity lurked behind him – not the dragon, for that was as yet unborn, but some primal consciousness, dimly awakened, out of which the dragon would emerge, shaped by the blood and will of the humans it had consumed … and not only the humans, for he sensed Magnus’s cats as well, arrogant and disdainful and savagely competent killers. Magnus would never control such a creature, Quare knew: he might at best hope to influence it. But it seemed clear that the stronger influence went in the other direction, and Magnus had already been warped far out of true.
The Emperor of all Things Page 48
