Worldsoul

by Liz Williams

  The nurse and Marlain exchanged startled glances. “Who?”

  “A Dr Roke? Tall, dark? Nice manner. Very urbane.”

  “There’s no one called Roke on the register,” Marlain said, blankly.

  “Ah.” She digested this. So someone now unknown had come into her room and, entirely trusting, Mercy had let him take her blood. For what? And from the looks on their faces, they thought she had made it up. “Maybe I was dreaming,” Mercy said, dismayed.

  They let her out anyway. Nerren was waiting in the lobby, bandaged and bruised.

  “We’ve been told to take tomorrow off,” Nerren said, rising stiffly from her seat. “You didn’t have any appointments anyway.”

  “I’m going to need it,” Mercy replied. “Did you? Appointments, I mean.”

  “Some northern grad student, but I can put her off.” They began to walk slowly towards the doors.

  Then Mercy remembered. “Oh, hell. The Citadel inspection.”

  “You know what?” Nerren said. “Benjaya Vrone can handle it. He’s always bitching that I don’t give him enough responsibility, but I prefer to ask McLaren-he’s just good at dealing with crises. Let Ben handle the inspection and if there is a problem, we’ll just have to deal with it later. Having narrowly escaped being blown up, a bunch of civil servants suddenly seems less intimidating.” She pushed open the heavy doors and they stepped out into the warm embrace of the night.

  “Agreed,” Mercy said.

  They exchanged weary goodbyes.

  Mercy walked stiffly through the darkness to a rickshaw row, and took an uncomfortably jolting ride home.

  The blizzard had died out over the pass, but in her dream, Mercy knew that winter was coming. She took the clantrack south, heading down through the silent, snow-weighted pines and into the valley. It stretched, both shallow and wide, for three miles until the estuary, which in summer was a place of leaping salmon and flickering eels, white with water-fowl, but which now creaked and groaned with the cascade of ice floes from the further sea. Mercy was heading for the river and for the traps. She ran quickly, running on back-jointed feet across the hard ground, her pack bouncing against her shoulder blades. High above, a pair of ravens bobbed and wheeled, game playing in the first of the snows.

  There was a build-up of cloud on the horizon, golden-grey turrets towering into the sky. More snow before nightfall. She reached the river, and stepped carefully down the icy tumble of soil that had become its bank. The ice was not yet thick and she could see the slow seep of water underneath it. The ice was glassy: it was like a dim mirror and she could see the faint outline of her head-the long muzzle, the golden eyes. In her dream, this did not seem at all strange to her; she had always been like this. She looked like the rest of the clan, although darker of fur than most.

  The first trap was close to the bank. A small stick protruded above the ice, marking its location. Mercy took the axe and broke the ice, shattering it star-shaped around the marker. Beneath, under the frigid water, something writhed in the snare. She reached down, took hold of the string, and pulled it up, expecting a fish.

  It wasn’t a fish. It was a small, man-like figure, dark, with twig-like limbs. It should have been drowned but it hissed and spat in the snare, twisting round to snap at her hand. Its face was like her own: her human face, not the wolf-face she now wore. Mercy dropped it in the snow in a spatter of blood and, to her great relief, woke up.

  Daylight was flooding through the window, along with the scent of jasmine. Mercy took a deep breath and sat up. The headache had receded to a dull afterburn and her first thought was that she had overslept and was late for work. Then she remembered: day off, because of the accident. But a day off was the one thing she could not afford to take right now.

  Objectively, she knew the house was warm, but Mercy felt cold. She wrapped the robe more closely, flung a wrap around herself and went downstairs. She could not stop thinking about the woman-thing at the Library. It had made more of an impact on her than being caught in the flower blast. For a moment, whirling around, thinking the thing was actually in the room. But it was only the steam from the kettle, rising up. She was starting to become annoyed with herself. Let’s think about what’s real. She heaped green tea into a frog-shaped pot and stood staring at the familiar walls of the kitchen while she waited for it to brew. The walls, painted yellow. The polished boards of the floor, with a speckle of white by the stove where, long ago, her mother Sho had spilled hot oil while trying to make pancakes. Sho, always taking risks, always getting things wrong, but somehow it had never seemed to matter. So different from her other mother, Greya: the cautious, sensible suffocating one, the mother who had wanted Mercy, the single chick, to do something sensible in turn, something safe.

  Mercy had never been able to blame her for this. Greya was from the Northern Quarter, after all, and something had frozen inside her, causing icicles in the heart. Greya’s mother had been from one of the wolfclans, or so Sho had whispered to Mercy as a child; Mercy had never known whether or not this was really true, although Greya’s eyes, in certain lights, gleamed gold. And there had just been that dream… But Greya herself-no wolfcub. Whatever fire and spit she’d owned had been burned out of her on the journey south, made her dry as a winter leaf, careful as a cat on ice.

  Yet Greya had been the one to go, when the first word of the Barquess had come, asking for volunteers. Mercy had resented that, after all the slammed doors and hisses over her dangerous choice of career at the end of her teens. Greya had not stayed to see her try to survive in the now-Skeinless Library, as though she’d just hung around long enough to really piss Mercy off by doing something completely unpredictable.

  Sho had gone after her, of course. No change there. She’d bequeathed the house to Mercy, which had been both reassuring and not: Mercy wouldn’t lose the family home, but it didn’t say much for the chances of either Sho or Greya returning. She’d asked the ka about the fate of the Barquess, but the ka had been unable to tell her, said that no oracle could, said it was “fuzzy.” Oh, well. Mercy was used to that.

  She sipped her tea, now brewed and sour. It suited Mercy’s mood. Something was loose in the city, something for which Mercy felt responsible. If the Library had seen fit to give her a day off, it therefore made sense to Mercy to see if she could find it.

  “Perra!”

  The ka leaped lightly onto the kitchen table. Its feet made shadowy golden traces, like pollen.

  “I think,” Mercy said, “that I’m going to need your help.”

  The docks were a hubbub. The Golden Island steamer could not get into harbour, having to wait at anchor in the waters beyond. Mercy could see the passengers milling on the deck, gesturing, but they were too far away for her to hear what they were saying. She doubted it was polite. The harbour itself was thronged with fishing boats, private yachts, a junk from the far side of the Eastern Quarter, and the air smelled of salt and smoke and fish. Mercy and Perra walked to the far end of the harbour, where a thistle-head of bridges indicated the start of the West-East Canal. Here, the gates were being opened. She could hear the creak and tear of the winch and knew that a ferry was waiting, riding up in the womb of the lock, and Mercy’s spirits rose with it. Soon, the boathouse came into view and then the ferry itself. A small crowd was already present, bags and children clutched in eager arms, to take passage to the Eastern Quarter. The ka plucked at her boot with a claw.

  “I am not sure, mind,” the ka whispered.

  “I know. But you said you heard something.”

  “Rumours are like dandelion clocks. They spread on the wind. There is no substance to them.”

  “But sometimes seeds take root, and there are dandelions all over the city, Perra.”

  The ka’s small solar face turned up to hers. “As I told you, a demon says that there was something by the Eastern Wall last night. It attacked a woman and lost a hand.”

  “Who was this demon?”

  “Only one of the small, the lesser
, not a duke or an earl. Those would not talk to me, I am too lowly. But the little spirits like to gossip. It had no reason to lie.”

  “They can be malicious.” Yet this tale sounded too specific, somehow. She thought of Roke, the blood snatcher, and felt herself grow still. Who had he been? She was still sure that she’d seen him somewhere before, but an odd dizzy moment blanked him out. Now that she thought back, he was becoming difficult to recall.

  “It spoke of cold,” the ka said, then fell silent. “The woman is an alchemist. The demon could not remember her name.” It looked briefly disapproving. “They have minds like mayflies.”

  “We’ll take the ferry anyway,” Mercy replied. “It will be a nice day out.”

  With the rest of the passengers-mainly Easterners, in all manner of dress-Mercy and Perra queued briefly, then climbed the walkway to the ferry. Standing in the prow, Mercy could see the canal snaking across the city, all the way through the Western Quarter to the banners and flags of the East. And then, with a creak, the ferry cast off.

  Eleven

  In his laboratory, back at the Court, Deed held the phial to the light and smiled. Alchemical science tells us that there are demons in the blood, and all manner of spirits flock to its red light, drawn like moths to fire. He was looking forward to seeing what might be attracted to the blood of Mercy Fane, what manner of thing might be conjured out of it.

  Mercy Fane. Until now, she’d been just another Librarian and not particularly worthy of attention. But that was before she met the disir. Deed wanted to know whether there was a connection: was she a recruit of Loki? Was it just chance that she’d been in a flower attack? If Mercy decided to investigate the disir’s presence, Deed wanted her under observation.

  He took a dropper and extracted a small quantity of fluid from the phial, then set it into a glass dish. Around it, he drew a triangle in chalk, then stepped back. Another circle, and then he spoke a word and set the chalk alight, a fire that flickered across the floor in eternal containment. Deed, in shirtsleeves, raised his hands and uttered the name of Mercy Fane, three times. The blood hissed and writhed.

  “Come on,” Deed said, enticing. A shadow fell across the blood and stepped forth, coming up abruptly against the triangle’s invisible wall. “Oh,” said Deed, intrigued. “Now what might you be?”

  But in fact, he knew all too well. The thing was tall, grave, golden-eyed. It had a long muzzle and graceful hands. A wolf-headed man.

  “Now,” Deed said. “You’re from the north. One of the wolfclans. What were you? Her grandfather?”

  “I shall not speak,” the wolfhead said, glaring.

  “Oh, but you will. Don’t be difficult. It’s boring. You know what I am.”

  “Loki’s blood,” the wolfhead said, and growled.

  “Of course. I am disir, but not only disir: I have many ancestors, just as your bloodchild Mercy does. They don’t concern you. But you concern me. I need information. Who was your daughter, your son?” He spoke another word, forcing names from the wolfhead’s mouth.

  “Ativana. Soreth. Greya.”

  “Greya Fane,” Deed said. A piece of puzzle had fallen into place. “Aha. Yes, that would make sense. She went out on the Barquess, I recall. Nearly a year ago. So noble, heading out into the unknown on the ship that searches for the Skein. I’m sure we’ll all be interested to see if they make it back alive. So Greya Fane is Mercy’s… what? Mother? Aunt? I will have to check.”

  “Not… touch… ” the wolfhead slurred and Deed looked up in surprise. “Still here? Well, can’t have you running off to little Mercy, can we?” He snapped fingers, intoned an incantation and the wolfhead was snared in silvery bonds, threads of fiery shadow that snaked around the spirit’s form until it was wrapped as neatly as a fly in a web. “Gone!”

  And it was. The chalk triangle flared up and out. Deed sank to his haunches and crouched in the circle. Time to do some thinking.

  Later, he went in search of Darya. He found her in the long, lead-windowed gallery at the top of the Court, looking out over the city. The four o’clock rain had swept over Worldsoul, drenching the roses and oleander and leaving a humid warmth in its wake. He could smell it through the open window and wondered what Darya might be thinking, but only for a moment. Nothing very deep, that was certain. She had cast off her jacket in the afternoon heat and her spine was bare in the cowled blouse that she wore today. He could see the little knobs of her vertebrae protruding through the flesh. Seamed stockings ran down to her high heels, but Deed knew that those heels were her own bones, the spikes of her heels arching her feet and making her teeter. It was appealing, but he knew how fast her kind could run if it came to the chase. Perhaps that would be entertaining, if Darya ever over-stepped the mark. As seemed likely.

  “Darya?”

  He had the satisfaction of seeing her jump.

  “Abbot General?”

  “Greya Fane. What does the name mean to you?”

  “She was a volunteer, wasn’t she? On the Barquess. From this quarter, although I seem to recall that she was originally from the Northern Quarter. I saw her name on the list, and I memorised the list. And she is related to Mercy Fane, maybe, whom Nerren at the Library told me about.”

  “Quite right,” Deed approved. “If the crew of the Barquess had found the Skein, they would be heroes, but as far as we know, they have not, and thus they are not. They are in limbo, like Odin on the World Tree, waiting to snatch knowledge from the abyss. A nice simile, don’t you think?”

  Darya’s face betrayed unease. “No one knows what has become of the Barquess,” she reminded him.

  “Of course they don’t. It has sailed over the rim of the Western Ocean to try and catch the sun, and if they don’t make it back, which they probably won’t, they will pass into legend themselves, like the Flying Dutchman. On the other hand, if they do come back, everyone will take an interest. But the reason I’m interested in Greya Fane-”

  “Is this Mercy Fane?”

  “Just so. Well done, Darya. I want you to do some genealogical digging. I want to find out what other relatives Miss Fane might have.”

  Twelve

  Had she not been in pursuit of the creature from the Library, Mercy would have enjoyed the journey along the West-East Canal. She had done it before, and it never failed to be charming. The turrets and towers of the Western Fort were visible above its parkland, as the ferry drifted serenely onward, through rich areas and poor, past city streets and stretches of flower-filled wasteland. From this perspective, the city seemed strangely distant and calm, as if the disappearance of the Skein, the flower attacks, and all the other difficulties that were besetting it had been sealed away behind a glass wall. For the first time in weeks, Mercy felt herself beginning to relax, a completely irrational thing to do under the circumstances. She fingered the hilt of the Irish sword at her hip and pondered. Perra sat beside her on the bench as the ferry wallowed along the canal, occasionally rising up to gaze at some aspect of the changing view that had attracted its interest. Another ka accompanied a passenger, a woman in a blue headscarf with a tattooed face, but the two ancestral spirits ignored each other and now that Mercy thought of it, she had never seen kas in conversation. Perhaps it was considered impolite. She would ask Perra, when the occasion allowed it.

  They were coming to the centre of the city now: the wide circular plaza known as the Heart of the World. Here stood the empty palace of the Skein, built aeons ago of red and black marble, mottled like flesh, its towers arching up into the heavens. A light still burned in the topmost tower, a sacred flame kept alight by servants in vigil for the day when their masters and mistresses returned. Before the palace stood a much more recent statue, a representation of the ship called the Barquess. Mercy thought of Greya, and sighed. The statue had emerged out of Worldsoul itself; it had not been commissioned or carved by human hand. One morning, a few months back, it had simply appeared. She watched the statue until it fell out of sight: the bronze sides of the ship
gleaming in the morning sunlight, its vanes and sails shifting in the breeze.

  They were now in the Eastern Quarter and already the architecture was different: domes and minarets, pagodas and turrets. Some of these buildings had been taken from Earth, others were more recent, but built on ancient lines. Originally, the different peoples of Worldsoul had lived in separate areas in their separate quarters, but without the tensions of Earth, ghettos had not proved viable and now everyone was more muddled up. A good thing, in Mercy’s view. She looked down on a street market as the ferry sailed along an aqueduct, the white roofs of the market stalls bright in the sunlight and allowing occasional glimpses of piles of eggplant, oranges, coriander, ginger… all the produce that had been brought in from the fields that week. Beyond the Eastern Quarter lay the Great Desert, the Khaureg, but to the south, the land was fertile. Mercy began thinking about supper: she had eaten out these last few days. It would be nice to have the time to sit down and eat properly at home…

  Now the huge blue dome of the Medina was visible, rising above the rooftops, and Mercy became aware of a growing impatience. She had a mission, after all, unrelated to what was for dinner. The ka, seeming to pick up on her mood, sat up straight and stern.

  “We are nearly there,” Perra said.

  Mercy nodded. The terminal wharf of the Eastern Quarter ferry was now visible, a mass of cranes and scaffolding. The ferry sailed into dock with a brief flurry of activity as it was secured and then Mercy and Perra were heading down the gangplank.

  “Do you know where this woman lives?” Mercy asked the ka.

  “No, but it should not be hard to find her. She is an alchemist. She has… a certain reputation.”

  “What kind of reputation?” Mercy asked, intrigued.

  “A dangerous one.”

  One did not simply enter the Eastern Quarter and start asking questions. First, there was tea. Despite her impatience, Mercy let Perra take the lead. The ka found a chaikhana, set into the wall of the Medina where it was safe for a Westerner to go. The heart of the Medina was, so Perra said, best avoided. Mercy was disinclined to argue. She took a seat at the back of the chaikhana, where she could see the door.