Down to the Bone: Quantum Gravity Book Five

by Justina Robson

  ‘I expect some idiot told you that through the effort of pitying and commiserating you can make the world a place of love, embracing everything with endless forgiveness. But at the same time you can’t stop suffering yourself, though that’s where you must stop it. That’s how it is done, not by crying along and forgiving the unforgivable. I hear that even your churches praise suffering as a road to redemption but it is nothing and goes nowhere. Bleed your heart as much as you like, all it will do is kill you and everyone around you that much faster. Fine, if sacrifice amuses you, then at least it has had some positive purpose. But that was never the human way, with the exception of a few deluded fools who thought they could achieve demonhood through vice. Suffer and sacrifice. Redemption for the irredeemable. Devil’s creeds. It is abomination. You are like the elves. Trying to save themselves from their own hate by turning it inward. Excellent prey for the devils. Those bastards are grown to their billions in you. In ages past we have come to exterminate the hosts of such plagues, lest they cover the world.’ He sighed and for a moment his shoulders sank down and he became briefly limp and gloomy with no prospect of a purifying slaughter in sight.

  It didn’t stop her blurting out, ‘Don’t tell me that all the human kindnesses and mercies over the ages are meaningless nothing!’ She was furious. ‘What about parents and children, kindness and love in relationships, or is that all crap and lies as well? You say this stuff like you have no feelings at all!’

  ‘Love,’ Teazle said, shifting position, breathing in and regaining himself. ‘Love,’ he repeated slowly. ‘Is behind everything I say.’

  Now she was completely confused. ‘Teazle, you despise everyone and you kill everything and you don’t care. What’s loving about that?’

  ‘I do that,’ he said, looking at her as if she had surprised him, baffled him in fact with a blatant mistake. ‘But I don’t want to. It isn’t my geas.’ He paused for another moment, searching her face, and she could see he was honest. ‘Is that what you thought about me all this time? That I am a demon of spite?’

  The geas was a demon’s primary calling. Zal’s was music. Teazle’s she had thought, was killing. Now she didn’t want to say yes and be wrong and even more shamed by her failure and the awful insult that it would be.

  ‘What, then?’ She felt small and worthless and that she must find an escape, of any kind, lest he find her out. Only a clear sense that he meant her no harm contained her disappointment and shamed her into biting her lips shut as she waited for the verdict on her own unkind judgements of him. So she was proven false or at least doubting, untrue where she claimed high ground, lacking. So what?

  ‘Stop it,’ he snapped, flicking water into her eyes suddenly with a snap of his fingers. He did look angry now.

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Feeling sorry for yourself.’

  She wiped her eyes. ‘What’s the answer, then?’

  ‘I’m not going to tell you,’ he said. ‘You can answer it for yourself.’ He snaked his tail over the edge of the tub and around one of her ankles and gave her a swift tug.

  She was jerked down into the water helplessly and could only watch it close over her face, screening his expression with a mass of bubbles. When she surfaced he’d left the room. She got out and dried herself and then saw he had left her some clothes.

  She remembered he’d done the same thing the day he and Malachi had moved her out of her old apartment. He’d laughed at her old clothes – even she marvelled at them – and thrown them down the garbage chute, every last piece. Then he’d made her new ones. Zal used to joke that Teazle had pulled them out of his ass because nobody saw him make them, they simply appeared. She’d realised since then that he teleported to get them but he was so fast at it that nobody could see the joins.

  She examined the one-piece after a moment of uncertainty. It was moss-green with some gold stitching, subtle, expensive and soft. After a time she figured out how to put it on – it had many cutaways intended to expose various pieces of skin – and discovered it to be surprisingly tasteful and beautifully tailored. There was a kind of panelled jacket that went with it and here she discovered a label showing Sorcha’s personal symbol of a red flame. She and the demon had not been the same size, so she reasoned this was Sorcha’s own brand. These things were antiques now. Collectible. She wished Sorcha were back again for one, fierce moment, and then put the jacket on and walked back to the bedroom in her bare feet.

  Teazle was on the bed, reading something on a palmscreen and listening to Zal mutter in his fitful sleep. On the rug by the large windows lay a black sabretooth cat the size of a pony, idly licking the matt fur on the back of one gigantic paw. As it saw her from its orange eyes it opened its claws and dug them deeply into the rug’s ruby pattern.

  ‘Mal,’ she said, as neutrally as possible. She saw Teazle shoot a glance at her as he paged through his document and then look back closely at the demonic text, reading as though engrossed.

  ‘. . . enormous . . .’ Zal mumbled.

  The huge cat stared at her and the pupils of his eyes narrowed. ‘You are forgiven,’ he said. His voice was garbled by the shape of his mouth and his teeth but it was clear enough. She noticed a bearlike quality to him that hadn’t been apparent before.

  ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘I am changing,’ he said in his deep rumble. It had a slight break in it as though his purr box was broken. ‘All the old fey are experiencing the same. It is slow, but inevitable.’ He paused. ‘We are declining.’

  Teazle looked up now and Lila said, ‘What do you mean, declining?’

  ‘We revert towards our primal forms.’

  ‘Like you did in Under?’

  ‘When you saw me there we weren’t in Under,’ Malachi said. ‘We were in Umeval, the Time of Winter. It was a very old place, one of the few changeless places that sit at the axis. After it come all the ages of the human races. Before it come the older aeons, millennia without mark, which in your reference is in time, but in Faery it is geography, or direction, if you like. They progress back to the time before demons, before elves, before there was anything except the Void and . . .’ he paused and looked away, whiskers twitching, ‘. . . the machines.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘The machines?’ Lila said into the pause that followed Malachi’s statement. ‘The machines were before everything else?’

  ‘The machines are not physical objects,’ the faery said. He hesitated and she and Teazle saw him struggle with the change into his human form. For a second he was missing entirely from their world, and then he slowly appeared, trails of flickering colour at his edges as the threads of his being dragged themselves from their metamorphic cocoon. Lila wasn’t used to seeing this because usually it took place so fast it was invisible. Her throat contracted with concern.

  ‘Mal, are you all right?’

  He was so tired that he didn’t get up from his seat on the floor. His shirt was open at the collar, and rumpled. He fingered it as if he were going to close it and then turned to her without getting up and let his hands fall away. His voice was slow and deliberate as he remembered what he had to say.

  ‘The machines are possibilities, the potential combinations of energy states that are permissible in this universe. The machines don’t exist as we exist. They have no energy at all. And before you ask how I know all this, Sarasilien and the cyborg Sandra Lane told me. At the very first place, before even the Void opened up, there were the machines. The first actualised machine was the Void itself, the engine out of which all energy came. So when you were made it wasn’t through some secret spy operation of stolen plans and plotting from a higher machine power. Sarasilien did foist the blueprints upon the humans, because their technology was already so advanced in that direction. But he got them himself, he drew them by copying machine forms he was able to see through his dreams. They already existed. He simply found them and passed them on.’

  He glanced at Lila with heavy concentration and a frow
n. ‘He said you would know this, if you looked, but he expected that you wouldn’t. I’d have to come and tell you. Like I have to tell you the rest. Before it’s too late.’ He took a breath as if he was struggling for air and his hand went to his throat and pushed his shirt away even further. He worked his jaw for a moment and swallowed, then made himself sit up correctly. He glanced at Zal with a scowl of annoyance and then up at Teazle with a more calculating stare and then began to micro-adjust his shirt buttons and smooth his sleeves as he continued.

  ‘The trouble was always so little time. But even then it should have been all right, except for the unplanned business with Under.’ His tone was bitter. ‘That was my mistake, and it has cost everything. That fifty-year gap. We were counting on it.’

  Lila had forgotten her anger. ‘To do what?’

  ‘For one of you to rise,’ Malachi said. ‘Yes, surely one of you would make it in that period. But you haven’t. Because you were robbed. And the others have all fallen, or gone astray, or have no interest.’ Now that his cuffs satisfied him he began to retuck his shirt with methodical exactitude, taking his belt out a notch in order to be more effective.

  ‘Mal,’ Lila said firmly. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘You,’ the faery said, creating even pleating on his left and right, although the shirt was so well tailored it was hardly necessary. ‘I’m talking about you. And Zal. And others you never knew about. Many others. All of them some kind of mongrel.’

  He finished and tightened the belt and then moved to stand up so he could put the buckle at exact centre. He cleared his throat and began to adjust the lie of his pockets. ‘Sandra Lane. She was to be your successor, if you didn’t come back. She had those years, every long damned day of them, and we tried everything to get her some magical power, but without success. All our alchemies have failed. Her clones have been most useful as have the other cyborgs. Even the rogues, good in their way. But none of them stand a chance—’

  ‘You’re babbling,’ Teazle said sharply. His voice was like a dull whipcrack and it made all of them start, even Zal, who rolled onto his side to face them, eyes half open.

  ‘I have a right to babble!’ Malachi snapped. His glare at the white demon was vicious for a moment and his white fang teeth showed. Then abruptly he caught himself and closed his mouth. He slid his hands into the immaculate side pockets of his trousers and turned to the windows. Some savoire faire returned to his pose as he addressed them in their imperfect reflection. ‘By this time we had hoped there would be someone capable of dealing with the threat that the elves had created long ago when they made the Shadowkin. It’s Sarasilien’s story to tell really, but since he isn’t here I’ll have to tell it.’

  The tall faery walked across to the bed and looked down at Zal critically. Zal blinked up at him, the pupils of his eyes huge dark centres inside paler rings, his mouth vaguely grinning as though Mal were a halfway decent standup act.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Zal’s voice was dreamy and distant but it was clear. ‘We’re all failures. You’re disappointed. We’re all going to die. Got it.’

  Teazle snickered. ‘Speak for yourself, tree hugger.’

  A brief, wintry smile flitted across Malachi’s face, making his teeth suddenly shine out against the coal blackness. ‘Your mother was one of Sarasilien’s students,’ he said. ‘Did you know?’

  Zal peered up at Malachi and his grin faded. ‘No.’

  ‘But you know there was more to your birth than a simple affair.’

  Zal swallowed on a dry mouth and and rolled his eyes. ‘Her ideas on genetics and the inheritance of aetheric power were more than enough to send me to sleep at nights.’ He put up one hand to shield his sight, squinting even though it was quite dim in the room. ‘But honestly, Mal, what were you expecting? A composite being with all the pluses and none of the faults of the ancestors? Some kind of . . . what were those things called in the stories . . . you know, we didn’t have any fiction in the house . . . the creatures that were summoned and born and moulded and forged and made and dressed and taught and trained to be the best of the best and then some?’ The last part of his speech had been sing-song, the form of an old poetic story.

  ‘Up to the test, fierce as beasts, hearts of cold iron and eyes of twin suns, like angels, like anger, the first breath of spring, the last stride of the race, faultless, matchless, the stars in their places, with strength of ages and minds of sages . . .’ Malachi continued for him in the same rhythm and tone. ‘Yes. The story of the Titans. Created to stand against chaos so that the worlds could be formed.’

  ‘Ah,’ Zal said slowly and he let his hand fall down to the mattress, limp. ‘Hubris has caught up with you. You tried to make a titan, but you got me and Lila instead. Yeah, well, I see your point. Carry on.’

  ‘He isn’t serious,’ Lila said to Malachi. ‘He’s mad with succubus venom.’

  ‘No, he’s right,’ Mal said, thin-lipped. ‘Something like a titan was needed because something like a titan, or titans, was created. When it couldn’t be contained and proved uncontrollable it was imprisoned.’

  ‘In time,’ Lila said, remembering what Sarasilien had told her – the payback was to be deferred.

  ‘Yes. By a trick, like the one you fell into with the Hunter,’ Malachi nodded and shrugged gently, some of his stern manner sloughing away from him. ‘And now that time is up.’

  ‘So Sarasilien created one mess by mixing things up that shouldn’t have been, and now he’s trying to clear it up with another mess the same?’ Lila said.

  ‘Oh, you’re nothing like the first,’ Malachi waved his hand and snorted contemptuously. ‘After learning that lesson everything else that was made was made on the strictest principles. This is why Sarasilien and a few allies worked alone on it. Only a few could be trusted not to fall into the old temptations. And even then . . . there are scattered hundreds of creatures, people and such, who were made to meet this test. Some will stand at the end I expect, but they will not be enough,’ he shook his head.

  ‘Mal,’ Lila said, half concerned and half annoyed. ‘This is a bogeyman story. But where’s the bogeyman?’

  ‘Coming,’ the faery said with affected lightness. He turned on the spot suddenly with a ballroom dancer’s swift and perfect spin and then sighed his way into a few twirling steps.

  Lila glared at him, knowing all too well that if Malachi was dancing then he was deeply uncomfortable. ‘How do you know? Why this year? Why not next year? I mean, in ages of time there’s got to be some leeway, some give . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Malachi said. ‘They are early. Perhaps they discovered a way out of their trap or . . . well, who can say? But the harbingers are here, so surely they are coming.’

  Lila turned to Teazle. ‘If he keeps holding onto the information you can beat it out of him.’ She turned to Malachi. ‘Spill it already! What harbingers?’

  Malachi gave up his brief waltz across the floor and with it all his exhaustion returned. He sat down on the end of the bed and put his head in his hands. ‘The harbingers are the Returners. New spirits in old forms. The fact that they are here means that the fundamental separation between the nebulous dimensions and the material ones is becoming thinner. The Titans were made to destroy the elves’ ancient enemy, the Sleeper. They were imprisoned in such a place, beyond matter and time and the sway of the elements, so that they could not shape anything or kill anyone. But the charm that held them has been weakened and they are making their way back here. The Returners approach on their bow wave.’

  ‘How long?’ Zal murmured. He was rubbing his face, trying to wake up, but the poison kept him logy.

  ‘Weeks, maybe days now,’ the faery said dejectedly.

  ‘What was the charm?’ Lila asked.

  Malachi turned to her with slow, sad resignation. ‘The Queen’s magic,’ he said.

  ‘The Queen’s magic that was lost in Under,’ Lila said, for confirmation.

  H
e nodded. ‘Although it would have broken anyway, once the time had run its course. That’s what we couldn’t understand. Why would the charm fail, unless the condition had been met?’

  ‘And the condition was?’

  ‘The rise of a new Titan, naturally,’ Malachi said. ‘So they couldn’t come back before we had a chance.’

  ‘And that was supposed to be me, or Zal, or Sandra Lane or . . .’

  ‘Or any of the others, yes.’

  ‘Well then they have to be somewhere,’ Zal said, and lifted the edge of his pillow to look for them there.

  ‘We have looked. There are no Titans.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Teazle said. ‘The return of these dark Titans or whatever they are . . . this will be the end of the worlds? Or the end of the worlds will pave the way for their return, in which case there’ll be not much to return to?’

  ‘What do they want?’ Zal asked almost at the same time.

  Malachi held his hands up. ‘It’s not my story, like I say, but I’ll tell it. Ages ago, before the human races, when the elves were already old, they had great magical power and a massive, enviable civilisation, greatly advanced for the most part, comparable to the best. But some of them had a great deal of aetheric ability and charm, so much that they were able to leave their bodies and travel in other planes, or see into other dimensions, and all sorts like that. They discovered Zoom-enon, the place of the elements, and the Void that lies between and around and inside all things, and they discovered the places of the dead and the undead and when they were around in there they disturbed something. A malevolent force that was very strong. It pursued them without rest and tried to use them as conduits to come into Alfheim. They were convinced that it would never stop until they were all dead and the world with them. And so after a lot of trouble and talk they made Titans to overcome the beast in its own lair. And you know the rest. The goal of the Titans was to destroy the Sleeper.’