Chasing the Dragon

by Justina Robson

  "Your point is that you want to know what it is about him since he came back from Under," Lila said. "Because you think that must be what's made him seek power and what's let him keep it against all the odds. Even though you know that on the day he came here with me three rogues almost killed him in their first attempt and I had to stop them from finishing the job. So if it was just about slaying power, that wouldn't make sense. Three rogues versus fifty demons is a no-brainer, but fifty demons won't touch Teazle with a barge pole. Mystery. One with a potentially useful answer."

  "Actually I don't see how it's useful, but everything's useful eventually," Greer said, nodding. "And what about Zal?" His gaze bored into her, betraying the casual manners of the rest of his body.

  Malachi shuddered convulsively as if someone walked over his grave.

  "Every time I mention it he won't speak," Greer said, nodding at Malachi, "but he twitches like he's plugged into the mains. I know it's not protocol to talk about that place, but I want to know what happened there, and not just for artistic reasons and my chances of winning any bets concerning a comeback tour for the No Shows. Mal doesn't say what happened to him, though he seems a lot more shorttempered than reports would indicate. I guess there's more to it, but it's his business. What happened to you, Black? Where the fuck is Zal Ahriman?"

  Lila smoothed the wrinkled ruffles of her dress, which didn't improve it, and fiddled with the silver spiral on her necklace. "I got a new dress," she said.

  Greer took a step back and looked at it critically, eyebrows raised. "I'll buy it for what it's worth, which is a heap of nothing so far, but I'm a patient guy. It looks like crap, by the way. And Zal?"

  Lila looked at Malachi for a long moment. "Destiny took him," she said.

  They both looked at Greer, who swapped glances from one to the other of them, searching their souls. Apparently what he saw convinced him, "Ah shit!" He shook his head and marched for the door, "Why can there never be an answer I can use in a goddamned report?" He paused, the door handle in his grasp, door ajar, and looked back. "Black, Mal will show you to your office. Be nice to the staff; they have a lot of adjusting to do most days and some of them are starting to get a little threadbare. When you're ready to go do something let me the hell know what it is."

  CHAPTER THREE

  ila looked at Malachi for some time after Greer had gone. "Well," Ishe said, "I wasn't expecting that."

  Mal prowled forwards so he could look into her face from less distance. "You don't have to take him up on it."

  "You took him up on it." That came out more accusingly and with more jealousy than she intended. She released the rigid fold of her arms and loosened her shoulders and neck. "You're right, but his charm has got me itching to know what else is going on around here, what the humans know. So much potential and information at my fingertips.... I don't think I want to resist."

  "The humans." He slid his shades down his nose and looked her directly in both eyes, his startling orange irises glowing, the slit pupils narrowing to black lines. He made a show of sniffing around her head, his broad nostrils taking her all in, the shadow of long whiskers on his cheeks.

  Lila nodded. "Strange days, huh?"

  Then Malachi was taking a longer, more interested sniff and she waved him off, seeing that he was picking up more than he expected. He got a faraway look as things connected in his memory. "Strange indeed," he said in a knowing tone, a puzzled tone. As she walked to the door she could feel his eyes on her back burning with curiosity.

  She examined the doorway pointlessly to give him time to catch up, decide what he thought about what he'd sniffed out, choose what to say, and then hung there, turning back to see him. As he did now at moments of mild stress he took on extreme catlike aspects-nothing too surprising to look at, just a few mannerisms, a way of moving that changed. He was exactly like a cat in a human body. If you saw him in a dark alley you might get him the wrong way round. Then as his thoughts resolved his form reassumed all the elegance and manly demeanour of a slick guy about town, and apart from his eyes there was no hint of predation or whiskers. He slid his shades back up his nose and adjusted his shoulders in their immaculate suiting as he stepped to her side. He fingered a ruffle of the disreputable dress,

  "I have to say this is mildly shocking. For years I've been assuming that when you returned you'd take a journey into Faery again, to find Zal, or some other harebrained scheme. I spent decades wondering how to put you off any further entanglements with the Three. Of course I failed. And I was hoping you would have this." He pointed to but carefully did not touch the silver spiral on her necklace. "Because I would like to see what has happened to Madrigal, now that the Giantkiller is dead and gone. And I could have gone alone, but I made my excuses to wait for you." Finally he let the damp fabric go, his puzzlement complete. "And you come back with this. And ..."

  Lila put her finger to his lips and stopped him from completing his sentence. "Never mind about that. I am going back for Zal. Of course I am. And I hardly want to be hanging around here. Too much like being in my own grave already when I look at those ... things. But I don't even know what I need or where to start, so until I do, then being in the middle of something is as good as sitting in a cave...."

  "I knew it. Wood ash, shellfish, seaweed, sand, and that odd musty ... you've been living in a cave on the cliffs. Wondered where you went."

  "Why didn't you follow me then?" She looked up into his face, and there was a moment in which she saw a difficult struggle in his feel ings and felt sorry for him, and conscious of just how good a friend he was. Perhaps her best.

  "Clearly you didn't want me to," he said, and his nostrils flared one more time. He looked unhappy and disquieted.

  "We all have our secrets," she said.

  His glance was hurt but not condemnatory. He nodded and she saw the anguish of his secrets briefly make his face tighten. He stared at the dress with misgivings, then the necklace. "You've grown up wild. And now the wild and changeling things are claiming you for their own."

  She blushed unaccountably and became aware of the pen that was hidden in the cloth sash at her waist where the dress had decided it wasn't doing pockets today, only Grecian folds. It was not really a pen, in the same way that it was not really a dagger, or even a sword, though she'd held it as all those objects. It seemed to burn her through the material, taunting Malachi that he couldn't see it and yet was almost seeing it. It was such an unnerving thing she had to quickly break the moment.

  "You wouldn't dare to call me not the mistress of my fate, would you?" she teased him gently, not liking his sudden macabre turn. His pronouncement chilled her, though she didn't show it.

  "You know me, Liles," he murmured, as suddenly soft and amiable as he had been piercing a moment before. "I'm the waiting kind, not the daring kind." He straightened up and led the way down the corridor.

  She didn't reply. She couldn't imagine waiting for herself for fifty years in this place, day in and day out. She didn't have that kind of patience. She'd like to persuade herself that time was different for him, that he was able to move through it as he pleased, so what was fifty years? But she wasn't persuaded.

  "Hey!" She ran a couple of steps to catch him up. "Who else is still here?"

  "Not the elf," he said as they moved shoulder to shoulder. "Nobody you know."

  "Did they replace him?"

  "Master mages are in short supply," Mal said, pausing to push the elevator button and facing her briefly. "That's why you've got his office now. All his gear. Just as he left it."

  "But I thought I was supposed to be with the machine people?"

  "You will be. But Sarasilien's old job is empty, so you've got that one too. I mean, you're the closest thing to an elf there is left around here." He winked at her as they got into the empty lift car.

  Lila frowned, "The elves wouldn't talk to me if I were the last person in Otopia."

  His grin intensified; he was all loose-limbed bonhomie again. "Then you'
ll get a lot of days off."

  She wasn't sure she got why he was so amused by it until they got to the door of the laboratories that the old elf had used to call his own and opened the door. It was in the old building, which had been remodelled but not rebuilt, though this part was untouched as far as she could see. Cleaning couldn't disguise the wear in the corridors, but it was almost as she remembered it. Malachi flittered his fingers and undid some magical thing that had been around the door; then he used a passkey and his thumbprint and got the door to slide back. The lights came on, blinking slowly as though from a deep sleep.

  Malachi hung back as Lila moved deeper into the abandoned space. Everywhere she felt the presence of Sarasilien, as clearly as if she were walking inside his ghost. Tears pricked her eyes and she felt her throat harden. She wished he were there. She would have liked to punch him because she was so damned angry about the way he'd held out the truth on her for so long whilst letting her so easily fall against his surrogate father support. She wanted to hug him and feel his narrow, powerful arms hold her close to him, smell the strange herbal and sweet scents of the layers of linen he wore, feel his vital energy surround her with its healing, forgiving balm. He was a lying bastard, but he was the only person she knew in whose arms she could have really relaxed, if only for a second. She'd not been aware of it, but here, standing in his empty aura among his work and investigations and all the trivia of his daily life, the loss of that comfort was a spear of sharp pain in her solar plexus.

  Moving as if drawn on a string, she walked through the laboratories and pushed the door open at the far end that led into his personal rooms. The hinges creaked and juddered, dry as old bones. The object she was looking for was right in front of her under the dove grey drapes, an unmistakable shape. She bent down and lifted the edge of its sheet, slowly so as to let the dust roll back without clouding. Underneath it the muted Persian colours of the old chaise longue glowed suddenly with amber and crimson richness, and there on the edge lay a diaphanous black-and-gold scrap of fabric, the very piece she had seen him bury his face in, crying, the last time she'd laid eyes on him.

  She saw her fingers reach out, black leather opera gloves, and take hold of the feathery thing. As it moved a sudden scent of opium rose from it, laced with sandalwood and brimstone. In her mind's eye she saw Sorcha, sassy and sexy and opulent, lounging right here, teasing the old elf with her immaculate feet, her sultry voice.

  He'd loved her.

  Lila put the scarf back. She wasn't ready to face it fully just yet. She let the dust sheet fall and hide it again and sniffed, rubbing her nose as it flooded to rid itself of dust, and straightened up. Malachi was a short distance behind her. She turned and found him closer, taller, more awkward, his face become entirely a beast's but so full of concern that she wasn't frightened by it.

  This was the shape he'd been in Under, a man-cat creature that was feral and shadow. It had none of his contemporary beauty except in its feline power. His clothes and shades were gone. Thick fur covered him, black stripes glossy in matte black depths.

  "The magic on this door undoes me," he said with great difficulty around his massive teeth. "Nobody has been able to lift it."

  She wondered who had tried to come here, and as if he read her mind he added, "Nobody could touch anything. They tried for days. Months. Eventually they left it as you see." Seeing her puzzlement he bent down and lifted the sheet where she had, stretching out one massive paw. It opened into a crudely fingered hand, with claw nails. Gently he attempted to snag the scarf or touch the chaise, but within the last couple of inches an invisible force stalled his movement. "Like magnetism," he said, and gave up his attempt and put the sheet back.

  She knew he'd seen her touch it. "He left it for me?"

  "I thought so." His orange eyes were narrowed with thought and slight reservation.

  "Did you tell Greer?"

  "He came to the conclusion by himself."

  "You could have warned me." The resentment in her voice was sharp. He twitched.

  "Would it make a difference?"

  She shrugged.

  He nodded. "It was something you should know. If something here is important ... maybe ... you would have missed it."

  She sighed and relaxed, slumping, "Yes." She found her hand on his arm, a strangely huge and muscled object she could barely reconcile with the Malachi she was more used to. "Forgiven." She looked around her. "I'm not ready for any more of this today."

  He nodded once, and together they walked out. As they crossed the threshold of the laboratory there was a flicker and the bulky mass under her fingers was suddenly a lithe arm in an immaculate jacket. She looked down at it and up into Mal's human face. "I didn't know your clothes were part of your glamour."

  "They are not."

  She looked at the doorway with a scowl. "So how ... ?"

  Mal shrugged and patted her hand on his arm, drawing her attention suddenly to its tan smoothness, its faux ordinary skin. She made a note to be damn careful of any mirrors back in there and wondered what he'd seen in her place-had she changed?

  Outside Greer was waiting for them, lounging alone in the corridor, hands in pockets, pretending to enjoy the wall art and the fulllength-window view of the courtyard. "So." He grinned at Lila, his expectant glance to Malachi confirming their complicity. "D'you like what we've done with the place?"

  Lila punched him. It was so fast she knew he couldn't have seen it coming. She pulled it a lot so she didn't do any real damage and was back to her relaxed pose, arms folded, before his hand had even got to his mouth. "See ya tomorrow," she said, and left him there tending his split lip without waiting for a response. Malachi loitered a moment, then came after her.

  "I guess he deserved that." He pointedly stayed out of range as they moved towards the exit.

  "I need a bike," she said. "Do we still do that kind of thing?"

  "We do," Malachi assured her, beckoning her in a different direction and holding up his hands in a peace gesture as he saw her baulk at the sight of an office full of administration desks. "I'll do the authorisations for you. Let's just get the key to the garage so you can choose?"

  Lila leaned on the meant-to-intimidate height of the fascia board as Malachi made charming chitchat to the dispatcher, reached over, and stuck the end of her finger into an empty port in the desk's overengineered surface. She wanted bikes, her Al gave her bikes it found in the database. "It's okay," she said, "I chose. I filled out the forms. Done the protocols, programmed the onboard." She smiled at the dispatcher's wide-eyed face. "I hope the insurance doesn't come out of my pay, it's kinda high."

  Malachi half smiled and stared at her with narrowed, amused eyes. "You're enjoying this."

  Lila just kept her smile on, pushed away from the desk, and flounced out. From somewhere the dress had gained a little bow over her bottom, and a short train of diaphanous silk.

  For the first time in months and longer Malachi found himself laughing.

  It was as they stood alone together in the semidarkness of the garage, looking over Lila's exquisite piece of technological fancy, that she looked up into his face across the saddle and he saw tears in her eyes. "Will I find him?" she asked, so quietly he almost couldn't hear her. "Can I? Is it even possible?"

  He thought of the yellow peach that sat on his desk, its ripe smell and perfect skin, the still-living succulence of it as promising and untasted as it had been for a thousand human years. He dared not think of the hand that had given it to him. He knew he had waited too long. "Yes," he said.

  She swallowed with effort, blinking, licking and biting her lips. "Do you think that girl is still alive Jones, the strandloper. Do you think she's still around?"

  He composed himself, then said, "The Ghost Hunters that she was with set out on an expedition into the Deep Void. She said she was going to find out where the ghosts came from, and stop them seeping into the living world. She thought they were widening the cracks. But they're still coming and I haven't se
en her since. Can't say I looked too hard." He shared a look with her that said Jones had creeped him out severely, frightened him. "But if we're going to find them then there's some other people we have to persuade to get us out there."

  "You know them?"

  "I know of them," he corrected her. "I'll make some enquiries. Look around." He smoothed his hand over the bike's glossy fairings. They were much more arrowlike creations than they used to be in the days of combustion engines, and the rider lay almost flat front on them at full speed, encased in aerodynamic shields, a fish in air. With Lila's skill it would top 250. "You go and enjoy yourself somewhere. Meet me tomorrow night downtown. The Medium Bar."

  Lila nodded. She leaned forward suddenly and kissed him on the cheek, lightly and quickly. "Take care, Mal."

  "You too." He tapped the bike warningly and stepped back as she got on. LEDs and arrays came up as she touched it, then subsided. He assumed she'd internalised all that stuff. Like magic. He watched her spin slowly forwards, saw her get used to the machine's silence, weave it around the narrow turns of the lot and vanish up the ramp towards the daylight.

  Back in his office he started to look up names and addresses but unaccountably found himself holding the peach in his hands, examining it minutely for any sign of bruising or rot. There wasn't any, and he breathed out with relief, inhaling deeply afterwards. Its smell was heady, divine. He pressed it against his lips.

  Lila rode for a few hours. She took the fastest route out of the city onto the expressway and followed it south over the curling, secretive waterways that threaded the suburbs. She crossed the first of the Five Arches; bridges that mimicked the Andalune's giant span over the five rivers of the dunes in which Bay City hung out, sprawling and indolent. The Five Rivers were small estuaries really, rather than sweetwater tracts. Crocodiles basked on the tidal flats just metres from shining corporate blocks as she flew silently by, weaving in and out of the afternoon traffic.