Winterstrike

by Liz Williams

  I stepped back, passing inadvertently through the Library. Rubirosa was frowning. We withdrew around the bend.

  ‘What’s she doing here?’ Rubirosa hissed. ‘That’s a demothea, isn’t it?’

  ‘I don’t know if you noticed,’ the Library said, ‘but some of those kappa were armed.’

  ‘A private army?’ I suggested. But the demothea had looked too listless, too infirm. ‘They were holding it prisoner,’ I added.

  ‘But why? They’re all the Changed, aren’t they?’ Rubirosa said.

  Well, not all the Changed get along,’ the Library said didactically. I relayed this to Rubirosa. ‘There are factions and divisions, just as there are in the human world. We just don’t get to hear about them.’

  The Library put out a warning hand. ‘They’re coming back.’

  The kappa were filing out of the room. Followed by the others, I ducked into a storeroom, which turned out to be filled with boxes of roots. An earthy, musty smell, not unpleasant, imbued the air. I could hear the kappa talking quietly amongst themselves in their own language. Then there was silence.

  I wanted to know why it was here. The thing I’d seen on the canal at Calmaretto had, I realized now, never really stopped haunting me. The ethereal re-creations outside the theatre had born no relation to this hunched thing. I said, ‘I’m going to take a closer look at it.’

  ‘What if it sees you?’ Rubirosa asked.

  ‘I’ll make certain it doesn’t.’

  The marauder looked doubtful but she gave no further protest. I slipped out of the root store and made my way back to where the demothea’s cell had been. The door was closed, but there was a small, roughly cut panel in it, set with a grille. Through it I saw the demothea, slumped on the seat. Its head drooped. A trickle of viscous blood ran down its pale face. I kept well back, but then the Library was there, stepping out of the air in front of me. The warrior said, in old Martian, ‘Can you understand me?’

  The demothea’s head came up slowly, as if it moved under water. So she could see the Library, then.

  ‘A Martian. Who are you?’ Through the grille I saw a spark of curiosity in the huge eyes.

  ‘I’m – here by accident. Yourself?’

  The demothea grinned, startling on that narrow face, with that small mouth. I glimpsed thin ridges of teeth.

  ‘They captured me. Are you going to set me free?’

  ‘That depends,’ the Library told it. ‘What were you doing here?’

  ‘That is my own concern,’ the demothea said. Its head came up abruptly and met my eyes in the shadows. I felt a sudden, sucking pull, as though I’d been caught in a current of a river. I ducked my head to one side and felt that something physical had given way.

  ‘Be careful,’ the Library said, unnecessarily. But it was almost too late. Dizzy, I stepped out of the room.

  ‘I looked into its eyes,’ I said to the Library, who had followed me.

  ‘Soul-stealers,’ Rubirosa murmured, coming up behind.

  ‘Is that what’s said of them?’ It’s what they said of me.

  ‘Who knows what they can do?’

  I could hear it in my mind, whispering. Free me, free me, like the hush and rush of the sea.

  ‘I think we should go,’ I said. My interest in the demothea had evaporated into fear: I did not like to think of what it might do to me if I hung around. The thought of travelling with that thing whispering and muttering at me was not to be borne.

  We left it there in its dim prison and made our way back towards the root store. I could smell fresh air, Rubirosa agreed, and when we followed it we found a hatch in a wall that led onto the outside world.

  ‘Surely they’ve realized we’ve gone by now,’ Rubirosa said. But either the kappa had not realized, or they did not care. There did not seem to be anyone around and this struck me as eerie: that we had only just seen a crowd of the kappa and now the little settlement felt as though it had been uninhabited for years, just as it had done when we first set foot there.

  ‘If they’re the Queen’s research team,’ I said, ‘we need to find them. If only to see what they’re doing.’

  We made our wary way back onto the causeway and the track that led into the marsh. The moon sailed out from behind a wisp of cloud, illuminating patches of scrub, treetops that rose up out of the water and in which something was hanging. Then the moon was gone again and the glimpse with it. I didn’t consider it wise to stray too far from the causeway.

  ‘Get an hour or so away from the village,’ Rubirosa said, as if she read my mind, ‘and then camp.’

  ‘Agreed.’ We’d deal with it in the morning, I decided. I was by no means convinced that the kappa settlement housed the research team: it just seemed too primitive. But I also wasn’t sure what else they could be doing there, with a captive demothea. I did not, however, feel like tackling the kappa tonight.

  The air was settling into a clammy chill and there was a faint sea mist rising up off the salt flats. But then our plans were abruptly overturned. A drawn-out, keening cry came from somewhere off to my left, among the flats. It didn’t sound like anything human. Rubirosa’s hand shot out towards my arm in an instinctive clasp and was as swiftly withdrawn.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘I think that’s the kappa,’ I said.

  ‘Must have discovered we’re missing.’

  ‘This is the only obvious track out,’ I told her. My heart was sinking. The kappa knew these marshes, as we did not, and were surely accustomed to the pathways through them. Slow and blundering they might be, but they had the advantage of knowledge, and that was likely to prove our downfall. We could run now, but we couldn’t run for ever. And I didn’t know how powerful the kappa’s sense of smell might be. Rubirosa and I started to jog along the track, hampered by the lack of light and unfamiliar terrain. I stumbled once, followed shortly after by the marauder. We helped one another, muttering curses. The cry came again, this time from up ahead.

  ‘What if they’ve got hunting beasts?’ Rubirosa asked.

  Then we’re in trouble.’

  The kappa were not far away now; I could hear them, their whistling voices and the sound of their feet splashing through the low water levels. We were level with a patch of the submerged trees: I took Rubirosa firmly by the arm and indicated a rudimentary shelter.

  The trees were vast: a central twisted trunk from which depended an arching canopy, sending branches back down into the water and forming a ball of root and branch, with as much below the waterline as above. We edged out onto a narrow strip of the causeway to reach the shelter of the branches, then stepped under the canopy itself. The branches were springy and gave a little under our feet, but they held. I was conscious of my feet becoming wet. The Library was an insubstantial presence among the ball of roots, apparently standing on the surface of the water.

  ‘Here they come,’ Rubirosa whispered. Clutching tightly onto the canopy, I watched a group of five kappa hasten by. They carried basic spears and one of them had a thing like an electric prod. They whistled to one another with urgency as they passed. None of them looked in our direction.

  ‘Maybe they’re not after us,’ Rubirosa said, hopefully. I thought that was too good to be true, but then there were cries from the other side of the causeway and a second group of kappa came over the ridge. They, too, brandished spears.

  ‘What’s that?’ I said. I could see something through the branches of the canopy, something light and drifting over the water. A moment later, a glowing ball of phosphorus floated by, becoming momentarily entangled with the branches and breaking apart, only to coalesce back together again. Beside me, I felt Rubirosa relax.

  ‘Only marsh gas,’ the marauder said. ‘I’ve seen it on the edges of the Small Sea.’

  ‘That was marsh gas,’ I said, nodding in the direction of the ball, ‘but that isn’t.’

  It was as I’d seen it so many years ago on the canal beyond Calmaretto, like and yet unlike the hunched, debased thi
ng in the cell, like and unlike Mantis, too. The demothea drifted over the surface of the brackish water, its tentacles coiling and drifting around it. The robes that it wore were the same as the ones I’d seen on the imprisoned creature back in the settlement, but this thing had a face filled with light, ethereal in its beauty, and its eyes glowed like moons.

  ‘It’s escaped,’ Rubirosa breathed.

  ‘Or they let it out to hunt it,’ I said. ‘If it’s the same one. I don’t think it can be.’ Next moment, it was clear that I was partly right: a spear whirred through the air and splashed into the water, just beyond the canopy. The demothea hissed and disappeared, going under in a shower of glistening spray. There were shouts from the kappa, who now waded out into the water, fanning out so that they formed a semicircle in front of the canopy.

  ‘Stay where you are,’ the Library instructed, into my ear, but I didn’t need telling. The kappa might seem faintly laughable, with their stocky bodies and waddling gait, but the spears were real enough and so was their intent.

  ‘Where did it go?’ Rubirosa whispered. ‘The water can’t be that deep if they’re walking through it.’

  She was right, but I could see no sign of the demothea: it had vanished as completely as if it had never been there. I wondered whether it had just been an illusion, but the kappa didn’t seem to think so. They were coming forward and one of them was striking the water with a long pole. Perhaps there were underground tunnels that the demothea knew . . . Then, suddenly, it was back, rising up from the water inside the canopy with such speed that Rubirosa and I nearly fell off our branch. The kappa cried out and pushed through the canopy and then we did fall: I stumbled into the dark water and found myself up to my knees. The kappa ignored me, even though they were all around. They pushed past me, shoving me out of the way as if I was no more than an inconvenient branch, and closed in on the hissing demothea.

  It might not be armed, but it wasn’t without defences. Something lashed out from it, a long black tentacle like a shiny whip, and took a kappa’s legs from under it. The kappa crashed into the water, flailing. The tentacle whipped out again, curling past the branches and aiming at the leading kappa. The water sizzled as it struck: some kind of localized field. The kappa doubled over and the whip struck again, catching the prod that the kappa had held, but not gripping it. The prod flew through the air and I reached out and caught it. I had no time to think about my decision. I lashed out and activated the prod just as the tentacle came towards it.

  A shudder ran the length of the tentacle and the demothea screamed. It went into a writhing, blurring coil of motion, thrashing the water around it so that the spray shot upward, silver in the moonlight. The kappa gave a great collective shout. The demothea’s whip lashed to and fro, then abruptly drooped. The thing folded in a tangle of robes and sank into the water. This time it did not disappear. The kappa surged forward and picked it up, making a hammock of its own robes, then wound it into some kind of net.

  The one who had held the prod turned to me.

  ‘Are you hunters?’

  ‘So you can speak Martian,’ I said.

  ‘Only I. I was not there when you were taken. The others cannot. I learned for the demon.’

  ‘The demon?’

  The kappa nodded towards the bundled form of the demothea.

  ‘I see. No, we’re not hunters. We’re travellers. We – came from the Queen.’ In a manner of speaking.

  ‘From the Queen?’ If the kappa had possessed eyebrows, they would have risen. ‘Did she send you?’

  ‘No. She’s been abducted. My enemy is a demothea. I came because I thought you could help.’

  ‘I know that the Queen has – gone away.’ She didn’t sound unduly concerned. ‘You have a ship?’

  ‘We crashed. The craft was destroyed,’ Rubirosa said, with minimal truth. ‘We escaped with our lives.’

  The kappa turned and spoke to her colleagues, presumably translating. They murmured among themselves.

  ‘Do you think,’ I asked, ‘that we could go somewhere less wet?’

  A tall order for a saltmarsh, but we managed it. The kappa led us back to the village, this time as guests, not prisoners.

  ‘My name is Evishu,’ the Martian-speaking kappa said. She listened to our names with a frown, memorizing unfamiliar syllables. The Library walked alongside and remained unaddressed: evidently the kappa could not see her.

  ‘Your village,’ I said. ‘I wasn’t sure if we’d got the right place.’

  ‘It’s not a village. I think it was a military installation, from some time long gone, though we built the huts. We came here in pursuit of demotheas.’

  ‘Where I come from, they’re a legend,’ I said. ‘There are none to be seen.’

  ‘That’s because you don’t know they’re there. Do you have marshlands?’

  ‘Yes, around the Small Sea to the south of the Crater Plains.’

  ‘Then you will have demotheas,’ Evishu said.

  ‘So what are they? Why were they made?’

  They’re military. They cope well with water, as you’ve seen. They have the power to create illusions around themselves. The whip is obviously the weapon and they emit a localized form of electricity, like an electric ray. They were designed as killers. Very probably, where you come from, the people did their best to exterminate them, during the time after the Age of Children. You can see why.’ The kappa might be the Changed, I thought, but Rubirosa had been right when she’d spoken of divisions and rivalries.

  ‘So if they were Martian,’ I said, ‘why are they here on Earth?’

  ‘We don’t know. The most likely explanation is that a group of them were sent here for some military purpose and never went home. Ropa is huge, you can see that from any map. After the floods, there was contamination – an engineered disease. No one comes here any more.’

  ‘No one except you,’ I said. And us.

  ‘We were sent here by the Queen.’

  ‘What does the Queen want them for?’ asked Rubirosa, evidently sharing my paranoia.

  ‘We don’t ask that sort of question of her,’ Evishu said, placidly enough.

  ‘So you just do what you’re told?’

  That’s what we’re for,’ Evishu said.

  I gestured towards the bound form of the demothea as the kappa carried it along the path. It looked as though the thing was beginning to regain consciousness: it twitched and writhed in the hands of its captors, who plodded along unheeding.

  ‘What are you going to do with it now?’

  ‘Let the Queen’s people know that we’ve had a partial success,’ Evishu said.

  ‘Partial?’

  ‘There are more, in the marsh. We already have one, but it’s dying.’

  The notion of more of these Martian-grown monsters in this limitless landscape, cold under the moon, made me shiver. And this was what Mantis and Leretui were. ‘Do they ever band together?’

  ‘They hunt alone. But they come together once or twice a year. We think,’ Evishu added, ‘that you’d best spend the night with us. They may come for her. It isn’t safe out here.’

  I looked out over the expanse of the moonlit marsh, the thick banks of waving black reed and the distant glitter of the swallowing sea, and agreed.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Essegui — Crater Plain

  I was glad when the last of the vulpen disappeared into the base of the tower, taking the Centipede Queen with them, but that also meant that I was alone out here among the rocks, and twilight was coming.

  But where there were vulpen, so might there be Leretui.

  I crept closer to the base of the tower. It squatted on top of its tumble of rocks like a dishevelled bird of prey. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the whole thing hadn’t suddenly toppled off in a shower of mortar and stone: it looked derelict enough.

  But there had to be a way in. I’d seen the vulpen disappear. I explored the rocks around the tower, feeling it loom over me, as though it was watching. T
he light was fading quickly now, the short winter day coming to its swift close, and the shadows around the rocks were deepening. I had to make a decision, whether to stay out here and find a bolthole in the boulders, or keep trying to find a way in. I kept looking. The Queen’s little pet crawled out of my sleeve as I searched and nipped the back of my hand, making me jump. The image was of a hatch, leading down. The Queen must have come this way, and transmitted the information to her creature.

  Among the rocks, at the far side of the base of the tower, a scuffle of ribbed sand betrayed what I was looking for. I swept the sand aside, and found the hatch. No haunt-tech, not even a bolt. The hatch had a heavy metal ring, which twisted when I hauled on it. Open, the thing revealed a dark hole and steps leading down. I listened. There was no sound from within, but there was a dim light, enough to see by. I pulled the hatch closed behind me and went down the steps.

  They did not lead far. After a short descent, I came out into a narrow passage with a stone-flagged floor, winding into the base of the tower. The walls had been smoothed and lights set into them at intervals: from the illumination, and the almost dustless condition of the floor, it looked as though this tunnel was regularly used. There was also a strange, strong smell, unfamiliar to me, but I thought it might be vulpen. The idea made me nauseous, but I kept going. I could hear a sound: a distant roaring like wind on a stormy night. I started to go towards it, before realizing that it wasn’t external at all: it was the sound of the geise inside my own head. It cried out my sister’s name.

  Then I turned a corner and my mother Alleghetta was standing under one of the lights on the wall.

  ‘Essegui!’ she snapped, in the tone one would use to a disobedient child. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Can’t you see?’

  ‘I’ve only just managed to find you again.’ She sounded as though I’d got lost in a shop. ‘Where have you been?

  ‘Looking for my sister,’ I said through gritted teeth. ‘Just as you wanted me to.’

  Well, and have you found her?’