by Simon Kewin
If only the people here had fought back, done something over the years. Most of them happily accepted their subjugation. No, that wasn't it. It was worse in a way. Most of them didn't even notice. They lived with this terrible weight upon them, the vile machines leeching away a portion of their souls, and they didn't even know. Why hadn't they rebelled, raged, refused to be broken down? Anger at all of them flooded through her. The people of this world had allowed Angere to become what it had, and now everything would be destroyed. Andar would be destroyed.
She wanted to hurl these bitter accusations at the man sitting quietly beside her, poking his stick into the fire. She held her tongue, making herself breathe. She had no right to criticize the inhabitants of this world. People at home were just the same: peaceful Andar slumbered, its people refusing to see the nightmares at their door. That was how folk were. They dealt with the small things, the things they had some control over, and by those means navigated the treacherous quest from dawn to dusk one more time. It was as if some dangers were simply too big to see or comprehend. The weather was changing, and the nightmares drifted across the An to trouble the sleep of those in Andar, but few had paid any attention.
She caught the gaze of the wise man, suddenly alarmed he might be able to read her mind, see her troubled thoughts. His mild expression gave nothing away. She had no right to be angry with him. He had lived his life under the rule of Angere, knowing what was going on but unable to do anything about it. He had willingly sacrificed everything to help her, twice now, risking his life to do what he could. And in truth she wasn't angry with him, or anyone in this world. She was tired and frightened. She was angry with herself, at her own powerlessness, her own limitations. The light was fading and there was nothing she could do. Her own people were fleeing and dying and she had escaped the slaughter. It would make little difference in the end, but still she felt like she'd betrayed them, left them to their fate.
In the end all she said was, “We should get some sleep.”
The Lizard King nodded in reply but didn't speak.
Manchester was an orange glow spreading across the horizon when they stopped for a final night's stay on their journey north. They stood on the lip of a steep hillside. In front of them, the land dropped sharply away to the plain upon which the distant city and its outlying towns lay. The scale of the habitations in this world still dazzled Fer, but at least it might mean Genera would have trouble finding them.
The rain they'd trudged through earlier had lifted, and a few white stars glinted above them. A crescent moon hung low in the western sky, lines of cloud barring it as if someone had attempted to scribble it out. Fer sneezed, the sound loud enough to be heard for many yards. At some point on their journey they'd all picked up colds, which hadn't made sleeping in the wilds any more enjoyable. Her nose and throat were prickly and raw and her legs felt like they were made of heavy wood. Still, it had to be worse for Catherine, although the older witch never mentioned it.
Fer turned to Catherine and the Lizard King to suggest they seek a place under the trees to sleep for the night. The wise man had said there were caves in the rock around there. Perhaps they could lay out their sleeping bags in one to keep the rain off.
But as Fer turned she saw the Lizard King slump to the ground. He curled up in a ball and began to make little snuffling sounds as if he were shivering with cold. Catherine knelt beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder, her eyes wide with concern.
Fer crouched, too. She'd been so busy keeping their enemies out of her own mind that she hadn't noticed the wise man being assaulted. Despite his abilities he was weak when it came to other forms of magic. “Is it the undain?” she asked. “Have they found us?”
“No,” said Catherine after a pause. She stroked the Lizard King's hair. “Just a vision I think. It can be like this for him sometimes, when the eyes he's borrowing are far away or hard to reach.”
“What do we do?”
“All we can do is wait and watch over him. Make sure he doesn't harm himself.”
A car sped by on the nearby road, lights briefly illuminating the skeletal trees. It didn't stop.
“We're too exposed out here,” said Fer. “We won't be able to move him if anyone comes.”
“There's nothing we can do,” said Catherine. “We'll be safe enough if no one knows we're here.”
Fer placed her own hand onto the Lizard King, as if she could calm him with her touch. His muscles were as hard as wood, tense as he shook and whimpered. The tattooed lizards that adorned his skin also had their eyes closed tight. They clung to their ink branches as if enduring a howling gale, some shaking and swaying.
“It must be hard for him,” said Fer, “having blackouts that come upon him unbidden like this.”
“Yes,” said Catherine. “I wouldn't want his gift for all the tea in China.”
She had no idea what that meant. “Does he get any warning?”
Catherine sighed. “I don't think so, no. We're fortunate one didn't come upon him when he was driving.”
“Yes.”
Slowly the Lizard King's shaking and breathing began to calm. The muscles in his shoulders and neck relaxed. A lizard opened one of its purple eyes.
“It's passing off,” said Catherine. She still stroked the wise man's hair, as if he were a sick child. After a few moments, the man's eyes flickered open. He looked puzzled for a moment, perhaps unsure of where he was and who he was with. Then he spoke.
“Sorry. It came upon me suddenly.”
“Are you hurt?” asked Catherine.
“No, no, I don't think so. Bit my tongue, that's all.”
“What did you see? Where were you?”
“Andar,” said the wise man. “I was with Cait.”
Catherine gave a little gasp of joy. “She's still alive? She made it across the river?”
“Yes. She was with friends. Hellen was there. Ran and Nox too, and also the boy. Danny.”
“Danny's alive as well?” said Catherine.
“Yes.”
Catherine closed her eyes for a moment, absorbing the news, drinking it in. “Thank the stars. Oh that's wonderful.”
“What about Johnny?” asked Fer.
“I didn't see him, but he was somewhere around I think. Getting back to him was in Cait's thoughts.”
“So he did make it through to Andar.”
“I think so,” said the Lizard King. “But there was danger all around. Cait's fear burned brightly.”
“Where were they?” said Fer. “What was happening?”
“A city of tall towers. The streets and squares were thronged with thousands of people. Some sort of celebration, but everyone was fleeing in panic, fighting to escape.”
“Guilden,” said Fer. “The Ice Fair.”
“The undain army was attacking. Cait and the others had inflicted a blow on them, destroyed some of them, but it wasn't enough. The city was about to be overwhelmed.”
“Where was Cait going? What were they doing?”
“I don't know. Her mind was filled with alarm as they battled through the crowds.”
“South,” said Catherine. “All they can do is flee south. Hellen must have taken them north to try and defeat or slow the undain but they weren't powerful enough.”
Fer met her gaze. “If they're at Guilden it won't be long before the rest of Andar falls. Time is running out.” She sat back on the damp grass. It seemed hopeless. Minute by minute, her home was being destroyed and there was nothing she could do. She was so far away, so powerless to help. Despair flooded through her and she couldn't hold it back.
In that moment of vulnerability, the being that had harried her and attacked her all the way north found its opening. Before Fer could summon the strength to repel the attack, the presence entered her, its voice a cry of glee and hunger in Fer's mind.
Fer cried out and covered her head with her arms, as if that would keep her attacker at bay. The presence of another being inside her own head, her own thou
ghts, was sickening; it was the worst sort of violation. She fought back, desperate to be free of the mind rampaging through her thoughts, assaulting her. She was aware of Catherine nearby, her words of concern, but Fer ignored them.
In her mind, she saw a blazing light that was the alien presence. It was blinding to look at, painful, but she threw herself at it. She had to defeat it, expel it at all cost. If it were one of the undain lords the fight would be grim and perhaps too much for her. She didn't hesitate. She had the words of the family secret; she could use them once more. If she didn't, they'd take away everything she was, strip her of herself. Make her one of them.
A shape began to emerge from the light, its form warping and shifting as if glimpsed through the air above a fire. Fer stopped and waited, steeling herself for the battle to come.
The figure wavered and became solid. But instead of one of the undain, a young girl stood there, hair lank, dressed in a stained white robe that reached down to her ankles. She clutched something to her chest. A tatty rag doll something like the one Fer had played with as a girl.
The girl swept closer without appearing to walk. “Hello, Fer,” she said. “My name is Bethany. Cait sent me to find you and give you a message. I've been trying to talk to you for such a long time.” The girl grinned, as if the whole thing were a game.
Fer paused, confused, caught between revulsion at the intrusion and sympathy for the lost young girl before her. “You were inside Cait's mind weren't you? I … I caught a glimpse of you.”
“Oh yes. I travelled with her for a while, but now I've come home.”
Fer stepped closer, studying the girl's face. Cait hadn't understood how this union, this haunting, was possible, but Fer knew how it worked. “You're one of us. You're related to Cait and you're related to me.”
The girl giggled. “Of course. My family came from Andar, but I'm from here. I helped Cait in the other world, and now I've come to help you in this one.”
The girl looked around, as if inspecting her new home. There were suddenly trees there, tall boughs, red and brown and grey, illuminated by the dappled light of summer. A carpet of white flowers. The woods of Andar in Fer's mind.
“Oh good,” the girl said. “Much better than icy water. I think I'm going to like it here. Are you ready to begin? I think I know what we have to do to hurt the Masters.”
13. To the Centre of the City
“We have to get safely into the centre of the city,” said Fer. “We have to reach the Shadow Town Hall. Once again we need your help, oh wise and noble archaeon.”
Fer waited for the bookwyrm to respond, letting it play its little game of feigning boredom. As before, the creature dwarfed her, although its appearance was very different now. In the Tanglewood it had resembled a dragon from the old tales of Angere. Sulphurous smoke had drifted from its scaly snout as it lay curled in its cave. Now its smooth lines glinted like polished glass, as if it were fashioned from some silvery, molten metal. When it opened its eyes she saw, instead of her own tiny image reflected in the black depths, lines of glowing letters and numbers scrolling rapidly upward. The rough stone of the cavern walls had been replaced by bare metal, polished and reflective, making it hard to see what was real and what was image. Although, of course, the whole thing was an illusion, a game.
The bookwyrm had taken up residence, uploaded itself, to the internet of this world, and there found more knowledge than it had absorbed in centuries of life in the tomes and scrolls of Andar. In the process it had changed, transmuted, become an altogether different form of life. It lived in the machines as it had once inhabited the thoughts and ideas within the old books. It had also multiplied, making thousands – perhaps millions – of copies of itself, so that it could occupy all the computers at the same moment. And, seemingly, converse with itself when it wanted to.
Fer didn't understand much of what any of that meant. Cait and Danny had tried to explain it to her, but she lacked knowledge of even the words they used. She did know that many things in this world were controlled by these computers, and that many of them were connected to each other. This allowed them to converse, to exchange news and instructions and data. It all seemed magical, especially as she could see nothing connecting the machines. The words and voices and pictures simply appeared on the screens of the phones they carried. Appeared from somewhere. She'd been assured it wasn't magic at all, but secretly she had her doubts. Or, at least, thinking it was magic helped her understand. If she assumed computers and phones were basically a form of witchcraft, they made sense to her.
The archaeon lifted its head to study her with its glowing, computer screen eyes. “You are mistaken, little witch. There is no such place as a Shadow Town Hall in Manchester. Perhaps you misunderstood what was told to you?”
Fer tried her best to ignore the creature's mockery. “The Shadow Town Hall is a very well kept secret,” she said, “but I'm assured it is real by one who has been there. It is a gathering place. Unsacred ground. The only ones who know about it are the dead, and they tend not to write much down. Or to upload things to the internet.”
“The dead, little witch?”
“Not all of them you understand. The restless ones. The angry ones. Their quiet voices fill the air of this city whenever there is a moment of calm. I was aware of their grim chorus as soon as I arrived.”
The dragon exhaled, filling the air with smoke. Instead of the stench of sulphur, the smell was more acrid, like burning plastic or metal. “And you converse with these dead?” asked the bookwyrm, amusement clear in its voice.
“Bethany is as real as you, bookwyrm. Perhaps more so: at least she lived and breathed once. At least she was more than lines on paper or dots on a screen.”
“Ah, Bethany is it?”
“So you know of her?”
“No, no,” said the dragon, closing its eyes once more. “It simply sounds like the sort of name someone would invent for a – forgive me – imaginary friend.”
Fer resisted the urge to punch the ridiculous beast on the nose. The wyrm was simply taking pleasure in riling her. It would surely know about the sprits of the witches in the orchard on Islagray, and many other instances of people lingering after their deaths.
Fer forced herself to speak calmly. “So would you like to meet my imaginary friend?”
One eye opened slightly, revealing a few lines of the scrolling symbols. “Oh, I'd like that very much, little witch. By all means summon her. Do wake me when you've finished your necromancy.”
Was such a thing even possible? Bethany was a ghost that haunted her, a shape in the aether, without physical form. And the archaeon was – what? Something similar. The cavern Fer stood in didn't really exist. It was the dragon's idea of itself. Perhaps it was in her mind, or perhaps it was an island in the aether like the Tanglewood. Whichever, she couldn't see why Bethany and the bookwyrm shouldn't be able to meet. It had to be worth a try.
Fer closed her eyes to find the whisper of the witch-girl. The presence of the other within felt uncomfortable, irritating, like a thorn embedded deep in her flesh. There was nothing to be done about it now. She wondered how Cait had borne it for so long.
Speaking softly, trying to ignore the troubling thought that she was looking for a dream within a dream, Fer set about coaxing Bethany into the light.
It took several minutes, during which time the archaeon affected a deep, rumbling snore. When Bethany appeared, little more than a sketch of faint grey lines, her eyes were wide with fear. To her, dragons were no different to the undain or the Masters who had made her young life such a misery, or the boggarts and goblins whose stories had been told to her. They were all monsters.
Moving slowly, Fer took Bethany by the ghostly hand and led her from the shadows of the passageway toward the great creature. Bethany held back, reluctant, but she responded to Fer's reassurances and allowed herself to be brought forward. In a few paces the two of them stood before the head of the wyrm.
Fer cleared her throat and sp
oke in a loud, clear voice. “This is Bethany Weerd, noble and wise archaeon. She is my relative and forebear from centuries past. I'm afraid she is dead, but she would like to speak to you nevertheless.”
The archaeon opened its eyes once more. For a moment Fer thought the dragon, seeing nothing, would roar its laughter at her. Instead the creature, studying Bethany, tilted its head to one side, like a dog trying to understand human speech.
It sniffed. “Hmm, interesting…”
Fer, Catherine and the Lizard King crept warily into the city early the following morning. The two witches took turns to maintain the glamour about themselves as they trudged along. They were well-enough practised at it now.
Fer tried hard not to look nervously around at every car, every passer-by. Traffic was already building up, making snaking lines of cars crawl along the roads. Each time one slowed nearby, moths fluttered in Fer's stomach. At every moment she expected shouts, the grasp of a hand on her arm.
The plumes of choking smoke from the cars and buses made her cough and splutter. No one else seemed to be affected. Most people on the pavements had their gaze cast to the ground, or else they stared into the distance as they listened to music from one of their machines. Fer tried to maintain the same attitude of bored indifference. She had to resist the urge to check her reflection in every shop window they passed, in the glass of every car as it crept by.
The background chorus of sighs and moans that she'd heard – or felt – in the aether on her previous visit mounted as the streets grew busier. Perhaps it was the city's equivalent of the Song. The sound's volume mounted the farther into the city they walked, seeming to sing from the red bricks and the stone ground. Fer cast a glance at Cait's gran each time the noise stepped up a notch, but the old witch appeared to be unaware of it. Perhaps you really didn't hear it if you lived in the city all your life. And perhaps if you were like the Lizard King you had to learn to blot the sound out to stop yourself from going mad. At times, the noise took on a shrill, keening edge that sent a shudder through Fer's bones.
