by Simon Kewin
When she could, Catherine led them off the wide roads onto narrower side-streets. They still had to cross the main roads, though, and Fer saw several sets of cameras peering down at them from tall buildings. The Lizard King said they were mostly there to watch the flow of traffic, but Fer wasn't convinced. She could feel the devices watching her. They had to hope the bookwyrm was doing what it had promised, removing their images from any pictures the cameras captured. She'd hoped the glamours would deceive the machines, but apparently that wasn't the case. The cameras saw the three of them as they really were.
What was worse, the machines could scan whole crowds of people and identify individuals with ease. Why did people allow it? The phones everyone carried could be used to track their movements, too. Again, the bookwyrm assured them it was perfectly capable of stopping that happening. Again, Fer was unconvinced. Her nervousness increased with each step. She found she was clenching her jaw tight, making her cheek muscles hurt. She breathed deeply, trying to make herself relax.
Ahead of her, Catherine stopped suddenly. “Oh. That's not good.”
Up ahead, the road they were on was blocked by three ruined cars, one on its side. All three had been set on fire and were now little more than heaps of smoking brown metal. The road was strewn with rocks and sparkling shards of glass. The police were there, clad in bulky uniforms, keeping people away. The stench of plastic and metal in the air reminded Fer of the bookwyrm's smoke.
“What has happened?” asked Fer.
“More trouble,” said Catherine. “A riot by the look of it.” Fer began to pick out more details: the smashed glass of the houses' windows, doors that had been battered into splinters.
“Genera,” said the Lizard King. “The Spirit extractors.”
“It's getting worse,” said Catherine. “If we don't stop them soon, who knows how bad it will get.”
“It isn't normally like this?” asked Fer.
“No.” Catherine sighed, and the lines on her face were etched deeper than usual. “I mean, there's unrest occasionally, but I haven't seen it this bad in a long time.”
From somewhere nearby the wailing of police cars or ambulances filled the air. The sound was angry and mournful at the same time, echoing off the houses and walls so that its direction was impossible to work out. Fer's heart raced as the sound grew louder, reached a blaring peak … and then faded away as the vehicle sped elsewhere. She couldn't shake off the suspicion it had been looking for them.
“We have to do what Cait told us as soon as possible,” she said. “Perhaps we'll be helping both worlds.”
Catherine nodded, her gaze fixed on the burned-out husks of the cars. “Yes. Let's backtrack, find a different way into the centre. Those might be normal police up ahead, and they might not be.”
They'd only just started moving again when the Lizard King's phone made an urgent buzzing sound. The wise man looked puzzled as he pulled the device from his jacket pocket and studied the screen.
“Someone contacting you?” said Catherine. “I thought no one knew the number.”
The tattooed man studied the screen through narrowed eyes. “It's OK. It's the archaeon getting my attention.” He lifted the phone to his ear and listened for long moments, saying nothing. Occasionally he nodded his head, his expression mournful. Finally he slipped the device back into his pocket.
The tattooed lizard on his neck slid out of sight to hide underneath his collar as the man spoke. “The bookwyrm says we've been spotted. Genera know we're here.”
“How?” said Fer. “Didn't it hide us from their machines like it promised?”
The Lizard King shrugged his shoulders. “It says it kept us perfectly hidden but that one of the undain must have spotted us.” He peered upward. A flock of raucous birds thronged overhead, dark against the brightening blue of the dawn sky. Beyond them, lit up gold by the rising sun, one of the flying machines let out a straight line of smoke or steam as it flew to who-knew where.
“They're all around us,” said Catherine, her eyes shut as she concentrated. “I've been aware of them for a while.”
Fer quested with her mind's eye and soon saw them. Hundreds, thousands, of the undain, pitch pools in the darkness. The monsters were all around, apparently watching and waiting. “Why don't they come for us? It makes no sense.”
Catherine's eyes were troubled as she replied. “I think they think we're heading for the Library, to try and reach the Andar portal. Where else would we be going? Clara Sweetley is herding us. She must have set a trap which she's letting us walk into. She must know now that Cait has succeeded in reaching Andar. With Fiona gone that only leaves me and you, Fer, with the blood the undain crave. They won't risk spilling it. They'll wait until we're in their power, safely out of sight in the basement of the Library, and then they'll show themselves.”
“You don't think they know about the Shadow Town Hall?”
“I think it's a well-kept secret. I've never heard of it.”
“How far is the Library from the Town Hall?”
“They're next to each other,” said the Lizard King.
“Then … this might actually work in our favour,” said Fer. “If they let us reach the Library they might not realise where we're really going until it's too late.”
“Perhaps,” said Catherine, although the haunted look didn't leave her face. “For now, I think we should go back to the big roads. Being in plain sight is our best defence. There are still plenty of normal people in Manchester. I did plan to stop in the grove where Cait and Danny found me, but now I think we should hurry on. We don't want Menhroth growing impatient and coming for us.”
“Are you up to it?” asked Fer. The long walk had taken its toll on Cait's gran. She was moving stiffly and Fer had seen her wince more than once as she put weight on her right leg. A grim determination had come over her since the events at Glastonbury, and she spoke little as she plodded relentlessly forward. Her shoulders were more stooped than they had been.
“I'll be fine,” said Catherine. “Don't worry about me.”
“We could find you a cup of tea.”
“Later. Not now.”
“Why don't you head to the grove while the wise man and I carry on to the centre?”
“Because I don't want to,” Catherine snapped, her voice strained almost to breaking. “Now enough talking and let's go.”
Her exhaustion and pain were making her cross. Fer thought about insisting she rest, then decided against it. Catherine had every right to be involved, to do what she could for Cait. To do something. Perhaps it was the only thing keeping her going.
They limped into the city centre, Catherine moving more and more slowly. The undain massed around them but kept their distance. Fer tried to pretend she hadn't seen them, hadn't caught glimpses of fang or claw from the corner of her eye. If she reacted, if she turned and ran, the spell would be broken. The undain would guess what they were really up to and attack. For now they had no choice but to dance their slow dance.
They worked their way up the long, straight road they'd walked down when first coming to Manchester, when Johnny had led them to the Golden Palace to meet the Lizard King. Its name was Oxford Road, a fact that amused Fer. Back home, there was a muddy crossing on a nearby stream referred to as the ox ford, and, indeed, there was a track to it from her village that people sometimes called the ox ford road. It was very different indeed from the snarled-up, stone street they trudged along.
They had to stop again and again for Catherine to get her breath back, but the woman refused to give in. Each time, with a nod, she set off once more. At one point they stopped outside a large shop whose windows were filled with many television screens, all broadcasting the same pictures of a shattered city somewhere, its buildings sagging to the ground, its streets nothing more than a jumble of debris and wreckage. And, here and there, a grimy child's face peeping out into the light. Large, ugly vehicle like guns on wheels lumbered along the streets. Whether there were people inside, or
whether they were just machines, Fer couldn't tell.
Following that there were pictures of boats, crowded with standing people bobbing upon a rough sea. The people held out their arms, pleading for something. Some jumped or fell into the water. Then came images of bodies washing up on a beach, nothing more than flotsam in the foam, rolled onto the sand by the waves.
Was it all to do with Genera, the global extraction of Spirit? The sights filled Fer with bitter sickness. Perhaps it was like that back home, too, in Guilden and Hyrn's Oak and Woodhavn and every town and city she knew from her childhood. Perhaps there were, even now, boatloads of terrified people on the An, shivering children hugged close by their wide-eyed parents. If the river hadn't already frozen completely over.
“I see it all over the world,” the Lizard King said as he looked at the screens. “A rising tide of misery, louder with each passing hour.” He seemed to be talking to himself as much as them. When he glanced up at Fer she could see the horror in his eyes. He had to live with listening to that, seeing it through borrowed eyes. No, she didn't envy him either.
Fifteen minutes later they reached the city centre. She had never actually seen the Library from the outside. She and Johnny and Ran had escaped through the tunnels, following the witch-marks Catherine had left on the walls. It was a white, round building, huge like a fortress, glowing in the dawn light. A line of columns at its doors made Fer think of a row of teeth in some monstrous mouth.
Nobody tried to prevent them approaching. Hundreds of the monsters were there, gathered on the streets behind them like an audience at a mummer's play or a crowd at an execution. She couldn't identify living people among them any more. Although, up ahead, there was a beggar sitting against the wall of the Library, head down, huddling under rags. He, at least, was alive, the light from his mind in the aether flickering and pulsing oddly.
Turning to study their pursuers, she caught clear glimpses of the monsters' true selves among the human shapes in the crowd. Their trap about to be sprung, the undain were letting their masks slip. Tongues flicked across wide mouths of needle-sharp teeth. Red eyes shone from porcelain faces. Deep growls thrummed in the air. They were there on the tops of the buildings, too, watching and waiting for the final act.
Fer, Catherine and the Lizard King walked to the entrance of the Library, the spot where, according to Cait, she'd dropped the Grimoire at Nox's feet and everything had started.
“When I give the word, run,” said Catherine, her voice a hiss.
“Can you run?” asked Fer.
“With that lot behind me, yes.”
“You're in pain. You can barely walk.”
“Then I'll hobble really quickly.”
“Which way do we go?”
Catherine indicated with a nod of her head. “Follow the wall of the Library around. You'll see the Town Hall on the other side.”
Bethany had explained that the Shadow Town Hall was a cavern, a void deep beneath the foundations of the real building. Fer wondered if there was a way to reach it from the tunnels they'd taken beneath the Library. Possibly not, the place was apparently sealed off to human access. A bad thing had happened there many years ago. Bethany was vague on the details, but people – children – had died and that had been the start of it. Slowly, over the years, others had arrived, seeping through the rock like rainwater. The cavern pulled in the dead from the cold earth for miles around, attracting them like moths to a dark flame, enticing them with its shared well of anger and loss. It was a place only the dead could enter.
And that was where she had to go.
The beggar was rocking his head from side to side, as if trying to dislodge troubling thoughts. Then he looked up sharply at Fer, his gaze piercing. For a moment he looked puzzled. “You? Here? No, no, that isn't right. You mustn't be here. You have to flee, before they eat you. The hunt is coming. Can't you hear them sharpening their knives? Can't you see their staring eyes? Run and hide, run and hide!”
Catherine walked over to kneel beside him on his reeking, stained blanket. “It's alright, Tom.” The man's gaze didn't leave Fer as she approached. Behind her sat a heavy wall of silence, as if the undain had stopped moving and were waiting for the word to make their move.
The beggar – Tom – looked to Catherine and then back to Fer, his cracked lips working as he tried to find the words to speak.
“Tom,” whispered Catherine. “We need your help. Perhaps there's nothing you can do, but you were powerful and clever once, before the horror filled your mind.”
“Help?” said Tom, his voice hesitant.
“That's right. The monsters behind us think we're going into the Library, but it's a trap. We're going to try and open the door to the Shadow Town Hall instead.”
Tom looked so alarmed at that Fer thought he might burst into tears. “No, no,” he said. “Run and hide, run and hide. Don't go there.”
“Tom, please,” said Catherine. “You've sat here all these years. Perhaps … perhaps you've been waiting for this moment without knowing it. I'm sorry to ask, truly, but we need your help. We are going to try it. They'll see immediately what we're doing and come for us. Please, remember what you once were and try and stop them. A few moments might make all the difference.”
“The monsters?” He looked puzzled, grappling with difficult concepts.
“Yes,” said Catherine. “We're going to try and stop them, stop them all.”
There was a moment, brief, when understanding flickered in the man's eyes. “Stop the demons?”
“Yes.”
Tom looked back to Fer and the light went out of his eyes. “Monsters,” he said again. “Run and hide, run and hide, run and hide.”
Catherine sighed and stood. There was only despair on her face when she looked at Fer. “Well, it was worth a try. And now I think it's time we ran.”
She turned and hobbled off, moving surprisingly quickly, away from the entrance and toward a high-sided canyon between the curving wall of the Library and the adjacent building.
Fer and the Lizard King bounded after her. And from behind, the wall of silence broke like a dam and the screaming horde of the undain threw themselves forward.
Fer knew they had no chance. True, most of the undain were behind them, arrayed in an arc around the entrance. They hadn't foreseen that Fer and the others weren't trying to get into the Library, which meant that their escape route was momentarily clear. But it wouldn't take long for the creatures to cover the distance. Fer glanced over her shoulder. The snarling, snapping throng was already at the entrance to the passageway, only paces behind.
Then a light blazed in the space between the two buildings, bright enough to make Fer flinch. Thrown off-balance by it, she stopped running and turned to see.
The silhouette of a figure appeared in the light, arms outstretched, cape held out wide. At first she thought it was one of the undain, a Lord maybe, come to claim them.
Then the light dimmed and she saw who it really was. The cape wasn't a cape; it was a tatty, smelly blanket. This was no undain; it was the beggar, Tom. He was screaming, but not from fear or pain. There was something like jubilation in his voice. Red light flared from his fingertips.
“Who is he?” asked Fer, watching in wonder.
“One of us, once,” said Catherine from beside her. “Things went badly for him and he lost his way, but he was remarkable. It's a sad story.”
“And what's he doing?”
“Holding back the flood. Come on, he's bought us the moments we need.”
Fer turned away as seething shadows began to wind around the light that was Tom. He surely couldn't hold them back for long. She didn't wait to find out. Running beside Catherine and the Lizard King, they emerged around the curve of the Library onto another wide square, stone-flagged and lined with more high buildings on all sides.
Catherine turned right and led them past one building, across a road, and then along the front of an ornate edifice, as grand as anything in Guilden. Fer thought the
re'd be guards on the doors, but they entered the building without anyone barring their way.
“Which way?” asked Fer. The interior of the building was more dazzling than the outside, every surface decorated, the stone carved, the floor patterned, the glass of the windows coloured, the ceilings painted with golden stars. The occasional beauties of this world still surprised her. Everywhere, for some reason, were images of bees, like some magical rune worked through the fabric of the building. If she understood it properly, this was where rules were made, where the equivalent of the Doge sat. But it was an older, stronger, deeper power they sought.
“Downstairs,” said Catherine. “Follow me.”
They clattered down stairs that spiralled into the ground. Occasionally they passed startled denizens of the Town Hall who clutched papers to their chest as they threw themselves out of the way. Some shouted angrily, but they were people rather than undain and didn't try to stop them. More cries and howls echoed from above and Fer knew, without needing to see, that these were the monsters, in pursuit of their quarry.
They reached a grey metal door. Catherine translated the words painted upon it. No Entry. Authorized Personnel Only. From what little Fer had seen of this world there were doors like this everywhere, and it was through them that the truly interesting things were to be found. A little box of buttons and blinking lights was affixed to the wall beside it.
“Can we open it?” asked Fer.
After a moment, Fer heard the tinny voice of the bookwyrm. “Yes, yes, just a moment. I'm working on it.” This time, however, the voice was coming from a tiny grille on the lock rather than the phone.
Puzzled, Fer looked to the Lizard King for an answer. “The creature jumped between the machines?”
“It's in both, the phone and the security systems of the building. Different copies of itself. It's everywhere.”
She was still having trouble understanding how such a thing was possible. “Yes. Of course.”
“Hurry, please,” said Catherine, peering upward as if she could see through the stone ceiling. “They are very near.”
