Silvertongue

by Charlie Fletcher

  “Thank God,” the big man said, breathing hard. “You are alive.”

  “Yes,” said George, choking as he looked at the damage to the man’s head. “But . . .”

  As if sensing the look of horror that he could no longer see, Dictionary’s hands traced the maimed contours of his fire-splashed face, finding the blank sweep of newly melted metal where his eyes had been.

  He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it again, and clenched his jaw in a fierce jut that reminded George of Edie.

  “Dictionary . . .” began George, his voice catching.

  The big man waved him off, as if he could hear the pent-up emotion about to burst out of the boy and wanted no part of it. He fired off a single burst of harsh laughter.

  “Ha! I thought my wig had perhaps become dislodged and was serving the purpose of an unexpected blindfold. But I find, as you see, that I am blind, sir.”

  His hands waved out in front of him, reaching for something. George grasped one, and it closed on his in a fierce grip. As he did so he saw the Queen of Time’s handmaidens lower the Clocker from the canopy in front of the department store. The Clocker rushed toward them.

  Shack was kneeling by one of the fallen dragons, poking at it.

  “I’m so sorry . . .” George began, the words choking awkwardly in his throat. Dictionary shooed them away.

  “Not a thought of it, child. Fortunes of war. I have never had reason to exert myself in a martial cause, and I may now admit that when I once said every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, the everyman I was thinking of was myself.”

  The Clocker put his hand on Dictionary’s shoulder.

  “Dear friend. Your injury most gallantly won. . . .”

  Dictionary smiled bravely. “They have taken my sight, not my mind, Clocker. And yet . . . “

  He turned his face around, as if blindly looking at them both and something beyond.

  “And yet I shall miss the sight of this great city, and my friends.”

  He gripped George’s hand even more tightly and pulled him in closer.

  “And it is a great city, child. True, I have not voyaged to Stamboul or the fabled cities of Far Cathay, but I cannot imagine them mightier or fuller of event and majesty. London is the greatest metropolis that ever was. And now I feel in my water that it is up to you to ensure it remains so.”

  George found that the lump in his throat had grown.

  “I don’t know. . . .” he said.

  “I do, child,” growled Dictionary. “You will do it or die trying. You have the doggedness and grit that has ever been the mark of the true Londoner. This is a city of liberty, made by free men for free men. It is not a city that knuckles under easily to oppression. Why ’tis not long since that even kings had to ask leave to enter it. You will liberate it from this time-frozen blight, George. You will free it again.”

  The Clocker gasped. George followed the Clocker’s eye line—and saw that the dead dragon had moved and was not actually dead. And then he saw that the dragon was still, but that Shack had just pulled loose something from its talon.

  “There’s a couple of things I don’t like here,” tutted Shack.

  “Surely not,” cried the Clocker, and ran over to the taint’s body. Shack handed him the gold-and-blue fragment that had got jammed in between the creature’s claws.

  He held it up in horror. “The Queen of Time. This monster has . . .” Shack took the fragment and handed it to the warrior queen.

  “Is her dress,” she said simply.

  The Clocker nodded. “Then the taints got her.”

  George rode the empty feeling of despair that welled up inside him.

  “It’s my fault. I should have got here sooner. The Sphinx said she shouldn’t try to restart time until we had penned the darkness back into the Stone.”

  Shack looked at him. He had the kind of eyes that seemed to see everything; not just what was on the surface, but the stuff behind it, with equal clarity.

  “Did you come with all speed?”

  “Yes,” said George.

  “Then it’s scarcely your fault. You don’t have time to waste being guilty,” he snapped as if closing the issue.

  “We find her,” announced the Queen of America. “Follow dragon’s tracks in snow back to where he got this.” She held up the fragment of gold and blue. “We bring her back. At turn o’day she will be revived on her plinth. Is simple.”

  She looked at Shack, who nodded. He was about to speak when the Railwayman snapped alert.

  “Hello!” he said, raising his gun.

  “No,” said George. “No! He’s with me. He’s one of us now.”

  It was Spout, flying in over the rooftops. He carried something in his mouth. Like a great cat, he was bringing his prey home, its haunch gripped in his jaw. As he came in to land, he spat the body of the dead dog-gargoyle out ahead of him. It hit the snow like a bag of bricks and lay still. He flared his wings and landed in front of George.

  “Gack,” he announced.

  “Nice job, Spout,” said George. “He killed the dog-gargoyle.”

  “Good,” grunted Dictionary in satisfaction. Hodge walked up and sniffed the corpse, looked at Spout in approval, and then leaped into Dictionary’s arms. The big man caught him on reflex and held him tight. The cat looked at the terrible scalloped wound flaring out from his owner’s head and allowed himself to be stroked. He purred deeply as he did so, and licked Dictionary’s hand.

  “There you are, you catamount,” he said gently, smiling. “You dragon slayer. Had I a barrel of oysters, you should eat them all.”

  “You know the other things I don’t like?” Shack asked, pointing to the corpses of the gargoyle and the dragons.

  “The taints’ bodies are still here. Normally they go to pieces and are winnowed away on the wind,” said George.

  Shack nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man,” he said. “But there’s the other thing. City dragons guard the City perimeter. That’s their purpose. They keep their station. They don’t gang up and go marauding like this.”

  “I think all bets are off,” said George. And in as few words as he could, he told them about everything that had happened since coming back through the mirrors and allowing the Ice Devil in after them.

  “Well,” muttered Shack, watching George unconsciously rubbing at the pain in his arm, “if the dark powers are exerting the kind of pull that makes the taints forget their maker’s first purpose, we’re in trouble. Though these City dragons are mass-produced trash, really. So the maker’s first purpose is probably a little diluted. Now, I think we’d better have a look at your arm.”

  “It’s fine,” said George. “I mean it aches a bit . . .”

  “Jacket and shirt off, please,” said Shack in a calm voice that said “I don’t believe you” and “Don’t you dare disobey me” in equal measure.

  George hesitated, and then did as he was asked. He unbuttoned his coat and the one beneath it, and lifted his shirt over his head. The cold hit his exposed torso and raised instant goose bumps all over him.

  “Wah!” said the Queen of America, impressed.

  George looked at his arm.

  “Oh,” he managed, then shut up because he had the strong urge to be sick and so needed to keep his mouth closed.

  “That is something,” said Shack, whistling in appreciation.

  George’s arm had disappeared.

  Not a scrap of skin remained.

  The new arm was made of stone.

  The white and gritty limestone vein that had been twining up in tight spirals had thickened and spread, obliterating the strips of skin that had separated them. It had also pushed up and over his shoulder.

  He raised his arm and flexed it in fascinated horror. The stone was stretching down over his wrist and taking over his hand as well. It felt horrible looking at a part of his body that was both him and very definitely not him at all.

  “You know what a retiarius is?”
said Shack.

  George shook his head, not ready to risk a word as long as “no” in case he lost control and threw up right there and then.

  “Retiarii were Roman gladiators. They fought with nets and a trident, no protection except for one arm covered in armor, just like that. You look like one of them.” Shack smiled, as if the horror on George’s arm was nothing.

  “Okay,” George managed to say, and then started clumsily tugging back into his clothes. It seemed very urgent to cover up this appalling growth as quickly as he could.

  Once he was covered up he felt strong enough to tell them about the Cnihtengild and the three veins that had started to twist up his arm, each one representing one of three duels he had to fight. He told them about how he’d fought two duels and had lost the marble and the bronze veins, and how this stone vein that had spread over his shoulder was all that remained, marking the final remaining duel he had yet to fight.

  “And you say you have to fight this last duel before the stone spreads across your chest and encases your heart?” said Shack, as if this were the most natural thing in the world and he was just making certain of the details.

  George nodded, buttoning one jacket over the other.

  “And was stone on your shoulder this morning?” said the Queen of America.

  “No,” said George uncomfortably. “No, I don’t think it was.”

  “So it is moving,” she said, looking at Shack.

  “So it’s moving, yes,” said George.

  “Right,” said Shack decisively. “Can’t be helped. It is what it is. We should take its example and do the same ourselves.”

  He pointed to the Railwayman. “If you’d be so kind as to lead Dictionary back to his plinth.”

  “Sir,” snapped the soldier, his hand tipping his tin helmet as he walked over and took Dictionary’s arm.

  “We’ll find the Queen of Time,” said Shack, watching the Clocker being lifted back up onto the canopy by the waiting handmaidens. “You go follow the Sphinx’s instructions, though they sound like mumbo jumbo to me. If we succeed, we will meet you wherever the spits decide to make their stand. God willing, you will succeed and it will not be necessary.”

  And with that he raised a hand in parting and followed the Queen of America as she trotted back along the dragon’s tracks. She paused as they were about to turn the corner and raised her spear in farewell, a wide smile on her face, and then she, the buffalo, and Shack were gone.

  “Come on, guvnor,” said the Railwayman, putting Dictionary’s hand on his shoulder. “Clap on there and don’t let go. You talk and I’ll walk, eh?”

  “A moment,” said Dictionary, turning toward George.

  “George Chapman. I know you go with a heavy heart to face an unpleasurable and frightening duty. But heavy though your heart be, find enough space in it to carry a little hope: for the natural flight of the human mind is from hope to hope, and it is in making those great leaps that we most extend our humanity. And heroes, as you have seen from the exertions of this cat . . .” he said, holding Hodge up to view. “Heroes come in all shapes and sizes. Godspeed, boy.”

  And with that he harrumphed and let the Railwayman lead him off, leaving George alone with Spout and a very large lump in his throat. He took a deep breath, swallowed, and made himself stand straighter.

  “Okay,” he said, looking at the waiting gargoyle. “Let’s get this done.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Meat and Drink

  “It’s impossible,” said Edie, looking into one of the two parallel mirrors on the inner face of the central arch leading into the snug. She could see a whole chorus line of Edies dwindling away into infinity in the reflection, all in identical dark fur jackets cinched tight around their waist, each with an identical Raven perched on their shoulder. The Ravens all pecked the ear of their Edies.

  “Ow!” she said, flinching at the nip on hers. “Why’d he do that?”

  The Friar stood outside the arch looking at her. The Raven clacked its beak.

  “He wanted to get your attention,” he said.

  “He’s got my attention. I still say it’s impossible . . . How’s he going to get me to my mum?” she asked, cocking her own head and squinting at the bird. “I mean, if he’s got all the memories in there, how’s he going to pick out the ones of my mum?”

  The Raven pecked her ear again.

  “Ow!” She winced. “Knock it off!”

  “He wants to see your stone. Or rather, your mother’s,” said the Friar.

  “Well, he could have said so,” said Edie, rubbing her ear.

  “He did,” said the Friar. “You just don’t know how to hear him.”

  Edie pulled her mother’s heart stone from her pocket and held it up. They all looked at the small fire still kindled inside it.

  “She’s still alive, see?” said Edie. “There’s still fire.”

  The Friar squinted closer. “There’s still fire,” he agreed.

  “So she’s still alive,” insisted Edie.

  He grimaced. “There’s still fire. What that means is beyond me.”

  “Means she’s still alive somewhere. And I was told she was dead,” persisted Edie.

  She took a deep breath. Whatever was going to happen next was going to knock her world on its ear, she knew that. A heady mix of anticipation and something very close to fear began to flood her system. Her mouth was suddenly dry, and she was certain that the Friar could hear her heart pounding.

  “So how does this work?” she asked the Raven. “How do you find my mum in all those choices?”

  She pointed at the slices of time in the mirrors as the reflections banked up and away to vanishing point.

  The Raven clacked its beak once, looked at the Friar, who nodded shortly, and then nipped the heart stone clean out of Edie’s fingers.

  And swallowed it.

  “You are joking!” said Edie in disbelief.

  As the Friar reached above his head and twisted the great outer ring of the roof mosaic, the Raven flew into the mirror, and Edie leaped after it without thinking, determined not to let it escape with the last memory of her mother.

  “No!” she cried.

  And then she was falling through the layers in the mirrors, a terrible sideways rushing vertigo making her gag into silence. She seemed to fall like this for a long time, and as she fell she had the sensation of the black bird flying raggedly alongside her. She twisted to see what exactly she was falling and flashing past, but all she saw was black strobing in a way that made her feel very nauseous, and then she landed.

  She landed in the snow, between two cars in a street, hard up against the sheer wall of the ice murk. She was in one of the ley line canyons—slivers of clear air—that intersected the fog. It took her a moment to get her bearings as she looked at the section of church sticking out of the murk, and the graveyard wall to her right with its gate topped by stone skulls. Then she knew exactly where she was. She stumbled through the gates, following the Raven.

  And then she was in the cramped graveyard at Ghastly Grim, the last place she’d been free before the Walker captured her and took her to the Frost Fair. The place where she had hurriedly buried her own heart stone at the foot of an ancient grave marker.

  “Aemilia Bowles,” she said, looking at the words carved into the stone tablet, now topped by a toadstool cap of snow.

  The Raven dropped to the ground and started scratching away.

  “Here, I’ll do it,” she said, and swept snow aside, revealing the earth beneath. She tore and scrabbled at it until her fingers found what she was looking for. She pulled her piece of sea-glass from the ground and wiped the mud from it.

  The raven clacked its beak.

  Edie nodded and closed her fingers around her own heart stone. Something quietly clicked into place inside her, and she felt stronger. Her mother’s heart stone had kept her going, but it wasn’t quite the real thing.

  This was.

  “Thanks,” she said. />
  The Raven led her out of the gates and back into the street. It flew eerily straight into the side mirror of one of the parked cars, and Edie took a deep breath and just stuck her hand in after it and jumped.

  Again she fell through the strong darkness, wondering if the strobing was in fact the regular wing beats of the Raven just ahead of her. And then she landed.

  It wasn’t a hard landing. It was as if she’d just stumbled on grass. She felt the warm green under her outstretched hands at the same time that she saw it. She stared at the ground in front of her nose, getting her breath.

  It was bright and hot and noisy all around her. After the churchlike gloom of the pub and the snow-deadened city, the London she had fallen into was glaring, summery, and boisterous with sound.

  Perhaps it was the sudden contrast, but she felt painfully sensitive to the sensations crowding in on her all at once. The colors seemed too bright, the heat too hot, and the noise . . . the noise was too loud and too various. Cars were passing, people were talking and laughing, and music was bleeding over everything. She could hear a man’s voice on a nearby radio, skating over a choppy guitar and a skanking bass, singing insistently about not wanting to go to Chelsea.

  There was the thump of a passing lorry, and in the wash of air as it went by, some purple foil blew into the narrow green world of grass she was focused on. It was a purple she knew, a distinctive chocolate-wrapper purple, but as it flipped over and caught the sun, she saw white curvy writing that spelt Aztec—the name of a bar she’d never seen before. Somehow a memory was kindled, not a visual one, but before she could chase it down, a man nearby shouted, and the wrapper blew under a bench beside her.

  “Oi. Litterbug. Pick it up!”

  Edie raised her head and looked around on reflex, thinking the man was shouting at her. It took her a moment to get her bearings before she saw him and the young girl he was shouting at. In that moment she saw a stone building with Tudor windows and a small white-capped clock tower; as she continued to turn, she saw that the old building was just one side of a lopsided square, the other sides of which were hemmed in by much more modern buildings. Then she saw the corner of a huge barnlike structure in a road leading toward her, and she recognized it as Smithfield Meat Market. It took her a moment to do so, because, although she had walked past it many times as she moved around the city, she had never walked past it thirty years ago.