The Masked City
Page 26
She had to keep him focused. ‘Kai,’ she said. ‘Stay with us. We have a plan to get out of here, but there are men on our trail. We need to get back through Venice to reach the Fae Train, our route in and out of there, but I don’t think you can tolerate that world in your proper form.’
Kai looked at her, his eyes suddenly all black. For a moment the fern-patterns of scales were visible on the skin of his cheeks and hands, and the lines of his face were something inhuman and terrifying.
Irene returned his stare. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she said. It would have been easier to take him by the shoulders and ask him to be the man she had come to trust. But it would have been treating him as a human, and at the moment he was a very long way from that.
‘You have no idea what you are asking of me,’ Kai whispered. There was an undertone to his voice, deep and resonant, like the leashed boom of distant waves.
Irene was conscious of Vale taking a step back, but she would not look away from Kai, would not break their eye contact. ‘No,’ she said, ‘but I expect you to do it, in any case.’
Kai took a long gasping breath of air - and then something snapped and he was all human again, staggering forward to throw his arms around her shoulders and lean on her, his whole body shaking. Thunder shook the air outside, closer now. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, barely audible. ‘I’m sorry, Irene, I wanted to believe that someone would come, but I thought there was no way anyone could reach me here.’
The ground trembled under their feet. A slow, booming wave beat through the stone like a pulse or, Irene realized, like an alarm.
‘We have no time for this,’ Vale said curtly, a second before she could. ‘Can you walk, Strongrock?’
Kai pulled himself away from Irene, his breathing slowing. She patted him on the back, trying to be reassuring and mentor-like, rather than showing just how much she cared. ‘I think we’ve triggered an alert,’ she said.
‘Then we had better hurry,’ Vale said.
They stepped outside, and suddenly it became clear that the thunder in the air and the pulse through the rock hadn’t been some small atmospheric curiosity. Being inside the pillar had shielded them from the oppressive storm-wind that was now sweeping through the place. Tremors shook the ground. Irene had disliked the sterile quietness before, but this new brewing tempest was not an improvement. She quickly closed the cell door with the Language to cover their tracks, sparing a vengeful moment to hope that Lord Guantes would be shocked to find the cell empty.
Rocks fell in the far distance, and their hollow booming rang out across the landscape of bridges and arches like distant cannons. It felt as if the shaking was getting closer to them. No, she wasn’t imagining it. The shaking was getting closer to them.
‘We’d better run,’ she said, and they did.
Vale gave Kai a quick briefing on the last couple of days as they made the long trip back to the prison’s entrance. Irene put in a word here or there, but on the whole she saved her breath for running. It also gave her a better chance to scrutinize Kai. He seemed in reasonable physical health, with no serious injuries. His bruises didn’t look worse than a thug’s casual beating (something that had happened to Irene once or twice) - apart from the livid mark left by the collar around his neck. But he was still diminished. He lacked his usual self-assurance, his unthinking certainty that he was the most powerful thing in the vicinity. Possibly good for his health in the long term, but still … I wish it hadn’t happened. And I don’t know how he’ll hold up in a fight.
As they descended the flight of stairs, Kai spotted something. ‘Hold on,’ he said. ‘Can we pause for a moment?’
Irene followed his gaze. There was nothing there except a still pool of water. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it was intensely ominous, probably full of things with too many tentacles and too many teeth. Although nothing had tried to eat them yet.
‘Only a moment.’ Vale frowned; the rockfalls were getting closer. ‘The guards we bested will certainly have raised the alarm by now. And that noise, whatever it is—’
‘Either it’s an alarm,’ Irene said, ‘and we’re being pursued. Or I’ve fundamentally damaged this place’s nature by using the Language - so it’s tearing itself apart and the ceiling’s falling down. I’m not sure that’s much better.’
Kai knelt by the edge of the pool and cupped water in his hands, pouring it over his head. It ran down over his hair and in trickles down his shirt, plastering it to his body. He sighed in relief, closing his eyes and splashing his face. ‘It’s safe enough,’ he said, turning back to Vale and Irene as he rose to his feet. ‘I just needed to clean myself. There’s nothing alive in those waters.’
‘Or anywhere else in this place,’ Vale said. ‘Except for the prisoners, I fear. Do you think they could get free, Winters?’
‘It’d be stupid to have an alarm system that let all the prisoners loose when it went off,’ Irene said. A spatter of dust drifted down from the spur of an arch above them, and the pool’s surface shifted in long dark ripples. The instability was getting much closer. ‘Run now, talk later?’ she suggested.
The ground shuddered under them as they began running again. Pieces of the upper bridgework and pillars began to tumble from above, crashing to the ground in great explosions of sound and sprays of marble shards. It was like the slow unfolding of a nightmare, where the falling rocks and rising wind were always just behind them, forcing them to stumble onwards, their muscles aching, panting for breath, not allowing them to rest. They couldn’t afford to stop. Stonework was giving way less than a hundred yards behind them now, dropping pieces into the huge chasms. Distant shrieking came through the howling of the wind, as unseen prisoners cried their rage into the storm. All Irene could focus on was running, putting one foot in front of another, and on the exit ahead. They had to get out before the destruction caught up with them, or they were all lost. There should be only a couple of bridges now between them and the exit, and if they could just make it in time …
Then a cold realization spiked through her mind. We’re not escaping, we’re being driven like panicked rabbits. And where you have a hunter driving rabbits, there’s a snare at the other end.
She forced herself to look up and around, scanning the horizon rather than the path to the bridge directly ahead. And that was how she caught the glint of light on the gun. With an effort that made her legs scream in pain, she pushed herself forward and slammed into Vale, knocking him down as the bullet ricocheted only a few inches from his head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
All three of them hit the floor with varying degrees of style, and Irene desperately hoped the bridge’s marble railings and pillars would block any but the luckiest of shots.
Crawling forward on her belly, she peered through its railings in the direction of the shooting and could see a squad of half a dozen disciplined-looking guards. They were on a ramp that curled up the side of a pillar, level with the centre of the bridge, giving them a rather too convenient firing point. The one who had fired his long gun was reloading with cool efficiency, while the others were kneeling, ready to fire.
‘Those look like muzzle-loaded rifles,’ Vale hissed.
‘What do you mean?’ she muttered.
‘I mean that they are very accurate, Winters.’ Fresh blood from his exertions had stained his makeshift bandage. ‘That shot was not meant to hit me. It was meant to frighten us.’
‘If I hadn’t knocked you down, it would’ve hit you!’ Irene snapped, having to raise her voice now, for it to carry above the sound of crashing rock. ‘Vale, they definitely want to take Kai alive, they might even want to take me alive, but I don’t think they mind killing you! For heaven’s sake, stay down!’
‘Hells,’ Kai muttered. He wriggled sideways, lifting himself up a fraction to check the other end of the bridge. ‘And the railings cut out, once we get to the far end, which means we’d be an open target. But if they’re not trying to bring us down, they’re here to kee
p us trapped …’ He swallowed.
Until someone else gets here to deal with us. Irene’s right wrist throbbed from a remembered grip, and she rested it against the cold stone. ‘Can we go back?’ she asked.
‘We were less than ten minutes from the entrance,’ Vale growled. ‘If we turn back now and take a different route, we may not be able to find the entrance again, and we’d lose more time anyway.’
Irene tried to think. They’d made it this far. She would not accept failure. ‘Kai, if you change form—’
‘I’d be a sitting target before I could take flight,’ Kai said quickly ‘And even if they’re holding fire on me right now, we can’t assume they’ll continue to do so.’
Irene sighed. She hadn’t even reached the part about and then you escape on your own, while Vale and I make our way out separately, but she suspected he’d seen it coming and rejected it.
‘We are likely too high up to try dropping from the bridge,’ Vale said, peering round a pillar to see what lay beneath them. ‘Hmm. Another of those vast artificial reservoirs. It looks like it holds plenty of water, which could break our fall, but there’s no way of knowing how deep it is. And the pillar those soldiers have claimed is pretty much touching the far side.’
Irene wondered if his calm was a front. They were caught between the destruction behind them and the men in front, with a razor pendulum counting down the time they had left. She needed to run, to hurry, to try something, if only she knew what.
‘Wait.’ Kai’s voice was suddenly commanding. ‘Let me have a look.’ He snaked along to the next pillar, pulling himself up to inspect the water below. ‘Hmm. A good hundred feet down. That wouldn’t do for you, no. But that body of water is huge - it looks big enough. And deep enough.’
‘Deep enough for what?’ Vale demanded.
‘To rouse it. There’s nothing living there to stop me.’
‘Kai—’ Irene began, but he was already moving.
‘Stay down.’ With a nod to her and Vale, he rose to his feet, swinging over the rail in a single motion. A bullet, fired too late, hit the stone and chipped it.
Irene bit back a near-scream, leaning between the pillars and watching as Kai fell. He converted the jump into a dive as gracefully as any professional athlete and plunged into the water. It seemed to rise to receive him, flashing like liquid mercury as he vanished into its darkness.
For a moment nothing happened. Her throat closed up and she was barely able to swallow. Vale’s hands gripped one of the pillars, and she could see his knuckles showing white through the flesh.
Then the water bulged upwards in a dome, and Kai rose within it. He drifted upwards with no apparent effort until he stood on the dome’s very tip, the water seemingly as solid as glass. Irene found it hard to watch, as the soldiers suspended against their pillar seemed all too close. But Kai raised his hand as they aimed, and a wave rolled across the vast sunken reservoir towards them. It uncoiled like a serpent’s tongue, gathering speed as it rose. It reached up and outwards in response to the movement of Kai’s hand, crashing down on the soldiers’ small platform with an unnatural weight. The wash of water sent them scattering, and the hollow boom of its falling echoed around the cavern, drowning out the sound of falling rocks for a moment.
‘Move, Winters,’ Vale snapped, as though he hadn’t been flat on his face and watching Kai a moment ago. He caught her elbow to pull her to her feet, and the two of them ran along the bridge to the stairs at the far end, clattering down them without any attempt at stealth.
Kai came strolling across the surface of the water, now raised to their level, to greet them. Water streamed down his clothing and hair and dripped from his hands, until a last rivulet rippled around him like a snake and flowed back into the main body that supported him. ‘The guards are unconscious or injured,’ he reported, lifting his hands to run them through his hair with a sigh. ‘Ah, that feels good. I don’t think the waters outside will be as pleasant. They will have too much of a Fae touch to them.’
‘I didn’t know you could do that,’ Irene said, at a loss for words. She was feeling light-headed. Perhaps they even had a chance now. She could have kissed Kai - and then her common sense cut in. This was not the time.
And when is the right time or place? an internal voice put in unhelpfully. He just saved your life. He’s standing there with his clothing clinging to him. It’s not as if he would try to stop you. In fact, the way he’s looking at you …
‘Can you do it again?’ Vale said urgently.
‘Oh yes.’ Kai rolled his shoulders, the muscles in his chest flexing. ‘The waters will obey my will - here, at least. I may have more difficulty outside.’
‘I don’t think that you’ll be able to assert your authority against the Ten in Venice,’ Irene warned him, and the moment passed.
‘I was thinking of here, not there,’ Vale said, beckoning them into motion again. A piece of rock shivered and cracked away from near his feet, and Irene caught his arm to steady him. ‘Winters, if I remember correctly, there was another large body of water close to the staircase leading into this place?’ She nodded in agreement. ‘Well then, what if Strongrock can move the water from its basin and raise it up to the level of that staircase? And carry us along with it? I know he can keep us safe in the water, as he’s done it before. The Ten might be able to stop a few humans coming down the stairs, but they might have more difficulty with an oncoming tidal wave clearing our path.’
‘I suppose that gravity will take care of most threats,’ Kai agreed.
Irene imagined it. Water sluicing down the stairs into St Mark’s Square in a great torrent. She liked it. But despite Vale’s casual optimism, she couldn’t help feeling there might still be some personal safety issues. ‘We’ll still need to exit the Campanile into Venice itself,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘It would be astonishing if guards weren’t waiting for us outside. But yes, if the momentum of the water is great enough after it’s flooded down the length of the tower, they’ll be unable to stand in its way. Kai, can you do this while actually keeping us - well, alive?’
Kai took a moment to think about it, which wasn’t quite as reassuring as Irene would have liked, but then he nodded. ‘It may be uncomfortable, but you’ll be safe,’ he said.
‘Excellent,’ Vale said. ‘Ah, we are almost there. Strong-rock, once we cross that open area, we will come to that final lake I mentioned. There is a last high bridge across it, which will take us almost to the exit. They might well have armed guards posted there - it’s what I would do. You may need to rouse the water to wash them away first. Do you think you can do it?’ He turned to meet Kai’s eyes.
‘It will be my pleasure,’ Kai said. ‘But this place is coming apart. What if I end up damaging the exit?’
‘It’s still our best option,’ Irene said firmly, deciding to keep her worries to herself. ‘Besides, have you noticed that the earth-tremors have slacked off a little? Maybe their purpose was to drive us into the ambush—’
More rubble fell - nearly on top of them this time - and the marble paving shivered under their feet, cracking into fragments. A huge gust of wind made them all stagger.
‘Or maybe not. Let’s get this done fast,’ Irene said hastily. She didn’t add Because it may be listening, but she could see it in their faces.
They moved forward together at a run. Caution was pointless now, for the crashing stone and the wind drowned out any noise they made - and there was no sign of guards or snipers as they mounted the last bridge.
Almost no sign. Irene caught a flash of red, a sleeve hastily pulled back into cover, violently obvious against the colourless marble.
‘You think it’s clear?’ Kai asked, his voice pitched just loud enough to be heard.
‘No, look there,’ Irene said, pointing, her voice equally low. ‘They’ll be sitting on top of the entrance, just waiting for us to come to them.’
‘It was all too likely,’ Vale agreed. ‘Now, as we planned, Strongrock.’
The arched length of bridge shook beneath them.
If they went forward, they might be running into an ambush. If they stayed where they were, she and Vale could end up crushed. ‘Stone, hold together!’ Irene shouted as loudly as she could. Her voice wouldn’t carry to the ceiling, but if it could just keep the bridge together for long enough, Kai could deal with the soldiers.
Screams carried over the noise of falling rocks from ahead of them. Beneath Irene’s feet a long crack ran through the bridge, black against the white marble, tracing across it like a child’s scribble. The bridge groaned underneath them in a long roar of fracturing stone, but it stayed in one piece.
Irene and Vale exchanged a glance, then decided that an ambush was the lesser danger. The marble paving was a heaving surface under them as they ran, still holding together but trembling against the forces threatening to shake it apart. It was barely possible to hear anything now, above the shuddering tumble of stone and the screaming wind.
‘Over here!’ Kai roared in a voice almost too loud for human lungs. ‘I’ve cleared our path!’
There was a clear ping as something rang against the marble rail beside Irene. At first she thought it was a fragment of stone, then she recognized it as a bullet. ‘Oh no, he hasn’t,’ she muttered.
‘It may be the best he can do,’ Vale shouted through the wind. He had paused at the sound of the bullet, like her, and was looking around desperately. ‘Winters, there’s no other way out of here, we must risk it. Come on!’
It was quite true. But a Librarian couldn’t speak fast enough to stop a bullet. They were about halfway across, so the considerable remaining length of bridge was downhill, but that wasn’t much help …