by Simon Morden
Where would Crows be now? He’d be making his way downriver, towards the place he called a portal. With that, the unbidden urge to stretch her wings again launched her into the air, flapping quickly to gain height, climbing over the growing wall and heading south.
The land was in darkness, and still she could see. There was the lake she’d swum in, half a day’s walk she could now make in a fraction of the time, there was the river, flowing out to sea, the broad, braided delta with its shallows and bars, there was the bay, curving like horns, where the waves tore in and broke themselves on the sloping shingle beach.
And there, there was the long ridge, looking like the spine of the world, except that when it reached the coast, its back was broken and beyond the cliff was a line of broken rubble extending as far out as a stack of rock, surrounded by the ever-moving sea.
She flew towards it, and a thin sickle of a moon had started to rise when she had proper sight of it, still miles away in the distance. Below her, the forest stretched out, and the river shone silver. There was movement there, and her sharp eyes picked out dark figures moving through the scrub and reeds.
Yes, there were wolves, but they were not all wolves. Two wolves, six men, in a ragged line, from the main, broad channel of the river to the edge of the forest. If any of them had looked up, they would have seen nothing. She was far above them, and travelling silently.
She circled them as they made their sweep towards the sea. They were looking for someone, someones, but didn’t have a scent yet. Perhaps there were more survivors coming through the portal, and the wolfman had been sent to collect them in the same way he’d come for her group.
Or perhaps they were looking for Crows. She thought she’d find him first, and depending on what he had to say, she might tell him he was being hunted.
The seas around the stack boomed and shook, the swell heaving against the broken rock around its base. She flew once around the pillar of rock, twice, three times, getting lower with each pass. She instinctively avoided the spray, but in amongst the flashes off the rock faces, she could detect something moving at the wave-washed base, clambering over the boulders.
It was no more than a pool of darkness, gliding from shadow to shadow, but she knew what that meant and who hid beneath it.
She swung back up to the top of the stack, contending with cross-winds and updraughts, and landed on the weather-struck rock. The wind continued to ruffle her feathers, and when she looked out over the ocean, she could see the lowest quarter of the moon blocked off by a band of black cloud.
The stack was larger than she’d thought: any bigger and she would have called it an island. To seaward, it sloped down to a rocky beach, but it rose from that low point to form cliffs on the other sides. She couldn’t climb, and she couldn’t talk. All that came out was a screech. Having found Crows, she couldn’t get close enough to him. Not as a bird, and even as she crouched low over the ground to stop the wind buffeting her, she wondered what she could do.
She hadn’t always been that way, even though it felt as natural as breathing. She remembered walking upright, swinging arms as she did so. She’d had hands that gripped, a strange flat face with a curious button nose and lips that could pout, and hair that fell from the crown of her head in black coils. She had a tongue, sharp and quick.
She was cold. She stumbled, and she steadied herself with a five-fingered thing that it took her a moment to recognise. She was still bruised and cut, and now she was also in her vest and pants, exposed to the strengthening salt gale.
The muscle in her mouth lengthened and thickened. She could taste copper and bile.
‘F… Fu …’ she mouthed. She had teeth, and tried not to bite herself as she formed the word. ‘Fuck.’
For a moment, she wrapped herself in the strange-angled limbs she had instead of wings and lay in a rough rock-bowl, rocking against the sudden pain and shock, trying to cushion her mind from the sense of howling loss.
She could no longer fly. She’d put it down and she didn’t know whether she could ever take it up again.
Slowly, she unwound, and had to relearn how to stand on feet, and how to use knees, and how to swing hips. Awkwardly, stutteringly, she started down the slope to the shoreline.
It came back to her. She could fumble her way around the base of the cliffs. Sometimes she had to cling on to the rocks as the waves rushed up and tried to suck her down. From cold, she went to freezing numb, but she carried on.
‘Crows? Crows, you bastard. Come out.’ She’d lost her falcon’s sight when she’d lost her falconhood.
A wave drew down strongly behind her, and returned twice as hard. She gasped as the wall of green water hit her, and gasped again as her fingers started to tear free.
A hand came down and lifted her easily out of the surf.
‘Climb higher,’ said Crows. ‘There is a ledge.’
He half-carried her up, and set her down before shrugging off his sea-drenched cloak and wrapping her in it.
‘How did you find me? Where are your clothes?’
‘You stole my map,’ she said, drawing the edges of the cloak around her as tight as she could.
‘And you lied about the portal.’ The whites of his eyes and the white of his teeth as he hissed out his words were all she could see.
‘I did not. It was here.’
‘It is not here now, Mary, and portals do not vanish. They exist in both worlds: that is what gives them power.’
‘This one disappeared. It just went.’
Crows took her by the shoulders and shook her. ‘They do not vanish,’ he repeated. ‘Where is it, really?’
‘It’s here. Here.’ She shook herself free and looked around. There was the headland, and the line of broken rock leading to the stack. ‘There. We stepped out into the sea right there.’
He left her and went to where she pointed, and she followed, still trying to hold his black cloak around her.
‘There is nothing here,’ he shouted over the boom of the waves.
‘It disappeared. It looked like the entrance to an Underground station, and then it disappeared, even as I was looking at it. What does it mean, Crows? Why did it go?’
Crows slapped at the rock with his hands and gave a grunt of frustration. The cliff was blank: no door, no brickwork, no faded sign. The sea swallowed up their feet, regurgitated them again.
‘The portal I came through is still there, though it is closed to me. I have seen other portals too. I have never heard of one just vanishing before.’
‘But it was here. Just … here.’ She scrubbed the spray from her face. ‘I thought they all did that, after you pass through. Fade away until they’re opened again.’
‘No. And the power that comes from them connects with other portals. With this one dead, the lines will have shifted.’ He hit the rock again, just to make sure. ‘Are you telling me the truth, Mary? Was the portal really here?’
‘Yes. It was right here. Now it’s not.’ She turned away and started to pick her way back to the seaward slope.
He was following her, but only when she was out of the surf and up on dry land did she face him again. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Why? Because I had to. Such knowledge is precious, and we each guard our own carefully. I told you as much.’ He reached out for his cloak, his long fingers snagging the hem and pulling it towards him. She resisted.
‘You could have copied my map, and I wouldn’t have minded.’
The thought seemed to confuse him.
‘You watched me do it. All you had to do was ask. I even owed you: you saved me from the wolfman, you took me to your castle, you fed me and taught me about magic.’ She was cold to the bone, and still she shivered at the realisation. ‘You did all that just to get me to tell you where the portal was, didn’t you?’
‘No. Not all. My motives were … confused.’
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‘The fuck they were, Crows. I thought we were, I don’t know, friends.’
He looked away. ‘People like us do not have friends. We are kings and queens, Mary, and we are naturally rivals. We raise castles, we must rule alone: it is for others to obey us willingly or otherwise.’
‘Fuck you, Crows. Fuck you.’
‘You want it,’ he said. ‘You want to be your Red Queen. It is always what you want to be.’
‘Not like that.’
‘However else? There is only one way: seize power and keep tight hold of it. I have let mine slip away, so now I must take my leave and try my luck elsewhere: this portal has gone, and without it the castle will fall.’
‘I’m sorry. It wasn’t my fault.’
‘Sorry?’ He blinked. ‘Sorry? Do not be sorry. This is momentous. This will shake Down to the roots of its mountains. I can sell this knowledge, and it will make me rich. Do not be sorry, Mary.’ He pulled harder at his cloak, and gathered a handful in his fist. ‘Now, I have to go.’
‘You can’t,’ she said. She wasn’t going to tell him, but it just came out. ‘The wolfman is on the shore, looking for you.’
‘Is he? You managed to slip past him, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t … It wasn’t like that.’
‘The wolfman can howl at the moon until his throat is raw. He will not catch me. I doubt he will even see me.’ His expression softened slightly. ‘A geomancer – like her, like me, like you – does not suffer rivals. Stay away from the wolfman, yes?’
He walked towards the shore, and the cloak inexorably slipped from her shoulders. She was cold again.
‘Crows?’
‘Do you remember how you got here?’
‘I, I flew.’
He looked sad and shook his head. ‘I know. I know what you are, I know what you are becoming. I have done what I can to help you, but this has come upon you too soon, Mary. Far too soon. It will master you and leave you nothing but a beast, with a beast’s mind, and no memory of what you were. Even now you are struggling to remember.’
He kept on walking, down the rocky shore and into the sea. She wondered what he was doing, what he thought he was doing. The waves lashed him, breaking over his head, and still he kept on.
When he was past his waist, he turned, opened his arms wide and fell backwards into the foam-flecked water. The sea took him.
‘You’re wrong! I do remember,’ she shouted after his wake. ‘I remember everything.’
The sea boiled and seethed, and a sinuous coil of scales burst out and up. It roiled and rolled, then submerged with a smack and a clap. A head, serpentine, sleek and glistening, emerged in its place, blinking a pale membrane across its dark eyes. It kept on rising until it towered over Mary, then it looked down at her, indifferent to her fate, peering at her as if she was nothing more than a rock or a flower: a specimen, interesting for a moment, but ultimately forgettable.
The head turned, plunged down into the deep, the body following in an arc of writhing water. The tail, fringed with spiny fins, flicked up for a moment – and then it was gone, and she was left freezing to death on an island in an unknown sea, the wind and the waves tearing at her.
She knew there was only one way off, the way she’d arrived. She’d never swim to shore, and if she tried, the wolfman would only find her drowned, limp body washed up on the strand line.
By the time she reached the edge of the cliff overlooking the headland, she could barely feel her skin. She was disembodied. And as if in a dream, a dream in which she could fly, she staggered – just like Crows had walked into the water – stiff-legged to the precipice and tumbled over the edge.
24
‘I can get through the window, if I can get up there.’
Stanislav thought hard, chin on chest. Then he raised his head. ‘If you fall, you will alert the guards. But it is our best option. Otherwise, we will have to face them anyway, and the geomancer will know we are coming.’
Dalip had never climbed anything more complicated than gym equipment. There was a parapet he could stand on, and then a rough stone wall to ascend. He’d have to traverse to the window. He had no idea if he could actually accomplish what he’d just said he’d do.
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said. He looked up at the tower, at its shadows and shapes, and he felt sweat prickle his fingertips.
‘Go, if you are going,’ said Stanislav, pushing him back out the door.
‘Good luck,’ whispered Mama, and Dalip caught her nervous smile. He nodded, then did the crouching run back across the bridge. In the darkness of the recess, he peered over the parapet at the fire in the courtyard below.
It was bright, bright enough to rob anyone near it of their night sight. A couple of benches had been dragged out of the squat building near it, and there were three, no four, men sitting, drinking and talking. If he was careful and quiet, he’d not be seen. How was he going to carry the knife so that it wouldn’t drop out? He thought about the waistband of his kachera, and a pocket in his boilersuit. Neither of those was certain. He looked at the blade, and lifted it to his mouth. He closed his teeth on it, and now the taste on his tongue wasn’t his own blood.
He climbed up on the parapet on the far side from the fire. It was wide enough that he could get both feet side-by-side on the top. The drop to his left was precipitous, though, and perhaps he shouldn’t think about that.
His hands, resting on the wall, explored its surface. The blocks were big, but there were gaps between them. With boots on, he’d have no chance, but because he was barefooted, he could squeeze his toes into the holds.
There was nothing else for it. He’d run out of reasons to delay, and he reached above his head to feel for a crack. Once he was as confident as he was going to be that he could maintain his grip, he slid the inside of his foot up the cold face of the wall and turned his big toe into a piton.
He straightened his leg at the same time as pulling with his arm. He was up, clinging to the wall like a spider. He took his time to find the next foothold and handhold, and when he’d pulled himself up on those, his initial arm was sore with effort. He was trying too hard: he needed to be more instinctive, climb it like he would a ladder.
Smoothly then, foot and fingers, up, drawing level with the bottom of the window. Again, and now he was halfway up. The wind pulled at him. The loose grit in the gaps needed brushing out in case it caused him to slip. He didn’t need to look down, so he didn’t.
Part of him was aware that what he was doing was dangerous, outrageous, ridiculous. The other part told him he was doing something good and brave, and his grandfather would have argued against Dalip’s parents for him to be allowed to do it. That this was his duty, his honour, his right, to risk everything to help his friends.
He was at the same height as the window. He stretched out with his foot, found his next foothold, and slid across the wall, turning his head to the direction of travel. Below him, across the courtyard, the men were still drinking. If they’d looked up and away from the fire, they’d have spotted him, an orange figure spreadeagled against the side of the tower. But they concentrated on the dancing flames and their conversation, and Dalip carried on.
Another move closer. If he reached out now, he could stand on the window ledge. It’d also make him visible to anyone in the room beyond. He listened for voices, and decided that he’d just have to risk it. He eased himself across and got a good handhold on the other side.
There was a curtain over the window, hanging down inside from a rod on the lintel, obscuring him from view – a stroke of luck. He listened again, and when he heard nothing, he quickly slipped through, still behind the curtain, turning sideways and searching for the floor with his foot. He found it. The effort of the last few minutes burned in his muscles, but he’d done it. He made sure he had firm hold of the knife before unclenching his jaw.
He peeked around the side of the heavy curtain. It seemed to be a dimly lit room, and after a moment’s hesitation, he stepped out, knife ready.
There was no one there. He quickly crossed the bare floor to listen at the only door, and only then took notice of what else was there. He was in some sort of store room, with floor-to-ceiling shelves on the walls holding jars and boxes of all sizes and shapes. A table was covered with clutter, things that looked like the results of a primary-school nature ramble: stones rough and smooth, mottled leaves and snapped twigs, the bleached white bones of small animals long-since passed.
He wasn’t there to poke around, though. He lifted the latch on the store-room door and opened it a sliver. The curtain behind him rustled and lifted in the draught, and the wind moaned through, carrying with it the unmistakable tap-tap of someone on the staircase beyond. He eased the door shut and waited for them to pass.
The tapping got louder, and against his expectations he recognised it as the sound of the steward’s silver-topped cane on the stone floor. Dalip held his breath. The tapping stopped with a scratch, and the latch clacked up on its own.
He had nowhere to hide but behind the opening door. He squeezed himself in the angle and stayed utterly silent as the steward, dressed in his customary black, entered and went straight to the table with its collection of dead things.
The steward had a tray with him. He pushed it on the table and began to arrange some of the items on it. His gloved hand hovered over some, rejecting them, and plucking others up as worthy.
Dalip realised that he was going to be spotted the instant the man turned. He wondered if he could sneak out while the steward was busy, but he was scared even to move. The heavy boilersuit wasn’t the stealthiest of clothing, and he was certain to be heard.