Down Station

by Simon Morden

  There was only one possible course of action. He raised the knife and took the two short steps up behind the bent black back. He snaked an arm around the man’s neck and pressed the knife hard into his side.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Dalip. ‘Whatever it is you think you can do, I can kill you quicker.’

  The steward stiffened. The hand that was resting in the top of his cane flexed, and Dalip tightened his grip.

  ‘Put it on the table. Slowly.’

  He lifted the cane and gently slid it in amongst the discards, next to the tray.

  ‘You’re not the Slav. The little Sikh boy, then.’

  Dalip didn’t respond. The cane safely out of the man’s hand, he dragged him back a couple of steps so that it was out of reach too.

  ‘If you’re hoping to escape, it’s not going to work.’

  Dalip thought they seemed to be doing all right so far, but kept it to himself.

  ‘We’re going down the stairs.’ He thought of all the hackneyed phrases he’d seen in films during situations just like this, and decided that his captive was intelligent enough to know what was required of him.

  He steered him out of the door. The staircase was a spiral, stone steps that were wedges around a central column. It was going to be difficult to keep in close contact down them, but his prisoner’s comfort wasn’t his concern. There were noises off: the creak of wood from above, a more metallic clatter from below. He couldn’t hope to deal with everyone – what was important was letting the others in so they’d have a chance at getting to the geomancer.

  Dalip and the steward descended awkwardly, the knife an ever-present inducement to good behaviour, Dalip’s bare feet gripping the narrow steps better than the steward’s booted ones, which slipped on occasions, stretching his neck in the crook of Dalip’s bent elbow. There were other doors off the staircase, but they hadn’t descended quite enough.

  ‘That one. Open it slowly.’

  The steward reached out and twisted the ring, pushed at the door. It swung open. Two women in drab dress looked up from the collection of stone bottles they were refilling and froze in place. Dalip quickly scanned the room, spotted the door he needed to undo on the far side, then looked back at the women.

  Were they slaves, too? Could he enlist them or at least get them not to give the game away?

  ‘If you make a sound, he dies. If you don’t, you get to do whatever it is you want. You can join us, or not, as you choose.’

  They glanced at each other, at the steward, at Dalip, but mainly at the floor, their hands, the bottles on the table. Dalip eased the steward into the room and knocked the door closed with his heel. It didn’t look like he was going to get either co-operation or defiance from them.

  ‘The door over there, the one that leads to the bridge. Can one of you open it?’

  Again, they looked everywhere but at each other. Then, the older one’s head came up, and she brushed a strand of grey hair away that had fallen loose from her tightly tied knot. Despite the hesitant restraining hand of her companion, she walked deliberately around the barrels and racked bottles, and lifted the first of two heavy bars blocking the door.

  ‘Don’t,’ managed the steward before Dalip cut him off with a tightening of his arm.

  She put the bar to one side, then heaved the other from its hasps.

  ‘Open it, and step away. I don’t want you to get hurt.’

  She rested the other bar next to the first, and put her shoulders to dragging the door open. The outside blustered in, and she walked back to Dalip.

  She spat in the steward’s face, then she walked out.

  Dalip felt the steward stiffen, smelt their sour smells of sweat mingle.

  ‘You can go too, if you want,’ he told the other woman. ‘But don’t do anything that’ll stop us.’

  She nodded. She looked young and scared, not just of the steward, but of him. He’d always thought of himself, on the rare occasions that he did, as a quiet boy, a good boy, dutiful and diligent. Certainly not someone to be frightened of, yet there he was, ready to drive a knife into someone’s side if they so much as spoke out of turn.

  Luiza poked her head around the opened door, and waved the others on. They crept in, doubled over, then stretched out. Stanislav was last in and pushed the door firmly shut.

  ‘Where is she?’ asked Stanislav.

  ‘Up, I think,’ and he had the presence of mind to ask. ‘The geomancer’s at the top of the tower, right?’

  The serving girl was watching them all with amazement, her hands clutched over her mouth. Then she nodded.

  ‘Why is he still alive?’ said Stanislav. He barred the door behind him, pushing the thick wooden bars back into place.

  ‘Because he’s useful.’

  ‘His use is at an end. Finish him.’

  ‘He can get us close to the geomancer.’ Still, despite everything, Dalip was reluctant to be ruthless, even though he knew it was costly and he wasn’t the only one paying.

  ‘He will get us all killed.’ Stanislav held his club low and squared up to the steward. ‘I have met his kind before: the ones that are more vicious, more cruel than the generals they serve. They are not driven by any ideology, only by the desire to do evil and the permission to do so.’ He leaned forward into the man’s face. ‘Am I not right?’

  If he was, the steward didn’t offer an opinion.

  ‘Gag him, tie his hands. Elena, keep a watch on the stairs. Mama, check the room for anything we can use.’

  Dalip forced the steward to his knees. Luiza grabbed a scrap of cloth from the bottling table, wodging it into a damp ball and presenting it to the steward’s mouth. He resisted, and Dalip had to make him open his mouth by twisting the knife-point through his close-woven clothing and into his skin. When he gasped at the pain, Luiza jammed the cloth in. His breathing became noisily nasal, and he tried to cough it out. She slapped him hard, once, twice. He glared at her, and she raised her hand for a third time. He flinched, and her lips twisted into a smile.

  She tied the gag into place with length of cord, and since she seemed to know what she was doing, Dalip forced him to the floor and made him offer his hands for her to bind behind his back. It looked to Dalip that she was cutting his circulation off, the bonds digging deep into his wrists as she twisted and wound. But she was taking some degree of pleasure in doing so, and the steward was in no condition to complain.

  The man was going to die soon, and it didn’t really matter how tightly he was tied: Dalip still couldn’t accept that, though, and tried to imagine a scenario where he didn’t have to kill everyone in order to make them leave him alone.

  Mama had found nothing much useful, but she’d dragged a crate of stoneware bottles containing a sharp, clear spirit into the open space. She unstoppered one of the bottles and held it up for Stanislav, who sniffed at the open neck. ‘That will burn. Bring some of them.’

  Dalip dragged the steward upright. Since being bound, he had become more compliant.

  ‘Is there anything we should know before going up the stairs?’ Dalip asked the serving girl. ‘Anything that’ll make it difficult for us?’

  ‘Are you going to kill her?’

  ‘That depends,’ he said. Stanislav narrowed his eyes at him, but said nothing. ‘We need to know how to get past the dragon, so we’re guessing we need her alive for that.’

  The serving girl blinked.

  ‘We must go,’ said Stanislav. ‘Strike now, while we still can.’

  ‘No, wait.’ Dalip held the steward’s coat by his collar. ‘What are we missing?’

  The serving girl was shaking with confusion. ‘The mistress and the wyvern.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She is … she is the wyvern.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Dalip.

  ‘She changes between woman and beast.’
r />   ‘You have got to be joking.’

  ‘No.’

  No wonder the steward had been so confident, so arrogant. They burst into the geomancer’s room at the top of the castle, and within seconds they’re facing a massive, angry dragon. And not some animal, either, but human intelligence and guile.

  ‘What the hell do we do?’

  After a few moments, Stanislav said: ‘Nothing has changed, and now that we know, we can use it to our advantage. If we can get the geomancer before she changes, then we kill both her and the dragon at the same time. We go in hard, all of us. Bring her down. Stop her any way we can.’

  ‘What if she changes first? What if she’s already changed?’ Dalip looked at his knife. It didn’t seem very big now.

  ‘Then we have to kill a dragon instead.’

  Stanislav had only seen the creature in the distance: he didn’t understand quite how fierce it was, nor how large it was. Some of them were going to die in the fight, and the thought made Dalip hesitate.

  ‘What does she value most? If we got hold of that, would she negotiate with us?’ He shook the steward. ‘What about him? Does he mean anything to her?’

  The serving girl looked as if she was about to faint. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know. She keeps all of her treasure with her.’

  ‘This discussion is over,’ said Stanislav. ‘We must attack, kill her, escape. It is all we need to understand.’

  ‘I’m trying to do the right thing here!’ Dalip’s voice started to rise, and he clamped back down on it. ‘There has to be another way.’

  ‘There is no other way. That much is clear.’

  ‘Give me some time with her. Ten minutes. Quarter of an hour. I can talk our way out of this, and no one has to fight.’

  ‘This is foolishness. She will kill you, and she will be warned.’ Stanislav shrugged off Luiza’s hand. ‘I did not think you a coward.’

  ‘I’m not … Look, she’s not going to kill me if she thinks you’re going to burn her tower down with all her treasure in it. Even if she turns into a dragon and flies away, she can’t carry it with her.’

  ‘Once she has turned into a dragon, then killing her becomes so much more difficult. She can keep us trapped here until we starve. Or make another mistake such as this one.’

  ‘I’m not making a mistake. If we rush her, we might win, but we might all get eaten and we’re smarter than that. None of us wants to face a dragon, not if we can help it.’ Dalip pushed the steward in Luiza’s direction. ‘We were told, right at the start, that we could be whatever we wanted to be. We still can. Let me talk to her, tell her we’ve taken her steward and the tower. She’s not stupid.’

  ‘Evil and intelligent is worse.’

  ‘Killing her is not our only option.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Stanislav,’ hissed Elena, ‘let him try.’

  Mama nodded. ‘We can fight, but if we didn’t have to …’

  ‘Make it good,’ said Luiza, and Stanislav could only growl in frustration.

  ‘This is not the plan.’

  ‘The plan went out the window when you decided we’d not wait for the next fight. So don’t complain.’ Dalip wrapped his fingers around the knife handle and stepped to the door. ‘I’ll, well. Do my best.’

  25

  She flew along the silver length of the river, with the storm chasing her all the way. The wind blustered at her back, and the black line of cloud came at a gallop, pulled in from the wild ocean by white horses.

  She didn’t know what she’d do when she got there. There was a dragon, and she would fight it in the sky, while the rain lashed down and the thunder cracked. She would throw it down and feel her beak close on its neck, her head shaking with its death-throes. And then she would … what? What could she do after that? Find her friends and perhaps find a way home.

  She thought about that. There was, according to both the wolfman and Crows, no way back to London: but neither of them were the most trustworthy of witnesses, and she’d have to make that judgement for herself, later. The geomancer would have maps of her own they could look at, and once the dragon had gone, she wasn’t going to be able to stop them going through all her things and asking as many questions as they wanted.

  She flew low over the trees, the rush of silvery crowns a blur beneath her, the mountain rising ahead of her, split in two by the river gorge. She flew lower, the walls of rock rising up either side in blank-faced slabs and drawing together, until she was forced to twist and turn in the gap, threading her way like a needle through the weft of the landscape.

  Then she was out, back into the clear air, with the rising wind under her wings. She banked left, spiralling up, keeping an eye on the castle on the flank of the mountain opposite. Once she’d gained height, she overflew the courtyard. The guards had left the security of their fire, and were all at the door of one of the low buildings, rhythmically hammering a long log into the wood, shouting incoherently at each other.

  She dipped her wing and made a tight turn around the main tower, spotting for the first time the balcony cantilevered off the top floor, just below the conical roof. She made another pass and saw that the balcony was not only wide enough to land on, but that a perch – a monstrous perch – had been erected on it.

  Twisting in flight, doing a roll so that she could take in all of the darkening sky, she searched in vain for the dragon. But that perch, scratched and worn by long claws, spoke of its existence. It was here, somewhere.

  The guards had gained access to the building they’d been trying to break into, stumbling in their haste to push through the doorway and into the room beyond. She watched them disappear, and watched them again as they spilled back out, still shouting. After a moment’s argument, they set off at a lumbering run either towards the tall tower, or to the closest set of gates in the outer wall.

  Of course this castle had grown from the ground, just like Crows’ had: it followed that it sat on one of the confluences of energy from the portals, and that the size of it depended on the power of the geomancer and the number of people she could command. Not caring whether the inhabitants were slave or free, Down did the rest.

  But she judged that something was seriously wrong below: guards didn’t normally have to force their way into what they guarded, and the tall tower was at the centre of the noise. The gates leading to the mountain lake were closing, and the ones overlooking the valley would be next. She’d not been able to spot an enemy, either single or several, crossing the bare ground before the castle walls. They were under attack, but from within, not without.

  As she glided over their heads, two of the men went back to collect their impromptu battering ram. The tower, too, was sealed to them.

  Not her, though. She could land and enter: there was still no sign of the dragon, so she decided that it was safe to do so.

  It was as she slowed to grasp the perch that one of the guards spotted her and pointed with a shout. Her wings fluttered against the air as she braked, hovering for a moment before closing her claws on the scored wooden bar. There was nothing that they could do to her from down there: if they’d had a gun, or even a bow and arrow, it’d be a different story. Those with the battering ram renewed their efforts. The others, after gawping up at her, pressed their backs close to the tower’s wall in case she swooped at them.

  The doors in front of her needed hands to open properly. She leant forward to peck at them, her sharp beak rattling the bolts. That didn’t work, but there were other ways to get in. She started a more concerted jabbing and scratching as she tried to break her way through. Every time she pushed, the crack between the doors widened, and she could see flickers of what was inside: a splash of red, a line of silver, something deep green. She kept on, battering at the doors, using her size and her lightning-fast kicks to weaken the fastenings.

  And all of a sudden, they gave, and the doors swung open
, banging against their jambs. Her keen eyes noted all the places inside the room within – bed, table, wall-hangings, boxes, wood, brass, bone, cloth, light, shadow – and finally rested on the woman standing in the centre, leaning heavily on a stick.

  She was dressed in white and gold, her skirts down to the floor, her sleeves as far as her hands. Almost weddingy, but her expression – her whole purple-bruised and black-blooded cut face – held no celebration.

  ‘Have you come for me?’ asked the woman.

  Mary’s gaze skittered behind her to the intricate metal machines set up on benches around the circumference of the room, and didn’t answer. She turned her head in short, sharp jerks to take it all in.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ The woman’s voice was sharp, used to being obeyed. Mary knew the type. Her neck feathers prickled.

  She could just about squeeze in. She’d be at a sudden, and huge, disadvantage. No room to stretch her wings, her head forced against the ceiling, difficult to raise her talons in front of her. Difficult to leave in a hurry, too. The boom-boom-boom echoing up the tower told her that the guards hadn’t broken in yet, but also that it was only a matter of time until they did.

  She had cunning, both as a hawk, and as a veteran of the care system. So no, she wasn’t going to do what the woman wanted. She’d stay outside and keep watch for the dragon. She had almost turned away, when unexpected movement caught her attention. There was a hole in the floor, surrounded by what she’d thought was an odd metal cage, but now she could see was a curving banister.

  A dark mass of long black wavy hair, the hint of an orange collar. He was facing away, then slowly, slowly, his head came around to reveal his face.

  It took her a moment to recognise him. It was a longer moment than it took for him to gasp, and longer still than him spotting a massive bird of prey peering intently at him from the broken balcony doors. That the geomancer stood between them, her back to him, was mostly lost as mere detail.

  The geomancer turned as quickly as her injuries would allow, and Dalip stayed where he was on the staircase, his empty hands raised.