by Liz Williams
Disir. He doubted whether any humans other than the Court and their Adepts, the Sept, even remembered the word, let alone what it meant. Not even the Librarians: it was too long ago, too far in time and space. Poor Darya. You don’t like what you are, do you? But you couldn’t run from it, couldn’t change it, and why would you want to? thought Deed. It wasn’t as though you were something banal-a wampyr, for instance. Something with penalties, whereas all the Sept had to deal with was an unreasonable amount of power. Who could possibly have a problem with that?
“Abbot General? Has something amused you?” Darya asked, and for a second there was a feral flash in her sea-coloured eyes.
“A great many things amuse me,” Deed told her. “But now, I need you to do something. A nice little trip to the Library.”
She was looking at him now. “The Library? But-”
“No one will know, Darya. You don’t have disir emblazoned all over your pass card. They don’t have magicians working on the front desk.” He smiled again. It wasn’t quite true, but she didn’t need to know that, and Deed was all about the need to know. “Typical Librarians. Always overstretched. No one will know who you are.” Or what.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be charming, Darya, which shouldn’t be too difficult.” He smiled, winningly. “I want you to make an appointment with a gentleman named Jehan True. I’ve spoken to him in the guise of one of my other personas, a professor from the Spellmarkt, and mentioned my delightful young cousin, Mage Darya Nem, all the way from the Northern Quarter and keen to make a start on her postgraduate research. A young lady who is very eager to see certain elements of the Hidden Collection. I’ve said nothing about you being of the Court, don’t worry. Anyway, in the highly unlikely event that you were troubled by a surfeit of conscience, I am a professor and you are in many ways a student.”
Darya looked doubtful, but Deed knew this was due to caution, not inexperience. “You’ve done this before, Darya. And so well, too.” He pitched his voice lower, verging on the hypnotic, and though she was of disir blood she failed to notice it.
Darya nodded, once, as mechanically as a golem, and rose. He held the door open for her as she left and watched her recede down the hallway, her heels clicking on the old wooden floor.
Outside, the sun had gone behind a cloud. The city was once more grey and cold. The roses looked out of place, as though they had sprung before their season. Deed felt himself strip down with the day, his face becoming less human, closer to his ravening ancestry. He knew that if he looked in a mirror right now, the bones would be blade-sharp, the eyes behind the expensive rimless spectacles milky or night-dark, the shadow of the unhuman rippling beneath the skin. He preferred it this way: it was sometimes difficult to maintain the façade. But just in case, he took a breath and settled back into the human once more-a man still relatively young, snow-white undershirt, small starched ruff, black tunic, everything perfectly correct. The distinguished contributor to distinguished literary collections. The distinguished Abbot General of the Court. He liked that adjective. What could be more suitable?
It was time to make another attempt. Far away, he could feel the planets moving into alignment, Jupiter a great lamp in the heavens. The familiar aspects of the World Tree were briefly imposed on his vision, with himself surrounded by the sphere of Malkuth at the base of the tree. The Dead Road beckoned beyond the confines of the city of Worldsoul, beyond the Liminality itself. For a moment, the whole universe glittered around him, gloriously outlined. He glimpsed Earth, and Earth’s moon; the planets beyond in the realm to which Worldsoul adjoined, a dimly-seen neighbour, visible only in humanity’s dreams.
Deed raised a hand. The plain iron band on his index finger flashed. Deed stepped through the hole created in the air, leaving the opulence of his study behind.
Beyond, it was difficult to breathe. The Dead Road seemed even narrower than before, even more restricted. It wasn’t the only storyway, by no means the only way into the nevergone, but it was one of the most dangerous. Deed fought for breath, ramped up the entry spell but felt his features once more slip and slide. In the formal suit, his limbs thinned, sharpened, elongated, his clothes shifting with the change. The starched ruff bit into his throat like sharp little teeth. He tried to get a glimpse, at least, of what he sought but-as ever-it eluded him. Frantically, he parted the swirling vapours with his hands, catching snatches of vision-a white city beside an azure sea, a long reach of birch forest-but not a glimpse of the thing he was looking for, the thing he knew was finally within his reach.
Suddenly, amazingly, there it was: an immense pale-columned building, the Grecian roof slightly scorched with fire but still bearing the golden letters on its architrave. The Great Library, in sight at last, but in another time than his own. Deed opened his mouth to speak the first words of the spell-
But then the world woke up. It flung him backwards, the mist swirling up and filling his mouth so that he choked. He was hurled back onto the Persian carpet and it was fortunate, he thought a moment later, that the windows were indeed so thick, for the silence swallowed his roar of fury.
Three
Shadow, stepping into the Medina, glimpsed herself reflected in the shining surface of a copper pot. In the curving metal, she looked like a fragment of sky, no features visible, but Shadow didn’t believe in taking chances. She thickened the azure veil a little further. Suleiman had magics learned in the Great Desert, conjurations stolen from the back alleys of Cairo and the cedar groves outside Baalbec, and from worlds other and further than Earth. One of those magics was said to be the charism of discernment of disguises. A charism perhaps, but Shadow doubted that it came from God.
She wasn’t in disguise, not really. The veil permitted a greater degree of communion with the divine, shielding her from the invasions of the worlds, unless she chose to invite someone in. To an ordinary person, it would look like just another veil: its secrets were well hidden. Shadow had confided the central mystery to only one other person: Mariam Shenudah. Because if something ever did go wrong with the veil, Mariam would know what to do.
Another twist to the magic of the veil, just in case. Shadow, looking into the surface of the copper pot, saw a glisten on the air, a smear on the shining metal. Only then did she glide away, keeping at first to the old walls on the outer perimeter of the Medina, occasionally running a hand across the cool stone to see if there were any traces.
There were not. She planned to spiral in towards the Has El Zindeh, keeping south-west-north, using left-hand magic. That had its own penalties, but Suleiman deployed it, so why should she hesitate? Fire with fire, my Shah.
Shadow passed ovens smouldering with the smell of newly baked flatbread, slipped past golden mounds of turmeric and saffron, past baskets of glittering benzoin and crumbling myrrh, skirted jars of rosewater that sparkled in the lamplight. She would have liked to linger, especially around the conjuration stalls, but it was too risky. But Suleiman had said: Meet me at noon.
The Medina, being roofed, was hidden from the sun, although when Shadow looked up she could see the old images of the constellations of Earth inscribed across the ceiling. In the western section of the Medina, the goddess Nuit’s body, bent like a bow, arched from floor to floor, carrying the stars within her. She disturbed Shadow, being a representation of a figure, and Shadow turned away, but not before she thought she saw Nuit’s painted smile. And here was further representation amid the sea-blue tiles: suns and moons and lions and deer, in endless procession over the Western Quarter’s door. Shadow bent her veiled head and passed them by. She circled away from the walls, passing deeper into the maze of the Medina. Here were the weapon makers: the blasting heat of forges, the hiss of metal into water. Shadow’s own blade had not come from here, so no whisper could betray her. Her knife, forged out of sunlight and moonlight, came from the Khaureg, the deep desert a long way away. Shadow fingered the gold and black hilt as she walked quickly past the weapon makers,
still taking the small modest steps that would proclaim her housewife, not alchemist.
And certainly not: magician.
What did Suleiman want? The summons, sent by dove the day before, made Shadow uneasy; it was not like the Shah to have much to do with her profession. He had his own necromancers and thaumaturges, and Shadow doubted she could offer anything they could not. But it was intriguing, all the same, that the Shah would consider hiring a woman. If hiring was what he had in mind.
She would soon find out. Turning the corner of a row of stalls, she saw the Has rising up before her, hidden in the Medina’s heart. The market had grown up around it, concealing it in onion layers, but the Has had come first, hewn out of the rock two thousand years before. Its doors were as old-oak so pale and hard that it looked more like carved stone, taken from forests that had long since passed out of existence, and decorated with an intricate repetition of calligraphic patterns in a language older than Arabic. She’d heard that every panel was a spell. Perhaps so. She could not deny that she was eager to see inside the Has, after moving around it for so many years. There were numerous stories…
Time to find out. Shadow raised a hand and knocked, once, then diffused the veil to thinness.
“Salaam aleikum,” she said, when, after a moment, the doors opened.
“Salaam. You are the alchemist?” A woman, very old, her face unveiled but shaded by a black headscarf, her skin so lined that she might have been the same age as the doors. But she opened them easily, and they looked heavy.
“Yes. I was told to come at noon.”
“Good, and here you are, a little early. Well, come in.”
Shadow had expected something different from the Has’ personnel. Male, she’d thought, and disdainful. Somehow, she’d expected resistance. But this old lady was perfectly courteous and it was hard not to respond to that.
“Rakhmet,” Shadow said and passed within.
Inside, a cool, dark hall led into sunlight, surprising in the centre of the Medina. Shadow blinked. She could see a tree, starred with lemons. The plash of a fountain echoed through the hallway like a cascade of arpeggios from a lyre.
“Follow me, please,” the old lady said. Shadow did as she was bid, walking down the panelled hall and into the courtyard. Here, like parts of the Medina, all was blue and gold. The courtyard was tiled, and this must be more recent than the Has itself, for passages from the Koran flowed across the walls, the calligraphy bright liquid gold against the blue. Shadow looked up into the midday sky, colours reflecting those of the courtyard so that the two seemed to spill into one another.
“This is-pleasant.”
The old woman clapped her hands. A girl appeared, clad head to foot in drifting green. She carried a tray, on which rested two tea glasses, also green with golden filigree, and a pot of tea. The astringent sweetness of mint filled the courtyard. Setting the tray in front of Shadow, the old woman disappeared. A cloud passed across the sun, Shadow blinked again. When she opened her eyes the Shah of Has El Zindeh stood before her, subtly attired in a grey robe.
“The Alchemist Shadow.” Suleiman gave a bow, which Shadow returned, more deeply.
“My Shah. Thank you for the tea.”
Suleiman smiled. “Ah, you’re most welcome. I thought-a noon meeting, where everything can be clearly seen. I hoped you would appreciate the symbolism. But it is hot.”
In that case, Shadow wondered, why not keep to the cool of indoors? She suspected that despite this earnest avowal of a love of clarity, there were things inside that Suleiman might not want her to see. She took a sip of tea, in response to his waved invitation.
“Enjoy,” the Shah said.
One of the many advantages of a veil, under normal circumstances, was that it enabled one to see and not be seen. But Shadow was not confident that Suleiman could not glimpse behind her veil and she did not dare insult him by thickening it further. She studied him anyway, covert and careful. Impossible to tell where he was from, how old he might be. He had an accent, but it shifted, and she could not place it. A placid face; thin, a great many angles, and sad green eyes like old jade. His skin was neither dark nor pale, one of the thousand shades of sand. He carried sorrow with him, a weight of pain, and again, she did not know why. There were stories, but there were always those.
“You will wonder why I’ve asked you here.”
“I do,” Shadow acquiesced.
“You are an alchemist.”
“That is so.”
“You deal with transformation, so I am told?”
“It is the essence of alchemy,” Shadow said, polite.
“Can you transform the living?”
She could not resist the temptation. “Into what? The dead?” That was easy enough, as he should know.
Suleiman smiled. “That’s a difficult issue, here in our city of Worldsoul. What’s dead doesn’t always stay that way.”
“And equally, when you say ‘living,’ what exactly do you mean?”
“Ah,” Suleiman said. “You see, that’s partly the problem. I think I will let you finish your tea.”
She did so, wondering. The fountain gave a sudden gurgle and rush, sending water drops pattering out across the tiles. Somewhere, high in the eaves of the Has, a bird began to sing. Shadow looked up.
“A nightingale?”
“They’re all around here. Even at noon. Allow me to take your glass. Thank you.” The Shah stood in a sweep of grey. “Come with me.”
His gentleness was deceptive; she was almost lulled. As she followed him across the courtyard, he raised a hand and plucked a handful of sunlight from the air. It dripped down his wrist, honey-thick. Shadow forbore from asking what he was doing. Keeping close behind, she passed from light into shade, the veil gathering a little strength from sudden gloom.
“It’s down here,” the Shah said, over his shoulder. The captured sunlight lit their way.
Curious, she let him lead her along a colonnade and through a door. A flight of stairs led up. At least, Shadow reflected, she was not being taken to the dungeons.
But in this, she was wrong.
Interlude
In an iron fortress on the shores of a sea of fire, the Duke was waiting for her audience. It was beneath her to seem nervous, especially in front of the servants. Once, she had commanded twenty-six legions: it would not do to show anxiousness before a maid, and so she stood at the window with her back turned and concentrated on the view. This was, she thought, glorious. It was almost worth being summoned up here in order to see it again. The window was open and she could smell hot metal, the dusty ash of the shore, the eternal burn of the tide. Far away, against a sky the colour of geraniums, she thought she could see a crescent moon, as tiny as a human fingernail.
The Duke rested her taloned hands on the windowsill and basked in the heat. Today, she wore armour of sombre dark crimson and for jewellery, only her carnelian sigil ring. It would not do to be perceived as trying to outshine her mistress and the Duke had every intention of playing it safe. Things were going well. She had a number of amusing little projects going on in the Liminality: work on Earth might have dried up in the last four hundred years but other places were still going strong. There were a number of minor flirtations, including one unexpected one. This was good because really, after a couple of thousand years or so, you’d pretty much worked your way through everyone worth knowing. It was so difficult to meet anyone new.
“Your Grace?”
She turned. The servant was small and had curling horns, gilded with metal lace; she was dressed in a neat black and white gown. She bobbed a curtsey. “The Prince is ready to see you now.”
“Very well,” the Duke said. She strode through the iron doors at the end of the entrance hall, and bowed. “Madam.”
“Ah. I did hope you’d have the sense to come in that aspect.”
“I know you prefer it.” The Duke looked up. In one of the metal panels that lined the audience chamber, her other aspect was dimly visible,
hovering about her like a shroud. She dispelled it. Beside her, one of the astrolabes creaked suddenly into position, the tiny planets shifting about their axis. Astaroth made a note.
“Some people think it’s funny to show up in character,” Astaroth said, plaintively. “I really don’t like enormous toads. Or even deer. I mean, do I still go around riding on a dragon?”
“We won’t mention the ‘c’ word, then.”
“Please, dear, no.” The Prince uncoiled herself from her couch and stood. She was taller than the Duke by some three feet, nearly nine in height, and her black hair was coiled around her head in a plait. She wore a black trouser suit: with the dark skin and eyes, she looked like a slice of night. “That’s why I like you, dear. You’re so understanding.”
Astaroth came close, reached out a hand and stroked the Duke under the chin like a favourite cat. Inwardly, the Duke sighed, but Astaroth did have a point: the Duke did understand. Out of the lords of Hell, Astaroth was one of the handful who still had regular dealings with Earth; that old jurisidictory pattern still held. The Duke knew that Astaroth had petitioned the other team for release, as had her colleagues, but she had been told that some line management was still necessary.