Lila and Malachi looked at one another.
"What a fucking existence," Lila said. Under the cloak she was cold, shivering. "Well at least a couple of things got answered. Are the hidden places-does that mean Thanatopia?"
Malachi nodded grimly. "You think Jones is here in the house?"
"If here means what it means to this lady? I guess probably, maybe, who knows?"
"She can phase at will," he said. "I should look but...."
"But you're a guest in someone else's house and you should leave nicely," Lila said. "Which is what we're going to do. If she's here, she knows how to find you. Jones left you that thing, remember. Maybe she's safe here. Figure out that before you go wrecking her cover."
"I ..." He paused. "Okay. Place is creeping me out anyway. I swear this is the biggest earth energy sink on the whole continent."
They got up and began to walk carefully back the way they had come, dodging and avoiding all the Sanchas who came their way. Though neither of them said so, they both felt the same absolute degree of caution about occupying the same space as any of Sancha's disparate selves, however immaterial they seemed.
"If it is, why would Zal choose it?" Lila asked. "He was a fire junkie."
"Earth consumes fire," Malachi said. "Safest place in town to hide your light under that bushel. He was a hunted guy: here he could summon a lot of fire and not be noticed."
At last they reached the relative sanity of the entryway, passed through the door after unlocking it, and then got into the car. Malachi turned them around and then stopped, taking a look back down at the beach.
"Are they zombie dead in that ship?"
"I hope so," he said. He wasn't sure.
"There was a ghost here before, when Zal was here," Lila said. "It came right for him. Why?"
Finally Malachi turned away from the sight of the shipwreck and put his foot gently down on the accelerator. "Energy sinkholes are weak spots. Easier for things to come through here. He was powerful, it was hungry. Also, he was careless."
"No, he made a protection circle. It didn't affect it."
Malachi frowned. "No? Ghosts usually can't cross."
Lila opened the glove box, looking for anything, even the car manual, as long as she didn't have to keep looking around at the Folly and its grounds. "Oh yeah, what do they eat?"
"Memories. Information. Dreams. All that kind of stuff. And they suck aetheric power from anyone stupid enough to let them try. Not you humans obviously. By the way, what was it?"
"A stag kind of thing."
The car stopped with a jolt that nearly sent her forehead into the dash.
"Mal, what the hell?"
"Like that one?"
The driveway from the house bent sharply in a switchback, and it was on the second bend, shrouded in tree shadow so dark it might have been twilight, that the creature was standing. A faint glow limned it, giving away its true nature; otherwise, she would have thought it was a giant elk at first. Its rack was almost as wide as the road and high enough to tangle with the branches overhead, but it was not impeded by the antlers at all. It snorted and turned to face them head-on from the position where they had caught it crossing the narrow tarmac strip. Only then did the smell hit her, wafting on the afternoon warmth, a sweet stink that was half rot and half poppy smoke and incense, myrrh and the thick odour of dry dead things.
It looked as solid as an ox. Its fur was heavy, rank, and dark, its nostrils caverns on the wet black nose, eyes staring, whiteless, empty. A black spill of shadows dripped off it, and poured and gathered around its massive split hooves. Apart from its size, decay, and air of brooding malevolence she found it familiar.
"That's it. But it's been on the evil steroids since then. Mal?"
"Yeah." He was watching it intently, his fingers moving lightly on the wheel. "There's been quite a few reports about bad things like this coming up recently. Three or four a week. Like you say, ordinary ghosts but on the boo-juice."
The stag thing lowered its head. A slough of skin loosened on its neck and fell away with a wet slap onto the ground.
"Ugh," Malachi gagged.
Lila's initial jolt of fear was receding into nausea. "It looks pretty real."
"It is pretty real, just not entirely," he said. "I'd drive but I don't think touching it is a good idea. I heard. That is, from the hospital. People with some kind of wasting disease. They'd seen these things or been up close to them. The link wasn't clear. Oh god, the smell ..."
It was choking, vile. Malachi put his sleeve to his face. Lila, used to demon tricks, filtered her air and kept a straight face in spite of the gut-churning nature of it. She took hold of the windshield to help her stand up in her seat, formed a shotgun out of her right forearm, and shot two rounds at it. The sound of the gun was almost deadened by the miasma of shadow around the thing. It lowered its head further and shook its antlers, opening its mouth to groan and bellow. Lila felt the glass vibrate under her hand. More pieces of skin and other matter slid and slipped out of the ghost's form. She saw them land on the road and become leaves, sticks, and the gloopy, rotten flesh of some animal or other.
Moaning, the creature backed up a step, stumbled, backed more, and then decided to head forwards into the trees. It had to struggle with the undergrowth and trunks but it passed through them, shedding more parts of itself in a constant shower.
As soon as it had cleared enough space Malachi gunned the engine and they screamed past it in a cloud of blue smoke. The old car slid around the bends crazily, shock absorbers grinding, but he didn't touch the brakes until they were at the main road.
Lila couldn't stop herself replaying the vision of the thing falling apart and remaking itself as it pushed through the woods. When she first saw it she was sure it had been composed of forest litter, but it had seemed healthier, an animal spirit of a kind, not a monster. "What kind of minds make that?"
Malachi bit his words out, still holding his breath as best he could. "Undisciplined, fearful ones. The usual sort. No shortage of nightmares, is there?"
She shook her head silently in agreement. No shortage.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
linda's house was not a house at all. Lily's and Mina's zones paid a weak, cliched kind of homage to the end of the world, Zal realised as they trekked through barren waste that would have been called a desert except that desert had romantic and appealing implications involving sand, sun, and recognisable objects that this ground had none of. He wasn't sure they were walking. They were moving or something was moving and it involved them passing through it. He was tired and his grip on his senses was weak, not helped by all of them having to work via cotton, linen, and bits of silk rather than the usual organs they were associated with. Ahead of him Lily strode with the determination used by people who don't want to go somewhere but must and want to make the best of it. He was sure that she was shrinking. This was confirmed as they entered a place of more definition and he realised the top of her head was at his forehead instead of towering a good ten inches over.
"Here we are," she said briskly.
"Nice," Zal said. "Minimalist. Austere." He felt so drained that he sat down where he was and hoped that the ground remained solid enough. It did. He'd heard stories about planewalkers and travel in various dimensions that weren't suited to the 4-D kind of person, but it was much worse to be there. Even more boring than it had sounded at the time.
"Nice." A voice dripping with sarcasm, cynicism, and contempt repeated from all around them. Apart from the tone it was a pleasant voice, melodious, rich, and clearly belonging to a woman with no selfconfidence issues. It reminded him more than anything else could have that he was not visiting some elder faery who had a place and a house. He was in an elder faery who was part of a trio that had the whole creation and destruction of realities down pat, and the place was as much part of her as the time and any other objects he might encounter. But keeping that in mind was too hard, so he'd learned to let Lily and Mina and Mr. V be themselves
because his brain, or lint, preferred it that way. He could deal with a girl, and a mad aunt figure with anonymous hairdos and an ever-pending birth, and a white cat and a wretched backdrop no better than a cheap computer game vision of the edge of forever because it was what he was used to. Glimpses of what lay beneath all the fabrications made him feel so ill he couldn't function at all. He wasn't sure if it mattered, but now, as the still air started moving and the ground heaved and grew a fancy black castle with crazily high towers around him, he thought maybe it did.
"Maybe it does ...... the voice echoed.
There was a sound like an all-over snap and he found himself in an almost pitch-dark castle room of some kind with vaults so high they were invisible and a dais in the centre ringed by torches holding daylight flame. In the middle stood the third sister. She was tall, lissome, and had the exquisite features of the most lovely of all the shadowkin, including their nightskin, the colour of deep purple shadows cast in the last moments of a golden afternoon. Her hair was platinum white, with a midnight blue streak in it where it fell across her shoulders in thick straight cascades, and she wore blue-and-silver robes in the ceremonial style of a Jayon Daga sword master, bound tightly to the wrists and ankles and neck with cloth wrap, shielded by exquisitely worked heavy wool panels and braced with black leather belts and bandoliers. Like the red-haired girl in his dream she had metal eyes, but hers were gold and they had an inner light that made them gleam like a demon's. In her right hand she was holding a crystal shot glass. Ice chinked in it. In her left hand she had the very end of a hand-rolled cigar, its tip glowing. As he watched she put this to her lips, bit back a drag, flicked a shred of tobacco off her mouth with one elegant finger, and blew smoke in their direction in a long, unimpressed stream.
"You're an elf," he said with surprise.
"No kidding." She looked at him and began to walk towards them regally. "If only we could say the same for you." Her merciless and unblinking gaze turned to her sister, who was now only up to Zal's shoulder. This put her a good three feet too short to meet Glinda eye to eye. "Lost your nerve?" Glinda said coolly and made two air kisses about a thousand miles too high and wide in the general vicinity of where Lily's head would have been if she weren't so short. "Glinda," she said. "Hmm ..." and took another drag on the stub before she flicked it out of sight and knocked back whatever was left in her glass. By the smell Zal figured it was bourbon. "About time you brought him around. What kept you? Armageddon or something?"
"We've had a visitor," said Lily very deliberately. She explained the situation as Glinda ignored her and her golden eyes tore delicately into Zal.
"Necromancers," Glinda said as Lily finished. "I hate them. Making a mess of everything, fingers where they shouldn't be, fiddling and twiddling." She rubbed the tips of her free hand fingers together and narrowed her eyes. "Pulling and poking and twisting like naughty little children because where there's a way there's always some fool willing and some fool not paying attention." She gave Lily a cool glance and rattled the ice in her glass. When she was done, the glass was full again. She sipped and peered at Zal some more. "You'd better leave him with me."
"But-"
"He's mine anyway, or did you forget who was yanking the strings that day?"
"I saved him."
"I let you. I cheated Jack. That was sweet. Who'd have thought he'd meet his end at the hands of those old swords of mine, not that he didn't deserve it. I would have preferred something more drawn-out myself but ..." She shrugged. "Can't have it all."
"What are we going to do about it?" Lily said firmly. "We have to do something."
"Oh blah blah," Glinda waved her cigarless hand airily. "You make it sound like a duty when it's a chance to have some fun. Aren't you curious about who would go to such dangerous lengths for something as trivial as making a zombie? Someone has their eye on things much better than we do. Go and get back to the weft and see what's going on up there in the old land. Make yourself useful and get that cowbrain of yours sharpened up."
Lily bristled and fumed, but she was under Glinda's command, clearly, so after some fussing and a few mild ripostes about Glinda's general state of being, she left. "You were too slow anyway," she said as she made to go. "His memories are sketchy and most of him was ruined. He's been nothing but cheeky and useless and he knows almost nothing about anything. He hardly even knows who he is. So who was careless that day, hm?"
Glinda said nothing, but smiled a crocodilian kind of smile, blew out some smoke, and waved good-bye with a merriness that was only in her hand.
"You forgot your cigar," Zal said, referring to the smoke.
Glinda shot him a look that made him wish his mouth was sewn shut and not in a slightly ajar position. Then her expression softened with self-deprecation and she grinned, which unsettled him even more. "So I did." She stretched out her arms and looked herself over, smoothed her thick hair with one hand, and admired her bourbon glass. "Could be worse," she said.
"Did I invent you?" There he went again, like there was no tomorrow. Oh, there wasn't, he reminded himself, so it was okay. Looking at Glinda he was really sure more than ever that there would never be a tomorrow. Her stare was glacial, saurian, and fiendishly intelligent, a combination that made his seams shrink even though he couldn't really feel pain. Her eyes could rip you apart all on their own.
"Of course you did," she snapped, and released him, turning away and looking around at the black castle. "Don't ask silly questions. I don't know why you made Lily so bland. She isn't, you know."
"I had to live with her," Zal mumbled. "And Mina, and that cat. And Mr. V." He felt the book in his pocket. It seemed heavy. He wondered how he could fulfill his promise now.
"Very oversightful of her to hang onto you so long," Glinda purred frostily. "What is that thing in your pocket?"
"I ... hm ... what?"
Glinda turned around. "Play or nay?"
Zal's insides frayed. "P-play?" The idea of starting some game with this particular fey paralysed him with terror.
Glinda's savage eyes narrowed. "We can play, and do guessing games and question and answer and truth or dare. Or we can not bother and move straight to Go, collecting the dry rewards of practical creatures. Your choice."
Oh yes. He had to agree. "I ... er ..."
"Come, Zal. You were always a player. I have seen you many times."
"Yeah, but ..."
"And you have played with me before."
"Have I? I mean ... are you ... who I think you are ... or are you ... not who I think you are but something a bit like it in a Faery-only version?" He cringed, trying not to move backwards and shrink, though he was pretty certain that he was doing both. For all that he had felt briefly that it might be worth throwing himself in the fire and ending it all, even when he'd hung off the cliff and could have let go, even at the worst of himself, he wasn't really into suicide.
"You see?" She chinked her ice and smiled. "You like to play. You can't help it. I always liked that about you. Not many people like playing with me. I consider it a compliment, from you."
"Good." She hadn't answered him. He badly wanted her to. He had to know. "Right. Muses. Furies. Fates. Birth, life, and death. Beginning, middle, and end. Sort of thing. So, you'd be ..
"I would be the truly inspiring one," Glinda said with grace and, to his surprise, genuine majesty. "Yes."
"Are you all rolled up into one, the three of you, not separate really?"
She shrugged. "It may be something like that."
"But you are a faery."
"I am what came before faeries."
"You aren't part of the human world or the others."
"I was before that."
"You aren't universal?"
She hesitated. "Beyond what may be touched by aether, I cannot go. So no, in that sense, not universal, not eternal either, though close enough to tick the box on surveys. Is this enough?"
"Are there even more primal fey than you?"
"One
surely," she said. "But that doesn't concern you, or even me. Mother Night is the first."
"She's the queen?"
"No, you fool. The faeries elect queens by the moment and the yard. Queens are ten for tuppence. Every female has been the queen. Even brownies."
"They didn't used to. In the legend, the queen's magic turned the lock and shut off Under." He stretched what he knew, to test it. In spite of the obvious danger, which he felt less dangerous somehow, he was enjoying himself now.
"And those of us down there, yes. Tell me Zal, what do you remember of music? And the light elf magic? And of demons?"
He struggled. He had a sense that there was something but it refused to come clear. Blurred images flitted through his mind. "Music is songs but I don't know any. Light elf magic is about harmonising and using nature elementals by cooperation or something. Demons ..." He cast about again but there was nothing. He shrugged. He had a great sense of failure but he didn't understand why.
She sipped her drink and looked around for somewhere to put it, but there was nowhere. She sighed, staring at the blank darkness and then up at the few sketchy tower tops against the bloody sky. "I see the old sister wasn't lying. You really have been stripped bare by that old bastard Jack. He meant to kill you the hard way. But at the time I thought it better to let it go far. The years you must spend here would be less kind to you if you remembered. So, what is in your pocket?"
"A book," he said, paying up for the information and not daring to speculate on what she meant by "remembered." If there was something to remember she must know what it was, so it wasn't lost, not really, not properly. The sense of having had a life elsewhere was exhilarating. "And that's all I know."
"Whose book?"
Zal, still sitting and shivering with a cold that was deep and lasting though he barely felt any change in his stuffing, thought over the deal. He could say no to it because he was certain that any contest they might have she would win. He could say no to it because her penalties might be dire although since he was virtually dead anyway he had a tough time imagining much worse, although lots of pain might be worse, surely. He could say no and break the habit of a lifetime. But he never said no. "Truth or dare?"
Chasing the Dragon Page 23