"Talk to the clothes." He stood and adjusted the tension out of his shoulders.
"I can't ... talk to the ..." She looked up, seeking patience from heaven. "Right."
"Portal's under a government ban. No way to use it, even for you, not unless you want to shoot a bunch of harmless admin staff and a few dozen marines to get to it. But I'm sure if you're creative you'll find another way." With his hands he mimed writing with a pen. "Probably would pay to master the things you've been gifted with, before they master you."
She made a petulant face, mocking herself. "Last time I wrote something it went badly wrong. Undead sister. Remember?"
He shrugged. "So get better at it. Use your head. If you can't, then it's probably not possible. Maybe that's why they're with you. They've finally found someone too stupid to use them unwisely."
Lila nodded, considering. "Maybe they have a keen sense of adventure and sly trickery."
"I've no doubt of that." He paused. "I will find out what Jones knows. I kinda suspect it's my problem really, and not yours anyway. But if you're not back by the time I'm done then I'm coming after you."
"Okay," Lila said. She walked through the door and Malachi heard her asking Bentley to stop washing test tubes and look for dry vellum, paper, and pencils. "And when we've done that I want you to instruct all the machine agents working here that the rogue agents are to be arrested and detained pending my return. You can tell them that if they resist arrest they can suffer the same fate as Sandra Lane."
Yeah, he thought to himself with a touch of both gloomy fatalism and anticipation, things were very different now around here. Lila Black had done as he told her. She'd grown up. He was kind of sorry. He wasn't. It was both that was so damn hard to take.
Lila had said her last orders aloud for Malachi's benefit. She waited until he was gone, however, before she stopped pretending to search for drawing materials.
"Sarah." She touched the android's arm. "Do you think the rogues have became servants of the Signal? Are they its materials?"
"We all are," the measured voice replied. Bentley handed her two pieces of leaf vellum, the Alfheim kind, and an ordinary elven ink pen. "Will this do?"
"Yes, thanks." Lila took them and righted the table nearby. She swept the surface with her hand but it was dry enough. The smell of rot furled and bloomed.
"But I mean," Lila said. "Are they its consciousness? That is what it wants. I'm right, aren't I?"
"Yes, you are right," Bentley said, obediently standing at her elbow as she relayed Lila's orders to the rest of the agents. "But I am not sure the process has completed. The rogues volunteered themselves as disciples, as hosts for the Signal, so that it might progress into this, the primaterial plane. They are the body. They claim success and that they are carrying out a holy task. They are moving toward the perfection of the Signal."
Lila nodded, composing herself. She must not make a mistake. She uncapped the elf pen and began to draw. "It's crap, isn't it?"
The android beside her hesitated. "Yes, ma'am."
"Because," Lila said slowly, surveying her forty-four circles and noting that she was learning to compensate for inaccuracies caused by the flow of ink and the nib, "I can't hear that in the Signal. Can you?"
"No, ma'am."
"But we agree that the Signal was seeking material expression. If it could be said to seek. Which I am not sure it can."
"I would say it lends itself to it, ma'am. Ultimately, in spite of its absolute concreteness and total specificity, not to mention its completeness, any engagement with it is a mystical union."
Lila regarded her seventy-eight circles with a growing satisfaction, and looked for more paper. "Sarah Bentley, you are a smart lady."
"Thank you."
"Do you ever wonder who handed the blueprints of our machinery to the humans?"
"Yes. I have heard it was the Others."
"You don't want to say the A-word." Lila shook the pen, but the ink was all gone. Before her a hundred and twenty-eight circles covered all the available paper, some overlapping.
"Angel," said Bentley.
"That one, yes." Lila turned some of the pages, critically. "I need more paper, but scrap will do. Can you find me more? It's in short supply, I know, but anything. And don't ma'am me."
"Yes. What will you do with the rogues?"
"I don't know," Lila said. "I thought just maybe keep them locked up for heresy or stupidity or something. I'm sure it'll come to me. Probably I should talk to them but I don't much feel like it. I need another pen. Or maybe just some ink; I think it's refillable."
After Bentley had gone Lila took a used sheet and wrote on it by burning a line with high localised heat on the tip of her finger. If I am not back in a week, give up on me and let the buggers out. Sincerely, LB.
Then she took the pen out of her bra, uncapped it, and drew a circle on the wooden floor. She paused until she was absolutely certain of what she wanted. The black line slid out of the nib without the slightest resistance, as if it was eager to please. Inside the line she wrote: Demonia, Central Souk Square, a seriously impressive flashbomb effect with knockback affecting anyone within fifty metres plus sonic shock wave to stun for ten seconds, knockback to do no lasting harm, portal to expire immediately after first use. She put the cap back on carefully and regarded the infinite darkness of the ink, its slight reflections that reflected light that wasn't coming from her room. The words weren't what a lawyer would call nailed down, but she had no doubts about her intentions and that had to be enough.
That left only Tatter, and the pen. Feeling rather stupid but determined she said aloud, "I am not going to die wearing Harry Potter's Halloween outfit." On her shoulders the cape shifted slightly, but it seemed a tense, annoyed shift. All right, she decided that she would move straight to begging and cut out the whole middle in which they could fight about who was in charge and she could lose. "At least make it practical. Demonia. Remember? You must want to live through it and not become a Galactus demon's tablecloth forever, I assume." To illustrate her point she enabled all her weapons systems and the Al faculties that helped her to use them.
The shift was almost instant, she noticed, her responses almost as fast as light. They were faster than her human parts could follow. One moment she was herself, the next she was a tall battle mechanoid with vastly impressive shear-bladed blue metal armour and impossiblelooking gearing. Her hair was a fury mane of blue-black spikes, shot with the red scar that splashed through the plating of her shoulders. In spite of this she had a delicate look, she knew, like a graceful faery dancer composed of razor blades and spite. She'd been working hard on the composition of that as much as the adaptation of new weapons and the inclusion of the antimagic technology. Demons loved a look as much as the faeries, and she'd used every comic book from the library to come up with it. She wasn't the greatest artist, she reckoned, but she'd do.
Over her body the metal elementals moved in a slow electric blueand-white glide making it seem as if they were her shield.
With the shift the pen had moved in her hand. It outdid her of course, she realised. Although it weighed nothing to her the massive zweihander was back, with the elven runes shining as if they held a sun trapped in the vast curve of the blade. Its edges curled back with cruel barbs in a showy manner that wouldn't have outdone a hotelino spectacular floorshow. Then, at a touch, it split into two and became a longsword and a dagger, the dagger made not of metal at all but of a dark, purplish shadow whose length shifted unpredictably as though it was a serpent's tongue, tip flickering with the blackness she was used to seeing in the ink. Splendid silk tassels and bindings formed the grips. She was able to hold them and still employ forearm gunnery.
The dress meantime had also made up its mind. At first Lila didn't know where it had gone, but then it dawned on her. She didn't need a mirror to form the image of herself accurately in her mind.
She was a killer robot with magic swords, so of course she was wearing a skimpy purp
le-and-turquoise silk designer swimsuit of the kind that was more stuck to the skin than employing any kind of sensible attachment. Slightly ruched, dip dyed, glittering with gemstones, it offered the unlikely support of a top-rank plunge bra and the styling of a tart's boudoir. A very very expensive tart with tastes that included designer bikinis that cost more than small countries and who had no embarrassment left to interfere with her couture.
Once she'd got over the shock of seeing so much of herself on show, of seeing how she seemed to have got a human torso without meaning to exactly in spite of all her planning, she found herself starting to smile. She looked quite mad. It was perfect.
At that moment she heard Bentley's footsteps in the hall and immediately jumped into the circle, both feet in, arms tucked to her sides.
There was a sensation of being surrounded by a second skin so tight there would never be another breath, and then there was light and the roar of a serious blast. She remembered at the last second to strike a heroic pose and wished with all her heart that Zal was there to see it.
CHAPTER SEUENTEEN
fter the day's duties at Mina's house were completed Zal checked around for Tubianca. He didn't find her, so he made sure Mina was upstairs, safely cocooned in her room, and then slipped quietly to the fireside downstairs where Mr. V was curled up in his mighty chair, almost asleep with an open book resting on his chin.
Zal slid the compact out of his pocket and nudged the dwarf's foot with one hand. Mr. V opened one eye, then both, and peered at Zal before clapping his book shut and sitting up. He glanced down and saw the silver circle in Zal's hand, and his eyes went as round as circles themselves. "You got it," he whispered.
Zal nodded. The firelight's merry orange flicker was reflected in the case, and a thousand times over in its many small diamonds as he gave it to Mr. V.
Mr. V stroked the case with delicate awe. "You have no idea ..." He was choking up, and then he gave a little cough to clear his throat and hummed for a second. He turned the case over a few times and examined the simple pattern of its division into halves, one smooth and polished, the other encrusted with gemstones that shot light in all directions. One of these hit Zal in the eye and he was blinded for a second in which he saw the scene before him refracted, bent around on itself.... Then the moment passed and he found himself rubbing his stitching.
"Careful," Mr. V whispered to himself and Zal. "Easy does it. Dangerous visions for those who don't know. Dangerous. Now." His stubby fingers worked sensitively around the circumference. Zal thought he was searching for the hidden opener that must surely be there, or the gap where a sturdy fingernail could prise the shell open. But instead he saw Mr. V's hand stretch to its utmost, placing all fingertips and thumb to the rim. He did the same with his other hand, each one gripping the lip of one half of the compact. He rotated them gently, and from the silver came the strangest sound, as if a huge metal gate was being dragged across a vast block of stone. It was a quiet sound but unmistakable. It finished with a heavy thudded clink, as of a mighty bolt being drawn, another one being shot firmly home.
Zal glanced at Mr. V's face. The dwarf was sweating, beads of effort forming in the lines of his forehead and beginning to run along the deep channels of his cheeks. Neither of them made a sound. They listened as Mr. V continued to turn the halves, and after a while Zal began to understand that the clinks and thuds made a pattern, with other, softer noises like jingling keys behind them. He realised that Mr. V was listening for telltales; he was picking a combination lock.
After a while, as the fire burnt low and Mr. V's collar dampened, there was a new sound of bolts that drew back only and a faint ringing tone as if a bell had been struck, but only the end of the sound was audible, not the strike. Mr. V released his hold with a sigh and looked at what lay in his hand. The diamonds had moved their places, and now they built a picture in the centre of the compact. It showed something like an octopus, Zal thought, but he got no further for Mr. V gave a cry of horror and quickly twisted the dials again with a great clanking and shuffling that made Zal start and go look for the cat again. She was nowhere to be seen.
The work continued while Zal rebuilt the fire, checked Mina's bedroom, and watched the sluggish daylight begin to set. He hoped Mr. V succeeded soon, but as he drew the curtains the glimmer of unseen suns waned with the swiftness of an axe descending and before he could reach Mr. V's armchair night had come and he was once again a big cloth doll, slumped on the rug unconscious and helpless as the dwarf clicked on and on into the hours of the dark.
It was morning when Zal woke up. He never needed to eat or drink so he was quite ready to see Mr. V's excited face as the dwarf beckoned him close to the embers of the night's fire. "I have done it," he said to himself, fondling the compact and staring at it in wonder. "Bless you, lost one." He showed Zal, but before Zal could see the pattern of the diamonds he became stern and said quickly, "Don't look at it directly. Go to the side of the room!"
When he'd done so the dwarf opened the case like a clamshell, angling it so that Zal couldn't have looked inside even if he'd wanted to. A soft green light shone up into the little wrinkled face, which held an expression of delight so great it couldn't have been more joyful than if he was seeing heaven. Then the light shimmered.
From the palm-sized circle that rested on that small, creased hand a large talon was emerging, black, curved, and cruel looking. It was as big as Mr. V's forearm and quite impossibly huge for anything that could have been in a powder case. But this was nothing. In a second it was joined by another four the same, and then an equally outsize and matching hand came with it, a kind of a hand anyway, deep emerald green in colour and faceted like a jewel, the daylight sliding on its long, heavily knuckled fingers and vast palm. An arm followed, clad in crystal scales of increasing size, and then an elbow, and then another hand, arm, elbow, and then in a smooth, easy manoeuvre there came a mighty head, bigger than the whole fireplace, mantelpiece, and chimneybreast together. With the sudden slither of an easy birth the entire form of the giant dragon then came in a rush. If it hadn't been a purely spiritual form it would have burst the walls, brought the house down, and crushed them flat. As it was it filled the entire room in translucent, tight-packed coils, able to contain itself and fold itself up, as if being concertinaed and having several body parts occupy the same space was entirely natural.
Mr. V dropped the clamshell and held out his arms wide in a rapturous embrace, and the dragon shoved its head forward, frills and fans and horns alight with gemfire. There was a sighing sound from them both and then Mr. V was standing there alone, his green eyes sparkling, looking so happy he might float off right there. He didn't, however. In a moment he had caught up to the compact and snapped it shut. He came bustling quickly over to Zal and put the little object into his thick cloth hands, folding Zal's awkward fingers over it tightly.
"You're a-" Zal began, but Mr. V stood on tiptoes and put his finger to his lips with an expression of desperate earnestness.
"Yes," he said. "And I was her prisoner. For lifetimes without number. And you have freed me. This is her prison." He shook Zal's hands, still gripping them fiercely. "My spirit was trapped inside it. She kept it so I might never leave. I must be Mina's guardian and protector, look after her always." Tears were filling his eyes now and spilling down his face as he looked up at Zal with such kindness and love Zal thought he would start crying too, except he wasn't able to. "And," continued Mr. V, whispering swiftly, "I would have been here forever if not for you."
"But I don't understand," Zal said. "I have been here ages. Why did you wait so long?"
Mr. V pulled him down close, glanced around them, and then said rapidly. "At first I didn't understand what you were. I didn't know if you were like me, stuck in there too, or if you were different. It took time. I had to see. And then, when I was sure who you were, and what, I knew it was possible but I still had to find a thing of equal weight so she would not miss it."
"The book?" Zal knelt do
wn and sat on his heels. He would have put the mirror in his inside pocket to protect it in case the cat returned, but Mr. V was holding him too tightly.
"Yes indeed. You see, there is a library here in this house of infinite content. Every book that will ever be or could have been, might have, was, ought, should, wasn't ... they're all in there. But of course it's Mina's and she's hardly a librarian. I had to find something. And I did. I did. But now we must be swift. Listen to me. Soon Lily will know the mirror is gone."
"Mirror?" Zal felt he was plaguing Mr. V with questions but he couldn't help it.
"The prison is made of the two null mirrors of the Septagon.... We don't have time now for a lore lesson, boy. Just know that it is two mirrors that face each other. What then?" His stare was intense, unblinking, getting rather strong for Zal, who was almost hypnotised.
"Um ... I don't know ... an infinite regress of images ..."
"Yes, exactly. The infinite prison. No end, no beginning. There are others in there."
"When you unlocked the other combinations ..."
"Yes."
"Who are they?"
Mr. V shook his head. "I saw very many. None of which I would release. Do not try to open this again. Many are in there for good reason. Fate makes her mistakes like anyone, has her moments. I know, I know, why should you trust me when I have just shown you this? But you must. Do not try to open it. At the least you will find an empty cell and, once you look into it, you will be there until someone willingly lets you out. It's time to return it now. Will you do that for me?"
"Well ..." Zal hesitated. "You said you knew about me. Can't you tell me what that was? Not that I want to play on the fact I did you a favour unknowingly, you understand."
The dwarf's green eyes sparkled. "Aye, play me, would you, boy? Ah, last time I played I didn't know who I played with either." His face became bleak and suddenly old, full of pain. His fingers on Zal's gripped hard enough to hurt, cloth or no. "And I sense a geas on you, yes, from herself, the final sister. Even she could not let me out. But you could. I will tell you when you return the book."
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