Chasing the Dragon (18 page)

And the third thing that came to her as she straightened up and
put the pieces on the table, seeing their workings quite clearly in the
powerful overhead lights-the third thing was that these machines
were not human creations.

And the fourth thing was-did they jump, or were they pushed?
In Faery, when the machine had grown so far it had eaten her all up,
Lila had been sure it was the end of her. But it was not so. The only
legacy of the change was the ability to be quite plastic, physically and
to some degree emotionally, strong enough of mind to override almost
any trauma in its moment. The hardware made that easy to achieve,
but the willingness to achieve it was down to Ilyatath Voynassi Taliesetra, the elf, who had said with such conviction as she was dying,
"It's all right." Elf magic was words, and she had clung to those words
when they were all there was left.

She poked at the smouldering bits of baton and mapped their lost
connections: she didn't feel invaded, or cold, or used. All of that had
come to her by human hands when they attached her to the machinery
and didn't care about the outcome. Had that happened to Bentley, and
to Sandra Lane too? Not that it mattered if it had. What they'd done
since mattered. What they were. Who they were. She could feel Sandra
Lane's unspoken promises like an itch in the bone. No, she wasn't
going to belong to the rogues, whatever sense of kindred they thought
ought to move her.

Lila tucked the pen back in her bra.

Meanwhile the Signal hissed, black static. She amplified her
response to it as she set up the clamps again with a sniper rifle. She
connected the rifle's piffling and human-made Al to the largest of the
dampening systems-this one barely portable, a thing the size of a
drinks crate with handles and a power cable that had to be attached to
a mains source. She made a few practice shots, checking the reaction
times of the gun to the dampener's feedback and ensuring it was able
to get a shot off that would impact at the correct moment, when the
dampener oscillations would theoretically be timed to cut any magical
interference dead.

When she was satisfied she adjusted the sighting and aim on the
rifle so that it would discharge into the water tanks beyond the target
area and reloaded it with a fully jacketed live round. Finally she
checked her own connections to the various AIs involved and picked
up a set of ear-defenders from the rack on the wall, fitting them carefully onto her head.

It was a short walk to the end of the alley. She took away the foam
targets and put them into a storage bin, then built up a small platform
out of target support boxes that were stacked against the wall. Finally
she adjusted the height, checked their stability, and then stepped up
onto it. The rifle was aimed directly at her heart.

"Fire," she said.

oftly, softly the snow fell. It blanketed the forest and the fields, the
(slopes of the mountains and the frozen rivers of the valleys. Gently,
gently it touched the face of the elf who stood on the hillside, glanced
aside from those chilly, upright contours, and tumbled to the white fur
of his enormous coat, or down through the delicate tips of the hairs,
bending them as it went, until it settled on the top of his white boots
or the even white surface around him. It sparkled in the weak daylight,
and in its near-infinite facets the faces of all the dead of ever stared back
at him in silence.

Ilyatath Voynassi Taliesetra did not feel the cold, or, rather, he had
felt it so much that it had become a part of his nature. His eyebrows
and eyelashes were ice, his face mostly numb. It was good that he did
not need to eat or drink. That might have been painful. Besides which,
there was nothing, only the snow, the land, and the grey clouds with
their circling cargo of souls.

He rested his hand on the head of a huge hound that sat beside him,
one of two flanking their master. They were as white as the snow, except
for their long ears that stood out like splashes of blood, coppery and
vivid. His other hand was tightly closed inside the pocket of the huge
coat, but now he brought it out and slowly undid the grip of his fingers one by one until the knuckles eased and he could look at the strands of
red hair that lay in his palm and the blackness that twisted around them
like flowing water. One of the dogs whined, a thin and restless sound.

Far away from him a shadow moved among the tall pines on the hillside where the forest edge came to stony ground and was forced to give
way to rock. A narrow pass was there, following the path of a long-frozen
stream all the way up to the glacier, lost in clouds. On the other side of
the mountains it zigzagged into a lake valley, broad and easy, where Ilyatath Voynassi Taliesetra had last seen the woman whose hair he was
holding; the same place where he had been reborn, and died again.

He had been watching the shadow for some time, had come out of
the cave that he used for shelter to watch it in fact, dragging the most
loyal of the dogs away from the meagre fire and out into the soft white
and greys of the soulfall. Now the dark shape paused midflit between
the trunks and in its moment of stillness became distinctive for the
first time. Its long, thick tail twitched irritably as it surrendered to
being seen, and then the enormous black tiger came forwards with
insouciant slowness, as if it had meant all along to shed its cover. From
its heavy, rounded face the two orange eyes blinked, and it shook its
head twice to rid its wiry whiskers of snow.

The dogs got up, their hackles rising, but the elf stood a little
straighter and they circled him, whimpering, and then ran back into
the fall and vanished from sight. The tiger continued its advance until
the last few metres and then with an effort it reared up and stood on
its hind legs in a most uncatlike fashion, flesh rippling with changes
that forced it closer to the shape of a man. Finally, neither one nor the
other, it opened its mouth to reveal shockingly pink gums and white
teeth and said, "I wondered what would happen to you. I didn't think
you would cross over. I doubt any faery knows of this path through the
mountains anymore."

"Then how did you find it?"

"Madrigal showed me the way. She said she tracked you when you left, discovered the way for herself. In fact, she said you must have
made the path when you came because there hasn't been a faery ruler
in the land of the dead as far as anyone knows."

"Nor an elf," said the elf. "But now there is both."

"Another worldwalker. It's like some kind of rash these days."

"I cannot return to Alfheim," Ilya said after a moment or two.

The faery hesitated and then conceded, "I am sorry to hear it."

The elf shrugged. "Malachi, do you still go by that name?"

"Better something borrowed than the true," Malachi replied
smoothly.

"And in the first days we had none of course," the elf added.

Malachi shivered. Tath had always been a spooky kind of elf, the
highest sort from the longest line of scholars and sorcerers, quick to quirk
an eyebrow or give one of those chilly looks beside which all the ice of
midwinter seemed cheery and warming. Now however he had mellowed.
Whilst he wasn't in any way soft there was something about him that
reminded Malachi of ancient scotch glowing in a cut glass at sunset, that
kind of mellow. His spirit was distilled, he supposed with a grin to himself, as befitted the inheritor of Jack's fey throne, the new King of Winter.

Unlike Jack, Tath had already been a necromancer, not to mention
the little matter of being twice-born and twice-dead-a mystic and literal requirement met that enabled him to walk the realms of the dead
and undead at will. Malachi didn't even know if the position had ever
had an occupant before and suspected that Tath would have had no idea
he was eligible until it was too late. Stories of death knights had died
long ago, even in Under. They were so old and so forgotten-ish that the
memory of them made Malachi's skull itch. Thanatopia (not its real
name, of course) was one place and lore he didn't care to know too much
about; but now he needed to talk, and Tath was here and he knew him
already, well vaguely, and so here he was. In fact, Tath had been Lila's
friend, if that was the right word for a person you had occupied as an
itinerant spirit. Malachi was relying on the fact that they had been friends and not something else. However, there was no denying that
what had once been Tath was no longer that simple a person, but something as close to a true avatar as Malachi wanted to get near.

"How's the godhead going?" he asked, to allay his nerves somewhat.

The elf's green gaze darted from its absorption in the distant snow
and lit on his own with a flick. After a painful wait he said, "It is cold."

"Shoulda chosen a different specialisation," Malachi said with feeling.

For a second the elf's mouth flickered. "Woulda shoulda coulda,"
he said, and smiled.

It was the saddest, most knowing expression Malachi had ever seen.

"Shall we play chess?" he asked.

"I am an elf, I am not Swedish," Ilya said. "I prefer cards or, failing
that, something musical."

"Cards it is." Malachi knew what his singing sounded like.

"Come this way." The tall, wintry figure led the cat along the hillside a short way and then turned a corner around a thick column of
snow that Malachi had simply taken for a part of the ground. Without
transition they were inside a high-roofed cave lit by hundreds of flickering candles of all colours, and full of dogs.

The hounds-a vast tide of white and red fur-remained slumped
around the walls in various hollows lined with furs as their master
appeared. Green eyes blinked at the catman and some tails went up,
but there was no barking, no approach. They were faery dogs, the
CuSith that Ilya had inherited from Jack, and although Malachi was
feline they were not interested in him as a cat, only as another fae. He
was one of them, so they were content to let the master's word keep
them mute and sleepy.

They sat by the fire. There were no chairs, only a heap of rugs and
a large silver dish full of ripe fruit. Malachi's nostrils opened and he
inhaled the sweet smell of apples, pears, persimmons, grapes, and even
a mango.

"Madrigal?" he asked.

"She likes to keep an eye on me," the elf said, waiting for Malachi
to find a spot to sit on and then sinking to a cross-legged position with
more grace than a ballerina, his white coat swirling around him. Green
eyes watched him. They were deeply unnerving. "Do not worry,
Curiosity, I am no Giantkiller to her."

Malachi wasn't sure if it was the news or the use of one of his urnames that bothered him the most. He went to get cards from his
pocket, then remembered he had no pocket.

"We will just have to talk," the elf sighed, waving one hand
vaguely in a gesture that looked dismissive except that around his fingertips yellow glitter appeared, fizzed, and snapped. The smell of
lemons briefly overpowered the mango and their conversation itself
had become a game. "What brings you here?"

"A fifty-year mystery is not enough?"

"Why wait fifty years when you could discover me in an instant?
Please, suggest something realistic."

"Lila has been home only a few months."

"She did not ask you to find me."

"No," Malachi admitted and watched the elf's face closely. He
thought he detected signs of disappointment but it was hard to be
sure. Tath could have played poker with the devil. "I am sure she will
be glad to know news of you, however."

"I would discourage her interest," Ilya suggested wryly.

Malachi noted this but could not play with it. He would have to
wait. He decided on a secondary matter. "I am here about the demon."

"I do not think so, but by all means let us discuss him." Tath's eyes
were sparkling with pleasure in spite of himself.

Beside them the burning logs slouched and gave off sparks and a
wave of heat. Both of them paused to enjoy it.

He must have been really lonely, Malachi thought, storing that
too. "There is word that he has murdered the demon clairvoyant
Madame Des Loupes. I wondered if you were able to count the dead."

"I dislike mathematics," the elf said in mild tones. "I could, I suppose, number them and enter them in some kind of book but that is the
job of the Keepers. All I can tell you without them is that Teazle Sikarza
is a snow white who has drifted. In fact, entire drifts of those who have
been unfortunate enough to cross him are recently laid outside."

"Did you practise that line?"

"No. If I had it would have been smoother."

"Can you-"

"I expect so," the elf sighed. "But why should I?"

Malachi considered it. Favours were dangerous, it was true. "Lila is
in over her head with all the things that have risen out of Under. She
has a-"

"The pen, yes, I know about that." Fine, pale brows drew together
and Ilya looked into the flames suddenly, giving Malachi an opportunity.