Going Under (41 page)

"Tath," Lila said experimentally after some time had passed.

"You should call me Ilya," he said. "My friends did."

"Ilya," she said, though it felt unnatural, not like him. "How did you ... I mean, are you really alive?"

They were sitting in the summer glade, entirely surrounded by mature trees and thick undergrowth which completely shielded them from any trace of Jack's winter.

"I was never dead," he said. He lay down flat and stared at Madrigal's impossible blue sky. "I lived in your body and I live now in this one. It is not quite the same as the old one. This one is young, of the same age I was in Alfheim at the time Jack was bound to the lock, before I met Arie, before I knew Zal or anything about him, or the White Flower, before I was a necromancer." He took a deep breath and let it out, his flat chest getting flatter, almost concave. That he was naked from the waist down didn't seem to bother him in the slightest. He lay with his hands resting on his belly and stared upward, quite relaxed. She imagined him with his dog companion, the one he'd talked of once, the one she'd seen when she was in his memories. She remembered Teazle saying, "I'll be your dog," to her. She felt her heart creak, like an old ship.

He seemed so peaceful she hated to disturb him but she was conscious of every second and every cell slipping away from her. She didn't have enough mercy left. Steaming slightly as her armour finished drying, she ventured quietly, "Will it last?"

"It is as real as any material thing," he said. "And it is mine. Nothing lasts, least of all these things. So yes, and no of course. I could walk out of here, in theory, as long as I returned to our present." His voice was singsong, as though he couldn't care less and was only humouring her. "But it will only last until midnight or when I finish my bargain with jack."

"What happens then?"

He shrugged. "I ask my question. Jack then must kill me or die."

"I thought you'd join the ... others." She was suddenly hurt again, to think of this, when she thought there was no more room for surprises.

"The lock will turn," Tath said. "This time I am sure of it. So the charm that has trapped them will no longer work for me."

She didn't know what to say, and anyway, her throat hurt too much and was too full to speak. She lay down instead and adjusted the apertures of her eyes until she could stare at the endless blue without hurt too. Behind them somewhere the imp snored in the long grass. Finally, after a time of quiet she said, "You all knew, didn't you? When you made those bargains."

"I expect so," Tath said-she could not think of him as Ilya, even if it was his friendlier name.

"Why? What'dya do it for?"

"Why were you going to?"

She paused, breathing the soft air slowly. "I thought I could win," she said at last.

"And if you did not win?"

"Then I would have done my bit. Except," she hesitated and then pushed on even though it sounded ridiculous to her, quite arrogant, "I would."

The elf didn't reply. She felt abruptly so alone that it was unbearable. To take her mind off it she did the only thing she'd ever done to take her mind off unpleasant things, and began to run a lengthy health check, the kind she used to do when everything was new and didn't work so well. She got out her medical kit from the storage compartments inside her thigh and saw with disbelief that on the tube of immunosuppressant gel that was there to prevent her becoming allergic to the synthetic skin the date had expired some months ago. Forgetting the rest of it she searched for a mirror, but she didn't have one. She sat and felt with her fingertips for the line above her collar where the creeping growth of the machine met her only remaining natural flesh. Of the parts beneath the armour, and inside her, she didn't want such detail. They remained as numbers shifting in a countdown to zero.

It was remarkable, she thought, that she didn't feel the change. There ought to be something, a tickle, a chill, a pain, surely. But whatever was replacing her biology did so with perfected mimicry. There was no loss of function, and so there was no sensation to have.

She felt the line, saw it as much as felt it, just beneath her jaw and ears. She wondered if it would take all her hair too and what would happen after.

"Come here," said the elf. His eyes were closed now. The arm closest to her moved outward.

She went and lay next to him, put her arms round his skinny, tall body and her head on his chest. She heard his elf heart going tha- thump at its too fast speed, more a whisper than a drum. His arm closed around her shoulders. She clung to him.

"I can't, I can't, I can't," she repeated softly, her eyes tightly shut, tears squeezing out between her lashes. They ran from her nose. She was so tight and rigid she felt as if she were made of steel but for all her holding inside, she couldn't keep a grip. Her whole body shook with the effort. "I don't know what to do."

"It's all right," he said, making an effort to say it the human way, his hand strong on her shoulder but his voice gentle and calm like the sky. "It's all right."

He kept repeating it often, and his hold eventually loosened and then became slack and then stroking and his voice just a murmur. The light faded, the sun went down, and night came.

She woke and saw stars overhead, not a few, but billions upon billions. Then her eyes adjusted.

Tath was still with her, but over them stood the tall, rounded silhouette of Madrigal, gun in her hand.

"Come," she said. "It's time."

ila got up and reached down and gave Tath her hand. He got to his feet easily. Where they were was warm and the night full of the sound of chirping insects, but Madrigal still wore her heavy furs. She threw a pack down at Tath's feet.

"You will need these."

He didn't say anything, just opened it up and got dressed. He tucked her T-shirt into thick cloth trousers, the trousers into fur boots. Over the top went more fur, a stiff jacket that belted over both shoulders and at the waist. There was a hood but he ignored it.

At her belt Madrigal's Hoodoo doll glowed with its own faint witchlight from every chink and cranny in its twisted grass. The faery herself shone slightly, providing enough light to see by.

Lila took off her amulet and handed it to Tath as he straightened up. "It's yours really."

He pulled his long hair back in both hands and used the cord to tie it, fixing the charm tightly in place. "Thank you."

As soon as he was done Madrigal led the way downhill through a narrow gap between her massive trees until at last they came out onto the acres of white snow that covered all of Jack's land. Where the cave and the city had been there was no trace of anything. The lake was clearly visible, frozen over, as a large patch of complete flat ness, unmarked, spanning the valley they stood in from side to side. They were at its head, and a short distance away the host of the faeries that belonged to Jack were gathered en masse, Moguskul visible as a gigantic bear at the head of their ragged lines. A bitter, thin kind of wind blew among them. Without exception from the tiny to the giant they were all dressed as Madrigal was, in thick, ugly clothing hastily made from crude materials; refugees in an inhospitable land. By comparison to the finery of other faery things this spoke most cleanly of their intention not to linger, no matter how long they were forced to do so. Their indistinct faces turned to watch Lila and Tath pass by.

Beside Moguskul stood a snow-glass, as tall as Lila, its huge inverted bowl almost run empty as it counted the minutes. They stopped before it as the final few flakes fell slowly down. Then the wind got up, quite suddenly, and whipped around them, snatching up great sloughs of snow and building the figure of a tall, powerful man where the glass had been. Frost crackled around it and from the shower of glittering particles stepped Jack Giantkiller, his body built of powder and rime to give the illusion of a massive man clad in white furs with moustache and beard and heavy hair braided down and hung with beads of ice. He had two axes at his belt and a bow in his hands, taller even than he was, its single curve glacier blue and shining.

With a forward sweep of his arm he made a commanding strike and in answer the bear Moguskul roared-a sound of ferociousness and agony. He reared up on his hind legs, jaws open, and split into a hundred different forms. Hounds spilled out of him and poured along the ground. Falcons burst from his head, and crows. As they scattered the bear was gone, to the sky, to the chase. A hound gave voice, then another and another. Jack stared at Lila once, a hard look, then his dogs began to run and he whirled to follow.

Madrigal whistled her wolf and leapt to its huge back. She set out after him. Lila and Tath began to run. Thousands of faery voices shrieked and sang after them, "No matter where you run or where the path bends the Twisting Stones by midnight is where it will end!"

She guessed that explained why they didn't follow but it was of little interest to her. She ran alongside Madrigal's wolf, and Tath ran with her, at the limit of his ability. It was easy for Lila. Nothing hurt, nothing was difficult, she needed no more breath than usual. Her body flowed in seamless action, with endless power. Soon Tath was exhausted and he tapped her once on the arm, unable to speak, before he quit. They left him standing on the far lakeshore, panting, his hands on his knees, bent double. Lila photographed him as she left him behind. She kept the feeling of his touch on her arm, resonating in her nerves as if he were still there, and her feet never missed their place on the rough and dangerous ground.

Zal knew a lot about hunting at night, though he'd usually been on the other end of things. He knew in this case it would be pointless to think that there was a hope of escape, even with the taste of the faery peach on his lips. Nothing in his experience of the aether's paths led him to believe he could outwit Jack on his own ground. But if the catch was foregone, nothing else was, not what came before it and not what came after. So from the moment he jumped over the fire he'd already decided to take Jack for as much of a ride as he could manage.

The rest of what had happened back in the cave didn't hurt until he'd crossed the lake, his shadow feet making no marks. He hadn't given a thought to why he could make himself solid enough to strike Jack, but not enough to touch Lila. He didn't think about it now as he searched for possible tracks, over rocks, around boulders, into the trees, and then up into the rough canopy of brittle branches. But he felt ita catch in his chest that didn't let his breath run true. He was glad Teazle hadn't been there to hear his reasons for running and that made heat flare in his chest and he tried to run faster, missed his footing, tripped, fell, went flying, and crashing through several layers of branches until he caught himself by the hands. Only his ultralight form prevented him from being seriously hurt. He hung there, panting, then pulled up onto the tree and changed direction, taking courses that looped back on themselves, went up, down, through deep drifts and rocky canyons.

It was very hard, and soon, even before half an hour was out, his pace had tired him. Easy living had taken a toll on him, he realised. He was not the fit and tough presence that had come to Demonia the first time, fuelled by rage and hate and the burning ache of betrayals, the passion and idealism that had pitched him headfirst into a stinking canal full of imps and degradation for Adai to save and bring to life. But then of course, he was saved, fixed, sorted. He'd believed his own press release.

Pain made him slow down, though he fought against it with everything he had. His muscles burned, his chest was agonising with the rasp and claw of the icy air. Semisolid, he clawed his way through impossible gaps in rocks and underneath thick vegetation, cutting and bruising himself. He shed the bow and his arrows, everything that weighed him down, but it still wasn't enough. At the base of his spine a tickling, prickling sensation told him it was past time. Jack was coming. He redoubled his efforts and flung himself forwards until he came to a cliff face and went over, head over heels down a huge scree. He slid and tumbled to another dropoff, shocked into a moment of paralysis as he clutched at the edge and saw the rock through his own fingers. Beneath him a long fall awaited-he didn't even know what was at the bottom. He couldn't breathe because the fall had banged the air out of him and he was left with the aching shock and a clutching in his throat as his heart hammered and his vision blurred. His grip felt like it would not last long.