Perdido Street Station (79 page)

"You are alive,"
said Yagharek. His voice was curt, pared down and bare of emotion. He
spoke to save time and effort, to conserve himself. "As I
waited, through the window came the blunt snout then the body of a
slake-moth. I turned and watched through these mirrors. It was
racing, confused. I was ready with my whip and I hit backwards at it,
stinging it across its skin, making it shriek. I thought that would
mean my death, but the thing raced past me and the ape-construct into
the hole, folding its wings away into an impossible space. It ignored
me. It looked behind it as if it were chased. I felt a rucking motion
in space following it, something moving below the skin of the world,
disappearing into the tunnel after the slake-moth. I sent the
monkey-thing after it. I heard a crumpling sound, the whiplash of
straining metal. I do not know what happened."

"The godsdamn
Weaver
melted the construct...
" he said, his voice
shaking. "Gods only fucking know why." He stood quickly.

"Where is
Shadrach?" said Yagharek.

"He got fucking
taken,
didn’t he? He got fucking
drunk up!"
Isaac scrambled to the window and leaned out, looking out at the
torchlit streets. He heard the heavy, ponderous sound of cactacae
running. As torches were carried along surrounding alleys, the
shadows slid and shifted like oil in water. Isaac turned back to face
Yagharek.

"It was fucking
horrible," he said, his voice hollow. "There was nothing I
could do...Yag,
listen.
The Weaver was in there and it told me
to get the godsdamn
out
because the moths can smell the
trouble...Shit, listen. We burnt its eggs." He spat the words
with hard satisfaction. "The fucking thing had
laid
and
we got past it and burnt the damn things, but the other moths could
sense it and they’re heading back here
right now...
We’ve
got to get
out."

Yagharek was still for
a moment, thinking quickly. He looked at Isaac and nodded.

They retraced their
steps quickly down the dark stairs. They slowed as they approached
the first floor, remembering the couple talking quietly on their
mattresses, but they saw in the flickering light through the open
door that the room was deserted. All the cactacae who had been
sleeping were up and out, in the streets.

"Godsdamn!"
swore Isaac. "We’ll be
seen,
we’ll be fucking
seen.
The dome must be fucking crawling. We’re losing
our shadows."

They hovered at the
front door. Yagharek and Isaac peered around the corner into the
street. There was a crackling susurrus from the raised torches on all
sides. Across the street was the little alley, its torches still
doused, in which their companions lurked. Yagharek strained to see
into its dark, but could not.

At the end of the
street by the dome wall, under the stubby, boarded-up remnants of the
house in which, Isaac realized, was the slake-moths’ nest,
stood a gang of cactacae. Opposite them, where the road joined others
and moved towards the temple at the dome’s centre, little
groups of cactus warriors rushed by in either direction.

"Godspit, they
must’ve heard all that ruckus," hissed Isaac. "We
have to damn well move, or we’re dead. One at a time." He
grabbed Yagharek and braced his arms behind the garuda’s back.
"You first, Yag. You’re quicker and harder to see. Go.
Go." He pushed Yagharek out into the street.

Yagharek was not
wrong-footed. He sprinted lightly, increasing speed. It was not
panicked flight which might attract attention. He kept his pace just
low enough that if one of the cactus people glimpsed motion, they
might think it one of their own people. The shadows and stillness
still varnished his fleeting figure.

It was forty feet to
the darkness. Isaac held his breath, watching the muscles move
beneath Yagharek’s scarred back.

The cactus people were
jabbering in their harsh pidgin, arguing over who was to go in. Two
swung huge hammers, taking turns to batter the bricked-up entrance to
the last low house where, for all Isaac knew, the slake-moths and the
Weaver still danced lethally together.

The darkness of the
alley accepted Yagharek.

Isaac breathed deep,
then stepped out into the alley himself.

He strode quickly away
from the doorway, into the open street, willing his uncanny
shade-covering to deepen. He began to jog towards the alleyway.

As he reached the
midway point of the junction, there was a buffeting, a storm of
wings. Isaac looked back and up at the window, on the vertex of the
wedge of architecture.

Scrabbling at it with a
repulsive desperation, the third slake-moth pushed its way through
into the interior, returning home.

His breath caught, but
the beast was ignoring him, its fervour reserved for its ruined
spawn.

As Isaac turned his
face again, he realized that the cactacae at the far end of the
street had also heard the sound. From where they stood, they could
not see the window, could not see the monstrous form infiltrating the
house. But they could see Isaac running from them, fat and furtive.

"Oh
shit!"
breathed Isaac, and broke into a full, lumbering run. There was a
confusion of yells. One voice rose above the shouting and snapped
orders. Several cactus warriors broke away from the congregation by
the door and ran straight for Isaac.

They were not fast, but
neither was he. They carried their massive weapons expertly,
unimpeded as they ran. Isaac sprinted as best he could.

"I’m on your
damn side!" he shouted uselessly as he ran. His words were
inaudible. Even if they had heard him, it was inconceivable that the
cactus warriors, frightened and bewildered and pugnacious, would have
paid any heed before killing him.

The cactacae were
yelling, screaming for other patrols. There were answering shouts
from neighbouring streets.

An arrow snapped from
the alley before Isaac, whipping past him and thudding into some
flesh behind. There was a gasp and a curse of pain from one of his
pursuers. Isaac made out shapes in the darkness of the alley.
Pengefinchess resolved from shadows, drawing back her bowstring once
more. She bellowed at him to hurry. Behind her, Tansell stood with
the blunderbuss drawn, aiming it uncertainly over her head. His eyes
were scanning desperately behind Isaac. He shouted something.

Derkhan and Lemuel and
Yagharek were crouched a little way behind, ready to run. Yagharek
held his whip coiled and ready. Isaac raced into the darkness.
"Where’s Shad?" screamed Tansell again. "Dead,"
shouted Isaac. Instantly, Tansell screamed with horrible anguish.
Pengefinchess did not look up, but her arm spasmed and she almost
dropped her arrow. She paused and aimed again. Tansell shot wildly
over her head. The blunderbuss boomed and he staggered with the
recoil. A great cloud of buckshot sprayed harmlessly over the heads
of the cactus people.

"No!" shouted
Tansell. "Oh Jabber no!" He was staring at Isaac, begging
to be told that it was not true.

"I’m sorry,
mate, truly, but we have to fucking
go,"
said Isaac
urgently.

"He’s right,
Tan," said Pengefinchess, her voice desperately steady. She
fired another arrow, with the spring-loaded blade that sliced a great
gouge of cactus flesh. She stood, notching a third missile. "Let’s
go,
Tan. Don’t think, just move."

There was a
high-pitched whirring, and a cactacae chakri slammed into the brick
by Tansell’s head. It embedded itself deep, sending a painful
explosion of mortar-shards around it.

The cactacae squadron
were approaching fast. Their faces were visible, twisted in rage.

Pengefinchess began to
back away, tugging at Tansell.

"Come on!"
she shouted. Tansell moved with her, muttering and moaning. He had
dropped the gun, was crooking his hands like claws.

Pengefinchess ran,
dragging Tansell. The others followed her, turning into the intricate
maze of backstreets through which they had arrived.

The air behind them
hummed with projectiles. Chakris and thrown axe-knives whistled past
them.

Pengefinchess ran and
leapt at an amazing speed. She turned occasionally and fired behind
her, hardly aiming, before resuming her run.

"Constructs?"
she shouted at Isaac.

"Fucked," he
wheezed. "You know how to get back to the sewers?"

She nodded and turned a
corner sharply. The others followed her. As Pengefinchess plunged
into the decrepit alleyways near the canal where they had hidden,
Tansell turned suddenly back. His face was deep red. As Isaac
watched, some little vein burst in the corner of Tansell’s eye.

He wept blood. He did
not blink. He did not wipe it away.

Pengefinchess turned
from the end of the street and howled at him not to be stupid, but he
ignored her. His hands and limbs were trembling violently. He raised
his gnarled hands and Isaac saw that his veins were protruding
hugely, like a map across his skin.

Tansell began to pace
back along the street, towards the turnoff where the cactacae would
emerge.

Pengefinchess screamed
for him one last time, then leapt mightily over a crumbling wall. She
shouted for the others to follow her.

Isaac backed quickly
towards the shattered brick, his eyes fixed on Tansell’s
retreating figure.

Derkhan was scrambling
up a little stairway of broken brick, hesitating and leaping down
into the hidden yard where the vodyanoi wrestled with the manhole
cover. It took Yagharek less than two seconds to scale the wall and
drop to the other side. Isaac reached up and looked behind him again.
Lemuel was running quickly down the alley, ignoring the desperate
figure of Tansell behind him.

Tansell stood at the
entrance to the alleyway. He shook with effort, his body coursing
with thaumaturgic flow. His hair stood on end. Isaac saw little ebony
sparks burst outwards from his body, snapping arcs of energy. The
puissant charge that snapped and burst out from under his skin was
absolutely dark. It glowed negatively, with unlight.

The cactacae turned the
corner and were upon him. The vanguard of the group were startled by
this strange, darkly shining figure with hands crooked like a
vengeful skeleton, making the air crackle with charged thaumaturgons.
Before they could react, Tansell let out a growl, and sizzling bolts
of the black energy burst out of his body towards them.

They rolled like
ball-lightning through the air and smacked into several cactacae. The
hex strokes burst against their victims, dissipating across their
skin in crackling veins. The cactus people flew yards backwards,
slamming hard against the cobbles. One lay still. The others writhed,
shouting in pain.

Tansell raised his arms
higher, and a warrior stepped forward, his war-cleaver held way
behind his shoulder. He swung it in an enormous, powerful arc.

The heavy weapon
smashed into Tansell’s left shoulder. Instantly, at the touch
of his skin, it conducted the null-charge that sizzled through
Tansell’s body. Tansell’s attacker spasmed mightily and
was knocked back by the force of the current, spraying sap from his
shattered arm; but the momentum of his massive blow sent the cleaver
slicing and cutting through layers of fat and blood and bone, gashing
Tansell open from his shoulder down to below his sternum, a huge rend
in his flesh a foot and a half long. The cleaver remained embedded
above his stomach, quivering.

Tansell called out once
like an astonished dog. The dark null-charge fizzled out through the
huge wound, which began to spew blood in a vast gouting torrent.
Tansell fell to his knees, and onto the ground. The cactacae surged
around him, kicking and striking out at the quickly dying man.

Isaac let out an
anguished cry and reached the top of the wall. He gesticulated to
Lemuel. He looked down into the dark yard. Derkhan and Pengefinchess
had opened the way to the undercity.

The cactus people had
not given up. Some not stamping on Tansell’s corpse were still
running forward, waving their weapons at Isaac and Lemuel. As Lemuel
reached the wall a rivebow sounded hard. There was a meaty thwack.
Lemuel screamed and fell.

A massive serrated
chakri was embedded deep in his back, in the spine just above his
buttocks. Its silver edges poked out of the wound, which oozed blood
copiously.

Lemuel looked up into
Isaac’s face and screamed piteously. His legs shuddered. He
flailed with his hands, sending brickdust up around him.

"
Oh Jabber
Isaac help me please!"
he screamed.
"My legs...Oh
Jabber, oh gods..."
He coughed up a great welling gob of
blood which rolled horribly down his chin.

Isaac was transfixed
with horror. He stared down at Lemuel, whose eyes were awash with
terror and agony. He looked up briefly, and saw the cactacae bearing
down on the crippled man, whooping in triumph. They were barely
thirty feet away. As he watched, one saw Isaac watching and raised
her rivebow, taking careful aim at his head.

Isaac ducked down,
scrambled half down off the wall into the little yard. The open
manhole wafted up noisome stenches from below.

Lemuel stared at him in
disbelief.

"
Help me!"
he shrieked.
"Jabber, fuck, no, oh Jabber
no...
Don’t
go! Help me!"

He swung his arms like
a child in a tantrum, the cactus people descending on him, his nails
breaking and his fingers scraping raw as he tried frantically to claw
his way up the wall pulling his useless legs behind him. Isaac stared
at him in mortification, knowing that there was nothing at all he
could do, that there was no time to go down for him, that the cactus
people were almost on him, that his wounds would kill him even if
Isaac could pull him across the wall, and knowing that even so,
Lemuel’s last thoughts as he looked up were of Isaac’s
betrayal.