Rats and Gargoyles (43 page)

Plessiez stepped back. "These men obey my orders,
Messire Casaubon. I wouldn’t want to have to arrest you."

The fat man backed out from under the machine,
straightening; cracked the back of his head on the undercarriage again, and
stared ruefully up into the bird- shadowed sky. At the blue empyrean, the rising
dark dots and confetti-colors; and the cold blaze of blackness at noon.

He sighed with something of a martyr’s air: "All in
position?"

The bright shadow of the ballista fell across
Plessiez, dazzling him momentarily. Courteous, while he raised a hand to call
the Guard, he confirmed: "Yes. One in each of the thirty-six Districts. Does
aught else matter now? If you know of another danger, speak of it."

The immensely fat man continued to stare upwards,
while his ham-hands delved deeper into inner and outer pockets. "Another
danger!"

Casaubon, producing a lump of what appeared to be
red wax from one pocket, and black chalk from another, took a last squint at the
Night Sun and bent to inscribe curving lines on the paving-stones. Plessiez
watched him backing away, rump in the air, periodically back-handing bottles or
glasses out of his way. A laugh bubbled in his throat. He fought it down,
fearing hysteria; drew his rapier and paced beside the pattern of hieroglyphs
that curved around the Vitruvian siege-engine.

"What are you doing?"

At the simplicity of the question, the fat man
tilted his head up for a second. "Doesn’t matter where the other thirty-five
are, so long as they’re in their Districts. Designed
this
one as the key.
Activating it takes concentration, blast you!"

"But
why
? Is it what I feared?"

While Plessiez still fumed at the desperation he
heard in his own voice, the Lord-Architect pointed with one filthy hand at the
aust-westerly horizon.

"That’s why."

Whirling dark motes spun up from the spires and
obelisks of the Fane. Plessiez automatically stepped back and raised his sword
to guard position, staring as heads turned all across the square: Rats looking
up from their talk and work to stare at the swarming sky.

The Lord-Architect Casaubon straightened up, and
surveyed Plessiez over the swell of his chest and belly with arrogant authority.

"Master priest, you and I have scores to pay off.
In future time, if there
is
future time, I’ll make it my business to
discover if you were workman or architect of this plan. Certainly you’re one of
the pox-damned fools who thought necromancy was a safe
magia
to loose on
the world. It may be, even, that you’re the cause of Valentine’s danger."

Plessiez, his gaze fixed on the sky, heard a tone
in the fat man’s voice that made him glance down.

"I’ll make time for you." Casaubon grunted, hefting
the chalk lost in his massive hand. "For the rest–acolytes. The acolytes of the
Fane. Had it occurred to you, master priest, that at this hour of the Night Sun
they are masterless, too?"

Over the noises of birds and voices, over the
humming and chattering in the air, and his own voice calling orders, Plessiez
heard behind him the rapid urgent strokes of chalk on stone.

Throat raw with screaming, the White Crow sobbed in
a breath and muttered a charm against pain. Stone grated hard under her knees
and shins; against the side of her face. The stench of ordure faded in her
nostrils, replaced by the sweetness of honey.

Kneeling, slumped against masonry, a hard tension
pulled against the muscles of her arm.

"Did we . . . ?"

She opened her eyes to rose-pale light.

A deep hollow, man-sized, pitted the stone floor of
the cell beside her. New, but smooth; as if time or the sea had worn it down for
aeons. And cradled in that absence of stone she saw a foot, white and bony, a
sharp shin, a knee . . . Her head jerked up.

A smell of honey, sweet and sleepy, sang in the
air. The cell soared over their heads, white stone with
a heart of rose burning softly in its masonry depths.

Candia knelt on the newly hollowed stone, bearded
face gaunt now, his arm around the naked white shoulder of an old man.

"Gods! Oh, dear gods . . ."

The man’s hands busy at his face touched flesh,
white hair, nose, ears and lips; slid down to his Adam’s apple and collar-bone
and sharp-ribbed chest. Pale age-spotted skin all whole. Candia’s
buff-and-scarlet jacket swathed his hips; his thin legs and bare bony feet
protruded from under it. His chest rose and fell smoothly. He broke into a sweet
open smile.

All realization in a split second: pain slammed her
vision black and bloody. She doubled up. A scream ripped from her throat. Tears
ran down her face. Still kneeling supported against the cell wall, she stared at
her outstretched arm and hand.

Her left hand impaled, four inches down on the
jutting iron spike.

Solid metal poked up from torn skin and flesh.
Blood and white liquid ran down her arm, streaking red, drying. Her flesh
trembled: the bones in her hand grated against the impaling metal spike.

"God-shit-
damn
it . . ."

A hand covered her eyes; she smelt a fragrance of
lilac. Heurodis’s voice said: "Don’t look. Wait.
There.
"

Something gripped her left hand, pulled it up, free
of the spike.

Pain ripped through her. She rolled fetally on the
stone floor of the cell, screaming, left hand held out and away from her body.
Warm trickles of blood ran over her wrist.

"Lady." A new voice, hesitant, well spoken; light
with age.

She opened her mouth, screaming. A cold numbness
took her skin, sank into muscle and bone.

The White Crow pushed herself up on to her knees,
supporting herself on her right hand, sweating and dizzy. The old man knelt at
her side, shrugging Candia off, labile face creased into a triumphant smile. She
looked down. Both his hands clasped hers, the light of summer leaves shining out
between the Bishop’s fingers.

Pain ebbed.

The light of forests faded.

She covered their hands with her free one, squeezed
his for a second longer. His grip loosened. The White Crow took her hand back,
examining the wound. Red muscle gleamed at the edges, and a white bone glinted.
A skein of dermis glinted over raw flesh. Pain. No blood.

"I could do more . . . if I were stronger."

The White Crow met his gray brilliant eyes. "I
could learn from your Church, I think. Honor to you, my lord Bishop."

"Master-Physician. You’d better see this."

Heurodis’s voice came from the cell door. The White
Crow stood, staggered in the hollowed floor, bare feet kicking the discarded
rapier and pack, and lurched over to lean up against the door-jamb.

All the twenty or so strips of paper curled up from
the step and jamb and lintel and snapped, bleached into blankness.

"We’d better move, if we can." The White Crow,
straightening up, took a step across the threshold of the cell. It opened now
into the body of a vast high-vaulted hall.

She looked back. Framed in the cell door, Heurodis
held the arm of the Bishop of the Trees, supporting him as he rose to his feet;
Theodoret leaning part of his weight on the gaunt blond man’s shoulder.

A voice, quieter than anything ever heard before
but perfectly clear, spoke at her left hand.

"Child of flesh, he was bait–for a healer."

Breath feathered her dark-red hair, pearled damp on
her neck; a reek of carrion made her eyes sting and run over with tears. Her
hand throbbed. Her legs weighed lead-heavy: she caught her breath, could not
turn to where the voice came from.

Quiet as the rustling of electrons in the Dance,
the voice spoke again.

"You could not have healed him if I had desired him
truly to die."

* * *

The woman has almost reached the sea again.

Andaluz hurries protectively after her, the coach
abandoned. Her footprints, small and deep, wind across the sand of the airfield.
His shadow pools in light around his feet. No matter how fast he walks, she is
before him: her arms held up, the bamboo staff clasped in one hand, her
bright-feathered silver braid penduluming across her back with her swift
strides.

"Lady! Luka!"

Birds wheel above her head. Black-headed gulls,
shrikes, cormorants: they swoop and skim the small woman’s head or hands and
rise, strong wings beating, in the wake of the flock that flies up to the Night
Sun. Still they come, still they fly, still they pursue.

"Wait! Dear lady . . ."

Sweating, popping buttons as he pulls the neck of
his doublet open, Andaluz comes to the marble balustrade and steps overlooking
the lagoon. He leans against the balustrade, panting.

"Luka."

A sea-wind blows, sharp with the cold of ocean
depths.

Black light shines down upon the marble terraces,
the promenade, and the tossing waters of the lagoon. Onyx gleams flash from the
waves. No one but Andaluz and the Lady of the Birds hears the rushing of that
sea.

The docks stretch out, empty.

She stands on the marble steps that go down to the
dock, staring to where the Boat moored. Nothing is there. The Boat is gone.

Andaluz, sharp pains in his chest, sees her raise
her head and open her mouth: her cry is forlorn as a gull’s, desolate.

Timber sleepers, jammed between the surrounding
railings and wired down, blocked the entrance to the underground station.

"Break it open." Plessiez smiled sardonically. "The
strike is over, I think."

He stepped back as Fleury beckoned and a squad of
Rats with dirty velvet robes tucked up into their belts began levering away wood
and cutting wire.

The scrolled railings and steps leading down to the
railway stood on the comer of the square and First Avenue, outside porticoed
town-houses. A few yards from where he stood, a dozen Rats furiously piled up
paving-stones and planks, barricading the doors.

"Soon have it done." Fleury nervously tugged the
scarlet jacket down over her plump haunches. "Plessiez, what are you thinking?"

The pavement thrummed under his clawed feet.
Plessiez glanced across the square. A hundred yards away the siege-engine
glittered darkly under the Night Sun. Blue-liveried King’s Guard swarmed over
the platform, rolling out barrels of Greek fire for the ballista.

Of the Lord-Architect Casaubon, there was no sign.

"These houses aren’t defensible. I’m opening a
means of retreat. If the siege-engines fail us, we can take refuge in the
underground tunnels and defend the entrances." Seeing Fleury’s eyes widen, he
added: "Go round. Pass the word on."

Wood screamed, splintering. A sleeper tipped up,
crashed down. Two Rats gripped another slab of wood and lifted it aside. Plaster
and cracked tile fell down into the stairwell. Plessiez’s nose twitched,
scenting for anything strange, detecting only coal and stale smoke.

A voice spoke behind him.

"Messire, you’re coming with me now. To the Night
Council."

"What?" Plessiez turned, the cold wind blowing dust
in his eyes.

Under the blazing blue sky and Night Sun, a burly
brown Rat strode towards him between piles of debris. Her coat showed charred
and scraped patches, but from somewhere she had found a bright blue sash to tie
over her shoulder and between her two rows of furry dugs.

"Charnay? Good gods, Charnay!" He kicked rubbish
aside, stepping to grip her arms and gaze up at her face. "You made it at last.
Late, of course; but not too late, one hopes."

Plessiez’s gaze traveled past the brown Rat. He
smiled. A pale black-haired young woman stood a few paces behind Charnay,
hugging herself with bare and goosepimpled arms, head bowed. A dappled
black-and-white tail hung limp to her ankles.

"Or did you find her for me, Mistress Zari?"

The young Katayan in the black dress shivered, not
looking up. In a low voice she said: "You’ll need a Kings’ Memory. I’m here for
that, remember?"

A third member of the group straightened up from a
crouch by a pile of debris, brushing dust from a small hand-crossbow. A Katayan
woman perhaps twenty-five: black tail and cropped black hair. She put her hand
on Zar-bettu-zekigal’s arm, the lace at the wrist of her silk coat falling over
her hand.

Plessiez frowned. Momentarily putting aside the
bustle of preparation, the stranger, Rats running past on errands, and the
darkness seeping into the north-austerly horizon, he walked forward and put his
hands on Zar-bettu-zekigal’s shoulders.

"Why will I need a Memory now, little one?"

"The Night Council."

"Don’t be ridiculous. This is about to become a
battlefield!"

He turned, opening his mouth to summon Fleury.
Charnay blocked his way. Irritably he put one ring-fingered hand on her chest,
pushing her aside.

Her strong hands gripped his sash and
sword-harness, jerking him to a halt. Startled, swearing, Plessiez felt his feet
leave the pavement as the brown Rat lifted him bodily, held him for a second six
inches above ground, and dropped him. Stone jarred him from head to heels.

"Listen to me, messire!"

"You over-muscled oaf—!" He wrenched himself free.
"I have no time for your customary
stupidity
."

"Listen."

Cold hackles began to walk down Plessiez’s spine.
He looked up, meeting Charnay’s eyes, seeing her blink slowly, slowly.

"They showed me how to get back to them. Down
there." She pointed at the newly opened station entrance. "That will do. They
want you, messire, and I’m bringing you to them. Either you can walk, or I’ll
knock you down, or wound you and carry you down there."

Black sunlight beat down on her translucent
tattered ears; on the grimy fur of her flanks. In her face shone memories of
brick tunnels, of gibbets, of dangers passed and of whatever is unearthly in the
city that lies under the city. She drew her long rapier.