Cloud Castles (26 page)

‘Take a carriage!’ she called after him.

‘Laidlaw,’ I said. ‘So that’s your real name. Not bad – from a long line of Border cattle-thieves, eh? Can’t stop thinking of you as 1726, though.’

She ignored me, and shouted to the
sentries inside the gate. In an instant they were all tumbling out, buckling belts and grabbing shakos, forming ranks alongside crisp-voiced NCOs. Clumping after them came Dragovic; he snapped to stony-faced attention at their head.

‘Mmh!’ she said. ‘Which other officers are on duty?’

‘None,
Ritterin.
There is the conclave, and the others are heading the extra guard on the wall.’

‘Yes, of course. Well, we can’t take them. It looks as if your excessive zeal is going to get a better reward than it deserves. Follow with six guards – picked men for a dangerous mission. Back to the Core.’

He clicked his heels and bowed, beaming all over his sallow face.
‘Zu Befehl! Zu Befehl, Ritterin!’

‘Now wait a minute—’ I began.

She whirled to face me. ‘We can’t wait. We’ve got to go and
get
the Spear at once. Me, and some guards – just in case I’m wrong about you. That helicopter of yours is a lot faster than our airships. You’re not going to tell us, you’re going to take us.’

‘
What?
Don’t you want an army or something?’

She tossed her head rather than shook it. ‘We haven’t got one to spare. I’ve sent for other Knights, but I don’t think we’ll get them. We daren’t strip our defences, even to get back the Spear. We’d have to recall troops, get them into suitable gear for the Core, and that takes time. And we’d have to use the airships. And it would attract just the wrong sort of attention. No, a small fast strike is the only way.’

‘Listen, that ‘copter can only cram in four people, five at the most—’

‘Your friends will be escorted back here in the meantime, as our guests. For yourself, you’ll have to submit to the Graal’s judgement. If all you say is true, and you prove yourself by getting us back the Spear without trickery or self-serving, you’ll have nothing to fear. Now, come on! It’s a long flight back.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said.

She turned that frown on me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘When we’re back at the ‘copter – then we’ll know.’

I reached into the cockpit and switched on
the navcom. It wouldn’t work here any more than the radio, of course, but the integral pager should have recorded the C-Tran computer’s last check-in automatically. I tapped in a number and checked the new page that opened on the screen. What came up gave me a sudden rush of satisfaction – and, to be honest, sheer relief. ‘Stuttgart!’ I said. ‘Thought it might be. It was sent off just before we came here.’

‘I’m beginning to understand …’ said the dark woman, slowly. ‘But … if you just sent it there, wouldn’t that be too easy to trace?’

‘Here, there, and everywhere,’ I said, enjoying the suspicious glare she gave me. ‘You’ll catch on. But we’d better be going.’ I turned to Mall and Jyp. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind?’

Jyp’s chuckle was drier than ever. ‘Steve, there’s places I’ll never have to buy another goddamn drink
ever
when they hear I’ve been here. You think I’d let a chance like this slip? I know guys who’d sell their souls t’ be in my breeches this one minute!’

To my surprise the woman grinned at him. ‘Tell them no sale’s needed – gratuities at the option of our guests, rather. Anyone of goodwill’s welcome here, if they can reach it. You do understand you’re not hostages? Normally you’d be free to wander, but as things are …’

Mall smiled back. ‘Certes. I also, I’m not unmindful of the honour done me, lady. But, Steve, there’s peril in this enterprise, it tickles my bones. I should not leave your side.’

I shook my head firmly. ‘I’m not risking either of you again in this, not if I can help it. And this’ll be quick – just there and back. You’ll see.’

The captain and two of the biggest and ugliest guards were attempting to cram themselves into the rear seat; the other four, detailed to escort Jyp and Mall, were rather nervously weighing up their charges. The woman swung her sword out of the way and hoisted herself into the front seat, very gracefully, reminding me – I couldn’t help it – of another lissom rear view. But I caught Mall’s sardonic eye, and hastily pulled on my helmet and waved everyone back from the rotors. The motors grumbled as we lifted off, but there were no warning signs on the panel; she seemed to be taking the extra weight. ‘I can find my way out of here well enough!’ I said into the helmet link, as the tree-tops and the waving figures fell away. ‘It’s getting back that worries me!’

The woman twitched her lips faintly and
swung the mike-stalk down to them. ‘It shouldn’t! In or out, it’s the Graal that opens the way. With its will, you can come and go as you please; without it you could search for a million years and never find it.’ Her face clouded. ‘Unless you’re a great adept, like the Stryge, damn him! He’s been prowling around on our borders for years, him and his creatures!’ Her fingers knitted impatiently, and she fell silent. The noise-cancelling system left her voice and mine hanging in a void, as if we were the only sounds in an empty universe, creating an odd sense of intimacy. Certainly the others couldn’t hear us. I glanced at her.

‘What’s your first name?’

She glared at me. ‘Why should I tell you?’

‘No reason. I need something to call you, though. I can’t get around
Ritterin
every time.
Lady’s
the English equivalent, maybe, or
Dame;
but I’d sound like a New York cabbie.’

She didn’t answer. I concentrated on flying; the weather was getting turbulent, the clouds thick. Half the time I was watching the navcom more than the windscreen. Suddenly she said, ‘Alison. It’s Alison.’

‘Okay, Alison. I’ve got the navcom back. We should be there in about twenty minutes.’

She twisted round to gesture at the guards, who weren’t wearing helmets and were crowded together with their hands jammed over their ears. I hoped Dragovic was getting thoroughly sat on. After a while she spoke again. ‘Those two … friends of yours, the sea-pilot and that swordswoman – Elizabethan, is she? – they’re not at all what I expected.’

‘Thank’ee kindly, Alison. Yes, they’re even housetrained; a struggle, but I managed it.’

She glared. ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. You made them sound like thugs. They’re not. I liked them. Mall and … Jyp; is that his first name?’

‘No idea; never found out. I didn’t make them sound that way; you assumed. They’re good friends, none better.’

‘They must be. I wonder …’ She shook her head. ‘Mr Fisher, you don’t add up.’

‘That’s why I never went into accountancy. You want a mathematician, ask Jyp. Natural talent plus about eighty years of studying, on and off. Incidentally, I shouldn’t have to tell you my first name.’

‘Yes. I know a lot about you. Too much.’

‘The dossier, you
said. You know how much I like that idea, Alison, you keeping files on me and all that?’ I gunned the throttle savagely and tipped the cyclic, so the whole craft shook.

“Stop that!’ she shouted, nearly deafening both of us. ‘What else could we do? You didn’t suspect von Amerningen, but the Department did. We knew he was mixed up with this neo-Fascist thing – though I didn’t know what was behind it then, of course. And suddenly there you were, his bright new
wunderkind
partner, setting up this amazing system and making him even richer than he is already. And you – you looked honest enough in business, Mr Clean himself – but your private life, God!’ She made a disgusted sound. ‘You came over as such a cold-hearted son of a bitch, you …’ She shrugged. ‘I just loathed you. And the way you lived, all those casual pickups, the mysterious absences – it all fitted too well.’

I groaned. ‘Christ, woman, don’t your damn files make any allowance for time? All that casual stuff, it was just a phase, I haven’t gone in for that for years! It was making me as unhappy as anyone; I just didn’t realize it at first, that’s all. Sure, I’ve had affairs since then, but they’ve meant something – or I wanted them to. As for the disappearances …’

‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘I should have thought but it just didn’t click. After all, do you ever pass somebody in the street and wonder if they’re another spare-time wanderer out on the Spiral? If they’re fighting dragons or trading treasures in their spare time?’

‘Yes – yes, I do, as it happens, now and then. Get the odd quiet laugh out of it.’

She looked startled. ‘Oh. But you didn’t ever think that about me, did you? Or Baron von Amerningen? Well, then. And with you the patterns seemed to fit too well. I couldn’t believe somebody like that could be really innocent, not one of that bastard’s top partners. So when we kept on digging deeper and finding nothing, absolutely nothing at all, it just convinced me you were covering up that much better. And I hated you all the more.’

‘Till you got a bee in your bonnet.’

She shook her head. ‘Not just about you. I wasn’t too fond of myself just then. Or the Department. Or the world. But you seemed to sum it all up.’

‘Thanks a whole heap,’ I said. ‘That’s pretty damn comprehensive.’

‘You wouldn’t understand. I started
out with ideals, you see. That’s why I got into the investigation business in the first place. I was fed up saying why isn’t somebody doing something about all this – I wanted to do something myself. But the more I tried the less I seemed to manage, it was like swimming through tar, and I found myself more and more fighting my colleagues, fighting the Department, even. They were just chalking up notches, career points, they didn’t care about changing the world …’ She drummed her fingers on her sword hilt. ‘I told you you wouldn’t understand.’

I corrected our heading slightly. ‘The Graal hasn’t changed you that much. You’re still jumping to conclusions. Me, I had it all mapped out at college – successful start in business, build up my contacts, my background, move gradually into politics. I managed to screw up my first real relationship chasing that hare. That stuck; I thought I’d done something clever, cutting loose, staying uninvolved. Only somehow the more successful I got, the less I cared. I told you I was going through a phase. Then one night I turned the right corner—’

‘And there was the Spiral!’ I could hear the shiver in her voice. ‘God, yes! I was scared stiff. And then I could hardly remember – I thought I’d got drunk or had a breakdown at last. It was a year before I even tried to get back. I couldn’t at first and then, it was like losing my virginity again and I hadn’t enjoyed
that
much either—’

The swift flush across her cheekbones and the dark sidelong glance dared me to make something of that. I resisted the temptation; I was still too struck by how different she managed to look. That rather Scandinavian slant to the eyes, which had made the frown look nailed on, seemed faintly exotic and serene now, and the mouth more sensual than heavy. The lips didn’t look bitten any more, either. There were still furrows down either side of her mouth, but the twist they gave it became wry and intelligent, quirky or humorous even; I could almost like it. I decided I’d like to see a proper smile, not one of those grim judicial twitches she’d come up with so far. She saw me looking, and turned away to stare out of the window.

‘I know what you mean,’ I
said. ‘I got hurt – and then frightened out of my skin. Then I poked around in the wrong place, and the whole thing just blew up in my face – like a fist punching into my everyday life.’

She looked round, startled. ‘Into the Core?’

I knew that would fetch her. ‘Right in. And it grabbed somebody else instead of me. I had to help, really fast. That’s how I got in hock to Le Stryge – or so he claims – and how I got that sword. And took to sailing the seas of the Spiral. But it was seven years before I dared try it again, seven years of forgetting it’d ever happened. Except in the odd daydream.’

‘I was lost,’ she said. ‘I was skiing. I took the wrong slope, or so I thought. I tried to turn back and I went over a cliff, I thought I was going to die, but it was lower than it looked and there was drifting at the foot. But I sprained my ankles so they were swelling up in my boots and it hurt like hell to walk, let alone ski. I couldn’t find a way back up, the night came down and more snow, I just sat there and cried like a little girl. Then I saw a light, far away; and I made myself get up and trek, with my sticks. I came to this place – and it was a monastery, a genuine medieval monastery, at the edge of a tiny little village. They spoke Latin! But they had a hospice, they were good people; they spoke English when they heard me. They gave me mulled wine, bound up my ankles; it was like a dream. They seemed used to getting people from all over the Spiral – they tried to explain to me about it, but I didn’t take it in, not then. There was a man in there, he didn’t speak any language I knew, he looked – God, he must have been something ancient, he had a flint knife! And a bronze axe. But he was very polite. Nervous, but polite. I went away next day, with my ankles cured somehow – but I wanted to go back, with a gift. I memorized the way. Only when I tried—’

‘You couldn’t get through?’

‘No. Oh, no. I know what you mean, but it was there, eventually. Only now the village around it was burning. There was a fight going on; and I had a pistol.’ That flush again. ‘Department issue, duty only – but I’d fiddled that, I always carried it in case of well, men. Always. So I waded in – and boy, were those things surprised!’

‘Things?’

‘Awful. You don’t want
to know. Something like Wolves, semi-human, but adapted for mountains. Not Abominable Snowmen or anything, spidery and strong, like gibbons, and shaggy.
Rubezahlern
, they called them. Anyway, those monks, they were the first friends I made on the Spiral. They knew a lot; everyone came to that hospice.’

‘Like the Tavern, I suppose. A haven in the fringes of the Spiral. Or that bar in Bangkok.’

She gave me a very old-fashioned look. ‘You would know that one! Anyway, I took to wandering about on the Spiral whenever I could, sometimes with people I met there, sometimes on my own. At first it scared me – but it fascinated me, too. And toughened me up, a lot.’