Cloud Castles (31 page)

‘By what? Who?’

‘Something – some thing that sensed their presence and reached out and drew them in. That area’d had a bad reputation for centuries; and I’ve always wondered if somebody put such a concentration of really evil people there deliberately, as an experiment – or a gift.’

‘God almighty!’ was about the only response I could make. The wind wailed behind me.

‘Anyhow, one thing’s certain. Out there in the Spiral, out in timelessness they bred and evolved, even developed a kind of culture, shaped according to their own psychopathic rules – and they began to change. They became the creatures you see now, with their own lovely habits. You know what the
Spiral’s like, mingling past times with present and future out there in the shadows; well, I’ve always wondered, those fairy tale ogres in Grimm …’

‘Fee-fi-fo-fum and all that?’

‘And heads on posts, bodies on hooks, horrible cruelties – that’s the way they live. But they’ve not been that common, the Children. People ran into them now and again, seldom for the better. It’s always been assumed that they were a weaker strain, though, less numerous than Wolves or some of the others. Now, after they’ve started passing for human – the adolescents, at least – and popping up in all these riots, I’m not so sure. Maybe somebody’s been saving them up, and this is his rainy day.’ She looked back again, away from me. ‘I thought it might be your friend the Baron – and you. That was one reason I was so hot on your trail and, of course, it was why I drew the wrong assumption that night I found you with them. Until I began to see that you didn’t add up – no, that’s wrong. Till I saw that the you I’d moulded out of paper evidence and prejudice didn’t fit the real you. Whatever that is.’

‘Don’t you know yet?’

‘I know I was wrong.’

The rain came in earnest now, dashing down on the pavement like a shower of steel rods, shivering as they struck, stinging our heads and shoulders. We didn’t dare stop any longer, so – we trotted on, heads bowed, past talking, hardly able to see without shielding our eyes and shaking the drops from our eyelashes. I devoutly hoped the Children would be just as badly affected. At last, a very wet and miserable couple of miles on, it blew over, quite quickly, and left us chilling in the wind. We were out of town now, and in the industrial area; but all the developments looked alike. We cast about to get our bearings, chose a likely road and ran, exhausted as we were, to keep warm.

‘What I said –’ she burst out, ‘didn’t sound like much of an apology, did it? But I am sorry, very. I should have realized. But then the Spear was stolen, and that tipped me right over the edge. A lot of us assumed the worst – and we were right to. Except that in the middle of it all was you, an innocent where there should have been a king pin; you stood slap in the way of von Amerningen’s aim of hijacking the transport
service, you fouled up Le Stryge’s plan to steal the Spear. It didn’t figure, it didn’t add up – and it still doesn’t. How could they be so careless?’

‘Unless …’ All of a sudden I felt young and naïve, the first time in a long while, confronted with a world view like this. ‘Unless – unless it didn’t really matter whether these plans worked, as such. As if they were only incidentals, distractions, obscuring some larger plan.’

Alison did laugh now, horrified and nervous. ‘Than stealing the
Spear?
Larger than
that?
’

I didn’t answer; I clamped my fingers on hers, silently, and pointed. Ahead of us were the lights of the industrial estate, just as we’d left it; and there, cruising around slowly from the rail freight depot, was the flashing blue crest of a patrol car. But as we watched it glided by the gate of the C-Tran depot without even slowing, and out into the access road to the further half of the development. It was only estate security, too, not the real cops; and the rest was silent. So the row hadn’t been heard, then – hardly surprising, at night in a deserted estate, with the alarms switched off. And the helicopter was out of sight of the road altogether.

We took our time reaching it. We stalked it, like some nervous steel bird that might flutter off at any instant. We searched the shadows around it till our eyes ached, though impatience ticked away on a time-fuse at the backs of our minds; and when we finally scuttled over to the machine we searched it high and low for the slightest sign of sabotage. There wasn’t anything, though I still winced involuntarily when I started her up, and the shattering row re-echoed off the warehouse walls. Lutz’s men hadn’t thought of this, or didn’t dare linger in case Le Stryge’s creatures came after them. And we hadn’t been spotted by the authorities, either. Shreds of luck, but sorely needed. I was glad it’d be a short flight; I wasn’t fit for much more. I wheeled the little craft about as she lifted, much lighter now, and caught Alison’s sardonic grin as she looked down on the C-Tran depot. Somebody down there was going to be calling the cops tomorrow morning; and the resulting memos would be serious enough to reach my desk. One hell of a mess, no sign of a break-in, and two unidentified stiffs in hussar rig – I could hardly wait to see them. Any manager who could explain away that lot would earn his next promotion and then some. But I’d have preferred that confrontation to the one that was brewing
for me now.

*

All three of us looked up as the great door boomed softly open or, more truthfully, we jumped. Alison stood there, and beside her a tall man in the same plain grey, his sword couched in the crook of one arm. Her face was expressionless, deliberately formal; but I thought I detected deep unease there. The man was equally unreadable, but at least there was no hostility or anger in his lined features, or in his easy stance, and his voice was deep and firm. ‘Which of you is Stephen Fisher? The Lady Alison has put your case to us, and we have agreed that in injuring us you are not substantially to blame for your actions. Furthermore, we appreciate your great efforts to remedy it.’

I drew breath. ‘Thank you. That’s extremely fair of you.’

He inclined his head gravely. ‘Nevertheless, we feel that we must still see what the Graal itself makes of the matter, and learn if possible why you were permitted to remove the Spear. Your friends have permission to come with us.’

Jyp’s genial face froze slightly. ‘Oh – I do, huh? Well, thanks, mister, but if it’s all the same to your good selves—’

‘Jyp!’ I murmured. ‘I asked, remember? And we agreed!’

‘Listen, I’ve got back trouble!’ he muttered. ‘Got this yellow streak running down it something terrible—’

‘I know you! And you’re not fooling anyone.’ I turned to Mall. ‘Mall, can’t you tell him to—’

Mall turned an ashen face on me. Ashen, with little trickles of sweat at the temples; and her fingers were twining in her long blonde curls. All she said was, ‘I stand ready,’ and it came out in a hoarse baritonal croak. Then she hastily added, ‘Almost!’ and vanished back along the corridor behind us. A door banged shut, leaving me gaping after her. Mall was as transparently terrified as a little girl on her first day at kindergarten. And as Mall had been carving her own unhindered path along the haunted byways of the Spiral since the reign of James VI and I, a female paladin of startling strength and courage, that gave me pause for thought. And as she was the nearest thing among us to a power incarnate in her own right, that gave me still more. Why the hell wasn’t I afraid? Because I was too ignorant, probably; it had happened before. Like some minor Aztec wondering why the Spaniards were aiming those strange tubes; or one of
his Amazonian cousins wandering into an illicit toxic waste dump.

Mall reappeared, buckling her belt, and gave Alison an apologetic smile. She nodded, still formally, and led the way out of the Rittersaal’s immense portico, where we’d been waiting, and across the square to the high bridge across the gorge. The river below had been full of small boats, but now they were moored or tied up at their quays; the water was empty except for a couple of low-lying vessels moored beyond the heavy grille of the water-gate, where the walls crossed the river lower down. Jyp jerked his head their way. ‘Gun-barges, big ones. And not mounting your ordinary cannon, either. Something like big naval guns, shell-firers, maybe breech-block loaders. You don’t find many of those out along the Spiral – nor those,’ he added, indicating the airship that swung gently at its mooring mast on the far bank. ‘This place’d be a hard nut to crack, even with the weapons of your day. It’s only having a real community here that makes it possible, so folk can settle and live out long lives without slipping back into the Core. Lets ’em build up complicated skills, industries even.’ He gazed up at the immense towers of the Graal Hall. ‘Holdin’ all this whole city here, Jehoshaphat! Takes a heap of power, that – more’n I’ve ever come across before. And that’s what we’re going to pay a call on, Stevie boy! So you won’t go gettin’ too much on your high horse, huh? For all our sakes …’

‘You’re the pilot,’ I said, and he grinned.

‘Not in these waters; I’ve set you the best course I can. Wind and shoals, that’s your concern. Well, here we is. You okay, Mall girl?’

Mall’s grip tightened on my arm, making the bones creak, and for an instant I saw real hesitation in her face; her legs seemed ready to give way. ‘Aye, needs must. I have sipped the drink, I must e’en down the draught. But I’ve
tremor cordis
on me, truly …’ I supported her as best I could, and caught an odd look from Alison, still unreadable. She strode to the high door of the hall, and swung it wide before us. Darkness, a curtain swelling in an unseen draught, welled out above us. Mall’s grip slipped from my arm; I caught her and practically had to lift her over the threshold.

Inside, though, she stiffened again, breathing hard, jumped only a little as the door shut out the light again. Jyp, at his foxiest, squinted around, sniffed the still
air and then bobbed his head in a jaunty but respectful bow to the group who were waiting for us inside. Mall hastily swept an obeisance of such depth and panache her hair almost trailed on the flagstones. I managed the polite inclination from my course in Japanese business etiquette, and looked curiously at these formidable Knights. Most of them were old – an unusual thing in itself, as Alison had explained. They generally spent too much of their lives in the Core to benefit from the agelessness of the Spiral, though the Graal itself extended their youth and vigour far beyond normal. Only those who reached old age – not many, apparently – retired here, and ceased to age, until at last they grew weary and returned to the Core to die. It was mostly these older Knights who remained in the Heilenberg now, men and women who looked a strong sixty or so. I saw only a couple of younger men, both outwardly around my age, and two women besides Alison, one a little blonde creature I’d have put at twenty-five and not a minute more. But her eyes had the same calm in them as the rest, and it was she who motioned us forward along the corridor. Alison and the Knights fell in on either side, suddenly in step, as if they were a guard, and we filed out into the main body of the hall.

It was brighter than I remembered it – or rather, it was as if the shadows had taken wing and were roosting head-down from the dome. Sunlight slanted across half the tessellated floor, warming the stone of the surrounding pillars; the dais and its charge still wore their mantle of gloom. I was about to step out onto the floor when the leading Knight politely but swiftly drew me back and steered us into the gallery behind the pillars. I remembered how the guards had circled after me, rather than rushed in, and watched as the Knights ranged themselves in a wide arc either side of the entrance. I calculated this gallery would hold around three hundred that way, if it was ever full. When everyone was in place I expected some ceremony, but all they did, those Knights, was stand and watch, fastening their eyes on the dais with an intensity you couldn’t mistake. So did Mall, and though Jyp didn’t seem to be making any particular effort I thought I’d better imitate them. I tried to concentrate, staring hard at the shadowy mass and fastening my thoughts on it. In five minutes all I got was spots before my eyes and a headache, and about the same response
you would from a turned-off TV. The warm still air and the utter silence weighed on me like a blanket. I leaned against a sun-warmed pillar, my sore eyes slipped closed and I dozed where I stood – until the sound of Alison’s voice, urgent and pleading, jolted me awake. She was standing out there, on the edge of the floor, and I thought she spoke; but though I heard her words echo in the dome above, her lips never moved.

‘We need your advice – badly. You know what has happened. You know the story as I saw it. We are baffled, still, we do not know enough to act, we cannot agree on a plan. You must speak. You must advise us.’

Nothing stirred; yet something happened. The angle of the light seemed to change, to expand and spread, till a patch of the bare wall was suddenly illuminated, highlighting a glowing fresco in that flat early medieval style, the figure of a bearded king enthroned, his hand upraised with authority. Shadow enfolded us still; yet beside me something gleamed and glinted. Mall’s hair shone as if caught by a bright morning sun, and though the air was as warm and still as ever, it stirred and lifted. She tilted her head back, eyes closed, and raised her arms; and her ruddy cheeks blushed like fire. All around her was blackness; she bathed in light, and yet no ray reached her from the hall. The main beams shone squarely down on its centre now, pouring gold on the low dais and on the circle-graven stone that stood there, half hidden by the mantle of rich dull red. Glowing dust motes danced above its cup, and the air tingled with a sense of presence. But there was no more; no voice spoke.

‘Dare I ask again?’ pleaded Alison, before her voice had left her lips. ‘The Spear – the Brocken might still be forestalled – there is so little time! We must act!’

I felt I ought to speak, to ask, as I should have here before. But I hadn’t the faintest idea what; I was tongue-tied. And it didn’t help that I was beginning to get angry with that impassive silence before us. The sincerity, the anguish in Alison’s voice, the grave concern on the faces of the other Knights, all demanded some sort of response.