Poison (15 page)

Poison looked over Fleet as he walked. He was still the same old Fleet, with his floppy grey-white hair and large, solid nose and kindly eyes. Putting him in a scholarly robe had not changed him much. Except now he had told her he was an Antiquarian, some kind of collector of lives, and that meant he was something other than the Fleet she had known back home.

“Why didn't you tell me, Fleet?” she asked, as they walked.

“Are you angry?” he replied.

“No,” Poison said. She didn't feel particularly betrayed by his deceit. “No, I'd just like to know.”

“I couldn't,” he told her.

“That's what I thought,” she said. “Because you were watching me?”

“Very quick, Poison,” he said approvingly. “I was watching you. Among others. I did travel a lot, you know. But of all the folk I kept an eye on, I was watching you the closest.”

Poison nodded, digesting this. “What made you choose me?”

“I have an instinct for that sort of thing,” he said. “All who are called to the Antiquarians have it, to a lesser or greater extent. Time teaches you to spot the seeds of adventure in a person's heart, even when they are young.”

“But if Aelthar had not sent the Scarecrow to steal Azalea—”

“You would still have gone eventually, Poison,” Fleet interrupted. “Aelthar's intervention was just the trigger you needed. If it had not been that, it would have been something else. Although, perhaps not.” He shrugged. “The nature of our work is inherently random. Often, those who have the potential to be great choose not to fulfil it. Circumstance or fate decide otherwise. That is why we spread our nets, we choose our targets, we watch and wait. Heroes and villains are made on the turn of a sovereign, Poison. Sometimes we miss that moment, and we must work to retrieve it by deciphering stories, tales and legends to filter out the facts. But sooner or later, all knowledge comes to us.”

“Is there a book for me in here?” Poison asked.

“Of course,” Fleet replied.

“Can I see it?”

Fleet smiled indulgently. “Not until it is done, Poison.”

“Are you writing it?”

“No,” Fleet said. “No, our purpose is merely to observe. Through us, the books write themselves.”

Poison frowned. “I don't understand.”

“See, then,” Fleet said. He hauled down a massive tome with studded iron bindings. Taking it to a recess, he laid it down and turned up the lantern that hung overhead. There was a bench there on which he and Poison sat while they looked at the book that was laid on the table before them.

“Alambar Burl,” Poison read aloud. It was embossed on the cover in fading gold. Fleet hefted the book open to a page in the middle. The writing was in perfect script, written in ink without a blemish or smudge.

Fleet leaned over it and read.

 

But though men and women fell to the left and right of him, Alambar would not retreat from the battlements, and it seemed as though he was charmed. The phaerie arrows cut the air all around, but none found their mark in his breast. With his sword raised high, he called to rally, and the people of Jemar heard his cry and took heart, and they swarmed to the battlements with new strength. Then were the phaeries dismayed, for the defenders did cut them back, and the earth at the base of Jemar's walls was darkened with phaerie blood.

 

Poison had already read on several paragraphs by the time Fleet had finished. “So who was Alambar Burl?” she asked.

“He was a hero of the latter days of the Many-Sided War,” Fleet explained. “After our people had split themselves apart and fought to exhaustion, the phaeries came. It was a different Phaerie Lord back then, but they have not changed much in the intervening years. The struggle was a terrible one, but the phaeries eventually drove us from the plains and into the high and low places, the mountains and mines and swamps. Alambar was a great fighter, and a legend of those times.”

“How did he die?” Poison asked, turning the pages in great sheaves until she reached the last one. She skimmed the final paragraphs.

 

At that, Alambar took Sisella's hand and looked into her eyes, and spoke gravely. “I swear to you, we will not be long skulking in the shadows. Adversity will make us stronger. We will unite, and united we cannot fail; by the strength in our blood we will take back our Realm.”

Then Sisella knew that her husband spoke true, and together they walked back into the mountain settlement, where the skeletons of the first buildings stood against the setting sun.

 

Poison looked confused. “I thought these were biographies? How can you finish a biography if they're not dead?”

“You always did have a morbid streak, Poison,” Fleet grinned. “A biography doesn't have to end with someone dying; that's an obituary. No, Alambar lived till a ripe old age, and Sisella with him. His death is recorded elsewhere. You see, this is his
story.
Though he lived on after it was finished, this tale was done. It began with a boy enlisting to fight in the Many-Sided War, and saw him become a man and a hero, but it ended with the defeat of the human armies to the phaerie, and their retreat. Before this tale, and after it, there is little of interest in his life. We are storytellers, Poison, working for the Hierophant, who is the master storyteller. Storytellers do not include details unless they are necessary. We leave the boring work to the historians.”

“I think I see,” Poison replied. “Then a person has only one tale?”

“No, some have two or three separate ones or more,” Fleet said. “Some people have many tales. Sometimes they are linked into one big tale, sometimes they are utterly distinct. Most people do not have one at all. Though the Antiquarians are many, we cannot cover every life. So we take only those lives that are most important to the world. What we see and learn, the books know. It is part of the Hierophant's magick. And they then write themselves.”

“So my tale has begun?” Poison asked, brushing her black hair behind her ear.

“Yes.”

“So why can't I see it?”

“Because all the pages are blank.”

Poison made a noise of incomprehension.

“You can't tell half a tale, Poison. You can't write half a book. Whatever you choose to do next will completely change the aspect of what has gone before. If you decided to suddenly kill your friends as they slept—”

“Why would I do that?” Poison interjected.

“Bear with me,” Fleet said patiently. “If you
did
, then the tale would take on a whole new light. Instead of being the journey of Poison from Gull to save her sister, it would be the terrible story of how a young girl became a cold-blooded killer. The way it would be written would be different. Do you see? Or you might die right now, and it would turn out that it wasn't
your
tale all along, it was Bram's or Peppercorn's, and you were just one of the sideline characters. The whole story has to be known before it can be recorded; otherwise it might suddenly change. That's the beauty, Poison. You never know what's going to happen next. When the tale is ended, then the writing will be visible to your eyes; but until then, it is unwritten.”

Poison pinched the bridge of her nose. This was too much to understand. “When did my tale begin, then?” she asked.

“When you left Gull, I should think,” Fleet replied. “Well, probably a little before. The story of how you got your name is quite an interesting one. And we needed to know about your family so we could learn about Azalea, and how she was taken.”

“This is wrong,” Poison said, feeling bewildered and weary. “This is my
life
, Fleet. This is my sister being stolen, and . . . and the tears I've cried over her . . . and the times I've been scared to death and nearly eaten alive . . . and all of that is just a
story
?”

“Everything's a story,” Fleet replied. “I told you that before. It just depends on your point of view.”

 

“We demand to see the Hierophant!” Aelthar's voice rang out across the hall.

“The Hierophant will see none of you until his work is done,” boomed the gargoyle.

Poison's knuckles gripped the stone parapet of the balcony as she looked over the scene being played out below her. The sight of the flame-haired Phaerie Lord and his secretary filled her with rage and disgust, for in them she saw the creatures who had stolen her baby sister, and who had later double-crossed her so as not to give the child back. What purpose had they for taking her in the first place? Poison did not even know that much. Where was Azalea? What had she been suffering since she had been taken into the Realm of Phaerie by the Scarecrow? Was she even still alive?

Poison bit down on that thought. She would not be discouraged. There would be ways. She was far from beaten yet.

The hall was one of many in the Hierophant's castle, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber of black stone with mighty pillars supporting a broad balcony upon which Poison stood with Fleet and a few other observers. On the floor of the hall, where fine rugs were laid and where time-dimmed pennants hung against the walls, were those Lords and Ladies of the Realms that had chosen to attend. Poison studied them closely.

Foremost was Aelthar and his retinue. He was arguing with an enormous, stone-skinned gargoyle that crouched on a broad set of steps, guarding the double doors at the top. Poison took a moment to adjust her perspective. Aelthar was about seven feet, so the gargoyle was easily ten, fifteen when it flexed the bat-wings that grew from its shoulders. Its fanged face was set in a snarl, and its eyes glowered like coals.

“He cannot deny us!” Aelthar cried, losing control in his fury. “The masters and mistresses of the Realms are all here assembled. We insist upon an audience.”

“You may insist,” the gargoyle rumbled, “but the Lord Melcheron will not see you. He is writing, and will not be disturbed.”

“We know he's
writing
!” Aelthar snapped. “That's why we're here! Now let us pass!”

“In the Realm of the Hierophant, as in your Realms, his word is law. You may not pass.”

Poison let her eyes range over the others assembled in the room. She had already enquired of Fleet their names, though she had forgotten some. One she remembered particularly well was Grugaroth, the Ur-Lord, the Troll King.

He was the only one in the room that was an equal in size to the gargoyle, even stooped as he was. He had short, thick legs, massive forearms and an enormous lower jaw from which two tusks protruded, one of them broken. Fleet had informed Poison that he had broken it in a cataclysmic three-day battle with his predecessor, Mgwar, from whom he took the mantle of power. His skin was thick and brown and leathery, plated with natural armour and tufted with thick clumps of hair. He was dressed in besmirched brown and scarlet, and carried an improbably huge hammer across his back. Bloodshot eyes burned red in his soot-smeared face. He was a mountainous creature, dark and dirty from the deep mines and belching fire-pits from which he came. But most importantly to Poison, he was an enemy of Aelthar.

“Fleet?” she asked.

“Hmm?”

“Who or what is Myghognimar?”

She remembered the name for its sheer unpronounceability; Aelthar had mentioned it when they had eavesdropped on his conversation with Scriddle.

“It's the sword that Aelthar carries,” Fleet replied. “It was forged by a legendary dwarrow master in the mines of Grugaroth's kingdom: the finest blade in creation, so they say. Many centuries ago, the phaeries and the ur-people made war on each other, and Aelthar – who was a great general at the time – was responsible for defeating and slaying Grugaroth's half-brother Nuiglan at the Battle of Karss Forge. He took Myghognimar as the spoils of his victory. The phaeries were eventually driven out, but Grugaroth never forgot. He hates Aelthar, and every sight of that blade reminds him of the vengeance he owes the Phaerie Lord.”

Poison watched the Troll King with interest. After a time, she glanced over the other Lords and Ladies of the room. They came in all sizes and aspects, a dozen or so, each with their retinues eyeing each other warily. There was the Daemon Lord, his skin a sulphurous black. There was the manifestation of Eternity, a sparkling, blank-faced humanoid who, it was said, was responsible for regulating the natural laws of the worlds – to make sure up was up, down was down, time flowed and so forth. She spotted the Umbilicus, the mouthpiece of the Spirit Lord, who could not take on physical form but who spoke through this corpselike entity, hanging in mid-air as if suspended on invisible meathooks, surrounded by an unearthly green glow. The Gomm, whom Aelthar had referred to when they were eavesdropping, was not present. But there was one other that she was looking for, one she hoped would not be here. . .

She felt a tickling on the back of her hand, where it gripped the balcony. Looking down, she saw with a thrill of horror that a large beige spider was crawling across her knuckles, unhurriedly walking over her skin. With a spasmodic twitch of disgust, she sent it flying from her hand and over the balcony.

“What is it, Poison?” Fleet asked, having noted her violent movement.

“A spider,” she said, looking around. Just a little too much of a coincidence that a spider should appear at the very same moment she was thinking about. . .

Ah. There she was.

Asinastra was at the end of the balcony, her face and her dreadful gaze covered by a moth-eaten white veil, hunched amid the straggle of her own filthy hair. Even though Poison could not see those black, paralysing eyes, she knew that Asinastra was looking malevolently at her.

Poison felt herself go cold inside, but she refused to show it. She met Asinastra's veiled stare levelly. The Spider Lady had not forgotten who had stolen her dagger.

“She can't hurt you,” said Fleet at her shoulder. “Not here. The Hierophant's protection extends to everyone within his Realm.”

Poison did not break the stare. “I hope you're right,” she replied quietly.

As she watched, Asinastra slipped away, disappearing through a doorway. She felt a palpable relief that the creature had left, but it was soured by a terrible foreboding. Asinastra was here, and she would be coming to visit Poison sooner or later. Only the Hierophant's protection provided any shield for her; and it seemed a thin shield indeed, the width of a word.

“Why are they all here?” she asked Fleet suddenly, indicating the Lords and Ladies below.

Fleet stirred and cleared his throat. “The Hierophant has begun to write,” he said. “Sometimes a Hierophant takes personal charge of writing a tale. That tale is invariably important in some way; more important than most.”

“But they're scared of him. Why?”

“The Hierophant's stories are not just stories,” Fleet replied. “They change things. You see, the Antiquarians are recorders; what we know goes into the books in the Great Library, which write themselves. We can only observe. But the Hierophant is a
creator
. What is written in the Hierophant's handwriting becomes truth, becomes law. You already know of Amrae's Law. When he wrote that down, all Lords and Ladies were bound by it. Not just by choice, but
bound
. They
cannot
refuse a human their single audience; they
cannot
harm you while it is in progress. It is impossible for them to break that edict. Amrae wrote that law to give humans a fairer footing in the other Realms, so that their voices could at least be heard. The whole of the Realms waits now to see what new laws might come from the tale that the Hierophant is writing. And they tremble in fear.”

“What will he do?” Poison asked.

“Who can say?” Fleet answered with a shrug. “What would you do?”

“I'd write a great leader for humanity,” she said, without hesitation. “Like Alambar Burl, but better. One who would unite us, and lead us in driving the phaerie out of our Realm, so that no more babies would be taken, no more lives lost to the cruel places that we are forced to live in. I'd create him, or her, and give them to our people, so that we can claim back what is ours.”

“An admirable notion,” said Fleet approvingly. “Something like that is exactly what Aelthar fears. But there is no way of knowing. The tale cannot be read until it is finished; like the books in the Great Library, it will not be visible until the last line is written. Only the Hierophant knows what it is that he is creating.”

At that moment, Aelthar turned away from the gargoyle in a fury, and he chanced to look up to the balcony. His eyes met with Poison's and his brow clouded like thunder. She felt a terrible chill in her heart as she met that gaze, but she forced herself to return it with sullen violet intensity. Scriddle followed his master's eyes to Poison, and then blanched as Aelthar turned his stare upon his secretary. Poison guessed that Scriddle had not told the Phaerie Lord how the humans had escaped him. Then Aelthar stalked away, with Scriddle and the other phaeries following him. Grugaroth sneered as he passed by, and the dwarrows, ogres and trolls that surrounded him growled at the phaeries, who ignored them disdainfully.

Poison found that she was sweating. It had been unwise to come here; better that Aelthar did not know where she was, since he wanted her dead. Between him and Asinastra, she had some powerful enemies here.

“Don't be afraid, Poison,” Fleet reminded her, guessing her thoughts. “All guests are under the protection of the Hierophant while in this castle. None dare harm you here.”

“I know. You said before,” Poison replied, unconvinced. She watched as the Lords and Ladies dispersed slowly from the hall, their faces – those that had any – disappointed and angry.

“Come on,” said Fleet suddenly. “Would you like to meet the Hierophant?”

Poison blinked in surprise. “But I thought. . .”

“He won't see any of
them
,” Fleet said, with a twinkle. “But I'm sure he won't mind a little intrusion on our part.”

Poison was glad of any excuse to leave. “Why not, then?”

 

They entered the Hierophant's chamber quietly. Fleet put a finger to his lips to hush her as they slipped through a small side-door, and she crept into the room behind him. There had been a guardian outside – much like the gargoyle that defended the more ostentatious double doors which Aelthar had been trying to gain access to – but this one had ignored them completely.

“They are trained to allow through certain people,” Fleet explained in a whisper. “I am one of them; and since you are with me, then so are you.”

The chamber was large and predictably lined with books. A plush four-poster bed rested in one corner. One wall was taken up by an enormous round window, with a patterned frame of concentric circles, against which the rain lashed. Every so often, lightning flickered and thunder boomed, but Poison was so used to the storm by now that she barely noticed. It had not abated one bit since she had arrived here.

The Hierophant was sitting at a vast and ornate writing desk, his quill wagging as he wrote in a massive leather-bound volume. He seemed unbelievably old, thin and wrinkled with a long white beard that trailed down over his lap. His bald head was marked with liver spots, nicks and bumps. A thick robe of green velvet was draped across his shoulders, burying his shrunken frame in its folds.

For a long while, Poison watched him. The only sound apart from the storm was the scratching of the quill nib. The Hierophant was staring hard through his round-lensed glasses at the paper, and writing with furious vigour. Eventually, he stopped with a sigh, and glanced up at them. Though they had not made a sound, he had known they were there all along.

“Ah, Poison!” he said in a thin, dry voice. “How good to look upon you with my own eyes. My name is Melcheron, the Hierophant.”

Poison glanced uncertainly at Fleet. “It's my honour to meet you,” she replied. “I didn't know I was expected.”

“Everyone's expected,” the old man said, tapping the side of his forehead with one wrinkled finger. “I knew you'd come. I brought you here.”

“How did you bring me here?” Poison said, unable to keep the scepticism out of her voice.

Melcheron did not answer her question; instead, he beckoned her. “Come closer. Let me see you. Fleet, could you give us a moment alone?”

Fleet bowed. “I'll be outside,” he said, and departed.

Poison approached the Hierophant with some measure of wariness. She did not like his faintly disconcerting manner, nor the impression she got that he knew more than he was saying. As she got close, she glanced at the book he was writing in. As Fleet had said, there appeared to be nothing there; but the inkpot on the desk was filled with something that looked like particularly viscous water, which she assumed he had been writing with.

He squinted at her with eyes that seemed to have yellowed with age, like parchment.