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-damnit . . ."
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 baitfor 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.
"I can't leave. I'm needed. I can't abandon these people!"
Zar-bettu-zekigal refused to meet his eyes. The other woman had hunkered down again, sorting crossbow bolts from the debris on the marble flagstones.
The brown Rat said: "Now, messire."
They do not see where a greasy-haired woman crawls on hands and knees through the bodies outside the tents, shedding armor at every move as if some insect abandoned its carapace.
She half-rises, grunts, slides down to lope painfully along in the shadow of the wall, supporting herself with one or sometimes both hands.
The Rats watch the darkening horizon, not the edges of the square. Her dark red clothes disguise her somewhat in bloody shadows. Unwatched, she limps towards the entrance of the station; pauses once to lift her head and bark a hysterical laugh at the sky.
She slides into the stairwell and shadow. Following.
Zar-bettu-zekigal clung to the brickwork either side of the arch, squatting in the niche, her knees almost up about her ears. She peered through the narrow slit at the back of the niche where a brick had been missed out.
"Just more tunnels."
Without turning, she kicked back with her feet and let go, arms and tail wheeling, landing four-square on the cinder track. Moisture dripped down from the roof of the tunnel. She turned, looted black ankle-boots crunching on the cinders. Elish-hakku-zekigal walked lightfooted from sleeper to sleeper, the lantern swinging in her hand.
Ahead, in shifting circles of lamplight on brick, the two Rats walked. Zar-bettu-zekigal shrugged, plodding to catch up with the older Katayan.
"The birds will take them to the Boat."
"What?" Zar-bettu-zekigal looked up warily. The hard toes of her unfamiliar boots caught on the railway sleepers.
"Souls. That's what she's doing." Elish-hakku-zekigal held the lantern higher. Its barred light swung over the curved brick walls. "The Lady Luka. She calls the birds to eat the psyche, the butterflies, before they're drawn up into the Night Sun. So that the birds can fly to the Boat and the psyche be reborn."
Zar-bettu-zekigal's shoulders lifted. She took a deep breath, mouth moving slightly. "Oh, what! I knew that!"
The woman smiled, her gaze on the diminishing parallel rails.
"Of course you did."
Zari skipped down from sleeper to sleeper, hands thrust in her black dress pockets, head coming up as she gazed around at the tunnel, bouncing on her heels. "Elish, why did Father let you come here?"
The older Katayan momentarily shifted her gaze from the rails to her sister. "He doesn't know I'm here."
"Oh, what! See you, you told Messire Andaluz that you're an envoy."
"I could hardly tell him that I'm a runaway." Amusement made the Katayan's tone rich.
Zar-bettu-zekigal slowed to walk beside her, looking up at the pale face nested among lace ruffles, the cropped black hair combed forward. She took one hand from her pocket and slipped it into Elish-hakku-zekigal's free hand. A black tail curved up to cuff her ear lightly.
"Elish, I love you."
"I know you do, buzzard. And I intend to see we both come out of this crazy place in one piece."
"Back there . . . up there . . . will those things from the Fane attack?"
The hand tightened on hers. Elish-hakku-zekigal began walking at a faster pace. Her face in the shifting lantern- light might have shown a smile or a grimace.
"Why ask me, little buzzard? I don't know everything."
She jerked the older woman's arm sharply. "You do!"
Elish-hakku-zekigal's laughter echoed down the tunnel. The black and the brown Rat paused to look back. She shook her head, sobering. "Well, then. Yes. I think they will. That isn't our fight."
The big Rat stooped slightly, the pole of her lantern in one hand and her drawn sword in the other. Yellow light shone on her brown fur, on her naked tail and clawed feet. She raised her snout to stare at the roof, incisors glinting.
"Are we right?" Zar-bettu-zekigal called.