City of Ruin

THIRTY-THREE

'A golem show!' Marysa exclaimed. Her expression of joy was worth a thousand times the effort needed to get the tickets. She held his hands in hers, and somehow managed to shake the day from him, the way she always did.

'Yeah.' Jeryd was a little coy, for some reason. He wasn't the greatest romantic in the world and he knew it. No matter how old he became, he reacted just the same as when he was a kid doing this sort of thing for the first time. It was such an awkward business. 'I thought we could do with getting out, and I know how much you liked them back in Villjamur. So you'd better throw some fancy rags on, because the Great Iucounu starts in an hour or so.'

'Great, I'll go and change quickly.'

'Hurry now, or I'm going without you.' Jeryd contentedly watched her rush out of the room: surprising his partner was one of his great pleasures. As he listened to the familiar sounds of her getting ready, he sighed contentedly, and turned to look out of the window. It was snowing – no surprise there – but at least the street cleaners had left their path to the theatre fairly unobstructed. There was snow still along the tops of walls, or gathering on rooftops, places where the cultists couldn't easily do their work. To Villiren, snow was still a soft white plague. Storm lanterns hung at street intersections, their soft orange glow caught in the glistening cobbles. A part of him considered that tonight might even qualify as romantic.

To be honest he needed a night of escape like this, for his own sanity. Otherwise, thoughts of the improbable spider killer dominated his mindspace. The case took up his entire day, from questioning relatives about the disappearance of a loved one, to piecing together individual incidents in the hope of establishing a general pattern. And on top of that, as always, was the bloody administration. He wondered what the Inquisition would be like if it wasn't for paperwork.

Could he even match the wits and abilities of this spider, a being so unlike him, something so abnormal that it managed to resuscitate his worst childhood fears? No one else in the Inquisition seemed to care about the case. He had had words about his suspicions with one or two of the senior officers, but he could tell from their expressions that they would be leaving him to deal with it alone. And that was fine – he was used to taking the weight of the world on his shoulders without thanks, but it made for a stressful existence. One of the guys at work had kindly bought him a bottle of whisky, said he'd been working too late and would soon appreciate its company. He merely left it unopened in his bottom drawer, because that was a dangerous road ahead.

Eventually Marysa came downstairs and bounded into the living room, just like old times. A blink of the eye and they might have been kids again – where did all that time go? She wore her classic-fit green gown, with the brooch he'd bought her fifty years back, presented to her on one of the bridges of Villjamur as an anniversary present. Her white hair was tied back elegantly and she wore his favourite perfume.

'Shall we?' He offered her his arm.

*

Nanzi loitered on the rooftop, observing people shuffling along thtreets below with monotonous strides, one after the other, their headowed and hunched under the snowfall. Skies had clouded over. Many of the lanterns kept being taken by thieves looking for scraetal, leaving a darkness in which Nanzi, in her arachnid form, couleel comfortable. Snow had amassed along the guttering, obscuriner view, so the spider poked one leg over the top to clear some spacor her to scrutinize the scene fully.

She was halfway between the theatre and Jeryd's house. Her targead announced proudly to Nanzi earlier that day where he would be going tonight for his wife's surprise, providing the spider with the perfect opportunity to be rid of him.

Every couple that walked by, she homed in on and scrutinized patiently, sensing to see if any one of them was Jeryd. In the mass she sensed joy, misery, excitement, awkwardness – a whole host of states of being, which came to her in alterations of air chemistry.

Down to the left: Jeryd and Marysa. Arm in arm, he smiling, her laughing at something he had said. After a kid narrowly missed Jeryd with a snowball, he scooped up some loose snow from a wall and arced one back.

Cautious now of being spotted, Nanzi withdrew her legs, and watched them cautiously. The couple drifted further along, and Nanzi propelled her body across the roof tiles with the agility of a ballet dancer, all the time studying their progress. The lights of the city proved hypnotic, reaching her in languid pulses of heat, and chemicals from street vendors smeared the air, but she kept herself as focused as possible, tap-tapping from tile to tile, spitting fresh silk to support herself, so that she didn't slip and plummet to the ground.

Streets became people-thick, the golem show pulling in quite a crowd.

Then she lost them, Jeryd and Marysa, in a throng of bodies by the entrance to the old theatre. Her animalistic instincts took over: she must find him, she must kill him.

Up to the roof of the theatre eventually, up and up to a giddy height. The precarious structure seemed to rattle in this wind. Scuttling back and forth, she examined the surface for a few loose tiles, then managed to remove enough to squeeze her bulbous form into the building itself.

And down into the darkness.

*

Lights out. A dignified ripple of applause.

Three rows from the back, on the right side of a red-upholstered auditorium, Jeryd was getting vaguely interested as a golemist lumbered onstage in a flamboyant white shirt. His face resembled a sack of potatoes and he was laughing merrily to himself. A small white pterodette of some kind, all spindly and barbed, shambled along by his feet.

What a damn humiliation for a cultist, Jeryd thought, to be reduced to mere entertainment. Does he get teased by the others?

The man blew kisses to the crowd and Marysa excitedly clutched Jeryd's hand. This was all a little cheesy, and Jeryd couldn't tell if she liked these shows ironically or genuinely, but at least she seemed happy enough. Certain things seemed to reduce her to a sweet young girl again, so he simply smiled then focused on the man up onstage.

As they usually did, the golemist placed several waist-high, potbellied statues about the torch-lit stage, before stepping back into the shadows at the centre rear, the white creature tottering after him to stand by his feet.

A guitarist began throwing some chords, minor thirds mainly and, after a few predictable flashes of magic, the stone statues became liquid and motile. One by one, they began gyrating in a hypnotic rhythm.

*

With so many people, the air chemistry completely altered, anndividuals began losing their individuality. Nanzi ripped her way through the various floor levels and dropped down onto the ceiling of the auditorium proper. No – right above the stage now, looking down on all the rigging and apparatus of theatre. Ropes spiralled down to the limelight, and a red curtain sagged sadly like an age-collapsed face. Analysing the audience, Nanzi eventually located Jeryd and Marysa near the back, safely away from the majority. Although a large crowd, the theatre could have accommodated hundreds more. The auditorium walls – dry and stable – looked excellent surfaces to crawl upon.

Nanzi scampered across. Her legs pinged along the little metal railings above the stage. The figure on the stage briefly glanced up as she darted into the shadows beyond.

*

Well this is certainly nothing new, Jeryd reflected. The performers in Villjamur do this sort of thing ten times better than this fool. How much did I pay for these damn tickets? 'Great' Iucounu my arse.

Something flickered above him, to one side, but it was too dark to perceive what it was. Perhaps he was looking for any excuse not to watch this poor excuse for a show.

Back on stage, the statues flopped about like some poor creatures dying of hunger, while the 'Great' Iucounu glanced up from his semi-bow almost apologetically. In Villjamur you saw these things flying around amidst the audience for the finale – so what would this loser achieve? Jeryd shook his head and sighed. Someone nearby booed, and he would have joined in, if it hadn't been for his wife watching so sympathetically.

*

With precise steps, Nanzi navigated past the vast portraits lininhe wall – and she would have to be careful, because Jeryd had scanned in her direction once already. She noticed that she was too close to the people in the nearby rows so she banked up higher, thirty feet up, and now on to the ceiling, observing the auditorium upside down. She then moved to a position directly above the target couple. There, she spat webbing. Satisfied it would take her weight, she began to descend, as careful as possible that others wouldn't-

*

– a scream: a blood-curdling scream and Jeryd turned round, peerineft and right, then to the rows in front and the talentless goon unstage but there was nothing… and then it happened so quickly, the thing looming above him – a fucking spider, just standing there, doinothing – and he remembered screaming 'Please no!' and his hearammering, and the tenseness and tightness returning inside, and hidn't want it to touch him-

Suddenly Marysa hauled him aside, a blade in her hand, and shoveim beneath the row of cushioned seats. As the silent screams rattleround inside his head, he placed his arms over his face and peeperom behind them at his wife. She was slicing, this way and that, ahe massive limbs of the creature darting with phenomenal grace, rolling and ducking under the blows it tried to deliver in return. Bue had to turn away and cover his eyes. The seating nearby was ripped apart and Jeryd began to shiver, and the images blurred, and the sound of screaming faded, and he…

*

'Jeryd…'

His wife's voice, soothing.

Water splashed across his face, not so soothing.

He rubbed himself dry, peering about him now, alert and on edge. 'What the hell happened?'

'You fainted,' Marysa declared embarrassingly.

'Nice one, mate,' someone commented, and a man laughed in the crowd of theatregoers staring down at him.

Jeryd was lying on a pile of coats on the floor of the foyer, with its fancy flambeaus and elegant decor in the background.

'Well, I realize that,' he muttered. 'I mean, what the hell happened before?'

'A massive spider just dropped down and tried to attack us but I managed to fight it off with my messer.' She held it up for a moment, a sharp weapon with a wooden handle, before slipping it back into her boot. 'It's a good thing I went to all those Berja classes.' Her expression showed that she was feeling proud of herself. 'The thing nearly had you at one point – it kind of hovered over you as if it couldn't decide whether or not to kill you. I don't think it wanted to – if that makes any sense. How bizarre! Anyway, it wasn't just me that helped you – there were one or two men from one of the gangs, I think, and they fired crossbow bolts at it until it cowered away somewhere up in the darkness.'

'I didn't know you carried a blade.'

She suddenly looked coy. 'I was awarded it in my class, by the master.'

Jeryd grinned awkwardly, and pushed himself upright with great unsteadiness. Then it dawned on him: the spider. The one he was tracking – it was after him, too.

A spider. After him.

Fuck.

'Marysa, we have to go,' he said urgently, and she helped him off the pile of coats before guiding him through the parting crowds.

The image of the creature made him breathe heavily once again and Marysa hugged him. He couldn't believe how she was now the tough one.

'Marysa, we have to go somewhere safe. I think… I think this spider is out to get me.'

*

As they made their way home, he explained the danger they faced. Hold her that they had to move houses again, just in case. He suggestewo good hotels. Throughout the night they packed their essentiaelongings and moved out.

It was now abundantly clear to Jeryd that he would have to get the spider or the spider would get him. If he was honest, neither of these options radiated charm – although remaining alive was certainly preferable. So he would have to confront his deepest fears and snare a spider much bigger than himself.

If you looked hard enough, there seemed to be no end of places a colossal arachnid could hide. Every niche in a stone facade, every section of old guttering offered the potential for paranoia. It made choosing their new abode more complex.

A bloody spider.

In all his decades of working for the Inquisition back in Villjamur, Jeryd had never come up against anything quite so simultaneously ridiculous and frightening, but he had also learned in recent times to go with what seemed unlikely – because in this wide-flung Empire, nothing was impossible.

They'd found a hotel still open, which was all bad carpets and unfashionable curtains, but Jeryd was incensed to have to pay over the odds for a room. Empty corridors and vacant rooms were to be found everywhere, because of the war, but the night receptionist insisted that they did not barter. Damn rip-off city…

'There had better be a bloody good breakfast as part of this price,' Jeryd muttered as he slapped coin after coin on the counter.