Worldsoul

Thirty-One

The Devil’s Ears had fallen far behind. Shadow had not seen the watching woman again, and she had kept the sighting from the demon. Periodically, the spirit stirred inside her head, found Gremory’s red-black gaze fixed upon it, and retreated hastily. Shadow was enjoying the relative peace and quiet, but she kept thinking of the woman, and of Ator. She could not help feeling they were connected, that Gremory had drawn her into a wider web. Yet there were advantages: the immense weight of heat that lay upon the desert diminished the disir in Shadow’s memory, diminished even the Shah. She did not think the creature of the north, of those great ice wastes, would pursue her here. The Shah’s influence did not stop at the city wall, however. She would be wise not to discount him entirely. That left the demon herself.

Beneath her, Gremory’s camel-feet relentlessly pounded across the desert. It was evening. The sun had gone down in a burst of rosy flame and the sky was now green and water-cool. A single star hung like a lamp over the dunes. The demon had, before changing back into animal form, told Shadow that they would be there by nightfall, but Shadow did not know where “there” might be. Asking Gremory had merely resulted in the shapeshift from woman to dromedary. This was not a slow process; one moment Shadow was talking to a woman, and the next, to a large and insolent camel. She found this disconcerting.

As she rode, she scanned the horizon for signs that they might be approaching a destination: there were hills ahead, a ridge that was higher than the Devil’s Ears and still catching the last red light of the sun. Gremory veered towards the hills and Shadow became increasingly sure that this was where they were heading. As they drew closer, a bright sword-tip appeared over the summit-the crescent moon. Shadow greeted it like an old friend.

Gradually, the sand became interspersed with rocks jutting up out of the dunes like a cliff from the waves. Gremory slowed, halted, kneeled, and Shadow climbed down, to stand-wobbling a bit before regaining her balance on the sand. A blink, and the demon was back in female form. This time, Gremory wore black armour, heavily ornamented with silver. Shadow had a brief moment of demon-envy; a pity humans couldn’t carry their wardrobes with them.

“So,” Gremory said. “Here we are.”

“Where is ‘here’?”

“Where the person I want you to meet lives.”

“Is he like Ator?”

“No, not like Ator. I don’t-” the demon hesitated. “Ator is sometimes an ally, but one can’t rely on him. Besides, he doesn’t have the ability we need.”

“So who are we going to meet?”

“Come with me,” the demon instructed, and walked between the rocks.

A pathway, very rough, was cut into the face of the stone. As she began to climb, Shadow saw that it was not badly made, but simply very old, worn away by erosion and time. The scouring winds that crossed the desert were not kind to stone, and few structures lasted long. But the sickle moon hung above the steps like a guiding lamp and Shadow climbed on.

Halfway up, she turned and looked back. The desert stretched below, undulating miles of shadow. Far on the horizon she could see the uneven line of the Devil’s Ears, but the city, as she had risked to hope, was happily invisible, unbetrayed even by light. The stars were thick and brilliant now, so vivid that they cast their own faint glow, and in its pale light Shadow, for a moment, thought she saw someone standing on the opposite ridge. Then it was gone. She turned to where the demon waited with a terrible patience.

“I thought I saw someone,” Shadow said.

“This place is too crowded,” Gremory replied.

At the top of the steps, the stone levelled out into a platform and there was a black arch in the rocks beyond, some kind of entrance. As Shadow stared, a flame flickered within and she glimpsed a chamber cut into the rock. The demon strode forward. Shadow heard a murmured incantation, a ritual greeting. She ducked to avoid the low lintel and stepped into the chamber.

She knew at once that the person sitting on the other side of the chamber was not human. Yet there was nothing ostensibly to suggest this. He was tall, white-haired, and although his face was unlined, it seemed filled with a great weariness. His eyes were the no-colour of clear glass. He wore a grey robe. He should, Shadow thought, have faded against the stones of the wall and yet he was vivid, drawing the gaze and snaring it.

“Not a demon,” she said, and did not realise she had spoken aloud until it was too late.

“An opposite number,” Gremory said, and smiled thinly.

“Fallen?” Shadow asked and was appalled she had said such a thing.

The person said, “You cannot help but speak the truth in front of me. It makes social conversation very trying, I know. No, I am not fallen. I choose to be here. Duke, it’s good to see you again.”

“His name is Elemiel,” the demon said. Shadow noticed Gremory-Duke?-took care not to step too close to Elemiel: around the entity’s feet, a faint golden glow spread outwards. Protective measures. Shadow had no doubt that the entity needed them.

“I got your letter,” the angel said.

“We’ve come because this woman is possessed,” Gremory said. “She needs your help.”

“I may not be able to give it.”

“Yet, you may.” They stared at one another for a moment.

“All right,” Elemiel said, at last. “Let’s see.”

The world was filled with light. It was as though her veil had become transparent, and Shadow’s eyes had opened wide as a door. Illumination flooded into her; she breathed light. She was a doorway, she realised, and the angel stepped lightly in.

“Now,” Elemiel said. “Where is this person?”

It was not like being possessed by the spirit, or invaded by the demon. The angel’s step into her soul was thistledown soft, as imperceptible as a moth. But she could not more have resisted it any more than she could have flown: there was an inexorable push behind it, sunlight-strong. She stood quietly back and let the angel in.

And then she watched, passive, but this time not minding, as Elemiel strolled down the walkways of her mind, quietly and methodically opening doors. He walked into rooms that Shadow had long since forced shut; chambers filled with cobwebs and matters of the dark, and the light wind of the angel’s passing stirred up the dust and opened windows, letting in the air of the spirit.

Housecleaning, Shadow thought, and the angel laughed. Illuminated by the light that he brought in his wake, she was able to look on things that she had thought long buried-her mother’s death, her father’s disappearance-all without pain. She could sense the demon watching with detached interest. Gremory did not attempt to intrude. But always the spirit that had possessed her ran, fleeing swiftly down the corridors, and the angel went after it like a silent hunter.

He caught up with it at last in a basement room, somewhere small and walled and tucked away. Shadow recalled it as an early memory: a tense night of arguments, the family shouting around her as she lay, fearful, in her small bed. There were slamming doors and hissed accusations. She had never known what it was about. Yet she remembered now that on the following day, her aunt had taken her to the zoo, and the happy memory had eclipsed the other one, forcing it from her mind until now. She again had that feeling of miserable oppression, filled with lack of understanding and wish-you’d-just-stop, until the angel’s touch banished the unhappiness and brought healing in its place.

The spirit’s back was up against the wall; she sensed Elemiel closing in. The angel did not have wings, but colours swirled around it, shades that she was unable to name, colours of the soul and not of the manifest world. She could see the spirit over Elemiel’s shoulder, and it was as bright as a dancing flame.

“Come now,” the angel said, commanding, and a blade that was a fire and a leaf and a word appeared in his hand. The flame shrank back and then it dispersed into a mass of fragments, much as the ifrit itself had done. Elemiel gave a wordless cry and the light around him folded, faded, diminished to a small glowing point, coal-hot against the cool dimness of the room.