Perdido Street Station Part 51

"Tansell, Penge," said Shadrach decisively, "you watch the door." They looked at him for a moment, then both nodded. "Prof? I reckon you'd best come in with me. And these constructs . . . you think they'll be helpful, yes?"

"I think they'll be d.a.m.n well essential," said Isaac. "But listen . . . I think the . . . I think there's a Weaver here."

Everyone stared at him.

Derkhan and Lemuel looked incredulous. The adventurers were quite impa.s.sive.

"What makes you say that, prof?" asked Pengefinchess mildly.

"I . . . I could sort of . . . sense it. We've dealt with it before. It said it might see us again . . ."

Pengefinchess glanced at Tansell and Shadrach. Derkhan spoke hurriedly.

"It's true," she said. "Ask Pigeon. He saw the thing." Reluctantly, Lemuel nodded that yes, he had.

"But there's not much we can do about it," he said. "We can't control the b.u.g.g.e.r, and if he comes for us or them, we're pretty much at the mercy of events. He might do nothing. You said it yourself, 'Zaac: he'll do whatever he wants."

"So," said Shadrach slowly, "we're still going in. Any arguments?" There were none. "Right. You, garuda. You've seen them. You saw where they came from. You should come. So it's me, the prof, the bird-man and the constructs. The rest of you stay here, and do exactly what Tansell and Penge tell you. Understood?"

Lemuel nodded, uncaring. There was a glowering moment with Derkhan, as she swallowed her resentment. Shadrach's hard, commanding tone was impressive. She might not like him, she might think him worthless sc.u.m, but he knew his business. He was a killer, and that was what they needed right now. She nodded.

"First sign of any trouble you get out of here. Back to the sewers. Disappear. Regroup at the dump tomorrow, if need be. Understood?" This time he was speaking to Pengefinchess and Tansell. They nodded brusquely. The vodyanoi was whispering to her elemental and checking through her quiver. Some of her arrows were complicated affairs, with thin, spring-loaded blades that would whip out on contact to slice almost with the savagery of a rivebow.

Tansell was checking his guns. Shadrach hesitated a moment, then unbuckled his blunderbuss and handed it to the taller man, who accepted it with a nod of thanks.

"I'll be at close quarters," said Shadrach. "I'll not need it." He drew his carved pistol. The daemonic face at the end of the muzzle seemed to move in the half-light. Shadrach whispered; it seemed as if he was speaking to his gun. Isaac suspected that the weapon was thaumaturgically enhanced.

Shadrach, Isaac and Yagharek walked slowly away from the group.

"Constructs!" Isaac hissed. "With us." There was a pistoned hissing and the shudder of metal as the five compact little simian bodies came away with them.

Isaac and Shadrach looked over at Yagharek, then tested their mirror-helms to make sure their reflected vision was clear.

Tansell was standing before the little huddling group, making notes in a little book. He looked up, pursed his lips and stared at Shadrach, his head on one side. He looked up at the torches above them, took in the angle of the roofs that loomed over them. He scrawled obscure formulae.

"I'm going to try and get a veil-hex going," he said. "You're too visible. There's no point asking for trouble." Shadrach nodded. "Shame we can't get the constructs as well, really." Tansell motioned the automated apes out of the way. "Penge, will you help?" he said. "Channel a bit of puissance my way, will you? This s.h.i.t is draining."

The vodyanoi crept over a little and placed her left hand in Tansell's right. Both of them concentrated, their eyes closing. There was no movement or sound for a minute; then, as Isaac watched, both their eyes fluttered blearily open at the same moment.

"Extinguish those d.a.m.n lights," hissed Tansell, and Pengefinchess's mouth moved silently with his. Shadrach and the others looked around, unsure what he was referring to, when they saw him glaring at the flaming streetlamps above them.

Quickly, Shadrach beckoned Yagharek. He strode over to the nearest lamp and linked his hands, making a step. He braced his legs.

"Use your cloak," he said. "Get up there and smother the flame."

Isaac was probably the only person to see Yagharek's infinitesimal hesitation. He realized the bravery he was seeing as Yagharek obeyed, preparing to tangle up and ruin his last disguise. Yagharek undid the clasp at his throat and stood before them all, his beaked and feathered head uncovered, the enormous emptiness behind his back shriekingly visible, his scars and stubs covered with a thin shirt.

Yagharek clutched Shadrach's linked hands as gently as he could with those great taloned feet. He stood up. Shadrach lifted the hollow-boned garuda with ease. Yagharek swung his heavy cloak over the sticky, spitting torch. It snuffed with a burst of black smoke. Shadows fell on them like predators as the light went out.

He stepped down and Shadrach and he moved quickly to the left, to the other flame that illuminated the cul-de-sac they crouched in. They repeated their operation, and the little brick gully was doused with darkness.

When he stepped down, Yagharek opened out his ruined cloak, charred and split and foul with tar. He paused for a moment and tossed it away from him. He looked tiny and forlorn in his dirty shirt. His weapons dangled in full view.

"Move into the deepest shadow," hissed Tansell, his voice grating. Again, Pengefinchess's mouth mirrored his own, and emitted not a sound.

Shadrach stepped backwards, finding a little alcove in the brick, tugging Yagharek and Isaac in with him, flattening them against the old wall.

They pushed themselves down, settled themselves and were still.

Tansell moved his left arm out stiffly and slung the end of a roll of thick copper wire towards them. Shadrach reached out and caught it easily. He wrapped it around his own neck, then looped it quickly over his companions. Then he slipped back into the darkness. At the other end, Isaac saw, the wire was attached to a hand-held engine, some clockwork motor, the catch of which Tansell released, letting the momentum take the mechanism, unwinding and dynamic.

"Ready," Shadrach said.

Tansell began to hum and whisper, spitting out weird sounds. He was almost invisible. As Isaac watched him, he could see nothing more than a figure shrouded in obscurity, trembling with effort. The murmuring increased.

A shock snapped through him. Isaac spasmed a little and felt Shadrach hold him where he was. Isaac's skin crawled and he felt a stinging current trickle in through his pores, where the wire touched his skin.

The sensation continued for a minute, and then dissipated as the engine wound down.

"All right," croaked Tansell. "Let's see if it's worked."

Shadrach stepped out of the hollow into the street.

The shadows came with him.

Enveloping him was an indistinct aura of darkness, the same one that had covered him as he stood in the deep shade. Isaac stared at him, saw the patch of deep black in Shadrach's eyes and below his chin. Shadrach stepped slowly forward, and into the light shed by torches in the junction a little way off.

The shadows on his face and body did not alter. They remained fixed in the conjuncture they had a.s.sumed as he crouched in the coal darkness, exactly as if he stood still hidden from the flickering glow, beside the wall. The shadows that clung to him extended perhaps an inch from his skin, discolouring the air that surrounded him like a caliginous halo.

There was something else, an untimely stillness that crept with him even as Shadrach moved. It was as if the frozen furtiveness of his concealment in the bricks suffused the shadows that coated him. He stalked forward, yet the sense of it was that he was still. He confused the eye. You could follow his progress if you knew he was there and were determined to watch, but it was easier not to notice him.

Shadrach motioned Isaac and Yagharek to join him.

Am I like him? thought Isaac as he crept out into the lighter darkness. thought Isaac as he crept out into the lighter darkness. Do I slip around the corners of your eye? Am I half invisible, bringing my shadow-cover with me? Do I slip around the corners of your eye? Am I half invisible, bringing my shadow-cover with me?

He looked over at Derkhan, and saw by her wide-mouthed stare that he was. To his left, Yagharek too was an indistinct figure.

"First sign of sun-up, go," whispered Shadrach to his companions. Tansell and Pengefinchess nodded. They had disengaged, and shook their heads in exhaustion. Tansell raised his hand in a gesture of good luck.

Shadrach beckoned Isaac and Yagharek, and stepped out of the darkened alley into the sputtering firelight in front of the houses. After them came the monkeys, moving slowly, as silently as they could. They stood beside the two humans and the garuda, and the red light glinted violently from their battered metal sh.e.l.ls. The same light slipped off the three hexed intruders like thin oil off a blade. It could find no purchase. The three unclear figures stood before the five quietly clattering constructs, and moved across the deserted street towards the house.

The cactacae did not lock their doors. It was easy enough to gain entrance to the house. Shadrach began to creep up the stairs.

As Isaac followed him, he sniffed at the exotic, unfamiliar smell of cactacae sap and strange food. Pots of sandy soil were placed all around the entrance hall, sporting a variety of desert plants, mostly unhealthy and dwindling in the interior of the house.

Shadrach turned and took in Isaac and Yagharek with a look. Very slowly, he put his finger to his lips. Then he continued to climb.

As they approached the first floor, they heard a quiet argument in deep cactus voices. Yagharek translated what he understood in a tiny whisper, something about being afraid, an exhortation to trust the elders. The corridor was bare and unadorned. Shadrach paused and Isaac peered over his shoulder, saw that the door to the cactus-people's room was wide open.

Inside he saw a large room with a very high ceiling, wrought, he realized as he saw the fringe of planking that skirted the walls seven feet up, by tearing out the floor of the rooms above. A gaslight was turned on low. A little way from the door, Isaac saw several sleeping cactacae, standing with their legs locked, immobile and impressive. Two figures next to each other were still awake, leaning in slightly, whispering.

Very slowly, Shadrach stalked like a predatory creature up the last of the stairs and past the door. He paused just before he reached it, and looked back and pointed at one of the monkey-constructs, then beside himself. He repeated the gesture. Isaac understood. He pulled himself close to the aural inputs of the construct and whispered instructions to it.

It scampered up the stairs with a quiet clatter that made Isaac wince, but the cactacae did not notice it. The construct squatted quietly down beside Shadrach, blocked from sight inside the room by his dark-drenched form. Isaac sent another construct to follow it, then signalled Shadrach to move.

At a slow, steady crawl, the big man crept in front of the doorway, shielding the constructs with his body. Their forms still caught the light, would glint as they pa.s.sed the threshold. Shadrach moved without pause past the line of sight of the cactacae talking within, with the constructs creeping beside him hidden from the light, then on past the edge of the doorway into the darkness of the corridor beyond.

And then it was Isaac's turn.

He indicated two more constructs hide behind his bulk, then began to crawl along the wooden floor. His belly hung down as he shuffled along with the constructs.

It was a frightening feeling, to move out from behind the wall and emerge in full view of the cactacae couple talking quietly as they stood ready to sleep. Isaac was huddled against the banisters on the hallway, as far from the door as he could go, but there were still several intolerable seconds when he crept through the dim cone of light towards the safety of the dark corridor beyond.

He had time to stare at the big cactus people standing in the hard dirt on the floor, whispering. Their eyes pa.s.sed over him as he crept before their door, and he held his breath, but his thaumaturgic shadows augmented the darkness of the house, and he went unseen.

Then Yagharek, his scrawny form doing its best to hide the last of the constructs, crept past the light.

They regrouped before the next stairs.

"This section is easier," whispered Shadrach. "There's no one on the floor above, it's just the ceiling of this one. And then above that . . . that's where our slake-moths hide."

Before they reached the fourth floor, Isaac tugged at Shadrach and pulled him to a stop. Watched by Shadrach and Yagharek, Isaac whispered again to one of the monkey-constructs. He held Shadrach still as the thing crept with mechanical stealth over the lip of the stairs, and disappeared into the dark room beyond.

Isaac held his breath. After a minute, the construct emerged and waved its arm jerkily, indicated them to come up.

They rose slowly into a long-deserted attic room. A window looked out onto the junction of the streets, a window without gla.s.s, whose dusty frame was scuffed with a variety of bizarre markings. It was through this little rectangle that light came in, a wan and changing exudation of the torches below.

Yagharek pointed at the window slowly.

"From there," he said. "It came from there."

The floor was littered with ancient rubbish, and thick in dust. The walls were scratched with unsettling random designs.

The room was traversed by a discomfiting river of air. It was a faint current, almost undetectable. In the motionless heat of the dome, it was unsettling and remarkable. Isaac looked around, trying to trace its source.

He saw it. Even sweating in the night-heat, he shivered slightly.

Directly opposite the window, the plaster of the wall lay in shredded layers across the floor. It had fallen from a hole, a hole that looked newly created, an irregular cavity in the bricks that raised to the height of Isaac's thighs.

It was a glaring, looming wound in the wall. The breeze connected it and the window, as if some unthinkable creature breathed out in the bowels of the house.

"It's in there," said Shadrach. "That must be where they're hiding. That must be the nest."

Inside the hole was a complex and broken tunnel, carved into the substance of the house. Isaac and Shadrach squinted into its darkness.

"It doesn't look wide enough for one of those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," said Isaac. "I don't think they work quite according to . . . uh . . . regular s.p.a.ce."

The tunnel was four feet or so wide, rough-hewn and deep. Its interior was quickly invisible. Isaac kneeled before it and sniffed deeply of the darkness. He looked up at Yagharek.

"You have to stay here," he said. Before the garuda could protest, Isaac pointed to his head. "Me and Shad here, we've got the helmets that the Council gave us. And with this-" he patted his bag "-we might be able to get close to whatever, if anything, is in there." He reached in and brought out a dynamo. It was the same engine the Council had used to amplify Isaac's mindwaves, attracting his erstwhile pet. He also brought out a large tangle of metal-sheathed piping, coiled around his hand.

Shadrach kneeled next to him and lowered his head. Isaac slotted an end of piping into place on the helmet's outlet, and twisted the bolts that held it.

"According to the Council, channellers use a setup like this for some technique called . . . displacement-ontolography," mused Isaac. "Don't ask me. Point is, these exhaust pipes will flush out our . . . uh . . . psychic effluvia effluvia . . . and discharge it out here." He glanced up at Yagharek. "No mindprint. No taste, no trail." He spun the last bolt firmly and rapped Shadrach's helmet gently. He lowered his own head and Shadrach began to repeat the operation. "See, if there . . . and discharge it out here." He glanced up at Yagharek. "No mindprint. No taste, no trail." He spun the last bolt firmly and rapped Shadrach's helmet gently. He lowered his own head and Shadrach began to repeat the operation. "See, if there is is a moth down there, Yag, and you go anywhere near it, it'll taste you. But it shouldn't taste us. That's the theory." a moth down there, Yag, and you go anywhere near it, it'll taste you. But it shouldn't taste us. That's the theory."

When Shadrach was done, Isaac stood and threw the ends of the piping to Yagharek.

"Each of those is about . . . twenty-five, thirty feet. Hang on to it till it's taut, then let us go on with it trailing behind. All right?" Yagharek nodded. His stood stiff, angry at being left, but understanding without question that there was no choice.

Isaac took two coiling wires and attached them first to the motor he held, then slotted the other end of each into a valve on his and Shadrach's helmets.

"There's a little antacidic chymical battery in there," he said, waving the engine. "It works in conjunction with a metaclockwork design pinched from the khepri. Are we ready?" Quickly, Shadrach checked his gun, touched each of his other weapons in turn, then nodded. Isaac felt for his flintlock and the unfamiliar knife at his belt. "All right then."

He snapped the little lever on the dynamo. A little humming hiss emerged from the engine. Yagharek held the outlets dubiously, peered into them. He felt some vague sensation, some weird little wash, trembling through him from the rims of the pipes. A little tremble pa.s.sed through him from the hands up, a tiny tremor of fear that was not his own.

Isaac pointed at three of the monkey-constructs.

"Go in," he said. "Four feet ahead of us. Move slowly. Halt for danger. You-" he pointed at another "-go behind us. One stay with Yag."

Slowly, one by one, the constructs trooped into the darkness.

Isaac briefly laid a hand on Yagharek's shoulder.

"Back soon, old son," he said quietly. "Watch out for us."

He turned away and kneeled, preceded Shadrach into the shaft of shattered brick, crouching and working his way into the stygian hole.