Part 17 (2/2)

He felt himself descending.

”No,” Atwood said. ”Not until I permit it.”

End this trick at once, Arthur tried to say, but he couldn't speak.

”Look up,” Atwood said.

The stars, again, all around, and darkness. In the infinite distance, where one might on a clear night ordinarily expect to see the Milky Way, there was a faint rainbow of coloured light. A cold wind rushed past Arthur's head, or where it seemed to him that his head should be-as if he were standing atop Nelson's Column at night.

”The first gyre. Thank me, Shaw. There are thousands in London who would give up all that they have for such a vision.”

Arthur tried again to demand that Atwood end his trick-that he let him down.

”No,” Atwood said.

Arthur was afraid, and very angry.

He looked down again, and tried to will himself down. Atwood's voice boomed No, and Arthur shook, buffeted by the wind. The misty earth below him reeled as he spun weightlessly and at great speed, tumbling in orbit. By the time he regained control of himself and looked down again, the misty scene far below might have been Africa, for all he could tell, or the Pacific.

”See, Shaw? You have a great deal to learn.”

Atwood's self-satisfied voice sounded from just beside Arthur's ear. Arthur stumbled and turned towards Atwood as if he might somehow be able to hit him. Atwood breathed no and Arthur was off again, tumbling head over heels, over Antarctica and the Cape of Good Hope and Bombay-he thought he saw great grey cloud-elephants in the zoo-and Land's End and who knows where else. A girdle 'round the Earth, he thought, in forty minutes ... but forty minutes was for ever, it seemed. Overhead, the stars were all shooting-white lines of pure crystalline motion. He dug in his heels-or he would have, if he'd had heels-and came to a halt over John O'Groats. Grey rocks and grey sea and ragged islands. Atwood was there behind him laughing no! and Arthur was off yet again, the clouds tumbling beneath him, the stars zigzagging above. Like a cat Atwood followed him, and as soon as he next came to rest, Atwood repeated his trick. Arthur was furious. He had a sudden notion of what it might look like to someone below, if they'd looked up, if there was a below: a great fat oaf of a comet in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves bouncing back and forth across the sky, uttering curses! He laughed, then, and he began to master his anger. He told himself that the clouds, the stars, were only illusion. He'd been hypnotised. The clouds weren't there, and he was still in Atwood's library.

He came to rest. When Atwood spoke behind him, Arthur concentrated with all his strength on the notion that he was not moving, he was not falling, he was still. He was twice Atwood's size. Atwood could not bat him about like a cat with a mouse.

He was still.

He felt Atwood's red-hot irritation.

He planted himself more firmly.

Hot winds buffeted him.

Atwood said, ”Enough.”

At once they were back in Atwood's library. There was no wind. They were both sitting at Atwood's table, and Arthur was panting and holding the white tattva card in his hands so tightly that his fingers hurt. His heart beat as if he'd run to and from all those places he'd glimpsed in his vision.

For just a moment Atwood looked fl.u.s.tered, and sweaty.

”Well,” he said, smoothing his hair. ”Not bad for a beginner. But you have a lot left to learn, Shaw.”

Atwood got up from the table. He went to the far side of the room and replaced the cards and the book on the shelf.

Arthur stole a dizzy glance upwards, and saw to his relief that the ceiling was real and solid. No stars were visible. He got to his feet. He touched his face, ran his hands across his scalp. He ached. His skin was raw, as if he'd stood out in a high wind for hours.

It occurred to him that he wasn't really a raw beginner in this sort of thing. Certainly he'd never attempted magic before; but two months in Gracewell's Engine was a solid foundation in the art of self-discipline.

He looked at Atwood, standing by the shelf, head bowed, as if studying the spines of the books. Infuriating, sinister; undeniably somewhat magnetic. A madman, perhaps, but not a fraud or a fool. He knew that he was being stared at, of course. Like an actor, he seemed to take it for granted.

At last Atwood sighed and said, ”Josephine is far more remote. Adrift in utter darkness. She will not find her way home unaided.”

”I believe you. Good night, Atwood. I'm going to see that she's comfortable.”

”That was a game. Our real goal is a thousand times more difficult and more remote. Past the moon and onwards. We cannot reach it without Gracewell.”

”Well, Atwood: in the morning we can plan again.”

Arthur was half-way up the winding stairs that led to the gallery when he heard a knocking noise. He stopped. It came again.

”Do you hear that, Atwood?”

Atwood had not moved from where he stood. He was watching the door in the corner of the room-the door that led to the little side library where he kept his rare books, and the native of the Spheres.

Something behind that door knocked and scratched and sc.r.a.ped.

Atwood slowly approached the door. Arthur went to stand beside him. If Atwood were brave enough to open the door, Arthur didn't see how he could in good conscience do any less.

The knocking and scratching ceased.

Atwood took the key down from its hook. His eyes were bright with excitement and antic.i.p.ation, and his hands shook as he unlocked the door. It stuck. ”Shaw-help me. There's something...” Arthur put his back into it and the door opened. The weight that had blocked it rolled over. It was the creature itself, slumped against the door, curled up on the floor. It was still alive; its mottled indigo hide rose and fell with soft fluttering breaths. There was an overpowering stench of dead flowers and stagnant water.

It leapt to its feet, faster than Arthur's eye could follow, legs extending to their full impressive height. It began to flap its long arms about in rapid herky-jerky motions like a puppet being shaken. Perhaps it was trying to signal something, but Arthur had no idea what, and the flurry of motion lasted only instants before it charged. Arthur tried to block it, but it dodged around him with ease and then it was out into the library.

It leapt effortlessly up onto the table. It appeared frenzied, as if this was the last strength of its dying moments.

”Stop!” Atwood commanded. ”This is my house. I bind you, creature of the Spheres, in the name of Earth, Terra Mater! I bind you in the name of the Sun! I bind you in the name of G.o.d! I bind you in the name of Mercury! I bind you in the name of...”

Arthur got a good look at its silvery eyes. He didn't like what he saw. They seemed to him to be full of malice.

It leapt up off the table and into the air. Its legs were thin but they were long and springy, and it weighed very little, so it reached a good height-rather like a gra.s.shopper. At the height of its jump it fanned out its wings with a noise like sails snapping full of wind. No question any more that they were wings, wide and blue and complex in their structure, but they found no purchase on the dusty air of Atwood's library. The creature fell back onto the table and rolled onto the floor.

Arthur ran for the rifle. The creature didn't try to stop him. Perhaps it didn't know what a rifle was. It leapt again, caught the edge of the gallery with one long-fingered hand, and pulled itself up. It looked around. It didn't seem to recognise the door as a means of escape. Arthur was terrified regardless, thinking of Josephine upstairs, Abby watching over her. G.o.d bless Abby, who seemed like a stalwart girl to have put up with all that she had put up with, but if that monster crashed through the door of the bedroom, there wouldn't be much Abby could do to stop it ...

He shot at it. He missed and hit books instead. Atwood kept up his chant, which seemed to leave the creature quite unimpressed. Arthur worked the rifle's bolt. It was an old Lee-Metford, which was a stroke of rare good luck, because he'd once written about the Lee-Metford, free-lance for the Military Recorder, and had shot at tin cans with one or two. He wasn't a wholly bad shot. He fired and missed again. The creature wouldn't keep still.

It darted back and forth along the gallery, then climbed over the railing, stumbled, and fell back down to the floor of the library. Arthur was sure it had died. Atwood came and stood over it. Just as he said, ”What a waste!” it lurched up and slashed his cheek with its wing. He cried out and fell.

The creature rose to its full height. It fanned out its wings, which began to change colour, rapidly and kaleidoscopically, while from their motions there arose a strange high thrum.

Arthur shot it.

It fell. The stench of dead flowers filled the room, and he gagged.

Atwood stood. Blood ran from his cheek down his collar. Good, Arthur thought; serves him right. He was mumbling unpleasantly, urgently, wetly-what a waste, poor thing, imagine it, lost in our world!

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