Part 36 (1/2)
”It's not too late,” the woman says. ”But this time you have to come alone. This time you come alone, or you never see Niki again.”
Something taps on the cafe window, and Daria sees that it's the white bird, stranded on the other side of the gla.s.s.
Its beak is striking the windowpane so violently that there are tiny sparks.
”The bird can't bring her back to you,” Archer Day says.
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”Nor can the Weaver. I'm the only chance you've got.
Come before morning. After that, it may be too late. Theda won't sleep forever.”
”Who's Theda?”
”Bring the philtre,” Archer says, and when she stands to leave, the window shatters, spraying diamond bits of gla.s.s across the table, across Daria's lap, and the white bird is torn apart in the flood of darkness pouring in to wash the brown-haired woman away.
And it all feels like a dream again.
Daria holds the dead and broken bird in both hands, its blood oozing thickly from the s.p.a.ces between her fingers and dripping to the ground charred black as soot. There is no cafe now, and no sunlight, and no potted philodendrons.
She stands alone on a high and rocky place, beneath a night sky choked with smoke, and jagged lightning tongues lick greedily at the ruined and burning world below.
”I'm sorry,” she says to the bird, and it seems as though there are other things she ought to say, but she can't think of any of them.
”It's no fault of yours,” Spyder says, and Daria turns to find her standing only a few feet away. But this woman is not the Spyder Baxter she remembers; there's a glowing red gem set into the skin between Spyder's eyes that's the same color as the dead bird's eyes.
”She was my courier. She never expected to live through this.”
”Where are we, Spyder?”
”A place. A time the Dragon is preparing for us all. The red witch is insane, you know, but you have to do what she asks. Niki needs you.”
”The red witch,” Daria murmurs, repeating the three words as she turns to face the blasted landscape stretched out below her, as she stoops down and lays the dead bird's limp body on the heat-cracked stones.
”She told you her name was Archer Day. It's not, but that isn't important. She was sent to stop me, but she's fallen now. She's renounced her vows-”
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”And she has Niki?”
”Niki needs you, Daria.”
”You didn't answer my question,” but now there's something stirring in the depths of the flames, something enormous made of scales and teeth and leathery wings, and a rain of ash and embers has begun to fall from the scorched clouds.
”You didn't die that night,” Daria says. ”You only found another place to hide, didn't you? And you're still trying to use Niki-”
”Shut up,” Spyder snarls, and the ground rumbles beneath Daria's feet. ”I'm here because I tried to protect Niki. I gave my life, I loved her so.”
”Is that why she's dead?”
”That's why she's dead,” Spyder says, ”and that's what you have to save her from,” and as if it's heard her and knows the cue, the Dragon rises from a smoldering jungle of twisted steel and strides across molten asphalt highways, its tireless, searchlight eyes hunting, hunting, hunting, and now Daria knows exactly who it's looking for.
”My father was a serpent,” Spyder whispers in her ear, Spyder standing so close that Niki can smell her, vanilla and patchouli and Old Spice cologne, hate and spite and bitterness. ”My father opened his eyes one day and saw angels following him, and this is what they made of him. And, in return, this is what he made of me.”
Daria looks down, and there's a horde of white spiders, a billion pinp.r.i.c.k dots swarming ankle-deep around her feet and flowing over the edge of the cliff to meet the Dragon's gaze. She wants to scream, wants to open her mouth wide and never stop screaming, but she doesn't, stands absolutely still and silent instead, while all their scurrying, jointed legs brush across her bare skin. And when they've gone, there are only bones and feathers where the white bird was.
Niki opens her eyes, blinks, and the first thing she notices is that she's still holding Scarborough's hand. Or he's 329.
still holding hers. And the deck of Malim's s.h.i.+p and the be-calmed ocean and the devouring vortex with its crimson heart, so much like the gem between Spyder's brows, have all been replaced by wavering firelight and shadows and a rough stone floor. The source of the firelight is a wide, triangular pit set into the floor at the center of the chamber; the air is close and reeks of unfamiliar spices and musky incense. Above them, wide strips of some fine cloth hang suspended from the ceiling, an elaborate confusion of vertical and horizontal lines, zigzags and multispirals, the strips of a vast, discontinuous tapestry. The firelight plays yellow and orange ghosts across the fabric.
”h.e.l.l, I should have f.u.c.king run,” Scarborough laughs, a hard and humorless laugh, and he cracks his knuckles. Niki nods and looks around her at the great chamber, this one a far grander thing than the fish augur's magic bubble. The walls are constructed of ma.s.sive blocks of the same gray stone as the floor, slate gray shot through with glittering silver-white streaks, like veins of mica or pyrite crystals. On the other side of the fire is an altar-there's no mistaking it for anything else-a long stone table set at the clawed feet of a statue or idol so tall that its head almost brushes the roof of the chamber, fifty feet or more above them.
There's a rusty iron trough that leads from the table down to the fire pit, and Niki doesn't want to think about what that means, or whether or not all those stains are really rust, so she looks back up at the statue.
”Where are we, Scarborough?”
”If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say we're somewhere in the Melan Veld.”
”And that means-?”
”Bad s.h.i.+t, Vietnam. It means some real bad s.h.i.+t. Melan Veld is the sacrificial temple of the red witches of Nesmia Shar.”
”Yeah, well, I figured it had to be something like that.
The way things have been going, I really wasn't expecting happy pixies.”
And Niki stares up through the tapestry strips at the idol 330 staring down at her with its faceted, maroon eyes, eyes that might be garnets, if there were ever garnets as big as bas-ketb.a.l.l.s. And she knows that she's seen this thing somewhere before, this thing or something very much like it, and a moment later she remembers where. Those same powerful, feline haunches, the same four wings like ragged sails of skin and bone, the hooked beak, and she's pretty sure it's meant to be the same creature as the statue she saw at the Palisades, the thing that was almost a griffin.
”They brought us here, these red witches?”
”Like you said, it wasn't happy pixies.”
”There isn't much time left for questions,” someone says, a voice that streams like water over polished gla.s.s, that clear and easy, and a woman in long red robes and a sage green skullcap steps out of the shadows at the base of the statue. Niki can tell that she was very beautiful once, but she's grown old, and there's a terrible scar running across the bridge of her nose and both cheeks. Her hair is almost the same drab gray as the stone floor.
”You know, I'm so sick of hearing that I could f.u.c.king puke,” Niki says, and now there are other women stepping out of the shadows that lie along the edges of the chamber, dozens of women in identical, flowing cerise robes. A few of them wear skullcaps the same shade of gray-green as the woman standing near the statue, but most of them have simple white bandanas tied tightly around their heads. All of the women are barefoot, and the callused pads of their feet rustle softly against the rough stone.
”Look at her, sisters and daughters,” the woman on the altar commands, and now her gla.s.s-and-water voice is clouded with contempt and disgust. ”Look at her very closely. This girl is the Hierophant, the chosen and willing tool of the Weaver, the one who has come among us, to our world, to set the Dragon and all of its agents free. Because of this girl, we have given up one of our own.”
In response, the red women standing around the walls of the chamber begin to talk among themselves, speaking in nervous, hushed tones, a flurry of shocked and angry half 331.
whispers. Niki releases Scarborough's hand and takes a step nearer the fire pit and the altar and the woman in the sage skullcap.
”So, is this supposed to be some sort of trial?” she asks.
”Is that why you brought us here? Are we on trial?”
”No,” the woman replies. ”You're already condemned, by your own selfish actions and by the actions of the Weaver. There's no need for a trial, Hierophant.”
Niki glances back at Scarborough, but he's staring at his feet or the floor and doesn't seem to notice.