Paul Witcover - The Emperor of all Things

When he came to himself again, the blade was poised above the throat of the Old Wolf. His hand, which had been so firm, trembled now.

‘ Not him ,’ came Magnus’s voice. ‘ We do not need his blood. We do not want it .’

Quare realized with a jolt that Magnus was not addressing him. He was not commanding. He was entreating. It appeared that he, too, had a master. But if that master made reply, Quare could not hear it.

‘ Please, anyone but him! I could not bear to know his blood had a part in making us … ’

For a long moment, Quare’s shaking hand hovered over the exposed white flesh. Then, steady again, it lowered the blade, wiped it dry upon the Old Wolf’s waistcoat, and sheathed it. As the dagger slid home, Quare felt the control of his body returned to him.

‘ Best be off, Mr Quare ,’ came Magnus’s voice, restored to its customary authoritative tone. ‘ No time to dawdle .’

‘Who were you—’ Quare began.

‘ The dragon ,’ Magnus interrupted, and now Quare detected, or thought he detected, a hint of fear in the voice.

‘Why, you are as much in harness as I,’ Quare said.

‘ You understand nothing ,’ Magnus replied. ‘ Is the hand a slave to the arm? The arm to the body? The body to the mind? ’

‘Whom are you addressing, Mr Quare?’

He turned, startled, to find that Longinus had regained consciousness and climbed to his feet while Magnus had been busy pleading for the Old Wolf’s life – less, it seemed, out of any impulse towards mercy than from the same deep-seated hatred and sense of rivalry that had always characterized relations between the two men. ‘What?’

‘Who is it that is as much in harness as you?’

Only then did Quare realize that his half of the conversation with Magnus had been spoken aloud. He had assumed that the two of them were conversing mind to mind – but that was evidently not the case. Longinus must think him mad. And telling the truth would confirm his opinion. ‘Never mind that,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you later. We’ve got to get out of here before anyone else comes.’ It wasn’t his own safety that concerned him, but rather the bloodbath that would ensue if the hunter once more began to feed.

Longinus did not reply. Instead, he glanced about the room. ‘You have been busy,’ he said at last, inclining his head towards the nearest guard. ‘You seem to have overcome your squeamishness about cold-blooded murder. The Old Wolf would be pleased. Or perhaps not, seeing as how you have cut the throats of his personal guards.’

‘That wasn’t me. It was …’ He wasn’t sure how to explain.

‘The hunter?’

He was still holding the timepiece, his fingers locked around it. He raised it now, held it out before him as if in explanation. It was no longer glowing … and the hands had ceased their motion. It might have been no more than what it appeared to be. Except, of course, it wasn’t.

‘Your finger is no longer bleeding, I see,’ Longinus went on. ‘In fact, there is a conspicuous absence of blood all around, considering the abundance of slit throats. The hunter again?’

Quare gave a resigned nod.

‘You had best give it to me, Mr Quare.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Suddenly, Quare was facing a drawn sword. He had not noticed that Longinus, too, had rearmed himself. ‘The hunter, sir. Hand it over, if you please.’

Again Quare felt an invading presence slip into his skin like a hand inserted snugly into a glove. That hand drew his sword. ‘I cannot.’

Longinus nodded, as if his suspicions had been confirmed. ‘Because you are in harness, as you said. The hunter controls you. That much is plain to see. And I see as well that there is no hope of mastering it. I was a fool to think otherwise. What is it, Mr Quare? Can you tell me that, at least?’

‘An abomination,’ he said. ‘It is no weapon. It is—’

‘Oh, my aching head!’

Pickens climbed to his feet, rubbing his head with one hand and looking curiously from Quare to Longinus and back again. ‘What the deuce is going on? For God’s sake, this isn’t the time to squabble amongst ourselves! You’ve got what you came for – can we please just get out of here?’

‘He’s right,’ Quare said, eyes fixed on Longinus. ‘Surely you can see that.’

‘’Course I’m right,’ said Pickens, stooping to help himself to the sword of one of the dead guards. ‘Afraid I didn’t see how you turned the tables, Quare, old boy,’ he added, seeming to take stock of the situation for the first time, ‘but well done. Well done indeed! Only, you forgot the Old Wolf. I’ll just carve him a second smile, shall I, and we can be on our merry way …’

‘No,’ Quare said, and this time, though it was his voice that spoke, the will behind it belonged to another. And that will was not Magnus’s, either. Magnus was part of it, but looming behind Magnus like a mountainous shadow was something stronger, vaster, older … and yet, Quare sensed – because he, too, was part of it – something that was still taking shape, not fully formed, simultaneously ancient and new, like a possibility that had existed from the beginning of all things but was only now on the verge of being realized. Of being born. ‘We don’t want this one.’

Pickens drew back. ‘Don’t we? Got something else in mind for him, Quare?’

‘Mr Quare is not himself,’ Longinus said, advancing upon him, sword at the ready.

‘Isn’t he?’ Pickens blinked owlishly. ‘Who is he, then?’

‘I should very much like to know that myself.’

It was the Old Wolf. He rolled to a sitting position, a pistol held in one meaty paw. This he kept pointed squarely at Quare’s chest as he heaved himself to his feet, his sweaty face grimacing with the effort. ‘Who are you, Mr Quare? Not the ordinary journeyman and regulator you have taken such pains to appear to be, I’ll warrant. No matter – you have caused me more than enough trouble. I find my patience has reached its end.’ And he pulled the trigger before Quare could say a word or so much as blink an eye.

The impact of the ball striking his chest knocked Quare off his feet. There was no pain, just an immense, stunning shock. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back, gasping for breath and gazing up into Pickens’s battered face, which wore an expression of horrified concern that was anything but comforting. The stink of spent gunpowder was heavy in the air; a grey haze of smoke drifted before his eyes.

‘Quare! Good lord, man, are you all right?’

He managed to nod, sucking air into his burning lungs. Then erupted in a paroxysm of coughing.

‘Lie back, man. Lie back.’ Pickens was pulling one-handed at the shredded remnants of his shirt, frantically trying to get a clear view of the wound. ‘I … I don’t see any blood – yet how could he have missed at such close range?’

But he hadn’t missed. Quare could feel the ball lodged inside him, a heavy, aching wrongness lying alongside his heart. He felt, too, an urgent throbbing in his hand … the hand that held the hunter. He forced his eyes down. His whole hand seemed to be on fire, so brightly was the timepiece glowing. He could see the bones of his fingers. The hands of the watch had resumed their insectile back-and-forthing, as if they were not so much registering the time or anything analogous to time as he understood it but rather feeling out a path, like a blind man with a cane tapping his way through a maze.

Now Pickens noticed it, too. ‘What in the name of …?’ He drew back. But not far or fast enough.

Quare felt it happening, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. No warning he could give. His hand came up of its own accord and pressed the glowing hunter to Pickens’s chest. The man uttered a small sigh, shuddered once, then collapsed to the floor beside Quare. Where the hunter had touched, his shirt was shredded and blackened, as was the skin beneath. Quare gasped at the sudden absence of the ball from inside him, even as blood began to well up from a wound in Pickens’s chest that hadn’t been there an instant ago. And that blood streamed into the hunter like a river pouring into the sea.