Саймон Морден - Down Station

‘This isn’t, though, is it? This world is fucked-up big-time.’

‘It’s certainly different,’ he said, starting to smile. ‘When I jumped, I wasn’t scared. I thought you’d try and catch me, at least, but if you hadn’t? I’d still have done something brave. I fought a monster, and there were no guarantees that I’d win, let alone live. That was my choice. That I’m here to say all this is great, but it’s a bit unexpected. I heard my grandfather while I was falling.’

‘What did he say?’

‘ Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal. ’ He looked down at his hands, which had plunged the dagger into Stanislav’s inconstant flesh. ‘It means, “He who cries ‘God is Truth’ is ever victorious.” It’s a war cry, but he’s been gone for years. I suppose I thought that meant I was already dead.’

They looked at each other, and she reached over and squeezed his arm. ‘You look pretty alive to me.’

‘I should say thank you.’

‘You should shut the fuck up, Dalip.’

They sat like that for a while, and he slept again.

Down was vast: the White City lay in some uncertain direction to the west where all there appeared to be was ocean, the distance to it unknown, the way unmarked by roads. What else were they going to do? Where else should they go? It wasn’t as if they had anything better to do, had any pressing appointments, or knew of anywhere particular for them to be. If it was five miles or five hundred, it didn’t really matter. Down was all there was, and they had to start somewhere.

Mary flew above them, so high she was barely a speck in the rain-washed sky, wheeling in slow, lazy circles. Dalip had drawn a diagram in soot on the guard-room wall, describing the search patterns she needed to make, covering the maximum area with the minimum effort. She nodded like she’d understood◦– which she had, she wasn’t stupid◦– but the idea of flying in lines, back and forth, blocking off one grid square before moving on to the other, didn’t appeal.

Crows, she guessed, wasn’t going to be trying to hide from them. He didn’t know anyone was trying to track him down.

The wolfman had been in the south, but he hadn’t made it back to the castle by that morning. While he was conceivably on his way, his power over them had been broken at the same time as Bell’s. Having tied his fortunes to the geomancer, he’d find himself adrift soon enough. Mary had seen it before, in the bear-pit of children’s homes. The ringleader would be moved on, and the operation they’d left behind would fall apart in recrimination and violence. New alliances and loyalties might emerge, but it all took time.

Bell had gone. There was no sign of her around the castle, and no sign of her setting off after Crows herself. He’d been her lover, and Mary didn’t know what to make of that. Neither of them seemed the sort of people to show any of the weakness that came with love. Perhaps it had just been a mutual abusing of each other’s power. She’d seen that before too.

Now, it came down to her eyesight against Crows’ cunning. She couldn’t see through the canopy of trees that stretched from the castle to the coast, but she didn’t need to. Crows would◦– sooner or later◦– send his flock up into the open air as his eyes and ears, to help him find the most direct route to the White City.

If he didn’t do it today, then he’d do it tomorrow. If not then, some day. She’d wait, and he’d give himself away. She held that it was inevitable that they would find him and catch him.

She dipped a wing, relished the feeling of air tearing by, and watched for movement across the landscape below. The tail-end of the storm blew the crowns of leaves into swaying soldiers, marching over the hills down to the sea, a great curved bay that was itself divided again with headlands and inlets. Lines of waves moved white across the water, and seagulls folded and dove on shoals of fish.

Looking for movement, she found it everywhere. Down was alive: it seethed and boiled with life, but none of it was what she wanted.

The morning passed, and the sun rose high in the south. Something else, too. A darkly luminous disc chasing it across the heavens. It took her more than a moment to realise what it was. It was the moon, huge and hidden against the bright blue and cotton-wool white.

She spiralled down, flying low over the trees until she spotted a flash of orange boilersuit. It was Mama. Then she had to look for a clearing, where last night’s, or last year’s, storm had blown a hole in the dense mat of trees to let the sunlight flood in to the under-storey.

She landed on the fallen trunk, already crumbling under her tightening claws, and transformed herself into a girl in a red dress.

‘Dalip,’ she said when she’d found him. ‘That thing that happens when the moon goes in front of the sun.’

‘Eclipse,’ he said. Perhaps some who were that smart would have judged her for not knowing the proper word, but she didn’t feel it.

‘That. It’s happening, now.’

They all walked with her back to the clearing, and peered up at the sky with their hands across their brows.

‘There,’ said Elena, pointing at the ghostly curve of a crater’s edge as it was illuminated briefly, bright enough to cut through the glare. ‘What will happen?’

‘It’ll go dark, and not for minutes, but for hours.’

‘Do we stop, or do we go on?’ Mary asked.

‘Of course we’ll have to stop.’ Mama had already sat down, facing the warmth of the sun while she still had it. ‘We can’t go chasing round in the dark. Besides, my feet are pretty sore, girl, and I could do with a rest.’

‘And there’s no sign of Crows?’ Dalip frowned, looking at the drift of insects turn about the clearing.

‘No. Not yet.’

‘You all right flying further?’

‘Why?’

‘Because Crows has been here a while. He’ll know when the eclipses are due. He might even be waiting for it to send his spies up.’

She was gone almost before he’d finished speaking, up into the air, gaining as much height as she could. As she climbed she could see the black shadow in the distance, its edge defined by a sharp line on the ground that seemed to be rushing towards her like a riot.

Above her, she could feel the weight of rock rolling above her, threatening to crush her. The sun was consumed, piece by piece, by flashes and haloes, until all that was left was a nail-clipping of light.

Gone.

The black disc was overhead, and she felt so light, so giddy, that she thought she could just keep rising until she joined it in its path around Down. In the distance, the western horizon dimmed as the shadow consumed more. Behind her, the east was aglimmer as day returned.

She could see it, the outline of the moon, pale and golden. And when she looked again, the forest had fallen silent. The wind held its breath.

There, in the next valley over, a sudden disturbance as bright-eyed black specks lifted themselves into the clear still air, and spread out like a fan to the north and west and south. She spotted the clearing again where the others rested, and flew low over it, once, twice, three times, reluctant to land even for a moment in case she lose sight of her quarry.

Someone got the idea, and the four of them started off in the direction of her flight.

She rose again and glided high and stealthily, watching the crows as they came and went, their paths seemingly random but always centred on one slowly moving point.

She kept ahead of her friends on the ground, doubling back occasionally and swooping over their heads to keep them on the right track. Slowly, they began to close the distance between them and Crows.

Another dilemma: soon it would impossible for her to hide from the crows, or use her flight as a navigation aid. Crows would melt into the dark, and she would be blind to him, passing within touching distance of him and never seeing him.