3
The Rookery
They stood in the doorway for several long minutes, watching. Anise moved to one side, lips quirked in pleasure at the exhilaration of her charges.
They were looking at another world.
Before them stretched a flight of broad, shallow stairs that looked like they belonged to an ancient temple. Made of an unusual white stone, the steps were flanked on either side by rows of giant animal statues carved from the same material, each depicting an exotic and unfamiliar species cavorting atop a column-style base. Solace found herself clinging to this, savouring the familiar concepts of shape and stone as she gathered herself to process the rest of the impossible scene, every aspect of which rioted for her attention in a kaleidoscope of colour, sound and mind-bending variety.
The steps flowed into lilac-hued grass, which stretched out as far as she could see – a fantastic purple carpet for an intergalactic, trans-dimensional carnival populated by the strangest, most beautiful and startling array of people she’d ever seen. The crowd was in its tens of thousands, spilling down gentle slopes and around the contours of fabulous structures – silken tents, natural fortresses built around twisted trees, apartment blocks carved of glowing blue stone, lean-tos made of massive bones – and others so normal in their wood and concrete facades that they appeared lost. A teeming array of stalls were clustered along the walls of the temple-building, forming a melee of sound and scent as hawkers proffered their wares. Like something out of The Arabian Nights, different vendors were extolling the virtues of fruits, spices, jewellery and even live animals, but many of the vendors and their would-be customers were like nobody Solace had ever seen.
As she watched, a woman who would have been twin to Anise, but for her rose colouring, led a zebra through the crowds, occasionally stopping to sell a glittering object plucked from the panniers on its back. Nearby, a feathered lizard gesticulated at the wares of a golden-skinned woman with multifaceted eyes. A squat, horned man made what Solace supposed was a joke, causing his burly female companion to roar with laughter and clap her three arms – one made of flesh, and two mechanical – to her armoured ribs. There was no scrap of comforting normalcy to light on, no sight which did not clamour for inspection: here an albino woman and a coalblack man balanced atop a pair of rolling balls while juggling lit torches; there, a row of ancient TVs with concave screens showed a boxing match to a roaring circle of green-and-silver-skinned creatures.
Every combination of physical disparity imaginable was represented. Strangers whose bare skin rippled like oil, flashing vibrant honey-golds, icy silvers and scintillant purples in equal measure, their hair glowing eerily even at a distance. Men and women with full-body tattoos, missing or extra limbs, mechanical and cybernetic upgrades, wings, tails, feathers, fur, and everything in between – a fabulous patchwork of sentience. Solace was so overwhelmed by the human/inhuman element that it wasn’t until Jess gasped and pointed overhead that she even noticed the sky. Awash with swirls of silver-blue-purple like a Van Gogh midnight, the celestial vault was lit by a proliferation of massive white stars, but was utterly absent of either sun or moon.
Everything was aglow with unearthly light, or twilight, or magic, or some ethereal combination thereof, so beautiful and frightening that Solace didn’t know whether to scream, laugh, or close her eyes. She had never dreamed of a place so strange; had never, even since her ordeal in Sanguisidera’s dungeon, contemplated what other marvellous realms might exist beyond the humming structure of the air – not like this, never like this. For an instant, she felt a surge of such perfect kinship with the universe that it was like being on the cusp of death, yet never so alive, as though she were capable of sprouting wings and ascending to those glorious albino stars.
‘Wow,’ she said, then choked on laughter at the inadequacy of the sentiment.
‘We came here through underground parking?’ asked Evan, more than a little incredulous. ‘We did, right? I mean, through a garage?’
Anise fluttered her wings with apparent good humour. ‘The door through which you entered predates its current surrounds. Once, it was a place of importance. A wise man lived nearby.’
‘The Judge’s House,’ Laine murmured, to everyone’s surprise.
‘That is correct. But long before then, even. For many, many centuries, it was a place of power to the ancestors of those whose lands your own progenitors eventually claimed as their own. Such is the way of history. Once, it was a sacred habitation. Now, it has become a dingy home for machines that drink the blood of fossil-plants older than your species. Turn, turn, turn.’
Solace barely heard any of this. So thoroughly overwhelmed was she – as, indeed, was everyone else – that her sensory perception seemed to have narrowed to what came in through the eyes. Even so, the comparatively innocuous sight of a stranger walking up the temple steps completely passed her by, as did Anise’s murmured, respectful greeting.
‘Who bears the key to Starveldt?’
The question rocketed through Solace. Jerked out of her trance, she was startled to realise that the question had originated from a striking woman standing not two metres away. As Anise stepped demurely aside, the woman chuckled – a soft sound, given the background noise, but one which nonetheless raised the hair on the back of Solace’s neck, and drew the attention of her friends. Almost as a single organism, eight pairs of eyes swivelled and blinked a bleary double take.
‘Hello,’ said the woman. ‘You may know me as Liluye. And you, it seems, are Solace Eleuthera.’
‘Yes,’ said Solace, unable to manage anything else. In her own way, Liluye was just as striking as Anise, but that came more from the strength of her presence than physical incongruity. She was taller than Evan, and at first glance appeared no older than her mid to late twenties. But Liluye’s eyes were tawny-bright and aged, as deep and fathomless as night, as impossible to stare into as the sun. Dreadlocks the colour of new copper brushed her shoulders, vibrant against smooth brown skin only a shade lighter than Harper’s. She was dressed in a leather vest that showed her muscular arms to good effect and a full-length, dusk-red skirt, which exposed her bare feet. One prominent dreadlock, braided with a trio of hawk feathers, stood out against her neck. Her nose was strong, but not masculine, and her face wore a smile, quirked at the corners of a broad, expressive mouth.
‘The key to Starveldt,’ she repeated, unfurling a hand. ‘I would feel its weight.’
Slowly, Solace drew the key from her pocket, dropping it into Liluye’s open palm. The proprietor held it reverentially, eyes closed. Almost, she grazed the metal against her lips, but seemed to think better of the action. A sad look crossed her face; she lowered her hand and passed the key back.
‘It belongs with you,’ she said, somehow making the words sound like a benediction. ‘Forgive me. I had to be sure. And these are your companions?’
Still too astonished to answer, Solace nodded. Liluye inclined her head at everyone in turn. ‘Welcome, then. And where is the ninth among you?’
‘Ninth?’ asked Jess, puzzled. Solace was about to echo the sentiment when, for the first time since leaving the Kombi, she remembered. ‘Duchess.’
‘Dammit!’ Manx growled under his breath. ‘How does she keep doing that? We were watching her!’ At this, Paige nodded emphatically. ‘One minute she’s there, and the next, she’s –’
‘There!’ exclaimed Electra.
Padding daintily towards them up the temple stairs, as though she’d gained entry to the Rookery via some other gateway, was Duchess, an unmistakeable smirk on her feline features.
‘Cats,’ Evan muttered darkly, not for the first time.
<Humans> echoed Duchess. Unable to help herself, Solace giggled, while Manx made an irritated growling sound.
‘Greetings,’ Liluye said, with genuine respect. In a display so uncharacteristic that Solace found herself blinking, Duchess inclined her head and bowed, stretching out one white forepaw while simultaneously retracting the other.
<Conspirator> she purred. Her speech was flavoured with an undercurrent of pleased amusement that Solace had never heard her use. Could Liluye hear Duchess, too? She swapped a blank look with Manx, who was just as puzzled.
‘Will you come with us?’ asked Liluye.
Lazily, Duchess flicked the tip of her tail and blinked her algae-coloured eyes.
<I will not> she said, after a brief pause. <Yet>
Before either Manx or Solace could translate – Paige in particular had been casting enquiring glances their way since the little cat’s arrival – Duchess yawned and leapt up onto Anise’s shoulder. <Show me to a soft place, biped>
‘Take good care of our guest,’ said Liluye, at Anise’s raised eyebrow.
‘Yes, my lady.’
With a short bow to everyone present, Anise smiled and departed, weaving her way through the Rookery with practised ease. Within moments, the crowd had swallowed her up, leaving the bemused group in the guardianship of the establishment’s proprietor.
‘Your companion will be well tended,’ Liluye promised, turning back to the group. ‘You need have no concerns on that score.’
‘She likes swans,’ said Electra, with offhand helpfulness. No sooner had she spoken than she clapped a hand to her mouth, staring at her friends with mortification. ‘I did not just say that. I didn’t!’
‘Of course not,’ said Liluye, though her lips twitched. ‘Now. Some privacy, I think, would do us good. My chambers are not far. Unless –’
The world lurched violently sideways.
At least, it did for Solace, who staggered under the strength of the sensation. Mystified, she looked to her friends for any sign that they, too, had been jolted, but was met only with curious expressions. Liluye had broken off mid-sentence, creasing her forehead in perturbation as she held out a steadying hand.
‘What ails?’
‘I don’t know.’ A wave of dizziness swamped Solace. ‘I –’
<– got her yet, Mikhail?>
<Ah!>
She screamed, but her mouth wasn’t open. Hooks – there were hooks in her skin – she was caught in a barbed net and going blind as a rush of darkness blizzarded her eyes, nose, mouth, ears; she was mute, dumb, wrapped in velvet that stank of grave cloth. Grave, that was it, she was under the earth entombed in stone, her teeth were screaming in their roots, her hair burned like starfire and the blood, the terrible red wailing of a heart in panic socked through her chest like the hammer of black dawn, and then she was falling falling falling –
Caught.
‘Hello, sister-Solace.’
The world returned, or some semblance of it. Her senses boiled.
‘Grief.’ It was neither name nor statement. Her body ached. She collapsed to her knees, shivering with the violence of extreme cold, although she lacked all awareness of temperature. Around her was void, a nothingness so unbearable that it was like a gnawing, static roar. She moaned, and her eyelids flickered. Closed. Opened. And there was Grief, her brother-foe, grinning in the glory of his madness and the howling dark; he stood over her and laughed. Mikhail was there, too, clasping a vial of blood, but then she realised his hands were fused to the glass, saw the anguished grit of his teeth as he cocked his head and sloshed the boiling contents. Her stomach roiled as her sense of smell returned: that was her blood, unmistakeable, drained from her flesh in Lukin’s damned dungeon.
‘That’s how you’ve … brought me … here.’ She gasped out the words. Iron bands were squeezing her chest, crushing her with every savage inhalation. ‘How can you … bear it … bear this … place?’
‘Dear, dear. Betwixt and between.’ Grief steepled his elegant fingers. ‘Mikhail, I am so disappointed. You swore she’d come all the way through. But something is holding her back.’
‘The blood-magic is old, my lord.’ Mikhail was sweating. Unable to use his hands, he managed a desperate shrug by tilting the glass vial. ‘Few things are stronger, more potent, less fallible. She should be here.’
‘Part of her is. And part of her is not. Can you guess, Mikhail, my response to this?’
Crouching down, Grief reached out and cupped Solace’s chin, stroking her face with awful tenderness. She recoiled from the touch, but her strength had crumpled beneath a hundredweight of agony. Nothing worked.
‘So beautiful.’ He smiled, and for a moment his face was almost handsome. Then it twisted; his fingers dug cruelly into her hair as he kissed her hard on the mouth. Her body went rigid with fear and outrage. She struggled wildly, but Grief only bit down before flinging her backwards like a toy doll, slamming her into the floor, if it was a floor. Certainly, it hurt like one. Gagging, choking, Solace couldn’t even spit. Her throat was closing over, sealing up like an old wound. Her brother laughed and wiped his mouth on the back of his pale hand, her blood on both their lips.
‘She’ll die here, Mikhail,’ he remarked, almost absently. ‘I hadn’t wished that. Still, I could tolerate it.’
‘My lord?’
On the floor-that-wasn’t, Solace felt her lungs seize, airless and dead. I’ll die here. The blood in her veins was freezing. Her vision swam.
Grief gave an irritable wave and snorted. ‘What’s a little patience, after all? Send her back, Mikhail. I prefer my meat whole. And Rare.’ He looked straight at Solace. His eyes shone with the fury of black fire. ‘I’ll be watching, little sister. Watching and waiting. Until we meet again.’
Anguished, Mikhail Savarin roared.
The vial of blood exploded.