Cloud Castles Page 2

  I drained my glass angrily, and the dregs were bitter. I stared at those clouds, at that great insubstantial barrier, and longed to escape there, wished as deeply as I’d ever wished that I could just go running up and over that pass and out into the wild blue yonder, to lose my restless self in infinity.

  The waiter put down another glass, though I didn’t remember ordering. But I didn’t touch it. As I turned to read the bar chit a movement caught my eye, a splash of white, as if those scrubby tree-tops had torn loose a fragment of cloud. But as my eyes focused, my mind blurred. It was a horse, and a pretty big one by the look of it. A grey – which is to say pure, dazzling white – just standing there, with neither rider nor groom nor anybody else in sight. Saddled, bridled, but neither tethered nor hobbled, it calmly lowered its head and began to browse on the meagre grass patch under the trees.

  I glanced around again; there really was nobody about. The animal must have strayed from somewhere – a trade-fair presentation, most likely. Thank God our agency’d settled for a big-name dance troupe and some really impressive audio-visuals. Over the last couple of weeks I’d seen others rope in everything from strippers to hippos. Anyhow, somebody ought to do something before the poor animal strayed out onto the Autobahn, or encountered one of the car-park speed merchants; and I liked horses. Scooping up a handful of sugar lumps from the bowl on the table, I vaulted over the rail and made my way across the tarmac with studied ease, careful not to alarm.

  I needn’t have bothered. It looked up and saw me, tossed its head a little and just stood there, as if waiting. ‘You’re a tall fellow, aren’t you?’ I said quietly, and the closer I got, the bigger it looked – not as bulky as a Shire or Percheron, but tall and solid, like a very large hunter. I couldn’t name the breed; there was nothing of the Arab or Lippizaner about that long head. The tackle was strange, too: heavy and ornamented, with a high-pommelled saddle, but not cowboy style, more oriental, if anything. I peeled the paper off the long sugar lumps; it sniffed them and took them with a delicate curl of the lip, and let me stroke its slab-muscled neck and shoulder; it felt well fed, well groomed. But then it looked around and snorted, as if to say, Well – what’re you waiting for?

  This was no stray publicity fodder. This had the smell of the Spiral about it – of magic, and of mystery. And the Spiral could be a horribly dangerous place. But right then I didn’t give a damn. I tried the girth, and it was rock firm. I caught the pommel, set one foot on the concrete verge, the other to the stirrup and swung myself up and over. My foot slid into the other stirrup almost without trying; they could have been set for me. And the instant they took the weight, the great horse whinnied and wheeled, and plunged towards the screen of trees.

  I ducked as the foliage rushed towards me, grabbed frantically at the reins and found them looped around the pommel. But before I could rein in, we burst through the trees, and the soft clump of dry grass beneath the hooves changed. Not to the dull clop of tarmac; earth drummed and stone rattled as the great beast’s gait settled to an easy canter. I looked down – and almost lost my stirrups. The ground beneath those effortless hooves was invisible, lost in the flowing grey mist that enveloped us, so we seemed to be hardly moving, just racing on the spot with the mist flowing by us, as if the hoof-beats struck it solid for a moment, only to melt away again as they passed. Except that, as I stood in my stirrups and cast about, I could sense something else: the ground was sloping, we were rising, rising fast. Then, abruptly, brightness burst around us, and the fresh bite of open air. Dazzled, I blinked at the looming shadows above; were those still clouds? But I had to look away and down again – and this time I did lose my stirrups, and had to cling frantically to the pommel.

  The ground was solid enough now, a rough path of light grey stone and dusty soil scattered with pebbles of white quartz, but there wasn’t nearly enough of it. Not far beyond those flying hooves it fell away sharply, and the pebbles they kicked up went bouncing down a sheer stone crag into giddy emptiness, depths I couldn’t guess at. Smooth mist lapped the cliff-face, like a lake of milk. Only it wasn’t mist, because it stretched out from the crag to meet that same infinitely distant azure; it was cloud, and we were above it, climbing a mountain flank. The abyss clawed up at me, and my hands went slick with sweat, but I clung tight to the saddle and the climbers’ litany, that height doesn’t matter, that you can survive a thousand-foot fall and be killed by ten. Gasping, I forced myself to sit up and look up. My eyes adjusted, but I knew already what I was going to see: that selfsame landscape, those same rock walls and between them, rising no more than a couple of hundred feet to the summit of the pass, the road I’d longed to travel, the road I was climbing now. Icy shafts of excitement thrilled through me, only heightened by the swift pang of apprehension. The wind was keen and fresh, and it swept out the tainted city breath from my lungs and poured in life unending. The air was a hundred times more refreshing than the coldest, sharpest gin. I shook off the fear of the abyss, dug my feet back into the ornate metal loops and pressed my knees lightly to the working sides, catching their rhythm and finding my seat, enjoying the animal strength and making it my own. I took the reins, tipped with little cones of silver, and felt the stallion’s swift response, as if acknowledging my control at last. It was what I’d wanted, wasn’t it? And come what may at the pass, at least I’d see the other side.

  The road was rough, but the beautiful beast never so much as broke stride, let alone stumbled. His sure hooves struck sparks from the quartz, his harness rang and jingled, his mane flew in the wind like a banner; I found myself laughing aloud with the manic pleasure of it. At the last slope before the crest the path turned inward, away from the cliff; I dug my heels in and flicked the reins gently, urging the horse on. I needn’t have bothered; he went at that slope like the last furlong. We positively flew up and over that crest, and out onto the path that stretched out beyond. But even as we passed, I heard from high above the urgent chiming of a single bell. That tall pale tower was here with the rest, on the crags of the far wall high above us; it was coming from there; and from somewhere below us a deeper bell answered.

  But it was what lay beyond that transfixed me. The mountain flank dropped away again, less steeply; but the path didn’t fall with it. It ran on level along the crag, out and around the curve of the mountainside, looking down over that shimmering sea. The horse was following it as surely as ever, as if to make some urgent rendezvous; he answered my touch, but hardly seemed to need it. Riding almost automatically, I gazed out across the clouds, looking for some clue to where we were going. Other shapes broke its surface, other peaks rising in a jagged row of dragon-teeth, so we were in the midst of a chain; but closer, much closer and lower, something else speared up. A shadowy spike that barely broke the cloud roof, too thin and delicate to be another peak – and too regular. As we moved out along the cliff path the image split; there were two of them, close together, parallel, the same height – identical. And somehow insubstantial, though the sun cast their shadows clearly on that dazzling white.

  Then something moved at the edge of my vision – another shadow. Only this one was below the clouds, sliding through them like a fish, swinging parallel to the path. As well I saw it, or I might have had less warning. With alarming suddenness, like a whale, it breached, and rose, fast. I goggled. It was an airship, a dirigible, but not like any model I’d ever seen in pictures, leaner and sleeker than the Hindenburg or a Zeppelin. Its white hull swept back in only nine or ten smooth segments to a finned tail made of square sections like a vast box kite, and the motor units belched smoke in sharp little puffs. And yet it was making impressive speed, effortlessly overhauling us, and the cars beneath looked capacious and streamlined. Primitive? Maybe not. I began to see more of an alternative technology about it, sophisticated design operating on simple principles. Certainly it was a beautiful machine, as sleekly functional as a Viking ship. It came swiftly closer, till I could hear the soft gasping chuff distinctly – some kind of a steam
engine, surely. I rose in my stirrups to wave—

  Something sang past my head. No insect, that was for sure. I ducked, flinching. Above us the hillside exploded in a shower of dust and pebbles. I gaped like an idiot; being shot at was the last thing I’d expected. I tried to wave again, to show I wasn’t armed; there was another loud crackle, and this time the path leaped and spattered. I hunkered right down, jammed my heels into the horse’s flanks and yearned, uncharacteristically, for spurs. I needn’t have bothered. The canter became a gallop, and we positively flew. The next explosion was ragged, and the air sang like a bee-swarm. More than one shot; it took me that long to register it. Volley fire – that meant trained men. Somebody’s soldiers were shooting at me, without identification or a challenge or anything. They hadn’t even waited; they could have got a lot closer and made sure of me. But they’d fired the moment they came in range – as if they were scared, or something. Of one man who couldn’t be carrying anything larger than a pistol? It didn’t make any kind of sense.

  But they weren’t giving up. A shark shadow glided across the path ahead, very close to the hill. I looked up, tried to signal, found myself staring straight up into the sullen glitter of gun barrels from both cars. I yelped and flattened out in the saddle; they vanished in a streak of orange flame, earth and rock tore up around us – behind us! We were going too fast. The airship almost smashed into the hillside; the engine pulse quickened suddenly to a roar, and the air was suddenly full of spray as it shed ballast. The nose pulled up, around, and it swung violently; the motors roared and wavered. I imagined the men in those cars staggering, sprawling, sliding down into a bruised heap in one corner. I grimaced vindictively; I hadn’t so much as glimpsed a single face, but I hated their guts. Being shot at does have that effect.

  The airship was steadying now, chugging outwards in a great circle from the mountainside, ready to come swooping back at me from ahead. I patted the horse’s neck, feeling a flush of sick anger. Speed wouldn’t save us, then; we needed cover. I couldn’t remember any on that upward path – and I wasn’t sure I could turn this great beast back. Just trying to rein in at these speeds could spill us both down the mountainside, or cause so much confusion we’d be left as sitting ducks. Then, just beyond the corner ahead, two great standing stones loomed up, towering over the path like rough seconds from the Stonehenge factory. Our best – our only – bet. I flicked the reins and hissed, ‘Go, boy! For your bloody life!’

  And go he did. I nearly lost the reins, clung to the lathered neck and gibbered. I could have sworn he’d reacted an instant before I did, as if he too had seen and understood; maybe he had. We were at the bend now, hooves scrabbling in the dust, almost in the shadow of the stones – but darkening the sky ahead was the airship, descending like a glittering cloud charged with deadly lightning. Still a chance—

  Out from between the stones a figure glided, hooded and cowled like some kind of monk. He didn’t spare us a glance, but lifted his hands in a brusque, dismissive gesture, like a slap. Quite lightly – yet the sense of contained violence was so strong that the stallion shrilled and reared, forelegs striking at the air, and I fought to keep my seat. Not surprising, given what followed. The path convulsed, the very air bent and shimmered like an image in a distorting mirror, and through the heart of the distortion the dust and earth and loose rocks lifted and sprayed out in a great curving stream, straight at the oncoming airship. Rocks crashed off the coaming of the cars, drubbed at the fabric of the canopy, struck screaming off the airscrews; the machine lurched and shivered under the impacts, its gasbags in danger. I heard the distant splintering of glass. Again the motors roared, ballast blew, and the machine went swinging out over the path’s edge into emptiness. A single shot, aimed by brilliance or luck, splashed off the stone near the newcomer’s cowled head, leaving a bright streak of lead. He didn’t seem to notice, but he stood watching the machine slide away sideways down the sky, its pilots wrestling with it as I was with the horse.

  I managed to quiet him; so apparently did he, for I saw the great machine come about and rise a little, begin moving forward again. I expected it to soar back for an answering volley, but instead it sank down swiftly, till the cloud roof swallowed it. I sat an instant, feeling the horse’s ribs expand with great shuddering breaths. His neck trembled, and he shied slightly when I patted him – still nervous and no wonder. I looked down expectantly at my rescuer.

  He looked up. It was my turn to shudder then. I had to swallow before I could get the name out.

  ‘Stryge! I mean … Le Stryge. What the hell—’

  ‘Am I doing here?’ The harsh nasal accent was the same, the continual rasp of anger behind the voice unaltered; but a crooked smile belied it. A wry, thin-lipped thing, sour as green persimmons, but a smile all the same. ‘Saving your wretched neck, my boy. My usual occupation in your company, is it not?’

  I blinked. Something about him had changed. There was the same almost sickening impact in the cold grey gaze. The face could have been one of those classical busts, scholar, philosopher, priest or ascetic idealized in white marble. But the life that burned beneath made it a deadly weapon, a blunt instrument, square and stone-hard, the pallid skin deeply lined, the nose a thin flaring blade and the mouth a bloodless, lipless slash above the arrogant jutting jaw. How would you tag that bust – fanatic, madman, psychopath? That’s what I’d thought of him at first sight; now I knew a better one.

  Necromancer.

  A dangerous one; murderous, if all I’d heard was true. And yet, startlingly, he had changed. Instead of the tattered black coat and belt there was that dark robe, figured velvet by the look of it; and the white hair, once matted and straggling, was tied back with an elegant bow of black velvet – and powdered? The old swine looked like some kind of eighteenth-century priest – one of the racier French abbes, maybe. But what else had altered? The dirt of the ascetic still ingrained his face, shadowing its already deep lines. Along his high forehead the powder was clotted and grey, and little yellow drops congealed at the edges of his eyes; and I could still smell the dank tramp’s odour around him. I wasn’t alone: the horse was wrinkling its nostrils. Even the velvet robe was caked in places with ancient filth. A leopard can change its spots – by becoming a black panther. Better keep this polite.

  ‘You’re looking well,’ I told him, and he bowed slightly. ‘I assume I owe all … this’, indicating the horse, ‘to you?’

  He bowed again. Was he trying to make some kind of good impression? ‘I felt the least I could do was provide you with suitable transport. The fact is, young man, that just as you once felt in need of my services, so I feel in need of yours.’

  ‘What – I mean, pardon? Of—’

  Gravel ground in his throat; he was chuckling. ‘Ah, entertain no fears, I would hardly call upon you for anything … touching on my greater concerns. Let us say rather that I find myself in need of exactly those qualities I no longer command. I am an old man now, I grow tired easily. And I did not want your long-standing obligation to be a burden, a lingering concern. Better, I thought, to—’

  ‘Er, excuse me a moment, my … obligation?’

  He smiled deprecatingly, though his eyes glittered. ‘Why, yes. Our first encounter. You would not deny I was of help to you then? At every stage, material help? Without me, would you have found the fair Claire? Would you have stopped the Wolves’ ship in its flight – or tracked them down once more when they escaped you? And my precious young helpers, who were sacrificed in that cause. Even among the clouds of the Great Wheel, you surely cannot have forgotten?’

  ‘Well, no,’ I said, flustered. I’d had the odd nightmare about those ‘young helpers’, when I found out what they were. ‘Of course not! I thanked you, didn’t I? I gave you a small fortune in gold!’

  ‘Very graciously,’ said the old man, with that contemptuous crackle still in his voice. ‘But could it have bought that help elsewhere? My young creature of commerce, not all debts may be repaid in gold. And what I
would have of you entails only a brief and simple effort. Better, I thought, to give you the chance to be quit of it now, thus, and wipe clean the slate. Why, I had not looked for even this slight show of reluctance!’ He grimaced. ‘I would not try to pretend any such thing could wound me. But I must warn you, I can conceive of no easier way to clear your debt.’

  The horse was restive, shifting his stance and swinging his head impatiently as if he was growing more, not less, uneasy. I didn’t blame him one bit. I made a great play of patting and calming him, to give me time to think. Le Stryge! Yes, he had helped me all those years ago – though at the end, if anything, I’d saved him. A long time later I’d thought of turning to him again; but the idea had horrified my friends of the Spiral. Jyp the Pilot most of all, Jyp who had taken me to him in the first place. Hadn’t he stressed how dangerous Stryge was – how untrustworthy? How he might make use of any claim I gave him against me – but had I already given him one? What power would it lend him if I had?

  The great horse was responding, answering to my voice and touch; it was Stryge who made him nervous, that was obvious – and interesting. The old swine might have sent him, but the horse was no creature of his. I sat up straight in the saddle, and stared down at him.

  ‘I pay my debts, Stryge, when they’re fair. But I know why you helped me. It wasn’t for nothing. It was to clear one of your obligations – to Jyp; it’s him I owe, if anyone. Anything you want done would tip the scales the other way. A long way, only I might have trouble collecting. You used to call me a fool, Stryge. Well, if you want some rushing-in done – find another!’

  I reined in with a jerk, dug in my heel. With a loud whinny the great grey, jumpy already, wheeled and reared high. His hooves kicked sparks from the stone above the old man’s head, and Stryge, caught beneath, staggered and fell back behind the monolith. As I’d hoped, I flicked the reins as the horse settled, but it needed no telling; he sprang away with a wild glad cry, back along the path, the way we’d come. I sank low, my back crawling at the thought of what might be launched after us any minute. Another stone-storm, some blast or blight or fireball – or some terrible snare to draw me back, a fish struggling on a swallowed hook. More likely something I literally couldn’t imagine. I was far more afraid of that than I had been of bullets; I longed to dodge, to swerve, but up here that’d be fatal. No, there was only the speed of those strong legs.