Mazeweaver, page 9
And Lily ... she’s boy-crazy all of a sudden, but she doesn’t have a boyfriend. At least, she’d better not. I don’t want to think about it, but she could, easily. Her layered, feathery sort of haircut makes her look way older than nearly-thirteen.
A breeze whips off the river and Lily shivers. ‘I should have worn my winter coat.’
‘Here, have mine.’ Justin wraps her in his fleece and shoots me a guilty look. I don’t know why – it’s not his fault Lily has more fashion sense than common sense.
London Bridge joins in with the light show, and it gets a bit more impressive. A rippling sheet of blue light hovers over the river, and The Shard sends gold streamers spinning through the sky. With the addition of some fireworks it would look great, but I guess no one thought explosives were a good call to promote the International Day of Peace.
We all go and lean on the concrete balustrade over the river. I’m next to a cast iron lamppost with two whales twining around the base – much more impressive than my subconscious managed to create. I’m just wondering if this is an appropriate time for a bit of light snogging when the light show takes a turn for the bizarre.
‘What’s that supposed to be?’ I ask.
‘What’s what?’ Padma says.
‘That shape in the lights,’ I say, ‘like a massive praying mantis climbing down the side of the Shard. I can’t decide if it’s cool or creepy.’
‘Sounds cool,’ says Justin, ‘but I must have missed it. I hope they do a dragon next.’
The huge insect is still there, in plain view. I’ve eliminated cool and moved straight to creepy.
Ravi leans in and whispers, ‘I can’t see it either. Does that mean what I think it means?’
‘I want to see what the view’s like from the base of The Shard,’ I blurt.
Lily groans. ‘Don’t be a pain, Luca.’
Ravi digs his fingers into my arm. ‘Is this what it’s like? You see something weird and you run straight towards it?’
Padma leans around me. ‘What’s weird?’
‘Nothing,’ Ravi says. He frowns at me.
‘You guys don’t have to come,’ I say, detaching Padma’s arm from my waist, but they all follow me as I jog up the stairs onto London Bridge and cross the river. Beams of light ripple through the air on either side; it’s like we’re walking on water. Like at any moment the ground might stop being solid beneath our feet. I need some excuse to get away from my friends. From everybody. But privacy and Central London are not close acquaintances.
‘Ravi,’ I say as we cross the street in front of The Shard, ‘can you call me, please, so I don’t look like I’m talking to myself?’
Moments later, my phone rings, and I hold it up with a gesture of apology as I step away from the others. I reject Ravi’s call and put the dead phone to my ear. ‘Hello?’
It knows I’m here; I can feel it. Craning my neck back, I can see all the way up the sweep of silvery glass to the strips of LEDs far above. Purple. Pink. A black shadow scuttling closer.
It’s huge: thin, but as long as a bus. A copper-coloured mantis with bulging metallic eyes. Wait – it’s not just copper coloured, it’s made of metal. Its joints are mechanical and make faint whirring noises as they fold and extend, bringing it closer.
‘You have come to me at last, Shaman,’ it says in a clicking, whirring voice. It has more of a beak than a mouth. No teeth. Less chance it will try to eat me?
‘Hi,’ I say, staring up into glittering multi-faceted eyes. ‘I didn’t know you were here. That there could even be a metal elemental. That’s pretty awesome.’
‘I am not another of your pets, Shaman.’ He makes it clear my title is an insult. ‘I am made for this modern world and need no help adapting.’
‘That’s ... good?’ I say. ‘You do seem to have, um, grown up very fast.’
It laughs. It’s a sound that will stay seared into my memory forever: electricity, tube trains, the strange silence of being alone among strangers.
‘I grew in a mountain’s womb for endless years. I was birthed by fire and torture in a world far from this one. And I found a bridge. A pair of naïve fools who made me a gateway to a place where I can shine. You led me to this body, this steel behemoth that has let me be reborn.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I say. I mean, it’s my job to make nice with the nature spirits and their creepier cousins, right? Even if I have no idea what it’s on about.
‘I was not offering you thanks,’ the bronze mantis replies.
‘I could offer you a lesson in politeness, if you like,’ I snap.
With a soft hydraulic hiss, it lowers its head until its bright eye is inches from my own. I refuse to flinch. ‘Politeness?’ it says. ‘That is far from what your society has taught me. This world is ripe with all the ingredients for revenge, and revenge is exactly what the world of my birth requires.’
‘No offence, but it sounds like you could do with a bit of help adapting,’ I say. ‘That’s pretty messed up thinking.’
‘Don’t blame me for being what this world has made me,’ it says. ‘Your nature spirits are throwbacks to a more primitive time, and so they are simple creatures. I am made by nature but shaped by man: a spirit of the modern age. The spirit of conquest and commercialism, exploration and exploitation. They are the past, and I am the future.’
‘Who’s that on the phone, Luca?’ Padma asks, linking her arm through mine. I jump and drop my mobile.
‘No one,’ I say. Which sounds really suspicious. Shit. I can’t think with a great big insectoid spirit hanging over my head.
‘Oh, this is a ripe one,’ the elemental whispers. ‘So restless and rebellious. Delicious discontent.’
My job is to maintain the balance. To ensure harmony between humanity and the elements. But no one gets to talk to my girlfriend like that.
‘Stay out of her head,’ I demand. Then realise Padma is frowning at me... exactly as if I’ve just been talking to thin air.
‘Yes, what can you say?’ the spirit of the Shard hisses. ‘You will be called mad, laughed at or pitied but never trusted. You, too, are a remnant of a bygone age, Shaman. I understand this world better than you, the power and the potential. Go off and talk to your trees, for as long as they remain; I’ll take things from here.’
‘Where are you planning to take things?’ I ask, thoroughly buying into the whole looking mad thing now.
‘To their natural conclusion,’ the creepy mantis says, its faceted eyes reflecting my own distorted image back at me.
‘You’re starting to freak me out, Luca,’ Padma says.
The mantis laughs. ‘I can taste her, you know. More intimate than you could ever be with her. Humanity shaped my bones, fed me on their desires – and they continue to feed me now, all of their little needs. There will never be an end to those needs, and there will never be an end to my appetite. A perfect symbiosis of greed.’ Its beak-like mouth opens and a long tongue like copper wire flicks out and runs up Padma’s cheek. I know she can’t physically feel it, but she shudders.
I can feel it, though. Not the physical touch, but the mental trace behind it. It’s subtle, like that unsettled feeling when you kinda want a second slice of cake, or worry that your shoes are a year behind the latest fashion. A tickle of discontent, the slime trail of a slug of dissatisfaction.
My first thought is that it’s some sort of possession, that it’s putting these thoughts into her head; but then I realise that the feelings were already there. It doesn’t need to feed that to us: everyone is already discontented. The Mantis is teasing it to the surface, drinking the emotion. A whole city full of people wanting more, a vast battery charging up this metal monster.
‘Oh, no you don’t,’ I say. I’ve no idea what it wants all that energy for, but it’s not getting it from me and my friends.
I’ve had to practise controlling my mind a lot: you have to be able to focus like crazy in order to dreamwalk, and when you’re in a dream you don’t want to lose control of your thoughts because they are directly powering your whole world. So, after all those months of training in trance and meditation, I know how to cut off a stray thought at its root. I find the embers of that discontent and douse it. But now I’ve caught the trail the creature has left in my mind – I can follow it, a network of wires like an elaborate circuit board running out from The Shard and making little electrical connections, pinging off the crowds. I sway on my feet and almost lose the connection, but Ravi catches me and holds me up as I go deeper, the world around me just a sketch made of electrical current. The Shard towering over everything, a column of glowing metal like the heart of a forge. A thief. A parasite that’s feeding on the people I care about.
I don’t have a plan – I just lash out. Shove as hard as I can. It feels like I’ve stuck my hand into a plug socket, but it’s my emotions being fried rather than my fingers. I think I probably scream.
Then I’m flat on the pavement, legs tangled up with Ravi’s who’s fallen underneath me. Everything is dark. For at least three blocks, all the streetlights are out, not a single window is glowing.
The light show is very definitely over.
Only I would choose the International Day of Peace to start a war.
Almost-said
The familiar prairies were falling into the distance behind them. As they travelled further south, the land was becoming dryer, the grass short and browning, the bushes full of spikes and loneliness. There were no large towns, and fewer and fewer villages as the grazing dried up.
A huge flock of arctic terns took flight at their approach, white wings almost covering the washed-out sky.
‘They’ll reach my homeland a lot faster than us,’ Quantum said, ‘and carry on much further south, across the ocean. We’ll only have to cover a short stretch of the trip by sea, thank goodness. I loathe ships.’
‘Oh,’ said Aliya, ‘I didn’t realise the dragons lived on an island.’
‘It’s not an island, it’s a peninsular,’ Quantum told her, ‘but it’s cut off from the mainland by a mountain range. That would be too hard to cross, particularly in winter.’
‘It’s a long way from winter yet,’ Aliya said.
‘It’s already winter on the top of the mountains. I loathe snow, too.’
‘Snow is fun,’ Meriel chimed in. ‘You can make it dance in such pretty patterns. I love dancing.’
Quantum sniggered. ‘You should get Aliya to show you her raindance.’
Aliya glowered at her little friend. She wasn’t in the mood to laugh at herself. Something had felt off all day – the unfamiliar scrubland, the itchy heat of the late summer sun, a tickle in the back of her brain like something forgotten was trying to get her attention.
Shamans learnt not to ignore their instincts.
She pulled Meera to a halt and swung down, lying in the dry grass and putting an ear to the ground.
‘Is this how the dance begins?’ Meriel asked.
‘No,’ Kai replied, his shuttered face taking on a darker cast. ‘This is an ending, not a beginning.’
‘Cheerful,’ Aliya griped, but he wasn’t wrong. Something was calling to her through the earth. She followed the blackened roots that snaked beneath her feet, and within a mile they led her to their source.
The giant cedar tree was dying. It stood thirty metres high and would have been taller yet if it had not been split by lightning, sheering off a third of its sweeping branches and leaving a blackened scar.
‘How sad,’ said Meriel. ‘He’s still so young.’
The tree had to be at least two hundred years old. ‘Young?’ said Quantum. ‘Just how old are you?’
‘I don’t know,’ Meriel answered, ‘I stopped keeping track. It’s all such a whirl.’
Aliya stroked a gentle hand along the bark. A pair of moss-green eyes blinked open. She could see the outline of the tree elemental embedded in the trunk, half its body charred and oozing sap like blood.
‘I have called you here to hear my last words,’ the tree whispered. ‘The corruption creeps closer and the curse will follow. You are a link in the chain, Bridger of Worlds. You are the beginning of our end. Close the doorway, Shaman, before the rage traps you also. Turn away from this danger.’
‘I’ve learnt to respect the wisdom of trees,’ Aliya said, ‘but I wouldn’t be much of a shaman if I ran from danger. Corruption and curses sound like my business.’
‘Some things are too big,’ the tree murmured, its eyes sliding closed for the final time. ‘Some spirits should never be woken.’
‘Well, that was encouraging,’ Aliya said, letting her hand fall and pensively hoisting herself onto Meera’s back. It was so helpful to know something was a bad idea before she did it anyway.
Meriel laughed. ‘Are all the things you do bad ideas?’
Aliya jerked to a halt. ‘Are you reading my mind?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ the sprite answered, ‘I’m only listening to the things you almost said. Can’t you do that?’
‘Maybe – if you tell me what it feels like,’ Aliya said.
‘A cold draft in a warm room,’ Meriel said. ‘A bit salty. The shadow of the words being spoken.’
Well, that was helpful.
‘No need to be sarcastic,’ Meriel said. ‘Fine; try making your awareness into a net to catch thoughts that spill over the edges.’
Aliya had always visualised her mind as a tree, her thoughts as branches. She imagined spreading those branches out, not invading the trees of other consciousness’s around her but just waiting patiently for any leaves to fall.
I hope she stays in a trance all day, said Quantum, and gives me a break from her sanctimonious sympathy.
Her awareness snapped back into the confines of her own head so fast it sent a spike of pain through her skull. Quantum was draped bonelessly between Meera’s ears; he swivelled one eye towards her and blinked lazily.
‘What in the Nine Realms do you mean by that?’ she demanded.
Quantum stared at her blankly for a moment, and then a look of guilt swept across his face. ‘I didn’t say anything.’
‘Oh. I did it, then.’ She waited for a feeling of accomplishment to come. It didn’t, only a sick sense of betrayal.
‘You can’t be angry with me for something I didn’t say,’ Quantum told her.
‘Oh, can’t I?’ she replied. ‘You thought it, didn’t you?’
‘I chose not to say it.’
‘Well, I can’t choose not to know how you feel,’ she snapped.
Sparks flew out of Quantum’s nostrils. ‘This is like your “I’m not a shaman” routine all over again, you know,’ he said. ‘I thought maybe you’d grown up when you stopped pretending not to be who you are – but you’ve just put on another mask. You’re so busy trying to persuade everyone that you deserve to be a shaman that you’ve stopped caring how anyone else feels.’
‘I do nothing but care about other people!’ Aliya said.
‘No,’ said Quantum, ‘you care about how they see you. What are you scared of, Aliya? Why can’t you just be yourself?’
‘Because a teenage girl doesn’t exactly command respect!’ Aliya said. ‘Without respect, a shaman’s nothing. You remember, when I first came home, how I had to fight to prove myself. I can’t lose all that ground by just being normal. A daughter. A sister. A friend. No one wants me to be those things anymore.’
Quantum’s scales shimmered as he rolled his shoulders back. ‘Why are you always so quick to cast blame?’ he grated out. ‘You think it’s all Juna’s fault that you two are no longer friends? Take some responsibility, Aliya.’
She struggled to respond past the lump in her throat, then realised that her reply was better unspoken. Learning to read her own almost-saids was more revealing than knowing other people’s.
‘Don’t push me away like you do everyone else, Aliya,’ Quantum said.
She and Quantum had never argued like this before. ‘It’s my job to look after everyone,’ she said, ‘and now you need me to look after you, too.’
‘So, you’re going to turn yourself into some scary weird shaman from a fire-side story in order to do that?’ Quantum asked.
‘Are you reading my mind, now?’ she said, trying to laugh.
‘It’s what friends do,’ the little dragon replied. ‘And they don’t judge you for it.’
Aliya reached out for him and he climbed up to her shoulder, resting his nose against her cheek. There was an uncomfortable silence as Meri and Kai both pretended they couldn’t hear the argument going on right beside them. She wanted to turn to Kai for validation – he’d know what it felt like to be rejected because of your differences – but she wasn’t anything like him. She couldn’t be.
‘I don’t know how to be a shaman and a friend,’ Aliya whispered. ‘Are we only friends because neither of us has anyone else?’
‘Of course not,’ Quantum said. ‘Is that...?’
‘No,’ she said. But the bonds between them seemed weaker than they had before.
That itchy feeling was still in the back of her mind, exacerbated by the almost-saids brushing against the edges of her consciousness. She wasn’t sure she liked this new awareness ... but it was hard not to listen. And she says everything’s okay. As if.
‘Luca!’ she exclaimed. It had been so long since she’d felt that itch that she hadn’t identified it immediately – her annoying apprentice was sharing her consciousness again. ‘Oh, this is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘Too many people are in my head today. Let’s camp here for the night. I need to do some weeding.’
‘I’m a weed, now, am I?’ Luca said to her as soon as she’d set up camp and slipped into a trance.
‘A nettle,’ Aliya said with a grin, ‘all prickly.’ She hugged them; there was no static shock this time. ‘How are you? Why are you here?’
