"It"s not too late," the woman says. "But this time you have to come alone. This time you come alone, or you never see Niki again."
Something taps on the cafe window, and Daria sees that it"s the white bird, stranded on the other side of the gla.s.s.
Its beak is striking the windowpane so violently that there are tiny sparks.
"The bird can"t bring her back to you," Archer Day says.
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"Nor can the Weaver. I"m the only chance you"ve got.
Come before morning. After that, it may be too late. Theda won"t sleep forever."
"Who"s Theda?"
"Bring the philtre," Archer says, and when she stands to leave, the window shatters, spraying diamond bits of gla.s.s across the table, across Daria"s lap, and the white bird is torn apart in the flood of darkness pouring in to wash the brown-haired woman away.
And it all feels like a dream again.
Daria holds the dead and broken bird in both hands, its blood oozing thickly from the s.p.a.ces between her fingers and dripping to the ground charred black as soot. There is no cafe now, and no sunlight, and no potted philodendrons.
She stands alone on a high and rocky place, beneath a night sky choked with smoke, and jagged lightning tongues lick greedily at the ruined and burning world below.
"I"m sorry," she says to the bird, and it seems as though there are other things she ought to say, but she can"t think of any of them.
"It"s no fault of yours," Spyder says, and Daria turns to find her standing only a few feet away. But this woman is not the Spyder Baxter she remembers; there"s a glowing red gem set into the skin between Spyder"s eyes that"s the same color as the dead bird"s eyes.
"She was my courier. She never expected to live through this."
"Where are we, Spyder?"
"A place. A time the Dragon is preparing for us all. The red witch is insane, you know, but you have to do what she asks. Niki needs you."
"The red witch," Daria murmurs, repeating the three words as she turns to face the blasted landscape stretched out below her, as she stoops down and lays the dead bird"s limp body on the heat-cracked stones.
"She told you her name was Archer Day. It"s not, but that isn"t important. She was sent to stop me, but she"s fallen now. She"s renounced her vows-"
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"And she has Niki?"
"Niki needs you, Daria."
"You didn"t answer my question," but now there"s something stirring in the depths of the flames, something enormous made of scales and teeth and leathery wings, and a rain of ash and embers has begun to fall from the scorched clouds.
"You didn"t die that night," Daria says. "You only found another place to hide, didn"t you? And you"re still trying to use Niki-"
"Shut up," Spyder snarls, and the ground rumbles beneath Daria"s feet. "I"m here because I tried to protect Niki. I gave my life, I loved her so."
"Is that why she"s dead?"
"That"s why she"s dead," Spyder says, "and that"s what you have to save her from," and as if it"s heard her and knows the cue, the Dragon rises from a smoldering jungle of twisted steel and strides across molten asphalt highways, its tireless, searchlight eyes hunting, hunting, hunting, and now Daria knows exactly who it"s looking for.
"My father was a serpent," Spyder whispers in her ear, Spyder standing so close that Niki can smell her, vanilla and patchouli and Old Spice cologne, hate and spite and bitterness. "My father opened his eyes one day and saw angels following him, and this is what they made of him. And, in return, this is what he made of me."
Daria looks down, and there"s a horde of white spiders, a billion pinp.r.i.c.k dots swarming ankle-deep around her feet and flowing over the edge of the cliff to meet the Dragon"s gaze. She wants to scream, wants to open her mouth wide and never stop screaming, but she doesn"t, stands absolutely still and silent instead, while all their scurrying, jointed legs brush across her bare skin. And when they"ve gone, there are only bones and feathers where the white bird was.
Niki opens her eyes, blinks, and the first thing she notices is that she"s still holding Scarborough"s hand. Or he"s 329.
still holding hers. And the deck of Malim"s ship and the be-calmed ocean and the devouring vortex with its crimson heart, so much like the gem between Spyder"s brows, have all been replaced by wavering firelight and shadows and a rough stone floor. The source of the firelight is a wide, triangular pit set into the floor at the center of the chamber; the air is close and reeks of unfamiliar spices and musky incense. Above them, wide strips of some fine cloth hang suspended from the ceiling, an elaborate confusion of vertical and horizontal lines, zigzags and multispirals, the strips of a vast, discontinuous tapestry. The firelight plays yellow and orange ghosts across the fabric.
"h.e.l.l, I should have f.u.c.king run," Scarborough laughs, a hard and humorless laugh, and he cracks his knuckles. Niki nods and looks around her at the great chamber, this one a far grander thing than the fish augur"s magic bubble. The walls are constructed of ma.s.sive blocks of the same gray stone as the floor, slate gray shot through with glittering silver-white streaks, like veins of mica or pyrite crystals. On the other side of the fire is an altar-there"s no mistaking it for anything else-a long stone table set at the clawed feet of a statue or idol so tall that its head almost brushes the roof of the chamber, fifty feet or more above them.
There"s a rusty iron trough that leads from the table down to the fire pit, and Niki doesn"t want to think about what that means, or whether or not all those stains are really rust, so she looks back up at the statue.
"Where are we, Scarborough?"
"If I had to hazard a guess, I"d say we"re somewhere in the Melan Veld."
"And that means-?"
"Bad s.h.i.t, Vietnam. It means some real bad s.h.i.t. Melan Veld is the sacrificial temple of the red witches of Nesmia Shar."
"Yeah, well, I figured it had to be something like that.
The way things have been going, I really wasn"t expecting happy pixies."
And Niki stares up through the tapestry strips at the idol 330 staring down at her with its faceted, maroon eyes, eyes that might be garnets, if there were ever garnets as big as bas-ketb.a.l.l.s. And she knows that she"s seen this thing somewhere before, this thing or something very much like it, and a moment later she remembers where. Those same powerful, feline haunches, the same four wings like ragged sails of skin and bone, the hooked beak, and she"s pretty sure it"s meant to be the same creature as the statue she saw at the Palisades, the thing that was almost a griffin.
"They brought us here, these red witches?"
"Like you said, it wasn"t happy pixies."
"There isn"t much time left for questions," someone says, a voice that streams like water over polished gla.s.s, that clear and easy, and a woman in long red robes and a sage green skullcap steps out of the shadows at the base of the statue. Niki can tell that she was very beautiful once, but she"s grown old, and there"s a terrible scar running across the bridge of her nose and both cheeks. Her hair is almost the same drab gray as the stone floor.
"You know, I"m so sick of hearing that I could f.u.c.king puke," Niki says, and now there are other women stepping out of the shadows that lie along the edges of the chamber, dozens of women in identical, flowing cerise robes. A few of them wear skullcaps the same shade of gray-green as the woman standing near the statue, but most of them have simple white bandanas tied tightly around their heads. All of the women are barefoot, and the callused pads of their feet rustle softly against the rough stone.
"Look at her, sisters and daughters," the woman on the altar commands, and now her gla.s.s-and-water voice is clouded with contempt and disgust. "Look at her very closely. This girl is the Hierophant, the chosen and willing tool of the Weaver, the one who has come among us, to our world, to set the Dragon and all of its agents free. Because of this girl, we have given up one of our own."
In response, the red women standing around the walls of the chamber begin to talk among themselves, speaking in nervous, hushed tones, a flurry of shocked and angry half 331.
whispers. Niki releases Scarborough"s hand and takes a step nearer the fire pit and the altar and the woman in the sage skullcap.
"So, is this supposed to be some sort of trial?" she asks.
"Is that why you brought us here? Are we on trial?"
"No," the woman replies. "You"re already condemned, by your own selfish actions and by the actions of the Weaver. There"s no need for a trial, Hierophant."
Niki glances back at Scarborough, but he"s staring at his feet or the floor and doesn"t seem to notice.
"I am named Pikabo Kenzia," the woman says, and Niki gives up on Scarborough and reluctantly turns to face her again. "Here, I am Mother and Voice-in this hall, in this tower, and throughout the protectorate of Nesmia. I know well that the Weaver has kept many things from you, girl.
She has never trusted the truth of matters to get her work done."
"I didn"t want to come here," Niki says, and she wonders how many times she"s said that since San Francisco. She holds her head up and tries not to flinch at Pikabo Kenzia"s cold eyes almost as impervious, as impenetrable, as the eyes of the idol towering over them all. "Spyder told me I had to come, that I had to come or two worlds would die, mine and yours. That"s what she said. That"s why I jumped off the bridge. That"s why I died."
"And you believed her? Do you even believe yourself?"
"I saw things. She showed me things-"
"Listen, it"s really not what you think," Scarborough interrupts, and the murmuring crowd grows suddenly and ominously silent. "She"s not a hierophant," he continues. "I don"t even think that she knows what a hierophant is."
"You," Pikabo Kenzia roars, "you do not speak here!"
But Scarborough Pentecost continues, as though he hasn"t heard her, "The Weaver lied to her. You just said as much yourself. The b.i.t.c.h has lied to everyone-"
"Another word, another sound, and I will personally cut the tongue from out your mouth."
"You"re enemies of the Dragon," Niki says quickly, be-332 fore Scarborough can say anything else. "That part"s true, isn"t it?"
"Yes, Hierophant, that much of what she told you is the truth. We have opposed the Dragon for more than a hundred centuries."
"But whatever Spyder"s trying to do to destroy it, you don"t think that it"ll work."
Pikabo Kenzia steps down from the altar and walks past the killing table with its scabby iron trough, the hem of her robes and her bare feet almost silent as she strides across the floor to stand on the other side of the fire pit from Niki. The flames between them, the flames and so many other things that Niki knows she could never comprehend, and now she can see that the witch"s eyes are the softest shade of violet.
"You"re going to kill me," Niki says and looks away from Pikabo"s eyes, into the depths of fire and cinder-black logs.
"No, Hierophant. I"m not going to kill you, nor will I allow any other here to raise her hand against you."
Niki doesn"t take her eyes off the burning logs, determined not to let the red witch see her surprise or relief or confusion. "You said I was condemned."
"Yes, you are condemned. You are, I suspect, d.a.m.ned.
But that"s not my doing. It"s the Weaver"s, and it"s not my role to pa.s.s sentence upon you."
"Spyder . . ." Niki begins, and then she realizes that there are human bones mixed in with the logs in the fire pit, the cracked shafts of long bones and ribs and a jaw going slowly to ash, and she wishes that she were home in her room, and today she and Marvin might go to a movie or to Fisherman"s Wharf and have boiled crabs at McCormick"s and Kuleto"s. If only she knew the way back to the Palisades, and then some trick to turn Spyder"s magic inside out, and she"d never tell Daria or Dr. Dalby a word of what she"s seen. They wouldn"t listen anyway.
"You were about to speak?" Pikabo Kenzia asks her, and Niki shrugs and forces herself to look up, looking away from the scorched bones, and she meets the red witch"s gaze through the dancing curtain of fire.
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"The Weaver," she says. "I loved her very much, a long time ago, and then I lost her. But I thought that I still loved her. I thought I could trust her with my soul."
"And she used your love to her own ends."
"Did she? Or is that just the easiest thing for you to believe?"
The red witch doesn"t reply; she sighs and tosses a pinch of something powdered into the fire pit, and it begins to burn more brightly and the flames take on an unhealthy greenish tint.
"I may not sentence you," Pikabo Kenzia says. "You are a being more powerful than all but the Dragon and the Weaver herself. As I said, I may not pa.s.s sentence, but"- and she pauses for a moment and peers deep into the flames, adds another pinch of powder, and the fire gutters, then burns almost as green as leaves on a summer"s day- "I do have a role in all of this. That much was written at the beginning, even before Dezyin came down from the stars and set the spokes to spinning, that much was certain. Now I can only follow the course of my life."
"Why did you bring me here?"
"We brought you here to show you what we know, what we believe is the Weaver"s design for you, in hopes that you will listen and believe in turn." And then, in an instant, the fire is extinguished, and there are creaking, mechanical noises rising from beneath the floor-gears and pistons and unseen engines-and Pikabo Kenzia takes a step back from the pit. Niki follows her example.
"When the Weaver came, she came to destroy the Dragon, which she mistook for something else, something malignant from her world. There are those of us who believe that she thought the Dragon to be the ghost of her father, and some others say she thought the Dragon was a powerful demon. She went out among the people and worked miracles and eventually raised an army against Kearvan Weal, the Dragon"s hall at the world"s hub. She was not entirely unsuccessful."
"But the Dragon was stronger?"
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"No, not stronger. They"re like darkness and light, the Weaver and the Dragon, like life and death, equal and in-separable. In the end, what little remained of the Weaver"s armies fled across the spokes, returning to their homes or hiding in the wilderness. And that"s when we learned what had happened to the Dragon, that it had been changed somehow by its contact with the Weaver. Her beliefs had infected it, as though her mind were a disease," and Pikabo Kenzia presses the tip of her left index finger to the point between her violet eyes. "A disease to which even eternal creatures like the Dragon are not immune."
Niki glances back at Scarborough again, and this time he"s watching her, and their eyes make contact for an instant, long enough that she can see that he believes what the red witch is saying, and then he looks quickly away.
"The Dragon saw something in the Weaver that shattered its very soul, Hierophant. What this thing was, I cannot even begin to imagine, nor do I ever want to. But the inner wheels fell dark following the war, and there was talk that the Dragon had sent forth newly conceived lieutenants to find and kill the Weaver. She calls these beings angels, and she fears them above all else."
"Yeah," Niki whispers, more to herself than the red witch. "This part"s starting to sound familiar."
"But now, all these things are history," Pikabo Kenzia says, gazing intently at Niki from the other side of the fire pit. A few wisps of greenish smoke are still rising from the ashes, and the smell reminds Niki of fresh basil. "What concerns us this day is that you understand the choice that you have been condemned to make."
"Spyder said I was to travel the Serpent"s Road, and cross the Dog"s Bridge-"
"That would take you to the ruins of Kearvan Weal, where we believe she"s opening a portal."
"A portal to where?"
"A pa.s.sageway between this world and the one you have come from, a portal through which the Dragon will be driven before the pa.s.sage is closed again, exiling it there 335.
forever. She convinces her followers that she"s doing this to save our world, but we suspect her motives have more to do with revenge than salvation. And regardless, we can"t stand by and watch while another world is ravaged that we might finally be free of the Dragon."
Niki listens to the mechanical sounds coming from beneath the floor and thinks about her final night in San Francisco, standing at the window of the hotel room talking to Daria for the last time, and then her vision of blue fire and a dragon rising from the bay to devour first one city and then a planet, and eventually, an entire universe.
"And the philtre," Niki says, "Spyder needs the philtre to open this portal."
"Yes. The philtre and the Hierophant and a surrogate whom she has chosen to stand on the other side in her stead."
"But I don"t have the philtre," Niki tells the red witch, and a cautious glimmer of something like hope washes quickly across Pikabo Kenzia"s scarred face and is gone.
"The Weaver can open the portal without the philtre,"
she says. "There are other ways, if she has been successful in finding a surrogate. Without you and that talisman she would never be able to shut it again, but she"s mad, and driven, and so that alone might not stop her from trying."
"She was in Padnee," Scarborough says, still looking at the floor. "Do you know what happened to Padnee?
Maybe she died there."