The Emperor of All Things - By Paul Witcover Page 0,218

stones, half again as tall as a man, stood straight and true, as if they had been erected yesterday. There were twelve of them, irregular in shape but evenly spaced, forming a circle that must have been at least fifteen yards in diameter. They had been polished to an extraordinary shine, like obsidian; yet they did not seem to reflect the light of the mushrooms so much as swallow it, giving them the look of empty, gaping holes, doorways cut into the air. There was something familiar about the shapes of the stones, but he could not quite bring it to mind.

What held Quare frozen in place despite Tiamat’s clear instructions to make for the centre of this strange and imposing edifice was less the shock of coming upon such a thing deep below the metropolis of London than the sight of her at work amidst the mushrooms, single-handedly fighting what appeared to be at least a dozen robed figures. They looked like monks in heavy brown cassocks but moved more like soldiers … or, rather, like seasoned regulators: men trained to fight and to kill with brutal economy and grace. Yet they might have been blind bumblers compared with the grey-clad demon who moved among them like a tiger – or, he thought, like a dragon.

He had never seen such fighting skill. He had never imagined it. Even Longinus would have stood no chance against her – and he was by far the best swordsman Quare had ever faced. She fought with a peculiar short sword in one hand and a long dagger in the other. The two weapons wove about her in a blur that no assailing blade or whip – for the men fought with both swords and braided ropes worn about their waists like cinctures – could penetrate. Yet notwithstanding the completeness of her defence, she somehow found or made opportunities to go on the attack. And in this she was more impressive still, as the blood of her enemies attested. She was in constant motion, her entire body a weapon: darting, tumbling, leaping, at times seeming almost to fly. Her speed was uncanny; there were moments it seemed that her opponents were standing still. This was death-dealing brought to the highest level of art … or even beyond art, to a kind of mechanized perfection. It was beautiful and terrible to watch. Her brown-robed adversaries were brave: they did not cry out, did not make any sound at all, as if they had taken vows of silence. They continued to fight even after it must have been plain to them that they stood no chance. Quare could not help but pity them. Yet he did not tear his eyes away as they fell like stalks of wheat before a merciless scythe.

So engrossed was he in this consummate display of killing craft that he forgot about the pursuing Morecockneyans until a crossbow bolt clattered off the wall beside him. Looking back, he saw a group of palely glowing men charging up the passage – which, luckily for him, was so narrow as to compel them to come in single file. That was why he had faced only a single bolt rather than half a dozen. But his pursuers would soon have ample room to spread out and fire upon him without fear of shooting each other. Cursing under his breath, he turned and ran into the cavern, making for the circle of stones.

It was not easy to run through the mushrooms; his boots crushed them into a slick paste that made every step perilous. His progress consisted more of slipping and sliding than it did of running. But he managed – just – to keep his feet. The constant rain of glowing spores from above, added to those stirred up by his passage, had soon turned his grey clothing into a suit of light. He could not help breathing the spores in; their brightness seemed to concentrate inside him, coming together into a single point of light behind his breast, hot and focused as a small sun, and it occurred to him that he might be turning into a spore himself and would soon float up from the ground. But then he thought that must be the influence of his fever rather than any transformation effected by the spores.

As he ran, too intent on keeping his balance to spare a backward glance for his pursuers, one of the remaining brown-robed men noticed him and broke away