The Girl and the Stars (Book of the Ice #1) - Mark Lawrence Page 0,83

stonework behind her. “I can walk through walls!” It came out half laugh, half gasp.

“You can walk along paths the Missing provide for you, even if they happen to lead through walls, yes. I wouldn’t try it on other walls, or too far from a sizable star-stone.”

“So, where are we?” Yaz returned her gaze to the room.

“A junction. We need to leave . . . this way.” Erris crossed the room in three strides and set a hand to the wall. “And quickly, before the city realises what we’re doing and starts to make things difficult.”

“Vesta?” Yaz asked.

Erris frowned. “Yes. How did you know that name?”

“I told you there was this man and—”

“You were intercepted. It’s a danger when you travel this way without proper understanding, and there are powers that watch for strays. Come on. We need to go.” He beckoned her to him.

Yaz joined Erris then pressed her forehead to the stone below the point where his fingers touched the wall. She noticed a gleam in her hand and found she held a silver needle, clutched tight between finger and thumb. Without comment she stuck it through the hides over her collarbone.

“Quickly would be better . . .”

Yaz bit back a retort and once more she opened herself to the currents of the hidden river. A moment later they swept her away.

There were no more interceptions. No gaps at all between pressing against one wall and stumbling away from another.

Erris led them through a series of junction chambers. He said he was threading their way through holes in a network that was supposed to keep them in. The fourth, fifth, and sixth transitions became progressively more difficult, Yaz having to let the current tear at her before the stone would surrender, and having to battle to win free of the wall at the end of their journeys. Each time they emerged the song of the void star sounded more distant, a host of competing voices beginning to rise above the depth of its refrain.

“From here we walk.” Erris pointed across the large hall, now lit by the light that Yaz had woken from Pome’s star. “The main thing we have to worry about is—”

Yaz found herself shoved from behind as if by a strong gust of wind.

“Ah hell.” The wind that was not a wind even set Erris staggering forward.

“The main thing we have to worry about is . . . ?” Yaz prompted.

“Right behind us.” Erris turned to face the wall they had just emerged from. “I can slow it down. But not for long. You have to run.”

“I’m not running.” Yaz stepped beside him, staring at the blackness where his face should be. She wanted to see those dark eyes of his, both young and old, with a thousand years and more behind them. “I can help!”

“No, you can’t.” Erris swept her back with one arm, his strength alarming. “Run!” He shouted the word loud enough to leave her ears ringing. The wall was fuzzy now, like the last ice before the sea shows itself.

“But . . .”

“This pile of junk isn’t me, Yaz.” Erris slapped a hand to his silver chest. “When it’s destroyed I’ll go back to the void. Just run. Please. And don’t come back.”

Something within the stone roared. A black shape began to press into being in the space between Erris and the wall. With a sudden rat-a-tat-tat black spikes hammered out of nowhere, piercing Erris’s steel skin. The shape, becoming more definite, reached out for him. Yaz began to run, the squeal of tearing metal chasing her across the hall.

She reached the far doorway and turned into it just as half a dozen black spikes hammered into the wall behind her.

Yaz ran on, pursued by what sounded like an avalanche of metal. A hideous scraping noise underwrote the thunder behind her, as if somehow whatever was left of Erris continued to cling to the monster, trying to anchor it.

For a long time Yaz focused only on speed, always taking the smallest exit, always heading upwards when