One
In the darkest hours before dawn, a snowflake broke away from the Perpetual Cloud above the Middle Worlds and tumbled through a layer of smog to land, grimy and slightly greasy but nevertheless intact, on one of the many grey, gutter-sludge snowdrifts in the city of Oiley-Ragge. It was just about to congratulate itself on its seven million, nine hundred and eleventh successful completion of the water-cycle, when the snowdrift beneath it coughed and it melted from fright.
The drift heaved as a heavy, wedge-shaped head shook itself free of the ice, followed soon after by the neck, chest, and finally, the body of a large grey dog, complete with long feathery tail and all four paws, but only one eye. The one-eyed dog gave himself a final shake and set off down the street at a purposeful trot, as though emerging from a lump of ice in the dead middle of winter was perfectly normal, and indeed respectable canine behaviour.
It wasn’t, of course. But as any witnesses would never have been believed even if they did risk telling anyone else, this, in fact, did not matter, and the dog, therefore, did not care. This was a dog with a Purpose, and, though he had long ago forgotten what this Purpose was, he had the vague, dog-like certainty that tonight It would be fulfilled… whatever It was.
So the dog with a Purpose trotted purposefully through the city, which was, at this hour, about as lively as a dead cat and not nearly as interesting. But there were plenty of things to sniff at, and the dog with a Purpose cast his connoisseur’s nose at each of them, though only long enough to determine that no, this was not It. For this was a dog with a Purpose, and he would not be detained by old boots or even by delicious things in skips that had long ago departed the world of the living.
But before he had gone more than a few blocks, the old one-eyed dog slowed, wheezed a bit, and finally sat down. He watched his breath freeze in the air, feeling cold and hopeless. Where could It be? He raised his head and howled, then quickly stopped, feeling foolish. He was a dog with a Purpose, and dogs with a Purpose did not sit down and howl like lost whelps. They…well, they just didn’t do that. So our dog of Purpose got to his feet and struck what he felt was a heroic yet humble pose, and that is when he felt It.
It started in his nose, tingling its way up his spine to the tip of his tail and down to each toe until every last hair was alert and aquiver with the most purposeful of Purposes. This was his calling, no, his destiny! This was IT!
He leaped into action and bounded arthritically away, through alleys that twisted and turned, under rotted fences, over treacherous man-holes, once startling a black cat that shot away from beneath his paws and not even turning a hair in notice, until he came, limping and coughing but feeling oh so alive, to The Place.
It was a snowdrift, not unlike the one from which our dog of Purpose had emerged, nor indeed unlike the many thousands that now lay heaped about the city. It lay like the vomit of a drunken Ice-Troll, and at one greasy edge, grey icicles spilled through the grating of a storm drain.
The one-eyed dog snuffled about eagerly. The river Ragge was somewhere nearby – he could hear it churning, and there was a distinctive tinge of sewerage and dead shellfish to the air – but nevertheless, he could tell that he had reached the place. The faint smell of cinnamon hung over the mound of grey snow like an olfactory halo. Growling in anticipation, the dog began to dig. And when this dog dug, he dug, as you might have guessed, with Purpose.
Dawn found the old grey dog lying in a puddle of warming snow, curled around the object of his Purpose. It had been frozen solid, when he had finally succeeded in excavating It, but now that It had nicely thawed he was feeling strangely comforted by the soft, slightly scratchy stuff It was wrapped in. It almost felt like there was something familiar about It – though he still had no idea what It actually was. With his head on his paws, the dog sighed, and, half closing his one eye, fell into a contented doze.
He did not open it again until he heard the approaching footsteps of a Goblin. Sensing that this strange creature was somehow linked to his Purpose, the dog fixed his one eye on the goblin. The goblin hefted his plunder-sack from one wiry shoulder and lowered it to the ground, where it exuded all sorts of interesting smells that the dog would have been keen to investigate, had he not been otherwise engaged. Then he crouched down, resting his sharp little elbows on his knobbly knees, with his long, clawed hands dangling down towards his wide, six-toed feet and his bright orange eyes fixed on the dog’s deep maroon one. Slowly, a smile spread across the creature’s wrinkled face, revealing twin rows of needle-like teeth.
‘Hullo there, Mad-Dog,’ he said. ‘I should a known I would find you here.’
The dog sniffed at him curiously. The goblin was very old indeed – his long beard and whiskers were snowy white, as were the copious amounts of hair protruding from his bat-like ears and drooping down from his eyebrows, almost obscuring his eyes. Not only did he smell old, too – he felt it. The dog had the strange feeling that those orange eyes were gazing at him from depths that Time itself had forgotten, and again he had that sense that he knew this creature from long, long ago.
‘I can see you don’t remember me,’ he went on, ‘but that’s all the same to old Minker-Sock.’ The old goblin tilted his head, his eyes glittering. ‘You’ve been in there a long time now, old Mad-Dog, so it only goes to show.’
Mad-Dog could make neither head nor tail of this, but that wasn’t anything new. This creature knew him, he understood that much. Perhaps Minker-Sock would also know what his Purpose was. He wagged his tail hopefully, and the goblin chuckled.
‘Ho, yus, Mad-Dog, you’ve done well,’ he said, straightening up. ‘Now, let’s have a look at that bundle of yers and see what all the fuss is about.’
Mad-Dog got to his feet and backed away from It, his tail battering the air in furious anticipation. Finally! The goblin chuckled again at the old dog’s antics and began unwrapping the whatever-It-was from its blanket.
‘Hum,’ he said at last, standing back. The furrows in the old goblin’s forehead deepened into crevasses, and Mad-Dog snuffled at the thing curiously. It was a pup, but not his kind of pup – one of the Big Folk’s. He had seen them, carried around wrapped in blankets, like this one, to keep their ridiculous hairless skin warm. A lot of good this one’s blanket had done, for it appeared to be dead. For some reason, this saddened Mad-Dog terribly. Whining, he licked the baby’s snow-white face, hoping that it might wake up.
‘Out of it, Mad-Dog,’ the goblin muttered, crouching down again. But Mad-Dog would not be deterred. He had to save the pup! This was his Purpose, he saw that now, and he licked and licked as though the Worlds depended on it. He licked and licked, and slowly, the pup’s skin began to warm beneath his tongue. The smell of something woody and slightly sweet – cinnamon? – filled the air.
The goblin’s eyes widened.
‘Well I’ll be yarned,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Guess you know’d what was best after all, General. Perhaps you ain’t all as lost as you seem.’
After the old dog’s ferocious licking had gone on for nearly a minute, the pup suddenly gave a wriggle and a gasp, and opened a pair of startlingly purple eyes.
‘Gah!’ it said. Mad-Dog leaped back in surprise, bristling all down his spine and tail stiff as a bottlebrush while the goblin slapped his knees and roared with laughter.
‘Ho yus, yer a gem, you old scoundrel!’ he chuckled, scooping up the baby. ‘And now we’ll take our leave. Raggetty!’
A pair of eyes appeared at the grate and glanced fearfully at the dog.
‘Sir?’ squeaked the disembodied voice named Raggetty.
‘Open up and gimme a hand with this!’
‘I would, sir, but you know what Ma sayed she’d do if I snucked Up Top again...’ the little goblin shuddered at the thought.
‘Aye, but that won’t be half as bad as what’ll happen to you if you don’t get up here quicksmart, Raggetty, so hop it!’
‘Aye, sir,’ Raggetty said miserably. The eyes disappeared for a moment.
There was a clanging sound and the grate swung outwards. A small goblin with enormous ears clambered out of the drain and sidled past Mad-Dog, determined not to look at him. The dog nosed the little creature, more out of curiosity than any real interest in eating him, but the goblin gave a squeak and scuttled away to grab the end of the sack, which was as big as he was. Then his eyes fell on the baby in Minker-Sock’s arms, and they suddenly swelled to the size and shape of saucers.
‘What is that?’ he shrieked.
‘Yer new sister,’ said Minker-Sock. ‘Now take that sack Below. Go on, be off with you!’
Raggetty swelled with equal parts indignation and terror and opened his mouth to argue, before Mad-Dog snapped at him playfully and he very quickly thought better of it. He scrambled back into the storm-drain, dragging the sack behind him.
‘Good lad,’ Minker-Sock called after him. He turned his face skyward and frowned against the growing light. Dawn was on its way, and he’d do well to follow its example. He turned to farewell the old dog – but he, like the night, was gone. Looking down the street, Minker-Sock fancied he caught the end of a feathery grey tail as it disappeared into an alley, but a goblin’s eyes aren’t so good in the daytime and could just have easily been a trick of his imagination. But he smiled nonetheless.
The baby waved her tiny white fists and Minker-Sock shifted her so she lay more comfortably in his arms.
‘Come on then,’ he said, dropping neatly into the drain. ‘Let’s get you home, Kyra.’
It seemed a good name, and the old goblin had a feeling that wherever he was, Mad-Dog would agree. It was good to have seen the old General again, even if he didn’t entirely remember who he was. Body-changing was a tricksy thing at the best of times, and to stay in a shape that wasn’t your own for as long as Mad-Dog had… well. It was a wonder he hadn’t eaten the bairn, instead of saving her for the Goblins.
‘Er… sir?’
‘Aye, Raggetty, I’m coming.’ Hoisting the baby higher in his arms, Minker-Sock went to the lip of the drain and looked down. Raggetty, sitting on the old goblin’s plundersack, stared up at him with a quizzical expression.
‘Ma’ll kill you if she finds out you stole one a their babies, ya know,’ the little goblin said sagely, fossicking in one enormous ear.
‘That so?’
Raggetty pulled his finger out of his ear and examined it intently, nodding. ‘Yup. Dead as a doorknob, you’ll be. Dead, dead, dead.’
Minker-Sock dropped neatly into the drain. ‘Well then I’d say it’s a mighty fine thing that yer the one who’s going to be doing the telling.’
The little goblin looked at him in horror. ‘Me?’ he squeaked. ‘Why me?’
‘Cos I said so, that’s why. Off you scram now, Rags. Quicksmart.’
Raggetty shot him a last doleful look before shouldering the plundersack and hurrying off down the tunnel. Minker-Sock waited until the little goblin’s mutterings of doom-and-gloom had faded well out of earshot before he followed. That ought to be enough time for his tale to stew, the old goblin thought. Raggetty might have had the courage of an earthworm, but there was not a goblin beneath Oiley-Ragge who could deny the ferocity of his imagination. Soon enough he would be regaling anyone who would listen with the epic adventure he’d had Up Top, battling a pack of gigantic fire-breathing wolves while Minker-Sock stole into a church of ice and made off with a giant’s baby, right under the Greyfaces’ noses.
Minker-Sock didn’t mind at all, in fact he counted on it. Once that ridiculous tale reached Ma Tallow-Hat’s ears, the truth would not sound half so far-fetched as it might do otherwise. Ugg be good, she might even be willing to help him, because gods knew he couldn’t take care of a goblin bairn himself, let alone a Big Folk one!
As if she had sensed his thoughts, the bairn began to grizzle. ‘Shush yerself now, little one,’ Minker-Sock said, gently bouncing her up and down as he walked. He’d seen mothers do that before, and it seemed to work well enough. ‘That’s better,’ he said, when she quietened. ‘Yer all right. I’ll get you home safe, I will.’
The upper tunnels of World Below were silent. As soon as the first fingers of dawn had crept through the city’s storm drains, Minker-Sock’s clan had made for the lower levels; they would be long gone now. Sunlight is a deadly thing for a goblin of the Second Age, though Minker-Sock himself was made of sterner stuff.
It happened that Minker-Sock’s only surviving granddaughter, Ma Tallow-Hat, was made of the same stuff. So Minker-Sock was not surprised to hear the soft scuffle of her feet and see the flickering light of her candle preceding her around a bend in the tunnel.
Ma Tallow-Hat was almost entirely round, as wide as she was tall, with a stern face made even more terrifying (especially to a young gobblet with a guilty conscience) by the metal contraption she wore as a hat, in which sat a sputtering tallow candle that looked like a hag’s crooked finger. She didn’t look it, but she could move terribly fast when the mood seized her.
It had seized her tonight and she came hurtling around the corner like a small, wrinkled cannonball, with eyes blazing like wildfire and the sputtering hag-candle bearing down on old Minker-Sock like the finger of Ugg himself.
At the very last moment, the matriarch skidded to a halt and drew herself up to her full, impressive height, and, fixing her hell-fire eyes on Minker-Sock’s chin, firmly placed one finger in the very centre of his chest.
‘You,’ she growled. ‘Haven’t I told you a hundred times?’
‘Quite likely, dearest,’ Minker-Sock said generously, ‘but-’
The finger withdrew itself, before plunging back with renewed ferocity. ‘I’ve told you a hundred times!’ she affirmed. The candle wobbled dangerously and a blob of hot wax narrowly avoided the end of Minker-Sock’s nose. ‘And yet, my son comes rushing home, shrieking fantastical stories of Up Top, giant fire-breathing dogs and, and, you pulling frozen Big-Folk bairns out of the ice! He is not of age, he doesn’t know the Laws, he could’ve been killed in the dawn! And YOU – oh my.’
Wordlessly, Minker-Sock had twitched back a fold of the bundle he was carrying and inclined his head. Ma Tallow-Hat stared for a moment, then let out a shriek, before covering her mouth with a small hand. Her eyes flicked back up to Minker-Sock.
‘Oh, Minker-Sock, you old fool, you didn’t!’
The old goblin frowned. ‘Begging yer pardon?’
‘You stole one a their babies?’ she half-whispered, half-screamed. ‘Gods be yarned, Minker, this ain’t the First Age no more, you can’t go around snatching the things out of cradles like the old days -’
Minker-Sock’s eyes widened. Then, he snorted. ‘Is that what you think?’ he cackled. ‘A course not!’ he shook his head, chuckling. ‘Naw, this little one I did find in the snow, just like young Raggetty said. I had some help from an old friend.’
Ma Tallow-Hat blinked. ‘Not ole Mad-Dog?’ she asked, eying him sceptically.
‘The very same.’
The little goblin-woman gasped. ‘By Ugg! The General himself! Are you sure?’ she added, peering at him worriedly, as though he was sickening for something.
‘Off with you, girlie, a course I’m sure!’
Ma Tallow-Hat considered this for a long moment. She stood back, hands on pudding-like hips, and pursed her lips in thought. Another globule of wax plopped unnoticed to the tunnel floor. Minker-Sock waited patiently. After nearly 800 years, spanning two Ages of the Worlds, the old goblin had waiting down to an art.
Finally, Ma Tallow-Hat came back to life. Perhaps sprang would be a better word, for she pounced on the little bundle like a cat on a mouse, re-swaddled the baby in a lightning blur (‘What’re you thinking, letting her catch her death down here!’), and set off down the tunnel at a furious bustle.
Minker-Sock chuckled. ‘So you’ll be keeping her, then?’ he called after her.
The hag’s-finger candle reappeared around the corner, illuminating the goblin’s irritated expression. ‘A course we’re keeping her!’ she scoffed. ‘The General entrusted her to us, didn’t he?’
‘That he did,’ Minker-Sock agreed, to the quickly retreating glow on the tunnel wall. ‘That he did.’
*
Several thousand miles above, a man was sweeping. He was old, this man – the kind of old that an Oiley-Raggian would call “dog-bollockingly” – and he had no name. He did, however, have an impressively long, thin beard, which matched the rest of his long, thin personage quite nicely, trailing like a thread of curiously hairy dribble from wizened chin to sandaled toe before doubling back on itself, thrown proudly over one precipitous shoulder. The stiff rush-broom made a satisfying swip, swip noise against the smooth stone of the temple floor, and the man’s eyes, bright even in the gloom, smiled from beneath lids as crinkled as an empty crisp packet. Every now and then they would flick, narrowed in suspicion, to the centre of the temple, where a wooden staff lay atop a pedestal surrounded in grey, oily-looking light. The Sweeper let his eyes rest on the staff and its unearthly aura just long enough to ascertain that it was indeed still in its proper place; it was unwise to look at it directly for any length of time. If one wasn’t careful, one would begin to notice how the light seemed heavier, or more real perhaps, than the air around it, and that was the start of a very slippery slope indeed. Such observations do funny things to a mind.
The Sweeper swept his way around the temple in a slowly tightening spiral. Even in sleep the staff atop its pedestal seemed to follow him with invisible eyes as he drew ever closer.
Of course the Sweeper sensed this, though he gave no outward sign – and the Staff sensed that he sensed it, which the Sweeper also sensed, and the Sweeper’s sensing of that which the Staff sensed was also also sensed by… well, one gets the idea. The point is the Staff and the Sweeper had known one another for what can only be described as a very long time. A less wise man might even say that they understood one another – but not the Sweeper. No, the Sweeper was wise enough to know that no one could ever truly understand an object as ancient and mysterious as the Staff. Even one who had been its constant companion since the very beginning (a very, very long time indeed) would not have had a snowflake’s hope in Hel of catching even the slightest inkling of the staff’s true thoughts, and not even the Sweeper could make that boast. He was old, to be sure… but not quite that old.
But although he was not quite old enough to remember the forging of the Staff, he was just old enough to remember the last time it had woken – truly woken, not just turned over in its sleep (which, though unpleasant, was not likely to cause anything worse than an out-of-season lightning storm). That had been nearly five hundred years ago, and for most it eventually became little more than another dirty blot on the pages of history (a particularly dark blot, perhaps, but all in all nothing that couldn’t be forgotten over a nice cup of tea and a biscuit). For the Sweeper, the memories were never far away – buried perhaps, but never forgotten. And on nights when the air was thick with the dread of lightning and the wind particularly cruel, dogs would howl without reason and the Sweeper would wake in terror, magicked back five hundred years to that ashen battlefield beneath a rent and weeping sky, with the dying scream of the last dragon still ringing in his ears.
But tonight the skies were calm and the air pleasant, and thoughts of that dark age were far from the Sweeper’s mind. The staff slept soundly, the dust fled from the indefatigable swip swip of his broom, and all was well.
And then the footsteps came.
Up the many stairs they came, pitter-patter, quick and quiet like an animal, or like someone who was trying very hard not to be heard. The Sweeper heard – of course he did – but for the moment it amused him to feign a sudden and complete deafness, and he continued his sweeping as if nothing were amiss. So the footsteps pitter-pattered their way to the top of the stairs, and out of the corner of one beady eye the Sweeper watched a small dark figure dart behind a pillar. Beneath a drooping moustache, the Sweeper’s lip tweaked itself into a grin.
‘Sneaking up on me was one of your favourite pastimes when you were young,’ he said, quite amiably, apparently to the top of his broom handle. ‘I see this, at least, has not changed. You were never much good at it then either, Ilarya.’
A dark grey hood peered out from behind the pillar. ‘I didn’t think you would recognise me, Keeper.’
The Sweeper snorted.
‘I didn’t need to recognise you!’ he said. ‘I’d know those footsteps of yours anywhere. You think yourself a little mouse, but I’ve known elephants to move with greater stealth than you, my dear. Enough skulking about in the shadows! Let’s have ourselves some light!’
The Sweeper’s eyes gleamed, and the lanterns around the temple’s fringe brightened from a dull glow to a fierce golden blaze. Ilarya flinched back behind her pillar as the lantern nearest her spat a shower of sparks into the air. Hearing her muffled shriek, the Sweeper paused in his sweeping to give the lantern a withering look. It quietened at once, and the Sweeper made a satisfied noise.
‘Unruly thing. Next time I’ll douse you,’ he muttered, leaning on his broom. ‘Well?’ he added, turning his gaze to the pillar where the girl was still hiding. ‘You didn’t come here to play hide-and-seek. What do you want?’
In reply she stepped out from behind the pillar and came towards him. All the quickness had gone from her steps; she moved like she was half asleep and for the first time the Sweeper saw that she was holding something in her arms. Something small, wrapped in black swaddling clothes. The thing was terribly quiet, and terribly, terribly still. Sorrow settled like lead in the pit of the Sweeper’s stomach when he realised what it was.
Behind him the sound of the Staff’s slumber changed pitch ever so slightly – and a cold fist took hold of the Sweeper’s heart.
‘Stop,’ the Sweeper whispered. Then again, louder, ‘Stop, stop! Let me see your face, Ilarya.’
As Ilarya staggered to a halt, the Sweeper closed the distance between them at a speed even he hadn’t thought possible. It took him quite by surprise, and while Ilarya shifted her bundle, holding it awkwardly with one arm so the other was free to push back her hood, the Sweeper leant heavily on his broom and wheezed, feeling every one of his very many years. When at last he had recovered, he found himself eye to eye with the High One’s youngest wife – and the sight was enough to send the Sweeper’s already sinking heart plummeting down to his toes.
The last time the Sweeper had seen her, Ilarya had been a maid of fifteen years, eyes bright and jade green in their heart-shaped face and cheeks flushed beneath a fine sprinkling of childish freckles as she jabbered away to him about being Chosen, as eagerly as she had once jabbered about books or her latest pet. Fifteen and married – and to the High One! Of all the maidens in World Above, he had chosen her! It was the stuff of fairy-tales and every sensible girl’s dream, and she had shone with joy.
There was nothing shining about Ilarya now. Gone was the girl of fifteen, replaced by the woman of sixteen, hollow-cheeked, with her dead child clasped to her chest in a desperate bid to lend him some of her life’s warmth. The Sweeper did not think he had ever seen a more sorrowful sight. What a cruel trick the gods had played; to have one year pass and age Ilarya ten. The injustice of it was so enormous that for a long moment the Sweeper could do nothing but stare.
‘Why have you come here?’ he murmured at last, his brows furrowed as he gave her a searching look. ‘You know it is forbidden.’
That, at least, was enough to provoke a flash of anger in her otherwise lifeless eyes. ‘I have no reason to love the Laws,’ she spat.
‘It’s not the Laws that concern me,’ he said, waving a hand dismissively. ‘Those whippersnappers on the so-called Council of Elders can shove the Laws up their collective arse for all I care. There are far older and deadlier things than the Laws in this place, child; things you should think twice before waking. So I ask again: why have you come here?’
Ilarya’s eyes slid back into lifelessness. ‘You know why.’
Of course he knew. Even to a fool with hands for eyes the answer would be as plain as day, and the Sweeper had seen this very same sad dance played out a hundred times before. Each had been as unpleasant and pointless as the last, and still the dance went on and on, a never-ending spiral of grief, desperation and madness, and nothing, nothing ever changed. How many young brides had he seen swept up in the honour of it all, only to have it all come crashing down when they bore no children, dead children, or worse yet, a girl? Ilarya would be neither the youngest nor the last of a High One’s wives to be deemed unsuitable and flung off the edge of the World, never to be spoken of again… so why in seven Hels did he have such a lump in his throat that he could barely speak?
‘That may be so,’ he conceded, nodding slowly and sadly. ‘But such knowledge won’t do anyone any good, sitting up here in my old head. It must come from your own lips, else it’ll have no meaning. You want it, you ask for it.’
‘And you’ll grant it?’
‘Oh, no. That’s nothing to do with me.’
That took her by surprise. ‘But, you…’ she blinked at him. ‘You’re the Keeper… what are you here for, if not to grant use of the Staff?’
‘Ah, well, that’s where you’d be wrong. You see, I’m just the Sweeper.’ He grinned at her bemused expression, took up his broom and, true to his word, continued sweeping.
‘So… I’m free to use it?’
‘That’s entirely up to you.’
‘Oh.’
Swip, swip, swip. The Sweeper watched her carefully as he swept, out of the corner of his eye. She frowned at the Staff and chewed her lip, and the Sweeper hid his smile. She had come here mindless, with the sort of determination usually reserved for government officials and zombies, and now, finally, she was thinking again. For a moment she even looked like she might change her mind – the tiniest suggestion of a turn, and the Sweeper had dared to hope – but no. The moment passed as quickly as it had come, and Ilarya was moving one foot towards the pedestal, then the other, and suddenly she was there beside it, her free hand reaching out… and the thrum coming off the sleeping Staff intensified just enough to send a warning tremor down the Sweeper’s spine and set his heart racing.
‘Will it kill me?’
The Sweeper had not even been aware of closing his eyes, but he opened them at the sound of Ilarya’s whisper. Her hand was poised a hair’s breadth above the Staff, and her eyes were on him as if the truth were written in the lines on his face.
‘I don’t know,’ he said, honestly. ‘Perhaps. But ask yourself this: does it matter?’
Her eyes went back to the Staff. ‘No,’ she decided. ‘It doesn’t.’ Unbeknownst to her the thrum increased yet again and the Sweeper had to clench his teeth to keep his vision in focus. ‘I am already dead.’
The lanterns guttered and the temple swam before the Sweeper’s eyes. Clutching his broom, it was all he could do to keep himself upright. The thrum of the Staff was in his very bones, setting them trembling like leaves. What is this? Something was wrong. Something about the sound of the Staff was niggling at him, but what? And then, far too late, it came to him. Gritting his teeth the Sweeper cursed himself for a fool, and if the Staff had had a face it would have been grinning at him, glee and malice pouring out of the slit of one barely open eye.
The Staff had only pretended to be asleep.
Horror seized him and he took a lurching step towards the pedestal where Ilarya stood, voice cracking as he called out a desperate ‘Wait!’ in the same moment that her fingers closed around the Staff. A deafening crack split the air and the Sweeper threw an arm across his face, just in time to save his eyes as the blinding wave of light roared over him. The force of it knocked him off his feet and sent him sliding halfway across the temple, where he thumped into a pillar and lay still, curled into a protective ball while the fires of Chaos leaped and danced and screamed around him until he thought his head would burst.
Thankfully the Sweeper’s head remained intact, and as quickly as it had come the light folded in on itself with a sound like an inside-out thunderclap. Groaning, the Sweeper uncurled and crawled over to his broom, which had been flung wide by the explosion. It seemed alright at first, if a little charred – but when he closed his fingers around the handle it crumbled, and he was left clutching a pitiful fistful of ash. A lump rose in his throat. He unclenched his fist to let the ash fall through his fingers, and that was when he heard it.
‘Sweeper…’
Casting a last, mournful look at the remains of his broom, the Sweeper got to his feet. Ilarya, too, had been thrown by the force of the blast and was lying in a heap at the rear of the temple. Smoke rose from her body in faint grey curls. The Sweeper crouched beside her and gently touched her shoulder. ‘Ilarya.’
Oh gods, the smoke.
‘Watch over him,’ said Ilarya. ‘Please.’
That awful lump was in his throat again and he could only nod, and by the time he remembered that she could not see him, Ilarya was dead.
The Sweeper sat back on his heels, massaging his throbbing forehead with a thumb and forefinger and willing the awful wailing in his head to cease. It was a while before he realised that wailing was not inside his head but without it, and a while longer before he recognised the wailing as the thin, piercing cry of a baby. With that his eyes shot open and after a moment of scrambling he located its source beneath Ilarya’s cloak, still clutched tightly in her lifeless arms. He held the mewling baby at arm’s length, staring at it with utter disbelief. The swaddling clothes had come awry, presenting the horrified Sweeper with a tiny, screwed-up face, screaming beneath a shock of fiery-red hair.
‘Gods be good,’ he muttered as the shrieking reached a painful crescendo. ‘What circle of Hel have you landed me in, Ilarya?’
It was then that his gaze fell on the Staff. The cursed thing had left a blackened scorch mark as it skid across the hall. Its thrum had fallen to a bearable level, but it was very clearly still awake and very much alert. Whether that was because he could now see through the thing’s pretence, or because it had simply given up pretending, he did not know. The Sweeper eyed it warily. It eyed him back, smugly. The Sweeper sighed.
‘Oh very well,’ he grumbled. ‘Have it your way. Gods know you always do.’ He straightened and walked stiffly over to the Staff, Ilarya’s bellowing son still held at arm’s length like he was primed to explode.
After a moment of tricky manoeuvring that resulted in him holding the baby by the scruff of his swaddling clothes, the Sweeper retrieved the Staff with the kind of caution normally associated with live cobras, and placed it gingerly in one tiny, flailing hand.
Several things happened. The Staff gave off a gentle shower of golden sparks. The Hall filled with a warm glow and, for some reason, the faint smell of cinnamon. And, most miraculously of all, the baby stopped crying, opened his fiery green eyes, and gurgled happily, like the Staff was nothing more than a child’s toy.
‘Don’t do that,’ the Sweeper told him absentmindedly, pulling the Staff away as the baby tried to put the end of it in his mouth.
The baby’s green eyes looked slightly bemused as the Sweeper replaced the Staff on its pedestal, but, Skies be praised, he did not resume his wailing. The Staff, too, tolerated the removal, and lay quite tamely on its throne, thrumming softly. The Sweeper had the sudden absurd thought that it might actually be purring, but before long was interrupted as a tiny hand seized his beard and pulled with alarming strength. Eyes watering, the old man pried the determined fist away and returned the chuckling baby to arm’s length. As Ilarya’s son gurgled happily, waving the few silvery strands he had managed to remove, it occurred to the Sweeper that Words of some kind were in order. And right now, he could think of only one that would at least come close to expressing his feelings about all this.
‘Shit,’ he said emphatically, and as the baby began to wail again, the Sweeper thought this more or less summed it up.
*
Deep in the strange darkness between Worlds, known (by those in the know) as the Shade, something unseen was stirring. The sound of a thousand fluttering wings juxtaposed with that of a heavy armoured tail dragging over stone as the old god raised His head and blinked His many eyes. An invisible claw scratched an equally invisible chin, and He wondered, in an almost perplexed way, why the universe suddenly smelled of cinnamon.
*
Far too few miles to the west of Oiley-Ragge, a young man by the unfortunate name of Wenderfold Peech sat with a rigid back, head bowed and hands clasped in the precise centre of his lap. This was the proper position for one of his station; developed and refined through years of vigorous caning, binding, and mild to moderate electroshock therapy, the Priest’s posture conveyed, to the casual observer, an aura of effortless submission. Within the turtle-like shell of this aura, however, Peech was damn near vibrating with nervous tension and excitement – oh God, the excitement! Because he, Wenderfold Peech, the boy who had grown up on what passed for the banks of the river Ragge, clutching the dirty apron-strings of the city of sin, was sitting outside the office of a Magister. A Magister! The very highest of the High! And Peech would soon have an audience with him. What exactly this meant Peech did not know, but he could not imagine it being anything but good. In any case it was not his place to question, only to obey the summons.
It had come in the form of a small white card clutched in the beak of an albino pigeon. Written on the card in spidery silver script, which required the card to be tilted at an absurdly precise angle in order to be read, was the exact time of the meeting. Unfortunately for Peech his pigeon seemed to have eaten nearly half of the summons by the time it got to him, and it was only in the wake of a somewhat embarrassing struggle that it begrudgingly relinquished the better half of its meal. Luckily for Peech the “exact time” on his Official Summons was more of a “totally arbitrary guestimate”, as Magisters tended to do whatever they liked, whenever they cared to do it. It is remarkable how much one can get away with when one is The Lord’s Chosen. Also lucky for Peech was the fact that bandages were an integral part of a Priest’s uniform; the pigeon had taken a neat little triangle out of his left thumb.
Peech had been sitting outside the Magister’s office for what felt like hours. Occasionally he thought he heard muffled voices coming from somewhere behind its heavy doors, but aside from that there was nothing to suggest that he was going to be seen anytime soon – nor indeed that he was to be seen at all. Had his posture training not been quite so rigorous, he might have squirmed with impatience. But no, he was a man of the Church, and by God he would sit as still and straight as a post. Never mind that his injured thumb was throbbing something awful and the dark red blot staining his Wrappings of Righteous Solemnitude was growing fatter by the minute, and goodness gracious was he beginning to feel woozy?
Just as he felt his left eyelid begin to twitch, a door opened and the generous, enrobed belly of the Magister’s steward preceded him out of the office.
‘Brother Peech,’ the Priest said, or at least Peech supposed he did. The heavy off-white hood that denoted the man’s rank obscured most of his face, and his voice was somewhat muffled. Peech stood as tall as his swimming head would allow, and the steward gestured with a sweep of one voluminous grey sleeve. ‘The Magister will see you now.’
Peech nodded, which proved to be a terrible idea, and the steward ushered him through the office doors with the air of a shepherd herding a particularly stupid and bewildered sheep into its pen. The office was smaller than Peech had expected; all cold white stone, it was narrow and tall, and empty save for a large marble desk made even larger by the diminutive space it occupied. The only light came from a small, circular window set in the ceiling. Peech suppressed a bleat of fright as the door shut behind him with a dull thump, and he was left alone with the Magister.
His Luminousness was sitting at the desk, resplendent in pure white robes that swamped his thin frame and pooled like highly processed milk around the feet of his ergonomically-designed chair. The Magister did a lot of sitting.
‘Ah, Brother Peech?’ he asked, leaning forward slightly. His eyes were covered by a pair of opaque, comically oversized white goggles, and Peech realised with some surprise that the Magister could not see him. He cleared his throat.
‘Er, yes, Magister.’
The Magister grinned. Resting his elbows on the desk in front of him, he laced his pale fingers together. ‘Excellent. I have heard many promising things about you, Brother Peech. I think you will be ideal for the task at hand.’
‘Task, Magister?’ Peech asked vaguely. His mind was racing. Promising things… was this a joke? All his life, Peech had never been anything more than enthusiastically average. Forsaking a boyhood of sin and becoming a man of the Church, while no doubt putting him in good favour with the Lord, had done nothing to improve upon this. Success, it turned out, was a more elusive mistress than faith.
‘I understand that you were born in the great city of Oiley-Ragge,’ the Magister was saying. ‘The one city this side of the Trunk that remains… resistant, shall we say, to the New Faith. I am sure you would agree that allowing our closest flock to remain entrenched in the Dark for so long is somewhat… embarrassing. Wouldn’t you say so, Brother Peech?’
‘Oh, er, absolutely, Magister,’ said Peech. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t quite understand--’
‘I’ll make it very clear for you,’ the Magister interrupted. ‘The resistance is being fuelled by a group of Dark Ones, a ragtag bunch of demonic mongrels, shape-changers, and sorcerers. Despite our best efforts, they have managed to remain elusive. No doubt they have a hiding place concealed by Dark, treacherous means. If this group could be… persuaded, shall we say, to see the error of their ways, the rest of the city would surely follow.’
‘Certainly,’ Peech said generously. ‘But I still don’t see-’
‘What we need, Brother Peech,’ the Magister charged on, appearing not to have heard, ‘is a man of the people. Someone who can blend in with the metaphorical wallpaper. A… what do you call them? Long tail, scaly, eyes that go like this.’ The Magister raised his hands to the level of his goggles and swivelled his index fingers in opposing directions. Peech, who had never been good at biology, stared at him blankly.
‘Er… badger?’ he ventured, after this had gone on for an uncomfortably long time.
‘Must be,’ said the Magister, lowering his hands. Peech gave a sigh of relief. ‘What we need, Brother Peech, is a badger.’ He leaned forward again. Though he could not see his eyes, Peech had the feeling that the Magister was eyeing him shrewdly. ‘Are you a badger?’
‘I- I suppose I could be…’ Peech stuttered. ‘But I-’
‘Excellent!’ the Magister clapped his hands, and before Peech knew what was happening the steward had reappeared and was shepherding him back towards the door.
‘Hold on,’ he said desperately, bracing himself in the doorway. ‘I don’t-’
‘Everything is prepared,’ the Magister spoke over him. ‘You’ll leave immediately. A steward has been arranged to accompany you; he’s waiting downstairs with your luggage.’ He waved dismissively. ‘Have a pleasant journey, Brother Peech!’
‘Wait!’ wailed Peech, now clinging, lizard-like, to the doorframe, while an exasperated steward struggled to pry him off. ‘I don’t understand!’
‘My dear boy,’ said the Magister, beginning to sound impatient. ‘What more could there possibly be to understand?’
Everything! Peech wanted to scream. I don’t know where I am going, or what I am meant to do there, or how I am meant to do it. I don’t even know why! Why me?
‘I,’ Peech began. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment. Finally, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of confusion now flooding his frantic brain, he blurted out the first question that came to him. ‘What are the goggles for?’
The Magister looked pleasantly surprised. ‘Blinkers,’ he said, tapping the side of them. ‘My own invention. They allow me to focus only on what is most important.’ He pointed at the small window in the ceiling above him. ‘This way, I can have my eyes fixed on Our Lord at all times.’
It occurred to Peech, in that moment, that the Magister might not be entirely sane. What, then, did that mean for him? Stunned, Peech let the steward drag him out of the office.
‘He’s mad,’ Peech croaked, as he was pulled along a corridor and down a flight of stairs.
‘Of course he is,’ the steward said in a tired voice. ‘All the Magisters are. You would be too if you spent as long as they do talking to God. It does funny things to a mind.’
‘I never knew,’ said Peech. ‘I never even thought…’
‘No one does,’ the steward said darkly. ‘Look, kid, don’t think about it. He’s given you a job; agonizing over the why of it will only make it harder.’
Peech let out a nervous laugh. ‘I don’t even know the what of it!’
The steward produced a thin paper folder from somewhere in his sleeve and shoved it at Peech without looking at him. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You can read it on the way.’
On the way? Peech thought, staring uncomprehendingly at the folder. But where-
The steward led him into an open area. White paving-stones gave way to a dirt road, wending away through brown, frost-covered fields as far as he could see. Peech blinked in the wintry light and realised that, for the first time in nearly nine years, he was standing outside the walls of the Church. More stewards were scurrying around a pair of saddled horses; in one man’s arms, Peech recognised the very same bag he had brought with him when he left his old life in the city of sin.
And then it hit him. They were sending him to Oiley-Ragge.
Panic took hold of his heart and squeezed. Over the rushing of blood in his head he was vaguely aware of the steward speaking. Someone pushed a bundle of clothing into his arms.
‘What?’ Peech said absently. The steward appeared to be trying to introduce him to someone.
‘I said, this is Brother Pave,’ the steward repeated. ‘He will be acting as your personal steward for the duration of this Mission.’
Pave nodded, smiling. He was a stocky, dark-haired young man, with eyes the colour of liquid honey. A button nose made his round face look absurdly childish; looking at him, Peech was reminded of a good-natured but inescapably stupid dog. He offered a large, square hand and Peech shook it awkwardly, balancing the pile of clothes on his arms. Pave’s smile widened.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ said the steward, already heading back towards the Church. ‘Brother Pave has taken a vow of silence, as penitence for his past misdeeds.’
Pave nodded solemnly. Peech stared at him.
‘So… he doesn’t speak at all?’ he asked.
‘Not a peep,’ said the steward. ‘You’ll want to put those on, by the way,’ he added, nodding at the clothes in Peech’s arms. ‘They don’t take kindly to Priests where you’re going.’
Peech watched the steward disappear back into the Church, feeling like a drowning man watching his ship sail away without him. A thin, pitiful sound escaped his lips and turned to fog in the cold air.
Someone tapped him on the shoulder, and Peech turned to find Pave looking at him intently. He pointed at the clothes, then tugged at the front of his green turtleneck, then pointed at Peech again, giving him what Peech supposed he thought was a meaningful look.
Peech sighed. ‘Can I at least go inside to change?’
Pave shook his head, produced a watch from the pocket of his slacks, and tapped it impatiently. Peech sighed again.
‘Fine. Hold these.’ He shoved the bundle of clothes at Pave and started to undo his belt. ‘And turn around, would you?’ he added, when Pave continued to gaze at him with a vaguely curious expression.
Pave did as he was told and Peech pulled his robes over his head as quickly as dignity would allow, struggling to think warm thoughts. The slacks they had given him were obviously meant for someone a foot shorter, and the shirt had more buttons than Peech knew what to do with. He did his best, fingers steadily losing sensation in the cold, and wrestled himself into what he guessed was meant to be a cable-knit pullover. The thing was shapeless and lumpy, and had a queasy green and orange pattern that made his eyes water behind his spectacles. Looking down at himself, Peech thought of the Magister’s blinkers and wished desperately that he had a pair of his own.
‘Well,’ he said, his voice slightly strangled, ‘at least I’m warmer now.’
Something fell around his neck, and Peech looked up to find Pave wrapping him in a thick grey scarf. It was itchy and smelled faintly of cabbage, but by this point Peech was beyond caring. He thanked Pave, and the steward smiled.
As Pave turned and went to the horses, who were both stamping in the cold and looking as thoroughly displeased with their lot in life as Peech felt, Peech looked back at the walls of the Church for what he couldn’t help but feel might be the last time. He had left Oiley-Ragge a boy of ten, filthy and flea-bitten, orphaned by sickness and apathy, and he had sworn never to return. It was laughable, if not entirely funny, the way life and fate played these little games; especially when one thought one had a say in the rules.
Now, as he left the Church behind and climbed onto his horse, grasping the reins like they might bite him, Peech found himself utterly at their mercy. Pave nudged his horse into a walk, and Peech followed him onto the road. On the horizon, a darker grey smudge against the grey sky marked the last place he had ever expected his fate to take him.
Peech was going home.
*