Church made his move for the sword. But instead of trying to intercept him, the Libertarian put one hand around Numerius’s throat. Church saw this from the corner of his eye and paused as he reached for the sword. Numerius’s eyes were wide and glistening beads of sweat stood out on his brow, but he did not move. The Libertarian’s jagged nails cut through soft skin, went deep and deeper still. And then, with one rapid twist of his wrist, he tore. The arterial spray of blood arced across the room. Church would always recall the sound of it hitting the marble, like a pot of paint being thrown at a canvas. One hot gush splashed against the side of his face, blinding one eye, rushing down his neck, soaking his clothes like a summer storm. In shock, he turned and saw the Libertarian gut Numerius with his other hand, letting the discorporated body slide to the floor, a discarded toy. The Libertarian was red from head to toe.
Fetch your silly little sword,’ he said. Enjoy the comfort it gives you, for now.’
Church was rooted in shock at the brutality he had witnessed.
‘You know I cannot touch you, not yet, not so far from the Source, when I am weaker and your ugly little fire burns so brightly. There is no point attempting to deny that. But we are many, and we are fanning out through all-time, all-reality, to dream things the way they should be. You will be hunted to the moment when you can no longer stem the flow.’
‘What are you?’ Church asked, sickened.
‘You ask for names, still?’ the Libertarian replied with complete contempt. ‘You expect me to tell you words of power? And Fragile Creatures are to be the next to climb the ladder to wonder? Truly the ways of Existence are baffling.’ He laughed. ‘Know this, then: we are the Army of the Ten Billion Spiders. We nest, we scurry from the shadows, we spin webs to catch little flies! No escape, little Fragile Creature! No escape for you.’
‘So you’re the reason why the Brothers and Sisters of Dragons exist. It’s not just about keeping the gods at bay.’
‘There is some truth in that, and also a great and devastating irony that you have yet to appreciate in its entirety. But you will, and soon.’
Church sloughed off the shock and grabbed his sword, but by the time he had drawn it, the Libertarian had gone, the door stood open and the guards without lay butchered in a widening pool of blood.
6
Niamh stood at the window as she had for so long, watching the rain cascade off the rooftops into the muddy streets. Here and there lamps flickered like fireflies sheltering from the storm.
‘I can understand why so many of my kind love this world. Even amidst all the horror and the despair and the degradation, tiny beacons of beauty shine through. The way the light falls on a cold day near the ocean, or the smell of a forest at summer’s twilight. The sound here, of the rain, the clatter and splash, so many subtleties … a symphony.’ She paused uncertainly. ‘And I have been thinking of late that perhaps that quiet beauty exists within Fragile Creatures, too, for they are a part of this world. What do you say?’
Jerzy sat on the bed, cross-legged. ‘I agree with whatever you say, mistress.’
Niamh made an irritable noise in her throat. ‘I suppose I wanted a performing monkey and that is what I have. Do you have any opinions of your own left, Mocker?’
‘If that is what my mistress requires.’
‘How do you find your companion?’
Jerzy considered the question. ‘He is a man filled with so many shadows, and doubts, and such a great sadness that he barely recognises himself.’
‘Go on.’
‘He surprises me, because he does not think only of himself. Indeed, on many occasions that is the last thing of which he thinks. He does not know himself at all, and he cannot see that he is capable of great things.’
‘But you think he is?’
‘Oh yes. Undoubtedly.’
‘A good man, then?’
‘Good-hearted. Fair. True. Unaware of his strengths. Overly conscious of his weaknesses.’
‘Yet I cannot understand why he pines for that other Fragile Creature when there is little hope they will ever meet again.’
‘You would not understand, mistress.’
‘Why not?’
‘You are a Golden One. Such things are not known to you.’
‘What things?’
‘Love …’ Jerzy’s voice trailed off. He thought he had begun to sense a hardness in Niamh’s voice that signalled one of her unpredictable responses.
Yet once again he was surprised. ‘Do you think that is true?’ she asked, with a note of puzzlement. ‘We Golden Ones see ourselves as never-ending, never-changing, a fixed axis of Existence. Yet now I wonder … If all that is joined to Existence is fluid, then surely we are fluid, too? We change—’