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`My whisperjewel,' she said. `I need it back to protect this house ..
In my pocket, I felt a surge of light, the lost music of all those endless
dances. With an effort, I tossed it down to her, gleaming
wyreblack. Sadie caught it. She slapped the creatures' rears and we trotted
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from the stables.
`Go for the main gates! Take Marine Drive!'
But when I looked back she had already gone from sight. And she was right
about these marvellous creatures; they were far from stupid.
Sensing my inexperience and Anna's weariness, they slowed to a smooth walk
across the snowy morning gardens, their horned heads nodding, their warm scent
and breath wafting back over us, their heavy hooves crashing through the
crusted snow.
VII
Marine Drive was empty and the loudest sound in the town of
Saltfleetby came from the tide sluicing in under the pillars of the pier.
The shops on the main street, which in the summer would have spilled out in
carousels selling rock, postcards, novelties, buckets and spades, were shut
and boarded. But, here in winter, they were probably always that way. Had the
world changed? Was this the New Age? But I was cold, and Anna's lips were blue
and she was shivering, and we needed warmer clothes. I found a shop with the
golden scissors of the Outfitters'
Guild dangling above it, clumsily dismounted and banged hard on the door until
a man's face, sleepy and wary, finally peered at us through the glass.
`Do you know what time this is?' He asked reassuringly simple questions as he
pulled back the bolts. He glanced up at Anna and our mounts. `I wouldn't stay
long around here if I were you  you know what things are like.'
`What are they like?'
But already he was lumbering back into the rails of his shop. He found us
cloaks and warm tops, riding trousers for Anna and boots for us both. He
studied one of Sadie's twenty pound notes. `Don't you have anything else?'
`Don't worry about the change.'
`No . . . ?' He laughed. `But I'll take it. Maybe I can frame the bloody
thing, show it to the kids ...'
The telegraphs, I noticed, as we rode on out of the town, were black, but not
wyreblack; they were simply dead.
The sun vanished. Dense white mist set in. The unicorns were slow, awkward
mounts; they'd been designed for the brief speed of the chase. My legs were
chafed, my back and buttocks ached, and Anna took to leaning across
Starlight's neck.
A boy ran up to us through the dim hedges. The unicorns started, but were too
tired to rear.
`Did you see it? Did you see it?'
`What?'
`The dragon! It was over there in that field.' He pointed, his eyes alight
with wonder. But all I could see was mist.
We stopped at a stables and farrier above the North Downs on the first night
of our journey towards London. The stableman shook his head at the state of
our mounts. What we needed were saddles.
Just had to widen the girth. And no, he didn't want our money 
that stuff was for wiping your arse now. And we could sleep for free in the
roofspace above the straw. That night, less asleep than unconscious from
weariness, I was sure I smelled smoke, and heard shouts and screams. And the
unicorns, and the other beasts in the stable below us, seemed restless. I
moved closer towards Anna, but she was light and still, scarcely there. And
then I was gone, too, drawn back into the blackness, although I could still
hear the beasts below whinnying, snickering, an agitated panting, then the
churn of a saw, until I woke up to find myself and Anna covered in dust and
frost.
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Down in the muddy yard, our mounts were already saddled.
Starlight was trying to bite the hand of the stablelad who held him and there
were wheals across his flanks. They'd tried a bridle, apparently, which the
beasts wouldn't take. Greatmaster Porrett's russet gift was shivering and
steaming as if he'd already been ridden a dozen hard miles. His forehead was a
bleeding stump.
`They're just horses, you know.' The stableman was as bland and casual as he
had been yesterday. `The damn things fall off.' He fixed us with a smile and a
glare.
The mist was thicker still on the second day of our journey, laden with the
smell of burning, and we caught glimpses of flames and wreckage. Still, no one
knew quite what was happening up in London, other than that the trains weren't
running and the telegraphs were dead.
The saddles were some help in keeping upright, but my mount's shivering
increased as the morning progressed and blood wouldn't stop flowing from the
stub on his forehead. It dripped in the mud and splashed back across me. The
unicorn was in pain, half-blinded. I tried getting off and leading him, but in
the late afternoon the creature stopped in his tracks, belched a torrent of
bile, then keeled over and died. We had to leave him where he fell; it wasn't
the first carcass we'd seen at the roadside.
I walked. Anna rode. We camped out for our second night in the darkness at the
edge of a field. There were no lights, and the only sound came from the snow's
dripping. Finally succeeding in undoing the complex fittings of Starlight's
saddle, I left the beast to rummage. Then I
found some sticks and made a drier patch of stones, and tried to light it with
a flintbox.
`Let me.' Anna leaned from the huddle of her cloak. She said something, then
something else again. The cheap little box, scarcely even aethered, still
ticked uselessly. After half an hour of muttering, breathing, she caused the
fire to burn, but it hollowed her face terribly, gave off little heat, and the
flames danced madly through the branches, telling the whole world exactly
where we were. I was almost grateful
when it went out.
I leaned against Anna as she lay under a tree. We were both wet. I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]