5
In the dream, Noon was in the furnace room. Novice Lusk knelt in front of her, his broad back shining with sweat while the column of her flame danced above them. She felt the euphoria of the fire and treasured it, trying to hold it inside her forever; trying to remember what skin felt like under her touch, forever. And then the great chimney above them was torn to one side and the circular room was filled with daylight. As her flames spluttered and died, Noon looked up to see a nightmare hanging in the sky above them: it was the corpse moon come to life. This close, it was a fat segmented worm, the thicker bands of its centre studded with pulsing pustules, while the head was a writhing collection of finger-like growths. There were things pushing through that barrier, creatures new to the sky of Sarn being born into an unknown atmosphere, and she knew suddenly that if she looked on them, she would die.
Turning away, she was caught up in Lusk’s arms. He pulled her close and peered at her, as if he didn’t know what she was.
‘Let go of me! We have to get out of here.’
He smiled, a weird twisting of his lips as though he had seen other people do it before and was trying it for the first time.
‘You know, Fell-Noon, why you are here, don’t you?’
She put her hands up and pushed at him, but when her fingers brushed his chin, his flesh fell back as though it were made of uncooked dough. She cried out in disgust as his pale skin came away in sticky strands, and then his entire face caved in, revealing an empty, hollow darkness. There was nothing inside him – no bones, no blood – yet somehow he was still speaking to her.
‘You’ll die in here with all the others.’
She yanked herself away and she was back inside the Winnowry itself, moving without moving, in the way of dreams. Everyone was outside of their cells, crowding onto the narrow walkways, and the walls were shaking, so that the air was filled with dust. Above them, the great water tanks swung from side to side, sloshing water onto the people below – and in the part of her that knew on some level that this was a dream, she wondered at the detail of that. The women were screaming and pushing against each other, trying to flee but not knowing where to go.
‘Outside!’ Noon cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. ‘We have to get outside! If we rush them all at once they can’t stop us!’
Marian grabbed at her sleeve, and for a sickening moment Noon thought her face would collapse the way that Lusk’s had, but instead the girl bit her lip, shaking her head.
‘But they are outside, Noon! They’re crawling all over the Winnowry.’ She held up her arms – bare skin covered in brown freckles – and Noon saw fat creatures like black beetles scuttling down from her shoulders, climbing over her elbows with legs like tiny knives. As she watched, Marian screamed and the beetles rushed to her face, eager to run down her throat.
‘They’re in here!’
Noon didn’t see who yelled, but panic spread like a fever. Now they were all running, all clamouring to flee down the steep steps. In their terror, some of them were taking life energy from the others, and Noon saw several fall down, weakened by their fellow prisoners before being trampled on by them. She saw one unfortunate woman tipped over the guardrail of the walkway, no doubt falling to her death. Rushing forward onto the dark staircase, Noon was pressed against so many bodies her breath seemed to lodge in her throat. There were cries in the dark, women sobbing and calling out to each other. Somewhere up ahead, someone was wailing that the doors were all locked, that they couldn’t get out this way, but the press was relentless, pushing her forward. It was nearly pitch-black, yet somehow Noon could see bodies on the floor; women who had fallen and had been stamped on, and amongst them, like a terrible rippling tide, the black beetles that had swarmed inside Marian. They were everywhere. Flesh pressed against her on all sides, and perhaps it would be easier, quicker, if she summoned the flames and burned them all. One great typhoon of fire and it would be over; better than the hollow nightmare, better than the crawling death.
And then she was outside. The Behemoth that had once been the corpse moon had extended long insectile legs and they were breaking away pieces of the Winnowry, scattering black rock and white marble onto the desolate ground. Noon was on her own on the dirt, exposed to the busy sky. As she watched, the Behemoth, now dangerously alive, ripped off the top of one of the Winnowry’s towers, and a host of bats flew out. Most of the giant creatures managed to fly away, but some were caught up by the Behemoth’s legs and by the things that were crawling out of its pulsating mouth. Noon, who had occasionally glimpsed the great bats flying back and forth over her years in the Winnowry, had never heard any of them make the smallest sound. Now those that were caught were squealing, a terrible noise so high pitched she thought her ears might burst.
Without thinking about what she would do when she got there, Noon turned and fled for the beach, trying to ignore the corpses that littered the ground. However, as she lifted her head to look across the bay to the distant city, she saw that the sky was heavy with Behemoths. They hung below the clouds like terrible growths, and she knew that all the land beneath them was being harvested. The people of the city were being turned hollow, eaten inside out.
‘We’re coming back.’
The voice was soft, female, and just behind her right ear. In the way of dreams, Noon found she couldn’t move or turn her head – instead, she stared across the bay as the city of Mushenska was turned into something slick and alien.
‘We’re coming back, and Sarn will be ours, finally. There is no one to stand against us, Noon.’
Except that wasn’t true. There were those who would stand against the invaders, who had always stood against them. They were despised amongst the plains people, and cursed for the Carrion Wars, but her people had still sung songs and told stories about them.
Stumbling, she looked at the spaces between the terrible shapes in the sky. That was where they would be – it was where they were in every tale and song she remembered from her childhood. Great beasts of ivory feathers and silver scales. Mother Fast had chanted stories of the ancient battles, and her own mother had shown her pictures in books.
But there were no Eboran war-beasts in the skies over Mushenska, and no army of shining knights to be seen on the coast. There were just the dark shapes uncurling, and she knew that on the streets of the city – and in the shattered buildings behind her – men and women were dying, and then, worse than that, opening their eyes again . . .
There was a low chuckle from behind her, and she turned to see a humanoid shape walking across the sand. It was hard to see properly – it blurred and shifted, as though it wasn’t quite sure what shape it was – but the voice was female. It had to be their queen.
‘We are coming back. And where is Ebora now?’
Noon woke with a start, not on her narrow bunk but on the iron grill of the floor. She had fallen out in her sleep, and then lain there long enough to imprint deep red lines in her skin where she had been in contact with the metal. She sat up, shaking with fright. The dream felt like it was still all around her, thick in her throat like fog. In it, she had known true despair; first, when she had been trapped in the dark, knowing that they would all die down there, and then at the sound of the woman’s voice. There had been no speculation in the woman’s voice, only certainty: they would all die, and Sarn would be lost.
Groaning, she rubbed her hands over her face, feeling tiny grains of ash under her fingers. Akaris was supposed to stop the dreams. She hadn’t had such a vivid nightmare in years.
‘Noon? Are you unwell?’
Marian’s face was turned up to hers.
‘I’m fine. I had a bad dream.’
Even in the gloom of dawn she saw the look of surprise on the other woman’s face.
‘The akaris didn’t work. It was so real . . .’
Noon swallowed hard. Real was an understatement. Looking down at Marian she remembered how the beetles had scampered up her arms, eager to get inside and eat her away. Mostly, though, she remembered being trapped. All at once, being in the Winnowry was more than she could take, and the crushing terror of ten years caught like a spider under a pot rushed over her. She stood up, still shaking. It was difficult to breathe.
‘If the akaris isn’t working, you should tell one of the sisters.’ Marian’s voice floated up to her. It felt like it was coming from a great distance. ‘Perhaps they could give you more.’
They might well do that. At the Winnowry, everyone was encouraged to be calm at all times. ‘Unfortunate emotional states’, as they were referred to by the sisters, were greatly discouraged, and a series of bad dreams could lead to unpleasantness. Noon, who had suffered from terrible nightmares when she had arrived at the Winnowry, took the akaris every day without fail, and valued her dreamless sleep. She took a deep, shaky breath. Her emotional state, she felt, could definitely be classified as unfortunate.
‘Fell-Noon? What are you doing?’
Noon looked up to see one of the sisters peering in through her bars. Unusually, she held her silver mask between her gloved fingers, and she looked old; dark circles pulled at the bags below the woman’s eyes, and her thin lips looked chapped. From her voice she recognised her as Sister Renier.
‘Nothing. What does it look like I’m doing?’ She spat the words so that the sister wouldn’t hear how frightened she was. ‘What else can I do in here?’
She expected a harsh reply, but Sister Renier just shook her head at her, and after a moment pulled her mask back on. When she spoke again, her voice had taken on its odd metallic twang. ‘I don’t have the energy for this, Fell-Noon. Get ready for your meditations.’
Noon blinked. Meditation. She had completely forgotten. Another method for avoiding ‘unfortunate emotional states’, of course – once every four days each fell-witch was required to complete a sequence of meditations with one of the priests.
The tray with the scarf, gloves and ash was pushed through the slot, and she knelt to receive them. Concentrating on preparing herself reduced the shaking to a tremble in her fingers. When her hands were concealed and her face was covered with the fine grey powder, the door of her cell was rattled back and she stepped out. Sister Renier pulled the cuffs around Noon’s wrists and as she did so, her left-hand glove slipped down slightly on one side, exposing the skin of her forearm. Noon looked up, startled, but the old woman just yanked the sleeve back up and took hold of her arm to lead her towards the meditation chambers. The sleeve of the woman’s robe had a loop at the end that was supposed to hook around her thumb, and then the long gloves were pulled right up over the sleeve. Sister Renier must have forgotten to do it when she dressed that day, but such a slip was unthinkable.
The woman walked her beyond the cells, and into the tightly wound warren of tunnels and staircases that riddled the Winnowry. They found a set of spiral stairs and headed up; at the end, Noon knew, they would come to a set of rooms with relatively large windows – all sealed shut, of course – that looked away from the mainland and out to sea. There was very little to look at, just waves the colour of steel, some clouds perhaps, and the occasional distant bird. The view was supposed to be relaxing, so it was easier for them to empty their minds, but today just the thought of looking out at the vastness of the ocean filled Noon with a chilly terror. It was too easy to imagine the empty sky populated with the bulbous forms of the Behemoths, and she would be trapped in here while the Winnowry was pulled down around them – there was too much stone above them, too much stone on all sides, like a tomb.
Above her somewhere was one of the chirot towers, where the Winnowry kept its giant bats. Noon had never been there or even anywhere close to it, but you didn’t live in the same building for ten years without learning things about it. The idea popped into her head fully formed, and with an irresistible clarity. As Fell-Anya had said, what could they do to her? Kill her? Perhaps that would be a mercy.
‘Sister Renier, is that a mouse on the step?’
It was a cheap trick, but the woman was tired and distracted. As she craned her head up to see ahead of them, her face creased with apprehension, Noon sharply tugged the glove off her right hand.
‘What? I can’t see anything.’
‘You can’t?’
Noon twisted round and grabbed hold of the woman’s arm with both her hands – the bare one, she slipped under the end of Sister Renier’s glove and she felt her fingers slide over bare skin.
‘No!’
It was as easy as dipping her hand into water. Noon tore the old woman’s life energy from her; she did not hold herself back as she did in the furnace, but let her own need dictate what she took. Sister Renier staggered on the steps, almost going to her knees.
‘No . . .’
Surprised the old woman could talk at all, Noon glanced down the steps behind them, and then above, but no one was coming. Inside her, the swirling force of the woman’s living energy was beginning to build to dangerous levels. She had to let it out in some form.
Keeping one hand on the woman’s arm, Noon wrapped the other around the metal cuff that circled her wrist and, concentrating harder than she ever had in her life, focussed the winnowfire down to encompass the silver ring alone. There was a tense moment where Noon was half sure she was about to blow her own arm off, and then there was a blast of greenish light and the cuff shattered into pieces, throwing her and Renier back against the wall. The old woman moaned and pushed away from her.
‘I’m not staying here to die,’ said Noon. There was a roaring in her ears, a rising tide of panic. She let the woman go and she slumped bonelessly onto the steps. Noon bent down to speak directly into her ear. ‘I could have burned you,’ she hissed. ‘Don’t forget that.’
Lusk made his way down the central passage of the chirot chamber, walking silently from habit. To either side, the great bats of the Winnowry were hanging cosy in their alcoves. They were mostly hidden in the shadows, but here and there he could see a swatch of soft white or black fur, or the flap of a leathery wing. For the bats, this was the middle of their night, and they were all sound asleep – aside from the occasional squeak or huff, it was peaceful.
Tending the chirot tower was his favourite job. He would bring the bats their food – a strange mixture of fruit and dead mice – and he would clean up as best he could, scraping away guano and mopping the floors, tidying away snags of fur. Sometimes, if a bat came back from carrying a message while he was there, he would brush them down and scratch them behind the ears. The bats all knew him, and they also knew he was good for ear scratches and the occasional smuggled piece of red meat. Sometimes, very rarely, a patrol would return and he would nod to the fell-witches who dismounted with his eyes on the floor. These were the agents of the Winnowry – fell-witches who had proven themselves to be controlled enough to work for the Winnowry itself. They would fly across Sarn, seeking rumours of fell-witches out in the world, or they would take the akaris to the places where it was sold. Some of them, solo flyers, did jobs that were never spoken of openly. Lusk did not ask. It wasn’t as if anyone would tell him, anyway. And the chirot tower was quiet. It gave him time and space to think; to concentrate on his meditation and the teachings of Tomas.
He was sitting at the small table repairing a piece of leather harness when he heard footsteps on the stairs outside. He rose, sure it must be someone coming to send a message – he would need to prepare a message tube.
‘I will be right with you—’
The door flew open, and to his shock a fell-witch stumbled in. Her arms were bare, and her eyes were wild in her ashes-dusted face.
For a moment they simply gawped at each other, and then Lusk remembered himself and rushed for the pulley on the far wall. It was attached to a bell system that would alert the entire Winnowry.
‘Stop!’ The woman held her hand up and a glove of green flame popped into existence around it, flickering wildly. ‘Don’t move. Not a bit.’
Lusk stopped. The woman was breathing hard. ‘Fell-Noon?’
She came cautiously into the room, seeming to look all around her at once. She took in the bats sleeping peacefully in their alcoves and the wide strip of blue sky above them where they entered and exited the building.
‘I still have plenty left,’ she said, and as if to demonstrate this, the flames curling around her hand rose a few inches, eating up more of the air. ‘I will use it.’
Lusk lifted his hands, palms out. ‘Fell-Noon, you should be in your cell.’
‘Oh, do you think so?’ She glared at him, coming closer. Abruptly, she reached up and pulled the green scarf from her head and cast it onto the floor. Doing so seemed to give her a great deal of satisfaction. ‘I have to get out of here. Now.’ She swallowed. He got the impression that talking this much was hard. Without the scarf, her short black hair stuck up at all angles. ‘I’m not dying in this place.’
‘No one has to die. I can take you back downstairs.’ Lusk kept his voice soft, trying not to think about how terrible it would be to burn to death. He had seen this woman many times in the furnace rooms, and while there had always been a contained anger about her, she had never seemed especially unstable. Now her eyes were wild, and her posture was that of an animal about to flee. Or attack. ‘I’ll tell them you got lost, and I’m sure it’ll be fine. Just a misunderstanding.’
‘No.’ She came further into the room. The flames around her hand were starting to die down, and he knew that wherever she had stolen the living energy from, it would be running out now. Soon, he would be safe to try and overpower her, except that he was wearing only a loose work vest. If she got close, she could take his energy too – just as she did in the purging sessions. ‘Get one of them ready.’ She gestured to the bats.
‘You cannot mean to leave here! Fell-Noon, it’s not safe—’
‘Not safe? Not safe for who?’ She rubbed her forehead with her free hand, wiping away ashes to bare streaks of her own olive skin and the spidery lines of the bat-wing tattoo that marked all fell-witches. ‘This place isn’t bloody safe. Do it.’ She suddenly advanced on him, holding her hands out. The green flame died, but there was still that wild look in her eye. ‘Hurry up.’
He turned away from her and approached the nearest bat. It was a female with pearly white fur and a soft grey muzzle. He picked up the whistle at the base of her alcove and gave three short blasts. Each bat was trained to wake and obey on command. The bat shivered all over, and peeled back a wing to peer at him curiously. Eyes like pools of ink wrinkled at the edges.
‘Morning, Fulcor,’ he said softly. ‘Come on down for me.’ The bat scampered down, walking on her wing-feet until she stood in the middle of the chamber. She yawned hugely, revealing a bright pink mouth studded with alarming teeth. Lusk fetched the newly repaired harness and set about attaching the contraption. He could feel Fell-Noon watching him intently.
‘Do that properly,’ she said suddenly. ‘I will know if you haven’t. I used to ride horses.’ She stopped and took a breath. ‘When I was small, I had my own horse.’ She ran her hands through her hair, making it even messier. ‘I had a dream. I’m not supposed to have dreams in here, but I did. The worm people came and tore this place apart. You were there, but you were empty inside.’
Lusk felt his skin grow cold. Surely she was mad, then. Ten years in this place, brought here at the age of eleven, and the monotony and the quiet had broken her, as it sometimes did – she wouldn’t be the first fell-witch to have lost her mind. ‘The Jure’lia? They haven’t attacked for hundreds of years.’ He pulled another strap home and patted Fulcor’s furry forehead. ‘I’ve heard some say the Eighth Rain will be the last.’
Fell-Noon shook her head. ‘It was too real. It was dark, and everyone panicked, trying to get out of the doors. They suffocated. Fell-Marian had creatures inside her, eating her up.’ She came over to him, looking at the bat. ‘Is it ready? I have to get out of this place.’
But Lusk had stopped. Her words had unsettled something in his own mind. ‘People fell, and they couldn’t get up?’
‘Yes,’ she said irritably. ‘And then I was outside. Their creatures were in the sky, floating over Mushenska.’
‘And the dead littered the beach,’ Lusk replied faintly. He had completely forgotten it. A terrible dream he’d had days ago, bad enough to have woken him in his small bunk, but then, on waking, it had fallen away into pieces, too vague to recall. ‘There was a woman behind me, and she said they were coming back.’
‘Their queen,’ agreed Noon. She narrowed her eyes at him, her voice becoming softer. ‘You had it too?’
Lusk ran his fingers through Fulcor’s fur. He should jump for the pulley. He thought he could probably make it, now that she was distracted. But a terrible cold was keeping him in one place. ‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘How did you know it was them?’
‘What else could they fucking be? And I’ve been looking at one my whole life, just like you have.’ She gestured angrily at the strip of sky above them, and he knew she was talking about the corpse moon. With a feeling like a cold finger down his back he remembered that it had been alive, in his dream.
‘What does it mean?’
‘What it means is, I’m bloody leaving this place. Before they get here. And destroy everything.’
Noon went around to the bat’s hindquarters, where the animal was crouched lowest to the floor. She climbed on cautiously, pulling herself across Fulcor’s muscled back to settle her legs into the saddle – riding a bat meant sitting with your legs bent at the knee and your own body thrown forward. Lusk still stood there unmoving, his chest filled with a weight of dread, until she gestured at him impatiently. He realised he was still holding the silver whistle, so he handed it over to her quickly. She was in contact with Fulcor now, and could choose to take the bat’s energy if she wished.
‘Her name is Fulcor,’ he said, not sure why he was speaking at all. ‘Three short blasts to wake her up, one long one to bring her to you, if she’s close enough, and four blasts to dismiss her. She will stay with you, as long as you have the whistle, and she knows all the basic commands. They’re trained that way. She’s – she’s a friendly sort, this one. Has a bit of an independent streak. Some of the agents, well, they prefer a more obedient bat, but . . .’ He trailed off, aware that he was babbling now.
‘What will you do?’ she asked. Her voice was tense, her eyes bright with an emotion he couldn’t read – they looked black, almost as black as Fulcor’s.
‘I will sound the alarm, of course. They will send agents after you, and I will be disciplined for letting this happen.’
For a moment she said nothing. She glanced up at the sky, biting her lip.
‘Give me some time,’ she said eventually. ‘Just a little while. To get away.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I haven’t killed anyone, not here. You could give me that much.’
They had both had the same dream. That had to mean something – Tomas had written a great deal about looking for signs, and this was the only sign Lusk’s life had ever seen fit to show him. Feeling as though perhaps he was trapped in another dream, Lusk met the woman’s eyes and nodded once.
‘Go. I’ll give you as long as I can.’
Fell-Noon took the reins and tugged them. Fulcor shifted round on her wing-feet and scampered up to the platform on the far side of the room. The sky was a blue and grey plate above them.
‘They will still come after you,’ he called. ‘The Winnowry doesn’t let anyone walk away. They will chase you.’
‘I’m sure they will. But I won’t be in this fucking hole, and that’s the main thing.’ Fell-Noon leaned low over the bat and spoke softly into its large, crinkled ear. ‘Fly!’