The Masked City

Nothing to see at all? she wondered, the impossibility of it dawning on her. No travellers on nearby roads? No other trains? Nobody out late at night? None of the other stations near London? You’ve been on the rails only a few minutes now, and there’s nobody at all out there? The words uncharted night drifted through her mind, and she suppressed a shudder, preparing to open the door into the next carriage. She tensed herself for a confrontation, but there was no need. The next carriage held just an empty corridor, running alongside an empty compartment.

Was this too convenient? Irene considered, paranoia prodding at her. It was easy for a lurid imagination to conjure up invisible Fae - if they could turn invisible? She didn’t know. She’d never heard of any that could. But in any case, she had to change her appearance fast. If she kept the maid outfit on, she’d have problems passing as a Fae from a futuristic alternate. She would just have to trust to luck.

Irene hated trusting to luck. It was no substitute for good planning and careful preparation.

She ducked into the compartment, slamming the door behind her and pulling the privacy shade down over the door window. Quickly she shucked off the disguise and shoved it under a seat. The business suit still looked reasonably smart, and a gleam of gold shone at her wrists. These were Silver’s bracelets, which he’d promised would show traces of his magic if anyone checked them. So now she had Fae bracelets around her wrists and a dragon’s token round her neck. The symbolism of belonging to either order or chaos was unappealing, and she was surprised that her Library brand wasn’t itching …

Oh. She reached over her shoulders to rub at it. It was smarting painfully, and had been for some time - she’d just had other things to worry about. A bad sign.

The itch on her back suddenly seemed to symbolize all the things that she was trying not to think about. Top of the list was Kai’s real and present danger. Her fingers brushed the pendant at her throat. If only she could read his health from it, in the way that Ao Shun had done. Her own dubious situation was next in line: running out on her assigned role and going to high-chaos worlds without permission was liable to get her a reprimand at the very least, and it might well lead to even worse. Removed from your position as Librarian-in-Residence, her innermost self whispered. Knocked down to journeyman again. Kept in the Library for the next fifty years. Even stripped of your Librarianship …

But worrying wouldn’t solve anything. So she viciously stamped down on her fears, forcing them to the back of her mind. Kai would not be saved by fretting over him like a maudlin romantic, or by panicking like a Gothic heroine in a trailing nightgown. He would, by god, be saved by her going out there and actually saving him - and her position be damned!

Time to get moving. She began to work her way down the train.

The next carriage was decorated in brassy gold and deep brown. The corridor was empty, but the privacy shades were all drawn on the private compartment. She could hear the sound of flutes and distant singing through the wall. Better leave well enough alone.

The next carriage - this had to be the third one that she’d come to, with Lady Guantes further behind all the time - was decorated in cream and ivory. The privacy shades were half-drawn, and through the small slice of window she could see pale tangled bodies in the private compartment. She kept on walking.

Abruptly the train shivered, beginning to slow. Irene looked through the outer window and saw that the view had changed. Instead of night-time countryside, she now saw … underwater. It was still dark, as they seemed to be far below the surface, but the lights of a sunken city glared on the approaching horizon. Something large and finned drifted past in the gloom on the other side of the window. Irene couldn’t see much of it, except for the single flash of teeth.

The train was almost at the sunken city now, and she had a thought. What if someone opened the outer door and flooded the corridor? What might happen?

Panicking, she ran through into the next carriage. She turned to the compartment window and it looked unoccupied. So as the train slowed, drawing into the station, she stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

There was a cough.

Irene spun round with a gasp. Sometimes even a Librarian could be surprised.

A woman was sitting at the far end of the compartment. She was tall, sitting razor-straight against the padded black leather seat, and was swathed in heavy deep-blue silks. A shawl was wound around her head and neck, covering her hair, but baring her face in the style that Irene had seen referred to as a khimar in some alternates. The lines of her stern face were as uncompromising as her posture, and there wasn’t the least ounce of softness in her dark, kohl-rimmed eyes. Her lips were thin lines, drawn together in disapproval, and while the whole of her face was beautiful, it was a stern and judgemental beauty, the sort pictured in illustrations of scholarly angels and last judgements.

‘You’re late,’ she said, as the train stopped and fell silent.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘I’m very sorry,’ Irene said, deciding to play along. The woman had spoken in Arabic, and Irene realized that she had answered in the same language. It was a pity that her accent was so bad, but she hadn’t had any reason to practise it for years.

‘No matter,’ the woman said. ‘Come and sit down. I will be lenient, since you are at least here before the others, but we have little enough time before we reach our destination. Your name, please.’

Irene mentally grabbed for some name that didn’t have any sort of betraying hidden meaning, and seized the first that came to mind. ‘Clarice, madam,’ she answered. ‘I apologize for my poor accent.’ And what did the others mean?