‘
But Master
…
do you imagine a dragon will be welcomed with open arms – a creature of legend suddenly made real? You will be seen as a demon, a monster to be slain. Indeed, I can well imagine that your presence might end the war between England and her enemies – but only so that they may unite against you
.’
‘
Let them try. They shall learn to fear – and to obey. But I will not be restricted to the body of a dragon, Mr Quare. Dragons are protean creatures, or so I now perceive. I will walk the Earth as a man – as the man I should have been, my outer form at last a match for my inner qualities. People will follow such a man willingly – perhaps not all of them, but enough
.’ Again the darkness took the shape of a godlike man.
Quare felt a shudder pass through him. ‘
Listen to yourself, Master – you are talking like a tyrant, not the man I knew … the man whose death I mourned
.’
‘
In that, you were too hasty – though I appreciate the sentiment, of course. But as to the other: perhaps you did not know me as well as you thought. Perhaps I did not know myself. My perceptions were as stunted and twisted as the body that was my prison. But now I have escaped from both
.’
‘
This is monstrous
,’ Quare said.
‘
Miraculous, rather. Yes, science has its miracles, too! For what else is this mechanism but a thing of science – an artificial egg, incubator of dragons, of gods?
’
‘
Of madness
.’
‘
You disappoint me, Mr Quare, indeed you do. You, too, have known what it is to be mocked and scorned, to have the particulars of your birth held against you. Why would you not rejoice at the prospect of a world in which an orphan or a bastard could rise as far as his talents might take him?
’
‘
That world I would welcome. But you speak of fear and compelled obedience. I will not be part of such a world
.’
‘
You are part of it already. When the hunter – the egg – drank our blood, it
tasted
us. It sifted our qualities and judged us. It
chose
how to use us in its great work of growing a dragon
.’
‘
You speak as if it were intelligent
.’
‘
Is a clock intelligent? A loom? This is a device, Mr Quare. A machine. It does what it was built to do – no more, no less
.’
‘
Built by whom?
’
‘
That I do not know … yet
.’
‘
But you knew the hunter was no ordinary timepiece. You’ve known that for years. You and Longinus – Lord Wichcote, that is – worked together once to discover its secrets. He has confessed as much to me. Surely he must have told you of his experiences in Märchen. Of the Otherwhere. Of Wachter, Doppler, and the rest
.’
‘
Of course he did – though now I perceive, for everything you know is known to me in this place, that his lordship omitted some choice information. That extraordinary foot of his, for instance. And to think that Grimalkin was under my nose all that time!
’ His laughter rumbled. ‘
But Lord Wichcote is a man who likes his secrets. No matter. For many years, we did work together, as you say. If one of us had spilled even a drop of blood during those investigations, things might have gone very differently! But we had no inkling that blood was the key. No clue whatsoever. And finally, out of frustration, or greed, or an excess of caution, perhaps, fearful of drawing the attention of Doppler or some greater power, Lord Wichcote stopped cooperating. He refused to grant me access to the hunter, or even to tell me where he had hidden it. We continued to work together on other matters – he remained a key asset of the Most Secret and Exalted Order. But a certain mutual trust was spoiled
.’
‘
Is that why you sent me to his house that night? To steal the hunter, so you could resume your investigations?
’
‘
I had no delusions on that score. Even at his age, Lord Wichcote is a deadly swordsman, a consummate fighter. I doubt there is a regulator alive who could best him. Certainly not you. No, you could never have stolen the hunter from him
.’
‘
What then? Did you expect him to simply give it to me?
’
‘
In point of fact, yes, I did
.’
‘
And why should he have done that?
’
‘
Have you not marked the resemblance between you? Lord Wichcote is your father, Mr Quare
.’
Quare had not thought he could be any more discomposed than he was already. But in that, he had been wrong. ‘
Lord Wichcote … Longinus … my
father?’
‘
You are his bastard by-blow. I tracked you down, brought you to London, trained you in the skills of a journeyman and regulator – all so that I might have a trump card with his lordship. It is always wise, I have found, when dealing with the gentry, to do so from a position of strength. They do not generally feel themselves bound by honour or any other constraint when dealing with those they perceive to be their inferiors
.’
‘
But you are wrong. I asked Lord Wichcote himself if he were not my father. I put the question to him directly, face to face. He denied it
.’
‘
Of course he did. Such is the way of the world. But make no mistake: you are his son, his bastard, and he knows it well
.’
‘
Has he always known?
’
‘
No. He had not known of your existence until the very day I dispatched you to him. That same afternoon, I sent a confidential note to his lordship detailing the particulars of your parentage and informing him that you would be paying him a visit later that same night. Knowing that there are men in this world who do not welcome their by-blows with open arms, I warned him in no uncertain terms that if any harm befell you, I would release all the details to His Majesty … and to the vultures of Fleet Street. If he wished to avoid disgrace or worse, he need only hand over the hunter to you. I did not like to resort to blackmail, but there was no choice. Time was running out, you see. Others were on the trail of the hunter, among them, or so I thought, the notorious Grimalkin. I did not have faith in my old friend’s ability to keep the hunter safe from this paragon of thievery. And was I not right to be concerned? So it was that I decided the time had come to play my trump card. And I feel certain that his lordship would have given you the hunter, Mr Quare … if Grimalkin – a false Grimalkin, as it appears, and a woman no less! – had not got there first
.’
‘
Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?
’ Quare demanded. ‘
I trusted you … looked upon you as I might have a father
.’
‘
Yes, that made it all very easy, I must say. You would do well in the future, Mr Quare, to be a good deal less trusting. At least you need not search for a substitute father any longer. And after all, haven’t things turned out for the best? You retrieved the watch from the female masquerading as Grimalkin and returned it to me. I pricked my finger in examining it, and discovered the secret
key
I had looked for in vain all those years. Thanks to you, I have shed my ruined body and will soon enjoy a better one, along with the power to reshape the world. I owe you much – and never let it be said that I do not repay my debts
.’
‘
How – by killing me and bringing me here?
’
‘
Did I not say that the hunter had
saved
your life? I sensed the moment Aylesford’s dagger slid into your heart, Mr Quare. I watched your essence – your soul, for lack of a better word – crawl like a moth from its chrysalis. I called it to me, and it came, a poor blind thing drawn along a bloody umbilical. I grasped it in my hand. I hold it still
.’
At this, he extended one hand. There, on a palm as black as midnight, sat a fragile moth the colour of blood – the only bit of colour Quare had glimpsed since he had awakened here. The sight of it sent a shock through him; though he had never before seen such a thing, still he recognized it, felt instinctively that it was a part of him. The moth seemed to recognize him as well. It fluttered its wings but could not rise from Master Magnus’s palm, as if held down by an immense weight. Its blood-red colour flared as it struggled, like a cooling ember fanned by a breeze, but almost at once the colour ebbed, fading from scarlet through rouge to a pale rose, as the moth subsided in exhaustion. Magnus closed his fingers around it, caging it within.
‘
I know about the dragon Tiamat and the compulsion laid upon you. But I have broken its hold. That jealous creature has no dominion over you any more – not as long as I hold this part of you, and you hold the hunter. Thus joined, no man or dragon can stand against us. We are invincible, Mr Quare! I will protect you from your enemies. From death itself. In return, you will be my agent in the world. My protector. My voice. And more. For you see, I cannot hatch from this egg alone. I need your help. I must grow stronger, and for that I require sustenance
.’
Quare felt a chill. ‘
You mean blood
.’
‘
Only then will I be strong enough to hatch. You will be midwife to that birth. That is your purpose, your glorious destiny!
’
‘
Glorious? It is obscene. Is that how you would usher in your bright and shining age of reason? On a tide of blood?
’
‘
There is no birth without blood. But I will kill no one
.’
‘
No, I suppose that is to be
my
task
.’
‘
You will carry me across the Channel, into the thick of the war. There I dare say we shall find a sufficiency of blood – blood that will be put to a better use than fertilizing some farmer’s field
.’
‘
I won’t do it
,’ Quare said. ‘
The Master Magnus I knew would never have considered such a vile scheme. You are no longer the man you were – no longer even human – you have become what the others called you: Master Mephistopheles! If you are trapped here, so much the better. I will not help to loose you upon the world. Kill me if you like – I won’t lift a finger to help you
.’
‘
We are both part of something greater than we were
,’ Magnus replied. ‘
Embrace that truth or fight against it – in the end it matters not. Our wants count for nothing against the needs of the dragon. That, too, I have learned. Now you will learn it
.’
With that, Quare found himself back in his body. How much time had passed, he did not know, but he was still seated at the Old Wolf’s desk, grasping the hunter in his maimed hand. But that hand was no longer bleeding, though the wound had not healed. He could see the raw, ravaged flesh, the white wink of bone …There was the stub of his finger on the desktop, just where it had been sliced away … but now shrivelled and dark as a raisin, as if every drop of vitality had been drained from it.
The hunter had lost its crimson glow and faded to a pale roseate hue, like the moth that Magnus had held in his hand. Quare could feel the flutter of its pulse, twinned to the rapid beating of his heart as if it were some kind of parasite sucking the life from him. The ornate hands of the watch were crawling in no ordered progression, moving neither clockwise nor counterclockwise but instead seeming to quest about the face of the timepiece like the roving antennae of a blind insect, pointing with unguessable intent towards those strange symbols he could not decipher … could barely even focus on, as if they, too, were in motion, squirming to escape his sight. Once he had gazed admiringly on those hands, carved with such exquisite craftsmanship into the shape of a dragon, but now he felt only revulsion. He tried to fling the hunter away, but his fingers would not open. They disobeyed his will; they had another master now, it seemed. Nor would his arm obey his command to smash the timepiece down upon the desk.
He pushed the chair back and stood … then froze.
Bodies lay strewn about the floor – including, beside him, that of the Old Wolf. The guards were down, lying motionless as dead men. Pickens, too. And Longinus.
Father …
Either Magnus had lied to him, or Longinus had. But which one? What was the truth? If Longinus was dead, killed by the hunter, he might never know.
Quare moved to the older man and knelt beside him. He was breathing shallowly, his eyes open, the pupils dilated. Quare shook him by the shoulder with his free hand. ‘Longinus – wake up. Longinus!’
A faint groan was his only answer.
And what of the others? Quare moved from one fallen form to another, finding that all of them were, like Longinus, unconscious. He took the opportunity to rearm himself, then hesitated, debating what to do next.
‘
Waste not, want not, Mr Quare
.’
The voice was as intimate as his own thoughts, yet entirely unnatural. It was as if a worm had burrowed into his brain – or, no, a
tongue
… He could feel it rasping repulsively across the inside of his skull. He bent over, retching, his stomach emptying. But he could not purge himself of the invader. When he was done, the voice returned.
‘
These titbits will lend savour to the coming feast
.’
Now, just as he had been unable to force his fingers to drop the hunter, so, too, was he helpless to resist as a will more powerful than his own exerted control over his body. He – or, rather, the puppet he had become – drew his dagger and proceeded methodically to cut the throats of the guards. Quare’s right hand did not so much as quiver as it went about its grisly business, though he fought against it with every ounce of strength he possessed.
As before, the hunter drew the streams of blood into itself; he could not believe how much blood a human body held … nor how quickly it could be drained. Not a drop was wasted. And also as before, the timepiece began to glow as it drank, until it hurt to look upon. Yet Quare could not tear his eyes away. The fierce light shone right through the skin of his hand, so that he could see the bones, the veins, the blood within the veins. All the while, in his head, he heard the dragon singing.
That
was the only word for it. It was the same song that had called him here, only indescribably more beautiful … and terrible, as if he were watching a ravishing maiden bathing in a pool of blood. He felt himself stiffen within his breeches. Then, as had happened in the bath, when he had conversed with Tiamat, he was spilling his seed, convulsed with a pleasure that overwhelmed but did not eliminate the shame he felt. And the horror. For just as it drank the blood of his victims, so, too, did the hunter take into itself this other vital essence. Tears ran down his cheeks.