Wintercraft: Legacy (14 page)

Baltin glanced at his followers, trying to remain composed. ‘I know what lies beyond the veil,’ he said. ‘I have seen it for myself.’

‘You have seen only what you wanted to see.’

Silas moved before Baltin had time to react. Edgar tried to step between the two men, but Silas was too quick. The energy in the room was already highly charged, and Silas had decided that there was no more time for talk. He pushed Baltin so hard that the older man fell back and scrabbled across the floor, landing just inside the blood circle, and Silas was right behind him.

‘No,’ said Baltin, desperately trying to find his feet. ‘Please!’

Silas felt the sickly tug of the physical world fall away as he crossed the blood line and stood over Baltin, who raised his arms uselessly to protect himself. Traces of Kate’s blood surged through Silas’ veins, reacting to the broken presence of the veil. The circle was not perfect. It was a crude guess at something the bonemen might once have created every day, but it was enough to tear through the already delicate barrier between two worlds. The blood of a Walker made Silas’ own connection to the veil more powerful, and the moment he looked into it he saw a flicker of an image as if he were seeing directly through
Kate’s eyes. He could see where she was at that moment. Water pooling around her feet and Dalliah Grey shouting, her words lost within the veil.

‘I never wanted any of this!’ said Baltin, flailing his arms. ‘I wanted to help. I was only doing what I thought was best.’

‘Be silent,’ said Silas. ‘And listen.’

Baltin let his hands fall to the floor and felt it tremble gently. ‘Wh-what’s happening?’

Everyone in the meeting hall pressed themselves against the walls as the circle spluttered with new life. If that circle had been a flickering flame of energy before Silas’ arrival, now it was white hot. None of them wanted to go near it, except for one.

Edgar walked right up to the edge, watching Baltin’s expression as it changed from panic to sheer terror and then sank into the abject desperation of someone who was looking straight into the veil’s terrifying heart.

‘This is unacceptable,’ said Greta. ‘Stop this.’ She tried to cross into the circle, but Edgar stopped her.

‘You can’t go in there,’ he said. ‘Silas knows what he’s doing. Baltin has to understand. We are not your enemy.’

‘Is
that
the face of a friend?’

Edgar looked behind him, where Silas had begun pacing round the inner edge of the circle. Baltin was curled on his side, trying to block whatever Silas was showing him from his senses, and Silas’ eyes shimmered white, looking like the eyes of a predator captured in the glare of moonlight.

‘I know it looks bad, but he knows what he’s doing.’

‘He is polluting the circle with his presence,’ said Greta. ‘He will attract too many souls. He will ruin everything!’

Edgar looked at her. ‘I thought you were worried about Baltin,’ he said. ‘Not your precious circle.’

‘Baltin is one man,’ said Greta. ‘He is more than expendable.’

‘It’s a good job we don’t all think like you.’

‘Move aside!’ she demanded, but Edgar held her back.

Silas took no pleasure in exposing an unwilling mind to the black, but Baltin had been quick to end other people’s lives in the name of his cause. Risking his own sanity was a small price to pay in return.

Baltin writhed. His fingers clutched at empty air. ‘We killed them,’ he whispered. ‘We had to do it.
I
had to do it. I . . .’ His body tensed and fell limp. Silas continued to pace.

Time passed strangely within the circle. What felt like a minute held within its influence was almost an hour in the meeting hall. When Baltin fell still, Edgar was left to calm the Skilled and reassure them about something he knew little about. Greta was determined to break the circle and disturb the process, but some of the older members of the group helped Edgar to keep her away from the blood line, worried that she would cause more harm than good.

Only Silas would ever know what Baltin witnessed inside that circle. Only he would remember the sight of Skilled souls trapped beneath the meeting hall. He would see them, frightened and lost, reaching out to Baltin for
help the man was unable to give. When Baltin’s soul threatened to break away from his body, Silas helped him find his way back to the living world, where he lay horrified by the torment that his actions had caused.

Silas reached an arm out and helped him to stand. Greta looked flustered as he stumbled from the circle, breathless, dazed and determined.

‘Greta,’ he said. ‘It is worse than we thought. This effort of ours is not enough to stop what is coming. I saw the prison that lies in the dark. I walked within it. I think . . . I was dead. Was I dead?’ He turned to Silas, who said nothing. ‘Those people we killed, Greta. They are suffering now. These hands . . .’ He raised his palms in front of his face. ‘They are stained with more than blood. What we have done should never be forgiven. We have to put this right. I thought I knew the veil, but I knew nothing. Nothing at all.’

Greta looked at him with disdain. ‘You are allowing yourself to be misled,’ she said. ‘Our first duty is always to protect those who are still alive. The children need us, and those who are missing may yet return. We cannot afford to risk our lives on the word of someone whose very existence in this world is an abomination against everything we know and trust about the veil. He is a bound soul, Baltin. He is less than a shade, and we cannot trust him. We cannot even be sure his mind is his own.’

‘I trust what I have seen,’ said Baltin. ‘Gather the ones who are strong enough to travel. We are not finished yet.’

He hurried over to those of the Skilled who were still clutching old skulls and took them from them, laying each
skull carefully on the floor. While he tried to rally the others, Silas scrubbed his boot through the blood circle, severing its link to the veil.

‘Stop that!’ cried Greta. ‘These circles cannot be made in the same place twice.’

‘Then perhaps you will listen,’ said Silas. ‘The veil is under threat, and much as I would like to leave you and your people to rot here underground, you are its guardians.’

‘That does not give you the right to invade this cavern and spread your soulless lies among my people.’

‘Yes it does!’ said Edgar, stepping forward. ‘We are here to help you. We could have stayed away.’

‘My role here is to enforce order and to protect the group,’ said Greta. ‘I have done that to the best of my ability. As a former soldier, your master should respect that.’

‘He’s not my master,’ said Edgar.

‘I knew the Winters girl was too dangerous to be set free,’ said Greta. ‘I did not approve of Baltin’s treatment of her in the end, but we were right to contain her. If it were not for the boy,’ she stabbed an accusing finger towards Edgar, ‘we would not be in this situation. He interfered where he did not belong.’

‘Nothing could have prevented this,’ said Silas. ‘Everything that has happened was seen within the veil long before Kate was even born. Dalliah deliberately created the chain of events that brought us here. She has manipulated all of us, and now she intends to finish her work.’

Greta looked grim. ‘Do you believe she has gained some degree of
control
over the girl?’

‘They entered the city together, but it is impossible to say how much of Kate’s will has been lost.’

‘Then you are right,’ said Greta. ‘This is bigger than any history we may have shared. Baltin is good at reacting to events. Whatever you showed him in there certainly provoked a reaction, but he is like an excitable dog. When he runs out of energy, he will lose focus. I, however, will not. I assume you and I are contemplating the same solution to this mess?’

‘Yes,’ Silas said, without hesitation. ‘This has already gone too far.’

‘Then, at last, we agree,’ said Greta. ‘For Albion to survive, the Winters girl cannot be allowed to live.’

Lake water seeped slowly into the records house, spreading across the floor and into the corners where stacks of old papers became swamped. Loose pages floated just beneath the surface as the freezing water swallowed entire books, devouring their ink and rendering them worthless.

Kate had not taken her eyes off Dalliah since she had challenged her, but instead of looking angry or concerned, Dalliah did not seem to care. Knowledge was Dalliah’s greatest advantage. She was not surprised by the swelling of the lake. She knew exactly why everything was happening. She had planned for every eventuality, whereas Kate could only react to events as they happened around her.

‘Your anger will only make it worse,’ said Dalliah, turning back to her books. ‘The spirits are listening to us.’

‘I don’t care,’ said Kate. ‘This city isn’t yours. You can’t come here and destroy it.’

‘I have done nothing,’ said Dalliah. ‘
You
sent the souls in the tower into the black. Events
you
have put into action are forcing the city to react. Destroying Fume has never been my intention. I doubt it could even be done. Its stones will stand here long after every living soul has fled its walls.’

The water crept up past Kate’s ankles, beyond her knees, and settled around her hips, where it stopped rising and became still. The surface was mirror-like with not a splash or a ripple to break its calm. Only a thin film covered the top of the stone wheel, trickling through the spaces between the outer tiles.

‘This lake was here before any of the buildings around its edge,’ said Dalliah. ‘At its height it once covered the entire district. The water is reclaiming what should never have been taken away.’

Kate waded towards the table closer to one of the windows. The cold water stabbed at her legs and she lifted herself up, checking to make sure
Wintercraft
was still intact. It seemed untouched, so she placed it on the table-top, out of reach of the water, while Dalliah remained next to the wheel, her dress and coat swirling in the flood. Kate’s warm breath came as vapour as she spotted shapes moving beneath the surface of the water. There were shadows where shadows should not have been: fast-moving drifts of black and grey, seeping through the walls and gathering around the spirit wheel.

‘Working the veil to this level takes years of concentration and study,’ said Dalliah, continuing to keep the spirit in the wheel under her control. ‘But all of that is
useless without the ability to use it: the spark to trigger the first switch. Once the first step is taken, everything that follows becomes easier.’ She looked up at Kate. ‘I couldn’t have done any of this without you.’

‘You have spent your life destroying people,’ said Kate. ‘I saw the graves around your house on the Continent. There were thousands of bodies there. All those souls, unable to enter death because of what you did to them. The Skilled are supposed to help people.’

‘Walkers have more important things to do,’ said Dalliah. ‘When I was away from Albion, it became difficult to connect strongly with the veil. It would not speak to me unless I called it with the souls of the dying. Now we are here in the city, I have everything I need.’ Dalliah pulled a twist of cloth from her bag and unfolded it to reveal a thin glass vial filled with red liquid. ‘I did not expect you to obey me forever,’ she said. ‘I do not need you for this. Your blood is more than enough.’

‘No!’ Kate jumped back into the water and waded towards Dalliah as the woman unstoppered the vial. The cold snatched her breath away, but she stripped off her heavy outer robe and moved quickly across the room. ‘Don’t!’

The centre stone, loosened by the water, lifted easily beneath Dalliah’s searching fingers, sending water swirling into the space beneath. Dalliah pushed the disc over the edge and it flipped as it fell, revealing one side carved with a spiral, the other carved with a goblet. The goblet side was face up as it sank to the floor and the symbol flared with light before sinking out of sight. Kate struggled to
reach Dalliah in time, but it was too late. The vial dropped into the wheel’s open void and smashed, spilling smears of blood over the mechanism inside.

‘This is not the existence I chose for myself,’ said Dalliah. ‘Once, my blood would have been more than enough for this work. That strength was stolen from me, along with so much else, by your family. You should condemn them for leaving you the burden of what you must do, but I can condemn them for far more. You were born to be betrayed by your family’s legacy. I was not.’

Kate stood over the wheel, watching the bloodstains darken as the black crept in. She reached down, trying to fish out the shards, but the glass bit her fingers, threatening to add more blood to the mix. Shadows formed against the walls and the water moved as if it were filled with live fish. The surface bulged and churned and shades burst from the building as though something had physically dragged them out. Kate pressed her hands upon the outer tiles in desperation, determined to do something to stop what her blood had put into motion.

‘The Winters family and your mother’s family have hated each other for generations,’ said Dalliah. ‘The Winters drove the Pinnetts’ seers into madness more times than I can remember. You may hate me for what I have done, but your ancestors did far worse in search of knowledge. They would be surprised to see you trying to save the soul of a Pinnett now.’