Perdido Street Station Part 64

The wall to his left slanted steeply in with the roof. To his right, the narrow pa.s.sage was broken with two doors, before it curved away to the right and disappeared in shadows.

Yagharek kept crouched down. He beckoned slowly behind him, without looking, and Derkhan and Isaac emerged slowly. They carried their guns loaded with the last of their powder, damp and unreliable, aiming vaguely into the darkness.

They waited while Yagharek crept slowly on, then followed him in faltering, pugnacious steps.

Yagharek stopped by the first door and flattened his feathered head against it. He waited a moment, then pushed it open slowly, slowly. Derkhan and Isaac crept over, peered into an unlit storeroom.

"Is there anything in there we can use?" hissed Isaac, but the shelves were empty of everything except dry and dusty bottles, ancient decaying brushes.

When Yagharek reached the second door, he repeated the operation, waving at Isaac and Derkhan to be still and listening intently through the thin wood. This time he was still for much longer. The door was bolted several times, and Yagharek fumbled with all the simple slide-locks. There was a fat padlock, but it was resting open across one of the bolts, as if it had been left for a moment. Yagharek pushed slowly at the door. He poked his head through the resulting gap and stood like that, perched half in, half out of the room for a disconcertingly long time.

When he withdrew, he turned.

"Isaac," he said quietly. "You must come."

Isaac frowned and stepped forward, his heart beating hard in his chest.

What is it? he thought. he thought. What's going on? (And even as he thought that a voice in the deepest part of his mind told him what was waiting for him, and he only half heard it, would not listen for fear that it was wrong.) What's going on? (And even as he thought that a voice in the deepest part of his mind told him what was waiting for him, and he only half heard it, would not listen for fear that it was wrong.) He pushed past Yagharek and walked hesitantly into the room.

It was a large, rectangular attic s.p.a.ce, lit by three oil-lamps and the thin wisps of gaslight that found their way up from the street and through the grubby, sealed window. The floor was littered with a tangle of metal and discarded rubbish. The room stank.

Isaac was only fleetingly conscious of any of this.

In a dim corner, turned away from the door, kneeling up and chewing dutifully with her back and head and gland attached to an extraordinary twisted sculpture, was Lin.

Isaac cried out.

It was an animal wail, and it grew and grew in strength until Yagharek hissed at him, unheeded.

Lin turned with a start at the sound. She trembled when she saw him.

He stumbled over to her, weeping at the sight of her, at her russet skin and flexing headscarab; and as he approached he cried out again, this time in anguish, as he saw what had been done to her.

Her body was bruised and covered with burns and scratches, welts that hinted at vicious acts and brutalizations. She had been beaten across her back, through her ragged s.h.i.+ft. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were criss-crossed with thin scars. She was bruised heavily around her belly and thighs.

But it was her head, the twitching headbody, that almost made him fall.

Her wings had been taken: he knew that, from the envelope, but to see them, to see the tiny ragged stubs flit in agitation . . . Her carapace had been snapped and bent backwards in places, uncovering the tender flesh beneath, which was scabbed and broken. One of her compound eyes was crumpled and sightless. The middle headleg on her right and the hind one on her left had been torn from their sockets.

Isaac fell forward and held her, closing her into him. She was so thin . . . so tiny and ragged and broken, she was trembling as she touched him, her whole body tense as if she could not believe he were real, as if he might be taken away as some new torture.

Isaac clutched her and cried. He held her carefully, feeling her thin bones beneath her skin.

"I would have come come," he moaned in abject misery and joy. "I would've come come, I thought you were dead dead . . ." . . ."

She pushed him back just a little, until she had s.p.a.ce for her hands to move.

Wanted you, love you, she signed chaotically, she signed chaotically, help me save me take me away, couldn't he couldn't let me die till had finished this . . . help me save me take me away, couldn't he couldn't let me die till had finished this . . .

For the first time, Isaac looked up at the extraordinary sculpture that rose above and behind her, onto which she was spreading khepri-spit. It was an incredible multicoloured thing, a horrific kaleidoscopic figure of composite nightmares, limbs and eyes and legs sprouting in weird combinations. It was almost finished, with only a smooth framework where what looked like a head must be, and an empty clutch of air that suggested a shoulder.

Isaac gasped at it, looked back at her.

Lemuel had been right. There was, strategically, no reason at all for Motley to keep Lin alive. He would not have done so for any other captive. But his vanity, his mystical self-aggrandizement and philosophical dreamings were stimulated by Lin's extraordinary work. Lemuel could not have known that.

Motley could not bear for the sculpture to remain unfinished.

Derkhan and Yagharek entered. When she saw Lin, Derkhan cried out as Isaac had done. She ran across the room to where Isaac and Lin embraced and put her own arms around the two of them, crying and smiling.

Yagharek paced uneasily towards them.

Isaac was murmuring to Lin, telling her over and over how sorry he was, that he thought she was dead, that he would have come.

Kept me working, beating and . . . and torturing, taunting me, Lin signed, giddy and exhausted with emotion. Lin signed, giddy and exhausted with emotion.

Yagharek was about to speak, but he snapped his head suddenly around.

The tramp of hurried feet was audible in the corridor outside.

Isaac stood, supporting Lin as he came, keeping her enfolded in his embrace. Derkhan moved away from the two of them. She drew her pistols and turned to face the door. Yagharek flattened himself against the wall in the shadow of the sculpture, his whip coiled and ready.

The door burst open and hammered against the wall, sprang back.

Motley stood before them.

He was silhouetted. Isaac saw a twisted outline against the black-painted walls of the corridor. A garden of multifarious limbs, a walking patchwork of organic forms. Isaac's mouth dropped open in amazement. He realized as he watched the shuffling goat- and bird- and dog-footed creature, as he saw the clutching tentacles and knots of tissue, the composite bones and invented skin, that Lin's piece was taken, without fancy, from life life.

At the sight of him, Lin went limp with fear and the memory of pain. Isaac felt rage begin to engulf him.

Motley stepped back slightly and turned to face the way he had come.

"Security!" shouted Motley from some unclear mouth. shouted Motley from some unclear mouth. "Get here now!" "Get here now!" He stepped back into the room. He stepped back into the room.

"Grimnebulin," he said. His voice was quick and tense. "You came. Didn't you get my message? Bit remiss remiss, aren't you?" Motley stepped into the room and the faint light.

Derkhan fired twice. Her bullets tore through Motley's armoured skin and patches of fur. He staggered back on multiple legs with a bellow of pain. His cry became a vicious laugh.

"Far too many internal organs to hurt me, you useless s.l.u.t," he shouted. Derkhan spat with fury and edged closer to the wall.

Isaac stared at Motley, saw teeth gnas.h.i.+ng in a mult.i.tude of mouths. The floor shook as people pounded along the corridor outside, racing towards the room.

Men appeared in the doorway behind Motley, waved weapons, waited uncertainly. For a moment Isaac's stomach pitched: the men had no faces, only smooth skin stretched tight over their skulls. What kind of f.u.c.king Remades are these? What kind of f.u.c.king Remades are these? he thought giddily. Then he caught sight of the mirrors extending backwards from the helmets. he thought giddily. Then he caught sight of the mirrors extending backwards from the helmets.

His eyes widened as he realized that these were shaven-headed Remade with their heads turned one hundred and eighty degrees, specially and perfectly adapted to dealing with the slake-moths. They waited now for their boss's orders, their muscular bodies facing Isaac, their heads turned permanently away.

One of Motley's limbs-an ugly, segmented and suckered thing-shot out to indicate Lin.

"Finish your G.o.dsd.a.m.ned job job, you b.u.g.g.e.r b.i.t.c.h, or you know what you'll get!" he shouted, and hobbled towards Lin and Isaac.

With an utterly b.e.s.t.i.a.l roar, Isaac pushed Lin to one side. A spray of chymical anguish burst from her. Her hands twisted as she begged him to stay with her, but he was launching himself at Motley in an agony of guilt and fury.

Motley shouted wordlessly, meeting Isaac's challenge.

There was a sudden loud concussion. An explosion of gla.s.s scintillas sprayed across the room, leaving blood and curses.

Isaac froze in the centre of the room. Motley was frozen before him. The ranks of security were fumbling with their weapons, shouting orders at each other. Isaac looked up, into the mirrors before his eyes.

The last slake-moth stood behind him. It was framed in the ragged stubs of the window. Gla.s.s still dripped around it like viscous liquid.

Isaac gasped.

It was a huge, a terrifying presence. It stood, half crouched, a little way forward from the wall and the window-hole, various savage limbs clutching the floor. It was ma.s.sive as a gorilla, a body of terrible solidity and intricate violence.

Its unthinkable wings were wide open. Patterns burst across them like negative fireworks.

Motley had been facing the great beast: his mind was captured. He gazed at the wings with an array of unblinking eyes. Behind him his troops were shouting in agitation, levelling weapons.

Yagharek and Derkhan had been standing with their backs to the wall. Isaac saw them in his mirrors behind the thing. The patterned sides of its wings were hidden from them: they were still with shock, but not in thrall.

Between the slake-moth and Isaac, sprawled on the boards where she had fallen in the ragged cascade of gla.s.s, was Lin.

"Lin!" shouted Isaac desperately. "Don't turn round! Don't look behind you! Come to me!" "Don't turn round! Don't look behind you! Come to me!"

Lin froze at his panicked tone. She saw him reach backwards in an appallingly clumsy gesture, step hesitatingly towards her without turning round.

She crawled slowly, very slowly, towards him.

Behind her, she heard a low, animal noise.

The slake-moth stood, pugnacious and uneasy. It could taste minds all around, moving on all sides, threatening and fearing it.

It was unsettled and nervous, still traumatized by the slaughter of its siblings. One of its spiny tentacles lashed the ground like a tail.

Before it, one mind was captive. But the moth's wings were spread out wide and yet it had captured only one one . . . ? It was confused. It faced the main ma.s.s of its enemies, it batted its wings at them hypnotically, trying to pull them under and send their dreams bubbling to the surface. . . . ? It was confused. It faced the main ma.s.s of its enemies, it batted its wings at them hypnotically, trying to pull them under and send their dreams bubbling to the surface.

They remained resistant.

The slake-moth grew panicked.

The security behind Motley s.h.i.+fted in frustration. They tried to push past their boss, but he had frozen at the threshold to the room. His enormous body seemed fixed, his various legs planted hard on the ground. He gazed at the slake-moth wings in an intense trance.

There were five Remade behind him. They were poised. They were equipped specifically to defend against slake-moths, in case of escapes. In addition to small arms, three wielded flamethrowers; one a spray of femtocorrosive acid; one an elyctro-thaumaturgic barb-gun. They could see their quarry. But they could not get past their boss.

Motley's men tried to aim their weapons around him, but his towering bulk occluded their line of fire. They shouted to each other and tried to devise strategies, but they could not. They gazed into their mirrors, watched the huge, predatory moth under Motley's arms and limbs, through gaps in his outline. They were cowed by the monstrous sight.

Isaac stretched his arm back, reached for Derkhan.

"Come here, Lin," he hissed, "and don't look behind you don't look behind you."

It was like some terrifying children's game.

Yagharek and Derkhan s.h.i.+fted quietly, moving towards each other behind the moth. It chittered and looked up at their motion, but it remained more wary of the ma.s.s of figures before it, and it did not turn round.

Lin slid fitfully along the floor towards Isaac's back, his clutching arms. A little way from him, she hesitated. She saw Motley, transfixed as if amazed, gazing past Isaac and over her, captivated by . . . something.

She did not know what was happening, what was behind her.

She knew nothing about the moths.

Isaac saw her hesitate, and began to howl at her not to stop.

Lin was an artist. She created with her touch and taste, making tactile objects. Visible objects. Sculpture to be fondled and seen.

She was fascinated by colour and light and shadow, by the interplay of shapes and lines, negative and positive s.p.a.ces.

She had been locked in the attic for a long time.

In her position, some would have sabotaged the vast sculpture of Motley. The commission had become a sentence, after all. But Lin did not destroy it or skimp in her work. She poured everything she could, all her pent-up creative energy into that one monolithic and terrible piece. As Motley had known she would.