Chapter Three Towards Aleppo #5
It might have been a star, or the glimmer of a house light among the distant hills, or a glowing bulb on the car’s dashboard, but something had set off the reaction in Malcolm’s vision that happened from time to time.
The little golden thing shimmered and twisted minutely in the darkness and compelled his attention, just as it always did, no bigger than a point at first but growing steadily, as if it was moving towards him.
“I can feel it,” Asta whispered. “Like something tightening in my head.”
“But not see anything?”
“No. What does it mean this time?”
“Sometimes it doesn’t mean anything.”
Ghazarian must have heard them murmuring. He said, “All right?”
“Yes, thanks, Timur. Just something in my eye.”
“Do you need a handkerchief or something?”
“No, actually, it’s a scintillating scotoma, if you know what that is.”
“Sort of migraine?”
“Yes. Just a visual thing. It lasts about twenty minutes and then fades away.”
“Do you get it often?”
“Half a dozen times a year, I suppose. I’ll just sleep for a bit and let it run its course.”
But he was wide awake, and so was Asta. After a minute or so she whispered, “You should tell Lyra about it.”
“Why?”
“She’d be interested.”
“D’you think we’ll ever find her?”
“Bound to. It’s not very big, Central Asia. Not many places to hide.”
He grunted. The spangled ring was becoming obstreperous now; this was the central stage, when it took up most of his visual field and made reading, for instance, impossible. He lay back with his eyes closed, the scotoma shimmering snake-like in the dark, Asta tense beside his head.
He shifted slightly to ease the stiffness in his leg. Ghazarian noticed and said, “I’m going to stop for a minute. I need to empty my bladder.”
He pulled the car to the side of the road and got out and urinated onto the sand before lighting a cigarette.
Malcolm got out too, into the darkness and the wide silence.
He held on to the car door and tried leaning to his left and right, and then a little forwards and backwards, and found that every movement hurt.
“What did they give you in the way of medication?” said Ghazarian. His voice was quiet in the open night.
“Morphine. I think I remember an injection. Also a small bottle of tablets made by Thuringia Potash. That company’s one of the forces leading into this.”
“You know the new Master of Jordan College is an executive of TP?”
“Really? I knew he was in pharmaceuticals, but that’s interesting. Listen…”
There was a sound in the sky, or that was where it seemed to be; distant, very high up, and savage: a wild animal screaming. Or more than one.
“What’s that?” said Ghazarian.
They both looked up. Against the starry sky there might have been a little flicker of movement—something dark, pulsating or struggling—very small and far off; but that was where the sounds were coming from.
The remains of the spangled ring were trembling at the edges of Malcolm’s vision, but the central part was clear enough to make out the combat going on high above.
It looked like one scrap of darkness fighting another.
“Birds?” Ghazarian said.
“Bigger, I think. Hard to tell. But—”
“They’re falling…”
The struggle—it was impossible to make out individual birds, if they were birds—was definitely sinking through the sky, almost directly for the two men, it seemed; and the screams of anger and pain were louder.
“They’re not birds…or are they?” said Malcolm.
“Can’t tell. Enormous, though. They’re tearing each other to pieces.”
The creatures, whatever they were, scrambled over and over in midair, struggling to stay aloft as well as fight, and half succeeding at both.
It would have been hard to make out what was happening even in daylight, so quick and so savage were their movements, and all the time they were tumbling lower and soaring up again, tearing and snapping and slashing at each other, and screaming, roaring.
Finally one of the creatures tore itself away and soared up high, or so it seemed; the men couldn’t see it anymore, and the other creature uttered a howl of triumph or anger and spread its wings wide to glide away, letting the silence return to the sky and the desert.
“Let’s move,” said Ghazarian.
Awkwardly, Malcolm got back into the car and lay back panting with the effort and pain. Ghazarian started the engine and pulled away.
Malcolm opened the window and listened as the car gathered speed. Apart from the engine and the tires on the road, there was nothing to hear but the faint brush of the wind against the sand.
“Timur,” said Malcolm after a mile or so, “did you ever come across a student called Lyra Silvertongue? A member of St. Sophia’s.”
“I don’t remember the name. And it’s not very forgettable. What about her?”
“She used to live at Jordan. She was orphaned and the old Master sort of adopted her. I taught her for a while…I think she’s traveling to Karamakan and Tashbulak, but I’ve no idea where she might be now. For that matter, where are we?”
“You see that faint light in the sky ahead?”
The moon had set, and dawn was some way off. Malcolm looked where Ghazarian was pointing. “What is it?”
“It’s the lights of Gaziantep. The Syrian border’s not far beyond. Somewhere soon—a couple of miles—we’ll turn off the main road. Now I think we should move on.”
Malcolm could feel a different freshness in the air that came into the car through the not-quite-shut window.
“I’m surprised there’s so little traffic,” he said.
“If we’d come by the other route we’d have faced at least two roadblocks. Gaziantep is normally a busy commercial center, but the authorities are very nervous right now. They don’t want anything to hold up the troop trains and convoys.”
“Which forces exactly?”
“Under the command of the Magisterium, nominally, but the alliance includes a number of Brytish troops.”
“What?”
“When were you last in touch with Oakley Street?”
“Before that particular deal was announced.”
“It never was announced. It was a secret arrangement between the War Office and Marcel Delamare.”
Malcolm was silent. The world was changing so fast and so thoroughly that he almost felt dizzy until he realized that his head was still affected by the spangled ring.
“This is going to make traitors of us,” he said after a minute.
“I wonder, though. Since the arrangement hasn’t been made public, and probably won’t be, it might be a defense in law to say that we had no way of knowing who the enemy was, and no reason to expect it would be our own troops.”
“It won’t come to court,” said Malcolm. “The law would be irrelevant. We’d be outlaws, to be shot on sight.”
Ghazarian reached into his jacket and handed Malcolm a smooth flat stone a little smaller than the palm of his hand.
“I nearly forgot,” he said. “Glenys wanted me to give you this.”
“What is it?”
“I have no idea. You can use it to keep in touch with her. Don’t ask me how.”
“Well,” said Malcolm. “Thanks, I think.”
Sleep was overwhelming him again. He put the stone into an inside pocket and closed his eyes.