Chapter Ten Always Leila
Ten
Always Leila
And she said it in English too.
Her silhouette against the light was slim and tense, just as ready to fight as to flee. Asta flowed down to the floor and came to stand close to Lyra, who stood up slowly, hands by her sides.
“What are you doing?” said the woman again.
“You can see what we’re doing,” Lyra said in the same quiet tone. “My name is Tatiana Iorekova, Queen of Novaya Zemlya. This man is my counselor, and he’s been badly beaten and tortured. I am releasing him and we are shortly going to leave. Now tell me who you are.”
“You are no queen. And this man’s name is Rashid Xenakis. He is a liar and a confidence trickster, and a thief and a smuggler, and more besides. My name is—”
“Leila?” said Ionides in the half-audible croak they’d made of his voice.
“Always Leila,” she said. “But what have they done to you, Rashid?”
“They’ve hurt him badly, and we’re going to take him away, and if you try to stop us I’ll kill you,” Lyra said. “You don’t think I can? Look at the door. Look at the lock. Then stand out of the way.”
Asta had moved a step closer to the woman and stood watching her, eyes wide, fur bristling, tail slowly swinging.
It was hard to read the woman’s expression, because what little light there was came from behind her, but her slender snake daemon had extended her neck some way forward and now swayed a little this way and that, licking the air.
“Rashid will tell you whether you can believe me or not,” she said calmly, “and since you seem to trust him, you’d better listen to him.
My name is Leila Pervani. I am not part of the Magisterium, nor am I against it.
I am inclined to help my old friend Professor Xenakis, because I used to be fond of him.
That’s why I came down here. But what are you doing?
How did you get in? How do you think you’re going to leave? ”
“It’s obvious what I’m doing. I need my counselor’s help, so I’m setting him free. If you stand back and don’t interfere, you won’t get hurt. Otherwise—”
“You wouldn’t have a chance. Listen to me and stop making idle threats.
Upstairs they are in the oratory, and they’ll be there for another ten minutes or so.
Then the nuncio will come down here and continue his interrogation.
If you do as I say, you might be able to get out of the building.
Argue with me and waste time, and you will both be dead by the morning.
That daemon is not yours,” she said, indicating Asta.
Lyra said, “If we ever come face to face again, at a time when we can talk, I’ll tell you about it. Now, how do we get out?”
“There is a young woman at the reception desk who will do whatever I tell her. You’ll have a minute or so to get through the foyer and out by the street door.
Apart from the courtyard that is the only way, and the courtyard is guarded.
You’d never get him through. But beware: the oratory is on the ground floor just beyond the reception desk. ”
“Was that an Angelus bell we heard?” said Asta.
The woman said, “Yes. So you haven’t got long. Help him up and follow me.”
Lyra tried to lift Ionides from the bed, but she had no strength left.
“Give me the broom, Queen Tatiana,” he said.
Using it as a crutch, he managed to stand and limp after Leila Pervani.
Lyra and Asta exchanged a glance as the woman and Ionides left the cell ahead of them, and Lyra saw in the daemon’s eyes something like kinship, affection, fellow feeling.
She felt her heart lift a little as they went out into the corridor together.
Leila Pervani was waiting at the foot of the staircase, under the light.
She was wearing a light blue dress, simple enough, but she held herself with such elegance that Lyra couldn’t help noticing it, even though the situation was full of peril.
The incessant tolling of that bell seemed to make every brick in the walls resonate and remind them of it.
Ionides leaned on the broom for a crutch, and Lyra felt a flare of rage as she saw the twisted way he had to move, a wound in his scalp still bleeding, an ear torn. She took the little stick out of her belt.
The woman said, “Wait at the top of the stairs while I speak to the girl at the desk. Keep the door shut. When you hear me knock, come out very quickly and follow. Very quickly.”
She ran to the top in silence like a cat, and slipped out before shutting the door without a sound.
“Can you climb the stairs?” Lyra whispered.
“Slowly, Miss Silver.”
Asta darted ahead and listened at the door while Lyra helped Ionides up the steps. It was hard going; he’d lost a sandal, and his bare foot was bloodied. But he climbed steadily and without making a sound. Lyra followed, little Pequeno in hand, Asta watching everything from above.
They reached the top, and a minute went by, and then another, and still they stood without speaking, listening hard. Ionides was breathing harshly; Lyra was trembling with pain and exhaustion, and the bell, still resounding, made her feel on the edge of madness.
Then the door handle turned.
“Come now,” said Leila Pervani, “at once.”
She stood aside, and as soon as Ionides was out in the corridor, she ran ahead and along to the corner. From there she looked around into the foyer, and then beckoned, and Lyra helped Ionides follow.
The woman lifted a finger before they turned the corner, and when she was sure the way was clear she said, “Go. Straight out and away.”
Ionides looked at her, and Lyra saw the look she gave him in return, and read all the complexity of affection and sorrow that passed between them. She felt a tension in his arm, but tugged gently and helped him forward. When they were halfway to the main door, the bell stopped.
Lyra stopped too, out of sheer surprise, but hurried forward again as she heard the sound of chairs being moved back on a hard floor, and a voice intoning a prayer, and other voices responding.
Then an organ began to play, and then the sound of footsteps and voices talking.
Lyra had her hand on the front door and pushed it open, just as the door of the oratory opened behind them.
Leila Pervani saw that and darted towards the first worshippers as they came out. She was calling urgently and pointing back towards the corner that led to the stairs.
“Quick,” said Asta, and Lyra urged Ionides out of the door and stumbled after him, letting the door close by itself.
“Better hurry away,” Lyra said. “They’ll be after us.”
“Leila will distract them,” he said hoarsely.
“She will be showing them the door of the cell, and explaining that only diabolical magic could have done that to it, and that I will have changed myself into a lizard with iron teeth, far too dangerous to follow. They have never seen you, and she will not mention you. Queen Tatiana, I owe you—”
“Shh. Things to do,” she said. “Later.”
Across the road and into the alley to retrieve her rucksack, and then they were in the streets among the early-evening crowds, invisible.
—
Chen the camel-herder, now the master of the ruined research station at Tashbulak, had acquired a companion.
Her name was Dilyara. She had worked as a cleaner at the station before it was attacked, and she missed the orderly way of life, the storerooms full of neatly stacked equipment, the process of making things neat and shining.
She wasn’t a native of the region; she came from further west than most of her fellow workers, and she was used to being alone.
A pang of silent nostalgia had brought her to the ruined buildings, and in Chen she found an ideal employer, for that was how she came to think of him.
Employer, or thing to clean. She submitted impassively to his embraces, and little by little swept the corridors clear of sand and plaster and broken glass, gathered and tidied away brooms and dustpans and shovels and serviceable rags, watched as he made his oil-fired devils and idols to scare away intruders, cooked whatever edible things she could find, offered responses in her language to the grunts and snarls he uttered in his, and brought him warm water and soap and showed him their functions.
She spent more and more time in the laboratories.
The raiding party had smashed things to pieces without any idea of what was valuable, or important, or even offensive to their religious views; it was all equally uninteresting to them, and they enjoyed acting like the clean wind of God, as one of their leaders had said to flatter and encourage them, and just sweeping through and moving on.
Dilyara thought that what went on in these austere and silent chambers had been important and fascinating almost beyond the power of words to tell.
She whispered about it with her daemon, a little fox with large ears and boundless curiosity.
The laboratories were a holy place, whose secrets were unknown even to the worshippers who prayed there, where the floors not only needed sweeping but deserved it, where the benches desired to be clean and polished, where what could be repaired longed consciously for the touch of a repairing hand; and there was such a wealth of equipment that a good deal of it didn’t need repairing at all.
The wind of God had parted around it and vanished.
Dilyara and her daemon set to work, to clean, to worship, and to learn. They felt blessed. Chen took no notice, but he was cleaner.
—
The first thing they did was (hastily) to buy Ionides some new sandals and a new shirt and trousers.
The second thing was to get to the bus station at Bab al-Faraj, which was not far from the nuncio’s residence, and buy tickets for the first bus leaving for a destination anywhere to the east. Baku on the Caspian Sea seemed far enough: a two-day journey, leaving in an hour.
While Ionides retired to the washroom to repair what he could of his appearance, Lyra went to the ticket office, where she presented her laissez-passer from Mustafa Bey and found herself treated with the profoundest deference: exactly the effect the great merchant had promised.
The bus, she discovered, was one of the new fleet of vehicles Mustafa Bey had told her about, designed for long-distance travel, and fitted out with some luxury.
Indeed, it was possible to take a private compartment, as on an international train, and Queen Tatiana felt it would be wrong to do anything less.
It was expensive, of course, but Farder Coram’s gold would last her a while yet, and after paying for that and a comfortable seat nearby for her personal sorcerer, Lyra just had time to visit the bus station shop and buy the kind of toiletries that travelers need.
She and Ionides boarded together, saying little until the bus was on its way, with the lights of the city behind them and the darkness of the desert ahead. They sat at the little table in her private compartment sipping the tea an attendant had brought, and Lyra began to relax.
“Now,” she said to him, “I want to know all about Leila Pervani.”