The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(3)

“That’s better, aye,” she said. “Now I dinnay have to concentrate on keeping you still.”

She strode to the window and threw it open. The rain was thunderous now, crashing down onto the city.

“Charlie!” she called. A giant winged creature swooped past the window and Abimbola gave a little scream. Eliza tugged the rope that bound him and he skidded to the window. She was about to push him out into the dark when there was a tap at his door. He looked down at Eliza, wide-eyed, and she looked back at him, her expression impassive. The door opened, revealing Nekane, silhouetted by the light of the hallway behind her. She had come, simmering with resentment, to say goodnight and a few other things, the exact wording of which she had been working on all evening with the unread book open on her lap. But her face changed now. She stared at the young girl at the window and her husband, bound fast.

“Nekane,” said Abimbola desperately. He wanted to shout for help, he wanted to tell her to do something, to stop the girl, but what came out of his mouth was what he least expected – “Forgive me.”

Then Eliza gave him a swift push and he tipped out the window. Something hard and bony closed around him, stopping his fall. When he dared to open his eyes he found himself looking at the powerful chest of a gryphon that had caught him in its talons. Eliza jumped out the window onto the gryphon’s back and they soared off over the drenched, shimmering city. If Abimbola had been able to see into his study as they flew away, he would have realized that the expression on his wife’s face was one of unmistakable relief.

~~~

In spite of the rain Eliza enjoyed flying over the city, its countless lights swimming beneath her like phosphorescence in the sea. She was terribly pleased with herself for having captured Abimbola. Charlie had drawn her attention to the Cra’s unusual activities months ago and had taken the guise of one to discover whom they were working for. When he told Eliza about the arrangement they had with a wealthy businessman, she had hardly believed it. How could a man be responsible for organizing such slaughters? She didn’t understand it and she didn’t much want to. She would hand him over to the Mancers and they would deal with everything from there. Of course, she wasn’t foolish enough to think they would be pleased with her. But who were they to argue, when she had been out doing what they had neglected to do for years?

Abimbola, nearly crushed by the gryphon’s grip, had begun to gibber with fear. Eliza slipped upside-down towards him, hooking her leg over the gryphon’s neck and getting a firm grip on its foreleg with one hand. She stuck a piece of the rope in Abimbola’s mouth to still his tongue, then pulled herself back upright with her leg. They left Kalla behind them, flying south across the Interior Provinces. Cities were scattered below like twinkling pools of light in the vast darkness of the plains. She was soaked through but exhilarated, she and the gryphon one in their joy of flight. Only the bound man was not enjoying the journey. Dawn glimmered on the horizon as the lush plains dried out into stony, unforested gullies and ridges. Further south was the Great Sand Sea, home of the Sorma, her father’s people. She could go that way and deliver this man to their care to be sent on a spirit-quest and have the poison taken from his soul. It would be better for him. If he survived, he would be whole. But she wasn’t interested in what was best for him. She wanted him to be punished, not healed. They flew over the great river Noxoni, a brown torrent with a swathe of green on either side of it, and the gryphon veered west.

Less than an hour later, on the ragged lip of a vast canyon, the Citadel of the Mancers came into view. The Citadel formed a square with towers at every corner enclosing the grounds, which were startlingly green in contrast to the arid world outside. The Inner Sanctum loomed at the centre, a giant white dome. As the gryphon swooped down towards it, Eliza began to mutter under her breath, requesting entry in the Language of First Days. She could feel, as always, the slight surprise and annoyance that came in response to her request. They didn’t like the way she came and went, as she was well aware. But they always let her in.

Eliza and the gryphon landed in the grounds by the south wing. The early morning sky was bright and cloudless. Her beloved teacher, Foss, was waiting for her, shaking his head.

“You are soaking wet!” he scolded, sounding so motherly that she laughed out loud. He looked rather offended and turned his attention to Abimbola Broom.

“Who is this and why in the worlds have you brought him here, Eliza Tok? A human. And bound with the Onbeweglich Cord! Rather extreme, is it not?”

“I didnay want him being difficult,” said Eliza.

Abimbola Broom spat out the piece of cord that was lodged in his mouth and gaped around him. Although he had never seen a Mancer, he was certain that was what stood before him, towering and gold-skinned with pale hair and eyes like suns.

“Sir,” he began, his voice shaking, “I have been most abominably treated! I have been kidnapped while my family slept and I pray to the Ancients that you in your infinite wisdom will be able to rectify –”

Charlie, who had ceased to be a gryphon and become a boy again as soon as they landed, interrupted this speech by bending down and sticking the bit of cord back into Abimbola’s mouth, silencing him. Being a Shade, Charlie could take any shape he chose, but he kept Eliza company by appearing most frequently as a boy her own age. She thought it was unnecessary and a bit vain of him to insist on being such a good-looking boy but didn’t say so.