“Where did it go?” asked Lirael, looking around. There was nothing on the path as far as she could see, and nothing in the river below them. She didn’t think she’d heard a splash. Had she? Her mind was addled, still resonating with the discord of Saraneth.
“Down,” replied the Dog, gesturing with her head. “We’d best hurry. You should draw a bell, too. Perhaps Ranna. She is more forgiving here.”
Lirael knelt and touched noses with the Dog.
“I couldn’t do this without you,” she said, kissing her on the snout.
“I know, I know,” replied the Dog distractedly, her ears twitching around in a semicircular motion. “Can you hear something?”
“No,” replied Lirael. She stood up to listen, and her hand automatically freed Ranna from the bandolier. “Can you?”
“I thought someone . . . something was following before,” said the Dog. “Now I’m certain. Something is coming up behind us. Something powerful, moving fast.”
“Hedge!” exclaimed Lirael, forgetting about the crisis of confidence in her balance as she turned and hurried along the path. “Or could it be Mogget again?”
“I do not think it is Mogget,” said the Dog with a frown. She stopped to look back for a moment, her ears pricked forward. Then she shook her head. “Whoever it is . . . or whatever . . . we should try to leave it behind.”
Lirael nodded as she walked and took a firmer grip on both bell and sword. Whatever they met next, from in front or behind, she was determined not to be surprised.
Chapter Twenty-two
Junction Boxes and Southerlings
THE FOG HAD hidden the quay and was drifting inexorably up the slope. Nick watched it roll and watched the lightning that shot through it. Unpleasantly, it made him think of luminous veins in partly transparent flesh. Not that there was anything living that had flesh like that. . . .
There was something he had to do, but he couldn’t remember what it was. He knew the hemispheres were not far away, through the fog. Part of him wanted to go over to them and oversee the final joining. But there was another, rebellious self that wanted exactly the opposite, to stop the hemispheres from joining by whatever means possible. They were like two whispering voices inside his head, both so strident that they mixed and became unintelligible.
“Nick! What have they done to you?”
For a moment Nick thought this was a third voice, also inside his head. But as it repeated the same words, he realized it wasn’t.
Laboriously, Nick staggered around. At first he couldn’t see anything through the fog. Then he spotted a face peering out from behind the corner of the nearest shed. It took a few seconds for him to work out who it was. His friend from the University of Corvere. Timothy Wallach, the slightly older student who he’d hired to oversee the construction of the Lightning Farm. Usually Tim was a debonair and somewhat languid individual, who was always impeccably dressed.
Tim didn’t look like that now. His face was pale and dirty, his shirt had lost its collar, and there was mud all over his shoes and trousers. Crouched down behind the hut, he constantly shook, as if he had a fever or was scared out of his mind.
Nick waved and forced himself to take a few shambling steps to Tim, though he had to clutch at the wall in the last second to stop himself from falling.
“You have to stop him, Nick!” Tim exclaimed. He didn’t look at Nick but everywhere else, his eyes flickering fearfully from side to side. “Whatever he’s doing . . . you’re both doing . . . it’s wrong!”
“What?”asked Nick wearily. The walk had tired him, and one of the internal voices had become stronger. “What are we doing? It’s a scientific experiment, that’s all. And who is the him I have to stop? I’m in charge here.”
“Him! Hedge!” blurted Tim, pointing back towards the hemispheres, where the fog was thickest. “He killed my workmen, Nick! He killed them! He pointed at them and they fell down. Just like that!”
He mimicked a spellcasting movement with his hand and started to sob, without tears, his words tumbling out in a mixture of gasps and cries.
“I saw him do it. It was only—only . . .”
He looked at his watch. The hands were stuck in place, stopped forever at six minutes to seven.
“It was only six to seven,” whispered Tim. “Robert saw the coasters coming in, and woke us all up, so we could celebrate the completion of the work. I went back to the hut for a bottle I’ve been saving. . . . I saw it all through the window—”
“Saw what?” asked Nick. He was trying to understand what had upset Tim so much, but there was an awful pain in his chest, and he simply couldn’t think. He couldn’t put the concept of Hedge together with Tim’s murdered workers.
“There’s something wrong with you, Nick,” Tim whispered, crawling back away from him. “Don
’t you understand? Those hemispheres are pure poison, and Hedge killed my workmen! All of them, even the two apprentices. I saw it!”
Without warning, Tim suddenly retched violently, coughing and gasping, though nothing came out. He had already thrown everything up.
Nick watched dumbly, as something inside him reveled at this news of death and misery and an opposing force writhed against it with feelings of fear, revulsion, and terrible doubt. The pain in his chest redoubled, and he fell down, clawing at his heart and his ankle.
“We have to get away,” said Tim, wiping his mouth with the back of one shaking hand. “We have to warn somebody.”
“Yes,” whispered Nick. He had managed to sit up but was still hunched over, one pale hand over his heart, the other clutching the fragment of wind flute through his trouser cuff. He fought against the pain in both places and the pressure in his head. “Yes—you go, Tim. Tell her . . . tell them I’ll try and stop it. Tell her—”
“What? Who?” asked Tim. “You have to come with me!”
“I can’t,” whispered Nick. He was remembering again. Talking to Lirael in the reed boat, trying to keep the shard of the Destroyer within him at bay. He remembered the nausea, and the metallic bite on his tongue. He could feel it again now, rising up.
“Go!” he said urgently, pushing at Tim to make him go away. “Run, before I— Aah!”
He stifled a scream, fell down, and curled into a ball. Tim crawled around to him and saw Nick’s eyes roll back. For a moment he contemplated picking him up. Then he saw the white smoke trickling out of Nick’s slack-jawed mouth.
Fear overcame everything then, and he started to run, between the lightning rods, up the hill. If only he could get over the ridge, get out of sight. Away from the Lightning Farm and the steadily rising fog . . .
Behind him, Nick’s hand gripped his trouser cuff even more tightly. He was whispering to himself, jumbled words spilling out in a frenzy.