Going Under (7 page)

The Mothkin were a form of Fey. They were suspected of crossing into Otopia in times prior to the Bomb, in ones and twos, and they were pencilled into the annals of cryptozoology as the most likely culprits in the Mothman incidents in the USA. Of course there was no USA now, only the myriad small islands and their tiny gulfs-independent states, cities, and townships packed into the endless channels of the mighty river system, Fluvia, and known collectively as the Millefoss. On a good day you might attempt to crossmap the old USA and the Millefoss. Aas for Europe, Asia, and Australia, nothing very recognisable remained of their seemingly permanent geography and even the oceans and their currents were all changed about-so much so that doubt was regularly cast on the whole Bomb story, and not only by the denizens of the other five Revealed Worlds. Lila wasn't interested in fitting history together though, she just wanted an update on how to handle human-sized fey with big wings when they weren't being ordinarily friendly like Malachi or the hundreds of other faeries who legally worked and lived in Otopia.

The Mothkin were a part of the fey world which was least human and most animal-like, including many beasts previously featured only in cryptozoological tracts. They were counted by the faeries as "sluagh," a term they used for certain fey.

Pne/e, Tath said, figuratively reading over her shoulder. T/ -Jfuay/
are no faeries. Xrust fey to tlirow names and information about careless y. cl e
Iluaybare Aatbs yfeaners, the souls oft/ restless dad:

People who didn't cross over? Lila asked, recalling her brief visit to Thanatopia; its vast harbours and anchorages filled with ships and each ship the destination of a long line of slow marching people. That scintillating ocean of light.

4f es. They include t/ ose zw/ o cannot let yo of t/ eir mortal Easiness, but also
necromancers andotners iWlto -went Willie y y to 6anito yet~rer amiJive on the shores
between life anddeatl

What for?

Xnepozver. The elf shuddered with a strange mixture of anticipatory
pleasure and revulsion. /re sluay~e enjoy tee company of man /magicians,
s/ amans, andotleer crafters w/ o leave many chances to cross over from Tlanatopia to
other worlds to gain power anito use it for zwlatever ends t/ ey desire. Thy see,€out
the living in order to eunt diem andsuc.€tleeir souls to ride. He hesitated, Nude
a s Y&dto yet us into Tlanatoia.

So these fey are like that; same power source?

~t seems so, the elf admitted. ~Ciou y~i t/iey d not soundparticular y Intel
Jjent, unlike t/ie sluay/i.

Lila read on. Faeries working in the Agency had insisted that Mothkin be classified as part of the Soul Traders. The key difference between sluagh fey and others was twofold. First, sluagh fey had magic that was primarily focused on the psychic and spiritual planes, and secondly they were much less ready to adopt a human form when manifesting across worlds.

Mothkin were quite low among the sluagh, according to Lila's carefully cross-referenced pointer to The Fabula, the Agency's unofficial guide to all outworlders. They were regarded on a par with animals in terms of their level of consciousness, occasionally getting up sufficient acuity to mimic humans or even become briefly human in form, but usually simply working on the basics of eating, sleeping, and causing trouble. They had a purely psychic form that was considered their "worst" manifestation, since it had no physical element and could not be trapped or bound by ordinary means. This form of the Mothkin was a secondary stage in their lives-a late development, when they shed their bodies entirely after a successful mating and/or egg laying. In addition, the dust shed by adult Mothkin wings had a mildly narcotic effect. Among the dust were spores that, if inhaled, opened the carrier's spirit to infestation by the psychic adult form.

cJ ere is a sayin y amore y t ie elves t"t the 6odless fed are t ie same as the rr oils,
Tath said quietly as they both absorbed this piece of news.

"The devils?" Lila said aloud, surprised by the name. "Shouldn't they be here then?" She meant in Demonia, instead of Faery.

There was a sudden pull and pain on the side of her head and a voice muttered, "You metal-headed glowwit. It ain't the same thing. Just very similar."

Lila scowled.

The Fabula had a footnote appended with official stamps by human agents:

Note: this was a faery entry written by faeries. Faery information should be regarded with the due degree of suspicion.

That was close to one hundred percent suspicion, Lila reflected and Tath's green became lime with laughter.

Note 2: Officially the "psychic" form of Mothkin is to be disregarded as an hysterical fabrication by humans. It is assumed not to appear in Otopia or in human subjects, due to their demonstrated lack of magical affinity. At best is simply a term that might be used to apply to any mental affliction. Agents encountering claims of Mothkin interference by subjects should refer the subject to ordinary medical and psychiatric care.

After skimming this part, Lila paused in a moment of consideration. She was used to the bull-headed atheistic rationalism of the Agency, which plodded grimly onwards with its revisions of magical and supernatural explanations no matter what. Everything had a scientific label and a theory. She was mostly able to shrug this off as a necessary defense for people with fragile minds who had to make everything they encountered conform to their vision of how the world was supposed to be. Otopia, prior to the Quantum Bomb, had been filled with all kinds of religions and so forth, but since the bomb the Agency and its governmental allies had become ruthlessly materialist, perhaps as a reaction to the huge influx of simply inexplicable, and untenable, things that had hurtled its way ever since. But however you chose to read the cause and effect they were pussyfooting around, from this one bleak, dry note she reckoned that a plague of Mothkin meant a plague of madness.

Her hand pushed the last magazine of explosive rounds into its place in her pack and she sat back on her heels giving the whole thing a final shake to settle the contents and test its weight. No wonder Malachi had been looking hangdog at her-reporting the Mothkin was akin to reporting a covert declaration of war between his homeground and hers.

She zipped up the pack as she read on.

Exposure to Mothkin is rarely fatal. There was a link to official databases, which showed clearly the number of facts backing up this last "statistic."

There were none. Not simply no deaths. No data.

The last sentence read: At worst it is reported that a Mothkin assault on a human subject could result in a type of coma, therefore these creatures are not regarded as a High Alert threat.

After this there was an addition with a faery signature, underlined three times: Stupid human. Mothkin are soul tappers. Coma=as good as dead unless a necromancer or shaman can rebuild the soul well enough that it can recharge itself in the old form. What is it with you people and this denial business anyway? Sometimes I wonder why we bother. Anyway, you're not likely to encounter many Mothkin in Otopia. They don't have the power to cross worlds unaided so just don't do anything stupid.

Stupider.

The file ended there.

I wonder what not doing anything stupid means in this context? Lila thought, hefting the pack in one hand and setting off for the roof with a light step, glad to leave the apartment behind.

g'wiffforgo the obvious rely andsaiy simjy that it means thatou shoufdnot
an yer,peoyfe who have theyower to aid-the % otn,Gn across. One m~yht suspect that
this is exact what has ha enedin Otopia.

So, to get rid of the moths I have to find out who sent them over and what their problem is?

One woufdassume. -But Fein y a faery matter 'doubt it wilfbe ,co simple. and
do not forget that the fey do not dabble in diplomacy asyou know it, whatever that
s6t6lackcat m ~ht bepretendiny. Any human coufdhave annoyed any faery and
got this result one way or another. Vlffyou interviewyour entire species

Well, it would have to be a big annoy, Lila said. Surely? And then she remembered the kinds of things that annoyed Poppy and Viridia and Sand, Zal's fey backing singers, and she sighed.

cite co, said Tath.

Lila had reached the roof and the landing deck where the sizable number of Sikarza vehicles were parked at her disposal. She nodded to the deck officer and tucked her pack neatly into a corner of his warm little cubby where it was safe. He was used to her leaving things with him and not taking any of his craft. Stretching out her shoulders and taking a deep breath, she strolled across the long flat top of the palazzo to the edge.

Thingamajig put his head out of her hair, "Where are we going?"

"I'm looking for Zal," she said. She initialized her jets, running through a little safety check to pass the time as she scanned the city. There were many possibilities for two demons out there but she was pretty sure she knew where Zal would have gone, whether or not Teazle was in a mood to follow.

She kicked off from the roof with a stamp of her right foot, not because it helped the jets any but because it felt good. Her arms swept back towards her sides as she let the Al and the propulsion power take care of her flight path. The warm breeze turned cold as it buffeted her face and whipped her hair around. She went up high, rolling and turning lazy circles, experimenting with moving her arms into different positions and seeing how they affected the flight. All the while she slowly moved closer to her target in the district of Muses and kept a little of her attention on radar, watching for signs of imminent attack. Her wedding had brought her a fresh list of duellists, no less than three hundred and forty-seven at the last count, and she had been crossing them off at a rate of four per day on average, excluding days spent entirely at home. She grinned at the sky as she swept a curve on her back, arms wide as a diver, and pretended she wasn't dallying, her blood starting to rise with the anticipation of a fight.

Sure enough, she had been airborne only a minute before she picked up signs of pursuit. Without thinking about it she began to change course, taking herself away from her planned route and out over the waters of the lagoon. The pursuit followed, lingering over the shoreline where the warehouses of the cargo district were squashed cheek by jowl to the water's edge. It was airborne but low and she almost lost it amid the masses of boats shuffling for position at the quays, thick as autumn leaves in a forest stream. But her tracking systems were tenacious as only machines could be. A pleasing flicker of hunter/hunted shivered through her and her mouth spontaneously formed a small grim smile. When you were good at something, no matter what it was, there was a pleasure in doing it. She preferred airborne fights. Flying demons had wings and wings were a distinct liability.

By the time she had reduced her speed almost to a loiter and was waiting testily for the attack, wondering if she could legitimately take a first strike before making a positive identification of the demon as a bone fide duellist, she was beyond the range of all the airtrade lanes except the major circular bus route and its huge, ponderous balloons. These were so stately that as far as she was concerned they were virtually stationary objects and thus were useless as anything except temporary cover, though for that they were very useful indeed as it was a capital offence to damage a public transport vehicle or its passengers in a duel.

Thingamajig put his head out of her hair and said, "Another fight is it? Well let me tell you, Missy, you'll be paying for it with yet another devil for me to talk about if you're not careful-the one who sits up late at night in your older years making you curse your stupid youth and the joy you took in the death you dealt."

"Ah crap," Lila said. "I don't see any of you guys suffering from guilt."

"Yeah, but we was born our way and you was born yours and you don't have it in the blood. A yu-man..." he spoke as if he was talking about something unsavoury, "... a yu-man conscience is a terrible thing."

s is a d mow one, suyosin y suc~e a Mein y exists, Tath said icily.

Lila was brought up short. She never thought that Thingamajig's outbursts were ever related to himself. It was true, her conscience did nag her about the consequences of a demon lifestyle, particularly the death rates. But she had not asked any of them to fight her, and if it was her life or theirs, then she didn't feel any guilt over what she had to do. Well, she shouldn't ... but maybe she did feel it when her inner voice reminded her that staying in Demonia was optional, not required. You did, it kept whispering just as Thingamajig had promised, you chose. Then again, what was she supposed to do? Never come here again? A slow burn of anger at her position started up in her belly as she turned and stood on the jets to face her assailant.

"Now is not the moment," she said to the imp. "You can keep your cupboard full of skeletons to yourself."

The tiny demon shrugged and dug his claws into her shoulder armour, "I see you lying, you know. And I'm not the only one. The devils have a sense for lies that can reach beyond time itself and let me tell you there are at least three of them stalking you right now, close as your own skin," he said with a raspy primness. "But I'm your friend here. You stuck by me when She Who Shall Not Be Named wanted to fling me back into limbo-quite prematurely I must say, 'cos you is far from in the clear. But she don't care if you spend eternity in hell either way, that was only up to you, but you don't get that about us that we don't care for anyone else's business no matter what, never mind that isn't the point, point is I say this: did it ever occur to you that your conscience is wrong and that you're right not to give a damn about the demons and whatever other bozos you've killed? 'Cos trust me, they all were asking for it, just like this lot."

Her attacker was a large humanoid demon with black and blue hide, dancing carefully among the highly populated boats below. Her senses, some of them human but most of them robot, tracked it effortlessly. Scans revealed its weapons-claws, a poisoned knife, a garotting wire, some kind of boomerang, several grenades of various kinds, plus an intricate and interesting personal display of tentacles and stinging appendages. It had a mouthful of teeth like a crocodile and a huge set of wasp wings. It was armoured. But most of all, supported by a girdle and two of its powerful arms, it was holding a very large and sophisticated gun. She could not determine what kind of gun.