Strata

Marco was fighting five men at once, and seemed to be winning.
    One man, who turned and found himself a few feet from Silver, slashed at her with desperate bravery. She blinked at him sleepily, then brought a fist down with vertebrae-crushing speed.
    And all the time the sword sang. Kin had heard the phrase used poetically, but this one
was
singing – a weird electric ululation punctuated by clashes and screams.
    Marco was holding it at arms’ length, almost cringing away from it. It moved of itself, darting from blade to blade, from blade to body, without appearing to pass through the intervening air. Blue light crackled along its edge.
    Silver padded up to two men and hit them hard. Of the ones who turned to stare before running away, three keeled over as Marco took advantage of their distraction.
    Alone in the courtyard, except for the dead, Marco sagged and dropped the sword. Kin picked it up and looked at its edge. It should have been bloody. It wasn’t. It was merely black, like a hole through the universe into something else.
    ‘It’s alive,’ said Marco sullenly. ‘I know you will scorn, but—’
    ‘What we have here’, said Kin loudly, ‘is merely a frictionless-coated blade with an electronic edge. The metal blade is merely a conductor. You must have seen similar things. Carving knives, for example?’
    There was a pause. Marco nodded. ‘Of course you are right,’ he said.
    ‘Then let’s get the hell out of here!’
    She oriented herself as best she could and made for the nearest flight of steps.
    ‘Where are you going?’ shouted Marco.
    ‘To find the magician!’ Before you do, she added to herself. I don’t want him killed. He’s the only way out of here.
    She trotted through empty passages, heading upwards. A short flight of stairs looked familiar. She bounded up them, and there, at the end of a vaulted corridor, was the magician’s chamber.
    Abu Ibn Infra sat pensively cross-legged on the magic carpet, watching her carefully over the top of thin, steepled fingers. Somewhat nearer the horse-faced shape of Azrifel crouched, splay-toed.
    Kin glanced around the room. There was no one else there. Abu Ibn Infra spoke.
    ‘Why Have Your Creatures Attacked And Slaughtered My People?’ translated Azrifel.
    ‘We had expected better treatment,’ said Kin.
    ‘Why? You Come From The Place Of Thieves And Liars With Two Renegade Demons—’
    ‘They’re not demons,’ she said sharply. ‘They’re intelligent living creatures. They justhappen to be of different races. Now, about that flying carpet—’
    ‘They Are Demons.’
    Kin felt a gust of air from the far side of the room, and was in time to see two figures coalesce.
    They were kung. Not perhaps perfect copies, and they moved curiously as if whatever had created them had aimed for kung shape without a knowledge of kung anatomy.
    Abu had summoned demons to deal with her, and somewhere there was something that had observed that the kung shape was good for a fighter …
    It had added disc touches. In battle kung usually carried no more than a short sword and a small blast deflector, leaving two arms for freelance throttling. These carried a weapon in each hand, and each one was different. One even twirled a morningstar.
    It would be like being hit by colliding lawn-mowers.
    Kin stared at the two expressionless faces,
dead
faces, and stopped herself from turning to run. She’d be running downstairs, with
those
behind her.
    She raised the sword hopefully.
    Something squirmed under her hand. Pain exploded up her arm and rattled her teeth. As the kung-things loped towards her the sword crackled.
    Movement slowed. Through a pink glow Kinsaw the demons slow as if they’d run into jelly, but there was no sound at all. Hate settled on her dreamily, comfortably, and she watched the sword come up with interest.
    There was no shock when it drifted through an axe blade, and went on to shear through an arm – the flesh was grey, boneless and bloodless – and another sword.
    She folded away from a snail’s-pace spear, and started a long slow leap that let her slice through a neck.
    She swung her feet round in time to land lightly, twist, and let the sword sweep like a scythe.
    Now there was a third enemy, backing away through the red mists. The sword jerked and Kin jumped, feeling her body curve behind the blade like the tail of a comet. It struck the figure in the chest, and Kin left it there.
    She drifted on and into the wall, colliding