Strata

the carpet Silver stared blankly at nothing.
    ‘Azrifel,’ said Kin. ‘Bring me – oh, bring me a fully equipped matrix drive MFTL ship with the latest model dumbwaiter.’
    Over the com circuit she heard Marco cackle.
    The demon said, ‘No.’
    ‘Is that a refusal? We have your lamp.’
    Azrifel shook his head. ‘It Is Not A Refusal,’ he said. ‘It Is A Statement. Oysters Cannot Fly, I Cannot Bring You Your Desire. Now Crush The Lamp If You Must.’
    ‘No anachronisms,’ said Marco. ‘Is that it?’
    The demon paused before answering, as though listening to an internal voice. Seen up close, he too was slightly blurred – like a threevee picture in the middle of a bad day for sunspots, Kin thought.
    ‘No Nachronisms,’ he agreed.
    ‘But the man called Jalo left the world and appeared two hundred light – many, many miles away.’ Kin corrected herself. ‘How?’
    ‘I Do Not Know.’
    ‘Jalo’s ship is in distant orbit,’ said Marco. ‘We could adapt the lifesystem, cannibalize bits out of our lander, and go home in that.’
    ‘It’d take too long!’
    ‘Perhaps not.’
    ‘What about power?’
    ‘A thousand of these magic carpets joined edge to edge?’
    ‘Navigation?’
    ‘Dead reckoning. We’ll be aiming at a fifty light year sphere from a distance of 150 years. No trouble.’
    ‘Neat. And what about Silver?’
    Marco said nothing.
    When the sun came up, it was tinted with green.
    They flew over a sandstorm half a mile high, which blasted through farms and towns like snow from hell.
    Marco didn’t say much and Silver was now saying nothing at all. She lay curled up on the carpet, looking at the sky.
    They thundered over a port called Basra, where the timber of broken ships clogged the streets while the mad sea methodically destroyed the town.
    Silver said: ‘Something is shining on the horizon.’
    Kin wondered if she could see a faint gleam on the borders of vision. Ten minutes later she was sure.
    Silver stirred again. ‘Leave,’ she ordered. ‘The Kung must come here. With swords.’
    ‘Marco—’
    ‘I heard. Stop the carpet. You can take the horse.’
    ‘But you know what she’s asking!’
    ‘Sure. If things get too bad, I’ll have to kill her.’
    ‘How can you be so emotionless about it?’
    ‘Why not? Better a dead sapient than a live animal. I agree with her.’
    ‘What’ll happen afterwards?’
    He pursed his lips. ‘She’ll reincarnate on the disc, I guess. Better a live human than a dead sha—’
    ‘
Will you stop talking like that!
’
    The gleam turned out to be a high dome, welded into the rock of a wide island that seemed to be mostly black sand. Kin thought she could make out the remains of a few ships half buried in the sand.
    They circled it, a mile out at first, then moving closer in. Kin saw a black shape spiral down out of the sky and perch on the dome.
    ‘That does it,’ she said. ‘Marco, I’m going in.’
    The kung’s answer was a strangled grunt. Kin spun round in the saddle.
    A few metres away Silver was rearing up on the carpet, the fur of one arm bright orange where it had caught the thrust of the sword. Her hand was around Marco’s waist while he had two hands gripping her throat, and between them the sword screamed as they wrestled.
    The carpet drifted on past. Kin got a brief glimpse of Silver’s contorted face twisted around a saliva-barred mouth.
    Kin grabbed the lamp. Azrifel appeared, standing on air, and watching the silent fighters with interest.
    ‘Separate them,’ Kin ordered.
    ‘No.’
    Marco somersaulted away from Silver, caught her arm in three of his, and threw her over his shoulder. His leg bones bent like springs. Then Silver was over the edge of the carpet.
    But not falling. She hung at an impossible angle in its safety field, snarling and thrashing at the air.
    ‘No?’
    ‘I Dare Not Go Closer To The Dome.’
    ‘I have the lamp, demon.’
    ‘I Suggest You Do Not Use It.’
    Kin saw Marco lift the sword and hesitate. Silver picked up leverage on sheer fresh air, and hurtled towards him.
    Shand, kung and carpet disappeared.
    Kin stared at the empty space. Below, the sea roared. There was nothing else around butsea, sky and dome, and the horse-faced demon hovering over nothing at all.
    Finally she said: ‘Demon, what happens if I drop the lamp in the sea? The truth, now.’
    ‘Sometimes Fish Or Crabs Will Brush Against It. Their Wishes Are Simple And Easily Fulfilled.’
    ‘What happened to the