Napier's Bones (25 page)

Arithmos scraped
at a piece of road with one leg. “You mock. Someone who has jumped from one
side of Scotland to another and who is right this moment speaking with a cloud
of numbers, you somehow can’t bring yourself to accept giants in these hills.”

Dom stuck his
hands in his pockets and looked out to sea. But as he prepared an answer he saw
a shape out on the water, distant, not yet anything definable. Even from there
he could sense the numbers that lay within the shape.

And
then beneath his feet there was a rumble. The ground shifted, started to tear
itself apart, and he was thrown to his back. One hand went for the puck, while
the other gripped the box of Bones even harder.

Above him, at
the very crest of the hill, a figure pushed itself up out of the soil, trees
and rocks and fence shedding from its back, a mad vision of a man arising after
having been buried in sand at the beach. The very hill gave way, seemed to
shrink in size as the figure rose higher.

It was enormous,
judging by the trees around it, at least seventy feet tall, broad of shoulder
and with a huge pot belly. While its skin seemed to be made of soil and stone,
it wore a huge tanned leather apron, covered in dark stains, in which rested a
variety of equally outsized tools.

It turned its
huge square grey and brown head, looked briefly down at Dom and Arithmos with
cold stone eyes, then turned its attention back across the water, where its
mirror image had risen from the soil of the other hill.

“Brother!” it
called, a deep cough of a voice, the shock of which caused the waves in the
entrance to the harbour to jump high and white. “Shall we share our tools while
we await the intruder?” It didn’t speak English, somehow Dom knew that, and yet
he could still understand it.

The far Soutar,
hundreds of yards away, spread its arms wide and grinned, its teeth white and
flat, an albino slate embedded and somehow polished to perfection. “A fine
plan, brother,” came the distant rumble.

The Soutar on
his side of the water turned and smiled down at Dom. “A show for you and your
friends,” it said, and it took a hammer—bigger than the car Dom had been
driving—from its apron and spun it in the air, two quick flips, then with an
overhand pitch flung it across the water. The other Soutar caught the hammer,
hefted it, and then with an even wider grin fired it back across the water,
faster, each throw back and forth speeding up, until Dom was sure that the
silver blur of the tool was going to break the sound barrier. The air around
the hammer’s path was heating, the hammer itself beginning to glow red hot, and
with a joyous whoop the closer Soutar pulled a set of tongs from its apron and
tossed that as well, quickly joined by two tools thrown by its brother. All
four were whipping across the water, both Soutars’ arms steady windmilling
blurs catching and throwing faster than Dom could track. The air around them
was filled with a constant roar now.

Unsure if even
Billy could hear him inside his own head, Dom shouted, “Should I spin the Bones
now?”

Two clanks, one
loud on his side of the water, one delayed and a little more distant, from the
far side, as both Soutars caught their tools in one hand. The closer Soutar
turned and bent over Dom, who was still sitting on the ground. “The Bones are a
last resort,” it announced, its grating voice clapping against his body and
threatening to crush his heart and guts. Rocks on the road around him bounced
like pebbles on a bass drum. “If you choose to use them in our presence, and we
are as yet unprepared, then we will be unable to protect the good people of this
firth from the coming threat.” Its voice was out of sync with its mouth, which,
Dom imagined, didn’t even move in conjunction with whatever its natural
language was.

“I’d listen to
it, Dom,” said Billy, his voice quieter now that the tools had stopped flying.

Dom
stood up, rubbed his ass as he looked up at the giant cobbler. He could feel
his heart pounding a severe tattoo in his chest, and even though the Soutar
seemed to be grinning down at him now, he didn’t feel any better about things.
Still, though, he kept the lid to the box of Bones shut tight.

But as a natural
reaction, he felt his fingers attempt to count off primes, anything to stave
off the weight of the creature’s attention, but Billy stayed his hand. “No
numbers,” whispered his shadow. “Remember Arithmos.”

Dom nodded, kept
his fingers still. The Soutar smiled again, then stood tall and looked out to
the water. “A pirate of a different sort today,” it called to its brother.

It was a cloud
of numbers, racing low and sleek over the waves, a dark shimmering smear
briefly occluding the water as it rushed on, a vast shadow with nothing to cast
it. Every few seconds a small spout of integers would throw up into the air,
fall behind the pack very briefly, then with a frantic burst of speed catch up
to the rear.

Without a word,
the Soutar on Dom’s side of the water heaved his silver hammer high into the
air, and Dom watched as it cut a steep arc through the sky. But it fell well
short of its mark, sending up an enormous wave several hundred yards away from
the numbers, which continued at their speed, apparently unfazed by the idea of
two giants throwing tools at them from the shore. The other Soutar had also
thrown his hammer high into the air, and it landed with a splash later than the
first, and at an angle to it. The wave it sent up was as large as the initial
one, but speeding along at an angle to its twin.

Holy shit,
thought Dom. He could see what was coming. The two waves were going to meet
exactly where the numbers would be, unless the numbers were bright enough to
slow down or change course. But he had an idea that they had their senses only
on the prize, the Bones he carried in the box, and anything else was of no
consequence to them.

The waves
crashed together as the numbers tried to slide over them, and the interference
patterns set off by the meeting of the waves threw everything into immediate
chaos. Irrational numbers exploded into the air, enormous geysers sent integers
and patterns and binding formulae flailing away from the pack of numbers, which
had halted as if it had hit a brick wall. The waves, instead of moving on, had
circled back, came in from different angles, and new numbers arose from the
interference they created, spun the remaining numbers under Napier’s control
into a black vortex, and with an undignified series of bubbles like farts in a
bathtub, swallowed them all.

Both Soutars
leaned over then, plunged their hands into the earth and focused their gazes
out on the water. All was deathly quiet for a few seconds, not even the sounds
of the waves against the shore reaching Dom’s ears, and then there were two
drumbeats, loud, resonating thumps, the sound coming from somewhere deep in the
water. A few seconds later there were two more, echoing all through the
harbour, and then the hammers leapt from the water as if they’d been thrown,
each one flying fast and true into its owner’s hand.

The Soutar was
breathing hard, and with its free hand it reached up to wipe moisture and loose
soil from its forehead. “Not the same as pirates, no,” its voice boomed. It
lowered itself back to sit on what remained of the hillside, as did its brother
across the water. “Tiring, that, after so many seasons asleep.”

“Aye,” answered
the other, as it toyed with the hammer still in its hand, flipping it into the
air and catching it by the handle, but not looking at it, but rather casting
its gaze out to sea. “Almost sad, not being able to see the blood of pirates
spilling into the salt water as they begged for their lives.”

“Ho!” The
nearest Soutar stood again, smile on its face, but as it tried to take a step,
the ground at its leg reached up and grabbed hold, froze it in place. Before it
could call to its brother for help, or take its hammer to the treacherous rock
and earth, more of the ground flowed up its body, twisting and grinding its way
around the giant’s body, reconnecting it to the hill, frozen in place. Numbers
followed, spilling out of the hole the Soutar had left like bats from a cave as
twilight hit, millions of them scattering into the air and swooping about in
tight circles, searching. The same was happening to the Soutar across the water
as well, its hammer frozen in mid-air, spin halted as it hung well above its
hand. There, the numbers had jumped high into the air and were crossing the
water to join their fellows on Dom’s side.

The Soutar
managed to turn its head and look down at Dom. “Spin the Bones,” it rumbled,
its voice comparatively soft, and without any doubt, horrified. “Go!”

Dom opened the
box, and as Arithmos beside him degenerated into its component numbers and
began to skitter across the ground towards him, he spun the Bones.

Where are you
taking me?” For the first ten minutes after Jenna had left Dom behind, she had
been alone, running as fast as she could along the side of the hill and casting
back glances as often she dared. She had seen the spotlight of horrible numbers
burning down on the dewy heather, racing up the hill and almost to Dom’s feet,
and she had seen Dom spin the Bones and the flash of new and brilliant numbers
explode from nothing all around him in a swirling, sparkling tornado that
completely engulfed him for a moment, and then dropped away to reveal that he
was no longer there. At that moment the spotlight of numbers had hesitated for
just a fraction, and then had turned her way, and she had turned and ran again.

But only moments
later she had sensed something else, and had turned to look in time to witness
the numbers hesitate, and then fraction away before they dissolved into
nothingness, and shortly after that she had been rejoined by Arithmos, the mass
of numbers dropping from the sky to form beside her and almost giving her a
heart attack in the process. But it only took a second or two for her to
realize who it was, that the control Napier had over the local numerical
ecology had expired for the moment, and that Arithmos was the numerical being
she knew and felt she could trust.

“There is a
large rock on the far side, after a bit of a climb,” said Arithmos. “When we
get there, underneath it you’ll find an artefact that we are told you will be
able to use.”

Jenna rolled her
eyes, feeling strands of frustration with the numbers rising up above the
still-present panic. “I can see numbers, and sometimes I can even convince them
to do what I want, but even Dom has trouble making his mojo work with me.” She
held up her wrist and showed the strands of copper wire still twisted there.
“If he can barely do it, how do you expect me to be able to handle any
numbers?”

“You’ll have to
wait and see,” said the numbers. “In the meantime, we carry on.”

A thought
occurred to her then. “Wait a minute,” she said. “What do you mean, an artefact
you’ve been
told
I can use? Who told you? Why aren’t you able to
figure that much out for yourself?”

Arithmos
shrugged. “You’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, we do need to hurry.”

They walked for
a little less than an hour, for the first while Jenna stumbling along the wet
side of the hill before finally finding her way to a trail, something that she
was sure was normally visited by tourists, but desolate and abandoned on this
wet and miserable day. The wind was still blowing, and in those rare moments
when it wasn’t raining, the water from the surrounding hillside was blown up
and into her face.

“The Old Man of
Stoer,” said Arithmos.

Jenna, her head
down and feeling miserable, wet hair matted over her eyes, looked up at this.
“Excuse me?”

The numerical
creature pointed straight ahead, and her gaze followed along. She stood near
the edge of a point of land that dropped off to the ocean, and thrusting high
out of the crashing waves stood a tall finger of rock. “That tall rock,” said
Arithmos, “is known as the Old Man of Stoer. From here, it isn’t far to our
goal. It is, however, somewhat slippery on a day like today. Treacherous, even.”

Jenna bit her
lip, trying to hold back both frustration and fear. “What do you mean by
treacherous?”

“You’ll have to
climb down to where the ocean meets with the headland. You’ll be up higher than
the waves can reach on a normal day.” There was a pause. “It may be more than a
little difficult for you.”

Jenna sat down
on the path, not concerned that her bottom could get any wetter. “And what if I
say no?”

The numbers
seemed to settle down onto the path beside her. She watched them for a second,
then looked out to the ocean, watched the birds wheel around the giant rock,
gliding easily on the buffeting, vicious winds. “We can’t control what you do
or do not do,” they said. “However, we know for a fact that without the
artefact we have set aside, Dom will not make it through the next twenty-four
hours alive. Indeed, we suspect that twelve hours might be too optimistic.
Which means that Napier will get his hands on his Bones, an event that will
likely result in the extinction of the numerical ecology as we know it, to say
nothing of major changes to the non-numerate world.”

“How so? What
exactly is it that Napier will do?”

“Even as an
adjunct, Napier is too powerful. With the Bones at hand, his plan is to
reconstitute his body. When he does this, we anticipate the reaction of the
entire numerical ecology will be to allow itself to be absorbed into Napier,
and become a part of his essence. It’s not that numbers will once again do his
bidding. It’s that numbers will be the integral part of his existence. With one
move he will sweep us all into his being. Not only does that reduce us all to
slavery for what will likely be next door to eternity—because numbers are a key
element in the forward motion of time—but it changes the properties of how the
world works, which means that everything in your world that relies on
mathematics suddenly becomes suspect, perhaps even unworkable. At least without
Napier’s permission.”