It was the home of another survivor of MEDUSA: Dr. Popjoy, late of the Guild of Engineers, and more recently head of the Resurrection Corps. The villa was his reward from the Storm for all the armies he had built them.
“That is the house,” said Fishcake’s Stalker, when he described what he could see as they came down the mountain road that night. “When Sathya was stationed at Batmunkh Gompa, we went for boat trips on the lake and looked at that house from the water. It belonged to an artist then; a master calligrapher. Sathya used to say that when she was old and rich, she would live there herself.”
Fishcake stopped at the last steep turn of the road above the lakeshore. He was cold and tired, footsore after the long trek from the hermitage, and very afraid that they would be challenged as they neared the outskirts of the city. He had insisted on walking most of the way, although his Stalker had offered to carry him, because he did not want her to think that he was weak. An ache had begun in the back of his knees after a few miles, and had now spread to every part of him, making it hard to walk at all. He knew that he should be happy that the journey was over, but he just felt afraid.
When his Stalker turned to find out why his footsteps had stopped, he said, “Don’t go down there.”
“But Popjoy can mend me,” she whispered. “Then I will be Anna all the time.”
“You don’t need him!” Fishcake said. It seemed to him that she was mended already. She had been Anna ever since the day they’d climbed up onto Zhan Shan. He was dimly starting to understand that the Anna part of her was made stronger by memories; the fluttering flags written with prayers to her old gods had woken her again, and the familiar mountains and the talks with Sathya had made her stronger than ever; perhaps the Stalker Fang part had been crushed for good. Why risk trusting this Popjoy person?
But he was too tired and shivery to explain all that to his Stalker. She came and picked him up and said, “Don’t be afraid, Fishcake. Dr. Popjoy will mend me, and then we shall go back to Sathya. Now be my eyes again, and tell me, is there anyone about?”
There was no one, and no one challenged them as she carried him to Popjoy’s gate. It was late. Batmunkh Gompa was a glittering curtain of lights drawn across the sky beyond the lake. Snow was falling, flakes patting Fishcake’s face like chilly little fingers; like the cold fingers of the ghosts of children.
The Stalker set Fishcake down and smashed the gate’s strong locks and Fishcake pushed them open, looking nervously at the lighted windows of the house that showed through the trees at the far end of a long drive. His Stalker took his hand as they stepped together through the gateway, the gate swinging shut behind them. “We shall ask Dr. Popjoy to give you some food before he works on me,” she promised.
“What if he won’t?” asked Fishcake. “Work on you, I mean?”
“I will make him,” whispered the Stalker. “Don’t worry, Fishcake.”
Fishcake looked again toward the house, and put a hand into his pocket to clasp the little horse she’d made him. He still didn’t want his Stalker to put herself at the mercy of this sinister-sounding Engineer. He almost pulled her back through the gate, but already it was too late. In the garden ahead, where shadows lapped beneath the trees, things were moving. Spiky shapes that had looked like statues suddenly turned their heads; green eyes lit like flames.
“Stalkers!” whispered Fishcake’s Stalker, hearing the clank and hiss as they came to life. She sounded scared.
“But you’re a Stalker,” Fishcake said.
“Oh, so I am. Thank you, Fishcake. I forget sometimes…” She pushed him gently behind her, out of harm’s way, and unsheathed her claws.
The house had three guardians; big, polished battle-Stalkers customized by Dr. Popjoy, finned and spiked like heraldic dinosaurs. Light silvered their spade-shaped, featureless faces as they loped across the snowy lawns. Fishcake’s Stalker limped toward them. They were stronger, but she was cleverer. She dodged their clumsy, flailing blows. Her blades flashed as she drove them through the couplings of each Stalker’s neck in turn. Sparks spewed and fluids squirted. The beheaded bodies lurched aimlessly about, colliding with one another and falling over, thrashing and clattering on the flagged path as Fishcake’s Stalker turned toward him. She reached out to him with one hand and then snatched it away, touching her own face. Her sightless eyes flared; her head jerked. “No!” she whispered.
“Anna!” wailed Fishcake. He squidged himself back against the cold bars of the gate as she struggled with herself. She shook herself and came toward him. She grabbed his chin, twisting his face upward. She was not Anna anymore. What had made her change? Had the fight with the other Stalkers tripped some circuit in her head? Or had Fishcake done it himself, by reminding her of what she was? He shook with sobs, wishing there were some way he could bring Anna back.
“What is this place?” she hissed, listening to the wind in the trees, the lap of waves along the lakeshore. “How long was the Error in control?”
“D-Doctor Popjoy,” was all that Fishcake could say, through his tears. “He lives here…”
“Popjoy?”
“Anna thought, she thought …”
“She thought that he could make her even stronger,” the Stalker whispered, and gave a hissing laugh.
“What about Sathya?” he said. “What about my horse? Remember—”
“Be silent.” She let Fishcake go and went over to the ruined Stalkers, who were falling still at last. Bending down, she felt across the ground until she found a wrenched-off head. She unplugged one of the cables from her own skull and inserted it into a socket on the head. The dead Stalker’s eyes began to glow again. She lifted the head and held it up in front of her like a lantern. As she swung it toward Fishcake, he understood that she was looking out at him through its eyes. He wondered if she was disappointed, after all their time together, to see how small and frail he was.
“Come,” was all she said. “We will see Popjoy, as the Error intended. I will make him expunge her permanently.”
Fishcake wanted to run, but he went with her instead, as he always did. He didn’t know what “expunge” meant, but he could guess. He wanted to hold his Stalker’s hand, in the hope that his touch might somehow bring Anna back, but she was not in a hand-holding mood; she flapped him away and went limping fiercely along in front of him, still holding up the baleful head.
As they neared the house, a dozen big Stalker-birds launched themselves from the trees outside and began to circle the intruders, closer and closer, slivers of light falling from their beaks and claws. Fishcake tried to hide himself in the folds of his Stalker’s filthy robe, but she just raised her arms and whispered to the birds in some battle code, and they settled meek and watchful on the lawns, waiting for her next instruction.
The front door was ironwood, bound and studded with actual iron, but it splintered easily under a few kicks from the Stalker Fang’s good leg. Behind it lay a pillared atrium where a Resurrected butler lumbered out of an alcove to bar the way. “What is your business?” it droned.
“I have come to meet my maker,” replied the Stalker Fang in her usual cool whisper. She smashed the butler to pieces and left its wreckage scattered on the tiles. Fishcake scurried after her across the atrium, through another shredded door, and down three stairs into a sunken den walled with soft draperies and lit by a toffee-colored glow. A small, bald-headed old man was rising from his couch to ask what the commotion was about. He went very still when he recognized his visitor. A glass fell from his hand, splashing wine across the carpet.
“Keep away! My birds will fetch help! They’ll fly to Batmunkh Gompa and—”