The Lost Book of the White by Cassandra Clare

CHAPTER TENThe Black and White Impermanence

THEY FOLLOWED TIAN THROUGH UNFAMILIARstreets of the Shadow Concession. Vines stretched in dense tangles between the buildings, forming a kind of canopy over their heads. The light that filtered through to the street below was cool and gentle. The group passed a selkie selling silkie chicken soup, and a fey-made river garlanded with moonflowers in which mermaids sang. Magnus stopped walking and smiled at them, listening. He wanted to see his child. He wanted to crawl into bed with Alec and cuddle and sleep. He let the song flow through his mind, reminding him of visits to China long before any of his companions’ grandparents’ grandparents were born. He closed his eyes, and after a moment felt Alec’s hand on his back—not hurrying him on, just connecting to him.

“ ‘Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye,’ ”he said to Alec. “ ‘A Night of Blossoms on a Moonlit Spring River.’ A song older than me.”

He began humming to himself, his eyes still closed. Let the others wait. Why had he never brought Alec here just for a visit? If his friends weren’t in danger, he would have drawn Alec down to dance by the glowing river’s edge, teaching him the words and the tune.

Instead, the one with chains had to arm himself.

THERE WAS NO MISTAKING THEsmithy for any other building. It stood just off the main square of the Sunlit Market, and it was surrounded by a fearsome wall of dozens of long spears lashed together. Which made sense, Alec thought.

Tian led them through a gate in the fence, which opened to his touch with a chime like faerie bells. As they passed through, Jace ran his finger over one of the wavy spearheads admiringly, and Tian noticed.

“Look how the curves of each blade are identical,” he said. “The skill of these smiths is unparalleled anywhere in China.”

“Would you say those are qiang or mao?” Jace said.

Tian looked surprised. “Maybe mao? But you’d have to ask the smiths. You know Chinese weapons?”

“Jace knows all the weapons,” said Clary in a long-suffering tone, but she smiled.

Alec followed Tian inside, expecting gleaming walls of weapons in luxuriant display cases. As much as he teased Jace about his weapons obsession, there was a tickle in the back of his mind about faerie bows, and weren’t chain whips a traditional Chinese martial arts weapon? Maybe a gift for Isabelle…

Inside, however, he saw no weapons beautifully displayed—in fact, he saw no weapons at all. Instead a very, very old man and woman sat on stools in an empty stone room, lit by braziers. Between them stood a cook fire, bearing a clay cauldron that the woman was stirring.

The Shadowhunters filed into the room and looked around in confusion.

The man and woman looked up. “Oh, Tian!” said the woman. “These must be your friends.”

“We hear you’re going into Diyu!” said the man.

“We have not decided to do that,” Alec said hastily. “It was under discussion.”

Tian said, “Mo Ye, Gan Jiang, I’d like to introduce—” He took a deep breath and named all of them in a row, from right to left, without taking a second breath. Alec was impressed. “Everyone,” Tian went on, “these are Gan Jiang and Mo Ye, the greatest living faerie weaponsmiths.”

“Nonsense!” said Gan Jiang. “We’re also better than any of the dead ones.”

“We hear you got stuck with a Svefnthorn!” said Mo Ye eagerly. “We have another Svefnthorn in the back somewhere, if you want it.”

“No, we don’t,” said Gan Jiang. “Don’t listen to her. The last time I saw that Svefnthorn, Shanghai wasn’t even founded. It’s somewhere under the mountain, but who knows where? Not me and not her either, I bet.”

“Um, honorable… I’m sorry, I don’t know the right terminology,” Magnus said, “but you said something about the chained one and how I needed to be armed? And, well—” He began unbuttoning his shirt.

“Stop!” said Mo Ye. “No need to disrobe. We already know. Here.” She reached into the clay pot she’d been stirring with both hands and drew from it two swords, neither of which could possibly have fit into the pot. For all their humble surroundings, Alec thought, faeries couldn’t resist a performance.

Mo Ye laid the swords across the top of the clay bowl. They were clearly a match, identical longswords except for their color: one had a blade of deep black obsidian, its hilt shining white metal, and the other was the reverse, its hilt in black and its blade in white.

Magnus looked at them, then up at the faeries. “I’m not really a sword guy,” he said.

“They’re not swords,” said Gan Jiang. “They’re gods.”

“They’re keys,” added Mo Ye.

“No offense,” said Jace, “but they really look like swords.”

“The Heibai Wuchang,” said Gan Jiang. “The Black Impermanence and the White Impermanence.”

Tian said quietly, in an awed tone, “They guide the souls of the dead to Diyu.”

“They did,” said Mo Ye. “Until their master, Yama, was destroyed.”

“That’s Yanluo,” whispered Tian.

“They flew free of Diyu, unfettered and broken—” said Gan Jiang.

“Until we found them and made them into swords,” finished Mo Ye. “You’ll need them,” she added to Magnus, “to guide your soul to Diyu.”

“Again,” Alec said. “We’re really not sure about going to Diyu. We try to avoid hell dimensions whenever possible.”

Gan Jiang smiled at him as if he were a child. “And you’ll need them if you ever want to get out again.”

Magnus hesitated. “I am a man of many talents, but swordplay is definitely not one of them.”

“And I tell you, when it comes time, you won’t need to kill with them,” said Gan Jiang. He examined the group with narrowed eyes. “These are swords of mercy and judgment. You, warlock, must take mercy, the white blade—” Mo Ye picked up White Impermanence and went behind Magnus, where she began fussily fastening it to his back with a strap and sheath. Alec smiled at Magnus, who had immediately adopted the neutral expression he wore when a tailor was pinning his clothes for alteration.

“And you, Nephilim, will carry the black.” Gan Jiang offered Black Impermanence’s hilt to Alec.

Alec was about to say, Why do I have to be “judgment”? but the moment his hand gripped the sword, the room and the smiths and his friends vanished, and he was in a different place.

A featureless cracked plain, black and pitted, extended forever to an empty horizon. Above it stretched a red sky, hung with a sun too large and dark as blood.

On the plain was Magnus. Or whatever Magnus had become.

He had not become a monster, not really. He didn’t look more like an animal, or a demon. But he had grown to a terrifying height, and when he looked down at Alec, it was with whited-out eyes and no recognition.

This huge Magnus brought his bare arms up, and Alec could see iron chains, affixed to a spiked ball punched through each of his palms. The chains receded behind Magnus into a storm of smoke and flame that trailed behind him.

Magnus still had the freedom of movement to bring his hands together. Jagged, gleaming shards of pinkish-red magic began to coalesce between his hands, and Alec could feel the ground rumble and the power begin to gather.

He held the Black Impermanence before him, and he understood beyond any doubt that only he could wield it. Only he could make the judgment, if it came to it. If Magnus was overcome by the thorn, by Sammael.

Also, the thought of this version of Magnus, all emotion absent, burning with power, wielding a sword of judgment, was a little terrifying.

He held the sword before him, pointing it toward the dark god that had been Magnus, and he said, “Magnus, if you know me, speak to me.”

Then he was back in the stone room. Gan Jiang was watching him keenly.

“Obviously I know you,” Magnus said worriedly. “Are you all right?”

Alec looked at Gan Jiang, and he nodded. “He’s fine,” he said. “Bit of a moment with the sword, I think.”

“I think your husband’s been tested,” Mo Ye said brightly to Magnus. “Good news! He passed.”

Magnus looked at Alec with concern.

Alec felt himself blush. “We’re not married,” he said apologetically as he strapped the sword to his back.

“You’re not married yet,” Isabelle piped up.

Gan Jiang laughed. “Do you see rings on our hands? And yet Mo Ye and I have been married since before the sea was salt.” He leaned into Alec. “Stay with him,” he said in a confidential tone.

“I plan to,” said Alec.

“Excellent!” Gan Jiang barked. “Now, you must go. We are closing for supper.”

This was so abrupt that they all stood around dumbly for a moment.

“You don’t have ears?” Mo Ye said. “Get out! We’re closed! You’re needed in the Market!”

They hustled Magnus and the Shadowhunters out of the room and back onto the street. Somehow, in the short time that they had been inside the faerie smithy, the sun had dropped below the buildings, and it was full dusk. An orange glow passed over the buildings and the trees, and a warm breeze blew gently, carrying the scent of flowers and of the food stalls at the Market nearby.

The door slammed shut, and Alec heard the sound of several latches and bolts being thrown.

“That was surprisingly similar to visiting my grandparents,” Simon said after a moment. “Except they would have fed us.”

“What happened in there, Alec?” Jace said.

“I had a vision,” Alec said slowly.

“A vision of what?” said Isabelle.

“Of what would happen if we fail to stop Sammael, I think.”

Jace said, “Did it give you any insight? Into what we should do?”

Alec was looking at Magnus. “Not fail.”

“All right,” said Jace. “We’ve got research, we’ve got swords. What’s our next step?”

“Signs are pointing toward us needing to know more about Diyu,” said Isabelle. “We could start checking the possible locations for the old Portal. What do you think, Tian?… Tian?”

They all looked around. Tian had definitely been in the smithy with them, but he was gone. Alec realized he hadn’t seen the young Shadowhunter since before they had taken the swords.

There was a burst of light from the sky above the central Market square. A purple afterimage flashed in Alec’s eyes, and he blinked, trying to clear it. Not far away, someone began to scream.

THEY WERE BARELY ARMED. THEYweren’t wearing gear. They hadn’t applied combat runes. Magnus had one of their two swords, and he hadn’t swung a sword in decades. In fact, he could barely figure out how to untangle it from the complicated shoulder harness Mo Ye had strapped to his back.

But they all ran toward the Market square anyway.

The place was chaos. Downworlders ran helter-skelter in all directions, looking for refuge or escape. Market stall grates and shutters slammed closed. Silhouettes scattered in the dim light; Magnus could hardly tell what was happening on the ground. Far above them, a blackish glow throbbed, like a circle cut out of the sky. It was almost the size of the square itself. And out of the circle came demons.

“It’s a Portal,” said Isabelle, her black hair whipping in the wind.

“A dimensional Portal,” yelled Clary, over the sound of chaos. “Not a normal one—this one goes to another world—”

Diyu.They all knew it without saying the word, even before Ragnor and Shinyun stepped free of the Portal and hovered in the air before them, their arms raised and red magic crackling between them. It was the same color that Magnus’s magic had become.

Magnus looked up at the Portal. He could see nothing through it, only clouds so dark they were almost black. Long silken threads were emerging from points within it, and down those threads slid dark gray spheres the size of large dogs. As they descended, they unfolded to reveal themselves to be—no surprise, given the day he’d had—huge spiders.

He shot Alec a glance. Alec wasn’t the biggest fan of spiders, and Magnus had grown entertained by his unwillingness to deal with even small ones that showed up in their loft, despite also being a heavily armed angelic warrior.

Now Alec drew Black Impermanence and gritted his teeth. “Let’s see how well this god-key works as a plain old sword.”

Magnus began gathering magic between his hands, disturbed that it was the same color as their enemies’. He was distracted by Ragnor’s deep voice, carrying above the chaos. “The host of Diyu is upon you! The courts have judged you unworthy, and you will suffer the tortures of the dead!”

Simon was frozen, gazing in horror at the spiders descending. Behind them, streams of fog announced the arrival of Ala demons, who swooped down, screaming, to chase Downworlders through the narrow passages of the Market. A pack of hellhounds had appeared and cornered a pixie family. Magnus was about to call out for Simon when Jace ran past him, carrying two of the curved-head pikes from the fence outside the smithy, one in each hand.

“Heads up, Lewis! Sorry, Lovelace!” he yelled, and Simon jerked out of his daze just in time to catch one of the spears. He appeared to take a moment to gather himself, and then he and Jace rushed the hellhounds together. One hellhound let a child fall from its jaws as Jace’s spear bit into its side. The demonic dog yelped and crashed to the ground; the rest of the hounds turned to face them, eyes red and jaws open, baring rows of jagged fangs.

The lead hellhound went down, felled by Simon. Another hound roared and leaped for Jace, who neatly ducked and used the spear handle and the hound’s own momentum to send it crashing through a window.

Xiangliu began to swarm toward Jace and Simon, but Clary quickly appeared to cover them. She lashed out with a glowing seraph blade, whirling around, a blur of light in the fog. In a moment of pause she caught Magnus’s eye, then looked up at the warlocks above. Magnus understood her meaning—he had to fly up there and engage with them, just as he had in front of the Institute. In this fight, though, nobody had a bow, and he would be exposed in the air, protected only by his own magic.

Isabelle, meanwhile, had gotten pushed back toward a striped canvas tent by a group of the spider demons. She had only a single seraph blade and no parabatai to keep an eye on her. The spiders, sensing her to be vulnerable, leaped. Isabelle spun and kicked one out of the air, but doing so unbalanced her, and she went tumbling back into the tent, which collapsed around her and the spiders.

Magnus cried out and ran toward her, but he needn’t have worried. The body of one of the spider demons suddenly emerged from the mess, impaled like a kebab on the end of a steel strut, part of the structure of the collapsed tent. Isabelle appeared, wielding the strut like a quarterstaff, and knocked two more spiders away. Now she held it ahead of her, keeping the spiders at bay, and with her free hand plucked her seraph blade from its sheath and yelled, “Nuriel!”

The seraph blade blazed. Isabelle spun and turned the attack on the spiders, pushing them back, when Alec appeared, slicing away with Black Impermanence. Ichor flew.

Shinyun landed amid the demons and produced a massive fireball, which she hurled at Jace, Clary, and Simon, who were fighting back-to-back. Magnus, without thinking, flung himself between the fireball and his friends, and the blazing orb smashed into him, where it disappeared, seeming to sink into his chest. Clary saw and her eyes widened.

“Why are you doing this?” Magnus yelled at Shinyun. “These are Downworlders! They are your people!”

Shinyun turned her impassive gaze upon him. “Witness,” she called out, “the opening of a new, permanent path to Diyu!” She drew her hand down, trailing pink flame, and more of the spider demons sprang from her fingers. “Zhizhu-jing, my sisters! This is your world now! Prepare the way for your new master!”

“No!” Magnus shouted, and threw himself at the spiders. He thrust his hand at one, and it passed with a splurch into the center of the demon’s guts. He opened his fist within the demon, which exploded. He glanced at Shinyun and was surprised to see her nodding with approval. This only drove Magnus to more fury, and he grabbed another one of the spiders in both hands and, bringing his palms together, smashed it like a melon.

He stood there, his hands shaking, shocked at what he’d done. He didn’t even smash the regular spiders he found in his apartment. Though, truth be told, they deserved it far less than a demon did.

“Magnus!” Alec’s voice sounded far away. “Can you close the Portal?”

“Dealing with spiders,” he muttered to himself. One had rolled next to him, and he brought his foot down, crushing it. Clear for the moment, he looked up at the Portal and reached for its border with his magic, hoping he could pull it closed.

Ragnor suddenly appeared above him, descending fast. It was the first time Magnus had seen him, other than in a dream, since that night in their apartment—was that really only a few days ago?—and Ragnor looked changed even since then. His eyes, normally dark and kind, glowed from within, and his horns had grown longer and more curled. Spikes had begun to sprout from the horns, and when Ragnor raised his hands, Magnus saw that they were bigger than usual, and tipped with black claws.

“No chance,” Ragnor taunted him. “You’ll never close it. Not from this side.”

Magnus ignored him, concentrating on the lines tying the Portal to the world. He gritted his teeth, feeling magic run in torrents from the nodule in his heart out through the chains on his arms, to emerge from his palms.

“It’s not a matter of power,” Ragnor said, and he almost sounded like his old self, lecturing Magnus on matters of magical technique and theory. “This is a different magic. An older magic.

“It’s your fault, you know,” he went on, conversationally. “That we opened the Portal here. We could have picked anywhere, but once our master knew you were in the Market, well, we just couldn’t resist.”

“Me?” said Magnus.

“All of you,” Ragnor said, in a gleeful tone that was chillingly wrong coming from him. “The Shadowhunters especially. The Serpent has a particular fondness for them. He wants all of Downworld to know that the Nephilim can’t possibly protect them.”

“They seem to be doing a decent job of it,” said Magnus. “Ragnor—what’s happened to you? Why have you signed on with… not just a demon, but the worst evil in existence? You went into hiding to avoid Sammael, and now he’s your best friend. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to do anything. You taught me that.”

For the first time, Ragnor appeared to hesitate. Magnus pressed him. “Leave Sammael. Leave Diyu. Come with me. We can protect you—”

But Ragnor was shaking his head. “You don’t know,” he said. “You don’t know what it’s like, to be in his presence. You’ve felt the thorn, but you haven’t felt when it’s his hand truly wielding it.”

“We can reverse it,” Magnus said. “We’ll go to the Spiral Labyrinth. We’ll get Catarina, and Tessa…” He trailed off. Ragnor was smiling a toothy smile that was completely un-Ragnor-like.

“Magnus,” he said. “It’s too late for me.” He put his hand on Magnus’s chest, over the X-shaped wound. “It’s too late for both of us. You just haven’t accepted it yet.” He looked up at the Portal in the sky, roiling with demons and a storm, lightning pulsing in the unnatural color of arterial blood. “You can close the Portal from the other side,” he said. “From Diyu. But not from here.”

He was there one moment and gone the next, ascending into the sky so fast Magnus barely saw him go. Magnus had a lot more he wanted to say, but with Ragnor gone, he could turn his attention back to the Shadowhunters. They were fighting on but beginning to wear down. All five of them had gathered together in the center of the square, back-to-back, and as fast as they struck down demons, more came to take their place.

Magnus ran toward them—his friends, and the love of his life. He felt the unfamiliar weight of White Impermanence on his back; how did the Shadowhunters carry these heavy hunks of metal around with them all the time? Alec was swinging Black Impermanence before him, knocking Baigujing demons away. Magnus hadn’t even seen them enter the fray. Alec called Magnus’s name and held up the sword before him.

Magic thrashed in Magnus’s chest like a wild animal in a cage. He prepared to feel it thrum along the chains in his arms, as it had been doing, when he had an idea. He concentrated, felt the weight of White Impermanence on his back, and allowed his power to flow from his heart to his spine, to the back of his neck, and into the blade of the sword.

With a crack like thunder, crimson lightning burst from the end of the blade. It sought its twin and passed into the blade of Black Impermanence as Alec held it. Tendrils of magic flared from the lightning, and demons scattered. The dusk was lit up with a hellish red light—but it was a light that could save them.

The demons nearest to the lightning strike simply vaporized. Others nearby burst into flame and fled, screaming. The lightning stopped and for a moment, all was clear and still. In the distance above him, Magnus could see streaks of light: Ragnor and Shinyun descending as fast as their magic would allow.

Magnus closed the distance to the other Shadowhunters, who had grouped together loosely, their weapons out. “Listen to me!” he called. “I need to close the Portal from the other side. From Diyu. It’s the only way.”

Alec whirled to stare at him. “I’m coming with you. Obviously.”

“No,” said Magnus, though he saw the look in Alec’s eyes, fierce and resolute. “But Max—”

“Magnus,” said Alec savagely. “This is my job. This is our job. We go. We save all these people. We close the Portal.”

“We’re all coming,” said Jace. His face was smudged with dirt and blood, his pale gold eyes alight. “Obviously. And then we’re all coming back.”

“Might as well,” said Simon. “What’s one more hell dimension?”

“We can’t all go,” protested Clary. “We can’t just leave the Market under attack by all these demons.”

Magnus pointed. “Luckily for us, the cavalry is finally arriving.”

They looked. At the edges of the square, through the gloomy blue light of dusk, they could see seraph blades lighting up, one after another. Ragnor and Shinyun both stopped descending, still well above the ground, and cautiously moved to face the newcomers.

“Someone found the Conclave,” exhaled Isabelle. “Thank the Angel.”

“Maybe Tian went to get them,” said Jace. “Is he there?”

“We could stay and fight with them until it’s done,” Simon suggested.

Magnus shook his head and was surprised to see Alec doing the same. Alec said, “We need to get the Portal closed or it won’t ever be done.” And we don’t want to answer questions about me, or Ragnor, Magnus thought, and exchanged a glance with Alec, who nodded.

“But how do we get up there?” Isabelle said, turning her face up to the massive tear in the sky.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard,” said Magnus, “but my magic power has been highly intensified.” He stepped back and looked at them. “Okay,” he said. “Everyone bunch up together. Like we’re taking a picture.”

The Shadowhunters seemed puzzled, but they did as they were asked, shuffling toward one another until they were all pressed together closely. They were all standing on the same stone slab now. Behind them, the figures of Shadowhunters were beginning to engage with the demonic horde. Magnus looked to see if Tian was among them, but he couldn’t tell.

Returning to the task at hand, he extended his hands and, with an effort, wrenched the slab out of the ground. It made a terrible grinding noise, but once it was free, it rose cleanly into the air, levitating the Shadowhunters a foot or so off the ground. Bits of gravel and concrete fell in chips, but the slab stayed in one piece. “Okay,” Magnus said. “I’m right behind you. Try to hold on.”

He couldn’t watch. He closed his eyes and crouched down, letting the weight of the slab and its five occupants settle onto the bedrock of his magic.

“Lift with your knees!” suggested Clary.

“Please tell me when this is over,” said Simon.

Magnus felt his magic crackle within him. There was so much. It felt—great. Scary, but great.

A whirlwind blew up around him and the Shadowhunters. It quickly gained speed and strength, widening. Magnus waited for it to become powerful enough… and quickly found it spinning out of his control.

He saw his friends start to look alarmed as the whirlwind became faster and stronger than he’d intended. Soon it was more like a small tornado than the controlled gust he was aiming for. Lightning shimmered within its eddies, angry and red. Alec yelled Magnus’s name, but Magnus couldn’t hear him over the noise.

It was now or never. Magnus gave himself over to his power and, with a great whoop, flung the Shadowhunters and the slab into the air. He went with it, pulled into the cyclone as it roared upward toward the Portal.

The concrete slab spun and tilted, and Magnus saw his friends go flying off it. Clary managed to grab Simon’s arm, and the two spun together, connected but out of control.

The five of them vanished through the Portal, followed by the slab, which rained broken-off hunks of gravel in Magnus’s direction as he rose into the sky behind it.

His momentum would pull him through the Portal no matter what, and he was determined to make the best of the situation. He wrenched his body around in midair and reached out with his hands for Ragnor in one direction and Shinyun in another. The wind caught them, and they too flew toward the Portal, no more in control than Magnus himself.

Tumbling through the air, all three warlocks followed the rocks and the Nephilim through the rupture between the worlds. It glowed like the light coming from Magnus’s chest.

Then a darkness covered them, stronger than any light. There were clouds of smoke, and a cold wind, and then there was nothing at all.