Mark Newton - The Book of Transformations

Tane paced the room, seemingly delighted, and the man couldn’t stop smiling.

‘I remember having to do shit like this back in my day,’ Vuldon groaned. ‘You get used to it.’ His arms were folded, as always. He paused to stare at a religious mural on the wall, but he might as well have been staring into space. It must be tough for him, Lan thought, to have to dredge up his past.

According to Fulcrom, Emperor Urtica himself had requested this rally to promote awareness of the Knights. The noise of the crowd outside was intense. Impressive, she thought, that so many people wanted to see what the fuss was about. On the way here she had seen large boards erected, each bearing an artist’s depiction of the Knights standing side by side before the city. Placards displaying ‘Fight Crime’ and ‘Meet the Heroes’, and ‘Save Villjamur From Terrorists’ were being handed out by the city guard for people to carry in the crowds. Helping to embellish the reputation of the Knights before people even saw them were bards and poets singing songs on the major routes to the iren.

Suddenly she saw Tane looking towards the door, his senses flaring, then it opened — and Investigator Fulcrom, clothed in his finest Inquisition robe, entered bringing echoes of the hubbub from outside in. Smiling and full of encouragement, he said, ‘Right, you’re on.’

Lan glanced to Vuldon, who sighed, ‘Let’s get this charade over with.’

Fulcrom led them outside to a section of the vast balcony concealed by heavy and lurid purple banners, providing a relative sanctuary. From in front of the material divide, they could hear the Emperor speaking: ‘… crime has become so troublesome and overburdening to the city guard and Inquisition that we must have new figures to aid the city — and what figures they are. Already they have put twenty criminals into gaol, and saved thirty lives…’

Lan nudged Fulcrom and whispered. ‘When did we do that? That’s not true, is it?’

‘No,’ Fulcrom admitted with a wry smile, ‘but he likes to get people excited.’

‘Hmm.’

‘… and’, the Emperor continued, ‘they represent a new move for this developing city. Citizens…’ He let the word hang in the air.

‘Here you go,’ Fulcrom whispered.

‘… I present to you the Villjamur Knights.’

Lan, Tane and Vuldon all walked forward from behind the vast banners. The sun was out, bright and blinding and shining off a thousand wet rooftops. Below them, immense crowds were applauding and whistling and cheering, peering out from behind crenellations, or perched on windowsills. Exposed to such an intense noise, Lan felt hesitant. Tane and Vuldon seemed perfectly at ease.

The Emperor himself was standing to one side in his finery, clapping and gesturing them forward so the crowd could get a better look.

Tane and Vuldon marched to the edge of the balcony, receiving gasps from those nearest and, reluctantly, she followed. The citizens of the city, in their dreary layers of waterproofed cloth, extended as far as she could see. The mob was endless. Some started chanting for them to do something, tricks, fly, whatever.

‘Lan, why don’t you hover for them?’ Fulcrom called, and motioned her forward.

Begrudgingly she stepped up onto the rail of the balcony then jumped upwards and backwards — slowly and with a flourish, her hands either side for balance — and there were screams and whistles of awe as she landed softly a few moments later.

She immediately turned to Fulcrom. ‘It’s like being in the circus all over again.’

‘They need to see it,’ Fulcrom said beaming.

When she turned back, Tane was crouching on all fours, traipsing up and down the rails with perfect balance, and Vuldon was picking up huge hunks of masonry and throwing them in the air to catch in his other hand.

But will they be comforted by this performance? she thought.

*

That evening things returned to normal: the crowds had dispersed, people were tucked up in their homes, and Lan was on her own.

The Knights split up and spread themselves across the city as individuals, confident in their own skills, and wishing to extend their watch across a wider area.

It was early evening, and whilst the irens were busy packing up, wares being shoved into crates, vendors watering down their fires, two young men burst through the throng to attack a middle-aged lady who was hunched under a thick fur coat and fat emeralds. They grabbed her bag and jewels and ran zigzags through the departing crowds.

Lan leapt up along the side of a building and sprinted underneath the guttering, around thirty feet up from the streets, safely out of the reach of snow and ice. People pointed and gasped at her progress, cheering in some quarters, but she tried to ignore the attention, and scooted after the delinquents. The weight of the world yanked her muscles down to one side, causing her body to ache, but whenever she concentrated, she found herself able to override the natural forces in order to maintain her upright position in this new plane. She leapt over open windows, across alleyways. Horses and carts rumbled by underneath to her left. The light of the day was vanishing fast — but she was gaining on the thieves.

She could see them now, aiming for the more concealed passageways, so she pushed herself away from the wall and back upright, gliding down to the ground. She ran through the air, towards them and, with one foot extended, kicked the neck of the nearest — who was no more than a boy. He lurched sideways, collapsing to the ground, dropping his bag.

Jewels spilled across the icy flagstones.

As Lan landed she thrust her heel in his stomach, winding him, then she peered up from her crouch to see the other vanishing down a dark passageway. With a crowd gathering round her, applauding her, Lan pulled some rope from her side-pack and tied the youth’s hands behind his back.

She marched him back to the Inquisition headquarters.

*

With a pocket half-full of jewels, Caley skidded into Caveside, through a wide opening in the rock that looked like the maw of a gargantuan beast. Resting his hands on his thighs, he heaved breath into his lungs, confident that that bloody Knight woman was no longer following him. Standing, he straightened his woollen hat and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt a little more, allowing himself to cool.

That was close, he thought. Can’t believe she caught Rend. The twat was always the careful one and now look at him.

He marched into the caves proper, his nose twitching at the stench of wood fires and something more unsavoury. The texture of the streets changed: lanes became thinner, and the buildings were taller, almost leaning on each other for support, with thick wooden beams and thousands of tiny coloured stones pressed into their surfaces. Many houses had once been whitewashed but were now all shades of grime caused by smoke from chimneys. Some of the houses betrayed an older history, having been carved out of the rock, and were rounded with crude circular windows. Warm light glowed from their insides, and when looking across the rest of the underground city, these windows were like starlight. It went some way to make up for the absence of stars and moons up above.

Not every Cavesider was poor. There were signs of wealth down here, from those who leeched a living off the outer city, some who dealt in illicit gemstones or middlemen who supplied cheap labour throughout Villjamur and surrounding farms; those people occupied the houses higher up, nearer the outer city, away from the decrepit sewers and poorly supplied shops.

The cobbles hadn’t been maintained, and more than once Caley caught his toe on a hunk of stone jutting out. Rotting vegetables and dead rats littered the side of the street, in places piling up against walls. A woman — one he knew to be a prostitute — was strutting into an alleyway, holding the hand of a client, something that was happening less and less these days. A tavern at the end of this stretch of road opened its doors to turf out two brawlers, who carried on their fight on the side of the street, whilst around them cats padded explorative paths into the darkness.