Mark Newton - The Book of Transformations

Fulcrom found the article in the afternoon, as it fluttered about the streets, and he picked it up only because he’d seen more than a few citizens eagerly reading their own copies.

Time stood still; even the snow seemed to linger hesitantly. He could feel his pulse quicken as the words filtered through his mind. Things connected there. He realized that the anarchists would have used the printing press stolen from the Inquisition to make this and that somewhere along the way, someone had betrayed them. But these were his final thoughts — his first concerns were for Lan.

Immediately he stormed back to the clifftop hideaway to find the other Knights, but they were out, and Lan was, of course, still with Ulryk. Fulcrom fumed and stomped about the complex, shouting at whoever was around. He ordered every available cultist and staff member into a brick-ceilinged antechamber, whereupon he held up the faked copy of People’s Observer, and read it aloud.

That was when Feror broke down in tears; all eyes turned towards him.

Fulcrom moved over to the cultist, and dragged him by his collar into the Knights’ quarters. He slammed him up against the cold stone wall. ‘Talk,’ he snarled into his face.

Feror slid down the wall, drew his knees to his chest and began to sob.

‘You have one minute to tell me why I shouldn’t kill you!’ Fulcrom shouted.

Feror was merely the sum of his emotions then, nothing more, nothing less. ‘They… they made me.’

‘You know,’ Fulcrom said, ‘we hear that excuse all the time. They made me. Who the fuck made you, and what did they make you do?’

‘They took my family — my daughters, they’ve got them hostage. Still have. What was I to do? It was my family, investigator… Y-you understand, don’t you?’

‘You should have come to us first. We could have helped. We’re the fucking Inquisition, if you hadn’t noticed.’

‘They said they would kill them in an instant,’ Feror blubbered, ‘if I so much as breathed a word about it to the Inquisition. They just wanted background information. I didn’t see it as a big issue, just a little information.’

‘Have you seen People’s Observer? This forged rag that has now spread about the city like a plague?’

Feror nodded, and he closed his eyes with more tears streaming down his face.

‘There’s your big fucking issue. The effectiveness of the Knights depends upon the population’s favour now. I’ve no idea how they’ll react, but I’m guessing it won’t be kind — especially to Lan. They’ll probably want to lynch her.’

‘I know,’ Feror sobbed. ‘I know.’

Fulcrom stared at him for a while longer, and kicked at Feror’s legs to release some aggression. ‘What do you know of the anarchists’ organization? I want addresses. I want names. Otherwise I’ll hand you over to the Emperor’s special forces and let them deal with you.’

The distraught cultist revealed only a handful of facts. He didn’t know any leaders, had never even seen Shalev. The anarchists — such as they were — operated in splinter cells, virtually independent of each other, united only in their hatred of the rest of the city.

Feror had seen his family one member at a time in the top floor of a backstreet tavern, and only for a few minutes at the most, enough to ensure his loyalty to them. He’d pleaded for their return but they refused until they’d bled him dry of information.

‘Are they still with the anarchists?’ Fulcrom demanded.

Feror nodded.

Fulcrom’s rage ebbed, and mental clarity returned to him. Could he have acted any differently than the old cultist who was protecting his family? What if they’d taken Lan? Fulcrom hauled him to his feet and stood toe-to-toe with the man.

‘We’ll get them back for you.’

‘How?’ Feror’s eyes brimmed with hope.

‘We’ll use the Knights while we still can.’ Wherever the hell they are. ‘Presumably you had a contact, someone to go to when you found something useful?’

‘A landlord at the tavern. I’d go to him and he’d send word. We’d meet in his upper room.’

Tane and Vuldon returned to their quarters, finding Fulcrom and

Feror sat across a table from each other, in a contemplative silence.

‘Which fucker told?’ Vuldon demanded.

Cautiously, Fulcrom explained what Feror had done while the old man stared at the table, not daring to meet their eyes while his guilt was aired. Neither of the Knights made a move to threaten the man, which either showed how much they’d grown into their role, or revealed how stunned they were.

‘Now what?’ Vuldon asked.

‘We go to get his family back for him,’ Fulcrom replied.

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

‘Vuldon, we get his family back. You of all people know how important his children are to him.’ He wished he didn’t have to mention that fact, but it seemed to hit Vuldon where required.

‘Where’s Lan?’ Tane enquired, padding around to Fulcrom’s side.

‘Still with Ulryk.’

‘I suspect it’s easier for the old girl to keep away for now.’

‘You don’t hate her?’ Fulcrom asked. ‘You didn’t know her history.’

‘Oh, we knew everything, old boy,’ Tane replied with a wink, much to Fulcrom’s surprise. ‘These cultists yap like hounds to please us Knights. Who knows, the amount of information I took from those show-offs, I might have made a decent Inquisition aide after all.’

‘And it never bothered you?’

Tane shrugged.

Fulcrom glanced to Vuldon, waiting for his response. ‘I know what it’s like to be judged,’ Vuldon grunted. ‘She proved herself. Only thing that matters is a job well done.’

‘Whether or not the people of the city think that’s what matters is something else entirely,’ Fulcrom said.

‘No good crying over spilt milk,’ Vuldon declared. ‘Action’s better than us sitting here wondering what they think of us.’

‘What,’ Tane said, ‘we’re just going to ignore any of this happened?’

‘I’d say so.’

‘But we’re nothing more than the Emperor’s tools for propaganda and now that opportunity has gone.’

‘No,’ Vuldon snarled. ‘Well, yes, that’s true, but what else d’you expect from politicians? We’ve also done fuck-loads for this city, saved dozens of lives and halted just as many crimes, and I’m not giving up because of this. I’ll only stop when I’m dragged away — you can bury me in this outfit.’ Vuldon pulled at his shirt before turning to Fulcrom, who felt a spark of pride. ‘So,’ Vuldon continued, ‘do we get this joker’s family back or sit here like idiots?’ Vuldon tilted his chin to indicate the cultist, who was silent but wide-eyed.

‘We get his family,’ Fulcrom replied.

*

They headed into the caves undercover, an hour after Feror had gone ahead with his request to deliver information. He had given them an address across the road and been told to wait. It was a run-down shell of a room that overlooked the street alongside the Dryad Tavern, a three-floor joint deep in the new territory of Underground North. It was night, and the glass that lined the roof of the enormous cavern cast no light in the darkness. The street was empty and something didn’t quite sit right with Fulcrom: there was an absence of activity. With a couple of hundred thousand people within this cavern, he expected to see some of them.

According to the cultist, Feror was always taken to the top floor of the Dryad Tavern by hooded Cavesiders, where he would then reveal any information about the Knights: their movements, their general status — and, of course, their pasts.

‘How do you feel,’ Fulcrom asked the two Knights, ‘about the anarchists hijacking the People’s Observer?’