Catherine Fisher: The Dark City

If it was a trap, Galen wouldn’t care. Raffi knew that sometimes he wanted to get caught, that he took deliberate risks, carelessly, proudly; like in the summer when they’d walked out of the forest into a village and taken a room and stayed there for three days, sleeping on comfortable beds, eating outside in full view of everyone. Galen hadn’t cared, but for Raffi it had been three days of terror. The villagers hadn’t betrayed them. Most had looked the other way. They’d been so lucky, Raffi thought, stumbling over a stone. Everyone knew there was a reward for the capture of any keeper. Two thousand marks. They’d been incredibly lucky.

“Come on!” Galen was standing on the top of the ridge. His voice was a growl through his teeth. “You can go faster than this. Don’t think you need to slow down for me.”

Raffi stopped, wiping sweat from his hair. “I’m not. The pack’s heavy.”

Galen glared at him. “Then give it to me.”

“You’ve had your turn.”

“Do you think I can’t manage another?”

“I didn’t say that!” Raffi spread his hands. “I just—”

“Save it! And move. We want to get to this place before night.” He had turned and gone before Raffi could answer.

Looking at the empty sky, Raffi felt furious and hurt and reckless. For a cold moment, he told himself he would leave tonight, just take his things and go home. There were no Relic Masters now, the Order was broken. And Galen could look after himself with his scornful, bitter jealousy. But even as he raged, Raffi knew it all meant nothing, and he took the blue crystal box out and glared at it. Curiosity would keep him here. There was so much he had to learn. And he’d felt the power surge in him, and now he could never be without it.

THAT AFTERNOON they sat on warm stones on a hillside, looking down, at last, on the settlement.

“Well,” Galen said acidly. “Well, well.” He drank from the water flask and passed it over; Raffi took a cold mouthful thoughtfully. They had expected a village. And indeed there were houses, barns, outbuildings. But mostly, this was a fortress.

The central building was ancient; maybe even from the time of the Makers. The sides were strangely smooth and pale, the signs of old windows clear, now clumsily bricked up to slits. There were about six levels. On the higher ones balconies hung out precariously; most were ruined, but Raffi could see bowmen on one, tiny moving figures. The roof had partly collapsed, and been mended with hurdles and thatch.

“What do you think?” He passed the flask back and chewed the hard bread. “Safe?”

“Not safe.” Galen stared down moodily. “Those who have the nerve to live in a Maker-house are no ordinary villagers. Since the Emperor fell the land has gone wild. Robber-gangs, warlords, each one fighting the others. I’m sure this is the castle of one such.”

“And we’re going in, blindly.”

Galen gave a sour grin. “Going in, yes. Blindly, no.”

The stones were warm in the autumn sun. Raffi leaned back, feeling better somehow. “Sense-lines?”

“Around us both. Powders. And if all else fails, the box.”

Raffi shook his head. “If there are too many of them, that won’t save us. It might be better not to go in at all.”

“Curiosity, Raffi. Always my downfall.” Galen was rummaging in the pack; now he brought out a small black tube and held it in both hands lovingly. He spoke a prayer, and made the sign of humility. Then he put the tube to his eye and looked down.

Like the blue box, it was a relic, a holy thing the Makers had left. They had found it in a farm north of the forest two years ago; the woman of the place had sent for them secretly, terrified the Watch would find out. Galen had blessed the farm, spoken prayers over the house, and taken the relic away. He had a secret place to keep them, a cave in the hills. Once, coming back there, they had found signs on the walls, as if some other member of the Order might have sheltered there. But the marks had been rainwashed, unclear. No one knew how many of the Order were even alive.

Galen gazed at the tower for a long time. Then he handed the tube to Raffi, who stared. “Me?”

“Why not. It’s time you did.”

Nervous, Raffi took it. It was warm and miraculously smooth, made of the Makers’ strange material, not wood or stone or skin, the secret no one knew. He muttered a prayer over it, then raised it and looked in.

Despite himself he gasped.

The fortress was huge, close up. He saw the weeds growing from it, the cracks in the walls. The door was bricked up, a small black slot where two men loitered, talking. He moved the tube carefully; noted the deep pits, the spiked ditch, the strong fence with the walkway behind it.

“Whoever they are, they’re well-defended.”

“Indeed.” Galen’s voice sounded amused. “Now touch the red button.”

He felt for it; the tube stretched itself in his fingers, the focus blurring quickly to his eyesight. Houses and a row of stalls, their goods hanging in the wind, tawdry and cheap. Dogs in the mud. A crowd of women washing clothes in tubs. Smoke. He followed it up, high into the sky, until the small moon Agramon flashed briefly across the glass. For a moment even that looked close, the smooth faint surface, with tiny formations glinting.

“That’s enough!” Galen’s hand clasped around the tube; Raffi let go reluctantly. The Relic Master folded it into its wrappings, pushed it deep in the sack, and stood up.

Suddenly he looked dangerous, his gaunt face tense, his eyes dark under deep brows. “Come on,” he said grimly. “Let’s go and ask for Alberic.”

IT WAS NIGHT when they reached the gates, and the buildings glimmered behind the palisade. The men stationed outside had a lantern; they were playing dice, but they stood up soon enough.

Galen ignored them. He strode past without a word, through the open gates, and no one challenged him. Hurrying behind, Raffi glanced back; the men were whispering. Planning to shut us in, he thought.

They walked together between the dark houses, through the mud, the soft pools of water and dung. The stench of the place was appalling. Filthy children watched them from doorways, silent and unsmiling. The buildings were squalid and patched, the wood rotten and green with age. As he squelched through the muck, Galen muttered, “Anything?”

“People watching. Just curious.” The sense-lines moved about them, invisible, fluid. Raffi held them with some distant part of his mind, easily, from long practice. It had been the first thing Galen had taught him.

The fortress loomed up. Noise and smoke drifted out from it, laughter, the yells of an argument. In the ruined windows, faint lights glimmered; the strange smooth walls were dappled with moonlight.

At the doorway, the entrance Raffi had seen through the glass, three men waited. Their weapons were in their hands—long hooked knives. They watched Galen come with a mixture of fear and something else, something disturbing. Warnings rippled in Raffi’s skull. “Galen ...”

But Galen had walked right up to them.

“My name is Galen Harn. I’m looking for Alberic.”

Whatever else, they weren’t surprised. One grinned at the others. “We’ve been expecting you, keeper. Come with me.”

Inside was dark, a maze of rooms and passages. Voices echoed ahead, or from behind closed doors; smoky torches guttered on brackets. The air was fetid and smelled worse than outside. As they walked down a long corridor, men squeezed past them, a few slaves, two girls giggling behind Raffi’s back, sending the sense-lines rippling. Looking up, he saw something on a wall, marks under the dirt, a symbol he knew. Next to it was a grid of buttons and numbers by a door. Galen stopped too and made the humility sign; Raffi knew he longed to touch it. “This is a relic,” he said to their guide. “It shouldn’t be left here.”