Catherine Fisher: The Dark City

Galen made a meaningless murmur. Raffi began to eat hurriedly. He was hungry—he was always hungry—and even the stale bread could be moistened with water and broken up. With a few withered shar-roots and herbs from the pack it was almost tasty.

Swallowing a mouthful, he muttered, “So what do we do?”

Galen looked up. In the dim cell his face was haggard. “We agree.”

“Just to get out of here? I mean, he’ll never give it back.”

Galen stirred. He reached into the pack and tugged out the stub of candle, clearing a place in the dust for it. Then he fumbled for the tinderbox.

The blue flame crackled, flared up. When it was steady and yellow, Galen lifted a cup of water and drank thirstily. “Maybe. Maybe not. The spirit of the Makers is in the box. It won’t rest with Alberic. It will want to come back to us.”

“Then we needn’t bother about this Sekoi?”

Galen put down the cup and picked at the food. He had a strange, intent look. “I think I want to bother.”

Raffi stopped picking up crumbs with his finger and stared. “You want to run Alberic’s errands?”

“My errands.”

“But you heard him! We’d have to go to Tasceron!”

Galen smiled then, a wolfish, secret smile. “Sometimes, Raffi, the Makers send their messages through the people you’d least expect. I knew I had to come here; now I know why. I can’t hear them any other way, so they speak through Alberic. I knew, as soon as he said it.”

Appalled, Raffi ate the rest of the crumbs without tasting anything. Tasceron! Galen was mad.

All his life Raffi had heard about the burning city, the city of the Makers, far to the west. It was vast, a web of a million streets, alleys, bridges, ruins. No one knew half of Tasceron; no one was sure who had built it or when, or what most of the structures were for, the immense marble halls, the squares with their dry fountains. Under the city were said to be tunnels, buried rooms, untold secrets. It was where the palace of the Emperor had been, and the temples of the great relics, and most secret of all, the House of Trees. All lost now, leaving only stories and rumors. The Emperor was dead, the temples destroyed. And the Watch guarded Tasceron, their tall black towers rising among the smoke and stench.

“Suicide,” he muttered.

Galen was eating calmly. “No,” he said. “I’ve been thinking of it for some time. In Tasceron something may have survived. Maybe even others of the Order.”

Raffi scrambled up and paced about. Then he kicked the wall. “We’d be caught! There must be Watchmen everywhere; how long do you think we’d last? You can’t see there, can’t even breathe . . .”

Galen looked up sharply. “I’m not mad.”

They stared at each other. Slowly, Raffi sat down. “I didn’t say that.”

“You thought it. You’ve been thinking it for months. Since the explosion.”

Raffi was silent.

Galen gripped his strong fingers together and tapped them against his lips. Then he said steadily, “Since I lost all my power.”

There, it was spoken, as it hadn’t been spoken in the long summer, since the relic-tube had blown up as Galen was examining it, breaking his leg and his mind, leaving him lying silent for a week, eyes open, unspeaking. He had never said how it felt; Raffi had never dared ask. Now, picking up the empty cup and rolling it in his hands, Raffi knew it was coming.

“For a moment,” Galen said, “in that room, I thought Alberic had guessed. But you reassured him.” He leaned back against the dim wall, tugging the long hair out of his collar. “I’m empty inside, Raffi. Since the explosion, my mind has been silent. No echoes, no colors, no spirits. I can’t move out of myself. I’ve lost the power and I have to find it again.” His voice was raw with pain, with the pent-up agony of months. “I can’t . . . exist like this! The trees, the stones, I can’t feel them. They speak and I can’t hear. Even the relics, the gifts of the Makers themselves—even when I hold those, Raffi, I feel nothing. Nothing!”

Embarrassed, hot with pity that was almost anger, Raffi rocked the cup. He had known this would come out, all Galen’s torment. For the last few months the keeper had been a tangle of rage and bewilderment: trying trances, starving himself, storming off into the forest for days, punishing them both with prayers and chants and penances. And never talking about it. Until now.

Because the power was gone. Although he’d only gained a little of it, Raffi guessed the horror of that. The Order had the skills to contact all sorts of life. And in the relics, they touched traces of the Makers themselves, who had come down and lived in the world, built and formed it, and then gone, no one knew where.

It would kill Galen, that loss. Or drive him insane.

“You think there’ll be some sort of cure in Tasceron?”

“There must be!” Galen limped around the cell with a pent-up, feverish energy. “There must be some of our people left, someone who could help me! I’ve got to try anything!”

Crouching, he put his hand on the rocking cup. Raffi looked up; the keeper was watching him, eyes dark. In the candlelight his face was edged with pain, gaunt. “I’m sorry to have to take you into more danger. But I’ll need you.”

Raffi shrugged. “I made a promise. To go where you go. Into darkness, into light, remember?” Uneasy, he looked away.

THEY SLEPT ON the floor, cold and unbearably hard after the bracken of the forest. For a while Raffi lay awake, listening to the keeper’s steady breathing. He knew Galen was desperate. But Tasceron! He’d have to go with him, if only to try and keep them both alive, but he didn’t know enough, he was only at the fourth Branch. It wasn’t fair, he thought bitterly. And the fires burned under Tasceron, had burned for years. How could any of the Order have survived?

He must have slept, because a long time later someone was shaking him out of unreachable dreams; he groaned and rolled over stiffly. He was soaked with drizzle, the room cold with an early-morning light.

Alberic stood in the doorway, burly men behind him. He wore a silk tunic trimmed with dark fur and small boots that must have cost the shoemaker an immense amount of trouble.

“Mmm.” He glanced around the cell. “The guest room could do with a little more work. But then, most of our guests don’t leave. What about you?”

Galen stood up, tall and grim. “We’ve decided. We’ll find your Sekoi.”

Alberic grinned slyly. “Oh, excellent,” he murmured. “I knew you would.”

The Bee’s Warning

6

The agent must carry out a proper surveillance.

Rule of the Watch

Journal of Carys Arrin Cyraxday 4.16.546

It was a light of some sort. Nothing like I’ve ever seen before. Something utterly, brilliantly white, and it flashed out from the top window of the fortress, facing east, two hours after dusk.

If I hadn’t been watching the place closely I might have missed it, though both the pack-beast and the horse skittered and stamped in fright. For a moment I was afraid they’d be heard, but I needn’t have worried; all the animals in Alberic’s pens were just as terrified; the clamor of geese and the barking of all the dogs came up clear through the drizzle.

I got to the fortress this afternoon, and camped on a rocky knoll above it. It’s sheltered here. Two great pines sprout out over the cliff; by climbing one I’m well hidden and have a good view of Alberic’s defenses. (A separate report on these will go to the Watch as soon as I find someone to take it.)