Catherine Fisher: The Dark City

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

The Box of Flames

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

The Bee’s Warning

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

The Watch, Unsleeping

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

The Wounded City

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

The house of Trees

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

RELIC MASTER

DIAL BOOKS

An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Published by The Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in the United States 2011 by Dial Books

Published in the United Kingdom 1998 by Random House Children’s Books

Copyright © 1998 by Catherine Fisher

All rights reserved

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Fisher, Catherine, date.

The dark city / by Catherine Fisher.

p. cm.—(Relic Master ; [1])

Summary: Sixteen-year-old Raffi, Master Galen, and a mysterious traveler, Carys, enter the ruined city of Tasceron seeking a relic that may save the world, while evading the Watch, a brutal organization opposed to the Order to which Raffi and Galen belong.

eISBN : 978-1-101-51521-1

[1. Fantasy. 2. Apprentices—Fiction. 3. Antiquities—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.F4995 Dam 2011 [Fic]—dc22

http://us.penguingroup.com

To Stephen Herrington for the idea

The Box of Flames

1

The world is not dead. The world is alive and breathes. The world is the whim of God, and her journey is forever.

Litany of the Makers

THE SEVEN MOONS were all in the sky at once. Tonight they made the formation that Galen called the web: one in the center—Pyra, the small red one—and the others in a circle around her. They glimmered over the treetops; it was a good omen, the sisters’ most perfect dance.

Raffi stared up at them with his arms full of wood. As an experiment, he let his third eye open and made tiny purple filaments of light spray from the central moon to all the others, linking them in a flaring pattern. After a while he changed the color to blue, managing to hold it for a few minutes, and even when it faded, a faint echo still lingered. He watched it till his arms were tired, then he held the wood more carefully and turned away.

That had been better than last time. He was getting quite good at it—he ought to tell Galen.

Or maybe not.

Gathering up more of the crumbling twigs, he moved through the dark trees resentfully. It was no use talking to Galen. The keeper was in one of his bitter moods; he’d only laugh, that short, harsh laugh of contempt.

The wood was very dry, rotting on the forest floor. Huge ants scurried out of it, and the armored woodgrubs that chewed slowly. He flicked a shower of them from his clothes.

The forest was quiet. Two nights ago a pack of woses had raged through here, tearing great holes in the leaf canopy; the wreckage still lay under the oaks. In the green gloom of the night, insects hummed; something whistled behind him in the wood. It was time he was getting back.

He pushed through hanging ivies and across a clearing deep in bracken, alert for snakes and the venomous blue spiders, but only shadows shifted and blurred among the trees, too far off to see or sense. He’d come farther than he’d thought and in the shafts of moonlight, red and pale and rose, the path looked unfamiliar, until the trees ended in a bank of dead leaves. He waded through them to the hillside, seeing the vast black hump of the cromlech and Galen’s fire like a spark in its shadow.

Then he stopped.

Somewhere behind him, far behind, something had tripped one of the sense-lines. The warning tweaked a tiny pain over one eye; he recognized it at once. The lines were well above ground; whatever it was, it was big, and coming this way. He listened, intent, but only the night sounds came to him, the insect buzz and the flittermice, the crackle of the fire.

Scattering wood, he ran down quickly.

“What’s the matter?” Galen sat carelessly against the slabs of the tomb, his coat tugged tight around him. “Scared of moths now?”

Raffi dumped the wood in a heap; dust rose from it. “One of the sense-lines just snapped!”

The keeper stared at him for a moment. Then he turned to the fire and began piling the wood onto the flames. “Did it now.”

“Don’t do that! Someone might be coming!”

Galen shrugged. “Let them.”

“It could be anyone!” Raffi dropped to a crouch, almost sick with worry, the strings of purple and blue stones he wore around his neck swinging. He caught hold of them. “It could be the Watch! Put the fire out at least!”

Galen paused. When he looked up, his face was a mask of flame light and haggard shadows, his deep eyes barely gleaming, his hook nose exaggerated like a hawk’s. “No,” he said harshly. “If they want me, let them come. I’ve had enough of skulking in the dark.” He eased his left leg with both hands. “What direction?”

“West.”

“From the mountains.” He mused. “Could just be a traveler.”

“Maybe.” Raffi was preoccupied. Another line had twanged in his skull, closer now.

Galen watched him. “So. Let’s put my pupil through his paces.”

“What, now!”

“No better time.” He turned his lean face to the fire. “If it is an enemy, what might we put on the flames?”

Raffi, appalled, rubbed his hair. He was scared now; he hated Galen in this mood. “Bitterwort. Scumweed, if we had any, goldenrod to make him sleepy. Shall I do that?”

“Do nothing, unless I tell you. Say nothing.” Sharply, Galen raised his head, his profile dark against the smallest moon. “Have you got the blue box?”

Raffi nodded; he clutched it, in his pocket.

“Use it only if the danger is extreme.”

“I know, I know. But—”