by Danie Ware
They moved across the courtyard, the hellish clouds ahead of them partying to finally let the morning sun break free.
Caph was too weary for this, overwhelmed; dazzled by the sunlight, he swiftly found himself struggling with it all, with the need and the greed and the outright bribery, with the pure, wanton falsehood of this well-heeled crowd…
‘Caphen. Please, let me offer my congratulations.’
Dion Ganthar had donned full household finery, blade at his hip. There was no sign of his broken nose; he looked phenomenal, the epitome of authority and grace. Jularn greeted him warmly, kissing his cheek with genuine affection.
‘Ganthar. How lovely to see you.’
‘And you, ma’am.’ His manners were exceptional. ‘It’s been far too long.’
‘It had indeed.’ Jularn arced an eyebrow at him, then at her son. ‘I realise you two have had your differences, but I trust that’s all water under the bridge. Perhaps you should come to dinner?’
Caph drew himself up, fury rising. His mother’s need for the Dion name was just too much.
‘I’d like that.’ Ganthar turned to grip Caph’s shoulder, meet his gaze with a smile. ‘Perhaps you and I can find a moment to talk. After the Invitation.’
Caph said, as polite as he could manage, ‘I’m not much for talking, I’m afraid. Probably the split lip.’
‘Nonsense.’ Jularn said, cutting him off with a warning hand on his back. ‘He’d be delighted. You two have a lot of catching up to do.’
‘Of course.’ Ganthar gave them a polite half-bow, caught Caph’s gaze, just for a moment, then turned to greet the older woman in Thantar colours who was hovering at his elbow.
They moved on. Caph’s noted his father’s thundercloud expression, his sister’s alarmed eyebrow.
More people moved towards them. Kolmarch, polite but firm, held up a hand to halt the boldest ones. House Caphen reached the far end of the courtyard, the rise of City Hall now directly above them, and seeming to spin against the clouds. Beneath its towers, the short steps led down into its dark and silent belly. A uniformed greycoat stood at the doors, but they were still closed.
Caph had been here once before, the day he’d played his zanyar for the families Elect.
But there was no music today – only the soft strings of the quintet behind him. Today, on the doors’ far side, was the truth of the city’s governance, the true secret behind City Hall’s power.
And he had the strongest feeling it was going to resemble the machinery of the mines more than it did the needs and people of the city around it.
*
The spread of evening shadow swallowed the harbourside. Wearily, Proteus ducked out of Ebi’s home and headed back for the gate to Ivar. He had Aden’s face still on, and at least some answers – but that final, drawn figure hovered like a shadow, its multiple faces struggling in a merged and silent scream.
Viluy.
It hadn’t helped.
He was still analysing the pieces, trying to understand. Cloudglass were a conspiracy; they’d set themselves as champions of freedom, resisting the control of City Hall. And they’d used Galeas, and maybe others like him, to target specific supporters and to secure their loyalty – and funding.
That much made sense.
Proteus also understood, now, why Dion Ganthar had been down there. If Raife, Anatar and Ganthar himself were the three survivors of the storm, then they carried the parts of the hellspirit that Austen had faced.
The immediate conclusion was simple: Cloudglass intended to use the spirit to break the control of City Hall, but Proteus had no idea how. At a guess Raife’s plan had something to do with the great metal serpent that had risen above the stage…
Turning the information over, he walked swiftly, head down and staying to the main roads – not ducking through the smugglers’ routes, now all overrun with greycoats. Even so, it was quiet, out here; the evening streets were as deserted as an empty breath. It even smelled different: no reedsmoke, no cheap scent, no spilled spirits. The scatter of guards eyed him coldly, but they made no attempt to stop him.
He ducked away from them, from the eyes and the fear and threat of brutality, from the question he was asking, even as if the changes in the districts around him reflected the changes in himself.
Viluy’s many faces screamed at him.
And he wondered, with a twinge of fear, what Ebi had foretold.
*
At last, the crier called for them. His announcement seemed to tumble to the courtyard and roll like a boulder; its echoes rebounded from the towers above.
The crowd had thinned – many of the other families were already in place to await Caphen’s formal arrival. With a sound like rock cracking, the great, carved double doors swung slowly open.
Caph saw his father tense, saw him take his wife’s hand. They exchanged a single look, magical and youthful and entirely private, a dream they’d shared and built together, something they’d worked towards for nearly half a century. He dropped his gaze, touched, and not wanting to intrude.
Beside him, Bec solidly exhaled her nervousness.
The doors thudded fully open. Beyond waited a long throat of darkness, a faint gleam somewhere at its far end. Caph wanted to loosen the neck of his shirt, but Darrah touched his shoulder. ‘Sir. Give me those.’
He turned, surprised. The house manager indicated the box, still clutched in his hand. ‘You can’t take those in with you.’
‘You’re not coming in?’
‘I’m not actually Caphen, sir, if you remember.’ There was a hint of bitterness to his tone. ‘City Hall is for the families Elect only. I will await you here.’
Understanding something without conscious realisation – there was too much else on his mind – Caph passed him the box. Then he turned, and followed his family – in through the heavy, stone doors.
And then down.
Down the carved stone passageway, walls etched in the Builders’ angled symbols, the same ones that he’d seen at the mines; down the slow incline and into the very beating heart of the Builders’ haven, into the hollow that was City Hall itself.
And into a room that was vastly, impossibly bigger than the courtyard on the outside.
He caught his breath, heard it echo in the stone.
The Assembly was a descending shaft, lined all around in stalls of seating. It was lit by ancient glasslights, all recessed in the whorled patterns in the ceiling. Around them, there were faces, images, carved into the outer walls, dead eyes following them as they walked, and staring far, far down at the unseen floor below. And in places, there stood grey, metal constructs, faceless, ominous and patient. These were the Builders’ original ‘greycoat’ guards, exquisite, metallic craftings perhaps brought with them from the Outside. To Caph, they looked in surprisingly good order, as if they would whir from their resting places and put every man and woman in the place to the sword.
He wondered what could make them move, or if, like the trams, that skill had been forgotten.
The five families Elect, however, paid them little attention. They were already here – Thantar, merchant masters with their feather emblem; Dion, Ganthar among them, many of them in military uniform. And the others: Enshar, Wingar, Yannsar. Every family was larger than Caphen – brothers, sister, aunts, uncles, grandparents – but even then, the people seemed lost in the sheer size of City Hall itself.
It had been forty years since the previous Selection, and the one before that had been almost a century earlier. It occurred to Caph that none of these people had ever tasted anything but power and extreme wealth; they issued edicts and demanded taxes, but they had guilds and district councils and property managers to do their real work for them. Many of them had never left the dizzying heights of the upper city.
He wondered if any of the city’s elite had actually seen the wharf, or trave
lled even as far as Kier, had as much as crossed the river…
But the dead eyes stared down, and they told him nothing.
Wordlessly, the waiting families all rose to their feet, the rustle of acoustics making the hairs prickle on Caph’s arms. He half-expected someone to step forwards, to say something, to offer some resonant greeting, but the Assembly stood still, all gazes on house Caphen as they came to the front of their own balconied stall.
And then waited.
Puzzled, his flesh creeping, Caph glanced at his father, but Kolmarch’s chin was lifted, and his expression was closed. Despite the empty seats, the shaft felt suddenly suffocating, too full, laden with layers of history, with expectation, with watching and judging.
And then, Caph could hear it, hear it at last: the pulse of the stone. The resonance, the almost musical breathing he couldn’t hear at the Caphen house, he could hear it in here. As if the stone itself were alive, as if he were present in its very throat.
It is, he reminded himself, his thoughts briefly on the mines. It always has been.
The lights rose, stretched all the way down. At the bottom, the open circle of floor was cold, and unadorned.
No secret, no power.
Across from him, Ganthar caught his gaze and flicked an eyebrow. Caph looked away.
But Kolmarch stepped forwards, right to the edge of the balcony. He didn’t address the seats opposite; he spoke to the floor.
‘I am Caphen Jularn Kolmarch. You have called me, and I have come.’ His next words were almost awed, ‘I am ready for your Assessment. I am ready to see the true heart of the City.’
And, with a rumble that Caph felt in his chest, the floor began to move.
Caph gaped, craned over the balcony’s edge.
The Assembly’s lights had dimmed, but light now streamed upwards, silhouetting his father’s tall figure, his authority and strength. And down there, the floor had gone and there was a huge bowl, a soft white illumination that reached all the way to the roof – and in that bowl was reflected the entire map of the city itself. With the wall of crater about its outside, Caph could see the districts, the perfect, mathematical pattern in which they’d been laid out; he could see the towering rise of the city centre and City Hall itself, could see the seven stairways, the three tumbling waterfalls, the surrounding loop of the river. He could see the wide, open ground that was Vanchar, the long stretch of the wharf; he could see the mines, and the harbour. Beside him, Bec gasped and the sound sighed like a breeze. Everyone was on their feet, now, watching the vision below.
And the bowl was filled with lights; tens of thousands of them. They flickered upwards, reflected in the walls like the glass in the crater itself.
They moved in clusters, ripples, waves, dances, responding to each other; the melody of them filled Caph’s head, and yet they remained completely soundless. All he could hear was the slow pulse of the stone, like his own heartbeat.
He wanted to ask, ‘What is it? What can I see?’ but something in him already knew.
In the stall opposite, a figure raised her arms. Her face was covered, but Caph knew who she was – Thantar San Winsen, a lady of dark skin, and vast age, and rounded, stooping shoulders, the longest serving member of the Assembly. He remembered what Raife had said about house Thantar, guardians of City Hall from the first days of the servants’ hegemony. She stretched out a thin arm, the shadow of the movement stretching out across the floor.
‘Bear witness, Caphen Kolmarch.’ Her voice was still strong, attuned, somehow, to the sounds echoing up and down the shaft. ‘To the truth of the power of City Hall. Witness its balance and harmony, the pattern that keeps us safe.’ The air was as still as a held breath, tense with listening. ‘When the Builders first came from the Outside, this was no more than a toy, a way for them to observe themselves, and stay safe. But there came war, and then famine. And then we built the walls, and the gates, to keep the population controlled, to stop greed and hoarding, to ensure that all trade was fair and even. And we gave the people markers so that we could watch their dance.’ Caph stared, stunned. ‘What you see are the tags of every man and woman in the city, every worker, every merchant, every artisan, every messenger, every trader. We use the Builders’ eyes to see every single person, and every single thing they do. We track every ripan, every last coin.’ She paused, inviting them to watch. ‘The Builders worked with patterns of resonance – and so we have worked with this. If the pattern changes, we can see – we can observe any rise in population, any massing of power. Any surge of greed, financial or personal, we can witness. Any rise in wealth of a single individual, we can intercept and prevent. The greycoats owe their loyalty only to the Assembly, and we tolerate no defiance.’
Caph stared, half his mind overcome by the lights and the unheard sounds that went with them; half of it on the other stage, the one where Anatar had flared with sparks and drama and fire.
We tolerate no defiance.
But Cloudglass were doing exactly that. And Raife had been Thantar, he must have been in here, must have witnessed this sight – so he must have some skill, some knowledge, to keep Cloudglass’s defiance concealed…
Caph didn’t understand, not completely, not yet – but he felt close. If Raife was a younger son or grandson or nephew of Thantar San Winsen, and if he’d been cast from his family, then--
‘Copper,’ Jularn said, suddenly. When Caph turned, she leaned in to speak to him, her voice the faintest breath. ‘That’s how they see.’
Caph gave her a questioning look. She said, ‘You should know this, Talmar. Copper conducts sound. It’s in every tag, in every ripan. That’s what we can see – the pattern that it makes. That’s how City Hall reads everybody and keeps control. The copper sings – and every person, every individual, every purchase, makes up the pattern. Everything they do, everything they carry, everywhere they go. An equation handed down by the Builders themselves.’ Her tone was full of wonder. ‘So beautifully simple.’
Caph heard her, but his mind was still racing. As if he was back on the wharf, watching the diced equations as they came together, as the people around him came to their feet, cheering and whooping—
He felt a flicker of fear.
He didn’t have the answer, not yet, but some part of him was wondering, reaching, watching the dance and ripple of the thousands of lights in the floor of City Hall, the firefly shine as they played around the walls… and then suddenly thinking about the Caphen machine. Raife had been at the Academy with Jularn – he must know about the mines. Had Raife been the saboteur? Certainly, he had the skill.
Caph sat back, breathless, feeling like he was on the right edge of something, but not quite managing to make it make sense.
Beside him, Kolmarch turned. He began his speech of assessment, the family’s powers and achievements, his voice strong and ringing from the walls. It was the highest moment of his life, the thing he had wanted since he had first fallen in love, so many years before.
But Caph wasn’t really thinking about his father’s moment of triumph.
Because, from somewhere, he had a terrible feeling that it wasn’t going to last.
After the Assembly, Caph returned to the house in silence.
Bec had tried to speak to him, to find out what had happened, but he’d raised a hand to fend her off. He was still trying to encompass it all, and his face hurt too much to talk.
But he’d not got as far as his rooms before he was stopped. Illuar, the houseguard captain, was apologetic, but insistent.
And once more, Caph found himself in his father’s study, lit only by the single sodium lamp in his desk. The long blue moonlight tumbled through the window and left a patch like water on the floor between them, a patch like the river’s boundary.
And Caph stood at its edge with his arms folded, waiting.
Kolmarch said nothing. He leaned back in his chair, his gaze
raking his son from head to foot, and pausing over the now-yellowing bruising. After a moment, he said, ice-cold, ‘I assume you have an explanation?’
Caph glared at him. He said, ‘Ganthar beat the shit out of me. Will that do you?’
Kolmarch surveyed his son across the desktop. ‘I will speak to your mother,’ he said, at last. ‘This is obviously intolerable, and I fear her need for… suitable alliances may be clouding her judgment.’
‘No shit.’ It was harsh, and he didn’t care.
‘Mind your language, boy.’ His tone was lethal. ‘To turn up, on the moment of this family’s Assessment, looking like—’
‘Save it.’ Caph came forwards, across the boundary of the moonlight on the floor; he leaned his weight on the desktop. ‘And I would take it as a kindness,’ he said coldly, ‘If you’d stop referring to me as ‘boy’—’
‘Act like a man, Talmar, and I’ll treat you like one.’ The words were bored, as if Kolmarch had no such expectation.
Caph turned away. He moved to the long window, looked out over the glorious tumble of the city below them, out across the shining loop of the river, the lamplit shambles of the poorer streets that led down the wharfside. He thought of Aden, warm breath on his shoulder, gentle fingers down his back. It seemed like a lifetime ago.
He said, ‘Why do you do this, Dad?’ He turned around in time to see his father’s slightly startled expression. ‘You’ve got what you wanted, what you’ve worked for, your life’s ambition finally fulfilled: Caphen will be Selected. I understand it, now. I understand why, and I’m happy for you.’ He held his father’s gaze, unblinking. ‘But I won’t take more of your judgment or scorn.’ Kolmarch was silent, frowning slightly as if confused. Caph went on, ‘For the last time, Ganthar is one of the city’s foremost combatants. He’s won the greycoat tourney – five times? Six? I’ve seen him put down trained men and women far, far superior to my meagre skills. I know which end of a longsword is which, and I can hold my own in a bar-room brawl, but I had as much chance of stopping Ganthar as I did of stopping a rockslide. I’ve told you this. And this is the last time I’m going to repeat it.’ His voice was calm, finally confident in his own skills – and lack of them. ‘So stop accusing me of weakness, stop blaming me, and stop holding me accountable. If you think my hands—’
