The City Darkens (Raud Grima Book 1)

by Martin, Sophia

  After my experience riding in the tandem cockpit behind Kolorma in the Svala II, sitting facing Liut in the passenger hold of this larger aeroplane felt odd indeed. The movements of the machine were more removed than before, although they still jarred me. Through the porthole by my head, I watched the land speed by as we began to roll along the runway outside the plane’s hangar, and the lift threw my stomach into my pelvis and then up into my ribs as we took flight. Soon the trees shrank until they were too miniscule even for toys, and wisps of cloud passed outside the small window I looked out of. My thoughts strayed to Bersi—I so rarely allowed myself to think of him these days—but he would have loved the aeroplane. I thought of his delight in automobiles, and how excited he had been especially to ride in Mother Tora’s. I recalled the morning on the boat, when he had wolfed down breakfast so we could go out and tour the deck. How rosy the cold wind had made his cheeks. How wide with glee his eyes had been, as he chattered about fish and sea weed and the ocean waves.

  “Myadar,” Liut said, interrupting my memories, and I blinked away the tears that stood in my eyes as I stared out of the small window. I looked at him. “Myadar, I must tell you—you must know—”

  Clenching my jaw and crossing my arms tightly, I glared at him, feeling Kolorma shift beside me, probably to glare at him as well.

  Liut glanced at her, and tried to lean closer to me while simultaneously shifting away from her, so that he pressed his shoulder to the wall of the plane by the window. “Myadar, what you heard me say—I had to say it. I had to play the part—I could not tell them how my feelings for you changed—”

  My arm slipped free of its own volition and I struck him with the force of weeks of pent up rage. Liut gasped and lurched with the strength of the blow, his hand flying to his mouth. Blood stained his fingers.

  Kolorma patted my shoulder lightly. “Now Myadar, do try not to damage your alibi, no matter how much he provokes you.”

  “Explain to me, my love,” I hissed, ignoring her, “how you came to take my jewels from me in your efforts to hide your true feelings? Tell me how it came that you looked me in the eye, after you did so, and told me you had found a potential buyer?” Liut remained bent to the side where my strike had moved him, cradling his mouth, not looking up at me. “Don’t speak, Liut, until you are required to lie to save me from suspicion upon our return. Lying is all you do—it will be useful only then.”

  Did he really think I could be fooled again so easily? What a sot I’d been, and he’d taken it to mean I was easily won, and would be easily reconquered. What he failed to understand, was that his duplicity, his betrayal, had cost me Bersi. I might have escaped long before the illfated attempt to rob those courtiers if he hadn’t taken my rubies from me. He was not just some deceiving lover who broke my heart. He had kept my son from me.

  I would never forgive him.

  Kolorma handed Liut a folded handkerchief, and he accepted it, pressing it to his bleeding lip. She wore a smirk on her face. Clearly she enjoyed witnessing Liut reap the rewards of his treachery. I felt no satisfaction. My anger did not abate. My hands itched to strike him again, to tear out his eyes. The only one I hated more than Liut was Reister, although I had plenty of wrath to share with Vaenn and Mother Tora. Manipulators, lying, cheating, full of corruption, thinking only of their stratagems, their games and their profit.

  A chill coursed down my spine, and for the first time, I thought of a question I could ask Liut, now that he was here and could not get away with lying.

  “Why?” I said, the word dry and brittle as it left my throat.

  Liut frowned at me, still holding the cloth to his mouth.

  “Why was it so important to Reister that I—that the konunger take me to bed?”

  Liut glowered at me, making no response.

  “I understand why he summoned me,” I said, smoothing my hands over my knees to keep them from flying at his face. “I understand why he sent Bersi away.” What better way to control me, moorless as I was, and so desperate for the promise of a visit? “What I don’t understand, is how it might benefit him for me to become the konunger’s lover.”

  “Myadar,” Kolorma said with a sigh. “As a favorite, you would receive boons, and so especially would Reister, your ‘wronged’ husband, so as to ensure his silence, to prevent his protests.”

  I watched Liut’s face, a suspicion growing within me. “Perhaps, but that was not the only reason, was it?”

  Liut dropped his hand, clutching the handkerchief, into his lap, his eyes troubled. “I know nothing of the motivations of Reister Sölbói.”

  “Liar!” I cried, and Kolorma caught my hand as it sliced through the air. Liut flinched, and I had to be satisfied with that.

  Fuming, I sat as far back into my seat as I could, and fixed my eyes on a spot over Liut’s head for the rest of the voyage. At first my rage crashed through my veins like an ocean storm, and I could hardly think, but after a time, it ebbed. I called to mind what I knew.

  Reister had been satisfied with our arrangement for ten years. When he visited, he had, at times, shown his temper, but he was not always so hateful. As Alflétta had said, Reister ever had a cold heart, but his current state of near constant seething wrath was new.

  Thanks to Alflétta, I knew that Reister loved men—or desired them, at least, if his heart remained too cold for love—and Galmr had made such relationships dangerously illegal. Alflétta’s lover languished in a prison if he was fortunate, a work camp if he was less so, or he had been executed if he was truly unlucky. Alflétta himself had fled the capital due to the danger to himself. Reister had not; instead, he summoned me to act as his shield.

  But that was not enough for him. Reister was, if nothing else, ambitious. Take, for instance, the smuggled wine. I remembered his words to Snúa: We’ll make ten times the profit.

  We owned many vineyards in Söllund—far from our estate, on the hills near the southern coast. Reister employed professional vintners. I had little to do with them, and we at the Söllund estate never enjoyed the fruits of their labors. No doubt the smuggled wine had come from his own manufacture, wine that would have gone unsold, perhaps even to be destroyed, because Galmr deemed it sacrilege to drink it. Had Reister hoped, in smuggling it, not just to make a tenfold profit, but to avoid financial ruin? The orchards at the Söllund estate gave fruit enough for selling at the market and paying our various bills, but little more. With Galmr’s new order, not only was Reister barred from his most cherished habits and desires, but from his greatest profits, as well.

  Sending me to become the konunger’s mistress would hardly have remedied these ills. Boons perhaps Eiflar would have granted me, but nothing so far-reaching as to replace Reister’s primary source of wealth. In a matter of months—perhaps a year—he would burn through his reserves and we would both have had to return to Söllund to live off the orchards. That sounded like paradise to me, but Reister would never have born it—when he came for his visits, he never stayed longer than two weeks, and he oft complained of the provincial culture of Söllund, and the lack of entertainment. No doubt he missed his lovers, as well.

  Never mind what Reister told Mother Tora, he hadn’t married me for my beauty. He had married me for my family’s money—money he used in large part to purchase more land for his vineyards, equipment for the making of wine, and to hire the vintners. I had always understood that that was the exchange that had taken place—my family gained renown for marrying a daughter to a jarl; this good fortune meant better matches for my younger siblings and granted my family access to the local jarls for the purpose of business dealings. In return, they paid an exorbitant dowry to Reister, which I was certain was all spent on the wine.

  The money spent, the wine outlawed, all that remained was my beauty, and Reister meant to use it as his last game piece, but not for boons. No. I might not know my husband well, but I knew him better than that. Reister was no simple courtier vying for the konunger’s favor. As I considered my conclusio
n, I lifted my chin. Reister would have used me much as Kolorma wished to, I suspected. Reister wanted me placed in the konunger’s bed because from there he hoped I could assassinate him.

  He would have used Bersi, no doubt, to motivate me. A promise of some torment for my son if I refused, some succor if I succeeded. Well, at least this provided me with yet another playing piece should Reister wish to try to ruin me. I could offer him what he wanted all along.

  Of course, I doubted Reister hoped to foment a revolution. No doubt Reister thought the konunger’s heir was more likely to divest Galmr of his authority. I realized I knew not who Eiflar’s heir was. I did not believe that simply killing Eiflar would be enough, however. In truth, whether it was enough to unseat Galmr and the supremacy of Tyr was irrelevant to me. I wanted more than an end to the new order. I wanted an end to the monarchy, and the court. An end to every corrupt, sordid game they played. I would see the palace torn down to the ground if I could, and the Temple along with it.

  ~~~

  We landed in a large field surrounded by high metal fences of chain link. I recognized the convoy trucks I’d seen that night when I slipped through the city, learning the layout of streets and such. This must be what lay beyond the tall gates I’d seen.

  Soldiers in black uniforms met the aeroplane and nodded to us as we disembarked and walked past their disciplined row. Alflétta, who carried Kolorma’s little case for her, chatted pleasantly with a harja at the end of the line while the rest of us remained silent—although Kolorma amused herself toying with Liut’s collar in an imitation of Vaenn, and then draped an arm around Alflétta’s shoulders when we finally walked on. I eyed Liut with distaste as we did, but I would have to learn to hide my feelings if I hoped to act the spy at court. I slipped my arm through his and laughed lightly, as though he had said something terrifically funny, feeling the eyes of the harja and his men following us as we left.

  Kolorma had telegraphed to alert the palace to our return, and a silver robot chauffeur in the usual black suit awaited beside a sleek black car.

  “Is he one of ours?” Alflétta asked Kolorma so quietly I almost didn’t hear. The jöfurdis shook her head.

  As we climbed into the vehicle, I whispered, “Was it necessary to land in the heart of the beast?”

  “This is the only place in Helésey with an airstrip,” Kolorma murmured in response. “Have a look around, Myadar. We may be glad to know the layout someday.”

  It seemed too dangerous to pursue the conversation, but I made a mental note to ask her sometime how she had managed to smuggle my injured, unconscious body out of the city right under the noses of the konunger’s harjas.

  Kolorma made a show of drunkenly demanding that we all go dancing before “setting foot in that boring old palace,” so the chauffeur took a turn into the Lavsektor and soon we parked outside the same Dance Hall where Liut had taken me. The same hall where we had left, hand in hand, so he could bring me to his “special” place on the roof, which he had “never shown anyone,” and where he seduced me for the first time. I might not have been a virgin, but I was hardly more. Narrowing my eyes I shot daggers at him as we exited the automobile. Liut had the grace to blush.

  Alflétta turned to the robot, who held the car door. “Why don’t you take a drive for an hour or so?” he suggested. “It’s not safe for an auto like ours to stay parked in a street like this. We shan’t be longer than an hour, I wager.”

  Kolorma pouted but didn’t contradict him.

  “Very well, Jarl,” the robot said.

  We entered the one-time hotel as the car slipped away. As soon as the robot had driven around a turn Kolorma stopped leaning on Alflétta and strode purposefully back out into the night, her short, pleated, burnt orange silk skirt whirling around her knees. I knew we were making a stop in the Undergrunnsby, but I still didn’t know why. I followed her to the same entrance to the under-city that Liut had taken me to, to escape the rain.

  Had he planned it all, or had the rain surprised him? Had it been luck that saw Reister absent upon my return, or had he agreed to let me slip in unnoticed? I scowled again at Liut, who stared straight ahead as though I wasn’t there.

  The Undergrunnsby had not changed, still littered with debris, still ripe with stench, still poorly lit. The walls, still covered in painted slogans, oozed moisture. Winter was ending, and the city was warmer. No doubt the sewers would reek like Hel in the summer.

  I knew the passages of the Undergrunnsby now—perhaps not all of them, or well enough to ensure that I would never get lost, but I knew long before we saw or heard it that we were headed for the machine. My heartbeat accelerated. At last, an answer to that mystery.

  We took a turn I had never tried before, and for a time I thought I had been mistaken, and then it loomed before us as we made our way around the next bend. By coming from this side, we had avoided the shantytown that lay near it. Tonight no smoke belched from the strange structure, and all was still. Kolorma led us to the door I had spied. She produced a huge steel key with the width of a gun barrel and inserted it, rotating until a heavy click sounded. Then she turned the spoked wheel, the muscles in her arms standing out with the strain. The wheel whined, and then the door shuddered open. We followed her inside.

  ~~~

  The outside of the machine gave the impression of immensity, and the inside was no different. The height of the ceiling was astonishing, and it curved like an overturned bowl. All around us high panels of knobs, gears, and dials created something like Liten’s hedge maze. We passed through them and came out into a more open area with a long, semi-circular counter against another wall, both also covered in buttons, gauges, levers and other unidentifiable technology. Here and there a light glowed red or green, and sometimes it was a full row of lights, or a column with one or two lit and more dark. I realized as I looked up at the ceiling again that while its curve continued beyond the wall against which the counter curved, the wall itself blocked our view of what the rest of the machine’s interior held. Most fascinating of all, in the wall were alcoves filled with strange squares, and on some of them images moved. Most had jagged lines showing nothing that meant anything to me, and some were simply dark, but some had pictures of the city’s streets, and others, of interior rooms in the palace. The images were strange, somewhat like photographs, but I stumbled back in shock when a robot crossed the view of one palace corridor. Moving images—I had never seen the like.

  “What are those… light boxes?” I asked, searching for a way to name them.

  “The screens?” Kolorma said. “They are…” Her voice trailed off as she searched for an explanation. “Do you remember Hanif Dihauti?”

  I nodded.

  “When he was still radir he had light-recorders placed in the walls of the palace and throughout the city. They are quite large, and it wasn’t an easy task, I’m certain. And of course once he began to fall from favor as High Vigja Galmr came to power he could not complete the project.”

  I sighed, not really understanding.

  A door in the wall, far to the right where the counter ended, opened and through it stepped man with a face I recognized. The screens momentarily forgotten, my hand flew to my mouth and my eyes darted from him to Kolorma. She was unsurprised.

  “Taf Spraki,” I breathed, and Kolorma glanced at me.

  “Quite,” Spraki said, and stepped to greet us. He gave a little bow to Alflétta, leaned over Kolorma’s hand, and did the same to mine. Only when he paused before Liut did I think to gauge the latter’s reaction. Liut was glowering at Spraki as thought he might lash out and bite him at any moment.

  “You?” Liut whispered.

  “Yes, my dear friend,” Spraki said with a nod. “You always did underestimate me.”

  “What is your role here?” Liut asked.

  “Not that I need to explain myself to you, Krigr,” Spraki said, “but for the benefit our the lovely Jarldis Sölbói, I will answer. I am a scientist. Oh, don’t look so surprised, Jarldi
s. I play the part of the silly courtier as a ruse, much as you intend to, if I understood the jöfurdis’s message to me correctly. Long have I been a friend of those who wish to bring this wretched new order to an end.”

  “Why?” Liut barked. “What does it matter to you who rules?”

  Spraki cocked his head and gazed at Liut without responding.

  Liut’s eyebrows arched. “Is this about your Gods-blamed horses?”

  Sighing, Spraki shook his head at Liut. “You’ve so little vision, beyond your own gambits, Liut. Of course I miss my horses, and racing. But Galmr closed down the whole bleeding University! I was halfway through my studies. I’d just finished my mid-course exam, and passed, thank you. Eiflar and Galmr ruined my future with one sweep because they decided they didn’t believe in Alfódr anymore. Do you know what that did to my mother?”

  Liut scoffed. “Your penchant for melodrama has ever been your greatest weakness, Taf,” he said. “The konunger promised to reopen the university in Tyr’s name by the spring. You could finish your blessèd studies then.”

  “And what of the froddirs and froddises, who’ve disappeared Luka knows where? And how many books did Galmr have burnt? What study could I pursue without them?” Spraki began to pace a little, eyes blazing, occasionally punctuating his statements with a finger jabbed in Liut’s torso. “You’ve never understood true passion, Krigr. Well, let me tell you something, you mercenary filth. Eiflar and Galmr forgot something very important when they tore down Alfódr’s temples and closed His university. I suppose they aren’t alone—we’ve all worshipped Alfódr as the All-Father for centuries, now, god of poetry and wisdom—yes?” Spraki stopped an pivoted to face Liut. “Tyr may be god of battle, Krigr, but Alfódr is god of war. War and death, my old friend. Galmr and Eiflar will get what’s coming to them, and so will those who would ally themselves with them.” At that, Spraki spat in Liut’s face.