The Sky Warden & the Sun (Books of the Change)

by Sean Williams

  He soon discovered that birds did live in the mighty chambers comprising the city. There were trees, too, tended in wide copses near fields where animals were herded in flocks numbering in the hundreds. Starlight was hidden behind many metres of rock, but there were species of fluorescent algae that grew on the ceilings and walls; when the sun went down on the world above, and the great lamps were extinguished at midnight, patches of brightness were faintly visible, glowing like ghostly writing in the otherwise utter darkness.

  But that lay ahead of him. For now, as the caravan crawled like a string of ants under the mighty upper roof of Ulum, his mind was caught by another marvel.

  Shilly pointed it out first. “The buildings we saw above us,” she said, her neck craning to look out of the wagon and up at the roof. “They’re hollow, aren’t they?”

  “Indeed they are,” said Brokate. “The towers are the tops of air vents; the domes match the contours of the ceiling above us. The roads between them are pure artifice, for no one lives up there to use them.” Her smile carried more than a hint of admiration for the city builders. “Ulum was founded in a series of natural caves, it is said, but soon outgrew them. Excavations conducted over the centuries to create more space resulted in vast amounts of excess rock. Some went into the shield wall we passed through on the way in here; the rest was used to make the floor of this chamber and the roof above us. The ancient architects designed the latter so that from a distance it might appear to be an ordinary city, with buildings and streets waiting to be ransacked and burned.” The look in her eye sharpened. “An invading army would find nothing but a steep fall if they broke into one of those buildings and the streets all lead in circles.”

  “Has anyone tried to invade?” Shilly asked.

  “Several times. They say Sky Wardens tried once. None of them succeeded.”

  Brokate’s attention was taken by the approach of a man in bright yellow robes on the back of a small horse. His black hair hung free and his lower face was hidden behind a beard of the same colour, a shocking contrast to his fish-white skin. His age was impossible to determine.

  “Hey, Beli!” he called. “Welcome back.”

  She raised a hand in reply. “Hey, Wyath. You haven’t been waiting here all this time, have you?”

  “Me? No. But I’ve had lookouts posted. They saw you on the road and sent me word. It’s good to see you again.” The man’s horse settled into a gentle lope alongside the lead wagon. His eyes smiled warmly, although his actual expression was impossible to read behind the beard.

  Brokate’s expression was similarly inscrutable. “Yes, well. As you say.”

  “You didn’t send word about under-age passengers.” Wyath leaned closer to peer at Sal and Shilly. “Are you picking up waifs on the road, now?”

  “Not waifs. They paid their way.”

  “A long way, by the looks of them,” he said. “Do they have names?”

  “Sal and Shilly. They’ll need somewhere to stay. Can you help with that?”

  “How long for?”

  “Tonight. They’ll make other arrangements tomorrow.”

  “Naturally.” Wyath adjusted the neck of his yellow robes. “They could use my spare room.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “Were you, indeed? How interesting.”

  “I thought you might find it so.”

  Wyath uttered an uninterpretable chuckle, and winked at Sal. “Well, you know me better than anyone, Beli. I’ll let you get on with things. Come by when your cargo is unloaded. I’ll have a meal ready.”

  “Thank you, Wyath.”

  The man nodded at Brokate, Shilly and Sal in turn, then spurred his horse. With a clatter of hooves, he sped ahead and disappeared behind the base of a large column. When he didn’t reappear out the other side, Sal realised that it hid a means of getting to the levels below.

  “Who was he?” asked Shilly.

  “Wyath Gyory. A friend,” Brokate replied simply. Someone wolf whistled from behind them, and Brokate almost flushed. Leaning back in her seat, she turned to face the rest of her team and yelled, “Another word from you lot and you’ll muck out the pens tonight!”

  She turned back to Sal and Shilly. “Wyath has family connections with the city council. He’ll be able to help you two if you decide to stay here, so it’ll pay not to be shy.”

  Shilly nodded seriously, and Sal, although mystified by the exchange, did likewise a second later. They needed all the assistance they could get, wherever they were going.

  They headed down a narrow ramp set in the floor of the massive antechamber. The echoes of camel hooves, wagon wheels and engines drowned out any attempt at conversation. Shadow enfolded them, and for a brief moment all was pitch black.

  Had his mother come this way, once? Sal imagined her riding in a caravan much like Brokate’s, descending into the bowels of the earth. Had she, too, wondered if the darkness would ever end?

  Then the corridor opened up into a space as wide and crowded as the biggest market Sal had ever seen — and noisier, for the sounds of animals and people were magnified by the walls of stone around them and flung back as a cacophony that threatened to overwhelm the senses.

  “Welcome to Ulum!” shouted Brokate in his ear.

  He couldn’t think of anything to say in reply. They had arrived. That was enough to deal with for the time being.

  Chapter 7

  Within and Below

  Shilly spent most of that day in the wagon watching Brokate conduct business with buyers, traders and other customers. At first it was interesting. The goods were varied and Brokate dealt briskly with everyone, especially those who tried to short-change her. But as time wore on and the routine became familiar, Shilly’s attention wandered. Unlike Sal, whose eyes were practically falling out of their sockets, she was unable to find something to interest her.

  When a bell rang to announce midday, he went for a stroll and returned with a local delicacy: spicy meat and vegetables rolled up in a white pastry sheet. But she didn’t find it particularly appetising, and ate only a small portion.

  “There are so many people,” he said, stating the obvious around mouthfuls of her leftovers. “The market goes forever — and most days there’s more than one going at the same time!”

  Who’d want more than one, Shilly asked herself, when they’re such ugly places? Compared to the Fundelry markets, where the traders at least had time to talk to each other, this was a rabble. What she had considered heated barter was nothing compared to the brawling going on around her and much of what they were arguing over was incomprehensible.

  Where she came from, salt was cheap; here it was expensive, and chocolate was common instead. The prices of tea leaf and coffee beans were similarly reversed. Nothing was as she expected it to be.

  To top it all off, the markets stank even worse than dried camel shit.

  The only good thing she could think of to say about it was that the flies had been left outside. But she knew she was reacting to more than just the noise and the smells and the sense of barely-controlled chaos. She saw endlessly varied tattoos, and rings and studs poked through bits of flesh she would have thought impossible to pierce. Where she was used to seeing wood or ceramics, the people around her used metal: fashioned into clasps, hairpins, spectacle frames, and bracelets. Only a few people had dark-coloured skins like her, and all those who noticed her sitting in the back of the wagon stared at her a split-second longer than was necessary.

  Without a doubt, she thought, this was how Sal had felt in Fundelry. She had once assumed that he was immune to such reactions, having travelled all his life, but the borderlands contained a mix of all sorts of people, as her brief glimpse at the Lookout and Yor had attested. He wouldn’t have been used to the blatant racism of Alder Sproule and his son, Kemp. Being so deeply in the minority would have been a new experience for him.


  Now, in Ulum, he was part of the majority and she stood out. She wondered if that was why he seemed to be feeling so much at home, and why she was beginning to hate it.

  As the sun, far above, started to set, the light issuing from the mirrored pipes dotting the roof above began to dim. The fuss died down. Brokate secured the caravan in a fenced compound and left some of her riders to mind it for the night. Then she packed her two charges into a buggy and drove them to Wyath’s apartment.

  The half-hour journey afforded Shilly another, quite different, view of the city. Outside the market, the roads were narrow and crowded, as were the houses. The air rang with the sound and smells of thousands of ordinary people all living under one vast roof. The city filled more than this single chamber, as Brokate had said, and the same air circulated through them all. Giant brass turbines turned the fans that in turn stirred the air. Shilly smelled smoke from wood fires, cooking aromas, incense, and a faint tang of effluence underlying everything. She marvelled that everyone she met didn’t smell vile, until she learned that the perfume trade did brisk business in Ulum. After the stink of the markets, she wasn’t surprised.

  But for the first time she saw some order to the city. Such a crowded place simply had to be well maintained to exist for long, and the large numbers of maintenance and civic workers she saw on the streets confirmed the effort that took. Numerous people filed into and out of large buildings that, she supposed, contained factories, offices, or other sorts of workplaces. In the Strand, administration and industry was distributed evenly across the entire nation, in villages and small towns for the most part. Within the Interior, it was concentrated in only a few places and its produce distributed elsewhere. In a relative handful of semi-independent city states, such as Ulum, bureaucrats made decisions that could affect incredibly large areas; according to Mrs Milka, artisans produced goods that could be shipped to the far side of the Interior. Everything was on a much larger scale than Shilly was used to dealing with. Painfully so.

  How the Stone Mages kept everything under control she didn’t know for sure. According to Brokate, Wyath’s father was on some sort of city council, which Shilly presumed answered ultimately to the Stone Mages, who in turn reported to their Advisory Synod when they met at the Nine Stars, wherever that was. She guessed that there were numerous other administrative layers she knew nothing about, filling in the gaps. Someone had to conduct the censuses Brokate had mentioned. This joined a growing list of things she didn’t know about the Interior: where the metal she saw was mined and smelted; where the fuel came to keep all the fan motors running; how the diverse parts of the cities coordinated their activities — and indeed how the cities themselves communicated with each other.

  Instead of filling in these blanks, Brokate pointed out landmarks as she drove. In the growing gloom they were hard to see and even harder to understand. What happened in the Year of the Quake for it to be honoured by a marble triangular monument? Who were the Maxteds and why did they deserve such a magnificent garden on top of a stepped terrace? Shilly just nodded, overwhelmed by the unfamiliar. This was only the beginning, she suspected.

  Wyath Gyory’s apartment was situated near — and partly in — the summit of an underground hill built in the shape of a cone beneath a vaulted ceiling that seemed almost impossibly high. The lane they followed wound around the hill three times, getting higher with every turn until the city’s main cavern lay spread out below them. At night, yellow lamps fuelled by natural gas hung everywhere, above and below, so it was like floating in the middle of a cloud of stars. Shilly admired the view and decided it was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. For the first time, as the smell and the chaos fell behind them, Shilly could see why someone might want to live there.

  Could she? She didn’t know, yet.

  “Come in, come in,” called Wyath when they arrived at the entrance to his apartment. While Brokate secured the wagon, he waved them inside. “Welcome to my home. You must be starving.”

  Shilly crutched her way into the apartment’s main room, marvelling at what she saw. The floor consisted of boards of wood stained so dark it was almost impossible to see the grain. There were shelves covered with fragile ornaments and wall hangings of every conceivable colour. Everything in the room was delicate and fine, quite a contrast to Wyath’s shaggy appearance. The soap in his bathroom, when she washed before eating, left a faint honey scent on her hands and face.

  “This is Ori,” Wyath said, indicating a slender man with hair as pale as his skin. “He’s on my father’s staff. I’ve asked him to make us something with seafood for dinner. We thought it might make you feel more at home.”

  “Thank you,” Shilly said, trying to be nice, as Brokate had instructed them. It wasn’t hard. “That’s very kind of you.”

  “No problem at all.” Their host smiled widely, and for the first time she saw his mouth through the beard. His teeth were white and evenly spaced. “It does Ori good to be kept busy.”

  The cook stuck out his tongue. The table where they would eat dinner sat low to the ground, surrounded by cushions. A special place had been set for her, with room to stretch out her leg. Slightly embarrassed by their hospitality, she let Sal take the crutches and eased herself onto the cushions. They were soft and covered with embroidered silk.

  When Brokate returned, dinner was served. While they made small talk, Ori spooned the meal into pottery bowls, produced vegetables and rice he had also prepared, then joined them at the table. They ate with metal utensils, the finest Shilly had ever seen. The fish, a rarity in the Interior, had been marinated in spices and tasted quite unrecognisable. She watched what her hosts did before doing anything, studying their customs and interactions, while at the same time waiting for the time when she could politely bring up Skender Van Haasteren. That was the purpose underlying everything, after all.

  “Wyath’s servant?” said Ori good-naturedly in response to Sal’s curious question. “Far from it, although here some stewards do eat with their employers.” Ori was, in fact, a lawyer on the rise through Wyath’s father’s department. “Wyath and I attended university together and have found many ways to assist each other. That’s what friends are for, after all. One of Wyath’s failings is his inability to prepare decent food for guests.”

  “For anyone,” said Brokate, rolling her eyes.

  “And I’m happy to trade the service for the pottery dishes he produces in his spare time. The barter system makes us both richer.”

  “I made these, you know,” said Wyath, lifting the bowl he was eating from and showing Sal and Shilly the glaze with evident pride. “We’re generally not as good at ceramics as you are in the Strand, so this is a skill I’m particularly proud of. I’ve been taught to be as good with my hands as I am with my mind.”

  “I’ll toast to that,” said Brokate.

  Ori laughed heartily, and Wyath raised his glass.

  “Yes, a toast,” he said, then looked at the water in front of Shilly and Sal’s plates. “Do you kids drink wine? My parents were liberal souls, thank the Goddess, but I know they’re in the minority. What would yours say to a sip?”

  “I never knew my parents,” said Shilly with more emotion than she’d intended.

  “And mine are dead,” said Sal.

  “Well.” Some of the impetus went out of Wyath’s bluster, but only for a second. “Let’s toast them, then, wherever they are.” Ori poured two half-measures of golden liquid into delicate glasses and passed them across the table. “To our ancestors,” Wyath said, raising his glass again. “May we escape their sins and reap the benefits of their wisdom.”

  Shilly sipped when the adults did, and was surprised that the wine wasn’t sweet at all, but had a dry, fruity taste that left her tongue tingling. The wine was so cold it brought beads of condensation to the glass, yet it made her stomach feel warm. She wasn’t certain she liked it, but at the same time d
idn’t find it unpleasant.

  Sal, on the other hand, failed to hide a slight grimace when the liquid hit his palate. He swallowed quickly and put the glass back down in front of him.

  “Delicious,” said Wyath, smacking his lips. “Your lack of parents explains, I guess, why neither of you are giving family names.”

  “Sal has both his family names,” said Brokate, “if he’s willing to share them.”

  “There’s no reason why he should,” said Wyath. “I’m only making conversation.”

  Sal had looked uncomfortable since the subject of families had come up. Shilly could guess what lay at the heart of it: although he had said that his parents were dead, his real father was very much alive and still living in the Haunted City. The name Sparre wasn’t one that he was willing to adopt, however.

  “My father is of the Cloud Line Hrvati,” he said, taking the family name of the man he had thought was his true father instead. “From the east.”

  “Leonora?” asked Ori, looking up from his bowl.

  “East and south,” Wyath corrected his friend. “Beli said the kids are from the Strand. Everywhere in the Strand is south of here. But you must have some Interior blood in you as well, Sal, to have such colouring. I assumed you were one of us when I first saw you.”

  “My mother belonged to the Earth Clan Mierlo.”

  Ori’s eyebrows went up. “Really?”

  “You know them?”

  “Not that I’d admit to anyone.” Then he winced as though someone had kicked him under the table.

  “Ori doesn’t mean to be disrespectful, Sal,” said Brokate.

  “No, that’s okay.” Sal looked in puzzlement from one to the other. “What’s wrong? Why don’t you like them?”

  It was Wyath who answered. “They have a reputation. Let’s put it like that. They are as ruthless in business as they are unlucky. And tenacious. If they weren’t so cunning no one would give them a second thought. Every time you think they’ve been knocked down for the last time, they rise back up again like a wounded snake, twice as angry and three times more deadly.” He shrugged and raised his glass. “Sins and wisdom, Sal. You can’t help who you came from, and there’s no point in denying them, but it’s your choice what you take from them. Remember that.”