Book of Transformations

by Mark Charan Newton

  When she turned back, Tane was crouching on all fours, traipsing up and down the rails with perfect balance, and Vuldon was picking up huge hunks of masonry and throwing them in the air to catch in his other hand.

  But will they be comforted by this performance? she thought.

  *

  That evening things returned to normal: the crowds had dispersed, people were tucked up in their homes, and Lan was on her own.

  The Knights split up and spread themselves across the city as individuals, confident in their own skills, and wishing to extend their watch across a wider area.

  It was early evening, and whilst the irens were busy packing up, wares being shoved into crates, vendors watering down their fires, two young men burst through the throng to attack a middle-aged lady who was hunched under a thick fur coat and fat emeralds. They grabbed her bag and jewels and ran zigzags through the departing crowds.

  Lan leapt up along the side of a building and sprinted underneath the guttering, around thirty feet up from the streets, safely out of the reach of snow and ice. People pointed and gasped at her progress, cheering in some quarters, but she tried to ignore the attention, and scooted after the delinquents. The weight of the world yanked her muscles down to one side, causing her body to ache, but whenever she concentrated, she found herself able to override the natural forces in order to maintain her upright position in this new plane. She leapt over open windows, across alleyways. Horses and carts rumbled by underneath to her left. The light of the day was vanishing fast – but she was gaining on the thieves.

  She could see them now, aiming for the more concealed passageways, so she pushed herself away from the wall and back upright, gliding down to the ground. She ran through the air, towards them and, with one foot extended, kicked the neck of the nearest – who was no more than a boy. He lurched sideways, collapsing to the ground, dropping his bag.

  Jewels spilled across the icy flagstones.

  As Lan landed she thrust her heel in his stomach, winding him, then she peered up from her crouch to see the other vanishing down a dark passageway. With a crowd gathering round her, applauding her, Lan pulled some rope from her side-pack and tied the youth’s hands behind his back.

  She marched him back to the Inquisition headquarters.

  *

  With a pocket half-full of jewels, Caley skidded into Caveside, through a wide opening in the rock that looked like the maw of a gargantuan beast. Resting his hands on his thighs, he heaved breath into his lungs, confident that that bloody Knight woman was no longer following him. Standing, he straightened his woollen hat and unbuttoned the collar of his shirt a little more, allowing himself to cool.

  That was close, he thought. Can’t believe she caught Rend. The twat was always the careful one and now look at him.

  He marched into the caves proper, his nose twitching at the stench of wood fires and something more unsavoury. The texture of the streets changed: lanes became thinner, and the buildings were taller, almost leaning on each other for support, with thick wooden beams and thousands of tiny coloured stones pressed into their surfaces. Many houses had once been whitewashed but were now all shades of grime caused by smoke from chimneys. Some of the houses betrayed an older history, having been carved out of the rock, and were rounded with crude circular windows. Warm light glowed from their insides, and when looking across the rest of the underground city, these windows were like starlight. It went some way to make up for the absence of stars and moons up above.

  Not every Cavesider was poor. There were signs of wealth down here, from those who leeched a living off the outer city, some who dealt in illicit gemstones or middlemen who supplied cheap labour throughout Villjamur and surrounding farms; those people occupied the houses higher up, nearer the outer city, away from the decrepit sewers and poorly supplied shops.

  The cobbles hadn’t been maintained, and more than once Caley caught his toe on a hunk of stone jutting out. Rotting vegetables and dead rats littered the side of the street, in places piling up against walls. A woman – one he knew to be a prostitute – was strutting into an alleyway, holding the hand of a client, something that was happening less and less these days. A tavern at the end of this stretch of road opened its doors to turf out two brawlers, who carried on their fight on the side of the street, whilst around them cats padded explorative paths into the darkness.

  It wasn’t all bad, here – being sheltered by the caves, it was warmer than the outer city. And things were starting to change. People had more food these days, and money didn’t matter with the exchange irens operating without coin. Caley marvelled at how he could simply trade things without scraping around to find the money. People were in better spirits.

  That was because of Shalev.

  But he needed to let Shalev know of what had happened to Rend – they all stuck together, they were all one community. If someone was caught, they would have to deal with the issue. Shalev had made a family of these Caveside dwellers.

  He sauntered half a mile deeper into the caves, across the border of what the Emperor was now labelling as Underground East and Underground South, in an effort to map out the urban sprawl. He headed through what was locally known as Blacksmith Plaza, Sahem Road, Mudtown and Carp Alley. There were passageways and routes here that few knew about, and through which even fewer had travelled, dirt tracks and alleys with hundred-year-old graffiti. A couple of old guys were playing a complicated board game on an upturned cask of beer, whilst somewhere inside an old pipe was whining out a folk tune. A dog trotted up alongside him briefly, then vanished into one of the alleyways.

  He palmed hand-slang with a few of the kids he knew. The citizens he passed all knew him in one way or another, and that was good – because otherwise they might have killed a stranger, such was the level of secrecy around here. He saw more than one person instinctively reach for a weapon, these underground soldiers, these comrades without uniform.

  Two of his brethren stood guard with fat sabres beneath their cloaks in front of a recent excavation into the cliff face. He nodded to them and entered. It was a magic-blasted route, a damp-smelling, claustrophobic passage, and, standing tall, he continued with one palm gliding against the smooth rock, focusing on the single spot of light in the distance.

  Just as he reached it, a hand grabbed him by his shirt and he was yanked forward into the chamber beyond and sent sprawling across the floor.

  ‘Hey,’ he spluttered, rubbing his chin, ‘it’s me, retards, Caley.’

  A row of swords were pointed towards him, glinting in the candlelight. Seven men and three women were staring down, and Caley squirmed under their glare.

  ‘Let him through,’ a female voice commanded.

  As they stepped aside, Caley stood and brushed himself down, nodding to them all.

  The room was spectacularly decorated in mosaics, echoing patterns Caley thought came from far-out islands – not that he’d been to any. There were bookshelves and workbenches and row upon row of relics and a fire in the grate. And there, perched on the end of a desk, was a woman with no hair, and bright-blue eyes. He was unable to guess her age, but placed her in her forties. She had a round face, not unpleasant, and her nose appeared slightly squashed, as if some invisible force pressed lightly on it. Wafts of incense floated around the room, and whether it was that, or the way she controlled the mood in the room, he felt utterly at ease.

  ‘What is it, brother?’ she asked.

  ‘I needed to see you, Shalev. Rend was taken when we was out nicking stuff from this rich woman. We got a good haul, look . . .’ He thrust his hands into his pockets, then offered Shalev a scoop of gems and necklaces.

  Shalev smiled crookedly. ‘A good haul indeed, Caley.’

  He loved hearing her talk – her tone was rich and rounded, her accent heavy and exotic. She invited him to dream of a world far from his own existence.

  The others in the room began to stir, moving towards Caley’s hands, but Shalev asked a question out loud.

&
nbsp; ‘Do you think’, she declared, ‘it is right to be tempted by such trinkets? These are the things that separate them out there from you down here. The trinkets are obtained by forcefully removing their materials from other islands, often by slaves who have been forced to submit to the labour. And they are now used to keep you out of the newer houses, out of real daylight. Just you remember that. These are what repress you.’

  Caley got a better look at the folk gathered here, most from the old unions, the smiths, or some who made a career scavenging the old mining deposits for remnant ore, and who somehow scraped a living. There were a couple of scholarly types, too, who went around as intellectuals, filling the back rooms of taverns with their theory. Still, they were good sorts. And all could not take their eyes off the contents of Caley’s hands, so he placed them on the desk behind Shalev to rid himself of the burden.

  ‘Good, Caley. You’re learning well. So, tell me – what happened to Rend?’

  ‘Give you one fuckin’ guess,’ Caley retorted.

  ‘Don’t speak to her like that,’ someone behind him said.

  Shalev waved the comment away. ‘I’m not your superior,’ she reminded them.

  ‘ ’Xactly,’ Caley muttered. ‘You ain’t no real Council.’

  ‘They are our temporary Central Anarchist Council though,’ Shalev corrected, ‘and they have a role to play in regenerating this underground society before we can spread out power evenly. Once we have established ourselves in the city and created a more equal society then we shall dissipate naturally. So we should treat each other with great respect, Caley.’ She regarded him with such a powerful gaze he thought he might turn to ice. ‘I am going to hazard a guess that it was the Villjamur Knights who took Rend?’

  ‘Yeah, the female one. She ran across the damn walls of the buildings to get to us!’

  ‘The Villjamur Knights,’ Shalev breathed, more to herself than anyone else. ‘They are becoming annoying, are they not?’

  ‘It ain’t safe out there any more. We can’t just go around nicking shit without one of ’em waiting in the shadows.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ Shalev pushed herself off the desk and towards the grate, whereupon she studied the flames. For a while no one said anything, and Caley shuffled his feet waiting for something to happen.

  Suddenly Shalev had an answer: ‘The creation of the Knights is simple: to promote fear in those who challenge the Empire. A popular strategy. So if they are after such a campaign, we will use the same technique, too. It would be a good idea to target more obvious symbols like them. We will target the military, perhaps, the city guard who patrol the streets and we will kill them publicly – moreover, fewer guard will make it easier to take back more purses or more items from shops, which feeds into our greater purpose. And the aim of our more vicious attacks is simple: to remove the structures of power and authority. It is power over another that prevents there ever being a fair society, and the Emperor will not have a clue that our aim is a complete deconstruction of Villjamur.’

  She turned and ruffled Caley’s hair and examined the gathered body of men. ‘Are we agreed, brethren?’

  A chorus of ayes.

  ‘But I moot that we do not kill all of those in authority,’ she continued. ‘First, we bleed them of information, since we need more knowledge about the Knights – these may present a severe problem for our movement.’ Shalev picked up a copy of the People’s Observer and gestured to the front page. ‘This vicious filth and hate-spreading propaganda suggests they are invincible, but we know better than to believe what we read, don’t we? They must have weaknesses, and we will find them. These walking weapons must somehow be disabled.’

  *

  Mid-evening, no later than nine, Lan returned to the streets and teamed up with Vuldon on a small bridge over a hefty drop. One of the distant spires, towards the front of the city, was churning out thick smoke. Skies had cleared, presenting the smoke cloud as some horrible shadow-creature, leering over the first and second levels of Villjamur.

  ‘Should we investigate?’ Lan asked.

  ‘Could be a house fire or could be a more serious attack,’ Vuldon replied. ‘We’ll not find out by staying here.’

  She kept pace with him, skipping slowly across the rooftops, while he traversed the bridges, spiral stairwells and discreet alleyways framed by high stone walls. She could hear his breathing and boot-scuffs constantly as he thundered beneath her along the streets like a bullish military horse.

  The spire, when they reached it, was set on the second level of the city; a huge, curved building, probably no more than a hundred years old, crafted out of coarse granite blocks. From the ground the thing seemed immense. Starlight defined its edges, which led to impossible heights and up there somewhere tiny flames began to lick their way out, flaring into the night sky.

  Vuldon said to Lan, ‘You should get up the side of the building if you can and crack open some windows on the way. If I remember jobs like this, you might get a lot of people at the windows trying to jump in order to get the fuck out of there. Can you carry a human or rumel? You might have to.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ she replied. ‘I’m not as strong as you, but my inner forces should be enough. I think by now I can do some tricks with gravity.’

  ‘If you’re not sure—’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ she snapped.

  ‘Good. I’ll clear the way from the ground up, and smash my way through any closed doors.’

  Lan crouched then pushed herself upwards and onto the side of the building, sprinting up the stonework. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Vuldon slam-kick the front double doors and barge his way inside.

  The wind grew stronger as she climbed higher. As she reached a level parallel to bridges, people began to shout at her, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. With her heel she smashed in the first window, but the fire hadn’t reached that far down. When she withdrew her foot she nearly slipped and stumbled – her heart missing a beat – but with her arms out wide and more focused concentration, she stabilized herself again.

  Lan resumed her ascent.

  Screams were leaking out from the inside. She could hear them faintly at first, someone wailing, like the call of the dead. Are we too late? Lan wondered. The noise spurred her on and she rose ever upwards, smashing in windows, always looking in to see if anyone was inside who needed help.

  Then, with her foot on one windowsill, a hand suddenly clutched her shin – it was a pale-faced, dark-haired woman garbed in white robes. Stitches arced across her forehead and she appeared to be phenomenally undernourished.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Lan shouted, prising the woman’s fingers from her leg in case she stumbled. ‘Do you need help?’

  The woman simply stared back at her, wide-eyed. Lan climbed down and angled herself into the grim room. Inside was a bed, a desk and a bucket. The metal door at the other end was locked and, Lan noticed, possessed a barred grille at eye level. Smoke began to drift down, so Lan turned, grabbed the woman, who simply became rigid as if expecting Lan to beat her. Lan dragged her to the window and, using all her strength, edged the woman up onto the sill; with an almighty heave, Lan jumped into the air with the woman clutching Lan in a death grip. Together they tumbled onto an adjacent bridge.

  Loosening the woman’s constricting hold, Lan grabbed either side of the woman’s face and stared into her eyes. ‘I’ll return to see if you are OK – I promise.’ With that, she dashed back through the air, onto the side of the building, and continued further up.

  The smoke was pungent now, and Lan thought there were probably a whole host of fabrics being combusted inside. At this height the cityscape opened up around her, in full panorama, little lights in the various nearby rooms, people standing at the windows, people on the bridges – there was no doubt that Villjamur could be a beautiful city.

  Then above was a distinct scream.

  Lan smashed in another window and smoke billowed out. Oh my . . . Lan wrenched her gaze away in sh
ock, but forced herself to look inside, holding her hand across her mouth because of the fumes.

  A corpse lay on the floor in a large pool of blood – it was a woman with her throat slit and a sharp chunk of glass in her bloodied hand. She was clothed exactly like the woman a few floors below, and again the room was furnished in the same way.

  Lan headed further up the side of the building.

  As the wind ravaged her, she managed to reach the penultimate floor. Again smoke billowed out when she kicked in the window. She waited to let it clear, gripping the edge of the window frame for support, but the smoke kept on spilling into the evening air.

  Eventually, holding her mouth, Lan climbed inside.

  This wasn’t a room like the others. It was a mezzanine, with once-grand stairways and an opulent lobby, decorated in shades of grey and purple. A layer of smoke was crawling across the ceiling, and the heat was intense, even though she couldn’t see the fire.

  Vuldon’s voice: he was shouting for people to exit the building.

  Lan plunged further inside to locate him, and a stream of people drifted past her with a dreamlike reluctance to escape the flames she could now see roaring away in a vast chamber just beyond. Vuldon’s hulking figure was practically flinging people out and down the stairs.

  Suddenly one of the supporting frames behind him gave way; the ceiling began to buckle, one floorboard at a time snapping under the strain. Vuldon lurched forwards, and the fire upstairs collapsed down with an enormous noise, then began to spread. The room was now blocked by blackened and burning wood.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, you stupid bitch!’ Vuldon shouted, ‘help me get them out!’

  Lan glided to his side, the smoke starting to infiltrate her lungs. They had to be quick, so with Vuldon she began to smash the blockade with bits of furniture – metal stands and chairs – and soon there was enough of a clearing for her to squeeze through. Flames engulfed her, but she concentrated on channelling the effects within, and the fire began to respect some abstract boundary around her body. Absurdly, Lan was now repelling the flames, and inhabited a bubble of her own making.