Quest SMASH

by Joseph Lallo

  He stepped inside and tripped over something. By the skylights, it was dark in here. According to the maps in the diary, there should be a light somewhere on the wall.

  He stumbled to the side, hands outstretched, until his palms met slime-covered stone. A waft of cold air drifted in from outside.

  Ah, there was the lever, the metal ice-cold under his fingers. He pushed it up. A light flicked on, cold and white and incredibly bright. It came from a round globe unlike the oil lamps used by the common folk in the city or the gas lamps in Chevakia.

  The beauty, the wonder of it. How could the Pirosian Eagle Knights have denied the people of the City of Glass this technology? How could they have condemned the citizens to living in poverty as primitives while these wonders existed?

  The room was dank and moist. Against the far wall, a staircase wound down into the earth, much like the dungeons in the palace, with which he had made unfortunate acquaintance, and just as slippery. Unlike the one in the palace, this staircase was covered in slime from disuse, accumulated over all those years that water had seeped through the stone.

  Tandor made his way down, groping along the wall for additional lights. A fear grew in him as to what he would find at the bottom of the stairs. What would remain of his plan if the machine was ruined by meltwater?

  The stairs ended in a round chamber. A table stood in the middle, and on it, an array of jars and tubes, a large metal box with levels and buttons. He ran his finger along a glass tube. A tingle of icefire crept up his hand. What purposes had this strange equipment served? There might be some records of it scattered in the antique shops of Chevakia and Arania, where refugees from the palace had taken their goods, but it was likely that no one would ever know. That was the crime the Eagle Knights had committed. All that knowledge lost. They had plunged the City of Glass into the worst period of backwardness history had ever seen, condemned anyone who was not of Pirosian noble blood to poverty. Simply because they were afraid of icefire, and jealous of those who could see and use it.

  At the far end of the room a bank of tables lined the wall, their surface a maze of controls and dials, many of which were rusty and probably no longer worked. In the old days, this machine distributed the power for the city’s heat and lights and for trains that flew along rails, much like Chevakia’s steam trains, but without the smoke, the stink and the noise of the engine.

  In those days, the machine they called the Heart of the City beat strongly in the catacombs of the palace. The more power was channelled away, the more the Heart produced. Now, ignored and isolated, cocooned in its underground prison, its beat had faded to a feeble throb. Even after they’d seized power, the Knights hadn’t been able to turn it off. Its fuel was contained within the machine, which dated from much further back.

  Tandor sank in the chair that faced the panels, and slowly extracted the key which he had spent months travelling to find from under his clothes. Discovering it, after a lifetime of searching, in a box of curiosities on a market in northern Chevakia, had been the culmination of his work. If he could turn the distribution network back on, the Heart would again be powerful, and increased icefire would be available to all who could use it around the city. Then those people, the Thilleians, would make the southern land great again. Of course it wasn’t quite so simple, even though his mother would like to think so, but it was a start.

  The key was a strange thing, a thin strip of metal as long as his thumb, with two ridges on either side. He slipped the chain that held it in place from around his neck, feeling the stern eyes of his dead ancestors prick in the back of his head. They knew what he risked, and they knew of the glory of days past, and of the disasters. They also knew that he had no army to control the icefire the machine would produce.

  They’re in the City of Glass already; they will help me because they are destined to do so.

  But he had to obtain their hearts for them to be unconditionally obedient to him. They had to be servitors, like Ruko. At the thought of Ruko, an unpleasant thought surfaced.

  If I wait any longer, I won’t be able to control him anymore. If I wait any longer, the Knights will kill the children, and then all my work will have been for nothing.

  He stared at the controls. Dust-coated engravings in the metal surface. Levers stuck out of slots, their handles made from Chevakian wood inlaid with river pearl. There were little silica windows with silver embossing, now dark and lifeless. The work oozed beauty and craftsmanship.

  I owe it to the souls of all the Imperfects who have been killed since the Knights took power.

  There would not be a second chance. This was the best time of the year to find the Eagle Knights distracted with the Newlight celebrations. Half of them would take part in the competitions and the other half would be drunk or in some woman’s bed.

  He didn’t have another fifteen years to scout out another army. It was make do with these children, or not at all. He did have enough power to get into the palace.

  I am no quitter, Mother, no matter how much you think I am.

  He breathed in deeply and slotted the key into the panel. Strands of icefire bent to his hand. He pressed a button. A tiny light lit up, under a cover yellowed with age. Silver engraving reflected the glow. Underneath the ice on the plain between here and the City of Glass, in a pipe that contained threads that Chevakians called wire, a signal would travel to the underground power network to come to life. And under the palace, the Heart would respond.

  Tandor went through the motions he had memorised from the diary. The network needed water to cool down. The underground passages needed to be opened up to let the heat escape. He slid up levers and turned dials. More lights blinked into life.

  Everything seemed to be working the way it should. He had five days before the machine would come into its full power. This would be one sizzler of a Newlight celebration.

  Cramped, shivering, Tandor rose from the seat.

  He charged back up the stairs, across the slippery bunker and out into the brightness of the snow-covered ice. He heaved the door back into its place and used his pick to push snow over it.

  Ruko waited in the driver’s seat, the reins in his hands, an impatient scowl on his face.

  Myra sat in the sled, rummaging through her luggage.

  Tandor jumped onto the seat. “Ready to go? From here straight to the City of Glass. We’ll be there today.”

  He expected a keen response from her. The prospects of visiting markets and shops had kept her happy for the past two days, but she wasn’t looking at the horizon at all. Her underwear was bunched around her knees. His heart jumped. Please, no.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “I’m bleeding.” She sniffed, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  “What does that mean?” His heart thudded.

  “I don’t know!”

  “Does it hurt?”

  She shook her head. “It’s only a tiny bit.” But her voice sounded unsteady. Her face was very pale. He glanced at her underwear, spotting streaks of blood-tinged slime. Was that normal?

  “Do you have any . . . pains?”

  She shook her head again.

  “You think you can hang on for a bit longer? We’re almost there.” By the skylights, please. He heard a woman’s screams in his mind. Then the feeble cry of a baby. The horrified voice of the midwife, This one’s deformed.

  “I think so,” Myra whispered.

  Tandor took a deep breath to calm his thudding heart. “Let’s go then.”

  Chapter 5

  THE EYRIE of the eagle knights perched atop the second highest tower in the City of Glass. A place where windows had been removed and eagles and their riders could fly in and out freely.

  Yellow feet outstretched, Carro’s eagle glided into this dark maw that was its home. Air disturbed by its flapping wings propelled straw in little eddies to the corners of the landing area. From their tethering spots further into the building, other eagles squawked a
nd ruffled feathers.

  Carro unclipped his harness and slid off the back of his eagle. He swayed with the effects of too much bloodwine, but he forced his feet to move. Never mind the Newlight festival, there’d be trouble if he was caught drunk in the Eyrie.

  Six birds stood tethered to the central bar. One of them was ripping at a mass of blood and fur that might once have been a Legless Lion cub. Two other birds were preening themselves, and one regarded Carro with a roving orange eye.

  Carro tied the reins to the far end of the bar and threw the bird a hunk of meat. As if it knew that he was supposed to rub it down before leaving, the animal cocked its head and gave him a disdainful glare before it pierced the meat with its claw to claim it. Yet it didn’t bend down to tear strips off the meat. It arched its neck. A series of spasms rippled through the animal’s body. It opened its beak wide and spat a fur ball onto the floor.

  A stable boy skittered past and shovelled it, still steaming, into a bucket. His eyes were wide. “Did you see that, how fast I got it?”

  If he expected coin, Carro had spent his last money on drink. He shrugged, and continued to the door, bloodwine churning uncomfortably in his stomach.

  That was not an honourable thing to do. But he had no coin left.

  After the market raids, the men had gone to the meltery. The older Knights had been drinking hard and had challenged him to keep up. Which he had, just, including two trips to the alley at the back of the meltery to spew, standing over the pink-stained snow, hating himself for the waste of money. His father might be a merchant, but he was an Outer City merchant with nowhere near as much wealth as the city nobles whose sons usually went into the Knighthood.

  He avoided the young stable boy’s questioning gaze.

  Later. He’d give double the going rate later. The thought only added to the misery he already felt.

  The merchant’s shocked face. I trusted you. All those others watching him. He’d betrayed his own people. What would they do when he came back, when he and Isandor flew in the race? Would they still cheer? What would the Knights do if they knew the full truth about him? There was no way, no way, he’d go back to his father.

  He left the eyrie for the darkness of the corridor. Against the wall stood an eagle statue carved from opaque glass, with orange gems for eyes.

  The Knight served his eagle; the eagle served the Knight.

  It was said that the first eagles had been bred in the palace from the much smaller birds that lived in the mountains. Rumours went that icefire had gone into their blood and that this was the reason they were big enough to carry a fully grown man in leather armour.

  The Tutor said that this was nonsense spread by “certain elements”, by which he meant the Brotherhood. But the Brothers said they spoke the truth about the eagles being giant forms of wild eagles, and many Knights believed it. This statue symbolised the first of those birds.

  The Tutors and upper command didn’t like it, but most Knights placed small offerings at the glass eagle’s feet. For luck. The Tutors didn’t like that either.

  Carro stopped and stroked the cold glass neck, smoothened by the passage of many hands. He leaned his forehead against the glass, hoping it would clear his drunken head. If you have any power at all, help me.

  Then again, why should it help him? He had never been brave enough to give an offering.

  * * *

  Carro’s mother sits across the table, yelling at him.

  If I hear one more word about that nonsense . . .

  It’s not nonsense. Just because his mother fails to understand why the Brotherhood does things such as calculating the power of sunlight doesn’t mean that it is untrue.

  It is true; he and Isandor did the experiment as it said in the book. They went out into the alley and let the light shine through the looking-glass they bought at the markets. The intense spot of light caused the paper to burst into flames. The book told them why this happened: because of the shape of the glass and the direction of the sunlight. It also explained that you could do a similar thing with icefire.

  They were laughing at their success when his mother found them.

  Carro hangs his head. No use arguing.

  Go and help your father in the warehouse. She flaps her hand at the door, already bored.

  Yes. mother.

  * * *

  Carro froze, his heart thudding, his cheek still against the glass beak of the eagle.

  Voices echoed from lower levels of the eyrie, the meaning inaudible. Carro heard his name in every shout, mockery in every bout of laugher. Even the winds whistling through the howling staircase shrieked his name. Carro, the betrayer. Carro, the gutless. Carro, who had to follow his cripple friend to the Knighthood.

  “There you are, Apprentice Carro.”

  Carro gasped.

  The Tutor Rider stood behind him, hands on his hips. A man with a beak-like nose, much like an eagle.

  Carro scrambled away from the statue, kicking a few coins across the stone floor. Blood rose in his cheeks. Had the Tutor seen how he’d embraced the glass eagle?

  “Where were you? I expected you at training.”

  “With the Knight patrol. You gave me permission—”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, the patrol Captain—”

  The Tutor slapped Carro’s face, hard. “The Eagle Order has five pillars: Obedience, Honour, Honesty, Humility and Silence. You disregard all of them. May I remind you that your status is of no import amongst the Knights?”

  Status? He had no status. His father was a lowly merchant. Oh, his status as the only Outer City Apprentice? His status as the Apprentices’ pissing post?

  His gaze on the toes of his boots—scuffed, unpolished—he said, “The Patrol Captain asked if I could come with them to the markets. You gave me permission to go.” He’d done nothing wrong—except getting drunk.

  The Tutor pushed Carro’s head up and spat in his face.

  “You disrespect me. And you’re drunk. Go to your dormitory and sleep it off. Report for cleaning duty tomorrow.”

  The Tutor turned and made for the door. “And be glad I’m not giving you worse punishment.”

  Carro looked up defiantly, wiping saliva off his face with the sleeve of his tunic.

  “And wash yourself. You’re disgusting!” the Tutor yelled in the confined space of the corridor. The sound of his footsteps faded.

  Carro went down the staircase which took him down to the Apprentices’ dormitory, a long room with rows of mats against both walls. Blankets lay neatly rolled-up at the head-end of each.

  A few older Learners huddled together on one mat, casting furtive glances at the door as Carro came in.

  “And then,” one boy was saying, “Then I could see her, right through her dress, you know, and man, does she have puppies.”

  The boys guffawed. One or two glanced at Carro.

  “Heh, you look like you fell off your bird again,” snorted one called Jono.

  They always had to remind him of that moment, in the second lesson, when his eagle had taken off so quickly that he hadn’t secured himself in the harness.

  Clamping his jaws, Carro crossed the room to the shelves at the far end, and took a clean uniform from the shelf labelled with his name.

  “Listen to me then,” another Apprentice said. “I seen her the day before yesterday. She were going into the baths. There were guards outside, and some went inside with her.”

  “Do you think they . . .”

  More guffaws.

  “Nah. She’ll pick the real pretty ones. Like that one.”

  All boys turned to Carro. A grin spread across Jono’s face.

  “Hey, pretty boy.”

  One elbowed the speaker in the side. “Hush. He be selected, I think. I heard some Tutors talking about him.”

  “And they let him stay with us? Do they want him undamaged?”

  Jono laughed aloud. For some reason, he’d b
een picking on Carro since the first day of their training. It started with comments on Carro’s clothing, and his parents. Then there had been taunts about the Outer City, and about his clumsiness and his girl-like curls—which Carro had cut off at the earliest opportunity.

  Carro kept his gaze to the floor. Do not talk back, do not talk back. With everything at the eyrie, that only made things.

  “Hey, boy? You be a virgin?”

  * * *

  Carro stares across the room. The girl has hair like bronze. It dances over her shoulders when she moves her head. She’s come with the seamstress who is going to make some new dresses for his sister to wear to dinner parties to show off the material his father has imported from Arania. Then rich women will come from the city to buy the fabric.

  Business. Fabric on the table and patterns spread out over the couch.

  The pretty girl should be wearing the dresses, not his dumpy sister. The girl would look like a goddess. She should be outside, celebrating Newlight, but instead she’s here with her boss on his mother’s whim.

  She smiles. Around her neck she wears a strip of leather with a gull’s tail feather tied to it. She’s freshly blooded and free to consort with whomever she wants. And she’s watching him.

  Carro’s cheeks burn with heat. Distant thumps of festival music roar in his ears.

  Carro, I told you to get the account books. Why haven’t you done it yet?

  Carro gasps. That’s his father. He’ll be in for another punishment when the seamstress leaves.

  He jumps up, but still looks at the girl, and doesn’t see the table. He hits the corner with his knee. Cups go flying with loud clanks and clatters. Tea seeps into the tablecloth.

  You clumsy boy! his mother yells.

  The girl giggles.

  Carro flees, blood throbbing in all sorts of uncomfortable places.

  * * *

  Carro snuck into the bathroom as quietly as he could, trying not to catch the boys’ attention.

  Here, his footsteps echoed in an icy silence of tiles and stone. Puffs of mist lingered in the air from his breath. The fire from the drying room barely brought any warmth. A fat icicle trailed from the tiny window in the top of the opposite wall almost to the ground. The city buildings were so different from those in the Outer City. These buildings were open, square and cold. The houses in the Outer City were round, without windows, and with a central stove that kept the house warm all day.