by Jaine Fenn
She ate her bread and cheese in a corner while watched by everyone and approached by no one. Rhia said harming a skykin was a crime, thanks to the ages-old pact following the Separation, but that didn’t mean she’d be welcomed.
On Rhia’s advice she asked for a private room; she moved the chair to block the door, and slept with her knife under her pillow.
The Sun is Life. The Sun is Death. The Sun is the centre of all things.
Rhia’s whispered “Hah!” blew a puff of dust across the ground under her cheek.
The universe doesn’t work like I thought it did.
The Sun is the centre of all things.
It was obvious. Simple. Moons went round the world – round the worlds, given the Matriarch had a moon too. And the worlds, all of them, went round the Sun.
Of course the Strays traced spiral paths, when viewed from the world’s surface. In moving around the Sun they appeared to come closer, and go farther away, because they took their own courses, unrelated to the world’s. Their apparent changes of direction were optical illusions.
The world is just one world among many. The Sun is the centre of all things.
This revelation must not die with her.
She opened her eyes, released her hold on the sightglass, and pushed herself upright. The movement sent cramps through her body. She held herself erect and still until they passed.
I have the measure of you, Sun. I solved you.
When she had gathered her strength, she rummaged through her possessions for her notebook and pen. Her hand shook as she unscrewed the inkpot.
Has my whole life led up to this revelation? Or have I gone mad? And would anyone ever read her words? Perhaps some foraging skykin unaware of its significance might one day use this book for kindling.
But she had to record her findings. It was what she did.
“The Sun is the centre of all things…”
Her pen caught and slid, leaving the words barely legible. But she drew on the last of her strength, and wrote until the ink ran out. Then she lay down and watched the world turn.
Soon it would be dark, and safe to get water, to quench the thirst that had expanded to fill her head, her body, her soul. But the journey was beyond her. Right now, a trip to the stream was about as feasible as walking to Shen.
She risked another prayer, asking that her writings be found one day.
Then she closed her eyes.
Chapter 58
Dej stared at the impossible sight. A hill covered in houses. She knew a lot of people lived in the city, but knowing and seeing were different things. Hundreds of buildings crammed together, so close and tight it was impossible to see where one ended and the next began. How could anyone live like that?
And so many people on the road, heading towards the city as evening drew closer. Most of them stared at her. Another small group passed now, where she stood gawking at the view; they gawked back at her. She gave them what she hoped was a don’t-mess-with-me look, then raised her hood and carried on.
Once she crossed the bridge she kept one hand on Rhia’s satchel, and one on her knife. She was amazed at the variety and number of people bustling through the gaps between buildings; the streets, Rhia had called them.
She worked her way up the hill into the richer area, using Rhia’s map. Everyone stared at her now. Sometimes people looked like they might speak to her when she stopped to check her map, but no one did.
Nearer the top of the hill the roads had a surface of small stones, and everything was cleaner and bigger. Half a dozen young boys in bright, tight breeches followed her for a while, whispering and pointing, until she turned and glared at them. They ran off down a narrow stairway.
Rhia’s map included notes Dej couldn’t make head nor tail of: what did the silver stair (steep) or the courtesans’ guild (avoid) mean? After wandering through streets of tall-as-trees houses she gave up and asked for directions. She chose a less well-dressed older man, and asked the way to the Harlyn house in what she hoped was a firm and commanding tone. The man gave her directions then hurried off.
The house, when she found it, was one she’d already passed, just one more blank-faced mansion. The first time she saw it she’d discounted it as being the Harlyn house due to its shuttered windows, but if she hadn’t been so befuddled by the city she’d have realized that if the owners of a house went away, their house would be shuttered. She hoped someone was in.
She rapped on the door. After a long pause, it was opened by a young girl dressed in clothes which wouldn’t have been out of place in the crèche. “I must see Steward Markave,” said Dej with as much confidence as she could muster.
The girl stared at her, then pulled the door closed. Dej resisted the urge to kick it.
The door opened again, and an older woman scowled at her. “Steward Markave is not here. What business do you have with him?”
Rhia had said Markave was her first choice to give the letter to, but that any member of the household could be trusted. “Who are you?”
The woman harrumphed at the impertinent question, then said, “I’m his wife. So, what do you want with my husband?”
“I have a letter for him.”
“Then you may give it to me– Where did you get that?” The woman had spotted the ring Dej wore.
“The countess gave it to me.”
“I doubt that.” The woman shook her head. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t call the militia.”
“Because I have this letter!” It made a change to be accused of stealing something she hadn’t stolen.
“Let me see.”
Dej handed over Rhia’s letter.
The woman studied the letter, her lips moving as she read. Then she said, “You’d better come in.”
Inside, the hall was high and clean and dim. The woman said, “Wait here, I’ll fetch someone.”
“Who?”
“Someone in authority.”
Dej looked around for somewhere to wait.
“No, stay right here. Don’t go anywhere.”
The woman smelled agitated. Having no other choice, Dej stayed where she was while the steward’s wife hurried out the door, slamming it behind her.
Alone again, Dej stared up into the shadowed heights of the hall. A staircase wide enough for three people to walk side-by-side ran up the walls to the top of the house; Dej saw rafters up there. The hall was lit fitfully by lanterns hung from the underside of the staircase. A tabby cat peered through the wooden banister halfway up to the next storey.
At ground level the hall contained a shrine in a niche like those at the crèche and a spindly, useless-looking table. There were three doors. The first, when she opened it, gave into a grand room with shuttered windows; Dej made out a large table in the centre. The second room, also shuttered, contained high-backed chairs and smelled of dried flowers. The final, plainer door was locked – or rather, there was some resistance when she tried it, as though someone had jammed it shut.
Rather than disobey and explore further, Dej looked out of the tiny window beside the door. Though the window on the other side of the door was boarded over, this one had actual glass in it, like guests drank from at the crèche. Bubbles and impurities gave a weird and warped view of the outside world.
Not so warped Dej couldn’t spot the steward’s wife on her way back. She marched alongside a man in heavy dark clothing who carried a drawn sword. Behind them were half a dozen similarly dressed men, moving with precise and menacing confidence.
This didn’t look good. Or perhaps it was normal; perhaps she should wait meekly like she’d been told to. But the steward’s wife had kept the letter. Dej still had the ring but without the letter, who’d think she had been given it, when the more likely – and often correct – assumption was that she was a thief?
Dej ran up the stairs. The cat turned and fled into a half-open door on the first landing.
Dej threw open the door, to be faced with a dark bedroom with shuttered windows. She du
cked out. The next room along was the same, dark and shuttered.
The front door opened. The men marched in. Dej pressed herself into the wall, away from a casual glance, and crept up to the next landing.
“Nerilyn!”
The woman’s shout echoed through the stairwell but she wasn’t looking up. Dej continued her ascent.
“Nerilyn, it didn’t escape out the back, did it?”
It. Charming. She reached the top landing and tried the first door. It was unlocked, and she tumbled through, pushing it shut behind her.
This room was shuttered too. She was screwed anyway; in her panic she’d climbed too high to jump out of a window even if she could open the shutters. Despite the dim light she could see this room was full of clutter.
On the far side a ladder was propped up against the wall; above it a trapdoor was cut into the wooden ceiling. Dej dodged junk to run across the room. She climbed the ladder, and hit the trapdoor with the heel of her hand. Perhaps she could hide up there.
The trapdoor banged open. Dej winced. What passed for daylight flooded in. She stuck her head through and found herself looking across a small platform set into a pitched roof.
She hauled herself up onto the platform and closed the trapdoor. As it snicked shut she heard the door open below.
Ahead was a flimsy wooden railing; beyond that a long drop to the street. The house down the hill from here was too far away; she’d never jump that gap. Behind her was a wall of weathered wood with a folded stool resting against it; to either side, two wooden walls slanted down where the platform was cut into the roof.
Dej crept to the wall on the far side of the platform and climbed, with slow care and a pounding heart, up onto the roof. The angle was no steeper than the slope she’d climbed after the landslide, and covered in rugged tiles. Easy. She leaned into the roof and half crawled, half scuttled upwards. When she reached the roof ridge she looked both ways. To the left was a chimney of heavy brick. The nearest house, to the right, was closer than the one at the front. That leap was doable.
She stood up on the peak of the roof. It was less than two handsbreadths wide. She suspected the view from up here would be impressive but had no intention of checking.
Below, the trapdoor clattered open.
She began to run along the roof.
Just before she jumped she saw a shocked face at an open window set into the roof ahead.
A moment in the air, then the far roof lurched up to meet her. She flailed for purchase, scraping knees and hands. Her left leg caught, and she reached out, hand brushing a tile, then catching hold of its edge. She jerked to a painful stop.
Dej caught her breath. She was straddling the small peak above the window she’d glimpsed.
“Hey,” she called softly, “You still in there?”
The face had been a girl about her own age, shaking something – a rug? bedding? – out the window. She heard a gasp, and movement.
“Wait!” Left hand splayed across the tiles to support her, Dej reached into the satchel and fumbled a coin out. “Look, look what I’ve got!”
Her throw – backhanded and blind – was never going to be accurate, but she thought the coin flew past the window.
“I’ve got money. Lots of it. It’s yours if you get me out of here.”
“I should tell my mistress…” the girl’s voice was uncertain.
“Then she’d get the money. And you’d probably get in trouble.”
A pause. Then, “Where are you? I can’t see you.”
“I’m above you. When I climb down I’ll need your help to get inside.”
“All right.”
Dej hoped the girl meant it. She got a firm grip with her hands, then unhooked her left leg, easing it round. She lowered herself along the tiles beside the window whose little peaked roof had broken her fall. Looking in she saw a pale-faced girl, wielding a stick – Dej recognized it as a rug beater. For a moment she thought the girl was going to attack her, especially as she couldn’t have been expecting the stranger on the roof to be a skykin. But then the girl held the rug beater out. Dej grasped it and used it to brace herself. Then she climbed, with exquisite care, in through the window.
She found herself in a child’s nursery. The girl stepped back and smiled nervously. Dej fished Rhia’s purse out from the satchel. “When I leave here safely, the money’s yours,” said Dej.
The girl nodded and turned on her heel.
Dej followed the servant through the house. When the girl ducked into a room without warning, Dej followed. They stared at each other as heavy footsteps passed the door. When they reached the ground floor the girl opened the back door, which led into a small yard. Dej tossed a handful of coins at her and ran through the back gate.
Downhill, to the right, she heard voices, men giving orders. Could she lose them and get out of the city? Probably, with care and a little luck.
And go where?
Uphill, at the very top of the city, was the palace. Rhia had admitted that not everyone in the palace could be trusted, and Dej no longer had her letter with its list of those who could. And her reception so far hadn’t been good.
Perhaps this was far enough.
Chapter 59
A shadow made her flinch. Rhia blinked her eyes open, annoyed at being disturbed now she had made her peace with the universe.
It took several attempts to focus. When she did she saw someone standing in the mouth of the cave.
Her heart leapt. Etyan! He wasn’t dead; he had come back! She levered herself up onto one arm and focused.
It wasn’t Etyan.
This person was tall, wiry and half naked: a skykin. Had the girl returned already? But this skykin was a stranger. A hallucination? She would have expected to hallucinate someone recognizable, and useful. Sorne or Markave or Father.
The skykin grunted and peered into the cave.
Rhia held her breath.
The skykin spoke. “How about this, then?” The voice was lower than Dej’s. Something about it tickled Rhia’s memory.
“Go ’way,” croaked Rhia, her lips cracking.
“Don’t think I will.”
Though the skykin had the light behind him, Rhia knew him now. The leader of the bandits. She shrank back against the wall.
“You remember me, then?” Rhia got the impression the rogue skykin was smiling. He strode into the cave. The evening light caught his face, showing a half-healed gash running from chin to forehead; the eye socket on that side was empty, red and puckered. “I’ve had a really shit week,” he said conversationally, “how about you?”
The universe had surprised her again. She had thought things could not get any worse. It appeared they could.
“I’ll take that as a yes. Thought I was dead when I washed up downstream. Must’ve been out of it for days. Woke up to find a rockslither eating my eye. It’s a long walk home and I was thinking I’d use the caves to rest up. And here you are, sister of the boy who caused all this trouble. Where is he?”
“Lea’ me alone.”
He lunged forward and grasped her throat, not so tight she couldn’t breathe, but tight enough she couldn’t move. “I said, where is your brother?”
“Dead!” she croaked.
The skykin paused, then said, “Didn’t you hear me say, when we first met, that we can smell lies?”
Rhia said nothing. She noted with cold detachment this foible of skykin ability, or of her own mind: because she did not want to believe Etyan was dead, her assertion smacked of untruth.
The skykin released his hold and leant back. “So, he may or may not be around, but I do have you. Perhaps you’ll be worth something. If nothing else, to draw him out.” He looked at her. “Considering how much you had to say before, you’re very quiet now. How about coming back with me, and we’ll see if the boy follows?”
“He’s dead.” Rhia drew a breath, “And you… you can just fuck off.”
He slapped her face. Her head flopped to one side.
/> She couldn’t remember the last time someone had hit her. She couldn’t remember ever saying that word, used once by a bully, out loud. It was turning into quite a day.
She didn’t realize she was giggling until the skykin shouted, “Stop that!” He grabbed her arm, dragging her away from the wall. She flopped onto the earth, too weak to resist.
He let go of her, then leaned over to place a hand on either side of her head. “We can’t leave this cave until it gets dark or you’ll fry, so we’ve some time to pass together. And I must say, you’ve got far too much cheek for my liking. I think you need to be taught some respect.” He grabbed her skirt, and pulled it up. Rhia thought, incongruously, of the poor dead girl, of what she had endured before she lost her life. The skykin lifted a leg, bringing his knee down between hers, forcing them apart.
With the last of her strength Rhia jerked her knee up, hard, into his groin.
He yelped and fell back.
Before Rhia could draw breath, he sprang forward again and punched her on the jaw. Rhia’s teeth snapped together and she tasted blood. The next blow battered her ribs. Then the side of her head. A blow to her stomach made her entire body spasm.
His blows hurt so much she didn’t care that he was going to kill her. She just wanted him to stop. When darkness crept in from the edge of her vision, she welcomed it.
The guard stared at Dej. “You want to what?”
“See the duke. Now, please.”
The guards wore the same colours as the men who’d come to Rhia’s house, with short staves on their belts. They didn’t look like they were going to draw them, which was good, but she’d had to show them Rhia’s ring before they’d stop shouting at her to be off. She hoped they had the wit to work out that if she had stolen a noble’s ring she’d hardly be turning herself in at the palace.
“What makes you think he wants to see you, scaly?”
Ohh, an insult. She wasn’t surprised, but was disappointed at how unimaginative it was. “Because,” she said, meeting his gaze while keeping half an eye on the other one, “I know where Lord and Lady Harlyn are.”
