Dark Forge

by Miles Cameron

  He climbed up to the Precinct, watching the Yellowjacket post on the bridge and cursing himself for his own daring. There, he bowed to Tirase, and then walked along High Street to where Kallinikos had been murdered. Almost every lower storey window was boarded up; some he saw with many panes shattered, and there was a door that had clearly been beaten in with stones. It was ugly, and unexpected. He’d always thought of the Academy as inviolate, despite the Black Bird attack on him.

  His own door was still a chipped and ugly yellow.

  It was seven in the morning.

  On a whim he looked into Kallinikos’ rooms. They were obviously unoccupied, the shutters closed and a board nailed over the door. Kallinikos’ own window remained unboarded. The next house was also boarded. The bone plague had killed more than a dozen people here, and the riots had clearly done more harm.

  Aranthur looked up and down the street, and then stepped up onto the corner of the stone under Kallinikos’ window. It held his weight, as it had before.

  Even encumbered by the robe, he wriggled through the window, past the badly nailed boards. The bed on which his friend had been murdered was gone, and Aranthur dropped carefully to the floor. It smelled musty, but the walls had been freshly painted in elaborate patterns; there was a good fresco of Sophia on the ceiling.

  Aranthur explored the house, and found the back gate with a string to its simple lock—clearly the way people were intended to come and go; workmen, for example.

  After a while, Aranthur went to the sixth floor, and lay under the eaves in the hot attic, watching his own former rooms across the street and the door far below.

  They were occupied. He watched two, and then three young men get up and move about, passing in front of the glass window. He muttered imprecations about the dishonesty of landlords, and then cursed the loss of his sword and his tamboura. And his spare clothes, his bed hangings…

  “Bastards,” he said.

  But another hour of watching and he’d discovered that at least one of the young men had a black and yellow cloak, which put it all in a very different light. And then two Yellowjackets met in front of the yellow door below him.

  One was Djinar.

  “He was right here!” Djinar spat.

  The other Yellowjacket’s reply was inaudible.

  “How can you have missed him? If Timos is abroad in this city, the threat is… incalculable. He is a traitor, a servant of the enemy!”

  Aranthur blinked. And then lay, awash with fear and anger. The anger roiled along like some act of Dark magik. He grunted aloud at the thought that Djinar, who knew perfectly well what had happened in the battle on the Armean Plain, also knew who was the traitor…

  Djinar.

  “Darkness rising,” Aranthur spat.

  He sat up and banged his head on the slates of the underside of the ancient roof.

  It was all worse than he thought.

  He descended the stairs and slipped out of Kallinikos’ former lodging. He hesitated in the street. He walked up a square towards the two great courtyards and the ancient buildings around them. He thought about the last year and again decided against visiting the Master of Arts. The idea of some authority who would help him was seductive, but he was increasingly aware that he was on his own. The logic was the same—she would be carefully watched—and he turned. He walked along a tunnel he knew that ran to the back side of the Precinct, and then he walked back through the Small Garden, breaking one of Drako’s rules about reusing a route. This time he was lucky and the Small was unwatched, and he went out of the Gate and past the statue of Tirase. It all made him nostalgic for a simpler time. He looked out to sea from the height of the Pinnacle and tried to identify the trabaccolo through the haze, and then he went back down the steps. The red ribbon still showed on the wellhead. He went back to Sparthos’ courtyard, lay down on Sapu’s bed, and slept.

  He borrowed a brown cote of Sapu’s to go out in the afternoon, but the ribbon was still there.

  Aranthur had expected a more immediate result, and now he fretted. He had expected Tiy Drako to appear, almost instantly.

  Now he’d been out in broad daylight, twice, and Djinar had seen him. He was watching as well as he could, looking for people to recur, watching for unlikely sightings, but he was running out of time.

  “Timos? I could use you this evening,” Sparthos called from his back step. “Despite your sudden notoriety.”

  “Notoriety?”

  “The Watch has been ordered to take you for questioning. I heard this when I went to get a licence for two students to fight.”

  Aranthur felt himself flush. “I can’t—”

  Sparthos shrugged. “No one here will know you. But I will ask you to be gone in a day or so.”

  Aranthur found Sapu’s fencing clothes and put them on: canvas breeches; a plain leather doublet with a removable, washable lining. He had longer arms than Sapu, but the fit wasn’t bad.

  He had second or third thoughts on the landing, climbing to the fencing salle, but Sparthos shook his head.

  “No one you would know. All incoming first years.” Sparthos shrugged. “And not many of them. The bone plague is keeping people at home. All the ugly rumours. And your own mother wouldn’t recognise you. You look like a scarecrow.”

  Indeed, Aranthur didn’t know any of the students, and he moved among them, the junior teacher, correcting basic postures, asking one student for more fluidity. He was mostly quiet.

  He was surprised at how quickly he fell into the role. When the class put their weapons into the racks and began to file down the steps, the maestro smiled.

  “If the world ever returns to normal, you are welcome here. You have become a blade. There—it’s said.”

  Aranthur frowned. “I doubt I’m any better than when you saw me last, Maestro.”

  Sparthos smiled. “Have you ever known me to be generous with my compliments?”

  He coughed again. He coughed and coughed, and eventually took a handkerchief from his sleeve and used it.

  Aranthur couldn’t miss the blood on the white linen.

  Sparthos gave him that look—the poisonous look he’d worn when he’d almost died in the Inn of Fosse, a lifetime before. As if the blood on the handkerchief was somehow a failing.

  “Don’t tell my daughter,” he spat.

  Aranthur shook his head.

  The sword master stepped closer. “I’m serious, Timos. You have settled into excellence. Your sword work is like the best craftsmanship—stripped of adornment. I hope you will come back here. I hope all this nonsense ends…”

  Aranthur frowned. “It is not nonsense, Maestro.”

  Sparthos shrugged. “Is it not?” He nodded. “Please do not get caught. Note that I ask nothing.”

  He bowed and went down the stairs to his own chamber.

  Aranthur wondered how many of the inhabitants of the City, or indeed of the whole world, thought that the crack in the sky and the incursions of the Pure were annoying interruptions of wheel-making, ceramics, sword fighting, or a hundred other pastimes.

  Somehow the thought gave him room to breathe.

  He changed back into his student’s robe, and went back out into the night. This time he paid to be floated past the little corte and the wellhead in a gondola. The ribbon was still there, lit by the torches on the corners of the richer buildings.

  Aranthur felt too exposed, even in the darkness. But even as the gondolier rowed them along with his single oar, a young girl crossed the bridge. Aranthur saw her stop, and then run to the wellhead, where she untied the ribbon, and put it in her hair.

  “Blessed Sophia,” Aranthur said.

  Of course silk ribbon was valuable. Was she a Cold Iron member? Or just a poor girl who wanted a scarlet ribbon?

  But what gave him a little hope was that she’d been in the colours of the Palace.

  He went back to Sapu’s and got a few hours of sleep. At midnight he rose, convinced by then that he was wasting his time, and went acros
s the first bridge to the broad piazza behind the noble’s palaces. The piazza ran down to the water, and was commonly called the Angel because of the statue there, reputed to be solid gold.

  The Angel had appeared to Tirase, or so it was said. He looked at the statue, and then out to sea. Aranthur’s military ship had sailed from just there… He walked along the square, under the powerful magelights that shone on the Angel. It was his rendezvous, if the signals system had been working. He wondered about Inoques and Dahlia, who were probably close offshore, waiting for two green lights. He thought of Tiy Drako, and his network of agents. And of what it meant that Djinar was looking for him.

  Something was very wrong. Everything was wrong. He’d feared as much, but the reality was worse.

  The Angel was almost deserted. Aranthur was not ready to leave the square, because he knew in his heart that when he walked away, it would be to fetch a red lantern—an admission that the City was not safe.

  He looked at the Angel. The sculpture was superb; the body of the angel sculpted with incredible attention to detail.

  Including the lines of engraving around the angel’s wrists and neck.

  Aranthur paused. He looked around. The great square was almost empty. Granted, the Academy was two weeks from opening, but on a pleasant summer night, the Angel should have had a thousand people, courting, gaming, or just strolling to be seen among the dozen tavernas.

  Instead, there were fewer than two hundred people. There was one big, raucous party at the eastern end. The revellers were very well dressed.

  He stepped up onto the rail that surrounded the statue. An alarm sounded—a thin, piping sound—and he jumped down, feeling like a fool, but with enough self-possession to pretend to be a drunk. He’d seen the writing on the Angel’s wrists. Like tattoos.

  He was still in a state of mental shock as he walked unsteadily along the waterfront, and the alarm stopped. He looked out to sea, and was afraid.

  He turned for the refuge of the fencing salle. In ten minutes he’d gone from hope to real fear. He could feel the fear throughout his body. He didn’t even understand. He was just afraid.

  Tirase’s angel was a construct? The sculptor wanted people to know that?

  He wished for a weapon. For friends around him. He began to walk more quickly.

  A figure detached itself from the loud group—the only loud group, a dozen young people who were all drunk by an elaborate tent. Nobles.

  Aranthur headed for the first bridge.

  The slim figure from the drunken group moved faster, pacing him, and Aranthur felt the ice in his spine. He didn’t dare to run, and he had neither sword nor dagger.

  He came to the middle of the arched bridge, and looked back. The slim man in high boots was crossing the lower bridge parallel to him. Aranthur turned away, and the sound of the slim man’s boots followed him.

  Aranthur turned again, afraid of getting lost in an unfamiliar part of the City. He decided to go uphill. He passed out of the prosperous neighbourhood, and began to climb muddy steps.

  He passed his first bone plague victim, a pile of rags and flesh, and his bile rose in his throat. The smell was cloying, sweet and grotesque.

  He looked back, and the man in the boots appeared from an alley below him.

  They were perhaps twenty-five paces apart, and Aranthur had no place to run.

  “Who in the thousand hells are you?” asked the figure. Aranthur knew the voice immediately.

  “Iralia!” he said. “Oh, gods!”

  It was indeed Iralia. She looked tired, and she wore men’s clothes and no make-up. She looked nothing like the glorious beauty who accompanied the Emperor in public. Whom he’d saved in the snow, fifteen months before.

  She had a dagger in her hand. “Who are you, syr?” she asked.

  “Aranthur Timos,” he said.

  She flinched. “Aranthur? Blessed Aphres, Aranthur. Almost all of us are taken. I got your message… I thought Tiy had escaped or some miracle had happened. Where have you been?”

  He looked back over her shoulder.

  “You’re being followed,” he said.

  “That’s not news.” She flattened herself against the building. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked behind her. “Tribane sent me. To the Emperor.”

  She squeezed his hand. “General Tribane is still… alive?”

  Aranthur nodded. “Alive? Still fighting. She is victorious. Roaris was sent home in disgrace.”

  He was watching the two dark figures who were trying to appear casual, leaning against the balustrade of the old steps he’d just climbed. Plain cloaks.

  She looked down.

  “I can hide us,” he said. “I have other problems…”

  She shook her head. “I’m still safe in the palace. So are you. Come with me.”

  Aranthur shook his head. “Damn. Where’s Tiy?”

  “They arrested him yesterday. I only came out to see if there was anyone left to help me… rescue him.” She glanced at him, her face set. “The Emperor is very sick. Even…” Her voice bubbled but did not break. “Even dying,” she managed. “Aphres, Aranthur. I am not a poor weak woman by anyone’s standards, but you are a sending from the gods.”

  “The Emperor? And Tiy Drako arrested?” Aranthur whistled. “Let’s move. These two gentlemen do not have our best interests at heart.” He glanced at her as they started to walk, and tentatively he reached out to her. “The Emperor… Is it…the darkness?”

  Iralia looked at him again.

  “I’m no Imoter. You know that,” she said. Then, in a rush, “I think I’m supposed to think he has ‘the darkness.’ But I think it’s poison. I try all his food. The Palace is a sieve. Aphres, Aranthur—this place—”

  “Where’s Drako?”

  She was moving up the steps rapidly, and he followed her.

  “Held at the Lonika Gate,” Iralia said.

  “And Kurvenos?”

  “No one knows. Drako went to find him. I thought you might—”

  “You don’t even have a knife to spare me?” he asked.

  Iralia smiled. “We have better weapons than knives,” she said with something of her former brilliance.

  Aranthur considered, somewhat bemused, that he had just been missing his lack of a weapon; what Iralia said was true. Yet he felt a strange repugnance to use his powers directly to harm, even after the Black Bastion, or perhaps because of it.

  “I’d still be happier if I had a sword.”

  Iralia flashed another one of her brilliant smiles and turned right, crossing High Bridge. It was one of the few places in the City where the ridge that dominated the centre was cleft by a deep watercourse that became the Great Canal far below. It was a sort of public park, with waterfalls and secluded bowers much beloved of courting couples, but it tended to split the north side into two, crossed by two ancient and very ornate bridges, both dating to the First Empire. The Low Bridge was still a respectable fifty paces above the Great Canal. The High Bridge, at the very top of the park steps, linked the back of the Academy to the rest of Northside.

  Aranthur followed her across. In the middle of the bridge they stopped. He put his arm around Iralia’s waist, and she put her arms around his neck.

  “Now there are three of them,” she said. “You are all skin and bones!” she added.

  Aranthur was looking the other way, where there were also three shapes moving in the magelights that marked the edge of the Precinct on the north side.

  “Who are they?”

  “Lions. I don’t think they’re from the Watch. They’re not very good. But I suspect they plan to take me. I am a notorious harlot and rake, and taking me this far from the Emperor will allow them to say… anything.” She leant against him. “We should just be able to walk through them.”

  Aranthur walked with her, his arm still on her waist, leaning slightly as if a little drunk.

  “Stop!” shouted one of the men ahead of them, on the Academy side. He’d a
ugmented his voice, and it sounded deep and almost ridiculously pompous. “Stop and be searched!”

  Aranthur kept walking.

  The three men were perhaps fifty paces away, and now those behind were hurrying to catch up.

  “Put a barrier behind us,” Aranthur said.

  Iralia hummed, and then turned. She stood for a moment and then followed him.

  “Is this the Precinct?” he called out to the Yellowjackets ahead. “Are you from the Academy?”

  “Halt!” called the deep voice.

  Another voice, shrill with apprehension, said, “She just used power! I saw it!”

  Aranthur identified two of the three men at the Academy end as Magi. They were second or third year students, and he did not want to hurt them. So he reached out with Ansu’s trick, learnt what seemed like an aeon before, and when Deep Voice tried to cast, Aranthur cut his casting off as he summoned power, the Zhouian way. Deep Voice was too inexperienced to have seen this simple tactic, and he stood, stunned, when he couldn’t access the Aulos.

  Aranthur was then less than twenty paces away with Iralia just behind him.

  “Draw! Draw!” called Deep Voice.

  His voice was no longer augmented because in his initial panic at losing the Aulos he’d also lost his concentration.

  All three men drew their swords.

  Iralia gestured, and a plane of pale lavender fire sprang out of the bridge. At a nod from her, a second plane intercepted it at an acute angle, like the prow of a ship, and the two of them followed it. The three men with swords were simply excluded by the two fields, which they could not penetrate, and Aranthur and Iralia walked past them. As soon as they were past, Iralia closed the two planes of light as if they were gates, walling the three men on the bridge.

  “How long will that last?” Aranthur asked. “Beautiful, by the way.”

  “Not long. But long enough. Line of sight.”

  The two of them took a long, circling path that went up to the level of the Academy but kept the High Bridge apron in sight the whole way. At the top, Iralia cast something else—something very colourful, directly onto the surface of the bridge—and then cancelled her shields. The two of them entered the Precinct, stepping across the inscribed gold line.