The Deep and Shining Dark

by Juliet Kemp

  Jonas didn’t know. It wasn’t a thing that happened in Salina. But he’d seen enough since coming to Marek to nod with a sympathetic look.

  “I like messengering partly because of the people, you know?” Asa went on, half-shyly. “The thing I said before, about looking out for one another, you know? I mean, I know you’ve not been here long, but… Well, angels, I hope we’ve all been doing that for you, too.”

  “You have,” Jonas said, and it was true, although he half-surprised himself with his own certainty. “I know what you mean.”

  It was that shipboard sense of camaraderie, again, and he hadn’t expected to find it in Marek, but it was there.

  His spine tingled, and Asa was standing up and leaving the table, walking towards the bar.

  “I’ll get the next one,” Asa said, and stood up, leaving the table and walking towards the bar. Jonas scowled. He hated those sorts of flickers, the ones that nearly overlapped reality. Even on the occasions that they helped him win at dice or cards, they were unsettling, like double vision.

  He stared down at the table, and pushed a puddle of beer around with his finger, thinking again about camaraderie.

  As a child, he’d been wrapped in that sense of shipboard unity. But the reason he was here, when it came down to it, was that he was excluded from that now unless he changed something about himself. Unless he got rid of his flickers.

  He hadn’t mentioned his flickers to Asa or Tam or any other of the messengers or his neighbours in the squats. But – Marek was comfortable, more or less, with magic. If he did mention them, maybe, just maybe, unlike his mother, Asa and Tam and the others wouldn’t mind. Wouldn’t expect him to change in order to fit in with them.

  It was a curious thought. He’d never questioned, before, whether it was right for his mother to make that demand.

  “You know,” he said, once Asa had sat down again, “I might go back home, in a couple of weeks.”

  “Back to Salina?” Asa asked, their eyebrows high. “You – I didn’t know you were thinking of it.” They looked downcast. “I mean, well, I guess it’s your home and all that, so… But I’ll miss you, you know? We’ll miss you.”

  Come back when and only when you have fixed this problem, his mother said in his mind, and Jonas swallowed. Asa didn’t know about the flickers. Maybe they would be more like that if they did.

  “I’d miss you too,” he said, honestly. “I don’t – I don’t know if I definitely will leave.”

  “The ships come and go all the time,” Asa said. “You can always just leave it a while longer.”

  Jonas laughed. “Well, they’ll not be here for a few weeks after Mid-Year, but I take your point.”

  Asa nudged him with their shoulder. “Stay with us, Jonas!”

  They were laughing, half-teasing, but obviously also meaning it. That warm feeling inside him was there again. But – it was absurd. He couldn’t just accept his flickers and stay here. He had to fix them, and go back home, as soon as maybe. That had always been the plan. He had to go back to the life that was waiting for him, once he’d fixed his little problem. Not indulge himself by ignoring it.

  He swallowed down the lump in his throat, and did his best to smile back at Asa.

  TWELVE

  The ritual on Marekhill had been far more exhausting than Daril had expected. Even Cato had looked pale and drawn afterwards, and hadn’t made any of his usual snide remarks on the way back to House Leandra.

  “But did it work?” Daril had demanded, frustrated, after a while of silence. He hated that he had no way of telling for himself.

  “It worked,” Cato said. “Marek has a cityangel again. Lucky Marek.”

  “But the deal? What about the deal?” Daril demanded.

  Cato shrugged. “It agreed when I asked before. It agreed again just now. So there you go. Next question – when do I get paid?”

  “We can’t test it yet,” Urso said. “If that’s what you mean. And I don’t know how much raw power there will be, yet.” He frowned. “It ought to be… the old one would have, I mean…”

  “When?” Daril demanded through his teeth.

  “Impatient much?” Cato drawled.

  Daril and Urso ignored him. Urso rubbed at his eyes.

  “Later,” Urso said. “Later today. I have – responsibilities, first, and we need to allow, as it were, settling-in time. I will send a messenger, later.”

  Those ‘responsibilities’, Daril was gnawingly aware, included a meeting with Gavin, as part of this absurd competition, or whatever it was, for the Heirship. Not that that mattered any more, of course, given what they had – probably – just achieved. And the meeting in question fitted in nicely with the rest of their plans. He was not in the slightest bit bothered about it.

  “Is that when I get paid, as well?” Cato asked.

  “You get paid when we decide you’re done,” Daril said, turning on him. “Which isn’t yet.”

  Cato, scowling, retired straight to his room the moment they got back to House Leandra. Daril had paced, and fretted, and gone obsessively over the plans. Early evening brought a message from Urso.

  My place, eight hours. U.

  Daril glanced at the clock. It was just after seven, but Urso’s house further down the Hill was not a long walk.

  “The messenger awaits a response,” Roberts said.

  Daril scribbled “Yes. DL” underneath the note, resealed it with a dab of wax from the dish on the dresser, and handed it to Roberts.

  He wouldn’t bring Cato. If everything had gone according to plan, they wouldn’t need him any more. And if it hadn’t, Daril didn’t want Cato around until he and Urso had decided what to do next. Cato would stay here, with Roberts put to watch him.

  The sea-fog was rolling in over from the swamp on the far side of Marekhill when Daril, wrapped in a muffler, walked briskly down the hill towards Urso’s house. He made his way along the network of small side streets, only wide enough for a couple of pedestrians, that linked the main roads.

  Urso lived above the middle class district of the Hill, but only just. Whilst his branch of House Leandra was acknowledged, or Gavin wouldn’t be even pretending to consider him as Heir, it was minor, and he had never previously had any apparent interest in politics. Which, Daril thought with no little frustration, surely meant that his candidacy couldn’t be serious. Not that it mattered. Urso’s income was almost entirely from trade; his scholarly interest in magic was known, and considered slightly odd but not actually objectionable. His sorcerous ability, of course, was secret. Gavin Leandra would not have tolerated it in an acknowledged relative.

  Urso’s man-of-all-work bowed Daril silently into the house. The place was small, as they all were at this level of the Hill, but well appointed. Urso’s business office was at the front of the house, its door closed and locked at this hour. His personal reception room was at the back, looking out onto the tiny garden. The drapes were drawn now against the encroaching dark, and against curious eyes.

  The room was decorated in shades of blue, with a very comfortable set of new padded chairs. Far more comfortable, Daril could never avoid reflecting when he visited, than any of the venerable Leandra furniture. They could replace it, of course, if they chose, but his father would never have thought of it, nor sanction the expense if he had, and Daril could not abide giving the old man the impression that he cared. One day. Soon. He would be able to rip the whole lot out and start again, if he wished, and his father would have to put up with it, and stop playing these absurd games with Daril’s rights.

  Urso was standing warming himself at the fire as Daril came in and shut the door.

  “Greetings,” Daril said pleasantly, and Urso nodded at him.

  Daril settled into an armchair, sinking comfortably into it. Urso left the fire for the chair opposite.

  “My meetings this afternoon were most successful,” Urso said. “Though Fereno-Heir was less convinced.”

  “If Madeleine Fereno has made her decision
you need not worry about Marcia,” Daril said, with a shrug.

  “Not even when she’s been poking around after Cato?” Urso asked.

  Daril suppressed a flash of annoyance that the other man had heard about that encounter – but of course it would be gossip, and Urso kept tabs on gossip as much as anyone else did – and shrugged. “She can poke around all she likes; she’s hardly going to search House Leandra for him. And he is with us, at any rate.”

  At least while they were paying him. Daril didn’t harbour any illusions about Cato’s commitment to the cause.

  “If you say so,” Urso said, with a tiny quirk of his mouth. “In any case. I dropped some helpful hints to the Salinas ambassador. They’ll be prepared. The whole thing is shaping to go up like tinder.”

  “But will it be enough?” Daril asked. “Is the cityangel truly in place?”

  Urso scowled. “That’s the bad news. It is indeed in place, but with nothing like the power we will need. As things stand, we could start the war at any point, but we would have no certainty of causing things to fall out as we intend. The Council might survive regardless. It would depend more on your abilities to talk yourself into position than we had planned.”

  Which wasn’t the point. The point was to have the cityangel’s power behind him, ensuring co-operation. Daril was halfway up out of the armchair before he even realised he’d moved.

  “Then we must fix it! We can fix it?”

  “That’s what I have been researching, these last hours,” Urso said. His face looked weary, in the candlelight. “And I have a solution. We don’t have much time, though, to put everything in place. We will need to move faster than we originally intended. And it will mean revealing the rest of it to Cato.”

  “Can we trust him?” Daril asked.

  “We can’t do it without him,” Urso said, flatly. “I’m not strong enough. Cato and I together – yes. Probably.”

  Daril chose to ignore the caveat.

  “Very well,” Daril said. “Explain, and I will address the issue of managing Cato.”

  Urso sat back. “Firstly – I think we can no longer leave this until Marek and Salina are actually at war. Which may be for the best; the war was only ever a means to an end.”

  “But without that, what is our reason for taking over the Council?” Daril said. “That was surely the whole point – chaos and mismanagement, the clear failure of the Council as it currently stands, backed up with the power of the cityangel to create change.”

  Urso shrugged. “Broadly speaking – we use raw power, instead. There’s a ritual.”

  “But you just said that the cityangel doesn’t have power,” Daril said, his teeth clenching.

  “That is the purpose of the ritual,” Urso said, patiently. “Mid-Year is coming.”

  Daril rolled his eyes. “Yes. And?”

  “I understand – my research tells me – that the festival generates a great deal of raw power in the city,” Urso said. “It’s fallen out of common knowledge among sorcerers, but I’ve found reference in older books. And that raw power, the cityangel can take advantage of it. But it will need help, to make the most of it. We will need first to focus that power, both into the cityangel, and then, with the cityangel’s aid, to direct it back out again to you. The Council will be in session.” He spread his hands. “With the power surge behind you, you don’t need the excuse of the war. They will fall into place. The war would itself have generated power, and given us certain opportunities, it is true. But this is likely a safer option. And a quicker one, there is that.”

  “We are certain that the cityangel is no longer bound as the old one was?” Daril demanded. “Politically bound?”

  Urso nodded. “Certain.”

  “Very well,” Daril said, sitting back. “Tell me more about this ritual. Tomorrow? On Mid-Year?”

  “Yes. And for the strongest effects, we will need to be at Marek Square.”

  Marek Square, which at Mid-Year would be full of people and celebration.

  “You don’t mean we’re to conduct a sorcerous ceremony in the middle of Marek Square at Mid-Year,” Daril said, his heart dropping.

  “No. Of course not. We’ll have to use the Salinas,” Urso said.

  Daril saw it immediately. The Salinas Embassy overlooked Marek Square, very near the centre of the square’s Mid-Year festivities. The problem being…

  “The Salinas? But everyone knows how they feel about magic! And it is tomorrow, Urso, surely there isn’t enough time…”

  “I believe I can, ah, leverage our existing plans to work around the matter of the Salinas and magic. I have already dropped a couple of hints to the Salinas ambassador about what may be coming. She is primed to believe me, when I go to her in great concern and some urgency tomorrow morning. What the Salinas are above all, you understand, is pragmatic. Once the ambassador is fully informed of what Madeleine Fereno and your father plan, she will fall in with us.”

  “We will need to promise her something, surely,” Daril said. Although, most likely there would be something that they could give to the Salinas; unlike his father and Madeleine Fereno, Daril saw the relationship with the Salinas as broadly successful for both parties. He had no intention of damaging it.

  “The whole point is that this idea of your father’s is foolish and could never succeed,” Urso said. “But in the process of demonstrating that, there would be a great deal of damage to both Marek and Salina. Merely promising that we will prevent that should be enough.”

  It was true enough. Daril had always known that the war would be costly, and hoped to stop it as soon as possible after it had done its job. He merely believed that it was worthwhile. If they could get away without it… It was a far neater plan, if it worked.

  It would work. Daril had to believe that it would work. If Urso said they could be ready tomorrow, then, well, he was the one who knew about the magic, wasn’t he?

  “Very well,” Daril said, sitting forwards. “Give me the details.”

  k k

  Cato’s allocated room in House Leandra was next to Daril’s. This was, clearly, because Daril wanted Cato under his eye, but it also meant that Cato had that same view out over Marek that Daril so visibly relished. A prison cell with a view, Cato thought, cynically, as he sat on the wide window-ledge, his back propped against the wall and his feet up in front of him. He looked out over the city. The sun had just set, and torches were beginning to be lit, speckles of light visible lower down the hill and in the Square, where they weren’t obscured by buildings.

  To call it a prison cell was, of course, overstating the case. Whatever Daril b’Leandra might think, if Cato really wanted to walk out, he had absolutely no doubt that he could. There might be collateral damage on the way, but if that was the better option, well, so be it.

  Just at the moment, it wasn’t worth it. For a start, he wouldn’t get paid. And whilst the restrictions on his freedom of movement were faintly irritating, and Daril’s sense of his own importance somewhat more so, House Leandra was comfortable enough. It was quiet, the food was good, and he didn’t have to deal with idiots trying to hire him. Other than the idiot who had already hired him.

  But that was unfair. Daril b’Leandra was no idiot. A little short-sighted occasionally, even perhaps slightly ignorant, but not a fool.

  Cato sighed, and propped his shoulder against the window, leaning into the glass. He could see the dark curve of the river, the torches outlining the shape of the Old Bridge and the New Bridge beyond it, and north of the river, the imposing bulk of the squats, mostly dark with the odd pinprick of light outside a pub or coffee-house around the edges. He thought of the Purple Heart, his preferred drinking establishment, and wondered whether anyone there was concerned that he was missing, other than in terms of the relationship between his absence and the dip in their nightly takings. Doubtless not. It was a long time since anyone other than Marcia had worried about him.

  And it was a long time since he’d had a view like this, to
o. He was aware, as he had been since he got here, of House Fereno down the street. He could swear that he could feel it, through the stone of the wings of House Leandra and the three other Houses that stood between them and blocked his view. Was Marcia at home, tonight, looking out?

  Marcia. He sighed. If only she could have the good sense to stay out of this. Hopefully he’d convinced her now that he didn’t need rescuing. Marcia was stubborn, always had been, but surely being knocked out was enough of a hint even for her. He’d have to apologise, once it was all over. She’d forgive him. Marcia always forgave him, in the end.

  And it should be over, soon, surely. He’d done what they hired him for. He was only waiting on the irritating Urso – and Cato was kicking himself that he’d missed that there was another sorcerer in Marek, he really shouldn’t have been blindsided by that – to confirm that everything was suitably fixed. That their deal, whatever it was, was being adhered to.

  Of course, if they’d told him what the deal was, rather than demanding that he keep himself outside of the communication channel he’d opened, he could have told them immediately. He was, after all, much more experienced, and stronger, than Urso. He could tell already that the new cityangel wasn’t as strong as the old one, which it seemed Urso hadn’t been immediately aware of. But then, half a day of support set against three hundred years – what would you expect? Surely they couldn’t have anticipated anything else? He scowled. People expected the most unreasonable things, sometimes.

  What was really bothering him was the sense that he was missing something. Whatever this deal was, it meant that there was something that Daril and Urso wanted, something they weren’t telling him. Something they were very deliberately not telling him. Cato hated not knowing things, especially when they were things he was directly involved in. He’d considered jiggering the communication channel, to listen in, but even if Urso wouldn’t have noticed, the prospective cityangel would have, and Cato had no idea whether or not it would have given him away. Wasn’t worth the risk.

  After all, in this situation, he was the hired help. He couldn’t expect to be given every detail, annoying though that might be. He might be back up on Marekhill for a few days, but he wasn’t Cato b’Fereno any more, hadn’t been for ten years. He was a sorcerer from the squats with a reputation for negotiable morals. (And, of course, he was alive, which these days was a strong qualification by itself if you needed a sorcerer. You could choose him, or Reb, or to go down to the boneyards and see what you could get there.) But time in the squats hadn’t dampened the political sense that his sixteen years growing up in Marekhill had gifted him. And his political sense was telling him that something was wrong.