City of Light & Shadow

by Ian Whates

  In the centre of this open area stood one of the most bizarre things Tom had ever seen. It was a square glass booth, the bottom part of which revealed an interlinking array of different sized cogs: some bronzed, others sliver, while a few of the smallest were jet black. In addition to these cogs there were coupling rods, metal strips, rubberized wheels and cyclical chains. The whole thing looked so intricate that Tom wondered whether it served any real purpose at all or was just there to provide decorative entertainment. The mechanism had obviously been active for a while and continued through its cycle as they traipsed through.

  The Council Guards in the lead of their group split as they came to the machine, two passing on either side of it, while the Blade and those Guards who remained close to Tom and Kat moved as one to the left of the booth.

  Tom slowed down, fascinated by the way motion in the visible workings was transferred from one cog to another as the various components interacted.

  In doing so, he caused the party's formation to stretch, giving him a clearer view of the booth and allowing Kat to slip through the ranks of their guards.

  The top part of the booth featured four painted mannequins – two male and two female – all sawn off at the waist. They stared forth from alternate facets of the kiosk, so that the four formed an outward-facing cross. Brightly painted with long-lashed eyes, rosy cheeks and vacuous smiles that were doubtless intended to be endearing, but Tom found them vaguely sinister, particularly in these unnaturally still corridors.

  The series of sounds which had so intrigued him as they approached were caused by the mannequin facing them, one of the female ones. Somehow, the mechanism must have become jammed in the "on" position, because her right arm, bent at the elbow, was in the process of thrusting out towards them. As it reached the wall of the kiosk a small slot opened, at around chest-height for a child, to disgorge a handful of brightly coloured tablets – presumably sweets – which cascaded down the face of the kiosk to join the growing mound of similar objects on the floor, spreading steadily outward from the machine to form a glistening rainbow pool.

  The slot clicked shut and after a few seconds the arm moved slowly backward to repeat the process, presumably over and over again until either the sweets ran out or its power did. Each movement of cog against cog was accompanied by a theatrical ratcheting sound and the dispensing slot closed with an audible snap.

  Kat bent down to pick up a couple of the sweets, popping them into her mouth. Tom stopped to watch her, and the whole party ground to a halt. "Hey, these are all right," Kat said, scooping up a large handful which she then stuffed into various pockets. "Want some?" She held out a few towards him, ignoring the guards.

  He shook his head. It felt disrespectful, somehow, like robbing the dead. Sure, he'd done that himself alongside others from the Blue Claw in the past, but that had been in the City Below, where a corpse's possessions were no more than a resource to be recycled, where it was all about survival, and corpse frisking was an accepted part of the routine. This was a different world, though, and those sweets were intended for bright-eyed clean-faced kids in freshly washed clothes, kids who'd never had to face the things he had, who didn't even know they existed – until recently at any rate. Taking their sweets just seemed wrong, as if in doing so he would somehow be contributing what had befallen these unknown children and the robbing of their innocence.

  Kat shrugged, oblivious to any such concerns. "Suit yourself," she said, giving him a curious look as she brought her hand back and shoved the sweets into her mouth instead.

  She then sauntered back to join him and, following a scowl from Verrill, their little party was able to set off again, like some multi-limbed caterpillar. As they left the quadrangle, the sounds of the machine churning out its sweets receded with every new step.

  Shortly afterwards, they encountered their first body.

  The corridor on the far side of the square took on a different character to the one they'd walked through previously. Doors lined either side at staggered intervals, many brightly coloured, bearing decorative touches and ornate numbers which ran in sequence – 387 followed by 385 and then 383 – while doormats sat before several. They had entered a residential sector.

  Most of the doors were closed, a couple stood ajar and a few were broken in, smashed apart as if made of eggshell, while some of the doormats had been kicked askew. Tom resisted the temptation to glance into any of these open dwellings, afraid of what he might see there, though they all seemed wreathed in darkness in any case. One, an allwhite door, bore a patina of dried, russet stains which he definitely didn't want to think about. He noticed Kat studying this intently and guessed she was imagining the deathblow that had caused it.

  These were the first signs of actual violence they'd seen. The smashed doors, the dried blood, even the disturbed mats, combined to bring home the gravity of their mission and the dangers that lurked unseen around them.

  If they didn't, the first body certainly did.

  It was a man, lying half in and half out the open door to one of the dwellings, his face down, arm stretching across the hallway. A pool of dried blood spread outward from where his mouth must have been, like some perverse cartoonist's speech bubble. The Blade and the Guards on the left hand side were forced to move around or step over him. No one made any comment.

  This proved to be the first of many.

  Tom was used to bodies; they'd been an everyday fact of life for as long as he could remember, so he had no qualms in stepping over those sprawled across the centre of the passageway, and blood was hardly a novelty either, but he quailed at the sheer number they were coming across and wondered how many had actually perished up here in the Heights. It was clear that death had descended on these corridors suddenly and unexpectedly, and he could only hope that elsewhere there might have been more warning and fewer casualties.

  There were no body boys up here to remove the dead so they simply lay where they'd fallen, and he presumed they'd stay that way, at least until all this was over.

  The corridor opened into another broad square, this one far wider than the sweet machine's and with a higher ceiling. It went up four or five rows at least. As they entered, Tom stumbled to a halt. This time, nobody complained.

  The quadrangle had evidently been designed as a leisure park of some sort. To their left stood a children's play area, complete with climbing frame, slides, swings, a tumble wall, and other items Tom could only guess at; to the left a series of tunnels, skating tubes, ramps and curved climbs, while ahead stood a tiered rockery of stone seats, steps, and plants. At the top of this array was what had clearly been a fountain, now toppled and no longer working. Several watercourses were cleverly interwoven with the flower borders and seats, leading to four curved ponds at the base of the arrangement. Currently bobbing on the surface of these ponds were a number of large and very dead fish, while the water around them was stained red.

  Not that Tom spared these details anything more than passing notice, not even the dead fish. His attention was principally captured by the human bodies. They began at his feet, as the party entered the square. Closest was a woman, her abdomen ripped open; beside her lay a small child, perhaps her daughter, neck twisted at an impossible angle. The bodies and their blood carpeted much of the floor and rose to drape themselves over seats and pathways. They peaked where a man's form sprawled over where the fountain used to stand. Arms were outstretched, limbs ripped from their sockets, heads twisted and bludgeoned, while eyes stared sightlessly up at him, as if in accusation or perhaps desperately beseeching.

  Tom felt his stomach heave and fought to control it.

  "Thaiss!" whispered Kat from beside him. The fact that a survivor of the Pits was shocked by what they found here spoke volumes.

  The flies didn't help. There weren't yet enough of them to be considered a swarm but there were more than enough for Tom. Disturbed by the party's arrival, the dark insects took to the air, the droning of their wings providing a flat and disconc
erting soundtrack to the carnage around them. He swatted distractedly at one that zigzagged too close, missing it completely.

  The metallic, slightly sweet smell of fresh blood seemed to have been with Tom since they passed the first body, but here its cloying presence tainted every indrawn breath and was accompanied by the stench of something rotten. The massacre had obviously been recent but enough time had passed for decomposition to begin – a couple of days ago or perhaps three, Tom judged; no longer.

  He could picture it, people being herded and driven from the corridors that fed into the square, running from certain death until there was nowhere left to run. A mob of frantic, terrified folk erupting from the mouth of each passageway simultaneously, milling in confusion and horror, four panicked streams of the doomed colliding, to swirl together like water thrown casually into a bowl. A mother's hand clutching tightly to the smaller hand of a child, desperate not to lose that tiny strand of human comfort; her other arm reaching out to shove and pull people apart, to force a way through, to escape. Except there was no escape. Behind each knot of people a party of Rust Warriors entered the square, moving with efficiency and purpose, spreading out to form a cordon and then closing in, tightening that cordon with every step and killing as they did so.

  Tom had no idea whether these vivid scenes were the result of his talent picking up on some echo of actual events or just his imagination working overtime. All he knew was that he was suddenly sweating and finding it difficult to breathe. His stomach convulsed again, and this time there was no stopping it. He bent forward and threw up. He felt somebody pat him on the shoulders, not in admonishment but in sympathy. Kat.

  As he stood upright again she held out a small cloth. "Here."

  He took it gratefully and wiped his mouth, before craning forward to spit out more sourness, not looking, not wanting to know where his vomit might have landed.

  They started forward again, skirting the perimeter of the square, where the bodies were marginally fewer, picking their way with care. The Council Guards were grim-faced and even the Blade seemed more vigilant.

  Tom found the best way to deal with this was to take it literally one step at a time and not think about how far there was to go or how many dead people he still had to pass. He half expected Rust Warriors to rush out of the side corridor and attack them at any moment, but their party crossed the open mouth without incident. Eventually they made it to the far side of the killing field, their passage contested only by the flies.

  Kat summed up the sense of relief. "Thank the goddess for that!" she muttered as they stepped over the final outstretched arm and into the clear corridor beyond; a sentiment Tom suspected many of the guards in white and purple around them would happily have echoed.

  They still hadn't encountered any Rust Warriors, but no one could doubt the enemy were nearby, not after what they'd experienced at the playground. This lack of direct confrontation began to play on Tom's nerves. It wasn't as if he had a death wish or anything, he would have been delighted if they could reach the core without meeting any opposition at all, but that was never going to happen. At some point they'd have to fight, they all knew that. The only question was when. The anticipation was becoming an irritation, the constant need to be alert fraying Tom's nerves. He found himself peering into the depths of every corridor they passed and scrutinising closed doors as if he might somehow predict which one was about to burst open and disgorge deadly ambushers.

  When the attack finally came it was almost a relief.

  Without any warning Rust Warriors erupted from a side corridor, falling upon the rearguard. The ambush displayed the sort of cunning Tom wouldn't have expected from Rust Warriors – the one he'd killed beside the Thair had seemed lumbering and slow-witted, though he wasn't sure why he'd assumed that – since it required them to stay hidden while the rest of the group passed by.

  The first Tom knew of the attack was when a man screamed. He whipped around to see one of the Guards enveloped in the same eerie nimbus of light that had spelled an end to Kohn. All the guilt he'd felt then at his failure to react quickly enough to save his friend came flooding back.

  The stricken guard's colleagues tried to help, only to be forced back by the other Rust Warriors, and they were soon engaged in a desperate fight for their lives.

  The Council Guard were more than just ceremonial decoration, for all the purple-trimmed whiteness of their gleaming uniforms. They were expert swordsmen, strong men at the peak of physical fitness, chosen for their courage and prowess and schooled in the art of killing; warriors disguised in popinjays' clothing. The other three guards engaged the enemy swiftly and efficiently. Steel flashed and stabbed, blades sank into their opponents. But not a single Rust Warrior fell.

  Tom watched helpless as one Guardsman's sword struck his nearest adversary once, twice, piercing stomach and then chest without any effect. A scything blow from his opponent then cut the man nearly in two, slicing through armour, flesh and bone with equal ease. Whatever the arkademics had done to empower the guardsmen's weapons didn't seem to be working.

  Tom's view was then obscured as Verrill rushed past him, leading the other four Guardsmen from the main party to reinforce their colleagues. As he went he called out orders, telling the four-strong advance guard to lead the party onward.

  "Go!" he then yelled, either to Tom or the Blade. "We'll hold them off."

  Kat looked as if she might be about to join the fight but Tom stopped her. "Don't," he said. "You heard the captain, and there's likely to be worse waiting ahead of us."

  She nodded, but clearly didn't like running away any more than he did, though run they did, urged by two of the remaining white liveried guards who now dropped back to bring up the rear.

  On reflection, Tom would have been more impressed by the Rust Warriors' ingenuity had there been a second group waiting to attack from the front, but it didn't happen. Unless, of course, the ambush was intended to simply cut off any retreat and their party was already heading exactly where the Rust Warriors wanted them to go, perhaps towards where their main strength lay in wait. Now that was a sobering thought.

  • • • •

  The road to Deliia was busy, far more so than Dewar would have expected even given that this was the great trade route. Riders flashed past them, individually and in small groups, while the caravan he'd joined proved to be one of several headed for the coast. Business must be booming.

  The traffic was too heavy for any normal circumstance, though, and he began to suspect there was more going on than he'd realised, suspicions that were confirmed when they stopped to rest and water their horses a little after midday. Dewar engineered a conversation with a rider who was also taking a break from the road – one heading in the opposite direction. Dewar didn't press the point, he didn't need to; the phrase "rumours of war" told him more than enough.

  By late afternoon as their caravan hove into view of the sea and Deliia's low-rise dwellings appeared as a dark stain on the horizon, progress had slowed to a crawl. They had joined a long queue of those waiting to filter through the city's gates.

  It occurred to Dewar that he needn't have bothered joining a caravan at all under these circumstances and that, with such a constant stream, he could have ridden straight through and made better time. Too late for regrets now but there was no point in compounding the problem by staying with the wagons without good reason. He made his excuses and rode forward, bypassing the long line of waiting carts that clogged the road to the envious glares of their drivers. Even so, he wasn't the only horseman anxious to enter the town and still had to bide his time.

  Eventually, as the sun set and the rosiness of dusk tinted the skyline, he found himself passing beneath the old walls of the town that was just a quick skip across the sea from the island on which he had been born and raised. Nearly home, and nobody had a clue that he was coming.

  EIGHT

  Part of Tylus was actually relieved to see Kat go, not to mention Tom. He recognised the lad imme
diately as the street-nick he'd attempted to arrest on the city walls, the one whose escape had brought him to the City Below in the first place. Clearly there was more going on here than he'd been told.

  Of course Tylus had been startled when Kat and Tom disappeared in the same abrupt fashion that the boy and the Thaistess had initially arrived, but not sorry, not by a long shot. Kat's presence had proved a distraction all morning, far more so than he would ever have anticipated. And that fact disturbed him.

  It probably wouldn't have been an issue if not for the conversation with Richardson the previous evening. Kat had been a pain throughout the journey. Her abrasive attitude and stroppy mood were enough to make anyone give up trying to be civil and leave her to get on with things, but Richardson's announcement regarding his surprise betrothal had forced Tylus to consider his fascination with the Tattooed Men's leader in a different light.

  Kat was intriguing, no question about that. Utterly different from any woman he'd ever met before. She was bold, edgy, thrilling – the free spirit Tylus had always yearned to be. And that was the source of his fascination. It was all down to novelty. How could he fail to be enthralled? But she was also young. A fact that was easy to forget when you saw her strutting before the Tattooed Men and wielding those twin swords with such skill, but she was probably not much older than Jezmina. It meant she was still a girl rather than a woman, despite her behaviour. Certainly in the light of his upbringing and the culture of the Heights, he couldn't consider her as anything but. Down here, he wasn't so certain. People tended to grow up much quicker on the streets.