The Sunken City Trilogy

by Phil Williams

  “I’m sorry,” Pax mumbled, aware of the futility of saying it. She couldn’t imagine all that had been lost with each forced migration. But it raised another thought. She’d seen it herself, when the Sunken City horde swarmed towards her. The fairies had drawn them her way. She’d felt it, too, riding the tube with Letty. The monsters hunted the Fae. Wanted to feed on them more than anything. “What is so special about your people? Why are the creatures drawn to you?”

  Palleday gave her a miserable look. “You oughta be able to answer that.”

  Pax shook her head, but an idea was forming. Even without understanding why, she could imagine how that unique Fae energy might draw the monsters and the screens all together. Then the Ministry could have their purge. If they could get a handle on Fae energy. If they could get the Dispenser back. If she could rescue Letty. A lot of ifs, all requiring the co-operation of more reasonable Fae. Pax said, “Is there anyone in the FTC that actually likes humans?”

  “What do you think?” Palleday said. “Even the soft young bloods must be reeling at you, since the return of this Apothel Five and Fae getting” – Pax gave a warning look – “Fae getting hurt.”

  “Someone’s with Letty, inside the FTC. Helped her talk to me. Could you get them a message? Find a way we can properly connect?”

  “I look like someone with contacts?”

  He really didn’t, but she said, “Letty thought so. You think of a way, and I’ll clear out the Sunken City. You’d have space for your towers. Protection. Maybe people to live in them.”

  Palleday was quiet. Imagining it. He said, “You know all that’s down there.”

  “Not all of it.”

  “Lot of Fae won’t want to return. Most Fae are too young to remember, but I saw things. Troubling things.”

  “Yeah, me too. But we can explore all that once it’s safe to, can’t we?”

  Palleday’s eyes were glazed over in memory.

  Pax continued, “I’ll be at a card game this evening, at the Baudelaire Club. A good excuse to keep the Ministry from watching. You send someone my way, anyone that can help, I’ll be waiting.”

  Palleday regarded her for a moment. “Don’t hold your breath. But I’ll see what I can do.” After another moment’s thought, he added, to remove Pax’s smile, “As long as you realise there’s plenty more people want you dead than alive, right now.”

  Once the human was gone, strolling self-satisfied away, Fresko and Mix drifted through the pillars of Palleday’s building graveyard. Mix said, “We could’ve done her here. Like we should’ve before.”

  They settled on the ledge next to Palleday as he watched them. A battleaxe of an old Fae, long past his prime. He said, “She seemed genuine.”

  “Yeah?” Fresko replied. “The human promising impossible things seemed genuine?”

  “Says the man under Lightgate’s thumb?”

  Fresko let him have that; he trusted Lightgate even less than he did the human. But Lightgate was at least a Fae. And much more likely to make them pay for crossing her.

  “We can still get her,” Mix said. “The Ministry aren’t watching.”

  “And they won’t be later,” Fresko said. “She gave us a time and place. We bring the meeting to Lightgate, it might get her off our back.”

  “You heard the girl, didn’t you?” Palleday said. “Letty’s been set up by her that sent you. What you oughta bring Lightgate is a stick up the arse.”

  Fresko said nothing. If Letty wasn’t responsible for the Ministry deaths, more fool her. And if this girl was genuine, didn’t that just make her another dangerous woman? Why not put her together with Lightgate, see what sparks flew. He caught Palleday reading his face and said, “That human caused us all sorts of shit.”

  “I’ll say it again – you heard her. She’s not what you think.”

  “You want to help her, that it?”

  “I see no reason not to reach out to the FTC.”

  “To fucking Val?” Mix demanded, but the architect was already shaking his head.

  “Take me for an idiot? I got people I can talk to, hell. Might even get word to Letty herself.”

  Mix gave Fresko a look telling him this was his call. Fresko kept staring at the old man; a legend of the Fae world, the sort you left alone. Smarter than most, for sure. Then, it didn’t take a genius to know the less you had to do with Lightgate the better. Fresko said, “Alright. We’ll hold off. See where this meeting goes and make a decision then.”

  “Knock yourself out,” Mix said. “I’m ready for a fucking drink.”

  8

  When Apothel’s Miscellany was couriered to the Bartons by a man in black, Holly had started studying it keenly. The leather-bound tome looked like it belonged in a university library, to be handled with microfibre gloves. She warned Darren off touching it with his greasy fingers, likewise Grace. She especially turned Rufaizu away, though the book technically belonged to him; she had seen him make the dishes dirtier when he washed them.

  In the book, partly translated by Pax, Holly discovered fantastic creatures she knew to exist under their feet. Among Apothel’s sketches was a plant he called a seeping sour flower, resembling a foul thing she’d seen herself. Imagine experiencing such things – widely unknown, radically different – without the looming threat of death. She understood how the place had enchanted her husband. Or ensnared? Regardless, when the call came, Sam Ward giving Darren an okay to access the Sunken City, Holly had to be there.

  At the edge of the desolate warehouse district, they found Ward in an empty gravel car park, waiting by a big metal door with an object whose long barrel split into multiple prongs. It vaguely resembled a weed-whacker. Ward regarded Holly with surprise. “Mrs Barton – I’m not sure you should be –”

  “It’s fine, Grace has Netflix to look after her,” Holly said, nodding for her to get on with things. Ward looked uncomfortable, but Darren shook his head to warn her not to argue. She didn’t question Rufaizu’s presence, either. The bright-eyed vagrant was grinning, washed and groomed and newly clothed, though he’d refused to give up his ever-present tatty turquoise trench coat.

  “Well,” Ward said, “I appreciate your help. Revising our surveys is a complex task. And this is particularly sensitive, as we’re not hugely far off the Fae city. I hoped your presence would make this investigation appear more neutral than if we’d brought our own agents.”

  “The Fae have little love for me,” Darren said, in his typical gruff manner.

  “You’ve never actively attacked them,” Ward reminded him.

  “Why are we here?” Holly asked. “What’ve the fairies done?”

  “Nothing we’re aware of,” Ward said. “It’s the – something to do with the screens. Our scans don’t show anything in this area – the horde hasn’t been near here in weeks – but Pax sensed something. We’ve got a new piece of equipment.” She held up the odd device. “An energy scanner. And I brought this.” She pulled back her suit jacket, revealing a shoulder holster holding a chunky pistol. “Darren, you might take it, while I –”

  His blank look stopped her. “I never needed one before.” In his striped polo shirt, with a crutch and one foot in a cast, he certainly didn’t look like a gun-toting assassin.

  “And hopefully you won’t today,” Ward said. “But it’s an MEE energy weapon –”

  “Allow me,” Rufaizu offered, reaching towards it, but Ward stepped back. She looked from the young man to Darren, clearly imagining he was the only responsible gun-wielder in the group. He didn’t budge, and she let the jacket fall back over it.

  “We shouldn’t need it. Holly, perhaps you could take notes.” Ward took out a phone. “Tap here, and the GPS will record the location.” She pressed a button on the big scanner and aimed it into the car park. Various numbers increased on its digital screen before decreasing again, settling on averages. A series of green lights came on, one after another, and the screen lit up: LEVEL 12. NORMAL.

  Ward nodded to Holly
and she pressed the phone, typed in 12. Ward grinned proudly. “Well done.”

  Holly shared a despairing look with Darren. Did the woman work with imbeciles?

  “Let’s go, shall we?” Ward opened the door behind her, revealing steps descending into darkness. Holly’s heart suddenly beat faster. They were really doing it. Those things she’d read about, seen before . . .

  “Your equipment pick up raptors?” Darren commented, following Ward inside. “They’re small.”

  “Or ripple worms,” Rufaizu suggested. “Buckets of them, sometimes, isn’t there?”

  “Yes, our motion detectors would’ve spotted those,” Ward said.

  Holly came warily behind them, unsure what raptors or ripple worms were, and thinking she might do better to spend more time reading about such things than actively seeking them out. Noting her hesitation, Darren let Rufaizu pass him on the steps and said to her, quietly, “You okay? You don’t have to do this.”

  She tightened her hand on Ward’s phone. “I hardly think we can trust you to do it alone.”

  At the base of the stairs, the endless possibilities of the tunnels stretched ahead, lit by sparsely spaced tube lighting. The corridor of concrete walls was interrupted by occasional branching passages and smelt like chalk.

  “It’s clean,” Darren said. “No weeds, no cracks.” He ran a hand over the wall. “Used to be no lights down here, we carried three torches each, to be sure. There were plants, too. Creepers. Some of them glowed, for a bit of light.”

  “We clear the worst of the weeds away, to limit creatures spreading,” Ward said, moving ahead with the scanner held up. “Electric weed, as you called it, for instance? Glogockles thrive on it.”

  Rufaizu whistled. “Been so long, so long. Buda be damned, it’s good to be back.”

  “Why would anyone damn Buddha?” Holly said.

  “No! The Buda Labyrinth, what once held Dracula!”

  “Of course,” Holly said. “Let’s bring Dracula into this.”

  “Ah, it’s nothing – for tourists now. Staryn took me, says, here’s your tunnels. See there’s nothing to see. What do you need Ordshaw for? For the minotaur, I told him. That’s the fight.” He skipped about, beaming idiotically. “I was ready then, I’ve been ready.”

  Darren slowed to study the base of the wall. Scratch marks surrounded by murky brown patches. Holly asked, “What is it?”

  “Trail of a tuckle,” Darren said. “They squeeze down the tunnels.” He followed the scratches as they passed the first break in the tunnel, a passageway Ward was nearing. “Hold up.” Darren took the lead with quick taps of his crutch. He leant around the opening while Ward took an energy reading. “See that?”

  Holly joined them. The passage was another identical corridor, this one ending in a T-junction a dozen metres away. A dangling weed hung in the intersection.

  “Sickvine,” Rufaizu said with wonder.

  “Best not go that way,” Barton said. “Usually indicates ankle raptors. Little packs of them wait for something to touch the vine.”

  “But your people said it was clear?” Holly asked Ward.

  Ward frowned. “It must be an old vine.” She stepped into the tunnel, raised the scanner and took another reading. “Thirty-four. We’ll continue the other way.”

  As she continued, distractedly, Rufaizu resumed his wandering thoughts. “I always had to come back. The other tunnels, other places, they’re lost. Gardossa and those in the Alps, we never saw it.”

  Ward gave him a questioning look. She had already listened, with the rest of them, to the young man’s stories of old understandings of novisan and the things that preyed on it. A Bohemian city called Gardossa, an Antler King in the French Alps and an ancient hunter named Theo Murhaimer. Though perhaps steeped in nonsense, the stories paralleled Ordshaw’s: Murhaimer carved messages in walls, gone by morning. Gardossan legends of an unseen beast. The Antler King’s influence spread through caves.

  “Have you connected that history to Apothel’s book, yet?” Ward asked. The tone of her voice suggested she’d welcome a distraction from whatever was worrying her.

  “No, but I’m curious about the Gardossans,” Holly offered. “The Sect of Fore, have you heard of them? Not the number four, but fore, from the idea of forward-thinking. Supposedly they received messages in the catacombs.”

  “Prophecies!” Rufaizu interjected, and excitedly took over. “They were guided against the beast and warned of disaster.”

  “Apparently not very successfully,” Holly added, “as they all died and the city was destroyed.”

  About to ask something more, Ward stopped suddenly, and they all almost collided. Rufaizu opened his mouth to question it, but Holly hissed for quiet. They all listened. A sound was coming from a distant tunnel. A rush of air.

  “Fans?” Holly asked hopefully.

  Ward shook her head and continued. The sound was escalating, like a broken gas pipe. Darren growled, “That’s a dreadhorn.”

  “What?”

  Darren hobbled quickly towards another gap in the tunnel.

  “What’s a dreadhorn?” Holly asked.

  Darren didn’t answer, adjusting his grip to hold the crutch like a spear. The sound was building, blowing up a gale, and a rush of air passed over them. He stumbled to a halt at the tunnel edge, and his grim look spurred Ward into action, dropping her scanner and clawing at her pistol. Rufaizu ran to Darren’s side and Holly followed. As she drew alongside him, spying a heavy-breathing critter squatting in the branching corridor, the gusting wind pulled her hair across her face. The silhouette sat in an unlit stretch of tunnel, jagged knees pointed so far out they almost touched the walls. Its head was crested with spikes, as though wearing a homemade mantle, and its torso expanded as it inhaled, the rush of air drawing towards it.

  “Get back!” Ward instructed, hopping towards them with her pistol caught in its holster.

  The creature’s knees bunched awkwardly in as it rotated towards them. The faint light from their tunnel caught the edges of mandibles, and the glint of soulless green eyes. They narrowed, focusing on the group, as its head stretched and chest inflated with the immense inhalation. Holly patted her hair back and steadied herself.

  “Cover your ears – its scream will burst them!” Darren shouted, limping forwards.

  Ward finally got her gun loose, but Rufaizu ran into the way. “I got it, I got it!”

  He sprang through the air as the dreadhorn reared up, its shadow blocking the tunnel. Rufaizu made a shout of attack as he punched at it, and the creature crumpled to the side, cutting off the huge rush of air. It clattered back with crab-like motions as Rufaizu’s momentum took him to the floor. It wheezed, mandibles working in and out.

  “Yeah, have some!” Rufaizu laughed.

  Holly watched aghast as Ward aimed the gun uselessly, blocked by the two men. The dreadhorn was regrouping, backing into the light of the far tunnel, continuing to breathe in and expand. Darren raced past Rufaizu. Visible in bright highlights, the creature’s leathery skin stretched over bones as it ballooned with every second. Darren stumbled against the wall and cried out. Rufaizu overtook him again, snatching the crutch.

  “In the mouth!” Darren ordered, and Rufaizu jammed the crutch forwards, just as the monster turned to them – caught it right between the mandibles. The dreadhorn deflated with a huge outward gasp, shrinking inwardly. Rufaizu backed off, hands held aloft like he didn’t mean to break it. Darren let out his own deep breath of relief and turned slowly back. Ward lowered the gun.

  “Done.” Rufaizu hopped over the dreadhorn’s final death shudder. “Is it done?”

  “It’s done,” Darren said, pushing off the wall.

  “How – how dangerous was that?” Holly stuttered. Ward gave her a backwards glance: best not to ask. “What would happen if these things got out?”

  “That’s the point,” Darren said, limping back. He eyed Ward accusingly. “Your sensors said there was nothing here?”

&n
bsp; Ward bit her lip with clear concern, then passed Darren to approach the monster’s body. She leant around the tunnel’s end, checking up and down, saying, “This isn’t right. Our motion sensors should have told us that was here. And the energy levels are much higher than I’d expect –”

  “You have no idea what’s going on down here,” Darren said.

  Holly huffed in irritation. “But Pax knew? What’s that tell us?”

  “For one, we can trust her senses,” Ward answered quietly.

  “It tells us we still can’t trust the Ministry,” Darren said.

  That worried Ward more than everything else. “No – we’re fixing this. That’s the point! But it’s not your place to be here. We should leave.”

  “Leave?” Rufaizu exclaimed. “You want to leave? When it’s getting interesting?”

  “He’s right,” Holly said. It was clear enough that between Apothel’s book and this government ministry’s studies, there were big gaps in any academic understanding of these monsters. The reality was that no one would get a damn thing done without certain intrepid people braving the tunnels themselves. However daunting the place was. “If we leave now, we’re no closer to explaining what’s wrong. Seeing as your fancy equipment can’t be relied on. No, I think it’s best we continue.”

  9

  Light spilled into Letty’s fresh hovel as the door opened. Fresh was being generous: this box made the white room look big. Just enough space for a dense sponge bed, an old TV and a pile of boxes. Someone’s forgotten storage chest. She stood from the sponge as Flynt entered. He’d adopted the same sort of disguise they’d rustled up for her: a dark green plastic poncho, hood up, glasses and a smog-bandanna, like a bookish crossing guard. The disguise didn’t hide the concern on his face.

  “We’re good,” Flynt said, pulling down the bandanna. “Edwing convinced Val’s people he’s been trying to draw outsiders back into the FTC, peacefully.”

  “But . . .”

  Flynt bit his lip, too nervous to say.

  Letty regarded him critically. The Scout Chief. Responsible for the Fae’s scavengers, youthful, smooth-skinned where he wasn’t burnt, and nervous. She said, “Hell’s biscuits, before the scouts were run by a guy whose voice could’ve rusted plastic. How’d a whelp like you take over?”