‘Tell her,’ Kanseen said simply. She reached out to stroke his cheek, but he dodged back. ‘Be true to yourself, Edeard. That’s the you I want.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said stiffly.
Kanseen nodded then turned away. Edeard was sure he saw a tear on her cheek. He refused to use his farsight to check. Instead he went into his own maisonette, and threw himself on the too-high bed. Anger warred with frustration in his mind. He imagined Salrana and Kanseen fighting, an image which quickly took on a life outside his control. His fist thumped the pillow. He turned over. Sent his farsight swirling out across the city, observing the vast clutter of minds as they wrestled with their own demons. It felt good not to be suffering alone.
He took a long time to fall asleep.
*
‘Rumour has it, the Pythia uses her concealment ability to twist her features. She is over a hundred and fifty, after all; she could give Mistress Florell a run for her money in the withered crone stakes. There has to be some kind of devilment involved to make her look the way she does.’ Boyd put a lot of emphasis on that last sentence, dipping his head knowingly.
‘Can you do that?’ a startled Edeard asked.
‘I don’t know.’ Boyd lowered his voice. ‘They say the Grand Masters can completely conceal themselves from view. I’ve never seen it myself.’
Edeard paused on the threshold of pointing out the slight logical flaw in that admission. ‘Right.’ They were on patrol in Jeavons, walking alongside the Brotherhood Canal, which bordered the southern side of the district. Beyond the water was Tycho, not strictly a district, but a wide strip of meadow between the canal and the crystal wall. Wooden stables used by the militia squatted on the grass, the only buildings permitted on the common land. He could see stable boys cantering horses and ge-horses along sandy tracks, the morning exercise which they and their predecessors had performed for centuries. Several horses had ge-wolves running alongside.
It was their sixth patrol since graduation. Six days during which he and Kanseen had barely exchanged a word. They’d been perfectly civil to each other, but that was all. He didn’t want that, he wanted them at least to go back to how it was before that messed-up evening. How they might arrive back at that comfortable old association was a complete mystery. One he was definitely not going to consult the others on. He got the impression they already guessed something had happened. Knowing them, they’d royally screw up that speculation.
For some reason he’d also held off saying anything to Salrana. Grudgingly, he acknowledged that Kanseen did have a small point there. He really was going to have to face up to the whole ‘friends become lovers’ issue simmering away between him and Salrana. It wasn’t fair on her. She was growing up into a beautiful adolescent, so much more vivacious than any of the city girls he encountered. All he had to do was get over his notion of protectiveness. That was stupid too. She was old enough to look out for herself, and make her own choices. The only person who’d appointed him her guardian was himself. Something he’d done out of obligation, and friendship. To do anything different, especially now, could be considered as taking advantage.
Sometimes you have to do what’s wrong to do what’s right.
And physically he knew they would be fantastic together. That body, and as for those legs … Altogether too much time of late was spent thinking about how her legs would feel wrapped round him, long athletic muscles flexing relentlessly. It would end with them both screaming in pleasure. We wouldn’t even get out of bed for the first year.
Then after that, after the passion, they’d still enjoy each other’s company. Salrana was the only person he could ever really talk to. They understood each other. Two hick kids against the city. Future Mayor. Future Pythia.
He smiled warmly.
‘—of course, I could just talk to myself instead,’ an irritated Macsen said.
‘Sorry, what?’ Edeard asked, banishing the smile.
Macsen glanced over at Kanseen, who was standing beside Dinlay, the pair of them looking down on a gondola full of crates, calling something to the gondolier. ‘Boy, she really worked you over, didn’t she?’
‘Who? Oh, no. There’s nothing wrong. Kanseen and I are fine.’
‘I’d hate to see you un-fine.’
‘Really, I’m good. What did you want?’
‘The shopkeepers in Boltan Street keep saying strangers are walking along, checking out the buildings with a strong farsight. They’re obviously a gang taking a scouting trip. So if we pitch up there in these uniforms we’ll scare them off and they’ll just come back in a week or a month – whenever we move on. But if we were to loiter around in ordinary clothes they wouldn’t know we were there, and we could catch them at it red-handed.’
‘I don’t know. You know what Ronark is like about wearing the uniform on duty.’ As they were starting their third patrol, the captain had unexpectedly appeared and performed a snap inspection. Edeard had almost been demoted for the ‘disgraceful lack of standards’. Since then, he’d made sure his squadmates were properly dressed before leaving the station.
‘Exactly,’ Macsen said. ‘If you’re a constable in Jeavons you have to be in a uniform, everyone knows that. So they won’t be expecting us out of uniform.’
‘Humm, maybe. Let me talk to Chae first, see what he thinks.’
‘He’ll say no,’ Boyd told them. ‘You know procedure. If a crime is suspected, then you use ge-eagles to observe the area while the squad waits out of farsight range.’
‘We don’t know how long we’ll have to wait,’ Macsen said. ‘And Edeard only has one ge-eagle.’
‘You can sculpt more, can’t you?’ Boyd said. ‘You told us you used to be an Eggshaper apprentice.’
‘He can’t sculpt without a Guild licence, not in Makkathran,’ Macsen said. ‘It’s the law; we’d wind up having to arrest him. You know how keen they are on maintaining their monopoly. In any case, this is going to happen soon. We don’t have time to sculpt ge-eagles. That’s why we have to go patrolling in disguise.’
‘Ordinary clothes aren’t a disguise,’ Boyd protested.
‘It doesn’t matter what clothes we wear, as long as it’s not the uniform,’ Macsen said, his temper rising. ‘Dress how you want. Maybe in a dress – you’re certainly acting like an old woman.’
‘Good one, smartarse. If this gang’s as clever as you say, they’ll know all our faces anyway.’
‘Enough,’ Edeard said, holding up his hands. ‘I will speak to Chae as soon as we get in. Until then I’ll keep my ge-eagle close to Boltan Street. I can’t do anything more in the middle of a patrol, so drop it for now, please.’
‘Just a suggestion,’ Macsen grumbled as he started to walk away.
‘Are you deliberately winding him up?’ Edeard asked Boyd.
The lanky boy gave a sly grin. ‘I don’t have to answer that, I’m not under oath.’
Edeard laughed. The Boyd of six months ago would never have dared any mischief at another’s expense, let alone a friend.
The squad set off along the canal again, following the gentle curve northwards. Edeard’s plan was to stay on the side path until they reached its junction with the Outer Circle Canal, then turn back in to Jeavons. He sent his ge-eagle swooping low over the roofs and towers of the district, guiding it towards Boltan Street. It was a damp grey morning, with the last of the night’s rain clouds still clotting the sky as they slid slowly westwards. Every surface was slick with rain. However, the indomitable citizens of Makkathran were out in force as usual, thronging the streets and narrow alleyways.
Edeard’s ge-eagle flashed silently above them, ignored by most. Then he caught a movement that was out of kilter. Halfway along Sonral Street, someone in a hooded jacket turned away from the eagle and adjusted their hood, pulling it fully over their head.
It could have been nothing, the ge-eagle was still over fifty yards away. And it was damp, the air chill. Perfectly legitimate for someone to pull their hood up in such circumsta
nces. A lot of people in the same zigzagging street were sporting hats this morning. The man wasn’t even alone in wearing a hooded jacket.
It’s wrong though, I know it.
‘Wait,’ he told the squad. He swept the street with his farsight, searching for the one suspicious figure. The man’s mind was shielded, though the tinge of uncertainty seeped out. Again, perfectly legitimate, he could be worrying about anything, from a bad quarrel with his wife to debts.
Edeard observed the direction he was taking and ordered the ge-eagle round in a long curve. It settled on the eaves of a three-storey house at the end of Sonral Street out of sight from its target. As he waited, Edeard realized the man in the hooded jacket wasn’t alone; he was walking with two others. Then the ge-eagle caught sight of him on the street as he came round one of the shallow turns. By now, the hood had slipped back slightly.
‘Oh yes, Lady, thank you,’ Edeard said.
‘What’s happening?’ Dinlay demanded.
‘He’s back,’ Edeard growled. ‘The thief from Silvarum market, the one who was holding the box.’
‘Where!’ Kanseen demanded.
‘Sonral Street. Top third.’
The squad registered annoyance. ‘We can’t farsight that far,’ Boyd complained.
‘Okay, here you go,’ Edeard gifted them the ge-eagle’s sight.
‘Are you sure?’ Macsen asked.
‘He’s right,’ Kanseen said. ‘It is him, the bastard. I can just farsight him.’
‘There are two others with him,’ Edeard told them. ‘And he’s nervous about the ge-eagle, so they’re not here for anything legitimate. Let’s spread out and surround them. Keep a street between yourself and them the whole time. I’ll track them with farsight, I don’t want to risk him seeing the ge-eagle again, that’ll scare them off.’
They all smiled at each other, edgy with nerves and excitement.
‘Go!’ Macsen cried.
After five minutes’ steady jogging Edeard wished he paid more attention to keeping fit. As before, Makkathran’s citizens were reluctant to give ground to anyone in a hurry, least of all a red-faced, sweating, panting young constable. He dodged and shoved and wiggled his way along streets and through alleys, ignoring the whingers, and glaring down anyone who voiced a complaint. His uniform made it worse with its hot, heavy fabric restricting his movements.
Eventually he got himself into position a street to the west of the trio. His farsight showed him his squadmates taking up positions all around. ‘Got them,’ Dinlay’s long-talk announced as he slowed to a walk.
‘Me too,’ Boyd reported.
‘What do you think they’re here to steal?’ Macsen asked.
‘Small enough to carry easily, valuable enough to be worth the risk,’ Dinlay replied.
‘Another one who’s been paying attention during our lectures. But unfortunately that covers about ninety per cent of the shops around here.’
‘Could be something in one of the storerooms, too,’ Boyd suggested.
‘Or a house,’ Kanseen added.
‘Let’s just keep watch on them,’ Edeard told them. ‘When they go into a building, we close in. Remember to wait until the crime has been committed before arresting them.’
‘Hey, never thought of that,’ Macsen said.
Edeard let his farsight sweep through the buildings around the trio, trying to guess what they might be interested in. Hopeless task.
The suspects turned off Sonral Street into an alley so narrow one person could barely fit. Edeard hesitated, they were heading towards his street, but it was a blind alley, blocked by a house wall twenty feet high. His farsight probed around, revealing a series of underground storerooms beneath one of the jewellery shops on Sonral Street. There was a passage leading up to a thick metal door in the alley.
‘At least they’re consistent,’ he remarked. ‘That’s a jeweller’s shop on top.’
‘On top of what?’ Boyd asked.
‘There’s some kind of passage leading off the alley,’ Kanseen told him. ‘It leads downwards somewhere. Edeard, can you actually sense what’s there?’
‘A little bit,’ he admitted reluctantly. ‘Just some kind of open chamber. I think.’ For a moment he wished everyone had his ability – life would be a lot easier.
‘So now what do we do?’ Macsen asked. ‘We can’t rush them, not down that alley.’
‘Wait at the end,’ Dinlay said. ‘They can hardly escape.’
Edeard’s farsight was showing him a whole network of interconnecting passages and rooms running under the row of shops. The passages all had locked doors, but once the thieves were inside, there was a chance they could elude his squad within the little underground maze.
‘The rest of you get into Sonral Street,’ he ordered. ‘I’m going round the back to see if I can find another way down there.’
‘You’re not going in alone?’ Kanseen asked. ‘Edeard, there’s three of them, and we know they carry blades.’
‘I’m just going to make sure they don’t have an escape route, that’s all. Come on, move.’
He was faintly aware of his squadmates hurrying to the broad street beyond the alley. One of the thieves had bent down beside the small door, doing something to the first of its five locks. From what he could sense of the locks, Edeard knew he wouldn’t like to try and pick them open. He concentrated hard, pushing his farsight through the city’s fabric to map out the buried labyrinth of rooms and passages. In truth there were only three exits in addition to the one the trio were currently trying to break through.
Below that level, though, Edeard sensed the web of fissures which wove the city structures together. Several twisted their way up past the storerooms, branching into smaller clefts that laced the walls of the buildings above. He tracked back, finding a convoluted route that led to the street he was standing in. His third hand reached out, probing the fabric of the wall at the back of a tapering alcove between two shops. Nothing, it was as solid as granite.
Please, his longtalk whispered to the mind of the slumbering city. Let me in.
Something intangible stirred beneath him. A flock of ruugulls took flight from the roofs above.
Here, his mind pressed into the rear of the alcove. Something pushed back. Colourful shapes rose into his thoughts, swirling so much faster than the birds overhead.
In his dazed state he thought they resembled numbers and mathematical symbols, but so much larger and more complex than any of the arithmetic Akeem had ever taught him. With these equations the universe could surely be explained away. They danced like sprites, rearranging themselves into a new order before twirling away.
Edeard gasped, struggling to stand up as his legs shook weakly. His heart was pounding far harder than it had been from his earlier run through the streets. He felt the structure of the wall change. When he peered forward it looked exactly the same as before, a dark-purple surface with flecks of grey stretching all the way up to where the curving roofs intersected three storeys above him. But it gave when his third hand touched it.
There were people on the street around him, strolling along. Edeard waited until a relatively clear moment, and stepped into the little alcove. Nobody could see him now. His hand touched the section of wall at the back, and slipped right through. The skin tingled round his fingers, as if he were immersing them in fine sand. He walked into the wall. It was a sensation his brain interpreted as a wave of dry water washing across him. Then he was inside. He opened his eyes to complete darkness. His farsight cast around, and showed him he was suspended in a vertical tube. Even without visual sight, Edeard instinctively looked down. Farsight confirmed his feet were standing on nothing.
‘Oh, Lady!’
He started to descend. It was as though a very powerful third hand was gently lowering him to the bottom of the fissure which snaked away horizontally under the buildings. Yet he was convinced it wasn’t a telekinetic hold. He couldn’t sense anything like that; some other force was manipulating him. O
ddly, his stomach felt as though he was plummeting even though he was moving relatively slowly.
His feet touched the ground. That was when whatever force had gripped him withdrew, leaving him free to sink into a crouch. When he touched the wall of the fissure, he felt a slick of water coating it. A rivulet was trickling over the toe of his boots – he could hear it gurgling softly.
‘It’s a drain,’ he said out loud, astonished that anything so fantastical could actually exist to serve such a mundane purpose.
Despite perfectly clear farsight, he patted round with his hands. The drain fissure was slightly too small for him to walk along it upright. Its side walls were about five feet apart. He took a breath, none too happy at the claustrophobic feeling niggling the back of his mind, and started to move forwards at a stoop.
The thieves had got through the locked door at the top of the passage. An impressive feat in such a short space of time. Two of them were descending the curving stairs to the door which sealed off the bottom, while the third stood guard outside. Edeard moved faster, navigating several forks along the drain fissure. He observed the thieves manipulate the locks on the second door, and go through. Then he was directly underneath the storeroom they were ransacking. The layout was distinct, the wooden racks laid out in parallel. Small boxes piled up on the shelves. A large iron box in one corner, with a very complicated locking mechanism. They were ignoring that.
Edeard looked up as his farsight pervaded the city’s substance above him, a solid mass of rock-like material five yards thick. He concentrated. Closed his eyes – stupid but, well … And applied his mind. Again the equations rose from nowhere to pirouette breezily around his thoughts. He began to rise up, slipping though the once-solid substance like some piece of cork bobbing to the surface of the sea. Once again his stomach was convinced he was falling, to a degree which brought on a lot of queasiness. He had almost reached the floor, when he realized the thieves would sense him the second he popped up. Quickly, he threw a concealment around himself. Then he was emerging into the storeroom, with a weak orange light shining all around. The floor hardened beneath his boots.
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