They crossed three vaults like this, each one more cramped. In the last the roof scraped their backs. Galen slithered to a halt. “Where are you taking us?” he growled.
Ahead, they caught the Sekoi’s grin in a swing of the lantern.
“Safety lies in secrecy, keeper. You know that.” It turned and crawled on. Galen gripped his stick and swore.
Finally the Sekoi came to a tiny door in the wall and opened it. “If you fear heights,” its voice said, rather muffled, “don’t look down.”
Coming through the door and straightening up with relief, Raffi found himself on a curved balcony; a rail was to his left, and to his right a wall that glinted here and there. He saw remnants of faces, giant hands, gold, scarlet, and blue. Galen caught the Sekoi’s arm roughly.
“What are these?” His voice echoed, hissing in far distances.
Impatiently the Sekoi glared at him, then held the lantern up. “Mosaics. Images. Of the Star-people. The ones you call the Makers. This, look, is Flain.”
Galen, astonished, made the gesture of peace; Raffi did the same. In the weak light the enormous face of a man gazed down sternly at them, pieced together from marble, porphyry, precious stones. Parts of it had been hacked out. Staring at the vast eyes, all at once Raffi sensed echoes; lost sense-lines. Turning, he caught hold of the rail and leaned over.
“Be careful!” the Sekoi hissed.
The darkness was immense. A gust of wind blew against him; he glimpsed appalling distances, the floor so far below that he gripped the rail tight with cold fingers, feeling the world swing away under him. Dizzy, he hung on.
They were above some vast empty place, once a temple. The wind howled through its shattered windows. In the darkness he made out glimpses of pillars, fallen altars, smashed statues. Awed, Raffi gazed down, feeling Galen beside him.
“One of ours.”
“Once.” The keeper was chilled; the destruction filled him with bitterness.
“Hurry now.” The Sekoi tapped their backs. “And keep away from the rail. It breaks.”
Tiny in the immense curve of the dome, they followed the star of the lantern, clinging flat to the wall in places where the rail had gone and only emptiness hung. Once, far down in that blackness, something small clattered. The Sekoi whipped its coat over the light; breathless, they waited in the pitch dark.
“Rats,” Carys breathed finally.
The Sekoi sniffed. “Maybe,” it said quietly.
They went on more carefully. Another endless set of stairs, this time between two tight walls. At the top, the Sekoi blew out the lantern.
“What are you doing!” Galen roared from the dark.
They heard a door unlocking. A slot opened in the wall, and to their immense astonishment, sunlight blinded them. With a yell of delight Carys jumped down into it, onto the broad expanse of a roof that spread far and flat into the sky. The sun shone; faint clouds drifted. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, and one of the moons hung high and still like a smudge of chalk dust.
“We’re above the Darkness!” Raffi stepped down, awed.
The air was clean and cold. Far, far off, the mountains were green in the sun. All the colors exhilarated Raffi; he ran to the parapet and gazed down. Below him, he saw only the smoke and darkness of Tasceron; a black vapor, out of which rose spires and domes, high roofs, spindly towers, and joining them all, a fantastic rickety structure of ladders and bridges, walkways, ropes, high in the sky.
“What is this?” Galen asked.
“The way the Sekoi travel. None of us likes the Darkness, keeper, any more than you. So we live up here, when we come to the city. Which is not often.” It turned graciously. “My tribe built this. At the moment I’m the only one here.”
On the roof was a scatter of tents, patched and sewn, and some bigger huts, made from wood nailed inexpertly together. The Sekoi took them to the nearest, went in, and tossed out some cushions.
“Be comfortable,” it said, and disappeared inside.
Suddenly worn out, Raffi crumpled onto the silk and lay back in luxury, closing his eyes in the sun’s warmth. Galen sat beside him, easing his sore leg. Carys watched.
The keeper looked at her; she felt awkward and uneasy. At last she muttered, “You should have told me.”
Raffi opened his eyes. “Told you what?”
“Not you. Him.”
Galen’s eyes were black, like a bird’s; he eased the green and jet crystals from inside his coat and ran his fingers over them. “Nothing to do with you,” he said fiercely.
Raffi sat up. Anxious, he watched them both.
“Of course it is,” she snapped. “We’re in this together. If I’d known you’d lost all . . .”
His glare stopped her. Raffi looked away. “When did you find out?” Galen murmured.
“Down there. In the alley. Though I’d thought before that something was wrong.” She kept her eyes on Galen. “No wonder you want so much to find the Crow.”
Before he could answer, the Sekoi was back, carrying a great platter of fruit. “This is all my people eat,” it said, “so it will have to do.”
“Where did you get it?” Raffi asked, taking a dew-apple.
“There are ways. Some I brought with me. There are places to buy in the city, but they’re brief, furtive, dirty. Knife-in-the-back. Not safe.”
Carys took some fruit and ate it hungrily; Galen was slower, and silent. There was clean water to drink, flavored by a sweet sugar that made Raffi realize his thirst.
It was only when the plate was empty that the Sekoi said, “And how is dear Alberic?”
Galen looked up. “How do you know so much about us?”
It purred again, the long fingers brushing its neck-fur.
“The Order have many secrets, keeper; so do we. Certainly I knew Alberic would send someone after me. He knew I would bring his gold here. And as I said, the owls told me you were in the district.” It smirked, showing small sharp teeth. “I gather I’m not your main interest though. Did I just hear the word Crow?”
Galen gave Carys a vicious stare. “It appears you did.”
The Sekoi shook its head sadly. “You’re foolish, keeper, ever to have come here. Nothing of the Makers is left. We’d know.”
Raffi looked at Galen, but the keeper’s face was hard. “I think you’re wrong. Tomorrow, I want you to take us where we might find some of the Order.”
The Sekoi scratched the fur over one eye. “The Order!”
“There must be someone left.”
It seemed to be thinking. “Maybe. It will be dangerous.”
“Good.” Morosely Galen watched the sun sink into a red cloud. “All the better.”
Journal of Carys Arrin Date unknown
Galen meditates. For hours. His prayers are all that keep him going. I don’t feel glad that I found out about this. It makes things easier for me, and explains a lot, but . . .
Well, I feel sorry for him.
I must be getting soft.
19
You will find that the Sekoi can often be bought—their greed for gold is well known. What they do with it and where they hide it have never been discovered. Their storytelling is some form of hypnosis and may affect the unwary. Keep away from them. They are of no importance.
Rule of the Watch
WHEN RAFFI WOKE, the Sekoi was sitting next to him, its long hands curled under its chin. “At last,” it said. “You’re awake.”
Carys was pacing impatiently, Galen saying the morning litany cross-legged in one corner of the roof. As he stood up, the Sekoi said, “I’m afraid I have no breakfast for you. Should we leave now?”
“Wait.” Galen took the last of Lerin’s food from the pack and shared it around. The Sekoi took a small piece of cheese and nibbled it daintily, pulling a few faces. It swallowed, bravely.
“Exquisite.”
“Stale,” Raffi muttered.
“Really?” The creature’s fur was fine over its face; Raffi noticed the
yellow brightness of its eyes. Abruptly it said, “I should tell you that the Watch know you’re here.”
Galen almost choked. “Here?”
“In the city.”
“How?” Raffi gasped.
“Someone must have told them.”
“But no one’s seen us!”
The Sekoi purred, amused. “Don’t be fooled, small scholar. Many will have seen you. You may not have seen them. The city is full of eyes and spies. I’ve heard there are patrols out looking for you.”
Galen looked bleak. He ran a hand through his black hair. Carys glanced away. Her heart was thudding but she kept calm. It had to be the Watchmen at the gate. Rapidly she thought it out. Now someone higher up knew she was here—but not who the others were; not yet. This would make it harder, though. Everywhere would be watched.
As if it read her thoughts, the Sekoi stood and stretched lazily. “But no patrols where we go, masters.” It turned and waved a web of fingers airily. “We walk in the sky.”
The sun glittered on the highest tips of the city, rising from the dark mists below. The Sekoi led them to a corner of the roof and leaped elegantly over a narrow gap to a small bridge that swayed under its weight. Raffi followed; clutching the rope to hold himself, he glanced down and saw the gap between the roofs was filled to the brim with the swirling smoke. Just as well, he thought, imagining how high up they were.
“Move!” Galen yelled. “Hurry up.”
Raffi frowned. The Relic Master’s temper was getting worse the farther they went.
ALL MORNING THEY FOLLOWED the Sekoi over the intricate sky-road. It was cobbled together: a chain of bridges, rope-swings, planks, and stairway on stairway of trembling, wind-battered steps, around precarious domes and steeples, nested on by birds, stained by rain and the stench from the murk below. They climbed among chimneys, broken tiles, balustrades and balconies, belfries where the cracked bells still hung, filthy with bird droppings, silent since the city’s fall. It was cold up here, exhilarating; Raffi found himself almost happy, just being in the sun again. He could see here, he knew where he was. He sent sense-lines spinning into the clouds.
Finally though, he saw the road was running out. Fewer and fewer buildings pierced the dark, and some of the aerial stairways were broken. Twice they had to turn back. When the Sekoi stopped, on the parapet of a small dome, it helped Raffi up with a furred hand.
“Not dizzy?”
He shook his head. “Though I would be if I could see the ground.”
“Ah.” The creature leaned out and looked down. “So even Darkness has its uses. Worthy of your Litany, that idea.” It glanced back at Galen. “I wonder if that’s true of all darkness.”
Raffi stared at the Sekoi, but it winked at him and said no more. After a moment Raffi said, “You didn’t tell us your name.”
“We don’t tell our names, little scholar. Not to outsiders.” It tapped the zigzag mark under its eye. “That’s my name. It would just sound like a snarl to you. Didn’t teach you much about us, did he?”
“The Sekoi hate water and the dark,” Raffi quoted quickly. “They imperil their souls with riches; they tell intricate lies.”
The creature winced. “I see.” It made a small face. “Well, it’s accurate. Gold is precious to us. The sorrows of Kest come to everyone, even us, who were here before the Starmen. But now, I’m afraid, this is as far as we go. Come and see.”
Without waiting for the others, it walked around the dome, balancing easily on a narrow flaking ledge of stone, putting one foot delicately before the other. Raffi inched after it, arms wide, holding on to moldings and carved faces that crumbled in his hands. Breathless, the wind plucking at him, he sidled around to a wider part and found the Sekoi sitting, its legs dangling over the abyss.
“There,” it said softly. “The great wound.”
Before them, as far as they could see, the Darkness lay unbroken. Remote in the distance, the sun caught the tops of other towers, but the heart of the city was black and drowned, with nothing left high enough to pierce the eternal murk. Here the Darkness was vast; it steamed and churned, almost thick enough to walk on.
“So we go back down, then?” Carys said. She had come around silently; now she watched Galen balance, the staff strapped to his back.
“Down and down,” the Sekoi said mournfully. “That is, if you still want to.”
“We do,” the keeper said at once.
“Pity. All the dangers lie down there.”
“That’s nothing to me,” Galen growled.
The Sekoi raised an eyebrow at Raffi. “If you say so.”
A door in the dome led them to a stair, and they followed it down. After only minutes the light faded away; by the time they’d passed the third cracked window, darkness was back around them, and the Sekoi had to light its lantern and hold it up. Rats scattered all down the stairs.
Raffi felt his heart sink back into gloom. The sense-lines dimmed. From somewhere down below, the stench of something rotting made him retch. At the bottom of the stairs the Sekoi put the lantern out and hid it. Following through twists and turns of walls, they found themselves in a ruined courtyard. Picking its way through broken pillars and the leaning column of a sundial, the Sekoi paused under an archway. Beyond it the alley was black.
“Where now?” Galen muttered.
The creature eyed him. Then it said, “A few streets away is a story-house. A place where my people gather. We may find someone there who can help. Remember, keep silent.”
They moved close together. After the sunlight above, Raffi felt he had gone blind. But gradually walls reemerged from the gloom, dim outlines. They walked silently down a long street past what had once been shops; now they were drafty holes where rubbish gusted. The street felt cobbled, narrow between the high walls of grim buildings; a shutter banging in the silence; a fountain clotted with dead leaves.
Halfway down the Sekoi turned right, into a blacker crack; a strange archway spanned the entrance and under it Raffi caught a few words carved beautifully in stone: “Street of the Arch,” still clear after centuries.
Galen had stopped; he made a rapt sign with his hand. “Look there, Raffi.”
Above the street name was a niche with the remains of a statue. Fragments now, but Raffi knew in an instant what it had been: Soren, her arms full of flowers. A carved lily was still perfect in the stone.
“Hurry,” the Sekoi hissed from the dark.
Moving after it, Raffi tried to imagine the city as it had been once, filled with sunlight, full of shining statues of the Makers, its fountains rippling pure water, its streets thronged with pilgrims. For a moment he believed it, but it made the Darkness seem worse.
He almost walked past the others; Carys caught him. They were gathered in a narrow doorway. The Sekoi knocked twice, varying the pattern. Then it knocked again, four times.
They waited, nervous, in the inky street. Glancing back, Carys knew if a patrol was watching them it would be impossible to see. She fought off the sudden panicky thought and turned back.
Without a sound, a small grille in the door had opened. The Sekoi muttered a few sounds into it. Seconds later, the door was unlocked.
They never saw the doorkeeper. The Sekoi hustled them in down a lightless passage; the door locked behind them as they crossed a courtyard to an inner door. The Sekoi turned, blocking the way. “It’s best if you say nothing. They won’t speak to you anyway. Sit and watch. Try not to listen.”
With that strange remark they went in. The room was small, and lit with green candles that gave a wonderful light. To Raffi’s joy, it was full of Sekoi; about a dozen of the creatures, lounging on cushions around a fire. They all turned and looked as the strangers came in; then, as one, they looked away again.
“Sit down,” the Sekoi whispered. There were empty cushions in a corner; Carys perched on one, knees up. The storyteller, a female Sekoi sitting by the fire, did not pause; it went on speaking in their language of strange purring consonant
s, one hand moving as it talked, throwing deft shadows.
Fascinated, Raffi watched. He had never seen so many of them; he noticed the different colors and patterns of their fur, the small tribemarks. There were no young ones, though. No children. Each had an absorbed look, as if they dreamed or were in some trance as they listened, and they took not the slightest notice of the travelers.
Finally, the story came to an end. There was no applause, just silence, and then the creatures talked excitedly to one another.
“Why are they ignoring us?” Carys asked, annoyed.
The Sekoi smiled. “My people are honest. If the Watch question them they can say they’ve talked to no keeper, no Starmen.”
It uncurled itself and crossed the room and, taking the storyteller by the arm, began to whisper.
Galen fidgeted. “Are we safe here? How does it feel?”
“There’s nothing. I can’t read Sekoi.”
“I could.” The keeper’s hawk-face darkened. “But then, they’re usually safe. They despise most Starmen, especially the Watch. But not the Order.”
“Why call us Starmen?” Carys asked.
“Because the Makers came from the sky. The Sekoi say they watched them come. They have stories about it.” He laughed harshly. “They have stories about everything.”
Behind the quiet talk another teller had begun; an oldlooking Sekoi mumbling almost to itself. As he sat there, Raffi felt the pattern of words; at first they meant nothing to him, but as Galen and Carys talked, their voices faded out and the room rippled, as if it were an image in water. He closed his eyes and opened them, but the rippling went on; he turned to speak to Galen about it but the keeper had gone; all around him was a dark hillside under the stars, brilliantly frosty, and the seven moons beyond, making the Ring.
Standing there, Raffi shivered in the cold, feeling his fur thicken, seeing the night in new colors, colors that had no words but Sekoi words, and he said them to himself, quietly delighted.
The Dark City Page 12