The Last Citadel

by Kevin Ashman

  He pulled himself back to reality. Tonight would come soon enough but this afternoon would be spent looking for the mysterious child he had been told about the previous day. He took the coin from his pocket and looked at it for a long time, wondering what it was that was so special about this kid that warranted such a high payment.

  Kenzo placed the coin at the very bottom of the food box, tucked away in the corner knowing it would be safe there. Grabbing a second slice of bread as he passed, he left the block and headed into the city, soon becoming aware of the weird state of the waters outside the city walls as he made his way through the crowds. He allowed himself a few minutes to see the phenomena before continuing on his quest. Obtaining the money to buy Leona from her father was far more important than some freak of nature.

  He walked around Bastion talking to all the dross and wasters of the city. The guard also acted as the city’s police force and over the last year, Kenzo had come to know most of the miscreants and drunkards personally. Despite Fatman’s instructions, Kenzo had always been fair and in return had built up a network of reliable informants, but no one had even heard of the child, yet alone seen him. Finally, he sat outside an illegal hooch joint sharing a glass of the fierce drink with an old friend of his father who had fallen on hard times.

  ‘Who is this kid?’ the old man asked.

  ‘Oh, just someone I promised to find for a friend,’ replied Kenzo, ‘you know how it is, ran away from home or something.’

  ‘Is there some sort of reward for finding him?’ asked the old man.

  ‘Why do you ask that?’ asked Kenzo, suddenly defensive.

  ‘Well, you’re not the only one to ask about him today,’ he said.

  ‘Who else is asking?’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘What’s it worth?’

  ‘Oh come on, Jed, for old time’s sake.’

  ‘Old time’s sake doesn’t fill my belly, Kenzo,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll buy you another drink.’

  ‘Two!’ answered Jed.

  ‘Okay two. Now, who else is seeking the child?’

  The old man smiled.

  ‘Your cousin!’ he said.

  ‘Amber?’ asked Kenzo incredulously.

  ‘Amber!’ confirmed Jed. ‘She was here only this afternoon.’

  ‘Why was she looking for him?’

  ‘Who knows?’

  There was a pause before Kenzo continued.

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘Three drinks?’ asked Jed hopefully.

  ‘You’re pushing your luck now,’ laughed Kenzo. ‘Okay, three drinks and that’s your lot. Now, where did she go?’

  ‘She didn’t say, though I do know she was last seen in the Cobbler’s quarter!’ said Jed and called the bar owner to refill his glass.

  Kenzo thanked the man and left the tavern to make his way to the Cobbler’s quarter, his mind now suddenly focused on the task in hand. If the Watchers wanted this child so badly, and were willing to have him killed in the process, he could be dangerous. In fact, the Watcher named De-gill had specifically warned Kenzo that the boy wouldn’t come quietly.

  Kenzo realised that this adventure had now taken a sinister twist and the fact that Amber was involved made it all the worse. He broke into a trot, thoughts of weddings and money discarded. Foremost in his mind, was finding Amber, the rest could wait.

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  Kenzo reached the Cobblers quarter and started asking around. There was no need to be circumspect this time as he was simply asking about his cousin. Amber was well known in Bastion, especially by the kids, so that was where he concentrated his efforts. Within ten minutes, he started to obtain information.

  ‘Yes, Amber was here,’ was the usual reply and ‘no I don’t know where she is now.’

  ‘Why, is she in trouble?’ asked a particularly dislikeable boy when questioned.

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ said Kenzo, ‘have you seen her?’

  ‘Not since we saw the water together,’ said Flip. ‘I didn’t stay long, but she did.’

  ‘Who was she with?’ asked Kenzo carefully, not wishing to give too much away about the boy from the Watcher-tower.

  ‘No-one, but when I left she was talking to an old man. Perhaps he murdered her!’ he said his eyes widening.

  ‘What old man?’

  ‘Dunno his name, but he had some posh robes on.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘White scruffy hair and long white beard,’ said Flip shrugging his shoulders. ‘Like I said, long white robes. Worth a coin or two if you ask me.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Well, he didn’t stop scribbling on his pad as I recall.’

  ‘Thanks!’ said Kenzo and tossed him a sugar-shell sweet he had been saving for later. He needed to find that man and with that description, it shouldn’t be too difficult. He retraced his steps to the tavern once again to speak to Jed and found the old man slumped against the wall snoring gently in the late afternoon light, an overturned beaker at his side.

  ‘Jed, wake up,’ he said shaking him gently, already regretting buying the old man the extra drinks, ‘it’s me, Kenzo, I need your help.’ The old man opened his eyes and struggled to focus on Kenzo’s face.

  ‘Hello, Kenzo,’ he slurred. ‘Haven’t seen you for ages. Wanna buy me a drink?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Kenzo, ‘you’ve had quite enough. Listen, I need your help.’ He passed on the description he had received from Flip.

  ‘What’s it worth?’ asked Jed hopefully, repeating the mantra he used dozens of times every day.

  ‘Jed, Amber could be in trouble,’ he said, ‘I need your help.’ He looked at the old man’s unfocussed eyes. ‘Jed, come on,’ he said urgently, ‘she could be hurt.’

  ‘It sounds like the star man,’ answered the drunk eventually, ‘try him.’

  ‘Star man, who’s the star man?’

  ‘Works in the keep, looks at the stars. Easy job, if you ask me, I could do that.’

  ‘Thanks, Jed,’ said Kenzo. He called the owner over from the tavern and gave him a small coin. ‘Give him a cot to sleep it off,’ he said, ‘and when he wakes, give him a meal.’

  ‘Won’t get much for this,’ muttered the landlord.

  Kenzo grabbed the landlord by the scruff.

  ‘You and I both know that is plenty,’ he snarled, ‘now put him to bed and make sure his belly is full when he wakes. I am back on duty tomorrow and feel the need to inspect the taverns around here for licenses. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘You’re a guard?’ asked the landlord nervously

  ‘Yup and this is my very close friend,’ he said.

  The landlord thought furiously, the last thing he wanted was to upset a guard, it wasn’t the threat of inspections that worried him, he could always bribe his way out of that, but the possibility of boycott was a real concern. The guards were his best customers.

  ‘Leave it to me,’ he said and bent over to pick up the snoring figure of Jed. ‘Come on, old man, I think you and I are about to become bosom buddies.’ He looked up at Kenzo who gave him an acknowledging nod before turning to leave the alleyway once again

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  Chapter 13

  The pipes of smaller live sewers piercing the walls on either side soon joined Amber’s dry tunnel, and though there was little evidence of their disgusting purpose due to the heavy rains that flushed them every night, she still crinkled her nose at the stench. She picked her way along the drier pathway at the side of the main channel following it downstream and within a few minutes, came to a junction with another sewer tunnel that she remembered from the last time she was here. On that occasion, she had gone downstream and got horribly lost. She shuddered at the memory, so when the light from her lamp picked out Crispin’s muddy footprints leading upstream, she was more than a little relieved.

  She followed the channel up as far as she could, until the footprints sto
pped and was surprised to see a small, perfectly formed archway at head height, obviously the way that Crispin had gone.

  She pulled herself up and crawled through the archway, coming out onto a ledge high above yet another tunnel.

  ‘No, not a tunnel,’ she thought, ‘this was a passageway!’

  Gone was the stinking channel of filth and the slimy walls of the sewers, growing with heaven knows what. This was a perfectly formed and carefully constructed passage disappearing left and right into the darkness. Amber was excited, a secret passageway beneath the city: her secret passageway that no one else knew about.

  She dropped to the floor below and stood quietly in the darkness listening for any sound. The smell of filth had been replaced by something else, something familiar and though it obviously wasn’t as bad as the sewage, it was still quite pungent and unpleasant.

  Amber found a slight imprint of dried mud on the stone floor from Crispin’s shoe, and made her way down the sloping passage eventually reaching a crossroads. Up until now, she had simple choices to make, with just a simple left or right turn as she went along. This time she had a choice of three different directions, left, right, or straight on.

  She lowered the plankton orb to illuminate the floor, hoping to reveal any sign of the fleeing boy but the damp stone meant there was no sign of any prints. After a few moments consideration, she marked the tunnel she had come from with her knife and walked straight across to the opening opposite her.

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  Within minutes, Amber stopped in awe as she entered a large chamber. A huge pit seemed to drop away at her feet while above her, the shaft continued up into the darkness. A ledge ran all around the circular room with dozens of passages leading off, each identical to the other, and Amber knew there was a severe risk of getting lost. The new smell was very strong in the chamber and peering downwards into the pit, she confirmed what her nose already told her, brine.

  The plankton orb reflected off the seawater just a few feet below, but as the ledge she was on was still soaking wet, Amber realised that a few hours earlier, the water level must have been much higher. She turned around and placed her hand high on the wall and sure enough, it was covered with still damp seaweed, confirming the water had even been higher than the doorways around the shaft.

  She held her lamp up to shine the light around the rest of the chamber, trying to see if there were any clues to which way the boy had gone, but seeing none, she decided to use a process of elimination. She would start with the first tunnel to her left and if she had no luck there, would continue around the chamber in sequence until she found him.

  Decision made, she carefully marked the entrance from which she came and walked into the first corridor, holding her lamp before her.

  The going was much more comfortable now as the passages were larger than the sewers she had used earlier. Every so often, she passed smaller arched openings in the walls on either side, and though each entrance also had a small alcove carved into the rock alongside, each containing a few candles and a tinderbox, she resisted the temptation to explore.

  Amber hurried on but was getting concerned. Not only was she far away from familiar territory, there was the possibility of bumping into someone in the gloom. Anyone could be waiting around any corner, alerted by the glow of her lamp, or the fall of her foot. If they, whoever they were, were willing to kill Crispin, she was sure they would have no problem making it two victims. Murder was common in the pressure pot that was Bastion.

  Finally, she stopped and considered the situation carefully. She had enough excitement for now and her mind was spinning with information overload. She needed to get back to take all this in and though she had no idea how much time had passed, she felt tired and hungry. Crispin would have to wait; she needed help and would return to the city to tell Kenzo everything. He would know what to do.

  She stood up and retraced her steps, finally returning to the chamber containing the seawater shaft. She found the mark she had left on the wall but as she re-entered the familiar tunnel, she froze mid stride, hearing a noise ahead of her.

  She listened carefully, afraid to move. She heard it again, a cough ahead in the darkness between her and the ledge that led to the relative safety of the sewers. Slowly, she covered the plankton lamp with her robe, conscious that it would give her away, not knowing what to do. She started retracing her steps, walking backwards in the darkness away from the noise.

  For the first time in her life, Amber was really scared! She decided to run, to seek somewhere to hide in these vast Catacombs. All thoughts of intrigue and adventure were forgotten with the realization that her life was at risk, but before she could even turn, the option was snatched from her. A clawed hand closed over her mouth from behind and an unseen assailant clamped her arms to her sides. Amber’s eyes bulged with terror and her body became rigid, her brain unable to comprehend what was happening in the darkness, and though she knew she had to fight, the vice like grip around her body and mouth meant that she put up a rather feeble resistance as her captor dragged her deeper into the unknown depths of the Catacombs.

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  Chapter 14

  Kenzo made his way to the keep to seek out the star man, hoping that he may have an idea where his cousin was. Though he knew the gates would be closed to the general populace, he also knew access and egress was allowed to those who lived inside, the artists. He was due to meet Leona at the ninth hour and she would come out of a smaller side door to meet him. Kenzo nursed a hope that perhaps he could sneak inside to find the old guy, or failing that, he would ask Leona to speak to him on his behalf. He sat on the bench outside the keep waiting for his would-be fiancé, looking down at the sprawl of Bastion below him. One by one the windows with no shutters glowed as the occupants lit their rooms against the oncoming night.

  You could tell the ones who had a bit of money, they were the windows with white light, the kind given off by Narwl-fat candles that could be bought from the candle makers in the city. They would buy the fat from the Hunters on market day and form it into candles using dried weed wicks purchased from the Weavers. But they didn’t last long and you obviously had to buy new ones on a regular basis.

  The plankton orbs on the other hand, could be used over and over again. All you had to do was suspend the porous ball in a bucket of seawater for an hour and it would exude its dim green glow for most of the night. Most blocks had orbs and though the light was vastly inferior to the candles, once they had been bought from the Hunters who harvested them from the submerged rocks that supported the city walls, they lasted a lifetime, often passed down from generation to generation.

  He watched the sky darken. He often sat up here, enjoying the evening breeze and staring down at the city. In a world with enormous encircling walls, any view at all was precious, and this one was one of the few available. The city became quieter as it settled down for the night, for though some men frequented the taverns and bordellos, very few of the populace ventured out at night, and gradually, silence fell over the Citadel.

  A disturbance became apparent at the bottom of the slope and Kenzo recognized the figure of Braille and another soldier as they walked up the hill toward him. He looked at the insignia on Braille’s upper arm and groaned. He wore a bright red armband, the insignia of guard supervisor and had a stupid grin on his face.

  ‘Hello, mere mortal,’ said Braille as he neared Kenzo, ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere. Get your shit together; you’re wanted back at the barracks.’

  ‘I’m on leave,’ objected Kenzo, ‘I still have a day left.’

  ‘You must be blind as well as stupid, boy,’ gloated his friend, as he thrust his arm forward in case Kenzo had missed the symbol of his new role, ‘I am now your official superior, which means when I say shit, you crouch and strain, savvy?’

  Kenzo groaned. Braille would be unbearable now. He was promoted often due to the other soldiers fear of him, but it never lasted long. He soon became bored and the rank was usually s
tripped from him after a few days, due to some fight or sexual indiscretion, but until that happened this time, Kenzo’s life would be made hell by his friend.

  ‘All leave is cancelled according to his holiness, the fat one,’ continued Braille, ‘there’s some sort of emergency on and it seems we may be needed to crack a few skulls tomorrow.’ The grin erupting on his face indicated the joy that thought gave him.

  ‘Can’t you just give me a few hours?’ asked Kenzo, ‘I’m meeting Leona in ten minutes.’

  ‘No can do, matey,’ said Braille. ‘You are the last one and if you don’t come back with me, I’ll be in deeper shit than I normally am, and that’s deep! Of course, I could always introduce you to Brenda,’ he smiled sweetly.

  Kenzo scowled.

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ he said, his eyes narrowing in disbelief. Brenda was Braille’s favourite cosh and had broken more heads in its career than Kenzo had eaten Narwl steak.

  ‘Try me,’ Braille grinned.

  ‘Oh come on, Braille’ pleaded Kenzo, ‘you’re supposed to be my friend.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ asked, Braille, ‘we both know you’re not going to get any action with her until you’re married.’

  Kenzo was tempted to tell Braille about Amber and the strange boy, but decided against it.

  ‘Ok,’ he said eventually, ‘give me a minute to leave a message at the gate for Leona.’

  ‘One minute,’ agreed Braille, ‘or Mrs Cosh will be saying hello to Mr Skull.’

  Kenzo threw Braille a false grin, which was returned sweetly by the giant oaf, and ran across the bridge to leave a message with one of the duty guards at the gate. When he returned, Kenzo was dismayed to see the other soldier doing press ups at Braille’s feet.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asked.

  Braille smiled his stupid smile at Kenzo.

  ‘Got to keep up standards,’ he said, ‘lots of responsibility when you’re an officer.’

  ‘You’re not an officer,’ said Kenzo slowly, ‘you’re a squad leader, that’s one coin a month more than a soldier, with temporary authority as required.’