by Rob May
‘But I can kill, skin and eat a real unicorn!’ Kal had argued with the professor.
‘Are you saying, young lady, that in your imagination, a unicorn can’t be killed?’
Over the years, Kal had gotten a pretty good education in history, literature and the arts. Unfortunately for her though, the colleges of Science, Engineering and Medicine had the nerve to demand to see her enrolment papers before they would let her take part in any lab experiments. Today, she entered the cool lobby of the Department of Resistance Analysis expecting to be challenged, but the place seemed deserted. There was only a fat old porter, half-asleep in his cramped lodge just inside the doors.
‘I’m here to see Doctor Phyn,’ Kal said.
‘She’s down in the basement,’ the old man grunted. He barely opened his eyes.
Kal shrugged and went looking for some stairs. Instead, at the back of the lobby, she found herself facing a pair of open vertical shafts around four feet across. Chains rattled along on the the inside walls of the shafts, moving down the left shaft and up the right. Kal was bewildered; was she supposed to jump in and grab a chain?
Luckily, the solution soon revealed itself, saving her any embarrassment. A wooden compartment was descending the left shaft, while a similar one was rising on the right. Kal hopped inside the left box and watched the lobby disappear above her. For several seconds she was in complete darkness, and then just as she was wondering whether or not she should start panicking, the basement level rose into view and Kal stepped out.
She could hear running water under her feet. Some underground river powering the lift mechanism? She was impressed already, and slightly apprehensive about meeting this Doctor Phyn. Walking down a whitewashed brick tunnel, Kal found herself standing before a solid metal door labelled Research and Development. The only way in was to pull the bell chain and hope for the best. No wonder the porter wasn’t too bothered about who wandered past him.
The door was opened by a young woman who had a small frame and short blond, almost white, hair. She was wearing a sleeveless top and loose linen trousers.
‘Well, hello Doctor,’ Kal said.
Nim Phyn laughed. ‘Hi Kal. Come on in! I’ve been waiting here for you all morning.’
‘Ben should have told you that I don’t do mornings,’ Kal said as she followed Nim. They entered an underground chamber that had white tiled walls and a concrete floor. Strange glowing lamps hung from the ceiling, illuminating the space with a flat, even light. There were workbenches full of mechanical equipment and unfamiliar tools, and large cabinets stuffed with papers and books.
Nim perched on a high stool and watched Kal’s face as she looked around the basement. ‘Anything catch your eye?’ she asked.
Kal accepted the invitation to have a snoop around Nim’s workplace. She examined a tray of rings fitted with intricate devices—needles, lockpicks and coils of filament wire. A two-wheeled frame with a seat and handles was propped against a wall. In one corner there was a tailor’s mannequin dressed in some soft, thin black leathers. Kal stopped by a collection of long knives with smooth, gleaming blades. She picked one up to admire: it was slim, light and very, very sharp.
‘They’re chrometal,’ Nim said, from over at her desk where she had begun inspecting a pistol crossbow. ‘Hard, flexible, and they won’t rust. Take one. In fact, take two. I had them made for you, after all.’
Kal tested the weight of the knife; the blade and the handle were perfectly balanced. She wondered how good of a replacement blade this would be for the bloodsteel shortsword and knife that Ben had given her last year; ancient weapons that had melted away to nothing in the lava of a volcano.
‘Are they better than the blades of the gods?’ she asked Nim.
Nim shrugged. ‘Did the gods have a block-wide steel foundry like the one I have use of downtown? They’ll serve you well, Kal. Ben told me about your knife fetish, so I ordered these especially. I even had them engraved for you.’
Kal looked closer; the knife was etched with an image of a dragon that coiled around both sides of the blade, from the hilt to the tip.
She was delighted. ‘I do not have a knife fetish. Well, I didn’t until now, anyway.’
‘Then I should stop listening to his Royal Highness, Benedict the Almighty,’ Nim said mischievously, ‘and form my own opinion of the legend that is Kal Moonheart.’
‘Legend?’ Kal scoffed. ‘You’ve been spending too much time holed up in your little bunker. What is it you do down here exactly, Nim? Resistance analysis? Some of these contraptions seem to be designed more for inflicting rather than resisting!’
Nim gave her an impish grin. ‘Well, they do say that attack is the best form of defence. Come and have a look at this—my latest toy.’
Kal walked over to Nim, who offered up the pistol crossbow. Kal had seen one like it before; they were used mainly for recreational shooting. This one had a steel stock and a black wooden body and grip … and an extra attachment at the back for a spool of wire.
‘Three hundred yards of eighteen gauge high tensile wire,’ Nim explained. ‘Strong enough to support two of you, Kal. What are you? About a hundred and forty pounds?’
Kal raised an eyebrow. ‘I have no idea,’ she said. ‘Don’t tell me that this is for climbing!’
‘No, of course not,’ Nim said, ‘but it will do for a speedy descent: look, the bolts have backwards-facing sprung barbs: you’ll have to be a good shot to hit a suitable spot, but—’
‘I’m a very good shot,’ Kal said, pulling the cocking arm down and taking aim across the room, holding the weapon steady with both hands. She fired, and the bolt flew towards the door and hit precisely in the join between the wall and the door jamb. Kal was impressed with the draw weight; it must have been at least a hundred pounds. She tried to yank the weapon back and pull the bolt out by the wire, but the barbs held.
‘The wire passes through the body of the crossbow,’ Nim explained, ‘so you can use it as a pulley. This lever here …’—she showed Kal where to find it—‘ejects the wire so that you can release the weapon. I’ve got some spare coils you can take.’
Kal was impressed. ‘I was going to head home to kit myself out, but you might have everything I need right here, Nim.’ She nodded over at the mannequin. ‘Are those threads for me too?’
Nim’s face lit up. ‘Of course! I spent all last night adjusting them to what I hope will be a good fit. Oh Kal, you won’t believe what they are made of!’
* * *
Ten minutes later, Kal was fitted-out in soft, but tough, leather: trousers, boots and a sleeveless jerkin. Nim stood in front of her, altering the buckles on the harness that secured Kal’s knives and crossbow.
‘How long have you been working for Ben, Nim?’ Kal asked. ‘He’s never mentioned you to me before.’
‘He never mentioned to me that he knew you before this week, either,’ Nim said, as she fastened three wire cartridges to Kal’s belt. ‘I don’t know much about him really. I was a grad student in applied engineering when he set up this department and offered to fund my doctorate. He treats me to dinner occasionally and we discuss my work, but that’s about it. Do you know him well?’
Not as well as I thought I did.
‘We used to be close,’ Kal said, ‘before he entered the Senate. Now he’s more like someone I do jobs for.’
‘Are you off on a job now?’ Nim asked, stepping back to check out Kal’s get-up.
‘Yes,’ Kal said. ‘And if I were you, Nim, I’d stay down here and bolt that door behind me. Things could get ugly on the streets tonight.’
Nim followed Kal out the metal door and along the corridor to the lift shafts. She put a hand on Kal’s shoulder as Kal went to step into the rising wooden box. ‘Promise you’ll be careful out there,’ she said. ‘I’ve never met anyone like you before, Kal, and I think we could be friends. Come back safe, okay?’
Kal had to wait for the next box before she could get away. ‘I can’t promise that I�
�ll be careful,’ she said as she rose up the shaft, watching Nim’s face disappearing below her. ‘But I will be back.’
III.iii
Suicide is Painless
Kal stepped back out into the glare of the midday sun. It was too hot really to do anything today, except perhaps lie in the shade drinking gin and tonic water, which she was sure Zeb was doing right now. But Kal had to beat Raelo Redrake back to his mansion on the hill, so she willed her limbs into action and jogged off across the university grounds. Once over the wall, she clambered up the side of a row of terraced townhouses. To Kal, the rooftops were a road that led in any direction that she wanted to go. As she climbed, her mind went back over the parade that had preceded General Cassava’s return to the city; now that she thought about it, Kal couldn’t remember seeing Redrake among the procession of senators. His bald head wouldn’t have been hard to miss. Well, if he wasn’t at home either, then hopefully he had left a clue …
Kal was out of breath once she got up top, but her new leathers were still cool and dry. And she was impressed that they were hardly marked where she had rubbed up against the brickwork of the houses. Nim had done a good job fitting her out: stitching together a dragonskin outfit would have been beyond the skills and tools of most tailors. Kal always took pride in practical clothes and weapons; they made her feel confident when setting out on a job. Apart from the crazy wire-firing crossbow—which she wouldn’t be trusting her life to any time soon—Kal was pleased with her new kit.
She hopped, skipped and jumped her way along the long crescent of teracotta-tiled roofs that led around the circumference of Arcus Hill. Pausing at the gutter of the last house in the row, Kal prepared to drop down into Dragon Park. She could hear voices below though: the gruff, brutal tone of soldiers:
‘Shut your face, old man! Your ancient gods ain’t coming back; you should be kissing the general’s beautiful arse for stepping in instead!’
‘The Dragon … he will come … he will kill us all!’
Kal looked down over the street, being careful not to let her shadow give her away. Three of Cassava’s legionaries were tormenting a poor old priest in the road below. The man was in a state of frantic distress, no doubt after witnessing Cassava ritually slaughtering a dragon on the Basilica steps. The city’s priests generally devoted their whole lives to avoiding stirring up trouble with the great winged beasts.
‘He certainly will be coming if you keep screaming. Hold him down, lads!’ The soldier started to unbuckle his belt as his two friends laid the old priest flat on his back and held him still with a boot in each of his elbows.
Kal could have easily dropped down off the roof, broken both her fall and the lead soldier’s neck at the same time, and put a dagger in each of the other men’s hearts before they even realised that she was there. But no: what was she, some kind of vigilante? This isn’t my problem, she thought as she stepped away and found a route down the other side of the building.
As she left the scene, the old priest’s shouts turned to spluttering gurgles.
* * *
Dragon Park. The only place in the city where you could find a statue of the Dragon—right at the spot where a thousand years ago it had killed Arcus (reportedly by biting him in two) and so ended the age of the gods. The statue had come to symbolise Amaranthium’s uneasy truce with the god of all monsters: We acknowledge your power and strength, it seemed to say. We will always remember what you did here. Now please stay away and leave us in peace.
As she hurried down the central corridor of conifers in the direction of Raelo’s mansion, Kal could see that something was different about the Dragon’s silhouette. Today it had no head! The head, and the giant hammers that had done the damage, were lying on the grass nearby … as were the bodies of the two soldiers that had swung them. So blood had been split already, but surely the city’s priests wouldn’t kill Cassava’s soldiers just for vandalising a statue?
Then Kal spied two distant figures leaving the scene, wiping blood from their swords. Scruffy, bearded men in worn travellers’ cloaks.
Dragonites. Kal could almost smell the Wild on them; the cult had long been banned from the city, and its acolytes now lived in camps out in the forest. This pair had no doubt snuck in through one of the many secret ways under the walls, and now they appeared to be heading in the same direction she was. Kal slipped down a parallel pathway and tried to catch some of their conversation through the trees. They were discussing Raelo Redrake:
‘… first Dragonite consul … loyal … disband the legions …’
‘… and burn the temples … Redrake could wield absolute power …’
‘… torturer kept a man alive for ten years …’
And then they were out of earshot, having left the park and entered Raelo’s mansion. Kal watched the front doors from the cover of a low yew tree: Raelo’s home stood alone in its own square acre of grounds; one of the few private residences that could rival Ben’s for size. The building was taller than it was wide; a stout tower with decorative crenellations around the top. Raelo was a ineffectual voice in the senate, Kal had heard, so he had built a home to project an image of power and strength instead. Was that how the Dragonites got to him, Kal wondered; by promising him the power he had always craved?
The gate and the front doors of the mansion were hanging open. In the shadow of the portico, the entrance was dark like the mouth of a cave. Where was Greg, Raelo’s personal guard? He was usually always outside, happily chatting with passers-by. And he would never just leave the doors open if he was escorting guests inside. Something was up. The deserted entrance beckoned, so Kal broke from cover, crossed Park Road, and ran up Raelo’s front steps. A figure emerged from the darkness at that moment and stood in her way.
‘Greg! Where’s Raelo? Is he home?’
The young guard just gaped at Kal with a vacant expression. His eyes were rolling around in his head as if he was dizzy. He stumbled forward and fell into her arms. His lower body was hot and wet—Kal realised that he had been run through with a sword.
‘Lie down,’ she said. ‘Just close your eyes and try to get some rest.’ She laid him down carefully in the shadows of the doorway. As she stood up, Kal pulled out her pistol crossbow and cocked the bolt. Raelo’s atrium appeared deserted. As she stepped away from Greg’s lifeless body, something crunched under her feet. She glanced down; the floor was covered with tiny fragments of marble. The column that usually displayed Raelo’s proud bust was empty.
She ventured deeper into the gloom of the house, holding the crossbow out in front of her in a two-handed grip. The whole place was covered in deep-pile carpets, thick wall hangings and heavy curtains, all in rich reds and blacks. Light wasn’t welcome here, and Kal discovered that even at midday, lamps had been lit to illuminate the central stairwell that rose five storeys through the spine of the mansion. Kal stood at the bottom and looked up …
Two men were creeping down, swords drawn. When they spotted Kal they froze for an instant, then charged towards her. Kal shot her bolt instinctively … but her instincts were good: the bolt entered one of the men’s cheeks and exited via his ear, finally burying itself in one of the thick oak balusters that supported the banister. The second man didn’t see the filament wire that trailed in the bolt’s wake, and his feet gave way as the wire caught him under the chin. It was enough to open up his jugular and he crashed down at Kal’s feet squirting blood.
That noise certainly wouldn’t go unnoticed if there were more of them. Kal ejected the cartridge and slotted a fresh bolt and coil of wire into the crossbow. She stepped over the bodies and started up the stairs. For every floor, there were four short flights of steps at right angles to each other, spiralling in an anticlockwise direction around an open central shaft: it was a dangerous battleground—full of shadows, corners and blind spots, and the landings were too small to provide sure footing. She could hear doors slamming, and voices and footsteps above her. She really should go for help, but with two kills i
n hand, Kal was feeling overconfident.
As another couple of Dragonites descended, Kal took a more considered aim with the crossbow. This time she fired a low shot across the stairwell that thudded into the opposite wall. Neither of them saw the resulting tripwire, and they both came crashing down head-over-heels towards her. One of them dashed his brains out on the stone edge of a step, where the carpet didn’t quite reach. The other cultist, a woman, fell at Kal’s feet. Kal dropped immediately and drove one of her new knives into the woman’s breast. The Dragonites were not protected by the city’s laws, and so Kal had no compunctions about killing them.
She bounded up to the fourth floor. It was all quiet here. She was sure she had heard more than two people up there; the rest must be waiting for her somewhere. Kal looked around—there was a closed door on every landing and on every corner of the stairwell. An attack could come from above or below. She held a knife loosely in each hand. Raelo had built his home like a fortress; going up you had the wall on your right, hindering your sword arm. Kal, while not quite ambidextrous, was proficient enough with her left hand, so she wasn’t too worried about that. What she was worried about was if—
—four doors banged open simultaneously, two above and two below her. Four rough men closed in on her. Kal could see a crazed look in the eyes of her attackers. She had heard that the cultists farmed drugs out in the forests. There were certain mushrooms that induced all kinds of strange states of mind: fearlessness, aggression … but also a lack of finesse; before they could bring their swords to bear on her, Kal stuck a knife in one man’s gut, and sent another flying back down the stairs with a solid boot to the midriff.