There’s a lad watching me, walking towards the train, with that wolfish lope I feel in my own limbs. Day Boy like me. We nod, he grins, and it’s like looking in a mirror.
If a reflection could cut you.
I go to talk to him, and Dain grabs my shoulders.
‘Loose lips sink ships,’ he says. I give him a look, then the whistle’s blowing.
‘Professor and ward,’ the Ticket Master says. ‘The train’s waiting…and it doesn’t wait.’
We get ourselves back inside, the train moving the moment my feet hit the stairs.
‘It’s lean living out here,’ Dain says, as we sit down. ‘Midfield’s paradise compared to these old dry places. Our town is as gentle as it is narrow.’
And we leave that lean village, with its wolfish boys, and settle into the rhythm of the tracks, and I find myself drifting off. There’s a city waiting, but we’ve miles yet.
CHAPTER 15
I’M SHOOK AWAKE. Feel the world’s moved on around me, and the Night Train’s slowing, starting on a slight rise, and then she’s picking up speed again.
‘So what do you think of her?’ Dain asks.
I blink. Things are shining low in the sky, great shapes are circling the mountain like cyclopean beasts of the air. And to the east is a dull red light.
And then we are passing low buildings, streets lit with yellow light and busy with folk, the smell of dust dry and hard and coming through the windows. It’s a blur that passes right quick, and into the mountain we go, past the steel Gates of Dawn. And I have to blink away tears.
Morning’s coming. Dain’s already looking sluggish, his eyes dim; darkness or not, come the morning he will sleep, like they all must until the Sun settles down in the west again. He gestures out the window. ‘The city. What do you think of the city, boy?’
‘It’s glorious bright,’ I say.
I’ve never seen so much light. There’s no darkness here. Everything is illuminated by beams of light that look like they’ve been plucked from the Sun itself, if such a harvest could be made, and perhaps it can. The ground throbs, I can feel it through the tracks, as though the earth itself has a pulse. A great beating life in them continental plates.
‘You know, there are some who would kill to come here,’ Dain says, almost to himself. Like he’s lost to some argument that the city’s pulled out of him anew. ‘And they are fools. Holding to the dream that this dark heart is anything, that it’s important.’
He shoots me a glance. ‘It’s not. It’s the hollow core of a beast rotting itself to death. Took me a long while to work that out, and even longer to believe it. Don’t be fooled by the glamour of it, Mark. Though we both will for a while, that is the nature of the city, part of its shadow. Monsters can be charming, my lad. If the city is offered you, I want you to come to it with your eyes open. Open and narrow.’
Nothing’s ever simple with Dain—as if it’s my choice. I will get a letter and I will attend to its summons. I suppose my eyes are already narrow. But here we are!
Out we go into dry hot air. And the smell of smoke, and things cooking, and the hint of blood.
The station is crowded, so many Masters amongst the regular folk. More than I’ve ever seen, and this is just one platform in this city dark.
Though why it is called a city dark is beyond me. I’ve never seen Masters more clear, more lit. Their pale flesh reflects the light: their skin shivers in it. Their limbs move too fast. And there is an urgency here, no lingering, time’s running out. Day is coming.
We are met at the station by a tall Master, long limbed, almost a spider made into a man. He’s dressed in outrageous finery, a cloak that flows with his movements, a top hat that makes a mockery of Dougie’s. He looks at me haughty-like, as though he has no truck with Day Boys, but he’s polite enough with my Master.
‘It is good to see you again, Professor,’ he says.
‘Madigan, it has been far too long.’ Dain makes it sound like the opposite is true and Madigan’s face hardens. But I can see an affection there too.
‘Yes. Yes.’ He hoists our bags and leads us to a carriage. ‘You know what’s coming,’ he says. ‘We must hurry.’ He doesn’t move with any urgency. His limbs make him fast enough. I’m all a-sweat keeping up.
Dain jumps into the carriage, pulls me in too, and Madigan taps the roof. Down busy streets we go, everywhere there are the symbols of the Sun. We pass what must be a church of the Sun, for both Dain and Madigan dip their heads towards it. Such a wonderful thing. Dain’s warning is already slipping from my mind.
This city, in this hollowed-out mountain, is all grandness and gravity. Walls of rock rise overhead like clouds and descend in fists of stone. And all of it is lit, believe me. I’ve never seen shadows so pale and thin. We’re on a road wide enough for four carriages and turn into the searing bright streets of the inner city, and here we approach a building bigger than Main Street, red brick and a roof halfway to the stony ceiling of the mountain.
‘My college,’ Dain says, and he sounds all of a sudden whimsical. ‘It has been a long time.’
Into it we are bustled, through long halls and past a library whose first antechamber does indeed put the library in the Night Train to shame. I take a peek and all I can see is wall after wall of books, receding into the distance.
‘Come now,’ Dain says. ‘There’ll be time to explore later.’
We come to rooms that smell of dust newly disturbed and soaps and other astringencies.
‘Nothing is changed,’ Dain says, picking up a vase and putting it down again, running a finger along a shelf, weighted with old books. I can’t tell if that pleases him or not.
‘Yes, the same old battles, the same old knives buried in the same backs. Still, there is endless gossip,’ Madigan says. ‘And you, still at odds with Egan?’
Dain raises his hand. ‘A harmless rivalry.’
Madigan looks at his pocket watch, pure affectation, Masters are themselves clocks; they feel the movement of the Sun with their entire being. ‘We will talk of rivalries and such this evening.’
Madigan leaves us and I open little wooden doors to a narrow brick balcony and look back out at the city. Behind us, where we have come from but not too far away, the steel Gates of Dawn are closing. Shutting out the light of the Sun that all of them here worship. It shuts entire, and Dain finds a bit of wake to him. He lays a hand on my shoulder. ‘I am weary. You must be, too,’ he says. ‘Sleep, and then wait for me. This city isn’t safe for the likes of you.’
Dain walks to his room, shuts the door behind him, and there are the clockish turnings of complicated machines. Here in the heart of the City in the Shadow of the Mountain he locks his doors. I go to my room. There’s a lock on the door that’s too complex for me to figure out. And there’s some sort of timer. I shut the door, and the mechanism whirrs locked—and starts ticking.
Well, I’m stuck here then.
Dain didn’t trouble to tell me this would happen. My Master didn’t trust me. I don’t blame him, of course. There’s a city to explore. How else might I be stopped from exploring it?
I walk to the bed, and I can’t stop yawning, but fi
rst I circle around the room. Notice the small door that leads, I suppose, to my Master’s room.
There’s a table next to my bed, and on it a small pile of books with a note beside them:
Mark—Things you might like.
I look at the books as I crawl into the bed. They’re old, with yellow-edged pages. There’s one on the solar system, pictures that I can scarce believe. There’s a book with talking bears in it and a brave girl. And there’s one about a boy and a monster: a girl that’s a Master, like a cold child. Pages have been underlined in that one. The sort of thing I shouldn’t read; of course I want to read it first.
I barely give each more than a flick before I’m laying my head on the pillow and sleeping.
Day, night, we sleep when our Masters wish it. Even if we don’t sleep too easy.
CHAPTER 16
THE GATES OF Dawn open, their iron bulk thunderous as they part to admit the night. The evening bell starts its tolling. Six slow beats. And the city’s lights are lit. Bright, then brighter, and brighter still. They say a cloud of bats leaves the city when that door opens, comes back when it closes. I race to the balcony and watch, and sure enough there’s the dark spiralling out into the night beyond. All those shrieks and hisses fading skyward; it’s a frenzied, beautiful thing, and it makes my hairs stand on end.
When I go in, Dain is up. A swift waking. His eyes are huge. ‘No sleep like that under the mountain. Are you rested, boy?’
I give him a nod. Not really, but I’ve been up for hours, reading and waiting. I’ve a city pulling me to wakefulness. I want it all.
‘Good, we’ll be busy this night. We’ve the tower of the Law to visit, first step in seeing the Council. There’s always hoops to jump.’
Madigan’s waiting at our door. ‘That chat,’ he says.
‘Will have to wait. I’ve too much to do this evening.’
Madigan nods. ‘Just don’t let it wait too long.’
The city’s warmer than I expect. Warmer than anything Dain had led me to prepare for.
Hot air and the murmuring of pigeons. Trapped in here, all but blind. And there’s rats, you can smell them, there’s shit as long and white as worms. And everywhere there are Masters, walking, and there are men and women too, pale as bone in this Sunless place. Here the tooth rules, and the pen, the scratching of notes and learning onto paper. There’s the long halls of the universities. The brick and steel buildings that run in parallel tracks deep into the belly of the mountain.
I’d got some view through the window in my room after I found I could open the glass a decent crack.
During the day it’s silent but for the hurried wanderings of servants, the whispered talk. Somewhere near the Temple of the Sun there is the Crèche, where those best and brightest of boys are raised, all clever and learned in the various necessary arts. I never set foot in there, too delicate. Too dumb.
But I’d fancy a peek, to measure myself against those new-taught lads, young and unknowing of the world, for all their books and lessons.
My shirt’s stuck to my back soon as we walk out onto the street. And it catches me again all that light, big hot lamps, and at the centre of the city is the Temple of the Sun, its grand old brass Orb lit up so bright that it hurts to look at it. Which you aren’t supposed to less you’re a Master, but I look anyway, of course I do. Right up at that faux brass Sun the Luminance.
Dain slaps the back of my skull—with his hand, not the cane he’s holding in the other one. ‘Turn your gaze,’ he hisses. ‘The wrong folk see you, and they’ll have your throat.’
And I do, but I’m blinking and blind.
‘Fool,’ he says. ‘Why must your understanding always be found in self-hurt? You need your sight here. You need to watch and you need to think. Your eyes can’t handle that light, any more than they could handle the Sun.’
‘I can’t see,’ I moan.
Dain snorts. ‘You’ll get it back soon enough. You barely peeked.’
It’s a blurry sort of walk we have, and Dain holds my hand like I was still a child after I trip that first time, nearly landing on my face. Can’t see, but I can hear, the rumbles of those distant engines, the beating heart of industries.
There’s music everywhere: it fills the city. Songs, pianos playing from bars deep in the mountain. Oh, Anne would love it!
And one time I hear it: the choir. A low singing that builds and rises, that reaches into my chest deep as any kiss. The sound makes me stop, and Dain with me. It’s pure, and reaching to the ceiling of the mountain. There may not be stars above us, but this song has stars in it. And all at once I am crying. Like some baby, sniffling and snuffling.
‘Beautiful. Beautiful,’ Dain says.
‘Never heard its like,’ I say.
‘Well, now you have, boy. And I am glad I could share it with you. That’s the Luminance’s Choir, the Sun church’s choir, all Crèche-raised boys. Girls too. There’s heaven in it. The Orchestral Hall is that building nearest the temple.
‘They adore their sounds here,’ Dain says, like he isn’t one of them. ‘Sun, Sea, Song, that’s the core of my kind. The things lost, and the things that remind us.’
‘And what’s it remind you of?’ I ask him, all blink and tear.
‘That we’re but a Sunrise from obliteration. There’s something gorgeous in the ruination of us all.’
‘Not in any hurry for ruination,’ I mumble.
Dain squeezes my hand. ‘Give it time.’
It’s a bit of walking before I can see more than splodges, and by then we’re almost at the Tower.
And I catch sight of the cages, rows of them, extending from the Tower of Law, down East Street, and West. And within them are folk, sickly-looking folk, three to a cage. And in some of them there are others with them. Feeding.
‘Who are these?’
‘Vagrants. Criminals. Food. Life isn’t easy here.’ Dain looks to me, drops to his knee. ‘Some of my kind have taken to calling you the Feast. I do not think it appropriate.’
‘But it’s what we are, isn’t it?’
Dain doesn’t answer. And then he doesn’t have time. There’s the smash of a fallen tile. And the sound of angry talk. Men drop from an overhanging roof like possums grown light and deadly.
The first swings out at me. And Dain is in the way. I see the knife go in, but it doesn’t go out. Dain holds it there. His hands reach out, grip his attacker by the neck, and he squeezes. Bone cracks, gristle snaps, the fellow drops and Dain is already turning, pulling the knife from him; there’s a puff of blood dark and putrid. He runs the blade under the second one’s neck, draws a spray of true blood out. The black shape topples.
There’s another one dropping, and Dain, hardly even looking, strikes him in the head with his cane. He hits the ground and stays there.
It’s over so fast.
There’s a distant whistle blowing.
‘Are you all right?’ Dain says.
‘Yes. What about you?’
Dain coughs, lays a heavy hand on me. ‘I’m wounded, true, but I’ve suffered greater hurts.’
The constables find us there in that tangle of bodies, all embraced by ruination, my Master leaning on me like he is an old man.
They hesitate, and Dain raises a hand. ‘It’s all right,’ he says. And then he slumps against me.
‘Master’s been stabbed,’ I say.
‘Does he need care?’ The senior—well, the best-dressed—constable says.
‘Do you?’ I whisper.
Dain grimaces. ‘Already the wounds are healing,’ he says nice and low. ‘Weakness cannot be seen.’
‘I’ll see to him,’ I say. ‘You gentlemen see to this.’
Dain leans on my arm. Guides me down one street, then another.
‘Down this alley, boy,’ he says, and he’s already standing taller; taking the lead.
There’s a Master waiting at the heavy door, and he does something that I’ve never seen before. He bends low, a true genuflection.
‘Master Dain,’ he says. ‘A pleasure, an honest pleasure.’
(‘Boy,’ Dain whispers. ‘Trust least those that bow the deepest. There’s no effort to be had in bending the back, and even the slightest of us has teeth.’)
‘Up with you, Master Dargel,’ Dain says. ‘Up with you quick.’
Master Dargel lifts his head, there’s a touch of umbrage in his eyes.
Dain laughs. ‘Oh, don’t play hurt, my dear friend. Don’t play hurt.’
Dargel sniffs. ‘There is blood on you.’
‘An altercation, nothing more.’
‘There’s always an element of wildness these days,’ Dargel says. ‘But to attack one of us, such is the folly of our feuding kind.’
Dain smiles. ‘I am merely scratched.’
Dargel nods. ‘And how goes your book?’
Dain clears his throat. ‘It goes. It goes. I’ve little patience for chatter this night. Things need doing, deeper talks are required.’
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