***
The main boulevards of the New Quarter were wide, with slender trees and bushes bordering the cobbled thoroughfares. Many of the larger buildings were domed and the innumerable temples were topped with shining caps of copper.
The Goldorians were sombrely dressed in plain tunics and tights, caps on their neat heads. Moustaches were clipped and precise and the women wore buns or plats. Marthir and her slit skirt attracted many disapproving glances as they passed. Light was starting to dwindle and Emelia noticed that the main streets were lined with tall street lamps, though none were lit. Most squares had a clock tower and the shining copper faces indicated it was nearly six hours past midday.
The group stopped at the edge of a large square. Sir Krem leant over on his horse to Jem.
“I’m certain you know the City well enough, freeman Jem,” Krem said. “My residence is on Sunny Bank, about half way up the hill in the Old Quarter. You’ll need this pass scroll to get through the gates in the Old Wall. The funicular stops near my road but I hate the blasted thing so I’d recommend the walk up. We’ll take your horses and wagon and leave them at the Grand Stables inside the gate.”
“Are we not going up the hill with them?” Kervin asked as Krem turned to address his squires.
“No, the Revered Library is in the New Quarter,” Jem said. “Most of the other grand places are at the top of the pinnacle though—the observatory, the grand temple, the citadel of the knights, the High Cardinals’ residence.”
“Jem, enough with the tour,” Hunor said. “Sir Krem, can I get one of the scrolls so I can go through to the Merchant Quarter?”
“Certainly, young man. It is a district rife with foreigners so take care. Be reassured we do not allow sorcerers to leave their ships at the portside.”
City folk bustled urgently around them as they dismounted and handed the reins to Sir Listerthwaite’s squires. Emelia caught the cold eyes of the squire and felt a shudder rise within her.
By Torik, this place is just like my dream, she thought. I need a chance to tell Jem...or Kervin.
A gang of priests rushed past as the clock tower struck six. They wore beards dyed gold and long purple robes. Emelia could feel anxiety in her belly at their glares.
The squires began to lead the horses along the street towards the next set of gates. Hunor slipped his beloved sword from the rear of the small wagon just as Marthir began to tug it forward. He wrapped it in a bundle of cloth. Master Mek-ik-Ten leant towards the thief as he turned to leave.
“Tread with care on these streets of gold. Even the brightest lanes have dark corners,” he said. Master Ten strode to catch up Lady Orla and a very gloomy looking Marthir, as they followed Sir Krem towards the Old Quarter.
Jem grasped Hunor’s arm and said in a low voice, “I’ll mirror that, Hunor. Take care. I’ve an uneasy feeling.”
“Come on, mate, it’s hardly Kir. Anyhow you’re the pair of sorcerers amongst thousands of zealots. I’m just a scruffy vagabond disguised as a swamp dwelling Goldorian. This time tomorrow we’ll be sat on a ship on the Sea Of Mists.”
Jem smiled thinly and watched Hunor amble away into the crowd of Goldorians.
Chapter 13 Darkness in the City of Gold
Sunstide 1924
In Hunor’s opinion the Merchant Quarter was Goldoria City’s only saving grace. In the other quarters you felt as if you were a two headed demon of the Pale, such were the looks you attracted. In the busy dockside, however, the flotsam and jetsam common to every port in Nurolia gave a colour and vibrancy to the stale city. Even the call for evening prayer was diminished here by the cries and yells of the traders and sailors.
Hunor thought of the Merchant Quarter as a patchwork of the city’s history, sewn together by a hundred sailors sodden with rum. The ubiquitous purple stone mixed with brick and timber, with thatched roofs and slate and battered copper domes, dappled white by the screeching gulls. Buildings tumbled together, layer upon layer. Above the street there were more levels still, a criss-cross of bridges and walkways, balconies and platforms. Alleys wound between the buildings, enticing the inebriated to a night of confusion, with their blind endings and twists and turns.
“Don’t be late in the morning, my friend,” Elbek-Trall yelled, as Hunor left the quayside. “The tide does not sleep like a lazy Thetorian and Kâlastan waits like an eager lover.”
“Don’t go spending all that gold and end up dead from syphilis, you old sea-dog,” Hunor said with a wave.
“I’ll be too busy checking whether it is genuine, camel-breath.”
“Always has the last word,” Hunor said quietly to himself. The gold had looked real enough when he stole it from a rotund merchant two hours ago.
Hunor paused at a street corner. Across the lane two lamplighters were igniting the stone and copper streetlights with a long smouldering taper. They stood on tiptoes to reach the wick, in its copper and glass box eight feet off the ground. They had just filled the small oil tank within the shaft of the lamp-post from one of the slimy barrels in their cart. Their hair shone like the carapace of a huge insect. The stink of whale oil and paraffin always brought this city to Hunor’s mind.
The bundle of cloth which concealed his sword was awkward to carry. He made a mental note to thank Listerthwaite if he ever saw him again—the pass scroll had allowed him passage without a glance at the Merchant Quarter’s gate.
Hunor brought a small time piece from his pouch. This was the prize of the day, eased from the pocket of a richly garbed Goldorian priest. He’d wanted one for years, ever since Jem had droned on one evening about the portable clocks. Amazing to think this could all be achieved without magic.
The amber glow of the street lamp illuminated the watch face. The wheels of time, he mused, inexorably turning. If he could move those tiny hands back round what would he change? Would he have said ‘no thanks’ to Linkon Arikson in Kir when he hired them to steal that bloody crystal? Or would he have tried to grab Sir Unhert back in Thetoria that night at Blackstone Bridge? Or would he go back further, back to when Hü-Jen had died? Would he be doing all this now if his mentor had lived?
Hunor shook the maudlin thoughts away. With regrets lay doubt and in the life he lead a moment’s hesitation was usually your last.
Hunor’s foot stumbled on the uneven cobbles and the watch slipped from his hand. He stopped its tumble to the street with a lunge, just as a crossbow bolt hissed through the air where his head had just been.
He dove for cover behind the lamplighters’ wagon as a second bolt thudded into the greasy wood. Hunor slid his sword from the bundle of cloth, the lamp light making it shimmer like fire. His eyes darted around for his assailant as the two lamplighters scrambled for their lives.
A third bolt hissed towards him from above but this time Hunor was ready. He whirled and Ur-iy-Sytk flashed up, slicing the projectile in mid-flight. Hunor’s eyes caught a flash of motion about twenty feet away in the gloom between arcs of lamplight.
A Shadow-assassin, Hunor cursed, my luck has just run out. The buggers are nigh on invisible in the dark: the only light you see is the flash of the dagger before it opens your neck.
Hunor stood like a statue, his senses tuned into each tiny aspect of the world around him. The assassin would abandon the crossbow now he had seen his defence. The assassin’s next move would be to slip in close through the depths of the shadows.
The only sounds now were the distant calls of the gulls and melodic chants of prayer, rising and falling like the waves at the nearby dockside. Focus Hunor, listen for the atypical. There it is, the slight scrape of leather on stone—dry rough stone not smooth cobble…he’s coming down a wall.
Hunor spun as the assassin attacked. His sword parried the thrust of the long dagger, aimed at his throat. Twisting the blade around, he kicked out and the assassin slammed back into the cart. Hunor slashed at the black figure but he dodged and the attack tore a rent in the side of the oil barrel.
Paraffin gushed forth, s
plashing over the assassin. He rolled away from Hunor and melted into the shadows again. The stink of the oil brought tears to Hunor’s eyes but gritting his teeth he ignored the smell. A moment’s hesitation would be his last.
The lamplighters coughed and gagged as the fumes overcame them. Hunor noted their taper had gone out after lighting the prior lamp, which given the pool of paraffin was fortunate. He swept his sword in a ritualistic motion, in preparation. This next clash would be the last.
The warm glow from the streetlamp shimmered on Ur-iy-Sytk. A reflection of motion caught his eye on the blade’s surface. The assassin came from above, dropping silently from the slender bridge that arched over the street.
Hunor struck upwards, the edge of his enchanted sword shattering the glass and copper light atop the streetlamp. Oil spattered like blood, catching the flame of the burning wick. With a sound like a sharp intake of breath the assassin burst into flames as he dropped past the spray of burning lamp oil.
Hunor leapt back as the assassin crashed to the cobbles and the remainder of the paraffin pool went up. The heat was intense on his face as he drew his arm up to shield it. The assassin staggered to his feet, a human inferno. Hunor sliced his sword in a deadly arc and the assassin’s head span from his flaming body.
Smoke clawed at his throat and it was several seconds before Hunor noticed his trouser leg was alight. He rolled down an adjacent alley with a curse, smothering the flames on the filthy cobbles.
Hunor began running, ignoring the pain from his blistered limb. He scampered like a cat down the alley, re-sheathed his sword and then jumped, his strong fingers grabbing onto the irregular side of the building. With a scrape of leather he gained a foothold and scrabbled up the wall and onto the overhanging ledge. He lifted himself flat to the wall then, edging along the ledge, vaulted across onto an adjacent balcony and from there up onto the thatch of the roof.
The city spread out before him, its vista now one of roofs and domes: the landscape of the thief. Dark clouds rolled ominously over the three moons that shone in the sky. Hunor could see the lights of the houses on the slopes of the pinnacle and the tiny glow of the funicular ascending towards the summit. Below the giant rock was the New Quarter, where he had left the others two hours ago.
They were under attack: he had to go warn them. How had they known to ambush them here? Had Orla been true to her oath? Hunor swore at himself. Of course she had, these were shadow assassins, minions of the black arts.
He had a choice. He could go to the New Quarter and try get to Jem, Kervin and Emelia. Or he could try get to Krem’s residence where Orla, Mek-ik-Ten and Marthir were—with the crystal.
In the end it was no choice. The fate of the crystal—however important—was a secondary consideration. He had promised Jem at the farmhouse in Thetoria. They were a team and he would let the world hang before letting Jem and Emelia down.
Hunor sprang into the night, his agile feet propelling him across the rooftops.
***
Spots of rain pattered on the thick ash in the centre of the square. Emelia let the powder sift from her fingers with disgust. Amongst the pile of ash she could see charred bones and scraps of blackened cloth.
Kervin’s hand touched her shoulder and she blinked back tears as she turned to him.
“Come under some cover. It’s going to throw it down any minute,” he said.
“I can hear the screams in my mind. The air is thick with their pain, with their fury at the injustice.”
Kevin took her arm gently and the two walked towards the steps of the Revered Library.
“I come from a nation that thinks it’s acceptable to chain me to one that would happily burn me for something that was no fault of my own,” Emelia said.
“This isn’t a fight for today, Emelia. One day this country will answer for its crimes, for the evil beneath its gilded skin.”
The rain came down harder as they took cover on the vast steps of the library. As foreigners they were not permitted entrance and had left Jem to research Emelia’s description of the vision of Ssinthor. The two slumped back against a wide pillar, avoiding the gaze of the dour guard at the door. A light crossbow was slung over his shoulder.
The revered library was situated five minutes short of the gate between the New and Old Quarters. Its grandiose frontage, all pillars and colonnades, were very Eerian in character and this had not alleviated Emelia’s mood.
“You seem more preoccupied since we’ve arrived here,” Kervin said. “Is it the ashes or...?”
Emelia shook her head. “No, it’s not that...not especially. When we met, at Master Ten’s sanctuary, I told you about my dreams. Well I’ve dreamt about this place, this city.”
“I’d guess it wasn’t a happy dream?”
“No...not in the slightest. It’s been in my mind since Bulia. I’m running from something terrible, running down the purple stone streets and then...”
“Go on.”
“Then I am killed, by Orla and Marthir. It’s so vivid.”
Kervin scratched his beard and attempted a smile. “I used to believe dreams meant something—now I am not so sure. I don’t seem to have dreams anymore, not since Erturia. Perhaps your dream is just a way for your mind to exorcise its worries—it has been a tense journey to get here and you’ve been exhausted by Master Ten’s teachings.”
Across the square was the principle temple of the New Quarter. Emelia had not seen its like before. It had a large central circular building, the rotunda, topped with a magnificent copper dome that was slick with the hammering rain. From the central temple eight chapels branched out like spokes, symbolic of the rays of the sun, each ending in a tower topped with a smaller onion dome.
Atop the central dome Emelia had noticed a large glass prism, mounted on a bronze support. Eager to take her mind off the ashes of burnt witches and the talk of nightmares, she pointed to the glass.
“What’s the purpose of the glass above the dome?”
“It’s to reflect the sunbeam that shines down from the Great Temple atop the pinnacle. It catches the sun’s rays on mid-summer and from this temple it splits out to eight other temples around the city, lighting up lenses on their roofs. They may be murdering sods but they can put on a good display.”
Emelia tied back her wet hair. “I wonder how close I could get to breaking the thing before they caught me?”
“Emelia—I…”
“A jest, honestly, though it would be fun.”
The two stood in silence as the rain bounced off the cobbles of the wide square. The Goldorians in the open were scuttling for cover. A pack lay at their feet on the steps, holding a pair of hidden swords—Jem had been as cautious as ever.
“I’m glad you’re coming with us Kervin,” Emelia said, her cheeks starting to burn.
“I’m glad. That you’re glad that is,” Kervin said. “After all I can’t let Jem and Hunor keep you all to themselves.”
Emelia felt fluttering in her stomach. Her heart was thumping hard. She turned to face him, looking up into his craggy face. His beard was damp from the rain.
Kervin was red-faced as he moved down a step and turned to face her, his back to the square. He slowly and tentatively placed his hand on her hip. A tingle went through her at his light touch. He eased towards her, his lips parting.
Her heart roared like a waterfall in her ears as she leant to kiss him.
The warm, aching, joyous feeling in her chest instantly changed to ice as, over his shoulder, she saw a dark figure in the rain.
“Down!”
She wrenched Kervin roughly onto the steps. A blast of ebony magic crackled though the air, clipping Kervin’s shoulder before striking the guard by the entrance.
The guard wailed as the black sorcery enveloped his head and chest, steaming horribly as his flesh melted like wax. Kervin gasped in pain as the oily mass ate into his shoulder.
Emelia sprang down the stairs, drawing the sword she had concealed in the pack. She missed the ba
lance of the Eerian weapon she had used these past few years. The Dark-mage stood at the base of the stairs, his serrated sword in his hand.
“Good evening, little serving girl. I have thought of you long and hard this last month, as the agony of my severed arm regenerating tested my resolve to its limits.”
“We’ll see how swiftly you grow your head back,” Emelia said and leapt to attack.
The sorcerer stepped back and parried; the clatter of steel rang out in the wet square. Rain was thundering around them as they fenced.
“Utrok is not so easily parted from his head. And first you have to catch me.”
Utrok stepped back into the shadows of the square and melted away. Emelia cursed, the rain running down her face. Anger pulsed in her, red hot and invigorating. Damn the Dark-mage. A beautiful moment ruined.
Through the haze of the rain she saw Utrok appear under a street lamp across the square, before a row of houses. He gave a wave with his twisted arm and strode into the alley between the buildings.
Emelia ran across the square. It was obvious that a trap was being laid but at least the obscurity of the alley would allow her to use Wild-magic. She allowed her mind to feel the magical strands of the Web around her whilst she sprinted. The tingle of power gave her a sense of intense pleasure.
On the steps of the library, Kervin rose.
“Emelia, wait for me, don’t be…”
The black magic ran harmlessly from his shoulder, leaving only a mild redness in its wake. He tugged loose the second sword and grabbed the dead guard’s crossbow before bounding down the steps. Screams erupted behind him as one of the few city folk out in the rain spotted the guard’s corpse.
***
Emelia’s temper was dwindling in the cool rain as it ran in tiny rivulets down her shoulders. She eased out her mind as Mek-ik-Ten had taught her, trying to sense the contours of the alley as she advanced down it, probing for permutations in the Web.
Dreams of Darkness Rising Page 51