The City

by Stella Gemmell

  Eventually she said, “When my daughter was small I told her the story of the gulon and the mouse. Do you know it?”

  “Of course. A child’s tale.”

  “The gulon and the mouse go on a long journey together. When they reach a far city the mouse says to the gulon, ‘Let me sit on your shoulder so I can see this city and not be trampled underfoot by its people.’ So the gulon picks him up and puts him on his shoulder. But then the people of the city think the mouse is the master and the gulon only the servant, and they point at them and laugh. The gulon is angry and plucks the mouse from his shoulder and puts him down and the mouse is immediately squashed under someone’s heavy foot. And the gulon has lost his best friend for the sake of his pride.

  “And do you know what my seven-year-old daughter asked me when she heard this story?”

  “Tell me.”

  “She asked, ‘What is a far city?’ When I told her it was another city a long way away she was baffled, for she believed this city is the whole world.”

  “Your daughter was not alone. Many people believe this. You have to see the City from outside to fully understand. Few people do, except its soldiers.”

  “Yet everyone knows we are at war.”

  He shrugged. “The enemy, the Blues, have been demonised, necessarily. People cannot fight a war, suffer its deprivations for so long, if they believe the enemy are human beings just like them. They think they are subhuman, incapable of building cities.”

  She shook her head but did not reply, and at last he asked, “How old is your daughter now?”

  But she did not answer him, merely stared at the glass in her hand.

  He said, “We saw a gulon in the Halls, not long before the storm broke.”

  “Where?”

  “At what they call the Eating Gate. Do you know of it?”

  “Certainly. It is an important cog in the underground machine. It is a long time since a gulon has been seen that deep in the Halls. It is a symbol of the City to some. They consider it a good omen to see one.”

  He snorted. “Someone should tell that to the gulon. It was an omen of death and despair for many Dwellers this day.”

  He thought of their doomed hunting party crossing the high weir, and his mind moved on to the corpse they had found. Biscuit crumbs lay thick on the table in front of him and he gathered them together, then spread them into a smooth layer. He drew a sign in the crumbs. “Do you know this mark?” he asked the woman.

  She looked at him curiously. “An S? What of it?”

  “A backwards S. I saw it on the shoulder of a corpse earlier.”

  “A soldier? Tattoos are common among the soldiery.”

  “Yes. He was covered in pictures. Like a child’s storybook.” She smiled, and Bartellus added, “It was not a tattoo, but a brand, burned deeply into the skin.”

  “Foreign slaves are sometimes branded.”

  “But there are few slaves left in the City now. And they are mostly young women from the east. This was a man, pale and middle-aged. Well-fed.”

  “Floating corpses always look well-fed,” she replied. “Is it important?”

  “Probably not. A part of my mind thinks it is. My memory is not what it was. But I have seen it somewhere before.” He added, “Even his scalp was tattooed.”

  “With pictures?”

  “No. They were small marks. Hundreds of them. They looked foreign. Perhaps you are right. I could make nothing of them.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  Bartellus shrugged. “I’ve no idea. I was in a hunting party led by other people. I didn’t know where I was then. I don’t know where I am now.”

  He sighed. A few moments previously he felt he could stay there forever, but his mind, his soldier’s mind, was returning as ever to his duty. Its weight was creeping back onto his old shoulders.

  “If the child has been fed I will take her and go,” he told the woman. “We must look for her brother. If we survived the floods he might still be alive too.”

  The little girl was spooning food into her mouth as quickly as her hand would move. Her dark eyes darted back and forth from the doorway to the plate. She was afraid someone would come in and take it away from her.

  After a while she noticed the taste. It was sticky and sweet. There were hard bits in it. She spat some out into her palm and, putting the spoon down, poked her finger into the mess. The hard bits were dark and wrinkly. She put one in her mouth. It was so sweet it made her teeth hurt. It tasted like the smell of rotten pears.

  She was about to put the rest of the food back in her mouth, when a memory came back to her of the last time she ate at a table with a spoon. A sharp voice had told her to wash her hands before she sat down. She looked at her grubby palm and rubbed her hand on her dress—it used to be her best pink dress, she thought sadly. Her palm looked a bit cleaner, but bits of food now lay on the floor. She slid off the chair and pushed the mess under the edge of the rug. Then she rubbed both palms on her dress again, until they were fairly clean.

  Emly climbed back on the chair and ate some more food, now savouring its taste and texture. She was very thirsty. The red woman had placed a glass and a big pitcher of fresh water in front of her, and she looked at it longingly. But she knew she was not strong enough to pour water out of the pitcher without spilling it all over the clean table.

  The cramps in her tummy came harder than usual and she rocked and moaned a little until they passed. Then she ate some more.

  At last she looked around her. She was in a huge room which stretched off into the dark. On the stone floor were coloured rugs. She eased herself down off the chair and squinched her bare toes in the blue rug beneath her. It was soft as kittens’ fur.

  Looking at the door again uncertainly, she trotted over to the nearest wall. There were lots of wooden shelves rising up to the ceiling. A strong smell came to her nose, like the scent of smoke. She put out her hand and found smooth warmth under her fingers. Something toppled over with a flat thud, and she jumped, then she realised they were the backs of books, lots of them on every shelf. She had seen books before, though she had never seen so many. She ran her fingers over the bumpy gold lettering. She could not read, though Lije could. Thinking of her brother made her tummy feel empty again. Tears squeezed out under her eyelids.

  “Don’t touch them, girl!”

  She spun round and saw the red woman in the doorway. Her face was stern, and sparks seemed to fly off her. Emly rubbed her hands on her dress again and remembered the food under the rug. She wondered guiltily if the woman knew it was there.

  “Put these on,” she woman ordered. She held some dark garments. Emly obediently went over to her. Without hesitation the woman pulled the little girl’s dress off over her head. Rigid with embarrassment, Emly stood there under her chilly gaze. She had lost her drawers a long time ago, but she had not told anyone for fear of getting into trouble. Now this woman would tell her off.

  But the sparks seemed to die down a little, and the woman said more kindly, “These are too big for you, but put them on and I’ll cut them to size.”

  Emly scrambled into the long tunic, which came down below her knees, and the trousers, which flopped in folds round her ankles. The woman had a pair of scissors and she cut the trouser legs. Then she deftly plaited the remains into a belt to hold the trousers up. The girl wriggled around in her new clothes. The fabric felt warm and dry against her skin. She looked regretfully at her pink dress discarded on the floor. She saw it was dark grey now.

  Kneeling, the woman looked up into the girl’s face. Emly saw her eyes were like flowers.

  “That’s better,” the woman said gently.

  Then she stood, and the briskness came back in her voice. “Have you eaten enough?” She glanced at the full pitcher of water. “Not thirsty?”

  Emly stared at her dumbly, then the woman shrugged and took her by the hand and led her out of the book room. They went down a wide flight of high stairs, Emly jumping down one a
t a time, then the woman opened a narrow wooden door and they went down another long flight of stairs, winding round and round until Emly felt dizzy. Finally they came out in a corridor lit by torches. At the end of it was the room where the old man was talking with another woman. Emly wondered if it was his wife. She was glad to see him again. Perhaps he would take her back to Elija.

  “If the child has been fed I will take her and go,” he was saying. “We must look for her brother. If we survived the floods then he might still be alive too.” Then he turned to her. Emly thought he looked older than she had ever seen him. He smiled, but his face was pained as if his tummy hurt too.

  The old woman said, “We are not, as Indaro said, an orphanage. But perhaps you should leave the child with me rather than take her back into the sewer.”

  “Why would I? I know nothing about you. You have answered few of my questions. Why would I trust you?”

  “Are you the child’s father, or her grandfather perhaps?”

  “No. But I saved her life. In the army, if you save a brother’s life, then you take responsibility for it. It is like that with this child. And I owe it to her to find her brother.”

  “You are not in the army and she is not a soldier.” The old woman turned to her. “Would you like to stay with us, child, or go with this man?” she asked. Em immediately trotted over to Bartellus and thrust her small hand into his huge one.

  “First we will find her brother,” the old man said, “then we will leave this place, all three of us.”

  Then together they left the room and went back into the dark.

  Chapter 4

  The boy’s dreams were of darkness and fear. No green valleys or blue skies for Elija—he dreamed of the world he knew, and he whimpered in his sleep.

  When he awoke he was still in the nightmare. The darkness was complete. He opened and closed his eyelids a few times but could see no difference. One leg, caught underneath him in the tangle of ropes and wood, had gone dead. He dragged on the rope above to raise himself and free the limb. The ropes creaked and he heard wood cracking, but he did not care. Death in the stream rolling unseen beneath him would end his pain and terror. But the bridge held and he eased his leg into a new position where, after a while, it started to throb as blood flowed back through it.

  He felt around with one foot until it found a loop of rope which felt secure. He tried to put his full weight on it, but it lurched sideways. It was only then he realised he was lying with his head down in the net of ropes. His tormented body had lost track of which way was up. He reached around and his hand found a piece of rough wood. He pulled on it and it came away. He heard it plunge into the stream. Carelessly he reached out and found another piece. He rested his weight on it and it stayed in place. His spirits lifted a little and he tried to pull himself up. But his body was fixed in place and, hard as he tried, he could not move. He could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest. Moving his hand he found a thick hawser pressed across his body. It was firmly fixed in place by the tangle of ropes and, much as the boy wriggled and struggled, nothing would shift it.

  Elija cried for a while, then dozed.

  He remembered when he was very young he slept in a warm bed in a room next to a chicken run. A woman with red eyes and rough hands would sing to him, a song with words he did not understand, but which made him think of sunlight and warm breezes. The chickens would wake him each morning with their chucking and grumbling.

  He thought of Emly and wondered where she was. He knew she was safe somewhere, hiding until he found her. She was good at hiding. When they were small she would find nooks to hide in where even he could not find her. But she hated to be alone, and would always give herself away. “Here I am!” she’d cry, and come running out to show Elija the clever place she’d found. Later she learned to stay quiet and not give them away. Later still she stayed quiet all the time, and she had not spoken to Elija for more than a year. Although he had thought and thought about it, he could not remember the last words she said to him.

  He wondered where Rubin was. In his mind’s eye he imagined Rubin finding him, rescuing him as he had before, giving him food and fresh water, telling Elija of all his adventures since they last met.

  They had first met in the Pedlar’s Hall, a wide crowded place where the two small children had wandered in the hope of finding food in their early days. It was a dangerous place, Elija later discovered, where children were bought and sold, or often just snatched away.

  A stout man with fat arms and only one eye had approached the children in the semi-darkness. “You want food, children?” he asked, and the dead weight of his voice made Elija clutch Emly close and move away, not speaking, not looking at the man.

  “They are taken, good sir,” said a new voice. Elija looked round and saw an older boy walking quickly towards them, his bushy hair flaming red in the torchlight.

  The stout man scowled. “You’ve got their papers?”

  “Certainly, sir. See.” The lad thrust a fat wad of paper at the man, and whispered to Elija, “Do not go with him, friend. He is an evil man. Come with me.”

  Before Elija could decide, the red-haired boy picked Em up and ran with her across the Hall, dodging and weaving through the crowds. Elija ran after them. Too late, the man threw down the useless paper and yelled. He started to chase them, but they were quick and he was too fat.

  Rubin took them through a maze of tunnels to a smaller well-lit Hall where there was food laid out on tables. No one sought payment, or shouted if they helped themselves, and they could eat as much as they liked. After Rubin disappeared Elija was never able to find the Hall again, and when he told other Dwellers of it they laughed at him, or called him mad.

  Rubin watched with patient amusement as they ate their fill. Finally, when the youngsters had had enough, “I am called Rubin and I come from Paradise.”

  Elija munched and swallowed, reluctant to let the taste of the food leave his mouth, although he had eaten all he could manage and more.

  The red-haired boy grinned. “And now, you see, you tell me your names and we can be friends.”

  “I am Elija, and this is Em. Emly.” Feeling this was inadequate, Elija added, “I do not know where we come from.” When Rubin nodded sympathetically, he asked, “Where is Paradise?”

  “In the far east of the City,” Rubin told him. “It is a place of great beauty. All the men are tall and the women kind, and they live in high golden towers. The sun always shines there, even at night, and every boy owns a dog. It is the law.”

  Elija looked at him suspiciously, fearing he was being laughed at. “Then why are you here?” he asked.

  “To save you from the man.”

  Elija frowned. The food filling his belly was making his brain weary.

  The older boy said, “I see what you are thinking, Elija, and you are clearly a person of intelligence. You are asking yourself why you should trust me. You do not know me, any more than you know the one-eyed man with the very short arms. I might be planning to sell you to reivers.”

  But he did not sell them to evil men. He showed them where to find food and fresh water, and the sapphire moss, whom to approach to find work, and whom to avoid, the safest places to sleep and the parts of the Halls to stay clear of. At last they found the prized ledge in the Hall of Blue Light. And, for a while, they were safe.

  But Rubin vanished one day. Elija liked to think his friend had returned to the fabled land of Paradise, and he hoped to follow. He remembered only that it was in the east of the City. But he was told the Halls and shores to the east were the most dangerous, and only the despairing and those hunting the death gods went there.

  In the darkness of the sewer Elija came awake again. He could hear only the sighing of the stream, the creak of ropes and his own breathing. Then he held his breath and listened. At last, over the sound of his own heart pumping noisily in his ears, he heard voices; the rumbling of a man speaking, the shriller voice of a woman. Then a third chimed in, gruff a
nd harsh. They were far-off, and Elija could barely hear them, but he was certain. Casting away his terrors, he took an eager breath.

  “Help!” he yelled. “Help me! I’m down here! Please help me!”

  There was silence for a moment, then the voices came closer. His eyes detected a faint blur of light.

  It seemed an eternity until the remains of the bridge were hauled up, and for a while he feared he would slip from his prison of rope and wood and fall. He held on tightly and cried out as the jolting hurt his bruised side.

  “It’s a boy,” a woman said. “Half dead.”

  Elija felt a hard hand grip his arm and he was dragged upwards and dumped on the path above. His legs had no strength and he collapsed like a string puppet. His unaccustomed eyes smarted at bright torchlight, but he squinted and could make out several faces looking down at him.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I feared I was going to die.”

  The faces glanced at one another, then the woman said, “What a little gentleman. Your ma taught you to say thank you.” She laughed and the others grinned. “Come on, lad,” she went on, picking him up and setting him on his feet. “We’re not staying here. You can come with us.”

  Elija tried to tell them he was too tired to walk, but they ignored him, and he awkwardly fell into step with the woman as they carried on. “My name is Elija,” he told them, but no one replied.

  They walked for a long time, through tunnels large and small. Mostly they travelled downwards, with the stream, keeping the water to their right, the rough, dripping wall to their left. Elija could recognise none of it, although at one time he heard a sound in the distance he thought might be the Eating Gate, but it was too far away to be sure. They climbed for a while then went down a long flight of crumbling stairs, slick and treacherous, a dark chasm to their right. They kept going down, and Elija thought he had never been so deep in the Halls before. After a while, his brain foggy and his legs weak, he wondered if they were still in the Halls, or in some foreign country he knew nothing of. He tried to remember what Rubin had told him of distant Halls, for Rubin was a mine of information, a gushing never-ending fount of it, and the little boy had only kept a few cupfuls of what he had been told in the long days while Rubin talked.