The City

by Stella Gemmell

  “A light,” she said. There was a long pause, and some rummaging, then she heard the scrape of a phosphorus stick Garret had somehow managed to keep dry. It sparked and flared, and she held the torch to it. For a worrying while it would not catch but then the torch blazed. The old familiar light dazzled them painfully but their spirits rose.

  “Wait,” Indaro said again, and this time she walked confidently through the library. Thoughts flashed into her mind of the last time she had been here, saying a bitter goodbye to Archange, and a time before, when she watched as a ragged little girl ate her first meal in weeks. She opened the main door and peered through, then thrust her torch out and glanced up and down the corridor. No one. She called softly to the others.

  The marble and stone corridors of the Red Palace were lit only by high windows which grudgingly leaked in the sunlight, leaving the floors in gloom. Feeling like insects scuttling along the base of a wall, they made their way towards the Keep. Servants and guards passed them from time to time, but in the vastness of the palace it was easy to hide in side rooms and dark arches. Indaro kept listening at doors and opening them softly. Finally she beckoned the others in through a doorway. The chamber they found themselves in was rich and elegant, furnished with thick carpets and soft upholstery. The air was chilly and damp and it seemed abandoned.

  “These are apartments for foreign visitors, I think,” said Elija, looking round in wonder.

  “We could hide out for a year without anyone finding us,” commented Garret. “Why are we here?” he asked Indaro.

  She rolled her shoulders and twisted her neck, trying to ease the tension. “If I am to die today,” she explained, “I don’t want to do it looking like a rat dipped in shit.”

  She tried the doors of the apartment and found the washroom. There was a deep sunken bath of some white stone and crystal basins, and she found embroidered drying cloths. In the corner was an ornate hand pump. Indaro smiled and closed the door against the men. She stripped off her clothes and investigated the wound in her side. It was still trickling blood, but not enough to matter. The edges of the wound were raw and inflamed and she washed it as best she could, then washed the rest of her body. She rinsed out all her filthy clothes, then wrung them out and put them back on with difficulty, flinching as the clammy fabric clung to her skin. Lastly she washed her hair and towelled it dry, then tied it back on her neck.

  On a marble tabletop she found a round hand mirror of ivory and gold. She picked it up and stared at her reflection. She saw hot, feverish eyes, cheekbones like knives, and the pallor of the grave. She put the mirror down and washed her face again, rubbing at her skin, then looked in the mirror again. She had summoned an unhealthy flush to her cheeks. It was no improvement. I look like a three-day-dead corpse decorated for the funeral, she thought.

  She ran her fingers over the back of the mirror, tracing the painted flowers and birds. She thought it was the prettiest thing she had ever seen. She went to shove it into her backpack, then thought a moment and sat down on the floor and turned the pack out. There was no food or water left. Her medical supplies, such as they were, had been ruined by water and muck. Likewise the grubby pieces of paper holding the addresses of dead soldiers’ families, information she had carried with her over the years, hoping one day to bring long-delayed consolation to mothers and brothers. They were all illegible now. From the bottom of the pack she took a sharp knife in a leather sheath. She left the sodden pack leaking onto the fine carpet and returned to the main chamber.

  Elija and Garret were stretched out on couches, staining them with the moisture draining from their filthy clothes. Elija seemed fast asleep. She wondered whether to leave him there, quietly walk away and leave him asleep. He could stay for a long time without being found, then perhaps slip unseen out of the palace once it returned to normality, if it ever did.

  “They knew we were coming,” said Garret. He offered her dried beef and she took some and chewed on it. She was well used to the taste, which was revolting, but she could feel new energy rallying. She ate some more and drank water from her waterskin. There seemed no point answering Garret. He was right.

  “I wonder what old Brog’s up to,” Garret mused, out of the blue.

  Indaro looked at him. “He’s with Fell.” She wondered sometimes if Garret paid any attention to what was going on around him. Perhaps he was the perfect warrior: she just had to tell him to fight and he fought, without hesitation, without question.

  “That’s what I mean,” he replied.

  Then she realised he was being subtle, in his own way, as if mentioning Fell’s desperate mission might make her burst into tears. This cheered her and she grinned at him, then shook Elija awake.

  “Our other mission is to help Fell and Broglanh,” she said, “to kill the emperor and escape alive. If the Immortal knows why Fell is here, which he must by now…”

  “Not necessarily,” put in Elija. “Whoever warned the Thousand we were coming might not have known about Fell, or if he did he might have kept it to himself for his own reasons. Diverting part of the Thousand to chase us down works in our favour. It is what we are here for.”

  She shook her head, uncertain. “The emperor is not a fool. He must see that the arrival of this alleged son, on the same day as an attack on the palace, is not a coincidence.”

  “We don’t know what the emperor is,” mused Elija, and Indaro realised how right he was.

  She nodded, trying to clarify her thoughts. She saw no point in mentioning that some of the warriors they had left behind, Petrassi and Odrysian, would have been captured and tortured, and might have given them away to the enemy. “Nothing has changed,” she said, “we stick to the original plan. We will head for the Keep, to find Fell and Broglanh and perhaps the emperor. Weight of numbers can’t help us there. Stealth and silence will be our friends.”

  Indaro looked at Elija. “It’s your choice what you do. You are not a warrior.”

  “I was not a warrior when I decided to come on this mission. I cannot go back now.” He glanced at the door through which they had come. “I would rather die than return to the sewers. Besides, the water is rising. That way will be barred to us. I’ll stay with you. Who knows, maybe I will be of use before the end.”

  Indaro glanced at Garret, who nodded. Elija did not realise that by going with them he might be condemning them. They would protect him now, perhaps to the death, for he was one of their own. His face was pale, his eyes desperate. Indaro knew he had only undertaken this mission in the hope of finding Emly, and they seemed no closer to that.

  She promised him, “We will find Emly, if she lives.” They both knew she could make no such promise, but he smiled wanly and nodded.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “You won’t need that.” She indicated Elija’s backpack. He looked reluctant to leave it, but she said, “The maps are useless now. Do you have any food?” He shook his head.

  “Come then.”

  It was noon on the Day of Summoning and they had little time left to find Fell.

  The rituals of Summoning began with songs and dance, the children of the palace garbed in furs and hides to represent the wild creatures of the land—or those who lived there in times past, before the coming of the gods, Dol Salida could not remember which. His attention was distracted by thoughts of the battle. It was a long time since he had seen a true battle, not just a scrap outside a tavern or a scuffle between street traders and militia. It stirred memories, not pleasant ones. He had no wish to be a young man again, to pierce flesh and tear sinew, to bathe in the blood of his enemies. I am getting soft, he thought, for his sympathies had been with the invaders, fighting courageously to a certain death against overwhelming numbers.

  Yet he was the author of it. Early that morning he had received a note from his patron, in their private code, telling him there was to be an attack on the palace. At first he had been baffled, asking himself why she would relay the information through him rather than alert the authorities. H
e had delayed a while before deciding whom to tell. The obvious choice would be Dashoul, charged with all palace security which did not involve the Thousand—the routines of guarding gates, patrolling walls and manning dungeons were all performed by the City’s common soldiery. Recently their rotations had been stepped up. In past years the same regiment had performed these duties for months, sometimes years on end, rendering them stale and ineffectual. Now, particularly since the attack on the Little Opera House, the soldiers were freshly rotated in every few weeks, sometimes direct from the field of battle. Only the dungeons guards stayed the same, for the duty required knowing the complexities of the tunnels and that was something which could not be quickly learned.

  Dol respected Dashoul, a lean and laconic northlander, bald and beaked like a vulture, and knew the man would give him credit for the vital information. But that was not the same as presenting that information personally. So he sought to speak to the Vincerii and was granted a hasty audience with Rafe early in the morning before the lord left his private quarters. Rafe and his wife Fiorentina dwelled in the north wing in high apartments facing the sea.

  Dol Salida had stepped into a receiving room, which was light and warm and smelled sweetly of winter roses. Rafael was speaking to his wife, and Fiorentina sketched a small, familiar wave to Dol before leaving through a side door.

  “I forget,” said Rafe, pushing back his black hair, which was damp from the bath, “you know my wife.”

  It was said neutrally, but Dol felt compelled to explain, “We were childhood friends. I was much older, of course. I knew the lady Petalina better.” He knew he was babbling.

  “What information do you have, Dol Salida?” Rafe pulled on a black jacket and brushed the shoulders, giving the clear impression he was about to go somewhere and had little time. Good enough, thought Dol, I need only a moment.

  “The enemy has discovered a way into the Keep through the sewers. It will be invaded today.”

  Rafe paused in his brushing. “How do you know this?”

  “I have reliable sources. Sources I trust.”

  Rafe stared at him, and Dol found the pressure of the stare like a real force in his mind. He was overwhelmed with the urge to tell the lord everything of his clandestine work, the name of his patron, his suspicions about Old Bart.

  Instead he spat out, “Sully. His name is Sully.” The lie seemed to ease the pressure in his head. “An old soldier, who has many sources. I do not ask their names. If names are bandied about, information dries up.”

  “You trust this man?”

  “I trust him not to give me information which is unreliable.”

  “You believe there will be an attack on the palace?”

  “I know there will be.”

  “Through the sewers?”

  Dol nodded.

  “Then it will be your lucky day, for both you and this Sully will become rich men.”

  Dol smiled thinly. He had no interest in wealth. He had as much as he needed, to keep his unassuming house and to help his family through any troubles they might meet. His sole interest was the good of the City. Dol Salida felt annoyed that the man thought him motivated by greed or, at least, interested in reward for performing his duty.

  Perhaps that was why he forgot to pass on one small but important piece of intelligence. In the last days he had come to believe that the armies’ hero Shuskara, mysteriously escaped from the dungeons eight years before, was even now back to those dungeons again. And that the general was somehow involved in the planned invasion, was perhaps the instigator of it.

  For his part, Rafael Vincerus was not in the business of volunteering information, for in his very long life he had learned that information is more precious than gold and diamonds. So he did not tell Dol Salida, why should he, that the emperor had agreed to an audience with a man who claimed to be Fell Aron Lee who, among other things, was once the right-hand man to that same general.

  No man could become a master of the game of urquat without a strong streak of competitiveness. Dol Salida had arranged for Bart’s arrest on the grounds that he was father to a truant soldier, but now he believed that his old urquat partner was another man entirely. Dol bore no hard feelings against Shuskara the soldier; whatever he had done to anger the emperor had been grave, but the general had been a loyal warrior of the City over several decades, the greatest soldier of his generation, and that could not be argued. No, Dol’s grudge against the man, if grudge it could be called, was more personal—he resented the fact that Old Bart had deceived him for several years in his innocent guise as the glassmaker’s fond father and a veteran of the common soldiery. Dol Salida considered himself a humble servant of the City, but in fact he was a proud man, and did not like to be taken for a fool.

  So it was a mixture of curiosity and hurt pride which led Dol to keep the name of Shuskara unspoken, and instead to take it upon himself to commandeer a passing soldier and venture down into the palace dungeons to unmask the general himself.

  Emly struggled forward, one arm around Bart, trying to keep her father upright, and one holding the torch. They were making sluggish progress and she was terrified that any moment soldiers would arrive to arrest them or to kill them.

  Bartellus had his eyes closed and all his concentration seemed to be on putting one foot in front of the other. Em’s eyes darted round, looking nervously for boltholes in case someone came. They were making their way along a featureless stone corridor, moving upwards. Em had found her way into the dungeons with ease, her astonishing memory for direction taking her there as surely as if she were following a map. But the water was rising and they could not go back that way. So now she was in unknown territory. She was sure they were going the right way for she could occasionally smell wafts of fresh air above the rank odour of the dungeons.

  She was consumed with guilt, feeling everything that had happened to her father was her fault. She kept tracing the events backwards which led them here—the attack on the barn, the escape from the fire and the arrival of Evan, the torching of the House of Glass and poor Frayling’s death, Archange, the merchant’s son and the lost veil. Before that she was living a life of quiet bliss, of blissful ignorance, safe in the knowledge that Bartellus would protect her from whatever life would bring them. She never thought it would be she who was the protector, and now she felt quite inadequate and painfully vulnerable.

  She had only a vague understanding of the events sweeping them along. But she knew Bartellus should not be struggling, half dead, through tunnels under the City, but leading a rebellion against the emperor, with Evan and the hero Fell Aron Lee at his side.

  For the first time ever she wished they were back in the Halls again, where she was the expert on survival and where she could protect him. Once they were out of these tunnels she would feel lost in the glare of daylight. She did not know where they were going to emerge, in the palace or out in the City. Either way, they had to find somewhere to hide.

  Bartellus seemed to have gained some strength, and he stood straighter, leaned on her less. He struggled in her grip.

  “I’m all right,” he muttered. “Let me go, girl. Where are we?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she confessed, “but I can smell fresh air. We must keep going this way.”

  “What day is it?”

  Em thought, uncertain. The time she was running from the patrol seemed weeks ago. She must have been in the tunnels for less than a day, but it felt like a lifetime. “The Day of Summoning,” she told him at last.

  “Is it noon yet?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We must get to the barracks of the Fourth Imperial,” he said, looking around him as if the building might be within sight. “They will be inside the palace, on duty from noon. We must get there before they are deployed.”

  Em stared at him in amazement. All she could think to say was, “We’ll never find it.”

  “Then we must try,” he growled.

  “We must escape,” she
told him urgently. “We must get away from here, hide!” She wanted to say, “You cannot lead an army. You can barely stand. They will laugh at you and kill you for your insolence.” But she just repeated, “We must find the way out, then stay hidden until it is dark. Then perhaps we can go…”

  “Go where, little soldier?” he asked her. His voice was hard, and in his face once again she saw a trace of a man leading warriors into battle.

  “Whatever happens today,” he told her, “I will not live to see the end of it. I know this in my bones. If Fell kills Araeon, then chaos will be unleashed on the City. It will need a strong man to lead, to bring the armies together to march in step. It might be Marcellus. It might Boaz, or one of the other generals—I do not know who they are these days. It might even be Fell, if he lives. But while it happens I will not shrink away. You stay here; it might be safest for you. You are skilled at hiding in the dark.” It sounded like an insult. “But I will go to the Keep, and put myself in the hands of the gods.”

  “Well said, my friend,” said a voice.

  Emly stepped back in alarm as a young soldier, tall and muscular, and armed with a sharp sword, advanced on them out of a dark tunnel. The man who had spoken, who limped behind him leaning on a stick, was old and leathery, with a wide white moustache and deep-set eyes.

  Bartellus sighed. “I did not expect to see you here, Dol Salida. Do you wish to kill me too?”

  “I haven’t yet decided,” answered the man. “Although you seem to have earned many enemies for a glassmaker’s harmless father. This is your daughter Emly? Why is she here?”

  “She is a valiant child and tried to rescue me from torment in the dungeons.”

  “Valiant indeed,” said Dol Salida approvingly.

  “What are your intentions, Dol?”

  “What are yours, Shuskara?”

  “How long have you known who I am?”

  “You fooled me well, old friend. I confess I am embarrassed, for information is my business, and I had no idea I was playing urquat each week with a traitor to the City.”