The City of Lies

by Robert J. Crane

  “We have to help!” Carson gasped.

  “Heidi’s got herself more than covered,” I shot back, and powered on.

  “They’re gaining on us!”

  “Then put those long legs to use, damn it!”

  I put on a fresh burst of speed, hoping Carson had it in him to do the same—

  “You’re almost on it!” Heidi roared.

  I could see it. Eight feet on its longest side—the edge facing the Spurn Wyle—it looked as though a giant had hit it with a hammer. The break was clean, revealing lines of color. But the remnants of the rock’s lost side were in pieces, strewn around.

  I leapt from the roadside, dragging Carson with me—

  A cinquedea spun through the air, buried itself in the ground not four inches from my left foot.

  I gasped.

  Carson started, “Oh geez—”

  I thrust him against the rock, and twisted, spear brought around.

  “Do not try that,” I warned, praying he’d listen.

  Heidi barely outpaced the Order. Their legs were too long. She pumped hers like there was no tomorrow, cutlass gripped tight, ready at a moment’s notice.

  The closest reached out a pale hand, fingers outstretched for her hair—

  “Heidi, behind you!”

  She twisted onto her heel—

  The cutlass whipped up—

  The Order member fell back, stumbling, clutching the place where his hand had been just a moment ago, the slick edge of the blade having cut through like a hot knife through butter—

  “Cut us a gate, damn it!” Heidi bellowed.

  Right! I fumbled for my talisman—

  “It’s this face, isn’t it?” Carson asked.

  My head whipped around. His name started to form on my lips—

  Borrick’s talisman, the ring, was clutched between Carson’s fingers. His other hand swiped down, cinquedea still held there—

  A jagged maw tore open the rock’s face. It gaped, immediately springing to full size, edges ragged. No color danced inside it, like mine or Heidi’s; this was a direct gate to London streets, alive with headlights against the night. Central, it looked like—but I hardly was looking. My eyes stuck fearfully to the shuddering edges of Carson’s gateway. It spasmed, widening—

  The rock splintered at the top.

  A moment later, a square foot of it exploded.

  I yelped, throwing my hands over my head.

  “Go!” Carson ordered me.

  “Both of you go!” Heidi yelled from behind. And as she leapt the last of the distance to us, she shook Feruiduin’s Cutlass down to its glamoured form, and in one smooth motion thrust one arm around me and the other around Carson and dragged us through.

  We spilled out from a bus stop.

  The gate vibrated behind us, presenting a view of the Order of Apdau leaping from the Spurn Wyle back onto the moor, surging for us—

  “Close it,” I gasped. “Close it!”

  Carson grunted, “I’m—trying!”

  The opening quaked hard—something splintered—

  A noxious blast of gas enveloped us from the Felldawn—

  Then the gate collapsed into a single point and vanished away.

  We breathed. Heavy, heavy breaths.

  I stared, wide-eyed.

  The gate had opened on the Perspex shielding at the back of a bus stop.

  A spiderweb of cracks now crossed it.

  Heidi gaped. “That’s what it looks like when people get struck by lightning.” She reached out to touch, thought better of it. Turning to Carson: “How did you …?”

  “I don’t … I—”

  A sliver of black stretched where Carson’s gateway had vanished just a moment ago. It widened—

  An opening’s antipode.

  My heart hammered hard again.

  The Order of Apdau were cutting a gate to come after us.

  14

  We each of us made a different noise. From me: a breathy, “No”—but then, why not? I should’ve realized the Order of Apdau would have their own talismans. How else were they getting around?

  From Carson, a panicked noise I can best describe as meep!

  And from Heidi, a string of expletives I’d be remiss in repeating.

  We scrambled backward and out onto London street proper.

  “Where do we go?” Heidi asked.

  “Split up?” I suggested.

  “Did you see how many of them there were back there?” Carson said. His voice quavered with high-pitched panic. “‘Divide and conquer’ is a thing, you know!”

  The gateway’s reverse side pitched wide—and from it came the first of the Order of Apdau, black cloak flapping, cinquedeas drawn.

  “Ahhh,” Carson started—

  “Do we fight on the street?” Heidi asked.

  I shook my head quickly. “Police.” My memory refreshed about my last police run-in, thanks to Emmanuel back in Tortilla, I didn’t want to chance it if I didn’t have to.

  Two more spilled out behind the first—

  “So what do we—?”

  “Just run!”

  As one—okay, almost as one; why did Carson always need to be tugged by the sleeve?—we resumed our manic sprint, heading in the direction of Marble Arch. We wove through the passers-by who still crowded the pavement, scads of them, tourists and locals both. I clutched the umbrella in one hand lest things go off, Carson’s sleeve in the other. He held tight to his manbag, gasping with every step like the most unfit human to have ever lived. And Heidi was narrowly behind, looking just as nuts as Carson and me, with a Bluetooth speaker tight in her grip and her tiny legs pistoning away about three times as fast as ours to just to keep pace.

  The Order flooded after us. I heard shouts from behind—because unlike us, they didn’t weave; they just slammed into the people who were in their way. I prayed that no one took a knife to the gut in their haste, and felt guilty for being conflicted: these human obstacles were slowing our pursuers down.

  By the arch itself, the traffic had jammed, moving only in stops and starts.

  “Across here!” Heidi called, and darted between cars.

  Carson followed, and I fell in behind him.

  A black cab creeping forward stopped abruptly. Its portly driver slammed on the horn. Through the windshield he said something that I couldn’t hear but, going by his gestures and facial expressions, wasn’t very polite.

  “You weren’t going anywhere anyway, mate,” I shot back, and was past.

  Heidi jagged under the arch and out into the traffic on the other side.

  As Carson and I passed under, I turned around.

  The Order were darting between the cars just behind us. At least eight, surging through the gaps like water—

  Or like blood into the fullers of their cinquedeas.

  I pushed the thought aside, and resumed my run.

  “Where are we going?” I called now Heidi was in the lead.

  “Hyde Park!”

  We cut in—

  “Why is it so busy?” I groaned.

  Carson looked behind us. His eyes bulged. “They’re gaining!”

  “Then move faster!”

  “We could fight—”

  “We are not getting into another fight with the goths in the middle of Hyde Park!”

  “It was Russell Square last time—”

  “I don’t care if it was the bloody Champs-Élysées! Just keep running!”

  Heidi took us past Speakers’ Corner. Despite the time, someone had taken up position, prattling on about something or other—the looming general election, by the sound of his impassioned rant. More surprisingly, he’d acquired a small crowd of listeners.

  They cast us distasteful looks as we passed.

  “Rude!” someone shouted. Another called us a particularly descriptive set of words that could have given Heidi a run for her money.

  “That’s right!” Carson called over his shoulder. “You all complain, but don’t anyone b
other to HELP US!”

  No retort to that. But that was only because the congregation had new people to direct their anger at. The Order of Apdau barged through en masse, and the speaker was knocked to the floor, his little podium scattering with him.

  “Hah!” belted Carson.

  “Eyes on the prize, man,” I wheezed. “We’re not home free yet!”

  “Oh—right!”

  We plunged deeper into Hyde Park, diverting from the path, running over the green. The lawn was neatly manicured. A fragmentary part of me felt guilty for the divots we were surely pressing into it as we ran hard—

  The other part thought—

  “We can’t outrun them for long,” Heidi gasped, looking back.

  Damn it. I hated when other people gave voice to what was rattling around my brain.

  Carson reached into his manbag. “We can fight,” he said, dragging the cinquedea out—

  I snatched it off of him. “No! Bad Carson. No knives for you.”

  “But your spear—”

  I flung the dagger to the side. Then I yanked the compass from my belt. One eye on it, I stowed the umbrella in my pocket, gripped the talisman around my neck …

  This was going to require a very surreptitious motion. And I needed to be quick. Damn quick.

  Slowing just enough to let Carson pass me, dropping me into last place, I shifted my gait. My steps grew heavier—my footfalls more awkward—

  I wobbled—

  Glanced, just to check how close they were—

  More than close enough.

  I spilled over like I’d fallen—

  Rolled—

  Three of the Order leapt at me. I raised a hand as though to block—

  Then I swiped a gate under their feet.

  It split open, white edges warbling with a shimmer like a lighthouse against the night—

  But it was too late. Three feet landed against nothing—and three cloaked figures disappeared into the gap.

  Leaving another five still hot on our tails.

  This same trick wasn’t going to work a second time.

  I closed the gateway, and pushed to my feet.

  The closest figure put on a sharp burst of speed.

  His blade glinted with reflections of the London night.

  I spun on my heel—

  But apparently the roll had been imperfect, or the awkward rolling motion I’d adopted before dropping to earth had set off my ankle again, because the twinge of pain from the drop into the old Mirrish city was suddenly back. I gasped—stumbled—

  A hand caught me around the neck.

  I twisted, horrorstruck, and threw my arms up.

  His cinquedea swung—straight for my head.

  15

  I closed my eyes—

  The clang of metal on metal rang out.

  The hand on my neck released.

  Heidi grunted. There was the noise of an impact—

  A kick, I realized, as I forced my eyelids apart. Heidi had swung in, blocked the blow with Feruiduin’s Cutlass. She’d slammed a boot against the man’s chest—enough to knock him back. But already he was recovering—

  I was moving. Heidi gripped me.

  “Thanks,” I gasped.

  “No problem—ah, come on!”

  My attacker was back. As was another. Heidi bounced forward on her toes, cutlass swinging.

  I tugged the umbrella from my jeans—

  “LEAVE MY FRIENDS ALONE!!”

  Carson appeared out of the night like a freight train. He brandished—was that a lawn chair? Folded up, mind, but—it was a damned lawn chair.

  The Apdau goon not engaged with Heidi turned toward the battlecry—

  Carson swung.

  It was beautiful. Like a pro wrestler—the Rock taking down John Cena, say—Carson’s swing was a perfect arc. It sailed, smashed the Order guy straight in the head with a sound come directly from a dream—and he sailed back, jerked around on his heel, cloak swaying as he twisted.

  Carson dropped the chair. Gripping his purloined ring, he swiped, cutting open a new gate in the grass. It spasmed, emitting an awful groan. A mist of grass puffed up and fell into the maw, the gateway shearing it down to the mud.

  The other side was misty. A void, I hoped; that’s where I’d aimed to send the others.

  Carson kicked out. The Apdau guy staggered back—

  He wouldn’t have fallen. But the opening gave a frightening lurch, making a noise like a washing machine rolling down a hill, and took him away.

  “That’ll show you,” muttered Carson.

  The tear shuddered. A split ran across the middle, black and inky. Then the earth was back in the space, dirt and stone, so two jaggedly uneven gates groaned side by side.

  One screeched. One corner stretched, suddenly weaving between Heidi’s feet in the blink of an eye.

  She danced back. “Close it!”

  “There’s two—”

  “Then close them!”

  He struggled with the ring—

  The twin gates jerked.

  One widened, its edge flickering out—

  The Order member battling with Heidi disappeared.

  She teetered, almost overbalancing—

  Then the gates vanished, blinking out of existence.

  Suddenly the air was silent.

  “What,” Heidi wheezed, “was that?”

  I stared. Carson’s gateways had stripped the ground of grass. Huge bare patches stretched, reaching farther than the gates themselves had gone. One came right to my feet, just an inch shy of my toes. When had that flicker happened? And how close had I been to just falling into the space between worlds?

  “New rule,” I told Carson. “No more gateways. Not until we can figure out what it is you’re doing there.”

  “But I helped—”

  “And well done. Now let us deal with these last three, hm?”

  They’d hung back. And not just them: I saw people on the paths too, stopped and staring.

  “We can’t,” I said. “They’ve seen too much. We need to move.”

  Heidi hesitated. “So we just run?”

  I opened my mouth to answer—but another sliver of black opened on the ground. I stared, mouth hanging, as it widened exactly where I’d opened mine no less than a minute ago—

  “No,” I breathed. “I thought it was a void.”

  Carson said, “It wasn’t?”

  I shook my head—

  And from the darkness, feet first, came the three Apdau goons I’d banished with a swipe of the hand. Regurgitated onto the earth, they staggered, pushing up to their feet—

  “Move,” I ordered. “Now.”

  Carson began, “I could—”

  “Sorry, but your gates are too dangerous,” I said. “We’re running again. Let’s go!”

  We hurtled in a line for the opposite side of the park.

  “I could get rid of them!” Carson cried.

  “Can’t you deal with this the American way?” Heidi asked.

  “Err … have a tea party and throw them in Boston Harbor?”

  “I meant shooting them.”

  She threw a quick glance over the shoulder, and cursed. “Damn it! Mira, can’t you throw your spear at them?”

  “Chuck your cutlass if you’re so keen on appeasement, Neville Chamberlain,” I bit back.

  Carson loosed a single breath of high laughter. “That was a good reference.”

  Heidi glared at him as they ran alongside one another.

  “What? I can respect that. Kept with the historical theme I started—”

  We burst through the gates to Hyde Park Place—

  And juddered to a standstill.

  The Order of Apdau—more of them. Ten, arrayed in a subtle crescent, cutting off our exit—

  And in the very middle of them, standing taller than the rest, was a man in robes stitched with intricate embroidery and edged with gold .

  He raised a hand, pale, like the others, his fingers adorne
d with rings. There were no lines on his palm, and nary a quiver shook it. He might have been a statue, an automaton like Lady Angelica’s butlers, if I hadn’t known better.

  All three of us froze—

  Then he did something none of the Order had ever done before:

  he spoke.

  “Mira Brand.” His voice was deep, resonant, a powerful bass note.

  Carson breathed, “What the …”

  “Surrender your weapons,” he instructed. “Give us the Chalice Gloria.” His words were metered, borderline slow in cadence, as though he had all the time in the world. “Pledge to return home and give up your Seeking, and you will be allowed to walk from this place unharmed.”

  We stared in shocked silence.

  Boxed in.

  My eyes darted.

  The Order of Apdau’s leader—this was their leader, right? It had to be—merely waited, hand extended, for an answer.

  I licked my bottom lip. “Thanks,” I said, careful …

  “But no thanks.”

  And swinging Decidian’s Spear to full length, I tugged Carson along—Heidi fell naturally into step, no instruction—thrust it at the edge of this arranged throng—

  And once again we hurtled through London streets, the Order of Apdau behind us.

  16

  We pounded up London streets.

  Carson clutched his side. “Cramp!”

  “Cardio not your thing?” Heidi snapped back.

  “No,” he wheezed, jibe totally lost on him. “Too many Cheetos and videogames.”

  “And now you’re totally unfit for the inevitable zombie apocalypse. Shame on you.”

  “Do either of you,” I cut across, “have any ideas? Please?”

  “Get a pint at the Winchester and wait for all of this to blow over?” Carson suggested. At Heidi’s sidelong look, he said, “It’s from Shaun of the Dead.”

  “Enough with the pop culture,” Heidi snipped back. “This is a run for our lives, not a pub quiz!”

  With those two engaged in more important things than, you know, escaping sixteen cloaked figures brandishing daggers, I had to take escape into my own hands.

  I unsnapped the compass from my belt and peered at its face.

  A jungle greeted me, trees rearing skyward, pure obsidian in color. Sunlight poured down between them, bars of green pouring down between them.

  No good—but suddenly, appearing on one edge—deep eigengrau mist. We were approaching a boundary, and beyond it, a void—the place between worlds where nothing existed.