The City of Lies

by Robert J. Crane

  “How d’you know it’s here, though?” I asked.

  “There was a note in the margin. Added later, I think.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Mm.” He held up his phone to show a picture. Dangling from the edge of the page, attached by a short length of string gone brown with age was a minute tag. It couldn’t have been much larger than two of my fingernails side by side. The writing on it was positively tiny, and Carson had zoomed in most of the way to make it clear.

  “That’s not English,” I pointed out.

  “Latin,” Carson confirmed. “And not proper Latin either. I had to run it through Google, then cross-reference with one of the books in—”

  “Ahem.”

  His gaze flicked to me. “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, it does point here. So that must be where the journal is, right?”

  “Well, that’s possibly where it was like, six hundred years ago,” Heidi said. “How old even is that?”

  “Not six hundred years,” Emmanuel told her.

  “Looks it.”

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  She directed him a look that was not even remotely deceiving as to her feelings.

  Carson peered down at his photo. “What’s actually up with the language? And the signs here?”

  Mr. Know-it-all had the answer, because of course he did, and he jumped right in, storytelling voice in full play again. “Ostiagard and Pharo were colonized by ancient Romans who were able to cross over sometime.”

  “They found talismans?”

  “It certainly would seem like it. History is a little fuzzy on the finer details, but if you check out the history books here, it reads a lot like The Aeneid.”

  “I’ll add it to my reading list,” said Carson.

  “He has no idea what The Aeneid is, just FYI,” Heidi told Emmanuel.

  Carson frowned at her. “We need to stop stopping.” And off he went again, leading us deeper into the maze that was the Archive.

  “‘Stop stopping,’” Heidi echoed, falling into step beside me. “You know, any editor worth their salt would put a highlight on that.”

  “I’m not a writer.”

  “Good thing too. Terrible thing to let slip through the cracks.”

  Carson turned a corner, and we caught the briefest glimpse of his annoyed expression. “So you were saying about the language thing?” he said to Emmanuel.

  “I certainly was.” And oh, how effusively happy he sounded about that. “There’s a lot of crossover between our worlds, you see. Of course, these days Latin isn’t really in vogue, so this world’s language has evolved alongside ours. And with English as the most spoken language on Earth, it’s only natural that it would bleed over here too.”

  “Great story,” said Heidi, “except FYI, Mandarin is the most common language back home. But, you know, except for that, it was great.”

  “Will the history books here be full of Latin?” Carson asked. “Or the weird hybrid Latin they’ve got going on here?”

  Emmanuel: “From the colonization period? Definitely. Proper dense stuff. Not easy to get your head round. Though you’ve gone to visit the Mirrish, haven’t you? They’ll have translated a lot of this stuff to English via their magic Grapevine apps. Just pop into their world and download it on your phone.”

  Heidi and I exchanged a look. Not likely to happen any time soon. I was pretty sure the Mirrish wouldn’t welcome us for a very, very long time.

  At least Carson hadn’t run his mouth off with our private business—

  “I don’t think we could do that,” he said. “We almost got arrested when we were there.”

  —again.

  Never mind.

  Emmanuel brayed a laugh, loud like Heidi’s. Someone an aisle over—one of the rabbit people, I figured, going by the chittery deep warble—said something back. Rabbit-talk for “Shut up!” I imagined.

  “You got into trouble with the law?” Emmanuel turned to me. “How’d you manage that, Meer?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” I answered quickly. And don’t you dare tell him anyway, I tried to mentally project to Carson. Not sure if it worked, but he didn’t. Possibly because I immediately continued, “So where is this book? We’ve been walking for about a week.”

  “Not used to walking?” Emmanuel tutted. “Seekers should be fit, Meer. Ready to walk a hundred miles for treasure, and then a hundred more when they find they’ve been misled.”

  Heidi muttered, “It’s not my favorite song, but I’m at least sixty percent sure it doesn’t go quite like that. Distance is wrong for a start.”

  Maybe today wasn’t quite his day, because Heidi seemed to be landing a few dings on Emmanuel’s armor. His easy grin dropped a fraction, and his eyes flashed. He opened his mouth to come back at Heidi with a jibe of his own—

  “Here!” Carson finally announced, and took the leftward fork at the end of the aisle.

  “Finally,” said Heidi.

  Emmanuel recomposed himself. “Knew you’d find it, my man.”

  “I took a couple of wrong turns,” Carson confessed. “But it’s right … here!” And he plucked it from the shelf: a journal bound in something that looked disgustingly like skin rather than leather. Either not noticing or not caring, Carson gave the cover only a cursory look before plunging right in there in the middle of the aisle.

  “English?” Emmanuel asked.

  “Yeah,” said Carson, and was quiet. Which made a nice change.

  Well. Time to kill.

  “I saw some seats back there,” said Heidi, pointing the way we’d come. “Wanna come?”

  “Love to.”

  “I’ll chill here,” said Emmanuel, “with the big man. That cool with you, bud?”

  Carson nodded. Would’ve probably grinned like a loon, if he wasn’t so engrossed in his find.

  “Great,” I said with all the false cheer I had in me, already following Heidi away.

  The seating area was empty, carved out where nine aisles converged, and not squarely. A table stood very low to the ground, a handful of discarded books left on it, one of which was open to pages that were entirely blank. I flicked through, frowning as yet more flipped by, not a line of ink on them.

  “Vapid,” said Heidi.

  “Pretty much.”

  “No. The Vapid. That’s what their books look like. Invisible ink which only their eyes can see. Makes secret-keeping simple. From other races, anyway.”

  I dropped the book and lowered myself into one of the dark metal seats. It had a cushion plopped in the bottom. Puffy, but far too small to really negate the hardness of the seat.

  Heidi drew up another next to me. Lacing her fingers over her stomach, she leaned back and closed her eyes.

  “You going to sleep?” I asked.

  “Course I am. He’s going to be busy for hours.”

  “You think?”

  “Obviously. Do you really believe he’ll stop before he’s finished the whole thing?”

  “Oh. Fair point.” Quiet. “Maybe I’ll read then.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I picked up one of the books on the table. Not English. The characters were alien, strange symbols I’d expect to see in a sci-fi movie, glinting on the hull of a downed UFO.

  I squinted at them for a while, admiring the shapes. Then, discarding it, I leaned back like Heidi and closed my eyes to endure the long, long wait.

  20

  We were running. The Vardinn and the Mirrish had joined forces, chasing us through the streets of Pharo—or was it London? It kept shifting, one moment the peculiar metal city comprised of strange angles, then a London borough the next. Leading the charge was one of the fire engines, careening along tracks at breakneck speed. It screeched, a terrible sound that threatened to burst my eardrums.

  Driving it, and shouting Emmanuel’s name over and over, was blue-haired Sinita from the Archive’s reception desk. She rose from a hole in the top as though from a tank. Feruiduin’s Cutlass glinted fr
om one hand.

  I didn’t have the umbrella—the spear. Or my compass.

  Heidi lurched around a corner—where was Carson?—and then cut a gateway open in the nearby wall—the Archive’s façade, then suddenly Lady Angelica’s house. She darted for it, and I called her name. She glanced back, face a dark moue—and then she was through, and the gateway collapsed before I could get to it.

  I reached for my necklace—

  And didn’t find it.

  “Emmanuel Brand! Emmanuel Brand!”

  I groped desperately, thinking I’d lost it—

  A raised cobble caught my toe (no, my toe caught the cobble), and I went bowling over, landing hard, chest rattling over as I rolled—

  And then the dream vanished into ether and my eyes came open.

  I sucked in a breath.

  My pupils shrunk against the light.

  Bewildered, I blinked, looking around—

  Chest still rattling.

  “Miss Brand,” said a low, rumbling voice.

  “Bur,” I started. “Bur-buh …”

  The orc looked pleased. Releasing his grip on my shoulder—he’d been shaking me awake, I realized now—he levered up to full height. The mop of his hair looked particularly scraggly against the bright lights.

  “Only Carson has given me a nickname,” he said. “And now you, Mira. It means a lot.”

  “Uh …” I leaned forward. Damn, but my back hurt.

  Figuring I wouldn’t correct Burbondrer about my sleepy slurring, I took stock of our place. Still in the Archive. Carson and Emmanuel hadn’t joined us at our seats. Nor had anyone else. Maybe because I’d snored. Had I snored? I’d probably snored.

  Heidi was still out beside me.

  “I thought it best not to wake the fiery one,” said Burbondrer.

  “No. Good call, that.” I reached over and placed a hand on her wrist.

  She stirred. Opened her eyes. Frowned at the light. Then frowned more deeply at the orc, his red armor covered in bony spikes, standing before us.

  “What’re you doing here?” she asked.

  “I got your note.”

  “Note?” Then: “Oh. Carson.”

  “You got back then?” asked Heidi.

  “Not long ago,” Burbondrer confirmed. “My business is concluded.”

  “Took long enough,” said Heidi. She rubbed her eyes, still frowning. Weren’t power naps supposed to rejuvenate you?

  Having said that, just how long had we actually been out?

  “What was your business, anyway?” Heidi asked.

  “Orc business.”

  “Uh … huh. Okay. That’s all cleared up then.”

  Burbondrer smiled, possibly oblivious, possibly already too used to Heidi’s way of speaking to really care. “Carson’s note told me you’d be here at the Pharo Archives. So I came to find you. And you are!”

  “Good thing you picked it up before we left,” I said. “Speaking of, is he not done yet?”

  “Dunno. How long were we asleep?”

  “I don’t know,” said Burbondrer.

  “I should hope not,” Heidi fired back. Pushing to her left, more creaky than her normal graceful self, she took a wide path around Burbondrer and headed for the aisles opposite.

  She paused. “Which one were they down?”

  “Um … one of them?”

  “Thanks.” A flat look at Burbondrer. “They just let you come in like that, do they? Battle armor and sword just strapped to your waist?”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  Heidi shrugged. “You might slash up some books.” She added, “Or catch hare for dinner,” as one of the little rabbit people wandered by. It considered her momentarily with beady eyes, then squeaked something and scampered off. “Anyway. Let’s find the bookworm and the celebrity.”

  “Is Carson here too?” Burbondrer asked me as I rose.

  “Yep,” I said. “Doing a bit of light reading about Ostiagard last we saw him.”

  “He’s the bookworm?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Who’s the celebrity?”

  “Don’t ask,” I muttered. Then, easing down the aisle I thought Carson and Emmanuel had been down—they weren’t there—I paused, frowned, and cast a backward look to Burbondrer. “Um, I think you’d better stay here. Quarters get a little bit tight.”

  “I can fit.”

  “Mm. Maybe not. Let’s just not chance it, okay? Wouldn’t want to irritate the locals.”

  Heidi appeared at the far end of the aisle I’d started down. “Any sign of them?” she called.

  A low chittering came back from somewhere left of us.

  “Yeah, yeah, no talking,” Heidi complained. “I know the rules. I’m looking for someone. Turn those big ears inside out and make them useful, why don’t you?” To me: “Mira—Carson? Your smarmy brother?”

  “Your brother is here?” Burbondrer asked.

  “Yes.” To Heidi: “I’ve barely started looking.”

  She harrumphed and disappeared.

  “Stay here,” I told Burbondrer, and skulked through the aisles.

  Empty … empty … empty …

  “Mira?” Heidi called again.

  More rabbit-talk—

  “I’m looking for someone! Buy some bloody earplugs!”

  “I’m not seeing them,” I replied, a note of panic in my voice.

  Down the next aisle—and this one was where Carson had found Mordame’s journal; I recognized the awkward spot where the alley between shelves tightened, where Carson and Emmanuel had stopped to form a perfectly awkward hurdle in the worst place.

  It was empty.

  They were gone.

  They were gone.

  “Heidi!” I shouted. “They’re not here!”

  The panic ratcheted up in me in an instant. Where the hell had they gotten to? Why had they left us?

  Heidi reappeared in the seating area. Typical icy exterior melted, her tired frowns gone, the ghost of concern tugged at her features.

  “You didn’t see them?” she demanded of Burbondrer. Barely before he’d shaken his head just once, she continued: “Not here in the Archive? Didn’t pass them on the street?” Another head shake. “You know what Carson looks like, yes? You still remember, seeing as you’ve been all this time in your own world?”

  “I remember.”

  Heidi reiterated anyway. “Tall dweebish sort with old-man glasses, old man sweater, old man shoes, and a vaguely hipster manbag slung round his waist. See anyone like that?”

  “I didn’t see—”

  “His sweater is navy today,” Heidi said. “And he’s doing something weird with his fringe, like sweeping it to the side a bit, because he thinks it makes him look better, or whatever. Ring any bells? Would’ve been accompanied by a skinny guy, Mira’s skin tone, in a red checked shirt. Stupid grin. Thinks a lot of himself, and you can tell by looking at him. You didn’t see anyone like that at all?”

  Burbondrer shook his head. “I did not.”

  Heidi cursed, and punched the end of the nearest bookshelf. “Damn it!”

  “He can’t have gone far,” I said. “We weren’t out that long, were we?”

  “Phones,” said Heidi. She jabbed a hand in her pocket for hers. “We can check the—”

  But before she could yank it free, there was a sudden rumble of noise from somewhere behind us. Voices rose, all alien, panicked—

  Crashes. Huge ones, coming closer—

  We stared down the aisle closest to the noise, right to its end.

  A bookshelf fell backward beyond the junction, unloading its books onto the floor with a rumble, crashing into the shelf opposite—

  Men in cloaks poured around the corner.

  I let off a curse now too.

  As if we didn’t have enough to contend with. Carson gone, no doubt abducted by my brother—and here came the Order of Apdau barreling toward us yet again.

  21

  “Orc, sword,” Heidi ordered, already
loosing Feruiduin’s Cutlass. It swung to full length, blade dark and glinting. “Brand, look for exits.”

  “The spear—”

  “No good. Space is too tight. We need to move.”

  Good point, damn it.

  Already backpedaling, I spun, squinting—

  “Stairs,” I said. “There’s another floor.”

  “It’ll do. Let’s move.”

  I picked the likeliest aisle to lead to the stairs. It tightened just feet in.

  “It’s going to be a squeeze!” I warned Burbondrer.

  “Go, fiery one,” he told Heidi, waving her past. “I’ll hold them off.” And he lifted the enormous sword stowed at his waist. Longer even than he was, the wretched blade curved into two jags, forming a crescent at the tip. The metal was thick, but polished down to a perilous edge.

  “Leave my friends alone!” he bellowed—and then disappeared from sight, the blade swinging.

  I ducked at the violent crashing sound that went up behind and to the left of us. It sounded like someone had been swatted into an adjacent set of shelves and had sent the entire thing careening to the ground.

  Heidi danced to catch up. “You’re going the right direction, right?”

  “I hope so!” I called back.

  “Leave Pharo!” Burbondrer roared. “You are not—welcome here!”

  Another almighty crash punctuated his last words.

  “Sounds like it’s going great back there,” Heidi muttered. “Get them good, Bub!”

  “Don’t kill anyone!” I shouted back.

  “Oh, come on, Mira!” Heidi shot back. “Live a little!”

  “Yeah, I’m good thanks.”

  We reached the junction. The stairs were closer, but none of the aisles forking off led to them—even the ones pointing in that direction. They just terminated, new alleys between shelves splintering off.

  “Damn it, why can’t this place have a sensible floor plan?” I groaned, and pushed forward again.

  The crashing behind grew louder—then there was an almighty roar from Burbondrer. There was the sound of splintering—wood? Metal? Both?—and then the route we’d just come down started to collapse like a chain of dominoes.