by Ian Whates
He knew that if he stopped, he would die. This realisation became the focus of his thoughts, the centre of his rebellion against the compulsion of that awful, irresistible voice.
Tom had to resist, somehow. He concentrated on his legs, demanding that they move faster, and they finally started to react, sluggishly at first, as if struggling to run through water, but he never quite came to a halt and after a few desperately difficult steps he was gaining a little speed and then a bit more, until suddenly he could move freely again, the voice's power evidently broken.
The stairs were before him. He threw himself at them, leaping the first section in a single, flailing bound. This stairway was not made of iron like the one he had crouched beneath but of solid, unyielding stone, carved from the same stuff as the city itself. His momentum carried him recklessly forward. Legs pumping furiously to keep him upright, to prevent him from falling, he tore down the stairs. He almost over-balanced again and again, but somehow managed to keep everything together until he reached the bottom. The steps passed in a blur and the next Row seemed to rush towards him. His feet met the level ground with jarring force. Three punishing strides later his legs finally buckled and he slammed painfully to the floor, barely raising his arms in time to protect his face. He skidded, rolled, grazing the skin from his knees and forearm, but still managed to scramble to his feet and run on, refusing to acknowledge the bumps, the bruises, the nagging ache in his left knee. He couldn't afford to feel them. Not until he was safe.
A gaping archway opened to his right and he considered diving through it, to lose himself within the inner city, but quickly rejected the idea. He was a long way from anywhere he knew and trying to hide nearby would probably be exactly what his pursuer wanted. The arkademic was bound to have some knowledge of the area, far more than Tom at any rate. To linger here would be stupid. Tom had made his ascent by clinging to the city's skin, by walking the terraces and corridors built in and around its outer walls and going up any available stairway that promised to take him to the next Row. Instinct told him to use the same approach now, that this would be the quickest way of escaping to the safety of his own levels - the familiar warrens of the City Below.
He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw no signs of anyone chasing him but refused to relax. This still felt like enemy territory and he had no idea what other powers the arkademic might possess, so he kept running for all he was worth.
Another flight of steps led to another Row. He ran through an enclosed corridor here, one built on the inside of the city walls rather than on its outer surface. This environment was a far more familiar one than the high terraces above. Narrow windows to his left looked out upon darkness. The noise of the wind had abruptly cut off as he entered the corridor and every pounding footfall sounded intrusively loud to his own ears as his feet slapped the stone floor in the enclosed tube of space. Surely anyone asleep behind the locked doors would be woken by such a cacophony and so mark his passing.
Instinctively he slowed a little, treading more lightly. He was breathing hard, the energy that fear had lent his body fast evaporating. The night's exertions were catching up with him and he began to feel his aching knee, the raw sting of his grazed forearm and the tiredness of protesting muscles.
Tom knew that he was far from safe, but the absence of any obvious pursuit robbed the threat of its immediacy. By the time he finished the descent to the next Row his lungs were fit to burst and all the aches and pains of his exertions and the earlier fall were catching up with him. He slowed to a brisk walk, needing to catch his breath. This Row boasted another terrace, which heralded the return of a wind that seemed to have gained in strength, buffeting him with renewed ferocity as he stepped out into the open once more.
The wall here was interrupted by a series of arched openings, each of which led through to a small chamber, with no other entrance or window. On the way up he had snatched a brief moment to explore one of them, discovering a featureless room, devoid of any furniture or decoration. Now, on his return, on edge as he was, he found the darkened openings unsettling - a row of enormous mouths gaping wide as if to swallow him as he passed.
His breathing became less ragged as his body absorbed much-needed oxygen and he felt able to break into a jog again, anxious to be past these ominous archways. So intent was he on the openings that it took him a while to register the new arrival. In the distance there was a figure walking with measured steps but coming closer with each one. Instantly Tom feared the worst, suspecting this could only be the arkademic Magnus or one of his agents.
Then he spotted the stairwell to the next floor. It lay between him and the stranger. Tom broke into a sprint once more, desperate to make the stairs ahead of whoever the newcomer might be.
The figure quickened pace. Dark clothes, but that could mean anything.
"Hey, you, lad, stop where you are!"
The voice carried a familiar air of assumed authority but lacked the command that Magnus had possessed and Tom knew the tone well: a razzer - one of the City Watch. Razzer or Magnus, it was all the same to him; he had no wish to be caught by either. Head down, he ran for all he was worth. The razzer started to run as well, but Tom made it to the stairs well ahead of him and charged down, laughing.
Razzers he was used to. They lacked the dark, sinister menace of murderous arkademics. Running from them, outwitting them, was something he had been doing all his life. He reached the next Row with the other nowhere in sight.
The floor of this terrace was inlaid with mosaic tiles, depicting a series of regally arranged profiles, predominantly those of men. Tom remembered them from the upward journey, when he had wondered precisely whose face he was in the process of walking over.
Some of the fear started to leave him. He was almost enjoying himself now, relieved to be dealing with the familiar. Until, that is, he caught movement in the corner of his eye - a large form swooping past the balcony to his left, beyond the city's walls. At first he thought it an enormous bird or, more terrifying, one of the fabled demons descending from the city's Upper Heights.
But then he saw that it was, in fact, a man.
The razzer sailed towards the terrace, arms outstretched, cloak spread between his four limbs, catching the wind and gliding smoothly towards a landing ahead of Tom, blocking his way to the next set of stairs.
A kitecape; Tom stood and gawped, having heard of such a thing but never imagining he would ever actually see one.
For a precious second he could do little more than stare, seduced by the sheer majesty of this man so at home in the air. He came to his senses as the seriousness of the situation sank in. He looked around frantically, assessing his options: flee back the way he had come and hope he didn't run straight into Magnus, try to keep going towards the lower levels he knew - which meant somehow getting past the razzer - or risk leaving the walls entirely to take his chances in the unknown jungle of the city's innards.
None of them sounded appealing, but he had to choose quickly and act decisively or all would be lost and the razzer would have him. The razzer, clearly one of the famed Kite Guards, was almost at the balcony. He swooped in, tilting his body upward, closing his arms slightly and lifting his legs, causing himself to virtually stall in mid-air, preparatory to landing.
Tom knew that the decision could not wait, had already been delayed overlong, but he couldn't help himself - he had to watch. Suddenly the Kite Guard seemed far more of a threat than the razzers he was used to, too formidable to try and slip past. It was going to have to be the inner city.
Yet at the very instant he reached that unpalatable conclusion, the guard faltered and appeared to lose control. One second the dark form was moving with graceful precision, the next he was floundering. It was as if the capricious wind had chosen to desert him at the last moment, leaving his cloak suddenly limp and useless. The arms which seconds before had been outstretched, supporting him so majestically, now reached in desperation for the balustrade.
He almost mad
e it too, but not quite. With a startled yelp, the razzer dropped from sight.
Hardly daring to believe his luck, Tom rushed to the edge to stare down, completely forgetting his earlier fear of the drop. He watched the unfortunate guard tumble away, staying until the figure was swallowed by the darkness. The sense of disorientation threatened to return once he stopped focusing on the falling man, so he moved away hastily but couldn't resist a grin of mingled relief and joy.
He trotted on towards the next flight of stairs, growing in confidence all the while. There was no one else in sight; still no sign of pursuit from Magnus and nobody other than him to have witnessed the guard's fall. He wondered how long it would be before the man was missed and his smile broadened as he pictured the other razzers trying to work out what had happened to their colleague.
As Tom continued, he became increasingly aware of a sound; a bass thrumming that spoke of industry, a noise that seemed to surround him, reverberating, as if transmitted not only through the air but through the very stone of the city itself.
To his right, a gap opened in the solid expanse of wall. Not an archway such as had peppered the stonework in the floor above, but a dark, oblong, passageway. It reminded him of the alleys and runs that criss-crossed the City Below.
The sound grew ever louder, and a flickering glow of light fell wanly from the mouth of the passageway. He came to a halt, curious but wary, wanting to look into the opening but a little afraid to do so. Had it been this noisy on the way up? Had this light been so apparent? Surely not, or he would have remembered. He glanced quickly around, concerned that he might have somehow come a different way, but reassured himself that it would have been all but impossible to do so.
Finally he drew in a deep breath and peered around the corner. There was disappointingly little to see. The passageway took a left turn after a short distance and he found himself staring at a blank wall which pulsed with reflected shadow and light. It was a pulse that suggested the pumping of blood, like the steady beat of a gigantic heart. He realised for the first time that there was subtle variation to the sound as well, an almost imperceptible rhythm that seemed in synch with the ebb and flow of light washing along the wall.
Tom knew he ought to ignore this, intriguing though it was, and continue on his way, but curiosity got the better of him and, without even consciously deciding to, he slipped into the passage. With every step the air grew warmer and the sound grew louder. He became convinced that he was moving towards some sort of harnessed fire. Mixed in with the deep rumble that had first caught his attention, another sound became apparent: a rattling sigh, as if some giant were restless in his sleep.
Having taken a sharp turn to the left, the passage then executed another dog-leg, this time to the right. Tom followed, to find himself standing at the edge of a vast room. Ahead of him, dominating the whole space, was a machine, an engine of incredible size and complexity. A mass of pipes and wires, cylinders and tubes erupted from its surface. Yet was it truly a machine? For the thing seemed almost alive. Between the myriad metallic paraphernalia membranes could be seen, flexible, near-translucent sheets which resembled living skin. The whole suggested to Tom the internal organ of some impossibly huge beast, encased in pistons and tubes.
The thing was in perpetual motion, rattling and humming, never still for a second, and then, with a repeat of the great sighing sound he had heard from the passageway, it contracted; a slow implosion that produced a blast of heat and light and sound as it shrank to a fraction of its former size. Almost immediately the contraption expanded again, the membranes that held it together glowing as if from some internal fire.
Tom could only stare at this latest wonder of the City Above, overawed both by the nature and the size of the apparition. He was standing in some sort of viewing gallery, with the mouth of the passage behind him. The machine, if such it truly was, rested on a floor that was perhaps two Rows beneath him, with the chamber extending a similar distance above. When fully contracted, the thing sank until its crown was a little lower than Tom's line of sight. As a result, he was able to glimpse the tangled mess of components that formed the apparition's top, only to see that mass rise upward and the sides roll towards him as the thing expanded once more. A single huge pipe of grey metal extended from the very centre of the engine, which is what he assumed he was watching, before disappearing into the ceiling above. He couldn't decide whether this pipe moved up and down as the thing expanded and contracted, or whether it remained fixed and the moving mass slid up and down the pipe.
Whatever the truth, something about what he was watching - this strange composite of machine and the organic - struck Tom as inherently wrong, almost obscene. He shivered, despite the heat.
The engine was so overwhelming, so impossible to ignore that at first Tom had eyes only for this remarkable object and was oblivious to all else. It took him a while to realise that the chamber housing the thing was not entirely deserted.
Looking up at him from the floor and to his left was the most bizarre creature Tom had ever seen. Naked to the waist, the figure was clearly humanoid and bulged with muscles, its skin glistening with perspiration. There were two things that made this figure so remarkable. Although dwarfed by the mechanism he was evidently tending, the creature was obviously huge; Tom reckoned him to be at least twice the height of a full-grown man.
Then there was the creature's head: completely bald, with the face dominated by a single Cyclopean eye. The eye was opaque, a uniform milky white. The creature was evidently blind, yet its head had tilted upward and seemed to be staring directly at Tom.
Tom instinctively drew back and in doing so, remembered himself, remembered that he had just witnessed a murder and should be fleeing as swiftly as possible back to the streets he knew.
He had already dallied too long. Cursing his curiosity and hoping that the delay would not prove costly, he ran through the tunnel's twists and out into the open air once more. The comparative cold of the exposed night came as welcome relief after the claustrophobic heat of the engine chamber. He breathed deeply, glad to be away from the unfathomable machine and its unsettling attendant.
After a quick glance around to confirm that the terrace was still empty, he set off again. Yet he remained preoccupied, part of his mind lingering in that vast chamber with its bizarre occupants - the like of which he hoped never to see again.
Tom was distracted by his own thoughts and failed to notice the shadow that passed over him from behind. He was taken completely by surprise when something struck him in the centre of the back. It hit with enough force to wind him and he instantly lost his footing and went sprawling to the ground. A little dazed, he sat up; tasting blood, knowing that he must have bitten his lip, and wincing at the sharp, burning pain between his shoulder blades. He looked around to see what had floored him.
The figure of a razzer, the same razzer, loomed large, puncheon in hand. That must have been what hit him - the puncheon. No wonder he had been bowled over. He glowered at the evil club, which looked so innocent now that it was safely retracted into its housing.
"What? How?" Tom began, staring at the guard whom he had seen tumbling towards what seemed inevitable death mere moments before.
"I'm a Kite Guard, kid," the man said, almost growling the words. "You didn't seriously think you were going to get rid of me that easily, did you?"
The guard reached down, grasped a handful of shirt and hauled Tom to his feet.
"Now, what's a grubber like you doing up here in the Heights? No good, I'll warrant."
Tom almost blurted out that he was currently running for his life and that he had witnessed a murder only a short while ago but a lifetime of guarding his words stopped him. The chain of thought that came chasing after this instinctive reticence reaffirmed the decision. He suddenly saw the future had he spoken. His presence gave Magnus the perfect get-out. The man would be a fool not to pin the murder on Tom, who was in a place where no street-nick had a right to be and so obviously up to
no good. It would be his word against that of a senior arkademic. Who was going to believe a lowly street-nick from the City Below in circumstances like that?
No one; that was who.
He had even run from a Kite Guard when challenged: proof positive of his guilt, if any more were needed.
The guard still held Tom by his shirt and he now lifted him off his feet, so that the two were staring eyeball to eyeball, with Tom's toes dangling just above the floor. The man's eyes simmered with rage and Tom wondered exactly who he was angry with - himself for losing control of his cape and falling so embarrassingly, or the lad who had caused him to fly in the first place.
"Well?"
The man did not really seem to expect a response and certainly didn't wait for one, setting Tom down and frog-marching him along the terrace, keeping a firm grip on his collar from behind.
Tom wasn't scared of the guard. The worst the guard could do was beat him and he had survived beatings from men a lot tougher than this. It was what would likely come after that concerned him. Once banged up he would be at the mercy of the system and those within it; senior arkademics, for example. Tom knew that if he wanted to survive beyond this night, escape was not simply an option, it was a necessity.
Despite his angry words the guard was surprisingly casual in the way he handled Tom, not even bothering to search him for weapons yet. None of the razzers Tom was used to would have made such a basic mistake when rousting a street-nick. The kids on this Row must all be soft, he concluded.
Tom knew that the guard's relaxed attitude offered him a chance, perhaps his only chance. As the man urged him forward, he let his feet drag and then pretended to stumble.
"Hey, watch it!" The razzer's grip slipped a little but didn't let go, his determination not to do so causing him to stumble into a hurried series of shortened, pigeon-like steps as he almost tripped over his charge.