Shady looked up at the night sky lit by the flight of light birds and the silvery sliver of the new moon.
Carl had loved the night sky in Pera. Astronomy had been his hobby – an extension of his work, too. The constellations are different here, he said. It’s remarkable: it’s not only that their positions are slightly shifted; they even seem brighter, closer. Then again, didn’t everything seem just a bit brighter in a land in which the trees gorged on light and the birds fluttered with it? A land where people played the Light Game in dark halls, and where raven-black trees bore steaming berries darker than the deepest cavern, in light farms.
He was still at the beginning of his route, which he must walk all night until first light. There was no other way to do it. Ten kilometers in total, throughout this small portion of Pera known as the Cistern branch.
It was the same route every night: starting at No. 14, meandering through Nightingale Boulevard and its back streets – all of them – through all the blind alleys, narrow turns, stopping to play a game of sleet, perhaps, in a dark hall or two. Listening to people, talking to them, hearing their concerns. Looking for signs of trouble, whatever, wherever they may be. As that small boy sang: It is important. As it was then, it is now.
“Good evening, Professor!” a young woman shouted happily, jerking Shady out of his thoughts.
“’Evening, Sandra.” He smiled at the young woman sitting on the extended seat-like arm of a streetlight, warming her bare hands at a waist-level globe of warmlight. Shady knew how welcome these lumps of metal, coated with the essence of the lightberry flesh, could be; which was why they could be found throughout Pera, and were regularly re-coated during the cooler months.
Sandra wore a knee-length fitted coat of midnight blue with an enormous silvery-grey fur collar. Under the coat he glimpsed the blood red hem of a dress and a pair of high-heeled glittering booties. She wriggled happily and tossed her head of chin-length glossy raven hair upon which perched a small hat decorated with light beads, and – if he was any judge – the tail feather of a light bird.
“I’m going to a birthday party!” she cried as her hand flew to her head. “Don’t worry, Professor, she smiled mischievously, it’s not a light bird. It’s just the feathers of a seagull with Sunlightsmear. That way I can wear it during the day too,” she explained to an uncomprehending Shady. “Dominic’s safe!”
“Well, have fun tonight. Please give my regards to your mother and father.”
“I will… Professor, are you patrolling alone?” she asked, a note of concern creeping into her voice.
“Yes, as it happens,” Shady laughed lightly. “Don’t worry. Be careful when you’re out,” he called out.
“Yes, yes, of course,” she laughed as she tripped away. “Bye, Professor. May you see nothing that shouldn’t be…”
Unfortunately, my dear, that is exactly what I shall see tonight, I fear, he thought, continuing on his patrol.
Not more than a hundred meters from where he had met Sandra, Shady stopped in the middle of the promenade before a sign that, in bright turquoise lettering overlaid with Moonlightsmear, proclaimed its existence as the “The Flying Fish.” A woman’s deep, haunting voice sang with heart-wrenching pain in every syllable:
“What iiiis this befooore me?
This white thing before me;
Floating in stillness before me…”
Shady recognized the voice of Lady Anemone, the woman whose voice had been likened to the heart of the sea. She was singing the part of Daylight in the old story. The Dancing Lights Trio, illuminated by the liquid tones of the Lady Anemone, had released this latest version of Evening Song a month ago. His mind went back to a day two weeks ago when the same trio, and lady, had sung the same song in this very spot, to celebrate the opening of the much-anticipated, newest musical addition to Pera’s already full repertoire.
Patron’s foray into the music scene had been the subject of lively discussion, naturally, as would her foray into any arena. And Shady had staunchly maintained, in the face of certain skepticism, and even censure, that Patron was absolutely sincere, had good taste and was, in truth, no more of a cutthroat than the average Peran seeking to make their livelihood in entertainment. Did she have the necessary experience? Only time would tell, but one should give her a chance, Shady had strongly urged. There had been those – most in fact – who had received the news of Patron’s first land-borne venture with wholehearted enthusiasm!
And it seemed all of Pera – skeptics included – had shown up for opening night…
What a grand opening it had been. The weather had cooperated too: a full moon in a clear, starlit night was the backdrop to one of the greatest parties Shady had ever seen. The entire facade of the building had been shrouded in heavy folds of rich black velvet until the unveiling at midnight…
The word on the street was that Patron had grown tired of the dress code at the dark halls. Or rather, to be precise, the jewelry code. What is the good, she is reported to have asked anyone who might be within hearing distance, in owning – well, at least possessing, thought Shady wryly – the largest emeralds and rubies in Pera, if one must remove them inside the pitch-black dark halls? How annoying, she apparently stated with considerable displeasure to a companion, it is to enter the halls wearing the finest embroidery and the most exotic furs, only to be perfectly invisible within the blackness!
The Flying Fish had been her resplendent response.
The crowd on opening night had definitely not left their jewelry behind, and they had certainly dressed up for the occasion. Shady had presented himself in serviceable evening dress, and had been quite dazzled into silence for some minutes upon his arrival. He could still see the feathers, the long trains of taffeta and silk, the fur, the jewels, all underlined with Moonlightsmear? Possibly. Or not. Shady could not always tell the difference between Moonlightsmear and Sunlightsmear, but it had certainly been eye-catching. As they waited for the unveiling fueled by champagne, he had taken the opportunity to talk to her for a few minutes.
“So, does this mean you will be staying with us in Pera now?” he had asked, semi-joking. She shook her head and laughed. Her signature laugh with her head thrown back: a loud, raucous thing that reminded one of rolling waves.
“Never! But this is fun, no?” she had grinned impishly. “As a matter of fact,” she’d continued, wearing a more serious expression, “I will be leaving in a week to pick up one of the LifeBanks and bring it here for maintenance. Xavier sent word.”
“Oh.” It was not unusual for the LifeBanks to be ferried about. “Well, have a safe trip. I mean for anyone in your path!” he had added, laughing.
The figure of a man clad in a thick dark red robe of indeterminate shape and sporting a head of disheveled dark locks intruded upon Shady’s pleasant recollections. He was a young man, in his early twenties, Shady guessed, burdened with a scowl and a heavy tread that brought him to the middle of Nightingale. Shady regarded him warily and noted how people avoided walking too close. The man stopped in front of The Flying Fish, swaying slightly. His arms raised, he muttered belligerently something unintelligible.
Shady moved purposefully towards the man. “Move on, lad,” he said firmly. The man brushed the tangle of hair out of his face. Inside The Flying Fish, Lady Anemone’s voice had been replaced by a man’s stern tones:
“And I took from the water your daughter’s tears
And I took from the water your daughter’s fears...” he sang, in the role of Twilight. The voice, laden with anger, was almost a growl. It was a new interpretation, for by this part of the story, Twilight’s anger was traditionally considered to have subsided, giving way to a sense of melancholy and warning. Often, this part of the song was accompanied by a mandolin, Twilight’s signature instrument. In this newest rendition, the Dark One’s anger lingered, as reflected in vocal muscle and drums. It transformed sadness into outrage. Into rage.
“There is blood in the water…”
The you
ng man looked at Shady through black eyes
“There is blood in my black eyes…”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Shady said. This is not your place, he thought, steering the young man by the arm towards the opposite side of the street. “Go on back home.” The man did not resist, but watching his retreating form, Shady felt a wave of disquiet. The White Islanders typically did not stray from their islands. What was this one doing in the middle of Nightingale?
A dull ache had settled in his left temple. Lodos, thought Shady disconsolately. It’s probably the wind that’s making me jumpy. Never can get used to it. I wish it would arrive, blow about a bit, and move on…
As Shady stood in the middle of Nightingale massaging his temple, he was startled by a piercing shout, and as he spun around he caught sight – too late – of a kneeling, taut form in the act of releasing a slingshot.
“No!” cried Shady, but was powerless to stop the missile that whirred with unerring precision to its target. The White Islander shrieked as he fell to his knees, clutching his neck. Shady instinctively ran to the stricken man’s side.
“Leave it, Professor!”
Shady stood between the stricken man on the ground and a youth wearing a sullen expression and insolently swinging a slingshot.
“It doesn’t deserve to live,” spat a small, wiry boy with particular venom. Shady thought he could not be more than fifteen or sixteen.
Shady raised his hand to stay the gathering crowd and adjusted a notch on his whistle before giving it a sharp blow. There was no audible sound; the range was higher than that which can be heard by the human ear.
“Doesn’t deserve the medics,” someone muttered indistinctly. Everyone knew that the silent whistle was to call the medical squads. The sound pattern, which included precise geographic information, would be picked up by medical carts patrolling within a certain range.
Shady knelt by the White Islander, who lay silently huddled on the cobblestones. His black, pupil-less eyes stared ahead and he clutched at a bleeding wound on his neck.
“Move on!” Shady shouted to the milling crowd. “Away with you. Not you,” he added, clamping a hand around the wrist of the slingshot-holder. “Nor you,” he pointed ominously at the shooter’s vocal companion. “You two: wait here.”
The youths did as they were bidden as the crowd dispersed, scowling all the while at the figure on the ground. The medical team arrived within a few minutes, so as the patient was being tended to, Shady motioned to the youths to walk a short distance with him.
“Are you going to take us to the police?” asked the shooter’s companion. “I don’t care if you do,” he added defiantly.
“What’s your name?” Shady asked the thin, wiry boy before him.
“Turancan,” said the boy sullenly.
“And you?” Shady regarded the shooter inquiringly. The boy looked down at the ground, picking listlessly at the slingshot. “Give me that,” Shady ordered, reaching for the offending weapon. “I asked you your name?”
“Bulut,” replied the boy quietly. He was taller and bigger than his companion, with fair hair and anxious eyes. “They were trying to kill the puppy,” he blurted out excitedly.
“That’s right,” Turancan nodded in support.
“What puppy?” Shady asked, taken aback by the unexpected course of the conversation.
It was a week ago – eight days, corrected Turancan – when the two friends had gone to the docks.
“We like going on the fishing boats,” Bulut explained. “Sometimes the fishermen take us with them.”
“What happened at the docks?” Shady wanted to know.
As they walked among the boats there was a whimpering. “I heard it first,” Turancan declared. “It was crying. I could tell. I had a puppy before. It used to cry like that when it was hurt. So we went looking for it.”
They found what they were looking for in a broken down, disused shack.
“We heard voices so we hid,” Bulut said, taking up the tale. “We looked through a hole and saw these – these –” He shook his head, unable to finish the sentence.
“White Islanders,” Turancan finished for his friend. “They were torturing this little puppy. There were four of them and the puppy was between them–” The friends looked at each other grimly. “They were strangling it,” Turancan went on. “They wanted to kill it.”
“So what did you do?” Shady asked.
“I had my slingshot with me,” Bulut grinned, pointing at the object in Shady’s hand.
“I didn’t have a slingshot but I can throw stones, too,” Turancan declared stoutly.
“They ran away,” the boys declared triumphantly. “They’re cowards really. We were only two, and they were older than us, but they ran away.”
“And the puppy?” Shady asked, despite himself.
“I took her home,” Turancan said. “We took her to the vet. She still limps and will probably have scars…”
“I couldn’t take her because my brother is allergic,” Bulut explained hurriedly. “I really wanted to though.”
“Was this White Islander one of them?” Shady asked.
The boys looked at each other.
“Not sure,” Turancan admitted. “It was difficult to see their faces because they wear those cloaks and their eyes are all black. All the same.”
“Are you going to take us to the police station, Professor?” Bulut wanted to know.
“Yes. I want you to tell them exactly what you told me. Will you do that?”
The boys nodded sullenly, and were duly placed in the custody of a police officer, summoned to take a statement from the victim.
Shady looked after them thoughtfully. Why were the White Islanders venturing this far inland? He shook his head disconsolately. Lodos, he thought. It gets to everyone…
Nearby, Perans had returned to their entertainment, and the Dancing Lights Trio had moved on to an altogether different part of Evening Song. It was the part of Shadow that Shady particularly wanted to hear. In this truncated, stylized version of the story, Daylight and Twilight had taken center-stage, but the narrator was Shadow, and this was its song.
“Listen brothers, my sisters listen…” The trio sang in unison.
“It is important. As it was then, it is now.”
3
…Where he walks
Dare you?
In the black of Night, when the Land cowers with fright
Do you?
It was just past seven, and as he walked under a Moonlightsmeared streetlight, Shady softly recited the last lines of the poem from the Book of Shadow that had particular significance for the patrolling blinder. The blind policeman walks where Twilight walks, all through the night. And the important thing is to walk. Unarmed and alone, you walk where Twilight walks. It means you don’t fear… Just as Twilight does not fear the dark, neither do you. And it also means you don’t fear Twilight, which is important.
That’s what Carl always said anyway…
The blind policeman, he said, is the glue at the heart of Pera. It’s the link between the Sun and her brother, Twilight. Because they are related, there is a link. Fear breaks the link. In fear, people distrust, they mistrust the dark. But the Dark is the brother of Light. Light cannot fear her brother. And the blind policeman who walks where Twilight walks is one of Us; one of You. The blind policeman is not the Other. He – or she, Shady added conscientiously in his mind – is just one of us… and if one of us dares to walk alone and unarmed in the dark, then we all dare to walk where Twilight walks. Then, like the Sun, we do not fear the dark, for it too, is one of Us.
It is important, Carl said. He said: as it was then, it is now…
Carl, I am sorry. I am sorry you are not here, and sorry… sorrier than you can imagine that I could not help you, friend, for I know now, even before the light bird brings its news, that there is no good news. But even though I know this, even though I know in my bones that you are no more, my friend, I walk...
So I walk, Carl, and you are ever as much a part of Pera as Shadow.
Above him, against the bluish dark of the night sky, a light bird circled…
4
“Ow! Is that you, Dom?” Shady cried out in pain as the light bird swooped with unerring precision to dig its claws into the black blinder’s armband on his coat. The bird let out a protesting shriek as Shady attempted to shake off the unwelcome guest.
“The police sent you, didn’t they?” Shady breathed heavily, dislodging the bird and placing it at a safe distance upon the protruding arm of the streetlight. The bird half-flapped its wings and subjected Shady to a cold stare. The small tattoo on the bird’s left leg identified it as belonging to the police force’s light bird messaging platoon. The light birds were trained to develop a homing instinct for the blinder’s black armband, which was coated with the concentrated essence of the seed of the lightberry.
Shady retrieved a message from the tiny canister attached to the bird’s leg.
“Off you go now,” Shady said softly, watching the bird rise in a flurry of light.
Shady’s face was grim as he pulled out the blinder’s whistle from his pocket. Two sharp bursts on the whistle brought forth a small convertible carriage. The vehicle resembled a horse-drawn carriage, and in fact, it could be used as such, but in the cold winter months, or for traveling longer distances, horses were not favored. At such times, the front portion was converted into a driver’s cabin, and the wheels were changed to tires, thus enabling the vehicle to travel at higher speeds. An engine in the rear of the carriage was operated with the essence of the fleshy part of the lightberry. They were simply called ‘carts.’
the Dark shall do what Light cannot Page 3