by Ian Whates
"Quite understood," Tylus assured him, while wondering what the situation might be. This expedition was the Prime Master's idea, and from all that Tylus knew of the man it was unlike him not to see a project through.
In truth, he paid little attention to what was said after that – which, in any case, amounted to little more than a wordy "good luck" from what he did hear – his thoughts were focused on what lay ahead.
Kat seemed all business this morning, which made the job of glossing over yesterday's events that much easier. He sneaked a sidelong glance at her as she organised the Tattooed Men. Despite his best intentions, the girl remained impressive and annoyingly hard to ignore.
"Hello, Tylus," a voice said, snapping him out of his reveries.
He looked around to see a woman in arkademic's garb. She appeared to be around his age; brown hair worn short – as short as Kat's though not as ragged and spiky, rather it was well-cut and shaped in a sort of bob. She had a dark complexion, large almond eyes, and a slightly plump face, pleasant as opposed to overtly pretty. In fact, there was something vaguely familiar about that face… then it clicked into place.
"Issie?"
She laughed. "It's been years since anyone called me that, but yes, it's me."
He joined in her laughter and had to resist the urge to hug her – she was an arkademic after all. "I don't believe this. It must be, what, ten years… twelve?"
"At least. I haven't seen you since we moved away and I went to train as an arkademic. Look at you now: a Kite Guard!"
"And look at you: an arkademic!" He was surprised and overjoyed. Issie's family had been neighbours and the two of them had virtually grown up playing with each other, but he hadn't thought about her in years. "So what do people call you these days?"
"Well, that depends on who they are. Arkademic Haq for the most part, Isar to my friends, but they'd both sound a little odd coming from you, so let's stick with Issie, shall we?"
Tylus was grinning despite the daunting task that had brought them here, delighted by this wholly unexpected encounter.
Kat yelled something at the Tattooed Men and then said, "When you two have finished catching up, shall we get going – unless you've got some reason to hang around here, Kite Guard?"
"None at all," he assured her. "Talk later," he said to Issie, who nodded in response as she was abruptly surrounded by the towering figures of the Blade.
Tylus went to re-join the men, glaring in Kat's direction as he did so, reckoning that if she was determined to stay in this sort of a mood it was going to be a very long day indeed.
Kat and the Tattooed Men were the first to arrive at the rendezvous point. She was impatient, sensing that this was it, the day of reckoning for the monster that had murdered first her mother and now her sister, the callous creature who so casually altered the course of her life without ever knowing or caring that it did so.
She felt well rested and alert, despite getting to bed later than intended the previous evening. As the sun globes dimmed to darkness, she'd slipped away from the Tattooed Men and made her way through the flickering twilight and long shadows of lantern-lit streets to a familiar door. Her knock was answered by an elderly woman, who showed her to a seat by a simple wooden table before making them both hot milky drinks.
Kat had seen little of the apothaker since they parted company in an abandoned warehouse the night she went in search of Brent. She'd never asked what became of Sur Sander, reckoning that it was best left between the old woman and her conscience.
Kat felt a strange kinship with this woman, a connection she found difficult to define. They both knew what it was to be cast out, they'd both known loss, and they shared a common enemy. Perhaps that was all it was. Perhaps that was enough.
On the table in front of the apothaker rested a sheet of textured paper. Though it lay face down, Kat had seen it before and knew that the other side held a vividly rendered sketch of a young woman – Kara, the apothaker's apprentice, slain by the Soul Thief.
"We're going to get her, Mother," Kat said softly. The familiar honorific was one she reserved for few people, but this was one woman who merited it.
"You're going after it, you're going into the Stain?"
"Yes."
The apothaker took a sip from her mug as if mulling this over before replying, "Thaiss guide you then, girl."
No recriminations, no reminder of their failure to hunt the monster down in the streets or the disaster that had been Iron Grove Square, merely a blessing. It reaffirmed Kat's high opinion of this enigmatic, brave woman.
"Thank you. We've got some help this time, from up-City. She won't get away again. I just wanted to let you know." She deserved to know.
The apothaker nodded. "And I'm grateful for your trouble."
Kat couldn't resist saying, "No luck potions for me this time?"
The apothaker shook her head and said, "No, you had my best last time, but…" and her hand strayed to the sheet of paper which she pushed across the table. "Here, take this with you."
Kat stared at the paper, strangely reluctant to reach out and touch it. "I… I can't take this." It was all the woman had left of the girl she had doted on and raised as a daughter.
"Yes you can. Look at it."
Kat did reach out then, taking the corner of the sheet and turning it over. To find herself staring at a beautifully depicted face as anticipated; but this wasn't Kara. The face was rounder, the eyes more intense, the lips a little thinner and the hair shorter and more ragged, spiky even. The image was still striking, but it was unmistakable… "Me?"
"I had to draw it from memory," the apothaker explained, "but I always did have a good eye for detail. I'm still not entirely happy with the hair but it'll do."
"It's stunning," Kat assured her. She stared again. "Do I really look like this?" Although she recognised her own features there was a wild beauty in the face as rendered by the apothaker, a defiant splendour which didn't match her own self-image.
"I only ever draw what I see."
Kat wasn't sure what to say. There was a depth of beauty here which she felt embarrassed by, convinced it was more in the beholder's eye than her actual face.
"I'm too old to go traipsing across the Stain, but if you take this with you at least a part of me will be there when you give that bitch what's coming to her."
Kat had to smile. There wasn't a hint of doubt in the woman's voice, no suggestion that the venture might possibly fail.
She lifted the picture from the table and hesitated.
"Go ahead," the apothaker said, evidently anticipating her thoughts. "Fold it up by all means. The image shouldn't smudge."
Kat did as instructed, and then slipped the paper into a pocket as she stood up. "I'd better be going. Busy day tomorrow."
They both got to their feet, the apothaker surprising Kat by coming around the table and hugging her. As they embraced, Kat was very conscious of just how frail the older woman felt, though there was a smile on her face as she stepped back and said, "Give her hell!"
Kat had to suppress a shiver, struck by a sense of déjà vu. These were exactly the same words the apothaker had said to her ahead of the debacle at Iron Grove Square, before Chavver was killed. She could only hope that things would go a little differently this time.
Kat's hand strayed unconsciously to her pocket, fingering the edge of the apothaker's folded picture as she shared some banter with the men. The chosen dozen had been split into three teams of four, each with a specified lieutenant – divisions that would mean nothing until the fighting actually started but which would give them shape and discipline when hell came a calling. This was how she and Chavver had always organised the men, a leftover from the Pits when small groups of disparate individuals had needed to gel quickly into cooperative units to stand any hope of surviving.
The Prime Master hadn't turned up to see them off but another Master had, Thomas, and he'd brought the promised six members of the Blade with him, their dark towering pres
ence impossible to ignore for all that they stood silent. When she'd considered them at all, Kat had always imagined the Council of Masters to be a bunch of ancient and wizened men and women, but Thomas looked to be a good deal younger than that, a man still in his prime. The same was true of the person he brought with him, a slightly stocky, round-faced woman wearing the pale blue robes of an arkademic.
"This is Arkademic Haq," Thomas said. "She'll be accompanying you into the Stain."
"Like hell she will," Kat responded. "Nobody said anything about us taking a civilian in there with us."
"Sorry, I probably didn't phrase that very well," Thomas said, with a grimace and an apparent degree of humility which surprised Kat. "The arkademic isn't here to penalise or handicap you in any way, far from it; she's essential to your mission."
"I devised the whip you see," the woman said, "the one which somebody used against your Soul Thief. I'm attuned to it, drawn to those elements of the whip she absorbed when it struck her. I can feel it even now, pulling at me."
"The arkademic has kindly agreed to help us, despite the considerable risks involved. If anything, you might want to thank her."
Kat scowled. She never had reacted well to advice, especially when it concerned her own behaviour. "I expected the detector to be in a box or something, not in a person."
"Sorry, it doesn't work that way," Thomas replied.
Kat glared at the arkademic, not remotely intimidated by his status. She hadn't reckoned on this. The need to safeguard a non-combatant would change things drastically, ensuring that at least part of their force would have to be tied down, static, prepared to take a hit in order to protect the defenceless.
They hadn't even entered the Stain yet and already their effectiveness was compromised.
"The Blade will take responsibility for Arkademic Haq's safety, so she won't be a burden to you or your men," Thomas continued, as if reading Kat's mind.
Better than nothing, she supposed, but that would still mean restricting the party's most formidable element – the Blade. She shook her head in annoyance at her own fretting. No point in looking for problems before they arose. After all, not so long ago she'd been an outcast with only her wits to call upon. Now she had Tattooed Men, Kite Guards – assuming they ever showed up – and the Blade at her back. Whichever way you looked at it, that was progress, and whatever awaited them in the Stain had better watch out.
Right on cue, Tylus and his men came sailing over the rooftops to land in front of her, all neat and pretty and oh so smug.
"About time you got here," she snapped.
The Kite Guards weren't really late, merely the last to arrive, but she was itching to let off steam at somebody and, besides, it didn't hurt to give that captain of theirs a slap in the ego first thing. With any luck he might keep his mind on his men and not let it wander in her direction too often. True, she might have welcomed his attention another day, but not on this one. Today she wanted everyone involved to be sharp and focused. No way was she about to let the Thief escape her again.
Tylus and the arkademic fell into conversation immediately and were clearly old friends. Kat found herself studying the other woman, looking for faults, almost as if she were a rival in some way; which was ridiculous. Kat made no claim on the Kite Guard captain, nor would she wish to. Even so… the woman was solidly built, stocky even, and her face was plain, pleasant at best. No competition at all.
Kat's impatience was building towards boiling point. Unless someone was prepared to take responsibility they could end up standing around chatting like this all day.
"M'gruth, Ox, Half-hand," she called out to her three lieutenants, "look lively."
Ox, named for his massive shoulders, wrestled with his harness. Physically the strongest of all the Tattooed Men, it had fallen to him to carry the most portable of the "Big Weapons" from the group's armoury. They'd also brought with them some flechette guns, distributed between the men, but Ox carried the real artillery. He was also considerably more intelligent than his hulking frame might suggest, which was why Kat had chosen him to lead one of the squads as well. She was confident he could handle both jobs.
Tylus and the arkademic were still in a world of their own.
For all she cared they could stay there and skip into the Stain holding hands, as long as they moved their asses in that direction sooner rather than later. "When you two have finished catching up, shall we get going – unless you've got some reason to hang around, Kite Guard?"
"None at all," Tylus assured her.
"Then let's get this over with."
The Blade had yet to speak – she had no idea whether they could speak – but as the Tattooed Men and Kite Guards started forward, so did they, coming across to escort the arkademic, who looked a lost and tiny figure in their midst.
There was no stirring music or grand speech to send them on their way as she'd feared the cloud scrapers might arrange – unless whatever Thomas had been prattling on about to Tylus counted as such. Kat was grateful for that. They were here to do a job, not perform in a parade.
She studied their destination. A deceptively placid landscape of rugged mounds and low hillocks. No crumbling walls – the Stain had never been built on – and the area didn't look particularly big. The far wall of the vast cavern that housed the City Below loomed large, foreshortening the view and creating the illusion that this visible area of the Stain was little more than a broad strip of wasteland, skirting the under-City and separating it from the rock face. Kat knew it to be broader than that. She knew too that there was more to the Stain than met the eye. On the far side of this apparently solid wall of rock lay another cavern, a darker part of the Stain beyond the reach of the sun globes, a chamber accessible via a couple of fissures that formed short passageways in the base of the wall. She just hoped their quarry resided on this side.
There was evidence of an attempt to contain and isolate the Stain, to shut it away, just beyond the point where the derelict houses ran out. A line of concrete posts as tall as the Blade stretched in both directions. Here and there lengths of wire-mesh fence still linked one post to the next, but even these tended to be sagging and holed. For the most part, the fencing had been pulled down and trampled on long ago. It clearly hadn't been repaired in decades, and, to judge by the Stain creatures Kat had encountered, could never have been more than a token gesture in the first place, a symbolic barrier rather than a physical one. What a waste of effort.
Kat stepped between two vacant posts, leading the group into the one place in all Thaiburley with a reputation even darker than the Pits'.
Tylus was a few steps behind Kat as she crossed into the Stain, each of them followed by their respective groups in twin columns. Issie brought up the rear, flanked by her towering honour guard.
"We need to head a little to the right," the arkademic called out. "Yes, that's it," as they adjusted their course accordingly.
When he first entered the City Below, Tylus had been struck by the pervading smell of stale sweat and decay. He'd quickly acclimatised and had barely spared the odour a thought since, but the Stain revived those memories. For the first time since his arrival he was aware of that off-sour rankness again. He gazed at the territory ahead with a mix of unease and distaste.
For centuries the Stain had been used as the dumping ground for the waste of a city of millions. It might have been left fallow in recent generations, allowing mosses and grass and spiky thorned plants to flourish, lending the place a semblance of wilderness, but the Kite Guard knew that this thin veneer of nature merely disguised the discarded detritus beneath his feet. He was conscious of the ground feeling spongy and soft, in marked contrast to the rest of the City Below, and he tried hard not to think about what he was now walking on.
"Sergeant," he said as way of distraction. "I want two men aloft on a patrol loop, scouting either side of the column as well as ahead and behind, not straying too far but maintaining reasonable distance between them." He'd never seen anything f
lying over the Stain but it was best to be careful. He'd prefer the men offered two targets rather than one.
"Sir!"
Oddly enough the sun globes, which provided the City Below with an approximation of sunlight and an imitation of the outside world's day night cycle, didn't extend over the Stain. The final pair of vast solar bubbles embedded in the cavern's ceiling lined up more or less above the demarcation of buildings and wasteland, almost as if the city's original designers had never intended this deepest pocket of the cavern to be populated. Having studied the schematics, Tylus knew that the under-City's chamber extended beyond the limits of the rest of Thaiburley. Perhaps that was the reason. Perhaps whatever had been responsible for installing the sun globes was so slavishly loyal to the dimensions of the City Above that it stopped once those limits were reached. Not that it mattered. The globes' influence was such that most of the Stain was bathed in as much light as the rest of this subterranean world. Only in the furthest reaches, close to the wall, did twilight's gloom hold sway.