City of Light & Shadow

by Ian Whates

  Someone else, though, had been in the City Below at the time.

  Tom had done a lot of thinking in the past few days, about Thaiss, her brother, the city, and the core. Everything he'd learned had been fed to him through the filter of the goddess's own prejudices, and one thing he'd learned from a life spent on the streets was that there were always two sides to any story. Memories of his merger with the core still troubled him, and he realised this was far more than just an energy source. How much influence did it have on events? Had it got what it wanted? Had the core decided that Thaiburley was due a change?

  One thing Tom had come to realise about Thaiss and her sort was that they played the long game. It seemed to him that if an intelligence as old and cunning as her brother was supposed to be had gained controlling influence over the core, that intelligence would have made contingencies, preparations in case its grand scheme failed.

  There were many in the streets who maintained that a name held power. Certainly Tom had felt a kinship with his namesake, the arkademic now the Prime Master, ever since he heard Magnus call his victim "Thomas" and realised that he and this man shared the same name. Yet he could have sworn he'd witnessed that Thomas being murdered, stabbed to death and then flung from the city's walls – the event that changed his life forever. He'd been told afterwards that only the skill of Thaiburley's finest healers had saved Thomas. But healers drew on the core for their talent. A core which, by that time, had been corrupted by the intruding essence of Thaiss's brother and which, Tom was becoming increasingly certain, had a will of its own. What if it wasn't the healers' skill alone that so spectacularly brought a man back from the brink of death?

  Thaiburley's new Prime Master looked back, smiled and waved as he entered a stairwell and disappeared from sight. Tom reflected on something, one of the titbits of information that had bubbled to the surface as all the knowledge and history he'd assimilated at Thaiss's citadel finally settled into place. Buried within so many other facts was a detail that had otherwise been conspicuous by its absence.

  He now knew the name of Thaiss's brother. His name was Thomas.

  About the Author

  Ian Whates lives in a comfortable home down a quiet culde-sac in an idyllic Cambridgeshire village, which he shares with his partner Helen and their pets – Honey the golden cocker spaniel; Calvin the tailless black cat; and Inky the goldfish (sadly, Binky died a few years ago).

  Ian's first published stories appeared in the late 1980s, but it was not until the early 2000s that he began to pursue writing with any seriousness. In 2006 Ian launched independent publisher NewCon Press. That same year he also resumed selling short stories, including two to the science journal Nature.

  ianwhates.com

  ANGRY ROBOT

  A member of the Osprey Group

  Midland House, West Way

  Botley, Oxford

  OX2 0PH UK

  www.angryrobotbooks.com

  A hundred reasons to live

  Copyright © Ian Whates 2012

  Ian Whates asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-0-85766-189-0

  EBook ISBN: 978-0-85766-191-3

  Cover art by Greg Bridges.

  Set in Meridien by THL Design.

  Printed in the UK by CPI Mackays, Chatham, ME5 8TD.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  City of Light and Shadow

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  About the Author