City of Hope & Despair

by Ian Whates

  Tom had the feeling that he'd just impressed the Thaistess, and didn't want to spoil that by showing any alarm at the thought of what else Kohn might have skimmed from his mind – the horror he'd felt on first meeting the giant and the dismay at having him as a travelling companion, for example. So he tried to keep his features impassive and simply nodded.

  When they left Kohn and headed back to the inn, Tom thought that perhaps he did sense something from the giant – an impression of contentment – though that could just have been wishful thinking. As they walked, Mildra slipped her arm inside Tom's. It was a casual gesture, at least it seemed so as far as she was concerned. For his part, Tom became instantly conscious of the gentle pressure of her arm resting on his and of where it pressed against his side. He also had no idea how best to hold his own arm to accommodate hers. The last thing he wanted was for the young woman beside him to break this intimate contact and pull away, so he did his best to keep in the same position he'd held originally. Trying to do this caused his arm to stiffen and freeze in place, transforming it from a mobile and flexible limb into an ungainly lump which had little to do with him but just happened to jut out awkwardly from his shoulder blade.

  The brief walk around to the inn's door was therefore a mixed experience for Tom. He was thrilled at Mildra's touch but at the same time frustrated by his own sense of clumsiness. Thankfully, the Thaistess seemed completely oblivious to his discomfort, chatting enthusiastically about the two days spent aboard the barge and how much she'd enjoyed the experience.

  They'd evidently saved themselves many days' journey by travelling on the river. The road between Crosston and Thaiburley was far from direct due to the mountainous terrain around the city. Tom only hoped they could make the next stage of the trip in similar fashion and, by the sound of it, so did Mildra.

  Tom's good mood was punctured as soon as they stepped back inside the inn. Dewar was waiting for them. He said quietly, "We'd best all get an early night. I want to start out first thing in the morning."

  "Why the rush," Tom asked, a little petulantly.

  "Because our landlord is not to be trusted. Don't be fooled by the ready smile and false joviality; he's not all he seems and the sooner we're away from here the better."

  Mildra raised her eyebrows in obvious surprise. "Presumably you can't be that worried, or why are we still at the inn at all?" she asked.

  "Because unless I miss my guess our arrival has caught him by surprise. Besides, I don't believe he'll try anything while we're under his roof – that would draw too much attention – so moving elsewhere might actually make us more vulnerable. But we should be off as early as possible in the morning, ahead of whatever surprises he might be cooking up."

  Mildra was clearly sceptical, and Tom instinctively wanted to take her side, but then he remembered that look on Seth's face as they'd arrived, which seemed so at odds with the rest of the man's behaviour. Grudgingly, Tom had to admit that perhaps Dewar had a point. So he kept his mouth shut and headed for bed.

  Seth was stunned when the three ill-matched strangers walked into his inn. He knew immediately who they were – how often did you find a Thaistess wandering the roads? Their mention of a Kayjele travelling with them only confirmed things. This was the party the demon had warned him to watch for and charged him to stop, to kill. So how the breck had they reached Crosston? What had become of the men he'd sent to ambush them on the road? A force recruited in secret – no point in blowing his carefully constructed cover at this point – at no small cost to him in terms of time, effort and coin.

  Had those men failed him? Had they been too lazy or cowardly to actually launch an attack? It seemed unlikely; he had yet to pay them anything more than a trifling retainer. What then?

  He soon learned the truth, after slipping into the familiar persona of cheerful landlord and making an appropriate fuss of these new guests. They had arrived by boat. By boat? Impossible; the Kayjele always walked to and from Thaiburley, hating the river and mistrusting boats – everybody knew that. He'd depended on that very fact when setting up the ambush. Apparently, everybody was wrong. Either that or these were exceptional circumstances, or perhaps an exceptional Kayjele.

  Whatever the truth, his scheme had failed – not something he cared to report to the demon – which meant he needed to come up with a plan B, and quickly. Poison was always an option, but he'd prefer not to kill guests staying under his own roof, valuing this identity and this life too highly to throw it all away needlessly.

  The newcomers themselves seemed nothing out of the ordinary, though there was something vaguely familiar about the man, an uncomfortable stirring of memory that suggested Seth should recall a long forgotten mention of just such a person, though he couldn't for the life of him think what.

  The hired thugs he'd dispatched to intercept the group would be waiting for their intended prey some distance out of town – necessary to create the illusion that the ambush was the work of brigands, to disassociate any connection with Crosston or with him. If he sent a messenger recalling them now and the men rode through the night, they could be back here by late morning of the next day.

  He settled on Wil – young enough to still be excited at the suggestion of intrigue and adventure, naïve enough to be trustworthy and, most importantly of all, the lad had access to a horse.

  Wil lapped up Seth's claim that the newcomers were not all they seemed, that they were in fact fugitives fleeing from Thaiburley after having committed heinous crimes. As landlord, Seth had been alerted to keep an eye out for just such a party – said to include a Kayjele and a beautiful trickster posing as a Thaistess; could you believe such nerve? When Seth went on to explain that there was a group of Thaiburley officers not a day's ride away, Wil insisted on riding immediately to fetch them. How could the landlord refuse such an offer? Wil finished his drink and left, his sense of righteous purpose apparent in every stride. Seth smiled; oh what he'd give to be that young again, if not that impressionable.

  This night held all the promise of being as frustrating as the last. Kat crouched over the withered husk of a man who less than an hour ago had been alive. She was searching for some clue, which in her heart of hearts she knew wasn't there to find. M'gruth was trying to get some sense from the traumatised wife, who stood with her back pressed firmly to the wall as if to make certain no nightmare could creep up behind her, and whose body shook as violently as her voice. Somewhere nearby a baby screamed, its cries going unheeded. The wife's wide-eyed stare never left her husband's corpse.

  One step behind again, as they'd been the previous night and as they were always going to be.

  With nothing more to be done, Kat and M'gruth left, passing through the open doorway, avoiding the splintered shards of wood which were all that remained of the barrier that was supposed to have shut out any darkness from the outside world. Rel waited anxiously for them in the street beyond.

  "Looks as if we're in for another night of withered corpses and the wailing of the bereaved," M'gruth muttered.

  "You mean another night of chasing shadows," Kat replied.

  The two shared a glance, and she knew then that the older man shared her reservations about current tactics, and she suppressed a small triumphant smile.

  "Hey, you three!" The shout came from a little way down the street and carried with it the arrogance of assumed authority, a tone which never failed to rile her.

  She stared in astonishment. "I don't frissing believe it." There, clearly visible in the glow of the street lamps, stood a man wearing the dull brown uniform of the City Watch. "A razzer, patrolling after globes out?"

  "What are you up to?" the officer asked, striding towards them.

  "Trust me, you don't want to know," M'gruth replied.

  "That's for me to decide. Now stay where you are, all of you."

  "Keep out of this, razzer, it's none of your brecking business."

  Something wasn't right here. The Watch rarely ventured into the streets after globes
out and never did so solo; where was the man's partner? Kat heard a hissing sound from somewhere above her head. It reminded her of a suppressed sneeze, and she glanced up to catch a fleeting glimpse of a dark shape flying quickly past and another expanding one plummeting towards her.

  "Net!" she yelled, diving to one side even as the word screamed from her mouth. She was conscious of Rel and M'gruth also throwing themselves in opposite directions, though presumably the older man was a little slower or had simply been in the wrong place. The net caught Kat's trailing foot but she pulled her heel free without any difficulty; twin swords drawn as she sprang to her feet, to see Rel staring wide-eyed at a floundering M'gruth, who'd been caught beneath the weighted net. The older man, still on his feet, stopped struggling and said to the younger, "Well, what are you gawping at? Cut me free."

  "Leave that net alone!" the razzer commanded. He'd nearly reached them.

  Ignoring him, Rel grabbed a handful of netting and started to hack at it with his sword. He didn't get far. A large form swooped down – a man – thumping into Rel feet first and sending him sprawling before disappearing upward once more, though not before Kat caught a glimpse of uniform and outstretched cape. A Kite Guard! What the breck was a Kite Guard doing in the City Below? They were cloud scrapers, the razzers of the elite, to be found only in the rarefied environs of the city's upper Rows, not slumming it with the grubbers down here.

  The razzer without a cape had arrived now, brandishing his puncheon as if he wanted to hit somebody with it. Kat leapt over the winded Rel to face him.

  She'd never taken a blade to a razzer before and didn't particularly want to start now, though she had a feeling there wasn't going to be much choice. They might be synonymous with incompetence and corruption, but the Watch still represented authority, and matters tended to run far more smoothly down here if you kept "authority" out of things.

  Predictably, the razzer acted as all razzers will and fired his puncheon at her without further warning. Kat was ready, dodging to her right and flicking out the sword in her left hand to deflect the club as it sprang towards her. Before the puncheon could retract into its sheath again, she danced forward to bring the flat of her other blade smartly down onto the razzer's hand, causing him to drop the weapon with a surprised yelp. Then she was behind him, sword edge pressed to his throat.

  "Don't move," she hissed. Probably unnecessary, but she'd hate the embarrassment of the man slitting his own throat by fidgeting or trying something heroic.

  "Kite Guard, we don't want any trouble, but nor are we going to stand around quietly while you catch us in your net and pummel us with your puncheon." She strained to see upwards and thought she caught the suggestion of something moving past just beyond the reach of the street lamps, but couldn't be sure. "So come down here and let's talk things through."

  Rel was back on his feet and, between them, he and M'gruth had managed to get the older man free of the webbing.

  "A Kite Guard, down here?" M'Gruth asked quietly. "Are you sure?"

  Nets dropping from the sky and a flying man kicking people over, what else did he think it could be? "I'm sure."

  "Release the guardsman first," a voice said from above them.

  He was on one of the roofs on the opposite side of the street. Rel and M'Gruth both looked at her, but she shook her head; subtly, slightly. No point in antagonising him by attacking. Strange how the command structure of their little trio had undergone an unspoken adjustment.

  "Happy to let him go, if you agree to come down here and join us. It's not just because of the crick in my neck, I hate talking to someone I can't see – makes me nervous."

  "Let the officer go first," he repeated.

  "Done, if you agree to come down once I have."

  There was a pause. "Very well."

  She withdrew the sword and stepped back. The razzer spun around to glare at her, then crouched to retrieve his puncheon. There was a sigh of displaced air or perhaps of rustling cloth, and a blue uniformed figure landed beside the guard.

  Kat stared. A little. Well, she'd never seen a Kite Guard before. Certainly a step up from the razzers she was used to if this one was anything to go by. He was almost handsome in a clean-cut, well scrubbed sort of way. "What are you doing here?" she asked.

  "I was about to ask you the same thing," he said. "Some strange bodies have turned up, desiccated and withered, and there's been rumour of a dark creature haunting the nights, so we came to investigate."

  The Guard paying attention to petty murders? Would wonders never cease? "They're more than just rumours, but that's not what I meant. What are you, a Kite Guard, doing all the way down here in the City Below?"

  He pursed his lips. "Long story, but you might as well get used to it. You'll be seeing a lot more of us here before long."

  "Really? Have the disturbances finally persuaded someone up-City to pay attention to what goes on around here?"

  "Something like that. Now, you still haven't explained who you are or what your business is…?"

  "You're Tattooed Men, aren't you?" the razzer in the dun-coloured uniform said. If Kat had been staring at the Kite Guard, this one was gawping at M'gruth and Rel.

  "Yes, laddie, we are," M'gruth replied.

  "I've heard of you but never…" His attention darted between M'gruth and Kat. "Then you must be…"

  "A Death Queen, yes," she said, growing a little tired of such exclamations.

  "Death Queen?" The Kite Guard looked alarmed.

  "Hey, I didn't choose the name, others did. I just have to put up with it, all right?"

  "Fine," he said with a hint of a smile. "Sorry." He looked towards the Watch officer, and she wondered what the two of them would make of all this later. "You still haven't explained your presence here, standing outside a shattered door," he said, presumably in an attempt to reassert some authority.

  "We're hunting the same thing you are. Inside you'll find a traumatised woman and what used to be her husband. We're aiming to track down and kill the monster responsible, the Soul Thief."

  The Watch officer sniggered. "The Soul Thief?"

  "Yes, and despite what you think you know she's no laughing matter." In the face of her glare, the sniggering stopped.

  The Kite Guard looked thoughtful. "If what you say is true, perhaps we should join forces and work together."

  Kat stared in astonishment. Had a razzer really just said that? The world was changing, no question about it. Still, if she were ever going to work with a razzer, she could do a lot worse than team up with this one. "Maybe," she said. "But first you'd better check on what I said, hadn't you?" she nodded towards the open doorway. "And we'd better get back on patrol."

  He looked as if he wanted to argue and insist they waited there, which could prove a little awkward, as Kat had no intention of doing anything of the sort, but in the end he simply nodded. "All right then. See you around."

  "Yeah, you just might."

  As the three of them hurried away, M'gruth said to her, "Chavver will be looking for a good explanation as to why we broke the patrol line, but being rousted by a Kite Guard ought to cover it."

  "Reckon so," Kat agreed. "Interesting times, hey, M'gruth? Interesting times."

  "Yeah. Aren't we the lucky ones?"

  SEVEN

  At Dewar's urging they were up and about early, snatching a hurried breakfast at the inn. Seth was so charming and helpful that Tom found himself regretting his suspicions of the previous evening, which he concluded were just the result of tiredness fuelled by Dewar's assertions. It all seemed so foolish after a night's untroubled sleep and Tom felt embarrassed at giving such paranoia any credence whatsoever.

  Their host was evidently untroubled by their early start and obvious haste, making sure they were well fed on hot oaty porridge with deep-golden honey on the side and great chunks of grainy, still-warm bread which smelt and tasted wonderful. Suitably fortified, they said their goodbyes and set about seeking passage upriver.

 
Tom had been looking forward to visiting the wharves, yet it proved a vaguely unsettling experience. He'd lived much of his life in the shadow of somewhere similar – the City Below's counterpart. The Blue Claw's territory ran from market square to docks, and pilfering goods from the warehouses around the latter had been regular practice. So he expected to feel wholly at ease here. In reality, Crosston's wharves proved a mix of the familiar and the strange, just as the Four Spoke Inn had been.

  Even at this hour, the docks were busy. The hustle and bustle, the noise and underlying sense of organised activity that teetered on the verge of tipping over into complete chaos at any moment, were all things he recognised. As he watched, a huge crate was being lifted from a river barge similar to the one they'd arrived on; hoisted high in a web of ropes controlled by a crane – a broadbased contraption of metal and wood that looked far too frail for the job but presumably wasn't, the whole controlled by a man in a raised cabin, his face creased in a frown of concentration as he wrestled with a series of long levers. Behind stood a team of four broad-shouldered oxen, which were harnessed to the mechanism and, in a manner Tom couldn't quite fathom, appeared to be providing much of the actual lifting power for the crane. A second man stood by the animals, directing them via clutched reins, a switch, and shouted commands. The system struck Tom as crude when compared to the great cogs and chains of Thaiburley's fully mechanised hoists.