The Dark City

19

You will find that the Sekoi can often be bought—their greed for gold is well known. What they do with it and where they hide it have never been discovered. Their storytelling is some form of hypnosis and may affect the unwary. Keep away from them. They are of no importance.

Rule of the Watch

WHEN RAFFI WOKE, the Sekoi was sitting next to him, its long hands curled under its chin. “At last,” it said. “You’re awake.”

Carys was pacing impatiently, Galen saying the morning litany cross-legged in one corner of the roof. As he stood up, the Sekoi said, “I’m afraid I have no breakfast for you. Should we leave now?”

“Wait.” Galen took the last of Lerin’s food from the pack and shared it around. The Sekoi took a small piece of cheese and nibbled it daintily, pulling a few faces. It swallowed, bravely.

“Exquisite.”

“Stale,” Raffi muttered.

“Really?” The creature’s fur was fine over its face; Raffi noticed the yellow brightness of its eyes. Abruptly it said, “I should tell you that the Watch know you’re here.”

Galen almost choked. “Here?”

“In the city.”

“How?” Raffi gasped.

“Someone must have told them.”

“But no one’s seen us!”

The Sekoi purred, amused. “Don’t be fooled, small scholar. Many will have seen you. You may not have seen them. The city is full of eyes and spies. I’ve heard there are patrols out looking for you.”

Galen looked bleak. He ran a hand through his black hair. Carys glanced away. Her heart was thudding but she kept calm. It had to be the Watchmen at the gate. Rapidly she thought it out. Now someone higher up knew she was here—but not who the others were; not yet. This would make it harder, though. Everywhere would be watched.

As if it read her thoughts, the Sekoi stood and stretched lazily. “But no patrols where we go, masters.” It turned and waved a web of fingers airily. “We walk in the sky.”

The sun glittered on the highest tips of the city, rising from the dark mists below. The Sekoi led them to a corner of the roof and leaped elegantly over a narrow gap to a small bridge that swayed under its weight. Raffi followed; clutching the rope to hold himself, he glanced down and saw the gap between the roofs was filled to the brim with the swirling smoke. Just as well, he thought, imagining how high up they were.

“Move!” Galen yelled. “Hurry up.”

Raffi frowned. The Relic Master’s temper was getting worse the farther they went.

ALL MORNING THEY FOLLOWED the Sekoi over the intricate sky-road. It was cobbled together: a chain of bridges, rope-swings, planks, and stairway on stairway of trembling, wind-battered steps, around precarious domes and steeples, nested on by birds, stained by rain and the stench from the murk below. They climbed among chimneys, broken tiles, balustrades and balconies, belfries where the cracked bells still hung, filthy with bird droppings, silent since the city’s fall. It was cold up here, exhilarating; Raffi found himself almost happy, just being in the sun again. He could see here, he knew where he was. He sent sense-lines spinning into the clouds.

Finally though, he saw the road was running out. Fewer and fewer buildings pierced the dark, and some of the aerial stairways were broken. Twice they had to turn back. When the Sekoi stopped, on the parapet of a small dome, it helped Raffi up with a furred hand.

“Not dizzy?”

He shook his head. “Though I would be if I could see the ground.”

“Ah.” The creature leaned out and looked down. “So even Darkness has its uses. Worthy of your Litany, that idea.” It glanced back at Galen. “I wonder if that’s true of all darkness.”

Raffi stared at the Sekoi, but it winked at him and said no more. After a moment Raffi said, “You didn’t tell us your name.”

“We don’t tell our names, little scholar. Not to outsiders.” It tapped the zigzag mark under its eye. “That’s my name. It would just sound like a snarl to you. Didn’t teach you much about us, did he?”

“The Sekoi hate water and the dark,” Raffi quoted quickly. “They imperil their souls with riches; they tell intricate lies.”

The creature winced. “I see.” It made a small face. “Well, it’s accurate. Gold is precious to us. The sorrows of Kest come to everyone, even us, who were here before the Starmen. But now, I’m afraid, this is as far as we go. Come and see.”

Without waiting for the others, it walked around the dome, balancing easily on a narrow flaking ledge of stone, putting one foot delicately before the other. Raffi inched after it, arms wide, holding on to moldings and carved faces that crumbled in his hands. Breathless, the wind plucking at him, he sidled around to a wider part and found the Sekoi sitting, its legs dangling over the abyss.

“There,” it said softly. “The great wound.”

Before them, as far as they could see, the Darkness lay unbroken. Remote in the distance, the sun caught the tops of other towers, but the heart of the city was black and drowned, with nothing left high enough to pierce the eternal murk. Here the Darkness was vast; it steamed and churned, almost thick enough to walk on.

“So we go back down, then?” Carys said. She had come around silently; now she watched Galen balance, the staff strapped to his back.

“Down and down,” the Sekoi said mournfully. “That is, if you still want to.”

“We do,” the keeper said at once.

“Pity. All the dangers lie down there.”

“That’s nothing to me,” Galen growled.

The Sekoi raised an eyebrow at Raffi. “If you say so.”

A door in the dome led them to a stair, and they followed it down. After only minutes the light faded away; by the time they’d passed the third cracked window, darkness was back around them, and the Sekoi had to light its lantern and hold it up. Rats scattered all down the stairs.

Raffi felt his heart sink back into gloom. The sense-lines dimmed. From somewhere down below, the stench of something rotting made him retch. At the bottom of the stairs the Sekoi put the lantern out and hid it. Following through twists and turns of walls, they found themselves in a ruined courtyard. Picking its way through broken pillars and the leaning column of a sundial, the Sekoi paused under an archway. Beyond it the alley was black.

“Where now?” Galen muttered.

The creature eyed him. Then it said, “A few streets away is a story-house. A place where my people gather. We may find someone there who can help. Remember, keep silent.”

They moved close together. After the sunlight above, Raffi felt he had gone blind. But gradually walls reemerged from the gloom, dim outlines. They walked silently down a long street past what had once been shops; now they were drafty holes where rubbish gusted. The street felt cobbled, narrow between the high walls of grim buildings; a shutter banging in the silence; a fountain clotted with dead leaves.

Halfway down the Sekoi turned right, into a blacker crack; a strange archway spanned the entrance and under it Raffi caught a few words carved beautifully in stone: “Street of the Arch,” still clear after centuries.

Galen had stopped; he made a rapt sign with his hand. “Look there, Raffi.”

Above the street name was a niche with the remains of a statue. Fragments now, but Raffi knew in an instant what it had been: Soren, her arms full of flowers. A carved lily was still perfect in the stone.

“Hurry,” the Sekoi hissed from the dark.

Moving after it, Raffi tried to imagine the city as it had been once, filled with sunlight, full of shining statues of the Makers, its fountains rippling pure water, its streets thronged with pilgrims. For a moment he believed it, but it made the Darkness seem worse.

He almost walked past the others; Carys caught him. They were gathered in a narrow doorway. The Sekoi knocked twice, varying the pattern. Then it knocked again, four times.

They waited, nervous, in the inky street. Glancing back, Carys knew if a patrol was watching them it would be impossible to see. She fought off the sudden panicky thought and turned back.

Without a sound, a small grille in the door had opened. The Sekoi muttered a few sounds into it. Seconds later, the door was unlocked.

They never saw the doorkeeper. The Sekoi hustled them in down a lightless passage; the door locked behind them as they crossed a courtyard to an inner door. The Sekoi turned, blocking the way. “It’s best if you say nothing. They won’t speak to you anyway. Sit and watch. Try not to listen.”

With that strange remark they went in. The room was small, and lit with green candles that gave a wonderful light. To Raffi’s joy, it was full of Sekoi; about a dozen of the creatures, lounging on cushions around a fire. They all turned and looked as the strangers came in; then, as one, they looked away again.

“Sit down,” the Sekoi whispered. There were empty cushions in a corner; Carys perched on one, knees up. The storyteller, a female Sekoi sitting by the fire, did not pause; it went on speaking in their language of strange purring consonants, one hand moving as it talked, throwing deft shadows.

Fascinated, Raffi watched. He had never seen so many of them; he noticed the different colors and patterns of their fur, the small tribemarks. There were no young ones, though. No children. Each had an absorbed look, as if they dreamed or were in some trance as they listened, and they took not the slightest notice of the travelers.

Finally, the story came to an end. There was no applause, just silence, and then the creatures talked excitedly to one another.

“Why are they ignoring us?” Carys asked, annoyed.

The Sekoi smiled. “My people are honest. If the Watch question them they can say they’ve talked to no keeper, no Starmen.”

It uncurled itself and crossed the room and, taking the storyteller by the arm, began to whisper.

Galen fidgeted. “Are we safe here? How does it feel?”

“There’s nothing. I can’t read Sekoi.”

“I could.” The keeper’s hawk-face darkened. “But then, they’re usually safe. They despise most Starmen, especially the Watch. But not the Order.”

“Why call us Starmen?” Carys asked.

“Because the Makers came from the sky. The Sekoi say they watched them come. They have stories about it.” He laughed harshly. “They have stories about everything.”

Behind the quiet talk another teller had begun; an oldlooking Sekoi mumbling almost to itself. As he sat there, Raffi felt the pattern of words; at first they meant nothing to him, but as Galen and Carys talked, their voices faded out and the room rippled, as if it were an image in water. He closed his eyes and opened them, but the rippling went on; he turned to speak to Galen about it but the keeper had gone; all around him was a dark hillside under the stars, brilliantly frosty, and the seven moons beyond, making the Ring.

Standing there, Raffi shivered in the cold, feeling his fur thicken, seeing the night in new colors, colors that had no words but Sekoi words, and he said them to himself, quietly delighted.

In the sky, a light moved. It was a star that grew; it came closer to him, and the hum and glitter of it shook the frosted tops of the trees, and he saw how vast the stars were. It came down and landed. The whole world shook with its weight.

The star opened and the man walked out. Flain was tall and his hair was long and bright. But the sight of him made the fur on Raffi’s neck shiver; he rubbed at it and someone’s hand caught his and said, “Raffi! Raffi!”

Galen was crouched over him. Behind, the Sekoi was smiling. “I told you not to listen,” it purred.

Galen glared at it. “Is he all right?”

“Perfectly. Aren’t you?”

Raffi nodded, confused. He looked over, but the storyteller mumbled on, and now the words were impossible to understand.

“Listen,” the Sekoi said. “I’ve been advised that you should try the Street of the Wool-Carders. Apparently there may be a contact there. We should look for the name Anteus.”

Galen nodded. “Where is that?”

“Not too far. But near a Watchtower. I could show you.”

Galen looked at it curiously. “Why are you helping us?”

The Sekoi narrowed its yellow eyes. “Because the Watch think we’re worthless animals.” It grinned. “And in memory of our mutual friend, Alberic.”

“Have you still got his gold?” Raffi asked.

The Sekoi drew itself up, affronted. “My gold. He should pay his storytellers.”

Carys laughed. She wished she knew where the Sekoi hoard was. That would be useful information. But the Crow was better.

Back out in the black city, they headed for the Street of the Wool-Carders. All the streets seemed the same, but, crossing one huge empty square, Raffi sensed the space all around him, and eyes at his back. Spinning around, he saw only darkness.

When he told Carys, she took the crossbow off her shoulder and loaded it. “I’ve been afraid of that.”

“If only I could sense something clear!”

“I thought keepers were good at that.”

“Not here.”

The street, when they found it, was very short and bounded by a low wall with some sort of neglected garden on the other side; dead branches snapped under their feet. They walked up and down it twice, but there were no houses, no doors.

Galen leaned on his stick. “So much for the Sekoi,” he snarled bitterly.

The creature rubbed its fur thoughtfully. “We may be looking for the wrong thing.”

“How?”

“Does not your Order have secrets, keeper? Signs, symbols? Things not known by outsiders?”

Galen straightened. “Raffi. Go with him. Search every inch of this wall. Girl, come with me.”

In the dimness they had to peer at the bricks, feel with fingertips. Halfway down Raffi stopped. “This is it,” he breathed.

The Sekoi stared curiously at the mess of scratches. “It means nothing.”

“Yes it does.” He turned. “Galen!”

The keeper came at a run, shoving him aside. “Good, Raffi! Good!”

On the wall was a broken inscription plaque, with the words “. . . memory of Anteus, who . . .” all that remained. But under that were new scratches, strange and meaningless. Galen’s fingers outlined them eagerly. A tiny bee, a circle of six dots and another inside, a group of enigmatic slashes and squiggles. Carys tried to get closer. “What does it say?” she hissed.

Galen glanced at her. Then he said to the Sekoi, “Where’s the place called the Pyramid?”

It looked surprised. “An hour’s walk south. Why?”

“That’s where we go.”

All the way there Galen said nothing else, but Raffi could feel the pain in him, the desperate rising hope. Some of the way they ran, as time was running out; even Carys felt eyes on her, the scurrying of shapes in the shadows. She constantly glanced behind her at the darkest corners. Once she laughed at herself—she was the Watch, after all—but in this place everything seemed full of doubt. She knew she was beginning to look like an outlaw, to think like one. She had almost forgotten herself, and the knowledge shook her.

Overhead the draxi flapped, looming out of fog; Raffi glanced up at them with a shudder.

Crouched under walls, against buildings, they ran deeper and deeper into Tasceron’s heart. Finally the Sekoi stopped by a smooth sloping wall. “Well, keeper,” it said, breathless. “Your Pyramid.”

The top was lost in gloom. They walked around it. Four walls, with no opening. It was blank and smooth.

“Now what?” Carys muttered.

Galen put both hands on the brickwork. He began to speak, words that not even Raffi knew—fierce, secret sounds—so that Carys stared and the Sekoi put its long hands together and chewed its nails nervously.

The spell ended. But nothing moved.

In a rage of fury, Galen slammed his hands against the wall, kicked it, beat at it. He moaned and cursed, his voice an agony in the silence. It chilled them all. For a moment Raffi wondered if Galen’s mind had gone. Then Galen turned. He looked over Raffi’s shoulder into the dark and there was a look on his haggard face that terrified them.

But all he said was, “We’re going to have to improve your sense-lines, boy.”

Carys spun around.

The Sekoi snarled.

Behind them, a row of armed men was waiting in the gloom.