City of Hope and Despair (4 page)

  "Then why are you doing this?" The young master's

frustration, his desire to understand, was apparent in every syllable. The prime master could still remember when
he'd
been that eager, in those long ago days before the weight of responsibility had taught him the value of hesitancy.

  "To protect him, Thomas, to remove him from harm's way." Both knew he was referring to the younger master's namesake, the former street-nick Tom.

  Thomas shook his head, clearly exasperated. "With all due respect, that doesn't make any sense. By sending him outside the city aren't you doing exactly the opposite: placing the lad beyond our capacity to protect him?"

  "Perhaps," the prime master acknowledged.

  He hesitated, wondering how much he dared share with Thomas. When all was said and done this was his burden, yet it made sense for someone else to know of his suspicions. Well-established layers of bureaucracy ensured the day to day running of this vast metropolis, yet ultimately the responsibility for everything that went on in Thaiburley fell on the shoulders of just a dozen people – the Council of Masters. Inevitably, all twelve were forever short of time and overstretched; it seemed unfair to trouble any of his established colleagues with his concerns, but Thomas was still finding his way and was not yet inundated with the demands of government which would swamp his attention soon enough. If the prime master were going to talk to anyone, he could do a lot worse than trust this astute and keen young man.

  "You're right, of course," he said, "this is something of a gamble; but, I fear, a necessary one. If you examine all that happened in the City Below of late and look beyond the subversion of the street-nick gangs, you'll see that much of what went on was aimed at Tom, designed to either capture or kill him."

  "But surely that's been dealt with and those responsible either captured or killed."

  "It would seem so, and yet…" This was the moment; did he dare risk saying more? He took a deep breath and continued. "I'm not convinced we caught or even identified everyone involved. My fear is that the real mastermind managed to elude us and is still at large in the city somewhere."

  The younger man studied him. "That's an unpleasant enough notion, but there's more, isn't there? Otherwise why not keep the lad safe in the Heights and assign a squad of the Blade to guard him? Whatever the threat is, it seems confined to the City Below."

  The prime master smiled. The assembly members had enjoyed a particularly good day when they nominated Thomas as candidate for the Council of Masters. There was no doubting the sharpness of the young man's mind. "Yes, there's more. Something is wrong, Thomas, fundamentally wrong. How else could a monster like Magnus arise and come within fingertips of reaching the rank of master?"

  "And you think that the lad is capable of righting whatever's wrong, and that this expedition is the way to do so?"

  "That's my hope, yes. Perhaps not solve everything, but at least show us where the real problem lies." The prime master shook his head. "So much was lost to us during the war. The city's data stores ravaged, much of the history and knowledge our ancestors took for granted gone forever… But there's
something
at the source of the Thair. The Thaistesses would have us believe that this is where their goddess lives. I'm not convinced that's literally true, but it might very well be symbolic of a deeper truth. Whatever is there is connected to the very core of all that Thaiburley is. Where better to seek answers? If this doesn't work, I'm not sure where else we can turn to, what more we can do.

  "I don't believe an army could achieve this, nor the Blade in all their might, but between the four individuals in that little group there are some remarkable talents. I dare hope these might prove enough."

  An awkward pause followed, while both men pondered their own thoughts. Then the prime master asked abruptly, "Do you believe in the goddess Thaiss, Thomas?"

  Thomas blinked, clearly nonplussed, and he studied the older man, as if trying to decide whether or not the question was meant seriously.

  "I only ask because if you do, even to a small extent, might I suggest you pray to her? Only I've a feeling that we and our four departing friends are likely to need all the help we can get during the days ahead."

  Thomas went to answer but clearly thought better of it. Instead he simply turned to gaze at the broad ribbon of the Thair, its shifting waters sparkling in the sun, keeping his thoughts to himself.

THREE

 
The customer, Sander, took the small crystal phial gingerly, as if afraid it might sting him; though in truth it already had, financially at least. He had come to the apothaker in the past for the odd preparation, but none of them as significant as this. He really was a sorry excuse for a man, she reflected. Seemingly old beyond his years; spindly thin, tall and slightly stooped, with an unfortunately sombre expression which suggested he carried the weight of the world upon his shoulders rather than merely the administrative concerns of a middling import business. He smelt of camphor and his complexion didn't do him any favours, either. Sallow cheeks were marred by a number of unsightly indentations, akin to stud marks, the legacy of a childhood illness. Doubtless they were barely noticeable in the full glare of the sun globes, but here and now in the apothaker's home the fickle illumination from candle and lantern conspired to highlight the pock marks so that they took on the semblance of mini craters; it was impossible not to stare at them. The old woman had to consciously avert her gaze, forcing herself to focus only on his eyes.

  The man turned the small bottle slowly between his thumb and the tip of his forefinger, as if to examine the contents by the lantern's glow.

  "And you're sure this will work?"

  The woman smiled thinly. She had expected something of the sort: a plea for reassurance. But she wasn't in the mood, so offered harsh reality instead. "As sure as I can be."

  He looked up sharply, offence manifest in his scowl. "But you said…"

  "Sur Sander, nothing in life is entirely certain, as you well know. You accept a shipment from a supplier who has been sending you such packages for years, a man you know to be reliable, but you open it up to discover that on this one occasion the contents have turned rotten. This can happen, yes?" The man nodded reluctantly. "In that phial is a potion mixed of proven ingredients and instilled with the correct essence, a formula I know has worked on countless previous occasions and so should work again, but nothing can be guaranteed. If the girl you intend this for already despises you, then there is no power in the world that will transform her feelings into love. The potion might soften her heart a little but the rest would be down to your own endeavours. If, on the other hand, she is merely indifferent to you or better still is already disposed to liking you, there is no reason why true affection shouldn't take root in her heart and blossom."

  He looked worried now. "She does like me, I'm sure of it," he muttered, sounding anything but.

  "Well, there you are then. If that's the case, you have nothing to be concerned about."

  He flashed her a fragile smile, looking far from reassured. The old woman stood, anxious to bring an end to the meeting, and proceeded to usher him towards the door. Her face bore a confident expression which disappeared the instant he was gone. She returned to slump into her familiar chair at the small table that dominated one end of the room, suddenly feeling her age. It didn't matter whether she was in the City Above or the City Below, men remained the same: malleable, insecure, and more inclined to listen to their hormones than their brains.

  In her youth, in far finer surroundings than this, her looks and well-proportioned figure had proved formidable advantages; weapons which few men could resist for long. And she so enjoyed their capitulation. Now, since the scandal that had brought about her dramatic downfall and banishment to the under-City – not to mention the fading of her looks with the passage of unkind years – she had to rely on her wits and on other talents, while being forced to live out whatever time remained to her down here in the stinking bowels of the city.

  The curtain at her back moved and Kara entered, to walk past and sit in the chair facing her.

  "He's gone then?"

  "Yes."

  "Wretched, pathetic man; he makes my flesh crawl. The way he looked at me that first time…" She gave a melodramatic shiver. "I hate the fact that we have to deal with the likes of him."

  The old woman laughed briefly and bitterly. "I wouldn't worry. I doubt the young girl whose head he's so desperate to turn feels much different. Most likely the potion, for all the essence you poured into it, will only make her pity him at best."

  Kara was still young, tact a skill she had yet to master, which was why the apothaker took great care over which clients she presented the girl to. When dealing with Sander, she tried to keep Kara well out of sight.

  The old woman first encountered Kara sitting on a stool at a street corner, selling freshly baked cakes and pastries made by her mother. Not yet a teen, she was already strikingly pretty despite being filthy and near-emaciated. High cheek bones, sparkling eyes, and a tumble of auburn hair transcended the outer coating of grime, but that wasn't what caught the apothaker's attention. She sensed in this young waif an inner fire, a talent not unlike her own but fiercer and stronger, far stronger. It seemed a tragedy that such a girl was destined to end up running with a street gang and embroiled in petty crime, or, more likely, whoring, as happened to so many in the City Below where there were far more people than there would ever be decent jobs, or even half-decent ones.

  Following some extended bartering with the girl's mother – an old shrew with a keen eye for a profit – the apothaker secured the girl's services as her apprentice. In effect, she bought her. Yet she never once begrudged doing so, considering every coin to have been well spent. The girl was a revelation, her raw talent beyond anything the apothaker had seen before.

  Kara rarely mentioned her father and when she did it was generally to the effect that he was drunk much of the time. These comments were invariably expressed in such an uncomfortable manner that the old woman suspected the man had abused her in some way.

  With great patience she began to tutor her young protégée, teaching her to harness her emerging talent. Kara proved to be a willing pupil and took to the disciplines as if born to them, so that she was soon able to draw out the potential of distillations, powders and elixirs far more effectively than the woman herself could ever have done.

  They had been together now for nearly two years, during which time the girl had entered her teens. Clearly destined to be a great beauty, she was already drawing attention from men who ought to have known better and boys who had yet to learn to. With the onset of puberty her abilities blossomed and their partnership went from strength to strength; the old apothaker with her knowledge of chemistry and scientific process, brought with her from the City Above, the girl with her raw talent to manipulate and set potentials. The old woman's flickering abilities helped to guide the younger's burgeoning skills.

  In addition, Kara loved her stories, loved to hear all she could of life in the City Above. If the old apothaker's experiences had been predominantly mundane in the living, they grew to be so much more than that in the telling. To a young girl condemned to live out her life in the slums of the City Below, these tales provided treasured glimpses of a magic kingdom forever beyond her reach, and she lapped up every syllable.

  What could she tell the girl this eve? In truth, she'd long since run out of stories about her own life, even the heavily embellished ones, and had all but exhausted the gossip she remembered from friends and acquaintances of those days. She was having to rely increasingly on pure invention and sensed that even Kara was starting to doubt some of the more outlandish claims; she resolved to be less flamboyant this time around.

  They prepared the evening meal and ate in comfortable silence for the most part – cold meat, day-old bread and watered ale all slipped down a treat. This standard fare was then supplemented with a pickled egg each from the jar that Sander had brought as a gift. These proved less successful.

  "Thaiss, that's disgusting!" Kara said, screwing up her face at the sharpness.

  "Yet they're considered a great delicacy up-City," the apothaker lied. She'd been able to taste nothing but vinegar when she bit into her own egg and could well understand why Sander was reduced to giving these revolting things away.

  "Really?" The girl examined hers with obvious suspicion.

  "Yes, really; an acquired taste, perhaps, but delicious when your palate is accustomed to them." The old woman nibbled daintily at the pallid ovoid. They couldn't afford not to eat everything that came their way, and she was hanged if she was going to be left with an entire jar of the wretched eggs to polish off by herself.

  Kara copied her, gingerly biting off morsels of vinegarinfused white, but she still wrinkled her nose every time she chewed.

  The meal was soon finished and dishes cleared away. As they settled in for the evening by the hearth, the apothaker said casually, "Did I ever tell you about my cousin Andresh?"

  "No," the girl said, "I don't think so." Actually the old woman was quite sure so, since she'd never had a cousin Andresh.

  "Well, a bit of a black sheep was Andresh – a distant cousin, I should stress, on my mother's side. Not often talked about, which is doubtless why I haven't mentioned him before. Anyway, he kept some very suspect company did cousin Andresh, so much so that on one particular occasion his exploits came to the attention of the Kite Guard…"

  "What was that?" The girl looked up sharply.

  "What was what?" the old woman replied, a little testily because she was just getting into her stride.

  "I thought I heard something from out back."

  The apothaker frowned. She hadn't heard a thing but was willing to concede that her ears weren't all they used to be and that the youngster's were by far the sharper.

  She stood up, cocked her head but still couldn't hear anything. "What did it sound like?"

  "Something breaking… or being broken."

  The old woman grunted. Street-nicks most like. She knew the local gangs and paid her dues like everyone else, but so much had changed since the riots and the fighting that all bets were now off. She wouldn't put it past some opportunist or other to break in looking to steal her distillations in the hope of increasing their chances of thieving and dodging the razzers. Best way to deal with this was to teach them a lesson; if they got away with it once they'd only come back for more. Signalling Kara to stay where she was, the apothaker picked up an iron poker from the cold hearth and headed purposefully towards the curtain at the back of the room. Beyond lay the rest of their meagre home: a short hallway ending at the back door with two internal doors leading off; the first opening into the cramped room where both women slept and the second to a slightly larger space with its apparatus and jars of ingredients – their workroom. The latter was doubtless where the intruder was at that very moment, creeping around and trying to decide what was what.

  Gripping her fire iron tightly, the old woman pulled aside the curtain, ready to storm down the hall and into the back room, already rueing the damage which she felt certain would result from the incident, only to be confronted by a swirling mass of darkness born of some deranged nightmare. The stench was the first thing that struck her; a smell of dank decay, of something rotting – the smell of death. And the darkness had a face; eyes which fastened on her and seemed to tug at her very being, as if drawing the soul out of her body and pulling it inexorably towards that mass of twisting shadow.

  She shuffled a few involuntary steps back into the room as the thing advanced, shrinking away from its touch. The nightmare form moved swiftly and the apothaker pressed herself against the wall, cowering, wishing the wall would absorb her, let her pass through. The apparition brushed her in passing, seeming to have no substance, no physical pressure, yet its touch felt as cold as a tomb.

  The apothaker was wrenched from her funk by a scream. Kara! With a conscious effort of will she forced her arm to lift, raising the fire poker which still somehow dangled from her limp right hand. Desperation lent her energy. She prised her body from the wall and stared at where Kara was sitting. The girl had disappeared, enveloped in roiling black mist, yet that nebulous swirling now took on a semblance of form and the apothaker fancied she could make out the hazy shape of a woman standing over Kara's chair, arms spread as if to embrace chair and girl alike. If so, the figure was draped in a large black cloak, unlike any garment she had ever seen before. It billowed and flowed and floated, never still, as if constantly disturbed by breezes and gusts that simply weren't there.

  The apothaker had no idea what was being done to her protégée, but she doubted any good could ever come out of this walking nightmare.

  "Leave her!" she roared, surprised at the strength of her own voice.

  The thing looked at her; definitely a woman's face, though distorted beyond anything that could still be called human. As the eyes turned to her, she again felt that awful sense of something pulling at her inner being. And then the creature flowed towards her.

  The apothaker caught a brief glimpse of a withered, limp form where Kara had sat, and then gagged as the awful smell grew stronger and the darkness was in her face, twin pits of hell staring into her eyes.

  "Too old, too spent," a voice akin to the crackle of dried paper said. "Your talent's weak and fickle; not worth the effort of taking. The girl, though… she was delicious." The last syllable emerged as a protracted, sibilant hiss, and was accompanied by a stomach-churning waft of fetid breath and the sense of something stroking her chin.

  The apothaker recoiled and gagged, suddenly terrified beyond all reasoning.

  Without warning the dreadful presence withdrew, floating across the room and past Kara's chair, where a desiccated husk now sat, and onwards towards the door. The apothaker was able to breathe again, to think. She stumbled forwards, legs shaky, the poker dropping from numb fingers as she stared at the body in the chair. Moments ago this had been a beautiful, vibrant teenager, bursting with life and energy – a young girl poised on the threshold of realising her potential and only just beginning to learn how to enjoy life. In seconds all of that had been snatched away, snuffed out in the blink of an eye, to leave behind a wasted, white-haired cadaver, a vessel drained of everything that had made Kara so beautiful and alive.