The Sunset Warrior - 01 (18 page)

He scooped up the Bones and rather more quickly now rolled them six more times, so that at length he had rolled them a total of seven times. To see if it would make any difference.

It did not. And he shivered involuntarily.

Golden light streamed down, its slanting rays interrupted and diffused by the ornate structures on all sides. The alleyway was narrow and cramped and mysterious as it wended its meandering way through the bewildering labyrinth of the City.

Dust motes danced in the pale light and the silence had a thickness that he now wore with a grateful intensity. He had gone past the sleeping G’fand and, ignoring Hynd’s curious stare, had unbolted the door and strode quickly but at random along the alley until he could no longer see the house.

He stopped at last and sat on an old and dusty wooden keg, outside the open doorway to a shop, its time-beaten sign swinging from a black metal pole above his head. The sign was virtually blank now, scrubbed of all but a few scraps of glyphs, mute but unbroken.

He drew one leg up against his chest, letting the other hand, the heel rapping softly against the side of the keg. It sounded hollow. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the small-paned window of the shop. He tried to think of why he had stopped the little man from speaking, but nothing came to him. He thought, At least I should be curious. He was. But—

‘Where is he?’

G’fand looked up and dropped the cold bone from last night’s meal into the other remnants of the food that had not been cleared away. He wiped his greasy lips on the back of his sleeve. He shrugged. ‘I just got up. I thought perhaps he was upstairs.’

The little man descended the stairs, saw that the bolt was off the door. ‘Out then,’ he said, and set about gathering up the dishes.

‘Is it safe?’ asked G’fand, getting up. He put his hands at the small of his back and stretched.

‘Oh, perfectly. Hynd will see to him.’

G’fand frowned. ‘What does that mean?’

The voice drifted in from the recesses of the house. ‘I imagine he is out catching breakfast while keeping an eye on our friend.’

G’fand walked about the room restlessly until the little man returned carrying a fresh skin of wine. ‘You seem quite familiar with this city.’ He made a sharp gesture at the windows with the edge of his hand. He turned. ‘It is the City of Ten Thousand Paths, as Ronin said.’

Bonneduce the Last poured wine for G’fand. ‘It is,’ he said without pause.

The Scholar crossed the room, looked out of a window. Dust clouded his view. He wiped a small leaded pane with his sleeve but it did little good; the glass, like the cobbles of the streets, seemed ingrained with dirt. ‘So ancient.’ It was almost a whisper, as quiet as a tear falling. ‘Yet you know all about it.’

Bonneduce the Last placed the wine skin on the low table before him. ‘I know many things.’ Perhaps too many, he thought.

‘Then tell me,’ G’fand said with great bitterness, ‘how we could evolve from the people who created these wonders.’

‘You are a scholar, are you not?’

G’fand’s eyes blazed briefly but his voice held a note of despair. ‘Now you mock me.’

The little man crossed to him with his peculiar stride. He seemed genuinely grieved. ‘No, no, lad. You must not think that.’ He touched G’fand, indicated that he should sit. They went back to the middle of the room and G’fand reached compulsively for the wine. ‘No, you see, I wanted to be sure.’

The Scholar looked up. ‘Of what?’

‘That you really did not know.’

‘I could have been lying,’ G’fand said with some indignation.

The little man’s face creased as he laughed. ‘I think not.’

Eventually G’fand allowed himself to smile for a moment. ‘You will tell me then?’

Just a boy, thought Bonneduce the Last. And he said, ‘Yes.’ He sat down across from G’fand, the large chair towering over him comically. He crossed his ankles, rubbed his maimed leg along the thigh. ‘When the time came,’ he began quietly, ‘to quit the surface of the world, when there was no other choice but to perish—which many did, by the way—the remnants of the states and nations sent the leading proponents of their cultures to work on the enormous project of carving out a hospitable home beneath the planet’s crust.’

G’fand was transfixed by the little man’s voice, which held tremendous force despite its softness. He was startled when the voice ceased and Bonneduce the Last cocked his head as if listening to a far-off sound. G’fand listened also but all he could hear was the dark and sonorous ticking from the interior of the house.

After a time, the little man continued. ‘The mages and the men of science—you call them Magic Men, I believe … were forever at war because, I suppose, the foundations of their work are diametrically opposed. At the time of the city’s formation, the mages held sway, and so with the unwilling help of the men of science they created the City of Ten Thousand Paths.’ Bonneduce the Last sighed a little and his extraordinary emerald eyes turned inward momentarily. ‘It could have been the beginning of dreams; there was room enough for all here. Perhaps they did not work at it, who knows?’ He stood abruptly and went to a glass cabinet along the far wall. His hands moved and he returned holding two bits of dull metal. He threw them casually towards G’fand, who caught them instinctively. ‘Press them together,’ said the little man. And although the bits seemed identical, G’fand could only keep them together by exerting a great deal of pressure; they naturally pushed each other away.

Bonneduce the Last sat once more and gestured with his head. ‘Like the metal, the different factions repelled each other. Gradually, the mages began to lose control and the men of science gained ascendancy. In the end, they would have nothing to do with the city their forefathers had helped build under duress, and so they led those that would follow them—a goodly number—upward into the virgin rock above the city because it was fabulously rich in the ores and metals they required, and because it was easier to seal off the city from above. And they constructed the Freehold. And now, over time—’ He shrugged expressively.

There was soft silence for a long time, heavy and lustreless, laden with thoughts of fallen history and forgotten faces.

G’fand shivered involuntarily and got up, leaving the bits of metal apart on the table. Several times he appeared about to say something and each time changed his mind. Finally he said in a choked voice, as if it were difficult for him to articulate, ‘We are told that no one lives on the surface of the world. The elements will not allow it.’

The little man, who had been watching him, smiled bleakly. ‘So. It depends where you are.’ He went and returned the bits of metal to their case. ‘The ice reaches farther every day.’

G’fand stared at him, his heart racing. ‘Then it’s true. Men do walk the surface.’

‘Naturally. Did you think I live down here? I must come from time to time—’

‘Why did you come this time?’

‘To meet some people.’

G’fand leaned forward. ‘Who?’

Bonneduce the Last was silent.

The Scholar gave a tiny exclamation of sound, as if he had been hit in the stomach, and he relaxed back into the chair. ‘I do not want to know,’ he said, his lips barely moving. And he was talking to himself.

Bonneduce the Last was as still as a statue, his eyes lost in shadow beneath his bushy brows.

‘What is it like Up there?’ The question floated on the air like unused smoke and quite suddenly it was most important that he know.

‘Perhaps you will see for yourself soon,’ said the little man, knowing that it was not enough.

G’fand stood over him and said in anguish. ‘I must know now.’

‘This is a desperate time,’ said Bonneduce the Last. ‘I have not been to the City of Ten Thousand Paths in a long while. In that time, many things have died and many things have come into being. Evil things.’ He shook his head.

G’fand knelt before him. ‘Look, I want some answers. Is that really so much to ask?’

Bonneduce the Last stared at G’fand for a time and there was a sadness in his eyes that the Scholar did not understand. He looked suddenly older. Around them, the ticking sounded like a constant admonition. At length the little man said, ‘I will tell you what I am able.’

G’fand nodded. ‘What are you doing here then?’

He spread his hands. ‘I will know that only after it is done.’

The Scholar’s face twisted. ‘You make a fool of me.’

‘Believe me, I do not. It is the truth.’

‘All right. Suppose I can believe that. I am beginning to see that perhaps anything is possible. Tell me then who you are.’

‘You do not want to know that.’

G’fand’s annoyance grew. ‘I just asked you, did I not?’

The sadness came to Bonneduce the Last’s eyes again. ‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘You have asked.’

Ronin’s eyes snapped open. He sat very still and inhaled again to make sure of the direction. The sharp smell came from behind him: the interior of the shop. He lowered his leg slowly so that they both were against the side of the keg. He heard movement now, stealthy and difficult to discern.

He drew his sword and leapt to the street, whirling. He heard scufflings, then scratchings and small pantings. He went inside.

It was cool and dark and it took him a moment to adjust and he knew that it was a mistake because anything or anyone smart enough would have attacked him immediately.

Nothing rushed him. There was a heavy snap as of a wooden board being split and then a brief inhuman cry. He moved warily between huge wooden casks. Wine? He pulled cobwebs off his face.

Directly ahead of him he heard a cough. He crouched, sword ready, and saw the red eyes, the long muzzle. The mouth split suddenly, oddly akin to an absurd grin. The long teeth were dark, appeared wet.

Hynd padded up to him and coughed again, softly. Behind the animal, in the darkness, he could just make out the twisted mass of a broken carcass. He put a hand out, tentatively touched the soft fur of the muzzle.

They went out together into the alleyway and the light, and Ronin saw the blood still dripping from the long snout.

‘Well,’ he said, walking alongside the creature, in and out of the bars and patches of shadows, ‘I trust you have eaten your fill.’

For more than a Spell they followed the little lane as it made its crooked way through the city. For a while dark, narrow alleys led off the lane to right and left—often at peculiar angles. Then abruptly, solid walls lined their path, unbroken, window-less, and doorless. Long narrow balconies with fluted scrollwork ran above their heads, so what illumination they had was thin and watery. The walls were of rough stucco, chipped here and there, discoloured near the bottom, or unglazed brick with pronounced striations, as if they had been manufactured in layers.

The lane was fairly straight, which only increased their uneasiness. Should they encounter any hostile life—according to Bonneduce the Last, there was an abundance of that—they would have no room to manoeuvre and only one path of retreat.

However, nothing approached them, and at last they began again to pass wandering side streets. Sometimes after this they encountered a fork in the lane.

‘Scrolls?’ he had said. ‘There are countless scrolls housed in different sections of the city.’

Ronin had reached out the slip of fabric. ‘Yes, well, perhaps this will help.’ He gave it to the little man, indicating with a finger the glyphs the Magic Man had written.

Bonneduce the Last had nodded, as if to himself, and Ronin had thought he had heard him say, ‘It is clear now, yes,’ but he could not be sure.

‘I was told,’ Ronin had said, ‘that it would be in a private house and not a library.’

‘Quite so,’ the little man had said.

‘You know the scroll?’ G’fand had asked.

‘No, no. But I recognize this glyph style. It could only come from Ama-no-mori, an isle I know very little about—I doubt anyone does.’

‘Then it does not come from here,’ Ronin had said.

‘Well, yes and no. The City of Ten Thousand Paths brought with it, when it went below, emissaries from many lands and many cities. Ama-no-mori, the floating world, sent a great magus, dor-Sefrith, who caused to be built a house of glazed green brick in a certain section of the city. Therein, I believe, you will find the scroll. If you can reach it.’

The triangular building directly ahead of them created the fork. Off to the right they could make out a wide street that nevertheless seemed quite cluttered with what looked to be collapsed building materials. Dusty light dappled the ancient cobbles and, perhaps because of the haze, the shadows seemed to shift and waver. To the left, tall arabesqued buildings cast deep shadows into the street for as far as they could see.

As they moved into the mottled shadows of the street on their left, Ronin recalled what the little man had said: ‘I shall describe your route but I must warn you that it takes you through a Dark Section. It cannot be avoided if you are to make the journey and return by nightfall. You
must
return by nightfall, it that clear? Too many things abroad at night, too many. Stay to the path I give you and do not falter. Remember, speed is of the essence because the city keeps changing now. I trust this will get you through.’

The cobbled street was cool and they shivered a little. Stone creatures, grotesque and fantastic of visage, leered down at them from cornices and buttresses.

‘How I wish there was more time,’ lamented G’fand, his eyes moving over the architecture, drinking it in. ‘There is so much to learn here.’

‘You know we cannot tarry.’

‘Yes.’ He nodded sadly. ‘Bonneduce the Last is right. There is so much danger now.’

Ronin glanced at him, on the point of asking him what had changed his mind about the little man, when the faint susurration reached his ears. One moment the silence seeped sluggishly along the walls of the high buildings, muffling the creaking of their leather, the soft chink of metal on metal from their gear, the next they seemed to be surrounded by sound. It was as if they were hearing, through some trick of architectural acoustics, the combined voices of a multitude. The murmuring as it came upon them, like waves upon a lone and desolate shore, words blurred and indistinct, held overtones, a presence, a super-reality.