The World Remembers, chapter 2

Chapter 2

A little past two bells String made his fourth and final pass back to Shadover, arriving by the Biblian arch at the east end of the wharf. Each return saw the square teeming with more and more people but now it was jammed to the point of overflowing. Many had come up from the lower city, but there were also servants from the great houses and travellers from beyond Heliot and even from beyond the borders of Harrowdown itself. He saw white haired Essels from Veldravir, and dark bearded Kaqeks, and half a dozen races he couldn’t name. A few groups of patricians braved the crowds, their private clavigers attempting to clear the way before them, or intimidating patrons to move aside so a highborn lady could inspect the wares of a merchant without having to stand shoulder to shoulder with the rabble. The air was heavy with the tang of cooking meats, stews, and strange teas. String’s stomach growled, reminding him how little he’d eaten: no breakfast and a few handfuls of dried fruit at the stations where he’d stopped to collect more packets. It had been a busy day.

Crossing the square – which he’d have to do to get back to the castrum once he signed out – would likely take half a bell or more. Luckily it was only a five minute dash from the Biblian along the length of the wharf to the runner station. Navvies and cloudermen still heaved cartloads of goods, but things were less chaotic on the Lip than they’d been that morning.

Several dozen runnerboys were clustered on the platform when he arrived. Some, like him, were finishing their shifts; others were just coming on after completing whatever duties they’d been assigned in the castrum – preparing for the reconfiguration, mostly, he guessed.

As he reached the station, Torquin stepped down to meet him. Without a word, he put a hand on String’s shoulder and led him back onto the Lip. “Give me your bag and get going,” he said when they’d gone a little way down the wharf and were standing among piled crates about to be loaded into the nearest skyship.

“I have a couple of missives, Torq. Need to get them logged.”

“No, String. Give me the bag now. I’ll log the missives. You go.” Some of the boys on the platform were looking their way.

“Torq, what’s…”

“Ah, there’s the halfwit.” Brummel shouldered his way through the crowd and strode to the railing.

“Blades!” String muttered. He saw now what Torquin had been trying to do – get him out of the way before he had another run-in with the senior.

“Shift’s over, Brummel” Torquin called loudly, half turning but keeping his eyes on String. “Get someone else to deliver it. We’ve got assembly at three.” All the other chatter on the platform died down.

“Your shift’s over, yeah,” Brummel called back. “You’ve been relieved and I’m senior in charge here now. But String hasn’t signed out yet, and I say he makes this delivery.” He leaned heavily on the wooden rail, squaring his shoulders.

“You don’t have to,” Torquin whispered.

“Leave him be, Helikan. If he refuses he’s going on report, and so are you for encouraging him. That might teach you some manners when it comes to laying your hands on your betters. You strike my brother again, and you’ll have me to answer to.” Brummel held up the packet, purple vellum, neatly folded. Even from ten yards away, Sting could see the black waxen seal. “Priority packet from Koro Haldane to Gra Faren, to be delivered into the hand. And I happen to know Gra Faren’s home this afternoon, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find him, even for a halfwit.”

Sting’s eyes fell on the small blonde boy to Brummel’s left. Darian had been assigned to him for the week before the festival so he could learn the ways, and String spent the time criss-crossing the city by every passway he could think of. The boy learned fast, always asking questions so String had to dredge up everything he knew about each route. All the thinking and remembering left his head feeling woolly by the end of each day, but he surprised himself with how much he knew.

At one point, while teaching the boy to use the adjutant to find the weaves for the Kosovan, Darian pointed to the Tribulan.

“What about that? It looks about ready to tumble off the edge of the Lip.”

They were standing amid the stacked timbers for the runner station in the old Kastigan temple but the platform itself hadn’t yet been erected. “They don’t use that one.”

“Doesn’t it work?”

String didn’t know why – maybe just because the boy had asked, or maybe because all his friends had moved on and there were so few people he could just talk to – but he told Darian about the night the koroleva brought him here. Now the boy was standing at Brummel’s side, grinning down at him like the others.

“You don’t have to, no matter what he reports,” Torquin said “I’ll back you up with the Magister.” He turned to face the platform. “It’s well after two bells. There’s no way to get out to the shoulder and back in time for assembly, not with these crowds. Blades, Brummel, just let it go, will you.”

Brummel gave a harsh little laugh and turned to the other boys gathered around him. “Oh, he doesn’t have to worry about crowds. String here knows a secret route, straight into Farendale. He reckons he can slip the Tribulan, isn’t that right, Darian?”

There was a round of snorts and shrieks of laughter. Some of the boys shook their heads at what they must have thought to be a joke. Only the greenest junior didn’t know the Tribunal couldn’t be opened.

“He claims he did it once before,” Darian said. Coming after Brummel’s booming voice, his seemed shrill and fragile. “Leads to an old graveyard, a five minute run through. That’s what he told me.”

“That is handy,” Brummel added. “What about it, halfwit? Will you put up your coin to match your tongue?” He held up the packet. “Or admit you’re a liar in front of these boys here and take it the long way. Boys, you want to see an idiot slip the Tribulan?”

There was a general round of “Aye”s, some more enthusiastic than others. But without exception, all of them were looking at String. Even some of the navvies on the Lip stopped work to watch, and the people at the nearest stalls were gawking over the chain that separated the square from the wharf, trying to make out what was going on.

String hardly noticed. His mind was already tracking the route, each step coming together of its own accord. It was like watching someone else plan it. The Tribunal straight to Farendale, the Hyberian from the Mede back to the Rheindheim Gardens, then the Cyrilian and Promethian back to the castrum. Find Gra Faren quickly and he might even arrive for assembly before Torquin, who’d have to jostle his way across the square through the crowded market.

The beginnings of a smile began to spread on his lips and he had to grind his teeth to suppress it. Brummel wanted to humiliate him with everyone watching by making him try and fail to slip the Tribunal, or by branding him a liar if he refused to try. “I’ll do it,” he said. “Give me the packet.”



The runnerboys crowded round as he faced the Tribunal arch. Up close, its blocks looked even more uneven and deteriorated than he remembered. The ground here was sinking, uneven and the wall leaned noticeably away from him, as if already in the process of a slow fall. Right at the level of his eye the mortar between the blocks had disintegrated and he could see a tiny patch of sky through the gap.

Sceptres and stones, he thought, dismayed, it’s falling apart. Would it even still work?

“String, what in Hadrades are you doing?” Torquin was mere inches from his right ear.

String turned and looked him right in the eye. “I’m sick and tired of this, Torq. Of being picked on, being the butt of every joke. Now they’ll see. This’ll show them.”

“Open it, man, get on with it,” one of the runnerboys called. Torquin threw him a look so fierce it shut him right up.

“You can’t actually think you can slip this thing.”

“I did it before. I told you about it. You and Grevain were the only ones I told, until … him.” He flicked his head towards Darian who, despite his small size, had jostled his way to the front of the group and was looking on with a malevolent grin.

Torquin’s face creased up, like he was trying to hold two different thoughts in his mind at once. String knew how that felt – it happened to him all the time. “Yes, but … I thought, I mean, we didn’t think…”

String suddenly understood; he felt it like a blow. “You didn’t believe me.”

“We thought you dreamed it. Even you thought you dreamed it, after a while. You said so yourself.”

String returned his gaze to the uneven blocks. “I didn’t dream it,” he said, aware of the venom in his voice.

“Blades, String, I’m sorry. But … even if you really did it before, look at it now. One good push and the whole wall’d go right over the edge. Don’t…”

“What’s the hold up?” Brummel heaved his way through. “Proving a little more difficult than expected, is it?”

“I haven’t started yet,” String spat. “I’ll need an adjutant.” Reluctantly, he looked to Torq.

“Sorry, String. Haven’t used one in years.”

“You can use mine, halfwit.” Brummel unclipped it from his belt and tossed it over. It was pure silver, the claw embellished with ornate knotwork, the likeness of each arcanus rendered perfectly at the end of each slender tine. It was old. Old and valuable. Brummel was so certain he’d fail, he’d handed over a family heirloom. The silver had turned black in some of the deeper grooves, but otherwise the adjutant had the bright, polished look of frequent use.

Still having trouble with some of the portals, Brummel? The thought gave him some satisfaction.

“It’s not getting any earlier,” the senior barked, indicating the arch, but String had already started. Fixing his eyes on a little groove at the centre of one block, he allowed his focus to narrow in on that point so everything else blurred and faded away. He held the adjutant in the fingertips of his right hand and began to roll the tines one over the other, slowly at first, then faster. He hadn’t needed a key to open a portal since he was fifteen, but the rhythm came back to him easily enough: orb over crown, blade over sceptre, scroll over blade over orb. His left hand rose, reached out, almost of its own accord. He could feel the energy of the weaves layering themselves over the stones, some quickly fading, others steadying, reverberating slightly as they found something there to hold them. For long seconds he stroked and probed. It was like he’d stepped out of his body and was pressing himself against the uneven blocks, becoming intimately familiar with every worn edge, every cracked and pitted surface. The voices of the others sill clamoured around him but they were muted, far away.

What if it was a dream? a voice in his head whispered. If he listened to it now, everything would collapse. No, he thought. I remember. His fingertips flicked the tines of the adjutant even faster. He was rewarded with a shadow, the faintest hint of a dark line vibrating in the corner of his field of vision.

“Can he do it, do you think?” a distant voice asked.

“Don’t be daft.”

“…tried it when I was a junior…”

“…hasn’t been opened in a thousand years…”

“It’s a bricked up catena … must lead somewhere…”

“…right through it and he’ll end up in Lower Heliot, ha ha…”

“Quiet!” Brummel’s voice.

Ah, String thought, finally seeing a weave that balanced with the throbbing energy of the arch. Crown over blade over sceptre over orb over scroll. The shadow wavered then expanded, a thicker band of absolute blackness that pulsed in the cleft where the blocks met the stanchion. It thrummed and abruptly broadened, unfolding into a tall fissure as might be viewed from some impossible angle. No-one else could see this, no-one but him. The runnerboys milled around him now – he could feel them jostling his back – but his entire focus was on the portal being born within the arch. At the precise right moment, when it stopped vibrating and hung perfectly still, he pivoted on the ball of his left foot, spun his shoulder forward, and launched himself through.

“He’s doing it, he’s going…” a shrill voice howled, and was cut off as String collapsed forward onto dew-drenched grass.



The earth was cold against his forehead, the air frigid when he drew his first breath. There was no sound –none at all. For a while he kept his eyes clasped tightly shut. The day’s efforts – the struggle with Brummel and Jons, the hours of running with little sustenance – seemed to catch up with him all at once as he knelt there in the damp grass. But it was as nothing weighed against the small ecstasy of slipping the Tribulan. He wanted – needed – a few moments just to take pleasure in it. Let them laugh now. Let them play their little tricks. When he got back some of them, at least, would look at him differently. But getting back meant finding the exit, and opening another old and unfamiliar arch. He raised his head.

The necropolis spread out before him, acre upon acre of bramble-choked monoliths and squat, forbidding tombs. Although it was night here, as it had been last time, the whole scene was bathed in an eerie glow. Looking up, he saw a diamond field of uncountable stars, the largest of them shining with a bright blue light and seeming far closer than anything in the skies over Harrowdown. Woven among them were long luminous clouds of glowing green and red gases, extending across the sky like fragments of tattered silk.

All just as he remembered.

He was on a hillside that dropped gently down towards the gravestones. There was a path, just off to one side, little more than a grassless rut, the kind that appears when someone makes the same journey over and over for years or centuries. It wound down the hill and disappeared among the graves.

Behind him there was nothing, no wall or archway back to the Tribulan, just the open hillside and a few stunted, misshapen trees with not a leaf between them. A one-way arch, then, like the Daschen or the Hyberian. What the Magisters called a lin-ear, though what ears had to do with it String had never understood. The second arch, the exit that led to Farendale, was at the other end of the path.

Just as he clambered to his feet a howl erupted from somewhere deep in the necropolis that froze the blood in his veins. It started like the baying of a wolf but changed mid way into the shriek of something else, something that might even have been human.

String leapt up and stared at the place from which he thought it came, but could see no movement. “Sceptres and scrolls!” His breath fogged in the cool air. Last time there’d been no sounds, no signs of life. But of course he’d been under the protection of the koroleva then. Half remembered stories about runnerboys who disappeared using the passways sprang unbidden to his mind. The seniors used to tell them to new boys late at night in the dorms, how femrils occasionally still roamed the gottenlands and how, every now and then, someone would set out through an arch, never to be seen again. Years of travelling the ways without ever encountering any such thing had convinced him the stories were untrue, just something the older boys made up to scare the juniors. But who knew what might inhabit the space beyond an unused arch like the Tribulan?

He waited for a full half a minute, but the howl was not repeated. Finally, eyes still scanning the shadowed interior of the necropolis, he started down the path at a run. He’d just reached the first tombs when a distant thud stopped him in his tracks. It was the sound of something large and heavy crashing to the ground. His mind conjured the image of one of the enormous slabs that covered the graves being heaved up and tossed aside by some nameless thing within. Something that was even now crawling or slithering out of the darkness, sniffing at the air, hungry.

“Blades and orbs!” he exclaimed. Checking Haldane’s packet was still safely stowed in the satchel at his hip, he set off once more. He was soon speeding among the graves, the path wending past mausoleums as large as some of Heliot’s temples, dipping into sunken valleys between weeds as tall as he was, and doubling back to avoid areas completely overgrown with wicked looking thorn bushes, but always taking him deeper and deeper among the tombs. For three minutes he ran, then four, then five, and the path showed no sign of coming to an end. Finally he stopped, leaned forward with hands on his knees to catch his breath. They hadn’t gone this far in the last time, had they? He should have reached the tomb by now, the one flanked by the two great stone lions, one with half its face torn away. The first niggling fear began to gnaw at him – that he was lost.

A howl from off to his left jerked him upright. It was answered by a second, much more distant one, and then a third, closer, and behind him – somewhere back along the way he’d just come. Before the echoes of that last one faded he was already dashing as fast as he could along the path. The tall, fuzzy-headed weeds slapped against him, spattering him with icy dew. Once he heard something moving far off to his right, something large and heavy that, from the sound of it, was racing along at least as fast as he was. The path cut abruptly to the left and the sound was lost to him, but now there were other noises breaking out from different parts of the necropolis, hoots and howls, shrieks and strange hissing sounds, and he realized he was being hunted. This had been a mistake. He should have swallowed his pride and taken the packet by the regular routes. He was going to die here, and the stories they’d tell to scare the new boys from now on would be about him.

Cresting a rise, he spotted a group of misshapen shadows flitting between the gravestones in the direction where the path seemed to lead. He only saw them for a second and by the time he was able to focus on them they were gone, but the sight of them pushed him to a full sprint till he was racing blindly, clinging to the small hope that the path would veer away from them, or even better that he would reach…

The tomb! He burst through a tangled weeds and there it was, directly in front of him. One enormous lion stared down at him. The other seemed to regard him with its remaining eye, and to grin hideously at him with its shattered face. When he’d come here before, he’d spent long seconds staring at the broken statue, wondering what could have delivered the blow that disfigured it, before the koroleva drew him urgently on and into the tomb.

With the last of his strength, his legs turning to jelly beneath him, he dashed to the door, set in the space between the lions. Perhaps it had once been a formidable barrier, planks of heavy oak banded in iron. Now it was hanging crookedly and ajar on twisted hinges. He launched himself against it but it hardly budged. He slammed his shoulder into it, once, twice, a third time, and forced it back enough so he could scrabble through the narrow cleft. Once inside he shouldered it again to close it, and though he couldn’t get it to shut completely, he succeeded in closing the gap to a mere three or four inches. At that point it jammed completely.

That would have to do.

He badly wanted to put his back to the door, to just slide down, catch his breath, rest. But the femrils might have seen him come in, or be able to smell him out even if they hadn’t. He reached into the satchel and groped for the lambent he kept there. His hands were shaking so badly, it took him three attempts to complete the simple weave to light it. Finally the tiny globe began to blush with a weak light. In seconds it grew and intensified, still hardly brighter than a candle flame but enough to illuminate the empty tomb and the bricked up catena at the back wall. The light wouldn’t last long.

“Thank the scrolls!” With the glow ball held carefully in the palm of one hand, String lurched to the arch and reached into his pocket for Brummel’s adjutant. The bottom dropped out of his stomach when he realized it wasn’t there. “No!”

His mind skipped back. He’d used it to slip the Tribulan, then fallen on the grass, then … he didn’t remember having it after that! He must have dropped it there, when he heard that first howl. He brought his knuckles to his mouth and bit down on the skin, hard, and all but screamed. Idiot! Idiot, idiot! He’d made it to the exit, but without the keys there was little chance of opening the portal.

Something scrabbled at the other side of the oaken door, even as the lambent began to lose power and dim. His head snapped round and he looked to the door, to the failing lambent, to the arch filled with ancient, crumbling bricks that were rapidly fading back into shadow. Desperately he willed his mind to squeeze out some solution, but it just kept jumping from door to lambent to arch, then back to door. “Think think think!” he rasped, pounding the side of his fist against his temple. The scrabbling at the door became louder, more urgent.

A howl erupted from just outside, so loud and terrifying that his entire body spasmed and the lambent fell to the floor and rolled to foot of the wall. He could barely make out the shape of the arch now, though it was a mere two feet in front of him; the lambent gave off little more light than a dying red ember plucked from a cooling fire pit.

Could he open the way without the adjutant?

It was like finding someone else’s thought inside his own head, but it was the only thought he had, so he grasped at it.

If it had been a passway back in Heliot he could have opened it in seconds just by making the weaves with his fingers. He didn’t even have to think now about how to slip the arches he used on a day-to-day basis. He just knew. But with an unfamiliar arch, like the Tribulan, he had to probe, search, play with the weaves and feel how they responded. The adjutant made this much easier. It was like the listening horn that Magister Tastin used, that gathered all the sounds he couldn’t normally hear and made them audible. Could he do it now?

Another howl ripped out, so loud it seemed to come from right inside the tomb with him, then a second, then a third. Whatever was outside the door, there was more than one of them. He turned and faced the archway in the dying red light of the lambent. He hardly heard the first hard scraping of the door being forced because he’s already begun to try.

*

“That damned stinking pile of lard!” Ardyn cursed. “I hate him, Lake, I really do. Some day, I swear I’ll gut him. I don’t care if he is the frigging thief-master for the whole city. I’ll put a smile on his fat belly and dance on whatever falls out.” They’d been in the caverns for two, maybe three hours, and still his anger hadn’t diminished. If anything, each step deeper into the sleeping mountain caused his rage to boil even more fervently. Instead of getting few hours well-deserved rest, he was tied to the blind man by a very short rope, groping along with a lantern whose light was swallowed almost completely by the infernal darkness. Even when he held the thing an inch from Laken’s back, its weak glow revealed no more than a circular patch of cloth no bigger than the palm of his hand. “It’s fucking creepy in here, Lake.”

“Yeah,” Laken replied. He hadn’t said more than a dozen words since entering the mountain. Ardyn found the all-consuming blackness, after a while, had the disturbing effect of making everything he couldn’t see seem somehow unreal. He even doubted the solidity of his own legs, though they were clearly carrying him along the ledge, and he actually lowered the lantern more than once to check they were still part of him. This, coupled with his companion’s long silences and terse answers to his ongoing tirade, were beginning to grate on the thief’s already chafed nerves.

“For sceptre’s sake, Laken, are we nearly there? I thought you knew your way through Anacapartis. It can’t take this fucking long, can it? The last time I had to come in here it didn’t take this fucking long.”

“Depends.” The blind man’s hand made a rasping noise as he ran it along the cavern wall to their right. The only other sound was the tapping of his staff on the uneven floor. A little way to their left – no more than a yard or two – the ledge fell away into nothingness. Of course he only had Laken’s word for this, and he certainly wasn’t going over there to check with his useless lantern. But after an hour on the ledge, and with the markers indicating that none of the tunnels they passed were safe, he began to imagine he could feel the vast emptiness, like a weight subtly dragging at him.

“Depends on what, Lake?” he demanded when the swordsman made no move to explain further. He stopped, exasperated, and held the lantern high. Laken took two more steps forward and the rope that joined them almost pulled Ardyn off his feet. When he recovered, the swordsman’s face was illuminated in the paltry reddish glow of the lamp. In the weird light and with the cloth over his eyes, he seemed to be carved out of granite himself.

“You need to be quiet. Sometimes the route is pretty direct. Today it isn’t. The more noise you make, the more you disturb the … balance, or whatever it is that shapes this place.”

Ardyn snorted, ground his teeth. He wanted to stamp his feet and scream, but that’d do him no good, not down here. And, despite the quiet tone of Laken’s voice, something in his face made Ardyn think the blind man wasn’t beyond just cutting the rope and proceeding on his own. He didn’t doubt that, if separated for so much as a second in the cursed darkness, he’d never find Laken again. The best thing to do, then, was to just shut up and keep moving.

But his mouth had a mind of its own in situations like this and without missing a beat it said, “So now it’s my fault it’s taking so long, is it?”

Laken made a noise that might have been a sigh; maybe it was an effect of being deep in the caverns that made it sound more like a low growl. “The markers are … strange. Something’s disturbed the mountain, I think, and it’s best not to add to it, that’s all. What did you tell me old Boerth was doing down here over the past few days?”

“I didn’t. Strand kept it all close to his chest, the greasy bastard. But whatever it was, he was in here a lot. Three, four trips a day, I’d guess.”

Laken didn’t move or speak for the next few moments.

“What?” Ardyn asked. This was something he hadn’t seen before – Laken looking uncertain.

“I dunno. We should be out by now, you’re right about that. But the route is different every time and the markers say this is the safest way to go. But the air…” He sniffed, like a dog sizing up a piece of ten-day old meat. “Like something recently dead not too far ahead. Let’s go.”

They found the dead thing not fifty paces further on. It was a man, or at least some pieces of a man. It was impossible to see all the parts at once in the hand-sized glow of the lantern. Ardyn held it in close and ran it slowly down the wall, revealing first a thick clump of dark hair, then a shoulder and an arm, then part of a leg protruding from a crack so narrow he wouldn’t have been able to fit his fingertips into it. “How in hadrades did that happen?” he whispered, making the sign of the orb awkwardly with his free hand.

Laken laid aside his curved staff and began carefully examining the exposed body parts with both his hands. “Dead less than a day,” he said.

“But he’s inside the wall!”

“Aye.”

“So, he was walking along and the tunnel … closed on him? Could that happen to us?”

Laken shrugged. “I’d say this one was lost, wandering.” He finished his examination at the booted foot, then began to work his way slowly back up. Ardyn followed his hands with the lamp, forgetting for a moment that Laken didn’t need it.

“Blades and orbs, man, let’s get out of this cursed place.”

“In a minute. This man was a warrior. What do you see here?”

Ardyn held the lantern close to the point where the leg disappeared into the stone, just above the knee. The limb was crushed, almost flattened, shattered flesh bursting through the torn leggings. The thief shuddered, imagining the rest of the body inside the wall. “Chain mail,” he said, as Laken tugged at a few inches of gleaming metal rings trapped behind the leg.

“And his hand. Right hand.” Laken ran his fingertips over it then bent close almost as if he was planning to take a bite out of it.

“What about it?” Ardyn hissed. He raised the lantern to the crushed shoulder and the hideous mass of hair sprouting from the rock above it. That was no way for anyone to die. He wanted be out of this place.

“Calluses. Warrior’s hand. Swordsman.” Laken raised his head; his face still looked like red granite in the lamplight. Ardyn thought he’d see fear there. Instead Laken was grinning. “Nerian mail.”

“That’s great. Can we please get the fuck out of here now?”

The smile faded slowly from the blind man’s face. “Yeah,” he said, reaching for the staff and standing back up.



Just a few minutes later they found the exit. At the next opening in the cavern wall Laken said the markers were good so they followed it, finally leaving the ledge behind. The new tunnel snaked randomly at first, then curved sharply to the right and continued to curve. Just when Ardyn was certain they’d come full circle and would emerge any moment back on the ledge, he saw the dim glow ahead that could only be daylight. His first urge was to run straight to it, to burst out of the cursed mountain and kiss the ground under the bright open sky. Perhaps sensing this, Laken held him back with one powerful arm.

“No. Still not safe, not till we’re out.”

Ardyn glanced back into the impenetrable tunnel behind them. He wondered how long the dead warrior, probably part of a group being led through the mountain by Boerth, had wandered after becoming separated from his companions. Had he seen a light ahead too and started towards it, only to have the walls close in on him? The thought made Ardyn shudder and he tucked himself back reluctantly behind Laken.

The tunnel came out at a narrow cleft behind an enormous boulder. The bright blue sky, strewn with a few scattered clouds, made him squint but was about the sweetest thing Ardyn had ever seen. Even the air tasted better. Beyond the boulder was a small clearing strewn with rocks and beyond that a small jungle of stunted trees and gnarled thorn bushes. A man was sitting on one of the rocks watching them exit. Untying himself from Laken, Ardyn immediately made two decisions. Firstly, he sensed this wasn’t a very happy man, and so he put aside his plan to fall on his knees and kiss the ground. Secondly, and more importantly, he was going to cut Strand’s throat at the next available opportunity. This was clearly the stranger the thief-master had sent them to find. The only reason Strand had forced him to accompany Laken was so he could go searching for the fellow who, never having been through the mountain before, was expected to be wandering about looking for the entrance. But here he was, sitting right here waiting for them. It was almost enough to make Ardyn scream.

“I expected you hours ago,” the man said, rising and grabbing up a large black satchel which he slung onto his back with straps that went over each shoulder. He was dressed all in black too, and his grey-streaked hair was tied back loosely behind his neck. There were three throwing daggers in sheaths on his left hip and, though his hajian was all but perfect, he still had a slight accent. Ardyn decided at once not to like him.

“You’re Horna?” Laken asked.

“I’m late, is what I am,” the stranger said, striding towards the boulder that blocked the tunnel entrance from view. “How quickly to get to the castrum?”

“Ha!” Ardyn exclaimed, not really meaning to. The other man stopped and looked at him.

“Is there a problem?”

“Route’s a bit more complicated than usual, is all,” Laken told him. “Happens sometimes, no-one knows why.”

“Hmmm. All the more reason to get going, then.” He turned again towards the boulder.

“Er, I’ll go back the other way, I think,” Ardyn said, rubbing his chin and scanning for a route through the thorn bushes. “I’ve had enough of the sleeping mountain for one day, thank you very much. About two miles back to the city, yeah?” He looked from Laken to the Horna character and back to Laken.

“You’ll be coming back through with us,” Horna said evenly.

“No, I’ll…” The dark clad man turned and strode back. He was only an inch or two taller, and not much broader, but something in the way he approached and the dangerous look in his green eyes caused Ardyn to take a quick step backwards just as the stranger stopped in front of him. Horna looked him up and down then actually sniffed at him.

“Thief?” he asked.

Ardyn nodded.

“So, known to the city guard, most like. Don’t get out of Lower Heliot much either, I’ll warrant. So what would a city watchman make of it when he sees you wandering in by the desert road? Unusual enough to stop you, ask a question or two. Also, you stink of fish.”

Ardyn snorted, and revised his earlier opinion. This Horna was getting promoted from the not-liked list straight to the hated list, where he could keep company with Strand and a small, select group of others who had earned a place there over the years. “Huh, no watchman’s gonna see me,” he said. “There are a hundred ways back into the city…”

“You’ll be coming back through with us,” Horna repeated. He said it calmly, almost softly. His left hand rested on one of the daggers by his hip. Ardyn had wondered what kind of a man needed three throwing knives. Someone who could kill three men in the space of a heartbeat, he thought now.

“Come on, Ardyn, get roped up,” Laken said.

Ardyn grimaced and ground his teeth, already considering the prospect of three more hours on the tunnels. “Fuck!” he said.

*

Canna ambled up the hill to Glandithnoe’s Relic and dropped the heavy sack in the grass. He slipped off his cap and used it to wipe the sweat from his face before setting himself down on one of the many large stones that had fallen from the ruin over the centuries.

Ah, it was a nice day! Too early in the year to be exactly hot yet – unless you were lugging tools up the hill – but clear and cloudless. A perfect springfest day. The suns were still high, a good way past the midpoint. There were a few hours of daylight yet, enough to make a start on clearing. The spring growth was well under way and looking after the grounds would keep him busy all through the summer, but he didn’t mind.

The monument, though, demanded early attention. If he didn’t tame it and keep on top of it, the ancient pile of stone would be encased in weeds and brambles by the end of fifthmonth, and by midsummer would look for all the world like it hadn’t been cleared in a century. That’s how it was when Gra Faren took over the estate from his father, and Canna still remembered the trouble they’d had with it then. He wasn’t about to let that happen again. Weeds loved Glandithnoe’s Relic, that was for sure. And besides, Gra Faren appreciated order and neatness in all things, even a thousand year old castle, temple, or whatever in hadrades it once was.

He pulled out his pouch and pipe and began tamping a clump of baccaroot into the bowl. With a deft flick of his thumb, Canna bound orb over crown and the baccaroot smoked to life. He took a long drag and sighed, enjoying the first faint tickle, the way the smoke sapped the tension from his bones. He determined to sit and puff on his pipe for at least a half hour before starting work.

Way down at the bottom of the hill, the greathouse was a hive of activity. Scores of extra servants had been hired to help with preparations for the feast in Castle Street, which would be getting underway soon, and the koreva’s ball, later in the evening. He counted fourteen wagons pulled up in the kitchen courtyard alone being loaded with foodstuffs the cooks had sweated over for days. The gra was being extraordinarily generous this year, though in truth it was more likely the koreva who was behind it. She had a good heart, that one. Still, Canna was glad to be up on his hill, away from all the hustle and bustle. He’d rather be clearing brambles any day than loading carts with comestibles or carrying benches.

He turned to the crooked grey wall of the Relic. “What say you?” he asked it. “Ready to get all shaved and cleaned, and claim back some remnant of your former glory?” He barked a little laugh. He was about to turn away when he noticed the lights.

“Eh?” Intrigued, he stood and walked to the wall. Some types of baccaroot played tricks on the eyes, but this was his usual mild blend, the same he’d smoked in the years since becoming the estate’s head groundsman. It wasn’t cheap, but it was sweet and pleasant, and not prone to making you see things that weren’t there. Yet he was definitely seeing this.

There’d been an archway once in the ancient wall – the outline of the voussoirs could still be seen despite the weathering of the ages, and the big keystone was still in place – but at some point it had been bricked up with blocks of cut granite that time had made all but indistinguishable from the rest of the wall. The stones had shifted, sank, and loosened, but now there were hundreds of little stars running over them, like fireflies, all coming from somewhere near the centre and streaming out toward the edges. Canna reached out tentatively to touch one, and felt a burst of warmth as it skittered under his fingertips. Whatever they were, they weren’t on the stone, they were in the stone. Astonishing.

He was just bringing his pipe back to his lips for another drag of the root when the streaming firebugs multiplied a hundredfold and, for a second, the old arch was ablaze with light. Canna took a quick, involuntary step back just as a young man, dressed in the red and grey of the dispatchers, came hurtling through the arch as if the granite blocks weren’t even there, and landed in a heap by his feet. Canna looked to the boy, then back to the arch, which was settling back to granite blocks again. It just occurred to him to reach down and help the boy up when he saw the thing.

It was only there for the briefest moment, right in the stone like the firefly lights had been – a long white face, two dark slits for a nose, a mouth much too big and in which something like a tongue squirmed and shuddered. One misshapen claw scrabbled, as if the stone was nothing but a thin veneer, painted onto glass. But it was the look in the thing’s eyes that froze the blood in Canna’s veins. It was pure and absolute hunger.

He screamed, leapt back, tripped over the boy. He landed on his backside with pipe still in hand. All through this leap, trip, and fall, his eyes never left the dark granite, but by the time he found himself there, panting on the ground, the creature had faded and was gone.

“Orb of heaven, protect us! Did you see that? Did you see it? It was a femril, wasn’t it? You damn near brought a femril right into Gra Faren’s gardens, boy.”

“Sorry,” the dispatcher gasped. Canna tore his eyes from the Relic to find the runner halfway to his feet, swaying like a drunk. He was drenched in sweat and breathing hard, his uniform mussed and dirty like he’d been dragged through a bush. There was dirt all over his face and a nasty bruise on one cheek. Overall he was about the most bedraggled specimen of a runnerboy Canna had ever seen.

“Where’d you come from, lad?” he demanded, scrabbling none too steadily to his feet himself.

The boy said nothing, just kept trying until he was finally standing, though weaving dangerously. He was tall, for a runner. Most of them Canna saw were only half grown little nippers. This one was older, and rake thin, with a mop of dark hair. He stared at the wall he’d just plunged through with eyes wide and mouth hanging open.

“Son? Can you hear me?” Canna stepped tentatively forward and placed a hand on the wheezing young man’s shoulder. The boy eventually managed to tear his gaze from the wall and look up at the groundsman. Ah, Canna thought. It wasn’t just fear he saw in the boy’s face, though there was plenty of that. There was a kind of dullness there too, like he’d been roused unexpectedly from a deep sleep. The startled eyes and the hanging jaw combined to lend him a somewhat bewildered look that remained even after he stopped shaking and caught his breath.

“I know you, don’t I? You’re Cord’s son. You were an attendant at the gra’s wedding. What’s this they call you? Stick?”

“String,” the boy said. He was calming now, but his eyes kept slipping back to the arch. Canna’s did too, but it was solid stone again – no sign of shooting stars or taloned monsters.

“Well, String. What do you think you’re doing appearing out of Glandithnoe’s Relic and almost bringing a femril right into our laps? Haven’t you any sense, boy?” Canna regretted it as soon as he’d said it. Of course the kid didn’t have any sense. He’d been born an idiot – everyone knew it. The last in the proud line of Cord, but soft in the head.

“Sorry,” String repeated. He was standing straight up now, still a little unsteady, looking around as if not sure which way was north. “I have a packet,” he said. “For Gra Faren. An important packet. From Koro Haldane.”

Canna considered this. It must be important for the lad to risk getting eaten by femrils to get it here. “He’s in the quandary, down in the master garden. You know what that is?”

“The garden?”

“The quandary, boy. The maze.” Canna rolled his eyes and sighed. He had no talent for talking to the slow witted.

“The hedge thing? Where you get lost? Yeah, I know it.” Without another work the runner turned and raced off down the hill.

“He has guests,” Canna called after him. “He won’t much like being disturbed.” The boy didn’t appear to hear, or at any rate just ran on, leaving Canna standing there in the grass. His pipe had gone out, and he didn’t feel much like smoking any more anyway. He eyed the bulging wall of the Relic, the crooked, filled-in archway. He wouldn’t be doing any clearing here today after all. No. He’d come back tomorrow, with Thoms and Mystifer, and they’d get it done right quick and be gone.

*

String’s heart wouldn’t stop pounding as he raced down the garden towards the greathouse. He could still feel the spidery touch of the femril on his shoulder, still hardly believe the portal had opened at that very moment and he was here now, alive. Taking the route through the Tribulan was maybe the stupidest thing he’d done in a long line of stupid things. He promised himself he’d never be goaded into anything like it ever again, not by Brummel or anyone else.

And yet, deep down, some part of him was elated. He was just minutes from delivering Gra Faren’s packet. He’d left ShadoverSquare a little after two bells. If he delivered the packet without delay and took the postern gate out of Farendale, it was a short run to the Hyberian arch. From there, he could make it back to the Academy easily by three. Despite the heaviness in his legs, the growling in his stomach, and his recent brush with certain death, he was grinning fiercely as he skirted the servants and their wagons and came to the back of the greathouse.

And then he saw the quandary.

As a child he’d visited Farendale often when the court came to Heliot. While the koroleva and her magnates met with old Gra Faren, he would play catch-a-thief in the maze with Seph. He remembered dashing among the hedges, taking left and right turns at random, while the young koreva covered her eyes and counted to twenty. If he ducked down and kept low, he was completely invisible. Even when he stood and peeked over the top, even when she saw him peeking, she still couldn’t catch him without working out how to get to where he was and by that time, of course, he was gone. Those had been happy days.

Now the hedges were ten feet tall.

“Blades!” he cursed. He snatched the packet from his satchel and looked at it again. It was a carefully trimmed and folded square of purple vellum, sealed with the device of Koro Haldane in dark purple wax. On the other side there was some scrawly writing, presumably Gra Faren’s name, alongside the carefully stamped Faren device. Beside that was a stamp in the shape of a hand. Hand deliver, just like Brummel said. “Blades!” he said again, and walked into the quandary.

At first he was able to convince himself it would be easy enough to find the graav. The quandary was big, but not that big, and if he just kept walking he was sure sooner or later to run into Faren. After backtracking from his fifth dead end, however, he began to feel less certain. All the hedges were neatly trimmed and topped and all the little avenues between them looked exactly alike. It was conceivable that he could walk for hours and cover the same few lengths without even knowing it. On top of that, when he tried working his way back to the entry point, he found another blank green wall of hedging where the exit ought to have been. He was completely lost.

He sighed. He was having what some of the court servants called a Cursed Day – when everything seemed to go wrong, and any good thing that did happen was only fate’s way of raising your hopes momentarily before dashing them once more. Seela told him once she’d known a man who had a hundred such days, one after the other, and eventually threw himself from the Lip in despair. String wasn’t sure whether or not to believe it at the time. The servant girls sometimes told him outlandish stories just to see how gullible he really was. He’d learned to take them with a pinch of salt years ago. But now, as he backtracked once more in the hope of finding his bearings, the idea of a Cursed Day didn’t seen quite so outlandish. Being lost in the quandary certainly wasn’t as bad as being eaten by femrils, but if it made him late for assembly, his dangerous jaunt through the gottenlands would have been for nothing. Failing again to find the point where he’d entered the maze, he imagined himself wandering in here for days and days without food or water. He stopped, tried to calm himself, bit on his knuckle. He had to think, think. Why was he so bad at thinking? He was still standing there when the distant bells sounded out half past the hour, and almost at the same time he heard the bark of Gra Faren’s laugh.

“Gra Faren!” he cried, without even meaning to. “Gra Faren! Packet for the Gra!” The laugh came again from somewhere not too far to his left and he immediately set off that way. The path took him to a junction where he turned right then took right again, which seemed to be where the sound had come form. For a while he thought he’d miscalculated, but then he saw an opening in the hedge just ahead, and even as he approached he heard men’s voices.

“Thank the crown!” He dashed through, expecting to find Gra Faren and his guests standing right there. There was no-one. He was in the middle of another long avenue that looked exactly like all the others.

“If there was another option, I’d take it, believe me. But now we’re committed, I’ll be a damn sight happier when it’s done and the bitch is dead.”

String froze.

The voice came from just the other side of the hedge in front of him, and it was unmistakably Gra Faren speaking. His mouth opened of its own accord to call out, but he clamped a hand over it as the meaning of the words sank in. Someone was going to get killed?

“You’re confident this Ciego is the man for the job?” A different voice, quieter. Whoever it was, he had a strange way with his words, not like any accent String could remember hearing before.

“Oh, yes, I’ve no worries there. Highly motivated. She wiped out his entire people, you know. Hanged every last one of them.”

“I heard. Achera.”

“Yes, nasty business. Thank the crown I wasn’t there for that one. Over the past twenty years he’s killed just about everyone who had a hand in it. He’d have found his way to her eventually, I think, even without us. Haldane barely sleeps thinking of ways to keep her safe from him.”

“And the letter asks for passage through the mountain?”

“Makes sense, I suppose. He can hardly risk walking in through the front gate. And it does save me having to smuggle him up to the castrum. Of course, you haven’t made it any easier by killing the blind man. Strand’s giving me hell. Said it was his best guide.”

“If that was his best, I’d hate to see his worst. I lost twelve men in the mountain. One of them was Chinoweth’s cousin.”

“Ah. Sorry to hear that. But you’re still near two hundred strong, yes? Well, not to worry. Strand has another fellow and Ciego should be in by now …”

The voices trailed off but String didn’t move. What had he just heard? Magister Dante always said a runner, as well as being a royal messenger, was also the eyes and ears of the koroleva as he went about his duties. If you saw or heard anything suspicious, you had to tell the Magister. And this certainly sounded suspicious.

He turned, determined to find a way back out and go straight to the Academy, but stopped before he’d taken three steps. What if he was wrong? He was always getting things wrong, mishearing or misunderstanding. What would he tell Magister Dante anyway? Something about a blind man who got killed, and Chinwash’s cousin who got lost in a mountain. He didn’t even know who Chinwash was. The more he thought it through, the more he wasn’t sure he’d heard anything suspicious at all. And anyway, this was Gra Faren, wasn’t it? One of the richest and most powerful magnates in Harrowdown. And married to Seph, the koroleva’s own daughter.

He looked at the packet, which he’d carried almost forgotten in his hand since entering the quandary. He’d be in trouble for not delivering that too, if he left. No. He must have heard it wrong. But he had to be sure, and that meant finding out more. He turned and went right, following in the direction the voices were receding, hurrying to catch up in case they made a turn and he lost them. Within ten yards he was pacing them again.

“…men will have the wharf, so you won’t need to worry about attack by air,” Gra Faren was saying. “but you must hold the castrum till dawn. I can’t stress that enough. I’ll need that long to complete the configuration. Once I’ve bound them to me, things will settle down pretty quickly. Of course, there’ll be some who’ll never accept it and they’ll need to be dealt with. Haldane for one. That old bastard’s head is in serious need of being separated from his shoulders.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem. Now I think we have the details worked out. My only question is, how in hadrades do we get out of this damnable maze?”

Gra Faren laughed. “We have our little tricks,” he said. There was a rustle, and a crunching sound, and suddenly the hedge right in front of String’s face was alive with twisting branches and quivering leaves. Before he could even take a breath, it pulled itself apart to create an opening about as large as a door, and String found himself staring at the three rather surprised men who stood on the other side.

*

Ripnail’s first instinct was to kill the boy. His hand was already on the dagger, concealed in a sheath on his left forearm, when Faren called out “String!” and rushed forward to clap the lad on the shoulder. Behind him, he heard the quiet snap as Chinoweth released the restraining strap on his own blade.

“Crowns, man, what are you doing here? I thought you’d be at the Academy getting ready for the reconfiguration.”

“Er, uh … no, Gra Faren. Not yet. I have a packet. That is, I have a packet for you, from Koro Haldane.” The boy was a bedraggled looking specimen. His face was bruised and dirty and his stained tunic had a tear at the left shoulder. He was talking to Faren, but couldn’t seem to draw his eyes away from Ripnail and the giant Ithrian.

Faren barked out another of his annoying laughs. “From Haldane, eh? Give it here. I was just talking about the koro to my friends before you arrived, telling them of the time he nearly lost his head when we went after the femril witch in the badlands near Gotchen. Did I ever tell you that story, String?”

“Um, no, Gra Faren. I mean, maybe you did, but if you did I forgot.”

“Ha ha, that’s what I like about you, String. I get to tell you all my stories again and again.” When Faren turned, he was smiling broadly. “Gentlemen, may I present Master String Cord, Runner for the Royal Dispatchers. He may not have a memory for much else, but by all accounts he’s the most knowledgeable young man in the service when it comes to navigating the secret backways of this and any other of the Royal Cities. Isn’t that right, String?”

The boy looked momentarily confused, then embarrassed. He made a half-hearted attempt to smile, then seemed to think better of it. Ripnail still couldn’t fathom Faren’s game. The boy was clearly an idiot of some kind, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d been overheard and this kid could never leave the estate alive. “I think young Master String’s ears are too big for his head,” he said, giving Faren his most direct look.

“Do you now?” Faren sliced open the letter with a small dagger of his own and glanced quickly at its contents. “That’s as may be, but my dear wife has a feast organized and half the patrician children in the city will be playing hide-the-beggar and catch-a-thief here in the quandary within the hour.” He turned to the boy again, who was still staring wide-eyed. “String, this is fine, there’ll be no need for a reply. Are you planning to go out by the postern gate?”

The boy seemed to have difficulty tearing his eyes from Chinoweth, but eventually managed to turn his attention back to Faren. “What?”

“You’ll be heading back through the postern, I take it? Perhaps you could do me a favour. My friend and his bodyguard here were looking for a good spot to view the city. I suggested the old tower down in the small woods. You know the place?”

After a short fit of rapid blinking and some curious face pulling, the boy nodded. “Aye, I know it, Gra Faren. Seph used to take me there – I mean, Koreva Sephoni – to watch the skyships come in, when I was small.”

“That’s the very place. Would you be so kind as to show my friends where it is on your way out? You’ll like it, Ripnail, I promise. Great view out over the city. Nice and quiet. Peaceful. Not a place you’re likely to be disturbed.”

Ah! Ripnail eased the blade back into the sheath beneath his sleeve. Alright then. Faren knew what had to be done. “That would be wonderful,” he said, bowing slightly to String. “Of course, we still have to get out of this damn maze.”

“Ho ho, let me help you with that.” Faren made a brief rolling motion with his fingers and the nearby bushes began to unravel once more.



“So, you are a friend of Gra Faren?” The boy had relaxed a bit as they walked across the lawns and picked up a path that took them away from the house and the quandary, and Ripnail engaged him in conversation on various topics. Every now and then he stole an occasional, worried glance back at Chinoweth, walking ten paces behind them, but apart from that he seemed at ease enough, and willingly answered questions about his life as dispatcher and his upbringing at court. Ripnail jumped quickly from one topic to the next, testing, probing. By the time the long wall that bordered the estate came into view, he was reasonably sure he had the measure of the lad – a poor memory, and easily confused.

“I know him, sir. I wouldn’t say I’m his friend, not really. He’s a graav, you see, and I’m, well, a runnerboy.”

“You know his wife, though? You no doubt met her when you visited court as a child.”

“Oh, I grew up in the court. I thought I told you. I must not have. I know Seph – I mean, Koreva Sephoni – since, well, always.”

“Is he a good man, Gra Faren, would you say?”

“Er, oh, yes sir, he certainly is good. I mean, he’s brave and smart, and very rich. He fought in the DreadWar, you know, even though he was only fifteen, I think. And, well, Seph wouldn’t have married him if he wasn’t good. That’s what I think, anyway.” He stole another furtive glance back at Chinoweth. Every time he did so his face somewhere between bewilderment and fear.

“He’s a warrior from the steppes of Ithria. That’s far, far to the east. I’ll bet you’ve never seen an Ithrian warrior before, have you?”

“I … no, I’m pretty sure I’d remember.” He leaned in close and whispered, “He’s very, very big. And he surely does have a lot of swords. Is he really your bodyguard?”

Chinoweth gave a short bark of a laugh behind them, and String’s eyes widened.

“Well, I have no doubt that if someone were ever to kill me, Chinoweth would do a wonderful job of guarding my body. I prefer to think of him as my companion. Ithrians don’t hire themselves out, not for gold or wealth of any kind. When he was a boy, probably younger than you are now, his people sent him out into the world to learn the ways of war. Only when he has fought in a hundred battles may he return. That’s the Ithrian way. I think, by the look on your face, that you don’t believe me.”

“Oh, no sir. It’s not that at all. It’s just … if he has to fight in a lot of battles, he’s probably in the wrong place. There’s been peace in Harrowdown since before I was even born. No battles here. None at all. Magister Dante says even the borderlands are quiet these days.”

Ripnail smiled. Not that stupid after all.

The little avenue disappeared into the trees twenty yards ahead. “We appear to have reached the woods. Which way to the tower, String?”

“The path goes to the postern gate,” String said, pointing. “There’s a trail just a little way in. I’ll show you. I have to go right past it.” Just then, a procession of servants laden down with tables and benches emerged from the trees before them.

“String!” A dark-haired young woman detached herself from the group and, hitching up her skirts, began to run towards them. “String, is that you? Why didn’t someone tell me you were here?”

Ripnail raised an eyebrow at Chinoweth, who just shrugged as if to say he’d happily kill the entire group if need be. It wasn’t until String said, “Oh, it’s Seph,” that he realized they might have run into more than just a little snag.

The woman was dressed no more grandly than any of the servants, and had actually been helping carry the furniture along with the others, but as she approached now, smiling widely, he saw it was indeed the koreva. “My lady,” he said, bowing.

“Ambassador. Forgive me, I’m hardly fit to be seen in public. There’s just so much to do to prepare for all the festivities, and so little time to do it. I thought we’d run out of tables, till someone remembered we had some stored in the postern sheds.” She turned to the boy. “String, I thought … orbs in heaven, what happened to you? You look like you’ve been dragged backways through the fields!”

The young runner smiled and his face turned bright pink. “Oh, it’s nothing, Seph. I mean, milady. It’s just been a long day, that’s all.”

“Don’t milady me, String,” she told him, grasping him by the chin. “That’s a nasty bruise. Have you been fighting? And look at your uniform. I know for a fact that you’re supposed to be on duty at the reconfiguration this evening. Magister Dante will have your hide if you turn up for assembly looking like that.”

“Sceptres and scrolls!” the boy cried. “I forgot. Seph, what’s the hour?”

“The third small bell before three just rang a little while ago. Didn’t you hear it?”

“Arrggh! I’m late.” He put both hands on his head and looked from the koreva to Ripnail, and then to Chinoweth. “Seph, will you show the men how to find the tower? I have to go. I really have to go. Apologies, sir. I .. oh!” Before Ripnail could think of any way to stop him, he took off at a sprint down the path and disappeared into the woods.

*

It was a short run down the shoulder road from the postern gate to the Mede, and String berated himself the whole way. Stupid, stupid! How could he have forgotten what a hurry he was in? He should just have apologized and told Gra Faren he had to go. Instead, he’d strolled across the lawn answering all the questions the graav’s friend had asked. And Seph was right, he couldn’t turn up for assembly looking like this. He’d have to change his tunic, at the very least. Crowns and blades! After all he’d done, he was still going to be late.

When he reached the iron gate of the Mede, he found a child hunched down beside it, gnawing on an enormous piece of yellowfruit. She was a skinny little thing with scraggly hair, in the brown homespun clothes of a commoner, and he supposed she must have made her way here from the feast on Castle Street, though what took her a half a mile up the shoulder road he had no idea.

“You really shouldn’t be up here,” he said. She grinned up at him but said nothing as he pressed his shoulder against the gate and it opened with a protesting squeak. She giggled when he smiled at her and she was still laughing as he turned and walked into the Mede.

Like a bubble on the wall of the Farendale estate, the Mede had once been a famous healing pool, particularly for warriors injured in battle. It’s power had faded over the years, its warm waters gone cold, and it had fallen into ruin. Now it was little more than a weed infested shell, like an egg whose crown had been shorn off. It’s crystal roof had long since fallen in and the pool was now a dark, moss covered pond at its centre. If the Hyberian arch hadn’t been in its eastern wall, no-one would ever come here anymore. So String was surprised to find the peppery smell of baccaroot smoke hanging in the air and to see three figures crouched in the shadows on the far side of the pool.

“He’s here,” one of them said, as they all climbed to their feet.

“Aw, blades!” he whispered under his breath as he recognized Kael, along with Rabkin and Kreev. They stepped to the far edge of the pool, the clay pipes they’d been smoking still in their hands. At first String thought they’d just ducked in here with their root – forbidden, of course, but even Grevain used to sneak off to smoke sometimes. But the Mede was a kind of an out of the way place for three runnerboys to congregate, unless they all just happened to be coming from deliveries at Farendale. Then it dawned on him – they were waiting for him. Brummel sent him with the packet, and this was by far the quickest route back. Would this Cursed Day never end?

For a moment they just stood looking at him. Then a cruel grin appeared on Kael’s face. “Get him!” He and Rabkin darted one way round the pool, and Kreev set off in the other. String made a break to the right, towards the arch, but Kreev came barrelling round to meet him, fist drawn back for a punch. Instinctively, String threw out both hands. The collision sent him rebounding off one way while Kreev lost his footing, stood windmilling his arms for a second, an toppled backwards into the pool with a screech. String could hardly believe his luck. He almost stopped just to watch Kreev disappear into the water and then come up spluttering – maybe he even did stop – but the other two were almost all the way round he dashed straight for the arch, his fingers already making the weaves.

He was three yards from it and could feel the arch beginning to slip open when his foot caught a tangled root and he pitched forward onto his face. The weave broke and when he looked up the Hyberian was dark and solid above him.

“Gotcha, you bastard!” Kael said, coming up behind him and landing a painful kick to his thigh. He rolled over to find Rabkin standing the other side of him. Kreev was already halfway out of the stinking pool.

“Just let me go,” String said. They were younger and smaller – Kael a full head shorter – so they wouldn’t be as strong as Brummel and Jons. But still, three against one. And he knew he was no fighter – he’d lost every fist fight he’d ever been in.

“Oh, you can go, alright, when we’re done with you, you halfwit son of a bitch,” Kael spat. “You’re gonna get what you deserve.” He delivered another sharp kick, this time to String’s shin. “Go squealing to the magister, will you? We’re gonna take this double shift out of your hide.” He kicked again, and now the others crowded in to land their own blows.

String rolled and tried to crawl towards the arch but they kicked his arms out from under him and he had no other choice but to curl up into a ball and try to protect himself from the worst of it. The attack stopped abruptly when something exploded across the back of Kael’s head. With arms still crossed over his face, String saw the tiny girl from outside the gate. She was standing halfway down the length of the pool. She’d thrown the chunk of fruit and now the messy yellow mass was smeared across Kael’s head and face. With a look of utter disbelief he reached back and dug a handful of it out of his collar.

“Kreev,” he roared, “kill that little bitch!”

“Huh? You mean…?”

“Just get her, will you!”

Kreev adjusted his soaking tunic, pulled a wicked looking little dagger from his belt, and advanced on the girl.

“Run!” String cried, which was enough to bring the others’ attention back to him. He blocked a kick from Rabkin with his leg, and managed to land a kick of his own that sent the younger boy scurrying back, but despite Kael’s boot hammering at his ribs, he couldn’t take his eyes off the girl. She was still grinning, just as when he’d first seen her, though now her attention was on Kreev and his dagger.

He got within a yard of her. Then she twisted and snapped her foot out sideways, connecting with his knee. There was a crack, like a dry stick breaking, and Kreev was screaming, knife tumbling from his fingers. Kael and Rabkin turned to see her land her small, sharp elbow into Kreev’s jaw as he began to fall. The blow was hard enough to send him crashing back into the pool.

“What in had…” Rabkin began, but the girl was moving. She raced at him, launched herself into the air, and came down knees first on his chest, landing two hard blows with her elbow on the side of his throat. He was still falling when she turned on Kael. She ducked under his wild punch, brought her heel down hard on the front part of his foot above the toes, then pivoted back to deliver a punch to the groin. Even as he doubled over with a look of pain and bewilderment on his face, her left hand shot up and she crunched the butt of her palm into his nose.

“Oh!” String exclaimed as Kael flopped back, a rose of blood blossoming from his nostrils. The girl stood, surveying what she’d done, looking from Rabkin to Kael and then throwing a satisfied glance at Kreev, floating on his back on the pool. She wasn’t even breathing that hard. “Oh,” he repeated. “What…? Who…?”

At some point during the brief melee he’d scrabbled backwards on the ground, so now his back was pressed up firmly against the Hyberian arch. “How did you do that?” he said, finally gaining some control over his voice. The girl took a step towards him and he involuntarily tried to push himself back further. She grinned at him again, then, looking off to the side, cupped a hand to her ear. Just at that moment, a bell rang out across the city.

“Sceptres and scrolls!” String cried, stumbling to his feet. “Three bells! I’m late!”