City of Light & Shadow (9 page)

  During this time, he ate when food was provided and slept when his body required it, though he couldn't have defined when that was. The constant mellow lighting painted the world in pastels and seemed to rob everything of vitality; time moved at its own pace here and the standard compartments of morning, afternoon and night became meaningless.

 

Tom wouldn't necessarily have said that he enjoyed the sessions with the goddess, but he certainly came to crave them. Curiosity had been one of his defining traits from a very early age, his downfall more often than not, and here was an opportunity to learn so much about Thaiburley and its history. He was like a kid in a sweet shop, greedily devouring every new morsel of information. He would never get used to the ice tank, but welcomed the information each immersion imparted, if not the frustration of trying to assimilate it afterwards. That was why he loved the more physical lessons, the face-to-face talks and lectures. No confusion here; everything was concise and clearly explained.

  His life within the citadel settled into a new rhythm and was defined by new parameters: day and night no longer held sway, it was all about lessons and non-lessons.

  Mildra sat with him for many of these, though she was clearly not as obsessed as he was. During one where they were both present, she raised the question of their abilities working outside of the city as they followed the Thair's course, wondering whether her theory regarding the river's proximity had any merit.

  "No, the river isn't really an issue," Thaiss explained. "Distance
is
, but you can still reach the core a considerable way beyond the city's walls. I'm afraid the superstition about the river carrying the essence of the goddess is just that – perhaps inspired by a lingering memory of where I dwell. But since you were travelling between here and there, it's likely that as you moved out of range of Thaiburley's heart, you were growing closer to this citadel and able to draw on the core here. Had you travelled this far from Thaiburley in any other direction, I suspect your talents would have failed you."

  At any other time Tom would have found this an interesting revelation, but he had been bombarded with so much of late, and this followed his final immersion in the tank, when concentration was at its most fractured. He hadn't yet fully mastered the processes stimulating his brain.

  Tom had undergone four sessions in the submersion tank by this point – or was it five? – and was feeling ever more disassociated from the world around him.

  "I'm worried about what all this is doing to him," he heard Mildra say to the goddess at one point.

  A corner of his mind registered that she was probably talking about him, but the rest appreciated that it didn't much matter even if she was.

  He still recognised Mildra, but wasn't entirely certain of her significance.

• • • •

Oddly, the incident which afterwards would stand most distinctly in Tom's mind occurred right towards the end of their stay at the citadel, perhaps because it
was
an end and so marked the imminent return of harsh reality and worldly concerns. Perhaps, also, because he was beginning to get a handle on things by then, coming back to himself and able to connect with what was going on outside his own head.

  When not teaching them or answering questions, the goddess spent much of her time ensconced within a curved U of equipment – intricate yet oddly elegant constructs of metal and glass crystal, the latter putting Tom in mind of the khybul sculptures of the Jeradine. She would sit back and stare one moment, then lean forward to press on a pad with fingertips or pass the open palm of a hand over a green light, which would highlight her spread fingers in an eerie eldritch glow. On occasion, lines of opaque writing or strange glyphs would materialise – indecipherable despite Tom's newly-crammed knowledge – hovering in the air before her only to slowly fade or be dismissed with the wipe of a hand. Tom didn't pretend to understand any of the processes involved but guessed that she was communing in some profound fashion.

  She would say nothing of her purpose but would come away troubled, or even frustrated. On this particular occasion she pushed herself back and stood up sharply, and the concern etched upon her face was more pronounced than ever. Her eyes met his and she said, "I understand now. I've had difficulty reaching the core and now I know why. Things are worse than I thought. I only hope we haven't delayed too long." Mildra stepped forward, obviously anxious. The goddess's gaze darted between them. "Don't just stand there," she snapped. "Get ready. You must leave. Immediately."

  "Why? What's happened?" Mildra asked, a fraction before Tom thought to speak.

  The elderly woman rubbed her eyes, suddenly seeming tired and frail. It was the first time since her awakening that Tom could recall Thaiss looking so human. "My brother," she said, "he didn't die."

  The words triggered a welter of images and memories for Tom – embedded knowledge he was paying attention to for the first time.

  He knew that Thaiss and her brother had come here through some sort of gateway from another world. He knew that they were here by design rather than accident and that they had set about constructing Thaiburley almost at once. The two of them were…
leaders
…? Gods? King and queen? He wasn't sure of their exact status, but their intent was to build a home for others from their world – followers or subjects – who became the city's "founders".

  "We knew the population would be mixed," the goddess had once explained. "With a large number of native folk dwelling in the city, perhaps more than there were of our own people. Planning for the long term, we realised that the only way to successfully settle would be to integrate – this world was chosen specifically because we
could
interbreed with local human stock." The impersonal phrasing might have made Tom uncomfortable once, but it now seemed perfectly natural. "Obviously our own gene pool would dilute and diffuse with the passage of time, but we severely underestimated to what extent. We assumed that the majority of citizens would always be able to access the core, rather than the minority that are able to do so in the current age. Oh, I appreciate that if you add all the arkademics and medics and talented together they amount to an impressive total, reaching into the thousands, but in terms of Thaiburley's overall population that's still a tiny fraction. We never foresaw integration to that degree, which was short-sighted of us and is one of the underlying reasons for the current predicament."

  That particular lecture seemed crystal clear in Tom's memory, yet still he couldn't have sworn that it wasn't something learned in the ice tank.

  There were so many things Tom didn't understand. It seemed that every piece of knowledge he gained merely opened the door to more questions. Perhaps that was the very nature of knowledge – it certainly seemed to be judging by his recent experience. The frustrating thing was that he might even have the answers to some of them without being able to access them yet. Rather than attempting a futile chase through the labyrinthine maze of unassimilated memory he strived to be patient as the goddess had advised, but it wasn't easy.

  This resolve didn't stop him from mulling over the most pressing issues and wondering. He justified the exercise by telling himself that it might stimulate related information to surface. Chief among these nagging questions was why Thaiss and her people had originally come here in the first place. Were they fleeing something, was this world a refuge from some terrible threat? What could possibly threaten those who had built Thaiburley? Besides, the suggestion that this world had been selected seemed to argue otherwise, that this was a planned migration rather than a desperate exodus made in haste. If that were so, might others from their world follow at some point? Centuries had passed in the interim, which presumably made that unlikely, but he couldn't be certain. The next thing that puzzled him was why Thaiburley had been built at all. Was it to impress upon the natives the newcomers' power and establish them as gods? Was Thaiburley to be a seat of government from which these newcomers would rule the world? If so, something had clearly gone wrong. Sibling rivalry, perhaps. Or had Thaiss and her brother built the city purely for altruistic reasons, to improve the lot of the people they brought with them. The third thing to rouse his curiosity was the falling out between Thaiss and her brother. What had caused the tension that had clearly developed between them? At some point the two siblings had fallen out catastrophically, a row that escalated into a war as each fought for control of Thaiburley, mobilising armies to battle for their cause. On each occasion Thaiss had won, causing her brother to disappear for decades, presumably to lick his wounds, before he emerged to try again. This he knew, but nowhere had he caught any hint of the reasons.

  The sibling warfare continued sporadically, the intensity of the ensuing violence the only constant. New tactics were tried by the brother and new defences devised by the sister, with Thaiss emerging triumphant and Thaiburley remaining under her control, if narrowly on occasion. Tom became increasingly convinced that the omission of such an explanation was deliberate. Perhaps Thaiss considered the specifics too personal to share, which was understandable, but it did raise the question of precisely how selective the information he was being fed might be. He was learning so much about Thaiburley's past, but he was doing so from Thaiss's perspective, and who was to say that hers was the only valid viewpoint?

  Tom's thoughts continued to follow the developing rivalry that had shaped so much of the world's recent history. It became clear to Thaiss early on that her brother was sleeping through long stretches of the passing decades, preserving his body via arcane means that Tom didn't pretend to understand. Presumably the intent was to outlive his sister and claim the city by default if all else failed. So she started doing the same, secure in her isolation here at the Thair's source. Woken to replenish Thaiburley's core at regular intervals by pilgrims from the religion she founded specifically for the purpose – the only people trusted with details of her location – Thaiss slept secure in the knowledge that alarms would rouse her should the city come under threat. So the centuries rolled by.

  All this had changed in comparatively recent times, during the Great War which still held such dark memories for the City of Dreams's inhabitants, though it had ended more than a century ago. The city had come close to falling and had suffered appalling damage, but Thaiss's brother had finally been vanquished. Killed. Or so Tom's newfound knowledge insisted. Evidently, this knowledge wasn't without flaw.

  "Somehow, he's corrupted the core," Thaiss said.

  "The Prime Master said something about the core being damaged during the War," Tom added. The malaise, the sense of detachment that had afflicted him in recent days as he pondered matters internally, was receding by steady degree, like a veil lifting from his mind. What Thaiss was saying fascinated him, stimulating his innate curiosity and helping him to look outward again, focussing on the present.

  The goddess nodded. "Yes, more than just damaged, it seems. He's actually imprinted himself on the stack, so that even after his physical form died he's been able to live on within it. Cunning. Twisted and cunning, which shouldn't surprise me in the least. He's been there all this time, establishing himself, insidiously spreading his influence and working against the city from within, erasing records and promoting his own agenda. No doubt subtly at first but growing bolder as he became more secure. His first priority would have been to ensure the core wasn't renewed as scheduled, which would have driven him out."

  "But why?" Mildra asked. "He doesn't have an army with which to conquer us now, so what's he hoping to achieve?"

  "The downfall of Thaiburley. We might have built the city together but it never became his home. He hates it as he hates me, and won't be content until the City of a Hundred Rows is no more."

  "Can he really hope to do that?"

  "Regrettably, yes. With the core under his thrall he could bring the whole city down. All he needs is to gain a sufficient level of control, and he's well on the way to doing so." Her gaze fastened on Tom. "You must replenish the core, Tom, restore it so that my brother's influence can be flushed out once and for all. Thaiburley is doomed if you don't, and there's not a moment to lose."

  Tom nodded, now fully focussed as the gravity of the situation registered. He couldn't help but note that things always seemed to depend on him, no matter how hard he sought to avoid them.

  "But how can we possibly get back in time?" Mildra asked.

  Her words triggered memories of the long days they'd spent travelling to the citadel and the treacherous terrain that now stretched between them and Thaiburley.

  "Oh, I don't think you need worry about that," the goddess assured them. "The return trip will take no time at all. Tom will make sure it doesn't."

  "I will?"

  "Certainly. You've seen how the Prime Master moves around the city, haven't you?"

  "Yes…" Tom admitted, cautiously.

  "Anything he can do, you can do. Your genetic make-up is closer to pure founder than anyone's in centuries. The core will respond to you in every way possible."

  "Maybe, but I don't know
how
."

  "No, but I do."

  The goddess reached forward and touched the centre of his forehead. The fingertip felt warm on his skin, but otherwise nothing changed. There was no spread of warmth as from a healer's touch, no shift of perspective which he might have been anticipating… nothing at all.

  And yet –
and yet
– Tom blinked. Suddenly he
did
know. In fact it was so obvious he felt as if he'd
always
known. "That's all there is to it?" he asked.