City of Night (33 page)

“It has been done, in the past. My understanding was that the only immutable requirement was the demon’s name.”

“That is a flawed understanding. The name
is
required, but simply
speaking
the name does not call a demon to the plane. A path between the Hells and the caster must be built; such a path is entirely magical in nature. You would not see it at all. The building of such a gate requires no little power.”

“Then let us look at power, and only at power. Let us look not at magery, for they clearly
have
that. If Cordufar has
extended
its influence over the past several decades, the mages need political power. How have they gathered it? If, as we now suspect, the Lord Cordufar who first hired Davash AMarkham was a mage—or a demon—it is clear that our enemies have the ability to mimic those they kill and replace them, for he was not always what he is now. Nor was his son. If one could do this, one could rule empires without the messy impediment of an obvious war. One could not replace the Kings or the Exalted; the gods would know, and their followers and children throughout the Empire would bear warning.

“But one could replace other men and women of power, and subvert those Houses from within.”

They were silent.

“Ararath,” Sigurne began, but he lifted a hand.

“House Terafin retains the services of the Magi?”

She nodded, little liking where this was going. He knew, of course, and knew why.

“Whose service, Sigurne?”

Meralonne lifted both pipe and head. He also blew rings of smoke in the half-dark room, each smaller than the last. “My service,” he replied. “The Terafin requested the service of Sigurne Mellifas, and she made the referral.”

“Were your presence to be required
immediately,
how long would it take you to arrive at the estates?”

At that, the Magi smiled. It was an odd smile. Sharp and cunning as it was, it nonetheless conveyed a very real pleasure, even anticipation. “Terafin is older than the Empire. I could arrive—without exhausting myself—the instant the message was sent. I could not, however, arrive without a summons, and such a summons would not be undertaken trivially.”

“If an incident of a highly magical nature occurred within the Terafin manse upon the Isle, you would be the mage summoned?”

“Indeed.”

“And you could deal with a demon, if so summoned?”

Meralonne APhaniel raised a silver brow. “If what they send is what you have hunted? In my sleep.”

Rath stared at him for a long moment. “If I didn’t know better,” he finally said, “I would say that you almost—almost—look forward to such a contest.”

“Ah.”

Rath rose. “Be prepared,” he said softly. “Be prepared to move quickly. Be prepared, as well, to launch a full-scale investigation that will cover most of the City—not upon the Isle, but in the holdings.”

“Magical?”

Rath nodded.

Meralonne glanced at Sigurne. “We have done what we can to be, as you say, prepared,” she told Rath quietly, “but it is difficult; preparations are noticed, and the members of the Order are fractious when asked to devote time to something that comes with no attendant explanation.”

“I will send word, if I am able. You will receive word, if I am not.”

Meralonne nodded, and then, tapping ash from the bowl of his pipe, said, “We have just lost our eavesdropper.”

“A pity. I hoped I might notice him when I leave this place. Did he listen for long enough?”

“Long enough that he is now aware that it is you who are hunting demons, and that you are the natural brother of The Terafin. As you requested.”

“Good.” He bowed stiffly to Meralonne, and then, less stiffly, as if it were an entirely different gesture, to Sigurne Mellifas.

Sigurne met his gaze, held it a moment. “Ararath,” she said quietly.

“I will send a messenger to House Terafin. The messenger will not be well-versed in the political, but it is my hope that Amarais will see fit to retain her services.”

Sigurne did not look away from his face, and with Meralonne present, this was awkward, although the gray-eyed mage did not speak. More significant, he did not light his pipe again.

“As you can be, you have been the best of allies, Sigurne.”

“And you,” she replied. “Will you not reconsider?”

He glanced at the stone on the table; answer enough for both of them.

“Keep an eye on her, if you can. Both of you. Keep her safe.”

“The Terafin?”

“The Terafin as well.”

She stood, and taking from her robe a nondescript sack, handed it to Rath. He knew what it contained: consecrated daggers.

“I am not entirely certain,” he said gravely, “that I will be able to uphold my side of our agreement in the foreseeable future.”

“I will take that risk,” she replied, “and I would not see you face our enemies unarmed.” She nodded as Rath slid her small bundle into the backpack he had taken from Jewel.

Rath bowed, briefly, to both of the members of the Order of Knowledge. He then left them.

 

“I am uneasy,” Meralonne said quietly, as he picked up the stone he had set upon the table and slid it into his robes.

Sigurne said nothing for a long moment. “What will Ararath do?”

“I cannot say. I wonder instead, if he will do what he intends in time.”

“In time?”

“Can you not feel it? There is a shadow growing across the City, Sigurne. Something in it reminds me, much, of my distant youth. I cannot say, for certain what, or why, and it frustrates me.”

She glanced at him, and then away. “If it will ease you, follow him. But I suspect you will meet with the same success the kin and their masters have had, where he is concerned.”

Meralonne nodded. “I will visit House Terafin,” he added.

Angel cursed as rope slipped across his palm. He tightened both hands, and the rope slowed, but not enough that it didn’t abrade his skin. Beneath him, over the edge of cracked and broken stone, Lefty almost shrieked.

“I’ve got you,” Angel said, raising his voice. Duster and Fisher were across the gap; Carver was beside him. Carver caught the rope in both hands as well; he was better braced than Angel. Angel had slid two feet, and he could feel the edge of the gap against the thinning undersoles of his boots. He hadn’t been prepared for Lefty’s fall, and rocks dislodged by Angel’s momentary stumble dropped toward Lefty’s upturned face. They were neither heavy nor large, but they were sharp-edged, and Lefty raised one hand to cover his eyes as they fell.

“Sorry,” Angel said, the word more grunt than speech. “I’ve got you.”

Lefty said nothing. He dangled for a moment, eight feet below Angel. Then he put both hands on the rope, and began to search the side of the crevice for footholds.

The weight lessened as he found them, and increased as one—Angel couldn’t clearly see which—failed.

“I swear these gaps are getting wider,” Carver murmured. “I’ve got him, Angel,” he added. “Pull back. Duster!”

She nodded. She was utterly silent. She held the magestone in one shaking hand, and its light was not kind; it exposed everything. What Angel saw in her expression, he couldn’t say. Not fear; Duster didn’t show fear even in nightmare. But close enough, for Duster.

“See if the gap narrows anywhere. I don’t think he can make this jump.”

Duster nodded, and then hesitated.

“We’ve got Lefty,” Carver told her, grunting as Lefty began to try to climb. “We don’t need to see much, because we’re not going to move. Go.”

She nodded. She didn’t argue, and she didn’t tell him not to give her orders. Fisher followed in her wake.

As the light ebbed, Lefty continued to climb, to lessen the weight on the rope that was probably making it difficult to breathe. Carver and Angel put their backs and shoulders into the narrow line that connected them all, and pulled.

Lefty came up slowly; rocks went down as he scrabbled along the edge. It was now dark enough that they could barely see his hands, but it didn’t matter; they held him. They didn’t try to reach for him, but in the dark, he made it back up.

He paused for breath, and then crawled away from the edge, his chest and limbs flat against the ground. “Let’s not do that again,” he said, as the rope went slack in the hands of his den-kin.

Angel nodded in the dark night of the undercity. His stomach growled.

Carver snorted and smacked the back of Angel’s head; lack of light didn’t seem to affect his aim.

“What? We’ve been here for hours.”

“You eat more than the rest of us combined,” Carver answered. “You’d be making that noise if we’d been here for less than ten minutes.”

Angel sat, folding his legs. “Lefty?”

“I’m good,” Lefty replied. “Well, I’m not dead, at any rate. Sorry.”

“Why? You’ve made that jump a hundred times. We’ll find a narrower gap, and we’ll try it from there.”

Candlelight.

It wasn’t magelight; it wasn’t steady. It flickered, and it illuminated only the small space around its wick. It didn’t, and couldn’t, banish the darkness of night sky at a single word. But Jewel liked candlelight; it reminded her of her family, long dead. Magelights, of course, had existed then, but only in lampposts that towered above the streets, or in buildings that existed for the convenience of the wealthy.

Her family had had candles. Lamps, and lamp oil, were too expensive; candles were cheaper—but even they weren’t free. They were seldom lit, for that reason. Her mother and her Oma made as much of daylight as they could, and when the sun sank, and the moons took to the skies, they retreated to bed, and sleep.

When Jewel was ill, they would light candles, briefly, and stand over her, expressing worry by silence, or the softness of their voices. She could remember their faces, lit from beneath by orange light, noses throwing shadows across the familiar.

Lamps were better light than candles for reasons that weren’t entirely clear to Jewel, but she put off buying one, even when the den was flush. She worked, instead, by candle, if any one of her den, except Duster, was out. The work was long and tiring, and in truth she would have put it off, but it was important to Rath. She could do nothing else for him, so she read, and wrote, and worked through numbers that seemed more arcane, and more unapproachable, than Old Weston ever had.

The numbers she did on paper that Rath had provided. She could leave them on the table, and when they returned from the Common or the well, he would have them annotated. Sometimes the words in the margins of her messy columns were more real than Rath; they reminded her of the early months. Terse, yes, but sometimes encouraging. She both dreaded and looked forward to them.

The candle was almost a stub when she at last stoppered the inkwell and took the pen to the bucket; she very carefully cleaned the quill and returned it to the table. She closed the books, and made a neat pile of them, pushing it to one side. Then she rose, and went to the windows, stepping over Lander and Jester, who were snoring. Arann was, as usual, a bit closer to the door, and Finch and Teller slept a room away.

The rest of her den?

Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she levered herself up onto the windowsill and looked out at the still face of the moon in the night sky. The bright moon’s light silvered the City, even in shadow. She could see, by its position, that it was late. Very late and edging into early.

She lowered herself gently, creaked along the floorboards, and made her way back to the candle that was burning itself into a small puddle. Then she sat, carefully, in the chair that she had vacated, yawned, and rubbed her eyes.

Kalliaris,
she thought, giving in, at last, to the hour.
Lady, smile.

The candle guttered.

 

Duster came back after a full ten minutes, and her light trailed past them on the opposite side of the crevice as she followed its edge in the other direction. Not one for words, not Duster. If she’d found something, she would have let them know. She didn’t turn, and didn’t speak; she might have been an apparition.

But as they watched her go, Lefty suddenly sat up, his supine back stiffening. He didn’t shout, not to Duster. But he spoke loudly enough for either Angel or Carver, who bracketed him, Carver cross-legged, and Angel standing.

“Where’s Fisher?”

They looked, as the last of her light grayed and faded. “Carver?”

Carver shook his head, black hair obscuring his eye just before darkness did. In the undercity, darkness had meaning, and it was absolute.

“I didn’t see him.”

“No,” Angel said. “I didn’t either. But he followed Duster when she left.”

“Maybe he saw something, and she kept walking.” Carver’s voice held no conviction. It held hope. “If he did, he’ll stand and wait.”

 

Duster came back, the faint light of slowly moving magestone gray again. They felt the distance keenly, and her approach was so slow it was almost agonizing. You couldn’t begrudge it; the crevices weren’t simple, straight lines, and the stone along their edges wasn’t solid. But even so, they held breath until she could be seen, magelight trailing the underside of her chin.

“Duster!” Carver shouted. His voice, the two syllables distinct, echoed in the silence.

She looked up. “I think I’ve found—”

“Duster!” Carver shouted again, but this time not quite as loudly. “Where’s Fisher?”

She frowned then, and her eyes left the crevice along which she’d been searching. She turned to look back the way she’d come and Carver shouted her name again.

“He didn’t come back the first time. He followed you when you went to the right, but he didn’t come back.”