The Dark City (4 page)

Bianca gasped as she pulled out a gleaming medallion. It was an octagonal piece of obsidian set into an engraved silver circle, just the right size to fit into the palm of Bianca's hand. Bianca ran her finger around the eight sides of the obsidian and was fascinated at the way the light glinted purple and green in the depths of the dark stone.

‘How beautiful,' the Duchess said softly.

Bianca threaded the bright blue silk string through the hole in the setting of the medallion and tied it around her neck.

‘And the letter?' the Duchess asked, leaning forward, nosily.

Bianca opened the envelope and unfolded the sheet of yellowing paper. Her breath caught at the sight of Master di Lombardi's distinctive handwriting. But a moment later she exhaled a disappointed ‘Oh'.

The letter was unreadable. Apart from the first words, the writing was just vague lines and squiggles, blurred together as if the letter had been left out in the rain. She read the four words that she could make sense of over and over, tears pricking at the corner of her eyes.

To my dear Bianca,

And then  …  nothing but a blur.

‘Oh what a pity!' Duchess Catriona sat back. ‘I'll have words with Master Cuocco about this. He should have checked.'

‘No, it's  …  it's all right. I'm sure it's not his fault.' Bianca shook her head and held on tight to the medallion around her neck.

But it wasn't all right at all.

I'll never know what his final words to me would have been.

The black panelled door is just ahead of me. Its bright blue edging seems to glow under the soft light from the torches that line the secret passages. I reach out and open the door, gazing out of the painted mural into the dark city.

When I've climbed through I pause in the small courtyard on the other side to turn and look up at the mural. It's a woman in grey, looking out of a window at a bright, stylised sun that doesn't cast any light. Its paint is slightly cracking, as if it was painted decades ago.

The courtyard seems neglected. An earth bed along one side is full of spiny, weedy-looking plants, and several of the cobblestones are cracked.

Pulling my shawl around myself against the cool night air, I walk out onto the road.

Despite the dark, starless sky, the streets are full of people. It feels like the middle of the day. The crowds criss-cross through the dim pools of light cast by candles in the windows and the crackling thunder-lamps on the ends of their tall poles, walking as easily as people in La Luminosa walk in the bright sunshine. They can obviously see as clearly in the dark as I can.

As I'm trying to decide which way to go, a flash of colour catches my eye, another one of the strange bright spots against the dark stone and the dark cloth of the people's clothes. This time it's a lady with a little black dog on the end of a bright rose-pink leather lead. Its hair is so long it drags along the ground. Its owner urges it on without giving me a second glance.

I decide to follow them, the pink lead flashing in and out of my sight as the dog weaves across the pavement in front of the lady's dark skirts. I keep a respectful distance. I wonder where they're going.

The dog lady leads me around a corner, the buildings draw back and I find myself at the edge of a large open square, a lot like the Piazza del Fiero. Black and white cobblestones are laid out in a pattern of swirling lines and circles. They flow from the centre of the square, where a tall statue of a man stands surrounded by a bed of beautiful flowers that appear to be glowing from within.

I cross the square and gaze at the flowers. They look like bright white tulips, shaped like little lanterns on the ends of long black stems. They really are glowing! They seem familiar. I'm sure I'm supposed to know their name  …  but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Then I glance up at the statue and laugh out loud.

‘Master!'

The man on the tall plinth is unmistakably Annunzio di Lombardi. Except instead of being old and stooped, he's middle-aged, tall and strong-looking. The statue is made of black stone, apart from a bright gold circlet on his head.

I walk around the plinth until I find some writing, engraved and embossed with the same gold that gleams on di Lombardi's head.

‘Oscurita  … ' I smile, enjoying the feel of the name on my lips.

I turn away from the statue and set off down another street, following a man with bright yellow stars embroidered on his tunic. We cross a bridge over the dark canal and I stop for a few minutes to watch the reflections of the hundreds of candles in the windows of the buildings glittering in the water. I nod to a pair of guards dressed in glinting silver armour engraved with swirling patterns like the trails of ink in water.

Walking alongside the canal, I find a little group of peddlers' stalls. They seem to sell anything and everything – silver jewellery, books, birds in cages and strange-looking food and drink.

I stop by a stall that sells fruit, though it's not like any fruit that grows in La Luminosa. One is the shape of a pear, but has the deep red colour of ripe strawberries, and when I reach out gingerly to touch the surface, it's fuzzy and soft like a peach. I pick it up and give it a very gentle squeeze. I bet it's juicy and delicious.

My mouth waters. But I haven't got any money, or any way to barter for the beautiful fruit. I can't help myself as I bring the fruit to my mouth and take a bite. Sweet juice flows into my mouth – it tastes like pears, peaches and strawberries all mixed together. It's the most delicious thing I've ever eaten.

‘Oi!'

I look up just in time to duck as the peddler leans over the stall and makes a grab for my shoulder.

‘Little thief!' the peddler yells, shoving a customer aside, marching out from behind the cart.

I back away, my cheeks burning. ‘I'm so sorry  …  I  … ' I toss the fruit back at the peddler, turn and launch into a run.

‘Guards!' the peddler shouts. The crowd joins in the cry as I pound along the canalside. ‘Guards, thief! Stop her!'

Glancing back, I catch a flash of glinting silver as the guards on the bridge begin to run after me; I put on a burst of speed. A pair of men in heavy clanking armour will never outrun me! The next bridge isn't guarded and I sprint up and over it, ducking into the first alley I see on the other side.

Eventually my breath starts to rasp painfully in my throat and I stagger to a stop. A stitch stabs into my side and I gasp and lean against a wall.

I look around, intrigued. This seems like a more expensive part of the city – it's a lot like the part of La Luminosa where Filpepi's studio was, with its big houses set back from the road. The closest one has a garden in front of it, just like Filpepi's, where trees bend their branches together to form an arch – though these trees aren't the flowering orange trees that grow in La Luminosa. They're thin, black-barked and without leaves, more like wrought-iron statues than real plants.

Angela once told me the best cure for a stitch was to keep walking, so I clamp my hand to my side and take a few steps down the road, hoping that by doubling back I will avoid the guards. I want to see the statue of di Lombardi again, and I wonder if I can find it – or if maybe the city will arrange itself for me so I stumble across it? I set off, guessing which way the square must be.

But as I round a corner, half-expecting to find myself on the edge of the square, or at least back in the maze of streets and canals near the abandoned courtyard, I look up and see something quite amazing.

On the other side of a wide, black canal looms a magnificent castle. A bridge leads to the main gate, and banners flutter from its towers, just like the Palace of La Luminosa. But instead of the logical, geometric towers and courtyards of the palace, this castle is as thin and dark as one of the black trees in the garden – it seems to meander upwards, little round towers springing off the central building at random. The lightning in the thunder-lamps here casts flickering blue and green shadows between the dark stones, and the roof glitters an oily blue-green-black colour. The banners carry an eight-pointed silver star on a background of deep purple.

I gape at the castle, stunned by the strange beauty of it. And there's something else  …  it seems so familiar. As if I've been here, or dreamed this before. I have to get inside!
I can
almost see the twisting corridors and spiral staircases, curved alcoves, carved black wood doors.

But before I can take a step towards the bridge over the canal, two heavy hands land on my shoulders. Twisting, I try to get away, but it's no good.

‘Got you, you little thief!' The peddler from the fruit stall yanks me around to face him, grinning smugly. The two guards are behind him, their silver armour glinting and their faces stern.

‘This is the girl?' one says, grabbing my arm so tightly that I wince, but I can't pull it away without twisting it right out of my shoulder.

‘Yeah, that's the one!'

I flush with shame. I want to explain that I've never done anything like that before – I don't know why I did it now – but I get the feeling that trying to explain won't end well.

‘Off to the dungeons with you,' says the other guard, and pushes me forward so I stumble over my own feet. But I don't feel cross, or even very scared, despite the ache in my arm and the wicked-looking obsidian blades on the end of the guards' spears. Oddly, I just feel pleased – after all, I wanted to see the inside of the castle, and now I'm going to!

I put up no resistance as the guards drag me over the bridge, across the main courtyard and through a small, dark archway into a dim passage that seems to curve down in a long, smooth spiral.

The passage suddenly opens up on one side and I can see into a large courtyard. A flash of deep blue catches my eye as we pass, and I gasp.

The Baron da Russo. He's standing there, wearing his black cloak with the blue trim showing as it folds over his shoulder. He doesn't see me – he's bowing low to a lady in a purple dress embroidered with twisting veins of black and silver.

The guards steer me on. Wrenching myself out of the guards' grip, I spin to run back to the courtyard. The Baron is still there. This time I notice the woman's crown, a delicate silver tiara studded with tiny diamonds that glimmer like stars when she moves. And her face  …  there's something familiar about it. Her dark brown hair is smooth and glossy and caught up in an elaborate twist over one shoulder, but if it was loose and messy, and she was about twenty-five years younger  … 

I frown. The woman looks a lot like
me
.

I start to yell a warning, but the guard clamps his hand over my mouth and drags me away. I flail my arms, trying to grab on to a plinth in a stone alcove to stop the guards from dragging me along the passage, but my fingers curl around something that comes away in my hand. The guards hold me tight between them and shove me forward, but now I let them. I'm looking down at the thing I've picked up. It's a bracelet, with engraved flowers twining around the surface and a clasp – but it's tiny, as if it was made for a baby. As I look at it, my hand tingles, and then the tingling gets worse and worse – terrible pins and needles sending shooting twinges up my arm  … 

And then Bianca woke up.

The piercing light of sunrise was falling on her face and the sky outside the window was awash with pink and gold.

Bianca wriggled and turned over. Her right hand was still tingling and she flexed her fingers underneath her pillow. She sighed, and it turned into a yawn. She must have been asleep for hours, but she was exhausted, as if she had really been running around a city all night. If only the Baron hadn't appeared again, it would have been a good adventure.

She felt so at home there –
Oscurita
, she remembered with a smile. It was a good name. It felt as if she'd known it all her life.

There was still an odd, cold feeling in the fingers of her right hand. She must've numbed it during the night by lying on it for too long. She sat up and brought it out from under the pillow.

Something glinted, tucked between her fingers. She froze, her heart suddenly hammering. Slowly, she raised the little silver bracelet so it caught the pink dawn rays. It was the child's bracelet, the one she'd seen in the dark city  …  in Oscurita. It'd left an imprint of twining flowers across the inside of her fingers where she'd been clutching it.

‘It wasn't a dream,' Bianca whispered, turning the bracelet round and round in her fingers. She could only have been sleepwalking – but then how did she get back here? Excitement fluttered in her stomach. What if it was some kind of  …  magic? Did this mean there was a real lady with a face like Bianca's? Did it mean the Baron da Russo was with her, weaving her into his web of lies and treachery? Terror shot through her.

I have to get back. I have to warn her!

But how do you get back to a place that's only half real?

***

The sun rose and glowed more fiercely in the sky as Bianca painted furiously, dipping her brush again and again into her palette of black, grey and blue paint. First she sketched out the lines of an Oscurita building, with a doorway and a thunder-lamp crackling in a window. Then she laid down blocks of colour, patterns of light and shade – mostly shade. The maid knocked and walked in, intending to get Bianca's clothes ready for the day, but Bianca waved her away. She was adding some of the details now, the lights and the blue shadows. She uncorked a tiny vial of
lux aurumque,
the glowing golden oil that added the final, magic ingredient to any paint, and quickly mixed up an
ether
. As the paint turned transparent in the copper bowl, Bianca smiled to herself, amazed at how quickly she'd mastered some of di Lombardi's magical paints.

The great bell of the palace chapel led a chorus of church bells from all over the city just as Bianca finished painting the
ether
onto the handle. She felt it swell and turn solid under her brush. It was ten o'clock: she'd missed breakfast, and she really ought to be getting over to Filpepi's studio, to start her first day as Mistress Bianca.

She held up the magical paintbrush and whispered, ‘Hidden rooms, secret passages, second city.' The paintbrush unfolded its secret key and she slipped it into the painted lock. ‘Come on, come on. Take me back to Oscurita,' she whispered.

The door opened, but it wasn't the dark city on the other side. Sighing, she pushed the door wide. She'd created another entrance into the secret passages. A few days ago she would have been cartwheeling with joy – but now, all she really felt was foolish.

I was stupid to think it would be that easy
. Bianca closed the painted door, lifted the canvas from the easel and then threw a dustsheet over it.

She shook herself. She had things to do today – behave like a master artist. She hadn't asked for this duty, but the Duchess herself had given it to her. She couldn't just abandon it for a world she'd only seen in her dreams. She tugged the strings of her bodice tight and knotted them behind her back. It was her first day as the head of both of the greatest studios in La Luminosa, and she was already late.