Nights of Villjamur

FIVE

‘I’d like a room – just for the night, please,’ Randur said.

‘A room?’

‘Yes, a room. For the night.’ He fluttered his long eyelashes at the landlady, pushed a lock of glossy hair back in order to gaze at her more intensely, but she kept on peering down at the register.

‘One night.’ She was old enough to be his mother – old enough, but not actually, so it was all right by him. You could tell she had once been a beautiful girl – her eyes showed you that, not so much a spark within them, but definitely something to provoke wild rumination. Short brown hair, good skin, a decent figure: not too much, not too little. Not that he really cared – he could enjoy any shape of woman. Most ages, too. Her white blouse, unbuttoned to reveal cleavage like a bad cliché, she made the most of what she had. Randur made the most of it too. Made sure she saw him looking. He gave her a smile, all teeth and soft eyes, trying to suggest there were things she needed to know about herself.

‘Well, we’re pretty busy at the moment… but I’ll see what I can do.’ She turned with something he took and hoped to be a grin, walked away from the bar.

It was a crowded but clean bistro-tavern located on the second level of Villjamur. The furnishing was wooden throughout, tables were shiny from polishing, and it was crammed with equine decor: horse shoes, parers, rasps, farrier tools, riding boots on the higher shelves. Randur guessed the landlady was an admirer of horses, or a fan of horse riders. He noticed the whips.

Now there’s a thought.

As Randur sipped his apple juice, he glanced about. He wanted to listen in on conversations, to discover what people talked about in Villjamur, to maybe capture the mood of the city. If you wanted to charm your way up the social ladders, you had to know what the main concerns of the local people were. You could perhaps learn something that way, because whatever image a city presented in the history books, it was the ordinary people who delineated the depth and character of a place, ended up moulding the outsider’s judgement and experiences.

‘… It’s possible we won’t see our Ged ever again,’ a middle-aged woman confided to her friend. ‘And Dendu’s going to have to quit his work just to stay in the city. I’m not sure what we’ll do…’

‘… Well, we’re very lucky. I haven’t seen my own child for ten years. But, I’m nearest family, so she can come to the city to stay with me, you see. And her partner, too…’

A smartly dressed man at a nearby table glanced up as a lady of around the same age approached him and asked, ‘Is anyone using this chair?’ He shook his head, stood up as she sat down at the same table, then commented something about the weather as he lowered himself again slowly. Randur wondered how many people of his own age he’d ever seen make that polite gesture. Too few in this city, at least: maybe younger people felt threatened in some way. Or, perhaps, when people reached ‘a certain age’, they felt themselves to be a dying breed, and considered it best if they stuck together. Either way, it was sweet to still see such courtesy enacted.

There was ubiquitous conversation about the Freeze, how the temperature was falling further. Always talk of the weather, but he also heard gossip regarding some of the outer islands of the Empire. And chatter about cultists acting strangely…

He focused immediately on the latter conversation.

‘… You shouldn’t hang ’round there, you know. Cultists is bad news.’

‘But there were purple flames sparking from whatever he was holding, I’m telling ya,’ a swarthy lad explained to someone Randur took to be his father. There was something vaguely bird-like about their appearance, something similar about the nose.

‘Anyway, this wasn’t near any of those temples of theirs.’

‘Just steer clear,’ the older man said. ‘I’ve never trusted them, or their damn relics. All stupid magic if you ask me.’

The landlady returned. ‘You’re in luck. We’ve got a room. It’s right next to mine, so try not to keep me awake.’

Randur leaned closer and whispered, ‘If you promise not to keep me awake.’

‘You outer-island boys,’ she said, waving her hand dismissively, repressing a grin. ‘You’re all the same. Come on then, bring your bags, and I’ll show you the way. What’s your name?’

‘Randur Estevu.’ He scrambled after her. ‘So, I take it you like riding?’

A simple room – just a bed and a table and a chair. Some shoddy reproductions of island art on the walls. The window looked out at the rear of the building, which he actually preferred, as he didn’t like the idea of being woken early by morning traders heading for irens.

He didn’t bother unpacking much, as he derived an almost masochistic pleasure from having the entire contents of his life contained in a few small bags. It offered him a freedom he’d never before known. The idea that you could get up and go anywhere, at any time. What was more, he was living someone else’s life. And he was living that one near the edge.

After a lunch of fish and root vegetables, he wandered aimlessly for a while, just absorbing the flavour of Villjamur. He felt a sense of melancholy about the people of the busy city. That wasn’t surprising considering they were going to be confined more or less as prisoners here in order to have the best chance of staying alive through the ice. Families were being either torn apart or reunited, jobs were being lost, and people talked about a ‘Caveside’ where most of the inhabitants would end up living. But few people ever seemed to speak of cultists.

He would have to ask someone.

‘Excuse me, madam,’ he addressed an elderly woman with a basket of fish, ‘I’m trying to find a cultist.’

Her eyes turning ferocious, she spat at him as she walked away. After another couple of such incidents, he realized that cultists were generally not much liked, but, finally, a little girl was prepared to answer his question.

‘You’ll find them on the level just before you reach Balmacara. Best to ask more directions up there.’

Randur smiled at the somewhat grubby child, and gave her a couple of Drakar, thinking she might spend them more wisely than himself.

He walked on.

A black-feathered garuda with clipped wings was slumped in a doorway, rags across his legs, nervously smoking a roll-up of arum weed, and in front of his feet was a hat and a sign asking for donations for an ex-soldier. As he passed, Randur flipped him a couple of coins, and the bird-man was grateful, creating shapes in a hand-language that Randur couldn’t comprehend.

‘Really, it’s OK,’ Randur mumbled, wondering what happened to those who offered service to the Empire?

Around the next corner, two men stepped out from an alleyway. They wore brown tunics, heavy boots, no cloaks, and had a dirty look to them, as if they slept on the streets. He guessed them both to be around their thirties, but you couldn’t be sure.

‘Fuck you staring at me for?’ one of them snarled.

‘Sorry,’ Randur mumbled.

‘Hey, gay boy. Nice shirt. Expensive, yeah?’

Randur felt suddenly conscious of his clothing: well-sewn black breeches, white shirt with all those traditional Folke cuts. A fine cloak on top. Did people in this city really object to men being stylishly dressed?

‘Can tell by your accent you’re not from around here,’ one of the men said, approaching. ‘So no one will notice if you disappear – isn’t that so?’

‘That’s right. Disappear,’ the other man echoed. ‘Happens a lot round here.’

Randur noticed the edge of a blade protruding from under a sleeve. ‘What’s this about?’ He stepped back.

‘Money,’ one of them said.

‘Ah, well, I can’t help you there.’

The street was now empty save for the three of them, the rattle of sleet having become more prominent over the last few minutes. The ambience seemed like a fight premonition.

‘An expensive dresser like you, I’m sure you’ve got something on you,’ the other said. ‘A Lordil or a Sota would do us fine.’

‘Ah, and I thought he didn’t speak, this one,’ Randur said.

‘I’m warning you,’ the man snarled, wiping drizzle from his face.

Short blades were produced, glinting weakly in the poor light.

‘I really haven’t got anything on me,’ Randur took off his cloak, scrunched it under one arm.

The first man lunged forward, swiping his weapon across Randur’s midriff. Just as quickly Randur leaned away, took steps to one side, lightly. Then two to the other side. A dance manoeuvre modified for duelling.

‘Come here, you bastard,’ the man said, enraged now, swiping repeatedly. He was grunting with frustration each time Randur slipped out of his reach.

Taunting them physically was fun. Made them lose a little control, become angrier. They stepped away from each other, coming at him from separate sides. Randur allowed himself to drop to the floor as they attacked simultaneously, then he kicked one behind the knees, watching him fall as Randur spun away.

‘Look,’ Randur said as he wiped his wet hands on his breeches. ‘Let’s just leave it here, and you can keep some dignity.’

‘Cunt,’ one of the men yelled, and lashed again. His blade flashed across Randur’s knuckles on one hand, instantly drawing blood. Randur stepped back, kicked the knife from his opponent’s hand, then kicked the man in the groin. The attacker collapsed in agony to the ground. As the other now made to attack, Randur ducked expertly, grabbed the arm holding the knife, spun him around and brought the arm down over his knee with a crack of bone. The man screamed in pain.

Randur retrieved the knife.

Sleet meanwhile became drizzle became rain sparkling off the cobbles. Randur was now drenched, his black hair limp, shirt clinging to his lean body, his cloak heavy with moisture. He glanced down at it dubiously, reached down again to rip a section off one of the men’s cloaks, wrapped it around his stinging knuckles.

His attackers lay unresisting on the ground.

He walked away, flipping up the collars on his cloak.

Each of the lower levels of Villjamur looked much the same, but on the higher levels the buildings became taller, narrower, somehow more elegant. They were also built of a lighter-coloured stone – limestone rather than granite. Wealthier people lived here, or at least they were certainly better dressed.

A smartly turned-out man in a red cloak walked by.

‘Excuse me,’ Randur said, ‘you don’t know where I could find a cultist, do you?’

The man gave him a cold stare, but answered politely. ‘There’s a bistro, just up there, near one of their temples. You’ll likely find a couple of them drinking there.’

Randur approached the bistro: a narrow, white-painted building that appeared to tilt to the right. He pressed his face against the roughly made window, but the glass was too steamed up.

He entered to find the place packed mostly with men. Several of the chairs had cloaks draped over the backs, a counter at the rear was serving pastries, and there was the faint smell of perfume from the only woman, sitting at a table by the door. He walked up to the counter. The girl behind it was short, blonde, pretty – a suitable target if he didn’t have other things on his mind. He ordered a drink made from juniper berries, like they used to make on Folke.

As the girl handed it to him he said, ‘Thanks. I love your hair.’

‘Really?’ she said, eyes round and wide.

‘Stunning.’ Sure that he had her attention, he persevered. He leaned forward over the counter to gaze at her absorbedly. ‘Look, miss, I don’t suppose you know of any cultists around here, do you? I’m new to the city, and it’s quite important.’

‘There’s two, over there in the corner. Another just here. One there.’ She pointed them out in turn. ‘But if you ask me, you should stay away from them.’

‘Thanks.’ He handed her a Lordil for the drink. ‘Don’t worry about the change.’

He studied the various figures she had pointed out. The one seated nearest to the counter was of slender build, with a pointed black beard that enhanced his well-carved features. Randur stepped up to his table. ‘This seat taken?’

The man stared at his food. ‘If no one’s sitting there, then I’m guessing not.’

Randur sat down with his drink, took a sip. Beneath his black shirt, a small medallion glistened. On it was a strange symbol, two letter Cs, one reversed so that the curve touched what was a diamond between them.

‘Girl at the counter mentioned you’re a cultist,’ Randur said.

The man looked up. ‘What’s that to you?’

Randur reached into his pocket and brought out the same coin he had been given all those years ago on Folke. He placed it alongside the man’s plate. The man instantly stopped eating. Randur continued sipping his drink.

The cultist regarded him acutely. ‘And where would an island boy get hold of a coin like that?’

‘It was given to me once by one of your lot,’ Randur explained. ‘Said her name was Papus.’

‘She’s not,’ the man replied firmly, ‘one of my lot, as you put it.’ Something about the way he said it suggested that these cultists weren’t so much the close bunch everyone made out.

‘You’re not a cultist, then?’ Randur enquired.

‘Oh, yes, but she isn’t a part of my sect.’ He took another bite.

‘Right.’ Randur stretched his hand forward to take back the coin.

The cultist stared at his recent wound. ‘Been in a fight?’

‘Wasn’t my choice,’ Randur muttered, bringing his arm off the table.

‘Country boy ought to watch himself in this city,’ the cultist said.

‘I can look after myself.’

‘Everyone says that. But, no one really can. What’s your name, kid?’

‘Randur Estevu.’

‘Well, Randur Estevu, I’ll tell you something for free.’ The cultist rose from his seat. ‘There’s a temple at the end of this road with a double door made of Quercus wood. Knock hard on that, show them your little coin, and you may find you’re in luck.’

Randur stood up, offered his hand to shake. ‘Thanks, um… Sorry, I didn’t get your name.’

‘That’s because I didn’t tell you.’ The cultist slung on his cloak and stepped out of the bistro.

With a free hour ahead, her last appointment having not shown up, Tuya sat down to paint. Inspired by the current mood of the city, she was starting afresh. She wanted to paint something fantastical that spoke about the people of the city feeling trapped in their homes. Perhaps she would paint a ycaged bird of sorts.

She was wearing no clothes because, that way, there would be nothing to spill paint on except her unprotected skin. Similarly, she pinned her thick red hair up. Sitting herself on a stool, she tilted the easel so that she could look out of her window, across the architecture of the city, and she carefully noted the spires, the bridges, the pterodettes arcing across the sky. Water fizzed off the rooftops and suddenly the bell tower rang. She felt serene – all these pieces of the city coming together in a comforting collusion.

She applied blue paste to the small canvas using a knife and a wide brush. The paint was her own concoction. Using local pigments, she blended this paste with an ingredient that only she knew of – in Villjamur, at least. A cultist had given the secret to her before he died, having been a client of hers, when he fancied someone normal. The substance was grainy, opaque, and he had instructed her carefully on its qualities, as rare as any other ancient relic the cultists used, perhaps originally ground by the Dawnir themselves. Or so the myth went. And myths went rather further than they should have in Villjamur.

From time to time she closed her eyes, let the cold breeze tickle against her body until it aroused her again. She concentrated hard, took her mind away from what she was drawing in order to perceive it in a different way. Life was all about perception, and art was important to her. Maybe it wasn’t to the people who walked past her window or used her sexually, but for her the least chance to express herself became simply wondrous.

The creature she envisaged began to take form.

It was something like a pterodette – same scales and batlike wings – but it possessed a noticeably mammalian body. It was blue simply because that was the pigment she had chosen today. Though it stood no higher than a child, she’d built a strong musculature into its physique, so much so that it could probably break down a door.

It wasn’t until the bell had struck again that she felt satisfied that she had finished for the moment. It wasn’t meant to be precise yet, but would eventually take true form.

She stood up from her stool, stepped closer to the window. Sunlight was reflecting wildly off the Astronomer’s Glass Tower.

Turning, with the breeze at her back, she regarded her painting again. It was definitely coming to life. The blue creature was almost pulsing, as if drawing real air into its specious body. She now began to paint in earnest the background, the life-source of the creature, summoning abstract ideas that would feed its soul. Powerful urges thronged in her mind, a desire to fly off into the distance, to explore the Boreal Archipelago, this land of the red sun. Maybe to know freedom, of a sort.

Suddenly the creature began to peel itself off the canvas in fast, vacillating movements. It bubbled upwards, shook itself…

And fell to the floor.

Tuya laughed and cooed as she picked her creation up and placed it on the windowsill. It crawled along, then stood up properly on four legs. Its wings spread. Tuya gave a cry of delight. She didn’t know how she made it happen each time and, if she was honest, she didn’t really care, because her art didn’t just reflect life – it created it.

The creature flapped its new-found wings, then threw itself out the window. A gust transferred it to a new current, and it drifted across the spires and away from Villjamur, leaving her once again with that same sense of loneliness.

Randur found the door eventually, an inconspicuous entrance in an inconspicuous street. Certainly nothing to suggest it concealed a haven for cultists. He might have expected some kind of inscriptions in the pale stonework surrounding the door, some elaborate decoration, something to indicate an elite building associated with the Order of the Dawnir, the oldest and largest sect of all. A nice plaque even. There was merely bare stone and a single hanging basket with thrift sagging over the sides. A city guard on horseback was riding by, and there was something in his brief glance that made Randur feel guilty.

He knocked on the door.

The hatch opened, exposing a man’s face to the daylight. ‘Yes?’

Randur held up the coin. ‘I’m looking for someone called Papus.’

The man’s gaze was fixed on the coin. ‘Hang on.’

The door opened with the doorman gesturing for him to come in. The doorman wore a black cloak, underneath which Randur could see a dark, tight-fitting uniform, almost military in its design.

‘Wait here,’ the man instructed, and walked away.

The room was dark, but Randur could make out elaborate wood panelling, a few framed sketches on the wall. Incense burning gave a strangely comforting feeling about the room. It wasn’t unlike the church of Bohr that had been built on Folke in the name of the Empire.

The man shortly returned with a chubby blonde woman dressed similarly. The pair of them searched Randur for weapons, then sat him down on a wooden stool.

They asked his business in Villjamur. And questioned his request to see Papus.

He held up the coin again, explaining how she had given it to him. The pair looked at each other.

‘She’s busy right now, but if you want to wait here, we’ll enquire if she can see you sometime,’ the woman said.

They left him slumped on the chair in that cold dark room. As his eyes became accustomed to the light, he had started to see the framed sketches in more detail. Diagrams of devices that he supposed to be relics, strange lettering surrounding each. He couldn’t read Jamur as well as he could speak it, but this must be some older form of the language.

He waited there for the best part of an hour before he was finally summoned.

He was led into a large stone chamber that obviously served as an office, judging by the books and papers that littered the shelves and floor as if it hadn’t been tidied in years. Tiptoeing around the clutter, he was told to sit on a chair by the large pointed-arch window. It seemed these were the chambers of Papus. The two leading him used the bizarre term in reference to her: the Gydja of the Order of the Dawnir. A bit much, really…

As he was left alone, staring through the window, a strange blue creature caught his eye. It flew down from one of the balconies on some higher level, arced awkwardly out of sight, then back into view briefly before banking up to one side.

The ancient chamber had a musky smell, with broken bits of masonry here and there. He knew the city was old, but had never imagined buildings like this would still be standing. Everywhere, there were books littering the shelves and even the floor. Mouldy with their broken spines, pages stuck together, sprouting sheets of paper exposing diagrams and equations to the air. There were pieces of equipment too, strange unrecognizable masses of metal, mechanical-looking insects, precise and advanced shapes.

Seeing all of this accumulated wisdom generated a feeling of inadequacy about his own education. He knew he was intelligent, but here was a more structured knowledge: ancient languages, history, the names of rare flora and fauna, whereas he mostly knew about swords and dancing and women. He had his wits, though, and you couldn’t find every answer in a book – some were out in the real world.

The door opened, and a woman stepped in, garbed in the same outfit as the other two cultists. Her hair was darker than he remembered, and she was leaner.

‘Who wants to speak to me?’ Her voice was deep, her blue eyes dazzling.

Randur walked over to her, drew out the coin.

She took it and studied it. ‘Yes, I remember. Folke, 1757. You’re the little boy that saved me.’ She handed it back, and gave him something like a smile. The severe lines on her face suggested that this was a rare gesture. ‘You’ve grown, I see.’

‘It happens,’ Randur murmured, placing the coin back in his pocket. ‘You said, at the time, if I ever needed a favour to come and find you.’

‘You have had a successful journey then, so far.’ Papus walked over to the table, and began to shuffle some papers. ‘Well, what is the favour?’

‘I need to find a cultist who can stop someone from dying, or else bring them back from the dead.’

Regarding him seriously, she put down the papers she was holding and took a step closer.

‘I did save your life,’ Randur said lamely. He thought at this point it might be an appropriate reminder.

‘Yes, so you did – but you’re making an incredibly serious request, you realize? I mean, why would you want to live forever?’

‘It’s not for me. It’s my mother.’

‘Oh, I see.’ Papus perched on one end of the table. ‘Could you just wait here for a moment?’

‘I’m used to that by now.’

Papus reached under her cloak with her right hand-

– and vanished in a flash of purple light.

Randur jumped up, as if scalded, and stepped towards the table. He scanned the heaps of books and papers as if they’d offer any clues. ‘Now how the hell did she do that?’

Randur was back in the seat by the window, trying to fathom one of the books that he clearly didn’t understand. He decided that he liked the diagrams aesthetically, however.

The door opened. Papus re-entered.

‘I see you’re using the door now?’

‘Look,’ Papus said, ‘I do owe you a major favour, and I’ve talked it over with a few of my colleagues here, but I fear I must tell you that what you’ve asked for isn’t really where our expertise lies.’

Maybe he was naive, but this was getting frustrating. ‘You’re magicians, aren’t you?’

‘No,’ she said, briefly.

‘No?’

‘No, we’re much more than that. It isn’t simple magic. There’s a whole craft involved. We devote years to studying the subtleties of our technology.’

It sounded like a speech recited many times before.

‘You made a promise. So what d’you suggest?’

‘Well, I’m referring you now to another sect. You’ve got to understand that we normally have nothing whatsoever to do with them. I’m not placing you in any direct danger, but you must be particularly careful. I’m only doing this, remember, because of your service to me all those years ago. I would not be doing it for any other reason.’

‘They sound pretty unsavoury,’ Randur said. ‘I’m not sure I like where this is going.’

‘Let’s just say that this is a tough time for the orders. Relationships are strained.’

‘So I gather your lot and this other group don’t like each other.’

‘That is putting it mildly.’ Papus laughed. ‘But I’m now handing you over to them, and that is my favour to you in exchange. I don’t think you’ll ever understand just how big a favour it is.’ She paused, then explained. ‘We have radically different ways of thinking.’

‘How so?’ Randur enquired, noticing the anxiety in her expression.

‘They – the Order of the Equinox, they’re called – like to… take the world apart. We prefer to put it back together. That’s as easy as I can make it for you.’

‘Make it harder,’ Randur said. ‘I’m curious.’

‘They want to take the world to pieces, to find out all its secrets. To know how everything works, and they won’t let anything like ethics get in the way. They’re ruthless, cruel and destructive. Whereas I like to unify, to keep order, observe a high level of morals. We give our help to the Council of Villjamur, and the Emperor, whenever they need us. But, nevertheless, it is to the Order of the Equinox that I must take you, if you’re ever to find that which you seek.’

‘There are two sides to every coin.’ Randur had the token in his hand again. ‘How do I know that you’re not just finding an easy way of getting rid of me?’ He flipped the coin in the air so that it shimmered in the light.

She grabbed it even as it span, and handed the coin back to him. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll take you to meet them.’

‘Who exactly?’ Randur said, his head tilted slightly.

‘Dartun Súr,’ Papus replied, turning to leave the room. ‘He’s the Godhi of the Order of the Equinox.’

‘Means bugger all to me,’ Randur muttered.

She said sharply, ‘It will, soon enough.’

‘One question,’ Randur said. ‘What was that thing you took from the man who was trying to kill you, all those years ago?’

‘That’s not important now. It was a weapon, it was meant to hurt people, but nothing fancy, nothing world-changing. Nothing prophetic. We just didn’t want it in his hands. As I said before, Randur, we’re the ones with morals and ethics. We’re just trying to keep order, to safeguard things for the benefit of the Empire.’

Through the streets of Villjamur once again.

Down a route he wouldn’t have noticed existed. Through constricted alleyways, along hidden bridges. Much about the city had faded, died – disused chambers and archways, remnants from another time with no place here any more. As they passed under passageways he could hear carts being hauled above, and if he looked up through drain holes he could see people walking. Down here there were different styles of brickwork, crumbling stone where moss and lichen had colonized profusely near constantly dripping water.

‘You know,’ Randur said, ‘the people who run this city could always ship those refugees from outside and set them up right here. It might be squatting, but still, if it means they don’t die…’

She looked at him dismissively and Randur knew when to shut up. Papus gave the air that she knew a great deal, and would put down with great skill anyone who got a bit too clever with her.

They finally arrived at an underground chamber accessed by a door that you could barely see. Papus knocked, then turned to face him. ‘These are the only cultists who can help you in what you’re looking for.’

The door opened. A bald man in a grey cloak stood there to greet them.

‘This is him,’ Papus explained to the doorman, an anxious look on her face. She then walked away quickly, and Randur found himself visiting his second cultist sect of the day.

‘So you see what I was promised.’ Randur was sitting across a stone table from the man called Dartun Súr, who was sprawled in the chair opposite. ‘And that’s why I was told you could help.’

The chamber exuded a wonderful smell that reminded Randur of some herbal wash worn by a girl he once knew. Otherwise the room was rather plain, with none of the carefully arranged relics, containers of strange liquids, preserved specimens, or crazy men with mad hair he might have expected.

Dartun leaned forward in his plush chair. He had an assessing gaze, and there was an unsettling, ageless look to those eyes. They shone too bright for the dim light. ‘An intriguing task, I’ll give you that. But quite doable.’

As an awkward silence stretched before them, Randur examined the man. Dartun was annoyingly handsome, with his square jaw, gently muscled physique. He had somehow even found some sunlight in this city to give his skin a healthy glow. Despite the greying hair, his looks remained youthful, and Randur placed him at around forty years, even though he gave the impression of being a more experienced man.

‘That’s a smart cloak you’ve got there,’ Randur said to break the silence – and thinking he’d look good in it himself, with a little customization. ‘Very dark. What colour’s that?’

‘Fuligin,’ Dartun replied. ‘That’s a colour darker even than black.’

Another period of reflection, and Randur said, ‘So, d’you think you can help me?’

‘Of course,’ Dartun replied, looking amused at the naive question. ‘That’s well within our talents. It’s one of my own areas of expertise, shall we say. No, my reflection on the matter is what can you do for us in return.’

Randur knew that the favour Papus had given him was to introduce him to Dartun. He would now have to come to some agreement of his own with this cultist leader. ‘Well, if it’s any help, I’m on my way to take employment in the household of the Emperor himself.’

‘Old Johynn’s place?’ Dartun said. ‘Now that’s certainly an interesting point. And what’ll you be doing there exactly?’

‘This and that,’ Randur replied coolly. This encounter was beginning to give him a sense of angst. He waited a moment before he asked the inevitable. ‘Would you want paying?’

‘A-ha! Now that, Randur Estevu, sounds more like it.’

‘I would’ve thought that, being cultists, you could get your hands on all the wealth you needed. And what would you need money for anyway?’

‘I love the way everyone assumes we can do anything, as and when we please. Our technology is rather specific, you see. And, precious though they are, relics don’t buy food or sustenance. I have an order to pay regularly: that’s what keeps people happy. No, money is useful indeed. I think to cover our time and costs for this task… say, four hundred Jamúns should do it?’

‘Four hundred!’ Randur stood up with shock. Stunned someone could assign a monetary value to such a request. Was that how they did things deep in the Empire? Where was the fairness in that? He locked eyes with Dartun, but could see that the cultist leader wasn’t a man to be argued with.

‘Well, what price would you put on a life, Mr Estevu?’ Dartun said.

Randur sat down again, feeling miserable. Four hundred Jamúns? An impossible sum. Calculating that a Jamún was worth ten Sota, each of which was worth fifty Lordils, he realized you could buy up most of the farms on Folke with that kind of money. It seemed utterly alien to price up a person’s life.

‘Don’t look too miserable,’ Dartun continued. ‘Just think about it, you’ll be ensconced in Balmacara, where there’re many wealthy people hanging about. I’m sure you can use your imagination in finding a way to ensure that some of that money comes your way. You’re a handsome lad, and you’ll find that being pleasing to the eye gives you a head start in these affairs.’

Randur ignored the man’s bluntness. He stared at the stone table nearby, at the small engravings around it, the runes. He wasn’t aware of how long he remained lost in thought, but when he looked up, Dartun was still grinning at him.

Randur said, ‘Is there a time limit on this sort of thing? I mean, say my mother passed away today, how long would it be before it gets too late to… you know, do whatever it is you can do?’

‘A fine question. Well, we experiment all the time, because progress is what I’m after. It’s what this entire order is after: to distil the essence of life, to discover just whatever it is that makes us all us. So far we’ve successfully reanimated a man who had died up to two years before we worked on him, although his mind wasn’t quite what it used to be. This is the result of generations of our research, Randur. We’re not just some iren trader trying to offload a stack of cheap tat.’

That was a relief to Randur. It provided some time for him to get hold of the four hundred Jamúns.

‘A deal?’ Dartun said.

‘Yeah, a deal.’

They shook hands.

‘Could I just ask one thing?’ Dartun folded his arms. ‘Why the hell d’you want to do this for your mother?’

A wave of nausea surged through Randur’s body, as his mind raced back to that night, to the one thing he would forever regret. He needed to repair the damage that his lack of thought and consideration had led to. He needed to prove himself as his mother’s son. After all, mothers brought you into the world. They then fed you, clothed you, showed you immeasurable kindness. They gave you everything they had. True, his mother was a bitter woman sometimes, but that wasn’t important. All that mattered to Randur, in retrospect, was that the one night she needed him, he had not been there.

He had failed her.

‘So,’ Randur said, ignoring the last question, ‘what… I mean, how will you manage this?’

‘Just leave that to the specialists, young man. Believe me, this isn’t the first time I’ve been approached to play about with the laws of the cosmos. I’ve been in Villjamur for… a lifetime. Women come asking to be made prettier, or slimmer, or younger. Men come asking me to increase their virility. I’ve had prostitutes ask me to stop the pain they suffer in their jobs, have their internal muscles numbed or senses stopped so doing their work does not hurt them. I’ve even had drug addicts crying out for help. I’ve been around a long time, and I’ve seen it all, and I say to them all – let me see your coin, and I’ll investigate if the technology exists.’

In a glass orb stationed in the corner of his primary workroom, Dartun watched the young man leave. The orb was linked to another on an external wall, surrounded by marbles as a decorative feature, and it displayed an exaggerated caricature slipping away along the backstreets of a black and white Villjamur.

So, this Randur wanted his mother to live a long time. Fine, that’s possibly simple enough – a few months or a year at the most. He might even make her outlive her son if he was lucky. Randur had some charm, some vague charisma that appealed to Dartun. He would help the lad, but knew that the treatments would not last, knew that it wasn’t a process good enough for himself. Dartun once possessed eternal life, thanks to the Ancients’ technology. Once a year he had injected himself with a serum generated by relic-energy, a relatively simple procedure considering what else he had achieved – but now he was dying.

He discovered that the Dawnir relic technology was beginning to fail him the day he cut himself with a razor. Some time ago now: there it was, a red line through his skin. Standing up against the mirror. Candle brought close to his face. A line of cut skin that filled quickly with blood. Red liquid leaked into the sink, little drops of his own death.

He was suddenly aware of so many things that could kill a person:

A back-hoofing horse.

Disenchanted young swordsmen with something to prove.

Mishandling a relic.

Poisoned food.

There were banshees waiting at every corner.

He gathered as many of the relevant relics as he could find, spent sleepless nights in distant places until he could figure out what was going on and so prevent his ageing, utterly convinced that he could find some solution.

Some cure for his forthcoming death.

And he hadn’t yet. At the time he wrote down his thoughts in a journal, wondering about the words lingering after he had gone:

So how is it that I can still communicate from beyond the grave? How can I talk to you now? Words on the page, no less. Is this how we live on, in these little gestures? These trails left throughout our own existence – a note here, a pissed-off lover there? Something poignant we said to someone. Advice we gave. A joke we told.

Little pieces of ourselves donated to the world.

Is this what makes me live eternally?

Spurred on by these thoughts, and by the visit of Randur, Dartun went deeper into his labs to look at the Shelley tanks.

A darkened room in the deepest corner of his order’s headquarters. To one side seven corpses were laid out, claimed from the streets of Villjamur by good old Tarr, but he had hopes for the ones in the Shelley tanks: they were not dead to begin with. The tanks were arranged in two rows, the bathtublike metal basins filled with regeneration fluids. Bodies lay submerged beneath, their lips touching underneath the surface of the water.

They were disturbed people, the mental patients, the radically disfigured, the severely disabled – people that Villjamur and the Jamur Empire did not wish to acknowledge, let alone look after. They had no opportunity to contribute to the Imperial system, and up until recently, they constantly stalked the backstreets with haunted looks on their faces.

He could imagine nothing worse than being forgotten about, than being shunned by every face that he ever looked at. One of the batch told him that when people would not speak to them, would not even look them in the eye, they may as well have been dead already. Do we rely on being noticed by other people to confirm that we are alive?

Dartun wanted to experiment on them: if he was successful, it would offer them a way out – if they could not die, would they be alive in the first place? He wanted to see if they could have their lives extended with his newly developed techniques. Then he could try them on himself.

Chemicals smeared the air.

Blindly, he lit a blue-glass lantern in one corner. Modified relics were submerged in each of one row’s tanks, a faint purple glow shimmered above them: it meant they were ready. Riddled with pangs of anxiety, he walked over to the first, raised up on a waist-high platform, and the light on his face made him quite aware of his reflection in the thick fluids. Bombarded with test formulas, these bodies faced toxic chemical structures that no ordinary person could survive a minute of, let alone several hours.

Turning off the relics within, one by one, the fluids began to drain through thick pipes, polluting somewhere deep within the city. As the liquid levels descended, a male body was revealed, glossy and slick, naked and scarred with traces of minor operations and major rewirings – Dartun’s attempt at preserving them. He plunged a syringe into its chest and within seconds it lurched and began to shudder violently. Its eyes opened and the figure clutched the air above its head, then gave a perversely bass baby’s cry.

Dartun was ecstatic, drunk on optimism – had this attempt been successful?

It suddenly collapsed back into the tank, shaking silently. Then ceased to move at all, as lifeless as a pre-op undead.

Another failure.

He sighed, and repeated the procedure with the five other Shelley tanks on this side of the room, each one eventually falling uselessly into death. They should have been preserved, their internals had been rewired to prevent decay. He could see nothing but the futility of life in his experiments, and again he became depressed and sad. These people had no other choice and surrendered their lives to him, and he had let them down.

He could not even tell if it was good enough to convert to one of the undead.

Dartun was enraged. With only the dead for company, he kicked things about the room, and when someone from his order came in to see what was going on, Dartun indignantly shoved him back out again. He knew he was being immature and unstable, but that’s what failure did to him. He hated it, hated that his own life was failing him.

Did anyone even think of their own death, or did they also assume the day would never come?

The days now seemed merely a heartbeat long.

All these failures had removed most of his options down to just the one. One decision, then, in honour of his recently acquired mortality: to push the limits of Dawnir technology to its fullest. If he was going to die, he wanted to do so as a legend – a name to be remembered – as a pioneer. There is so much in the world that he had spent his life detailing, and now he was going to put it into practice. And not only that, but he needed to find some supreme relics, some intense piece of technology. Because any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic – and he had run out of technology.

At least in this world.