The Dark City

8

“Now,” Flain said, “we must have a messenger to go between us and God.” The eagle said, “Let it be me.” But the eagle was too proud.

The bee-bird said, “Let it be me.” But the bee-bird was too vain.

The crow said, “Let it be me. I’m dark, an eater of carrion. I have nothing to be proud of.”

So Flain chose the crow, and whispered the secrets to it.

Book of the Seven Moons

IT WAS AMAZING. And infuriating. Three times now, Raffi had crossed the bridge. Each time he came back to where he’d started from.

“It’s impossible,” he muttered. “I mean, it’s not circular, it doesn’t turn! I don’t understand!”

Galen sat on the bank, legs crossed. He had pulled some orange fungi from the bole of a dead tree; now he was frying them in the small pan over a carefully smokeless fire.

“What have I taught you?” he said. “Understanding’s not enough. Understanding is from outside; merely a function of the mind.”

Raffi sighed. “I know.”

“To enter, that’s the secret. To become the bridge, to crawl into its sap, to sway with it, to rot over centuries as its heartwood rots. When you are the bridge you will know what the bridge knows. It takes time. A lifetime. And skill.”

Sullenly, Raffi sat down. Galen gave him a sharp glance.

“You know it but you don’t apply it. You’re lazy. Now think. How could the bridge be like this?”

Raffi was scowling at the sizzling mushrooms, counting the pieces. He said, “It could be a device of the Makers. Though it doesn’t look that old.”

Galen nodded, shaking the pan. Pig fat spat and crackled. “Possible. The entire bridge a relic. It could be older than it seems. The wood is from no tree I know. What else?”

Raffi swallowed. “Aren’t they ready yet?”

“Concentrate. What else?”

He forced himself to think. “A protection spell. Someone who lives on the other side.”

“Also possible. Here, take some now.”

Raffi jabbed his knife in and dragged out one slice carefully, waving it, eating it before it cooled so that it burned his mouth. He gulped down three more without speaking, then paused, with another on his knife.

“What about the Sekoi?”

“No.” Galen chewed slowly. “Not this. I have a feeling this is one of ours.”

“Ours.”

“The Order.”

Raffi sat up. “Someone alive?”

“Maybe.” Galen stared at the bridge, his eyes deep and dark. “There were men in the Order once with great skills, boy. They knew the mightiest relics—handled them every day. The power of the Makers lingered in them. They knew strange things—things that have never been written, maybe even the secrets of the Makers themselves. An old man once told me that when the Makers departed the world, they left behind a certain book of their deeds wrapped in black cloth. Only one man knew the script it was written in. The knowledge was taught, from one Archkeeper to the next, till Mardoc was betrayed. Maybe someone still knows it.”

He stood up abruptly, emptied the fat from the pan, and swirled it in the river, leaving a greasy trail. Then he tossed the pan down next to Raffi. “Pack up. You can carry it.”

“But where?”

“Over the bridge, where else?” Galen dragged his stick up and gave a sudden, sidelong grimace. “I may have lost my powers, but I still have my memory. Words may be enough, if you know the right ones.”

At the bridge end he took some red mud and crouched, making two images on the carved posts, waving Raffi back so he couldn’t see what they were. Then he pushed the tangled nettles back over them. Sucking the edge of one hand, he stood up.

Raffi watched. A tingle of excitement stirred in him. Already he could sense something new; it leaked from the hidden signs like a faint aroma.

Galen stood on the bridge and began to murmur. It was an old prayer, one Raffi had heard only once before, littered with the ancient half-understood words of the Makers. The keeper’s deep voice hoarsened as he spoke them; the air lightened, as if something in the mist curled up, retreated. Raffi came forward quickly.

Galen fell silent, listening. “Well?”

“It feels as though something’s changed.”

“Then I was right. Stay near.” They stepped out onto the bridge; it slipped and swayed under them. Mist swirled over the sedges; Raffi gripped the worn wooden chains, feeling the whole shaky contraption rattle under him. But this time it was different. As they crossed he saw trees loom out of the damp, not beeches but oaks—old, squat, hollow trees—and holly, and thorn, crowding right to the bank.

“You did it!”

Galen nodded. He stopped at the rotting end of the bridge and looked around. “But this isn’t the other bank. It seems to be some sort of island in the river. Tiny. And overgrown. No one’s been here for years.”

The disappointment was hard in his voice.

Crushing foxglove and bracken, they pushed their way in. The island had a silence that made Raffi uneasy. No birds sang. Above the gnarled branches the sky was blue, pale as eggshell. He realized the morning was half over.

Galen stopped. Before them was a house, or it had been, once. Now only a few fragments of wall rose among a thicket of elder; red wall, made of mud brick. A single window with a black shutter hung open. Trampling down nettles, Raffi clambered up and looked inside.

The room was a grove of trees. Oaks had splintered it; over the years its outline had faded under ivy, swathes of fungus on rotting wood. Half a chimney still rose up, weeds waving from its top.

A crash made him jump; Galen had forced his way in, through a cloud of seed and gnats.

Raffi followed. “Was it ours?”

“I should think so.”

“But why the protection spell? There’s nothing here to protect.”

Galen threw him a scornful look. “That’s what we’re meant to think. Go and get the pack.”

When he’d dragged it in, he found Galen kneeling at the hearth, brushing earth and worms from flat red bricks that were smashed and broken. The keeper eased his filthy nails in and forced one up; it moved with a strange hoarse gasp.

The earth underneath was smooth. Galen tugged the next stone out.

“What are you looking for?”

“Anything. The spell was strong. Something’s here worth guarding.”

“Relics!”

“Almost certainly.” Another tile came out and left a dark gap. Raffi crouched down quickly. He had felt the shock of power, faint but unmistakable. “Something’s in there!”

Galen widened the hole, reached in, and seemed to scrabble and dig with his fingers. He paused, then he pulled his hands out in a shower of soil.

He was holding a small packet, wrapped in layers of waxed cloth. Shuffling back, he turned and carefully laid it on a flat stone.

“Is it dangerous?” he asked without looking up.

“I don’t think so.” Raffi felt inadequate, the old feeling. “I don’t really know.”

Galen shot him a glance. Then he unwrapped the packet, his fingers working eagerly. Raffi knew he was taking a chance.

The cloth opened. They saw a small glass ball, and a piece of rough parchment made from some thin bark. This had rotted and, even as Galen opened it, infinitely carefully, pieces flaked off. Then it split, and he hissed with frustration.

The writing was faint, barely a scrawl, and some words had gone. Galen read it out grimly.

Kelnar, of the Order of keepers. To any others of the Sacred Way who still live and . . . come this way. The Watch . . . from the chalk hills. The Archkeeper Tesk died yesterday, they took him. They know I’m here, I have to go to find . . . I have little time. Understand this. I have seen the Crow. The Crow still lives in the dark places of Tasceron, in the House of Trees, deep underground, guarded with spells. I cannot say. . . .

Galen frowned. “This bit’s very broken. I can just get words: hollow, sacred, the messenger. Then, Find him. Find him. Prayers and blessings, brothers. Strength of the rock, cunning of the weasel be yours.”

He looked up. “That’s all.”

Carefully, he sifted the tiny scraps that had fallen, trying to find more.

“The Crow!” Raffi breathed the words in awe. “Still alive!”

“Tesk died twenty years ago. That dates it.”

But Raffi could see the news had shaken Galen, stirred him deep. He wanted to ask more, about what it meant, but instead he picked up the ball carefully. It was cold, heavy, quite transparent. He turned it in his fingers. Nothing came from it now. It was silent.

Galen took it from him. “A relic. But of what?” He muttered a prayer over it, a brief blessing. “Once I saw an image of the Crow carrying such a glass ball in his mouth. A most secret sign. But what it means, I never learned.”

“Did you know him?” Raffi asked.

“Kelnar? No. Not even the name. But the Order was great when I was a scholar. There were hundreds of keepers.”

“I wonder what happened to him.”

Galen scowled. He wrapped the ball back in the waxed cloth and, picking the letter up, read it again. Then he crushed it in his strong grip. Fragments of desiccated parchment gusted in the river breeze.

“Dead,” he said softly. “Like all of them.”

THEY DECIDED TO SLEEP on the island. With the spell on the bridge, and on the second bridge that led through a great bank of nettles to the far shore, there was nowhere safer. Raffi was too tired to think about what they had found. He drank hot tea made of nettle leaves and curled up hastily in a blanket in the shelter of the ruined wall.

His dreams were strange. He found himself walking endlessly over a grassy plain; a great city lay before him, its spires and towers rising over the horizon, but he could never reach it, never get any closer. And behind him his shadow stretched, long and black, and it danced and capered with glee, he knew it did, but every time he turned and looked at it, it kept still. Walking on, he felt the evil dance break out again behind him. There was nothing he could do about it.

When he woke, he lay with his eyes closed, sleepily, trying to remember. Dreams were important. Perhaps someone was following them. The Watch, he thought, in sudden terror. Or Alberic. But whoever it was, the bridge would stop him. Relieved, he knew that was true. No one else could cross that.

When he sat up, the sky was dim—the sun had set into red streaks toward the west. Cloud was building there, a sullen bank of weather; gnats and humflies gathered in twisting columns among the sedges.

He made the fire, boiled water, found some roots and a solitary duck’s egg. When Galen woke they said the long chant of the day solemnly, sitting under a willow, their hands spread. Then they ate. Galen halved the egg, though it was his by right. Spitting out some shell, he said, “We’ll stay here tonight and go on in the morning. It’ll be more dangerous, but we shouldn’t cross the burial hills at night.”

“Good,” Raffi muttered, his mouth full.

Galen sat back, folding his arms. Then he said, “Who is the Crow, Raffi?”

Raffi swallowed hastily. But he knew the ritual; the Litany of the Makers had always fascinated him.

“The Crow is the messenger. In the beginning the Crow flew between the Makers and God. He carried their words, written in gold letters. He spoke their words to God. Later, when the Makers left Anara and went to the seven sisters in the heavens, the Crow brought messages from them to the keepers and Relic Masters of the Order.”

“Is the Crow a bird?”

“The Crow is a bird and not a bird. He is a man and not a man.”

“Is the Crow a voice?”

“He is the voice of the Makers.”

Galen nodded. “Good. I’ve neglected the Litany with you lately.”

“Knowing the answers is one thing,” Raffi said. “I’m still not sure what they mean.”

Galen stirred the fire and laughed harshly. “Wise men have spent their lives on them. A four-year scholar knows nothing yet. The Crow is a spiritual being. He can take many forms. He’s real.”

“Have you ever . . . seen him?”

Galen looked up, surprised. Then he shrugged. “I was no older than you when the Order was destroyed. Such visions were far above me. What I’ve learned since then has been from Malik, my own master, from the Book, from the few of the Order I’ve met. The great visions are shattered, Raffi. Our knowledge is in pieces, in the ashes of burned libraries. Only in Tasceron might there be someone who knows the answers.”

Raffi looked up at the moons; Atterix and Pyra, almost together. “The man who wrote that letter—he says he saw the Crow.”

“A lot can happen in twenty years.” Galen’s eyes were shadows, but as he shifted, Raffi saw them glint strangely. “And yet the Crow is immortal. If we could find him, speak to him . . . If he could take our message to the Makers . . . If the Makers would come back . . .”

He was silent, choked with the joy of it, and Raffi too, hearing the ripple of the sluggish water, the splash of a bird settling for the night. Then, with a hiss of pain he snatched his hand up.

Galen looked over. “What’s wrong?”

“A bee sting!”

A small red lump was swelling on his wrist. He put it to his mouth, sucking at the pain.

“At night?”

Raffi let the throb subside. Then he said, “It’s not a real bee. I put the sign of the bee on a stone at the bottom of that track we came down. Someone just stood on it.”