The White City

28

Dalip had run, climbed out on to the window ledge, and hauled himself on to the rough tiles using only the strength in his arms. If he was weaker than before, then panic had helped him overcome that, briefly. Now he was on the roof◦– on the actual roof, skittering over the stone tiles◦– and wondering what he should do next. The map was screwed up and shoved down his front. He was pregnant with the secret of Down, and he had no idea how he was going to give birth to it.

He didn’t think he was going to be followed. The robed creatures didn’t appear to be that quick or particularly agile, no matter how resilient to physical damage they were. He scrambled to the apex and crouched down low, looking out over the valley for a sign from God. The moon was vast overhead, grinding past with an almost audible rumble, the shadow it cast blotting out the detail of the land and leaving it a half-tone of grey. The sky at the edges was deep blue, silent, starless.

Then he saw her. She was running, just like he had, her ridiculous red dress as obvious as a neon light. He’d asked for a sign and, as unlikely as the answer was, he couldn’t ignore it.

He moved the map around so that it didn’t bulge at his front, and threw his machete over the edge to the ground first. It took a disconcertingly long time for it to clatter. The front door would have been easier, but he had no guarantee that whatever had killed the pirates wasn’t hanging around in the air, waiting to kill him too.

He lay down, lowered his legs, and dabbed at the stonework until he had the most tentative of toeholds. Going up was so much easier. He climbed as quickly as he dared, and at the halfway point, just jumped. He landed like a sack of flour, dusty and crumpled, lying there for a moment and just wishing it would all stop.

That moment passed. The self-pity would have to wait. He snatched up his machete again, and picked himself off the floor.

He crossed her path at the junction, and she skidded to a halt in front of him, gasping for air.

‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘Where are we going?’

‘I haven’t really thought that far ahead.’

She doubled over, and spat on the ground. ‘Well, think of something fast.’

He looked behind her. She was being chased in slow motion, and when he turned around to check his own path, so was he.

‘We can’t hurt them at all.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Right.’ He made a decision that might well kill them both. ‘This way.’

He caught her arm and pulled her in the direction of the valley entrance. She growled at him, but started to run again, her bare feet eating up the distance. So much so that she started to overtake him.

‘What about the shooter?’

‘What about them?’

‘I don’t want to get shot.’

‘Neither do I.’

‘So?’

The buildings had finished◦– just the small stone huts to pass, then it was into the narrow gorge: sheer cliff on one side, a drop straight down into the river on the other. Somewhere beyond that was someone with a rifle, someone who was possibly already warned of their approach.

The valley narrowed, and the sound of fast-moving water grumbled around them.

Dalip slowed. He could still see the flapping robes of their pursuers.

‘Further in,’ he said, and at the most precipitous point, he lost sight of them. Ahead, the rock wall curved before it opened out again. They were, for a brief instant, unseen.

He called her back and dragged her to the very edge of the path.

‘What are doing?’

‘Jumping.’

‘What is it with you and cliffs?’

He gave her a tight smile, rocked back on one foot, and leapt, arms and legs milling.

If he thought it was a long way down from the roof, this felt even further. The fall went on and on, until the very last second when the white-streaked black river rushed up at him and tried to pour itself into his lungs. All those warnings about leaping into unknown water, full of hazards and hidden shallows, flooded back too, and suddenly it was all about whether or not he could get his head back to the surface without getting trapped by currents or crippled by rocks.

The river was strong, and deep in its channel. Yes, there were sharp stones and turbulence, but they were below him. He kicked hard, and broke into the air.

Mary was still on the path, watching him get swept away. He raised his arm to beckon her urgently in, but that movement submerged his head again. By the time he resurfaced, she was gone, or out of sight, or something.

The river carried him along, an irresistible force, uncompromising and dense. He trod water the best he could in his saturated overalls, and waited for the drop. It was only a small waterfall, but he needed to be ready.

The rock walls started to pull back. Beyond was the forest, and before that, the lip of the falls. He stretched himself out and he was flung over the edge. There was a moment of dizzying flight, then into the broken, churning plunge pool. He swam down as he knew he should but had never done, then up into the slowly turning eddies of the post-fall river.

He turned on to his back. A flash of sodden crimson shot over the falls, and he swam over to her.

‘You fucking idiot,’ she hissed.

‘Shush.’

She allowed herself to be towed into the slack water. He let her go when it was shallow enough just to sit in, and pulled out the sailcloth from his overall. The water had done what scrubbing at it hadn’t, and washed most of the information away.

He reached down by his feet for some fist-sized rocks, which he wrapped into the cloth, then pressed it down into the water. A stream of bubbles popped the surface as it sank. For that moment, only he knew Down’s secret. He had to share it, and he had to share it with her.

He moved closer, until their heads were touching.

‘I know we’re still sitting in a river, but you have to listen to this, in case it goes even more wrong in the next few minutes. Down is broken, and something in the White City has broken it. Because of that, portals keep ripping away from Londons, destroying both the portal and the London in the process. If we can stop that happening, we might fix Down so we can use the portals to travel both ways. It doesn’t matter if you believe me, or even understand me: that’s what the map says. If it was me, I’d try the circular building first. Okay?’

He pushed himself away and saw her nod, and shiver, but the nodding was what he needed.

He now had to work out how to sneak up on something that was impossible to kill, get a rifle away from it, and then try to kill it. Possibly in that order, but he was open to suggestions.

Mary mouthed the word ‘fuck’, mimed stabbing something, and held up her empty hands. She’d lost her dagger. As a weapon against the Lords of the White City, it was pretty useless, but something was always better than nothing.

He dragged out his machete and held it out to her, handle first.

She frowned and shook her head.

He made the ‘take it or else’ face, the one his mother used on him when he was refusing another helping at dinner. She took it.

He picked up two more rocks from the riverbed, one in each fist. It didn’t matter that they were sharp. It mattered that they were heavy enough to cause damage, and dense enough that they weren’t going to shatter. He jerked his head at the riverbank, and he crept out, keeping low. She did the same, but with more muted cursing.

The path was just above them, rising on its way into the valley. He glanced up at the sky. The eclipse was almost finished: the disc was brightening at the edges, and the sky fluttered with pearlescent rays. There was enough light now to see that someone had built a barricade across the path, just at the gorge mouth. There was a figure crouched his side of it, and he could make out the shape of a barrel pointing into the air.

He pointed to the path, pointed at Mary. He touched his chest and held his hand down and to the left. She scraped her hair away from her face, adjusted her dress, and moved with cat-like grace on to and along the path, stalking her prey.

He advanced more slowly, picking his way through the shrubby undergrowth, watching where his feet fell, turning and bending to avoid branches.

The figure at the hastily constructed barricade◦– made from fallen branches and slabs of stone◦– didn’t move so much as a twitch, and the closer Dalip got, the stranger it looked. There were no brightly coloured robes: instead, the whole body was covered head to foot in black. The rifle wasn’t trained on the narrow path ahead, but up at the sky. The shape of it made it looked crumpled, not alert.

It looked asleep.

Crows. It was Crows. It wasn’t one of the Lords at all. Dalip had just assumed that it would either be the ferryman or one of the others on guard, unblinking in their watch. Instead, it was Crows who’d got the rifle from the ferryman. He’d shot and killed one of the pirates, bottling them all up in the valley, still blindly refusing to let the maps◦– and the reward he expected◦– go.

Dalip motioned for Mary to slow down. He moved quicker, not worrying about little noises like scratches against his clothing or the rustle of leaves. He climbed the last of the bank, and stood behind Crows’ prone form. He bent down, put one of the rocks on the ground, then held the other one high.

Mary put her hand under his arm to stop him from smashing Crows’ skull open. He looked at her: surely this was necessary, surely this was justice for Luiza. Striking now was the safest course for anyone who’d ever had the misfortune to cross Crows’ path, before he could open his mouth, tell his lies and weaken Dalip’s resolve.

And hadn’t he vowed to do this? Hadn’t he sworn that he’d kill Crows? Even if it meant killing him while he slept. Didn’t Dalip have the right, the duty, the responsibility, to see that it was done, on behalf of Crows’ victims, past, present and future?

It wasn’t how he imagined it would happen. Yet here he was, and he should really get on with it.

Mary still held his arm. She shook her head, very slowly, very slightly, her gaze not leaving his. She wasn’t going to fight him, but neither was she going to let him do this. If he killed Crows, their friendship would be over. If he didn’t, he’d blame her later when Crows would inevitably be Crows.

‘Just… stand back,’ he said. ‘You don’t even have to watch.’

‘No. You can’t. Take the gun.’

‘When he’s dead.’

Crows stirred, and suddenly started, as if he knew he shouldn’t have been dozing. His hands flapped like birds’ wings as he tried to sit up and control the rifle simultaneously. Dalip reached out and closed his fist around the rifle’s midsection, tearing it away from Crows’ tenuous grasp. He tossed the rock he was carrying aside and brought the stock to his shoulder.

The safety was off◦– he checked◦– and the bolt already home. He looked through the sights at Crows’ panicked eyes.

‘Shit. Dalip,’ said Mary.

‘Army cadets. Turns out it was good for something other than being shouted at for an hour a week.’

Crows backed up, pressing himself as far as he could into the barricade. He cringed before Dalip, turning his head up and away so that he wouldn’t have to look at the rifle’s muzzle.

Mary kicked his feet. ‘You… you… bastard.’

‘They made me,’ he said quickly. ‘They made me. I swear this to be true.’

Dalip’s finger curled through the trigger guard. Mary couldn’t stop him now. Only he could stop himself.

‘You could have said no,’ she said. She stopped kicking and swiped at him with the flat of the machete. ‘Or you could have said yes and lied, like you usually do.’

One shot, anywhere in the chest. At that short range, even Dalip couldn’t miss.

‘Do you know what you’ve done?’

‘What I had to. Nothing more.’

Dalip could feel the curve of the cold steel trigger. A slight squeeze, and he could end this futile interrogation.

Crows glanced at him, saw him tightening his grip, and shrieked: ‘Mercy! I beg for mercy.’

But as he shied away, covering his face with his hands, his gaze briefly crossed the space behind them.

Dalip turned, fired, worked the bolt to extract the still-smoking cartridge, and fired again.

The ferryman staggered. His clothing had puffed twice◦– two palpable hits◦– and he pressed the tip of his finger against one of the holes, feeling its size and shape. He looked up at Dalip, who dragged the bolt back, pushed it forward again.

There was no blood. Each bullet should have been enough on its own. Third time lucky.

He sighted carefully, aimed for the centre of mass, felt the kick against his shoulder, ejected the spent shell.

Now the ferryman’s expression changed from one of morbid curiosity to one of neutral indifference. He slipped to one knee, then toppled over on to his back, his leg caught under him at an unnatural angle. He lay still, and didn’t move again.

Dalip chambered another round, and spun around. Crows had gone. He’d leapt the barricade, and was running as fast as he could towards the White City, his black robes flapping around him.

Deep breath, exhale, aim.

The tiny hole of the backsight lined up with the notch of the foresight. Dalip turned his body fractionally, raised his arms slightly. Crows was merging with the shadows inside the gorge, but he was still just about visible.

The sun exploded out from behind the rolling moon, and he fired blind.

He blinked away the tears. The gorge was a black slit, and he had no idea if he’d hit or missed. Slowly, he lowered the rifle, clenched his jaw and balled his fists. He didn’t trust himself to say or do anything.

He’d had him. He’d had him in his sights once, twice, three times. Crows had still got away. He couldn’t blame Mary. It was his own fault. So much for the value of solemn vows.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry,’ she said.

He could hear her move behind him. He stared at the ground, then back into the gorge.

‘They’re all dead, you know,’ he said.

‘Who?’

‘The crew. Some sort of gas, or biological thing. Wiped out the entire ground floor. Just me and the steersman left, and I don’t know about him.’

‘Simeon… I don’t think he’s… He saved me. In the end. I… sorry.’

‘Damn,’ said Dalip. ‘Damn them all.’

‘Is he supposed to go so stiff, so quickly?’

When he looked, she was poking the body of the ferryman with the end of the machete.

‘If he was human, no. But, I don’t know, maybe that’s what happens.’

He bent down beside its head, and laid the back of his hand against the cheek. It was cold. He checked the eyes, which were open and sightless.

‘Give me the machete,’ he said. He moved the safety over to lock the bolt action, and they swapped weapons.

He tore the cloth apart, and revealed an almost featureless torso, made from some thick rubbery material that most definitely wasn’t skin. He tried chopping his way through, but it was impossible. The stuff absorbed all the energy, and the edge of the blade wasn’t sharp enough to slice it. The three holes made by the bullets formed a wide triangle, one high up on the left, one halfway down on the right, the last, in the middle, where the belly button should have been. He tried to enlarge that hole by pushing the point of the machete into it. It stretched, but it didn’t tear.

He stopped and sat back on his haunches.

‘There’s probably something better in the hut,’ she said. ‘Do you want me to go and look?’

‘If we’re going anywhere, we’d better go together.’ He looked up at her. ‘Don’t you think?’