The White City

30

Dalip was now more likely to be mistaken for a comic-book ninja than someone escaping from Guantanamo Bay. He’d found a pair of loose black trousers and a dark blue shirt◦– both were slightly too large for him, but he’d tied them up the best he could so they didn’t flap or catch.

She’d suggested a mask, like a superhero, or a highwayman. He’d said that the last thing he needed was something that would make him see less well, and besides, he was instantly recognisable being the only man on Down wearing a patka. If there’d been a piece of cloth of sufficient length in the ferryman’s hut, he would have fashioned himself a turban.

He had found a comb, a long-handled wooden one with dagger-like teeth, and a bracelet. It might not have been steel, but silver. He put it on under his shirt anyway, and the comb he dug into his hair under the patka. He would, most likely, die trying to break back into the White City. At least he would die a Sikh.

He’d given Mary ten minutes with the rifle, telling her about the safety, about working the bolt, about bringing the stock right up hard against her right shoulder before she pulled the trigger. He warned her that it was going to be the loudest, most startling noise she’d ever heard up close, but no matter what, she had to be ready for that.

She had five bullets. That meant he didn’t need to explain about reloading the magazine, or adjusting for windage or range. Just how to look through the sights, squeeze, and not break anything.

Then Dawson had led her off, away from the hut, up into the woods in the lengthening shadow of the plateau, while the other two pirates headed downstream to the ship. He was alone, and if he was honest, he preferred it that way.

In the hour before the sun set, he went through all his doubts and fears, deliberately visiting each one.

His family’s almost certain death; the irrevocable destruction of his home; the near certainty of failure of his forthcoming task; his unworthiness before both man and God: it, in the final analysis, didn’t change anything.

The secret of Down had been revealed to him, and it didn’t matter whether that was by accident or design. He had vowed to do his duty to friend and stranger alike. If the faith of his ancestors was only so many stories, then he’d still struggle and die as if they were true. And if they were true, perhaps he’d reached his apotheosis and would merge back into the divine, as a drop of water joins the vast ocean.

He was calm, preternaturally so. Whatever happened next was the will of God.

It grew cold in the shadow, and he started to walk up and down to keep his muscles warm. The sky darkened and streaks of cloud high above him turned orange, then pink. It was almost time. The gorge was already in darkness, and soon the valley beyond would follow.

He swung the machete a few times to limber up his arm, and he walked to Crows’ barricade. One last look at the deep blue sky and glowing clouds told him what he knew already. He climbed carefully over the stones and branches blocking the path, and strode out the short distance to the start of the gorge proper.

He swapped the machete from right to left, and trailed his fingers over the rock. They would be his guide through. He took one deep breath, and started forward.

He kept his elbow bent and his fingertips dragging. As long as he didn’t lose contact, he wasn’t in danger of wandering close to the edge. Having passed that way once in the light, and once in the dark, it didn’t hold any terrors. He knew how far it was, and where it turned.

When he’d gone about half the distance, he stopped, and listened. The water thundered below, and he expected that the noise would block out everything else. But the gorge was an echo chamber, amplifying all sounds, not just natural ones. Could he hear some speech mixed in with the sonorous river? He thought he might.

Slowly, then. He was still in utter darkness, while the valley was fractionally lighter. If there were guards posted, then he’d count their silhouettes long before they could see him.

He edged along, and caught sight of the final part of the gorge, the edge of the rock face just before it opened out. He crouched down and listened again.

Definitely voices. He could possibly handle two, if he was swift and merciless, taking one down before they could react and leaving him the other at better than average odds. Three, he wasn’t so sure about. It would only take one of them to shout a warning, and the chase would be on.

He needed to check. He stayed pressed up against the cliff wall and stepped silently until he could see the end of the gorge completely. There were three blank shadows standing there. They weren’t even watching the path, but each other, and at least one of them had his back completely to the gorge.

He’d have to get past them somehow. Perhaps he could take three of them on: kill the first one with a single blow, then attack one of the others while they were both reeling.

The shot, when it came, cracked the still air with shocking clarity. The men on guard jerked and cringed as if they’d been hit themselves. As the echo built and died away, he could hear a distant shout, thin but distinct.

‘Come on then, you fuckers.’

Four bullets left.

The guards talked to each other in low, urgent voices, and then one of them ran off down the path.

As a plan, it wasn’t subtle. It was, however, inexplicably working.

Dalip gave it a few seconds. Neither of the guards were looking in his direction now, but instead staring and pointing across the valley at the top of the steep steps, presumably where Mary stood in full view.

He moved the machete into his right hand, and crept-ran, balancing on the balls of his feet, until he was right behind the two men.

Was he strong enough, mentally, to do this? After Crows this afternoon?

Dalip raised the blade high, and brought it down diagonally, cutting into the neck of the right-most guard. The edge ground to a halt against a vertebrae, but it didn’t really need to go any further. He jerked the machete clear, pulling it out backwards while raising his foot to kick the man clear.

The only sounds had been the solid, meaty chop and a phlegmy cough. The guard’s colleague hadn’t even noticed, his attention fixed on the opposite side of the valley.

Dalip brought his arm up again, and as the body fell away, he had an unimpeded swing. The second guard had barely started to turn before the machete caught him just above the ear. The force of the blow alone would have rendered the man unconscious. That it stoved the side of his head in meant he wouldn’t be waking up.

He tipped both men into the river, easy enough with the river’s edge only a pace away. He could just about hear the splashes, but only because he was listening out for them.

That had been… not easy, but necessary. He’d killed two men because they’d allied themselves to evil, even if they weren’t evil themselves. The alternative◦– making himself known, and trying to explain what he wanted to do◦– would have seen him dragged down, disarmed, and brought him before the Lords of the White City. He knew how that would end.

So there he was. The soldier-saint. The champion of Down.

Time to move on. The small cube-shaped shelters were the next obvious staging point. The path was woefully exposed, but the drifts of loose, pale talus were also a problem. He’d be heard crossing it, even if he couldn’t be seen.

Only one thing to do: run, and hope that Mary could keep them distracted. He sprinted the distance to the shelters, then dodged through them to the last in line.

He could see faint lights down near the river. Lanterns would ruin their night sight, which was good for him. Good for Mary, too, because rather than firing blind, she’d have something to aim◦– inexpertly◦– at.

He waited, and waited, and just when he thought she wasn’t going to do it, she did.

Several of the lanterns went out instantly, and others were simply dropped. Shouting and confusion followed, and one of the cries was sustained and insistent. She might even have hit someone, but it was more likely that they’d fallen and injured themselves as they ran for cover.

Three bullets.

Mary shouted again: ‘You’re a bunch of tossers!’

Confident she wasn’t going to run out of swear words any time soon, he looked at his route ahead. The road ran between the fields and buildings, down to the river turning. Not that way. If he plotted a course above but parallel to it, he’d arrive behind one of the compound walls, and in sight of his target.

There was no easy way to do it. He just had to negotiate an almost featureless surface and hope he didn’t trip. The slope from right to left was uneven and severe, and the shards of rock slid over each other all too readily.

The wall was a black slab. He turned and pressed his back against it, and tried to control his ragged breathing. It wasn’t the speed or the distance, it was his nerves. He listened over the sound of his beating heart, trying to work out what was happening around him.

The rocks stopped moving shortly after he did. The river was a distant hiss. Raised voices cut through intermittently◦– orders given, questions raised◦– and other noises of movement, some of which were coming from right behind him, on the other side of the wall. A door opening? A bucket being filled? Something wooden hitting something else wooden, but beyond that it was pointless to speculate.

He crept away, testing each step carefully, heading for the narrow gap between the uphill and downhill compounds. Beyond that was the deeper shadow of the circular building with no doors or windows.

Dalip’s world was now variations of shades of black. His dark-adapted eyes could pick out some of the differences, but he could barely see his own hands in front of his face. Much more use was the slight changes in sound and pressure. He could almost feel the size and shape of the structures around him.

Another shot broke across the valley. There was no immediate reaction that he could make out, but he was blind as to what was happening down by the river, and whether anyone had dared cross the stepping stones to the steps up.

No shout of defiance followed, either. She was feeling the strain as much as he was.

Two bullets.

He moved between one building and the next, and there it was, just ahead. She’d already told him that it was useless to look for a way in, because there wasn’t one: he wasn’t going to waste time and court discovery by checking for himself, but there had to be an entrance somewhere. His best guess was that the round building was the oldest in the valley, and that year-on-year erosion had buried the door under the ever-encroaching slippage of broken rock.

He wasn’t going to start digging, because he assumed someone had already done that. All he needed to find was the start of that hole. It would be disguised. It wouldn’t be heavily guarded. It might be made so secure with future technology that he didn’t stand a hope of breaking in.

Opposite the curve of the outside wall was a long, low building, bent around in a sympathetic arc. It could easily be mistaken for a series of workshops or garages, except for the absence of doors. Thin slit windows punctuated the line of the wall, but it was ferociously dark inside and peeking in revealed nothing.

When he reached its far end, and around the corner, he found it. A door, locked somehow, and as he ran his hand over it, he couldn’t feel a keyhole. Yet from its proximity to the round building, it seemed the most likely candidate. When he pressed against the wood, there was no give at all. This was no ordinary entrance. He’d have to find an alternative way of getting in.

Another shot. Muted this time, echoing over the valley but started away from the edge. She’d been forced back on to the plateau.

One bullet left.

Once she’d used that, the rifle became an empty threat. It could keep people at bay in case it was still loaded, but it would only take one brave or foolhardy person to call her bluff and it’d be over.

He pushed at the door again, just to make sure, and felt its cool indifference to his urgency.

The roofs of all these buildings were constructed in the same way, with thin, flat leaves of overlapping stone. It should be possible to lever some out of the way to make a hole. If he could climb up in the dark, and if he could dismantle the tiles without being spotted◦– and after that, if he didn’t break something important in the fall◦– then he could finally see what was so carefully hidden.

Mary was risking everything. So should he. He sheathed the machete and ducked back around the wall so he was as hidden from view as possible. His fingers ran over the wall, probing for handholds, and when he found two, he tried to find somewhere for his foot.

But he couldn’t see what he was doing, and every moment outside meant more chance of him being discovered. Every move was tentative and painfully long to execute, and he had no idea, face pressed to the rough stonework, how far up he’d gone or how far he had left to go. It wasn’t as high as Bell’s tower, and if he slipped here, he wouldn’t die. He’d just have to pick himself up, bruised and battered, and try again, and hope.

He reached up, felt the overhang of the eaves, and clutched at it with a vice-like grip. This was when he was most likely to tumble backwards. He moved his other hand from its secure hold and slapped it on to the smooth, dusty roof tile. If the pitch on it had been any greater, then it would have been pointless even to try. He pushed down: his feet drifted clear of the wall, and he was now suspended awkwardly over the drop.

He didn’t want to dislodge himself with any sudden movement. He gradually brought one leg up and got it over the lip. He was spreadeagled, one foot dangling, one just about maintaining its grip. He moved his hand higher, feeling for anything that might improve his stability.

Then he let go of the eaves, and he didn’t immediately slide off.

He was up. Destroying part of the roof was going to be inherently noisy. There was nothing he could do about that. Better it was done quickly.

He eased out the machete, and using his fingertips to guide him, he squeezed it gratingly between two tiles just shy of the ridge. He lifted it a little way, then used his hands to heave it out. The other tiles around it clattered back into position, and he rested the loose one against his knees, letting gravity pin it.

Once one tile had gone, the next one was more straightforward to access. The clinking and rattling of stone increased as he worked, levering out tiles and stacking them next to him. As soon as he moved, they’d all fall off, sliding along the roof and off on to the ground.

A gunshot, distant, lonely. The last one. If she had any sense, she’d now run, as far and as fast as her legs could carry her. She might still get away. And if she escaped the anti-magic area, she’d be uncatchable, so long as she didn’t come back for him. It was something that he’d tried to make her promise, and she’d deflected him each time. She was smart and devious, traits which cut both ways.

He returned his attention to his own predicament. If the ground was the same distance down inside the building as out, then he’d only have a short drop. If there were automatic alarm systems attached to robotic guns, he’d not land alive. Keeping the tiles propped up against his knees, he leaned forward and looked into the hole he’d made.

He could see precisely nothing. No hint of any features, just perfect darkness.

And then, since he’d just thought of it, he slipped the bangle off his wrist, held it over the hole and dropped it. The tiniest of tinny rings came back almost immediately, and there was no roar of gunfire or silent glowing lasing.

There was prudence, and there was prevarication, and he was in danger of slipping from one to the other. He manoeuvred himself above the hole, letting the loose tiles slide away when he had to get his feet through.

They scraped away down the slope of the roof. The first one flew off the eaves and, a moment later, thudded to the ground. All the others, some dozen or so, pitched after it and clacked and dinked on top of each other, snapping and shifting the growing pile of broken stone until the last one dropped and shattered.

Immediately, a questioning voice called out, was answered, and another shouted for a light.

Dalip bent his knees and let go.

The impact was hard and it hurt, jarring everything from his heels to his jaw. He landed on his side, and lay in the dust while he collected his wits and wriggled his toes to make sure nothing was broken. He was in one piece. He rolled on his hands and knees, took a second to sweep the floor for his bangle, then a second more when he couldn’t find it at the first attempt.

He slipped it on and stood up. He staggered, dizzy and disorientated, and for a moment he thought he was being gassed, just like the pirates. But it was just the absence of any reference points, and it was difficult to tell which way was up: when he found the wall and leaned against it, the feeling subsided. He became aware of a tiny red light in the distance. Because it was so dark, he couldn’t tell how far away it was◦– it seemed to float in mid-air, his eyes skittering off it into the surrounding void.

The light blinked at him, and he walked slowly towards it. He noticed that he was on a slope, and was going uphill. The dot resolved into a circle of red enclosing a white bar. The display it was on was dirty, encrusted with an age of accumulated dust. Dalip wetted his thumb and ran it across the little screen.

It now gave enough light to show the immediate surroundings. He was the other side of the door he’d failed to open, and he was looking at an electronic lock of some kind. A cable◦– a power cable◦– ran away from it, along the wall, where it was suspended in successive bows down its length.

Would it fail open, or fail locked? If it unlocked itself, he was in the same position as he was with the power on. They could open it, and he couldn’t. He twisted a length of the cable in his hand and jerked it, once, twice, and it came loose. The light diminished, then winked out. He half-expected the sound of opening bolts, but it died quietly. If it had remained locked and they now had to break in, he’d bought himself some time.

Then with his back to the door and his feet pointing down the slope, he started walking. He ignored the noise of increasingly urgent hammering behind him. He knew he was close to his goal, because ahead of him was a cold, blue glow, a disorientating fog in his vision.

He almost walked into the wall in front of him, and as he groped around, one of the objects he touched moved slightly. He felt it, and it was big and flat and cold and hard. He pushed it again, and it behaved just like a self-closing door would. The gap next to it seemed to indicate that it had once been a pair of doors, but was now just one.

Beyond it was a space, tall and wide and profoundly deep. He could hear a single tone, low and constant. The blue shine was everywhere, coming from everything: it made him feel sick and blind simultaneously.

He ran his fingers along the edge of the door, and moved around it, his feet scuffing on the floor, searching for obstacles.

There was a click, and the lights came on, all at once. He let out an involuntary gasp, and he covered his eyes. He had to wipe away the tears and squint through his fingers before he could see even vague shapes.

The walls were white, the ceiling too far away in the brightness to discern, the floor covered with a smooth linoleum-type surface that reflected everything. There was a raised area dead centre, a series of circular steps topped by a flat dais, and behind it, other… things: short hexagonal columns with control panels on the sides, and cables snaking away from them. It was as bright, clean, and clinical as a laboratory.

He heard the door at the far end of the corridor finally give, heard the shouts and the running feet. If he was going to do any breaking of his own, he was going to have to hurry. He started across the sterile expanse of the floor, leapt the first step of the platform, and realised that there was a round pit in the middle of it. In that pit was a ball made of darkness and blue sparks in continuous motion.

If the ceiling lights had been bright, the electric bolts tearing along the surface of the sphere left after-images so sharp they hurt. He was dazzled, confused, entranced. This had to be it. This was his target, and he couldn’t even look directly at it.

When he was dragged down and landed hard against the bottom step, he could barely tell what had happened. But by concentrating between the flashes burned into his retina, he saw a man grappling with his legs. He kicked out, knocked him back, and swung wildly with his machete, missing but forcing his attacker further back.

He was hit from the side, and he staggered. The glint of metal shone through as it was raised high above him, seemingly near the lights far up in the ceiling, but that gave him time to roll aside and drag his own weapon through the air. He felt resistance, and that man fell away, only to be replaced by another.

Fighting by instinct alone, Dalip used the impression of his opponent’s form to guide him, as to where to block, where to move. Then there were two, and it wasn’t double vision. He retreated and parried, advanced and thrust, swinging his blade twice as fast to compensate. One of them slipped, and he drove into the space where he expected the man to be. Strike, withdraw, block and counter-blow. Even though he couldn’t properly see, he recognised the other man’s desperation. But his partner intervened, stepping between them.

Dalip ducked down as the air above him cleaved, then rose with his own cutting blow, angling right to left as he rose. That man faded away, revealing the other. They both swung, and the arcs of their swords met in the middle. The heavier machete snapped the lighter blade in two, and the remnants spun away, glittering.

Dalip’s return blow struck home. The second man tried to rise, failed, and called out.

Then it was just Crows left, pushed forward into the bright ring by a white-faced Lord. Crows’ dark edges were jagged, ill defined, and no matter how Dalip blinked, he couldn’t bring him into focus. But since that was how he saw Crows anyway, he knew it was him.

‘So, Dalip Singh, it comes to this. God moves in unexpected ways.’

Dalip backed up until his heels touched the edge of the circular step. ‘You won’t fight me. You’re too much of a coward.’

‘And yet here I am.’

Yes, here he was, playing for time, tricking Dalip into long speeches and macho posturing, knowing that reinforcements were on their way, who at that very moment were bundling through the door and down the corridor, ready to overwhelm their self-declared enemy with sheer numbers.

It had to be now, or not at all.

Dalip turned, threw himself up the steps and raised his machete with both hands. He couldn’t see what he was striking, but he knew it didn’t matter. If he hit anything, it would be over.

He brought his arms down, felt an electric jolt in them as the blade connected, and suddenly he was cold and empty, as if someone had pierced him from back to front and life was draining from him. He felt a prolonged tug, an unzipping of his flank. His machete was wedged tight. It wouldn’t move. But the searing light from the device had died, so he let go, and pressed his palms over the rent in his side.

‘They gave me this sword,’ said Crows, ‘and I took it even though I did not expect to ever use it. Their word is◦– was◦– wisdom, but it appears we must now move into the future fatherless. Rather, I will. You, unfortunately, will not live to see it.’

Dalip’s scarred eyes saw Crows’ darkness deepen and grow. A bloodied sword rattled to the floor, and he was gone. As was the Lord of the White City in the doorway, who watched Dalip impassively for a few moments, before turning and walking away.