Day Boy (11 page)

‘Take Mark here to the library,' Dain says. ‘He's to have one book, and nothing salacious.
And do you have any papers?'

The fella nods. ‘I'll bring them back with the boy.' He takes me down the long corridor
that runs through the Night Train.

I feel like I'm in the belly of a snake. We pass locked doors. Behind them I can
hear crying, or prayers to gods that I don't know. Old ones, though not as old as
the Sun. And there's that music again.

The man frowns when I stop to listen.

‘Hurry, young bloke,' he says. ‘We've no time for loitering. These are folk just
like you, headed for the mountain or the Red City. First rule of that place worth
practising: never seem to take an interest in anything; study everything real close.'

These might be regular folk but they're not like me. Well, most of them at any rate.
They're not Day Boys. But I do what he says. Been in enough trouble lately.

Finally, we come to the library. Oh, I've never seen anything like this. Books and
books and books! There's a dozen shelves of them. Books on everything. I run my fingers
over their spines. Some are cracked, some don't even look like they've ever been
opened.

‘You'll like these ones.' The man gestures towards one wall. ‘They're the stories.'

I pick one about a boy and a dragon, or a thing that seems to be a boy. After all,
he's only made of words. The paper's
yellow and curling. The spine's coming away
a bit, sure sign that it's a good one.

‘I never knew there was so many books.'

‘This?' the man says, picking up the latest broadsheet and folding it under his arm.
‘This is nothing.'

And he might be right, but it's the grandest thing I've ever seen.

‘You thank your Master,' the man says. ‘He's a good one.'

And I do.

‘And thank you, good man,' Dain says and waves his hand dismissively.

When we are alone Dain gives me a look. Hard, direct. ‘There are many things about
the city that we must speak of. Too many, and most I am sure you will forget or ignore,
but you must know this, and it is paramount. Are you listening, boy?'

‘Yes,' I say.

‘Good. Firstly, know that in the city I am at my weakest, for there are so many of
my kind. In the city there is great danger. From the moment you enter the mountain,
you must be careful. And you must not leave it without me. Once those steel doors
that guard it close, you must remain within. No diurnal adventures for you. Do you
know what diurnal means?'

I nod. ‘Course I do! It's the story of my life.'

Dain gives a little chuckle at that.

‘You're a wanderer, Mark, but there is to be no wandering in that city. Everything
you do will reflect upon me. And it is forbidden for your kind to enter the Red City
unaccompanied.'

‘As if I would,' I say, ‘I hear it's a dangerous place.'

‘You do not know the half of it. You are my Day Boy, my servant, my responsibility.
You break this rule, then trouble will be heaped upon us. You know too much, and
you might just know something that those folk in the Red City desire.'

‘Makes me a powerful sort of fella,' I say.

Dain shakes his head. ‘Makes you someone that they'd happily pull the bones from
till you sang. Secrets go into the City in the Shadow of the Mountain, they do not
come out of it. Are we understood?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good lad.' Dain smiles. He buries his head in his broadsheet, and me in my book,
and the night slides by. The land quickly grows dry. Lit by that bright moon, one
time I think I see a flash of forms that might be the cold children. Might just be
my eyes getting all tricksy.

The train stops twice on the way to the city. Two towns both about as big as Midfield.
The last town, I get off to stretch my legs.

There's a lad watching me, walking towards the train, with that wolfish lope I feel
in my own limbs. Day Boy like me. We nod, he grins, and it's like looking in a mirror.

If a reflection could cut you.

I go to talk to him, and Dain grabs my shoulders.

‘Loose lips sink ships,' he says. I give him a look, then the whistle's blowing.

‘Professor and ward,' the Ticket Master says. ‘The train's waiting…and it doesn't
wait.'

We get ourselves back inside, the train moving the moment my feet hit the stairs.

‘It's lean living out here,' Dain says, as we sit down. ‘Midfield's paradise compared
to these old dry places. Our town is as gentle as it is narrow.'

And we leave that lean village, with its wolfish boys, and settle into the rhythm
of the tracks, and I find myself drifting off. There's a city waiting, but we've
miles yet.

CHAPTER
15

I'M SHOOK AWAKE. Feel the world's moved on around me, and the Night Train's slowing,
starting on a slight rise, and then she's picking up speed again.

‘So what do you think of her?' Dain asks.

I blink. Things are shining low in the sky, great shapes are circling the mountain
like cyclopean beasts of the air. And to the east is a dull red light.

And then we are passing low buildings, streets lit with yellow light and busy with
folk, the smell of dust dry and hard and coming through the windows. It's a blur
that passes right quick, and into the mountain we go, past the steel Gates of Dawn.
And I have to blink away tears.

Morning's coming. Dain's already looking sluggish, his eyes dim; darkness or not,
come the morning he will sleep, like they all must until the Sun settles down in
the west again. He gestures out the window. ‘The city. What do you think of the city,
boy?'

‘It's glorious bright,' I say.

I've never seen so much light. There's no darkness here. Everything is illuminated
by beams of light that look like they've been plucked from the Sun itself, if such
a harvest could be made, and perhaps it can. The ground throbs, I can feel it through
the tracks, as though the earth itself has a pulse. A great beating life in them
continental plates.

‘You know, there are some who would kill to come here,' Dain says, almost to himself.
Like he's lost to some argument that the city's pulled out of him anew. ‘And they
are fools. Holding to the dream that this dark heart is anything, that it's important.'

He shoots me a glance. ‘It's not. It's the hollow core of a beast rotting itself
to death. Took me a long while to work that out, and even longer to believe it. Don't
be fooled by the glamour of it, Mark. Though we both will for a while, that is the
nature of the city, part of its shadow. Monsters can be charming, my lad. If the
city is offered you, I want you to come to it with your eyes open. Open and narrow.'

Nothing's ever simple with Dain—as if it's my choice. I will get a letter and I will
attend to its summons. I suppose my eyes are already narrow. But here we are!

Out we go into dry hot air. And the smell of smoke, and things cooking, and the hint
of blood.

The station is crowded, so many Masters amongst the regular folk. More than I've
ever seen, and this is just one platform in this city dark.

Though why it is called a city dark is beyond me. I've never seen Masters more clear,
more lit. Their pale flesh reflects the light: their skin shivers in it. Their limbs
move too fast. And
there is an urgency here, no lingering, time's running out. Day
is coming.

We are met at the station by a tall Master, long limbed, almost a spider made into
a man. He's dressed in outrageous finery, a cloak that flows with his movements,
a top hat that makes a mockery of Dougie's. He looks at me haughty-like, as though
he has no truck with Day Boys, but he's polite enough with my Master.

‘It is good to see you again, Professor,' he says.

‘Madigan, it has been far too long.' Dain makes it sound like the opposite is true
and Madigan's face hardens. But I can see an affection there too.

‘Yes. Yes.' He hoists our bags and leads us to a carriage. ‘You know what's coming,'
he says. ‘We must hurry.' He doesn't move with any urgency. His limbs make him fast
enough. I'm all a-sweat keeping up.

Dain jumps into the carriage, pulls me in too, and Madigan taps the roof. Down busy
streets we go, everywhere there are the symbols of the Sun. We pass what must be
a church of the Sun, for both Dain and Madigan dip their heads towards it. Such a
wonderful thing. Dain's warning is already slipping from my mind.

This city, in this hollowed-out mountain, is all grandness and gravity. Walls of
rock rise overhead like clouds and descend in fists of stone. And all of it is lit,
believe me. I've never seen shadows so pale and thin. We're on a road wide enough
for four carriages and turn into the searing bright streets of the inner city, and
here we approach a building bigger than Main Street, red brick and a roof halfway
to the stony ceiling of the mountain.

‘My college,' Dain says, and he sounds all of a sudden whimsical. ‘It has been a
long time.'

Into it we are bustled, through long halls and past a library whose first antechamber
does indeed put the library in the Night Train to shame. I take a peek and all I
can see is wall after wall of books, receding into the distance.

‘Come now,' Dain says. ‘There'll be time to explore later.'

We come to rooms that smell of dust newly disturbed and soaps and other astringencies.

‘Nothing is changed,' Dain says, picking up a vase and putting it down again, running
a finger along a shelf, weighted with old books. I can't tell if that pleases him
or not.

‘Yes, the same old battles, the same old knives buried in the same backs. Still,
there is endless gossip,' Madigan says. ‘And you, still at odds with Egan?'

Dain raises his hand. ‘A harmless rivalry.'

Madigan looks at his pocket watch, pure affectation, Masters are themselves clocks;
they feel the movement of the Sun with their entire being. ‘We will talk of rivalries
and such this evening.'

Madigan leaves us and I open little wooden doors to a narrow brick balcony and look
back out at the city. Behind us, where we have come from but not too far away, the
steel Gates of Dawn are closing. Shutting out the light of the Sun that all of them
here worship. It shuts entire, and Dain finds a bit of wake to him. He lays a hand
on my shoulder. ‘I am weary. You must be, too,' he says. ‘Sleep, and then wait for
me. This city isn't safe for the likes of you.'

Dain walks to his room, shuts the door behind him, and there are the clockish turnings
of complicated machines. Here
in the heart of the City in the Shadow of the Mountain
he locks his doors. I go to my room. There's a lock on the door that's too complex
for me to figure out. And there's some sort of timer. I shut the door, and the mechanism
whirrs locked—and starts ticking.

Well, I'm stuck here then.

Dain didn't trouble to tell me this would happen. My Master didn't trust me. I don't
blame him, of course. There's a city to explore. How else might I be stopped from
exploring it?

I walk to the bed, and I can't stop yawning, but first I circle around the room.
Notice the small door that leads, I suppose, to my Master's room.

There's a table next to my bed, and on it a small pile of books with a note beside
them:

Mark—Things you might like.

I look at the books as I crawl into the bed. They're old, with yellow-edged pages.
There's one on the solar system, pictures that I can scarce believe. There's a book
with talking bears in it and a brave girl. And there's one about a boy and a monster:
a girl that's a Master, like a cold child. Pages have been underlined in that one.
The sort of thing I shouldn't read; of course I want to read it first.

I barely give each more than a flick before I'm laying my head on the pillow and
sleeping.

Day, night, we sleep when our Masters wish it. Even if we don't sleep too easy.

CHAPTER
16

THE GATES OF Dawn open, their iron bulk thunderous as they part to admit the night.
The evening bell starts its tolling. Six slow beats. And the city's lights are lit.
Bright, then brighter, and brighter still. They say a cloud of bats leaves the city
when that door opens, comes back when it closes. I race to the balcony and watch,
and sure enough there's the dark spiralling out into the night beyond. All those
shrieks and hisses fading skyward; it's a frenzied, beautiful thing, and it makes
my hairs stand on end.

When I go in, Dain is up. A swift waking. His eyes are huge. ‘No sleep like that
under the mountain. Are you rested, boy?'

I give him a nod. Not really, but I've been up for hours, reading and waiting. I've
a city pulling me to wakefulness. I want it all.

‘Good, we'll be busy this night. We've the tower of the Law to visit, first step
in seeing the Council. There's always hoops to jump.'

Madigan's waiting at our door. ‘That chat,' he says.

‘Will have to wait. I've too much to do this evening.'

Madigan nods. ‘Just don't let it wait too long.'

The city's warmer than I expect. Warmer than anything Dain had led me to prepare
for.

Hot air and the murmuring of pigeons. Trapped in here, all but blind. And there's
rats, you can smell them, there's shit as long and white as worms. And everywhere
there are Masters, walking, and there are men and women too, pale as bone in this
Sunless place. Here the tooth rules, and the pen, the scratching of notes and learning
onto paper. There's the long halls of the universities. The brick and steel buildings
that run in parallel tracks deep into the belly of the mountain.