The Book of Transformations (25 page)

He waited until one of the Jorsalir bells rang out six times. A moment later, when the sun was just setting outside, the glass that refracted in the light suddenly stuttered and cast the caves into darkness.

He ruffled his hair to look the part. He was dressed in fine clothes – black breeches, white silk shirt, embroidered cloak – too fine for a typical Cavesider, and filched from the outside. Mentally he rehearsed the better accent of someone from the upper city; he stumbled forwards across the dirt road to the guard hut, which was made from metal sheets. There were windows on each side, and a lantern burned within. Caley kicked on the door, and shouted through the window.

‘Hey!’ Caley screamed, and the guard sat up startled, brushing down his moustache and doing his best to pretend he had been anything other than asleep. ‘Hey, come quick! Some men have just taken my mother into an alleyway. I’m from the second level of the city and I do not know anyone. Please, you must help her. They’re going to . . . going to . . .’

The soldier’s eyes narrowed, as if he’d waited years for such a moment. ‘Worry not, lad.’ He leapt up, grabbed his sword, pushed open the door and shuffled out after him.

‘This way,’ Caley said with pseudo-desperation, and trotted down a network of streets, surprised that the guard could keep up, especially with all that armour and the heavy uniform. He rattled behind and, breathlessly, Caley led him behind an old slaughterhouse, where the others were waiting.

The old man was surrounded on three sides by dozens of masked, weapon-wielding anarchists who were still bleeding out of the gaps and from rooftops. A granite wall stood behind him preventing his escape. He peered around, a desperate man, whilst Caley backed off behind his comrades. Torch flames flickered mellow light across the yard.

A voice called out, one of the women – one of Caley’s sisters. ‘Do you yield, soldier?’

‘Never!’ the old man crowed, and brandished his sword like a magical enchantment. ‘I represent the Emperor’s name. What do you want?’ he demanded.

‘We’re reclaiming them barracks,’ she replied. ‘Whether you live or not – doesn’t much matter to us.’

The soldier pressed his back against the wall, shaking now, his gaze darting this way and that, his shortness of breath apparent. Then, quite calmly, he bellowed, ‘In the name of the Empire!’ and charged forwards.

Two shots from crossbows impacted with his face: his head snapped backwards and he crumpled into the dust.

‘Nice one, Caley,’ one of his brothers muttered, while the gang moved to help dispose of the body. Caley breathed heavily as he watched the old man so casually dragged into the rear of the slaughterhouse. ‘You all right, kid?’

Caley breathed a ‘Yeah.’

One of the brothers placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘You got to remind yourself of what’s gonna happen now. Gonna be dozens brought in from the ice, you hear? Dozens of lives saved. This man, he’s happily gone for nothing more than an image on his uniform, that seven-pointed fucking star – he went how he wanted to go. That star means nothing to us, but meant everything to him, you hear?’

Caley reminded himself of what was at stake here. He swallowed. He accepted. They set to work preparing the barracks for their new inhabitants.

*

After an initial assembly meeting, in which roles were established, an hour passed, two, then three, and before they knew it they had made the barracks hospitable. Fifty-five Cavesiders scrubbed the buildings, removed debris, washed floors, whilst several artists painted cheerful murals across the walls to make things attractive. They brought in bedding, clothing, stoves, utensils, tools – luxuries acquired from the outer city and provisions they had grown themselves, utilizing cultist relics, in attic rooms or vacant patches of dirt.

Even though he was used to the amazing levels of organization that Shalev had brought with her, Caley was staggered at how quickly and thoroughly they were revitalizing this dead zone of Villjamur.

Caley himself helped to accumulate any ex-military junk metal, which would be wheeled out to skilled smiths for them to reclaim for a better use; it wasn’t glamorous work, but it was to help other people. It seemed more satisfying somehow – all the jobs he’d ever held had been performing dreary manual labour, or running errands, or whatever he could get his hands on, so to be doing all of this for the community brought him a strange kind of sensation, and he wasn’t even sure what that was.

He was constantly peering over his shoulder, wondering if the military would come and interrupt them, but no one came, no soldier, no politician, no one from the outer city. Most importantly, there were no Knights.

*

The faces of the refugees would forever haunt him. Gaunt and malnourished, their stares went right through Caley, in a worryingly passive way as if they had already given up on life. Wearing muddied and bloodied rags, reeking of shit and piss, they filed past meekly, steered by his brothers and sisters through the dark passageways, groaning and moaning in a variety of dialects, women and children and some men following. They needed medical aid – quickly. Caley guided about twenty into the farthest cabins, and they were willing to do anything he said. The level of power he had over them made him feel immensely uncomfortable. They had come from all over the Empire, from distant islands that he had heard mentioned perhaps once or twice. Broad and tanned faces, heavy accents, some that could not fully speak Jamur.

‘Are you Caley?’ a woman asked. She wore a plain yet expensive-looking shawl, and her blue eyes and bright blonde hair startled him. The thickset grey-haired man beside her was equally well dressed, in smart green cloak and tunic. He carried a black leather bag.

‘Yeah,’ Caley replied.

‘We are here to help,’ the man declared, his accent refined. ‘We’re both medical practitioners, and we are skilled in herb-lore . . .’

Caley had heard tell of this couple, who lived on one of the high, fancy levels of Villjamur, but were willing to help those in need even, it seemed, Cavesiders and refugees. Caley felt intimidated by their presence, but tried to recall some of Shalev’s lessons. ‘Couldn’t have come soon enough,’ Caley muttered. ‘It’s pretty dire.’

‘We’ll get right to it.’ The couple instantly began dressing wounds: open sores and frostbite.

The place stank. He leaned by the blonde woman and whispered, ‘I’ll leave you to it – we need water here.’

‘That’s OK,’ she replied, adding, ‘brother.’

He left her, feeling bad that he had not asked her name.

*

In the darkness of one of the cabins, he gathered several of his own people and suggested that a system be put in place to bring water from the docks, sanitized with relics. People ran out to spread the word, and Caley felt proud then that his input had been noted. He watched them leave and gazed at the hubbub outside the barracks, at the people who marched back and forth distributing supplies, then he felt a hand on his shoulder.

It was Shalev. She was beaming. His nerves got the better of him, and he found that he didn’t know what to say to her.

‘How is everything going here, brother?’ she asked, in that thick accent.

‘Good,’ he mumbled. ‘Well, as good as can be hoped, I think. Yeah. Did you, uh, have any trouble?’

‘Of a kind,’ she replied, eyeing the scene at the barracks with pride. ‘One of our invisibility shields collapsed, bringing some of the city guard to our side, but we . . . despatched them efficiently.’

‘Were the Knights out?’ he asked, with awe.

Shalev shook her head. ‘We had decoys, of course, a cluster of incidents on the other side of the city.’

‘Wow, you had it all planned, Lady Shalev,’ Caley replied.

‘Sister will suffice,’ she replied. ‘No titles. There is far too much elitism involved. No, I do not think these Knights are even aware of their situation. As individuals they are no problem to me. As a group – as a symbol – they are little more than something in which the populace can place their hopes. They are merely for political gain – unlike us, they have no substance.’

The next morning, back inside their clifftop residence, the Knights’ tempers were heating up. Lan wanted to rant at the old, skinny cultist with grey hair in front of her but remained calm on the surface. The woman’s skin sagged visibly, and the bags around her eyes said she hadn’t had an easy life. With a copy of
People’s Observer
in his pocket, Investigator Fulcrom paced back and forth behind her as she explained what had happened at the asylum and, though he tried not to show it, he cringed at her words. Feror stood in the background for a while, pretending not to make notes, eyeing the female cultist with casual disdain.

‘So’, Vuldon accused the cultist, ‘you just abandoned the place.’

An experiment had turned sour: a fire broke out in their rooftop laboratory, but they did not know the cause. It was thought that substances exploded out of a relic killing one of their own, and soon it had seeped into the floorboards. Highly combustible, it ravaged the whole of the top floors, so the cultists had simply vacated.

‘It’s not quite like that,’ the cultist replied.

‘No, we tried to get some out, but then we weren’t sure how long we had.’

‘The fire wasn’t that bad,’ Vuldon declared. ‘That material wasn’t as flammable as you make out. You just ran because you’re cowards, hiding behind your damn magic.’

‘It isn’t magic,’ the cultist hissed. ‘It’s research.’

‘We could do without that kind of research,’ Vuldon said. ‘Just how long had you been farming zombies, eh?’

‘Well, without such research,’ the cultist explained, ‘we wouldn’t have been able to provide
you
with such powers. The whole facility was set up for the purposes of research in order to generate various powers that the Knights could use – you were, in fact, just the start of things. They were all quite necessary, as I’m sure you’d understand. To damage them was, in some way, to benefit you – and therefore the city.’

Behind, Feror closed his eyes, nodding softly.

If I didn’t already feel guilty about my position . . .

Vuldon marched towards her. ‘You lying, patronizing b—’

‘Easy, Vuldon.’ Fulcrom stepped between the two of them before things could get any worse.

Eventually Feror and the other cultist left them with their guilt. Lan wasn’t sure if she could do this any more.

Vuldon and Tane stormed off into the city, and as they closed the door, she grabbed Fulcrom’s sleeve and said, ‘I want to get out of all this.’

‘OK, let’s get a drink,’ he said. ‘I know of just the place.’

‘No,’ she urged, ‘I want to get out of the Knights.’

‘I know what you meant,’ he replied coolly. ‘I still think we should get a drink.’

*

At that point between breakfast and lunch when the bistros of the city experienced a lull in activity, Lan and Fulcrom entered one such establishment, taking shelter from a sudden snowstorm.

On the upper levels of Villjamur, only those without jobs, yet with enough money, could be out drinking at this hour. That usually meant retired landowners or those on a military pension, or youths drinking away their parents’ wealth.

The bistro was one of those wood and metal joints that you didn’t often see in Villjamur any more, and Lan found its bookshelves, thick tables, pot plants, log fires and candles to be utterly charming. Three smartly dressed old men sat in warm silence at one table by the stained-glass window, and a red-haired girl was behind the counter cleaning the glasses from the morning rush.

‘I come here when I need to think.’ Fulcrom parted his robe as he sat down.

Lan sat opposite him, keeping her thick black cloak close to cover her uniform. She didn’t want fuss being made right now – twice people had come up to her in the street, and all she could do was smile politely and move away. The serving girl came to take their order. In here everything seemed so cocooned, so comfortable, and she felt she could really talk to Fulcrom. ‘I’m not cut out for this,’ Lan began. ‘You should find someone else, someone who can cope better. Our group – it isn’t what I thought it was. I don’t want to be some tool that the Emperor can use to make people feel safe.’ She explained how useless she had been the previous night at the asylum.

‘Lan, you should stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ Fulcrom replied. ‘You’ve been given a wonderful opportunity. Don’t waste it on angst.’

‘Do you have any idea’, she snapped, ‘what I’ve been through in life?’

‘I can’t pretend I understand your pain, but I’ve read your file. I know your secrets, sure, if that’s what you mean.’

She leaned back in her chair, unnerved by the unspoken threat of exposure. Even the hint of it was like a slap in the face.

Fulcrom reached forward to clasp her hands in his. His dark rumel skin was thick and tough, and for some reason she felt intensely feminine being touched by him, enjoyed the sensation, and refused to feel bad for enjoying it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Look, don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone – as far as I’m concerned, the past is the past.’ He began to speak with great tenderness. ‘The threat of your exposure is from them, the cultists, and the Emperor and his agents. Which is to say – you’ve really no choice in any of this. You’ve been given this change, and a job to do, so you have to accept it.’