The Dark City (6 page)

“If I were one of the old Order I would give it.”

She nodded briefly, then picked up her sack and trudged past Raffi. He moved aside for her; saw her glance at him, sharp and interested. She knew who they were. But none of them would say anything, just in case.

At the end of the track she turned. “Keep that boy of yours fed,” she called. “He looks half starved.”

Then she was gone, brushing through the wet sprays of hawthorn, so that the drops fell in a glinting shower.

Raffi glanced at Galen. “So.”

Galen tugged his stick out of the mud. “Let’s go and see this bridge.”

Raffi sighed. “I knew we would.”

At the end of the track was a field path, and then a tiny stone-lined gully, leading down to the left between dripping trees. The going was steep; the wet stones slippery and so overgrown that Galen had to slash away the weeds.

“Not many use this,” Raffi gasped, slipping.

“They did once.” Galen snapped a branch with an effort, muttering the prayer that would calm the tree. “It’s cobbled. That was done for a reason.”

As they went down, Raffi felt the age of the rutted way. It became a green tunnel of leaves; great ferns and banks of cowflax and horsetails, meadowsweet and tiny carpets of purple flowers that climbed and sprouted between the stones.

Crouching, pushing the wet leaves aside, he found that both sides of the track were walled; Galen was right, it had once been important. But now it was dim and dripping with rain from the trees overhead, so that small runnels of water slid down through the red mud and over the stones where Raffi’s feet slithered and splashed.

Down they went, into the valley’s depths. The air became sticky, clammy with pollen; small flies droned in the clumps of white umbrels, their sweet stench pungent. Below him, Galen was flecked with light, gold tints of sunlight on his back as he passed through a brighter patch. “Coming out,” he muttered.

Raffi scrambled down, one ankle aching. At the bottom, balanced on two stones with the water trickling between, he turned and looked back up the green hollow. It dripped silently. If anyone was following, he’d have to come down the same way. For a moment he thought, then crouched to the stone under his boot and, putting a finger in the wet mud, drew a design carefully on it. A black bee, gatherer and storer—one of the signs of the Order. He threw a handful of clotted leaves to cover it. Now we’ll see, he thought.

The hollow widened onto the riverbank, a steep incline of red mud, the exposed roots of great beech trees sprawled over it like a natural stairway. Galen was already climbing down. Beyond him, Raffi saw the bridge.

It was a bizarre structure. Low, only inches above the water, and made of chains; black, seemingly wooden chains that had splintered and split in places. Planks hung from them, looking half rotten. On the two heavy posts rammed into the shore were carvings—faces, grotesque and snarling—and a few snags of cloth and feathers hung from poles nearby.

Jumping down, Raffi stood by Galen. “People are still afraid of it.”

“I’m not surprised.”

The river was sluggish and choked with weeds and sedges; mist hung over it, so that the bridge led into gray uncertainty. Thick green weed trailed under the surface like hair.

Raffi swiped at mosquitoes. “It’s becoming a swamp.”

“What about the bridge?” Galen asked coldly.

Sighing, Raffi tried to sense it, but it was just mist and drift, and he was tired. “Can’t we sleep?” he muttered. “The sun’s up, we’ve been walking all night. No one’s likely to come here.”

“We stop when I say!” Galen shrugged the pack off and threw his stick on it. He walked to the bridge and put a hand on each of the black posts and stood there a moment, looking into the mist. Raffi knew he was straining to feel something. Anything. When he spoke, the keeper’s voice was harsh with defeat.

“I’m crossing. Stay here. If I call you, come.”

“Look.” Raffi hesitated. “Shouldn’t I . . . ?”

“No! I’m still the Master.”

Galen edged forward cautiously. The black chains tightened; the bridge creaked and swung, but it seemed strong enough to hold him. He walked on, step by step, avoiding the broken planks, merging into the mist that rose from the stagnant water. Slowly it closed around him, and he was gone.

Raffi waited, anxious. The river rippled quietly, stinking of rot. A snake slithered between reeds and flicked away. Nothing else moved. The silence was intense, suddenly eerie. Raffi came to the end of the bridge and gripped the posts. “Galen?”

Before he could call again he caught a movement in the mist. Galen’s dark figure loomed out of it, walking carefully. When he looked up, he seemed astonished.

He stared at Raffi strangely. Then he stepped off the bridge and stood in the mud. He looked around.

“What happened?” Raffi demanded. “Why did you come back?”

“See for yourself.”

“What?”

Galen sat on the bank. He seemed bewildered and amused about it. “Go on. Take a look.”

Raffi stared, then turned abruptly and walked out onto the bridge. He went quickly, jumping the splintered boards, avoiding the gaps in the rail. When he looked back, the bank was lost in mist. Mist drifted all around him; a waterbird croaked in it.

Ahead of him, as the bridge swayed, he saw something. Trees on a bank, beech trees, high and green. One plank went soft underfoot; he stepped over it quickly and looked up. The bank loomed out of grayness.

Raffi stopped dead in astonishment.

Galen was sitting by the pack, legs stretched out. He waved a long hand. “So,” he said sarcastically. “What happened? Why did you come back?”

“I didn’t! I went straight across!”

The keeper laughed grimly. “So did I, Raffi. So did I.”

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

I
T 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. . . .