In Part 1, Lilian is trying to dissuade Jem from her suicidal quest to Alinakard's twin city - a trip no one has ever returned from. In Part 2, Lilian betrays Jem, meets Keeper Kinley and Jem’s father, Magnate Diamous. Jem, it seems, has run away. In Part 3, Lilian and Kinley are forced across the bridge into a lively city centre, raising more questions than answers. That’s not their most immediate concern, however. The fight court is.
“What is a fight court?” Lilian asked steadily. ‘You've faced down worse,’ she reminded herself. As they walked up the main street, the marble colonnade at the end grew more imposing. The spaces in between each column were barred with black iron fretwork and she could hear a low roar coming from behind it. Each colonnade had been adorned with statues - not humans or animals as she first supposed, but grotesque demons and nightmare creatures in leering parodies. Perhaps out of fear or respect, none of the other inhabitants went near the colonnades, shying away from its shadow on the ground.
Kinley shook his head, the furrows around his mouth growing deeper as he spoke. “They're hangovers from the old Empire. Alinakard never got a taste for the sickness, but I saw them more n’ once in the dry regions during my walkin’ tours. Evil places.”
“ Why would Jem go here?” Lilian asked, a little desperately.
“Dunno. They were made as a way to solve tribe disputes without full-on war, but over time, dark things crept in, cravin’ blood. Then the creatures came the reason to keep the courts goin’. Anyone touched by evil would be called here.”
“Jem's not evil.”
“An’ her father, the Magnate? There's something orgly about that family. Something worse than the chancers in yer salon.”
Lilian bit her lip. She wanted to defend Jem, but she couldn't forget her lover’s confession about the call of the other city in her sleep.
“How do we get in?” she asked, putting aside the problem. There was no obvious entrance.
Kinley shrugged. One hand dove behind his back and can back with a small, sleek pistol. It gleamed next to the Keeper's rough trousers and shirt. Lilian wondered if he had stolen it.
“Touch one of the gates an’ state your business. That's how it goes with underworld stuff. D’you have a weapon on yer person?”
Lilian smirked at him, briefly forgetting her fear. “Keeper my figure is my weapon. If you need a firestick in my presence, you've already lost.” She placed a hand on the black fretwork before her bravura ebbed away. Before she could announce her name, the gates made a sucking gasp and drew her in, the metal parting like liquid.
Kinley looked at the spot where she had stood and hefted his pistol uncertainly. He wasn't a coward by anyone's standards, but hell gates acting of their own accord was unnerving. Evil had rules and one of the more sensible ones was not to give inanimate objects a mind of their own. It was messy enough with flesh and blood.
“Don't go,” a voice breathed in his ear. “You can't help her when you carry such darkness of your own.” The voice was neither male nor female and had a hushed quality, like the like gasp of a consumptive patient.
Kinley spun around. Of course, there was no one behind him.
“I'm not due to go mad for another three weeks,” he muttered. “Gotta schedule to keep.”
“Good,” the voice agreed, in his other ear. “We need an independent thinker.”
Kinley thrust his hands out and behind him. Again, they encountered nothing and there was no one nearby.
“Follow,” the voice commanded. Something - the faintest ripple in the air - moved away. With another troubled glance at the gates, Kinley complied.
*
Lilian was vexed. Not angry - that would be an unseemly loss of control for a Pearl such as herself - but ruffled. The liquid gates had slurped her into a small iron box with just enough room to crouch. It was undignified and worse, uncaring. If they were going to imprison her, they could at least make an effort. She could hear the roar of the crowd outside and the stench of blood and piss.
“Salim? Good day? Hey? Anyone?”
She banged on the sides of the box with a satisfying clang. The box rattled from side to side. Lilian grinned, then hit it again, shoving her weight against one panel. With a creak and a groan, the panels fell apart, dropping her into the mud with flouce of pink silk and a splatter. Above her, the crowd applauded. She squinted upwards. The crowd looked odd. No horns or tails, but there was something wrong with their movements.
“A new contestant!” a male voice boomed out, across the arena. “Bring forth the first trial!”
“Trial? Why am I on trial?!” Lilian yelled, scrambling to her feet. She was alone in the muddy enclosure with high stone walls and double doors at one end. The whole thing was the size of a large courtyard.
Around the arena, at each corner, a drummer stepped up and started the beat. A fast, frenetic pattern.
Lilian licked her lips. The drummers had the ragged uniform of Alinakard and she could see the gleam of white bone where their gloves had rubbed away. Oddly enough, their faces still looked human - a little withered and sunken, but recognisable. A man in a turban and toga turned away from her and she saw his shoulder blade poking through his skin. It looked like she was the only living being in the place.
She rubbed the mud from her elbows. At the entrance, the doors swung open. The drums stopped abruptly, leaving an expectant hush in their wake.
Lilian braced herself for whatever horror would come next, curling her hands into fists. Every courtesan in the quarter knew where to hit or bite, to stop a patron from getting too rough.
Her mouth dropped open as she saw her opponent racing towards her.
“Is this a joke?”
She was facing a large, lop-eared white rabbit.
Great twist