Tale of 2 Cities: Lies and arithmancy
Afizere's squad started out with the worst of intentions.
The story so far…
Time has a way of gilding even the worst spit-bubbling personality, smoothing them under a gravestone with a few choice words.
Unfortunately for Jem, the city of Aeon doesn’t permit death and she’s finding out first-hand why the citizens keep their rotting ancestors at arm’s length. She’s carrying the skull of her great-great-grand uncle through the city sewers. So far, he’s given her a short, sharp historical education littered with foul language. Kinley’s close to joining in. He’s wearing the worst type of clothing for wading in water.
Meanwhile, Lilian has managed to get herself captured, imprisoned and employed all in one day. She’s interrogating three traitor soldiers from her city, Alinakard, in the hope they hold a clue to Gowan’s Tower and the puzzle that keeps everyone trapped in Aeon’s time bubble.
You can read last week’s post here, or start from the beginning with The City On The Other Side. There are links at the bottom of each post that will jump you straight to the next chapter.
“There isn’t any magic in my city,” Jem commented after a while. The trio were still sloshing their way through the sewer tunnel in the dark, with the entry gate locked behind them. They were safe enough for now, as long as they watched their footing.
“Not in Alinakard,” Kinley agreed, from behind her. “Tons in the desert, in the wild places. I’d wake up with the taste of it on ma tongue.”
“You’re one of them?” asked the skull.
“One what?”
“Magi? Hunter? Knight?”
“Nah. Padfoot Tracker.”
“Tracker? Oh, desert bait, then. I’m surprised they let you walk over the bridge to us.”
Kinley glared down to where the skull’s voice was located. “You’re a cocky sod for someone with no arms an’ legs. I could drop-kick yeh the rest of the way home, maggot brains.”
“I’ll stick him in the bag,” Jem offered.
“Go ahead.” the skull grumbled. “D’you think your threats mean anything to me after being eaten by ants and humped by a fox? I…”
The voice faded away, accompanied by the satisfying thwack of Jem’s straps as she buckled the bag up.
“Thank the saints an’ stones,” Kinley said, relieved.
“Yep. He was a bit much.” She shuffled to the side and Kinley realised he could see part of her shoulder. “One sec, your ladyship.”
“Wha..?”
Kinley squeezed past her and followed the grey outline of the tunnel- not so much the light, as the promise of something with texture. A hundred metres later he had turned the corner into an intersection. A grating was set off to the side, with sunlight lancing through it. Relieved, Kinley splashed over to the square patch and stared upwards. He could see the shadows of people blocking out the sun and the rumble of a cart.
“Where are we?” Jem asked in a low voice as she joined him.
“Under the main thoroughfare, I think,” Kinley replied. “Let’s follow it for a bit and find a way out.” He fumbled in his clothes, just under his belt and pulled out his knife. “I just need to make a clothing adjustment first.” He hacked away at his robes until the hem flapped around his knees.
“Fashionable,” Jem commented dryly.
“Better ragged than drowned, lass. I keep stumbling in this gear. Do scholars ever run?”
Jem started to move off, her voice echoing in the distance. “They don’t move at all, Kinley, except for the dinner bell.”
Kinley squinted into the darkness and sniffed. “Wait up!”
Jem huffed. “What now?”
“Try this way. Air’s fresher.”
“But the Tower’s in this direction!”
“Trust me, ladyship. Ah’m the desert bait, after all.”
“Huh. Don’t let him get to you. Padfoots aren’t bait; they’re the ones who get you out of the trap. He doesn’t know how tough you are.”
Kinley shook his head. She was right, but the insult still rankled.
“Hop up, here…”
Kinley’s route took them into a wide-mouthed junction, with a high enough roof to finally stand up straight and two gratings inset for light. The water was little more than a surface puddle and best of all, there was another gated entrance - with the hinges cut off. The gate itself had been tossed to one side. Jem swore as she fumbled for a weapon.
“Don’t bother,” Kinley said quietly. He pointed to a looming mass in the highest corner, out of the wet ground. “Spot the knots on those boxes. Same ones as at the hide-out. It’s Captain Afizere’s squad. Makes sense if you wanna move stuff without getting caught.”
He walked briskly over to them and pawed through the pile, looking for open or loose tops. Most of the boxes were tightly bound shut, but as he shifted them, something clattered.
“Iron-work?” Jem asked, puzzled. She joined him and produced a knife to cut the ropes. Kinley shook his head as he pulled out his own blade. “We should be so lucky.”
A few busy minutes later the boxes had disgorged their secrets. Swords, of course, pikes, crossbows and a heavy box of bolts. At the back, wrapped in an oiled blanket, was a massive grappling hook, as tall as Jem, with 4 barbed claws. It was far too big to be thrown by the average man and Kinley briefly wondered how the squad had carried it into the tunnels in the first place.
“There’s enough stuff here to equip a platoon,” Jem said. “Why would the squad need so many weapons?”
Kinley shrugged. “There were more o’ the buggers, when they first came over,” he offered.
“Not that many. I remember my father talking about it at the time - it was strictly a single squad and he thought it was a waste of men.”
“Huh. Did your father happen to say who sent them? An’ why?”
Jem scrunched up her face. “No. He just remarked it at the dinner table one night, when one of our guests brought up the topic.”
Kinley prodded the box with his foot. “This…is trouble. You don’t cache weapons unless you’re jouncing for a coup or a rebellion. Ah’m wondering about the real reason our Lily-pearl found ‘em in the fight court.”
*
“Oh, you are going to tell me,” Lilian breathed, glaring into Claw-face’s eyes. “Or else I will scream assault and you can kiss goodbye to that servitude sentence. Who are they going to believe? The pretty female scholar or the criminal soldier who’s already been through the stocks?” She paused a moment, to let the thought sink in. Clawface started to stutter and she straightened up, raising her hand to silence him.
“Of course, if you help me, I can attest to your good character to Lord Aridius,” she offered sweetly.
“You know him?” the soldier to the left gasped. “I thought you’d just arrived in Aeon?”
Lilian raised an eyebrow. “I know his niece,” she explained. It wasn’t precisely a lie, even if it had been a five-minute acquaintance in the holding cells. Besides, she’d recognised the look of lust on Aridius’ face when he spoke to her in the court. It was as good as cash in the bank, for an experienced Pearl.
The soldiers exchanged glances and shrugged in a downbeat consensus. After all, what else could go wrong?
“We were sent here to establish a bridgehead,” Clawface explained. “Once we were in place and found a way back, we were supposed to send a signal to Alinakard’s garrison and wait for orders.”
Lilian blinked. “Why? What for?”
“Conquest, miss. The high-ups think that Aeon is a threat to us.”
Lilian shook her head, hardly able to believe it. “That’s absurd. They barely know we exist!”
The left-hand soldier bent down to his chained hands to scratch at his chin. There was a fine wisp of hair developing cheeks. Together with his blonde colouring, his appearance reminded Lilian of a confused bumble bee.
“Not sure quite how to say it,” Bee explained. “But those fancy clogs at the ‘rithmancy guild told us that Aeon is stealing time, somehow. It’s making us all die too young.”
“Really? And then the council believed them?”
Claw puckered his lips in a scornful sneer. “Don’t think that mattered, miss. Everyone knows this place is stuffed with treasure. The Magnates just want to take it over and we’re the poor sods sent to make it happen. Who cares if they get it wrong?”
Lilian drummed her fingers on the table. It sounded plausible enough.
“What about Sergeant Jere? Why was he doing magical research in the archives?”
They looked at her baffled that she needed to question the obvious.
“Looking for magic, miss,” enunciated Bee. “He was trying to find us a way out. Same reason we went to the fight court.”
“Really? Did Sergeant Jere tell you to go there, too?”
“No,” said Clawface. “It was the Captain, but he didn’t object. He seemed pleased about the plan and I reckon the idea came from him in the first place.”
Lilian opened her mouth to try again, but then she heard the guard’s footfall in the corridor. “We’ll talk again later,” she promised them in a low whisper as she straightened up.
She had to get to Sergeant Jere before Aeon’s city guards did. It looked like he’d been lying to everyone all along, which meant he had something to conceal about Gowan’s Tower and the demon. In a timeless city, she was about to race against the clock.