Context (90 page)

Authors: John Meaney

Tags: #Science Fiction

In
a dank, cobbled piazza shrouded with black shadows, Tom finally caught sight of
her spectral shape, wide cape sweeping the dark glistening cobblestones. She
was heading for a square archway—but, in the tunnel beyond, he saw silhouettes
move. Outlines of three militiamen standing out of the light, on purpose.

Alerted by someone from the Club
d’Anderquin?

‘Sweetheart?’ Tom called out.

His black cloak was still draped
over his forearm, but he was able to give a half-wave in the woman’s direction.

She paused.

Tom moved quickly, taking long
paces to hide the urgency.

‘It
is
you, darling. Fancy
seeing you here.’

Doubt reached her eyes, and she
began to turn away, but Tom was close enough now to murmur: ‘You’re in danger.
I can help.’

‘Danger?’ Her voice was quiet.

He took her arm, redirecting her—‘Don’t
turn your head, but can you glance to your left?’—until he was sure she had
seen the watchers.

‘Who are you? A friend of Yano’s?’

‘Talk later.’ Tom was already
leading her towards a different exit: rounded, black with gloom. ‘Right now,
you’ve attracted some unwelcome attention.’

She gave a small, silent nod.

Either she was less drunk than he
had thought, or fear had sobered her, for she matched his pace with no further
argument. Accompanying him into shadows.

And stopped with him, when they
were hidden in the exit tunnel. Like Tom, she held her breath, and listened.

Footsteps.

The militiamen were following.

Tom felt the entire mission, his
secret world, collapsing in around him because of the impulse to help a weak
embittered stranger, who might turn out to be detestable.

‘Take this.’ He shoved his folded
cloak into her hands. ‘And give me your cape.’

At
the next intersection, half-lit in sombre blue, Tom stood briefly where the
following men might see him from a distance—clad in the woman’s long cape—then
stepped into the shadows and slapped his own face.

‘Swear at me now,’ he said in a
low voice.

And the dark-haired woman
delivered a loud blistering curse—the sound would surely carry back to the
militiamen—using a wealth of vocabulary which surprised him even in the
circumstances.

‘Now go,’ he said when she had
finished. ‘Meet me in Skandril Market at dawnshift.’

She started to move.

‘And don’t return home.’

A hesitation, then: ‘I was
with
friends
at the club.’

Bitter undertone. Friends who
would likely have betrayed her, by now.

You betrayed yourself.

‘Go on,’ said Tom. ‘Get out of
here.’

Into a side tunnel’s shadows —

Go with freedom.

— and was gone.

Militiamen, making more noise as
they drew near, no longer bothering to conceal themselves.

Tom made his move.

Swimming
was the least of the new skills drilled into him at the Academy. But he was
going to have to count on it to save his life.

Deep breath, silent dive—
it was a mental rehearsal—
and
push like Chaos.

Tom was walking fast, but not too
fast, with the cape billowing slightly, and three militiamen following. But in
his mind, he was already in the cold, black canal, taking the only way to
freedom.

Focus now.

The teachings of fine, honest
warrior-instructors—from Dervlin and Maestro da Silva, to Sergeant M’Kalnikav
and his Academy comrades—lived on in Tom. Defining the nature of reality: that
it bends to human will, to the power of imagination.

Hold the objective in mind,
consider it achieved, keep that image despite all pain and all confusion, hang
on to it with frenzied energy, and it becomes—finally—real.

More footsteps, ahead as well as
behind him.

Another patrol.

Tom turned left, into a grey
stone corridor, but there were voices at the far end.

They’re closing in.

But the soldiers’ mental
objective was to capture a lone, somewhat drunken woman, who might curse and
scratch but offered no serious threat to uniformed males at the height of their
power, with the strength of their comradeship and teamed desire, their polished
weapons in their hands, and the knowledge that a prisoner was in no position to
complain about anything that might occur between here and the cells, after they
had finished with her.

There was an alcove, too small to
hide a person, but sufficient to conceal a bundled cape of lustrous blue, in
the shadows where its sprinkled silver flecks would not spark with reflected
light.

Then Tom climbed up and hung
motionless, like some three-limbed silent arachnabug, splayed against the
tunnel ceiling.

After
they had passed, he descended easily, retrieved the cape, and broke into a
loping, soundless run.

He had spent little time here on
the Quintum Stratum, but the design was replicated through several levels and
he had memorized the topological differences. The canal was where it would be
near his current home, two strata down, and he ran harder than he ever had,
heel to toe, in utter silence.

Black water, glistening.

He cast the cape, and it
fluttered to the waves then floated, where it began a slow rotating drift, like
a discarded blossom whose purpose was to spread genes by the power of its
beauty. Silver flecks scintillated, grew dark.

Distant shouts, as the
militiamen, angry now, retraced their steps.

Tom crouched down at the stone
bank’s straight edge, controlled his breathing as he extended his arm, and
rolled forwards softly into darkness.

Cold black water enveloped him.

~ * ~