Day Boy (12 page)

I'd got some view through the window in my room after I found I could open the glass
a decent crack.

During the day it's silent but for the hurried wanderings of servants, the whispered
talk. Somewhere near the Temple of the Sun there is the Crèche, where those best
and brightest of boys are raised, all clever and learned in the various necessary
arts. I never set foot in there, too delicate. Too dumb.

But I'd fancy a peek, to measure myself against those new-taught lads, young and
unknowing of the world, for all their books and lessons.

My shirt's stuck to my back soon as we walk out onto the street. And it catches me
again all that light, big hot lamps, and at the centre of the city is the Temple
of the Sun, its grand old brass Orb lit up so bright that it hurts to look at it.
Which you aren't supposed to less you're a Master, but I look anyway, of course I
do. Right up at that faux brass Sun the Luminance.

Dain slaps the back of my skull—with his hand, not the
cane he's holding in the other
one. ‘Turn your gaze,' he hisses. ‘The wrong folk see you, and they'll have your
throat.'

And I do, but I'm blinking and blind.

‘Fool,' he says. ‘Why must your understanding always be found in self-hurt? You need
your sight here. You need to watch and you need to think. Your eyes can't handle
that light, any more than they could handle the Sun.'

‘I can't see,' I moan.

Dain snorts. ‘You'll get it back soon enough. You barely peeked.'

It's a blurry sort of walk we have, and Dain holds my hand like I was still a child
after I trip that first time, nearly landing on my face. Can't see, but I can hear,
the rumbles of those distant engines, the beating heart of industries.

There's music everywhere: it fills the city. Songs, pianos playing from bars deep
in the mountain. Oh, Anne would love it!

And one time I hear it: the choir. A low singing that builds and rises, that reaches
into my chest deep as any kiss. The sound makes me stop, and Dain with me. It's pure,
and reaching to the ceiling of the mountain. There may not be stars above us, but
this song has stars in it. And all at once I am crying. Like some baby, sniffling
and snuffling.

‘Beautiful. Beautiful,' Dain says.

‘Never heard its like,' I say.

‘Well, now you have, boy. And I am glad I could share it with you. That's the Luminance's
Choir, the Sun church's choir, all Crèche-raised boys. Girls too. There's heaven
in it. The Orchestral Hall is that building nearest the temple.

‘They adore their sounds here,' Dain says, like he isn't one
of them. ‘Sun, Sea,
Song, that's the core of my kind. The things lost, and the things that remind us.'

‘And what's it remind you of?' I ask him, all blink and tear.

‘That we're but a Sunrise from obliteration. There's something gorgeous in the ruination
of us all.'

‘Not in any hurry for ruination,' I mumble.

Dain squeezes my hand. ‘Give it time.'

It's a bit of walking before I can see more than splodges, and by then we're almost
at the Tower.

And I catch sight of the cages, rows of them, extending from the Tower of Law, down
East Street, and West. And within them are folk, sickly-looking folk, three to a
cage. And in some of them there are others with them. Feeding.

‘Who are these?'

‘Vagrants. Criminals. Food. Life isn't easy here.' Dain looks to me, drops to his
knee. ‘Some of my kind have taken to calling you the Feast. I do not think it appropriate.'

‘But it's what we are, isn't it?'

Dain doesn't answer. And then he doesn't have time. There's the smash of a fallen
tile. And the sound of angry talk. Men drop from an overhanging roof like possums
grown light and deadly.

The first swings out at me. And Dain is in the way. I see the knife go in, but it
doesn't go out. Dain holds it there. His hands reach out, grip his attacker by the
neck, and he squeezes. Bone cracks, gristle snaps, the fellow drops and Dain is already
turning, pulling the knife from him; there's a puff of blood dark and putrid. He
runs the blade under the second one's neck, draws a spray of true blood out. The
black shape topples.

There's another one dropping, and Dain, hardly even looking, strikes him in the head
with his cane. He hits the ground and stays there.

It's over so fast.

There's a distant whistle blowing.

‘Are you all right?' Dain says.

‘Yes. What about you?'

Dain coughs, lays a heavy hand on me. ‘I'm wounded, true, but I've suffered greater
hurts.'

The constables find us there in that tangle of bodies, all embraced by ruination,
my Master leaning on me like he is an old man.

They hesitate, and Dain raises a hand. ‘It's all right,' he says. And then he slumps
against me.

‘Master's been stabbed,' I say.

‘Does he need care?' The senior—well, the best-dressed—constable says.

‘Do you?' I whisper.

Dain grimaces. ‘Already the wounds are healing,' he says nice and low. ‘Weakness
cannot be seen.'

‘I'll see to him,' I say. ‘You gentlemen see to this.'

Dain leans on my arm. Guides me down one street, then another.

‘Down this alley, boy,' he says, and he's already standing taller; taking the lead.

There's a Master waiting at the heavy door, and he does something that I've never
seen before. He bends low, a true genuflection.

‘Master Dain,' he says. ‘A pleasure, an honest pleasure.'

(‘Boy,' Dain whispers. ‘Trust least those that bow the
deepest. There's no effort
to be had in bending the back, and even the slightest of us has teeth.')

‘Up with you, Master Dargel,' Dain says. ‘Up with you quick.'

Master Dargel lifts his head, there's a touch of umbrage in his eyes.

Dain laughs. ‘Oh, don't play hurt, my dear friend. Don't play hurt.'

Dargel sniffs. ‘There is blood on you.'

‘An altercation, nothing more.'

‘There's always an element of wildness these days,' Dargel says. ‘But to attack one
of us, such is the folly of our feuding kind.'

Dain smiles. ‘I am merely scratched.'

Dargel nods. ‘And how goes your book?'

Dain clears his throat. ‘It goes. It goes. I've little patience for chatter this
night. Things need doing, deeper talks are required.'

‘Of course,' Dargel says. ‘Why you nearly built the place single-handed.'

I give Dain such a look, and my Master pats my hand. ‘He exaggerates. I was but one
of many.'

‘Your Master was among the first, he's been our kind for longer than this is old.
He set up the schools, he spoke for the new ones. He went below, a hundred times,
they say. He was one of many, but he was hardly the least.'

‘Enough, Dargel, enough,' Dain says.

‘Of course, of course, I forget that is how you are, and now more than ever, though
why you would come here—'

‘I have my reasons,' Dain says.

Not a Master in the world didn't have reasons.

CHAPTER
17

MY EYES SNAP open with the sound of the door mechanism releasing. My dreams were
full of ticking clocks and alien moons, of snow and bears and girls with sharp teeth.
I'm up and out of bed, quick smart. Hardly slept, still on edge after that attack.
Not sure I'll ever relax in this city, which would make Dain happy for sure.

I turn the handle and go out.

There's a table set there with food. Fruit and some cold meats, bread and cheese.
I eat it, and all of it's good, fresh food, but it's not what I'm used to. And in
that I find another niggle of homesickness.

There's a clock on the wall, 12.30 pm. Still a long time until night. Maybe there's
something wrong with the mechanism: the ticks and the tocks not quite right.

Maybe we Day Boys are meant to wander even here.

I eat a little more, because I'm hungry. I'm always hungry, what boy isn't?

Then I put my ear to the door, strain to hear what's going on outside. Nothing. I
push the door a crack, peek down first left then right. Long hallway, not a soul
on it. Only me.

I shut the door, walk back into my room and shut that door, too. The lock slips back
into its ticking place, but I no longer trust it.

I grab the book on the solar system and read. Still reading when Dain wakes.

‘Where did you get those books?' Dain asks me.

‘I thought you organised it.'

Dain picks up the one about the boy and the girl, and the cold city, and his face
twists. ‘Someone is having a joke with us.'

He takes that book to his room, then comes back, and his face is a little brighter.
‘What did you think about the book on the solar system?'

I want to tell him about all the things I've seen, the planets in that dark above
our head, all those worlds, but I can't. All I can think about is why the books were
there, and who put them there. That novel could be the death of someone, why would
they risk it? I'm just a Day Boy, and here in the City in the Shadow of the Mountain
that's less than nothing.

‘You weren't lying,' I say. ‘Those stars and planets are right huge.' And I know
at once that I've said the wrong thing. How can I hope to survive this place if I
can't even read my own Master?

‘No.' He pulls his coat over his shoulders. ‘I wasn't.' And grabs his hat and almost
yanks it down over his head.

‘I am going out tonight. I've business to attend to. You're
to stay here. Do not
leave these rooms. You hear me?'

‘Of course I do.'

‘Then heed me. If you leave, you will be punished, and believe me when I say that
you will wish it was me that did the punishing. Do not mistake this city's dangers
for those of Midfield.' He sighs, straightens his hat, getting the brim just so.
‘Things are far more complex here.'

He leaves me to the rooms, and at least I have those other books.

Three hours I'm reading. Then another three. I walk to the narrow balcony and close
my hands over the ironwork, and I look down. There's lights and steam engines throbbing
somewhere, like the pain in my temple. I can see the streets below, the folks walking
through it all as though it were nothing, and maybe it is nothing.

But I can't look at this place and see it without the threat Dain has suggested.
It's there in the lights and shadows. From here all the way down to the Wide Circle
Road where the statues of the Fallen Dark stand, lit and featureless, as the Sun
once made them.

I feel a gaze settle on me, and I stare down at the streets, and see the red glow
of eyes, a head turning, a figure walking away fast.

I reckon since that Hunter chased me I've felt on the run, as though I had a target
painted on my back and there's all manner of folks chasing me for it.

And the paranoias strike me, and I think that maybe Dain has left me here. That he
isn't coming back, that I'm some price paid whether I want it or not. Everything
has a cost, Dain says. Maybe I'm that cost.

When I walk back inside someone's waiting in the room. Give a little yelp, before
I'm jutting out my jaw.

I'm out with my knife quick smart and the man smiles at me. ‘Put the stabber away,
little man.' Madigan bares his fangs. ‘I'm not here to bleed you.'

I slide the knife into my boot, but I keep the handle clear and in easy reach. ‘Why
are you here then?'

‘Your Master has left a message. He will not be returning this night, but you are
to expect him tomorrow evening.'

‘Where's he gone?'

‘It is not for you or I to ask such things, or expect an answer.'

I grimace at that, and he flashes me another toothful smile. ‘Deeper in the mountain,
I suspect. There is a meeting of the Council, and your Master has been invited. Just
as you do not question him, he cannot question them.'

But I've questions all right. This fella smiles again, once, then is out the door
almost faster than I can see. It shuts and I lock it, though it'll not do me much
good.

Night and there's doors closing, slamming. There's airs moving. I can feel the breath
of the old building. I open one window a crack, catch the fires on the slope to the
west, and see the long shadows. Stir-crazy I am, two long days in this room, and
longer nights without Dain. Books only hold so much comfort when you're as worried
as I am.

There's screams, and laughter, horrible until it ends, and then the silence is worse:
nothing more quiet than predators.

A machine starts up somewhere, and I realise I've been dozing. Resilient, Dain's
always called me and I thought he meant stupid.

The doors to the outside are closing. I can smell the smoke of engines straining
at their work. Dawn's coming another day, and the Master's not returned, and I've
not had a visit from Madigan since that first.

There's trouble.

Trouble I'm not the cause of, not at least direct like.

And then, I see it, on the foot of my bed. A slip of paper marked with a spiral.
The Hunter's spiral. And I'm gripped with the deepest of terrors. Things are creeping.
They will come tonight, and I have it, a horrible rising certainty. I need to get
out of here.

I open the door wider. Step onto the balcony. Something hurls itself into the sky
and I bite back a yell. It's just a bird, but my heart's pounding. I look to the
road and the great doors closing.

I know I shouldn't. I swore I wouldn't. But that terror's rising. And I realise it's
been there all along, building.

Some of my kind have taken to calling you the Feast.
If I run I could make it. I
might. I grab my bedsheet, tie one end to the edge of the balcony and then clamber
down, letting myself drop when the sheet runs out. I land a bit funny, twist my ankle
a little, but I can still run—sort of. There's a low fence and I'm over it.