The Dark City Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The Box of Flames

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  The Bee’s Warning

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  The Watch, Unsleeping

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  The Wounded City

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  The house of Trees

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  RELIC MASTER

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Published by The Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa • Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States 2011 by Dial Books

  Published in the United Kingdom 1998 by Random House Children’s Books

  Copyright © 1998 by Catherine Fisher

  All rights reserved

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Fisher, Catherine, date.

  The dark city / by Catherine Fisher.

  p. cm.—(Relic Master ; [1])

  Summary: Sixteen-year-old Raffi, Master Galen, and a mysterious traveler, Carys, enter the ruined city of Tasceron seeking a relic that may save the world, while evading the Watch, a brutal organization opposed to the Order to which Raffi and Galen belong.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51521-1

  [1. Fantasy. 2. Apprentices—Fiction. 3. Antiquities—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F4995 Dam 2011 [Fic]—dc22

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To Stephen Herrington for the idea

  The Box of Flames

  1

  The world is not dead. The world is alive and breathes. The world is the whim of God, and her journey is forever.

  Litany of the Makers

  THE SEVEN MOONS were all in the sky at once. Tonight they made the formation that Galen called the web: one in the center—Pyra, the small red one—and the others in a circle around her. They glimmered over the treetops; it was a good omen, the sisters’ most perfect dance.

  Raffi stared up at them with his arms full of wood. As an experiment, he let his third eye open and made tiny purple filaments of light spray from the central moon to all the others, linking them in a flaring pattern. After a while he changed the color to blue, managing to hold it for a few minutes, and even when it faded, a faint echo still lingered. He watched it till his arms were tired, then he held the wood more carefully and turned away.

  That had been better than last time. He was getting quite good at it—he ought to tell Galen.

  Or maybe not.

  Gathering up more of the crumbling twigs, he moved through the dark trees resentfully. It was no use talking to Galen. The keeper was in one of his bitter moods; he’d only laugh, that short, harsh laugh of contempt.

  The wood was very dry, rotting on the forest floor. Huge ants scurried out of it, and the armored woodgrubs that chewed slowly. He flicked a shower of them from his clothes.

  The forest was quiet. Two nights ago a pack of woses had raged through here, tearing great holes in the leaf canopy; the wreckage still lay under the oaks. In the green gloom of the night, insects hummed; something whistled behind him in the wood. It was time he was getting back.

  He pushed through hanging ivies and across a clearing deep in bracken, alert for snakes and the venomous blue spiders, but only shadows shifted and blurred among the trees, too far off to see or sense. He’d come farther than he’d thought and in the shafts of moonlight, red and pale and rose, the path looked unfamiliar, until the trees ended in a bank of dead leaves. He waded through them to the hillside, seeing the vast black hump of the cromlech and Galen’s fire like a spark in its shadow.

  Then he stopped.

  Somewhere behind him, far behind, something had tripped one of the sense-lines. The warning tweaked a tiny pain over one eye; he recognized it at once. The lines were well above ground; whatever it was, it was big, and coming this way. He listened, intent, but only the night sounds came to him, the insect buzz and the flittermice, the crackle of the fire.

  Scattering wood, he ran down quickly.

  “What’s the matter?” Galen sat carelessly against the slabs of the tomb, his coat tugged tight around him. “Scared of moths now?”

  Raffi dumped the wood in a heap; dust rose from it. “One of the sense-lines just snapped!”

  The keeper stared at him for a moment. Then he turned to the fire and began piling the wood onto the flames. “Did it now.”

  “Don’t do that! Someone might be coming!”

  Galen shrugged. “Let them.”

  “It could be anyone!” Raffi dropped to a crouch, almost sick with worry, the strings of purple and blue stones he wore around his neck swinging. He caught hold of them. “It could be the Watch! Put the fire out at least!”

  Galen paused. When he looked up, his face was a mask of flame light and haggard shadows, his deep eyes barely gleaming, his hook nose exaggerated like a hawk’s. “No,” he said harshly. “If they want me, let them come. I’ve had enough of skulking in the dark.” He eased his left leg with both hands. “What direction?”

  “West.”

  “From the mountains.” He mused. “Could just be a traveler.”

  “Maybe.” Raffi was preoccupied. Another line had twanged in his skull, closer now.

  Galen watched him. “So. Let’s put my pupil through his paces.”

  “What, now!”

  “No better time.” He turned his lean face to the fire. “If it is an enemy, what might we put on the flames?”

  Raffi, appalled, rubbed his hair. He was scared now; he hated Galen in this mood. “Bitterwort. Scumweed, if we had any, goldenrod to make him sleepy. Shall I do that?”

  “Do nothing, unless I tell you. Say nothing.” Sharply, Galen raised his head, his profile dark against the smallest moon. “Have you got the blue box?”

  Raffi nodded; he clutched it, in his pocket.

  “Use it only if the danger is extreme.”

  “I know, I know. But—”

  A twig snapped. Somewhere nearby a were-bird shrieked and flew off through the branches. Behind it, Raffi caught the snuffle of a horse.

  He stood up, heart thumping. Behind him the cromlech was black and solid, the rock face gnarled under his palms, hollowed by a thousand years of frost and rain. L
ichen grew on it, a green powder over the faint carved spirals. It felt like a great beast, fossilized and hunched.

  Galen pulled himself up too, without his stick. His long hair swung forward, the tangled strings of black jetstones and green crystal catching the light, the heavy cowl of his coat high around his neck.

  “Ready?” he breathed.

  “I think so.”

  The keeper gave him a scornful glance. “Don’t worry. I won’t risk your life.”

  “It’s not mine I’m worried about.” But Raffi muttered it sullenly under his breath, feeling for the powders and the blue box.

  A horse came abruptly out of the wood.

  It was tall, one of the thin, red-painted kinds they bred beyond the mountains, and the sweat on its long, skeletal neck made it ghostly in the sisters’ light. It walked forward and stopped just beyond the flicker of the fire. Staring into the dark, Raffi could just make out the rider: a dim, bulky figure muffled against the cold.

  No one spoke.

  Raffi glanced into the trees. He couldn’t sense anyone else. He tried to look into the wood with his third eye, but he was too nervous; only shadows moved. The rider stirred.

  “A fine evening, friends.” His voice was deep; a big man.

  Galen nodded, his long dark hair swinging. “So it is. You’ve come far?”

  “Far enough.”

  The horse shifted, its harness clinking softly. The rider urged it a few steps forward, perhaps to see them better.

  “Come to the fire,” Galen said dangerously.

  The horse’s fear was tangible, a smell on the air. It was terrified of the cromlech, or perhaps the invisible web of earth-lines that ran out from it. The man, too, sounded tense when he spoke again. “I don’t think so, keepers.”

  Galen’s voice was quiet as he answered. “That’s an unlucky title. Why should we be keepers?”

  “This is an unlucky place. Who else would be living here?” The rider hesitated, then swung himself down from the saddle and came forward a few steps, unwinding a filmy, knitted wrapping from his face.

  They saw a powerful, thick-set man, black-bearded. A crossbow of some sort was slung on his shoulder. He wore a metal breastplate too; it gleamed in the light of the moons. Dangerous, Raffi thought. But nothing they couldn’t handle.

  The stranger must have thought the same. “I bring no threat here,” he went on quickly. “How could I? There’s no doubt an armory of sorcery aimed at me as I stand.” He held up both hands, empty; a jewel gleamed on the left gauntlet. “I’m looking for a man named Galen Harn, a Relic Master.” He glanced at Raffi, expressionless. “And for his scholar, Raffael Morel.”

  “Are you now,” Galen said bleakly. He shifted; Raffi knew that his leg would be aching, but the keeper’s face was hard. “And what do you want with them?”

  “To pass on a message. West of here, about twenty leagues, in the foothills where the rivers meet, there’s a settlement. The people there need him.”

  “Why?”

  The rider smiled wryly, but he answered. “They found a relic, as they were plowing. A tube. When you touch it, it hums. Small green lights move inside it.”

  Galen didn’t flicker, but Raffi knew he was alert. The horseman knew too. “It seems to me,” he said ironically, “that if you should see this Galen, you might tell him. The people are desperate that he come and deal with the thing. None of them dares go near it.”

  Galen nodded. “I’m sure. But the Order of keepers is outlawed. They’re all either dead or in hiding from the Watch. If they’re caught they face torture. This man might suspect a trap.”

  “He’d be safe enough.” The rider scratched his beard and tried a step forward. “We need him. We wouldn’t betray him. We’re loyal to the old Order. That’s all I can say, master. He’d just have to trust us.”

  Take one more step, Raffi thought. In his pocket his fingers trembled on the blue crystal box. He’d never used it on a man. Not yet.

  The rider was still, as if he felt the tension.

  Suddenly Galen moved, limping forward out of the tomb’s shadow into the red and gold of the firelight. He stood tall, his face dark. “Tell them we’ll come. Bury the device in the earth till we get there. Set a guard and let no one come near it. It may be dangerous.”

  The rider smiled. “Thank you. I’ll see that it’s done.” He turned and climbed heavily up onto the horse; the red beast circled warily. “When can we expect you?”

  “When we get there.” Galen stared at him levelly. “I’d ask you to stay the night, but outlaws have little to share.”

  “Nor would I, keeper. Not under those stones.” He turned away, then paused, glancing back. “The people will be glad to hear this. Depend upon it: You’ll be safe with us. Ask for Alberic.”

  Then the horse stalked cautiously into the wood.

  They both stood silent a long time, listening to the faint crackle and rustle, the distant charring of disturbed birds. The sense-lines snagged, one by one, in Raffi’s head.

  Finally, Galen moved. He sat down, hissing through his teeth with the stiffness of his leg. “Well. What do you think of that?”

  Raffi took his hand off the blue box and collapsed beside him. Suddenly he felt unbearably tired. “That he’s got guts, coming out here.”

  “And his story?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged “It sounds true. But . . .”

  “But. Exactly.” The keeper sat back, his face in shadow.

  “It could be a trap,” Raffi ventured.

  “So it could.”

  “But you’re going anyway.”

  Galen laughed sourly. A sudden spark lit his face, twisted with pain. “I used to know when people lied to me, Raffi. If only they knew!” He glanced across. “We both go. Someone has to deal with this relic.”

  Uneasy, Raffi shook his head. “There may be no relic.”

  Galen spat into the fire. “What do I care,” he said softly.

  2

  This is how the world came to be. The Makers came from the sky, on stairways of ice. Flain opened his hands and the land and sea were there, the soil and salt. He set them one against the other, eroding, in conflict forever. Out of stillness he brought movement, out of peace, war.

  Soren called out the leaves and the trees. She walked the world, and seeds fell from her sleeves and the hem of her dress. The Woman of Leaves clothed the world in a green brocade.

  It was Tamar, the bearded one, who brought the beasts. Down the silver stairs he led them, the smallest a night-cub that struggled in his arms.

  All the sons of God watched them scatter.

  Book of the Seven Moons

  THE JOURNEY TO THE SETTLEMENT took five days. On his own, Raffi could have gotten there in four, but Galen’s limp slowed them down. The keeper’s leg was long healed, but it was stiff, and he walked grim and silent with a tall black stick. Even when the pain must have been bad after a long day’s tramp in the rain or cold, he never talked about it. Raffi was used to it all: the keeper’s brooding, his sudden outbreaks of foul temper. At times like these he kept quiet and wary and out of reach of the black stick. Galen had been hurt too deeply. The explosion had damaged more than his leg—it had scarred his mind. Toiling up the steep rocky path, the pack heavy on his shoulders, Raffi watched the Relic Master scramble ahead of him, slithering on scree. Galen was almost as unstable. And now this message.

  If it was a trap, Galen wouldn’t care. Raffi knew that sometimes he wanted to get caught, that he took deliberate risks, carelessly, proudly; like in the summer when they’d walked out of the forest into a village and taken a room and stayed there for three days, sleeping on comfortable beds, eating outside in full view of everyone. Galen hadn’t cared, but for Raffi it had been three days of terror. The villagers hadn’t betrayed them. Most had looked the other way. They’d been so lucky, Raffi thought, stumbling over a stone. Everyone knew there was a reward for the capture of any keeper. Two thousand marks. They’d been incredibly
lucky.

  “Come on!” Galen was standing on the top of the ridge. His voice was a growl through his teeth. “You can go faster than this. Don’t think you need to slow down for me.”

  Raffi stopped, wiping sweat from his hair. “I’m not. The pack’s heavy.”

  Galen glared at him. “Then give it to me.”

  “You’ve had your turn.”

  “Do you think I can’t manage another?”

  “I didn’t say that!” Raffi spread his hands. “I just—”

  “Save it! And move. We want to get to this place before night.” He had turned and gone before Raffi could answer.

  Looking at the empty sky, Raffi felt furious and hurt and reckless. For a cold moment, he told himself he would leave tonight, just take his things and go home. There were no Relic Masters now, the Order was broken. And Galen could look after himself with his scornful, bitter jealousy. But even as he raged, Raffi knew it all meant nothing, and he took the blue crystal box out and glared at it. Curiosity would keep him here. There was so much he had to learn. And he’d felt the power surge in him, and now he could never be without it.

  THAT AFTERNOON they sat on warm stones on a hillside, looking down, at last, on the settlement.

  “Well,” Galen said acidly. “Well, well.” He drank from the water flask and passed it over; Raffi took a cold mouthful thoughtfully. They had expected a village. And indeed there were houses, barns, outbuildings. But mostly, this was a fortress.

  The central building was ancient; maybe even from the time of the Makers. The sides were strangely smooth and pale, the signs of old windows clear, now clumsily bricked up to slits. There were about six levels. On the higher ones balconies hung out precariously; most were ruined, but Raffi could see bowmen on one, tiny moving figures. The roof had partly collapsed, and been mended with hurdles and thatch.