8 When the Darken Comes

Present Day

A WOMAN, WITH two children snuggled against her, awoke from a stupor. They were crouched within a crowded tenement against a brick wall. There were several hand lamps and tallow candles lit, but the light was smoky and dim. The youngest boy held both hands over his ears, eyes wide as plates. His sister hummed a tuneless sound, and the woman stroked the girl’s hair to calm her. She felt tired, her eyes itchy and sore. A headache pounded through her skull. She’d overdone it.

‘They’re still searching,’ said a washerwoman named Misla from her position by a narrow window. There was no glass. A goatskin kept out the worst of the cold. Misla was well into her fifties, but her skin was smooth, arms strong, and she had an ample bosom that was the envy of any woman, topped off with a warm smile.

‘Should’ve been over be now,’ Toadius, the washerwoman’s husband, muttered while chewing a lump of birch bark tar. ‘How many blasted days it been?’

The woman tending the young ones hated that smoky stink off his breath when he leaned close, but he claimed it eased his toothache. The cripple sat by her, ready to defend her if required. He got about on his hands, dragging his scrawny frame everywhere. She knew he was a good man and trusted him. She trusted Misla, trusted them all. They knew who she was, though they never spoke her real name aloud, never treated her differently. All in the Muck Quarter knew Princess Aiyana Todralan.

Out of necessity, here they called her Maya, a short form of her middle name. These were her people, the downtrodden, crippled, hardworking Muckers. That name should’ve curdled on her tongue, but each of them wore it with pride. Misla came to her and bent to stroke the girl’s hair. Both orphans, they had taken to Maya.

No one cared about these people. She’d tried starting an orphanage, but bureaucracy and corruption had scuppered her plans. Politics was like nature, mystifying and at times, dangerous. You could cover your head from the storm, find shelter until it passed, but you could never stop it.

‘Named me, Toads, that day he did.’ The cripple was nattering away again. ‘Gotten ’til it stuck and ol’ Toadius Pole was just fine ’bout that. A fine brother he were too, ’til he ran off. Grown up in the Muck Quarter of Byrsa, you see. Made it as a stonemason in the ol’ Prole, but well, while he’d slaved ten hours a day, seven days o’ week, the rest o’ us starved. That was afore they invented those fool scrips.’ He spat to indicate what he thought of those. The scrips had improved the lot of Muckers to a point, but it prevented any from rising higher.

Toadius liked to natter and Misla liked to mother. An odd pair they made, but Aiyana saw the love between them and envied them. You never knew your people, father. Never saw how special they are. They are the foundation our world is built upon. Without them, it all crumbles. She vowed to make their lot better.

‘Twas after he’d made for the good ol’ capital and started sneaking into the Mammon, or the Glut as most us ordinary folks termed it, that he’d started making a living. That was when he’d earned his name too and got noticed. You see he’d gotten that good with a quick hand and a knife that folk thought they was robbed by ghosts. Of course, that was around the same time folks started disappearin’. Was naught to do with him, though.’

Toadius gave a hacking laugh and spat out a dark substance. ‘Proud of his skills he was and that he’d never once killed. “Killin’s for other folk,” he oft said to me, “those without a conscience. I got me one of those, Toads, you see. No killin’ for ol’ Podral now.”’

Throughout the Muck Quarter, most people who had good reasons to hate her family loved her as their own. They told her she was beautiful like her mother. She liked hearing that. Now, they’d taken her in, to hide her from Liviana’s spies, and not least the soldiers roaming the city. Icarthya was vast with nigh a million people, and their search would be a long one. Her hunters didn’t know or understand her, didn’t know that this was the first place she’d run to. Now with a dirt smeared face and a ragged dress and flimsy shawl, she looked like any other Mucker.

‘Enough of your blather,’ Misla snapped at her husband, though there was little bite in it. ‘Poor dear will be traumatised by now, listening to you carrying on.’ She took the little girl in her arms and then handed her over to Toadius. ‘Here, make yourself useful.’ She turned and gave Aiyana a smile. ‘You’ve to learn how to block out his noise, my dear. I’ve had forty years of practice. Hasn’t seen his brother in, oh, must be twenty years now. Swear it were two by his carry on.’

‘He’s alive,’ spat Toads as the girl started to cry. ‘Don’t talk o’ him like he’s not. Who’d you think keeps sending us that coin?’

Perhaps Misla saw the worry in Aiyana’s eyes. She ignored her husband as she spoke. ‘It’ll be alright, dear. The Muck is big and you’re buried deep in it, now. They won’t find you, and if they do, we’ll fight. There’s others who’re ready to defend you, hundreds of folk if I’ve heard right, and many from the Prole too. They know you. They know your heart.’

Aiyana smiled to reassure the woman, but Misla didn’t understand. She couldn’t. Their worlds were different, though they resided in the same city. These people would die if they tried to stand and fight. She wondered if hiding here hadn’t been a mistake.

She’d have to keep them out of it, and the rest of the city too. It’s between you and me, Liviana, she thought. She had to regain the throne. She wanted people like Misla and Toads to be safe.

‘Somethin’ else happenin’ out there,’ suggested Swine, an old codger often found scratching in the dirt searching for the Spectrum knew what. Aiyana suspected that was how he’d earned his name. A few joked aloud that he’d lost his mind and was looking for it. Presently, he’d taken position by a different window, peering past the edge of a tattered, yellowing goatskin. By the look in his eyes as he glanced at her, she thought his mind was just fine.

‘I’m gonna go and check it out,’ Toadius suggested, spitting out the black lump. The girl gripped his arm, but Toadius pried her fingers loose. ‘Just gonna go and look, pet. No need to fret.’ The girl cried louder, while the boy remained in a world devoid of sound.

‘You idiot,’ Misla hissed in a low voice. ‘I know why you’re going and tis suicide.’

‘Not in front o’ them,’ Toadius muttered just as low, and Aiyana had to strain to hear. ‘When things quieten, bring them to the docks, by the old shipyard. I’ll meet you there.’

‘What we want with the docks?’ Misla said too loudly, her surprise overcoming her caution. ‘They’re not selling fish these days. Besides, there’s a curfew. They catch you and it’ll be the dungeons.’

The girl began to wail and Aiyana hugged her tight. The cries faded into wet sobs on her shoulder.

‘There’s ships, I heard,’ piped another voice. Others, crammed together in the near darkness, started murmuring the same. ‘The traders are lettin’ folks board ’em I heard, any what makes it that far alive.’

‘Shush all yer blather,’ hissed Swine. ‘Someone’s coming.’

Aiyana strained to hear sounds from outside.

‘The docks, Misla,’ Toadius whispered again, eyeing the children. Word of the Nephilim threat had spread, and Toads must have found a way to get them out of the city. Poor fools terrified by a rumour. Avitus was a far greater threat than any giant. Still, few would manage to flee, passage aboard a ship expensive. Aiyana had given Misla and Toadius bronze and silver dralans in the past. They must have been saving it along with what his brother sent.

Toads left the tenement by a rear door, on his hands as always. He could move at a surprising speed that way. Aiyana never did learn what had happened to him for all his tale-telling. She knew enough that he hadn’t been born that way.

At the front entrance, a silhouette filled the doorway.

‘Yana,’ whispered a voice. ‘Yana.’

Aiyana put a hand on Misla’s arm, calming the woman who seemed ready to leap at the intruder. She even spotted a few knives appearing in several dirty hands. ‘Do as Toads said, Mis. Get them and yourself away.’ She kissed the washerwoman and then hugged her tight. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

It was time for her to leave.

Her Darken had come.

‡

THE NEXT DAY, AIYANA Todralan in a dirty brown cloak sat beneath the fractured barrel-vault of an imperial library. Dust and crumbling stucco descended like dry rain. The earth tremors were minor and of little consequence. The building was intact despite heavier tremors last month. Still, several blocks in the right wall had shifted, and the oaken doors had splintered.

Sixteen tallow candles guttered on twin bronze stands, with a little extra light from a single wheel window of rose-coloured glass. Stacks of books adorned the stone flags, a scribe floundering through the unordered piles. Much was vellum but not all were that old. These were made of paper, an Atlantian invention none knew how to reproduce. She’d heard one foolish rumour that it came from trees. The mongrel scribe appeared to drown in his coarse grey robe as he searched.

The stunted runt is of no help whatsoever, she thought. She glanced at the bronze mirror she kept on the desk in front of her. The distorted image looking back unnerved her. She slammed it mirror-side down.

Raising her left hand, she kissed her gold ring with the winged silver inset. She was a sensible woman, preferring logic. Still, the odd prayer couldn’t hurt. Another tremor shook the building. The princess sank deeper into her robes.

She’d been thankful that records and documents, in reasonable order, remained unscathed. Other libraries hadn’t fared as well. As she’d begun her search, relief had turned to monotony. Stack after stack had failed to enlighten her. Sat in a cedar-wood chair, she sifted through sheaves of vellum and then moved on to a codex of poorer quality. Some of the parchment leaves still had traces of animal hair. A vapour of dust lingered in the room. Her long legs stretched beneath the desk.

‘Nipper,’ she snapped, irritation getting the best of her. The scribe’s feet were visible beneath a stack of Atlantian tomes. ‘Quit dawdling, you pea-brained dolt. Bring me those cuneiforms.’

She loved clerical work, loved that old book smell, permeated by a hint of mould and burning pig fat, the touch of parchment on her fingers while surrounded by all that knowledge. What she hated was hours of searching and nothing to show for it. Placing her head in her hands, she fought her emotions.

I’ve heard it before, the name of an imperatrix from centuries ago, an ancestor. She was on the verge of tears. Her Darken had forbidden her to come, overstepping the bounds of propriety for an imperial bodyguard. Aiyana agreed that the danger was real, as was the urgency to act. They had not parted well.

Her desk rattled and she felt the vibration beneath her feet. The last great quakes had occurred three years ago. Thousands had perished. The repairs to the northern walls remained incomplete, though Byrsa’s were in worse condition. Most of the deaths there had been because of subsequent fires devastating the slums. Markus Olen had spent the taxes elsewhere, choosing instead to negotiate with southern kingdoms for trade. He’d sought to expand Icarthian rule, while forgetting to maintain what he possessed. She shook her head, still disbelieving he was dead. No, she would weep later, when time and circumstance allowed. Icarthya had become old, fat, and complacent. She needed to save it.

‘No, no,’ she cried, flinging her hands up in a haze of dust. ‘I meant the clay tablets. The cuneiforms under that stack, over there.’ She sneezed, twice. Her knees cracked the underside of the desk. ‘Yes, yes, there in front of that knobbly thing you call a nose.’

Close to quitting, she shoved several of the documents away, including a stack of rolled vellum maps, bound with twine.

The scribe approached, bare feet slapping the stone flags. His arms were laden with the heavy tablets.

‘Forget it. A waste of time. Cuneiform script is too old, from the year of the heathen, from before that holy bastard Matrod Ral managed to mess everything up. If I could find a precedent among those, it would be deemed irrelevant by all accounts.’ She noticed the scribe’s blank expression. The hapless mongrel couldn’t know how precarious things were. ‘It was a longshot to begin with, Nip.’

The coup had been executed with precision. The last member of the Todralan Family had to take the throne, out of necessity. However, Aiyana was officially missing, thanks to her Darken’s efforts, but her enemies had known this would happen. They would have planned for it. Had she declared for the throne she would now be dead, but if she remained missing, she might as well be.

Her life was in danger, but she couldn’t just run and hide. A precedent to delay proceedings might help. Clever woman, she thought, thinking of her Darken. Disappearing like that had been the only option. It would keep her enemies off balance, not knowing if she lived, if she would reappear.

However, her Darken had gone too far, and Aiyana had given her the slip too, just to get the information she needed. No one else would know what to look for. She didn’t have long though. No doubt, Cathya was having all libraries in the city searched. There were a dozen, this not the foremost or largest, but it did hold the oldest records.

By law, on the imperator’s death the conclave ruled until they established the rightful heir. That was tradition, of course. The rightful heir was well-known and declared as such beforehand. Due to the actions of one Liviana Avitus, a misogynistic harlot by all accounts, tradition had become necessity. The conclavists could prevent Avitus’ usurpation, but no doubt she would seek to undermine them. The woman already controlled the legions within the city, most of them under an Avitus commander. She’d heard rumours of arrests and interrogations. Thus far, her vanishing act seemed to be helping Avitus. It had to change. Aiyana was the true leader of the imperium. Somehow, she needed to regain control.

Idiot, she chided herself. You’re just going to march into the conclave with a precedent and demand what? That she back off? She needed other conclavists, and support from high in the legionary ranks. At least on that latter point, she believed she had the upper hand, perhaps. If she could just discover what that witch had brought back with her. Rumours of a strange object like a stone or a sphere had filtered through the palace and beyond. They even suggested it might be the fabled Shathra Stone, an object of mysterious power from children’s tales. She’d set two of her spies to finding out.

Stubbornness and duty kept her within the library tonight, never mind an imposed curfew by the high exemplar. Paytor Nims had snapped at her to get out of his way, not even recognising her in her dirty clothing and cloak. He’d fled through the oaken doors, bundles of vellum spilling from his arms. Anyone who’d shown loyalty to Aiyana Todralan, anyone who’d loved her, were at risk. Those who didn’t flee kept their heads low, hoping they might survive to serve the new imperatrix, whomever that turned out to be. Aiyana despised those more than the ones who fled.

‘Nip, bring me that stack there. Yes, yes, and what’s left of that one. Hurry now, before death and ruin descend on us.’

The mongrel dumped the new stack on her desk, raising dust. She sneezed and toppled half of the vellum sheets onto the floor. The scribe’s cowl hid much of his face. Still, Aiyana could make out his scarred features, which remained meek. Nipper did move with an air of stubbornness, however. Was he trying to irritate her? No, it wasn’t him and the way she’d been treating him tonight, she deserved it. She just couldn’t find it.

‘I don’t suppose there’s a cup of green tea in this forsaken place,’ she said, glancing at the scribe, who gave another flat stare. ‘I would offer you a cup too, you know.’

She stared at the papers littering her desk, defeated. More dust trickled from the ceiling. The building shuddered. Plebs and patricians both, huddled indoors waiting for the coup to run its course.

Then she spotted a document at the bottom of the pile. The Church kept records of all citizens. She scattered them until she came on the year 356YC and the birth of Pedrana Augusta Todralan. The then imperator had exiled his eldest to the village of Leech in the borderlands, making Pedrana the heir. This she held up to the dim light, scanning it. The vellum was old, discoloured.

She scattered her way through the pile of documents, huffing with impatience. The list was three hundred pages. Much of it was scattered across the floor, thanks to Nipper. Historical notes had been added over several pages.

‘My Lady,’ said a voice, which she ignored.

It was then she found it. Upon the imperator’s death from an unknown malady, Princess Pedrana Augusta Todralan had fought off opponents in the conclave who’d deemed her too young and inexperienced to rule. Her uncle, who supported her, had just happened to be the imperial marshal. After a short civil war, she disbanded the conclave and assumed the throne. It wasn’t until Pedrana’s grandson that matters returned to normal. The conclave consisted of the original nine ruling Families from when the imperium was nothing other than a dream. Pedrana’s grandson had recognised their importance, and reinstated the conclave. Yes, this was what she’d been looking for.

‘My Lady, I have word.’

She glanced at Turol in the doorway. In normal times, the captain would’ve worn armour, but his latest mission was information gathering. He wore common brown breeches and a torn grey shirt beneath a dirty blue cloak. A short sword was in his hand suggesting matters had worsened. A gash marred his cheek. There’d been limited fighting confined to the palace grounds as greencloaks resisted. Liviana wanted to obtain power without alerting the masses. Seeing his wound brought home to Aiyana how real it was. Both she and Conclavist Saelos had spies and informants deposited around the city, and a good number of soldiers loyal to them both.

‘Well?’ she asked.

‘The conclave is being brought to session.’

‘Under whose order?’ As if she didn’t know.

‘Avitus ... and she also gave the order to gather all conclavists, by force if necessary. Certain names, however, were listed for arrest, yours among them. This is not a safe location.’

‘Thank you, Turol, for pointing out the obvious. Well, perhaps I should attend conclave.’ Now was good a time as any to implement her plan.

‘I would not advise that, my lady.’ The soldier appeared shaken at the suggestion. ‘Certain conclavists and their families are missing, and as I said, you are marked for arrest. It’s all done quietly, but it is happening. If you enter that chamber, you will not leave.’

She thought of those other families and felt the urge to help them, to make certain they remained safe. She fought the impulse. She could do little right now, and her duty was to all, not to a few families. She thought of poor Misla, and swallowed her guilt.

The captain’s face showed genuine concern and an eagerness to be gone. ‘There are several patrols moving in this direction. I will escort you.’

‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she muttered, grabbing the papers on Pedrana. She stood, towering over the scribe, considering him. She bent and cupped his scarred face in her free hand. ‘It’s time to go, but I have one last task for you, Nip.’ She placed a note, the contents encoded in a script known to but a few, into his stubby fingers. ‘Make sure you place it straight into his hand.’ She expected to see him in conclave. He would not run. She could’ve delivered the message herself, but there were too many eyes in Icarthya.

Nipper stuffed the sealed note within his robes.

‘Now, get your scabby hide out of here. Once you’ve delivered it, find a hole, and hide in it.’ She would hate to see anything happen to him. The mongrel wasted no time in hurrying past the captain. She couldn’t help wondering if she’d see him again.

Aiyana gave the soldier a long stare, as she considered what to do. He seemed on edge, and she couldn’t blame him. He also risked his life. Much would be risked before all this was over. ‘Captain, how many men have you that can don armour and be ready within the hour? Men you trust.’

‘If you are planning what I think you are, not enough.’

‘I seem to remember a time, when you answered questions and followed orders, captain, without comment.’

He looked abashed, but to his credit didn’t look away when he spoke. ‘Your safety is my first concern. It is my duty. I will do and say what I must to that end, but I will always obey your direct commands, if they don’t interfere with that duty.’

Aiyana knew he was a good man, if a little motherish. That seemed a common malady these days. ‘I’ll find my own way. An armed escort, even one dressed as you are, might alert them to my presence. I can be discreet.’ I managed to fool my own Darken to reach this library, didn’t I? ‘I want you to find Conclavist Saelos and secure any soldiers he can spare. He won’t like it but there it is. Oh, and you will steal some conclavist robes, and bring me water and a hairbrush. You know where to find me.’ She quickly filled the captain in on the rest of her plan. Ornias Saelos would have a fit, as would her Darken.

Afterwards, at a safer location, having combed her hair and braided it neatly, she checked herself in the small mirror. As she left for conclave, she couldn’t help but wonder if she wasn’t deluding herself. Would she make it out of that place alive? To find that out, she first had to attend.