Vergence (34 page)

They stood in silence for a while as their eyes travelled over the breadth of Vergence, turning more than once to take it all in. Teblin had been right — he could see no building taller in any direction. The only things higher were world-ships flying over a distant corner of the city, and small flocks of leatherwings performing spiralling acrobatics in the air.

Presented with a breathtaking view of the city, he found his attention drawn instead to the feel of her hand in his. It seemed like the most natural thing to be standing here with her. Their hands fitted together perfectly, as if they'd been moulded for each other.

He hoped the moment would last, and last, knowing it couldn't.

He risked a look at Sash, wondering if she felt the same thing, but she seemed distant, entirely absorbed in the city beneath them.

A streak of pale blue passed through a flock of leatherwings in front of the tower, scattering them, leaving one tumbling from the sky on shredded wing membranes.

“Oh, Leth,” Sash said, letting go of his hand, “you're not supposed to be hunting them now.”

Ebryn breathed out. “Do you want me to bring him back here?”

“No, as long as he's not eating them.”

“He won't be,” Ebryn said. “It's easy to persuade an animal not to eat a thing making it sick. It's much harder to stop a hunter's kill instinct.”

She nodded, the expression of concern melting away. “That's fine then.”

“What were you thinking — before?” Ebryn asked, after a brief silence.

“I was wondering what lies outside the city.”

“I asked Plyntoure that. He told me there's nothing.”

Sash frowned. “How can there be nothing? There must be something there to see.”

“I expected there would be a tall wall, or something like that. When we arrived I didn't see what was behind us. It looked like we were over the city already,” Ebryn said.

“Do you know what? What I'd like to do next is see what's outside. If the city is all there is, and nothing else, then we can see what the edge looks like.”

“The edge?”

“Where all this ends. You know — where the sky touches the ground, or there's a long drop.”

“I hope it's not a long drop,” Ebryn said. He found the idea of the city suspended above an empty void unsettling.

“But wouldn't you like to find out?”

“As long as you promise me one thing,” Ebryn said.

“What's that?” Sash asked.

“If it turns out it is a long drop you won't lean over the edge.”

Sash laughed. “I promise. Let's go and see if Addae and Elouphe have finished. We can find out if they're interested.”

Palona knelt for the last of the three blessings. The blessing marked an end to the service. The three-faced god required all believers attend the temple at least once every nine days, one of the few truly unpleasant obligations she couldn't avoid.

Services were spent prostrate on the floor, kneeling, or sitting on a low stool barely three hand spans high and hardly padded. Women had their own separate place for worship, a small chamber on one side of the main building with its own entrance. Men were permitted entry through the central entrance, which led directly out onto the open square.

Palona had only ever seen two other woman there. One with greying hair who's visits always seemed to coincide with her own, and a second she'd not seen there for years, since the first few times she'd attended services.

The priest, Vuko made the sign of finality, which signalled the end of the service, and Palona rose to her feet. Representing the second face of the god, Vuko performed the ceremony efficiently and without elaboration. The younger priest tended to harangue them, as if they'd performed any number of terrible sins, which always left Palona feeling indignant. The older priest could be the worst. He frequently trailed off into lengthy silences mid-way through a sentence, or digressed into disjointed rambling. His services often ran on twice as long as either of the others and usually made her knees sore by the end.

What the women's chamber needed, Palona decided, as she left, was brightening up a little. She had no idea how the priests expected to convert more women to their religion with the place looking so grim. She might then even be able to persuade one of her friends to come with her, and make the whole experience a little more fun.

All the temples of the significant religions in the city were clustered around three large open squares, called the temple district. The temple of the three-faced god sat in the middle of a row of other temples along the inner side of the central square, just one of many.

Palona's two blank-faced guards fell in behind her as she stepped into the square. They walked in rigid silence as they passed the other temples, moving towards the open centre to avoid the milling throngs milling.

Two huge temples separated the three squares, and their return journey took them past the most impressive of the lot — the Chochin temple, complete with a vast gold plated image of a dragon face

The entire face of their temple had been carved into the shape of an enormous dragon face, covered in gold plate, surrounded by a fan shaped array of long wavy tendrils, worked in stone and covered in thousands of precious stones in green, red and yellow. She couldn't begin to imagine how much it must have cost to build, but it made all the other temples look positively dowdy.

Palona looked back at her own temple and sighed. It had a solid, almost brutal design. Not at all like the beautiful spires and minarets depicted in Ulpitorian art. She half suspected it had once belonged to some other religion, one of the truly dreary ones which enjoyed making people miserable. Her priests must have driven the false worshippers out and destroyed their evil idols, leaving a clear example of what to expect if you opposed the three-faced god. She decided that must be it. Otherwise why would her people leave the face of the building with such ugly scars?

Stepping around a pile of animal dung, Palona covered her face with a scented cloth. Not only must she spend an age on the damp floor of her temple each time she came to worship, but as with all worshippers of the three-faced god, she had to make the journey to and from the temple on foot, as demanded in the precepts. A walk of humility her uncle had called it, when she'd complained. Why the three-faced god wanted to humiliate followers she didn't really understand, but he'd been unyielding on the issue.

The shortest route home took them past the side of the Chochin temple, and down a lane half way along the inner edge of the next square. When they reached the lane they found it blocked by a mass of people.

“No,” Palona said, as her guards made to push a path through. “We'll be quicker going through the executioners square.”

She held her breath, waiting for the response, watching the impatience in their eyes warring with resentment at being instructed by a her.

With obvious reluctance, the senior guard nodded, and turned to lead the way. Palona struggled to suppress a small skip in her step as she followed, delighted at her two small victories. To visit the executioner square without permission, and against the wishes of her escort. Another private adventure, she could use, to make Jaquit and her friends jealous.

Palona found the executioners square much duller than she'd expected. A man dressed in white robes stood above a broad flight of steps at the far end of the square, flanked by two cheg guards, reading a notice from a long piece of parchment. A few men from the city militia stood at each of the entrances to the square, looking bored.

A dispersed crowd filled the square from one end to the other, milling around restlessly. Those nearest the speaker packed in tighter, with heads up, listening. The rest seemed to be there for other purposes. Many clutched sheaves of paper, standing expectantly, as if waiting for something.

She glanced at the faces of the people as she passed, wondering if they were all waiting their turn to take the place of the white robed man. By the time she'd worked her way to the road they needed to take, Palona decided she'd rather have gone the other way.

Trying to find a way past a stubborn knot of men, she stumbled as her foot slipped into a shallow gutter running between the paving stones. It held the residue of a sickly smelling red-brown substance.

At that moment, a space opened to her left, revealing an empty chair made of stone and iron. The thing looked crude and ugly, covered in dark stains, with small dark bugs crawling all over it. The stench coming from it revolted her.

With a shiver, Palona realised this must be where executions were conducted. She looked from the chair, to the indifferent expressions of her two young guards, uncertain whether the eyes of the last person sitting there might have appeared any more dead than theirs.

Putting a hand over her mouth, Palona turned away, hoping she hadn't ruined a perfectly good pair of shoes when she stepped in the gutter.

War Lessons

G
REEN CREEPERS HUNG
across the postern like a loosely drawn curtain. Long unused hinges had rusted, and bolts were wedged into the sockets. The cheg they'd found guarding it struggled to force it open, but a few moments of grunting allowed him to force an arm, and then a shoulder, into the space between the door, and the stone arch. With the sound of metal failing, wood groaning and splintering, the door yielded outwards, then jammed on an obstruction on the far side. The cheg could squeeze part of his upper body into the gap, but no more.

He stepped back and allowed them to ease past the narrow space, Addae in the lead. Elouphe scrambled through last, and they all stood beyond the outer boundary of Vergence. In places, the outer wall behind them had partially crumbled onto a slope covered in knee-high grass.

Sash had discovered the small hidden gateway through the outer wall in a back street near The Etched Man. Although long disused, she'd thought they might be able to find a way through.

Ebryn hadn’t any clear idea about what they might find here, but somehow he expected a dramatic vista or some clear sign of an edge. He'd imagined something like a cliff or perhaps a waterfall. Instead, he faced a seemingly endless plain of tall grass waving gently in the early light.

The air felt thick and lifeless, pressing down with a deadening weight, gathering at a distance into an obscuring liquid haze, masking everything beyond a few hundred yards.

Partly to hide his disappointment from the others, particularly Sash, and partly in hope of discovering something more interesting, Ebryn set of walking directly ahead at a brisk pace. The field sloped away gently, the ground even underfoot, save for a few minor undulations, and the odd small rock. Addae matched his pace easily, but Sash needed to trot to stay with them, and Elouphe fell behind at once.

“Please can we wait for Elouphe?” Sash asked.

They all paused to allow Elouphe to catch up. He flopped along in their wake, all six limbs flailing wildly, and Ebryn realised he couldn’t see the ground through the grass around his feet.

“What do you think? This isn’t what I expected,” Ebryn said to Sash.

“It's not what I expected either. In Senesella I spoke to travellers who've seen where the sky and water meet. I thought it might be the same here, but now I’m not sure.”

At nearly five hundred yards the green smudge that marked the limits of what they could see turned dark. Behind them the outline of Vergence had lost definition and started to blend into an undistinguishable whole.

As they pressed forward, the air around them grew still, and seemed to press against them, as if resisting their forward movement. It seemed to Ebryn that the air even pushed against them as if trying to force them back towards the city. It reminded him of the undertow in the water’s edge as a wave retreated from the beach, but here the pressure worked constantly, and grew the further they went. The grass grew shorter further away from the wall, as if pressed down by the weight of the sky above, and the dark line became clearer.

By the time they reached the stretch of blackened ground the resistance was so great Ebryn felt each step as if it pushed against a soft doughy substance. The air became lifeless and heavy, and grass stems barely moved. Even Addae struggled, for all his size and strength, and a line of sweat formed on his brow.