The Canticle of Whispers Read online

  Despite the tension, Mark saw Theo reach out to her.

  “Inspector,” the doctor said, gently, “is something distressing you?”

  “That is none of your concern,” Poleyn muttered, hastily, as though she had said more than she intended. “Now, Doctor, I have other business to attend to…”

  Looking shaken, Poleyn retreated to the stairs out of the basement. For a tense moment, Mark and Theo listened as she scattered the debtors on the floor above. And then, with an air of finality, she slammed the door.

  The doctor sank down onto a stool, head in his hands.

  “It’s over,” he muttered. “Thank the stars.”

  “No, thank you, Theo,” Mark said, sincerely, jumping out of the cot, glad to stretch after hours spent curled up. “Do you still have that cloth?”

  Theo handed Mark the damp rag, and Mark began to scrub at his exposed skin, removing the milky film that they had painted on earlier. Before long, the signs of his “illness” were wiped away.

  “I never thought hiding right in front of them would work,” Mark continued as he soaked the cloth in a bucket of clean water. “If you hadn’t come up with this plan, the receivers would have found us, no question.”

  “I’m still not entirely clear why they are hunting for you,” Theo said, miserably. “Or where you’ve been. Not a word! For over a year! Your father has been moving heaven and earth looking for you…”

  Mark carried on washing, not quite sure what to say. How could he explain? He barely believed it, and he’d lived through it. He’d traveled through the unknown lands outside the city. He’d seen the vast mountains and dark forests, and the people there who lived in enforced harmony, and punished any deviation with violence. He’d been stalked by the strange, living Nightmare that kept everyone in line, and fought against the mysterious Order of the Lost at the heart of it all, who had captured him, and brought him back to Agora. That had been his life for the last year and a half. It was hard to know where to start.

  “Are you going to keep that cloth all day?” said a voice from across the room. Irritably, the young woman with the boils sat up in her cot. Theo had done an amazing job—Mark didn’t want to contemplate what he had mixed up to make them look so realistic. Sheepishly, Mark wrung out the rag and handed it over to Cherubina. She dabbed daintily at her face, dissolving the fake boils. She wrinkled her nose. “Now that the inspector has gone, do we have to stay down here in the basement all day?” she asked, unwinding the old shawl they had tied around her head to hide her distinctive blonde ringlets. “It isn’t particularly fragrant.”

  “Patience, Miss Cherubina,” Theo replied, cautiously. “I wouldn’t move until Laud tells us that it is safe to do so. Inspector Poleyn well deserves her new position, and I am sure that she will send one of her men to watch the Temple for the next few days. I doubt that the Director is quite ready to call off the search.”

  Cherubina blanched, and Mark winced. He had every reason to hate the Director. Snutworth had betrayed him, kidnapped him, and treated him like little more than a puppet. But Cherubina had been Snutworth’s wife. She had lived with him for over a year, half-prisoner, half-prize. Mark could not imagine what that had been like. Certainly she did not want to talk about it, and when Mark had found her imprisoned with him in the Astrologer’s Tower, Snutworth’s home at the time, she had been all too eager to join in his escape. Of course, as far as the new Director was concerned, she had not run away at all—Mark had stolen Snutworth’s property. That was how he thought, and he had the law of Agora on his side.

  “Are you sure the debtors won’t talk?” Cherubina murmured, clearly shaken. “A lot of them saw our arrival.”

  Theo raised his head, looking tired.

  “There is certainly very little love between the receivers and those who must take shelter in our almshouse,” Theo said after a moment’s thought. “Still, I wouldn’t count on their silence if the receivers start to use rougher methods of interrogation. You won’t be able to stay here for long. Perhaps we can find a way to sneak you out.” Theo rubbed his temples, looking weary. Mark supposed that the doctor couldn’t have been more than thirty, but he seemed to have aged starkly since Mark had last seen him. His hair had receded even more, and his tall, spare frame seemed to sag with the weight of worry. And Mark imagined that his sudden arrival a few hours ago had not helped with that.

  “But … Mark said that you’d be able to take us in!” Cherubina exclaimed. “You’re the only people we can turn to! I don’t know anyone in this city, apart from Mommy, and she wouldn’t keep me hidden. Not if her business were at risk…” Cherubina trailed off, sadly.

  “It’s all right, Cherubina,” Mark said, reassuringly. “I’m sure Theo can find somewhere for us…”

  “Wait a moment there!” Theo said, firmly. “First of all, before anything else—you have to tell me what’s going on.” The doctor met Mark’s gaze. It was not an unfriendly look, exactly. Mark supposed it would take a lot to truly get on Theo’s bad side, but it was a look that demanded answers. “I’m sorry, Mark. I’m glad to see you’re safe, really I am. But you can’t just … deliver yourself into our hands like this and expect us to risk everything for you without a little explanation.”

  In the corner, behind the beds of the most feverish, Mark saw the shattered remains of the packing cases they had used to escape from Snutworth’s tower. They had hacked them to pieces, shoving them down in the cellar before the receivers arrived. It had only been an hour ago, but it was all still a blur. He remembered Theo flapping around anxiously, and Laudate, Theo’s friend and Mark’s former employee, herding the able-bodied debtors out, with menacing instructions to keep what they had seen to themselves. He remembered Benedicta, Laudate’s sister, helping Cherubina out of her own case, picking straw and sawdust out of the young woman’s curls. He wished Benedicta was still here now, fussing and grinning as she welcomed them back. Mark had met Ben only once before, but that smile had stayed with him—the smile he had so little deserved and which she had given freely. Despite Ben’s endless energy, the smile had a kind of calmness that was hugely reassuring. But she had run off, minutes after he had arrived, saying she was going to find someone, and after that, they had all been too busy preparing for the receivers to sit and talk.

  “It’s rather difficult to explain,” Mark admitted. “But I’ll try.”

  “Yes, that is something that we would all appreciate, Mr. Mark.”

  The voice came from the top of the stairs. Mark looked up.

  Again, Mark marveled at how much someone could change in over a year. Laudate, known to his friends as Laud, had never been a particularly cheerful young man, but the pressures of running the Temple Almshouse had really taken their toll. His long red hair was unkempt, and there was a scar above one eye from an old wound. Now that Mark had a chance to look at him properly, he could see a wariness in his tread that went beyond his usual cynicism. This was a young man who was used to the world dealing cruel blows, and his attitude at the moment was distinctly hostile.

  “I think that you owe it to us, don’t you?” Laud said, bitterly. “Call it payment for hiding you from every receiver in the city. Or didn’t you know that they’re scouring every back street from here to the Aquarian dockyards looking for you?” He cast a cursory glance at Cherubina as he descended the stairs. “They don’t name you, of course, but it’s pretty clear from the descriptions that you and Mrs. Snutworth are the fugitives.”

  Cherubina bristled, but Mark laid a hand on her arm. Laud was not the most tactful host.

  “Like I said,” Mark repeated, “I was being held prisoner, in the old Astrologer’s Tower, by Snutworth. And now I find I have to call him the Director…”

  “I still find that hard to believe,” Laud muttered. “Surely everyone would know if the old Director had been replaced?”

  “Really, Laud?” Theo asked, reasonably. “We never saw the last one in public at all. I don’t suppose it would be too surprising
.” He frowned, pulling forward another stool for Laud. “You worked with Mr. Snutworth. Would you put such a thing past him?”

  Laud conceded that with a shake of the head.

  “Perhaps, but I don’t see why he had to hold Mark prisoner in his own home.” He turned back to Mark, looking a little more ready to listen. “You should still be in jail. When you disappeared last year, we didn’t know what to think. Tell us what happened. Right from the beginning.”

  Mark stood up, trying to gather his thoughts.

  “I’ve been outside the city,” he said.

  The stunned silence said it all. Even Laud couldn’t hide his astonishment.

  “That’s impossible,” Theo said, dully. “There’s nothing outside the city. Everyone knows that.”

  Mark sighed.

  “That’s what I believed too…”

  After that, it came pouring out. How he and Lily, his oldest friend, had been forced to leave Agora. About the strange woman who had plucked him from his prison cell, and the care of his long-lost father, to send him out into a strange new world. About the land outside—Giseth—a place of thick forests and lush farms, where all the people lived in harmony, with everyone sharing and no one set above anyone else. How they had taken refuge in the idyllic village of Aecer, and how they had discovered that this supposed “paradise” was maintained by the tyrannical rituals of the Order of the Lost, the red-robed monks, and the absolute power of each village’s leader—the Speaker. He told them how he had seen their friends terrorized and attacked for going against the will of the Speaker, and about the mystical Brethren who opposed the monks and had given him and Lily shelter in the forest when Aecer had turned against them. But above all, he told them of the Nightmare—the living dream that haunted the lands. About how it seeped into people’s minds when they were asleep, feeding off every suppressed thought and deed, until it drove them insane.

  As he spoke, he watched the others’ faces. The patients down here were too ill to listen, or at least didn’t react if they understood. Cherubina just looked confused; he supposed she was still reeling from their escape. Theo’s frown deepened, but he nodded in understanding. Laud’s expression, on the other hand, tightened, his lip curling back.

  “And I suppose you think we’ll fall for this, do you?” he said, suddenly, stopping Mark’s story in its tracks.

  “I know it’s … pretty amazing…” Mark ventured, but Laud cut him off with a bark of sarcastic laughter.

  “It’s completely ridiculous!” Laud said, scornfully. “Do you honestly expect us to believe that everything we’ve ever known about the world is a lie? That there’s some kind of living Nightmare waiting outside the city walls?”

  “Well of course,” Mark replied, his face flushing with anger. “Maybe you should ask the woman next door who bottles people’s emotions for a living! What would be the point of me lying to you, Laud?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you don’t want us to ask the most important question,” he said, darkly. “Tell us, Mark, what happened to Lily?”

  Mark froze. Lily had told him so much about the temple, her almshouse, he had nearly forgotten that he barely knew these people. Not anymore. He had worked with Theo and Laud, but at heart they were Lily’s friends, and he had come back without her.

  “I…” his throat went dry. “I don’t know. The Director—that is, the old Director—told her that her parents were out there somewhere. In Giseth. She was always looking for clues. In the end, the Brethren taught us how to use the Nightmare to find them.”

  “This same Nightmare that fed off people’s dark emotions?” Laud said, caustically. “That sounds like a wonderful plan.”

  “But it worked!” Mark protested. “The Nightmare doesn’t just feed—it links together people’s memories … or something like that. To be honest, I never really understood completely. But we went into it, together, and we found that Lily’s father lived in the Cathedral of the Lost, the stronghold of the monks, and we were all set to go there until…”

  There was a silence. No one seemed willing to fill it.

  “Until the monks kidnapped me, and brought me back to Agora,” Mark said, quietly. “From what Cherubina told me, it looks like it was one of the first things Snutworth arranged when he became the new Director.”

  “He let me keep all of my dolls,” Cherubina added, softly. “Except the one I made to look like you, Mark. I think you’re more of a threat to him than he likes to admit.”

  More silence. Laud got up to pace back and forth. Theo sat, brooding in thought.

  “So…” Theo said at last, “she’s alive. That’s something, at least. All this time, not knowing…”

  “Not knowing!” Laud interrupted, with a sudden rage. “What do we know now?! That she’s somewhere outside the city, looking for her parents? Being tortured by bad dreams, or chased by psychotic monks! That’s a great comfort.”

  “She can look after herself,” Mark said, defensively. “Anyway, it’s not as if there’s no chance of finding her again. If the monks knew enough to bring me to Agora, that means there must be more who know how to get past the city walls…”

  “Good luck with that,” Laud snarled, bitterly. “With half the receivers on your trail, you won’t be able to set foot outdoors. Lily’s going to need more help than you…”

  “I will find her!” Mark said, more fiercely than he expected. “I don’t care if I can only go out in the middle of the night, and have to crawl through every building in Agora. Even if I have to break into the Directory itself. Someone has to know where she is. She didn’t abandon me, and I won’t give up on her!”

  Mark found his fists clenched. Laud blinked. For the first time, he seemed lost for words.

  “Absolutely,” he said, quietly. “I’m … glad to hear it.”

  There was silence. Mark was surprised at how vehement his own response had been. But Laud’s tone had gotten to him more than anything else. Up until now, he had been preoccupied with trying to escape the receivers. But he had never once stopped wondering what had happened to Lily. Laud had made it sound as if he didn’t care.

  “We all need to look,” Theo said, taking charge. “But first things first—none of us will be much help if we’re locked up for harboring fugitives.”

  “You’re definitely sure that the receivers won’t come back tonight?” Cherubina asked, anxiously. “I don’t think I could stand crossing the city again before I sleep.”

  Theo thought for a moment.

  “You’ll be fine for tonight, but we shouldn’t keep you here too much longer,” he decided. “I’ll ask around for anyone who has some rooms to let and doesn’t ask too many questions. Perhaps the Sozinhos can help—they are our most loyal patrons, after all. I’ll try for two separate places, to see if we can throw the receivers off the scent.”

  Cherubina’s eyes widened in alarm.

  “But … you can’t do that. I … I don’t … that is…”

  “She’s never lived on her own before, Theo,” Mark explained. “She’s never even traded for food. It’d be obvious she didn’t belong there.”

  Theo nodded.

  “Very well, we’ll have to choose a location very carefully then…”

  Cherubina smiled across at Mark.

  “Thank you,” she said, softly.

  “You can’t get rid of me that easily,” Mark said, feeling himself relax a little after all his worry. Cherubina looked as if she was about to reply, but at that moment, the door at the top of the stairs creaked open. Everyone turned, anxious.

  “Ben! There you are!” Theo said, anxiously, “What were you doing out on the streets? There’s a receiver on every corner…”

  Theo’s voice died away. Mark felt his heart jump. Ben was standing there, smiling excitedly, but she wasn’t alone.

  A heavyset man stood beside her in the doorway. He wasn’t old, but every one of his forty summers was carved onto his face. His hair was touched with gray, and his hands sho
ok, but in his eyes was a spark of hope that grew into joy as he saw Mark.

  “Dad?” Mark said softly, barely believing it.

  The old jailer walked down the stairs. Without really noticing it, the others stepped out of his way. Mark got up.

  “I knew you’d come home,” said Pete. “But when Miss Benedicta came and found me, I didn’t … I didn’t believe…”

  Pete’s voice cracked. Mark smiled, but when he tried to speak, his throat wouldn’t make the sounds.

  He was trapped in a city he no longer loved, far from a friend who desperately needed him. He was being hunted by the receivers and didn’t know where to turn, or what to do, to prevent his entire world from falling apart. But just for a moment, none of that mattered at all, because his father was hugging him. The father he’d lost, and found, and lost again.

  And this time, he wasn’t going anywhere.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Fugitives

  “WHERE DO YOU come from?”

  “What’s it like?”

  “Is it under the sun?”

  Lily tried to concentrate. The two strangers never stopped bombarding her with questions, their eyes so round and curious that they seemed like little children, even though they appeared to be a few years older than her.

  At least she assumed that they were adults—the man’s voice was deep enough—but their skin was pale and utterly smooth, without wrinkle or blemish. They dressed like children too; their robes were loose and garishly colored, covered with broad clashing stripes. Their hair was long, tangled, and so blonde it was nearly white, and their dark eyes were startlingly wide as they prattled. But perhaps the most unnerving thing was how alike they were, in their movements and manner. Had she not heard both of them speak, she would have been hard pressed to say which was male, and which female.