Sergei and I held a council of war with the aim of liberating Faith from Greygori’s clutches. Liberate to where? It was the first hurdle and we fell at it.
“Not the factions,” Sergei said. “She would not be safe. Most would sell her back to him for credit. The rest would not be enemies with Gregor Samsa.”
“I don’t understand,” I said sullenly. “He only has Arves to back him up. I cannot see him marching up to the Meat Packers and knocking their doors down with his fists.”
“Gregor Samsa has played a clever game many years,” Sergei reminded me. “All factions owe him, many more than they could repay. If they will not pay Faith to him, then Gregor calls Waylun and Electric Gangsters and People of the Scarlet Sash and says, ‘Go get me this girl.’ And they will. And the faction holding Faith knows this, and so they surrender her before he ever has to test his credit. Besides, how easy was it for you finding her a home before? You did not bring her to Gregor as first choice, surely?”
I sat, dejected. I had not seen just how much we were playing on ground of Greygori’s choosing.
“What about your Collective?”
Sergei’s face twisted. “My first loyalty is to my people. He crushes us to get Faith, with ease. Trouble enough sheltering you.”
“Me?”
“After you steal the girl from him, you think you’re going back to your old room? He will not be pleased with you, Stefan,” Sergei pointed out.
Another point I had somehow failed to consider. Months of security had made me forget that the Underworld was an unfriendly place for the unaffiliated. I remembered the looming threat of the Organ Donor Boys.
“The depths?” I asked. Even as Sergei shook his head I admitted, “We could hardly just abandon her down there, and besides, I don’t think the depths are deep enough to keep Greygori out.”
“That leaves one place,” Sergei submitted.
I looked blankly at him for far too long before he pointed one long finger up towards the hidden sky.
*
We went through all kinds of clever ideas for getting Faith out. We had long conferences with Giulia about secret passages and unknown ways to the surface. The three of us pored over her maps, and the only conclusion we could safely reach was that the area around Greygori’s cul-de-sac was too well known and explored for there to be any hidden routes up. Greygori had chosen a hiding place long ago, and perhaps he had needed to defend it from others. There was only one way in and out.
So it was that careful planning became irrelevant. We would act one night when Greygori was closeted in his lab. We would do it at the first opportunity.
That opportunity soon arose, and I crept to the entrance to his chambers and let Sergei in. The two of us stole silently to Faith’s little room, and she awoke while my hand was still an inch from her shoulder.
She stared up at the two of us, wide-eyed. Sergei signalled for her to stay quiet.
“We’re going to take you away from this place,” I whispered. “We’re going to put you outside Greygori’s reach.”
She stared at us still. Time stretched out.
“That is,” I stammered out, “If you want to go.”
The stare continued for another three precious seconds and then she nodded.
She dressed quickly, and we were on our way.
*
We were halfway to the door when Sergei stopped and I saw we were not alone. It was Arves, standing in darkness between us and the wider world. He took it in instantly, short-sighted or not: the two furtive kidnappers and their much-valued charge. There was a moment filled with infinite, silent tension as his mind weighed his loyalties in the balance.
He nodded, more like the old man he resembled than the young man he was, and then stepped aside, moving towards his room and a position of plausible deniability. Whether he too rebelled against Greygori’s plans, or whether it was just that he was eager to be rid of Faith, I cannot say.
Then there was a sound, the first since we set forth upon our enterprise, and it came from the laboratory.
We froze, all four, and a creeping horror like a living thing entered the room and seized us. Arves just vanished into the rooms I had shared with him, and we wrongdoers hung poised to continue our stealthy exit. We all felt it, though, that sense that within the unknown confines of the laboratory something had awoken and was moving with patient, many-jointed strides towards the door. In an instant the fear had gripped us and we bolted for the way out and pelted through the tunnels of Underworld.
We left the most frequented halls in minutes but took no step downward. We were going out. Where else could Faith be hidden from the Transforming Man’s glass-covered eyes? We knew that she had enemies in the Overworld who might seek to capture and enslave her, but we believed none could have as dire aspirations as Greygori Sanguival.
We saw no sign of pursuit; we had no doubt that we were pursued. We did not slacken our pace until we saw ahead of us the iron hatch that was our destination. Only then did I shake the belief that Greygori would somehow have second guessed us, and be waiting.
The hatch opened onto an outlying district of Shadrapar, sealed with four square-mouthed locks. Sergei produced the ancient L-shaped key and the two of us laboured to free the rust-heavy mechanism. The last lock stuck and as we hung on the key’s three-foot shaft we sensed again the stalking approach of the Transforming Man. Sergei, teeth gritted, put all the leverage of his inhumanly long frame against it, and it screamed as it ground open. The corroded square of the hatch cover fell down on us, propelled, as it seemed, not by gravity but by the force of light above.
I shut my eyes against it, but Sergei grabbed me by my belt and arm and bodily hoisted me into that unbearable and merciless brightness. I hit the ground blind and rolled away from the opening, palms clamped across my eyes. A moment later someone was turning me over to face the sun.
“Stefan,” I heard Faith say, and realised that the hands were hers. Her shadow passed between me and the sun and I could see a little. It seemed to me that, even silhouetted against that almighty light, I could still make out the details of her face.
To one side, a crouched blur must be Sergei. He had bound his eyes over and was listening intently. Even as I was about to speak to Faith he grabbed at my arm and silenced me.
From the open hatch there came a sound as of someone dragging at the fallen hatch cover.
“Faith…?” came Greygori’s almost querulous tone. “Faith? Will you go away now, Faith, when our plans are on the cusp?” He sounded wretched, lonely, human. “Faith, the shining place awaits but you are not readied for it yet. Faith? Faith?”
He would not step into the shaft of sunlight, nor reach up to haul his malformed bulk out into the air. How long he waited down there for an answer I never knew, for we took shelter in a half-demolished house until our eyes had grown accustomed to the light, and never returned by that hatch.
I remember Faith standing, staring about her as though it was the first time she had ever seen the sunlit world. On her face was an expression of such wonder that I thought she might have found her shining place after all.
*
I let her go. We both did, but Sergei was always stronger than me. I turned away, because I could not have watched her depart without running after her, without trying once again to take possession of her.
I had never had her, not in the way you think. When she was there, in my power, that was all I desired. When she was gone, I felt a gnawing withdrawal in my guts as though I was pining for a drug.
It has never left me, not quite. They made her well, when they made Faith; better than they knew.
*
After she had gone, Sergei and I hid out in the wasteland for a few hours and then made careful tracks by the back ways to Emil des Schartz’ printing shop.
I cannot say that Emil was pleased to see us, but he hid us until nightfall, when we could return below-ground and rejoin Sergei’s Collective. There we waited for the repercussions of Greygori’s wrath.
*
Nothing happened. There was no mobilisation of factional forces, no assaults with strange weapons, no assassins or spies, no Temple sanctions. Nothing issued forth from the Transforming Man’s domain but the usual low-key business deals. After a month I allowed myself to relax into life in the Collective, which was not easy. Their agricultural pursuits were hard work, and in between they spent the time brokering stolen goods and finds from the depths. I took upon myself once more the role of valuer, which gave me a little more free time than the average Collective member. I met up with Giulia often, and she even brought Arves on occasion. Of Arves I enquired anxiously about my former master and all he was able to do was shrug. Greygori Sanguival had reverted to type. He remained closeted in his laboratory, made the same cautious and calculating deals as he had and spoke not a word of Faith or myself. With Faith removed, in fact, it was almost as though his racked humanity had sunk back to its subconscious home. Hers had been the light that had drawn it to the surface. Now it was in darkness again, forgetting. Arves patently preferred him that way. Arves had not enjoyed much about the whole Faith business.
So Sergei and I reckoned that we were safe and that we had done a good thing, and we both speculated as to what might have happened to Faith but heard nothing of her. Later, long after I was sent to the Island, I would hear of her again.
*
What happened was this. It was innocent enough. Some group of amateur cracksmen calling themselves the Broken Folk had come by a trove of ancient books and did not know what to do with them. Naturally, word got to me and I decided that I would go and offer my services.
I skipped along to their headquarters and noticed nothing odd until they took me into the room with the alleged books, which contained half a dozen Angels and no literature whatsoever.
The door was shut behind me but I could not have run even given the chance. Angels were the last thing I expected to see in Underworld. They were universally hated and loathed, the butt of countless jokes. They were the symbols of the society we had all dropped out of, and there they were, six of them, their varied armaments trained on me, each in full armour with point generator packs humming. I just stared. I had no sense that they were real, so unlikely was the sight.
Then one of them stepped forwards and I saw a face I had not seen for a long time. It was the Commissar of Angels and his presence broke the spell. It was his armoured car that had crushed poor Helman, he who had left Jon and Rosanna to the mercies of the mob. This was the man who, political acumen spent, would later be delivered up to the Island and executed by firing squad. Even now the thought brings me a measure of satisfaction.
There was one other exit to the room, and I was instantly pelting for it, because I wanted to make it hard for them. I was still no man of action, and they grabbed me, fingers biting into my arms. The Commissar stood nose to nose with me, cruel features displaying a rare pleasure.
“Well,” he said. “This is a fine surprise. It’s not often that we recapture such a dangerous radical without any sweat at all.”
“Dangerous what?” I squawked.
“The man who raised the mob. The greatest threat to civil disorder that Shadrapar has seen for a generation.”
“Raised the mob?” I demanded. “The mob was raised against me and mine!”
He shrugged callously. “It was raised, and someone must be to blame. You were there. The Lord Justiciar is most keen to have you before him for sentencing.”
“I’ll tell everyone the truth at my trial!”
The Commissar laughed shortly, “No trials for people like you, Advani. No trials for someone who runs from justice. It is an admission of guilt. It’s kinder on the sensibilities of the state. Sentencing only, Advani. No trial.”
“But… Shadrapar doesn’t work that way. It’s unjust.” I barely knew what I was saying.
“Shadrapar is a machine,” the Commissar said. “We keep the casing nice and shiny so that people can believe what they want about it, but if you get into the workings, expect to be ground between the gears.”
He looked away from me abruptly, face shutting down. Something was coming from the tunnel I had been running for. I knew the great misshapen shadow long before the man appeared.
“So, Stefan, Stefan Advani, you are brought to justice at last, Stefan. How very sad that is.” Greygori Sanguival lurched into the room and the Angels backed away, save for their leader.
“We’re much obliged for this, Sanguival,” the Commissar said.
“It will go well with your permanent record, Commissar,” Greygori told him smoothly. “I trust, Commissar, that you have been inflating his reputation in the interim, have you not?”
“Here and there,” the Commissar agreed. “He’ll stand me in good stead; they’ll be choosing a new Lord Justiciar soon enough.”
“Commissar, who could deny you?” Greygori oiled. “Now, have you my side of the bargain, or must I take him back for my own justice, Commissar?” He showed no doubt that he could reclaim me if he chose.
“I have made sure that nobody is searching for you now,” the officer told him. “Your records have mysteriously vanished.”
“Well that is excellent, Commissar, is it not? And the other?”
“If you want it.” The man signalled, and one of the Angels stepped forwards with a winged point generator pack in his hands. “It’s not worked for ten years or more,” the Commissar cautioned. “It’s yours if you want it, but it’s no good to anyone.”
“Humour me,” Greygori suggested, and one of his long arms plucked the object from the flinching man’s arms. “Now, Commissar, I think you and your cohorts should depart for the open air, lest those that I have bribed here forget, and tell others of your presence. Do you not think that wise, Commissar?”
*
I was under the impression that I was treated abominably. I was thrown into a cell scarcely twice the size of the one I would later share with four other people. The jailer would sometimes forget to replace the lamp-wicks and the window offered only a view of the Government District. The food was bland and the wine decidedly inferior. The jailer himself had a poor line in intellectual debate (he was an Academy dropout) and would just walk away if I contradicted him too much.
In short, I had no idea.
I had conceived a plan. I was going to unburden myself to the Lord Justiciar, in whose honesty I had faith. I would expose the venality of the Commissar, explain the truth behind the raising of the mob, clear my name and resume my place in polite society. I continually pressed the jailer to send a message to the Lord Justiciar that I wished to meet. The jailer, in turn, assured me that the Justiciar wished to talk to me, that he was very interested in my case, that he was a very busy man and that I should be patient. Everything would work out for the best. I should just wait.
I had one visitor and I made one visit. The visitor first, because he led to so many maddening speculations. One evening, the jailer suddenly stopped talking and moved away from me, and I heard footsteps down the corridor. There were two Angels, better turned out than the average, and there was an older man.
There was an undefinable aura of command about him. I felt he was so used to having his words taken as truth that he never even thought of it any more. He breezed through the cells of the Government District as easily as he might the gatherings of the rich or the halls of the Authority. He had a pleasant, paternal face belied by a distant, analytical expression. His hair was silver and he was surely far older than he looked. His back was hunched in elegant cosmetic deformity.
“This is the man?” he enquired of one of the Angels, and was told that yes, I was indeed.
He flicked an eyebrow in the bored surprise of a man to whom all things are, in the end, equal. “I suppose revolutionaries come in all sizes.”
“Please, sir, I’m no subversive,” I started straight up. “I’m innocent, I—”
He made a sharp little warning gesture at me, and it shut me up straight away.
He came into the cell, all poise and control. The two Angels seemed momentarily thrown. If I was such a dangerous man, then my distinguished visitor should not be allowed so close. On the other hand, they had no power to stop him.
The old man came close, and looked me in the eyes.
“Where is she?” he said, and I knew who he meant.
“I do not know,” I replied honestly. “Gone free.”
The old man stared into my eyes and divined that I was telling the truth. I saw a corner of his mouth clench up, and an unhappiness surface in his eyes that must always have been there behind the mask of his power. Then he left, and I never saw him again.
I think that he was Faith’s maker or commisioner, and the architect of that murderous building where the silver-lightning creature lived. Or maybe he was simply a man of vast wealth who had seen her, once, and been as covetous as we all were. Either way, I read in that iron face that he would move earth and moon and stars to find her, and not care who he trampled on the way.
A few days later I was brought out to an office smaller than my cell where a man who had been in the year below me at the Academy, and whose name I could not recall, took my details and informed me that I had been sentenced.
“Sentenced?” I demanded. “How?”
“Standard procedure,” the clerk informed me. “The sentence of exile to the Island has been judged appropriate for your crimes. Have you anything to say?”
I barely heard what I had actually been sentenced to. I was more interested in the furtherance of my plan. “I need to speak to the Lord Justiciar,” I said. “I have vital information that will clear my name.”
“The Lord Justiciar is very busy,” the clerk informed me. “I will relay your request to him, however. I am sure that he will be able to find the time. Vital information, you say?”
“Extremely vital.”
“Well then, how could he refuse?” the clerk said smoothly.
I was returned to my cell in high spirits, and spent the next hour telling the sympathetic jailer that I would surely be out by the end of the week.
I was not out by the end of the week but, the middle of the week after, I was told that the boat had arrived.
“Boat? What boat?” I asked.
“The prison boat,” the jailer told me. “What do you think we’ve been waiting for?”
“But I need to see the Lord Justiciar!”
“I’m sorry. He’s very busy. Now would you mind putting these on?”
It was my first sight of the prison greys that were to become such a feature of my life.
My only consolation is that, unlike Lucian, I knew then that I was condemned. By the time I reached the Island all my illusions had been stripped from me.