Out into the bone-piercing cold. From the front door to his building he watched the snow begin to settle once again on the city, despite the best efforts of the city’s cultists. Cobbles were obscured. The undersides of bridges formed bold black streaks across the sky, like print on paper. People hugged the edges of buildings, cocooned in thick and heavy clothing.
Around one corner Fulcrom saw an old ritual under way. A dozen women dressed in warrior garb, a design worn hundreds of years ago — padded red and blue garments, bascinets and aventails, and bright chain mail across their torsos — were parading beneath a flag bearing a red leaf and a flame. The women were dancing in a circle around a fire in a barrel, throwing stalks of various crops into the flames whilst reciting — in an almost scream-like pitch — a poem, a lament for those who had lost their lives in crop failures three thousand years ago. Crowds had gathered to watch the procession, parents drawing children closer to them, a whispered word in their ear explaining the reasons for the ritual. It was said that the incident brought the Empire to its knees, to the point of collapse. Fulcrom rarely thought of the cultists who had provided farmers with free seeds treated to survive the extreme temperatures across Jokull, and which arrived by the boatload in Villjamur. He prayed history would not repeat itself anytime soon.
As Fulcrom carried on his way to work, something dark streaked past above him and landed to one side.
Lan crouched down to absorb the impact, and rose to greet him. ‘I wasn’t stalking you, promise,’ she said with a smile. ‘I was just passing.’
The winter cold seemed muted by her presence and penetrating gaze.
‘Well, as far as stalkers go…’ he joked. ‘I see you’re up early.’
‘Yeah, having worked late last night, Vuldon and Tane are both still asleep. Vuldon seems to spend a lot of time either in his room or out on the streets anyway — so I wasn’t going to hang around waiting for those two to wake.’
Cautiously, Lan stepped into his embrace and their lips brushed. He held her there, small and fragile, vaguely aware that citizens, as they parted around the couple, were watching them attentively. But he didn’t care. Right now, it was about this girl on his lips, and to hell with what others thought.
*
Barely able to keep their hands off each other, they kissed openly on the steps of the Inquisition headquarters. Afterwards, under the impressed stare of many investigators, aides and administrative staff, Lan sprinted up the red-brick sides of the building and, with her final step, pushed and walked across a fifteen-yard gap onto the roof of the adjacent structure, her feet narrowly missing a gargoyle.
To those closest to him, Fulcrom explained, ‘It’s not just for show. There’s not as much ice on the side of a building so she gets a better grip.’
One of the younger investigators was grinning like an idiot. ‘Fulcrom, she’s famous. It’s been years since you’ve even talked about a woman and now you’re dating one of the Knights?’
‘I’m sure that’ll disappoint a lot of ladies,’ said Ghale, the human administrative assistant. Her expression was one of mild disdain, and he wondered if Lan’s showy exit had upset her somehow.
No sooner had Fulcrom set foot in the building, than Warkur grabbed hold of him. ‘Fulcrom, my office, now,’ he growled, stomping away.
Fulcrom sheepishly followed, speculating on the reasons behind the old rumel’s sour tone.
Warkur’s office was Fulcrom’s worst nightmare. Papers were heaped up in haphazard piles that leaned on each other for support, documents with handwritten notes scrawled all over them. Legal texts were scattered across the floor, opened, and stained with rings from cups of tea. How Warkur managed to navigate his way through the Urtican Empire’s ancient, baroque and sometimes eccentric legal system was a mystery to Fulcrom.
The walls were cluttered, too, with framed documents or certificates, various titles he’d been awarded over the years, and none of them were parallel with any other, but pinned up at all angles. Obscure weaponry was heaped on the shelves, maybe illegal repossessions, maybe his own collection. In one corner lay a blanket and pillows, and a storm lantern stood on a table. There was the faint aroma of something gone off, but Fulcrom couldn’t deduce a thing beyond the mess.
‘Sit down,’ Warkur sighed thunderously as he sat behind his own desk.
Fulcrom tiptoed across the apocalyptic office and perched opposite his superior officer. ‘Is anything wrong, sir?’
‘You’re damn right something’s wrong. We’re now down to one arsing printing press.’
‘Has the other one broken as well?’
‘I wouldn’t know. It’s been stolen.’
‘Stolen?’ Then the irony hit him. ‘You saying that someone has stolen a printing press from the offices of the Inquisition?’
Warkur’s expression said two things. The first was that he was a very tired man. The second was that if anyone breathed a word of this outside this building, he would personally sign their execution order.
‘Any leads as to who might have taken it?’ Fulcrom asked.
‘There was a small flag which we all know and love,’ Warkur said, ‘and that would have been left by our friends, the anarchists.’
‘Oh.’
‘Fucking “Oh” indeed,’ Warkur muttered. ‘Aside from that, where were you yesterday? There was a stand off between the military and the anarchists, and you weren’t to be seen.’
‘I thought the conflict was between the military and the Cavesiders, not the anarchists, sir.’
‘How could you know if you weren’t there?’
‘Lan told me.’
‘Lan told you.’
‘Yes, sir. We were…’
‘I know what you were doing,’ Warkur said. ‘I saw the two of you outside, all over her like a kid licking a sweet.’
Fulcrom looked at his boss steadily. ‘It won’t get in the way of our project — there will be no conflict of interest, and we’re well aware of the issues.’
‘Good. And meanwhile the official line is that the military engaged with anarchists, simple as that. There was trouble, and it was dealt with.’ Warkur’s gaze became distant, his mind drifting elsewhere. ‘It never lasts, you know.’
‘Sorry, sir?’
‘That passion,’ Warkur declared. ‘Never lasts.’
Fulcrom’s eyes settled on the blanket and pillows behind Warkur, and though he concluded much, he said nothing.
Warkur changed the subject by demanding a status report of everything Fulcrom had been working on, and if he was any closer to finding any figures involved with the anarchists.
Fulcrom confessed it seemed as if they were chasing shadows. The Knights were always one step behind — responding to crime rather than preventing it in the first place. None of the known, established criminal families were involved — the anarchists were offering something different to the people, and money wasn’t of interest any more. They were highly organized and they were networked. Little had been heard about Shalev outside of the confrontation between her and the Knights, at the indoor iren.
‘The Knights, having interrupted the majority of the major planned offences by the anarchists,’ Fulcrom concluded, ‘are holding the city together.’
Warkur was absorbing the information. ‘Well, I’ve some information for you on a related matter. That priest who called for you a while back — the man’s been brought in by Vuldon and Tane last night.’
‘Ulryk was arrested?’
‘No, not arrested. He was kept here for his own safe keeping, apparently. They brought in a weird-looking corpse, too. You’d better take a look.’
Satisfying her occasional preference for isolation, Lan surveyed the cityscape from a high church roof. For the very first time in her life she could admit to feeling a happy person. People around Villjamur took on a new form. There were smiles where previously she saw none. There was laughter where previously she heard only morose grumbling or discreet whispers between underworld figures. Even the garudas, as they sailed through the air, were no longer imposing; they were now graceful creatures, possessing a freedom she had once envied, a symbol of everything that was out of reach.