Tanith Lee - In the City of Dead Night

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2024-11-23 1 0 41.74KB 13 页 5.9玖币

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TANITH LEE

IN THE CITY OF DEAD NIGHT

Her new story for us merges traditional elements of both science fiction and fantasy into a rich and

evocative blend.

WE ENTERED THE CITY IN the hour after the first sunset. It was twilight. Thick bluish dusk, like

smoke, rose from the ground. Out of this, the cliffs of buildings towered to touch the luminous sky, that

was, and would stay, too bright for any but the fiercest stars to show.

Night could never come here. Here, night was done with.

"Don't be so awed by this," said Hassent.

I looked at him "No?"

"No. It's an old city, partly destroyed by aerial action, partly ruinous.

And after sunfall it lies between two suns, the second and smaller of which will rise in three hours.

That's all. The facts."

"Really."

He smiled. Oddly, in the half-dark, his own darkness was paler.

"Well, what would you say then, Aira?"

"There weren't always two suns."

"True. And?"

"Once there used to be night."

"But now there isn't, only twilight. Just perfect for scum like us to burgle in."

Why did we have this discussion? To pass the time, probably, while we rested on the terrace-wall after

the appalling climb up from the valley below. We had used ropes, of course, and each of us was agile as

a monkey, but it still took a long while and was peril-fraught enough to satisfy even Hassent's irritating

taste for dangerous, arduous exercise.

From the terrace, we could look down straight through into the City. A vista was carved for miles by a

wide boulevard like the bed of a precisely ruled river. The strange smooth buildings, rising either side,

with their pointed windows that had the shape of fingers, ended frequently in shattered tops, where the

bombardment had hit them all those years ago. And obviously, there was nobody anymore to light a

lamp. From the valley, if one was unaware, the City could pass for another feature of the surrounding

mountains. It had done so often, our Source had assured us. You had to know, and have a map. And then

there was the climb. But Hassent and I were used to climbs. Up the sheer towers of ancient palaces,

along the sloping insides of charming sewage systems .... We were thieves. The climbing, like the

robbery, was part of our job.

But the second sun filled me with concern. It lay now, just under the horizon, throwing upward a

preview of light the way the first sun, the real sun, does at dawn. The second sun was not real. It had

been made and raised and set to circle the City by magic. They-- the ones who once lived here -- had

called it the Great Lantern. Now these magicians were gone, bombed out of residence by some of their

numerous enemies from across the mountain range. But the second sun, the Great Lantern, that

remained, and went on rising (in the north), so here, there could never be night. And -- what else

remained?

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I had said something like this to him, back in the desert, when we were at the last halt, and sold off the

riding-urts. We had a night (yes, because there was night, out there) on the town, he with a pretty female

pay-me, and I with a handsome male pay-me. We had also drunk the wine-wells dry. And in the

intimacy post-received pleasure and alcohol, I had let slip to Hassent my doubt about the magics of this

place--whether they were truly finished. But Hassent had only said, "All gone. All that's left in the City

is treasure beyond the dreams of insanity. That's why we're going. And it's a bit late to coward out.

We've spent all our money."

Now, on the terrace, he said, businesslike, "Let's make a move, shall we?

So we hitched the ropes again and swung off over the inside drop, to where a flight of broken steps hung

in the dusk.

To descend was to go down into the gathered dark. The other way, the glowing green-blue sky watched

us indifferently. I looked it in the eye, coiled up my rope, and followed Hassent down the stair.

WHEN I WAS a child in Sheemelay, the masters who taught me theft had also taught me quite a lot of

superstition. Tie always the left boot up after the right boot; lick your finger and touch the stone of your

marked building, to placate it with a bit of yourself. (Blood was better, but then you had to be careful.)

Over the years, especially once I partnered up with Hassent, I had stopped, or tried to stop, some of this.

Hassent had absolutely no time for it. He is a pragmatist. "You take," he was fond of saying, "till it takes

you." But old habits die hard.

The lower levels of the City, as we got down into them, seemed buried, as if in a cellar. The effect was

heightened by all the upper streets which rose above, and sometimes forded the lower in the form of

bridges. Several of those had been smashed by bombs. The surviving masonry stuck out, and in the

unending dusk seemed to have weird shapes, like the staring heads of huge beasts with open jaws &

I said nothing about this fancy to Hassent. Five years of his company had enabled me to imagine what

he would say back.

There were gardens in the City. Some must have been there to begin with, parks with curious tapering

pines and thin stone statues. But the gardens had overgrown themselves and spread, and elsewhere

groves of weeds, bushes, and trees had sometimes seeded in the walls and avenues. Even so, the City,

beyond certain areas of rubble, drifts of dust, old leaves, the ground-down shale of fallen marble, was

tidy, spacious, and uncluttered.

After a while, we paused again under an archway, to consult the map.

Beyond lay a vast plaza. It was closely and immaculately paved except in one spot far across, where

bomb damage had caused two or three buildings to collapse. A fountain stood at the square's center,

pristine. As we lurked, peering over the map by the light of Hassent's glow-worm torch, a snake hissed

loudly from the square and a prickle of new stars shot off from the fountain into the air.

"It's fine, Aira. Calm down."

"But--"

"Some of their gadgets still work here. We know that, we've been told that."

"I thought it was an exaggeration."

"Their second sun still works so why not a mere fountain?"

"Yes, I see." Did I? I watched the water-jet playing up its spangles at the sky. Was there enough green

light even so for it to glitter quite so eloquently?

"Now," said Hassent, "let's get our bearings. We came in over South Wall. Sun Two will rise up there, in

the mountains, when it does. That's north, then. And this plaza, I believe, is this one on the map, with the

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Tanith Lee - In the City of Dead Night

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