of some simple histories? Most of them are the work of the lower links to keep their disciples in check. They worship all sorts of nonsense, including the former lords. I've known stronger shadows than you, and none of them ever came back from there."
"Then maybe it's not so bad out there."
"That place is the worst – a trap full of dead histories. Worse than a den of vipers, worse than a whole city with Ashes…"
"And that's why you are staying here."
"Like the truest truth I am, for sure."
She crossed her arms over her chest, and after a minute of glaring at Cates, she exclaimed in her stubbornness.
"I'll come with you. Let me come with you!"
"No."
"But think about…"
"I said no. Learn to take 'no'for an answer and leave it."
"Cates! You're not under a pendulum, unlike some… and still, you scoff at some decent opportunities!"
"Vish, this is not up for discussion… You wanted shelter, it's yours. Stay here. Stay safe. And if I take some time to come back, don't forget to water the cactus."
She chuckled with some bitterness and whispered something. Cates did not catch that and adjusted the needles under the hood. He didn't want to listen to anyone. He could not admit the possibility that she was right and didn't welcome any new unnecessary doubts.
Cates tied the straps on his hands and feet, and took the last necessary thing from the wall – a hook on a long segmented rope. An elastic rod was on the other end of that rope, allowing him to unclasp the hook with an impulse from turning it.
Vish appraised the preparation of Cates and looked for any omissions. Her cyan eyes followed his hands as they wrapped the rope around his waist and the frame of his jacket. He desperately wanted to come up with a cause for this recklessness. It was a simple risk. It was worth it. For the reward. He'll uncover the mystery. There is no one there. Only histories. Without explanations. No need to invent them, no matter how sweet it would be. Everything was under control. Why should he admit that his plan was no plan at all? And to whom should he admit it? To Vish? It was none of her business.
Cates finished wrapping the rope and calmed his thoughts. He was focused and ready. Without looking back, he jumped onto the curve of the stained glass window and clasped the hook onto the metal frame. Vish followed Cates with only her eyes as familiar movements directed him down from the window to the twilight peaks of the city.
Angular protrusions, similar to the bones of the spine, followed the sides of the tower. The air passed through them to cleanse from desert dust, and their shape allowed them to be used as anchors for ascent and descent. A shiver ran down the back of Cates when the iron cold of these spines took the warmth from the coffee as a price for passage. All the towers previously had platforms and ladders, but the Sparks sealed them to protect the internal systems from the tricks of the links. Cates always thought that climbing up was easier, but now he had to rely only on his strong grip. Descending along the dark side, familiar movements led him down from a safe height. The textured interweaving of the rope rustled under his gloves. The frame on the jacket helped the memory of his hands to catch the hook and soon he dropped low enough to jump to the neighboring roofs.
The evening city greeted the new shadow with a refreshing breeze. The neat, curved streets had almost disappeared, and with them the unchained and gray people: traders, whalers, masons, farmers… all those who are up to nothing. Instead of them, various members of the links littered the alleys. An uneasy liveliness was present with them. Instead of their usual routine, they were more vigilant and numerous. Their patrols prowled chaotically under the watchful eye of sentries that protected their domains. In part, this could be explained by preparations for the month of the Wolf, but there was a different kind of tension in the city. Cates suspected that the Sparks had become the new target of the lower links. Open confrontation seemed to be about to begin. The fragile unity of the links was counting down its last grains like the hourglass.
The salt-covered roofs beneath the feet of Cates were like the white steps of a huge staircase, ready to capture the footsteps of a lonely shadow until the next storm. His boots began to tap out a light rhythm – running along the flat roofs stretched over no link's land, he tried to keep to the shadows. The chosen path appeared before his eyes from memory: here was a descent, here to the right and through the passage, now keep the balance, slowly, along the beams, along straight lines creaking with age…
He observed as the sequence of his actions began to resemble the recipe written by Vish. To the left now, down the drain, avoid the cracks, to the right, through the arch, up the balcony to the lightning rod spires, carefully squeeze through the snaking pipes, don't get burned…
The recipe came to an end when Cates abandoned the safety of the roofs. His feet finally touched the deserted streets, and an unusual feeling of ease took effect – he knew exactly where he needed to go. His heartbeat was quiet in the creeping night, the silence in the air only rarely interrupted by the slight buzzing of purifiers and vapor collectors that fed the bowels of the city. Cates knew the tangled streets well and was already far from the upper levels and the bright quarters of the Coals, where life did not subside even in the dead of night.
The time-worn Golden Curve stretched out before him, a road that led through the outer and inner circles of Sol like a wave. It followed under the white purity of banners to the great staircase and the empty throne. The weather was calm, and the shields that protected the city from the ashen storms were closed from the west and watched over the back of Cates. When the approaching storms coated everything with salt and sand in a bitter powder, these giant walls rose like petals to protect the inner circle. Rainwater flowed down their slopes to the lower levels, where it was purified, and then sent through to the towers to continue circulating along the Golden Curve. When the storm passed, the petals retracted, and the splendor of the sun returned to be reflected everywhere and to drive the shadows to the far corners of the dreamlands.
Cates made his way past the watchers, keeping to narrow alleys and walking along the vents and pipes – the veins and arteries of this sleeping white leviathan. In the very center of the city rose a spire, connected to the towers that supported life in the inner circle. Once, the spire served as the seat of the lord who ruled Sol for hundreds of cycles. Many grays even believe that this lord witnessed the Cataclysm – countless stories were composed about his limitless power and immortality. Only now the throne was empty, and the lord was often gone on his expeditions outside Sol. The city was somehow managed by the links, whose only goal was to preserve the life that was slowly slipping away from their grasp. They could only control the flow of the emerald drops for the kilns and the quality of life which they nourished. Salvation, as the lord assumed, was held by the relics of Precata.
Cates had no time to believe such assumptions.
The saturation of black and red flags divided the anarchy of the city into controlled parts. At the very top of the city were the sections of the Ashes – the corrupted offspring of the days of Decay. They blindly obeyed the lord and were bound to him by hatred and decay. The shadows (and the unchained) were best to avoid them at all costs.
To the left of Cates were the sections of the Sparks: their ranks consisted of traditionalists, guardians, historians, and priests. They were like the Embers and close to the faceless in their unrealistic desire to overthrow the lord. Their dogmas were the opposite of the Ashes, and their contacts were aimed at the lower links to contain their influence from the circulation of water and life in the city.
The image of Vish on the window was still fresh in Cates's memory. He turned and looked at the thin line that was the tower he had climbed down from. And to think that Vish was seeking refuge beyond the outer circle, where there was nothing but outcasts, dangers, and scavengers. However, there were no Ashes or Fires; at least she was right about that. Was it fate that guided Cates away from that? He had walked out into the night over a thousand times, but now