of Records. For a while he lost himself among the crowds there. He made his way to the harbour wall, to all the little jetties stuck out into the water and sat for a while, watching the boats going back and forth to the ships out in the bay. He bought himself a bun stuffed with pickled fish, the sort that he and Master Sy used to eat together when they came down to the docks, then slipped inside a warehouse when the guards weren’t looking, climbed up to the top, out through the open windows and onto the roof. It was barely mid-morning and now he had to wait for dusk and the Night of the Dead and the start to the Festival of Flames before Master Sy would come. He settled back to eat his bun and doze a little in the warm summer sun, fingering the token around his neck. One day. One day, that was where he was going. If they had to flee Deephaven, at least they had a place to go, up the river to Varr. There could be rewards for what they’d done, if he had the right of it.
There had to be some way, didn’t there? Some way to take Tasahre with him? He mulled the thought over, looking at it from every way he could imagine, until suddenly the middle of the morning had become the early afternoon and he was stiff from sleeping too long on the hard uneven roof.
He yawned and stretched and eased himself back into the warehouse and down to the docks again, slipping past the half-drunk sentries as easily as though they were statues. On the Day of the Dead before the Festival of Flames, no one in Deephaven was going anywhere in a hurry. Even the constant stream of wagons between the river and the sea, the pulse of the city, had stopped. The air was already rank with sweat and smoke and sour cheap wine, filled with raucous shouts and the occasional scream as someone accidentally set themselves on fire. Past the entrance to the Avenue of Emperors Berren pushed his way onwards, up the Kingsway and down the other side of The Peak. In time, the ground under his feet changed into the worn hard stone of the Old Fort Road. The jetties and the boats and the hustle and bustle they brought with them gave way to jagged stone. The crowds shrank to scattered clumps of revellers, mostly drunks who’d started the day far too early. Further along the shore, right at the far end of the estuary, stood Deephaven Fort. The city had had a navy once, Master Sy said. A small fleet that had guarded the mouth of the river, there to stop the Taiytakei slave-galleys and the sun-king’s war- galleons from sailing the river towards Varr. Batteries of light ballistae and stone-throwers had once lined the shore. The ships and most of the stone-throwers were gone now — the sun-king might have been a threat a hundred years ago, but Aria had grown vast and almost immeasurably powerful. The Emperor had sorcerers now.
The fort was still there though, still filled with the Emperor’s soldiers. Around it the Armourer’s District had grown. Toolmakers Square. Sword Street. The infamous Forge Tavern. Every other alley was a this-smith or a that- smith. Hammersmiths’ Passage was the one he wanted, the one that led to the Emperor’s Docks, otherwise no different from any of the rest. It wasn’t a part of the city that Berren knew well, and he had no idea whether anyone still made hammers here, or swords or shields or anything else for that matter, or whether they’d all gone away with the stone-throwers and the ballistae. No one used the Emperor’s Docks any more; hardly anyone in the wider city even knew they were there, but they were: tiny, exposed, but the one place in Deephaven where a tall ship could anchor right up against the land if it didn’t mind taking its chances with the winds and the tides and the rocks of the Blue Cliffs.
Old instincts forged in the rough streets of Shipwrights’ guided him off the Old Fort Road and into the side streets. They were wide here, broad enough for the carts that used to carry charcoal and ore from the docks to the smithies. The river brought steel now, forged somewhere far to the north, and the streets were quiet and empty. Militia gangs kept order in most districts, but as with The Peak, the Overlord took a more direct hand in this part of the city.
He was still a good few streets from the docks when he spotted the first of the Emperor’s soldiers, distinct in their pale silver shirts and flaming eagle crests. They were heading the same way as he was, carrying bundles of festival torches. Berren flitted back across Old Fort Street, never quite letting the soldiers out of sight but never getting any closer than needed. They crossed the wide open space of Royal Parade, the old city’s version of the Avenue of Emperors, and reached the Fort, on the river side of Toolmakers’ Square.
Three more soldiers came the other way, broadswords jangling at their sides. The two groups stopped outside the district courthouse, laughing and joking together. The smell of beer wafted around them as Berren walked past, and then he was there: Hammersmith’s Passage. He turned into its shadows. The cobbles sloped steeply down towards the river. His skin prickled. He was close. Master Sy would come, sooner or later.
Water shimmered at the end of the passage. The great river, bright in the midsummer sun. A moment later he rounded the corner of Hammersmiths’ and the Emperor’s Docks were right in front of him. They were so small! He’d never seen them before, but he’d always assumed they were at least a
Apart from the soldiers, the dock was quiet. A few people walked back and forth along the waterfront, but the festival was further down the river. There was no one here juggling torches, no one selling hot fish strips or roasted roaches.
He moved to a quiet corner, out of the way but in clear sight of the ship, and sat down in the sun. Out on the river, little boats sailed to and fro across the estuary. If he strained his eyes, he could just make out the line of Siltside across the water, the gleaming mud and the patchwork of little huts on stilts.
He hadn’t been there for long, eyes half closed, when a shadow loomed over him.
‘Berren.’
He blinked. ‘Tasahre?’ She sat down beside him. He shook his head, trying to work out whether he was really awake or whether he’d fallen asleep and this was a dream. ‘What are you doing here?’
She smiled at him. ‘A glorious day, is it not? It never rains on the Festival of Flames. Not for a hundred years. Did you know that? Almost every day in the summer, the rains come in the afternoon, yet never on the Day of the Dead. Not once.’
He touched her lightly on the shoulder to make himself believe she was real. ‘But what are you doing here?’
‘Radek of Kalda is on that ship. So I knew you would be here.’
‘But still, why?’ He didn’t understand. ‘Are you all here? What about the others?’ The other monks! If Master Sy saw sword-monks, he’d never come! He’d turn back and slip away and wait for another day!
‘Only me, Berren. If your master comes to kill this man, this Radek, do you think he will listen to you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Berren shivered. ‘I thought … I thought after the Sunbright … maybe there would be some other way. I came to go with him, one way or the other.’
She took his hand. ‘I know.’ Out in the water, one of the little boats was sailing towards the docks. ‘And I found I was not content to let you go when I could share your company one last time.’ She took his hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I did not ask any others to come. Together we will be enough, I think.’ She laughed. ‘Perhaps I am here to protect you from the press gangs! I am told more men become sailors after the Day of the Dead than over the rest of the year!’
Berren wasn’t so sure of that and he wasn’t so sure about them swaying Master Sy from killing Radek either, but to have some company through the afternoon, waiting for the night when Master Sy would come, that was a pleasure he couldn’t deny. He smiled back at her. The warmth of the sun on his face was a delight. Maybe she was right. Maybe when the thief-taker came slinking through the shadows later, the sight of his apprentice and a sword-monk would be enough to make him pause. For a moment, he felt himself at peace.
A band of players came out of Hammersmiths’. They walked slowly along the docks, men and women with painted faces and bright clothes, juggling balls and dancing and playing pipes. Three of them were dressed as knights, with jerkins decked like armour and swords and long brightly painted lances made of wood. They walked past where Berren and Tasahre sat and smiled at them. Berren smiled back.
‘May the festival bring you joy!’ one of them cried and waved. Berren blinked. That voice — he’d heard it before!
Beside him, he felt Tasahre tense. ‘That is odd,’ she said.
The players wandered on towards the ship. As they did, their music grew louder. They started to dance and
