‘It’ll never work,’ Fontagu said, nervously glancing around the New Paragon’s backstage area.
‘Can’t we at least try?’ Amelia pleaded.
Fontagu shook his head. ‘It’s foolish. And we shouldn’t be discussing it here.’
‘We’re alone,’ she said.
‘You can’t be sure. You can’t ever be sure any more. And your plan won’t work.’
‘Are you doubting yourself?’ Philmon asked.
Fontagu scowled at him. ‘Whatever could you mean by that?’
‘You say that getting into Skulum Gate can’t be done. Is that because you don’t think you can prepare a disguise that’s good enough?’
‘Now let’s not go too far,’ Fontagu warned. ‘I’ve been working in the theatrical arts for -’
‘It’s true, though, isn’t it?’
‘Look, it’s not all that important,’ Amelia told him. ‘We just need to see someone.’
‘But in Skulum Gate? Why there, of all places?’
‘I need to see someone who lives in there,’ Amelia explained. ‘It’s important, Fontagu. We wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t. We have to find our friends. Your friends.’
‘Oh, wait!’ Fontagu clapped his hands twice, threw open a wardrobe chest and began pulling clothes out of it. ‘I could do you a lovely palace guard’s outfit – you could wander in there and ask Florian anything you wanted!’
‘She doesn’t need to get into the palace,’ Philmon said. ‘She needs to go to Skulum Gate.’
Fontagu began to wring his hands together. The knuckles of his long fingers popped and crackled. ‘Please, children, I beg you, don’t go down there. It’s a bad place! It’s very bad. It’s where all the dregs live now, all the magicians that fled when Florian took over.’
‘Yes, and many of those “dregs” are my old friends. And so we’re clear, they didn’t flee – they were sent there.’ Amelia could feel her face beginning to flush red and hot. ‘They were supposed to feel grateful that they weren’t tossed over the side like some. And they’re not bad people – not if you know them. If you think they are, you’ve been spending far too much time with Florian and his horrid little friends -’
‘Shh,’ said Philmon, placing his hand on Amelia’s shoulder. ‘Calm down.’
‘Oh, it just makes me cross,’ she said. ‘It makes me cross that I have to get a disguise to go to talk to my old friends.’
‘Why do you need a disguise to go to Skulum Gate anyway?’ Fontagu asked.
‘Just in case Florian has people watching the entrance,’ Philmon said. ‘Amelia needs a disguise that she can throw away as soon as she comes out. We’ll pay you for it.’
‘It’s a bad idea,’ said Fontagu. ‘Besides, how can I concentrate on opening night if I know you’re in danger? And knowing that I’ve been an accessory to -’
‘Can you help us or not?’ Amelia asked him. ‘Because if you can’t …’
‘Very well, very well. But if you get caught, I’ll deny that I was ever involved.’
‘I wouldn’t expect anything else,’ Philmon muttered.
‘I just noticed something, old woman,’ Philmon said as he and Amelia took one of the back lanes leading towards Skulum Gate.
‘Oh yes? What is it?’
‘You know how Fontagu said that if we got caught he’d deny everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘His name is stitched inside the neck of that cloak you’re wearing.’
Amelia laughed. ‘That’s funny.’
‘Not as funny as you,’ Philmon said. ‘He’s actually done a pretty good job, you know. I keep looking at you and wondering who it is I’m walking along with.’
‘Yes, well you’re not walking along with anyone any more. It’s time to make yourself scarce. We can’t have anyone seeing you with the old woman who’s about to go into Skulum Gate.’
‘Are you scared?’ he asked.
‘A little. To be honest, I’m more scared of getting caught when I come out. But I bet I’m not as scared as Torby was when he was taken.’ She shuddered then, as she remembered Stelka’s voice, screaming out in her mind. ‘And I know I’m not as scared as Stelka.’
‘Well, all the best. I’ll be waiting right over there,’ Philmon said, pointing to a small flight of stone steps that led up to another, higher street. ‘I’ll see you soon.’
‘With any luck,’ she replied.
It was hot under the wig and all the make-up, even with the weakness of the sun’s rays through the cloud cover. Amelia bent over a little more, reminding herself of the last thing Fontagu had said: ‘Less is more’. He’d told her how the best actors didn’t overact, but rather sank into the role in a natural way. She’d almost laughed when he told her that, since she’d always thought that Fontagu’s whole life involved overacting.
‘You might smile, sweet one, but nothing will get you noticed faster than trying not to get noticed’, he’d said.
But it was good advice nonetheless, and the closer to Skulum Gate she got, the more she had to remind herself that she wasn’t a young former apprentice magician on a mission, but an old woman out walking the street.
The temperature fell noticeably as she rounded the last corner and stepped into the lane which led to Skulum Gate. She took a deep, fluttery breath. At the end of the street was… nothing. A dead end. The wall of a double-storey building stood there, leaning slightly inward. Its windows were empty. Dead.
‘Calm, Amelia,’ she muttered as she stepped forward. The further in she went, the cooler it seemed to get, and the drier her mouth became. As well as that, the walls on either side were closing in. With a struggle, she resisted the urge to look back. She’d really thought that going into Skulum Gate during the day would be the easy option, but now that she was approaching the entrance, it felt anything but easy.
She was almost at the very end of the alleyway now, and was just beginning to think that she’d come into the wrong lane when a deep chill passed over her. She shuddered all over. She was sweating, and yet she felt terribly, terribly cold, as if she had a fever.
Somewhere behind her eyes she felt noise, conversations, cries and moans. Her fingers tingled and her toes began to cramp. And that deep thrumming pain in her stomach was back, but it wasn’t nerves. It was something of a far more magical nature, and not necessarily the good kind.
Skulum Gate proper was immediately to her right. It was a small, rather unimpressive archway, cleverly hidden from view until she’d been right upon it. The archway was free-standing, and looked to lead into an open courtyard, and yet the light through the gap was darker in some way. Was it like a shadow? No, it seemed to be more like a barrier was around the area that kept most of the light out, or most of the darkness in.
She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping to find some strength in the dark behind her eyelids.
›››A mill yeah. A mill yeah
Amelia’s eyes sprang open. The voice, much clearer this time, had cut through the gabble in her head, and this time she had no doubt at all. It was Stelka.
With one last fluttery breath, she stepped forward through the arch.
The dark was cold on her skin, like a heavy fog. The small courtyard was empty, apart from a broken earthenware water pitcher half-leaning against the far wall. To her left was a narrow flight of stairs, which led into another alleyway, as dark down there as the night before a winter dawn.
Pulling her cloak closer about her, Amelia headed down the steps and along the dim alley with the dark, enchanted sky a strip of blackness overhead. Stopping and squinting, she tried to see the end of the lane. She couldn’t. Either it was too dark to see that far, or there was no end to it. Endlessly long, and deserted.
Unless… unless something was watching her from the doorways, stoops and windows that glared empty, like the eye sockets in a skull. Somewhere quite nearby, something fiendish let out a long, caterwauling cry, and further away came the sound of a scream. Then a laugh, long and insane, followed by some kind of moan.
She jumped at the sound of the sudden words. ‘Ye look lost, wee’un,’ a wheedling, rust-edged female voice said, from very close by. ‘Are ye sure ye’re no lost?’
Amelia tried to calm her breathing and her pounding heart. She felt sure that she must have screamed, just a little, but she couldn’t remember doing it. ‘I’m not lost,’ she said, her voice weak. ‘Thank you.’
‘Well ye look lost. Are ye sure ye’re no meant to be going home for ye supper? Ye ma would be waiting. Be a dreadful shame to keep ye ma waiting.’
‘I don’t have a ma,’ Amelia replied.
The voice tutted. ‘Shouldnae have told me that, wee’un. I might’ve taken pity, had I thought ye had a ma waiting at home wi’ supper on the table for ye. But since ye donnae…’
‘I don’t want trouble,’ Amelia said, as strongly as her breathless state would allow. She peered into the blackness of the shadows, trying to see the face that belonged to the voice. ‘I just need to see someone.’
‘Is that right? Well, out with it, wee’un – who is it ye need to see so badly? I cannae make no promises, mind.’
‘I’ve come to see Dorissa.’
There was a pause. When it next spoke, all the twisted playfulness had gone from the voice. It was now deadly serious. ‘What do ye want with Dorissa, wee’un?’
‘It’s between her and me.’
The voice was stern. ‘No yet.’
‘Are you able to take me to her?’
‘Give me three reasons why I shouldnae turn ye back.’
Amelia thought. ‘I’ll give you four. One, Dorissa and I are old friends. Two, Stelka is in danger. I’m sure you remember Stelka, who used to be Chief Navigator before everything changed. Dorissa is the only person I know who can help me find her. Three, if I find Stelka, I think I might be able to find my other friends, Tab and Torby. And four, I think Florian is behind all these disappearances.’
‘Why didnae ye start wi’ that one?’ the voice said. ‘Since ye make such a strong case, I figure I can take ye to see Dorissa. But be warned – ye’d best no be jesting me, wee’un.’
‘I’m not, I promise,’ Amelia said.
‘Very well.’ From the darkness of a stoop to Amelia’s left, a figure began to emerge. Amelia found herself gasping, then trying to cover it. It appeared that the voice of the old woman belonged to a child. Its grimy face was covered with sores, and large patches of its thin hair had fallen out.
‘What’s the matter, wee’un? Have ye no seen a Fallowclann before?’
Dumbly, Amelia shook her head.
‘And ye call yerself a magician!’
‘I haven’t been a practising mag… Hang on, how did you know I was a -?’
‘Well ye’re either a magician, or ye really are lost! And ye seem to know what it is ye’re here for.’
The Fallowclann turned, raised both her stubby little hands as high as she could and snapped her fingers. In an instant the lane was lined on both sides with the sickly glow of lamps on tall poles. Amelia gasped. The two rows converged far off in the distance. It seemed that the laneway really was endless.
‘How does that work?’ she said. ‘The edge of Quentaris is less than a hundred feet in that direction, but this street is… is forever long.’
‘Ye’re a slow learner, and that’s for true,’ the Fallowclann said. ‘These days there’s more magic in this wee lane than in all of Quentaris. Florian and his soldiers wouldnae dare come down here. I’ll bet they wish they’d thrown us all over the side when they had the chance. Come on, wee’un, best ye hurry along wi’ me, before someone less friendly spies ye and figures ye’d be good eating. Och, donnae look so terrified – I’m jesting wi’ ye!’
‘I’d rather you didn’t,’ Amelia said as the child with the old woman’s voice began to lead the way between the endless lines of wan lamplight.
They travelled for what felt to Amelia like an awfully long time. In the lamp-lit street, the sounds of cruel, raucous laughter drifted about, mixed in with cries and calls. As they walked, Amelia noticed that most of the windows they walked past were completely dark, like almost everything else in Skulum Gate. But once in a while they would pass a window with some light behind it. Unlike the pale light from the lamps overhead, the light within these windows was weak, but warm, like a small flame. A candle, perhaps, or an oil-burning lamp.
‘Someone’s home,’ she said as they passed one of these, but the Fallowclann didn’t respond.
Still they continued on. The buildings were so similar – made more so by the darkness – that after a while Amelia began to wonder if they were walking in a huge circle, and passing the same windows all over again.
‘Are we nearly there?’ she asked the Fallowclann eventually.
‘Aye, best ye donnae ask me that again, wee’un,’ the old child-woman said.
‘Sorry. It’s just…’
‘We’re here.’ The Fallowclann stopped before a small doorway, which was shrouded in shadow. Through the window beside the door Amelia saw some of the weak but warm light she’d seen earlier.
‘This is where I’ll find Dorissa?’
The Fallowclann nodded, and pointed. ‘In ye go, then.’
‘You’re not coming in with me?’
‘Nae, I’ll no come in. Me and Dorissa are no the best of friends.’
‘Really? But she’s… well?’
‘In ye go,’ the Fallowclann said again, nodding towards the door. ‘It’ll no be locked. Not for yeself.’
‘Will you wait out here for me?’
‘So I can walk ye back? Are ye daft in some way? It’s no hard to find ye way out!’
‘I see. Well, thanks for bringing me down.’
The Fallowclann gave a half-hearted shrug, turned and headed back the way she’d come.
Taking a deep breath, Amelia put her hand on the door handle. It was so cold against her palm, and it tingled with frustrated, fermenting magic. ‘Courage, Amelia,’ she whispered. She twisted the handle, and with a clunk, the door swung open on creaky hinges.
The room was almost completely bare. The walls were white, but grimy and empty. The light within the room came from a single candle burning low in a large rack-like candelabrum in the corner. The candelabrum had once contained row upon row of candles – hundreds of them – but now there were barely a dozen or so left unburnt. The hundreds that had burnt out were now nothing but deformed globs of melted wax in their holders. Apart from the candelabrum, the room contained nothing but a bed, with a chest at its foot.
A very small, very old woman with long, white hair lay in the bed. The tissue-papery skin of her face was starkly pale against her plum-red dress, which had the remains of some tattered embroidery and beading still attached to it. She turned her head as Amelia opened the door and looked in.
‘Yes, child?’ the old woman said.
‘I’m… sorry,’ Amelia stammered. ‘I think I’m in the wrong room.’
‘Who are you looking for?’
‘I’m looking for Dorissa. She was… she’s a magician.’
‘Only for a little longer,’ the woman replied. ‘Amelia, it’s me. I’m Dorissa.’
Amelia frowned, and took a step closer. ‘Is it… No, it can’t be
…’
‘I’ve changed, haven’t I?’ Dorissa said. ‘It’s all right – you can say it.’
‘Then yes, you’ve changed. A lot. When I last saw you, you were
…’
‘Larger?’
‘I was going to say younger.’
‘It’s this place, Amelia. It’s Skulum Gate. We age faster here. See that?’ Dorissa said, pointing with her eyes at the remaining candles. ‘That’s all I’ve got left.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When the last candle burns out…’
‘No!’
‘Yes. So you’d best talk fast.’ Dorissa struggled to sit up, and Amelia rushed over to help her. ‘Amelia, you shouldn’t have come. You’re in great danger. And staying here for a few moments will take days, perhaps even weeks or months off your life. So please, Amelia, say what you came to say and leave.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Amelia, when Florian came to power, he knew that he needed to keep some magicians around, but only those he could control, like Anira, or those that would be too obviously missed.’
‘Like Stelka.’
‘Yes, like Stelka. But he couldn’t be seen to be killing off all the other magicians, so he gave us our own place… this place, Skulum Gate. But it was enchanted, and our process of aging has been sped up. One thousand candles, they gave each of us. Yes, they burn slowly, but it’s still not enough. And some burn faster than others.’
‘Can’t it be stopped?’
‘You want to stop magic of this kind?’ Dorissa’s clear blue eyes filled with tears. ‘If only I knew how. The street outside that door was once filled with people like me, magicians you would have known. Escalayn, Angard, Aylia, all bedridden now, like me.’
‘Not dead?’
‘Not yet, but it won’t be long. Died of old age, Florian will say.’
‘What about the baby-woman who showed me here?’
Dorissa sniffed. ‘Moreon?’
‘That was Moreon? She was one of my tutors for a while! I should have picked the voice. Why didn’t she recognise me?’
‘She probably did, Amelia, despite the disguise. Down here we get used to seeing people looking older than we remembered them. But she’s most likely ashamed, and wouldn’t have wanted to be recognised by you. There is a handful of Fallowclann in Skulum Gate. They dabbled in crooked magic a while back, and turned back part of the ageing process, but they went too far. They could go back to the outside world, but they’d be considered freaks. They’d never survive, especially with Florian at the top of the pile. And not just Florian – the other one.’
‘Janus?’
‘Yes, that’s him. He knows far more magic than he lets on.’
‘He’s just Florian’s chief advisor,’ Amelia said.
‘Is that what he calls himself? Well.’ Dorissa snuck a glance at the candle. ‘My dear Amelia, you really should tell me what you came for. I wouldn’t want you to come to any harm.’ She patted the side of the bed. ‘Sit.’
Amelia sat. ‘Something terrible’s happened,’ she said. ‘They’ve taken Stelka.’
Dorissa nodded, and patted Amelia’s hand. ‘Yes, I know.’