Chapter 3

I ran out the Night’s Gate of the Palace, passed over the moat, and continued into the city streets. Around me were the walled mansions of the four families. Each was a sort of reflection of the Palace, with crenellated towers, soaring arches, and gleaming marble façades, though all appropriately reduced in scale and grandeur. Anywhere else they would have been wonders, while here they played demure younger sisters to the Emperor’s seat.

You likely do not know what the city of Narra used to be, so I will sketch it. The Palace was at the exact center, as we believed that the city was at the center of creation. The city streets were concentric circles radiating out from the Palace’s moat, until they reached a massive fortified wall. Four broad avenues running from the wall in to the Palace divided the city into quadrants, which we called Day, Afternoon, Evening, and Night. 

Everything in the city followed a perfect order. The street plan was always symmetrical. The streets were all even circles. The avenues were broad, straight walkways, with channels of silver liquid in their middles, one almost indistinguishable from the others. The quality of homes, shops, and parks declined evenly with distance from the Palace. Nothing significant ever changed. Indeed, we believed that the city had been built by our gods to house the Emperor, and so the thought of change was a kind of sacrilege.

The only anomaly was an abandoned area in the center of Night’s Quarter. We called this the Scar. Nothing in the construction or design of this area was obviously different, but people avoided it. 

My father and I lived on the edges of the Scar, not in the richest area of the city, but not on the rim near the walls either. When I was in a hurry, I would cut through this desolate area, sure I wouldn’t be slowed by crowds. For whatever reason, I wasn’t affected by the taboo that kept others away.

That night, I ran through the familiar, empty streets, wondering, as I always did, whether something had happened to make this area different. The sense I got from other citizens of Narra was that they didn’t even think about the Scar. They avoided it in body and in mind.

Our street was called Night’s Minstrel. The homes here crowded close together and lined the way with high fronts. They were all abandoned—dark and silent—being so close to the Scar. But they were also well preserved and neat, like mausoleums. Ours seemed just as forbidding from the outside, for my father must have retreated to his study in the back wing. I knew he would be awake, for he read in his collections of manuscripts from the outlands until the dead of night.

I unlocked the front gate and proceeded into the dark entryway without bothering with a lantern. I knew what to expect and could steer my way up the stairs and through the halls.

My father would not like it if I called or made an announcement of my arrival. I would approach him quietly and see him bent over his desk, the lantern beside him the only source of light in the house. He had a way of keeping two fingers poised to turn the page, for he was always eager for what he might learn next. Though he seldom left the house and never to my knowledge left the city, he was passionate about learning all he could about the most distant outlands and the people who lived there. 

I turned into the last hall and felt off balance for a moment. Why did I suddenly almost stumble after taking so many steps in darkness? I slowly realized that I was used to finding light here from my father’s lamp. I’d never walked this passage in complete darkness. I reached out to feel the wall and took slower steps.

Was he not here? Had he gone to sleep already? I could only imagine him doing that if he were ill.

I felt the edges of the doorframe. The door was open, and I stepped in. 

My father had piles of books, papers, and curios scattered around his study, and since they moved from time to time, I pushed a toe forward to feel for space before each step. Something felt wrong. My nostrils almost tingled, picking up a smell as sharp as the gasp of smoke that comes when you’ve just extinguished a candle. I groped ahead until I hit a chair and then the edge of the long table he used as a reading desk. They seemed harder and larger in the darkness.

Feeling over the top of the table with my fingers, I found a large open book, a rock he used as a paperweight, and, finally, the lantern. He kept a small tinder box at the foot of the desk, and I reached down for that and got the lantern kindled. Its light took a moment to grow, and at first I just saw the pages of the book he had last been reading, a large leather-bound volume whose leaves had been gnawed at from the edges by decay. Some of the words had been eaten away, in the way that decay always resents memory. The rest of the tabletop, piled with papers relating to his business and the odds and ends of his collecting, was at its usual balance of order and disorder. Indeed, there was something highly distinctive about this arrangement, as if it could only have been created by him.

I lifted the lantern to be able to see further. The first hint of trouble was a rolled up sheet of paper lying on the floor that had been stepped on and partly torn. Then splinters of wood—a broken chair that had been smashed into almost unrecognizable fragments. As I took in more of the room, I realized that some powerful force of destruction had hit it. It was difficult to fathom. Shelves were torn down, heavy furniture was beaten to pieces, chunks of cracked stone and clumps of plaster were scattered around. It would have taken a gang of men a long period of purposeful work to do this, and I didn’t yet understand what else could be responsible. But, though I was confused, I knew my father was in danger, and I plunged into the mess to try to find him.

At the far end of the room, debris was heaped on the floor, and the wall had clearly been hit by something huge. Most of the plaster had fallen off and the stones underneath were rent by deep cracks. I moved that way with an instinct that I should look at what seemed most frightening—for that would be most important. Everything in that heap was coated with plaster dust and showed an almost lovely silvery white in my lamplight.

Then I saw a hand jutting out from under some scattered papers.

I jumped forward, almost dropping the lamp, then set it down on a patch of bare floor and scrambled toward what I was sure was my father. From the landmark of the hand, I could trace back the line of the arm to the body. And now I saw his legs, dusted white and half buried.

His head was covered by a piece of metal lining that had fallen from one of the windows. I shoved it aside, and there was his face. It had the color of flesh, having been covered when the dust had settled. It almost looked living, but as I’d uncovered his face, I’d also dislodged whatever had been over his chest and I could see a deep, certainly fatal gash into his chest. His ribs were visible—severed as neatly as a dish of pork prepared for hungry men. Beyond that I saw other shapes, until I turned away. 

Despite my certainty, I touched his cheek and jaw, feeling for life. I tried to suppress the sound of my own breathing to catch his. I waited for a shiver or a stirring from him. All was silent. I felt lost.

Somehow I couldn’t understand how this face, with the same dark brow and usual irregular stubble, could be that of a dead man. How could his eyelid not flutter open at my touch?

It was then that I realized there was no blood anywhere in the room. Something was very wrong.

I should have been afraid. After all, whatever had done this to him could have been lurking nearby. I should have run as far and fast as I could. Instead, I kneeled over his body for a long time, as if my legs could no longer work—as broken as my heart.

Before I could even stand, I started pushing debris away from his body. It somehow seemed to me that he was uncomfortable. His other arm was pinned beneath a metal urn, and I rolled that away. As the as-yet-hidden hand was revealed, I was shocked to see it grasping a sword. It was a strange sword, with a long handle and an extremely thick blade. It looked unwieldy, almost unwieldable, compared to the elegant swords I was used to exercising with. But stranger than the shape of the sword was the fact that my father was holding one at all. I would have bet most of the money I ever hoped to have that he didn’t know how to use one. He’d always belittled weapons to me, extolling the strength of the mind over brute force. I’d certainly never seen a blade in our house.

I did not want to wrench the sword out of his hand and I didn’t feel ready to move his body yet, so I finally stood, backing away a few steps by instinct. I felt the threat of overwhelming grief, as if it were a weight hanging over me. This was the man who had raised me. He’d formed my character in a way few parents ever do. My mother had died when I was an infant, and so he’d been my sole guardian. He took that responsibility seriously and personally. He’d been my schoolmaster from the time that had meant singing nursery tunes until he drilled me in higher mathematics. He’d seen every moment not filled with academic lessons as a chance for moral instruction, and every dinner was a philosophic inquiry in the form of a dialogue. I always had the feeling that he was preparing me for something very important and very challenging, though he wouldn’t tell me what it was. It was as if he knew my fate and worried for me. 

I bent again and touched his face, noting its unaccustomed coolness. I might have defied him in training for the Glorious Battalion, but that was only because he’d raised me to pursue my passions and not to give undue influence to others’ opinions. I didn’t understand the world without him.

The strangeness and ghastliness of the scene in front of me—the unnatural wound I couldn’t bring myself to look at, the scale of destruction—combined with a sense that I now had to do something in response—I couldn’t figure what, but something—held the full brunt of sadness at bay. But I had a sense of its terrible weight hanging over me, creaking, suspended by a thread.

I tried to think. What could I do? Who could help me? What if others were somehow in danger? Each quarter had a sheriff charged with maintaining security. It was primarily a ceremonial position occupied by one of the minor nobility who knew how to wear a particular uniform and march in the right parades, but it seemed to me that my duty was to alert the sheriff of Night’s Quarter. If he didn’t know exactly what to do about such a strange murder, certainly he needed to know about it.

It was hard to leave the room with my father’s body in it and hard to leave the house, but once I made it into the streets, I broke into a run. I knew where the sheriff’s house was, for it was marked with a flag with the sign of his office. There was one in the same place in each quarter, and I had passed them all many times. I felt a small comfort, perhaps the only comfort available, in the knowledge that I was doing the right thing. A system had been created. Someone was in charge of such matters. I just had to do my part.

I came to the gate of the sheriff’s home and banged my fist into it before I even stopped running. The force was enough to create a deep boom. I hit it again immediately, and then again and again. It was late enough that I would probably have to wake someone.

Metal grated as a bar was pulled back, and then a lean face peeked out, the gate opening just far enough to make room for it. Indeed, this porter was well suited for his job in at least one way: his head was so narrow he could poke it through a very slight crack. He looked me over but said nothing.

“I have business with the sheriff,” I announced at last.

“It’s the middle of the night,” he replied.

“It’s urgent.” I expected the man to see something of my need in my face, but his stare was implacable. “I have a crime to report.”

“Reporting days are on the first of the month,” the porter said.

I must have gaped at him. Then I tried one more time to explain. “This can’t wait…” But he pulled his head in and started to close the door.

I felt a kind of fury I’d never experienced before. It was like a lesser version of what I would have felt facing my father’s killer. This man suddenly seemed to me to be allied with the killer in an obscure way.

I grabbed the door and wrenched back as hard as I could. After a brief resistance, it flew open, until it banged into the wall. I had used all my strength, and the physical exertion fed my anger. The porter was in front of me wearing a uniform shirt that hung almost to his knees, and no pants underneath. His bare legs looked as skinny as a chicken’s. I pushed past him.

In the courtyard of the house, I shouted out, “Hello! Hello! The sheriff! There’s been a murder!”

I heard sounds of waking life, as people threw open windows and rushed to the doors.

“Hello!” I shouted again. “Hello!”

“What is that?” a voice called from the house.

The porter crept up behind me and pulled at my sleeve. “Please, sir,” he said. “Please be calm.”

“Bring your master,” I replied. Then I shouted for the wider audience, “The sheriff!”

A voice from the dark house replied, “I am here.”

A man stepped out from the shadow that was the main door of the house. A servant rushed from behind him carrying a lamp to light his way. But since the servant was behind him, the sheriff remained in silhouette for me until he got quite close. Then I saw he had a robe of ermine wrapped around a bulky frame. The head that sat on top was bald and pale, and his face was fleshy.

“My father’s been killed,” I said.

I expected some sort of gasp or rush to comfort me. Instead, the sheriff said in a bored, annoyed tone, “What is your father’s name?”

“Garik.”

“I’ve never heard of him.” More servants filed out of the house and stood around us in a ragged circle. The sheriff paused as this force gathered around him. “Is he noble, or citizen, or outsider?”

“We’re Narran citizens.”

“Born here?”

“I was. But what does it matter? He’s a man and he’s been murdered. I’ll take you there now.”

“Why do you say ‘murdered’?” the sheriff asked.

“He has a terrible wound. His chest has been cut open.” I spoke loudly and hurriedly, looking from the sheriff to the guards and servants who stood near him. I could already sense that they were against me somehow, though I didn’t understand why. Each eye I met was dead to me.

“Now I know you lie,” the sheriff said. He pulled at his robe to arrange it around him. He looked at me with disdain. “Such a thing has never happened here. I am only amazed that you would think to make up such a tale. Your presence here is an affront to good order.”

He nodded to someone standing behind me. They grabbed me. I jerked my arms away, being stronger than they had reckoned. “I’m not…” I tried to cry out something that would convince the sheriff I was sincere, but a punch in my lower back truncated the sentiment. They had me again, and this time it was several men using all their strength. They hoisted me off my feet, and then I hit the ground. More hands grabbed my legs. I fought back but quickly realized that it was futile. 

They dragged me out the gate and dropped me in the street. About ten men stood outside the house, watching as I walked away.

I was deeply confused. I had tried to do what I thought was expected of me, and I’d been dismissed and mistreated. I was furious at the sheriff, but I still wanted him to help me. I couldn’t think of anything else to do other than to wait for morning and hope he would see things differently then.

I headed back toward my home, soon passing into the double silence of the Scar, where not only was it after the hour for sleep but there wasn’t a soul to break the rule. I wanted to be near my father again, who had always been my lodestar, even if it only meant sitting over his body.