the Dark shall do what Light cannot (LiGa Book 2) Read online

  This tiny globe of light, and all of its miniature brothers and sisters, illuminated Pera. The first light tree had been of the Moonlight variety, but later versions had also produced a seed with a warmer glow, and it had been named the Sunlight variety. Without need for wires or generators, the processed essence of the light seed was ‘smeared’ wherever light was needed. It’s so much better than electricity, thought Shady. Moonlightsmear, in its many variations, gave off a silvery blue glow, while its first cousin Sunlightsmear bathed its surroundings in various tones of fiery gold. The rich amber of Sunlightsmear’s darker shades was generally used for intimate indoor lighting. And the flesh of the berry, gorged with sunlight, was fuel. It kept the citizens of Pera warm in the winter and helped to keep Pera in working order.

  Shady took a deep breath. It was a still night, but grey clouds partially masked the stars, and he had an uneasy feeling as well as a slight headache. The wind is changing; Lodos is coming, he thought as he walked back to the entrance of the dark hall. He stood aside to allow guests to enter. On a Friday evening the dark hall would be full, and people had already started arriving at the conclusion of Evening Song.

  “Good evening, my dear professor!” A woman wearing a fitted, ankle-length cloak trimmed with glossy black fur approached Shady briskly. Her frank smile accentuated a handsome face framed by a hat of the same fur that entirely covered her hair. Hers was an ageless face, well beyond the first flush of youth, but rendered attractive by the smoldering warmth of her dark eyes and the irreverent edge to the smile that curved her full, red lacquered lips.

  “Markiza, you look lovely. How are you?” Shady leaned forward to receive her affectionate kiss.

  “Are you coming inside, my love?” Markiza asked as she took the arm of her companion, an elderly man with a weathered face and a military bearing under his full evening dress.

  “Marki, he’s on blinder’s duty, my dear,” gently chided her companion, the eminent jurist, Chief Justice Hakan.

  “But, my dear, all blind policemen play sleet on duty,” she cried, squeezing his arm playfully.

  “It’s all right,” Shady said. “I am not here to play sleet now, but may return. I wish you both a wonderful game.”

  “Oh! I’m dying to hear the concert!” Markiza laughed happily as they disappeared through the entrance.

  Shady stroked the light bird on his shoulder, “Dom, you have to stay outside.” A large man in a black suit standing a few feet away saluted the blind policeman and extended an arm onto which the bird hopped with a brief squawk, which was possibly as an expression of its views on being handed off to random strangers.

  “Is the Chief inside?” Shady asked the man in the black suit now trying to balance a disconsolate Dom on his arm.

  “Yes, sir. He arrived at the end of Evening Song.”

  Shady opened the heavy door made out of the soot-black wood of the light tree, and entered the foyer of the dark hall.

  “Professor, welcome,” came the voice of a young woman from a point somewhere to the right of his elbow. It always took a second or two for the eyes to adjust to the lighting structure of the dark hall. Here in the foyer, which was separated from the hall itself by a wall of blackened glass, the lighting consisted of large bowls full of imitation light beads strategically placed between incidental armchairs. The imitation light beads were simple glass marbles covered with low concentration Moonlightsmear. The cumulative cool glow was the equivalent of several candles. These beads were roughly the same size and shape of sleet marbles – approximately one centimeter in diameter – but true light beads were only used for sleet, as glass was cheaper to manufacture than the cost of marbleizing the seed of the lightberry. The glow of a true light bead was special, for it came from within, from the seed of a tree that ate sunlight.

  Shady noted that the young woman with long, pale gold hair who had greeted him was wearing a floor-length evening gown of midnight grey – the special color of the sky that is seen by urban dwellers; the deep, opaque, unblue dark of a starless sky in a world of artificial light. Illuminated by the light beads, the dress gleamed like an alien, artificial thing.

  “Sir, do you have time for a game tonight?” she asked politely.

  Shady shook his head. “Not now. Perhaps, if I have time, I will come back later. I stopped in to see the Chief.”

  The girl nodded. “Yes, sir. The Chief and Mrs. Kurt have already started playing. May your patrol be free of woe and calamity,” she added gravely. It was part of the old refrain, the reason for and the meaning of, the blind policeman.

  May your patrol be free of woe and calamity;

  May you see nothing that should not be.

  As you are us, and we are you,

  May your patrol be free and true.

  “Thank you.” Shady walked towards the dark glass, which slid aside noiselessly upon his approach.

  The dark hall stretched out before him in all directions. A great big cathedral of a place saturated in black. A black in which light plays hopscotch, thought Shady, watching the play of the sleet marbles. The sleet tables lay to the left of the entrance. He knew that there were ten rows of ten tables: one hundred tables shrouded in pitch black. The players sat at opposite sides of the rectangular tables with a sleet board between them. He heard the light pitter-patter of the sleet marbles being placed in slots upon a board made of the wood of the light tree, interspersed with the grunts, yowls, cries and sighs of the players in various states of success.

  There were different versions of sleet from which the players could choose. The relative arch of the board determined the difficulty of the game. The boards ranged from perfectly flat to those forming a forty-five degree triangular arch.

  “Sir, may I take you to a table?” asked a young man who had appeared soundlessly at his side. Shady automatically extended his hands, pulling back his coat sleeves to expose his wrists. It was forbidden to wear jewelry, including watches, at the sleet tables. All players checked their jewelry into the safes before approaching the tables. The reason for this was to avoid confusion, for in such a dark space the glint of a diamond ring or bracelet might easily be mistaken for the flicker of a sleet marble.

  “I’m not going to play,” Shady explained, “but I need to find Chief Kurt. Can you take me to him?”

  “Certainly. They are in the first row. Please follow me.”

  The Rooster paused, a tiny, delicate sleet bead held aloft.

  “What’s wrong?” his wife whispered urgently in the velvet blackness.

  The chief of police placed the bead in a chosen slot with care, and leaned back, his heavy frame making the chair creak. It was a sudden thing, a premonition, and as police chief he was used to such feelings. It was no surprise therefore, when two figures suddenly materialized at his elbow.

  “Hello, Shady–” the Rooster said, for he had noted the blinder’s dark luminescent armband that glowed with Moonlightsmear, and in any event, he was familiar with Shady’s loping gait.

  “What’s wrong? Where’s Carl? He’s supposed to be with you on blinders’ duty tonight, I thought,” the chief of police said with unerring instinct. “Let’s go outside. Be right back,” he added gently to his wife.

  Mrs. Kurt’s expression was – perhaps thankfully – unreadable in the darkness.

  “That’s all right, darling,” she said quietly. “I’ve been wanting to listen to the flute concert. Why don’t you come and find me there?” The rustle of taffeta and a faint scent indicated that the lady had risen.

  “Madam–” murmured the same young man who had brought Shady to the table, offering her his arm as was customary. In the dark halls, women were escorted to and from the tables unless they indicated otherwise, for the precariousness of high heels and long skirts could – and had on a number of unfortunate instances – result in distressing accidents. He led her away to the recesses of the opposite side of the hall where guests would be enjoying refreshments and music, the sounds of which were carefully muted
by the acoustics of the hall so as to not disturb the sleet tables.

  Shady and his companion watched her retreating form before walking to the entrance.

  “Carl didn’t show up,” Shady explained once they were outside.

  “You want me to send people to see if he’s all right?” the Rooster asked brusquely. He was a large man in his early sixties with a sullen jaw-line and hooded grey eyes that lulled the less observant into a false sense of security. “You could do that by going to the police station,” he observed, nodding towards the building next to the dark hall. He did not need to ask: Why are you disturbing me on a Friday evening during one of my favorite pastimes?”

  “Understood,” Shady nodded. “I would have done that if it hadn’t been an immortal, but if – if anything is wrong, the police would inform–”

  “Fiona Manx,” the Rooster finished the sentence, crossing his arms thoughtfully. “You don’t want that?”

  Shady shook his head. “No, I want to be told – I know she must be told eventually, but if something is wrong, if Carl is … hurt or in trouble, I want to see it first. I want to be the first to know.”

  “I don’t trust Fiona as far as I could throw her, but she is the vice mayor, and currently the official liaison between the police and the immortals,” the police chief said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t want to get into a fight with the mayor’s office unless there’s a good reason.”

  There is a good reason: Fiona Manx (Imm.) is not a blind policeman, thought Shady. “She was the official liaison during all the immortal deaths this year,” he said out loud. “Fiona was the first person who was informed every time. But remember, none of them were on blinders’ patrol…”

  “You think Carl is dead?” the Rooster asked sharply.

  Shady spread his hands. “I don’t know. I can’t sense anything from him.”

  The Rooster sighed. “All right, I’ll tell my boys to send you a light bird if they find anything wrong. I would say they’d send you a thought, but I don’t think you’ve got a link with any of them, so they couldn’t.”

  Shady shook his head. “I don’t have a link with any of the regular patrolmen. As you know, Blinders can’t mix with the police.”

  “I know you’re a stickler for form, Shades… And I respect that. Anyway, if there’s anything wrong, the patrol will have to inform Fiona too. They’ll just send you the light bird first. Luckily, no one can establish a link with her!” The Rooster laughed.

  “No…” Shady nodded soberly, without humor. No one could establish a link with Fiona because she didn’t have the sense. The only immortal – to his knowledge – without it. It wasn’t funny; it was the reason she wasn’t a blind policeman. It might be the reason, Shady thought, for a great many things…

  “Thank you,” he said gratefully.

  The Rooster hesitated. “Do you want me to send someone with you tonight? You don’t want to patrol alone.”

  Shady shook his head. “No, I’ll be fine. I prefer to patrol alone.” He didn’t add that a blind policeman cannot, must not, patrol with the police officer. The Rooster meant well.

  “Two immortals were killed this year, you just said so yourself…”

  “Dominic’s with me,” Shady laughed as the bird flew to his shoulder. “He’s got a mean beak, and I can send him if I sense anything wrong. Just have someone check on Carl.”

  The Rooster nodded, and after telling the man at the door that he would be back momentarily, walked towards the police station to fulfill his promise.

  As Shady continued along Pirate’s Way to Nightingale Boulevard, his thoughts drifted to Fiona... He, Carl and Fiona had made it out as immortals from the LiGa Bridge tournament. In England, he recalled. So long ago it seemed, although it had been just three – no, three and a half years. A lifetime in a way…

  But they had all arrived in Pera, hadn’t they? Six months after the last transfer, they had received the letter from Xavier. What had Shady done during those six months between the end of the tournament and the reunion at LiGa headquarters? He could barely remember. It had been a whirlwind of change… Physically, of course, but that had been the least of it, for that had been expected. Going through the tournament, one came to know all about physical change: drastic, overwhelming, life-altering adjustments to one’s body as a result of the life transfer. After the tournament, one was immortal, but physically all it meant was more of the same changes one had already experienced.

  But there had been other changes. Subtler changes. Transformations that were more an undercurrent, incremental…but they brought you to a different place nonetheless. Changes in oneself as one’s outlook on life was permanently altered. And then the unexpected changes… The changes in those around you. Those people, close friends and family, from whom one could not conceal and yet could not fully reveal, the extent of the transformation, but who nevertheless knew. They knew. It was impossible to hide this new self, and yet it was impossible to share it wholly with those dear elements of one’s old life. Those friends who would age... and family members who must die. Not that one was invincible. One knew the limits of this immortality. This non-aging did not mean one would not, could not die… and yet…

  There was the curious liberation of it all!

  The strange feeling that it was all right. It was not that one did not care. That was not it, for one cared an awful lot.

  It was just that this new life I was beginning, Shady reasoned, for that is what it was – a new, a brand new start in life – was this incredible counterpoint to the life I was leaving behind. And I had loved that old life, and the people in it. I love it still, thought Shady without sadness. I love it, but I am no longer truly part of it. And that is Life.

  But then the six months had passed. It was intentional, of course, that six-month interlude. Xavier knew. He knew because, of course, at some point in his life, he too had experienced something similar. After six months the body had settled into its new state; it had accepted immortality. Gone were the wild fluctuations in mood, the bizarre physical outbursts. In its place was the new you. You: the Immortal.

  It was then that Shady had started thinking about the others…

  Carl and Fiona.

  Fellow immortals. People who understood. Xavier was right again. One felt a kinship to other immortals – particularly those from the same tournament.

  Carl Volkswahr, Ph.D. Physicist. Even during the tournament he had liked Carl. Sandy-haired, freckled, with bright, bright blue eyes, and a penchant for dry humor. Excellent bridge player, of course. Most important of all: friend. One learned that a friend made during a LiGa tournament was a true friend: with whom one had gone through death and emerged an immortal. Someone you could trust…absolutely trust because it was someone you had trusted when your life was at stake. Not only yours but theirs too…

  Fiona Manx… Acclaimed evolutionary biologist. She’d been working in some remote part of the African continent on a rare species of frog…perhaps it had been a newt. It was hard to recall such details now, something small and amphibious, in any event. It had taken a while for her to receive the invitation on account of the inaccessibility of her locale. That had been the reason given for the two-day late start to the tournament. Shady had accepted this explanation. They all had. Even now, was there any reason not to? And even if one had questioned, if one had been suspicious, what of it? Fiona had been so … open. So apologetic. He remembered seeing her for the first time at LiGa’s glass cube: tanned dark, no makeup, wearing something that definitely would not have been out of place on a safari.

  Fiona was pretty – even before she became immortal. One thought so at first, anyway. She had lots of russet-gold hair that fell in unruly curls down her back, which she had a habit of brushing out of her eyes and her mouth. It was a habit that was decidedly annoying after a while. Her smallish eyes were forest-green and she always had an eager smile... although it was a bit pinched, that smile, when one looked at it a time too many. And a fu
rtive look in those eyes, if one was honest. One wasn’t honest… Not entirely anyway, not at first. Not after those six months when all three came together again. These were one’s comrades-in-arms, the people who understood, who knew what it meant to be immortal. How could one think ill of any of them?

  Shady shook his head at the recollection. Foolish! I knew. We all knew. We knew during the tournament.

  Carl knew.

  Carl told me. But the truth is that Carl didn’t need to tell me. And where is Carl tonight? “Ow!” An angry squawk, coupled with the terse brush of an impatient wing brought Shady back to the present. “What is it, Dom? Do you want to fly? I don’t mind if you do, boy. You’re heavy you know!” The bird shifted its weight from one foot to the other and lifted its wings tentatively in response.

  “Go! Go, fly,” Shady urged, waggling his shoulder. “You know the route. But don’t lose me!” Dominic regarded him steadily out of one intelligent, black eye, and apparently having reached a decision, swooped away from Shady’s shoulder in a graceful luminous arc, punctuating his departure with a long jarring croak. Shady smiled watching the bird’s flight. He took out a small, silver whistle from an inside pocket, and hung it around his neck. Wherever he was, Dominic would hear the whistle.

  Shady looked about him: despite his preoccupation he had managed to find his way to Nightingale Boulevard. Not a difficult task since the main thoroughfare was approximately half a kilometer from the intersection of Grandfather’s Alley and Pirate’s Way. It was early in the evening, and the people, his people, he thought suddenly with an overwhelming sense of protectiveness, were out enjoying themselves.

  As you are us, and we are you…

  I am You, thought Shady, as a young couple, passing by, waved to him.

  May your patrol be free of woe and calamity,

  May you see nothing that should not be…