The Masked City
Authors: Genevieve Cogman
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #Fantasy, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Crime, #Mystery, #Women's Adventure, #Supernatural, #Women Sleuths, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Historical, #Sword & Sorcery, #Science Fiction, #Alternate History, #Teen & Young Adult, #Alternative History
Dear Reader,
Thank you for buying this book. You may have noticed that it is free of Digital Rights Management. This means we have not enforced copy protection on it. All Tor ebooks are available DRM-free so that once you purchase one of our ebooks, you can download it as many times as you like, on as many e-readers as you like.
We believe that making our Tor ebooks DRM-free is the best for our readers, allowing you to use legitimately-purchased ebooks in perfectly legal ways, like moving your library from one e-reader to another. We understand that DRM can make your ebooks less easy to read. It also makes building and maintaining your digital library more complicated. For these reasons, we are committed to remaining DRM-free.
We ask you for your support in ensuring that our DRM-free ebooks are not subject to piracy. Illegally downloaded books deprive authors of their royalties, the salaries they rely on to write. If you want to report an instance of piracy, you can do so by emailing us:
[email protected]
.
Very best wishes,
The Tor UK team & our authors
CONTENTS
THE STUDENT LIBRARIAN’S HANDBOOK
FIRST INTERLUDE - KAI IMPRISONED
SECOND INTERLUDE - KAI IN THE TOWER
THE STUDENT LIBRARIAN’S HANDBOOK
Excerpt taken from Briefing Document on Orientation Amongst Various Worlds
Section 2.1, version 4.13
Author: Coppelia; editor: Kostchei;
reviewers: Gervase and Ntikuma
For authorized personnel only
INTRODUCTION
By now you will have passed basic training, and will either be working in the field with a more experienced Librarian or be preparing to do so. This confidential document is a more in-depth examination of the Library’s position towards both Fae and dragons. It will help you understand why we remain unaffiliated with either side.
THE FAE - THEIR ORIENTATION TOWARDS CHAOS AND THEIR POWERS
You will be aware of the dangers that the Fae present to humanity. They receive their nourishment from emotional interactions with humans, feeding off us in this way. And they perceive everyone other than themselves, both humans and indeed other Fae, as mere participants - fulfilling background roles - in their own personal stories. And here we have an interesting feedback loop. The more dramatic they can make their personal stories (for example, playing the role of villain, rogue or hero), the more power a Fae can gain. And the more powerful they are, the more stereotypical this role-playing behaviour becomes. As a result of all this, a Fae’s viewpoint will grow correspondingly more sociopathic
1
over time.
In terms of other dangers, the Fae display powers ranging from the ability to clothe themselves in a basic glamour (in order to affect human perceptions of them) to the capacity to emotionally manipulate those around them. In addition, powerful Fae occasionally display specific magical or physical powers, depending on the personal archetype or stereotype they have chosen to adopt.
THE FAE - THEIR WORLDS
The known worlds are ranged on a spectrum from order to chaos. And the further we journey into the worlds affected by chaos, the more Fae can be found there. In chaos-affected worlds, there is of course the risk of humans being open to chaos contamination. This may affect a Librarian’s powers or even prevent them re-entering the Library. In such worlds where Fae dominate, humanity forms a background cast. Their roles range from pets to food, and they are seen as props for the psychodramas, romances or vendettas indulged in by the Fae around them - these Fae being contaminated with chaos, body and soul. Individual or weaker Fae may be able to interact with single Librarians on a relatively ‘human’ level. The more powerful ones either won’t want to or won’t be capable of doing this. Beware of forming alliances if apparently friendly overtures are made, as they will still have very Fae motivations.
FAE OR DRAGONS - PROS AND CONS
So, you might ask, why don’t we ally ourselves outright with the dragons? They stand for order, just as the Fae stand for chaos. They represent reality, in the same way that the Fae embrace and are empowered by concepts of fiction and unreality. As such, the dragons esteem the ‘real’ and the physical world above all else, having little patience with matters of the imagination. So why shouldn’t we want to embrace
2
physical reality? The answer is that, in their own way, the dragons are just as biased and nonhuman in their viewpoint as the Fae.
DRAGONS - THEIR ORIENTATION TOWARDS ORDER AND THEIR POWERS
Dragons may represent the physical world - the world we can touch, if you like - but physical reality is not kind.
3
It is raw, brutal and merciless. Dragons’ powers are grounded in the physical realm: they can control the weather, the tides, the earth, and so on. Dragons are also highly practical in their thinking, and see little need for discussions about democracy, human self-determination or other such fantasies - when they consider themselves demonstrably the most powerful creatures around. They believe they automatically have the right to rule by this token. So in the worlds where a high degree of order is present, the dragons do rule, either openly or behind the scenes.
THE LIBRARY - HOW IT MAINTAINS BALANCE
Through connections via its doors to multiple alternate worlds - connections forged by harvesting key books from these worlds - the Library helps maintain the balance. Its links with worlds prevent them from drifting too fast in the direction of chaos or order, and a reasonably stable environment for humans is possible somewhere in the middle.
4
Junior Librarians may be heavily penalized if they are seen to be making unauthorized pacts with the Fae. This is especially the case if these are seen to undermine the Library’s all-important neutrality - which must be preserved at all costs. It should be stressed that we aren’t here in order to make judgements about what is ‘best for humanity’. Humanity should be left to make its own decisions. The purpose of the Library is to preserve humanity from either absolute reality or absolute unreality.
And you will do this by collecting nominated books, to maintain the balance.
PROLOGUE
The London air was full of smog and filth. Kai’s senses were better than those of a human, though he tried not to be too self-indulgent about it. But even he couldn’t see down a dark alley any better than the average Londoner. And even native Londoners walked carefully in the narrow streets behind King’s Cross Station.
But where crime flourished, so too did detectives. And he was here to meet Peregrine Vale, friend and fighter of crime.
He paused to inspect a pawnbroker’s window, trying to gauge the street behind him. While he couldn’t see anyone specifically following him, there was something in the air that set him on edge, a foretaste of danger. But there were very few humans who could challenge a dragon, even in his human form, and he didn’t expect to meet any of them in the back-alleys here.
Vale was in a warehouse just round the corner. Almost there, and then Kai could find out what kind of assistance Vale needed with his case.
And then someone screamed nearby. It was a woman’s scream, genuinely terrified, cut off in the middle with a coughing yelp. Kai turned abruptly, peering into the swirling fog. Two men and a woman were huddled at one end of a particularly dank passageway. The woman had her arms pinned behind her back by one aggressor, while the other was drawing back his fist to strike again.
‘Let her go,’ Kai said calmly. He could handle two humans easily enough. Even if they were werewolves, they weren’t a significant danger. But this would make him late.
‘Back off,’ one of the men snarled, turning away from the woman to face him. ‘This isn’t none of your business, nor your part of town neither.’
‘It’s my business if I choose to make it my business.’ Kai advanced down the alley towards the group, automatically assessing them as his father’s arms-masters had trained him to. The men were muscular in the shoulders, well built, but both showed signs of a paunch and dissipation. He could take them, just as he’d taken others of their kind a few days before.
The free man advanced towards him, fists up in a crude boxer’s stance. He was lighter on his feet than Kai had expected, but not fast enough. He bluffed with his right fist, then tried a straight left at Kai’s jaw. Kai side-stepped, slammed his hand sideways into the man’s kidneys, kicked him in the back of the knee to take him off-balance and ran his head into the wall. The man went down.
‘Now don’t be like that,’ the other man said, backing deeper into the alley and holding the woman in front of him like a shield. Panic was starting to show in his eyes. ‘You just walk away and nobody gets hurt …’
‘You just let go of that woman,’ Kai corrected him, ‘and
you
don’t get hurt.’ He walked forward, considering his openings. A dodge to the side and a strike to the man’s neck might be the least risky option for the woman, and yet—
‘Now,’ a voice said from above.
Doors slammed open on either side of him and behind him, and at the same moment something fell from above, tumbling down towards him in a knot of shadows. Kai dived to one side on instinct, but then there were too many men in the alley with him. A dozen of them, the combat-trained part of his mind noted, and more behind those open doors. He had no room to dodge and it looked like a trap. They didn’t even hang back and let other people take the first blows, in the normal manner of thugs. They came charging in, most of them bare-handed, but a couple with knuckledusters or small weighted saps.
He had to get back and out. There was no shame to it. Part of a warrior’s training was acknowledging superior force and reacting appropriately. An arm came around his neck from behind. He grabbed it, went down on one knee and flung the man over his head and into the ones closing in on him. Staying low, he pivoted, bringing a foot round and scything another combatant’s feet from under him. He used the momentum to turn and rise. Four men were between him and the way out. Four obstacles to remove.