“How can you tell?” said Hawk, and Fisher snorted with laughter. Hawk smiled too, but there wasn’t much humour in it. “I don’t think that bunch had it in them to riot. It was taking them all their time to work up to a disturbance of the peace. We didn’t have to come down on them so hard.”
“Yes, we did.” Fisher gave Hawk a puzzled look. “This is Haven, remember? The most violent and uncivilised city in the Low Kingdoms. The only way we can hope to keep the lid on things here is by being harder than everyone else.”
“I’m not sure I believe that anymore.”
They walked a while in silence.
“This is to do with the Blackstone case, isn’t it?” said Fisher eventually.
“Yeah. That witch Visage might be alive today if she and Dorimant had talked to us in time. But they didn’t trust us. They kept their mouths shut because they were afraid of our reputation. Afraid of what we might do to them. We’ve spent too long in this city, Isobel. I don’t like what it’s done to us.”
Fisher took his arm in hers. “It’s not really that much different here than anywhere else, love. They’re just more open about it in Haven.”
Hawk sighed slowly. “Maybe you’re right. If we had arrested those posterers, I don’t know where we could have put them. The gaols are crammed full to bursting as it is.”
“And there’s still more than half a day to go before they vote.” Fisher shook her head slowly. “I don’t know why they don’t just have a civil war and be done with it.”
Hawk smiled. “About forty years ago they did. The Reformers won that one, and the result was universal suffrage throughout the Low Kingdoms. These days, the lead-up to the elections acts as a safety valve. People are allowed to go a little crazy for a while. They get to let off some steam, and the city avoids the buildup of pressures that leads to civil wars. After the voting’s over, the winners declare a general amnesty, everyone goes back to work, and things get back to normal again.”
“Crazy,” said Fisher. “Absolutely bloody crazy.”
Hawk grinned. “That’s Haven for you.”
They walked on in companionable silence, pausing now and then to intimidate some would-be pickpocket, or caution a drunk who was getting too loud. The crowds bustled around them, singing and laughing and generally making the most of their semiofficial holiday. The air was full of the smell of spiced food and wine and burning catherine wheels. A band came marching down the street towards them, waving brightly colored banners and singing loudly the praises of Conservatism. Hawk and Fisher stood back to let them go by. A burly man wearing chain mail approached them, carrying a bludgeon in one hand and a collecting tin in the other. He took one look at their faces, thought better of it, and hurried after the parade. The crowd, meantime, showed its traditional appreciation of free speech by pelting the singers with rotten fruit and horse droppings. Hawk watched the banner holders disappear down the street with fixed smiles and gritted teeth, and wondered where the Conservatives had found enough idiots and would-be suicides to enter the Northside in the first place.
Nice banners, though.
“I’ll be glad when this election nonsense is over,” said Fisher as they started on their way again. “I haven’t worked this hard in years. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many drunks and fights and street-corner rabble-rousers in my life. Or so many rigged games of chance, for that matter.”
“Anyone in this city stupid enough to play Find the Lady with a perfect stranger deserves everything that happens to him,” said Hawk unfeelingly. “And when you get right down to it, things aren’t that bad, actually. You’re bound to get some fights during an election, but there’s hardly anyone here wearing a sword or a knife. You know, Isobel, I’m almost enjoying myself. It’s all so fascinating. I’d heard all the stories about past elections, but I never really believed them till now. This is democracy in action. The people deciding their own future.”
Fisher sniffed disdainfully. “It’ll all end in tears. The people can vote till they’re blue in the face, but at the end of the day the same old faces will still be in power, and things will go on just as they always have done. Nothing ever really changes, Hawk. You should know that.”
“It’s different here,” said Hawk stubbornly. “The Reform Cause has never been stronger. There’s a real chance they could end up dominating the Haven Council this time, if they can just swing a few marginal Seats.”
Fisher looked at him. “You’ve been studying up on this, haven’t you?”
“Of course; it’s important.”
“No, it isn’t. Not to us. Come tomorrow, the same thieves and pimps and loan sharks will still be doing business as usual in the Northside, no matter who wins your precious election. There’ll still be sweatshops and protection rackets and back-alley murders. This is Haven’s dumping ground, where the lowest of the low end up because they can’t sink any further. Let the Council have its election. They’ll still need us to clean up the mess afterwards.”
Hawk looked at her. “You sound tired, lass.”
Fisher shrugged quickly. “It’s just been a bad day, that’s all.”
“Isobel ...”
“Forget it, Hawk.” Fisher shot him a sudden smile. “At least we’ll never want for work, while the Northside still stands.”
Hawk and Fisher turned down Martyrs’ Alley, and made their way out onto the Harbourside Promenade. The market stalls quickly disappeared, replaced by elegant shopfronts with porticoed doors and fancy scrollwork round the windows, and an altogether better class of customers. The Promenade had been “discovered” by the Quality, and its fortunes had prospered accordingly. Of late it had become quite the done thing for the minor aristocracy to take the air on the Promenade, and enjoy a little fashionable slumming. There were goods for sale on the edge of the Northside to tempt even the most jaded palates, and it did no harm to a gentleman’s reputation to be able to drop the odd roguish hint of secret dealings and watch the ladies blush prettily at the breath of scandal. Not that a gentleman ever went into the Northside alone, of course. Each member of the Quality had his own retinue of bodyguards, and they were always careful to be safely out of the Northside before dark.
But during the daylight hours the Promenade was an acknowledged meeting place for the more adventurous members of the Quality, and as such it attracted all kinds of well-dressed parasites and hangers-on. Scandalmongers did a busy trade in all the latest gossip, and confidence tricksters strolled elegantly down the Promenade, eyeing the Quality in much the same way as a cruising shark might observe a passing shoal of minnows. Hawk and Fisher knew most of them by sight, but made no move to interfere. If people were foolish enough to throw away good money on wild-sounding schemes, that was their business and nothing to do with the Guards. Hawk and Fisher were just there to keep an eye on things, and see that no one stepped out of line.
For their part, the Quality ignored Hawk and Fisher. Guards were supposed to know their place, and Hawk and Fisher were notorious throughout Haven for not having the faintest idea of what their place was. In the past, members of the Quality who’d tried to put them in their place had been openly laughed at and, on occasion, severely manhandled. Which was perhaps yet another reason why Hawk and Fisher had spent the past five years patrolling the worst section of Haven.
The sun shone brightly over the Promenade, and the Quality blossomed under its warmth like so many eccentrically colored flowers. Youngsters wearing party colors hawked the latest editions of the Haven newspapers, carrying yet more details of candidates’ backgrounds, foul-ups, and rumoured sexual preferences. A boys’ brigade of pipes and drums made its way along the Promenade, following a gorgeously colored Conservative banner. The Conservatives believed in starting them young. Hawk stopped for a while to enjoy the music, but Fisher soon grew bored, so they moved off again. They left the bustling Promenade behind them, and made their way through the elegant houses and well-guarded establishments of Cheape Side, where the lower merchant classes held
sway. They’d been attracted to the edge of the Northside by cheap property prices, and were slowly making their mark on the area.
The streets were reasonably clean, and the passersby were soberly dressed. The houses stood back from the street itself, protected by high stone walls and iron railings. And a fair sprinkling of armed guards, of course. The real Northside wasn’t that far away. This was usually a quiet, even reserved area, but not even the merchant classes were immune to election fever. Everywhere you looked there were posters and broadsheet singers, and street-corner orators explaining how to cure all Haven’s ills without raising property taxes.
Hawk and Fisher stopped suddenly as the sound of a gong resonated loudly in their heads. The sound died quickly away, to be replaced by the dry, acid voice of the Guard communications sorcerer:
Captains Hawk and Fisher, you are to report immediately to Reform candidate James Adamant, at his campaign headquarters in Market Faire. You have been assigned to protect him and his staff for the duration of the election.
A map showing the headquarters’ location burned briefly in their minds, and then it and the disembodied voice were gone. Hawk shook his head gingerly. “I wish he wouldn’t use that bloody gong; it goes right through me.”
“They could do without the sorcerer entirely, as far as I’m concerned,” said Fisher feelingly. “I don’t like the idea of magic-users having access to my mind.”
“It’s just part of the job, lass.”
“What was wrong with the old system of runners with messages?”
Hawk grinned. “We got too good at avoiding them.”
Fisher had to smile. They made their way unhurriedly through Cheape Side and on into the maze of interconnecting alleyways popularly referred to as The Shambles. It was one of the oldest parts of the city, constantly due for renovation but somehow always overlooked when the budget came round. It had a certain faded charm, if you could ignore the cripples and beggars who lined the filthy streets. The Shambles was no poorer than anywhere else in the Northside, but it was perhaps more open about it. Shadowy figures disappeared silently into inconspicuous doorways as Hawk and Fisher approached.
“Adamant,” said Fisher thoughtfully. “I know that name.”
“You ought to,” said Hawk. “A rising young star of the Reform Cause, by all accounts. He’s contesting the High Steppes district, against a hardline Conservative Councillor. He might just take it. Councillor Hardcastle isn’t what you’d call popular.”
Fisher sniffed, unimpressed. “If Adamant’s so important, how did he end up with us as his bodyguards?”
Hawk grunted unhappily. The last time he and Fisher had worked as bodyguards, everything had gone wrong. Councillor Blackstone had been murdered, despite their protection, and so had six other people. Important people. Hawk and Fisher had caught the killer eventually, but that hadn’t been enough to save their reputation. They’d been in the doghouse with their superiors ever since. Not that Hawk or Fisher gave a damn. They blamed themselves more than their superiors ever could. They’d liked Blackstone.
“Well,” said Fisher finally, “you’ve always said you wanted a chance to study an election close-up, to see how it worked. It looks like you’ve got your chance after all.”
“Yeah,” said Hawk. “Wait till you see Adamant in action, Isobel; he’ll make a believer out of you.”
“It’ll all end in tears,” said Fisher.
They were halfway down Lower Bridge Street, not far from the High Steppes boundary, when Hawk suddenly noticed how quiet it had become. It took him a while to realise, being lost in his thoughts of actually working with a Reform candidate, so the quiet hit him all the harder when it finally caught his attention. At first everything looked normal. The usual stalls lined the street, and the crowds bustled back and forth, like any other day. But the sound of the crowd barely rose above a murmur. The stall-holders stood quietly in their places, waiting patiently for customers to come to them, instead of following their usual practice of shouting and haranguing until the air itself echoed from the noise. The crowd made its way from stall to stall with bowed heads and downcast eyes. No one exclaimed at the prices, or browbeat the stall-holders, or tried to bargain for a lower price. And strangest and most unsettling of all, no one stopped to speak to anyone else. They just went from stall to stall, speaking only when they had to, in the lowest of voices, as though they were just going through the motions. Hawk slowed to a halt, and Fisher stopped beside him.
“Yeah,” said Fisher. “I noticed it too. What the hell’s going on here? I’ve been to livelier funerals.”
Hawk grunted, his hand resting uneasily on the axe at his side. The more he studied the scene before him, the more unnerving it became. There were no street-corner orators, no broadsheet singers, and the few banners and posters in evidence flapped forlornly in the drifting breeze, ignored by the crowd. There should have been street-conjurers and knife grinders and itinerent tinkers, and all the other human flotsam and jetsam that street markets attract. But there was only the crowd, quiet and passive, moving unhurriedly between the stalls. Hawk looked up and down the narrow street, and all around him the empty windows stared back like so many blank idiot eyes.
“Something’s happened here,” said Fisher. “Something bad.”
“It can’t be that bad,” said Hawk. “We’d have heard something. News travels fast in Haven; bad news fastest of all.”
Fisher shrugged. “Something still feels wrong. Very wrong.”
Hawk nodded slowly in agreement. They started down the street again, cloaks thrown back over their shoulders to leave their sword-arms free. The crowd made way before them, their heads averted so as not to meet the Guards’ eyes. Their movements were slow and listless, and strangely synchronised, as though everyone on the street was moving in step with each other. The hackles began to stir on Hawk’s neck. He glared about him, and then felt a sudden rush of relief as he spotted a familiar face.
Long Tom was a permanent fixture of Lower Bridge Street. Other stalls might come and go, but his was always there, selling the finest knives any man could wish for. He’d sell you anything from a kitchen knife to matched duelling daggers, but he specialised in military knives, in all their variations. Long Tom had lost both his legs in the army, and stomped around on a pair of sturdy wooden legs that added a good ten inches to his previous height. Hawk had gone to great pains to cultivate him. Long Tom always knew what was happening.
Hawk approached the stall with a friendly greeting on his lips, but the words died away unspoken as Long Tom raised his head to meet Hawk’s gaze. For a moment Hawk thought a stranger had taken over the stall. The moment passed, and he quickly recognised the size and shape of the face before him, but still something was horribly wrong. Long Tom’s eyes had always been a calm and peaceful blue; now they were dark and piercing His mouth was turned down in a bitter, unfamiliar smile. He even held himself differently, as though his weight and figure had changed drastically overnight. They were small differences, and a stranger might not have noticed them, but Hawk wasn’t fooled. He nodded casually to Long Tom, and moved off without saying anything.
“What was that all about?” said Fisher.
“Didn’t you notice anything different about him?” said Hawk, looking unobtrusively about.
Fisher frowned. “He looked a bit off, but so what? Maybe he’s had a lousy day too.”
“It’s more than that,” said Hawk. “Look around you. Look at their faces.”
The two Guards moved slowly through the quiet crowd, and Fisher felt a strange sense of unreality steal over her as she saw what Hawk meant. Everywhere she looked she saw strange eyes in familiar faces. Everyone had the same dark, piercing eyes, the same bitter smile. They even moved to the same rhythm, as though listening to the same silent song. It was like a childhood nightmare, where everyday friends and faces become suddenly cold, menacing strangers. Hawk reached surreptitiously inside his shirt and grasped the bone amulet that hung on a silver co
rd round his neck. It was a simple charm; standard issue for Guards during an election. It detected the presence of magic, and could lead you to whoever was responsible. Its range was limited, but it was never wrong. Hawk closed his hand around the carved bone, and it vibrated fiercely like a struck gong. He swore silently and took his hand away. He knew now why all the crowd shared the same dark eyes.
“They’re possessed,” he said softly. “All of them.”
“Oh, great,” said Fisher. “You any good at exorcisms?”
“I was never any good at Latin.”
“Terrific.”
They’d kept their voices low, little more than murmurs, but already the crowd seemed to sense that something was wrong. Heads began to turn in the Guards’ direction, and people began to drift towards them. Long Tom moved out from behind his stall, a knife in each hand. Hawk and Fisher began to back away, only to discover there were as many people behind them as in front. Fisher drew her sword, but Hawk put a hand on her arm.
“We can’t use our weapons, Isobel. These people are innocent; just victims of the spell.”
“All right; so what do we do?”
“I don’t know! I’m thinking!”
“Then think quickly. They’re getting closer.”
“Look, it can’t be a demon, or something escaped from the Street of Gods. Our amulets would have alerted us long before this if something that powerful was loose. No, this has to be some out-of-town sorcerer, brought in to stack the vote in this district.”
“I think we’re in trouble, Hawk. They’ve blocked off both ends of this street.”
“We can’t fight them, Isobel.”
“The hell we can’t.”