Chapter One
The 'End' of the world had not come as anticipated. There had been no hellfire and brimstone, no 'Horsemen of the Apocalypse'. Truth be told, those four horses and their riders had been let loose upon the earth a long time before the 'end'. Human creation rather than any divine intervention. War, famine and pestilence had simply increased their attack throughout the ranks of mankind; hammering instead of creeping from village to town, city to continent.
For tens upon tens of years it continued, unchecked. The unbridled passion of humanity blazed like a flare, launching man higher than could be believed as he burst with knowledge and understanding to a point where he outshone the stars, only for him to combust. And fall. Oh, how mankind fell. Down, down, deeper and deeper until he was forced back through the ages. Electricity, technology, all the advances in science were destroyed until the world resembled little more than it had in what had once been called the 'Dark Ages'. It certainly was dark now. It seemed that no one in Eutopia's generation could recall life as it had been before Them. Even the generation before hers struggled to recall anything but Them.
Buildings that had stretched overreaching concrete fingers high up into the sky were now nothing but crumbled rubble, knocked back against the barren cities and towns that had dared to erect them, etched messily against an ever dark sky. Twisted metal husks of cars, blooming readily with rust and alive with the parasitic ivy and Japanese knotweed that had claimed most of the land now, remained where they had been abandoned more than seventy years previously. An everlasting reminder of the day that They had claimed the earth for Themselves.
Eutopia moved silently through those shadows now, it wasn't exactly difficult to do; there were an abundance of them, black against black. She slunk through the deserted mess of what had once been a street, the wrecked corpses of collapsed buildings throwing jagged and uneven shapes across what had long ago been bright, bustling spaces. Now, the light of the waxing moon cast deep pools of darkness, perfect for predators or any number of unsavoury characters to hide in. Eutopia was as light-footed as those stealthy night-time creatures that roamed unchallenged as soon as the orange haze of daylight faded. Dipping cautiously in and out of inky puddles and taking time to observe the area before and after to see if she was being followed, she had only one goal in mind.
She was as vigilant as the bright-eyed birds that pecked at the uneven ground during the day, their black silken wings shot through with a startling flash of blue as they took flight at the slightest sound. She inched across the broken landscape, hoping delicately from ivy-draped hollows to bare moonlit patches of uneven ground in a rhythmic pattern that would look totally bizarre to anyone who might be watching her, but of course she had checked and checked again to ensure she was alone.
Twelve steps right, sixteen in front. Twelve right, sixteen forward. Eutopia repeated the words silently to herself, timing each pat of her bare foot to the steady beat of her heart. Da-dum da, da-dum de-dum. It was a path she had travelled over and over in her mind, in practice, for the past week or so. But this was the first time she had tried it out in the open. Adrenaline fluctuated the beat of her heart and quickened her step faster than she would have liked but as long as she kept her steps in time, Eutopia knew that she wouldn't go wrong.
She paused, frozen beneath a haggard out-crop of worn masonry just a split second before the softest swoop glided over the silence. The Night Watch. Damnit. Eutopia cursed herself silently. She was moving too quickly. Although she knew she wouldn't put a foot wrong to dislodge any loose stone because she had committed the route to memory, creating a link between each step and every beat of her heart, her nervousness had thrown her timings out. And who could blame her? If she were caught out here by the Night Watch, she would pay with her life.
Holding her breath for a moment, Eutopia listened intently to ensure the night was indeed silent again. She counted in her head. One, two, three. She closed her eyes although the already dark world didn't get any darker, and she picked up the thread of her steps as easily as if there had been no interruption. But the tips of her fingers trembled ever so slightly as she stretched her arms out to balance her lithe frame as she carefully placed one bare foot in front of the other for the next part of her perilous journey. Three steps left and ten in front. Da dah-dum-dum, de-dah da.
It wasn't a noise that made Eutopia look up from where she'd been so cautiously placing her feet, more a sense of being watched. A prickling heat that seemed to radiate from the top of her head and travelled like a cold shiver along her spine. As those black birds that took flight at the merest hint of danger, Eutopia ducked back to flatten herself into the thickest shadows behind. Perhaps if she had wings she might have taken flight. And things might have turned out very differently.
As it was, she pressed her back against the mossy wall that rose brokenly around her and cast her eyes, a deep glittering blue against the darkness around her, along the thread of vision she felt brushing her skin.
Eutopia bowed her head slightly, half in preparation of submission as she expected to come face to face with one or two members of the Night Watch, and the other half of her still trying to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible. The trouble was she had been so intent on remembering the right footsteps and concentrating on watching the sky above her and the ground behind, she had neglected to register the lay of the land directly in front.
Now she had stumbled directly into the path of one of Them.
It was too late to do anything now but hold that vainglorious gaze that sent another chill down her spine. Pinned in the shadows by his very presence, Eutopia could only draw herself up to her full and meagre height of five foot six inches, her shoulders pulled back in resignation and her small chin lifted despite its trembling.
'Shit...' was the whisper that left her lips, clearly audible in the silence although she had no intention of letting him know how unnerved she was in his presence. Unnerved didn't quite cut it though. She was absolutely terrified. Beneath the thick, dark tangle of her unruly hair, Eutopia's sapphire eyes were wide. Her heart pounded so hard and fast that she was in danger of tap dancing on the spot and her fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. Of course there was always the slightest chance that he could be human, like she was, but even through the fear that had crashed upon her at the first sight of him Eutopia could see that his size made that possibility wishful thinking. He was a good two foot taller than her, even sat down as he was, and powerfully built.
He was perched about six foot up on a twisted steel beam that protruded from the side of some building just in front of where she stood, one leg casually drawn up and the other booted foot dangling down. Pale moonlight threw his hulking figure into such stark relief Eutopia couldn't believe she hadn't noticed him before. He had been as still and immoveable as the marble statues she had seen marking the graves of the dead in the Old World cemetery, but his pale skin seemed to radiate rather than reflect the moonlight.
He stood.
Eutopia quailed.
But she raised her head further, never allowing her gaze to stray from him. If he was going to kill her then she would make sure that her eyes, blazing with a bright ferocity that was second only to how beautiful they were, were the last thing he saw. She glared at him in defiance, an open challenge not just directed at him but at the world in general. Although his clothes were black, Eutopia could tell from the two blood-red stripes that ran down the short sleeves of his t-shirt that he was not a Night Watcher. Also he held something thick and rectangular in his hand, something she knew all too well and yet seemed so out of place.
A book.
He stepped off the beam and landed noiselessly in front of her, so close to Eutopia that she could have brushed the expanse of his broad chest with her fingertips if she'd had the balls to raise her arm.
'Shit indeed,' he responded, his cold eyes catching her glance at the book he held. His words were hard and resonant in the still air. Terrifyingly loud.
And then he was gone.
Eutopia was left frozen to the spot for a fraction of a second, hardly daring to believe she was still there, breathing. She tugged a handful of her long hair just to be sure, wincing at the instant pain that struck her scalp as she did so. Her frantic pulse raced fast enough to make her empty stomach lurch before her ever-alert ears caught another tell-tale swoop that meant the Night Watch were patrolling the sky. It was enough to snap her back to reality and then she was off again, counting out her careful steps to the trip-skip of her heartbeat.
But this time she was vigilant every which-way as she slunk in and around the shadows upon the ground, back the way she had come like a startled fox.
'Well, how did you get on?' The question was thrown at Eutopia at the same time as a gnarled and withered hand closed around her wrist and pulled her with surprising strength into a candlelit room. Horace, as brown and shrunken as an old nut, struggled earnestly to peer at the girl with pale blue eyes that shimmered hopefully through the shifting heat-haze that surrounded the candle he held up between them. Eutopia stood with her back pressed against the door she had just been pulled through, her eyes narrowing slightly as her pupils adjusted to the sudden change in light.
'What's happened?' Phoibe asked, sharply, never one to miss a trick. She pulled Horace's wizened hand away from Eutopia's arm and cocked the girl's chin up instead, taking in her flared nostrils as Eutopia struggled to regulate her breathing and calm the thumping of her heart.
'Can't you see she's not right, Horace?' Phoibe snapped. The question was rhetorical, since old Horace had lost the ability to see anything clearly at least twelve years ago. Phoibe, as wrinkled and brown as the old man, didn't mind that though. Thinking before speaking had never been one of the old woman's strong points. She tucked a loose lock of steel-grey hair back into the severe knot at the back of her head and rolled up the sleeves of her loose gown to expose her beefy forearms. 'Sit,' she commanded.
Eutopia sat on the nearest surface, which happened to be a little wooden stool to her left. She had learned long ago never to argue with Phoibe.
'Speak, girl. Speak!'
'What's happened?' Horace repeated Phoibe's earlier question, laying one hand on Eutopia's shoulder and passing the candle to his wife with the other. He could feel the pulse thudding through the girl's veins as his fingertips rested lightly on her neck.
'I saw one. One of Them. He was stood right in front of me.' Phoibe let out a scream that she did her best to stifle with her fist but the unexpected sound still made Horace jump. His fingers tightened on Eutopia's shoulder, tangling in her unruly hair that fell about her like a thick, heavy curtain.
'Zounds, woman!' he cursed. 'The girl's okay isn't she? She made it back alright, there's no need for a fracas.' He gave Eutopia's shoulder a gentle squeeze and carefully worked his fingers out of her hair. 'So you didn't make it there? Are you alright?'
'No, Horace, I'm sorry I couldn't get there. The steps weren't a problem, I remembered them just fine. And the Night Watch, every flight path was just as you said it would be. I'm sure I would have made it if it hadn't been for him.' Eutopia frowned darkly as she thought of how close she had come to reaching her destination. The fear that had risen up at the very sight of him now blossomed into anger that flared like the flickering of the stubby candle Phoibe thrust closer to her, as though examining her for some war wound.
'I'm okay though, really,' she reassured them both. A small smile played on her lips as she noticed them both visibly relax. Horace patted her cheek gently with his work-worn hand. Neither man nor wife were her family, not by blood anyway, but it didn't stop them from loving her as if she had been born theirs. Phoibe had found the girl wandering the streets after curfew fourteen years earlier. She had gathered up the dirty, squealing five-year old, who had protested profusely at being bundled away like a snaffled loaf of bread, wailing the whole time about having been waiting for her brother. The woman, a little more spritely back in those days, had never run as fast as she had that night. Nor had she scrubbed as hard as when she had managed to force the child into the first warm bath she had probably ever had, judging by the dirt and grime Phoibe managed to sluice away.
Eutopia remembered how Horace had chuckled, a bright, bubbling sound, at the difference in the clean and glowing child compared to the wild, tangled mess that had been dumped unceremoniously squalling in the middle of their room. Even though his sight, which had always been weak, was already beginning to fail at that point, he had made a joke of still being able to see that even Phoibe's skill with a scrubbing brush couldn't clean the dirt from her frown.
Horace gave a little chuckle, the warm and familiar notes Eutopia remembered from that day, many years ago, were by now a little tarnished.
'See Phoibe, she's made of firmer stuff that you give her credit for, me ol' girl. Much firmer.'
'What happened though? Where was he?' Phoibe's tight-lipped expression went unseen by Horace.
'He was just in front of me,' Eutopia stood, crossing the small room in a few short strides to gesture at a crude but highly detailed diagram that had been etched with a thin piece of charcoal upon the stone wall. It was a map of sorts. 'Here,' her index finger rested upon a point that was encompassed by a heavy white chalk line, a path that had been marked out. 'He was just sitting here and I didn't notice him until I practically fell into his lap.' Eutopia shivered slightly at the thought and Phoibe seemed in danger of letting out another terrified wail. 'But I think I startled him too.' Eutopia studied the wall-map, the criss-cross of white and black lines slipping out of focus as she remembered the vast figure perched casually upon the broken beam, like a stone figure keeping watch over the dead town that lay before him.
'He wasn't a Night Watcher, his stripes were red,' she recalled, 'and,' she whirled with a gasp, her dark eyes wide to catch Horace's reaction. 'He had a book!'
'A book!' Horace looked bewildered. Books were extremely rare, having mostly been destroyed by Them at the beginning of the end. Or else burned by those who supported Their reign.
'Red stripes, a Guardian,' Phoibe offered, needlessly, since all three were well aware of the colours that denoted Their rank and station. 'What would a Guardian be wanting with a book? But you escaped, however did you manage that?' It was common knowledge that although They mostly left the humans alone on a day to day basis, after-dark curfew was one rule that was meticulously upheld. If the Night Watch found a human outside the shabby holes and hideaways they called home, after the sun slipped beyond the horizon, the stray human was killed on the spot with no questions asked. There was simply no defence against such a crime.
As far as Eutopia knew no one had ventured out after sunset since Gordon Underwood had tried to summon help for his wife, Hettie, who had been struggling in labour. He'd nipped out across the street thinking he would be safe for a moment as a Watcher had already passed over, only for his head to bounce off of Aunt Sal's front door instead of his fist. It had been shorn clean off his shoulders in one easy swoop of a sword without so much as a warning. It had been at least six years since then, but Aunt Sal, the old goodwife the fractured community of broken souls usually turned to when in need, never failed to recall the gory details and her rheumy eyes twinkled with glee at the telling.
'I didn't escape. He let me go.'
'What?' Both surrogate parents rounded on Eutopia in disbelief.
'What do you mean he 'let you go'?' Phoibe spluttered.
'Well, one minute he was there and the next he wasn't. He just sort of... left...' Eutopia shrugged helpless to explain herself any better. 'I didn't say anything to him. I couldn't move because I was so petrified. But he just looked at me and left.'
It wasn't until Phoibe had seen Eutopia settled for the night, sitting beside her until her breathing became slow and deep as she stroked her thick, dark hair like she had when she was a child that the old woman turned to her husband. Her brown eyes were creased with worry and her tone was a trembling hush.
'What do you think it means, Horace?'
'I have no idea, my sweet.' His cold hand clasped Phoibe's as the woman lay her head on his thin chest. He was tired, weary with the worry he'd felt in sending Eutopia out to do what he longed to. 'It's a strange thing. I can't quite get my head around why a Guardian would be here. The palace wouldn't usually release them from any other duty, other than... well.' He sighed heavily, wiping his free hand across his almost-sightless eyes.
'If anything had happened to her, I don't know what I...'
'Don't,' Horace interrupted her, a little fiercely. 'Don't let's think on that.' His dry lips found Phoibe's forehead and kissed the sadness from the sorrow-filled lines, left there by the death of their only child who had been taken from them long before Eutopia had managed to lighten their hearts again. 'Sleep now,' he insisted, smoothing the grey hair from Phoibe's round cheeks, as she had done with their beloved Eutopia, soothing her into a restless sleep. 'We can discuss it further in the morning.'