Read City of Dreams and Nightmare for Free Online

trained to be observant. He should have seen him.
    “Sir!” He came to attention, the click of his heels clearly audible over the popping of the fire. “Reporting as instructed.”
    So this was Senior Arkademic Magnus; not entirely what he’d expected. Younger than the man’s reputation and notoriety had led him to picture, although such things were difficult to judge in the fire’s deceptive light. A trickle of sweat chose that moment to run down behind Tylus’s left ear and he wondered if it would be impolite to take off his cape.
    “Relax, officer. You’re not on parade now. Have a seat.”
    Magnus gestured towards a second chair, the twin of his own, which was angled towards the first seat with just a low table of polished wood separating them.
    Tylus hesitated, surprised by the invite and uncertain how to respond.
    “It won’t bite, officer, and I have no intention of craning my neck in order to talk to you.”
    Taking a deep breath, Tylus complied, feeling uncomfortable despite the seat’s deep upholstery, and not only because of the heat. He wondered fleetingly if this gesture was meant kindly, an attempt to put him at his ease, or whether it was deliberately calculated to discomfort him. He was so flummoxed by the arkademic’s informal manner and the invitation to be seated that he hadn’t even thought to remove his cape before sitting down.
    Magnus was speaking again. “I want to show you something.” He gestured, and the air above the tabletop shimmered. An image began to form within the shimmering, a solid-looking something which resolved itself into a section of the city walls in miniature. “Don’t worry, Kite Guard, this isn’t dangerous. It’s merely a recording, an echo, if you will, of events that have already transpired.” Under any other circumstances Tylus would have bridled at the patronising tone, but he was so fascinated by this wonderful apparition that he barely noticed. A figure stood atop a terrace and Tylus recognised first the uniform of a Kite Guard and then…
    “That’s me,” he gasped, unable to believe what he was seeing.
    “Indeed.”
    Just as it dawned on Tylus where and when this was, the perspective changed, zooming in and moving swiftly past the figure of the Kite Guard, speeding down the walls and focusing on a second figure, one that was falling in an uncontrolled tumble.
    The boy.
    Even screaming became impossible as the air was wrenched from his lungs. At this moment of greatest mortality Tom’s thoughts turned to Jezmina. He regretted never having tried to kiss her and his heart ached for all the things they would never share.
    Then something touched him, hit him, enveloped him.
    Netting; a swathe of thick cords that initially rushed past even as the walls had, then slowed and gained definition. Spongy cables that caught him and now bit into his body, burning his arms and legs and back. Still he dropped, but, impossibly, the net was slowing his fall, though surely not by enough. Nascent hope was stifled before it could properly form, to be replaced by horror as the net stretched and continued to give beneath him and he was still heading downward, albeit in slow motion compared to previously. He knew that this webbing was going to fail and rip apart at any minute, knew that he was destined to continue straight through, tumbling to his death despite the false promise of a reprieve.
    Yet somehow the net held, and bit by bit its stretchable material leached the momentum from his body. Almost without realising, he was moving in the opposite direction, the elastic material pulling itself taut once more, tossing him unceremoniously up into the air, all flailing arms and legs, until he came down again, fully entangled this time, caught like a fish in a trawler man’s drag.
    Only then did he become aware of voices – gruff, male voices, jeering and laughing, which caused him to wonder what manner of men these unlooked-for saviours might be and why they had chosen