Weak yellow light flickered in a few of the big windows looming over the courtyard. The door closed behind the cab, and the cell members increased their fuzz, obscuring the whole courtyard from psychic perception. Up on the driver’s bench, Slvasta increased his own fuzz so they wouldn’t realize who he was.

It was a smooth operation. Tovakar and Yannrith carried the trunk with two cell members; Andricea walked behind, gifting her sight to Slvasta, who stayed in the cab. They went down into the factory’s vaulted cellars. The bricks were crumbling here, and there had been several cave-ins. The cell members led them to a wide fissure with a steep ramp of rubble on the other side, leading down.

Andricea’s ex-sight probed round the cavern behind the opening. The stone walls here were ancient, slicked with algae along the edge of each big block. It had archways along one wall, which were all blocked off. ‘What is this place?’ she asked.

‘Whatever the factory was built on top of,’ the first cell member said. ‘There have been buildings here for two thousand years.’

The stones in one of the archways had shifted, leaving a gap they could just push the trunk through. On the other side were crude stairs leading down a circular shaft cut into naked rock. By the time Andricea reached the bottom there was so much rock and stone between them that her gifting had become very tenuous; Slvasta could barely make out anything. The little party seemed to be walking through another series of vaults. Empty crates and barrels were strewn across the floor, their rotten wood crumbling apart. A thick layer of gritty dust covered everything, but the air was perfectly dry.

Andricea had to use a lot of teekay to keep the dust out of her nose and mouth. The trunk was lowered to the ground, and Yannrith finally stopped fuzzing it. They all used their ex-sight to perceive the contents. There were twenty snub-nosed carbines inside, with three spare magazines each, everything wrapped in oiled cloth.

‘Don’t open it,’ Andricea said at once. ‘The dust down here will screw up the firing mechanisms.’

‘Nobody’s going to touch it,’ the first cell member said. ‘We’ll make sure of that. It’s quite safe here.’

‘When do we get to use them?’ the second cell member asked.

‘Nobody tells us,’ Yannrith said in a joshing tone. ‘We’re just the errand boys.’

‘It’s got to be soon,’ the first one said. ‘This has been going on for crudding years. How long does it take to kill the Captain? These fuckers would make easy work of it.’ His hand came down possessively on the trunk.

‘It’s not just the Captain,’ Andricea said. ‘There’s everyone who supports him as well.’

‘What? We’re going to kill all of them?’

‘I dunno,’ Andricea said. ‘Get them to think again, maybe. Who knows?’

‘Some fucker better,’ he said giving Yannrith a pointed stare.

‘Right.’

As Slvasta drove the cab back to its stables, he was satisfied the weapons would remain untouched until the day came. There were over twenty such caches distributed across the city now. Varlan seemed to be built above a honeycomb of forgotten crypts and cellars for which no map existed. They’d scattered an equal number of secure ammunition deposits underground as well. It was a decision they’d made right at the start: never to put the two together until they armed the cells. There was too much temptation for the people guarding them to sell and make a quick profit. After all, it wasn’t as though Bethaneve was going to run an audit. Personally, Slvasta would be satisfied if eighty per cent of the weapons remained when the day came.

After they returned the cab, they went their separate ways. Home for Slvasta now was Jaysfield Terrace – a smart stone crescent that curved round a circular park right in the heart of Langley, a borough that was the closest that anywhere in the city came to a country town. It was on Varlan’s north-western outskirts, with tree-covered hills visible from the taller buildings, and much sought after by the middle classes who enjoyed its leafy lanes and fashionable shops and decent schools. Slvasta had to admit he found it a comfortable place to live in despite its distance from the centre of the city. The furnished apartment they were renting occupied the whole of the fifth floor of Number Sixteen Jaysfield Terrace. With its high ceilings and four bedrooms, it was much too big for just him and Bethaneve.

‘Essential, though,’ she’d laughed as they moved in. ‘You have to live in the constituency if you’re to contest it at the election.’

For Langley was also the heart of a National Council constituency that stretched for over sixty miles out into the countryside – an area which comprised several old-family estates and their worker villages as well as some thriving towns and smaller farms. It contained a broad social spread of residents, with a great many small business owners, most of whom were dissatisfied by government with its excessive regulation and restrictive trading laws that favoured the established order. Colonel Gelasis had been right: it was a perfect constituency for him to challenge the incumbent.

The long curving terrace had small front gardens confined by iron railings. All the gates which led to front doors were set into iron arches with oil lamps at their apex. Almost half of them had been lit by residents determined to keep up standards and alleviate at least some of the darkness. The public lamp posts on the other side of the road remained dark. Slvasta scanned the plant pots on the steps of Number Sixteen. A tall neatly pruned bay tree on one side and a purple climbing jasmine on the other. The bay tree pot was the right way round. If anything was wrong, Bethaneve would have turned it a quarter clockwise – assuming she had time. By now Slvasta had lived with the prospect of arrest or worse for so long that he didn’t bother worrying about it.

The only downside of the apartment in Number Sixteen with its elegant fittings and fabulous views was the five flights of stairs he had to climb to reach it. When he did finally get into the marble-tiled hall the rain had soaked through his coat, leaving his clothes damp and cold. He shivered as he hung the coat up, and started unbuttoning the drosilk waistcoat.

Bethaneve was working in the dining room. She’d taken it over as her office as soon as they arrived; the long marwood table big enough to sit ten made a perfect desk, with papers and folders scattered across it. Strong oil lamps burned on either side of her, casting a bright light across the room. A bulky cabinet with carved doors had been moved across the mod door – not that there were any mod-dwarfs left in Number Sixteen. More thick folders were piled up around the walls, ledgers of the revolution all filled with her writing. Even her accountant’s mind couldn’t hold all the information on the cells and their activities. The symbols she used made no sense to anyone else; she wouldn’t even tell Slvasta what they all meant. ‘To protect the cells if we ever get interrogated,’ she said. ‘I’ll die before I betray our comrades, and their identities will be lost with me.’

Now she was making extensive notations in a spread of purple folders. Slvasta watched her in mild concern for a moment. She still kept her job at the Tax Office, a respectable position for the fiancée of a National Council candidate, which meant she worked in her drab office all day then came back to yet more book-keeping here – when she wasn’t risking herself on some clandestine activity. As always, he marvelled at her dedication and devotion to their cause. It had been his idea, but she had taken it forward in a way he’d never imagined.

She finished writing and turned to smile at him amid a burst of admiration and love. ‘I knew you’d be wet,’ she said. ‘I ran you a bath.’

‘There’s a strategy meeting in an hour,’ he said in regret. Another session of angst and determination in the local Democratic Unity offices, with him trying to hearten and inspire the devoted volunteers, most of them young, and all of them so desperate for him to succeed, to make a difference.