other. Six hundred yards long, a hundred and twenty yards high, it enclosed ten million cubic yards of air and a thousand miles of intricately interlocking offices, corridors and stairways, the cerebral cortex of a stone brain. It was said the Lodka had been built so huge and so hastily that when it was finished, many of the rooms could not be reached at all. Passageways ran from nowhere to nowhere. Stairwells without stairs. Exitless labyrinths. From high windows you could look down on entrance-less vacant courtyards, the innermost secrets of the Vlast. Amber lights burned in a thousand windows. Behind each window ministers and civil servants, clerks and archivists and secret policemen were working late. In one of those rooms Under Secretary Krogh of the Ministry of Vlast Security was waiting for him. Lom crossed the bridge and went up the steps to the entrance.
Krogh’s private secretary was sitting in the outer office. Files were stacked in deep neat piles on his desk, each one tagged with handwritten slips of paper and coloured labels. He looked up without interest when Lom came in.
‘You’re late, Investigator. The Under Secretary is a busy man.’
‘Then you’d better get me in there straight away.’
‘Your appointment was for six.’
‘I was sent for. I’ve come.’
‘Pavel?’ A voice called from the inner office. ‘Is that Lom? Bring the man in here.’
Krogh’s office was large and empty. Krogh himself was sitting at the far end, behind a plain wooden table in an eight-sided bay with uncurtained windows on every side. In daylight he would have had an almost circular view across the city, but now the windows were black and only reflected Krogh from eight different angles. The flesh of his face was soft and pouched, but his eyes under heavy half-closed lids were bright with calculation.
Lom waited while Krogh examined him. His head hurt where the angel seal was set into it. A dull, thudding ache: the tympanation of an inward drum.
‘You’re either an idiot or a courageous man, Lom. Which is it?’
‘You didn’t bring me all the way to Mirgorod so you could call me an idiot.’
‘Yough!’ Krogh made an extraordinary, high-pitched sound. It was laughter. He picked up a folder that lay in front of him on the desk.
‘This is the file on you, Lom. I’ve been reading it. You were one of Savinkov’s. One doesn’t meet many. And you have talent. But still only an Investigator. No promotion for, what is it, ten years?’
‘Eleven.’
‘And three applications for transfer to Mirgorod. All rejected.’
‘No reason was given. Not to me.’
‘Your superiors in Podchornok refer to attitudinal problems. Is that right?’
Lom shrugged.
‘There’s room for men like you, Investigator. Opportunities. That’s why you’re here. Would you do something for me? A very particular task?’
‘I’d need to know what it was.’
The ache in Lom’s head was stronger now. Shafts of pain at the place where the angel stone was cut in. Patches of brightness and colour disturbed his vision. None of the angles in the room was right.
‘You’re cautious,’ said Krogh. ‘Good. Caution is a good quality. In some circumstances. But we have reached an impasse, Investigator. I can’t tell you anything until I know that you’re on my side. And mine only. Only mine, Lom.’ Krogh spread his hands. Slender hands, slender fingers, pale soft dry skin. ‘So. Where do we go from here? How should we proceed?’
‘I’ve had a long journey, Under Secretary. I’ve been on a train for the last six days. I’m tired and my head hurts. Unless you brought me all this way just so you could not tell me anything, you’d better say what this is all about.’
Krogh exhaled. A faint subsiding sigh.
‘I’m beginning to see why your people find you difficult. Nevertheless, you have a point. Does the name Josef Kantor mean anything to you?’
‘No.’
Krogh sank back, his head resting against the red leather chair-back.
‘Josef Kantor,’ he began, ‘was nineteen at the time of the Birzel Rebellion. His father was a ringleader: he was executed by firing squad. Here at the Lodka. Josef Kantor himself was also involved. He spoke at the siege of the Armoury, and drafted the so-called Birzel Declaration. Do you know the Declaration, Lom?’
‘I’ve heard of it.’
‘It’s fine work. Very fine. You should know it by heart. One should know one’s adversary.’
Krogh leaned forward in his chair.
‘We believe,’ he began in a louder, clearer voice. ‘We believe that the Vlast of One Truth has no right in Lezarye, never had any right in Lezarye, and never can