The Sightless City

by Noah Lemelson

  Afterwards he could talk through his truth. Once he was alone, away from the needs of the city. It would be better that way.

  * * *

  It was near midnight when the funeral started to peter out. Most guests had left, taking autotaxis or the recently renovated trolley. Of those who were left there was a kortonian, neck craned, talking to a man in a business suit and a woman in an imported Tyrissian dress; a long multi-piece, tiered gown giving home to half the rainbow. Besides them, there was only a small smattering of dazed drunkards, the one closest to Marcel passed out, hair soaking in his lobster bisque.

  Marcel sat in his chair, waiting out the last stragglers. He opened his satchel and glanced through the diagrams again, underneath the table. It was at this point a mere practice in time killing, as the notes had not enlightened Marcel one bit on their meaning. He had half-expected to have spoken with Lazarus at some point during the night, perhaps mention the diagrams or even return them, but instead the man had dashed off to some urgent business. Bagging the documents, Marcel glanced around the near empty room, and in the dimming light, walked over to the urn.

  Desct’s smile in the photograph was small and mild, just a slight bend on his face. Perhaps it was no smile at all. The photograph was taken soon after their shared victory, and Marcel could not remember any smiles after their fight under Huile.

  Marcel stared at the urn. How odd that he decided to be cremated in the end. The man had always joked that he planned to leave behind a beautiful corpse.

  “I’m sorry,” Marcel said. “If I had known you were sick… I should have seen you more anyhow. Huile’s not Phenia, the city’s not that large. It was difficult… I guess it was hard for you too. Only thing anyone wants to talk with us about was the war, and well, some memories don’t sit well. We did right, I know, we sent the Principate packing, got ourselves a whole parade, a new life. You finally got that paper off the ground. Before the war you would never shut up about it, going to ‘shine light on the darkness of ignorance’ or something. I might have laughed, but I never doubted you. I guess I should have congratulated you, brought you out to dinner, sent you a fruit basket, Demiurge, I don’t know. It just hurt too much to remember, sometimes.”

  He paused a moment, sucking back his breath. Breaking down here would not befit a soldier’s image.

  “If the Church is right, and you do see Danel, Rada, Henri… if you see them all up there waiting for their new life, tell them that I’m sorry. I’m sorry they ended up martyrs. I know it worked out as it should, the city is breathing free, independent, it is everything we were promised. I’m just sorry they couldn’t see it, and that you…”

  “Mr. Talwar?”

  Marcel was suddenly very aware that someone was watching him talk to an urn. He collected himself and turned.

  “Yes?” he asked to the tired-looking man whose light, wheat-hued hair thinned at the edge into greasy strands. It was Lazarus’s butler, whom he had met on at least a dozen occasions, and whose name still escaped him.

  “Namter, sir,” the butler said, reading his expression.

  “Yes, I know,” Marcel said.

  Namter gestured with his gloved hand to a door in the back of the room.

  “Mr. Roache wishes to speak with you.”

  Chapter 4

  Namter led Marcel towards a lift in the center of the building. It was an old iron thing, a remnant that had survived not only through the recent battle for Huile, but also the Calamity. A century’s worth of repairs were visible in the sealed cracks and layers of chipped paint. As Namter lifted the lever, the whole box shook and clanked, bulbs bursting into æther-oil fueled light.

  “The power that flows through the veins of Huile,” said Namter without emotion, “a gift of sangleum from Lazacorp to you.”

  “Does Roache require you to say that?”

  “Yes.” He paused. “To every guest, sir.”

  Namter dropped Marcel off by the entrance to Lazarus’s office at the top floor. Marcel stared out the lone window as he waited, shouts echoing from behind Roache’s gold-leafed door. The building was by the edge of Blackwood Row, and Marcel could see the wall separating it from the rest of the town. Beyond it peered the fuliginous iron smokestacks of the Lazacorp refineries, vomiting their red-black smoke that melded into the pitch dark of the night sky. Alba had liked to refer to the Lazacorp neighbor as “Huile’s scarred asshole,” but then again the woman took on an irrational hatred of anything Lazarus Roache.

  Marcel allowed his ears to tune in to the angry fracas. The door was too thick to make out details of the disagreement, but he was able to identify the other shouter as the hoarse, bitter voice of Lazarus’s business partner and on-site foreman, Verus.

  Verus’s identity was confirmed when, after one last half-discernable insult, the door swung open and the haggard mess of a man stormed out. He had a patchy beard and wore rough scars. His coat was black taur¬ leather and heavily stained, his hands were covered in hole-poxed gloves, and his boots were smeared with industrial ash. Even by waste¬folk style, it was rough. Verus’s sharp face was accentuated with an eyepatch, and his mouth wore its usual scowl. He stabbed his one good eye in the direction of Marcel.

  “Hello, Verus.” Marcel feigned politeness.

  The foreman grunted. “What you here for?”

  “The funeral.”

  “Right.” His single eye hardened into a squint, as Verus picked at Marcel’s expression, though for what, Marcel couldn’t guess. “Sad business that. A. Good. Man.”

  He held each word a second too long. Marcel was quite sure he had not seen the foreman at the service, not that he’d missed his presence.

  “And with Roache?” Verus gestured back towards the door.

  “Can’t say. He called for me.” Marcel was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up a cordial façade.

  Verus stared a few more uncomfortable seconds, then walked past, towards the lift, muttering something about a lap dog.

  * * *

  Lazarus Roache stood up from his leather desk chair and split a grin as Marcel walked into the room. His smile was wide and warm, and his youthful eyes had morphed from the innocuous crowd-wandering gaze he had displayed during his speech, to an exacting focus, like that of a hawk.

  “My favorite war hero,” Lazarus said. “Come, take a seat!”

  Lazarus had changed little in the two-and-a-half years since Marcel had first met him. He could remember the moment, as they sat in a wind-torn tent on the outskirts of town. The Huile Sewer Rats had been huddled together, Marcel one of a squad, all listening to the crazy plan of some sangleum tycoon, as Principate shells shook the remains of the camp. Lazarus still wore that same combination of a snug, striped suit and a short-brimmed hat, still had the same confident laugh, the same quick gestures, as he now motioned for Marcel to sit, which he did.

  “Having some spat with Verus?” Marcel asked.

  Lazarus waved the idea away. “You know the man. Good at his job, but rough, waste-bred.”

  “I’m surprised you still haven’t bought out his shares,” Marcel said.

  Lazarus shrugged. “I need someone who can speak with wastefolk traders and day-laborers in the coarse manner they’re accustomed too. Such is the price of operating so close to the Wastes. Verus keeps the refineries running well enough, and it’s not like I have any evidence of malfeasance.”

  “What was your argument about?”

  Lazarus paused and smiled, teeth blocks of white with no empty space. “Always on the job, aren’t you Marcel?” he laughed. “Just a disagreement about an employee. Enough gossip, it’s been a long day.”

  Lazarus gestured to Namter, who Marcel had not noticed enter. The butler poured a steaming cup of tea, and then left with a bow.

  “Fresh import from Isles of Tyrissa. Beautiful blend, a little exotic, mixed with my own special ingredients. Have some.”

  It wasn’t a question. The fumes emanati
ng from the teacup wrinkled Marcel’s nose. Tea always stirred up something unpleasant in Marcel’s stomach, and this was not the first time Lazarus had added his special blend, an almost metallic-tasting powder that tinted the water a pinkish red. Tea was one of the businessman’s eccentricities. Marcel could recall that whenever the drink had been thrust under his nose Lazarus would smile and claim that:

  “No truly civilized conversation has ever started without a cup of tea.” The blond man winked, on cue.

  Marcel lifted up the teacup to his mouth. He glanced for a convenient potted plant, but finding none among the imported art pieces and gilded furniture, snuck out his half-empty canteen with his free hand and undid the cap under the table.

  “That one new?” He pointed to a painting of a yellow blob behind Lazarus. The man turned, and Marcel sucked in the tea. It tasted worse than it smelled.

  “Ah! An Antonine Moreau,” Roache said. “Good eye. Painted before the Severing War, actually predates the whole Principate. Don’t know the exact date, but at least a century back now.”

  Marcel spat the mouthful into his canteen and hastily screwed back the lid. He swallowed his spit trying to get rid of the damned drink’s aftertaste.

  “A mercy I managed to recover the old thing. It had been a gift by the old Mayor of Huile, LuGouffe, before, you know, the Principate got to him,” Lazarus continued, turning back. “Thought they got to this, but I finally found it in a factory basement, of all places. Beautiful thing really, office felt dreary without it.”

  Marcel had read about Moreau back at Phenia University, but had never really been taken in by abstract art. Still, Roache had been sufficiently distracted, and as Marcel placed the teacup down with a clink, the man smiled.

  “Good, no?”

  “Excellent as always, Lazarus.”

  Lazarus held his smile a moment, and then dropped into a somber expression. “Tragic, what happened to Desct. You two were the last of your breed.”

  Marcel scratched at his chin, and avoided the man’s gaze. “We did what was needed.”

  “Don’t retreat into false modesty, Marcel. I knew you two were heroic material the moment I set eyes on you.” Lazarus gave a soft smile. “Such sacrifices are not quickly forgotten. Were you in touch much before he passed?”

  Marcel tried to hold the shame back. “Not much, no. I didn’t even know he was sick.”

  “Truly? Not even a letter?”

  Marcel shook his head.

  “I suppose he was a private man.” Lazarus nodded. “And here I thought I was the only one given the cold shoulder. Well, we must forgive a man his solitude and let the matter rest."

  He tapped on the desk to bury the topic. “There is one manner I wished to discuss with you. An unfortunate incident I thought you might look into while I am away.”

  The offer grabbed Marcel’s attention, and pulled him some from his regrets. He took a notepad from his bag; Roache had always been a fertile source for leads. Even the recent Steinmann case had begun with the tycoon’s suspicions about missing correspondence.

  “Away?” Marcel asked. “You’re traveling?”

  “Tomorrow. To Icaria,” Lazarus said with a grin. “Need Guild talent to help rework Huile’s water purification plant. Can’t have a true democracy without water.”

  Marcel’s eyes flicked back to his bag, where the schematics sat.

  “Is the incident related to the water treatment plant?”

  Roache’s eye’s narrowed, and he spoke slowly. “In fact it is.” He waited a moment, watching Marcel’s face, who kept his eyes straight and avoided another tic. “It involves the theft of some important schematic documents. Experimental filtration techniques and the like. Cutting-edge industry stuff, boring to the layman, to be truthful the details sometimes fly over my own head, but I have friends in Icaria who I know will be fascinated.”

  Marcel tapped his pen, trying to map out in his head all possible ways those notes could have made their way to his desk. “Suspects?”

  “One.” Lazarus nodded. “A man who is… well let me avoid ambiguity, he is unhinged. A bald Torish brute, built like a giant, usually wears a mask over his left eye. Goes by the name Kayip. Though, who knows, maybe he goes by something else now.”

  “Sounds like some wasteland nutter,” Marcel observed.

  “Yes, nutter, that’s a fair description, man’s as insane as a taur in heat. He is quite dangerous, though. He often carries around a damn sword, like some wannabe warpriest. A public menace.” Lazarus shook his head and stared out the window, at the dimming lights of the small metropolis.

  “You know how it is,” he continued. “As soon as you do something worthwhile out come the naysayers, the hairsplitters, people who want to knock you down. Before I set foot here, this city was little more than an old crumbling wall and some half-inhabited tenements. Look at it now! You could move it to the heart of Bastillia and it wouldn’t look shabby among its neighbors. Yet still some mad fool seeks to tear away what he can.”

  He turned back to Marcel, sighing. “I have had more than my share of issues with this Kayip before. He would come by Blackwood Row claiming to be a tourist or a journalist, if that could be believed, would try his darndest to sneak into my refineries. When he failed he would take out his rage by instigating fights with my workers, or else fish around the bars for gossip. Sold lies to newspapers for half-a-frasc, threatened dear friends of mine.”

  Marcel opened his mouth to ask for possible motives, but Lazarus continued.

  “He’s obsessive. I can’t say for certain why’s he’s targeted Lazacorp, but I believe he’s ex-Principate.”

  “A soldier?” Marcel asked.

  “Out for revenge, no doubt, hateful that I helped cast off his kind’s foul yoke. Can’t get close enough to hurt me directly, but can cause problems in others ways.” Roache sipped his tea. “I think it’s likely the man has fled town, but I can’t be sure. All of which, of course, leads to the question of what he did with those schematics.”

  “Here,” Marcel said, lifting them out of the bag. Lazarus’s eyes flashed with surprise, and Marcel couldn’t help sharing in it. In truth, he hadn’t even realized he had decided to show the plans until he already had, but then, how could he not? Lazarus was a client now, a long-standing colleague, and friend to the city. There was no sense in keeping a vital piece of the case, and the man’s property, from him, especially not for the sake of a possible Principate thug.

  Lazarus shifted the notes about, inspecting them, then straightening them into a clean stack with a smile. “Impressive, one step ahead as always, Mr. Talwar.”

  Marcel laughed. “Not quite. Someone left them at my door. With the instructions to ‘show to an engineer.’ Now what do you make of that?”

  Lazarus let out a soft chuckle. “I take it he didn’t know your history. Thought you were just some amoral, self-centered detective. Maybe he was hoping you might toss them into the hands of a Principate-sympathetic engineer.”

  “That seems a mad hope.”

  “He is a mad man. And there are unfortunately still some who hold such sympathy, even within this city.” Roache hardened his expression. “There were many who were quick to flock to the Principate banner after the mayor was murdered, many who would toss roses to their occupiers. Perhaps the man remembers that.”

  Marcel nodded along, mouth closed, trying to swallow away some lingering bitterness. “But I don’t understand how this madman could have snuck away valuable Lazacorp documentation. Blackwood Row isn’t exactly the easiest place to sneak into.”

  Lazarus folded his hands together, eyes flickering in thought. He tilted his head to glance around Marcel at the door, silently, seeming to listen for footsteps that never came. He inched forward and spoke with an almost conspiratorial air.

  “There was… one other person I thought you might look into. The employee Verus and I were… disagreeing about. The engineer, who in fact, made these
very diagrams.”

  “What’s the man’s name?” Marcel asked. “Height, look, features?”

  “Corvin Gall,” Lazarus replied, listing off a description of a tallish, brown-haired and tanned man, augmented with several metal prosthetics. “A man of the Wastes, no Guild certification. Verus picked him out, since we lacked any ætheric engineers in Huile. Now Gall hasn’t done anything wrong, per se…”

  “But you have a bad feeling,” Marcel finished. Lazarus’s response was a simple smile. The tycoon seemed to have a near-supernatural sense for people, and just about anyone he had pointed out as suspicious Marcel had later found clear evidence of criminal activity or treason.

  “In truth,” Lazarus continued, “I’m hoping to find his replacement up in Icaria, but until then...”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.” Marcel bagged his notepad.

  Lazarus nodded and stretched, “Yes, I’m sure you will, Marcel, you haven’t let me down yet.” He reached into his striped jacket to reveal a gold pocket watch. “But it is late. Do you need an autotaxi back?”

  Marcel stood. “If we’re done then I’m good to walk, if it is all the same.”

  “Very well.” Lazarus smiled and gave a casual salute from his chair. “Always a pleasure, Mr. Talwar.”

  * * *

  The night was cold, and the city asleep. Now and then an autocar or ‘truck passed by, a pre-war artifact or one of the new breed from some local Border State city. One fairly ragged traveler trotted over cobblestones on a waste-toughened horse, but aside from these occasional night owls, Marcel was alone among darkened windows and dimmed lamps. He normally preferred solitude, where he could appreciate the city he had saved in its quiet abstraction, without the complication of its waking inhabitants.