Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  Bec was covering for him, but he was still in absolute defiance of everything his family had instructed…

  If they caught him, he’d be in chains in the bloody basement.

  Ahead of him, the stone-walled harbour was wide and shining and lined with boats – fishing vessels and cargo boats, and a couple of the city ferries, half-pulled up the slipway and held by heavy chains. A few of the boats bore gold-and-blue Caphen colours; most had eyes on their bows to watch for Vei’s fickle moods. Normally, the harbourmaster would be out here, collating tags and tallies, but today, he was presumably as free as anyone else.

  Caph paid a quarter-ripan for a bowl of tea, and then stood with it, warm in his aching fingers, waiting.

  The long curve of the waterfront was lined with grey stone buildings, warehouses that contained everything from fish-meal and fertiliser to sacks of dried and edible weed. Coloured banners stretched from window to window, birds wheeled and cried above them, banking on the currents from the food-stalls. At the crowd’s outer edges, there were rickshaw porters, shouting for custom. More people arrived with every moment.

  But he couldn’t stand still for long. He was wound tight as a teenager, trembling with something that might have been hope, and that might have been sheer terror. He couldn’t even put a face on the man, for hells’ sakes, maybe he should just leave, right now, before he made an idiot of himself…

  The breeze carried the distinctive voice of a zanyar, the sound deep and clean. For years, the sound had bought only loss, but now he found he could listen to it, his fingers pressing the notes against his thigh.

  It felt like a flush of hope.

  And a soft voice beside him said, ‘Hey.’

  He jumped, turned, his pulse roaring.

  Aden was standing right there, right there in the sun, his inked arms folded, his scruffy hair caught back in thin bandana, his eyes as startlingly vivid as Caph remembered. He was clean-shaven, and he’d lost his ragged dockworker garb. Instead, plain, pale shirt-sleeves were pushed up to his elbows.

  Caph stared at him, dry mouthed. He looked younger in the full sunlight and without the stubble, but – how could he not have remembered? – just as good as he’d done at the wharf. Caph wanted to touch, half-raised a hand, let it drop again. Somewhere, he’d forgotten to breathe.

  You’re here.

  By every hell, you’re actually here.

  ‘Caphen. Jularn. Talmar,’ Aden said, thoughtfully, watching his expression. ‘Just… y’know, playin’ hookey.’ His smile twitched to humour, but he was still watching Caph’s face, eyes flicking to the cut on his cheek, to his mouth, then back again to meet his gaze. ‘Still, guess it made you an easy man to find.’ Then he said, with a shrug that was ever-so-slightly self-conscious, ‘I didn’t know if you’d got the note. Or if you’d be here.’

  The phrase had layers, a hint of amused deprecation, a feeling of reaching, a sense of absurdity and marvel that somehow matched Caph’s own.

  ‘I very nearly wasn’t,’ Caph replied. Then, realising what he’d said, he added quickly, ‘But I wouldn’t’ve missed it.’

  Aden’s rascal smile made him catch his breath. Not allowing himself to think twice, he reached out, took the sides of the man’s jaw in both hands, and kissed him.

  With a murmur, Aden returned the kiss, his hands sliding round Caph’s ass and pulling him closer. Caph could feel the surge of greed and passion that had marked their encounter at the wharf, could feel it expanding into something warmer and deeper, something bathed in the hot, red sun. His breathing tightened, hardened into a gasp.

  He had a sudden, strong urge to shove Aden against the nearest wall.

  But several people were already snickering, and a passer-by made a cheerfully lewd remark, ‘Put him down, son, you don’t know where he’s been!’ Guffaws followed.

  ‘Sorry.’ He stepped back, grinning like an idiot. He couldn’t for the bloody life of him think of anything to say.

  Aden’s blue eyes shone like the water. He ran a rough-skinned thumb down the cut on Caph’s cheek. ‘That’s new.’

  ‘Present from an old friend,’ Caph said. The comment was meant in humour, but the threat of Molly’s presence lurked still like a spectre, like the notes of the zanyar, lingering on the wind. It turned the joke into something rueful, tinged with fear.

  Aden’s gaze lingered on the mark for a moment, almost as if he was trying to work out what had made it. Then he grinned. ‘C’mon, city boy. I’m out of practice at this dating shit, but aren’t we supposed to buy food?’

  The afternoon passed in a haze of crowds and sun. It was a perfect day; a day to enjoy the cooking, and the freedom, and to wait at the edge of the harbour as the rowing boats went to place their offerings in the water, to ease Vei’s hunger for another year. The boats were crewed by teams of strong-shouldered men and women, muscled arms gleaming in the light.

  Caph watched them, fervent and breathless.

  Away from the heated darkness of the wharf, Aden seemed somehow different. He was less intense, casual and lighter-hearted; he suited the daytime and the holiday mood perfectly. Caph found himself grinning like a loon, his family and their demands were a world away, forgotten, even Molly’s leering ghost had faded in the sunlight. Aden was here, bright and irreverent, uncaring of Caph’s name, or of what he could twist out of it… he may be the first person Caph had ever met who genuinely wasn’t interested in his status.

  ‘One time,’ Aden said, as they walked through the stalls, ‘The fishers came back with this giant squid – huge damn thing, big as a house. It was still moving, had eyes like tea bowls. Scared the shit out of me. The crew wanted to hack it up and sell it for steaks, but we named it ‘Kul’ and threw it back. They reckon it’s still out there.’

  He had Caph laughing, amazed at the tall tales, at the window he opened onto a world that Caph had only ever seen through smokelight.

  Only ever played at.

  ‘One guy on my shift thought it was Vei herself, but he was trading in better stuff than fish, if you know what I mean.’ Aden chuckled. ‘Still, we’ve not lost a boat since, so maybe he had a point, who knows?’

  The sun had tumbled slowly towards the distant crater, and they’d stopped to sit at the harbour’s edge, feet dangling. Out over the water, the caldera wall was almost at its furthest, visible only as a blur, a faint line between sea and sky. If Caph squinted, he could see some of the distant fishing villages, seeming to hover in the haze.

  Like all of this, perhaps, some sort of bloody dream.

  He said, ‘How did you know who I was?’

  That made Aden laugh, the sound unashamed, rich in the red sun. ‘C’mon, that one’s obvious.’ His grin was pure wickedness. ‘I live in Ivar – and you leave ripples, you can’t help it. Finding you was the easy bit. Working out what the hells to say…’ He tailed off, shook his head. ‘I still don’t know if I’m supposed to call you ’sir’.’

  Without missing a beat, Caph said, ‘If it makes you happy.’

  ‘You’re funny.’ Aden was still grinning. The bird hopped closer, its head shifting from one side to the other. Several more land behind it. He threw them more fish, and they scattered with a whir of wings.

  Caph heard the zanyar again, the sound clear in the light.

  ‘Besides,’ Aden admitted, ‘I’d – ah – seen you at the wharf before. Wondered who you were.’ His hand closed on Caph’s thigh, and the touch felt like lightning. It made Caph shiver. ‘Not to mention…’ sudden laughter, as if he’d just remembered something, ‘…wondering how the hells you managed to skin that many dice players.’

  It was Caph’s turn to laugh. ‘Secrets of my education,’ he said, complete with gesture. ‘Magic and ritual and darkness.’ He grinned. ‘Actually, that’s all shit – it’s just maths.’

  Aden snorted. ‘So – what? – you just sat down and learned a
ll that?’

  ‘They teach you the basics at school,’ Caph said, surprised.

  Aden laughed. ‘I didn’t go to school, Caph, I was unloading fishing boats before I was ten.’

  Caph stared at him, at the sudden chasm between their lives; he felt an odd thrill that might just have been danger. ‘I was at the University until…’ He stopped, suddenly not wanting to sound as sheltered as he felt.

  ‘We knew this,’ Aden said. He turned sideways, one knee drawn up on the stone. ‘Can you teach me?’

  ‘You want to learn the equations?’

  ‘I want to learn how you made that much coin in less than an hour.’

  Caph laughed again, amused by his shamelessness. ‘That bit’s easy.’ He began to sketch on the stone between them, the lines from his mother’s table now drawn invisibly with a fingertip. ‘You start with your ore, and apply your first principle: heat, or water, or pressure. That’ll give you your element, your pure metal. And then, if you want an alloy…’ He was still sketching. ‘You’d apply a second, and so on.’ More symbols. ‘It gets complex when the alloy agent has a previous equation of its own – you can end up with whole trees, with sprawling-massive patterns where everything applies to everything else, but that’s the simple version.’ He shrugged. ‘If you want to gamble with it, you just need to know the symbols well enough to anticipate the dice rolls.’ He raised an amused, slightly cynical eyebrow. ‘I can teach you in detail, if you want.’

  ‘Hells yeah.’ Aden grinned, then said, ‘And can you teach me to do all the scrabbly metal insect things, like in the market?’

  ‘Those you’d have buy,’ Caph said. ‘And they’re not really creatures, they’re all gears and wheels and sleight of hand.’ Caph’s grin broadened, then faded. ‘My mother’s one of the finest metallurgists in the city – she could craft one, but not even she could make it live.’

  Aden nodded, seemed to be thinking.

  But Caph didn’t really notice. The mention of his family loomed sudden and grey, like the long shadow of the upper city had rotated to cover the harbour. He wondered how long he’d got left.

  But Aden was sketching on the wall-top with a piece of charcoal, ‘Okay, genius, you tell me what this is.’

  Caph deliberately shoved reality aside. ‘That’s ‘fu’, heat. Even today, it’s used to power the lights throughout the city.’ He remembered his mother’s lecture. ‘And other things. If you’re trying to test me, you’ll have to do better than that.’

  ‘Okay then.’ In quick and quite flamboyant succession, Aden sketched copper, zinc, gold. Brass. Caph didn’t flicker – this was rudimentary stuff – and after a few more, Aden laughed and drew something else, more complex. ‘Okay, okay, try this one.’

  Caph grinned. ‘Now that’s a tough one. Older. It’s glass – or crystal – but it’s an obscure translation. As close as I can manage, it means ‘Cloudglass’ or ‘Skyglass’. It was once used as a theatre direction, meaning something… striking, visual. It can also mean a particular mark in the stone, like something to remember.’ He chuckled. ‘Where the hells did you even find that?’

  Aden chuckled. ‘You’re too good. And these?’

  ‘Those aren’t symbols.’

  ‘They’re legit.’

  He stared at them. ‘I’ve never seen them before – they’re not even complete. Are they half of something?’ He blinked. ‘You’re teasing me.’

  Aden’s blue eyes were bright, curious. He grinned, pure mischief. ‘Did I getcha?’

  ‘Apparently.’ Caph was watching him, an odd sense of alarm stirring somewhere in his belly. ‘They’re no element or principle I’ve ever seen. They don’t even make sense.’

  Aden looked at him, then chewed his lip and shrugged, looking self-conscious. ‘Shit. I was trying to be funny. Guess that didn’t work too well. Sorry.’ He looked so embarrassed that it struck a chord with Caph’s own nervousness and he reached a hand to the man’s shoulder. The rush of real, human empathy made his skin thrill.

  ‘Happens to us all.’

  At the touch, Aden glanced up. He smiled with a wash of genuine warmth, then covered it with his more usual, rascal self.

  He caught Caph’s hand as it withdrew.

  Without warning, he asked, ‘So. You going to tell me what happened to these?’

  Caught absolutely off-guard, Caph snatched his hand back, recoiled like he’d been burned. The feeling of empathy went up in a flash of sparks; he found himself bereft of breath and words, trembling on the edge of a cliff. Admitting his own helplessness was not something he could do.

  Not aloud, not with this man.

  Without thinking, he touched the cut on his face. He couldn’t meet Aden’s gaze. He managed, his voice low, ‘It’s a long story.’

  Aden studied him, flickering a frown. ‘They’re not an accident.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  Caph felt himself flush. ‘No.’

  He was looking at his feet, at the day’s rubbish that bobbed on the water. He could feel Aden’s expression – somewhere between puzzlement and concern. For the second time that day, he had no idea what to say.

  Then a hand lifted his chin, turned his face. There was a mouth on his, warm and surprisingly gentle. He kissed Aden back, the contact becoming urgent, almost frantic. Then he pulled away and took a long, trembling breath.

  ‘I… I should probably go.’ He was half on his feet before he’d even realised he’d moved. ‘It’s late – I have to be home.’

  ‘Now?’ Aden said. The note of disappointment was clear.

  ‘My family… I should really… I need to get back.’

  Aden said, very gently, ‘Caph. I’m the last person in the city to be passing out judgment – and I mean that with more honesty that I can ever explain.’ There was an odd note to his tone, something Caph couldn’t quite define. ‘If you want to tell me…’

  Caph didn’t trust himself to speak, just shook his head.

  ‘Okay.’ Aden said. ‘Sorry.’

  Caph nodded, then offered him a wrist clasp and pulled him up – and they stood there in the rich red sunlight, the distant zanyar still singing to the open sky. Aden took Caph’s jaw in his hand and kissed him again, gently at first, as if wary of intruding – then harder, strong and hungry. Chuckles and comments came from the people heading past them, but neither of them cared. From wanting to hide, Caph found he was as eager as a teenager, and hard enough to hurt. Aden’s kiss was hot, and sensual, and his hands left Caph trembling.

  As he came up for air, he was trying to find words, to explain…

  But Aden said in his ear, his voice very deep and soft, ‘It’s not even sunset yet. Stay for a drink?’

  Caph was torn. He knew he had to leave, but… ‘I must get out before the gates close.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Aden said. ‘I know.’

  Half an hour later, they lay sprawled and breathless in a room above the nearest bar.

  They had a mattress, a couple of unnecessary blankets and a bottle of the rough wharfside spirit, acquired from the barman downstairs. The man had glowered at them, then handed over both booze and key without a word.

  The room, at least, was better than the one in the flophouse. A shark’s open jaws held pride of place over the door, and the arch under the gable offered an old window, a round and dirty timeglass now cracked down the centre. The last of the sunlight gleamed through it, and lit a red glow on the floor by the bed – a refracted countdown to the moment Caph had to tear himself away.

  Aden lay beside him, relaxed against his shoulder, his breathing deep, his skin hot and smooth. His hand on Caph’s thigh was easy, a warmth of contact that made the raw spirit uncoil in his belly. He took the bottle as it was passed back.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ Aden said. ‘You know – the Selection and everything – I really wasn’t sure you’d show.’ />
  ‘I told you, I wouldn’t have missed it.’ Caph chuckled. ‘Though my family would have collective bloody apoplexy.’

  Aden grinned, passed the bottle back. Suffused in contentment, Caph found himself swigging again and letting it all radiate through him. As Aden asked questions, he let himself talk – about his education, his family, the possibilities of the forthcoming Selection. He shied away from the subject of Ganthar like it would bite him – but Aden seemed to understand, and left it alone.

  Slowly, things became a blur. The talk became less serious, scattered with laughter; Caph swigged more, enjoying the touch of the now-lazy hand, the occasional chuckle or question that encouraged him to keep going. He blinked, found the bottle back in his hand. He was glugging the stuff now, unflinching, smoking Aden’s reeds, watching the smoke as it curled through the moonlit air. His head was swimming; he didn’t care. Molly, his family, the zanyar – they were a world away, forgotten. He didn’t notice when the clock-face slid sideways into sunset, and then glowed blue with the rising of the moon.

  *

  Proteus came awake with a jolt, startled by stillness.

  The room was almost dark; the moonlight had faded and the timeglass was no more than the faintest ghost. Rain scattered on the window. Warm and still and curled against him, Caph lay on his side, all long and naked. His snores echoed gently in the roof.

  The air was cold.

  Trembling with realisation, Proteus quelled a sudden, panicked urge to scrabble to his feet, to recoil in appalled horror at the impossible blunder he’d just made…

  He’d fallen asleep.

  Spent, happy and half-drunk, he’d fallen asleep.

  What in every hell had he been thinking?

  Fearing the worst, he eased away from the body beside him and put his hands to his face, tried to work out who he was…

  Caph muttered, settled again.

  But Proteus was lucky – it seemed he hadn’t slept long enough, or deeply enough, for Aden to lose traction. His face was still intact, his ink in place. Letting out his breath in soft, wordless relief, he sat for a moment, fingers ensuring his features more thoroughly, and trying to think clearly through the haze of sex and booze…