by P. R. Adams
“Easier? Even a small cart—”
“All right, cheaper.”
“Ah. The meanings are quite different, and—”
“Don’t say.”
“—I am apparently being obtuse.”
Naru pinched her nose. “It’s not like those animals smell much worse than the people.”
Riyun chuckled. “We don’t smell like sunshine and roses ourselves. I’ve spent weeks at a time in the field. You learn to deal with it.”
“Not me. My hair. I need to wash it.”
“I always preferred the jobs that let me enjoy the comforts of city living.”
“It itches. What if bugs got into it while I was sleeping?”
He fought off the urge to scratch himself. Would it have been so bad to bathe in the river? “Concentrate on what they’re saying. Any value in it?”
There was chatter all around, nearly as loud as the bulky animals and the clatter of wooden wheels. Doors and shutters creaked open, people swept dust and dirt into the street, awnings were braced up—it all seemed so primitive and alive.
But it was a game, some sort of computer simulation.
No. This was reality. Reality.
The hacker’s head was tilted, her eyes squinted. He guided her slowly down the street as she strained to make sense of dozens of conversations. Quil still seemed more focused on the architecture and layout of the city.
Riyun glanced back to make sure the others were at least within eyesight. The streets were narrow in most places, and people sometimes pressed close in their hurry to get to where they were going.
Javika was doing what she could with Tawod’s help to keep Lonar moving. Hirvok and Symbra trailed behind, always watching the rear. But they had lost the slave-hunters, Riyun was sure of it. Javika knew tracking as well as she knew killing, and she knew killing better than anyone.
“I—” Naru sighed. “I can’t make out much.”
She seemed close to giving up, something Riyun couldn’t afford to have happen. “What can you make out?”
“Well— I guess a lot of them are worried about the market.”
“They can buy stocks here?”
“No. The food.” She pointed to one of the human-drawn carts. “Potatoes and cabbages, like those.”
“What’s the problem with those? They look edible.”
“Except there’s not enough. At least, that’s what it sounds like.”
“A food shortage. In a game? This is what people do for entertainment? In real life, it’s a horrible thing.”
“I-I’m not sure this is a game. Not like normal.”
The narrow street they were on intersected with another, and beyond that one was an open plaza where many of the carts seemed to be gathered. Stalls roofed by bright canvas formed rows throughout the cobblestoned area. People shuffled among the stalls, inspecting wares and chatting with those selling goods: food, trinkets, drink, and all manner of strange supplies.
Quil seemed to take pleasure from the commerce. “Also Chaldredin era.”
Riyun couldn’t see any peaked roofs or gables. “What do you mean? The stalls?”
“In a sense. The Chaldredin era of history was when the merchant princes first established themselves as a rival power to all the hedge lords.”
“Hedge lords?”
“Petty nobles and minor queens and kings. In ancient history, the lands were ruled by thousands of warlords and tyrants. Commerce changed that. Powerful merchants became influencers with private armies.”
Naru nodded. “He’s right. The great families grew from all the merchant princes of that time. But I’m not so sure this is the Chaldredin era.”
The pseudo seemed to almost take offense. “And why not?”
“Because of that.” She pointed toward a wide, wall-lined road that began maybe fifty feet beyond the far end of the plaza.
“Oh.” Quil took a step closer to that wide street.
Riyun grabbed the young man before his distraction led him into trouble. “Hold up.”
“Is something wrong, Lieutenant?”
“What’s so important about that?”
“It would appear to be a temple district.”
“And?”
“Well, temples fell out of use before the Chaldredin era. The last would have been taken down in the Merkulin era. People had already started to move away from mysticism by then. By the time of the merchant princes…” The pseudo pinched his lower lip. “I do not believe much survived.”
“So that’s the fantasy part of it? Beraga is giving people old religion?”
Naru snorted. “I don’t think even gamers would give up their worship of money. It must be something more. But could gods have survived for any length of time?”
Quil’s brow furrowed. “Gods associated with commerce, perhaps. That would be a logical predecessor to the full-on worship of money.”
“Or it’s the fantasy aspect, like the lieutenant said.”
Riyun guided the two of them out of the foot traffic. “So, a city like this—who runs it?”
“I—” The hacker blinked. She twisted around to face Quil. “Normally, I would guess one of those petty nobles. Maybe a thriving market like this points to a merchant prince. Or one of those queens?”
Javika separated from the others, who had clumped in the shadow of a low wall just outside the marketplace. “Your words draw attention.” Her eyes darted from one nearby stall to another, where some of the vendors seemed more intrigued by Riyun and his people than by customers.
Riyun hadn’t noticed the attention before. “Sorry. We’re just trying to figure out who runs this place.”
“Maybe the one who lives there.”
He followed the direction she’d indicated with a nod, spotting another high wall, and barely visible beyond that a tower. It didn’t seem to have the sort of grandeur he would have associated with a merchant prince or hedge lord or whatever. From what he could see, it didn’t have the earmarks of a defensive structure either. In fact, it didn’t even look occupied.
Riyun waved for the others to follow him. “Quil, what is that?”
“I could not…” The pseudo seemed ready to jog ahead. “The architecture is older even than the Merkulin era. Look at those high windows. Shuttered.”
“The whole thing looks abandoned.”
From behind Riyun, Naru gasped. “Those stones. The wall stones, and the tower…”
Quil grunted. “I had not noticed that.”
Noticed what? All Riyun could make out was that the stones must have come from somewhere farther out. They were darker, probably quarried somewhere—
No. They weren’t darker stones; they were charred. Melted.
“All right.” He was already growing tired of the need to keep asking questions. “Talk to me. How do you melt stone like that?”
The hacker was at the lieutenant’s side again. “Whatever did it, maybe that’s why no one goes close to it.”
And that was true. The street in front of the wall surrounding the tower was empty. A smaller street had been built sometime recently, and people used that exclusively. But even that didn’t seem to be enough, as those who moved through the area did so with more purpose than others they’d seen. It was even more obvious when they moved through the shadow of the tower, almost as if they thought it might do something to them.
“Superstition.” Riyun had seen some pretty crazy and extreme examples of that in his life.
“The tower…” Naru glanced at Quil. “It holds significance.”
The pseudo’s pace picked up again until Riyun threw out a hand. Quil slumped. “I apologize, Lieutenant. She is right. There is more to it than the way these people seem to avoid that place… There is the building itself. It seems to be intentional in its jarring inconsistencies. There are no aspects of the design that match with any of the eras around the time of the Chaldredin era.”
That didn’t seem like all that big a deal to Riyun. “You’re bothered over s
ome inconsistent architectural decisions and the possibilities people still worship some gods of commerce. This is a game, a fantasy. We’re looking for Zabila Tromon and a way back home. That probably means finding the people in power. If that’s one of these temples, or some merchant prince, or some petty noble—whatever. We need to establish connections.”
“Naru and I could find that information for you, but it will be difficult.”
“What’ll you need?”
“Time.”
The hacker’s eyes were still locked on the tower as they drew closer. “Money, too.”
Money. Riyun should have thought of that. What would they use without a network to transfer funds electronically? Paper? Coins? He’d never been one to pay attention to ancient history. “What about the weapons we took from the slaves?”
“The market.” The young woman cocked an eyebrow at Quil. “We should be able to—”
“Sell the weapons there.” Quil smiled. “There will be boarding houses somewhere off the marketplace. For visiting merchants or travelers. We could rent rooms there.”
Riyun jerked his head toward the shadow of the dark tower. “We’ll wait for you at the gate to that place.”
“You should be safe there.”
“Yeah, until some wacko decides we’re suspicious.”
Javika grunted. “That has happened already.”
They had drawn quite a bit of attention, which troubled Riyun. He’d expected to fit in a little better, given the look of their armor and the way the escaped slave had responded. Then again, the strange behavior could be something localized. Insular societies presented challenges for anyone even slightly outside their perceived normality.
He guided the team to the boarded-up gate entrance of the dark tower compound. Those who took the smaller road around the structure watched him and his team with wide, disbelieving eyes.
Hirvok scraped the dark wall with a gloved thumb, then made his way over. He showed the thumb: black. “Soot. That rock melted at some point, and so did a lot of other stuff.”
The imposing tower drew in Riyun’s eyes. “I’m beginning to think this whole place burned down, and that’s the only piece that survived.”
“All that from a little soot?”
“Naru and Quil said this tower is an anachronism.”
“It sure is sturdy. There has to be timber in there—support beams and the like. Any fire that could melt rock should’ve burned all of that.”
“Unless it’s part of this fantasy.”
“Doesn’t fantasy still have to make sense?”
A wry smile twisted Riyun’s lips. “Apparently not if it’s wholesale fantasy.”
“Well, we could sure use some of that sort of thing. The big guy—”
“He’s going to be okay.”
“He can barely breathe, Riyun. He stopped a few times when he was napping.”
Riyun tried to take some solace in knowing Hirvok had actually listened to the big man’s breathing while he tried to nap. “It’s just his wetware. It’ll reset.”
“When?”
“I don’t know. Whenever it does. Until then, we do everything we can to make it a little easier for him.”
“All for what? When are we getting out of here?”
“As soon as we can. That’s been the plan from the start.”
“I bet that was the plan for this Zabila and those investigators: Get out as soon as you can.”
“You think—”
“Beraga did to them what he did to us? Yeah. Looks like a great way to get rid of enemies.”
“Well, Aliat got out.” Riyun winked at the sergeant. “Remember?”
Hirvok frowned. “And it killed him.”
“I doubt it. They stuck him in here, and he figured a way out. Someone must have tracked him down and killed him. Probably Kozmut.”
“Doesn’t matter who—he’s still dead.”
“If an investigator got out, we can, too. But…”
“Yeah?”
“Well, he looked older.”
“Are you nuts?”
“No. It’s the way this place works. Quil said something about exchanging time for energy. If they really created everything from nothing in the span of…” Riyun squinted at Hirvok. “What did Beraga say? Seven years?”
“Got me.”
“Seven years. Billions of years passing in seven. Do the math.”
“No, thanks.” The sergeant twisted around as Naru and Quil returned from the marketplace. Quil held a clenched fist tight against his chest. There was no sign of the weapons they’d carried with them to sell, but there were three people trailing behind.
Thieves. No matter where you went, there would always be scumbags.
Javika had already spotted the threat. Her head was turned toward Riyun, but the assassin’s eyes were on the annoyances. He nodded once, and she slipped away from the others.
Would the rogues have the sense to see the threat in her?
Once parallel with Javika, Quil seemed to realize what was going on and sped up.
Naru did the same, only slowing when she reached Riyun. “I guess they really wanted the weapons.”
Quil nodded. “We have more than enough to pay for a night for all of us at a boarding house nearby. They gave us directions.”
Riyun waved them past. “I’ll help Lonar. Hirvok, make sure Javika doesn’t run into any trouble. I’ll send someone back to get the two of you. Don’t hurt anyone unless you have to.”
The sergeant rolled his neck. “They’re just simul-whatevers.”
“They’re people, and we don’t need the attention.”
Lonar was almost a deadweight, leaning hard on Riyun’s shoulder as they followed Quil north past the tower. The big man wheezed. There was no strength in the hands that just a day before had punched through glass that could stop bullets.
“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” The tweak shuddered.
It seemed at that moment as if the foundation of the squad might crack, as if the cornerstone Lonar represented might shatter. He made a strange gulping sound, then his immense weight fell fully on Riyun. The wet breathing, any semblance of independent mobility, even the uncertain alertness in the big man’s eyes—it all went away in that instant.
Riyun braced himself to keep them from falling. “Don’t you give up on me. Lonar! Don’t give up!”
The big man’s head rocked up and down, and he sucked in a deep breath. “I’m…here.”
Tawod rushed over and took Lonar’s other arm. The demolitions expert glanced around, confused. “What’s going on?”
Riyun recovered his balance and got them moving again. “Wetware.”
“He’s got cybernetics in there? I thought he was just dense.”
“He is. He spent a lot of time on Magilar. It was a high gravity world. But he grew up in low gravity. That’s why he’s so tall. Most people who grow up in high gravity are shorter.”
“Low gravity—?”
“That’s what the cybernetics and all the bio-tweaks are for.”
“So he is a tweak!”
“Yeah. His body couldn’t handle that radical of a change without modification.”
“And coming into this world broke it?”
“We’ll find out. He just needs more rest now.”
But Riyun wasn’t so sure rest would be enough. The big man was running out of time.
They were all running out of time.
20
Quil led them into a maze. With the shadow of the tower behind them, the change from single-story buildings to squat homes then to multi-story businesses with homes above them stood out. The roofs became steeper, matching the gabled look Quil had mentioned once they passed through the gate. There were definite differences in the architecture, although telling what was from what era and what was meant by the differences was beyond Riyun’s capabilities or interest.
What mattered to him was that the press of people diminished, and the stench that came with those peo
ple and their animals became…tolerable.
Finally, they exited the maze and came to a stop a few feet shy of a square about a third the size of the marketplace. An old marble fountain—dulled and yellow by the years—rested in the center. Like the flagstones of the street, cracks ran through the fountain. A statue that must have once been some sort of decoration that hung out over the water was now just a vague lump of stone. Dried algae turned the bottom of the pool a dark, scaly green.
They stood alone, sweat cooling in a soft breeze.
Across the way, a low stone wall split by a sagging wooden gate fronted a wide building with a sizable stable. Paint chipped along the building face where the stone facade reached up to a second story. The wood of the stable wall was swollen and almost colorless. It was the largest building surrounding the square, occupying the entire northern side.
Quil trotted back, struggling to contain a wide smile. “Like a caravansary.”
Riyun glanced around the empty square. “A what?”
“A place built to support caravans passing through. The entire city might have once been nothing more than this square.”
“It looks old enough.”
“The merchant said business has fallen off for this section of the city for several years. We should be able to get rooms easily.”
Riyun patted Lonar’s back. “Almost home. Hang in there.”
The big man grunted, then straightened slightly.
They headed across the square. When Quil opened the gate, it squealed as if it hadn’t seen grease in decades. It was the same for the modest lawn—more weed than grass, and what grass there was looked worse than Lonar. More cracked flagstones led up to a porch that groaned beneath Quil’s modest weight.
Naru hung back, arms crossed, staring at the pseudo’s back.
He knocked, and after a moment the front door opened, revealing a long-faced man whose skin looked as dry as parchment and as wrinkled as a raisin. Strange scars covered his cheeks, and dark bags sagged beneath his bloodshot eyes. “Das?” The voice was dust.
Quil didn’t hesitate, jumping straight into flashing coin, a nod toward his comrades, and some gibberish that seemed to calm the old fellow. Naru threw in a few more words and flashed her engaging smile.