The Tropic of Eternity

by Tom Toner

  Harald nodded a bow. “In that you are right, Sir Zelio.”

  “Primaleon, please.”

  “Harry,” he replied, reaching across the table and taking the Zelio’s hand. Interesting name. Probably picked it himself.

  “So, Harry,” Primaleon continued, speaking clear and fluent Vulgar, “what brings you here?”

  He gestured to the walls, lost in shadow around them, and mimed a playful shiver. “Uyua, of course. I’m enjoying it so far. Yourself?”

  “The very same. We even went outside the other night, didn’t we, Jacz?”

  Jaczlam made no sign of having heard. He’d just won the tuning knob from his companion.

  “Yes,” continued Primaleon, “took a couple of spring guns and sat there for a while, at the edge of the moat.” His eyes narrowed, his enormous red nostrils dilating. “We could hear them sniffing for us, searching the dark, trying to cross the moat. How they screamed when they caught the whiff . . .”

  “You’re a braver fellow than I,” said Harald, sipping his water and allowing Mutte to top it up. “Have you come far?”

  Primaleon bared needle-sharp teeth, his strange eyes bright. “Do you mean, have I come from the Zelio-worlds? No. I was born in Baln. Lacaille citizen.”

  Harald shrugged. “You must get asked that a lot, my apologies.”

  “Not at all. It must be immeasurably harder for one such as yourself out here.” He looked thoughtful for a moment, an odd expression on the famously inhuman Zelioceti face. “Everyone wants something in the Investiture, don’t you find?” He gestured to the snoring Oxel, the bottle still propped in its hand. “The little ones want whatever they can get—a morsel of food, some Truppins.” He cleared his throat, gesturing at the walls. “Then there’s the landowners, those with a little education, who want something less tangible: a miracle, perhaps, or to show you off, impress their friends.” He stared at Harald, brows raised. Harald shrugged, his face friendly, neutral, trying to work the fellow out. Tangible, even in Vulgar, was a sophisticated sort of word.

  Primaleon’s disconcerting eyes never left Harald’s. “And then, then you’ve got the ones at the top. And maybe you know what they want as soon as looking at them?”

  Harald grinned. “The secret itself.” He pursed his lips, peripherally aware that all but the snoozing Oxel were hanging on their every word. “Is that what you want, Primaleon? To know the secret? To live for ever?”

  Primaleon’s eyes held his for a while, blinked a few times and flashed away.

  “What I really like is money, Sire Harry. Specifically watching its movements around the worlds.”

  Harald finished his sour water. “Oh yes?”

  Primaleon flashed his teeth again. They were mostly gum. “Oh yes. If you watch its motions long enough you can determine all sorts of secret things. Why the Lacaille here, for instance”—he pointed once more at Jaczlam—”have risen so swiftly to prominence, while the Vulgar all but disappeared off the stage.”

  Harald studied Primaleon. He looked to be about forty, quite old for a Zelioceti, and yet appeared to be in good health. The greyish skin around his bulbous, dangly red nose was creased with smile lines, and his bristly blond eyebrows were greying at their tips. He wore a cassock of fine blue velvet, trimmed around the collar with black fur. There were rich ones out there—their industry was legendary—but they were few and far between. No, Harald thought, somewhere in Primaleon’s luggage one would almost certainly find the pointed black cap of a banker.

  Old Mutte chose that moment to serve up dinner, dumping a battered pot of simmering, greasy chops in the centre of the table. He handed Harald a cup of steamed wine and a bowl of boiled sweets. Harald sampled the wine, still looking at Primaleon. He smacked his lips and smiled; it was strong and sweet, drizzled with Port Bonifacio honey.

  The Oxel awoke and dug in, joined by the others. Primaleon toasted Harald silently in the Amaranthine fashion and worked his way delicately through a meaty bone. Harald sat back in his chair, watching Old Mutte stoking the fires.

  The Zelioceti Electrums—the outer Investiture banks—looked after the fortunes of kings and princes from all corners of the Prism worlds. Their services were prized because they dealt only in Zelio-coins, a currency not dependent on the turbulent fortunes of the Investiture, being cut from flattened pieces of Quetterel-made glass, a substance highly prized by the Amaranthine for its beauty and relative scarcity, always redeemable for an excellent price on the outskirts of the Firmament. Few seemed to mind much that it was manufactured from the compacted ash of the Quetterel’s flayed victims, and even some of the Immortal, Harald had heard tell, stashed their money in the Zelioceti’s various banks before the crowning of each Firmamental Emperor, just in case.

  Having gorged themselves, the Prism sat back in their chairs, reeking feet planted on the table. The Oxel went over to join the game, supplying his fork as a token and having it snatched back by Old Mutte. Harald pushed his own chair out a little, spying a footstool near the fire, and dealt his set of bone cards for anyone wishing to play. Only Primaleon took him up on the offer, waddling out of the shadows to reveal an extremely dumpy lower body, as if he were afflicted by water retention. The Zelioceti plonked himself down by the footstool and shuffled the cards in the messy Lacaille way, taking three at random and turning them over. It became quite clear to Harald after a few minutes that he was playing an experienced Fidget dealer, and to his dismay lost card after card to Primaleon’s pile. He met the Zelio’s twinkling eyes as they paused to sip from their respective drinks, then coughed, flipping one of Primaleon’s cards from a distance with nothing but a flick of his mind.

  Primaleon stared at the flipped card with comical astonishment, then rubbed his hands together and blew as hard as he could into the pile, scattering them. Harald caught and flipped each one with just his gaze, settling them instantly in a neat triangular tower on the footstool. The Zelioceti clasped his hands in wonderment, some cautious applause erupting around them. Old Mutte topped up Harald’s wine, clapping him on the back.

  “More!” squealed the drunken Oxel. “More magic!”

  Harald sipped his wine and gazed around the room, spying some of the house instruments. As he looked at it, the stringboard in the corner began to play, thrumming out a crude little tune. Even Jaczlam clapped sullenly along to the old Vulgar shanty song, and a chair thumped up and down apparently under its own power, drumming out a beat.

  “Jaczlam,” Harald said, “mind if I borrow a token or two?”

  “Go on,” the Lacaille said, trying to hide his smile.

  Immediately the tuning knob lifted into the air and spun away. It twirled over to the second, smaller stringboard, picking out an accelerando accompaniment to the drumming.

  Soon he had the Oxel dancing on the table. Jacz and his friend were clapping and singing.

  Enraged voices started up from the adjoining rooms, fists banging on the walls. Mutte, who had been enjoying himself and clapping along, suddenly wrung his hands and looked at Harald apologetically. Harald mimed an oops and the various implements came swirling back onto the table, arranging themselves neatly into a star formation.

  A final round of applause and Jaczlam and the others sloped back to their bunks and hammocks. After a pause to drain the last of his Junip, Primaleon rose and shook Harald’s hand once more, retiring into the darkness. Harald sucked on his pipe as he watched the Zelioceti disappear down the hall. They’d all left him a present of their scent—the thick stink of sweat, halitosis and sulfuric little farts that lingered in the cracked wooden benches—but Harald’s fragrant pipe smoke soon overlaid the stench; wherever he had his pipe, he was home.

  The fires were burning low. Harald, remembering that it was a house rule to keep them stoked, bent to take another few logs from the scuttle. Outside, in the dark, the wind sang into the building’s crannies, rattling something persistently until a grumbling presence somewhere slammed it shut. Harald looked calmly up into the black
rafters of the kitchen, observing eyes spying on him from a papery nest built into one of the beams, and moved quietly back to his chair by the fire, a comfortable place to mull over what he might do with the remainder of his life.

  Creeping back to his bunk, he saw a small light at the end of the hall, the unmistakable humped figure of a Zelioceti sitting silhouetted against it. Harald cocked his head, sidling closer to the strange fellow’s bunk. Primaleon was sitting up in bed, rummaging through his bags. A weak, spluttering lantern painted them both in greenish gold.

  “Good evening.”

  “Is it evening?” Primaleon asked, scratching the tip of his drooping nose. He put the bag aside and looked expectantly at Harald.

  Harald nodded—he could tell the time without an aid, simply feeling it in his bones. Prism clocks weren’t much use anyway; even the expensive ones were mostly fakes that simply spun around, their uselessness only noticed after a few hours. “It’s about nine, house time.”

  “You just know, don’t you?” Primaleon asked wonderingly, studying him. “What I’d pay for a drop of your abilities, could they be distilled.”

  “It was tried, once, long ago,” Harald said, speculating on the Zelio’s wealth. “The Venerable Felicidad, during the brewing of his madness, raided the statuary tombs of Vaulted Ectries and liquified their contents. I suppose he wanted to supplement his own powers.” He glanced at Primaleon, pleased to see the look of disgust on his face. “The Emperor must have drunk the bodies of a dozen Amaranthine before he was caught and sent to the Utopia, and I daresay some of his honoured Prism also had a taste.”

  The Zelioceti’s eyebrows lifted.

  “Of course, it didn’t work,” Harald added swiftly. “You can’t catch Immortality like a disease.”

  Primaleon shook his head with something like wonder, then smirked. “I’d have tried some.”

  Harald looked at him for a while, sensing the Prism’s slight embarrassment under his gaze. “You’re one of the Electrum bankers aren’t you?”

  Primaleon sighed and pulled out some Lacaille-style books: square piles of pages bound with twine. “I carry my work with me, wherever I go.”

  Harald took in their dog-eared, abraded look, glancing into the open bag. There were dozens.

  “Have you ever entertained the notion of clairvoyance, Harry?” Primaleon asked, his monkeyish eyes glittering.

  Harald shrugged. “The future comes along soon enough.” He was disappointed; he’d expected more from the fellow. The rich ones always tried to sell you something, invite you into some scheme.

  Primaleon muttered under his breath, sorting through the books. While he did so, Harald’s eyes travelled back to the bag, spying what looked like a small Cethegrande pearl on top of the books. Primaleon found what he was looking for, unknotting the twine around one of the books and opening it up. He licked his finger and riffled through the pages, dragging his nail down until it met a column of scrawled Zelio figures. “Do you see these numbers?”

  He peered at them, nodding.

  “This is you.”

  Harald smiled, indulging him.

  Primaleon flipped deeper into the book, unperturbed by Harald’s expression. “Your Firmamental vault was stripped, but not before you dispersed a grand fortune throughout the Investiture. Would you like me to tell you where it went?”

  “Please.”

  “Here,” Primaleon said, pointing. “In the care of a certain Zumosh Rabandie, captain of the Rabandie tin works at Phittsh. And here, at Groaming Town, Nirlume. And . . .” He turned some pages. “Here, with the FairyOxel from Copse country. You keep your money with trusted Prism, not banks. In your entire life you’ve never once deposited in Baln or Goldenwheal or Hauberth. Wise, in the case of the latter, for I fear it is about to be raided.”

  Harald’s eyes, though drawn to the numbers, travelled instinctively to his bunk, the thought having suddenly occurred to him that he was being played for time, and that someone might now be rummaging through his things.

  But the bed was empty, its candle casting a lonely pool of light.

  “I’m impressed,” he said, cautiously. “Tell me . . . I hid some Truppins once, about a hundred thousand—where?”

  “Oh, that’s easy!” said Primaleon, beaming. “Litsh-over-Orm, on Port Halstrom. But I’m afraid that haul was stolen about a year ago.”

  Harald took out his pipe to conceal his surprise, sneaking a look at Primaleon as he filled it. “By you?”

  “Of course not. I charge more per hour for my consultations. But I’ve tracked it to Burrow-Lumm, if you’d like it back.”

  Harald wondered who in the world would pay that sort of money for a consultation, assuming the Zelio was exaggerating, but motioned for the book. Primaleon placed it in his hands. “This is very clever of you.” It was more than clever, it was revolutionary. If only Primaleon had been born Amaranthine. He wondered, feeling the thick book in his hand. “How far back can you go?” he asked.

  “As far as there are reliable records. I can trace the movement of war money during the Threen“Wunse Conflation.”

  “And Firmamental records?” Harald narrowed his eyes, unable to contain a smile. “How are you privy to those?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t be this rich without my Amaranthine contacts.”

  “Many?”

  “A few. Though they tend to disappear into their navels rather too often for comfort.”

  “Don’t I know it.”

  They sat up together, a pool of light in a dense, crushing sea of darkness, poring through Primaleon’s books. Harald, following the red, tightly packed little Zelio numbers, began to see the flow: their tides, breathing in and out, circling the Investiture and the Firmament. With every large displacement of money, another fell in to take its place, churning the ripples, casting waves that took a long, long time to reach a different shore. But Primaleon was a patient soul, and he had catalogued them all. Harald, sensing with each turned page that he was looking at something illicit and dangerous, could only wonder at the leverage the little person must possess. He retrieved his portable stove, lighting it with a snap of his fingers and heating them a pot of coffee. The old enamel cafetière bubbled and whistled comfortingly as he went and sat back down beside Primaleon. Having used the comforting routine to work out what he might be prepared to give, Harald framed his question.

  “Could you track someone, Primaleon? For a fee?”

  The Zelio shrugged, giving no hint of relief the transaction was afoot. “Almost anyone, barring the Bult. I’ve had Vulgar bounty hunters coming after me, eager to get a look at these books, sure they can track the cannibals that way, but it won’t work. Wouldn’t stop them killing me for these numbers, though.”

  “And that is why you—”

  Primaleon looked at him with apparently genuine surprise. “Did you not know that you are followed, too?”

  Harald sat back against the wall, keeping his expression blank.

  “An Amaranthine, here,” Primaleon’s finger went to the adjoining page, “tracing your journey across the worlds. He sticks out like a sore thumb, staying in all the best guesthouses.”

  Harald’s eyes skimmed the numbers, understanding that he had never truly been alone, immediately resenting whomever Sabran must have sent to keep an eye on him.

  “Does any of this apply to the Old World?” He looked up at Primaleon.

  “Some,” the Zelio said, rummaging for a book at the bottom of the bag. “But the movement of silk, due to the snip-by-eye custom of its barter, is difficult to quantify. And besides, those I speak to on the Old World have more pressing concerns.”

  Harald considered this, wondering. “But tell me, can you find me a name?”

  Primaleon looked delighted. “I’m good at those—is it a Melius name?”

  Harald nodded. “A Melius name, adopted by one of my kind, long ago.”

  “Interesting. I would need access to my ledgers, of course, back in Baln—”

  He
pointed at the books. “These aren’t—”

  Primaleon chuckled, a horrible gasping sound. “Of course not. These are copies, light reading. You don’t think I’d bring my real books out here, do you?”

  Harald nodded, feeling foolish. He pictured the real books, probably in their hundreds, on a shelf in some dark Prism bank somewhere.

  “Very well. Go back to your books. Go back and find me a person named Jatropha.”

  Harald shuffled off to bed, climbing the ladder into his cupboard and pulling the dirty blankets over him. A light rain must have swirled down through the chill of the cave and pattered now on the tiles over his head. Harald eyed the ceiling in the dark, imagining it might be small, clawed feet, something that had found a way into the attic spaces of the place, and grinned.

  PART III

  MEADOWLANDS

  The woods were thinning, and with each step closer to their edge, Corphuso felt an equivalent lightness in his soul; a giddy anticipation of what awaited him, deeper down. Just ahead of him now the Amaranthine wandered, oblivious, feeling his way through the trees. Corphuso wondered what he would look like to the man—haggard, perhaps, maybe bloated and rubbery, like a body submerged too long in water.

  Before he knew it, he was within touching distance. Corphuso had long contemplated how he would announce himself, how he could possibly persuade the man to turn back. He opened his mouth to speak.

  At that very moment, the woods came to an end. The Amaranthine stopped short, staring, reaching out a shaking hand to steady himself, and all the words in Corphuso’s mouth dried up.

  A slope of sun-baked flowers dropped away beneath the woodland’s edge, extending into the heat haze of the early morning. Corphuso retreated a little, apparently still unnoticed, from the Amaranthine’s side, and gazed down the colossal slope. The drop, though gradual, was enormous, ending at a narrow strip of level ground before plunging away again into the haze. Vertigo dilated Corphuso’s pupils: if he fell, he’d roll for half a day. The place where the land levelled was almost lost to the murk, a pinkish country of meadows and glinting, sun-bright lines—distant roads, perhaps canals. The world’s sky rose gunmetal blue from a cream band of blurred horizon, cloudless at its heights and vaster than any sky Corphuso had ever seen before, as if this place were a hundred times larger than any world outside, and unhindered by the curve of a spherical planet. Squinting into the hazy distance, he could see continent after continent, the path through the meadows marching ever on.