by Jaine Fenn
The girl next to him pulled her first trick, a fat Yaziler, after an hour or so. She was walking off with him when he noticed a Luornai couple, only a bit older than him, watching him from across the Street. They made their way towards him slowly, then stopped a ways off and started murmuring to each other behind their hands. They had a guard in tow. Taro recognised the Luornai habit: they covered their mouths to show they were having a private conversation, while showing off their wealth - and from the looks of those jewelled hands, these two were loaded. He gave an exaggerated stretch, letting them get a good look at what was on offer. Then, finally, he looked in their direction. The girl, seeing him notice them, came over. With a nervous grin she said, ‘Do you do both? Boys and girls, I mean.’
Taro smiled back and suggested a starting price; they could discuss options. Her smile broadened.
As it turned out, they weren’t buying him just for sex: they wanted a real downsider, theirs for as long as they were willing to pay. They paraded past shops and bars, asking him all about life in the Undertow: Are Angels the only law down there? Is it true there are a million downsiders below our feet at this moment? Do you downsiders really eat your own shit? He gave them the answers they wanted to hear: Aye, an Angel’s word is law; no, we only live in the outer edges of the Undertow, where the vanes are thickest, and actually there’re fewer people downside than citizens topside; and no, we just eat mash, the fungus that grows on composted shit. They pulled faces at this last, and he resisted the temptation to ask what they thought topsider food was made from; it might look prettier, but it was still stuff someone else had already eaten. He showed them his flecks, the weapons created from the very substance of the Undertow, worn secreted at both wrists, both in homage to and in imitation of the Angels’ blades. They were offworlders; they had no idea that the colours in his hair meant he had Angel lineage, but they lapped up everything he told them.
When the time came to get their money’s worth they went down a sidestreet, setting their guard to keep watch at the entrance. The boy snorted a hit of his drug of choice and had Taro blow him while he leaned nonchalantly against the wall, the girl recording the details and giggling and groaning at the prime squalor of it all. When it was her turn she borrowed the guard’s cape to kneel on, so she didn’t get too much of that prime squalor on her lovely clean knees.
They paid well over the going rate, and he spent some of the scrip on a tepid pasty from a street-side dispenser. It didn’t help much; whatever Keron had given him had left him trashed, and the punters had taken the last of his energy. He spent more of his hard-earned cash on a pedicab ride back to the rimwards end of Soft Street. The pedicab rider was happy to take his money, but he still spat at his feet when he dismounted - an ever-popular insult: Topside, we get our water for free; you shit-eaters have to distil your own piss.
Taro found Keron at his table outside the bar, eating a bowl of spicy fries. He handed over the remaining notes, having stashed a third of his earnings.
‘Not bad, Taro. Not bad at all,’ Keron said.
‘Good enough to get the rest of the day off?’ It was still early afternoon but he’d made as much as most of the others would in a day.
Keron’s gaze flicked to the pocket in Taro’s faded black jacket. ‘Almost,’ he said.
Taro hesitated, then pulled out more bills. He had less than a quarter of the Luornais’ money left, but if he got the rest of the day free, it would be worth it.
Keron nodded slowly, and Taro was off.
Downside again, and free of topside gravity, he felt a little better, just a bit shaky and dull in the head now. He thought about swinging back via the gang’s homespace to pick up the piss-pot, in case that girl, Arel, hadn’t done her duty - then he realised his main reason for going back was to try and wrangle another fix, so he made himself carry on hubwards.
The narrow mazeway that led up to the water-trader’s door was almost as familiar as the entrance to his old homespace. He’d been bringing his piss-pot to Fenya for as long as he could remember. He’d played with her children when he was younger, and, at Malia’s nudging, had introduced Fenya’s shy youngest daughter to the mysteries of sex a couple of years back.
He rattled the piece of twine strung with bits of scrap metal and plastic that hung next to the door. A few seconds later a voice shouted out, ‘Who’s there?’
‘It’s Taro,’ he called. It felt odd, giving his name without the lineage title. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get used to that.
The rough slab of faded yellow plastic was pulled aside and the combined stink of piss and the heavy incense Fenya used to offset the smell billowed out.
Fenya herself stood in the doorway. Her face was pockmarked by childhood illness and lined by years of hard work, but she smiled, genuinely glad to see him. ‘Come in, dearie, come in. How’re you doing? I hear you’re with Limnel now.’
‘Aye - for now, anyway.’ Taro stepped into the water-trader’s large common-room. The un-netted floor-gap was big enough to support two large water-traps, both down at the moment, and the room had a dozen exits, some barred, some curtained off. Around the sides were piles of trade goods, stuff people brought to barter for water when they didn’t have piss to distil. Taro nodded to a scrawny old man wearing a loose-fitting, multi-coloured robe bent over an unlit firebox. ‘Actually, Fenya, I wanted to ask Federin something.’
Fenya snorted gently. ‘Good luck. He’s no use to anyone today. He’s meant to be fixing that firebox, but so far he’s hardly got further than taking the top-plate off. Federin! We have a visitor.’
The remembrancer looked up, blinked at Taro and went back to his work. He generally said little unless asked to call up facts from his great store of rememberings. Once that started there was no stopping him.
After a nod from Fenya, Taro went over to stand next to the old man. ‘Hoi there, Federin.’
Federin put down the broken firebox and sat back. ‘Good day to you, Taro,’ he said, looking grave. ‘’Tis a terrible thing, to pass with no deathfeast. Worse still for an Angel, beloved of the City.’
Taro didn’t need reminding about that. ‘Aye. It is. And that’s what I’m here to talk to you about.’
‘You want to know what I saw.’
‘I heard you met someone who shouldn’t’ve been there, the day Malia died.’
‘I saw her killer. No Angel, no downsider, even. A tourist. Yaziler, I’d say. I saw him go into your homespace. Fool that I was, I didn’t dare enter, not till I heard the shot. Then I pulled back the curtain. He saw me and changed his mind. He laughed as he pushed past me. He’d killed an Angel, and he laughed.’
‘Did you follow him? See where he went? Did you see anyone with him?’ Taro’s voice was shaking.
‘Follow him? No, I was too shocked to see an outsider down here, and in an Angel’s homespace, no less - I came into your homespace to find you lying there, no sign of your line-mother, just the blood on the nets. Did I see where he went? Rimwards, I’d say. Was he alone? I’m not sure, I think I heard him call to someone, quietly, asking something. But I may’ve imagined that.’
‘Thanks fer comin’ in when you did. You prob’ly saved me life.’ And Federin could confirm that the Screamer had been in Malia’s homespace, not that that would help Taro find him again. He drew a deep breath. ‘There’s somethin’ else you can help me with, if that’s all right.’
‘I’ll do what I can.’
‘I need to get to the Exquisite Corpse. I’m on a mission fer the Minister.’
The remembrancer nodded to himself, as though pleased to hear that the death of Taro’s line-mother hadn’t stopped him being part of the Concord.
‘D’you know how to get there, Federin? Can you show me?’
The remembrancer closed his eyes and dropped his hands onto his lap, palms up, the way he sat when he was calling up something complicated from his memory. He stayed like that for so long Taro wondered if he’d dropped off to sleep. Finally he opened his eyes,
leaned forward and picked up a twist of wire he’d been using to poke the innards of the firebox. He used the point to draw a circle on the sooty base of the firebox. ‘Aye, I know how to find the Exquisite Corpse. Our City,’ he started, by way of explanation. He drew two lines, cutting the circle into quarters, then scratched a small cross in the quarter nearest him. ‘Here we are.’ He made another mark, on the other side of the circle to the first, on the border between two quarters. ‘And there’s the Exquisite Corpse, on the border between the State and Merchant Quarters. And as we—’ He traced the way, keeping the wire just above the rough map. ‘—are back below the Leisure Quarter, that’s quite a journey.’
Taro opened his hand to span the distance. The Corpse was about a third of the way in from the rim, putting it right on the edge of inhabited territory. The journey there would be about half the diameter of the City, through unknown mazeways. Quite a journey, indeed, even when he was on top form. But this was the only lead he had to Nual. ‘Can’t be that bad,’ he said. ‘It ain’t much longer than walkin’ a single Street and I’ve—’
‘Aye, it is, much longer.’ The remembrancer knocked Taro’s hand away, pointing the wire back at the starting point, then flicking it to the right to take in the quarter sinwards of their location, the shortest route. ‘Can’t go that way. No mazeways under the State Quarter: no one living there to cut them. So,’ he brought the wire back and traced a route sunwise, ‘we cross the rest of the Leisure, into the Guest - fewer people there, so fewer mazeways and water-traps to navigate by - and into the Merchant that way.’
‘That’s a long way round. How ’bout I head fer the spine, just turn left when I run out of mazeways and keep circlin’ with it to me right?’
‘No! Do not think to trespass near the Heart of the City!’ Federin sounded agitated. The thin spine that impaled the disc of the City to Vellern’s surface was the Heart of the City, the place where the souls of the fortunate dead went after their flesh had been consumed.
‘All right I’ll try to avoid gettin’ too close to the Heart of the City,’ Taro promised.
‘I don’t ask you to believe, Taro, though I might’ve hoped, being an Angel’s child, you’d have more faith. But whatever your beliefs, you must know it’s not safe to approach the spine. All energy, all life, passes through that place, and to pass too close is to risk unbalancing all. Even to approach it is to risk your own death.’
Taro had heard tales of people burned by unseen light, like an Angel’s gun, for straying too near the spine - just tales perhaps . . . But maybe Federin’s worldview wasn’t so crazy: one of Taro’s clients had been an engineer who worked on reconstruction projects on the homeworld; she came to Vellern for her holidays. She had a plain face, a dumpy body and piss-all social skills, and Taro suspected he was the nearest she had to a regular boyfriend, but she seemed to know a lot about how stuff was put together. She was the one who’d told him about the water in the Gardens. She’d also explained how she thought the City worked: the forcedome kept the bad stuff on Vellern’s surface out and the air and water in. The spine somehow controlled the forcedome and kept the disc of the City stable. It also had something to do with power and recycling: Taro sort-of understood the concept of a closed system, though he was still a little hazy on what, other than an infinite supply of rich visitors, lay beyond the forcedome. And when she’d started using terms like ‘micro-fusion’, ‘gravitic compensation’ and ‘bio-electrical field generation’, he’d given up. After that she’d admitted all of this was just best guess - no one really knew how the City worked.
So maybe Federin’s explanation was as good as hers. He looked back at the remembrancer. ‘You tell me the route to take, an’ I’ll stick to it.’
‘Oh no, you’re on City business, for the Minister. Can’t trust an important mission to a boy barely able to recite his own lineage.’ Federin said firmly, ‘I’ll take you to the Exquisite Corpse.’
CHAPTER TEN
Elarn needed a drink. She had spent the morning rehearsing some of her more difficult pieces; covering wide vocal ranges to convey sacred ecstasy in a dead language required considerable discipline. Such discipline instilled calm.
She had managed to retain some of that calm during her visit to the infobroker, but finding nothing at all on Lia had come as a shock. Much as she would have liked to take the absence of any records to mean that the girl had never been in the City, it was more likely Lia had somehow managed to get the information erased. Those Elarn was forced to serve were certain their renegade had been here; they had even specified which of the Three Cities to check. If Lia had enough influence to get official records altered, then she might well still be here. Until and unless Elarn could prove the girl was no longer on Vellern, she must assume she was, and act accordingly. And for the next part of her plan, Elarn would need more than plainsong to keep herself centred.
During the pedicab ride back from the Merchant Quarter Elarn had seen an Angel striding through the crowds. From behind, the assassin was an imposing figure, tall and slender, her waist-length white hair and dark red cloak billowing out behind her. People in her path made way without hesitation, but she ignored them. As the pedicab passed the Angel, Elarn had glanced back, hesitantly, not wanting to risk eye contact. But the Angel wasn’t looking at her. She wasn’t looking at anyone; she moved like a purposeful ghost, gliding through the citizens and tourists without noticing them, her expression distant, cold - and somehow sad. That was the point at which Elarn had decided to give in to the urge for mild intoxication. She had passed several establishments that would have served her, on Talisman Street - a mix of antique and curio shops, offices and licensed cafés - and back on Lily Street, where several hotels advertised bars or restaurants open to non-residents. But she felt uncomfortable being out alone, even though the hotel staff had assured her she should be safe enough, so she decided to get a glass or three of something over-priced and alcoholic in the small bar-restaurant at the Manor Park, where she had eaten alone last night.
She was making her way across the plant-filled foyer of her hotel when the receptionist - mercifully human, a touch Elarn appreciated - called out, ‘Medame Reen, I have an—um, a package for you.’
Elarn stopped, puzzled, then walked over. The receptionist bent down and picked up a huge bowl of red and yellow flowers which he deposited on the desk in front of him. Elarn recognised some of the blooms as classic roses; others were more exotic. The smell made her nostrils flare with pleasure.
The receptionist peered round the arrangement. ‘It arrived a few minutes ago. Shall I have it sent up to your room?’
‘Yes, thank you—Wait!’ Elarn had spotted an envelope addressed to her at the base of the arrangement. She bent over to extract it. ‘I’ll just take this.’
She sat down in one of the comfortable chairs in the bar area and ordered a glass of Eiswein, the only alcoholic beverage she recognised on the list. There were no other guests in at this time of the afternoon and the waiter brought her drink at once. She took a sip: a good vintage, if served a little colder than usual. Finally she turned to the mysterious envelope. Her name was handwritten. She opened the envelope carefully and withdrew a piece of thick, cream-coloured notepaper. She read:Medame Reen,
Please accept these flowers as a small gesture of welcome after a less than auspicious start to your stay in our City.
I have managed to get a ticket for your performance at the Ares Rooms tonight, and I wondered if I might have the great pleasure of taking you to supper after the concert. No need to reply now, though if you need to contact me, my com tag is available on your room’s com unit - another presumption of mine, I fear.
With kind regards,
Salik Vidoran
Elarn read the note through twice, then took a large gulp of wine so she had something on which to blame the lightheadedness. She had been deeply affected by their encounter yesterday morning, and had been wondering whether he had meant what he said, about seeing her again - o
r even whether she should try to contact him. When the usual nightmare had awakened her in the night, the normal visceral terror amplified by recollections of the attempted mugging, she had clung to the memory of Salik Vidoran; when she awoke this morning she recalled more pleasant dreams featuring her chance encounter with the handsome Consul.
It looked like she had made an impression on him too.
The wisest course would be to keep a safe, polite distance . . . but Elarn was alone here, and out of her depth, and so far she’d been holding herself together using fear and willpower. If she found someone she could trust, an ally who knew the City’s ways, that might make the task ahead of her less daunting. She dared not let herself hope for too much, but the note had lifted her spirits.
It still took another glass of wine before she could bring herself to implement the next part of her plan.
She walked back to reception and asked, as casually as she could manage, if the receptionist could recommend somewhere to buy a gun.