“The Recorder…”
Overhearing, Misling stepped from the terrace and knelt beside Ring.
Ring licked his lips again and nodded, “I need you to listen. You have to get me to the Augur. When we’re there, everything will make sense. It’s important, just believe me on that.”
Misling watched him carefully, with a look of anxiety and perhaps suspicion. His was a function of obeying and assuming second place, of complying quietly and sitting when told to sit and standing when told to stand. Something of substance was crusting over in his experiences and taking form. The purpose for his life was to record it.
“No.”
Sylhauna’s eyes clicked onto the Recorder again, for it wasn’t a decision she’d anticipated; and Ring hadn’t expected to be refused.
“No more. One question, one straight and direct answer.”
The bullhorns and tanks were directly below them, screeching and clanking. The amplified voice warned of going outside and of subversion; and it warned of even looking out to the street, to lock windows and doors. It warned of retaliation.
Ring stared at the Recorder, who was unmoved by the actions of the watchmen below. He squinted his eyes shut in an attempt to clear his vision and shook his head, then blinked several times before looking again at Misling. This was discordant to those accustomed to what Recorders should be, to those who’d seen them standing alone in the corners of funerals or behind a desk as legal documents were signed, trotting alongside wealthy children in their bright jumpers…to those who’d been taught to ignore Recorders as a transparent functionary of society with no opinions and certainly no will all their own. Here was one who demanded. It was maddening.
“Shut off those lights!” Lennox’s voice sounded from the other room, shouting yet still in a whisper. Sylhauna glanced in his direction, but ignored it overall.
“I’m losing.” Ring’s voice was weakening, softer like he was starting to dream, like he watched dark fairies pleading for him to follow.
“No more.” The Recorder’s eyes were tearing up again. He sniffed.
Cristoffel patted Ring’s forehead and stroked some hair from his eye, “Needs to sleep.”
“He can’t. He’ll wake up and try to kill us all. That’s what happens.”
She glanced at Sylhauna, “Stop saying that. He’s badly hurt and needs to rest. He probably needs blood too.”
“Will you hold to your promise?”
“Shut off those lights!” Lennox raised his urgency, as it had become clear the tanks were no longer moving. They were right outside the terrace opening, down two floors on the street. The bullhorn voice kept on, warning of sudden moves and of not dealing with strangers.
Ring licked his lips again, reluctantly eyeing Misling with irritation, “I don’t have a lot of time.”
Misling leaned in urgently, his eyes still wet and sparkling in the terrace light, “At the airpark, when this Recorder was awaiting his package, you were watching from the steps. Already watching, there is no doubt of that. You may have noticed him by chance because he was looking back perhaps or from the novelty of a Recorder’s sigil, and thought of fame…or maybe you did not disembark from the ship at all but rather had been hiding from sight, waiting.”
Misling awaited a reaction or perhaps gathered his Record, more closely examining what Ring’s expression had been there on the airpark tower. Ring only looked back, blankly.
“When you followed to the market, your incitement of the crowd was an act of whim, perhaps with a hope to impress your amusement into the Record…or you were surveiling the market for its security.”
Bullhorns outside were becoming louder, more focused. Ring’s eyes followed the jagged track of a dripping tear on the Recorder’s cheek, sliding down to his lips.
“When this Recorder left you at Balcister…”
Sylhauna inhaled sharply at the mention of the tower. Cristoffel followed little of this. Ring’s own face was sallow and swollen, but clear of acknowledgement one way or the other.
“…you could have had interest in experiencing Balcister for the first time as many do when they come to the city…or you desired to meet with confederates and inspect the building prior to an attack. There were people in the alley.”
Lennox escalated his voice, clearly becoming more frightened, “Shut up in there! They’re going to come up because of the noise and the lights! Shut up!”
Misling watched Ring’s eyes, his expressions, discerning clues to decide the matter in some favor. As only a Recorder can, he evaluated Ring’s tone and body language not only now, but in those other times as well with equal clarity. “What you knew of Farmilion was personal and betrayed details you could not have known. The street man, Kensi…his arrival was a matter of chance along his…patrol…and you were attacked viciously, or you were truly expected to meet up with Red Witch agents at sunrise as he suggested, suffering a betrayal instead from one who would have your position at the Blackening.”
Cristoffel stood and stepped closer to the terrace, though still out of the shadows. She wanted to see why the noises outside had just then and quite suddenly gone silent.
“Ask him, then!”
Cristoffel leaned closer into the soft ambient streetlight, her young face gently painted by pink and yellow from the lamps and signs outside. No tank noises. No bullhorn. Yet they had not left.
“Did you have anything to do with the destruction of Balcister Tower? Answer it clearly and without dodging the query’s intent.”
Ring hesitated. He looked at the tray ceiling and inhaled slowly and weakly with the trembling wheeze of painful breaths.
“Guys, shut off the lights.” Cristoffel waved her hand to gain attention for her directive. “They’re watching us.”
None spoke at that point. Neither did they step or move their hands for a moment. Cristoffel at last leaned gently into the terrace again and peered over the limestone balusters. A long deadly time settled upon them while they waited for something to change. Cristoffel was first to whisper because she’d seen something.
“The soldiers. They’re looking up here through scopes.”
The only noises to be heard in the apartment were the rush of fans and an animal somewhere howling in the distance for scraps. Here was a frightening uncertainty and a sad realization that the awful weapons of war were aimed at the great city like a butcher’s knife turned inward. Tanks and riflemen and unattended flames on Alson’s streets weren’t visuals anyone imagined there, not to those who’d strolled along the covered walks or snuck unseen to private outlooks on the gabled rooftops or laid idly about the fountains in Balcister Plaza. It was sober and had the feeling of a nameless doctor saying there was no hope, that time was short and nothing but pain remained.
After some time, the bullhorn sounded again and warned of staying inside, of retaliation. The tanks clanked and screeched at last; and the noises muffled slowly and drained away as the procession continued down streets further away.
They each looked at one another, fear and panic in their eyes, till the Recorder leaned back into Ring’s face, unrelenting, “One question. One straight and direct answer.”
Ring looked at the Recorder with some regret and pain, took a deep breath again, “She didn’t threaten you, Misling. The little girl in the field. She didn’t say anything like what you thought she said.”
The Recorder’s face rumpled in surprise, his eyes blank, “What?”
“Just a little girl. Probably said something about your forehead. You heard something else because…” He grunted as he combated searing pain. “…because you’ve got memories sealed you can’t unlock. Nothing to do with Farmilion…something really sealed you don’t even realize. It’s a security thing…an alarm.”
“How do you know this?”
“Get me to the Augur…” Ring’s voice was trailing, signaling defeat.
“Answer directly. Did you have anything to do with Balcister?”
Ring locked eyes with the
Recorder, “I don’t know. Maybe. I really don’t know.”
The Recorder was dazed, off his hard line because of the distraction of this new information. Perhaps it was nothing and a diversion. Perhaps it was a key to everything. He couldn’t have said. In fact, he decided something different all together.
“Then enjoy your rest!”
Like lightning, the Recorder raised himself and spun towards the mog vehicle Cristoffel had parked on the terrace and clambered inside. He was instantly fumbling with controls inside, swiping his fingers across simulated buttons and slider bars with a death-grip on the joystick beside his knee. He could have been funny in his helpless urgency were it not for the understanding that his sponsor was possibly buried under Balcister’s ruins.
“Hey!” Cristoffel bared her teeth and made to stop him; but Sylhauna beat her to the mog’s door to block the way.
“Easy. I’ve got him.”
She pushed against Sylhauna, confused, “No. No, you almost fell off the wall last time! Look, you can come back for a little while; but this is all too much to ask. Get these guys out of here; and get out of my way. He’s not taking that mog anywhere.”
Misling managed to flash a blinding white headlight and turn on the air conditioning looking for the vortex engine’s engagement sequence. Lennox was shout-whispering again from the other room.
“Stop it in there! Shut up; and get out!”
Sylhauna’s voice was urgent, “He’s lost someone at Balcister. I can take him there. Nothing bad will happen; and we’ll stick to the rooftops. No one will see us.” She leaned back, still fending off Cristoffel to guide Misling’s fingers to the proper screen on the projected controls, pointing at a large black throttle symbol.
“Stop helping him rob me. Get out of the way!” The heavy machine hum of the vortex engine spinning up sounded, eliciting greater intensity from Cristoffel.
“Cris, I need you to back off. We have to help him.”
Cristoffel examined Sylhauna’s eyes with a familiarity, with perhaps a sense of having heard something much like this before, at least in the urging and drama of it all, and having given in then as well. There was something to her voice, to the way she was standing up like this, to the idea of helping this stranger, that fleshed the idea with significance much like an event might feel should it have been dreamed or spoken of beforehand. She weakened her grip and took a step back.
“’Hauna, this isn’t a puppet show full of daffodil fairies. Those guys in the tanks – they’ll shoot you. They will, I promise. Because they’re scared.”
“Well so am I, Cris; but we have to help him.”
Cristoffel’s voice sharpened, “Why? How long have you known him? He’s like a freaking robot – who is he to you?”
Sylhauna’s face went cold at that, “You remember our first week here…with him?” She motioned toward Lennox’s room. Cristoffel’s squinted her dark eyes, indicating perhaps she did indeed and held no love for the memory. Sylhauna’s curly hair formed a serpentine coil laying across her right eye; and her tone was more solemn than perhaps Cristoffel had known before this.
“That feels like a really long time ago; and he’s not even that scary anymore. I don’t even dream about him now. But this one here with his silly tattoo and his stupid way of talking about himself…with him, things like that never go dim. If he lives it, he always lives it..even other people’s versions. And he’s living it right now. So we’re gonna show him some kindness; and we’re gonna help him find his friend. And whatever junk that guy in there’s been putting in your head, you need to forget! In fact, you’re going because I don’t know how to drive this thing; and I don’t know how to get to the Plaza anyway!”
Cristoffel was surprised at what she was hearing; and she honestly didn’t look to know what to do at that point. She looked at Misling, who was still as a rock by then, maybe as interested in Sylhauna’s passion as the rest of them. It just wasn’t what any of them were expecting from her. His expression was that of a boy who’d broken something.
“Well I’m not taking him.”
Sylhauna bared her teeth and held out her hands as if squeezing a coconut between them, “Yes you are. Get in. Help him get to the Plaza and stay hidden. Do it!”
Cristoffel watched Sylhauna, then took another look at the Recorder and Ring, trying to understand what it was here among them that was bringing out this woman before her. It took a minute or two of locked eyes and just trying to frame out in her mind what was happening before she at last, with a resigned shake of her head, motioned for Misling to slide over in the swivelseat of the mog.
“Move over. And don’t touch anything.”
Ring was seated at this point, trying to stand but only observing. He’d been saying something about the Augur, about not going to Balcister; but no one had heard him. Lennox was desperately whispering from his bedroom, equally ignored. Sylhauna only stepped back another pace, her eyes shining.
The mog’s articulated legs raised to position its flighted wheels on an illuminated limestone cornice; leading it ultimately to the outside stone-clad walls of the building as the vortex clung tightly. Misling and Cristoffel swung sharply in the seat as it unlocked and the vessel’s orientation shifted. Misling raised a solitary hand, looking back to Sylhauna as if to say thank you. She watched them as long as they could be seen, darting quickly across and up the outside walls to disappear over a green copper dome, the sound of the vortex engine fading. When she turned to see the man with whom she’d sailed the cornfields, he was cold and asleep.
15 INTERLUDE: THE PAIN SELLER
“You have no idea what you’re doing. Is this even how it works?” An arm-length soapstone carab figurine cocked at an angle within the supplicant’s lap chided the man as he sat cross-legged on an overstuffed cushion desperately staring at a haunting fresco as if it were a hearth. The supplicant only glanced at the figurine coldly, perhaps unused to speaking with statues and perhaps agreeing with it.
Honeycombed within the subterranean reaches beneath the Augur’s unearthly temple was a series of stark apartments such as this, intended for those seeking audience. The only ornament apart from a glass bowl brimmed with illuminated glass spheres was an incredibly intricate full length fresco on the far wall upon entering, painted in swaths of bright lemon and orange and peach. He would have remained in such an apartment staring at the image, the slender tall boy with the eyes of a very old man, for probably weeks awaiting the call to the Augur’s terrible presence.
“I will not be ignored.” The carab man laughed, sputtering like an old man who’d choked on his spit.
The supplicant inhaled slowly, then upturned a warm bottle of sana, the color of juniper and frothy at the surface. He swallowed with a scowl for he didn’t like the taste, then shoved it back into a hollow between cushions. He stretched open his eyelids and blinked hard a couple of times because he’d lacked sound sleep for some time, then he stood and examined the image from very close up, leaving the carab setting sideways on the cushion.
“Please be quiet.”
The false man rolled its milky stone eyes, “Make up your mind.”
He traced the youth’s frescoed chin to its neck with his fingertip, and leaned in closely. It was an unearthly boy and a very old image. Its eyes were sparkling and dark, tender but wise and the face in some eerie way, wicked. It was a young face, a god of wine and madness full of mischief, painted sharply with such realism as to set one’s back tingling and give a feeling of being watched in turn. As was common to all references for emanations, the image’s long fingers had no fingernails – a nuance kept as tradition from the days when emanations walked the streets in wide liberty and such visual cues were important to sort one’s standing with whom one was speaking. A sliver of the illustrated stone wall came off in his hand, betraying the wall’s age. He crumbled it to a crunchy powder within his fingers and let it fall like a mist to the floor.
There was a squeak from the corridor, which he ignored or
perhaps didn’t hear at all in his depth of concentration.
He touched the image’s crisp white eyes, “You don’t scare me.”
More sputtering from the stone man, “That’s just a picture, big boy. When you’re standing at the Circle it’s a whole different meatball. You’re not gonna make it!”
The supplicant turned to gauge the carab’s expression, pointlessly. Hadn’t he himself said that, since the figure’s life was only imagined? “You’re confusing me. What could you know that I don’t?”
The carab man hummed disgust, though the statue looked suddenly empty and as it had been when the attendants handed it to him on his arrival, “Loser.”
It was at that point the squeak sounded again, a high pitched honking that sounded somewhat like a rusting cart in the corridor. It may have been happening all along, it would have been hard to say. Either way, it was inappropriate. The supplicant could see nothing beyond his doorway to explain it.
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