by Jade Mere
As they neared, he caught sight of a pistol hanging at the side of a patrolwoman. She stood beside a man who examined everyone’s documents.
Not examined, scrutinized.
Sweat broke out across Tahki’s forehead. Did he look too Dhaulenian? Would his bronze skin give him away? He tried to remember if they still utilized the death penalty in Vatolokít and then wondered if he should run. He sat between an obese woman and a sleeping man. He might be able to push the man aside and get out the door, but how far could he go? Mountains surrounded them. He’d be lost or caught for sure.
When the carriage pulled up to the checkpoint, all the passengers handed over their documents. Tahki fumbled with his small blue paper, hesitated, then passed it over. He mouthed a silent mantra as the guard checked them. For the first time in ten years, Tahki prayed to the gods. He promised to never use foul language, to be kind to his brother and father, to meditate daily, to stop eating bull meat.
The man at the gate paused on his passport certificate. Tahki glanced at the door. Two patrol officers stood a few meters away. They could easily shoot him if he ran. He rubbed his wrist with shaky hands and made the gods more empty promises.
Finally, the man shoved the documents back inside the carriage and flagged them through. Tahki released a breath and let his head fall between his knees. The other passengers probably thought he was sick, but he didn’t care. All he cared about was that his plan had worked. He’d made it into Vatolokít all on his own.
He wondered what his father would think of him now.
TWO HOURS later, when volcanic rock turned to tundra and tundra turned into green hills, Tahki saw the blue gleam of the capitol building spire. It appeared suddenly on the horizon, dodging in and out of sight as they dipped down each hill, until the carriage came to a stop in a field just outside the city.
Tahki pushed out of the carriage and into the chill morning air. His nose filled with an earthy musk. The morning dew made his skin tingle. He took a deep breath and let the damp air fill his lungs. He didn’t know greens could look so green. The mountainous hills, the aspen and maple trees, the fields of grass that came to his knees, all flourished before him. He felt like he’d drifted into a dream.
A woman bumped his arm as she lumbered by, and he remembered only a few hours remained to register for the competitions. All the passengers had gone. He waited for his bags to be fetched, but no one brought them. The carriage driver left the storage trunk open. Tahki hadn’t ridden first class, so of course no one catered to him. He’d have to manage simple tasks on his own if he wanted to pass for a commoner.
He gathered his overstuffed leather bag, swung it over his shoulder, and then faced the street ahead. The citadel was the first thing his eyes settled on when he walked beneath the city gates. It looked exactly how he’d pictured in his mind, towering above everything. The blue spiral of the Innovation Hall glinted in the sun. Beyond the Innovation Hall lay the Calaridian Sea. Tahki could see the harbor to the left of the bazaar. Blue sails flecked the horizon, and white birds took flight. He didn’t have any interest in seeing the ocean up close, but he couldn’t wait to get a better look at the citadel. Other architects like him had stood in those halls and risen to greatness.
And now it was his turn.
The road mazed upward for a mile. Tahki had brought a map, but it was ten years out of date. He straightened his back and raised his head. He wanted to make himself look taller, more confident, like he knew where he was going. Everyone else seemed to know, and he didn’t want to look like a confused foreigner. He meant to make a good impression on everyone who laid eyes on him.
He set off, jogging lightly behind a group of heavyset women and men with thick furs on their backs, and tried to ignore the cramps in his legs. He walked beneath an arcade built off to the side of the road. The design was genius. Pedestrians didn’t have to negotiate the roads along with carts and carriages. They had their own separate walkway. Dhaulen’aii would never think to construct something like that.
Tahki felt dazed. He couldn’t take in the sights fast enough. He passed an amphitheater that had been converted into a bazaar. He’d never seen so many different skin tones together in one place. He could identify eastern and northern clothing easy enough, but some travelers wore strange shawls over their shoulders, or pointy wooden shoes, or tall black hats as shiny as a beetle’s back, and he wondered where they’d traveled from. The scent of damp leather and roasted pork washed over him, but he didn’t want to stop and explore until he secured a place in the architectural challenges.
Domes and archways covered the horizon, fountains and bridges and white pillars tucked beneath them. He could almost feel the invisible perspective lines that ran through the city. He looked up at the horizon where some architect had carefully plotted the vanishing points on paper before the city had been built. Tahki walked along the roads where the architect had connected line after line in an aesthetic, functional way. The homes and shops he passed were made of wood, stone, brick, and another material he couldn’t identify. Something hard and gray and seamless.
The city felt more like home than Dhaulen’aii ever had. He wished he could have grown up in a diverse, modern place like this. A city where the sewage system didn’t flood and the ground didn’t burn your feet. He wondered if his mother had felt the same spark of imagination when she’d visited.
He saw shops selling lightning rods and sextants, shops selling pistols and portable meat-smoking chambers. The chambers had only been invented two years ago. He’d read about the meat cooker in the paper and begged his father to import one, but his father hadn’t seen the point of it. He hadn’t seen the point of most technological advancements.
Tahki reached the entryway of the citadel, out of breath from the hike, shoulder rubbed raw where the leather strap cut into him. By this time of day, temperatures back home would have been unbearable. But here, the cool, salty breeze off the ocean brushed the hair from his eyes. He should have cut his hair before he left. It grew below his ears now and partway down his neck.
He stopped in front of a gold cat statue, the emblem of Vatolokít. It looked at least twenty feet tall, and he had to crane his neck to see the top. A powerful country like Vatolokít should have had something like a saber shark or a redclaw bear to represent it, not a silly house cat.
He caught his breath, and then his eyes settled on a sign below the statue. It had been painted with large red letters that read: Help Our Guards Keep The City Safe. Report Suspicious Figures.
Tahki stared.
Was he a suspicious figure? Was the sign meant to ward off illegal foreigners? People who walked by glanced at him. Had they been looking at him the entire time? He’d been too caught up in the city to notice. Surely he didn’t stand out. People from all over the world attended the fair. He spoke perfect Vatolok, the world language. One good thing that came from his father’s work as an ambassador: they spoke Vatolok more than they spoke his native tongue at home. He’d spoken it fluently since age seven.
“Tourists, walk on the left,” a woman called over the crowd. “Vendors, you’re on the first floor. Exhibitors, if you haven’t registered, do so here. Already registered? Second floor!” She stood behind a bleached wood table and spoke in an authoritative voice to groups of burly women with greasy blonde hair. “No, sir,” she said to a red-bearded man. “You want the medical advancement competitions. Second floor.”
Tahki stood in line to register. A group of young people stood in front of him, three boys and two girls around his age. He thought he’d be the youngest person to enter. One of the girls in front of him hardly looked fifteen, which disappointed him for some reason. He considered asking them what area they’d be entering in, but something about the group appeared unfriendly. They stood close to one another, all of them ghostly pale. From the look of their tight leather clothing, he guessed they lived in the city.
One of the girls, a redhead with glossy pink lips and thin eyebrows, caught sight
of him, but instead of giving him a friendly smile or saying hello, she stuck her neck forward and whispered something to her group. Two of the boys glanced back at him.
And then they all snickered.
Tahki frowned. The line moved up. The group eyed him again with amusement. He had no idea what they found so funny. He’d purchased new clothing in Swikovand: a boring gray coat, black pants, and boots. He hadn’t bathed since he left home, but the smell from the animal exhibit would mask any off-putting scent.
The line moved up again. The group glanced back. Whisper, snicker.
Tahki pulled his designs from his bag and pretended to sort through them. Thankfully, the group registered quickly. As they walked away, however, the redhead brushed past him and said, “Nice earrings.” And then she vanished into the crowd.
Tahki moved his hands to his ears. The higher class in Dhaulen’aii always wore small gold hoop earrings. It was tradition. A sign of wealth and authority. But here, there seemed to be something amusing about them. Some inside joke he didn’t get.
“Next,” the woman behind the table said.
Tahki snapped off his earrings and stepped forward.
“Conceptual or working?” the woman said.
“What?”
She spoke slower, louder. “What area are you entering?”
Tahki didn’t know, so he held out his designs.
“Conceptual Architecture,” she said without hesitation. She hadn’t commented on the quality or skill of his designs. He thought they would have impressed her. Instead, she handed him a tag that read: Entry Level 5. Conceptual Architecture. Assn: 28. Then she told him where to go.
As he walked toward the atrium, he tossed his earrings into a waste bin.
Though the days of constant travel left him exhausted, he felt jittery. He’d made it across the border and secured a spot in the competitions. All he had to do now was win.
A row of royal guards stood outside the open doorway to the atrium. He tried not to look their way, but as he passed, one of the guards broke the line and walked a little ways behind him.
He ignored the guard.
He walked inside the atrium, a spacious courtyard enclosed entirely by glass. The Innovation Hall lay beyond. The structure stood five stories tall, a museum for sixteenth-, seventeenth-, and a new wing for eighteenth-century historical inventions. The curators had stored the permanent installments to make room for the temporary exhibits.
Fairgoers crowded around a stone pool to eat and rest. Carts selling goosechik legs and meat horns and grape cider filled the first floor. The exhibits were on the second floor. Tahki wanted to stop and admire the structure, but then he noticed the guard had turned up the same staircase.
And he’d gotten closer.
Once upstairs, Tahki followed the red carpets to a room with a sign out front that read Transportation Design. Though he was eager to get to his table, one exhibit caught his eyes. A man named Thomisan Corrine had built a prototype he called a steam locomotive. It smelled like oil and grease and looked like someone had taken every kind of scrap metal they could find and mashed it together. Using something as common as steam to make something so great fascinated him. The sign said they’d be powering up the locomotive for a demonstration later. He’d read about Thomisan Corrine’s work and wanted to meet the man, maybe exchange design ideas.
He could have spent another hour examining the mechanism, but the guard entered the room, his eyes scanning the crowd until they found Tahki.
Tahki retreated. A sign for Conceptual Architecture pointed left, but he turned right instead, into the largest showroom labeled Weapon Advancement.
The guard followed.
Tahki stopped, pretended to lose his way, and then turned back the way he’d come.
The guard turned back too.
Tahki took a detour right.
The guard shadowed him.
He made a loop down the hallway.
So did the guard.
His heart pumped fast, and his palms started to sweat. Lightheadedness overtook him, and his stomach clenched. Finally, having nowhere else to go, he entered the room designated for architecture. In the center, a gold-and-teal globe the size of a carriage spun inside a fountain. He stopped at the fountain and pretended to sort out his papers.
The guard approached him.
Tahki felt heat rise to his face. His arms shook as he shuffled his papers.
“Pardon me,” the guard said in a gruff voice. It wasn’t a friendly greeting, more the kind of greeting someone says out of habit.
Tahki turned. “Me?”
“I need to see your documentation.” The guard was a stout man with curly black hair peeking out beneath a silver helmet. His lower lip jutted out a little too far, and he breathed in heavy gasps. He reminded Tahki of the fat dumb oxen back home.
Tahki considered running. He might be able to make it out of the atrium, but where would he go? He’d come so far. No half-witted guard would ruin his chance at fame.
He rummaged through his bag and shoved his documents into the guard’s thick hands. The guard scrutinized them, pulled out a pen, and made a few marks on a tablet he carried. For a brief moment, Tahki thought of the invasive way the servants had touched all his things when they cleaned out his room.
“Weather nice in Lapanrill?” the guard said.
“Nice enough.”
The guard grunted. “How long do you plan to stay in the capital city?”
“Three days. The duration of the fair.”
The guard squinted at him. “Your skin’s a little dark to come from such a cloudy country.”
“My parents are south islanders.”
“Lapanrill’s nicer than the islands, is it?”
“They pay better wages.”
The guard rubbed his tongue against his teeth and then gave Tahki a slow look up and down. The way his eyes lingered made Tahki feel dirty, like he needed to wash himself. His gut pinched. No one back home would dare look at him so pointedly. But there was something else behind the critical look. Something dangerous. Something that made him want to bolt from the room and get far away.
But then the guard pushed the documents back at his chest. “Lots of unwelcome foreigners try to sneak into the fair every year. Filthy birds, they are. Some steal designs. Others have been known to sabotage displays. You see any funny behavior, you come to me straight away, you hear?”
Tahki clenched his jaw. He couldn’t help but take the “filthy birds” comment personally. He felt the guard had singled him out because of his skin color.
Still, he managed a polite, tight-lipped smile. The guard gave him an indignant sniff and tromped away.
TAHKI’S LEGS stopped shaking from his encounter when he found an empty table to display his designs. The red-haired girl with too-glossy lips from registration took the table beside his. She didn’t seem so intimidating without her friends around, but when she looked at him with a repressed smile, he felt embarrassed. He shouldn’t have taken off the earrings. It only made things worse.
He tried to ignore her, but she inclined her head his way. For a moment she was quiet. Maybe seeing his designs would put her in her place. Tahki pretended not to watch. After a moment, she sat back in her chair.
“Nice designs,” she said in the same sarcastic tone as before.
There was a specific word for people like her in the Vatolok dialect. Tahki had used it once on a clumsy servant years ago and had been grounded for two weeks when his father heard. But he wouldn’t give in to her taunts again. He’d make her eat her words when he took first place.
Tahki arranged his designs on the table, being sure his signature was displayed proudly on each sheet. He’d used his first name but changed his last. Then he grabbed some kind of white bird meat from one of the vendors and gobbled it down. It was so bland he could barely taste it, like it had been boiled beyond recognition. He didn’t see a single vendor with any kind of spice rack. He also purchased a jug of strawberry c
arbonated water. Normally he didn’t like sweet things, but the fizz tickled his nose in a refreshing way. When he finished, he wanted to get another, but a gong chimed in the hallway.
Judging was about to begin.
Chapter 3
TAHKI DIDN’T care about the prizes. He only wanted recognition, so he didn’t bother checking the prize list. He returned to his table and straightened his schematics. He placed the design for the temple in the front. It might have fallen apart, but that had been due to poor construction. The design was still one of his best. He really should have thanked Sornjia for saving it.
The architecture exhibit room fit thirty six-foot tables along its edges. Behind the fountain globe, in front of a panel of windows that gave a magnificent view of the cliffs, a stage had been built. In the center of the stage, an oil painting of a woman sat on a pedestal.
Tahki squinted.
A gold plaque below the painting read “Queen Genevi.” He should have recognized her. He’d seen drawings of her in the papers. She was a pale woman with a fierce expression. Her hand rested on a slender gold cat with a blue face. She held herself straight and tall. Even in a painting, she had an air of command about her, an authoritative presence. She looked like she could take down a redclaw bear with a single blow. The last three rulers of Vatolokít had all been women, known as the Remarkable Three, but Queen Genevi had developed a ruthless reputation. She had been the one who’d closed the borders.
He wasn’t sure if he felt relief or disappointment at her absence. He would have loved to meet the woman who so passionately encouraged industrial growth. But had he seen her fierce gaze in person, he might have thought twice about entering.