Osiris

by E. J. Swift

  Outside, there was nothing but a vacuum.

  He said, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the coughing.”

  “Stars, it’s nothing.”

  “I’ve got City medicine. I’ll give you some.”

  “It’s not serious.”

  The lie hung between them, Vikram not knowing what to say, Nils clearly wishing the issue closed. Instead, Vikram asked, “What are they going to do with Adelaide?”

  “It’s up to Maak. He’s in charge.”

  Vikram could not see Nils’s face, but he heard the tension in his voice.

  “Pekko wants her dead, doesn’t he?”

  “It’s not Pekko’s decision. If Maak has any sense, he’ll strike a real bargain. We could get a lot out of that girl. We got you out of jail because of her, didn’t we?”

  “And what if Pekko doesn’t listen to Maak?”

  Nils’s silence was all the answer Vikram needed.

  / / /

  He lay awake through the hours of Pekko’s watch and then through Drake’s. Pekko fell asleep, his breathing quick and even. Drake got up and went on patrol. Vikram’s mind wandered. He found himself revisiting the ships rusting away in the harbour, all the expedition boats that had left Osiris, years before he was born. For the first time it struck him as peculiar that none of them had ever come back. Not a single one.

  The Rechnovs had a secret. What if no-one was meant to leave? What if “Whitefly” was the key to enforcing that?

  The wind moaned and rattled the boards in the window-wall. He shook aside the thought. It was only ghosts whispering in his ear. Their malice was childish.

  Drake returned. He watched her face, tinged red with the glow of the heater. She huddled over it, her hands resting on her knees and her chin upon her hands.

  “What time is it?” he muttered.

  “About half four. Get some sleep, Vik.”

  “I can’t. My mind’s too awake. D’you remember the story of the last balloon flight, Drake?”

  She gave him a tired smile. He sensed she had been lost in her own thoughts. Perhaps now was not the time for his. “The one Keli talks about. Yeah, I remember. It’s not a good story though, really, is it.”

  “No. I guess not.”

  He lay back once more, watching a drop of moisture form on the ceiling until it fell onto the heater with a hiss. Even though the plaster was crumbling and the tower was falling apart, the sight of the water did not fill him with horror as it had done in the cell. For the first time, he felt the full relief of his escape.

  I’d rather die than go back.

  “Keli said the balloon would appear one day,” said Drake softly. “A huge, bright, striped balloon, floating through the sky.”

  She fell silent again. He noticed the lapse into the past tense, as though Drake was too tired to pretend any longer, to offer respect because respect could not restore the dead.

  He glanced across at Nils and Ilona. They slept side by side, Nils’s arm hugging Ilona’s tiny body tightly against him.

  But if I can’t go back, then there’s something I have to do.

  Vikram got up and stepped stealthily around the sleeping bodies of the others.

  “Drake. I need to see Adelaide.”

  Drake’s eyes darted towards the door, towards the room where Adelaide was being held. She looked back at him and her forehead was creased.

  “Vik—”

  “It’s alright,” he said quietly. “I know.”

  He slipped away before she could protest.

  / / /

  He turned the handle and pushed it open. The sour smell of confinement wafted out.

  “Close your eyes,” he said. “I’m going to switch on the torch.”

  There was no reply. He could not tell if she was awake or asleep. He flicked on the torch. She was in a foetal position, her face hidden as it had been before. Her wrists were tiny in the ring of the handcuffs and the joints of her hands were swollen. He felt a surge of pity.

  “Adelaide. I’ve brought you a light. And something to eat.”

  No response. He moved the beam of the torch directly upon her.

  “It’s Vikram,” he tried.

  He shut the door and put the torch on the ground. He knelt in front of Adelaide to set down the two flasks he had brought. She looked to be carved out of stone.

  He touched her arm lightly and she shuddered. A sigh of relief escaped him. She was still alive. Now he needed her conscious.

  “Adelaide. Look at me, if you can.”

  Still she gave no answer, so he took her shoulders and turned her towards him. Her head drooped. He pushed aside the tangled hair. Her eyes were slits. Vikram brought the flask of water to her lips and dribbled a little into her mouth. She gasped and began to shake.

  “Woke me,” she mumbled. “Woke… me…”

  “You need to drink,” he ordered. “Water first. Open your mouth.” He tilted the flask once more. “Swallow. Good.”

  He saw the effect of the liquid with every drop. She had been lapsing into hypothermia. It was lucky she had City clothes, ripped and filthy but locking in some crucial insulation. Next, he took the flask of broth. She choked on the first mouthful. Her eyes sprang open, suddenly bright. She glared at him. He knew that glare. He had seen it in other people, in westerners, in visitors to the shelter; the helpless defiance of the already defeated. He pushed the flask mercilessly against her mouth.

  “Drink. If you don’t drink this your body is going to shut down and you’ll collapse. You mustn’t go to sleep. You have to stay alert.”

  “Nothing… keep me awake.”

  “I won’t leave you on your own again. You’re getting sick.”

  He examined her properly, with a curious sense of reversal. Had Adelaide’s brother looked at Vikram with this same, scientific scrutiny? Assessing his body’s deterioration, its potential for one final surge of activity? The skin around her eyes was shiny and tender, but her face had lost weight. With her bone structure newly close to the surface, she had the freakish beauty of the otherworldly.

  He took a bit of wire he’d found on the floor from his pocket and inserted it into the handcuff lock. It took only a minute to release them. He massaged her wrists to revive the circulation. She winced. He took an adrenalin syringe out of its plastic packaging and rolled up her sleeve. He found a vein in the crook of her elbow, inserted the needle, squeezed the fluid out.

  “My leg got hurt.”

  He looked down. Her trousers had ripped and there was a six inch gash down her calf. The surrounding flesh was swollen with infection.

  “Went through... a bridge...”

  Shit, he thought. That would slow her, if she got the chance to run. But he said nothing, dug out a couple of the antibiotic pills from the nurse’s bag and pushed them between her lips. He put the water flask into her hands and to her mouth again. Water trickled down her chin. She wiped it away. The gesture took a long time.

  “Why did you come here?” he said. It sounded harsher than he had meant.

  She blinked.

  “What—what is—this place?”

  “It’s the unremembered quarters.”

  She put down the flask. The adrenalin would take effect soon. Her pulse would quicken. Darts of pain would spark in her limbs as sensation returned alongside full consciousness. He had experienced it many times; it would be new to her.

  “Why did you come?” he repeated.

  She wrapped her arms once more around her body. “Cold.”

  “I know. Adelaide—”

  “Why did I come. To the west, you mean. To your city.”

  “It was madness,” he said roughly.

  “Then I came because I’m mad.” She attempted a smile. He saw a bead of blood forming on her lips where the skin had flaked and cracked. He took her right hand and began to knead her muscles through the fabric of the glove. He worked steadily up the arm, towards her shoulder.

  “There’s no point in playing games now.” He
kept his voice even.

  “Then let me out of here, and stop… talking to me.”

  “I can’t let you out. You’re the only leverage they have.”

  “They?”

  His eyes flicked to hers. “We.”

  “I’m not sure you’re so sure.”

  Vikram’s thumbs paused. “Those people out there have been my life. Whatever’s happened, I owe them mine and everything that’s part of it.”

  “I suppose my father made you a good offer.”

  “I didn’t see Feodor. I saw Linus.”

  “Even better. Don’t tell me it hasn’t played on your mind. Especially here. There’s only death here. And cold. So cold. You don’t like the cold, Vik.”

  The abbreviation dropped from her mouth, easily, a little sadly. How hard it is, he thought, to let go the trappings of intimacy. He knew this girl; he knew the patterns of her skin beneath the dirt, the conundrum of freckles. He knew the hiccups in her breathing cycle. He knew the smell of her, as though she was made from sea-stuff, as she would one day return to it. He knew that in the aftermath of a nightmare, her eyelids flew open and she would stare at the ceiling, oxygen stopped in her lungs, before she let go the breath.

  They knew each other’s loss. That was what had drawn them together; two spirits reaching into the past, whose fingertips had touched in searching.

  Adelaide was shivering. Vikram’s hands had stopped moving, circling her upper arm. He let her go.

  “I’m used to the cold,” he said.

  “You told me you like fire. Love fire, you said.”

  “I told you a lot of things I shouldn’t have.”

  Adelaide lifted her eyes to his. They were bright with moisture, like oysters glistening in their shells.

  “Shame,” she said softly. “I thought perhaps you were going to bust me out after all.”

  “We need you,” he said. “You’re too valuable.”

  Again she smiled, and the bead of blood spread. He suppressed the impulse to wipe it away.

  “Don’t overestimate me. I’m as much use to them dead as I am alive. Not the best ending for the Rechnovs, two children down, but I’d become a martyr. They’re very marketable. And then other people would do other things, and gradually, they’d forget me. There’s always someone to come after.”

  There was no doubt as she spoke; her tone was absolute certainty. She tilted her head to one side, looking at him as though curious to know if there could be any opposition. Single-minded, but always sure. If he loved one thing about her, it must be that. He inhabited a world of greys and doubts, a world that constantly shrank and receded. Adelaide held it still. She had made herself blinkered because she refused to look at alternatives.

  Except in coming here.

  “Why did you come, Adelaide?”

  “I don’t think, Vikram, that you truly wish to know. Things weren’t so… agreeable… between us, when we parted last.”

  “What did you expect?” he flashed. “I was sent underwater because of you. You can’t understand what it does to you, that place.”

  “I tried to get you out,” she insisted.

  “You had no chance. Your own family locked you up, you were fooling us both. You’re an idiot.”

  A slow dripping in the corner reminded him of time ticking down.

  “I’m cold,” said Adelaide.

  He pulled her against him, wrapping his arms around her, resting his chin on her head. One of her hands curled around his wrist. She was too weak for tricks. He was holding what was left of Adelaide Mystik. Or Adelaide Rechnov, or whoever she was. She felt fragile, strangely malleable, and tense all at once. She felt like the scent of dried roses.

  Instinctively, he tightened his arms.

  “That better?”

  “I was never this cold before. You were, weren’t you.”

  “Yes. Yes, I’ve been this cold. Lots of times.”

  He had told himself there was a way out, a way to save her and to save them. He could ask himself what Keli would have done, what Eirik would have done, even what his old self would have done. But all of those people, one way or another, were already a part of him. The decision was his own to live with—or not.

  If he got her out—if he took her back east, and Linus kept his word—the guilt would corrode him from the inside out. Sooner or later he would blame Adelaide, and eventually, he would hate her.

  He pressed his lips against her dirty hair. Between the roots, her scalp was chalk white.

  “It was my destiny to come here,” Adelaide whispered.

  Vikram’s throat was tight. He swallowed, quietly, so she would not hear. “You, of all people, make your own destiny.”

  “It’s written in the stars. It’s written in the salt.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The Teller told me. And Second Grandmother, a long time ago.”

  “That’s why you came to the west? Because of some stupid prediction?”

  “I had to come. I had to follow Axel.”

  “You think he’s here.”

  She didn’t answer. His eyes were wet and he blinked the moisture away. He owed her the truth, at least.

  “He’s not, Adelaide. I know that because… he wrote to you. He wrote you a letter.”

  The silence stretched out.

  “It was before we went to Council. A woman came to your apartment with a letter for you. I don’t know who she was—a westerner, I think. An airlift. She gave me the letter. I read it.”

  “And what did this letter say?” Adelaide’s voice was a tumble of hard little stones.

  He told it to her, word by word, sentence by sentence. The image it of was glued to his mind. He saw Axel’s handwriting, the green loops of the ys and the gs, the paper folded into a horse’s head. Adelaide was shaking.

  “Where is it?”

  “I gave it to Linus.”

  “Oh.”

  “Adie—”

  “Don’t.”

  “He was saying goodbye. Adelaide, it was a suicide note.”

  “Don’t you dare judge him.”

  “I’m not judging him. I’m not saying that what he did was wrong.”

  “He would never do that. He couldn’t—”

  “I’m sorry. But I think the letter makes it clear. There was no conspiracy. Axel was ill, you told me that yourself.”

  She wrenched away from him. Her face crumpled.

  “Don’t you say his name. Axel would never do that. He would never leave me. Don’t you understand, Vik? Axel would never leave me.”

  “I’m so sorry, Adie.”

  “Get out!” Her voice broke. “Did you come in here to torment me? Is this another of your people’s games? Get out!”

  Vikram felt numb. Seeing her face, he wished now that he had not said anything. What had been the point? If Pekko had his way, Adelaide Mystik would be dead by daylight.

  43 ¦ ADELAIDE

  Vikram backed away but he did not leave.

  “Stop looking at me,” she said, but no sound came out. The words stuck in a pump that refused to work. A dam built there. The ache swelled, spread through her lungs and throat until it packed against the backs of her eyes.

  She tried to shut out the images; the penthouse, the balcony, her brother sitting on the rails, standing, believing that he could fly. She would not believe it. But more images came. The room full of balloons. Radir’s reports. The horses, always the horses. Axel, on the balcony, his red hair bright on a dull day. Axel, aged sixteen, leaping from a boat, his arms wide to embrace the unknown shock of the sea.

  Vikram was speaking.

  “If you ever get out of here, go to Branch 18 of the Silk Vault. There’s a deposit box under the name of Mikkeli, only you and I have access to it. I put a copy of the letter there. There was something with it. A necklace, with a shark tooth. It’s in the deposit box.”

  “Axel,” she whispered.

  Her dream came back to her, looking for him, not finding hi
m. She was bad luck. She knew the truth about Axel in the same moment as she knew the truth about herself. Even the sting of humiliation attached to his suicide gave way to incredulity—not at Axel’s actions, but at her own blindness. Axel had skipped out of life. That had been her twin’s final stunt.

  She thought of the argument in Feodor’s office months ago, demanding the keys, convinced that her father’s refusal was proof of complicity. He had known something after all: he had known the truth, and if there had been any evidence of suicide in Axel’s penthouse, she could be sure he would have erased it before anyone else got there. The Rechnov name always came first.

  She felt hollow.

  “I should have told you before,” said Vikram. “I tried to, so many times. I meant to. I just…”

  The tears that had fallen dried on her cheeks. She did not know who they were for. She thought of her brother’s body sinking to the ocean floor and she knew the fish had stripped it to the bone.

  “I wouldn’t have believed you,” she said.

  A dull thud, as though something had struck the tower deep underwater, resonated through the walls. The floor shook beneath them.

  She froze.

  “What…?”

  They stood, motionless. The second shake knocked them sideways. The torch went out. Plaster tumbled down the walls, clouds of dust rising in the aftermath. She heard Vikram scrabbling for the torch. The light flicked on, illuminating their dust-coated faces.

  “A quake…?” Her uncertain response failed to convince even herself. Vikram shook his head. His face was grim.

  “Skadi,” he said. “They’ve found us.”

  She stared at him. Her brain, as numb as ice, gave way to a dawning comprehension.

  “They’re tracking you,” she said.

  Vikram’s hand went to the back of his neck.

  “No, Ilona found it, she dampened it…”

  “That doesn’t do anything, Vik, the tracker’s in your blood. It’s a classic security bluff—I’m so sorry.”

  He turned very pale. They stared at each other. She did not question what his original intent had been. In this moment, everything was changing. She wiped the moisture from her cheeks. He helped her to her feet.