“Hsst!” Hieronymus grabbed his arm and dragged him to a halt. He leaned in close to the jaguar man's ear, and in a harsh whisper, said, “A little more circumspect in future, if you wouldn't mind. I've no desire to spend the rest of my days rotting in a Helean prison cell, thank you.”
Balam took a deep breath and relaxed fractionally, but his posture and manner still made his tension evident. “I'm sorry, all. Honestly. But as important as I know it is to you to return home”—he glanced imploringly at Leena—“you must understand how weighty this moment is for me.”
Leena stepped forward and laid a hand on Balam's arm. “Of course you must go to your daughter,” she said. “Leave the Carneol to me, Benu, and Hero.”
“Actually,” Benu said, raising his hand, “if this access chit will give me passage in and out of the city for a few days, as the official indicated, I may well forgo the employment process myself, and pass the time instead exploring the surrounding caves.”
“Why?” Hieronymus asked.
“I have been in Hele on occasion, over the long numberless centuries of my existence, but I now find myself puzzled over what it was about these sunless caverns that the wizard-kings of Atla investigated, all those millennia ago. I would find that answer for myself.”
Hieronymus looked from Benu to Leena.
“Well, little sister, you've released Balam from his labors. Do you now absolve Benu of any responsibility, as well?”
Leena shrugged. “What can six hands do that four hands cannot, in these circumstances?”
“Fair enough,” Hieronymus said, and responded with a shrug of his own. “Balam, you go mend bridges with your estranged daughter, and Benu, you go solve the riddle of the sunless caverns. Leena and I, meanwhile, will work on penetrating the defenses of the first ring, infiltrating the royal residence, and making off with the most valuable gem in Hele.” He smiled broadly and winked at Leena. “What could be easier?”
It took the better part of a day for Hieronymus and Leena to make their way through the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Ministry of Immigration Control, but after swearing out affidavits and signing countless forms, averring that they had no desire to topple the rightful government of Hele, they were presented with their provisional employment chits. It was nearly curfew by the time they returned to the Ministry of Foreign Labor on the eighth ring, and neither of them had eaten since early that morning.
“Well,” the bald-headed Ministry official said after examining their employment chits and looking over their papers. “I think we may have work for you, after all. There are vacancies in the municipal laundry facilities on the second ring. Non-Heleans have not traditionally been employed above the fourth ring, but circumstances in recent decades have forced us to accept the notion of foreigners taking on the less-desirable posts in the upper rings. That being the case, one still cannot conscience having nonhumans in those positions, and so when suitable human candidates come forward, they tend to find employment fairly quickly.”
“The laundry?” Hieronymus wrinkled his nose distastefully.
“Yes,” the official drawled. “The municipal laundry handles the washing for all of the ministry branches, but its primary responsibility is to the palace spire.”
“Oh, really?” Leena said. “That sounds very…engaging.”
“Quite.” The official waved his hand absently. “And who knows? If you work out in the laundry, and please your overseers, I suppose there's always the possibility that you might someday be able to work within the walls of the palace spire itself. What do you think of that?”
Leena and Hieronymus exchanged glances and smiled.
“I think that sounds just splendid,” Leena said.
Hieronymus and Leena reported the next morning for their first day of work at the municipal laundry. Their overseer was a Helean woman of advanced years and considerable girth named Shafan, who pointed them towards vats of lye, powdered borax, and grease, explained the rudiments of making laundry soap, and then left them to their labors.
The pair of them were, for all intents and purposes, invisible. The other laundry workers were mostly low-ranking Heleans—their green skin marred by scars and burns on their hands, arms, and faces, the result of carelessness with hot dryers, irons, and acidic compounds—for whom any immigrants, human or otherwise, were beneath notice.
There were few in the laundry who did not bear the marks of their employment somewhere on their exposed skin, and Leena knew that if she and Hieronymus remained there too long, they would prove no exception. But Leena had no desire to remain there for long.
In the days that followed, the pair of them cycled though a number of different responsibilities. When they had manufactured a sufficient amount of detergent for the cycle, they were assigned to cleaning out the traps on the enormous steam-driven dryers, and when that was done, were put to work unclogging the drains beneath the huge tubs. When the traps were all clean, though, and the drains all unclogged, Shafan felt that they had proved their aptitude sufficiently that she put them to work on sorting the incoming laundry into piles. The combinations and permutations were near endless—white linens, white linens with red highlights, red linens with white accent, blue linens, blue wool, white wool with blue linen trim, and so on, and so on—but Leena could scarcely complain. This was the position they had wanted, the reason they had decided to accept the posting at the laundry in the first place. Now, it was just a matter of time before the right articles came through their hands, and in the meantime, they had planning to do.
Once Leena and Hieronymus had proven themselves dutiful, diligent workers, Shafan warmed to them, slightly. When Leena started bringing in little baked treats for the overseer, and Hieronymus flattered her shamelessly at every opportunity, in short order Shafan was the best friend they'd ever had. They'd already learned what they needed to know about the schedules and processes of the laundry. What they needed to know now were the habits of the palace staff and, most importantly, the security protocols employed in the palace spire itself.
Shafan had worked in the municipal laundry for most of her life, starting as a rug beater when she was not yet nine summers old. Now, with her wrinkled hands greedily unwrapping the sweets and confections that Leena plied her with, Shafan happily explained to her two young friends all about the guards in the palace spire, to which she had once been invited for a dinner, a few years before, when she'd been awarded a special merit for productivity. Shafan stared wistfully into the middle distance when recounting the grand ballrooms, and the fine lords and ladies, and the guards with their tridents and ceramic cuirasses, and pointed with pride to the yellowed parchment tacked up to the wall over the overseer's desk.
Hieronymus took careful note, while Leena prompted the old woman with questions about how a visitor's identity was verified, about how many guards patrolled the grounds, and so forth.
Within a week, their plan was nearly ready.
The plan, considering how much effort went into researching it, was fairly straightforward. Leena and Hieronymus would keep working at their posts as laundry sorters, waiting until they came across the uniforms of members of the palace household staff. They would purloin a set of the appropriate size and rank for each of them, and once they could both be outfitted in the livery of the palace staff, they would sneak into the coregents' palace.
The plan was simple. Timing was everything. They'd found that the southern entrance to the palace spire was manned by only a single guard, who periodically slipped away for romantic dalliance with one of the younger women from the laundry. When they saw the young lover leave her position at the dryers, they'd dress themselves in their purloined livery, dash up the steps to the first ring, and then slip through the unguarded entrance. Once inside, they'd stick to the less-trafficked routes, behaving just like two members of the palace staff about their business, and with any luck could reach the royal throne room without anyone asking them for identification.
“But what if someone does
ask us for identification?” Leena asked as they reviewed the plan late one night, in whispered conference in their rooms at the tavern.
A cloud passed across Hieronymus's features. “Then we will do what is necessary,” he said darkly.
Leena knew he was remembering the calif's daughter, that long-ago night in Masjid Empor.
“I shouldn't worry,” Leena said, reaching out and taking his hand in hers. “Once we're inside, no one will give us a second look.”
Hieronymus smiled, but it didn't quite reach to his eyes, and Leena knew that he was no more convinced than she was.
“Good news, Balam,” Leena said, sliding onto the bench across from the jaguar man while Hieronymus sat down beside him. “Yesterday we found a woman's uniform in the laundry from the palace, which we've secreted behind a loose brick in a corner of the laundry.”
“Yes, indeed,” Hieronymus said, thumping the Sinaa on the back. “As soon as a uniform for me comes along, we'll be ready to make our move, and then we can be away from here.”
“I'm not going,” Balam said, eyes still on his plate.
“What?” Hieronymus asked, pulling back his hand in disbelief.
“I've scarcely been able to exchange three words with Menchit,” the jaguar man explained. “Whenever I draw near her, she runs away, and has her followers block my path. I'll not leave her here—not until I've made things right.”
“Then you might just have to bring her along, my friend,” Hieronymus said, “because once we've got that little rock in our hands, we're not going to be sticking around for long.”
“Don't worry, Balam,” Leena said, poking at her bowl of cold porridge with a ceramic spoon. “It'll be a few days before we can locate a uniform for Hero, after all, so you'll have time yet. Today is a citywide rest day, so there'll be no laundry today.”
“Speaking of which,” Hieronymus said, glancing around the room. “Where is everyone?”
The tavern was strangely empty, especially considering that it was time for the morning meal on a rest day. What was more, of the few patrons that were there, none of them were metamen.
“No doubt the same place Benu is.” Leena tried not to grimace as she ate a spoonful from her bowl. “Missing.”
“Yes, I've seen nothing of Benu in days. Balam, how about you, have you seen our wandering friend?”
Balam just shook his head, his attention on his untouched plate.
A waiter drifted by, hoisting a tray of clean mugs and plates.
“Ahoy,” Hieronymus called out, motioning the waiter over. “Where has all your custom gone today? Is everyone ill?”
“No,” the waiter said, shifting the tray to his shoulder, balanced on one hand, “there's some sort of big protest in the offing up on the second ring, at the Ministry of Justice. Those bunch of Black Sun fanatics are going to be agitating for their coreligionists' release, and if they don't get what they want, there's going to be blood spilled on both sides.”
“What?!” Balam jumped to his feet, knocking the bench clattering to the floor. “If there's a protest, it's a surety that Menchit is involved. And if there's to be bloodshed, I need to be there to stop it.”
Without another word to his companions, Balam raced to the door, pushing past the waiter, who staggered comically and dropped the loaded tray to the ground with a resounding crash.
Hieronymus, climbing to his feet after being toppled backwards by the falling bench, dusted himself off. “Well, we better follow him. If we don't, he's bound to get himself into a considerable mess.”
“I suppose you're right,” Leena answered, sighing. She dropped her spoon into the cold porridge with a dull thwacking. “I've no appetite for this muck, anyway.”
Leena and Hieronymus did not catch up with Balam until he had almost reached the steps of the Ministry of Justice, high on the second ring of the city. Above the stalwart arches of the building rose an enormous ceramic representation of the trident, Helean symbol of justice, which was also carried as badge of office as well as weapon by the green-skinned constabulary gathered around the building's entrance in their dozens.
There were hundreds of metamen in attendance, swarming over the steps, held back only by the serried ranks of the city guard, who clutched their tridents in white-knuckled fists, waiting for their orders.
“Release our brothers and sisters,” rose a voice above the tumult, “or face the dire consequences! The children of the Black Sun Genesis will not be caged, and the word of Per the Holy will not be mocked!”
Leena and Hieronymus stood on either side of Balam, just beyond the edge of the crowd, and could see the jaguar man immediately stiffen.
“Menchit,” Balam said, his eyes pleading, his voice as wrought as only a parent's can be.
Leena followed his gaze, and saw the young Sinaa woman standing at the head of the assembled throng, standing just a spear's-thrust from the ranks of the city guards.
“I've got to stop this,” Balam said, and rushed forward, swimming through the crush of protestors, trying to reach the front.
Leena took a step forward, as though to follow, but Hieronymus took hold of her elbow, pulling her up short.
“No,” he said. “Look at their eyes, these followers of the Black Sun Genesis. They're maddened, enraged. They don't like humans in the best of circumstances, but if you got in the middle of that mix, you'd come out the worse for it.”
Leena started to object, but then nodded slowly, relaxing. “I just hope he knows what he's getting into. The last thing we need is trouble with the authorities when we're so close to our goal.”
Hieronymus pointed to the entrance to the building, where a well-fed green-skinned man wearing the necklace of a high-ranking ministry official stepped into view, securely protected by a ring of oversized city guards.
“Return to your appropriate places in the lower quarters,” the official ordered, raising his voice, but still only barely audible over the shouts of the protestors. His green face was tinged with red, and he trembled with barely controlled emotion. “Those still in custody will face trial as soon as the coronation is complete, and I assure you that our new underlord and underlady will give the matter its due attention. But under no circumstances are we prepared to release prisoners to meet the demand of an uncouth rabble.”
“Rabble?!” shouted Menchit, her fangs bared. She turned her head over her shoulder and addressed her followers. “This is the level of respect which the Black Sun Genesis receives in these benighted lands. Our brothers and sisters traveled here as missionaries, to bring to all the metamen living here the good word of Per, and to help them stand up to the corrupt Helean authorities, to demand better living and working conditions, as is their natural right!”
Leena leaned over and whispered to Hieronymus behind her hand. “I can't say that I blame them. You know I've no patience for religious zealots, but you can't deny that conditions for immigrants here are appalling, and I don't envy the metamen here for an instant.”
“True enough,” Hieronymus said warily, “but I'm not sure this is the way to go about it.”
Hieronymus pointed to one of the Struthio towards the front of the assemblage, who had produced a large chuck of flagstone from somewhere, and was waving it menacingly above his head.
“Free our brothers and sisters!” Menchit shouted.
“Never!” the official shouted back, losing all composure. “I would sooner die than disgrace my high office by capitulating to the demands of an unruly mob!”
“Then die!” shouted the Struthio, and hurled the stone overhand at the official.
The official tried to duck, but too late, as the stone careened off his skull, drawing a nasty gash along his wide forehead.
“Der'mo,” Leena spat, as the trident-wielding guards swarmed into the protestors without warning.
More protestors produced broken flagstones, which they hurled at the approaching guards.
Menchit turned towards her followers, exhorting them to charge the entr
ance, when one of the guards swung his trident in a long, wicked arc, smacking her solidly in the back of the head and knocking her to the ground. From their vantage, Leena and Hieronymus could not immediately see what became of her, but they had little time to wonder, as a heartbeat later Balam surged out of the crowd. The enraged jaguar man clawed the guard viciously, from navel to neck, and as the guard fell bleeding to the ground, screaming in agony, Balam ducked down, slung his daughter over his shoulder, and ran away from the melee.
Leena and Hieronymus watched Balam fleeing into the twilit gloom, making for the stairs to the lower rings. The guards were mostly engaged with battering the protestors, or were forced to deal with their own wounds, and none appeared to be giving Balam pursuit. It hardly mattered.
“We can't wait any longer,” Leena said, grabbing Hieronymus by the arm and leading him from the crowd. “We have no choice but to make our move now.”
“What?”
“If we stay in the city much longer, we run the serious risk that Balam will only end up arrested along with his daughter, and perhaps the rest of us, as well.”
“But we have only the one uniform,” Hieronymus objected as Leena steered them towards the municipal laundry building. “If we make our move now, then you will have to go alone.”
“Like I said,” Leena answered, her mouth drawn into a thin line, “we have no choice.”
Leena and Hieronymus raced round the curve of the second ring, in short order reaching the entrance to the municipal laundry. The door was locked but unguarded—who would waste manpower guarding dirty linens when there were riots in the streets?—and Hieronymus was able to make short work of the lock. Once they were within, the smell of lye strong in the air, they made their way to the far corner, and the loose bricks behind which they'd secreted the purloined uniform.
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