Quatrain

by Sharon Shinn

  “How can I get in touch with you if I need to?” she said. She must have read the question on his face, for she quickly added, “In case Del finds out something about your mother right away. I’d want to let you know as soon as I can.”

  “I work in Brolt Barzhan’s firm near the North Zero gate,” he answered. “You can send a note there.”

  She nodded, but she did not drop her hand. Her dark eyes were scanning him, trying to look inside him. He thought he must seem as foreign to her as she did to him—although, after this long day, she was a little less alien. Almost comprehensible. “I’m glad I found you when you came to the Lost City today,” she said softly in goldtongue. “You have given me a great deal to think about, Kerk Socast. I hope that you do not walk out of my life again too soon.”

  Goldtongue was really the only language for such delicate sentiments. “For whatever period of time you walk through my life, Jalciana Candachi, I am certain the days will be made colorful and full of music,” he said carefully. “I am already grateful for the textures you have introduced to my days.”

  Smiling, she released him. “See you soon,” she said in bluetongue. He had scarcely made it safely out of the car before she took off from the landing, again at a reckless speed. He stood on the stone apron and watched her ringcar until it was out of sight.

  That night, after dinner was over and Tess had put the girls to bed, Kerk made his way to his stepmother’s room. Brolt was still in his hoechter and Makk was finishing up schoolwork; this was always the best time of day to seek out Tess for a private conversation.

  She smiled at Kerk when he knocked at her open door, and gestured for him to sit beside her on the purple sofa that she had imported from Gold Mountain. It had always been her favorite piece of furniture and she had been unwilling to leave it behind.

  “Come tell me about your day,” she said as he settled next to her. “My husband tells me you earned a holiday from work. How did you spend it?”

  She was relaxed, but he was not. He sat stiffly beside her and folded his hands tightly together. “I might have a tale to tell the lady Tess that I am not yet ready to tell anyone else in the household,” he said.

  She nodded, her face instantly sobering to the narrow, thoughtful expression that meant she would give his every word her utmost attention. “Now and then we all have something on our minds that we are not ready to share with the world,” she said. “I can be your confidante.”

  So she was willing to keep a secret from Brolt. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time. “The lady Tess has been closer to me than a mother,” he said, staring at his hands. “And yet, somewhere in this city is the woman who bore me, twenty-four years ago. I find that my heart is not content to know she is so close and still outside my reach.”

  Tess was silent so long that he glanced up at her face, afraid he had hurt or offended her. But what he saw in her expression was compassion—and a certain amount of worry. For him. “A woman who leaves a son behind is not always eager to have him find her,” she said softly. “Prepare your heart for some bruising if it goes on this quest.”

  “My heart is already bruised,” he said. “The lady Tess is the one who kept it from actually breaking, but even she could not protect it altogether.”

  “And there are those who believe gulden men do not even have hearts,” she said in a soft, teasing voice.

  He smiled painfully. “This heart beats with borrowed blood,” he said. “I cannot help but wonder what my mother’s heartbeat sounds like. All this time later, and I think I have forgotten what once I surely knew.”

  Tess reached for him, so he unclenched his folded fingers. She took hold of his left hand and laid her left wrist across his, so that their pulses fluttered against each other, a mistimed but pleasing counterpoint. “It is not the same blood, but it flows from me to you nonetheless,” she said quietly. “There are ties stronger than those woven around mother and son. You will not be able to break them, no matter what quest you set out on.”

  “I do not want to break them,” he said. “But I must go looking.”

  She put her free hand up to touch his face. “If I had lost you, I would want you to come looking for me,” she said. “Bring back to me any news you find. Whatever it is, I will be waiting to hear it.”

  “Whatever it is,” he said, “you are the one I will trust to keep it safe.”

  Five

  Three days later, Kerk was back at the charity bank in the Lost City, making his way to Del’s office through another hostile gauntlet of gulden women. He had not heard from Jalci during these three days, but she was awaiting him in Del’s office, along with the white-haired old woman. Jalci smiled when he stepped in; Del did not.

  He nodded at both of them and addressed the guldwoman. “I have come to see if the lady Del has any news for me,” he said.

  Del shook her head. “Ria is still making inquiries,” she said. “So far she has found no trace of your mother, but she is still investigating.”

  “Should I come back in another three days?” he asked.

  Del watched him a moment and then waved him to the empty seat beside Jalci. “You may come back as often as you like, as long as you cause no trouble,” she said, abruptly switching to bluetongue. “But I think it’s best if you prepare yourself for the notion that you might not find what you’re looking for.”

  He gazed at her steadily and did not answer. He could feel Jalci’s eyes on his face. Reluctantly, Del continued, “You say your mother came here seventeen years ago, but in fact, all you know for certain is that she left Gold Mountain. She might not have made it all the way to the city. The trip is difficult today for a gulden woman on her own, and it was perilous back then. More than one woman died on the journey.” When he still did not answer, she offered an even more unwelcome possibility. “And even if she made it safely to the city, she might not have survived very long. It is rare now, but gulden men still arrive from Geldricht to seek out their missing wives. Whole families have been slaughtered by angry husbands and fathers. Was your father capable of such violence?”

  Unquestionably, yes. And Kerk’s father had often left Geldricht for weeks at a time, pursuing business interests in the city and overseas. If he had killed his errant wife and infant daughter, he had not bothered mentioning it to his son—or his second wife. Kerk was certain Tess would have given him this news if she’d had it.

  But it might not be true. There was no proof. Just because Bree Socast had not been found yet did not mean she was dead.

  “I have no wish to speculate about my father’s possible actions,” Kerk said, his voice cold to cover his pain. “It would please me if you and your friends would continue to search for my mother. I am not yet ready to concede that she is lost.”

  Del nodded slowly. “Then we will keep looking.”

  Kerk heard Jalci inhale a deep gust of air, almost as if she had been holding her breath ever since he stepped in the room. “Well, since we don’t have any definitive news, let’s go play baltreck,” she said brightly.

  He looked at her, allowing himself to be distracted, allowing himself to be amused. “Yes, let us go play,” he said. “I’m sure you have mastered the sport in the short time since I saw you last.”

  She laughed. “Well, I watched the game for hours on the monitors over the last two nights,” she said. “And I’m a passable athlete, you know—I probably could play as well as some of these ghetto kids. If I could figure out the rules.”

  “They would not welcome you on the court,” he said.

  She made a face at him. “I know that, stupid. I just want to watch. Del, you want to come?”

  “I have plenty to occupy me here,” the old woman said dryly. “But I hope you both enjoy yourselves.”

  Two hours later, Kerk had to say that he, at least, had obeyed Del’s injunction. He couldn’t speak for Jalci, but he’d had a splendid time. The boys had been wildly excited to see him again, and he had had to be very stern to get them calm en
ough to pay attention, but they’d had a fruitful session of coaching followed by a fast-paced game. It was clear they’d all been practicing madly since he’d been here last, because the level of play had gone up almost across the board. Quint alone had improved substantially; he even managed to make a pass around Kerk’s outstretched hands and scored twice on what should have been impossible shots. Kerk tried to be sparing with his praise, but he could not help shouting out approbation at the second electrifying goal. Even some of the defenders cheered.

  “Here are more exercises you can practice in the next few days,” he told them once the game was over. They watched him with famished attention; he imagined that every move he made was imprinting on their memories to be constantly replayed. “If you had extra equipment, more of you could practice at the same time.”

  Someone laughed and said, “I think Helten stole one of these balls from a store in the city.”

  “I didn’t steal it. It was lying in a park.”

  Kerk ignored this exchange. “And, if you want, you can play a version of baltreck with only four players. Scoring is harder, but it gives you a workout on both offense and defense.”

  None of them had ever tried to play on such minimal teams before, so he called out Quint and Shoev and Helten, the three best players, and joined them on the court to demonstrate the abbreviated version of the game. He couldn’t help showing off a little; four-man play heavily favored the best athlete, and baltreck was Kerk’s game. Everyone on the sidelines was yelling as he made score after score. Even young men who had not been on the teams were watching—even a few women. Kerk made a final shot, which rattled with a satisfying clatter in the metal cone, and risked a quick look at the spectators. Jalci was cheering just as loudly as everyone else.

  “That’s all I can show you for today,” he said, jogging off the court and reaching for his duffel bag. He had come prepared this afternoon, bringing gym clothes as well as appropriate shoes.

  As expected, the boys wailed loudly when they realized he was leaving, but they quieted soon enough when he promised he would return. “Three days from now,” he said, though Del had not specified such an interval this time. He would have liked to shower before changing back into his clothes, but the gymnasium didn’t offer many amenities. In what passed for a locker room, he was able to strip to the waist and scrub off the worst of the sweat before getting dressed again and heading out the front door.

  Jalci, of course, was waiting for him outside, and they walked toward the Centrifuge through a slowly layering dark. It was colder than yesterday and the threat of winter hung glumly overhead.

  “Are you as good at baltreck as you seem to be, or is it just that I’m not very knowledgeable about the game?” she asked, once the last trailing boys had dropped behind them.

  Kerk laughed. “A man does not boast of his accomplishments,” he said.

  “So you are. Could you have played in one of the professional leagues?”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  She appraised him. “And why did you choose not to? From what I can tell, the players lead pretty sweet lives. A little adulation might be just the thing a fatherless boy would need to make him forget his lousy childhood.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe,” he said again.

  “I think I want a better answer than that,” she said.

  They were at the Centrifuge by now. There were three cars clustered at the gate, but, without even discussing it, they both headed to the first car in line. “It’s complicated,” he said.

  “There’s a new restaurant off of East Two that’s been getting raves,” she said. “Owned by an albino couple, but the chef’s gulden, and half the patrons are indigo. Let me treat you to dinner and you can tell me some of your secrets.”

  “I don’t tell anyone my secrets,” he said, amused. “That’s how they stay secret.”

  She had settled into the driver’s seat and barely waited for him to close the door before she zoomed away from the landing. “Then tell me whatever you feel like sharing.”

  The restaurant was a strange but pleasing place, Kerk thought. The main dining room was low-ceilinged and paneled with material that looked like seaweed or some kind of dried greenery; the muted lighting filtered out from behind translucent shades of watered pastel. The chef might have been gulden, but the items on the menu were eclectic, borrowing spices from Inrhio and countries across the ocean. The clientele was decidedly mixed, and the atmosphere was both relaxed and a little jazzed, as if the customers were excited to be in a place that they liked very much.

  Kerk agreed with Jalci’s plan to order and share a variety of items, though such an idea would never have occurred to him on his own. He declined to sample any alcoholic beverages, though. More and more these days, he was feeling as though he needed to keep his wits about him. It seemed like it would be too easy for him to be thrown off balance.

  “So why didn’t you try out for a professional baltreck team?” she asked, once they were settled at their table and had given the waiter their order.

  “There’s a pretty small window of time for going pro,” he answered. “Most teams recruit seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds. By the time you’re twenty, you’ve passed your peak and it’s rare that a team will even give you a chance.”

  Jalci sipped at the drink that she had not been too cautious to order. It was lime green and bubbly, and Kerk thought it looked lethal. “So what was happening to you when you were seventeen?”

  “Tess’s third child was born and Tess was very sick,” he said.

  Jalci’s eyes widened. “And you stayed in the house to care for her?”

  He shrugged. “There were nurses to do that, and women from her family. I wasn’t needed in the sickroom.” Though he’d spent plenty of time there, mostly at night, reading to Tess when she couldn’t sleep or just watching her face when she could. “I was of more use to Brolt Barzhan, for I had been working in the company for five years already and there were tasks I could do for him that eased his way.”

  “Well, I hope they appreciated your sacrifice!” she exclaimed.

  Kerk wasn’t sure Brolt had ever known of his dreams to be a professional player. Kerk had never been the confiding type. Until he met Jalci, anyway. “It was not a sacrifice,” he said quietly. “It is what any son of the house would have done. I was glad to be able to repay, in some small way, the generosity they had always shown to me.”

  “But how long was she sick?” Jalci asked. “I mean, it couldn’t have been for years, could it? Surely there would have been time for you to go pro after she recovered.”

  “By then, I had lost the inclination.”

  “By then, you were thinking that you didn’t want anyone you loved to die while you were someplace else,” Jalci said shrewdly. “So you didn’t want to leave.”

  Kerk shrugged again. “Maybe.”

  Their food arrived, aromatic with unfamiliar scents, and they spent the next fifteen minutes tasting each dish and comparing their reactions. Kerk had formed the opinion that most blueskins had delicate palates and unimaginative preferences in food, but Jalci tried everything and liked everything, even the extraordinarily spicy meat dish that Kerk could barely tolerate. She did gulp down an entire glass of water after she’d finished it, though.

  “I wouldn’t want to eat that every day,” she said, “but it’s very good.”

  She got distracted while they split a couple of desserts, both too sweet for Kerk’s taste; her eyes kept going past him to a spot in the middle of the restaurant.

  “What are you looking at?” he asked finally.

  “There’s a young couple sitting a few tables behind you,” she said in a low voice. “Mixed race. She’s gulden and he’s blueskin. I don’t mean to be staring, but that’s such an unusual sight.”

  “There’s you and me,” he said dryly.

  “Yes, but they appear to be together,” she said. “Married, maybe. They’ve got a baby.”

  That almost did make him sle
w around in his chair. “Really? I didn’t think that ever happened.”

  “Well, it almost never does,” she said. “I think that less than one percent of the babies born in the city last year were to interracial couples.” She grinned. “I read that somewhere. I can’t remember why it stuck in my head.”

  Casually he repositioned his chair so he could glance behind him to get a glimpse of the parents. They were young, neither of them over twenty by his guess, and they looked exhausted. The woman’s gold skin seemed a little dingy around the eyes, as if she hadn’t slept for about a week, but her blond hair frizzed around her face with a great deal of manic curl, and her weary smile was wide and genuine. The blueskin boy had night-black hair and the coarse features that Kerk associated with mid- or low-caste families, but he, too, was smiling. The baby sat in its mother’s lap and looked around with plain astonishment at the world. Its skin was a blue as dark as Jalci’s but its hair was a tightly curled yellow. The contrast was startling and seductive.

  “There’s a child who is not going to have an easy time in either world,” Kerk remarked.

  Jalci nodded. “Just what I was thinking. They’ll never be able to live in Inrhio or Geldricht. They’ll have to stay in the city forever. I wonder if his mother has disowned him.”

  Kerk didn’t even have to wonder. “Her father has certainly cast her off,” he said, sitting forward in his chair again. “Unless she has no father. Unless she grew up in the Lost City. Even then, gulden men who see her in the street might feel free to express how much they disapprove of her choice.”

  Jalci’s face was solemn. “Really? They might hurt her? The indigo might harass him, but I don’t think it would go any further than that.”

  “And what would they say to you,” he said softly, “if they saw you out in public with a gulden man?”