by Col Buchanan
That language of theirs. Ash could gain no grasp on it, no sense of patterns that might suggest a syntax, no obvious commonality between the sounds. It seemed little more than a mongrel smattering of words interrupted by those pops of the lips and clicks of the tongue.
Questions formed on his lips, but his voice eluded him when the man returned and flopped down on a settle along the wall. He was too spent for words. Too focused on the bread and the chee. Stupe-fed, they both blinked at each other across the low table between them, Juke seemingly fascinated by the old farlander sitting in his home. In turn, Ash studied his dark face amongst the plumes of hazii smoke, the man’s lean features etched deeply like someone who laughed often. Such a familiar-looking face, Ash thought, realizing how the young Anwi could pass for an unusually tall native of Honshu, save that his eyes were not quite folded in the same way.
‘Sorry,’ rumbled Juke over the music, remembering his manners, and he leaned forwards with the hazii stick held out towards him. ‘You smoke?’
Ash swallowed, cleared his throat.
‘Not for years,’ he admitted, though it seemed to have been that kind of day, for he found his body leaning forwards in the chair and his hand reaching out for the stick. He took a few draws and held them in his lungs as he passed it back to the man.
‘It’s good grade, straight from the source,’ Juke explained, putting his boots up on the table, the grooved soles indented with dark soil. ‘I do a little trade in weed on the blackmarket. Buy it off some Alhazii contacts down in Guallo Town and smuggle it into the city.’
The young man was right, it was strong weed. Ash could feel his body starting to relax into its embrace.
‘Your painting on the wall behind you there,’ Ash said in surprise, plucking a strand of hazii weed from his lips. ‘It comes from Honshu.’
‘It’s a replica, but yeah, sure. A few Anwi have visited your homeland in the past.’
He stared at Ash’s glazed expression. ‘The Sparon, the Fallen Leaves? People exiled from the city on political charges or for killing one of the Elect?’
Ash nodded vaguely, recalling what Meer had told him.
‘Yeah, most die fast out there in the world. Taken down by some disease they’ve never been exposed to before. But some make it. And a few write journals of their lives in the wider world, or paint what they see, and copies make their way back to us. Illegal as all hell of course.’ He shrugged. ‘But then what isn’t these days?’
Juke stretched across with his long arm to another smaller bookshelf next to the settle. ‘There’s a journal in there from an Anwi exile who made it all the way to Honshu, and was a friend and lover of the Great Fool himself.’
‘You joke.’
‘It’s all there in her journal. If you want, you can take it with you.’
‘What’s this, giving away our books again?’
A young blonde woman padded into the room, scratching her head and dressed in a fleece nightrobe. When she bent down to lower the volume of the music, he saw how her white face was crinkled from sleep.
She rubbed Juke’s hair and plucked the remains of the hazii stick from his fingers. In response he grabbed her and pulled her sideways onto his lap, from where she squinted across at the battered, weary, hungry, somewhat high farlander sitting in her living room, gazing back with hooded eyes, sheathed sword perched by his chair.
‘Triqy,’ she said with a nod.
A fine-looking girl, Ash thought lazily, if you were into exotic, waif-like features.
‘Ash,’ drawled his heavy reply.
‘I’m glad you made it here,’ she told him in Trade that was as good as her lover’s. ‘I wasn’t certain if Juke would have a chance to make contact this evening.’
‘We had our problems,’ Juke admitted with a wolfish grin. ‘He decided to take part in a riot then ran from the law in a groundcar. Man has his style, I’ll give him that.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘Had to scan the security channels. Half the guards in the district were after him. Good thing I was on the zel.’
‘My hero,’ Triqy said with mockery.
She studied Ash with a curious and steady gaze.
‘You’ve taken the Milk that Meer sent down,’ she observed of the farlander. ‘I can tell.’
‘That was yours?’
‘Yes, from my family’s supply.’
‘My thanks.’
‘Can I run you a bath? You look like you could use it. I’ve been heating some water in the tank, should be ready by now.’
A hot bath. The mere thought of it turned his tired muscles to butter.
‘If I can stay awake for long enough . . . yes, that would be kind of you.’
While the water rumbled and splashed in a side room, Ash and Juke sat gazing at each other again across the table, inhaling the cloud of smoke that rolled between them, their black faces shining in the softly waning light.
‘Saved your ass out there, old man,’ Juke muttered with sly humour.
Ash’s eyes smiled back at him. He was starting to like this fellow, or maybe it was just the mood-enhancing effects of the hazii smoke.
Indeed the hazii stick had burned out between the Anwi’s fingers without notice. Ash pulled a face and looked about him at the strange room in the strange city with the strange man staring so intently at him.
He looked back at Juke with a snap of his teeth.
‘Juke. Who are you people?’
*
‘I used to be Meer’s lover,’ the young Anwi woman told him in a hush from where she squatted on the white bowl across from the bath. ‘Years ago, when I helped hide him in the city. I’d never met a man before so travelled, or who liked to go shopping without ever actually buying anything. Just to look.’
‘Shopping?’
‘Close the door if you’re going to be talking about that stuff!’ Juke called from the living room over the din of the music.
‘Close the door? So I can be alone in the bathroom with our new naked friend?’
‘I doubt he’s in any condition to jump you, Triqy.’
Ash submerged his ears beneath the hot soapy water of the bath so that all he could hear were the muffled sounds of their words. He knew he was beyond moving now. They would have to drain the water out and leave him here for the night, like some beached porpoise too spent to save itself.
She was still talking, the Anwi woman, when he raised his ears above the surface once more.
‘I was young. He was crazy. I suppose you know how that story goes. Anyway, that was the last time I thought I’d ever see him again. And then last week his letter turns up asking for help. Well, we put him up in a safehouse for a few days – Juke wouldn’t have him here, so that was that.’ She bit her lip and stared hard at the doorway where Juke was sitting just out of sight, save for the occasional plume of hazii smoke that wafted through the air, swept a twisted strand of blonde hair clear of her eye. ‘Not that I blame him. Everyone assured me the safehouse was . . . well . . . safe.’
‘How was he caught?’
‘An informant, most likely. Believe me, the underground is riddled with them. And the authorities watch all communications too. Anyway. We knew you were coming. I was the one who sorted out that pass that got you through. And Juke delivered the letter during one of his pickups.’
‘I’ve been tracking you ever since you entered the city,’ Juke declared through the doorway. ‘Almost didn’t see you sneaking out of the Guallo’s Rest.’
Ash stared at the stains of dampness along the top of the wall. The paint was peeling in places, revealing an older coat of blood red. A hideous colour for a room, he thought. Who would choose such a thing?
‘And you are part of some . . . resistance?’
‘We have friends, people struggling for the same things that we are.’
‘Such as?’
He heard her blow her lips out and say, ‘Where do I begin? Well, our priority used to be the attainment of full representation for all,
not just for the Elect. That would have been a start, at least.’
‘I’ll say it again like I’m always saying it,’ Juke called through the doorway. ‘What point is there in gaining token representation for everyone if the system itself is still a rigged sham? If you still only get to vote for those representing the interests of the status quo? Look to the Free Ports and Minos to see how you do it right. Open assemblies. Delegates with recallable mandates. Local and League co-operatives. Sustainable economies fostering diversity instead of monopoly. Wild farming that doesn’t tear the heart from the land. All sane. All doable if we were any way sane ourselves as a culture.’
‘For a start, I said! For a start!’
She carried on as though her lover hadn’t spoken. ‘And of course an end to this crazy paranoid nonsense about hiding away from the world and banning anyone’s return if they leave us. Some friends of ours run a smuggling operation between here and Zanzahar, getting people in and out. And they try to make sure that news and accounts of the Fallen Leaves make it back here so that people can hear of them.’
The lights dimmed for a moment, then returned to their pale flicker. She stopped to take a deep breath and to look at the open doorway.
‘Always the Free Ports with you!’ she cast at Juke. ‘I swear if that damned Zeziké were alive today you’d be there rather than here.’
‘Better believe it,’ he said and puffed a series of clouds through the doorway.
Ash heard water rushing in the bowl and realized she was standing, pushing a metal button in the wall. She came and knelt by the lip of the bath. Dipped her hands into the water then perched there rubbing them dry.
‘Tell me what you mean when you say Elect?’ he asked.
‘Meer really didn’t tell you anything, did he?’ she mused, looking off across the small room at a picture hanging on the wall: a sketch of a ranchero riding with a herd of wild zels, a scene straight from the prairies of Ghazni.
For a moment he thought of Khos, and wondered how the war was going and the ongoing siege. A different world, it felt to him now.
‘The Elect are the Anwi elite who get to live forever. Like my family.’
Ash looked at the short nubs of her little fingers. Her large blue eyes in her delicate features and the crease of concentration upon her forehead. Late twenties perhaps, older than Juke certainly. A teacher maybe. Or a dancer.
‘People in the cartels and the administration, and Crucible priests, and celebrities, and artists and scholars like my parents. They prolong their lives with Royal Milk, the same Milk the Zanzahar Guildsmen bring here in return for exotics. And when even the Milk isn’t enough to hold off death, they have a new body grown in a wetwomb like a new set of clothes to slip into.’
Ash nodded vaguely, recalling what Meer had told him. He listened with eyes closed.
‘The Elect of this city are the only ones who get to choose who stands for the positions of Archon and the legislature. They have it all locked down. They run the show, and every decision made is cast in their favour, usually at everyone else’s expense, mostly the young.’
‘The young?’
‘They do all of the labour in the city. A few go on to become Elect themselves, though most end up waiting in the food lines, suffering from some breathing illness or cancer.’
‘And this is why they are in the streets?’
‘Partly. Though mostly it’s because times are changing. Some people can sense it, even if they’re not fully aware of why. They see things in the city winding down around them. Brown-outs and the soaring costs of food. Everything getting worse. They hear the hollow talk of the Elect about downturns and recoveries and how everything is fine, and all the lies only make them wonder even more.’
‘Tell him the truth now!’ shouted Juke.
She sighed. Splashed her hand in the water next to his thigh. Ash could feel the cool motion of the water against his skin, but he was too tired even to be aroused by it.
‘Juke believes we’re all doomed. He thinks the majority of Anwi don’t care enough to change our direction, even if they did know where we were headed. He’s wrong though.’
‘Tell him!’
A yawn stretched Ash’s mouth wide. He was trying to listen, he really was.
‘The city’s dying,’ she said in a hush, as though it truly was a dangerous fact to disclose. ‘It’s running out of power.’
Triqy propped her arm on the lip of the bath and rested her chin on it, then whispered into the soapy water. ‘Everything in Mashuppa is powered from the same ancient sources. Five surviving Flux Lenses from the ships of the exodus. But they need strokestone for the lensing, and it tends to burn out given enough time, especially if overused. We’re running low on the stuff, no matter how much we look for more. We passed peak supply of strokestone several years ago. Now there’s less and less of it to keep the Lenses running and the lights on.’
On cue, the room’s ceiling light dimmed again and then struggled to brighten.
‘Yet even now the Elect still dream of returning home, and throw most of the power we have into completing the Sky Bridge, which they never will.’
‘And no one speaks of it,’ croaked Juke, deadly serious at last. Another plume entered the space of the doorway, and hung there for a moment gathering form like the silence behind it. ‘The plants are dying. The people are dying. Ten, fifteen years left of power and then it’s all gone, lights out forever. And all we’re given are lies and denials which people repeat like sleepwalkers.
‘Make sure you see Mashuppa properly, old farlander! Next time you come this way, we may all be gone save for a ragged band of survivors clawing through the rubble.’
‘Nonsense,’ retorted Triqy. ‘The majority of people will rise up long before that ever happens.’
‘Hah-hah-hah!’
But by then Ash was falling asleep and three heartbeats away from a snore. He splashed a handful of water over his face to revive himself momentarily, then met her gaze with an easy hazii smile.
‘Is he even listening?’ asked Juke’s voice.
‘No. You put him to sleep.’
Ash smacked his lips as his heavy eyelids closed once again.
‘How long have you been lovers?’ he asked her in a murmur, and she snorted.
‘Lovers? I met Juke last year at the stadium when I was installing some lights there. He’s a part-time rider for the Treen entertainment cartel. We moved in together to spread out the rent.’
‘I heard that!’
‘You were meant to!’
‘And you,’ murmured Ash. ‘What is it you do?’
‘Didn’t Meer say? No, of course he didn’t. I’m an apprentice Crucible priest. I work in the Sky Bridge.’
Perhaps he had slipped into a dream, was talking now only to his own mind.
‘A priest? Surely not?’
Her lips turned into a thin smile, he saw through his lashes.
‘Only an apprentice. I become a proper Crucible priest if I make it another five years.’
‘A long time.’
‘She’ll be fine,’ growled Juke. ‘Her family will look after her like they always do.’
‘At least I like it,’ she continued. ‘Tinkering and learning how things work.’ She shrugged a slender shoulder beneath her fleece robe. ‘If you’re into crafting or exotics, the priesthood is the best game in Mashuppa.’
‘So you are the one who was helping Meer? I mean – the business with my apprentice?’
‘The wetwomb? Yes, though I had some help. There are a few Crucibles sympathetic to the underground.’
‘You have seen him, my apprentice?’
‘I have. He’s up on the Sky Bridge, growing fast. The new accelerators just make them bloom right out of the tanks.’
Ash’s heart was beating a little faster now. The surface of the water had stilled entirely as his breathing stilled. In his mind Nico took another step closer to the waking world.
‘My thanks for your help.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Interesting that Triqy had yet to mention Meer’s pending execution. Perhaps it was too harsh a reality to speak aloud.
‘What of Meer? I’m told they will execute him as a spy.’
Her nod was a grim one. ‘In two days’ time, by order of the Archon.’
Two days’ time. It was not much to work with.
‘This Archon. He is the ruler of the city?’
Triqy nodded. ‘Yes, voted by his peers, the Elect.’
‘He’s also a Dreamer,’ added Juke. ‘Like the Alhazii Dreamers. They say he blackmailed the secret from them. A very powerful man. Ruthless to the bone.’
‘Tell me,’ said Ash, ‘can you get me onto the Sky Bridge before the execution?’
‘Inside? You really think you can get Meer out from there?’
Ash blinked up at her delicate features, seeing hope in her eyes.
‘If we had a week to prepare, maybe. In the two days that we have remaining . . . no, I must find another way to save him.’ And even as he heard the weariness in his own voice he realized how much was still left to be done.
‘Tell me everything you can that might be of help. For a start, tell me about these birds that everyone seems so afraid of.’
Again the torrent of her words washed over him, and part of Ash listened while another part of him wondered how he was ever going to free Meer.
Once more his gaze observed the ornate hanging on the wall at his feet, a column of symbols brushed in black ink. Triqy had told him what it meant and he tried to recall the words now.
Something about speaking truth to the powerful even if your voice shakes.
Ash sat upright in the bath with the water sloshing out of it, knowing in that moment what he needed to do.
‘Ah!’ he said aloud.
He had been thinking about this in all the wrong ways.
‘I need to take this to the man at the top.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Speaking Half-Truths to Power
This really is the most insane thing I ever heard of. If Juke thinks it’s a great idea, doesn’t that tell you something?
Are you saying my plan stinks?