Debris vw-1

by Jo Anderton

  With a roar Lad tore himself from Kichlan's hands and barrelled forward. He knocked me to the ground, grabbed Pavel by his upraised hand, lifted him from his feet, and sent him crashing against the wall.

  "Lad! No!" Kichlan stumbled after him.

  Sofia dropped to my side. "Are you all right?"

  I struggled to sit up.

  Lad picked Pavel up again, held his shoulders in those huge hands and lifted him high. "No!" he roared into the man's terrified face. "You cannot lie to Tan! You cannot hurt Tan! No more!" And with a great twist and a heave he threw Pavel across the room, to crash over the desk and onto the floor.

  Tears streaked Lad's face. He batted Kichlan aside like a fly, reached again for Pavel. Mizra began digging in his jacket for the little bottle that could quell him.

  I stood. "Lad?"

  Lad dragged Pavel up by the front of his jacket. He sniffed.

  "Lad?"

  He turned his wet, guilty face to me. "Tan?"

  "It's all right, Lad. You can stop." I walked past Kichlan, I touched a hand to Lad's back. He shook beneath me. "He's not hurting me. He's not shouting any more. Thank you for protecting me. Please, Lad, put him down now."

  Pavel dropped like a doll. He looked up at us with wide, frightened eyes. His forehead and left cheek were red and already swelling. One arm lay at a strange and painful-looking angle on the floor.

  Lad turned into me, wrapped arms around my shoulders and started to cry. As I held him, I stared down at Pavel, who still hadn't moved. "I'm sorry." And I was. Not just for Lad. But for what his life had become, because of me.

  Because I was cursed, and the puppet men seemed to be wreaking evil on everything I touched.

  "We need to go." Kichlan gripped Lad's elbow, tried to peel him away from me. "Now." In his eyes I read fear and urgency.

  I nodded. Together, we eased Lad into walking and left Pavel's office. I didn't look back.

  I knew, without needing Kichlan to tell me, that there would be no more collecting today. The bell was late, and the streets full as we made our slow way back to the sublevel. Kichlan kept as close to Lad's shoulder as he could without tripping over his feet, and eyed each person that passed us with suspicion. Lad watched the ground, and sniffed constantly.

  I'd ruined the rest of the day, created more work for the next five days, brought out the kind of violence in Lad that Eugeny had warned me about. Strangely, Kichlan's silence made me feel worse. Spitefulness was, I supposed, easier in its way to deal with.

  But I didn't feel as guilty as perhaps I should have. Because anger burned inside me again, even deeper than the suit. Pavel's story had fanned the flames.

  None of this was right. I'd known it, felt it that moment on Grandeur's palm, and every time I tried to speak the truth since. While the veche could silence me, while it could keep me busy with this garbage collection, keep me exhausted, aching and out of the way, it couldn't quench that fire. It could alienate the people I had once trusted, it could ruin anyone even remotely connected to me, but that wasn't enough.

  Someone had summoned the crimson pions that had thrown me from Grandeur. Someone had done this to me. I would not, could not, forget that, not until I exposed them. Not until I proved to everyone that I had not been responsible for my own ruin. I would have my tribunal, I would tell the truth. No matter what I had to do to get it.

  The crowded streets parted around our small debriscollecting team like weed-riddled water. I tried to ignore the affronted expressions, the touch of fingers to nose, the wrinkling of foreheads and the turning away. But still, I was glad when we stepped into Darkwater. The sublevel was a haven. Quiet, isolated and dark, with only sputtering lamplight flickering in from the windows near the ceiling.

  I breathed in the memory of Kichlan's meal, and tension in my gut eased.

  There in our space, we tarried as dusk fell in the world above ground. The thought of the ferry ride home during the night was less daunting than swimming through those crowds again. Instead, we pushed the furniture out of the centre of the room and arranged it so the fireplace was accessible. We discussed the possibility of more dawnbell suppers by ember-light. And each of us watched the windows, glanced at the glass-shadowed image of feet walking by, waiting for them to thin.

  Sofia made the first move. She touched Kichlan lightly on the shoulder. "I have to go." Her free hand was on her stomach again, her cheeks still pale. What had happened when the debris had thrown her to the ground? Surely, if she was still hurting, she needed help? "I need my sleep."

  I followed her, held her leather-lined coat with the embroidered floral buttons as she wrapped a scarf around her neck. It was so thick, and she so small, that she looked like a child in her parent's clothes. "Are you hurt?" I asked, voice low, glance deliberately shifting from her eyes to her hand.

  She blinked away a moment of confusion. "Oh. No, Tanyana. I'm not."

  "When you fell, when the debris hit you, it didn't, you know what I mean, hurt anything?" Now that really was my fault.

  She must have seen it in my eyes. "Nothing to worry about." Her lips were also pale and they didn't reassure me, despite the rueful smile. "I made certain of that."

  "Oh, good." Made certain? How much had that cost her? I itched to offer to pay for the healer, but I didn't even have enough kopacks for myself. "I was worried."

  "I can tell." Sofia did the buttons on her jacket and tucked her scarf into its low neckline. The purple wool did compliment the jacket's green, I had to give her that. "I'd feel better if you'd worry about the hole in the ceiling."

  I blushed, and muttered something that didn't sound like real words, not even to me, as she left the sublevel. Only Mizra, it seemed, had noticed our conversation and he, thankfully, was watching Sofia instead.

  Natasha followed Sofia's example and was above ground a moment later. Mizra and Uzdal told Lad stories for another bell, but left as the large man began to snooze where he was sitting.

  Kichlan didn't hurry. He lit two gas lamps on the walls, apparently able to ignore their noxious smell. He cleaned his pots with snow gathered on the doorstep and melted by a small fire. He brushed ash from the floor in front of the fireplace and took it upstairs to dump on the paving stones.

  I sat on a couch, watching Lad sleep and his brother fuss.

  "He likes you," Kichlan said when most of his chores were done, and the silence had stretched out so long, and so comfortable. "That's why he acted like that today. He is not a violent man, just easily confused. He thought that Pavel man was hurting you. He just wanted to help."

  "I know. And I like him too."

  Kichlan picked up an empty collecting jar and tapped it against his palm. "I would tell you to be careful, but I think Eugeny must have done so already."

  "He has." I stood, carefully, slowly, so I didn't disturb the sleeping man opposite me. Lad had his hands tucked up under his chin and was drooling gently onto his knuckles.

  "Eugeny has much to warn others about." Kichlan set empty jars in straight rows on the tables we had repositioned against the wall. They reflected the lamps like fireflies against a steel sky. "And he cares about Lad nearly as much as I do. He wouldn't want to see Lad taken away, he doesn't want him imprisoned."

  I stopped, my hand hovering above the tension in Kichlan's shoulders. "Imprisoned?"

  Kichlan sighed, and seemed to droop. To grow old. "That's why I have to be here, with him." He turned to face me. "Do you understand? Always with him. And that's why we need to avoid inspections, avoid missing our quotas or doing anything that could draw attention to our team. And to him."

  Guilt caught in my throat again. Lad was a beautiful man. But said like that, with age and weakness and a broken voice, he could have been a chain. "What happened?"

  Kichlan eyed me for a moment. What did he debate in his head, in that silence? "I wasn't there." He half-sat on the edge of the table. I fought the urge to cross my arms. "I was stupid. I thought I could leave him. He was-" with a frown, he m
outhed numbers "-young. I don't remember how many years. But he was already large."

  I waited as he paused.

  "I still don't know exactly how it happened. Mother never would tell me. I tried once to pry it out of him. Took a sixweek and one before he forgave me. Didn't talk the whole time."

  Lad twitched in his sleep and drew his knees up. A giant child on a small couch.

  "I knew he liked the girl, I knew he followed her, smiled at her, gave her flowers. Weeds that grew between paving stones. I knew she was kind to him, indulged him, treated him like a large baby to be coddled." Bitterness crept into his voice. "She shouldn't have encouraged him and I shouldn't have let him talk to her. It was my fault. Do you understand, Tanyana? I always have to be there."

  "What happened?" I asked again.

  He shook his head. "I told you, I don't really know. But I returned that afternoon to find my mother insensible. She had discovered the girl. Lad had tried to hide her, like he hid toys and trinkets and shiny scraps of metal he found, in the space between the house and alley wall." He held up his hands, measured a foot or so. "It was only this wide."

  "Other." I pressed my hands to my mouth.

  Kichlan just nodded. "She was bruised, bloody, broken. But not dead. He didn't mean to hurt her, I think he-" a swallow "-tried to play with her. Like a doll. That's what I think, but I do not know. And the way he talked, you can't understand it, like someone had told him to do it. Like he had listened to a voice that wasn't there, and obeyed.

  "The local veche wanted to incarcerate him. We had to fight for him, and in the end I was the reason they let him go. Because I promised I wouldn't leave him again, go out into that real world, that bright world, and let him loose in the dark. When I fe-" He broke off, looked away from me. I shuddered, from my head to the very end of my toes. "So you understand why Eugeny and I, why we have to be careful."

  Together, we watched Lad sleep.

  "You are a good brother, Kichlan." My words felt inadequate, but the silence was worse. "You have sacrificed more for him than he will ever know." More than Kichlan had even said. More, perhaps, then I wanted to guess at.

  "I try to help him." Kichlan roused himself with a shake. "There are more ways than following him every where. Things to calm him, to help him think straight, to keep the v-" a hesitation this time "-the voices at bay. Don't get much time, of course. But I try." He gave a shrug. "Anyway, it's late. Don't you have a long way to travel home?"

  Ah, home. "Don't remind me."

  "Bit inconvenient, that."

  "You noticed? Can't hide anything from you."

  Kichlan shook his brother gently. With a widemouthed yawn and a stretch that nearly caught Kichlan in the face, Lad sat up. He blinked and grinned broadly at us. "Is it time for supper, bro?"

  "Almost. We'd better get home or we might miss it."

  Lad jumped to his feet. "Is Tan coming home again? Is she?"

  "No, Lad. Not this time. Tan has her own home and she needs to go there."

  Lad's face fell, but he still managed to squeeze the air out of me. "Have a nice day at home, Tan."

  "Night," Kichlan murmured with a sigh. "It's night, Lad."

  As I left Kichlan helping Lad into his jacket, their voices followed me up the stairs. "Bro, is Tan lonely when she's at home?"

  "I don't know. Why do you ask?"

  "She never wants to go there. It's home, isn't it? Means you should want to go there."

  I plunged into Movoc's dark, icy night. He had a point, that large man with a childish, volatile mind. But it was my home. And I shouldn't have to give it up because of kopacks, because of lies and threats.

  I would make the veche listen to me. Pavel thought I was alone, he thought the veche could get to everyone who might have listened to me and cared what I had to say. He was wrong. True, my circle had turned their backs on me. True, the few people I knew who worked for the veche had been demoted and sent away. But I still wasn't alone.

  I had Devich.

  9.

  I'd promised Devich.

  The next Olday night, I dug clothes I'd assumed I would never wear again from the bottom of my closet. Somehow they needed to look respectable, fit over my uniform and hide as much of my suit and its lights as possible. Tailored pants of black silk and satin; they wouldn't do up around the band at my waist and I was forced to wear them low, so my heels stood on the hems. A fine layered shirt, with a gauzy top layer, of white and icicle blue, and a loose undershirt in silver. It opened wide at the neck and wrists, and I stood in front of the mirror for bells, trying every scarf and necktie I owned. Finally, I settled on a cream silk scarf with bluebell stitching. It was long enough to loop twice around my throat and I tied it tightly. My wrists were harder to hide. I did the buttons on the overshirt, glad the cuffs were solid against the gauze, and hoped any glimpses of silver might be mistaken for jewellery.

  Hair, at least, was still simple enough, although it had grown over the past sixnights. I ran a handful of the remnants of my precious cream through the blonde strands so it swept back from my face and curled into wisps behind my ears. There was hardly any of the cream left, a faint clogging at the bottom of the jar. I couldn't remember how many kopacks I had paid for it, and that said enough, really. I wouldn't be able to afford it again.

  I lacked the appropriate cosmetics and jewellery. With bandages still stuck to my neck and shoulders, and pink scars wriggling on my face, neither would have helped.

  I pulled on flat-heeled boots that were low enough to button up, and examined myself in the standing mirror. A parody of my old self smiled grimly from the glass. The pants no longer hugged my hips and thighs; indeed, they hung baggy and too large over my abdomen and legs. The extra length and the flat shoes made me short. The shirt too had lost its once-feminine look. No longer tight around my breasts, no longer tailored to highlight my waist, it was floppy and loose.

  I wavered in front of the mirror. Feeling short, feeling baggy, feeling tired from a sixnight of debris collecting and missing the Darkwater sublevel, with its smells of Kichlan's cooking and its footprints of ash across the cement floor.

  Then Devich knocked.

  He greeted me with a grin as I opened the door, and swept inside. One arm wrapped around my waist as he pushed me up against the hallway wall and kissed me.

  "You are lovely," he said, as he allowed me to catch my breath. His eyes flickered over me, starting with hair, to scarf, to shirt and pants. "Like I imagined."

  With a frown, I straightened, and pushed him away. "The trousers certainly look better on you than me."

  "Hardly." And he whipped out a pale lily from his jacket.

  I took the flower, not entirely sure what I was supposed to do with it. Devich wore pants similar to mine, of a thicker cotton and with a satin stripe down the side. His shirt was the colour of sunset, his jacket black with a crimson satin lining. He looked roguish, charming, and his clothes fit altogether too well.

  "I don't think this is a good idea," I murmured, more to myself than Devich. But he heard me.

  His face grew serious, not quite stern. "You promised me, Tanyana."

  I lifted my eyebrows at him.

  "I don't understand the problem." He shoved fists into his jacket pocket and actually pouted. "You look lovely, you will fit right in. You belong with us."

  With a controlled breath, I kept my hand from my face. "Too late to back out now, anyway." Oh, I wished there was a way.

  "Not that you want to." Devich smiled again. "Trust me."

  He helped me into my jacket like a true gentleman and I realised it probably wasn't suitable for a ball, or whatever this event was going to be. It smelled like the streets, like damp snow and road dust. But the other jackets I had owned were veche-marked, or sewn with the pattern of Proud Sunlight. Still, Eugeny's fire-drying room scent was there, somewhere in the weave, as well as traces of Kichlan's cooking. I took the comfort they could give.

  Devich tucked the lily stem into an empt
y buttonhole on my breast, and I hoped it was enough to draw the eye away from the smudges, the dirt and the damp patches.

  There was a waiting landau hovering in the silvering twilight. I sat beside Devich, his arm wrapped around my shoulders and pressing my hair against his cheek, and tried to forget the last coach ride I had taken. I tried not to compare the icy night that whipped us through the torn doors of Kichlan's coach to the pion-heated air and down-soft cushions in Devich's. I closed my eyes to the four small lamps lighting the interior, looked down from the gold inlaid handles and ignored the plush, bloodcoloured carpet.

  We headed into the centre of Movoc-under-Keeper.

  The veche chambers took up most of the centre of the city. They spanned the bridge itself, local courts on the east bank, national and province buildings on the west. In the shadow of these buildings, the city changed. It still looked haunted to me, but instead of the apparently unaided movement of otherwise inanimate objects – from walkways to coaches to food stalls – the older parts of the city were occupied by the ghosts of time. Age wore down on them. Not in a way that dulled the handcrafted beauty of polished marble, or blunted the pointed grace of rows upon rows of tall conifers. Rather, as the apartments and the factories fell away behind us, as the streets narrowed and the landau was forced to slow down, it felt like a weight of memory, of bells and moons and years, draped over us. These were the foundations of Movoc-under-Keeper as we knew her, built in the protective shadow of the Keeper Mountain. Our history, our ancestry, our past. And my own face, reflected in the coach window, could have been the spectre of any longdead debris collector.

  Not all the buildings we passed were veche chambers. Indeed, some of the most beautiful were the homes of the oldest families in Varsnia. My reflection paled further as we pulled up at the gates to one such family home.

  Devich was from a younger family, I had been certain of it. How could he have been invited to a place like this?