Debris vw-1

by Jo Anderton

  Beside me, Kichlan let out a sigh.

  "I meant this, sir." I shifted the book into my hands. "We have something to sell, something he believed would be to your tastes." Oh, Other I hoped so.

  "Well, let us see."

  I handed the book across Yicor's desk. Its weight left a lightness in my palm when he took it, a brush of air and a understanding that I would never hold anything as valuable again.

  "What have you got here?" Yicor unwrapped the book, lifted it, and turned it to examine the spine. His indulgent smile faded to a thin line as he read, and his breath slowed. Eyes riveted to the worn lettering on the cover, he placed the book on his desk, and tenderly opened the pages. His fingers shook as they caressed the lines of finely written words, stopping to hover above the pencilled-in notes as though they were precious, too fine and beautiful to sully with touch.

  Finally, he lifted his eyes to mine. I felt open to them, bare, and I knew Yicor saw right into me, into scars deeper than those on my flesh.

  "Are you certain you wish to sell this?" he asked, although he knew the answer. Why else would I have brought it here, why else let anyone else touch it, caress it, covet it?

  "I must." It wasn't a real answer, but he accepted it.

  "Then my old friend is right." He closed the book carefully, his shivering fingers gliding over the worn leather. "This is something very much to my tastes. And I will buy it from you, although it grieves me to be forced to do so."

  The shop was too stuffy, the shelves too full and dustcoated. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be out in Movoc's crisp sunshine and stinging air.

  Kichlan, oblivious to the lines of tension strung up between Yicor's eyes and mine, clapped his hands. "Glad to hear it. Now-" he rubbed them together "-how much?"

  I turned my head away. I didn't want to hear them haggle over my old life. But Yicor leaned forward, while keeping one hand on the book's cover, and touched my wrist. "How much do you need?"

  "To live this life?" I didn't truly know.

  Kichlan, however, had begun ticking off his fingers. "You'll need a surety payment, that'll be four hundred and fifty, I'd say. Three sixnights' lease is the usual. Of course, the more you have to spare the better you'll be. What else? Clothes, food, something to sleep on."

  Yicor eyed him with pity and I realised how keenly the old man understood me. How much more he had seen, in that single glance, than Kichlan had for all his lecturing. "I cannot offer you kopacks for something so priceless. At least, I cannot offer you kopacks alone."

  Like a dog on a leash, Kichlan bristled.

  "What will you offer me then?" I lifted a hand to stay Kichlan and focused on the shop owner.

  "Somewhere to house you," Yicor said.

  "We can do that on our own," Kichlan interrupted. What about this man and his generosity had Kichlan so agitated?

  "Somewhere safe, around people I know and can vouch for. Clean, well kept, warm. With furniture and a place to sleep."

  I rather liked the sound of it. Kichlan, sulking, crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders.

  "For I cannot pay you the worth of this." Yicor's hand had not left the book cover. "I only hope to fill the gap with what help I can."

  I nodded. "How much, then?"

  "Twenty-five thousand is all I can spare."

  Kichlan dropped his arms, and whispered a curse under his breath. But I knew how poor a sum that was for something like the Principles of Architecture. Yicor knew it too.

  "I accept," I said, and gave the old man a small and rather shaking smile. "As long as you find it a good home." And, I hoped, not the home of someone I knew, who would realise it was mine and how much further I had fallen.

  "Of course," Yicor said, his eyes solemn.

  I drew my rublie, sad and clunky in its crutch, from my pants. When I held it out to Yicor and he pressed his own against it, only then did I understand. For his was also sheathed in that sad cover, although it read considerably more than the five kopacks left in mine.

  Kichlan, looking away, already muttering about the best way to spend my sudden wealth, didn't notice. Yicor and I shared our understanding alone.

  "Where is your team stationed?" Yicor asked casually, as we watched the bright numbers on our rublies flick over.

  "Eighth Keepersrill," I answered.

  He seemed to think for a moment, and once my rublie was full, he found a scrap of paper in a desk drawer. He scribbled an address using a quill and ink from a crystalline glass jar. The entire odd and antiquated process fit in perfectly with the atmosphere in the shop. "Somewhere close, somewhere safe." His letters were flourished, l's high and g's curled. "Try them."

  Kichlan eyed the paper like it was mess at the bottom of his shoe. "I'll tell Eugeny you were helpful." He rested his eyes on me. "We'll wait outside for you to finish." He strode from the shop.

  Yicor handed me the piece of paper. "Your friend should know better. You need somewhere you can be protected. He just does not want to admit it."

  My fingers stilled, touching the paper lightly. "Protected?"

  Yicor clicked his tongue. "Eugeny sent you to me for a reason, more important than the book. Perhaps you are involved in something you do not understand. Perhaps there are people, strange people, dogging your heels. Perhaps they appear when you do not expect them. Perhaps they are watching, always watching. He sent you to me, so we can watch you too."

  I folded and tucked the paper into my shirt, my hand shaking. "Thank you." My voice shook too. "How did you know all that? You're not even a collector, are you?"

  Smiling, Yicor lifted his arm so his shirtsleeve fell back to reveal a bare wrist. "Not all of us are."

  "How is that possible?" How had he fallen through the cracks while I was caught, shackled, and forced to roam the streets for a pittance of kopacks and less respect? How many of us ran free?

  "Just good luck." And he would say no more. So I thanked him again and left him with the last piece of my old life, knowing I would never see it again, and hoping it would rest somewhere safe now, behind glass.

  Kichlan was unimpressed by Yicor's help. "What do you think he knows that I don't?" he huffed as we walked away from the shop. Lad stared sadly at the empty space under my arm.

  "He's one of us, you realise," I said, keeping my voice low and hoping Lad was too concerned by the book's disappearance to listen carefully. "A coll- no, not a collector. But he can see debris, not pions."

  Kichlan puffed up his cheeks and let out an explosive breath. It gave him a froggish air. "Hardly."

  "But he is. You didn't see his rublie!"

  "Didn't need to."

  I was shocked by this. "You knew?"

  "Of course." Kichlan scowled down at me. Just like old times. "Not all of us-" he waved his hand and light flickered from the silver on his wrist "-do the right, the responsible thing."

  "Oh." Still, how exactly did one avoid doing the right, responsible thing? How did one escape the puppet men? The strange men that were, indeed, forever watching, following, appearing. And to be protected against them, to be watched by more faces I did not know in shadows of their own, it hardly filled me with confidence. If anything, it was worse. "Don't you wish you had that kind of freedom?"

  Kichlan looked at Lad as he answered. "Hardly. We have a purpose, Tanyana. Something more worthwhile than selling ancient junk."

  "I don't think a book worth twenty-five thousand could be considered junk."

  "You know what I mean."

  True, I had never seen such a comprehensive collection of dust.

  "Still." I flipped the scrap of paper over, reading the address yet another time. "I want to try his suggestion first."

  "If you'd rather trust an old man you hardly know more than me, that's your prerogative."

  I sighed. "I suppose you already had a plan, did you? Knew exactly where to look?"

  Kichlan said, "You could say that."

  "You were going to wander around and hope we found something, we
ren't you?"

  "What have you got against spontaneity?"

  "Will you help me find this place? Groundlevel, 754 Lightbrick. It's the seventh Effluent, Section ten. Should be close."

  "Sounds delightful."

  "Will you help?" I asked.

  "Of course we will."

  "Of course!" Lad broke in with a grin. I could tell by the lightness in his face, the ease, that he hadn't understood a word of our argument. "We're here to help Tan, aren't we, bro?"

  "What if she doesn't need our help?" Kichlan asked him, words lightened by the twist in the corner of his mouth. "What if she doesn't want it?"

  "Of course I do." I hooked an arm into Lad's elbow. He squeezed my arm against his chest. "I always do."

  All roads led to the Tear, and so did all rills and effluents. So we headed to the river to get our bearings. The sharp sun warmed us as the morning aged, tempering the crisp wind and melting what was left of the ice, huddled in windows, and the muddy snow crowding the edge of the road. A large street cleaner ghosted by, prying out dust from the walls and muck from the street with wideranging tentacles of now-invisible light. Kichlan and I averted our eyes: there was something disturbing about a floating wedge of clear honeycomb gradually filling itself with dirt. Lad watched it avidly.

  "Spring's finally here," I mused, because it was better than arguing about Yicor.

  "Wouldn't have known it this morning," Kichlan answered.

  I nodded. "And it's taken its time."

  "Hasn't it? Didn't think this winter was ever going to leave us."

  Some conversations are so much safer. Lad, however, was not so interested in the weather. He yawned widely. Pointedly, I thought.

  "Not boring you, are we?" I chuckled, and squeezed his arm.

  He blinked in an overexaggerated, tired way. "Where are we going, Tan?"

  I showed him the piece of paper. "Here is someone who can help us."

  Lad barely glanced at it. "Oh." His hands fidgeted.

  "Your turn," Kichlan murmured out of the side of his mouth. "He's getting bored."

  "My turn to do what?"

  "Entertain him." He grinned, vicious and self-satisfied. "Call it payment."

  I remembered all the effort Mizra, Kichlan and Sofia usually went to, to capture Lad's attention. Stories, speeches, and constant praise. It really was a lot of work to keep him in a manageable mood through the day.

  Was I up to the challenge? "You know lots of stories, don't you, Lad?"

  He brightened instantly, as though I'd opened a shutter and let the sunlight in on his face. "Mizra tells them," he said. "I listen and I remember them. Don't I, bro?"

  "You do." Kichlan cupped his hand and said in a loud, exaggerated whisper, "He's very good at it."

  Lad's light swelled.

  "Well, maybe I can tell you a story you don't know," I said.

  "I know a lot of them," Lad replied.

  "He does," Kichlan said, supporting his brother and enjoying every minute of this. "That would be difficult."

  "Hmm." I pressed a finger to my lips and pretended to be thinking hard. Lad's eyes were wide, his gaze and riveted on my face. "No, I think you won't know this one. I think I'm going to tell it to you, and see if you do."

  "Oh, will you?" Lad scrabbled for my hand, nearly crushing it as he squeezed. "Yes, please!"

  "Careful," Kichlan warned him.

  Lad released my hand instantly and stroked the red skin, his motions awkward, like his hand was too big for his arm to control with any precision.

  "Yes," I said. "I will."

  I waited a moment to collect my thoughts as Lad patted away. I knew few myths and children's stories, but I had learned things in my time at university neither of them would have heard. The history of the revolution, and the great men who made it happen.

  "This happened a long time ago," I began. And didn't get far.

  "They all do," Lad interrupted.

  "I can't tell the story if you are talking, Lad."

  He pressed a hand against his mouth.

  "That's better," I said, with an approving nod.

  Kichlan turned away to hide a smile.

  "Now," I continued. "This happened a long time ago. Before there were cities like Movoc-under-Keeper. When the veche was young, and made up of lots of groups of people who didn't agree with each other. Before lights in the streets, before factories, carriages or debris collectors." I wasn't certain of the last one, but it sounded likely. "Before all this there were men who wanted to create these things. And who worked very hard to make them."

  Lad dropped his hand long enough to ask, "Like the book?"

  "Yes, very good. Like the man who wrote the book."

  He clapped his hand tighter over his face.

  "One of these men was Uric. He came from outside of Varsnia, so he was strange. He thought he was as smart as a Varsnian, and as strong, and maybe he was. For a while."

  Both brothers were watching me now, intent.

  "He was a pion-binder," I continued the story. "And a very good one. But he wanted to be better. And that was when everything went wrong."

  "Isn't it always," Kichlan muttered to himself. Lad shushed him, blowing spittle into the air.

  "He brought together twelve other binders, all as strong as he. And he said, 'If you make a circle around me, all twelve of you, then we will be able to do great things. Greater than anyone has done before'."

  This was the point in the story where pion-binders knew what was going to happen to poor Uric, for his foolishness and pride. Kichlan and Lad continued to listen, expressions blank.

  I continued, "But the pion-binders were Varsnian, and they knew no circle could be larger than nine-"

  "Why?" Lad interrupted.

  "Because that's the limit," I answered. "Any more and the circle will be unstable."

  "But why?"

  "Do you want to hear the story?"

  The hand clamped back on his face.

  "So they told Uric that what he wanted was impossible. But Uric laughed; he said, 'Just because it has not been done by a Varsnian does not make it impossible. Work with me, and you will see a miracle.' And the pion-binders agreed only so they could be proven right."

  "Oh dear," Kichlan drawled. "He was prideful, wasn't he? And rude. I think I know what this particular myth is trying to teach us."

  "This is not a myth," I snapped at him. "It happened. It's in the books, recorded by people who were there at the time."

  "Mizra says his stories happened too," Lad said. "The ones with knights and swords and how they rescue people and sometimes they get hurt."

  "My point exactly," Kichlan muttered.

  I rubbed my forehead with my free hand. Whose idea was this again?

  "Then what happened, Tan?" Lad, less able to foresee the morally dictated ending than his brother, squeezed me again, expression intent.

  I gave up trying to argue the difference between history and legend. "Uric, unable to be dissuaded, set up his twelve point circle. The pion-binders, for all they didn't believe him, really did try to help. For a moment, the circle was bright, brighter than any ever made. It shone like the sun in the village centre, and all the windows were opened, and people peered out to see the light. It shone with many colours, but the centre, where Uric stood, was as white as a star."

  "It sounds beautiful," Lad said.

  "It would have been." I didn't tell him he would not have seen it, that none of us would have seen more than thirteen people making a circle with a dot in the centre, standing still, talking to themselves and possibly moving their hands.

  "For a moment the circle shone. But the Varsnian binders were right, and Uric should have listened to them, because the circle was too bright, too strong, and after that moment it started to collapse. Uric was at the centre and it all fell on him."

  "Oh no," Lad gasped.

  "Oh no, indeed." I left it hanging.

  "What happened?" Lad squeaked out after a moment of silence and tension
.

  "If he goes home healthy and well to his family, I'm going to eat that." Kichlan pointed to a particularly filthy heap of grey snow squeezed between the corners of two buildings. The street cleaner must not have taken this path, then.

  I ignored him. "No one really knows," I answered Lad. "All the colour and the shine rushed into the centre, piled on top of him, and when it faded away Uric was never the same."

  "He was hurt?" Lad's large eyes were frightened.

  I squeezed his hand for support. "Not his body, there wasn't a scratch on him. But when the light was gone and the pion-binders tried to talk to him, they discovered he had lost his mind."

  Lad blinked. "Lost it? How?"

  I had to smile. "He went crazy, Lad. Do you know what that means?"

  He shook his head.

  "It means he couldn't do the things he used to do, it means he started seeing things, hearing voices that weren't there-" I stopped. Hearing voices? Oh, Other, hearing voices?

  Why hadn't I realised it? This wasn't the right story to tell Lad, it wasn't the right story to tell myself. What had happened to Uric in the centre of that twelve pointed circle? I knew now.

  He had fallen, and he had fallen hard.

  Lad, considering the story for himself, hadn't noticed my concern. "That's not good. It's not good to listen to strange voices you hear, is it, bro?"

  "No. We know that already, don't we, Lad?" Kichlan was staring at me, so focused I could feel him like two hot points on my forehead. "We didn't need a story to tell us that."

  "No." Lad thought for a moment more. "What did he see?"

  I said, "A man." Not debris. No grains or planes or anything he had described as dog turds. A man.

  "There's a man over there." Lad pointed to an elderly man wrapped in a large coat the colour of dying grass. He was hunched against the wind, and shielding his eyes from the sun with a flat hand.

  "Yes, but he saw a man no one else could see. He heard a man no one else could hear. A man who wasn't there." Saying it out loud like that cooled my sudden panic. Uric had gone mad, it was documented, it was fact. He hadn't become a debris collector; he had started seeing people who didn't exist. He had forced the pions too hard, and they had broken him.

  Still. I shivered as the river wind's fingers started up their prying again. All those pions, too many to control: the image was familiar. Were they crimson, those pions? Had he dug too deep inside reality and pried free a furious force that shattered his circle, destroyed his systems, and turned on him? He hadn't fallen eight hundred feet onto a bed of glass, but had they pushed him regardless? Forced him down onto that cobblestone floor until something inside him broke, something vital that no one, it seemed, had ever understood? And the voices, I couldn't ignore the voices.