Debris vw-1

by Jo Anderton

  I glanced at Lad. A frown creased the edges of his eyebrows. I wasn't the only one who had heard them, was I?

  "I think that's a good story," Lad finally decided, his voice firm. "It's like Mizra's stories."

  "It is," Kichlan added softly. "A lot like the myths."

  I groaned. We weren't here again, were we? "Except this is real. They locked him up in the ruins of a Movocian castle, three bells' journey from Movoc-under-Keeper. Kept him there until he died, trying to work out what happened to him. They never did."

  "Really?" Kichlan kept his voice low. "How fascinating."

  It was highbell by the time we came to the seventh Effluent. Beneath us, water rushed into the Tear as we followed the slightly raised path. A vent at every five yards released warm, rank air to steam into the cool wind.

  "Not exactly pleasant," Kichlan murmured, pinching the end of his nose between two fingers.

  I said, "I won't be living on top of one of those, you do realise that." The buildings lining the seventh Effluent were painted an insipid grey, and none had windows over the raised path.

  "It's dull."

  "It's not much different from a rill." I had a feeling the houses could be built of marble with gold window-lattices and Kichlan still would have disapproved.

  "They're all pale, how are you supposed to find Lightbrick?"

  "They have street signs here. That always helps." Apart from the vents and the dead-skin colours, the seventh Effluent was in much better condition than the eighth Keepersrill. No rubbish crowding the streets, signs still intact, buildings standing. I kept that observation to myself.

  Lightbrick wasn't too far along the seventh Effluent, and it didn't take long to find 754. The numbers were clear here, and closer together than along the eighth Keepersrill.

  "They're small."

  I sighed, and didn't bother answering.

  Number 754 was wider than the rest of the tall thin buildings, and reminded me of Eugeny's out-of-place home. It had only two stories, with a set of rusty and rather unsteady iron stairs twisting tightly up to the second level.

  "Those don't look safe," Kichlan muttered as I knocked on a wooden door with peeling and faded white paint. Had he noticed the heavy iron lock?

  The door opened slowly, creaking like an old man, and I had enough time to glance at the paper in my hand. A large woman, with ruddy cheeks and silver-laced blonde hair pinned up beneath a blue scarf, peered around the slightly open door. She didn't speak, but her eyes were sharp and settled on each of us.

  "Valya?" I asked.

  In silence, she continued to stare at me.

  "Um, Yicor gave me your name-"

  "Yicor did? Well-" she pulled the door open with a sudden burst of speed and strength. "Then in you get." She shuffled off into a warm, dark hallway.

  I hesitated at the doorway.

  "Hurry now!" she called. "You look hungry. You will all eat."

  That was enough for Lad. He barrelled his way inside and we had to follow.

  The house smelled of food, not the constant stewsmell of Eugeny's home, but something vastly more complicated. Charred chicken skin, fresh bread, potatoes baking and hot olive oil all surged around us.

  "Got anything to say now?" I muttered to Kichlan as we followed Lad, who was evidently following his nose to the kitchen.

  Strangely enough, he was silent.

  Lad, it seemed, could follow food with as much accuracy as he could find debris. He wound his way easily through a dim living room, another small and cool room lined with shelves laden with jars of preserves, and into a wide kitchen. A long table took up most of the space, and the cool wind was blowing in from an open window above an old gas stove.

  Valya stood at the bench, slicing bread that steamed its freshness with each new cut. "You sit," she commanded us without turning around. Soon she placed the bread, sliced and warm, with a tub of garlic-infused lard on the table. "Begin," she told us, and Lad launched into the food as though he had not eaten for days. This was soon joined by a porridge-like dish of chicken, carrot and buckwheat.

  Then she sat at the head of the table and watched us eat. Her sharp eyes took in every bite. "He is a good eater, that one," she said, pointing to Lad, who would have happily eaten everything himself if Kichlan weren't keeping him in check. "I like that. Good eater is a good person."

  Lad beamed at her, mouth full. Kichlan ran his hand over his face, and was forced to protect his own bowl from his brother.

  "So." Valya turned to me. "You are here for upstairs. Yes, you may stay." Her eyes narrowed. "But you should eat more."

  After at least two sixnights and one of living on tea, the occasional stew and Devich's charity, I was finding the rich food difficult. But more than that, Valya's sharp eyes and assumptions were putting me off my appetite.

  "You don't even know who we are." I put my fork down and turned in my chair to face her. I did not eat on command.

  "I know enough." She straightened. "You are collectors, all three of you. Yicor sent you, so he believes you need help. You are the one who will stay here, your friends already have a home of their own."

  Lad stopped eating long enough to show the halfchewed food in his mouth. "How did you know all that?"

  "I have eyes, boy."

  And she called Lad, who hulked above all of us, a boy. Those eyes were sharp.

  "Yicor's recommendation and our collecting suits I can understand," Kichlan said, voice soft. "But how did you know we weren't also asking to stay?"

  Valya gave the first smile I had seen on her face. It wasn't joyful, more a triumphant twist of the lips. "She doesn't eat enough. She isn't happy, she isn't content. You two have been looked after. She is the one who needs a home."

  Lad, swallowing a large chunk of food, nodded. "Yes, and she didn't like her home when she had one. A home should be somewhere you want to go."

  Would I want to go here? Those eyes were sharp, those words were blunt, but really, what did I have to hide from Valya? She already knew me for what I was.

  "I am Tanyana," I told her. "And I appreciate you taking me in."

  Valya made a scoffing noise. "You don't, not a lot. But that is okay." She stood. "You can come with me."

  Lad looked up, despairing of the food he still had in front of him.

  "They can stay."

  So I followed Valya while Kichlan and Lad continued to eat.

  "You eat down here, so I know you have enough," Valya said as she lifted a key from a hook near the door and pressed it into my hand. "Everything else you do yourself." We stepped into the street, and I realised how warm it had been in her kitchen. How pleasant. "Careful of the stairs, stay to the left." The iron stairs rocked as we climbed them, metal creaked beneath our feet and flecks of rust came off against my gloves. "Here." There was a small platform before the upstairs door, barely wide enough for one person. "Open it."

  I edged around Valya's ample frame, and turned the key in the iron lock. It undid with a heavy clunk, and the door swung inward at a gentle push.

  The upstairs was about half the size of the house below it. It was a living room with a window so close to the building next door there wasn't enough room to push the glass open more than a few inches. A table and a few chairs filled the space; there was an ancient wood stove in one corner. The wall above it had blackened over the years. The floor was cement, but padded with rugs, most made from animal pelts. A bunch of dried lavender mounted on richly stained wood decorated one wall. There was a bedroom behind the main room, large enough for a bed and a small chest of drawers. One of the handles was loose. Beside the bedroom was a bathroom, complete with a narrow, shallow bath. The water worked, although it ran a slightly dirty colour and left tiny grains of sediment in the cracked porcelain. There were wide windows on the back wall of both bathroom and bedroom, draped with lace. They opened out over the rest of the roof and what I realised was a small greenhouse, crowded with plants, at the back of the house.

  It was small, not e
xactly in the best condition, and bare. But, I realised as I peered down into bright glass above newly budding, wavering green, it was home now.

  "You cannot bring anything," Valya told me as I returned to the living room. "Only furniture is already here."

  "I don't have anything." Absolutely true.

  "No, you don't. I can see that." Her eyes bored into me. "Yicor sent you to me, and I will look after you. We won't let them get to you."

  "What does that mean? Let who-"

  "Tsk!" Valya pinned my shoulder with a hard finger. "You are not so good at lying. You know whom we mean, you know the pet creatures of the veche, they follow you, they use you. Those misbegotten seeds of the Other's lust!"

  The puppet men. "How do you know about them? You and Yicor!" And Eugeny, I realised with a sinking certainty. Eugeny had sent me here. Did that mean Kichlan was involved? But no, he hadn't even wanted to listen to Yicor's advice. What was going on? "He said you would be watching, that you would protect me. From what? And how?"

  "You are not the first those creatures have set their sightless eyes on. We cannot do much, we are few and old, but we will try. Girl, we will try." Then just like Yicor, she refused to say more, and took me down the stairs, only talking about the room. She lectured me on keeping the door locked, on minding my key. She told me she would ask for one hundred kopacks each sixnight and one, but didn't want to see my rublie until I had stayed there that long. "Don't take kopacks for something not yet given," she said. I would also pay for my food, all of which sounded too reasonable to be true. But I certainly didn't question her.

  When we re-entered the kitchen Lad had finished off the chicken dish and was looking very large and sleepy, slumped against the table. We stopped Kichlan in the middle of worried pacing. I shared a nod with him, and he immediately went to Lad's shoulder and started the long process of getting him moving.

  "I need to, ah, replenish my wardrobe," I told Valya. She had started collecting the plates from her table, and prodded Lad's arm with a long fingernail to get him out of the way. Had far greater effect than Kichlan's murmured coaxing.

  "Come and go as you wish," she said. "Just make certain you eat."

  "Fair enough." I helped Kichlan heave Lad to his feet.

  "Goodbye," he said to Valya around a yawn as he rubbed his red eyes. "I hope we come and see you again."

  Considering the size of the dish he had devoured, I wasn't surprised.

  "I think you will," Valya answered.

  Kichlan and I supported Lad out the door. Lad started making noises about seeing my new home upstairs, but I feared for the rickety staircase beneath his careless weight.

  "And we need to help Tanyana buy some clothes," Kichlan, evidently fearing the same thing, came to my aid. "We need to hurry or the day will be all over."

  That was enough to capture Lad's interest. He snapped awake – probably aided by the outside chill – and hurried us along toward the Tear. The shops that lined the water were smaller than the ones I knew in the city, and poorly lit. Their wares were cheaper, secondhand and mended. Kichlan and his brother piled hats, gloves and scarves into my arms. They even found a stiff jacket, tailored for a man but small enough to fit me well, with panels of hard leather sewn onto the thick wool to keep out the wind. As a replacement for the jacket I had left in the apartment it was poor, the leather faded, thin at the elbows, and a large stain sullied the inside left breast. But it felt appropriate, somehow, as Kichlan draped it over my shoulders and tugged it together at my waist, muttering about the need for a belt to hold it together. It was a collector's jacket, to hang in a collector's rented room and brace the cold and the dirt of a collector's life.

  I found scissors, small things with wooden handles that wobbled on a loose hinge, but they would do. I had noticed a mirror on the chest of drawers in my new bedroom, and my hair was growing uncommonly long.

  The clothes barely scraped the bottom of my newly charged rublie, and we left with arms full of bulging calico bags, the shop owners so flushed with delight they had given us the bags for free. I was sure they would come in useful, somehow. Kichlan certainly seemed pleased with them. I wasn't entirely sure what they were for, but allowed myself to be swept into his enthusiasm regardless.

  "For the next time you need to do this, of course," he explained as we trudged beneath a darkening sky to my home at 754 Lightbrick.

  "Next time?" I shifted the bag in my arms. "Why would there be a next time?"

  Lad, thankfully carrying two of the heavy, awkward things, was walking ahead of us and singing to himself.

  "There usually is. They move us, sometimes, break up and rearrange teams. And not all landlords are as accommodating as Eugeny. They don't like having us around for too long."

  "Valya seems like the accommodating type."

  Kichlan grinned over the bulging bag he carried. My jacket was in there, the heaviest piece of the lot. He didn't seem to mind carrying it. "Don't let her feed you up too much. No use to me if you have to roll around Movoc-under-Keeper."

  "Anytime that seems likely just send Lad over for a sixnight," I answered. "Won't be any food left in the house once he's through."

  Kichlan nodded, his grin fading. He walked in silence for a long while, expression distant and distracted. "That was an interesting story you told earlier," he finally said.

  "Yes." Did he know about the voices too? Had he heard them? Were we all a bit mad?

  "Maybe now you understand." He jerked his head toward his brother, singing and walking a yard or so ahead of us. "About him."

  "You don't want them to lock him in a castle for the rest of his days. Yes, I understand that."

  "It's more than that." Kichlan shifted the bag. His fingers sought purchase in the folds of calico. They squeezed deep indents into the soft clothes. "I think, you see, that some of us fall differently. Like your Ulric fellow."

  "Uric," I corrected.

  He flashed me a frown. "Yes, whatever his name was. A long time ago I met others who heard things after they fell, who thought they could see faces instead of debris."

  I half stumbled on the road's uneven stones. "What? Really? Why didn't you say anything?"

  "This isn't something Lad needs to know about. Listen to me, Tanyana, please."

  I shut my mouth against more questions.

  "I thought I could find out what was wrong with Lad, I thought I could help him. But he didn't give me enough time. He has always been like this. Listening to voices no one else can hear. But they can't find out about it, do you understand? They can't."

  "They?" I whispered.

  "The veche men. Technicians. Because every one of those people I met, those people who fell hard, were found by the veche, and they were taken away." He drew a deep breath. "I know, because I was there. Because I helped."

  I stared at him blankly.

  "I wasn't always a collector, I wasn't born like this. Not the way Lad was. And before I fell I thought I could help him, I wanted to use-" he struggled, his hands quivered against the bags he carried "-my skill to help him. My binding skill."

  Cold that had nothing to do with the Movoc-underKeeper weather made me shiver. "I thought you didn't know anything about pion-binding?"

  Kichlan couldn't meet my eyes. "I tried to help him. I learned things, but not enough. And when Lad hurt the girl, I knew I had to make a choice. Fall, and protect him. Or watch him being taken away. You know what I chose."

  "I don't understand, Kichlan. What was your skill? What did you do-" But I did. The silver hand, that dull metal with its thick cords that had reminded me so much of my suit, on Kichlan's dresser. "You were a technician?" My tongue felt frozen, the words impossible to say.

  "In a way. I didn't make suits, not like the ones we wear. The veche had me experimenting, making changes. I was quite skilled."

  "You must have been." He wasn't bad at lying, either. "Any reason for the pretence? Or just amusing yourself by lying to the new collector?" The bitterness in my words wa
s too sharp to contain.

  "The team don't know this. Lad, I think, doesn't really understand. I gave it all up for him, Tanyana. When he hurt that girl, he took away any chance I had to find out what was wrong with him. To fix him. I fell, so I could protect him. He doesn't need to know. He shouldn't have to carry that." His voice hitched. "It isn't his fault."

  I wondered, numbly, why he had told me. Did he think I had the strength to carry his grief around with him? The love in those words, and the resentment, and the failure.

  "Where did the veche take them? The collectors you said fell hard?"

  Kichlan shook his head. "I didn't find out. I wasn't there long enough. But they never came back." He looked at me, and in his eyes I saw the kind of fear, the kind of desperation and terror I would have associated with his brother's confused mind instead. "I will not let that happen to Lad. They cannot take him away. He's all I have left, Tanyana. He is my everything."

  "I know, Kichlan. I know."

  I wanted to touch him, to hold him or pat him in a way Lad would have let me easily. But, even if we weren't laden with my new clothes and their calico bags, I wasn't certain Kichlan would let me get that close.

  "I'm still going to find a way," Kichlan whispered so softly I almost missed him beneath my own breathing. "I'm going to find out what the voices are, and I'm going to stop them. Then the veche can't take him, they'll have no reason. Then he will be safe."

  I watched Lad's back. His head was tipped, with his song reaching a roaring chorus without discernable words.

  Did any of this make sense? Did I fall from Grandeur and land beside Kichlan and his brother for a reason? Was it anything more than terrible, devastating luck?