The Temporal Void (ARC)

by Peter F. Hamilton

  'Gosh, seeing me really does cheer you up, doesn't it?' she mocked.

  'Sorry,' he smiled, pushing his emotions down below any possible farsight perception. 'It's fantastic to see you, but that just reminds me what I've got to do tonight.'

  'Really?' she asked brightly. Her arm tucked through his, and they started to walk over the iron bridge. 'You poor thing. It must be truly terrible having to entertain Kristiana and Ranalee in your bed.'

  Edeard stopped in shock. 'How on Querencia did you know that?'

  She giggled again, delighted to have flustered him. 'Oh

  Edeard, the whole city knows who's snagged the Waterwalker tonight. Kristiana has been bragging in half the saloons in town today. And you know what this city is for gossip.'

  'Yes,' he said brokenly. Then, because he couldn't help it, he asked, 'Are people really talking about my love life?'

  'Talking. Singing. Writing books on it. I think they're planning a play for the ox-roast on Golden Park this New Year.'

  'Shut up.'

  She pressed him against the railing and kissed him again. Her skin was warm, soft and silky. Her scent strong. 'Will the second act be us? And the third and the fourth?'

  Edeard almost pushed her away. Instead, with a massive effort of will he smiled back ruefully, and turned round to lean on the rail. Then he put his arm round her. Her mind's flash of delighted surprise at the gesture was intoxicating. 'Have I been really stupid?' he asked.

  'Only rejecting me. The rest of it, you're just like any Grand Family son on his fifteenth birthday. You've got the run of the city, Edeard. The difference between you and them is that you earned it. People are fascinated to learn what's going to happen next; if Arminel was just a fluke, or you're truly going to be the Waterwalker.'

  He sighed. 'I hate that name.'

  'I hope… Edeard, I hope you live up to it. Did you know church attendance has gone up since Birmingham Pool? You displayed duty and honour that day, as well as courage. They're traits so sorely lacking in this city. It showed people what was absent from their own lives. It was a wonderful thing, Edeard.'

  He stared down into the dark water with its surface crust of slush. There were ripples near the far bank where fil-rats were nesting. A couple of gondoliers were edging their way towards them along from High Pool on the Grand Major Canal, their lamps glinting on their prows, their gondoliers harmonizing a gentle melody. 'I don't know what to do next,' he confessed. 'Actually, that's not true. I know what I should do. But if I go there, if I use my talent to take on the gangs, then there'll be no turning back. Right now I can do nothing, and all the fuss will die down. But…'

  She hugged him back. It was a gesture more intimate than any of her flirting had ever kindled. 'You can't do that,' she whispered. 'You know you can't.'

  'Yeah. I know that. Thank you.'

  'I'm just passing on the Lady's teachings, Edeard. That's what I've given my life to.'

  'You're such a good person, Salrana,'

  She leaned in playfully. 'I don't want to be. Not with you. And those family girls, they say you're a good lover.'

  Edeard shivered with mortification. All Makkathran is discussing that? Yet, at the same time… 'You don't want to believe everything you hear.'

  'Don't I?' she said archly.

  'Well okay, I admit that bit's true.'

  'Oh listen to you!' She thumped him on the shoulder, then immediately pulled him in closer and kissed him again.

  It was like that time back in the bottom of the well. He knew he shouldn't. But, actually, there wasn't any real reason why not. For once let the heart rule, not the mind.

  A couple walked past them, farsight gently examining the young couple embracing with growing ardour. Heads turned.

  'It is him,' the woman whispered. 'The Waterwalker.'

  'And that's a Lady's Novice!'

  A longtalk voice was directed at a number of acquaintances: 'You'll never guess—'

  Edeard and Salrana broke apart smirking like scolded apprentices. They straightened their clothes and moved down the slope of the bridge to the Haxpen side.

  'I'm going to get a reputation worse than Dybal,' Edeard decided.

  'Good camouflage. The gangs will underestimate you if they think you're just a wicked womaniser.'

  'Yeah,' he laughed. 'Tis a terrible price. Come on, I'll walk you back to Millical House. It's sort of on my route.'

  'No it isn't.'

  'Actually, it is. I am going to try and achieve something. You and the Lady are right, it would be wrong not to try.'

  'And that's tonight?'

  'Yes. It's perfect. Nobody will expect me to do any kind of constable work tonight.'

  'I certainly didn't.'

  'I know. We really need to talk.'

  'We've talked for three years, Edeard!'

  'Yeah.' And he was hugely tempted. As always. Perhaps dealing with Ivarl could wait one day.

  'Actually, I'm not being fair,' Salrana said.

  'Oh?'

  'My House Mother told me yesterday. I'm being assigned to the Lady's hospital in Ufford for the winter.'

  'Where's that?'

  'Capital town of Tralsher province, that's south of the Iguru.'

  'What? No!'

  'Yeah. Nursing is all part of our training.'

  'But there are hospitals in Makkathran.'

  'The Church doesn't work that way. It wants us to learn of life outside the crystal wall.'

  'You know more of life outside than any city Mother does, or ever will,' he said with petulance.

  'And telling them that would not be helpful.'

  'I could ask Master Finitan if he could speak to your Mother.'

  Salrana chuckled softly. 'Really? That ought to do it. A friend of his wants a Novice as a mistress, so could you please change her traditional training schedule to make that possible'

  'Ah. No, put like that, I suppose not.'

  'You suppose right.'

  'But you wouldn't be my mistress.'

  'Wouldn't I?'

  'No,' he shook his head firmly. 'No. Never. We would be equals. True lovers.'

  'Oh, Edeard.' A tear emerged from her eye as she looked up at him. 'Say that again. Promise me! Promise we'll be lovers when I get back.'

  Edeard took both her hands in his own. 'As the Lady is my witness, I promise.'

  * * * *

  Edeard took the tall bridge beside High Pool, the one with the crystal apex. On this night the transparency made no difference, it looked like he was walking on some glossy black substance smeared by slush. It brought him out into the empty streets of Eyrie, which he hurried through on his way to the Zelda district. He hadn't planned on coming this far, but if everyone knew he was meeting the girls there, he should at least appear to be on his way in case he was being observed. Part of him was still aghast that the city knew about his love life, though he accepted he really only had himself to blame. It was strange that none of his friends had mentioned it. Did they assume he knew? That was the problem with not growing up in the city, everyone took it for granted he was familiar with the culture.

  Once he was over Grove Canal the buildings changed to a warren of modest houses and shops and craft halls. The walls closed in as he deliberately chose a route that took him down the narrowest streets. In Polteral Alley he was completely alone, it was a tiny passageway between the backs of buildings, a zigzag that was barely one person wide. Indeed, there were alcoves in the walls to allow people to pass - given their slightly strange inward bulge a couple of feet above the ground he could only speculate what the city's original inhabitants had looked like. At night nobody used it, the thick walls prevented anyone from using farsight along its length, and it effectively blocked longtalk. If you were mugged in here, no one would know until morning. Edeard sent his farsight out ahead of him, checking the alcoves were all empty. When he was halfway along, he stopped under an overhanging section of wall and wove a concealment around himself. Once he was sure no one was following
him, he asked Makkathran's somnolent mind to allow him passage once more. It was easier for him now; after that first time behind the shops in Sonral Street, he'd taken to practising in secluded spots like this one. There were many in the city.

  The pavement under his feet changed, producing a subliminal swirl of coloured symbols. Edeard's feet sank through it as if it had no more substance than fog. Some force lowered him gently into the drain fissure running beneath the buildings. As always he felt as if he was plummeting from a great height.

  Edeard walked for several minutes until the drain opened out halfway up the curving wall of the big tunnel which ran directly underneath the Grand Major Canal. He placed his feet tentatively on the little steps he'd asked the city to create down the wall. Even so, with the water gurgling over his boots, it was a treacherous descent. His previous explorations had revealed that Makkathran's entire canal network was duplicated down here in the city's hidden underworld, not that he'd ever walked their length. The crest of the main tunnel glowed with a faint tangerine light, showing him the stream which ran along the bottom. It was higher than usual tonight, indicating how much water was dripping out of the pavement slush and into the drains. A ledge allowed him to walk beside it, though he had to splash across the broad circular pools of the junctions. Water poured in over the tops of his boots. It was freezing. Not for the first time, he wondered if he could somehow bring a little boat down here. In the end he settled for using his third hand to hold the water back from his shins. He'd found that doing the whole Waterwalker trick and stabilizing the surface was too exhausting to maintain for any length of time.

  Eventually, he turned off down the tunnel below the Upper Tail Canal. After a few hundred yards he scrambled his way up into another drain. He wasn't terribly familiar with the Myco district, but his farsight could easily penetrate the city's substance now. To his mind, it was as if the structure around him was built from nothing more than cloudy glass. He stopped below a secluded corner of a little square, and the city lifted him up, elevating him out into the thickening snowfall. By the time he emerged he'd cloaked himself in a concealment again.

  A couple of sailors in their traditional magenta-coloured half-cloaks walked through the square, oblivious to him. He grinned at their backs, and set off in the opposite direction.

  The House of Blue Petals fronted the Upper Tail Canal, looking directly across the warehouse domes of the port. A four storey establishment with a vermiculated facade, the oval windows surrounded by onyx-like anthemion friezes. Protruding from the upper slope of its mansard roof were several hemispherical windows, as if it had grown giant eyes to peer up at the nebulas of Querencia's skies. Edeard frowned up at them, puzzled by the faint violet glow that emanated from within. It had been a long time since he'd seen anything other than Makkathran's ubiquitous orange glow at night.

  The three tall doorways of the ground floor were all open. The sound of piano music was spilling out into the street, accompanied by laughter and loud voices. Doormen in black jackets similar to constable tunics stood on either side of each heavy wooden door. Edeard held his breath and slipped past them, watching anxiously to see if they could sense him. One of them frowned, looking round at some phantom disturbance; but didn't raise any challenge.

  Half of the ground floor was a bar, with the piano in the middle hammering out a jolly tune. Smartly dressed stewards mixed cocktails behind a long polished counter, which groomed ge-monkeys delivered. Polished tables were accompanied by high-backed leather armchairs where the customers relaxed with a drink as they waited for the madam to come round. Two big black iron stoves on opposite sides threw out a comforting heat as coal blazed away behind their grilles. The room was a high one, taking up two floors, with a wooden gallery running round it. Girls with strangely stiff curly hair leaned over the railing, wearing low-cut, brightly coloured dresses; grinning at the men below as they made eye contact and blew kisses and made saucy longtalk calls.

  Edeard watched the wide wooden stairs which had been fixed to the wall, seeing who was coming up and down. It wasn't just sailors who visited Ivarl's establishment; judging by the clothes a large proportion were men from the Guilds and families. He even saw a couple of militia officers in their sharp blue and scarlet uniforms. No constables, though. Probably can't afford it.

  He waited, getting a feel for the routine, and probing about with his farsight. The madam would go from table to table, sharing a few pleasant words with the clientele. There would be a brief discussion about the girls, some requesting an old favourite, some taking their pick from the gallery. A fee was either handed over discreetly or for regulars an addition made to their account, and as soon as the man had finished his drink he'd go upstairs to be greeted by the courtesan he'd chosen.

  After a couple of minutes standing near the foot of the stairs, Edeard followed a carpentry Guildsman up to the gallery. The selected courtesan flounced along to throw her arms round the Guildsman in welcome. They headed off down one of the side corridors. Edeard hurried past the other girls, startled by how strong their perfume was, which made him worry he might sneeze. Then he was wiggling through an archway shielded by curtains. That was the most difficult part, trying to disguise the motion of the thick red velvet.

  On the other side was an unembellished corridor leading back to stairs which took him up to the third floor. He'd sensed the layout of the rooms up there, with over thirty people gathered in groups. Ivarl was easy enough to discern, Edeard wasn't going to forget his mind in a hurry.

  Edeard didn't bother with the door, opening it unseen would be impossible. Instead he asked the city to change a section of the wall, and ghosted his way through. The gang master was holding court in a long room at the end of the building. Four of the grandiose oval windows looked out eastwards to the Lyot Sea. Tonight they were covered by thick curtains. A green-enamel stove burnt hot in the corner, making Edeard wish he wasn't wearing his coat. Nobody else in the room was.

  Ivarl's grey shirt was unbuttoned, showing off a thick mat of hair on his chest. His boots were off, resting against the side of the deep-cushioned leather settee he was lounging on. Seven other men were in attendance. Their fine clothes emphasised the illusion of them belonging to some Grand Family or merchant house. It was an image Edeard couldn't get rid of, as if they'd somehow established a Guild for their criminality, and enjoyed the same benefits as any of Makkathran's legitimate enterprises. When he'd first learned of the gangs, he'd assumed they'd consist of sour faced men in shabby clothes meeting furtively in dark underground rooms - not this.

  There was a table along one wall, with gold and silver platters laden with food every bit as delicious as that served in a Lillylight restaurant. It complemented a selection of wine from estates Edeard had never even heard of.

  Three girls were walking round with bottles, filling up the cut crystal goblets held by the men. They were wearing long diaphanous skirts and simple suede slippers; nothing else. Edeard stared, feeling mildly guilty, as if he'd deliberately snuck into their bedroom. Lady, you stupid country boy. What did you think girls would wear in a place like this? Then he really looked at them. Two were the girls who'd accompanied Ivarl to the court this morning. The third…

  Edeard couldn't help the little groan of dismay which escaped his throat. Luckily, the men didn't hear him over their own conversation. It was Nanitte, the dancer Macsen had brought back to his maisonette the night before the ambush at Birmingham Pool. Now that was scary. Ivarl clearly operated at a level which had completely eluded Edeard. This room was the right setting for the gang master after all; he was smart and sophisticated, with money and an unseen influence that extended a great deal further than Edeard liked to think about.

  Edeard had come here in the hope of overhearing a few incriminating conversations. Now he knew that Ivarl wasn't going to be removed simply by a couple of well planned arrests and some raids. If he was going to do this, to take out Ivarl and ruin the gangs, he was going to have to sharpen up his own a
ct considerably. He would have to learn how Ivarl functioned, where his interests lay, who his friends were. With a depressing sensation, Edeard guessed that the gang master could never have grown to this stature without help from the city's establishment.

  One thing at a time.

  He strengthened his concealment, and settled down to listen.

  * * * *

  It snowed the day after New Year. Big soft flakes sliding down out of a grey sky, deadening the sound of the city. Edeard bathed early, then ate a decent breakfast of scrambled eggs and grilled bacon, with some slices of Orkby black pudding thrown in the frying pan along with his mushrooms. He was pretty certain he wasn't going to get any lunch today. When he dressed he made sure his new, thickened drosilk waistcoat was fastened properly, then added a pair of drosilk undertrousers as well. There could well be a lot of resistance from the gang members during the raid, and he knew over half of them were armed with pistols.

  He went out on to the walkway to finish his mug of tea, looking down on to the pool in the central oval courtyard. Snowflakes sank silently into the still surface as strands of vapour rose up. The water was too warm to freeze, but not warm enough for any of the kids to swim in. Edeard had thought about increasing the pool's temperature, as he'd done with his own maisonette, but once again he'd resisted for fear of drawing attention to his ability.

  Boyd and Dinlay came along the walkway, their cheeks Hushed by the cold air. Dinlay as always was immaculately turned out, with a regulation knee-length coat exactly the same colour as his tunic, even the silver buttons were the same size and shape.

  Boyd had chosen a brown leather greatcoat, quilted on the inside. Edeard had admired it so much, he'd gone to the same shop in Cobara district to get himself one.

  'Everything okay?' Dinlay asked anxiously. Since his return to duties two months ago, he'd been working hard to prove himself to his squadmates. Too keen, really; but they'd all gritted their teeth and waited until he lost his manic edge.