by Ian Whates
With an audible crack, the boy's neck snapped.
He probably never even had the time to realise what was happening.
Dewar caught the bow as the body fell, wondering if it might prove of some use, but quick examination showed it to be crude and poorly made. He dropped the thing to the ground, where it snapped beneath his heels as easily as the lad's neck had between his hands.
The assassin looked out to where Tylus's retreating back could still clearly be seen. Word travelled quickly in the City Below. With a bit of luck, this incident would gain the cocky young Kite Guard enough respect to keep the street-nicks at bay for a while. Dewar certainly hoped so. He had enough on his plate without having to waste precious time playing nursemaid to an incompetent buffoon.
FOUR
Tom awoke to the sound of voices. If he suffered any disorientation it was fleeting; the memory of where he was and what had happened the previous night came flooding back almost at once. The Jeradine, Ty-gen, had proved true to his word, feeding Tom and finding him somewhere to sleep, even giving him some salve for his grazed arm, which was now feeling considerably better as a result.
Food had come in the form of a hot broth, which looked and smelt delicious. At first Tom hesitated, wondering what sort of food the flatheads ate and whether it might be unpleasant or even harmful to him.
Ty-gen evidently guessed the reason for his hesitation and offered reassurance, saying, "Don't worry, I am used to human visitors. I could not eat this. You can."
Tom's doubts faded and hesitation crumbled in the face of the aromas that continued to engulf him, and he soon tucked in. The soup was piping hot, scalding his mouth at the first few mouthfuls, but that barely slowed him. Chunks of tender meat and vegetables and a lightly spiced broth proved just as enjoyable as the aromas had promised, and he wolfed it down as quickly as he could. The Jeradine sat and watched; not prying, not interfering, not saying anything, simply observing.
Tom hadn't realised how hungry he was until the soup's vapours tempted his nostrils, nor had he realised how tired he was until he lay down on the pallet in the back room which the flathead directed him to. A pallet that was cushioned with the softest bedding the young street-nick had ever encountered. He fell asleep at once.
Now, as he woke, he remembered Ty-gen's perceptiveness in knowing why he hesitated before eating the broth, and he reflected on a great deal else - the little things the flathead had said and the questions he refrained from asking where another might have. Tom had never thought of them as intelligent - the Jeradine - never thought much about them at all, truth be told, but he was already developing a growing respect for this particular flathead.
His shoes were beside the pallet. Had he taken them off before falling asleep? He couldn't remember. An insole had been placed inside the left, effectively plugging the hole that had developed during the night's excursions. As Tom slipped the shoe on, wriggling his foot and getting used to this new sole, his suspicions returned. He wondered exactly what the Jeradine's angle might be. One thing life on the streets taught you beyond any doubt was that nobody did anything for nothing and, so far, Ty-gen was simply too good to be true. What was the flathead after?
The voices claimed his attention. There were two of them. One was unmistakably the not-quite human monotone of Ty-gen's box, the other definitely human; that of a girl. He rose and headed towards the sound, brushing aside the curtain that had been drawn across the doorway to lend the backroom a semblance of darkness. The Jeradine seemed fond of curtains, at least to judge by the front room's walls, which were festooned with a variety of such, large and small.
The girl had been speaking but stopped in mid-sentence and stared at Tom as he entered.
She looked a little older than him, though not by much, and was clearly a street-nick through and through. The clothes said that much about her; in fact, they almost said it too loudly and Tom immediately began to doubt his initial impression. The clothing looked too good - too well made and too expensive for any real street-nick, even a gang leader. Was she some up-City kid playing at being a grubber? Yet something in her posture said otherwise and, while dressed to impress, the clothing was practical - the sort a street-nick would wear if they could afford to - and if they were tough enough to hang on to it.
She was dressed from head to toe in black - boots, tight fitting trousers and a light, sleeveless top which, tucked in, showed an athletic but definitely female figure. Tom instantly focused elsewhere. Every item she wore looked clean, new even, including the black leather belt with its silver studs, though the handles of twin knives that hung from it did not; they were well worn and had obviously seen use. Street-nick, he felt certain, if quite unlike any he was used to.
The girl had also been appraising him, though her own inspection was far swifter. Tom felt he had failed in some way and was already dismissed from her thoughts.
"Ah, Tom. You slept well I trust?" Ty-gen greeted him. "This is Kat."
Girl and boy exchanged perfunctory nods of acknowledgement. Her eyes were dark, he noticed; perhaps appearing more so due to their being set against her spiky black hair and choice of clothes. Not as dark as his own, but even so...
Then he noticed the object on the table in front of the Jeradine.
"What's that?"
Without thinking, he snatched it up. Smooth beneath his fingers and oddly textured. Almost like glass, yet not quite.
The girl moved as he moved, either to stop him or to take it back, but she was restrained by a gesture from Ty-gen, and instead contented herself with a snapped, "Careful with that. It's valuable."
Tom barely heard her, caught as he was by the small statuette in his hand. It was a depiction of a leaping fish, sculpted from a clear crystalline substance, the like of which Tom had never seen before. Holding the figure carefully by its base - a stylised wave - he turned it around so that it caught the light, glittering and winking at him.
"It's beautiful," he said.
"Thank you," the Jeradine said. "I made it; quite literally."
Tom looked at him for an explanation.
"We Jeradine are dissimilar from your people in many ways. Our bodies work differently to start with. We cannot metabolise certain elements of the food that is vital to us, and we excrete those elements as a crystalline gel."
"He means they shit the stuff," Kat cut in.
"Not exactly, but it's true that the khybul," here the translator produced a guttural sound that was almost unintelligible, "is a by-product that we have to regularly purge from our systems."
"And this icky-gel stuff hardens into crystal," Kat explained, evidently growing impatient with the wordy explanation and choosing to talk to him in a far friendlier manner than Tom would have expected, given her initial disdain. Perhaps she wasn't so different after all.
"Indeed," the Jeradine confirmed. "But before it completely solidifies there is a brief period when it is malleable. Khybul-sculpting has long been a tradition among my people. Apparently, there are those who value our little efforts."
"Too right. People up-City can't get enough of the stuff, especially what's turned out by the very best Khybul-artists like Ty-gen here." Kat produced a fair approximation of the guttural 'khybul' sound. She then laughed; a brief bark of glee. "Course, I doubt if anyone tells them exactly where it comes from. Can you imagine it - the rich and the mighty paying a fortune for Jeradine shit?"
In truth, looking at the crystal fish, Tom could well believe it. "And you fence these for the...Jeradine?" He'd so nearly said "flatheads".
"For Ty-gen and a few of his friends, yes."
"For a cut?" His initial awe at the girl's apparent persona was fast evaporating. She was just another street-nick on the make after all.
"Of course."
It was a neat set-up. Tom was jealous of this Kat, he realised. Why had such a simple, hazard-free way of making a living never landed in his lap? He eyed her speculatively, trying to see something special in her, anything that might e
xplain why she enjoyed so much good fortune when he didn't.
The girl's hand drifted casually towards the knives at her belt. "Don't go getting any funny ideas, street-nick. This is my pitch, you keep your grubby hands off."
"Kat, keep a civil tongue," the Jeradine admonished. "I'm sure the lad entertains no such thoughts, do you, Tom?"
"Course not," Tom replied, guiltily.
The girl watched him through narrowed eyes, clearly unconvinced.
"I need you to do something for me, Kat," the Jeradine said, "but first there's something I want to show you."
He turned to one of the curtains that adorned the walls and pulled it aside. Behind was an alcove and sitting on the shelf within was the most beautiful object Tom had ever seen.
"Thaiss!" Kat exclaimed, echoing Tom's thoughts precisely.
They stared at a khybul sculpture, but one as far beyond the leaping fish as that was from some stick figure drawn in the dust. It stood perhaps four times the height of the fish - still not particularly large, but infinitely more intricate and detailed. It was a castle, a city: layer upon layer of walls topped with an array of miniature turrets and towers.
Tom didn't need to be told what it was. "Thaiburley," he exclaimed, his voice barely above a whisper.
"A representation of the city, yes," the Jeradine confirmed.
"I never knew you could do anything this complicated," Kat said.
"Oh, you'd be surprised what we can do with the khybul when we put our minds to it."
"You've been holding out on me."
None of them had reached out to touch the figure, not even Tom, who feared that this crystal city might prove too fragile and would break beneath his clumsy fingers.
"You want me to sell this for you?" Kat asked. "It'll fetch a fortune."
"No, not for me. It's yours, to sell or keep as you choose."
"What? You're breckin' kidding me! Why would you simply give me something like this?"
"In return for a favour, an errand completed," Ty-gen told her calmly.
"Go on." She was suspicious now; Tom saw that much in the narrowing of her eyes, the tilt of her head. She was no doubt wondering what task could be worth such a prize. So was he, for that matter.
"Tom here has some distance to travel and I would like you to escort him back to his own part of the city."
"I don't need minding," Tom snapped, appalled at the suggestion. The words Especially not by a girl rattled around his head but fortunately did not escape his lips. At the same time, he didn't want to seem so helpless, not to her.
Kat just stared at him, her lips pursed into a thin line.
"I don't doubt you are capable, Tom, but this is not an area of the city you're familiar with. Kat here knows the gang territories, who is to be trusted and who avoided, and she can guide you away from the other dangers that lurk in the shadows, things which the unwary traveller might never even know were there until it was too late. Then, when you get closer to your own home, you can do the same for her, helping Kat avoid the pitfalls specifically associated with your part of the city. Together, you are stronger."
Tom thought of the traffickers, the needlers, the dog master and the web wife, and he wondered what their equivalents were in this part of town. The fact was that he simply didn't know, which meant that the Jeradine might have a point.
"And if I babysit him home, you'll give this to me, no strings?" She nodded towards the sculpture.
"That is correct."
She shook her head. "I still don't get it, this is beautiful, but..." Her attention returned to Tom, looking him over critically. "Do you run with anybody?"
He nodded. "The Blue Claw."
"The Blue Claw? Their territory's on the far side of the Runs, isn't it?"
Again, he nodded.
"Thaiss, you're a long way from home, kid."
"That much I know." He bridled at being called kid but bit his tongue and didn't complain. Despite the knee-jerk indignation he'd originally felt, he was swiftly coming around to Ty-gen's way of thinking. This strange girl might just offer him his best chance of getting all the way home and the last thing he wanted to do was antagonise her before she'd even agreed to do so.
Kat turned back towards the Jeradine. "What makes you think I won't just take him halfway home and then dump him?"
"Because I trust you. And because I would know if you did. I'd see it in your eyes."
For a second, the pair locked gazes. It was the girl who looked away. She gave a wry smile. "True."
She rubbed her chin thoughtfully; an action that seemed far too old for this wild, intimidating girl. "You know there's not another being in the whole of the city I'd do something like this for without taking payment up front, don't you?"
"But what would be the point?" Somehow, the flat voice of the translator conveyed a genuine sense of surprise, or perhaps that was simply Tom reading too much into things. "You could not take the crystal with you and it is imperative you leave immediately."
"The point?" She laughed. "We really are different species, your people and mine, aren't we?"
"Undeniably."
She shook her head, as if not entirely comfortable with a decision already made. "I must be mad." She glanced again at the crystal sculpture before letting out a long sigh. "Very well, I'll do it."
"Thank you, Katarina." This time there could be no mistaking the affection in the synthesized words.
"Kat," she said sharply. "Nobody calls me Katarina."
The flat, alien head bowed in apology. "Kat," he corrected himself.
Tom watched this final exchange with interest, his curiosity piqued. There was a story hidden in those words somewhere, he felt certain.
"Come on then, kid. The sooner we set out the sooner I can be back."
"First let the lad have a drink of something, Kat. He has had nothing since rising." Tom was grateful for the Jeradine's delay; in truth he was parched. The girl merely scowled, as if this were the most unreasonable request in the world, and then fidgeted impatiently while he gulped down some fruit juice and followed it with a glass of chill water.
"Ready?" she asked as Tom tipped back his head and drained the last drops.
He thanked the Jeradine in parting, words that had to be spoken hurriedly, so impatient was the girl to be on her way.
"Shouldn't take us more than three hours or so," Kat said, almost to herself. "With a bit of luck I can still be back and under cover before it's fully dark."
"One thing," Tom said quickly. "The Blood Herons..."
"What about them?"
"Probably best if we steer clear of their territory."
The girl stopped and scrutinised him, before giving a barked, bitten-off laugh. "Ha! I heard they had some trouble this morning by the steps. That was you, was it?"
Tom nodded glumly, not certain how she was likely to react - the Blood Herons might be her allies for all he knew. Instead, he thought he detected a hint of approval in her gaze; perhaps, for the first time, even a little respect.
"So, it'll mean a detour, but I suppose I can always find somewhere to hole-up for the night if need be." Nobody sane wandered the streets alone after dark if they could help it. "So we go around the Blood Herons."
She was about to head off again when he stopped her. "Wait a moment."
"Now what?"
Only at this point, when they were already some distance down the road, did it occur to him to wonder about the Jeradine's apparent knowledge. "How did he know? Ty-gen, I mean. He said that I had some distance to travel, but I never told him who I was or what part of the city I was from."
"You must have done."
"No, no I didn't."
She sighed. "Look, the Jeradine are a funny lot, and Ty-gen's stranger than most. They're not like us." A fact Tom was coming to appreciate all too well. "Get used to it."
Ty-gen watched the pair disappear. The adaptability of human youth never ceased to amaze him. Earlier that very morning the boy Tom had exhibited m
istrust and fear of all Jeradine, yet now he walked down a street in the Jeradine quarter without any apparent concern at all.
Confident that Kat and the boy were truly on their way, he crossed to the back wall of his main room, pulling aside one of the curtains that dominated the place; a particularly large one. Behind it lay an apparently unremarkable section of wall; simple blank stone.
Ty-gen then turned his attention to a small, high alcove beside the large curtain, checking the power levels of the battery it contained. They were adequate and would not need topping-up for a while yet. He flicked a switch and the blank area of wall started to change, seeming to grow smoother and gradually losing its sense of solidity, until it resembled glass rather than stone. The wall's opaqueness rapidly faded, as if all the colour were being leached out of it, until what remained was foggily transparent. The subterfuge was a simple one, but he felt confident that Kat would have had a good root around the room at some point and this afforded adequate protection from prying eyes. There was no reason for the girl to associate the odd contraption in an alcove with the expanse of blank wall.
Through the screen that had been revealed an array of crystals could be seen. They were built into the wall and were sufficiently elaborate to put even the depiction of Thaiburley to shame. Kat would have been truly astonished had she seen this. As Ty-gen had assured her, she had no idea what the Jeradine were capable of once they put their minds to it. Few humans did.
He waited patiently for the image of one of those few to appear, and after a handful of minutes, it did. The face of an elderly man swam into focus, masking the crystals behind.
Ty-gen appraised the image with no small amount of concern. "You're looking tired, my friend."
"Just getting old."
The Jeradine had been associating with humans long enough to know the sort of response that was expected of him. "You're not old; you will never be old."