Liaden Universe Constellation Volume 3

by Sharon Lee

  “Within these walls, my son, you are safe from error, for the gods do not allow a man to sin while he is in their keeping.”

  “It is well to be sinless,” Niku said flippantly.

  It seemed to Niku that the holiness far back in Friar Julian’s eyes burned bright for an instant, and he regretted his impertinence. Truly, the gods of this place had failed him, for it was a sin to mock a holy man, even a gadje holy man. The luthia would say, especially a gadje holy man, for gadje are so little blessed.

  “Let me show you where you will sleep,” said Friar Julian, “and introduce you to the others.”

  Niku froze. Others? Others might pose a problem, when Fada came.

  “Other prisoners?” he asked.

  Friar Julian frowned.

  “You are our only boarder at present,” he said stiffly. “The others to whom I would make you known are friars, as I am, and lay brothers. This we will do over the meal.” He raised a hand and beckoned. “Come with me.”

  Ponnor walked the length of his room, placed a hand on the bed, opened the door to the ’fresher, closed it, opened and closed the closet door.

  He turned, and asked, in his blunt way.

  “What will be my occupation?”

  Friar Julian was pleased. Despite his rough appearance, it would seem that this boarder had a sense of what was due a house of the gods. Most did not understand, and in fact, the agreement between Godsmere Abbey and the city constables stated that no boarder would be required to labor.

  So it was that Friar Julian said, “You may do whatever you like.”

  Bright black eyes considered him from beneath lowering brows.

  “If that is so, then I would like to return to my grandmother.”

  Friar Julian sighed, and held his hands out, palms up and empty, to signify his powerlessness.

  “That,” he admitted, “you may not do.”

  Ponnor shrugged, perhaps indifferently, or perhaps because he understood that there was no other answer possible.

  “If I am to remain here, then, I would prefer to work, and not be locked all day in a room.”

  “We do not lock our boarders in their rooms,” protested Friar Julian. “You may walk the halls, or the garden, meditate, read . . .”

  “I prefer to work,” Ponnor interrupted. “I am accustomed.”

  Were a boarder to volunteer to work, the agreement between Abbey and police continued, they might do so, without the expectation of compensation.

  “If you would like, Friar Tanni will add you to the roster.” Friar Julian hesitated, then added, in order that there was no misunderstanding. “Your work would be a gift to this house of the gods.”

  “I would like,” said Ponnor firmly, and, “Yes.”

  “Then we will see it done,” said Friar Julian. A bell sounded, bright and sharp, and he waved Ponnor forward.

  “That is the dinner bell. Come along, my child.”

  The dining hall was full of people—gadje, all. The six friars sat together at one table near the hall door. To these, Niku was made known, and Friar Tanni that moment added him to the lists, and promised to have work for him by meal’s end.

  He was then released to stand in line, and receive a bowl of broth in which some sad vegetables floated, a piece of bread the size of his fist, rough, like stone, and as dense, and a cup of strong cold coffee.

  This bounty he carried to a long table, and slid onto the end of the crowded bench, next to a yellow-haired gadje who looked little more than a boy, and across from a woman who might have been the boy’s grandmother.

  “You’re new,” the grandmother said, her eyes bright in their net of wrinkles.

  “Today is the first time I eat here,” he admitted, breaking the bread and dropping hard pebbles into the soup. “Is the food always so?”

  “There’s bean rolls, sometimes,” the yellow-haired boy said with a sigh. “Bean rolls are good.”

  “Having food in the belly’s good,” his grandmother corrected him, forcibly putting him in mind of the luthia, the grandmother of all the kompani. She looked again to Niku.

  “Don’t know what we’d do without the friars. They feed who’s hungry; patch up who gets sick or broke.”

  “They do this from their holiness?” Niku asked, spooning up bread-and-broth.

  The gadje grandmother smiled.

  “That’s right.”

  “Some of us,” the boy said, “bring finds—from where we’re clearing out the buildings don’t nobody live in now,” he added in response to Niku’s raised eyebrows.

  “Isn’t the same as before, when this was a place for the rich folk,” the grandmother said. “When it was over, and those of us who were left—you’re too young to remember—” So she dismissed both Niku and her grandson.

  “Well, I don’t mind telling you, I was one thought the friars would leave with the ones who could—and some did. But some stayed, all of them hurting just as much as we, and they opened up the door, and walked down the street, and said they’d be bringing food, soon, and was there anybody hurt, who they could help.”

  She glanced away, but not before Niku had seen tears in her bright eyes.

  “Wasn’t anything they could do for my old man, not with half a partment house on top him, but others, who they could.”

  Niku nodded, and spooned up what was left of his soup. After a moment, he picked up his cup and threw the coffee down his throat like brandy.

  The grandmother laughed.

  “Not from around here,” she said. “Or you’d be going back for more of that.” She looked to her grandson.

  “You done?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Then come on.”

  The boy rose nimbly and went to her side to help her rise. Then the two of them moved off, the boy supporting the grandmother, which was Bedel-like. Niku sat very still, caught with a sudden longing for the sight of his own grandmother.

  When it had passed, he rose, and went to find Friar Tanni.

  His assigned work was to wash the floor in the big room—what the gadje called the nave. This suited him well, since the door to the street outside stood open during day-hours, and gadje of all description were free to come inside, to wander, to sit or lie down for an hour on one of the wide couches, to partake of the offered food.

  It was this continual passage of feet that dirtied the nave floor, and Friar Tanni had told him that he might wash it every day, if he wished.

  For the moment, he wished, for Fada, when he came, would surely enter by the day-door. It would be best were Niku near at hand to greet him. He had no clear idea what the friars would do, if they found a stranger wandering their halls in search of his brother, but there was, so Niku believed, no reason to discover the truth.

  So, he washed the floor, simple work, and soothing, as simple work so often was. When he was done, he took his broom down the long hall to the left of the nave.

  This was filled with cabinets, shelves, and tables, and those were filled with this and that and the other thing—an unrelated jumble of objects and intent that vividly brought to mind the work spaces of his brothers and sisters. The “finds” these must be, with which the gadje boy and others like him repaid the god-house for its holy care of them.

  Dust was thick on surfaces and objects alike, but Niku had the means to deal with that.

  He used the broom first, to clean the dusty floor. When that was done, he pulled the duster from the broom’s handle, and addressed the collection.

  Taking care to keep an eye on the nave, in hope of seeing Fada, Niku set himself to methodically dust the objects.

  It was an interesting collection, to put it no higher that its due. One piece he picked up, his fingers curling covetously around it; another he could scarcely bring himself to touch. Valuable, dangerous, fascinating . . . all jumbled together without regard for utility or merit. It was as if the friars did not know what they had, nor how best to make use of it.

  Niku had been born after th
e earthquake and the storm that had destroyed the city, but he had learned from the tales told by his elders. He learned how those who had means had fled, leaving behind those who suffered, and also much of their own property. The Bedel, scavengers and craftsmen, had recovered items similar to those here, in order to repair, destroy, or dream upon them, as each required.

  A bell rang, startling Niku, as if from a dream. He walked out of the transept, into the nave, and looked about. There were a number of people about, as there had been, none of them was Fada, which saddened him. If the bell was a call of some kind, it had no power over those in the nave.

  Well enough.

  Niku returned to the transept.

  Some time later, and Fada still not with him, he took the broom and duster, which would explain his presence, if he were found where he ought not to be, and explored further.

  The South Transept was much like the North, save not yet so full of treasure. He did not pause there, but ascended a flight of stairs, to a loft which was very full of dust, and a standing desk facing a tiered platform. There was a low rail behind the desk and Niku stepped up to look below.

  A wondrous sight met his eyes—a device he had only seen in dreams, brass glittering in the muted sunlight admitted by tall soot-stained windows. He stood for a long moment, wonder slowing his heart, then setting it to pounding.

  Dazzled, he put one booted foot up on the rail, meaning to make the jump to the floor below.

  He stopped himself as he leaned forward to grasp the rail, withdrew his foot, and rushed down the stairs.

  A moment later, he crossed the threshold into the sunlit niche—and paused, gazing up at it, its perfect form haloed; light running liquid along the silver pipes.

  Softly, Niku mounted the dais.

  Gleaming dark wood was like satin beneath his fingers, the bone keys were faintly rough. There was no dust on wood or keys; the brass stops had recently been polished.

  Niku sat on the bench and looked over the three tiered keyboards, matching the reality before him with his dreams. Reverently, he extended a hand and touched the brass knobs of the stops, pulling one for each keyboard, those being named the Choir, the Great, and the Swell. He placed his feet on the pedals; leaned in and placed his fingers so upon the Choir keyboard, pressed, and . . .

  . . . nothing happened.

  Fool, Niku told himself; there will be a switch, to wake the blower.

  He found a small brass button set over the Choir, and slightly to the left of center, and pressed it. Then, as memory stirred a little more robustly, he located the mute stop, and engaged that, as well.

  He pressed his fingers once more against the keys.

  Nothing happened.

  Frowning, Niku closed his eyes, striving to call up a more detailed recollection of the organ and its workings. It was several long minutes before he opened his eyes again, rose from the bench and descended to the floor.

  The trap was behind the organ set flush to the boards.

  Niku pulled it up, and sat on his heels, looking down into the dimness. Unlike the instrument, the rungs of the ladder were furry with dust, and likely treacherous footing. He had reached to his pocket before he recalled that the garda had taken his light-stick, along with the papers his clever sister Ezell had made for Ponnor Kleug, his gadje name.

  For another moment he crouched there, debating with himself. Then, with regretful care, he closed the trap, stood—and froze.

  He had heard a step, nearby.

  Quickly, he ducked out from behind the organ, and went up the dais, pulling the duster from his pocket.

  The steps came nearer, and in a moment Friar Julian came into the niche.

  He paused for a moment, startled, as Niku read it, to see someone in this place, engaged in admiration of this instrument. Niku smiled.

  “It is very beautiful,” he said.

  The gadje’s worn face lit with pleasure.

  It is,” he agreed, coming up the dais to stand at the organ’s opposite side, “very beautiful, yes. Sadly, it is not functional.”

  “Has she ever shared her voice?”

  The friar frowned, then smiled, as softly as a young man speaking of his lover.

  “Yes. Oh, yes. Years ago now, she . . . shared her voice often. I was, myself, the organist, and—” He shook his head, bereft of words, the soft lips twisted, and the sad eyes wet. “She was damaged in the earthquake. I fear that I will never hear her voice again, on this side of the gods’ long river.”

  “Perhaps,” Niku suggested, softly, “a miracle will occur.”

  Friar Julian’s eyes narrowed, and he glared at Niku, who kept his face innocent and his own eyes wide. After a moment, the old gadje sighed, and gave a nod, his anger fading.

  “Perhaps it will. We must trust the gods. Still, even silent, she—she is a wonder. Would you care to see more?”

  “Yes,” said Niku.

  They toured the pipe room, descending the stairs to the blower room, with no need of the trap and ladder. Niku inspected everything; he asked questions of Friar Julian, who was sadly ignorant of much of the organ’s inner functions. For the old gadje, Niku realized, it was the voice, the opening of self into another self, that mattered. The mechanics, the why, and the what—they did not compel him as they did Niku.

  Some while after, they came through the door, back to the organ niche. Niku smiled and bowed his head and thanked the friar for his time.

  The sun was low by then, and Niku hurried out to the nave, to see if Fada had come.

  Fada had not come before day had surrendered to night, and the day-door closed and locked. That was . . . worrisome. He depended upon Fada, to bring him, quickly, away.

  Niku shared the evening meal of a protein bar and a cup of wine with the friars and the laymen. To take his mind from worry, he listened intently to all they said.

  They forgot he was there, tucked into the corner of the table, and they spoke freely. The garda’s money was to go for medicines. Where they were to find money for food, that was a worry.

  A very great worry.

  The simple meal done, the gadje joined hands, and prayed together, as brothers might do.

  After, Friar Julian stood, and the rest, also, and filed off to their rooms. Niku rose, too, and went to the room he had been shown.

  There, he showered, his worries filling his belly like so many iron nails. The message that had come to the kompani had not been specific as to time, but it was certain that their ship was approaching. What, indeed, if it had already come, and he was left here, alone among gadje—

  He raised his face into the stream of cleansing spray, and with difficulty mastered his panic.

  The Bedel did not leave one of their own among gadje. Ezell, Fada—the luthia—they would not hear of such a thing. They would not leave him alone among gadje, not while Bedel knives were sharp. He knew that; and it comforted him.

  But, still, a man would wish to continue his life, as long as it might joyfully be done.

  His best hope yet rested upon Fada. But hope mended no engines.

  It is said, among the Bedel, that gods help those who help themselves.

  Accordingly, Niku stripped the blanket from the soft, gadje bed, wrapped himself in it, and lay down on the floor.

  Arms beneath his head, he closed his eyes, and breathed in that certain way that the luthia had taught him. And so slid into the place of dreams.

  The accounts page was bathed in red.

  Friar Julian sighed, and shook his head, his heart leaden.

  A shadow passed over his screen, and Friar Julian looked up, startled.

  “Yes, Ponnor?”

  The stocky man ducked his unkempt head.

  “Friar, I come to offer a bargain, if you will hear it.”

  Friar Julian frowned.

  “A bargain? What sort of a bargain?”

  Ponnor stroked the air before him, as if it were a cat—perhaps the motion was meant to soothe him—and said, slowly, “I am an artificer
, very fine, and I have studied many devices, including such a device as your lady organ in the niche.” He leaned forward, his hands still, black eyes hypnotic.

  “I can fix her.”

  Fix—? Friar Julian’s heart leapt painfully in his breast. But surely, he thought, around the pain, surely that was impossible. The earthquake . . . they had done all they knew . . . and yet—

  “An artificer?” he said, faintly.

  Ponnor nodded. “My brothers—all of us—there is nothing that we cannot repair, sir,” he said, with a matter-of-factness far more compelling than any more humble declaration.

  “And you believe you can repair my—the Abbey’s organ.”

  “Oh, yes, sir,” Ponnor assured him. “But there is a price.”

  Of course there was a price. The gods themselves charged a price, for admission into the Life Everlasting. Friar Julian took a breath, careful of the pain in his breast. The price named by the gods was a soul. Perhaps Ponnor would ask less.

  “What is this bargain?” he asked, speaking as calmly as he could.

  “I fix your lady organ, and you release me, to return to my grandmother,” Ponnor said, and rocked back on his heels, his hands folded before him.

  The price was a soul, after all.

  Friar Julian swallowed.

  He could not, could not free Ponnor from his bonds. The chip implanted in his throat would activate and render him unconscious if he moved outside the field of the device locked into the safe in the nave. The police were not idiots, after all; they held the key to the safe; they held the code to the chip.

  It was not in Friar Julian’s power to release Ponnor to his grandmother, or to anyone else.

  But . . . tears rose to his eyes. To hear his organ, once more? To play—did he remember how to play? Absurd doubt. He played every night, in his dreams.

  He could not agree to this. He—

  Stay. Ponnor offered his work to the house of the gods and their consorts. That had already been agreed upon. This other thing—what harm, if it gave him some ease while he worked? After all, the police would surely be back soon, to take him before the judge.