“Think they’ve ever been found?” Elora asked no one in particular, basking in the warmth of a lowering sun, the air cast in comforting autumnal hues, her thoughts full of the possibilities she’d seen in the professor’s library. She assumed the brownies would reply.
“Who’s that?” Duguay asked in return, and Elora stumbled in startlement. She struck the parapet, hissing with annoyance more than pain as she barked her hip, and the troubadour’s hands closed over her to keep her from falling farther.
“The dragons.” Whatever her innermost feelings, her smile of welcome was genuine and a decent complement to the daystar beaming overhead. Duguay looked like he was about to kiss her but chose instead to stroke his thumbs lightly along the column of her throat. The sensations were delicious, they made her tremble like a cat. She’d have purred as well if she’d known how.
“They’re a vexatious breed,” he said. “Comes of heeding no law but your own.”
“Know ’em that well, do you?”
His smile turned lazy and possessive in a way that made her want to melt inside. “I’ve heard the stories and sung the songs, like any troubadour worth the name.”
“Street of the Lost Dragons,” she mused. “I wonder, does ‘lost’ mean missing, or doomed?”
“Or nothing at all? Does it matter? It’s only a street sign.”
“Just a thought, is all. What are you doing here, Duguay?”
“Thought we’d go a-wandering tonight, pet. Dance for our pleasure…?”
“Don’t we always?”
“Gauge the competition, so to speak?”
“Answer my question.”
“Asked at Susan’s where you were. Got pointed toward the university. Came looking. Not so big a place to search, nor are you so hard to miss. Now you answer mine?”
“It sounds like fun. Though I warn you, Duguay, if the performances of the last few nights are any indication, once we’re done at Susan’s, it’s bed.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He took a hand in his, sliding fingers between hers to intertwine their grasp. She let him for a few more steps, then slipped free before his hand could close. She had no thought of direction when they started their stroll, the only requirement being that they return to Madaket in time for dinner. They passed along lanes barely a few handspans wider than their shoulders and from there into proper streets, crossing bridges when they came to them. Given the layout of the city, that proved fairly often. Few words passed between them as they walked, but to those who passed they seemed the most familiar of couples. Not quite lovers but more than simple friends, bound by an intimacy that went beyond the simply physical.
It was her inspiration to ride the cable car. She saw it at the end of the street and took off like a stone from a catapult, crying at the top of her lungs for the car to stay just a bit longer until she could leap aboard. There were hardly any passengers, which was fortunate because she’d built up so much momentum she very nearly hurled herself straight through the open-sided carriage. At the last instant she caught hold of one of the brightly polished poles that supported the roof, swinging one leg out and around in a huge circle, embracing the pole with both arms wrapped about it and a great, goofy grin on her face as she beheld Duguay huffing after her.
Her entrance earned her a stern reprimand from the conductor and she took it with such courtesy and good grace that he hadn’t the heart to pitch her off. She snugged herself down on the wooden bench beside the brakeman, legs folded tight beneath her, one arm wrapped around her ankles to hold them in place, the other draped along the back of the bench while her gaze swept the buildings on either side of the magnificent boulevard. A greenway promenade bisected the roadway for its entire length, providing a lovely mix of grass and flower beds and trees.
Somewhere or other Duguay had managed to come up with lunch, and he presented Elora with a sandwich from a roving vendor. Bread hot and fresh from the oven, spiced meat, grilled mushrooms and onions and peppers, plus melted cheese. It smelled delicious and tasted even better. The aromas were too enticing to hide and it seemed discourteous to hog such bounty to herself, so Elora broke off a pair of decent-sized pieces and offered them to the trolley’s crew.
“I’m Elora,” she said cheerily. She didn’t hold out her hand in greeting because both of the brakeman’s were covered in heavy, grimy gloves, but he returned her smile with one of her own, a bit more shy. The offer of food was appreciated but they weren’t allowed to eat while on a run, so the gifts were stored away for later. In return, the conductor offered one of their own dinner flasks of hot spiced cider, and as the car trundled on its route they chatted amiably about the city, about politics, about sports, about their lives.
“Damn daft, is what they are,” grumbled the brakeman, referring to politicians in general. He was a young barrel of a man, whose compact form belied an exceptional and formidable strength of body in a way that made Elora wonder if there was Nelwyn blood in his ancestry. Such occurrences were exceeding rare, and actively discouraged by all the races on both sides of the Veil, but they happened nonetheless. Duguay had a song about two such lovers, doomed of course. No matter how true their love, the world was against them, the tragic end preordained and inescapable. Far sadder than the ballad itself was the occasional comment from some lout or other in the audience that it served the lovers right, they merely got the fate they deserved.
The brakeman’s name was Tam.
“I mean,” he said between small grunts as he hauled on the great, polished lever handle mounted on the floor to tighten the clamp on the cable buried beneath the street or release it. As the car slowed he took hold of the brake to bring it to a halt. Lastly he sounded the bell by tugging the lanyard by his head. All these actions occurred in sequence, in a matter of seconds, so practiced a series of moves that the trolley slowed and accelerated with hardly a jerk. “It’s a big world, innit?”
“What’s your point, Tam?” wondered the conductor, whose name was Rico, sneaking a sip of cider from the mug he’d given Elora.
“Well! How many weeks to Angwyn, d’y’ think, by boat or horseback? How many to Chengwei, t’other direction? An’ d’y’ know of anyone been south o’ the Stairs to Heaven, I mean regular like? It’s no small business, is what I’m sayin’, travelin’ from place t’ place. Hardly none of it’s what’cha call a regular service, like what we provide. Caravan leaves when it’s good an’ ready, ain’t no set schedule. How’s one guv’ment, any kinda guv’ment, s’posed t’ bind it all t’gether, is what I’m askin’?”
“We don’t do so bad, Tam, movin’ folks from the Citadel to Wivlesfield.”
“What, you suggestin’ we stretch a cable from here t’ the ocean?” The brakeman found that concept so amusing he nearly choked on his mouthful of cider, splurts of laughter interspersed with bouts of coughing. He never once lost his rhythm on the levers, and the car likewise lost no headway.
“What I’m saying, dolt—”
“Wa’cher yap, there’s a lady present!” Tam tossed Elora a wink and a lopsided grin and got a fair smile from her in return.
“I am saying,” the conductor repeated patiently, conveying the sense that this was not the first of such discussions between the two men and that the heat it generated was actually a form of play, “that we started our journeys afoot. Learn to stand, learn to walk. We graduated to horseback, and let them do the bulk of the work. After domesticating the animal, we harnessed them to carts. When we came to rivers, we discovered how to make boats. We built these trolleys. We Daikini—we learn, we grow, we invent. That’s our nature. You may not see how a single state might effectively rule a continent, or even a world, but does that mean it can’t be done? Or shouldn’t be attempted?”
“Where’s the benefit?” Elora asked.
“Be nice never again to have to worry about marauding warlords out of Chengwei. Or possibly esta
blish a regular shipping service across the continent, from top to bottom as well as sunrise to sunset.”
“Accordin’ t’ me ma, had fairies present to bless me at my birth,” Tam said quietly. “Cost me da a pretty penny in obligation, but tha’ was work he was glad to shoulder, an’ I in my turn after he passed on. If I have young of me own, I’m hopin’ they’ll come again. And for me grandkids in their turn. A world that denies us tha’ beauty, whatever else kind of peace or prosperity it offers, comes at too high a price.”
“But I’ve heard said that the Veil Folk oppress us,” Duguay said, playing devil’s advocate. “They deny us the nature your partner speaks of.”
“They do oppress,” Rico said slowly, placing words and thoughts together with due deliberation. “They do deny our nature. But I’m like Tam, I’ll miss them if they go. I’d like to find another way.”
“At least in Sandeni,” Tam interjected with no little civic pride, “we each of us have our proper say in the making of things.”
“However small that may be,” noted the conductor.
“We’ve our franchise, Rico, we got our vote. Them what rule do so by the consent of the governed. The decisions they make, they’re answerable to us.”
“The Highlander clans are much the same,” Elora said. “And brownie burrows, so I’ve heard tell. In fact, there’s a story that Nelwyns passed the idea to the Cascani, who mixed it in with a holdful of beliefs gotten from the Wyrrn, and the founders of Sandeni stole from them all!”
“Most excellent thievery”—Duguay chuckled—“if this is the result. No wonder, though, the Royal Realms are so nervous about them. It’s always been hard to mesh the right of monarchs with those of the individual.”
“Heard talk out of Angwyn, before the Frost,” which was how folks had come to refer to the overthrow of that city, “’bout some yob came up with a way to harness steam as a means of propulsion. Imagine, Tam, cars like this moving along a set of tracks, with an engine to pull them instead of our cable.”
“That’ll be the day. Remember the stories? All the grief the city fathers went through with the Veil Folk just to get these trolley lines laid? An’ this be land where most beyond the Veil don’t lay no claim. You stretch iron from here to the sea, in any direction, Rico, then you’ll see a war, an’ tha’s no error!”
“You two at it again,” said a new arrival, by way of an introduction of his own. He was a Daikini of middling height and apparently slighter than average build, though Elora noted that could have been as much a result of stance and style of dress as the actual shape of his body. Chestnut hair, neatly combed, otherwise the man was utterly unassuming. The same true for his clothes and diffident manner. At a glance he could be marked as a member of any number of professions, nothing physical like a foundry worker but by the same token nothing higher than mid-list on the economic food chain. One of the multitude of unexceptional functionaries essential to the well-being of the state.
Only his eyes gave him away, and only then because Elora had learned from Khory and the brownies what to look for. They missed nothing about him and did so without drawing the slightest attention to their scrutiny. His interest wasn’t confined to the trolley, either. He regularly swept his gaze over the frontages they passed.
She offered her hand and her name. The conductor supplied the response.
“This is Renny Garedo,” he said.
“Constable?” Elora hazarded mischievously, to be rewarded with a pleasantly surprised chuckle from him, and a nod of acknowledgment.
“You two been corrupting minors again,” the constable said, tossing a gentle gauntlet down before the two transit workers. His manner was relaxed, his tone unthreatening, as he sat on the opposite side of the car from Elora.
“Shaa,” scoffed Tam. “We never!”
“More likely the other way ’round, Constable,” said Elora cheerily. “As you’ll see if you come to our show tonight.”
“Last stop,” Rico sang out from his own perch in the back. “Citadel terminus. All passengers off, please!”
For the crew, this also represented the end of their shift, as Elora and Duguay and Renny joined them and their replacements in hauling the car around on its turntable, thereby reversing its direction and positioning it to catch the outbound cable.
* * *
—
It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time.
From the start, though, the mood was jangly, with an undercurrent that made Elora nervous. Patrons were brusque and uncommonly hard to please, and there were occasions in the evening that made her glad the constable had decided to accept her invitation, and that the professor had chosen not to.
Then Duguay sang the doomed lovers’ song. Elora started toward the stage intending to follow with another tune entirely, but the japes and catcalls from some of the audience were harsher than usual and the casual cruelty of that intolerance sent a tidal wave of anger coursing through her. She took a seat before the fire and didn’t move, gathering a stillness about herself that made Duguay look up sharply, reminded of the prelude to her performance at the fort weeks ago. Renny looked as well, and as intently, for different reasons. Unbidden, a tune and lyrics flashed from lips and fingers as Elora strummed a sequence of basic but increasingly passionate chords on her guitar, accenting them by striking a dynamic percussive beat with her hand on the face of the instrument. There was no ambiguity about her position, nor any mercy. It was an anthem and a slap in the face to every person here who’d offered a rude remark about Duguay’s song. Strangely, though, it was as strong a refutation of the song itself. His lovers were doomed, hers defiant. His were victims, hers seized hold of their fate. There was a neat ending to his. Hers was a call to the barricades, with nothing settled and nothing guaranteed. Hers had rage, and it had hope.
There was a large table of students, not from Keeys College, she was glad to see, who were responsible for most of the rude commentary. They caught the brunt of her fury when she sang, and knew full well, as did everyone else in the room, that her words were meant for them. They weren’t happy about it, either, and harsh glares followed her back to the table she shared with the transit workers.
Tam was on his feet, hands held overhead as he pounded palms together, counterpointing his applause with piercing whistles.
“Damn fine,” he cheered over and over, “damn fine!”
“You liked?” Elora asked.
“I’m not altogether certain ‘like’ is a word I’d apply to that song,” said Renny, “but a powerful performance nonetheless.”
“I’m afraid,” Elora said, flexing sore fingers, “I’m still learning the guitar.”
“Better at it than I ever was,” Tam told her.
“With fingers like yours, that’s no revelation.”
Four heads turned as one to fix themselves on the student who’d commented just a bit too loudly.
Renny started to his feet, but Susan was there before him, sidling easily through the press of customers and tables to place herself between the constable and the students.
“With respect, gentlemen,” she said, “you’ve finished your meal and these tables are needed for other customers. If you don’t mind, perhaps it’s better that you take your leave.”
One started a protest but another gave him a thump to the shoulder and used his own body to shunt him from his seat. None of them looked happy but they all did as they were told. As they departed Susan and the staff all exchanged glances and nods, silently confirming amongst themselves that it would be a long time before any of those faces were welcomed back.
That flashfire confrontation, brief and seemingly inconsequential as it was, defined the evening from then on. Duguay took Elora’s response to his song personally and for the first time harsh words were exchanged between them.
“I wasn’t aware I had to ask your permission what to sing,” she t
old him during a break after he’d hustled her into an alcove.
“Nor was I that I should be so actively and publicly insulted by my apprentice.”
“I meant no insult.”
“Spare me, girl. What else would you call it?”
“It wasn’t you, Duguay,” she tried to explain, but her thoughts kept stumbling over the irrefutable truth that he was right. “The song made me angry….”
“And you couldn’t find another outlet? Another way to express yourself? You saw no alternative but to turn this into open conflict between us?” He hadn’t raised his voice once but even a casual onlooker couldn’t help but realize from the pose of his body that this was a private conversation. “You have so little regard for me?”
She blinked, quickly, as though she’d been actively struck. She said nothing, could find no words to close the sudden breach between them. Worse, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. His song had acted on her like a gauntlet and she found she could not, would not, apologize for taking up that challenge.
Throughout the evening, right to the very end, the constable’s eyes never left Elora for long. It was a very underhanded scrutiny, she’d catch him out of the corner of her eye watching her from the corners of his. She’d flick a surprise glance his way, to discover his gaze conspicuously elsewhere, which paradoxically left her all the more convinced he’d been watching. He sat with his back to the wall, his chair angled toward the other two men, but in such a way that his field of vision easily included Elora, so that even when he wasn’t looking at her directly his awareness of her was total.
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