“You’re making sure the telescope is not moved, right?”
“Yes, sir. Of course we are. This is our job, Professor,” the young policeman said politely but with a hint of frustration. There are times, said his tone, when I have second thoughts about the wisdom of letting perfect laymen wander willy nilly, any night of the week, into official police business. Not that he minded Professor Shady, of course, and was quick to make an addendum to such uncharitable thoughts. One of the best blinders: never got in the way, and always helpful with his tips. But, he sighed inwardly, still… civilians…
Without touching anything, Shady carefully looked through the viewfinder of the telescope. As he did so, he recalled how Carl loved to sit in this old armchair upholstered in something dark and oily-looking, as often as he could. Night or day, rain or not, for the porch was partly shielded from the elements by an overhang. And here Carl had set up his telescope, looking out with an unfettered view over the waters of the Ortasu into the sky above…
A thousand pieces of the sun scattered above my children…
But tonight the telescope was trained, not directly into the night sky, but towards the other side of the Ortasu, just above the horizon. Shady could make out the shimmering silhouettes of buildings nestled on the other side of Pera, separated by a narrow channel of water. Why were you looking at land, Carl? Were you? I wish I knew why it was important for Fiona to move your telescope.
I want to see what you saw, Carl. I want to see what you were looking for… When? They told me that the time of death was around Evening Song. Before dark. Before the stars? He scanned the view through the lens carefully. It’s no use, he thought, sighing.
“Lodos,” he said sharply, looking up. “The wind might blow the telescope.”
“It’s really heavy, professor,” the young officer ventured.
“Yes, but, Lodos can have pretty strong gusts!”
“Yes, sir, but it’s– Mr. Volkswahr must have thought of that because it’s bolted to the flooring,” the officer explained, pointing towards Shady’s feet.
“Ingenious,” Shady smiled, noticing the grooved slots into which the feet of the telescope had been fitted. That was Carl for you.
“Looks like he designed it so the telescope could be moved in all directions, doesn’t it, professor?”
Shady nodded. Good old Carl…
“Professor sir–”
“Yes?” Shady looked expectantly at the young officer kneeling by Carl’s body holding something gingerly between gloved thumb and forefinger. “Sir, I – I found this in Mr. Volkswahr’s pocket.” As Shady reached for the small piece of paper, the young man shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, I can’t give it to you. But since it’s you, sir, and since you’re the blind policeman on duty tonight, I think you can look at it, sir, but I’ve got to hold it in my glove so’s it doesn’t get damaged… or anything.”
“Of course,” Shady smiled kindly and knelt down next to the policeman.
“It looks like … coordinates, doesn’t it, sir?”
“Hmm...Yes, yes, it does,” Shady agreed, scrutinizing the figures scrawled in Carl’s hasty hand.
“My dad’s a sailor, sir. That’s what made me say that. It looks like he wrote down the points of the compass,” the young man explained helpfully.
Shady reviewed the figures on the paper, committing them to memory. “Now, get back to your job, young man,” he said, rising. “And thank you for the courtesy you showed by letting me see that piece of paper,” he added. “What’s your name, officer?”
“Devrim, sir,” the policeman said with pride. “Devrim Yolcu, the third.”
“Good job, officer Yolcu,” Shady nodded crisply. “Now, officer, I think my work here is done. I will leave this crime in your capable hands – and those of your colleagues, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Remember, officer Yolcu, you must make sure that everything in this house is treated as a crime scene and remains untouched. Including that telescope.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I am sure I don’t have to tell you that that lady who was here earlier–”
“Fiona Manx,” nodded young officer Yolcu, the third.
“Yes. If she comes back, she will not be permitted to interfere in anything, of course.”
“Of course not, sir! This is official police business. Besides,” he added in a different tone, “she’s not a blind policeman.”
That’s right. Everyone knows it, Fiona. Even this boy.
Good bye, Carl.
Shady strode out of the house: a hollow, empty place now, and out into the street. Close to 9 o’clock. He was out of his patrol zone here on the lip of Ortasu, north of Nightingale. He decided to walk back, meandering through the tiny alleys crisscrossing this sector of Pera, all the way back to Nightingale – no more than two kilometers as the light bird flies.
This is a matter for the police. Perhaps I am overreacting, Shady thought. Perhaps Fiona is right… Am I too suspicious? It is possible that Dragan’s death was an accident: a boating accident. But what about Philippa? That was lightberry poisoning, for sure. Did she really ingest the lightberry unknowingly? True, Phil could be scatterbrained at times, but everyone knows how deadly the lightberry is for the non Pera-born. Carl, I know for a fact was always careful. And he had the antidote at hand. He must have not known, not realized that he had eaten the lightberry until it was too late…Perhaps.
Perhaps I am too suspicious. Too suspicious of Fiona, for instance. After all, what has she done? I mean apart from being her infuriating self-righteous judgmental self. Really, what has she done that is so wrong? Nothing that I know of, surely. She just doesn’t have the sense, but many others don’t, and I do not dislike them. I do not distrust them…
But that is what the sense is. I know, without outward evidence.
And he recalled the conversation with Carl, the only one of its kind, for Carl would not speak ill of another, not behind her back. It was that one time, right after the tournament when Carl had been willing to confide in one who had gone through – and survived – the same tournament.
“Do you remember board 27? You were at the other table, playing West.”
“Yes,” Shady nodded, remembering the board, which had ended up as a small slam in hearts, played by North. Carl had been playing South at the other table. “As I recall, you played it in 6-notrump instead and made it, scoring higher than the North-South pair at my table. I got a point thanks to you.”
“That’s right. I want to tell you about that hand. About the auction,” Carl continued, sounding worried.
“Go on.”
“Fiona was my partner that round. She was playing North.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, it was odd playing with her. I mean I’d sort of seen it before, but hadn’t paid too much attention. What I mean is that she seemed to avoid playing the contract at times… at least that’s how I felt. It was as though she relied on her partner – particularly the better ones – to play the contract… Did you get that at all?”
“Possibly,” Shady hedged. It might have been true. It was difficult to tell. There could be many reasons for one partner or the other to play a contract. “I don’t know for sure. What do you mean?”
Carl looked uncomfortable. “On board 27, it was obvious that we would be playing a slam, and once we’d discovered that the ace of clubs was missing, I knew it would be at most a small slam. Hearts was North’s suit, you remember?”
“Yes,” Shady nodded encouragingly.
“After I’d asked how many kings and queens she held in her hand, I knew that we were also missing the diamond queen. The slam was still possible, but not a given. Still, I thought, especially with my short diamond suit, we had a good chance in hearts, so I bid 6-hearts. I thought we would stop there–” Carl paused. “I assumed Fiona would pass, and play the contract–” he continued.
“But she must have bid,” Shady offered helpfu
lly. “Because the final contract was 6-notrump, if I remember correctly.”
Carl nodded. “She bid 6-notrump. I had bid notrump, of course, while I was asking for aces. But it was just Blackwood, an artificial convention. But when she bid…” Carl ran his hand through his fine sandy hair.
“You couldn’t go to 7-hearts,” Shady said.
“No. How could I? That would have meant playing to lose. The board, that is. We had no chance at all at making a 7-level contract. I already had enough points that I knew I would win the game regardless of the outcome of that hand. But I couldn’t play to lose the board!” Carl shook his head. “I told myself she bid that way because notrump scores higher than hearts, but we were missing the queen of diamonds, which meant that the chance of making 6-hearts was higher than 6-notrump.”
“Of course. It was lucky that the queen fell to your king.”
“Exactly.”
“You think she did it on purpose to get you to play the contract?” Shady prompted.
Carl sighed. “It was a feeling I had. I know it probably means nothing, but I thought she bid notrump because she didn’t feel confident enough to play the contract herself, in hearts. She knew I would have to play the slam in notrump of course.”
“Of course.”
And Carl had played the contract, made it and scored a point for him and Fiona. So, had Fiona purposefully made the stronger player play the contract? Was that true? Most likely, Shady thought ruefully. If Carl had felt it, it was true, as they had learned later – six months later – from Xavier. But was it wrong? Carl had instinctively thought so. And yet, people do that all the time, thought Shady. In bridge tournaments, in life in general, there are many who ride the coattails of those who are stronger, smarter, more capable… indeed, it is often considered the prudent, perhaps even the appropriate course.
But LiGa is a test of personal ability, individual ability, and in such a test, this is called cheating. True, thought Shady, continuing to argue with himself, but LiGa Bridge is also a partnership, and as such, is it not better for oneself and the partnership, to insist that the more able partner take the helm occasionally? And yet, does that not diminish the power of the partnership? For it means that one has not made decisions based solely on an analysis of the cards… It may be a false choice.
Fiona.
5
On the second floor of a dark grey granite house on the single windswept hill on the northeastern corner of the Island of Birds, the smallest of the White Islands straddling the entrance to the Marble Sea, a boy and a girl sat huddled together. This three-story house, with its lean lines devoid of decoration, was set apart from the other hundred houses of the island, both in terms of size as well as placement. It was the only house on the hill. The other residences on the Island of Birds maintained an equally austere aesthetic, being built of the same dark grey granite rock. Despite their lack of ornamentation, both structural and incidental – there were no flowers in the windows, no bird feeders, no wind chimes tinkling in the breeze – there was beauty, here. There was a harmony, a beauty of form. Although the buildings were all of different sizes and shapes, they fitted together like the notes of a piece of music. A sonata, possibly. Something austere but serene. They had all been designed by the same architect, after all. He was the owner and occupant, with his family, of the house on the hill.
Inside the house on top of the hill, the boy and girl were sitting on a bed. The bed – a hard one with a dark blue cover – was placed next to the window. After tonight, this room would be locked. No one would ever enter this room again.
Mother, kneeling before the black marble statue of Twilight in the center of the courtyard that was in the middle of the house, had declared a week ago that no one would enter her room in the thereafter. And then she had prayed to the Dark One for Cypress’s immortal heart. She said it was his will. Twilight’s will. So be it, said Father.
It would be a lonely room in the thereafter, she thought sadly. She liked this room. It was her room. She could not remember sleeping in any other room. She would no longer sit on the bed and watch the sea in the thereafter… She would no longer walk barefoot across the carpet that covered the cypress-wood floor of the room. It was a gift of the Elder’s wife at the time of her birth. It was intricately woven in stormy tones. She had never particularly liked the carpet, but I will miss how it feels, she thought, in the thereafter.
And I will never again sit at the tiny desk by the door to do my homework. The homework that Father gave her, for she did not go to the school on the island with the other children. Not Cypress and her brother, Kaya. They were different. Their family was different. It was obvious; they even looked different. They were not as dark as the others on the island. Father and Mother were taller, and her brother was going to be tall, too. Like the Elder and his family, Cypress thought dispassionately.
“I won’t have to do homework again!” she said, but even that gave her little pleasure.
Her brother, sitting on the edge of the bed, gave her a curious look.
“Can I take my pictures?” she continued, pointing to the walls. In the thereafter there might be walls to decorate.
He was restless, but he spoke to her with all the authority he could muster, for he was her elder by three years.
“Never mind the pictures,” he said sternly, brushing away her pointing hand. “We’re going to go through it one more time.”
“But we’ve gone over and over it more than a hundred times!” she grumbled.
“I know.” He put his arm around her shoulders. “But we have to make sure you have it memorized, and you have to promise me you’ll do everything exactly as I told you!”
“I will,” she nodded, and recited just as he had taught her: “when they throw me off the rock, I will fly towards the water, away from the rocks–” she paused, wearing a worried expression. “But what if I can’t? I don’t know how to fly.”
Her brother sighed with exasperation. “You’re not going to fly. I meant for you to do your best to keep away from the rocks. They won’t throw you to the rocks, anyway. The Dark Rock juts out. You know that! We went there together. ”
She nodded indistinctly.
“It juts out right over the water,” he continued, “so it will be a straight drop into the water. I’m telling you because you have to be extra careful after–” he coughed, unwilling to complete the sentence ‘after they throw you off the rock.’ It sounded so awful, said like that. Like throwing a stone, a thing, anything. “Do you understand?” he asked sternly.
She nodded again.
“Good. So, what do you do next?”
“Swim?” she hazarded cautiously.
“Yes, yes, yes! You must keep your head down and swim. Away from the shore if possible–”
“I’ll swim away as quickly as I can!” she cried.
“But it’s Lodos,” he said, a warning note in his voice. “Remember what I told you about Lodos.”
“It’s the directionless wind,” she said quickly. “That means it doesn’t fly from only one direction.”
“It doesn’t blow from one direction,” he corrected. “That’s right. What does that mean?”
“Means I have to be prepared–” she paused.
“Yes,” he nodded approvingly. “And remember, Shadow will look out for you,” he added, trying to sound reassuring.
She twisted her hands together uncomfortably. “It didn’t look after her,” she whispered reluctantly.
He flung back his head. “She didn’t know how to swim,” he retorted. “And, she didn’t have a brother who learnt to swim just so he could teach her!”
It was true. She looked at him admiringly. Her brother had snuck out to meet the fishermen that sometimes came to the shores of their island just to learn how to swim. So he could teach her. Because no one on the island could swim. It had always been so.
But she could. Not very well, but well enough! Hopefully well enough to reach a fisherman in that treache
rous stretch of water lying between their island and the mainland of Pera. But during Lodos, it would be difficult. That was something he had taught her too…
She hugged him. “I’ll miss you,” she said sadly, clinging to him.
“No you won’t,” he said firmly. “Here, I made this for you.” He handed her a small object.
“What is it?”
He lit a candle on the bedside table.
“Oh! It’s beautiful,” she cried, and placed it carefully around her neck. On a leather strap, there hung a small white, inexpertly made figure. About three inches long and made of white silk, it was the figure of a white crocodile with blue eyes.
“I’ll always be with you, in your heart.” He tapped her chest. “And Shadow too,” he added gravely. “Shadow will protect you.” He held her at arm’s length. “Remember, if you can’t swim away from the island because the current is too strong, or, well, the wind might make it very difficult, but it can help you too. Don’t fight against the wind,” he warned. “If you can’t swim away, then swim to the other side of the island.”
She shivered. The other side of the island… she had never been there alone. No one lived there. There were only caves. Old, haunted caves, with things, dark places…underneath. There were ceremonies held under the caves. Unknown ceremonies. Frightening. The Night’s Lair lay somewhere under the caves…
She hung her head and nodded indistinctly.
He shook her gently but firmly. “Listen to me! You must go to the other side if… if you can’t get away. The fishermen still go there, to the other side. So long as you’re not seen, which is easy over there. You can hide in one of the old caves–”
“Do I have to?” she implored, picking at the crocodile hanging around her neck.
the Dark shall do what Light cannot Page 5