by Andrew Post
Flam lit the pipe with a match and puffed a few times. A malodorous smoke filled the kitchen almost instantly. Clyde flashed back to the time he’d volunteered to make breakfast, gotten distracted, and the omelet he’d been trying to perfect somehow transformed into a flaky black discus and stunk the manor up for a month. His master ate it anyway, without complaint.
“Well, I do believe that pretty much settles things,” Flam said. “A woven pale-faced man and a Mouflon traveling in a pair would go over about as well as trying to give yourself a haircut with a paring knife in a funhouse hall of mirrors while drunk.” He reached past Clyde, hoisted the blunderbuss from the kitchen counter, and threw its strap over his shoulder. He turned in the doorway, the pipe held by his large square teeth. He slurred, “Happy trails. Hope you find what you’re after.”
He started to leave, glowing light stick in hand. Darkness crept in from the corners of the room. The cake stand was drowned in shadow, every angle of the cupboards gloomy. The window displaying the side yard gardens betrayed no light. Without the glow of Flam’s light stick, the kitchen would be in absolute darkness.
“T-take me with you.”
Flam kept moving. “My auto seats only one, Pasty. My suggestion: bite the bullet and go to the Patrol guard towers. They’re six blocks to the north. From there, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps when you get to the refugee center outside Adeshka, where they got everyone else stashed, you can speak to someone there about your friend’s murder. I’d take you there myself, but I’m sure the Patrol wouldn’t be one bit too pleased about a scavenger picking about in the rich folks’ ward. And trust me: they will ask where I found you.”
“You mentioned the frigates. What about them? Can you take me to them?” Clyde had chased Flam into the foyer and now stood next to him, his hands outstretched. He had never begged. Never had to, not while living with his most recent master. And doing so with the previous ones would have only yielded smacks. With his sir, the only one deserving of being called sir, Clyde didn’t require much besides lots to read, a fire to get warm by, and a roof over his head, but he always languished when he went too long without being able to serve a purpose. After too long without sponging a confession from a master, he would begin to feel a certain languor inching inward on his spirit. Maybe there was some legitimate biological reason behind the catatonic way he could find himself—which, as it was now obvious to him—could last longer than even he was privy to. Even six months, evidently.
“The closest frigate station is eighty meters to the north, across Jagged Bay, and over the mountain ranges, and those passes—let me tell you—ain’t full of bandits intent on tickling passersby. And again, my auto only seats one. I think you should take this opportunity and consider yourself freed. Isn’t a soul who can call themselves your master now.” He gestured to the world beyond the front door, adding, “Enjoy it. I mean, I’m not a great visual example of entrepreneurship, but I assure you there is no greater pleasure than being your own boss, living your way.”
Clyde brushed that away, waving his snow-white hands to the side as if escorting Flam’s words off. Freedom could come later, when his friend’s killer was brought to justice. Changing his tack would be the only way to get Flam’s help. He needed it.
“You’ve done very bad things.”
Flam straightened. “Meech. That’s a mean thing to say. Plus, I believe that’s my business and none of yours—”
“It’s okay. It’s fine. We all do them. We make bad choices; we foul up. We want to do the right thing and end up doing the opposite. The right choice isn’t always clear.” He felt that he was quoting his master directly, but it was fine; Flam didn’t know. “But you’re an individual who’s been out in the world. Your scars tell me you’ve gotten into a few fights. Even that. You tell me about those times you got into a scuffle . . . and I’ll help you feel better.”
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no. You’re not going to pull any of that fabrick on me.” Flam raised his stony hands and backpedaled out of the foyer and into the parlor, blackness rushing away and being replaced with blue from his light stick with each step. The harp in the corner, the toothless maw of the fireplace—all blue. “You keep away from me, whatever you are. You wanted a tutoring lesson about Geyser; I gave it to you. But by no means are you going to fabricate anything in my head—make me spend the rest of my days believing I’m a brine cluster or something!”
“Just tell me anything. Something you did wrong once. Please. It doesn’t even have to be anything terrible, just something you regret a little.” He was edging closer to Flam, hands reaching.
Flam backed into the wall. A picture fell, smashed.
“Please just let me be of use. Let me help; let me do this.”
It came on fast. Flam began muttering, but it quickly developed into words and the confession found its narrative. He stared at the broken glass on the floor. “I was just a pup. I went into the candy shop up the street one day on summer break. I didn’t have any change because it was just me, my brothers, and my mum. And I stole a piece of chark, just one stupid little piece of chark. I took it, I did. And . . . I brought it home . . . and my brother saw it, and he asked where I got it . . . and I told him I got money from Mrs. Wright. I sometimes did chores for her, but not during Middlemonth, which it was, the day I took the chark . . . He called me a liar and went to tell Mum . . . She was so mad . . . She made me go back down to the store and . . . I said I was sorry and swept the floors like the fella who ran the place asked. It felt like days. And then and only then, when I got home . . . Mum gave me a hug and told me it was . . . going to be . . . okay.”
Clyde knew how it was for those getting sponged. The words came out, like thin alpine air, easy. The woody vines that had wrapped themselves around that memory for them would miraculously detangle, embedded thorns retracting, popping free of raw divots that soon, now vacated, could finally heal. He saw when Flam opened his eyes that he experienced the same sensation. The story had spilled out as if on greased tracks, one word after another until a complete confession was out.
“How do you feel?” Clyde asked, feeling much better himself, as if he could now hear better, stand straighter. A nestled sensation occupied his heart, a cradling warmth he had missed these past six months. Sustenance: a word from the dictionary that applied now.
“What’s going on? Why do I feel strange? Is this when a frog’s gonna fall out of my bum?”
“No, nothing like that’s going to happen. But how do you feel?” This could be the ticket, the thing that would convince Flam to take him along.
“I feel as if I just got something off my chest, for certain, but I’ve told that story dozens of times. I’ll admit, I’ve never been able to say it so . . . easily.”
“You won’t feel bad about that ever again.”
“I guess you weren’t fibbing before.” Flam eyed Clyde. “What do they call this form of fabrick? Because that’s certainly what this is.”
“Is it fabrick what I do?” Clyde asked, looking down at his hands. He felt as if they were required during the sponging of a person who didn’t want to give up the memory easily. Sometimes, if he concentrated hard enough when one of his masters was unfurling a wicked personal tale, he could almost feel the sharp edges of their transgressions cutting into his palms.
“I reckon that’s what they’d call it.” Flam put the pad of a finger to his forehead, minding the barbs, to check his own temperature. He then pressed the finger to the space of neck under the outcropping of his broad jaw.
“I can be of use,” Clyde suggested.
Chin still up, Flam peered at Clyde. He took his fingers away from his neck and developed a strange—if a little wicked—smile.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m seeing a booth all of a sudden. In some market somewhere, charging twenty spots per visit with the pale Calmer of Consciences. Plenty of folk out on the road with skeletons in their closets that could use a good broo
ming, I can tell ya.” He beamed down at Clyde.
As much as Clyde wanted to say he absolutely wouldn’t be used in that way, Flam would only say what he’d done with his fabrick up till this point wasn’t much different. Besides, when asking a favor of someone, it was probably best not to shoot down his ideas.
One eye going squinty, Flam seemed to be working out the details. “All right,” he said at last. “Come on.”
Clyde stepped forward with relief, glad to have gotten through to the Mouflon.
“I feel incredible. This is great. I could almost sing,” the Mouflon was saying as he pushed open the front doors to the chateau—and promptly tumbled down the fifteen steps to the front drive. He seemed unable to stop himself or throw out a hand to slow his fumbling descent. All the way down, Flam grunted, oofed, and thudded. Once at the bottom, he jumped to his feet, brushed himself off, and glared up at the threshold of the chateau where Clyde still stood.
Clyde looked. There had been nothing to trip on. Nothing at all.
“Consider myself a bit more nimble than that,” Flam mumbled. “Even given my size, I tend to be pretty light on my feet.”
Clyde put his hands in his pockets. Trying to keep a grim look of apology from his face, he pretended to study the steps for masonry errors.
“What is it?” Flam’s shoulders drooped. “Don’t tell me. Oh, Meech, do not tell me . . .”
Clyde gave a solemn nod. “Yeah. That’s part of it.”
Flam patted himself, perhaps checking for a second tail or a colony of boils surfacing on his lower back. “Oh, you weren’t honest with me, were you? Shoulda known! Never trust a fabrick weaver! Never ever!”
Into Flam’s deluge of curses, Clyde interjected, “Minor misfortunes.”
This halted the Mouflon. Flam came back up a few steps, hooves clicking. “And what do you mean by ‘minor misfortunes’?” He picked up his pipe from one of the steps. “Well? Speak up.”
“Bad luck.” Clyde spread his hands. “Rest assured, it’s only temporary. Probably that tumble did it. That’s probably all you’ll get, especially given how little the confession was. But, yeah, that’s the downside. Bad luck comes when the slate’s wiped clean, I’m sorry to say . . . Could I ask you to stop making that face at me?”
“And a little too late!” He pointed a thick fingernail at Clyde. “You see? Fabrick of the worst kind right there. You’re made with it; it’s entwined in you—I can see it now. I knew it was too good to be true. I knew there had to be the other side of the coin. Meech, save me.”
Clyde realized his journey had begun and ended before he’d even crossed the property line. “I suppose that means you’ve reconsidered and won’t be taking me with you now.”
Back turned, hands on hips, head bowed, Flam said, “I have to.”
“You have to?”
“Yes, I have to.” He spun about. “It’s a Meech-damned Mouflon custom. We give our word on something, we gotta do it. That’s why I was so stubborn about not wanting to do it. But there it is, fabrick doing what it does best, cursing some innocent wanderer for his generosity. To quote my gran: ‘Mouflon and magic mustn’t mix.’ But”—he sighed, eyeing Clyde as if he were a mountain to be dragged to the other side of the planet by a length of chain—“a promise is a promise.”
“I’m sorry,” Clyde tried, the apology sounding more like a question.
“Forget it.” Flam turned and, head hanging, paced across the front cobblestone drive to the gate, swearing with words Clyde had never heard, ending with, “Meech, curse my avarice.” He kicked the gate open, which clanged loudly. Without turning back, he said, “Come on, then, Pasty. Night’s a-wasting.”
Clyde’s heart skipped a beat. He stepped onto the front steps, pulled the chateau door closed behind him, and hurried to catch up.
Chapter 5
The Name on the Blade
Clyde had never been outside the front of the house without the cowl and chains on. He had seen the back gardens, the sky that a craft might dart by on the odd day—but seeing the front gardens, the barren streets, and the flickering lamplight, he could now imagine the sounds he had heard from within the house matched that of the street at night back when it thrived. The honk of auto horns, the chatter of people, the screech and clank of robots marching up and down, doing their duty to keep the gutters tidy, bending to fill dustpans or obliterate a wad of chewing gum with a quick zot of a laser.
He walked behind Flam, staying close, taking in all the sights his beady black eyes could capture. Magnificent, massive homes with turreted studies just like his master’s chateau. Gardens with dry fountains, manicured walkways, gazebos of stone and wood, not to mention the ones of sediment shaped into beautiful, intricate designs.
He pointed at them. “Cynoscions do that as well?”
Flam glanced. “Aye,” he grunted and kept walking.
More than once Clyde had to peel his gaze off something to catch up to his escort, who grumbled and kicked at trash in the street. A tin can danced out ahead of them, colliding with a railing and then falling into the gutter. Flam redirected his stride and gave it another punishing kick with his hooves.
Having kicked it out of range, the Mouflon led the way in a straight line. Despite his size, Flam moved surprisingly quietly. There was only the soft rustle of his armor, the brushing sound as his hairy limbs swayed—left, right, left.
Clyde noticed that even the traffic lights flickered, just like the street lamps. Flam pointed to his auto, camouflaged among other abandoned vehicles. His didn’t look all that different from those it was parked among: battered and weathered with its chipping paint and dented fenders and one headlight gouged out of its fishlike front end. It stood as tall as Clyde, had a dusty glass bubble enclosure for a cockpit, a set of narrow wheels up front, and a third wheel in the back that was as tall as Flam, nubby and clotted with dirt from many days of travel. It was sleek and blocky simultaneously and appeared to be a hodgepodge of several other vehicles.
Setting his satchel on the ground, Flam popped the hatch on the auto’s hull. He unloaded several items, some of which were delicate and wrapped in rags. Clyde didn’t know what a lot of the objects were but watched as they were each placed within the auto’s holds for safekeeping. One item went by that he did recognize: a short instrument in its scabbard, its ornate handle crafted from green-hued metal.
It belonged to his master.
“That’s not yours. You said you wouldn’t steal from my master. I’ve seen him with that letter opener; I know it’s his.”
Flam turned the short knife in his hand to get a better look at it in the moonlight. The street lamp flickered once, throwing a harsh white glare off of it temporarily. “I didn’t steal this from your master’s place. It’s merely something they gave each person who moved into one of these homes, a sort of human tradition. Geyser government’s way of letting the well-to-do folks believe they’re part of the royal guard. Honored, I suppose is the term. And it’s a dagger, not a letter opener.”
“So it’s not my master’s?”
“No, his is probably still back where I found you, unless it was thieved by someone else. This particular one came from a pulse-deprived fellow across the way. Here, I’ll show you.” He withdrew the dagger from its scabbard, metal scratching the silence in the barren street. He turned it in his palm. “Presented to cherished citizen Mr. Mercurio Bansphere in honor of his commitment to Geyser. See? Bansphere. He wasn’t your master . . . What was his name?”
Clyde blinked. “I never learned it.”
“You’re kidding me. You served how long, mopping the conscience of a man whose name you never even knew?”
“It wasn’t my place to know it. Not his or any of my masters’ before him.”
“But I thought you said he had one of these.” He waggled the dagger. “Didn’t you ever get curious and read it?”
“I wasn’t permitted to touch his things unless he said so. I only ever saw the handle. He never took it fr
om its sheath. Not anytime I ever saw anyway. I assumed it was a letter opener; he didn’t seem like the type to keep weapons in his house.”
“Well, how in the plummets do you plan to find the individual responsible for killing him if you don’t even know his name? Go ’round and ask everyone if they knew who killed the bloke that resided at . . . 4970 Wilkshire Lane in Geyser?” Flam said, guesstimating the address with a glance at the nearest street sign.
“His dagger,” Clyde said, brightening. “I will go back and find it, and if it’s the same as that one with an inscription, then I’ll know my master’s name.”
Flam studied the sky. “We really need to move on. The power seems to be the most cooperative during the morning hours, so we should find some place to bed down for the night and start the fight to get the elevator working in the morning.”
“Elevator?”
“Yes, the elevator—down to sea level, to the forest below Geyser. You didn’t think we’d just jump off the edge, did you? From there, we’ll take the ferry to the mainland, go through a few of the ghost towns, and I’ll drop you off within a few miles of Adeshka. I would join you there, but there’s a warrant for my arrest in that particular metropolis. There you’ll find the frigate pilot you can beg to chase after the Odium, if that’s what you want to do—but before we can do any of that, we need to take the elevator. And before we do that, apparently, you need to learn the name of the man you’re seeking to avenge, so go!”
Clyde didn’t need another word. He turned and ran up Wilkshire Lane toward the gates of his master’s chateau.
Flam remained behind, watching the strange young man bolt up the street, clearer in intervals when the streetlights flickered.
The Mouflon, still holding the citizen dagger, drew it from its scabbard again and eyed the inscription. It was built for man and too tiny for Flam’s hands. It might as well have been a toothpick. He turned and dropped it into the cargo compartment of his auto. It’d fetch a few spots. Enough for a meal, maybe two. Such was the life of the scavenger.