by Ian Whates
"Coming," called a voice from within. After a few seconds during which he tried to calm his breathing, there came the sound of a bolt being drawn back and then the door opened partway, to reveal the wrinkled face of an elderly woman. "Ah, you're a fine looking lad and no mistake," she said. "What can I do you for? A love potion, is it? Some young maiden's head you're desperate to turn? Or a luck potion; perhaps you've suffered a run of bad fortune of late and would like to turn that around… No, not luck I don't think. Stamina! Young fellow like you, I'll bet you take part in plenty of sports and are seeking an edge… unless it's stamina of a more intimate nature you're worried about, eh? I can help with that too, if that's what you're after."
He stood silent, trying to decide how best to reply. He'd rehearsed this meeting and what he was going to say a hundred times in his head, but none of his imaginings had featured such an opening barrage and, now that he was actually here, he couldn't remember the lines anyway.
The woman had stopped talking for a second and was considering him, scratching her chin and frowning. "Though to judge by the cut of your clothes, you're not from round here, are you? You're from up-City, maybe even the Heights." She seemed suddenly suspicious. "What's someone like you doing here in the under-City, calling on a simple apothaker?"
"Arielle?" he said uncertainly, thinking that perhaps he could see in this aged apparition the ghost of the vibrant, beautiful woman he remembered, but not quite believing she could have changed so much.
The instant he spoke the name she started as if slapped, and then whipped a knife from under her robes, pointing it towards him menacingly.
"Who are you?" she hissed. "Some agent of Birhoff's come down here to finish the job, or are you just here to gloat, to see how I've suffered? Well you can tell the spiteful bitch that I've suffered plenty. Is that what you want to hear, eh? Is it?"
"No, nothing like that, I promise you… Aunt Arielle, it's me, Jayce."
Her mouth opened slowly, though no words emerged, and her eyes widened. He thought he saw recognition dawning in their depths. "Jaycie," she said at length, "my Jaycie… is it really you?"
"Yes, aunt, it's me."
The knife tumbled from her fingers. The hand that had held it rose uncertainly towards his cheek, perhaps to stroke his face, but then stopped short, as if afraid that should she touch him he might disappear. "Look at you, you're all grown up." A single tear trickled from the corner of her eye. "Jayce… my Jaycie…" She spoke his name as if the repetition might somehow make this all the more real. "How did you find me? Why… what are you doing here?"
He felt his own eyes welling up. His beloved aunt, whose presence illuminated so many childhood memories; he'd found her again after all these years. He could scarcely believe it, and his voice was far from steady as he said, "I've come to take you home, Aunt Arielle. I've come to take you home."
• • • •
There were two people Tom was determined to see. He wasn't sure what it said about him that both were girls, or rather women, or maybe a bit of both. Actually, it might easily have been three. He still felt a twinge of guilt that he'd never checked up on Jezmina, the girl he'd been besotted with when he ran with the Blue Claw, but he understood she was settled now, working for a seamstress and even engaged, which he found hard to believe: the timid young girl he remembered blossoming into a bride-to-be in such a short time. Even so, he concluded it was probably best for both of them if he didn't call around raking up the past. So that just left two.
He decided to start with Mildra.
He found her in the same temple he'd been brought to the first time they met, when the Dog Master's creature had latched onto his back and tried to infect him with the parasite that was subverting the will of the street-nicks.
"Tom!" She looked genuinely delighted to see him and didn't seem at all surprised, almost as if she'd been expecting him to pop out of thin air at some point. Perhaps she had.
He'd been a little worried about seeing her again now that she was back in her normal environment and they were no longer constant companions. Part of him had expected her to be formal, aloof, reserved at the very least. The way she immediately rushed forward and hugged him dispelled any such concerns.
"I've missed you," she said, breaking the embrace.
"Me too," he replied. "Missed you, I mean, not me."
She laughed, and led him to a chair. Were these her private quarters? If so, they were more modest than he would have anticipated. Plain walls, two leaded sash windows that looked out onto a small courtyard, a hearth – not lit, but clean and looking as if it hadn't been used in a while – a low table and a few chairs. Arrangements of fresh flowers decorated the mantelpiece and the table; flowers were never cheap in the City Below so they were something of an indulgence perhaps, but a minor one given her status.
Mildra produced a pair of finger cymbals and clashed them expertly, producing a single pure note that resonated throughout the room. Within seconds there came a knock at the door and a grey-robed acolyte entered.
"Ah, Sian, would you fetch a jug of fruit juice and two glasses?" She turned to Tom. "Are you hungry?"
He shook his head and held up a denying hand. "No."
She smiled at the acolyte. "Thank you."
The girl bobbed her head in acknowledgement and scurried from the room, without once meeting Tom's gaze.
After she'd gone, Mildra leaned forward and giggled, saying in conspiratorial tone, "I think you've startled her. She has no idea how you came to be in my private rooms without her seeing you arrive."
"Will it cause a scandal?"
"Almost certainly."
They both laughed. It felt relaxed and comfortable seeing Mildra again, which came as a huge relief to Tom. During the short time they now spent together, sitting and chatting, he came to realise that the friendship they'd developed during their journey to Thaiss's citadel was a strong one, an enduring one. He had a feeling they would always be friends, no matter what the future had in store for them. The brief intimacy they'd shared in the meadow of flowers seemed a distant memory, though one he recalled with a degree of wistful fondness. Mildra was still the only woman he'd ever touched in a romantic fashion; a strange thought when he considered her now, in a Thaissian temple, dressed in her priestly robes.
He wondered if she ever thought of their moment of aborted passion, but knew that this was one question he would never ask.
Eventually he felt able to say what had brought him here, the thing he'd been determined to tell Mildra. "About Thaiss," he began. "Don't be fooled by what we saw at the citadel. I think she almost wanted us to underestimate her, to dismiss her as human, but she isn't, she's so much more than that."
Mildra smiled but didn't say a word.
Tom shook his head. "But you didn't need me to tell you that, did you? You already knew."
"Of course I did. I'm a Thaistess, Tom, how could I not? But I'm still delighted to see you, for whatever reason. And thank you for wanting to tell me that."
They hugged again when it came time to leave. Even through her robes, the gentle pressure of her body against his briefly stirred memories which were better left alone.
"Don't be a stranger," she said.
"I won't be," he assured her, and meant it.
Tom could have simply closed his eyes, pictured Kat, and jumped, but he chose not to. He'd been away from the City Below for too long and was grateful for the chance to reacquaint himself with the feel, the smell, the sounds of the streets. For the first time he began to understand why the Prime Master had delighted in wandering the streets incognito. It wasn't simply a matter of keeping an eye on things and monitoring the mood of folk, it was more fundamental than that.
He passed two kids, a boy and a girl, squatting and playing flip. After a great deal of shaking in her balled hands, the girl tossed a pair of flat stones down onto a grid that had been crudely drawn in chalk on the ground before her. Tom walked on, remembering the many times he'd played the
game in just the same way. He stepped out into the road to avoid a woman who emerged from a doorway ahead, clearly struggling with a pale of water, before she tossed the contents onto the ground and disappeared back into her home. A pieman stood on the corner, selling his wares. They looked good and smelt even better. Tom paused to pay more than he needed to for a meat pasty, biting into it as he walked. It was good. Flaky pastry and a filling of minced beef and root vegetables in a rich gravy. Still warm, too, though not so hot that he burnt himself on the first mouthful.
As he continued to stroll and eat he acquired a new friend. A scruffy looking dog appeared from nowhere to trot beside him, craning its neck upward towards his hand, nose twitching. White fur with a mottled patchwork of browns, a terrier's face, and the sort of forlorn expression in its eyes that only a hungry dog can truly master. Tom ate two thirds of the pasty and then tossed the remainder to his canine shadow. The mutt caught the offering, turned, and scampered off with the prize, doubtless to consume it somewhere in private.
This was the real reason the Prime Master had roamed the streets, Tom realised; not to gather information but to stay connected, to make sure he never forgot what it meant to be human.
• • • •
Tom knew where to find Kat, or at least where to start looking for her: Iron Grove Square. He didn't recognise the Tattooed Man on the gate, but the fellow obviously knew him. He was allowed in and Kat appeared moments later.
"Suppose I should be honoured," she said.
"Don't see why, it's only me."
She snorted. "Yeah, right: 'only'. I suppose this is the big goodbye, is it? Guess you'll be vanishing off to live up-City now." She said this without looking at him, as if to emphasise that the topic was of no more than passing interest and the subject was already beginning to bore her.
Tom frowned and then said. "I doubt that, somehow." Already much of what he'd been through in recent days had taken on a surreal, dream-like quality, and this wasn't at all how he'd imagined the meeting with Kat would go.
"Oh?" Now she did turn to look at him. "I thought, what with you being such a POP nowadays, that you'd be looking forward to a life of comfort and luxury up in the Heights."
He shook his head, wishing he could start the conversation again and trying to find the right words. "Remember when we first met?"
"Sure, at Ty-gens."
"What did you think of me?"
"Trust me, kid, you don't want to know."
"But you saw a street-nick standing in front of you, right? Just like any of the hundreds of other nicks living throughout the City Below."
"Sure, but an awful lot's happened since then, and that was before I had the faintest notion what you could do."
"I know, I know…" he rubbed his forehead, realising that he wasn't explaining himself very clearly, and Kat was the one person he really wanted to understand. "What I'm trying to say is that in here," and he pounded his chest, "I'm still that same street-nick you met in the Jeradine Quarter, the one that Ty-gen bribed you to take home."
Kat grinned. "Yeah, bribed is the word, though Thaiss knows what I thought I was ever gonna do with that great chunk of a khybul statue in any case, even if it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen."
Tom knew what she meant. The crystalline representation of Thaiburley had been stunning, but that wasn't the point. It felt as if Kat was deliberately steering the conversation away from where he'd intended. "Are you listening to me?" he said. "Are you really hearing what I'm saying?" Thaiss, she could be frustrating sometimes.
"Okay, stay calm. I'm all ears."
"I know a lot's happened, and I've seen things and done things I never dreamed I would, but it's all taken place in such a short space of time. I've changed, of course I have, but I don't feel any different, not really, not where it counts." Everything came tumbling out, all he was desperate to tell her. "What do I know about the Heights and the people who live up there? Their fancy ways and their ladi-da lives, that's not me. I'm a street-nick."
"You could learn," she said, more softly than he'd ever heard her say anything before. "You'd be amazed how quickly people can get used to things, especially nice things."
"Maybe, eventually, given a few years, but I'd still be a freak; always would be to them up there, no matter what: 'the Kid Who Escaped from the City Below'. I'd never simply be accepted as me."
"You make that sound as if it's a bad thing."
"What else could it possibly be?"
She shrugged. "Whatever you want to make it. Sure, you'd be different, you'd stand out; live with it. I've been different all my life. Turn it to your advantage. Different doesn't have to mean inferior, it just means you're something that everyone else isn't – something they can never be; which can mean better. Make them envy your difference. Talk up your life down here. You could become a hero in no time, a rugged adventurer. I'm sure the girls would be queuing up just hoping you'd notice them. I bet every pretty little thing up there would be desperate to welcome a genuine bit of rough between their legs after all the namby-pamby ponces who've been boring them to death for years trying to get there."
"Kat!" Tom laughed; he'd never heard her speak so candidly before.
"Well, it's true."
Tom hadn't thought of it like that. Was she right? He had to stop himself grinning at the image she'd planted in his head. If Kat had been a lad and in his shoes, he could easily believe that everything she'd just described might happen, but he wasn't Kat. He'd never had her front, her brash selfconfidence, and he could never imagine any of that coming true for him. "On the other hand, I could stay in the underCity," he said, "and wow all the girls down here with tales of all the exotic places I've been, the wonders I've seen, and the adventures I've had, not to mention the time I spent with the goddess, Thaiss. Do you reckon that might work?"
She shrugged. "You never know. There'll probably be a few girls whose heads would be turned by that sort of thing. Of course, they'd have to believe you first."
"There is that," he conceded. "So all I need to do is be on the lookout for a pretty girl who's gullible and easily impressed."
"You and most men, I reckon."
"Lucky for me you're not any of those things, then."
"Thanks!"
"Except for the pretty part, I mean," he said quickly, inwardly kicking himself.
To his relief, she was grinning. "Kid, you might have seen all sorts of things and done a whole heap of stuff, but you've still got a lot to learn."
He spread his hands, helplessly. "See? How could an idiot like me ever hope to make it in 'polite society'?"
"I don't know, I guess you'd just have to try and get by on your cute good looks."
He stared at her. Did she mean that or was she still joking around? Kat's smile faltered and she looked a little embarrassed, as if she wasn't entirely sure herself.
"I'll never be a cloud scraper, Kat," he said to break the slightly awkward silence. "This is my home. I don't belong up there." His gaze flicked towards the cavern ceiling.
"They're bound to try to keep you," she warned.
"Let them. It's a free city and I'll live where I want to."
She grinned. "That's the spirit. If you do end up staying down here, maybe I'll see you around."
"I'd like that, I'd really like that." He hadn't meant his voice to tremble in the way that it did.
Without preamble she suddenly leant forward and kissed him on the lips, a quick pressing of hers to his. "Yeah, me too," she said quietly, with a twinkle in her eye. "Now, I'd better get back to my men before they start to forget who their queen is." She swivelled around and strolled away.
Tom stared after her, reaching up to touch his lips, as if by doing so he could somehow make what had just happened seem more real. Then he found himself grinning, a broad smile that stretched from ear to ear. One day that girl was going to stop surprising him, but he doubted it would be any time soon.
Jeanette returned home exhausted. As Thaiburley'
s senior physician she had all too few opportunities to do the job she'd spent half her life training for. Admin, coordinating resources, policy making and lectures swallowed up the vast majority of her time, while research claimed what little remained. Dealing directly with the sick and the injured had almost become a novelty. Today had been one of those rare occasions when she actually got to roll her sleeves up and get stuck in, treating real, live people. The Rust Warriors might have gone, bone flu might no longer be a threat and the Demons might finally have done what they should have a century ago, but recent events had left an enormous amount of damage, to the structure of the city and also its citizens – both mentally and physically. Everyone with medical experience and healing ability was being called upon to do their bit, including her. After so many years chained to her desk by the shackles of bureaucracy, it was oddly satisfying to get some "hands on" experience again, to deal directly with patients as something other than test subjects.