by Mark Johnson
Nights were harsh in the Wastes. She could turn and make for the Polis gate. But she had hardly enough currency on her person to pay passage to Polis Armer. Even if she did make it home, she’d have to explain why she’d abandoned her complement and she’d be struck from the Seeker rolls.
No, she was stuck in Sumad. Whatever awaited at MarverWall would find her, sooner or later.
She’d have been able to make it to MarverWall in an hour, had the blasted trams run out this far. Hefting her pack, Terese made toward the setting sun.
6
Terese slowed as she neared MarverWall, unable to make her feet move faster than a despondent trudge. It loomed before her, five storeys high with thick, rough walls. Its six-sided exterior suggested it contained one of Polis Sumad’s odd, large, accelerated farms. It was a little newer and more deftly constructed than the Refugee Territories’ original Walls.
She shuddered. Unbidden, her imagination filled the blank spaces between the previous day’s not-a-dark-workshop and the Immersion Chamber.
Keeper Lijjen had bugged and sent her into the Refugee Territories, then contradicted his own orders under duress and demanded the Missionaries return to Sumad Reach. What could force Lijjen, of all people, to relent? She was gaining certainty that something linked the Immersion Chamber massacre to her miserable trudge about the Sumadan Wastes. But what?
Had Lijjen learned that the four renegades weren’t infected, or about the Immersion Chamber? He wouldn’t shy from slipping beyond the rules. Indeed, she and Holder Moorcam hadn’t shied from the prospect of killing the four renegades—the Immersion Chamber’s only surviving witnesses. They’d believed the renegades were infected. But what would they have decided had they known the renegades were uninfected?
She didn’t like to dwell on that. She didn’t have an answer that Moorcam would like.
The guard at MarverWall’s gate raised an eyebrow at her approach. She must have looked unusual to him, her clothes in better condition than most refugees and of a different cut.
“My name is Terese Saarg,” she said. “I believe there’s a message for me?”
The guard’s eyebrow rose further, likely at her Armen accent. “You’ll be wanting the guest rooms, lass. Other side of the farm from here.”
‘Lass’? He looked the same age as her!
He shook his head when she offered a pendant filled with vibrations as entry fee. “Taken care of, lass.”
She carried her boots with her, for it seemed folk living at this Wall preferred clean feet treading their thinly-carpeted corridors. There were five guest rooms at the back, four of which were unoccupied, their doors standing open. She knocked on the fifth, closed door.
“Enter,” called a male Cenephan voice.
A bearded, heavyset man in his late fifties or early sixties sat cross-legged on a thin mattress. Alone in the room, it looked like he was simply sitting still.
“Head Saarg of Sumad Reach and Armer Stone,” she said.
The man smiled at her name. “I’m Patzer,” he said, rising and extending a hand.
She shook his thickly callused palms. “I wasn’t told everything, Mr…”
“Just Patzer,” he said, not releasing her hand. “Delighted to meet you, Head. Your Keeper Lijjen spoke highly of you.” He released her.
An attempt at politeness, or evidence Patzer hadn’t spoken to Lijjen recently? Then it dawned on her: a Cenephan would only speak with a Seeker for one reason.
She almost groaned aloud. “You’re a bounty hunter.” No, she didn’t need his confirmation. The thick body, strong grip and wild glint in his eye.
Gods, Lijjen wanted her commanded by a bounty hunter? She’d never heard of such an outrage!
Royal and Seeker technology, however sophisticated, lacked instinct and local knowledge. So, Seekers sometimes employed bounty hunters to root out suspected infected.
Another humiliation, another convention upended.
What kept her rage from boiling over was the realization someone above Keeper Lijjen had decreed she would work with Patzer. It wouldn’t have been Sumad Reach’s commander, the Holder Mathra. She knew enough of her host chapterhouse’s inner workings to know Mathra and Lijjen had a good working relationship. It was likely Mathra who had approved Lijjen’s treatment of her.
A small voice in the back of her head suggested Patzer might be more than just a bounty hunter.
“Right, lass,” said Patzer. “Bounties. You have infected that need finding.”
After three months, she was back to hunting the renegades, with no warning. Was there some emergency? She wouldn’t ask though; she’d let him lead.
He bent to pick up a bag at the door, already fully packed. Had he been sitting there, waiting for her all this time? For how many days?
Patzer gestured back the way she’d come, toward MarverWall’s entry, and they strode down the corridor. The obvious question would have been ‘What is our mission?’ or ‘Where are we going?’
“How long have you worked with Sumad Reach?”
His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “A few years, now. We’ve solved many problems together. Yes, Patzer, many problems.”
That last sentence he’d spoken had sounded different from those before. More calm and authoritative.
“So, you’ve had infected problems?” Patzer asked.
Did he know the renegades weren’t infected? She wanted to tell him they were both better-off renting those guest rooms here at MarverWall for four weeks, then returning to Sumad Reach, faking exhaustion. But Patzer’s employers, whoever they were, wanted answers to questions greater than the renegades’ location.
“They thrashed us, then went to ground,” she said. “And they’re too smart to poke their heads out.”
“It’s my turn, then,” he said. “I’ll find them for you. Yes, Patzer, you shall.”
They passed through the MarverWall gate, nodding to the guard and pushing into the middling heat. Perhaps one hundred feet from MarverWall, Patzer came to the point.
“So, Head Saarg,” he said, keeping a brisk pace, “tell me of your friends.”
“Infected renegades,” she said, “come to Sumad after surviving a dark golem massacre. They were common city guards, but unusually good at it.” Not a waking hour passed without a silent lament that she’d ever heard their names. “Domnic Dantet, Repaan Lethrien, Zalaran Morgenheth, Cestin Rortiin.”
Patzer slowly repeated their names, as though tasting them with his tongue.
“And what leverage can you supply me with, Saarg? Who were they closest to back home?”
What a stupid question. Did the man intend on threatening innocents on the other side of the world?
“We monitored and interviewed their surviving relatives before we came,” she said, gauging the odd man. “There’s no one. Their nuclear families are broken or dead. And each of them had a hand in that. And none of them were close to their extended families. No surviving girlfriends – or boyfriends, for that matter. Normally we’d monitor the families’ mail, but it didn’t take long to realize that was pointless. They’re ghosts, Patzer.”
His face formed a frown before the shadow of a smile replaced it, and that calm, authoritative voice took over. “How interesting. Clever.”
“What is?” she asked.
He didn’t reply.
Letting someone like Patzer know her full name would be a mistake. For some reason she remembered one of Pella’s stories: A witch who could find you if she knew your name. A fable about being wary of strangers.
She began her painfully familiar story. “When we were first alerted to a discrepancy near the Armer Rim Wall—”
“No,” he cut her off. “Save the story. You’ll just have to repeat it later. We’re going to meet a friend.”
7
They trekked into Chastity Territory for the rest of that day, passing far south of the slumland she, Toornan and Jools had investigated. Patzer set a brisk pace. Thankfully, traveling was easier be
cause the days were shorter than the nights. There was no hot breeze to slow her mind and no sweaty clothes clinging to her skin.
She would have given anything for a functional tram service out this far into the Refugee Territories. It seemed the Cenephan refugees had been deliberately neglected by the authorities. The agreement made a century and half earlier seemed to have been utterly neglected once the Cenephan refugees had arrived.
After Polis Ceneph’s fall, the twenty-three surviving Polis had agreed to take an equal amount of Cenephan refugees. They’d agreed to integrate the refugees into their new Polis.
Back in Armer the refugees were almost extinct, if that was the right word. The refugees had converted to worshiping Polis Armer, intermarried and moved around the Polis to such an extent that now only thousands openly identified with their Cenephan origins. There were annual remembrances of Ceneph’s fall, when Cenephan dances, songs and plays were performed for Armen audiences and all types of art were displayed or performed.
Here though? It seemed the royalty and government had dumped them in the most desolate, cadver-infected areas the Polis had to offer, and forgotten them.
Each step into the Chastity Wastes took the two travelers further from what passed for civilization. Her every instinct screamed at her to run at the first opportunity. She was at least twenty years younger and could easily outrun Patzer. But Patzer was a bounty hunter, and if he found her, she didn’t care to gamble she could best him in a fight, for there was combat readiness in his gait that suggested he was wary of attack.
“Is it much further?” she asked. “I don’t mind sleeping rough. It’s part of the job.”
“Chastity’s got the most cadvers of any territory, Saarg,” Patzer said. “And even if it didn’t, there are lions. If you know a safe place out this way, you use it. But no…” He looked around. “Not much further.”
It was a wonder anyone could find their way around the Refugee Territories. The dipping sparse hills, dead bushes and occasional ruins looked much the same in every direction. Patzer had stories about almost every hill, Wall and ruin. In that distant Wall, for example, lived an old man who owed him coin. That hill was a good place to hide if you were stuck outside a Wall, and that heap of fallen rocks had never been a dwelling but was where some boys had experimented in masonry a generation earlier.
“Do you come this way often?” she asked, trying to keep the conversation topics away from her. When they’d set out, Patzer had insisted he needed to know everything about her if they were to spend a month together. However, he offered little about himself. She had nothing to hide relating to her personal circumstances and had happily told all about her life back in Armer. The generations of her family’s involvement in the Seekers, Pella’s obsession with mystery novels and Terese’s own school days.
“Not many hide out here,” Patzer said. “But if someone really wants to hide? This is a good place.” He chortled at some memory she decided she’d rather not hear.
“Have you been a bounty hunter long?” she tried again.
“More or less since I became a man,” he said, “though I dabble in tools and antiques.”
Terese suppressed a scream of indignant rage. She was familiar with those who described themselves as ‘dabblers.’ A part-time bounty-hunter and smuggler, then. Wonderful. “So how much have you worked with Sumad Reach?”
His chest puffed at that question. “I’m who they contact if they want to know who’s in the area. The arrangement is some years old. It’s… mutually beneficial.”
Ah, that was it. Patzer’s reasons for going over the border were legitimate if he was on a Seeker commission. And if he managed to sneak things back to the Territories, then how fortuitous for him. Most traders out this way inflated their prices, and if Patzer could undercut them, he’d profit nicely.
His would be a life lived at two borders, one between places and another at the boundaries of the law. But smuggling was not a Seeker problem, and she supposed it didn’t matter how Patzer made ends meet.
Without warning, he threw his head back and cackled loudly, startling her. “And before you ask, unlike yourself, I’m a spouse and parent to none. Though I have a family, of a sort.” Odd thing to make him laugh, although smugglers often lived in one another’s pockets, knowing one another’s greatest secrets to force a bond of trust.
“What sort of family?” she asked, confident that she knew the answer.
“The sort that help me locate… antiques.”
“What kinds of antiques?” she said.
“Musical instruments. Sometimes weapons.” He harrumphed a plainly fake cough, then tilted his head like he’d just thought of something. “Look, do you have much to do with your Armer Royalty?”
What a strange question. “No, I’ve only laid eyes on our Royalty a few times. Usually at end-of-year festivals. I’ve never spoken to one. My father has though, since he’s a Holder and reports directly to Lord Feneet, one of the Seeker liaisons back home.”
Patzer stared, like she were somehow on the verge of disclosing some vital piece of information.
She weighed her options, then decided to continue. “My father says the Royals aren’t all that forthcoming. They advise on technical and financial matters, as well as procedure. I remember he was quite excited the first time he went for a personal meeting near the Center, but these days he’s bored of it. Says there’s nothing interesting to pass on. Except their meeting rooms are ornate and their paper is the best he’s ever held.”
His face fell. “Oh well, I was just curious if things were different in Armer, lass. Never mind.” He paused. “Oh, just tell her Patzer. All right then.”
Gods help me.
“I’ve got my own problems with Royalty. They’ve access to technology even you Seekers don’t, and hoard those secrets from the rest of us. They keep their golem from us and game the currency systems and energies for their own benefit. Imagine being able to live three hundred years!”
Terese shrugged diplomatically. “They say we can’t use their tech because we’re unable,” she said. “I don’t think about them much, I just hunt chaos and cadvers. One of the Seeker oaths is to obey the Royals, so I can’t complain much. But they give us a lot of materials and funding. Our jobs would be harder, if not for them.”
“Bloody Royals,” Patzer huffed, then stopped in his tracks without warning and pointed. He waved his arms at a shaky, mostly decimated building. “See that ruined temple? That’s where we’re headed.”
“That’s the safest place out here?”
A light bloomed around the outline of a door, framing a man’s silhouette. As they came closer, she saw the man had a long face and graying hair. He was of an age with Patzer.
“Head Saarg of Armer Stone, meet Drool.”
Well, it was a better name than ‘Slobber’. She extended her hand politely. The man ignored the hand, just nodded and showed them into the temple. The sole evidence of habitation was the thick-wicked candle on the floor.
Patzer shut the door and nodded to Drool. Was this the moment Patzer would hit her with his wooden club or slash her with his long knife?
He faced her.
“Years ago, I paid dearly for this place. I like to come here not because it’s mine, but because I earned it.” With that, Drool pulled on a camouflaged handle on the ground she hadn’t noticed before. A trapdoor opened.
She looked up in surprise. “Really?”
Patzer gazed through the entrance. “If you never spoke of this place in any way, Head, it would make my sleep deeper. Children ask promises, for children believe the world is simple, like them. I ask no promises.”
“Patzer,” she said, “there’s no advantage in telling of this hideaway.”
He nodded and laughed. His moods changed too quickly. His head was either filled with strange chemicals or he didn’t understand how people worked. She preferred Lijjen’s predictability, caustic as it was.
“I’ll show you!” he said, and, gri
nning, he took the candle down the ladder into the hideaway. Moments later a beam of light – much more than a candle’s worth – burst from the ground. She and Drool descended, shutting the hatch after them. She walked through a short corridor into the central chamber.
“How did you find one in working order?” she said, not keeping the envy from her voice.
In an oval room, with blue light emanating from its walls, ornate and shell-like mosaics glowed bright as day, with moving designs mimicking waves or air currents. There were no decorations suggesting who the designers or first tenants had been, but there was little reason to doubt they’d been royalty. Patzer had placed his candle in a small, shimmering nook at the far end of the room. The flame’s interaction with its nook somehow replenished the room’s air and light.
Terese stood within a massive, functional artifact. She had never seen a hideaway in working condition except in plays or children’s storybooks. She’d been in a few old, broken ones though, for cadvers had a nose for hidden places.
“It’s come in handy, Head, I admit.”
She didn’t even mind the cocky swagger in his voice. “It doesn’t have any… other entrances, does it? It’s not part of a network, like they say?”
He shook his head sadly. “This one is isolated. Drool and I checked, didn’t we Drool?”
Drool said nothing. A man of few words.
“I’ve set traps here on occasion, hoping the one whom I purchased this place from might return. But no. In all these years no one’s visited here after… I bought it.” His face fell. “But it’s mine now, and I’ll fight any Royal for it,” he added, satisfied.
“Our Royals don’t care what we do with our hideaways,” she said, touching the chamber’s side and shifting the tiles in a gentle wave. Where she pushed, blue and green swirls expanded and thinned, adding their own flow to the perpetual motion of the hideaway’s inner core. “Maybe they have their own ones.”
If the Royals knew what the hideaways were, they hadn’t passed on the knowledge.