by Andrew Smith
“I think I’m dying,” he said
“Oh, thank goodness,” said Mme. Rumella: “you had me worried for a moment.”
She finished Tina Virtue’s hot chocolate and rushed over to see to Jason with a warm cloth in hand. The customers started serving themselves as much as possible, and left their money by the register. Tina Virtue prowled over to help.
“Let’s get you cleaned up, lamb,” said Mme. Rumella. She removed her wand from the white apron she always wore in the shop and cast a simple spell which repaired his clothing. She used the cloth to wipe the smudges of dirt off of his face. “There’s not much blood,” she noted
Tina laid a hand on his shoulder. “Can you tell us what happened, Jason?”
Jason shook his head. “It was a woman: looked nothing like a necromancer. Anyway, I tried to explain that I saw him there before I didn’t accidentally bump into him. He got all friendly on me.”
“Oh that’s terrible!” Mme. Rumella cried. A trickle of blood escaped Jason’s lip. She dabbed it away.
Tina Virtue produced the small vial of smoke she had received as payment “Take this,” she commanded
Jason complied and opened the vial, breathing in the smoke. It smelled of sandalwood. His cut quickly repaired itself, leaving no scab and no scar.
“You just sit here, and I’ll get you a nice tea, on me,” said Mme. Rumella.
“That’s really not necessary,” said Jason
Mme. Rumella and Tina Virtue exchanged a puzzled look. Sometimes Jason’s comments were utterly untranslatable. Mme. Rumella prepared him a large, steaming hot chai, and returned to her customers. “Oh,” she said to herself. “Out of breakfast tea.” She turned to her customers. “Dears, I’m out of the Irish breakfast. Just let me run to India, and I’ll be right back.”
The customers made murmurs of acknowledgement as Mme. Rumella grabbed the empty tea canister and bustled her plump frame out the door. Last she saw, Tina Virtue was still talking with Jason. Mme. Rumella made her way down the curving street, side stepping the tank and passing a single wall, and turned the corner. The road was suddenly dirt. A small farmhouse from the Indian countryside, built a short time after the British claimed the country, was just down the road. It was a quaint, white-washed place with few windows. Mme. Rumella knocked politely and entered
Inside, her supplier, Vijay, was standing behind a counter he had installed in the house’s entryway. He greeted her with the wide smile of a man whose best customer had just come to visit. “Good morning Mme. Rumella. What can I get for you today?” Vijay asked in Hindi.
“Just some of the Irish breakfast, love.”
“Bags or loose?”
“Bags? Why that’s practically blasphemy!”
“Of course,” Vijay said in English, smiling again. Though he knew well the answer, he always asked, because he enjoyed Mme. Rumella’s amusing answers. He suspected that she, too, enjoyed the little ritual.
He ducked out and returned with a fresh canister. He and Mme. Rumella traded and she excused herself, remarking how busy she was today, and to put the tea on this month’s tab. Vijay waved goodbye as she exited.
Mme. Rumella trod off down the street, precious cargo grasped tightly. As far as she was concerned, Vijay’s teas were the best in the world. He dealt strictly in the Woven City, but he kept a slow growing crop in normal worlds fields for customers who where purists when it came to tea and sorcery, so he was always ducking through his Portico out back. The Romanesque archway looked out of place on the small farmhouse, as it did on most buildings. The fact that he never dealt in the real world had aroused suspicion on the part of local law enforcement, but when they found his fields planted only with tea, they were forced to leave him alone.
Mme. Rumella rounded the corner back onto her own street to find the most curious thing: a walking suit of armor, seven feet tall, and harassing the passers-by. “Well,” she remarked to herself, “there’s something you don’t see every day.”
As she grew closer, she heard that it was, rather gruffly, asking everyone who passed it by whether he or she knew the whereabouts of something called the Standard of Uruk. It repeated the same words over and over again, as though it were a recording. Mme. Rumella drew up to it, and it repeated again: “Halt, stranger, and tell me what you know of the Standard of Uruk.”
“Right,” said Mme. Rumella and looked the suit of armor up and down. It looked recently polished, but beaten and well used. A scarlet plume stretched upwards from the helmet. The visor was closed and Mme. Rumella couldn’t tell whether there was actually anyone in there. “Honestly now, if you’re looking for something, this isn’t the way to go about it. Strange as may seem, these people can ignore bigger things than you. I’ll be happy to help you if you follow me, and stop bothering people outside my shop.”
The suit of armor nodded stiffly. Mme. Rumella was only mildly surprised. She walked back to her shop, with the armor in tow. It had to crouch low to get in through the door. As it entered, everyone in the shop stopped to look. But only for a moment. In the Woven City, after all, they had all seen stranger things.
“May have your attention please?” Mme. Rumella called over the resumed chatter. The shop quieted again. “Our friend here...” She turned to the armor. “Do you have a name?”
“I am a Crusader,” the armor responded. Its voice was tinny though perfectly audible
“How lovely for you, dear,” said Mme. Rumella, patting the Crusader’s gauntlet. “Our Crusader friend is looking for something and having a terrible time of finding it. What is it again?”
“The Standard of Uruk.”
“Yes, that. I don’t suppose any of you have seen it?” All responded in the negative. “Oh my. Well...” She drew her wide face into a thoughtful frown. “Here is the Irish breakfast,” she said. “Help yourselves, please, I’ll be back in two shakes!” She set the canister down and showed through Crusader back outside, explaining that she had an idea
The pair crossed the cobblestone street, as Mme.Rumella announced that she was taking him to the British Museum. Which happend to be right across the street. They entered the building. Mme. Rumella asked to speak with Dr. Lanstrom, and was led down into the basement. The Crusader only just fit down the stairwell. They passed antiquities in boxes and on shelves, awaiting their moment in the sun. Or rather, meticulously monitored sorcerous lighting
After a while they came to the card file room. Computers were all well and good in the normal world, but a simple sorting spell lasted virtually forever, and didn’t become obsolete the moment the box was opened.
“Excuse me, Dr. Lanstrom, but you have um...visitors,” said the docent who had led them all this way
Dr. Lanstrom looked up from her work. She paused a moment to place her askew glasses back over her eyes. She blinked once and exclaimed, “Mme. Rumella!”
“Good morning, Leila! How are you, pet?”
Her shoulders drooped a little. “Is it still morning? I feel like I’ve been at this forever.”
“When did you get here?” Mme. Rumella asked
“Yesterday,” Leila replied. Dr. Leila Lanstrom had just received her PhD in anthropological sciences from Stanford last year, when she became, like many in the Woven City, the victim of an accidental transference. She decided to stay here, but the archaeology of the world where the Woven City rested was many times more complex, since it dealt with objects from both its own world and the normal world, and whether they existed in both. As such, she was vanquished to the basement to sort and catalogue till she got her city legs under her. Leila was a few inches shy of six feet, with flaxen hair that fell below her shoulders. She wore squarish black-frame glasses that Mme. Rumella had tried to convince her did nothing for her heart-shaped face.
“Listen, pet,” said Mme. Rumella
Leila interrupted her, quite innocently. “Is he from that new Henry VIII exhibit they’re putting in upstairs? You can find the damndest things walking around in here, I’ll te
ll you. Some of them don’t even have legs!”
“Actually, this is rather what I came to ask you about. Sorry to interupt you at work.
“Oh, think nothing of it,” said Leila with a dismissive wave of the hand. Unfortunately, she waved with the arm she had been leaning on. Her supporting elbow slipped out from under her and she collapsed into one of the old wooden file boxes. “Ow,” she said, pulling herself up
“Oh my, let me help you with that!” Mme. Rumella cried as she bent down to collect some of the scattering file cards.
“Don’t bother,” said Leila. She caught herself half-way through another dismissive wave and stopped short. The cracked file boxes repaired and restacked themselves, the cards leaping back into their assigned spots.
“Forgot one,” she chided, picking up a card she had just finished writing.
She removed her Focus from the breast-pocket of her linen shirt. It was a fountain pen filled with peacock blue ink. Mme. Rumella herself had taken Leila to buy a Focus when she first arrived, but the archaeologist had refused to buy a wand, saying it made her feel silly. Actually, she asked, “A magic wand? A damn magic wand? A god damn magic wand?!” Continuing until Mme. Rumella made her stop. She cast the sorting spell on the card and it flew to its place
Mme. Rumella put a hand to her heart as she heard Leila laboriously sounding out the syllables of the spell. Most people eventually learned to cast basic spells without saying a word, but Leila struggled with sorcery every stage of the way. “Leila, this,” she glanced at the Crusader, “gentleman has come a very long way, or so I assume,” she said unsteadily as she realized she had no idea whence the Crusader had come. When the Crusader made no move to refute her claim, she continued. “He is looking for the Standard of Uruk. Do you have any idea what that might be?”
Leila pursed her lips in thought. “I’ve never heard of it. Are you sure you don’t mean the Standard of Ur?” She asked the Crusader. The armored helmet nodded squeakily.
“Well,” said Mme. Rumella hopefully, “they could still be related couldn’t they?”
“Sure,” Leila shrugged. “I mean, Uruk and Ur were both in the same area. It’s possible that Uruk had a standard as well.”
“What exactly is a Standard?” Mme. Rumella couldn’t help but ask
“The Standard of Ur,” said Leila in her ‘explaining things’ voice, “is a wooden box covered with images detailing the customs of the ancient Mesopotamian city of Ur. In the normal world, at least, it was discovered in a tomb, where it had been crushed by the collapse of the ceiling, and subsequently reconstructed, though we can’t know for sure how close the reconstruction is. The laws of Ur are where ‘eye for an eye’ comes from,” she added
“I always thought that was the Old Testament,” Mme. Rumella said curiously
“They cribbed it.”
“I see,” said Mme. Rumella, though in fact she didn’t
“I’ll look into it. Maybe it only exists in this world, and that’s why I’ve never heard of it. I’ll only take a second to do a basic check of the card file.” Leila spoke the words of a simple spell, and then spoke aloud the name of the artifact she was looking for. No cards volunteered themselves. “That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist,” she explained. “Information can be a tricky bastard. I’ll keep checking here.”
“Lovely,” said Mme. Rumella with a warm smile. “Do you want something? Tea? Some sandwiches maybe?”
“No thanks,” said Leila. She looked dubiously up at the Crusader. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help... Are you sure it’s here in the city?” The Crusader nodded. She frowned. “How do you know?”
“Everything ends up here,” the tinny voice replied
“True enough,” said Leila, “but why are you after it? What makes it so important?”
“It has disappeared from its resting place.”
Helpful much? Leila thought. “Any more information you’d care to proffer?”
The Crusader remained silent
* * * *
It was late afternoon. Leila was certain the sun would be setting by now, what with England’s latitude, though she had no windows in her workspace. She had finished her most recent assignment just before Mme. Rumella and the strange visitor had arrived, and had not received a new one. She had spent the intervening hours searching in every way she could think of for information on the Standard of Uruk. If it existed, the British Museum did not have it, nor did they seem to know anything about it. The Standard could be a rumor, that certainly was not out of the question, especially in a place like this. Then again, the Crusader said it had been stolen. That implies it existing. Doesn’t it? Leila asked herself. She removed her glasses and leaned back in her chair. She didn’t have the greatest balance in general, but at chair leaning, Leila Lanstrom was an expert. After a few minutes, no ideas had presented themselves for her consideration, and sleep threatened. She decided to walk back to her apartment and sleep on it. Leila often remembered her dreams, and they were usually pretty strange. The sad part, she mused as she collected her jacket and exited the museum, was that they were no longer stranger than her waking life.
Stars
Mr. Markab entered the shop, bang on time, for his morning earl gray. Mme. Rumella had it going before he said a word. “Perfect as usual,” said Mr. Markab. “Say, I’m terribly sorry to hear about your trouble with that armored fellow down the road.”
“Oh my, he’s not out there again is he?” Mme. Rumella sighed.
“Yes. Anyway, if you would care to bring him round to the Clinic this afternoon, I have some free time about half two.”
“Lovely, Mr. Markab! We’ll see you then.”
Mr. Markab inclined his head respectfully and exited, crossing the street and heading centerwise to his place of work.
The morning passed quietly. After the unhealthy-lunch crowd passed through, Mme. Rumella noticed the time and ran to find the Crusader. He was two blocks clockwise down the road.
“Are you just going to move a block down every day until someone tells you what you want to know?” Mme. Rumella asked. And if she didn’t know better, she would have sworn the Crusader shrugged at her. “Come on, I’ve got a new plan,” she said and swept him off centerwise.
The thing about the Woven City that surprised newcomers most over the last hundred years was the lack of cars. There were no busses, no trains; there was no air travel, with the exception of singular flying people. There weren’t even horse-drawn carriages. Occasionally they would even ask about rickshaws and sedan chairs. If it’s really nine hundred miles in diameter, they would ask, how can you get around entirely on foot? And the answer, like that of so many questions about the city, was that no-one knew.
Many newcomers of the last half-century or so had compared the feeling to walking on one of those motorized walkways at airports. Of course with millions of people moving in different directions, passing all about and between each other, none of them could think of a specific mechanism by which it could be accomplished. The greatest sorcerers in the city, over the course of its history, failed each in turn to account for it. Most people found it best for their mental health not to think of it.
Mr. Markab, for many years, had worked out of a small building near Tina Virtue’s Hyderabad shop. Some years ago, however, he had staked claim to a large new premises on the River, where it was the Thames of some time in the 1990’s. The property was on Vauxhall Street
in London, and so he had named his new location the Vauxhall Astrology Clinic. In the normal London, it was something called MI-6 Headquarters
Frankly, Mme. Rumella thought it was a horribly ugly building, and she was sad to hear it besmirched the face of the city whence she came. She was similarly troubled to hear, some time earlier, of the terrible choking fogs caused by the burning of mass quantities of coal. The city hadn’t been what one might refer to as pristine when she grew up there, but it had been free of polluting factories and automobiles and suchlike.
; Mme. Rumella and the Crusader were buzzed into the building, and trekked back to the area Mr. Markab used as his office. After speaking to the receptionist, Mme. Rumella settled herself and the Crusader into one of the comfortable green couches that filled the spacious waiting room. Watercolors of flowers and English gardens adorned the soothing, neutral colored walls. The daylight of a London autumn slanted in through the wooden shutters on the windows, highlighting the few floating particles of dust. There were three other patrons in the room.
There was a young woman whose natural hair-color seemed to offend her on a profound level. Her loose brunette curls fell over one eye and half way down to her waist. She had dyed them a fairly believable hue of blond and shot them through with pink and purple strands. The effect served to highlight her hazel eyes. She sat in a hunter chair on the opposite side of the room, perusing yesterday’s paper
“That,” Mme. Rumella whispered to the Crusader, who had patiently let her wrap her arm around his right gauntlet, “is Voz. She’s the daughter of a banshee and a siren. People have been trying to work out how that happened since she was born. It’s patently impossible, but she’s definitely half of each. If you’re going to be in the city for a while, you might want to put her near the top of your list of people not to make angry.”
“And you can do that by not talking about her,” Voz chimed in from across the room.
“And she has a very keen sense of hearing,” Mme. Rumella explained. “She’s called ‘Voz’ because her parents were vacationing in normal-Spain when they met.”
“Majorca,” Voz corrected
Mme. Rumella gestured with a nod at another woman sitting on the couch. She had fine brown hair that curled outward at her shoulders and unnaturally dark eyes. She was also incredibly tense. She was hugging herself, hands clutching at the opposite sleeves of her black dress, eyes darting to every sign of movement in the room
“That one is Delilah Runestone,” said Mme. Rumella to the Crusader. “Be careful: she’s a dark sorceress. I don’t know too much about her but I hear she’s good at what she does. Whatever that is. You can never tell with the dark sorcery types, can you?”