by Matt Wallace
She only hangs her head in silence.
Laython points directly at Evie. “You’re next in the chair.”
She looks inside the smithy’s lean-to, where the other taskers are removing the newly anointed Savage’s portly frame from the recliner.
“Well,” she says, “at least you’re feeding us.”
FALLING STARS
THE ANCIENT COIN FLIPS END over end through the air, its green and gray patina swallowing the rays of the afternoon sun before it can touch the metal beneath. The coin descends and its face lands atop the flat of Daian’s blade. He drops his wrist just enough to cradle the coin and slow its momentum, keeping it poised on the hardened steel of his Aegin’s dagger. Daian briefly examines the five stars crudely stamped on the other side of the coin, at least those visible through its aged scars. He quickly flicks his wrist, the dagger’s blade propelling the coin up once more so he can repeat the process.
He says little to the other three Aegins waiting with him. Daian often finds he has little to say to most of his fellows in the Capitol. They talk about their daggers and how many arrests they’ve made that week and share crude, often violent jokes about the Undeclared and offer little else conversationally. Daian doesn’t share their enthusiasm for any of those topics.
“They’re in there,” Kamala announces quietly, returning from across the narrow street and what appears to be a disused storefront. “I can hear the chanting through the boards over the windows.”
“What’s the point of all that, anyway?” another Aegin asks, his disgust obvious. “Why risk staring down a knife or facing the cells just to offer lip service to some made-up monster in the stars?”
“Made-up god,” Daian corrects him.
“Same thing.”
“If you’re going to ask questions, a more fitting one would probably be why we’re made to waste our time stopping them.”
“We’re not here to ask questions,” Kamala hisses at both of them. “We’re here to follow orders. It’s an unlawful gathering and they’re observing a forbidden ritual. That’s it. Now let’s go.”
“I’ll watch the front,” Daian offers.
“You do that,” Kamala says disinterestedly as she crosses the narrow street once more.
The rest of the Aegins follow her.
Daian watches them go with a sigh, flipping his coin anew. Worshipping the God Stars was outlawed long before he was born, during the Renewal; “Reason shall take the place of religion” was one of the rallying cries of the upheaval. When he was a boy, Daian’s father told him that at first the God Star priests and priestesses of the time supported the Renewal. When the common people of that age overthrew the great houses and ended the rule of noble bloodlines, the temple hierarchs assumed they would be spared. Daian imagined then what it must have been like when the people finished with the nobility and came for the temples, tearing them down stone by stone and defrocking every plump, pompous old man wearing a medallion and a fancy hat.
As a boy, thinking about the looks on their faces made him giggle.
Yet hundreds of years after the Renewal, after the abolition of nobility and religion and their false authority, there are still people in Crache willing to become the Protectorate Ministry’s scapegoats in order to whisper the names of the God Stars in dark rooms. To Daian’s mind, rooting them out was no fit duty for an Aegin. He wished the people would either let the ancient symbols go, or the powers behind Crache would allow them their silly gatherings; Daian has no preference one way or the other.
He watches Kamala put her boot through a small door between the boarded windows of the storefront, more or less obliterating it in a hail of splinters. She’s first through the doorway, the other Aegins rushing in behind her with daggers drawn. Daian waits after the last of them has disappeared inside, the predictable sounds of chaos that follow causing a hollowness to fill his gut.
A moment later a scraggly little man in a knee-length tunic and leather sandals dashes through the wreckage of the doorway and scrambles across the street, freezing in panic as he finds Daian barring his path.
Daian looks at the brief expanse of the man’s chest. A medallion rests against it, hanging from a chain. Unlike Daian’s coin, the stars upon the medallion’s face are bright and gleaming and clear. Each one has the shape of a basic life-giving element forged into its center; a rock, a wave of water, a flame, curling lines representing wind.
The priest’s terrified eyes shift from Daian’s face to his dagger.
With a sigh, Daian quickly flips the coin into his free hand and sheathes the dagger in its baldric scabbard. He tucks the coin away beneath his tunic.
“Please,” the priest begs. “Please, just let me pass.”
Daian shrugs. “You’re mistaking me standing here for me barring your path, friend.”
The priest blinks at him, confused. For a moment he even relaxes his shoulders and the terror leaves his expression.
Behind him, screams issue from inside the building, followed by what sounds like the breaking of furniture and the smashing of glass.
The priest glances back over his shoulder. When his face turns back to Daian the panic and fear have not only returned, they’ve melded into violent desperation.
“I’m sorry,” the priest offers penitently.
The small, hemp-wrapped handle of a makeshift knife appears in his hand from a hidden fold in the priest’s tunic.
Neither Daian’s expression nor his posture change. His eyes remain fixed on the priest’s face, almost as if he doesn’t notice the weapon.
The priest lunges at Daian, and though the spindly little man is fast it’s almost as if he’s moving through mud, such is Daian’s quickness and ease in seizing the priest’s wrist with his hand and stopping his attack. Daian twists the smaller man’s arm, extracting a yelp of pain and causing the priest’s entire body to stiffen like tumblers in a lock. Daian effortlessly plucks the knife from the man’s hand.
“You need to learn to wear this on the inside,” he advises the priest, tapping the tip of the man’s confiscated blade against his medallion. “That’s the best place to keep the things you don’t want other people to see. Believe me.”
The confusion returns to the priest’s face, showing through the twists of pain in his slight features. Daian tosses the small knife away and releases the man’s wrist, delivering a stiff kick to the priest’s ass that moves him several feet up the narrow street.
“Go,” Daian orders him.
The priest hesitates only a moment, rubbing his offended wrist and staring back at Daian in abject shock. In the next moment the sound of his leather sandals slapping the cobblestones is fading around the next corner.
Daian watches him go, shaking his head in a mixture of disgust and something like sadness, less to do with the little priest and more to do with the state of affairs in general.
He returns his attention to the battered doorway. Soon the other Aegins begin reappearing through it, each one restraining a fitful God Star worshipper.
“Where’s the priest?” the one who kicked in the hidden church’s door demands of Daian.
“He returned to the stars,” Daian insists. “It was a sight to behold. I’m sorry you missed it.”
“If you weren’t going to help out why did you bother to come along?” the Aegin asks in obvious frustration.
Daian smiles. “I just love watching masters and mistresses of their trade at work, that’s all.”
CITIES BUILT IN BOXES
BY THE END OF HER first week in the Planning Cadre she’s learned how to fly.
Dyeawan revels in the bed they’ve given her, practically treats the first room she’s ever had to herself as a place of worship. Home, however, has quickly become a concept best associated with the corridors outside that room. Astride her “tender,” the conveyance designed and constructed specifically for her, Dyeawan is quickly becoming an expert at navigating the corridors at high speed.
In the gray dawn of eve
ry morning, Dyeawan rises and washes up before attending to her duties. Edger provided her with an attachment to her tender that allows her to sweep up the corridors simply by wheeling herself up and down their length repeatedly. The only real effort is emptying the collection cans of the apparatus when she’s done, but even that is hardly a chore. When she’s done, Dyeawan attends breakfast in the commissary and then spends the rest of her day delivering packages.
There are twelve levels in the Planning Cadre, each one constructed with the same concentric corridors winding to a central point, and rooms and stairs branching off from doors and breaks in the circular walls. In addition to the lamps throughout the Cadre, all the corridors are fashioned with an intricate bell system whose song can be heard on every level. Dyeawan has been given her own unique signal. When she hears three bells, she’s being summoned. Those are followed by a number of bells indicating the level on which she’s needed, and finally a number of bells corresponding to a specific room on that level.
Acting as messenger has allowed her to meet an extraordinary amount of people in just a week, and to Dyeawan’s surprise they’ve all been generally kind and genuinely decent.
All except the one she’s come to think of as the Man in Black.
There are no Skrain stationed in the Planning Cadre, nor has she seen any on the rare occasion she’d had to venture outside. There doesn’t seem to be a military presence here at all, or even anyone assigned to security, which is odd considering the speech Edger gave her about their “sensitive” projects. Yet she hasn’t seen a single blade carried by a single person all week.
In fact, she’s only seen one weapon here thus far, and it’s sheathed on the hip of the Man in Black.
He’s not a physically imposing man, but the stark way he stands out among the thoroughly unimposing people who populate the Planning Cadre gives him an aura of menace. He’s the only one Dyeawan has seen clad all in black from head-to-toe, and she’s yet to see him outside it. Though the garment is designed to appear ordinary, his black shoulder cape is obviously reinforced with steel thread to armor it, as if he anticipates an attack at all times.
The dagger he wears on his hip is long, curved, and bone-handled, and the way he compulsively grips it with a black-gloved hand as he walks says nothing pleasant about the man. The only other distinguishing flourish on his person is the breast pendant he wears in the shape of an eagle’s eye. It’s a symbol she’s never seen worn officially before.
Dyeawan has yet to exchange a word with him, not the least of which is because whenever they pass he looks straight through her as if she doesn’t exist. She’s glad for that.
When she asked Edger about him, he told Dyeawan that the Man in Black is from something called the Protectorate Ministry. He said they’re in charge of keeping Crache safe, even if it’s from something invented in the Cadre.
He didn’t seem to want to say more than that.
Regardless, Dyeawan has begun to associate a good day with one during which she doesn’t see the Man in Black.
Her favorite level in the Cadre thus far is seven. It’s the one that belongs to the builders. Consisting mostly of workrooms of varying tools and trades, it’s the place where the designs and machinations of people like Edger are given birth into the world of the real. The artisans installed there are all masters and mistresses of their crafts, and it seems every discipline is brilliantly represented. There are carpenters, smithies, stonecutters, alchemists, metallurgists, and people working with equipment and on projects Dyeawan can’t even identify.
Tahei isn’t a master, but he may be the most talented apprentice on level seven. He’s neither carpenter nor smithy, strictly speaking. He’s a plump young man of perhaps nineteen years, far too young to be in charge, but he seems to be quickly moving up the Cadre ranks for one reason.
“I make things move,” he’d explained to her when she asked. “It’s kind of my specialty. Whatever material you use, if you need it to move around, on its own or under power, I’m your man.”
She doesn’t doubt his skills, and hasn’t since their first meeting when she delivered new tools to his workshop.
“You must be the one they call Slider,” he’d greeted her.
“Yes.”
“I’m Tahei. Are you enjoying that new tender of yours?”
“I don’t know the words to say just how much.”
“I’m glad. I built it. I named it too.”
Dyeawan’s eyes lit up. “You did?”
He nodded proudly. “It reminded me of a rowboat without the water. Of course, I didn’t design it, Edger did, but I did fix a few flaws in the turning mechanism. Don’t tell him that, though.”
Dyeawan shook her head. “I wouldn’t. I owe you more than thanks.”
Tahei waved a gloved hand dismissively. “It’s always reward enough to see it working. And that it’s made such a difference to you is a special prize.”
“Still,” Dyeawan insisted. “If there’s anything I can do to help you—”
“Do you bake?”
“I… no, I’ve never cooked anything. I mean, not in a proper kitchen. I’ve roasted wharf rats and even a snake once—”
Tahei laughed. “I meant more cakes and the like. We only have cakes on special occasions. The rest of the time when I ask the cook tells me I’m too fat and he can’t spare the sugar, besides.”
“No, I’m sorry.”
He shrugged. “Hey, don’t worry about it. I was mostly joking. You’re working hard enough around here. We’re even, okay?”
Dyeawan decided then she liked him. He was kind, and he reminded her of a boy she’d known years ago in the streets. He’d even been plump like Tahei. She and that boy, Fedo, were friends, inseparable for weeks, until Aegins took him. They didn’t get her because he led them away. Fedo could barely run, but he ran his heart out that day to save her.
A day later she returned to his workshop with two sweet cakes wrapped in cheesecloth. Tahei couldn’t believe his eyes, certain she must’ve stolen them. But it had been easy, easier than she could’ve imagined. Dyeawan had gone to the head commissary cook, who turned out to be a blind old man named Makai. She’d prepared an elaborate story about why she needed the ingredients to make the cakes, telling herself she’d acquire the knowledge to actually bake them on her own.
“You’re the one who slides because she lost her legs?” he’d asked her.
“No,” she’d answered, earnestly. “I have my legs. They’re still there. They just don’t listen to me anymore.”
“And what do you need?”
She told him, but before Dyeawan could recite her prepared speech and accompanying story, Makai simply asked her what she wanted to bake. When she told him that, he said, even shorter, for her to come back in an hour.
Dyeawan didn’t understand at first, not even when she did as she was told, returning at the appointed time to find him offering her the freshly baked treats.
“But, why—” she began to protest, mostly out of confusion.
“Our kind takes care of one another here,” he said. “You need only ask. And remember.”
That sat heavily with her for a long time, until she was able to gift Tahei the cakes. He was overjoyed, and told her that now it was he who owed her.
She decided to save that favor for later.
It’s Friday afternoon and Dyeawan is elated when the bells summon her to Tahei’s workshop on the builders level. She glides herself there in minutes, barely even slowed by the detour up the ramps between levels that adjoin every staircase. (She’s far from the only one in the Cadre who has lost the use of their legs, though Dyeawan has yet to see another use a tender as intricate as hers. She’s wondered whether her conveyance is simply a new design or was designed specifically for her.)
She passes several increasingly familiar faces along the way, all of them serving as helpers like her, all of them afflicted differently by life. She’s learned the man she exchanged smiles with the first day while
he polished lamp fixtures is named Mott. He used to be a soldier. He lost an arm and leg fighting the Sicclunans far away. He also suffered a vicious blow to his head that expresses its effects in his slowed speech and equally slowed thoughts.
Fortunately he’s very kind, and Dyeawan doesn’t mind waiting the excess time it takes for him to complete those thoughts.
She finds Tahei behind his workbench, examining some extremely small wheels under a special glass held by a vise.
“Slider!” he greets her enthusiastically. “Were you already up here?”
She shakes her head.
“Wow, you are really makin’ that thing fly. You do me proud.”
More than a little color comes to her cheeks.
“Thanks.”
He picks up a medium-size rectangular bundle and hands it over to her.
“Can you speed this down to the maps level?”
Dyeawan accepts the bundle readily, but looks back at him in confusion.
“The maps level? I don’t think I’ve been there yet.”
Tahei grins. “Oh, you’re going to love it. You especially. I promise. It’s level six.”
“Okay. What room?”
His grin seems to widen. “The maps level is built a little differently. You’ll see. Trust me.”
She does, and so she just nods.
“I’ll see you in the commissary later, okay?” he says.
“Oh yes. I’ll trade you my taro pudding for your greens.”
He laughs. “You’re a strange kid, you know that?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to be a kid,” she answers honestly.
“Well then… now’s a good time,” he says, more sincerely.
There are no winding corridors on the maps level, Dyeawan discovers. When she descends the ramp from the level above, she finds herself wheeling into a large antechamber that splits off from several tall, broad archways. They’re all sealed off behind closed doors, save one.
It’s the largest open space she’s thus far seen in the Cadre, ten times the size of the most spacious workroom on the builders level.