by Matt Wallace
Riko extends the wooden pole toward the lamp. There’s a short hook on the end.
“I was, uh, born in the Fourth City, which is where most of Crache’s mining is done, yeah?” she explains as she jiggers with the mirrors. “My kith-kin was part of Gen Fan. They were responsible for maintaining most of the mining equipment. So, they were very successful, yeah?”
Dyeawan nods, hearing something rueful in Riko’s voice.
“When I was very little,” she continues, “the city Arbiters gave our mining equipment concession to another Gen. I never understood why, or how those things work. But one day we lived in a big, fancy keep tower in a big, fancy cooperative in the Circus, and the next day Gen Fan lost its franchise and was dissolved.”
Dyeawan frowns. “I’m so sorry, Riko.”
She shrugs, more concerned with angling the hanging mirrors just right.
“It’s nothing next to what you’ve been through, yeah? Anyway. My father opened a small shop in the tinker’s quarter. Only he drank too much to fix anything most days. So… I started doing it. And I found out I was really good at it, fixing things. Didn’t matter what someone brought in, I could take it apart and put it back together better than when it was new.”
Dyeawan grins. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I tried to keep it a secret. I didn’t want anyone to know it wasn’t my father doing the work. But somehow… Edger knew. A woman dressed like that horrible Oisin who skulks around the levels of the keep, all in black, came and took me from the shop. She brought me here. Edger showed me what the Cadre does and asked if I wanted to stay and be part of it. It was hard to leave my father behind, but… he wasn’t himself anymore. He hadn’t been for a long time.”
Riko takes a deep breath, and Dyeawan senses that’s all she wishes to say about that.
“But you’re happy here,” Dyeawan says.
The smile returns to Riko’s face, and she nods. “I am. I love it here. I love every day that I get to make something or test something. And now you’re here!”
The implication is so genuine that Dyeawan feels a lump rising in her throat, though she doesn’t say anything.
Riko curses under her breath.
“What is it?” Dyeawan asks.
She doesn’t answer at first. Riko is busy studying the shadows cast by the light hitting her sundial. Instead of one darkened sliver moving over its face, there are several.
“It’s not working,” Riko says. “Maybe the mirrors are calibrated wrong… or maybe it just isn’t possible to measure time so precisely using the position of the sun.”
“Can I help?”
Riko grunts. “You’ve got enough problems to solve. I don’t know. Maybe a sundial is too simple. Maybe… I don’t know… maybe the solution is metallurgic. Something with gears? I’ll keep working on it.”
“You’ll figure it out,” Dyeawan assures her.
Riko smiles down at her. “And what about you? Is staring at this thing getting you any closer to the answer?”
Dyeawan sighs. “No. Not at all.”
She presses her hands against the street and pushes her torso up, arching her back to peer across the model. Dyeawan looks to the edge of the Capitol, to the Bottoms beside the ocean. There’s a giant stone pool beneath the surface of the model there that’s filled with real seawater. Miniature ships bob atop it, most anchored at the docks, although some have been left to drift out in the open water.
Riko watches her oddly. “You don’t miss it, do you?”
“No.”
“Then why are you looking at it?”
Dyeawan’s straining shoulders give the scantest shrug.
“Things were always easy for me to figure out there,” she says.
“Oh.” Riko nods, sagely. “I get it.”
As she moves her gaze over every minutely captured detail of the docks, the absence of something familiar gives Dyeawan pause.
“Where are all the hulls of the ships?” she asks.
Riko doesn’t understand. “Huh?”
Dyeawan points. “Near the ship yards, there. They store rows and rows of ship hulls there, upside-down. They have since I was born. They were on the model before. They’re almost all gone now.”
“Well, the surveyors are responsible for changing the models when new things are built in the Capitol or old things are torn down. They must have taken away the hulls.”
“But… there were people… people live under those hulls. What did they do with them?”
“Um… I don’t know about the people, but maybe they finally used the hulls to build new ships? That’s what they’re for, yeah?”
“They couldn’t have finished building that many ships that fast.”
“I’m really sorry, Slider, I don’t know what happened. Did friends of yours live in them?”
“Not friends, just… people like me, a lot of them. And I…”
Dyeawan remembers telling Edger about the stockpile of unused hulls in the Bottoms, and about those who used them as shelter and to hide from Aegins. She’d thought nothing of it at the time; they were just talking, and the subject of their discussion wasn’t even aimed at the Bottoms or its homeless residents. He hadn’t asked her about either, in fact. She certainly didn’t feel as though she was being interrogated.
“Maybe you could ask Edger,” Riko suggests.
“Edger can be funny with answers,” Dyeawan says without really thinking.
“What do you mean?”
Dyeawan looks from the miniature world of the Bottoms to Riko still hanging above her head.
“I think… sometimes there’s a lot more truth in what Edger doesn’t tell us than what he does tell us.”
Riko shrugs. “Talking in riddles is another way of testing us, yeah?”
“Maybe. Unless… unless we have to figure out what the riddle is for ourselves first. Does that make sense?”
Riko shakes her head. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Dyeawan reaches inside her tunic and removes the stone she picked up beside the God Rung. She lies back down on the model street and holds it in front of her face, turning the stone over and over with both hands and examining its smooth, flat surface.
Eventually her hands stop, and her eyes begin to glaze, no longer seeing the stone.
“What is it, Slider?” Riko asks her.
Dyeawan should feel elated, especially after everything she’s put herself through to reach this moment, but she can’t stop thinking about all the years those ship hulls took up space, untouched and forgotten, until suddenly, immediately after she spoke to Edger about them, they were neither.
She learned the word “coincidence” several weeks ago, and she knows this isn’t one.
Dyeawan looks up at Riko, still holding the stone in her small hands.
“I think it’s the riddle and the answer,” she says.
THE CALLING HOUR
LEXI REALIZES, SETTING TWO CUPS in front of herself and Taru, that this is as close to being truly happy as she’s felt since Brio’s disappearance.
She pours Taru and herself rice wine from a jug and spikes each with just a few drops of Voxic’s sting from a separate, smaller bottle.
Taru raises a single brow with the oddest of half smiles. “Te-Gen?”
“Small victories, small celebrations,” Lexi insists. “They are even more important in times like these.”
They’re sitting in her father’s old study at the bottom of the Xia tower. Since the old man passed, not long after Lexi’s mother did from the same illness, it’s been left largely untouched. That includes the collection of spirits long cultivated there, from the finest fermented wine to the rare nectar contained in a bottle shaped like the meat-eating Voxic plant from which it’s extracted.
Lexi takes up her cup and raises it in a toast, smiling at her retainer triumphantly.
Taru shakes their head, but reaches for the other cup and holds it against Lexi’s just the same.
“Small
victories,” Lexi repeats.
Taru nods, adding, “May enough of them win the war.”
Lexi’s eyes come alight and her smile only widens. “Well said, my friend.”
They touch cups and drink, Lexi more deeply than is at all customary for a Gen hostess, while Taru sips. The spike of Voxic’s sting sets its hooks in their tongues at the same time, and judging from their expressions they both might have just had swords lanced through their bellies.
“Why do people enjoy this?” Taru asks with equal parts confusion and contempt.
Lexi is shaking her head as if to expel the burning sensation in her skull. “I thought all warriors were drinkers.”
Taru coughs. “I remain the exception in all things, it seems.”
“It is the first quality required in being exceptional, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you, Te-Gen.”
The deep thrum of the giant steel rung rapping against the main hall’s doors reverberates through the tower. Taru immediately sets down the cup and takes up their sword belt with its two low-hanging scabbards. The retainer stands, strapping on the belt with practiced ease.
Lexi watches, her smile turning to a frown. “I’m sure it’s nothing worthy of a blade’s answer.”
“It is also not an hour for callers, Te-Gen,” Taru reminds her darkly.
“I dislike it when you’re right. Why is that?”
“Possibly because I have a tendency to only point out dire things,” Taru answers matter-of-factly.
Lexi nods. “That’s it.”
The retainer leaves the study and crosses the main hall, keeping one hand closed around the hilt of their short sword. Taru throws back the latch and pulls open one of the heavy double doors.
An older Aegin with a sour face is waiting on the other side.
“Te-Gen Xia has a caller,” he informs Taru.
Taru’s hand tightens around the hilt of the short sword suspiciously.
“Who is it?” Lexi asks, walking to the middle of the main hall.
“One of…” The Aegin hesitates, looking up at Taru’s face. “It’s one of them. Says they’re an armorist, delivering an order.”
“ ‘Them’?” Lexi asks.
Taru’s fiery eyes remain fixed on the Aegin. “He means Undeclared.”
Lexi frowns.
“Did you place an order with an armorist, Te-Gen?” Taru asks.
Lexi hesitates. Images wreathed in the blood of their last unexpected guests scream through her mind in brief flashes. Fear almost compels her to admit the truth, but something stops her, a feeling she can’t quite explain, even to herself.
“Allow our guest entry,” she says.
Taru gestures stiffly to the Aegin, who appears more than happy to silently stomp away from their door.
A few moments later Taru is standing aside to allow Lexi’s “delivery” passage (after thoroughly inspecting it to assure that delivery is unarmed). There is no parcel, just a person. In fact, the armorist is the first person Lexi has seen in the Capitol who is as tall and broad through the shoulders as Taru. They also share the same plain, angular features that could easily belong to either man or woman. Also like Taru, the armorist prefers to wear their hair in a topknot with both sides of their head shaved bare.
“Welcome,” Lexi greets their guest.
“I’m called Spud-Bar.” The armorist quickly adds: “Te-Gen.”
It is clear Spud-Bar is unaccustomed to addressing Gen members. The armorist also smells heavily of long miles on a hard road far outside the cities.
Lexi bows formally. “I am Lexi Xia of Gen Stalbraid, and this is my friend and retainer, Taru.”
Spud-Bar becomes very aware of not bowing, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot.
“Thank you for seeing me.”
“Of course. Although I am afraid, Spud-Bar, I did not place an order with any armorist.”
“I know, Te-Gen. The… order… was placed by a young girl I’ve known as Evie. It concerns your husband, whose name is Brio.”
Lexi is forced to reach out and grip Taru’s forearm in order to steady herself. Hearing Brio’s name, spoken as if he is still alive, causes her knees to buckle.
Taru may be equally as shocked, but it’s quickly replaced by suspicion.
“What do you know of Evie?”
“She’s also called Ashana,” Spud-Bar answers, recognizing the test in that question. “She willingly gave herself over to… to the Legion to find Brio. Do you know of the Legion I speak?”
Even Taru’s guard softens at that.
“I do. My husband was investigating such a Legion when he disappeared. You’re saying Brio… he’s… he’s alive?” Lexi asks.
“Yes, Te-Gen. Worse for the wear, but alive, and with Evie when last I left them.”
Lexi closes her eyes for just a moment, every hope and every fear she locked away lest either of them overcome her springing forth and saturating her being.
Taru channels relief into more practical concerns. “And where was that?”
“The Sicclunan front. At least, it was when I left. The Skrain is making a big push into what’s left of Sicclunan land. The front has probably moved another ten leagues by now.”
“I am grateful to you for bringing us this news,” Lexi begins, ever the formal hostess. “However, can you tell us why you are here instead of Ashana and my husband? Her mission was not only to find him, but to bring him back to me.”
“For all I know, Te-Gen, they’ve already made their escape. It’s not that easy for Savages. Most of ’em are plucked from their lives against their will and for no true crime. The Legion, and most especially who exactly makes up the Legion, isn’t meant to be known among you folk in the cities. I’m only allowed to return here to draw weapons and materials and help with new recruits. They mark Savages with a special coin that stains their blood and their skin in case any of ’em run. A Savage caught out of camp by blood hunters usually returns with their guts ripped out. Pardon me.”
Taru frowns heavily, looking to Lexi, whose expression says she’s having the same thoughts: The men who tried to murder her were Savages, and Spud-Bar has just confirmed that Savages couldn’t have reached the Gen Circus unless they were sent by those in power.
However, Lexi has moved beyond shock and shaking knees on the subject. Now that she knows that Brio’s alive and Ashana has accomplished half her mission, her mind is spinning with how to see the rest through. She also knows how much she owes Ashana for what the woman has apparently been through and what she has accomplished on Gen Stalbraid’s behalf, even if, Lexi suspects, Ashana accepted the mission for her own reasons. Lexi had been far too desperate and frantic when she first went to Ashana to consider emotions like jealousy or hesitation, or think about the consequences of reuniting Ashana with Brio, and she’s determined not to waste time on those feelings or speculations now.
Still, for all those reasons, Lexi wishes in that moment that she’d taken the time to know Ashana better, just as Lexi regrets only finally coming to know Taru over the past few months. She regrets ever allowing herself to feel disconnected from what Brio did as a pleader. Lexi had always thought of the foundlings their parents took in as wards of Brio’s father, being groomed and trained to attend to the Gen’s pleaders in the course of their duties. It created a distance for her that didn’t need to exist.
Like most things Lexi thought before Brio’s disappearance, her perspective is vastly changed.
“What can we do?” she asks Spud-Bar. “Ashana must have had some message beyond letting us know Brio is alive. How can we help bring them home?”
“Evie said nothing about aiding them in escape, Te-Gen,” Spud-Bar assures her. “But she did give me a message. It’s about something Brio left behind. It’s supposed to prove what the Legion really is, if that’s of any use to anyone. She seemed to think it was more important than the both of them.”
Before Lexi can respond to that, a crash from up the spiraling stone steps of th
e tower draws all their gazes.
Lexi looks up at Taru. “The Ministry agents?”
“They would have seen Spud-Bar come to the door,” Taru confirms, drawing both short sword and cooperative-forged hook-end blade.
“What’s happening?” Spud-Bar asks.
Lexi holds up a hand to silence the armorist as Taru steps between them both and the staircase, stance widening and weapons expertly raised.
A tall shadow falls down the steps, cast by the lit sconces along the tower wall. They all tense, especially Taru, until that shadow is replaced by the red, green, and brown blur of a body tumbling fast and uncontrolled down the staircase. Taru leaps back, arms spreading wide to shield Lexi and Spud-Bar, as that body rolls free of the bottom step and lands at their feet.
“Daian!” Lexi calls from behind Taru, fortunately not loud enough to alert the agents posted outside.
The right side of his tunic is almost completely soaked through with blood. It gloves his right hand and streaks his face and neck. Sweat pours from his brows, pasting his hair to his scalp, and virtually all trace of color has drained from his face. His eyes are dilated and glassy, barely conscious of their surroundings.
Taru immediately sheathes both blades and kneels beside him. Lexi gathers the hem of her wrap and runs around them both, dropping to her knees on the other side of Daian’s body.
Taru quickly assesses his condition. “His heartbeat is dangerously slow, and all this blood appears to be his. The wound may be mortal.”
“Are we under attack?” Spud-Bar asks in alarm.
“No,” Lexi assures the armorist impatiently. “He’s not a guard, he… he must’ve climbed the tower and come through a window. Though I can’t imagine how, you utter madman! What were you thinking?”
The demand only thinly masks Lexi’s obvious concern and anguish at seeing Daian in such a state. There are tears welling in her eyes as she looks down on him.