The Sightless City

by Noah Lemelson

  Gearswit gave an exasperated sigh. “To be honest Ms. Pelletier, while a few who do not innately have the Knack develop it later in life, I have never heard of such a case in a ferral. I’ve not, in my long years teaching, ever seen a ferral capable of manipulating mechanical æthers to even the smallest degree. It might just not be in their biology.”

  He used the right term this time, but she still hated it. Ferral, because the first humans who found her kind thought they looked like feral dogs.

  Gearswit seemed to notice her discomfort.

  “I’ve been theorizing about why you keep coming back to my class. I believe it is because you are afraid of being different.”

  Sylvaine didn’t respond.

  “I do understand how you feel. Kortonians are not what might be called standard.”

  She tried to appreciate his concern, but she knew that she really was different. People didn’t stare open-mouthed at Gearswit. They didn’t ask to pet him. They didn’t wonder out loud if he might go berserk. They didn’t whisper among themselves, “Is it dangerous?” It. Kortonians were never an it.

  “I respect your… experiment,” Gearswit said, cleaning his spectacles. “Few ferrals try the path of æthermantics, so I suppose it was worth a shot to see if… repeated exposure might somehow awaken your Knack. But with experiments you must respect the results.”

  “Years ago it was thought that Salvi lacked the Knack,” Sylvaine offered. “Before Vtel—”

  “I am aware of Vtel Starning.” Gearswit’s exasperation snuck through his deep sigh. “And the thousands of other Salvi engineers since. It worked for them, it didn’t for you. I am sorry Ms. Pelletier, but is reality is such.”

  Sylvaine knew her professor was most likely right. But ætheric engineering was the reason she left her family, left everything. She couldn’t just give it up, even if the dream was as impossible as her parents had warned her.

  “Listen,” Gearswit said, “I think I can get the negative marks removed from your transcript for the previous two times you’ve taken my class. But removing a third?”

  “I just...” Sylvaine said, searching for an explanation she didn’t have. “…just need more time. Give me some outside assignments, chances to prove myself.”

  Her professor sighed again, softer. “Workshop starts at the end of the week, if you want to try, try. But there is no shame in giving up on the impossible.”

  Chapter 3

  The funeral for Heitor Desct was scheduled for that weekend. It was a large, bombastic affair, completely removed from the character of the man, who, though charismatic, had always been private and modest in his personal affairs. Marcel considered it doubtful that the late Editor-in-Chief of The Huile Gazette ever in life had the cash to finance such a funeral. This mystery was solved by the small text on the back of the funeral notice, which stated that the funerary service was to be hosted by none other than Lazarus Roache.

  Marcel had to respect the man, Lazarus. Even for Huile’s resident sangleum tycoon the funeral was a more than generous affair. With no living relatives, Desct could have ended in a pauper’s grave; instead he was given the hero’s sendoff he deserved.

  Still, while staring at the gold and white banners, the imported Tyrissian silverware with intricate filigrees, and the diamond-speckled chandeliers, Marcel could not help but feel out of place. A few Vidish beers shared in the back of a reasonably priced café would be closer to the celebration of life the deceased likely would have planned. Marcel’s gut felt hollowed when he thought of how many months (years, even?) it had been since he had shared such a night with his friend.

  There had been no explicit reason for their distance, no moment of falling out, but as the months had passed after the war, each of their conversations inevitably fell back to the battle, to shuddering memories of choking chaos, to painful reminiscences of comrades who did not make back. It had become easier then for Marcel to see Desct less, to focus on his own career, safe in the knowledge that his friend would always be there, that there would always be the chance to reconnect and make up for lost time.

  But now there was no time.

  Marcel slowly picked at the plate before him. It was covered in greenberry salad, Torish squash pasta, and beef, real beef. He tasted the meat, and was surprised to find that it came from a cow. An actual, full-blooded, cow, not their Calamity-mutated, ornery and cheaper cousin, the taur.

  He chewed, watching the others guests mingle. He supposed he should, perhaps, join them, but he could only recognize a couple faces.

  Few of the guests, if he had to guess, were native-born residents of Huile, but instead likely came from one of the nearby, wealthier Border State cities, or, like himself, hailed from the more developed southern interior of the UCCR. Huile’s post-emancipation rehabilitation had made it a very popular site for investment and immigration. Most guests were human, but Marcel did notice a kortonian or two ambling about. It was easier to spy the hulking figure of a visiting salvi diplomat, his decorated horns poking above the crowd.

  Many funeral-goers wore the bright flashy getups that seemed the norm at all Huile gatherings: Bastillian red-mixed-yellow dresses or overcoats decorated with Utarran baubles. Some men did wear less ornamented and more properly somber black and white suits, which Marcel recognized as imported Phenian brands. Such seemingly humble outfits were in truth the most extravagant on display, considering the immense cost of transporting luxuries from the heart of the Confederacy to the edge of the Wastes. Marcel, in his simple coat and work pants, looked almost a pauper by comparison, though he couldn’t imagine Desct would have preferred that he compete with these faux gentry.

  Some of these men carried canes, for show more than use, and a few women had brought bouquets of waste-touched flowers, which they tossed in a pile beside the urn. How many had actually known the man well, Marcel wasn’t sure, but he could guess it was only a fraction of the crowd. Some fool had even brought a small dog, which dashed around the guests’ feet, yipping incessantly. By Marcel’s measure it all seemed inappropriate for a memorial, but perhaps such was the style of Border City folk. He had still not fully adapted to his new home.

  A hand suddenly clasped Marcel’s shoulder. He flinched instinctively, breath quickening.

  “Marcel! My good man!”

  It was the ever-chipper voice of Lambert Henra. Marcel calmed, it wasn’t… well, he didn’t know who he thought it would be. A Principate soldier come for revenge?

  “Lambert. It’s uh, good to see you.” Marcel stood and shook the hand of the stout-stomached Minister of Justice. In Lambert’s other hand was a tall glass of champagne, and standing beside him was a thin, blonde-haired woman Marcel had never met.

  “Ah, this is Evelin. Evelin, Marcel. He’s my old war buddy I was telling you about.”

  She smiled. It was all teeth.

  “You see, my dear Evelin, we were both in the Huile Sewer Rats. Dreadful name, I know, but it was a dreadful battle.”

  “You fought in the Battle Under Huile?” the woman asked.

  “Well, I mean, I meant, you see…” the man stuttered.

  “He fought in the Battle For Huile Field,” Marcel corrected. “Not the famous one. He couldn’t make it, foot problem I think.”

  Lambert flinched, and Marcel felt a twinge of guilt for dismissing him so.

  “War injury, actually,” the man said. “In the first battle I was shot right through my boot. It was horrid I assure you, I was in terrible pain. Perhaps that misfortune saved my life in the end. I’ll admit that it wasn’t nearly the injury Marcel received later on. Oh, Marcel, do show her your leg.”

  Marcel silently swore, and pulled back his right trouser leg to reveal shining brass and twisting gears.

  Evelin nodded. “My cousin has an arm like that.”

  “Yes,” Lambert said, “but Marcel’s is a true battle scar. Got it in the Underway, undertaking Lazarus’s plan, you see. Released sangleum gas on all thos
e nasty Principates. Won us Huile, wouldn’t you say?”

  Screams echoed through Marcel’s skull, images of red fumes, bodies bleeding, melting away at the caustic touch, gas mask too tight, leg burning in agony, friends disappearing in gunshots and pink clouds. A corpse wrapped in imperial blue, staring up at him, pain blurred through blood, seeming to accuse, ‘You did this.’

  Marcel grabbed the table to steady himself. His cogleg burned, but he managed to keep upright. Lambert offered a worried glance, and the woman seemed distracted by something in her drink.

  “Yes, right.” Marcel nodded quickly, recovering his composure. “A necessary victory.”

  “So,” Lambert nodded, “still working hard then, investigating and all that?

  “Work’s slow,” Marcel admitted.

  “You know, Evelin, my dear friend here uncovered, just last month, a Principate spy, still working within the city!”

  “Oh,” the woman said, pulling a long hair from her cocktail and tossing it away.

  “Just a corrupt mail clerk, trying to sell some stolen letters,” Marcel said. He had nearly forgotten about the Steinmann Case. He hadn’t had the usual rush sending the squat, cleft-lipped clerk away in chains. In fact, Marcel had almost felt bad. The man seemed more a desperate idiot than a true-and-blue traitor, but the evidence had been clear.

  “You undersell yourself, as always,” Lambert tutted. “The scum would have escaped clean if not for your keen eye. Ah, you would have done so well on the force, but I suppose an independent spirit must find its lone way.”

  The woman sipped her drink languidly, while staring Marcel up and down. “You’re not from here, are you?” she asked, as if she just noticed the tan of Marcel’s skin.

  “No…” Marcel began.

  “Are you one of those, uh, Elhemmade guys?”

  “El’Helmaud,” Marcel corrected reflectively. “And no. I’m from Bastillia. Phenia to be precise.”

  The woman stared with a blank expression.

  “The capital of the United Confederacy of the Citizens’ Resurgence,” Marcel added, worried that this woman somehow lacked even basic geographic knowledge of anything outside of the city’s wall. Her soft nod did not much dissuade his fear. Lambert drank in the awkward silence.

  “Great soirée, eh?” he asked. “Just like our old victory celebrations.”

  “Sure.” Marcel looked over at the distant band in full tuxedos, pulling up their pristinely kept instruments, including what looked like an ætheric guitar. “Desct would have enjoyed it.”

  “Yes... Yes, I think he would have.” Lambert’s indefatigable smile fell. “A terrible shame. Wastelung is what I heard. That can sneak up on a man fast. To think...” Lambert glanced down a moment, silent. “After everything we survived, you two especially, to have to… The world simply isn’t fair sometimes.” Lambert sucked in his breath, and placed again a somber grin on his face. He slapped Marcel’s shoulder, who responded in kind, albeit weakly.

  “Well,” Lambert continued, “then I guess that leaves us two left to carry the banner, eh Marcel? Oh, and our Captain Rosair, I suppose, wherever it is she ran off to.”

  Marcel tried not to react to the name, but pain must have been visible on his face, because Lambert mumbled an inaudible apology.

  “It was very good catching up with you, Marcel, but I must go make the rounds. Let us get you out of your apartment one these days, yes?”

  Marcel sat back down and pushed his now cold food around. It was good catching up, though Lambert’s inexhaustible energy reminded Marcel why he so often stayed home. The man was far better at managing social frivolities and burying the past.

  Guests mingled and talked around dozens of white tables, Marcel was glad he had chosen one in the corner. The band played a few forgettable tunes, and he slowly ate, mind wandering the ætherscape. His thoughts drifted back to Alba’s smirk, the first time they met. How stern she had seemed to him as a new recruit, her face that of a hardened Resurgence mercenary, a fiery gaze under a UCCR cap. Yet, with time, Marcel discovered that his captain held a secret softness, rarely shared.

  The other soldiers had laughed at Marcel’s aim on the firing range, a rich cityboy trying to play at war, even Desct had thrown in a lighthearted barb. Then Alba had stepped from her position, silencing all mockery with her gaze, as she walked toward Marcel. She leaned down and, arm to arm, aimed the rifle. The head of one target disappeared, and then a second, and then a third. Wordlessly they fired together at the faux Principate soldiers, their blue uniforms ripped with holes. She taught him how to be a soldier through grit and discipline.

  A week later, on the eve of battle, she had led him out of camp on a moonlit night into the scrap-strewn Huile Field, to practice softer arts.

  The band cut off suddenly.

  By the funerary urn and the monochromatic photograph of Desct in uniform, stood a raised platform. A priest of the Church of the Ascended climbed to the podium. He was an older man, dressed in a bland suit, and he gave a correspondingly bland address. He meandered on about the deceased’s immortal soul, how it would join the world again, live again in a new vessel, and how Desct’s sacrifice and struggles brought him, and the rest of the world, one step closer to reunification with the eternal Demiurge himself.

  Marcel paid the speech minimal attention. Desct had been agnostic in life, and Marcel shared the man’s religious indifference. True devotees of the Demiurge were a rare sight among the respectable circles of the UCCR, religious fervor invoked images of Waste-wandering hermits or Principate bootlickers. The audience seemed equally disinterested, many whispering among themselves, continuing their conversations, now just in slightly hushed tones.

  As the priest left the stage, the musicians tuned their instruments. Marcel recognized the notes and watched as a man in a military uniform presented a wrapped banner at the base of the urn. Marcel could see in it the folded visage of the Phoenix, and rose with the crowd as the Ode of the Resurgence began:

  “By hammer, blade, and rifle,

  The Citizenry marches forth!

  Tyranny laid to silence,

  A people in Rebirth!

  The Phoenix flies above us,

  From south to stolen north!

  Not slaves, no more,

  Let liberty warm our hearth!”

  Marcel belted the words from deep within his chest, forcing them out and himself up, lest he bend over and weep.

  “So go on! Go on! Brave Citizens take your freedom!

  Go on! Go on! Death can’t stop our drums!

  Go on! Go on! We light the flames of revolution!

  Go on! Go on! Born from the ash of destitution!”

  Desct had had a spirited voice, shared in the singing bars of Phenia, or with silly limericks over campfires, or in his own rendition of the Ode as they trained in rank.

  Marcel blinked away the mist of tears, and glanced around the room. Not all were as enthusiastic; a few in the back seemed only to be mouthing the words. A young man whispered some joke to his partner, who giggled. Even Mayor Durand, the once-general of the Huile campaign, gave only a perfunctory performance.

  But next to the Mayor stood another man, singing with ardor. He was a striking figure, with short-cut wavy blond hair, a sharp striped suit, and a short-brimmed hat that he held to his chest. Lazarus Roache bellowed with all the gusto befitting a patriot, which made sense, as he was one of the few in the room who had risked his own life for the future of Huile. His voice rang over the crowd as the Ode reached it end:

  “As Citizens, not slaves,

  As Citizens, not subjects,

  Hand in hand…

  We watch the Phoenix rise!”

  As people slowly sat back down, Lazarus strode to the platform. The man had handsome features, cutting blue eyes, a strong but not overbearing chin, and teeth like carved marble. The audience quieted their movements as the man graced them with his smile, and he strolled on as if he o
wned the place, which, technically, he did.

  The sangleum tycoon mounted the podium and waited there a long moment before speaking.

  “Hello, all. I am pleased to be here to celebrate the life of a good personal friend of mine, a true war hero, Heitor Desct. Now, I am often credited with saving Huile from the Principate menace, and while yes, indeed, it was my plan that saved the city, plans are worth nothing more than the breeze if not for men with the courage to carry them out. Desct was such a man, and so much more. He was a man dedicated to the values of the United Confederacy. Liberty, without limits, freedom, to pursue one’s own destiny, and, of course, virtue. The common man’s virtue, the Citizen’s virtue, the virtue needed to fight for what is right.

  “Here my friends, was a man willing to risk his life, to give all his body and spirit could provide, in order to break the chains with which the Principate had bound this city. Chains I myself once suffered in, until I was able to slip out and bring to my saviors in the UCCR the blueprints for our glorious victory.”

  The speech continued along such lines, inspiring praise of Desct’s heroism along with general extolment for the Resurgence and its republican values. At one point the man digressed to personally thank Mayor Durand for his service. The thick-chested mustached man bowed to the applause.

  There was always something hypnotically attractive about Lazarus’s words, and though the speech was not unlike many Marcel had heard him give in the past, the crowd sat transfixed. He wished Desct could have heard the eulogy. Though his friend had preferred the poorest and most downtrodden during his life, there was still some honor in being praised by one of the greatest and wealthiest members of society.

  Soon Marcel’s turn came to speak, and with it, the requisite applause. He walked to the stage as slowly as was acceptable, preparing himself. He had written a speech the night before, full of his pain, his loss, the years left alone, unwilling to face his friend and remember what they had gone through, what they had had to do. That speech was now at the bottom of his wastebasket. The speech he gave was the one he knew was proper, on heroism, valor, with affirming anecdotes and even a joke. Huile didn’t need broken men; it needed heroes.