Children of Artifice

by Danie Ware

  Austen had called him ‘Proteus’, the name taken from a legend of the Builders. Ironic, perhaps, but the joke had suited him, and Proteus had claimed it for his own.

  And now, sheltered by the doorway, Proteus’s change was complete. He was blotched and starving, a homeless shambler that had lived here all his life, his feet filthy, his muttering wordless. As if he’d absorbed the very feel of the surrounding destitution, he reflected it flawlessly. He fitted, and he faded completely into the background.

  Caph’s snores were still audible, even as he closed the door.

  But as Proteus shuffled away, not even the scuffling tarras looked up.

  Slowly, he headed for the first glimmers of dawn, the paling sky, the first glint of the sun at the edge of the crater. He avoided the walkways that Aden had taken the previous night, choosing instead the shorter route, out to the district gate – the route that no-one would follow.

  These were places where the traders didn’t venture – the wide sprawls of dereliction, half-fallen into the water, the areas decaying and tumbledown, all splattered with pictures and slang. These were the poorest habitations, scattered with rubbish, the places that the upper city derided, the places that young men like Caph, in their blindness or naiveté would never see…

  The high families did have hands down here, delving into the dirt and what it concealed – but those hands were not their own.

  Yet these were the places where Proteus learned the most. The graffiti on the walls told shifting tales of power, of territory, of security, and of hope…

  Hearing a noise, he paused.

  It came again – a scuffle, a sharp cry, feet. He stayed still, hunched in his blanket. Two figures ran into view, frantic and glancing around them for help, or cover. They were skinny, dirty, barely teenagers, wearing an assortment of scavenged clothes and a grinning, rodent-patch design that he recognised. They were Tarras, named after the creatures – rummagers and scroungers, gang-kids who traded in whatever oddments they could find. Once, he’d been very like them.

  As he watched, they stopped in a huddle, panting.

  Their fear was tangible; the girl was almost sobbing. She had a short, serrated knife clutched in one hand. The boy seemed to be nursing a wound; there was a dark blotch spreading across his lower belly.

  ‘It’s okay,’ the girl said, like a mantra. ‘It’s okay.’

  He watched them, unmoving and expressionless.

  Then he heard other voices, older and deeper, mocking. Deliberate, heavy feet – the pursuers were in no hurry, and their confidence was hard-edged and brutal.

  ‘Teach you to raid us, you little shits,’ one said. ‘We can see you.’

  The girl pulled the boy to his feet. He held a hand to his wound, wincing. She looked round and her eyes passed over where Proteus crouched, then snapped back as if she’d only just realised he was there.

  ‘Please,’ she said, desperate. ‘Please help us.’

  He didn’t respond. He could save them if he chose – the petty thugs of the wharfside held no fears for him. But he had no need for them; they had nothing he wanted. And he had no intention of breaking his cover.

  He stayed still, hunched in his blanket.

  The girl said, ‘Please…’ but the word was a whisper, as if she already knew it was hopeless. The boy said, ‘Leave him. Let’s hope they knife him next, hey?’

  He spat, and they vanished into the gloom.

  The voices went after them, coarse and laughing.

  If those kids were lucky, the fishers would hoist their corpses out of the harbour in the morning – the first catch invariably picked up the previous night’s debris.

  If they weren’t…

  Silently, Proteus slipped backward, away from sound and conscience. Wharfside politics was savage, an endless cycle of opportunity, betrayal and revenge. And he had no alliances, and nothing to prove – no reason to get caught up in any of it.

  As the sun crested the caldera wall, Proteus came to the district gate.

  The sky had paled, and the high clouds were streaked with fantastic colours, reds and purples like the all the layers of hell. The crater’s edge had lit like a bonfire, heralding the full sunrise; the temperature was beginning to climb.

  The damp wood of the wharf steamed.

  Standing like supplicants, a ragtag group of people awaited their morning freedom. Most were workers, heading for their shift, or back home. Others were district-approved traders; several stood with gletars, small and stocky herd beasts bred for work and burden. The creatures carried simple cargo: salt, fish, shellfish, weed, the staples of the city now marked for the industrial districts, for the farmers at Vanchar, or for the merchants’ or artisans’ guilds. And most of the traders bore high family colours – they weren’t slaves, but their lives were owned just the same.

  As the people moved restless, metal glinted. Compulsory copper wrist-tags carried names, permitted routes and family affiliations; without one, you couldn’t leave your own district, and you couldn’t carry anything more than the clothes you stood up in. The gates had been built after the famine – from City Hall’s compulsive need to manage both goods and consumption. There were a few, senior servants of high families, who bore tags of gold and a freedom from questions – but you wouldn’t find those out here.

  Proteus had a copper tag, a forgery punishable by permanent facial branding, but he rarely needed to use it. Instead, he was back in Aden’s face and garb and dockside credibility, his chain and tats all in place – the latter identical to their previous incarnation, a detail that had taken years of practice.

  A herd beast stamped a hoof, the sound echoing sharply from the wall.

  The sun bulged at the crater’s edge. At the gate, the uniformed greycoats stood waiting, blades at their hips, faces impassive. Like the tags, they belonged to City Hall – they had no loyalty to a single family, and they stood staunchly in the face of any smuggling or corruption…

  Well, most of them.

  Voices rose further, getting impatient. The edge of rising sun grew larger, lighting the clouds to bloodsmoke and ruin. At last, there was the sound of a horn, a single, long note. The guards moved and the people shifted and surged.

  Proteus held to their centre, waiting. As he shuffled slowly forwards, the wrought iron gates loomed austere over his head, sternly intricate and rusted with time and salt. Upon them, in severe metal lettering, was the word IVAR, the name of the district beyond. With a protesting grind, they broke apart and the name cracked in half like a seal.

  The crowd moved as if commanded by the noise.

  He stayed at their centre, eyes down. As they huddled through the gateway, each offering their allocation marker, he went with them, drifting at their heart like a water-reflection.

  The greycoats looked straight past him.

  As the shuffle of workers came through to the gates’ far side, Proteus’s pace didn’t change; he showed no self-consciousness or triumph. The crowd began to disperse, and he drifted into the narrow, stone roads, past the sagging shrines, the scattered rubbish and the beggars on the corners, out towards the raggedly piled, dusty slums where Austen was waiting for him.

  Another morning, and another report to make.

  ‘You’re back,’ Austen grumbled. ‘And where the hells’ve you been?’

  ‘Aden had work to do.’ Proteus dumped himself on Austen’s sagging daybed, rush-padding puffing out of it at the impact. He let his face relax from Aden into his ‘home’ face, as bland as a comfortable shirt; he thumped his dirty, booted feet on the table. ‘He gets hired, remember? Unloads shit at the harbour?’

  With a gesture as ingrained as habit, Austen shoved his feet back onto the floor, sitting him upright with a lurch. ‘Don’t you get sarky with me.’

  Austen was guardian and tutor, the long-time father figure who’d raised Proteus from a lost a
nd faceless child. He was elderly, angular and thin-faced; reedsmoke wreathed from his breath. And he was agitated, he paced his scruffy room, six steps one way and six the other, kicking through its covering of junk as he went.

  Proteus helped himself to a reed, lit it, and shook out the match. ‘Hells, Aus, this place gets worse. Can’t you clear up in here?’

  ‘If I did that,’ he said. ‘I’d never bloody find anything. Now, where have you been? You’ve got deliveries to make, and I’ve got one happy customer who hasn’t paid up.’ He grinned, his teeth filthy. ‘Yet. You need to get your ass out there.’

  ‘Out there’ was district Ivar, poor and heavily industrial; it was dirty, too hot, and most of it taken up by the noisy and sprawling quayside that served the mines. Lurking like some hunched and agoraphobic spider, Austen had lived in this room forever, surrounded by his shabby jumble of trash.

  ‘Told you,’ Proteus said, ‘Aden had work to do. Unloading a lot of stuff for house Enshar, looked like building materials. Interesting – they’re family Elect and it makes me wonder if they’re expanding. And into where.’ He blew smoke. ‘And you might want to know: there’s was a bit of a ruck at the Buoy Inn, don’t think Ghen’s going to be offering much info, any more. You don’t, when you’re face down with a blade in your back.’ He grinned, brief and harsh.

  ‘Shit.’ Austen stopped his pacing and glowered, thin arms folded. ‘Ghen was a sound chap, known him a long time. Who’s taking his spot? The Buoy’s a good location.’

  Proteus shrugged. ‘There’s a couple of options. I’ll do the necessary.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Austen asked him. ‘Criers got any news this morning? What happened to the women with the potash?’

  ‘Greycoats got that one yesterday – hung her out for the crows. She had no tag, and you know how that ends. No fair hearing for an outskirter.’ Proteus took another pull on the reed and let it out more thoughtfully. ‘Thend’s lost his controlling interest at Vowen harbour, there’s a new man in charge who… needs to be made aware of how things work down there.’ He blew smoke, letting it dance towards the tar-stained ceiling. ‘And Hectan’s got a couple of new boatmen on her shift. They’re looking for some extra coin, if you catch my meaning. Sometimes you got to hang around late in the bar to catch the good stuff. Let me know what you want to do with them – any routes or cargo you think might work.’

  Austen cackled, ‘I’m sure I can come up with something.’

  ‘I don’t doubt it.’ Proteus took another drag, then breathed it out more thoughtfully. ‘Oh, and ah… one more thing.’ His tone was carefully neutral. ‘Kind of a new opportunity.’ The smoke danced with the glittering dust.

  Austen turned to raise a shrewd and angled eyebrow.

  ‘There was a son of Caphen at the wharfside.’ Proteus kept it nonchalant, reed between his lips, and now squinting through the smoke as he unloaded pockets and pouches on the table-top: Austen’s due coin, the scattering of contraband carried through the gates. He glanced up, removed the reed, blew another lungful of smoke. ‘Interesting guy.’

  ‘Caphen?’ Austen said, surprised. ‘What was--?’

  ‘Sulking.’ Proteus gave a grin. ‘But you know what they say: a contact made is a contact gained.’

  Austen’s look was halfway between curious and sceptical. ‘And what did your contact teach you?’

  ‘Not much this time around.’ Proteus chuckled and unloaded the last item, an old tea bowl in some sort of etched metalwork. He flicked it, and it rang like a miniature bell. ‘You might call him a, ah…’ his grin was wicked, ‘…longer-term investment.’

  Austen studied him for a moment. ‘Careful with him, Ro,’ he said. ‘Caphen have power – he could make you way too visible.’ He jerked his thumb at the window, indicating the quayside beyond. ‘Let’s not have greycoats on the doorstep, hey?’

  Proteus dropped a handful of ripans into the tea bowl, making it ring with sharp, metal music. ‘C’mon, Aus.’ The grin spread further. ‘Having Caphen on side? He was just wa-ay too good to miss.’

  His shameless tone made Austen laugh, the sound like ancient, wheezing bellows. It faded into a cough, and the old man sank back, thumping his thin chest and gasping for breath. Used to this, Proteus didn’t look up.

  He jumped, though, when Austen, still coughing, skimmed something onto the table.

  ‘Since you’re feeling so bloody pleased with yourself,’ he said. ‘You tell me what that is.’

  Outside, shouting had started in the street.

  Puzzled, Proteus picked the thing up. Austen watched him, rubbing his fingertips over his days-long growth of greying stubble. The rasp was audible

  Proteus frowned. The thing looked like a half a coin, an unusual, oval shape and in an odd, rusting-red metal he’d never seen before. Raised symbols lined its edges. It had been broken, snapped almost clean across with considerable force, but that was not what stopped him.

  It had a peculiar, odd-shaped hole in the centre in which something needed to fit.

  Weighing it in his palm, he found it had a strange feel, unsettling and uncomfortable. He lifted it to the light, turned it to see the markings more clearly. It reminded him of an eye.

  ‘What the hells?’ he asked.

  ‘Teka brought it in,’ Austen told him, naming one of the myriad streetkids that ran his errands for him.

  ‘Teka needs to make her deliveries. Where’d she find this thing?’ Proteus lowered it, turned it over. It had an identical series of symbols on the other side – not one of them familiar.

  ‘Combing the waterline – she finds all sorts.’ Austen was watching him now, his eyes the colour of rust, of newly dried blood. ‘Clean up crews would’ve got it, she thought it might be worth something.’

  The clean up crews took much of the garbage, even out here. Long ago, City Hall had seen the wisdom in reusing everything it could.

  Proteus lifted the thing, looked through the hole. When it showed him nothing further, he looked back at Austen, and shrugged. ‘Do you know what it says?’

  ‘Not a clue,’ Austen told him.

  ‘I thought you knew—?’

  ‘I thought I knew.’ Austen turned the question into a statement; his life of junk and forgery had taught him every symbol there was.

  Proteus shifted the coin to the other hand. It was giving him an irrational urge to wipe his palm down his trouser leg, to go and wash and wash and wash…

  Austen was watching him, nodding. ‘You feel it too,’ he said. His eyes were sharp, wary. ‘We all tell jokes about the Builders’ hells, y’know? The spirits of this and that? And that’s all great fun when you’re telling tales in the bar.’ He pointed at the coin. ‘That thing gives me the heebie-jeebies, Ro. I can’t read it. And I don’t know why.’

  Proteus put the thing down. ‘What did Lyss make of it?’

  Lyss was his sister, the toddler that Austen had found with him, wrapped in his arms like treasure – and the only thing remaining of whoever he’d been. She, too, had singular abilities, though hers were all perception and detection. As kids, they’d used to play hide-and-seek around the backroads of the district, both of them sharpening skills they’d barely known they had. He could change his face to anyone, but she could always find him.

  Austen shook his head. ‘You know Lyss, I don’t see her for weeks.’ He paced back across the room, then stopped by the window and stared out at the district’s scruffy and jumbled roofs. The sun was huge, weary and swollen, and the streets glowed with its bloody, afternoon light. ‘You’re right, though, this needs her insight.’

  ‘I’ll go see her,’ Proteus said. ‘Need to catch up anyway, she’s probably gotten herself into trouble. You know what she’s like.’ Catching Austen’s thoughtful mood, Proteus came to join him, looking for somewhere to stub out the reed.

  Out there, far across the water, lay t
he series of tall, symbol-carved entranceways the served the city’s mines. There was a grubby, stone harbour, mostly the flat barges that brought the trucks across to Ivar, and an old tram station, long abandoned.

  Above the mines’ entrances, standing in his own hollow in the caldera wall, there was an immense, rusting golem – a toy at this distance, but a vast and impossible metal figure, untouched in lifetimes beyond counting. His crafting was beautiful, elaborate and ancient. Proteus couldn’t see from here, but his dead eyes must look out at the cargo boats, each one laden with ore stolen from his realm.

  His attention came back to the coin on the table and he shuddered; an odd shadow flickered in the air.

  Austen said softly, ‘I don’t know why I can’t read it.’ He, too, was looking out at the mineworkings, the empty station, his gaze full of age and memory. ‘I’ve spent my life in information, Ro. Politics and history, watching the wheels of this city as they turn. And I don’t know what these mean.’

  Proteus said, ‘Nothing’s beaten you yet.’

  But Austen was watching the golem. ‘You know the legend of the thousand hells? One for every hellspirit – for every crime, every fear, every depravity? Some tales say they’re still Outside, the things the Builders fled when they crafted their haven. And some say they’re in here, the creatures they imprisoned when they sealed the gate. Some even say we stand above them, as they layer, down and down, into the living stone below.’

  Proteus said, ‘And some say they were made up by the Builders to keep their servants in line – that’s why you only get shrines in the lower city.’ He grinned – but Austen made no response, and his frown didn’t fade. ‘C’mon Aus, they’re just tales.’

  ‘Maybe they are,’ Austen said. ‘But maybe they’re not. Maybe all it would need would be one too-curious miner, digging too deep, to make all those hells manifest.’ His fingers made a descriptive gesture. ‘Bubble to the surface like lava.’ He still stared at the golem as though he expected it to rasp into life, to graunch its rusted fists into the air and bellow in ancient rage. Proteus stared at him. ‘Lyss’ll know.’ He tailed off, frowning. Then he repeated, in almost a whisper, ‘Lyss’ll be able to read it.’