Malachite

by Kirby Crow

  Marion shouldered the door open as Lody ran full-tilt past the coach. “Lody! Get back here, warden!”

  Lody ran back, sweat pouring down his smooth olive cheeks. “I'm sorry, highwarden,” he gasped. “That moon boy, he made a run for it!”

  Paladin’s cock. “I told you to watch him!”

  Jean was out of the coach. “Which way did he run?”

  Lody shook his head. “I don’t know. I barely saw him myself.”

  Jean looked south. The gaslights threw a little illumination that way, but otherwise it was pitch dark among the stagnant, broken canals and crumbling villas. The sky had turned cloudy, blocking the moon, and the wind smelled of rain. “He's not going to make it through the Mire in the dark.”

  Marion gritted his teeth. Alone, the boy would likely be dead before morning. If the quicksand and pools didn't get him, the snakes, dragosi, and mosquitos would. Time was precious and he knew he should call for help, but heliographs could not operate without sunlight.

  “Where's the nearest optical tower?”

  “Two miles.”

  Twenty minutes by canal, at least an hour before additional wardens could arrive. “Send a telegraph, then.”

  Lody shook his head. “No charge. Gangers stole the batteries.”

  The copper rods inside the voltaic cells were worth more to scavengers than communication. Marion buttoned his coat, jerking impatiently at the leather. A lost child was unacceptable. The Consolari would never let it go.

  “The Gaol’s closer,” Jean said. “We could use the lowcoach batteries to spark the wires, ring for Paris.”

  “Aequora is a task for wardens,” Marion said. Kon would not be pleased if word of this leaked out while the stress of Aequora was on the city. If the worst happened and the boy died, Kon would be the one to decide if the news should be kept within the Black Keep.

  I'm becoming a politician, he thought.

  “Get a map,” Marion said.

  Lody went running.

  Marion took a torch from the seawall and looked for footprints in the mud. A small set ran into the reed marsh and back to the wall, a panicked, zig-zag progress. He followed the trail south along the wall’s edge, Jean in tow.

  “Boys got lost down here all the time when we were kids,” Jean said. Waves lapped against the wall and frogs cheeped loudly, masking any human noises that might be coming from the Mire. “Do you remember Chal?”

  The torch threw dancing shadows at their feet. Marion nodded. “You weren't friends.”

  “The little bastard hated me, and I fucking hated him right back. He was mean as a mad dog and a coward at the same time. A bully, too.”

  “You killed him.”

  Jean shrugged carelessly. “He was going to kill me. You did the same with Remo.”

  “Why are we talking about this?”

  “Because boys aren't saints just because they're boys. We sure as hell weren't. You don't know why that kid ran, but he was touched in the head, maybe even dangerous. Losing him might be for the best.”

  “The Consolari gave me a job to do, and I'm going to do it.”

  “You know no one will talk. There's not a warden here who wouldn't—”

  “No,” Marion snapped. “This isn't like trying to save those poor bastards in the sea, Jean. We would be lying just to protect ourselves.”

  “I don't have a problem with that.”

  “But I can't ask my men to do it. What if the boy turns up dead in the Zanzare next week? We'd all be fucked.”

  Jean fell silent. They stopped to examine an impression in the mud, finding it to be nothing. Jean took a shiny bit of quartz pebble from the mud and turned it over in his fingers.

  They searched without speaking until Marion wearied of Jean's hard silence. “What, for Paladin's sake?”

  “There was a time,” Jean said thoughtfully, “when a little lie wasn't the end of the damned world. I'm trying to figure out if you're turning saint for the old bastardo or for puss.”

  “They have names, Jean.” Names of men he loved, though Jean wouldn't want to hear that. “I'm doing it for me,” Marion said firmly. “I sleep well these days, since I found a star to steer by. I don't want that to stop.”

  Jean hummed and threw the pebble.

  “Now what?”

  “Trying to figure out who's the star.”

  “Oh, for...” Angry as he was, Marion gave up and chuckled helplessly. “Talking of saints, you'd try the patience of Paladin himself. This is serious. If I lose that boy...”

  Since the Peace, the Consolari had become incredibly sensitive about the disposition of the children put into their care by the waters. As shabby and run-down as the ceremony was in appearance, the pact of the Aequora, founded and blessed by Andreja Paladin, was sacred. At the very least, the Orfani would reject his application for fatherhood.

  But those concerns were secondary to Marion’s worry over the boy. Just thinking about all the ways a pretty fellow like that could die in the Zanzare made his blood run cold.

  “Calm down,” Jean said. “We'll find your lost bambino before word gets back to papa Kon. How did he get past Lody?”

  “Lucky, I think.”

  “Or Lody is incompetent. What is he, seventeen? He's too young to be out here, Marion.”

  “No younger than we were, and it’s my fault as much as Lody’s. That moon-boy was terrified. Maybe even crazy.” Marion rubbed the back of his aching neck. “I saw it. I should have done something. I just wanted to go home.” Only to Jean would he have confessed so much. “It's unforgivable.”

  “Not really.” Jean said, forgiving him easily. He gave Marion a fond look. “You made a mistake. I guess you’re still human, for now.”

  The sea breeze shifted and it began to drizzle, a rain without thunder. Marion put his hood up. The torch guttered out just as they found the tracks vanishing into a wide rivulet of groundwater. Now they could only see by the light of the gibbous moon that shone intermittently between clouds.

  Jean put his hand on Marion’s shoulder. “This is useless. Let’s go back.”

  Back in the Commons, a dozen torches had been lit, forming a bright circle. Kell approached with a map tucked under his arm, looking sheepish. Lody was not with him.

  Marion spread the map out on the trunk of the lowcoach, recognizing it as a copy of the known ruins of the Mire, the same ancient one Tris had reproduced with updated details. He saw Tris's neat signature in the corner of the parchment: Copia #2. TR Sessane, l’inverno 5722

  Last year, in winter. It was about the same time he had met Tris. One snowy morning in Paladin Square, a lovely young man with eyes the same gray as the clouds had dashed down the Gran Consiglio steps and right into Marion’s arms. Tris’s dark hair had been dusted with snow and he had looked so studious in his official robes. Tris recognized him as the highwarden and had apologized profusely, stuttering and brushing snow from Marion's coat.

  He traced his finger over Tris’s signature, remembering. I was smitten, he thought. In an instant, everything had seemed so clear.

  Jean watched him with a frown, and Marion took his hand away. Jean would never accept that he was marrying Tris. Hell, there were days when he had trouble accepting it himself. He wasn't even sure it was love, since what he'd had with Jean was so different. Caring about Tris had opened him up in all kinds of ways to be hurt, or to be the one doing the hurting. It had been much easier with Jean. Jean let the world roll off his back like rain, whereas Tris felt his emotions so keenly. Marion was somewhere in between and forever questioning what was skewed with him, that he could never quite fully engage or pull away.

  Idiot, Marion chided himself. Concentrate on the mess you've made first.

  Lody came trotting up, boot soles slapping on the wet stones. He shook his head, gasping for breath. “Nothing. I'm sorry, highwarden.”

  “I told you to get the map. Don’t wander off alone down here,” Marion warned.

  Kell patted Lody on the shoulder, dark
eyes sympathetic. “Easy now. It could’ve happened to anyone.” Both had been trying to grow beards, but so far had only managed scant, delicate fuzz on their chins.

  “Walk the seawall north,” Jean ordered the twins. “Keep a sharp eye out, but don't lose sight of the wall. Whatever you do, don't venture into the marsh. There's better men than you under the mud. Val, take your men south. Jean and I will go east.”

  East from the Horn was the deepest and most dangerous part of the Mire, where the land shifted and sometimes gave way to deep pools of tidal sludge, and where the many-storied ruins of the ancient city jutted up from the sodden earth like giant fingers waiting to grasp and drown.

  The wardens dispersed. Jean cast a skeptical eye at Marion. “Sure you want to muddy your pretty boots?”

  Marion grabbed his pack from the lowcoach and slapped it across Jean's chest. “Carry this. Ass.”

  Jean merely grinned at him.

  They returned to the coach and Marion asked Janvier to dismantle one of the acid lanterns from the top of the carriage. The lanterns were greenish and dim, but better than torches for searching in the rain.

  Marion took the lantern and checked its battery. “Wait for me here,” he instructed Janvier. “If we're not back by sunrise, return to the Myrtles and tell my promessa...” He trailed off, very aware of Jean’s presence. “No. Do nothing. Just wait for me here. If I don’t return by sunrise, you’re dismissed.”

  The coachman bobbed his head. “Sì, molto bene. You may depend on me.”

  Jean led them to a sandy path that sloped downward to the southeast. Beyond the path were the ghostly outlines of the ruins resting among patches of slick eelgrass, black in the night. They scanned for tracks on the ground, finding many, but booted feet rather than bare, and none small enough to be the foot of a boy.

  “Gangers?” Jean asked.

  “Or wardens.” Marion looked up. “Do you think he'd climb?”

  Jean craned his neck to peer at the points of towers lost against the sky, catching a stray star between the clouds. The night roar of insects droned incessantly.

  “I wouldn't put it past him,” Jean said. “He doesn't know about the ruins, and the instincts of a hunted animal are to go high, go deep, or follow the water.”

  “He's not an animal.” Marion turned the lantern up to a bright green glow. “But if he wants to avoid men, he can only go south.”

  “They won’t kill him in the Zanzare.”

  “No, they’ll keep him alive for a while,” Marion agreed. “But if he winds up in that shithole, he might wish he’d drowned at sea.”

  Jean shook his head. “You always did have a mean streak.”

  Marion snorted. “You’re a fine one to talk. You can't go one week without getting into a brawl. How many broken noses have you been responsible for over the years?”

  “More than my share, I suppose. But I don't tell the man his crooked face makes him ugly, after. That's your style.”

  Marion grabbed Jean's arm and jerked him around before he stepped into a patch of eelgrass hiding a pool of water. Shallow water or quicksand, there was no way to tell. “Watch where you're going!”

  Jean pushed his hand off. “Tris,” he said through his teeth. “I'm talking about Tris. T, R, a vowel, and S. Taliesin Rosetti Sessane. See? I do know it. Young, rich, educated, perfect Tris, with the perfect family and the perfect clothes, who lives in the perfect house and very perfectly refuses to touch your perfect cock until you marry him. Or any cock at all. You couldn't even marry a slut to spare my feelings.”

  “Feelings?” Marion sputtered, trying to keep his voice down. “Where were those feelings when I was dragging you home every sunrise like a dead cat, when I was begging you to stop killing yourself?”

  “Beg?” Jean hissed. “You never begged me for anything in your fucking life. You're so proud you couldn't beg for water if you were on fire. You loved me for exactly what I was, until it was obvious you weren't going to move up in the world with me at your elbow. I became a liability to you, an embarrassment.”

  Marion felt like he'd been slapped. “That's not true,” he said, stunned into forgetting his anger. “Jean, I would have... Fathers help me, you really think I believed you weren't good enough for me?” He held the lantern higher, trying to see Jean's eyes.

  Jean looked away. “Why else would you choose Tris? You couldn't have found a man more different from me if you'd made him up.”

  A cricket chirped near them, opening a chorus as they stood with the rain pelting them softly, locked together by their shared past, unable to find a future together.

  “I didn't do it on purpose,” Marion said gently. “I met him and I felt something.” He couldn't tell Jean he loved another man, as much as he tried. “Tris sees me for the man I always wanted to become. He sees only the best part of me. When that happens to you, when that dream comes along, you can't help reaching for it, Jean. You have to.”

  “And what was I?”

  “My youth,” he answered honestly. “We were in a war with the crossbones. When the Teschio let us hope at all, it was for fresh food and maybe a single night to pass without putting the body of a friend over the seawall. We didn't dream, you and I. We only survived.”

  Jean lifted his shoulders in an awkward gesture. “And you can just put everything behind you and move on? I was your youth, but that's over and so am I?” He looked at Marion in real surprise. “Mio dio, you even don't leave a wake when you decide to sail. Aureo said he knew that about you. Maybe Tris is the one I should be feeling sorry for.”

  Marion’s blossoming sympathy withered. “Don't mention Aureo to me.”

  Jean looked him straight in the eyes. “Aureo.”

  Marion’s throat ached with all the things he could not say. Would not. He didn't even know if they could be friends after tonight. They had said everything you're never supposed to say with goodbye. And Jean still loved Aureo, that pervitito. How could he?

  Aureo would have killed me a dozen times if Jean hadn't stopped him.

  He wanted to tell Jean then, all of it, but Aureo had taken enough from Jean while he was alive. Marion was not going to rob Jean of his few good memories. Let Jean remember Aureo as the man who fed them, gave them blankets and medicine. But there had been a price for Aureo’s generosity; one that Marion alone had paid.

  “Non importa,” Marion said harshly. “Keep moving.”

  A heavy thump echoed on the path ahead of them, perhaps twenty yards away.

  Marion tensed and Jean motioned for him to cover the lantern. He whipped a flap of his coat over it.

  “A brick?” Marion whispered. Blocks of stone and rotten masonry often toppled from the heights of the ruins, making the western Mire a hazardous jungle of rickety structures that were just as dangerous as the deep pools. Men had been crushed before. Sometimes they were trapped for days until crabs and gulls finished the job.

  Marion could barely make out the lines of Jean's face. Jean put his finger to his lips and pointed to the north in a tap-tap motion. Marion nodded and went north while Jean continued on the path. They would meet in the middle.

  He tracked almost blindly, feeling cordgrass pulling at the legs of his trousers and the soft suckling of the hungry ground with every careful imprint of his boot. He kept the lantern in his coat, but each step into the darkness was like spider webs sliding over his face, a shadowy ichor he could almost feel.

  He heard a whistle, made an about-face and trotted back, holding the lantern in front of him for light. He came upon Jean on the path, holding the boy in his arms like a broken doll.

  “He fell, poor little bastard,” Jean said mournfully.

  No man who knew the perils of the Mire would risk their neck to a two-thousand year old structure left to rot in the brine marsh for the last five centuries. Some of the ruins were so delicate that just throwing shells against the walls caused them to collapse.

  Marion lifted the lantern higher to see if the boy was breathing. “Is
he dead?” He jerked the boy's sweater up as Jean held him, anxious to find his injuries.

  Marion’s eyes widened and his jaw fell open. “Jean?”

  Jean nearly dropped the body in his arms.

  “Careful!” Marion hissed. His chest caught on a breath of panic. It wasn't possible.

  Jean stared. He turned and adjusted the burden he carried to get a better look. “Is that a...”

  “It has to be.”

  Jean's wide eyes met his. “Well, fuck me with father Paladin's cock...”

  Marion tugged Jean's sleeve. They moved to a deck of flat, muddy cement that had once been the floor of a mansion. It was bordered by the shell of two crumbling walls, but the corner was enough shelter to put Jean's burden down, to carefully arrange the limp arms and legs.

  They stepped back and simply looked at the fallen form on the cement, speechless and impotent.

  “What,” Jean licked his lips. “What's it doing here?”

  Marion shook his head, his eyes glued to the lines of the unconscious body. It frightened him a little. “It's a femmina.”

  “What are we supposed to do with... it?”

  Marion felt dazed. “With her,” he corrected.

  Jean blinked. “Really? It's called a her? Just like cats and birds? That seems insulting.”

  “It doesn’t matter what we call her. Why is she here?”

  “It’s a mistake. Has to be.”

  Marion shook his head. “She can’t stay. We have to do something.”

  Jean rubbed his jaw, thinking. “Can't we just take her back and tell them that’s on the boat how it’s all fucked?”

  How wonderful would that be? Throw a cloak over her, carry her back to the Commons, and inform the Cwen captain of the mistake.

  But she’s not Solari. She came from the Cwen.

  The drizzle slowed and trickled off as Marion crouched down, trying to solve the maze he'd stumbled into. “No,” he said. “They won’t listen. We can't take her back. We can't take her anywhere. We have to find out why she's here.”

  Jean looked unhappy. He pushed the hood of his cowl off. “We might wish we hadn't.”