“She said I was left there.” Said she’d found other children before, but they had died. All of them. Telmion was a killer once it got you and it loved rotten garbage and standing water. Rotting flesh and offal and sourness and rat’s fur—
“What is she, a trash gatherer?”
Elei blinked. “Yeah, that’s what she was.”
And she was kind, she was funny, she was gruff, she was affectionate, she was—
“Sorry, fe. Hey! Eat up your cake.” Kalaes was smiling again and it looked a little strained. At a loss, Elei stuffed the cake in his mouth, but couldn’t swallow. He took a sip of water to wash it down.
Kalaes was silent for a spell. Then he got up and gathered the plates, keeping his back to Elei. His shoulders seemed to have narrowed, his back hunched over. He placed the dishes into a bucket and turned, a smile on his lips but a pained look in his eyes. “Enough of sad memories. Come!”
Elei was firmly pulled to his feet and he followed Kalaes to the other room, curious and dreading what would come next.
“Go wash yourself. You stink and you’re still covered in blood. After you clean up, we’re going out.”
Out? But Elei nodded without a word and forced himself to move. Sure, he stank of old blood and sweat. He could try to wash that away. For the smell of telmion there was nothing he could do. Strange scent, sweet and musty, trying to attract other hosts of related parasites — mainly gray rats, cats and small black flies. Such creatures might already be following him, if cronion hadn’t intervened with its own spicy smell, a rough olfactory fabric shrouding him at all times.
After closing the door of the cubicle behind him, he undressed slowly. First he pulled off the blood-stiffened t-shirt and shuddered. It was cold and he felt exposed, more naked than the loss of the cloth layers warranted; he felt naked to his soul.
Pelia was dead and he’d left Ost to venture into an unknown world where he didn’t know anyone and hadn’t learned the rules.
“Great gods in the deep…” He resisted the urge to kneel and pray, as the monks who’d taken him in after Albi’s death had taught him. That was a habit he’d given up when he realized the gods wouldn’t bring Albi back.
Useless. The gods. The faith.
He unbound the bandage and let it fall to the floor. The wound seemed to be healing fine and he prodded it lightly. No sign of infection, though it was still tender. With a wince, he bent over to remove his boots and the rest of his clothes. He scrunched up his nose at the cloying smell of old blood and sweat. Stinking was an understatement.
He wet the washing rag and passed it over himself, shivering at the cold touch. With the gray soap from the sink, he washed himself as best he could, splashing some water, feeling guilty about wasting it when it was so expensive and unable to avoid it. His torso was so covered in dried blood that he ended up scraping at it with his fingernails to get it off. He scratched and scored the dark paste from the furrows left by the colmus parasite in his sides until he could do no more. He washed his hands, digging the blood from under his fingernails, but it stuck like a curse.
Not all of that blood was his. Most of it was Pelia’s. So much blood pouring from her, drenching him. Elei rubbed at his stinging eyes and bit back a sob. Enough. A towel hung on a nail on the door. He rubbed himself dry until his skin turned red. When he finished, the towel was a rusty brown.
He was staring at it when the door creaked open. He stumbled and banged his knee against the water cabinet. Cursing under his breath, he glanced over his shoulder at the intruder.
“Clothes.” Kalaes dropped the bundle to the floor. Then he stopped, utterly still, and gaped. Elei pressed his lips together. He knew what Kalaes saw. The tel-marks on his back were a sight. Snakeskin they called it on Ost — gray scales, iridescent and hard. They covered the top of his back and shoulders, the back of his forearms, buttocks, and legs.
The snake disease.
And then, where scales and skin met, the signs of cronion, the resistance, formed flower designs. Those were the spots where the spread of telmion had stopped, on the surface as well as inside. There was perhaps nobody else who had such an armor of serpent skin, so extended, so perfected. He’d carried the full-blown disease for seven days. Albi had calculated it from the surface covered by the scales, before cronion was inserted into him and started work. Even then, it’d taken three days for the spread to stop.
Kalaes whistled, his eyes strangely bright. “Pissing amazing, fe.” Then he seemed to realize staring made Elei uncomfortable, for he tsked, turned and left.
When Elei heard him banging pans and dishes in the kitchen, he bent, gathered the clothes and pulled them on. The t-shirt and the polo neck sweater were a little wide at the shoulders, but they smelled clean and he was glad for that. The pants hung low on his hipbones. There was even clean underwear and a pair of socks. He dressed slowly, apprehension lying like dead weight across his shoulders.
Hands on the tiny sink, he bowed his head. If there was any way to avoid talking of what would come next, leaving, facing again the unknown, he’d take it in a heartbeat.
Foolish.
When he finally emerged, Kalaes waited in what was turning out to be his favorite posture, arms folded across his chest, legs apart, and a grin plastered on his face.
“Heh, you don’t look half so bad in my clothes, fe. That’s what style does for you.”
Elei shook his head, the slight tugging at his lips becoming annoying. What was there to smile about anyway? “Where are we going?”
“To do some laundry.”
It made sense. But… “I got no money left.” Even though he’d told Kalaes all he remembered about his escape from Ost, he felt embarrassed enough to need to explain more. “Used my last dils to charter the boat and then the aircar to come here.”
Kalaes patted Elei’s back. “Just get ready.”
Elei gathered his dirty clothes and stuffed them in a duffle bag Kalaes produced seemingly out of thin air. He snatched his Rasmus, made sure the safety was on and holstered it to follow Kalaes out into the cool evening.
He had thought he’d seen the street below. After all, he’d walked it up and down looking for the building only the previous night. But he could recognize nothing. In his memory, there were only black and white shapes, harsh angles and façades. Now he saw colors, the red of crawling lichens on fences, the blue of antifungal paint on walls, and the rainbow colors of old aircars zipping by.
Kalaes whistled and a man shuffled from the shadows, an ama cigarette hanging from his lips.
“What’s up?” A scar marred his face. Elei recognized the man who’d bumped into him the previous day, on his way to Kalaes’ building.
“Going to the launderette.” Kalaes tossed the man a coin. “Cover us.”
So this was one of Kalaes’ outmen, a watchdog, acting the middle man to street gangs. Pelia had explained to him how things in the city worked once he’d left the monks to be her driver. Pay for protection or die on your first day.
The man nodded slowly and rubbed the coin between his fingers. “Done.” He glanced over his shoulder, then leaned closer. “Linus says the Gultur showed up on the east side and gunned down three men. Never explained why.”
Kalaes’ mouth settled in a straight line. “Again.”
“Again,” Elei whispered. Fear chilled his insides. He pulled on his hood, as if that would ward off the cold inside. He remembered the Gultur dragging those naked men to their temple and gunning two of them down. “What’s going on?”
“Thanks, Deno.” Kalaes walked on as if nothing had been said, carrying the bag of laundry, and Elei hurried to catch up. “It’s because of the Undercurrent,” Kalaes whispered. “The Gultur are launching a war of terror, killing anyone who dares speak up against them. They say they pick on men most, for being different from them.” His hand fisted against his side, and Elei wondered again what the spiral tattoo stood for. “If I had one chance to take their power away, I’d do it in a blink. Lo
ok at this!” He gestured at the dilapidated buildings. “Look at how life on Ost is, and the other islands. How they strip us of our liberties and resources one by one — the water, the dakron, the weapons, the factories. Everything belongs to them.”
A sharp whistle pierced the night and Kalaes hissed. It had to be Deno, warning them of something. Kalaes glanced back, but continued walking. “Keep moving. Don’t change your pace. Look down.”
The cold spread in Elei’s body all the way to his toes. Despite Kalaes’ advice, he peered behind him and saw Deno’s lanky shadow follow at a distance, marked by the tremulous light of his cigarette. “What is it?”
“Gultur.”
Then heavy footfalls sounded and a Gultur patrol marched by, holding transparent shields and tapping electric batons against their thighs as they walked. Their visored faces were blank, the only difference between them the color of their hair, caught in high ponytails, swinging behind them, rusty red, golden blond, dakron black.
Elei hastily bent his head, hiding his face in the shadow of his hood.
Not fifty paces down the street, Kalaes pushed open a dusty door and they entered into the laundry shop. It was narrow and stuffy, two small windows letting in curdled light, and they were the only customers. The wash-machines lined the wall, black and dusty, their openings dark like howling mouths.
Elei tried to see outside, to catch a glimpse of the patrol, but the shop front was blinded.
“They’re gone,” Kalaes said, his voice pitched lower than normal, so low it vibrated. Kalaes wasn’t so much afraid, Elei realized, as pissing angry.
They fed the clothes into a machine. Kalaes added some of his own to make it worth the money. He stuck a dil inside the slot, and they sat back on the nepheline bench and watched the clothes tumble in jets of steam.
And that was that, Elei thought and gripped the edge of the bench with a sinking feeling in his gut. Fed and washed, his clothes clean and dry, his wound bandaged, he’d change and go. Kalaes had helped him enough. More than enough.
It would be fine, he told himself. He’d go and ask if anybody needed a driver, a worker, a machinery handler. Perhaps Maera would know. He’d find a place to stay, a room like the one he’d had in Ost. Then he wondered if he’d have to pay the street gangs to leave him in peace here, too, and just how dangerous it would be to start looking. He’d have to ask Kalaes about that. Maybe Kalaes could put him in touch with someone trustworthy. Elei knew from Ost that a cheap place always meant a bad neighborhood, and that meant danger of rape and even murder.
He’d had one or two close calls in Ost, before Pelia found him a place. With the salary she gave him, he’d been able to afford it.
No chance he’d get that kind of salary here. Without certifications and a recommendation letter, he’d be lucky to get any job. There was just no going back.
The hand that fell on his shoulder startled a small cry out of him.
Kalaes’ eyes were laughing. “Thinking again, fe? It’s frying your brain, I can hear it sizzle.” He squeezed Elei’s shoulder, pinned him with his dark gaze. “What’s on your mind?”
A thousand thoughts, whirring like revolving blades. Elei leaned back and rested his shoulders and head on the wall. “Thinking about tomorrow.”
“You think too much.” Kalaes chuckled. Elei wondered what in the hells he found so funny. “Maera told me she half-scared you to death this morning.”
Elei ducked his head, heat licking his neck.
“Listen to me, Elei.” Kalaes’ voice dropped, all laughter gone from his face. “Dakru isn’t a good place to stay. Not safe.”
The threat of Gultur. Elei shrugged. “Neither is Ost.” He had no preference between a bullet from the Gultur and a knifing from the streetgangs.
“All right.” Kalaes shook his head. “I’ll ask around, help you as much as I can to find a job and a room.” He squeezed Elei’s shoulder one last time and released him. “Will you just relax now and take that look off your face? It’s making me nervous and, anyway, it’s too old for you, fe.”
Again something bright and altogether sad passed through Kalaes’ eyes. It was gone in a flash and left Elei wondering if he was imagining things.
“Say, I’d have taken you out for a drink tonight, gods know I need one, but the Gultur bolted down all bars on Dakru.”
Elei frowned. “But tonight—”
“Tonight you’re crashing with me, or else Maera’ll have my head. Tomorrow is another day.”
Hells, Kalaes was probably doing this against his will and would kick Elei out as soon as morning dawned. Elei slumped back. “Thanks.” He struggled to say something more, something nice. “Maera’s great.”
“Yes, she is.” Kalaes leaned back, too, resting his head on his interlaced hands. He smirked. “I told her you’re not a puppy to be taken in like that, without asking, though.”
“Huh.” Elei tensed more, the tendons in his neck aching. “And what did she say?”
“She laughed. Told me nothing was stopping me from asking you.”
Elei’s pulse doubled, beating in his temples.
“So I’m asking you, would you crash in my home again tonight?”
The muscles in Elei’s face relaxed and cronion kind of sighed inside him. The grip in his middle and the incessant throbbing in his head went down a notch and left him blinking. One more night of safety. “Okay.”
Kalaes grinned widely.
Elei supposed things couldn’t be all that bad if Kalaes was grinning.
So he smiled.
Chapter 10
“Kalaes!” a woman’s high-pitched voice called. “Hey! Wait up!”
Elei started, his breath cut short. Kalaes stopped a few steps up, duffle bag slung over one shoulder, head cocked to the side. In the faint radiance spiraling down from the windows of the second floor stood a middle-aged woman, dressed in a filthy pink robe and scuffed slippers. She leaned on the wall and puffed a cloud of sweet ama smoke in their direction.
Kalaes sighed, shoved the duffel with their dry laundry into Elei’s hands and climbed the rest of the steps. He strode up to her. “Hey, Zea. Everything all right?”
She nodded. “Someone came looking for you. A young woman.”
“For me?” Kalaes folded his arms across his chest and gave her a sideways look.
Her face wrinkled more and she pursed her painted lips. “Not you, sweetheart, for the boy here.”
Elei looked at her pointing finger and realized she was talking about him. “Me?” He climbed to the landing and stood next to Kalaes.
“Kalaes is nineteen, and although he’s pretty as a picture,” she winked at Kalaes who rolled his eyes, “I can’t really call him a boy, now, can I?”
Elei shrugged. He was just an inch or two shorter than Kalaes, but he was thinner and narrower of shoulders. His age was a mystery to him, but he’d signed without hesitation the legal documents produced by the monks which stated his maturity, when Pelia had said she needed an adult to drive her aircar.
“A boy with different colored eyes, she said. Not many of them around, I said.” She raised a too-thin, plucked eyebrow. “She told me she’s a friend of yours. I told her you were out, didn’t know when you’d be back.”
Friend? Elei realized he’d dropped the duffel bag and was backing away, inching toward the stairs. His right eye throbbed and faint flashes of colors jumped on each surface — on Zea’s chest, on Kalaes’ broad back. With his foot, Elei found the first step and climbed down.
“Any idea who the woman might be?” Kalaes scratched the back of his head. “Hey, Elei…” He turned. “Elei? Where’re you going, fe? Apartment’s up, not down!”
Elei’s ears roared. He missed a step, but Kalaes’ hand closed around his arm and yanked him back up. “Elei, can you hear me?” Now he sounded concerned. “Come on, fe, don’t freak out on me again.”
But he was. Time splintered into uneven slabs. At some point, he realized he’d been walking with Kalaes’ voice
droning in his ears like a damn mosquito, yet he couldn’t tell how or when he found himself back in Kalaes’ apartment. One moment he was outside, the next he leaned on the wall, beside Kalaes’ bed.
Kalaes locked the door and dropped the duffle on the bed. “Listen to me. I take it that you weren’t expecting any woman to drop by, right?” He lifted a dark brow. “Only guessing here, since you aren’t one for much talking. Any clue who she is?”
Elei shook his head. He didn’t know many women. Apart from Pelia, he only knew his concierge, Pelia’s concierge, and an ama cigarette vendor on Ost. Oh, and the aircar driver. What was her name? Fia. That pretty much covered his female acquaintances. Besides, nobody should know where he was staying now.
“Are we thinking the same thing, fe?” Kalaes raked his fingers through his wild hair and tugged on the two braids. “They came after you; they still think you got what they’re after. How in the hells did they find you?”
“I don’t know.” The boatman. The woman at the diner. Timmy. Fia. He rubbed his neck. He’d left a trail. Of course he had. Only he hadn’t thought anyone wanted him so desperately to come looking. “I wasn’t careful.”
“You made it out alive,” Kalaes said grimly, “and I’m getting a feeling it wasn’t that easy.”
Elei looked away, uncomfortable.
“They won’t kill you,” Kalaes said, “they won’t risk damaging what they think you have.”
Right. And he knew that, how? “Maybe they just want to destroy it.” After all, they’d shot Pelia, hadn’t they? They hadn’t politely asked her to give them whatever in the hells it was they wanted.
“Why?”
Elei sighed, frustrated. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling, that’s all.” A very bad feeling.
“I thought it was a guy after you, this Falx and his gang, not a woman.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Look.” Kalaes rubbed his face. “I’m beat, I need to sleep. I can’t think straight like this. Whoever that woman was, she was alone, she asked for you very decently, and she isn’t here now.”
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