Memory Seed

by Stephen Palmer

  ‘Certainly are.’

  ‘–and I will help you in return if I can. But my affairs are between me and the Goddess, and nobody changes that.’

  Zinina withdrew a few paces. She had lived much of her early life in the north-west of the city, and knew Rien Zir’s patch and the ways of her acolytes. Arvendyn was, in fact, uncrackable.

  At least, uncrackable verbally. There were other ways of finding things out.

  Graaff-lin approached Arvendyn. Casually, she said, ‘So you are a cleric of the Gedeese Veert?’

  ‘Yes,’ Arvendyn replied. ‘I have been since I was a girl.’

  ‘I am a cleric of the Dodspaat.’

  Arvendyn smiled then shrugged. ‘We all have our ways.’

  ‘Enough, enough,’ grumbled Zinina, gesturing Graaff-lin over to where she stood. ‘That map thing you had under the Citadel,’ she whispered. ‘You had it clipped to your boob baskets. Can you separate the sensor from the pyuter?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘We can track Arvendyn. I know a trick. I’ll pin the sensor on her. We’ll program the pyuter for Kray, then watch where she goes.’

  Graaff-lin considered. ‘She will return to the temple of the Gedeese Veert.’

  ‘Probably. But we’ve not discovered much by talking to her. I says track her.’

  ‘Very well. Here, take the sensor.’

  Zinina returned to Arvendyn and, over the sound of pattering rain, said, ‘I may ask you for that favour one day. You won’t forget me, will you?’

  ‘No,’ Arvendyn replied.

  ‘Are you well enough to be going on?’

  ‘Yes.’ Arvendyn turned unsteadily and made to walk up the street; as the sleeve of her jacket swished by, Zinina pinned the sensor on with a flick of her wrist.

  ‘Where did you learn to do that?’ Graaff-lin asked.

  ‘It’s nothing special. I’ll teach you, eh? C’mon, let’s watch the priestess.’

  As expected, the little green dot that represented Arvendyn on the matte grey of the city map moved to the top of Culverkeys Street, but then, instead of turning west, it made east to the steaming mazes of the Andromeda Quarter. Then it vanished.

  ‘Out of range,’ Zinina said, disappointed.

  Graaff-lin shook her head. ‘The priestess may have noticed the sensor. But whatever happened, it is time to return home.’

  Zinina followed Graaff-lin home deep in thought. The Andromeda Quarter was dangerous and very ancient. Except for the remains of the first temple of Rien Zir, there should be nothing there to attract a priestess.

  Home, they disrobed, stuffing their greened clothes into pressurised disinfecting barrels. They ate nut cakes and drank strawberry tea.

  Then came a knock at the door. Graaff-lin jumped.

  ‘Shouldn’t the pyuter be taking that?’ Zinina said.

  Graaff-lin nodded, but went to answer it. Zinina heard the door open, then rain and gurgling water. There was a woman’s voice. Graaff-lin returned. ‘It’s for you.’

  Zinina stood, unnerved. ‘Who?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  Zinina said, ‘Who can it be? You recognise her, eh?’

  ‘No. See who it is and I’ll come with you. I am armed.’

  Zinina walked to the front door. Who in Kray knew she was here? Her rescuer? Before her stood a tall woman dressed in a black protective cape, blue hood greased and running with water, and leather thigh boots caked with green and mud. Zinina had no idea who she was. She felt nervous. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘I think you’d better invite me in.’ The voice was cultured.

  ‘Hoy, you rescued me up the Mercantiles?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why should I invite you in?’

  A laugh. ‘You will be answering some questions.’

  CHAPTER 5

  It was known within the Citadel that Arrahaquen felt sympathetic to the temple of the Goddess, and only because she was the daughter of Ammyvryn and had served the Red Brigade was this quirk tolerated. Every one of the last thirteen Portreeves had felt enmity towards the Goddess and her acolytes, partly because the superior priestesses were impenetrable to covert agents, and partly because the temple held so much power over the common Krayan. Although none from any Red Brigade had yet declared such feelings openly, the tension between Citadel and temple was ever present.

  It was early evening. A thick, almost glutinous rain fell, a fishy, stinking rain from grey clouds off the sea. A power cut in the quarter through which Arrahaquen walked meant that the sea glow reflecting off the cloud base lit her way, an eerie light, phosphorescent and ghostly. The sticky cobbles of the street were algae green. Bodies lay strewn in gutters – cats, dogs, vultures, and revellers with eyes pecked out and mushroom-black saliva oozing from their toothless mouths.

  Arrahaquen had found inspiration. She guessed that all the poisonous creatures which had been used in the attempts to assassinate her had come from the same location. After making a few discreet enquiries she discovered that the only place such creatures could be found was the Green Market, close to the Goddess’ temple in the Carmine Quarter.

  She stood at the end of Sphagnum Street, the temple just out of sight at the end of Lac Street. Eastwards were the Gardens, and up ahead the bovine bulk of the Cowhorn Tower, its copper sheen just visible through the drizzle. Slipping into an alley, she climbed crumbling steps and hastened along passages, until, as the smell of ordure, alcohol, rancid food and stale sweat forewarned her, she came upon the Green Market.

  It was closing down for the day. In front of her stretched an arcade of canvas booths, filthy and dilapidated. An illegal collection of plebian traders, reveller addicts and bogus water merchants could be seen around the booths, along with burglars trying to barter with the previous night’s haul. It was a cacophony of contraband, a market harried by the Citadel but, being mobile within the confines of the Carmine Quarter, one never to be shut down. With hood low over her face, Arrahaquen made her way through the piles of dung and used syringes, glancing this way and that at the herb and essence stalls, the rows of dead pyuters, looking for a trader of animals.

  Only a few citizens remained, most of them lower class defenders of ordinary Krayan stock, though Arrahaquen noticed a handful of richer independents, and a priestess of the Goddess, dressed in a green raincoat, her blonde hair matted against her head. All these people Arrahaquen ignored as she continued her search.

  The smell was in places overpowering. Pausing only to control her heaving stomach and reject the advances of traders, Arrahaquen wandered along the alley. She was careful not to touch anybody. This was a place of the pestilence.

  The sound of squawking and grunting made her stop. To her right stood a black canvas stall with a single wooden trestle table at its front. Behind it was the huddled figure of a woman. At the rear of the stall stood rusting bird cages, their occupants dejected though noisy, and Arrahaquen, heart leaping, saw to one side trays of crustaceans, insects and vermin. This must be the place.

  The crone stared at her. Arrahaquen adopted a casual pose and said, trying to hide her educated accent, ‘I’m looking for something nasty.’

  ‘Really nasty?’ The crone’s voice was thick with catarrh.

  ‘Really nasty.’

  ‘What species, luvvie?’

  Arrahaquen knew she had to be careful. If this was the source of her enemy’s creatures the crone might become suspicious. She said, ‘Oh, something that bites. Nothing poisonous. No, come to think of it, do you have any spiders?’

  ‘Somebody riled you, eh?’ muttered the old woman, rummaging through a tray of little card boxes. Each box was punctured with air holes. Arrahaquen shuddered. The crone took a pair of forceps, opened one of the boxes, and withdrew what looked like a furry black ball. ‘This’ll kill,’ she said.

  ‘Mmmm,’ Arrahaquen said, feigning uncertainty. ‘Not tough enough. Do you have any scorpions?’

  The crone looked up. Arrahaquen took a step back, realising she ha
d said too much. Then, pushing aside the sheet at the back of the stall, a fat woman dressed in Citadel leathers emerged. Arrahaquen knew she was in trouble. This was an official.

  ‘Are you a defender?’ the woman asked her.

  For a moment Arrahaquen could not speak, then she stuttered, ‘I was just asking, I wasn’t going to buy. I’d better be on my way.’ She began to back off.

  ‘This is an illegal market. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Um...’

  Arrahaquen bumped into somebody. She gasped, turned, and saw the blonde priestess behind her. Now she recognised the woman as Tashyndy, one of High Priestess Taziqi’s chosen aides. In turn, Tashyndy seemed to recognise her.

  Tashyndy approached the Citadel official. ‘You wouldn’t be harassing this young woman, would you?’

  The defender drooped. Tashyndy was taller, more imposing, and her proximity to the defender was clearly a threat. ‘I have to do my duty,’ came the reply.

  Tashyndy chuckled. ‘I’ll take care of this unfortunate.’ And with that she turned, took Arrahaquen by the hand, and led her down a dark passage. At the end, where it led into Sphagnum Street, Arrahaquen glanced back to see a rotund silhouette.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  Tashyndy smiled. In her languorous, almost sleepy tones she replied, ‘I recognised your voice and something of your manner, though you were trying to hide it. You’re Arrahaquen, aren’t you?’

  Tashyndy emanated a powerful physicality. Just having her hand held by the priestess made Arrahaquen think of herself as a child, being chaperoned by her mother.

  ‘Best not to mention that name here,' Arrahaquen warned.

  ‘Of course.’

  They turned into Lac Street. At the end of the road Arrahaquen saw a booth and the notorious screen of ferns. At the booth Tashyndy told the acolyte inside to spray Arrahaquen, so that she could pass through the poisonous barrier. With face mask donned Arrahaquen submitted to this procedure, noting with envy two real acolytes brushing through the dripping ferns. Finished, the acolyte said, ‘That’ll last ’til old sun’s up.’

  Tashyndy led her through. The familiar shape of the temple of the Goddess stood ahead, a vast wooden shell lit by anjiqs and open pipes burning methane. They approached the nearest gate, two oaken slats decorated with ivy, opened it and walked into the entrance lobby. This, like almost every room in the temple – every public room, anyway – had floorboards, wooden walls, and a low plastered ceiling painted green. Flowers and weeping fronds of papyrus grew through holes in the floor, while everywhere there stood terracotta tubs full of fresh water, a sight unique in Kray. The remaining wall space was taken up with racks for clothes.

  ‘I’ll leave you here,’ Tashyndy said. ‘I know you’re beholden to the Goddess, but… have you considered becoming a true acolyte?’

  Arrahaquen looked around at the people in the lobby. ‘This is an open temple. Why should I become an acolyte?’

  ‘The Goddess wants you. You are an important woman, with an unusual background. Think about it. The induction ceremony is simple and swift. There are many benefits of joining us inside the mind of the Goddess, particularly for the young – being, as they are, corporeal aspects of the pubescent Goddess.’

  Arrahaquen considered the influence Tashyndy had wielded over the Citadel defender. ‘What were you doing at the market?’

  ‘Purchasing aphrodisiacs.'

  Arrahaquen nodded. Tempting though Tashyndy’s offer was, she wanted, for the moment, to remain apart. In a decisive voice she said, ‘Thank you for the offer, but I’m not ready yet.’

  Tashyndy kissed her on the cheek. Arrahaquen caught the scent of mint. ‘Take your time. Call me if you need me.’

  Arrahaquen nodded, then watched Tashyndy glide way. She felt torn between two poles... between home, which she always imagined as the Citadel, and this temple. Here people enjoyed themselves and worshipped: a paradise inside pandemonium. She felt guilty at rejecting Tashyndy, wanted to run after her and plead with her to let her join the temple faithful. But her need for independence stalled her. The Goddess could perhaps be a mother to her, but did she want another mother? First she had to discover more of herself. Sighing, she turned to leave.

  She walked east, crossing the river by the Aum Bridge then following Riverside due south.

  She hoped now to meet the Osier Group, who were performing sewer and storm drain duties at the river’s edge – she had failed at the Green Market and felt it was time to turn back to Zinina. The streets here were dark and empty, a few bacteria tubes opposing the grip of night; rain running along the gutters. The vicinity was suffering another power cut.

  She sat on an old pyuton, a seven foot plastic haulier left to rust and rot in the street, and waited for the Osiers to arrive. She only had to wait a few minutes.

  ‘Tanyquyn! You remember a Citadel jannitta called Zinina, don’t you?’

  Tanyquyn, a middle-aged woman with many scars, seemed in a truculent mood. ‘Why?’

  ‘Do you remember her or not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Arrahaquen nodded. Some defenders tried to bully her because of her religious affiliations, but she would ignore their words as usual. ‘Just tell me what her regular haunts were.’

  Tanyquyn pulled a face and gazed down the street. One of the other Osiers piped up, ‘Inns. She used to go to the Hale and the Spired, up the Carmines.’

  ‘What about in the Citadel?’

  Tanyquyn wandered away. The defender shrugged.

  ‘Mostly in Community Baqa Station. She’s jannitta.’

  Arrahaquen nodded. ‘All right. Be on your way, Osiers.’

  ‘I’ve got a joke,’ Tanyquyn said, returning. The other Osiers looked embarrassed and prepared themselves for their next job. ‘Why is the Portreeve good for the arts?’ Arrahaquen did not bother to answer, keeping her expression neutral. ‘Because she knows how to patronise. Osiers, away!'

  They ran off. Arrahaquen walked briskly down Marjoram Street then turned into Salvia Street, on her way to the Citadel. Deep in thought she missed her turning and found herself in Ash Lane, and suddenly, to her left, she saw the Clocktower.

  Quickly, she shrank against the wall opposite. It seemed to attack her emotionally, with its huge black stones and pink mortar, the clockface at the top a hole like the empty orbit of a skull. It was universally feared. Those who believed in spirits considered it haunted. Arrahaquen plucked a blade of grass from between two cobbles, washed it in sterile water from her kit, and, with it stretched between her thumbs, blew the single warding note that would allow her to run off in safety. She sped on and made her way back to the Citadel, entering through the north gate.

  The Community Baqa Station – known as the distillery because of its ability to provide alcoholic relief – was a jannitta dive frequented by Citadel officials, tired technicians and a ragbag of cleaners, pyuton therapists and other lowlife. Non-jannitta were neither discouraged nor welcomed.

  Arrahaquen heard exotic music as she stood outside the scarlet door. The distillery was part of a long terrace, squeezed between a pyuter terminal office and Citadel Guard accommodation, but it seemed to rise much higher than the buildings to either side. ‘In you go,’ she told herself. ‘It’s late, but hopefully not too late.’

  Immediately she found herself inside a smoky, cluttered common room. In one corner a quartet played a slow but hypnotic rhythm on hand drums, cymbals, theorbo and qif-qof, a double-barrelled reed pipe. Elsewhere she saw a long bar with kilns, green bottles and cutlery behind it, three serving girls awaiting business, while everywhere else seemed to be a chaos of chairs, benches and tables with serrated edges. The place was full.

  Few bothered to glance at her as she made her way to the nearest section of the bar. A jannitta woman, short and pretty, looked up at her.

  ‘I wondered if you’d heard from Zinina recently?’ Arrahaquen asked, as nonchalantly as possible.

  ‘No, not for a week or so,’ came the
reply. There followed a staccato conversation in jannitta as the woman questioned friends. Somebody at the end of the bar, an older woman with a gloomy expression but spectacular silk clothes, made her way through the stools and discarded bottles to say, ‘I’ve not heard from her, but thought I heard someone say they saw her, couple of days back, on Onion Street. Just by that Peppermint Bridge.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not like Zinina to stay away from here. She’ll return.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Arrahaquen said. ‘If you see her, ask her where she is. I’ll come back in a few days.’

  ‘Sure you will. It’s a good line, lady.’

  Arrahaquen left, disappointed. Not much point going up to Onion Street. But she walked up anyway, until she stood on the Peppermint Bridge and looked over at the swirls of green and iridescent foam that polluted the water. She walked back, staring at the street paving. To shield herself from the worsening rain she pulled tight her rain-hood and buttoned up her collars.

  Finding herself in an alley – she could not remember turning off the main street – she allowed herself to wander, taking turns that looked interesting, until she stood in a wide alley with sandbags at one end and floods along most of its length. One of the houses seemed to be occupied. And as soon as she saw it, she knew who the occupants were.

  She walked up to the front door of the house and tapped at the door, ignoring the pyuter’s questions. After a minute it opened and Arrahaquen saw a middle-aged woman casually dressed. ‘Yes?’ An aamlon accent.

  ‘I’d like to see Zinina, please.’

  The aamlon seemed taken aback. ‘I’m not sure that’s possible. Who are you?’

  ‘She doesn’t know me. However, it would be better for us all if I had a word with her.’

  The aamlon seemed confused. At least she had not slammed the door. ‘I’ll go ask,’ came her reply.

  Arrahaquen knew she had pulled off an almost supernatural feat of intuition but, peculiarly, she felt no surprise. She waited, then heard footsteps. Her pulse quickened and she repressed a grin of satisfaction as Zinina appeared. She was just like Oquayan’s pyuter image, but she seemed reserved in manner, arrogant even. Distrust permeated her features.