Technical Details

by Sharon Lee

  He raised his face into the stream of cleansing spray, and with difficulty mastered his panic.

  The Bedel did not leave one of their own among gadje. Ezell, Fada—the luthia—they would not hear of such a thing. They would not leave him alone among gadje, not while Bedel knives were sharp. He knew that; and it comforted him.

  But, still, a man would wish to continue his life, as long as it might joyfully be done.

  His best hope yet rested upon Fada. But hope mended no engines.

  It is said, among the Bedel, that gods help those who help themselves.

  Accordingly, Niku stripped the blanket from the soft, gadje bed, wrapped himself in it, and lay down on the floor.

  Arms beneath his head, he closed his eyes, and breathed in that certain way that the luthia had taught him. And so slid into the place of dreams.

  * * *

  The accounts page was bathed in red.

  Friar Julian sighed, and shook his head, his heart leaden.

  A shadow passed over his screen, and Friar Julian looked up, startled.

  "Yes, Ponnor?"

  The stocky man ducked his unkempt head.

  "Friar, I come to offer a bargain, if you will hear it."

  Friar Julian frowned.

  "A bargain? What sort of a bargain?"

  Ponnor stroked the air before him, as if it were a cat—perhaps the motion was meant to soothe him—and said, slowly, "I am an artificer, very fine, and I have studied many devices, including such a device as your lady organ in the niche." He leaned forward, his hands still, black eyes hypnotic.

  "I can fix her."

  Fix—? Friar Julian's heart leapt painfully in his breast. But surely, he thought, around the pain, surely that was impossible. The earthquake. . .they had done all they knew. . .and yet—

  "An artificer?" he said, faintly.

  Ponnor nodded. "My brothers—all of us—there is nothing that we cannot repair, sir," he said, with a matter-of-factness far more compelling than any more humble declaration.

  "And you believe you can repair my—the Abbey's organ."

  "Oh, yes, sir," Ponnor assured him. "But there is a price."

  Of course there was a price. The gods themselves charged a price, for admission into the Life Everlasting. Friar Julian took a breath, careful of the pain in his breast. The price named by the gods was a soul. Perhaps Ponnor would ask less.

  "What is this bargain?" he asked, speaking as calmly as he could.

  "I fix your lady organ, and you release me, to return to my grandmother," Ponnor said, and rocked back on his heels, his hands folded before him.

  The price was a soul, after all.

  Friar Julian swallowed.

  He could not, could not free Ponnor from his bonds. The chip implanted in his throat would activate and render him unconscious if he moved outside the field of the device locked into the safe in the nave. The police were not idiots, after all; they held the key to the safe; they held the code to the chip.

  It was not in Friar Julian's power to release Ponnor to his grandmother, or to anyone else.

  But. . .tears rose to his ears. To hear his organ, once more? To play—did he remember how to play? Absurd doubt. He played every night, in his dreams.

  He could not agree to this. He—

  Stay. Ponnor offered his work to the house of the gods and their consorts. That had already been agreed upon. This other thing—what harm, if it gave him some ease while he worked? After all, the police would surely be back soon, to take him before the judge.

  Friar Julian took a breath and met Ponnor's black, compelling eyes.

  "After you repair the gods' organ, I will release you," he said steadily.

  One side of Ponnor's mustache lifted, as if it hid a half-smile, and he continued to hold Friar Julian's gaze for a long, long moment. . .

  . . .before he bowed his head, murmured, "I will begin now," and swept from the office.

  Friar Julian, abruptly alone, covered his face with his hands.

  * * *

  Fada arrived as the sun was sinking. Niku had come out of the organ niche to clean the floor in the nave, seeking to ease muscles cramped by long hours of kneeling inside small places, and saw his brother enter, sidestepping those day-folk who were already leaving.

  His brother saw him instantly, and raised a hand to adjust his hat, the smallest finger wiggling, which was a request to meet somewhere private.

  Niku fussed with the duster, and the broom, in between which his fingers directed his brother to the inner garden, and warned him it would be some time before Niku could join him. He then turned his back and reactivated the broom, in order to clean up a spot of mud that had dried on the floor since his morning pass.

  When he looked 'round again, Fada was gone.

  #

  Niku had taken a battered lantern from among the clutter in the North Transept to light him on his way. He found Fada lying on a bench under a fragrant tree, hat over his face, snoring.

  "Wake, foolish one!" Niku said, slapping his brother's knee. "How if I had been the garda?"

  "For the garda, I am only a man who came to the house for the meal, and fell asleep in the garden," Fada said, swinging his legs around and sitting up.

  "I cannot work here," he added, "even with the lantern."

  "That is why we are not staying here. Come, Brother; let me show you some things that I found."

  #

  "This," Fada said, some minutes later, placing his hand reverently on the organ's polished wood. "This, Brother, is something, indeed! Has it a voice?"

  "Not presently," said Niku, from his seat on the dais.

  "That's too bad." Fada stroked the wood once more, then turned and sat down next to Niku. He reached into his pocket and brought out a flat black rectangle, which he proceeded to unfold until it was a smaller, flatter black rectangle, with various protrusions, like the segmented legs of a river crab.

  "First, I take readings," he said, straightening and re-bending the legs. "After I have read, we will know how to proceed, which will we do. You will eat breakfast with your brothers, Niku!"

  Hope made him giddy. Fada was the cleverest of his very clever brothers; surely no device of mere gadje garda could outwit him. Was it not said of the Bedel—admittedly, by the Bedel—that there was nothing they could not fix, nor any trap that could hold them long?

  Fada placed one of the legs against Niku's neck, over the new, pink scar.

  "Be still, now—no talking, no moving. Do not breathe until I say!"

  Niku closed his eyes and held his breath. He heard a high, poignant hum, which might have been the device, or only his ears, ringing from tension.

  "And breathe," Fada commanded.

  This Niku did, reaching up to scratch at the scar.

  "Now what do we do?" he asked, when Fada had been silent for what seemed too long.

  There was no answer, his brother continuing to stare at the face of his device, his own showing lines of what might be worry.

  "Fada?" Niku touched his shoulder.

  His brother shook his head, and raised his eyes.

  "Niku—Brother, I cannot. . ."

  "Cannot?" he repeated. "But—"

  "This—thing. It is. . .In a word, Brother, it is beyond me."

  "You cannot remove it?"

  "That—no. It appears to have established tentacles, and those have intertwined with nerves in your throat. It can never be removed."

  Niku felt his stomach churn; the thought of this gadje device forever a part of him was enough to make him vomit. He swallowed, hard, and looked back to Fada.

  "But you can disarm it," he said.

  "That—yes. But at risk of your life. I may. . .I will need our brother Boiko for this. . ." His voice faded out, which meant he was thinking.

  Niku sat, thinking his own thoughts. Boiko meant frequencies. Frequencies meant there was a way to turn the blessed thing off.

  "We have heard again," Fada said, interrupting his thoughts, "
from the ship. We have a day and a location."

  Niku's mouth dried.

  "What day?"

  Fada looked at him bleakly. "Two days beyond a world-week."

  "Surely Boiko can find the frequencies. . ."

  "Surely he can, but if we must build a device, in among the packing of all the dreams and findings, for the ship. . ." His face firmed. "We will do it. Brother, you must trust us."

  "You are my brothers," Niku said. "But, if Boiko can find the frequencies, we have here a device, Brother." He flung his hand out, showing Fada the organ.

  His brother considered the organ over his shoulder, then turned back.

  "You said it had no voice."

  "And so it does not. But I will fix that."

  Fada's face did not lose its expression of worry.

  "I don't say that you cannot, Brother, but can it be done in time?"

  "It must be done in time," Niku said firmly, "and so it will be."

  Fada took a breath. "If you say it, then it is so."

  Niku nodded. "And we have another path, Brother. I have a bargain with the gadje who loves this organ. When I fix it, he will free me."

  "Has he this power?"

  "It may be. The garda have sealed the control box into a safe. I think that Friar Julian is not a man who allows such things into the gods' house unless he has some measure of control over them."

  Niku straightened, and looked at Fada with a surety he did not entirely feel.

  "Boiko will find the frequencies. I will repair this organ for the gadje. You will bring the frequencies—in three day's time."

  "Three days!"

  "Three days," Niku said firmly. "By then, she will have her voice."

  "And if it does not?"

  "Then there are still seven days left for my brothers to build their device."

  A bell rang somewhere in the Abbey, and they fell silent.

  Niku then took Fada by the arm and brought him to his feet.

  "Come, there is something else you should see."

  #

  "More treasure, Brother," said Fada, overlooking the tables in the North Transept. Do they know what they hold, these gadje?"

  "I think not," said Niku. He stepped over to a particular table and held his hand over that object that had so concerned him. "What do you think of this, Brother?"

  Fada stepped up beside him and considered the thing with a critical eye.

  "I think that it ought to be destroyed. Of course, they don't know how."

  "That would be my guess. It ought not to be sitting here where it can work mischief. Will you take it, when you go?"

  "It's best, I think," said Fada, and reached into his pocket, producing a muffling cloth, in which he wrapped the thing, before slipping it into a pouch and sealing the top. "That will keep it."

  "There is also," Niku said, reaching carefully into a glass cabinet, "this."

  Fada pursed his lips in a whistle, and held out his hand.

  Niku shook his head.

  "You must do another thing for me, Brother. You must sell this at good terms—bargain hard!—and bring me the money, when you return with the frequencies."

  Fada frowned.

  "Money?" he asked, doubtfully, as who would not? The Bedel did not have much to do with money.

  "Money," Niku said firmly.

  Fada shrugged and accepted the little figurine, wrapping it also with care and stowing it in an inside, padded, pocket. Then, he looked about.

  "Brother, I will stay here until the door opens, and then I will be gone. What will you?"

  Doubtless more of the collection would find its way into Fada's pockets, but that hardly gave Niku a qualm. What the Bedel found belonged to the Bedel. It had always been so.

  "I will go back to the organ," said Niku.

  "Should I come?"

  "I think not."

  Niku embraced his brother.

  "Go safely," he said.

  "We will not leave you alone," Fada said, and hugged him hard

  * * *

  Ponnor was at the organ every waking hour, and Friar Julian suspected, every hour that he ought to be sleeping, too.

  The man's diligence shamed Friar Julian—and how much more shame would he feel, he wondered, if Ponnor did restore the organ?

  When he had first come to Godsmere Abbey, as a boy, he had an elder brother—one Friar Fen. Among the many pieces of wisdom Friar Fen had given his young brother was this—that priests have no honor, for they must always, and first, do everything in their power to serve, without fault, the gods and their consorts. And then they must serve, without fault, those who needed their care the most.

  It was not honor, then, that prompted Friar Julian's search of the file cabinets, table drawers, and bookshelves, looking for the key to the constable's safe in the nave.

  Surely, he had once had it; therefore, he must have it still. He had given his word, that he would free Ponnor, should he succeed in repairing the organ. Given his word, in this house, where the gods allowed no man to sin.

  Late in the night of the second day—or, more accurately, early in the morning of the third—he found it—stuck to the back of the top drawer of his desk. He gripped it in trembling fingers and went out to the nave to test it.

  It was only after he stood in front of the safe that he recalled that the police had also applied a sealant, and had taken care to warn Ponnor of its danger.

  And for that, he had no answer.

  #

  "Friar Julian?"

  He started from a doze behind his desk and looked up to find Ponnor in the door. His heart took up a hard, sluggish beat that made him feel ill.

  "Yes, my son?"

  "It is done," Ponnor told him, black eyes fairly sparkling. "She sings again."

  The words—it seemed as though he had heard the words, but lost their sense immediately. The organ—what?

  "Friar? Will you come?" Ponnor held out his hand.

  He sent a prayer to the gods and their consorts, and rose from his chair, willing shaking knees to support him.

  "Of course I will come," he said.

  #

  He sat on the bench, placed his feet on the pedals, and rubbed his cold hands against each other. Ponnor stood next to the organ, at his left, and he was pulling a much folded sheet of paper out of his pocket, which he unfolded onto the wood, and smoothed with his palm.

  "Here," he said. "This is a song that I write in celebration of her voice. If you will play this, Friar? I will stand—" He looked over his shoulder and pointed, seemingly at random, "there."

  "Even muted, that will be far too close for the safety of your ears, my child."

  Ponnor gave him a wide grin, his eyes seeming, in Friar Julian's judgment just a little too bright. But, still, the work he had put in to this, the hours of labor and the several nights short of sleep—such things might push a man to frenzy, especially if he labored in a house of gods.

  "Please, you will play this?" Ponnor asked again.

  Father Julian had long planned what he would play, should the organ ever be repaired, and it grieved him, a little, to cede pride of place to an inept bit of music scribbled onto a grubby sheet by—

  By the man he had lied to, and was about to betray.

  Friar Julian picked up the paper, running his eye over the notes.

  "Of course, I will play this first," he said.

  * * *

  Niku hurried to the front of the organ, pushing the stops into his ears as he did. When he reached the place Fada and Boiko had determined to be the best, he turned into the sound, and deliberately relaxed.

  It was, he thought, a very beautiful thing, this organ. It had been a good thing to do, to repair the blower that had been broken in the quake, and reseat the pipes that had been shaken loose. Very simple repairs. A child could have made them.

  Well. Whatever happened in the next few heartbeats—and Boiko himself warned that the outcome might not be happy—he had done well here. This was a deed t
he memory of which he would wear like a star upon his brow, when he passed to the World Beyond.

  Beneath the floor, he heard the blower start.

  He heard Friar Julian shift on the bench.

  Niku closed his eyes.

  The first note sounded, flowed into the second, the third, ascended to the fourth—

  Niku felt a jolt of pain, a burning along his throat, he gasped, his hand leaping to the spot. . .

  The organ went on. The skin of his throat felt normal, save for the roughness of the scar under his fingers.

  Friar Julian played on to the end of the little piece of music Ezell had composed from Boiko's frequencies.

  There was a small pause, as perhaps Friar Julian adjusted the stops.

  The organ burst into song; a wild, swinging music that had much in common with the music the Bedel made for themselves, when there were no gadje to hear.

  His feet twitched into a half-step. He laughed at himself, realized that his ears were ringing, despite the stops, and stepped away from the organ.

  * * *

  Friar Julian frowned at the scrap of music Ponnor had left, his eye moving over the lines. There was something—a progression, a linkage of line and tone. . .

  It was, he understood suddenly, a test pattern; a technical exercise, and no music at all.

  He smiled, pressed the blower key, and the mute, and placed his fingers on the keys.

  The pattern completed, he paused only to set the stops, his hands moving on their own, surely, no shaking now, and he leaned into the keyboards with a will

  He had planned. . .For years, he had planned to play the stately and glittering Hymn of Completion, which celebrates unions of all kinds, but is most particularly played when one man and another have chosen to pledge themselves to each other for the rest of their mortal lives.

  What flowed out of his fingers, however, was not the structured elegance of the Hymn, but the provocative and lusty Dance of the Consorts.

  Friar Julian closed his eyes and allowed his fingers to have their way.

  #

  He came to an end, and lifted his fingers from the keys, listening to the final reverberations from the pipes. He sighed, his heart full, and his soul healed.