Intangible

by C. A. Gray

  “Better,” Kane replied conspiratorially. “All the stories you’ve heard don’t even begin to do it justice. But don’t take my word for it,” he said, and turned to gesture gallantly behind him. “These four have spent their whole lives on the outside!”

  Dolores looked where he was pointing, apparently unaware until that moment that he was not alone. When her eyes fell on Peter, though, her eager expression changed to shock. Peter shifted uncomfortably. “Bless me,” she murmured again, and then wheeled on Kane and demanded in a loud whisper, “Who is that?”

  The smile on Kane’s face froze. “His name is Peter Stewart.”

  “Peter Stewart…” Dolores repeated, still staring at him, her face slack with awe. Then suddenly she cried, “Lydia, come here, you’ve got to see this!” Immediately a buxom girl in an apron appeared from the back of the cart expectantly, and Dolores pointed at Peter, as if he weren’t standing right there, able to hear every word. “Who does he remind you of?”

  Lydia’s eyes followed Dolores’ finger, and her mouth fell open. “Well, I’ll be…”

  “It’s just a coincidence,” Peter mumbled, jostled on either side by passersby. He moved nearer to the cart in order to escape the flow of traffic.

  “Sure it is,” murmured Dolores, still wide-eyed.

  Cole cleared his throat. “Listen, would it be all right if we just…” he pointed at the sign that promised samples. He licked his lips and said, “I’ve never had snapdragon before.”

  “Oh, of course, of course!” said Dolores, and she and Lydia hurriedly pulled five full sized pickled snapdragons from the vat of vinegar and wrapped them in paper, handing them around to the teenagers.

  “No,” said Brock firmly, moving to block Cole from accepting one. “I don’t care if Stewart poisons himself, but you are not eating that.”

  “Oh, but it’s fine if I poison myself too, I suppose?” said Lily sarcastically.

  “I don’t care what you do,” Brock snapped without looking at her.

  Cole seemed to visibly gather his courage and said all at once, “Youarenotthebossofme!” He exhaled swiftly after he’d said it, like he couldn’t quite believe it, and before he lost his momentum, pushed his stunned brother aside and snatched a snapdragon from Dolores, who looked distinctly uncomfortable. “How much do we owe you?” he said to Dolores boldly, and then added, biting his lip, “Er, you do take British pounds here, right?”

  Dolores looked confused. “Pounds of what?”

  “We don’t use money here,” Kane explained, still gazing at Cole with an expression that looked somewhere between amused and impressed. “Everything runs on the barter system in Carlion.”

  Brock snorted. “I should’ve known.”

  Lily frowned at Kane. “You mean… in all of these shops, people can just go in and take whatever they want?” She pointed down the road, where filigreed wooden signs jutted out into the street, announcing practical things such as “Groceries,” “Homeware,” and “Cafe.” There were plenty of street traders too, and most people had baskets on their arms or on their heads or their backs, full of fresh produce for dinner.

  “Of course,” said Dolores, as if it were obvious. “Long as everybody contributes, it works out just fine, don’t it?” When they didn’t reply right away, she asked, “Isn’t that how it works on the outside?”

  “Definitely not,” Brock scoffed, and pulled out his wallet, waving the bills in the air condescendingly. “On the outside, everybody pays money. Nobody cares if you contribute or not.”

  Peter gave him a disgusted look. “Speak for yourself. Not everybody’s as spoiled as you.”

  “He’s having a Schism Response. He doesn’t mean it,” Cole defended his brother.

  “Because that was so totally out of character for him?” Peter countered.

  Cole looked like he was just about to reply when suddenly he began to gag on his snapdragon. They all looked up at him sharply; his eyes were watering and he rested one hand on his knee while the other held the crumpled paper as far from his face as he could get it. He managed to choke out, “I’m fine… I’m… fine… It’s just... a little... gross...”

  “Told you,” Brock muttered.

  Peter glanced down at his own untouched snapdragon, suddenly anxious to find a bin. “Well, we’d better be moving on. Nice to meet you both. Thanks for the snapdragon.”

  As they moved down the street, more and more passersby noticed Peter, pointed and turned to whisper to one another. He tried to ignore them, focusing instead on the filigreed wooden signs, which became stranger the further they went into the city. One said, “Portal Pictures: half-price sale on China all week!” but it looked exactly like an ordinary framing shop, and the pictures under the advertisement were not of China at all, but mostly portraits that looked like they belonged to someone’s family tree. Peter stepped closer to get a better look, and suddenly felt the uncomfortably familiar sensation of a hook behind his navel. The next thing he knew, his face was plastered against the glass.

  “They’re wormholes!” Peter cried.

  “Of course they are, didn’t you see the sign?” said Kane, laughing.

  “Well, I wasn’t totally sure a portal and a wormhole were the same thing,” Peter grumbled, sliding himself down to where the glass became concrete so he could pry himself away from the event horizon. “How come it doesn’t suck up the glass, then?”

  “The space specialist anchors it to the ground,” said Kane, pointing to a balding, red-faced man inside who waved to Kane cheerfully when he saw him. “He leaves the portals close enough to the street to serve as advertising. You know, to get you in the door.”

  “Or through the window,” Peter muttered, rubbing his cheek. As he turned around again, he caught sight of a pair of preteen girls ogling him and whispering to each other. As soon as he made eye contact with them, they ducked their heads and started giggling, scampering off into the crowd. Cole shot him a sympathetic look, and Peter affixed one hand on his forehead like a visor, hoping to ward off the stares.

  “You always wanted to know what it felt like to be popular, right?” Cole whispered, gesturing to the direction where the girls had disappeared.

  “No, I didn’t,” Peter whispered back indignantly. “I wanted to know what it felt like to not get made fun of all the time. Not the same thing.”

  “They weren’t making fun of you!” said Cole.

  “Felt like they were.”

  Ahead of them, another sign said “Water Specialists: Jim and Brenda Garvey.” On top of the shop, there was a second floor with a balcony, where a squat, Indonesian-looking man (presumably Jim) coaxed water from an unknown source into the shape of an enormous bouquet of exquisite roses. Beside him, a plump older woman who must have been Brenda held her hands over the rose sculpture and said something. Then Jim grinned at her and set the bouquet down, completely solid, next to an array of similar sculptures.

  “What are they doing?” said Cole.

  “Ah, yes,” said Kane. “Jim usually works with the farmers to water the crops, but he and Brenda are getting ready for the Anderson wedding this weekend. They’re both water specialists, but he’s more artistic than she is and she’s better at freezing. They collaborate to make ice sculptures for special occasions. It’s always their gift to the bride and groom.” Kane waved cheerfully at the Garveys, and Jim raised an arm to wave back, at which point he lost control of the water sculpture he was working on, and sprayed himself in the face. Cole stifled a giggle.

  As Peter watched Jim and Brenda, he nearly tripped over a swarthy man with a handlebar mustache sitting cross-legged on the pavement. He was playing a wooden flute, which nobody could hear, and he was shirtless except for the suspenders holding up his high-water trousers. Beneath the trousers he wore, incredibly, a pair of red and white striped socks that looked exactly like Bruce’s “lucky” ones.

  “So this is where he got them,” Peter muttered to himself. But that gave him an idea. “Hey, Kane,”
he called, catching up to him, “where do you buy clothes here? Er, barter for them, I mean?”

  Kane arched an eyebrow at him and said dryly, “Why, you want to get a t-shirt for a souvenir?”

  “Ha ha,” Peter made a face at him. “I want a hat. With a really, really wide brim.”

  Brock started laughing scornfully. “You want some feathers to go with that, Stewart? Or how about a nice bunch of grapes?”

  “Brock, stop being such a git,” Cole muttered.

  “I just want something to hide my face,” Peter shot back defensively. “I’m sick of everybody looking at me.”

  Kane bit his lip. “Wait here,” he said, and ducked off. Less than a minute later, he returned bearing a plain red baseball cap, and held it out to Peter.

  Peter blinked. “Thanks,” he said uncertainly, and put it on, tilting the brim as low over his face as he could.

  “That was… weirdly nice of him,” Lily whispered when he was out of earshot.

  “Yeah,” Peter agreed, bewildered.

  Cole interrupted, speaking to Kane. “Fire maker?” he said, pointing to a sign that read “R.J. Huffman, Fire Maker.”

  “He’s not there right now, I’m sure,” said Kane. “He’s got twelve apprentices and they all split up to cover all the castles, lighting torches and hot water heaters and all that.”

  “Why don’t they just use matches like the rest of the world?” Brock said skeptically.

  “We do in a pinch,” said Kane, “but we don’t import much from the outside world, and people here generally don’t invent ways to make other people’s skills obsolete. It’s considered bad form. Isdemus always says, just because you can do something yourself doesn’t mean you should.”

  “So you’re saying more efficient technology is evil because it puts people out of work?” Brock demanded, finally finding something to be mad about.

  Kane laughed and held up his hands. “I am not saying it’s good or bad. I’m just telling you how it is here.”

  “Ooh!” said Lily, pointing at a neon orange flyer on a wooden post. “It’s a notice for a fencing competition next Wednesday! And they use broadswords, not those dinky little foils they use in the outside world to make sure nobody gets hurt!”

  “Do you fence?” Peter asked, surprised.

  “I swordfight,” she corrected, and puffed up importantly. Then she amended, “Not that I’m all that experienced. One of my foster dads did pay for lessons, though, and my sensei said I had a natural gift. My foster dad bought me a bokken – that’s a bamboo sword – for my birthday that year. I still practice with it every day.”

  “Against whom?” Peter asked.

  Lily faltered for a minute and then said defensively, “You can practice by yourself!”

  “Pete, look!” Cole interrupted. “‘Precipitation Specialists: Special offer on snow, sleet, and hail from October through March; rain is discounted during the month of September.’”

  “Are they water specialists too, like Jim and Brenda?” Peter asked Kane.

  “Nope, atmosphere specialists,” he said. “If you can control the atmosphere, the weather follows. But I don’t have to tell you that.” He tried to smile at Peter, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

  “Why is there a special on bad weather?” said Cole, frowning.

  “It takes lots less energy to make snow when it’s already cold,” said Kane. “A few years back, the magistrates ordered year round sunny weather. You wouldn’t believe the chaos. They had to keep atmosphere specialists on shift round the clock to keep it going, and it always took at least four of them on shift at a time. It was a total nightmare. Now there’s a law that the weather can only be controlled a certain number of days of the year to keep costs down, except in extreme circumstances.”

  “What do you mean, it takes less energy?” Cole persisted. “You can’t seriously mean the specialists can make it warm and sunny when it’s cold and rainy?”

  “That’s why they’re called specialists,” said Kane, a hint of derision creeping back into his voice. “If everyone could do it, it wouldn’t be very special, now would it?”

  “Wait a minute,” said Lily. “What are the magistrates? Are they like the city council?”

  “No, they’re more like our version of Parliament,” said Kane.

  Peter said in surprise, “I thought Isdemus said we’re still in England!”

  “We are,” said Kane.

  “So, why isn’t Parliament your version of Parliament?”

  Kane’s face twitched. “Well, being as the rest of England doesn’t know we exist, we figured we may as well govern ourselves.”

  Lily plastered herself against a wall to make way for an enthusiastic child in a royal blue smock dress, riding in a wooden cart pulled by what looked like an enormous glowing goose. The child laughed gleefully as shoppers dodged out of the way, and Lily couldn’t help grinning too.

  “So what are the magistrates’ gifts, then?” she asked Kane.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If everybody can control one of the elements with the Ancient Tongue, and his gift determines his occupation, which one do they control?”

  “Oh,” Kane’s upper lip curled. “Most of them only have the gift of ideas.” It was clear from his tone what he thought of that.

  Cole looked confused. “Ideas? That’s not an element.”

  “Well spotted,” said Kane dryly. “The gift of ideas is a politically correct way of saying that there’s no difference between them and people in the outside world. So rather than admit their own inferiority, which would be the honest and ethical thing to do, they set themselves above all the rest of us and make up the rules for their betters to abide by. And for some reason I’ve never been able to figure out, we let them.”

  “Look who’s talking about ethics,” Lily muttered to Peter.

  “So what exactly is the gift of ideas?” Peter cut in.

  Kane said, “The magistrates claim that ideas are the most powerful gift of all, because everything that exists began as an idea. They call ideas the ‘seeds of all things’. I say it’s a load of propaganda. Most people just let them rule over us because they’re too stupid to think for themselves.”

  “To think of their own ideas, you mean?” Lily smirked.

  Kane glared at her and turned away.

  Lily leaned over to Peter and whispered, “I was hoping he offered to be our guide to make up for last night. But I think you’re right.”

  “About what?”

  She narrowed her eyes at Kane’s back. “He’s trying too hard to be friendly. He is up to something.”

  Cole slipped in between them. “How come you guys are whispering all the time? Do you fancy each other or something?”

  Peter’s mouth fell open, horrified, and even Lily blushed and sped up, leaving Cole and Peter alone.

  “What is your problem?” Peter hissed at his friend.

  Cole’s eyes widened. “Nothing! It just looks like you get on really well –”

  Peter covered his face with his hands.

  “Does that mean you don’t fancy her, then?” said Cole, confused.

  “No, I don’t fancy her, but now she thinks I do, thanks to you!” Peter retorted.

  Presently the crowd thinned out and the shops gave way to a bottleneck at the entrance and exit to the city. Finally, they got a good look at the wall. Its defensible walkways fortified it behind the battlements, stretching out between the watchtowers that punctuated the perimeter like a catwalk.

  “We’re going out?” said Brock.

  “Of course,” Kane replied. “I told you I was going to show you the real Carlion, didn’t I?”

  “Isdemus told us not to go into the Enchanted Forest without one of the nimbi as a guide,” said Lily nervously.

  “You have me. I’m a guide,” said Kane.

  By now, the tumult of the crowds had fallen to a dull roar in the distance. Nobody seemed to be leaving the city except for them.

&
nbsp; On the other side of the fortified wall was another wall, through which they could see the lowered drawbridge, and another portcullis above it gaped open like the mouth of a dragon. The drawbridge appeared to traverse a ravine.

  Lily caught up to Peter again, Cole’s comment apparently forgotten. “Peter,” Lily whispered. “I don’t like this.”

  “What can he do?” Peter shrugged. “He can’t kill us.”

  “And you know that because?”

  “Because a), if he’d wanted us dead, he could have killed us last night, or better yet, he could have just let the penumbra kill us. And b), Isdemus said he didn’t mean to kill us.”

  “And you said you weren’t sure if you believed that or not,” Lily pointed out. “He couldn’t have let the penumbra kill us, anyway, because he still had to fight them in order to save himself. Plus, the nimbi were there. They would have told Isdemus if he hadn’t at least tried to protect us. Out here in the Enchanted Forest, though… you said yourself that people get lost here and never find their way back out again! He could make it look like a total accident!”

  “What are you guys whispering about now?” Cole fell back beside them.

  Before they had a chance to answer, they were outside the city walls. Peter turned around, instinctively sensing eyes on his back, and saw two unnaturally tall men, impossibly thin and glowing from within, standing as sentinels on either side of the gate. One of the men wore armor that gleamed copper, with a panache of feathers that looked as if they had been plucked from a cardinal. The other wore silver, with a panache like the feathers of a peacock. They both sat astride beasts that looked almost like horses, but their snouts were too long, their nostrils too large, and their eyes too bright. The beasts glowed too, and each one had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead.

  In front of them, Kane bowed to the two sentries, saying, “Dílis. Bellator,” The sentries bowed in return. Peter thought he saw them glance in his direction curiously, but he couldn’t be sure. They maintained their stoic expressions.