by Andy Graham
“And if not?”
“Then I’ll prick Chester’s conscience and get her to do what needs to be done.” A gust of wind picked up the papers and scattered them around the room again. “Now then, my dear.”
“The papers?” Flayme asked.
“What about the papers?”
“I—”
He looped his hands around her waist and pulled her to him. “About that help you mentioned, working out those old memories and so on.”
She grinned and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Already?”
Stann’s sniper’s eyes blazed in the rising sun. “Already.”
“Ouch!”
“Wimp.”
“You bit me.”
“Pussy.”
“I’ll give you ‘pussy’.”
“That’s my job. You give me cock, I give you pussy. That’s the way it works.” She pinched him, hard enough to draw blood.
“Fuck. That does it. Come here—”
Rat tat tat. The door shook on its hinges.
“Really? Now?” Nascimento collapsed onto Mayka, their sweat dripping onto the soaked mattress. Candles flickered, casting the lovers’ shadows across the beams and thatched roof of her hut.
Rat tat tat.
Nascimento raised his head, spat out the damp curls that were clinging to his face and yelled, “If I come to that door and you don’t tell me that someone’s died, or this mountain is actually a volcano which is erupting, or someone’s about to drop a bomb on us, then there’s going to be trouble.”
Mayka’s face darkened. They’d found out about Randall Soulier’s plans for the genetic bomb shortly after what was now being referred to as the Battle for the Angel City. If the VP had managed to mine enough gwenium to get the device working, with their proximity to the Mennai people, both physically and genetically, the Donian people would have been wiped out entirely. Given some of the curses that Nascimento had heard coming from Mayka’s mouth, he reckoned Randall had done the right thing in fleeing into the tunnels.
As if reading his thoughts, she said, “I hope he’s not dead.”
“You do?” Nascimento propped himself up on both hands. A bead of sweat rolled off the tip of his nose and onto her lips, where it glittered like a diamond.
“I want to kill him. Again and again and again.”
“Impossible. You’ll only get the one chance.”
Mayka wiped another drop of sweat off his nose and sucked it off her finger. “There’s an old myth of ours, a druid called Mia Darre who worked out how to bring people back from the dead.”
“Impossible,” he repeated, wondering if he could make his cock sweat.
“Not if you do it at dusk, according to her. She used the spell to kill her brother’s murderer over and over again. That’s what I want to do to your vice president. This Randall Soulier.”
Nascimento shivered. Mayka’s passion cut both ways.
Rat tat tat.
“Go,” she said. “Maybe it’s good news.”
He padded across the damp earth floor, through air that tasted of wood smoke and sex, and pulled his trousers on. As the door creaked open, cold night air pebbled the skin across his chest. “Lukaz?” Nascimento asked. “That you?”
“Of course.”
“Sorry, dude. Just couldn’t see you. You got yourself some natural camouflage in the moonlight.”
“That was humour, right?”
“The best kind of humour. What do you want? Shouldn’t you and the new Elders be . . . I don’t know . . . eldering?”
“Eldering?” Lukaz wrapped his mouth around the new word.
“Not that I’m never happy to see you, but you know—” Nascimento nodded back into the hut and whispered conspiratorially, “I suggested a once-a-day challenge.”
“Let me guess, you’re already up to sometime next month?”
“Sometime next year. And she wants to backdate it.”
“How far?”
“Feels like the dawn of time. Things are chafing that should never chafe.” He winced. “Never thought I could sprain a muscle in my tongue, either.”
“Our Donian ‘chicks’ wearing you out, Ailan-Child?”
“No, just saying it’s good to have someone who can keep up at last.” Nascimento wrapped his arms around himself. “Now, what do you want? ‘Cos, cold out here, warm in there. You know?” He nodded over his shoulder.
Lukaz held out a cloth bag. There were red stains at the bottom. “We found him.”
Nascimento eyed the bag uneasily. Death was one thing. He’s seen enough corpses in his time, created a fair few, too. But even so, some things were better not seen. “There’d better not be a head in here.” He grabbed the bag off Lukaz. “A shoe?” He held it up to the moonlight. The leather was polished and immaculate but the sole dark with dried blood.
“Looks like a pack of wolves found him. They chewed his face to ribbons but left this.”
“How come it’s so clean?”
“No idea. The rest of him wasn’t. We found his body in a tunnel that opens up to the surface. Another one we didn’t know about. I guess the Devil of the Lion’s Crest is giving up his knowledge piece by piece, one tunnel per limb.”
Nasc dropped the shoe back in the bag and wiped his hands on his trousers.
“Nasty?” Mayka’s voice floated from the inside of the hut.
Lukaz raised an eyebrow.
“I’m reclaiming the nickname. Part of my rehab, debriefing, that kind of thing.”
“Nasty, if you’d rather talk to Lukaz in the cold than me in bed, close the door, there’s a draft. But if you are going to stay out there, find me some food.”
“You weren’t in bed with her, were you?” Lukaz asked with mock surprise.
“In it, on it, under it, that, the armchair, the other chair, broke that one, the bloody hearth, burnt my arse on that, in the old-fashioned enamel bathtub she has with the bronze dog feet for legs—”
“Dogs have paws not feet.”
“Just like a sheep’s not a goat. Got it. Thanks, dude.”
“Nasty!”
A fire was bubbling under his skin, spreading out from his balls in hot waves. “Got to run. I’ll tell her about Randall.”
“You sure that’s safe?”
“Of course it’s not safe! She’ll go bat-shit crazy.” He grinned, a mischievous, sharp-toothed grin. “And that’s why I’m going to tell her.”
“OK.” Lukaz slung the bag over his shoulder. “And by the way, her bathtub? They’re wolf paws, not dog paws.”
“Really? OK, thanks.” A cold needle of a thought spiked Nascimento as Lukaz loped away into the night. “Hey! How do you know what Mayka’s bathtub looks like?”
Stella sat with her back to the front door of her apartment. Emily was playing with some wooden bricks. One was supposed to be Ray Franklin, a second was Jamerson Nascimento, the third was Rook. Stella hadn’t had the heart to correct her daughter’s pronunciation. The trio of Named Blocks were battling an army of Bad Blocks. The good ones were winning. At the moment, Ray-Block and Jamerson-Block (which was actually two blocks taped together) were watching Rook-Block smashing up and down on the top of the leader of the Bad Blocks. The paint was chipping off; one corner splintered.
“You’ll break it, Em.”
“But Rook’s killing the baddies, Mummy. That way the goodies will live. That’s what you said.”
“Yes, Em. But—” But what? She hugged her knees. “Just try and kill the baddies a little more gently, OK?”
The hammering continued. Gently at first, then quicker. Each crack of wood on wood rang through the headache that Stella hadn’t been able to shake since she and her kids had arrived home. She left Emily to it and wandered off to find Jake.
Field-Marshal Chester — “Willa, to my friends” — had offered to find a new flat for the Swanns. Stella had declined. Too much change too soon. She was beginning to wonder if she’d made the right choice. That had been a theme in her li
fe since before she had gone to the Kickshaw without her wedding ring on and met Ray Franklin, even before she’d started attending that ridiculous secret society, the Ward, with its matricidal leader, the Famulus. She shivered. “Why’s it so cold in here? It’s the middle of summer.”
Her path took her past her bedroom. The sheets were clean, pressed and practically starched into place. She’d let Chester organise the cleaning of the flat at least. Stella hadn’t had the heart to sleep in her bed yet. Not without Dan. His musty sleep smell still hung in the air. As did the dull burr of his almost-snoring.
Stella slept in Emily’s bed at night, curled up around her daughter. It wasn’t comfortable. The girl kicked the covers off and only seemed to be able to sleep at right angles to her mother. Stella refused to stop. It was a gift: being able to spend time with her children. Unfortunately, Jake refused to sleep next to anyone.
She passed the bathroom, with the mess of sheets on Em’s bed and the sheets on Jake’s looking as if he barely touched them, through the kitchen and found what she was looking for in her office.
Jake was sitting in her chair, his back to her. The city of Effrea sprawled out through the window. A storm of greens and reds and whites and blues that sparkled in a forest of steel and stone. The twin moons blazed down on the River Tenns, twinkling on the black-purple waves. Chester had ended the energy rationing, and the brown-outs that had cycled through the city at night were finished. “A celebration,” Chester had called it. Then started preaching about the dragon of yesteryear flying into tomorrow. At which point, Stella had politely excused herself. Though she had found herself wondering whether the years of energy rationing had been necessary after all, if there was suddenly all this new-found power to play with.
She leant on the window sill and pointed over the river. “They’re the Palaces of Justice and Reason. What’s left of them. What survived the Silk Revolution was almost destroyed in the recent fires. Willa Chester’s talking about having them rebuilt. Maybe I could ask her to let me take you there before she does. Might be fun, no? Take a walk around the ruins.” She buried the fleeting memories of Randall Soulier offering her the same thing. That man was dead. So was Dan.
Her breath was steaming up the window. It squeaked as she rubbed the condensation off. She glanced over her shoulder. “What do you think, Jake?”
“If you like.”
The crack in her heart widened.
“Jake, please.” She was on her knees, wrapping her arms around her son, pulling him tight to her. It was like hugging one of the Donian statues, unyielding, the person buried deep within. She was rocking. They were rocking. Once, twice, three times. She stopped. Her son hadn’t changed position. His hands still clasped in his lap. Eyes staring at nothing.
“Jake?” She rubbed the tears out of her eyes and took his face in her hands. “Talk to me, Jake. Tell me what I can do. Tell me what they did to you, what you saw down there.”
Nothing.
“How can I help?”
“Bring Daddy back.”
And she was screaming at him. Tearing at her hair. Wanting to slap him. Wanting to hug him. Wanting him to hug her. “I can’t bring him back! If I could I would, don’t you realise this?”
“OK.” And he pivoted the chair back to resume his vigil at the window. A fisher gull landed on the outside sill, cocked its head at the boy and stared at him with one pig-like eye.
Stella collapsed onto all fours. Knocked her desk. The desk screen clunked and whirred as it burst into life.
“Welcome to Stat-Net”
Stella slept. She woke. She guessed it was past midnight. She’d already re-covered Emily and herself four times and the blankets were again tangled around her feet. The little girl was boring her head into Stella’s neck. Stella threw the sheets off and stared up at the ceiling. She’d stuck a star map there earlier that week, a present from Martinez.
“Stella meet stellar,” he’d said, a grin on his scarred face. “Get it?”
“It’s perfect, Martinez. You’re going to make a woman very happy one day.” She’d kissed him on his cheek. He’d blushed and left to look for a new jukebox for the Kickshaw, humming to himself.
Now the only constellation left glowing on her ceiling was the Jester. As she watched, she heard a change in the breathing from the other bed. “Jake? Are you awake?”
The bed creaked as he shifted position. Stella disentangled herself from her daughter and the maze of sheets wrapped around her legs. She crossed the room, only stepped on one of the wooden blocks, Rook-Block, she thought, seeing as Em had refused to put that one away, and sat on the edge of Jake’s mattress.
“I love you, Jake. Daddy loves you, too.” She took a deep breath in. “I’m sorry. For everything.” She’d said it before and, as before, it was met with silence.
She crossed back to the other bed, rearranged Em’s limbs and got back in next to her. Just as sleep was closing around her, a floorboard creaked. Stella held her breath as the sheets lifted from her body, a draft slipping under her nightshirt. Jake slipped under the covers and pressed his back into hers. Slowly, his body softened, his breath slowed and he fell asleep.
Silent tears sliding down her cheeks, Stella stayed awake for a long time, listening to her children breathe, feeling the heat coming off their bodies and thanking whatever god science had banished from Ailan for her two children.
Nascimento burst into the flickering light, holding up his hands to accept the cheers from the people gathered around the fire. Even the crooked-legged spit-dog howled a welcome as it turned the roasting meat. No one had seen much of Nascimento for the last month. Everyone had heard a lot of both him and Mayka.
“I need to refuel,” he said and grabbed a handful of steaming meat and salted potatoes.”
“You heard the news?” Ray asked. “Do you think he’s really dead?”
“Randall?” The food paused halfway to Nascimento’s mouth, a rare sight. “No. You?”
“No. It’s too easy, too convenient. He’s too clever for that.”
“Yup. He’s the one that inherited Bethina’s brains.” And Nasc disappeared, mouth full of food, carrying three loaded plates: one for Mayka, two for him.
“Dick,” Brooke muttered. She grabbed Ray’s hand, dragged him away from the caged wolfbark trees and to the mountain path. It wound its way up the rock face, ducking behind bushes and looping around rocks. The sounds of the noisy celebrations from the fireside echoed after the couple. The tribes, and what was left of the Resistance, continued celebrating the grizzly find in the caves.
Ray and Brooke had been on this narrow path before. There had been only two of them then; now there were three, maybe four, but only two pairs of tracks in the dust.
“Where are you taking me?” Small clouds of mist formed with each word. Brooke squeezed his hand and pushed the pace harder. She was out of breath but would refuse to admit it; she wouldn’t allow him to slow the pace for her benefit, either. They emerged onto a plateau, its edges fading into the shadows. A jagged crack split it in two. Spanning that gap in the mountain was the Northbridge.
It was no less impressive now than last time. Formed out of one enormous piece of translucent green-blue stone that seemed to pulse with its own life, it cast an unearthly glow over the area around it. Carvings marched along the sides of the bridge. On the north side were kings, queens, peasants, children playing, musicians, healers and fighters. Dogs danced alongside cats, great winged beasts and other indecipherable images. On the south side, sheltered from the sun, were skeletal images. Dressed like the living, they parodied the actions of their warmer counterparts. The carvings seemed different to how Ray remembered, as if they’d moved forwards. Glass
was a liquid, Ray reasoned, flowing downwards very slowly. Maybe this was similar? Except this glass flowed horizontally. Didn’t make sense. But then not much had made sense recently. The path on the other side of the bridge disappeared into the sheer face of the mountain. He took her hands in his. “Why are we here?”
“Do you think we did the right thing by cremating Bethina Laudanum?”
“You’re ducking the question, Brooke. But if you want an answer, I don’t know. Dead’s dead. Doesn’t really matter to a corpse how you dispose of it.”
“‘Funerals are for the living, not the dead.’ You said that once,” she said.
“I did, yes. In the hospital after my back injury. How did you know that?” He poked her in the shoulder, gently. “I hope you’re not developing a good memory to go with that argumentative streak of yours.”
She poked him back, not gently. “What argumentative streak? I haven’t got an argumentative streak!”
“Yes, you bloody—”
Her white teeth cut a crescent in the night.
“Very good, Brooke. Very good. You have a sense of humour now, too?”
With the hint of a pout, she stepped onto the bridge. It was as smooth as glass, glittering under her fingertips, sparks shooting into the depths of the crystalline rock. Beneath it, the endless crevasse disappeared into swirling mist. He leant over the side. His stomach knotted and dropped into his balls. He pulled back as the dizziness hit. “Mountaineers say they climb mountains just because they’re there, because they can. Do you think anyone has ever jumped off this bridge just because this crevasse is here, because they can?” In his mind, he was hanging off the platform in the Mennai power station again, the old man dangling by his side. Captain Aalok and Baris Orr shouting down at him.
“You have thoughts like that?” Brooke asked, wary, nervous.
“Not as much as I used to.”
“Don’t.”
“Not sure it works like that, Brooke. It’s like telling an insomniac just to go to sleep.”
“OK. Don’t, please. And while we’re at it, we’re going to get separate beds if you don’t stop tossing and turning so much at night.”
