by Sharon Shinn
He nodded, the faintest trace of amusement on his serious face. “Although it is not a trip that is easily accomplished in a day.”
“If I am there by tomorrow evening, all should be well.”
“That I think I can manage,” he said.
I gave Sheba a little push. “Then let’s go.”
It took us another fifteen minutes to navigate the twisted corridors of the hold. Gusts of wind greeted us at every step, and the trapped breezes hooted and soughed through the passageways like demonic spirits. We also encountered mortals and angels along every turn. A few of them nodded or spoke to Sheba; a couple of the angels seemed startled to encounter Stephen and stared at him or said his name. Neither Sheba nor Stephen bothered to reply, and we were finally, finally, at the outer chamber with the wide gate that opened onto empty sky. The place where angels landed and took off when coming to or going from Windy Point.
“This young man David is waiting at the base?” Stephen asked, putting one arm around my waist and one around Sheba’s.
“Yes,” I said. “Just carry us down.”
He tightened his hold and flung himself off the mountain. For a moment we plummeted through the sunny air, and I heard Sheba’s smothered cry of fear, but in a moment his beating wings slowed our descent. We landed smoothly; Sheba and I instantly found our feet. She was still looking around unbelievingly, as if dazed to find herself free of Windy Point, when we heard someone shout her name and saw David racing toward us. I saw her face crumple with tears, and then she was running toward him with her arms outflung.
“I think you need not worry about whether they will be able to forgive each other,” Stephen remarked.
“Although forgiving is not easy, and forgetting is often impossible,” I said.
“What’s important is to be willing to try,” he replied.
I nodded, still watching Sheba. David had gathered her in a tight embrace and she was weeping into his shoulder. I knew she was capable of sophisticated pretense, but I believed that, at this moment, the emotions she showed were real. After all, Sheba was not as much like me as I had feared. She had learned so much more quickly than I had what things in life had value and what things were so worthless they should be thrown aside. If she still wasn’t quite sure what dreams to pursue, she saw clearly what dreams were false and bitter. I had such hopes for her. The rest of her life could be so bright.
“Tell her good-bye, then let’s take off for Velora,” Stephen said. “I want to get you there by your deadline.”
I smiled up at him and twined my arms around his neck. “Thank you for taking such good care of me,” I said. “Thank you for not asking questions.”
He smiled and kissed the top of my head. His arms went around my waist and his wings draped themselves over my shoulders. I nestled against him, sheltered and content. “I want to be done with this part,” he said. “I want to get you to Velora so I can bring you home from Velora. And then I think we can begin again.”
“You can take me where you like,” I said, murmuring the words against his chest, “but I’m already home.”
Blood
One
Finally the train stopped. Kerk stared out the window, as he had for the last four days, but there was less to see here in the underground city terminal than there had been along their entire route through Geldricht. People waved and shouted, men pushed carts, women urged their children out of harm’s way, and all the purposeful chaos took place under high artificial lights insufficient to illuminate the cavernous interior of the station.
He kept staring anyway. So many of those people were blueskins. More than he had ever seen together in one place in his entire life. He had been told the whole city was full of the indigo—far more blueskins than gulden like himself—but he had had a hard time making his mind form the images. He wondered how long it would be before he could stop staring at them.
“Kerk,” said a deep voice. He turned swiftly to see Brolt already on his feet, pulling luggage down from the wall racks, filling the small compartment with his height and bulk. “Watch Tess and the children. Don’t let them stray.”
Reminded of a sense of duty, Kerk jumped up, too. He was almost as big as Brolt, and over the four days of the trip they had found that at least one of them had better be seated if anyone else was going to have room to maneuver through the semiprivate room. “Everyone come with me,” Kerk said, waving Tess and the three children ahead of him toward the exit. “And nobody take a step until I say so.”
Tess and the girls hurried to obey, but Makk gave him an insolent look and sauntered out as slowly as he could, just to prove he was no man’s underling. Kerk managed to hold back a smile. Makk was a few months shy of his twelfth birthday and well aware that he would soon be considered a man by gulden standards. He had spent most of the last year trying out his independence.
“One of my nephews should be here with a car,” Brolt told Kerk as he hauled down another suitcase. “Find him and wait for me there. I will hire a cart and meet you.”
Kerk nodded and followed the others out the train door and into the vast, echoing station. Despite the fact that she had been here before and he had not, Tess watched him, waiting for his instructions. Makk was looking around with interest, his attention wholly caught by a knot of young blueskin boys crouching around some entertainment on the pavement of the station. Maybe a game, maybe an insect, Kerk thought.
He addressed his stepmother formally. “Let us walk quickly through this crowded place,” he said in the delicate, nuanced goldtongue that shaded every word with an extra meaning. “If the lady Tess would be brave enough to lead us toward the doors where her nephews are waiting, I will ensure that no harm comes to her or her children.”
They were hardly likely to be in danger here at the station, but the point was clear: You lead, I’ll follow, and we will all be fine. Nothing could be stated so directly, however.
Tess nodded. “Girls, stay behind me,” she said to her daughters. She gazed a moment at her son, who was still fascinated by the strangers.
“Makk,” Kerk said sharply, and the boy’s head whipped around.
“Walk beside your mother and guide us out. Do your duty.”
Makk scowled but obediently fell in step beside Tess, and they were finally moving away from the great mounded silhouette of the train. Soon enough they were in a warmer, better-lit space bustling with commerce. Kerk saw food stalls and book vendors and news monitors and ticket sellers and great arched doorways that seemed to lead out to the street.
And people. Mobs of people. Indigo with their deep blue skin, golden-hued gulden, the occasional white-skinned albino. Even Makk was a little intimidated by the sheer numbers. On the pretense of helping his mother keep her balance on the slick stone floor, he edged closer to her and took her arm. Kerk laid one hand on each of the girls before him. They were seven and nine, easily distracted, easily lost, and no moment’s inattention on his part would allow them to slip away.
Finally they were out one of the great doors—and, yes, there was a long, sleek car awaiting them, with one of Brolt’s nephews leaning against the fender. “Hax!” Makk exclaimed and hurried over to greet his cousin. Hax mimed a punch to the boy’s chin, then grabbed him by both shoulders and made him stand still.
“Look at you! Getting some of your height at last,” he said. “You’ll be a man soon, I think.”
“And then I’ll be able to beat you in a fight,” Makk boasted.
Hax laughed and let him go. “I don’t think so,” he said.
Hax turned more respectfully to greet Tess, and made a great show of helping her and the girls into the car. Naturally, he situated them on the backward-facing seats. The rows that faced forward would be reserved for the men. Makk continued chatting cheerfully, though Hax clearly was paying little attention. Hax had done no more than glance and nod at Kerk. Not disrespectful, not antagonistic, but not warm, either. Kerk was not a blood relation, after all. None of Brolt’s family ow
ed him anything but civility.
It was ten minutes before Brolt arrived, followed by a luggage cart being pushed by a young gulden man. Another ten minutes before Hax had greeted his uncle, the suitcases had been stowed away, and the men had climbed inside the car. Hax sat in front to drive, and Makk clamored to sit beside him, and with a nod, Brolt gave his permission.
Once they were settled in, Brolt leaned forward to take Tess’s hands, and she smiled at him. “Here we are, my husband,” she said. “Soon we will be living in a new home in a new city. Our life is filled with such impossible joys.”
“Any new opportunity is made sweeter when it is shared with someone loved and respected,” Brolt replied.
The car moved away from the station and into traffic. Kerk resumed his staring out the window. The city was nothing like the towns that sparkled across Geldricht, full of color and beauty. Here, the buildings were more varied and surprising—some quite tall, some short, most of them severely constructed of formal stone in blacks and whites and grays. Where were the flags and fountains and flowerpots? Where were the bright roof tiles, the gaily decorated walls? Who could live in a place so dismal?
You wanted to come to the city, Kerk reminded himself. Brolt told you he would make provision for you back on Gold Mountain. But you wanted to come.
He watched the tall buildings flatten out, the neighborhoods change. Now they were in an even stranger landscape of low redbrick houses and narrow lawns planted with unfamiliar grasses. He remembered now; Brolt had explained that the three different races worked together more or less harmoniously in the commercial districts of the city, but that they tended to live apart from each other in enclaves that reflected their cultural preferences. The few individuals Kerk saw on the street here had pale skin and odd, white hair. This must be an albino district.
They passed through more neighborhoods, the skyline gradually changing again. Brolt was pointing out sights and explaining traffic routes to Tess and the girls, who kept demanding to know when they were going to be home, at their own house. Kerk found himself getting more and more discouraged as the length of the journey made it clear to him how big the city really was, how complex.
How would he ever locate one person amid the thousands who lived here? How would he ever find his mother?
The city house was not nearly as large as the home that Brolt maintained in Geldricht, but it was spacious and pleasing nonetheless. Kerk knew that Tess’s visits here during the past year had been largely to furnish the city house, and her taste was evident everywhere in the bright colors, comfortable sofas, chiming fountains, and subtle scents. While Hax and Brolt wrestled the luggage in from the car, Tess led the rest of them on a tour through the fifteen rooms spread over three stories. Kerk was not surprised to learn that Hax and his brother lived here in their own suites; a man would naturally offer accommodations to any of his brother’s sons who did not have households of their own. He was pleased to see that his own rooms were just as good as the nephews’, with thick blue carpeting and a gaily patterned coverlet that Tess herself had certainly picked out.
The only rooms they did not inspect were the kitchen, which Tess reserved as her own domain, and Brolt’s hoechter, a small private study that no one was allowed to enter without an invitation.
“What do you think, my son?” Tess asked Makk as they ended up in a large common room filled with overstuffed chairs and couches. “Can you be happy in the home your father and I have made for you away from the city of your birth?”
Makk opened his mouth to make one of the sarcastic comments that he was so fond of these days, but then he caught Kerk’s warning look. He visibly changed his mind and spoke respectfully instead. “My lady mother has gone to a great deal of effort to create a place of comfort and beauty,” he said formally. “I believe we shall all be quite happy here.”
The next few weeks were full of adjustments. Because the house was smaller than the sprawling home on Gold Mountain, they were always tripping over each other. The food markets were missing many essential gulden ingredients, so Tess constantly had to exercise creativity as she planned her menus. The seven-year-old fell ill with some virus and cried for three days, while the nine-year-old missed her cousins and cried for other reasons. Makk did not like his new school and came home twice bearing the marks of fights with other boys.
“You must win your battles,” was all Brolt told him. Kerk spent a couple hours working out with Makk in a small unfinished room in the basement next to the heating and water filtration systems. Kerk knew all about being the boy who was picked on because he was new or because his father was dead; he had turned into quite a brawler, particularly once he started bulking up. A man must fight honorably or be forever branded unworthy; but still, there were some tricks that could be used fairly that helped ensure the encounter would go your way.
The third time Makk came home bruised and bloodied, he was smiling. He never lost another fight, and he began to like school a little better.
Kerk sometimes felt he was in a different kind of battle altogether, being pummeled on a daily basis by new sights, new thoughts, new experiences. He wouldn’t cry, like the girls, but he wasn’t sure he should fight back, like Makk. He just tried to keep his balance as the city landed one blow after another.
They were not killing blows, he thought. They were more like the slap of irritated affection that a man might land on a brother’s face. Why aren’t you paying attention? See what you have been missing?
Almost at once, he loved the city, despite its tall, formal buildings and its lack of color. He loved its energy, the constant pulse of excitement that ran through it like an overstimulated heartbeat. He loved the Centrifuge, a huge circular traffic tunnel that connected all the major districts. He loved the staggering variety of food—the restaurants that were open to any patron of whatever race—the news channels that broadcast from streetside monitors at every hour of the day. He loved the foreign, unfamiliar jumble of blueskins and gulden and albinos all existing side by side, mostly ignoring each other, occasionally challenging each other, sometimes sharing a joke or a meal or a cheer at a sporting event.
He loved living in a place where the rules were different. He had not fared so badly by gulden rules, but only because he had been lucky. He never forgot that, if not for Tess’s determination and Brolt’s kindness, he would be dead.
But even a fatherless man like Kerk could make his own way in the city.
Even a man like Kerk might find what he was searching for.
Two
Brolt was pleased with Kerk. The big gulden man sat at his desk, looking over Kerk’s report analyzing the company’s sales for the past three months. Brolt’s skin was a dark gold, almost a bronze; his hair was a deep auburn just now coarsening to gray. Brolt exercised faithfully every morning. Kerk was pretty sure the older man could still wrestle him to the ground in four falls out of five.
“So you think we would be more efficient to sell to the three or four top houses rather than distribute to all of the vendors we have used in the past,” Brolt said.
Kerk nodded. “That’s what the numbers say to me.” Kerk liked numbers; he always had. They made more sense than people did, as a general rule. “If you import from fewer sources and sell to fewer outlets, your savings in terms of transportation and logistics will be significant.”
Brolt nodded. Brolt traded for electronic components with three countries across the ocean and sold them to factories in Geldricht and the city. The fact that his city business had grown so lucrative had prompted the move from Gold Mountain. “I had suspected as much,” Brolt said. “But only a fool does business with a single man. For what if that man is a cheater? Or what if that man dies? Then the fool has no income at all.”
“You’re correct,” Kerk said. They were using bluetongue, a language that allowed more directness, and both of them were speaking plainly. At any rate, more plainly than usual. “And even though the profit margin is higher when you deal with blue
skin corporations, you wouldn’t want to cut off all your dealings with gulden companies. That would make you unpopular with the merchants on Gold Mountain.” He hitched his chair closer and tapped on the folder he had given Brolt. It had taken him days to run the analysis. “But you could consolidate. If you chose, say, two gulden outlets and two blueskin outlets, you could reduce your supply-chain costs by thirty percent. You could then discount your offerings to the four outlets you chose—but only if they increased the amounts they order from you. I believe this would not only improve your profits, but the profits for your clients as well.”
“I will study your reports,” Brolt promised, switching to the more formal goldtongue. “But I commend you for your hard work and your good mind. I am pleased to have you on my payroll and in my family.”
Kerk bowed his head. “Brolt Barzhan is kind.” To use a man’s full name was to give him the greatest honor.
Brolt smiled. “And Kerk Socast is faithful,” he replied. “You have been working very hard since the move from Gold Mountain, and I’m sure you have not had much opportunity to visit the city where you now make your home. Take a couple of days and roam the streets. I think you will like what you see.”
Kerk lowered his head in another respectful bow. “Thank you, Brolt Barzhan. I will happily do so.”
He knew exactly where he wanted to go.
Brolt’s offices were deep in the commercial district that clustered around the Centrifuge stop labeled North Zero. It was an easy walk through the hazy autumn sunshine to the arched stone gate that led into the tunnels of the Centrifuge. Maybe fifteen ringcars were idle inside the tunnel, awaiting riders at this slow time of the day. Kerk stepped into the first one and strapped himself in before carefully pulling away from the landing and into the lower lane of slow traffic. Hax and his brother had willingly, if unenthusiastically, taught Kerk how to operate the ringcars, but he wasn’t quite up to their levels of speed or self-confidence and he preferred not to fly during the heaviest traffic hours. He accelerated a little as he followed the honey-colored walls curving endlessly to the left. Two cars swooped by overhead, buzzing quickly out of sight. The North One gate blinked by.
