by Storey, Rob
In his operations with the Coin, Kieler had occasionally used the services of the Lurani brothers, who ran a smuggling ring of medicine and medical supplies from the Glums. The Merckles, who had the state-sanctioned monopoly on health care, had traced the Lurani’s down through their own industrial spy network.
The Lurani brothers had ended their lives in a dramatic but sadistic contest held in the very same edifice that Kieler was now surveying. The contraption designed for their demise consisted of two separate tanks with one brother chained to the bottom of each tank. Each brother had a bucket and each tank had water running into it. The men could bail the water out, but the contraption was designed to carry the water one brother bailed, into the tank of the other brother. Eventually one drowned the other trying to survive. Wracked with guilt, the surviving brother was eventually pitted against another criminal and killed.
Their crime was far from violent. But the interpretation by the Omeron appointed courts was that it was violence against the people of Avertori in general by undermining their health care.
Kieler caught himself gritting his teeth and stopped. Slink Squad had bought from the Lurani brothers. They had been good men with good intentions. The Omeron needed to be taken down.
The ageless shadow that Kieler had ditched undoubtedly worked for one of the Omeron families. Thankfully, Kieler saw no sign of him in the plaza below.
He looked due east to where the Grand Stair climbed at least fifty stories from the edge of Plaza Floraneva up to Garrist Ring. It was a long climb. But the block-wide stair, adorned with statuary and cafes and tall buildings up the middle of it, was far more difficult to watch than the trams that ascended under the Stair. House Cortatti would be his primary opponent. They knew why he was coming and what he looked like. If they could stop him before the gala, he—and any claim Orlazrus Ortessi might have made—would soon be forgotten.
The Grand Stair curved gently and majestically up to the northeast and ended at the promenade of Garrist Ring. Up the centerline of the Stair ran a stately line of towering buildings, each grand unto itself, owned by Omeron families with sufficient status. Connecting each of them near their tops was an exclusive private tram (for ruling family members only). The tram ran from the Arena, across Floraneva to the first family office building, and then up the Stair to each successive tower until it finally ran above the only bridge to the Palace of the Executive Chair.
The nearest of these family headquarters, Vel-Taradan, overlooked Plaza Floreneva. It consisted of a complex of three graceful towers and belonged to House Vel. Kieler thought it the most desirable location since it was nearest the fading beauty and bustle of Plaza Floreneva.
Looking to the top of House Vel’s three towers, Kieler saw the private, suspended tram car (nicknamed the FamTram) leaving the station at the top of one tower, probably taking a load of self-important dignitaries up the stairs to the gala.
I wonder if Velator himself is aboard that tram, Kieler thought. The head of house Vel had been reclusive in Kieler’s lifetime, spending most of his time in the mountainous city of Velakun from which House Vel originated. When Kieler was very young, he had learned from his father the tales and histories of Velik, Velator’s ancestor and the founder of Avertori some thousand years ago. It was Velik and Boreas who reclaimed the city from the decay and wild creatures that infested the ruins of the Dead Ones on the Isle of Threes.
Satisfied that he had crudely but effectively shaken off his tail, Kieler worked his way north on the second tier of shops. The arched facades surrounding the Plaza Floreneva had been designed to house retail stores. In the flourishing activity of the growing city, this was to be the heart of culture and commerce. The plan had succeeded marvelously—for a while.
Now, Kieler noted one shop in three boarded up, with crumbling tiles and unrepaired chips falling from the arches. The shops were busy tonight, but that was an aberration.
Specialty clothing shops seemed to have suffered the most; their faded signs hung over empty display windows.
A sign over a busy shop entryway read “Cortatti Arms” and in the window a sign touting, “Buy the weapon of tonight’s battle: the new Barcleaver!” These shops seemed prolific, though why someone who belonged to a sub-house would need a three-foot long battle-blade and what good it would be against the Cortatti’s magguns… well, there was a reason for the term “ignorant masses”.
Before he reached the Arena, Kieler turned right and descended to the Plaza level, striding east across the open plaza in front of it. Myriad fountains and statues adorned the Plaza, but all the fountains were dry, even on this festive eve, save the massive centerpiece of Floraneva. This fountain consisted of several characters. Three shungvaal, the giant, horned creatures of the sea, circled the scene within and spouted huge streams of water toward the center. Back to back in the middle were larger-than-life depictions of Velik and Boreas: Boreas hefting his famed spear and Velik with his bow drawn back. Between the jetting shungvaal and the two heroes were grotesquely distorted creatures: a gnarled grevon, legions of oversized slinks, and a dozen monsters that seemed to be part building or vehicle and part animal.
Tonight, Kieler barely glanced at it. He scanned constantly and inconspicuously for more Omeron agents. Still dressed as Geren, full beard and work clothes, he certainly wouldn’t match the description Feleanna would have issued from their encounter last night. Of course, this outfit would be out of place when he reached the financial district of Garrist Ring.
Street vendors hawked their treats for the evening’s festivities. Buskers juggled, singers crooned, and as he neared the base of the Grand Stair, he couldn’t help but be distracted by a troupe of unusually talented acrobats. Dressed all in white with red sashes and black masks, they performed elaborately coordinated tricks. As Kieler passed, one of the performers dove from the top of a human pyramid straight at the hard tile of the plaza. With no one there to catch the headfirst diver, Kieler, like the other spectators, thought they had made a deadly error. But in a mere blink, the launching pyramid dissolved into a flurry of bodies and four of its members appeared at precisely the right spot to catch, swing and re-launch the diving performer. He seemed to float and slowly flip before rolling across the tiles back to a standing position and a flourish.
Wadded paper money flew in the direction of their caps as the assembled audience exploded with appreciation.
Kieler climbed. The Grand Stair was a half-mile long stretch of the most prestigious real estate in Zotikas. Of the shops, restaurants, banks and cafes that lined the sides of the Stair or terraced its center, few of these were closed. They catered to the elite, and the elite lived in the apartments and office towers that graced the centerline of the Stair. Already Kieler felt underdressed.
But covering his features now was more important than dressing up. He could still be a worker on a last minute job until the top of the Stair. He spotted a couple agents as he climbed; men dressed in sturdy but tidy suits with bulging overcoats. They looked up from their papers too often. Lounged by the rails too casually. All the while they scanned the stairs and lacked the purposeful demeanor of workers going home or partygoers heading for an alcoholic destination.
From Vel-Taradan and past the multitude of House edifices, the route was always up. Most people, traveling to the topmost plaza, would have taken the tram that ran up the underside of the Stair.
As he finally neared the top, Kieler found the deepening shadow of a terraced café. Here he shed his beard, work clothes and shambling gait to emerge in a finely tailored, grey cut of cloth trimmed in black suitable for a Bintle financial clerk. House Bintle had, from the time of Velik, run the banking system. Now corrupt, family members and functionaries were quite common on the Garrist Ring.
He reached into the breast pocket and placed hexagonal eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose. Now he was Niven Wensith, his hair short, his walk the stiff, cocky and brisk stride of a confident, drab accountant needing to get to the Charlaise building f
or some final business before the closing at full dark.
As Rei finally retired, its fading beams settling into the western sea, Kieler gained the promenade at Garrist Ring. Garrist was a toroid of the highest rising financial structures. A wide walkway circled the inner gap, allowing pedestrians an inspired view straight down to the Plate and an equally inspiring view of the void-piercing spire that supported the Executive Chair’s Palace.
That spire stood directly before Kieler as he topped the stairs and was taller by far than even the sky-scratching structures surrounding it on the Ring.
In contrast to the purposely expansive Plaza Floreneva below, Garrist was imposingly vertical. Between the spire and the inside promenade of Garrist was a dizzying, empty gap from the greatest heights of the city straight down to the very Plate itself. Kieler admired the engineering but loathed the hubris.
There were two standard approaches to the palace of the EC; first, a narrow bridge in front of the Grand Stair spanned the gap (over which ran the FamTram), and second, access to the palace above could be gained by coming up the center of the ancient spire from the depths below. Both choke points were heavily guarded—not so much to prevent deviants like himself from causing mischief, Kieler realized, but to keep the untrusted competing houses from getting too ambitious.
Kieler, however, had devised a third way.
He turned right and angled toward the Charlaise building a quarter way round the Ring. This alone would throw the Cortatti grevons off his scent. To them, the only way to Kieler’s inevitable destination was across that single span. He noticed to his great satisfaction a man leaning against a newsstand reading, who glanced up at him, saw the bored expression of an overworked, hope-drained financial pawn fixed inanely on Kieler’s face, and look back down. Despite his intentionally minimal disguise, the proper countenance conveyed the proper profession.
Out of his peripheral vision, Kieler noted at least a half dozen men more interested in who approached the bridge than in what they were doing that evening. He had to tightly stifle a grin. Others waited at building corners, in arched alcoves, or at shop windows. Either Kieler was paranoid—or egotistical—or there were a lot of Cortatti goons determined to get him.
The sky was darkening and would soon be lit with the fireworks that marked the beginning of the New Year’s Eve celebration.
The incognito sentinels thinned out significantly as he left the bridge behind. Without falling out of character he relaxed mentally. He would make the Charlaise Building, headquarters of Bank Bintle. It was with that thought that he noticed something disturbing—someone, actually, leaning spiritlessly against the right side of the Charlaise Building. His tail from the tram was ahead of him.
With forty paces to go, as used to pretending as he was, as much as he had practiced, he slipped out of character.
His pace must have quickened and he glanced left. A man near the edge of the ring noticed him and suddenly dropped the pretense of waiting for the fireworks. Worse, Kieler recognized the man! It was the same guard he’d passed in the Grand Hall of the Cortatti keep the night before.
At the same moment, Kieler’s old tail spotted him, straightened and waited nonchalantly for him to get closer.
Kieler looked back at the man angling towards him, pulling a maggun out from under his overcoat. The Charlaise building was still thirty yards away. There was no doubt that before Kieler reached the building, the men would intercept him.
Chapter Seven
On the top floor of Vel-Taradan, Velator stood waiting for her in front of a suspended tram. Her father’s eyes widened as Velirith approached.
Velirith smiled, wondering what he would choose to comment on. She inclined her head, “Father.”
He paused, obviously considering his words carefully. Velirith had always liked this about him. He thought about what he was going to say, rarely speaking offhand.
“Your smile is gorgeous, but it doesn’t quite hide the threat.”
She dropped her smile immediately, surprised. It was rare for someone to surprise her, but she knew she got her intuition from somewhere. Even though her father didn’t see through people like she could, he knew her well enough.
Feigning innocence, she said, “What do you mean, Father?”
“Mmm,” he shook his head slowly, “mischief.”
He shrugged, as if dismissing the thought. Instead, he regarded her from top to bottom and nodded approval. “You certainly have creative genius, my daughter. You’ve managed to make our Vel formal uniform look beautifully feminine.”
She almost blushed, but instead, twirled, unable to curb a girlish delight in the spotlight of her father’s approval. The long-cut coat flared out like a dress when she spun. She, at least, would look good in the dance.
Her father smiled. “Not that I fear some young gentleman sweeping you up. They may try, but I’m certain no one will measure up.”
She scowled at the last comment. “Funny, you should say that, Father. I have just noticed how judgmental I can be. I’m never wrong about people, but I don’t know if I like ‘judgmental’ as an epitaph.”
Seeing she was sincere, he drew her into a warm hug. “Moral introspection, followed by resolve, will serve you well, Velirith.”
Buried in her father’s embrace, she frowned. Tonight’s escapade probably didn’t meet the requirements of the first step. At least my resolve is in place.
They stepped onto the suspended FamTram and it immediately started northeast and up. Velirith looked down onto the Grand Stair below and watched the throngs hurrying both up and down in the long shadows of the towers lining the edge of the Stair. Rei was setting and everyone was speeding toward one pleasure or another. She felt much more distant than thirty floors of altitude could account for. Their lives were so meaningless—her judgment coming through again—but for that matter, so was hers. She wanted so much for her life to have significance.
They passed through two familial towers on the Stair and stopped inside the third to pick up some members of the Merckle family. Velator stood as Lhea Margríte Merckle and her two sons boarded. Like the Vel’s, the Merckles were required to attend the gala without their bodyguards.
“Margríte, good evening,” he greeted.
“Good evening, Velator.” Lhea Merckle, despite being a manipulative opportunist, genuinely respected Velirith’s father. Velirith could tell. All the house matrons respected him, except Feleanna Cortatti. Undoubtedly that was because he treated everyone one respectfully—despite their deep differences.
Margríte Merckle’s sons were a couple of years older than Velirith. That certainly didn’t stop them from looking at her. Velirith gave them a straightforward, disinterested look to discourage them from staring or stealing glances at her. She could feel her father taking note of the adolescent exchange.
A FamTram gondola was smaller than Avertori’s public trams and was supported from above rather than below. It covered a shorter distance and carried a very limited clientele. But tonight it stopped at several more familial high-rises. When Ferdando Ashperis boarded from his parents’ agriculture headquarters, she felt the judgment rise in her again. The coward. He’ll get a little taste of judgment tonight. She suppressed her excitement and tried to ignore the fact that he too was looking at her.
I must look good.
The tram stopped climbing and flattened out over the Garrist Ring. Shortly thereafter they were cruising above the narrow bridge that spanned the empty space between Garrist and the spire supporting the lofty palace of the Executive Chair. From Garrist, the spire branched up and out into three curving fingers between which, far above, was a garden terrace, and in the middle of that terrace, the palace.
Velirith looked down toward the Plate over a quarter mile below. She liked the excitement of heights and the gaping distance reminded her of the towering city of Velakun that was her home. Velakun was a much smaller city, but more aesthetically developed.
The tram entered a portal in the cream-
colored spire and they were soon disembarking to board an elevator. The clear elevators ascended diagonally up the underside of one of the finger spires to the edge of the flared terrace hosting the Executive Chair’s air garden. It forced the occupants to look down into the gaping distance.
She loved it. And she loved it more to watch the young men pull back from the edge with vertigo as they rose without visual references. Of course, they probably hadn’t used their city as a playground the way she had used her home of Velakun. But when she flew at home, she didn’t have such a view.
Rei touched the horizon far to the west as it fell through a layer of clouds. The city spread out around Velirith like a twinkling, three-dimensional puzzle. And the sea, visible from this height on all sides, wrapped around the Isle of Threes like a protective mother.
High above Garrist Ring, they disembarked at the edge of the air garden. Velirith on her father’s arm, the group of guests proceeded through the widely spaced trees and statuary toward the stairs leading up to the great hall. One reason she had chosen pants for her outfit design was that the quirky breezes at this height teased the ladies’ dresses and had them clutching their hats. But tonight, she noticed, the winds were calm.
Velirith decided she didn’t like the palace design. Too ostentatious. Too grandiose. She did appreciate the myriad balconies, though. Every level, both above and below the great hall along the spire, was speckled with both private and public balconies, sometimes with decorative plants to add greenery to the entirely manmade edifice.
From Velirith’s previous visits to the palace, she knew the layout. Bored, she had thoroughly explored both upward and downward in the lofty palace, dodging or charming the sparse guards. Most of Ek’s sentries remained at the entrances or within the great hall itself. Still, her explorations here didn’t compare to those of the hidden ways and intriguing architecture of her home in ancient Velakun.
