by P. J. Sky
“They say the mirror never lies, but I think it only ever tells us half the truth. Personally, the older I get, the less I can stand to look in it. But look at you both, the very picture of rugged heroism.” He turned to Ari. “Tell me, darling, how do you shave your head?”
Self-consciously, Ari scratched at the bristles that covered her scalp.
The man held up his finger. “No, actually, don’t tell me, we all have to have our little beauty secrets. Maker knows I need mine.” He tapped his nose and his hazel eyes sparkled. “Please, do take a seat.”
The man ushered them to the soft furnishings. He reclined, feet up, on something that looked halfway between a bed and a chair.
Keshia sank into a stool. The red material seemed to want to hug her.
Ari crossed her arms and paced between the mirror and the chairs. “So what’s this about?”
“Business, business,” said the man. “You heroic young women, you’re all business. But one must take time to… umm… smell the roses, so to speak. But first, introductions, and perhaps some refreshments.”
He snapped his fingers and the boy reappeared with a silver tray. He set the tray down on the glass table between them and arranged three ornate silver goblets, each studded with green gemstones. The boy lifted a silver teapot and began to fill each goblet with a steaming brown liquid.
“Mint tea,” said the man.
Keshia’s eyes fell on an intricately decorated silver spoon that sat by a covered bowl. It looked valuable and easy to pocket.
Once the goblets were full, the boy lifted the lid from the bowl revealing a mound of some sort of cube-like food covered in white powder.
“Bo delight,” said the man. He looked towards Ari. “Not so dissimilar to syntho, if you can remember it at all.” He looked back to Keshia. “Please, my dear, do tuck in.”
Keshia never needed asking twice. She leant forwards and plucked up one of the cubes. Across the table, a trail of white powder followed the cube’s route from the bowl to her mouth. The cube was soft, sweet and chewy.
“The secret,” said the man, “is roses. Red roses, to be precise. Not easy to find in these parts. Please, help yourself.”
The man smiled at Keshia and Keshia tried to smile back, her mouth full of the sticky dessert.
The man continued. “And now for introductions; my name is Nero. I guess you might call it a city name, not that I was born in the city. It’s just that, well, you might call me a sort of legal representative for the city; not an ambassador, but nonetheless, a go-between.”
He looked at the two of them as if waiting for some reaction.
“So?” said Ari.
Keshia eyed the spoon. I could get a good price for that, she thought. It might make up for the lost pendant.
“And you, darling, are the indispensable Ari Quinn. You saved the mayor’s daughter’s life… our dear Miss Corinth, such a dear, so… incapable on her own… and that isn’t something that goes entirely forgotten.”
Ari shrugged. “So?”
“Darling, please do sit down. Eat, drink, break bread with this…” he placed his palm to his chest, “…this humble servant who only wishes to bestow a compliment.”
Ari rubbed her fingers against her thumbs, sighed, and lowered herself onto a stool next to Keshia.
Keshia slipped her fingers over the spoon and slid it from the table.
Nero picked up one of the goblets. “This saving of Miss Corinth has given you quite a reputation. I don’t mind saying I am, perhaps, even slightly star struck. And I’ve met Titus Corinth. I was… you know… actually lucky enough, once to… oh you don’t want to hear it.”
He paused, as if waiting for them to plead for him to continue. Neither said a word.
Nero continued anyway. “Well, once I attended a banquet in the city, and, well, he was walking past me and for a moment I might swear he actually looked at me. Me, Nero, as humble as I am, a simple man from the streets of Bo.”
The streets of Bo, thought Keshia. This guy is loaded. This guy has no idea what it is to live on the streets. She slid the spoon into her pocket.
“Darling, I really wouldn’t,” said Nero.
Keshia looked up and the man was looking directly at her, one eyebrow raised.
“The spoon, darling.”
Keshia looked each way then slid the spoon back onto the table.
“Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, we all do our part. Everyone fits into their own little place in the puzzle of life. I, a simple go-between, a messenger between the city and the outside, and you, Ari Quinn, a hero of the wasteland, saviour of the most cherished of saviours; our dear Miss Corinth.”
Ari interrupted. “Ya gonna get to the point?”
The man grinned. “No mincing words, straight to the point, so like myself in so many little ways. He looked at Keshia. “I’d stick with this one, I really would. But I warn you, she won’t take any funny business either.” He leant back and winked. “The point, my dear, is that Miss Corinth is once more lost, and, well, not to make too fine a point, we, and by we I mean of course the mayor, Titus Corinth, would like you to rescue her. You, and of course, your little friend here…”
∆∆∆
…Starla.
Ari’s mind reeled.
What had Starla got herself into now? And now they want me to save Starla… again!
Ari remembered standing outside the city gates, those glittering towers shimmering in the darkness on the other side of the high wall, and that look on the mayor’s face as Starla told her father that, if Ari didn’t enter the city, neither would she.
“My dear,” the mayor had protested, “is her home really in our city?”
Starla had balled her fists. “Father, if she’s not allowed in then you shall lose me forever.”
And Ari had pictured herself back, on the inside of the wall, in the city that, as a small child, she’d been exiled from. She thought of the few fragments of memory she still had from that time before, inside the walls; of the glittering towers that formed great chasms of steel and glass, the smooth surfaces of her parents’ apartment, and how, late at night, the coloured lights had danced across her bedroom wall. She’d remembered drawing pictures in the spilled purple powder on her mother’s dressing table. She remembered not being hungry.
She’d thought of all these things, and then she’d thought of the moment she’d slid her blade between the ribs of the milky-eyed man. The blade that still sat sheathed to her ankle. She’d remembered the way the blade had grated against the bone, sending a shudder down her spine. She’d remembered the way the man’s one good eye had bulged, and the way he’d gurgled as his life expired and he returned to the earth.
Alive or dead, did it really matter?
But it did, and of this Ari was now certain.
She’d waited in the darkness under the rock, with Starla and the milky-eyed man and the two thuggish twins all stood on top. Earlier, they’d recaptured Starla and meant to take her back to The Big Fella and whatever terrible fate awaited her there. But Ari had destroyed their truck, waited for darkness, and intercepted them among the rocks.
Ari remembered listening to the chilling night chorus of the dingoes. She’d told herself, tonight I am a dingo, and she had been. The dingoes finished off the two twins, but she’d taken the life of the milky-eyed man. She’d waited under that rock, and she’d reached up and grabbed hold of his ankle and dragged him down into the frightening darkness.
He’d struggled and yelped. He’d fired his gun and, in the angry flame of the gunshot, his white eye had glowed. In the ringing silence that followed, Ari had plunged the blade between his ribs, once, then twice. She’d felt the life expire from his chest, like a bird leaving its cage. She’d pulled the gun from his dying hands and drawn away into the darkness.
And in that cold, dark space that followed, between the living and the dead, she’d felt the cold hand that crept into her chest and clenched around her heart. In the taking of a life, a l
ittle part of her had died with him.
It was him or me, she’d rationalised, and yet with every passing day, in her mind’s eye, his face grew more vivid. Sometimes she thought he spoke to her in her dreams.
“I was only doin’ wha’ I was told. Doin’ a job, just like you. Ya could ‘ave spoken with me at least, seen what I had to say about it.”
“But you was gonna take Starla. If I hadn’ killed ya, you’d ‘a killed me. I didn’t mean nothin’ to ya, I couldn’ afford to offer ya any less than the same.”
But did she really know that?
So, she told herself, you was no better than a dingo, a bloodthirsty animal feeding on the misfortunes of the wasteland. And you don’t deserve nothing more.
She’d thought of Jirra and Koora, dead at the dam, not by her hand, but by her actions. Starla’s abductors had fired the shots, from that great, black, flying machine, but it all went back to Ari’s mistake. If Ari hadn’t let Starla get bitten by the crocodile, they would have never needed the Angu’s help. They’d have made it to the dam all by themselves, and perhaps all the way to the city walls, all on their own. But she’d been a fool, she’d taken Starla to the water’s edge and that great green beast had leapt up and bitten into her leg. And Starla would have died if the villagers, the Angu, the people of the swamp, hadn’t come to help. And from then on, their fates became entangled with Starla’s. They had helped Starla and they had paid the ultimate price.
Why did I survive when the others did not? Where was the balance?
These questions haunted Ari.
So how could she ever hope to pick up on that lost life in the city? How could she expect to relate to anyone inside those ancient, gilded walls? And how could she live a life of luxury, when so many remained on the outside of the wall?
So Ari had turned her back on the city walls and walked away.
To take a life, you must give one back.
Since then, as she’d wandered the wasteland, this thought had haunted Ari. She’d told herself she’d given back Starla’s life. Whatever fate had been planned for Starla, Ari had saved her from it, otherwise she wouldn’t have survived. But was it enough? It hadn’t seemed enough, sat around the campfire in the evenings at the village.
Briefly, after leaving the city walls, Ari had returned to the Angu village, deep in the green jungles of the swamp. She’d thought it might be possible to live among these people, and hunt and learn the medicines that might have once saved her mother’s life.
Doug had reassured her. “It were’n’ ya fault.” The orange tongues of the campfire had glinted on his eyeglasses and hidden his eyes. “Jirra and Koora knew the risks. An’ they were successful, the dam was destroyed, freein’ the river. An’ now they have returned to the earth an’ the cycle is renewed.”
“The costs were too high,” said Ari.
Doug shook his head. “Ya can’t think like that. What happened, happened. Jirra and Koora, they knew the risks.”
But Ari had seen the looks in the other villagers' eyes. They smiled, but their eyes told the truth. They judged her. They hated her. It was her fault and hers alone. She might have saved Starla, but she had failed in so many other ways.
And it wasn’t just them. She felt it in her heart, in those cold fingers that had crept in there the moment she’d plunged the knife into the gut of the milky-eyed man.
Ari had walked out to the dish and looked up to the Maker Star.
“Maka,” she’d prayed, “what am I supposed to do?”
But the star didn’t speak, and Ari realised it would never speak again. She’d caused the death of the only person who still knew how to operate the ancient dish that could receive the signals from the stars. Now, once more, the Maker Star was just a star; that bright point in the night sky, vivid and faintly blue, that never moved. The other stars circled it, but it never moved. It saw all, and judged all. And Ari felt judged.
“I guess, I ain’t like you, Maka,” said Ari. “I’m a wanderer, I can’t stay in one place. I won’t find no peace ‘ere. I stay too long anywhere and the ground starts to burn.”
∆∆∆
“You’ll be rewarded, of course,” Nero continued. “Both of you. All the half-moon coins you can carry. And if I’m quite honest, I’m almost envious of the task bestowed upon you both.”
Ari’s sucked at the corner of her lip. “Why us?”
Nero spread his long fingers and pressed their tips together. “Why indeed? Well, firstly we, and by we, I of course mean Titus Corinth, believe you can do it, and that says a lot about both of you. This is not an honour that could be bestowed on just anyone.”
Ari narrowed her eyes. “Why don’t Alice send their own people?”
Nero folded his long fingers together. “Well, it seems that our Miss Corinth is being held at the site of a coal mine, one that you actually spent time in.”
Ari’s left eyelid began to twitch. “The Bone Pointer’s mine?”
Nero met her gaze. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes. So secondly, you know the location. You are, so to speak, our woman on the ground.”
Nero took a long sip of tea.
The Bone Pointer's mine, thought Ari. They want me to go back.
Ari recalled the black days, when coal dust filled her throat, and day and night blurred together in a place void of time. She began to scratch the palm of her left hand.
The mine, where life and death merged together, and down whose tunnels everyone was returned to the earth before their time and there was no rebirth, only an endless waking death.
Ari recalled the pale, ghostly forms of other miners, backs crooked, eyes hollow, lips as black as the blackest opals.
How can I go back?
“Thirdly,” said Nero, interrupting her thoughts, “I’m sure you’re aware that the situation between here and the mine is, shall we say, complicated.”
“The Black Mulga,” said Ari. The very thing that had driven her and so many other refugees into the safe sanctuary of Bo’s town walls.
For Maker knows why, war raged across the wasteland.
Nero nodded. “For their own reasons, the warlords seem set on taking the mine, and from what I understand they advance further each day. I’m sure you understand that Titus Corinth is especially eager for Starla not to fall into the hands of the Black Mulga. But, of course, in regional disputes, the city will remain neutral. It won’t intervene, not even here. But, the city will pay you to go in and rescue her.”
“They could fly guards in, I’ve seen their flyin’ machines.”
“Perhaps they could, but they won’t. So, I’m afraid this really is up to us, or, well, to you.”
Ari stood and began to pace the room. A dark heat rose from her gut.
The Bone Pointer.
She remembered the mine. It was an experience akin to being buried alive, and with the constant threat that if you didn’t work hard enough the Bone Pointer would get you.
Ari looked back at Nero. “Is ‘e still there?”
“Who?”
“The Bone Pointer?”
Nero shrugged. “I suppose he is, it is his mine.” He sat up and crossed his legs. He leant forwards and gently plucked from the bowl a cube of Bo Delight. With expert precision, he popped it between his red-stained lips.
“If I don’t go,” said Ari, “they’ll send someone else.”
Nero shrugged. “Maybe… Maybe they will, maybe they won’t? But darling, do you really trust Starla’s life in anyone else’s hands?”
He’d used her first name. This was Starla.
Events were overtaking her and Ari could feel the situation was quickly reaching critical mass. She was going, whether she wanted to or not.
“Of course,” said Nero, “there’s also the matter of your little debt to the syndicate. I really would hate for that unfortunate little situation to escalate.” He looked up at Ari. “I really do want to help you both, and Miss Corinth of course.”
Ari crossed her arms. �
�So if we do it, how do ya expect us to get there? I mean, out there it’s war.”
Nero smiled. “Darling, you don’t have to worry about that. I have a way.”
Chapter 4
The boy returned and showed Ari and Keshia into the guest quarters. Keshia ran ahead and flopped herself down on one of the four-poster cots. She lay on her back, her head on the pillow, put her hands behind her head, and released a satisfied sigh.
“Ahh, this is the life, Ari.”
Warily, Ari cast her eyes around the room. At the window, she drew the velvet curtain back and looked out at a remote corner of the tiled courtyard and the wall that separated the fortified house from the street beyond. She slipped the curtain back.
“Ya think we can trust this Nero?”
Keshia twitched her nose. She folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t know, but I sure can imagine a lot of riches. Maybe we could buy a house like this and we wouldn’t have to live out there on the streets.”
Ari walked across the room to the other cot. She ran her fingers along the plush, red blanket. “The street ain’t so bad, kid.”
“Come on, you hate the streets as much as me.”
Ari turned to Keshia. “It don’t mean I’m ready to go back to that mine. Ya don’t know what ya signin’ up for.”
Keshia grinned. “Your trouble, Ari, is that you never look forward. You live in the moment; you don’t plan for the future.”
Ari sat on the edge of the cot. “Yeah, well ain’t no point dreamin’ of a future that don’t exist here, not in this world.”
“Well, that’s where you’ve got it wrong, Ari. The future’s all around us, you just have to reach out and take it. So we go to the mine, we rescue your friend, and we’re rich. And, you’ve been there before, you know the deal.”
Ari shook her head. “Kid, ya ain’t even asking the right questions.”
“What’s to ask, Ari? You’re about the best investment I’ve found on these streets. It’s all about following those little half-moon coins.”
