by Robert Reed
Then Seldom threw the stiff leg over the seat, remembering to say, “We have to hurry.”
Diamond walked beside his friend, astonished to see him stand on the pedals, maintaining his fragile balance.
“Master Nissim’s waiting,” Seldom said.
Diamond started to jog. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Stay up.”
The boy considered. “I don’t know. I learned how, and I do it.”
Hanner was straight ahead. The largest, most cherished tree in the District, its oldest surviving limb was beneath the broad golden walkway. Wooden buildings and long platforms were clustered along the way—a confusing mishmash of homes and businesses and gardens grown for food and for color. Epiphytes dangled from special pots, and the air was perfumed, and people were walking everywhere, and some of them were talking, one man shaking his hand at empty air, telling nothing, “I’m sorry I brought you.”
Seldom pedaled and then coasted. When they were past the shouting man, he rolled his eyes, saying, “That one’s crazy.”
“What does that mean?”
“He can’t trust his own thoughts.”
Diamond looked back at the shouter. “What about those other men?” he asked.
“From the blimp?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know where they are,” the boy said, pedaling again.
Every nearby face was new to Diamond.
“When they realized you were gone, two of them left the ship,” Seldom said. “The other man, the scariest one . . . he walked down the gangway behind us. That wasn’t long ago. Master Nissim told us to run ahead and hunt for you. He’s going to find us later.”
“Where’s Elata?”
“Up ahead.” Squeezing a clamp, Seldom made the back wheel squeak and slow down. “She doesn’t know how to ride a two-wheeler. That’s why I’m the one who borrowed it.”
Diamond didn’t react.
“I borrowed this machine,” he repeated. “I don’t steal.”
“What does ‘steal’ mean?”
“Taking what isn’t yours,” Seldom said. “It’s always wrong, unless of course you don’t have any choice.”
Twin white pillars stood on flanking sides of the walkway. They were still in the distance, tall and narrow objects curling toward each other up high and ending in points. Grand red flags were stuck on top, flapping in unison as breezes blew.
“Diamond,” said Seldom, his voice quiet and nervous. Glancing at the boy trotting beside him, he asked, “What else can you do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Besides healing fast . . . what other magic do you know . . . ?”
“What’s magic?”
Seldom was breathing quickly, deeply. “Master Nissim says you have powers. Rare powers, and it’s not just that you heal when you get hurt. There’s going to be other things you can do. You’re special, he told us.”
“No,” Diamond said.
Seldom didn’t hear him, or he didn’t listen. “That’s why those men want you. The Master doesn’t know how they know, but they learned about you and they’re desperate to catch you. You’re that important.”
Diamond glanced over his shoulder again.
“What other enchantments can you do?”
“None.”
“You run fast,” Seldom pointed out. “I’ve never seen any kid run this fast or for as long.”
“I can’t climb,” Diamond pointed out. “Not ropes and barely ladders.”
“I guess not. But you’re stronger than you look.”
“Adults are stronger than me.”
The boy thought for a moment. “Maybe today. But what happens when you grow up? You’ll do all sorts of magic, maybe.”
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe you’ll be a giant,” Seldom suggested. “Powerful and bulletproof, and everybody will be afraid of you.”
“I hope not.”
“Or.” Seldom hesitated, and then a brilliant smile filled his face. “Maybe you’ll grow wings.”
Diamond said nothing.
“Your parents must be remarkable people,” Seldom said. “If they have a son like you, I mean.”
“They are remarkable.”
“I want to meet them,” Seldom said.
Diamond smiled. “I see Elata.”
“You do? Where?”
“She’s on the right tower, watching for us.”
Seldom didn’t see her immediately. “You’ve got good eyes too.”
“But I won’t be a giant.” The words were important. He slowed to a trot, and with a louder voice said, “And I won’t grow wings either.”
“Are you sure?” his friend called back to him.
“Yes.”
“Too bad,” Seldom said. “Wings would be a lot of fun.”
Elata jumped down from the pillar and ran to meet them. She was thrilled to see both boys, but Diamond got the hug.
“Where’s the Master?” Seldom asked.
“He’s trying to lose that man.” She said the words and then thought that was a funny way to talk, as if the dangerous fellow was a possession to be put into a box and forgotten. Hugging herself, she watched the people streaming past. People were watching them, watching Diamond. Keeping her voice low, she told Seldom, “We’ll look for him now. Leave the bicycle here.”
“We should take it back where we found it,” he said.
He was such a nervous boy, nothing at all like his brother. “The owner finds it or doesn’t,” she insisted. “Either way, we’d waste time, and Master Nissim would have to wait for us.”
Seldom left the machine propped against the railing. “It looks lonely,” he said.
“I guess it does,” she said.
They trotted ahead. Past the pillars, the walkway spread out into an enormous open plaza, silvery-white and famous across the world. Half a thousand citizens were moving in every possible direction, all of them busy. The tree trunk was covered with government buildings, elaborate wooden constructions soaring up and up, windows and staircases and ladders beyond number, every office marked by a banner hanging in the noisy air. The biggest banner was the highest, and it read, “Archon.”
Diamond paused beside one white pillar, his hand playing across its surface.
“Come on,” Elata said.
But he was fascinated, focused. The pillar was built from hundreds of teeth, each tooth long and slightly curved, each set snug against its neighbors. The razor edges were buried inside. Gaps in the mortar and a few stolen teeth afforded handholds for a determined girl, and that’s how she had managed to climb to the top. Slick and very cold, the teeth felt as if they were alive. That’s what she thought whenever she touched one. And nothing else in the world was as purely, perfectly white as what was slipping beneath her friend’s quick little fingers.
“Where do these come from?” Diamond asked.
“The corona,” she said.
He looked at her, touching his mouth, his teeth.
“I don’t know who put them together,” she said. “But these markers are older than any tree, and they always stand guard in front of the Corona District’s headquarters.”
Diamond stepped back and looked up, mouthing the letters on the flapping flag.
“The District of Corona Welcomes All,” she read aloud.
Again, Diamond looked at her.
“The district is named for the animals,” Elata told him.
“Why?”
“Because there’s no better hunting in the world than here,” she said.
She could have predicted it. “Why?” he asked again.
“I don’t know why,” she said. Then a nice thought jumped into her head, and she said it. “Ask your father when we find him.”
Seldom was listening. He had his own big smile, and he said, “Look where I’m standing. These came off the coronas too.”
Diamond stepped out on the plaza and knelt down, hands pressed against silvery-white surface. T
housands of scales covered the thick planks of wood. Each one was as big as a man’s shirt, and they overlapped like they would have in life, fixed in place with special glues and pins.
“These weigh almost nothing,” Seldom said, always happy to sound smart. “If you held one of them, it would feel like paper, except it’s very strong, very tough. We use the scales to build machinery and armor and other important, expensive stuff.”
Elata was watching for Nissim. She didn’t want to admit it, not even to herself, but she was scared. Where did the Master go? When would they see him again? And what if they couldn’t find him and he couldn’t find them before the wrong men appeared again?
“Corona bones are stronger than ours,” Seldom said. “We use their teeth to carve their skeletons into fancy shapes, and pieces of their bones end up inside whatever needs to be as tough as possible.”
“Enough,” Elata interrupted.
“I was just explaining,” he said.
She hit him with her stare.
Seldom felt a little ashamed, if not certain why. Then he stood and started to watch faces, and right away he smiled and pointed. “Over there. Isn’t that Master Nissim?”
Cowardice wore many faces, and none of those faces were shy.
The urge to flee kept shouting at Master Nissim, again and again and again. It warned him that nothing here was what it seemed to be, and he was nothing but a clumsy, foolish imbecile, lacking any good clues about what was true. The day wasn’t halfway done, and it was already jammed full of impossibilities. Aiding a strange young boy seemed good and noble, but that illusion had vanished. Who was he helping? Nobody, obviously. The temptation was to leave now, take his next breath with him and walk away. He could be standing beside the familiar butcher’s block before the day was finished. That’s what the cowardice promised him. Nissim had a comfortable room where he slept well enough and waking habits that weren’t unpleasant. Maybe his life was a touch dreary, even lowly, but that life didn’t injure anybody. Nobody thought about him in any important, dangerous way. Yet that peace was finished, at least for the time being, and he ached in his guts and his heart beat like growler drum, and his remaining thoughts were consumed by one furious moment that shouldn’t have happened.
There. That was the heart of the trouble.
Again and again, Nissim imagined a bloody leg on the block and the favorite cleaver in his hand, aimed and falling.
A man screamed in his mind, and then the man screamed once more, louder.
Nissim had to get out of this mess. He decided to hunt for the first person in authority, he didn’t care who, and he would confess about the lost boy, explaining just enough while confessing to nothing. Then he would board the next blimp for home. That was the right plan—the only sane plan—and so sure was he that he took his first deep breath in what seemed like too long, enjoying the illusion of being certain about things that would never make sense.
But fear had endless faces, and a compelling new visage emerged.
Run away, even for the best reasons, and the guilt would easily chase him down. The butcher was sure about that much. And if anything ugly happened to one of those children, remorse would define every awful day until death finally claimed him.
The man was near shock, but despite his worst nature, he saw exactly what was at stake.
“Go find those kids,” Nissim whispered to himself.
Then he told every fear but one, “Leave me alone.”
Ugly shame was what pushed him up the stairs, up onto the busy broad plaza.
Diamond rose and saw the Master.
“What’s wrong with him?” he asked.
The man was moving slowly, painfully. Once in the open, Nissim paused, eyes sweeping the plaza until he saw three children watching him. He tried to smile but managed only a painful grimace, and he took one enormous breath before walking again.
Elata ran toward him.
The boys followed, and then Elata stopped and they fell in beside her. The Master was pale and sad, but he managed to smile. The voice wasn’t the same, too soft and too gray. But the words sounded optimistic, saying, “This worked out well enough. Everyone is all right, I see.”
“Are you hurt?” Elata asked.
He didn’t answer.
She stopped in front of him. “What happened to that man?”
Nissim sucked on his teeth, narrowing his eyes for a thoughtful moment. Then he said, “No. No, I’m not hurt.”
She didn’t believe him.
“What about the man?” asked Seldom. “Is he following us?”
“No.” Nissim started toward the government buildings, telling no one in particular, “He won’t be our problem anymore.”
That sounded like good news, except Elata wasn’t happy. She was still full of scared thoughts, and now she felt sick to her stomach, and her throat hurt.
Seldom looked sick too.
“Is that man dead now?” he asked.
Nissim took one step and another before he stopped and looked back at them. Then with a careful firm voice, he said, “Nobody has killed anybody. And nobody wants anybody dead.”
Diamond stopped under the big doorway, trying to read the banner.
“That word is ‘Slayer,’ ” Seldom explained. “And the word below is ‘Agency.’”
“Boys, hurry,” Nissim said.
Heavy curtains had been pulled away, revealing a bright room built for giants. One giant stood in the middle of the space, dressed in the slayer’s uniform, heavy goggles dangling around his neck. One carved hand held a long rifle, some kind of spear fitted inside the rifle barrel, and the spear’s tip was triangular and sharp to the eye, even though it was cut from blackwood. Diamond gazed at the wide strong face of the statue, and Seldom asked, “Is that your father?”
He shook his head.
Nissim stopped walking, reaching under his shirt to adjust the butcher’s knife. Then he knelt and looked at Diamond’s face. “Before we go on, I want to ask you again. Do you know who would want to grab you up?”
“Did those men really want him?” Seldom asked.
Nissim’s eyes didn’t leave Diamond. “They were following orders, I think. Somebody else is in charge.”
Diamond looked down. “There was a man.”
“A man.”
“When I was coming here, he was sitting on a bench.”
“Tell me.”
Diamond rubbed his eyes. “He knew my name. He said he was waiting for me.”
“You’re certain?”
“He said my father was his friend. He said that Merit was waiting for me at the Ivory Station.”
“And I suppose this gentleman wanted to take you to your father.”
“But I didn’t believe him.”
Nissim nodded. “Those two who left the blimp at Rail . . . I bet they called their employer with the sorry news that they’d lost track of you. Other people were dispatched, and one of them happened to spot you.”
“List,” said Diamond.
“What?” asked Nissim.
“That was his name.”
“A lot of people are named List,” said Seldom.
“And there was a woman who walked by,” Diamond said. “She knew the man, but she called him ‘Archon.’ ”
The Master took a moment, the dry tongue licking dry lips.
Elata said, “Shit.”
Nissim waved a finger, begging her to stay quiet. Then he got low and said, “Every District has its leader, Diamond. There is a boss, an elected civilian authority. Each one of them is known as the Archon.”
“Ours is a woman,” Elata said.
“She’s nice,” Seldom said, with great confidence.
“But what we’re talking about here . . . this is very, very unlikely.” And with that the Master leaned close, asking, “What did this man look like?”
With words, the boy drew what he saw perfectly—the thin face and its cold odd smile.
“Was his voice low and deep?”
/> “No.” Diamond shook his head. “It was high, like a bird’s voice.”
Nissim said nothing, and for a little while he did nothing.
“What’s wrong?” asked Elata.
“What Archon looks like that?” Seldom asked.
“How would I know?” she said.
The Master didn’t answer. But he had to take some serious breaths, one after another. Then he stood tall again and wiped his mouth and stared at his feet, shaking his head slowly as he told the floor, “Let’s not talk about Archons again. And we have to find your father. As soon as we can.”
A woman sat behind a high table. She was smiling and laughing with the other people in the office, and then civilians came through the door and she turned into a different woman. She wasn’t old and she wasn’t young. A hard stare greeted the newcomers, and she glanced at the children before noticing the man walking with them. One boy earned a long gaze. She spoke to the tall man while eyeing Diamond, asking, “How can we help, sir?”
“We’re looking for this boy’s father,” Nissim began.
“Which boy?” she asked.
Nissim put his hands on Diamond’s shoulders. “The man works for your agency. From what I’ve heard, he’s one of your best.”
“I know everybody on our staff,” she boasted.
“Merit,” he said.
The name startled. Everyone in the room turned, people whispering while the woman behind the desk continued her examination of the unusual-looking boy.
“Do you know Merit?” Nissim asked.
“Oh, I do.” The woman blinked and sighed, collecting her wits. “I’m just a little surprised. We’ve heard about his son . . . but . . . but . . . ”
Diamond fidgeted.
She walked around her desk, wanting to touch him. But after lifting her hands, she stopped herself. “You’re too sick to travel,” she said.
“Is his father here?” Nissim pressed.
“No.”
“We were told he killed a corona.”
“I can’t believe anybody knows that. Rain soaked our wires. We’ve been out of communication with the far stations since last night.” But that didn’t seem like enough of an answer, so she admitted, “Merit’s late coming home, and that usually means success.”
A couple co-workers gave preliminary cheers.
The woman couldn’t resist any longer. She touched Diamond’s warm forehead and ran the back of her other hand across his cheek and down his neck, admitting quietly, “You’re not what I expected.”
