by Andrew Post
Clyde promptly took a step back.
The creature rolled his eyes. “Come here. I’m not going to hurt you, Pasty.”
Clyde was sure to stand between the intruder and his beloved master. It took a moment before he realized the defensive gesture was sadly pointless. What more could be done to his master now? He allowed the horned, furry creature to step closer.
“How long has it been?” Clyde said.
“Since I did a jig? You got to be more specific.”
He gestured over his shoulder to the corpse of his friend.
The creature nodded. “I can’t really give you an exact time for him, but . . . a lot of the badness started just about six months ago.”
Clyde gaped. “Six months . . .”
Setting a heavy hand on Clyde’s shoulder, the creature continued, “I don’t think you should stay here. The Patrol can do only so much, and to be honest with you, you don’t exactly look like the type that’d fare well in their refugee program. But then again, I’d rather be relocated than be around when the Odium returns, as they surely will.”
“The Odium?”
“Meech. You really are a clueless one, aren’t you? It’s a bloody surprise you’ve managed to eke out an existence this long. Speaking of which, what do you have to eat here? You may be thin, but you must’ve sustained yourself on something, yes?”
“There may be something in the kitchen. I don’t know.” Clyde waved a hand in the general direction of the kitchen. He was still fixated on how good his patience truly had been. Six. Entire. Months.
“You mean to tell me you don’t know? You may be pale, but you are still a man, yes? Men eat. I know they do. Sure, they may decide to eat the strangest things—and in the smallest portions—but I’ve seen them do it. You eat, right?”
He snapped out of it. “I don’t, actually.”
The creature blinked. “Ever?”
“No.”
It looked for a few moments at Clyde, biting its lip. It concluded, voice going dreamy, “Well, isn’t that strange.” Then it shrugged. “Ah, well, never mind that, then. Come along. You can tell me all about how you don’t eat while I do.”
Chapter 4
Flam and Cake
In the kitchen, lit by only the cerulean glow of his light stick, the brute went from cupboard to cupboard, taking items out that he found of interest and setting them on the tiled kitchen island before going to collect more. A loaf of bread half swallowed by powdery white mold, a couple of prepackaged brine bars leaking out of their plastic, an entire pint of briar flower juice that looked like it’d settled and soured, and a frozen mushroom the size of an automobile wheel that Miss Selby served like pie to Clyde’s master topped with melted sweet cheese. Clyde wanted to protest that the creature was going to eat them out of house and home but said nothing, remembering for the umpteenth time that his master wouldn’t require any more meals ever again.
Once the creature had assembled a considerable banquet for itself, it moved a stool out and sat carefully, testing to ensure it could support its weight. Once assured, it smiled and began to eat, for lack of a better term. More like massacre, Clyde thought, recalling one of his vocabulary words.
“Good briar flower juice. Can’t get this for less than fifty spots in most places.”
“Do you know who may be responsible?” Clyde asked, standing nearby.
“For what? Your master out there on the garden or . . . all of it? Probably one and the same. That is, unless your master was killed during the city’s razing by an old grudge holder or something, some sour bloke that just used the Odium invasion as a way to cover up his deed. A lot of that happened, apparently. A time for disgruntled folks to get things off their chests and let the Patrol believe it was all the Odium’s doing.” He bit the moldy bread loaf in two and continued with a full mouth, “Not speaking from experience or anything. I’m the peaceful sort.”
“Odd, seeing as how you walk about armed to the teeth with that thing.” Clyde eyed the blunderbuss, nearly as tall as he was, resting against the kitchen wall.
“My two cents: I wouldn’t bet a single spot on the culprit being anyone but a member of the Odium. Wicked bunch, them.”
“Do you have an affiliation with this . . . Odium?” He already didn’t like saying the name aloud.
“Me?” The creature brayed, spraying crumbs. “Meech, no! I avoid the Odium to the best of my ability. They don’t care for us Mouflons all that much. Consider us a crass, stubborn bunch—and they’re probably partly right!” The creature ate a brine bar, wrapper and all, and chased it with a swallow of juice. It gave Clyde a measured look. “I think they’d care for you even less. Couldn’t imagine you’d even be able to lift one of their breastplates above your head, let alone wear all that gear they tote about. Did you get a look at them, though? Do you even know who to look for?”
“I saw their shadows and that is all, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t think a sketch artist will be able to fetch you much of a picture based on shadows. Everyone looks the same, unless they got horns like mine.” He swallowed, and his face went grave. “Did they have horns?”
“Not that I can recall. They looked like men, regular men.”
“Well, that’s unfortunate. Humans outnumber any other race on Gleese ten to one.” It carefully pinched some crumbs off Clyde’s lapel and vacuumed them from its fingertips in one quick slurp. “I very much doubt it was a Mouflon, because Mouflons know better than to kill a human. We can barely stay out of jail as it is, what with human laws favoring humans, naturally. But if it was a Mouflon, at least you would have something to go on. But since it was humans who killed that poor old sod out there, that lowers your odds a bit.”
“Regardless, I want to find who did it.”
“Good for you. Should probably know what city you’re in first, go and speak to a frigate pilot, see if you can hire one crazy enough to chase after the Odium, which, to be perfectly honest with you, will probably be a bit of a challenge. That is, if it was them. Most frigate pilots would rather go the other way, like everyone else with any sense in their heads.”
“What about you? Will you assist me?”
The creature’s considerable jaw paused midgrind. It swallowed and set the loaf of bread aside. “You’d never catch me dead, alive, or anywhere in between looking for the Odium, Pasty. I’m merely a magpie that follows in their wake, picking up what they leave behind. Call it dishonorable, call it being a profiteer of tragedy, but there’s a life in it if you’re smart.” It finished the bread off and chased the mouthful with the last slug of the juice.
“You’re not going to help—?”
It stood, a crumb avalanche cascading off its lap. “Well, I wish you the best, young man. I do pray to Meech high above that you find what you’re looking for. Thanks for the nibble. If I’m back in Geyser anytime in the near future, the next one’s on me. Seems like a lot of this was, too.” It brushed itself off.
“You’re just going to leave?” Clyde moved in closer.
“Yep. Even though you got nothing I can fence, at least I got a meal out of it, some temporary company.” It mussed Clyde’s hair. “A sheltered bloke such as you should probably get yourself to the Patrol, just hand yourself over to them. Shantytown living may not have much pride in it, no, but at least you’ll be safe.”
Clyde had to think fast. He turned toward the cupboard in which Miss Selby often stored pastries. It was his only hope. He darted to the cupboard doors and, wrenching them open, found a lidded cake stand with a frosted double chocolate cake. It was frosted again with mold, but the creature hadn’t been deterred before by such a thing. Clyde turned with it and presented it to the creature, held high like a prize. The lid chimed like a bell when Clyde removed it, giving the cold, dark house a millisecond of singsong levity.
And apparently it elicited something in the creature as well.
It stepped forward eagerly, wide eyes matching its hungry smile, but then stopped as if this were the hardest
thing in the world to do. Its expression shifted wildly to downright fury as it said, “That look—I’ve seen it before. You want something, I can tell. Men are easy to read as a Meech-damned book, even when they have a face as weird as yours.”
“I’ll give you the cake, but you have to agree to help me.”
The creature frowned. It kept looking at the cake, talking to it more than to Clyde. “Look, I’ll brief you on Geyser, point you in the right direction, but going after the Odium—I apologize—is not going to happen. I’d sooner wrap myself in jerky and cast myself into the biter-infested waters of Lake Candlewood.”
Clyde mulled this over for a moment. “Fine.” Any knowledge was good, even if it was just pointers on what areas to avoid. He set the cake stand on the kitchen island in front of the creature.
It sat down—again, carefully—and tore off a wad of cake with its bare hand. “First off, I’ll ask you a question,” it said after one fistful had disappeared.
“All right.”
“Okay, so I know you know that we’re in your master’s place—we established that—but do you know where you are in the world? Because that would be somewhat vital information to start off with.”
“You mentioned we’re in Geyser.”
“Right. We’re in Geyser. One of the last places that has seen fresh water in quite some time. Of course, those times have passed, and, well, water seekers have all gone north and south and they’ve pretty much figured out how to make water with machines, too. But . . . I’m getting ahead of myself. So you know this is a unique city, right? Unlike any other, on account of its foundation, right?”
Clyde shook his head. His frame of reference ended at the edge of the back garden. He’d seen the street out front of the house. He’d seen the autos puttering up and down it through the dense grove of trees crowding the front lawn, but only from the second-story window. Other masters’ homes before this one had offered even less than that.
He watched the creature as it looked around the kitchen, searching for something. When it returned its focus to the cake, it brightened. “Here! Geyser is a lot like this.”
“Chocolate cake?”
“No, the thing beneath it, twit. See, it’s like this.” He tore the remainder of the cake away until only a peak remained in the middle. “You see, that bit I left there is like the geyser itself. The platter is where the sediment has settled and has become hard enough to hold structures upon. Close to three million folks once lived here, mostly humans but occasionally some like myself and a few Cyno.”
Clyde interrupted, “I’m sorry, but what’s a . . . Sy-noh?”
“Cyno. Cynoscion. Water folk,” it explained. “Like me and you, they walk on two legs, except they live underwater. Pincers and eye stalks and shells as hard as their personalities but good with an abacus. Generally jerks of the highest order, most of them, thinking themselves better—again, like humans—but they’re good for Geyser. Well, they were good for Geyser. You see, while the water was still flowing, the platter would expand every few years because of the sediment—just a centimeter at most per moon cycle. And it was up to the Cynoscion to shape the sediment, using real precise arithmetic, which they are quite good at, unlike me, to make sure it was expanding evenly.”
“Why would it need to expand evenly?”
“Because, again, much like this cake stand, Geyser is suspended in the air. The platter is only halfway down the geyser peak, and there’s about a mile from the edge down to the floor of the island below.” The creature trailed a crumb-clotted fingernail over the edge and tapped the countertop for emphasis. “Don’t want something that high up, with a bunch of folks living on it, to lean. Get me?”
“And the city is perfectly circular like this?” Clyde gestured at the cake stand.
“Sure is. The mathematical wizardry of the Cynoscion—proof positive.”
“But you said the water stopped flowing. Is that why everyone left?”
“Can’t be a town without any water. Water tapered off, the flow slowed, and that’s when the folks turned tail for more fertile places. Of course, a few decided to try and stick it out, but with less citizenry came less security, and with less security the Odium could get in easier—and that was just what they did. You could call Geyser sacked, if you want to put it bluntly. But I wouldn’t go around saying it like that; people are sensitive. They refer to Geyser as a site of great loss, but a kingdom that got pummeled by a band of hooligans is good, old-fashioned sacked if you ask yours truly.”
“And who is mine truly? Who are you?” Clyde saw a deep knowledge, if only of the street-smart caliber, within the creature sitting across from him. He looked the armored creature up and down, in the azure aurora of the light stick, focusing on the scarring across his snout—shiny flesh, betraying a history of scuffles. He had been places, clearly, and had been forcibly expelled from a few of them, too, by the look of it.
“Flam.” The creature extended a cakey paw. “Didn’t realize I didn’t give it. Mother’d tan my hide—forgetting my manners like that.”
Clyde surveyed Flam’s palm. Flam looked at the mess as well, lowered it, and then offered his cleaner hand. They shook, Clyde’s tiny white hand lost in the brute’s.
“You mentioned a kingdom. Was there a king of Geyser? Is he still here?”
“Not a king. Not anymore. Got a prime minister, though.” Flam looked down, shook his horned head. “Hasn’t been a king in Geyser for quite some time. Kind of a scandal, to tell you the truth. Pitka Gorett—that’s the prime minister—was quite the right-hand man to the king. Pyne—that’d be the king—got sick and, wouldn’t you know it, none of the princes could be tracked down in time. The tradition goes that when the king passes away, whoever is there inherits his soul as well as his title. Naturally, Gorett was there. Some say he deliberately got the king’s kids stuck en route to Geyser and was able to ‘catch’ the king’s soul. Bunch of guano, if you ask me, the whole bit about souls and spirits and passing them on to the next in line for the throne. But there it is, the long and short of it. Gorett got it. Immediately began demanding everyone refer to him as sire and lord and King Gorett, but no one did, except those directly beneath him. Probably part of the reason the Odium came here, but that’s just my thought on it all.”
“Was the king the king of all the lands—or just Geyser?”
“Geyser is like the capital of this continent. It’s based on an island, but it’s the only thing of value save for the woods at the base of Geyser’s stem. But on my way in, those woods didn’t look nearly as good as they used to.”
“So what’s the rest of the island called?”
“Geyser.”
“No, not the city. The island.”
“Yeah. Geyser. It’s all called Geyser. City as well as the island.”
“That’s confusing.”
“I know, but really . . . Here, let me explain it this way: No one comes to the island to see just the island, since everything but the city is rock, a few mines and quarries, and the occasional mud-choked river. If you come to the island of Geyser, you’re really coming to the city of Geyser, the geyser itself. So you say one thing, and everyone knows. Kind of a nuisance, I imagine, especially for someone new to all this, like yourself. Speaking of which, how is it that you don’t know any of this? You’ve obviously been living here for a while; you knew right where the cake was hidden.”
“I was brought here blindfolded, in chains.”
Flam’s spiky forehead crinkled. “Excuse me?”
“My previous masters were the distrustful sort. I guess they were afraid that if I saw too much or moved about freely, my gift would be spoiled.”
“Whoa, wait a minute.” Flam eased back on the stool slightly. “Gift. You a Fractioner? A Bulbist?”
Clyde stared. Those were terms he’d never heard or read in any book. He repeated them, trying them on for size. “Bulbist? Fractioner? What’re those?”
“You know, a Bulbist. Makes the plants grow. T
hey’re weavers they put in gardens like gargoyles. Some kind of light fabrick. Fractioners take things apart, put them together again . . . You know something about that, I’m sure, if nothing else; I saw you got a TV in the other room.”
“Wait. What’s that?”
“TV? Television? Plastic box that talks and tells humans to buy things?”
“I’m well aware what TV is. I meant that other word you said. Fabrick.” He had heard the word before, or a similar one, having run across it in one of Miss Selby’s sewing books, but the way Flam said it now, it had a harder K sound at the end and an air of mystery slathered across it, whereas whenever the word fabric was used in The Royal Stitcher’s Guide to Patches and Other Small Garment Fixes, it seemed rather dull. Cotton. Polyblend. Etcetera. Perplexed, Clyde asked, “What is fabrick?”
Flam relaxed a little and chuckled. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, I mean, with me . . . I can put minds at ease.” Clyde recited the bits and pieces he’d overheard throughout his life about himself. “Someone can tell me something and their conscience is cleared. Whatever they cannot forgive themselves of, they tell it to me and the baggage of whatever thing they did is erased from their minds. They can’t ever completely forget they did the thing they did, no, but they feel better about it, at any rate.”
“Meech. Sure sounds like fabrick to me.”
“There’s that word again.”
“Before you even ask, don’t. Because that, my friend, is an even harder nut to crack. Not even a cake stand will do for a visual aid on that one, I’m afraid.” He reached into his belt, where a series of satchels and pouches hung. He withdrew a long metal tube along with a leather pinch pouch that reminded Clyde of Miss Selby’s coin purse. Flam carefully picked out what appeared to be black knots of mold clusters. He pushed one into the end of the pipe and paused.
“Just having a smoke, Pasty. I’m not a fabrick weaver.” Flam apparently could feel Clyde’s unflinching gaze. “I am most definitely unwoven, as the saying goes. Happily, I might add. You want to see that in action, you best ask an individual who isn’t a Mouflon. None of us do any of that business. Wouldn’t even if given a choice, speaking for the whole of my people quite confidently.”
