Family, thought Boris, how wonderful it had been to have one. Around his house he still kept Remmie’s possessions. In the bedroom, a cupboard filled with her dresses. Not long ago, he had taken them out, laid them on the bed. Some had been moth-eaten and he had cried out at the sight of the ruinous little holes. Not knowing what to do, he eventually hung them back in the cupboard.
“Sit down while you’re insulting me.” Boris gestured to the chairs that circled the table.
The three of them sat, their dusty clothes and grimy faces out of place in the little house, which though simple, was no worker’s cottage. There were three bedrooms, and the lower floor opened out into a small courtyard dominated by an empty pool. In the courtyard’s center stood a statue of Alerion, gazing imperiously out toward the sea, though a high wall, topped with hundreds of blades, blocked the ground-floor view. Boris had installed these defenses when his family moved in: in those days the House Wars were raging, and subofficiates could expect death to come at any time.
“It’s been what, fifteen years?” said Boris.
“Since you threw me out?”
Boris smiled, but there was a touch of sadness in the downturned corners of his mouth. “You showed no understanding.”
“I was young.” Mathias brooded at the tabletop, looking up only irregularly.
“No. It’s part of your nature. We were friends, but as soon as Remmie was ill, you simply disappeared—and Saidra just a little child. What did I know of raising children?”
Mathias passed his hand over the wooden table, feeling the grain as if he would find answers there. He stared at it, lips pursed and silent. Finally he said: “What is she doing now, Saidra?”
“She dances and sings at the Opera.” Boris’s face came alive. “You should see her, Mathias, you should see the way she moves on the stage!” He pictured his daughter on the stage. Often he watched her from the crowd, looking only at her movements, fancying he could distinguish her voice among the chorus. How proud he was of her.
Mathias smiled. “I remember the way she danced as a child.”
Boris grasped the bottle on the table and took a swig before passing it to Mathias. “Perhaps you could come one day with me to the Opera, to see her. She never comes here.”
After Remmie died, Boris had looked after Sairdra as best he could. As a child, she had been so delightful: twirling and dancing in their little apartment for him, twisting and smiling with the great openness and clear eyes of a child. He had washed her clothes, put the food on the table. He had even tried to help her with her love of music. But Boris had no talent for it: Saidra had inherited that from Remmie. Still, he ensured she had an excellent teacher, a retired castrato who taught her with a little baton in each hand, one for counting out the beat, and one for striking her on the knuckles when she made a mistake. Boris had left the factory and become a subofficiate to help pay for Remmie’s treatments. After she died, he had remained in the position for love of Saidra. He would make sure that his child had the best life she could.
“This is Rikard.” Corette spoke in her gruff voice, gesturing to the young dark-haired man. “Our son. We were trying to interest him in the Festival of the Sun, but he finds it a meaningless tradition, and the minotaurs just men with the head of bulls.”
Rikard looked at Boris through narrow eyes that glimmered. There was something distant and brooding about the boy.
Boris spoke to Mathias as he examined Rikard: “He looks like you, when you were young. He has the same hard, fiery eyes. Almost old enough to start in the factory.”
“By the gods no,” said Mathias, turning to his son. “Study: that’s what he needs to do. You’re too bright for the factories, aren’t you?”
Rikard looked back and raised his eyebrows ever so slightly, at which his parents both burst out laughing. The tension that had hovered over the conversation dissipated. “Have a drink.” Boris passed the hot-wine to Mathias, who put the bottle to his mouth and sputtered, his eyes watering. “What is this stuff? It burns!”
“Hot-wine,” said Boris laughing. “The best.”
Mathias took another draft and shuddered involuntarily. “Water! Water!” Already there were beads of sweat on his face. He rushed to the kitchen and put his mouth beneath the water-pump, his arm moving the lever furiously.
“The water will just spread the heat around,” said Boris.
Rikard turned the bottle over and examined its intricate Anlusian stamp, an image of a little machine.
Corrette swatted his hands and glowered at him. “Rikard!”
“Be careful,” Boris said to Mathias. “Your strength will have increased. You may break things.
Returning to the table, Mathias picked up the bolt-thrower, holding it in one hand.
Boris tensed as Mathias slowly pointed the thing at him, looking down the barrel with one eye closed. “Have you come to kill me?”
“Of course not.” Mathias put down the bolt-thrower. “It has no bow.”
“No. It’s one of the new models. It works somehow by pressurized air and springs. But it’s deadly nonetheless.”
“Remember how we used to hunt spear-birds in the hills? And the sun would beat down on that rocky landscape and the nights would suddenly become cold?”
“We could search for two, three days, without seeing a bird,” said Boris. He remembered how unexpectedly, as they climbed close to the great wide sky itself, he and Mathias would disturb a nest and the female spear-birds would come circling down in their death pattern. They would have to crouch back-to-back and hold off from shooting the bolt-throwers until the spiral had become close enough for them to feel the wind from their leathery wings.
“We would bring them down so they writhed on the ground like great flapping tents,” said Mathias.
“We were young then, weren’t we?” Boris turned his head: something dark had shifted in the room’s corner. But when he turned, it was gone.
Mathias leaned forward. “How can you forget, Boris? How can you pretend not to see how things are for us in the factory? Yes, you never suffered like the others from the thaumaturgy. You left too soon. You never had visions or felt sick as the binding charms settled. But let me tell you—for me things are not so good. At times I feel a great chasm open up close to me, and I see into other universes. Strange fish-things swim there in the air, and there are voices that don’t go away.”
Something stirred in Boris he would have preferred to remain untouched, something he thought he had disposed of long ago. To find it awakening inside him was like seeing something dead burst from the earth and shake away all the dirt and rotten leaves from its fur, to cough out dirt from its blackened teeth, to look up with wild and desperate eyes.
“You’ll help us, won’t you?” said Mathias. “You won’t turn your back on us, will you?”
Boris gulped at the wine until there was but a little left in the bottle. He looked away, out into the blackness. Down there, somewhere, lay the sea, deep and cold, and beneath that the Sunken City. He spoke flatly: “When Remmie was dying she would cough all sorts of things from her lungs. Little creatures they were, wriggling, all surrounded by phlegm and mucus. When she finally died, these things came out of her nose and her mouth and even from behind her eyes.”
“You are a good man,” said Corette. “I know that you are.”
Boris continued to look out into the distance, his heart pounding violently from the wine.
“There’s talk of a strike,” said Mathias.
“It’ll be a provocation,” said Boris. “You know Technis: Everything must run smoothly, efficiently. There must be no disruption to the schedules. The Directorate of Varenis has ordered fifteen for their Minasi district. Technis can’t lose face before the Directorate. I’m thinking of what’s best for you. I’m thinking of what’s best for all of us. The House will not tolerate—”
“It’s a question of what we tolerate.” Mathias’s voice struggled out, his face slightly flushed.
B
oris nodded slowly. “Hold off on the strike and let me come to the factory. I’ll compile a report and we can see if we can improve things for the tramworkers. I’ll do my best, I promise.”
“I knew you were a good man,” said Corette. “But, Boris, you look unwell.”
“It’s the damned hot-wine,” said Boris. “It drains you like a leech. Anyway, don’t mother me, Corette.”
“I’m not concerned. Not for a representative of House Technis.”
“Always the generous one.”
She grinned. “I’ve worked the textile mills for fifteen years. I don’t need more worry.”
And so they sat and talked: Corette, coldhearted and friendly at the same time; Mathias, with his rough and short sentences. Rikard remained quiet, but Boris felt the boy’s restrained intelligence and watchfulness. It was as if Rikard was sizing up Boris’s every words, his slight gestures, and storing them away for some future task. Boris found it unnerving.
When it was time for Boris’s visitors to leave, he showed them through the door. As they stepped into the street, he pulled Mathias back and whispered quietly in his ear: “Can you see them? Can you see the shadows? They’re all around us. They’re watching us, even as we speak. I can hear them, whispering to me.”
Mathias’s eyebrows came together in puzzlment. He touched Boris on the arm. “Sleep now.”
“Come again, if you’d like,” called Boris, but his voice dissipated in the darkness and his house seemed empty. Mathias had been his first visitor in—how long?—years. As he returned to the table he felt, for the first time in as long as he could recall, he remembered what it was like to have friends. But the danger of it, the risk, was masked by the hot-wine, which kept him close to the state he had searched for over the years. It deadened his pain, just as it deadened his joy.
FOUR
In the following days, Boris returned to the factory. He watched closely as the workers finished a new tram from carefully arranged pieces of wood and steel. Boris found himself unexpectedly looking forward to the precision of the workers, the marvelous way the vehicle was constructed, the sparks that danced across the floor as the whirring machines spun against metal. Each time he looked forward to the sound of Mathias’s laugh, or his words of encouragement to the younger workers, or the way his hunched and heavy frame sprang to life in the confines of the factory.
But he noticed also the little moments where charms and incantations were needed. Sometimes the workers would emerge from these trances ashen-faced and distraught. When the steam engine was almost complete, Mathias took it on himself to perform the binding charm so that the engine could withstand the intense pressures within. As others watched on, he spoke the formulae, drawing the ideograms in the air. The engine gleamed with a sickly green light that seemed to settle on the metal like a shroud and become absorbed. Mathias staggered and his legs gave way. A burly worker caught him before his knees struck the ground, but he called out like a man suffering hallucinations. “The air. They’re in the air!” An eerie green glow had settled also on him, and his face was slick with an unnatural sheen. “Swimming, swimming.” Boris’s skin crawled at the sight and he averted his eyes. That night his dreams were haunted by enormous creatures that rolled menacingly in black waters.
Eventually, the tram was completed, gleaming and new and ready, sitting on the tracks, a golden mechanical marvel. The workers stood around and Boris felt in them, despite everything, a sense of pride in their work.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Mathias drew his hand across his forehead, a dark smudge appearing beneath.
“May as well start her up,” said Boris.
One of the workers leaped into the driver’s carriage that sat up front, while two others stoked the fire.
“It’s getting hot already and summer’s not yet upon us,” said Mathias. The doorway to the street was nothing but a sheet of brilliance.
Boris nodded, watching the workers fire up the tram. A puff of soot burst from the funnel.
The worker in the driver’s carriage leaned out the window, “She’s not movin’.”
“Why not?” asked Mathias.
The worker just shrugged and turned back to the levers in the carriage. He leaned out again. “Dunno.”
“Fire her up some more.” Mathias turned back to Boris. “So when are you taking me to this Opera of yours?”
“Tomorrow, or the next day. Whenever you’d like.”
“Still not moving,” said the driver.
“Why don’t you—?” began Mathias. The rest of his words were inaudible.
An explosion tore the air apart. The tram burst along its side, pieces of metal flying through the air followed by an immense spray of water and steam. Someone screamed, but Boris was on his knees, his hands over his face. He stood up. Mathias was already running toward the wreck of the tram, twisted like a wet shirt. Mathias turned and his mouth opened, but Boris could barely hear him. His head seemed swathed in bandages, the sounds deadened. He staggered forward as great clouds of steam rose from the factory floor.
Mathias dragged the driver’s body from the ruins of the carriage and placed him on the ground. Mathias stopped and looked at the great flaps of the driver’s skin that hung from his hands. Even more sloughed from the driver’s body like the skin of some overripe fruit.
Other workers were screaming in the corner of the factory, one staggering around, holding his face. Blood and yellow stuff dribbled between his fingers. Others stood motionless, overcome by the horror.
Finally, Boris staggered toward Mathias, who now kneeled by the body.
“S-sabotage,” Boris struggled to get the word out.
Mathias looked up at him, his worn face twisted. His voice came as if from far away. “Damn you … damn you … This is no sabotage! The binding formula was wrong, or the pressure of the steam was too great. You—you don’t train us. You use us like parts in a machine, ready to be replaced when we are worn out.”
Boris reached down and touched the blistered body tenderly. His hand came away wet with red liquid. “You are right,” he said. “I will see justice done. I will take your demands to the House. Let’s do this right, together.”
That night—the night of the Sun Parade—Boris laid his head on the top of the table, the empty bottle of hot-wine sitting in front of him like a broken promise. He yearned for another bottle, yet knew that it would lead him to his ruin. It was a full day since he had drunk his last bottle, and he could barely move. It was as if every ounce of strength had been drained, as if sand had been rubbed into his eyes, as if some rodent gnawed away at his stomach. But he would wait out this temporary suffering, which would pass, along with the desire for hot-wine.
A glorious moon hovered in the sky, lighting up the flat sea with molten-silver light. The sounds of the Sun Parade drifted in from outside: pipes rising and falling, drums banging, people laughing. He should have been out there, circling around the minotaurs with the rest of the population, following the parade to where it finally ended in the arms of the Northern Headland, where the water palaces and steam baths would be thrown open to whoever wished.
Boris slept fitfully at the table for half an hour, but his dreams were filled with great sluglike creatures, big as stream-trams, that slithered around him, their voices echoing strange chants until finally one slithered on top of him, and he thought, I’ll die. I’ll die, now, beneath the weight of these creatures—the Elo-Talern. When he woke, shadows seemed to flicker across the room. Yes, he thought, they’re here again, hulking shapes in the corner of the room. He blinked. Something hissed softly behind him. He turned, afraid. Nothing was there.
In the morning, the desire for hot-wine was like a hungry creature swimming around his insides. Everything seemed at a distance, as if painted in a shade of white. He needed more wine; he needed it now. In the back of his mind, he vaguely remembered his decision not to buy any more wine, but this seemed like the decision of another person, someone long ago and far away. In any case,
he would stop later, once he had solved the tramworkers’ problems, once things were easier, once Mathias and he had rebuilt their friendship on firm ground.
Rudé had suggested Boris meet him in Market Square. It was time, the officiate had told him, that he met the hot-wine supplier. There Boris would be able to put the tramworkers’ case to Rudé. He steeled himself, pictured himself doing it, saying, “We must teach them the protection charms. We must change with the changing world.” Anxiety rushed into him and he pushed the image from his mind. It would be fine.
The Opera overlooked Market Square, which opened out to the piers. The first thing that struck Boris was the smell of the market: fish intermingled with the spicy meats sold by Numerian street vendors. He picked his way through the bustle, careful not to knock over any of the glass cases that housed schools of fish so small that they seemed to be just puffs of orange smoke swirling in the water. He deftly avoided Xsathian dockworkers, huge and still writhing octopi thrown over their shoulders. Finally, past the center of the market, where contortionists bent themselves through impossibly small hoops and puppeteers put on tragedies and comedies, he found Rudé, drinking strong black coffee and playing chess with another New-Man, a cadaverous little figure who smoked a fetid-smelling weed. Only half-Anlusian, Rudé was the larger of the two, though both shared the darting movements of New-Men.
“Here.” Boris passed a pouch of coins to the officiate.
Rudé took a handful from the bag and passed it to his kinsman. To Boris, he said: “Quadi will give you the wine.”
The New-Man took a puff of his rank-smelling cigarette, then ground the stub out on the cobblestones. A final waft of noxious smoke caused Boris to cover his nose momentarily. Sweet mercy, he thought to himself, it smells like something died. How anyone could smoke such stuff was beyond him.
Meanwhile, Quadi opened a square leather case that sat beside him, full of neatly stacked bottles. He passed five to Boris, who placed four of them gingerly in the bag that hung from his shoulder. The fifth he uncorked and gulped hungrily. Even as he swallowed, he fancied his strength returning, as the wine’s energies coursed into him.
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