[Closed] For Every Shadow a Source of Light

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

T
om’d seen her eyes go wide with the word seerstone. He studied her face. There was more light trickling down through the smog, dissipating into the dusty, diffused daylight of the Soots; but there were enough shadows still in the tiny twisting back street with its dead end, and more still in the dank stretch of alleyway at one side. He wasn’t sure if it was the shadows, this time, that made the prefect so godsdamn hard to read.

He didn’t know how to account for it, how her eyes went wide the second he said it, and no later. Had she already known? And earlier, how she’d giggled, like she couldn’t help it. Or the warm openness in her field, always – which, he thought, was a damned hard pretense for a galdor to keep up, much less such a young one. He couldn’t imagine what lay underneath it, though he ached with the trying.

And to what end, all of it? Perhaps she’d known, or thought she’d known, what words would set him at ease; perhaps she’d been angling – was still angling – for his trust, with how she’d bowed her head solemn as the grave, with just a flicker of uncertainty.

Perhaps she felt it; perhaps she was using what she felt. But he’d been yaching that uncanny art himself long enough to know when he saw it.

Though not as long as some; not yet.

He was still tangled in the twist of his thoughts when her thanks yanked him out. The air stung his cheeks, and his thin chest ached. Ada’na Nkemi stood looking at him, solemn; her hand was no longer on his arm, though he couldn’t’ve said when it’d fallen. He could feel the place where it’d been, a small wrinkle in the wool of his sleeve.

Another, even paler attempt at a smile. You didn’t say, he thought, what you would do with what I just gave you. Clever. You didn’t say –

The prefect’s hand settled on his arm again. Strange to think he’d missed it there.

The mona in his field stirred and almost tensed again, against the grain of hers – just a shiver – and then settled again. He gave up the qalqa of smiling. He did not think ada’na would mind.

They stood there for a while; Tom wasn’t sure how long, and ada’na didn’t seem impatient. Her field didn’t, at any rate. You’re good at your job, he wanted to say, but he didn’t think he’d be telling the truth. A proper brigk’s job was mostly planting the heel of his boot in a natt’s face.

Finally, he drew in a breath, and slid his shaky hand out of his pocket, and patted the prefect’s shoulder under a swath of cold damp wool.

The first few steps were the hardest; maybe he’d known they’d be. The alleyway went down before it reached its end, and he remembered it, now, how hard it’d been to claw his way to his feet. The edges of his fingernails were still uneven from it.

With the prefect at his shoulder, he moved in. His eyes skimmed the puddles of stagnant water, the shuttered window halfway up on the right side, the slick glistening stones. He felt himself fall into his old stalk, careful-footed, toe-to-heel.

He found himself squinting against the shadows, straining to make out any detail. He wondered if it was so dark to the prefect. “I was told a story, when I was a lad,” he said softly, studying a rotting pile of boards. “About a –”

A lass and a wicked galdor. “A magistra who set her most beautiful student impossible tasks,” he said instead, smiling faintly. “The last of them – a big pile of lentils, red and green and brown, big as a house, and she had to divide them up by color. The nanny” – he thought of Deirdre’s hands, gathering up his hair into braids; her rough voice, she called on Vita – “told me the Lady stilled the moons so that she could finish. My mother told me the older ending – that she went old and gray, still at her task.”

His smile went crooked, darkly wry - but genuine, like the flare of a candle - and then went out as his eyes found a familiar patch of ground.

He remembered in bursts how the kov’d wrenched him backwards; he remembered the struggle, his jaw tightening, his heart speeding up. But the struggle hadn’t been long. He shut his eyes once, only once, and took a sharp breath in through his nose.

When he opened them, he sighed. “I can’t think of what he might’ve left. I didn’t get a good look at him; he might’ve been bald, for all I can see any hairs, and I’m afraid, ada’na, I didn’t spill much of his blood.” His lips twisted, bitter. “And with all this water…”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
A Nameless Alley, Soot District

There was a time of patience, then, and of waiting. Nkemi stood, with her hand settled against Vakelin’s sleeve, and did not rush through it. She watched him for a little while, solemn, but she did not wish to stare. She could see him well enough without it, the little lines that life had carved into his face. They were not cheerful lines; she would not have thought him a man who gave wide smiles to the world, or who made jokes to prefects in alleyways.

Just now, he looked every inch the solemn politician in his face, even wearing the big, worn coat, even with walls of soot-blacked brick around them, and the quiet damp of the little alley. Nkemi saw the contradiction; she wondered if that, in the end, was really what had borrowed Luix’erman so. She thought him a man who liked to fit people into their boxes, to tuck them away organized and neat onto shelves. She thought Vakelin did not fit the box he had been given, anymore, and she wondered, too, what bend there had been in the river of his life.

The light had begun to grow clearer, and the early morning fog was lessening, by the time Vakelin stirred. It had not been so long, really; it was only that morning had been growing slow and steady for some time, as it always did, even hidden by so many buildings and so much soot. All the noises were louder now, a little closer, a little more vibrant.

Vakelin patted her shoulder, and Nkemi smiled at him. He began to move; she let him lead, but she followed close, watching carefully again. They went into the alley; they went down, a small slope, to the cold wet ground where he must have lay, when he fell. Vakelin was walking very carefully, quiet. He looked around in the darkness, and Nkemi wondered what he saw. She followed his gaze to a pile of rotten boards, and the faint fuzzy white moss which had grown to life at the edges of them.

Nkemi lifted her wide-eyed gaze to Vakelin’s face, listening solemnly to the story he told her, the little frown on her face. She wondered what it was which had made him think of the nanny’s story, so long ago. “I do not know if the Lady was kind to her, in your nanny’s version,” Nkemi said, quiet, thoughtful. “It does not seem easy to have suffered so long, and yet for no one to know any time has passed.” And to be old and gray? Nkemi knew better than to ask about it. In the dark light, it was hard to pick out the gray curls from the red hair on Vakelin’s head; it was lighter and darker only, with only the impression of color.

Vakelin came to the end of his task, then. Nkemi nodded, understanding; she imagined he felt it had aged him. She looked around, carefully; she took a few steps, and crouched into the darkness, sitting evenly on the flats of her heels, peering at the ground. She rose as easily as she had crouched, and searched a little longer; she went over the walls, carefully, as well.

If there were signs of a struggle, Nkemi thought, they were indistinguishable from all the rest. She could not have found where Vakelin must have lain. She thought even if he had brought her back here moments after the attack, she would not have been able to find it.

Nkemi looked up at Vakelin, then. “Is it the end of your search, then?” She asked, looking at him, tucked between the soft, too-big cap and the scarf still wrapped around your throat. Her small hands were tucked into the pocket of her coat. She looked down, contemplative, and then back up. “I did not think you the type to give up, sir,” Nkemi said, and grinned at him, extending another offer in this different dark alley. She thought of his shaky hands, sorting lentils into trembling piles, but her grin did not falter.

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

A
ye, but that’s it, ada’na, he thought sadly, wishing – wishing – he had found a lie closer to the truth. Nothing would’ve made sense; he’d’ve given himself up as some sort of golly heretic. But lentils were a thing of Vita, a growing thing, and though they were all dry and still, they could still feel Him humming through them. It was Vita she asked, ada’na, in Deirdre’s story, and Vita sang ‘til the lentils sorted themselves.

It itched at him, somewhere in the back of his head, Vita living inside the greens it’d touched. Things living inside what they touched. But whoever it was they were looking for, he could see nothing in the alley he’d touched.

He thought the prefect might like that version of the story, anyway, Vita aside; he wasn’t sure why. He chid himself for the thought, but he looked at her evenly when she spoke.

As he turned himself back to squinting through the dark, his field gave a little pulse against hers. He didn’t say anything. He rubbed his eyes, grimacing; he couldn’t feel his fingertips, but they were ice-cold. When he opened his eyes again, Nkemi was a small shadow crouched on the stones some few steps further down, slush all around the soles of her boots.

From the back, crouched, bundled up in that coat – the hat on her head; the scarf obscuring her neck, and anything of the head underneath – he couldn’t’ve known what to make of her. He remembered the first time he’d caught sight of the “kov” following him, back at Caldwell. Godsdamn me, he thought, casting his eyes up at the narrow crack of light above the alleyway. Godsdamn me.

He shoved both his hands deep in his pockets, pulling his coat tighter around him. He felt like he ought to be looking, too, but he didn’t know for what, and his eyes were serving him poorly. When Nkemi rose up, to her credit, she kept looking: he caught the glitter of her eyes in the dark as she walked along, going over one wall and then the other, very carefully.

He hadn’t thought of it. Maybe somebody had leaned there, waiting. The night before last was all scrambled up, and so he couldn’t remember what’d happened when they’d struggled back into the alleyway. It was possible he might’ve thrown the kov back against one of the walls before he got dragged under. The rough concrete brick could’ve snagged the thread of a coat, a scarf, hair, even skin.

But if Nkemi saw anything, there was nothing in her face to show for it. Tom found himself watching her more than he watched the alleyway; his eyes stung, and his head ached. He didn’t let himself feel hopeful, but it sank inside him nonetheless.

Tom met her eye, then. Both his eyebrows shot up at the question; the grin, wide and bright, gave him pause. He blinked.

His lip twitched. “No,” he replied, quietly firm. “This wouldn’t’ve stopped me.” He couldn’t seem to help it; that reluctant smile wormed its way back. “I’m not so worried about getting old and gray, ada’na.”

It was strange to find that what he said was the truth. I have a hell of a lot of time, he didn’t say; I’ve already lost more than I could ever regain, he couldn’t say. He was happy to leave it at that, and he grinned back at her, then, and laughed softly.

He wondered again why she was so interested. If it got him back his stone, in the end, he thought it might be a price he was willing to pay. He thought at least that playing along was wise enough; the more she stuck around, the more he could test the waters. And he did feel a fair manna safer with a prefect at his side.

Hands still in his pockets, he leaned back against the wall, rough and damp through his coat. He shifted, wincing; bony little kov could never get comfortable. Sighing, he looked back again at the dank alleyway, at the pool of shadows and indistinct debris all the way down. He looked up at the window just above eye-level, the rotting shutters and tantalizing, shadowy glimpses of what lay beyond.

“I suspect you’d know more about it than me, being one of Thul Ka’s own. Personally, I’d try for less… arcane means, next,” he said, looking back at the prefect. “But I don’t have a lot of contacts down here, and…” He huffed, gesturing loosely at his face.

Not like in the Rose; he always knew where to go, in the Rose, and they weren’t too picky who you were, and nobody’d recognize a Viendan incumbent there. But this was not, in so many ways, the Rose.

“I don’t know, but I’m fucking famished.” He raised an eyebrow. “Excuse my Heshath, ada’na.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
A Nameless Alley, Soot District

Nkemi grinned a little wider, her eyes bright. An impossible task, she thought, oddly grateful. She had thought he understood the magnitude of it; he had told her already that he did not know where the journey would lead him. But it was good to hear it more directly as well. He smiled, and then he grinned, and then he laughed, and Nkemi giggled too, more with him than for any reason of her own. She glanced around, and came a little closer to him, standing nearby as he leaned against the wall.

Nkemi searched Vakelin’s face with a little frown when he gestured at it. She wasn’t entirely sure what he meant by the sentence; she thought perhaps she had lost some meaning of his, along the way, although looking back at it she could not quite sort out where she might have misunderstood. His face, she thought, would not be different elsewhere. She supposed it must be an Anaxi expression with which she was unfamiliar; there were many such. She could figure it out, when they were said directly, but when they were alluded to – when they were come at from the side – she often did not know what she was missing, and could recognize only the vaguest shape of the gap.

The investigator who relied only on the arcane, Nkemi knew, was an investigator quickly stymied. It was a lesson taught to every prefect in their first year of training, even before they received their first posting – from their first day, even. The arcane was only one of many tools that a prefect carried, and many times it was not the most important. Anyone who forgot this also would be swiftly reminded by the district courts.

But that was not to say that arcane methods could not be powerful. There was evidence, too, and then there was evidence that would convince a magistrate. Nkemi was not so much a prefect yet that she could not remember the difference between them. She had many tools, still, but fewer than she would have had in Windward Market, or anywhere else in Thul Ka. Vienda was still strange, and the Dives even less familiar than all the rest of it.

Nkemi giggled again, more at Vakelin’s apology than the curse word. “I’m hungry as well,” Nkemi agreed. She was, quite; she had forgotten about it, during the long wait in the alley, the quiet crossing of the road, the search. It had been easy to forget, but now – with one hurdle passed – her body had remembered that she had not yet eaten, and was keen that she not forget again.

Nkemi led the way this time, back out onto the quiet street. She glanced around; it was growing more crowded as well, the early morning fog lifting, and revealing the way up and down. She looked back at Vakelin, and smiled again.

“I would normally prefer secular methods,” Nkemi agreed. “But I too do not have many contacts, here,” She frowned, faintly. None, she thought, she trusted enough to ask about a seerstone. She could not even be sure among the Seventen who it was she should trust – not yet. It was a trusting on two levels; Nkemi did not precisely have an official brief for this investigation, and she understood the temptation that a prize like a seerstone could pose. There were even some such among the prefects – though, of course, not for long.

Nkemi glanced around. “Shall we find somewhere to eat?” She asked, turning back to Vakelin, bright-eyed. It seemed a waste of time to go back to the barracks; Nkemi felt her hard-earned coins could stretch to some food. “Perhaps we may discuss further the arcane possibilities,” she suggested. She remembered well the smells of food earlier, and how tempting they had been. She did not smell anything so nice now, but she was confident that she could follow her heart and her nose to something which would be satisfying.

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

H
is field had tangled gladly with hers as she’d come closer, as if the motion were reflexive by now. Like the clairvoyant mona were two cats that’d got acquainted. The giggle wrung another grin from him, a little more crooked, a little more genuine.

Following Nkemi out of the alley, it struck him how light it’d got. He couldn’t remember how long he had spent standing, looking into the dark: he’d lost that time, and lost track of the light, too, with it at his back, with all of him taken up by the dank strange place of two nights ago.

Now, he stood on the narrow sidewalk just outside the alley, his hands still deep in his pockets against the chill; it wasn’t so dark or cramped or deserted. From here, he could see where the path looped round, and he realized it wasn’t such a remote place after all. The main street wasn’t too far off; he could see shadows stirring in the lightening smog, and he could hear, distantly, the stirrings of the day’s bustle. The smog was fair thick today, Tom thought, breathing it in. It was different, day to day; he remembered days like this last fall.

He looked up through the grey, up past the hazy rooftops. There was a blue sky up there, somewhere. You’d’ve been able to see it, in the Rose.

Tom looked at ada’na Nkemi when she spoke again, and he nodded slowly. He knew now that galdori favored the secular in their professions, when they could, even Brunnhold professors; he knew now something of the limits of the arcane. But he wondered, studying the small frown on her young face, how she’d’ve handled this in Thul Ka.

He wondered for the first time when she’d come to Vienda; he realized he’d no clue. He thought suddenly, with a feeling he couldn’t put a name to – you’d’ve been able to see the blue in Thul Ka, too.

As she went on, it was his turn to look incredulous. He’d half-expected the she suggest they break, reconvene later; he’d reckoned she had research to do elsewhere – other resources – somebody, somewhere, to report back to – and admittedly, he’d’ve used the time to poke round the Dives himself, wise or not.

“As you wish, ada’na,” he offered with another slight bow, taking a few steps down the street. “I’d imagine you know more about the arcane possibilities than I do, but it can’t hurt to put our heads together.”

Over some yats, he almost said, then smiled, turning away. They’d fallen into step again, then. Breathing in the thick acrid air, Tom was beginning to wonder why he’d put out his cigarette; might’ve been a nice gesture, but it wasn’t like the Soots smelled any better. His hand itched again for the battered little box in his pocket. But he thought of the side ada’na’d picked to walk on, careful-like, and stayed himself.

They were quiet, except for the low scuff of boots on stones, the occasional rustle of a coat or scarf. Tom was thinking more about it. It was familiar by now, the struggle of placing the prefect in a city without a map; but what was less familiar was the growing sense that Nkemi pezre Nkese, for whatever else she was, or whomever else she worked for, was as bereft of landmarks as him.

It wasn’t long ‘til they broke out into Briggs again, familiar landmarks melting out of the smog, moving shapes transfigured into natt in worn clothes. Some in a hurry, tired and lined; some dawdling at the stalls that’d sprung out of the grey in the time they’d spent in the alley. The distant murmur rose to a chatter, and the smells of frying batter and garlic were stronger now than they’d been in the cold gloaming.

This – this was familiar. There was something wistful about it. He remembered the first time he’d walked these streets, a head or more shorter than everybody else.

As they passed a shouting newsboy in a battered cap, he snuck a glance at Nkemi. Sunlight was defeating some of the smog, and it cast her profile in stark contrast to the heavy, square, pale faces all around them. And her careful fighter’s posture, her eyes ever-wide – he wondered what she made of it all.

It’d been new to him once, too, strangely enough. He’d known the streets of the Rose, and their folk and their vendors, and their smell of fish and spices on market day. He wondered how all this measured up to Thul Ka, all the way across the sea even from his home.

He eased gently to the side as a couple of burly natt squeezed past them. He looked over at Nkemi, almost smiling; he reckoned she was familiar enough with the way of a crowd, thinking how Aremu’d described Thul Ka. “If you want someplace better to talk,” he offered, walking closer, “I know a quiet place run by a couple of tsat, tucked into Clatterings, just this side of Cross-Fly. I went there often enough, once. It’s not too far, and the vraun –”

He broke off, pausing in his step as a pack of boch scattered from an alleyway to the right, chasing after a threadbare cat that darted across. The lads couldn’t’ve been much older than ten, but Tom reckoned they were natt all.

They froze at the brush of two fields. The leader, a big dark-haired boy, darted wide eyes from him to Nkemi. They scattered before a word could be said. A rangy lad spat on the ground as he went.

A little further and Tom glanced to Nkemi, though he kept his eyes on the grey street and the grey crowd ahead. “If that’s well with you, ada’na,” he added, a little more sheepish, reserved. “Is it much like this? Thul Ka, I mean.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
Briggs Street, Soot District

Garlic!

Nkemi knew it this time, when they came back out to the bigger road. She could recognize it, and something like the smell of frying dough thick beneath it. She glanced around, bright-eyed; her stomach grumbled in hungry recognition. So far Anaxi food had seemed to her terribly bland; they were very fond of porridges in the Seventen mess hall, and most mornings found her prodding the thick white sludge with a spoon, wishing for something to break up the taste. The food seemed to her not only plain but also heavy; she understood that it was, to them, warm here during the dry season, and she did not know how one could manage on such food during a warm day.

For a moment, Nkemi could think of cool fresh yogurt in clay pots, and flatbreads bought fresh off the street. She could almost smell the sizzling spicy tang of lentil fritters, studded with peppercorns and sliced bits of green peppers, the small sharp ones which burned the tongue and left the eyes watering, even after many years. Kofi, too, Nkemi thought – almost, if she tried hard enough.

But not quite. It was still the factory-sharp tang of the Dives which Nkemi smelled, the thick acrid smoke which was indistinguishable from the fog. They were solemn, broad Anaxi faces which shuddered in gray and brown and black and dark green and blue through the mist, all the colors tinged with gray from the smog but still, even if only barely, distinguishable from one another.

There were little stalls now too, at the edges of the street. There was one with flowers; the woman behind was sorting them with knobby, gnarled hands, her fingers still finding the freshest and delicately easing them out of the bunches, setting them aside.

There was tea; it streamed hot and brown from a kettle, pouring into a small, slightly battered cup. A man took it, and leaned back against the wall, adjusting a thin length of fabric around his neck. He breathed the steam in deep, and took a sip of it, his hands large and rough against the chipped red clay.

“Extra! Extra! Get the news t’day!” A young boy called from the street corner, his fingertips stained with ink. He was waving a paper in the air, though Nkemi was startled to see it looked half-blank. A man walking past tossed a coin into the basket on the ground below him; the boy drew sharply upright. A few others nearby stopped as well, watching expectantly.

“News fresh out of Bastia!” The boy announced. “They’re working on them trains – say as you’ll be seein’ a line goin’ straight from Vienda all the way to Florne!” He paused, dramatically. There was a shifting in the crowd; another coin dropped into the basket. Nkemi watched, curiously, although she did not take her eyes from Tom, not quite. She was well-used to newspaper stands; there were plenty of printmakers in Thul Ka –

Writs, Nkemi remembered, for reading and writing.

“Worst sandstorm Mugroba’s seen in ten years!” The boy was calling. “All through the northern bits – they’re saying as it’s all lightning, and many of them fancy crops was got destroyed!”

Nkemi glanced away, back at Vakelin; he was watching her, and she wondered what he was thinking.

It would be bad, Nkemi thought, in Thul Ka, if the spice crops were too damaged by the storm. She had read about it, before now; it had been in the Vienda papers for some days. A bad crop affected not only the farmers, but the whole city; there would be farmers who would go hungry, this winter season. It was not pickpockets and desperate thieves that worried her, but merchants who grew anxious and greedy and found usury an easy path, men who found their wife's mother too hungry of a mouth to feed, shopkeepers who diluted their spices and set rocks on their scales.

Vakelin spoke, and Nkemi looked up at him again. Her stomach twisted, and she began to nod before he had finished. She did not think it for them, taking tea at a roadside stall and leaning against the wall. She had noticed, already, the lack of galdori on the streets; it seemed there were only humans, everywhere she looked. Even though she had known to expect it, it surprised her still. She had kept close to Vakelin for many reasons, but that was not the least of them.

Boys scattered around them. Nkemi held, watching – she offered a smile, but the big boy with the thick dark hair only stared, and then turned and ran away, his friend spitting clumsily at the ground. Another boy made a sign Nkemi did not recognize, with his fingers, though she understood his meaning well enough.

Nkemi smiled up at Vakelin, unperturbed. No prefect was unaccustomed to such treatment; there was always someone who felt they had been wronged by the enforcing of law and order, though it was that which kept the city right. “Yes,” she said. “I should like to try this vraun.” She’d heard of it mostly disparagingly – wick food, one of the Seventen had called it – but it sounded to her more pleasant than their porridge. She followed after him, one hand in her pocket still, the other resting lightly on the edge of her coat, a little closer to her baton.

“No,” Nkemi said in response to Vakelin's question. She looked around the street, and then back at the other man, and his tousled red curls. “It is warmer,” she said, smugly. “And it is not so…” Nkemi was quiet, frowning faintly, “gray.” She said, glancing through the crowds once more.

“There are many desperate places in Thul Ka,” Nkemi continued. “Some are like this,” she was quiet, thinking of the Gripe, the Pipeworks, and even Carptown; during a brief posting there as a trainee, Nkemi had scrubbed the scent of fish from her clothing every night, and never quite gotten them clean.

“But different too,” Nkemi said, thoughtfully. “I think – in Thul Ka, they are the exception. Here, it seems to me to be the rule.” She glanced up at Vakelin, and grinned. “You shall come to visit, won’t you? During the Vyrdag?”

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

T
hat I shall, ada’na,” Tom replied cautiously.

Still, he smiled to ada’na Nkemi’s bright grin; he couldn’t do otherwise. He was tired and hungover, and his hip was aching, and it was hard – hard to hold his suspicion in opposition to the splash of color that grin spilled out into the grey. The question made the back of his neck prickle, but he was still tangled up in what she’d said before it.

Something of it crept into his field, a faint – but deep – blue-shift, whispering through the mingling particles. Not just here, he wanted to agree, feelingly. It’s the rule in Anaxas, and when it’s the rule, it disappears from sight.

But desperation was the rule everywhere, Tom knew, in a place deeper than reason. Desperation was never the exception. But how different could it be in Thul Ka?

He thought of the prefect watching the crier carefully as they passed. He thought of the way she’d looked away. They’re not breaking your nanabo law, he wanted to snap. If it’s under twenty printed words, it doesn’t count, and most of those flooders can’t read anyway; you’ll find them good, obedient natt in the mills, and hard workers all, oes –

But that anger was old, and it was hard to hold, with the prefect smiling at him. “I should hope it’s warmer,” he offered. He supposed that anybody knew an incumbent was going to Thul Ka for the Vyrdag next year; it wouldn’t exactly be hard to track him, either way.

Over the heads of a few nattle at a flower stand, he spotted sign for Clatterings, still with the S so worn you could barely see it.

He wove delicately round them and led the way down another side street. A little broader, this time, and not a dead end. The cracked, uneven road curved down at a much steeper incline, offering a glimpse of an intersection before it disappeared into the haze, slithering behind the bulky dark shapes of a line of shopfronts.

“I’ve been to the Muluku Isles, and I lived in the Rose for a while,” he went on, “but I don’t think I’ve ever been anyplace like Thul Ka. I’m damned tired of this cold, and this gray, too; I’m looking forward to it.”

This street was quieter, the crowd more sparse, if no less grey. A breeze carried up other smells to mingle with the acrid tang of the factories. Just a whiff buffeted him with all the force of memory, though he had no choice but to breathe it in.

He shut his eyes for a moment, thinking how you could walk down, and down, and down – and find the river with its barges that could take you anywhere the Dives met the Arova. And find, if you remembered the way well enough, a pile of cramped apartments where you could learn how to light a cigarette with shaking hands, how to speak with a different voice.

As he was reaching into his pocket for another smoke, a cab clattered close by on kenser-hoof, stirring a breeze around them.

Tom jumped and had to steady himself, taking a deep breath. Across the way, the man was still standing, but he was looking out over the crowd, looking like any other worn, tired natt. “Here,” Tom murmured, gesturing to a small set of stairs and an awning just inside an alleyway. He got a strong whiff of lime and something spicy, and of cornmeal frying in a mant manna oil; he found it easier to breathe.

The doorway was cramped, and the door creaked as it opened. A bell tinkled as he sidled in, holding the door.

Inside was a wave of warm air, full of strong smells; not just curry and frying oil, but ganja and other, more fragrant smoke. The shadows were velvety underneath the low, wavering light of oil lamps. It might’ve been a flat at one point, for the narrow entryway with its rickety coatrack. It opened up into a small central room, with a makeshift bar lit dark red by a single, old phosphor lamp.

Behind it, a tall, bone-thin witch with dark hair pulled back into a tight bun chatted with a gaggle of old tsat on the other side. At the sound of the bell, she glanced up and caught his eye, and a couple of the tsat tossed curious glances over the shoulders of their patchy coats.

She had a surprised look for the prefect, but when she saw him, she raised one eyebrow and frowned. Tom knew her look for familiarity, and he grinned back.

The air was thick and stirring in that way Tom knew by heart – not the stifling blur of an Uptown party, but like the crowd around a gkacha, the distinctive mingling of many glamours. A couple of tired-looking kov slumped in old chairs near the door, drifting on smoke, one of them asleep. The old men at the counter had looked suspicious, but they’d lost interest quickly.

“Jus’ lissen, Detta,” he was continuing, “Dirk knows his spitch, he does, an’ they’re fishin’ up more an’ more of ’em from the river; I’m tellin’ ye it ent right –”

“Fuckin’ bochi,” Detta quipped, “all of ye.”

“Dirk saw it with his own eyes,” creaked another. “I ent eatin’ ne fish.”

“Old tsat take a while to make up their minds, but they’ve got more to worry about than a couple of galdori sorting arcane lentils.” He managed to smile again as he glanced over at her, sidling over to a space just beside the entryway to wait.

“Vraun is just – curried green apples,” he added, a little hesitant, under a burst of laughter from up ahead. “It’s not quite like the curry I’ve had in the Isles. There’s also chrovehorn peppers stuffed with rice and spices and ground garmon – or fish, if the river’s smiling.”

He paused, looking again over Detta’s shoulder, then back at Nkemi. “One river city to another,” he said quietly, thinking of her river between the past and the present. “You'll have to advise me on where to eat in Thul Ka, ada'na.”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
A Tsat Hole-in-the-Wall, Soot District

Warmer, yes,” Nkemi said, cheerfully. She grinned at the incumbent. “Loshis is known as flood season, for us. The first half of the month, it rains very heavily – there are places even in the city which flood, which are close to the banks of the river. The river churns, all gray and blue and brown. It is dangerous, but it is life-giving also. In the second half of Loshis, the rains stop. The waters slide away, and green things are left behind, and in Hamis it grows warm and warmer still.”

Nkemi’s voice was soft and fond; she had been through the flood season of Thul Ka many times, and of Dkanat too, though they were far enough from the water that there had been few floods, there. Even Thul’Amat was at risk of flooding; one year, Nkemi remembered, they had awoken to a river running along the street outside the dorms, and everyone had gone to class over boards laid on the rooftops, slick and damp in the rain. She had been very young, then, and she had not known enough to be afraid. It had been like a game, then, to all of them.

Nkemi understood better, now. Carptown was one of the neighborhoods which flooded, during the worst of the rains. Even the Pipeworks were not so bad; the compressors which ran the city’s waterworks could be overwhelmed, but they were built to withstand the worst of it. But her trainee posting in Carptown had coincided with the rains, and with a slide; there had been three buildings, there the day before, which had sheared off and been swallowed by the river.

“To Muluku?” Nkemi asked curiously. She had never been to the islands herself; she had never been in an airship, before coming to Vienda, nor on any of the ships which sailed down along the Turga. “I believe it is quite different,” Nkemi said, more than a little proud of her city, but uncertain too. She knew galdori who spoke fondly of the isles.

A cab clattered by, close, pulled by two kensers, both heavily spotted against their thick, dark fur. Nkemi felt Vakelin jerk at her side; her gaze slid sideways to check on him, but she saw nothing of trouble. Her eyebrows lifted, and the small boy with sticky looking hands who had been coming near to them suddenly found a different place to be.

Nkemi let Vakelin lead the way. She glanced around them once at the base of the stairs, checking for familiar eyes, familiar heads of hair, familiar coats; she saw nothing, although she knew well that did not mean there was nothing to see. She followed Vakelin up the narrow staircase, breathing in a mix of spices and oil and smoke, some scents she could name, and others she could not.

Nkemi followed Vakelin to the little space beside the entryway. Curried green apples, Vakelin said, and Nkemi nodded, wide-eyed. “Both the apples and the pepper sound good,” Nkemi said, happy to follow Vakelin's recommendation; her stomach let out a faint grumble of agreement. Even with all the smoke, and the brush of unfamiliar glamours, Nkemi felt hungrier here than she had in some time. She knew it for homesickness. It was not in the least uncommon in Windward Market to feel the brush of a field here, a glamour there; Nkemi did not intrude upon any of them with her caprise, though her field still mingled freely and openly with Vakelin’s.

It wasn’t long before the two of them were sat at a small, rickety table. Nkemi perched on a crate rather than a chair, but comfortably; her coat was open now, revealing the sweater beneath, and just the edge of the baton hanging from her belt. She sat up straight and proper on the crate, her boots propped on the floor; it was a very good height for her, and the table that must have been low for these Anaxi well-situated also.

“I know best Windward Market,” Nkemi said, cheerfully. “It is the busiest market in the old part of the city,” there was nothing of the travelogue about her voice now, but a warm and friendly pride. She looked up at Vakelin, then around at the room, then back to him. She frowned, ever so slightly. “There,” Nkemi said, hesitant, “you would find…” she looked down at the table, and then back to Vakelin.

“I am a guest,” Nkemi said, inclining her head. “I do not mean to offer any criticism. Anaxas is not my home, and Anaxi ways are not mine. I know there is much I do not understand.” Her hands settled in her lap; she looked down at them, and then back at Vakelin.

“In Windward Market, galdori and imbali and wicks and humans would all shop together,” Nkemi said, simply. “I can name for you a human with a stall selling silks, the best quality for a good price, or a wick with a small indoor shop of antiquities, curiosities from all around Mugroba and Hox, and though he will spin stories for you about them, I do not think he likes to lie.” Nkemi smiled, fondly. “If you want food – I know an imbala who imports oranges from a secret grove along the Turga, and sells all the parts of them, even cooking some things inside the peel. I know also a human who sells only the freshest yogurt, and will smash a pot on the ground if it has not kept properly.” Nkemi giggled. “And, too, a galdor who sells all manner of breads – even some in the Anaxi style, if you are missing home.”

The small galdor swallowed a little lump in her throat, and shrugged her shoulders. “Does it sound very strange to you?” Nkemi asked, curiously, looking at the incumbent. “Sir,” She added, with a sheepish little grin, and dipped her head in a polite bow.

[Tom Cooke]

Soot District • The Dives

Early Morning on the 29th of Vortas, 2719

T
om looked at Nkemi curiously. There was an oil lamp burning on the table, and the soft yellow light glanced off her face from yet another angle – another set of shadows, to that sheepish grin. He had gotten a glimpse of the baton nestled in the dark at her waist, and it was strange to feel that old fear again, and stranger still to be comforted by it. It was all at odds, and when she dipped her head and called him sir again, he hardly knew what to think.

“Perhaps – strange,” he said slowly, “to an Anaxi. But not…”

“Yer yats, Auntie,” came a sharp voice, cheerfully.

Tom jolted at the voice, but a grin spread across his face. He half-turned on his stool, grunting as it wobbled on uneven legs. Ada’na looked comfortable enough at the low table, but the stool was a pina high for it, and Tom had to take care not to jolt a bony knee on the edge.

Detta was headed back, brushing through the doorway from the front room with a steaming platter of pan-fried manriklo. As he took it from her to set it on the low table, Tom caught a whiff of something else mingling with cornmeal. “Dill, Detta?”

“Oes,” she said, handing it to him, glancing curiously between the two galdori. “Rosemary, too. Mus’ be a maw since ye been. Keja season.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Tom softly. There was a rattle as he set it on the table. When he looked back up at Detta, she was looking at Nkemi; he saw her eyes dart down, once, and then dart back up to the prefect’s face.

“Rest’ll be right out.” She glanced sharply at Tom, then dipped her head and went out.

He looked back at ada’na Nkemi, hesitating. “There is much I don’t understand, either,” he went on carefully, brow furrowed, suddenly very interested in the dark speckles scattered across the topmost frybread.

Detta came out with a clattering tray, then, and set it wordlessly on the table. The smell hit him in a warm wave. His stomach ached. A stack of small empty bowls and saucers, the mant wooden bowl of forest-green curry, the two curving chrovehorn peppers stuffed with herbed rice caught even redder by the lamp.

There was a rusted teapot spilling deeply bitter steam, sugar and a few wedges of lemon, and two small cups. As the bowls were distributed and Detta took the tray back, Tom smiled at Nkemi; he felt the honesty of that smile more than any other that morning, for all he couldn’t quite keep the sadness from it.

If you are missing home. The words sifted round his head like dry lentils in a sieve. He felt something grow tighter and tighter in his chest.

“Please, allow me,” he murmured, reaching for the teapot in spite of his shaky hands. He readied himself, steadying his breath, and tried to press his fingertip to the pulse of some rhythm. He thought he found it in warmth of the words that had spilled out of Nkemi so easily – he thought he found it imagining a human who was so proud of his work he’d accept nothing less than the best, or in the admission that a wick peddler of stories did not much like to lie.

Anatole’s hands were careful – delicate, even – as he poured the deep black tea, and he didn’t spill. As the steam whirled up, he thought what to say.

The pieces were coming together, slowly. Maybe it was the familiar smell of braun, the familiar low table and stool and crate, but he was beginning to think he’d been terribly wrong about something – about several somethings. Like staring warily into the shadows of one alleyway, and being ambushed from another.

The Rose flooded in Loshis once, horribly, he wanted to say, aching. I was living in – the waters there were gray and brown, too, and fish-smelling – I was on the third floor – or had it been the second? – and there was –

A cough sounded from one corner of the room. “Havakda,” wheezed one of the old tsat, spilling out smoke, “fuck ’f I chen.”

“Jus’ you ent see two o’ them,” the third kov put in, quieter.

“Maybe they’re close,” put in the kov that’d been arguing with Detta earlier. “Da an’ boch.”

The tsat with the long wooden pipe was just starting to take another drag, and he spluttered on it. He wheezed with laughter, coughing out plumes.

“Jent,” came another grunt, though it was almost swallowed up by cascades of choked laughter. “Jent, an’ phosphor fuckin’ fish.”

And brigk, Tom thought, ladling out some vraun to start. There was, he noticed, some fish in with the apples; keja indeed. “Anaxas is my home,” he said finally, with a sad smile, “but – it’s embarrassing, being honest, the way of things down here. But Anaxas is my home, ada’na, and I can’t imagine anything else.”

He tore off a chunk of bread and picked up a wooden spoon.

“The markets have been described to me before – never so colorfully,” he added, and it was his turn to grin sheepishly across. “And you’ll have to tell me the name of this imbala, with his secret grove. But I can’t imagine... Plenty of galdori Uptown would refuse to buy cloth from a human, thinking she couldn’t tell Hoxian silk from taffeta, and sometimes I think the price matters more than the quality. But a respectable galdor would never stoop to that work, so they – there’s – it’s endless –”

He broke off, shrugging, and took a bite of vraun. “Forgive an old man's prattling," he said wryly, once he'd swallowed. “Have you had a chance to see Old Rose Harbor yet, ada'na?”

[Nkemi pezre Nkese]

Early Morning, 29 Vortas, 2719
A Tsat Hole-in-the-Wall, Soot District

The first thing which Vakelin brought was a platter with small fried cakes on it, black-spotted from stove cooking, puffed up and crispy looking. Nkemi sighed softly, happily, looking over the plate.

She lifted her gaze back to Vakelin, surprised, when he spoke again. Nkemi listened, attentively, but the beginning of words which seemed understanding, accompanied by a downward gaze and a frown which pinched all of his features was interrupted, this time by the tall, whipcord lean wick woman as she brought a big full tray and set it on the table.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Nkemi said with a bright smile; her stomach grumbled audibly. The low lantern light spilled over a wealth of colors, gleaming along the edge of a red pepper, catching pale grains of rice, dipping over the rough texture of a green curry, finding the yellow curl of a slice of lemon. Nkemi admired it all with a brilliant smile.

She had meant to sit properly, but - it was not precisely prefect work, was it? Nkemi shifted, easing to a more comfortable posture. Her boots tucked beneath her knees, calves crossed, and she beamed appreciation at Vakelin as he poured deep black liquid into their cups with steady hands.

“Thank you,” Nkemi said happily. She cradled the hot cup in both hands and breathed the steam in deep. This one smelled very bitter, Nkemi thought; she took a tiny sip, and she was pleased to find the taste not as bad as she expected. All the same, she set the cup down, carefully, and dropped into it a lump of sugar, squeezed a delicate yellow rind over the liquid, and stirred the droplets of lemon juice and the crystals of sugar all together. Nkemi brought the cup up to her lips again; she tasted again the warmth and the mingling scents, and took another little sip.

Nkemi took one of the small black-spotted cakes, and followed Vakelin in spooning some of the vraun into another bowl to try. It was sweet and savory, mildly spiced; there were bits of flaky white fish mixed in with the tender apple skin. Nkemi took another spoonful, feeling the warmth of it ripple down through her, as if all the light and color could fill her from the inside too.

Nkemi ate diligently as Vakelin spoke, looking up at him. By now she had shifted into a thoroughly comfortable position, all vestiges of prefect-appropriate dignity forgotten, and bite after bite disappeared as Vakelin spoke. Nkemi had known she was hungry; she had not known how hungry, nor that it could be sated so.

Nkemi had giggled at the mention of Okiri and his grove, and nodded faithfully. She understood, she thought, some of what he meant, even only as an outside observer. And, too, there were those in Thul Ka who preferred to shop amongst their own kind; Nkemi knew this. But she did not think it the same as Vienda, not feeling the warmth of so many wick glamours in one place, not thinking of the sea of gray, soot-smeared humans outside.

“There is nothing to forgive,” Nkemi said, firmly. Her face lit up at the mention of the Rose. “No! Not yet,” she picked up the fried bread, and nibbled at it. It was crispy, but only on the outside; the inside was soft and warm, and it tasted of herbs as well as corn. Nkemi beamed down at it.

“I will go next month,” Nkemi said excitedly. “To the town which is called Ploget nearby. They are having a small conference of mapmakers,” her small face glowed. “Not as big as the annual one, I am told, but I have attended many of the chapter meetings in Thul Ka and they are wonderful.” Nkemi giggled.

“I am very fond of maps,” Nkemi confessed, after another bite of the fried bread, with a more sheepish grin. “It is so wonderful to see the way a place fits together.”

“Is the Rose very different from Vienda?” Nkemi took another big spoonful of the vraun, looking attentively at Vakelin. She understood it to be an ocean town; she did not know much more than that. Vienda seemed to her Anaxas’s answer to Thul Ka, even if it could not compete. She could separate out Thul’Amat well enough to draw a comparison between that neighborhood and Brunnhold, though she was sorry for its students, that they were so far from the city. But she had not yet understood where to place the Rose in such a map, if it even belonged.