Babylon Steel (9 page)

“You must be wiped. Shouldn’t you be off duty?”

“Probably.”

“I hear there was a bit of a ruckus here too, a day or so back,” I said.

“Ah, there was a bit of a barney in the crowd, plus we had some high panjandrums, demanding attention. This lot claim to be demigods. Whoops! Watch the tea, there.”

“Demigods?” I said. My hand had jolted a bit while I was pouring, but most of the tea had made it into the cup.

“Yeah.”

“Where from?” I said, trying to sound casual.

“No idea. That’s Diplomatic Section’s area, not mine.” He eyed me. “You want me to ask?”

“Would you?” It was probably fine. Almost certainly fine. There was no real reason why anyone from Tiresana would be looking for me, not after all this time.

“You going to tell me why?”

“There’s some people I’d rather not meet, that’s all.”

“Hmm. All right.”

I knew I was only off the hook temporarily. He’s a digger, the Chief. He’d keep digging until I told him or he found out some other way.

I hadn’t told anyone all of it. Not even the crew; not even Previous.

“Anyway,” he said, “we were just doing crowd control. You know what it’s like, everyone wants an eyeful of the powerful.”

“Why, do you suppose?”

“Maybe they think it’ll rub off, or something. But we had a lot of people on.”

“Not completely popular, then, these bigwigs?”

“You never know. Remember The Most Exalted Father of His People the All-Beloved One, about two years back?”

“Oh, yeah. Did you ever find his head?”

“Nope. That was one narked-off bunch of peasantry,” he said, with something that sounded a lot like admiration, and probably was. “This was nothing like that. These were just making a fuss because there were ordinary people about, it seems. You know how paranoid they can get, when their full powers don’t work. I wasn’t there, just got a report afterwards; not to mention several hours of chat with the Diplomatic Section.” He rolled his eyes.

“So?” he said. “Why’d you ask?”

“Ah. Well, there’s a girl who went missing, during the ruckus.”

His eyes sharpened. “How the
hells
did you hear about that?”

“Um...” Fain hadn’t actually
said
not to mention his involvement, but I didn’t think he’d appreciate it being shouted. And although I didn’t know for sure (I didn’t know anything about Fain for sure), I was fairly certain that not all of his dealings were legal. If the Chief found out I was pillow-partnering Fain, if only in the business sense... well, let’s say I wasn’t keen on the thought.

“Never mind,” the Chief said, when the silence had gone on a little too long. “I know, I know, discretion. We’re already looking for her.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Oh?” He said.

“I’ve been asked to. Anyway, I thought I should let you know.”

“How much do you know about the girl?”

“I know her people are important on Incandress, and that she was here buying something for her wedding. That’s pretty much it.” Now I came to say it, I realised it really wasn’t a lot.

“Important’s definitely the word. Important enough to run the country. Watch where you tread, Babylon. If you find her, you bring her straight to me.”

“I’ll try,” I said.

I was fudging. Not because Fain had a prior claim (after all, the important thing was that Enthemmerlee was found) but because she herself did. If she’d been raped or abused in any way, she was going to get time with me in comfort and safety before people started throwing questions at her. Not to mention a chance to tell me whether she actually
wanted
to go back to her family.

The Chief drank the rest of his tea and rubbed a hand over his face.

“You look like you need time off,” I said.

“Going to get it anyway, soon.” He pushed himself back from the table. “Thanks for the tea. I’ll see you later.”

I sat over my cooling tea for a while, wondering what to do next. A few people came over and said hello, a few more gave me that nervy side-glance that meant they hoped I wasn’t going to come over and claim acquaintance with them in front of their wives, or husbands, or three significant others. As if I would. If people can’t admit to having a little fun, I reckon it’s their problem, but I know my business and it isn’t to play tattletale.

I showed the picture to one or two of those who stopped, on the off chance, and hoped the spice tea would get my brain working. When there was nothing in the pot but dregs, I went home.

TIRESANA

E
ACH OF US
girls had been hand-picked by an Avatar. There was the Avatar Meisheté; her jurisdiction was fertility, midwifery and childbirth. She had a broad-hipped, big-breasted figure that should have suggested hugs and comfort, but didn’t, and about her eyes and upper cheeks lay the darkened skin they call the ‘butterfly mask’ that some pregnant women get – though hers was not patchy as such a thing usually is, but symmetrical, perfect as though painted on, giving her a look of wisdom and mystery. She could touch a man or a woman and render them fertile – whatever age or physical condition they were in. I don’t know how long it was before it struck me as odd, as a sign of something out of kilter, that she herself was childless. Eventually I realised that all the Avatars were.

Meisheté could make crops grow in barren earth, if she chose, but she had a preference for babies, even if those babies were going to starve. She was pretty powerful, but blinkered. So long as nothing interfered with what she saw as her sphere, she didn’t care.

She changed quite a lot. I had to get used to that; not just being around Avatars, which I’d never expected, but the fact that their aspects changed. The Avatar Meisheté was sometimes a heavily pregnant young woman, sometimes she was an ancient crone. It wasn’t just appearance, like an illusion or a glamour. She actually changed; but she never gave birth. What, if anything, was growing in her when she walked swollen-bellied and swaying, and what happened to it, I never dared ask and hardly dared think about. She’d Chosen Velance, a pretty round thing with wide hips and milky skin.

Then there was the Avatar Aka-Tete. The death-god. Always smelled slightly of rotting meat, but somehow you got used to that. He wore a belt of human skulls and gloves made of dead men’s foreskins. Some of us giggled about that, imagining what would happen if he rubbed his hands together, though we never saw him do it. Sometimes he was a warrior, all muscle and scars, his hands dripping red; sometimes he was a vulture the size of a man. He’d Chosen Jonat, a slender, dark honey-skinned girl with a sharp mind and too much intensity burning in a slight frame. She wrote a lot of bad poetry and was, like me, desperately in love with the Avatar who’d picked her.

The Avatar Shakanti. Shakanti the silver-eyed. Avatar of the Moon Goddess. She could draw up the waters of the sea, increase the power of spells and drive people mad. She was mad herself, Shakanti. Mad as moonlight on a knife blade. She represented virtue, so she never lied, but she could open a wound with the truth and twist it to make you scream. Sometimes her face was a skull, and even then, somehow, she was still beautiful. She’d Chosen poor little Renavir, frail and fierce.

The Avatar Rohikanta, Avatar of the river god. Older, and quieter than the rest. I always saw him in the same aspect: a huge, muscular man, with a beard and hair of running water. Two great reptiles walked with him; the Messehwhy, the sacred crocodiles. The ones that lived in the Rohin were bad enough, but these were another kind. Something that, like the gods themselves, no longer walked our plane. They were huge, big enough to bite a horse in half. They could barely fit through the temple doors. I like lizards, as a rule, but those things gave me the raging horrors. Rohikanta had Chosen Brisein, who was quiet too – so shy she hardly spoke.

We were all different, we girls, but we all shared a certain look, at times. I saw it in my mirror. A wide-eyed, solemn look; knowing we had been chosen, none of us certain of our fitness for the fate we’d been chosen for.

There were the Avatars who represented the gods of the winds, Lohiria and Mihiria. Twins; high-boned and lush-lipped with great twining sheafs of hair that were never quite still. It took me weeks to even tell them apart and I never was entirely sure which twin was which. Of all the Avatars I began to lose my awe of those first; fussy as hens, both of them, and about as much brain.

But though I may have lost some respect for them, I didn’t let it show. I’d not been there ten days before I saw the wind twins, their hair whipping around their heads like wild flames, in an argument that culminated in the wind ripping the roof off a shrine, sending it flying over the wall like a great sail. I heard screams from outside. Whether anyone was hurt, I don’t know.

Lohiria had Chosen Seili, a girl with a sheaf of glorious dark red hair and the plane’s most irritating laugh; Mihiria of the East Wind had Chosen Calife, a sultry-looking creature with a taste for sweets and a habit of falling asleep whenever there was a cushion to be had.

They’d all Chosen someone who reflected themselves a little. Even Hap-Canae.

T
HE SOUND OF
the gongs in the still morning air, the blue light falling across the honey-coloured floor tiles.

Lessons. So many lessons. Seven of us, to begin with. We sat for hours with slates, learning our letters. Learning to read dusty, cracking scrolls, scratching and trying not to fall asleep as the afternoon heat spread across the floor like treacle. Reading about the Deeds of Babaska: how she tried to lift a sword as soon as she could walk, how she fought the Lord of the Dark World to a standstill in a month-long battle and came at last to an amicable, not to say amorous, agreement. Dozens of stories. Babaska and the Bridge of Dawn, Babaska and the Leopard’s Child...

I knew some marketplace legends and a deal of practical things about running a household or a caravan train, but I couldn’t read, or write. The amount we were expected to learn was a little frightening, and I was desperate to do well, mainly to please Hap-Canae.

Those marketplace legends came in useful, though. I recalled how the stories told in rhythm stuck in my head, and started making up little chants and mnemonics to help me remember – most of which would have had a professional storyteller howling into his offering-bowl in pain, but they worked.

I knew that Babaska watched over soldiers, as well as whores. It wasn’t until later, when I learned of other gods of war, that I realised that Babaska differed from most of them in her military aspect. She wasn’t a goddess of leaders, of triumphant campaigns, riding beside the general and whispering the secrets of victory in his ear. She was a goddess of the everyday soldier. A goddess of survival, of getting through a battle with most of your parts attached and some of your mates still alive. A goddess you prayed to for dry boots, a steady hand, a sane commander, and payday.

And she was a goddess who watched over all whores, from the finest silk-hung courtesans to the street-whore who earned in copper coins. In Tiresana, whores had status as artisans, and Babaska was their representative. To her they prayed for generous custom, the ability to charm, for safety from disease and bad clients and unwanted pregnancy.

No wonder Meisheté didn’t like us much.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I
WAS LOOKING
forward to my lunch by the time I got back to Goldencat Street; I could see two people hanging about outside the Lantern. White robes and beaked white masks.
Vessels.
I sped up.

They did nothing except stand there, hands folded in front of them, those damned masks turning to watch me as I approached, then turning away again, scanning the street, back and forth.

Bliss was outside, his long narrow face looking vaguely worried. He’s thin and slope-shouldered and has a sort of bleached, silvery cast, as though you were looking at him by moonlight.

He’s a Fade. That is, someone who came through one of the portals but didn’t quite make it all the way. It happens, mainly with Nightwind Portal. People lose some part of their essential self. He was some sort of hunter or tracker, back home. He does odd jobs about the place, in return for food, a bed, and company. I don’t usually put him out front, but sometimes I ask him to stick around new clients if I’m not sure they’re going to behave, because they forget he’s there. Of course, sometimes he forgets, too, and just sort of drifts off.

He hadn’t drifted anywhere this time, but he obviously had no idea what to do about our visitors.

“What are they doing?” I said.

“Watching. Everyone who comes in. Or goes out.”

I heard one of the upstairs windows open and looked up to see Essie leaning out, breasts spilling out of her gown. “Coo-ee, boys! Don’t be shy and hang around in the cold! Come in and we’ll warm you up!”

I saw one of the masks tilt a fraction, before its owner returned to sweeping his blank-faced gaze up and down the street. It gave me a chill. They looked like some sort of mechanisms, fixed and unnatural.

Then both masks turned. I saw someone who looked vaguely familiar – one of Laney’s clients – who got about a quarter of the way to the Lantern before he clocked the Vessels, blanched, and strode off down a side street trying to look as though he’d meant to do that all along.

I wished him luck – the street was a dead end, with nothing on it but a couple of private houses and a shop that was currently empty.

Another window opened. Laney bounced up onto the sill. She was wearing even less than Essie, a whisper of burnt-orange satin, but gave the distinct impression of someone rolling up their sleeves. Her green eyes narrowed. “That was my client you just scared off,” she said. “A
nice
man. A
generous
man. Now, let’s see...”

“Laney, no!”
I yelled.