Debris (33 page)

  We walked in silence below a bright blue sky. Cold fingers of wind played with the flaps of the overlarge jacket Kichlan had lent me. The ice had melted, and the faint colours of small flowers could be seen peeking through cracks in the poorly tended paving stones.

  "What is it?" Kichlan asked. He seemed to know where we were going, and I had been following him out of unconscious habit, seeing the city only as a grey haze, unclear and unreal. "The book. Why does it mean so much?"

  "A gift," I answered him. "A symbol."

  "It's a book," Lad added helpfully. "It's a book, isn't it, bro?"

  "Sometimes books are more than books," Kichlan said. He hesitated. "It's rare, Tanyana. Isn't it?"

  "You know that already." I sighed, and gave in. "Eldar Velchev was a leader in the critical circle revolution. He composed a set of principles for nine point pion circles that architects still use today. The usual concerns: weight and pressure, distribution of mass. And the broader ones like propriety and symmetry. But more so, he applied the same concerns to the pion circle working the building. He came to realise that a circle must also be balanced, that too much pressure on one point could destabilise–" I broke off. Two blank faces were staring at me, as though I'd started gibbering in another tongue.

  "Um... What?" Lad asked.

  "My thoughts exactly," Kichlan added.

  "Right." I shifted the book into my armpit to free up my hands. "When I was a pion-binder, I was an architect. I designed and made buildings."

  "Like these?" Lad pointed to an unnaturally ugly mound of cement that, I supposed, could have passed for apartments if one squinted or covered an eye.

  "No." I stuck out my tongue and made him laugh. "No, I made beautiful things. Big things. Important things." Important things? I shook my head at myself. "This book is written by the man who started the pion revolution in architecture. At the same time as they were working out how to put together factories to generate and distribute light and heat, he worked out how to build cities like the one we live in."

  Both brothers nodded.

  "Well, this book is all his theories. Written in his own hand, with his own notes. It's very old, like Kichlan said, and very rare. And to an architect, it's probably the most important thing ever written."

  Kichlan was silent. Lad, after a moment, said, "Ooh." A long and low exclamation, like he'd eaten something particularly delicious. "Why do you have it then, Tan?"

  His acute question surprised Kichlan and myself, and we exchanged a quick, shocked glance. "Well, Lad." I reached up to pat him on the shoulder. "I built something very special. Very beautiful." My throat choked before I could catch it.

  "Very important?" Lad continued.

  "I suppose you could say that." Rueful, I smiled at my own words in his mouth. "When it was finished the people who had asked me to build it gave me this." I patted the book awkwardly. "To say thank you."

  "That was very nice," Lad said, tone approving.

  "It was indeed."

  After a moment, Kichlan said, very softly, "We would like to see this building, one day."

  After a longer moment, I answered, just as softly, "One day, perhaps."

  "Where are we going now, bro?" Lad asked. He glanced between the road and the book under my arm, as though gradually putting the two factors together.

  "Where are we taking Tan's special book?"

  Kichlan's shoulders sagged as he answered. "To a nice man that Eugeny knows who will buy it from Tanyana. So she can have somewhere new to live."

  "Oh." The glances grew worried. "But, bro, it's a special book. It's a thank-you book. Tan shouldn't sell it. Should you, Tan?"

  I patted Lad again. "A home is better than a book."

  "You could stay with us then, and keep the book."

  My stomach gave a different lurch, a fluttering as Lad tugged at my heart. "That's a lovely thing to say. But there shouldn't be too many people in Eugeny's house. It wouldn't be fair."

  "And Tanyana deserves her own home, don't you think?" Kichlan added.

  Glum, Lad nodded. "Guess."

  The man Eugeny trusted owned an odd little shop, built of wooden offcuts and sandstone fragments held together by a clay-based mortar. Its windows were made of many small shards of different types of glass, woven together with lead, and they caught the morning sunlight in a mesh of light and colour. Stone steps led up to a wooden door with an old iron handle, and a sign scrawled into the wood that I could not understand. Strange signage for a shop. It sat in small, squat contrast to the rest of the street: from the hulking apartments to a landau crawling its way past us on invisible insect legs.

  "Lad, will you wait here?" Kichlan asked.

  I expected his younger brother to pout, but Lad, still glum, huddled himself out of the wind beside the stone steps.

  I followed Kichlan through the door and into a quiet, dim world.

  "We don't need Lad trying to convince you not to sell it the entire time," Kichlan murmured as he threaded his way between dark shelves. "Or knocking over only the Other knows what."

  I grunted in agreement.

  The shop was a hushed place, where any voices raised above a whisper didn't belong. It smelled of dust, cracking leather and silver polish. Floor to ceiling, wall to wall – at least as far as the short distance I could see – was full of shelves. These were built of wood that looked like it had, at one time, been dark and smooth, but was now so heavily laden with dust it was hard to tell colour or texture beneath the grey. All the shelves were full of pots, leather straps, old porcelain, dolls or spoons and more, and all were covered in their own layers of dust or marked with rust spots and stains. The further we crept into this rubbish graveyard, however, the thinner the dust became, until the shelves opened up to flickering light and an ancient man standing behind a desk. The desk itself was equally laden, but instead of the haphazard growth of accumulated time, the desk was clean, neat and organised. A long curved sword, with a golden tassel on the hilt, glinted beneath a glass case along the front of the desk. A full set of plates painted with dancing bears was arranged for a meal at one end. The other was heavy with leather-bound, gold-embossed books. These caught my eye more than the old man. They were ancient, but the gold more legible than that under my arm, and the leather softer. I caught some words on the spines:
Principles of the Six Pointed Circle, Rural Classes and the Pion Revolution, Old Varsnia: A History.

  The old man had been tinkering with something like a watch. Its face was dark, the glass old and misted, and the inside opened up to reveal dozens of tiny gears and screws. He set it aside as he stood, hands at his back, a smile creasing his weathered and wrinkled face.

  "Welcome," he said. "May the bear be ever at your back." He rocked on his feet and chuckled. I gathered Kichlan's expression was as confused as mine. "Old saying, that one. A greeting, or a farewell perhaps, when meeting travellers on the road. Translation isn't the best, so we cannot be sure."

  "Um, hello," Kichlan stammered. Perhaps Lad, with his easily infectious enthusiasm, might have done us some good. "Eugeny sent us."

  "Ah!" He unclasped his hands and reached over the desk to shake ours with a remarkable display of dexterity for someone so wizened. "Eugeny, you say? How is the old man?"

  "He's well," Kichlan answered, and cast me a by-theOther-say-something expression.

  I responded, "He sent us, sir...?"

  "Yicor." The old man took my hand a second time and held it for longer than strictly necessary. "To you, my dear, I am Yicor."

  I tried to look as flattered and feminine as possible, although I had little in the way of experience. "Eugeny sent us, sir, with something you might be interested in."

  "Well, he was right." And Yicor took my hand again.

  Beside me, Kichlan let out a sigh.

  "I meant this, sir." I shifted the book into my hands. "We have something to sell, something he believed would be to your tastes." Oh, Other I hoped so.

  "Well, let us see."

  I handed the book across Yicor's desk. Its weight left a lightness in my palm when he took it, a brush of air and a understanding that I would never hold anything as valuable again.

  "What have you got here?" Yicor unwrapped the book, lifted it, and turned it to examine the spine. His indulgent smile faded to a thin line as he read, and his breath slowed. Eyes riveted to the worn lettering on the cover, he placed the book on his desk, and tenderly opened the pages. His fingers shook as they caressed the lines of finely written words, stopping to hover above the pencilled-in notes as though they were precious, too fine and beautiful to sully with touch.

  Finally, he lifted his eyes to mine. I felt open to them, bare, and I knew Yicor saw right into me, into scars deeper than those on my flesh.

  "Are you certain you wish to sell this?" he asked, although he knew the answer. Why else would I have brought it here, why else let anyone else touch it, caress it, covet it?

  "I must." It wasn't a real answer, but he accepted it.

  "Then my old friend is right." He closed the book carefully, his shivering fingers gliding over the worn leather. "This is something very much to my tastes. And I will buy it from you, although it grieves me to be forced to do so."

  The shop was too stuffy, the shelves too full and dustcoated. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to be out in Movoc's crisp sunshine and stinging air.

  Kichlan, oblivious to the lines of tension strung up between Yicor's eyes and mine, clapped his hands. "Glad to hear it. Now–" he rubbed them together "–how much?"

  I turned my head away. I didn't want to hear them haggle over my old life. But Yicor leaned forward, while keeping one hand on the book's cover, and touched my wrist. "How much do you need?"

  "To live this life?" I didn't truly know.

  Kichlan, however, had begun ticking off his fingers. "You'll need a surety payment, that'll be four hundred and fifty, I'd say. Three sixnights' lease is the usual. Of course, the more you have to spare the better you'll be. What else? Clothes, food, something to sleep on."

  Yicor eyed him with pity and I realised how keenly the old man understood me. How much more he had seen, in that single glance, than Kichlan had for all his lecturing. "I cannot offer you kopacks for something so priceless. At least, I cannot offer you kopacks alone."

  Like a dog on a leash, Kichlan bristled.

  "What will you offer me then?" I lifted a hand to stay Kichlan and focused on the shop owner.

  "Somewhere to house you," Yicor said.

  "We can do that on our own," Kichlan interrupted. What about this man and his generosity had Kichlan so agitated?

  "Somewhere safe, around people I know and can vouch for. Clean, well kept, warm. With furniture and a place to sleep."

  I rather liked the sound of it. Kichlan, sulking, crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders.

  "For I cannot pay you the worth of this." Yicor's hand had not left the book cover. "I only hope to fill the gap with what help I can."

  I nodded. "How much, then?"

  "Twenty-five thousand is all I can spare."

  Kichlan dropped his arms, and whispered a curse under his breath. But I knew how poor a sum that was for something like the
Principles of Architecture.
Yicor knew it too.

  "I accept," I said, and gave the old man a small and rather shaking smile. "As long as you find it a good home." And, I hoped, not the home of someone I knew, who would realise it was mine and how much further I had fallen.

  "Of course," Yicor said, his eyes solemn.

  I drew my rublie, sad and clunky in its crutch, from my pants. When I held it out to Yicor and he pressed his own against it, only then did I understand. For his was also sheathed in that sad cover, although it read considerably more than the five kopacks left in mine.

  Kichlan, looking away, already muttering about the best way to spend my sudden wealth, didn't notice. Yicor and I shared our understanding alone.

  "Where is your team stationed?" Yicor asked casually, as we watched the bright numbers on our rublies flick over.

  "Eighth Keepersrill," I answered.

  He seemed to think for a moment, and once my rublie was full, he found a scrap of paper in a desk drawer. He scribbled an address using a quill and ink from a crystalline glass jar. The entire odd and antiquated process fit in perfectly with the atmosphere in the shop. "Somewhere close, somewhere safe." His letters were flourished, l's high and g's curled. "Try them."

  Kichlan eyed the paper like it was mess at the bottom of his shoe. "I'll tell Eugeny you were helpful." He rested his eyes on me. "We'll wait outside for you to finish." He strode from the shop.

  Yicor handed me the piece of paper. "Your friend should know better. You need somewhere you can be protected. He just does not want to admit it."

  My fingers stilled, touching the paper lightly. "Protected?"

  Yicor clicked his tongue. "Eugeny sent you to me for a reason, more important than the book. Perhaps you are involved in something you do not understand. Perhaps there are people, strange people, dogging your heels. Perhaps they appear when you do not expect them. Perhaps they are watching, always watching. He sent you to me, so we can watch you too."

  I folded and tucked the paper into my shirt, my hand shaking. "Thank you." My voice shook too. "How did you know all that? You're not even a collector, are you?"