City of Ruin

EIGHT

'Shit.' Beami pressed her head into her hands. Then, through strands of dark hair, she regarded the mess lying on her desk. Hybridization: the dangerous art of combining relics – also her area of expertise – and if she had tried to activate this particular blend she might have blown herself to pieces. That was because two copper sections of a charged Foroum relic didn't want to fit into this theoretical structure. A hundred different pieces of metal were scattered across the desk, so she scooped them all up and shoved them in a box waiting to one side. Leaning back in her leather chair, she groaned despondently. The Nantuk Development Company would have to wait another few months for its demolition device, which she hoped would be able to age stone so rapidly that it would become instant dust. In a room full of traders and government officials – even the portreeve himself – she had announced this as an improvement on what she'd developed before, and as representing by far the safest stage in the evolution of remedial work. They could, she promised, clear unsafe buildings within a day. Lutto's eyes had lit up and he spoke of a tempting subsidy.

But today's shoddy results had aged her a good few years. The bloody theory was there, all the equations blazed across the bits of vellum pinned on her wall like the graffiti of intelligence. So why wouldn't it work?

Stupid fermions. Stupid eigenvalues. Stupid ancient mathematics.

A lantern faded out, leaving her with just the other one, which hung against the far wall. Books and papers were littered everywhere, many of them irrelevant to her efforts, and some of them not really legal – but this was Villiren after all. Jars of elements and compounds, boxes of metals known or unidentified, the room was a spoil heap of junk to the untrained eye; but to her it offered a haven for relative independence.

Then, in the relative darkness, she contemplated seeing him again. She needed to get out: the thought of Lupus was a distraction.

This girl needed to talk.

How long was it now?

*

Away from her work, her social circle consisted of poets and libertines, artists and illegal priests, and those who wanted in on the scene. Their distractions were music and ad hoc plays, discussion and intense debate going on until the small hours, even though she never made it to such gatherings as often as she liked. All in all, it seemed unusual company for a cultist – a woman dedicated to technology – but she hoped she would find some of them in the Symbolist, a glittering little bistro crammed with wine bottles and candles and polished wood.

It was early morning, and perhaps some of them might still be hanging about from the evening before, hungover enough to sit still and listen to what she had to say. Deep in the Ancient Quarter, where the buildings leaned against each other for support, the entire mood of the city changed. This was a bohemian district, a place of distinct character, of an alien dignity. Of domes and spires and the Onyx Wings. Incense drifted from open fires beside which tribal prophets preached their doctrines openly. Rumel and humans mixed equally amongst the esoteric wares on display.

The Symbolist was deceptively small, a whitewashed building that looked out on an impoverished iren. As she approached, someone recognized her, an old man wearing faded garments, and with a distant look in his eyes.

Clasping both hands before her, he said, 'Please, you are a cultist, aren't you?'

'What's it to you?' Beami replied, sick of receiving this sort of attention.

'Please, save us from the imminent dangers. There are stories of war and terror-'

'Look, just piss off, all right? We're not your saviours. Stop trying to worship us.'

The old man collapsed to his knees and bowed obsequiously before her. How many times did people need telling? Beami just wanted to get on with her own life, not be venerated like some fake priest. She hurried on past him.

Inside the bistro, in a far corner, was Rymble, the short, skinny poet with annoyingly well-kept blond hair – and those wild shirts. Today's was a garish, orange flower pattern. Sprawled across a table, he sat up on her entrance, and called out jokingly from beneath his green half-mask. 'Beami! You miserable bitch! I bet you've not even got me some arum weed. I was going to immortalize you in a poem, but, alas, I shall refrain, and instead give that honour to a better-looking woman.'

'Your words are shit,' she replied. 'Perhaps try shutting up more often?'

'You'd only want to fuck me if I remained silent.'

'Your voice is a contraceptive, then?'

The same routine as usual, and all harmless. It was well known that Rymble was too afraid of catching syphilis to actually sleep with anyone; and they had grown so close that she had begun to appreciate his more elaborate and competitive insults. She loved him really.

Coffee was already being served for the morning shift, with fried flat-breads and kippers. This place never closed. Two young couples sat together by the entrance, hangers-on who looked inquisitively and hopefully at the art scene gathered here.

Suddenly it occurred to Beami that she didn't know what she was doing here. She had desperately wanted to speak to someone, anyone, and was now disappointed at the small crowd available. Today there was only really Rymble she knew well – until Zizi entered just then from the back, wearing her fur coat and high-heeled boots. Even in her fifties, Zizi was still one of the most glamorous women Beami had ever known. She'd made her name on the stage, still used her stage name, in fact. Her milieu was both theatre and choreography, and she was responsible for several dances that had become popular throughout the Boreal Archipelago. Then she gave up that passion for the love of her husband, a rich banker from Villjamur – who, after marriage, promptly left her for a younger woman. Zizi, lovelorn and with a shattered heart, never danced again. Beami considered herself as strong-minded as Zizi though, and it worried her to know that someone like her could give up a career for love. She never wanted to use her sexuality in order to get on in this patriarchy; she wanted to earn her place, and so Zizi's story always saddened her.

Knowing each other's moods so well, Zizi took one look at the expression on Beami's face, and the brunette woman immediately suggested they sit down and talk. While Rymble slumped into a slumber, Beami informed her friend in rapid whispers that Lupus was back.

A startled expression came over Zizi's face, then she said jokingly, 'Honey, you're far too pretty to be a one-man woman.'

'I'm not like that,' Beami snapped.

'Easy, darling.'

'Sorry. I'm just not that kind of woman. I know Malum and I have had some problems-'

'Problems? You bloody hate the man.'

'That's not true.'

'Well we all do. He's so weird, so sinister.'

'He's not. You just don't know him like I do.' On more than one occasion, the others had encouraged her to leave Malum, and one night Rymble had even kindly offered to venture into their house and stab him – then immortalize the act with poetry.

More seriously, Zizi continued, 'Look, I know you have your problems, but you either walk away from Malum now or you stay with him.'

Beami's mind was drifting.

'These situations can become increasingly dreadful if…' Zizi's expression softened as her intensely green eyes focused on something deep within her. 'Hang on. Why are you here? You didn't come all the way just to get some advice – especially if you'll be seeing him shortly.'

After a moment of reflection, Beami finally confessed, 'Perfume. I want to find one particular scent I liked to use. It was one Lupus adored me wearing. That sounds stupid, I know.'

Zizi grasped her hand. 'It says you've made up your mind already. But I say never let a man stop you – I say it all the time. I never knew Lupus, but don't give up everything for him. Don't let your passion for him ruin your life.'

'He's not that type of man. I'm already involved with one of those.'

'Well, there's your answer.'

'Lupus is… something else.'

Zizi's gaze softened. 'Tell me about him.'

Beami's mind drifted back through time. 'One night I went up to the bar just as they were closing, spoke his name when I shouldn't have known it, gave him the wildest smile – then tripped, spilt my drink all over the floor, and started laughing.'

'Smooth,' Zizi remarked.

'He used to clear tables and serve drinks at what was once considered the smartest bar in Villiren – although that's not saying much. It's not there now; it's long gone. All that's left is what's in my head – echoes of a younger life, of simpler times.'

'You're hardly that old. Just you wait until you get to my age. Then things can be as simple as you want them to be. So, you went to his bar?'

'Well, I went in from time to time with a few of the girls, an ambitious young cultist with a taste for bad wine.'

'Some things don't change,' Zizi smiled.

'No, I guess not. I suspected he had developed feelings for me, you know, aside from the usual lingering glances, holding mine for as long as possible. I would then chat to some other man who approached me, sometimes looking at Lupus, sometimes not. Love feeds upon jealousy – that's what he himself told me once. Working in taverns, he said, you see that behaviour so much. Anyway, he picked me up off the floor, gave me a large mug of water and waited for me to sober up. He had such lovely eyes – just like a wolf.'

'Honey, that sounds wonderfully romantic. You got pissed and he mopped you up.'

'Shut up, Zizi! It was good, you know – it was fun. And we did nice stuff – lots of it. Before the Freeze, you could walk for miles out into the grassland, and the forests. We'd take a canvas tent and spend the summer evenings wrapped up in each other's arms. We'd go to the lakes further inland, away from everyone, and catch a fish, start a fire. I'd set traps for hares and sometimes I'd use his arrows to bring down a deer. I love this island, Y'iren. You can feel like you're the only people alive. We'd have sex four times a day.'

'Stop it. You're making me jealous now. I need some drink, and I don't care if it's too early.' Zizi stood up and ordered the young waiter to bring some whisky for her coffee. Once she had settled again, she waved a finger at Beami to get her to continue. 'This revelation is the closest I've got to love in a year.'

'Well, I was older than him by two years. He was so laid back, and I guess that's why we worked. I sometimes needed someone to boss around, and he couldn't be bothered ever to decide on matters. I wanted someone to air my frustrations to, and he liked to hear them.'

'What happened in the end?' Zizi asked. 'It all sounds too good to be true, yet the pair of you didn't last.'

'The army,' Beami explained. 'He wanted to be a Night Guard and I wanted to stay here, to work. It's so rare for any woman in the Empire to make something special of herself, and devoting my time to relics seemed a way around that for me. I didn't want to give that occupation up for anyone. We started to argue loudly, and we did those little things where people try to make each other jealous – when you try to make the other want you more. He promised he'd write often, great sprawling letters they were at first, and then they turned into simple updates. Pretty soon I never heard from him again.'

'Now that,' Rymble announced, suddenly wide awake and feeling gregarious, 'breaks my fucking heart. I'd scribble you a poem if you wouldn't wipe your arse on it.' He played with the gold ribbons dangling from his half-mask.

'Your poems are not even good enough for that basic function, you disgusting cretin,' Zizi declared, which made Beami laugh.

*

Like using a relic to carve a pathway back to your past.

This was it, the rarest of opportunities, a chance that most people didn't enjoy. Beami couldn't remember when she had last felt like this: the angst burning inside her, the worry about how she looked, whether her breath was fresh, wondering now if her new perfume was too strong, too obvious. Wondering if he would still think the same about her, after all these years. The mirror had become like some tool through which she began to deconstruct herself, noticing all the changes that age had brought. But she was still young. It wasn't as if an aeon had passed between them seeing each other.

In her best outfit, comprising of two layers of dark-red dress with a black shawl, a look that had lasted well in Villiren for a couple of years now, she waited. Waited for him.

Beami took a look around the furnishings of her room. Everything was expensive: decorative mahogany, not from this island, elaborate rugs and drapes, decorated in patterns from unheard-of tribes, ornaments that may or may not have had names, a crystal console table. Here was quality acting as an expression of her husband's wealth, yet she did not care for them at all. A deeper emotion had disabled the impact of these items on her life.

What am I thinking, asking him here?

The heating system spluttered again, firegrain stalling somewhere in the pipes. Snow skidded across the windows, distracting her attention, and she went to one, to regard the city beyond. The people of the city were still out and about, wrapped in furs, some selling biolumes, traders heading to the irens, carts and fiacres grinding to and fro along the main thoroughfares.

What if Malum returns unexpectedly…?

Malum was out, but this was still their marital home, and his property. Then again, why was she being so paranoid? It wasn't as if she was actually in the throes of an affair, was she, by just standing here in preparation for exploring the emotions of her past, feelings that she hadn't analysed for a number of years, also ones she had tried to forget. But she couldn't deny that it felt good, to allow this sense of nervousness to get the better of her. To feel such intensity again – to feel something again. It was like a game, and she felt she could almost burst with anticipation.

Was she being merely licentious? She hoped not.

A knock at the door.

She froze, then realized it would need to be answered by herself. She headed downstairs and with deep breaths opened the door to one of Malum's hired men.

''Scuse me, madam,' the thug grumbled, broad-shouldered and shaven-headed, wrapped in a thick cloak. 'Someone from the military to see you. Says he's from the Night Guard.'

'Yes, that's OK… I was expecting him. It's to do with my research on defence methods.' She should have known these men would be here first. What if they then told Malum? She didn't want to arouse his suspicions, so she had to act calmly.

'Fine.' The man gestured to one side.

Within moments, Lupus stood there, puzzlement evident on his face as he stepped around the thug's hulking figure. He was dressed in his Night Guard uniform, utterly black save for subtle patterns in the sewing and the gold star of the Empire on his breast. How he'd matured, she realized.

She let him in and closed the door. 'Please, come to the study area, and let's continue our business there.' Her voice was loud enough for the thug at the door to hear, and she could tell from Lupus's expression that he understood her need for secrecy.

'Lead on.' Lupus gestured eccentrically, playing along.

Beami's heart thumped as they headed down the corridor, entering the basement room in which she pursued her explorations of cultist technology.

She lit three lanterns, knowing their location by instinct rather than touch, but nearly knocked one over in her flustered excitement. To a stranger this workroom must look like a junkyard, a litter of curious devices that would mean very little to the layman. But she had organized and investigated much of this over the years, made notes, tested, then tested some more, all the time wondering if she might thus unlock some device the elder races had set, and if, as a result, this was how she might die.

She moved her Brotna relic – a great lumbering metal cone with wires sprouting from the top end – to one side.

'What's that?' he asked.

'A project I'm working on for the masons and architects,' she explained, wondering why they were wasting time talking about her work. She told him how she had found a way to reduce stone to dust, and how the project had now received sponsorship from the city developers. As she spoke, she found her mouth turning dry, her nerves increasingly getting the better of her.

All the time she was examining him: he looked more athletic than she remembered.

Lupus turned his face this way and that, inquisitively, to where papers covered the walls: diagrams, sketches, a profusion of arcane symbols that she barely understood herself. His profile, too, had become more hardened, better defined.

He finally turned to face her. 'Quite the fire hazard, this place.'

Before she could give herself the opportunity to respond, she was kissing him, thrusting him back against the wall, and no sooner doing so than pulling away, flummoxed by her own actions.

'What was that for?' he asked, smiling.

'I don't know.' Pacing the room and running her hands through her hair and feeling her pulse accelerating. 'I don't know.'

'I missed all that,' he said. 'And your scent, I haven't smelled it in years.'

Lupus had such big eyes, and a world of empathy lay within them. He was always the only one who could make her melt with a glance. He took her hands in his own. 'I have never – not once – stopped thinking about you.'

Perhaps the ice age and the coming war made her want to live for the moment, but she could not really help herself any longer. A host of memories returned through his touches: because she remembered the diligence with which he would attend to her desires, kisses in her preferred zones, his hands exploring her for her own pleasure as much as his – ever a mutual enjoyment.

It felt like they could now just continue from where they had left off years ago, and she made no objection when he pushed aside her clothing, her cloak falling first to the ground, and she abandoned herself to sensation. She was entirely a victim of her own cravings. His hands moved down to her sides, and she grabbed his wrists at first to push him away, but then realized she was instead holding him there, in place.

'Let's go somewhere else,' she suggested.

'Why?' Lupus asked.

'I'm scared someone will come back.' This was her livelihood on the line, her life, her home, her marriage – her whole world.

Underneath her desk was stored the scinan Heimr relic. She extended it into a knee-high tripod, then set it on the ground, manipulated a dial the way only she knew how, understanding its sensitivities, and twisted the tiny ball on the top.

'Get over here,' she instructed.

She grasped his hand, touched the ball again, and she felt her skin-

– s-t-r-e-t – c – h, tingle then normalize-

*

– and there was a blanket sheet of purple light glowing around theiision… before they stepped forward into the meadow.

When she turned back to him, Lupus was shading his eyes against the powerful sunshine. His hair was golden in this light, in a scene that seemed locked permanently in some summer afternoon. Heat shimmered around them.

'What the hell…?' He shambled, dumbstruck, in a quick circle, searching the landscape and the horizons, exactly the way she had done herself the first time. 'Where the hell…?'

They were at the bottom of a shallow valley, meadowland sloping down to a river, deciduous trees clustered to the left, a hawk calling overhead. Orchid flowers seasoned the grass with colour, insects zipping from plant to plant. Sedges and, near the borders of the trees, quercus and fraxinus, with ferns crowding below in bold shadows. A pungency generated from the water, amid the humidity of vegetation, plants offering themselves to the air – so unlike anything on Y'iren. And it was so hot, a temperature she would never experience in Villiren; under a bold blue sky, and the yellow sun that dominated it.

She had imagined this situation, never quite believing it would be possible, to bring him here, to her secret place.

'How did you do that?' he asked, looking down at the tripod as if it would explain. He turned in a full circle yet again, taking in the landscape, the low-lying hills. 'Where… where are we?'

She explained how they weren't in their normal time, maybe not even in the Boreal Archipelago itself. On countless occasions she had come here alone, to spend a few hours exploring, researching, making sketches and notes and reference maps, but had never yet met another human or rumel. There was a small garuda community, out to the south coast bordering this place, some hours' walk away, but they weren't all that sociable.

No one else knew of this secret world, not even Malum. This was her hidden zone.

Lupus appeared in awe of her ability to carve a path through empty space. It wasn't anything she considered particularly skilful, just the result of dedicated study. All it entailed was manipulating the relic technology that the elder races had created all those aeons ago. This was not essentially her doing, nor was anything else relic-based; and that was something she hated about other cultists, their assumed arrogance at possessing this knowledge. All they did was monopolize the relics, and had been doing so for thousands of years.

'So this is where you get your tan,' Lupus observed. 'I wondered what kept you looking so nice and brown.'

She laughed, then threw her arms around him again, safe in the knowledge that now they could not be discovered. They knelt together in the humid grass, and kissed passionately, with the deep sunlight warming her back and all her troubles out of sight. This was pure escapism, a fantasy – hiding from her sense of guilt.

Avoiding the cold realities waiting in Villiren, she didn't want to think about a future or even a past. She desired only to taste his skin, as she undressed him, and he undressed her. Clothes soon heaped beside them, he noticed a silver tribal necklace she still wore – the one he'd placed around her neck all those years ago. He kissed it first, then her collarbone, then her chest. He moved across her bare skin with familiarity, like a hunting wolf. She let him push her back and ease her legs apart, and in the alien heat of this hidden world they escaped into the rediscovery of each other's bodies.

*

Later she showed him more of this world of hers, aware of somague symbolism in the gesture. It wasn't so easy, however, to do this, to permit him back into her life.

Did she still love Malum? That wasn't a simple question. She had affection for him, but she didn't like being with him any more, and certainly she didn't care for his absolute rages where he could almost turn into a monster. When did he ask her about progress in her work any more? The last time was probably their conversation about golems, but when she admitted it wasn't her area of expertise, he had lost all interest. The time she was now spending with Lupus replaced months, even years, of Malum's empty substitute for conversation. How had she and Malum drifted apart? When was the moment that he ceased to provide for any of her emotional needs?

Beami and Lupus talked of the gap that had developed in their understanding of each other, the missing years of shared acquaintances, the onslaught of the Freeze – the slow ice age that had now taken a grip of the Boreal Archipelago and how it was changing their lives and the lives of others all around them. More than anything else, she felt the impending ice had forced a sense of urgency for things to happen. Perhaps this was in the back of her mind when she reopened herself to Lupus.

She possessed some undetermined fear that Malum would hurt her if he discovered what was going on, but while she and Lupus were here, in this otherworld, they were quite safe and she knew they would return to the Boreal Archipelago at the precise instant they had left it.

There was an aching perfection to the landscape, now that they were a part of it. Light began to add new textures to the surroundings, refracting off each substance – grass, water, tree – as if the landscape itself possessed some ethereal quality. Newer creatures passed by, their body shapes seeming unlikely – four-legged oddities that shifted along under a diamond-shaped spine, and pink fist-sized insects with choppy patterns of flight.

Now and then a garuda would skim past just above the ground, its downdraught rippling through the sedges. She had tried communicating with them before, through voice and sign, but they never responded, perhaps not recognizing the Jamur shapes she made, or perhaps merely ignoring her as, impassive, they soared ever upward.

There were some ruins of a civilization around them which she did not recognize. Structures that were dense and elaborate, mixing unusual shapes and materials. Monuments that were crippled by time; vines and lichen had long ago begun reclaiming them, wiping out any cultural residue carved into the stone. For some time the two of them hesitated on coloured tiles that blended effortlessly with grass, as they peered through a window arch towards the vista beyond.

The deep sense of long-past time was humbling.

*

Beami told her lover of the names she had assigned to certain placehere, simple names so that she had something easy with which tamiliarize herself over the year or so she had been visiting the hiddeorld. Lupus wanted to name something there after himself, teaseer until she gave way by re-titling some ugly fish in his honour.

Silences in their conversation were not in any way awkward – much was revealed in them by the tender gesture of a hand, a searching look. They sat in the shade of a salix tree, its graceful weeping form astir in the wind. Still she could not get over the unaccustomed warmth.

The discussion of their intervening lives continued until they met up with the present. As soon as he mentioned the coming war, and the perilous situation that the city faced, the mood blackened. He told her of his duty as a Night Guard soldier, the honour, the pride and commitment entailed, even described the ritual of enhancement he had received as a new recruit. When he told her of the cultist-doctored fluids involved he could provide little explanation of the process, only the surge of pain running through his body, the rapid recovery times from injuries thereafter. He lay on her shoulder when he told her of the recent attacks on Tineag'l, describing as best he could the bizarre alien race that they had fought against.

'Aren't you afraid that you might die?' she asked, concerned.

He gave a wry smile that could have meant anything. 'I'm a Night Guard. I'm an enhanced soldier. I'm one of the best fighters amongst them. Yes, I might die – we all might – but I therefore stand a better chance of survival than most of our soldiers. And if I'm killed it will be while protecting others – that's what I trained for, that's who I am. I'm used to the idea of my own death.'

To her silence he said, 'I don't expect you to understand, but you've got to accept it.'

She was increasingly afraid of losing him to the army once again. They talked thus for hours, might have gone on for days as if that didn't matter. Eventually, both felt they should return. Guilt had ultimately caught up with them.

*

After producing the Heimr, she closed her eyes to sense the subtle drifts in current beneath the surface of its metal. When they both reappeared together back in her study the coldness of the room hit them, causing both to gasp as if they'd risen from underwater.

'The exact same moment as when we left,' she assured him, as he looked around incredulously. 'You should maybe go now. I don't want him to find out.'

'Of course,' he said, then kissed her softly on the lips, passion having given way to a tenderness she knew she would soon miss.

She showed him to the door, provided him with some spurious documents to make his visit look semi-official, so that there wouldn't be any reason for Malum's men to worry. From an upstairs window she watched Lupus depart without looking back, striding with purpose through the snow, heading back into the city.

After he had gone, there was a concentrated stillness throughout the house.