Crystal Heat

2

When Lylunda left the warehouse’s cellar, the sun was down and the sky a sullen black with clouds blocking light from the moon and stars, though there was no smell of rain in the air, as if those clouds were waiting for the month to turn before they let down the water they carried. She was tired, but pleased at the way things had worked out. Once his resistance was gone Bug had turned heartbreakingly eager for her approval and ravenous for the things she could teach him, as if he wanted to swallow them all in one day.

Krink walked beside her, escorting her to the apartment house on Saltoki Street, his presence setting Grinder’s mark on her. She glanced at him and swallowed a smile. He hated this. He’d loathed her since the time he’d tried to corner her down by Milk Alley and she got him a good one in the family jewels. It was an accident, she was flailing all over the place trying to fight him off, but he always thought she’d done it deliberately. She knew better, but she was smart enough to stay out of his way until she got off Hutsarte. She wondered why it was Krink that Grinder had chosen for this escort; surely there were others. Hm. Things under the surface between those two men. And she was being shoved in the middle. She didn’t like that. People in the middle got tromped by both sides.

When they turned the corner into Saltoki Street, Krink swore, grabbed her shoulder, and stopped her. “I don’t like this.”

The street was empty, none of the usual shoppers out; even Halfinan Ike was gone from in front of Lester’s cutlery. A short distance beyond Okin the Baker’s shop a line of dark figures in robes that swept the ground walked in silence, unlit torches in their hands. Aptzers. Temple enforcers.

“I think you should go to Grinder’s,” he said and started to turn her around. “This isn’t the first Sermoi they’ve held along here, they’ll start emptying the houses soon for the Confessio, maybe this time, maybe next.”

She pulled free. “I know the drill, Krink. It’s not something you forget. I’ll take my chances tonight.”

“Grinder won’t like it.”

“He’ll just have to live with it. I’m too tired to make nice. I want my bath and some sleep and I’m going to get them.”

She heard chimes as she keyed open the door to her room. The first thing she saw when she stepped inside and turned on the lights was the comset installed by the window. She tugged the door shut and sighed. “So much for locks,” she said. “Just as well I get this into my head right now. Where Grinder wants to go, he goes.”

She, crossed to the, corn, tapped it on. Acid in her voice, she said “Greetings, oh, mighty Grinder-jun. And how may I serve you?”

Grinder scowled at her. “That mouth of yours will get you skinned one of these days, Luna.”

“Could be.”

The scowl lightened. “Just wanted to say you did good today. Bug’s happier than I’ve seen him in a long time. Want you to come to dinner tomorrow night. Meet my other kids.”

It was phrased as a request, but she knew her options well enough. There weren’t any. “Thank you, Grinder. What time?”

“Krink will be over to pick you up round six. It’ll still be light then, give you some time to walk round the garden.”

“Um. Grinder, if it’s all right with you, could you send someone else? No no, don’t get yourself revved up, he did his job just fine, no problems. The thing is, I don’t like being around him and he loathes me. You push him too hard, you might lose a handy tool.”

The eyes that had gone flinty for a moment softened, and he smiled. “Always thinking. Maybe I want to push him.”

“Uh-huh. Ba da, you’ll do what you want, you sure haven’t changed in that. I’m just asking find some other poor fool to do your levering, huh?”

“A’ right, I’ll do it this once. Dodo’ll bring you. You’n Bug break off early, you hear? Get your hair done. Wear something nice.”

After his image faded, she touched off the com and then dropped into the chair, shaking and nauseated, sweat popping out on her face, running down her back. She started to swear, then snapped her mouth shut. That was Grinder’s corn. Everything she said here, maybe even everything she did would be picked up and recorded. What she’d said to Bug applied to her, too. Grinder might pretend a sentimental attachment to her and say all the right words, but he wasn’t about to trust her.

I’m a fool, she thought, I shouldn’t have come back. I thought I knew how things worked here, but I’d forgotten a lot of it and I didn’t know about Grinder. Jaink!

A loud cry from outside broke into her thoughts. She tapped off the light, moved to the window, and looked out. The hooded Aptzers were standing in a circle in the center of the street. Their torches were lit now and cast red shadows on the walls and the pale ’crete pavement.

One of the Aptzers lifted his voice hi the Call; he had a powerful tenor trained to cover distance. “0 Beloved,” he sang. “Surrender your wills to the tenderness of Jaink. Search your hearts and know that you have sinned.”

A second Aptzer took up the Call when the first was done. “0 Beloved,” he sang. “How easily you forget that which Jaink requires of you. Search your hearts and know that you have failed Him.”

When the third sang the 0 Beloved, Lylunda sighed and moved away from the window. At least she could manage a bath, though it seemed sleep was going to be more elusive. They were going to keep that up till dawn. The only good sign was that they hadn’t brought the drums, so the harrowing itself would happen another time, the scourging and purging, the bonfire of vanities and the public confessions.

The Lekats of the Izar would come out, though there were few who paid more than lip service to the Behilarr god. They would play the Aptzers’ games, invent confessions, lay their clothes and ornaments on the burning piles, let themselves be cuffed to the whipping posts, do anything they had to in order to survive. They’d learned long ago the costs of rebellion. The Behilarr controlled the water and the food; if they shut off the mains and closed the gates, the Izar died.