Child of the River

Chapter Fifteen The Magistrate

At first the houses were no more than empty tombs that people had moved into, making improvised villages strung out along low cliff terraces by the old edge of the Great River. The people who lived there went about naked. They were thin and very tall, with small heads and long, glossy black hair, and skin the color of rust. The chests of the men were welted with spiral patterns of scars; the women stiffened their hair with red clay. They hunted lizards and snakes and coneys, collected the juicy young pads of prickly pear and dug for tuberous roots in the dry tableland above the cliffs, picked samphire and watercress in the marshes by the margin of the river and waded out into the river’s shallows and cast circular nets to catch fish, which they smoked on racks above fires built of creosote bush and pine chips. They were cheerful and hospitable, and gave food and shelter freely to Yama and Prefect Corin.

Then there were proper houses amongst the tombs, foursquare and painted yellow or blue or pink, with little gardens planted out on their flat roofs. The houses stepped up the cliffs like piles of boxes, with steep narrow streets between. Shanty villages had been built on stilts over the mudbanks and silty channels left by the river’s retreat, and beyond these, sometimes less than half a league from the road, sometimes two or three leagues distant, was the river, and docks made of floating pontoons, and a constant traffic of little cockleshell sailboats and barges and sleek fore-and-aft rigged cutters and three-masted xebecs hugging the shore. Along the old river road, street merchants sold fresh fish and oysters and mussels from tanks, and freshly steamed lobsters and spiny crabs, samphire and lotus roots and water chestnuts, bamboo and little red bananas and several kinds of kelp, milk from tethered goats, spices, pickled walnuts, fresh fruit and grass juice, ice, jewelry made of polished shells, black seed pearls, caged birds, bolts of brightly patterned cloth, sandals made from the worn rubber tread of steam wagon tires, cheap plastic toys, tape recordings of popular ballads or prayers, and a thousand other things. The stalls and booths of the merchants formed a kind of ribbon market strung along the dusty margin of land at the shoulder of the old road, noisy with the cries of hawkers and music from tape recorders and itinerant musicians, and the buzz of commerce as people bargained and gossiped. When a warship went past, a league beyond the crowded tarpaper roofs of the shanty villages and the cranes of the floating docks, everyone stopped to watch it. As if in salute, it raised the red-and-gold blades of its triple-banked oars and fired a charge of white smoke from a cannon, and everyone watching cheered.

That was when Yama realized that he could see, for the first time, the far-side shore of the Great River, and that the dark line at the horizon, like a storm cloud, were houses and docks. The river here was deep and swift, stained brown along the shore and dark blue farther out. He had reached Ys and had not known it; the city had crept up on him like an army in the night, the inhabited tombs like scouts, these painted houses and tumbledown shanty villages like the first ranks of foot soldiers. It was as if, after the fiasco of the attempted rescue of the palmers, he had suddenly woken from a long sleep.

Prefect Corin had said little about the landslide which had killed the bandits, the kidnapped women and their priest, Belarius. “You did what you could,” he had told Yama. “If we had not tried, the women would be dead anyway.”

Yama had not told Prefect Corin about the machine. Let him think what he liked. But Yama had not been able to stop himself reliving what had happened as he had trudged behind the Prefect on the long road to Ys. Sometimes he felt a tremendous guilt, for it had been his foolish pride which had prompted him to use the machine, which had led to the deaths of the bandits and the kidnapped women. And sometimes he felt a tremendous anger toward Prefect Corin, for having laid such a responsibility upon him. He had little doubt that the Prefect could have walked into the bandits’ camp, killed them all, and freed the women. Instead he had used the situation to test Yama, and Yama had failed, and felt guilt for having failed, and then anger for having been put to an impossible test.

Humiliation or anger. At last, Yama settled for the latter. As he walked behind Prefect Corin, he often imagined drawing his knife and hacking the man’s head from his shoulders with a single blow, or picking a stone from the side of the road and using it as a hammer. He dreamed of running fast and far and, until the warship passed, had been lost in his dreams.

Yama and Prefect Corin ate at a roadside stall. Without being asked, the owner of the stall brought them steamed mussels, water lettuce crisply fried in sesame oil with strands of ginger, and tea made from kakava bark; there was a red plastic bowl in the center of the table into which fragments of bark could be spat. Prefect Corin did not pay for the food—the stall’s owner, a tall man with loose, pale skin and rubbery webs between his fingers, simply smiled and bowed when they left.

“He is glad to help someone from the Department,” Prefect Corin explained, when Yama asked.

“Why is that?”

Prefect Corin waved a hand in front of his face, as if at a fly. Yama asked again.

“Because we are at war,” the Prefect said. “Because the Department fights that war. You saw how they cheered the warship. Must you ask so many questions?”

Yama said, “How am I to learn, if I do not ask?”

Prefect Corin stopped and leaned on his tall staff and stared at Yama. People stepped around them. It was crowded here, with two- and three-story houses packed closely together on either side of the road. A string of camels padded past, their loose lips curled in supercilious expressions, little silver bells jingling on their leather harness.

“The first thing to learn is when to ask questions and when to keep silent,” Prefect Corin said, and then he turned and strode off through the crowd.

Without thinking, Yama hurried after him. It was as if this stern, taciturn man had made him into a kind of pet, anxiously trotting at his master’s heels. He remembered what Dr. Dismas had said about the oxen, trudging endlessly around the water lift because they knew no better, and his resentment rose again, refreshed.

For long stretches, now, the river disappeared behind houses or godowns. Hills rose above the flat roofs of the houses on the landward side of the road, and after a while Yama realized that they were not hills but buildings. In the hazy distance, the towers he had so often glimpsed using the telescope on the peel-house’s heliograph platform shone like silver threads linking earth and sky.

For all the long days of traveling, the towers seemed as far away as ever.

There were more and more people on the road, and strings of camels and oxen, and horse-drawn or steam wagons bedecked with pious slogans, and sleds gliding at waist height, their loadbeds decorated with intricately carved wooden rails painted red and gold. There were machines here, too. At first, Yama mistook them for insects or hummingbirds as they zipped this way and that above the crowds. No one in Aeolis owned machines, not even the Aedile (the watchdogs were surgically altered animals, and did not count) and if a machine strayed into the little city’s streets everyone would get as far away from it as possible. Here, no one took any notice of the many machines that darted or spun through the air on mysterious errands. Indeed, one man was walking toward Yama and Prefect Corin with a decad of tiny machines circling above his head.

The man stopped in front of the Prefect. The Prefect was tall, but this man was taller still—he was the tallest man Yama had ever seen. He wore a scarlet cloak with the hood cast over his head, and a black tunic and black trousers tucked into thigh-high boots of soft black leather. A quirt like those used by ox drivers was tucked into the belt of his trousers; the ends of the quirt’s hundred strands were braided with diamond-shaped metal tags. The man squared up to Prefect Corin and said, “You’re a long way from where you should be.”

Prefect Corin leaned on his staff and looked up at the man. Yama stood behind the Prefect. People were beginning to form a loose circle with the red-cloaked man and Prefect Corin in its center.

The man in the red cloak said, “If you have business here, I haven’t heard of it.”

A machine landed on Prefect Corin’s neck, just beneath the angle of his jaw. Prefect Corin ignored it. He said, “There is no reason why you should.”

“There’s every reason.” The man noticed the people watching and slashed the air with his quirt. The tiny, bright machines above his head widened their orbits and one dropped down to hover before the man’s lips.

“Move on,” the man said. His voice, amplified by the machine, echoed off the faces of the buildings on either side of the street, but most of the people only stepped back a few paces. The machine rose and the man told Prefect Corin in his ordinary voice, “You’re causing a disturbance.”

Prefect Corin said, “There was no disturbance until you stopped me. I would ask why.”

“This is the road, not the river.”

Prefect Corin spat in the dust at his feet. “I had noticed.”

“You are carrying a pistol.”

“By the authority of my Department.”

“We’ll see about that. What’s your business? Are you spying on us?”

“If you are doing your duty, you have nothing to fear. But do not worry, brother, I am no spy. I am returning from a downriver city where I had a task to perform. It is done, and now I return.”

“Yet you travel by road.”

“I thought I would show this boy something of the countryside. He has led a very sheltered life.”

A machine darted forward and spun in front of Yama’s face. There was a flash of red light in the backs of Yama’s eyes and he blinked, and the machine flew up to rejoin the spinning dance above the man’s head. The man said, “This is your catamite? The war is going badly if you can’t find better. This one has a corpse’s skin. And he is carrying a proscribed weapon.”

“Again, by the authority of my Department,” Prefect Corin said.

“I don’t know the bloodline, but I’d guess he’s too young for an apprenticeship. You had better show your papers to the officer of the day.”

The man snapped his fingers and the machines dropped and settled into a tight orbit around the Prefect’s head, circling him like angry silver wasps. The man turned then, slashing the air with his quirt so that those nearest him fell back, pressing against those behind. “Make way!” the man shouted as he hacked a path through the crowd with his quirt. “Make way! Make way!”

Yama said to Prefect Corin, as they followed the man, “Is this the time to ask a question?”

“He is a magistrate. A member of the autonomous civil authority of Ys. There is some bad blood between his department and mine. He will make a point about who is in charge here, and then we will be on our way.”

“How did he know about the pistol and my knife?”

“His machines told him.”

Yama studied the shuttling weave of the little machines around Prefect Corin’s head. One still clung to the Prefect’s neck, a segmented silver bead with four pairs of wire-like legs and mica wings folded along its back. Yama could feel the simple thoughts of the machines, and wondered if he might be able to make them forget what they had been ordered to do, but he did not trust himself to say the right thing to them, and besides, he was not about to reveal his ability by helping the Prefect.

The road opened onto a square lined with flame trees just coming into leaf. On the far side, a high wall rose above the roofs of the buildings and the tops of the trees. It was built of closely fitted blocks of black, polished granite, with gun platforms and watchtowers along its top. Soldiers lounged by a tall gate in the wall, watching the traffic that jostled through the shadow of the gate’s arch. The magistrate led Prefect Corin and Yama across the square and the soldiers snapped to attention as they went through the gate. They climbed a steep stair that wound widdershins inside the wall to a wide walkway at the top. A little way along, the wall turned at a right-angle and ran beside the old bank of the river, and a faceted blister of glass, glittering in the sunlight, clung there.

It was warm and full of light inside the glass blister. Magistrates in red cloaks stood at windows hung in the air, watching aerial views of the road, of ships moored at the docks or passing up and down the river, of red tile rooftops, of a man walking along a crowded street. Machines zipped to and fro in the bright air, or spun in little clouds. At the center of all this activity, a bareheaded officer sat with his boots up on a clear plastic table, and after the magistrate had talked with him the officer called Prefect Corin over.

“Just a formality,” the officer said languidly, and held out his hand. The eight-legged machine dropped from the Prefect’s neck and the officer’s fingers briefly closed around it.

When they opened again, the machine sprang into the air and began to circle the magistrate’s head.

The officer yawned and said, “Your pass, Prefect Corin, if you please.” He ran a fingernail over the imprinted seal of the resin tablet Prefect Corin gave him, and said, “You didn’t take return passage by river, as you were ordered.”

“Not ordered. I could have taken the river passage if I chose to, but it was left to my discretion. The boy is to be apprenticed as a clerk. I thought that I would show him something of the country. He has led a sheltered life.”

The officer said, “It’s a long, hard walk.” He was looking at Yama now. Yama met his gaze and the officer winked. He said, “There’s nothing here about this boy, or his weapon. Quite a hanger for a mere apprentice.”

“An heirloom. He is the son of the Aedile of Aeolis.”

Prefect Corin’s tone implied that there was nothing more to be said about the matter.

The officer set the tablet on the desk and said to the magistrate, “Nym, fetch a chair for Prefect Corin.”

Prefect Corin said, “There is no need for delay.”

The officer yawned again. His tongue and teeth had been stained red by the narcotic leaf he had wadded between gum and cheek. His tongue was black, long and sharply pointed.

“It’ll take a little while to confirm things with your department. Would you like some refreshment?”

The tall, red-cloaked magistrate set a stool beside Prefect Corin. The officer indicated it, and after a moment Prefect Corin sat down. He said, “I do not need anything from you.”

The officer took out a packet of cigarettes and put one in his mouth and lit it with a match he struck on the surface of the desk. He did all this at a leisurely pace; his gaze did not leave the Prefect’s face. He exhaled smoke and said to the magistrate, “Some fruit. And iced sherbet.” He told Prefect Corin, “While we’re waiting, you can tell me about your long walk from—” he glanced at the tablet—“Aeolis. A party of palmers has gone missing somewhere around there, I believe. Perhaps you know something. Meanwhile, Nym will talk with the boy, and we’ll see if the stories are the same, What could be simpler?”

Prefect Corin said, “The boy must stay with me. He is in my charge.”

“Oh, I think he will be safe with Nym, don’t you?”

“I have my instructions,” Prefect Corin said.

The officer stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. “You cleave to them with admirable fidelity. We’ll take care of the boy. You’ll tell your story to me. He’ll tell his to Nym. Then we’ll see if the stories are the same. What could be simpler?”

Prefect Corin said, “You do not know—”

The officer raised an eyebrow.

“He is in my charge,” Prefect Corin said. “We will go now, I think.”

He started to rise, and for an instant was crowned with a jagged circle of sparks. There was a sudden sharp smell of burnt hair and he fell heavily onto the stool. The little machines calmly circled his head, as if nothing had happened.

“Take the boy away, Nym,” the officer said. “Find out where he’s been and where he’s going.”

Prefect Corin turned and gave Yama a dark stare. His shoulders were hunched and his hands were pressed between his knees. A thin line of white char circled his sleek black head, above his eyes and the tops of his tightly folded ears. “Do what you are told,” he said. “No more than that.”

The magistrate, Nym, took Yama’s arm and steered him around the windows in the air. The machines quit their orbits around Prefect Corin’s head and followed the magistrate in a compact cloud. In the hot sunlight outside the dome, Nym looked through Yama’s satchel and took out the sheathed knife.

“That was a gift from my father,” Yama said. He half-hoped that the knife would do something to the magistrate, but it remained inert. Yama added, “My father is the Aedile of Aeolis, and he told me to take good care of it.”

“I’m not going to steal it, boy.” The magistrate pulled the blade halfway out of its sheath. “Nicely balanced. Loyal, too.” He dropped it into Yama’s satchel. “It tried to bite me, but I know something about machines. You use it to cut firewood, I suppose. Sit down. There. Wait for me. Don’t move. Try to leave, and the machines will knock you down, like they did with your master. Try to use your weapon and they’ll boil you down to a grease spot. I’ll come back and we’ll have a little talk, you and me.”

Yama looked up at the magistrate. He tried not to blink when the machines settled in a close orbit around his head. “When you fetch refreshments for my master, remember that I would like sherbet, too.”

“Oh yes, we’ll have a nice talk, you and me. Your master doesn’t have a pass for you, and I’ll bet you don’t have a permit for your knife, either. Think about that.”

Yama waited until Nym had gone down the stairway, then told the machines to leave him alone. They wanted to know where they should go, so he asked them if they could cross the river, and when they said that they could he told them to go directly across the river and to wait there.

The machines gathered into a line and flew straight out over the edge of the wall, disappearing into the blue sky above the crowded roofs of the stilt shanties and the masts of the ships anchored at the floating docks. Yama went down the stairs and walked boldly past the soldiers. None of them spared him more than a glance, and he walked out of the shadow of the gate into the busy street beyond the wall.