CHAPTER 8

  Ran bumped his fingers along the uneven spines of the books. The aroma of old paper and old leather enfolded him. The history section, absurdly relegated to the basement of Cree's shop. Some books were thin, less than Ran’s pinky, but also long, sticking out from the wall and overshadowing fatter, shorter brethren. Often Ran would find two or three hiding in the shadows of such, and so explored with care.

  Loose papers covered everything, but that was Cree’s, even on the main floor displays. Invoices, receipts, pages, some older than Ran, crackled around him with every twitch, every turn.

  He’d only been in school for the second quarter, for in Wordheal the children labor for three months, rest three, and so on, until 18. Coming Gift season marked both the end of school break as well as the year’s turn. Only one month of casual, unforced reading left.

  Ran worked hard in all subjects, detesting math all the time. Kiyo and Sarge had given so much to him that he owed them good grade (except in math, which were merely passable). Of history and ancient rokkisms he could get no end.

  Was it some way to understand himself? Probably. He understood so little of that. He’d likely do better reading science (though he’s prefer flaying and swimming in lemon juice, in any order), were that his goal.

  Why did he like stories of old queens and distant battles between peoples so far removed from everyday experience that even many credentialed experts knew little of them?

  Alone. Vanity. You know it. Why fight? So tangible and immediate was the foe at that moment that he would not have been surprised to turn and find it grinning. A wretched blob of inky black covered in many shiny, bright grinning mouths. Alone. Nameless. Alone. You know.

  "I am so weird."

  Three floors above held the remainder. Trashy, predictable romantasies mixed with self-help nonsense, and rokkist hiddenism, and, Rokk help them all, biographies of the not yet deceased! Three on Word Ferapa alone this year alone. Rather read one of those insipid Oski teen, violence-and-lust trashcans. Ran delivered more than a few each day to deservedly embarrassed adults.

  He turned the corner and started down the inner rows. Cree’s shop wasn’t anything like the libraries in Central. More trading-post than shop, and bursting with eclectic esoterica. The Words and other leaders could care less about a black-eyed bookman in the south section, and so Cree traded freely with the wanderers and refugees who flooded Wordheal every day. Books could be found in his shop that would never be seen in any proper Given library. One of the happiest days of his post naked field life had been when Ran found it by accident, tucked snug against the city wall, nearly invisible between two mammoth tenements.

  Sarge would flip if he knew half of my check was two free books a week.

  Already in hand was a collection of stories from Red Isle, at the sun’s most rise. He was most eager to read the the first such about a red-eye black-fire rokkae who carved the twisting isles in the beginning. Beginning stories always gave him excuse to talk Text with Kiyo, and she loved that.

  Lately he simply could not get enough about Red Isle. Leafy woods with temples folded in layers of wet-green with great, pulsing electric lights and the most advanced skeel technology just a mountain range further.

  And the Edges, man the Edges. Those death-dealer roamers who to this day sought war and rectitude.

  He’d told Tek about Vermillion, its new capital one night a month back. The following morning Ran found his brother huddled under his blankets with his books. "Dude,” Tek’s eyes had been half-mad, "we are shaking going to this place!”

  Ran glanced at the old, bulky wall clock. The Pub would be picking up. Shit.

  Flipping through to the middle of one with a deep black cover he read of a ring with a clunky name a syllable too long. Boring.

  Ran stepped sideways, as always realized three seconds too late he was tripping, and crashed against the shelf behind. Was there a ball on the top shelf? Something sure sounded like it was rolling. He waited for the queasy sound of a month of free books toppling.

  Nothing.

  Ran turned around, scanned at his feet. He'd heard a rolling.

  "Shake. . .” He turned again. Something bumped his hip from inside his satchel.

  Placing the Red Isle book on a shelf, he opened the bag’s mouth. . .pulled out an old, rusted biblio. He turned it over in his fingers. Even for a biblio it was small, fitting snugly in his palm. Across both sides of the double-cylinder, lengthwise, were odd bumps that Ran at first took to be decoration before he cleared away the dust and dirt and found them to be symbols. Two on each side. Another language? Stupid. Only one language was spoke on the face of the Nameless World. Well. . . there had once been Oldword. . . maybe. That mythic tongue’s written form was comprised, it was said, of many slanting sticks and points, not ugly little figures.

  Cree had more than a few biblios, but these were old, with busted battery chambers. Had to pull the ultra-thin paper by hand. Could break any second. Who wanted that?

  Ran looked for the battery but found nothing but unbroken carapace. Biblio without a battery. Useless. Carefully he separated the tubes until he could read the writing on the ultra-thin paper. . .but it wasn’t paper but more like tin only not as soft.

  Ran squinted. ". . .all biblios in the world would couldn't hold. . . Well, damn.” Yep. Just the Text.

  Odd how little he cared for it. Ancient. He should like it. But Heir didn’t throw stars or anything interesting. Even when he just walked and talked the Lives always seemed eager to get to the next boring thing instead of flesh-out the last mildy-interesting one.

  The Archives, the first half of the Given Text, were no better. His favorite Field creation story, but past that the Sebi were inferior to Old Nesgoh, Ovon or the Millennislands. Those poets soaked pages in ink and blood to describe war and death and glory. The Lives imitated the laconic Sebi archives: "X killed Y, then Z went to A and said B then C". . . On and on.

  The choice to stop reading became much easier when the scroll locked between the tubes, wedged by some internal obstruction. He pushed the sides back together and placed it back on the shelf. Kiyo had a million copies of the Text, just in case a boarder needed one. He picked up his first book and turned to resume his search for a companion.

  Above him, there was a crash, and Cree suddenly screaming. "Ran! Get up here! Bloody wind's blown the doors open! The main stand, my lilies! RAN!!!” Another crash, and down the steps came a wave of loose papers as if belched out from a giant’s mouth.

  Ran looked back at the clock. "Second book, second book!” his panicked eyes roamed the shelves, landed on the biblio. He looked back at the clock.

  "Ran!” Another thump. "My back!"

  Unthinking, he grabbed the biblio, dropped it into his bag, and rushed up to his employer's aid.

  ----------------------------------------------------

  Once the papers had been gathered anywhere but the floor, Cree’s black irises (which, despite the guy's good humor, small stature and bent back, intimidated Rab) examined both he and the single book he held with heightened curiosity. His left eye twitched.

  "I beg you, my lad, do not extinguish the last flare of my living soul, my lad!” Cree was shaking Ran by his shoulders. "One, my lad!? Only one!? Not fleeing to that. . .that television, are you? Shall your splendid brain waste away into mush? I droning simpleton? MY LAD!?”

  Never prepared for this hair-trigger intensity, Ran gasped, "No!”

  Sweat slid down Cree’s temples, giving his black skin, darker even than Ran’s, a sheen. "Eschew those destructive, those pitiable. . .Slippery slope! Progenitor, progenitors of my iris!” Cree sighed woefully and cast narrowed black eyes upon the display table covered in the Oski pulp. "Inattention to one’s mental faculties and. . .who knows. . .anyone might fall under the seductive spell off. . .Young. Adult. Fiction."

  "I just really want to take my time with this book." Ran sputtered between shakes.

  "Forebears!” Cree cried, and he released Ran and fell into the chair by the till. "Thank them! Light a lantern for it, my lad! To the Field! Curse these Given neighbors, uh, no offense, they call the cityguard every time I do! You sets with the. . .the. . .television. . .the worldstream games. The Orphan... the Orphan could sort this out. Insufferable Words, my lad! Don’t tell anyone I said that!”

  A hansom alarm on the street bleated.

  "I won’t. Holly crap. I have to get going, Cree. The Pub's hitting rush hour." He pulled away. "See you after Gift!”

  "One book. . .” Cree mumbled as Ran left.

  "Not a lie.” Ran said as he pounded the long sidewalk. "I only took one book. Other’s a biblio.”

  Why? He couldn’t say.

  He read as he walked, trusting his street to watch out for him. Many wished Gift cheer, and he would gently wave. The War of the Edges fused Kishimoto and Arakawa into Endless, a now-largely decorative office retained to this day.

  Edge War. . .He needed more books.

  Pym’s frowning face suddenly broke upon his mind. Odd, at least if you didn't consider he was pretty sure he was in love with her.

  When her dad had lost his job at one of the north section’s skeel plants, they were forced into the south. Only a few weeks after Ran had started school.

  He couldn’t even grunt in her direction.

  At the end of that week, in a horrifying turn of luck that would have made a Millenislander playwright blush, he had been paired with her for a class project.

  "R-r-aaan. . .” He’d croaked through burnt throat.

  By class end, she’d given the presentation while he stood there, sweating, throat burning, fighting to just not die.

  Next Dayone, as Ran was moping and writing bad poetry in his room, dreading the coming week, Sarge had come in. "Dinner. Hey, you ok, boy? Your face is. . .uh. . . you look like you’re about to die.”

  Ran couldn’t stop himself, spewed for five straight minutes. Eyes, hair, face. . .her. . .uh. . .eyes. . .

  His large, rough, square-jawed adopted-father listened on his bed's end with uncharacteristic focus. "Talk with her.”

  "That is so unhelpful. . .for so many reasons.” Hadn’t he mentioned how hot she was?

  "She’s iris, bone, brain, same as you. Wears pants."

  "Wha?"

  "She ain't an empress or queen or whatever. Problem with those snooty books you like is they make easy things hard. Better than you not reading, I guess. Where was I? She don’t like you? Shake her. Tons of girls in Nameless. Forget that cussing, will ya?”

  The next day, as he watched her messy gold hair wave about her as she walked, Sarge’s advice became, were it possible, more stupid. He watched, not creepily, her all day. She sat and tapped her fingers in the most adorable way, scrunching up her face randomly, sometime looking angry, sometimes exultant. Girl's were weird. Made a lot more sense once Tek had told of her home life, her parents. . .but at the time it was just mesmerizing.

  At lunch he hid in the library. He’d done it before Pym’d shown up. But of course that day she walked in. Like a total creep, he was under no illusions this time, he watched her silently comb the stacks, her fingers wiggling. Every shelf she would pause and, silent as a tomb, read the titles carefully, move on.

  "Ran?” She was next to him, above him, her hair sweet and bright and burning in his throat. He fell out of his chair. "Oh, sorry. Your name is Ran? I was just curious, where did you get those amazing old-looking books? They don’t have library tags.”

  His tongue seemed as thick as a sirloin. "Shop. . .urk. . . I mean work. . .me.” He finally got som e air in, "Oh Rokk. . .I deliver them!”

  "Really?” she pulled a chair up next to him. "I love old books! Could you show me the shop?”

  Tek had been annoyed after school, let it slip he scavenged.

  "You're a brave one aren't you?" her yellow eyes were brighter than normal. "There are some jacked-up people out there."

  "Don't patronize me."

  "Tek!"

  Pym laughed. "Not many can look me in the eyes and talk like that. I like you, Tek. I go out there every so often. I could show you some neat, reliable caches."

  Tek never complained about her again.

  That night, as he helped Sarge work on an engine, the big man asked, "Talk to her or what?”

  "No. . . what?” He dropped a large wrench onto his own foot. "Yes. Ow. Yeah, yeah, I did.”

  "Not that scary, huh?”

  Ran was still trembling.

  In the present, where he’d stopped paying attention even to the book, Ran crashed into someone. The book fell from his hands and landed face up on the pavement, a large picture of Beetle King Satoshi staring up at the scrawny black dude he’d run into. "Maw!” said the man.

  "I’m. . .” Ran stammered.

  "Ran! Ran! Get away from him!” It was old Sao, the chubby owner of the pastry shop.

  The brown-eye recoiled, growled, "He ran into me, dude!”

  Undeterred, Sao advanced faster on the small circle of brown eyes, "Outta here! Can’t you read the signs? No loitering! Cityguard will be here in no time! Vagrants! Trash!”

  The group bolted just as Carl, another neighbor, arrived. He pulled Ran to his feet.

  "You ok?” Sao asked as he looked Ran over, handed him his book.

  "I’m fine,” said Ran. "I-I hit him.”

  "Shit-eyes! As bad as narokks. I’ve seen that group around here for weeks. Been looking for a reason. Lazy, southcontinent trash. Don’t you come back round here!” Several of those still gathering mumbled agreement. A few mewed words from the Text.

  Ran dashed after the brown eyes.

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  "Text doesn’t say anything about immigration!” Sao cried as Ran turned the corner, again nearly bowling the brown eye over.

  How had he not noticed? Hard to tell what someone’s eye-color was from a distance. No one else seemed to have that problem.

  You are alone. Think on it. Dwell on the totality of isolation. Finality. Smothering finality.

  The man turned, barked, "What?”

  Eyes, hummed the villain. Eyes, fool.

  Ran’s eyes were pale blue, like Tek, Sarge, Kiyo the majority of Wordheal and indeed the whole northset continent (save the orange). Why didn’t he ever see that? Alone.

  "I’m sorry, uh, sir,” Ran said with more confidence than he felt. "I hit you. I’m sorry. For the scene and everything.”

  The man’s eyes softened. Then one of his friends, a redhead with freckles that dotted a milky white face, spoke.

  "Feel better now? Nice little deed for a shit-eye? Gonna tell it in estate on Dayone? Get a gold star from your underbook? Little blue-eyed bitch.”

  The man he hit turned back, "Leave him be, man.” They ignore Ran after that.

  When he finally turned for home, Ran’s mind dueled itself. Wordhealers thought the Firsts inhuman monsters who could justify any horror because of their belief that humans were merely another animal, no different from a squirrel or a mite.

  "Doesn’t explain the jerks in here.”

  Approaching another stoop, Ran saw a pile of grey garbage bags, only as he came closer realized them to be a huddled, small woman in dirty cloaks. Wiry white hair poked out beneath the gray hood that shook as she mumbled. Must be having a bad dream.

  He pulled out a ten, gently placed the coin on the ground in front of her. "Happy Gift,” he said softly.

  The pile stirred, the woman’s eyes opened and fixed on him. Mismatched. The right brown the other milky white.

  "See it yet, runt?” Her voice graded against the air.

  The world about Ran ceased, as if he were in amber, his eyes locked with her brown, white.

  "Sparkles in the sun," said she. "Maggot-stuffed by the hundreds and they wiggle in your mouth in your sleep." Was she trying to sing? "See?"

  Ran backed away. "I don’t see anything like that.”

  The mismatched eyes flitted. "Oh, you little liar."

  Ran turned and ran.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------------

  Kiyo and Sarge’s sat at the northset corner of Radvaa and FeeDarm. FeeDarm, the widest road south of Central, ran from risewall to setwall, and was the third major street before the city ended at the south wall. Radvaa ran north to south, climbed the natural hills of Wordheal’s tabletop all the way up to the Indigo school Tek loved to climb. The bottom floor of Ran’s house contained his parent’s room, the main living area and Sarge’s. Radvaa ran up the beside the house and met the second floor in the back, which was the entrance to the Pub.

  On the very top of the house, as if an afterthought, was tacked Tek and Ran’s attic. Tek told Ran that Sarge had built it when Kiyo, having taken him in several years before Ran, demanded that the boy have his own room and not just a sofa. Tek watched with joy as Sarge cursed his way through the project. But Sarge was good at such things, and the addition was roomy and comfy.

  Ran arrived home panting, leaned against the garage’s brick. She’s was just an old homeless woman. Why did he always get scared.

  Sarge’s voice pounded the air with curses, and Ran turned the corner to find Sarge’s rear hanging out of the open hood of a hansom.

  "Ah, shake! Shake off! Can’t see the shaking thing. Can’t see shit. Can't ever see it!" Several heavy breaths. "Oh, yes. Yes you will. Yes, you will! No! No! You would. Pillarshaking, shit-eatin’, rusted piece of Red Isle. . .” There was great metallic thunk, an exclamatory grunt, positive or negative Ran could not tell.

  Stifling a laugh, Ran moved into the garage, making enough noise that Sarge would know he was there. He’d surprised Sarge when he was under a hansom once, causing him to smash his head into its frame.

  "Tek?”

  "Ran. You better be careful. Kiyo and the folks above can hear like ninety percent of that. Maw, the guys on the wall can probably hear it.”

  "Them wall boys hear worse every day from the wailers. As for ma,” Sarge pushed himself out of the engine bay, wiped grimy hands with a nearby rag, "She’s only got herself to blame for saying yes to me. Watch your mouth. She can’t change me, but she’ll kill me with something creative and dull she hears you say 'maw’.”

  "Sorry.”

  Sarge tossed a wrench into one of his many toolboxes. "To complicate is to be woman. I’ll bet none of your books say anything that wise.”

  "Never read it.” Sarge did not share Ran’s taste for dry history, but he was smart. Enough time and filthy words and he could fix just about anything.

  "Speaking of women, how’s that cutie been following you around?” Sarge winked while he washed his massive white hands.

  Why? Ran thought.

  Kiyo’s was copper, Tek’s white. Whenever Ran saw the family portrait hanging in the Pub, he’d think, If I saw us walking down the street, I’d never think us family. Why did he think that way? Why couldn't he change the way he thought?

  "She’s my friend. Tek friend, really”

  "Still playing around?”

  "She’s not playing with me.”

  "Not talkin’ about her.” Sarge pulled a bottle of water from the nearby fridge and handed it to Ran before taking one for himself.

  "Women,” Sarge thought, "another one for your books. They’re like a trap. A baited trap. That no man can escape from. But where would we be without them? Huh?”

  "Ah.” He thought of Pym’s glowing yellow eyes and his desire to just fall into them forever. "What?”

  The large man must not have heard. "You better believe it, boy. You think the world is bloody now? Think of one with only men.”

  Briefly, Ran considered telling Sarge about Am, but decided against it. Seemed ratty and whiny to come to him with that stuff. Unlike Kiyo, Sarge wasn’t a Wordhealer by birth, but instead came from the streets of a city that used to sit far to the north of the valley. Tezm-by-the-Mouth, more commonly just Tezm. "Cursed Tezm” after its end. His adoptive father would, if the mood caught him, launch into long, twisting stories filled with angry, young, violent men fighting over control of mere blocks of long-ruined city.

  Tek loved these, and the nonchalant, non-self-aggrandizing way Sarge related them made him legendary in the neighborhood. "That scar? First time I got stabbed. What? Yeah, first. . ."so then the guy hit me with the pipe, I woke up after a few hours. . .my brother kept hitting him with that chain. Chains hurt.” No one messed with Sarge. Sometimes Ran could hardly believe the guy from the stories was the guy he now shared a house with. He said Kiyo changed him.

  "Rokkdammit," Sarge said when he missed the trash with his bottle.

  Changed parts of him, anyway.

  "Heard a bunch of hollerin’ out on the street. Figured it was e the little mouthy one up to trouble.”

  "It was Sao.”

  "Sao? What’s his bent?”

  Ran shrugged. "Some black dude was standing in front of his place. Sao thought he was loitering. What?”

  Sarge’s mouth twisted in confusion as he swallowed a gulp of water from a new bottle. "’White dude?’”

  Ran froze, the bottle in his fist popped as he squeezed it, "I meant white dude with brown eyes.”

  "’White dude with brown eyes?’” Sarge repeated. "That the way you kids talk?”

  "He was black,” Ran protested sheepishly. "I mean, he. . . had black skin.”

  "What’s that got to do with anything?”

  "What’s his iris got to do with anything?”

  Sarge studied him, chuckled, "Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Ran exhaled, the bottle popped again.

  "That bother you, what Sao did?”

  Ran wagged his head side-to-side. "It was my fault. I ran into the guy. You know Sao. Brown eyes.””

  Sarge hummed. "Life’s hard, boy. Feels good to blame. Means you don’t maybe suck as much as you thought. Makes you feel like you’ve done real hard work when you haven't done shit.” He pointed up to Kiyo’ Pub. "She taught me a lot of that. Why you should work double-quick on getting one like her. Then you’ll be--”

  Above them, Kiyo shrieked, "Get up here you old, grease-covered monkey!”

  "Get up there and give them a hand, eh? Got to clean up before reentering respectable society.”

  Ran bounded the stairs. After throwing his bag on the kitchen table he entered the Pub. Kiyo flew across the room, drinks in one hand, food in the other.

  The regulars cheered his name, and maybe life wasn't so bad.

  "Praise Rokk!” cried Kiyo, "Tray! Ran! Missy needs help.”

  The city’s light haze battled the few brave stars as the work, and hours, sped by.

  Before long Kiyo was floating from table to table to switch on the fake candles when the sun had completely set, and Ikl, Sarge’s oldest friend, was telling a table of fellow skeelplaters about his new estate.

  "I thought it was weird at first,” the hefty man with fuzzy eyebrows said. "Those weird tats 'round their eyes, right? But then the underbook starts talking about the Sleeper or whatever. Don’t laugh, Kon, I was in your estate for a year, I know the stuff you all talk about. It’s only my second time there, and I’m thinking 'this is weird,’ eh? But then I think, 'Is it any weirder than anything else in the Text?’ Sure as maw can’t see how.” Kiyo slapped the back of his head as she walked by.

  "Watch your mouth.”

  "Sorry. Anyway misses likes it. Best reason to keep going back.”

  Not for the first time Ran was struck by how often, how easily, and for what frivolous reasons Given shifted estates. Smaller new ones popped up and fizzled out everyday.

  "Stick with the Text, Ikly.” Kiyo said. "Why mess with perfection?”

  "Gets boring hearing the same stuff all the time. Hey, speaking of new things you all hear that Pilgrim’s in town? That one Pilgrim? Words are looking all over the place for him.”

  "Pilgrim?” Ran asked, "who’s that?” The table regarded him as if he wore a dead bird for a hat.

  "Wayfarer?” Shen, another skeelplater, said.

  Ran had heard that name countless times. He was supposed to have travelled from one side of Nameless to the other, founding estates and irritating non-Given. Everyone knew a 'Wayfarer was locked in this prison’ story.

  Across the world. Ran's mouth watered.

  "Hey there, cutie,” Shen whispered as the Pub's waitress, Missy, passed. She reddened, her green eyes rolling shyly, uncomfortably. Other skeelplater's joined. Instinct to tell Shen to cram it burned within Ran, but he held it back. He didn’t need any more help to make a fool of himself.

  From nowhere, like a manic monkey, Tek flew in and slapped Shen, whose bald head cracked sideways, his glasses flew.

  The kid laughed and yelled, "She doesn’t like it you, loser! Does she have to say it in Oldword?” and dove back into the crowd to avoid both Kiyo and work. The table erupted with laughs as Shen picked his glasses up.

  Ran heard of more new estates as the night rounded off. A turkey club guy commented that his "didn’t care so much” about who Heir was. Another, who to the pulsating of Kiyo’s temple vein, only wanted water, said his underbook took care to be positive and positive only. "Life’s hard enough.” A woman, who made the long trip into Central every Dayone to the Glory Canton, said Urba himself was giving talks about the "odd character” of the Archives, which surprised Ran most of all. The Archives and Text were bonded. Couldn’t have one without the other.

  Maybe ya could.

  By the end of the night, Ran sat in the corner of the near-empty pub, picking at a ham sandwich while Ikly and Sarge, who had conveniently appeared when most of the work was done, argued with their friends.

  Through the open door of the pub a cool, early night breeze tickled the back of his neck, and this prompted him to looked over. Door should be closed.

  Why his eyes settled on the lone man sitting in the far corner, behind Sarge and his group, he didn’t know.

  He leaned back in a chair against the wall, face wrapped in the deep shadow of the raised hood of his jacket, the man sat so still that, at first, Ran thought he was shadow. This man seemed completely at ease, with limbs loose and neck cocked, but still coiled, prepared. A snake or cat before striking.

  Odd though he was, his jacket, which seemed bend the light in the room around itself as if made of mirror, was odder still. Even over the heated sound of Sarge’s argument, Ran could discern a light tune. The stranger was humming. . . Poorly. Like really off key. It almost made Ran wince.

  Wait, was this weirdo staring at Ran? No. That was stupid.

  Ran looked down. Counted to sixty. Looked back up.

  He couldn't be staring at Ran. Why would he?

  But he was. Ran watched the vivid twin reflections of the fake, scarlet candles Kiyo loved so much flare in shaded eyes. He was smiling! Like a man who’d just won a thousand pounds of gold!

  Ran locked onto his plate, strange panic welling within. Rokk, this is so creepy! Why, dude? Why are you staring at me? I didn’t do anything to you. If I did do something and forgot, I’m sorry. I’ve forgot a lot of stuff, trust me! Stop staring. Ran glanced over. The smile widened, the eyes flared red. Weird dude! Leave me alone! Go be weird somewhere else. Stop staring. STOP!

  "Yo,” Tek hit him. "What are you doing?”

  Ran gasped, and nearly choked on chewed sandwich. "Where'd you come from?"

  "Your face--uh-oh. . .” Tek was right to be scared, for Kiyo materialized out from the shadows like nightmare. She was pretty, despite the wrath in her face, with just barest hints of gray in deep black hair. Her skin was smooth, slightly bronzed, as if brushed with gold. Her strangely ovoid eyes, thin but with a subtle roundness, were angry slits. "You came home late. Real late. Call Citywatch late. For this alone you should be destroyed.”

  Tek rubbed the back of his head, initiated his most innocent face, "I-I’m cute. . .” He smiled.

  Quick as thought, her face changed and she scooped both of them up with incredible strength. "My boys are home.”

  "Not in public, woman,” Sarge yelled, and the table of men shook with laughter.

  "I heard you cursing earlier, old man!” Once released, Ran gasped and looked back behind Sarge. The table sat empty, and Missy wiped it.

  "You both,” said Kiyo, "upstairs. Hair, teeth, bed. I got vagrants to shoo.” To eagerly Kiyo grabbed a broom and began poking Ikly.

  Grateful for the positive turn, Tek shot for the back stairs, Ran right on his heels, the odd day re-centering on his home and washing away.

  Fifteen minutes later, faces and teeth washed, the boys pulled back clean, cool sheets and climbed into twin beds just as Kiyo came in with her glasses and a very worn Text. Ignoring the grumbles, she read carefully, glancing over her glasses every few minutes to make sure they were awake. Kingsayings filled their ears for the next half hour.

  "Wise roads begin with Ante, and His awe.” Kiyo nodded, set the Text aside. She removed her glasses. "Now, have you finished your letter?”

  "Bet he hasn’t,” Tek said smugly from the bunk below.

  Sarge shuffled in and slung Ran’s bag on the post of his top bunk.

  "Left this on the kitchen table.”

  "Thanks,” Ran said dryly. He forgot the damn thing, again!

  Sarge examined him. "Uh-oh. Haven’t done it yet, eh?” Kiyo slapped her husband's arm.

  "Ow. Don’t encourage! To bed!”

  Sarge rubbed Tek’s head and went back downstairs, but Kiyo’s eyes had never left Ran.

  "I promise I’ll do it tomorrow,” Ran whined.

  "The problem here is you’ve been saying that for months. I don’t understand how a boy who spends all of his free time reading can’t take five minutes to write a few paragraphs.”

  Tek laughed and in Kiyo-voice, said, "It’s very important, Ran.”

  "Shut it!”

  Kiyo cleared her throat. "Don’t speak that way in this house. He’s right. It is very important. I could mean life or death.” She looked at Tek. "You’re on breakfast tomorrow, by the way. Punishment for being late.”

  As happens with all people at one time or another, Ran’s fears and worries compressed, as magma at the opening of a volcano. Every fear and foible of the day from Am to Pym to brown eye to now pushed against his insides and he growled, "I know, ok? I get it?"

  In the ensuing silence, Tek whistled through his teeth.

  In a much gentler tone, Ran began again. "I know. I’m sorry Kiyo. I promise I’ll do it tomorrow. Promise.”

  "If Sarge had had QPosts when Tezm was destroyed, he might not have had to wandered for months before bumbling into Wordheal. He might know what happened to his friends, his family.” Kiyo stressed the last word. "This is for your family, not you.”

  QPosts, dotted throughout the continents of Nameless utilized the strange multi-layered properties of skeel plates to instantly copy any letter and send it to every other QPost. Made it hard to get straight who was writing to whom, and when, and the posts didn’t keep a long backlog, but compared to mail cross road, trail and sea, it was quick, and reliable.

  "Wordheal’s not gonna be destroyed.”

  Kiyo sighed a motherly sigh and kissed his forehead. "No one thought the Firsts would destroy Tezm, either. Do it.”

  "Ok.”

  Kiyo leaned over and whispered into his ear, "I knew you’d be irritated, so I waited until right now to tell you that you’re meeting Word Heracla tomorrow. Early.”

  "What?!” Ran buried his head in the blankets. "Kiyo, I asked. . .I told you not to worry about it. I never should have told you about the stupid anxiety!”

  "Don’t pout,” she replied, "I’d prefer you met with Word Ferapa, our Canton's Word, but he’s too busy. Everyone wants to be Freedom these days. Look Ran, you refuse to talk to anyone at our estate and I can’t stand to see you struggle with this anymore.”

  "But--”

  "No. Uh-uh, Ran. Decided. Tomorrow morning you take the elevated to Central.”

  Ran hugged his knees, "He won’t know how to help. He won't know anything."

  "Or maybe he’ll know exactly how to help. He’s a bookworm. Seems like you’d get on just fine.”

  "Yeah,” Tek piped in. "Lee’s in the Mystery. He said last year at Kiln Heracla started reading and old book out loud and went like an hour before someone got the courage to poke him with a stick to remind him he wasn’t alone.”

  "How encouraging,” muttered Ran.

  Kiyo smiled. "You have to be fighting kiddo. If you’re not fighting, you’re losing. At the very least you’ll get to see Central at Gift. It’s gorgeous. It will all end for your benefit. I trust Bard. Don’t you?”

  Ran looked into her gentle smile, and lied. "Yeah.”

  She kissed his head again and the same for Tek, "You, on the other hand, need to learn to keep your mouth shut.” Then she stood, shut the light off, and was gone.

  "I wish I could go to Central,” said Tek through the dark.

  "More than welcome to take my spot.”

  "Ran, what happened at Tezm anyway?”

  "What makes you think I know?”

  Tek snorted.

  "Shut up.”

  "Do you?”

  Ran sighed, "Yeah. But it’s not because I’m a nerd.”

  "Riiight.”

  "According to The Definitive Account of the First-Tezm Affair, First overreacted to a small band of Tezmites who had attacked them without the approval of Tezm. First thought Wordheal was behind it all. Wordheal and Tezm were tentative allies back then, so it wasn't a baseless--”

  "Ten. . .tective?”

  "Ten-ta-tive. It means they were kinda but kinda not.”

  "Why didn’t you say that?”

  "Fine.”

  There was a long silence. "You don’t think that’s what happened,” Tek said.

  "Everything’s got two sides, dude. First lesson of history. Most books we can get ahold of were written by Wordhealers. Doesn’t matter. First razed Tezm. That was wrong. Evil, even. I mean, I think, anyway.”

  "I’ve always heard it was Deathcloud did it.”

  Now Ran snorted, "Rumors started buy stupid people. There aren't any shiners around here. Much less in First. We'd be dust."

  There was a long silence. "Dude, what are you huffing? We saw a shiner the day I found you!”

  "That was a woman! Jeez Tek, even in your dumb comics Deathcloud's is a guy. And I’m not convinced she was a shiner.”

  Tek poked his head over the side of Ran’s bunk. "You think she just threw exploding balls like a normal person does?”

  Ran tried no to giggle. "We were scared.”

  "I was scared.” Tek went back down. "You were in love.” Smooching sounds were next.

  "Jerk. Stupid poems. I couldn’t even really see her face all that well.”

  "’A stormy sea, she was,’” Tek recited.

  "If you don’t shut up, I’ll kill you. You know how I hate talking about that day.” Nothing brought Ran’s isolation into relief as that. "It could have been a weapon we don’t know about.” Ran stared out the window by his bedside. The illuminated face of the city wall hung over him in the night, and he imagined the wailers walking back and forth across its base outside, screaming at the stars and cutting their bodies like everyone said. "You didn’t go back out there after bells, did you?”

  Silence.

  "Tek?”

  "No?”

  "Tek!”

  "It’s fun out there! Pym can sniff out new caches all the time, it’s crazy how good she is at it. I make tons of cash off the trash out there. Wailers never so much as look at us! You better marry this chick, man. I want free candy for the rest of my life!”

  "Don’t change the subject. Sneaking around old mining tunnels. It is so. Shaking. Dangerous.”

  "Only reason I got a naked kid into Wordheal!”

  Ran couldn’t argue with that.

  "I saw you got another book about the red eyes,” Tek whispered after a yawn.

  "Yep.”

  "We’re going, yeah?”

  Ran smiled. "Yeah. Or die trying.”

  "We’ll prolly die. I want to see those forests. All that soft green. Love--”

  A minute later there was just snoring. "You too, man.” Kid fell asleep so easy.

  Ran kicked at his sheets, focused now on a new worry. Going to meet a Word. His mind rumbled as his eyes settled on a single bright star glittering just above the wall. So far. Stars in the Field. Dark between. Sleep was between stars like the dark, but when it finally came, it was, as always, an assassin.