Suited (11 page)

“Says that was very dangerous. Says that was a bad idea. Says it hurts, Tanyana, hurts and will never heal.”

Lad rambled on. I kept my eyes closed, savoured the darkness – the hot inside-my-own-head darkness that had nothing to do with doors – and breathed in the open air.

The city, and the world, had not been sucked into nothingness. So it couldn’t have been that bad an idea.

“Says the door will not go away now. The hole will stay forever.”

I opened my eyes. The lamp no longer flickered, but when I turned an aching head I realised that was because it no longer existed. The lamp and the Hon Ji Half’s body were gone. All that remained were enormous cracks in the cobblestones, spiderwebbing their way from the centre of the marketplace. Even as I watched they inched further, crawled up the sides of a closed-up stall, and dissolved it. Poly turned to liquid, then steam, then nothing at all. The vegetables inside it unwound to thin, floating fibres before vanishing with a breath of icy Movoc wind.

“How much longer will that go on?” I asked, my throat seared.

Someone had carried me from the centre of the market. Without them, would I too have been caught in that creeping emptiness and brushed away like so much dust?

“It’s slowing,” Kichlan said, close and above me. It took a moment to realise I was lying in his lap, his arms cradling my neck and knees. That explained who had moved me.

I shifted slightly, trying not to feel uncomfortable at being held so close to him. The movement flared up pain, too much like memories of stitches and healing scars. My suit hurt. In the bands, all around them, and deeper, a throb that seemed to travel to my spine. My right hand, I realised, felt the worst.

A grunt and I lifted it. My palm was a mess of countless tiny cuts, all crimson and slowly solidifying silver. Splinters from an unreal door? I shuddered, lowered it, and glanced up at Kichlan instead.

He didn’t look to be in much better condition. Blood patterned his temple. His jaw and one eye were already darkening with bruises, and his lower lip was cut.

“Oh,” I said, before I could stop myself. “I’m sorry.”

“Actually, that was mostly me.” Aleksey’s jaw was also bruised, his lip swollen and welling up blood. He dabbed at it with his sleeve.

“Oh.” It really seemed about all I could manage to say. “I’m sorry.”

He tried to smile, flinched, settled into something neutral. “No one warned me collecting would be so violent.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, yet again. “I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t let you get close to Lad – any of you – the debris would have killed you. And then there was a door, and it was open. I didn’t want to hurt you, I would never want to–” I sounded pathetic. What kind of an excuse was that? “I’m sorry.”

“I know, Tan,” Kichlan said. “I really do understand. And thank you for helping my brother.” And, so swiftly I could have imagined it, he ducked his head and kissed me.

For a moment, all I felt was his tingling lips on mine. His blood was warm, and did not taste like mine did – not heavy with the metal drilled into his bones. I lifted one of my scarred hands, in something that felt like wonder, and ran fingers down the marvellous angle of his jaw.

Then Lad said, “Says he hurts and you are all ignoring him and you should all stop talking and listen to him instead.”

I blinked myself back to reality, feeling flushed and sore and embarrassed. I watched a blush rise along Kichlan’s neck, and it was good to know he felt the same. Such a strange connection.

Lad was standing close to his brother, his hand hovering above mine, making patting motions without actually touching me. He looked worn, grey. The hem of his shirt was caked with blood.

There was so much blood. Would we ever truly be clean again?

“I think the cracks have stopped growing,” Mizra reported from somewhere I couldn’t see. “No more poly failing either.”

“Lad,” I said. “Will you speak to the… To him, for me?”

He hesitated, placed his bloodstained hand on mine. “Yes.” Some of the colour returned to his face. “I will.”

“Thank you.” I smiled at him, and managed to coax a small one out of him. “I will talk to him, please tell me what he says.”

Lad squeezed my hand.

I addressed a patch of air just behind Lad’s ear, deciding I didn’t much care if the Keeper was actually standing somewhere else. “I couldn’t tame it,” I said. “I couldn’t calm it. And I know tearing it away from you is probably the worst thing I could have done, but I hope you understand that I didn’t have a choice.”

Lad tipped his head. “Says: the door is closed now, but it is a scar and it won’t heal.” He paused. “And some other stuff. Sorry, Tan, he talks and talks and I can’t understand everything. Some of it isn’t real words.”

Kichlan’s hands tightened around me.

I swallowed down bile through a thick-feeling throat. “Tell him: I wish that was not so. But I couldn’t let the debris kill Lad, and I couldn’t let it kill me.”

“He knows. He is sorry too.” A longer hesitation. Idly, Lad stroked the back of my hand with one finger. “He will do like you asked, Tan. Says he doesn’t have a choice, he thinks. Next time he needs to talk, he will tell me. Won’t ask me to follow. Won’t shout. Will just tell me, and I tell you, but you have to put your suit on straight away. Is that okay, Tan? He says: straight away.”

“Yes, that’s okay. I understand. Straight away.”

I watched Lad for another moment of silence, before he said, “Think he’s gone away.”

Where did the Keeper go to lick his wounds? Part of me wondered if he followed us constantly, just quietly, watching from his dark world.

I was gradually becoming aware of sounds and lights flickering around us. Voices, high with fear or concern. Then, strangely, Natasha soothing, reassuring, sounding very much in control.

I lifted eyebrows at Kichlan. “Imagine that,” I said, with a grin.

He hands softened as he chuckled. “Indeed.”

And Lad laughed too, though he couldn’t have understood us, and tightened his grip on my hand.

For a moment, everything felt right in a way I knew I’d missed, but hadn’t realised how strongly.

“Alarms have been sent, apparently.” Natasha’s head leaned into view. “We’ve got a small crowd gathering. If it’s not too much trouble, and your hands aren’t too ah... full, I would love some help trying to keep the crowd away from the sudden crevasse of doom.” She flashed a wild grin.

Lad burst out laughing, and pressed his hands to his face.

It was about time I moved, too.

“All right.” I flexed, wincing. At least the ache was dimming. My suit still spun, though it did so with a sluggishness I’d never seen from it before. “I can take a hint.”

With Kichlan helping and Lad holding onto my hand in a way that was rather less than convenient I eased myself from Kichlan’s lap. Standing was a little difficult, but Sofia appeared by my side and gripped my elbow to hold me steady. She glared at Kichlan and Aleksey.

“Off you go, help Natasha,” she said. It was not a request.

“Even looking like this?” Kichlan waved a hand at his damaged face. Lad made a little uncertain noise.

“It should give them a pretty good reason to stay back.”

Kichlan and Lad slumped away. Aleksey, who seemed to catch onto these things quickly, didn’t bother arguing and headed in the opposite direction.

“You need to sit down,” Sofia told me, once they were out of immediate earshot.

“But I just stood up.” I, of course, hadn’t learned that particular lesson so well.

“Regardless.” She leaned closer to me. “You’re shaking; I can feel it through your uniform and your clothes. Don’t try and hide these things from me.”

She had a point.

Sofia led me to one of the stalls and helped me sit on it. The hard poly edges weren’t comfortable, but it was certainly easier than standing. I watched as Natasha, Uzdal, Mizra, Fedor, Aleksey, Kichlan and Lad formed a rough circle around the cracks and what had once been the centre of the market square. They held back a peering crowd of pion-binders. People who could not know what had just happened here, or what was causing the dramatic holes in the earth, only that it had involved a lot of noise and a group of debris collectors. Since we saved their city we, and the work we did, had suddenly become a lot more interesting.

I shuddered at the very thought of those cracks and the emptiness that had created them. Why would anyone want to stand closer?

“What’s wrong? Are you cold?” Sofia touched my shoulders, my forehead.

I shook my head, even as nausea tickled my stomach. “Do you think the pion-binders will be able to fix those holes we made?” I asked, knowing she could not answer.

Sofia stared into the market place. “They’ll bring in architects, won’t they? Like you were, once?” She waited for me to agree. “Then they should be able to do it in a snap.”

“A door opened there. It’s not just debris weakening pion binds. The doors destroy everything. Probably the pions themselves.” I had no way of knowing that, of seeing it or proving it. But I was certain it was true. That was the only way, surely, the doors could bleed nothingness into our world. By destroying the pions that made us.

“I don’t know.”

“Neither do I.” And suddenly, the nausea stopped tickling, and my stomach rebelled. I was able to twist away before I threw up what little food I had eaten, all over some poor market trader’s stall.

“Tanyana!” Sofia rubbed my back. “Is it that bad?”

I lost the battle again, and ended up dry retching. I really hadn’t eaten much, and that can’t have helped. A few gasps, coughs, spits and I managed, “It will go away in a moment. It always does.”

She stilled. “It always does?”

I shrugged, and wished I hadn’t actually said anything. I wished I had some water too. “It’s nothing.”

“That’s just not good enough, Tanyana.” She did not exactly dig into my back, but the pressure of her fingertips increased noticeably. I didn’t like the sound of that tone. “What are you saying? Just how much throwing up are you doing?”

“About as much as you were doing a moment ago, when you first saw that body.” I glanced up. Her face was set in a seriously unimpressed expression. “It’s only natural. The door, the debris, the body–”

“You said,
it always does
. You should be looking after yourself better than that. Kichlan cares about you.” She hesitated.

“Kichlan? What’s he got to do–?”

She squeezed onto the poly beside me, crossed her arms and leaned close. Her feet didn’t reach the ground. I resisted the urge to lean away. “And Lad needs you, doesn’t he? Separated from his brother, you are the one he relies on. What would happen if you suddenly couldn’t help him, if you let yourself get so sick you couldn’t collect at all?”

I blinked at her, a little shocked. “Oh, that’s a bit extreme, don’t you think? I’ll feel awful for a few bells, maybe, but it doesn’t last all day and I’m certainly not getting any worse.”

She tucked a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. Several of them had come loose from their tight bun and floated wispily around her head. She’d have hated that – Sofia preferred neatness and order – so I didn’t mention it. She couldn’t have done much to fix her hair now anyway. “So you’ve been feeling, what, generally ill? The usual Movoc winter illnesses?”

“Oh yes, it’s probably just that.” I tried to laugh it off. “You scared me, bringing Lad into it like that.”

“Strange, though, to get them so late in spring. Tired all the time?”

“With the veche breaking us up, and the Keeper dragging us around and yes, taking responsibility for Lad, what else would you expect?”

“How long has this been happening?”

Another shrug. “Moon, maybe a bit more.”

“You should take better care of yourself.” She patted my knee, but her eyes were sharp, calculating, and searched my face. I was sure she could see every moment of doubt, every scar played in lines and shadows and sallowness across my skin. “And your stomach.” She gestured loosely, fingers brushing my jacket over my abdomen, and I could not stop myself from flinching. “Nausea and pain? Have you been eating?”

“You haven’t met Valya, have you?”

Another pause. “Have you told Kichlan?”

“No, of course not. He has enough to worry about at the moment don’t you think?”

And then the market square lit up, and saved me from the frown gathering of Sofia’s face. Together, we glanced up in surprise. Dozens of lights – like little flames independent of the wick – settled across the market square, surrounding the damage. The watching crowd seemed unconcerned, but without their ability to see how these lights were being created it was unsettling.

Lad hurried over. “Lights,” he whispered.

I stood using Sofia’s shoulder to help me up but ignoring her pointed look, as a small Fist of enforcers marched through the crowd.

“Finally.” Aleksey and the other collectors abandoned their posts as the enforcers arrived. He tried smiling again as he approached me. “Alarms must have worked. First protocol for an event like this is to bring enforcers in. Control the crowd, ascertain if healers are required. They’ll send a pion message back, encoded on the same strands as the original alarm, requesting the appropriate circles.”