Teller Mas

The Scent of Memory

a novella by Paul L. Arvidson

© Paul L. Arvidson 2018

Teller Mas

The Scent of Memory

On a Dark planet far from Earth is a village. Even a planet with no light has a shady hole into which all things fall. Lakeside is it.

Teller Mas, the scent detective, calls it home. But now, bodies are piling up and the constables have asked him to investigate. Every person Teller gets close to winds up dead.

He must crack the case of his life before it costs him his own.

A 17,000 word novella introducing the universe of the Dark.

PAUL ARVIDSON is a forty-something ex lighting designer who lives in rural Somerset. He juggles his non-author time bringing up his children and fighting against being sucked in to his wife’s chicken breeding business. The Dark is his first series.

Ed. Sue Meadows, No Stone Unturned Editing

Cover by Betibup33 Design Studio

Formatted by Cheryl Arvidson

Thank you to all of you

This version exclusively for newsletter subscribers

© Copyright Paul L Arvidson 2021

Contents

Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Lake

Chapter 2 – The Bocado

Chapter 3 – The Nightmares

Chapter 4 – Post Mortem

Chapter 5 – Grieving Family

Chapter 6 – A Tale Told

Chapter 7 – Hospital Visiting

Chapter 8 – The Squeeze

Chapter 9 – Last Will and Testament

Chapter 10 – Into the Wastelands

Chapter 11 – River Rat Caught

Chapter 12 – Hangover from Hell

Chapter 13 – A River Runs Through It

Chapter 14 – Flotilla

Chapter 15 – Mother

Chapter 16 – Drink Me

Chapter 17 – The Other Side

Chapter 18 – Safe Home

Dark

Teller Mas

The Scent Of Memory

Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Lake

Teller Mas could tell three things from touching the young female’s face: she was young, she was beautiful, and she was very, very dead. Smell had always been his first sense. His hearing was as adequate as his Air-sense, but he reckoned his taste buds had been killed off by a combination of too much bamboo gin and racta. And any other senses? Those could be left to the Shamans. What those crazies couldn’t feel with their hands, whiskers and ears, the mad bastards would just make up. He always felt, well, like a fish out of water, when he couldn’t smell his way around a case. But when a victim had been in the lake for long enough, smell was nearly useless. The girl was still on the end of a barge pole, hefted by Old Fryk, the Watchman for the Quay. Shuffling and the faint smell of disinfectant from behind them, told of the arrival of the Midwives guild to clean up the mess and take the body to the guild house to be autopsied. The poor midwives wound up doing all the medical necessities in Lakeside, it having no proper Healer’s guild or Alchemists of its own.

“Eh, in your own time, mmmhhh?” Old Fryk groaned.

“Put the stretcher down by Old Fryk please, Yayu,” said Knia, the newly promoted Head of Constables for Lakeside. She sounded much more confident today. Knowing that her old and now disgraced former boss was safely locked up with the Stone-folk was clearly allowing her to unfold a little.

The midwives busied themselves helping to lower the body gently onto the hessian stretcher.

“No stiffness?” Knia pressed.

“That tells us nothing at this stage,” said Yayu. “In the cold water, the stiffness comes more slowly.”

Teller shivered and pulled his loose jacket closer. The Lakesiders were the only folk in the whole of the Dark that used clothes habitually – not counting the stupid robes that the religious sects seemed to like. For the Lakesiders naturally, it was all a bit more practical, more about the fact that the wind that blew out of the tunnels over the lake could be bitter cold. Though it never rained per-se in the Dark, being inside, the Lakesiders even had mists and fog to contend with. And today was all of that: damp and cold. The midwives were still fussing getting the limbs of the corpse onto the stretcher when there was an odd little rattle. Teller spun round as they were preparing to lift.

“Wait,” he said.

The noise stopped as quickly as it had started, it was almost like the rattle of the bone dice the fisher-folk used to gamble with, on the quayside. He reached towards where he’d heard the sound, back at the side of the stretcher. The girl’s arm kept falling off and hung loosely at the side. Teller went to lift it and found the source of the clatter: a small bracelet circled the hanging wrist. He leaned in close to smell it. Like the body, everything smelled of lake water. He frowned and leaned closer, picking up his stylus to lift the bracelet and drop it. Again, that bone-sounding jingle. He broke protocol and picked up one of the necklace beads. Not bone. Mineral. Tiny rocks? He turned them in his fingers. Light for stones, but rough on the outside in places, and smooth in others. A decorative pattern. Lovely really.

“Hey Knia,” he called across to the Chief. He still couldn’t call her that yet, and she didn’t seem to mind. Too soon. “She’s got a bracelet, here. You come across anything like this before?”

She came over and hummed as Teller passed the bracelet beads from his fingers to hers. She spent ten or so ticks rolling them over her thumb and then let the bracelet drop.

“Constable,” she spoke over her shoulder. “Can you bag this, please? This is Stone-folk work, recent too. It’s made from pumice. All the Stone-folk pups are wearing them.”

“She’s not really a pup,” said Teller.

“Not that much older,” Knia sighed.

“No.”

Teller went to the edge of the quay and crouched down. The breeze from the tunnels was getting up. It made a faint moan that drifted across the surface of the water. He absently dipped his paw. Behind him, Knia and the Midwife muttered, presumably regarding an autopsy and when that might be completed. It usually took no more than a span, depending on other calls on the midwives’ time. His nose twitched. He could smell that ghastly chewing root ‘Bocca’ that his father used to chew. He shuddered, then stood suddenly.

“Hey easy,” said Old Fryk, suddenly close. “You fall in too, mmmhhh?”

Mas grunted and jammed his hands into his jacket pockets, face still to the lake, toes, just on the edge stones of the quay.

“Onshore breeze—she brings disease,” said Fryk, knowingly. The old Watchman spat into the water, to ward off evil.

“Puh,” said Mas and pulled his collar up.

“We about done here?” Knia asked.

“Think so,” said Mas.

What was a Stone-folk female, so young, doing so far from home? What had she gotten herself into? Besides the lake. Not unheard of for Stone-folk to be in Lakeside, but she really was young, usually pups of Stone-folk families were cosseted until they were fully adults and then as women, tradition had them involved in complicated inter-caste marriages. Now he thought about it, Pumice was a house wasn’t it? Was that important? Everyone moved away from the quayside and continued their business, slowly and quietly; Teller spat into the water.

Chapter 2 – The Bocado

The vapor of bamboo spirit was all that remained in Teller’s beaker. He lifted his head in the direction the shuffling was coming from.

“Hey, Rychuck. Hit me again.”

“Coming right up.”

The Bocado was never a salubrious venue, but it was always where Teller’s feet led him when he needed to think. He wondered whether he may be past thinking at this point, when a new smell breezed from beyond the serving hatch doors. She swept into the bar and started to collect pots from the empty tables. Wiping as she went, she hummed cheerfully. Way too cheerful for this late in a workspan. There was murmuring from a table way over by the doors when she went to clean there, then the sounds of folk drinking up and leaving. Now there was just Teller and the staff. Wouldn’t be the first time.

“You two gonna sit and have one on me?” said Teller.

“Sure.” Rychuck, grabbed the bamboo spirit flask and banged it on the counter. Then he turned his head, “Minu? You coming?”

She wafted over to them, wiping as she went. She sat on the bar stool between Rychuck and Teller.

“Teller, meet Minu, my latest addition to the Bocado staff.”

She reached out a hand, Teller took it. It was well-manicured, and slightly damp from the cloth.

“Charmed,” he said. Then as if considering again, “Aren’t you a little young to be working here?”

“No?”

“I think you might be getting a little old,” said Rychuck.

“Yeah, that too,” said Teller, taking a swig from his beaker.

“So,” Minu said. Teller cocked his ears. “Why do you sound like someone who’s lost a fish and found a waterborne parasite?”

“That one of yours?” Teller chuckled.

“I’m practicing my customer banter,” she said. “Is it funny?”

“Keep practicing.”

“Huh.”

“Seriously though, Teller, your cheerful demeanor this evening has frightened away all of my customers,” said Rychuck.

“Rubbish. You never have anyone else this late, unless there’s a festival, or a fishing boat in. Besides, I’m your best customer, anyway.”

“You would be if you paid your tab.”

“Details.”

She touched his hand. It shocked him back to the bar, “Seriously though?”

Rychuck sighed, left his stool and went the other side of the bar to tidy.

“Seriously. I can’t tell you. Client privilege. Can’t discuss cases.”

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess, it’s not the case you’re worrying about.”

“You’re actually not bad at this,” Rychuck shouted across the bar.

“Go jump in the lake,” said Teller.

“You’re kind of sighing sad,” Minu said, plowing on regardless, “so that’d be, hmm, lover?”

Rychuck barked a laugh.

“…kay then. Family.”

Teller took a long slug and slammed the empty onto the bar. Rychuck came back over to fill it. Teller picked it up again, swigged at it and put it back down.

“If I tell you, will you stop bugging me?”

“It does you good to get it out, you know,” said Minu.

“Trust me,” said Teller, “It doesn’t.”

“It’s what my old mom used to say.”

“I’m sure she did.”

“Hey mister,” she said, “I don’t know what your problem is—”

“No,” said Teller, “and for your own health and wellbeing, it’s better it stays that way.”

She stood and picked her cloth up again.

“For what it’s worth,” Teller said, “What I’m working on now, it’s bothering me. It’s straightforward. It shouldn’t be bothering me, but it is. And that’s not good. Not good at all.”

“Well,” she said, undented, “we’re here if you need us.”

“You seem like a good kid,” said Teller.

He lifted his beaker downed the contents and coughed, “Shreds, Rychuck, this stuff doesn’t get any better.”

“Neither do you, Mas. Perhaps you should give up grizzling and take up brewing. Couldn’t make you any less happy. Go to bed.”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.”

He shouldered his coat, squared up his slightly woozy Air-sense and headed where it told him the door was. He was mostly heading the right way. If only that new girl had tucked all the chairs back under the tables like she was supposed to.

“See ya,” he said over his shoulder and walked back out into the Lakeside air. To bed, perchance to dream.

Teller’s pad was at the far end of the lane also called Bocado. In Lakeside, the tradition was for lanes to run from the quayside up the very slight hill to the massive stone back wall that also formed the back wall of Teller’s first-floor digs. Teller’s place was Bocado and tenth, sat in the far corner, a macro version of where he traditionally liked to sit in any room: back to the corner where a good set of whiskers could sweep for surprises.

He climbed the stairs to his apartment. First-floor digs were still unusual in Lakeside due to the sketchiness of building materials. In the corner of the massive cavern that formed Lakeside, there were two walls to go against, so the builders had been a little more adventurous. He even had a balcony for when he couldn’t sleep. He could take in all the smells and the sounds of the town during the sleep-cycle. Teller liked the idea of listening to other folk sleeping when he couldn’t. It made him feel more connected. Tonight though, he felt bone tired. No balcony leaning tonight. He just needed to set his clicker-beetle for the morning, put his head on his straw pallet and then—

Chapter 3 – The Nightmares

—the nightmares began.

Teller thought of them as sensory deprivation nightmares: no sounds, no smells, no Air-sense, just physical feelings, he’d not had one for ages, and he hated them.

Tonight, was an old favorite—drowning. He was close to someone he trusted, sat in a long boat rocking gently in the river-pipe. Then he was overboard, tied by his wrists in harsh River-folk ropes and being pulled through the water. He struggled but he couldn’t get free, and every time he tried to relax and get his bearings, another tug would pull him farther under. He could feel the bubbles against his bare fur, water in his nose and ears pushing against every surface of his being, trying to push him out. He struggled as his arms were pulled different ways, then went slack again. His lungs burned with the strain as he tried to keep his mouth clamped shut. The ropes tightened and dragged his head against the keel of the boat. A sharp pain sliced across his head: he gasped. A stuck-out nail, or sharp splinter? No time to think about that now, his mouth was full of water, his throat had gone into spasm and he couldn’t control the flailing. He wanted to cough but the water was everywhere. The ropes pulled again, and he flailed against them. All his muscles burned, his lungs filled, the ropes pulled hard and—

He gasped. The cool night air tasted of vinegar. He felt down his arms, not dry but it was sweat not water on his fur. He sat up, still panting and rubbed his face.

“Hey, be quiet up there, there’s children trying to sleep here!” A voice from downstairs. His new neighbors, by the sound of the Bridge-folk-accented male voice. He breathed in and clamped his mouth shut: counted slowly, two, three, four. He let the breath out slowly through his nose. His clicker beetle still ticked on his table. Still sleep-span then, the noise was quieter now though, so, late sleep span. There was no way he’d get back to sleep now anyway.

He started to pour some water from a jug on his table into the bowl that went with it, to wipe his face. Teller had the wrung out cloth over his mouth when a loud banging at the door broke his spell. He threw the cloth back into the bowl.

“Shreds.” Then to whoever was knocking, “What? What do you want?” He really couldn’t stomach a row with his neighbor this early in a span.

“Keep your fur on,” said the small voice from beyond the door. It was Don-po, one of the village constables. “The chief sent me, the midwives have finished the autopsy. She thought you’d want to know.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Shall I wait?”

Teller went back to his cloth, now soaked again. He began to wring it out, slowly and noisily over his basin.

“No, I’ll meet you there,” he wasn’t prepared to specify how long.

The flannel felt cold against his skin. He sighed. He’d not dreamed of his home with the River-folk for ages, and it made something catch in his throat. Maybe it was the lie of even that phrase “Home with the River-folk”. He laughed a bitter laugh, though no-one was listening.

He turned to leave through the driftwood door. He patted himself down for keys in his loose long jacket. No, the keys were there, that wasn’t what his subconscious had stopped him for. But why then? He went back to his table, there was a small drawer in it. One he hadn’t opened for quite some time. It still slid smoothly on its runners. Inside was a small, heavy, sacking bundle, smelling faintly of oil. He unwrapped it without thinking and took out the slender tube within. It felt beautifully smooth and cold to the touch, and fit snugly into his hand. He ran a digit over the one bump on its surface: a button for the firing mechanism.

He’d had the thing for ages, it had cost him a whole cycle’s worth of tallies from a particularly shady Machine-folk dealer who’d been passing through the Bocado, and once he’d had it in his hand, he’d had to possess it. Funny, he wasn’t usually like that with ‘stuff’ but something about this odd, beautiful thing. The way the surface was metal but smooth, ‘machined’ the dealer called it, whatever that meant. That came in the conversation with the warnings. “Have the button at the top of your hand and don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill.” The dealer wouldn’t demonstrate it in the bar: even the Bocado had limits. Mas had bought it anyway. Not stopping until he was home, and testing it on his front door when he got in. He’d nearly fallen down the flight of rickety wooden steps. A metal spike had shot out of the end, still connected, so it had become a kind of short metal spear. He’d still held the other end of it, but only just. The kick from it had been powerful. Lethal. His door would never be quite the same again, but out of tallies, it took him till his next job to get the door patched. He had pulled the thing from his door. The weapon had become a full stride in length and the end that had gone through the wood was sharp as a stylus. It had taken him the rest of that sleep span to work out that stowing the point again required a hell of a lot of pushing, then it had clicked back into place and the button popped out. He’d mostly left it in the drawer after that.

Except for now. Now felt different. He locked the door, the smooth feel of the cylinder in his jacket pocket. It bumped gently against his leg as he went down the stairs. It felt comforting.

Chapter 4 – Post Mortem

“She didn’t drown.” Yayu the Midwife was always ‘matter of fact’. Teller guessed it came with the territory. Or maybe it was the fact that everyone else down here seemed to be getting religion. Even in charge of all the births and most of the deaths in the world, the Midwives remained pragmatic.

“She felt pretty wet to me,” said Teller.

“I mean, drowning was not what killed her,” Yayu’s voice was unequivocal. “No water in the lungs. She was killed first and then thrown in.”

“You said killed.”

“Yes. I believe she was.”

“Damned Tinkralas believe we’re all gonna live forever,” Mas said. “It doesn’t make it true.”

“My belief is based on, what would you call it? ‘A hunch’. My colleague found it first, she should be here.”

The heavy cloth curtain toward the back of the surgery hut stirred and another midwife arrived. Along with the usual smell of soap, Teller noticed something else. This female had been somewhere, she was carrying a faint trace of a thousand different smells at once. Mas found that familiar, but he couldn’t put a whisker to it for now.

“Ah good, Anda, you’re here. Teller Mas here needs to know what you told me last night,” said Yayu.

“Well,” she shuffled, “the thing is, I, er—”

“Spit it out, dear,” said Yayu.

“I’m into potions!”

“Like bathing in them?” said Mas.

“No?” the young midwife said. “Why would I, oh. Just interested.”

“Ok,” said Mas, “I’ll bite. What does that have to do with our deceased, here?”

“Well after Yayu, Mistress Yayu that is, said that she hadn’t drowned, it got me to thinking what had really gone on, and I wondered what she had really died of, and I have a kind of theory about it, but I don’t want to tell anyone yet because, you know, it’s a bit strange and I don’t want everyone to think I’m crazy or that I don’t take my responsibilities as a midwife seriously, so I’m doing it at home in my own time or at least in my room at Madame Bana’s guest house since I’ve not been in Lakeside that long. Sir.”

“Okay—” said Mas, “and breathe.”

“Anything else?” Yayu asked.

“She smelled a bit, well, odd—” Anda said.

“Some of the best folk do,” said Mas. “Wanna be a little more specific?”

“When we opened her mouth, the water in there and in her nose, smelled of acid and fruit and something else.”

“What?”

“Well that’s just it, I don’t know. That’s why I went to see the potions person this morning.”

Mas grunted. There wasn’t an alchemist or any other kind of potions maker in Lakeside unless she meant—

“Dobbin, I think he was called.”

“Ah,” said Mas. “Bobbins?” Now, this was all starting to make a lick of sense. That explained the odd smell on the midwife’s clothes when she’d come in. The smell from Bobbin’s seedy little shack that he called a shop. Potions would be right. Bobbins was a dealer in a little of this, a little of that, was the only person ‘exotic’ potions could be obtained from in all of Lakeside, and wherever trouble was, Bobbins never seemed to be that far behind. “I’d stay away from that dockside rat if I were you, kid.”

“He seemed nice,” Anda said.

“I’ll bet he did. Steer clear all the same.”

“He wasn’t any help, anyway”.

“No,” said Mas, “he rarely is. Unless you’re looking for trouble. He’ll help anyone with that.”

“Thank you, Anda,” said Yayu. “That will be all.”

She rustled through the curtains and left the two of them alone. Mas leaned in close to the dead girl’s mouth. Brackish water certainly, and maybe the beginnings of the sweet smell of decay. But nothing else.

“Anda said the smell’s long gone, now.”

“Hmm, if it was ever there,” said Mas.

“She may flap her mouth like a stranded fish, but I think she has a good nose. Better than mine these days.” Yayu sighed. “I trust her and she’s not the kind to make stuff up on a whim.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Thanks for calling me in anyhow.”

Teller paced. What the hells was wrong with this case? It was nearly three hundred clicks before he realized he was on his own.

Chapter 5 – Grieving Family

Teller Mas counted cheerfully. With both his hands, he held Bobbins under the surface of a large plastic barrel of something twangy and acrid smelling; if he’d been forced to guess Mas would have said vinegar. Instead, he said, “…eight, nine, ten,” and pulled a soggy, tangy Bobbins out of the liquid.

“Phhhhaahhh!” he said. “I told you I don’t know nuffink.”

“Shocking grammar, Bobbins. You remember the midwife, though.”

“Yeah, young piece. Nice smell.”

“Eww,” said Teller. “Creepy.” And dunked Bobbins again. “Now, what did she say again?”

“I told you!”

“Humor me.”

“She asked about what poisons smelled sweet and spicy, and could they work through the nose.”

“And?”

“What do you mean ‘and’?”

Mas sighed heavily and dunked him again, and started to wonder what the midwife had been onto, if anything. He’d gotten as far as a twelve-count and the barrel started to rattle.

“Teller Mas!”

“Huh,” said Teller. Bobbins was still at the end of his arms, under the fluid. The voice calling his name was loud, piercing and outside.

“TELLER MAS!”

Teller sighed and removed a gasping Bobbins from the barrel, then let him slide gently to the floor, “No rest for the wicked, eh Bobbins?” He dried his hands on a cloth he found on Bobbins’ chair, then when it turned out to be sticky, made a mental note to wash his hands again at the first opportunity.

“TELLER—”

“Yes?”

“Oh, are you Teller Mas?” The female was extremely brusque.

“Yes, I am he.”

“I have been told that you are the person to talk to about our daughter.”

“In the case of missing persons and normal crimes and infractions, it is the Lakeside custom to go to the Constables first,” he said. Two could play at being brusque.

“It was the Chief herself who told me to come and find you!”

Teller sighed. What had he done to tick the chief off now?

“Well, there’s no point standing here on ceremony, let’s adjourn to our local visitor attraction, The Bocado, shall we and talk about this like civilized folk over a racta?”

“I can’t stand the stuff myself.” The female smelled of that odd stuff the Stone-folk rubbed over themselves to not smell like folk.

“Well I can, I haven’t had one yet and it’s halfway through work-span, so that is where you will find me if you want to talk to me.”

He turned on his heel and nearly walked into the male who had been standing there all the while. He was silent and smelled faintly of male, but not much else. As if he washed too much. Was he the mate to the noisy one? That and other questions could wait until there was racta. He left the noise of their argument in the street behind him.

The thought, the growing desperation for something warm and stimulating to drink, carried him all the way to the swing doors of the bar. He pushed them in headed straight for the bar, gasped an order at the new girl, Minu, who was still on this work-span, stole a damp towel from where it was tucked at her waist and went to find his usual booth, wiping his hands. He sat heavily. Minu followed him with three steaming cups of racta and a small wooden plate of odd-smelling treats made of flower petals, and vegetable pâté. She plonked the plate down first and then the three racta cups, on the rough, round table, thunk-thunk-thunk.

The doors swung behind them and the powdery smelling parents strode in, or rather the female strode in, Mas assumed the mate was following somewhere behind. The mother seemed to have a large wake, it was difficult to pay attention to whatever or whoever might come after her. She sniffed theatrically and said, “I told you I can’t stand that stuff!” she tapped on the table to emphasize.

“Don’t remember saying any were for you,” said Mas, lifting one and drinking the entire steaming hot contents in one gulp. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and burped loudly.

“Manners of a sewer-rat!” she said. “If you’re doing this for my benefit then you can stop right now.”

Mas laughed once, “Lady, the first thing you need to know about me, is that I only do things for one folk's benefit and that’s my own.”

“Huh!”

She hovered by the table. Mas drank the second racta, then leaned out to Air-sense toward the door. “Hey, friend!” he shouted past her, to where he’d sensed her mate come in. “Come on in and sit down. I saved you a racta.”

The mate shuffled in, carefully avoiding bumping the woman and sat, “Err- thank you?”

“Figured your need is greater than mine,” Mas said. “Now what do you two fine folks want with a simple Lakesider like me?”

When no reply was forthcoming, Mas plowed on, “And how rude of me, I’m Teller Mas,” he reached and gently grabbed the male's hand, “and you are?”

“Alum,” he said.

“And you?” Teller Mas didn’t reach for the female's hand. He suspected she might bite.

“Allingite, we are Stone-folk of the Talc clan!” she swept her hand over the table. A waft of powdery scent followed.

“Aren’t you just,” said Mas under his breath.

“Sorry?” the female replied.

“Oh, don’t be,” said Mas. “Now what do you want with me? You’re slumming it with Lakeside folks for a pretty important reason, I’m guessing.”

“We need you to help us find our daughter,” Alum said quietly.

“And you must do it with all haste,” said Allingite.

“No,” Mas said, “I must drink this racta. What I’m then going to do depends on a number of factors.”

“Which would be?” Allingite had a voice that would powder most rocks.

“My rates are ten tallies per work span, plus expenses, fifteen if I work into sleep span, payable in advance.”

“That’s disgraceful!” she said.

“I know, you’d think the best nose in Lakeside would charge more, right? I have community rates, see, to help folk out. You want my services or not?”

Teller lifted the racta to his lips and slurped.

“Please, will you help us, Mr. Mas?” A credit stick clattered to the table top with a satisfying wooden plink. He picked it up and measured its length in his fingers. Ten credit stick all right and no tallies cut in it yet.

“Okay,” Mas said, “that buys me for today. Tell me what you know.”

Chapter 6 – A Tale Told

The girl had gone missing ten spans ago. After a row with the mother. No great surprise there, Teller thought. The interview went slowly as Mas had to keep prodding the father for pertinent information and sieving the facts from what the mother was prepared to impart. If it didn’t polish her perception of herself, then those parts got left out. He already knew what had happened to her. The Stone-folk connection was too strong. But he scribbled on his little bark parchment notebook anyhow. He kept telling himself he couldn’t be totally sure, which was partly true.

“I hope we can get our little pup back, we’ve missed her so,” said the mother.

“I just hope we can get some closure,” said Alum. Did he already know, or was he just a pessimist?

“Don’t talk like that! I can’t bear it,” Allingite said.

“It will be what it will be,” said Alum.

“Choke on my dust!” said Allingite, the first time she’d resorted to cursing. “If you weren’t so lax with little Adelite, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“If you hadn’t been such a stone-faced monster all the time, she’d never have chosen to run off with that River-rat in the first place.”

Much as he was enjoying the banter, Mas leaped in, “That who?”

“Her friend,” said Allingite.

“Lover,” said Alum.

“Pshaw! Why would she ever—?”

“Why does anyone?” said Mas. “What was his name?”

“Kwai, Kwey something,” she said.

“Kwat,” said Alum, “he was called Kwat. Local River-folk. Came after the uprising, lived with the Tinkralas, helping the refugees.”

“Hiding more like—”

“She took to the scent of him straight away,” said Alum.

“That happens,” Mas said. “Any idea what’s become of him?”

“I thought, Mr. Mas, we were investigating my daughter?” said Allingite.

“We are, but find him and we might find her. Increases our possible leads.”

“Ah, I understand,” said Alum.

“Anything else you could tell me, might help me find him?”

The female huffed loudly. Mas waited, detecting the smell of the serving girl Minu, behind him, carrying the racta pot. This new girl was good, she could stay. Mas gently clunked the pot in the traditional fashion and the girl poured.

“There was one thing,” said Alum.

“Go on.”

“So, when she first introduced him, he seemed, okay—”

“And that just shows how much I shouldn’t have trusted her in your care. Based on your judgment, where is she now? Hey?”

Mas turned his head, waited for her to finish and then turned back. “What happened then?”

“Well, the last time we met him he seemed, different.”

“Different, how?”

“It’s, well, it’s hard to describe. The first time we met him, he was just a normal youth. A little slack a little dozy, a little awkward, but okay. The last time? It was like he was aware of everything. Listening to every little sound. Does that sound odd?”

“Yes,” said Allingite.

Mas ignored her again, “Twitchy?”

“No, not really. More like poised. Drinking everything in.”

“Ok, thank you,” said Mas. “That’s really been helpful.”

Alum sighed slowly as if deflating. “May I get some more—?”

“Oh, racta?” said Mas, “Sure, sorry, how rude of me.” He whispered in the direction of the bar, but the girl was already on her way over.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Allingite said. But by that time Minu had topped him up and he’d swigged it anyway. Allingite rounded on Mas, “Where will we find you?”

“I’ll find you. It’s what I do.” Then, when she tutted loudly, “I’ll report back in a span.”

After an unsatisfying visit to Bobbins, to shake out some information, Mas sat on the edge of the quay, kicking his legs over the side. He had no idea what to do with himself. Maybe there was some limit to how often even Bobbins could be shaken down in one work-span. The sloshing of the water against the stone-work was lulling him to sleep. Better get up and get back to work. A waft of sweet-smelling powder drifted over his shoulder. Gods, were the crazy family stalking him? He stood swiftly and jogged along the edge of the quay to the little quayside hut where Old Fryk was usually to be found. He squeezed into the doorway, hoping Fryk wasn’t home. He was in luck, and then again in quick succession, the sickly powdery smell wafted on up the street toward Madame Bana’s lodging house. They weren’t trying to sniff him out then. Then he found himself following at a discreet distance. They wouldn’t be difficult to tail, rowing as loud as they seemed to all the time, and trailing that scented cloud rendered them dull to everything except walls. They didn’t even slow down when they approached Madame Bana’s hostel. Clearly not slumming it there with the other visitors. He wondered about following them all the way back to their lodgings, just to double check, but then there was another voice from behind the hostel shutters as the sound of argument retreated uphill. He stopped to tune in to hear who was conversing in there. One voice was the talkative midwife with the potions kick, perhaps she was talking to Madame Bana. He shook his head. No, there was no other voice, the crazy girl was talking to herself. A voice in his ear jolted him back.

“Coming in?” It was the deep voice of Gryk, Madame Bana’s doorkeeper/bouncer. Hells, that guy could creep for a big fella.

“Err, yeah,” said Mas, “Just want a quick chat with the new kid.”

“Crazy-midwife? Knock yourself out, Mas.”

“Thanks.”

He knocked. She fell silent and opened the door. Her room was not as insane as Mas had imagined. He had imagined an awful smell explosion in his head. He noticed he had his nostrils reflexively squeezed shut.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, you’re the midwife from the other span, right?”

“Yeah, Anda, you’re the constable?”

“Not a constable. More a freelancer.”

“Tea?”

“Oh, me, no thanks, I’ve just had one,” he lied.

“What can I do for you?”

“I’ve got a curious question, and I wondered, with your sideline in potions, whether you might be the person to ask.”

“I’ll help if I can.”

“Okay, so if I was to describe some symptoms, do you think you could tell me what caused them?”

“Ooh, is this like an exam?”

“If you like.”

“Go on then.”

“So, what would produce symptoms of, hyper-awareness?”

“Hyper-awareness?”

“Like being wired on racta, I guess, but lots, lots more intense? And to all senses? Is there such a thing?”

She stirred a cup whilst making an ‘hmm’ noise. Clearly, she wasn’t going to go without tea just because Mas was.

“There’s something like the opposite?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Like the senses are dulled down?”

“I’m not sure that helps.”

“Hold on. Let me grab my satchel and show you. There’s a couple of patients in the infirmary.

Chapter 7 – Hospital Visiting

The two patients weren’t just in a had-a-few-too-many sleeping it off kind of place. They were in an odd catatonic state, unresponsive to sound, smell, touch. As they groaned gently, it was almost like their senses had been worn out.

“How long have they been like this?” asked Mas.

“The guy nearest you, we found at the end of last sleep span, the other guy has been in here since before your dead girl turned up. We weren’t sure what to make of it at all at first, but now there’s a pattern—”

“Yeah maybe. Mind if I take a closer sniff?”

“I—, we should probably ask Yayu though?”

“Yayu wouldn’t mind at all,” came a voice from the other side of one of the guild’s many curtains. “Hello, Teller. Do ask for me in person if you need me.”

“Thanks, Yayu and I’ll come and find you first next time,” said Mas, taking the hint.

He circled one body, sniffing here and there, then the other. Frisked the clothes of one, then the other.

“Ow!”

“What’s up?” asked Anda.

“You got tweezers?” Mas said.

“Yeah.” She pulled a drawer open.

“Under my nail here? Shhh- aaah!”

“Now what’s that?”

“A glass shard I think, pass it here? Odd.” Then after sucking his finger to stem the bleeding, “I think I’ve found your link.”

“Ok?”

“The guy you said you found before the girl? He had the glass splinter in his pocket lining. It smells the same as the other guy’s fingers.”

“No.” Anda quickly picked up the hand of first one body, then the other and came over to take the tiny glass piece off Mas in the tweezers. “Damn, you’re right. Lemons, leastwise something acidic, and something else.”

Mas felt a yawn crawl out of his throat, he couldn’t help himself.

“Listen, let me have this shard for a half span, maybe I can use some reagents to work out what’s on it. You sound like you need to go back to bed for half a span more rest. Come find me later.”

Mas went back to his place, he even slept, but of rest there was none. More nightmares. More drowning, and this time in his desperation to claw to the surface—a hand—he reached out and touched a hand: rough, calloused, scarred. Then he woke, sharply to the faint aroma of lemon and tobacco.

He was still in a post-nightmare daze when he got back to the lodgings house where Anda was staying. It took him a while to take in what met him. A sharp stab in the sole of his foot brought him to. Glass. He Air-sensed a floor full of debris, breaking up the shape of what should have been a flat floor and, on the floor, a prone form. He moved quickly to feel for a pulse. There was none. The smellscape engulfed him. He limped back to the door and called for Madame Bana’s bouncer, he was nowhere to be found, so he stumbled into the street and headed for the nearest police bell. He rang it and rang it till his arm ached. He was still ringing it when the constables arrived and had to pry the bell rope from his hand. By the time Chief Knia had arrived, he’d been copiously sick twice.

“Gods and devils Mas, you smell awful,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Mas said, and told her what she’d find in the room, through clenched teeth. The constables were busy calming down Madame Bana and preventing her from contaminating the crime scene.

The investigations drifted on into sleep-span. Knia had constables all over the place and had asked Mas the same questions at least three times herself, and once using a constable as proxy. Mas wasn’t surprised she suspected him. He would have done in her place.

“Right, I’ve had enough,” said Knia. “Lock up that room, tape it and the shutters, no-one goes in. Mas, I want you in my office first thing. Everyone go to bed.”

Mas couldn’t sleep and spent what was left of sleep-span, scribbling what he could remember of the crime scene and what he already knew about the case. When what he was writing on the bark scroll wasn’t making any sense anymore, he went back downstairs to see if any racta sellers were awake yet. It seemed the Bocado had abandoned all hope of a sleep-span for anyone working there, as they carried the casualties of the recent revelries out onto the street to regain consciousness, or lose what was left of their possessions. He stepped over the bodies to find Rychuck or the new girl to persuade a racta out of them. As good as expected, there was a pot already on.

“Rough shift?” said Mas when Rychuck plonked his cup onto the counter.

The bartender sniffed and said, “I could ask you the same.”

“Y’know, the usual: no leads, no sleep, on the suspects list already—”

“Oh, that young midwife? Terrible business.”

Mas laughed. He could smell no trace of the new girl.

“What?” said Rychuck. “It’s my business to know everything. And while I think on I can save you a line of inquiry.”

“Oh?”

“Yep. You can’t fit Bobbins up for this one, well not legitimately anyhow, he was in here all span.”

“Damn. I thought I could smell him on the way in. Wish I had as sound an alibi.”

“I can always say you were here too if they ask me.”

“Kind of you, but not how I do things.”

Mas drained his racta, “Well, thanks for the racta. Justice waits for no one and all that.”

Chapter 8 – The Squeeze

“Go and sort your affairs out and be back here by close of work-span.”

“So, you’re arresting me?” said Mas. “That’s it?”

“We’re detaining you until we find a more convincing fit, you’re suspect number one.”

“Knia, you know that’s insane as well as I do.”

“Do I? And that’s Chief Knia to you.”

“What’s my motive?” Mas thumped his chair back.

“We’ll think of one. Beat it. I’m giving you the last half of the work-span while I finish the interviews. Anyone else would think you constitute a flight risk. Consider yourself lucky.”

Mas tutted, stood and went to the door. The smell of Bobbins, mostly stale alcohol from the night before, met him in the doorway.

“Lucky, lucky, lucky,” said Bobbins cheerfully.

“Get bent,” said Mas, fists clenched.

He left the constables’ station and punched the next scent post he came to. Not scenting as such, but as he shook his paw it dripped blood. That felt like today’s scent statement. That smug bastard Bobbins had to be involved in this somehow, or why would he gloat? But Mas knew to make a scene in front of Knia would close any doors to Bobbins being a suspect after he was proven innocent. If.

A waft of warm, soapy air hit him where he was stood. This top street, parallel to the Quayside, but far away from it, was called Bath Street. He contemplated how to spend his half-span. Enough hints had been dropped for him to know he needed some form of rudimentary hygiene. But she hadn’t let him go for that, had she? She could’ve had him in a holding cell now if they were looking for someone to pin this on. She’d genuinely given him a break and he wasn’t going to waste that time erasing smells.

When he got to Bobbins’ shop, it was all locked up, or at least as was possible for a makeshift collection of doors and slabs of wood, metal, and plastic. But Bobbins locking up was unusual. He was always a rogue, but usually he never chose to hide that. Maybe, just maybe. Mas thought about just kicking the door in, but leaving a trail would be ill-advised at this point. He found himself a stiff piece of reed and picked the large lock instead. When it fell away, he walked in. Nothing too unusual to smell, Air-sense put everything roughly where it should have been. Mas could smell light acidic tones from behind the counter. Curious. He made his way through to the room in the back where Bobbins tested out any new acquisitions. Definite scent of lemon. On the bench was a rudimentary set of apparatus, various sized flasks, and tubes. A rack of test tubes. And everywhere that lemon smell. Mas ran his hand along the bench: sticky wooden top and something on it. A parchment. Mas ran his fingers over it. Numbers and words in a neat, curly script. Not Bobbins then. If not his, then whose? And what was it? He pulled up a stool and hoped that his unknowing host's interrogation would take a while.

Carefully running his pads over the flowing script, he tried to read the words as much as feel for the writer. Thoughtful, that was what struck him. The context came quickly: a list of ingredients, followed by a series of guesses at how to get the list of ingredients to combine. He snatched up the paper and ran out of the hut. One person to check with and he could be out of the mire.

Chapter 9 – Last Will and Testament

“Hey, Knia. Guess what I found. No. No good. Too direct. I think you’ve got the wrong guy. Too obvious.”

Mas almost stumbled into Minu. She laughed loudly, holding his shoulders to steady him.

“Good conversation?” she asked.

“Oh Gods, was I talking to myself?” said Mas.

“Little bit.”

“Gods. It’s been one of those cycles.”

She laughed again. He liked the sound of it.

“Racta later?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, “errands first, though.”

In the end, Mas just presented the parchment and Knia did all the legwork without him having to put forward a case. He knew he’d always liked her for a reason. He should’ve trusted his instincts more. If any of them were working, now that he’d had no sleep to speak of for three whole spans. But since Bobbins was in a holding cell and not him, he could address that.

Sleep this time was not so horrific, maybe his subconscious was settling. He had an Air-sense dream of the dead girl lying in the middle of a huge empty room, with shards of glass raining down all around her. It was oddly calm and relaxing. Mas woke in reasonable time and had a chance for bathing and racta before the constable found him, racta in hand, contemplating the now relocked doors of Bobbins’ shop.

“Funny we found you here,” Don-po, the youngest of Knia’s constables was polite at least. “Bobbins is asking for you.”

“What does he want?”

“Dunno, he won’t tell us, says he’ll only talk to you.”

“I’m an advocate too, now?” Mas sighed, but allowed himself to be led back to the station.

On an impulse, Mas bought another racta from the stall as they passed. He guessed that Bobbins wouldn’t have had much in the way of visitors, creditors maybe, but not visitors. And he was right. Don-po led him down to the custody suite, a row of half a dozen small rooms carved from the ground and lined with found metal to deter obvious attempts at burrowing out. The cell stank.

“Hey, can you empty this bucket?” said Bobbins.

“Sure, when I’ve finished my rounds. You don’t get special treatment,” said Don-po.

“You see what conditions I’m in here?” Bobbins whined.

“My heart bleeds,” said Mas. “Why am I here?”

“Just you,” Bobbins said.

“You okay here?” said Don-po.

“I’m pretty sure I can deal with a criminal mastermind like Bobbins,” said Mas.

Mas proffered the racta to Bobbins, who took it gratefully. They both waited while he drank it and Don-po pottered, cleaning the remaining cells, which all seemed to be empty. When he climbed the stairs and closed the door, Bobbins spoke, “You got the wrong folk, Mas.”

“And already we’re done here,” he stood to leave.

“Wait, hear me out, the boyfriend’s still out there.”

“You’re up to your neck in this Bobbins, you can’t offload it on to some mystery guy no-one could find.”

“I know.”

“Pardon?”

“I said I know I’m involved. But it’s not what you think. I never killed the girl.”

“And you think this boyfriend did?”

“Honestly? I don’t know, but I know where you can find him. And a whole lot else.”

Mas folded his arms, “Listen, this morning, my life was pretty simple: you here, me not, paid up, job done. Why should I complicate everything all over again?”

“I know you, Mas. You can’t bear a puzzle not solved.”

Mas turned back towards Bobbins, opened his mouth, then closed it again. A burst of laughter came from the constable’s break room overhead.

“What’s in it for you?”

“Immunity. Obviously.”

“Right. You know I can’t offer you that.”

“No but Knia can and she’ll listen to you.”

“She nearly had me in here instead of you.”

“Well, I’ve got a whole load to tell you, but I’m not going down for it. Immunity or you get nothing.”

“And you stay in here? Suits me.”

“It’d be safer, there’s still a killer on the loose, remember?”

“So you say.”

“You know I’m right Mas. Get me my immunity and we’ll talk.”

Don-po’s voice echoed down to them, “Hey Mas, time’s up.”

He climbed to the top of the stairs, Knia was already waiting, “No.”

“You don’t even know what I’m going to ask yet.”

“I can guess what your friend downstairs wants, and there’s no way.”

“What if he’s innocent?”

“I’m not largely bothered to have arrested him on this one charge he’s not responsible for, rather than the hundreds of things he’s done about which we know nothing yet.”

“Point taken. But Gods help me, I think he’s right.”

“How’s that making my job any easier?” said Knia, tapping her dagger blade on her desk.

“I guess heading off trouble before it happens?”

“Aren’t I doing that by having Bobbins in jail?”

There was a thin scent of tobacco on the breeze. It made Mas twitchy, “Listen, what if I give myself as surety for Bobbins?”

“Come again?”

“Release Bobbins into my custody and give me one work-span. If I can prove he’s innocent he goes free. If I can’t you get two pains in your ass down here.”

“That’s quite a long stretch to put your neck on the block.”

“Yeah,” said Mas rubbing his nape.

“I still think you’re an idiot.”

“Given.”

“One work-span. Get out of here.”

Chapter 10 – Into the Wastelands

“Okay, so it had to be drugs of some description, knowing you.”

“So much cynicism,” said Bobbins.

They were walking to the edge of the Badlands, the place where the jurisdiction of Lakeside gave way to a massive cavern of discarded crates, boxes, pipes and Gods only knew what else, the border with the lands of the newly re-discovered Fire-folk. Since friendly treaties had come into place between them and all their neighbors, there should really have been no need for the guard posts to still exist. However, not all the Fire-folks neighbors were as sketchy as the Lakesiders. Mas was already approaching the small plastic sentry box that stood as the way marker, when Bobbins squeaked in his ear, “Lemme, handle this.”

Bobbins handed over a tally stick to the guard. The guard called to her mate, who hopped down from a large stack of wooden pallets. They conferred briefly, then both leaned up against the plastic side of the guard-post and gave it a shove. The whole thing slid to one side, revealing a small crawlspace through the massed junk, “After you,” said Bobbins.

“I don’t think so. You first.”

“I’m easy.”

“Yeah, that’s what bothers me.”

Already there was the scent of lemons, drifting towards them, or maybe just permeating the whole junk passage. The roof, such as it was, was so low that they both had to crawl. Mas didn’t need to apply a great deal of imagination to feel the weight of the tons of discarded metal and plastic above them.

“Wait here,” said Bobbins.

“Not likely.”

“They don’t know you. Don’t recognize your smell, it won’t end well. You need someone to vouch for you.”

“Oh, the irony,” said Mas. He sat on the floor facing the den interior. Bobbins pressed forward through a narrow plastic-sided entrance hole.

The air in the passage was oddly still and clean-smelling, a slight comfort. Mas shuffled, he was sitting on something: his telescoping spear weapon. He rearranged his jacket so the pocket wasn’t under him, and felt the cool metal tube in his hand. Somewhere beyond the odd plastic curtain Mas could hear muttered voices, tense but not raised.

Plastic rustled again, and Bobbin touched his leg, he resisted a twitch. “Come on.”

In the inner sanctum of the drug den, if that’s what it was, was a quite large space where the floor fell away via a large cargo net. A folk person stood on either side of the inside entrance trying not to seem like security. Mas struggled down to what passed as floor level and Air-sensed the room. All around the walls were folk forms, lying down, some stood, but all encased in something plastic-textured that in any other place would’ve resembled hammocks. Would this be where they all tripped from? On the wall nearest to him, someone in one of the slick cocoons sighed a peculiar sigh: not pain or sadness, more like amazement. Mas reached out and poked the form within. No response to him. Whatever was going on in there was way too interesting for him to disturb. Bobbins called him over in hushed tones from what seemed to be an entrance to another chamber. He clambered over the rope mesh to meet him.

The next chamber was the same as the first, larger if anything, but with an enormous membrane sling right across the middle of the chamber acting as a mezzanine. Bobbins led him to a place below it, then called up gently but firmly, “Larris?”

“Hello, Bobbins,” a female voice from the odd sling floor above them. Difficult to place an age. Not a pup, too assured. “And this is your friend?”

“Friend? Not really,” said Bobbins.

“Oh Bobbins, I’m offended,” said Mas. “Also, I thought being here was going to explain everything.”

“It will,” said Bobbins. “I hope you’re good for expenses.”

“Within reason, why?”

“Pass me half a tally stick.”

Mas reached into his pocket and snapped a stick in two. He presented a piece to Bobbins, who took it and gave it in turn to Larris. She took her time testing the veracity of the stick, checking the texture and flavor of the wood as correct. She reached behind her to a box that opened with two clicks, then turned back to Mas and Bobbins. “Half a tally stick buys two,” she said.

“It bought three yesterday!”

“And so there are fewer today. Supply and demand, my dear.”

Bobbins tutted and then presented his hand for inspection of what the ‘two’ might be. He tipped his hand. One small object clinked against the other and fell onto Mas’s palm. He prodded it. It was smooth, slightly cold to the touch and the size of a bead. He picked it up with thumb and forefinger and gently shook it near his ear. Hollow and filled with a watery fluid of some sort.

“Careful,” said Bobbins.

“What exactly is it?”

“They’re called ‘tears’,” said Larris from above them. “A mind-altering substance that…uh, came into my possession just this cycle.”

“A found thing?” asked Mas.

“Yes. Nothing like it has ever been found before, and it has been giving folk some… profound experiences.”

“Wanna try one?” said Bobbins. “You bought it, after all.”

“No.”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything?” said Bobbins.

“Oh, I’m not, but I don’t do anything stronger than racta or bamboo gin. Not since—”

Across the far side of the cavern, there was the faintest crunch and a deep shuddering sigh.

“Well, I never have.”

“Your loss,” said Bobbins.

“I didn’t come for a trip, I came for answers.”

“They may be the same thing,” said Larris. Mas ignored her and addressed Bobbins.

“Why did you kill the midwife?”

“I told you, I didn’t. I got to her place and she was already dead.”

“But you did steal from her.”

“Stealing. Can you really steal from the dead?”

“Ok scavenging, it hardly makes you moral.”

“And what did you take?”

“You know that already,” said Bobbins.

“Humor me,” said Mas.

“I took some reagent samples and the notes she’d scribed.”

“Because you were about to be an upstanding citizen and report the danger of this new drug?”

“You’re funny Mas, really.”

“Why then?”

“Because I thought she might be onto something, and if I could replicate her formula, I could make the drug, or something similar. It would make me very popular.”

“Hmm, yes it would,” purred Larris above them.

Mas turned his head toward the voice, “Have you had anyone new arrive here? Past couple of spans?”

“Now, now,” Larris said, “there is confidentiality to think of.”

“River-folk, young, stupid, but with a reasonable access to funds?”

“I have no idea who you might be speaking of.”

Mas growled and gripped hold of the edge of the plastic membrane floor and pulled it towards him. The female smelled slightly of fungus: she was Myconid-folk then and didn’t try her own product. Not stupid. He said in a low voice, “We can do this either way. I go away from here and didn’t find anything, or I go straight back to the constables and they bust up your sweet little racket. I’m not gonna lose any sleep either way.” At least that bit was true. He let go of the plastic and the membrane hammock swung gently away from him. He wasn’t the only one growling now.

“I give him up and you get out of here with what you came for and stop disturbing my customers?” she said.

“Deal,” said Mas.

She drew breath to reply, but then a rustle behind her and a crack, and they already knew where he was. A rush of lemon and sweat shot past them, too quick to Air-sense.

“Shreds, he’s legged it,” said Mas, moving to chase.

“You’ll never catch him unless you’re on this,” said Bobbins.

“Not likely,” said Mas.

“Let me then,” said Bobbins. “You go out back and cut him off. There’s an outflow pipe takes you the edge of the Quay, then run back to us this way.”

“Go!” said Mas, and with a crack and a hiss, Bobbins was gone. Mas was about to follow, but the sharp scent of lemons caught him, and he felt woozy. “Woah!” he said, “what did he do to me?”

“Nothing,” said Larris. “If you didn’t inhale a full capsule, you’ll get none of the effects.”

“Doesn’t feel that way.”

“None of the real effects. The dizzy will pass quickly. Now go. Out through the next chamber and there’s a hatch under the doorway, lift the plastic. The pipe is slick, but it brings you out where Bobbins said. Quickly, or you’ll never catch him.”

Chapter 11 – River Rat Caught

Mas fell into the water and regretted his decision immediately. Fluid filled his ears and nose as he thrashed for the surface, panic racing through him. Shreds, what was wrong with him? He turned to grab the wall he’d just emerged from but clutched only waves. Be still. Count.

He floated up. When his nose broke the surface, he snorted and coughed and snorted again. His whiskers were still too wet to Air-sense, but at least he could now fill his lungs with air and not drown. Count again. Perhaps he could get his hammering heart to slow momentarily to get his bearings. A long breath out and he shook his head. Now he could hear. He twitched his ears, first one way, then the other. There. Shouting. Must be Lakeside. Okay. Something to swim towards.

The shouting was getting louder when Mas touched the lake wall. Then there was a scuffle. He found a rope over the side of the quay and pulled himself up. He shook himself again and flung his arms out. Then they descended on him. He fell back on his behind, and it was all he could do to stop himself winding up back in the lake, then collapsed in a melee of limbs and shouts. Someone in the distance had the good sense to ring the bell for the constables and more folk sounded as if they were approaching. There was always an audience for a fight in Lakeside.

Mas grabbed for the nearest limb that wasn’t his own and bit into it. The yell that came back wasn’t Bobbins, so he figured he’d found their killer. The next challenge would be keeping hold of him, under the influence of that ‘tears’ drug, the kid was super strong. Luckily, since Bobbins was holding the other half of him down and he’d had a dose of it himself, between them they seemed to be winning the struggle.

The constables arrived, blowing the reed whistles they seemed so fond of. Whether it had the intended effect of warning the locals to cease and desist or whether it just egged folks on, Mas was never sure. In this case, when the constables were close enough to work out who to arrest, both Bobbins and their murderer ran out of steam at once. The drug wore off quick, it seemed.

The constable in charge seemed to be Don-po again. Either he was in trouble or Knia had promoted him to dep and Mas hadn’t known. He wondered how much else had passed him by in these last few spans when he’d been so distracted.

“What have we got here, then?” he said.

“Your murderer, as promised,” said Mas.

“Which one?” said Don-po, gently toeing Bobbins snoring form.

“Your call,” said Mas.

“Arrest them both and sort it out in interview, Sarge?” said the female voice of Don-po’s new assistant, Omari. Knia had promoted him, then.

“I think that’s an excellent call, Omari. Tie ‘em up while they’re out of it.”

The subsequent questioning and arrest of Kwat for the murder of Adelite and the young midwife Anda was followed swiftly by the release of Bobbins with all charges dropped. While Mas knew full well that Bobbins was far from innocent, he thought it better to know where Bobbins was and roughly what he was up to, along with what the impact of the new drug ‘tears’ would have. Jumping on all that from a great height at the outset had so much more potential to drive it underground again, and at least he knew where to find everyone now.

Bobbins was so relieved that he offered to take Mas and the constabulary to the Bocado to celebrate. It seemed like it was going to cost him as everyone said yes. Mas reported in to the mother and father of the dead girl and claimed an extra three spans of fees. So grateful were they that they paid up without question, and Mas went to celebrate with a clean conscience for once.

A big cheer went up when Mas entered the bar, and the drinks began to flow. A huge banquet had been laid on with an amazing stuffed Lakeside Toothfish as its centerpiece. It seemed like the kitchen had outdone themselves and everyone in the bar had a tray of snacks within reach. As the evening wore on, folk brought instruments: a hollow log drum, a reed pipe, and a visiting story-teller had brought a three-string lute. The tables and chairs were pushed back and there was dancing. Most everyone in Lakeside liked a party, so by the time things were in full swing the bar was rammed full, with more dancing and drinking spilling onto the street outside. It was one of those parties, that if a person remembered it, they probably hadn’t been there.

Chapter 12 – Hangover from Hell

Mas gasped and rolled over. His head hit something hard. He’d been dreaming of hands tight around his throat. He supposed that was because he’d been snoring. His bed felt much harder than usual. And it smelled of wood, not cloth. He rubbed his temple where he’d just bashed it. Not in bed but on the floor next to it. His tongue felt thick. Jacket. Where was his jacket? Did he leave it in the Bocado? He sniffed. The smell of stale alcohol and all kinds of flavors of smoke. Mas tried to stand. Both legs ached like hell. His arms weren’t much better. Had he been dancing last night? He had. Gods, he must have been drunk. He remembered having his arms around someone. Minu, the serving girl. Had he danced with her, too? Had there been kissing?

He sat up, briefly contemplated the idea of brewing his own racta, then thought better of it. If he needed to go to the Bocado anyways, in search of a missing jacket, he could just as easily get racta there, and maybe see if anyone had dried any of that fish from last night. Mas stumbled to his door and walked down the stairs into the work-span.

Everything was quiet. No sound of the market, or sellers, fights or Tinkralas singing praise to their odd God. Even the air was still. Mas walked to the end of his road and turned into Bocado Street. He twitched his whiskers to get a better Air-sense. Then twitched them again. The street outside the Bocado was crowded with folk. But everyone was almost quiet, a faint rumble of mumbled conversation was the most there was. It was like a reenactment of the previous evening’s proceedings, but with little sound or movement. The crowd was thick in the small clearing outside the bar, and he needed to force his way in. As he did, people who recognized him by scent started to mutter his name: “Mas”, “Teller Mas is here”. It seemed to precede him pushing through the folk to get to the doors, like a bow-wave. When he reached the swing doors of the bar, he didn’t need to announce himself. There was total silence.

Once a constable let him in, the other side of the bar doors was a clear open room, with bar furniture much the same way he had left it last night, with two or three folk pottering about. There was no smell of food or racta, only a stronger concentration of the smells that hung to him: sticky alcohol and tobacco and blood. So much blood. One of the folk he’d clearly mistaken for a constable was not moving at all. Sat upright, back to the bar, legs out in front, leaning slightly to the left on a chair. It was the source of the blood. He dragged himself forward to Air-sense better, but found he was starting to feel too dizzy for that. He stood still to stop himself falling, and another smell drifted up from the floor. Minu, the serving girl. Gods.

Mas felt a hand on his shoulder. The gentle touch enough to tip the balance in him, and he fell to his knees. He could feel a presence either side of him. One was Knia, competent and quiet, the other side, with a gentle hand supporting his side was Yayu of the Midwives. No-one seemed to have washed from last night.

“When did you leave the bar last span, Mas?” said Knia quietly.

“I don’t—” Mas heard his own voice, but it wasn’t like him speaking.

“I’m sorry, Mas, I’ve got to ask you.”

“I don’t remember.”

“Do you remember anything from last night?” Knia asked.

“I remember eating and drinking and dancing, I guess.”

“What was the last thing you remember?”

“Dancing with Minu.”

“And what did you do then?”

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“And where did you stay last night?”

“I was… at home… I woke up at home.”

“I’ve got to ask you—”

“I know. Ask.”

“Did you—?”

“No. I was— I liked her. Gods, she was too young to—”

“I know. Hey for what it’s worth, none of us think—”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks. It means… something.”

Something wafted across and tickled Mas’ nose. Someone had one of those damned old pipes again. The smell was cropping up everywhere.

“Hey, Knia,” Mas said.

“Yeah?”

“None of your lot have taken up pipe smoking, have they?”

“What? No. All too young. Why d’you ask?”

“I keep smelling it about, it’s driving me crazy.”

“Not us. One of your friends?”

“No one I know, these days,” he took a deep breath slowly through his nose, turning gently as he did so. The smell was gone now. “I seem to be running out of friends.”

“Hey, Mas,” the midwife on duty called him. “Mas!” She had to come all the way across the crime scene and poke him. She was carrying something. She was new, too. He hated it when someone knew his name first. “You want this jacket back? Or can I keep it?”

“Isn’t it—?”

“Evidence? No. I’ve been right over it. Not a stain or smell on it, ‘cept it’s been here. No blood, no fluids. It’s clean. Even your ‘toy’ in the pocket, not opened.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said.

“It was a bit of a surprise when it went off. I dropped it and nearly speared my foot. Oh, and it’s not the murder weapon,” the midwife had a gruffer voice than the last trainee. “She was strangled.” Mas was going to ask her name but somehow forgot. He found himself fingering his throat.

“Shreds,” said Mas.

“What?” asked the midwife.

“Knia!” Mas called out, she’d gone to the far side of the room. He ran over to where he heard the grunt in reply, but round the edge of the room to avoid disturbing the scene.

“What?” she said. “We’re busy here and I’ve said you’re not a suspect. Now take your stuff and beat it.”

“But what if it’s me?”

“Are you confessing, you head-case?” said the constable, now sergeant, Don-po, popping his head up from sweeping with a tiny brush.

“No. I said. I didn’t kill her. But what if it’s about me?”

“Ego much?” said Knia.

“No, listen, what if all of this is for my benefit?”

“Why? Who?” Knia sounded cross at the idea.

“I don’t know.” He found his hands at his throat again. Maybe he did know. All his instincts were saying ‘past’. Somewhere back there. Way back with the River-folk. “You sure you don’t need me?”

“No, why?”

“I’m gonna leave town for a few spans. I’ve got a theory, but I need to find someone.”

“’Kay. Check in the moment you get back.”

Chapter 13 – A River Runs Through It

Mas spent a little time choosing a suitable craft. He annoyed the hells out of the boat seller on the quay, picking at this thing or that. Were those seams doped enough? Was this one made from the right kind of wood? Did he have to have a coracle? In the end, he chose a canoe. It was made from a found-thing plastic barrel, but it had well-mounted stabilizers, tucked in on either side. There was enough room in the thing for three, but there’d only be him. Going back. To find, what? To start with, some answers from the only living member of his family. His mother.

Everything was still when he pushed off and started across the great lake. No breeze. And ominous quiet. Only moisture and brackish water on the air. He took his jacket off, checked for his spring-spear in the pocket, stowed them both and started to paddle.

He spent three full spans in the same way. Eating fish that he caught with hook and line over the side of his canoe in a way he hadn’t for— he didn’t know how long. Part of him wanted to enjoy it, but every paddle stroke made him twitch. The echoes in the river-tunnel made him think he was being followed. Each night when he tied the canoe up at the nearest mooring point he could find, he went to sleep dreaming about smoke and strangling.

His last sleep-span was spent about one span’s travel away from the fairly flexible borders of the River-folk. He knew he’d need his wits about him, for all the world of Dark had changed since the fall of its erstwhile dictators, the Overfolk. The war had been over for some time, but River-folk never quite could followed anyone else’s rules. They could scarce follow their own, what rules there were.

Mas’ attention snapped to as his Air-sense tickled with an increase of headwind. He splashed to an abrupt stop and sculled to the side of the pipe. Ahead, he could hear the faintest whine. A tiny singing noise from something awakened by that breeze. As the breeze died down, so did the whine. He moved the canoe slowly and silently, by edging forward hand over hand on the wall of the tunnel.

“Ssss,” Mas had to make a sound, the sharp slice in his finger hurt already.

He gently reached up and felt for what had caught his attention. A thin metal wire was slung at a lazy head height across the pipe. Someone was fishing. The technique was frowned upon of course: outlawed in all civilized River-folk families but that didn’t stop it being used. It was a massively effective way of catching prey. Dump the headless body back in the water and let it float downstream, once it was stripped of anything of worth, obviously. Except that the person who’d set this line up was an amateur. The line was way too tight. A little slacker, it would’ve been silent. Who was teaching the pups their heritage these days?

Now, what to do? Mas lifted his weight out of the canoe and slid over the side without as much as a plop. For an out of shape Lakesider, it was all coming back to him at speed. Maybe all that work his subconscious had been doing was paying off. He hung from the wooden toggle at the back of the canoe, with just his nostrils above the water, and let the canoe drift slowly as the trap had intended. A small hint of sweat and tar wafting to Mas was, slowly resolved into a person. Young. Female. River-folk.

He felt a bump on the boat: too sharp an impact to be a hand, a barge pole? The vibration told him it was on his right-hand side, about half-way down the boat. He held onto the toggle with one hand, ducked under the water and stretched along the canoe with the other, slowly to keep all profile and scent of him under the water.

“Huh?” said the girl from the side of the river.

In a click, Mas swiped his hand up and caught the long stick: a bamboo pole with a curve at the end he’d grabbed. He gave it a sharp tug. “Woah-oah-aah!” yelled the girl as her balance went from whatever hole or ledge she’d been perched on. Mas let the pole slide through his hands as she overbalanced and fell into the river with a splash. He grabbed at her with his free arm, writhing to get a good grip and keep a hold on the canoe. In the struggle, he wound up with an arm around her throat, keeping the canoe, but letting go of the barge pole. “You rat!” she said as she felt it go from her fingers. “You know how long that took me to make?”

“I’d think you’d be more concerned about why I shouldn’t kill you?” murmured Mas into her ear.

“Get bent.”

He ducked her under the water, felt her struggle for a few clicks and then brought her up. She spat water out noisily.

“Always an easy way—and a hard—way,” said Mas, coughing. In keeping the girl in a headlock as she fought him, he’d taken on water himself.

“Okay! Okay!”

“Good,” said Mas. “Now let’s get you and me up on the side and we can talk.”

They sat either side of a hot vent, steaming fish on sticks. It was a picnic that they’d both contributed to. The girl had a bottle of spicy sauce to drip on, too. It was sharp and warm and sour. Mas liked it enough to want to ask what it was and where to get it.

“I got it at the last Flotilla.”

The Flotilla was the name for a once a cycle meet-up for the main families of the River-folk. It was somewhere different each time, depending on movements and changing territories and alliances. It served as a loose political binding for the very disbursed River-folk, disputes were settled, and grievances aired, as well as news and produce shared. There was an ad-hoc market that spread across all the tied together boats, that spilled onto whatever shore there was, depending on where they were moored. The smells of different traditional food from each family tended to delineate passage through different territories on the boats, but while the massive conjoined raft that formed the Flotilla was moored, all boats were considered neutral territory. If Mas was to find his mother, the Flotilla would be the best bet.

“When’s the next one?”

“Two spans’ time.”

“Where?”

“The Stacks.”

“Oh good, not far. You’re taking me.”

“Ok,” she said sulkily.

“Least you can do for trying to murder me.”

Chapter 14 – Flotilla

On their way there, Mas elicited quite a lot of information from his new companion, Geema. She was a first timer at crime: she had a litter of pups to bring up and her brother had taught her the old bandit technique. Her mother was drinking any money their tiny boat made from fishing and right now, she was supposed to be minding the pups while fishing was taking place. Her brother down one passage, she down another. It sounded to Mas like a precarious existence.

“What would you have done if you’d killed me?” he said.

“Dunno,” said Geema. “Not got that far. Clean up I guess.”

The paddle made that reassuring sploosh-gloop noise that only paddling a canoe seemed to make. He even found the water dribbling down his arms and the ache in his lower back comforting.

“It changes you, you know.”

“What does?”

“Taking a life.”

“So?”

“Don’t do it lightly. A little bit of your life gets left behind in everyone that you end.”

“You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Trust me,” said Mas.

“We’re not far now. I can smell fish soup!”

“Sounds like lunch to me.”

“I’m hungry,” said Geema.

“When did you last eat?”

“Dunno. Coupla spans I guess?”

Mas sighed. They rounded a bend in the pipe and as the curve wound itself straight again, Mas picked up a mass ahead of them: a barricade.

“What’s the story here then?” he asked.

“New gateway to the flotilla. It’s in the Stacks this time, so there’s lots of ways in, very difficult to guard. They pile lots of the smaller pipes with junk.”

“What do we do? Move it?”

“No. It’d collapse on us. It’s stacked so it’ll fall out if we move it. There should be a bell over our heads in the middle of the pipe. Ding it and wait.”

Sure enough, at the apex of the pipe over the barricade was a hanging piece of something metal. Mas whacked it with the end of his paddle. It made a dink noise. He wondered if that would be loud enough to attract anyone. He didn’t wonder for long.

“Who’s fishing here?” A standard River-folk hail, from a young impatient voice.

“Geema Flatboat, let us in Vemin, you idiot.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Someone I found in my net.”

Mas laughed sharply.

“Well nearly,” she added.

“This your brother?” said Mas.

“What’s it to you?” said Vemin

“Tetchy,” said Mas, “I have made friends with your sister here.”

“Why?” said Vemin.

“I find it better than making enemies.”

“Just open the barrier, moron,” said Geema.

Vemin started the process of dismantling from the far side. Very little needed to be removed before there was a passage through the junk. They’d have to duck, but Mas couldn’t help marveling at the construction, easily put up and removed from the defensive side, but tricky and noisy from the other.

“The Stacks is somewhere I’m not familiar with,” said Mas.

“Gods, you have been away ages. They found it after a battle between the Pikefish and the Bottom-feeders. Stray harpoons punched a hole in a wall that wasn’t real stone. Some kind of ‘found’ material. It broke down really easily and the other side was the Stacks. Useful place. Enough space for a whole Flotilla if everyone turns up, lots of easy mooring, but not easy to defend now we’ve explored it and knocked through the rest of the walls.”

Vemin was as quick sealing the gap in the barrier, as he’d been opening it. He climbed down and into a tiny barrel coracle, which he paddled with his hands. “This way,” he said.

“How are the pups?” said Geema.

“Noisy,” said Vemin over his shoulder.

“And Mother?”

“Yeah, she is too.”

Geema huffed and turned back to Mas, they could all hear the noise and smell of the massive gathering building slowly in the passage. “You never said why you were here.”

“I don’t recall you asking,” said Mas.

“Well I’m asking now,” she said.

“Oddly, I’m coming home to meet my mother.”

The smell of the fish soup allowed Geema to guide them to the nearest mooring pillar in the Stacks. The Air-sense feel of the place was curious: a water-filled cavern, but with spindles of varying heights protruding from the surface, some all the way to the roof, some hardly breaching the water. Mas pulled the bow of the boat up to the pillar and tied off his rope. The pillar was wooden and carved with grotesque faces, geometric figures, some words. It had been worked on by many hands, some obviously talented, some not. The rear of the canoe was steered by Vemin, to be tied to the back of a sailboat next to them. That, in turn, was tied to the mass of the Flotilla. Vemin hopped up and offered a hand: “Welcome to the Flotilla, I believe you offered to buy lunch.”

Walking on the Flotilla was an acquired skill, and Mas was decidedly rusty. Too long spent ashore, anyone here would’ve told him. The collection of flatboats and canoes and punts, suddenly giving way to sailboats or even war-cutters and frigates. Gangplanks and cargo-nets, swings and slideways provided the thoroughfares between the vessels, and nowhere felt level. Mas had left the two to find their own vessel. He’d also hidden two tally sticks in the girl’s pocket. She could always pretend she’d stolen them from him if she needed to. And Geema turned out to be right, the soup was really worth waiting for. Odd how fish soup never sounded that exciting, but sometimes, just sometimes…

The buzz on the rafts was all about the end of the war of the Overfolk and the start of a ‘republic’, whatever one of those was. It required a single representative from each tribe of Folk and it seemed the heads of all the families were meeting in the middle of the flotilla. If his mother was anywhere, as the sole living member of the family they’d once been, that was where she’d be.

Chapter 15 – Mother

His mother’s voice floated over the din of the hawkers and the fighting, the singing and the screaming. She had always been one for a bit of politics, and this particular bit of politics was in full flow. He followed the noise in a spiral pattern of gangplanks and boardwalks to where the center boats were moored in such a way as to leave the smallest pond between them—a kind of eight-sided lake where the great families met, settled disputes and meted out justice. An enormous cargo net stretched between the boats, its lines spread like a massive ropey spider web. Its middle draped into the water and the Folk in the meeting found various perches on the dry upper ropes, higher or lower, according to status.

“I think we should give the matter some consideration!”

“Since your family is now so small, I think that your voice hardly carries here.”

“I think the size of her voice and the size of her family have never been related.”

“I will take that as a compliment whether it was meant that way or not,” said Mewit Mas. “The fact that my heir bore no children to captain our boats, is still a sadness to me.”

“Or if he, did they were Lakeside bastards!”

At that, everyone laughed. When the hilarity died down, a voice carried across the pond.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” said Teller Mas. “Mother. Elders.”

“Well, Teller Mas as I live and breathe! The Lakesiders didn’t drown you after all,” a gruff male voice shouted.

“Tidus,” said Mas in response, “don’t let me interrupt.”

“Too late for that, friend. Go! Sit. Join your mother. It’s good you’re back.”

It didn’t seem like the right time to say he didn’t know for how long. He climbed the net to sit alongside his mother. The conversation swelled again, this time about recent matters. A delegation had come from the Hub to explain the idea of ‘The Republic’ and had asked the River-folk to participate - some bossy Bridge-folk type called Dun. They’d long gone and were waiting on a response back up in the Overfolk. Mas cocked both ears to listen. It was all bound to come to the Lakesiders too, even though they weren’t really a folk tribe in their own right, more a collection from everywhere else. No one really ‘came from’ Lakeside. He felt his mother’s hand in his. He resisted the temptation to twitch away.

That Sleep-span, on the old Mas raft, Teller still felt odd. Neither he nor his mother was asleep and all they’d done was talk. He felt safe, but as if everything was a dream. Solid ground meant something different for someone born River-folk, but now Mas felt uneasy when he had to sleep afloat. On his way there, he’d moored up each sleep-span and got out of the boat into a dry pipe or room, knowing all the while he’d risk the canoe getting stolen with him not in it. He ran a hand through his fringe and sighed.

“Trouble son?”

“You know I can’t stay?”

“You could, you know.”

“No, Mother, I couldn’t.”

“Why did you come, then?”

Mas ignored the slight tone and moved on, “I need you to tell me about Father.”

She tutted, “What’s to tell?”

“You’ve told me hardly anything.”

“You’ve not been here.”

Mas didn’t want to question her into silence. He pulled at a loose raft cord and unraveled it. Mewit slapped his hand absently, “How many times have I told you not to do that?”

Mas laughed. A full-throated, deep-bellied laugh. He didn’t laugh all that often, but when he did, it was contagious. A hundred clicks later, then two and three, they were hooting and gasping. Then slowly as they caught their breath again, Mas didn’t want to break the silence, but there was something in his throat that he almost coughed out, “It’s— it could be important.”

“Why? He’s dead, ‘may-his-carcass-rot-on-land’? That bastard made our lives miserable when he was alive, why should we let him haunt us now he’s dead?”

“I guess I need some answers, to lay him to rest. It’s been bothering me.”

A strong air current buffeted into the cavern, Mas felt it on his face before he noted the raft rocking gently. He felt woozy. His mother reached out and took his hand. It felt more wrinkled than he remembered. Kind of like scroll parchment.

“If you must, ask.”

“I need to know what happened.”

“There was a family war. It was messy. He died. You know this.”

“I was only a pup, I don’t remember the half of it. We left and hid when it happened, I remember that.”

“We left before then.”

“Okay.”

“This is…difficult. Your father wasn’t always—”

“Kind?”

“That is a word not suited to River-folk ever, is it?”

“No. I suppose not. What then?”

“I was going to say his priorities were… skewed. Even for one of us.”

“The whole ‘born afloat, live afloat, die afloat’ thing.”

“Don’t say it like that. Traditions are important to us. Some have kept us alive during some hard times. I still feel a sense of loss, the end of something that you can’t take on this boat when I leave it.”

“You know why I can’t—”

“I do know, and I respect that. Your father never did. It’s why he and I had differences.”

“About me coming of age? The ceremony?”

“It was important to him. The tradition. It went back eons. As far as anyone can remember.”

“But it was all so pointless, so awful. Why?”

“Why the ceremony? Why any ceremony? Any tradition. I suppose it made sense when it was contrived, but now… so much waste.”

“It’s been so long since I’ve been here are they still doing, the whole initiation thing?”

“Some do. It’s still a badge of pride to have the title. You can still captain a boat without it though.”

“Two little letters. Is it worth the death of a quarter of the initiates?”

“I don’t know. Teller Mas-Te has a nice ring to it.”

“But it’s pups.”

“You were. It’s why I hid you away.”

“Not just the war, then.”

“No. Not just that. I left with you, he went to war. No-one came back called Mas. There’s just you and me now.”

She began pottering about the raft at that point, getting out bedding of chests in the rafts small living quarters, scarcely more than a wooden-walled hut perched on the craft. The sleeping pallets smelled of home. Mas fell into a deep sleep.

Chapter 16 – Drink Me

Mas dreamed someone had a foot on his chest. He didn’t have the chill of fear that had gone with his other dreams of late, just a small but firm pressure on his sternum, holding him down. And the smell of lemons and tobacco.

He woke and was about to sit up, but there was the pressure again. Smaller than in his dream, but there nonetheless. A small round weight, pressing down. He moved his arms, slowly, to his center. He felt the sides of a large glass bottle sitting on him. He lifted it, felt its weight: not heavy, something sloshing inside it, water maybe. There was a small piece of string attaching a rough bark label. Mas sat up and felt for the label.

It read Don’t you want to know?

Know what? He ran his fingers over the label, reading it again. Something familiar about it. What? There was still a faint waft of tobacco in the air. The writing was his father’s spiky hand. How the hells?

What in the name of all the hells was in the bottle, then? Its top had a glass bung and a wax seal. The wax was warm. Not warm like it had just set, warm like someone had been fiddling with it. Warm from someone’s pocket. He felt the glass stopper. What was all of this? He pulled the top. The sharp sting of lemon followed the bung. And it dragged him right back to his past. The fragrance was more complicated than lemons, and there was nothing else like it in the world. A tiny tang of mold there, but that wasn’t where it was at, his fear of a smell. It was a faint, sweet, nutty, passing thing. A minuscule amount, a few particles in a million, billion maybe. It stayed briefly. Then disappeared. And it was the most potent poison in the Dark. It was harvested from the venom of the River-spider—a bite from one of those was always deadly. Combined with the right juice from lemon weed as a carrier, and it became something that could be inhaled. And it killed half of the people who did. But those who survived. They would retain immunity to the bite of the river spider forever.

In the River-folk tribe, it was only allowed to be inhaled by pups who were choosing to take up the mantle of their family’s boat. Or forced to. War between the River-folk families was frequent, fierce and deadly. Mostly, mothers had large litters among the River-folk. Economic reasons were the main driver, but having spare pups to survive the initiation didn’t hurt either.

And Mas had never had to go through it. His mother had saved him from that. Their boat had been run by his father and his uncles. Teller Mas was an only child. He’d had a twin, but the pup had died of a fever in the first span of its brief life. And he’d remained.

“Shreds,” Mas said.

The scent curled out of the bottle like a snake. Mas had to put the vial down on the lid of his mother’s blanket chest. His hand was shaking so much, he was afraid he’d drop the lot and kill them all. Almost as if his thoughts had stirred her, his mother turned and groaned in her sleep. If he was to do this, it would have to be before she woke. Why was he even contemplating the idea? The whole thing was insane. Even the rhetorical invitation on the label was aimed to taunt him. All the time he’d been a pup, his father had taunted him in one way or another. Always some head-game or punishment for getting it wrong. His mother had gone through the same. But if he was alive? The whole thing was awful and insane, this stuff, ‘Hyluron’ stood a straight up fifty percent chance of killing him. But didn’t he want to know? Hadn’t he always admired, hero worshiped even, the pups who’d been through the ritual and out the other side? Though, thinking back, was that because the funerals for the ones who didn’t make it were always low-key, in the middle of sleep-span, hidden away affairs? As if the whole tribe was ashamed of the fallen and ashamed of the ritual itself.

He swilled the liquid idly wondering how many inhalations it would take to put him under. Did he care anymore? He’d smelled so much death, so much of the worst the Folk had to offer, he was so tired. What did he really have to go back to? A bar tab and a drinking habit? He should have a mate, something to do with his scant downtime. Woulda. Shoulda. Coulda. But was this, here, in the way of all that? Had this always been eating away at him inside? Not knowing. There was some part of the scroll of his life with the writing scratched out. He shifted on the floor. Mas became aware of something sticking into his hip. A fabric ball? He reached down. It unfolded. He explored it with his hands, stretching it this way and that. A hat. A fabric cap of the kind that boat-captains wore. It smelled of tobacco. His mother had kept it all this time.

The breeze exhaled politely but firmly into the cavern again, lifting the boats and letting them fall. Mas sat cap in one hand, poison in the other. His mother rolled over and groaned in her sleep. Time was running out. He swirled the vial one more time and poured a tiny stream into the hat. When he felt his fingers wet underneath, he stopped. Tobacco and lemons. He inhaled deeply and lay down.

Chapter 17 – The Other Side

Gentle singing drifted through the air. A single deep male voice. And the calm rocking of being afloat. Mas had an awful clogged feeling in his head. As if his skull was full of jelly. He couldn’t lift his head. Mas figured that he’d best wait and come round a bit, work out what kind of trouble he’d gotten himself into before he gave signs he was conscious. He could smell lemons faintly, and tobacco strongly on the nearly still air. Damn. That was why. The poison. He’d taken the poison. The singing stopped.

“Hello, son.”

“Where the hell am I?”

“There’s water in a flask down the side of you there. You’ll feel dehydrated.”

That was an understatement. He drank deeply and didn’t stop till he’d drained the whole lot. He dropped the empty flask back into the boat.

“Where are we?”

“In a boat, where we should be.”

“Why am I here?”

“Funny. I was going to ask you that.”

“What in the Dark do you mean?”

“You took the poison. I didn’t know if you would.”

Mas grunted.

“Aren’t you pleased you did now?”

“What?”

“You’re Teller Mas-Te now.”

“Why the hell does that matter? For anything?”

“Son, it’s everything! Don’t you understand?”

“No. Explain. Humor me. Tell me why it’s worth murdering half of the pups who try it. Tell me!”

“Murder is such a strong word, Teller. They choose their path.”

“Do they? Did I?”

“You just did.”

“Oh, don’t be a pedant. I meant before.”

“Your mother chose for you. She took you away.”

“Because I was too young to make that choice.”

“But those choices make us. They make us strong. Make the River-folk strong. That’s the problem these days. All the pups are weak. The tribe makes them weak. Cossets them. Coddles them. It disgusts me.”

“Were we such a disappointment to you, Father?”

“You were. Your mother wasn’t. She needed discipline less than most. You both did. But there was only you and then. I was never disappointed in you. I’ve never had a pup since that— I went to a lot of trouble to get you here, son.”

“Why did you leave?”

“You know. There was a war.”

“I meant why did you not come back?”

“Your mother made that clear.”

“She was protecting me. She didn’t understand why you should put my life in danger.”

“I was preparing you for life. Being a River-folk is danger in itself. Can you not understand that?”

“Of course I understand, but you don’t need to threaten pups with death to prepare them for life.”

“Our history tells us differently.”

The wind picked up. Teller Mas sat up in the boat, they were in a wide tunnel of the type that only occurred close to the Lake. They were going back to Lakeside? Why?

“Where did you go after the war?” Mas asked his father.

“I sailed. Here and there. Looking for a new crew. I tied up here and there. Found a few mates. Had a few pups. None of them though Teller, none of them—”

“Survived?”

“What?”

“Did you put all of them through—? Gods. You did. All of them. How many?”

A hollow moan lifted in the tunnel, as some kind demented musician played the pipe they were sailing in.

“I forget. Does it matter?”

Mas sat upright. His legs were crossed under him, in the pose he liked best for thinking, but he still gripped the boat, tightly, on either side.

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t hard,” his father said. “You have quite a reputation in Lakeside.” He chuckled.

Mas supposed a stranger hearing that would find it charming. A joyful sound even. The kind a jolly sailor might make.

“No, the harder part by far was getting your attention.”

Mas hissed. He was getting a splinter under one of his nails, “That’s enough.”

“Oh, but your friends were so… helpful. Pliant even!”

Mas stood slowly. He pulled the splinter out of his finger with his teeth and spat it overboard. Then in a voice that was nearly drowned out by the lapping of the waves, “Enough.”

Chapter 18 – Safe Home

Old Fryk pulled his coat up about his ears. The howling had begun two spans ago and it hadn’t abated since. It had brought a damp, cold breath across the Lake and sent a shiver through everyone’s bones. The air played tricks down there at the best of times, but this wind? It felt alive. Even the warmth of his favorite ceramic racta cup, full to the brim with piping hot goodness, wasn’t enough.

Regardless of the noise and the weather conditions and the age of Fryk’s ears, he still heard like a bat. He could detect any boat inbound to Lakeside at least half a span before it reached the quay. And that span was no exception. He had been waiting for half a span already. It was a good part of his job. That and regular summoning of the constables. He had swept the quay and swabbed it, one ear swiveled to hear the nearing gentle splosh-swish of oars. Old Fryk was rarely surprised.

He finished the racta with a leisurely swig, slowly walked out to his hut, placed the cup lovingly back on its shelf, turned and was exactly halfway across the quay when the boat bumped against the lake-wall.

“New boat, eh?” said Old Fryk.

“New to me,” said Teller Mas as he climbed out of the boat alone. “Keep it. It’s yours.” Mas said, turned and walked away.

THE END

If you’re new to the Dark universe, welcome!

The Dark series so far (2021) comprises:

Dark (2016)

Darker (2017)

Darkest (2021)

Here’s an excerpt from Dark to tempt you!

Dark

“This is Lt. Myrch Weston, service number NXBF-105345-GDT. Not that that matters overmuch now. I’m the last of the mission to Deepspace Colony Sirius 4, though the natives here call it Dark.”

Excerpts from <Distress Beacon SN-1853001>. Found by E.S.V Vixen Terradate: 26102225.

Chapter One

Dun sat bolt upright in the darkness. Eyes open. Heart battering. He could still feel it coming.

Churning cold metallic water, spray everywhere, his sinews twanged tight, heart banging, ears singing. At least that’s blocking out the sound of... What? What is it? What in the Gods is it? It’s coming, still coming. It’s like it’s, it’s a hunger. Driven. Want and hate. Blood and bone. Closer. Closer and ... He inhaled a final struggling breath and shoved the horror in his head away.

He could hear his brothers and sisters making small stirring noises not far from him. He hoped he hadn’t woken Mother too; he’d never hear the end of it. Since Father had disappeared, Mother had changed. Not close to him. Not warm. He’d become the man of the family and that was that. He still felt too young but what could he do? Someone had to hunt and forage while Mother cared for the little ones and he was the eldest. And now he was waking everyone more nights than not with these blasted dreams.

All that was familiar trickled into his brain: his bed of reeds underneath him, the drone of the fans, and the warm mammalian smell of his family. A new span in the Dark; time to wake up. The nightmares took longer to shake off. He dreamed of something pursuing him through tunnels, his calves deep in water. It was something horrible hunting him down. He ran and ran until his lungs felt like rags. Then, of course, as it got to him, he’d wake up. Every time he tried to get back to sleep, there it would be again, waiting.

He sighed. There was no telling Mother about his dreams. One day Father had gone out and had never come back. Just like that. It was like he’d ceased to exist. Once Father’s smell had faded from their home, it grew harder and harder to remember he had ever been there.

Thinking about Father always made him feel a sharp sadness, even though it had happened two ages ago. Mother had pined, of course. Crying at night once she knew the babies were asleep. Hearing her weep in the darkness, Dun knew he’d be growing up faster than his friends. He couldn’t talk to most of them about his concerns, except Padg. The others were busy playing and chasing each other as if nothing had happened; for them nothing had.

Padg, though, he had his own responsibilities. Being the son of the Shaman could do that. They’d known each other since they’d been the two youngest pups in the village. Padg had always been the most worldly of all their group, not averse to getting into trouble with the rest of them, but certainly averse to getting caught. He’d saved them all from many a beating. Now with Father gone, it felt to Dun like Padg was the only one he could talk to. Odd. The sense of responsibility Dun felt he’d had thrust upon him, Padg had been born with.

***

After breakfast and helping Mother feed the little ones, Dun went out, slamming the rush door behind him. He walked to the wooden span across the massive river pipe; the crossing that gave the Bridge-folk their name. From there, it was easy to follow the rope path to the village. He needed to reach the Shaman’s compound on the opposite side of the village if he wanted to talk to Padg about why he’d been feeling so odd.

Out of the burrow, he was enveloped by the hum of smell and noise from the village. Some kind of auction of a new piece of found tech seemed to be taking place in the market. He heard raised voices, oddly (usually trading in Bridge-town was a good-natured affair). He couldn’t process any of it today. It was all he could do to follow the rope guides underfoot without walking into anything. His head buzzed. He was relieved to finally reach the woven gate and the wisps of incense and worked wood told him he’d reached his destination.

“Dunno...” was all his friend could muster after Dun retold his dream.

“Well, thanks for that; great help.”

“I mean, it might be something, it might be nothing.”

“Somehow, none of today is working out how I’d planned,” Dun sighed.

A breeze outside stirred the wooden wind chimes beside the lean-to shed Padg used as his workshop. Dun stretched out his arm to feel along the rack that held his friend’s work in progress. He felt twisted bamboo staves that would be made into sword-spears, preferred weapon among the Bridge-folk. A shup-shup-shup sound indicated Padg had resumed work with sanding the sword-spear at his bench. The sword was made out of the extremely hard, woody stem of one of the larger fungi growing in the depths; it didn’t stay sharp for very long, but long enough. The hunters usually carried two or three strapped to their backs for good measure. Padg carved particularly well; he was especially good at forming the helical twist in the shaft of the weapon that made it fly true when thrown.

“Padg? Hello?”

“Hush, I’m sanding.”

“Oh.”

The rhythm of the sanding was a reassuring odd kind of tune with the wooden, just musical, clunking of the chimes.

“Padg?”

“Sanding? Tricky. Needs concentration.”

“Sorry, it’s just...”

The sanding block clattered to the floor.

“Right! I give up,” Padg said. “Grab a rod from the rack; there’s some scraps in the bucket. You need something to occupy your hands.”

Fishing was always Padg’s go-to in a crisis. They left through the back flap of Padg’s workshop and headed to his favorite spot: a rusted through hole at the top of the massive pipe. They scrambled up the side using massive bolt heads in the metal surface of the pipe as a makeshift ladder. Once at the top they gathered their kit, baited the long lines necessary to get down far enough and let each one fall through the hole with a satisfying ‘plop’.

They fished for a while in companionable silence. A lazy breeze, scented faintly with vinegar, drifted up through the hole.

“Detail!” Padg cried suddenly.

“Eh?” Dun cocked his head, bewildered.

“Detail, my friend. That’s what was bothering me.”

“Good, I’m glad. Care to tell me why?”

“Your dream. Most peoples’ dreams are vague, full of confused smells, feelings, sometimes sounds. You know, the I was there with my friend but it was really my sister and then the tunnel became my house, kind of thing. Yours felt like you were there.”

“You can say that again,” Dun said.

“Maybe you were.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Maybe you were there. Or at least maybe you will be.”

“You’re talking in riddles.”

“Might be I’m not explaining it right. Listen, Dad talks about this kind of stuff all the time. You sit around and hear enough of it, and you kind of get a feel for it. Let’s go back and find him; I think he’ll be able to help. Besides, the fishing’s rubbish today.”

Chapter Two

“Do you know what foretelling is, Dun?” The voice of Barg the Shaman was deep and reassuring. Dun guessed that came with the job.

“No.”

Dun, Padg, and his father enjoyed the warmth of the small air vent in the hut. Many of the shared buildings and all homes had a vent somewhere. They all came out of the ground or walls and delivered air in varying temperatures and smells, ending usually in a metal grill or mesh. The vent in Barg’s floor had the unusual combination of a warm air flow and no smell other than a slight tinge of metal. This allowed Barg to place bags of herbs on the grill, which warmed by the air flow, would permeate the hut. Dun felt wrapped in perfume: the sweet and the spicy, the nutty and the resinous; too enveloped and overwhelmed to work out one smell from the next. It was a warm blanket of aroma, comforting and welcoming.

“Have you been sleeping well, Dun?”

“Well...er...no. Not really.”

The Shaman didn’t reply. Dun felt he had to fill the void, but his brain skittered to work out exactly what to say, without sounding foolish.

“I’ve been dreaming quite a bit. Every rest. Usually several times each rest.”

“And you’ve been remembering them all, in great detail?”

“Yes. How did you...”

“Getting more compelling, more vital?”

“Yes.”

Somewhere in the depths of the vent Dun could hear the ping of metal expanding. The Shaman made a non-committal humming sound.

“When they first started, they were weird. On the inside of my head. Noises and scents but really vivid, quite random. Then there was this odd sensation... Like tingling or prickling, waves of something, blankets maybe but not, sometimes filling the whole of the inside of my head and hurting. I’m not describing this very well.”

“Those are called extra-sensory factors.”

“Oh?”

“Things that you can’t describe in sounds, touch, smell, taste or air-sense. It takes a while to get used to those, but you will. They’re something that you won’t really make a lot of, unfortunately. We don’t know what they mean. They come in different types; some foretellers have called them flavors; it helps to categorize them, but ultimately it’s hard to tell what they might mean. Historically, foretellers tend to ignore them, to be honest.”

Dun was so lost in his own thoughts in the effort to take everything in. Barg filled the gap this time.

“Have the dreams been getting more consistent? Recurring?”

“I’ve been having one dream that has, yes.”

“What happens?”

“I’m running along one of the rivers, in a tunnel and I’m being chased by something. A horrible something. It’s hunting me. It won’t give up and it’s gaining on me. But I can’t smell it or air-sense it; I just know it’s coming. Almost, but not quite like, I know what it’s thinking... A horrible ‘other’ thing.”

“The same every time?”

“Yes, well, starting the same every time, but it seems like there’s some more each time. Like a story?” Dun had intended his tone to be rhetorical, but Barg answered.

“Yes, like a story. Except this one may be real. And you may be in it.”

“Hey, I said that,” Padg chipped in.

“Thank you, Padg,” his father replied. “You have been listening all these years. It is a shame, though, that you’ve never had the foretelling gift.”

“Curse, more like.”

“Padg!” The Shaman could crack his voice like a whip.

“Sorry, Father.”

“What do you mean, ‘curse?’” Dun asked, worried.

“Some people find the responsibility that comes with the gift of foretelling too much for them.”

“That’s the folk it doesn’t drive bats!”

“Padg! That’s quite enough. This is a serious discussion of a very serious matter. If you can’t listen seriously then go outside. Young Dun here has the gift of foretelling whether he wants it or not. What matters now is that he understands it and what he does with it.”

“Sorry.”

“Hmm.”

A distant clang echoed up the air vent with a sigh of acrid air.

“So is it the future then? I’m experiencing the future?”

“No. Not exactly. Sometimes it may be the future, sometimes it can be the past, sometimes it is a foretelling from far away. Neither your future or your past.”

“So what use is that to me? Or to anyone?”

“That is for you to decide,” Berg said. “That is what makes the difference between a good Foreteller and Mad-folk. That is the riddle that is foretelling.”

“So you can’t tell me what my dream meant?”

“No. Only you can know that. All I can say is that you do have the gift.”

“But this dream,” he corrected himself, “foretelling seemed so real. And it’s not happened to me yet, so it must be my future, mustn’t it?”

“Each foretelling appears from the mind of someone there, sometimes many minds. All of that appears in your mind. It seems like it’s come from you. This is a lot to take in for one day, my young friend. Go home and think about it. Return to me after the next rest, and we’ll talk some more.”

Dun left the hut in a daze, foretelling, multiple futures, madness, extra-sensory-whatever-the-hells-they-were. He already had way more responsibility than ever he felt ready for, and now this. It was a long while before Dun realized Padg was still there walking alongside him, and to be honest with himself, Dun hadn’t the first idea where he was going. He let his legs and the noisy current of folk carry him, while his conscious brain wasn’t occupied with the task of directing him. The smell of Dodg’s sweet-food stall on the market hit him just before he hit it.

“Dun!” Padg laughed.

“Sorry—in another world there.”

Feeling guilty for dragging his friend halfway across the village, Dun felt in his shoulder bag for some trade strips he knew still carried some credit. He could smell the Sweetcrackle dried mushrooms on the stand. He asked for two handfuls and handed over the wooden trade strip. The sound of a few brief scratches followed as Dodg made tallies on it, before handing it back to Dun.

“Thanks.”

The friends walked on munching side by side for a while. They tried to give the bowl in the center of the village, where auctions usually took place, a wide berth. The rowdy market that Dun had heard earlier seemed to have descended into a full-blown row. The raised voices of Bridge-folk seemed to be interspersed with the nasal shrieks of a group of River-folk traders.

“You don’t think that’ll happen to me do you?” Dun said.

“What?” Padg said. “Foretelling? Sounds like it already has.”

“No, not the foretelling or whatever it’s called; the going mad.”

“Don’t know. Probably not.”

Probably. That was reassuring. Well, he’d have to settle for that for now, while he worked out what exactly was going on inside his head. Until then, he was supposed to do chores. Mother would need him by now. It would be chaos there, though; the pups fighting, Mother shouting. It wasn’t much better staying here, whatever the hells was going on today. He needed time alone to think. He said good-bye to Padg. Maybe another go at some fish?

***

Dun crept back through the rush door of the family home at River-hole. It was eerily quiet. Maybe Mother had taken the little ones to crêche in the village; it was about that time. He searched for his hunting bag. His mother had made it for his father, and Dun felt awkward using it. The bag was a traditional folk woven one from reeds, as opposed to the recent trends of making bags out of materials from found-things. Dun didn’t have much to do with found-things. Not particularly because of the inherent danger or because of any traditionalist streak in him, but mostly because they were usually so damned expensive. The market traders and traveling visitors from the Machine-folk who collected and sold found-things made plenty of trade tallies to offset the risks they took, but on the whole, Dun didn’t get it. For most problems, there was a folk generated solution available, cheaper or free, and that suited him fine. He swung the bag over his shoulder and made for the passage that led from the family room down to the river. The texture of the bag in his hands was strangely comforting today.

He could feel the cloud of fresh moisture many strides before he reached the river. The sensation was something he took for granted. It permeated the whole tribe’s life, his family’s especially since of all the tribe, they lived closest to it, their home called “River-hole” due to a convenient tunnel to the bank. The noise of the water rose and fell with the seemingly random levels of the river, quieter today as it happened, but it was always there. He walked down to the edge of the water; there was the walkway along the edge of the river. He walked the familiar route to his favorite fishing place, underfoot the textured metal mesh lightly crunching with rust. Stopping at his usual place, just after the air grill on the wall, he lay down on his belly, arm in the water, to wait.

Patience was one of his strong points. He was always able to distract himself in one part of his brain, working out what he’d do next, planning ahead, while another part of him lay in wait, wired and sprung to pounce. A swish in the water and a fish would be caught, stunned and in his bag. That is, if a fish came along. He twitched his fingers. Funny, it seemed like he was having to reach farther down today, to even reach the water. Ah well, everything today seemed like more effort. Maybe, it was his attitude he should be focussing on...

“Aaaaaaaang!”

In the water, the blood, his hand, the pain. Something churning in the water. Angry, cold, alien. He snatched his hand out, sure to feel blood dripping down his arm but no. His hand was fine, wet with water, but fine. He wiggled his fingers. What the hell was going on? His pulse hammered. The dreaming, foretelling, again? While he was awake? He could scarcely cope with it every night. Would it be every night? Gods, he hoped not. He forced his breath slowly through his teeth.

Whether or not he could stand it, he was starting to understand the folk who couldn’t. When he was very young, there was someone from the village who had started behaving oddly. Beng? Or was it Teng? Dun couldn’t recall, but he could remember that the poor unfortunate became more and more strange and disassociated, talking to himself, arguing with absent demons. Eventually, you couldn’t smell him in the village and no one talked about him anymore. Now Dun knew why. He was beginning to imagine how this new “gift” could easily crack someone. The sleeplessness alone was enough to fray him at the edges.

He slowly clenched and unclenched his hand. He had the gift, want it or not, and he was just going to have to cope. There was no one else.

A cramp in his shoulder told Dun how long he’d been there. It never normally took this much effort to find a catch. He moved his spot to somewhere farther upstream, a spot he liked less but nearer the village bridge where the pipe turned. It was busier there. Dun didn’t like the disturbance, people going into the village, the noise of the market more obvious, but it was a sure place to catch something. He waited again. Slowly a chilling feeling crept up his insides; he carried on fishing, trying to quell it, but in the end, he had to let the obvious overwhelm him. No fish. There were no fish.

There had always been fish. How could there not be? He sat back on his haunches, head in his hands trying to think. The family would be fine—there were mushrooms he could find if he wanted—but that wasn’t the point. They’d be fine for now. All the Bridge-folk would be fine for now. But fish were an important part of what everyone had to eat. And then there was trade, although the woven weed bags that the Bridge-folk produced were very fine, by far the most important trade good was the fish. And there was something else he couldn’t put his finger on. A tickling in the back of his mind. Something important. He had all the fragments, but he couldn’t make them into one piece. Something was terribly wrong. One of the Elders in the village needed to know. Now.

He went straight to the Shaman’s hut. All he heard when he got in earshot was the snick-snick of Padg whittling. Dun could tell the noise of Padg’s carving from twenty or thirty strides away.

“Padg!”

“Hey! What’s wrong? You’re panting.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Some meeting of the elders in the Moot-hall. Why?”

Dun grabbed Padg by his shoulder and pulled him up to standing. The sword-spear he was working on fell to the floor with a clatter.

“Hells! Do you know how long those things take to sharpen?”

Dun kept pulling. “Come on, we’ve got to go there. Now!”

Padg stopped resisting and fell into an easy lope, alongside Dun. “Why?”

“Fish!” Dun shouted.

“Eh?”

“There’s no fish. In the river. None.”

“Gods!”

They slowed only as they reached the Moot-hall, a long low building built like the rest of the village hut dwellings from reeds and mud, but this was the largest building in the village and had the added feature of double-skinned walls, stuffed on the inside with fur to damp down noise from inside and out. However, no amount of auditory dampening or protection was going to hide the raised voices heard when the friends arrived.

“...care how important this is. He’s too young!”

Padg grabbed Dun and pulled him down into a crouch, just around the edge of the Moot-hall from its door.

“He’s wise for his years.”

“But not many of those!”

“He’s perfectly capable.”

“Enough!” The voice of Ardg, the village Alpha, was heard loudly, and then more quietly he said, “We have no choice.”

“But we would be sending him to certain... danger. Why can we not send a fully grown band of hunters?”

“You know why, Greng. We and only we of the Elders-moot know of the other threat that faces us. We must act with that in mind.”

“How goes the discussion with our River-folk ‘guest?’” Dun made out the odd, deep tones of Myrch, the Alpha’s most recent advisor.

“He still won’t tell us what he was searching for.” A female voice was Swych’s, the head of the Hunter’s Guild.

“Though clearly up to no good, poking through the Bibliotheca. All of our records and maps?” Myrch said.

“We have nothing to hide,” Ardg said.

“You say that like it’s a good thing,” Myrch said.

Both Padg and Dun were lifted off their feet swiftly and silently, gripped by the scruff from behind.

“People who listen at doors, get bent noses.”

The quiet, precise voice carried almost no scent. It could only be Swych, head of the hunter’s guild and tutor to both Padg and Dun in fighting and tracking and stalking food.

Dun and Padg, in mid-air, were still too stunned to reply. She had come out of nowhere, like a wraith, without even disturbing the air.

“Now what should we do with a pair of ear-flapping vagabonds, eh?” Swych said, hauling them up effortlessly. “I think we’ll let Ardg decide what punishment is fitting.”

With that, she swirled them around the corner and kicked the door to the Moot-hall deftly, so it swung inward.

“Friends, Elders, our meeting is adjourned. I have found some skulkers at the door jamb. What punishment do we deem fit?”

“Ah,” the Alpha said when the scent of Dun and Padg quickly followed them into the hut. “I suspect what we have to say to these young rogues may be punishment enough.”

Chapter Three

“But the fish?” Dun tried not to stutter.

“Pardon?”

“Fish.” Facing the Alpha it was all Dun could muster. So far his day had not worked out at all how he’d planned.

“I think for all concerned here, you’ll need to be just a little clearer.”

“Gone. They’re all gone.”

“The fish?”

Ardg, despite winning his role as village Alpha in combat, had spent many years in his position perfecting his diplomacy and forbearance against, what some would consider, extreme odds.

“Yes.”

“Ah.”

The low muttering next to Ardg was Myrch, the advisor, but it was too quiet for Dun to hear.

“That is worrying. We will investigate the matter of the fish in due course. We’re glad you came, Dun; we wanted to talk to you. About another matter.” He paused. “There’s something you can do for us, for everyone.”

“Me?”

“Yes,” Ardg replied simply. “It has come to our attention that some old neighbors of ours, the Machine-folk, have gone very quiet. They are not near neighbors—they live far upstream—but we have not had a whisker-twitch of them for some time.”

Dun and Padg listened intently but still weren’t sure where they might come into it themselves. After all, they were the first to realize that in terms of the tribe, they were very small reeds in a very big basket.

“We usually meet them once a cycle at the tribes-moot fair,” the Alpha continued. “They have occasionally missed a cycle; some tribes do sometimes; it isn’t unusual. However, they send traders here all the time but no one has bumped into any of them for nearly an eon and now, pieces of found-tech are making their way here, brought by River-folk. That is troubling.”

Dun twitched. From his tone, what the Alpha said was true, but equally, there was something he wasn’t saying. He tried to think of what he knew of the Machine-folk. They came to the tribes-moots, of course, bringing some kind of clever mechanical toy or more often beautiful and useful pieces of rare metal. There were rumors about them being the custodians of wonderful machines. They could predict the future, could read your mind, that kind of thing and more. Dun was starting to realize that most of what he knew was conjecture and rumor; that was going to be of little help to him. Dun furrowed his brow. Not enough to go on.

“The tribe needs to send a small hunting party to check that all is well. We have chosen you, Dun, to fulfill this task, and you must choose who will go with you. Also, you must decide what provisions and equipment you need to fulfill your task. This will be provided by the tribe. Consider this wisely. Tonight there is feasting for Old Gryr; he has hung up his hunting spear this cycle, and it is time to celebrate his victories. Tomorrow we will talk again. Until then you must speak of this to no one.”

“But, why choose me? There are plenty of older, smarter, tougher folk than me,” Dun said

“There are. It is you we have chosen, nonetheless.” Again, there was more that Ardg wasn’t saying, but his tone brooked no argument.

“Mother and the little ones? Who will take care of them? Since Father...”

“The tribe will keep your people safe, rest assured, young Dun.”

“May I go and think about it? It’s ... a lot.”

“We would expect no less.”

***

“It’s a lot...” He didn’t finish his sentence in the tent. He didn’t finish it as he stumbled outside. He couldn’t finish it later, as he wandered through the village. There was just “a lot”. A lot in his head. A lot of fear about what he was getting into. A lot he didn’t know, and that frightened him most of all. There were many, many pieces to this puzzle, and he only had one or two. He felt like he was walking straight into the jaws of some horrible cave hunting predator. Something that sat with its jaws wide open and waited. Waited till someone was right on its tongue and then...

A pain seared through Dun’s leg. Padg was laughing.

“Ow! What was that for?”

“Well, you’ve been such great company today, I had to entertain myself somehow.”

“Ow,” Dun said again, more quietly this time. He sat and rubbed his shin.

“So,” Padg said. Half-question, half-statement.

“So?”

Padg left a gap in the conversation that a cart could’ve been pulled through. Then, as Dun was drawing breath to reply, he said as quickly as he could, “So are you going to take me with you on this stupid errand or what?”

“Oh. That.”

“Oh! Yes of course that. What have you been brooding but not talking to me about, for gods’ know how long?”

“Sorry,” Dun said, back-footed. “I didn’t know if you’d want to.”

“Hmm...the biggest adventure of either of our lives and you’re not sure if I’d want to? Did it ever occur to you that you need to take someone to prevent you getting your miserable hide eaten or lost?”

“Well, yes.”

“And so?”

“So?”

“You still haven’t asked me!”

“Oh. Sorry. Will you come with me?”

“I might be busy...”

Dun sprung on Padg shouting “ratbag!” and they rolled over the ground, crashing into a fence and earning a stern “hey!” from its owner. The play fight lasted some time, until Padg got the better of his old friend and sat astride his neck. Dun tapped his leg in a gesture of defeat. They sat on the ground panting.

“You know it’s going to be really dangerous?” Dun said.

“Yes?” Padg replied.

“No, I mean really dangerous.”

“Come on,” Padg said. “Let’s work while we talk. I know a secret Myconid-folk cave a good walk from here. No one goes there; there are good pickings, and it means you’re not going back empty-handed to your mother if there’s no fish.”

“Ever the practical one, eh?”

“I just know your mother. She scares me.”

So the friends walked and talked, keeping air-senses open for anyone else near, but Padg’s cave, just as he’d said, was some way from the village. The passage was accessed by squeezing through a damaged grating at floor level, just large enough for the two friends. Padg was right; a full-grown adult would not fit. Sometime after all sound of the village and the river had died away, Dun began again.

“I don’t think I’m explaining this well. By dangerous I mean, endangering-the-whole-tribe dangerous. More, if that were possible.”

“How do you know? The dreams?”

“Not the dreams exactly. At least, not what’s in them. It’s just a feeling I get when I’m in the dream. And now, when I’m awake too.”

“What kind of dangerous? You know, I wouldn’t let you go alone. Death doesn’t bother me; I’ve been trained as a hunter. So have you.”

“Not death, at least not just death. Worse than that, somehow. It’s really not that clear in the dreams.”

“Great. Already I’m not enjoying the role of ‘Foreseer’s companion’. You get to scare the hairs off me and then say, ‘Oh, it’s really not that clear. Just worse than death.’ Great.”

“Listen, I’m not very good at this yet. I’m just saying I hope you know what you’re agreeing to before you get too far in.”

“You haven’t really agreed yourself yet, from what I remember in the Moot-hall,” Padg reminded Dun.

“True. But I think I have to. You’ve got a choice.”

“Not if you’re going.”

And so it was decided.

***

The first two members of the party to hunt and find the Machine-folk sat in the warmth of the Moot-hall and listened to the village skald, Ebun, sing the Ballad of Yarra and Jaris. No one knew how old the song was, but it was old indeed. They’d heard its strains scores of times since being small; it was a favorite at festivals and feasts, but somehow this time there was a new romance to it; a frisson of knowing that they were on the verge of the kind of journey that was worthy of a song.

Ballad of Yarra and Jaris

In the place of long ago, outside the egg upon its back

Yarra looked upon the deep—and her shimmered hair was black

Resplendent in the void and deep—and her shimmered hair was black.

Jaris came and warmed her heart—he came to her along the track

Came from the deep and warmed her heart—he came to her along the track.

They loved as one an eons breadth—and half was warm and half was black

They loved as none before or since—and half was warm and half was black.

And then a one came in between—she felt her heart begin to crack

The darkest face came in between—she felt her heart begin to crack.

Then he was gone and never seen—and none was warm and all was black

He faded went and never seen—and none was warm and all was black.

Then we climbed back inside the egg—how long to wait till he came back

Returned ourselves inside the egg—how long to wait till he came back?

Dun heard no more of the ballad that night as the strain overtook him and he slept. Padg hadn’t the heart to wake him. … Buy Dark now. It’s also available in audio.