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Story Excerpt

How Sere Kept Herself Together
by Alexander Jablokov

I huddled in the back of the transport barge as it putted its way down the canal. I’d had to jam my ass between a pump housing and a falling-over pile of fertilizer sacks. Any ripple on the water, and my knees smacked my chin. I’d been confident when I started my business: “Sere Glagolit, Private Inquiries.” A few months on, my bruised hips hinted that “desperate” was maybe a more appropriate mood.

My new client, Brice, had hidden himself here in Sryll District. He was probably the only Om around here. Humans tend to get skin conditions from the eternal wet, and it’s a mostly Qippi neighborhood. I caught a few glimpses of those six-legged climbers about their business amid the dripping vertical gardens way above me.

The only person who seemed unhappier than I was about this trip was the Mesklitch piloting the barge.

Of the various nations with the misfortune to end up here in Tempest, Mesklitch are the most adaptable. You find them in almost every district of the City of Storms, bounding around, bouncing off things, and chattering endlessly with each other. They evolved in warrens under some kind of vast grassland, and so take to crowded city life better than most species. They mostly keep to themselves, require minimal services, and like jobs that don’t attract much attention.

So this one, on its own, wrinkled hide oiled against the eternal drip, and sensitive nocturnal eyes sun-goggled against what light made it down into this mist-filled canal, was completely out of place here. And, as if things weren’t odd enough, the Mesklitch had a water-filled live well at the stern, where it tossed fish it had caught. Aside from the odd grub, Mesklitch were plant eaters. Sometimes you have to grab an opportunity, regardless of its drawbacks and dangers.

I’d heard about my particular opportunity at a party. A girl had been gossiping about this guy who was desperate because a Cryptor had stopped stalking him, “as if you could even tell it was gone.” I was getting really tired of living in my aunt’s back room above a rumbling slideway—through probably not as tired as Aunt Tirsunah felt—and so I wouldn’t disdain even the result of random eavesdropping. I got her aside, found that the poor disdained prey’s name was Brice Perikan. The Perikans were a well-off Om family from a much better neighborhood than mine, so maybe he’d pay a decent rate. After some undignified begging from me, she got him a message. Brice got back to me and said he wanted to hire me. I wasn’t about to argue about the laxness of his due diligence, and agreed.

I’m always glad to meet another down-and-outer trying to keep things together, so I struck up a conversation with the barge pilot and started to help load and unload things just so I could stay warm. Mesklitch names are the grinding of their ever-growing teeth. This one was [Creak-snap-groan]. I had to incorporate a shoe scrape against the gunwale to get it, but I was pleased with the result.

I learned that [Creak-snap-groan]’s business was in trouble, the financing no longer worked, the Qippi delighted in spilling water on it at unexpected moments, it was behind on maintenance . . . information that, as a passenger, I definitely didn’t need.

The canal sometimes ran through tunnels under the tall Qippi buildings, and it was in the shadows of one of these that a dark shape appeared in the water ahead of us. [Creak-snap-groan] had to back the engine to avoid hitting it.

Water poured off the Voyog’s wide back as it rose up and stared at us from two wide eyes on top of a massive, shield-shaped head that ended in a decorative neck frill.

“I can give you a cut on the rate, [Creak-snap-groan].” The Voyog spoke the same traffiq the Mesklitch and I had been using, though it seemed more fluent in it than either of us, and certainly didn’t need to rely on a shoe scrape to get the name right. Its voice came from a resonant cavity in its domed head, and echoed off the low vault overhead. “We share an interest in improving the quality of transportation in Sryll District.”

“Business is going well, and my reputation is good.” [Creak-snap-groan] turned off the engine. “No cash flow problems.”

“Your vessel needs serious repairs. You can’t even afford the fuel to idle your engine. You’re putting your goods at risk.” I felt myself the focus of the Voyog’s attention. “Not to mention your passenger.” I liked this struggling Mesklitch, but I had no interest in becoming a hostage in some fight with a competitor.

The Voyog now switched to a creaking language I recognized as a Mesklitch dialect, but couldn’t understand. It was unusual for one nation to use another’s language this effectively. That was why we had various traffiqs that took into account the widely differing mechanics of communication among Tempest’s many nations. Voyogs had such a flexible sound generation apparatus that it could mimic anything.

But [Creak-snap-groan] was no more persuadable in its own language, and switched back to traffiq. “I need to make my deliveries, Glublugss.”

“These channels are riskier than they seem.” The Voyog gave up on the private conversation. “You may take on water and damage some of your goods. Or even drown your Om passenger.”

Glublugss dove and, not even bothering to make it seem accidental, bumped us as it passed underneath. The barge rocked, sloshing water and fish out of the live well. Fish flopped among the goods. I managed to flip one of them back into the well with my toe. A couple more escaped back into the canal through the scuppers.

The Voyog was swimming placidly away when one of the escaped fish, maybe uncomfortable with its new freedom, darted into a hiding place behind the Voyog’s neck frill. It surged out of the water with a loud rumble I could feel in my chest, flipped its head violently back and forth, and dove and vanished down the canal at high speed. A moment later the unfortunate fish bobbed to the surface and floated there. It hadn’t had much of a chance to enjoy its freedom.

“Glublugss is too sensitive.” The Mesklitch restarted the engine. “Should be careful who it picks on.”

As we emerged from the tunnel, water cascaded down on us. “Much sorry!” a Qippi called from somewhere overhead.

“Glublugss the Voyog hires these,” [Creak-snap-groan] said. “Mostly construction, repair, and engineering, at which they excel. But also harassment and sabotage, at which they are even better. All at a reasonable price that is still more than I can pay.”

Just beyond a bridge we passed a many-gabled four-story house. Qippi pipe plants had grown over it and dribbled water down its red and green roof tiles. It was of Om design, and had to be Brice’s house. Another canal came from behind it to join ours at an angle to form a triangular pool surrounded by high structures. Qippi scuttled amid the dangling flowers, not caring that they were a hundred feet up.

“Oh, Glublugss has been here, too,” [Creak-snap-groan] said.

Part of the landing stage opposite Brice’s house had been damaged by some impact, and was blocked off by safety barriers. A couple of Qippi workers waved the barge over to a temporary dock. After an argument, the Mesklitch was forced to pay a use fee to offload.

A tall Om guy in a dark jacket over an open-necked shirt, black hair brushed straight up, stood at an upper window of the extravagant house. Brice was better looking than I expected from his somewhat frantic communications.

The Mesklitch made a limb-checking gesture when it saw where I was looking. So Brice’s reputation was generally known.

“Be careful there,” [Creak-snap-groan] said. “Only part of you may come out.”

Cryptors mostly preyed on Oms. Other nations had picked up on the paranoia, though, and stayed away from anyone being stalked.

I was a big Om girl, taller than any Mesklitch or Qippi, and was usually obvious even among other Oms. I’d done my hair and worn a dress jacket that had taken just a bit of repair and temporary coloring to be presentable. Brice spotted me instantly and waved me toward the bridge that crossed the pool.

When I got to his door, I turned to wave, but [Creak-snap-groan] and its barge were already gone.

*   *   *

“What’s your Cryptor experience?” Brice said. “Have you ever been in the presence of one?”

I’d expected the question, but not the aggressive tone. He was twitchy, unable to sit still, though we sat on comfortable chairs in a room near the back of his house. I could hear the distant sound of the water that sluiced over the roofs.

I just went for it. “I once found a cryptic covert in the back room of a house owned by a man with a missing arm he didn’t know was missing. He always had a reason he couldn’t touch or pick something up.”

“It never regenerated?” he asked. “After the Cryptor . . .”

“They don’t always stimulate regeneration after feeding.” I had to play expert, or he’d drop the deal. “Even then they can take their sweet time about it.”

“Katin didn’t seem to have anything missing,” Brice mused. “But there was something uneven about her. How she walked? I don’t know. I only saw her once.”

“And Katin is—”

“What happened to him?” Brice asked. “To the one-armed man stalked by a Cryptor.”

“He died. After I knew him. Non-Cryptor causes. He just didn’t take care of himself.”

“And the Cryptor?”

“The Cryptor had left for some other prey long before. No one knows when.”

It wasn’t a comforting story, and it clearly disturbed him. He smoothed an invisible crease in his beautiful shirt. He had the comfortable self-assurance of Perikan money. And this house, despite the eternal rainstorm around it, was expensive.

“But your Cryptor has vanished, and you want to find it,” I said. Either I’d given him enough, or I’d have to get other work.

“Skedastr didn’t vanish,” Brice said. “It was taken.”

“Taken?” I said. “You mean kidnapped?”

“No. I mean, I don’t know. But something’s very wrong. I came home a week ago, pretty late, from a party. And Skedastr was gone. You never really see a Cryptor, or maybe only when they want you to. But I knew right away.”

“Did you see signs of forced entry? Or a struggle?”

“No. It was just . . . silent. Things had changed between us a couple of months ago. I felt like the chase had finally begun to interest it. So it’s natural that that’s when Katin would try something. She was Skedastr’s prey before me, and she’s still bitter.”

I had to get him to stick to a narrative that was at least somewhat tied to events, rather than his own suspicions and resentments, otherwise I’d never understand what happened, much less find Skedastr.

“How did you meet Skedastr?”

“I’d just moved to Hiddar District,” he said. “I had few friends, so when someone invited me to a party, I went. But the person who invited me wasn’t even there, and no one else cared. I was about to leave when I caught something out of the corner of my eye. Now I suspect that was intentional. My heart was pounding, I didn’t know why. My body understood at a deeper level. I walked over to a quiet corner in another room and sat down in an armchair.

“I didn’t know what to do. For a minute I tightened up, tried to hide myself. Then I let myself loose, my limbs, my head, everything. And I was rewarded. I saw Skedastr again, for a full second, maybe more. Cryptors have fur that absorbs light, all light, so they always look like an absence, a hole that leads nowhere. It brushed past my fingers. The charge went up that arm and down the other. I waited a long time after that, but nothing else happened.

“I went home. I felt I had lost something really important, but couldn’t remember what. But then . . . I saw signs. Something visiting me. Scratches on the wall, a light dimmed. After a while, a long while, Skedastr spoke to me. They do talk, you know, Cryptors. Just only to specific Oms, no one else. To their prey. There’s no feeling like it, to have the undivided attention of a creature so magical.”

“So Skedastr left Katin.”

“She was at that party, I saw her but didn’t know who she was. Katin Vetserik. Skedastr had been stalking her. So she was resentful about what happened. I was too busy with Skedastr to worry about it. Then she threw Skedastr into the canal.”

Cryptors had a terror of water. Their limbs were built to confine their prey while they fed, not for swimming. That complex fur got soaked and they sank. “When did this happen?”

Brice leaned forward. His shirt had an asymmetrical neck opening that swooped down to show his collarbone and the top of his right pectoral muscle. Some time in the past, something had ripped a chunk out of that muscle. Translucent skin had grown back over it, but the muscle was no longer the same shape as it had been.

The Cryptor sign was clear, and recent.

“A couple of months ago. I heard a terrifying screech like no sound I’d ever heard. Skedastr never spoke above a whisper, but I knew immediately who it was, that something had happened to it. I just ran out into the street and down the stairs to the canal. I didn’t even put my shoes on.”

“The Hiddar Canal?” It lay between Hiddar and Sryll.

“That’s right. It was quiet there, under the ventilation tower, no sign of anything. I was starting to think that I had been wrong, that the sound had been something else, when I looked into the water and saw Skedastr, just as a dark shape, down at the bottom. I dove in and pulled it out. When I got it on the quay it looked terrible, just a lump of black hair. I was sure it was dead. Then it moved and I heard its voice. We left Hiddar the next day and moved here to Sryll, where no one cares what we do. And things have been different, like it had finally decided I was a worthy prey.”

“Did Skedastr tell you Katin did it?”

“She did it, and now she finally took it. I should have known she wouldn’t give up.”

Like a lot of people, he was free with theories and miserly with facts. He was hiring me to confirm his darkest suspicions. Digging too much for what might actually have happened could end our relationship prematurely, and I needed him to hire me. I listened to the eternal cascade of water that covered the house and swirled around its base. A decent defensive position, but an even better prison for a Cryptor that feared water. Whatever Skedastr might have been up to at the canal, Brice wanted to make sure it never even thought of trying it again.

“Can you take me around the house?” I said. “Let’s see if we can find signs of what happened the night it vanished. Was taken.”

Brice started out tentatively, but was soon in full house-proud mode. He took me through room after room full of massive furniture. I lived in a small bedroom at the back of my aunt’s house, above the Erq slideway. I tried not to resent him for having so much space.

“What’s in here?” I stopped at a door that clearly led down into the cellar.

“Just support equipment, pumps, hot water, stuff like that.”

I just waited. A key Cryptor gift is getting us to ignore what was right in front of us. I could tell he’d never really noticed that door before. Finally, he opened it and led me downstairs.

It was a utility area, and had everything he had mentioned, and lot more besides. I noticed that there had been recent work on a wall below a line of three windows. “What happened here?”

“A barge hit the front of the house. Lots of unlicensed shippers on the canals. Like the one you came in on. Might even have been that Mesklitch. I had to hire some of the local Qippi to come repair it before the basement flooded. Seem to have done a decent job.”

His complete ignorance of the space was all the clue I needed. It still took me awhile to find what I knew had to be there.

Brice goggled at it. “What is that?”

“A covert.” It was a dusty skein of fibers, strips of cloth, and metal wires, a bit like a hammock, including a lot of found objects, like strips of metal, pieces of bone, and chewed-up wood, turned into something almost like paper by the Cryptor’s own digestive juices. “Cryptors make these as a place of concealment.” I didn’t mention that ones this elaborate were often a response to stress.

Brice reached out and touched it delicately, then turned to me. “I know I probably won’t remember after you tell me, but . . . do you think I was ever really Skedastr’s prey?”

I could see that a Cryptor had taken a delicate slice at his pectoral muscle. Brice had no idea it had happened. Not consciously. But there was a kind of blindsight that came with Cryptor predation. You acted on impulse in a way that showed that some part of your mind knew something had happened.

It had long been shameful to even mention being pursued by a Cryptor. But I’d heard that was changing, and this high-style clothing of his made it seem like the fashion might be coming back.

“Yes,” I said. “Skedastr has preyed on you.”

Detail wouldn’t help. It might even disorient him. He had trouble thinking his way around the Cryptor. I thought the bite might have happened when he grabbed the Cryptor out of the water. It might have reacted without thinking.

Or maybe it had decided that he was worth devouring after all. We can always dream.

“Oh.” He may have teared up a bit, but definitely wasn’t interested in crying in front of me. “I can’t remember, can’t see . . . thank you. Please find Skedastr for me, talk to Katin, find out what happened.”

“I will.” I wished I hadn’t negotiated my rate before seeing the client’s desperation, but I had consulted my own desperation instead. Lesson learned.

I’d do my best, even though I more than half suspected that Skedastr had skedaddled on its own, from a situation that had grown intolerable to it, just as it had from Katin. But how had it managed to get out, through waterfalls and across that water? I’d figure it out.

*   *   *

I had, in fact, met a Cryptor before, when I was still in school, a few years ago. It had been just a random bad experience for a long time before I decided to capitalize on it.

It had been a red evening, when Umber was alone in the sky and there was enough light to find your way, but not enough to illuminate the bad decisions you’re making. A red evening is when you go to parties in unfamiliar neighborhoods and spontaneously develop friends, lovers, and deadly enemies. So Videl and I picked our way across some scrubland near our Panetto neighborhood in search of a party he said he’d heard of. I’d dressed up for the evening, because Videl had told me we were going out somewhere nice. We’d been together for three weeks and the whole thing was already looking pretty shaky. Tam, Videl’s predecessor, hadn’t lasted much longer, and I had been hoping to raise my average length of relationship, to show I was growing up. So maybe I was trying a bit too hard.

I was chattering to him about something, trying to keep his interest, when he grabbed my elbow. “Careful!”

I looked down and saw I’d almost stuck the toe of my pump into a trap with sharp teeth. Still, he’d hurt me with his grip, and I shook him off.

“Just watch out,” Videl said. “He says things dig up his grounds. Vermin. He calls all of us that.”

With that cryptic statement, he spent a few moments looking around until he found another trap. This one had a squirming creature in it, a sand squirrel I thought, with big digging limbs and a fluffy tail, its neck broken. With fierce precision he rammed his heel down on its head, killing it.

I must have gasped, because he gave me a sidewise glance. He looked particularly bewitching when he did that. “Sometimes ya gotta.”

Despite the landscape and the horror of the approach, when we got to it, the house was fairly nice, with high windows and an overhanging roof, kind of romantic, really, surrounded by trees with dangling tubular leaves, an open space behind it sloping down into a wetter area. I could hear music from inside, and people laughing.

And there was a party there all right, people, all Oms, on couches, music, smoke, hissing brain inflation setups, even some sausage rolls and shrimp crisps on plates that had previously been used for something else. It was just that no one there was happy to see us, and the owner, a tall, stringy-haired character named Apilsin, was actually hostile.

He half rose when we came in. “It was my territory. All there is to it, Videl. I think I told you that.”

Apilsin had only one arm, and his sleeve dangled loosely. From the looks of the cuff, it often made its way into the dip.

“Apilsin!” Videl, big grin, was all charm and smarm. “You were totally clear. I crossed a line and I apologize. I recognize your rights to the egg dumpage zone. But I got some other stuff. Some of it might even be of interest to you.”

He found a space on the couch and babbled about some plant that had been stunted by toxic metal waste, a collectible he’d been making a business of. You’d think seeing your date bullshit someone else would put you on your guard about what they might be doing to you, but it weirdly doesn’t work that way. Instead, I was admiring, because Videl was all charming, funny, kind of goofy, even though I could tell Apilsin scared the shit out of him.

Then Videl pulled out some packets of brain flares that he hadn’t bothered to let me know about. It wasn’t a drug I favored, but you should at least let your date know what you’ve got, right?

He instantly forgot all about me.

I recognized two of the girls, Lillios and one whose name I’d never learn, and a guy with a thick crest of hair: Zabiun. He was Apilsin’s younger brother, though still a lot older than me. He used to chase another girl I knew, who wasn’t here.

Pretty soon Videl was yucking it up with some of the guys on the couch, tossing them brain flares and making jokes about getting the shakes from metal toxicity while digging stuff up. The girls had no interest in this inane business discussion and were talking about something that they made clear would remain forever a mystery to me.

Apilsin leaned over the snacks on the table, sleeve dangling, and started cursing. “Don’t hide those things, dammit.” He shifted position and looked desperately at a sausage roll. He gasped for breath, as if making some gigantic effort.

A girl laughed, then, too late, turned away and tried to smother it.

Apilsin stood up, knocking glasses off the table. “I’ll show you, you little . . .”

“Get out,” Zabiun said to the girl. “Get out now, or it’ll be on you.”

“She was just—” The girl’s date tried to bluster, but the look in Zabiun and Apilsin’s eyes shut him up. “Come on . . . come on.” He hustled her out as she complained about how rude everyone was.

Zabiun picked up a sausage roll and fed his brother with it. “You got it. You’ve just gotten clumsy. Your grip . . . you’ve lost your grip.”

“I’ll say,” I muttered to myself, then felt someone next to me. I jumped, expecting to be the next one to be tossed out into the night.

It was Videl. “Careful, sweets. You’ve got a loud voice.” He tugged me a bit away from the rest of the party. Fortunately they were all intent on calming Apilsin down. This was his house, and he was clearly the one with the drugs and the food. That was why they hung out here. If he got pissed off and tossed everyone out, they’d have to find someone else to sponge off of.

After another weird, invisible bobble, Apilsin picked up a glass with his left hand and took a deep drink. In addition to a missing arm, the chest on that side was oddly shaped, poking out under his armpit. He sat back down, still, if not relaxed.

“I need you to do something for me,” Videl said. It shows what a pathetic state I was in that I even listened to him. “I need you to take a look out back. Just check things out, where things are, if there are any windows, you know, that kind of thing.”

“You didn’t tell me you had some kind of beef with this guy.”

“No beef, nothing serious. We had a territorial dispute. But I do got some stuff I have to do, so be a good girl and take a look around for me. If there are any, like big eggs in enamel cases back there, let me know that, too.”

“What the hell is going on, Videl?” I could tell that the eggs had always been the point of this ridiculous trip.

“You’re a smart girl, you’ll figure it out.”

Pathetic, but that was probably the nicest thing anyone had said to me in a long time.

I did need to use the bathroom. While everyone else was occupied pacifying their meal ticket, I went down a narrow hall to the back. There it had the signature scent of Abandoned Single Om Male: stale body, forgotten food, dried beer, and dried other fluids I wasn’t interested in considering. I would run into it all too often as I got older, but this was my first encounter with it.

I poked my head into a couple of rooms that looked like people had abandoned them when escaping some disaster, but found nothing interesting. Here was the bathroom. I peeked in nervously, but it wasn’t quite as disgusting as it could have been. Life’s so much easier once you lower your standards. That conclusion, and my full bladder, got me into that dank little room.

Afterward, I kept on down the hallway until I was in a small room with a window opening out onto the wide area behind the house. There was nothing here except more mess, a tangle of dusty laundry hanging down from a corner. I looked again. Was it some kind of hammock? An odd one, at a weird angle.

I froze. There was something in the room with me. I couldn’t see anything, but felt a puff of air that carried a delicate, sweet scent, one that was gone even as I realized I was smelling it. I felt a prickle and jerked my shoulder blades back.

First I thought it was the shadow of something climbing on the outside of the window. A dark shadow, silent, sliding across the floor toward me.

“What do you see?” Suddenly Apilsin was there, sweaty hair plastered to his cheek. There was nothing evanescent about the smell of stale sweat. “What’s here? Anyone?”

His big shape blocked the door.

“I . . . I don’t know.” And I didn’t.

“Tell me! Is it still here? Is it still hungry? Ask it what it wants.”

There was a scuttering on the floor. The shadow rose up the wall and vanished into what I now know is a covert, but then just looked like some insane way of storing lint, hair, and bread crusts.

“It’s right there, it’s right there!” While he looked wildly for what I was pointing at, I pushed past him and into the hallway. Disoriented, I turned the wrong way, and ended up in a kind of storage area, with shelves lining the walls. Most of the contents were tools, solvents, and rusted chunks of metal, but among the crap were a few ovoids, maybe eight inches long, that gleamed a dark, iridescent blue. One was cracked open and I thought I saw a paler blue inside. These were the egg cases stupid Videl was so obsessed with.

And there was Apilsin again, right behind me. He seemed befuddled, not caring that I was poking around his private collection. “Here, is it here? I never hear its voice anymore. . . .”

“No! It’s back in there, in that other room. Still here, still in your house. But you should get rid of it. Let’s do it.” I was suddenly inspired, though I had no idea of what was back there. I just knew it was dangerous. “Let’s do it now!”

“Don’t you dare!” He swung his shoulder forward, but there was no arm attached to it to grab me with. I dodged, and, off balance, he fell against the shelves, knocking things onto the floor. But he didn’t yell, just muttered to himself.

I ran, down the hall and out into the living room. People were in that kind of stupor where reactions had little connection to stimuli. They might hear a branch tap against a window and all panic, or do nothing as smoke poured into the room.

Stupid Videl was just as befuddled as everyone else. He gave me a moon face from the couch.

I didn’t have time for explanations. “Come on. We’re late, remember? We were just like . . . stopping by on the way.”

Zabiun, Apilsin’s brother, was the only one with enough consciousness left to be suspicious. “Where’s my brother? What happened?”

“That damn toilet of yours.” Even as I spun the story, I yanked Videl to his feet. “Leaking all over. Gotta keep up on the maintenance. Apilsin’s trying to fix it. Not doing so great. Not sure why.”

“What? He’ll hurt himself.” Zabiun jumped up and headed for the back. We only had a couple of seconds. I managed to get Videl on his feet and out the door before anyone else could react.

Read the exciting conclusion in this month’s issue on sale now!

Copyright © 2024. How Sere Kept Herself Together by Alexander Jablokov

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