Chaos Trims My Beard: A Fantasy Noir, page 9
The afternoon bridge crowd was dense and seething. We stepped into the main pedestrian flow and I tried to follow Venrick as he slipped around the shifting walls of flesh and cloth. Thankfully, a shorter-than-me ratman in all green did a decent job of standing out against the gaudy and predominantly elven and human traffic. We passed my tower and then two more. Coming to an intersection, we took a wide winding staircase up from the main thoroughfare bridge we'd been on to a flat, pedestrian only path that snaked in between the next few towers. There were less people up here, but the walkways were still crowded and whenever I found myself in a rare open spot next to Venrick he didn't speak or acknowledge me at all.
Occasionally, a passerby shot us weird looks as we walked, as if a half-dwarf and fashionable ratman were any more against the grain than the rest of the crowd. As the sun stretched on in the day and people sauntered about to whatever end, the New Sketlinese on display underwent a gradual change. Families in their reasonable, dull carts disappeared, as did the straight-cut robes and semi-stressed faces of people with actual business or appointments to attend to. In their place appeared couples wrapped in strappy black clothes that hung off the men at just the right angles and clung to the women in a similar spirit. Groups of males roved in hunting parties of two to four, fidgeting with their jackets and shirts, acknowledging each other with shallow flicks of the neck and chin. It was too early to pursue the young ladies that they’d ultimately set their sights on, too early to turn towards alcohol, dust, and charm to make their cases, but not too early to be seen in their nighttime best.
As dusk dragged into twilight we passed a small group of women who talked, laughed and stepped with purpose, their heels firing off sparks of purple and green with each click against the bridge. They'd be floating themselves home later, shoes clutched in hand and feet glowing with dust. Underneath their fur-lined, silky coats their actual going-outerwear glowed with pastels and textures like water and amethyst. They had their own designs on the social hunt. They would be boisterous, impossible to miss prey that would drain wallets and test patience, but make no promises. Both roles in the all-night party scene took guts, or a minor pinch of insanity, and I had no intention of ever finding myself as anything more than the guy who delivered the drinks.
At the parties I sometimes worked at there had been a trend, at least among the trendier revelers, towards going out in public and enjoying oneself while completely naked. A constant heavy influx of dust kept the almost-shameless socialites wrapped in flowing lines of magic that could probably take on whatever color and design the wearer was creative enough to think up. It required concentration, of course, and anyone stupid enough to clad themselves so and then imbibe enough to pass out ended up wearing nothing at all. I once saw Jaery donate his jacket to cover a naked elf and his two female companions as they twitched their way through a blackout stupor. When I'd seen him the next night wearing another outfit, I asked if he ever got the jacket back. He made a face, muttered "soiled," and that was the end of it.
These girls, bubbling their way to some early pre-party dinner, might have been sporting the magic-is-clothing style underneath their coats, but I didn't really care. We passed hundreds of interchangeable men and women, each decked out and looking for that magnesium burst of nightlife connection at whatever venue they found themselves. New Sketlin nights started early and ended late, and, even at this beginning stage, I was tired of brushing past their type by the time Venrick stopped.
With the sun retreated, the bright silver refraction of the day had fizzled into a burnt sienna glare, and the towers took on the hue of polished desert rocks. I was breathing hard from the walk and took a moment to catch my breath and appreciate the view. An actual exercise program had never been a part of my life, but I'd always thought that working on my feet counted as keeping in shape. Venrick did not look any worse for the many towers we'd put behind us.
When I’d recovered, I saw that we stood in front of yet another spellsteel tower, its design both unique and utterly the same as every other building I'd seen in the city. It rose up in thick silvery blocks, the windows a uniform smattering of curve-topped rectangles. It lacked much in the way of ornamentation and architectural flair as far as towers went, tending more instead towards austere right angles. The building's number, bridge, and street location were etched straight into the metal with characters bigger than my head. Beneath them stood double doors capable of admitting an ogre. A few empty pots, clearly designed for absent plants, guarded the entrance. The doors were the color of young wood, all tan and green, but the material itself was some cost-friendly heavy plastic. The handle was slick and light in my grip, and the doors swung too easily with the flimsy tells of cheap construction. We stepped inside and I shut the door too hard. The ratman winced and we walked forward.
The building was quiet and the corridors we moved through blurred into a repetition of closed doors and dark lights. There was carpet covering the floor, the design some floral print of blood-colored buds on a backdrop that was as yellow as a partially-healed-bruise. It had worn through in spots to the silvery surface of spellsteel below. "Nice place," I said.
"This one does not agree." The ratman was showing a selective sensitivity to sarcasm and I added it to the list of things about him that annoyed me.
The ratman picked his way through the halls, making turns at random. I didn't question it and followed. After what felt like two full circuits of the tower, Venrick turned down another hall that ended in the floor-to-ceiling glass of an airlift shaft. He made an affirmative clicking sound and walked up to the lift doors, a matched set of the same durable green cheapness as the main entrance.
The soft, constant whoosh of an airlift carried well into the hall. "We going down?" I asked.
"Yes. Lift goes all the way to dirt level. Warehouse is a few blocks back, but this one assumed Edwayn would rather not take stairs."
I nodded. "Fair enough." Stairs weren't my favorite architectural feature and my legs were twice as long as his, so I figured the disapproval might be mutual. Venrick held out his paw like he wanted me to go first and I stepped into the neutered tempest.
If flying was supposed to be the ultimate exhilarating expression of adrenaline-fueled excitement that any hopter owner proclaimed it to be, lift riding was the exact opposite. My feet left the solid surface of old carpet and spellsteel and fell onto something like thick oatmeal but somehow still supportive. The air that rushed through the vertical lift shaft adjusted to my weight and orientation to stabilize me. The whole experience made me feel like I was standing on a feather mattress while receiving a really weak hug from a group of toddlers. Most lifts, this one included, played some hazy trick with the light so looking up or down didn't result in a sickeningly long view of just how far you'd be travelling. Instead, the shaft fizzled out into static grey a few floors up or down. I’d like to think watching the ground rush up to meet your feet might be kind of exciting, but lift riding was, again, anything but.
I said "Ground" as Venrick stepped in next to me. I heard him say the same as the mushy air beneath my feet grew slack and I fell. Venrick drifted a bit to my right and he also started to drop. The stabilizing force of the lift held his jacket and hat to his body and he descended with barely a flutter of fabric. I imagined it would look at least kind of interesting if robes billowed and flowed in the current, but people in dresses and skirts probably appreciated that someone had designed these things so that clothes stayed put.
I'd been in a few towers where the lifts ran through glass tubes trimming the edge of the building. The view was probably striking from way up high, but to me it only ever put a slightly different angle on the same silver glare that I saw from the bridges every day. This lift, like the one a few floors up from my apartment in my own building, ran straight through the core of the tower. Blurry rectangles of color marked each passing floor as I descended. Otherwise, there wasn't much to see. The mushy sensation against my feet and shins grew stronger and my body slowed as the lift's air current set me down on its spellsteel floor. Venrick settled to a stop beside me and I followed him out.
We were on the ground. My feet could tell immediately, and something sloshing about in my inner ear settled into a welcome stillness. When you live your whole life hundreds of feet up in weightless structures, no matter how well anchored they are, it does something to the body's rhythm. My boots and his paws were still clicking and scratching across spellsteel, but everything resonated with the solid thump of actual stone and dirt beneath. I should try and find my way down to the dirt more often.
That sentiment survived just as long as it took us to leave the building.
9
The spellsteel hallways of higher up in the tower had transitioned into splintered wood and crumbling stucco. Summoned towers generally tapered heavily at their bottom, their design driving a silver spike all the way into the foundation of whatever building had been chosen as the anchor. The spellsteel of the tower's base met wood, brick, and stone in jagged seems, and only the blood-and-bruise colored carpet remained a constant presence. Down here the carpet had suffered even more abuse than it had on the upper floors. Some edges had been burned, others looked like someone had tried to eat them; in a few places the entire fabric had been ripped up and hung like curtains along the wall. It was all par for Sketlin Proper.
Sketlin Proper had an unofficial slogan that was more of an identity. Some past comedian, back when a good pun was a good laugh and before all the cynicism and snark had taken over, called the city "Sketlin Proper? Anything But!" Nobody laughed nowadays when they heard it, and the phrase wouldn't find itself on any but the most tongue-in-cheek tourism material, but it still stuck around simmering in the thoughts of those who lived, worked, or played in the city built on dirt.
The actual residents of the lower city, big hybrids—unknowable mixes of brutish ogre, heavily muscled orc and tall angular troll—lumbered down the wide hallways, not pausing or looking to see if the half-dwarf and ratman would get out of their way or not. Their skin ran from green to brown to red, but it all shared the same suppressed, muted quality. Yellowed teeth and fangs, dull iron rings, and hair that tended towards wire or rope swirled together in a procession of faces that looked nothing like each other but all somehow the same. A few spoke to each other in monosyllabic grunts and affirmations. We all used the same language, but there wasn't much to be said in this Sketlin Proper tenement. When one did take the time to mutter out something beyond a grunt, his breath only sparked with a few bits of blue.
Venrick slipped around a meaty ogre leg as I pressed myself up against the wall to avoid the passing resident. "This one has spoiled himself up top. Doesn't have to try and avoid being stepped on."
The torrent of spent dust that left his mouth as he spoke seemed gaudy and wasteful. It was no different or bigger than it had been every other time I'd seen the ratman speak, but compared to the exhalations of hybrids ten times his size, Venrick's internal store of life-continuing magic seemed ostentatious. His blue, sparking mouth drew a sideways glance from a swarthy orc with a squished ogre's face but nothing came of it. "Maybe you keep some things to yourself," I said.
Venrick frowned at me until I waggled my fingers in front of my mouth and mimed dust raining from my lips. He took my meaning and shut up as we walked, dodging through an increasingly dense crowd of hybrids as we neared the street. We split apart as an ogre with lanky arms and a large stick trundled into the building. His substantial thigh brushed my own arm and I had to brace against a wall to not get sent spinning. Venrick might have ducked between his legs. After a few moments of righting ourselves and a few further yards of continuing to dodge anyone bigger or more oblivious than we were, we stood on the streets of Sketlin Proper.
Whatever mix of stone and binding agent had originally been poured to serve as pedestrian walkways had been crushed into the dirt long ago. Now, shards of the original surface were mixed with cracked mud and powdered stone and the whole path glowed blue. Thick with old dust, the fat strip of mishmashed material pulsed faintly with every footfall, and in the evening thrum of Sketlin Proper, there were a lot of them.
Burly workers like the ones we'd filtered past in the building stomped their way to their families or their drinks. There was still a need for muscle in a society gone soft with magic, and not the type that Jaery and I sometimes provided in backroom deals. These big hybrids worked as dust dredgers, carpenters, masons, porters, and any other number of jobs that could have been done by a finger-waggling elf if his time didn't cost so much. Beyond that, the buildings of Sketlin Proper were under constant stress from the towers above and it took the brutal application of skilled muscle to shove enough rocks and salvaged wood into the bits that were about to collapse. The city above sent down mages every week or so to slap holding spells on all the improvised support so they could proclaim that they'd done their part.
The same distributed type of labor was true for dust collection. I'd been to Aglowe's personal dust field a few times and the process of collecting it from sand and rock involved shovels, hand drills, and an absolutely ludicrous amount of water. The water itself had to be sloshed with a bucket or hose instead of summoned. Somebody had once explained it to me that dust gathered using magical methods of excavation lost most of its potency, but the details of why were lost in my mind. The whole process resulted in a lot of heavy lifting and peoplepower to keep the sparkly blue grains flowing back to the towers. Mages with a heavy amount of guards would show up and take the crates of unrefined dust to some processing facility and a few days later it would end up sprinkled onto food and infused into drinks. I had been part of the guard for Aglowe's dust a few times and only remembered that the job involved a lot of walking and paid pretty well.
The workers at the bottom of these rackets clomped from their shifts to whatever their nights held, their heavy feet sending blue ripples through the ground. There were others among them: smaller hybrids, ratmen, and full-blooded trolls who didn't have the taste for life up top. Their footfalls sent less dramatic waves of pulsing blue through the hard-packed surface of the city's bottom. A squad of ratmen flitted through the stone and brick street that separated our sidewalk from its opposite. They wielded brooms and pans and swept at the ground. One came over and dumped his pan near us and a handful of glimmering blue tumbled out. Another scurried up and smoothed the swept up dust runoff into the sidewalk with a spade.
I looked up at the towers above, catching the shiny metal of their construction through the gaps in the latticework of bridges. The twilight hour painted the spellsteel of New Sketlin purple and grey. Up there people were shooting off magic and exhaling spent dust, while the carts, hopters, the towers themselves leaked old dust just by existing. And dust had weight. It drifted down and it had to end up somewhere. Venrick was breathing heavily beside me.
"You tired?" I asked.
"No. This one is jittery. Body does not respond well to multiple near-crushings. Will calm down shortly." He eventually did just that and continued down the sidewalk without another word. I followed.
A pair of uniformed officers, an elf and a human, turned a corner and walked towards us. Their hands glowed blue with some binding or destructive magic at the ready. The rest of the foot traffic, including the ratman and myself, gave them a wide berth. Most of the cops I'd seen down in the dirt were usually from the old city themselves. Orcs and ogres in blue-and-white were common sights. These guys were on loan from up top, or looking for something specific.
"You know them?" I asked the ratman when I was sure they were far enough behind us.
"No. This one marks it as a peculiarity to see them down here."
"My thoughts exactly."
A shout and a scream cut through our conversation. We turned and saw the human cop screaming at a troll. The troll was swinging a nasty looking knife, his long, thin arm tracing a deadly arc through the air. The elf's hands were on fire and I sucked air in through my teeth. The troll evaluated the threats in front of him and charged the cop without the burning hands. With a snap and another shout, the cops dropped any elements there were getting ready to fling as their hands glowed and their fingers curled in the air. The troll's limbs all seized in mid-stride as the cops put their magical binds on him and he fell into the dirt, his body splayed out like crushed spider with too few legs.
"Dangerous work," I said. Venrick didn't respond and we kept walking. Laughter and music and light began to spill from the doors we passed. The rooms they led to had no glass windows, only boards or dirty curtains. The aesthetic gave every establishment an air of noisome sincerity—they were most certainly bars and gaming pubs. Non-magical glass shattered almost instantly in any building that had a tower on top, and the denizens of Sketlin Proper didn't seem to mind the half-hearted privacy while they reveled in their post-work daze.
After another block of walking, we passed a bar indistinguishable from the others save for the moderate pile of unconscious ratmen near its door. Most of them had small mugs dribbling with beer loosely clutched in their paws. An orc with a small axe strapped to his back appeared in the doorway with several equally inebriated ratmen in his grip and placed them on top of the heap. "Not even fully dark yet. You guys party hard,” I said to Venrick.
Venrick clicked. "Yes. Short life span."
A few mages walked down the opposite sidewalk from us. They'd obviously tried to dress down for their night of slumming it. Their necks and fingers didn't display the fine metals and jewels they would have up top, but you can't hide a cavalier attitude towards magical excess with wardrobe. Fire danced around their fingertips and little wisps of vapor and rock circled their heads in some exhibition of skill and surplus. One of the men, an elf, shocked a human woman in the butt with two finger's worth of arced lightning. She spun on him while giggling. They'd have a great night and feel edgy for their foray down into the taboo underworld in which thousands of people lived. Or they'd get robbed and beaten within an inch of their lives. Maybe someone would try to take their money and extra dust, and they would turn their assailant into ash with a flick of the wrist. Then they'd have a story they would never shut up about.
