Paper Cities, an Anthology of Urban Fantasy (11 page)

Mariyam rose, brushing the sand from her skirt. “But what’s inside the vial?”

Jahira paused. “Shavings from Glass Rock. These ancient whores are too old to sell themselves, so they thieve a little of our long-abandoned cultural heritage and peddle that instead.”

One of the women said something to Jahira. She snapped back a reply in the same tongue. “What they’re selling is illegal. I should report them to the Harbourmaster.”

“No — don’t do that,” said Mariyam. She closed her fingers around the vial and dipped into her purse for a coin. “Is this enough?”

“More than enough,” said Jahira. “You shouldn’t encourage them.”

Mariyam threw the coin down on the cloth, and the faces of all three women erupted into cheery smiles.

“That is more than they usually see in a week, but no matter. Let me take you somewhere you can waste your money on high quality merchandise.”

•

That evening back in the Starfish, Mariyam sat with Jahira, Haptet and their friends gazing out across the ocean, watching the reflections of the two moons, Neme and Kryl, spill ripples of gold across the water.

Mariyam touched the vial in her pocket, rolling the smooth glass beneath her fingertips.

“So,” said Haptet, lifting the wine pitcher, “Tomorrow the jousting begins. Have you chosen a champion? Have you placed a bet?”

Mariyam shook her head. “Such a strange ritual. What is it for? Why do the men fight each other?”

Beside her sat Jahira, and next to her another man she did not recognise. The left side of his face was stained with an intricate pattern that ran all the way down his neck to vanish amongst the dark hairs beneath his shirt. His honour or his art, she wondered. Was there any difference between the two?

Jahira leaned against his shoulder as she sipped from a long-stemmed glass.

“The joust was once a political event, but now it is merely a display of athleticism and skill,” said a dark-skinned woman dressed alluringly in turquoise and gold. “Sammarynda has been peaceful for years now. No one fights any more.”

“I shall bet on Orias,” Jahira said loudly. “I have won money on his steady stance and deft manoeuvrability three years in a row.”

Orias
. Mariyam froze at the sound of the name, but only for an instant. No one had noticed. No one had been watching her.

“So typical of you to bet on a prince,” said the turquoise woman.

Jahira made broad theatrical motions, feigning indignation at the suggestion. “Orias is no mere prince! Orias is a hero of the war!”

“Nevertheless, a prince he is — and all the ladies bet on him,” said Haptet. “And he wins because he is a skilled and masterful warrior. It is almost impossible to make an honest coin as a result.”

“A prince indeed?” said Mariyam, afraid of the tremble in her own words as she uttered them. Surprised that they did not lodge in her throat. “I didn’t know Sammarynda had a royal family.”

“It has dozens of them,” Haptet laughed. “But Orias is my friend. I will introduce you. He is like a brother to me. Did you know he fought in the battle of Maratista?”

“Really?” said Mariyam. “He fought? Then I am impressed. I know how few warriors walked away from the battlefield that day.”

“You have heard of Maratista?” asked Haptet.

“I have been there.”

“To Maratista? Are you serious?”

For a second Haptet and Mariyam locked eyes, but the waiter began to clear the table, and the moment was lost amidst the clinking of glasses and the ordering of food.

Fireworks exploded below them on the beach, accompanied by the squeals of children and the barking of dogs.

“Today Jahira spoke of Glass Rock,” said Mariyam, raising her voice. “I would like to see it. Will you take me there?”

Haptet nodded, regarding her curiously. “Tomorrow,” he said. “I will take you there tomorrow.”

•

From a distance, it seemed to Mariyam that Glass Rock had been inappropriately named. It was not made of glass at all, nor anything that resembled its texture. The mineral — whatever it was — seemed to suck light from the air. It stood out from the surrounding rock formations like a dark stain.

“I want to touch it,” said Mariyam.

“No,” said Haptet. “Touching is forbidden.”

“But old women scrape away fragments to sell.”

“Maybe,” he replied, “but all the same, it is forbidden — and for very good reasons.”

She thought he seemed much darker today than when they had first met. Was it because of Jahira’s affection towards the tattooed stranger? Unlikely, thought Mariyam. These people are comfortable with each other’s oblique infidelities. No, it is Glass Rock itself that sets him ill at ease.

“If I can’t touch it or climb upon its surface, may I at least learn its history?” she asked, her fingertips brushing the vial of swirling particles concealed in her pocket.

They climbed a little higher along the ridge until they stood directly opposite, the two rock outcrops separated by a stretch of water. Glass Rock seemed to beckon, drawing their gaze toward it although there was little to see.

“Below Glass Rock is a crevasse that chasms downwards for miles. No one knows how deep it is. No one has ever touched the bottom.”

Mariyam stepped as close to the edge as she dared. The water was crystal-aqua;
same as it was all around the Sammarynda peninsula. But the water directly beneath Glass Rock was as dark as a starless night.

“Our ancestors went to Glass Rock when all hope was lost. They would paint their bodies with a poultice of oils and shavings from the Rock itself, and they would stand over there, right at the very edge.”

“They would throw themselves off? Suicide?”

“They would dive, but not to their deaths — although those who did not enter the water smoothly would sometimes break their backs and drown.”

Mariyam stared at the black stain below the water.

“The divers entered the Sammarynda Deep. They would swim down into darkness, vanish for a time and then they would return. Changed,” said Haptet.

“Changed? In what way?”

Haptet frowned, searching for the right words. “In many ways. It’s hard to be specific. No one could predict the form a change might take. Sometimes a diver would emerge with a different face. Other times he would appear the same, but no longer be the same inside. Some believed the particles from the rock to be an integral part of the change itself. The old women who sell the shavings at the market are from a particular bloodline — a tradition that goes back hundreds of years.”

Mariyam recalled the twisted carcasses hanging in the apothecarists’ windows.

“Touching Glass Rock is against the law,” Haptet continued. “No one has stood there for a century.”

She stared out across the water, imagining the swift, lithe form of a diver cutting a shimmery arc through the void, before plunging into the abyss.

“Why is at against the law to dive?” she asked.

Haptet shook his head. “The changes. They were too unnatural. Too swift. Too severe. If we are to change, we must do so slowly, by degrees. The Deep made monsters of us. We were almost destroyed by the power of — whatever it is down there.”

Mariyam nodded. She stared at the dark patch of water.

Haptet cleared his throat. “Mariyam, yesterday you said you had been to Maratista. May I ask —”

“A long time ago,” she said. “Many years. I don’t wish to talk about it.” Her eyes remained fixed on the darkness below the water’s surface.

Behind them a horn blared: a drawn-out, mournful sound.

Haptet’s face brightened, glad of the interruption. “The jousting begins soon,” he said. “We can get a good view of the boats from here.” He led her back the way they had come, then down across another stretch of cliff.

Below, the slender watercraft made a pattern like thatch across the still surface of the harbour. Each was decked in different colours.

“The prince you mentioned last night,” said Mariyam. “Which of the colours is he?”

“Prince Orias? His colour is dark blue,”

“The colour of the Sammarynda Deep?”

Haptet stopped. He turned to face her. “What a curious thing to say. Nothing is the colour of the Deep.
Nothing at all
. Prince Orias’s blue is deep and rich, but it does not devour light!”

Mariyam nodded. “I would like to see the boats up closer. And I would like to meet your prince.”

Haptet smiled. “I knew you would. I have arranged it already. You will fall in love with him — I can assure you of that. Every woman does.”

“No doubt,” she said, masking her bitterness as best she could, leading the way back down the rocky path that wound around the cliff side all the way back down to the beach.

Mariyam felt herself gently mesmerised by the relentless swirling of the dancers’ multi-layered skirts. The entire population of Sammarynda had come down to the water’s edge for the opening of the Jousting festival. Several people had explained that the mock battles to be fought in the long boats tomorrow were symbolic of yet another war from a distant time. The survivors of that skirmish had settled this part of the inhospitable coastline and turned their talents toward farming the sea.

To Mariyam, it seemed as if every night in Sammarynda was a celebration of something. Flaming torches cast a warm glow upon the skin of merrymakers as they watched small boys heft long sticks to play at mock jousts on the grass. Youths tattooed with multi-coloured swirls wove in and out between the tables bearing baskets of sugary treats wrapped in twists of coloured paper. These they tossed into the crowd, or pressed into the hands of small children.

“I wish I had learned to dance when I was young,” Mariyam shouted to Jahira.

“There is still time,” she said. “Why don’t you stay here with us for awhile? I know someone who can teach you. Age is not important.”

Mariyam sat back in her chair, sipping her drink as a line of pretty little girls in pinks and greens, shells woven into their hair, bangles on their wrists, snaked past the tables, laughing and squealing. No one minded when items were knocked to the floor. No one cared about anything other than their unadulterated, radiating joy.

The long boats were moored a little way offshore, their decks encrusted with paper lanterns. The sky lit up with fireworks, these even bigger and brighter than the ones the night before.

Suddenly a wall of cheering erupted from somewhere to the left of their table. The crowd began to part, foot by foot, and the lanterns seemed to burn brighter as the men who would perform tomorrow’s joust made their way through the space cleared for them. Each was garbed in fine garments expertly tailored to the contours of their bodies. Decked in their individual colours, each walked tall and strong and proud, aware that they were there to be admired.

“I’ve been in love with Orias for years,” Jahira whispered as she clasped Mariyam’s hand in her own.

Mariyam nodded, the pace of her heartbeat quickening. “Orias’s wife must be a very fortunate woman.”

Jahira shook her head, smiling sadly. “Orias has never chosen a wife. He does not allow himself love the way we do. It is his honour.”

Mariyam gripped Jahira’s arm. “What do you mean he doesn’t allow himself love?”

Jahira turned to face her, and Mariyam sensed her own fingers tightening their hold. The dark space where Jahira’s eye should have been still shocked her, no matter how many times she saw it.

“You know about our honour, Mariyam. Both Haptet and I have explained it to you.”

Mariyam shook her head. “Your scars. I understand them. But — ”

“Not all scarring is physical,” said Jahira, “Orias’s scars are in his heart. Apparently there was a woman during the war. They fought together, side by side. They were captured and imprisoned at Fallam Keep. Both suffered greatly in the enemy’s hands.”

Above them, a firework exploded suddenly, erupting into a magnificent flower, then flickering away into nothingness.

“But they endured, Orias and his lover. They survived, and escaped to fight for vengeance at the battle of Maratista Plain. Orias was a young man then. He had not yet chosen an honour for himself. When the war ended, he realised no mere wound of flesh would ever suffice. There was only one thing that held meaning for him. The woman he loved so much. So Orias sacrificed her for his honour and returned to Sammarynda. Or so it is said. He does not speak of such things with me.”

A field of twinkling roses rained down from above as betrayal stung Mariyam like a scorpion’s tail. The pit of her stomach fell away into nothingness. Orias had abandoned her without a word of explanation. Sacrificed her to the mores of a culture she didn’t even know existed.
Why didn’t you tell me? Rather I had died in the pits of Fallam Keep than endured these years alone, never knowing why you left, never understanding anything of the truth…

Mariyam’s breath rasped in her throat as her heart beat louder and louder, in syncopation with the footsteps of the men as they approached. Orias.
Prince of darkness, Lord of aching and despair
. She could not yet see his face, just his silhouette against the fireworks and the gentle swaying of the gaily painted crowd.

For all these years she had dreamed of one single perfect moment, wondering what she would say to him as they were reunited. But this moment was no dream, and as the gap between them closed, time slowed, and the years that had stood between them folded in on themselves, fading like trails of gunpowder across the burning sky.

All you had to do was tell me. The truth would have freed us both.

Each warrior of the Joust strode past, waving at the cheering crowd as confetti swirled and danced on heady currents. Time slowed further until it dripped like honey as Orias took another step directly into her line of vision. Their eyes locked. Time paused, and in that eternal fragment, Orias glimpsed her scarred soul laid bare across her face. He learned the true price he had paid for his honour. Orias remembered all of it. Every moment they had ever shared, as clearly as the moments they had not. A shadow passed between them, a cold electric chill that sucked the brightness from the fireworks and made the coloured specks of paper tremble to the ground like dead leaves.