Garth was on a third-level street when the full force of nostalgia hit him. He had to stop, his imagination filling in gaps in the crowds that scurried to and fro like so many black-clad ants. He saw the young dandies of his youth, swaggering and hipshot to display their pistols; the ingenues leaning on their balconies high above, their attention apparently elsewhere. He had walked or run or fled down these ways dozens of times.
Some of his old compatriots were dead, he knew, some had moved on to build prosperous families and deny their youths. Others the prisons were still full, one of Venera Fannings new carpenters had told him this morning. And, if one knew where to look, and how to read there, yes he saw a thin scrawl of graffiti on a wall ten feet beyond the parapet. Made with chalk, it was barely visible unless you knew to look for it. Repeal Edict 1 , said the spiky letters.
Garth smiled. Ah, the naivete of youth! Edict 1 had been passed so long ago that most citizens of Spyre didnt even know it existed, nor would they have understood its significance if it were described to them. The hotheaded youth of Spyre were still political, it seemed, and still as incompetent at promoting their politics as in his day. Witness that appalling bomb attack yesterday.
The memory chased all sentimentality out of Garths mind. His mouth set in a stoic frown, he continued on down the street, digging his hands deep in his coat pockets and avoiding the glances of the few women who frequented the walkway. His aching feet carried him to stairs and more stairs, and his knees and hips began to protest at the labor. The last time hed gone this way hed been able to run all the way up.
Hundreds of feet above the official street level of Hammerlong, a bridge had been thrown between two buildings back in the carefree Reconstructionist period. Culture and art had flourished here before the time of the preservationists, even before the insular paranoia that had swallowed all the great nations.
The bridge was two stories tall and faced with leaded glass windows that caught the light of Candesce. It wasnt used by occupants of either tower; the forges of one had little use for the paper-making enterprise in the other. For decades, the lofting, sunlit spaces of the bridge had been used by bohemian artistsand the agitators and revolutionaries who loved them.
Garths heart was pounding as he took the last few steps up a wrought-iron fire escape at the center of the span. He paused to catch his breath next to the wrought-iron curlicues of the door, and listened to the scratchy gramophone music that emanated from it. Then he rapped on the door.
The gramophone stopped. He heard scrambling noises, muffled voices. Then the door cracked open an inch. Yes? a man said belligerently.
Sorry to disturb you, Garth said with a broad smile. Im looking for someone.
Well, theyre not here. The door started to close.
Garth laughed richly. Im not with the secret police, young pup. I used to live here.
The door hesitated. I painted this iron about oh, twenty years ago, Garth said, tracing his finger along the curves of metal. It was rusting out, just like the one in the back bathroom. Do the pipes still knock when you run the water?
What do you want? The voice held a little less harshness.
Garth withdrew his hand from the remembered metal. With difficulty he brought his attention back to the present. I know she doesnt live here now, he said. Too much time has passed. But I had to start somewhere and this was the last place we were together. I dont suppose you know any of the former occupants of the place?
Just a minute. The door closed, then opened again, widely this time. Come in. Garth stepped into the sunlit space and was overwhelmed by memory.
The factory planks paving the floor had proven perfect for dancing. He remembered stepping into and out of that parallelogram of sunlightthough there had been a table next to it and hed banged his hipwhile she sang along with the gramophone. That same gramophone sat on a windowsill
now, guarded by twin potted orange trees. A mobile of candles and wire turned slowly in the dusty sunlight, entangling his view of the loft behind it. Where hed slept, and made love, and played his dulcimer for years
Who are you after? A young woman with cropped black hair stood before him. She wore a mans clothing and held a tattoo needle loosely in one hand. Another woman sat at the table behind her, shoulder bared and bleeding.
Garth took a deep breath and committed the name to speech for the first time in twenty years. Her name is Selene. Selene Diamandis
12
Glorious DawnShe turned, facing into the interior of the ship. The velvet-walled galleries were crowded with passengers, mostly visiting delegations returning from the Fair. But a few of the men and women were dressed in the iron and leather of a major nation: Buridan. Her retainers, maids, the Buridan trade delegation she wasnt free yet, not until she had found a way to evade all of them.