Hours later...
She kept the glint of her blade hidden, for now, obscured into her silhouette by the dark fabric draped over the rest of her more workaday clothes as she moved between the pools of lamplight down the quiet street. She’d been careful to conceal what little deterrent protection she brought with her, although she was fairly certain she wouldn’t actually need it. She could handle herself.
Most of her face was covered, too. There was no time to be forced into hiding for days or weeks or seasons more; there was lots to be done.
(Okay, so the cloak may have been a bit much. But surely her hypothetical audience would forgive her the theatrics.)
The fingers of her gloved right hand tapped out a garbled melody on the hilt of the rapier, notes in some pattern she didn’t recognize, drawn off the top of her head. Maybe it was a song long forgotten; she didn’t know for sure. Nor did she particularly care, if she was still being totally honest. It was just nerves firing. Nothing more.
The motion helped to distract her just fine, though. Beneath the muffled tink of her fingers on the silver, she could hear the vague noises of the city’s towers and boulevards bouncing off the air and the water, far in the distance. Thousands of people going about their lives.
Not much of note ever happened in this little corner of Solace. Even the houses, for the most part, were neat and quaint, dotted with the odd flash of colour to liven things up a bit. It was all very quiet, discreet, innocuous– to some extent, that was by design. That made it a haven for people like her, and for people like the one she was looking to meet.
But there was someone else. She could sense his presence before she could make out his leather jacket and shadowed face, standing guard before a long, narrow trail twisting away from the main road into the darkness between two rows of houses.
She stopped tapping and tightened her grip, just a little.
He tensed up, too, while she approached behind a spectacularly unconvincing charade of nonchalance. But he tried to avoid appearing like he’d noticed her until she was practically standing in his face, staring him down. And finally, he met her stare.
“Doin’ a nice job tonight, chief,” said River Mercier with authority, pulling the scarf from her face– not her scarf, mind. Just a spare scrap of cloth she’d had lying around. She flashed a smile through the dark. “Consider yourself... relieved of duty? I guess?”
He squirmed. “Sorry. Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“What?” she said, taken aback. “It’s me, man. You’ve seen me, like… at least once before, right? Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the commitment, but I’ve gotta talk to her. I’ve got something she’s gonna wanna see ASAP, trust me. Emphasis on the SAP.”
“She’s– um.” He leaned in, speaking under his breath. “She’s not seeing anyone tonight, alright? Keep it quiet. We’re trying to stay out of trouble.”
River didn’t even try to lower her voice. “Right. How exactly is that anything out of the ordinary, then? Or am I missing something here?”
“Marcel and Valerie got back earlier tonight, and rumour says they’ve got something top secret with them, under wraps. They’re tightening up the guard watch looking for our folks, keeping their eyes out. Em doesn’t want to take any chances. So no visitors.”
“Yeah, I know about all that,” said River, exasperated. “My thing has to do with… with all that stuff, too.”
The guard’s nervous gaze flicked up and down the street, but he stood his ground, arms crossed. “...It’s not gonna happen,” he doggedly insisted. “Not tonight.”
She sighed, rubbing the side of her face with her gloved hand, before raising a finger and digging into her satchel with the other, eventually extricating an oblong package wrapped in brown paper. He eyed it closely, not wanting to let his guard down, naturally. Couldn’t blame him there.
“Okay, how ‘bout this,” she said, hefting it in her palm, feeling its weight and warmth. “Break you a deal. You take this, as a little bonus from yours truly…”
He scrambled to catch it as she suddenly tossed it to him, just barely keeping it from falling to the ground, clutching it with both hands as far from his body as possible.
“...And I will just catch you again on my way out!”
Before he could process what happened, River had already slipped past him, jogging down the winding path. He started to shout something, before deciding better and running to follow her, but they both knew he couldn’t catch her.
Maybe not exemplary of not making a scene, but her host would forgive her.
Let’s see, where is it… nope, no, nah. She ducked between the shadows down the narrow alley, looking for the tiny workshop, until– there. A sign hung over the black door, declaring “Idrisa Machinist” in dark, narrow letters. It was rather unassuming, for the home base of one of the most influential Reformist leaders this side of the meridian, but again, that was sort of the point.
River threw the door wide open, strolling into the dim shop behind her long shadow. “Em!” she called, to no response. “Em, I’ve got something you’re gonna want to see!”
Behind her, Em’s guard rushed inside to shut and lock the door behind them with his one free hand, making some wordless noise of frustration. But maybe that was just her imagination. “Hey, Emelde! Where the heck are you!?”
“I told you, she’s laying low,” he hissed. She turned halfway to face him, her vision still adjusting to the darkness; Em was definitely in the building, but besides her there wasn’t much for her senses to cling to. “Seems like something you could learn a thing or two about.”
Before she could respond, the two were both dazzled as the single electric light hanging in the centre of the room flared on, a harsh white glow illuminating everything. Extra bright compared to the dim twilight of the street outside, and even worse for River. She was really starting to wonder why she needed advanced senses at all. Just another lovely perk of being herself.
“I’m inclined to agree with that,” someone said. Someone familiar, though it had certainly been a while.
Blinking rapidly to clear her eyes, River turned and took in the interior of the workshop – the shelves of trinkets in steel and copper, the half-broken clockwork pieces strewn across the long, polished desk – before coming to rest at the source of the voice, standing halfway down the stairs to the second storey. Her gracious host.
Emelde Idris shielded her own eyes from the light too, tucking a stray lock of black hair neatly away into her headscarf and muttering something to herself before looking down to greet her unexpected guests. She looked tired – not unusual – and quite annoyed. Also not unusual, to be fair. River figured she’d get over that soon enough.
“You said it would be at least another half-season before you’d be back, River,” said Emelde, her voice clipped. “Surely you are still aware, but this is not exactly an ideal time for you to be drawing more attention to us..”
“Aw, guys, you know I’ve missed you too. Em, you’re looking well. Suppose I woke you from your beauty sleep?” River asked, half-joking.
“It is about two past midnight, if I’m not mistaken. But no. I have been keeping up with Vienne and the others’ latest dispatches from out in the country all night, since they are out there actually acquiring pertinent intelligence for us.”
All business. Ouch. “Right, right, what an upstanding guy he is. Sorry about that, then… but oh, what’s this?” River quickly gestured to Em’s bodyguard, still standing just inside the doorway with the brown package she passed to him. “I got y’all a little something to make up for it. Picked it up from some nice noodle place in the delta. Might be a bit shaken up, but it’s still hot, no need to thank me… and here’s the change.”
Emelde deftly caught the handful of punched one-lux chits as River tossed them up the stairs to her, her face unmoved. “The Court guard almost certainly saw you arrive, River. Even if they prefer not to interfere with me directly, my official place of business is not particularly underground. This is remarkably ill-planned, even for you.”
“Yeah, yeah, the big guy told me you’re worried,” she said. “Ain’t nobody to identify me for a tract or two in any direction, I checked. So we’re all good!”
Saying that she checked was probably giving herself too much credit for a cursory, mostly-subconscious sweep before she’d been unable to resist strolling into the neighbourhood, but all things considered Em had to admit River could keep track of her surroundings at the very least. She grunted, ever-prudent, but it appeared she was rapidly running out of things to grumble about.
“I’m sure an early breakfast can wait until after you’ve told me why you’re here,” said Em. “Assuming you haven’t simply decided to give up and throw a wrench into all my work. Which does appear to be the case, at the moment.”
“Hey, now, I’ve got a lot more than that which you’re gonna appreciate me sticking my neck out for,” said River, doing her best to switch into business mode. It wasn’t exactly her favourite. None of this was, actually, but she was dealing with more important things than that right now. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“...And by a lot, I mean two things,” she quickly continued, at the bequest implicit in Em’s silence. “But they are big things– actually, no, scratch that too. ‘Cause it happens that the first one is this little thing right here.”
She dug into her pocket and pulled out the gleaming white pearl, letting it shine in the pale light, and instantly she could see that she’d been right. Emelde’s eyes widened as she stared at it – though River knew she’d never stoop so low as to let her jaw drop, she imagined the urge was there – and out of the corner of her eye she saw the guard stepping in for a closer look.
“You really did get away with it…?”
River grin smugly broadened. “Oh, what’s that? You recognize this little thing? I’m surprised. This is what my face looks like when I’m surprised. Yes, I managed to make off with it, and I think I’ve got an idea what’s on it, too. But…” – she took care to draw out the word – “that’s one of the reasons I was so quick to come straight back. Couldn’t get my hands on an interpreter, didn’t wanna risk, uh… getting any closer to the Court, at least not so soon. So we need yours.”
For once, Emelde almost seemed at a loss for words before righting herself. “Yes. Of course,” she said. “Lords, this had better be what I think it is. Hold on, I will need to– actually, no, both of you just come with me upstairs. Gregor, make sure everything’s locked up again.”
Gregor, huh. Probably should’ve remembered that, River thought, but rapidly pushed the thought from her mind, tossing him a vague shrug that could’ve possibly been interpreted as apologetic by somebody in an especially understanding mood.
Emelde flicked the switch to shut off the electric light as the three of them climbed to the second floor, lighting a candle – with the help of River’s firelighter – to guide them through the door to her study. They could hear the clatter as she swept whatever was on her desk onto the floor and felt through the drawers before finding what she needed; it sounded like half of it shattered and splintered, but Emelde didn’t pay it any heed.
Illuminated by the candle’s glow, the object of her search looked like a plain little lockbox of dark metal, with two small panels, a set of keys on one side and a cloudy crystal lens set into the top. It was coated in a sheen of dust, clearly having been left unused for a while; River just hoped it would still work. It’d be all sorts of embarrassing if it didn’t.
It was something she’d seen before, but only in passing; the Court were the only ones who used pearls for encoding, so aside from this notable exception, most of the interpreters were theirs. Emelde had her ways of getting things, though.
She turned the box over in her hands before setting it down on the desk. “River, would you...?” she asked, before reconsidering. “No, nevermind. I understand. You mustn’t do anything too risky, now. No need to point out the irony, thank you very much.”
River stifled the comment forming on her tongue.
Emelde opened and dug through another drawer before pulling out her matchstick– a short, matte grey rod. As she held it against the silver panel of the interpreter the light behind the lens flared into life, casting a soft glow throughout the room; at the same moment, the second panel flicked open to reveal a small, round indent in the box’s side, perfectly shaped.
Gregor pulled the curtains of the study closed while, on Emelde’s direction, River took the stolen pearl and gently slid it into the open slot before sliding the panel shut.
After several tense seconds of whirring, the interpreter projected a stretched, distorted blur of black and white onto the ceiling; it hurt River’s eyes a little bit to look at it too closely. For a brief moment her blood ran cold as she realized that maybe she had the wrong pearl after all, or maybe its data was damaged, or encrypted, somehow– she should’ve seen that coming…
“Is it… supposed to look like that?” asked Gregor.
“No, it is not,” said Emelde. “River, just tilt the thing so the projection faces the wall – yes, like that, you won’t damage it – and allow me to find some spare lenses.”
A few minutes later and the interpreter projected its image on the cluttered wall of the study. It took Gregor holding four different glass lenses of varied thickness and curvature in front of the light, but the blurs resolved into a coherent block of thick black letters and clear, abstract lines. Everyone breathed out a sigh of relief they hadn’t realized they’d been holding.
It was a document, and quite a special one at that. For just a moment, River felt her face fall involuntarily of disappointment, but she banished the thoughts for now to bury them beneath her satisfaction. It was exactly what she’d been hoping for, after all, right?
“I knew it,” she said, putting on a grin. “I told you I knew it. This is it. The jackpot.”
Gregor stared up at the projection. “So this is...”
“Research documents,” said Emelde, her eyes scanning through the words. “The records Valerie has been compiling on the outbreak. Dozens of skeins, going back almost a full year.” She tapped a key on the interpreter and starting scrolling, passing lines upon lines of text, rudimentary diagrams and maps, arrows and dotted lines. There were many references to other pearls, still locked up in the Court’s vault, but the outlines were more than enough.
“There are even more isolated cases out there than I thought. There does not seem to be much of a pattern geographically – very odd for an epidemic, if that’s what this is – but here… there was one six seasons ago. ‘An undisclosed patient experienced disordered symptoms without apparent cause… early investigation has concluded that the source is continuously transmitted to some extent extra-locally, though the state of partition should suggest…’ you understand the rest.”
“Patient zero,” River said, smugness rapidly giving way to shock. The implications were not lost on her. Something was starting to fit together in her head. “And more than that… they think it’s a gift from the other side? How?”
Emelde shook her head. “They must think so, but how they came to that conclusion I have no idea. This was weeks before I even heard about the first skein we knew of. They have been covering it up ever since. And now… we have official references to all of this.”
All three looked between one another, immediately realizing what that entailed. A grin returned to River’s face. A real one. “Shit, we have got ‘em this time.”
“Obviously, I’ll need more time to scour through the text myself. I will not entrust it to anyone else,” said Emelde. “River, you will be the first to know should anything relevant show up. Otherwise… Gregor, I want an early conference set up with those journalists from Ludeande as soon as River’s out of the city– not just Reformists, invite anybody willing to hear us out. Hariente and Lainarke, too. We need to put this out there before the Court can get ahead of the leak, and preferably before the end of the year? I want to be prepared to distribute by the time the festivities kick off.”
He nodded, surreptitiously scrambling for something to write down all these notes with, but she continued to ramble on, mostly to herself. “I should probably have Vienne see if he can’t find this patient zero they talk about, too. So much to be done. I’ll have to start tonight.”
She scrolled through the earliest sections of the documents before, satisfied with their veracity, she shut off the projection and plunged the room back into darkness. As River grabbed her firelighter to re-light the candle flame, Emelde slid the other panel on the interpreter open again, retrieving the pearl and slipping it into her breast pocket.
“I’m glad you were able to bring this to me, River,” she said. “As I said, I will tell you what else I find. But you should be on your way soon. Quietly, this time, perhaps. I should hope it’s a long walk back to your ship.”
River tugged on her collar exaggeratedly, despite her temperature remaining as perfectly-regulated as always, bracing herself to drop the other bomb. “Yeahhhh,” she replied. “Not as long as you might think, actually.”
Emelde’s fervour died down a bit as she understood what she meant. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m staying close for a while,” River continued. “Not in town – though I’m sure you’re just dying to have me – but close enough. And that, incidentally, is related to that second thing I needed to talk to you about. It’s to do with the Court, too, actually.”
Emelde let the silence hang for a few moments, practically radiating disapproval. Delightful. River was still young, to be sure, but it seemed just a little ridiculous to her that she was being stared down by a woman a century younger. Yet there was no denying it. Her curiosity was piqued.
With a hint of a sigh, Emelde said, “I am not keen on drawing more attention to ourselves while the Court are trying to track down this pearl. But I suppose I must at least hear what is apparently so important to keep you here.”
“Right!” River couldn’t help but smirk. Precisely on cue. Even Gregor leaned in, curious.
“Okay, okay, you know how Marcie and Val got back tonight? And you know they brought back something else with them, too, something big… or so I hear. Well, up until a few days ago they were after me, before they found this special something – someone – who they thought was much more important. And I know who that was. I mean, sort of, it’s complicated. She’s cooperating with them for now, but I think they still don’t know much more about her than I do–”
“Don’t get off track, River,” Emelde interrupted. “Please. Who are you talking about?”
“Her name is Adeline,” River said. “She’s an immortal, not with the Court, and not with anyone else, either. Get what I’m saying? What those records talk about, that maybe there’s a break in the firewall somehow… I don’t know how she got here, or where she came from, but it all seems related. she’s something entirely new. She’s strong, and she trusts me, and… and I trust her, too.”
END OF PART ONE.
Part Two will begin in the new year.
Thanks for reading.
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