Some of the feathers are flickering faster than others, clustering together for a moment at a point along the thing’s side. Then the feathers all peel back, flattening against the mother-of-pearl surface, to reveal a soft rectangle of a door. Beyond, Nassun can see gentle light and surprisingly comfortable-looking chairs, in rows. They will ride in style to the other side of the world.
Nassun looks up at Schaffa. He nods back at her with jaw tight. She does not look at Steel, who hasn’t moved and makes no attempt to join them.
Then they climb aboard, and the feathers weave the door shut behind them. As they sit down, the great vehicle utters a low, resonant tone, and begins to move.
***
Wealth has no value when the ash falls.
— Tablet Three, “Structures,” verse ten
Syl Anagist: Two
It’s a magnificent house, compact but elegantly designed and full of beautiful furnishings. We stare at its arches and bookcases and wooden bannisters. There are only a few plants growing from the cellulose walls, so the air is dry and a little stale. It feels like the museum. We cluster together in the big room at the front of the house, afraid to move, afraid to touch anything.
“Do you live here?” one of the others asks Kelenli.
“Occasionally,” she says. Her face is expressionless, but there is something in her voice that troubles me. “Follow me.”
She leads us through the house. A den of stunning comfort: every surface soft and sittable, even the floor. What strikes me is that nothing is white. The walls are green and in some places painted a deep, rich burgundy. In the next room, the beds are covered in blue and gold fabric in contrasting textures. Nothing is hard and nothing is bare and I have never thought before that the chamber I live in is a prison cell, but now for the first time, I do.
I have thought many new things this day, especially during our journey to this house. We walked the whole way, our feet aching with the unaccustomed use, and the whole way, people stared. Some whispered. One reached out to stroke my hair in passing, then giggled when I belatedly twitched away. At one point a man followed us. He was older, with short gray hair almost the same texture as ours, and he began to say angry things. Some of the words I did not know (“Niesbred” and “forktongue,” for example). Some I knew, but did not understand. (“Mistakes” and “We should have wiped you out,” which makes no sense because we were very carefully and intentionally made.) He accused us of lying, though none of us spoke to him, and of only pretending to be gone (somewhere). He said that his parents and his parents’ parents taught him the true horror, the true enemy, monsters like us were the enemy of all good people, and he was going to make sure we didn’t hurt anyone else.
Then he came closer, big fists balled up. As we stumbled along gawping, so confused that we did not even realize we were in danger, some of our unobtrusive guards abruptly became more obtrusive and pulled the man into a building alcove, where they held him while he shouted and struggled to get at us. Kelenli kept walking forward the whole time, her head high, not looking at the man. We followed, knowing nothing else to do, and after a while the man fell behind us, his words lost to the sounds of the city.
Later, Gaewha, shaking a little, asked Kelenli what was wrong with the angry man. Kelenli laughed softly and said, “He’s Sylanagistine.” Gaewha subsided into confusion. We all sent her quick pulses of reassurance that we are equally mystified; the problem was not her.
This is normal life in Syl Anagist, we understand, as we walk through it. Normal people on the normal streets. Normal touches that make us cringe or stiffen or back up quickly. Normal houses with normal furnishings. Normal gazes that avert or frown or ogle. With every glimpse of normalcy, the city teaches us just how abnormal we are. I have never minded before that we were merely constructs, genegineered by master biomagests and developed in capsids of nutrient slush, decanted fully grown so that we would need no nurturing. I have been… proud, until now, of what I am. I have been content. But now I see the way these normal people look at us, and my heart aches. I don’t understand why.
Perhaps all the walking has damaged me.
Now Kelenli leads us through the fancy house. We pass through a doorway, however, and find an enormous sprawling garden behind the house. Down the steps and around the dirt path, there are flower beds everywhere, their fragrance summoning us closer. These aren’t like the precisely cultivated, genegineered flower beds of the compound, with their color-coordinated winking flowers; what grows here is wild, and perhaps inferior, their stems haphazardly short or long and their petals frequently less than perfect. And yet… I like them. The carpet of lichens that covers the path invites closer study, so we confer in rapid pulse-waves as we crouch and try to understand why it feels so springy and pleasant beneath our feet. A pair of scissors dangling from a stake invites curiosity. I resist the urge to claim some of the pretty purple flowers for myself, though Gaewha tries the scissors and then clutches some flowers in her hand, tightly, fiercely. We have never been allowed possessions of our own.
I watch Kelenli surreptitiously, compulsively, while she watches us play. The strength of my interest confuses and frightens me a little, though I seem unable to resist it. We’ve always known that the conductors failed to make us emotionless, but we… well. I thought us above such intensity of feeling. That’s what I get for being arrogant. Now here we are, lost in sensation and reaction. Gaewha huddles in a corner with the scissors, ready to defend her flowers to the death. Dushwha spins in circles, laughing deliriously; I’m not sure exactly at what. Bimniwha has cornered one of our guards and is peppering him with questions about what we saw during the walk here; the guard has a hunted look and seems to be hoping for rescue. Salewha and Remwha are in an intense discussion as they crouch beside a little pond, trying to figure out whether the creatures moving in the water are fish or frogs. Their conversation is entirely auditory, no earthtalk at all.
And I, fool that I am, watch Kelenli. I want to understand what she means us to learn, either from that art-thing at the museum or our afternoon garden idyll. Her face and sessapinae reveal nothing, but that’s all right. I also want to simply look at her face and bask in that deep, powerful orogenic presence of hers. It’s nonsensical. Probably disturbing to her, though she ignores me if so. I want her to look at me. I want to speak to her. I want to be her.
I decide that what I’m feeling is love. Even if it isn’t, the idea is novel enough to fascinate me, so I decide to follow where its impulses lead.
After a time, Kelenli rises and walks away from where we wander the garden. At the center of the garden is a small structure, like a tiny house but made of stone bricks rather than the cellulose greenstrate of most buildings. One determined ivy grows over its nearer wall. When she opens the door of this house, I am the only one who notices. By the time she’s stepped inside, all the others have stopped whatever they were doing and stood to watch her, too. She pauses, amused – I think – by our sudden silence and anxiety. Then she sighs and jerks her head in a silent Come on. We scramble to follow.
Inside – we cram carefully in after Kelenli; it’s a tight fit – the little house has a wooden floor and some furnishings. It’s nearly as bare as our cells back at the compound, but there are some important differences. Kelenli sits down on one of the chairs and we realize: This is hers. Hers. It is her… cell? No. There are peculiarities all around the space, things that offer intriguing hints as to Kelenli’s personality and past. Books on a shelf in the corner mean that someone has taught her to read. A brush on the edge of the sink suggests that she does her own hair, impatiently to judge by the amount of hair caught in its bristles. Maybe the big house is where she is supposed to be, and maybe she actually sleeps there sometimes. This little garden house, however, is… her home.
“I grew up with Conductor Gallat,” Kelenli says softly. (We’ve sat down on the floor and chairs and bed around her, rapt for her wisdom.) “Raised alongside him, the experiment to his control – just as I’m your control. He’s ordinary, except for a drop of undesirable ancestry.”
I blink my icewhite eyes, and think of Gallat’s, and suddenly I understand many new things. She smiles when my mouth drops open in an O. Her smile doesn’t last long, however.