This had happened a hundred times—she had escaped the madhouse, in a dream or hallucination, only to find herself back there under harsh light amidst horrid odors that were surely collecting on her skin. The carriage seat beneath her was solid, though. It did not change form if she looked away and returned her gaze to it. The animal leading the carriage had been a horse and was still a horse. The ride itself was bumpy and slow, too uncomfortable to be the sort of experience a desperate mind would create for itself—it was real.
Merrick, the doctor, said, “My house is about forty minutes north.”
Farisa lifted her head. “Vehu District?”
“I wouldn’t want you anywhere else. Do you mind if I take your temperature again?”
“Not at all,” Farisa said.
He slipped a glass thermometer inside the collar of her hospital gown, which she could not wait to change out of, and put it in her armpit. “Six-point-two. You’re down three-tenths already.”
She remembered the white door, behind which she would have been taken if an employable doctor, rather than this kind man, had measured the lethal temperature of 6.5. Her sickness did seem to be abating, but she itched everywhere. The carriage, as it turned a corner, swayed more than she would have liked, but she was glad to have real shoes, cotton ones with wooden shoes.
“This should be the last turn. We’re on Andor Street now.”
“How long will I be...?”
“Sick? You’re beyond the primary infection phase, though we’ll keep you on quinine for a few more days. Recovery can take—well, in the best case, one week... and, in the worst case, more time than we have.”
She had a question to ask, but it slipped out of mind before she could voice it.
The carriage rattled as its rear-right wheel struck a bump.
Farisa touched the window curtain. “I wouldn’t mind some light.”
The doctor called forward, “This is one-way glass, right?”
“Correct,” said the driver.
“A west view will have to do,” said the doctor as he opened a curtain, letting in mid-morning light. “We can’t have you in direct sunlight.”
“We are outlaws,” Farisa said.
“I’ve been one for ten years.”
“Is that so?”
“Vehu aren’t supposed to practice medicine, but if I stick to the District, I am of low enough interest, as the Company sees it, that I may be ignored.”
The numbers of South Andor Street had been counting down; on Andor Street, the true main boulevard, they began counting up. Flowering plants sat on window ledges, and sunlit green fire escapes hung in the morning sky. The clock of an old bank building showed 7:53. She looked away and looked back a minute later: 7:54—that was good.
Wooden signs with white lettering hung from awnings: Polestar Delivery Service, over a busy single-story office building; Larika’s Lounge, with long windows over both sides of a sunny corner; Deer River Tavern, the famous one at 35 Andor Street. It appeared the Globbos did not come up here often, for greengrocers were selling apricots and strawberries with no apparent fear of being batoned.
She asked, “What day is today?”
“May 9,” Merrick said.
“Still ‘94, I hope.”
“It still is. It must have felt like years passed in there.”
“It...” She found herself unable to explain what time had felt like, for even the thought of having been in such a place, a deep concrete well with rounded corners in which even thirty feet had become an impassable distance, made her shudder. She looked outside again, to remind herself that she was in a place where movement was real—house numbers were climbing into the fifties—and exhaled in relief.
Traffic had thickened, and the carriage had slowed to walking speed.
She noticed a black dog with white hairs around the nose. “Whose dog do you think that is?”
“Shit,” said Merrick. “I’m glad you saw that.” He told the driver, “Let’s get off the main road.”
Farisa said, “We’re afraid of a dog?”
“I’m sure he’s a lovely dog,” Merrick said.
“So, why...?”
“It’s not him we’re worried about.”
The driver added, “Do you see the pack on him?”
Farisa noticed a knapsack that had been strapped to the animal.
“It probably isn’t anything to worry about, but it could be a bomb.”
“We’re not in the District yet,” said Merrick.
Farisa wished nothing but pain on those who would use an innocent animal in such a way. Her forearms were aching from making fists. However, their carriage successfully took its detour, and no unfamiliar sounds came from the main street, to which they were going parallel.
The doctor said, “To change the subject, who is Dawn?”
“One of the inmates in the... place. Why do you ask?”
“She left a book for you.” The doctor opened up the yellowed paperback before handing it to Farisa. “The note inside says, From Dawn.”
“Dawn was....” Nothing could be said with precision about the past twelve days. That world of shadows was fading from recollection already—imagery remained, but the twine of comprehension was already breaking down. The bored agony one felt from being under such bright lights seemed as alien as childhood dreams. “She was very kind.”
The novel’s title, Jakhob’s Gun, had been printed on the spine in garish lettering.
“Oh, this is the new T. C. Teller novel,” Farisa said.
“I don’t follow Teller. I find him not to be an artful writer.”
“The next few days, I might not be the most artful reader.”
Merrick laughed. “That’s fair enough. Nadia reads Teller sometimes. I don’t mind smut, but I could never get past all the errors.”
“They’re intentional,” Farisa insisted. “There’s a coded message. At least, that’s my theory.”
“The message is pretty clear. ‘Now that I’m a millionaire, I no longer care about my craft.’ A child could pick that up.”
Farisa set the book on her lap. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
“In any case, we have thousands of books at home. We will not judge you for what you choose to read while you convalesce, but we need you to get well as fast as you can.”
She brushed the hair from her face, feeling pimples on her brow that hurt to the touch.
When the carriage returned to Andor Street, the road was sloping upward. Purple and white saritah blossoms filled out the trees.
“I wish I had been able to get you out sooner,” said the doctor. “I had to be cautious, for obvious reasons. I had to be absolutely sure. You will find there are people who are still not convinced.”
“Convinced of what?”
Before the doctor could answer, the driver stopped the carriage. “We’re at House 79.”
“Right,” Merrick said as he opened the door and went out to speak with a man in urban camouflage. Two more men emerged and chatted with the driver politely as they inspected the vehicle. This building had once been a typical residence, but it had been fortified with concrete barriers and gun turrets. The doctor came back inside.
“We’re clear to proceed,” he told Farisa. “Only our people, the rest of the way, graza-yovah. Welcome to our ghetto.”
#
Beyond the checkpoint, Andor Street narrowed and rose more steeply, to the point that a person who tried to walk it at normal speed would have been out of breath. The houses here were in better condition—more likely to have pillared porches, second-story entrances, and trellises of flowered vines that had been pruned over years.
In a small garden, a middle-aged woman was watering tomato plants, the fruits still green.
Farisa said, “Is that legal?”
Merrick laughed. “No, but we have our own police.”
“I bet those aren’t legal either.” Farisa pointed to the green, white, and blue prayer flags with Lyrian letters and the Vehu spiral-and-star.
“Unclear, really.” Merrick scratched his neck. “The Company has banned all national flags, yes, but we have been a stateless people for so long, it’s hard to say whether our own expressions qualify as such.”
“I doubt the Company would make such a distinction.”
“You’re right, of course. It’s good for us that they don’t come up here.”
“Why don’t they?”
“Because we would fight back. We would lose if they threw the whole city at us, but it would still be bad for their profits. So, they leave us alone.”
The wind picked up as the carriage climbed the hill. The air smelled of fresh linens and pine pollen. The road was smooth in spite of its slope, and the neighborhood was leafy enough to give a green cast to the ambient light. The carriage continued until, about a mile beyond the checkpoint, they reached an elm that had toppled during a storm the night before, blocking the way. Four men were working to clear away debris.
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“I’m not sure I can get us around this,” the driver said.
The doctor asked Farisa, “Can you walk on your own?”
“I think so.”
Merrick handed some coins to the driver and thanked him. No longer filtered by the carriage glass, the day was colorful enough that to look at a sunlit leaf, to eyes that had been starved of color for so long, was almost painful, It was a quarter of a flag cooler up here than downtown, and once she walked beyond the carriage’s wind shadow, the air seemed to pass through her.
The doctor said, “If you need my cane, it's here.”
“No, I can keep up.”
“We’re almost home. We live at 139.”
Farisa looked across the street, where a blue house had 126 over its front door in brass numerals. Most of the houses weren’t numbered, so she counted them as she followed the doctor. The road’s grade, twenty percent or so, would have been no issue for her three weeks ago, but her limbs were aching and she was struggling to keep up with Merrick, in spite of his age. Feverish weakness eventually overcame her pride; her vision was losing color.
“You need to sit down,” Merrick said.
Farisa nodded.
He pointed to a wooden bench, freshly painted red, only four or five yards away. “The view is not to be missed.”
They sat there together. It took Farisa a full minute, hunched forward and consciously pulling deep her breath, to come together. Her body hurt no more than it had six hours ago, but at the time she had been in a place of pain; now, the contrast between her expanding aches and the cool spring morning was itself alarming, because she realized how long it might take to recover from... everything... that had happened.
“The city was more beautiful in its time, but it’s not all bad,” said the doctor.
Exmore’s streets, visible from up here, were mostly perpendicular with a few diagonal roads, probably the medieval cow paths, making obtuse and acute angles. The sun had faded the colors of most of the houses below. What struck her as odd and unnatural—because it was—was the degree, striking from this altitude of at least a hundred feet, to which a city’s general condition could change sharply from one city block to the next. Beautiful mansions with terracotta roofs often sat within the same quarter mile as junkyards and slaughterhouses. Did people in one of these worlds think often of the other’s existence?
“Of course, the best of its sights is the one beside us.”
She turned to see a building beside herself where rose and tan brick had been laid in strata, each about four feet high, to the level of seven stories. Stained-glass windows peered out between copper-green frame pillars. A midnight-blue horseshoe arch over the entrance displayed that ancient galactic symbol, the Vehu spiral-and-star.
“Is that...?”
“Indeed,” said Merrick. “137 Andor Street. Not bad, as far as next-door neighbors go.”
“Is it still the tallest building in Exmore?”
“It was,” Merrick said as he pointed across the city to where, although trees had conspired, in their mercy and wisdom, to mostly hide a direction of view, one could see a windowless concrete pyramid.
“Yours should be the tallest building. It’s a lot more pleasing to look at.”
“My son was an architect. He could have told you about every detail of this temple’s construction. I still have a sketchbook of his. His designs were beyond this fallen world.”
Farisa read the words on the temple’s arch, same as over the Library of Tevalon: “Sophya wy fariza.”
“Yvec.” Merrick sighed. “Those words cause us so much trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“It is surely no secret to you that, by most of the world, we Vehu are disliked. It is not, in general, our fault, but a perception of arrogance on our part does us no favors. The peoples of the world, in my experience, are more alike than different—same temperature, same blood pressure, same abilities and shortfalls. We are no better, nor worse, than any other tribe. We have our saints, our heroes, our crooks, our turncoats. Is it good that we aspire to knowledge and virtue? Yes. Do we achieve those things more than anyone else? Probably not.”
Farisa stood up; she was ready to walk again. “I’m not Vehu, so I never understood those words to be an exclusive claim.”
“You are—you are unusual. In Exmore, we have lived among forestou for hundreds of years and there are still people who read our sophya wy fariza to be a claim that the entire rest of the world is full of ignorance and vice. It is, of course, but so is ours.”
“If no one aspires to excellence, no one attains it.”
“My son aspired to excellence in everything he did. Still, I agree with you. A world without higher aims will worship money and power.”
Farisa pointed to the concrete pyramid. “Such as.”
“Precisely. Knowledge is no one’s unique possession, of course. As for virtue, am I a better man because I am Vehu? Well, I don’t know. My religion is a part of me, sure, but as I cannot be, nor could ever have been, somebody else, I cannot answer the question.”
The wind picked up. Farisa rubbed her arms. “This temple’s name is Chan Verida, right?”
Merrick nodded. “A Shrine to the Forgiveness of Debt.”
“Wordy,” Farisa said.
“Oh?”
“It’s a decent translation, but every word in Lyrian has a dozen meanings, and you often need to take stock of the other eleven to make total sense of it. Chan means ‘return’—in particular, a return that is rightful or natural. Chan aeoska: ‘spring,’ or ‘return to summer.’ Chan ydenja: ‘autumn,’ ‘return to winter.’ Verida means ‘balance’ or ‘truth.’ Forgiveness of debts, yes, but so much more.” Farisa stood. “A return to what should have been—a destruction of the lie. Financial and property relationships are lies, but only one of a million kinds.”
“Very well,” Merrick said.
“You must think I’m pedantic.”
“Not at all.” He cleared his throat. “Ak verida, a little bit.”
Farisa chuckled.
“What would you say to those”—he pointed at the Company’s hideous pyramid—“who insist that truth is irreducibly relative, no more than a product of situations, constraints, and stimuli that can be altered at any time?”
Farisa laughed. “Is that what you think?”
“Of course not. The opposite.”
“I shan’t legislate matters of truth or religion. Your god is your god.”
“There is only one God.”
“I don’t know what I would say to such people.” Farisa interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms. “They put me in a madhouse, so I don’t think they would listen to me. If I had such an audience, though, I would remind them that while the Global Company has eliminated belief in light and in meaning, that does not mean the things themselves do not exist. Truth exists; some call it God. Since the Company’s contention is that truth and meaning do not exist, its world must run on exchange, but wages and prices will be calibrated to reach—and, in times of difficulty, go beyond—the limits of affordability, so as to create debt, and the purpose of this debt is only its own expansion—accumulation; divergence; preservation of power relationships, into eternity. Truth can be endlessly evaded through exponential growth in both the number and the perceived value of falsehoods. Most are made poor, some are made rich.” She looked at the temple again. “But religion still exists, in spite of the Company’s efforts to ban it, because we all know, on some level, that Truth will arrive for all of us someday.”
“I am well beyond halfway there.”
“I... honestly hope I am not.” Farisa, worried that she had said something rude, looked aside.
“I hope that for you, too.”
“My senses are all a bit vurkt right now. I suppose I must sort out my own mind before I speculate on God.”
Merrick smiled. “You have time. Never as much as you want, but you do.”
The temple clock struck nine, and prayer bells rang. Merrick closed his eyes in silent devotion. Farisa shifted her weight to test the ground’s solidity, which was as intense a prayer as she could handle right now. Chan verida indeed—not merely a return to truth, but a return into it. The odors of spring were too precise to be false, and the trees too constant in their details to be wishful projections. She had escaped the madhouse in dreams; here, now, she decided to make into faith that she was fully and forever outside of it.
#
The staircase to Merrick and Nadia’s front door had only thirteen steps, but Farisa had to stop halfway due to her thumping heart and leg cramps.
The front door opened from inside. Nadia, a woman with white hair inside a bonnet, walked down and handed Farisa a sauce cup full of dark broth with tiny, iridescent bubbles. “Drink this.”
Farisa sipped the hot medicine, which smelled of oak and tasted salty.
“It’ll speed up your recovery,” Merrick said. “Just don’t ask me what it’s made of.”
Farisa took another sip.
Unable to help himself, Merrick added, “Posterior glands of a—”
“I didn’t.” Farisa smiled. “I didn’t ask.”
Nadia wrapped a blanket around Farisa. “Come in and sit on the couch.”
She followed the woman inside. Open crates of books and clothes abutted the walls, as if the couple had just moved in, although she could tell the house had been immaculately kept until recently. Possessions were in disarray, but no surface was unclean, leaving Farisa aware of her own grime.
“I shouldn’t sit. I’m too dirty.”
Nadia chuckled. “Our house is not in its best order.”
Two men were carrying a painting that had been wrapped for transit. Merrick had them set it next to a wall.
Nadia added, “And the clothes go to the orphanage on Seventh.”
“What’s going on?” Farisa said.
“We have met at an unusual time,” Merrick said.
“It looks like you’re giving the whole house away.”
Nadia said, “We are, but never mind that.”
A female servant’s voice called from a kitchen warmed by electric light, “Breakfast is ready.”
Merrick said, “We don't usually eat this late in the morning, but we need you to get well as fast as you can.”
Nadia said, “Eating outside our dining room is another thing we don’t usually do, but nothing is usual.”
Farisa found the food—vegetable curry, hard-boiled eggs, and seasoned rice—delicious but, after a few spoonfuls, could not continue.
“Full already?” Nadia asked.
The doctor said, “It’s better she not overeat.”
“There will be as much food as you want,” Nadia said.
“Thank you.” Farisa stifled a burp. “I feel better already, aside from the fact that I’m so dirty.”
Nadia waved a hand. A fair-skinned female servant arrived. “Draw this girl a bath.” She asked Farisa, “How hot do you take it?”
“Five-and-a-half flags. Actually, five-point-seven if you can—”
Nadia translated. “Two turns, then a quarter back, of hot water. One turn of cold. Make sure she has a change of clothes too.”
“Thank you.” Farisa smiled awkwardly. “I don’t know how I can repay you.”
“We are the ones who are in debt. Your family was good to us.”
“My family.” Farisa realized she had escaped on a matter of mistaken identity, because her parents had never been within a thousand miles of Exmore. She had escaped a house of lies, but on another lie, though this one had come about by accident. She would not correct it, as it had landed in her favor. “Of course, my family.”
The servant arrived shortly thereafter with fluffy, folded towels. “Bath’s ready.”
“Up the stairs, third door on the left,” Nadia told Farisa.
The young woman walked to the bathroom, relying heavily on the railing for balance as she climbed the stairs. The first thing she noticed was that the chamber was larger than most bedrooms, with curtained windows and enough space for three tubs. After she closed the door, she couldn’t help but open it again, close it again, to hear that clicking sound—safety, privacy—until her brain ceased to crave its effect. The tub itself, set in white marble, was large enough to lie down in. She felt a sense of embarrassment, almost shame, as she compared the place she was now to where she had been twelve hours ago, a place where she could have, under different circumstances, remained forever.
There was something strange about this place, though. Why were Merrick and Nadia, who lived in such a perfect house, ridding themselves of possessions? What was about to happen that they had not told her about?
Farisa removed her madhouse clothes, ratty things she’d never wear again, and slipped into the foamy water. The scents of lavender and verbena came over her. The water’s perfect warmth loosened her tense muscles. She did not imagine she would ever leave. The madhouse, but also the final few days in Cait Forest, had given her a skeleton of anxiety, and to be relieved of that tension left her boneless but, even still, never to stand again would be a preferable fate over....
She looked at the bathroom door, to be sure it was still there. It was.
When the bathwater cooled and a chill nudged her feet and ankles, she added a touch of hot water. The soap froth cleared. She looked over herself and saw the same body she’d always had, but there was a sense of invisible dirt, so she scrubbed herself with additional soap and a sponge in the hope that certain memories, too, could be cleaned. She had been in invasive places, realms where what was outside made itself inside. She had seen—she had felt—the life of Dr. Bugg. The bathwater was perfectly adequate, but she would have preferred right now to be in a swift river, its thrashing waters abrasive, from the highest and coldest mountains to the lowest oceans on the midnight side of the world, if only because it would take as much to convince her that the filth of the madhouse was truly gone.
The lingering muscle shadow of fever, the itching of her neck and face, and the tangled array of diffuse discomforts in her legs, those were all bad, but the worst feeling came when, during requisite washing, she felt a deadness inside herself, a discernible lack of spirit between navel and knees, a void where no heat or pain or pleasure or sense of danger could exist, as if a part of herself had been replaced.
I must get myself back—even if I have to go to the Antipodes to do it.
She stood up, stepped out of the water, and dried herself off.