Chapter Ten

The confirmation came through.

The treasury had approved the expedition, with a number of caveats included, like rum-pickled grapes speckled through one of Melqua's fruitcakes. Little surprising crackles of alcohol to accompany the same old crumbs, the same old crust. Suddenly, Carza vo Anka migrated from being a scholar to a soldier - she received her orders on crisp paper with sharp letters stamped down with enough force that the letter could really be read from both sides. One by sight. The other by touch. The treasury never did things by half measures. Carza was... exceptionally glad that she was too cowardly for office politics, anyone who used a typewriter with that kind of ferocity - or had a typewriter capable of delivering it in the first place - was probably some of Forceful Will and Terrible Intent. In short, a person whose name could reliably be spelt T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

And summoned by the Forceful Will and Terrible Intent of Mr/Miss Trouble, Carza attended to a building to satisfy her curt orders. Hull was supposedly to be dealt with separately, for reasons she couldn't quite fathom. The treasury building that Carza rushed to order to receive her orders - because they were orders, at the end of the day - was a squat, ugly thing perched like a scab on the edge of the Court's main structure. Slowly banished to the outer fringes - the distance of the treasury to the Court was inversely proportional to its importance. As money grew thin, as strategies demanded updating, as the modern world began to break open the solitudes of the last few centuries... the treasury was pushed further and further out, and one day it would be exiled entirely. Excised. That was the world. Like a tumour or a malignant growth. Excised. So far, they'd managed to quarantine them into Gaol. It was one of the most outlandish experiments - too weird for even the Experiment - ever conducted by the weirder architectural students. 'Architecture shapes the mind' said these students. 'The prison resembles the school resembles the hospital resembles the workshop. All designed to inculcate productivity' they continued, with an air of smug superiority. 'Why on earth should we not sculpt our own offices after these hubs of efficiency, these engines of progress? Why not abandon the pseudo-aristocratic airs of yesteryear?'

Not a single architect had chosen to actually live in the place they'd built. A squat, dull prison-like structure, with bars over the windows, wire netting over the flat roof to keep the birds off, and windows carefully frosted to stop anyone seeing inside. She wasn't sure if that had been an architect's choice, or if the treasurers were trying to stop people from seeing into their secretive domain.

They had a barrier. A metal thing where a terrifyingly intense young woman with a very red face and blonde hair that verged on white - like strawberry and vanilla - issued a pass for Carza. Name: Carza vo Anka. Section to be visited: Project Management & Investment Assessment. Purpose of visit: Project Approval. This pass to be returned on departure. Signature... and then just a vague scribble which the girl rattled down without really looking at the slip. She stared with faintly bloodshot eyes down at Carza, and a mysterious brown stain on the whitewashed ceiling above her made it seem like she had a muddy halo. Her voice whined out, nasal and cutting.

"Mr Tskhyz is waiting for you. Present your pass to the barrier on the second floor, don't wander off."

Carza nodded politely. Paid not to insult the people who held her fate in their metal-scented hands. She walked quickly down the corridors of the Gaol, her shoes clicking on the floor. A few others passed her - dull-eyed bureaucrats who worked hard to justify their own existence and magnify their own superiority greeted her coldly. It reminded her of the Court of Salt, but... distinctly lesser. Salt at least magnified their whole profit-loving style to a genuine art - everything tastefully expensive, nothing overblown, nor anything obviously poor. They were cold, yes, but professional and personable within professional limits. She never thought that the woman she'd met there had liked her, or even remembered her, but... well, it was better than this. This was a place full of people who believed the world of themselves, and who the world believed in not at all. And this made them resentful. Motley combination of failed scholars who'd studied enough mathematics and caroused with enough well-placed people to get a position here, and genuinely passionate bean-counters for whom this place was the centre of a well-oiled engine which made them powerful.

The room she entered belonged to one of the former. Mr Tskhyz looked up from his desk - the same large man from the committee supervising her project application. He still stank of stale beer, and his room had a monkish, undergraduate look to it. Piles of chaotic books and ledgers, representing a hodgepodge of interests, none of them carried beyond a surface level. His eyes had a burned-out weariness that spoke to consuming more tobacco than even she thought was healthy. The heating in here was ludicrous - the man had one of those new radiators, the kind which rattled like a hollow ribcage when hot water rushed through, covered in paint which seemed on the verge of igniting. A thin line of sweat beads hung across his broad brow, and she found herself desperate to get out of here as soon as possible. He grunted vaguely, and swung his arm in a broad arc - sit down anywhere. The overstuffed couch piled with open folders, the battered chairs in front of his heavy desk... suspiciously, there was a creaking roll-top desk in the corner, locked up tight. She wondered how many doomed applications were sleeping under there, how many sneering letters had been written in the secure dark of that thing.

Tskhyz... that was a Tralkic name, she remembered that much. Interesting. He didn't look like he was from the Court of Horn... but then again, the Court of Horn had always been weird about family names. Even now, tradition demanded that their conventions be followed: in a marriage, the male name superseded the female. In a marriage involving someone of Horn, then the Tralkic name overpowered any other. Every time. Which meant that this man, who didn't look remotely like Ashykh, probably had some distant ancestor, and the name just... stuck.

Law was fun.

"You're late. But we can work with that."

He flipped open a box, and presented her with a cigarillo - cheap one, but workable. He lit up his own, offered her a flick from his lighter, and the two were soon filling the room with smoke. The man's hair looked like smoke - stained by the fumes of his cigarillo, and wafting away from his large head in breezy tufts that made him seem fuzzy at the edges. Not quite real. Carza tried to smile apologetically, but... well, his stern face made her simply duck her head and mumble an apology as obsequiously as she could.

"Your request has been approved, the treasury will dispense the necessary funds. However. You're going to have to work within the restrictions we set."

He leant forwards, scowling.

"I'll be blunt. Your project is unprofitable, ludicrously expensive, and you're inexperienced. But the... information you've brought to our attention has been more than a bit interesting. What we discuss doesn't leave this room, understood? I'll be talking to your colleague soon on this, but I don't want you discussing any element with each other or anyone else. Am I clear?"

She nodded silently. Speaking felt incorrect.

And the marching instructions began.

First, they were to go to Krodaw by train. Second, they were to make contact with the local Ivory mission, before attending an audience with the colonial governor. He would provide an escort to the mountains, and the mission would look into the business of guides. Third, they were to deliver a letter to the governor which was of some importance to the Court of Ivory. A diplomatic communique, bound up with seals she couldn't possibly forge, and could thus never replace if she broke them. So far, so ordinary. She was, honestly, pretty happy that the colonial business had been sorted out, she wasn't looking forward to sitting around waiting for the next available audience. Fourth and fifth were... complex.

"Now. Something I want to make very clear to you is that your career rests on this. I know I seem like a seething pillar of goodwill, but trust me, if the treasury has a whisper of you attempting to be clever, your career with the Court of Ivory will be concluded. And viciously. One little bribe, one miniscule attempt to try and circumvent us, and we'll break you. The idiots up there are content to busy themselves with everything irrelevant, but down here we have a clear view of the outside world. I can see that you dislike us. That you dislike how we're holding the purse strings - I recommend you look out of the windows once in a while, if they look out onto anything that isn't just more libraries. The world's moving on, and the interests of this treasury is to ensure the continued functioning of the Court of Ivory no matter what comes our way. And if fat needs to be trimmed..."

He trailed off.

Carza felt the same cold gnawing in her gut that she'd felt as a child. The urge to leap for safety and cling to it with all her might, the terrible need to advance herself and protect herself at all costs. Let nothing stand in her way until she could find a nice, cosy den to grow old and fat and dead in. She was twenty-one, and her ambition was permanent semi-retirement until the earth swallowed her whole in her sleep, lungs choked with tobacco and eyes squinted from an unhealthy amount of reading.

"Yes. I understand."

"Good. Now, at the moment, we're being outcompeted. This is an interesting line of information for us - if we can get our hands in the pie first, we'll get to take however much we want. You're inexperienced, so we're not expecting you to fill up a library here - we want you to make it easier for your elders and betters to go out and do more coherent work in the steppe. We want maps, guides, detailed accounts of every single danger you face, and, ideally, a network of informants out in the steppe, with names and contact information. Understood?"

"Understood."

"Then, your networks can be used by successors to produce better data for us. You'll be well-compensated for your work, of course. We can promise funding for whatever pointless bit of research you want to sink yourself into after this. But only if you do a good job, and do what we say."

He leant forward further, and she shrank slightly into her seat, feeling woefully out of her depth.

"Your final order, your final strategic priority, is to reject any and all invitations from the Court of Salt. Not one bribe. Trust nobody you hire. Trust nobody who gets in touch with you. Trust not a single soul I do not personally approve for you. Understood?"

"Understood."

"You know the consequences if you don't. Right now, the Court is fighting for its survival - Flint and Chalk are already backwaters which don't contribute anything to the city beyond liquor purchases. The Axe is dying. Slate might be impressive, but it's a strategic irrelevance. Salt is doing wonderfully. They own the trains and the trainyards, nothing gets in or out of this city without them making some profit. We can't even send you to Krodaw without paying them in some way. And if they're allowed to keep going, they will gradually buy their way into everything we cultivate. Wax is already accepting investments from them to keep going despite foreign competition. What happens when they decide that the military is better-served under the leadership of ALD IOM's real rulers? What happens if they decide that our education system is outdated, and can't be fixed? They have universities out there, Anka, they have whole centres of learning, sometimes multiple to a city, all competing and improving and getting richer and richer. Now, if Salt gets their fingers into this pie first, if they get to the steppe, that's one more angle lost to us. We can monopolise data there, we can turn it into a single, perfect source of academic product."

Product. She wanted to write articles, books, interesting discussions... and he talked about product. She couldn't even bring herself to feel offended. She felt terrified at the idea of the Court of Ivory being driven into the ground, under the churning waves - a sinking ship she was chained to. She adored this place, and... and the idea of it becoming some little relic of a dead age was indescribably depressing, and... infuriating. She had given her life to this place, every year after her eighth had been surrendered to the Court's methods. And she graduated as it was ending? She remembered the stain on the ceiling downstairs. A scrap of dirt, representative of a larger problem, and never attended to. Why? Why hadn't it? Was it too expensive to fix? Did people simply not care? The idea of a Court of Ivory that lost all of its little charms, that became like the Gaol here... that became like the Court of the Axe, a joke that contributed almost nothing to the modern direction of the city...

The same petty, frightened patriotism rose up in her.

Tribalism, maybe.

But she liked to think of it as rational self-interest. Defence of her home from the outside.

But...

"...sorry, but... this feels... a little above my level, I'm... I graduated a month ago, I'm not exactly..."

She trailed off. Mr Tskhyz stared at her.

"We're surrounded, Anka. We're surrounded on all sides by people stronger than us, more vicious than us, and more skilled than us. But they don't know what we know, they don't have any element of our purpose. But... their methods are winning, and ours have stagnated. Inevitably, we have to adopt their methods in order to survive. And that means you."

He tapped a pen against his table with a crack that split the silence in two. And suddenly she could hear the typewriters clacking away in distant rooms, the murmur of colleagues talking around a samovar, the hustle and bustle of a place that was filled with people like her, directed towards the preservation of a home that they all, basically, loved.

"You have to do your part. As does your colleague, Trochi. We all have to pull together here. All of us started inexperienced - you'll adjust. The mission in Krodaw will give you more information - trust one person there. A woman by the name of Marle, brown hair, lazy left eye. Understood?"

She hesitated. Still felt... out of her depth, still felt grubby, but... this was for the good of the Court. She was benefiting, as was her home. And it felt like a suitable progression, right? To go from a basically self-interested survivor to someone willing to defend her home at all costs. Her drive for self-preservation becoming more altruistic. Seemed to represent a growth in her character, a progression in her motives to something nobler... right? The towering authority of Mr. Tskhyz was enough to convince her. He'd been in this game longer than her. And he'd seen the Court of Ivory before the decline started. So he ought to be devoted to bringing it back, he ought to know that it could come back. The two of them had similar motives. They were united on this point.

"Understood. Brown hair. Lazy left eye. Marle. Mission in Krodaw."

"Good."

He cracked a small smile.

"Good luck, too. When you come back from this, you'll have enough honours to drown in."

"Thank you. I'll... try my best."

"Best I can ask. Now go on. And take this."

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He pushed a packet over the table. Some secretive tool? A weapon of terrifying potency? Poisons?

"It's your budget. Take it to the front desk, they'll sort out dispersing the money to you. One lump sum. And don't let their attitude affect you, they're always like that."

With her acceptance had come a dramatic shift in Mr Tskhyz's mood - he was friendlier, more approachable. Carza felt a glow of contentment rise up, a small soothing influence on the gnawing in her stomach. A feeling that... well, she was part of a broader plan. And she was senior enough to be informed of that plan, not just puppetted around like a blind idiot. And past all the talk about 'academic product'... there was a genuine desire to pursue the Founder's ideals, she was certain of it. They wanted to keep the steppe 'pristine' for as long as possible, theirs to map, theirs to explore, theirs to investigate as part of the holy mission of the Founder. Not a trace of infiltration from the outside world, that was the idea. Not until it was an overpowering force that no amount of scholarly intervention could resist. Rescue anthropology - to recover as much data as possible before things changed beyond recognition. There was something undeniably noble in that, right? Something legitimately decent. She shook hands, accepted another cigarillo gratefully, and clicked her way out of the room and into the Gaol beyond.

And like that, Carza vo Anka and Hull va Trochi had entered into the realm of academic espionage.

In principle? Loved it. Supported it. Wished the endeavour the very best.

In practice? Deeply wished the duty could've gone to someone else.

* * *

But... preparations consumed her.

And quickly.

Which was what she liked.

She and Hull spent hours up at night, studying Tralkic - the old language of the Court of the Horn, and theoretically the language spoken over the mountains. They were advancing quickly - she was at her best when she had a definitive goal, and he was just applying existing knowledge into a different medium. Neither spoke about their meetings with the treasury. The instruction to trust no-one that wasn't approved by Mr Tskhyz - and that list seemed to extend only to himself, to one another, and to this... Marle in Krodaw. Strange names, strange places... a hint of glamour entered her life, whether she liked it or not. Once she had some distance, then all of a sudden the world became a much, much more interesting place, less characterised by terror. The Court of Ivory was a place of refined mystery and sublime ritual, it was a place wrapped up in layers of dusty history that extended back to the Founder himself. It had all the rites of Slate, but it had importance as well. It had an enduring purpose. And what was the alternative? To be pecked away by the murder of crows that formed modernity, harried until there was nothing left but scraps of scholars secluded in soulless buildings, serving out the needs of the mundane, crude world, and not the higher purpose the Founder had instructed them to pursue?

To question. To investigate. To expand their understanding. To bring about the comprehension of the World-System, with every subordinate Axiom self-evidently perfect. And she needed to protect that purpose... and the peace that purpose brought.

So she allowed the feelings of glamour and vocation to spill over her in a warm wave of golden memories and void-lust.

Equipment was... actually less complicated than they imagined. Warm clothes for the mountains, light clothes for Krodaw and the surrounding area. Proper equipment - climbing hooks, sturdy ropes, all that good stuff - would be provided by guides who knew the landscape better than them. Still, they were happy to gather things that would be hard to find in Krodaw. Gas masks, top-quality. Heavy respirators with glass-and-metal goggles that fogged up in seconds if they weren't fastened correctly. Medication for mutations. Most mutations started on the skin, but if they got into the lungs... nasty. So, pills that scoured the throat and would render them mute for hours at a time, alongside masks that would hopefully stop the pills being necessary in the first place. Guns. A pearl-handled revolver for herself, just as a last-ditch effort in self defence. Fired it at a few cans in the shop, and... felt that she had the basic motions down. There was the clicky part at the back, and the chamber, and her many bullets, and the trigger that her finger had to stay off until she was ready to use the thing... She was woefully inaccurate and flinched every time it went off, but... well, she wasn't going to be plucking people off from a distance, was she? This was if a howling savage ran straight up to her.

She felt glamorous. A fine, three-piece tweed travelling suit, a pearl-handled revolver, impact-resistant timepieces... and a portable typewriter. Well, all typewriters were portable, but this one was very portable. She could clack away at it anywhere, get her notes down anytime. She'd been obligated to suppress a squeal when she got hold of the thing - it was beyond wonderful. Light blue paint on the chassis, not a single chipped fleck removed... all the keys burnished and shiny, gleaming like fresh-brushed teeth in the morning light... she was twenty-one, and she liked this sort of thing, she liked getting kitted out for her excursions. It was a petty enjoyment, but it was enjoyment nonetheless. She was young, sue her. Books, books... so many were too heavy, but so many were important. Oh, she couldn't decide! And Melqua was talking about interesting forms of trail mix she could put together, little recipes she'd read about in obscure places...

She was terrified.

But she was masking it very well under the aegis of preparation. And when she looked in the mirror, saw her suit, her binoculars, her pistol cunningly concealed beneath her jacket... walking stick in hand and sturdy backpack slung across her shoulders... she felt debonair, glamorous, ready. More ready than she really was.

Hull did a lot. She appreciated that. He found it easier to operate in the city for extended periods - she just got exhausted and needed to sit down for a little while in a quiet room. Irritating, but... not going to be a problem once she was out in the sparsely-populated wilderness, eh? Everything about the Court was suddenly drenched in undulating waves of nostalgia. There was the place where she... ate a sandwich, once. A good sandwich too. Good book to accompany it. And that was where she'd had to do a pathetic victory dance after getting a perfect score on a test. And, oh, how she could possibly forget that spot there, where she was... attacked by a pigeon. Hm. Well, her enjoyment of the Court of Ivory was more of a general feeling. It was safety, and security, and repetitive ritualised routine. It was the confidence that she would wake up when she pleased and work without interruptions, the assurance that nothing would try and attack her while she was vulnerable. The basic notion that things would be the same from one day to the next. Her memories of her childhood were fuzzy - and blissfully so - but she remembered constant upheaval, a sense of gnawing paranoia in her gut... but these days that gnawing was more than just fear. It was drive, passion, the thing which made her want to stay here. She didn't just like it because it was a repetitive, safe place, but because it genuinely made her feel better about herself.

This place had enough material to keep her occupied for a lifetime. And all she needed to do was tolerate a year of unpleasantness before she could set off on that lifetime of golden nothingness.

Weeks passed.

She read widely, devouring books with the hunger of someone who adored them and would soon be a little deprived. The file of receipts bulged wider and wider, precisely calculating everything they'd spent on suits and equipment... Hull said he had his eye on some competent hires from the trainyards, a mix of locals and foreigners. All of them decently cheap and eager for some adventure. She trusted his judgement. He knew more than her.

And... slowly, she said her goodbyes. This place had been her home for over a decade, and as much as she wanted to leave and come back with all the experience needed to stay here for the rest of her life... she also never wanted to leave in the first place. It was inconceivable not waking up in her own bed, not having her little creature comforts... she was a nest-builder, and she couldn't imagine lacking her nest after she'd spent so long making it just right. The secretaries had been first. They knew her, they were familiar with her past... they deserved a goodbye. Mother, now a little slower and less sharp than she'd once been, had done the impossible - she'd shaken Carza's hand. Clasped it in her own, ring-bedecked fingers, and shook her hand with stern acknowledgement.

"Best of luck, girl."

It was one of the nicest things Mother had ever said to her. Laris and Cerys had been indifferent to her departure... but they'd still shared a cup of tea with her, and split most of a fruitcake. Said they'd miss messing her around, and she wasn't sure how facetious they were being. But notably, neither of them laughed at her when she left, or made an off-colour comment about her. She imagined they might, actually, genuinely miss her. Her father had been next. She'd knocked primly on the door, waited, knocked again... and finally, her father, her large, impressive father, had opened it up. Crumbs were stuck in his stubble, and his fingers were blackened with ink. He stood even taller than she did - and she was a tall individual. His hair was a black mop which matched her own, but his eyes... those were his own, Carza had taken after her mother there. The two hadn't really done much. He'd listened to her explanations, that she was going away to make her name as an anthropologist, before returning in a few years. He barely comprehended it. He was an old-school scholar, he wasn't much for expeditions and participant observation. Yanis, her father, her bizarre, illegitimate father, had simply nodded in the right places, chewed at a scone...

And spoke.

"Well, don't get yourself killed now. And make sure to have good guides."

And that was all.

No. No. Not happening.

"Yanis, I... I need to know something."

Her eyes locked onto his own, keeping him pinned to his chair.

"...I want to know about my mother. How the two of you met. She rarely spoke about you, not until the end. Not until she showed me your letter."

She still wondered what was written on that thing. It'd been taken away before she was literate - all she had were scraps of text her mother had read out to her. Yanis shifted uncomfortably, scratching his chin, wriggling slightly... he wanted to escape, to slither out of his skin and worm his way back to one of his favoured libraries, but... instead, he was compelled to speak. She wouldn't leave until he did.

"Your mother was..."

He tried to be delicate.

"...at that time, there was a habit of scholars to go to beer halls in plain clothes, to try and mingle with the towns - towns and gowns, that was the terminology we used. And it wasn't... uncommon to associate with towns as... nighttime liaisons. She was a barmaid at one of the beer halls I went to, and we rather... hit it off... and..."

He struggled.

"She had... wonderful... eyes?"

He didn't sound sure. Carza felt paralysed.

"And we... drank a great deal together, and... well, I was younger, and I fawned over her a bit, but... it was a brief liaison, really, but she seemed to be a wonderful woman, really…"

Carza stared.

"...so... that's the way of it."

"...that's it?"

Her father blinked.

"...yes? Mostly. That's the... long and short of it."

That was it? She was a barmaid, he was a student, the two were very drunk. Her mother had adored him. Said he was the finest man she'd ever been with. A proper scholar of the Court of Ivory. A real, genuine article. The kind of wonderful man that might go on to change the world. She'd been a little obscure on the details, but... Carza had developed an image of her father as this immutable, perfect being who'd managed to achieve everything a man could want to achieve, who'd only made one mistake in his grand old life. Her. He was... he still was everything she wanted to be, at least academically. A quiet scholar who did what he liked, enjoyed his research, and generally just swam in the golden void that the Court of Ivory so carefully cultivated. She wanted to be him, genuinely. But... but that was it? That was the entire reason for her existence? A barmaid, a lot of alcohol, a childish romance that ended quickly... she always imagined there was some kind of emotional connection. A celibate scholar and a low-class girl, the two of them finding a forbidden romance together that endured even when the world forced them apart... her mother sacrificing a husband in order to let the man she loved pursue a life that was better than any outside the Court of Ivory.

And she was the result.

"...nothing. Nothing. I was just... curious."

Yanis looked awkward, but... tried to talk, to salvage something from the situation.

"Listen, that was... an early stage in our lives, both our lives, and neither of us were... really ready for the consequences. But I have to say, as far as my accidents go, you're... definitely the best of them."

She was a consequence. She was an accident. She was... the best?

"Thank you. And... thank you for all your assistance getting to this point."

He hadn't helped her with her project proposal, hadn't kept much more than a cursory eye on her for years, never really got to know her at all... she vaguely remembered the first time she'd met him. As a child, shoving a letter in his face and screaming that he was her father, and he had to take care of her now. The implication of blackmail hanging over his head. He'd dragged her into his office, sat her down on a low chair, asked some cursory questions... and then told her to shut up while he finished some work. She'd sat, patiently, for hours. Most of their conversation had happened at the beginning while he established all the facts, confirmed all the details, and his position had become clear. Then... he'd sat down at his desk, and worked. Flipped open some books, spread some paper across the desk, and jotted down ideas. Anthropologically-inclined musings on some forgotten people or place... something she had barely understood at the time. For hours, she'd sat and stared at him, wondering what he was doing, assuming he was writing something magical - writing was magical, in her eyes. Even now some of the magic endured.

And then he'd grunted, and told her to come over if she was interested.

Then he rambled.

He was looking at adelphic polyandry amongst a forgotten tribe which had once lived in ALD IOM's boundaries, and examining how its practices fed into modern-day understandings of marriage in that corner amongst the lower class, based on some research his informants had done for him. She'd been fascinated. Asked questions. For the first few minutes, she was a convenient audience to lecture to. Then she'd been a student, and he was a wise tutor. And then, finally, she'd been almost... equal. Her questions received considered answers. At no stage had she really been his daughter. In her own way, she didn't... mind that. She'd never known him before now, and she didn't feel instinctual surges of filial piety towards him.

Despite everything, she still respected him, and wanted to be him - academically speaking.

But she had to admit... he was a lousy father.

Melqua had been more of a parent than he had.

And so she'd taken her leave. He looked relieved. Wanted to talk about his subject, or nothing. He had no real life outside this office... but the life he'd built was so rich that it was hard to notice. Piles of research, lists of works with his name on them, a blissful drifting existence through the endless hallways of the Court of Ivory. He didn't think about defending the world he existed in - his faith in it was effortless and graceful. He was a lousy father, but he was still hers, and his life was one she craved for herself. He'd had it - why couldn't she? And if she needed to fight for it... then so be it.

* * *

She spent the rest of the day with Melqua. They stayed in her room, drinking tea, eating cake, reminiscing quietly. Theatrophone comedies came and went as the hours dragged on... and Carza enjoyed every last second. After about an hour, she took Melqua's hand and held it closely. Memorising every single contour, every little groove left by using a pen for years on end, the tiny dents in the tips of her fingers where pressing typewriter keys had left marks... Melqua told her she was being an overly soppy scholar. She ought to be ruthless and goal-oriented, she ought to have her eyes set on the promise of good research, not on old secretaries like herself. Carza had ignored her... and drew her into a genuine hug. She never initiated hugs. Didn't like doing it. Passivity was safe, proactivity was... messy. But this felt like a worthwhile time to make an exception. They sat on her small, battered couch, and listened to the comedies rolling on by, laughing slightly when the audience indicated it was time to laugh... and otherwise simply curled around one another.

Carza remembered being a child, and being cradled by Melqua when she found it difficult to sleep. Melqua had been twenty-one - the same age Carza was now. And she'd been... everything Carza needed. Someone experienced in the Court, but not some sort of unapproachable wise academic. Caring, but not a doormat that could be walked over with ease. Kind. There. Carza still had the doll Melqua had given her, tucked up in wrapping paper and secluded in a locked drawer in her desk. Delicate thing now, too old to really be used as a doll. But it was still hers, and she treasured it. Melqua lay back... and asked something in her slow, considering way - the sort of voice that was honed from years of dealing with mildly egotistical or faintly useless academics.

"Carza..."

"Hm?"

"You've never talked about your time... before you came here."

Carza locked up a little.

"I won't ask you about those times. If you don't want to talk about them, then... you don't want to talk about them. But you got through them when you were young, and alone, and more inexperienced than you are now. You're tough. You'll get through these few years... and then you can come back."

She smiled.

"Remember what I promised? If you didn't want to, you didn't need to ever leave the Court of Ivory."

Carza stared ahead into the rumbling grille of the theatrophone, which crackled with yet more laughter as the Ministerial Fellows got into some other bit of hi-jinks involving soldiers stationed in the same spot for over a century, whose orders to return to the Court of the Axe had fallen down the back of a desk and had only now been discovered. Some debate over back-pay had ensued. It was all very funny. Melqua reached up and quietly stroked her hair. Carza curled into her side, and pretended she was a child again, and this was all that mattered in the world. This had never happened, of course. By the time theatrophones were invented, she'd already become an adolescent and ahd found it embarrassing to curl up with Melqua. But... it was nice to simulate an idealised version of all the pleasant points of her young life. She murmured quietly.

"It wasn't good."

"Hm?"

"My time before this. It wasn't good. I like this place better."

"...well, I'm glad. You've been a lovely niece."

"Thanks, Aunt Melqua."

They snuggled.

And the theatrophone changed - the Ministerial Fellows had resolved their little conundrum (read: passed it on to someone else), and now it was time for the mid-evening musical selection. She always felt conflicted about this, but both of them enjoyed complaining about the bad acts. There was something... odd about the foreign music they played. Used odd instruments, played odd melodies. Some of it seemed utterly rude and crude, other items seemed to be profoundly self-satisfied with their own intelligence. And now and again something decent played. This seemed to be one of those days. They were playing comedy, which was nice, and... ah. She hadn't heard this one before.

We will all go together when we go.

What a comforting fact that is to know.

Universal bereavement, an inspiring achievement!

Yes, we will all go together when we go!

She shivered. It was good. Funny. But she wished it wasn't playing. Rain began to fall outside, and she could barely glimpse a yellowed sky under expanding tendrils of dark clouds.

We will all burn together when we burn

There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.

When the mutants come a-knocking

Doomsday clock's ticking and a-tocking,

We'll just put on our best stockings and adjourn.

Carza vo Anka was a spy, she was a proud scholar at the forefront of her Court's work... and she was afraid for the future. Afraid of the piles of equipment now crowding her own room, which could only barely mask the fact that she was inexperienced, out of her depth, and... driven by necessity. The alternative to this was worse, she was certain of that. Being thrown out, becoming a penniless scholar probably scraping a living through tutoring, living in some miserable garret room above a pawn shop... this would give her what she needed for the rest of her life. And she'd be preserving the place she loved in the process. This was a mission from above. She wished it would've gone to someone else, though. Necessity was a cruel mistress... and in the end, Carza was an insomniac who'd been trying to find a place to sleep for years and years. Always thinking, always moving, always planning out her next steps. Paranoid. And one day, she'd find a place to lie down, and let the paranoia drain away from her. One day, there'd be nothing to be paranoid about. Paranoia, to her, was a virtue - and the only way to get rid of it was to follow its directions and solve the problems which surrounded her on all sides. Piece by piece, she'd accomplished that. She was warm, safe, educated... she had more advantages than most, now. She had something. And after all of this was done, she'd be perfect. And then she imagined her thinness would cease as tense flesh detached from tense bones, her eyes would fall shut, her long arms would curl around herself for warmth...

And she'd sleep for a very, very long time, buried in one of the alcoves in the hall of pillars.

And the world would become a place of softened corners and dull edges.

Melqua could join her there, and Hull too.

That was all she wanted, really.

Sleep.

And for the next few hours, buried in Melqua's arms... she found a scrap of that ideal. A few hours of half-sleep, where her eyes never fully closed.

She hoped one day they would.