Nights of Villjamur Read online

  'Don't look too miserable,' Dartun continued. 'Just think about it, you'll be ensconced in Balmacara, where there're many wealthy people hanging about. I'm sure you can use your imagination in finding a way to ensure that some of that money comes your way. You're a handsome lad, and you'll find that being pleasing to the eye gives you a head start in these affairs.'

  Randur ignored the man's bluntness. He stared at the stone table nearby, at the small engravings around it, the runes. He wasn't aware of how long he remained lost in thought, but when he looked up, Dartun was still grinning at him.

  Randur said, 'Is there a time limit on this sort of thing? I mean, say my mother passed away today, how long would it be before it gets too late to . . . you know, do whatever it is you can do?'

  'A fine question. Well, we experiment all the time, because progress is what I'm after. It's what this entire order is after: to distil the essence of life, to discover just whatever it is that makes us all us. So far we've successfully reanimated a man who had died up to two years before we worked on him, although his mind wasn't quite what it used to be. This is the result of generations of our research, Randur. We're not just some iren trader trying to offload a stack of cheap tat.'

  That was a relief to Randur. It provided some time for him to get hold of the four hundred Jamuns.

  'A deal?' Dartun said.

  'Yeah, a deal.'

  They shook hands.

  'Could I just ask one thing?' Dartun folded his arms. 'Why the hell d'you want to do this for your mother?'

  A wave of nausea surged through Randur's body, as his mind raced back to that night, to the one thing he would forever regret. He needed to repair the damage that his lack of thought and consideration had led to. He needed to prove himself as his mother's son. After all, mothers brought you into the world. They then fed you, clothed you, showed you immeasurable kindness. They gave you everything they had. True, his mother was a bitter woman sometimes, but that wasn't important. All that mattered to Randur, in retrospect, was that the one night she needed him, he had not been there.

  He had failed her.

  'So,' Randur said, ignoring the last question, 'what . . . I mean, how will you manage this?'

  'Just leave that to the specialists, young man. Believe me, this isn't the first time I've been approached to play about with the laws of the cosmos. I've been in Villjamur for . . . a lifetime. Women come asking to be made prettier, or slimmer, or younger. Men come asking me to increase their virility. I've had prostitutes ask me to stop the pain they suffer in their jobs, have their internal muscles numbed or senses stopped so doing their work does not hurt them. I've even had drug addicts crying out for help. I've been around a long time, and I've seen it all, and I say to them all - let me see your coin, and I'll investigate if the technology exists.'

  *

  In a glass orb stationed in the corner of his primary workroom, Dartun watched the young man leave. The orb was linked to another on an external wall, surrounded by marbles as a decorative feature, and it displayed an exaggerated caricature slipping away along the backstreets of a black and white Villjamur.

  So, this Randur wanted his mother to live a long time. Fine, that's possibly simple enough - a few months or a year at the most. He might even make her outlive her son if he was lucky. Randur had some charm, some vague charisma that appealed to Dartun. He would help the lad, but knew that the treatments would not last, knew that it wasn't a process good enough for himself. Dartun once possessed eternal life, thanks to the Ancients' technology. Once a year he had injected himself with a serum generated by relic-energy, a relatively simple procedure considering what else he had achieved - but now he was dying.

  He discovered that the Dawnir relic technology was beginning to fail him the day he cut himself with a razor. Some time ago now: there it was, a red line through his skin. Standing up against the mirror. Candle brought close to his face. A line of cut skin that filled quickly with blood. Red liquid leaked into the sink, little drops of his own death.

  He was suddenly aware of so many things that could kill a person:

  A back-hoofing horse.

  Disenchanted young swordsmen with something to prove.

  Mishandling a relic.

  Poisoned food.

  There were banshees waiting at every corner.

  He gathered as many of the relevant relics as he could find, spent sleepless nights in distant places until he could figure out what was going on and so prevent his ageing, utterly convinced that he could find some solution.

  Some cure for his forthcoming death.

  And he hadn't yet. At the time he wrote down his thoughts in a journal, wondering about the words lingering after he had gone:

  So how is it that I can still communicate from beyond the grave? How can I talk to you now? Words on the page, no less. Is this how we live on, in these little gestures? These trails left throughout our own existence - a note here, a pissed-off lover there? Something poignant we said to someone. Advice we gave. A joke we told.

  Little pieces of ourselves donated to the world.

  Is this what makes me live eternally?

  Spurred on by these thoughts, and by the visit of Randur, Dartun went deeper into his labs to look at the Shelley tanks.

  *

  A darkened room in the deepest corner of his order's headquarters. To one side seven corpses were laid out, claimed from the streets of Villjamur by good old Tarr, but he had hopes for the ones in the Shelley tanks: they were not dead to begin with. The tanks were arranged in two rows, the bathtublike metal basins filled with regeneration fluids. Bodies lay submerged beneath, their lips touching underneath the surface of the water.

  They were disturbed people, the mental patients, the radically disfigured, the severely disabled - people that Villjamur and the Jamur Empire did not wish to acknowledge, let alone look after. They had no opportunity to contribute to the Imperial system, and up until recently, they constantly stalked the backstreets with haunted looks on their faces.

  He could imagine nothing worse than being forgotten about, than being shunned by every face that he ever looked at. One of the batch told him that when people would not speak to them, would not even look them in the eye, they may as well have been dead already. Do we rely on being noticed by other people to confirm that we are alive?

  Dartun wanted to experiment on them: if he was successful, it would offer them a way out - if they could not die, would they be alive in the first place? He wanted to see if they could have their lives extended with his newly developed techniques. Then he could try them on himself.

  Chemicals smeared the air.

  Blindly, he lit a blue-glass lantern in one corner. Modified relics were submerged in each of one row's tanks, a faint purple glow shimmered above them: it meant they were ready. Riddled with pangs of anxiety, he walked over to the first, raised up on a waist-high platform, and the light on his face made him quite aware of his reflection in the thick fluids. Bombarded with test formulas, these bodies faced toxic chemical structures that no ordinary person could survive a minute of, let alone several hours.

  Turning off the relics within, one by one, the fluids began to drain through thick pipes, polluting somewhere deep within the city. As the liquid levels descended, a male body was revealed, glossy and slick, naked and scarred with traces of minor operations and major rewirings - Dartun's attempt at preserving them. He plunged a syringe into its chest and within seconds it lurched and began to shudder violently. Its eyes opened and the figure clutched the air above its head, then gave a perversely bass baby's cry.

  Dartun was ecstatic, drunk on optimism - had this attempt been successful?

  It suddenly collapsed back into the tank, shaking silently. Then ceased to move at all, as lifeless as a pre-op undead.

  Another failure.

  He sighed, and repeated the procedure with the five other Shelley tanks on this side of the room, each one eventually falling uselessly into death. They should have been pres
erved, their internals had been rewired to prevent decay. He could see nothing but the futility of life in his experiments, and again he became depressed and sad. These people had no other choice and surrendered their lives to him, and he had let them down.

  He could not even tell if it was good enough to convert to one of the undead.

  Dartun was enraged. With only the dead for company, he kicked things about the room, and when someone from his order came in to see what was going on, Dartun indignantly shoved him back out again. He knew he was being immature and unstable, but that's what failure did to him. He hated it, hated that his own life was failing him.

  Did anyone even think of their own death, or did they also assume the day would never come?

  The days now seemed merely a heartbeat long.

  All these failures had removed most of his options down to just the one. One decision, then, in honour of his recently acquired mortality: to push the limits of Dawnir technology to its fullest. If he was going to die, he wanted to do so as a legend - a name to be remembered - as a pioneer. There is so much in the world that he had spent his life detailing, and now he was going to put it into practice. And not only that, but he needed to find some supreme relics, some intense piece of technology. Because any sufficiently advanced technology was indistinguishable from magic - and he had run out of technology.

  At least in this world.

  SIX

  Investigator Rumex Jeryd sat at his desk, feeling like a victim. Already he had suffered from the first snowballs from the Gamall Gata kids. The street, central in the Kaiho district, seemed to breed the little buggers, but he couldn't move home, no, because they'd only follow him. The weather over the past day or so had been mainly sleet, so where they'd found such a supply of firm snow, he had no idea. Either way, the kids had woken Jeryd up much too early. As he left his house that morning, he could see their little heads cresting stone walls, attitude glaring from their eyes, communicating with whistles and urgent street-slang he didn't understand, calls of 'Hey, Jerrryd, watch your back, yeah?', derisive calls of 'Hey, Jerrryd, where's your missus gone? You need us to keep you company? We lurve you, Jerrryd.'

  You couldn't do much about kids like that. You could maybe arrest their parents, if they had any around, but the kids themselves would vanish fast through any number of broken stone alleys to avoid being caught.

  Jeryd was old. He couldn't keep up with them. Couldn't keep up with a lot of things around Villjamur.

  As he picked up a weekly news pamphlet on the way to work, he was shocked to discover that the death of the councillor was headline news. The case would now mean having to work with the Council, something he really wasn't looking forward to.

  To his right lay a file, left for him by one of the night-duty investigators. It detailed yet more violence near the city gates and the immigrant camp. Two refugees had been seriously injured with sword wounds to the head. People were even alleging rape. Accusations were flying everywhere. Meanwhile, the hygiene standards in the refugee camps were plummeting. There had been demonstrations by Villjamur's extreme right-wing activists. They didn't want these types stealing what was 'rightfully theirs' in the face of the Freeze. They didn't want disease brought into their city. Things were now happening at a level of hysteria no one was familiar with.

  People were getting angrier, and more desperate.

  *

  He spent an hour writing up notes from yesterday, while finishing a cold cup of tea the administrative girl, Ghale, had brought him earlier. She was dark-haired, attractive, but she didn't have a tail and her human skin was too soft for his tastes.

  Jeryd peered again at his observations so far. Delamonde Ghuda was forty-three years old. Married, with no known children. Once elected, Ghuda had spent fifteen years on the Council, regularly endorsed by popular vote. Whatever the masses wanted, he was with them, and their vote was with him. He helped push through various educational and tax reforms, spent one year as Treasurer of Villjamur, before being promoted to overseeing all of the Jamur Empire's resources on behalf of the chancellor. That was a position he had held for four years.

  So, who specifically would want to kill him?

  At that moment, Aide Tryst entered the room without knocking. 'Investigator, we've got a lead.'

  Jeryd looked up, stifled a yawn. 'Great. Out with it, then.'

  'Witness statement has the deceased sighted the evening before in a tavern, drinking with a woman in her forties.'

  'Nothing unusual there, lad.'

  'They were seen leaving together, and rumour has it that she's a prostitute. Has a noticeable wound on her face. Another witness has the same two spotted entering a residential tower next to the gallery.'

  'Great, we now have a city councillor using whores. Like to explain that to his partner and the other councillors? I can bet you we'll have orders to keep that little fact quiet. And considering the Council's supposed to be a symbol of truth and probity . . .'

  *

  Tuya wiped him off with a towel, which she then threw into a basket in the corner. The guy had only wanted a handjob in the end, which suited her fine. Said he didn't want to cheat on his partner, a last-minute change of mind. He lay on his back, panting for a while - men looked so pathetic after they'd come.

  As she walked out of the room she said, 'I'll leave you to get dressed. Just leave the money on the side and let me know before you go.'

  In fact he left her enough money to last her a week - four Sota and ten Lordils - and she watched him leave, dressed again in his smart robes on his way back to his office in the Treasury. It no longer amazed her just how ordinary her customers could be. They went back to their families, their wives, to their jobs, to their commonplace negotiations, and all the time nursing this guilty secret. Ah well, was what she did for a living wrong if no one got hurt? She wasn't one of those poor street girls who suffered sleepless nights under the guilt and shame, men coming and going like ghosts in their lives.

  How had her existence got to this point?

  Was the reason that she had become capital - goods and services? - was that why she would remain trapped in Villjamur? She suspected that her position was shared, in some ways, by many other ladies in the city. Mothers and housewives, and women like her who might actually earn money. For as long as women could be viewed in such transactional manners, their emancipation would remain incomplete. When had it become too late to change everything? Did she even choose this lifestyle or did it force itself upon her?

  Sighing, she went back to her bed, lay down, drew the sheets over her. Watched the light through the window. Listened to the busy sounds of the city.

  And closed her eyes.

  *

  Jeryd knocked, and a woman eventually opened the door. She wore just a flimsy gown that wasn't going to keep out the chill. Red hair, a fuller figure, the sort that came with a little expensive dining now and then. Down one side of her face was a livid scar and Jeryd tried desperately not to focus on it.

  'Investigator Rumex Jeryd, Villjamur Inquisition.' He held up his Inquisition medallion. 'And this is Aide Tryst. We're investigating the murder of Delamonde Ghuda, and we're hoping you can help us with our enquiries.'

  'Delamonde Ghuda?' she said. 'Oh, my . . . Come in, please. Can I offer you something to drink?'

  'No, thanks,' Jeryd said.

  Tryst took out a pencil and notebook.

  She found two ornate wooden chairs, and placed them for the men to sit on near the window.

  'Many thanks,' Tryst said, seating himself.

  'These are impressive.' Jeryd indicated the chairs, but remained standing. He decided that he didn't want to get too comfortable. 'Antiques?'

  'Yes. Do you yourself collect, investigator?'

  'Nah,' Jeryd replied, glancing over at Tryst who merely stared around the room. 'My wife was once a collector of sorts. Sometimes I tagged along with her to various markets. Never got into it myself, but I can recognize something half decent.' For a moment he
appreciated the fact that Marysa had taught him enough to pick out a decent antique. Then appreciation transformed into pain, again.

  'Was once a collector. You're no longer married then?' Tuya said, sitting down on the bed, her crossed legs revealed in the gap in her gown.

  Jeryd sighed. 'We're here to investigate a murder, Miss . . . ?'

  'Daluud. Tuya Daluud.'

  Tryst began taking notes as Jeryd started his routine. 'You were seen with the victim on the evening of the murder.'

  'Yes,' she agreed. 'Yes, that's right.'

  'What exactly is it you do for a living, may I ask?'

  She said, 'You two are men of the world, I take it?'

  Jeryd glanced at Tryst, then back to Tuya. 'Where's this leading?'

  'Follow me.' She gestured them over to the elaborate door leading to her bedroom, paused them briefly with her outstretched arm. 'Just a quick glimpse, OK.' Then she opened the door.

  It was clearly a whore's boudoir. Luxurious bed, oils, candles, the large mirrors, the smell of sex. Jeryd stepped back out of the room, nodding to Tryst, who blinked rapidly. Tuya closed the door and turned back to them.

  Only then did Jeryd realize just how tall she was. 'None of this is of any concern to us, Miss Daluud.'

  'I know.'

  Jeryd placed his hands in his pockets, walked slowly around her living room, noting further the fine ornaments, paintings, furnishings. 'Still, it obviously pays well.'

  'Yes, and there's no one else for me to spend the money on. But at least I get time to myself, and to pursue my other pleasures.'

  Jeryd paused, looking over at Tryst who was sitting by the window again.

  Jeryd noticed the covered canvases in the corner. 'You dabble in the Arts, Ms Daluud? We allowed to take a look?'

  'I'd rather you didn't,' she said. 'I'm rather shy of some things.'

  'Miss Daluud, would you be so good as to explain your dealings with Councillor Ghuda on the night in question?'