Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

“You did the right thing,” Edeard assured him. “You acted to save lives. That’s what we always did; that’s what we’ll always do.”

“What’s happening to the world, Edeard? Didn’t we do enough, saving it from Bise and Owain and the bandits? I tell you, in the Lady’s name the Skylords will stop coming if we don’t mend our ways, Edeard. I know it.” He reached for the decanter again, only to find Edeard’s third hand clamped firmly around it.

“Dinlay will be here soon,” Edeard said. “We’ll talk about the blockade and Our City then.” His farsight already had identified Dinlay walking across the square outside the mansion. “So tell me, do you both still attend the Upper Council?”

Macsen shook his head, on the verge of tears. “Jamico has been going on my behalf this past half year. I couldn’t face it anymore after the vote for the regiment. He’s a good man, and I’m proud to be his father. He’ll do better than I ever did.” His hand swept around in an expansive gesture. “I try and keep up with the petitions, Edeard, really I do, but people expect so much. I am not Rah, but they don’t understand that. They whisper I’m turning my back on them as Bise did. Can you imagine that? To be accused in such a fashion? There’s nothing I can do to stop the insidious, malicious, vicious whispers. It’s Bise’s old people behind it, you know. I’m sure of it.”

Edeard wanted to use his third hand to haul Dinlay through the air to the study’s balcony. Anything to break up this bitter tirade of self-loathing. “Dinlay’s almost here. Speaking of whom …”

“Ha!” Macsen managed half a smile as he shook his head. “You saw her. Exactly the same as all the others. Edeard, I swear on the Lady that somewhere out in the provinces there’s a secret guild that just keeps using the same mold to produce them. How else does he find so many of them?”

Edeard smiled. “A Dinlay-wife-sculpting guild. I like it. But Nanitte’s daughter …?”

“Aye! Ladydamn. I knew it the minute I saw her; she didn’t even have to tell me who she was. It triggered all those memories, the ones I’d tried so hard to forget. Then she claimed she and her mother quarreled incessantly and she couldn’t stand living at home anymore, so she spent the last four years on the road before she came here. Viewing the world, she claims. You know, I was one of the first people she came to. She said her mother had given her the names of people in the city who would help her if she ever got here. Not much of a quarrel, then, eh? I bet the bitch sent her here to ruin us all.”

“Knowing Nanitte, more than likely.” Edeard checked again. Dinlay was through the archway in the dappled gray wall, asking a servant where the master of Sampalok was. “Where did Nanitte make her home eventually?”

“She worked her witch magic on some poor rich bastard in Obershire, apparently. He married her a month after she arrived, and they live in a fine house on a big farming estate.”

“Good for her,” Edeard muttered.

Macsen snorted in contempt.

“But don’t you see?” Edeard responded. “She’s changed. She’s become a part of our society. It’s an acknowledgment we are the right way forward for us all. A timely reminder we mustn’t falter, if you ask me.”

“Whatever,” Macsen said wearily. “Anyway, it took Dinlay all of half a minute to fall head over heels for the daughter. As usual.”

“Well, maybe this time he’ll get it right. He’s certainly had enough practice.”

“Not a Ladydamned chance.”

Edeard remembered the flirtatious smile Hilitte had bestowed on him as they met. Macsen’s right; the omens aren’t good .

Dinlay opened the door, giving Macsen a cautious look.

“Good to see you,” Edeard said, and gave his friend a warm hug.

Dinlay returned the embrace, contentment and relief apparent in his mind. “We really were starting to get worried, you know.”

“I know, and I thank you for that concern. But it’s a big world out there, and we know so little of it. Honestly, the sights I have seen …”

“Really? Tell us!”

“There were huge rock creatures in the southern seas like coral islands that float. I even stood on one. And trees! Lady, the trees on Parath-a whole continent on the other side of Querencia-I swear they were the same height as the tallest tower in Eyrie. And the animals we found. Have you seen the ones we brought back? They were just the small ones. There was something on Maraca, the continent beyond Parath, that was the size of a house. It had blue skin and skulked about in swamps. The jungles, too! Around the equator on Maraca they make Charyau’s temperature look like a mild winter; they’re like steam baths.”

“You’ve never been to Charyau,” Macsen accused.

“But Natran has,” Edeard countered. “And he gifted me the memories.”

“Lady, I wish I’d come with you,” a wistful Dinlay declared.

“I’ve already said that,” Macsen grumbled. “See what happens when you leave us in charge?”

“We’re hardly to blame,” Dinlay said hotly.

Edeard and Dinlay exchanged a private look. “All right,” Edeard sighed. “Tell me what’s been happening in my city.”

The Our City movement had begun soon after the flotilla departed, Dinlay explained. Some argument in Tosella had sparked it off, apparently. A newlywed couple had found themselves a cluster of empty rooms in a big mansion between the Blue Tower and Hidden Canal. The rooms were up in the eaves and had odd split-level floors with a rolling step, which was why they’d never been claimed. However, there was a good-size room at one end where the man could set up his jewelry workshop. But they didn’t register their residency until after the wedding, as was traditional in Makkathran. That was when the trouble started. They came back from their honeymoon and found that a stopover family had moved in.

“Temporary,” Macsen grunted. “That’s all. Two brothers had brought their mother from Fandine province to Makkathran for a Skylord’s guidance. She was arthritic and was succumbing to the onset of dementia. They just missed one Skylord by a week, and there were no approaching Skylords sighted by the Astronomy Guild, so it was probably going to be several months until the next one arrived. In the meantime, the brothers couldn’t afford to rent a tavern room for that long or take one in the new inns out in the villages. The empty rooms were a logical solution.”

“The newlyweds told them to get out,” Dinlay said. “At which point one of the sons went and registered their residency claim with the Board of Occupancy at the Courts of Justice. As they’d lived in the rooms for the required two days and two nights, they were entitled.”

“Oh, Lady,” Edeard moaned. He knew how this tale was going to unfold. There had always been resentment at the number of stopover visitors. He and Mayor Trahaval had talked about the problem before he’d confronted the nest. There hadn’t been an immediate solution, though the inns being built in the coastal towns and out on the Iguru had seemed like a solution that ultimately would solve everything. It was only by the grace of the Lady that there hadn’t been an “incident” like this one back then.

“The jeweler and his new bride both had large families, and they were well connected,” Dinlay continued. “Worse, no other empty cluster of rooms would do-for the newlyweds or the stopover brothers. It had to be this one. So the couple made their stand: Makkathran buildings for Makkathran citizens. It was a popular cause. The stopover brothers and their mother were forcefully evicted. By the time the constables arrived, they were already out on the street and in need of hospital treatment from a beating. The newlyweds were installed along with their furniture, and a huge crowd of their relatives blocked the entrance to the mansion. Not that they really needed to; the constables who arrived on the scene weren’t entirely unsympathetic. All they did was cart off the brothers and their mother.