Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

The search took Donovan to a part of town that the touristas would have shunned, had there been any tourists desperate enough to visit Ketchell. Construction standards across the Confederation were unimaginative but solid, yet even plasteel and metaloceramic could take on a decrepit appearance when too little attention was paid to their upkeep. Façades became darker from grime and neglect. Here and there, a splash of color around some doorframe or window or a brightly polished god only served to heighten the general drabness.

The people with whom he mingled were a close and solitary lot, each intent on his or her own personal mission, lifting no eye for a passing stranger but giving the Fudir as if by instinct a wider berth. Not even the body over which they stepped engaged their attentions.

In a few places, the buildings were coming down. A couple were demolition sites with large machines idling on rubble-strewn lots, but most were a more spontaneous and involuntary dismemberment. Where the foundations were exposed, Donovan noted older foundations buried deeper in the ground.

This was a city with a long past, he thought, but a short future.

He found the promised daforni —what he would have called a “pub”—along the northeast end of the waterfront, where the ground-car wires ended and only walkways penetrated the warren of tumbledown shanties. It was called “The Severed Arm” and above its entrance a well-muscled arm, clench fisted and flexed, extended toward the street. It had once been painted in lifelike colors, something between bronze and tan, but the years of dirt and sea-brine had tarnished it and it seemed now as if gangrene had set in.

When Donovan entered, all activity within ceased and eyes turned toward him. No one came to The Severed Arm by happenstance, and the patrons paused to assess his significance. After allowing time for a sufficient appraisal, Donovan stepped up to the bar, taking a position from which he could watch the entire room. The bartender ignored Donovan until he slapped a five- bayzho coin on the bar. This was a part of Ketchell that preferred its transactions manual and untraceable.

“Ẽgrizhdahl o’uizhgy, borva.” He employed the Late Murkan dialect still used in parts of the Northern Mark continent. The “please” seemed to amuse the bartender, but he feigned a lack of understanding, so the Fudir ordered the whiskey in Manjrin. “In clean glass,” he added.

The bartender set a tumbler down, and the amber fluid sloshed over the rim and spattered the bar top. “It’s alcohol,” he said. “Sanitizes the glass.”

The Fudir lifted the glass and, as he sipped, mentioned a name.

The bartender shook his head. “Never heard ’f him.”

Before he could turn away, the Fudir said, in the accents and rhythms of Old Eighty-two, “He should be grieved to hear so.”

It was an unlooked-for retort and surprise stayed the bartender’s motion. “How so?”

“The thing that he does, he must do. Else they will come here on the seek, to this very place, disturbing the peace of mind of many.”

The bartender laid a thick forearm on the table and leaned upon it. “And if he does do it?”

“Then those whom they will seek will be gone from this place, never to brighten its precincts again, never to trouble you the more.”

“That end may be reached,” the bartender suggested, “with less effort and greater profit.” He smiled, but his teeth were like the line of northern ice astride the far horizon.

No,said the Brute, it could not.

The bartender looked into his eyes for a moment, then shrugged. “Ah. The Terran Foo-lin! Him I may know.”

“There are many Foo-lins,” the Fudir allowed. “A man might not know them all.”

The bartender reached under the bar. “Art thou a Terran, also?” he asked in the Tongue.

The Fudir might have happily assented to this, but Inner Child seized control. «I don’t understand.»

The bartender relaxed infinitesimally. “I asked if you was a Terran.”

“This is Terra, no? Are not all here Terrans?”

“This world is called Zãddigah.”

“That only means ‘New Earth’ in the old Cant.”

“If it does, then new it is. I will explain because you are an Eighty-second and so, ignorant. The Old Terrans left this world to wander off among the stars. Our ancestors came from worlds nearby, and we inherited the earth. A remnant of the Terrans also remained who preserved old ways—as if they were still the lords of all creation—until they learned their new place on the New Earth. Across the Rift are some who style themselves Terrans, and they would come here if they could and seize our homes, save that our faithful boots prevent them.” He reached into a pocket and produced a flat, dull metallic disk. “Here. This sigil will direct you to the man called Foo-lin. But go wary of him.”

“He is a Terran, you say.”

“He is. He worships the vanished Commonwealth like all his tribe, but he at least knows it has vanished. Go now, before you draw your pursuers to this place.”

The disk lighted with an arrow that directed Donovan toward the storied Foo-lin. Much of the scarred man followed it, while his remainder kept watch on shadows and alleys. The expected ambush came less than five blocks from The Severed Arm.

Three men whom Inner Child had noticed earlier slipping out the rear of the daforni leapt dagger drawn upon him. Surely, a man who sought the service of Foo-lin would carry much portable money on his person, for Foo-lin was among those who shunned the traceable sort.

But the Brute had been waiting for the moment and at the first squeak from Inner Child—as a shadow moved within a shadow—he swung into a kick, disarming the first and breaking his arm. The second man he dispatched with a backhand fist and the third by driving his bunched knuckles into the man’s solar plexus.

It was the work of a moment, and the three were lying on the brickwork adding their vomit to the dried blood of past attacks. Donovan bent over them.

“Tell your master that he gave you too much time with his story of Old Earth, and that you grew restless in your concealment, thus betraying your position. Tell him that those who will betime notice my absence are not mere policemen, but Shadows of the Names. They will know I passed through The Severed Arm. It may be a matter of some few days before they come, but come they will. Tell the taverner to take what measures he sees fit.”

The moans of his three attackers increased in pitch and Donovan left them there. He did not know if any of them would return to warn The Severed Arm, nor did he care.

He followed the sigil deeper into the warren, but at a certain shop, a late-night daga, he heard men speaking in the Tongue. He paused and dropped the name of Foo-lin in their ears and received in return flat-faced stares and, from one man, a slight nod toward the right.

Outside the shop, armed now with a warmed peach pastry, he checked the sigil. It too directed him to the right. He shrugged. Perhaps the directions were genuine after all. Undoubtedly, the bartender received a portion of Foo-lin’s fee and, while deprived of the whole of Donovan’s purse by the failure of his cutthroats, he would at least garner his commission. Wise is the man who profits from either side of a wager.

Foo-lin was located in the basement of an abandoned apartment house. Perhaps it had once held supplies or boilers or comm.junctions. What it held now was the equipment that Foo-lin required to practice his trade: scalpels, anesthetics, stitchers, a white ring that was no longer quite white.