Anna Smaill - The Chimes

I nearly bump into a cluster of moonies crosslegged at the entrance to the artefacts hall. There in a circle in their ragged white robes they rock forward and back with the high blank trance in their white-banded faces. As I pass, they make the sign in front of their faces: five-fingered starbursts where their eyes would be, and in front of their closed lips, speaking their dumb sacrifice in the only way they can.

They hear me coming and the leader’s hand darts out for the begging saucer of measly tokens and pulls it in under his cloak. They shuffle back under the green-painted wood arch, their hands starbursting their surrender. They make me angry. So deep in thrall to Chimes that they hold any other sense to be blasphony. A hot feeling like shame and I hiss as I pass them like the kids do, and spit to my side to get rid of the white cloud of salt that’s in my mouth.

And all the while I’m listening for a disturbance, a shift in the fabric, someone communicating they’re there by their absence, their silence. It’s illegal to carry the Lady except for trade. And as steady a current as the river, the channels of trade carry the Lady back up to the Order, to the Citadel. I keep Lucien’s face in my mind like a beacon.

All my senses are prickling and I walk on the very toes of my thin plimsolls, into the artefacts hall. The vendor and his prentiss there with a bunch of old electricks nobody has any use for. Only a dark-haired woman with a cloth board covered in spoons and jewellery is doing any trade. I am losing my focus and stop, allow myself to become invisible again.

He’s there. I can feel him waiting in the shadows about ten beats away before I see him. Nondescript. He’s wearing grey travelling clothes and he’s humming. It’s only if you’re listening for it that you hear the Lady’s interval in the tune.

He hasn’t heard or seen me, which is good. Trade goes better when you take the lead. I walk forward nonchalant, as if to inspect some of the electricks, until I’m standing direct in front of the dealer. This is how it’s done. No eyes, not until the end. I whistle the common tradesong, a comeallye that all the pacts know, rough and a bit crude, but effective. ‘ You need. You want. You need. We’ve got ,’ is what it says.

Around it I weave a few teases from our own comeallye. Not enough to give anything away but enough of a reminder that ours is the best run of the river. And in there too there’s the silvery interval, an answer to the dealer’s casual hum, and really the most important of all. The advertisement of our wares, the Pale Lady.

Ignoring me with disdain, the dealer continues humming to himself. But this is all part of the ritual. I know that he’s heard me because his melody shifts and beckons. And though I don’t remember his face, I know his song. Ellis uses a simple blue tune on the five-note scale that dealers favour. But he can’t seem to keep a weariness out of it. He’s uncomfortable — he thinks this work is beneath him, he’s past prentiss age, and he’s worried he’s missed a safer line of work.

Then, like that, the courtship is over. ‘How much do you have?’ Ellis asks, underbreath. I turn to see that he has pushed himself upright from the wall and stands with eyes eager. He has recognised me, but he seems confused. ‘Five Rover? Are you here alone?’

I ignore the question. ‘I’ve got five measures of solid,’ I say. ‘Two smaller pure nuggets.’ He is looking for Lucien, I think, and I tense.

‘Let’s see,’ he says, gesturing with impatience.

I glare blankly ahead. I need to take control. He wouldn’t hurry Lucien. I pull the pouch from my T-shirt and unloose it. Ellis reaches under his travelling cloak and offers a small wooden tray. I brush it clear of imaginary specks, blow in it twice. Then I balance the wooden tray with its blue field of velvet carefully and place each piece of palladium we’ve found this eightnoch. The pieces glow quietly. They seem hungry, each pulse taking in a gulp of silence. It’s like the feeling of water entering your ears — a bubble of air, a glotted stop.

Ellis doesn’t make any attempt to take the tray, just stands tacet. His hand plays over the ore as if he’s caressing the glow itself. The gesture reminds me of the moonies’ starburst eyeburst hands, and I hear a note of warning in my head: Get the trade done and get away.

Then Ellis looks from the Lady and into the far corner of the artefacts hall. My stomach hitches. ‘Hey,’ I hiss. ‘Do you want to deal or not? I can take this elsewhere, you know.’

Ellis shakes his head. I look past him. Who is standing there where I cannot see?

My heart starts up and I rake pieces of Pale.

‘That’s fine. Store’s shut. Moving on.’

Ellis snaps into focus. ‘No, no, no.’ He puts a hand over mine, turns it, studies the nugget.

‘The quality of the three-ounce nugget is pretty low. The others are median,’ he says, speaking presto. ‘The smaller are superfine, but they’re only a few grammes each. I’ll take the lot from you for forty tokens.’

I cough. Lucien said not to drive for more than twenty-five. Everything in me is saying to take the tokens and run. But I need to move careful. Like when you’re clearing snares. No sudden movements. ‘It’s not much debased,’ I say, keeping my voice calm. ‘I’d put it at 0.85 pure. And it’s rare to find nuggets that size now. They go for more if they’re whole like that. Forty-five, for all.’

‘Yes, then. Done.’ Ellis’s voice is clipped, scared.

I hold the tray and shift back and forth. He counts the tokens, leafing them out lento, and he takes a step nearer for the exchange. And then it’s been going on too long. I reach for the money presto and just as I do it, his hand shoots up and closes round my wrist. His grip cold but hard, and I feel the strength of his arm like a bar of mettle. Quick as a flash I bring my other arm up and I flick the tray high into the air. The Lady carves silver arcs of silence into the air so they seem to hang above us for a moment, and in that moment I twist out of his grip, turn heels, run.

I pull the whistle from my neck as I sprint down the hall. Blow a cooee for the others as I go. The crowds fold round me and I don’t look back to see if Ellis, or whoever gave him orders, is following. I pound it down through the market, people turning to watch me go, whooping and egging me on. It’s not till I get to the vegetable vendors at the entrance that I let myself stop, listen, breathe. Echoes of the Lady play through the market. I don’t wait to find whether it’s getting closer.

When I’m down by the railbridge with lungs and ears straining, I cooee again and at last there’s footfall behind me. White faces of Clare and Brennan. We beat back to Dog Isle presto, jogging all the way.

The white of the day has some pink in it as we enter the race, and the storehouse is there like an old friend waiting. We get inside and close up the door. Brennan hefts the heavy mettle bolt into place and it falls with a straining creak.

No one speaks as they lift market goods from their packs. To me, their movements seem wrong, behind the beat. My head is racing onward. Where is Lucien? Clare lifts out two rabbits, a string of sausages, pig’s dripping. Brennan unpacks white loaves, walnuts, sacks of flour, a stickwrap bag of apples, bunches of herbs, carrots, potatoes.

We say nothing and we pack the things away into their places in the kitchen so that everything is square.

Night comes with no Lucien. I think of what he told me last night about Chimes taking memory. But if it does and is thus to be dreaded, why does he follow it so close with us, carving out Onestory each day? And his solfege for the changing chords of Vespers. How is it so clear and accurate that it’s like he sees the music almost before it comes?