The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [187]
So of course what's waiting for the Detective in Bangma Bay is a trap. It's a good one this month: locked in the belly of the ship by which the Terrorist came into the city, the Detective chokes on its acids and the miasma of half-digested seaweed and krill, and waits cross-legged to be consumed. Apart from the Terrorist, the ship is full of hungry foreign workers, cargo, tribute. It's usually a ship that brings the enemy; ships are frightening, the sea makes people remember the Inundation, when the city was once, unforgettably, unforgivably, really vulnerable, really wounded ― what, is the Terrorist going to come in by train like an ordinary man?
At the last minute, as always, the Detective breaks free through the intervention of the gods. Yeshe, Opener of Ways, tells the iron door to cease obstructing that holy man and it becomes a curtain and swishes apologetically aside. The gods will always come to Riarnanth's aid; there is never any true danger. When Enif pokes fun at Chalch's reading habits, Chalch likes to point out the valuable moral lessons these stories teach.
Now the Detective draws his knife and goes out into his city to enact his city's vengeance once again, one more time. But Chalch has to step outside too, because a string of firecrackers goes off in a nearby street, then another, and another, bursting over and over with a persistent monotony that's irritating at first, then strange, then frankly disturbing. And when he's finished shouting Stop That! to no one in particular, and returned to his desk, some bastard's stolen his magazine!
The bloody salp-monkeys? Hamoy?
Never mind. He can wait 'til tomorrow to buy a new copy from the man at the stand on Preem. He knows how it ends, anyway; it ends happily.
Chalch sits at his desk, looking out into the murmuring warmth of the night, and without entertainment he quickly grows uneasy.
VIEW 6
Golden Lads All Must... | HAL DUNCAN
KERTEL PERFORMS HIS ABLUTIONS with a haste that counters thoroughness and a thoroughness that counters haste, praying to Chuzdt, the Locust God, to Yeshe, the Opener of Ways, to Nartham the Ever-Remade, to Hazrin and Pakzish, the Great Lovers, and even to the Dardarbji deity, Jaggenuth ― as foolish as that is: Let my song be clean and pure as the fields you have scoured, Chuzdt; let my heart open fully and the song pour freely from it, Yeshe; let the notes skip in a dance of change, joy turned to sorrow, sorrow turned to joy, as flowing-formed, unbound, unbindable as you, Nartham; let it draw Doumani to me, Hazrin, as Pakzish is drawn to you, and, O, Pakzish, as in your heart you tremble for your lover's touch, so let Doumani tremble for my words; and even you, Jaggenuth, even you, if you must judge me, judge me good. Good enough to be a Golden Songboy.
Outside the garret window, the sun is lowering in the east, painting the pagoda roofs and domes and minarets of Riarnanth in a late-afternoon hue that is, to Kertel, the very colour of music, the gold of Doumani's Songboys ― not the gaudy metal lustre of gilded statues and gauche carriages of the high-born, but rather sunlight on sandstone, firelight on marble. It is the colour of the cliffs that tower over Riarnanth and of the city itself, radiant in that too-short time before the Path of Sunset ― the bridge of molten light that stretches from the far horizon and the half-sunk sun, over the Verminous Sea and Bangma Bay, to the docks and shores of Riarnanth ― shimmers and dissolves into the dark of night, and the Festival begins.
Then the citizens and celebrants alike will flood with the flickering torches and the rising shadows along the streets toward the Factors' Dance, pilgrims and populace gathering in an uncountable mass in the great park outside the palace walls, performers and power-mongers strutting down the lanterned path and through the gates, proud to be among the chosen few whether as entertainers or the entertained. One day, Kertel hopes to be among those chosen few ― prays, more like.
There are only a few short hours now