The town in the bones of a skyscraper was called Lohome. We wandered through a marketplace when the stalls were covered by tarps secured to exposed rebar. When the rain would come, the makeshift umbrellas would get covered in rust colored water running off the old structure. It made the place look dyed in blood.358Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfjzcmcwAmN
The people were grateful to have our business. They were much more civilized than the others I’d encountered so far. Despite that, they still stared at us. No one confronted us or accosted us, but their eye-bugging was no comfort to my nerves.
We found lodging in the remains of a coffee shop. There were bunks pressed up against the wall and blankets made out of burlap strung between them for privacy. Djince approached a man behind the counter and I had a strange sense of deja vu. I’d never taken deja vu lightly. I took out my ring as Djince talked to the man and I held it up to my eye.
The coffee shop was restored in the view of my ring. I was in line with a couple other people and there was a barista with braces behind the counter making coffee. Djince Kallos was second in line. I blinked a few times, thinking maybe I was just seeing things, but he was there! He was wearing a black oversuit and his dark hair was long, pulled back into a messy bun. His face was clean, his green eyes mischievous and bright. He got to the counter and he smiled at the barista before he began to speak. He flashed a credit chip at the kid behind the counter and Braces grinned at him and proffered the insert. Two seconds later and he walked toward me with two coffees in his hands, his expression bored with the tedium of commuting back to wherever he’d been before.
I stepped back and turned to follow him, but was stopped when a gloved hand gripped my shoulder. I spun around and Djince kept me from knocking him over as I yelped in surprise. I saw him sigh--it wasn’t a sound loud enough to register through his mouth piece. He said, “Here. Now. Focus.”
“I saw you!” I said excitedly. “I saw you in the ring!”
“You see me right now,” Djince told me, steering me to a door at the back of the coffee shop.
“Yes, yes. But I mean, I saw you in an oversuit! You were here… a hundred years ago. You were buying coffee...” I trailed off. “You got us a private room?” I asked, looking about the space.
It had an old gas heater in the corner of the room and there were three mattresses and a small lazy chair. All of the beds had sheets and blankets and actual polyester-stuffed pillows. I went over to the heater and put my hands against it. It was warm to the touch, but not too hot. I fluffed a pillow and pressed a hand into one of the mattresses. I sat in the chair and pulled the lever. The leg didn’t pop up--there was just a sad twang--but it did rock and spin, which was really something.
Djince was still standing in the doorway. After I stood before him, he set his saddle next to my abandoned one near the door and pulled his helmet off. He was sweating for the heat and shook the moisture off his gear before throwing it on one of the beds. He ruffled a hand through his hair as he sniffed and looked around. “Not a bad place?” he asked me. He had a shyness about him, a vulnerability. I could tell he was trying to make me feel better even if he didn’t know why I was feeling down… and he didn’t know if it was working.
It was, for the record’s blessed sake.
“No,” I agreed and hugged him. He smelled like dirt and sweat and ripe fruit. It wasn’t an altogether unpleasant smell, but it made me painfully aware that I smelled like rotting onions and pine tar. I said into his blue duster, “How much did this cost us?”
He pushed me away from him, a guilty smile on his face. “All the rifles.”
I blinked. “For one night.”
He held up three fingers, not daring to meet my eyes.
“Oh dear,” I said. I put a hand to my chin. “Well… three days is enough time to do some odd jobs around the area, right? Work for our keep?” I poked him in the chest. “How much food did we get?”
“Two weeks.” He frowned at me. “Where’ve you been?”
“Looking through the ring,” I said.
Djince frowned at me, his mouth turning serious and disproving.
I let him see my palms. “What?” I asked innocently.
He shook his head. “I… don’t…” He sighed and said, “Be careful.”
“I’m being careful. It’s not like it can do anything to me now.”
“Except make you quiet,” he said as he pulled his duster off and threw it on the chair.
“What’s wrong with being quiet? You’re quiet all the time.”
After closing the door, Djince sat down on his mattress and started pulling his boots off. I’d never seen him pull his boots off before. He must have thought the place was safe. He let out a breath of contentment as he stretched out on the mattress and put his hands to his head. “Tell me about the Inkmen.”
“So we’re not going to talk about why I saw you in the ring?”
“I don’t know how you saw me in the ring,” he said, looking at me through his fingers.
“Don’t know, or don’t remember?”
He shrugged.
“Then how can you be sure?”
“I can’t be. Is that what you want to hear?” He sat back up and said, “Even if it was me, I don’t remember the time before. Not like you do.”
I treated him to a dark laugh. “Right… My memory’s been so useful so far.” I went to the mattress closest to the heater. I sat down and pulled my shoes off and set them next to it so they’d be warm in the morning. Then I put my face in my hands. “I can’t believe this is happening… I’m treating a coffee shop’s storage closet like a damned castle… and you’re trying to cheer me up and I’m not letting you.” I pulled off my ring and tossed it over my shoulder. “Take it from me… please. I can’t be fucking trusted with it.”
I heard it clink a couple times and then roll to a stop. I heard a scrape as Djince got to his feet. He sat down behind me and the mattress squeaked in protest. He gently put his hand on my shoulder. He had the ring between forefinger and thumb. His hand felt heavy and reassuring. I leaned back against him.
I wiped at my nose with the sleeve of my jacket and laughed a little. “I thought… I thought for a second that you were a god… and you just couldn’t remember, like me. That ring… is making me misremember things. It’s just showing me what I want to see, isn’t it?” I felt myself crying and I couldn’t make it stop. “I thought… Oh wow… Maybe I’m not so fucking alone!” I choked on a laugh and pressed my sleeve to my mouth. “I was… never like this, I want you to know.” I sucked in a short breath. “I was strong. I never let anything touch me… and now this damned world is in me and I feel so… powerless.”
Djince just wiggled the ring at me, tapped my wet cheek with it. “You’re not powerless,” he said evenly. “And you’re not alone.” Then he palmed the ring and got up. I looked over my shoulder at him. He pulled a necklace out from under his shirt, a bobble of some kind dangling from it. He unclasped the chain and looped the ring onto it before pulling the necklace back over his head and tucking it into his shirt. He met my gaze and patted his chest. “If you need it.”
I nodded and wiped at my face. “Thank you.”
“Mm,” he grunted before he flopped back down on his mattress and waved a finger at our saddle bags. “Eat some jerky.”
“Jerky?”
“Mhm.”
“You got real food?”
“Mhm.”
“What did I ever do to deserve you?”
He craned his head up to look at me across his chest. He looked confused at first, but then he smiled mischievously and there was a bright glint in his green eyes. “Nothing,” he said.358Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEFPnc0t0vq
Over the next couple of days, we ran errands for the locals in Lohome. They were wary at first, which was to be expected. Djince’s blue duster was a symbol of the Kallos family, and that family was much higher on the House Veris totem pole than Djince and Ethis had initially let on. The brothers had been couriers by choice, not by charge, and they had worn their power across their shoulders.358Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4PxYv9sn6S
Most folk were humble enough not to question the assistance of a Verisian courier. Other times, we were accused of grave robbing. Djince usually roughed those people up. I couldn’t really blame him either. All of our accusers couldn’t exactly be described as charming.
The worst people could do was tell us to leave their shop alone. At the best of times, we got a free meal and ammunition. We delivered letters, pushed carts, moved textiles, and oiled horses. Anything that could be done in an hour was done on the spot. All other tasks were prioritized and dealt with in time. At one point, we were patching up an old woman’s tarp and Djince looked at me as I was standing on a ladder. He said, “Tell me about the Inkmen.”
“Right now?” I put the handle of a brush charged with glue in my mouth as I situated a patch.
Holding it in place, waiting for it to adhere, Djince took the brush from me with his other hand and said, “Tell me.”
“I created them to be repositories of information,” I said, taking the brush from him to paint another piece of plastic. He took the brush from me as I placed the patch over another hole and held it there. “They called them Inkmen because their pneumatic system was filled with black hydraulic fluid. I’m the God Scribe. Scribes write with ink. Inkmen.”
Djince gave me back the brush and asked, “What were they like?”
“You saw them… More or less like that.”
Djince gave me a frustrated sigh and asked, “Were they alive? Did they think? Feel? Why were they helping soldiers? Why did you make them? How many were there? Did they all look like that? How did people treat them? Did you create anything else? Why did they--?”
I put a hand up with a surprised laugh, forestalling any more questions. I gave him the glue brush and he recharged it in its can. When he handed it back to me, I asked, “You really want to know, don’t you? You’re not just asking to make me feel better?”
“Both,” Djince said after a moment of serious contemplation. Then, after a moment of hesitation, he said to the ladder, “You miss them.”
I felt a deep stab in my chest and blinked away moisture as I painted another patch and set it against the tarp. Djince was looking at me when I turned my attention back to him. He looked worried. I wanted to reach out and smooth the wrinkle between his eyes, but then my hands were full. I handed him the brush and said, “I do.”
We waited for the patch to dry before he handed me the brush again and asked, “So… will you tell me about them?”
I smiled wanly at him and nodded once.
ns18.218.54.80da2
