Wraith nodded. “Well. That’s … very good of him, I suppose. But what does it do?”
Solander stared at him. “You’ve never seen …” But perhaps they didn’t have distance viewers in the Warrens. “Once it’s all
together, I’ll be able to look at the screen on the base—right here—and turn these knobs—they adjust for altitude, longitude,
and latitude, you see, based on true north. This one has gross controls and a switch—right over here, you see?—that changes
the knobs over to fine controls, so that you have basically room-to-room capability anywhere within the viewer’s range. And
here—this is your sound capability, so that you can hear what people are saying. Getting the spells for simultaneous sound-and-view
transmission into place has been almost as hard as doing the gross-to-fine coupling link-up to the switch.”
Wraith sighed, and Solander, who’d become absorbed in the explanation of his new piece of equipment, looked over to find that
the Warrener looked exasperated.
“What?”
“What can you
do
with it?” Wraith asked. “What’s it good for?”
“Oh.” Solander felt just a bit stupid. “You can watch people with it. This one has a range of about fifteen furlongs—pretty
good, really. You can get amplifiers that let you see farther away than that, but a lot of them ruin the purity of your main
signal—” He caught himself and said, “You can turn the viewer to anyplace you’d like to watch, and if that place isn’t shielded
by magic, you can see what the people there are doing—and with this model, you can also hear what they’re saying.”
“When they’re outside?” Wraith asked.
“It wouldn’t be much good if it only worked when they were outside. No, you can see inside, too. No place like here, of course—my
father has shields on top of shields around this place. All the Dragons do. And a lot of the other people who live in the
Aboves, too—the ones who know about things like the distance viewers. They aren’t too happy about the idea that someone might
be watching them at any time.”
“I can understand that,” Wraith said.
“But it’s a lot of fun,” Solander told him. “And you can learn some interesting things by focusing on places that aren’t shielded.”
Wraith gave Solander a doubtful look. “I bet.”
“You don’t sound like you like the idea much.”
“I don’t. The fact that someone might have been watching me at any time—”
Solander stopped him. “Not a chance. The Warrens are shielded.”
Wraith looked startled. “They are?”
Solander nodded.
“Just like the houses of the richest and most powerful people in the world?”
Solander nodded again.
“Why?”
Solander, dumbfounded, couldn’t come up with an answer to that. He had never even considered the strangeness of the fact that
an entire section of the city had a shield around it as solid as the shield his father had cast around their house. “I … that’s
a really good question,” he said. “Once you and your friends have moved in, we’ll find out.”
“Me and my
friend,
” Wraith corrected. “I lost one right after I left to get food the last time.”
Solander didn’t catch his meaning. “Lost? Lost how?”
“He gave up. He went back to the houses, and he went back to Sleep.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad. When will he be back with you?”
Wraith said, “Never. He’s too old. If Jess and I tried to wake him up now, he’d die. Just like my brother.”
Solander considered that and tried to understand what Wraith might mean. “That doesn’t make sense. What kind of sleep don’t
people wake up from?”
Wraith said, “The food in the Warrens makes people Sleep their whole lives away. They have their eyes open, they can follow
the instructions of the prayer-lights and the dictates of the gods, but when they aren’t being told what to do, they don’t
do anything. They sit. They stare ahead of them. For their entire lives, they just sit and stare ahead of them.”
Solander shuddered. “How many people does this happen to?”
“All of them. Mothers give their babies Way-fare as soon as they’re born, and the babies don’t cry. They sleep, they wake,
the mothers give them Way-fare just like the prayer-lights tell them to, and the babies grow up to be children who walk in
lines to classes where they learn command words, and how to bathe, and how to move while they’re sitting so they don’t get
sores on their bodies, and how to use a toilet, and how to flush it when they’re done. And how to take their own disposable
bowls, and get their own Way-fare from the taps.”
Wraith closed his eyes, remembering the endless, repetitious droning of the gods who spoke through the prayer-lights: “Time
now to get out of bed. Walk in place. Walk. Walk. Walk. Go to piss and move your bowels now, each in turn. Form a line, and
wait patiently until the door opens in front of you. Wait. Wait. Wait. Eat your Way-fare now. Two bowls each for people this
tall, and one bowl for people
this
tall,” with the lights flashing the correct heights, “and in a disposable bottle mixed with water for those no taller than
this. Remember to feed littles who cannot feed themselves. Don’t forget the littles. Don’t forget. Don’t forget. Don’t forget.”
He shook off the memory. He and Jess needed papers that said they belonged in the Aboves. They needed a story that would allow
them to blend in with Solander’s enormous extended family. They needed a way out of the Warrens, and the person who got them
out would first have to get in—no easy task.
Solander sat there shaking his head. He said nothing—he had no words that could comfort someone who had lived in such a hell.
All he could do was keep Wraith and his friend from having to go back. He was fifteen years old, and he had no illusions about
his ability to find the person he needed on his own. He lived a sheltered life of privilege, far from the sort of people he
was going to need. He spent his time in study and practice of the things his parents felt would give him the world when he
became old enough to take it—his father’s magic, his mother’s philosophy. Even within his own family, he had few friends.
But he did have one person he thought could help him: a distant cousin a few years older than he, whose secret interests had
taken her out of the Aboves and introduced her to the sort of people Solander figured he would never meet on his own. She
and he got along well enough—he impressed her with his ambition and his talents for magic; they both enjoyed a good debate
over the importance of the
Ruminations of Chedrai
and the
Tosophi Feschippi Tagottgoth
. Most importantly for his needs at the moment, however, he had recently caught this cousin, named Velyn Artis-Tanquin, with
a boy from the Belows doing things that would have cost her any hope of making a permanent alliance among the right families,
and that would have, most likely, forced her parents to cut her off and find placement for her among one of the cadet branches
of their line overseas. He had not only looked the other way, but had supplied an excellent alibi for her when her parents
had heard a rumor that she had broken family law.
She owed him. A lot. Enough, he thought, that he could trust her to help him out and keep the secrets that he needed to have
her keep.
He sent word via one of the servants that the friend he’d wanted her to meet had arrived, and not long after, she tapped at
his door.
Velyn, tall and lithe and golden-skinned, with a silken curtain of copper hair that hung far below her waist and copper eyes
flecked with gold, sauntered into the room and Wraith fell silent in midsyllable, his mouth open and his eyes wide. Solander
wanted to laugh—Velyn had that effect on a lot of men, both young and old.
“Dear cousin,” she said, “you interrupted me as I was winning at dice. Another roll and I should have had all of Drumonn’s
weekly allotment.”
“And Drumonn’s mother would have cried foul and made you give it back,” Solander said. “This is my friend Wraith—the one I
told you needed help. Wraith, this is my cousin Velyn. Don’t play cards or dice with her. She cheats terribly.”
“Untrue,” Velyn said, smiling at Wraith. “I cheat very well—that’s why I win so often. I’m delighted to meet you.”
Solander watched Wraith’s pale face go vivid red. “I’m … yes,” he said, and faltered to a stop.
Velyn tipped her head and her smile grew broader. “You should remember how you did that,” she said after a moment. “It makes
a woman feel like she’s the most beautiful creature in the world.”
The red of Wraith’s face grew even redder, to Solander’s amazement and amusement, but he did find his words at last. “That’s
only because you are.” He was looking her straight in the eye when he said that, and to Solander he sounded completely sincere.
Velyn blushed. This stunned Solander; Velyn hadn’t even blushed when he’d caught her and her young man wearing little pieces
of next to nothing and doing things that Solander doubted were legal even when both participants belonged to the Registry
of Names. She stood there staring at Wraith, and Solander saw something pass between them: some spark, some understanding.
He wondered what Velyn would do when she discovered that Wraith wasn’t even Second Registry, but was from the Warrens—so far
below her that she should never have even been able to lay eyes on him.
“Wraith and I and a friend of his need your help,” Solander said when it became apparent that both Wraith and Velyn would
be content to stand in his room looking at each other like the long-lost lovers in a bad play. “You have access passes to
the aircars, and you know people. Wraith and his friend Jess need Registry papers. Good ones. Good enough that both of them
could move in here. And Jess is going to need transport, too—and from someplace even you might have a hard time getting into.”
Velyn at last looked away from Wraith. “What sort of story do you want to provide with the papers?”
“Both of them sent over here by their parents from Glismirg or the Cath Colony in Ynjarval or someplace in Tartura or Benedicta.
They’re on hardship grants because of their families, and they’re to take general training and make contacts to better their
family lines, and then move to advanced training in whatever they show aptitude for.”
“Cadet branches all right with you?”
“Better than first lines, I would think,” Solander said. “After all, Uncle Non is more likely to check their papers if they’re
first lines—try to keep in touch with their parents, make sure they’re getting all the attention they need. If they’re cadet
branches, he’ll just check to make sure their parents actually exist.”
“They won’t get top-tier rooms.”
“We want them to be as close to invisible as we can make them while still giving them the privileges of the place. If they
were top tier, too many people would want to know them.”
Velyn nodded. She didn’t ask Solander why he’d chosen her for this enormous favor—she already knew that. She did not question
his reasons for wanting to do this thing; she seemed completely incurious about his reasons, in fact, whereas had he been
asked a similar favor, he would have been dying to know the story behind it. She simply leaned against the doorframe, stared
off at nothing, and gnawed on the middle knuckle of her index finger. “I don’t know anyone right off who does false papers,”
she said, “but I know a few people who probably do know the right people. I’ll need a day or two, probably—and this will be
expensive.”
“I’ll pay. I haven’t spent any of my last few months’ allotment.”
“Good.” She frowned. “As for transport, where do I have to get his friend from?”
Solander hesitated for a moment. If she was going to refuse him, it would be over this. Then he shrugged. He could only ask.
“The Warrens.”
She laughed. “Right. Seriously, where? I’ll need to get an aircar with the right clearances, so I’ll have to know in advance.”
“The Warrens,” Solander repeated.
“I can’t get a car that will go into the Warrens. That’s absolutely off limits. That would be like trying to fly into the
Dragons’ Experimental Station airspace. You simply cannot go there.”
“That’s where we have to go.”
“You’re mad. Even if we could get there, we’d be killed. They have riots, murders, mobs in the streets, people who rip the
arms and legs off of anyone who isn’t from there, criminal squads, every imaginable form of vice….”
“I watch the nightlies,” Solander said. “But that’s where we have to go.”
He glanced over at Wraith, who looked bewildered. “Mobs in the streets? Riots? What are you talking about?”
“The Warrens,” Solander said. “All the killings, the rapes, the … Why are you shaking your head like that?”
“The only people who walk on the streets are the guards—and children who are going to or from lessons. Killings? Rapes? Riots?
The Warrens are so quiet, if you stood at one wall and shouted, you could be heard by someone standing down the same road
at the other wall. Sometimes people from outside sneak in, but then they can’t get back out, and they end up eating the Way-fare
and watching the daily prayers and lessons, and they turn into Sleepers, too.”
Velyn smiled at him—the smile of an older person to a younger one who is sadly misinformed about something of common knowledge.
“I cannot imagine where you got such silly information—” she started to say, but Solander cut her off.
“He’s from the Warrens.”
“He can’t be. Warreners would never be allowed up here. He’d be stopped by the gates.”
“The gates don’t work on him,” Solander admitted, and Velyn now stared as if told that the world around here was all merely
a figment of her imagination.
“What are you talking about?”
“He can walk right through them. They go off, but the wards don’t touch him.”
“Does your father know? Do any of the Dragons know?”
“No,” Solander said, “and I don’t want them to. Wraith is going to let me try to figure out how he does what he does, which
is going to get me into the Academy in a top slot. In exchange, he and his friend are going to live here. But you have to
help me.” Solander leaned forward and stared into her eyes, willing her to realize how desperately he needed her help. “This
is important, Velyn. Maybe the most important thing I’ll ever have a chance to do in my life.”