Last to Rise(31)
“Vote of confidence so noted.”
“And ignored, right?”
I shrugged – she had me there. But she was my sister, still young enough to worry about me, and it shone plain as plain in her eyes. So, being a good big brother, I said, “I will, I promise. Later,” and gave her shoulders a squeeze with my good hand. “You too.”
“Hmph. I will, because I know I can’t work right if I don’t. You, I’m not so sure.”
She glared at me, promising a future tongue-lashing should I dare to ignore her, but she said nothing else before I left. And not for my lumpy sofa.
Chapter Eight
The office was quiet at that time of night, which I was grateful for. Lastri had gone home; the walkway outside was empty. The only sounds were Dendal humming and scratching away in his corner and a series of boom-shudders that made all the pens on my desk roll on to the floor.
It was all very well for everyone to tell me to sleep, to eat. But there was almost nothing to eat, nothing I wanted to eat certainly, only the half-dream, half-dastardly promise of Perak’s that out there, somewhere, was bacon walking around. Sleep wasn’t going to happen either. So I dunked my head in icy water from the tap in the kitchen to wake myself up, grabbed the note with the possible address of a possible mage on it and headed out. At least having an address meant I shouldn’t have to fire up any more juice, my hand could have a rest and I was doing something to take my mind off everything else. Sod Perak telling me to stay put, to stay safe. I did a little bit of rearrangement, made my face someone else’s, and went.
Going down into Boundary was an education. I’d lived in those shitty parts of the city most of my life, seen all sorts, from murders and gangs running wild to riots and priests going crazy because they couldn’t believe the Goddess would allow such awfulness. But I’d never seen the walkways so full of silent fear, never smelled it so sharply in the crappy air, and long before I made it into Boundary.
I made a slight detour – there was something I wanted to see. On the other side of the city from where the Storad were camped there was another gate, a mirror of it. Small, almost unnoticed until recently. Not unnoticed now, because everyone I saw on the street was heading towards it, towards what they’d until lately thought was just a dead end, because Outside officially didn’t exist. Far-off, mythical, unreal. But with missiles arrowing their way in from what was patently not inside the city, the populace had rapidly accepted the unofficial idea that Outside was real, and if there was an Outside, there must be a way to get to it that didn’t involve getting shot by the Storad.
There was. The Mishan gate.
The streets on the city side of the inner gates were a heaving crush of people that cringed together at every boom-shudder that came across from the Storad gate. The Mishan gate itself wasn’t open – if it were, those people would have been through in a flash – but a small postern was, with a heavy metal grille across it. Mishan guards stood behind the grille, and a string of them kept the crowd away from the front, though they were in danger of being crushed by the sheer panic of the press behind them. Being in Mahala was being a rat in a trap just then, and this gate was the only hope for thousands, though it was hope for almost none. No one was being let through. Not here at least. I had no doubt there was another entrance somewhere else, somewhere quiet, somewhere Over. Somewhere the cardinals could sneak through and hand over their bribes, get the hell out before everyone died. At least I hadn’t been one of the bribes. Not yet anyway.
Rumours abounded in the crowd – the Mishans would let you through if you had money, if you had connections. The Mishans weren’t letting anyone through. The Storad would leave Under alone, had no desire to attack the downtrodden masses. The Storad would rip through Under like fire in a forest. The Storad ate babies. We should let the Storad in, let them kill every Ministry man they found, and then we’d all be all right. The moon was made of cheese.
These and other even more outlandish rumours flashed along the cramped streets and walkways that shivered with the load, the whispering of them the only sound. The gate looked half formed and vague in the darkness. Once it had looked much like any other part of the city, hidden in plain sight, but now it was laid bare so all could see what it was. Like an optical illusion, once you saw the trick you wondered how you couldn’t have seen it before. Because people hadn’t believed in Outside or ways to get to it, the gate hadn’t been there. Now they did believe, now no one was hiding it but flaunting it, it was obvious.