The Forlorn(5)

To Keilin the sea was no place of romance. It was symbolized by the garbage tide he and other scavengers picked at along the littered shore opposite the quays. He had fantasies about those mountains however . . . all those trees, and running water . . . surely that was the place where his dreams could come true? He looked out into the heat haze. He couldn't see the mountains today, but that was where he was going. This afternoon, as soon as the library closed, he'd start looking for a map to get him there. He slipped back down the chimney and into sleep, secure in his optimism.

He got busy as soon as the doors below clicked shut. Gradually the optimism was eaten away as he realized that the atlases were at least three hundred years out of date. The surveyors hadn't been aware that the planet had millennia-long alternating pluvial and dry cycles. The wet cycle had ended nearly two hundred and fifty years ago. The maps also held little in the way of guidance for a boy who would have to travel on foot. He sat peering at an array of them in anger and frustration. Why, they were all rubbish! They showed two rivers crossing the desert, the Tinarana, and the Syrah. The Syrah River was supposed to come out a few miles south of the city. But he'd stared out toward the mountains often enough to know there was no green line into the yellow-brown there, just a dusty valley. And this map showing vegetation types indicated the desert as "dry savannah." He'd had to look the word up. Bloody drivel! Everyone knew that ten miles inland there was only sand and more sand.

He'd have to chance it up the Tinarana. But the caravans only went up to the Thunder Gorge, some hundred and fifty miles away. Above this the river had cut so deeply into the rock of the high plateau that farming with its water was no longer possible. Funny, the maps all showed that gorge.

Should he leave tonight? Procrastination, fueled by fear of the unknown, held him. Tomorrow night would be better. He hated the thought of leaving his refuge. Surely the search would be less intense the longer he waited? And he still had food. He could afford to wait a while.

If he'd gone up to the roof and seen the files of torches as the soldiers moved slowly from house to house, he might have been less tempted to stay. The search was not stopping for nightfall. The curfew might be hurting the Patrician's nightly cut from the dock whores, but it was being strictly enforced. The great chain was raised across the channel. The ranged mangonels were readied. Nothing would leave by sea, and the city gates were closed siege-tight.

Testosterone can cause immense problems. Keilin had snuggled down in the early morning cool, enjoying the security of his lair for the last time. Sleep had claimed him rapidly. Actual sex was outside Keilin's experience, but from his observation of his mother's latter profession he knew a great deal about it. He'd made some detailed studies of the library's dusty elderly medical textbooks, studying the much thumbed sections of otherwise pristine texts with care. But arousal made the pendant stone start to grow colder, and even touching himself made the terrible chill bite at his skin. Fear had always been enough to stop him going any further. But of late his dreams had been getting more and more vivid. Normally the cold jewel on his chest woke him abruptly.

A fold of his ragged shirt betrayed him. It isolated the jewel from contact with his skin and allowed the dream to develop in glorious, if slightly confused, technicolor. It was the instinctive thrusting movements at the moment of release that shook the jewel loose from its cocoon of cloth. It touched his skin, and the cold became suddenly intense. It felt as if it was burning into him. He screamed.

Wakefulness was instantly with him. He clapped his hand to his mouth. Had anyone below heard him? Peering fearfully through the tiny hole he had drilled with a rusty nail, he realized that it didn't matter if they had heard his scream. Half the city must know exactly where he was now.

The central keep of the Patrician's palace was a hollow tower, a hundred feet tall. Girdling it was a crenellated balcony, constantly guarded. The only way onto its roof was in a roped basket pulled up the center of the tower. Heavy caskets went up, and precious little ever came down. Perched like a single stalk of wheat stubble on the keep's roof was the treasury. Or used to be. Now the dream of every thief in Port Tinarana was bursting through the roof of the library. No one would come up the stairway for a while, because a torrent of coins was running down it.

Coins pushed aside the plank and came spilling into Keilin's hideout. Instinctively he grabbed gold wheels from among the brass and copper, and thrust them into his pockets. He was rich! He was rich! He would . . . His mind checked . . . halted. He would be lucky just to be alive in ten minutes' time. A whole sea of money wouldn't help him. If he stayed hiding here they'd find him sooner or later. Perhaps he could still run.