The Clavis (The Emperor's Library: Book Four)

The Emperor’s Library:

Book Four

The Clavis

Frederick Kirchhoff

Second Edition

Dron Press

Copyright Frederick Kirchhoff, 2012, 2016

Cover Art and Maps Copyright Frederick Kirchhoff, 2012

All Rights Reserved

Author’s Note

The Clavis is the fourth book in The Emperor’s Library. It takes place a century after the third book, The Game. The fifth and sixth books in the series, The Chronophage and The Guardians, occur fifty years later. Together, these three volumes compose a second trilogy.

Chapter 1

They claim he’s alive, but nobody’s set eyes on him for seven years, and even then you couldn’t be sure it was the man himself. I was there at the time. Did I tell you that? A crowd had formed—here, in this very park that he’d given to the city I can’t tell you how many years before. It was Spring Festival and two bands were playing across from one another—making an awful racket, but they like that kind of thing in Tarnak. The more noise the better. Anyway, someone looked up and saw a figure on that balcony. See—jutting from the top floor like the prow of a ship. It was night, but they had lights all over the place, and both moons were out, so it wasn’t as if you couldn’t see anything. Still, a man standing that far away can be hard to identify even in daylight. Of course someone thought he recognized him. ‘Jon,’ the man began shouting, and soon everyone was pointing at the balcony, and shouting ‘Jon’ as well. Even the bands stopped playing and joined in the shouting—except for one guy with a trumpet. He started playing fanfares—Ta-te-taaa. Ta-te-ta-te-taaa’—over and over again, like the Emperor himself was marching down the street. You wouldn’t believe the commotion. The man who started it was standing next to that date palm. You could see he was proud of himself. But whoever it was on the balcony simply gazed down at us, without a sign of acknowledgement, then turned and walked inside, closing the door behind him.

Was it Jon? It was his house—that’s all anyone can say for certain. You can’t even be sure he’s still alive. Not everybody has a funeral.

Rel looked up at the balcony. It was indeed a little like the prow of a ship, jutting out at an angle from the building without any apparent support, and he’d never seen so large a house. It was hard to believe one man would need so much space. But after twenty minutes threading the dank streets of Tarnak, the plaza was a welcome return to fresh air and sunlight. If Jon had built this house, he must also have laid out this opening in the midst of the city and that made him already an appealing figure.

But if it wasn’t Jon you saw, who could it have been, Uncle Simon?

"One of the servants perhaps. Men say they’re not allowed to set foot on the top floor, but I doubt it. He must have someone to do the cleaning. You wouldn’t expect him to do that himself. Yet I’d wager none but one or two of the oldest have seen him face-to-face. When Jon ordered the house built, he fitted it with something called a dumb waiter. I’ve no idea how it works, but he uses it to haul up food and whatever else he orders, and to send down his dirty linen and empty plates. He sees as few other people as possible."

Well, that’s proof Jon is there, isn’t it? Rel asked. Someone must give the orders and eat the food.

True, but what someone? Servants aren’t the only possibility. If Jon had died, the Corporation might have sent one of their agents to take his place. I wouldn’t put the trick past them, and it would only be in keeping with the history of the house. They say Jon designed it with secret passageways and a tunnel leading to another building—blocks away, perhaps. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I’d like to know where he got the idea for a thing like that. But he had the money to do it. Still does. The man owns a piece of every manufacturing business in Tarnak.

Wow.

"You say wow, Nephew. But having so much money has its downside. You can’t help imagining everyone’s after it. That must be why Jon locked himself away—he’s scared shitless of people. Even his own servants. But there’s always someone who knows your secrets, and if the Corporation knows the layout of the house—and it stands to reason they do—they could pretend he was alive for years on end without anybody catching them at it. All they’d need was someone with the skill to fake Jon’s handwriting."

Yes, but it sounds like a lot of work. Why would they bother?

Do you find it easier to believe that a man could live a hundred and fifty years?

Rel shrugged. He’d never laid eyes on a man close to a hundred years old. A hundred and fifty blew his mind. Still, back home they took it for gospel that a man named John or Jim or Jones, who was older than the oldest man imaginable, lived alone in an enormous house in Tarnak and had something to do with the city’s prosperity. That’s why Rel had asked about him. He’d hoped he’d at least learn the right name.

But, Uncle, why would the Corporation want to pretend he was alive?

Simon smiled. He had little interest in Jon, who, if alive, was undoubtedly demented, but considerable interest in the Corporation, whom he blamed for every misfortune that had come his way since he’d arrived in Tarnak. They were big men, and big men routinely manipulate the rules to their advantage. Simon was certain of that, because if he were a big man that’s exactly what he’d do himself. Otherwise, what’s the point of being big? Unfortunately, he’d remained a small man, and he held it undeniable fact that it was the Corporation who’d kept him tiny.

Because the Corporation is really Jon’s corporation. It was Jon who founded it, Simon explained. "He and his partner Sem. They created it after they came here from Dron with all their inventions. Not their inventions, of course, but inventions they’d stolen. But having seen how easy it was to make off with ideas from Dron, they made sure it would be difficult to steal them a second time. It was Jon and Sem who got the patent laws enacted. They wanted Tarnak to adopt the new ways, but they wanted to keep them under their control. They said they were acting to prevent industrial knowledge from passing into rival hands, and I admit it’s been good for Tarnak to keep its secrets under lock and key. They’ve made us a wealthy city. But, while the Corporation makes a few men rich, it keeps most poor. And today the big guys don’t even live in Tarnak—at least not in the old city. Jon has remained here—having built his barn of a house, he had no alternative—but the other plutocrats have moved into the hills above West Tarnak, where guards keep out the riff-raff. I doubt they even bother to pay taxes—but isn’t that the way it is? The rich find ways to protect their interests."

However, it wasn’t the Corporation and their machinations that interested Rel. He was curious about the man who’d founded their wealth. How could a single individual have accomplished so much? And what would it feel like to be such a man? His uncle thought that Jon was afraid of people, but Rel wasn’t so sure. Perhaps he’d grown bored with them. And, as for those secret passageways, they sounded more fun than sinister.

Was all this Jon’s intention? Rel asked. I mean, did he want to make some men wealthy and keep others poor?

Jon’s intention? That’s hard to say. A man may tell you he intends a thing—he may even convince himself of it—but actions speak louder than words. As long as the Corporation acts with Jon’s authority, he shares the blame, doesn’t he? If he’d wanted to put a stop to something, he could have done it.

Even if he’s dead?

I didn’t say he was dead. I said there’s no way to be certain on that point. And as long as people believe Jon is alive, the Corporation gets its way in Tarnak, for no one would want to cross Jon. He’s a hero. And Sem as well, although not quite the hero Jon is. There’d be statues of the two all over the city if they hadn’t forbidden it. He’s never allowed anyone to draw his portrait or preserve his likeness in any way.

He sounds like a real man of mystery.

"But it makes sense, if you think about it. Since only a handful of people know what the man looks like, he’s free to go and come as he pleases; and that’s part of his power. But once Jon is gone, things will be different. People can take only so much of being pushed around. There was a strike at one of the factories last year. They put it down, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be more strikes to come.

Not that the strike made sense. What with all the foreigners pouring in, it’s easy to replace anyone who doesn’t want to work. And you’d better believe there are men who hate the new people. Just last week a couple of the tenements they crowd into were burned to the ground—babies killed and everything. I suspect that’s only a taste of what’s going to happen when Jon is no longer running things.

So that’s why the Corporation might be pretending that Jon is still alive, even when he’s not?

Isn’t that what I just said?

▲

His uncle’s warehouse wasn’t what Rel had expected. Except for the litter, the square before Jon’s house had a kind of importance, with its stately palms and the parrots who came to eat their fruit, but from there they’d made their way beneath tunneling archways and up winding stairs through increasingly grim neighborhoods to a door that looked like it led nowhere until, opening it with a flourish, Simon announced they were home.

My humble place of business, he called it. Used to the skies of Felson-by-the-Sea, Rel felt like he was being led into a cave.

There’s a front door on the other side of the building, but we took the short way. As for the darkness, that’s for the mala, Simon explained. Light spoils the flavor. And what’s the point of wasting money on electrum?

As they walked through a long corridor, Rel kept thinking it was like a rabbit warren—although, thankfully, it smelled not of rabbits but the heady scent of mala.

Simon Park bought and sold mala leaves—mala leaves, he would have been quick to inform you, of the finest quality. He bought only the best, which he packaged and resold at a high price. At first the business plan had worked. For the initial years he’d been what he himself called almost prosperous. But then the large distributors—the ones he was certain were backed by the Corporation—came out with their own so-called premium teas. They even imitated his packaging—wooden boxes with a paper seal. His seal was crimson—they hadn’t copied the color—but the rest was much the same. And, worse still, they’d coerced two of his suppliers to sell their best leaves at a lower price than Simon had managed to negotiate. And so, over time, a promising enterprise became one that struggled to survive.

That struggle was why Simon had invited his sister’s eldest son to Tarnak. It had occurred to him that the appreciation for premium mala must exist beyond the Tarnak Federation. Hadn’t the coastal region once shipped tea to Kar and beyond? Specifically, if he could sell Red Seal Mala in the Southlands, a substantial new market would open. But this expansion would require establishing contacts in faraway places. He himself had no intention of leaving Tarnak—Simon liked sleeping in his own bed—but a young, energetic man like his nephew would doubtless treat the journey as an adventure. The boy had a head on his shoulders—that was easy to see—and so he must have been looking for an excuse to leave Felson, much as Simon himself had at a similar age. True, an experienced merchant might bring skills Rel lacked, but he’d expect greater return for his efforts—even a partnership—while Rel was unlikely to make such demands. Not that Simon intended to cheat his nephew. But it would be clear to Rel from the start that this was to be a learning experience for him.

The journey would entail danger, but danger was a part of life, wasn’t it? You heard of men who’d tried to make it to the Southlands on the River Road, but you never heard of anyone returning that way. Over the years, however, a longer but safer route had come into use. It began at Sorbach, the terminus of the Southern Branch trains, where a drawbridge over the Sorb marked the boundary of the Federation. Across the river, you entered a different world. After a certain number of days traveling south and west, you reached a junction where you had a choice. Either you crossed the mountains and followed the coast south to Port Axor, where you took the new road to Bridgetown, or you went along the eastern flank of the mountains by way of New Redford, eventually joining the Port Axor road a day west of the capital city. The latter was faster, but more dangerous. The Chosen pretended to control this region—although not New Redford itself—but their sovereignty was weak. Moranist raids were not unheard of here, and local warlords were always eager to extort a bribe or even a ransom. Still, most of the merchants made it through unscathed. Particularly those traveling in armed parties.

If Simon had been making the journey himself, he would have chosen the coastal road. The land between mountains and sea was controlled by the Empress. The going was slow, since one made a series of ferry crossings, but it was safe. However Mrs. Soloff had taken it for granted that Rel would prefer the faster route. Young men care little about danger, she’d said. It was also possible to reach Port Axor by sea. But few undertook the voyage, for the waters off Cape Galdo were notoriously hazardous.

Rel had met his uncle Simon only twice before his arrival in Tarnak—once when he was seven, and last year, when Simon had visited his sister for an overnight stay. On the recent occasion, he’d spoken politely to Rel, but paid him no special attention, so it came as a surprise when the family received a letter from Simon inviting its oldest son to Tarnak to consider the possibility of employment. Rel had jumped at the offer, and his father had encouraged him to accept it. Never bolt the door when opportunity knocks, he’d said. But Rel’s mother had doubts. Within the family, her brother had always been considered a man who’d made it, but he was also regarded as a dubious character. It was known that he’d lapsed from the strict faith of his parents; moreover, there were other accusations as well.

I assume he still lives with that woman he took off the street, his mother had observed pointedly.

Mrs. Soloff? his father had asked.

"Yes, I believe that’s the name she goes by. Although no one has ever heard of a Mr. Soloff. And, whoever he was, he must have been very important for his wife to have pasted herself with his name. No one puts on such airs here. I’m plain Meg and our daughter’s plain Kara. Everyone knows you’re my husband, so I don’t have to remind them of the fact."

"Your brother used to describe himself as Mrs. Soloff’s protector."

"Her protector! Imagine the fool he’s made of himself. And the money she’s weaseled out of him—more than we scrape together from our prunes, I’m certain. I’d blush to see the clothes the woman probably wears. But that’s what you have to expect in Tarnak, where they allow Moranists to walk down the street like regular people. If I had a say, they’d be whipped from the city."

If you’re worried about Rel, there’s no reason for it. He has good sense and he was brought up to be a faithful believer.

So was my brother—but you’ve seen what’s happened to him.

They say he’s looked up to in Tarnak. A man with his own company. They sell his mala tea in the store here. It’s their most expensive brand. Surely that’s to your brother’s credit.

I wouldn’t buy that trash.

You don’t have to buy it, Meg. He sends us four boxes every year, and you seem to enjoy it well enough.

I’m not going to be throwing out good tea. That would be a sin.

Especially when it comes with a red seal.

That’s the worst of. He uses the sacred color to sell his tea, even though he breaks the laws of the faith every day of his life, living in carnal sin with that woman.

"Protecting the woman, you mean."

Giving her husband a disdainful look, Rel’s mother had turned to her son.

Rel, I want you to promise you’ll go regularly to services in Tarnak. They have several teachers in the city. You’ll probably want to hear all of them. Different men have different wisdoms, but don’t forget that the truth is always the same, no matter what clothes it wears.

Yes, Ma’am, he’d said, hoping he’d committed himself to his mother’s notion of truth rather than the promise of church-going. And now, here he was in Tarnak, not exactly living with his uncle, but in his uncle’s warehouse, where Simon had found a room for him next to the men’s wash-up—more a closet than a room, perhaps, but large enough for a cot and a shelf. He was in the washroom now, preparing for the infamous Mrs. Soloff by scrubbing his face and hands with scrupulous care. If his mother had seen him, she’d have approved of the washing, but not his curiosity about the woman he was about to meet.

He imagined someone slightly overweight with ample breasts and clothes intended for a younger girl. He’d already noted how the women dressed in Tarnak. They loved bright colors and tight dresses. Mrs. Soloff would probably be wearing something like that and it would be at least a size too small. His mother dressed to hide her body, but he doubted Mrs. Soloff would be so inclined. He wondered if she’d flirt with him like that woman across from him on the train. He’d had trouble keeping a straight face.

But the real Mrs. Soloff met none of these expectations. Far from a den of iniquity, his uncle’s quarters, across the lane from the warehouse, were severe in style, with white walls and straight-backed chairs that suggested little interest in comfort. As befitted this setting, the woman who opened the door was dressed in coarsely woven gray much like his mother might have worn if she’d worn gray instead of white. And she was thin and remarkably tall, not overweight at all, with light brown, almost blond hair pulled severely back and tied in a knot on the top of her head. It must have been long hair, Rel thought, to have made such a large knot. He’d imagined a brown-eyed woman. For some reason he’d always associated brown eyes with sensuality. Hers were a pale blue-green and he saw at once that she ruled his uncle with a strong hand. The decisive way she spoke gave this away, as well as Simon’s subdued manner.

"Rel?" she asked. "Is that short for Relen?"

Yes, Ma’am, he said, surprised, because few guessed that Relen was his full name. I was named for my father’s father.

That would be true. And I hope you left both your father and mother in good health, she said.

Yes, Ma’am. In very good health.

"And your three brothers and your sister? Kara is your sister’s name, isn’t it?"

Yes, Ma’am. Her name is Kara. And she and my brothers are all in good health as well.

He considered adding that his parents sent their respects, but he feared he’d be unable to bring off the lie. Mrs. Soloff, he’d seen at once, wouldn’t be easy to fool.

It must be a very nice place where you live.

Yes, Ma’am. Felson is a very nice place. Our house is only a mile from the sea, where there’s a wide beach and the water’s warm enough for swimming all but the coldest days in winter.

But you like it better here, I suspect.

It’s hard to tell. It’s very different.

Yes, it would be hard to tell, Simon observed, looking apologetically at Mrs. Soloff. He hated being left out of a conversation, but he was also reluctant to say anything that might be construed as contradicting her. Rel has only been here a few hours, while both of us have lived in Tarnak for years. My nephew should know that neither of us are natives. That is, neither of us was born in the city. I was born in Felson-by-the-Sea, like Rel, and I used to go swimming at the very beach he just mentioned. Indeed, I was quite a swimmer myself. Came in second in a race across the bay. But Mrs. Soloff comes from a town much further from Tarnak. Sable, I believe it’s called.

"Sabal," she corrected him, emphasizing the second a. But I’m sure your nephew has never heard of it.

Probably not, Simon said. "Felson-by-the-Sea is an out-of-the-way village—nowhere a young man would expect to hear about faraway places.

But there’s something I want to tell you about Mrs. Soloff, he added, turning to Rel. It has to do with the origin of our business relationship.

He looked to Mrs. Soloff for permission to continue. Evidently her silence constituted a yes.

Some years ago, Mrs. Soloff’s husband brought her to Tarnak, where he had affairs to attend to, but he died almost immediately. She thinks it may have been something he ate. Perhaps the fish. They don’t have fish in Sabal. Not fresh fish, I mean. Sabal is an inland city. Do they have dried or salted fish in Sabal, Mrs. Soloff?

No. We have no fish of any kind.

Well that’s only to be expected, what with the cost of transportation. But of course here in Tarnak we have many kinds of seafood and you occasionally run across a man who can’t stomach one sort or another. Not often, but occasionally. Eat the wrong fish, and you puff up like a bladder and your lungs stop working. It’s as if you were choked to death, only there’s no sign of the choking. No red marks around the neck or that sort of thing. And then, once you’re dead you go back to looking as normal as could be—except, of course, that you’re not breathing. If they didn’t know you’d been eating the wrong fish, they’d have trouble identifying the cause of death. That’s a fact, Rel. That’s a true fact. It happens every month or so. You can read about it in the back pages of the papers.

He looked to Mrs. Soloff, as if asking her to corroborate his statement, but again she offered no sign of response.

In any case, Simon continued, whatever caused the good man’s death, it was a terrible blow. Imagine what it was like for a woman alone in a strange city. Where was she to turn? He paused to heighten the drama of the story. "And the wonderful thing is, she turned to me. She came to my warehouse in search of work, and I saw at once the kind of person she was. ‘I will find a place for you,’ I told her. And she has occupied the place I found from that day on.

"So none of us three are natives. Just think of that. But the two of us who’ve lived here longest know it takes time to familiarize yourself with Tarnak. I showed Rel a bit of the city on our way to the warehouse this afternoon—we even took a detour to see that big house Jon built on the square. Rel had asked me about Jon, so I took him to see where he lives. But we only scratched the surface. I’ll ask Bill to give him the grand tour tomorrow. And then the next day Rel’s to begin working for Red Seal. It didn’t take us long to settle on that.

Mrs. Soloff is not only my housekeeper; she also works for Red Seal, so you’ll get to know her in no time. And then you’ll see for yourself what a fine, intelligent woman she is. She’s become my right hand in the business. Without her, we’d never have survived.

Nonsense, Simon. Red Seal was doing perfectly well before I came.

"But would it have continued to do perfectly well? That’s the hundred-ducat question. And the answer is No! No one knows better than you the troubles we’ve faced these last years. Without you, we couldn’t have made it through.

She’s a wonder, Rel. Believe me, she’s a wonder, he added, once again turning toward Rel and adopting what he took for a confidential tone. She even redecorated my rooms for me.

Rel, who had been watching Mrs. Soloff carefully, decided that she found Simon’s praise absurd. Indeed, he got the impression that, at this precise moment, she considered his uncle an idiot. Just what was their relationship? Certainly it was nothing like his mother imagined.

I think it is time for us to eat, she said.

You have a treat in store for you, boy. Mrs. Soloff is a terrific cook.

But Rel was doomed to yet another disappointment, for what she put on the table—pasty white dumplings stuffed with pork fat with boiled potatoes and a large mound of boiled cabbage—was far from terrific cooking. Rel could remember no time in his life when he’d eaten so vile a dinner. His mother may have kept them praying a long time before they were allowed to touch their plates, but the wait was worth it. She was a very good cook. However tonight he was hungry and dutifully cleared his plate down to the last shred of cabbage.

Did you see the way he wolfed down his dinner? Simon later observed to Mrs. Soloff. That boy knows good food when he finds it. I bet he’s never in his life bitten into anything as succulent as your dumplings. If he stays with us for long, he’s sure to put on weight. Who knows? He may end up as fat as I’ve become. And it’s all been from your cooking.

I only cook the things I know you like.

▲

Mrs. Soloff called Rel into her office as soon as he showed his head the next morning. An exception to the general gloom, the room was brightly lit and, with a bit of color, might almost have been cheerful, but the only color here was its occupant’s pale eyes, in which no emotion whatsoever was apparent.

Take this, she told him, pushing some coins across the desk. It’s your first week’s pay. Your uncle wanted to start you tomorrow, but I think it’s fairer to start you as of yesterday. You were doing his bidding from the moment you set out for Tarnak and that means you were on the payroll. And, as for today, he’s the one who ordered you to see the city, isn’t he? It’s no more than we’d pay any other employee without experience. Normally, though, you get paid after you work, not beforehand. But I’ve made an exception for you, seeing you’re Simon’s family. And it must have cost you something to come here on the train, didn’t it?

Yes, Ma’am.

Did you keep the ticket?

No, Ma’am.

That’s a pity. If you’d kept the ticket, I could have reimbursed you, but without it I can’t.

Doesn’t matter. It was my dad who paid it.

Wouldn’t you have wanted to pay him back?

He wouldn’t have expected it.

Well, your loss or his, there’s nothing I can do about it. To break the rules wouldn’t be fair to your uncle, as well as to the other employees, who’ve learned to follow them strictly. But now it’s time for you to meet Bill. I have a feeling the two of you will get along.

Pocketing his first week’s pay, Rel followed her from her office down a hallway that led to a large space where, under a single light hung from the ceiling, three women were boxing mala tea.

So here was where they applied the famous red seals, he thought. And, sure enough, even as he watched, one of the women picked up a small sponge and began moistening and applying crimson seals to each of the packages.

Have you seen Bill? Mrs. Soloff asked them.

I think he’s in the second drying room. Matt asked him to help with the new shelving.

Without thanking the woman for her information, Mrs. Soloff led Rel off in a different direction. As they climbed the stair to the drying rooms, the smell of mala became overpowering. Still, it wasn’t a bad smell, and Rel was sure he’d get used to it.

Bill turned out to be a young man close to Rel’s age, with brown eyes, a dusky complexion, short-cut black hair, and a large gold ring in his left ear. Rel had never seen a man wearing an earring. No one did anything like that in Felson-by-the-Sea, where everyone had blue eyes and fair complexions. Nor had he ever seen anyone dressed in such a remarkably blue shirt. At the moment Bill was watching an older man string a wire mesh between metal tubes.

I hope you can spare Bill, Mrs. Soloff said to the older man. Mr. Park has another task for him today.

Mr. Park? Was that the name his uncle had taken in Tarnak? To Rel and his family, his mother’s younger brother had always been known simply as Simon, but perhaps in Tarnak one was expected to have both a first and a last name. And did that mean Mrs. Soloff had another name as well? What name would have suited her? He ran over a mental list of possibilities, but none seemed right.

Sure, if Mr. Park needs him. Bill’s been a help, but I can do the rest by myself. We’ve done the part that takes four hands.

Bill, come with us, Mrs. Soloff said in her soft but commanding voice.

Bill looked at Rel with curiosity, but said nothing, simply following Mrs. Soloff back to her office.

Returning to her desk, she unlocked a drawer and took out a large copper coin, which she pushed toward Bill.

Mr. Park wants you to take his nephew Rel on a tour of the city today. Show him the sights and take him out to dinner, and be sure to bring me back a receipt for the meal. But if you spend more than I’ve given you, the two of you will have to cover it yourselves. You understand? And, Bill, don’t forget that Rel is Mr. Park’s nephew. Don’t take him anywhere his uncle wouldn’t have taken him if he’d had the time.

Bill nodded. He was evidently delighted by his new assignment and eager to get on with it. And Mrs. Soloff, too, seemed disposed to have them both gone.

Don’t forget, Rel, your uncle expects you to start sales calls with him the first thing tomorrow morning. I’ll knock on your door to make sure you’re up on time. Don’t bother to answer. You’ll know who it is.

Bill and Rel looked at one another for a moment as if trying to decide what to do next.

What are you waiting for? she asked. I have work to do.

With that, they hurried out of the building.

Chapter 2

"They call me Bill at the warehouse, Bill explained, as they strolled down the first street. But my mom calls me Billy and so do my friends. If you feel like calling me Billy, you can. Bill sounds stiff, don’t you think?"

"Billy’s good for me."

Billy grinned. A day off to show this good-looking guy around the city! Nothing like this had ever happened at Red Seal before. He hoped one of those friends who called him Billy saw them together. He liked the thought of showing off a new face in town. Especially one with such rosy cheeks and gorgeous blond hair. He looked like the man on the soap poster they pasted up all over last year. What was the slogan? Barley’s Soap, fresh as a breeze?? No. Fresh as a spring breeze—that was it.

Did you have anything in mind? Billy asked.

Not really, Rel replied. "I’d never set foot in Tarnak before yesterday, so I don’t know what’s here. Like Mrs. Soloff told us, I’m supposed to see the city. Last night my uncle said you were going to take me on a grand tour."

So that’s what we’ll do then—a grand tour—east side, west side, and right down the middle. But to begin, since this is your first time here, I should explain the basics. For starters, Tarnak isn’t one city. It’s really three. And it doesn’t have one harbor; it has two. Where we’re standing now is the oldest of the three cities. How did you get here yesterday?

I took the electrum train. Felson-by-the-Sea isn’t on the line—the tracks don’t go that far—so my dad walked me to the station. We had to get up before dawn to make the morning train.

"Felson-by-the-Sea? That’s a strange name. Why didn’t they build the rail line there?"

Because we’re not important enough. We’re no Eastport, you know.

What’s Eastport?

That’s the last stop on the railway—the one we walked to.

Billy shook his head. This was more information than he needed.

"Well, anyway, you took the railroad from some place called East, and that means you must have gotten off the train in East Tarnak."

"The sign in the station just said Tarnak."

Of course it did. It’s the Tarnak station, isn’t it?

But you just said it was East Tarnak.

East Tarnak is part of Tarnak, so when you’re there you can say that you’re in Tarnak or, if you want to be more specific, East Tarnak. Does that make sense?

Sure. So, there’s Tarnak and East Tarnak and—let me guess—West Tarnak. But they’re all Tarnak.

Brilliant! You make my life easy as a doughnut.

Rel looked confused.

"Don’t you know what easy as a doughnut means? Billy asked. It’s an expression we use here to mean—well—easy. Only not just a little easy but very easy."

I get it.

Billy grinned again. There was something about Rel he liked. A kind of honesty you didn’t see much of in Tarnak, where people never admitted it when they didn’t know a thing.

So what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Tarnak is three cities with two harbors.

Exactly.

The reason is this. The old city’s on this island in the river. There’s another train station across the west branch of the river in West Tarnak—for the trains that follow the coast west, and also the inland line to Sorbach. The fishing-boats dock on the east side of the island, and the big trading ships dock at the West Harbor. So that’s the main geography of the city. There’s not much to see in East Tarnak, except the print shops, and you probably passed those when you left the station, so, unless you want to go back there for some reason, we can skip that part of the tour. They print a whole bunch of stuff—people bring their writing from all over to have it made into books. It’s hard to imagine why they print so many of them, but some folks seem to like that kind of thing.

Uncle pointed out the print shops yesterday.

Good. So we’ll begin with the electrum dam. It’s really on both sides of the river, although the main buildings are in East Tarnak, but you can see all you need to see from this side.

Billy turned south at the next corner and led Rel up a steep street that seemed to be taking them to the highest point in the island. But before they reached its summit, he turned left and led Rel to a road that wound along the cliffs above the river.

"They call this Perimeter Way or just the Perimeter, since it goes all the way around the island, he explained. And that’s useful to know, because the city can be confusing, with streets going off in every direction the way they do. People new to Tarnak have a time of it, but you can always find your way if you remember that if you keep walking in a more-or-less straight line you’re bound to reach the Perimeter. Although, to be honest, finding a more-or-less straight line isn’t always easy."

I saw that yesterday.

I bet you did. You know what some people call the place?

No?

Noodleville, because the streets wind and twist around each other like a plate of noodles.

We went through quite a few tunnels.

You have to. Otherwise you’d never get anywhere. But they aren’t really tunnels. They’re places where the right of way goes through where somebody wanted to put a building, so they simply built it over the street. And they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years. Maybe thousands even.

It’s a different kind of place all right.

Comes of being an island. There’s only so much land, so you have to keep building one thing on top of another.

Makes it pretty gloomy, don’t you think?

You’ll get used to it.

Looking downstream, Rel recognized the bridge he and his uncle had crossed yesterday. Looking upstream, he saw something remarkable. The opposite banks had both been extended into the river with massive stone projections that restricted the current to a narrow, fast-moving stream. Here, a series of gigantic wheels were turning rapidly, dipping below the water line and then rising high above it, all connected to metal rods that entered a building perched on the east bank.

Here’s where they make most of the electrum, Billy observed proudly. Pretty impressive, eh?

"Sure is. But what is electrum? And how is it made by those big wheels?"

Billy looked worried. He was supposed to be explaining the wonders of Tarnak, and already Rel was asking questions he couldn’t answer.

They never told us things like that at school, Billy admitted forlornly. "The teachers blabber on about the wonders of electrum and how it’s made Tarnak a great city. But they don’t seem to know much about it.

But I do know that the building over there is where they put electrum into the boxes they use to run things all over the city. You see those carts? They carry the full boxes out to where they’re needed and then bring back the empty ones to be filled up again. The large boxes stacked to the right of the building are used in the electrum trains. This place goes night and day, although the wheels stop once in a while when the tide is unusually high.

Rel decided it would be futile to ask Billy further questions about electrum. Whatever it was, he was certain that electrum wasn’t something you could put in a box like sand or molasses. His uncle had been right. The Corporation kept its inventions secret.

Leaving Perimeter Way, Billy took him down the length of the island’s eastern side, through streets, a few empty, but most crowded with people, some apparently idling away the morning, others intent on business. Rel was overwhelmed—even oppressed—both by the sheer number of human beings and by their variety. He’d never seen so many different shades of skin, so many different faces, so many styles of dress. Billy’s brown skin had seemed remarkable, but now he realized that it was perfectly ordinary here. In contrast to the sameness of Felson, where everyone wore white, the city seemed to embrace the world. At first Rel found it frightening—especially when he found himself jostled by the crowd—but he soon grew excited by the thought of so many people coming together in one place. Despite the confusion and the filth, walking through the flow of human beings lifted his spirits. Why