Chapter 98: Book 2-11.3: Journeys

Lukas held a piece of paper with barely legible scribblings up to his face. He was supposed to head to Quartz Avenue on the Southern Mids at midmorning but he was honestly lost. After weeks of procrastinating, he had finally decided to follow Mr. Kincaid’s advice and look to Mr. Mazer for employment.

He’d waited for the creditor to come by and brought it up when he paid his weekly interest. Mazer grinned, his grey eyes crinkling as he smiled. Lukas couldn’t help but stare at the other man’s scar--a long gash over his right eye that started from just below his hairline to the middle of his cheek.

“About time, lad. You know you’d never pay off the loan by just paying interest. Well, I could really use the help. Can barely find people to trust these days.”

Lukas cleared his throat. “Uh, and how much will you pay, sir?”

“Hmmm, well, I can’t pay you all that much yet. We have to see how suited you are to the task. I’ll give you a silver penny a week to start with. If you do better, I can pay you double that easily.”

Lukas held in his excitement. A silver penny! That was just a bit more than his average a week, and he would still have his Animus to sell to the cartridge shop if he was lucky.

“What would you have me do, sir?”

“Well, first off, tell me exactly what your Heritage is and what your Facet could do.”

“It’s the Nadir Heritage from my dad. My Facet is being able to tell the precise weight of something just by looking at it. I can also do sums quickly.”

“Cost?” Mazer’s eyes lit up and if anything, his grin grew wider.

“Er…I’m not too precise there. I can do it about ten times then I’m done until I recover.”

“Oh,” Mazer frowned and muttered to himself just loud enough for Lukas to overhear, “that’s not a lot, but I guess if it were better then you wouldn’t be here.”

Lukas hung his head, to hide a spark of anger behind his eyes more than shame. “Well, I can recover my Animus if I’m touching whatever I weigh.”

“Oh, that’s good.” Mazer pulled out a scrap of paper from his pocket and a pen. He scribbled on it and then handed it over to Lukas. It read: 28 Quartz Avenue, Southern Mid Ring. “You can start tomorrow, three hours past dawn.”

“Thank you, sir,” Lukas bowed his head.

“I’ll deduct your payments directly from your wages.” Mazer waved goodbye and left the shack.

Kiruna walked up to Lukas after Mazer left and hugged him from behind. “Is this what you want, big bro?”

“I’m not sure, Kiru.” Lukas shook his head. “He pays well enough, but…I’m pretty sure his emporium isn’t always on the right side of the law.”

Kiruna sniffed, “What has the law ever done for us?”

“Don’t be like that, sis. It’s made sure that we have a chance to pay for our parent’s debts, instead of worse.” Lukas shuddered. “I’ve heard in Ivala and Ekelus they take you directly into indentured service if you can’t settle debts.”

“I don’t want to go there!”

“I don’t think we can even if we wanted to,” Lukas laughed. Ivala was the city-state south of Rumiga City, of the Federation of City-States. There were a lot of rumours on how the so-called free cities were run but Lukas thought those were too good to be true. Or too strange to be real, sometimes. What kind of people didn’t ensure that its populace had proper access to their Animus and Heritage?

“Don’t worry, Kiru, we’ll save up enough coins to give you a proper Atavism Ritual.” Lukas patted Kiruna’s arm. “Now, let’s have dinner and rest.”

Their food for the night was bread, two loaves, both nearly stale. It couldn’t be helped as the price of bread had doubled to two copper marks for a fresh loaf. Even two-day-old bread cost him half a mark each.

So, early the next morning, he left. The most straightforward way to get to the Mid ring was to leave the Lower Ring and use the circumferential road just outside the city. The other paths involved climbing dozens of flights of stairs cut into the mountain, an exhausting endeavour that few except for the muscle heads in the Academy attempted to do on a daily basis.

He didn’t have enough money to take the Circuit Tram so, of course, he had to walk. There was a pedestrian sidewalk that was shaded with trees. Not that it was needed this early in the morning. The shadow of the mountain still covered the city. An hour later he was lining up to enter the Mid Ring. He’d dressed in his best clothes but even those were threadbare.

He nodded to the militia on guard who gave him a suspicious stare. He ducked his head and gave a small nervous smile. He wasn’t stopped so that was good enough. Contrary to the warrens of the Lower Ring, the Mid Ring had wider streets. The buildings weren’t built right next to each other, though they still had the conventional flat roofs.

There were more landcrafters entering the Mids, light and heavy haulers, carrying produce, materials, and whatever else folk up here needed. Lukas had only to glance over to the side and he would see the shantytowns fifty or so paces below. He could also see the River Sadama bisecting the city below. It ran from north to south, though a tributary, the Kliss, dropped from the Upper City, into the northern Mid Ring and from there, down to the Lower City. It met the Sadama near the northern district.

Barges sailed upriver from the North Quay, which led directly to the North Mid Ring, a plateau opposite the Chaos Channel that cut Rumiga City’s mountain in half. The road from the Southern Mid Ring meandered under the Channel before rising up to enter there. The only road that led to the Upper Ring connected to the Northern Mid Ring.

Now, Lukas was lost.

The roads and intersections did not form a grid and he couldn’t see where the street signs were. He was loath to ask a passerby as he was more likely to be snubbed than answered. But still, he couldn’t just wander around all morning.

Gathering his courage, he approached a street hawker holding a tray of ribbons and hair ornaments. A young woman, probably a little younger than Lukas, with lustrous wavy auburn hair and a freckled complexion, picked at one of the ribbons.

“A silver penny for the ribbons, Miss. A silver mark for the butterfly pin,” the hawker, a clean-shaven young man with a brilliantly white smile, said.

The girl sniffed and dropped the ribbon. “Half a silver penny for the ribbon at most!”

“For such a pretty lady as you, it is my pleasure.”

She handed over five copper marks for the ribbon and she left with a smug smile.

“Ahem,” Lukas coughed. The hawker had a subtler smile on his face while he stared at the girl’s back.

“What is it lad, I’m working here.”

“Excuse me, can you direct me to Quartz Avenue?”

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“Just head over in that direction. You’ll get there. Eventually.” He waved lazily down the same direction the girl was going.

Lukas nodded. “Thank you.”

“Run along, kid.”

With a snort, Lukas spun on his heels and hurried down the road. After crossing a few intersections, he finally found the street names on the lamp posts. They only began appearing past the outskirts.

The main thoroughfare was named Gemstone Boulevard. There were hedges and trees in the middle of the road, providing flowers and shade. There was Beryl Road, Amethyst, Agate, oh, there was Crystal Street. Down that road were varied jewellery shops and...were those inns?

The scent of freshly-baked bread wafted down from the next street. Lukas’s stomach growled but he ignored it. There was Opal Road, and Emerald. If he continued on Gemstone, he would eventually exit the Southern Mid Ring. He felt slightly nervous since, as far as he could tell, he was already halfway down the boulevard.

Gemstone ran along the edge of the plateau, so all the other roads led deeper to the mountainside. Maybe Quartz was an inner road?

There was barely a midmorning crowd, most folks seem to prefer riding the Circuit Trams to walking. Pedestrians clumped together in small groups of acquaintances, keeping a healthy distance from everyone else. Lukas was notably alone in his little island.

Deciding he needed to ask another person for directions, he headed over to the next intersection. A watchpost was in every junction, with a brown-coated constable inside each one.

The woman in the watchpost was well into her middle years yet still handsome. Her square jaw and sharp eyebrows, not to mention her deep black eyes almost made Lukas have second thoughts on asking for directions but he was already running late.

“Quartz Avenue? Go down Amethyst Road and you’ll find Quartz after a couple of blocks.”

Lukas heaved a sigh of relief and thanked the constable. He turned around and backtracked until he came upon the correct road and followed it. The sight of the Quartz Avenue street sign was such a relief that his knees almost buckled. A glance at the sun’s position showed that he was almost late.

He hurried down Quartz, barely paying attention to his surroundings though after a while, he realized that most of the buildings around this road were large warehouses a couple of storeys tall. The avenue connected to another wider road in the distance and he could see several light haulers trundling down the road.

It took only a few minutes to find building number twenty-eight. It was a warehouse, much like the others in the neighbourhood, with a flat roof. The landcraft doors were closed, of course, but he easily saw the personnel gate. He walked up to it and knocked.

“Come in.”

The door guard was an affable-looking, middle-aged man whose hairline had receded nearly to the crown of his head.

“Yes?” he gave Lukas a head to toe look.

“Er, good day. Mr. Mazer asked me to come see him today. I’m Lukas Nadir.”

“Ah, please.”

The door guard led him to an antechamber and pointed at a bench that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of wood. It was stained dark brown and the lacquer finish made it gleam.

“Thank you.”

After a few minutes, the door guard was back.

“This way please.”

They went through the antechamber and into the main area of the warehouse. Most of the contents were small crates, less than half Lukas’ height. He brushed his hand against one, surreptitiously activating his Facet. The entire thing weighed a hundred and eight point two three one Jin. Each crate was almost exactly the same weight, varying only by a few decimal points--probably a difference in wood.

The office was at the back and Mr. Mazer was there behind a desk.

“Welcome,” he said simply

Another young man, probably a year or so older than Lukas, with half-lidded green eyes and scraggly hair that just covered his ears and wearing a rather loose coat, sat on a bench opposite the desk.

“This is Aengus, he will be your partner for the foreseeable future.”

“Good day,” Lukas said politely while the other boy gave him a measured glance and a half-hearted reply. “What will my duties be?”

“For now, I’ll have you stationed at the North Quay. You’ll audit the shipment crates, making sure that the stated weight of each one is the same as the actual weight.”

Lukas heaved a sigh of relief. It was something he could easily do. And given the rumours surrounding the man, he had expected something a bit…under the law. Well, all’s well.

“Aengus may ask you to measure a few other things,” Mr. Mazer continued, “just follow his lead.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Jeffrey outside will give you the list. Lukas, accuracy is everything. Don’t make a mistake.”

“Yes, sir.” Lukas stood, bowed and turned on his heel. Aengus followed behind him. The door guard, Jeffrey, gave him a thick brown envelope and a pen.

“Good luck.”

Lukas frowned as he left the warehouse office. What would he need luck for?

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