The Smudger Read online

  A few of the doors in the street opened, and women stepped out, staring up at us. Some even collected their husbands who appeared at the doorways brandishing improvised weapons: sticks, brooms, axes. The girls began to sing again.

  “Cross eyes, reds, and rippers,

  They’ll leave you with the shivers,

  If they get inside your head,

  You’ll wish that you were dead.

  Give them a smudge to go,

  Then kill them in the throw.”

  I stepped back again, and nudged Malia with my hip. “We need to get out of here,” I said to her.

  We moved back into the relative safety of the market. At least we could disappear a little in here. I pulled my hood further up over my hair, and we pushed our way back through.

  An arm landed on mine. “You probably want to get out of here,” its owner said.

  “I’m trying,” I muttered, looking up into the face of a merchant. Behind him, the eyes of his carriers peered out of his wagon, accompanied by fingers with their nails chewed back.

  “This isn’t the friendliest of towns for my kind, but you? You’re brave for coming within a mile of this place.”

  “I’m quickly realising that.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  For a moment, I considered lying, or telling him where to stick his curiosity. But I wondered if this might just be the miracle I’d asked for.

  “Kumonayo. You’re not headed that way, are you?”

  The merchant’s eyebrows jumped up his forehead before digging back into a frown. “Yes, with a few stops along the way.”

  “Can we ride with you?”

  “I’m not a passenger service.”

  “I can pay.”

  He opened his mouth, but a thought seemed to stop whatever he had been about to say. His eyes flicked from side to side as he worked the thought through his head.

  “With what?” he asked hesitantly.

  “I have credit, or I have a memory I can trade.”

  “What kind of memory?”

  “A young woman being attacked.”

  “What would I do with that?”

  I cocked my head. He wasn’t fooling me. “You know perfectly well that there’s a thriving market for that. Men who like to pretend they did it. It’s worth 200 at least.” It was easily worth more than that, but I wanted him to think he was getting the better end of the deal.

  “I’ll give you 100 for the memory, and I’ll take 100 in credit.”

  “Done,” I said, without hesitation.

  “And you both ride in the back with the carriers. I have no interest in making small talk with a trader the whole way.”

  “Not a problem,” I replied. The feeling was entirely mutual.

  He placed his hand onto my forehead, and I felt him begin to probe. I pushed the memory forward and he took hold of it. His presence scratched around on its way back out; he was either very poorly trained, or he was trying to have a nose around. But protecting my privacy was one of the first basics my rook taught me. It was preschool level. This merchant was an idiot. I was thankful I’d be in the back of his wagon and we could pass on that small talk.

  29

  KIOTO

  Five days later, the wagon drove us into Kumonayo colony. As I climbed out of the vehicle, I looked around. This was not like any colony I’d ever seen before. It looked more like the city’s suburbs.

  I turned to thank the trader, and to suggest his swift departure, but he was already deep in conversation with a woman I guessed to be the colony’s brood mother. Any other colony I’d known, he’d have been chased out as soon as he arrived. Something wasn’t right here.

  I touched Malia’s arm. “Stay close,” I whispered.

  I wasn’t even sure that she heard me; it was late afternoon, and she was muttering and twitching.

  The brood mother finally turned to me. “Welcome to Kumonayo,” she said. “I’m afraid I have urgent business to attend to, but if you go into the community hut, you’ll find all the hospitality you need.”

  I nodded my thanks and turned in the direction she’d pointed. Far from being a hut, the community building was a vast hall, the inside of which was laid out with tables and benches, with a long serving counter at one end. There were small gatherings of traders; eating, talking, playing games. At one table, a class of girls were gathered around their rook for a lesson.

  “They’re coming for you!” shouted Malia.

  I rubbed her arm. “It’s alright, we’re safe now,” I said soothingly.

  Her outburst had attracted attention, and most of the eyes in the room were now focussed on us. But that turning of heads was quickly followed by a collective shrug of shoulders, and the heads turned back to what they were doing. The curiosity dissipated. I was expecting questions, whispers, assumptions, judgement, maybe even fear. But nothing came.

  I crossed to the service counter and dished up two meals from under the hot lights.

  Malia hardly ate anything. In fact, she could barely even hold her fork. Her twitching became progressively worse until she could barely sit on the bench. Her vocal ticks became louder and more desperate. She repeatedly cried out for me to help her, but I couldn’t tell if that was one of her carried memories surfacing, or if it was a moment of Malia breaking through them. Either way, I didn’t know what I could do.

  I looked up as the brood mother sat down next to me. She nodded at Malia.

  “She’s pretty bad, isn’t she?”

  “Can you help her?” I asked.

  The brood mother shrugged. “Maybe. I’m Tokai. What’s your name?”

  “Kioto. And this is Malia.”

  I watched the shocked look of recognition pass over her face with satisfaction.

  “So my parents were here,” I said.

  “Yes.” She looked hard at me. “I see it now. You look a lot like your mother.”

  “Do I? I haven’t seen her since I was eight.”

  “No, of course not.” Her hand raised to her heart for a moment. The ghost of a gesture.

  “I don’t suppose they’re still here? And my sister?”

  Tokai looked at the table, and then focussed on some point behind my head. “Your parents are, in a way. But I’m afraid they’ve passed on.”

  “Both of them?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  I nodded, feeling nothing. Until a week ago I’d thought they’d been dead for eleven years. I’d already done my mourning for them.

  “What about my sister?”

  “She’s moved on.” Tokai shifted in her seat. “Would you like to visit your parents’ graves? Say goodbye?”

  “I would.”

  “I’ll ask someone to get Malia settled for a rest. See if they can calm her down a little. We’ll have a peek inside her head and see if there’s anything we can do to ease her suffering.”

  “Thank you. I’d been giving her sleeping tablets, but I don’t have any left.”

  Tokai gestured to two traders who hurried over. “We’ll find something to settle her,” Tokai said to me. She turned to the traders and spoke to them quietly.

  I touched Malia’s arm. “I’ll be back soon. You’ll be looked after here. Hopefully they’ll be able to help you.”

  Her eyes were glazed and looking at something no one else could see. I didn’t know if she’d heard me.

  Tokai turned back to me. “Come on.”

  I followed her away from the colony and towards the long grasses of the hills that surrounded Kumonayo. We passed by the ancestral graves, marked by rings and spirals of stones, flags, banners, ribbons, jewellery, statuettes. On the slopes of a hill, Tokai stopped. She gestured towards the ground. “Here.”

  I looked around me. “Here? Unmarked?”

  “It’s what Saji—your father—requested.”

  “They’re not with the ancestors?”

  “He thought this was more appropriate. I’m afraid your parents did little to integrate themselves while the
y were here. They kept themselves to themselves, remained as outsiders. When Senetsu passed on, Saji requested an unmarked grave for her away from the other burials. A few days after her death, he made me promise that, when his time came, he would be buried next to her. I should have watched him more closely, I should have understood what him asking that meant. And I blame myself. Less than a week after your mother’s death, he took his own life.”

  “How do you know they’re here?” I asked. “Exactly here. What makes you so sure that they’re not there?” I pointed to my left. “Or there?” I pointed to my right. “Or on a different hill entirely?”

  Tokai placed her hand on my shoulder. “Because these things are important. They haven’t been forgotten, and they’re visited regularly. No one leaves tokens here because it’s what Saji asked. But they’re not simply being left here to rot. I promise.”

  “And what about Omori? You said she’d moved on. Where did she go?”

  “It was considered that her education would be better handled elsewhere. Because….” She drifted off.

  “It’s fine, I know what she is.”

  Tokai nodded. “Then I can speak honestly. Your parents, for their own reasons that I will never truly understand, had some of Omori’s memories extracted before they arrived here. It was almost a Purification. They took almost everything away. As you know, that made it impossible to train her as a trader, let alone a vessel. However, that fact doesn’t stop the rogues from hunting her. We thought it best if she was hidden elsewhere, outside of the colony, until we could restore her missing memories.”

  “Who has them?”

  Tokai looked down at the ground. “That is a secret that died with them, I’m afraid.”

  “Did they say why they did it?”

  “Not really. Just mumblings about it being ‘necessary’ or ‘the best thing for everyone’. It was almost as if they didn’t want Omori to be trained up.”

  “Why wouldn’t they want that?”

  Tokai didn’t respond, and simply left the question hanging on the wind. “Let’s go and see how your smudger’s doing, shall we?”

  She turned and marched back towards the colony. I crouched down and placed both hands on the damp ground.

  “I’ll find her,” I whispered. “I promise.”

  30

  KIOTO

  “Where are you going to go?” asked Tokai, watching me pack my things into my bag.

  I shrugged. “Not sure yet. Maybe head towards the coast. I’ve not seen the sea since… Well, it would be nice to connect with my ancestors.”

  “Roots are important. But you have your parents here. Why don’t you stay for a while? The sun’s barely even risen. I’m sure Malia would appreciate some more rest.”

  Malia smiled. “I’ve kind of got used to heading out at the crack of dawn with this one.”

  “I’m sorry that we couldn’t help you. You’re so topped out. Any attempt at an extraction would almost certainly result in a rush. It’s just far too risky. But I’m sure that comes as no surprise to you, does it?”

  “Sadly not,” I replied.

  Malia nodded. “Kioto already tried, but she barely had to touch me to know it was too dangerous.”

  “Stay for a little while,” Tokai urged again. “I have a lot of contacts. If there’s anyone who can help, I’m sure to be able to find them.”

  “Thanks, but I’ve got a friend I need to find. We’ll pop by again before leaving Kumonayo.”

  “You’re staying in the city?”

  “For a few days. Before I decide what to do next.”

  Tokai stepped closer to me. “You shouldn’t look for Omori, if that’s what you’re thinking of doing.”

  “Not to be rude, but it really has nothing to do with you anymore.”

  Tokai grabbed hold of my wrist. “You have no idea what the vessel really is, what it can do. Besides, Omori has no memories left of you. She doesn’t know that she ever had a sister. Leave her alone.”

  “It has nothing to do with you,” I repeated.

  “If you go storming into her world, telling her things she doesn’t understand, you’ll ruin everything for her. She needs stability, not confusion. The vessel is far more powerful than you imagine. Dangerous. Stay away from her.”

  I took hold of Malia’s hand. “I have a band of rogues on my tail. You better pray to the High that they don’t track me here. You wouldn’t want another massacre like Okaporo.”

  My legs were shaking as I walked out of the colony, and I forced myself not to look back.

  “At least now you know your sister’s still in Kumonayo,” Malia whispered.

  I nodded. “I do. And her insistence that I stay away from Omori only makes me want to find her more. Besides, we have something no one else does. We have all her memories. She’s the only person that can help you, and you’re the only person who can help her. And we’re the only ones that know that.”

  I heard footsteps behind us, and I quickened my pace. But the footsteps were running, and quickly caught up with us.

  “Wait,” the young trader gasped, trying to catch her breath. “Wait. It’s not fair that Omori doesn’t know who or what she is. It’s not fair that she’s being used the way that she is. I want to help you.”

  She passed me a scrap of paper.

  “That’s the name of the family she’s with. That’s all I know, I don’t know where they live, but it won’t be difficult to find them.”

  “Why do you want to help me?” I asked.

  “I was friends with your sister. One day she made me promise that, if I ever met you, I’d do what I could to help. She never mentioned you again after that, and she’d never spoken of you before. I don’t know what was special about that day.”

  “So she does know about me?”

  “There are secrets in the colony, and in the hills, and the long grasses. They whisper them, but you have to listen closely. I hope you find the truth.” She smiled, nodded, and ran back the way she’d come.

  I looked at Malia and then down at the paper in my hand. I folded it into my pocket. “Let’s find my sister,” I said.

  Part Two

  31

  KIOTO

  “This is utterly pointless,” I muttered. I tugged my hood further forward, but the rain was coming in at us sideways, so it offered scant protection. “We’ve been standing out here for three days now, and we haven’t seen any evidence of her being here at all. How do we know this is even right?” I pulled the slip of paper from my pocket, the fold in it so worn that it had almost become a hole.

  Malia twitched her head “We could even be on the wrong side of the building.”

  I hadn’t even thought of that. Three days, and it hadn’t entered my head that we might just be standing in the wrong place.

  “Do you suppose there might be another entrance?”

  “There’s only one way to find out.” She looked up at the block. “Either way, there’s a lot of windows that she could be behind.”

  “Or none of them at all. Maybe we should make more enquiries.”

  “We don’t want to draw too much attention to ourselves.” Malia turned around and tugged my sleeve. She gestured with her head; just the tiniest of movements.

  I peered out from behind the drips that clung to the edge of my hood. A warden of the peace was walking up the other side of the road. Wardens were at the bottom of the police hierarchy, little more than clerks, but if there was a job no one else wanted to go out for, like if it was pouring with rain and didn’t promise an adrenaline-fuelled manhunt, they were called upon. Armed up with a stun gun and an over-inflated sense of importance. If there was any rank of the police likely to completely overreact and go in heavy-handed, it was a warden.

  I turned as well, and feigned serious interest in the menu displayed in the window of the café we were now facing.

  I heard footsteps approaching, a slight squelch under one shoe, and I tugged Malia’s sleeve.

  “Let’s go,”
I hissed. Heads down against the weather, we started to walk.

  The footsteps quickened behind us. An auto car hummed past, hit a puddle, and the warden cursed. At least I had that. His feet were soaked.

  “Ladies,” his voice finally boomed.

  I slowed, but we didn’t stop.

  “Ladies,” he repeated. His hand grabbed hold of my arm, spinning me round to face him. “Seems like unlikely weather for loitering,” he said.

  Rain dripped from the peak of his cap and fell onto his long nose. The droplets clung to his nostrils with impressive determination before resigning to gravity.

  “Doesn’t it just,” I replied. “Hence why we were on our way home.”

  “And where is home?”

  “At the moment? Hyle Road Safehouse.”

  “Then you’re a very long way from home.”

  I nodded, sending a shower of drips from my hood. “Just got a little lost. This is our first time in Kumonayo.”

  “I’d say you got a lot more than a little lost.”

  “Then a lot lost. That’s why we’re going. Quickly.”

  “One problem.” His hand moved towards his stun gun. I knew exactly what those things could do, and I certainly didn’t want to find myself writhing on the floor with bodily fluids pouring out of me.

  I instinctively raised my hands. “We just want to get back and into a dry set of clothes.”

  “We’ve had reports of a pair of traders loitering outside that block. And not just today either. What exactly are you looking for?”

  “Absolutely nothing. Just admiring the architecture.”

  “Don’t mess me around.”

  “Look, I thought that somebody I knew lived here, but I’ve now decided that I was mistaken. We won’t be back. In fact, we’re leaving Kumonayo first thing tomorrow. Right?”

  I nudged Malia, and she nodded in agreement, her hood slipping from her head. She caught it halfway, but it had already revealed her for what she was.

  “You’re not a trader at all,” the warden said. His hand settled on the handle of his stun gun. He shot a look at me. “Do you have papers for her?”