CHAPTER 22

  Empty alleys. Deserted shops. Quiet streets. Baying. Cats hissing. Mostly in the dark. Another stupid cat that looked like it had PTSD for some reason. No sleep. More empty alleys. What the maw was she even looking for? Seemed so clear-cut and obvious in First: any action preferable to nothing. She a highly trained killer, battle-hardened and highly educated. Why, then, had she thought she could just blow through Wordheal, four-times the size of her home, once or twice before finding not just a clue but the unknown shiner? Was she so stupid?

  "POSSIBLY!” E yelled from where she sat, cross-legged and cross, on the edge the roof of the decrepit school. Some blue bird walking along the roof’s edge spasmed at her cry and fled into the sky.

  She pushed off the ledge, lazily wound her way from back to the ground, no visible shine. A glance at her gauge as she left the building’s cracked parking lot revealed the ocean still rolling but faded more than she’d hoped. She needed to sleep. The shinasshu wheel keeping her hair brown was leaking, but her attempts to patch it only made it worse, which made her frustrated, which made it worse still.

  She skulked down the street with hands in her pockets and a surely look on her face, silently cursing the city, grateful for the emptiness. They're all at that stupid thing? she fumed in thought. She’d expected at least a measurable number of dissenters, but the streets were empty All the time they waste playing around with rokkae and they follow in whispers. We’d have colonized the unbroken hunk of the moon by now.

  Out of the shadows, she had seen him long before he her, a single blue-eyed man, greasy in soiled clothes and hat, torn jeans, stepped forward and leered.

  "Hey.” He wiggled his eyebrows, "Got any coin?”

  E marshaled a tiny veil of bubbling shine and swept it across him. Nothing. Of course not. "None for you, hatchetface.”

  He laughed, grabbed out as she passed, "Don’t be cold. You got a maw of a look to you, girl?”

  E swept his wrist, twisted. Now she held him in control, his arm nearly pulled all the way down his back, his back arched.

  "Shake. Off!” she hissed, tossed him away.

  He slithered away, "You’re no Given, lady!”

  E looked at her wagging fingers in disgust. Once, during the only time she had visited the poor section of First everyone called "Inevitable Ruin,” when Strauss had pushed her too far and her mother had told her to stop behaving like a child and, like any good teenager, she’d run away, she had stopped a mugger. The child she had saved cursed her for a monster and ran away too. She wondered if the guy died. She hadn’t had as much control then.

  Parts of this south section looked a maw of a lot like Inevitable. Which did she dislike more: the idea that Wordheal wasn’t any worse than First or that First wasn’t any better? This city had the same combination of dunders and haughty a-holes (here she thought of that Mag guy, Eterna).

  She’d die before letting Wag think himself right.

  There was a crunch to her back, and she turned, expecting, hoping, praying, for a fight. Instead she found that annoying bald guy again. He stood grinning, staring at her and munching loudly on an apple as he picked his teeth.

  She squared up to him. The last thing she needed was a loverboy stalker. "Guy, I really, really hope you’re not following me. Cause that’s what it’s starting to feel like.”

  He dry heaved, made a retching sound, took another large bite, "Don’t flatter yourself, Fritz. You’re always frowning and your legs are weird. Not my type.”

  "Oh,” E was thrown by the candor. Worse, her pride had taken a critical hit! Usually she could make even the stoutest, most confident guy squirm. "Well,” she cast around for a response, any pillershaking response, but only brought: "uh, what you doing here then?"

  He looked about, gestured at the road and the trees. "Walking? I do it a lot, and I really hope that's not a problem for you, as I've decided you're cool enough to be my friend and that I will, consequently bother you all day every day."

  She rolled her eyes.

  Pilgrim sighed, "I went to estate with that wonderful family you met this morning at the pub. Well, you met the kids anyway, saw the mom run off to kill a guy, I think she was even screaming 'kill, kill”, then after estate I started to eat this,” he held up the fruit, "then I decided to take a walk, tripped over a cat, cat's been like a menace to me for a couple of day's now actually, it's really stupid, then some lunatic screaming on one of the buildings round here scared me so I tripped again, into an iron gate, and now I’m here, on my way back to the shelter. Want company?”

  "I’m not going back right now. Business I haven’t completed yet.”

  "Business huh? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that sounds shady as maw. Not much you can get done on Morning Gift, or Gift for that matter. Everything’s closed. What few non-Given live here don’t even open. I guess a criminal might have some business.” In a few more bites the apple was down to the core and he tossed this into a nearby bin. "Besides we could really use the extra hands. We’ll be doing tons of work today.”

  Criminal? A threat? What else could that mean? E reassessed the man: baldness, light jacket, stupid belt. She needed and angle to take control back.

  What she settled on was gross.

  "What will you guys be doing?” She cocked her head playfully, then, and thought I think this is flirting.

  Pilgrim hacked again. "Already told you, I don’t care for the freak-legs.”

  For the first time in what seemed like millennia, E felt embarrassed. Not angry-embarrassed, that was daily, but girly embarrassed. "That’s not. . . I didn’t mean. . .”

  "Ha! Never seen skin get so red. Messin’ with ya. We’ll just be doing some time-consuming, back-breaking, rage-inducing, mind-numbing work. Painting, replacing old drywall, moving boards from one side of the lawn to the other for no reason I can see, etc. Give us a hand?”

  After missing the Morning Gift nonsense, E wasn’t sure how suspicious it would look to refuse. I could kill him, she thought. No. Damn it, no I can’t! Well, I could, but there are so many people around. No, I can’t! The maw is wrong with me? "I’ve actually got two!” she said with a shy, irritated smile. "Pilgrim, yeah?"

  "Ha. Lame joke, and great! I am Pilgrim. After you,” he indicated the street behind him and they started off, side by side. It was only a moment before Pilgrim asked, "Where ya from, Fritz?”

  "Wanhope. Already to you that.” Guy didn’t talk half this much last night when he'd taken her to the shelter.

  "I’m an outsider too. Most o’ these folks have been around one another so long, entrenched in their ways, nice to talk to someone who isn’t a Wordhealer. I’m from Wanhope, it so happens.”

  Panic, but E thought, recovered quick. "Raised in Olde Honour, actually. Hope you don’t go throwin’ that about. Won’t be so popular here. Anyway, decided to come set a couple years back. Heard a lot about Wanhope. Didn’t care for what I did.”

  "Not a fun place,” Pilgrim seemed to mourn a moment. "Olde Honour, huh? Secret’s safe with me. Spent a spell out there three, four years back.”

  "Must have sucked. There aren’t any Given in Olde Honour.”

  "Yeah, I’m sure they would like to think that. There are Given everywhere. We may be small in a place, but we’re persistent. Like bad fungus. Or good fungus. Some kind of fungus. . .”

  "Small? This is an entire city of Given.”

  "Ah. Sure.”

  "Are you telling me there’s an estate in Olde Honour?”

  "No. I’m telling you there are many. Olde Honour, eh? Actually explains a lot.”

  "Maw does that mean?”

  He laughed. "I’m really gonna like you, Fritz! Mostly how dismissive you are. Like this morning when you got upset when Rina and I were having that little spat about the Archives. Aggressive, too. What just happened with that fine representative of the y chromosome back there? Don’t with the innocent face. I saw the whole thing. Not judging. Excellent. And above all, you’re loud. Met many Given who used to be narokks. They all go through the same, especially in the early years. All loud. All insecure.”

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  Narokk to Given, E thought. What would that would look like.

  "I’m glad you see truth now,” Pilgrim continued, while E felt her heart beat a little faster at the word. "Learn good questions as a narokk. Valuable. Can’t teach that.”

  As they passed between buildings E watched some kids played tag across a street, weeds growing in warm, concrete cracks.

  E’s curiosity beat her. "What questions?”

  Pilgrim scratched his chin. "Nothing too heavy. Who, what, why? 'Why am I?' Simple.”

  E scoffed. "Simple? The narokks I knew would think those questions came about from the absurd, uh, for them, Given idea that humans are special under the ex. . .Field. I don’t think those are important questions any narroks, at least I knew, would ask.”

  "Yeah?”

  "Yeah.”

  "What questions do you think narokks think are important?”

  "One that yield hard truths. The. . .Field isn’t the sort of place 'why am I?’ matters, not really. We are. Just are. Narroks are concerned more with the movements of worlds. Discovering their nature, order.”

  Pilgrim took this in. "So, you don’t think the Firsts, they’ll be our narokks, you don’t think they care about ethics, or how we know things?”

  "Firsts? How would I know? Wait, what? No! I didn’t say that! Of course, they care a good deal about. . .about those!”

  "If they can’t answer something basic as 'Why am I?'?"

  "You’re taking it all too seriously. I just think that, that they would say that question is unimportant relative to something like," she rolled her arm a few times, "the history of the Field. Progression from chaos to order.

  "Sounds like narokks,” Pilgrim laughed as they turned a corner.

  E waited a few seconds and grunted. "You really gonna make me say, 'What sounds like narokks?'?”

  "Yes. You hit on it by brining in these words "unimportant" and "relative". They imply other questions: 'What's important?' and 'Relative to what?" and such like. Narokks love to sneakily multiply questions. But you’re Given now. 'The history of the Field’? 'Investigating order’? Can’t be done without first establishing yourself. The base. What do you think a First would say if you asked them, 'Why am I?’, Fritz?”

  "Whoa!” She’d nearly walked headlong into a streetlight.

  "Genius,” Pilgrim smirked, guided her around it. "Walk much."

  "Thanks. Uh, I'd say they’d say, 'You are. 'Why' is irrelevant.’”

  "Kay. 'What am I?’”

  "Stuff.”

  "And?”

  "And nothing.”

  "’Who', Fritz? You know what I'm asking. 'Who?'’”

  "Whomever you feel like!” E laughed. How long had it been since she’d talked with anoyone other than LJ and Wag like this? Laughed like that? Just full from the gut?

  "Who is this First even to say 'who' she thinks she is? She's stuff. What, she got some magic power to declare what something is just cause she feels like it? That's just about her. How can she know what I do or should feel when she don’t know what, or why, she is? Maybe I’m just a background character in a dream the expanse has of itself? You've had em. They aren't important at all. Flash and you’ll forget.”

  "That’s stupid.”

  "I know, right? Narokks are stupid, weird too. You said yourself: a narokk would say some truths are hard but that don’t mean they aren’t true. You said the question, 'Why?’ would be unimportant. I agree, but cause they can’t answer it. Their answer to 'Why?’ is,” he shrugged, "meh.” People are just a kind of thing amongst a whole array of things. Who are they to think they can say where one ends and another begins?”

  "Not very charitable. . .”

  "Oh I know they'd say more. 'There’s more to it and blah yada yak yaky blah. . .Annnd throw to bad poetry!’” She laughed. He did too. "But they already gave it away. Why believe they're meh if I can't my own meh? How can use mehs build descriptions of the expanse, and then trust them to build ways to check my own descriptions?”

  "Will,” E said slowly, for she had thought all as he talked and was thinking even as she spoke, "is the only power we ever get.”

  "Romantic.” Pilgrim purred as sun splashed across his coat as he spun. "Maw is 'will?’ Is it rough, soft? Slippery? How many 'wills’ to a pound?”

  "Ok,” E grinned. "Now for a brain buster, tough guy.”

  "You're a loser."

  "What should a Given say to all that shit? 'Why’ and stuff?”

  Without a breat Pilgrim said, "Myecho breathed and lived’. Rokk made me man, Pilgrim, an echo after Myecho; and he made me Given. Because I’m Given more questions come: 'Who will I be?’ Kiln, the end of riot. 'Kiln, the Last is breath itself.’

  "But, of course, that's all the Text.”

  Pilgrim was silent, and when E finally looked she found him picking at his ear. She slapped his arm.

  "Ow,” said Pilgrim.

  "You just ignoring my question?”

  "That was a question? You even know how questions work?”

  "Oh, c’mon.”

  "And for that I’m assailed. In broad daylight. By a broad in daylight!”

  "Don’t be a wuss. You know that's what the First would say. They don’t care what the Text says. Everyone’s got an old book they wave around.”

  "Who cares what the narokk thinks of the Text?”

  E folded her arms.

  Pilgrim stopped, looked up into the sky, "Our First has hot-feet. Hopping back and forth. 'We’re stuff, but we can do wonders, discover all, or even one, of the deep Field’s secrets.’ Why care what's true anyway?”

  E shook her head, ashamed that even if for only a moment, let him confuse her with wordgames. "People don’t want to follow what they know are lies.”

  "Oh,” sighed Pilgrim, and then he screamed, "THAT'S BULLSHIT! There are tons, TONS, of folks who prefer lies. Does our First think all who say they’re Given, when they’re alone, and only they know deep inside, if they really are? She herself thinks as much about the Gift, but not about her own lies. How does she get out of bed in the morning unless she lies to herself that she’s is something more than meh when she knows, KNOWS, her stupid will is as stupid as any rokkism? When she knows, KNOWS, it’s chaos and old night for all of us when we croak? POLITICIANS!" And he screamed this word several more times.

  "STOP YELLING, PSYCHO, AND GET OFF THAT TABLE!” E screamed back, pointing down at the bewildered people in the middle of their picnic the man has literally stumbled onto.

  They were in the middle of a park. Everyone was staring.

  The bald man whispered apologies, tiptoed around the lunch as he climbed down, "I’m like a small dog, really. You get to like me the longer you know me and I’m easy to kick. Nice looking potato salad.”

  "Geez," E stuck her hands in her pockets and hunched her shoulders until they left the park. "Anyway," she said," the First's already answered that question: Because then she’s believing things that aren’t true.”

  "So?”

  "It. . . I don’t know, it hinders progress. There! It delays the progression to a better quality of life.”

  "Progress?” Pilgrim sloshed the word around in his mouth. "Quality?”

  "Being good, impartially benevolen, is good for everyone, yeah? We have to agree on that much? Everybody believes that.”

  "A vote now, eh?”

  E shrugged."

  "She knows there's a lot more rokkists than narokkists, yeah?"

  "She’s aware," but she thought, Ah, damn you.

  "Well she must not travel much's. Many, if not most, of the people I’ve met walking this big rock do good things mostly because they think they ain’t strong enough to do the bad without consequences. There are the few who rise above, do bad things because they actually can. They’ve found the,” he poked her in the rib, "will. . .Huh? Huh? Well, shut up it was funny. Then there are those who really like hurting others. Really like it. You’d think they’re the worst,” he took a deep breath, "they ain’t.”

  "What’s the worst?”

  So quietly she barely caught it, he said, "’Meh’. They crossed a few more streets in silence before he repeated, "Progress, huh?”

  "Things have gotten progressively better, you have to admit.”

  Unimpressed, Pilgrim countered. "Death/rot rate’s a hundred percent. Progress? If the First means there are more people that just means there's more death. Progress? Pitiful. Can’t have progress with no end, or beginning.”

  "So Kiln? Kiln is just the answer. Rockmen have the Kiln, but I think they call it something else. Some of the Sebi have it too, at least I think. Or, no, I think I'm wrong. Maybe they think they’ll have it someday. I know the orange-eyes in Great Sky have a rokk, but I don’t think they think they go anywhere, like, beyond Nameless. How can any of them decide who’s right? They cancel each other out, yeah?”

  "Stupid,” said he, studying the way ahead, perhaps keeping an eye out for another rogue picnic table, and laughing. "Why would the First say something so stupid?”

  She should be angry, but his laugh was so genuine that she just punched his shoulder.

  "Anyway," said he, "I wouldn’t be willing to give even that much to her. All hinges on what’s true. Whose rokk is Rokk. It takes work, but there it is.”

  "What if that’s not good enough?”

  She wanted an answer, but suddenly someone was crying out to them.

  "Took you long enough! Lots of work to do in the back. Hi Fritz! Thanks for your help! I assume he brought you to help! If not, we’ve got lunch!” A small, pretty green-eye woman, flecked all over with paint, decked out in overalls and work gloves called from behind the shelter.

  "Ser Pau,” said Pilgrim. "She used to be a narokk too. Shaddup Ser Pau!”

  "Really?”

  When they arrived at the open lot at the building's rear the first thing E saw was the, mouthy, yet adorable kid from the pub. Tek ran, weaved and bobbed his way around the wood skeleton of what would soon be new bedrooms, distributing bottles of cold waterwater. He stubbed his foot and cursed. Somewhere nearby a woman screamed his name and he moaned.

  "I like that little man,” Pilgrim said as he pulled off his jacket, folded it, placed it lovingly on the ground, rolled up his sleeves. "Reminds me of me.”

  E rolled her hair into a bun. "’He shouldn't. He's smooth, and charming.”

  "Ah. . .You suck.”

  "Given,” a voice rumbled. Approaching them was the Rockman from breakfast, he stood in a half-built doorway, a large stack of freshly cut boards on his shoulder. "It has taken you long enough. I was afraid the heat of the day had withered you.”

  "Maybe you’re hot,” E said sardonically, "because you have that big scarf on all the time, I dunno.”

  "Ha!” Nail roared as he took a bottle from Tek. "This isn’t heat. Cave at high noon, three days with only a thimble of water, that is heat.”

  E spied the Sebess, Rina, carrying her own load of wood, her blue eyes kicking off sparks in the sun. Wag’s own lapzu’s seemed dull in comparison.

  Pilgrim sidled up to Nail, "Who ya tryna impress, tiny? Rokk? Me?” Pilgrim took the bottle and extended his hand, "It occurrs to me after our meeting today that I may have been a tad rude. I apologize. So, we start again. Pilgrim.”

  The Rockman shook his hand, "Nail.” He looked to E. "My turn to apologize, I believe your name is. . .Fritz?”

  They too, exchange a handshake. "Shiiiit.” She made a show of flexing her hand. "Who are you trying to impress?”

  Too his credit, he blanched. "I'm sorry."

  "I'm kiidding, guy. Relax."

  "Careful with this one, Nail.” Pilgrim slapped the other man’s back. "Used to be a Foolwoman. Ha. Got your eye to twitch. Chill, Fritz. It's a name for narroks in the Speech."

  Rina stood by them with another stack of boards. "You are preventing Nail from working. He boasted how much he can haul but so far he seems better at talking. Hello again, Fritz.”

  "No hello for me," said Pilgrim. "I roped her into this by casually insinuating that if she didn't help she was like a criminal or something. And she bought it! Too late to back out now." He turned to walk away, missed the step, and fell face first into the new frame.

  "That dude is infuriating,” E took the pile of boards from Nail. "Mine. Let's see who can do more, tough guy."