CHAPTER 4

  The old blue-eye was testing Nail. Depressing.

  Nail had thought, had prayed, he was advancing. He supposed he was. Had to have a little bit. As a younger man he would have beaten the old man bloody for less than the stink-eye.

  The old man had been with the caravan when Nail joined two weeks before. They had hugged the southern coast up from Safe, on Mesogaen’s Smaller Gate.

  Nail could move faster alone, and he had nothing to fear. He'd stand out alone.

  Nothing to fear? wondered Nail. Was that arrogance?

  From the very first it seemed every time Nail saw the man, in chow line, rolling out his bed, finishing his morning prayers, that his glower steepened, his wrinkles deepened.

  They had made their final stop for lunch once the distant towers of the hill-city were on the horizon. Nail sat with his back against one of the sixteen-wheel crawlers, eating bread and enjoying a wet, salty breeze.

  Like Babekset, Nail thought dreamily. It was a very good thing he’d not met this sullen old man then. Much time and space now separated him from that young clown. I’m on the other side of the world.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised to again find the gloomy face trained on him.

  Something on the wind stole his attention, and his fast drifted back to the city.

  Bells. Nail Starson smiled.

  Of the Set Wars he had few genuinely good memories, but bells clanging from blue and green-eye cities had always been calming. In those days they often meant surrender. Peace. The Given city, or at least what he could see over the wall, sparkled in the sun. Somewhere on its other side, its south side, by the sea, was the Foolman city.

  Nail stood, shoved the last of the grease-soaked loaf into his mouth, gathered his things. Midday, he remembered with a start. He shouldn’t have eaten before, but nearly a full year on the road, always preoccupied with the search, had thrown off his rhythm. One and Only Rokk he prayed he would not have to enter First.

  Speaking of prayer, not a single step more. Nail dropped to his knees. Whenever the time to pray comes. . .all Nameless is a place of worship. Basic Mate's Notes stuff.

  He felt before he heard the feet shuffling through the grass. Jagged, shallow breaths above him. Nail continued his prayers.

  When he finally opened his eyes, it was not stink he saw in the old eyes, but hate. The man rubbed a stump that used to be a right hand. Ahhh.

  Nail climbed to his feet, an apology to One on his lips. The man was quite tall, shuffled as if unused to looking up into faces. Nail adjusted his long ebony mantle, what the Given would so callously call a 'scarf', so the folds piled up around his neck. The man trembled, his eyes darted often to Nail’s long, curved sword resting against the great wheel to his left.

  They stared.

  "You,” the man finally grunted.

  "I,” Nail said with a genuine smile, "am Nail. It is my pleasure to meet you.”

  "Rise, silver-eyed peace of caveman trash.”

  "Ah.”

  "How dare you come here? Scarf!”

  Nail had, by action or order, killed a more than a few cities-worth of people in his life. In those days the battles had followed so hard by one another there were times he and his Rockmen would carouse in the cool evenings with the set invaders. Men are odd creatures. He took these and several more insults before the man coughed, stopped.

  "Sir, if we cannot be civil, I implore you, leave me in peace. One and Only with you.”

  The blue eye spat a thick chunk at Nail’s feet. "Shit on One! You scarfs took my friends, my wife. My hand!” He thrust the stump up into Nail’s face.

  "If that’s true,” Nail sighed as he lashed he blankets it to his pack,”then you weren’t a soldier. A soldier caught stealing would have had death’s mercy. He wouldn’t have been left to face the Cave less a hand.”

  The man shook. "All we wanted was build. A new life! They told us to come!”

  Nail took up his scabbard, pack, secured his mantle. "You should have built within your own land, then.”

  "Hypocrite! What are you doing here, then?” Though the man had it wrong (Nail was not invading, an army at his back) the words had a surprising sting, and he didn’t know how to answer. Instead he looked again at the Given city. A minimal amount of shine would get him there well before sunset without worry of an enemy sensing him. Nail needed the caravan no longer, and was not afraid of fireside stories of gangs of roving valley madmen.

  Worse had tried to kill him.

  Soft sobbing carried by the wind reached Nail’s ears as he turned, walked away. "Scarfs! Dog-shaking, silver-eyed cavemen! If I still believed in Bard, I’d beg him to drop all of you into the gaping maw now! Chew you up!”

  Nail’s hand tightened around the curved white scabbard with the gold leaf inlay, yet not in anger. The tail of the free end of his mantle snapped as the wind suddenly rushed against him, and he thought, One will forgive the sincere. It is the Speech. I am sincere. I am.

  --------------------------------------------------------------------

  The Given made Nail walk the length of the city wall when he tried to enter the north gate. It was closed this week. He suspected it was always closed to his sort. Ragged and dirty from travel despite his best efforts. That was to say nothing of his eyes.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Now he sat in the shadow of Wordheal’s south wall, staring as the brawny, armed guard went through his belongings.

  Though of much more impressive architecture (there must be skeel in the design, for it was at least three hundred feet tall), seeing the tiny dot guards on it’s high battlements brought to ming something Sirk had once said. At that time they’d looked down on a long besieged city. Nail’s longrifles had been picking defenders off of the wall for hours when Sirk, a sickly-sweet smile on his face, had turned to him, "Like watching a guy pluck meat from their teeth, eh nephew?” His uncle could be more than a little morbid at times, and this was all the more true when he was drunk.

  He’d been very drunk.

  "Not looking for trouble,” the guard said, eyeing Nail’s sword.

  "For defense.” Not a lie. Nail expected no trouble in Wordheal, just as he hadn’t anywhere on the whole of southcontinent. He doubted his goal was amongst Given.

  "You ain’t First?” This question rolled with toxic-laced scorn.

  "No,” Nail’s tone matched the guard’s, which must have helped, for the latter’s shoulders laxed.

  "You get a number. You report to Immigration Services at any one of the twelve stations, every week that you’re here starting now. We’re always looking for Firsts, so don’t miss a report. We tend to take that as an admission.”

  Nail tugged at his mantle, but the guard simply returned his possessions, handed him a sheaf of paper, and waved him through. Can’t be many Rockmen here, I suppose.

  As was his custom, Nail wandered the section about the gate for several hours, gauging, feeling, memorizing crowd chokepoints, layouts, escape routes etc. Even with his shine-enhanced legs, walking this small section of city had burned much of the remaining day when he was satisfied.

  Truly a megacity.

  His uncle would have said scouting the enemy was more important than sleep, women, or food. Liquor, uncle? Nail grinned at the memory of Sirk banging his fist on the table, his other clasping a cool bottle like a vulture’s talon about a piece of carrion.

  It was a good day to shirk Sirk’s teachings. Nail needed a bed, food that wasn’t bread and gravy, and, One and Only in the Spring, a shower.

  Clearly the southern section was the worker’s, some even slums. The men were covered in patches of dirt or grime, tired-eyed women pulled along broods of grubby-faced kids. Nail liked it. He preferred the laborer to the magnate. If the working man is going to stab you it will usually be in your chest.

  The city seemed clean enough, but dull in contrast to the towering, distant skyscrapers on the north. He spotted a dwindling line of smoke above the far-off central buildings and wondered what it meant.

  Every so often, he’d find himself wandering down a lonely street and groups of young men or raggedy vagrants would slide up from shadow edges to eye him. All thought better of it.

  The Given weren't totally without wisdom, it seemed.

  Dinner came at the first street vendor not slinging meat and he greedily shoved the crisp salad with think tomato chunks and an oddly spicy dressing into his mouth.

  An hour later, after asking around, he came to a little red building very near to the wall. Through batting eyelashes and a pearly-white smile the young green-eyed girl behind the counter told him how she’d read a book on the Rock earlier that year. To Nail’s surprise, it had been given her by her underbook. Given teachers recommending books on the Rock? Odd place.

  She leaned on her hand, grinned slyly. "Those silver eyes are something."

  "Thank you,” Nail coughed. The women of set were not shy, this was but the latest evidence. He placed two gold crests on the counter, "I’ll be here for a time. I think this will cover the room and food. Please alert me if you require more.”

  With wide eyes the woman snatched up the pieces, "Whatever you say, man! Underbook would call this a Gift miracle, straight from Bard! Mr?”

  Nail winced at the Copulator appellation for One and Only, but with a wide smile replied, "Takir, ma’am.” Were his old foe ever to find out Nail used his name, outrage alone might to end him. Nail muttered apologies ro One for how happy he'd be as the young woman lead him up some carpeted stairs.

  "You are a Rockman? That’s what the scarf means, right?” she asked as she unlocked the first door from the stairs.

  "The least of what it means, but yes. I am a Rockman.”

  "They make all Rockman as big and, uh, broad and muscly as you?”

  Not knowing how to answer this, Nail relied on his old standby: silence.

  "I don’t mind, about you being a Rockman, I mean,” She turned as she passed the bed, tracing a line in the sheet with her finger and affecting an innocuous smile. "I’ve heard about all that crazy stuff that happened some years back when those sets went down to southcontinent. I’m not all that rokkish myself. People take that stuff waaaay too seriously.” Her eyes went down to his hip.

  "Now that,” she said gazing at the swirling blue and gold spirals along the length the scabbard Nail leaned against the wall. "That is beautiful. What do you call it?”

  Nail looked down at the blade, back to the young lady. "Sword.”

  "Oh,” she muttered, finally flustered. "It’s just, I’ve heard that warriors like to name their weapons.”

  "It has a name, ma’am. It’s called a sword.” With a purple-red face the girl told him that they locked the door two hours after sunset, and then hurried from the room.

  "Pretty,” he sighed. "Good thing that I am not that young foolman anymore. Very pretty.”

  Nail sat on the surprisingly springy bed, ordered his thoughts. Then he pulled out the biblio. Sirk's gift so many years ago. Its scroll-like carapace parted to reveal the ultra-thin paper that would unwind from the right compartment and into the left, or, here in rise, opposite, as it was read. Nail, like many risers, preferred scroll to the book, even if they took much longer to create, copy and carry. The biblio was the best of both.

  Nail kneeled, elbows propped on the bed, and looked to his gauge, his ever-bright sun of bursting, magnificent yellow shine, and pulled from its spiraling sunspots until the yellow shine, in the form of amber flame, ran across the lengths of his arms into the biblio. Sirk had labored from the day of Nail’s birth to the eve of his thirteenth birthday. Then the old shaker hit Nail on the head with it. Indeed, it was a wonder. Perhaps the only of its kind on Nameless. A meticulous copy the entire Speech, and included both major Mate's Notes of the Confirmer’s life onto high-quality skeel, hammered so thin it no longer shimmered. Nail’s shine ran through the delicate grooves, there were sparks, and then the Speech leapt off of the surface and into flaming yellow words around him. He read aloud for the next hour, careful to not miss so much as a syllable. Reading the Speech was art, and, like all arts, it took time.

  Nail was a master.

  When he was finished ,Nail stood, drove knuckles into his lower back, wandered to the window. The sun was moving into the last part of the day, the sky less blue than orange now.

  "Copulators,” prayed Nail aloud above the red-clad Given laughing and shopping, "One and Only save them. They are Textmen, so close and yet so far. I will be on my best behavior until I find it.” Find the power that brought Nail all the way to the set of the Nameless World’s sun.

  Suddenly, in the middle of the street, a large group of laughing children appeared tossing around an oddly shaped ball. It seemed to Nail as if the only rule to the game was to attack whomever held it. Nail smiled as he watched them. This is the way a city ought to be always. Peace. Bells. Not war. The way Spring will be.

  The densely grouped children separated like a wave as a grown man, his bald head shining in the newborn streetlights, tripped and fell, face skidding along the pavement, the ball he’d held for only a moment popping out of his hands. The little ones evidentially knew him, for they ignored the fact he no longer held the ball and fell upon him. He flailed about trying to secure his feet. Nail couldn’t tell if his screams were real or play.

  Once on his feet, the clown immediately returned to trying to intercept the ball, but the game had changed to allowing anyone but him to have it.

  "A grown man,” Nail said trying to find the same outrage his father surely would have. None came, and Nail was glad for it. Instead he smiled, "What a fool. What a ridiculous belt.”

  It was harder than he’d thought it would be, surrounded by so many lost. Nail turned from the window, "Hopefully I don’t have to go amongst the narokks. That would. . . be unpleasant.” Again, Nail thought of his father. Star didn’t care for narokks, but that wouldn’t have bothered him near as much as Sebi. "Don’t worry, father,” Nail said as he removed the pillow, bundled his mantle beneath his head on the bed. "I won’t meet any Sebi in Wordheal.”