weather is too cold for this time of year."
"Mr. Green says you are a lucky man." Never to the same people. Old,
young, male, female, each one with secrets behind their eyes. He
played it like a game. Delighted in the mystery of not really knowing
the rules. Then he'd return, a human homing pigeon, to their house.
"Official business," his father said. He held an important position
for H&S because he was a war hero. Anyone could tell that from all
of the photographs of him fighting against the Kalif, and from the people who came over to visit. Some of them wearing funny hats and
uniforms.
But by the time Finch was seventeen, his father had stopped
sending him on these errands. He'd felt discarded. Hadn't understood
then that his father had turned to others when Finch began to ask
questions. When he began to have a sense of the secrecy behind his
missions. A tallish, dark-haired, serious boy with few close friends his age,
taught at home by his father. Those journeys across the city had meant
a lot to him.
But he'd kept the map, used it for his new job, which his father had
gotten for him. Courier for Hoegbotton business interests. Running
invoices and shipping inventories between the main offices and the
warehouses at the docks. Sometimes, if the conflict heated up, if
F&L cut off certain roads, he had to find alternate routes.
Trade "has to keep on an even keel, no matter what," his boss Wyte
liked to say. Wyte, seven years his senior, with an office in the brick
building on Albumuth they'd both work at after the Rising. Even then
Wyte had seemed too large for the world around him. Desk too small.
Him too clumsy. But to Finch he'd been the height of authority.
The map shows that brick building, with a green mark by it. It
also has detailed views of the Bureaucratic Quarter, the Religious
Quarter, and what had unofficially been known as the merchant
district before the wars. Albumuth Boulevard, the great snake
wending its way through almost every part of the city. The valley
that had been the home of so many citizens. The docks. The
swampland to the north.
A view of Ambergris that had remained essentially unchanged
for centuries. Had survived early incursions by the Kalif, the cavalry
charges of Morrow back when it had a king instead of the F&L. Had
even survived the Silence.
But could not survive the Rising.
The gray caps have a kind of see-through paper. A slight greenish tint,
barely noticeable. It feels light as a leaf, but is very strong. Finch has
stolen two sheets of it, taped them together to form an overlay to his
old map. On this overlay he charts the changes he has observed, using
a dark pencil that he can erase at will.
In the evenings, when too restless to sleep but too tired to read, Finch
will turn on the light in the study. Or use a lantern if the electricity is out.
Review the overlay. Search for what he knows has been made different
again. Then render a section bare with handkerchief and water. Build it up
again, redraw it all. A change in the lip of the bay. Or in the HFZ. A row
of houses that has burned down. A drug mushroom that erupted from the
pavement. A new gray cap house or cathedral.
Lately, he has been charting the retreat of the water. Right after
the Rising, the canals from the bay into Ambergris had been like the
fat fingers of a grasping hand. Now they are withered, the "thumb"
almost dry, the others shriveling. Like his father's blue-veined hands
in the clinic near the end. A disease he'd picked up early in life,
fighting the Kalif. It got into his lungs first, and spread. No cure
except death.
Remapping takes the kind of concentration that empties out the
mind. In the old house, before they became vagabonds together,
his father had created something similar in his locked study. Much
bigger, with even more detail, laid out across a huge table fit for
a banquet. Color-coded to show Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe
territories within the
"Mr. Green says you are a lucky man." Never to the same people. Old,
young, male, female, each one with secrets behind their eyes. He
played it like a game. Delighted in the mystery of not really knowing
the rules. Then he'd return, a human homing pigeon, to their house.
"Official business," his father said. He held an important position
for H&S because he was a war hero. Anyone could tell that from all
of the photographs of him fighting against the Kalif, and from the people who came over to visit. Some of them wearing funny hats and
uniforms.
But by the time Finch was seventeen, his father had stopped
sending him on these errands. He'd felt discarded. Hadn't understood
then that his father had turned to others when Finch began to ask
questions. When he began to have a sense of the secrecy behind his
missions. A tallish, dark-haired, serious boy with few close friends his age,
taught at home by his father. Those journeys across the city had meant
a lot to him.
But he'd kept the map, used it for his new job, which his father had
gotten for him. Courier for Hoegbotton business interests. Running
invoices and shipping inventories between the main offices and the
warehouses at the docks. Sometimes, if the conflict heated up, if
F&L cut off certain roads, he had to find alternate routes.
Trade "has to keep on an even keel, no matter what," his boss Wyte
liked to say. Wyte, seven years his senior, with an office in the brick
building on Albumuth they'd both work at after the Rising. Even then
Wyte had seemed too large for the world around him. Desk too small.
Him too clumsy. But to Finch he'd been the height of authority.
The map shows that brick building, with a green mark by it. It
also has detailed views of the Bureaucratic Quarter, the Religious
Quarter, and what had unofficially been known as the merchant
district before the wars. Albumuth Boulevard, the great snake
wending its way through almost every part of the city. The valley
that had been the home of so many citizens. The docks. The
swampland to the north.
A view of Ambergris that had remained essentially unchanged
for centuries. Had survived early incursions by the Kalif, the cavalry
charges of Morrow back when it had a king instead of the F&L. Had
even survived the Silence.
But could not survive the Rising.
The gray caps have a kind of see-through paper. A slight greenish tint,
barely noticeable. It feels light as a leaf, but is very strong. Finch has
stolen two sheets of it, taped them together to form an overlay to his
old map. On this overlay he charts the changes he has observed, using
a dark pencil that he can erase at will.
In the evenings, when too restless to sleep but too tired to read, Finch
will turn on the light in the study. Or use a lantern if the electricity is out.
Review the overlay. Search for what he knows has been made different
again. Then render a section bare with handkerchief and water. Build it up
again, redraw it all. A change in the lip of the bay. Or in the HFZ. A row
of houses that has burned down. A drug mushroom that erupted from the
pavement. A new gray cap house or cathedral.
Lately, he has been charting the retreat of the water. Right after
the Rising, the canals from the bay into Ambergris had been like the
fat fingers of a grasping hand. Now they are withered, the "thumb"
almost dry, the others shriveling. Like his father's blue-veined hands
in the clinic near the end. A disease he'd picked up early in life,
fighting the Kalif. It got into his lungs first, and spread. No cure
except death.
Remapping takes the kind of concentration that empties out the
mind. In the old house, before they became vagabonds together,
his father had created something similar in his locked study. Much
bigger, with even more detail, laid out across a huge table fit for
a banquet. Color-coded to show Hoegbotton and Frankwrithe
territories within the
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