As I stepped outside and took a breath of cool air, a whiff of cloves caught my attention. Around the side of the building, leaning against the mural, was a large Half-Ogre in a shirt and tie smoking a small cigar. Likely a teacher. I sidled up and asked her for a puff.
“Sure,” she said. “I should stop anyway. I try to blame my health on the Coda but I’m sure these aren’t helping.”
I took a small puff. Tobacco wasn’t really my thing, but it was mixed with a sweet blend of spices that wasn’t unpleasant.
“You working overtime?”
“Detention. Some Elven girls decided to dig around in history and use what they found to bully the other kids. A fight broke out with a couple of Gnomes. I’m supposed to go back in and explain to them why that’s all in the past.” Her sigh could have sunk a sailboat.
“Still ironing out the kinks of the all-inclusive elementary school?”
“I just hope we get a chance to. We get more complaints than enrollments right now. Every parent wants us to give their kid the same schooling they had when they grew up. Dwarves want metalwork. Elves want history. The Gremlins want clargamary… whatever the fuck that is.” She threw her cigar on the ground and crushed it under her boot. “We’ve moved on, but nobody gets it. They’d rather send their kids to The School of the First Stream or The Lycum Home of Education, where they keep kids separate and teach them species-specific shit that doesn’t matter anymore.”
She looked up at me properly for the first time, like she’d only just realized she’d been talking to a real person.
“You got some tobacco in your teeth,” I said. She picked it from the gap in her incisors.
“You the guy they’ve got looking for Rye?”
I nodded.
“Well, you better find him. He’s the only staff member anyone respects. Without him, I don’t think we get another year.”
She waddled off, back inside, to convince some kids that the old world was gone so we’d better work together because we don’t have a choice.
At least I was starting to understand why Burbage wanted to keep things so secret. Ridgerock was a dangerous idea. It represented the fact that some people were ready to move forward. Too many of us were still clinging on to the old, dead world. I had my mansion. Others had their faded photos or their rusted swords with notches scratched into the side to remember how fearsome they once were.
If Rye was still alive, what would he be clinging to? It looked like he’d accepted his future: slow, simple and short. Maybe there was already a message at my office from Richie telling me that it was over. What then? Find out who did it, I guess. Work out why Rye was in the teahouse in the first place.
Sure. That’ll do. Focus on the future. Move on.
7
Sunder was a tough town even before the Coda. Back then, Economics was the adversary. You rolled the dice on the burgeoning metropolis knowing that the competition was fierce but the rewards would be substantial. There was still hunger, but it was honest hunger. Suffering was a natural part of city life and we all shared it equally. You didn’t resent the suffering; it was just the side dish that came with your meal. If you hit the dirt, the ground had been softened by a million others who’d stumbled there before you. Misfortune and misery and hardship were the base elements of our existence. It was apathetic and impartial.
Not any more.
Now suffering was a weapon. A disease unleashed by one side against the other. A thing that was done to someone by someone else. There were real villains now. Real enemies. Our fears had been dragged out of the darkness and placed on our neighbors’ faces. It wasn’t life that hurt us now. It was them. The other. The enemy.
Painted on the side of the building were three words. They weren’t fresh. I’d probably walked past them a dozen times without noticing. I’d been so deep in my self-loathing I thought everyone just hated me. I was wrong. Everyone hated everyone.
The paint was probably weeks old, but no one had done anything about it. It wasn’t hidden away in an alley either. Big black letters on the corner of the intersection where everyone could see. It wasn’t just an opinion. It was a message. A warning.
MAGUM MUST DIE.
I stood beneath the sign feeling my blood bubble like hot tar. Magum was an old-world title for Wizards, Witches, Warlocks and anyone who could manipulate the magic. In modern times, the name had been appropriated by certain Human groups as a way of lumping together any species connected to the great river. If it had a touch of magic, it was Magum. The rest of us: Humans, horses, dogs, cats and some other animals had never been connected. We missed the blessing and so we were spared the curse.
There had always been Humans in Sunder, but we’d been a minority. Now, the lifespan of the magic races had shortened considerably and we were starting to catch up. Obviously, that was making some of my kind a little bolder.
I looked at the message while eyes looked at me. In the opposite apartment block, a middle-aged woman stared out from her front door. She was Magum, and she knew I wasn’t. I couldn’t identify her species but I could feel the waves of hatred that swelled between us. I didn’t mind the hatred. I’d earned it. It was the other thing in her eyes that I didn’t like. The shame. Something in that message had gotten inside and changed her. How long do you look at words like that before you worry that they might be true? That maybe you shouldn’t be here?
I’d seen plenty of things break in my lifetime: bones, hearts and promises. This woman was breaking right in front of me. I watched as she somehow vacated her own eyes. The waves of hatred lulled to nothing. The door closed.
I kept my head down all the way home, replaying the events of the last couple of days and wondering what I could do that I hadn’t already done. Maybe the old man was gone. Maybe I was useless. Maybe I was too late. Like always.
I got back to the office and was downing a glass of strong-and-brown when I heard a knock, accompanied by an immediately grating, “Yoo-hoo.”
Standing in the doorway was a well-groomed man in a pinstripe suit with a fedora and no tie. Without being invited, he walked in and took a seat. He spoke like he was the host of a morning radio show and I already wished I could turn down the volume.
“Good afternoon, Mr Phillips. I’m glad I caught you at home.”
He crossed his legs to show off his colorful socks and looked around my room like he was a tourist in an exhibition.
“Oh my,” he marveled, pointing at the door behind me. “You still have your Angel door. How quaint. I had mine plastered over as soon as the Coda happened. No flying creatures ringing the doorbell these days, right?”
I was tempted to open it up and show him how useful the second exit could be.
“Thirsty?” I asked, holding up the bottle. He squinted.
“Are those flies in there?”
I held the bottle up to the light and, sure enough, there were a bunch of little critters sprinkled on the surface.
“I don’t think they’re flies,” I said.
“Well, what are they?”
“Drunk.”
He laughed too loudly. He thought he was here for a show.
“I discovered your name in the newspaper,” he said, one hand stroking the air, conducting his baritone voice. “I have a job that I believe you would be perfect for.”