When Sary awoke, she was alone. The lights were off, but the door to the tiny bedroom remained open, casting soft shadows in reflected light from the front room. A small cup of water sat on the bedside table, next to a pair of bright orange pills. With some difficulty, she rolled to her side and then pushed herself up, took the pills with a generous gulp of water, and stood.
“Draedon? Marga?” The pod was silent. She checked the second bedroom, where a smaller bed sat empty next to a tiny desk and a shelf full of old books. The front room, comprising a common area and kitchen space, was also empty.
Through the open curtain, she could see Draedon outside the pod on the walkway, smoking a thin cigar. She slipped her feet into a pair of sandals by the door and stepped outside. The air was cool in the late afternoon shadow, but the sun still shone brightly. She hadn’t slept as long as she thought she had. They were on the eighth level, about a third of the way up the identical stone and metal stacks of housing known as the downpods. Draedon leaned against the walkway’s railing on his elbows, a stream of cloudy white exhaust escaping his lips and curling around his head before a puff of wind dragged it away. A few people passed, paying her no mind, and Sary slipped through to the railing, joining Draedon.
“Oh, you’re up,” he said with a smile.
“Hi,” Sary said, sidling up to him, putting her arm around his waist. He had the stubble of a beard turning grey, with hints of silver at his temples, and laugh lines at the corners of his kind eyes. “It’s chilly.” He obliged her with an arm around her shoulders.
“It’s nice to see you.”
Sary mumbled her thanks, and looked around. The pods were busy today, with the calm weather. There were thousands of identical units like Draedon’s. From the railing they looked down into the ground level, where Vikkis Avenue ran, meeting the East Junction a hundred meters to their right. Though it was cast in shadow, the avenue was filled with people. Across the vast drop, an old woman beat a rug that lay over the railing on her side with a wide, woven beater. She glared at Draedon with eyes full of scorn.
“Why does that woman hate you?” Sary caught a glance from the woman, who maintained a fierce glare at Draedon.
“You mean Gorga Fishwife over there? I don’t know. I think I offended her somehow.” He slipped the cigar into his mouth and shrugged.
“Gorga? Fishwife? Is that really her name?”
Draedon laughed. “No idea. I don’t think she would let me get close enough to find out.”
When Sary caught a glance from the woman, she waved. In response, the old woman spit over the edge into the abyss. “And that will be in someone’s hair,” Sary said.
Draedon stubbed his cigar out on the railing. “Come on,” he said, removing his arm. “Let’s get inside and get you checked out.”
Draedon led Sary inside, then closed the curtains and locked the door, but not before he caught Fishwife’s attention and stuck his tongue out at her. “Dusting harpy,” he said. He led Sary into the smaller bedroom. He selected a book on the second shelf from the top, angling it outwards. From behind the bookcase came a light click. Draedon pulled, and swung the bookcase open like a door. “In you go,” he said, motioning to Sary. She went through first, into a larger room that had been rough-cut directly into the mountainside against which the Downpods were built. The room was brightly lit, and contained a row of ten cots along the left wall and cabinets along the right. Four of the beds were currently occupied, with a pair of women tending to the people that lay there.
“Your room?” Sary leaned toward a door to her right.
That’s right,” Draedon said, following her inside. He flipped on the overhead light, revealing a doctor’s examination room with a single bed covered in a clean white cloth, next to a metal desk with frosted glass-fronted cupboards built in. “Up you go,” he said, but Sary had been doing this for days. She slid her way onto the bed, then allowed Draedon to help her to lay down. She lifted her shirt so her belly was showing while Draedon cleaned his hands.
“I hate cigars,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “They’re nasty, smelly things. They fill my mouth with the taste of ash and make my clothes reek.”
“Then why do you smoke them?”
“Lies and deceits, my dear. Subterfuge. Habits are useful sometimes. Why does the Fishwife bang her rugs every day, when they are already clean from yesterday’s thumping?”
“She’s bored?”
He laughed. “Maybe so. But I think it’s to be outside. To be seen. To be a part of the community. The same reason I smoke cigars every day.”
“To be part of the community?”
“To be seen,” he said. “Now let me examine your belly.” His hands were warm and gentle. He moved as if she were made of filigree and he feared breaking off the delicate strands.
“Your breath smells,” she said, though she smiled at him.
“And your wound heals. You took your pills?”
“Yes, father.”
“Good. Sit up.” He placed an arm behind her to take up the weight. “Be cautious for a few more days. No lifting. No strenuous activity. No dancing. No knife fights in the alleys.”
“No more knife fights in the alleys?”
Draedon shook his head. “No more. And someday you must tell me the story.” He must have seen the worried look on her face, because he patted her on the knee. “Or not at all. Your decision.”
He opened one of the cabinet doors, and removed a glass jar half full of orange pills like the one she had taken. It was the object behind it that captured her attention.
“Is that an oath?” She pointed to the object.
Draedon turned to her, half-closing the door, then appeared to change his mind and opened it fully. “It is,” he said.
“Can I see it?” Sary brightened. “I’ve heard of these, but I’ve never seen one before.
"And you never saw this one,” Draedon said, his hand hovering over the object. “Are we clear on that? This must remain between us.”
“Yes, doctor,” she nodded.
Draedon grunted, then pulled the object from the shelf and handed it to her. It was a carved dagger, heavy, made of dark, almost black wood, and shone with a light that seemed to come from deep within the wood. But it was the carving that enraptured her. The dagger was nearly as long as her forearm, the carving so perfect that it appeared to have grown with the timber, as much a part of the structure as the grain deep in the wood itself.
“It’s beautiful,” she said, her voice not more than a reverent whisper. “It must be worth…”
“Enough to run this clinic for a decade,” Draedon said, with a hint of melancholy in his voice.
“Is that…chyger wood?” Sary couldn’t remember the name, as she had never even seen a whole tree.
“Chyter,” Draedon said. “Yes, it is. And carved by none other than Teve Leary himself.”
“What is it for? The oath, I mean. What did you have to do to get that?”
Draedon leaned back in his chair. “If I told you that, or from who? That would break the oath, you pesky creature. And that…” Draedon sighed. “That would mean my death. And the death of all who knew me.” He took the oath back from Sary and placed it carefully on the shelf. “And that includes you, lovely one. And that is something that I could not live with.”
* * *
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