Incarnate (6 page)

He had little reason to play as my ally, considering he’d known Corin for five thousand years and my “saving” of him was only one small thing, but for whatever reason, he did, and I could have hugged him for it. “You’re right. It’s been a long walk from the edge. Can we catch up another day, Corin? Ana and I still have to unpack.”

The guard shook his head. “I’m afraid not. I mean, you can go, Sam”—he jerked his chin toward the open door at the end of the long room—“but Ana hasn’t been cleared.”

“What?” Sam’s tone was suddenly less pleasant.

The extra bag dug painfully into my shoulder. “I thought you just had to write my name in a ledger or something. What do you mean cleared?”

“For entrance into the city. You aren’t a citizen.”

“I was born here.” Surely everyone knew that. Li had told me how they’d all come by to ogle the nosoul, and that was one of the reasons she’d taken me away. Not just to hide her shame, but, she insisted, to protect me.

“You aren’t documented as being a legal resident of Heart.”

“But I was born here!”

“She’ll stay as my guest.” Sam edged closer to me, as if proximity would convince anyone. “We’ll work out citizenship in the morning.”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” Corin crossed his arms. “You know I would if I could, but it’s against the rules.”

“What rules? There are no rules about who gets into Heart.”

Corin swiped papers off the desk and thrust them at Sam. “The Council passed it a few years ago. Weren’t you paying attention? In order to enter Heart, one must be a citizen, and in order to be a citizen, one must have owned a home in the city for the last hundred years.”

Sam dropped his bags on the floor — I put mine down a little more carefully — and grabbed the papers, reading quickly. “This is ridiculous.” He hurled the papers across the room. They fluttered and whispered against one another before settling on the smooth floor. “Call Meuric. Call the entire Council. Tell them to get here immediately.”

“They’re in session. Ana is free to stay in the guard station tonight; there’s a more than adequate bunk that way.” He pointed somewhere beyond me. “I doubt anyone will protest.”

The last thing I wanted to do was stay in the guard station all night. I’d feel safer by the geyser. I’d feel safer at the bottom of Rangedge Lake. “Sam—”

He shook his head. “You’re coming home with me, no matter what anyone says.”

I could run for the door and try to get lost in the streets — probably not hard — but the million to two odds weren’t good. Sam and I would get caught and put in prison, so my only good choice was to let him handle this. I hated that choice.

“Sam,” Corin said, “calm down. It’s not a big deal.”

“Not a big deal my foot!” Sam seized Corin’s sleeve and hauled him across the room. They were just out of earshot if they spoke quietly, which they did. I hated that too, but I didn’t want to make Sam look bad by stomping after them and demanding to be included in the conversation.

While Sam no doubt told Corin all about how I needed help and didn’t trust anyone, I sat at the desk and unwound my bandages. My hands looked better. Pink, with sensitive skin, but we’d been careful about keeping them clean while we traveled, especially after the blisters burst. I felt like a fool for having believed Li’s lie about sylph burns never healing. Soon, I’d be well enough to hurl rocks at her if I ever ran into her again.

Angry whispers sizzled across the guardroom, too obscured for me to understand. I sifted through the papers on Corin’s desk, finding shift schedules and other mundanities. It looked like whoever lived closest to each of the guard stations was responsible for keeping an eye on it while they were in residence. They rotated days with a few others, but overall it didn’t look like a difficult job, so long as you remembered the rule: Anyone but Ana was allowed to come into the city.

“Alone in the woods? It’s midwinter.” Corin’s surprised hiss made me stiffen, but I didn’t look behind me. Sam didn’t need to know I’d heard anything of his secret meeting.

The stack of papers at the back of the desk had lists of armories throughout Heart, and the contents. Now
that
was interesting. Old catapults and cannons, newer armored vehicles and air drones. Laser pistols. I had no idea what half these things were, but I flipped through the pages. Maybe Sam could tell me, or I could find something in the library — if I was ever allowed farther than the guard station.

“Okay.” Corin stalked up behind me and ripped the papers from my hands. “Those aren’t for you.”

“Don’t worry.” I stood and glanced at Sam, who was digging his SED from his bag. “Li never taught me how to read.”

Sam snorted and strode to the other side of the room to call the Council.

It took half an hour for people to start arriving. Corin had taken Shaggy and the travel supplies to the stable nearby, making Sam and me promise not to leave. And we didn’t, because I knew Sam wouldn’t go anywhere, and I didn’t feel like wandering the city without him.

The first to arrive was a woman in her late eighties, perhaps. Since Li had kept me away from everyone, all I had to go on was pictures of people at various ages; guessing was tricky. This woman had gray hair pulled into a taut bun. Shallow wrinkles spiderwebbed across her face but made her look more dignified than old. She introduced herself as Sine and took a seat in one of the chairs along one side of the guard station.

Geyser-incident Sine. Huh.

Meuric came next. He looked younger than fifteen, but aside from emergencies, you had to be past your first quindec to hold a job because of physical size and hormones. At least that was what I’d heard.

Though Meuric was only my height and kind of pointy with that chin and those elbows, his deep-set eyes showed his true age. The way he looked at me, I’d never felt more insignificant. Sam had said Meuric was the leader of the Council, so he was the one I really had to impress.

Frase, who’d been the one to tell Li about Ciana, and Antha joined them.

Sam said, “Clearly this rule was made to keep Ana out of Heart. It’s cruel and unfair to exclude her simply because she hasn’t been alive for five thousand years.”

Meuric scratched his chin and looked thoughtful. “If I recall, that was because no one was sure whether more newsouls would be born. What happens if Ana isn’t the only one? Do we find housing for all of them? Can our community support them?”

Sam shot me a warning glance before I could open my mouth.

Them
. I crossed my arms and stood by my bags. There wasn’t a
them
. There was only
me
.

“This wasn’t to segregate Ana, but to protect our city.” Antha ran her fingers through her hair. “You remember how clumsy we were with Heart when we first arrived? We were so young, as Ana is now.”

“I’m not going to break your city.” I scowled, ignoring Sam’s pleading look. “I don’t want to change anything or disrupt your routines.”

“You already have,” said Frase. “Simply by existing.”

“Blame Li and Menehem. I had nothing to do with that.” I tried to make myself taller, but standing next to Sam, that was pointless. “It seems to me you’re changing and disrupting your own lives because of my existence more than I have. I’ve been away for eighteen years, and you’re making laws when I’m out of sight—”

“What I think Ana is trying to say,” Sam interrupted, “is aside from being born, which she couldn’t help, she hasn’t disturbed anyone.”

“Except Li,” said Antha.

Sine nodded. “Li chose to face her responsibility, unlike Menehem. That was noble of her.”

That was
not
the story I’d heard.

“If Li hadn’t,” Sam said, “someone else would have. Someone, maybe, who realized that in a few years Ana would grow up and become a member of our community. She has her own useful skills, but she can’t contribute unless someone allows her.”

“Would you have taken her in?” Meuric mused. “No, you were an infant then, too. That was quite a year, if I recall. You the first day, and Ana a few weeks later. Two births that year. I remember because I died three days after Ana arrived. Shock is bad for old hearts.”

I glanced at Sam; he’d said we shared a birthday, hadn’t he? Why would Meuric say something different?

Sam didn’t seem to notice. “If I could have, I would have, but as you said, I was incapable of caring for anyone. I’m offering now.”

“And the fact that the law prevents her from living in the city?” Meuric asked.

“How many other newsouls have been born in the last eighteen years?” Sam’s voice was as hard as ice. “She’s the only one. The law was made against her. It’s inhospitable at best, and a death sentence at worst, especially since we don’t know if she’ll be reincarnated. And I believe there’s another law about that.”

I watched Sam, hoping for answers to a million questions — there was a law about my death? — but he didn’t acknowledge my stare.

The Councilors glanced at one another. Sine shrugged first. “I wasn’t for the law in the first place. If Sam wants to care for Ana, he should be allowed. She’s not hurting anyone.” She sent me a warm smile, but I couldn’t bring myself to return it.

Meuric nodded. “I suppose it would be a chance for young Ana to have a bit more guidance. Li was no doubt a capable teacher, but perhaps Sam will be able to help Ana find who she is so she can, as he said, become a contributing member of the community.”

“I don’t need another parent,” I started, but Sam interrupted me again.

“Then you’ll rescind the law?” If he wasn’t on my side, I’d hit him for talking over me all the time. How could I
be my own person
if I didn’t have a voice about my own life?

“Frase? Antha?” Meuric glanced at the other two Councilors. “We need a unanimous vote, since the others aren’t here.”

“On the condition that she obey a curfew and submit to lessons and tests.” Frase leveled his gaze on Sam. “To ensure that Ana has a quality education, of course. If she’s reincarnated after she dies, then we’ll have gained a valuable new voice. If she isn’t, well, we all know how Sam enjoys taking on new projects. This should keep him busy for a lifetime, and should any more newsouls appear, he’ll have the experience to aid them as well.”

I squeezed my hands together behind my back. The sting of raw flesh was the only thing that kept me grounded. I wasn’t a
project
. I wasn’t an
experiment
. I wasn’t a blasted
butterfly
.

“That sounds reasonable to me.” Antha lifted her chin and looked at me. “Will you abide by these conditions?”

My jaw hurt from clenching it, but I stopped myself from checking with Sam to see what he thought. I didn’t need his
guidance
. “Sure.”

“Then it’s settled.” Meuric used the arms of his chair to push himself up. “Ana will stay with Sam as his student. Progress reports will be expected and reviewed by the Council monthly. Why don’t you both come by the Councilhouse in the morning. Tenth hour. We’ll introduce everyone else and finish working out the details.”

Not a question or invitation.

After a round of overly polite welcomes — welcome home and welcome to Heart — the Councilors left, Corin left, and Sam and I picked up our bags.

He met my eyes briefly before motioning me to the door, and I couldn’t tell whether he was satisfied with the verdict or not until he said, “They planned that.”

“WHAT DO YOU mean?” I stepped outside, into Heart, onto a wide avenue. Conifers and hints of white stone houses filled the left side of the road. Smaller streets wound through the trees, which gave an illusion of privacy, though I got the feeling the plots of land each house stood on were large.

Sam motioned to an odd assortment of buildings on the right, stretching to the far side of the city, visible only because the wall was so big. “This is the industrial quarter. Warehouses, mills, factories.”

“Who does all those jobs?”

“Whoever wants whatever is necessary. Or, for example, if you want bolts of cloth, you can buy them during market day, since there are a few people who
like
working on those things, and produce more than they can use. It’s their job, and how they earn enough credit to buy food.”

“And those?” I pointed at a maze of huge pipes that ran between buildings. “You could fit a person in them.”

“Used for conducting geothermal energy. This part of Range is on top of an enormous volcano; there’s a lot of power just beneath the ground. We moved to solar energy almost a century ago, because it’s less potentially destructive, but we keep the pipes in place for backup.”

“I see.” I gazed up at windmills that reached higher than the wall. Above everything, the temple pointed at the sky. I couldn’t drop my head back far enough to see the top. Shivering, I turned my attention back to Sam. “Why do you need so much energy? It seems like there’s a lot more coming in than even a million people can use.”

“A lot of the power is used for automated city maintenance systems and mechanical drones that don’t need people to control them. Like snowplows or sewage.” He flashed a grin. “And when you get in trouble a lot, like Stef, you become very familiar with monitoring and cleaning those systems as punishment.”

“What if no one does anything wrong?”

He snorted. “There’s almost always someone. But on the rare occasion there’s not, we have to take turns.”

“Yuck.” I decided to behave. I didn’t want to spend my first — possibly only — lifetime scrubbing unspeakable things.

“I’m surprised no one’s come to greet you,” Sam muttered.

“Gawk. Not greet.” I followed him down the cobblestone avenue, doing my best to avoid dropping my bags while still taking in my surroundings. My first time in Heart since I was born, and the place was dead. “What did you mean before when you said ‘They planned that’?” He couldn’t avoid my question forever.

“What it sounds like. While they were taking their time getting to the guard station, they were deciding what they would offer. They made it sound like they were doing you a favor.”

I hmmed because I hadn’t caught that, but when I considered the conversation again, I agreed. “They don’t seem to respect you very much. Aside from insulting me, what did they mean by ‘projects’?”

He gave a dry chuckle. “Just that I tend to try something new every lifetime. Lots of people learn new things, because it’s simply easier to know how to do everything yourself than it is to realize your plumbing is broken and the only two people in Heart who could fix it are either away from the city or between lives.”

“So you know how to fix your plumbing. That’s not a crime.”

“But if I make it a point to learn something new every life and try — and sometimes fail — to keep up with old projects from previous lives, it makes me appear directionless. They think I’ve taken on too many things and don’t stick with enough of them.”

“Very contradictory.” I struggled to keep up with his long strides, especially now that I was carrying double what I had been. I didn’t blame him for his haste now that we were this close, but the day was considerably warmer than the past few weeks. My head buzzed with strain.

“That’s life.”

Apparently. “What did you tell Corin to make him change his mind about calling Meuric?”

Sam didn’t quite manage to shrug, thanks to the bags on his shoulders.

“About how useless I am? How I need help and would die if left on my own?” It was all probably true. I hadn’t lasted a day after leaving Li’s house.

“No, nothing like that.” His focus was straight ahead.

After fifteen minutes of trotting after Sam in silence, I said, “I don’t like Corin.”

“He isn’t a bad person. He’s just stiff and follows too many rules. Don’t blame him for what happened today.”

We turned down a street wide enough for five people to walk shoulder to shoulder. Bushes and tall evergreens lined the way. Other streets and walkways broke off from this one, but everything was still so far apart. Half the city’s population lived in this quarter, but I doubted they could hear one another if they hollered out their windows.

I caught sight of only a few houses, since most were guarded by trees and distance. They were all made from the same white stone as the city wall and temple, but their exteriors had been decorated differently. Some were plain, with merely serviceable shutters or glass in the stone openings. Others were more opulent.

“Are all the windows and doors in the same places on every house?” I huffed, trying to keep up with him as he walked even faster. Maybe if I got him talking he’d slow down.

“They are. Like I said, the city was waiting for us. The houses were already built, but they were shells with holes for doors and windows. The insides were hollow. We had to build interior walls, stairs, different floors — everything. You’ll see.”

I stopped walking. Jogging, rather. Trying to catch my breath, I knelt and let the heavy bag rest on the street. It had to weigh at least half what I did. My heart raced, and a cramp jabbed at my side.

“Ana?” Sam turned around and finally noticed I wasn’t there. He came back for me and crouched. “Are you okay?”

“No.” I scowled and pressed my palms on my face, damp with cold sweat. “No, I’ve been chased into a lake, burned, babied for weeks, then I walked half of Range to get here so a bunch of people who don’t know me can direct my life, and now you’re practically running away from me.” I slapped my bag, wincing at the shocks up my wrists and forearms. Darkness tinged the edges of my vision, receding as I took deep breaths. “You have all this time. Can’t you walk slower?”

A mask fell away from his expression as he dug a handkerchief from his pocket. He dabbed the cloth across my forehead and cheeks. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“You’re preoccupied.” I’d seen it before, a few times in the cabin when we talked about sylph or Li. Not that he ever admitted it.

“Excited to get home.” He stuffed the handkerchief away.

Liar. Well, maybe not completely a liar, but I wasn’t stupid. The mask had been there since we’d left the guard station. No, before. Sometime between standing up for — and interrupting — me, and the Council deciding what to do. Maybe in the same way I didn’t want another parent, he didn’t want a child. Though he’d said he’d take the responsibility…

But I wasn’t a
child
.

I lurched to my feet, bag gouging my shoulder, and nodded for him to continue. His mask returned, but he kept a slower pace this time. We didn’t speak as we turned down a few more streets and headed up a long walkway, and I caught my first glimpse of Sam’s house.

Like all the others, it was tall and wide, with a white exterior and the same placement of doors and windows. Nothing like Purple Rose Cottage, which had been small and wooden, perpetually dusty.

Shutters were painted pine green, and below each one rested a thick bush. Roses, perhaps. I glanced at my hands, thinking of the scars the purple roses had left. They were gone now, burned off in the sylph fire.

The outside had a generous garden, a few bare fruit trees, and small outbuildings scattered on the sides and back. Chickens clucked nearby, and cavies made quiet wheeking and bubbling noises in another building.

Sam walked beside me as we approached the door, green like the shutters. “What do you think?”

“Pretty.” But the stone walls and roof, the perfectly tended lawns… It all seemed cold. Ancient, and watching. When I glanced over my shoulder, the temple rose into the sky, even more sinister than before.

Sam didn’t notice my lack of enthusiasm, just found his key — what did he do with it between lives? — and opened the door wide to let me in first.

The interior was cool and dim, only slivers of light leaking through cracks in the shades. Aside from the staircase and a second room at the back — a kitchen? — the parlor took up the entire first story. White sheets fluttered over huge pieces of furniture, much more than one parlor should possess.

I started to ask about it, but Sam flipped a switch, and light poured across the hardwood floor, making me blink and squint to adjust.

“Pull off the sheets and put them in a corner for now,” he said. “I’ll make sure there’s a room for you upstairs.” He left the big bags by the doorway and headed up the spiral staircase with my backpack. An L-shaped balcony overlooked this quarter of the parlor, guarded by a thin rail carved from wood. He checked on me before disappearing beyond my line of sight.

Carefully, in case there was something fragile hidden beneath the sheets, I drew the lengths of synthetic silk aside to find bookcases and shelves, chairs and stands of some kind. The furniture was all hard, polished wood, and decorations carved from pieces of obsidian, marble, and quartz. Sam had told me about learning these crafts, and I hadn’t been sure why he bothered. It seemed like a lot of work. But now that I saw the glossy curves of a stone shrike, the delicate etched feathers, I understood.

It was beautiful, and if I was going to live somewhere for five thousand years, I’d want to enjoy looking at it, too.

Then again, he’d said some people did these things as a job. He could buy them, if he wanted. So what was
his
job? I’d ask when he returned.

Once the edges of the room were uncovered, I turned to all the items in the middle, starting with a particularly strange lump.

The sheet rippled off a large plane of maple wood, over a length of keys, and slipped off a bench.

A piano. A real one.

My chest constricted, and I wanted to call up to Sam and ask why he hadn’t told me, but I hadn’t yet finished my task. There might be more treasures.

In a giddy daze, I moved through the parlor uncovering things I’d seen only as drawings in my favorite books. A large harp. An organ. A harpsichord. A stack of cases with various instruments engraved in the polished wood. I didn’t recognize most of them by sight, but I could identify the violin, another — bigger — stringed instrument, and a long one with a reed and intricate metal keys. Clarinet?

This was too wonderful. Had he called ahead and had a friend bring these over, just because he knew I’d like them?

I couldn’t imagine why, but it did seem like something Sam would do. He was so nice to me, always doing things just to make me happy.

I drifted back to the piano in the center of the room. Carved wood framed the instrument and its bench, and rows of ebony and yellowed ivory keys glimmered under the light. My fingers reached to touch them, but these weren’t my things. I snatched my hand back at the last moment, pressed my palm against my racing heart.

A real piano. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

“You don’t like it?” Sam’s voice, tinged with annoyance, came from the balcony. I jumped and stared up at him, struggling to control the questions crowding my mouth. “Does it feel wrong too?”

“Fingerprints.” First thing that came to mind. “I didn’t want to smudge anything.”

His tone lightened as he headed downstairs, fingers trailing along the banister. “Play something.” He’d washed his face and changed his shirt, but he was still flushed from the walk. Or maybe something else, because he hadn’t been the one panting outside. “You won’t hurt it.” Maybe that hadn’t been annoyance after all, but I didn’t let down my guard.

I chose a key in the middle. A clear note resounded through the airy room. Sparks traveled up my spine, and I pressed another, and another. Each note was lower than the last as my fingers crept toward the left end of the piano. I tried one on the right, and the note was higher. It wasn’t like a song at all, but hearing the sound bounce across the polished stone and furniture — my cheeks hurt from grinning.

Sam sat on the bench, dragged his fingertips across the keys without pressing any, then picked out my four notes. They came staccato. Tuneless.

But there was something about the way he sat there, something familiar. This wasn’t a borrowed piano.

Lots of people probably had pianos.

The four notes sounded again, this time in a slow rhythm, and when he glanced at me, some indecipherable expression crossed his face.

I couldn’t stop staring at his hands on the piano keys, the way they fit there so comfortably.

He played my notes again, but instead of stopping after, he played the most amazing thing my ears had ever heard. Like waves on a lakeshore, and wind through trees. There were lightning strikes, thunder, and pattering rain. Heat and anger, and honey sweetness.

I’d never heard this music before. There seemed no room to breathe around my swollen heart as the music grew, made me ache inside.

It went on forever, and not long enough. Then my four notes came again, slow like before. I struggled to breathe as the sound echoed against my thoughts. And quiet blanketed the parlor.

I couldn’t remember sitting. Just as well. My legs didn’t feel strong enough to hold me up.

“Sam, are you—” I swallowed the name. If I was wrong, I would be really embarrassed. But I was already on the floor, the music still thick inside me like the first time I’d stolen the player from the cottage library. A hundred times more, though.

This was here. Real. Now.

“Are you Dossam?”

His hands rested on the keys, at home there. I willed him to play again. “Ana,” he said, and I met his gaze. “I wanted to tell you.”

“Why didn’t you?” If only I could stop thinking of my drug-induced confession of infatuation. If there’d been a hole to crawl into, I would have.

He caressed the keys again, some strange expression crossing his face. “At first I didn’t think it mattered. And after”—he shook his head—“you know. I didn’t want you to feel different around me.”