A Harvest Of Souls 3

A velvet rope hung across the entry with the sign NO AMBLERS BEYOND THIS POINT. A Finley ambler in orange tux stood on the other side. It held a basin and a stack of towels. Its face, infused with preservatives, had the shine of polished marble.

Sam dipped her hands in the water and laughed, for the ash shedding from her mask made it muddy. "I'll be right back," she said to Lucia. Lucia said nothing.

As she passed the buffet, Sam loosened her filter, hoping to smell just a tinge of the pulled pork in the hot tray. Nothing. Having spent far too long in the company of volatile reagents in James' lab, and despite all her precautions, her nose could no longer distinguish formaldehyde from water. It was an uncommon defect even for those in the alchemical guilds. She had been bitter about it, once, when she had fewer things to be bitter about.

The partygoers first recoiled, for the awkward apprentice stank of ash and sulphur; then they rearranged their faces into warm smiles once they recognized her colours. Sam returned their welcomes with half-bows but spoke to no one. No one spoke to her either.

James was sitting by the cliff with his feet dangled over the edge, the tail of his coat pooling in a puddle. Although he was no more than thirty, the Maestro's hair was dense with grey, and his eyes were ringed with circles so dark they looked like bruises.

He waved. "I can smell you," he said cheerfully. "Had fun?"

"No," said Sam.

In the distance shone the silver crescent of the palisades. The Maestro waved at it. "Do you prefer the mines?"

Sam closed her eyes and saw the children in their patchy uniforms, skipping down the decline. She saw the girl with azure eyes looking up at her. Are you a Maestro? the girl had asked. I want to be a Maestro.

"No." She held out her clipboard. "I have the numbers from the evacuation. Ten thousand adults. I have noted their age and desirability."

"What?"

"The new handbook uses that word to denote physical attractiveness."

"The handbook." The Maestro flipped through the list. Cursed by the gift of never forgetting anything he laid eyes on, he only ever needed one look; then he tore the pages into little squares and slipped them over the edge.

"If they ask, tell them you lost it in the city."

"Yes, Maestro."

A single red flair rose from the palisades. High though it flew, it reached not even one tenth the height of the Dome Luminous. The Floor of Nine was one hundred and twenty miles in diameter, too small to maintain a stable climate. At night, however, with the Dome Luminous glittering with artificial starlight and the boundary walls all but invisible, one could almost be fooled into thinking that this place was more than a cage.

"Delays," James said. He gazed at the red dot as it fizzled out in the darkness. "Do you know why everyone wants to go to the Floor of Twenty?"

"To see the sky," said Sam.

"Why? What's so good about sky?"

Sam shook her head. A migraine was growing behind her right eye, radiating needles of pain into her cheeks. "I don't know."

"You don't? You would have lived your whole life on a Floor like this one, had I not found you," said the Maestro. "Your corpse would have made thirty thousand seeds a year." He gave her a look. "Instead, you are here. You have a chance become a necromancer – the very foundation of our society – and one day you may live on the Floor of Twenty, under the sky. You would think that the recipient of such good fortune would be more inclined to thoughtfulness and gratitude."

"I am thankful," disputed Sam.

"They are thankful." The Maestro nodded at the Finleys. Everyone in that entourage wore identical, orange-trimmed suit jackets with pins shaped like the cartoon skeleton, the mascot of the House of Solutions (seen here sitting on its pelvic bone and reading a book). Maestro Jack Finley, a man wider than he was tall, lounged on a divan the size of a double bed. Wherever he looked, his entourage looked; not a word he could utter without everyone in his vicinity breaking into protracted adulation. As he held out his hand, no less than five cups of wine were offered to him, but he was simply pointing at the fading flair. A hundred voices groaned simultaneously, perhaps to say that they, too, were disappointed.

"Do you want wine?" Sam asked.

James laughed. "You'll clear out the buffet and never come back."

"I will come back," said Sam.

The Maestro withdrew a thin rectangular box. Inside were a pair of threaded silver gloves. He pulled them on with deliberate slowness. His eyes were grey-on-grey and shine-less, like those of a blind man. Hints of Green glittered in the featureless expanse of his iris, so small a blink could unsee them. Sam could never meet his gaze for long; though his voice has always been pleasant, his eyes only ever resembled the abyss.

"Do you want to quit?" he asked.

Sam opened her mouth and closed it. Think, she instructed herself, but the question had caught her off-balance. Neither yes or no seemed the right answer, and her hesitation has already invalidated the option of making light. Strange noises gurgled from her throat, and the Maestro raised an eyebrow.

"You think about that," he said.