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Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Lake
TELLER MAS COULD TELL three things from touching the young female’s face: she was young, she was beautiful, and she was very, very dead. Smell had always been his first sense. His hearing was as adequate as his Air-sense, but he reckoned his taste buds had been killed off by a combination of too much bamboo gin and racta. And any other senses? Those could be left to the Shamans. What those crazies couldn’t feel with their hands, whiskers and ears, the mad bastards would just make up. He always felt, well, like a fish out of water, when he couldn’t smell his way around a case. But when a victim had been in the lake for long enough, smell was nearly useless. The girl was still on the end of a barge pole, hefted by Old Fryk, the Watchman for the Quay. Shuffling and the faint smell of disinfectant from behind them, told of the arrival of the Midwives guild to clean up the mess and take the body to the guild house to be autopsied. The poor midwives wound up doing all the medical necessities in Lakeside, it having no proper Healer’s guild or Alchemists of its own.
“Eh, in your own time, mmmhhh?” Old Fryk groaned.
“Put the stretcher down by Old Fryk please, Yayu,” said Knia, the newly promoted Head of Constables for Lakeside. She sounded much more confident today. Knowing that her old and now disgraced former boss was safely locked up with the Stone-folk was clearly allowing her to unfold a little.
The midwives busied themselves helping to lower the body gently onto the hessian stretcher.
“No stiffness?” Knia pressed.
“That tells us nothing at this stage,” said Yayu. “In the cold water, the stiffness comes more slowly.”
Teller shivered and pulled his loose jacket closer. The Lakesiders were the only folk in the whole of the Dark that used clothes habitually – not counting the stupid robes that the religious sects seemed to like. For the Lakesiders naturally, it was all a bit more practical, more about the fact that the wind that blew out of the tunnels over the lake could be bitter cold. Though it never rained per-se in the Dark, being inside, the Lakesiders even had mists and fog to contend with. And today was all of that: damp and cold. The midwives were still fussing getting the limbs of the corpse onto the stretcher when there was an odd little rattle. Teller spun round as they were preparing to lift.
“Wait,” he said.
The noise stopped as quickly as it had started, it was almost like the rattle of the bone dice the fisher-folk used to gamble with, on the quayside. He reached towards where he’d heard the sound, back at the side of the stretcher. The girl’s arm kept falling off and hung loosely at the side. Teller went to lift it and found the source of the clatter: a small bracelet circled the hanging wrist. He leaned in close to smell it. Like the body, everything smelled of lake water. He frowned and leaned closer, picking up his stylus to lift the bracelet and drop it. Again, that bone-sounding jingle. He broke protocol and picked up one of the necklace beads. Not bone. Mineral. Tiny rocks? He turned them in his fingers. Light for stones, but rough on the outside in places, and smooth in others. A decorative pattern. Lovely really.
“Hey Knia,” he called across to the Chief. He still couldn’t call her that yet, and she didn’t seem to mind. Too soon. “She’s got a bracelet, here. You come across anything like this before?”
She came over and hummed as Teller passed the bracelet beads from his fingers to hers. She spent ten or so ticks rolling them over her thumb and then let the bracelet drop.
“Constable,” she spoke over her shoulder. “Can you bag this, please? This is Stone-folk work, recent too. It’s made from pumice. All the Stone-folk pups are wearing them.”
“She’s not really a pup,” said Teller.
“Not that much older,” Knia sighed.
“No.”
Teller went to the edge of the quay and crouched down. The breeze from the tunnels was getting up. It made a faint moan that drifted across the surface of the water. He absently dipped his paw. Behind him, Knia and the Midwife muttered, presumably regarding an autopsy and when that might be completed. It usually took no more than a span, depending on other calls on the midwives’ time. His nose twitched. He could smell that ghastly chewing root ‘Bocca’ that his father used to chew. He shuddered, then stood suddenly.
“Hey easy,” said Old Fryk, suddenly close. “You fall in too, mmmhhh?”
Mas grunted and jammed his hands into his jacket pockets, face still to the lake, toes, just on the edge stones of the quay.
“Onshore breeze—she brings disease,” said Fryk, knowingly. The old Watchman spat into the water, to ward off evil.
“Puh,” said Mas and pulled his collar up.
“We about done here?” Knia asked.
“Think so,” said Mas.
What was a Stone-folk female, so young, doing so far from home? What had she gotten herself into? Besides the lake. Not unheard of for Stone-folk to be in Lakeside, but she really was young, usually pups of Stone-folk families were cosseted until they were fully adults and then as women, tradition had them involved in complicated inter-caste marriages. Now he thought about it, Pumice was a house wasn’t it? Was that important? Everyone moved away from the quayside and continued their business, slowly and quietly; Teller spat into the water.
Chapter 2 – The Bocado
The vapor of bamboo spirit was all that remained in Teller’s beaker. He lifted his head in the direction the shuffling was coming from.
“Hey, Rychuck. Hit me again.”
“Coming right up.”
The Bocado was never a salubrious venue, but it was always where Teller’s feet led him when he needed to think. He wondered whether he may be past thinking at this point, when a new smell breezed from beyond the serving hatch doors. She swept into the bar and started to collect pots from the empty tables. Wiping as she went, she hummed cheerfully. Way too cheerful for this late in a workspan. There was murmuring from a table way over by the doors when she went to clean there, then the sounds of folk drinking up and leaving. Now there was just Teller and the staff. Wouldn’t be the first time.
“You two gonna sit and have one on me?” said Teller.
“Sure.” Rychuck, grabbed the bamboo spirit flask and banged it on the counter. Then he turned his head, “Minu? You coming?”
She wafted over to them, wiping as she went. She sat on the bar stool between Rychuck and Teller.
“Teller, meet Minu, my latest addition to the Bocado staff.”
She reached out a hand, Teller took it. It was well-manicured, and slightly damp from the cloth.
“Charmed,” he said. Then as if considering again, “Aren’t you a little young to be working here?”
“No?”
“I think you might be getting a little old,” said Rychuck.
“Yeah, that too,” said Teller, taking a swig from his beaker.
“So,” Minu said. Teller cocked his ears. “Why do you sound like someone who’s lost a fish and found a waterborne parasite?”
“That one of yours?” Teller chuckled.
“I’m practicing my customer banter,” she said. “Is it funny?”
“Keep practicing.”
“Huh.”
“Seriously though, Teller, your cheerful demeanor this evening has frightened away all of my customers,” said Rychuck.
“Rubbish. You never have anyone else this late, unless there’s a festival, or a fishing boat in. Besides, I’m your best customer, anyway.”
“You would be if you paid your tab.”
“Details.”
She touched his hand. It shocked him back to the bar, “Seriously though?”
Rychuck sighed, left his stool and went the other side of the bar to tidy.
“Seriously. I can’t tell you. Client privilege. Can’t discuss cases.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess, it’s not the case you’re worrying about.”
“You’re actually not bad at this,” Rychuck shouted across the bar.
“Go jump in the lake,” said Teller.
“You’re kind of sighing sad,” Minu said, plowing on regardless, “so that’d be, hmm, lover?”
Rychuck barked a laugh.
“...kay then. Family.”
Teller took a long slug and slammed the empty onto the bar. Rychuck came back over to fill it. Teller picked it up again, swigged at it and put it back down.
“If I tell you, will you stop bugging me?”
“It does you good to get it out, you know,” said Minu.
“Trust me,” said Teller, “It doesn’t.”
“It’s what my old mom used to say.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“Hey mister,” she said, “I don’t know what your problem is—”
“No,” said Teller, “and for your own health and wellbeing, it’s better it stays that way.”
She stood and picked her cloth up again.
“For what it’s worth,” Teller said, “What I’m working on now, it’s bothering me. It’s straightforward. It shouldn’t be bothering me, but it is. And that’s not good. Not good at all.”
“Well,” she said, undented, “we’re here if you need us.”
“You seem like a good kid,” said Teller.
He lifted his beaker downed the contents and coughed, “Shreds, Rychuck, this stuff doesn’t get any better.”
“Neither do you, Mas. Perhaps you should give up grizzling and take up brewing. Couldn’t make you any less happy. Go to bed.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.”
He shouldered his coat, squared up his slightly woozy Air-sense and headed where it told him the door was. He was mostly heading the right way. If only that new girl had tucked all the chairs back under the tables like she was supposed to.
“See ya,” he said over his shoulder and walked back out into the Lakeside air. To bed, perchance to dream.
Teller’s pad was at the far end of the lane also called Bocado. In Lakeside, the tradition was for lanes to run from the quayside up the very slight hill to the massive stone back wall that also formed the back wall of Teller’s first-floor digs. Teller’s place was Bocado and tenth, sat in the far corner, a macro version of where he traditionally liked to sit in any room: back to the corner where a good set of whiskers could sweep for surprises.
He climbed the stairs to his apartment. First-floor digs were still unusual in Lakeside due to the sketchiness of building materials. In the corner of the massive cavern that formed Lakeside, there were two walls to go against, so the builders had been a little more adventurous. He even had a balcony for when he couldn’t sleep. He could take in all the smells and the sounds of the town during the sleep-cycle. Teller liked the idea of listening to other folk sleeping when he couldn’t. It made him feel more connected. Tonight though, he felt bone tired. No balcony leaning tonight. He just needed to set his clicker-beetle for the morning, put his head on his straw pallet and then— .... Buy The Scent of Memory for just 99c: books2read.com/scentofmemory.
