Burning Bright

The canal was filled with traffic, from covered barges half again as long as the waterbus to the narrow, high-tailed passenger boats that Roscha had called gondas, to one-and two-person skids. Most of the people riding skids were young, standing barefoot on the platform, skimming in and out of the traffic trailing a plume of spray. One bright-red craft cut close enough to the bus to send water spraying across the open passenger compartment, and Lioe joined in the general shout of anger. A woman at the head of the bus pitched a piece of fruit after the skid’s driver, hitting him neatly in the back of the head, and the other passengers applauded. The woman stood and bowed, like an actor, and Lioe saw the mask sitting on the bench beside her, a grinning devil-face, the gold and black vivid against the faded grey of the seats.

At the next stop, a gaggle of children in school uniforms, black high-collared smocks open over a variety of shirts and trousers, climbed aboard; they vanished one by one as the bus wound its way up the canal toward the Crooked River. At last the bus turned onto a much broader canal, this one paralleling the Old Dike, so that they moved between a narrow embankment, and the houses shouldering each other for place beyond it, and the immense bulk of the Dike itself. Even in the daylight, with the sunlight to soften it, it was an impressive sight, towering over the traffic, bicycles and three-wheeled carts and denki-bikes and the occasional heavy carrier, that moved along the embankment at its foot. The stone of its face had faded from its original near-black, and the salt stains had all but vanished, replaced by the softer faded lavender and grey-green of rock-rust. Lioe leaned back, trying to see Warden Street at the top of the wall, but she could only hear it, the traffic moving in counterpoint to the noise of the street at its base.

The canal widened perceptibly, and the banks were crowded with low-slung barges, their open decks piled high with crates and boxes. Shoppers, men and women alike in loose shirts and trousers, many of them barefoot on the sun-warmed stones, moved along the banks with string sacks balanced on each shoulder, calling to each other and to the merchants on the barges. The barge tenders seemed to sell anything, Lioe saw with amazement. There was one stocked with food, set up like any land-bound store with neat aisles and display cases; tied to its stern was a much smaller boat that seemed to be filled with rags. A couple of adolescents were pawing through the piles. As Lioe watched, one of them straightened with a crow of delight, and slung a salvaged cape around his thin shoulders, striking a dramatic attitude. Farther on, a closed barge sold custom masks, a white, unpainted face peering from each of the tiny portholes. It was an unsettling effect, and Lioe looked away quickly.

The bus stopped three times in the market basin—Warden Mecomber’s Market, the signs read, in Burning Bright’s old-fashioned, legible script—and the passengers climbed out in droves, calling to the driver as they went. As the bus pulled away from the final stop, only Lioe and a trio of musicians, two towheaded young men who looked like siblings and a stocky, flat-faced woman, remained. The musicians huddled together, talking in low voices, their cased instruments tucked between their feet. The woman, sketching phrasing and tempo in the air, had beautiful hands.

The bus moved more slowly now, and the tone of its engine deepened, as though it were fighting a new current. Lioe glanced over the side, curious, but the oily water slid past, apparently unchanged. Then she heard a new rushing noise—not so new, she realized; she had been hearing it since the market, but the babble of voices had kept her from realizing what it was. The bus slanted in toward the left-hand bank, the embankment side, and the driver’s voice crackled in the speakers.

“Crooked Underpass, people. End of the line.”

Lioe followed the musicians up onto the bank, and stopped short, staring at the Dike. Directly ahead of her, the embankment ended in a woven iron railing; beyond that, water spurted from a hole in the Dike, a short, meter-long fall to the river below—not a hole, she realized instantly, but a tunnel. The Crooked River had to pass through the Dike—she had known that, but it hadn’t quite sunk in to her consciousness—and this was the mouth of the tunnel that carried it. The tunnel probably has hydro generators in it, too, she thought, striving for some kind of perspective. Burning Brighters don’t seem to waste power. Beyond the railing, the water roared, and a segment of the spectrum danced in the spray. She stared for a moment longer, then made herself look away.