The Magelands Box Set Read online

  She pointed at the arm lying on the bricks next to her.

  ‘Oh,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah. Found our blockage.’

  Work came to a halt as someone was sent to fetch the local constabulary.

  When the officers arrived, they sent divers down to retrieve the corpse. It was brought back to the surface in pieces, which were laid out on a sheet, while the workers sat about in the sunshine, watching and commenting.

  ‘Vagrant?’

  ‘Nah, a drunk.’

  ‘A drunk vagrant?’

  The crew laughed.

  Shella looked away.

  ‘What’s eating you, mage?’ Pannu asked.

  ‘Halfwits who ask stupid questions.’

  The crew raised their eyebrows and nodded to each other knowingly.

  The overseer glanced over from where he stood by a couple of constables.

  ‘Can we go?’ Shella called over to him.

  ‘You’re staying here,’ he shouted back. ‘I want that valve clean and working again, even if it takes all night!’

  The work crew groaned.

  ‘Thanks, mage,’ Thelo muttered.

  ‘She’s been nothing but bad luck today,’ Pannu said.

  Several made gestures to ward off evil fortune, and a few edged away from where Shella was sitting.

  She ignored them.

  She was going to be late for her sister’s big announcement, she realised, almost smiling in relief. Obli had told everyone in the family to be there for what she hoped would be a successful decision in her application for a spawning licence. Shella shook her head. Her sister was delusional. The Spawn Control Board never handed out licences to women who had a sibling who had already spawned, and Noli, one of their other sisters, was the proud mother of sixteen spoiled and noisy toddlers.

  Obli was not someone to listen to reason however, and had painstakingly gone through every step of the tedious and expensive application process, from painful medical examinations, to intrusive inspections of their home. The inspectors, of course, had been there four years earlier, when processing Noli’s application. There was no doubt in Shella’s mind which way the decision would go, and it bordered on cruelty for the Board to have kept her sister’s hopes going for so long. Poor Obli. Shella imagined that evening’s dinner at the Kanawara family home, with everyone present, and Obli delivering the bad news. She imagined the smug told-you-so expression on Noli’s face. Shit, she thought, she needed to be there, to stick up for Obli if nothing else. Or to stop Obli from killing Noli…

  ‘Hey, mage!’ the overseer yelled. ‘Wake up! Valve’s clear.’

  Shella glanced up. The sun had passed the point of noon, but was still high in the sky.

  Time enough to make it if they got a move on.

  Hours later, Shella stood waiting in the queue for the water-bus. It was almost dusk, and the lines by the long dockside were packed with hundreds of workers all trying to get home. Her clothes were damp and the skin underneath had been rubbed raw, but the valve was spotless and working again, and they had drained the purified contents of the clean pool back into the city’s water system.

  A bus arrived, a forty-oared vessel. It slid in towards the dock, its rowers lifting their oars along one side as it touched the quay. The queue surged forward, as three hundred commuters crammed themselves on board. Dock workers shoved the vessel away with poles just as the doors were closing, and the water-bus pushed off. Behind it, another was lining up.

  ‘Shouldn’t be too long, Shella,’ said Barro, standing in line next to her, ‘rate these buses are coming in.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Should be getting home just in time to go to bed, so I can get up before dawn to do it all over again.’

  ‘You still freaked out about finding that body?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ she lied. She had hardly thought of it.

  ‘Do you want to go up town for a drink?’ he asked. ‘Talk about it?’

  She thought for a moment. She had gone with Barro a few times in the past, mostly when one or the other had been bored or lonely. She looked upon him as a bad habit, one she regretted indulging in, but somehow kept finding herself going back to. He wasn’t interested in settling down, neither was she for that matter, but he would always act in a certain way at work the next day that infuriated Shella, as if he possessed some claim on her.

  ‘Not tonight, Barro,’ she replied. ‘Obli’s got a thing.’

  ‘Oh, okay,’ he said. ‘Wait, you mean today’s the day Obli gets the decision from the Board?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘No offence, Shella,’ Barro said, ‘but she hasn’t got a chance.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘They never give out licences if you’ve already got a sister with kids.’

  ‘Yeah, Barro, I know.’

  ‘You should have told her,’ Barro continued, oblivious to the irritation in Shella’s eyes. ‘Saved her the trouble.’

  Shella resisted the urge to punch him.

  ‘She should forget all about it,’ Barro went on. ‘We’re way too over-crowded as it is. It’s selfish to want children when there’s no space for the people who are already here. My cousins over in Evergreen District say that the families above them are living twenty to a room. The housing department need to sort that out. Did you go to the assembly this morning?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He paused for a moment, uncertain if she was telling the truth.

  They moved forward a few paces amid the throng of bustling bodies, as another full bus pushed off from the dock.

  ‘Did you hear?’ he went on. ‘They’re going to bring forward the vote on whether to turn Waterheart Park into a thousand new homes. It’s disgusting, Shella, building over our district’s only park? I’m voting against.’

  ‘Were you not just complaining about over-crowding?’

  ‘Yeah, so?’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘how are we supposed to fix over-crowding if we can’t build any new homes?’

  He squinted at her. ‘But, Shella, over the park?’

  She shrugged. ‘Can you think of anywhere else to build?’

  ‘There’s plenty of land up north,’ a woman to their left interrupted. ‘We just need to start sending people up there.’

  ‘Nah,’ a man said. ‘There’s not enough freshwater, it’s like a desert.’

  ‘And what would you know?’ the woman replied. ‘You’ve never been there.’

  ‘I can read the newspapers,’ he said. He turned to Shella. ‘You’re a mage, is it true what they’re saying? That the northern reclamation is a complete fiasco?’

  ‘I don’t know any more than you,’ she lied. ‘Progress has been slow.’

  As the political debate rolled among the workers by the dockside, Shella stayed quiet. Better to remain tight-lipped about the truth. The massive reclamation project going on over a hundred miles to the north, at the extreme edge of the vast sprawl of the Rakanese city, had seen an enormous amount of money invested over the previous three years. Shella’s district, like the hundreds of other districts, had been heavily taxed to pay for the work going into creating a new area of freshwater marshland suitable for habitation. Almost all of the money, Shella knew, had been wasted. The land was arid, and sloped, and the rock beneath porous, altogether most unlikely terrain to be converted into wetlands. Frustratingly however, it was the most suitable land left on the peninsula. All of the level temperate land was already developed. To the west, the ground slowly rose beyond the city boundary, to become the foothills of the vast Forbidden Mountains. To the south the land was rocky and barren, and then blocked by the basalt flows from the still-active volcano which lay there.

  To the north was their only hope for expansion; their only hope to ease the suffocating mass over-crowding. And for Shella, it represented the chance for a new start, an escape from her dull routine, for she had recently been offered a position on the project as a third-level flow mage. It was a pay-grade higher than w
hat she was on at her current job, at the Sewage and Waterworks plant, but it would mean uprooting herself from her family and living alone, far from everything and everyone that she knew.

  Right at that moment, caught among the heaving press of bodies on the quayside, Shella could imagine nothing more idyllic than living alone.

  Another water-bus arrived, its oars chopping through the air, spraying water onto the crowd. Shella boarded, along with the three hundred closest to the vessel. She descended the steep wooden steps to the lower deck, and grabbed hold of a hanging knotted rope as workers piled in around her. She glanced up, and realised she had lost Barro. Scanning the dense crowd, she noticed him standing over by the stairs, laughing with the woman from the dockside. Shella scowled and lowered her eyes.

  The packed vessel lurched and they set off. The crammed-in crowd braced their feet, and hung on as the boat dipped and swayed. Shella could feel an elbow in her ribs, a shoulder jutting into her back, and a knee prodding her thigh. Well, she hoped it was a knee.

  She held her breath.

  All these people.

  Too many people.

  The vessel was steered through Dewy District, the brick warehouses and docks visible through the boat’s circular windows. The great banks of oars pulled in rhythm, guiding the vessel down the centre of the wide canals towards the residential areas. Smaller boats of all dimensions and types used the lanes to either side, keeping well clear of the giant water-bus, and bobbing in its swell once it had passed.

  Shella groaned in relief as half of the workers disembarked at Dewy District’s main docks, while only a few got on. Shella recognised a woman she used to work with out east on the salt pans. She lowered her head, but too late, and the woman came over to join her.

  ‘Hi Shella,’ she said. ‘This is not your usual bus.’

  ‘Hi Lorri,’ Shella replied, a forced smile on her face. ‘Been working late today.’

  ‘Ohh. What happened to your clothes?’ Lorri wrinkled her nose.

  Shella flushed. ‘Fell into a pool.’

  ‘At the sewage works?’ Lorri grimaced. ‘How revolting. You should probably burn those overalls.’

  If she did, Shella thought, she would have nothing to wear the next day. All of her other pairs were lying in an unwashed heap on the floor of her room at the family house. She would have to wash some as soon as she got home, and hope they had dried by the morning.

  ‘You look tired, Shella,’ Lorri said.

  ‘Mmm. Too much work.’

  ‘Are you looking after yourself?’

  ‘Sure, Lorri,’ Shella replied. ‘Just been a rough day, that’s all.’

  ‘How’s the family?’

  Shella smothered a deep sigh.

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘How old are Noli’s kids now? They must be coming on.’

  Shella thought for a moment. ‘They’ll be three in a couple of thirds.’

  ‘Wow,’ Lorri said. ‘Three.’

  Shella nodded, wishing Lorri would go away.

  ‘Must be a busy house!’ Lorri laughed. ‘Was it ten boys, six girls she had?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  ‘My brother’s kids are thirteen now,’ Lorri said, her gaze drifting into the middle distance. ‘Quite a handful at that age.’

  Shella shuddered at the thought of sharing the family home with sixteen teenagers.

  ‘And my sister-in-law,’ Lorri went on, ‘she’s hopeless at keeping them under control. Lets them walk all over her, so she can have a quiet life. Don’t know what my brother ever saw in her.’

  Shella squinted through a side window, and saw that they were approaching Crossmarket District.

  ‘Looks like my stop, Lorri,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Lorri replied. ‘We really should get together, have a night out.’

  ‘Sure,’ Shella said, as the boat docked, and she started for the exit. ‘I’ll check when I’m free and get back to you on that.’

  Who was she kidding, she thought as she stepped up onto the dockside. She would never be free.

  The quayside at Crossmarket was packed with people, some rushing home, others standing talking, while numerous hot-food stalls were doing busy trade. The great market hall, from where the district got its name, bulked ahead of her, an enormous three-storey brick edifice. Everything that could be bought and sold in Arakhanah could be found somewhere inside the hall. Its doors were open, as business continued each evening right up to midnight, and the light from inside spilled out onto the quayside. Shella elbowed her way through the noisy crowd, heading for a road at the southern end of the quay.

  Her route home was criss-crossed with canals lined by towering blocks of brick tenements. That part of Crossmarket was one of the most densely populated areas in that quarter of the city, and the majority of its inhabitants were poor. The large apartment blocks were packed with families, with many having upwards of a dozen sleeping to every room.

  Every utterable sound was heard: babies crying, children laughing and shouting, young couples arguing, drunks singing, old folk gossiping. Every emotion was exposed, every secret laid bare. Privacy was a dream beyond all but the most wealthy and, Shella reflected, it was also on offer to those who chose to abandon their families and go north to work on the reclamation project.

  After a brisk ten minute walk, Shella crossed over into Brackenwell, her home district. A line of willow trees marked the boundary, their long thin branches trailing into the water of a canal. She entered a long street of large townhouses, detached five-storey blocks, each home to a large extended family. This was a richer area than the one she had just passed through, though the quality of the street was well past its prime. The brickwork was crumbling in places, and the pavements were cracked and untidy. Most of the truly wealthy had long since departed for more spacious and private accommodation; those who remained represented the families struggling to maintain their positions, their wealth old and faded.

  It was dark by the time she reached her family’s townhouse. She opened the front door and let herself in. The hall was dark, and silent. Shella paused, hearing nothing from the children or adults who lived within.

  She passed the dining-room, where the family sat each evening for their shared meal. The room was in darkness, and looked like it hadn’t been in use that day. Shella frowned, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

  The lamps were burning, but no one was around. Shella prepared herself some food.

  She filled a bowl with rice and some cold fish curry from a pot on the stove. Just as she was getting a spoon from a drawer, she heard a noise behind her.

  ‘You’re home.’

  Shella’s heart sank, and for a moment she couldn’t bring herself to face her sister, or reply.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Had to work late.’

  ‘Today?’ Obli said. ‘You just had to work late today?’

  Shella turned.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘The one day I really needed you?’ Obli went on, her face matching her voice’s lack of emotion.

  ‘They turned you down then?’

  A flicker of rage mixed with grief swept over her sister’s face for a second. Obli cast her eyes downwards.

  ‘I know what I did wrong this time,’ she said. ‘I won’t make that mistake again, when I re-apply.’

  Shella said nothing, her heart aching for the pain she felt coming from her sister.

  ‘I’ll need you to help me again, Shella,’ Obli said. ‘You know, with the new application.’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  Obli looked up, a fierce glare in her eyes.

  ‘You think I’m stupid, don’t you?’

  ‘No, Obli,’ Shella said. ‘I’ll help you.’

  Obli nodded, then turned and walked in silence from the kitchen, like a ghost.

  Shella stood for a moment, watching the space where her sister had been, then took her bowl of curry and went upstairs to her room.

  She lit her lamp an
d pushed the pile of clothes and books from her table onto the floor. She sat, and started to eat her cold dinner.

  There was a knock at the door.

  ‘Yeah?’ Shella asked.

  The door opened and Sami, one of her five brothers, poked his head round.

  ‘Hi, Shella,’ he said, coming in.

  ‘Sami,’ she replied.

  He took a seat next to her at the table. Without asking, he picked up a glass, wiped a mark from its lip, then poured himself a long drink of rice spirits.

  ‘Some evening,’ he said, drinking.

  ‘Pour me one too,’ she said, ‘and tell me what happened.’

  ‘We were all down in the sitting room,’ he said, handing her a fresh drink. ‘Except you of course. We were sitting waiting for Obli and Janno to come and give us their news. We waited and waited, and they never showed up, so we started talking about what might have happened. Noli had just finished saying that Obli was crazy to even think that the Board would give her a licence, when who should suddenly appear, having overheard everything?’

  ‘Oh no,’ Shella groaned.

  ‘Exactly,’ Sami continued. ‘Well you can fucking imagine what happened next…’

  ‘Language, Sami,’ Shella said, out of habit.

  ‘Sorry, sis. Anyway, Obli and Noli started shouting at each other, and their husbands went at it too, and soon the whole family was arguing. Obli stormed out, and the whole dinner was called off. Noli and some of the others took the kids out for the evening. Poor Chapu, after cooking all that food as well.’

  ‘Obli told me she was going to re-apply,’ Shella said.

  Sami snorted, shook his head, and poured himself another drink.

  ‘Noli will never allow it,’ he said.

  ‘I’m not sure she’ll be able to stop her.’

  Sami shrugged. ‘Anyway, what happened to you?’

  ‘Had to work late,’ she said. ‘Found a body in the sewage works, blocking a valve.’

  ‘Fuck!’ Sami said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘About the corpse, or about your foul language?’ Shella smiled, for the first time that day.

  Sami laughed. ‘Both.’

  He refilled Shella’s glass.

  ‘Want to get seriously drunk?’ he said.