Watcher's Web (20 page)

“Keep
working.” He spoke Mirani. The screen translated, but she didn’t
need the translation anymore. He had said it so often that the
patterns in the text almost jumped at her.

He sat on the
opposite side of the table, keeping her company as she worked at
his screen. A carpet of yellow cards spread out before him. He held
a thin pen, with which he wrote out characters in immaculate
precision. A jar with three more such pens stood on the table.

“I’m hungry,”
she said.

He grumbled,
“In Mirani.”

Jessica
clenched her teeth and repeated in Mirani. “I’m hungry.”

“Have you
finished?”

Jessica
glared at the rows of sentences, verbs, nouns and conjugations that
filled the screen. Whenever she completed one exercise, the next
one appeared. It was never-ending.
“I
think I’ve finished.”

“I think you
can do a few more pages. My younger brother did better than that in
most of his language courses.”

Jessica
clamped her jaws. What did she care about his younger brother? The
man was a slave-driver. In one morning, she had learned more Mirani
than she had learned Japanese in four years of study. But all
right, if he wanted to be stubborn, she could be stubborn, too. She
returned to her work.

Give ten
examples: .

Her
fingers danced over the lower half of the screen, where she had
long since become accustomed with the circles, angles, dots and
lines that made up the Mirani alphabet, and the combinations of
those that formed syllable-characters. There was an advantage to
being naturally good at learning other languages. She squinted
against the screen’s soft glow, letting lines flow through the
text. The patterns weren’t quite as strong as they had been this
morning—she was tired indeed—but still clear enough to be visible
to her. In angry keystrokes, she typed out the sentences, murmuring
them to herself.
Gammari . . . jimara . . .
talin.
want> . . .
Gammari . . . dolo
. . . palin

. . .
Gammari . . . jimara
—

A clunk on the
wooden tabletop made Jessica gasp. Iztho rose from his seat, his
face set in a scowl. “Is there a less childish way to make your
point?”

“I tried. I
think I learn enough today.”

“Learned.”

“Learned!”

He dragged the
screen across the table. With an experienced touch of this thumb,
he flicked back through the pages Jessica had completed. His light
blue eyes moved as he read each page, and although he said nothing,
he gave a tiny nod each time he progressed to the next page, and
the next one, and the next one. Finally he rose, flicked the
curtain of hair back over his shoulder and retrieved his cloak.

“In all
honesty, I should tell you that my younger brother scored very rare
perfect results in his Trader exams. And he already had a basic
knowledge of the languages he learned.”

Jessica balled
her fist under the table. Ha—he was impressed; he was just too
stubborn to admit it. And somehow the look on his face was worth
more than all the praise she had ever received at school. Because
no one at school had ever told her that her work wasn’t good
enough. At primary school, she’d pretended to be working, while
secretly sending out coils of mist trying to find out who had a
crush on whom. Now, in the last years of high school, she was doing
subjects not due until next year, but the teachers let her set her
own pace. The teachers couldn’t keep up with her. They kept telling
her they had no more study material for her, and she was bored.

So—right. Bring it on. She
would
learn his language as quickly as she could. She
would
learn to be a lady, and whatever other
challenges he dreamed up. Because she would not let herself be
shown up by this arrogant arsehole.

*     *     *

But the afternoon was
long. She supposed it would be, if the day was twenty-eight hours,
but it felt like time had crawled to a stop. Even though there was
some sort of cooling system going, the door was open, and hot humid
air wafted into the cabin.

Jessica was
tired, and when she rested her head in hands she must have dozed
off.

*     *     *

The sound of a
door creaking. Soft footfalls on the floor.

She hadn’t
seen any threads, or mist, but somehow, she was in Daya’s mind
again.

He lay on a
bed in a dark room. A thin strip of light fell in through a crack
of a door which stood ajar. Something shuffled nearby.

What
the. . . ?

He pushed
himself up.

Firelight
edged the rug and the blankets on his bed in gold.

No one.

Daya jumped
up, throwing off his blankets, and went into the hall.

His footsteps
echoed hollow in the staircase, the walls only lit by the glow of
the fire above. The downstairs hall lay deserted; the large
metalwork door was closed. Daya moved up the latch and pushed.

He couldn’t
move it.

What was this
nonsense? Wait—he’d get someone to unlock the door.

Taking the
steps two at a time, Daya ran back up the stairs, grabbed his bag
off the table, took out his reader, turned it
on . . .

A soup of grey
and blue dots sizzled over the screen. The only other place he had
ever seen this happen was inside the refugee camps, where
scramblers prevented unauthorised Exchange access by camp
inmates.

His heart
thudding in his throat, he walked to the window. Drifting snow
lashed against panes set in their metalwork frame. None could be
opened; the window had no ledge on the outside, and below was a
three-storey drop to the ground.

He ran to the
bedroom, but the situation was the same there. Trapped. He sank
down on the bed. How could he have been so stupid?

Just as he
sensed a person moving in the room, the figure lunged at him from
behind. A hand closed over his mouth.

*     *     *

Jessica jerked
up. The rich interior of the aircraft came slowly into focus. Iztho
was still working with his cards.

She stared at
the screen, but turned her concentration inwards.

Who are
you? Where are you? What can I do to help?

There was no
reply.

Chapter
17

I
ZTHO STOPPED in
the street and gestured. “The dressmaker.”

In a shop on
the right side of the street, lengths of fabric hung from beams
suspended from the ceiling, waving like flags in a gentle breeze.
Orange, bright pink, yellow, blue, red, the colours of an African
market blended into a tropical tapestry of colour.

A man in a
flapping orange robe squeezed himself from the narrow aisle. He
squinted against the light, chest a-glitter with chains and
bangles. “Trader Andrahar!”

Iztho spoke to
the man in the local keihu, waving a hand at Jessica. The
dressmaker’s eyes widened, then beckoned for Jessica to come
forward, staring up at her as if she were some weird creature.

“You
. . . like . . .
colours . . .”

Guess he
wanted to know which material she liked. In the shop, the smell of
food from the street stalls mingled with a musty, organic scent. It
was cramped in here, and she had to bend her head to avoid
colliding with beams displaying lengths of fabric. What did she
like? She ran her hand over one gaudy-coloured bundle after the
other. Certainly not orange, or hot pink, bright yellow or
translucent white. Against her white skin, most colours simply
looked dreadful. She was hot, wanted a bath more than anything
else, and she had always hated shopping. Especially clothes
shopping.

Then her
attention fell on a shimmer of blue against the side wall: a silky
fabric in the clearest of cobalt blues. She squeezed herself
between two piles of bundles, and touched it. The fabric ran
through her hands like satin. Rich, smooth, soft. She looked over
her shoulder, where the dressmaker waited in the aisle.

“I like this
one.”

Iztho pushed
himself forward. “Allow me.” He pulled the fabric down from the
beam and draped it over Jessica’s shoulder. He nodded, stepped back
and nodded again. “That will do just fine.” He handed the bundle to
the dressmaker, whose face contorted with the effort of suppressing
a smile. At this, Jessica was convinced she had chosen the most
expensive fabric in the shop.

Iztho dumped
an armful of fabric bundles next to the blue one. A soft yellow, a
light blue woolly fabric, a satin black, a peach orange with tiny
glittering drops, and a shimmering deep magenta, each one more
exquisite than the other. “Do you like those, too?”

“Yes.” Jessica
wondered how from her choice of just one fabric, he had determined
her taste. Maybe that was part of his profession. This man had many
strange qualities. Being a faded hippie wasn’t one of them.

He pointed out
the fabrics one by one. “I’ll ask him to make a second dress, a
tunic, a nightshirt, a warm overdress,
underclothes . . .”

Jessica didn’t
like it. All this was going to be expensive, and she had no money
or whatever these people used to pay. He had to expect something in
return.

The dressmaker
pressed a few sheets of cardboard-like material in Jessica’s hands.
Photographs, or some such thing. “You stay . . . we make
dress—”

Vivid lively
colours showed three women walking in a treeless meadow bursting
with flowers. Sunlight played in the women’s silken hair. In the
background, a landscape of rolling hills stretched away under a
stark turquoise sky. “Where is this?” she asked Iztho, although the
women’s light-coloured hair made her think she already knew the
answer.

“This is the
meadow just outside our great capital city of Miran, which bears
the same name as the nation. See the clear mountain air? The view
over the highlands? Smell the flowers and the freshness of molten
snow. That, Lady, is life.”

In the
oppressive heat, humidity and the overpowering smell of tropical
flowers, it sounded wonderful.

The dressmaker
tapped the picture. “Which one? We have a lot of work to do.”

Jessica
tore her gaze from the scenery. Wide flowing skirts, narrow waists,
tight bodices, not unlike Victorian ladies’ fashion. What was
Mirani for
I hate
dresses?

She flicked
through the pictures and eventually picked a simple design with a
straight body piece and straight sleeves. Once again, Iztho seemed
appreciative of her choice, but the dressmaker’s face bore traces
of disappointment. He took the pictures from Jessica’s hand, put
his fingers in his mouth and whistled hard.

A Pengali
female shuffled from the darkness at the back of the shop, clad in
a turquoise servant dress. She carried a basket, and several
lengths of white tape around her neck. Her huge eyes met Jessica’s.
Dark lips moved in a soundless whisper. “Anmi.”

Jessica
cringed. Not that again. She didn’t want to disturb this man’s
staff and attract more attention to herself than necessary.

The servant
took Jessica’s arm and guided her towards a curtained door. On the
other side was a covered patio, a well-lit, large, half-open room
where bundles and rolls of colourful material stood stacked against
walls. Half a dozen Pengali, also dressed in turquoise, sat on
pillows, each of them surrounded by a circle of fabric pieces in
one particular colour. Gazes went to the door, but hands continued
to work. Pushing glittering needles, cutting patterns with tiny
glass shears.

The female
servant sat Jessica down on a stool—the only piece of furniture in
the room. She took the tape from around her neck and measured
Jessica’s shoulders, arms and waist, then motioned for her to stand
up and measured shoulder height, for which she had to climb on the
stool. In between all this, performed without uttering a single
word, she scribbled markings on her measuring tape, while her boss
looked on. Under his glare, the servant then took the blue fabric,
spread it out over the floor, and, using the markings on the tape,
drew shapes on it with a piece of chalk-like material. Finally, she
ran the shears along the lines, lifting loose pieces out of the
fabric, forming a pile of shimmering silk.

With a final
glance and a loud sniff, the dressmaker turned and went back into
the shop.

As if someone
had pushed a button, shears clattered on the floor and needlework
crumpled in heaps as all assistants abandoned their work, and
crowded around Jessica. Rough-skinned hands touched her left arm
and pushed up the material of the borrowed long-sleeved dress, ran
up the skin to the tattoo on her arm, which had faded back to its
usual red spots. Speaking in whispers, they repeated over and over
“Anmi.”

Jessica tried
to push them aside, sick with the thought of the previous night.
She said in Mirani, “Stop. I don’t want trouble.”

The servants
retreated. Six pairs of huge brown eyes stared up at her. One
female, possibly the youngest of them all, stepped forward,
speaking in faltering, heavily accented Mirani. “You
. . . Ikay.”

“Yes, I know
Ikay.”

The female
waved her finger in the way Jessica had come to understand meant
“no”. The young female thought, bit her lip, thought some more, her
eyes at the ceiling, where racks held yet more rolls of fabric.
“Ikay . . . tell . . . us . . .”
She made a vague gesture. “You . . .
here . . .”

Jessica
frowned. Ikay had told them she had come here? “Why?”