“My son is not dead,” he said.
That earned silence and a stiffened back.
“Diamond falls through, and I’ll go find him again,” said the slayer. “And if I don’t cut him from the belly of some corona, then someone else will do that job, in a thousand days or ten million.”
The crowded room had fallen quiet.
The aide found himself inside a box, and he didn’t like boxes. Feeling the pressure of eyes, he saw one last gambit. Very quietly, but with rage building, he said, “Well, but of course your son is the reason . . . ”
His voice fell away.
“Bealeen,” the Archon called out.
“The reason,” Merit said. “What do you mean by that?”
The young man couldn’t have stood taller. “This happened because of him,” he said, his voice fierce and shrill.
And again, the Archon called to him. Nobody could ignore what her tone meant.
The aide turned. “Yes, madam.”
“Go,” she said.
“Yes, madam?”
“Immediately,” she said.
“I’ll wait onboard the Happenstance,” he said hopefully.
“No, you’ll go home,” she said. “Or you’ll run to any other tree in the world. Or for all I care, you can leap out this window. I don’t want your company again. Do you understand me?”
The man waited to be sad or angry, but his emotions never rose to that level. This was his chance to escape, and Bealeen said, “Yes, madam,” before hurrying away.
Everyone else was staring at Merit. The room was thinking about nothing but the magical son.
Then the Archon walked over to the grief-stricken father and husband. “May I stand with you for now, sir?” she asked.
He said, “Of course.”
She raised a hand, resting her palm against his shoulder. Then with a voice that everyone would hear, she said, “I can’t promise much, sir. But I know this: one way or another, we’ll see the boy home again.”
Every school uniform started out too big for Karlan, but that never lasted long. There were larger men in the world, and perhaps some were naturally stronger, but the near-man had other gifts: he was the masterful bully, an expert in violence and the artful threat of violence. Students gave him money and he gave them peace, and certain teachers found it was easiest to bribe the giant, gaining ease of mind while winning tranquility in whatever classroom in which he sat. But despite the terrors, he had never been expelled from school or arrested for any crime. Investigated, yes, but not arrested.
Karlan wasn’t as smart as his little brother, but he was shrewder than ten Seldoms and a genius reading the signals displayed on any face. Long ago, he saw what was different about Diamond, calling him a monster before gutting him with a knife. That history was something that Tar`ro and the other guards never forgot. But since Diamond came to school, there hadn’t been any hostilities between them. Karlan knew better. The little creature didn’t matter anymore. Doing just enough to keep his reputation airborne, Karlan had capably kept himself in a place where he felt comfortable, and by his measures, in total control.
Diamond was watching Karlan.
The survivors had been ushered inside a never-big cabin in the blimp’s belly. Every seat had been heaved overboard—for weight and for room. But there wasn’t one piece of empty floor bigger than a handprint. People sat hip-to-hip, limbs often woven together. Little daggers of light came through the gaps in the curtains. One dagger kept catching the biggest face, round and imposing and drenched with tears. Like everybody else, the tyrant was weeping.
Karlan made no sound when he cried, Diamond noticed.
Seldom sat in front of his brother, tall but still tiny between the giant legs. Deep sobs ended with sniffles and panting breaths, and then after regaining his strength, Seldom would let the sobs begin all over again.
The big face looked at Diamond, and Diamond looked away. Then the face looked at the Master and finally at Tar`ro, and one of his hands attacked the tears on Seldom’s face, not his own, wiping them away as his sturdy voice said, “Yeah, this is shit. Shit, shit.”
Tar`ro sat with his back straight, wet eyes watching everyone. Or maybe his training kept him in that pose, letting him pretend to be alert even when his mind was lost in its private miseries.
Master Nissim seemed shrunken, ill. One arm was thrown over Diamond, as if trying to lend comfort. But as much as anything, he was leaning on the boy, inviting the warmth of that body into places cold and dark.
Good was curled up in Diamond’s lap.
Elata and Prue clung to each other, talking.
“I want my mommy,” said the little girl.
“I want mine,” said Elata.
Seldom took a long breath, rebuilding his strength. “Do you think our mom got away?” he asked.
“Quiet,” Elata said.
“Karlan,” said Seldom. “What do you think?”
“That you need to shut up,” said his brother, the voice flat and hard, but not angry, not strained.
The blimp’s engines were running fast. They were climbing slowly and making sharp turns, the daggers of sunlight constantly shifting positions.
Tar`ro was staring at Karlan.
Diamond was paying close attention to both of their faces.
Prue kept saying, “Mommy.”
There were moments when Diamond stopped thinking about his mother. But those were aberrations, coming when his brain was too full with too much and something had to be shoved aside. Suddenly Mother wasn’t sitting behind him or floating over him or wishing him a very good day. He was busy reliving the gunfight and clinging to the walkway, and children with faces and names were dying all over again, and with perfect clarity, he saw trees dropping out of this world again. Each tree was severed at the top and burning, and every person trapped on the branches and inside the trunk was turned to fire. Even those riding inside airships weren’t safe. How many blimps and fletches had been torn to scrap by falling debris? Diamond counted those he had witnessed. There was no way to forget what he knew, and no thought remained lost for long. Shutting his eyes, the boy willed his mother to appear, and Haddi was standing over him just as she had when he was little, cool fingers gingerly touching the forehead that always felt as if it had just come out of the oven.
Forgetting his mother was a failure, perhaps even a crime.
Each time he forgot, Diamond bent forward, focusing every thought on the woman, forcing her to seem as real as ever, which put him in a mood where he was certain that the old woman had survived. A creature that vivid, that rich, must have jumped free of Marduk, or maybe she was shopping on Rail but ran to Hanner in time, or she fell a little ways but then grabbed hold of one of the commuter airships that survived. Each of those unlikely scenes was equally plausible, and in those moments, doubting nothing, the only worry in him was the idea that his poor mother was sick worrying about him.
Diamond was alive, and Father, and Mother too.
In secret, the boy smiled, and that was when his thoughts turned wild again.
Tar`ro continued watching Karlan.
After another two recitations of silence, the giant returned the man’s gaze. “Staring is impolite,” he said.
“I’m curious,” Tar`ro said.
“Good for you,” said Karlan.
“About this morning,” the guard said.
Karlan shifted his weight, and after the silence built, he used a hand to wipe his own face, making it a little drier.
“You weren’t doing anything, were you?”
“In class? No.”
“But we got that call asking for help,” Tar`ro said. “Bits said you were beating up teachers.”
“Was I?”
“No.”
“Well,” said Karlan. “Bits was a liar.”
“Except the call-line did ring.” Tar`ro shifted his legs. “Even if you’re innocent, someone made that happen.”
“I’m sitting in the back of the room, pretending to read,” Karlan said. “Then you come flying in, and you give me how much of a look? Barely any. What I remember, you blinked and turned to Miss Ulla and started to ask her . . . I don’t know what, probably what was the trouble or if I had been bad . . . and that’s when Marduk started shaking . . . ”