In the Forest There Are No Lines

"We have a body for you," the Inspector said. He sounded cheerful; maybe it was the phone.

Marik almost thanked him before the words sank in. "A body?" she said, as if she couldn't quite place the word. "For me?"

The Inspector's cheerfulness was unabated; almost certainly not the phone. "Sure. You are Kria Marik, aren't you? From the Museum?"

Marik shifted the phone to her left hand and ran her right through her long black hair. "You have a body for the Museum?" She always ran her hand through her hair when she was nervous or confused; her father used to tease her about it. Before he died.

The Inspector chuckled. "It's not that old," he said. You wanted to know if any unidentified Teyer showed up, didn't you? Well, one did."

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. The knuckles of her left hand cracked from the pressure on the phone. Why the hell, she asked herself, did he sound like finding Teyer corpses was a personal victory? Her right hand caught a snarl and pulled it hard. She gasped.

"Ms Marik? Are you all right?" How could he sound concerned and cheerful at the same time?

"Yes," she said, resolutely disengaging her hand from her hair and using it to steady the phone in her other hand. "It's nothing. Is it ... is it one of them?"

"Well now, that's a problem, then." Now chagrin mixed with the cheerfulness. "No ID, you see. Thought you might be a help there, seeing you knew them and all."

Knew them? She had met them exactly twice, and knew their names. That was all.

"You did ask to be notified," the Inspector said into the silence. His voice carried an undertone of official business.

She swallowed again. "Of course. I'll be right there." She almost hung up before she realized she didn't know where. She quickly put the phone back to her ear and cried out, "Inspector?"

He was still there, had never left. "City Morgue," he said. "Basement of New Guild Hall on Martrey Melakkan."

Marik glanced around for something to write with, but nothing presented itself. "Yes," she said. It was simple enough. "I'll be there in ..." her mind whirled with the logistics of travel. "I'll be there as soon as I can."

She hung up without saying goodbye and girded herself for a night run into the City. She considered driving, but only for a second. She hated driving in the City. The streets were too narrow and congested, she could never find a parking space, and she had read too much about vandalism, burglary, and outright theft. Besides, she always got lost, and that was not a thing to do in the middle of the night. Above all she did not want to do that; she did not want to join the Legion of the Lost -- like Smoke Rising and He Laughs and Apple Soon Ripe. She shivered violently and called for a taxi.

The taxi she got was an independent, without a fare-box or a trip meter, but with a radio tuned to the channels of the four legitimate taxi companies. It was, in fact, the personal vehicle of the driver -- or perhaps of his sister or his cousin or his aunt. Marik didn't notice she'd been pirated until the driver, a young Griga named Pichulan, apologized for it as he flicked them out of the path of the onrushing Morning Glory Taxi she rightfully belonged to.

"So sorry, very sorry," Pichulan said, watching her steadily in the rearview mirror. "He got no fare now. Come alla way out here, and he got no fare." He shrugged and flashed the mirror a lopsided grin, dismissing the other driver's problems. "He cheat you anyway, Missa. Alla them do. Alla time get lost, alla time same way." He shook his head sadly at this perfidy. "You gotta get there, Missa, you call me. Alla time, you call me, okay?"

Marik clutched the tattered plastic of the back seat and stared through the windscreen. "Okay," she said. "Just please watch the road."

Pichulan glanced disdainfully at the road, in time to dodge a Dippel bus. "Same road," said Pichulan. "Road never move, alla time the same."

Marik closed her eyes and forced herself to lean back into the leaking stuffing of the seat. She could have been on that Dippel bus, safe from this lunatic pirate taxi -- the trip would twice as long or more, but she could be reasonably sure of getting there alive.

The ride was surprisingly smooth, and Marik's eyes stayed closed, soothed by Pichulan's voice as he related, in indifferent but enthusiastic Kalish, the story of his life. The words didn't register, but the sound flowed over her, rhythmic and liquid and tumbling, like a cool, clear freshet down a mountainside in spring.

Then the voice stopped. Marik's eyes drifted open and shut, and she noticed the car had stopped, too. She sat up with a start.

"We here, Missa," Pichulan said. "All safe; we here."

She stared out into a dark city street, devoid of light or life. She breathed deeply and strained here eyes to see anything familiar. "Where?" she asked, her voice barely clearing her lips.

"Where you wanna go," said Pichulan, turning fully around and grinning.

Marik turned her head slowly to look out the other side of the car, and there was the brightly lit entrance of New Guild Hall. She sighed her relief and reached for the door handle. Pichulan beat her to it. He popped out of the car and had her door open before she knew what he was doing. She got out, handed him a five, and turned toward the Hall.

"I wait for you, okay?"

She turned back. Pichulan hovered with one hand on the door handle, the other holding the five carefully away from his body. He did not look at her and he did not look at her money, but his attitude took them both in, and the dark brooding street as well, made more sinister by the single pool of light that marked her destination.

"I wait," he said again. "See you safe back home."

"Yes," she said. "All right," and turned toward the light, toward the Legion of the Lost.