The Lost Puzzler Page 11

  There were more people standing around a large open area, holding, checking, cleaning, comparing, or just playing with all kinds of weaponry. Khan, Martinn and Rafik walked past them towards a doorway at the far end of the floor, this one with an actual door in its frame. Two guards stood there, holding even larger guns and wearing more metal than anyone else. They wore distinctive black cloaks. One of the guards stepped forward.

  “Tell Jakov that Khan Carr is here to see him, with the boy.”

  The guard nodded silently and kept watch as the other guard opened the door and stuck his head inside. After a brief, awkward pause, one guard said, “You and the boy go in, leave your weapons with your friend here.”

  Khan gave his pistol to Martinn without argument, but the guard who talked to them insisted on a search and found another pistol hidden in one of Khan’s boots and a knife in the other. Khan apologized profusely, claiming he had forgotten all about “those little toys.” The guard didn’t look convinced, but he let them in. He didn’t search Rafik—which was a blessing, because Rafik didn’t want to give up his brother’s knife to anyone. He snuck his hand in his pocket and gripped it hard. He did this every time he was afraid, which was often.

  They walked into the next room where another pair of identically clad guards stood. The man called Jakov was sitting between them. Just looking at him made Rafik grip Fahid’s knife even tighter than he had before. Master Issak’s stern voice rang in his ears, joined by the voices of his father, brother, Eithan, and eventually his entire village, repeated again and again, in sermons, lessons, and prayers, warning Rafik from the greatest sin of all: You shall not attach.

  If it was not for Khan’s grip on the back of Rafik’s neck he surely would have tried to run away. The entire left side of Jakov’s face was hidden behind a grim-looking metal mask, with a protruding metallic eyepiece where his eye should have been. He wore a hood, which covered his head, and a plate of chest armour. Instead of a human left arm he had a metallic arm with seven fingers and two thumbs. The hand was picking and prodding at several weapons and other objects which were spread on the large table in front of him, and it kept going even when Jakov looked up at Khan and Rafik.

  The room was large but filled with crates, barrels, and weapons to the point that there was not a lot of room to manoeuvre.

  For some reason, the music from downstairs was louder in this room, and the floor was humming and shaking with the beat under Rafik’s soft sandals.

  “Ah, Khan,” said Jakov in a raspy, metallic voice. Only the parts of his lips which were flesh twisted and moved as he spoke. “You came with the boy.” He didn’t offer them a seat, and all the while his metallic hand kept working on a pistol on the table.

  “Hello again.” Khan’s smile was thin and brief. “Glad to see things are still well oiled.” When Jakov did not reply, Khan turned to Rafik. “Show him your hand, nephew.”

  Rafik obliged. He released his grip on the knife inside his pocket as Khan propelled him forward until he stood so close to the man called Jakov that he could hear the soft whine of metal from his metallic arm. Hesitantly, Rafik pulled his hand out of his pocket and peeled Dominique’s glove off with his other hand. Jakov leaned forward and took Rafik’s hand in his, studying his fingers intently. After a while his metal hand stopped moving.

  “Radja,” he said softly, not lifting his eyes from Rafik’s hand, “I can’t hear myself think. Please ask our hosts again to quiet their damn noise, and make sure you are polite about it.” Rafik heard heavy footsteps behind him and the opening and shutting of the door. Jakov released Rafik’s hand and patted his head in what was obviously an unfamiliar gesture, then leaned back and nodded at Khan.

  The metal arm disappeared briefly under the table and came up holding a bottle, A moment later, two small glasses appeared as well. “This is a rare one,” Jakov said as his hand manoeuvred and poured. “Pre-Catastrophe. You would not believe how much metal I spent on only two crates, but it was worth it.” The liquid settled in the small glass and Khan accepted it. The part of Jakov’s face that was made of flesh twisted into a smile as he lifted his own glass. “Freedom, Metal,” he announced, and then there was the sound of a shot, followed by a woman’s shriek, which caused Khan to spill half his drink and swear. A series of shots followed, after which the music stopped abruptly.

  “Much better,” commented Jakov and with a quick toss, drained his glass through the corner of his mouth. Khan hastily followed suit with what was left in his own glass. Jakov poured them another round.

  When the liquid was gulped and the glasses knocked resolutely down on the table Khan asked, “So, is my nephew here the real deal?”

  “We shall see shortly,” said Jakov. Again, his metal hand dove under the table and brought up a metal box, roughly the size of a hand. There were three holes on the side of the box, each roughly the size of a finger. Rafik was ordered to stand closer to Jakov, who turned his seat so he could face Rafik. His metal hand gripped the boy’s shoulder as he brought himself even closer.

  “Now, young man, I want you to put your fingers here, here, and here.”

  With every here Jakov’s human finger poined at a different hole and the metallic hand squeezed Rafik’s shoulder lightly, with just enough pressure to cause discomfort, silently promising crushing pain if the boy did not comply.

  Heart thumping in terror, Rafik placed his fingers where he was shown. The metallic hand released its grip on his shoulder. “Good, now sit down over here and relax,” Jakov said. A guard slid a comfortable-looking chair over and guided Rafik with a gentle push to sit in it. Rafik tried to pull his fingers out of the box, but found that it was impossible. The metal grip on his shoulder was back. Jakov was standing too close for comfort.

  “I said relax,” said Jakov as he pressed several buttons on the lid of the box. “This will not hurt, much.”

  As he pressed the last button the box hummed, and Rafik felt a strong jolt of pain hitting his fingers and travelling up his arm. He must have screamed—he certainly heard something resembling his own voice—but it was as if he were screaming from a long distance away. He was somewhere else, somewhere safe, enveloped by darkness and staring into emptiness, happy to be away from the people and the noise. They were all bad people, he knew, even Khan, even Dominique—they were like the Tarakan infidels he was warned about, and Jakov was the worst of them. He was a metal man. The man who lets metal be a part of him is cursed for eternity. He and all of his shall perish in holy fire.

  In the darkness, shapes and symbols began to form. They were closer than the symbols in his dreams, much less numerous and all drawn in a faint greyish colour. The symbols moved sluggishly around and in obvious patterns. Rafik stopped one symbol from moving the wrong way before he realised what he was doing. Then he did it with another symbol, and another, again and again. The pattern was so evident that Rafik almost laughed. He quickly stopped the symbols to form half the pattern, and then, with a surge of inexplicable pride, he exposed the entire pattern. There was a soft buzzing sound and a flash of light, and he was suddenly in the room again, with his fingers out of the box.

  “I did it,” he said excitedly, “I solved the puzzle.”

  “Yes, you did.” Jakov’s half grin was as wide as it was unpleasant.

  “Are you sure?” asked Khan. “It was only a couple of seconds. What do you mean, ‘puzzle’? What did you see in there?”

  Rafik was too confused to answer, but he heard Jakov say, “Yes, I’m sure, only his kind can do this, anyone else gets a mighty jolt, believe me. What you have here, my friend, is a genuine Puzzler.”

  Khan whooped and even clapped his hands, unable to contain his joy, but Jakov kept calm and turned back to the boy. “Tell me, Rafik, who is Khan to you?”

  Rafik turned his head towards Khan and said, “He is my uncle.”

  “Really? Uncle?” Jakov’s made a show of turning his gaze back and forth from boy to man. “Strange, you don’t look alike at all. Even
your skin colour is different.”

  “Uncle twice removed,” Khan said quickly. “Or even three times. I don’t know, my family’s history is a bit . . . eh . . . complex, shall we say.”

  “Interesting. Well, I can take him off your hands for a fair price, my friend.”

  Khan shook his head vigorously at that. “No, no, no, I’m sorry I can’t. I promised the boy’s mother, you know how it is . . .”

  Jakov leaned back in his chair. “Oh, well, of course. Promised, you say. Very important, a man’s word, that is. I can get you connected with someone, then, how about that, twenty-five percent of the agreed purchase?”

  Khan spread his hands wide, “I’m sorry Jakov, but the family is in debt and desperately need the coin. I could do fifteen.”

  Jakov’s human face hardened as if it were the metal part. He leaned slowly forward and gently brushed some dirt from Rafik’s shoulders. The boy was too scared to move away.

  “Twenty-two, and you are making me look bad in front of my own men.”

  “Eight—nineteen is what I can do,” said Khan hastily.

  “Let’s agree on a nice round twenty, shall we?”

  Khan spat on his hand and thrusted it forward before realising he was offering to shake Jakov’s metal hand. He dropped the hand to his lap and stuttered, “That’s a deal, Jakov, thank you.”

  “Good man, good man.” Jakov smiled without humour. “Why shake hands when we could drink to our success, my friend? You should try this cheese I have. There’s a farm I stop in every time I come here. They are all cousins or something, some of them can barely speak, but they make the best cheese I’ve ever tasted. It’s really an art form.”

  Khan turned his head, “You hear this, Rafik? You’re a lucky boy. There are some important people who want to see you, far, far away from this rust hole.”

  Rafik did not understand too much of what was happening. He was still in a daze from what he had gone through only moments before. Everything around him seemed distant and sharp at the same time. The guard at the door had an interesting pattern engraved in the belt of his power armour; there were seven chairs in the room but only three of them were grey. Jakov’s metallic hand had long fingers with four joints each and two thumb-like digits with two joints each for a total of thirty-two joints . . .

  At the front of his mind though, above all else, was the answer to the question he’d been searching for since the day the tattoos appeared on his fingers. These men told him what was wrong with him; they named his malady. He was a Puzzler. Now he had to find out what that meant.

  19

  The way back to the bar was a blur, but Rafik did remember Khan hugging him and pinching his cheeks. Khan hailed one of the small metal carts that could drive without a pony and paid the driver coin to bring them back to the bar faster. Rafik never sat on or in anything that could move so fast. Cold air blew through the open windows, and the setting sun warmed his face. The seat was soft and comfortable, and he was suddenly very tired from the excitement of the day. Rafik saw symbols dancing in front of his eyes. They merged into the Tarakan symbol that marked the tower they’d passed on their way to see Jakov. He was startled when Martinn shook him awake.

  “We’re here. Now you can sleep on your own mat.”

  As soon as they got into the bar, Dominique came charging at them and peppered Khan with questions. Every time Khan tried to deflect she became angry, and every time he answered truthfully she became furious. It was quite peculiar, really.

  “You went to meet that tin head? Have you lost your mind, Khan? That man is more vicious than a rabid dog with hot peppers stuck up his hole.”

  “Everything is under control,” Khan said. “We’ve been handed a truck load of of metal.”

  Dominique shoved Khan aside and pointed at Rafik. “What are you going to do about the little mutt now?”

  “I’m going to arrange transport for us—you, me, Martinn, and the boy. We will go to Regeneration, maybe even visit my brother Gandir, and take the long tube to the City of Towers. I know someone there, a contact. He can arrange things, he knows some influencial people. We’ll get the guilds interested, maybe even set up an auction.”

  Dominique was not impressed. “Any plans involving your idiot of a brother is as foolish as you are.”

  Khan spread his hands. “Who said anything about involving the lard bucket on this? I just want to see his face when he sees us chest deep in metal. I’ll even buy that stupid house he stole from me and toss him to the streets, that’s what I’ll do.”

  “And who is going to take care of the bar?” Dominique shook her head at Khan. “Or did you forget the amount of coin you owe or the kind of people you owe to?”

  “Dominique, bane of my existence, thorn in my side, sweet unreachable lips”—Khan lowered his voice to an almost inaudible whisper—“if this deal goes the way I think it will, there is no coming back to this lousy bar. There are far better places to live than Newport. I hear the coast has some wonderful ruined cities that are being reconstructed. We could build a house there, maybe even on the seashore like you always tell me that you dream of . . .”

  Dominique glared at Khan and grunted something about him being too much of a miser to buy passage for four. “You’ll be lucky if he takes you with him,” she said to Martinn when Khan left, “and that will only be because he needs you to watch his back.”

  Martinn shrugged and escorted Rafik to his room upstairs. Rafik was left alone to wash and pray. He silently apologised to the Prophet Reborn for having missed his midday prayers. Lately Rafik’s prayers had become less frequent. He felt bad about it, but truth be told, Rafik was also angry with the Reborn for inflicting this curse upon him. These new symbols and patterns were fascinating, and Dominique was nice, despite her gruff ways, but he missed home and he wanted his family back. He was surrounded by unbelievers, ruffians, ladies who walked about with their bits showing and kissed men who were not their husbands. The bar was full of drunks and sinners, but somehow—and this was what irked Rafik to no end—they were all nicer than most of the people back in his village, and definitely happier. How could that be? Could it be that Master Issak was wrong about the scriptures?

  Rafik tried to chase from his mind these blasphemous thoughts and dutifully completed his nighttime prayers. He undressed, washed his upper body, and tried to fall asleep. Yet somehow, the fatigue that had hounded him all day was replaced by restlessness.

  After tossing and turning for a while, Rafik got up and paced the room, looking for patterns in the floorboards and the walls. Eventually he got bored, opened the door, and asked Martinn if he could go downstairs. Martinn relented, and they both went downstairs to the bar.

  There were a few regular patrons and a few new ones. Soon Martinn was talking animatedly to a young woman he apparently knew and seemed eager to get to know again. Rafik spent his time making a few coins by bringing drinks to drunks.

  He was so used to the sounds of the passing trucks now that he didn’t pay attention to the roaring noise of the engines, and maybe that was why no one else noticed Jakov and the great bicycle riders until they were inside the bar. They were dressed in black and carried guns, except Jakov, who carried a power pistol in his human arm.

  It took precious time for people inside the bar to realise that the armed men who’d just walked in were not coming for a drink. Jakov spotted Rafik handing brew filled mugs to two fat truckers and pointed a metallic finger at him.

  “Grab him.”

  That was the only order his guards needed.

  One of the men approached Rafik, snatched him by his collar, and began pulling him towards the exit. Rafik’s squeal of alarm alerted even the two very drunk truckers nearby that something was amiss.

  “Hey man, where’re you takin’ the boy, I ain’t tipped him yet,” one of the truckers said as he rose lazily to his feet. The man pulling Rafik stopped and turned, and with a casual motion he shot both truckers in the chest. The blasts completely deafene
d Rafik, so he didn’t hear the cracking noise of a bottle as it smashed into the shooter’s face. He ducked instinctively as broken glass mingled with drops of blood and beer that cascaded on top of him. The shooter let go of Rafik, who turned to see Jakov and another man shoot Dominique. There was movement, flashes of light, and bits of glass flying everywhere in a deadly chaotic swirl, which had no pattern.

  Rafik ran without looking back. He rushed upstairs and, without remembering how, found himself in the room where his uncle and brother had negotiated with Khan. It was the wrong place to be, he realised, as there were no windows and no place to hide. Rafik leaned on the door, breathing hard and trembling, tears running freely from his eyes as images from the carnage below kept playing in his mind. He bit his own fist to stop the whimpers escaping his mouth.

  Hide.

  Rafik took several steps into the room, trying to find somewhere that would conceal him, but before he could get his bearings the door burst open and Radja, Jakov’s bodyguard, filled the door frame, a heavy gun in his hands. Rafik froze. All he could do was just stand there, his entire vision focused on the bloodstains on Radja’s leather armour. When he was satisfied that the room was empty save for the boy, Radja hefted his gun, extended his arm towards Rafik, and said something. At least his mouth opened and closed several times, but for some reason, no sound came out. Rafik awoke from his stupor only when Radja took several steps and grabbed him, but by then it was too late to escape. Still he resisted, but it was like trying to stop a horse midgallop. Radja trapped Rafik in a one-armed choke hold. Putting a knee to Rafik’s back, he pushed the boy forward one step at a time.