The Lost Puzzler Read online

  Vincha opened her mouth to answer, but suddenly an alarm pierced the air. Rafik didn’t stay to hear her parting words. His orders were strict. He had to run to the barracks when the alarm sounded, and he was not about to disobey Ramm, who threatened to lock him in a room permanently if he was late.

  He arrived to find the rest of the Keenan crew gearing up and waiting for orders. A few nodded and waved when they saw him enter. Ramm was pacing, and as soon as he saw Rafik he ordered him to be brought to the secure room. This time there was no guard posted inside, and Rafik was left alone in the small room with only a low-power light to keep the darkness away.

  He lay down on the cold floor and listened to the sounds of shots and explosions. The emergency channel of his Comm was filled with orders, shouts, curses, explosions, and, on a few occasions, blood-curdling screams. At some point several dozen Lizards managed to cimb over the north wall and enter the Hive’s grounds, and Brain had to send an auxiliary force to deal with them. Rafik hugged his knees and tried not to think what would happen if the Lizards were to get the upper hand. Would he be spared, or would they tear him to pieces with their claws and teeth? The image of the Lizard that attacked him came back to his mind. Was Pikok right? Rafik suppressed a shudder. He might have seen hesitation in the Lizard’s yellow pupils, but only a hesitation, and Rafik was not so sure that the creature would have left him unharmed.

  The attack was eventually repelled. Rafik later learned that Bayne had forced his way out of the clinic to join the fight. Yet that was the last time Rafik saw Bayne. A day after the attack he was called back to the Keenan headquarters, and Bayne never came back. His departure was marked by the worst Lizard attack yet on the convoy to the Long Tube. Seven Trolls were killed and scores wounded, although Bayne was not one of them.

  The Keenans sent back several recruits to replace the fallen crew members. Jhan, whom Rafik knew from the guild house, was the new CommTroll. He was almost as young as Rafik and equally as frightened. The other three arrivals were fighting Trolls, fresh from the obligatory guard duty at the farms and eager for action.

  One of them was Kurk. Killing people had turned him from a cruel, malicious boy into the kind of Troll others took care not to anger. He constantly boasted about the atrocities he and his fellow guards committed against insubordinate farmers and their families. It didn’t surprise Rafik at all when Kurk immediately began to praise and imitate Ramm’s style. As a result, Ramm was quick to take Kurk under his wing. He was wired with far better gear than he deserved and given an unusual amount of powder.

  When not fraternizing with Ramm or slumbering in a Skint-induced stupor, Kurk made a point of making Rafik’s life a living hell. He used his new status as tactical leader to send the boy on unnecessary errands, and to mock him in front of the crew. Since Ramm shared Rafik’s tracer code with Kurk, there was no hiding from the Troll. He especially took delight in tormenting Pikok by imitating the eccentric Puzzler and peppering him with insults. Pikok’s response was to withdraw from Rafik and close himself off in his underground lair. Rafik managed to meet Pikok alone only a few times, and they were too brief for him to learn anything about puzzles or the man’s Lizard theories.

  A few more days passed and the attacks became less frequent, until they eventually stopped altogether. Another week passed quietly, and then another. It seemed that the Lizards had either withdrawn or had been exterminated. No Lizard was sighted for several weeks.

  The large number of dead Lizards and the subsequent surplus in green powder meant that tensions involving Skint distribution were lessened as well. Everyone seemed quiet and subdued after the attacks, Kurk being a notable exception.

  For a short while, the Hive was as close to peaceful as a place full of hundreds of Combat Trolls could be.

  47

  “Who was this Nakamura?” Galinak’s question saved me from falling into a complete doze. I straightened up and stifled a yawn, cursing myself and wondering if I’d missed bits of the story.

  “I’m surprised you don’t know of him,” said my LoreMaster. Turning my head, I saw that during Vincha’s tale he’d seated himself in a far corner and was now speaking from the shadows.

  “I’m an old-timer, LoreMaster.” I could almost hear Galinak smiling in the darkness. “By the time this had all happened my crew was mostly dead and I was out of the Valley, escorting tower-heads to seedy brothels in the Pit.”

  LoreMaster Harim took Galinak at his word. “Nakamura was a sort of legend, a rogue,” he explained, “a marked man possessing, if you believe the stories, oracle-like powers. He roamed Tarakan Valley, claiming no alliance and seeking no protection from the outposts or the guilds. Only the very few have seen him and lived. Actually there’s a debate in my society . . .” He stopped and sighed. “There was a debate whether the man existed or was some kind of boogeyman invented to frighten new crews and keep them from straying too far.”

  “Oh, Nakamura existed, all right.”

  I turned my head to where Vincha was squatting. She was nodding in the gloom to no one in particular.

  “He existed,” she repeated, her voice dry and cracked. “And he was exactly as the stories claimed; a freak Troll, half man, half monster. He survived in the wilderness for years with only a small crew, killing anything and anyone that stood in his way. His name travelled even to the Pit, Galinak.”

  Galinak shuffled to his feet and stretched. “Well, excuse me for not keeping up with the news and gossip. My wires were kinda crossed during that particular period of my life. So Vincha, you were dating this Nakamura guy, or what?”

  Chuckles rose among the men, but died quickly as my master walked a step closer to the light. He looked down at Vincha. “What I would like to know is how you arranged for Bayne to be transferred back to the City of Towers, and why?”

  In the silence that followed I could only hear my own heart beating. There was urgency in my LoreMaster’s voice, which was not supposed to be there for such a seemingly mundane question.

  “You know about that as well,” Vincha shook her head slowly.

  The LoreMaster nodded. “I’ve been connecting the dots around your complicated life for a long time, but more than anything else, that action highlighted your involvement in the dramatic events which came to pass.”

  “I had no choice.” Vincha’s voice rose as she shook her head. “He was going to die out there, that rust of a Troll.”

  “Was Ramm going to kill him?”

  “He would have died sooner or later. Even if he somehow survived by himself in the Valley and found Nakamura . . .” She hesitated briefly, shrugging. “He would have rusted either way. Nakamura killed anyone who was not useful to him, and there was nothing Bayne could have offered him.”

  I heard myself speak as the thoughts began to form in my mind. “How would you know what Nakamur—”

  But my LoreMaster cut me off. “No, not now,” he said. “Now I want to know how you did it.”

  Vincha shrugged again in the gloom. “I hacked into the Keenans’ channel using algorithmic protocols I stole from Gronn long before he . . . never mind. I just managed, and then I faked an encrypted guild message for Bayne.”

  Galinak whistled softly in appreciation. “That’s impressive. I didn’t understand half the words you just used.”

  “Ramm was so off his wires he didn’t realise what I was doing, and the new Keenan CommTroll was a complete disaster. I knew that Bayne would already be in the city by the time they figured out what was going on, and then the Keenans would hold an investigation to see how it was done. By the time they found out he had nothing to do with it, he would be able to speak to someone there, ask for a transfer or even an early release from his contract . . . I knew people owed him some favors, but he was too damn proud to cash them in.”

  “Yet you went to all that trouble to get him away from the Hive. Why?”

  “Does it matter? I did what I had to do.”

  “So you did this out of love.”
<
br />   Vincha rose to her feet in one fluid motion. “It’s none of your rusting business, historian. I’m not a propaganda pamphlet or an erotic visual to masturbate to.”

  That display was a sure sign that my LoreMaster’s assumption was correct.

  “Did you know what you were about to do? What you were setting in motion?” he asked.

  The question seemed to deflate her. She took a half step back and pressed her body against the wooden wall. “No, I did not.” This time her voice shook, and for some reason it frightened me.

  I rose to my feet as my LoreMaster pressed on relentlessly. “The Surge, the destruction of the outpost, the pushback, the decline of humanity, diminishing returns on the salvation expeditions triggering another guild war, the riots—the poor, untrained recruits sent to the valley to be slaughtered . . .” His words hung in the air.

  Vincha was shaking her head vigorously. “No, no, I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t think . . . I just wanted out . . . Bayne was right. I was a mess . . . because of the Skint . . . because of Doro . . . because I was . . . and there was no way out . . .”

  I could see her breaking up in front of us. There had been no need for threats or bribes. LoreMaster Harim needed only to ask the right questions, and her entire defence came tumbling down. Rust, whatever she’d done was like a wound, festering inside her. I still couldn’t see the whole picture, but my LoreMaster did, and it was obvious Vincha knew the implications of her actions. That realisation and the fear of what would happen to her if the guilds came to the same conclusion was what must have driven her to lead such an erratic and dangerous life, always afraid, always looking at the shadows and fleeing at the very first signs of trouble. Yet her secret, like all secrets, yearned to be exposed. It was surprisingly uncomfortable to watch this woman I’d seen kill with precision be reduced to blubbering words and a trembling chin.

  I was not the only one struggling with the situation. Galinak stepped suddenly forward, putting his body between Vincha and LoreMaster Harim. “Easy now, old fella,” he grumbled. “We’ve all had a very long day, and I don’t know much about history, but I’m sure that whatever Vincha did, she couldn’t possibly have been responsible for everything that you accuse her of.”

  “You misunderstand me.” My LoreMaster’s voice was calm, almost a whisper. “I do not seek justice, or vengeance. I only seek the truth.”

  “Why?” Vincha voice rose to something close to a shout.

  “Because at this point we are out of history-learning and into history-making” was LoreMaster Harim’s reply.

  “I didn’t know,” Vincha repeated again, her voice trembling with emotion.

  “But you knew you were about to betray the boy.”

  Vincha didn’t answer.

  “And in order to betray Rafik, you had to gain his trust.”

  48

  “Let him go.”

  The tone in her voice stopped the Troll midmovement but Rafik, held firmly a few inches above the ground, kept struggling.

  Kurk turned his head slowly to stare at Vincha, ignoring Rafik’s pummelling fists. He seemed to relax, and smiled. “It’s not your place, woman. This is Keenan business.”

  “You’re going to let him go.” Her voice was calm. She stood with her hands on her hips, but the movement of her red hair—twitching erratically around her head like a pack of snakes—was a sure sign of a Tarakan Comm device in combat readiness.

  Kurk dropped Rafik to the ground. “You’re messing with the wrong Troll, bitch,” he spat.

  “I think you’re messing with the wrong bitch, Troll.” Vincha took half a step forward, “Perhaps you think I’m one of those poor field girls you can rape at will, like the stories you tell your friends at the Chewing Hole, yes? I saw the way you looked at me then.” She tilted her head slightly, stretching her long body into an alluring pose and pitching her voice into seduction. “See something you like, big boy? Why don’t you come here and try those sweet moves on me, hmm?” She blew him a kiss, but the look in Vincha’s eyes meant death.

  Kurk must have sensed it because he hesitated. Even in a place full of Combat Trolls high on Skint, Vincha had a reputation. He tried a different tactic. “You mess with me, you mess with the Keenans, Vincha. You’re nothing but a freelancer.”

  Vincha surveyed their surroundings, “Well . . . boy, this is quite a secluded place, so I think I could easily claim that I killed you in self-defence. I’m sure the only other witness would back me up.” She smiled again and licked her lips. “And by the way, call me ‘bitch’ again, and I’ll break your teeth, stick my fist down your throat, then make you lick up your own vomit.”

  Colour drained from Kurk’s face, and his eyes darted from Vincha to Rafik, who was still sitting on the floor beside the Troll, massaging his aching wrists.

  “Ramm will hear of this,” he growled, but then he retreated, leaving Rafik behind.

  Vincha’s gaze followed Kurk. As he reached a corner, she said “Tell that big lump of metal I said hi, and that I’ll come over for a little chat soon. He’ll know what it’s about.”

  When she was sure that Kurk would not return she stepped over and helped Rafik to his feet. “Are you okay?” Her smile was pleasant and warm.

  Rafik nodded, too embarrassed to speak.

  “He shouldn’t handle you like that. I hate bullies.”

  Rafik shrugged. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to hide from him.”

  “Rust bucket,” Vincha muttered.

  Rafik flashed a smile, which disappeared quickly as he said, “Ramm is going to be angry with you.”

  “I can handle rusting Ramm,” Vincha said. “The lump of metal owes me enough to overlook it if I slap around one of his shit-brained toy Trolls.”

  “You curse a lot,” Rafik commented, blushing for no apparent reason.

  The CommWoman laughed. “I do, we all do it here, but I guess it’s not . . . nice.”

  Vincha looked down at Rafik’s hand. “Hey, am I crazy or did your markings grow since I saw you in the Long Tube?”

  Rafik raised his hand in front of his eyes and turned it about. “Yea. They were tiny little dots when I first saw them in my home village, now they are almost as large as Pikok’s”

  “Oh, yea, Pikok. You are friends, aren’t you? Haven’t seen that strange little Puzzler about for a while.”

  Rafik shook his head sadly. “I can’t see him anymore. Pikok tried to escape during the Lizard attacks, so the commander of the Loot Worshippers locked him up.”

  “Well, he is insane, running towards Lizards like that,” Vincha shrugged. “I’m just curious, what are you doing in this secluded part of the Hive?”

  “I came here to . . .” The boy hesitated, but then he sighed. “I came to pray.”

  Vincha looked at Rafik in disbelief. “Are you religious? I mean, you still believe after all they must have done to you?”

  “I used to be . . . I mean I still have faith,” he corrected himself, “but I don’t understand why the Reborn . . . why I am . . .” He breathed out in anger. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I prayed every day and was a good student, so I don’t understand why the Prophet Reborn cursed . . . marked . . . made me like . . . like all of you.”

  “But you still pray to this prophet of yours.”

  Rafik looked at the ground, his foot stirring dust into circles, “Yes, I pray. Sometimes . . .”

  Vincha laid a hand on the young boy’s shoulder. “I also come here,” she said quietly, looking around. “It’s almost private here, and I do my own kind of praying.”

  Rafik looked up at the CommWoman. “You pray to the Prophet Reborn?” Vincha didn’t dress or look or behave like a woman who followed the words of the Prophet. She reminded him more of Dominique.

  Vincha laughed. “No, I don’t believe in your god, or anyone’s, but I like the solitude. It gives me time to listen.”

  “Listen? To what?”

  Vincha hesitated for a fraction of
a second before motioning for the boy to follow her. They walked to a shaded area between three tall buildings and sat on a pile of stones. Vincha rummaged in her pockets and produced a short cable.

  “You have to sit closer to me. Instead of messing with your Comm channels, we’ll use a more direct way. Here, just put that in your ear.” The CommWoman busied herself with her hair, attaching the cable to her head. Rafik sat shyly next to her and gingerly accepted the other end of the cable.

  “Go on.” Vincha smiled encouragingly. “Attach it to your ear piece, just place it there.” She pointed and Rafik complied.

  “I can only hear hissing,” he said after a few heartbeats.

  “Patience,” she said. “I have to find it. It’s a delicate thing.” She searched through her belongings until she found a small oblong-shaped disc the size of her little finger. Then she rummaged through her hair until she found the right place to plug it in, saying, “I found this baby by accident five years ago—in a shallow run, would you believe it? Almost overlooked it, really. It’s partly damaged, but I managed to work some of it out.”

  Vincha closed her eyes, and the noise inside Rafik’s head changed. For what seemed like an eternity there was only an annoying hissing, scratching sound that made him wince, but all of a sudden his head was filled with rich, wonderful sound. It was nothing like the music that came out of the music box in Dominique’s bar. It was unlike anything he’d heard before. This music had many voices, each playing in a different way, but somehow they all merged together, creating sounds that sent shivers up and down his spine. For a long time they said nothing and simply sat there, listening to the glorious music, until it faded into a soft hiss.

  He heard Vincha’s voice. “It’s Tarakan music, from the City within the Mountain. The info data on it was damaged but from what I pieced together this music is called Bit of En.”