Zara prepared food and oblivion-water for the regulars for the rest of the evening, took a small wicker basket with her, covered with a red cloth, and mechanically adjusting chairs after the customers, who were still rare at this hour, left the "Thirteenth Moon" pub her father had once bought. She moved through the darkening alleys toward the Old Quarter. The lanterns were lit, and even the messengers, who irritated her to the point of shivering in her head because they were always tangling under her feet and clinging to the hem of her many times darned dress, had lit their little lights, and their beams flickered with heart dust particles.
As she climbed the long stone stairs to the large elevator platform, she threw a coin into the machine and immediately pulled it out with a string tied to her finger. The small turnstile gave way, and she stepped onto the platform. There was a disgruntled grumble from behind, but Zara didn't even look back, staring at the metal figure in front of her. The signal lights came on, the grating that blocked access to the elevator from the turnstiles crawled down, and the elevator, twitching, crawled upward at an unbelievably slow pace.
Soon the girl discerned glittering ribbons of lights and heard music, and a few minutes later the elevator stopped in front of a neatly paved sidewalk that opened the way to houses, tidy in every sense, decorated with lanterns and garlands, between which flying kites floated, glowing with lights of heart dust, and couples strolled along the streets, fascinated with each other more than with the whole motley picture. They came down here from the middle tier to spend a romantic evening in the magic and comfort of the Old Quarter as darkness fell. Its buildings served as beacons for those who sought new tastes and wanted to tickle their nerves with an introduction to the less luxurious and safer life of the middle tier. It was a place where the upper class and the lower class met, not snorting and spitting at each other, but experiencing wonder and admiration, rediscovering something human in one another.
Zara walked past the illusionist, who let out pink smoke from his hat in the shape of a rabbit, which caused the crowd of children around to shout with delight, and a young man ventured and kissed a girl on the cheek, which made her as pink as the smoke from the magician's hat. The other couple put a gold coin in the mouth of a wooden heron on huge legs, and the heron straightened up and struck the blue balloon with its beak, from which a sparkling ring with a huge diamond fell out into the girl's hand. Zara smiled at the illusionist's boldness and walked past the dumbfounded couple, who seemed for the first time to have encountered an entertainment forbidden in the rest of the city, and turned onto an inconspicuous staircase that led down into an empty alley.
It was dark; only one lantern burned in the dead end above a heavy steel door with a peephole. Zara rang the bell and waited, shifting from foot to foot and staring at the flickering flames of heart dust in the lantern.
"What do you want?" a gruff voice came from behind the bars.
"Vififing," the girl hissed.
"Come again?" the voice said.
Zara exhaled and tried again:
"Vi-fi-fing."
"Oh..." the voice snorted and creaked the deadbolt.
The door, as if reluctantly, opened, and on the threshold Zara was met by a very small-sized man with huge ears, dressed in a police uniform. He was hurriedly pushing a stool to the side (he stood on it when he looked outside).
"Down the stairs and to the right," he said more calmly and scratched the hairy earlobe that reached to his shoulder.
The girl stepped inside and went downstairs. The door creaked open again, and it was so dark that Zara stumbled and almost fell, but held on, leaning on the wall with her free hand. Around the corner a light was already on, and behind a small wooden desk sat another policeman, extremely tall against the surrounding objects. When Zara entered, he immediately bumped his head, and papers spilled over him from the small shelves.
"Who do you need?" he asked, rubbing his head with an expression of irritation and fatigue in his eyes.
"F-W-wolfie," Zara pronounced with difficulty and smiled, pleased with herself.
The policeman spread his knees, scooped up the papers that had fallen from the table, licked his finger, and turned several pages. Opening a blank one, he took a self-writing quill and began to fill in the line. Then he turned the book around and let the girl sign. She leaned over, smiling once more at the embarrassment on his face, and drew a circle. He smiled back at her crookedly and asked in an apologetic tone:
"The basket?"
Zara willingly removed the red cloth. Under it was a cherry pie, and the girl deftly took out a cut piece and offered it to the policeman. He immediately brightened up, his cheeks turned pink, and he accepted the pie in his hands with a bow.
Zara walked down the corridor and stood in front of the bars, which immediately began to move and slid off into the wall to the right. She saw a long hall in front of her, where the cages with the prisoners were located along the perimeter. She took a step inside, and in the gap between the bars and the wall, she saw a wooden doll holding on to the bars and looking at her expressionless. Taking a second step, the girl was inside, and the doll, scraping metal against stone, dragged the door back. There was a screech on the opposite side, too, and the door locked.
After adjusting the cloth that covered the pie, Zara quickly found the right cage with her eyes and headed toward it, grabbing a stool that lay in the middle of the room. The glare from a hearty lamp under the ceiling strolled across the metal bars, illuminating the reddish dust particles hiding between them. At the approaching footsteps, something stirred at the far end of the cage.
"Oh, moons!" Magister Wolfie exclaimed, struggling to rise and crawling toward the light. "Why on earth do you come here? I should have rotted away by now. And you still keep me alive."
"I bfo-ufhf a pie," Zara said carefully and smiled.
"Oh-ho-ho-ho, not bad, not bad!" the old man laughed. "But know that there's no way to thank you."
"You alfeady fhank me," Zara hissed quickly, got confused, and took a seat on the stool next to a large slit between the bars.
"Yes, that's quite a thank you," Wolfie snorted and sat down across from her. "I got you into a mess."
"I fhoufhf we agfe-ed," Zara said and blushed.
"Yes, yes, I'll stop talking now! Not another word of self-abuse!" Galahad said and held his palms up.
Zara took out a piece of pie and, squeezing it a little, began to slip it into the gap. Licking her fingers soiled in sweet cherries, she reached for her handkerchief, and the magister was already greedily devouring the food.
"Neff fime I'll cuf if finer," the girl said carefully and smiled.
"Well done!" the old man admired, with his mouth full.
His very gray beard was visibly stained with cherries. Zara shook her head and handed him the handkerchief and then the rest of the pie.
"What about you?" Wolfie wondered.
"I've alfeady eafen," the girl said and looked back at the neighboring cells.
None of the prisoners were to be seen.
"So... where were we last time?" the magister said in a delighted voice, taking the red cloth from Zara to wipe his hands.
"F-f," said the girl inaudibly, and, lowering her eyes, began to adjust her dress.
"Okay, that would be r-r-r-r-r-r," the old man growled and smiled, "Well, let's put our tongue behind our upper teeth."
Zara opened her mouth and nodded.
"Okay, let's get started, d-d-d-d-d-d-dddddd."
Zara repeated after the magister.
"Just make sure your chin doesn't move, just your tongue," Wolfie said.
The girl repeated with double the effort.
"Now... Now take your finger," Galahad said, his eyes bulging, "Tongue doesn't move, in front of your teeth, and put your finger under your tongue," he nodded to Zara, "All right, and now start moving your finger, fast, fast left and right. That's it. That's it, artificially causing the r-r-r-r-r sound."
The girl repeated the exercise exactly. The old man smiled:
"Great!"
Zara blushed and smiled back.
"Warm-up is over, now let's do it without the finger. Tongue to teeth, start d-d-d-dddddd."
The girl repeated after the magister.
"Now kind of blow on your tongue with all your might dddddd-r-r-r-r-r-r."
Zara tensed up and blew as hard as she could:
"D-d-d-d-d-f-f-f-f!"
"No, no, don't put the tongue down," Galahad clarified, trying to get between the bars and look into the girl's mouth.
Zara tensed and blew again:
"D-d-d-d-d-f-f-r-r-r."
"Yes!" shouted Wolfie.
"Oh, give me a break! For the love of all moons, shut up there!" there was a yell from the far cell.
Wolfie crumpled in surprise, and the girl turned around, searched the floor with her eyes, then stood up and picked up the stump of a chair leg that was lying around.
"Don't..." the magister started, but Zara had already thrown the leg into the cell where the voice had come from. The wood bounced back with a clang.
"Ha-ha, serves you right, you son of the red moon," Wolfie chuckled maliciously, his face changing dramatically.
"I know hif fype," the girl sniffed angrily, sitting back down on the stool, "Fhey meff wifh youf head," she finished with an effort and looked at the old man with her cheeks puffed up.
"All right, leave that fool alone. Come back some morning while he's asleep, and we'll have a good roar," Wolfie whispered.
Zara hesitated, but then crouched closer to the cell and rustled quietly:
"Fhen why don'f you fell me fomefhing? Fhe day we mef, you wefe falking abouf your bfofher..."
Wolfie pondered for a moment, then looked back at the camera in the dark, moved as close to the bars as possible, and began:
"You know, there are some stories that young girls don't need to know. Do you have the brains to keep it to yourself?" he asked, frowning. "I'm old enough to be dying soon anyway."
Zara nodded.
"Have you heard of the Treaty of the Gardeners?"
The girl shook her head.
"Hm, we'll have to start from the very beginning then," he said, scratching his scrubby chin. "The City was founded by five people. All of us who live here are descendants of those men. They planted the first garden around the Heart and built the first fence around the garden to keep the Heart safe. And they agreed among themselves that each of their kind would rule three lunar years in turn. It did not last long, and in time they began to choose the ruling family by vote. And so the Treaty of the Gardeners came into being. Those were magical times, no one thought to write it down on paper. Everyone lived long and kept their vows faithfully," the old man looked dreamily up at the ceiling and licked his lips.
Zara was quick to take out a corked bottle of water from the bottom of the basket. Trying unsuccessfully to get it through the gap, she exhaled, opened the cork, and tilted the neck through the bars into Magister Wolfie's mouth, who began to drink greedily. Having drunk and wiped his mouth, he continued:
"But as time passed, the City grew, new families came, and the Treaty was finally documented. However, once it was on paper, everything went awry, as always with texts," the magister grinned bitterly, "Either one great house or the other didn't get in there. Then one of the new great houses, I think it was Yat, rebelled against the old houses. In the estimation of most people, they could not manage to protect the Heart. So the paper was rewritten and finished many times, changing its meaning. The sky was filled with new moons, and the City was filled with new great houses. Magic and mysticism receded in the face of the science that flourished during the First Renaissance. I recall that this period was marked by the first great war," the old man hesitated. "Forgive me, I can be very confused, my memory is no longer the same. But it seems that the reason was the collision of old and new. It used to be that everything came out of nowhere, simply materialized if one put their minds to it, but the great craftsmen and scientists, as I recall, wanted to create themselves and rejected materialization as exploitation of the Heart. In short, there is no making heads or tails of it with their ideologies," grumbled Wolfie in an irritated tone, looked around and continued, "So, the war, then another, and another, then an emperor, a parliamentary republic, then another war, another tyrant, the opposition, a change of power. So it went on for a very long time. And then, two or three centuries ago, the council of the remaining thirteen great houses restored the Treaty of the Gardeners. Not as it was at its founding, of course, but close to it. No one, except another pretender to the Supreme Head of the Cult, remembered the Heart. There were conflicts, of course, but the City had grown to unprecedented heights, and scientific thought had surpassed mysticism in every way. Flying ships, electricity, remote power transfer, batteries," Wolfie noticed Zara's incomprehensible look. "It's too complicated for you, I see. Okay, to the point. My brother and I grew up in this noble period. It was as if man was conquering nature. There was even talk that we would build an artificial heart, and it would be better and stronger than the old one. There was talk that the Fourth Renaissance of technology was coming. My brother was on the cutting edge of it. He worked under the patronage of House Amun, at the University. He was the greatest scholar of this City, a shrewd and quick-witted man. But fate struck an unexpected blow. Almost all the heads of the great houses were accused of conspiracy and executed in one night. 'The night of great treachery' – that is what they would call it in the poems of the Last Poet. It was on the eve that Sammarius, the head of House Yomera, was to pass on power to the next chosen house. But Sammarius declared himself the Usurper, the keeper of the City and the zealot of the Heart. Along with the heirs, the entire cream of society was exterminated. He executed all the scientists, all the eminent engineers and teachers. There were those who 'did not participate' in the conspiracy. But science was decapitated. Overnight we lost tens of centuries of history and thousands of lives."
The magister sighed, took a piece of pie, and began to chew.
"Fhey feach abouf confpifacy in chufchef," Zara said thoughtfully.
"If thefe waf a conspiracy," the magister muttered with his mouth full, glancing at the other cells, "I bet Sammarius was in charge of it."
With a bitter grin, the old man swept the crumbs from his beard, wiped his mouth with the cloth, and asked for a drink again. Zara tilted the bottle to him, he took a sip, and continued:
"The succession of generations was interrupted. The Usurper announced the suppression of the rebellion. 'The Saga of Sammarius, the Keeper of the City and the Zealot of the Heart' was written. You have heard of it, I trust?" the magister asked almost affirmatively.
Zara nodded.
"That's basically how it goes. The people have been brainwashed by the Saga, plays have been staged on it, prayers have been written and temples have been built. On pain of death, any poetry other than the poems of the Last Poet, who wrote the Saga, was banned. And all of this took place under the auspices of restoring faith in the Heart. That our unbelief is the reason it's dying. And we have to believe again so that it can be reborn," Wolfie shook his head bitterly. "But it seems to me that it has only gotten worse. It's been a quarter of a century, but people are being driven to church, and not a word about the Heart. You feel this anxiety, don't you? Everybody feels it."
"Everybody, yes, everybody, but has anyone done anything?" there was a muffled voice from the next cell.
Wolfie looked up at the girl, and she shrugged her shoulders and pursed her lips.
"By the way, how's Milo doing? Is she settling in well?" the old man suddenly remembered.
Zara nodded:
"She do-es it ni-ce-ly," she pronounced distinctly, smiled, and then grew sad.
"She's doing alright, I see," Galahad grunted and patted himself on the knees. "That's a good thing."
At these words, the bell rang from the corridor where the tall policeman was sitting.
"If'f fime," the girl said, confused.
"Yes, it's time. Don't forget to practice," Wolfie said sadly, "Thanks for the pie."
Zara nodded, stood up, and headed for the exit. Before the bars began to pull back into the wall, she looked back at the magister again, his silhouette barely visible in the cell, and waved her hand.
It was quite dark outside when she emerged from the basement and hurried out of the alley into the bustling streets of the Old Quarter, also deserted by then. All the couples had scattered to theaters, restaurants, and little cafés, and some were already reaching back upstairs, leaving the exotic comfort of the lower tier. She turned toward the elevator, but her attention was caught by a child, bouncing away from the illusionist, who had once again released his fog rabbit from his hat. The baby hit the sidewalk and cried. Zara crouched down, picked the child up, and examining the bruise, began to shake him off without a word. The frightened Illusionist came running up, all red and disheveled:
"Come on, kid, here you go!"
With these words, he took a caramel on a stick out of the pocket of his suede jacket and gave it to the child. The kid instantly brightened up, grabbed the gift, and ran off on his own, shouting somewhere in front of him:
"Thank you, Sir Illusionist!"
To which the young man straightened up and shouted back, slightly offended:
"I'm no illusionist, I'm a chemist! And that's a big difference! Chemistry is allowed!"
But the child had already disappeared around the corner of the street. Zara stood up, too, and stared at the face of the chemist-illusionist. It was drawn, with sideburns, a thin mouth, and big eyes, and it was both attractive and touching at the same time.
"Ethel. Ethel Safrona," he introduced himself.
Zara blushed and bowed slightly, but said nothing.
"Hm. The beauty that swallowed her tongue," laughed Ethel, and held out his hand to her.
Zara grabbed it and gave it a manly, firm shake, which made the young man groan:
"What a grip. You must be a golem tamer!"
Zara laughed and nodded.
"And I'm the one who puts on chemical shows. Pure science, no illusions!" he turned to his tray of puffing bubbles and made an inviting gesture.
Zara took a step in his direction, and he immediately hurried to his hat and began to fill it with some white powder. But Zara shook her head.
"Oh, you've already seen it," the young man hummed anxiously.
He reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a coil, deftly lit it, and tossed it into the air. The coil spun right over Zara's head, and it started to rain glittering drops. The girl cringed with fear, but then caught one of the sparks in her hand, and it turned out to be pleasantly cold.
"Nitrogen and heart dust," laughed Ethel. "It was only a sample, but now, now, I'll show you some more."
He reached into his breast pocket, but suddenly noticed Zara walking down the street toward the viewing deck, in the opposite direction from the elevator. He stopped in surprise, but Zara turned and smiled at him. Once again the young man lit up, he began with unusual speed to shovel vials and bottles on the tray, hastily locked it and rushed after the girl, rattling the cart with his belongings on the stone sidewalk.