House of Reeds

on chains. A Jehanan matron followed by two hatchlings emerged from one of the shops, two woven bags in her arms. Anderssen smelled fresh baked bread and realized she was terribly hungry.

'Hrrr… yes, there are many hidden ways beneath the city. These are the districts where the poor live, far from the sun, but warm withal. Do you feel the age of these stones? Sometimes one can find old doors like the ones in the Garden, but only down where it is dangerous to tread.' The old Jehanan paused, her gaze following Anderssen's intent expression. 'Do asuchau eat milled grain baked and risen? You look much like a hatchling eyeing the pastry as it cools!'

'Yes – that smells delicious. My grandmother baked bread every day when we were little.'

Malakar went to the doorway, nodding politely to another customer leaving the bakery. In the warm lamplight light she seemed younger somehow, or less burdened by age and care. The old Jehanan made a clicking sound with her teeth and pointed with her snout. 'Do you see the figurines of clay above the hearth?'

Anderssen nodded, looking around curiously at the shelves filled with bread. The bricks were markedly different in shape from those she'd seen in the buildings at street level. From the slightly irregular pattern, she guessed they had been hand-pressed into wooden forms and fired in a kiln on sheets of marble. Behind the stone-topped counter, a short-snouted Jehanan was kneading dough into loaves. Above the hearth and the half-circle mouths of his baking ovens, she saw rows of small figures – most seemed Jehanan in outline, though some were insectile and a few were outright monsters with horrific features. The lamp-and fire-light danced upon them, giving their painted features uncanny life.

'Are they gods? Protective spirits? Amulets to ward away disease and poison from the bread?'

Malakar nodded, clasping her claws to her chest. She seemed pensive. 'This one believes in the old ways. Legends even in the annals of the Garden. Look at him,' she whispered in Gretchen's ear. 'I envy this one. He is content at his task – as was his father and his father's father – there has been a bakery here for an age of Jehanan… There he spills grain meal every day, paying homage to all the faces ofgod. A tiny offering, a single prayer. And for him this suffices; brings him closer to the yigal, what you might call the real. For this – his work, his prayer, his simple life – is the proper path for him. He is the luckiest of Jehanan – and his pastries and milled loaves are the finest in the city.'

'You envy him?' Anderssen frowned a little, suddenly understanding the half-hidden grief in the gardener's voice. 'You've lost your own path, haven't you? You were the last teacher to use that school room in the depths of the House. The last person to look at the murals on the walls…'

Malakar hooted sadly. 'I was happy there, tending young sprouts and making them grow strong. Perhaps even wise…I was not the only gardener, but I was the last to teach the old ways, tell the tales of ships which passed between the stars and the might of the Jehanan of old. But I could not still this unwary tongue of mine and those with more cunning minds saw I was left with nothing but scraps and broken shells.'

Gretchen pressed her hand against the old Jehanan's scales, feeling the heat of the body beneath, feeling tough scalloped ridges and parchment-thin edges. 'Could you leave the House? Seek a position elsewhere? Find some other garden to tend?'

'Hrrrr… perhaps I could have done such a thing, when I was younger, but I did not. A great nuisance I made of myself instead! Bitterly I plagued them, until I had not even a mat to sleep on, or someone to sleep beside. But no one listened…and I was weary then, content simply to take my ration and avoid the eyes of those who'd once looked to me for guidance.'

'Your life is not yet over,' Gretchen said tentatively. 'You could leave…'

The old Jehanan wrinkled her snout, giving Anderssen a sharp look. 'So easily the words slip from your tongue, asuchau wanderer! If I mark your words right, you are sent hither and yon at the whim of your Company. You delight to see the unseen, to turn over rocks left alone for a hundred years, just to see what wiggles out! You are treading a path of choice and one which fits you well, if the look upon your pale, flat face when you are filled with questions is a reputable guide!'

'Working for the Company is not like that! Not all the time.' Gretchen said, remembering endless days spent grubbing in the dirt for nothing, risking health and life to plumb the depths of some burial site or midden filled with explosive gasses. Remembering friends and acquaintances crippled or killed in accidents, or simply forgotten when crews were reassigned and split up. 'There are moments though,' she allowed, 'when the toil and bureaucracy and misery of parting are worthwhile. But how often do those days come about? They are very rare!'

Malakar made an amused fluting sound. 'Then why are you digging in my garden, poking about among my trees and stealing secret glances at my idols? You've not eaten for two days, you've forgotten your friends, and you just let these questions drag you by the snout from place to place without the slightest care!'

'Maybe.' Gretchen felt disgruntled. Stupid lizard, pointing out the obvious to me! 'If this is my path to the real, then I would like another! One where I can stay home and read books by the heater and watch my children grow up and be successful! One without all the mud and grime and dirt and sleepless nights in spaceport terminals, watching to make sure my baggage isn't stolen!'

'Hur-hur-hur!' Malakar swung her head from side to side. 'How long would that last? You would be sneaking away to spaceport with your traveling bag in hand by year's end. Hurrr… Do you wish a pastry? I am hungry now.'

The Jehanan went inside, fluting a greeting to the baker.

'I need to find Maggie and Parker,' Gretchen called after her. But they're not going to know about these tunnels, which means if they've not been captured, they will head to the train station and then south to Parus. If they heard my voice – I think they did, but how much of what happened in the vault was real?

Malakar reappeared and pressed a bun straight from the oven into her hand.

'Ow! These are hot!' Anderssen tossed the crusted pastry from hand to hand.

The Jehanan chewed vigorously, having swallowed the bun whole, and nodded her head.

'Ah…very tasty. These are stuffed with pang nuts and melle. Very sweet. They will drive your hunger away. What were you saying?'

Gretchen pointed with her chin at the ceiling. 'Does this passage lead to the khus?'

'There is a ramp quite near your building.' Malakar allowed, eyeing the uneaten bun in the human's hands. 'But if the prince's soldiers are in the streets, will your friends wait? I cannot imagine any creature with an ear and an eye could miss the sound of that machine in movement.'

'You could be right,' Anderssen nodded, nibbling at the edge of the still-hot pastry. 'They'll try to reach the train station and get south to Parus if they don't find me there.'

'Hooooo…' Malakar tapped Gretchen's chest thoughtfully, one claw brushing against the dead comp. 'Will the Magdalena and the Parker have another device like this? One which works?'

Gretchen frowned up at the Jehanan. 'If they were under cover of some kind when the EMP wave hit the city, yes. Maggie has four or five comps with her – she collects them like Parker collects…well, Parker doesn't really collect anything but tabac tar…'

The gardener pointed down one of the passages. 'The iron road can be reached by following certain ways beneath the city – but if the kujen is hunting for asuchau I fear his servants will throng the station like yi upon the corpses of fallen heroes. If your friends flee that way, they will be taken.' Malakar's nostrils crinkled up. 'If memory serves, there is only one train to Parus each day and that one not for many hours yet.'

'Is there another way south?' Anderssen wracked her memory, trying to remember if there had been other options for local transport. I shouldn't have just accepted Petrel's arrangements – we should have gotten an aerocar somehow, or a truck at least…

'There is.' The old Jehanan indicated a different passage. 'Beyond the edge of the city is a tikikit station. We could be in Parus by morning if our legs are long enough. The tikikit do not care if Jehanan and asuchau are fighting!' She clicked her claws together in amusement. 'They have seen such things many, many times and are no longer impressed.'

Gretchen licked her lips, feeling worry surge in her breast. What if Maggie and Parker are still