In his first days as an Iblanie Courier, before he’d met Dhret, and long before she pulled herself into his apartment and his life, Marroo followed a familiar from the lounge to Dhruv’s office where he was made to stand in front of a row of familiars shaped like tiny naked women dancing above their clips lined up across the edge of his desk.

Dhruv himself sat just behind them, bent over a piece of paper while he scrawled a note across it in pen.

“I’ll only be a moment.” Dhruv told him while he made his note. “Why don’t you take a seat.” He nodded towards a plush chair in one corner of the office illuminated by warm core-light flooding through the window behind the family executive. Marroo glanced at the chair but didn’t move to sit.

Dhruv glanced up at him with an amused smile as Marroo put his hands behind his back, then bent back over the note on his desk. Light from the two windows of the corner office reflected from the bald skin of his head while dark hands moved across the paper in front of him.

“Suit yourself.” Dhruv said.

He added a line to the note, studied it, then straightened and looked at Marroo with a smile.

Marroo just stared back.

“Well.” Dhruv said. “Are you enjoying your work as a courier?” He asked.

Marroo considered the small smile on Athesh’s lips before he shrugged and looked away. “It pays.” He said, and met Dhruv’s eyes.

Dhruv pouted. “Not much, I can’t imagine.”

“More than I’m used to.”

Dhruv considered that for a moment, then smiled and shook his head. “I suppose it does.” He stood abruptly and flipped the note on his desk face down before going to a drink cabinet decorated by another naked lady cast in bronze lounging above it. “Athesh told me,” Dhruv said as he pulled a bottle from the shelves, “that he showed you the basements.” He retrieved a pair of glasses from the cabinet and turned to raise an eyebrow in Marroo’s direction.

Marroo watched him without answering and Dhruv sighed and walked back to the desk where he laid out the glasses and uncorked the bottle.

“Probably told you about the proud history of the family, duty, honor, something along that vein?”

He poured, looked to Marroo while he waited for a reply.

“Something like that.” Marroo replied.

“Mmm.” A familiar flit through the window to materialize above one of Dhruv’s stations. It chimed for his attention, but the executive flicked it away before recorking the bottle. “His usual spiel.” He said. “I don’t usually drink this early in the morning, but,” he set the bottle aside and lifted one of the glasses to offer to Marroo. “I thought someone ought to give you a proper welcome.”

Marroo stared at the glass in Dhruv’s hand until he gave it a little shake. “Don’t be ungrateful.” He said. “It’s a gift, take it.”

Marroo reached out and took the glass and Dhruv touched the other glass to its rim. “So. Welcome,” He said, “to the family. Officially that is.” He upended his glass as he downed it in one go.

Marroo hesitated then followed suit. He coughed as the liquor burnt his throat and felt tears prick his eyes as he handed the glass back to Dhruv.

Dhruv laughed and put a hand on Marroo’s shoulder. “You’ll do fine.” He said, and patted his shoulder before he turned to put the bottle and cups back into their cabinet.

“Family, duty, honor.” He said as he shifted bottles to push the liquor to the very back of the cabinet. “All good things, but I remember being young.” He set the cups on a shelf and turned to smile at Marroo as he closed the cabinet door with a snap, “and there are more compelling reasons to be… proud… of what we have here in the family.”

Marroo wiped at the corner of one eye but didn’t answer and Dhruv nodded as though in assent before he turned back to his desk and picked up the letter to look it over.

“Your father was an important man for our family.” He said as he scanned the page, “But he never did take advantage of his position with us in the ways he could have.” He dropped the edge of the page to study Marroo over it. “It doesn’t have to be the same for you.”

Marroo met his gaze and for a moment neither of them said anything until Marroo cleared his throat. “I’m just a courier.” He said.

Dhruv smiled. “Indeed.” He picked up his pen and scrawled final line at the end of the page then straightened and folded the page into a neat square he sealed with a glue stamp. “Address is on the outside.” He said, and offered it to Marroo. “I’ll be expecting a reply.”

Marroo took it and spun the letter to read the address. He weighed it in his hand, then looked up at Dhruv and studied him before he turned to go.

Dhruv stopped him as he reached the door.

“Marroo.” He said.

Marroo turned and looked at him as Dhruv sat down at his desk and flicked open the familiar that came while he was pouring liquor. The executive looked at him over his dancing women gave him a smile that was all teeth. “Don’t forget what I said about gifts.”

---

Marroo knew where he’d been sent the moment he knocked at the apartment door matching the numbers on the letter’s address. He’d been sent to tenement buildings like this one before, apartment towers honeycombed by people’s homes, usually including at least one kitted out like a barracks, filled with weaponry and young men waiting for the orders brought to them by couriers like Marroo. Such places lit up in his spiritual vision from the number of blades and spiritually touched weapons stored inside, or from the cultivators that often occupied some official role among the armed men. He didn’t need his spiritual sense to know this place though. He only needed his nose.

A woman all made of curves and dimples answered the door. She smiled, and silver eyes set in a round pale face found his as he offered her the letter.

Her smile faltered, then she took the letter and pulled the door a little wider. “Come inside?” She asked.

The smell of incense could not hide the other smells coming from inside the apartment when he focused on them.

He stepped inside all the same, and let her lead him to a tiny kitchen where she offered him another drink as she read the letter in by the light of a shaded window. “There’s tea.” She said. “Or wine. Something stronger if you prefer.”

He shook his head and tucked his hands behind his back as he looked around the room. Colorful tapestries adorned the wall displaying, obscene themes, while enormous potted plants sprawled vine like arms across the counters and ancestor figurines stared at him from little shrines tucked into the corners of the room.

He tore his eyes from one of the more shocking tapestries to look at the letter in her hand.

She put the letter to her chest and studied him with an appraising eye.

Marroo swallowed. “There’s supposed to be a response.”

She smiled.

“Oh, there will be.” She said. “But I’m instructed here to have you write it.” She put the letter back to her chest and gave him another beaming smile. “Stay right here.”

She winked at him, then waited to gauge his response before she turned and disappeared into a bedroom attached to the kitchen.

When she returned there was very little of her that was not revealed.

She posed in the doorway. “How do I look?” She asked.

Marroo stared at her, all of her, before he looked pointedly at her face. He opened his mouth but it took a second to remember how to form words. “I think I’d like to read that letter.” He said.

She pouted. “You mean you didn’t read it on your way here?” She asked. She unlimbered from her pose by the door and sauntered towards him. “The letter was just an offer.” She said as she put a hand on his chest. “You get to have me.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “First time is free, but, you do a couple of things for the family, and you get to come and see me any time you want.” She walked her fingers up his neck to ruffle his hair with a grin. “How does that sound to you?”

Marroo pushed her hand away and stepped back. He looked away, but just found himself staring at a woman with her head between the legs of a very happy looking man hanging from the wall. He turned back to the woman in front of him with a scowl.

“I want the response.” He told her.

She crossed her arms strategically over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Don’t you think that can wait?” She asked. “It’s not every day a young man like you gets a chance to play with a young girl like me.”

Marroo shook his head in a short jerk and ignored the parts of her body that seemed to stare at him. “I’m not interested.”

She stuck her lips out at him. “Is it because I’m too pale?” She asked and did a little spin as she examined her own flesh. She gave him a wicked grin as she came all the way around. “Because I have some friends down the hall I don’t mind inviting to come and join us if that’s the case.”

Marroo just scowled at her and she stepped forward again to put a hand on his arm. “Come on.” She told him gently. “You can’t even be twenty years old yet. Come on, let me show you something fun. You can give Dhruv your response afterwards, and then, when you return…” She glanced at one of the tapestries then grinned and gave him a knowing smile.

He looked down at the hand on his arm as she exerted a gentle pressure then let her pull him into her bedroom.

The light dimmed as she twisted the blinds over the window a little closed, then she put a hand on his chest and pushed him gently until he sat on the bed while she stood before him.

“Fingers here.” She said, and pulled both of his hands around her back to the strings holding what little she wore together. “Then pull.”

She pulled his hands, and the thin scarves folded over her fell away.

He dropped his hands to her hips and she pulled his face into her chest as she ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. “There.” She whispered. “Isn’t that nice?”

He could hear someone in a neighboring apartment going through the motions demonstrated in the tapestries on her walls.

She put her hands on his shoulders. “Now.” She said. “Lets get you undressed so I can take proper care of you.” She pushed, but he jerked suddenly upright.

She fell with a grunt as he shoved her away and he lurched to his feet to turn his back on her. He pressed hands to his eyes, and stood like that for a long moment while she stared at him from the floor.

“Sweetheart.” She said after a long moment of silence filled by the noise of air traffic humming outside, ventilators, water in pipes running through the walls, and the couple in the apartment several floors down. “You can always come back, if you don’t want to do it now. My door is always open.”

He snorted and turned to glare at her, then marched out the door without another word.

He stopped several doors down when he felt a woman’s spirit close by and knocked. A woman opened it, dark skinned but just as attractive as the woman he’d just left behind. She raised one sculpted eyebrow at him past the lock on her door.

“How much do you charge?” He asked her.

Her eyebrow arched a little higher and she looked him up and down.

“Boy.” She told him. “More than you can afford.”

---

Athesh was waiting for Marroo when he returned to the tower the day after he rescued Podmandu from the Kotem. He got in only one game of cards in the courier’s lounge before a familiar appeared to summon him by name. He’d known the moment would come, known it the moment he chose to stay instead of abandoning Dhret and the little apartment the family paid for after his fathers funeral.

Athesh glowered at him over his desk when his secretary ushered Marroo inside and Marroo met it with an expression of impassivity.

A tense silence filled the room as the door swung closed with a click.

“Is Podmandu alright?” Marroo asked to break the silence.

Athesh’s glower deepened and he leaned forward a little more over his desk. “And if he’s not?” he asked.

Marroo scowled and Athesh looked away with a grimace of anger. “I was surprised to hear you’d returned, after yesterday.” He said.

Marroo shrugged and tried to smooth out his own scowl to return to the impassive face he’d come here with. “I’m a courier. It’s my job.”

Athesh turned his glare back to Marroo. “I thought I made my commands clear.” He said.

Marroo gave up on the impassive look and just glared.

“I told you I won’t kill.”

Silence.

“You killed for that courier,” Athesh growled, “fifteen men, by the heavens, fifteen armed men!” He ran a meaty hand through his hair and leaned back in his chair.

Marroo looked away. “Did he make it to the rose tower alright?”

“Why?” Athesh asked, “Why for him, and not for me?”

Marroo studied the objects on Athesh’s desk. Like Dhruv he had familiars lined up on their clips at the far edge, some of them empty while their occupants flit through the city on Athesh’s errands, the rest flickering as displayed information that meant nothing to Marroo. Prices for something, and time tables counting down. No naked ladies.

“He was my friend,” Marroo replied, “And we both would have died.” He looked up at Athesh.

“And I am not your friend?” Athesh demanded.

“I work for you. We aren’t family.”

Athesh threw a hand out as though to encompass the entirety of the room and the tower they sat in. “We are all family!” He shouted, “from the lowliest laborers to the highest officers, we are all Iblanie!”

Marroo shrugged and looked away. “I’m a Bolle.”

Athesh pointed a finger at him and almost jumped out of his seat. “But you work for the Iblanie!” he snapped, “Why should we keep you are not one of us?”

Marroo glared at the accusing finger pointed at his face and didn’t answer until he looked up at Athesh. “That’s your decision.” He said. “Maybe you need a courier.”

Athesh’s fist struck the desk in front of him making the familiar-displays jump and quiver. “We need loyalty!” He roared, “We need people we can trust! People who put the rest of our organization ahead of themselves!”

Marroo turned his glare to the floor.

“There are men dying out there, right now, dying to keep our neighbors from killing everyone in this tower to take what we have for themselves! There are people dying, every time one of our rivals gets a shipment from the plains that we do not. Children, starving to death in the tunnels or the apartments, dying because we couldn’t protect them.” The fist hit the table again. “Couriers? We need men, like your father, men who put their own lives at risk for the family. Men ready to die, for us. To kill.”

“You pay me to be a courier.” Marroo said.

“Then we’ll pay you more!” Athesh threw his hands in the air and collapsed back into his chair. “What do you want? Name your price, and when the traitors are dead, it’s yours!”

Marroo looked up at him. “Podmandu?” He asked in the silence.

Athesh sighed and put a hand over his face. “You’re friend is fine,” he said, “he didn’t even need the rose tower. Our medical floors said they had everything he’d need to heal. You can go see him after this if you want.”

Marroo nodded then met Athesh’s eyes. For a moment they said nothing, then Marroo looked away. “You called for a courier,” he said, “Did you have a message for me to take?”

Athesh’s scowl returned and he looked at his desk. “How can we trust you in the little things if you will not take responsibility for the larger ones?” Purple eyes found Marroo’s silver and they looked at one another in silence for a long moment. Finally Athesh yanked open a drawer and pulled a bottle from it. “Here then.” He tossed it to Marroo and turned away to tear a sheet of paper from a sheaf of them in a box on the floor. “If you won’t defend us, you can meet those who will.” He pointed. “Take that to the officer of the third red squad. Man’s name is Nawood, missing a nose.” Athesh turned to scribble a short note on the paper and threw it at Marroo.

Marroo caught it but didn’t find an address on the note.

“How will I find them?”

Athesh threw his hand in the air as he turned away. “Just, follow the smoke.”

Violence marked the red squad’s location in the city. Violence, and the smoke Athesh told him to follow. More buildings burned beneath the blinking eyes of the towers around the pipes’ district of the Iblanie territory. Men in heavy masks and long trench coats marched through the rubble surrounding a large fortified building that must once have belonged to part of the traitorous sub-sect which tried to kill Marroo and was still held by them, to judge from the lasers and familiars that still flashed through the smoke around it. Nawood bled from a cut to the head when Marroo found him. He had no trouble identifying him by the scar on his face where his nose should have been. He laughed when Marroo gave him the bottle and told him it was from Athesh and asked if Marroo wanted to stay awhile.

“Be flushing these boys out real soon.” He boasted in a voice thick as the result of his missing nose. “Nothing like a fight to get your blood up.” He showed Marroo his missing teeth when he grinned.

Marroo declined.

That night he dreamed of his mother. She stood at the far end of a hall from him while a boy that was his son cowered behind her and invisible swords scoured the floor between him in his anger. His voice, when he spoke, grated against his throat like a rusty knife across a flint stone.

“I will not allow him to remain weak.”

The blades sharpened and the woman cowered back, one hand outstretched to protect the little boy behind her as he advanced.

Someone screamed and Marroo jerked awake as Dhret thrashed next to him.

“Something bit me!” She shouted. “There’s something in the bed!”

Marroo sat up as Dhret jumped out of the bed and yanked the covers off to shake them. The cold air made Marroo shiver and he realized he was drenched in sweat.

“Light!” Dhret shouted.

He flicked at the clip for his familiar on a stack of books and it flickered to life as a glowing yellow bulb. Dhret shook the blanket and spun it around as Marroo wiped the sweat from his hair and swung his legs off the bed.

“There’s nothing there.” He said.

“It bit me!”

Marroo put a hand to his forehead then got up. “Where. Let me see.”

She turned to show her shoulder. “Right there. I can feel it bleeding.”

Marroo looked and found a thin cut, razor straight across her skin, just deep enough to draw a dribble of blood. “You’ll be fine.” He took the blanket from her, shook it out then crawled back into bed.

“How can you get back into bed after that? It could be carrying diseases, it could be a springjack! You don’t know what’s in there.”

“It’s gone.” Marroo replied. “Come back to bed.” He pat the sheet and met her eyes.

Dhret muttered something and poked around the room before she pulled on a few more layers of clothing and climbed on top of the blanket next to him.

“This place is going to kill us.” She told him.

Marroo switched off the light and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.” He said, and pulled his aura tight into the veil as he’d been taught.

She touched his face in the darkness and stroked his cheek. “We need to find a better apartment.” She told him. “Soon.”

Marroo said nothing, and tried to sleep.