Reunification (2 page)

Yet to be certain we were talking about
the same woman, I withdrew from mine pocket an envelope containing
the photographs showing my sister. As I did so, the merchant
grimaced.

“
Wow,” said the
merchant, blinking. “I forgot that you Delanians are so …
quaint.”

I scowled. 'Twas true that we in Dela
still used paper for most of our dealings, whereas those in Xeeo
relied mostly on digital and electronic gadgetry to conduct their
business. Hardly mattered to I; Xeeonite tech was clumsy and
brutish, aside from their Diamusk vehicles, which we Knights use to
traverse Dela.

I placed the three pictures on the table
and pushed them toward the merchant. He leaned forward to look over
the pictures, which caused his stink to get even closer to me, but
again I did not show mine annoyance because I did not wish to
offend him.

The pictures showed my sister, Kiriah,
sitting outside this very Cafe, sipping from an emerald cup,
similar in color to mine. She was alone in the first two, but in
the last one, she sat across from a large bearish man whose back
was to the camera. I had already seen these pictures before, of
course; had pored over them for even the slightest detail that
might explain why my sister was here or who this man was, but I had
found nothing, hence why I was speaking with this merchant.

The merchant's beady eyes scanned the
pictures before he leaned back in his seat. “Yep. That's her,
though I don't really know her name.”

“
But she looks like my
sister?” I said.

“
Yep,” said the
merchant, nodding. “She doesn't come here too often, but she's hard
to miss because she's sometimes with that man in the third
picture.”

The merchant tapped the third picture with
one of his thin fingers, leaving tiny blotches of that disgusting
gunk on it. I made a mental note to clean the photographs with the
purest water I could find after this discussion was finished.

“
What is that man's
name?” I said. “Do ye know him?”

“
Yeah,” said the
merchant. He looked over his shoulder so quickly that his head was
a blur before he returned to looking at me. “I mean, it's hard to
tell from this picture, of course, because if you humans look the
same while facing forward, you are indistinguishable from the back,
but even I wouldn't mistake that large back for the back of anyone
other than who it belongs to.”

“
Delay the revelation no
longer, merchant,” I said. I glanced at mine watch. “I have little
time to waste going in circles like this.”

“
Fine, fine,” said the
merchant, holding up his hands as if to calm me. “He's Xacron-Ah.
Ever heard that name before?”

I frowned. “Nay. 'Tis a criminal?”

“
Actually, he's the
Mayor of Xeeon,” said the merchant. “'Course, you wouldn't know
that, seeing as you don't live here, but that's who he
is.”

I glanced down at the third picture again.
“How can I be sure ye are telling the truth?”

“
Let me show you a
picture of the Mayor to back up my claims,” said the
merchant.

I expected him to pull out a little device
to show me the picture; instead, he tapped his right forearm, like
a pianist tapping a key, and the skin of his forearm slid back,
revealing a small screen the same size and shape as his
forearm.

How grotesque. The Xeeonites were
absolutely obsessed with using their technology to 'enhance' their
bodies, but I considered these aberrations to be nothing more than
disgusting abominations that ruined the beauty of nature. Though
again, I kept that opinion to mine self, because I was more
interested in seeing this Xacron-Ah fellow than in sharing mine
thoughts.

The merchant must have noticed my disgust,
because he said, “What? It's an arm screen. Every Jikorian merchant
has one. Those little phones and tablets that humans carry are so
clumsy. Makes more sense to have this embedded in your body where
you can't lose it, right? Well, unless a mad man cuts off your arm,
of course, but that happens pretty rarely.”

The merchant laughed uproariously at that
joke, as if it was the most humorous crack on both Xeeo and Dela. I
found no humor in it, for I was too disgusted by the sight of the
tech built into his arm to find it humorous.

The merchant then tapped the screen,
swiped to the left a few times as he went through a multitude of
pictures I could not see due to the speed at which he swiped his
screen, and then said, “Okay, here's a picture of Xacron-Ah. Notice
any similarities?”

I leaned forward to get a better look at
the Mayor of Xeeon. The photograph showed a large, bearish man
standing in front of a podium, perhaps delivering a speech to an
audience that was not shown. The man wore a navy blue suit,
reminding me of the ocean, though his fingers were metallic, as if
they were robotic replacements, though they could just as easily
have been covers for all I knew. 'Twas hard to tell with this
picture, as clear as it was.

His eyes were orange, an unusual color for
certain (though I had heard rumors that Xeeonite humans often used
chemicals to change their eye color, which might have explained
it). 'Twas hard to tell for certain if this Mayor was the same man
as the one in the third picture, but their body sizes were similar
enough, as was their hair, which fell to their shoulders in
locks.

I sat back, scowling, while the merchant
pulled the cover back over his arm screen. “I will admit that the
two look similar. Does the Mayor have an identical twin
brother?”

“
Nope,” said the
merchant. “Far as I know, the Mayor doesn't have any family. If he
does, they're back in Dela.”

“
Why would they be back
in Dela?” I said. “Xacron-Ah is a Xeeonite, is he not?”

At that moment, the wench waitress exited
the Cafe and strutted over to us, as if she was a queen. She placed
the merchant's red cup on the table between us, but before she even
asked, the merchant said, “Here you go, girlie,” and swiped his
hand over her money scanner before she even asked. The scanner
beeped and the waitress, apparently happy with that sound, turned
and left without saying another word.

“
What?” said the
merchant, looking at me in confusion. Then he clicked his fingers.
“Oh, right. I just paid for my drink. I know you Delanians use
actual paper and metal to pay for your stuff, but here on Xeeo,
almost everyone has payment chips embedded under their skin. Way
more convenient than lugging around an unwieldy purse, for
sure.”

Under other circumstances, I would not
tolerate this attitude from someone like him. Xeeonites were always
arrogant, boasting about their technological prowess as if they
were superior to us Delanians. 'Twas the main reason I rarely
visited this world; I did not need to be chided for my 'primitive'
practices, especially from individuals who regularly mutilated
their bodies with technology.

“
Anyway, Xacron-Ah
actually isn't a native-born Xeeonite,” said the merchant. He took
a swig from his cup and sighed contentedly, as if he had just taken
a sip of the wine of the Old Gods. “He came from Dela about twenty
years back, had his citizenship changed from Se-Delan to Xeeonian,
and then won the mayoral election about six years back. I didn't
vote for him, by the way; always thought he was an
idiot.”

“
Six years ago?” I
repeated. “Why, that is the same time my sister
vanished.”

“
Maybe there's a
connection between those two events,” said the merchant. He tapped
the third picture again. “We know your sister and the Mayor have
met together at least once.”

“
For what reason would
the Mayor take up an interest in my sister?” I said, staring at the
photograph glumly. “Mine sister never mentioned knowing any
Xacron-Ah, nor did she ever show any interest in going to Xeeo
ever.”

“
So she just up and
vanished one day, completely out of the blue?” said the merchant.
He leaned back in his chair again, this time holding his cup close
to his large lips. “What a great sister you've got there, just off
and running away on her own like that without telling you where she
was going.”

I slammed my fist on the table, causing my
emerald cup to shake. The movement was so sudden that the merchant
nearly fell backwards off his chair, but he caught himself at the
last minute and brought all four legs of his seat back onto the
ground. It gave me some satisfaction to see that he had spilled
some of that disgusting South Delanian tea on his shirt, though the
satisfaction only lasted for a little while, like a burst of
sunshine in the middle of a storm, and was quickly replaced by
anger.

“
Speak not ill of my
sister, merchant,” I said. “Kiriah was a noble woman who would not
simply run away without telling me. We were as close as any brother
and sister duo could be; hence why her disappearance has plagued me
like a sickness for the past six years.”

“
Right,” said the
merchant. “Well, I apologize for that accusation. Since I don't
know Kiriah, I guess it's not my place to say what she is or isn't
like, eh?”

He did not sound at all apologetic. No
doubt his bigotry towards humans was the cause of his false
apologetic tone. I wanted to challenge him to a duel right here and
now, but I knew that duels were illegal in most Xeeonite cities, so
I refrained from doing so.

“
Apology … accepted,” I
said, though I did not level my tone much. “Now, ye said ye have
seen Kiriah here at this cafe sometimes. How often is
'sometimes'?”

The merchant sipped from his cup again.
“About, oh, every three or four months I guess. She doesn't stay
very long; just long enough to speak with the Mayor, or
occasionally, one of his servants.”

“
Where does my sister go
when she finishes conversing with the Mayor?” I asked. I looked
around at all of the towering skyscrapers around us. “Does she have
an apartment in one of these buildings?”

The merchant shrugged. “How am I supposed
to know? I'm not some creeper who follows around human females. I
never gave her a second thought whenever I saw her. Never even
spoke to her before. I only notice her because she talks with the
Mayor sometimes; other than that, she's pretty discrete.”

I grabbed my heart and gave a long sigh of
despair. Oh! How I had wished I would find my sister today! Here I
thought I would be able to speak with her at long last, but suppose
this merchant was honest—and despite his terrible taste in drinks,
he probably was—then my eventual reunion with mine sister was to be
put off yet again, though for how long, I knew not.

“
You okay?” said the
merchant, perhaps noticing how I clutched mine heart so. “Are you
having a heart attack or something?”

“
No,” I said, lowering
my hand from my chest as I sigh deeply. “No heart attack has struck
me. I am simply disappointed that I will not be able to meet my
sister today.”

“
Okay,” said the
merchant, though he eyed me warily still, as if he expected me to
suffer an actual heart attack any moment. “Well, I've told you all
I know about your sister. Don't know anything else, so pay
up.”

The merchant held out his free hand,
flexing his three fingers like the heads of a trinity snake. As he
did so, he loudly slurped his drink, making me cringe at the
noise.

“
Didn't we agree on
fifty delanes for my information?” said the merchant. “Because
right now I
should
be back at my stall preparing for the
rush hour, when all of the office people are getting off work and
aren't thinking straight enough to question the prices I set for my
goods.”

I frowned. The merchant spoke the truth.
When I first contacted him a week ago, when my friend Sir Alart
told me that the merchant might know more about my sister, the
merchant had told me he would tell me what he knew only if I paid
him seventy-five delanes. Of course, that was highway robbery,
which was to be expected from Jikorian merchants, so I negotiated
the lower price of fifty delanes, which was still far too much, as
I was paid only one-hundred and fifty delanes a week. Still, 'twas
a small price to pay if it meant I would get to see my sister
again.

Nonetheless, unlike some individuals, I
was a man of honor. Hence, I pulled my purse out of my pocket and
withdrew ten five delane notes, ten rectangular pieces of paper
that bore the image of King Waran-Una upon them. His face looked
like a lion, with a large gray mane of hair to go with it; having
seen Waran-Una so many times, however, I paid no attention to the
notes.

The merchant returned his chair to the
ground and took the notes from my hand. He counted the notes with
the speed and efficiency of a seller who did not wish to be
tricked, but I was not worried, for I knew better than to swindle
anyone out of money I owed to them.

The merchant must have been satisfied,
because he rolled up the notes and stuffed them roughly within the
pocket of his jacket. “I would have preferred you sent me the money
electronically, as that would have saved me a trip to the bank to
get this money put into my account, but that's fine. Now, if you
will excuse me, I must go. Business awaits.”

The merchant stood up, the legs of his
chair scraping against the pavement, and swallowed the rest of his
drink in one gulp. He then burped loudly, though the sound was
almost drowned out by the constant bustling of the city all around
us.

But before he left, I reached out a hand
and said, “Hold on a moment, brother merchant. I have one more
question to ask of ye about my sister and the Mayor.”