Chapter 6

  Akkama burned with concentration; she narrowed her eyes and bit her tongue between sharp teeth nearly hard enough to make it bleed. She crouched low, balanced on her fingertips and the balls of her feet. A trickle of smoke wafted upward from the wooden brush in her hand. With one hand she drew the brush in a smooth, confident arc beneath her. The brush slowed to a halt and twisted at a precise angle so that the stiff bristles described an elegant curl. Then, to finish, she swept the brush down in a perfect parabola, lifting it from the tile exactly when the paint would have run dry. Every stroke of the brush had to be perfect, for each was irreversible, like every stroke of the sword.

  She shoved herself back to an upright squat, wiped the sweat from her steaming brow, and surveyed her half-finished work. She stood and flexed, stretching her cramped leg muscles.

  “Why are you doing it on the floor?” asked Derxis, his voice accompanied by the rattle of aerosol cans. He grinned at her from the wall with his odd reptilian face. He shook a can in either paint-stained hand while his work on the blank plaster behind him dripped rainbows.

  “That’s why,” she said with a gesture at his mural. “The dripping.”

  Derxis kept looking at her with one eye and turned the other to the wall, where it inspected the drips. This was one of the weirder of his new traits, having bonded to his chameleon. That and his hands. He smiled again, a broad thin-lipped grin, and his pebbly skin shifted to a pleased sky-blue that contrasted with his saffron robe. “I like the drips,” he said. “Adds character. Really says, you know, ‘this is graffiti!’” He laughed.

  “Well, I’m an artist, not a vandal,” she replied. Stupid thing to say to a color-priest, and they both knew it, but she pressed on. “And my calligraphy will have no drips.”

  “But people will step on it. It’s all in the way.”

  This was true. Her elegant writing covered a large part of the marble tile of the foyer, and anyone intending to follow the waysigns she and Derxis were creating would have to walk over her beautiful text. “Whatever,” she said with a dismissive wave. “At least they’ll be able to read mine.”

  In contrast to the graceful simplicity of her calligraphy, Derxis preferred to create vivid, surreal explosions of shape and color. On the floor: stark, precise elegance. On the walls: fuzzy, drippy chaos. Akkama would never admit it to Derxis, but she did appreciate the contrast.

  “Admit it,” said Derxis, “you like the contrast.”

  “Shut up. I think you were less annoying when you could actually read minds.” He laughed. Akkama added, “Are you sure this works?”

  “Uh-huh.” He turned back to his wall and attacked it with a can of spray paint in either hand. “The Museum likes art. We do a good job of pointing the way, artfully, and it’s a better chance that the directions we paint remain actually correct. It’s kind-of like we’re bending the world to our whims! With paint! Haha!”

  Akkama suspected he was right. Music did the same thing. She could sometimes play her way through this dreamworld as though shaping it before her with the tones of her erhu. But unlike paint, music didn’t stick around. The lobby in which she stood was a crossroads, as was common in the Museum. Brilliant ferns grew from green mossy stones in a silent fountain centerpiece; from this center branched diamond-patterned tile in four separate color schemes, each of which wandered away through rounded corridors of gilded wood. She and Derxis had so far charted three of the sinuously curving halls—’charted’ here meaning they had painted signposts in an effort to force these halls into reliably leading to a singular, certain destination.

  It was a fool’s errand, she had said to Derxis earlier when he had suggested this activity. True, he had replied, but after all, we are both fools. And we both want to paint.

  She painted calligraphy on the tile floor in front of each entrance, short poems about where these halls led. Calligraphy and poetry—an artistic double-combo. Perhaps the Museum would abide by the words for the sake of this.

  “Where should that one lead?” she asked. She angled her chin at the final arched entrance.

  Derxis stopped spraying and turned one eye toward that hall of red and gold and green checkered tile. “Let’s see. We have ‘Library’ there, and that’s ‘Arboretum,’ and this is ‘Storage’…Why not leave it blank? A roll of the die!”

  A predictable Derxis response. “You can roll dice anywhere. We’re trying to make roads here.”

  He shrugged. “Where do you want it to go, then?”

  It took her only a moment. “Spaceport,” she said. “I haven’t been there.” Acarnus had told her about it. It sounded cool.

  “You like spaceports,” said Derxis. It was almost a question.

  “Well yeah. Shogunate, remember?” Akkama carefully wiped the brush against the inner rim of the paint can and then laid it across the top. The paint was black enamel; it would dry glossy and hard. The brush was already a goner; the stuff would never wash out of the bristles and they would eventually dry stiff as a board.

  Derxis stepped back from his latest incomprehensible masterpiece and grinned at it, satisfied. One eye turned to Akkama. “But where would you have gone? Or is it only the idea of spaceports that you like, not the function?”

  “Axile,” she said. “Far Greenreach. Nexus Outpost. Kupitus Alpha.”

  Derxis laughed. “Right, right. The places Captain Shard went.” He wasn’t making fun of her; his laugh wasn’t directed at her. He just liked to laugh. He was laughing at himself. Akkama realized this. It also occurred to her that this would have been a strange thing not so long ago: for Derxis to laugh in her presence and for her to not be angry about it.

  “But,” Derxis continued, “is there any reason besides that?”

  Akkama picked up her paint and brush and stepped in a quick dance out of her poem written on the floor. “Axile is supposed to be beautiful,” she said. She set down the paint and readjusted her hair, colored like soot and fire, which she had bound tightly back so it would not fall into her lettering. She still wore her crimson leather armor, though nothing threatened them here in the Museum. “They say in the Nexus Outpost you can see all the stars in the galaxy through the stereoscopic view portals; the Star Nomads set up a whole network array by Echo Drive; a ‘net to catch all the skies.’ In Eleutheria the light of the Bramble Nebula falls like rain shining in the night, and the void wights sing songs that make daimon weep, and the Jade Run from there to Greenreach is haunted by anglers, whose hearts are cursed gemstones dangling on valka thread. The high seas of Kupitus Loop rise up in mobius waves that never stop, and the Reachers said that a sorrow serpent there would become loyal friend and companion for life of any who could retrieve its shell from the center of the Loop. They say that Firsten Lookfar had a sorrow serpent, ‘as long as his sight and as quick as light.’ Haven’t you ever wanted to see any of that? Do those things?”

  Derxis laughed again and shook his head. “Not me. There’s enough wonder on Infernus. For me, Akkama, the rain of light from the Bramble Nebula may be spectacular, but it’s no more interesting than a rock. People are interesting. The outer wilds may be full of wonders, but they’re short on minds.”

  Akkama shook her head. “I don’t understand that.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Derxis, “I do. It’s because you are full of fire, and must always be doing. A fire must move on or burn out. It must seek something new, and no fuel is ever too much for it. I think, Akkama, you would have thrived in the outer wilds. Maybe got yourself a sad snake friend, even. ‘As bright as the sun, but twice as fun.’” He cackled to himself.

  They moved as they spoke to the final unmarked hallway, and together they tried to make it lead to the Spaceport.

  Akkama had composed a short poem in her head and had visualized its layout on the floor when she happened to glance at what Derxis was doing. She stopped; it seemed that everything around her stopped, even her heart within her. Derxis didn’t stop; he hummed lightly to himself as he sprayed runic symbols on the wood paneling.

  “Derxis,” Akkama began. Her voice was choked and hoarse. She coughed and tried again. “Derxis, what the hell is that?”

  “Hmm? Oh...” Maybe Derxis hadn’t even been aware of what he’d been painting. He stepped back now to look at it. “Draconic,” he said after a moment.

  “It looks like...” She couldn’t finish. She felt flushed and hot, very hot.

  “Uh. Er, yeah. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. This part was on his back.” Derxis gestured at a half-circle pierced with jagged spokes, intersecting a series of wavy near-parallel lines. “Do you know what it was? These marks on his skin? It was a message from the Lucky God. I guess it was important.” He shrugged uneasily. “Not that I read draconic.”

  “No shit,” said Akkama, her voice unsteady. “No one does.”

  “Well, he learned to. In, uh, the future. I guess he cracked someone’s moon in half.” Derxis folded his arms, frowned, then tapped the side of his face with a black-painted finger. His skin phased into a light orange. “The question is: why was I painting this for the Spaceport?”

  Akkama took deep breaths to calm her heart. Thoughts of Emmius had never hit her this hard before; they confused her now. Maybe it was just seeing the marks so suddenly. She hadn’t seen them since she killed him. Her sword had gone right through some of those draconic runes, separating them, separating his brown skin, spilling brown blood.

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  “You okay?” asked Derxis.

  Akkama stilled a reflexive jolt at being suddenly addressed. She gave Derxis a fanged smile. “Fine! I’m...” She trailed off. Just who the hells did she think she was fooling? This was gods-damned Derxis.

  Derxis looked at her with both eyes. (These days, that meant he was serious.) Akkama braced herself for a lecture, for an I-told-you-so, maybe even for another Judgment of the Color Priests.

  But he wasn’t wearing a mask. They didn’t fit his face anymore. His skin turned deep-turquoise, and instead of saying anything, he turned back to the draconic runes he had drawn. He picked up a bucket of blue and splashed it in a wide arc over the black letters, mostly erasing them.

  Akkama studied the colored tile at her feet, seeking distraction. She’d had a poem ready. But how had it gone? ‘Gateway to the sky...?’ She started again, tried to compose a poem, tried to see the beautiful lettering. But the graceful arcs and flourishes of her calligraphy became harsh, spiky draconic, and she kept seeing those markings, seeing her sword go right through the one that looked like an inverted mountain, kept imagining Emmius somehow breaking a moon in half in some impossible future. She had wanted him to be strong, right?

  “Would you like to know,” said Derxis, slowly, carefully, “why he was in love with you?”

  The can of black enamel struck the tile and tipped over. Lustrous black pooled on the green and red and gold. Her reaction to dropping the paint was belated; she knelt and set the can upright, but her mind was elsewhere. She was hot now, so hot that the thin metal of the now- empty can of black enamel blistered under fingers.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘never-really-thought-about-it,’” said Derxis. “He thought you were amazing. You were everything Emmius wanted to be: brave, confident, powerful, beautiful. You are talented at many things, whereas Emmius was not. You had ambition, and both the will and the ability to make your ambitions reality. Emmius, obviously, had none of that. But it was more than just admiration. He knew that you were kind to children and to small, weak things. He wouldn’t have been able to express this, but he knew that what you love, you love fiercely. He thought he could help—”

  “Stop,” she said. Even though she was trembling, inexplicably shaking and unable to control her breath or her thoughts, that one word came out strong and sure.

  Derxis stopped.

  Akkama squeezed her eyes shut, but that was much worse because all she saw there was Emmius, standing there on the burning Paper Moon, coming to help her, to be by her side when no one else would. Refusing, in fact, to leave her.

  She stood, took a deep breath and made several long strides to the silently trickling fountain of moss and stone. She plunged her hands into the pool and splashed her face. The water hissed, exploding into steam where it struck her arda.

  “You know,” said Derxis, casually now, as though they were still on the topic of planets in the outer wilds, “I used to admire you too. I still do, kind of. Bravery is admirable in itself. Your biggest mistake was taking it too far, making that deal with the Desert Watcher. Unqualified fearlessness is a curse, I guess. But that’s not you anymore, right?”

  Akkama turned to face him, sat down on the edge of the fountain. He was still there in the archway, watching her—a ridiculous lizard-man in paint-spattered robes with a bucket of paint dangling from one freakish hand. “You going somewhere with this?” she asked. She folded her arms across her chest, tried to measure her breathing.

  He spread his weird, opposable-fingered hands. “Just saying, I still think you’re brave. And that’s good. It’s great. I still wish I was as brave as you. In case you were wondering...it’s not too late. To change things.”

  “Oh yeah?” She unbound her hair in a quick gesture and let it flow free with a shake of her head. “Well, you’re too good at your job, Derxis. You’re frustrating, and you’re a know-it-all, and you’re always right, and you’re obnoxious, and I wish I’d listened to you, and I’m glad you’re on our side, and Fiora’s the real idiot around here because she deserves you, not that grumpy, feathery asshole.” That was more than she’d meant to say, but it felt strangely good to have said it. Derxis turned a shade of deep green, both embarrassed and pleased. Akkama wasn’t about to thank him for his words, any more than she was going to apologize for Emmius, but this was Derxis and they both knew she didn’t need to say a damn thing.

  After a while Derxis said, “Our side?”

  “My side. Whatever. At least you listen to me. You and Zayana and Fiora. The others hate me. Not that I care.”

  “Rasmus doesn’t hate you.”

  His implication by omission made Akkama smirk bitterly. “Why wouldn’t he? He was protective of Emmius.”

  “He’s protective of you, too. Of all of us. His mind is big and strong and simple, a reflection of his body; I remember it from when I had my arda. Whatever is at the root of him will starve out all that is contrary. In the future, he was full of resentment and bitterness, and so he had become brutal and terrible, because despair was in his deepest heart, because Anthea had died.”

  Akkama winced at the mention of Anthea. But she said, “She’s as good as dead now.”

  “Maybe so. But Rasmus is not easily changed. What I’m saying is, the resolve to protect is what is deepest in him right now. He doesn’t feel any bitterness toward you, Akkama, even though you killed Emmius. He feels only sorrow. And I know you don’t care whether or not Rasmus likes you...but he did respect you. In fact, he saw you as an asset. A partner, even.”

  All this was a revelation to Akkama, who had been carefully avoiding Rasmus. Just in case. She remembered wanting to fight him, desiring it desperately. But now...well, she didn’t even have a sword. Wouldn’t be much of a fight. And Derxis was wrong about something: Akkama did care whether Rasmus liked her. This too was surprising.

  “They’re scared of you now,” Derxis continued, “because none of them understand why you killed Emmius. They all wonder if they’ll be next.”

  “Do you understand?”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? Talking to you. Do I look scared?”

  Akkama almost asked him to explain it to her then, to tell her why she had done it. Because she was just like everyone else: she didn’t understand why she had murdered someone who cared about her. And just like them, she was a little scared that she would be next. But she couldn’t do it; she couldn’t admit something so pathetic to Derxis, whom she had also murdered for a reason all too simple.

  She said, “What do you mean, ‘partner?’”

  Derxis laughed. “He’s not too quick on the uptake, but even Rasmus knows you’ll stand with him between any danger and Fiora.”

  This concept—she and Rasmus fighting together to protect Fiora—momentarily stunned Akkama. It was a simple idea, but one she’d never had before, and it fell upon her like a load of bricks. It was…exciting.

  The last thing Derxis had said was ‘Fiora,’ and it showed: his skin had gone green again. He looked funny that way, without even any orange arda to indicate that his color wasn’t actually green. Just his orange eyes.

  Akkama grinned. “She’s amazing, right?”

  He sighed distractedly in response. “Yeah...wait. We weren’t, uh, talking about that.”

  “If you want to be so brave, why don’t you start there? What are you afraid of?”

  Derxis frowned and avoided looking at Akkama with both eyes. One of them inspected the tarry pool of enamel spilled on the floor; the other wandered over the electric light fixtures around the lobby. “I’m...it’s going to sound silly, but I’m a little worried I’ll start turning to glass.”

  “…glass?”

  “See? Silly.” He giggled, and it sounded more ‘unhinged’ than ‘silly.’ “I saw the Bright World, you know,” he spoke quickly and softly as though he feared being overhead. “I spoke to the Prothagonus. And I’ve started seeing it in my dreams. Here! In my dreams! I…I don’t look like I’m turning to glass, do I?” He held up his arms and twisted back and forth as though trying to see his own backside.

  Akkama couldn’t tell whether he was joking. She slowly shook her head. Derxis breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good.” He laughed again, but it sounded forced. “Anyway, catch!” He hurled a bucket of paint at her.

  She caught it, of course, but it was unlidded, and it splashed her with purple. She fell backwards into the pool to avoid the spray. The water closed over her, refreshingly cool, muffling the hysterical laughter from beyond. Akkama stayed submerged. She looking up at the pattern of violet paint swirling on the disturbed surface of the water. The sight pleased her. It occurred to her that, had this happened not so long ago, the water would be boiling with her fury. She would never have noticed the intricate swirls of the paint on the water.

  An indistinct shape appeared above the water. A muffled voice spoke. “Uh...Akkama?”

  Her arm shot up out of the water, seized his collar, and dragged him down into the pool. She used the force of it to pull herself up. Derxis flailed beside her, the rough skin of his bare legs flashing red and yellow in alarm.

  Akkama stood, wiped the hair out of her face, and turned to the pool. Derxis emerged from the water, silly and bewildered, wearing a lillypad for a hat. His eyes searched wildly before landing on her, one at a time. He was such a sight that Akkama laughed. Of course, he joined her. And it felt good to laugh. Akkama had almost forgotten how.

  “You know,” she said once the humor had died away and they were both dripping wet and spattered with purple paint. “We can just leave that one blank. Roll of the die.”

  Derxis nodded in agreement. “Roll of the die. We’ll write a road to the Spaceport somewhere else.”

  They set about gathering the cans, the brushes, the cups and sponges and other strange implements that Derxis had brought, and they stuffed all of it into a pair of sacks.

  “I found something,” said Derxis as they finished. “By which I mean, our mysterious friend left it for me.” He meant the Dark Man, as Zayana called him. “It was for you, obviously, but I had decided not to give it to you. But I just changed my mind.”

  Feeling uncomfortably as though she had passed some kind of secret test, Akkama warily asked, “What is it?”

  “Come on,” he said. “I’ll show you.” They traveled together back to the infinite library through a series of halls and stairways that almost always led where the markers said they did. And Derxis showed her what the Dark Man had given him.

  It was a sword.