1.21. Slim and Sad

Fontana’s Hall of St. Sorrel was the finest building Seth had been in (on purpose, anyway, or with permission). The crowd was the finest, too, all plucked and scrubbed and dyed. The classic finery of the Plainlands—men in dark suits with pops of color at their paunches and throats, ladies like birds of paradise.

Lisa moved as though she belonged, and it was a credit to her glamorous bearing that she was treated like it, too, despite being a head taller than any other woman in the hall. Seth tried to mirror her ease.

A half-dozen chickens fluttered and trilled past them as they moved through the verdantly painted vestibule, locked in a rolling rack of cages. The thickset Plainlander pushing them through tipped the peak of his pillbox cap to Lisa, who gave him a smile and a curtsey.

Seth watched the birds’ doomed passage. “Didn’t think they’d need to bring livestock in. Can’t they just get powered dynamos off the trains?”

“Oh, no,” Lisa said. “Once you load hexis onto the artery, taking it back off is punishable by execution. No exceptions. Not even for a bleeding-heart ninny like myself.”

Seth had almost forgotten what this beautiful woman did for a living. He made eye contact with one chicken. Her odd Jurassic head quirked to the side for one of the final times before it came off. The world, for a moment, resembled a vast and motley procession to various slaughterhouses, presided over by various butchers and carnivores.

“Scent aside, it’s handier to transport hexis inside the chicken,” said the carnivorous butcher on his arm. “They power the lights and the sound system, and then they’re the entrée. Quite efficient.”

The cart rolled through a rear door. Seth decided that if he wasn’t quite hungry enough for a full course, he might at least gnaw a drumstick or two.

Into the dance hall, a room of smoky mahogany and old-world finery. The wooden furnishings here were burnished with the shine of ages—Seth wouldn’t be surprised if some of these fine clawfooted seats were pre-Emergence. The proscenium ceiling was crenellated like a layer cake and had twin flags hanging, one on each side of the stage. The green and gold of the Plainland Kingdoms, and the sable black of the Legion.

Lisa nudged Seth. “See the chap in burgundy? With the receding hairline?”

Seth followed the crook of her finger away from the banners and back down toward eye level, to an older man in a newer suit, whose thickly plaited blonde beard rested on a burgundy ascot. He was laughing and backslapping in that old-boy way the monetarily insulated had with their fortunate peers.

“There’s our man.” Lisa’s indicating index moved to his conversation partner, a full-bodied woman in an indigo gown. “That lady he’s talking to is Soshanna al Kalarre, the Corregidor of Fontana. Quite the fancy associate for a simple shipper to hobnob about with, wouldn’t you say, Seth?”

Seth’s village had never had a Corregidor, but he was given to understand they were a big deal. “I suppose I would if you would,” he said.

“I would.” Lisa surreptitiously tugged the neckline of her dress up to boost her bust another tantalizing notch upward. “I do believe I’ll have to dial up the giggly frippery for this mark of ours. I hope you don’t mind.”

Seth made sure to put his hands in his pockets before he balled them into fists. “Why would I mind?”

“Gentlefolk.” A beaming emcee in a wide-shouldered, striped suitjacket who’d swanned onto the stage now spoke to the crowd through a tinny vox system. “The music will begin shortly. Ladies, gents. To your places, please.”

Lisa lit up and downed the rest of her drink in a single practiced gulp. “That’s our cue.”

“While you’re with Mr. Moneybags, what do I do?”

“What does a pretty young thing like you do at a dance?” She laughed. “Have fun. Find someone to make out with.”

She parted from him with a swirl of skirts, joining the colorful, chattering crowd of women headed across the dance floor.

Onstage the pinstriped emcee was joined by a troupe of musicians clad in tobacco-colored eveningwear, hauling tonewood and brass to their places on creaking, thin folding chairs. Far from the plump-cushioned thrones available to their patrons. Seth wondered how much this gig paid.

The music began, and its jaunty big-band sound was a tonic to the suspicions all this fanciness raised in Seth’s soul. He joined the other men as they formed one line, in muted gradations of gray, navy and black. The ladies formed another, gauzy and whirling and technicolor. They flowed past each other, like the interlocking teeth of some vast biological clockwork.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The horns blew bolder, The heavy floor tom banged its final four pulses. One, two, three…

Seth had always counted himself an okay dancer. The first lady he was paired up with seemed to have a different opinion; her powdered face twisted in displeased surprise as he pulled her from the roundel. “Saints, man. Is this your first time?”

“Hmm?” His face heated. Maybe he was a little tipsier than he thought. “First time in Fontana, I suppose.”

“You pull too hard. Here.” She reconfigured his stance with a series of unsparing nudges. “Follow the music. Don’t yank like you’re trying to tug me out of my heels.”