Teller mas the scent o.., p.1
Teller Mas - The Scent of Memory, page 1
Teller Mas
The Scent of Memory
a novella by Paul L. Arvidson
© Paul L. Arvidson 2018
Teller Mas
The Scent of Memory
On a Dark planet far from Earth is a village. Even a planet with no light has a shady hole into which all things fall. Lakeside is it.
Teller Mas, the scent detective, calls it home. But now, bodies are piling up and the constables have asked him to investigate. Every person Teller gets close to winds up dead.
He must crack the case of his life before it costs him his own.
A 17,000 word novella introducing the universe of the Dark.
* * *
PAUL ARVIDSON is a forty-something ex lighting designer who lives in rural Somerset. He juggles his non-author time bringing up his children and fighting against being sucked in to his wife’s chicken breeding business. The Dark is his first series.
Ed. Sue Meadows, No Stone Unturned Editing
Cover by Betibup33 Design Studio
Formatted by Cheryl Arvidson
Thank you to all of you
This version exclusively for newsletter subscribers
© Copyright Paul L Arvidson 2021
Contents
Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Lake
Chapter 2 – The Bocado
Chapter 3 – The Nightmares
Chapter 4 – Post Mortem
Chapter 5 – Grieving Family
Chapter 6 – A Tale Told
Chapter 7 – Hospital Visiting
Chapter 8 – The Squeeze
Chapter 9 – Last Will and Testament
Chapter 10 – Into the Wastelands
Chapter 11 – River Rat Caught
Chapter 12 – Hangover from Hell
Chapter 13 – A River Runs Through It
Chapter 14 – Flotilla
Chapter 15 – Mother
Chapter 16 – Drink Me
Chapter 17 – The Other Side
Chapter 18 – Safe Home
Dark
Teller Mas
The Scent Of Memory
* * *
Chapter 1 - The Girl in the Lake
Teller Mas could tell three things from touching the young female’s face: she was young, she was beautiful, and she was very, very dead. Smell had always been his first sense. His hearing was as adequate as his Air-sense, but he reckoned his taste buds had been killed off by a combination of too much bamboo gin and racta. And any other senses? Those could be left to the Shamans. What those crazies couldn’t feel with their hands, whiskers and ears, the mad bastards would just make up. He always felt, well, like a fish out of water, when he couldn’t smell his way around a case. But when a victim had been in the lake for long enough, smell was nearly useless. The girl was still on the end of a barge pole, hefted by Old Fryk, the Watchman for the Quay. Shuffling and the faint smell of disinfectant from behind them, told of the arrival of the Midwives guild to clean up the mess and take the body to the guild house to be autopsied. The poor midwives wound up doing all the medical necessities in Lakeside, it having no proper Healer’s guild or Alchemists of its own.
“Eh, in your own time, mmmhhh?” Old Fryk groaned.
“Put the stretcher down by Old Fryk please, Yayu,” said Knia, the newly promoted Head of Constables for Lakeside. She sounded much more confident today. Knowing that her old and now disgraced former boss was safely locked up with the Stone-folk was clearly allowing her to unfold a little.
The midwives busied themselves helping to lower the body gently onto the hessian stretcher.
“No stiffness?” Knia pressed.
“That tells us nothing at this stage,” said Yayu. “In the cold water, the stiffness comes more slowly.”
Teller shivered and pulled his loose jacket closer. The Lakesiders were the only folk in the whole of the Dark that used clothes habitually – not counting the stupid robes that the religious sects seemed to like. For the Lakesiders naturally, it was all a bit more practical, more about the fact that the wind that blew out of the tunnels over the lake could be bitter cold. Though it never rained per-se in the Dark, being inside, the Lakesiders even had mists and fog to contend with. And today was all of that: damp and cold. The midwives were still fussing getting the limbs of the corpse onto the stretcher when there was an odd little rattle. Teller spun round as they were preparing to lift.
“Wait,” he said.
The noise stopped as quickly as it had started, it was almost like the rattle of the bone dice the fisher-folk used to gamble with, on the quayside. He reached towards where he’d heard the sound, back at the side of the stretcher. The girl’s arm kept falling off and hung loosely at the side. Teller went to lift it and found the source of the clatter: a small bracelet circled the hanging wrist. He leaned in close to smell it. Like the body, everything smelled of lake water. He frowned and leaned closer, picking up his stylus to lift the bracelet and drop it. Again, that bone-sounding jingle. He broke protocol and picked up one of the necklace beads. Not bone. Mineral. Tiny rocks? He turned them in his fingers. Light for stones, but rough on the outside in places, and smooth in others. A decorative pattern. Lovely really.
“Hey Knia,” he called across to the Chief. He still couldn’t call her that yet, and she didn’t seem to mind. Too soon. “She’s got a bracelet, here. You come across anything like this before?”
She came over and hummed as Teller passed the bracelet beads from his fingers to hers. She spent ten or so ticks rolling them over her thumb and then let the bracelet drop.
“Constable,” she spoke over her shoulder. “Can you bag this, please? This is Stone-folk work, recent too. It’s made from pumice. All the Stone-folk pups are wearing them.”
“She’s not really a pup,” said Teller.
“Not that much older,” Knia sighed.
“No.”
Teller went to the edge of the quay and crouched down. The breeze from the tunnels was getting up. It made a faint moan that drifted across the surface of the water. He absently dipped his paw. Behind him, Knia and the Midwife muttered, presumably regarding an autopsy and when that might be completed. It usually took no more than a span, depending on other calls on the midwives’ time. His nose twitched. He could smell that ghastly chewing root ‘Bocca’ that his father used to chew. He shuddered, then stood suddenly.
“Hey easy,” said Old Fryk, suddenly close. “You fall in too, mmmhhh?”
Mas grunted and jammed his hands into his jacket pockets, face still to the lake, toes, just on the edge stones of the quay.
“Onshore breeze—she brings disease,” said Fryk, knowingly. The old Watchman spat into the water, to ward off evil.
“Puh,” said Mas and pulled his collar up.
“We about done here?” Knia asked.
“Think so,” said Mas.
What was a Stone-folk female, so young, doing so far from home? What had she gotten herself into? Besides the lake. Not unheard of for Stone-folk to be in Lakeside, but she really was young, usually pups of Stone-folk families were cosseted until they were fully adults and then as women, tradition had them involved in complicated inter-caste marriages. Now he thought about it, Pumice was a house wasn’t it? Was that important? Everyone moved away from the quayside and continued their business, slowly and quietly; Teller spat into the water.
Chapter 2 – The Bocado
The vapor of bamboo spirit was all that remained in Teller’s beaker. He lifted his head in the direction the shuffling was coming from.
“Hey, Rychuck. Hit me again.”
“Coming right up.”
The Bocado was never a salubrious venue, but it was always where Teller’s feet led him when he needed to think. He wondered whether he may be past thinking at this point, when a new smell breezed from beyond the serving hatch doors. She swept into the bar and started to collect pots from the empty tables. Wiping as she went, she hummed cheerfully. Way too cheerful for this late in a workspan. There was murmuring from a table way over by the doors when she went to clean there, then the sounds of folk drinking up and leaving. Now there was just Teller and the staff. Wouldn’t be the first time.
“You two gonna sit and have one on me?” said Teller.
“Sure.” Rychuck, grabbed the bamboo spirit flask and banged it on the counter. Then he turned his head, “Minu? You coming?”
She wafted over to them, wiping as she went. She sat on the bar stool between Rychuck and Teller.
“Teller, meet Minu, my latest addition to the Bocado staff.”
She reached out a hand, Teller took it. It was well-manicured, and slightly damp from the cloth.
“Charmed,” he said. Then as if considering again, “Aren’t you a little young to be working here?”
“No?”
“I think you might be getting a little old,” said Rychuck.
“Yeah, that too,” said Teller, taking a swig from his beaker.
“So,” Minu said. Teller cocked his ears. “Why do you sound like someone who’s lost a fish and found a waterborne parasite?”
“That one of yours?” Teller chuckled.
“I’m practicing my customer banter,” she said. “Is it funny?”
“Keep practicing.”
“Huh.”
“Seriously though, Teller, your cheerful demeanor this evening has frightened away all of my customers,” said Rychuck.
&n
“You would be if you paid your tab.”
“Details.”
She touched his hand. It shocked him back to the bar, “Seriously though?”
Rychuck sighed, left his stool and went the other side of the bar to tidy.
“Seriously. I can’t tell you. Client privilege. Can’t discuss cases.”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess, it’s not the case you’re worrying about.”
“You’re actually not bad at this,” Rychuck shouted across the bar.
“Go jump in the lake,” said Teller.
“You’re kind of sighing sad,” Minu said, plowing on regardless, “so that’d be, hmm, lover?”
Rychuck barked a laugh.
“…kay then. Family.”
Teller took a long slug and slammed the empty onto the bar. Rychuck came back over to fill it. Teller picked it up again, swigged at it and put it back down.
“If I tell you, will you stop bugging me?”
“It does you good to get it out, you know,” said Minu.
“Trust me,” said Teller, “It doesn’t.”
“It’s what my old mom used to say.”
“I’m sure she did.”
“Hey mister,” she said, “I don’t know what your problem is—”
“No,” said Teller, “and for your own health and wellbeing, it’s better it stays that way.”
She stood and picked her cloth up again.
“For what it’s worth,” Teller said, “What I’m working on now, it’s bothering me. It’s straightforward. It shouldn’t be bothering me, but it is. And that’s not good. Not good at all.”
“Well,” she said, undented, “we’re here if you need us.”
“You seem like a good kid,” said Teller.
He lifted his beaker downed the contents and coughed, “Shreds, Rychuck, this stuff doesn’t get any better.”
“Neither do you, Mas. Perhaps you should give up grizzling and take up brewing. Couldn’t make you any less happy. Go to bed.”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll do that.”
He shouldered his coat, squared up his slightly woozy Air-sense and headed where it told him the door was. He was mostly heading the right way. If only that new girl had tucked all the chairs back under the tables like she was supposed to.
“See ya,” he said over his shoulder and walked back out into the Lakeside air. To bed, perchance to dream.
Teller’s pad was at the far end of the lane also called Bocado. In Lakeside, the tradition was for lanes to run from the quayside up the very slight hill to the massive stone back wall that also formed the back wall of Teller’s first-floor digs. Teller’s place was Bocado and tenth, sat in the far corner, a macro version of where he traditionally liked to sit in any room: back to the corner where a good set of whiskers could sweep for surprises.
He climbed the stairs to his apartment. First-floor digs were still unusual in Lakeside due to the sketchiness of building materials. In the corner of the massive cavern that formed Lakeside, there were two walls to go against, so the builders had been a little more adventurous. He even had a balcony for when he couldn’t sleep. He could take in all the smells and the sounds of the town during the sleep-cycle. Teller liked the idea of listening to other folk sleeping when he couldn’t. It made him feel more connected. Tonight though, he felt bone tired. No balcony leaning tonight. He just needed to set his clicker-beetle for the morning, put his head on his straw pallet and then—
Chapter 3 – The Nightmares
—the nightmares began.
Teller thought of them as sensory deprivation nightmares: no sounds, no smells, no Air-sense, just physical feelings, he’d not had one for ages, and he hated them.
Tonight, was an old favorite—drowning. He was close to someone he trusted, sat in a long boat rocking gently in the river-pipe. Then he was overboard, tied by his wrists in harsh River-folk ropes and being pulled through the water. He struggled but he couldn’t get free, and every time he tried to relax and get his bearings, another tug would pull him farther under. He could feel the bubbles against his bare fur, water in his nose and ears pushing against every surface of his being, trying to push him out. He struggled as his arms were pulled different ways, then went slack again. His lungs burned with the strain as he tried to keep his mouth clamped shut. The ropes tightened and dragged his head against the keel of the boat. A sharp pain sliced across his head: he gasped. A stuck-out nail, or sharp splinter? No time to think about that now, his mouth was full of water, his throat had gone into spasm and he couldn’t control the flailing. He wanted to cough but the water was everywhere. The ropes pulled again, and he flailed against them. All his muscles burned, his lungs filled, the ropes pulled hard and—
He gasped. The cool night air tasted of vinegar. He felt down his arms, not dry but it was sweat not water on his fur. He sat up, still panting and rubbed his face.
“Hey, be quiet up there, there’s children trying to sleep here!” A voice from downstairs. His new neighbors, by the sound of the Bridge-folk-accented male voice. He breathed in and clamped his mouth shut: counted slowly, two, three, four. He let the breath out slowly through his nose. His clicker beetle still ticked on his table. Still sleep-span then, the noise was quieter now though, so, late sleep span. There was no way he’d get back to sleep now anyway.
He started to pour some water from a jug on his table into the bowl that went with it, to wipe his face. Teller had the wrung out cloth over his mouth when a loud banging at the door broke his spell. He threw the cloth back into the bowl.
“Shreds.” Then to whoever was knocking, “What? What do you want?” He really couldn’t stomach a row with his neighbor this early in a span.
“Keep your fur on,” said the small voice from beyond the door. It was Don-po, one of the village constables. “The chief sent me, the midwives have finished the autopsy. She thought you’d want to know.”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Shall I wait?”
Teller went back to his cloth, now soaked again. He began to wring it out, slowly and noisily over his basin.
“No, I’ll meet you there,” he wasn’t prepared to specify how long.
The flannel felt cold against his skin. He sighed. He’d not dreamed of his home with the River-folk for ages, and it made something catch in his throat. Maybe it was the lie of even that phrase “Home with the River-folk”. He laughed a bitter laugh, though no-one was listening.
He turned to leave through the driftwood door. He patted himself down for keys in his loose long jacket. No, the keys were there, that wasn’t what his subconscious had stopped him for. But why then? He went back to his table, there was a small drawer in it. One he hadn’t opened for quite some time. It still slid smoothly on its runners. Inside was a small, heavy, sacking bundle, smelling faintly of oil. He unwrapped it without thinking and took out the slender tube within. It felt beautifully smooth and cold to the touch, and fit snugly into his hand. He ran a digit over the one bump on its surface: a button for the firing mechanism.
He’d had the thing for ages, it had cost him a whole cycle’s worth of tallies from a particularly shady Machine-folk dealer who’d been passing through the Bocado, and once he’d had it in his hand, he’d had to possess it. Funny, he wasn’t usually like that with ‘stuff’ but something about this odd, beautiful thing. The way the surface was metal but smooth, ‘machined’ the dealer called it, whatever that meant. That came in the conversation with the warnings. “Have the button at the top of your hand and don’t point it at anything you don’t want to kill.” The dealer wouldn’t demonstrate it in the bar: even the Bocado had limits. Mas had bought it anyway. Not stopping until he was home, and testing it on his front door when he got in. He’d nearly fallen down the flight of rickety wooden steps. A metal spike had shot out of the end, still connected, so it had become a kind of short metal spear. He’d still held the other end of it, but only just. The kick from it had been powerful. Lethal. His door would never be quite the same again, but out of tallies, it took him till his next job to get the door patched. He had pulled the thing from his door. The weapon had become a full stride in length and the end that had gone through the wood was sharp as a stylus. It had taken him the rest of that sleep span to work out that stowing the point again required a hell of a lot of pushing, then it had clicked back into place and the button popped out. He’d mostly left it in the drawer after that.
