The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker

Author:Kage Baker [Baker, Kage]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: C429, Extratorrents, Kat
ISBN: 9780765311849
Publisher: Tor Books
Published: 2001-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Fez

THEY STROLLED TOGETHER through the city, the immortal gentleman and lady.

He was a dapper white man with small precise features. His eyes were green as a cat’s, his hair and pointed beard red as fire. He wore a white suit of perfectly pressed, tropical-weight linen, rather retro in its cut, and a wide-brimmed hat against the sun. Formal as his appearance was, there was a sense of deliberate parody, a hint of the bizarre. Something too much like an insect’s pincers in the way his oiled mustache swept up; something suggestive of a mime’s exaggeration in his walk. Despite the heat, he wore white gloves.

Nan wore a peacock-blue afternoon ensemble from the premier designer house in Senegal, with matching hat and veil, like a beautifully dressed doll. Her parasol threw a shadow of deeper blue.

Slowly they made their way along the old streets, in and out of the islands of shadow from the great palm trees, through arcaded quarters plastered and painted in all shades of white and blue. They spoke quietly together. That either of them could hear what the other said was remarkable, given the small mortal child who danced along behind them, following closely as though drawn on a string. He carried on his shoulder a SoundBox 3000 that screamed out the latest album by Little Fairuza: ten songs of love and longing in the teen world of Islam.

Every now and then a passerby frowned severely at the child. It wasn’t so much that the music’s content was objectionable—when has any culture approved of love and longing for the under-sixteen set?—but for such a big SoundBox the speakers were execrable, buzzing and roaring with distortion. The child danced along, oblivious.

The white man cast a dubious look over one shoulder as they walked slowly down Rue Meridien. “You’re quite sure this is necessary?”

“Yes. The generator renders our conversation unintelligible.”

Victor nodded, stroking his beard. “Well. Lunch alfresco? I seem to remember a place in the next street over that does a splendid b’stila.”

“I’d like that.” Nan took his arm, and they bore right through a winding maze of connected courtyards, emerging at last in a dim garden where a central fountain played. There a waiter served them from a cart, presenting them with two neat chlorilar plates of b’stila and uttering brief harsh words to the child, who hopped over the garden wall, turned up the volume, and busied himself with an exhibition of ape dancing for the edification of onlookers.

Nan and Victor set their plates on the wall and nibbled away tidily at their crispy pastries. Victor made sounds of dignified pleasure, lifting a forkful of savory filling to admire it.

“Of all the things one never thought one would miss,” he said, “I must say chicken is the most unlikely. Do you know it’s impossible to get over there at all, now?”

“Really?”

“Yes. Thanks to the Beast Liberation Party, chickens are no longer being bred. They’re very nearly extinct in England.”

“Extinct?” Nan looked astonished.

“Poor creatures were apparently too stupid

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