The weeks after my release were difficult. I knew no one. Some of my personal effects had been returned to me, but none of my money or good clothes—and in this city, I’d already learned, you needed both.
I’m sure I could’ve made my way on the streets, unpleasant as it would’ve been. Fortunately I didn’t have to: I met Ika instead. A guard gave me his card as I left the prison, otherwise known as the Royal Centre for the Protection of Non-Citizens. My stay at the royal centre had been, it is fair to say, grim, but my discharge was quick and painless. The last bored guard stamped my papers and rang a bell, and the enormous gates before me shuddered open.
I stepped out onto a long narrow bridge. It crossed a pitch-black chasm to a tunnel dimly visible in the cliff-face on the other side. The silence was cavernous, dizzying. The gates shuddered closed behind me, and I focused on the long, torch-lit road ahead.
I was free.
Ika worked at the Wayfarer Community Legal Service, which—after much wandering through the warren of streets the tunnel delivered me to—I discovered was in the Grand Chamber. The Chamber was an enormous open space at the centre of Ghustloch, lit brightly with streetlights and the fantastically large globes that hung from and refracted off the crystal ceiling.
At the centre of the Chamber was the King’s Rest, a palace that joined the floor of the Chamber with the ceiling, forming a wide, sweeping tower with elaborate terracing. Main roads radiated from the palace like the spokes of a wheel, connected by four concentric ring roads. The main roads disappeared into the Chamber walls. I paused at the mouth of one, momentarily overcome with the monumental grandeur of the city. A rickshaw rattled past, and a pair of well-dressed storks stared back at me.
The WCLS was on the second floor of a small, four-storey building up against the Chamber wall. The building was jutting out between two much larger buildings covered in scaffolding being carved from the rock. I consulted the building directory and made my way upstairs, where I found a small office with a waiting area and a front desk surrounded by pots of overflowing vines and clumps of green and orange fungi as tall as one of my former captors.
“Hello?” I asked the empty room.
“Hello,” a reedy voice said. I peered over the counter. “How can I help?” the mouse asked. He had a tattered ear and a lot of piercings.
“Mr Ika Templeston? I said. “The name’s Gecko. I’ve just been released from prison.”
“Ey, you’re in the right place,” the mouse said. “Ika’s not in, but he shouldn’t be far away. Please take a seat.”
“Thanks,” I said. I took a seat and helped myself to a mint. Idly, I leafed through a few of the books, periodicals, and newspapers on the table. Ghustloch was a weird city. But the periodicals were interesting, especially the Wayfarer’s Advocate. The clock ticked. I made good use of the time.
Ika was a tall lizard with intense energy and an almost genial demeanour. He arrived in a trench coat and a hurry, with a briefcase and a hat.
“Just out, I take it,” he said, looking me directly in the eye as he shook my hand. “Ika.”
“Gecko,” I said. “Yes, that’s right.”
“Head on in,” Ika said. “Just give me a minute or two.” He gestured to an office and turned to speak with the mouse, opening his briefcase on the counter.
The office was brightly lit, with a couple of long, narrow windows, a large stone desk, small but comfortable, walls packed with books and files, and, carved into one of the stippled, sandy-coloured walls, a large street map surrounded by runes. Some stuffed children’s toys were piled up cheerfully on a chair in the corner. I studied the map carefully, noting the King’s Chamber, the prison, the odd-looking sinkhole taking up much of the west, the river to the east, the main roads, and the main gates to the north and south, then sank thankfully into one of the seats in front of the desk, which, like the ones in reception, was designed for tails. On the desk a dark purple mushroom speckled with gold sprouted from a wooden pot of luxuriant moss.
Within a minute Ika had joined me with an apology and a warm smile, slipping in behind the desk and relaxing into his chair.
“Mr Gecko. What can you tell me about yourself?”
Ika was a fascinating man. I chatted with him for nearly an hour, and learned a lot. It turned out that in Ghustloch I was a Wayfarer, as were most people in prison. Wayfarers were the lowest caste in Ghustloch, and included all sorts of different people, not all of them foreigners, as I initially thought. “How did you end up helping Wayfarers?” I asked at one point. He’d mentioned a couple of his ancestors, and it sounded as if they’d lived in Ghustloch.
“I am one,” he said. “Almost everyone who works here is. Jikara was here long before Ghustloch.”
I must’ve looked puzzled because he laughed. “Welcome to Ghustloch, my friend. Let’s get some business done first and then we’ll do more history. The first thing is to get you started on your Form K. As I said, everything starts there. And to submit it we’ll need to get a signature from an outstanding citizen.”
“Can’t you sign it?” I asked.
“I would if I could,” Ika said. “Unfortunately I’m disqualified. Most of us are. OCs are hard to find, even if they want to help. The criteria are constantly changing and only some OCs know their current status.”
“How do you find out the criteria?”
“Officially, you go to the Municipal Library of Regulations and Codes. The librarians are very helpful and are often aware of the latest amendments, but the records they have on file aren’t always up-to-date. So it depends on when you go and who you get.”
“What about the Office of Restricted Non-Citizens? Don’t they give you a list of OCs?”
“I mean, you can try. Often you only find out after your application has been processed. It takes so long that the criteria usually change at least once during processing. We expect it.”
“What a horrible system. You’d think they’d make it more efficient.”
Ika smiled ruefully. “Oh it’s very efficient. Just not at issuing permits to Wayfarers. At least you’re not locked up while you wait.” He rifled through the files on his desk and plucked out the page he was looking for. “But let’s fill in this preform, get your queue number, and then once it’s certified we can talk accommodation, employment, and the rest. How does that sound?”
Next episode: Form K