PLUMBESS SEG

The Book

Excerpt

Trivia

EXCERPT

Beginning Again

After decades, after days of raining, it finally stopped. Perhaps that wasn’t the clearest way to express it. But it had rained enough that liters or centimeters weren’t the proper unit of measurement—it was at least a decade of rain.

Firmly in the realm of time, it had shortened lives, turned days into nights, and confined Seg to her bed for longer than she could comprehend, until the days felt like years and the nights even longer.

After such a humiliating defeat, the sun had yet to show itself, but the clouds looked like the kind that would eventually go away. Seg wasn’t an expert on clouds, though. She watched them through her bedroom window.

Entrenched in her sheets like the patron saint of consumption, she stirred.

Ten days before, ten days in the normal sense of time, a village called Flotsam had been washed away in the rain’s torrent. Seg didn’t care about the village, but Zag—the only person who had meant anything at all to her—had been in Flotsam, trying to save it from the flood like only a Plumbess could. No one had seen her since.

Except for Seg, in her dreams. Just the night before, Seg had descended one of those dark abysses, the kind that collected all the world’s rains in its hidden depths. If Zag truly had been washed away, that was where she would be. Without a single light to guide her, she found all the rain, and Zag at its center. The Plumbess stood imperiously, a statue of a shade, her plunger held out before her, lethal and serene. It was a monument to power. But it wasn’t what Seg was looking for. She didn’t need a monument, she needed a person. The person. Seg spoke, she pled that she might hear the Plumbess’s voice, but she knew the futility of the effort. The night before had been the same—she’d found Zag in the ocean, in the form of an island holding a slender peninsula that defied all waves. The same silence, a larger body of water than Seg could ever hope to conquer.

Getting out of her bed was harder than descending the rain’s abyss, but she did it. She took a few faltering steps to her wardrobe and struggled to open it. Inside, there weren’t any clothes fit for a healthy person. She pulled on some boots heavy enough for a calamitous amount of mud—she wanted something with a thick sole. She threw a raincoat over her shoulders even though it wasn’t raining anymore. For the most part it covered her nightdress, the one she’d been wearing for a decade now. And, finally, an umbrella, which she held on to the same way a Plumbess would hold a plunger.

She opened her door and exited to the hallway beyond. That hallway led to another, and another, not a person to be seen, just closed doors and silent pipes wending their way deeper. Slowly she unwound her way out of their maze and into the outside world. She stood near the Top of the Incline, the top third of the massive structure that dominated the center of the Orphanage. Although the Orphanage was at the bottom of a valley, it would easily weather any storm. The smell of rain, though, was overwhelming. She took a deep breath.

To assist with the spiraling descent down the Incline was a railing of the finest quality. Where other railings would be hollow, this one was filled with a slow liquid, calm and soothing. Holding on to it helped Seg immensely. She let it guide her downward.

The people who saw her didn’t bother hiding their stares. A few even made the holy sign, a touch of the lip followed by a touch of the navel. She inverted the gesture at an orphan, barely pubescent: she touched her navel then her lips, counter to all nature. The orphan reddened and turned away, back to her menial task—tracing pipes around the limits of her permitted range.

Others were more tactful, but Seg treated them the same.

“I’m sorry, Seg, but it is good to see you again.”

“It’s good to be seen, you’re sorry,” she replied, inverting the gesture no matter what sense it gave.
Around the Middle of the Incline, she was confronted again.

“Ms. Seg? Plumbess Roc wanted to be informed if you ever left your room again. Would you like me to tell her?”

“I’ll tell her myself,” Seg replied.

She slowly regained confidence. She let her nose rise preternaturally high, and her back became straighter than a wall joist, more rigid, with the result that she couldn’t even see most of the things around her.
Thus it was an invisible orphan who spoke the words that nearly broke her composure all over again.

“Ms. Seg, it’s you! Have you seen Ms. Eck? She was your friend, right?”

Hatred welled up in her like a river in a broken dam. “If you don’t know the meaning of words, orphan, you shouldn’t use them. Eck never was and never will be my friend.”

Seg never looked at the child, but she heard it scamper off.

Eck, her friend. Seg could’ve saved Zag, could’ve saved herself, if it hadn’t been for Eck. The valve had been in her hands, and a firm resolve in her heart, but that scaly subhuman had stopped her—had stopped her, when she was the only person who could have made a difference. Before she had devoted herself to her despondence, Seg had driven Eck out of the Orphanage. And although she thought she’d made a scene, apparently the nature of the event, of Eck’s betrayal, hadn’t made its way through the Orphanage yet. She would tell them all.

At the Bottom of the Incline, hundreds of people scurried about, which was nearly the entire population of the Orphanage. Plumbess Roc stood in the center of the commotion, apparently directing it. Several people stood attentively at the Plumbess’s side as she handled them individually.

Seg approached them.

The old Plumbess was a shriveled thing, her grey hair tied up in knots around her head. The skin of her face was tight, readily emphasizing her expressions of disapproval. Although she carried her plunger around as any Plumbess would, and currently used it to indicate something to the people around her, it didn’t exude the strength that it had with Plumbess Zag.

She was yelling at a nearby man. “Move it over there, I said. And stop asking so many questions!”

The man nodded and hurried off.

When Seg noticed that Roc intended to begin yelling at the next man, another of the Orphanage’s servants, she cleared her throat.

“Yes?” the Plumbess started angrily, but broke off when she noticed that it was Seg. “Oh, it’s you. Finally.”
“Finally?” Seg asked, with an air of confrontation. Seg was a full foot taller, and looked decidedly down at the Plumbess. “Has my sorrow inconvenienced you in some way?”

“It’s inconvenienced us all,” Roc replied. “I know Plumbess Zag was important to you, but she was just as important to me.”

Seg nearly snorted in derision, but refrained.

Roc noticed anyway. “I will not, I repeat, I will not be condescended to by a naïve little thing like you, do you hear me? She was just as important to me. But a true Plumbess can’t give herself away to her emotions, especially not when the need is dire.”

Roc gestured with her plunger to what the crowd was working on: disassembling a series of impromptu ditches made to redirect the storm. “We have a duty to uphold. You should’ve been here helping. The gods know we could’ve used you. So yes, finally.”

“Only a Plumbess could’ve helped,” Seg said, a bitter mimicry leaching into her voice.

“And in spite of everything, I still intend to make you one. Are you ready?”

“When?”

“When, girl? Now! It should’ve been a week ago, when it was scheduled, but even I can let go of a schedule if the winds demand it. That is, if you truly are ready. Are you ready?”

A valid question, Seg thought—she wasn’t sure herself. So, she appraised herself the way she would’ve appraised a newly welded joint. She took both ends in her hand—the pipe of her life before losing Zag, and the pipe of her life after—and she twisted. Any hint of hesitation in the weld, the slightest slip, and she would feel it. And although the one pipe was short and jagged, dangerous to the touch, the weld itself was of passable workmanship.

“Yes, I am.”

“Then get your things, girl, and meet me by the gate.”

Seg didn’t need to be told twice. She turned around and retraced her steps back up the Incline. Her thoughts, while she walked, gravitated back to Eck.

Although what she’d said to Roc was true, and she was ready to continue her life, one thing was for certain: her hatred of Eck was insurmountable, a septic tank overloaded beyond repair.

How could the Plumbesses have ever paired them as if they were equals? If Eck was within a five-kilometer radius, Seg would find her and drown her in the aqueducts. She imagined stabbing Eck, tearing her limb from limb, welding her shut, tying a cinch around her neck and tightening it degree by degree until her face turned red, then purple, then . . .

Ways to kill Eck provided Seg with enough ammunition of thought to bring her all the way back to her room, where the weight of her sadness quieted her again.

She took off her thick-soled boots, made for the mud but spotless because she’d never left the path of the Incline. She took off her raincoat, dry because it would probably be another year before the sky gathered enough moisture again to even think about raining. And she removed her nightgown, which she should’ve done at least a week before. Divested of such clothes, she opened up her wardrobe again.

There was only one set of clothes suitable for what she was to become. Far to the right—past the clothes she’d worn threadbare from working on her hands and knees in narrow, dark places—hung an immaculate white apron and a black linen shirt. She put these on, as well as a black pair of pants, practical things that covered her legs entirely. Next came a black pair of rubber boots, and even a black pair of rubber gloves for the occasion. And finally, her plunger. She’d had it for years, but was only allowed to carry it for special occasions.

Next to the wardrobe was a full-length mirror. Staring back at her, eyes sunken but vividly alive, was a Plumbess. Younger than any Plumbess she’d ever seen, her skin paler and her hair blacker, but a Plumbess nonetheless. To test the authenticity of the image, she brought her plunger into it—over her shoulder, like a Plumbess at the ready. She struck the ground with it violently, forming suction against the wood. It looked convincing, that image. That was more than she could ask for.

Since she wouldn’t be coming back, at least not for a long time, she packed what little possessions she had into a white sack that she slung over her shoulder. Then, because it felt like something a person should do when leaving the only home they’d ever had, she took a farewell glance at her room.

For all the time she’d spent there, she hadn’t left much of a mark. A conspicuous indentation in the mattress. Some muddy footprints in the doorway, ten days dry, which would be gone the next time the room was scrubbed clean. The half-spent candle in the windowsill, for all she’d personally burned it, was no doubt indistinguishable from others in that very same hallway.

“Goodbye,” she said anyway.

This time, going down the Incline, she was strong enough, body and spirit, to forgo the railing. She struck it once with her plunger, sending vibrations she could feel down its whole length, and then she ignored it like she’d never once depended on its solace.

This time, she gave a resolute nod to every downtrodden orphan, to every uptight Plumbess who crossed her path. It was apparent that they already knew what was going on—the people she passed soon formed into a retinue of sorts, conversing as they followed her down to the gate of the Orphanage.

Roc already stood there, an impatient look on her face. It reminded Seg of a time ten years before, when, instead of a plunger over her shoulder, Seg had the full spectrum of shovels. For an instant, she nearly conceded to an impulse to hasten her steps. But she repressed the impulse just as she repressed the memory. Those were things best forgotten.

The old Plumbess said, when Seg joined her, “I’ll ask you one last time if you’re ready. There won’t be any turning back after this.”

As if she hadn’t been waiting ten years to get rid of Seg. Roc had once said, in a garden not far removed, that she’d wasted her life mentoring her.

“I’m aware of that,” Seg replied. “And I already said I was.”

“Very well,” Roc said, and then projected her voice with a volume unbecoming of her years. “Ladies of the Orphanage, I present to you one of your number, purified, pushed up the Incline, filled with potential. She is now ready to do work, before returning once more to the Orphanage to complete the cycle.”

Work. That meant years, decades again of solitude. The cycle, Seg knew, was unforgiving.

“Seg.” Her name sounded ceremoniously harsh, like it didn’t belong to her at all. “A Plumbess must seek every desert and Plumb it to an oasis as its source, and in this way make civilization. Are you prepared to do this?”

“Yes.”

“And so if a man says he is thirsty, you shall say, ‘I will turn the valve for you.’ ”

“I will turn the valve.”

“Seg—a Plumbess must seek every habitation and Plumb it to a mire as its drain, and in this way preserve civilization. Are you prepared to do this?”

“Yes.”

“And so if a man must defecate, you shall say, ‘I will turn the valve for you.’ ”

“I will turn the valve.”

“Seg—neither will you long to spend your life in the oasis or the mire?”

“I will long to spend my life in civilization,” Seg replied.

“A Plumbess can only make this commitment if she knows the difference between right and wrong. And so she must be a competent engineer. Can you produce credentials to this effect?”

“I can.” From her bag, Seg removed the diploma that her room had received from the Orphanage a week before—Seg herself had been indisposed. With a bowed head, she handed it to Roc, who read its words before returning it.

“Then you will take this Lead,” Roc said as she took a necklace from a nearby orphan. It was a strand of heavy chains centered around an ingot that weighed exactly one kilogram, shaped in the suggestion of a tear or a droplet. While Seg’s head remained bowed, Roc strung the necklace around her scarred neck. And although the weight was cumbersome and Roc’s hands gnarled with age, she fastened it with surprising dexterity. “And you will be a Plumbess.”

Roc then took a stack of papers from another orphan and signed two of the pages. In a quieter voice, she said to Seg, “Sign both of these. One will be for your records, the other will be retained at the Orphanage for either thirty years—when your Certification must be renewed—or your death. Whichever comes first.”
Seg signed both copies.

Roc took back the one designated for the Orphanage, then held it for all gathered to see. “A Certified Plumbess,” she proclaimed. “May she not re-enter these gates until she’s done her work. Now go,” she said to the audience. “I need one last word with my ward, so go, all of you.”

Whatever it was Roc wanted to say, Seg didn’t want to hear it. She was already discounting it wholesale—her thoughts were elsewhere, on where she might go now that she was leaving the only place she’d ever known.

“Seg,” Roc said. “Plumbess Seg. Here we finally stand as equals in rank. But you’re still very young, and there are things you still won’t understand for years to come. What I’m going to tell you is one of those things. You’re not going to want to hear it. And for the first time, you won’t have to listen to me if you don’t want. But I hope you will. I . . . I know what Eck did, and you can’t hate her for it.”

Seg turned and began walking away. If she didn’t have to listen, this was the last thing she would stand around and suffer of her own volition.

“Seg! For the love of the gods, would you just listen to a parting word from your mentor? It’s the least you can do after all I’ve given.”

Seg turned around, prepared to argue about how much the Plumbess had given—then she saw the tears in Roc’s eyes. When the Plumbess began speaking again, it was with such a soft version of her voice that it almost sounded motherly.

“You can’t hate her. You have to find a way to drain your hate, Seg. And not into people. Not into Eck. She loves you, you know. Take your anger and put it somewhere productive. Find a place that needs you. Gods know there are far too many of those out there. Somewhere your skills will be appreciated. Although it pains me to admit, you have plenty of those. Skills.”

Strange words to hear from the most bitter, critical person Seg knew. For that reason, she couldn’t respond to them, wouldn’t respond to them. Instead, she said, “If you’re still alive when I return, Plumbess Roc, I’ll see you then.”

That tightened Roc back up again. The corners of her lips pulled out severely. She made a jagged movement, turning her back to Seg. Then she went back up the Incline, her steps stricken but not broken by the years.

It was more than what Seg could do. When she also turned to walk away, it felt impossible to move.