Dead Man in a Ditch

by Luke Arnold

  It was a traditional Dragon: one created from the body of a flying lizard up in the Ragged Plains. The Dragon’s head was the size of the Sunder City streetcar but it looked small because of what had been done to it.

  There were two rough stumps where its wings had been hacked off. Whoever had done it, their work was a far cry from the careful hands of the Succubae. The cuts were uneven, and sharp bone stuck out from the creature’s back. Even with its wings, the Dragon wouldn’t have been going anywhere. Chains were wrapped around its whole body, pinning it to the floor.

  The scales were the same as the one we’d found outside: colorless, dull and flaking. Many were missing and the flesh underneath was scabbed over and rotten.

  The Dragon’s mouth was open. Once upon a time, that would have been a signal for us to run away or else be turned into soot. It wasn’t open in anger, though. It wasn’t even open by choice. There was a contraption jammed between the Dragon’s blunted teeth, full of springs, wrenching the jaw apart like a reverse bear-trap. There were tubes in its mouth, running inside the gums and then out over its lips into a metal vat.

  “What are they doing to it?” I asked.

  “Milking her saliva in the cruelest way possible.”

  Her claws had been removed and her arms were strapped down. I couldn’t see her tail. Perhaps the surgeon had taken that too.

  It reminded me of a boy back in Weatherly who’d caught a lizard in his garden and wanted to keep it as a pet. Of course, the lizard had other ideas. So, when the boy brought it out of its box, he always held it too tight. Then somebody told him that if you pulled off the tail it would grow a new one.

  The tail didn’t come off easy so the boy got a knife. The whole thing made me feel sick, but I didn’t want to miss out on seeing the tail grow back so I stayed around to watch.

  The tail didn’t grow back. It turned out to be a different kind of lizard. It did stop trying to escape, though.

  Hendricks stepped up to the Dragon and put his hand on the side of her face. She didn’t try to pull away. Dragons are smart. She knew that Hendricks wasn’t the one who’d put her there.

  Eliah put his forehead against the creature, rubbed her scales and closed his eyes. The Dragon’s eyes closed too.

  Hendricks wept. Not loud, but his chest heaved and his cheeks glistened as his hands reached out and found one of the screws that held the metal mouthpiece in place. He turned it, pulled it out, and then he searched for another. I went to the other side and did the same.

  The screws came out bloody but the wounds were so old that it didn’t seem to hurt the beast in any significant way. Her pain threshold had been tested far beyond anything I could fathom. She carefully closed her jaws and groaned. Hendricks kept a hand on the side of her head.

  “What do we do now?” I asked. “Take off the chains and walk her down Main Street?”

  Hendricks wiped his cheeks with his sleeve.

  “I don’t know how they’re keeping her alive or what they’re feeding her, but it isn’t natural. There is nothing else left for us to do.”

  Hendricks took out his knife. So did I. Hendricks went to his side and I went to mine. The flesh underneath the Dragon’s neck was already soft and wet. The knife went in easily and the Dragon didn’t fight us. We slid our blades down, across her throat, until our knuckles touched. Then, together, we both pushed up. The Dragon’s final breath rolled over our fists, hot and full of relief.

  We pulled out our knives and stood beside the body of a miraculous beast that had been reduced to nothing but a shameful slab of rotten meat.

  I dared to look at Hendricks. I could almost see the blood coursing through his body, full of hate and anger. His hand was shaking.

  Then, the faintest of sounds from the east. The clanging of metal against metal.

  Hendricks cleaned his knife on his clothes, put it away, turned in the direction of the noise and started walking.

  62

  I could smell sulfur. Old smoke. Maybe I was right. Maybe there was something down here that the Niles Company had stumbled upon. Some element in the rock, or a sediment left over from the old days that they were using for power.

  We were in another tunnel, sloping downward. Hendricks was full of energy, charging ahead on his cane.

  “What are these pipes?” I asked.

  Running along the roof above us were six nickel tubes, each the diameter of a dinner plate.”

  “They used to bring the fire up to the surface. The bursts that Fintack Ro saw in the swamps were just small pockets of gas compared to the larger pits underneath. To harness the full power, the founders had to dig down, deep into the earth, and install these pipes.”

  At the end of the tunnel we came to a metal cage that was the size off my office. There were chains on all four corners that went up to the roof and down through the floor. The clanging sound was coming from beneath us.

  “What the hell did they keep in there?”

  Hendricks went right up to the cage and pulled open a door that was cut into the front.

  “It’s an elevator,” he said. “Old Gnomish technology.”

  Hendricks went inside. I stepped up to the edge and looked down. The floor was made from the same wire mesh as the walls so I could see down into the deep chasm below.

  “No way,” I said.

  Hendricks slammed his cane against the floor and the whole thing rattled like it was going to break apart.

  “Gnomes don’t mess around, boy. They’ve been making these things for hundreds of years. It’s safer to walk on than Main Street.”

  Nobody else could have made me do it. Amari, maybe, but that’s it. I put a foot out on the swaying cage and stepped inside without letting go of the walls. Hendricks cackled.

  “If only your clients could see you now. It would probably put you out of business.”

  I was already regretting eating such a big dinner. There was a barrel in the corner of the box and I grabbed it for support. Hendricks pulled the door closed.

  “Ready, boy?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Good. Here we go.”

  He flicked a lever above the door that released a catch on a large cog. There were gears all around the roof that started to turn, feeding the chains through their teeth. We were descending at a steady pace down into the depths.

  “How long will this take?”

  “No idea. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  That was an impossible suggestion. I gripped the barrel tight, for no logical reason other than giving me the false illusion that I still had some control. Hendricks rested on the ground with his cane across his lap.

  The cage moved slowly, which I didn’t mind, but my heart was going a million beats a minute and all my bodily functions prepared to throw me a surprise party. I needed a distraction.

  “What are we going to do when we get down there?” I asked.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what they’re doing.”

  His eyes were closed. The cage jangled down for another minute.

  “We should talk to Baxter,” I said. “They might be able to help.”

  “Perhaps.”

  More minutes dropped by as we went further into the dark. The cogs screeched and the chains clanked along, sometimes catching on the teeth. Whenever that happened, it momentarily tipped us slightly sideways, then shook us back to normal. I wanted to scream. Hendricks just smiled to himself, eyes shut, like an experienced sailor cruising through a storm.

  The longer he stayed silent and the further down we went, the busier my mind became: filling up with self-conscious madness and all those questions I’d wanted to ask every day of every year that we’d spent apart. They rolled through my mind, one after the other, like the faces of passengers in a train window. Eventually, my shaking nerves and the clank of the chains became too much and I let some part of the madness tumble out of my mind onto my tongue.

  “Did you see Amari?”r />
  Why did it suddenly seem so quiet?

  “Only once more after you left,” he said finally. “I was having some trouble in the Farra Glades, her home, and called on her assistance. It’s a shame you weren’t there with us. You would have loved it. She would have loved to have you there. It was one of her rare trips away. After the funding for her hospital came through, she mostly stayed in Sunder.”

  “You never saw her back here?”

  “No. Isn’t it funny, though? You spent so many years pining for her, moaning into your whiskey whenever she was away. Then, just when she was about to move to Sunder for good, you took off on a horse and left her behind. But I think she understood why you left.”

  Did she? I wasn’t sure I fully understood why I left.

  “In what way?”

  “I told her what happened when you were young. With the Chimera, I mean. She agreed that it was a misguided and foolish impulse but she empathized with it nonetheless.” His eyes were still closed and the only thing that moved was his scarred mouth, pulled up in an impish grin. “You Humans have such little time to grow up, so you rush it. Too much to prove. Too determined to become something important. It’s why we never got around to bringing your kind into the Opus. You just couldn’t see the world the same way as the rest of us.”

  “Well, we’re all in the same boat now, aren’t we?”

  It came out bitter, because it was. I didn’t like anybody telling me that I was just like the rest of my kind. Even Hendricks.

  He opened his eyes. The smile didn’t fade; it just became more condescending.

  “Where is she?” he asked.

  I stalled. He saw it.

  “Amari,” he specified needlessly.

  “Lark’s mansion. In the main hall. I own the building.”

  I said it like I was proud. That was a mistake. He had to stop himself from laughing.

  “Oh, Fetch, you haven’t changed.” He tilted his head to the side. “I’d like to see her.”

  He said it like he was asking permission. Like I should respond. But I couldn’t. Nobody had been in there. Not anyone.

  But Hendricks had known her longer than I had. He’d introduced us, after all. There was a good chance that, to her, their relationship was far more important than ours.

  So why didn’t I want to take him there? Did I still just want her all to myself? Yes. I didn’t like it but I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t true. It was more than that, though. After seeing how he’d scoffed at the fact that I’d bought the mansion, I was afraid of what he would say when he saw what I’d done.

  Crack!

  The chain snagged on the cog and shook the cage even harder than before. The barrel almost tipped over and I had to wrap my arms around it to keep it upright.

  “Shit!”

  The look on my face sent Hendricks into hysterics. The barrel rocked back and forth and something wet spilled out from under the lid. When things were stable again, I looked inside.

  It was three-quarters full of the thick, syrupy Dragon spit.

  “Is it just me,” asked Hendricks, “or are things getting rather toasty?”

  Finally, the elevator came to a stop and Hendricks stood up. He was right, it had gotten hot. And bright. I pulled open the gate, put my feet on solid ground and took a few deep breaths to settle my stomach.

  “Come on, boy. There’s light up ahead.”

  The clanging was louder now. Closer. We walked forward. The nickel pipes had followed us down and were still running along the roof.

  “What are these bumps about?” I asked. Every now and again, the metal bulged out like something was stuck inside.

  “Fans. They propelled the fire up at a constant rate, pushing it straight into the forges and factories that first shaped this city. They got things moving but they weren’t always reliable. That’s why Sunder switched to Wizardry a few decades later.”

  “Victor Stricken told me about that. Said they used portals to send the fire up to the surface.”

  “Yes. Far more efficient. By the time the Coda happened, all these pipes had been shut off and the fire was transferred entirely by magic.”

  I reached up and touched one. It was scolding hot. I whipped my fingers back before they burned, but the tips were already tingling.

  “Eliah.”

  But he was stepping out of the tunnel into a dome-shaped room with exits in all directions. Pipes everywhere. All of them emanating with heat.

  “What is this place?” I asked.

  “Some maintenance area from back in the early days, I imagine. Look, here…” Hendricks pulled a piece of canvas off a pile of metal barrels. Each container was filled with some kind of propeller. “This is one of the fans from the first system. I suppose they kept replacement parts along the path so they could be swapped out when needed. See what I mean about magic making it easier? A skilled Wizard would be able to make all kinds of changes to the energy flow without setting a single foot underground.”

  He kept going, but I couldn’t help feeling like something about the fans didn’t match up with the story.

  “Eliah, these look brand new.”

  He couldn’t hear me over the clanging. It was almost deafening now, coming from the exit that was responsible for all the flickering light. I caught up with Hendricks as he stepped into a huge room with a high ceiling and metal paths cut into the stone floor. There was another elevator on the far wall with its door hanging open.

  I walked onto one of the metal paths and felt a hot breeze under my chin. There were holes in the floor. The paths were constructed from a metal mesh, like honeycomb. I looked down between my feet to a long drop that went into— Impossible.

  I fell to my knees.

  Impossible.

  “Eliah.” I was shaking. “Eliah, look!”

  He walked over, stood beside me, and gasped.

  I laughed like a madman. Cried at the same time, unable to comprehend the beauty of what I was witnessing. An unbelievable, heavenly miracle.

  Impossible.

  The raging flames of the Sunder City fire pits were burning beneath our feet.

  63

  I was down on all fours feeling the hot metal under my fingers and the rising wind on my face. Beneath us, a burning, bottomless pit of endless flames stretched out in all directions. On the rocky walls of the chasm, molten lava spewed out of chutes and set alight streams of natural gas that went up like flocks of orange birds taking flight.

  Every gust of hot air that went past my face was like a wish being granted; flying off to save the life of someone up above.

  All those cold homes and empty kitchens were going to be full again.

  It was over.

  “They did it,” I said.

  “Did what?”

  “They brought the fires back.”

  Hendricks scoffed. “Unlikely, boy. It seems to me that the fires never went out.”

  The idea pushed its way into my thick skull like a blunt knife through a cold block of cheese.

  “The Coda killed the fires.”

  “Apparently not. It just killed the sorcery that brought them to the surface.”

  Of course. The mechanical fans had been replaced long ago by magical technology. By the time the Coda happened, the lamps, factories, and the whole damn city was plugged into portals, not pipes. When the river froze and the Wizards lost their power, the channels closed up and the flames were trapped below.

  “But… but somebody must have known.”

  “Who would think to come and look? We lost everything in an instant. Friends. Families. The Fae. With all of that gone for good, why would we expect the fires to be any different?”

  He was right. Nobody questioned it because it made too much sense. Ancient Elves died on the streets. Dragons crashed from the sky. Most folks were learning to live in a world where their own bodies didn’t work properly, so what would compel anyone to go check if the fires beneath the city might be the exception? They’d been here the whol
e time, roaring beneath the streets until somebody bothered to look.

  Something had caught Hendricks’ eye. He walked away while I kept blabbering.

  “The Niles Company must have found out somehow. That’s why they’re here. That’s how they’re building again. They’re already using it.”

  “Yes. They’ve been covering their workers in Dragon spit so that they can go down, close to the flames. They’ve been using this power without telling anyone else it exists.” Hendricks’ hand was hovering over one of the pipes. He wrapped his sleeve around his palm and put it against the metal. A split-second later, he pulled it back. “Hot.”

  It was all going to happen just like Thurston said it would. The lights and jobs. Heating in every home. Sunder City was alive again.

  I wanted to scream. To throw my hat in the air like a fool on the stage. I had a grin that threatened to rip my cheeks to pieces.

  But why did Hendricks look so angry?

  “Eliah, this is good news.”

  He tapped his knuckles against the pipe.

  “For who? The Niles Company has convinced everyone that this energy belongs to them. You’ve seen how they operate. You know what their intentions are. Would you hand them all of this power just so you can fill your fireplace again?”

  “No. Of course not. So, we do it just like you said. We expose them. We go to Baxter, get a camera down here and put photos in the papers. People will—”

  “People won’t care. Not if their houses are warm and the trains are running. Not if they can buy automobiles and flashy new firearms. Nobody will give that up willingly. Not here.” He bent down and put his hands around a pickax and tried to lift it. “We have to stop them. Destroy them. Now.” He was straining to get it off the ground. “Help me, boy.”

  I took the pickax from his hands.

  “What are we doing?”

  “We’re beginning our work. We know how they are getting their power. We know what they are using it for. Now, it’s time to stop them.”

  “But…”

  “Destroy the pipe.”

  “Hendricks…”

  “They can’t have many of these operational yet. Putting a hole in this will slow things down considerably.”