City of Miracles

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  He’d expected the girl to react violently, yet she sat there, blinking slowly, absorbing it all but not saying a word. She still hasn’t said a word since he started talking. For some reason her stillness feels worse than any amount of rage.

  “It doesn’t just sound mad,” says Ivanya. “It sounds madder than mad. All of it does.”

  “I know,” says Sigrud. “I know it feels like I walked out the door just an hour ag—”

  “But it doesn’t feel like that,” says Ivanya. “That’s what happened.”

  “I knew when I came to you both,” he says forcefully, “that we were playing with forces that were greater than ourselves. But now I am starting to get some idea of how great.”

  “Yes, great enough to…I don’t know, stitch two moments together like pieces of cloth….” Ivanya laughs dully. The sound is animated in the air by the smoke from her lips. “I’m so happy to have the Divine as an ally.”

  “An ally…” says Taty softly.

  The two of them glance at her uncertainly. Those are the first words she’s spoken in a good while.

  “Yes,” says Sigrud reluctantly. “An ally.”

  “I see,” says Taty. She sits up a little. “And…and when, exactly, were you going to tell me about that? It’s one thing to find out your mother used to be some kind of intelligence agent, quite another to find out she was assassinated by a god!”

  “A god who’s also after us,” says Ivanya.

  “Yes,” says Sigrud, trying to change the subject. “We cannot stay here any longer.”

  “And your Divine little friend—she says we need to get to Bulikov to escape him?” asks Ivanya.

  “In five days,” he says. “Yes.”

  “That’s not much time,” says Ivanya. “That’s no time, really. The only thing I’d trust to get us there is the express train.”

  “How long does that take?” asks Sigrud.

  “Four days, if the weather is decent. Which, it being the Continent in autumn, it likely won’t be.”

  “Then we shall have to hope for five, and that will have to do.”

  “Are you hearing yourselves?” says Taty, horrified. “Discussing train timetables like you’re planning for a holiday? You’re insane. You’re all insane! If any of this is true, then you’ve…” She shakes her head as she struggles with it. He can tell she doesn’t want to believe it, but he can also tell that she does. “You’ve been hiding things from me all along! The whole damned world’s been hiding things from me all along!”

  “Taty,” says Sigrud. “I know it is a lot, but—”

  “A lot?” says Taty. “A lot? You…You knew who’d killed my mother and didn’t tell me! You knew who was out to kill me, and you didn’t even tell me that! What kind of a person are you?”

  “What good would it have done?” says Sigrud. “What could you do, besides sit up sleepless and anxious every night and every day? You will know what you need to kn—”

  “I’m not your damned secret agent!” says Taty. She stands and sticks her finger out at him. “You don’t feed me only the information that I need! I didn’t opt into this, I didn’t ask for it, and you’ve no right to treat me like I did! There’s still more that you aren’t telling me, I can feel it. Both of you. The way you look at each other, the way you say things…”

  Ivanya does a good job of not glancing at Sigrud, though she is trying very hard to smoke a cigarette that’s now mostly ash.

  “Taty…” says Sigrud.

  “The way I see it,” says Taty, stepping closer to Sigrud, “you need to get me on that express train very quick indeed. But what if I don’t go? What if I refuse to leave? What then, eh?”

  “I was ordered to protect you,” he says, bristling. “Not to keep you comfortable. I can throw you in a trunk and drag you along if I need to.”

  “And what gives you the right?” says Taty. “Why should you get to tell us what to do?”

  “Because I’ve survived!” says Sigrud. “I’m still around to be here for you! You may not like what I do, and I might not like it either, but it works!”

  “Does it?” says Taty. “It didn’t work for Mother! Who else has it failed? Who else has it let down?”

  “That is why I’ve been training you!” says Sigrud, shouting so loud his side hurts. “That’s why I’ve been showing you how to defend yourself!”

  “What do you mean?” says Taty.

  “I…I am showing you so when the time comes, you will know what to do, and you won’t wind up like…”

  Sigrud stops, startled, and trails off.

  The silence stretches on. Ivanya and Taty watch him, tense.

  “Like who?” says Taty.

  Sigrud slowly sits back in his chair.

  “Like who, Sigrud?” says Taty, now genuinely puzzled.

  He blinks and looks down at his hands. They’re trembling. Little white half-moons are fading on his palms—indentations from where his fingernails were digging into his flesh.

  Sigrud swallows. He stares into the table for a long, long time. Neither of the women move.

  He quietly says, “You…You are right.”

  The two women look at each other. “Who is?” says Ivanya.

  “Taty.” His voice is strained and hoarse. “I should not play games, or keep secrets. I should not…hide from you.” He looks at her balefully. “The Divine children have been hiding for many years among Continental orphans. Many of them did not even know they were Divine. Our enemy has been killing them one by one. And he thinks you are one such child.”

  Taty stares at him. She looks back at Ivanya, who walks to the kitchen, takes out a teacup, and promptly fills it to the brim with potato wine.

  “He does?” asks Taty, bewildered.

  Sigrud nods.

  “So…he thinks that I’m…I’m Divine?”

  He nods again.

  Ivanya downs the potato wine in a single gulp.

  Taty laughs—a single, short sound of scornful disbelief. “You’re joking.”

  He shakes his head.

  “What, he thinks I have magic powers? He thinks I can fly, or…or walk through walls?”

  “I do not know what he thinks you can do,” says Sigrud. “Only what he thinks you are.”

  “And why does he think that?”

  “Because…Because you bear a very strong resemblance to the girl I met at the shipwreck.”

  “What, this Malwina girl?”

  He nods.

  “Oh, so because I look like a girl, I must be like her?” she says. “Is that it?”

  “She denied it too,” says Sigrud. “But her opinion does not matter. Nor does mine, or yours. Only his, and what he plans to do about it.”

  “Which is…what? Eat me up? Like a creature from an old story?”

  “Something like that.”

  She laughs again and slowly sits back down. “Unbelievable. It’s all so stupid. All so bloody stupid.”

  “Do you see why I did not wish to tell you?” asks Sigrud. “Did you see that I didn’t want to scare you, to—”

  “Scared?” says Taty, her cheeks coloring. “Scared? I’m not scared, Sigrud!”

  “Then…what?” says Ivanya.

  “I’m…I’m angry!” says Taty. “I’m angry that…that all this happened over such a stupid idea! Such a stupid, ridiculous, nonsense idea! The idea that I could…That I could do more, that I could be more, or that I could ever want to be more! Do you know what I want? Do you know what I really want right now?”

  “No,” says Sigrud.

  “I want to go home,” says Taty. Her eyes fill with tears, but her words are firm. “I want to go home, and sit at the breakfast table with my mother, and read the newspaper with her. Right now, there is nothing in the world I can think of, no magic power or fantastical afterlife, that could ever be any better than that. I want my life to be normal again. I liked being normal. And if I had any Divine powers, I would…I would put all of them toward getting that back.” She sit
s in silence. “But it’s not coming back, is it.”

  “No,” says Sigrud.

  “And now we have to run again?”

  “Yes.”

  Another miserable laugh. “Do you know what it’s like, to lose everything in an instant?” Taty asks. “To lose normal overnight?”

  “Yes,” says Sigrud.

  “Yes,” says Ivanya.

  Taty blinks tears away and looks at them both. “You…You do?”

  Ivanya walks over, sits opposite her, and sighs deeply. “Yes, dear. Us and many, many others.”

  “But…How do you do it?” asks Taty, sniffling. “How did you just…just keep going?”

  “We can try to show you,” says Sigrud. He stands and walks over to her. “But first, Taty, we need to move. Quickly.”

  He holds his hand out to her. She looks at it for a moment, then reaches out and takes it.

  Ivanya opens the trunk, showing him where the clothes hangers can hook on, the little drawers where the shoes can be stored. “Looks normal, yes?” she says.

  “Yes?” says Sigrud.

  “But…” She reaches into the back, undoes some clasp, and the entire back of the trunk opens up, revealing a hidden compartment that is obviously meant to store firearms. “See? There we go. It’s got capacity for two long riflings, broken down, maybe a scatter-gun, and probably three to four pistols. We need to secure them with these ties here, so they don’t rattle….”

  Sigrud nods, impressed. “Sometimes you give me pause, Ivanya Restroyka. It’s like you were preparing for an invasion.”

  “Oh, and what happened in Voortyashtan wasn’t an invasion? When all those Divine soldiers almost rowed ashore and started slaughtering everyone?”

  “Fair point.” He points at two smaller clasps in the back of the trunk. “What are those for? Blades? Rapiers?”

  “Yes,” says Ivanya with a sniff. “Do you know, I’m actually much better with a sword than I am with a firearm? Fencing is a time-honored ladies’ sport in Bulikov. Mother drilled me quite mercilessly in the art. But, like everything Bulikovian, it’s hopelessly out of date. Only a fool goes to battle with a sword these days.”

  She walks around her bed to her chest of drawers. Ivanya Restroyka’s bedroom, much like Ivanya herself, is bare, stark, and economical, only possessing enough to do what is necessary. He regularly forgets he’s in the room with the richest woman on the Continent. “I’d take a damned cannon to Bulikov if I could,” she says, opening up her drawers and pulling out clothes. “I have a house there, but I never use it. Used to be Vo’s, just like a quarter of the damned city. I can’t stand to be within those walls anymore. But I suppose I’ll have to try.”

  “I have heard the city has changed.”

  “Oh, it’s changed. Just like everything else, Bulikov’s changed as well. But…Ah.” She reaches into one drawer and takes out a slender, sparkling black dress. She unfolds it and holds it up to the light. It’s old and lined, but still beautiful, a relic of some past era of her life. She smiles at it, a sad, wistful expression, then holds it up to herself, pressing it against her wiry frame. “Think it still fits?”

  Sigrud looks at Ivanya Restroyka. He takes in her lean, hard face, her neck long and smooth, her eyes bright and brittle like flint. “I do, actually,” he says.

  “Shows a lot of shoulder. Shoulders that probably aren’t much to look at after a few years spent out here.” She sighs, perhaps remembering better days, then slowly places it back in the drawer. “Bulikov might have changed, Sigrud, but like so many things, it can’t forget what’s happened to it. It is still what it was. And that can’t change. So I shall step lightly.”

  “I see,” says Sigrud quietly.

  “Do you have any clothes?”

  “Not beyond what I packed for the sea voyage,” says Sigrud. “And that will have to do.”

  Taty walks to the door with a suitcase at her side. She’s dressed absurdly, like a schoolgirl dressed for a trip to the mountains during holiday, but Sigrud refrains from commenting on this. “It feels mad to be going to Bulikov on a whim like this,” she says. “The oldest city in the world…And we have to get there in five days?”

  “Yes,” says Sigrud.

  She scratches her chin. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that….Why not take the aero-tram?”

  He frowns. “The…The what?”

  Ivanya scoffs as she packs her trunk. “I said the express was the only thing I trusted. And I do not trust that…contraption.”

  “It’s not a contraption,” says Taty. “I read all the financing papers on it. It’s an engineering marvel! Why not take that? It can get us there in three days in any weather at all!”

  “Because it’s madness!” says Ivanya.

  Taty sighs heavily. “Auntie Ivanya simply doesn’t trust progress. I keep telling her that Bulikov’s different—and she ought to know, since she’s financing a lot of what’s new!”

  “I can hope a thing has changed,” snaps Ivanya, “while still not believing it has!”

  Sigrud holds up a hand. “What is this? This…aero-tram?”

  “You don’t know?” says Ivanya. “It’s the biggest thing to happen to the Continent this decade, for better or worse.” She slams a drawer shut. “In my opinion, the latter.”

  Taty waves a dismissive hand at Ivanya. “Have you ever been mountain skiing, Sigrud? You know the lifts they use to get people up the mountain? Well, it’s like that, but done on a massive scale, going straight to Bulikov over the mountains. And it departs from the very same station that all the major trains use.”

  He scratches his head. “They have…a big ski lift that carries people to Bulikov?”

  “Basically, yes,” says Ivanya. “I’ve heard the toilets are a nightmare.”

  “It’s a lot easier to mount towers on mountains than it is to blast a tunnel through them for trains,” says Taty. “And though we had rails around the hard part of the Tarsils, connecting Ahanashtan to Bulikov, no one had a direct route in between. That’s when someone proposed the aero-tram. It’s like the railroad but hundreds of feet above the ground, with cars holding twenty, thirty people running along huge cables!”

  “It’s very popular,” says Ivanya in a tone that suggests she feels quite the opposite.

  “It is,” says Taty. “It’d get us there in three days flat. It was partially designed by SDC, so it’s about as reliable as anything.”

  Sigrud is quiet for a while. “SDC? The Southern Dreyling Company?”

  “What else?” asks Taty.

  He thinks for a moment. He remembers going to his daughter’s workroom in Voortyashtan, the giant loft filled with blueprints of all the things she’d ever designed, most of them unbuilt.

  Could this have been among them? Is this strange machine Ivanya and Tatyana are describing something Signe dreamed up when she was alive?

  He shakes himself, returning to the subject. “So we would be dangling from a little train car,” he says, “hundreds of feet above the ground. For three days.”

  “Yes,” says Taty.

  A pause.

  “Ah,” says Sigrud. “No.”

  “No to what?” says Taty.

  “To all of it. To everything you just said.”

  Her shoulders slump. “But it’d be so much faster….”

  “No. The train we know. We will take the express.”

  “If we can even get into the train station,” says Ivanya, snapping up the trunk. “If this enemy of ours is as clever as you say, Sigrud—surely he’ll be wise enough to watch the station?”

  Sigrud frowns, for this has been something that’s concerned him since he met Malwina. “How many firearms fit in that trunk?”

  “Six total.”

  “Good. Choose carefully. Because we may need them.”

  They arrive at the train station at 0500 the next day, before dawn. Ivanya and Tatyana are yawning and rubbing sleep from their eyes. There’s barely any light to see by. Sigrud slouches low in t
he auto, looking at the gates, the doors, the glass roof of the giant train station. It’s a madhouse even at this hour as Ahanashtanis come pouring in, caps clapped to their heads, valises and briefcases and packs clutched tight. He grimaces as he watches their silhouettes sprint through the turnstiles. Any one of them could be one of Nokov’s, he thinks.

  But does Nokov have an army? Sigrud strongly suspects he doesn’t. The Saypuri Military, and the intelligence industry that’s grown up around it, are quite a lot of things, but Continental collaborators and saboteurs…that’s a stretch. It seems more likely that Nokov has but a handful of active agents operating from within the Ministry. Not enough to watch every road and train station on the Continent—so perhaps the madhouse ahead will be safe.

  He looks north, to where the…thing begins. He’s never seen such a machine before in his life. He has no real word for what he’s seeing, though he supposes “aero-tram” will have to do. He remembers he saw it from the train when he first came to Ahanashtan—when was that? It must have been mere days ago but it now feels like years—and at the time he thought it was some kind of electric utility pole, only far, far too tall.

  But now he hears the engines whirring and grinding, and he watches as the thick cables haul a bronzed, egg-shaped capsule into the air, the windows glowing with cheerful yellow light. The capsule shrinks as it climbs until the windows are indistinguishable from the stars still visible in the sky, except that these little pinpricks of light begin slowly crawling north.

  Sigrud starts to think up a backup plan, just in case. It’s a very bad backup plan. But it’s better to have a bad one than no one at all.

  “You’re sure we have the tickets for the express train?” he asks.

  “Yes,” says Ivanya. “There are some benefits to being rich. We’ve got the whole cabin to ourselves. It departs at 0730, as always.”