Thunderer

by Felix Gilman

  “I’ve heard the ballads about Greeley. He was much loved, for a crimelord.”

  “They were about all of us. Used to pay the girls to sing them to us in the bars. Welcome everywhere. This is still before. Drank all around town. Smart boy. Joe, Bill, Hod, Owney, all with me. All over the city, place to place, every night. Lights and smoke and drink and singing. Like you, see? Singing.”

  “Perhaps. I suppose so.”

  “Owney got killed on business in Goshen. Greeley died locked up in the Iron Rose. I got married, but the girl died in childbed. A fever hit the Ward in ’44. They closed all the places I knew. Sailor, Star ’n Garter. The Howling Wolf.”

  “And then you worked for Mose?”

  “Not the same. Still on top, I was, mind you. Under Mose. That Haycock thinks he’s so hard. I was the real thing. Hurt people. Made them afraid. Point is, it was harder. Colder. Lonely. Too much competition, had to get nasty. Not the dashing young rogue anymore. Older. A bully. Hated and feared. No more drinking and singing. That’s it. That’s what it was. So we went looking. Me and Hod. Down where the Howling Wolf used to be.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “The Horned Man. Red-Beard. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I’ve read about it. A power of drink and revel.”

  “That’s right. They said he was twenty feet tall. They said he drank out on the Heath or on the Wilding Moor or down in Garhide or the ’Machy’s warrens. Crew of mad wild women. Dangerous. Loud. No one ever saw him themselves, but they knew a man who knew a man who had. They said you might, maybe, see him anywhere, any boozer in the city, he could come barreling on through, no warning, cloud of music and shouting with him.”

  “You wanted to find it. To get back what you had, even if it was only for a moment.”

  “They said he’d come through like a blast of wild wind and everyone would go with him. Taken. Who knows where?”

  “Is that what happened to you?”

  “No. Yes. Me and Hod, we knew how to look. Found a man in Stammer Gate. A scholar. Lived in a tower up over the square. Kept bats and birds. Paid him what we got from Mose. He told us how. We went down to where the Wolf used to be and we started there, ’cause that’s where we last saw Owney, and he was one of us when it was good. We went up to the Star. Then the Whistler. Every place we went, we threw more money at the crowd.”

  “Did they forgive you?”

  “No. I mean, maybe. Not at first. To the Compass and the Lion. The Mineshaft. They hated me there in them days. Good reason, too. But they were cheering for me that night. But they were all blurry; wasn’t just the drink. Up to the Hesperus. To Shecky’s place, as never had no name, even in the good days. We took the door out the back, I remember, and we went up these stairs between two, two…” He gestured oddly, steepling his hands sharply against each other, “See? And we went into this place where it was like the old crowd was there. It was like they were all young again. I swear Owney was there. Danced with a woman I’d have sworn was my wife.”

  “Could I follow this route, to find this god?”

  “No. The gentleman made it special for us. It was places that meant something to us, see? Wouldn’t do nothing for you. Anyway, we went out that place through a back door when the bell rang. There was another place under the arches. And another, when the bells rang again. Must have been days, but it was still dark. The places we were in, I don’t know, there was one that was lit so bright, but not by fire. There was a place with the strangest damn music, and clothes. There was a time when I think we was out on the moor, but it was so dark, you couldn’t see nothing but the fire. And women dancing round it, all bare. Sounds nice, son, I know, but it wasn’t.”

  “You were getting closer to the god. Did you see it?”

  “I saw Him. On a stone bench. Just in a place, looked like the Compasses, a bit. He looked like—so big, but not tall or wide, or…All these people with him, and they were all like me. Following. I wasn’t special. They loved Him so much.”

  Arjun waited. Eventually, Norris spoke again, emphatically, as if sick of talking.

  “I don’t have a way with words. Haycock could tell you what it was like. But I saw Him. I was with Him for a long night, a bloody good night, as good as it ever was; couldn’t ever be the same afterwards. And Hod never came back, and I came back in the end, woke up out in the ’Machy in some trash heap, in ’58, ’59. I know I haven’t been right since. I know. The god took all my strength with Him. We shouldn’t have tried to use Him; He wasn’t safe. Nothing’s right since. No point in anything now, right? Came to this fucking place to wait it all out.”

  He picked up a stone from the street, and turned it over in his grubby fingers. “None of it’s the same anymore. None of it’s real, either; when we were with Red-Beard, everything changed around us and everything was new all the time. Now I know none of it’s real.” Without warning, Norris flailed back his arm and threw the stone across the street. A window broke loudly. “See?” he said.

  Heady and Clement came running back. Heady held Norris’s arm while Clement asked him, “What did you do that for?” Norris babbled incoherently; his brief articulacy had vanished. Arjun hung back.

  W hen Arjun went back to his room that night, he struck a match in the dark and lit the candle on his shelf. There was an envelope tucked underneath. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It was plain, thin, and brown. His own name was written on it, in a round, characterless, childish hand.

  There was a tingle in his chest and at the back of his head. A faint tugging. He felt a black weight at the other end of a quivering silvery line. The Spider, or one of its agents, had sent this. A strange sort of welcome to the city.

  He looked at it for a long time. He knew that if he opened it, he would do what it told him. Would it put him on the path to finding the Voice? Probably not. From what Defour had said, it would be something utterly arbitrary. That was the point.

  If he opened the letter, he would most likely be giving up the search for the Voice. But it was tempting. That search felt stillborn, hopeless; the Spider would set him on another path. Any path, any purpose. Perhaps one that could replace the Voice.

  Behind him, there was a knock on the open door and Haycock walked in. Arjun clutched the envelope in both hands and made as if to hide it behind his back, like a child caught stealing, before getting control of himself.

  “It’s midnight, Mr. Haycock. What do you want?”

  “It’s morning,” Haycock said. And he was right: Arjun looked at dawn light on the dome of Haycock’s head. He began to speak, but Haycock interrupted, “Put that nonsense away,” and snatched the envelope out of Arjun’s hands and skimmed it away across the floor into the dust under the bed. Arjun felt a presence leaving the room. “Got a man I want you to meet. Make yourself useful, see if we can’t do something with you yet. Get your coat.”

  T hey trudged across the Heath in the cold morning light, Haycock stamping muddy footprints into the dewy grass, and scaring the birds out of the trees with bouts of snarling, calling curses upon the names of all his competitors and customers. They followed the path that ran around the base of the hill and then up through a high fence of trees to the walls of the Countess Ilona’s estate.

  Arjun had been unsure he wanted to go with Haycock, until the little man had told him they were visiting the Countess’s estate, and that he might be able to get Arjun into the Countess’s presence. Haycock wouldn’t say who it was he wanted Arjun to meet; when Arjun asked, he just tapped his nose and said, “Trade secret, for now. See how it all works out, won’t we?” All he would say was that he had an appointment with a customer.

  “This is my boy,” Haycock told the man at the gate. “Too old for an apprentice, I know, but he’s simple. Can’t be picky in my position. Ambitious young lads do not queue up for this post, you may be surprised to hear. Let us through, then.”

  “My friend is joking. My name is Arjun, of Gad. I represent the Choristry,
a power from far to the south. I am here to pay my respects to the Countess. I bring gifts from the Choristry.”

  The guard put down his pike and searched them. Arjun was wearing his black Choirman’s robe for the occasion. When the guard was satisfied, a footman walked with them across the gardens and courtyards and into the Countess’s sprawling mansion. They passed through the mirrored halls and climbed the broad stairs into the tower. The footman slipped through the doors to the Countess’s room, leaving them waiting outside.

  A man in uniform emerged. A drawn, miserable face and a black armband clashed with his medals and rich brocade.

  “That’s Captain Arlandes,” Haycock said. “See the mourning-clothes? Funny story there…”

  The footman emerged. “Mr. Arjun, of Gad, the Countess will see you now. Mr. Haycock, Professor Holbach is with her.”

  A man who must be Holbach stood by the window, looking through a golden telescope out over the Heath. The Thunderer hung outside, over the estate. A richly dressed white-faced woman who could only be the Countess was stretched out on the sofa like a jeweled snake, smoking a cigarette.

  Haycock sidled over to Holbach, trying to bow to Ilona and avoid drawing her attention in the same sideways motion. Arjun bowed low before Ilona’s sofa. There were little flakes and creases in the white around her lips; he tried not to notice.

  Holbach took Haycock aside and hissed at him. “Mr. Haycock, I told you not to interrupt when I’m with the Countess. I will see you in my office later.”

  Craning up close to Holbach’s ear, Haycock whispered, “There’s someone I want you to see. A business prospect.” He jerked a thumb at Arjun, then flinched to see the Countess glaring at him from her disturbed repose. A belated awareness of monstrous faux pas crept across his face.

  “Haycock? Is that your name, creature? I can and will have you flensed, literally flensed, if you bring your business in here again. What were you thinking? What was my guard thinking? This is not the place. I stay my hand now only as a favor to the Professor, who seems to find you useful.”

  Both Holbach and Haycock showered the Countess with ful-some gratitude, Haycock managing to have slipped out of the room at the end of his performance. Holbach went back to his telescope.

  Arjun kneeled before the sofa, and began. He praised Ararat; he praised the Countess’s mansion and beauty and leadership. Ilona rolled her eyes. “You are not required to kneel. Please stand.” Arjun hurriedly stood.

  He told her of the Choristry’s skill in medicine and science, the respect in which it was held over all the broad plains, its great wealth. He carefully made no definite promises, but he tried to hint that he could make it worth her while to help him. Ilona gave him a look to indicate that her interest was piqued, if only in the tiniest degree.

  Arjun praised her power: clearly, he said, she was the foremost of the city’s potentates. Her territories were very great and rich, and here in the heart of the city, by the Bay; an enviable position, one the Choristry respected. He gestured widely with his hand. Out of the window, his eye caught the floating bulk of the Thunderer. “Your ship is a miracle. I have stood below it; it hangs over the city like a loving and angry god. You have put a new god into the city’s sky.”

  “That’s an interesting way to put—” Holbach said.

  Ilona cut him off with a snap of her fingers. “What do you want, man?”

  Hastily, Arjun rushed into his story. “I have come in search of a Voice that sang high above our Choir….”

  Ilona sat through his story. When he was finished, she threw herself back into the sofa and held a pale hand to her head. “You bore me after all. How disappointing. Our city is already adequately supplied with lunatics, thank you. Good day to you. Go trudge the streets with the other broken, god-addled wretches. Professor, please call the guard.”

  N o one was going to help him. The city was closed to him, and he was without friends. Perhaps he could make his own path into the city; and he could light that path, so that he might draw the Voice to him.

  Arjun stopped in Moore Street that evening, and listened to the broken old man on the corner play his hurdy-gurdy and stamp his foot. Arjun did not give him money. Instead, he sat down with him and hummed a tune to him. It was a simple tune, adapted for the clumsy wheezing machine the man played, but it had a trace of the Voice in its melody, a distant echo. Arjun showed him where to put his fingers and sat with him until he could play it. He left him playing it over and over again.

  Arjun watched as a grey-suited clerk came out of a pub and passed the hurdy-gurdy, reeling slightly, threw the old man a coin, and walked on humming a fragment of the tune.

  A ragged child ran down Moore Street, rattling a stick along the railings and drumming it on the hollow boards. He stopped for a moment by old Lagger, the hurdy-gurdy man, and listened to his tune, rapping his stick in time with the rhythm. It was nice. Then on again, counting down the buildings. Third one down from what’s left of the Black Moon, round the back, into the garden.

  A shape formed out of the shadows behind him and grabbed his arm. There was a moment of struggle, then a knife appeared in the larger boy’s hand. It was a tiny, sharp fishmonger’s knife. The child went limp and still.

  “I’m here for Silk. I’m not here to steal nothing.”

  “What’s your name? What do you want? Who told you?”

  “Een. Lads down at the docks. From the Nessene’s shelter down there. Hagley, Bill, Shutter? They said you had food? I’m not useless. I used to steal for Thin Mag. I was in the Tallow House, and I got out, all on my own.”

  “Who’s Thin Mag? Why’re you here, if she’s so great?”

  “Why d’yer think?”

  The larger boy put his knife into his jacket pocket and let go of Een’s arm. “Namdi,” he said, gesturing to himself. “So is it true about them, then? Are they as bad as they say?”

  “Dunno. Prob’ly. Is it true what they say about your boss?”

  Namdi smiled. “Maybe. We’ll see.”

  F iss came up and joined Jack on the roof, where he sat watching the first stars come out. There had been no stars in the House.

  “All right, Silk?” Jack shrugged, and Fiss went on, “There’s a new boy downstairs. Namdi found him skulking about. Name of Een. Looks all right. Wants to see the amazing flying lad. From some lot down at the docks. Forced out by the white robes.”

  “All right. I’ll see him later.”

  “Catch,” Fiss said, tossing a package to Jack, who caught it without looking. “He brought these with him. Not bad, eh?”

  It was a bundle of cigarettes, held together by a red ribbon. Each dun tube was stamped with a gilt seal in a foreign script. Een must have stolen them from a ship down at the docks.

  “Are we collecting tribute now, then?” Jack said.

  “Well, the boy wanted to trade something for his shelter. To show he’s not useless. Can’t see the harm in taking them. And it’s not bad, is it?”

  “It’s not bad,” Jack said, throwing the bundle back. “If he’s good, and he knows his way around the docks, we can use him. I’ll talk to him tomorrow.”

  “Right then.” Fiss lit up one of the cigarettes and leaned against the chimney. They looked out over the roofs in silence as the evening sky darkened.

  “Fiss? You still there? You smell burning?”

  There was a muffled crash of breaking glass. A stink of burning wood. A crest of flame flared up from the roofs at the other end of the street. Jack ran to the other side of the roof and looked out over Moore Street, watching intently.

  Fiss stood behind him. “That’s the place on the corner. The baby-killer woman, the ’bortionist.”

  The wind took the greasy smoke down the street. Just ahead of the smoke came a group of small figures in ghostly white. Jack counted them by the torches in their hands: fifteen, perhaps twenty. He watched them stop a few doors away. Old Lagger was frantically trying to put his hurdy-gurdy away and gather up his hat and coins. One o
f the white figures rushed up to him and pushed him over and started kicking and kicking.

  “Fiss,” Jack said. “Get the lads.”

  B y the time they made it downstairs and outside, the white-robed youths were at the Cypress. Some of them had gone inside, Jack saw. There were about ten of them in the street. Their heads were shaved and their faces were streaked with soot. He thought they were no older than him, but it was hard to tell.

  One of them stepped forward. A red burn stained his stubbled head. “Who are you?”

  “Who are you? This is our street.”

  Burn-mark looked confused and upset. He wasn’t expecting resistance, Jack could see. Burn-mark started saying something stupid, something conciliatory. Jack wasn’t listening. Burn-mark wasn’t in control here. The white robes behind Burn-mark weren’t listening either. They were steadying their brands and preparing to rush, whatever Burn-mark said. Jack drew his beautiful knife. He had no idea how to hold a knife for fighting. He held it point up, in front of his face, and hoped for the best.

  They came at him, surging past Burn-mark, who stood there stupidly for a moment before joining the rush.

  Fiss, Aiden, Namdi, all of them, hung back. Of course they did, he thought. None of them were fighters, were they, not really? Not even Namdi, though he liked to think so. Nor was Jack, but here he was. It was too late to back away without disgrace. He had no choice but to stand his ground. No, more: he had to move forward, to face it willingly. He ran at them.

  A heavy brand fell at his face. It was slow, and he stepped back easily. Another came down over his shoulder, and he twisted away. Burn-mark was there, lifting his brand in both hands. Jack watched them thoughtfully. He reached out casually with his knife and flicked a scar across Burn-mark’s blotched face. He watched Burn-mark stagger back, raising his hand to his face, dropping his brand. Jack reached over and made the same lazy mark on the face of the white robe next to him, along a shaven jaw that was slowly opening in a bellow of outrage. A hand slowly approached, reaching to seize his shirt. He leaned away, and drew the knife along the grasping arm, opening the folds of the robe. For what seemed like a very long time, he watched bright blood well from the wound.