Icarus Descending w-3

by Elizabeth Hand

  “Got to be something along here,” Jane muttered. We were taking turns wearing her coat. She stopped to drape it over my shoulders, pulling it carefully around Miss Scarlet. “Ascendants still use this road sometimes, there must be some kind of way-station somewhere—”

  I nodded, too weary to argue. I was thinking that yesterday we should have turned back and retraced our steps to the City. Now it was too late. We would die long before the janissaries had the chance to capture us. Jane seemed to read my thoughts. Silently she turned away.

  I don’t know how long we walked. Hours maybe, certainly all morning and perhaps well into afternoon. I began to see phantom shapes at the corner of my eyes, threads of white like worms wriggling through the air. It wasn’t until I bumped into Jane that I was shaken from my reverie and realized the truth of it.

  “Snow,” I whispered. I turned one raw palm upward.

  “Don’t stop.” She tugged at my arm. Miss Scarlet’s eyes opened and she stared up at us blearily.

  “Is it a full house?” she asked. “Is it my cue?” Jane gave me a warning glance and pulled me after her.

  That was the worst journey of all. Exhausted beyond belief, with no hope of finding warmth or shelter or food, and still fighting through the wind and cold with the snow whirling all about us. A few steps ahead of me trudged Jane, head bowed against the wind, her back and shoulders white. I still wore her coat but could feel no gratitude, nor resentment when she took it back again. I felt nothing but lancing cold. Once I stumbled and fell, and would have lain there until I died had Jane not come back for me. I could see no reason to go on: with Justice dead, and the City taken, and the three of us to perish in the wilderness after having endured so much. But Jane pulled me to my feet and slung one arm over my shoulder, yanking her coat around us and taking Scarlet from my arms. For a long wordless time we staggered on like that. If we traveled more than a mile or two, it was a miracle.

  And then a miracle did occur. Miss Scarlet suddenly opened her eyes and raised her head, then weakly pulled at my sleeve.

  “Wendy,” she croaked. “The fire—mind the fire—”

  I coughed and glanced sideways at Jane, wondering how to deal with this new delirium. But Jane had stopped. Her coat slid from our shoulders to the ground, unheeded.

  “Jane.” I shivered, terrified that madness had seized her as well. “Jane—”

  “…fire,” murmured Miss Scarlet.

  “She’s right,” said Jane. Her eyes were wide and she shook like a dog, snow flying from her arms and shoulders. “Wendy! Look—”

  I thought she was crazy, pointing to where eddies of snow whipped through the trees. But then I took a few shambling steps forward, and the smell came to me, so acrid it made my throat burn. My eyes teared as I turned to Jane.

  “Smoke! But where—”

  She began running, sliding through the snow and once falling to her knees. I bent to retrieve the coat and tried to run after her, but it was like running in a dream: it seemed I scarcely moved. Within a few minutes I had lost sight of them. But then I could hear Miss Scarlet’s plaintive voice and Jane shouting hoarsely.

  “Wendy! It’s a house, come on —”

  I kicked through the snow, following the road where it made a sharp tack to the right; and there it was. A many-storied house like a child’s sickbed vision of Home. Tall, of ancient red brick that had paled to pink over the centuries, its ivied eaves now hoary and rattling in the wind. Several long narrow clapboard ells ran behind it, and the myriad windows in its brick face glowed as though they had been cut from sheets of brass. From its roof a number of chimneys thrust defiantly at the storm, and thick smoke poured cheerfully from several of these.

  I stood dumbfounded. Jane had stopped too and was staring at a sign flapping from a tall iron post.

  SEVEN CHIMNEYS FINE FOOD AND LODGING SINCE 1818

  I started to laugh. Jane looked back at me, her red face cracked by a grin.

  “Come on,” she yelled, and headed for the door.

  “This is insane,” I said through chattering teeth as I followed her. It was a heavy oaken door with an ancient brass knocker shaped like a hand. When Jane let it fall against the wood, it scarcely made a sound. I looked around until I saw a doorbell and pressed it, my finger sticking to the metal. From inside echoed a shrill, unhappy buzzing. Jane stamped like an impatient horse and kicked at the door. From her arms Miss Scarlet stared up in confusion, asking after performance times, until Jane had to shush her. “Fine food and lodging would be wasted on us—” I added through chattering teeth. “If—”

  “Shut up. Someone’s coming.”

  The door swung open. Without waiting Jane swept inside, gasping with relief. I stood for another moment on the steps, until through the snow and steam I could make out a dark figure there in front of me, shaking its head and hastily motioning me inside.

  I stumbled after Jane and heard the door slam shut behind me. A guttural shout; the figure seemed to be calling for help. The voice was hoarse and somehow familiar, but I could focus on little besides warmth and the carpet beneath my feet, thick and soft as hay, and the snow dripping in streams from my legs.

  Whoever had opened the door cried out again, wordlessly. Another moment and I heard a second voice.

  “What on earth is it, Fossa—Sweet Jesus! Giles, come here, hurry!—Fossa, help get them into the parlor—”

  This second voice was commanding but anxious. I was absurdly grateful at how worried it sounded. Strong arms gathered me up as though I were a bundle of rags. Uncommonly strong arms; I felt coarse hair bristling against my cheek, and a dusty sweetish odor like dry leaves. Then I was dropped someplace where all was hot and bright. Someone peeled off my ragged clothes—

  “Good Lord! It’s a girl—”

  —and wrapped me in a heavy soft blanket. Dimly I could hear Jane choking out some sort of explanation—

  “Lost—storm—soldiers in the City—”

  But that commanding voice quieted her, soothing, “Not now, not now, sleep, child, sleep—”

  And then Miss Scarlet piped up, her voice delirious with fear and cold.

  “The Cathedral! Oh Goddess, save us!”

  “Geneslave!” came a hoarse cry from the great figure that had carried me, and Miss Scarlet whimpered.

  “Hush, Fossa—” the other voice rang out. The guttural voice grew still. “Don’t worry, little one, you’re safe here, just try to sleep—”

  More soothing noises; and finally, blissful silence.

  It was the pain that woke me: my hands and feet felt as though they were being sawn off. With a moan I opened my eyes and found myself lying on a long, low couch in front of a huge open hearth where a fire was blazing.

  “Ah! Another sleeper awakes!”

  I blinked, shading my face from the fire and coughing a little. The sweet scent of burning applewood filled my nose, and a gray scrim of smoke hung over everything—obviously the fireplace didn’t draw very well. But after a moment I could focus enough to see my surroundings.

  We were in a large room, with paneled walls of real wood and much furniture, large and ancient but very worn. Heavy tables whose elaborately carved legs were mended with metal struts and joints; kilim-covered hassocks balanced precariously upon three legs; a cracked fire screen leaning against one wall and behind it the blank black face of a video monitor. In the corners lurked more ghostly furniture, covered with white sheets that age had darkened to the color of weak tea. There were many windows, reaching nearly to the ceiling. Outside the storm continued, snow battering against the glass. The casements shook as the wind rose and fell. Looking outside, I shivered, and tore my gaze back to the room.

  Over the fireplace hung a huge painted canvas, as tall as I was, showing a scene in the Romantic style of the twenty-third century. Riders in black and scarlet leaned over the heads of their mounts, tugging at the reins as they urged the animals in pursuit of a lumbering figure that seemed half-man, half-ape. Behind them a
lurid crimson sky had grayed to pink, aided no doubt by that poorly vented fireplace. It was a disturbing painting, though at first I couldn’t pin down why. I stared at it, still half-asleep; then with a start I sat up. I had suddenly focused on the images, realized that the creatures bearing those hunters were themselves half-human, their faces distorted by the bits in their mouths. The effect was grotesquely crude but effective: a primitive form of antigeneslave propaganda. I grimaced and looked away.

  My gaze fell upon the mantel beneath the picture. It was of black marble, and studded with a number of whitish globes, a little larger than my two fists. I couldn’t make out what they were—stones, perhaps, or maybe some kind of pottery, pocked with holes and cracks as though they had been hastily repaired.

  “You admire our artwork?” a voice asked kindly.

  I turned. In the middle of the room a man lounged in an armchair. Beside him, in another, smaller chair, sat Miss Scarlet, a tartan blanket wrapped around her so that only her wrinkled face showed. Without her accustomed crinolines and bonnet, she looked more like a small wild creature than she ever had, except for the tiny glass balanced daintily in one small black paw.

  “Wendy! Are you better? Jane is still asleep, over there behind you, and—Oh!— forgive me—”

  This was to the man, who looked from me to the chimpanzee with calm bemusement. “This is Wendy Wanders,” she went on in her best formal tones. She lifted her head; the tartan fell back to reveal a short stiff mane of black fur. “Wendy, this is Giles.”

  I sat up, pulling the blanket around me and feeling overly conscious of how naked I was beneath it. “Giles,” I said. “You are very— oh —”

  I gasped and drew back onto the couch. On the floor at my feet something moved: such an immense thing that at first it had seemed just a grizzled blur, a carpet or another blanket strewn before the fire. Now it gave a weird ululating cry that I realized was a yawn, stretched, and stood.

  It was an aardman. Nearly identical to the ones that had acted as my guards in the Engulfed Cathedral—that was why it had sounded, and smelled, familiar to me. Man-size, but with powerful forearms knotted with muscle beneath short bristling fur. Its face was a canine mask: blunt snout, heavy brow beneath which intelligent dark eyes regarded me unblinking. Atop its skull small pointed ears ticked forward, as though it strained to hear. Recalling how its fellows had bound me and brought me before the Aviator, I began to shiver uncontrollably.

  The aardman stared at me with those fulvous eyes. I could smell it, a ripe musky scent seeming to grow heavier, thicker, until it would choke me. Seeing my fear, the aardman made a low sound, deep in its throat, then extended its bent-knuckled hands toward me.

  “No harm,” it growled. I shuddered and drew back in my seat.

  “He means he will do you no harm,” the man said softly. “His name is Fossa. He lives with us—not as a slave, but as a friend. Please don’t fear him.”

  I glanced a little desperately at Miss Scarlet. In her tartan blanket and with that little glass balanced in her hand, she looked calm enough; but her black eyes betrayed her own unease. I turned back to the man.

  “Who are you?”

  He leaned forward in his chair. A middle-aged man of medium height, sturdy and with ash-blond hair that nearly hid the gray that streaked it near his temples. He had a fine-boned face with slanted blue eyes, a few of the dark spots that show where one has labored too long and unprotected beneath the poisonous sun. For all that, his face was curiously unlined. Indeed, there was about him an odd sort of youthfulness—his movements were quick and lithe, his voice strong and clear as a boy’s. Only his eyes and graying hair betrayed him. He wore trousers of archaic cut, of heavy checked wool, and a heavy woolen sweater. His hair was long and hung in a braid down his back. He smiled and raised three fingers to his mouth. “Greetings, cousin.”

  “You’re a Paphian!” I had never seen a courtesan of his age before, except bent beneath the weight of a palanquin or begging before one of the seven Paphian Houses on the Hill Magdalena Ardent. “But—you’re old.”

  He grinned. The aardman made a deep guttural sound that might have been laughter. When I tried to stammer an apology the man cut me off. “Please—it’s been twenty years since I left the City,” he began, when—

  “Twenty- three,” interrupted another voice—that of the first man who had brought us inside. I turned to see a figure silhouetted in the doorway. “He was very good at his work, too. Lysandra Saint-Alaban nearly had a fit when I stole him away from them.”

  A Saint-Alaban! That was the Paphian House of my lover Justice—

  “You were—did you know—” I said, then stopped. Because of course he would not, if he had left there twenty-some years ago—a few years even before Justice was born.

  “I am Trevor Mallory,” the second man announced. As he entered the room, the aardman’s body shook, and I saw where its vestigial tail twitched in anxious greeting. “I hope Giles and Fossa have made you comfortable?”

  His drawling voice belied a formal air, in keeping with his clothing: a long haik of sueded leather, heavily embroidered and hung with tassels of yellow silk. I thought he might be some ten or fifteen years older than his companion, but as with Giles it was difficult to guess his age. His hair was white, cut very close to his head, and he had a fine-trimmed white beard. His skin was pink and unlined as a child’s. Gold and silver wires threaded his ears, and he wore a narrow silver enhancer across his eyes. A few feet from the fireplace he paused, removed the enhancer, and cleaned it with a slip of white cloth. A smooth membrane of flesh covered the sockets where his eyes should have been, pierced by two glittering optics that glowed bright blue. I stared at them, marveling. In the City of Trees, not even the Curators had prosthetics that could be said to work successfully. I hadn’t seen an enhancer of any sort since I fled HEL. Carefully he placed it back over his eyes.

  “The heat fogs it up,” he said apologetically. “I’ve tried to get a new one, but you know how it is.”

  From behind me came a faint rustling. I glanced back and saw Jane sitting up in another chair, clutching a heavy comforter to her breast. She stared wide-eyed at Trevor and Giles, then at the aardman, finally at me.

  “Ah, here’s the last one,” Giles announced. A gust of wind rattled the windows, sending a whirl of smoke and ashes from the fireplace to fill the room. Fossa started, growling. Coughing, Giles crossed to the fire and prodded it with a rusted poker. The aardman watched him, then slowly settled back to the floor. He sat there, his legs drawn under him like a dog’s, but with head raised and his chin resting upon one large hand.

  Trevor turned to me, his enhancer glinting softly in the firelight. “Would you like something hot to drink? Tea, or we could heat some wine. Or there’s brandy—not very good, but it doesn’t seem to have killed your friend yet.”

  Miss Scarlet smiled somewhat nervously and raised her glass. “It’s very good, I recommend it.”

  I asked for brandy. Giles passed me on his way to the liquor cabinet. The smell of his sweat cut through that of wood-smoke; but there was another scent as well, something like lemons but more pungent. In a moment it was gone, swallowed by the smoke.

  Jane refused anything and asked after her clothes and pistol.

  “They’re drying in the kitchen,” Trevor explained. “Your gun’s there, too—it’s safe, we’ve got quite enough of our own, thank you.”

  Jane frowned but said nothing. Trevor yawned noisily, then settled into a large armchair near the fire. Its torn leather arms had been patched with plastic tape, but he fit comfortably in it and sighed as he leaned back, adjusting his enhancer. “Now: who goes first? You or us?”

  “Oh, them, I think,” Giles said airily. He grinned and handed me a brandy snifter. I took a sip and winced. The liquor was raw but powerful, and had a pleasantly woodsy aftertaste. “We put it up ourselves, but that was before the grapes were blighted—what was it, ten years ago?—a viral strike right here, the very fir
st if you can believe it, we’ve been so lucky. The animals were all right but the plants died. They’ve still never come back as they were before.” He turned to me, his blue eyes wide. “But you—where did you all come from?”

  I hesitated, wondering if it was wise to betray our history. But it seemed we had no choice, and certainly our hosts appeared friendly. Even the aardman on the floor sat calmly, staring up at me with sharp foxy eyes.

  So we told them, Miss Scarlet and I interrupting each other at first, Jane gradually cutting in with her own details of the fall of the City of Trees: the Mad Aviator who had commandeered the armory in the Cathedral; the bloody rituals he had devised there, setting up my twin, Raphael Miramar, as some kind of dark god; the murder of so many innocent Paphians and other revelers during the feast of Winterlong. And finally, what had seemed to be the revelation of some true god on Saint Alaban’s Hill, where the Aviator had died.

  “We left the City then,” Miss Scarlet finished. She tilted her head and sighed. “We have no idea, really, what we left behind us. When we looked back, it seemed the City was in flames—”

  “Ascendant janissaries,” Jane said darkly. Despite refusing the brandy, she had warmed enough to our hosts to move her chair closer to the little circle gathered in front of the fire. “We saw them—fougas and other airships. Gryphons, I think—Wendy recognized them from HEL—”

  “HEL?” Giles said sharply. He and Trevor exchanged glances, and Fossa’s ears pricked up. “The Human Engineering Laboratory?”

  I glared at Jane, then nodded reluctantly. The men looked at me with new interest, Giles frowning a little. When after a minute they still said nothing, I pulled the hair back from my temples to display the scars left from the experimental surgery I had been subjected to by Dr. Harrow.

  “You were interned there?” Trevor asked. I knew there were no human eyes behind that enhancer, but still I could feel his gaze on me, a heat that was almost painful.