Icarus Descending w-3

by Elizabeth Hand

  For Miss Scarlet and me Giles had made a compote of last year’s dried apples and the first wild strawberries, tiny fruits no bigger than a drop of blood squeezed from your fingertip. For Fossa there was lamb, cooked very rare, and a bottle of wine for us to share. We sat in a circle on the floor to eat, and again I thought of my life at the Human Engineering Laboratory, stealing food with my friends and holding impromptu parties in the middle of the night. Only now dread choked all my thoughts, as the night wind rose up outside, and the first tentative cries of whippoorwills echoed from the woods.

  We drank the wine slowly, me taking rather more than my share, until finally the nearly empty bottle remained in my lap. As I ate, I perused the label curiously. It was printed on the same kind of grayish, pulpy paper that adorned the packets of cigarettes Giles doled out, with gold lettering and a colored drawing of what appeared to be some sort of darkened chamber set about with spikes of red and yellow and blue.

  Iχocpυσ

  Free Take of Cassandra

  “Cassandra again,” I said, frowning. Miss Scarlet looked at me with raised eyebrows. “Where the cigarettes come from. That place in the mountains.” I shifted the bottle between my knees and pointed to the arcane symbol of the pyramid and the word beneath it. “What does that mean?”

  Miss Scarlet squinted at it. “I don’t know. It’s ancient Greek, I think. But that—” One black skinny finger tapped the image of the pyramid and the eye. “ That I recognize. It was on currency in the United States—we used some once as a prop in Our Town. ” She pursed her lips and peered more closely at the label. “And this here, this other picture—that’s a cave.”

  “A cave?” I took the bottle and squinted at it. If I looked closely, I could just make out several tiny, tiny figures within the darkened chamber. They seemed to be holding up something in their hands, staring at the spikes hanging around them.

  “Yes,” said Miss Scarlet with certainty, nodding so that the dark fur rippled on her shoulders and scalp. She glanced over at Fossa. He stared back at her with slanted eyes and nodded.

  “Cave,” he growled.

  “I’ve seen pictures of them,” Miss Scarlet went on. “When we did that version of Macbeth. And at the Zoo there was a habitat for bats. It was supposed to be a cave. It looked somewhat like that,” she added doubtfully. But the mention of the Zoo seemed to remind her of Jane. She bowed her small dark head and said no more.

  “A cave,” I repeated. I tried to imagine what Cassandra must be like—a place where people still grew and processed tobacco and grapes; a place with caves. “Trevor’s daughter lives there.”

  “And others,” muttered Fossa. He stretched like a dog, his powerful knobbed paws clawing at the floor, and yawned, uncoiling a long pink tongue. “Very wise and strong—if they were here now, nothing to worry.”

  I preferred not to think about those others. Miss Scarlet sighed and stood, crossing her spindly arms across her chest. “I—I think I will try to sleep,” she said softly. She looked exhausted, but slightly shamefaced: as though I might think less of her for not staying up with me to worry over Jane.

  “Of course,” I said. I smiled wanly. I wanted to embrace her, hold her small warm body to mine and tell her not to worry; but I did not.

  Fossa, however, did. He followed her to the small narrow bed and crouched beside it, watching as she climbed in and not lying down until she was safely settled. Then he sighed noisily, muttered something I could not hear, and sank down, resting his heavy head on his hands. In a few minutes his snores nearly drowned out Miss Scarlet’s even breathing.

  I finished the wine and stood, walked somewhat shakily to the little window, and pressed my face against its narrow opening. Outside, above the barn, the darkening sky had a pale greenish cast, the same color that the new leaves had been a few weeks earlier. But now the trees had burgeoned into full growth. I could just glimpse the edge of the meadow where they stirred fitfully in the night breeze, and if I crooked my neck back, I could see the first stars pricking at the velvety sky. From the marshes came the ringing of frogs. I felt a sudden pressure in my chest, as though a hand had seized my heart and squeezed it.

  Emma Harrow came to me then. Dr. Harrow, who had been my protector and torturer at HEL, the woman who by forcing me to relive her own occult memories had somehow imprinted them upon me. It was on a night like this that her twin brother had first seen that figure that had haunted me for so many months, the shining figure of the Boy in the Tree, the Boy whose name is Death. I rested my head against the windowsill, heedless of whatever prying eyes might be scanning for us.

  There was no Boy there within me now. A terrible loneliness came over me: first Justice and now Jane…I had been so cold to her lately, so caught up in my own misery. At the thought of her, tears filled my eyes and I swore angrily beneath my breath.

  So this is what it was like to be “truly human,” as Miss Scarlet had so often warned me. I thought of Justice; but while the image of his face, his long hair and blue eyes, made my heart clench again, for the first time I did not feel grief clawing at me; only a sad, soft ache. It was the memory of Jane’s face that made me desperate with love and helplessness; the thought of Jane coming to harm that made me want to rush downstairs and confront whatever was there, Aviators or no. From the tiny wedge of open window a breeze crept inside, smelling of wild roses and grass. The keening of the frogs grew higher, sweeter, clearer as the wind brushed my face. On the sill beside me a ladybird landed and began to crawl determinedly toward my chin.

  “Fly away home,” I whispered. It raised its lacquered wings and disappeared into the night.

  I thought of the stars then, of the men and women who were rumored to walk there: the Aviators, the Ascendants’ ruthless guardians. Were they all like Margalis Tast’annin, madmen and -women? Would they really kill Jane if they found her? Had they already, and were they downstairs even now, laughing and talking with Trevor and Giles? I sighed and turned from the window.

  The narrow dark chamber was quiet now, with that air of awakening excitement that fills a room that has finally been opened up to summer. In her bed Miss Scarlet breathed softly, while at her feet Fossa whined in his sleep. In the middle of the floor our plates and the empty wine bottle were piled like the remains of an encampment hastily abandoned. I felt wide awake and wished there was more wine. It came to me suddenly that I must be drunk. I was accustomed to drinking, but not to getting drunk—a holdover from my days at HEL, where my medication and peculiar mind chemistry had made it difficult for me to absorb alcohol.

  But I felt different now. I felt reckless, and powerful, and angry: how dare Giles and Trevor and Miss Scarlet abandon Jane like this? At least I wouldn’t do so—and before I knew what I was doing, I had stumbled to the door.

  It had been locked from the inside: of course, to keep anyone from finding the slaves or refugees hidden there. I opened the rusty hasp and stepped into the outer closet, trying to keep from falling over the linens heaped on the floor. The sagging rod with its load of coats and cloaks blocked my way. I pushed them away, rough wool and leather brushing my face and the smell of bay leaves and cedar making me want to sneeze. But then I was through. With heart pounding I stood in the darkness with my hand on that other door, the one that opened onto the corridor; and then I crept outside.

  In the hallway all was still and dim. There were no electrified lights here, not even any of the small gas lanterns that illuminated some of the less-used corridors in other parts of the inn. Beneath my feet the bare wide boards groaned alarmingly. I took a deep breath and hurried down the passage. When I reached the stairway, I crept down with one hand on the brick wall, feeling the crumbling mortar give way under my fingernails. It smelled cool and damp here, as though it shared the air with the basement. At the bottom of the steps I stopped, listening for voices.

  Very faintly I could hear them: Trevor’s drawling laugh and Giles’s nervous, somewhat hesitant tone. And others, a man and a woman. For a m
oment my heart raced—Jane!

  But it wasn’t Jane. This woman had a chilly, careful voice, and a way of phrasing that reminded me of someone. It was a moment before I realized that who it reminded me of was Margalis Tast’annin.

  I couldn’t make out their speech, only the unfamiliar pattern of strained conversation, as though they spoke in a language I did not understand. I took a few more steps down the passage, to where the brickwork gave way to old soft wood. Beneath my fingertips it felt damp, a moldering touch like coarse fur. Then my hand snagged against an old square-headed nail. A tiny dart of pain jarred me from my drunken reverie.

  Of a sudden I realized how overwhelmingly stupid this was—dangerous, perhaps fatal. If there were Aviators here, they might even now be preparing to search the house. With even the most cursory glance down this corridor they’d see me, leaning against the wall for balance and glaring blearily into the dimness. Although of course Trevor and Giles had assured me the Aviators would never find our hiding place…

  But what if they are betraying us?

  A jolt of adrenaline raced through me. Through my mind flashed images of myself strapped helpless to a gurney at HEL; fleeing the flames at Winterlong; captured and bound and thrown before the Mad Aviator…

  No! my mind shouted; never again!

  And at that moment I felt it, like a faint current surging through me from spine to fingertips, a flame that leapt within my brain. A rage, a power that cut through fear and doubt and drunkenness, until I wanted to throw my head back and shout, with joy and terror—

  I could do it all again. If I had to, I could find them all, Giles and Trevor and the others, seek them out and with a touch, a kiss—a look, even—drive them to madness and suicide, as I had done before. I could kill them; and this time there was nothing there to cloud my mind, no ghostly image of the Boy in the Tree, no fleeting revenant of Aidan Harrow to spur me on only to mock me and send me spinning back into my own madness. I felt calm, as calm as I had ever felt in my life; and suddenly I knew what to do.

  I took a few more steps, until I reached a spot where the crumbling wooden wall gave way once more to brick, and my feet knocked against broken bricks and heaps of crumbled mortar. Through the wall the voices sounded more clearly. I caught a word here and here, but not enough to put together a conversation. I knew where I was now: in a secondary passage that ran directly behind the main living room. I ran my hand over the rough surface of the wall beside me. Even though I could not see it, I knew what it looked like. It looked like the brick from the fireplace, the pit-fired clay grown brittle and the color of faded deerskin, the mortar filling the chinks nearly black with age.

  All winter Giles had complained of that fireplace—how the bricks needed replacing because the mortar was rotten, and as a result the chimney didn’t draw well. In places, the masonry had crumbled until the once-massive edifice was only one brick thick. On the coldest winter nights Giles had stood glaring at the flames, imagining their heat roaring out through hundreds of tiny cracks and holes.

  That was why I could hear them so well. And, if I was lucky, soon I would be able to see them, too.

  It took me a few minutes to find a spot where the mortar had left gaps in the wall. The smell of mildew nearly made me sneeze, and once I almost tripped over a tall stack of bricks reclaimed from the cellar, put there by Giles in vain hopes of repairing the masonry some day. But by listening and feeling, I finally located the chimney. I patted it triumphantly, then leaned against the wall opposite and slitted my eyes, trying to gauge where the chinks were in the masonry.

  After a few minutes I found them. Pinpricks of light, as though a few grains of glowing sand had been cast upon the brickwork. One hole was nearly large enough to poke a pencil through. I attacked that one, with my fingernails set to scraping away the rotten mortar, trying to make no sound. On the floor I found a nail twisted and caked with rust. After a few minutes I was able to gouge a little tunnel through the mortar, large enough for me to peer into the next room.

  At first I could see nothing more than bright blurs. Then gradually my eye picked out the back of Trevor’s chair, with Trevor in it leaning forward as though listening closely. Beyond him on the far side of the room facing me, two figures perched on the divan—uneasily, it seemed to me, as though at any moment they might take flight. One was a woman. She had blond hair cut short around a thin, leonine face. One side of her forehead was gone, replaced with a plasteel plate that conformed to the shape of her skull. On the floor beside her booted feet was the helmeted enhancer that usually covered her face, and the stiff plasteel curves of her body armor. Her hands rested on her knees. She held a long black tube, some kind of protonic weapon—so much for Trevor’s insistence that this visit was a mere formality. Her fingers gripped its barrel tightly while she scanned the room suspiciously. I drew back for an instant, my heart racing, certain that she had seen me.

  But even an Aviator can’t see through brick walls; at least not without an enhancer. I took a deep breath and once more pressed my eye to the peephole. The other Aviator was a stocky, grizzled man, also with a gun lying across his knees. Like his partner he wore a heavy jacket and trousers of red leather trimmed with black, clothing much worn and stained—the uniform of the NASNA Aviators. His head was cocked as with great interest, as he listened to someone I couldn’t see. Giles, I assumed. I turned my head so that my ear rested against the cold mortar and listened.

  It was disorienting, not being able to watch and listen at the same time. Their voices were muffled, and Giles in particular spoke so softly that sometimes I couldn’t hear him at all; but eventually I was able to put together most of what they were saying.

  “…trouble in the west.” That was the woman speaking. Her cool, precise diction made each word seem to hang in the air before melting away. “Trouble everywhere these days.”

  “We hadn’t heard.” Trevor’s drawl was exaggerated to a complaining whine. “It’s been a bad winter here—no visitors except yourselves and a few janissaries from the City.”

  The next words rang out so loudly that I jumped, as though they had been spoken directly to me.

  “Araboth has fallen. There were almost no survivors, and the Orsinas and all their advisers were killed.”

  I heard Giles exclaim, and Trevor turned so that I could glimpse his face: taut, as though containing some terrible grief—or joy.

  How can they not notice? I thought. God, he hates them!

  But they didn’t notice; or if they did, they had their own reasons for ignoring it.

  Trevor asked a question, and the woman Aviator said something else I couldn’t understand. I placed my eye back at the peephole. She and her companion had lowered their heads and were speaking confidingly to Trevor, still clutching their weapons. Through a doorway hobbled the servant, Mazda. It bent to pick up a small tray of glasses and a decanter, then left. I changed position again so I could listen.

  “No, I am not mistaken: Captain Patrocles and I received our orders from him at Cisneros.” It was impossible to tell if the woman’s icy tone held rage or pride. “He has been made Imperator. It would take more than a tsunami to destroy Tast’annin.”

  Tast’annin?

  I clutched at the wall, the mortar crumbling between my fingers. My head reeled; I felt as though a huge mouth gaped at me in the darkness, waiting to swallow me if I moved.

  “I thought he was dead!” exclaimed Giles.

  For the first time the Aviator named Patrocles spoke. “He was.” His next words were incomprehensible. I finally made out, “…regeneration in Araboth. His investiture was held before the City fell. Colonel Aselma was there.”

  Colonel Aselma broke in angrily. “It is an insult to us! He is a rasa, a walking corpse. How was it that he escaped when the domes collapsed at Araboth, unless he abandoned his post as Imperator? It was a madness of the Autocracy, to have him regenerated—he betrayed us in the City. He will betray us again.”

  “I don’t think so,�
� Captain Patrocles said. “He is a brilliant man—”

  “A rasa,” spat Colonel Aselma.

  “A brilliant leader,” Patrocles went on coolly. “And what ever he is, he has never been a fool. He has his reasons for sending us on this mission….”

  His voice trailed off, and I pressed myself even closer to the wall, struggling in vain to make out Trevor’s next words. But the Aviators’ news had so incited everyone that for a few minutes I could hear nothing clearly, just snatches of phrases—“always mad,” “HORUS colonies,” words that sounded like “enemy network.” When I pressed my eye to the hole again, I saw that Trevor had jumped from his chair and was pacing the room, clutching something in one hand and staring at it with furious intensity—a ’file foto, I finally realized. Once he stopped and raised his enhancer, so that the foto seemed aflame with blue light. Whatever the foto showed, it disturbed him greatly. After another minute he turned and shoved it into Giles’s hand. I went back to listening.

  “…set up a search for her,” said Patrocles. Giles interrupted him with a question that I couldn’t understand, and the Aviator continued, “Absolutely. It was his last command before he left Cisneros.”

  “He’s gone to HORUS,” the woman’s voice rang out. “To Quirinus, I believe. But he will find no one there, no one but energumens—he will be assassinated within the week,” she ended triumphantly.

  “All the more reason to carry out his orders,” Captain Patrocles said in a voice like silk. “I’m afraid that’s not a very good image we’ve shown you, but it’s the best we could find—the records library at HEL was in a shambles. We were fortunate to find anything at all.”

  At the word HEL I began to tremble uncontrollably. I drew away from the wall, nausea and a mounting fear clawing at me, then gazed out once more. Even from where I crouched, I could see that Giles had gone white. I thought the Aviators must be blind not to see his obvious terror as he handed the foto back to Colonel Aselma. I turned to listen again and heard him say, “We’ve seen no one who looks like this.”