Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel Book 1)

by Josiah Bancroft

  “Really? Is that really what happened?” Goll scrubbed playfully, almost compulsively at his beard. This seemed high humor to him. “Are you sure that you didn’t just develop a rapport with strangers, and then use them? Where are these friends of yours now? Did they make out as well as you?” He opened his hands, waiting. “I take your sullen silence to mean they did not. Knowing what they know now, do you think they would trust you again? Would they still call you a friend?”

  “Yet, you expected me to trust you.”

  “No. Muddit, no! The powerful never trust. They respect and are respected. Trust is a weak bond, and it is for the weak.”

  “I have other, stronger bonds in mind,” Senlin said, his expression turning oblique.

  “Ah…” Goll rocked back against the buttoned lobes of the red upholstery, an expression of understanding dawning on his face. “You’re talking about your wife.” He reached over and opened the window shade. Outside, the buildings of New Babel, plain as mileposts, closed as caskets, slid by in the ashen gloom. The world smelled like the underside of a paving stone. Moths fizzed about the streetlamps. As Goll’s hand lingered on the shade ring, Senlin noted, for the first time, the gold wedding band on his finger.

  When Goll spoke again, his voice had lost some of its blustering lilt. “You are acting as if you haven’t lost her. You’re like a dog keening at its master’s grave. But she is gone, Tom.” Finn Goll gave Senlin a candid, almost melancholy smile. “People think that the difference between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the hod, is the absence of failure. But that’s not it.” And now Goll’s tone began to bounce and leap again. “Powerful men fail just as much, if not more often, than the failures. The exceptional thing is that they admit it; they take and hold up their failures. They claim their disappointments; they move on!” Goll sat roiling his fists in the air as if he had gripped some invisible scoundrel by the collar. “Don’t be a hod. The hod is in denial, Tom! He cannot admit he is beaten, and so he can never escape the beating. Your wife is gone!” His voice leapt to a hoarse, strained note.

  Senlin had begun to stare at his open hands halfway through Finn Goll’s diatribe. They were filthy. A blister the size of a sand dollar filled his palm, his reward for laying it on a steam-filled boiler. Senlin flexed it experimentally, watching the angry skin as it swelled and stretched. “My wife is not lost,” he said. “She has been kidnapped by a wealthy rogue named W.H. Pell, but she is not lost. I know where she is. I am going to fetch her, and not you, nor anyone else, is going to stop me.”

  The passionate mask on Goll’s face deadened so abruptly he appeared to have suffered a stroke. He glanced at the amazon, the woman he called Iren, and she, interpreting the cue, grabbed Senlin by the neck and shook him about the cabin as if she were punishing an irritating rooster. Pops and sparks of pain ran up and down Senlin’s spine as the cabin jerked violently around him. He was helpless in her grip.

  Outside, the lightning in the dome guttered back to life, the drone of its power whooping higher and louder as purple bolts boiled against the cage and lit up the city. The interior of the carriage became a stark tableau. Senlin realized he was no longer being shaken, and he gasped after an elusive lungful of breath.

  Then the lightning was pinched off as the carriage passed into a tunnel. The chug of the carriage’s engine and the grinding of the wheels reverberated more noticeably.

  Senlin felt as if his thoughts were the echo of some long gone utterance. And yet, empty-headed as he felt, he propped himself back up, cleared his bruised throat with a muddy cough, and said with unperturbed surety, “My wife is not lost.”

  Goll leaned forward, his heavy brows drawn so low they looked like a blindfold. “You aren’t the only mope coming up, Tom. I set a dozen other candidates in motion that day I talked to you. Dozens more in the days before.” He snapped his fingers at Iren. “Recite!”

  Immediately, the amazon began to drone names from memory. “Haden Peal, Farooq Jiwa, Geert Van Dijk, William Mercer, Edgar Cole, Jean Flaubert, Chin Mawei, Thomas Senlin, Colin Hannah…”

  Having made his point, Goll impatiently waved her to silence. “You think you’re the only one who can write and read and pile up numbers? You lettered men are as rare as bedbugs!” He shouted and then calmed himself with abrupt, almost manic grace. He sat back. “Don’t take the job, Tom, and good luck to you. But I warn you, the one commodity that is never in short supply in the Tower is desperate men.”

  “Desperation isn’t such a bad thing,” Senlin said.

  “It is when it’s got no money behind it.” Goll quipped.

  Much as Senlin hated to admit it, Goll was right on one account: he needed money. Finding Marya and traversing the Tower would require fares and bribes and who knew what else. He couldn’t carry on any longer as a tourist. He couldn’t keep depending on the sacrifice of his friends and acquaintances. He had to formulate a plan, gather his forces, and make a concerted effort. And all that required time, and time required money.

  Goll, watching him narrowly, seemed to recognize the machinations Senlin was going through. Senlin pursed his lips to punctuate his meditation. “I don’t like being strong-armed, Mr. Goll. If you want to propose business, I’ll entertain it, but if you’re going to browbeat me and behave as if I owe you some debt of gratitude for being taken advantage of, then I’d rather join the hods.”

  “I want to make this perfectly clear: I have employees. I don’t keep hods. You’ll be paid for the work you do.”

  “What is the work, exactly?” Senlin asked, and listened as Finn Goll outlined the duties of the Port Master, which included organizing the dockworkers, inspecting, pricing, buying, and selling the imported goods. He would schedule the shifts of porters, balance the ledgers, pay the men, and, most importantly, prepare the daily Eight O’Clock Report for Goll.

  “The work isn’t easy or simple. You’ve seen the port, the station, and the men. It’s all a bit…”

  “…of a shoddy, disorganized, and riotous mess.” Senlin finished.

  Finn Goll opened his hands, accepting the characterization. “So, you will have to earn your money. Your salary will be one mina a month, after room and board.”

  It was less than his old school salary, but Senlin doubted that he was in any position to haggle for a better wage. He gave a considered nod, and stuck out his hand. They shook once, glaring at one another, the gesture devoid of trust or confidence. This was, as far as Senlin was concerned, not unlike the Parlor. He would act the part for as long as was required, but he was no more an honest employee than Goll was an honest employer. The handshake merely signaled their agreement to share an illusion for as long as was mutually convenient.

  The next moment, the carriage arrived at the same weigh station Senlin had recently charged through. The carriage door opened, and Senlin clambered down. He expected for Goll or Iren to follow, but neither made any move to disembark.

  Goll seemed to enjoy watching Senlin through the now closed carriage door, gawking back, trying not to look like a boy on his first day of school. Senlin was elbowed into a yardarm by a laborer dragging a poorly packed sled of jangling crates. A bottle inside one of the crates burst, and a plume of suds sprayed through the slats. Senlin leapt out of the way, and then had to fight his way back to the carriage’s side.

  “Where do I begin?” Senlin called up to Goll who cupped a hand behind his ear, shook his overlarge head, and pretended not to hear. Senlin felt his hackles rising. Already, he regretted this decision.

  Goll made a little twirling motion with his finger, and the carriage lurched forward.

  Senlin turned, gaping after the lustrous carriage rumbling back toward the shaft to New Babel, and for a moment he considered chasing after it. He felt as lonely and desolate as a castaway. He was unprepared to find the tan, young man standing so close behind him, and he gave a surprised little leap in a manner that immediately embarrassed him. The young man, muscular but shorter than Senlin, didn’t seem to notice.
He wore a brown leather eye patch and stared up at Senlin with his remaining eye, bright as a gold coin. It was Adam Boreas.

  Here stood his mugger, the young man who had sped along Senlin’s doom.

  Senlin had often conjured up the image of Adam when he’d felt the need to scold someone for his misfortune. In those bitter daydreams, he had condemned Adam to all sorts of absurd punishments. He exiled him to a leper colony on a volcanic atoll; he forced him to scrub the Tower, from top to bottom; he made him memorize and recite the dictionary while jumping rope.

  These cruel fantasies, once so amusing, sprang to mind again as he stood there like a statue, and he felt ashamed. Adam looked as if he had suffered much in the ensuing weeks. His broad shoulders were slumped, his dark, splendid hair was matted, and his copper skin had an almost greenish cast to it. From under his eye patch, an old bruise radiated; a scabbed-over crack bridged his nose. Though still young, he had the gaze of a yeoman who had spent the better half of a century scratching at a miserable, stony field. He looked beaten, and he seemed to be steeling himself for another attack.

  The tension struck Senlin as absurd. This aged boy was not his enemy. And furthermore, he was determined to prove Finn Goll wrong. Desperation did not make friendship impossible, and the bonds of trust were not weak.

  Senlin made a stoic show of adopting a smile, and offered Adam his singed and blistered hand. “It looks like we’ll be living under the same thumb, Mr. Boreas.”

  Relief, like a break in a cloud, showed on the young man’s face. “Call me Adam,” he said, shaking Senlin’s tender hand.

  “Adam, call me Tom. It’s nice to see a friendly face.”

  Adam’s expression clouded again and his grip weakened. “You have no friends.”

  Senlin laughed, startling Adam. “That’s what all my friends say.”

  Chapter Five

  “An ancient and beloved teacher once told me that a journal is the only book a man can undertake and know for certain he will one day finish.”

  - Every Man’s Tower, One Man’s Travails by T. Senlin

  September 7th –

  I am the one in charge of making things run.

  The list of “things which must run” includes the skyport, where negligence is only eclipsed by incompetence; the weigh station, with its ancient hoist and rusted weigh plates of dubious calibration; and the stock yard, where perishable imports bloom maggots and crates of port wine mysteriously vanish with regularity. Everything must be haggled after and sold at a profit, and the records of purchases, stocks, wages, and losses must be rigorously kept and copied for the Almighty Eight O’Clock Report, which goes daily to Goll, care of Iren the Amazon, along with most of the money and copies of the manifests. The men are uniformly surly and indifferent to my direction, and they are so seldom sober, I have yet to distinguish the unfit from the lethargic, the imbecilic from the inebriate. I am Master of the Port in name only. I hardly know where to begin.

  It’s not like the Baths or the Parlor here. There is no head clerk or commissioner or lord of the Boudoir. New Babel is ruled by the port authorities, the whoremongers, and the factory bosses. The men in power are always scrambling after more. And there isn’t a single reputable, empathetic soul among them.

  The stockyard sits mid-tunnel like an undigested bulge in a snake. The station house is two stories of rambling timber and stone, and boasts a humble barracks of rotting hammocks for the men, a mess hall that’s not fit for cleaning fish, and a kitchen that is fairly lacquered in mold and tallow. The second floor holds my office and two apartments; one is mine, the other, Adam’s. My office is whimsically fitted with a desk that appears to have once been the prow of a ship. It might seem more whimsical if it weren’t buried under piles of inscrutable ledgers and unmet schedules. Everything is covered in pencil shavings, dust, and dead moths. I can hardly sit in my office without screaming. I will clean it as soon as I can find a rag that isn’t filthier.

  My apartment smells like a cave where generations of cheese makers cultured their wheels. It is furnished with sticks and splinters that hold the rough shape of a table, two chairs, a bureau and a bed. A loose floorboard by my bedside is as sensitive as a wolf trap. I have already stepped on it wrong twice, plunging my foot into a jagged maw. The cavity beneath is large enough to hold this journal, and since it seems prudent to keep my private ruminations private, I have decided to stow this account there along with Ogier’s jailor’s key. At least something useful came of my shaved shins.

  I have placed Ogier’s painting of Marya on my nightstand. I have turned it toward the wall and then back again about once a quarter hour for the past two hours... Both sides of the frame are equally painful to look at.

  I hardly know where to begin!

  September 12th –

  I began by choosing an example.

  I asked Adam who he thought was most responsible for the disappearance of the crates of alcohol. He quickly returned with the name of Tommo Carric, Chief Stevedore, third in command, after Adam and myself, and the very same man who had welcomed me to the port by choking me and fondling my wife’s portrait. (I realize “portrait” is an inaccurate term, but I shudder to call it “my wife’s nude,” even privately.) Iren is often about on one errand or another, and so I conscripted her in the effort. She expressed no qualms with my plan, though in all fairness, she is generally as expressionless as a spade. I do not pretend to be comfortable around her; my hand is still bandaged and my head still sore from our recent introduction. But she is under orders from Goll to assist in all reasonable efforts to redeem the port, and not to kill me unless absolutely necessary. I know this because she told me.

  And still, Iren is exactly the sort of presence one wants when firing an oaf. Tommo Carric made the exact spectacle I’d hoped for. I, Adam and Iren confronted him by his open-air pulpit on the port. When I informed him that his services were no longer required, he pulled the pulpit from its anchor and prepared to beat me with it. He would’ve succeeded, if Iren had not grabbed him by the waist and shaken the spittle from him.

  Carric shouted a string of the most elaborate obscenities as Iren carried him like a bawling child held stiffly at arm’s length, through the tunnels, stockyard, and finally into the fog of New Babel. Though it was not done out of petty revenge, I won’t pretend that I did not savor the sight of the brute splayed upon the pavement. He stood and lunged again at me, but Iren dealt him a slap so fierce it knocked his nose from joint.

  Shortly thereafter, I gathered the men and announced that the wine thief had been identified and dismissed. The men listened and seemed to understand that now, at least, they could claim innocence, and we could begin afresh. Hopefully, this will open the door for reformation. I do suspect that there might be a riot if I tried the trick again. But if I can keep the men’s confidence, I can win Goll’s confidence. And if I have that, I can lull him into believing that I have given up on her. And then, I will escape.

  I found a clean rag and something like soap. I have scrubbed my office and room into little islands of sanity. Tomorrow, I tackle the stockyard. If this accounts ends here, future readers should assume that I was lynched mid-inventory by my men.

  September 16th –

  With Carric gone, I have the added duty of reviewing outgoing manifests and collecting signatures from departing Captains. The gap between what is declared on the manifest and what is present below deck is sometimes marked. Crews are eager to circumvent Goll’s tax on exports, and have grown quite wily in their smuggling methods. (I think back to the days when I carried my money in my boots and laugh. I was such an amateur, and concealment is a fine art in the Tower.) To combat this loss of revenue, spot inspections are required, and I have witnessed some tense exchanges between my stevedores and the mates of ships.

  The major occupation of New Babel concerns the production of hydrogen, a gas that is as ephemeral as it is volatile. The four other skyports of New Babel, all legitimate and well greased, supply the local facto
ries with iron filings and sulfuric acid for the creation of hydrogen. Steel is imported for the construction of specialized kegs, which are loaded with the gas once it’s been compressed. These drums are fuel to the airships, and are the major export of the ringdom.

  The ubiquitous squat, windowless buildings of New Babel resemble bunkers for a reason. They were designed both to contain the gas and prevent the escalation of chance explosions, and to protect non-factories from such accidents. Escaped hydrogen is a perennial fear, especially considering the regularity with which a spark is applied to the atmosphere. Incredibly enough, catastrophes are rare.

  But this noble effort does not describe the Port of Goll’s industry. No, we are not so noble. We are importers of vice.

  September 19th –

  Visiting captains and crew call New Babel the Boudoir for a depressingly obvious reason. The ringdom is fairly stuffed with bordellos and cantinas shrouded under bleak concrete shells. Inside these colorless crypts... well, if the broadsides and flyers that litter the streets are anything to go by, the entertainment is anything but drab.

  Nothing depresses me more than the shiploads of women that arrive weekly. Their faces seem like panes of leaded glass; they are toughened but transparent. They are all lost. Finn Goll seems to think of them as being no different than a crate of oranges or a keg of Basement beer. They are added to the registry, shifted to whatever account is deficient, and are carted off to work on stages and in bedrooms. Goll has his own seedy venue, the Steam Pipe, to which he diverts the most well presented women. The Steam Pipe is managed by a whoremonger named Rodion, who I hope to never meet but am certain I one day will. From what I’ve heard, he is dangerous and ambitious.