Senlin Ascends (The Books of Babel Book 1)

by Josiah Bancroft

  Goll had vanished. It was no surprise to Senlin that the diminutive boss had fled. He had survived the Tower on the merit of his wits rather than his fists. And anyway, it took a very small helping of wits to recognize just how dire the situation was.

  Momentarily forgotten amid the new war, Senlin gripped Adam by the arm and said, “I’ll rake you over the coals later; there’s no time for it now. Get to the ship. Feed the furnace. Be ready to launch the moment we’re aboard.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to make sure Iren is coming with us.”

  Adam, who moments before had been convinced the amazon was ready to strike him dead, was not thrilled by the announcement. “Leave her. She’s a beast.”

  Senlin grabbed Adam up by the shirtfront and pulled him near enough that the young man could feel the force of Senlin’s breath when he said, “Say ‘aye-aye,’ Adam.”

  Adam’s eyes were wide and bright with alarm; he had not seen this side of Senlin before. Senlin knew he could no longer afford to negotiate and explain every point and action to Adam. Either Adam would follow his orders now, or he never would. The sooner that was established, the better.

  Their noses hovered nearly together a moment longer, then Adam repeated the phrase, and added a word he’d used before but never meant, not until now. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  By the time Senlin located his aerorod in the piling snow and joined the fight, it was apparent he was on the wrong side of a rout. Rodion’s men, already wounded and spent from grappling with the crew of the Stone Cloud, and demoralized by the loss of their leader, fell quickly before the Commissioner’s agents. The porters fared little better. What heart they had was torn apart by the organization of their enemy. The porters were used to scrapping in the yard or charging as a mob, both useless tactics against a force of superior numbers and training.

  Only Iren gave them hope against the onslaught. She by herself was more devastating than a bank of riflemen. Her leather apron flared as her thick arms snapped life into her chain. The agents caught in the path of her hook looked as if they had fallen under a buzz saw. They attempted to swarm her, but she refused to stand still for the dog-piling. She leapt about, mad as a top and nearly as nimble as Voleta. Twice an agent fired at her, and twice the bullet was late: cutting at her blur, passing through the air, and finding a fellow agent to burrow into.

  Senlin couldn’t reach her. Every time he thought he might’ve beaten a path through, the way would clog with retreating agents, clutching ruined limbs and gushing wounds. They were desperate to get away from Iren and her great mauling propeller. Even amid the chaos, Senlin could not help but to admire her grace, gruesome as it was. In her warring, he saw all the lessons she’d drummed into him, here combined into a single, fluid reflex. He’d long suspected that she had been overly hard on him when they’d sparred, but now he knew just how gingerly she had handled him. He’d been a cub in the mouth of a lion.

  She was a master of violence. She was indomitable, and she was winning the war.

  Then a familiar, ungainly figure climbed over the rampart of the Ararat. The bulbous middle and spindly arms, the broad straw hat and white linen clothes were unmistakable. The specter released the zip line while he still hung twenty feet from the ground. He landed in a crouch in the clearing Iren had cut through the ranks of men. The agents opened the circle even further, like a snake’s mouth widening to make room for the appearance of the fangs. The Red Hand straightened, and said, “Did you know that this is only the third time it has snowed in the Valley of Babel this century? It’s quite rare. I’m so glad you got to experience it.”

  The snow was driving now, and had begun to snuff the fires that lapped futilely against the Tower’s stony face. Though Senlin wanted to believe that this opened the door for reinforcements, it seemed more likely that it opened the door for retreat. For the moment at least, the few porters still on their feet appeared intent on watching the coming contest between the champion of the port and the Commissioner’s dog. Even they were not immune to local pride.

  The two gladiators could not have been more different. Iren swung her chain above her head until, tightened by velocity, its ringing becoming a clear musical chord. The Red Hand tweaked the pegs on his brass cuff. The vials of red, luminous serum flared as they sloshed and drained into his arm. He appeared no more anxious than a man winding an old, fine watch. Iren scuffed elegant figures out in the snow as she circled. The Red Hand clasped his hands behind his back and seemed to glow a little more brightly.

  If the Red Hand was trying to lull her into thinking he was not a fierce and worthy rival, it didn’t work. Iren whipped the chain out at the level of his hips, meaning to break the assassin in half.

  The Red Hand flattened himself, collapsed as if he’d been sucked to the ground, and her chain whizzed harmlessly over him. He had popped back to his feet before the hook had snapped back to her hand.

  “We are on the leeward side of the mountains,” he said. “Iron ore is more easily mined on the leeside because of a historical dearth of vegetation turning to soil and burying the rock. Not to mention, of course, the lack of rain and snow.”

  Again she paced. Again she swung the chain, forcing it around faster and faster until the veins stood out on the raised pillar of her arm, and the sinews in her jaw bulged like a welded joint. She heaved it at the assassin with an explosive grunt, and it sliced at an angle, intent on the notch between his shoulder and neck.

  He leaned back, a subtle but sufficient dodge, and snatched the slowing chain from the air once it had passed him. He yanked it sharply, and Iren, unbraced, fell into him. He caught her chin with what seemed a simple uppercut, though the result was dramatic. The blow raised her off her feet. She arched backward, bounced once on her shoulder blades, and slid ten feet in the snow flat on her back.

  She hardly had time to lower her chin to her chest before the Red Hand had leapt on her. She was quick to move before he could pinch his knees into her ribs. Twisting her legs around his, she flipped him under her. She grabbed him by the neck and began to beat him ruthlessly about the head. It was a pure drubbing, like a blacksmith hurrying to hammer a rod before it’s had time to cool. His hat torn from his head, exposing his blond infantile hair, the Red Hand seemed momentarily dazed, vulnerable. The detached smirk was gone, his lips now bunching to preserve his teeth.

  But her advantage did not last long, and the blows that would’ve killed another man only stirred this one’s blood. The Red Hand wriggled one arm from where Iren had pinned it under her knee and latched onto her wrist with all the determination of a shackle. He twisted his hold with such violence Iren was thrown from her perch on his chest, though she managed to funnel her momentum into a defensive roll.

  Separated, they bounced to their feet. Iren pulled a spike from her belt and threw it at the villain. It stuck, quivering, two inches into the man’s flesh just beneath the sternum. The surrounding agents shared a communal gasp. Senlin’s heart leapt to his throat as he stood craning over the wall of gawkers. She had done it! Surely this was a fatal blow. They all waited for him to collapse. But he did not. The Red Hand snorted, like a man shaken from a shallow nap, and reached up to pluck the spike from his chest. It came out as easily as a thorn.

  The wound seeped with luminous blood, but bled only a little. “Iron ore can be tempered into steel, or it can be filed and transformed into the lightest of gases: hydrogen. This illustrates the paradox of consciousness: we are vapor in rigid form.”

  Reflexively, Iren swiveled out of the way when the Red Hand returned the spike to her in the same manner he’d received it. The missile narrowly missed her head.

  The Red Hand leapt like a man launched from a catapult. Flying over her head, he grabbed her by the shoulders and flipped over her back. He pulled her along with him as if she was little more than a cape. When he came down on his feet, she was hurled over his head, high into the air. She struck the smoking scaffolding of a scorched cr
ane upside down and flat on her back. Already weakened from the fire, the whole structure collapsed on top of her. She surely would’ve been burned alive if the snow had not recently doused the blaze. Senlin could only see her boots jutting lifelessly from the haystack of charred wood.

  Senlin turned to run to her, but was caught immediately from behind by a pair of agents, a man on each of his arms. With Iren dispatched, there was nothing left to distract them from him. The agents wheeled him around and frog-marched him toward the Ararat. The Red Hand brushed with annoyance at the bloody gouge that marred his shirt. He found his hat, which was rumpled but not torn, and returned it to his head.

  A drawbridge opened near the base of the floating fortress. The lip of the bridge dragged unsteadily back and forth across the pier as the immense vessel wrestled to hold firm amidst the storm. Commissioner Pound, dressed in a severe black suit and wearing his monstrous gas mask, crossed the bridge briskly. Senlin was forced to face the hypochondriac tyrant, who stood casually tightening the fingers of his gloves and surveying the battleground.

  “Scour the port. Bring me any cargo that you find!” he ordered his men, and then turning to Senlin said, “If you only knew whom you have troubled with this idiotic caper.” His voice buzzed through the blunt silver tusks of his mask. “I’m not even allowed to kill you, because there is a long and illustrious line of men who want to contribute to your demise. They will have to hold a lottery, I suppose, or draw straws for the pleasure of dissecting you.”

  Senlin shrugged almost demurely, as if he were pleasantly surprised by all this attention. “Perhaps you could hold an auction. I know how you art collectors love auctions. What quicker way is there to inflate the price of some poor artist’s work?” Senlin stared into the smoked glass lenses of the gasmask as if he could see the man’s high forehead, womanish skin, and colorless eyes. Senlin wanted the Commissioner to know he was not afraid. “My crime is that I returned a creation to its creator.”

  A sound like a rook’s cry burst from the mask, then repeated three more times. The Commissioner was laughing at him. The man bent at the waist and rolled his head. “You’re talking about that horrible humpbacked amateur! He didn’t paint that masterpiece.”

  “Of course he did. It was signed. And I saw his other works. His name was Ogier, or was that some wild coincidence?”

  “He was an imposter and a forger; of course he told you his name was Ogier!” The Commissioner was still in good humor, plainly reveling in Senlin’s confusion. “I could go about calling myself King Rupert the Third, if I liked, but it wouldn’t conjure up a kingdom. The painting you stole is nearly a hundred years old. What was Ogier, forty?”

  “So why did he ask me to steal it?” Senlin asked, his confidence curling into bewilderment.

  “Ah,” the Commissioner said, drawing close. He patted Senlin flatly on the chest, as if he were an old horse. His confidence shaken, Senlin could no longer imagine Pound’s hidden expression. He only saw his own reflection, doubled, in the Commissioner’s lenses. He looked no larger than a picture in a locket. “That is the question: why did he ask you to steal it? And why did he not keep it? Why did he give it to you?”

  Senlin recovered his slipping self-possession and said, “You should’ve asked him.”

  The Commissioner stepped back. “Oh, I wanted to, though I have a pretty good idea what he would’ve said. This is an old feud. Still, I would’ve liked to converse with the painter, but you know how it is, Mr. Senlin. Sometimes a falconer can’t keep his falcon from tearing up the hare.” The Commissioner nodded at the Red Hand who was at that moment appearing through the snow.

  The Red Hand carried Senlin’s crate under his arm. He set the box at the Commissioner’s feet with great care. “This was the center of a lot of attention: there was a circle of tracks and a body.”

  “Open it,” the Commissioner said.

  Senlin was confounded by the revelation that Ogier was a fraud, but had no time to consider it now. All of his intention fell upon the booby-trapped crate and the Red Hand hovering over it.

  The Red Hand, hardly needing tools to pry free the nailed lid, delicately wrenched the top off. A thicket of straw packing stared back at him, and he began to pluck the stuffing from the box until the edge of a canvas was revealed. As the Red Hand worked, puffs of white powder were shaken free of the straw. The powder swirled in the air, the clouds mingling with the snow. No one seemed to notice its presence except for Senlin, who was looking for it. He had laced the packing straw with enough White Chrom to drug a hundred men. He held his breath.

  The Red Hand pulled the painting free, turning it toward the Commissioner. Pound’s voice cracked with anger. “What is this?” He snatched the painting and thrust it into Senlin’s face. Senlin, who thought he was about to be struck, gasped. A familiar tingling sensation instantly bloomed in his sinuses and ran down his throat. He cringed. He’d meant to use the Crumb as a last ditch attack on the senses and faculties of his enemies. His own exposure to the powerful narcotic had, of course, not been part of his plan.

  Before the Commissioner could interrogate Senlin further, the Red Hand abruptly reeled back with a wild snort, startling everyone. “Who’s there?” he cried. His eyes glazed as they tracked unseen specters. The Red Hand flinched and swatted at the air, recoiling from some sound no one else could hear. The Commissioner tried to bark his assassin back to his senses, but the Red Hand’s mind had wandered beyond reach. He backed into an agent, who stood frozen in terror. The Red Hand startled, spun about, and snapped the man’s head around until his chin hung over his spine. The man dropped like a wet towel.

  The scene quickly descended into chaos. The Red Hand tore into the ranks of his compatriots, his uncanny strength heightened by his frenzy. He used the men like clubs, beating one against another, until both were lifeless husks. He flung men from the port as if they were boneless and weightless. The snow blushed red as the warmth that leaked from the maimed and the fallen turned the powder into slush. The Red Hand cried, “Who’s there?” again and again, though no one dared to answer him. Shots were fired and swords were swung, but these just extended the gore as panic led to crossfire and wild strikes.

  The men holding Senlin did not release him, but they did retreat a few paces, holding him as a helpless shield between them and the berserk assassin. Senlin, craning his neck about for some sign of help or escape, caught sight of something that would have made his heart swell if he hadn’t been sure it was a hallucination brought on by the Crumb. What he saw was impossible. Edith was running toward him, dashing the Commissioner’s men aside, her elbow raised like the wedge of a plow. It was a wonderful vision, but this was the Tower, he reminded himself. No one was coming to the rescue.

  The Red Hand, having devastated the Commissioner’s force, now turned to Senlin, still pinned up by his arms. The assassin’s veins shone so brightly that they radiated through his skin: he was webbed with fire. The Red Hand leapt at them behind an arm that jutted like a battering ram. Senlin threw all of his weight to his right, pulling the agent on his left into the line of attack. The blow landed on the man’s ear. The struck man stiffened and fell, pulling Senlin and the other agent into a flailing pile. Sandwiched between the two men, one unconscious, perhaps dead, the other terrified and cursing, Senlin tried to pull himself out. The weight on top of him vanished as the Red Hand plucked up the profanely babbling agent by the neck, pinching off the flow of words, and holding him like a farmer holds a chicken for the block. The Red Hand squeezed the man’s neck until it made a sudden wet cracking sound, like an egg dropped on the floor.

  Rocking like a crab on its back, helplessly caught on the soft fulcrum of the agent beneath him, Senlin gaped up at the haunted executioner. There was no cruelty or malevolence in his expression. The Red Hand twitched and blinked almost childishly. He said, “Who’s there?” but weakly. His intelligence had fled, his docent manner reduced to a mere primitive instinct. He reached for Senlin almost in boredom, tho
ugh his hand was a radiant star.

  Edith’s fist struck the assassin’s temple with the speed of a train running downhill. The blow sent the Red Hand luging across the snowy planks on his side.

  “How?” Senlin asked, disbelieving her presence even now. Only later would Edith explain how she’d caught the rope of an anchor and swung into the trestlework under the platform. She’d caromed about like a billiard ball, and had nearly fallen to her death. But she had caught a handful of snagged silk: a tangled remnant of the fallen Finch. She then spent the next half hour shinnying up frozen, iron crosses amid a centurial blizzard.

  Edith yanked Senlin to his feet, saying, “We must get to the ship!” Even as she spoke, the Red Hand had come again to his feet. One of his eyes bulged out of its socket, cocked at a wild, blind angle. Red light poured through the gap. The blow seemed to have blunted his drug-induced mania. What remained of his gaze was clearer now and trained chillingly upon Edith.

  He flew at her and she caught him by the hands. They grappled on unsteady footing, careening about in the deepening snow. Senlin drew the sword from the scabbard of an agent who would have no further use of it. He was about to go to Edith’s aid when a saber flashed between them, quick as a guillotine. The Commissioner recoiled with his sword, giving Senlin only a moment to bring up a defense before Pound slashed at him again. Senlin stumbled under the attack. The cup guard of the Commissioner’s sword was arrayed with silver spikes, the purpose of which was immediately evident when he struck Senlin in the cheek.

  Warmth streamed down Senlin’s neck. He shoved the Commissioner back on his heels and took up the fighting stance Iren had taught him. Senlin parried the Commissioner’s thrusts, hoping that his muscles would recall the reflexes he’d tried so hard to beat into them.