“No.”
Whispering and a cackle shot through the tower, contagious. All eyes were on them.
Cristoffel leaned a little closer to the strange woman, “Do you want me to help you down?”
Selisa grinned, sprouting pink teeth, “Climb and join us.”
Cristoffel frowned, growing colder. There was a feel of attraction to the tower somehow, as if it really did make sense to settle into a place there somewhere…to stay warm and protected like a sheltered hearth at winter.
“Climb and join us.”
Two others whispered, “Climb and join us.” Then whispers spread across one side, up to one of the bell holders. Selisa’s filthy hand struck out like a lizard’s tongue, clutching with her nails digging long white furrows in Misling’s wrist.
He held forward the carbine, his voice squeaking, “Let go!”
Selisa tugged with incredible strength, grinning and snapping her teeth with wide rolling eyes. Misling shook his arm and pulled, going nowhere. A balding man in a torn business suit who was perhaps a salesman before he became this, slithered out, making a noise from his mouth like lobster pincers clicking, with thick saliva trickling down from his fat lips in strings. All clicking teeth and smiles, he brought his face up to Misling’s cheek – saying nothing.
Cristoffel tugged on the Recorder’s sleeve, trying to help but really just panicking. He was still slinging his arm trying to free it; but Selisa held tight and only cocked her head to one side curiously.
“Kill yourself.”
Misling sidestepped to try and separate from the drooling Cheshire cat the salesman had become, with the clicking having stopped and only smiles remaining. He aimed the carbine at Selisa and shouted.
“Let go!”
All the eyes of the tower were watching; and some of those close by were starting to unravel and separate from the rest as if preparing to come down, with the look of unbridled enthusiasm.
“Shoot her!” Cristoffel yelled, backing away a step. The salesman was horrifying her like she’d seen his snake smile in dreams before.
Selisa’s voice cracked, “He suffocated. Cursed you at the end when he drowned in concrete dust. Climb and join us!”
“Let go now!” He shook and shook availing nothing; and his hand was cloud white.
At last it was another darting hand that prompted the Recorder to fire. Another snake darting from the nest and snapping; and it sent him into full self defense with a merciless grip on the carbine trigger. A sizzling ball no bigger than a child’s fist, yellow as sunrise and smelling of ozone cannonball-roared into Selisa’s head and blew it apart in brightly flaming pieces like a scattering of dry leaves in a campfire.
The hand still clung to him; but he was able to shake it this time.
“Run!”
The salesman and others had withdrawn and were climbing down. It was fast, much faster now that Misling had fired than before…with purpose. There was a little girl in pajamas, covered in muck and eyes blank who was leading the way; and they were apparently intending to spread out to surround and encircle. Misling and Cristoffel had started for an alleyway behind them but stopped sharply at what was emerging from it now…people running at full speed like roaches on all fours. They were screaming gibberish as if it was real words, carrying the force of a blind and furious mob, as fierce and stupid as the worst of them all and entirely out of their minds. Trying to fire behind him, Misling was blasting wildly and contacting very little. Without strategy, they were just running. No duke or Chaselord was with him then; and nothing in his memories rose to his aid. There were just too many; and it was happening too fast.
“Fire that thing! Shoot them!” Cristoffel shouted, though he was trying already. She’d pulled her knife but was doing nothing with it. They had to shift directions again when more came from a second alleyway, led by a dark woman with bloodied fingertips, with some of her fingernails torn and hanging in shreds.
“Baby Jorey! My baby!” The dark woman’s voice was hoarse and fading, like she’d been yelling for days. Yet her eyes were wild; and she wanted blood.
Misling and Cristoffel were at last encircled; and he managed to burn down the screaming woman. He’d hoped maybe they would fear him because of this; but that wasn’t so. Then the carbine only snapped. It was overheating and shutting down. He looked at Cristoffel sadly, for it was only going to be another moment before they were buried beneath this horde like animals on the plain being feasted upon. And it was his fault.
“I have killed you. I am sorry.”
She looked back at him and grabbed his hand, ultimately facing the clicking bald man who patted the pajamas girl and the nightmare mob behind them.
Then, a smoking carbine barrel jutted from the alley, “That’s enough.” One ball of fire screamed, then another – each precisely tearing into the chest of one of the attackers. They began dropping, one after the other.
Grebel’s face was behind the barrel, frowning, “Chumps.”
When he’d dropped several more, in textbook and mathematical precision, the crowd ceased its advance and took on a panicked immediacy like horses in thunder, mad eyes and poised to run. He calmly rested the barrel against another’s forehead and exploded the fellow’s face in a crimson starburst. Then they began to entirely disperse. As he saw their numbers dwindle, Grebel stepped into the clearing and held his arms out in a taunt, beckoning. The girl in pajamas was last to turn and walk away, her face coy and wicked. He watched and held the position long enough to ensure no takers, then turned to face the little Recorder and Cristoffel disapprovingly.
Grebel saw the carbine in the Recorder’s hands and frowned deeper, then looked at her with contempt that she’d allow such a thing, “Maybe you’d like to go back and ask your buddies on the Tower where they have their hair done! Build a fire. Sing some songs.”
He smacked Misling’s arm, “The most dangerous handheld weapon known to man; and you hung it on a panicked nerd.”
She chuckled nervously, still looking up at Grebel. He creased his forehead, “What’s funny?”
“I’m standing here getting yelled at by Grebel Lant. I don’t know what to tell you. Bad day.”
He looked at her a moment with his cold, military scowl, then softened and chuckled. In fact, he was fairly tickled by what she’d said and broke into a laughter uncommon for him.
“Come on. I need help.”
Inside the winding corridors between buildings, where a chilling breeze funneled through and whistled, they followed Grebel and at last came to another street, one with a barricade pile of furniture and debris. Inside the wide marble and palm-shrouded atrium of a botanical museum sat perhaps twenty people talking. They were at café tables and benches, having conversation; and several glanced at the Recorder and Cristoffel as they arrived only to return to their chats. Grebel ignored them with disdain and was bound for a hallway farther in; but Misling stopped right there, dumbfounded. He had resigned to being torn to pieces only moments before, surely within earshot of these sitting here; and they could sit with no conscience at a sandwich shop. Few seemed injured.
“What are you doing?” Misling lost his temper; and this was entirely a new thing in the world. A tattered and grime-smeared Recorder with a carbine slung across his shoulder yelling – those at the tables were frightened at the day, surely; but here was something none of them had seen before. He had their attention in a vise.
“There is rubble in the plaza.” He pointed toward from where he’d come, “There is a Red Witch tower right there. What are you doing here?”
Grebel and Cristoffel had stopped at Misling’s voice, curiously. By this time, Grebel was smiling widely at what he was seeing, with his arms folded. She looked up at Grebel and saw that was so, but didn’t know how to react herself.
The Recorder kicked a table over angrily, spilling its contents, “Could you not be bothered? Is this not your city?!”
Sana and water splattered across the tiles making green and dark c
rowns and starbursts, soaking the bread and glass shards that had fallen. He looked across their stunned faces, their blank expressions and self-absorption, burning their appearances into the Record; and they would have known he was doing that. Farmilion wasn’t there – only downtown office and merchant people failing to do anything beyond celebrate their own salvation. No one spoke up, though some turned their heads down.
Misling turned another table over with his boot and frowned at a tall and incredibly athletic fellow who he judged should be perhaps lifting rubble. “Is this not your city?!”
He left them with the horrible silence and let the question wash over those at their cups, stomping away to continue down the hallway and saying nothing to Grebel or Cristoffel as he passed. Grebel glanced at her after Misling was beyond, only raising an eyebrow at such a sight as he’d just seen. The bland crowd murmur rose instantly, echoing down the atrium.
“On a different day, that would have been hilarious.”
Cristoffel didn’t smile, but shifted subjects, “I’m really glad you showed up when you did. What are you doing here?”
Gesturing to move her along, “Come on.”
Past the fountain blossoms and a stagnant landscaped stream, the corridor opened up to a columned room with a skylight meant for sculptures that had been laid to their sides and stacked against walls, now housing perhaps fifteen injured men and ladies, resting on folded blankets or coats and shaded gray and pale blue with Balcister-dust. Cristoffel scanned for a short fat man with a pink face and unfortunately saw nothing.
“You’ve set up a life station.”
Nodding, “Your camerahead was right – almost nobody showed up.
“I’m here.”
Grebel’s soldier face betrayed maybe surprise at that, “I need you to help out in the kitchen. These guys need some hot food, know what I mean?”
Irritated, “Because I’m a girl I’m going to the kitchen!?”
He frowned impatiently, “Because you can walk and everyone else is worthless! And if you start drooling or acting weird, I’ll light you up like a fireworks show.”
“Do you know what’s happening?”
Grebel re-evaluated her, hesitating, “I think so. Where did you come from?”
Cristoffel pointed with her thumb in the direction of the Spooks, “We came through a mess – mogs all over the place. They’re tearing the city apart.”
He raised an eyebrow, “The financial district? Green and yellow…sort of a…” He shaped something in the air with his finger, “sort of spikes on the cannons?”
Shaking her head apologetically, “I don’t know.”
He only nodded, “Yeah, it’s Doniphan. Have any family in Spenecia?”
“No.”
“That’s good.” He appraised Cristoffel again, having to look down at her young face because of how tall he was. She’d been different than those he’d encountered that day, as had been her odd companion.
“Go talk to your Recorder first. I’m guessing he just lost somebody. Never seen one act like that. You can tell him from me though, ain’t no survivors from Balcister that weren’t turned.”
Cristoffel surveyed those lying in pain and those unconscious, with only a skinny, oily-faced boy in office clothing tending them with cheap cups of water. Grebel walked away as she did so; and though she called out to ask where he was going, he didn’t answer. Cristoffel was a bit awed by someone so familiar and of such celebrity being in this square with them. Although Grebel hadn’t been in Alson for years, his was a face everyone knew – the tribesman from the Salt Flats who commanded the heaviest assembly of war vessels ever put together and never lost a battle or skirmish. His stride was confident as if he’d purchased the city and was inspecting its cleanliness.
Then she discovered Misling under a table, holding his head in his hands.
She coughed gently as she joined him, “That woman…where did you know her from?”
“Her name was Selisa.”
Misling paused and at last locked eyes with Cristoffel. He was trying to establish a memory for the woman he’d slain. “Selisa. From the tent cities, loved by Hastine. A rough woman, sarcastic and good at riddles.”
Cristoffel saw that she had to nod her acknowledgement, that she was now to remember what she could of the woman who’d died on the tower by his hand.
“She was to have been in Balcister with Farmilion.”
“Were you able to…?” She gestured towards the plaza and the evil piling of souls shrouded within it.
Shaking his head, “He was not there. After all this…” His face bore an unbelieveable sadness, “I miss him.”
Cristoffel only nodded; and then they were silent for a time. There was a smell of smoke; and grit was in their teeth. Cold breezes were starting to chill the evening as shadows lengthened. Frosted and curved through the skylight, and high along the limestone and concrete buildings, windows were empty and rooms vacant, mog-roads desolate and quiet.
Misling at last said, “That was Grebel Lant from Tanith.”
Her eyebrows rose at his change of subject, “Yes, it was.” She was careful to take her cue from him on the depth to which they would discuss this matter.
Pausing, “A thing of interest to the Record.”
“I would think so, yes.”
Still holding his head, slumped like a dying cowboy in a saddle, “Will you just say things? Just talk.”
Understanding him, that a Recorder could be distracted by recording, Cristoffel coughed as she discerned a good place to start. “I don’t really know what I can-”
“Please.”
Trying again, slowly at first before building to some speed, “I thought of something earlier. Not sure why. When I was very little, there was this prize hunt at school; and I couldn’t find anything. Everybody else had sacks overflowing – I was just last to all the good hiding places. I remember thinking if I cried again, they’d laugh at me. I was always being laughed at for something; and I didn’t want to give another reason. There was this really old principal, with the kindest eyes I’d ever seen. We all knew he’d lost a son and a wife – his son’s name was tattooed on his forearm. People kind of avoided him because it was hard to know what to say to him. Anyway, they weren’t supposed to help us; but he got my attention and sort of…pointed…barely lifting his finger. He’d showed me a huge pile of prizes behind a tree. Even now, I can’t think of anything I’ve been more grateful for. Some people live up in the parapets and on the rooftops. They don’t have any money; but there are some I know who remind me of him. Just kind and…deep…people who’ve lost someone or who’ve been through something but have the distance now to…accept it. It’s comforting. I’ve always thought Recorders must be like that, at least the old ones.”
Cristoffel waited then, uncertain whether she was rambling or being unhelpful. She was tired and hungry; and it still wasn’t clear this place was any safer than where they’d been.
He lifted his head to see her, “It is not difficult to hide after lights-out at the Academy, to sit and listen to the Lord Recorders speak to one another. They are such people.” Cristoffel only nodded. .
Misling brushed hair back from his forehead, clearing the symbol there. She examined it curiously as he did so, “When Farmilion came to select his Recorder, there was an assembly announcement, posters all over the walls. They had placed the very best of us in a lineup; but I was told to sweep the great hall to be kept from his view. When his face stuck from the doorway, he was grinning as he always was. Such a tiny little fat man, smiling and pink in the face. ‘How about an adventure…or lunch?’”
Misling’s impersonation was incredible and startled Cristoffel. “He was not in the wrong place as I had thought and tried to explain to him, but rather had ignored those in the procession and on purpose wandered the hall looking for whoever had been passed over.”
Cristoffel’s eyes softened, smiling, “He sounds amazing.”
The Recorder nodded distantly,
seeing a day long gone. She pulled the black hair from her pony tail and let it fall to her shoulders. Looking up, she shook her head gently and puffed from her lower lip to clear hair from her eyes.
“You were pretty hard on those people sipping their tea in there; and maybe we ought to do something different. Grebel asked me to help out in the kitchen, so let’s go see what we can do for the people who’ve made it. Okay?”
Misling was still distant, drained of vigor and likely swimming in his Record, both times past and here with her. It took a moment for him to catch something in what she’d said.
Raising both eyebrows, “Is that what Grebel Lant said, ‘help out in the kitchen’?”
Cristoffel cocked her head, then tried to ease him, perhaps fearful of his disappointment, “It’s just a way of saying it.”
Tearing Down The Statues Page 29