“If he said so, Lady, I would not contradict the word of the city boss.”
“Oh, pshaw.” She laughed again. “Roth said no such thing, nor would he—though I imagine I could coax that admission from him, if I had a mind. No, Railwalker, Micah Roth is far more subtle than you give him credit for. He would not be seen running to the Railwalkers for help, as if he and his government could not keep the peace in their own city. He would much rather the general public see the arrival of the Railwalkers as a fortuitous synchronicity—as if the gods themselves, noticing their favored Bay City was troubled, had arranged things to our advantage.”
“He didn’t seem to me a particularly religious man,” I said. “Or a secretive one, for that matter.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt he would confess he called you here, if anyone questioned him directly on it, yes or no. But consider your own answer to my question just now. You would not have answered me with such careful circumspection if you had not noticed how he explained—or did not explain—your presence at the Ritual of Summersend this afternoon.”
I had to allow as how she had me there. “You think this is a bad decision on his part?”
“What, summoning you here? Or do you mean concealing—perhaps I should say neglecting to reveal—the fact that he has done so?”
“Either.”
She thought that over for a moment. “These are terrible days, Railwalker,” she said. “Not just with regard to the crimes of this killer, horrible though they may be. Our city may be flourishing economically, but it is rotting away inside. We struggle to resurrect the technology of our ancestors, with no regard for the disasters that technology wrought in their time. Our youth have no respect for their elders, or for the traditions and customs that made our city great. Civility, honor, fair dealing, common courtesy, even good sense and serious reflection fall before the onrushing juggernaut of commercial progress. Look to the newsfeeds and you will see it. Journalism and reportage give way to huckstering and sound bytes, serious consideration of important issues is nowhere to be found, only the shrill caterwauling of partisan pinheads, lashing the public with shallow sloganeering.”
It sounded a little like a speech, and one she’d given before. The smile was gone now, replaced with a look that reminded me of a raptor. Not one on the hunt, but one who had sensed an invader in its territory. Then she sighed. “There was a time,” she said, “when there was order in the world, and sanity. Honor and nobility meant something; breeding, manners, customs and traditions were not just empty forms.”
“And you think,” I asked, “that Micah Roth contributes to this degeneration? That the People’s Takeover and the creation of more democratic institutions signaled the downfall of honor and nobility?”
“Micah Roth is a man of his time.”
“Perhaps so. But do honor and nobility exist in an institution, in a form of government, or in the hearts of the individuals who make up a society?”
“The efficient function of any form of government requires good intentions, honor, and honesty in the hearts and minds of those at the top. History has shown us that a corrupt democratic leader can do as much damage as any hereditary monarch.”
“And you would have me believe that Roth is corrupt?”
She looked at me for a long moment, her head cocked to one side. “I did not say so,” she said at last. “But if I were you, Railwalker, I would go carefully, with both eyes wide open. Corrupt or not, no politician is without his agendas. The Walkers of the Rails have a reputation for integrity and incorruptibility. If some in this city do suspect Micah Roth to be corrupt, the appearance of a close association between him and your order might well persuade them otherwise. Have no doubt the city boss is cognizant of this.”
The music had turned to a waltz, and Hannah Caine gestured toward the dance floor. “Will you dance, Railwalker?” she asked. I said I’d be honored.
I’m no great dancer, though I know the steps to the traditional dances of most regions and can manage not to trip over my own feet. Guild harlots were trained in far more than sexual skills, of course, so it came as no surprise that the guildmadam should be a marvelous dancer. As we moved across the floor, she compensated for my little inadequacies so smoothly and subtly, if I’d been just a little less self-aware I might have thought I’d discovered a previously unknown natural ability for dance. I had little doubt that her skill at manipulation extended to other areas as well, and it was unlikely she’d have to take a city official to bed in order to lead him around by the nose. And the guild was a powerful force in Bay City.
I put those thoughts aside. There would be enough time for grim and suspicious musings on the morrow. For the moment I let myself go and just enjoyed dancing as I seldom had before.
At midnight a bell summoned us out to the penthouse terrace to watch the burning of the Bay City Corn Guy. I made my way to the railing, looked down. Many stories below I could see Central Square, where the draped parachute had been removed, revealing the huge Corn Guy set up in the dry fountain. On the stage the band was playing, traditional seasonal tunes interspersed with what I assumed was their own original stuff, since I hadn’t heard it before. They weren’t bad, actually. The square was still crammed with people, some of them dancing, some of them just standing around. Here and there people held up smaller Corn Guys of their own, or little Corn Dollies, which they’d toss on the bonfire once the big Guy went up. For the moment, guards on watch at the sawhorses kept the crowd back from the fountain and its giant figure. I was thinking the leaves and stalks on the Guy looked kind of oversized when I became aware of a tall presence beside me.
“Hannah’s a trip, isn’t she?” Sarah Weldt asked.
“You could put it that way,” I said. “I take it she and Roth have a somewhat adversarial relationship?”
“Not always,” she sighed. “She cooperates a lot of the time. But she can be a bit rigid about certain things.”
A girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, came rushing up to Weldt, and then, noticing me, abruptly shifted to a slower, more stately approach. She was wearing a rather adult-looking gown, but a conservative one.
“Mother...” she said, smiling and glancing at me. I had a feeling had they been alone it would have been a delighted, energetic “Mommy!”
Weldt nodded and turned. “Railwalker, this is my daughter, Rochelle. Rochelle, Railwalker Wolf.”
“Twenty-three blessings,” I said, as I took her hand. She curtsied and said, “And to you. You honor our house with your corvine presence.” I bowed. “Though I suppose it’s technically not ‘our’ house,” she added, with a glance at her mother, “except in a sort of metaphorical way.”
“Thank you for your welcome,” I said. “To whatever place you are in.”
She blushed and nodded. “Mother,” she said, turning back to Sarah Weldt, “I’ve got my corn dolly. May I go down and throw it in the fire? Alissa will be with me, and we’ll be ever so careful.”
Her mother nodded. “But be back in twenty minutes or so,” she said.
“You bet.” The girl pecked her mother on the cheek and curtsied again to me.
“Alissa is an older girl from her classes,” Sarah Weldt told me, her eyes on the swiftly disappearing girl.
“She’s precocious, isn’t she?”
“She is that. She’s had good training, I think, but she isn’t ruled by it, which is good.”
“It is,” I said.
“We’re proud of her.” She beamed.
“We?” It probably wasn’t politic to ask, but I had a feeling that Weldt could be a plain talker when she chose to be, and might not mind. I was right.
“Micah and I.”
I’d thought I remembered they had been married. Neither wore a ring now, though.
“I take it it was a pretty amicable separation?”
“Mostly. And what wasn’t amicable back then, we’ve worked out by now.”
Down below another band had gotten on the stage, and they kicked off into
a raucous, electrified version of “Cornmash Johnny,” the tune that traditionally accompanies the burning of the Guy. It was pretty good, if you like that sort of thing, but I found myself wishing I was back in Apache Run, listening to the tune played by a bunch of enthusiastic amateurs with acoustic instruments. We watched in silence as the Corn Guy blazed up, to cheers from the crowd below and a rumble of approving noises from the group gathered on the terrace.
“It’s actually a metal sculpture,” Sarah Weldt said, looking down at the square. “A fellow by the name of Sargasso built it. Fired by gas, mostly, and designed to collapse in on itself as the burn goes on. Supposed to look like a real Corn Guy.”
“Does it?” I asked.
She nodded. “Pretty much.”
She was right, more or less. At least from that distance, it was pretty convincing.
At a certain point, not long after the Guy had flared up, I excused myself and faded from the company. I made my way to the deck on the southern side of the building, opposite where the square was. Rok and Morgan were there before me, leaning on the railing, looking out toward the south, toward Apache Run, as if they might actually see the flames from that zone town’s oversized Guy. Morgan turned and nodded as I walked up and joined them. We stared at the darkened horizon in silence for a while. Finally Rok straightened up and stretched.
“I didn’t really expect to see it,” he said. “I just thought it was worth the gesture. We did say we’d look, after all.”
I nodded my agreement and the three of us turned to go back to the reception, and Bay City’s burning Corn Guy.
Much later, I found myself wandering the halls of the CA Tower, too tired to do any serious work, but too keyed up to sleep. I still didn’t know whether to expect another killing tonight. The guard were on high alert. As I turned down a corridor, I noticed a dim light coming from the conference room where we’d first met with Roth and Gage. Then I noticed a guardsman standing by the door. It was a patrol guardsman named Karstairs. I’d seen him around once or twice. I nodded to him; he nodded back. I shot my eyes at the conference room door. He just shrugged. I stepped to the door and looked in.
As gently and quietly as I’d moved the door and peered around it, Micah Roth either heard me or sensed that I was there. He looked up from the end of the long conference table, a glass and a bottle before him.
“Railwalker Wolf,” he said. “Come in, sit. Join me for a drink?”
“Don’t mind if I do.” I stepped inside. I had drunk only a few sips of champagne early in the evening, the better to keep my head clear for dealing with the city notables. Maybe a shot of whatever Roth was having would help me relax and sleep. A carafe of water and several clean glasses stood on a tray in the middle of the table.
“Grab a glass,” he said. He gestured toward the door as I did so. “Guardsman Karstairs refused my hospitality.”
A quiet voice came from the doorway: “I appreciated the offer, but I’m on duty, sir.”
I sat. Roth chuckled as he poured a couple of fingers of amber liquid into the water glass.
“I suppose I should be grateful my guardsmen are conscientious,” he said. “Gage assigned him to me for tonight, wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Decidedly firm with his boss for a new guard chief. He thinks the Beast may be going to kill again tonight, so he wanted me guarded, just in case.”
“He may be right,” I said, accepting the glass from Roth. “Thanks.” The amber liquid burned going down. I’m not a connoisseur of hooch any more than of tobacco, but judging from the medicinal taste it was probably expensive scotch, so I tried to look appreciative.
“Gage said something about the Beast being on some kind of solar cycle,” said Roth. “What do you think? Is he prowling for another kill tonight?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure.” I sighed. “I kind of doubt it, but I can’t say definitely. Gage is right to be careful, stay prepared.”
Roth nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “Unlike your father, you’re not a gambling man,” he said.
“No sir,” I said. “I’m not, not generally.”
“Tell me something, if it’s not prying. What did you do between the time you left your father and the time you entered the Railwalker Academy?”
“I worked construction, mainly. Santa Brita, Two Suns.”
“You know what I did before the Revolution?”
“Something in the labor unions?”
“Before that, I meant.”
I thought about it for a minute, searched my memory. “You ran a restaurant?”
He chuckled. “Yeah. I started out as a chef. Worked for a guy named Goodman... who wasn’t. A good man, I mean. Treated people like shit. He ran a restaurant called the Coronado.”
I’d heard of the Coronado.
“Y’know, Railwalker, in my experience, most people want to do the right thing. Oh, you get your arseholes here and there, your monsters like the Beast, your jerks like Goodman. But most people, you treat ’em fair, give ’em a job they can get some satisfaction out of, and a reason to do it well, and they’ll give you the best of themselves. Goodman didn’t understand that, but I did. And I ran the kitchen in the Coronado. When the restaurant had made a name for itself, and Goodman was ready to open a hotel, I’d saved enough to buy the Coronado from him.
“We did okay, better than okay. I demanded a lot from my people, but I treated them well, and gave ’em plenty of incentives to do the best they could. And they did. With their help I built the Coronado into a very successful place, made a lot more with it than Goodman ever had.
“Eventually I figured out that the principle worked just about anywhere, in any aspect of life. You treat people with respect, give ’em their dignity, reward ’em for good work, they’ll bend over backwards for you. They’ll do even more than they ever thought they could.
“Of course, eventually I got it in my head that the whole city could be run the way I ran the Coronado. Got into politics, ran for office. But Crichton wasn’t like Goodman. He wasn’t about to hand me Bay City and go off to boss some other city-state. I hadn’t planned on a bloody revolution, but before I knew it, it was here, and people were looking to me for leadership.”
“Well,” I said, “bloody conflicts are always a tragedy, but it does seem like Bay City ended up better off in the long run.”
“I hope so. But I’m tired of it, Railwalker. We’ve got elections coming up next year, and I’m not going to run again. I’m ready to retire and go back to the kitchen. Got a little place set up for myself, actually, just outside the city. Hartshall, it’s called. When this is over I’ll have to take you folks out there for dinner. You ever have venison chili?”
I never had. Chili is a staple in the area; I’d had beef and turkey and even meatless chili, but never venison. I shook my head. He smiled.
“I was born up north, where venison is more common. Nowadays I have it shipped in. Great stuff. You’ll have to try it.
“Right now, one of the fellows who worked for me at the Coronado is running Hartshall, and he’s done good. I think when the time comes I’ll let him continue to manage the place, and just spend my time in the kitchen again.”
He was silent for a long time, and we both sat there in the semi-darkness, wrapped in our own thoughts, sipping the scotch. Finally he turned to me and said, “I noticed you dancing with Guildmadam Caine earlier. Has she convinced you that I’m not to be trusted?”
I looked at this slightly drunk older man, trying to see him the way the Guildmadam of the Harlots seemed to see him—a master manipulator, using me for his own ends. That picture wouldn’t quite come into focus, which had nothing to do with the scotch, since I’d only had a couple of sips. No, I thought, taking another sip, this isn’t about Roth’s political advantage. Oh, I had no doubt Roth could play the manipulator when he wanted to; I’d already seen how he got what he wanted out of his people. But right now all I saw was a tired old man who wanted to see the city safe before he dropped the reins and wen
t home to relax.
“Can’t say she has,” I said.
“Well, that’s good, I suppose. Still, whatever advice she gave you, you shouldn’t discard it out of hand, Railwalker. She’s a wise and cagey old woman. And what’s more, I’ll admit to you, she’s not entirely wrong about me. I can lie and cheat with the best of them, if the occasion calls for it. But I will promise you this. I won’t drag you into any political contretemps, try to use you for my own political ends, not just now. Stopping the Beast is too important to the health of this city. I don’t want your attention divided between the case at hand and the political factions in Bay City.”
“I’m not convinced that the Beast is apolitical, that the factions and conflicting interests in the city don’t have some influence on his actions.”
“Okay.” He nodded. “But for what it’s worth, I’ll promise you this, too... Once the Beast is caught or killed, all bets are off. If you hang around here, I’ll make whatever political hay out of you I can. But until then, I’ll make sure the Beast is all you have to worry about. Fair enough?”
“Fair enough.”
15. PLUMBLINE CREEK—Six Months Ago
The vehicle the Ravagers called “the Hammer” had begun life as an oversized armored truck for transporting gold into the cities from mines north of the zones. How it had ended up in retirement hauling chickens and goats on some farm near the Sequoia River, Scather had no idea, but the minute he saw it, he knew they had to take it. In the years since, it had become nearly unrecognizable. Armored to begin with, it had acquired additional home-made plating and gun turrets, along with a makeshift luggage rack that held supplies. Several paint jobs over the years, as well as adornment with obscure personal sigils and slogans, had created a patchwork of colors that also helped disguise the vehicle’s lineage.
Just now the Hammer squatted in the center of Plumbline Creek’s town square like a massive leaden monument to truculence, flanked by a half dozen scruffy, arrogant Ravager cars and a jeep. The smaller ATVs were all in use, as Ravagers scouted the outer portions of the town making sure no one escaped. This was Scather’s policy, although it really wasn’t necessary for safety’s sake. There was no help to be found less than a full day’s drive away, and the Ravagers would be long gone before any such help could arrive. But you never knew what good shit an escapee might carry out with them. Fact was, the Hammer itself was a bit of overkill, purely an affectation, since the Ravagers hardly ever did battle against opponents who had any real capacity to fight back.
Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman Page 12