by Jordan Reece
There was no mockery in him, no distance from the events; his eyes were wide with the horror of the memory. “We had one dinghy aboard. One. Lowered with rowers, the prince and his retinue, it cracked upon a rock and went down. The ship lowered and lowered beneath our feet, until the freezing water ran over the decks and we slipped and slid trying to stay above. Then we were grabbing onto the rocks jutting out of the river, screaming all the while, one by one going under or carried away by the current. Isabet was ripped from a rock, too weak to hold on anymore, and the lord as his last act thrust his newborn son at me.”
Elario saw this scene for one terrifying moment, the lord with his dark hair plastered wetly to his scalp. He was clutching to the rough side of a rock as Westen, equally soaked, tied the bundle to his back with a scarf. Another swell tore the lord away, Westen crying out and reaching for him, but the man was gone into the impenetrable whiteness.
“I was strong,” Westen said. “I could swim. Few others could do anything more than paddle about at the bathhouse, where the water is never deep. The child swaddled to my back, I swam away into the fog. There were no bearings to be had; every stroke was a battle. It was night when I dragged myself to shore at the edge of Twolee. But it was too cold; the child expired in my arms as I tried to warm him against my bare chest. He was the last of the Inamon line. So, in answer to your question, which you have undoubtedly forgotten by now: I buried him and walked away, drenched and penniless, and kept walking for one hundred years. I walked Phaleros several times, because I had nothing to do, and I prayed to the gods to kill me. I walked the mountains on all three sides, the northern shore, the Great Cities in their ruin, the golden ring and Grand Market and the Hopcross, the western desert land and the rivers. When you have no purpose and you cannot die, all that is left to you is to walk. I jumped from cliffs and hurled myself at dervesh, filled my pockets with stones and sank beneath the water, cast myself naked upon ice and stepped into fire, all to no avail. In time, I wearied of my company and returned to your world, where I worked for lifetimes as a bodyguard among noble homes, but that was not your question or interest, and so here I stop.”
“Do you wish to die?” Elario asked.
Westen gave him a considering look, and smiled in a way to put distance between them. “I wish for a single gray hair.” He turned away to speak to Hobbe about acquiring rations for Elario after the trolley pulled into its final stop.
There was no lie or joke in his wish. Death was not truly what he craved, but a gray hair was proof that he was no longer held apart from time. He would rejoin humanity when nature’s course resumed in him. Westen at’Inamon longed for something that Elario took wholly for granted.
Elario left his hand where it was, with Westen’s skin warming his own. The trolley slowed for the last corner of its route, and he was almost sorry when he had to let go.
Chapter Fifteen
The air in the ghost tunnels was stagnant and bitterly cold. It was an eerie place: the profound silence trading off with the distant whisking sound of snakes racing down other passages, the miles of arched ceilings interspersed with uninhabited platforms. All of the platforms were named for long-dead kings and queens, with Denelan noticeably omitted. The rail was gone, and Elario’s feet cracked upon small stones and grit in the channels.
At times, they came upon large globules of white lights floating about in the air. Those were aithra gas bubbles, a very old and uncontrollable creation of scientific knackers. Intended to provide light on the platforms, the bubbles had slipped out from their glass compartments and taken to wandering. They were harmless things and very bright, so Hobbe turned off his headlight when they encountered the bubbles in the tunnels.
After slipping past the soldiers in the station, they had not seen anyone since. Why guard these passages? They were in such a tangle that had Westen vanished, Elario would not have had a prayer of finding his way out. Late at night when he should have been asleep, fear that even Westen might lose his way made his eyes widen in the darkness. The worry was for naught; noticing his wakefulness, Westen had Hobbe turn his headlight to a particular slab of rock wall. There were marks in it, meaningless chicken scratches to Elario, but Westen had mapped this area decades ago, and these were the directions he followed now.
As they traveled on the second day, Westen needled Elario with ghost stories to spook him, but Elario fought back good-temperedly. “You cannot scare me with those. Half of the Hallowmas stories are tales of ghostly beings, and I know them all.”
“Damn,” Westen said. “The White Lady of Relfen Manor?”
“Yes, that one, too.”
“The Laughing, Black-Eyed Child?”
“That as well.”
“Then you tell one.”
Elario had only one to tell. Tightening his cloak against the chill, he said, “My father told me a story that he had had from his grandfather, who was named Vechenzo. When Vechenzo was a boy, he was very close to his grandmother. Every morning, she drank her tea upon her rocking chair and read him a story from a tattered book of fables before he went to his chores. She died of heart troubles when he was eleven, passing peacefully in her sleep one night. Then, two days after she was buried, he went downstairs in the morning and saw a steaming cup of tea beside her rocking chair, and the book of fables open to his favorite story on the seat.”
“Clearly somebody else did those things!” Westen scoffed. “Somebody alive. That is not even scary.”
“Neither was your foolish story about the ghost howling in the well. It was probably a cat that fell in.”
“I have a ghost story,” Hobbe announced, the light from his forehead shining ahead into the tunnel.
“How is it I did not know this?” Westen said in umbrage.
“You did not inquire, sir.”
“Has he been too busy talking about himself for the last twenty years, Hobbe?” Elario asked sympathetically.
“Yes, sir, he does like to do that,” Hobbe said in all seriousness.
“Of all the gods high and low, tell us the story,” Westen demanded. “I would have paused for breath in those twenty years if I had known you had a ghostly tale in your memory stores!”
“Very well, sir. This happened five years after I came off the assembly line and commenced work down in the copper mines. By day and night, recorded upon our internal chronometers as sun and moon were both unseen, we toiled to fill the carts. We only saw a human face when our overseer took the elevator down the shaft to check on us. He did this once every two to three days, delivering new programs through our throat ports and taking away any mechanical laborer among the crews who had malfunctioned since his last visit. Deeper and deeper we burrowed into the earth, and then there was a rumble. Now, there were many passages where we were working, rather like down here. Do you understand, sirs?”
“Yes, Hobbe,” they replied dutifully.
“When a passage proved to be not good, or had suffered a cave-in, we were programmed to block it off with a heavy metal door, and bolt it so that it could not be opened. There was one such door near where I was working with my crew. Just as we registered the rumble, a ringing blow struck that door from the inside. We turned, our headlights shining upon it. A fist had bulged the metal outwards, and then a voice cried, Run! Run back to the elevator! We ran as the mine collapsed behind us. Three crews of mechanical men were lost that day.”
Westen sighed. “This is not a ghost story, Hobbe, but you tried hard.”
“It is a ghost story, sir,” Hobbe replied. “Forgiveness. Because who was it to pound on that door and command us to leave? There were no human miners among our company, nor could the strongest human have dented that door, and the overseer was above. There were twelve crews of mechanical men below, and not one of us had been installed with the ability to speak.”
“It was . . .” Words failed Westen.
“A very good ghost story,” Elario finished for him.
“One of them must have had an emergency progr
am giving him a temporary ability to speak!” Westen said desperately.
“But how did the mechanical man get behind that bolted door?” Elario argued. “Hobbe wins. That’s far spookier than a cup of tea and an open book, or any of your silly stories.” Hobbe activated his laugh track.
There were faint pulls from dragon bones down here, sporadically turning Elario’s head in their direction. Kin. Now a stronger one made him push to the front of their party and rush ahead, where he took to a knee on the ground. His hand settled in the grit as his dragon’s eye experienced another kinship. The dead was calling out to dead, and rejoicing to hear a reply. The skeleton stretched out invisibly under his shoes.
“Why are some in the caves, and some in Phaleros?” he asked.
“Dragons used the caves as dens,” Westen said at his back. “The females bore their young within them, which is why many of the skeletons in the caves are small. Fully grown adults died in combat or in sickness over the world that is now ours. Their bones sank into the earth.”
Kin. Elario got up, the desire to stay at the skeleton diminishing. Another night passed, the sound of rushing snakes piercing through the walls and waking him with the vibrations. Snakes ran all night, though more infrequently than by day, carrying laborers back and forth to factories open all through the dark hours.
Once it was morning, which was no different from night in the tunnels, they pressed on. Westen’s old wall maps were less elaborate mile by mile; the worst of the tangle was over, and the stations were farther apart. Above them were estates now, belonging to wealthy merchants and low nobles. Those ended where Betala began, the city so small that it bore but a single active snake station.
They made it there by midday, heaving themselves out of the channel at the King Javes platform. Westen waved them on to a shadowy staircase, which they took upwards to a boarded exit. Light and the sound of cheers and music filtered through knotholes in the thick planks. Intrigued, Elario peeked through a hole at eye level but saw nothing save an alley.
Westen shouldered a loose board aside and motioned for Elario to squeeze through. He entered the alley, which was enclosed by red brick buildings three stories high. Greenery was pinned about the doors at the side entrances and hung from the knobs. Flowers grew from boxes at the windows, many of which were draped in flimsy, colorful scarves as curtains. The cheery colors of the alley were a welcome sight to Elario after the darkness of the ghost tunnels and the gray of Cathul.
The air tasted of wine. Elario looked up to find the source of the music. A shirtless young man stood at a window on the second floor, drawing a bow over a violin. So engaged was he at his task that he never looked down. But it was much more than one violin that Elario was hearing.
He looked down the alley to the road. People were clustered upon the wide sidewalk, all of them with their backs to the alley as they cheered. A bright blare of trumpets playing the same high note eradicated their upraised voices, and then the cheers redoubled when the blare ended.
“These are boarding houses reserved for students of music,” Westen said, fitting the loose board back into place once Hobbe was out. “Betala is renowned for its university, theaters, and temple; each day is a festival and all else is an afterthought. We’ll take the promenade into Ruzan. But we must get through that dashed dragon parade first.”
“They are not real dragons, sir,” Hobbe said to alleviate Elario’s confusion. “They are flying puppets. It is a tradition in Betala to walk them down the promenade every week.”
Westen gave a final nudge to the board to conceal the stairs in full. With a scoff, he said, “Betala has little industry these days but shows, midwives, and infinite wine taverns.”
They went down the alley to the sidewalk. Hundreds upon hundreds of people were gathered on both sides of the road, cheering and waving, clapping and stamping their feet, even dancing in place. Elario stopped at the back to see what was causing such excitement.
Ten rows of white-garbed trumpeters were marching past the boarding houses, horns turning smartly from right to left to right as they played. In their wake was a gigantic dragon made of red fabric, which rippled in the wind as it flew above the road. Bellowing from its mouth was a paper fire. Puppeteers with sandbags strung to their waists walked in pairs below, holding onto long staffs hooked to the beast. The wind tugged so strongly at the dragon that one puppeteer was lifted inches off the ground. This was no job for a child or lightweight adult; every one of the puppeteers was a thickset man or woman to counter the force.
The dragon’s tail lashed back and forth over the sidewalks. The paper fire folded up and sprouted out again over the heads of the musicians. Then flowering dragontrees embroidered upon white pennants flew up, attached to the backs of the trumpeters. Elario cheered with the audience and looked eagerly down the road for what was next.
Drummers pounded and cymbals crashed in ear-splitting joy to announce the blue dragon sliding sinuously at their backs. Two infant dragons flew at the mother dragon’s sides. They were so tiny that each was controlled by a single, stocky puppeteer. A third infant flew behind its family, the puppeteer sprinting around the street to show its naughtier nature. He doubled back with the young dragon to go the wrong way and the children around Elario chortled and clapped.
The puppeteer whirled around and dashed along the road to return the baby to its family. They moved on down the promenade. Flutes and piccolos lured along the next dragon, which looked like it was swimming with its many legs on the air currents. A man was sitting between the spines on its back. Whooping, he threw beads over the sides. They rained down upon the crowds, who held up their hands to receive them.
“Come along, southling,” Westen chided. “There’s nothing new about this parade.”
“It’s new to me,” Elario said in wonder. A blue bead bounced off Hobbe’s head. As it ricocheted away, Elario caught it. Painted upon the wood was a tiny green dragon encircled by its own fire.
He wanted to slip the bead upon a chain and give it to Nyca, who he would never see again. Elequa. Elario had been ten years old when Nyca was born. He remembered holding that grumpy baby swaddled into the shape of a tuber, feeding him and playing with him, watching the smile to crack the stone of his face the first time he was put on Jersey’s back. They shared no blood, but Nyca was the closest thing Elario had to a little brother.
That sobered him. Though more musicians and dragons were headed down the road, he slipped the bead into his pocket for safekeeping and turned to go after Westen.
The crowds were nearly impassable, and irritated looks were cast at them for pushing through. Though they tried to stay together, it was unfeasible. No sooner had Westen parted a knot than it closed behind him, cutting off Elario and Hobbe, who weaved about amongst the tightly-packed bodies to find another route. Hobbe took a wrong step and ended up in the promenade. People shouted at him to get out of the way, yet nobody parted to let him back in.
“The temple! Meet up at the temple!” Westen shouted in frustration. Elario spied him fifteen paces away, his expression one of deep perturbance. The man did not care for crowded roads at all. Then Westen was lost to view in the throngs.
There was no missing the temple, however, which was in the direction the parade traveled. The circular building was ringed in stone columns, its towering height further accentuated by totems of gods and goddesses on its roof. Elario continued towards it, voicing pardons with every step.
Two drunken, roaring men spilled out the swinging doors of a wine tavern, falling into the parade observers ahead of Elario. Staggering upright as people cried out and castigated them, the two began to throw savage blows at one another. Then it was chaos, everyone fighting to get away from the combatants. Elario went on doggedly, people knocking against his shoulders to go in the opposite direction. He edged nearer to the promenade to get around the fight.
More drunk men stormed out of the tavern to join the fracas. Punching and shoving and kicking, they shouted insults and
tore at each other’s clothes. The fleeing crowds on the sidewalk flooded into the street, having no other way to escape, an old woman tripping upon the curb and going down with a cry. A boy stepped on her back to keep up with his family; a man hauled the woman upwards and rushed with her into the road. A jack exited the wine tavern to restore order, but his attempt to stop the fighting only resulted in him getting caught up in it.
Another dragon soared overhead, throwing the world into shadow as Elario got around the rioters. All of them were drunk, judging from the woozy eyes and spittle-filled bellows. One man assaulted another with a lady’s closed parasol, striking him repeatedly upon the back; two more ran in defense of a friend who was curled up on the ground and being kicked viciously.
“Stop!” Several tan-and-greens were threading through the throngs from the bank farther down the block. Elario ducked his head just as someone crashed into him, knocking him off the curb.
He cried out and landed heavily on his side in the promenade. Scrambling up, he jerked away from the hand that closed around the strap of his satchel. A drunken man leered at him and held on. “What d’you got in there? Got money?”
“Get off!” Elario balled up his fist and raised it. The man tugged stubbornly at the satchel and Elario slugged him in the nose. Cartilage crunched sickeningly beneath his fingers. The man had thrown out a fist in turn and hit Elario over the eye patch. His ragged nail snagged in the fabric and yanked it down to Elario’s cheek.
It happened too fast for Elario to close his lid. The dragon’s eye split him from his mind. Apart from himself, apart from everyone, he looked down upon a calamitous scene.
Men gaped at the piercing scarlet iris in the golden, storm-tossed sea of his right eye. A couple of fists dropped from shock, allowing others who had not seen to gain the upper hand in the battle. A scream went up from a woman, the only woman to involve herself in the melee. Through cracked, bloody teeth, she cried, “Plague! He’s got the plague!” Then the soldiers arrived as the fighters thrashed and shoved in a panic to get away from Elario.