by Jack Conner
A sort of whistling noise escaped around the leather patch over Janx’s nose hole. “Worst part is, things were gettin’ better, weren’t they? Before the war.”
Avery nodded reluctantly, not wanting to dwell on it. As the cab drove on, they passed museums, art galleries, ancient halls of philosophy, the Gethys School of Alchemy, and more. For centuries Hissig had been renowned as a hub for art and music and learning. After the Revolution and the numerous failed governments that had replaced the aristocracy, that had changed, enlightenment taking a backseat to survival, but before Octung had launched its first attacks, Ghenisa had finally been coming into its own again, shedding the bloody history of the Unsettled Times with its executions, coups and paranoia. A new age had come about, spearheaded by Prime Minister Denaris and a stable, respected government—a time of renewal and renaissance, of art and poetry. The New Dawn.
“Perhaps we can get it back,” Avery said. “If the war ends.”
“The only way it’ll end is with Octung’s boot on our throat, and you know it. They’ve conquered near everyone else from sea to sea. We won’t be any different.”
Avery looked at him. “Then why fight? Why do you risk your life to stop them?”
Janx glanced off. “Why do you?”
The cab wound through the twisting streets, struggled up alternately cobbled and paved roads, ascending to one of the peaks of the foothills, Mount Ibrignon. The houses grew larger and more elaborate the higher they went.
Avery braced himself. They were very close now. He felt his nails digging into the palms of his hands. The thorns of the roses he carried pricked him.
When he finally saw the wrought-iron archway of the cemetery, his heart sped up. Beads of sweat swelled on his forehead. I shouldn’t have put this off, he thought. It had been too painful, and he’d kept finding things that demanded attention at Fort Brunt. At last, when he’d forced himself to come, not even Janx’s arrival could deter him.
“I won’t go any further,” the cabbie said, drawing the vehicle to a halt before the archway.
Ibrignon Peace and Love, the archway read. Its rusted, pitted surface glistened in the rain, the letters bleak and false to Avery’s eyes. A road led into the little cemetery, but evidently the cabbie dared not take it.
“Fine,” Avery said. “Wait here.” He cracked the door.
Janx touched his arm. “Want some company, Doc?”
Avery forced himself to smile. “No. Thank you, no.”
Janx sat back.
Avery stepped out into the night. Rain spattered his face for a moment before the umbrella blossomed, and he enjoyed it. Cold wind whipped at him, billowing his clothes, tearing at the umbrella. He squared his shoulders and marched through the archway. The purring of the cab’s engine dwindled behind him.
During daytime and in good weather the little cemetery on the hill afforded a magnificent view of the panorama of Hissig, with temples and domes and former palaces marching to the sea, in between handsome modern spires bristling with gargoyles and ornamentation. One could almost imagine what the city must have looked like in its heyday, before the Revolution, before the spread of that terrible notion of democracy. When a person was down below, in the folds of the city, he could see all the scars, all the defects, but from up here Hissig looked pristine, new, glorious.
Night hid much of the glory. Now all Avery could see was rain and darkness, with two of the pale, ivory moons wrestling to illuminate the city with a ghostly sheen, and even the sheen was mostly hidden in the rain.
Tombs and mausoleums surrounded him. Angels, devils and gargoyles leered down, rain dancing in their eyes, making their mouths seem to move, their fangs to slaver. A giant statue of a many-limbed goddess reared before him, holding in each of her twelve hands a broken urn. On this rocky promontory, most of the dead had not been buried but interred in tombs and mausoleums. Only the wealthy slept here, mainly descendents of the old noble families.
Avery’s throat tightened as he wound through the dripping tombs, seeking his family out. The rain blew colder. It soaked into his camel-hair jacket and hemp shirt, and from above he heard a rolling crack.
Avery pushed forward, clutching the flowers to his chest with one and holding off the rain with the other. He rounded a tomb whose visitors had left alchemical lanterns burning, impervious to the rain, before the names of their loved ones, along with old, scattered flowers and a figure made of wax ... and at last he arrived at the small but beautiful mausoleum where his wife and daughter had been interred. Rain dripped from its sides, shone on the faces of its angels, and glistened on the door which sealed Mari and Ani from the world of the living.
Avery felt pain and looked down to see that his hands had made fists and that his fingernails were driving deep into his palms. He slowly unclenched. His chest hitched, great racking sobs that shook him like a baby’s rattle. Suddenly losing all strength, he sank to his knees and wept, hard, and stayed that way for a long time.
When at last he was done, he stood and straightened.
He was ready.
Now for Sheridan.
* * *
The Headless Drake, the apartment building Avery lived in, stood on
Clower Blvd. near Graeslyn Park. Avery had once enjoyed strolling through the park on his visits to Hissig, city of his childhood. It had been wide and beautiful, and he remembered the times when, as a boy, he and his father—a tall, vigorous man with a shock of red hair, who had fought in the Revolution but would never talk about it—would sail their model boats on the duck-filled lake which was surrounded by tall, arching trees whose roots crept down to the water. They would spend days, weeks, crafting those little boats, and to see them sail on the lake was the culmination of many hours of labor and dreams. To this day whenever Avery saw a model toy he thought of his father, and felt something bittersweet inside. Now refugees from the war filled the park. They huddled under the skeletal branches of trees, their ragged tents pitched along the water, and any ducks that had remained during the winter were long since eaten. Now the only reasons any native Hissigite ventured to the park were illicit—drugs, sex, vices of all descriptions. As Avery passed the park, he stared out over the endless rows of shabby tents and took a deep breath. This war had to end soon or Ghenisa would collapse under the strain.
The Headless Drake waited, rain bubbling over its cracks and stains, cascading from its peaked roofs and dribbling from its gables. Once it had been a beautiful building, the palace of a duke, but the duke had been lynched and butchered into thirteen infamous parts during the Revolution. The building’s red-brick towers still stood proud and elegant, but their bricks were chipped and stained, many replaced entirely with different colored substitutes or simply not replaced at all. Cracks showed in the windows. Shutters sagged at odd angles.
Avery saw movement high up. A land octopus crawled over the building’s façade, rain dripping off the animal’s tangled fur, its body bunching and lengthening as its tentacles dragged it along. Luckily Avery saw no open windows for the animal to slip through, there to feast on leftovers, pets, even infants. He hoped some refugee made a meal out of it before the night was over.
The cab jerked to a stop before the Drake’s entrance, and Avery paid and disembarked. With a grunt, Janx followed. Rain pelted them as they ran up the steps to the doorway, and with some heaving the great wooden monstrosity swung to. After the Revolution this building had at first been converted to a hotel, and the lobby was a large, high-ceilinged affair of smoky wood with brick only showing here and there. A long counter mounted with ancient, cobwebbed cash registers ran the length of the rear wall. A huge wooden bas-relief of a wingless, serpentine dragon, its head hacked off, was etched into the wall behind it. The dragon had been the symbol of the old royal family and was why people often referred to them as Drakes.
“Nice place,” Janx said, staring around at the gloom and cobwebs.
Avery shrugged, droplets of water spraying from his coat to the elaborate carpet.
Gold and crimson and purple, it was the carpet of kings, or had been. Now it was frayed and torn, and Avery suspected that if it were moved it would disintegrate entirely.
“Did you know, they say the ghosts of those hanged here still haunt the building?” he said.
“This place don’t need ghosts to be haunted.”
Off that vague pronouncement, Avery led the way up the wooden staircase, and they wound up into the palace proper. The brick walls were barren of the beautiful oil paintings that had once adorned them, the handsomely-wrought windows were cracked, paint peeling around the edges, and the high arched ceilings were spanned by webs and inhabited with many-eyed scuttling things that set their webs to shuddering with the passage of travelers below.
Avery’s apartment was on the fourth floor, and he felt a weight lift off his shoulders when he stepped inside. It was medium-sized, sparsely furnished, and paneled in dark, chipped wood. Sagging bookshelves lined the walls, filled with historical books, romances from the L’ohen Empire, adventures set during the War of the Severance, and all manner of others. Drooping couches and chairs slouched in the living room, grouped around a sad coffee table and a soot-stained fireplace that seemed to radiate cold, not heat. Just as many webs spanned the arched ceilings as the hallways outside.
Avery flipped on the electric lights. A few dim bulbs buzzed. The building’s wiring had long since gone south, and the frequent blackouts had only destabilized it further. Thus Avery had a collection of alternate lighting, from tallow candles to alchemical lamps, to the fireplace that could roar with flame but rarely seemed to emit warmth.
He went around the rooms, lighting candle and lantern, throwing strange and different-hued illuminations into the suite. The bubbles of lighting struggled against each other, red with green, white with yellow. Weird shadows reigned.
Janx grunted, running a finger along a dusty surface. He seemed more amused than disgusted, and Avery wondered about the whaler’s own quarters. Avery’s suite simply seemed lonely. Draped in darkness and need.
He moved quickly to the dilapidated kitchen. His prize stood on the counter, its amber glass gleaming. There wasn’t as much whiskey left as he remembered.
“Give me a moment,” he said.
Avery tried his two-piece phone. He was in luck: a dial tone greeted him. Half smiling, he rang a number and waited till a voice on the other end snapped, “Yeah? Who’s this?” The tinny sound of a radio bleating a news report hissed in the background.
“Your upstairs neighbor.” Avery pitched his voice high. He could barely hear Martin over the radio. From the tone of the news reporter’s voice in the background, it sounded like Ghenisa was losing whatever battle was being covered.
Martin’s voice lightened somewhat. “Whaddaya want?”
“More of the same if you’ve got it.”
“Yeah, I got more. But it’ll cost ya. Supply’s runnin’ low, and gods know when there’ll be more ...”
“How much?”
Martin told him.
Avery whistled. “You’d better hope you don’t need any medical services in the near future. I might not be feeling generous.”
Martin chuckled. “Healthy as a myrcock, Doc. Be right up.”
Avery hung up and crossed the living room to start a fire in the fireplace. While he tended to that, Janx sparked a cigar and leaned against the mantle. Dripping candles crammed most of its surface, and here and there were wedged pictures of Mari and Ani, Avery’s own little shrine to his family. Janx frowned as he eyed the pictures, then turned back to Avery, poking logs into place.
“So what happened to ‘em, anyway?” Janx asked. When Avery didn’t answer immediately, he seemed undeterred. “And that graveyard! What a place! I don’t imagine the heavens’ll look much posher. How’d you manage to meet such a rich broad?”
“She wasn’t a broad.” Avery lit a long match and touched it to the kindling beneath the pyramid of logs. Sparks danced up. He stood back, admiring the glow.
“Well, how’d you meet her?” Janx said.
Hearing his own voice as if it came from far away, Avery said, “They were nobles, her family—”
“Shit! I didn’t know there were any of ‘em left. After the Revolution ...”
“Yes. But some made it into hiding. Mari’s parents did, and she was born that way. Raised in hiding. Living under false names, pretending to be normal, trying not to flinch whenever a fellow noble was ferreted out and hanged or butchered. Well.” Avery waved a hand, putting that to the side. “So her family was in hiding in Benical. I was a young medical student there, unable to afford a school in Hissig. Mari’s mother, a low duchess by birthright—though I didn’t know this at the time—she fell ill, and they came to the hospital where I studied. I assisted in her mother’s care, and Mari visited every day. We ...” He swallowed.
Janx gave him a moment. The big man’s eyes went to the picture of Mari standing under the olive tree. “She was pretty.”
For a moment, Avery could say nothing. Words were born and died in his throat. “She was beautiful.”
Knocking came from the wall.
“What the hell?” Janx said. He pushed himself off from the mantle and made fists of his hands.
Avery pulled the secret panel aside. The original fortress of the duke, a distant cousin of Mari’s, had been honeycombed with secret passages, and some had remained in place after the remodeling. There in the dark tunnel stood Martin, weary and gray and stubbled, huddling in his sealskin coat and wearing one of his threadbare black sweaters underneath.
He grinned an evil grin and shoved a bottle into Avery’s hands. “That’ll be twenty high-notes, Doc.”
“Twenty highs!” Janx said.
Avery reached into a pocket. Sheridan had chastised him for not indulging himself, and he had decided to do something about that. Ever since he’d returned to port, he’d allowed himself a bit of luxury. He had a new bonus, after all. He forked over the money and said, “Thanks, Martin. But remember, if you start feeling ill—”
“Don’t call you!” Martin chuckled and vanished into the darkness.
Avery shut the panel and poured both he and Janx a glass. When Janx eyed the label on the bottle, he whistled. “Valyankan! But—” He stared at Avery with new respect.
Avery nodded, smiling a little. “That’s why I was willing to pay for it.”
“But how? Valyanka’s overrun. There’s no more of this stuff even being made ...”
Avery sipped his glass. The whiskey burned his throat and warmed his belly. The fire spread outward, numbing him, lightening him. Finding a chair overlooking the fireplace, he collapsed into it and sipped some more. “Old stores, I suppose, or else the last batch ever made. Possibly the last batch ever to be made. Isn’t that a sobering thought? That Valyanka could cease to be? At least, as we know it.”
Janx muttered sounds of appreciation as he drank. He lowered himself onto the drooping couch, which drooped even further under his weight. Dust billowed up.
“Best shit I’ve had in years.”
For a moment, they sipped their drinks in silence, and the fire crackled in the background. At last Janx said, “So, you were sayin’, what happened to ‘em. Your family?”
“You really want to know?”
Janx shrugged his broad shoulders. “I’d like to know the story, if it ain’t too long.”
Avery’s gaze strayed to the fire. A log popped, and sparks flared up. “When the war came to Ghenisa, before our hot lard processors were complete, there was an Octunggen raiding party in the mountains. One of many, I suppose. They carried the Deathlight.”
“Gods below. Yeah, Benical. I remember now.”
Avery nodded. “It’s against the mountains, you know. The Octunggen made it past the ngvandi, past our sentries, and crept up on us. I don’t know how long it took them to set up their equipment, but ... they did. I was at the hospital when I saw that strong red light shining from the mountaintop. I was able to get to an environmen
t suit in time. Mari and Ani weren’t so lucky. I remember coming home ... through a city of the dead and dying, that red light shining ... I remember walking up to our cabin ... approaching it, slowly, knowing what I would find inside ... I still dream of it, every night ... and in the dream I’m walking up to the cabin, and I know, I know, what’s waiting in there, but there’s always a little doubt ... maybe this time it will be different ...” He closed his eyes. “I found them there, at home, in each other’s arms.”
“Dead?”
Avery shook his head. Ice rattled in his glass, and he realized his hand was trembling. “But almost. I spent every last penny I had. Nearly every last penny Mari’s family had. She was the sole surviving child, and by that time her parents had passed. She was all that was left. She would whisper to me her dreams that, if the war caused the splintering of the Ghenisan government, then people might look toward the old aristocracy. The Drakes. She said maybe she was the highest royal still alive, and she would be the queen, and Ani the princess. The queen and princess for a new age. Well, I protected my little princess, my little Drake-let, and her mother. I used all my skills as a doctor, meager as they are. I prolonged their lives, spent our last resources bringing them to Hissig to seek the best help money could buy ...”
“Musta been hard. Bein’ a doctor, not bein’ able to heal your kin.”
Avery didn’t have to answer. “We sought help, but ...”
He drained his glass. He saw that Janx had finished his, too, and rose to refill them both. From the kitchen, he said, “A light that can kill, cause plague—we had nothing that could fight that, not before the processors were complete, maybe not even now. When I think of Hissig, I still remember those days, of tending to Mari and Ani as they faded, day after day ...” He heard his voice grow thick. “I had just enough money left for their alchemical preservation, internment and mausoleum.”
“I’m sorry,” Janx said.
Avery nodded, unable for the moment to do anything else.