Prize of Night

by Bailey Cunningham

  Andrew’s father, Simon, managed the furniture store. He’d never seemed to have a particular opinion about this job. It was a natural extension of him, like a walking stick, worn smooth by the hand’s pressure. Simon had raised Andrew in this store. They used to stage mock battles in the aisles. Carl looked for a part of Andrew in the face of this quiet, balding man whose fingers danced across an old keyboard. What did he know?

  Simon looked up. The welcome script died on his tongue, and his expression became neutral. “Well, hey. We haven’t seen you here in a while.”

  The we sounded promising. Perhaps he’d made the right choice. “I’ve been working on this article. You know the drill.”

  “I hear about it often enough. Wouldn’t say I know it, though.” His eyes flicked back to the computer. “You in the market for some new furniture? We just got in a shipment of chairs with cup holders. They’ve got a cooler built right in. Your choice of fabric.”

  “I doubt I could afford something like that.”

  “We offer a number of financing plans. There’s one that I call the grad student. You only have to pay twenty-five cents a day for the next two centuries.”

  “Are you still pushing that store card?”

  Simon spread his hands. “I know the interest rate is fatal, but my district manager wants us to rake in the new accounts. I think he’s connected to them, like life support. Every time someone declines a rapid credit, his soul is in danger.”

  “I don’t see why the furniture industry wouldn’t use sympathetic magic.” He shuffled a bit without meaning to. “Has Shelby been around?”

  “Not as much as she used to.” His eyes were on the computer again. “She brought coffee last week. Or maybe it was two weeks ago. I’m in this place so much that I forget about how time works. It’s like being stuck in a sensory deprivation chamber.”

  Carl thought of a hundred ways to ask what he wanted to, but none of them seemed right. Had Andrew ever told his father about them? And what was there to tell, really? It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that they’d talk about while watching an episode of MythBusters. He wondered sometimes if they only communicated for the benefit of other people. Maybe when they were alone with each other, in the semidarkness of the living room, they just settled into their hybrid chairs and said nothing.

  “Is he here?” Carl asked finally.

  Simon gave him a long look. He didn’t know everything, but he did know something. Or, at the very least, he’d managed to connect some of the dots. In that look, Carl saw a father’s protective instinct, a flash of annoyance, and something beneath it all that remained illegible. He considered the question, as if Carl were inquiring about a warranty.

  “In back,” he said simply. “Go check on him. The boy always forgets to eat lunch.”

  The boy made him imagine Andrew as a young spark, reading in secret or trying to stay invisible when it was past his bedtime. Simon had been mother and father, reading him stories about time travel and talking rabbits, pacifying him with a selection of night lights. Meanwhile, his mother had written to him from distant places. Thinking of you in Lisbon, darling dove. He thought about spilling everything. What was the proper way to tell someone that his ex-wife commanded a court of thieves? There wasn’t an e-card for that. Most likely, he didn’t want to hear about the past. Hers was a warranty that had expired long ago.

  “I’ll go remind him,” Carl said. “Thanks.”

  “If you want to thank me, buy a Papasan chair. We can’t seem to move any of them, and we need the floor space.”

  Carl grinned. “I’ll consider it.”

  He crossed the length of the store. Furniture showrooms unnerved him. It was one thing to see chairs occupying a living room but quite another to see them arranged like identical troops, waiting to be leased. It was like wandering behind the curtain and seeing all of the stage props and costumes stacked neatly in rows. It made it more difficult to believe in living rooms, in spite of their lavish promises. He slipped into the back room. The land of misfit couches. Love seats and nesting tables were stacked on pallets. Some of the specimens were in pieces, like the harvest of a mad scientist’s laboratory. In one corner, there was simply a stack of chair legs. Were they extras? Clone parts? Defective? He had no idea. Safety instructions were tacked to the wall, faded and crinkling at the edges. Carl smelled the tang of hot glue and the musty odor of disused fabric. It wasn’t unpleasant. There was something warm and gently claustrophobic about it, as if he’d wandered into the world’s workshop. Some cramped studio where an artist was patiently assembling continents and family trees.

  Andrew sat cross-legged on the cement, frowning at a set of instructions. He was putting together a desk, and one of the parts seemed to be giving him trouble. Or all of them. He kept glancing from the paper to the pile of bolts, shaking his head slightly. He winced and massaged his arm, which must have tingled with familiar pain. The kiss of the silenus.

  “Need some help?”

  He didn’t look up, which was unnerving in itself. “I think I’ve got it under control. Some of these instructions seem to be written in a variant of English, though. Maybe Northumbrian? I’m going to send them a strongly worded e-mail as soon as I manage to figure out how part C connects to”—he narrowed his eyes—“bridge F. Whatever that is. Should a desk have a bridge?”

  “Maybe it’s cosmopolitan.”

  Andrew made a sound. Somewhere between a chuckle and a cough. Hmmph. It might have meant anything. Carl blinked. Nothing about this was going to be simple.

  “I could hand you things,” he said. “Mop your brow and such. Or we could just smash the entire thing and call it postmodern.”

  “My dad sent you?”

  “He thought you might need some assistance.”

  “He always thinks I’m lost.” Andrew tapped two bolts together lightly. It was almost a meditative gesture. Then he looked up. “You can screw me.”

  Carl felt a lump in his throat. “What?”

  Andrew pointed to the pile next to him. “Hand me screws. And such.” He almost smiled as he said it. Maybe there were still some simple things.

  Carl sat down next to him and began sorting through the parts. He eyed the instructions. Then, gently, he turned them to the right page.

  “That might help.”

  Andrew looked down and laughed. “Huh. Maybe my dad’s right to be worried.”

  “I blame the fumes.”

  “You may not be wrong about that. Sometimes I have glue visions, like Saint Hildegard. I always forget to write them down, though.”

  “I’ll buy you a dream journal. Something with a wolf on it.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “Wulf, min wulf.”

  Andrew looked up sharply. “Are you quoting Wulf and Eadwacer?”

  “That’s the only line that I remember.” Carl handed him the hex key. “The Wulf-guy was carrying something. Or . . . was he an actual wolf? I guess they couldn’t carry a bundle through the forest, unless they used their teeth.”

  Andrew balanced the top of the desk while Carl attached the base. “It’s about two people who can never be together,” he said, “and something that they make, between them. A child, maybe, or a riddle. Whatever giedd means. We don’t know anymore. It’s one of the most enigmatic stories in any language. Like a tapestry full of holes.”

  “Doesn’t that frustrate you?”

  Andrew shrugged. “I like riddles. Life is full of them.” He tightened one side of the desk, while Carl steadied the other. “Can you drink soup, or do you need a spoon? Does every agreement end in a handshake? Why do the best shows always get canceled? How do you tell someone you love them?”

  Carl looked at him cautiously. “You just say it.”

  “If that were true, there’d be no shows, or books, or songs.”

  They took a step back fro
m the completed desk. Two screws remained on the ground. Carl picked them up.

  “What do these belong to?”

  “Best not to ask.” He gave the desk an experimental nudge. “You’ll make someone very happy, for a reasonable price.”

  Carl smirked. “Are you talking to me, or it?”

  “Maybe both. Come on.”

  With that, he grabbed on to one of the large pallets and clambered on top. He used it as a stepping-stone to reach a higher pallet, then kept climbing, until he was eight feet off the ground. The stacked boxes formed a kind of ziggurat, with Andrew at its apex.

  “Coming?”

  “This is highly unsafe.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid.”

  Carl followed him, climbing up far less steadily. The boxes were solid, though a few shifted beneath his weight. Andrew was a weather vane compared to him. Carl reached the top and saw that there was a kind of nest there, complete with pillows and a few scattered books. Andrew passed him a pillow, and he sat down.

  “I’ve always come up here to think. When I was little, my dad used to take me to this hardware store. I think it was called Lumber Land. Isn’t that great? Practically Tolkienian.” Andrew smiled distantly. “They had these cubes where they kept the precut wood, and they were stacked up so high. I loved to climb in them. My own private honeycomb. My dad used to yell at me: Get down, monkey! But I knew that it was a bluff. I’d wait for the moment when he opened his arms, and then I’d fall.” He closed his eyes momentarily. “He always caught me. I don’t think he’d do it now. Maybe I should try one of these days.”

  “Don’t tell the district manager.”

  What he wanted to say was: I met your mother. The words danced on his tongue, but he couldn’t let them go. He didn’t know how to say it. That was another riddle, he supposed. Andrew was watching him from the corner of his eye. The space between them was barely a hand’s breadth. Carl remembered the dream. If they kissed, maybe this would all be over. Black would fade to red. Heaven would swallow the smoke.

  Carl swallowed. He meant to say several different things, and to mean all of them. What he managed, in the end, was a question: “Are you really working for Latona?”

  He frowned. “Not for her, exactly. More adjacent.”

  “What game are you playing, Andrew? I want an honest answer.”

  The air grew cold between them. “Like all the honest answers you gave me, when I thought I was going crazy? Is that the peace of mind that you’re looking for?”

  “That was different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you died!” Carl willed himself to stop shaking. “Roldan died.”

  “And you still haven’t forgiven him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Andrew’s face hardened. “For a whole summer, I could see it in your eyes. This grief that you refused to explain. It was Felix who finally told me.”

  “Well, he’s helpful that way. It’s easy to lie when nobody has to see your face.”

  Andrew looked at him carefully. When he spoke, his voice was measured, as if he’d been saying the words to himself for a long time. “I’m not Roldan. I don’t know who he was, or what he meant to you. But he’s gone now.”

  “You remember him. You dreamed of salamanders. You told me that yourself!”

  Andrew’s expression wavered for a moment. Then he looked away. “Don’t ignore the larger picture. Latona’s on the move. Everything you fear is true, and if we keep wasting time, she’ll get exactly what she wants.”

  “With your help.”

  His eyes were bleak. “Is that what you—” Andrew shook his head. “I’m not helping her. It may seem that way, but don’t believe it. I’m trying to protect us all. She thinks that I can convince the lares to follow her. She needs to keep thinking that.”

  “Can you?”

  “I’m not sure. Felix seems to think so.”

  Carl frowned. “Are you just playing each side against the other?”

  “No. Our side is the resistance. And you’re a part of that—you all are—but you need to wait until the right moment.”

  Suddenly, Carl wasn’t sure what to tell him. There were three sides now. Three queens. Where did that leave the silenoi? He imagined a moment of reckoning. Three queens circling each other warily, swords in hand, while Narses and Mardian tore each other apart.

  “Ivory and ash,” he murmured.

  Andrew stared at him. “What?”

  “Nothing.” Carl made his way down the mountain of pallets. He motioned to the desk. “At least we did one thing right.”

  “What about those missing screws?”

  Carl shrugged. “It’ll hold.”

  He left the store in a hurry. Simon was occupied with a couple buying a dining room set. He didn’t look up to say good-bye. Carl crossed the parking lot and took the bus to campus. He had a feeling about something, though he couldn’t quite put it into words. He stared out the grimy window as the bus rattled down Broad Street. His phone buzzed. It was Shelby.

  What’s the plan?

  He pondered this for a moment but didn’t respond. The bus pulled up in front of the Innovation Centre. A hot dog stand was parked by the entrance, and students lined up, drawn by the smell of grilled onions. A warm wind shook the trees. Gophers convened by the entrance to the university pub, exchanging secrets. Carl walked through the doors. The murmur of parallel conversations rose up around him. Everything was so familiar, yet he could feel something peculiar that he couldn’t trace. He walked past the food court, down the climate-controlled hallway. Past the bookstore, which announced a sale on hardcovers, and the orange clock that had been stuck on the same time for years. Or maybe it was time that had stopped.

  Carl took the elevator to the Department of Music. Posters advertised the Baroque chorus, as well as several visiting composers. The sound of strings drifted from one classroom. His fingers twitched. There was no music in them, and yet some part of him remembered what it felt like to dance along those frets. He felt the calluses hardening, the sweet pain of playing too long, as the world vanished. He rubbed his hands, but they were soft. He couldn’t say precisely where the memory came from. It was as sudden and real as a match, untended, burning his fingers.

  The equipment room was unlocked. He stepped in and flipped the light switch. Pianos and harpsichords faced him, blanketed like animals put to bed. There wasn’t much time. If anyone happened to wander by, they’d want to know what he was doing. Quietly, he slipped off the covers. Some of the pianos were a brilliant white, others a burnished black. The oldest had been painted numerous times and now stood in the corner, peeling. That one must have been a donation from some elementary school classroom.

  Where did you hide it?

  Carl tried to reconstruct the events of that night, but they remained blurry. There had been a dragon made of smoke, and hunters, and the basilissa herself. Latona had offered Andrew something—or was it the other way around. They’d clasped hands. But the key. The giedd, the riddle. Where had he put it?

  She can’t find what’s in plain sight. Ivory and ash.

  He circled the pianos. They all looked the same. He briefly thought about bashing his head against the keys. Which one would he have chosen? Some were imposing, while others barely seemed to qualify as pianos at all. They were the sort of instrument that your parents would force you to learn scales on. He touched one key, then another, and another. He played every note that he could think of. But they added up to nothing.

  The mark is what’s important. What we leave behind.

  He scanned the instruments again, looking for engravings. Maker’s marks. Anything that might hold a clue. Many of them had embossed plates, or small characters etched into them, but he could barely read the stylized letters. And even if he’d been able to, what w
ould they tell him? Andrew didn’t know anything about music.

  That thought brought him up short.

  He wouldn’t have chosen based on tone, or shape. It would have been something else.

  The mark.

  Carl got down on his hands and knees. He examined the keys from a different perspective. It wasn’t a real key, after all. It was a horn. Some wild magic of crossing had diminished it, but it was only hiding in plain sight.

  He would have moved quickly. Where was he standing?

  Carl studied the room again. Then he saw the harpsichord, pushed against the wall. It was unremarkable but somehow dignified. Still on his knees, he crawled over to the instrument. Anyone looking through the door would have thought that he was paying homage to the genius of music. He gently ran his fingers along the keys. All of them plinked. He tugged on them experimentally. Some had yellowed slightly, and a few were sticky. He pressed one of the sharps and saw something that he’d missed before. His breath caught. He pressed it again. There was a spot of dried blood on the white key. It was small, and almost entirely obscured by the facing key. But it was there. Like a bit of rust.

  Andrew’s blood.

  Carl could hear someone in the hallway. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the flat wrench that he’d taken from the furniture store. He used it to pry off the false key. It offered little resistance. It wasn’t supposed to be there, after all.

  He pocketed the key and slipped out of the room. A custodian gave him an odd look but said nothing. He was listening to a set of headphones. Carl kept walking. The key was burning his hand, just as the imaginary strings had done. It was the horn that summoned the lares, and this world could no longer contain it.

  He had to keep it safe from everyone.

  4

  Anfractus was a different place at night. Smoke from countless fires mingled with the dark clouds, but there was still moonlight. Thin and miraculous, it gilded the red roof tiles. Most of the botteghi were shuttered and sleeping behind locked gates. The tavernae and street-side cauponae were in full swing, though he noticed an increase in the miles who patrolled Via Rumor. They would be watching for hunters. The silenoi mostly kept to the alleys and skyways above the city, but they’d grown bolder since making the pact with Latona. One or two might be dealt with beneath the lamplight, but a pack of them in the dark was another matter entirely. They wouldn’t retreat, even if they were outnumbered. Babieca patted the sword at his belt. It was heavy and useless, like some monster’s limb that he’d convinced himself to carry. A talisman that couldn’t possibly save him. The real weapon was the lute case strapped to his shoulder. He’d have more luck conjuring a reel than swinging his stubby gladius. At least he remained invisible, for now. The hunters tended to prefer aristocrats, who had a sweeter taste.