Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  Baj had imagined the city — but not imagined well enough.

  He raised a hand, as all the others except Patience raised their hands, to shade their eyes until they grew accustomed. But still he saw well enough, over a carved-ice balustrade, to make out Sunriser true-humans a bow-shot below — men, women, and children — some calling out in Patience's crisp accent exactly, and all hurrying along the ice-paved boulevard. Hurrying. .. and some, running.

  "They know," Richard said. "They know the Guard has come to South Gate."

  Many of the Boston people wore only colored-cloth skirts or trousers dyed in bright blues, yellows, and reds, so women's breasts and men's chests were bare; others — and all the children — were wrapped thick in furs, furs also brightly colored, many dyed in stripes to show like snow-tiger pelts.... Most men and women seemed to wear their hair combed out long, to their shoulders — except that some young men wore a single thick braid, with colored ribbons knotted in it.

  The near-naked were Warming-talented, Baj supposed; the furred, those who were not. And needed furs against the bitter breeze blowing down the gallery . .. blowing through the great high-ceilinged spaces and along the roadway below — the freezing guarantee of Boston's columned halls of ice despite lamp-warmth, and human warmth, beneath the great glacier's overbearing.

  It was... as if a scene from dreaming, but brilliantly bright. Baj took off a mitten, and gripped the gallery's ice rail, so the shock of cold might wake him.

  "Stand back," Patience said, and tugged at Baj's parky. "Back and out of sight from the boulevard. These Constables haven't yet marched south."

  "And may not march south," Marcus-Shrike squatted by the gallery's ice wall with the other tribesmen, "if the Wolf-General has changed her mind about attacking."

  As if to prove the possibility, Baj, crouching low, saw through thick-carved ice balusters a man come from a passageway below, to stand leaning on a halberd's staff. This man — pale, bearded, corded with muscle — was naked but for a bronze cuirass. He wore no boots, stood barefoot on ice in a city of ice.

  "An officer, Baj," Patience stooped beside him, "— proving Warming-talent. A Formation commander at least, though I don't remember him.... Well, perhaps Franklin Peabody, though he looks too young to be Franklin."

  "Whoever," Richard had come on all fours to join them . .. Nancy close behind, gripping Errol's arm. "— he seems to be a worried Sunriser. Has heard of trouble coming."

  "Which better come soon," Nancy said. "If one of these people Walk-in-air, they'll see us up here, call those Constables."

  "No." Patience shook her head. "It isn't done to air-walk in town, unless in emergency or for lamp-tending. We're safe here for a while."

  As she spoke, Baj saw her hand was trembling, saw she now seemed weary, older, matching her silver hair at last.... Perhaps, he thought, from killing the Watchers down the Gate.

  As he noticed, Nancy said, "Your wound, dear one," and opened Patience's colored coat. It was a seeing and knowing together that Baj had found more and more, is if he and Nancy were becoming a wiser, more observant creature than either was, alone.

  "Nothing," Patience said, but held still.

  "There now...." Nancy lifted clotted torn shirting away. "Runs along the rib."

  "Little enough." Patience set Nancy's hand aside, drew her wool coat closed. "I'm alive."... Though her eyes, black and gleaming, seemed to Baj more than alive — as if the young Patience, tireless, still lay behind them.

  They crawled back to settle against the wall with the Shrikes, who huddled in their furs against the cold flowing with the slow river of wind down the township's vaulted spaces.

  The voices of the people passing below seemed to Baj oddly noisy — beyond their clipped accent — and high-pitched. "Frightened," he said.

  Nancy leaned against him, soft beneath fur's softness. "And who is not?"

  Dolphus-Shrike, down the way, had heard them. "And time," he said, "— past time for these ice-den fuckers to feel fear."

  "Still," Richard said, "the Guard will only be demonstrating at South Gate. It's shallower than the North —"

  "Much shallower," Patience said. "With double-staircases, and broader passage."

  "— And the more easily reinforced by the city, because of that." Richard hummed a moment, thinking. "The Guard will come hard enough to draw them south — but then, three and a half thousand of these city soldiers, defending, will be too many for them. Sylvia Wolf-General will be fortunate to be able to retreat her companies."

  "The attempt," Baj said, "should be enough for us."

  ... They waited against the ice gallery's wall, the tide of cold seeming to muffle further talk, so they became silent watchers, silent listeners in a glittering palace of crystal reflections, the precincts of Boston-town.

  Beneath them, on the boulevard, New Englanders in rich-colored furs or few clothes at all hurried past on worry's business, sounding uneasy voices. A few towed little white dogs on cords, dogs small as rabbits but very lively.

  Then, through and over everything — vibrating in Baj's bones — there was a grand note struck... then struck again, that sang and rang up the boulevard. A great bell's tolling.

  "That," Patience said, "that is the bell of alarm. — I've never heard it struck, except in Constable-drill. No one now alive has heard it seriously struck." Still crouching, she drew her scimitar. "— There are two dreadful great bells, and it is the first. The Guard is attacking at South Gate."

  The great instrument tolled again, its voice deep, resonant, and rich as Lord Winter's voice might be.... Then again.

  "Not too soon," Marcus-Shrike said, and Dolphus gestured the other tribesmen ready.

  "The Wolf-General," Nancy said, "has keep her word."

  "Yes," Baj said, loosening rapier and dagger in their sheaths, "— and expects us to do the same." It seemed to him now a sad, inevitable tragedy. The Guard, Boston's Made-Person sword and shield, had come home to their gate at last, come concerned no longer for their suffering mothers' lives. Those, already decided lost — and with them, the city's dark and ancient leverage.

  ... The bell's continuing slow-measured notes rang in Baj's ears. There had been bells hung at Island, bells in chapel to sing songs to Floating-Jesus. But no bells as great as this — and hung, no doubt, in a tower of ice that trembled, shining, as the bronze spoke. — Baj found he feared now only for Nancy, and the killing to come. All other concerns, as for himself, were winnowed away. It was an odd sort of freedom to feel.

  He crouched with the others, his fur hood up, his breath frosting in the air, and imagined — as if from a great distance — the life he and Nancy might have had together, but for this. He saw them somehow at Island... welcomed at Island. Nancy wearing the paneled dress, the gleaming jewels of a Lady Extraordinary, so her narrow lovely face was framed in fisher-cat fur, her slender throat banded in sapphires and silver.... They would have had chambers in East tower, and he would have handed her down stairways and along tapestried hallways — their harsh stone so much warmer than Boston's ice. Would have handed her down and along, her far-southern cottons and silks rustling beside him.

  King Howell Voss, one-eyed and ferocious as Warm-time's God-Odin, would have made her a favorite. She might have sung her high, harsh notes in quick counterpoint to his strumming banjar.... With the years, all at Island would have come to love her, and found her golden fox's eyes a pleasure....

  There were shouts of command below — then a crash of many little bells.

  Those sounds became a swift, rhythmic, pounding jangle over the continuing ponderous, paced thunder of the alarm.... Baj, Richard, and several Shrikes, keeping low, went to the gallery's balustrade and peered down at the boulevard now filling with grim men, rank on rank in bronze half-armor, chest and back — many lightly clothed beneath it, others colorfully furred, some naked but for the metal. All carried halberds slanted over their right shoulders.

  Bell staffs — Baj had read of them, but never s
een one — rose at the front of every long column... then were struck down together in a great ringing chorus, and the hundreds of Constables stepped off together, left feet first — booted or bare. They swung away down the boulevard to the rhythm of shaken bells, so their gleaming halberds' heads — each ax, hook, and point — swayed all together, a sparkling awning of bright steel above them as they marched.

  "Soldiers," Richard said, "whatever they're called."

  Dolphus-Shrike nodded. "Yes, soldiers.... Patience, do they go to South Gate?"

  "Wait." She stood up to watch. "If they turn on the Street of Flowers..."

  Baj, Richard, and Dolphus-Shrike also stood to watch the wide formations march away through shimmering light, frosting breaths streaming behind them, their columns cleaving the people to either side as they went.

  "A halberd," Richard said, "is a difficult weapon to deal with. A slight soldier — Sunriser or Moonriser — strikes with its weight as if strong. A strong soldier is made even stronger."

  "... They're turning," Patience said. "Turning down Flowers — toward South Gate." The great bell still tolled, steady as a giant's heartbeat.

  Dolphus gestured his tribesmen to their feet. "And that's how far?"

  "From here, more than a WT mile." She stood in her colored coat, still watching. The bell staffs rang in the distance, a song crystalline as their city.

  "You must have heard those little bells as a child," Nancy said to her. "Wakened to them in the night."

  "Yes," Patience said, and turned away. "Heard it and loved it and our Constables, before it became the music of betrayal... and these people took my son."

  The jangle of marching-bells was muffled to quiet as the last ranks, far down the way, turned out of sight... so only townspeople and their children were left hurrying along the frozen boulevard, past its great gleaming columns.

  "Now," Patience said, "— and we must go fast, or lose our chance. Pass or kill any who interfere... but remember what we came to do." She trotted down the gallery with Baj and the others catching up, and the Shrikes after them — some skidding on slick ice as the regular ponderous notes of the great bell rang shivering.

  Down the long gallery... to wide flights of frost-dusted stairs — Patience, then all of them running, jumping two steps at a time to reach the boulevard.

  ... Hurrying Boston people saw them, saw them but seemed to pay only temporary mind — as if on a day of surprising threat from the south, a certainly-township lady might reasonably lead a party of oddities and ice-tribe hunters. Leading them somewhere... perhaps necessary in the emergency.

  Still, Baj noticed one or two paying more attention.

  "This leaving us alone won't last," he said.

  Nancy laughed beside him, breathless. "That's why... we're running."

  Down the boulevard — even wider than it had looked from the gallery, its pavement-ice scored with deep cross-hatching for better footing — Baj saw several of the brown-furred Carvers chipping at its curbs as Patience ran and more-than-ran before them. She sailed sometimes just above the ice, white hair streaming, with Baj and Nancy running just behind and to her left, Richard lumbering swiftly by her right side.... Errol, very lively, skipped behind with the Shrikes.

  The great bell still rang its deep, slow measured notes, that seemed to jar the icy air around them.... Under its sound, Baj heard the swift whispers of their boots on frost.

  They ran and outran people's occasional shouts, starts, commencements of some sort of action — ran past and were gone. Though at last, just past where the Street of Flowers crossed, ran not quite fast enough.

  Baj heard a curse and scramble back among the Shrikes — turned and saw one of the tribesmen wrestling, dragging a young Boston boy along. The Boston boy, furred in dotted colors, had a knife. He took a javelin-thrust through his belly and fell kicking, looking astonished as the Shrike ran on.

  Baj drew his rapier, and ran with it in his hand. Beside him, Nancy had her scimitar out. And glancing over, he saw Patience had drawn also. There was a run of bright blood — from her killing down the North Gate — still frozen along the curved blade.

  As they ran the streets of ice — smaller ice buildings standing on each side, their doorways seeming to be sheeted iron, painted black — as they ran, Patience leading fast, the great bell of alarm still rang, its vibrations hanging in the air.

  .. . They'd left the turn, the Street of Flowers, well behind, and Baj — feeling now tireless, though Boston's frigid wind was numbing his face — wondered as they went, why "Street of Flowers," and supposed snow flowers might have been meant. Or whores, perhaps.... He saw — and his boot-soles felt — small lumps and bumps of debris frozen into the street's frosted pavement. Things people had thrown away: scraps of food, broken matters, certainly little frozen turds left by dog-pets. All become a pavement of garbage — wonderful WT word. "Garbage" frozen into the streets of the glittering city. A city whose lamps cast constant shadows, constant light — where no sun, no moon, shone for day or night.

  "Obvious rhyme there," Baj thought, congratulated himself for some remnant of poetry still kept — and his mind off his feet, tripped on nothing much in the street, skidded on ice trying to recover, and went down hard onto his right knee.

  "Baj." Nancy sliding to a stop.

  "I'm up — I'm up!" And he was, with a Shrike shoving him along to hobble at a ran on an unhappy knee. It seemed to Baj that stopping to fight someone would be a great relief from this forever running the streets of Boston.... Streets — their citizens also now rushing here or there — where running boot-steps gave back flat rapid echoes from ice buildings close on either side. Echoes, and different smells than Island's rich scents of river, fish, and granite. Boston's odors were of humans, freezing air, and perhaps a drift of coal smoke lingering before the cavern wind blew it away.

  And, as if his prayer for relief had been answered with a fighting pause, a man came out of Warm-time's "nowhere" and struck at Richard with something — an iron something — and was struck back so Richard had to wrench his great ax free... then gallop to keep up.

  More trouble behind them with the Shrikes as well. Baj heard it, heard a woman screaming, but didn't look back.

  They all turned again as Patience turned, to run down a quiet narrower street with no one watching, no Bostons hurrying after with iron in their hands. Only the hard-rain sounds of their boots as they passed staring men and women, and the soft squeaks and clinks of leather and steel. Baj's knee, having complained, was feeling better.

  ... Though panting for breath, still they went swiftly — trained by weeks of sled-running. They followed Patience to the right around another corner through bright revealing light, under constellations of hanging lamps glowing on their chains above them. Chains depending now from slightly lower ice ceilings, whose vaults still no thrown spear might reach, nor even the most forceful arrow. They ran on ridged and frosted white, pacing beside their active shadows.

  The narrow street was fenced each side by walls of ice rising three, four stories, and pierced in regular rows with small square windows where — in many — lamplight glowed. Between those close walls of window lights, Patience half-ran, half-flew with Baj and the others after her like hounds.

  People shouted from those windows as they went, and Nancy said, "Apartments..." She caught her breath. "They keep everyone together, but still apart."

  Apartments of ice, not Island's stone.... Baj was sorry to be reminded of what was missed by this charging like cattle-broke-loose, running past bright-lit wonders all the Map-Country had heard of, and almost none had seen.... And he here for nothing but murder, so he ran in darkness, despite the light.

  Over a building's high roof (tiles of ice shone there), he saw a flight of several Walkers-in-air. Men or women — they were too high, too far away to tell — sitting up, sailing just beneath the gleaming ceilings, sailing past bright lamps and wind-stirred banners. Tiny birds they might have been — bluebirds with their blue coa
ts — passing out of sight in echelon. Going south.

  There was shouting from apartment windows. A Shrike, Christopher, sprinted up and called, "Dolphus says chasers!"

  Baj skipped steps as he looked back, and saw, where the narrow street began, men, citizens, coming after them.

  Patience rose above them in the air and turned back to see, her coat's colored cloth ruffling out around her. "They will slow us, fighting!... Dolphus!"

  Baj thought he heard the Shrike answer her.

  Patience, sailing backward in billowing stripes, shouted again, a war-goddess's trumpet call. "Leave six . .. to hold them!"

  Baj thought he heard the Shrike answer — skipped again to look back, and saw five... six of the tribesmen trot to a halt, left behind.

  Then Baj bent himself again to running, though now the cold air poured into his lungs like hot ashes as he wearied. Errol galloped up beside, keeping close, tongue-clicking in excitement.

  It was surprising how soon the noise of their passage was sliced with screams sounding the street behind them, as six Shrikes held the narrow way they could not hold for long.

  Nancy stumbled and would have gone down, but Baj caught her arm. He called "Slower!" but Patience paid no attention, bounding, flying on as if they could fly after her.

  Richard lunged, reached up and caught her coat-tail, hauled her in like a fish. "Slower..." He caught his breath. "Slower, my dear... or you'll lose us."

  "Slower, then," she said, but gave them a cold look — then settled to the ice-road and trotted away, her scimitar swinging in her hand.

  A little farther on, she went up a flight of wide steps, their ice worn clear blue, and Baj and the others followed then down a long way of mirror-ice colonades, past a confusion of Boston people rushing — likely to their homes or places of duty — with children being hauled along wide-eyed, and two... three little dogs tugging on their collar cords. Some adults called out as Patience led past....