Moonrise

by Mitchell Smith

  "Next time," Baj said, though he had no idea what "next time" that might be, "— next time, do as was done back on the streets. Leave a few men to hold, while the others go on to finish what must be finished."

  "Right," Dolphus said, and Richard nodded. It was an acceptance that Baj found somehow expected, as if his fathers had spoken through him, their voices one in harmony. The plainsong "Obedience."

  Nancy knelt in puddled blood, crooning as if the dead boy could still hear her.

  Baj knelt beside, took her in his arms. "Sweetheart... sweetheart, he never knew he was struck, it came so fast." His left shoulder hurt where the glaive's hook had caught it... the same shoulder George Brock had hit with his hurled shield.

  "I don't care," Nancy leaned against him, weeping. "I don't care."

  Baj saw she was cut down her left forearm, sliced through leather and cloth. Slow bleeding... not serious. "He saved your life."

  She shook her head, took the opportunity to wipe her nose on his sleeve. "He didn't mean to. He was only doing what he wanted to do." Then, lisping, "He was a child. Not like the rest of us, always scheming and wondering and... thinking."

  "True," Baj said. His lip was sore, split and bleeding where the older man had hit him. His shoulder hurt. "True..."

  He heard Richard saying, "Rest a minute," looked across the corridor, and saw him helping Patience to stand. She stood, but swaying. "... The boy was killed?"

  "Yes," Richard said. "I should never have brought him."

  Baj felt, and felt in the rest, exhaustion from the long run through Boston, the fighting — and more than either, from the task still before them. There was a great temptation simply to stay and rest awhile, consider further what must be done....

  The great bell's tolling of alarm — somehow unheard through the fighting — rang softly shivering down the corridor of ice. It rang its slow, ponderous periods, and Baj woke to them.

  "Dolphus," he said, "have your people gather the sentries' glaives, chop notches in the ice ramp, and prop the pole-arms up so anyone coming down after us will run onto the points."

  "Nasty." Dolphus smiled, and gestured his men to the work. There were only seven tribesmen now, Dolphus making eight.... All the others cut down, beaten down, holding the ice streets of Boston. Holding the pit-gate above. Marcus gone. Christopher gone, also.

  "Patience," Baj raised his voice, since she seemed still dreamy from the fighting. "— where do we go? And who still defends?"

  "... We're in the tunnel to the bridge, entrance to the Pens."

  "Defenders?"

  She seemed to wake, shrugged Richard's supporting arm away. "Never many, only enough to keep order here and in the Pens. The guard roster was — used to be — a file of eighteen. There are locked gates for every tier, so more were never thought necessary, with Constable Formations in the town." She glanced at the scimitar in her hand as if surprised to see she still held it, then slowly wiped its blade clean on her coat's cloth. A bruise was beginning to stain the side of her forehead. "There may be... Talents working there, if the bell hasn't sent them all home."

  "Sweetheart," Baj said to Nancy, "do you have cloth to bandage that arm?"

  "Yes. It's nothing much —"

  "Dolphus," Baj interrupted her, "leave two men to finish setting the glaives. You and the rest follow me. — Patience?"

  "I'm well enough," Patience said, though, to Baj, she didn't look well enough.

  "Then we go." He led down the tunnel at a trot — led as if a wind were blowing at his back, whispering "Decide and move .., decide and move, and they'll follow after."

  They followed climbing, soon enough, up an ice slope crosscut for better footing. There, Baj felt what the epics, Warm-time and after, never troubled with — the aches and stabbing pains in muscles, tendons strained in any desperate fight. As he climbed the slope, he felt even the injuries George Brock had inflicted, battering for advantage in the tundra circle. His cracked cheekbone... the left shoulder; that hurt again, of course....

  And if so for him, and young — how much more for Patience and those older others? But he didn't slow. Time... time. There was a quote from some Warm-time Great Captain. "Ask me for anything, but time."

  Still, Baj came to a stop when he climbed into the open. Stopped and stood still in a steady, biting wind.

  Before him, the slope — dazzling under distant lamps — became the steep bone-white rise of a great unrailed bridge of ice that arched up and up over a crevasse wide as a tributory river, fractured, and darkening blue to black with deepness. But both — grand, gleaming bridge, and the depthless coursing vacancy it spanned — shrunk to insignificance in the enormous chamber that contained them, miles from side to side, its riven ceiling certainly almost another mile high... all, with the city behind them, forming the glacier's immense and hollow heart.

  The others caught up, and stood staring as he did.

  "Wonderful," Patience said, "isn't it?" The whining wind caught her words and spun them away.

  "The bridge," Nancy said.

  "Yes." Patience smiled. The side of her forehead was bruised dark blue. "Great blocks of ice cut, then each drenched with heated water and frozen into place — and every course set a little farther out into the air. This was made by our many-times great-grandfathers... who were men beyond what is meant by 'men.'"

  "It's a great work," Richard said, apparently relieved to stand a moment to catch his breath.

  "And we," Baj said, "still have work to do." He set off climbing the bridge's gently rising arc, thankful for the grooves crosscut into its footing. Even so, it became uneasy as climbing through the air, since no railings interrupted view of the chamber's vast expanse at either side, so the bridge, seeming so grand and wide at first, appeared to narrow — and perhaps did narrow — as they climbed near the height of its arch.

  And while they climbed, the cavern wind came stronger, thrumming over the span, cold and sharp as weapons, so there seemed nothing easier than to suddenly slip and slide away — off that arching height, and down through the great space of air into depth immeasurable.

  Baj kept his eyes on the ice-way before him... climbed to its crest... then went even more carefully down a slope that ran like grand descending chords of music, falling... falling bowshots away to lie at last, like some huge ice-beast's tongue, on a broad frozen landing. This an introduction to the fourth of five stories of pillared galleries, open-sided cloisters stretching at least half a Warm-time mile to left and right — a great hive of ancient blue ice, carved from the cavern's wall. Between each story, sculpted dadoes ran the galleries' lengths — of men and beasts walking hand in paw... and changing as they went along, as if the ice had melted them one into the other.

  Behind the low rampart of the structure's roof, Baj saw what seemed a distant huge wing of leather rise... then fold down and away. There were soft, echoing calls, plangent as if from brass instruments.

  "What...?"

  "Occas," Patience said.

  Baj had seen an occa, when Ambassdor MacAffee had come to Island — had seen two, earlier, when he was nine or ten years old. Those had been flying, bringing Boston Trade-factors up from Map-McAllen to the bund at Baton Rouge.... Huge brown things with angled awkward heads, and looking made of tanned hide, the occas had flown on wide wings with slow majestic flapping — and cried out just as these, in their rooftop roost, were hooting now.

  Pedro Darry, standing beside him — they'd been watching Ordinaries at foot-ball — had said, "There are great gifts, that still come too costly."

  Baj had supposed Pedro meant that wonderful gift of riding flying — and couldn't imagine a cost too great for that....

  "Look there!" A Shrike — Paul-Shrike — pointed down to the right, off the bridge's side. Baj and the others went near that edge cautiously, and saw, far below, hundreds of Boston's citizens walking... trotting along a frosted-ice road running west alongside the great crevasse. Some of those, blue-coated, were sailing the air.


  "The Pens Staff, and Faculty people," Patience said. "Most live in West-buildings. They're running to their homes."

  "Well done, Sylvia Wolf-General, to make matters easier for us," Richard said, and the distant alarm struck a deep, ringing, musical period for him.

  "Yes, until they come back, and bring other citizens with them. — But still, good for us now. There'll be only a few sentries left in the galleries; none are ever allowed inside the Pens." Patience turned away, and trotted down the bridge's slope — lifting a little off the ice now and then, as if she were a winter crow, half-hopping, half-flying a pace or two, so the others had to run — some sliding, skidding perilously — to keep up.

  Baj, breathing out dragon-breaths of frost, managed to stay beside her — and Nancy caught up. "... Patience, your son is here?"

  "No." Patience answered her from a little height in the air. "Maxwell will be in Creche-solitary off River Street." She smiled. "He so frightens them by dreaming the truth of things — as I was frightened when he dreamed the truth of me."

  "Then go to him," Baj said.

  Patience shook her head, white hair breezing in the wind. "I promised — promised this first...." Then there was no more stepping and half-flying, but she lifted and dove through the air, striped coat-tails flapping — and was down off the bridge and across the wide landing to the fourth-floor gallery, where she landed as Baj and the others followed, running over rough ice.

  "That fucking flying," Richard said, lumbering along.... Leaning against a huge, carved, gallery pillar for a moment, to catch his breath, Baj felt its frozen mass even through his parley's fur. "There are only the occas on the floor above — the top floor, and the roof?"

  "Yes," Patience said. She was standing on one foot like a chimney stork, taking her own odd rest. "— Their home-roost and nursery."

  * * *

  "Do we go up?" Nancy's red crest of hair was powdered with frost, her narrow face pinched and pale with cold.

  Patience shook her head. "The mothers who tend those daughters are... past killing." Boston's great bell of alarm tolled its distant regular stroke as she spoke. "— And in the cellars beneath the building, the big mampies are stabled — born only to be ground-ridden."

  "Their mothers?"

  "Their mothers die, giving birth to them."

  The pillared corridors, one side open to the air, ran distant to either side of them, but Patience — apparently rested enough — turned to their right and trotted that way, small swift muk-boots crunching over floor-ice striped wavering by the columns' lamp shadows. Baj, Nancy, and the others trooped behind her, Richard humming to himself under his breath.

  Baj saw, down the way, a naked young man standing to the left at the cloister wall, staring at them as they came. He had a roll of writing paper under his arm.... Patience ran past him, then Baj, Nancy . .. then Richard.

  "Who?" the young man called. Perhaps meaning them — perhaps asking who threatened Boston's gate.

  Baj heard a single shriek as one of the Shrikes, trotting behind them, speared that young man. Turning to look back, he saw him down, kicking, struggling in the crimson and blue coils of his intestines. His writing papers were unfurled, lifting on the cavern wind. .. shifting out between ice pillars into vacancy over the great crevasse.

  "These stairs," Patience said, rose a little in the air, spun left, and seemed to fall away down steep frost-white steps, Baj and Nancy going after side-by-side, with Richard's heavy boot-steps and the softer shush and thud of the Shrikes' footfalls coming behind.

  They reached a landing, turned and went the next flight down. Baj heard a Shrike slip on the steps behind him, fall, then scramble up.... Patience led to an iron gate set deep into the ice, and locked with a chain and heavy round mechanical key-turn. It stood sturdy for three clanging strokes of Richard's ax — then the key-turn's thick shank broke with a snap, the chain fell free, and Richard set his shoulder against the bars and shoved the gate squealing open.

  They stepped into a wide inside corridor lit by hanging lamps swaying on their chains in a bitter breeze — a long corridor that seemed to run the building's breadth. Patience led the way down it. There were iron doors spaced well apart along both walls; the door frames, also iron, were set as the gate had been, into rounded, thick blue ice. "Inquiry," Patience called as they passed a door. "The Corridor of Inquiry and Advancement..."

  Passing one door, then another, Baj saw their metal was smeared thick with black, pitchy grease — and supposed all Boston's iron must be, or rust away.

  "Inquiry?" Nancy said, and as if a door had heard her, it clanked, groaned, then swung open as Baj turned to face it.

  An old man in a long blue coat stepped though the doorway, leaving spacious rustling darkness behind him, and bringing the odor of babies' manure. He carried a leather parcel on his left shoulder. There was a soft chorus of "Good-bye..." behind him, as the iron door swung shut.

  Apparently preoccupied, his head turned to the bundle on his shoulder, the old man started at the gleam of Baj's drawn rapier, and froze, standing still. A pale hairless chest, its flesh fallen, was revealed where the greatcoat fell open, and Baj saw the Boston man was naked beneath the cloth. Naked, and barefoot on the ice.

  Astonished, the old man stared at Baj, at the Shrikes- — now standing at ease, leaning on their javelins.

  "Who are you?" A voice cracked with age.

  "Visitors," Patience called, and turned back to join them.

  " 'Visitors.'" An echo from the leather bundle on the old man's shoulder. The bundle stirred, spread a veiny, delicate wing, and Baj saw it was a Mailman. He'd seen one once, at Island — and been told it brought a message from Map-New Mexico, concerning Roamer raids. But this was within arm's reach. He stared, and the Mailman stared back. Shriveled, an owl's size, it had a little baby's head, a baby's considering blue eyes.

  "Willard Adams, Tenured," Patience said. "And still working wonders in the Mailman lofts. You haven't heard the bell of Enemy-at-the-Gate?" She cocked her head to mime listening, and the bell struck its regular note for her... its peal shivering softly through corridors of ice.

  "I've heard the bell," the old man said, "— and assume these creatures and tribesmen are part of the reason, with friends no doubt pecking futilely at one of the city's entrances.... And I know you," he looked unpleasant, "a nasty exile booted from the Township, from Harvard Yard, for lack of cooperation. More than mostly Irish, I've always thought — well-named Riley — and no part Lodge at all."

  "Kill him?" Dolphus Shrike.

  "These savages," the old man stuck his tongue out at the Shrikes, "are fit company for an in-fact Moonriser exile, who brewed a gross and mind-rotten baby out of our best blood."

  "Where is Woody Lodge, Willard?"

  "Woodrow Cabot-Lodge is gone west to mention matters to ice-tribesmen in Map-Minnesota. Gone away for shame at what has sprouted from your spoiled belly.... Now, I have training to accomplish, and so leave you and the rest of these... Persons... to the Constables."

  The old man put out his arm to set Baj aside, and strode into the corridor as if he were alone.

  "Constables," the Mailman said from his shoulder.

  Patience said, "Kill him."

  A Shrike Baj had heard called Perry, struck the old man's spine with the butt of a javelin, and Willard Adams gasped, turned away — and suddenly rose up into the air as the Mailman called, "Uh-oh!" and flew from his shoulder. The old man thrashed higher, skinny naked legs flailing as he rose, and Shrike javelins — Perry's and two others' — flashed up to strike at him, sliced his legs so he screamed and mounted higher, almost to the corridor's blue-ice ceiling.

  "Bad," Nancy said. "Badly cruel, and he so old!"

  "Stay still." Baj held her arm — and glancing at Patience, saw nothing but satisfaction in her face while the Shrikes stirred in a swift whirl of lancing, as if in a dance, whipping bright steel up to catch Willard Adams as he flapped and crawled along the ceiling. A blade went in at his groi
n, and the old man screamed and tried to twist away — but where the Shrikes could not follow, their javelins could, and rose and struck him again, so he was silent but for grunting as the steel went in... then suddenly slid down out of the air and fell among them, choked on his blood, and died.

  The Shrikes stood back as hounds stand back from a torn coyote.

  "Uh-oh .. . uh-oh..." The Mailman, winging away, sailed up the stairwell they'd descended.

  "Cruel." Nancy pulled her arm out of Baj's grip.

  Baj said nothing, but the old man's death stirred nausea in him as if he'd eaten spoiled meat, so he felt he had to hurry... hurry to do what must be done before the sickness overwhelmed him. His own voice called "Faster!" to him, called for such speed in action there'd be no time for thinking, for imagination, no time for choices.

  "Move," Patience said, and Baj was glad to do it. Glad that as they ran the frigid corridor, no more old men came out to die.... Though there was something that battered at a door they passed, smashing into the iron to be let out. No one opened that door to see what it might be.

  Patience — skipping, then sailing just beneath the hallway's hanging lamps — led them fast. The walls' ice-blue and the hanging lamps' gold combined to send light wavering, flashing, settling in odd shadows as they went. It seemed to Baj that running to exhaustion had been most of what they'd done in Boston-town... was perhaps most of what all soldiers, all fighting people did.

  Passing iron doors — though none presented signs or markers — Patience sometimes called back, "Birthing... Discoveries of Tiny Things... Considerations... Good-bye to Naughty Changes...." No one paused at any of these doors.

  Near the corridor's end, one iron door stood partly open, though no one could be seen, but only a single oil lamp shining down on a bench and a table glittering with blown glass vessels in odd shapes and sizes.

  "Surprises Examined," Patience had called, tapping that half-open door with her sheathed scimitar when she went by. Then, reaching a stairwell, she whirled to the right and down it, coat-tails bannering.