The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  Her words left him at a loss. There wasn’t time enough to explain a year, to account for it all. The teeth that carried their railcar up began to grind and their cart wobbled like a top losing momentum. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said.

  “What?” she all but screamed over the noise.

  “Mistakes! I’ve made a lot of mistakes! I’ve robbed. I’ve pirated. I’ve killed men. Never carelessly. I was addicted to Crumb, though I’m off it now. I completely lost my mind. I still feel like I’ve only got a part of it back,” he shouted. Abruptly, the cart passed over the noisome patch, though he hadn’t time to correct his volume before he cried, “I kissed a woman!”

  He saw the disappointment crimp her brow. If he could’ve picked between a gunshot and witnessing that flash of pain on her face, he would’ve chosen the pistol. She sighed and said, “Well, I did remarry, so I suppose … in the grand scheme of things, I …” She couldn’t finish the thought.

  “Tell me, are you happy?” When she deliberated, he quickly added, “If you are, it’s perfectly all right. I’ll be happy for you. But if you’re unhappy, please tell me.”

  She had pressed her hip into the corner of the seat, retreating as far from him as she could. She turned her chin up, studying the ascent of the rail, gauging, perhaps, how long they had left.

  When she didn’t answer, he blundered on, “I know this might be hard to believe after listening to me crow about my failures, but I have some resources and some powerful friends. If you want to leave this life, I can help you. And if you love it here, or are happy enough, I will go, and I won’t bother you again.”

  She made a sound, a gentle scoff, as if complaining in her sleep. “What does happiness have to do with anything? I haven’t let happiness make a decision since … I’m resigned, Tom. That’s what I am. I am resolute.” He heard the formal tone creep back into her voice. “And once you decide to just accept things, there may not be much happiness in it, but there is … certainty. And that’s comforting. Or at least bearable.”

  The urge to argue made him twitch. It seemed one thing to surrender her to a happy life, but quite another to give her over to the meager pleasures of certainty. “I know I have no right to judge, but that doesn’t seem good enough. Not for you. I can’t offer you a life like the one you have here—the fame, the wealth, the certainty—but I would try, I would strive with everything I have, to make you happy.”

  “There are some lovely things about this life,” she said, as if reading from a script. “I get to play the piano and sing my heart out, and there’s always some event to attend. You can’t be bored. It’s not allowed. And I’ve grown accustomed, I suppose, to having someone do the wash and cook the meals and make the beds and—”

  Their cart halted, jerking them forward against the bar that held them. The unexpected stop made Senlin look down, and he saw how high they’d climbed already. Somehow not moving made the height insufferable, and despite his months aboard an airship, he felt a pang of vertigo.

  “Do you have the candle?” Marya asked. Senlin looked at her, his confusion apparent. “The glass tube they gave you at the door. Do you have it?”

  Remembering at last, he felt his pocket and pulled out the cylinder. As he did, he saw that their cart had stopped on a gloomy patch of the track. He looked and found the culprit: One of the lights in the modeled Tower had burned out. He opened the glass plate over the fixture. A darkened cylinder, much like the one he held, stretched between two copper clasps. He removed the depleted cylinder and replaced it with the new candle. The whisker of wire at the heart of the glass tube began to glow at once. As soon as he closed the glass hatch again, their cart resumed its ascent.

  He pocketed the spent candle, deciding that this was the real purpose of the ride: to replace dead links in some larger circuit. The Brick Layer or the Sphinx had here again attempted to hide some necessary function behind an amusement.

  “Do you love her?” Marya asked, shocking Senlin from his thoughts.

  He looked at her, his stranger-wife, and wished he had an entire answer, one that would fit inside a yes or no. “She has been a good friend and has put up with an awful lot of my nonsense.”

  She laughed at that. “The basis of any good relationship!”

  “But I can’t give her my heart, Marya, because that still belongs to you. I am so, so sorry for—”

  “Oh, Tom, we can’t do that. We haven’t time. If we had days, weeks, maybe. But the ride is almost done.”

  And sure enough, when he looked up, he saw their spiral upward was drawing to an end. The tiny figures raising the Tower began to disappear, their forms not carved so deeply, their edges indistinct as if rubbed down or covered by a cloud. At its peak, the wild facade of the Tower eroded into a featureless blank, though Senlin couldn’t say whether it had been left unfinished or if that represented the real peak of this world—an eraser at the end of a pencil.

  “Are you sure you want to stay? If you want to leave, it doesn’t mean you have to return to me or Isaugh. You can choose another life. Any life you want. I will do all I can to deliver you to it. Just say the word.”

  She touched his cheek. What might’ve seemed an intimate gesture in another context, here felt like a dismissal. “Go home, Tom. Or go to her, whoever she is, the one who puts up with your nonsense. I give you back your heart. Make her happy. Make a home. If you came for absolution, you are absolved.”

  The track crested upon an uncarved, undecorated tunnel. The light at the end of the line grew brighter. She seemed to grow calmer, even as everything inside Senlin tilted toward war. Had he squandered his only opportunity? Had he spoken too much or said too little? Would he in twenty years look back on this moment as the defining blunder of his life?

  “I love you,” he said.

  “I know you do. You wouldn’t have come here, risked so much, if you didn’t. And I love you, too. With all my heart. But this isn’t about us, Tom. This is about the lives and hearts of others. For their sake—for mine, too—I want you to get as far away from here as you can. Please.”

  The distant purr of the court became a roar as their cart broke from the tunnel. As soon as the duke and his party saw them, they raised a cheer. The railcar stopped, and Wil offered Marya his hand. She stepped out lightly, wearing an expression of perfect poise, even as Senlin was more roughly removed by the duke’s friends, who shook his hand, rocked his shoulders, and jostled his elbows. They remarked how pale he looked. They declared him damp and shaky as a newborn, which delighted everyone in the group. Senlin swayed on his feet when they released him.

  “Well?” Wilhelm asked Marya, drawing her to his side. “What do you say, dear? Did Cyril make a convincing case?”

  Marya glanced at the unmasked, unsteady Boskop who looked on the verge of being ill. “I wouldn’t let that man manage a cart full of socks,” she said, and everyone howled with delight.

  Senlin excused himself soon after, citing again his delicate constitution, which the Merry Loop had upset. He offered a few unsavory details, which no one cared to hear, and the duke ushered him to the exit amid a wash of ambiguous hurrahs.

  Before depositing him outside the gate, the duke offered Senlin some apparently sincere but misplaced consolation: “Oh, don’t fret, Cyril. We’ve not heard her final word on this. She’ll change her mind. Come by the club tomorrow. I’ll have better news.”

  Senlin returned to the Bon Royal. Upon unlocking the door, he briefly believed he was in the wrong room: All evidence of his tantrum and all the stacks of newspapers were missing. But then he saw his two ruined coats hanging upon the wall and found the bill on his dresser for the destroyed archival copies of the Daily Reverie, which came to thirteen minas.

  Thirteen minas. The amount renewed his shame. He had come to the Tower with less in his pocket. The same amount would’ve fed his crew for months and months and fed them well. And he had ripped it apart in a fit of indulgence.

  Loosening his tie, he flopped upon t
he bed. Marya’s parting words echoed in his ears: This is about the lives and hearts of others. Again, he saw her take Wil’s hand as he helped her from the cart. He watched the handsome duke’s arm wind about her waist, saw the smile they shared in that intimate space amid public scrutiny where couples refreshed their bond.

  He shivered. He was no rescuer. He was a voyeur, or worse. He was a despoiler.

  Leaping up, he snapped open the lid of the cigar box and unwrapped one of the Sphinx’s messengers. He twisted the moth’s head, and said, “All right, Byron. I hope you remember my request. I promise this is the one and only time I will impose upon your discretion, but please, please: I’d like to say a few words to Edith alone. Thank you, Byron. You are a good friend.” Senlin paused and pressed the recorder against his shirtfront.

  Opening the curtains over the balcony doors, he peered through the light-streaked glass at the bank of balconies across from his own. Each seemed a discrete little stage, complete with actors, a story, a dramatic question, a crisis. Whether anyone was watching or not, whether it meant anything or not, those players poured out their hearts to keep them from bursting in their chests.

  Senlin shut his eyes, drew a deep breath, then spoke into the recorder: “Dear Edith …”

  Chapter Twelve

  To whiten the complexion, one may drain a little blood. And the same is true of our pale city.

  —Oren Robinson of the Daily Reverie

  For the first time in many days, Senlin slept through the night. He was spared the torment of bad dreams and racing thoughts, and when he woke, he awoke refreshed to a room that was free of all the paper ghosts of the past.

  He understood why Marya had chosen a stable, if imperfect, life over the ordeal of escape, the realities of his changed character, and the question of whether their former home could ever be home again. He did not blame her for choosing the duke. Yes, Wilhelm was a bit overbearing and perhaps too ambitious, but he was nice enough and obviously keen on her. And more importantly, Senlin had her answer; he knew her heart. After a year of wretched ambiguity, even the certainty of rejection felt like a gift. He was filled with a buoyant sense of relief.

  The pickled light of the mechanical sun seemed to shine more brightly that morning. As he struck out across the crowded plaza, he was not thinking of Marya, the duke, the Sphinx, Marat, or even Tarrou, who was still, for the moment, forgotten. He thought only of Edith. He imagined their reunion aboard the State of Art. He imagined what they would say. He romanced the moment until it was larger than either of them, perhaps even larger than their feelings. He knew, coming so quick on the heels of Marya’s rejection, that this longing was a shameful indulgence, like drinking wine in the morning or spending all day in the bath. But he didn’t care. It felt as if the old headmaster of Isaugh were dead, and he was finally free.

  He set out for the Colosseum out of habit more than purpose. Of course, the new day brought a new spectacle to clog the way, and soon he found himself caught in a gauntlet of newsboys who flapped papers and cried headlines in such heated competition with one another he couldn’t distinguish a single sensible phrase. Girls in white stockings with bows in their hair sold sachets of raisins and almonds. Men on stilts strode over the crowd like water striders on a pond. They sold cheap wooden periscopes to people wishing to peep over the heads of their neighbors.

  Feeling in no mood to spend his morning in such a human bog, Senlin was firm with his advances. Whenever someone turned to give him a sour stare for shoving against them or stepping on their heel, he tugged at his lapel, brandishing the Coterie’s pin like some sort of official badge. More often than not, the ploy worked, and the citizenry parted before him.

  When he broke upon the front edge of the crowd, Senlin was surprised to find General Eigengrau standing at the center of the spectacle. Not far behind the general, a rubble wall patched with gobs of mortar protruded from the white cobble floor like a wart. Sixteen soldiers in full dress stood about with rifles held at rest. Their black caps were decorated with a gold medallion, a black pom-pom, and a yellow plume. They looked more like painted dolls than men of war.

  “Mr. Pinfield!” General Eigengrau said, spotting him before Senlin had time to decide whether he wished to be seen. His high, broad shoulders and narrow waist made him look like a splitting wedge. He did not so much seem to stand upon the ground as pierce it. “I heard you took a turn on our Merry Loop last night. How did you find it?”

  Senlin was surprised to discover that word had traveled so fast, or that it had traveled at all, really. What did one tourist’s queasy evening matter to a general? But he understood the implication quickly enough: Wilhelm and Eigengrau had recently discussed him. “It was dreadful!” Senlin said and dashed his handkerchief out in the air. “I don’t understand the appeal at all. It’s like being sealed in a barrel and kicked down the stairs.” He blew his nose and inspected the result. The general’s lips curled with revulsion. “Wil said you had apprehended the murderer.”

  “Yes. And you’re just in time to see the closing of the case.”

  “Is this some sort of public courtroom?”

  “We’ve already been through all that. This is what we call the Wall of Recompense. This is where sentences are carried out.”

  “Sentences?” Senlin asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

  “Executions.” Eigengrau spoke the word with a sort of formal sincerity. Senlin recognized that tone of voice. It was one he had often used with parents who came to complain about their child’s poor marks. It was a tone of mutual regret and personal absolution, a tone that said, I am as disappointed as you are.

  The revelation brought a slew of questions to mind: Who had identified the murderer if not him? Who had defended the accused in his trial? Was justice always doled out so quickly in Pelphia, or was this alacrity reserved for the hods?

  Before Senlin could decide where to begin his inquiry, they were interrupted by a man carrying a leather satchel and a peculiar three-legged box. One side of the box had an accordion snout that ended in a brass-capped nostril. The opposite side of the box was draped with a black cape. The young man wore a brown suit that seemed too short at the sleeves and cuffs, and he had brown hair that draped and swung like the ears of a cocker spaniel. He asked the general where he should set up his equipment. In answer, Eigengrau organized his troop with a few curt words. The men’s training was immediately evident. They formed a pencil-straight line parallel to the rubble wall. The young man set his tripod down so close to the end of the rank he almost seemed a part of it.

  “It’s called a camera,” the general said to Senlin with a confiding sort of admiration. “It captures light and shadows and shapes. It creates a physical record of a moment in time. Isn’t that incredible?” The general rested his hand on the pommel of his long-nosed pistol. “Soon, I’ll be able to bottle an entire fleet, a fortress, even a battle inside one pho-to-graph,” he said, carefully pronouncing each syllable of the unfamiliar word. “I’ll be able to count the guns on an enemy warship from the comfort of my own home. Imagine that! This little squeeze box is going to change the way we fight wars forever.”

  “Wonderful.” Senlin spoke the word without any enthusiasm. The photographer removed the cover from the camera lens and tucked his head under the cape. Something about that hunched posture reminded him of the White Chrom den where men and women sat with their heads under cloth napkins to collect the intoxicating vapors and to hide their shame.

  “For the moment, the technology is still unreliable, and the quality of the picture is inconsistent. But it’s good enough for the papers, and they’re leading the charge to build a better phu-ta-graph.” Senlin noticed the general had pronounced the word differently but thought better than to offer a correction. “Right now, the Daily Reverie uses engravings for all of their publications, but in the near future, the news will be filled with pages and pages of pictures: the whole world sliced up and delivered to your door.” They both watched the photogra
pher carefully extract a square panel from his satchel and fit it into the camera. “You know, they used to send a sketch artist to draw the executions. They’d ask us to leave the bodies of the condemned so that they could prop them up and finish their drawings. Gruesome stuff, really.”

  “Sir, could you please have the subjects line up? I need to get them in focus.”

  “Certainly!” Eigengrau called to the sergeant standing beside the rubble barrier to bring out the condemned. The shackled hods were waiting behind the Wall of Recompense. The hods’ appearance accomplished what few spectacles in Pelphia could—it unified and focused the crowd. The explosion of boos was so intense and sudden it made Senlin jump.

  The heads of the hods had been freshly shaved. Otherwise, they looked very little alike. Their skin was of every color. One was lame with age. Another seemed to have not yet grown to her full height: Her limbs rattled inside the iron cuffs that held them. Some of the hods looked out at the roaring crowd—the hawkers on stilts, the glinting lenses of periscopes—with expressions that ranged from panic to anger to confusion. Some hods stared at the ground before them as if they were toeing the edge of a cliff. One stood gagged, with his hands chained so tightly behind him, his breastbone stood out like a plowshare. Some cursed. Some wept. There were eleven of them in all, and not one among them was the murderer Senlin had seen in the alley.

  “General, I think there’s been some mistake. None of these are the murderer.”

  “Really? Are you sure? Look, that hod matches your description perfectly.” Eigengrau pointed to the eldest of the hods. His skeleton seemed swollen under his cinder-dark skin.

  “No, that’s not him at all. It’s obviously not him. Call the judge. I’ll testify to it this instant.” Senlin was having trouble maintaining his awkward, ineffectual persona. His passions only grew stronger when the photographer walked out from behind his camera and began to direct the condemned hods to move a little this way or that, to change their posture, to lift or lower their chins. The hods complied in numb disbelief.