Brechalon (4 page)

The one that had first made the strange
warbling stepped away from the others. He walked directly toward
her, stopping about six feet away to lean on the trunk of a maple
tree. He was looking around at the trees and flowering plants.
Ssissiatok remained very still. It didn’t seem possible, but he
didn’t see her. She was right there. Was it even a male? Ssissiatok
didn’t know for sure. He opened the lower part of his clothing and
urinated on the trunk of the tree. Ssissiatok leaned over to get a
better look.

Suddenly the stranger caught her out of the
corner of his eye and jumped, letting out a shout and a series of
melodic words. He fastened his pants and wiped his hands on the
leaves of a handy bush. Then he called over to the others in words,
most of which Ssissiatok could understand.

“
Ssterrost, is this one of yours? I
thought I was about to get my blah blah bit off.”

Ssterrost came quickly over and it was clear
from his posture that he was not happy.

“
Ssissiatok, get back to the
village! You are not supposed to be here. If I catch you where
you’re not supposed to be again, I’ll bite your tail
off.”

Ssissiatok hunkered down to make herself look
smaller and turned toward the village, hurrying through the forest.
Behind her she could hear the stranger. He was once again making
the strange warbling cry.

* * * * *

This was another part of the city that Terrence
Dechantagne knew well. It was known to the rest of the city as The
Bottom and to those who lived there as Black Bottom. It was a
section of the town built on land sloping down toward the River
Thiss and it seemed as if it was perpetually falling into the green
waters. Besides thousands of two and three story houses that all
seemed to be either leaning toward the river because of the sloping
land or leaning in the other direction in hopes of countering the
slope, there were countless seedy pubs, sordid meeting houses, and
hidden drug dens.

Terrence drove his sister’s steam carriage down
Contico Boulevard, past the ancient stone buildings of the Old City
and past the sea of tenement apartments, turning off into the dark
and winding roads of Black Bottom. His vehicle was the only powered
one on the road here. Foot traffic predominated, though there were
quite a few horses, either pulling carriages or being ridden. There
were enough of them that there was a two foot tall embankment of
horse manure that ran down either side of the road. Flies filled
the air almost as thickly as did the stench.

Following a series of alleys that would have
confused anyone not intimately familiar with the area, Terrence
brought the vehicle to a stop in front of a nondescript house. He
peeled off his driving gloves and tossed them onto the seat next to
him, and then he climbed down. The only light came from the dim
headlamps and the tiny sliver of moon, but Terrence didn’t need
either to detect the three men coming toward him from the shadows
between two houses on the other side of the street. The foremost
had a knife. The second carried a cricket bat. The third one was a
big man. He didn’t seem to have a weapon, probably thought he
didn’t need one.

“
Hey blue coat. You can’t park here
unless you pay the…” The man stopped talking when Terrence shoved
the barrel of his forty five into the man’s mouth.

“
You’re not going to talk to me
anymore,” said Terrence. He looked at the other two. “Either one of
you talk?”

“
Put that away,” said the second
man.

“
I’m not taking orders right now
either. This fellow a friend of yours?”

“
My brother.”

“
Then I take it you don’t want me
to splatter his brains across the street.”

“
You won’t. People like you follow
the law.”

“
People like me are the law,” said
Terrence. “Your brother and I are going inside. When we come out
again, I’ll pay your toll or whatever you want to call it. But.
Anybody touches my car, bothers me, or brasses me off in any way,
and I make you a little closer to being an only child.”

Terrence guided the man, still sucking on the
barrel of his pistol and now walking backwards, around the car and
to the door of the building. He rapped the door three times and it
opened an inch.

“
I’m here to see Blackwood,” said
Terrence.

The door opened and Terrence pushed himself and
his unwilling companion through. Inside was a large dark room. The
person who had let them in turned out to be at least as large as
the muscle in the street. He loomed over both of them and most
people would have been intimidated. There was no furniture in the
room and the dozen or so people there in various states of
unconsciousness were sprawled out across the floor.

“
I’m here to see Blackwood,” said
Terrence again.

“
Nobody sees him unless I say they
do,” said the big man, his deep voice just as menacing as his
physical presence.

“’
Salright, Teddy. Dechantagne’s an
old friend.”

Blackwood came down the stairs at the far end
of the room. He was a small man with a head of thick, curly, red
hair and a cigar clenched in the corner of his mouth. His
appearance and his attitude reminded Terrence of a bantam
rooster.

“’
Dja bring a friend with you
Dechantagne?” he asked in his thick brogue.

“
A fellow I picked up on the
street.”

“
Would’ja mind lettin’m
go?”

Terrence pulled the barrel of his forty five
from the man’s mouth and, wiping it on the fellow’s shirt, he
tucked it back into his belt.

“
You’re dead mister.”

“
Shut your damn mouth, Mika. Don’t
go thinkin’ that because Dechantagne here is a pretty boy he won’t
kill you dead. He will. On the other hand, if you give him any
trouble, I’ll kill you and your whole family.”

The man—Mika went white.

“
Now get on outa’ here.”

“
Thanks,” said Terrence blandly,
after the other man had hurried out the door.

“
You know I’m not sentimental,
Dechantagne. You’re just worth a lot more alive to me than he is.
That changes; you’ll be the first to know. Now what can I do for
you, as if I didn’t know.”

“
Ten bottles.”

“
Ten bottles. Kafira, you’re gon’ta
kill yourself.” Blackwood chuckled. “It’s still a hundred a
bottle.”

Terrence growled but nodded.

“
I know you can get if for twenty
out in the wilderness from some savage in a loin-cloth, but this is
the good stuff, ya know.”

Terrence pulled a roll of bills from his tunic
and peeled off a thousand marks. It was about a third of his pocket
cash. He shoved it into Blackwood’s hand.

“
Ya know I’ve got other
products—things that will actually make you feel good. Ya might
want ta give them a try sometime.”

“
Just get the spice.”

“
I’ll be down in a
minute.”

Blackwood headed up the stairs in the back,
while his muscle took his position once again at the door. Suddenly
Terrence felt a tugging at his pants leg. Looking down he found a
pale faced man with bloodshot eyes looking up. He couldn’t have
been more than thirty, but he looked far older than
that.

“
I see a castle,” said the man.
“She’s in a castle. What do you see? Is she in a castle for
you?”

Terrence kicked the hands free of this
clothing. The man looked up resentfully.

“
You don’t see a castle, do you?
You live in a castle here. You don’t need to see a castle there.
She probably comes to you in a shack in the middle of
nowhere.”

“
Bugger off,” said
Terrence.

“
You see the purple flowers though,
don’t you? You see those.”

Blackwood returned with a small wooden box,
which Terrence opened. Inside were ten tiny cylindrical bottles,
made of dark indigo glass. Each was filled with a milky white
liquid and topped with a cork stopper. There it was—White
Opthalium. Visio, as it was sometimes called, or See Spice, was
made from rare enchanted lotus blossoms and blue fungus from
Southern Enclep, whipped together with magic. Just looking at it
made Terrence’s mouth and eyes water.

“
Ya sure there’s nothin’
else?”

Terrence shook his head and left. The street
punks were gone, though he hardly noticed. His attention was fixed
only on the small box now in his possession. It was a quick drive
back to the Old City and back to Avenue Dragon. He parked the car
in the motor shed, but walked around to the west side of the house
and went in through an almost never used entrance. This was part of
the house that Iolanthe had closed off. He found a bedroom and
locked himself in. Then he pulled aside the drop cloth that covered
the bed and sat down with his back against the headboard. Opening
the box, he pulled out one of the small indigo bottles and pulled
off the stopper. He could just detect its florid smell.

Placing a finger on the tiny open mouth, he
overturned the bottle to moisten his finger with the milky white
liquid inside. Then he reached up and rubbed it directly onto his
left eyeball, and then his right, quickly recapping the bottle and
tossing it next to him on the bed as the room around him suddenly
drained of color. He was seeing it.

No longer on the bed in an unused bedroom in
the house at Number One, Avenue Dragon, he was now sitting in the
middle of a great field of purple flowers that stretched ahead and
to the left and right as far as the eye could see. Each flower was
a foot tall, with a blossom as big around as his hand, with five
purple petals, dark purple along the edge merging with the same
indigo as the little blue bottle in the middle. And in the middle
of each flower, where normally one would find the pistil, was a
very human looking eyeball. Terrence stood up and turned around.
Twenty yards away was a small yellow cottage, with a green roof and
door and two windows with green shutters. And to the left and the
right of the house, and beyond the house, the field of purple
flowers stretched away to the horizon.

Chapter Three: Life in the City of
Brech

Iolanthe Dechantagne sat in her parlor and
sipped her tea. Across the table her guest mirrored her activity.
He was a tall sandy haired man with deep-set, intelligent blue
eyes. His pin-striped suit was carefully tailored and his paper
collar was tight around his neck. As he sipped his tea, he nodded
appreciatively.

“
Very nice. An Enclepian blend, if
I’m not mistaken.”

“
You are quite right, Professor
Calliere,” said Iolanthe, her aquamarine eyes sparkling. “Not many
people can pick it out so easily.”

“
Well, I’ve made more than a few
trips to Nutooka. Collecting specimens for the university, you
know.”

“
How is your work going?” Iolanthe
didn’t need to feign interest. She found all knowledge interesting
and it usually proved valuable as well.

“
Oh, zoology is nothing but a hobby
of mine.” Professor Calliere set down his teacup and leaned
forward. “Not that I haven’t made a few interesting discoveries.
But no, my real work is in the mechanical engineering lab. I just
filed a patent on a very important invention and I expect to be
able to live quite comfortably off the proceeds for the rest of my
life.”

“
You won’t stop your work?” asked
Iolanthe with one arched brow.

“
Of course not, but this will allow
me to concentrate on my next project without having to worry about
day to day finances. Money is so… bourgeois.”

“
Careful now Mr. Calliere. People
will think you are a socialist.”

He chuckled. “Of course not. I just prefer to
have somebody else deal with the tiresomeness of money.”

“
So what was this very important
invention?”

“
Brakes. Brakes for
trains.”

“
Don’t trains already have brakes?”
wondered Iolanthe. “It seems that all the trains I’ve ridden on did
eventually stop.”

“
Yes, but the old brakes must be
worked manually. My brakes are pneumatic, which is to say they work
on air power. They will be much safer and will allow trains to
operate with a single brakeman instead of several. Best of all,
engineers won’t have to start stopping so soon, so travel speeds
will actually increase.”

“
Professor Calliere, you amaze me.
Brakes that actually make a train travel faster?” Iolanthe set down
her own teacup and reached for a tiny cress sandwich. “Try one of
these.”

“
My next project is far more
advanced,” Calliere paused to bite into the sandwich. “Mechanically
speaking, I mean. I already have my assistant Mr. Murty doing the
groundwork.”

“
Oh? And just what is
it?”

“
It’s a calculating machine. It’s
actually an expansion of a device I built several years ago, though
this one will be far more complex.”

“
What exactly do you mean, ‘a
calculating machine’?” asked Iolanthe.

“
Just that. It will be a machine,
steam powered of course, which adds and subtracts, multiplies and
divides large numbers, both large in the sense of being very big
numbers and large in the sense of there being a great many of them.
It will calculate and it will do it hundreds of times faster than a
human being. It will be a marvelous test of mechanics.”