The Dragons of Babel (13 page)

“No, it's silver. Silver is the witch-metal. It takes a spell more readily than gold does, and holds it better. It conducts electricity almost as well as gold, and since it has a higher melting point, it's far superior for use in electronic circuitry. Also it's cheaper.”

“I can repair a radio.”

“I bet you can. Go now. Run along and play.” She swatted the little girl on the rump and watched her scamper away. Then, to Will, she said, “Your hands are bleeding from a thousand cuts.”

He looked down at them.

“It's a figure of speech, fool. Each cut is a memory, and the blood is the pain they cause you. You and the child are like Jack and Nora Sprat; she forgets everything, and you remember all. Neither is normal. Or wise. You've got to learn to let go, boy, or you'll bleed yourself to death.”

An angry retort rushed to Will's lips, but he bit it back. He had dealt with old ladies like her before, and argument never helped. If he wanted to tell her to buzz off, it would have to be done politely. He stood. “Thank you for your advice,” he said stiffly. “I'm leaving now.”

Though it had been a long walk to the clearing, three strides took him out through the tent flap. He stood blinking in the sunlight.

Two yellow-jackets seized his arms.

“Garbage duty,” one said. Will had been pressed into such service before. He went unresisting with them to a utility truck. It grumbled through Block G and out of the camp and when the tents were small in the distance, slowed to a halt. One soldier shoved a leather sack over Will's head and upper body. The other wrapped a cord around his waist, lashing him in.

“Hey!”

“Don't struggle. We'd only have to hurt you.”

The truck lurched, clashed gears, and got up to speed. Soon they were driving uphill. There was only one hill overlooking Camp Oberon, a small, barren one atop which stood the old mansion that had been seized for the Commandant's office. When they got there, Will was prodded through passages that smelled musky and reptilian, as though the house were infested with toads.

Knuckles rapped on wood. “The DP you sent for, sir.”

“Bring him in and wait outside.”

Will was thrust forward, and the bag untied and whisked from his head. The door closed behind him.

The Commandant wore a short-sleeved khaki shirt with matching tie and no insignia. His head was bald and speckled as a brown egg. His forearms rested, brawny and stiff-haired, on his desk. Casually, he dipped a hand into a bowl of dead rats, picked up one by its tail, tilted his head back, and swallowed it whole. Will thought of Esme's plaything and had to fight down the urge to laugh.

Laughter would have been unwise. The Commandant's body language, the arrogance with which he held himself, told Will all he needed to know about him. Here was a pocket strongman, a manipulator and would-be tyrant, the Dragon Baalthazar writ small. The hairs on the back of Will's neck prickled. Cruelty coupled with petty authority was, as he knew only too well, a dangerous combination.

The Commandant pushed aside some papers and picked up a folder. “This is a report from the Erlking DPC,” he said. “That's where your village wound up.”

“Did they?”

“They don't speak very highly of you.” He read from the report. “Seizure of private property. Intimidation. Sexual harassment. Forced labor. Arson. It says here that you had one citizen executed.” He dropped the folder on the desk. “I don't imagine you'd be very popular there, if I had you transferred.”

“Transfer me or not, as you like. There's nothing I can do to stop you.”

“Bold words,” the Commandant said, “for somebody who was conspiring with subversives not half an hour ago. You didn't know I had an ear in that meeting, did you?”

“You had two. The ghast and the dwarf.”

The Commandant sucked his teeth in silence for a long moment. Then he rose up from the desk, so high his head
almost touched the ceiling. From the waist down, his body was that of a snake.

Slowly, he slithered forward. Will did not flinch, even when the lamius circled him, leaving him surrounded by loops of body.

“Do you know what I want from you?”

Yes, Will thought, I know what you want. You want to put your hand up inside me and manipulate me like a puppet. You want to wiggle your fingers and make me jump. Aloud, he said, “I collaborated once, and it was a mistake. I won't do it again.”

“Then you'll leave by the front door and without the courtesy of a bag over your head. How long do you think you'll last then? Once word gets out you're friendly with me?”

Will stared down at his feet and shook his head doggedly.

The Commandant slid to the door and opened it. The two yellow-jackets stood there, silent as grimhounds. “You can stand in the foyer while you think it over. Knock hard when you've made up your mind; this thing's mahogany an inch thick.” The lamius smiled mirthlessly. “Or, if you like, you can leave by the front door.”

T
he foyer had a scuffed linoleum floor, an oliphauntfoot umbrella stand, and a side table with short stacks of medical brochures for chlamydia, AIDS, evil eye, and diarrhea. Sunlight slanted through frosted panels to either side of the front door. There were two switches for the overhead and outside lights, which made a hollow
bock
noise when he flicked one on or off. And that was it.

He wouldn't become the Commandant's creature. On that point he was sure. But he didn't want to be branded an in for mant and released to the tender mercies of his fellow refugees either. He'd seen what the camp vigilantes did to those they suspected of harboring insufficient solidarity. Back and forth Will strode, forth and back, feverishly
working through his options. Until finally he was certain of his course of action. Simply because there was nothing else he
could
do.

Placing his palms flat on its surface, Will leaned straight-armed against the table. Like every other piece of furniture he had seen here, it was solidly built of dark, heavy wood. He walked his feet as far back as he could manage, until he was leaning over the table almost parallel to its surface. He wasn't at all sure he had the nerve to do this.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Then, as quickly as he could, Will whipped his hands away from the table and clasped them behind his back. Involuntarily, his head jerked to the side, trying in vain to protect his nose. His face hit the wood hard.

“Cernunnos!”
Will staggered to his feet, clutching his broken nose. Blood flowed freely between his fingers and down his shirt. Rage rose up in him like fire. It took a moment or two to calm down.

He left by the front door.

W
ill walked slowly through Block A, wearing his blood-drenched shirt like a flag or a biker's colors. By the time he got to the infirmary, word that he had been roughed up by the yellow-jackets had passed through the camp like wildfire. He had the bleeding stanched and told the nurse that he'd slipped and broken his nose on the edge of a table. After that, he could have run for camp president, had such an office existed, and won. Backslaps, elbow nudges, and winks showered down on him during his long slog home. There were whispered promises of vengeance and muttered obscenities applied to the camp authorities.

He found himself not liking his allies any better than he did his enemies.

It was a depressing thing to discover. So he went on past his tent to the edge of camp, across the railroad tracks and down the short road that led to the top of the Gorge. The
tents were not visible from that place and, despite its closeness, almost nobody went there. It was his favorite retreat when he needed privacy.

The Gorge extended half a mile downriver from the hydroelectric dam to a sudden drop in the land that freed the Aelfwine to run swift and free across the tidewater toward its confluence with the Great River. The channel it had dug down through the bedrock was so straight and narrow that the cliffs on either side of it were almost perpendicular. The water below was white. Crashing, crushing, tumbling as if possessed by a thousand demons, it was energetic enough to splinter logs and carry boulders along in its current. Anyone trying to climb down the cliffs here would surely fall. But if he ran with all his might and jumped with all his strength, he might conceivably miss the rock and hit the water clean. In which case he would certainly die. Nobody could look down at that raging fury and pretend otherwise.

It was an endlessly fascinating prospect to contemplate: Stone, water, stone. Hardness, turbulence, hardness. Not a single tree, shrub, or flower disturbed the purity of its lifelessness. The water looked cold, endlessly cold.

“Don't do it, kid.”

Will spun. Standing not far away, so still that if he hadn't spoken Will would never have noticed him among the rocks, was the dwarf he had spoken with earlier.

“Do what?”

“Yeah, like you wasn't thinking of jumping.” The dwarf had a pack of cigarettes in his hand. He tapped out two, offered one. Will took it. “Me neither.” He squinted down into the Gorge. “Look at that motherfucker churn! Think of all the time it took to cut something like that, and with only a knife of water too. It makes your life seem brief as a crap, don't it?”

Will had to agree that it did.

“You see all them layers of rock? Them strata? Every layer is a single note that was laid down when the Mother
of Darkness sang the world into existence at the fucking dawn of time. You ever been to Dwarvenhelm?”

Will shook his head.

“It's a fucking police state. The Assay has its spies everywhere. Even when you're taking a leak, you're not alone. You can be the most insignificant little turd in the butt end of nowhere and they've got a dossier on you. How do they do that, you ask? Easy. Everybody gets recruited. No fucking exceptions. You get called into Assay HQ and this goat-buggering bureaucrat reads you the juicy bits from your own dossier. Enough to let you know you're facing hard time. Then, when you're about ready to piss yourself, he says, nice and casual, that they need somebody to keep an eye on your friends and family.” He spat. “You'd be surprised the things they can make you do.”

“Maybe not,” Will said. “Maybe I wouldn't.”

“What's your name, kid?”

“Will le Fey.”

“Hornbori Monadnock.” The dwarf stuck out a hand and they shook. “Pleased to meet you, asshole.”

“Look,” Will said. “You seem like a nice guy, Monad-nock. But it's been a long day. My nose hurts. And I've got a lot of stuff to think about. So if you don't mind…”

“Keep your fucking pants on. I got something important to relate here. But before I could tell you, I hadda make you understand that I ain't a bad guy. A little rough around the edges, maybe, but what the fuck.” He put a hand on Will's forearm. “It ain't like I killed nobody.”

Will shook the hand off. “I'll listen,” he said. “Just don't touch me, okay?”

“Spoken like a fucking gentleman. You know how they say if you split open a dwarf's skull, you'll find a gemstone deep inside his brain? Well, it's true and it's not. There's many a fucker dead today because he thought some shit-faced dwarf would be easy pickings. And of course there ain't no fucking gemstone. But metaphorically it's true. We
each got a fucking pearl-beyond-price up there. Only it don't do us no good.” Harshly, Monadnock said, “This time tomorrow, I'll be dead.”

“What?”

“Some shithead outed me. Generalissimo Lizardo says he'll protect me. Like fuck he will. He might control the camp during the day, but the night belongs to vigilantes. I'll be lucky if they don't necklace me. You know what that is, right? They hang a fucking tire around your neck, douse it with gasoline, and set it afire.”

“Listen,” Will said. “You can escape. The perimeter patrols are a joke. I can go back to my tent and bring you some supplies. A razor. Shave off your beard and if you get captured again, just give' em a false name. Forgive me, but nobody can tell you guys apart.”

“It's too late for that, kid. That gemstone I was telling you about? Every dwarf got one true prophesy he can make, the day he dies. And I been feeling mine trying to come out for hours. Ordinarily, we save it for our own kind. But there ain't many dwarvenfolk in Oberon, and those as are here I wouldn't piss on if their hair was on fire. So I'm gonna give this fucking gift-worthy-of-kings to you.”

“I don't understand. Why me?”

“Because you're
here
. Now stop asking fucking questions and listen.” Monadnock shook his limbs loose and took a deep breath. Abruptly a shiver ran through his body and he shook as if he were having a seizure. His eyes rolled up so that only their whites showed. In a high, half-strangled voice, he said (and in his head Will simultaneously heard the words translated):

Then the dwarf seized Will's shirt with both hands and yanked down his head so that they were on the same level. His eyes still terrifyingly blank and white, he gripped Will's forehead in one broad hand and squeezed.

It was as if he were struck by a bolt of lightning. All the world turned an incandescent white. For a long still time he stood alone and immobile on a cold and lifeless plain under a starless sky. Everywhere there was rubble. Nowhere was there life. Radiation sleeted through his nonexistent body.