The Dragons of Babel (19 page)

“New here, eh? Babel's not how you pictured it, I reckon,” the Duchess said.

“I thought it would be a single building.”

“Everybody thinks that. But a building isn't flexible the way a city is. Times change, and what's needed changes with them. Used to be, folks got around by horse and carriage and slept nine to a room, winters, to keep warm. Now
all the carriage houses have been converted to apartments, because with central heating everybody wants to fuck in private. Nimrod understood that, and so he built not a city but the framework for one—a double helix of interlocking gyres, technically, anchored on this volcanic plug. Buildings are thrown up and torn down as needed, but the city goes on. A man of remarkable foresight was King Nimrod.”

“Knew him personally, did you?” Nat said, amused.

“I was not always as you see me now,” the Duchess said haughtily. “Long ago, I was young and guileless. To say nothing of being small enough to fit into a teacup. I lived in a crevice in the rock on the upper slopes of Ararat then, beside a narrow path to its top. Every morning King Nimrod strode up that path to sing the mountain higher, and every evening he came down again. Such was his habit, and I thought nothing of it for I was then but a dumb beast and innocent of speech or reason.

“One day Nimrod did not climb the mountain. Oh, what a day that was! Great storms fought like dragons in the sky, and lightning lashed the rock. The earth shook to its very foundations, and the mountain danced. There are no words to describe the fury of it. That was the day—but it was many a century before I figured this out—when, in his direst peril, Nimrod called up the sea to destroy his enemies. Ararat rang like a bell then, when the ocean waters struck it fiercer than any hammer, drowning the marshlands at his command and creating the Bay of Demons, which even now is our port and the source of Babel's wealth. But I suppose you already know that story.”

“Yes,” Will said.

Solemnly, Nat intoned:

“Before history existed, before time began,

King Nimrod led the People from Urdumheim.

Across the stunned and empty world they fled,

To the place of marshes in the time of flood…”

His stentorian boom lapsed into a normal speaking voice, and he said, “If you want, I can recite all eight thousand lines.”

“Whose tale is this, yours or mine?” the Duchess snapped. “The next day Nimrod came slowly up the mountain. All discontent was his expression and his glance went everywhere, as if he were looking for something he could not find. Chancing upon me, he stopped and of a whim picked me up. Holding me to his face, he addressed me thus: ‘Look upon my works, small natterjack, and despair.' His cheeks were streaked with tears, for the price he had paid for his people's emancipation was death. They had been born immortal and he had made them subject to the great wheel of time.

“I, of course, said nothing.

“But Nimrod was soliloquizing, and the Mighty need only the slightest excuse for an audience—which I was—and no sign of comprehension from it either. ‘Diminished,' said he, ‘are my powers. The mountain that was to be our fortress, I cannot raise another span. Better freedom and death, thought I, than endless life as a slave. Now I am not so sure. What point is there to building, when all must someday come undone? And if I must die someday, then why wait? Tomorrow is no better than today.' He stopped and eyed me critically. ‘You ken not a word of this, d'ye? Brute animals know death only when it comes to them. Well, power enough do I yet retain to make you understand.'

“Then his fingers, which to then had held me lightly, closed about me like a cage. Slowly he contracted his hand, and began to crush the life from me. I struggled but could not escape. Great then was my terror! And in that instant did I indeed comprehend the nature of death.”

“What did you do?” Will asked.

“I did what any self-respecting toad would do. I pissed in his hand.”

Nat winced. “That was perhaps not the wisest possible
action, given that Nimrod was not only a mage but a Power.”

“What did I know? I was a fucking toad!”

“So what happened?”

“Nimrod laughed, and put me down. ‘Live, little toad,' he said. ‘Grow and prosper.' So I crawled as deep into the rock as I could go, and there must have been some puissance yet remaining in his words, for here I've been ever since.”

“It must be hard on you to be trapped in a bubble of rock and unable to leave,” Will said.

“I have my newspaper. I listen to my little radio. Most years I make enough money to keep myself fed, and when I don't I go into hibernation. It's a life.”

At that instant there came a clattering like an avalanche of kitchenware from the stairs. The door burst open, and with a thunder of hooves and a spray of splinters, a spidery black nag pulled itself to a violent stop. Behind it, the stairway was steep and winding. The horse must have had double-jointed legs to run so cannily down it, and sinews of steel to come so quickly still. In one fluid motion, its rider leapt from its back. He was the captain of lancers they had seen before.

Will froze in the act of lighting a cigarette. Across the table, Nat looked shocked and saddened. “You dimed us out, Duchess.”

The toad grimaced. “You're a pretty young thing,” she said, “and I like pretty things. But the hunt for you was all over the police scanner, and I didn't live to be the age I am by taking chances.”

The horse straightened its legs and shook itself. Its rider had lost or left behind his saber in the chase and his troop of lancers as well, but he still carried an automatic pistol at his side, and the effortless way he had unsnapped the holster flap as he dismounted suggested he could draw it quickly.

He bowed slightly. “Captain Bagabyxas at your service.”

He was elegantly lean, with a sharp and narrow face. “I'm afraid I'll have to take you in for questioning.”

Will exhaled a mouthful of smoke. He dipped two fingers into his pocket and drew out his passport. “You'll be wanting this, I suppose.”

“I will, thanks.” The captain accepted the passport without lowering his glance. He tucked it away in his jacket. “You look to be intelligent fellows, and anybody with half a mind finding himself in your situation would be giving thought to escaping.” Esme reached up from Nat's lap to stroke the horse's nose, and Bagabyxas smiled faintly. “I advise you not to try. It will count in your favor if you come along peacefully.”

Will glanced at Nat and saw his eyes flick once toward the kitchen door. Out that way, then, there would be a back entrance, and a service passage, and once through that, myriad ways to go. All they needed was a moment's distraction.

Under his breath, he murmured, “… schwa.”

The lancer's coat burst into flame.

L
ike leaves before a storm, they blew through the kitchen and out the back door. Nat went first with Esme on his shoulder, her wild laughter trailing behind them. Will followed after. “Are… are all your days this exciting?” he puffed when they finally stumbled to a halt. They were in a service corridor whose walls were painted industrial green.

“Too many of them, I fear. It comes with the territory when you're a confidence trickster.” Nat chuckled. “Ahh, but how about that Duchess? She was quite the gal, wasn't she? What a pity we couldn't work together.”

“Stop! Freeze!”

Far down the corridor stood Bagabyxas, his jacket and hair engulfed in flames, and yet—somehow, madly—still determined to stop their escape. His gun arm rose up.

A bullet sizzled through the air between Will and Nat. An instant afterwards came the gun's report, loud enough in the enclosed space that Will could hear nothing else for several minutes.

Again, they fled.

Bagabyxas followed.

They ran down one nightmarish hallway after another without losing the burning lancer. He fired at least three shots, each one a blow to Will's ringing ears. But then, as Will ran past a steel access door, chained shut but slightly ajar in its frame, his hand of its own accord lashed out to the side and grabbed it, almost wrenching his arm from its socket.

He found himself lying on the floor, staring up at a narrow triangular opening between door and jamb, where the door had been wrenched out of true.

“Freeze!” Bagabyxas cried again.

Frantically, Will squeezed through the space and tumbled down a short set of metal stairs. As he lurched to his feet, he heard the burning man yanking furiously at the door. The chain wouldn't hold long at that rate.

He ran.

Rats scurried away at his approach. Roaches crunched underfoot. He was in a great dark space, punctuated by massive I-beams and lit only by infrequent bare bulbs whose light struggled to reach the floor. Somehow, he had made his way into the network of train tunnels that spiraled up through Babel Tower.

Careful to avoid the third rail, he followed one curving set of tracks into darkness, listening for approaching trains. Sometimes he heard their thunder in the distance, and once a train thundered past, mere inches from where he pressed himself, shivering, against the wall, and left him temporarily blinded. When he could see again, the tunnels were silent and there was no light behind him, such as the Burning
Man must surely cast if he were still on Will's trail. He was safe now.

And hopelessly lost.

He'd been plodding along for some time when he saw a sewer worker—a haint—in the tunnel up ahead, in hip waders and hard hat. “What you doing here, white boy?” the haint asked when Will hailed him.

“I'm lost.”

“Well, you best get yourself unlost. They's trouble brewing.”

“I can't,” Will began. “I don't know—”

“It's your ass,” the haint said. He faded through a wall and was gone.

Will spat in frustration. Then he walked on.

H
e knew that he'd wandered into dangerous territory when his left hand suddenly rose up of its own volition to clutch his right forearm. Stop! he thought to himself. Adrenaline raced through his veins.

Will peered into the claustrophobic blackness and saw nothing. A distant electric bulb cast only the slightest glimmer on the rails. The pillars here were as thick as trees in a midnight forest. He could not make out how far they extended. But by the spacious feel of the air, he was in a place where several lines of tracks joined and for a time ran together.

Far behind him was a lone set of signal lights, unvarying green and red dots.

He was abruptly aware of how easy it would be for somebody to sneak up behind him here. Maybe, he thought, he should turn around and go back.

In that instant, an unseen fist punched him hard in the stomach.

Will bent over almost double, and simultaneously his arms were seized from either side. His captors shoved him
forward and forced him down onto his knees. His head was bent almost to the ground.

“Release him.” The voice was warm and calm, that of a leader.

The hands let go. Will remained kneeling. Gasping, he straightened and looked about.

He was surrounded.

They—whoever they were—had come up around him in silence. Will's sense of hearing was acute, but even now he couldn't place them by sound. Rather, he felt the pressure of their collective gaze, and saw their eyes, pair by pair, wink into existence.

“Boy, you're in a shitload of trouble now,” the voice said.

The speaker's eyes glowed red. “Well? Bast got your tongue? I'm giving you the opportunity to explain why you have invaded the Army of Night's turf. You won't get a second one.”

Will fought down his fear. There was great danger here, but great opportunity as well—if he had the nerve to grasp it. Speaking with a boldness he did not feel, he said, “This is your territory. I recognize that. It wasn't my intention to trespass. But now that I'm here, I hope you'll allow me to stay.”

Calmly, dangerously, the speaker said, “Oh?”

“I'm broke, paperless, and without friends. I need someplace to be. This looks as good as any. Let me join your army and I'll serve you well.”

“Lord Weary knows you're a fugitive,” said a whispery voice. “You can't hide a thing like that. Not here in the dark. There are no distractions here, no sunlight to dazzle the eye.”

“Who's chasing you?” asked Lord Weary.

Will thought of the political police, of the lancers, of the Burning Man, and made a wry grimace. “Who isn't?”

“He kinda cute,” said somebody female. “If we can't fight, maybe we find some other use for him.”

Several of her comrades snickered. One murmured, “You bad, Jenny.”

“Lord Weary is amused,” said the whisperer, “and thus inclined to be merciful. But mercy does not extend far here. You will be beaten and driven away, lest you bring your pursuers down upon the Army of Night.”