The Ruined City (14 page)

“About to expand in a new direction. As we travel north, I’ll question the locals and spread word of the reward that I offer.”

“And if she returns to Vitrisi to find you absent?”

“If I thought that likely, then nothing would pry me out of this city. But weeks have passed, and I’ve given up hope that she’ll simply appear at our door. Something prevents her. If I should happen to be wrong about that, however, then she’ll be welcomed home by her uncle. During our absence, Nalio is left in charge.”

“I shall—shall—shall not disappoint you, brother.” Nalio’s narrow face flushed with pleasure. “Your trust in me is not misplaced.”

“I know it isn’t.” Aureste decided to throw his youngest brother a scrap. It was good policy, after all, to reward a faithful underling. “And while we are gone, you are authorized to proceed with the restoration of Belandor House. The work you’ve already done in cataloging damages and necessary repairs is outstanding. I know that the same care and discriminating judgment will shape the future of our home. Carry on as you’ve begun, brother, and we shall all find ourselves in your debt.”

“I will—indeed I will!” Nalio’s eyes shone. “I shall bring Belandor House back to its former self, and more. Give me just a little time, and you’ll see!”

“I’ve every confidence in you. Where are you off to, Innesq?” Aureste demanded as the middle brother pushed his chair away from the table.

“My room. I must contact the others and inform them of our plans,” Innesq replied. “The vehicles, you say, are ready to move?”

“Anytime you like.”

“Very well. We shall depart tomorrow, at first light.”

“First light” in Vitrisi at this time just barely exceeded no light at all. In the early morning, the heavy mists of winter blending with the ever-present pall of smoke held back the dawn. The streets lay in nocturnal darkness. The rooflights burning overhead barely penetrated the gloom, and there was only the solemn tolling of the hour from the bell tower at the bottom of Summit Street to confirm the arrival of the day.

Having breakfasted lightly in his own chamber, Aureste was dressed and ready to leave at the appointed hour. Warmly cloaked against the weather, he made his solitary way along the north wing central corridor, down the stairs, through the entrance hall, and out of the building, to discover the brown carriage waiting before the door, along with the loaded supply wagons, mounted guards and outriders liveried in slate and silver, assorted menials and footmen presently huddling for warmth. Aureste’s practiced eye scanned the scene by the light of the carriage lamps and the links clutched in the chilly fists of a couple of servants—human servants, for no Sishmindris were to be included in this expedition.

His orders appeared to have been carried out properly. He nodded, satisfied, but could not arrest the flight of his memory to a similar scene of the not distant past: morning, sharp air, carriage and guards waiting at the door, ready to carry Jianna away. And they had taken her, and she had vanished, solely as a result of her father’s choices … Not the time to think of it.

He realized that he had halted. Before he resumed progress, the whir of a well-oiled mechanism alerted him to his brother’s arrival. Innesq was there, attended by a brace of those Sishmindris to which he was so unaccountably partial. Aureste caught one of the creatures watching him with its unreadable protuberant eyes, and an odd sense of angry guilt
flashed across his mind. Resisting the impulse to turn his face away, he stared back coldly, and the Sishmindri’s gaze fell. Only then did he allow his own regard to shift to Innesq’s face, tranquil in expression, but haggard and terribly pale.

Tired, and still unwell. Unready to embark upon so demanding a venture, but nothing in the world would stop him.

Along with Innesq had come Nalio, a wholly superfluous presence. Presumably the junior Belandor deemed it appropriately dutiful to bid his siblings farewell.

But Nalio did not appear particularly dutiful. He was looking quite unmistakably—cheerful; happier than he had looked, in fact, since the slaughter of his wife. Contentment lurked in the curve of his lips and the luster of his eyes. There could be but one cause. It was the small measure of temporary authority, of course; clearly it had gone straight to his head. For the first and probably last time in all his life, he would rule Belandor House. And rule it at a critical juncture—at a time when hundreds or thousands of small decisions would be made, each decision imprinting itself upon the very structure of the mansion. Now he would be free to pore over his beloved lists and catalogs, to commune with architects, masons, carpenters, plasterers, artists, and artisans of every description, to his heart’s content. His decisions of today and tomorrow might well resonate through the centuries. Of course he was happy. This was his finest hour.

Innesq’s chair advanced to the carriage and halted. Courtesies and farewells were exchanged, then the attending Sishmindris deftly transferred their charge into the waiting vehicle. Thereafter the wheeled chair was collapsed in accordance with its cunning design and passed to the roof, where it was tied down by one of the human attendants. The amphibians retired in silence.

Aureste issued a mouthful of new commands to the guards, paused to take leave of the dewy-eyed Nalio, then climbed in and took his seat. The riders deployed themselves and the party embarked.

In recent weeks he had discovered the luxury of traveling about the city in anonymity. No such option existed now, in the midst of a group so large and conspicuous, but that substantiality furnished its own protection. In the presence of those armed guards, no rocks or refuse pelted the Belandor carriage; no insults or epithets erupted in its wake. They passed through the Clouds without incident, and the navigation of the White Incline proved similarly uneventful.

Aureste, unconsciously braced against some form of aggression, felt the tension seeping out of him. He let his eyes turn toward Innesq, whose own gaze was fixed on the passing cityscape. Dingy and dark it was, smothered in vapor, devoid of color, and at this early hour largely devoid of life, yet Innesq drank it in with obvious relish. Understandably so: it was unfamiliar to him. He had spent most of his youth and all of his adult life at home. His mind and inner vision had traveled unimaginable realms, but his body had remained sequestered within the confines of Belandor House—entirely by his own choice. Now circumstances had forced him to a different choice, and he appeared to be enjoying the novelty, achromatic though it was.

On along Harbor Way rumbled the carriage with its satellites, and gradually the grim air lightened a little, buildings began to distinguish themselves, and the street came to life. Human voices rose—the vendors were already at work—and above them, the cries of the Scarlet Gluttons. Innesq smiled at the sound, almost as if those discordant squawks possessed charm. Perhaps for him they did.

The smoky air was already scratching at the back of his throat. Almost unconsciously—so ingrained had the habit become—Aureste applied a handkerchief to his nose. The linen was scented with the musk of tunnel scitter—difficult to obtain and absurdly costly, but thought to offer the most powerful possible protection against airborne contagion, far outperforming the old-fashioned pomander. In addition to the treated handkerchief, he had taken to drinking infused
chicory, and, thus doubly guarded, felt himself safe as a man could reasonably expect to be.

He saw his brother’s gaze shift, and followed it through a gap in the warehouses lining this section of the street out to the harbor, where the Searcher loomed, just barely visible through the smothering mists. The colossus’ bronze lamp, formerly so brilliant, now glowed faint as a dying ember. Never in all his life, not even at the height of the Taerleezi invasion, had he seen that light so diminished.

The carriage clattered on, and the Searcher receded behind it. Aureste fell into frowning abstraction, his mind busying itself with a thousand practical details of the journey. Innesq, captivated by the most mundane scenes of city life, watched Vitrisi flowing by. Some minutes passed before they found the way blocked by a barrier of recent construction, its raw planks flaunting the red X of the quarantine.

“Useless,” observed Innesq. “They cannot contain this pestilence with barriers of wood.”

“They can at least prevent the diseased rabble from troubling healthy citizens,” Aureste returned. But in this he soon found himself mistaken.

A change in course, another few moments, and the street widened into a small open square containing a public well. Assorted neighborhood residents had gathered there, buckets empty and likely to remain so, for the way to the water was blocked by a group of the undead.

There were four of them standing beside the well—two men, a female child, and a being of indeterminate gender—their altered state revealed by the onset of decomposition, unmistakable even by the weak morning light. The Belandor coachman pulled up at once. The wagon drivers and mounted attendants did likewise.

Annoyed, Aureste looked out, and the reproofs died on his lips. The coachman’s hesitation was excusable; the obstacle was considerable. Unwillingly fascinated, he studied the undead quartet. Deteriorating grey flesh, thin tufts of colorless
hair clinging to pallid scalps, filthy rags swathing rust-jointed bodies, and then their eyes, milky and empty … But he did not wish to look at their eyes, and his attention shifted to the hapless locals, who huddled in frightened clumps. Witless sheep, confused and in need of leadership. But then, honesty compelled him to acknowledge, their situation was difficult. He could hardly fault their reluctance to engage the undead. As he knew from personal experience, the plague victims were nearly invulnerable to ordinary methods of attack. Their control demanded the skills of a true arcanist. Therefore he turned to his brother and asked, “Can you do something about this?”

Innesq said nothing. His eyes were fixed on the undead, his face bloodless. His lips moved, shaping inaudible syllables.

“We don’t want another meandering detour, we’ve lost too much time as it is,” Aureste persisted. “Clear them off. I know you can.” Still receiving no reply, he added in a lower tone, “I’ve seen you deal with such things.”

“Quiet,” Innesq commanded.

“Take care, brother. Even you do not possess unlimited license.”

“Do you not feel it? Is it not there in your mind and heart?”

“Feel what? What are you talking about?”

“The change. Surely you sense it. Push the trifles from your mind and let yourself perceive the world.”

At such moments, Aureste deferred instinctively and without argument to his brother’s superior knowledge. Shutting his eyes and employing a technique taught him by Innesq, he willed his intellect into a state of receptivity. Upon achieving the requisite clarity, he found himself curiously reluctant to open his eyes. More than reluctant—afraid. Formless dread threatened paralysis.

Nonsense. He opened his eyes, and his dread intensified. It took a moment to understand why; a moment to sort through a jumble of conflicting impressions. Initially he imagined himself transported to another world; or dreaming, or perhaps
dead and finally confronting the eternal punishment with which so many optimistic enemies had so often threatened him. But no. Surely he was still alive, still in Vitrisi, still in his own carriage, with his brother sitting in the opposite seat. He was certainly in Vitrisi, for he saw the square, the well, the undead, and the cowed citizens; but saw them now in a different way, distanced and slightly distorted, as if they all belonged to some imaginary realm. They had no weight, no solidity, no home in the world of reality.

Nor did he himself belong to this place. He was an interloper here, unwelcome and unfit to live.

Aureste rejected the intolerable sensation with such ferocity that the world was shaken back into its accustomed aspect, or nearly so. A slight wavering of outline remained, which might have been ascribed to the heavy mists. That visual disturbance, combined with a sense of uncomprehending horror, told him that the anomaly persisted.

“What is it?” he demanded harshly.

“It is the will of the Overmind,” Innesq replied in a whisper. His eyes never strayed from the undead quartet. Almost he seemed dazed, or perhaps awed. “It uses the physical resources of its hosts to generate its own thoughts and intentions, which are born of the old energy, the energy of the Reversed Source that once animated the ancient world. These sad puppets are the instrument by which the Overmind seeks to re-create its former home.”

“You’re telling me that those strolling cadavers over there are somehow causing this—whatever it is—this madness, this impossibility?” Aureste’s gesture encompassed an injured universe.

“They are being used to cause it. In time, their cumulative efforts will influence the Source itself.”

“Then destroy them here and now. Blast them out of existence. You have the ability.”

The answer was delayed, and when it arrived, unwelcome.

“Pointless.” Innesq shook his head. “Do not trouble to contradict
me. It is possible that my skills might serve to lay those four unfortunates to permanent rest, but the task would impose heavy demands upon our time and upon my reserves of strength. We would lose several hours, and at the end, the accomplishment itself is negligible.”