Winterlong (39 page)

“A star, a sort of brightness in the sky like an explosion the night of the Butterfly Ball. You must have heard about it; the Paphians said it heralded the next Ascension. Isidore Myotis saw it, he was tending a live birth among the flying foxes. A nova, he said; but we’ve heard it was something else …”

Absently she pointed her pistol at a dead tree limb and fired. An explosion; the tree limb crashed to earth. The sambar snorted, rearing back in fright. Jane turned to stroke its muzzle. “Ah, there, Sallymae, I’m sorry.”

I paused to finger a charred bit of wood. Atop Sallymae Miss Scarlet rubbed her hairy chin.

“What do you think it was?” I asked.

Jane Alopex pursed her lips. “That’s rather a blunt question to ask a Curator, Sieur Aidan,” she said. She gave me the same condescending look she’d given Miss Scarlet earlier. “It seems to me that you’re rather adrift in our City, young Arent. Unfamiliar with our ways of doing things, if you know what I mean.”

I flushed, but she cut me off before I could protest. “No: if Scarlet likes you, I guess that’s good enough. Uppity actors don’t bother me, really. And I’ve heard of Aidan Arent, of course. The Paphians are quite mad about you.” Grinning, she flicked at my hair; but there was a glint of shrewd intelligence in her eyes.

I followed her in silence as she led Sallymae down the path. Miss Scarlet pulled her shawl closer against the chill, then twisted to look down at me.

“Something is happening in the world,” she said at last to Jane. “I spoke of this with Aidan at our first meeting. You and the other Zoologists may think it’s nonsense, but I fear the Saint-Alabans are right: Final Ascension or not, something is coming.”

Jane squinted at the weak sunlight. “Well, you may be right, Scarlet. Last week we heard that runagates from the Citadel escaped and entered the City.”

I stopped in the middle of the trail. A small astonished sound escaped me. I looked up at Miss Scarlet. She stared back in amazement, but quickly composed herself by grabbing her mount’s mane.

“When?” she asked with breathless innocence, rocking as the sambar loped down the path. “How many?”

Jane shrugged. “Three of them, two weeks ago.
Escaped research subjects,
is what I was told.”

Three! And two weeks ago. Not Justice and myself, then—but who?

As Jane stared at me I realized I had muttered aloud. “Who told you?” I asked. I pretended to be having difficulty clambering over an ivy-choked log, and paused to collect my wits.

Jane frowned. “Now why would you ask me that? Why would you even want to know, unless you were an Ascendant delator?” From her expression I could tell she was measuring me up, trying to decide if it was possible that the Ascendants had chosen such a careless informer. She finally shook her head.

“No: you’re too stupid to be a spy. And too obvious—who’d trust you?”

This thought seemed to cheer her. “Well, Aidan Arent, since you’re so bold as to ask, I’ll tell you: an aardman told me. I caught them poaching in the Zoo. I let one go free, in exchange for news; nothing like aardmen for news.

“He told me that three refugees escaped from the Citadel. Fougas pursued them and one died in the strike. The other two fled into the Narrow Forest. They were tending to the corpse of the boy who died when the aardmen took them. A man and a girl. The aardmen thought he was a Scientist, the girl they said was a witch. A witch!”

She laughed a bit too heartily. “The aardmen give allegiance now to the one in the Cathedral. He has commanded them to bring to him, alive, anyone they capture in the City. They brought him the Scientist and the girl. They told me that the Scientist will certainly die from his injuries. The girl I know nothing more of, save that they took her to the Cathedral as well. The aardmen said that she scratched and fought like a wolf.”

“Anna!” I exclaimed; then bit my tongue.

Jane yelled a command to the sambar. It halted and began to graze upon the yellowing grass. Miss Scarlet took a sudden interest in the hem of her shawl.

“Scarlet,” asked Jane Alopex with measured calm. “What do you know of this?” She grabbed my arm and pulled me close to her.

“Only what you’ve told us,” the chimpanzee replied. She looked up, her face clouding. “And rumors, just rumors. What we heard from the suzein Miramar: a shooting star in the north, a runaway Paphian favorite the Saint-Alabans says is a demon incarnate. None of this other, I swear—”

“But Master Aidan seems quite disturbed by this news. Although, as a matter of fact, it doesn’t even seem like it’s
news
to him.”

She tightened her grip on my arm, waiting for me to explain. Her face was quite pale: I had taken her by surprise. She tapped uneasily at her pistol. I wondered if she knew something more, something worse than this. I closed my eyes, my head whirling, and tried to imagine myself somewhere far away: back in the Home Room, or in my little chamber at the theater. When I remained silent Jane snapped, “Well, say something, dammit!”

“Anna,” I said at last. “The girl’s name is Anna.”

“Or Andrew,” I added a moment later.

Miss Scarlet began to fan herself with her shawl. Jane stared at me as though I spoke an unknown tongue. Finally she said, “How do you know that?”

I said nothing more; only opened my eyes and stared at my hands. When it became clear I would admit to nothing else, she let go of me. The sambar shook its head, bells jingling gaily in the cold air. Apart from that there was silence.

“Well, Scarlet,” Jane said at last. “You’ve met up with bad company this time. ‘Actors,’ I always said; ‘she’ll get herself into trouble if she leaves us for
Actors.’
And I was right: this is a bad business, Scarlet.”

She turned to me, pointing her pistol at my feet. “And you, sweetheart: either you’re mixed up in this trouble past all help; or else you’re a fool.

“The aardmen brought the Scientist and the girl to the Madman in the Cathedral.” She spat. “Paaugh! The aardmen are idiots, and the Historians cowardly fools who didn’t have the courage to kill the Aviator themselves; and now look what they’ve brought on to the City! They gave him to the aardmen, so if there was ever an investigation it would look like the aardmen had devoured him. And of course when they took him prisoner the aardmen botched it. They tortured him and castrated him—”

Miss Scarlet gasped.

“—but then he convinced them to free him. He told them he was actually an emissary of the hanged god, he told them he had been sent here to rule not by the Ascendants but by the Gaping One, the Lord of Dogs; and the aardmen would be punished horribly if they did not free him.

“They let him go; they escorted him to the Cathedral, and now they pay him homage. All this the aardmen told me when I caught them sniffing around the civets’ cages. I killed one of them, just to let the other know I meant business. Then whimpering he told me the last part of the story:

“
‘He looks for someone,’
the aardman said. He was afraid to tell me; terrified the Aviator would find out and kill him. ‘He is searching for one of their subjects, a girl kidnapped from the Citadel. He wants to find her and return her alive to the Citadel. For further processing,’ said the aardman.

“‘She has powers, this girl; she deals death with her mind, and contorts the dreams of men so that they go mad. Even the Ascendants feared her; and now they fear to lose her, fear that in the City she will find followers, and turn upon the Citadel and destroy them.

“‘But this Aviator is already mad, he has no fear! He wishes to avenge himself upon the City, and the Ascendants: upon everyone he feels betrayed him. To this end he seeks the girl. He would use her power to destroy anyone who will thwart him. And he preys upon the weakness of the Paphians, he claims that he will raise the god that they call the Gaping One. The aardman said he raved about ancient weapons in the earth that he will turn upon the City of Trees. He uses the lazars to work the earth beneath the Cathedral, seeking an arsenal buried there after the First Ascension. And still the lazars flock to him, and the aardmen. He will make an effigy of the hanged god to frighten your stupid whores, and they too will worship him.’

“So the aardman told me.”

She finished, wiping her brow. She seemed surprised to see the sun still shining and Miss Scarlet and myself there beneath the trees with her. I had begun shaking as Jane Alopex told her tale. I heard tiny sounds like insects boring into my ears. I clasped my hands and paced back and forth, back and forth, trying to think my way clear of this, trying to force back the Small Voices.

“Why doesn’t someone kill him?” I asked.

“Someone?
Who?!
There are no warriors in this City!” Jane exploded. She pointed her pistol at a rotting log, clicked its release. Nothing. “See? Everything is hundreds of years old, nothing works when it should! I had to slit that aardman’s throat to kill him because my other weapons are useless; and you think I’m going to creep into the Cathedral among a thousand lazars and aardmen and capture a
NASNA
Aviator by myself?”

She waved the pistol furiously above her head. It went off and a shower of bark rained onto us.

“Yes, of course, I understand,” I said hastily. I looked up at Miss Scarlet, hoping that she might come forth with some revelation, some word that would gainsay all that Jane Alopex had told us. But she only shook her head, as though she had perceived this a long time coming. Jane too stared at me, her eyes glittering.

“If he finds the ancient arsenal he will destroy us all,” she said at last. “It is as the Saint-Alabans and lazars are saying, it has come at last. The Final Ascension.” She slipped the pistol back into her pocket and turned to her mount.

I watched as she stroked its dark flank. Atop it sat Miss Scarlet, chewing on the fringe of her shawl. I thought of Justice and the others back in the theater. Tiny figures they seemed to me now, brightly colored and moving with jerky slowness, as though some great hand tugged and twitched at invisible strings. Words roared in my head, the Small Voices gathering force like some shrill whirlwind:

I can’t be responsible, I’m not responsible …

Find him, Wendy!

Something has happened, something is happening in the City—

And over them all a soft chanting, a child’s voice repeating again and again:

hang the boy and raise the girl

‘til Winterlong is broken
—

The roaring grew louder, became the voice of something huge and black, something pressing against my temples until I thought the blood would burst from there.

Then suddenly there was silence, utter silence.

And it came: the terrifying pulsing in my head that signaled the beginning of a seizure. I sank to my knees; clutched at my head as the air swam before me in motes of gray and black and I thrashed against the earth, trying to smash Him, rend Him, push Him back, His white hands reaching for me and eyes glowing like flowers, like stars, like great suns exploding above the City’s ruined spires—

“Scarlet! Stop him! What
is
it?!”

Other voices shouting but I could not stop, could not turn, He is there and He is too strong for me, I feel Him within me and the rage burns through my eyes, He has come at last, o come to me, come to me—

“Aidan!”

A flash of crimson light; then nothing.

Gradually I heard voices again, and wind. It was the wind that told me I was not hallucinating. I blinked and sat up groggily, groping to feel the bump where I had knocked myself unconscious. Jane and Miss Scarlet squatted a few feet away, staring at me with drawn faces. Behind them the sambar munched upon some purple thistles.

“Aidan!” Jane exclaimed. “What happened? Are you all right?”

I rubbed my forehead, grimacing. “I think so,” I said. Miss Scarlet twittered in relief and ran to my side.

“Oh, poor Wendy,” she cried, her words tumbling back to the Zoologist before I could stop her. “She’s been so overworked, Jane, Toby won’t listen when I—”

“She?”
Jane Alopex stood, dead leaves falling from where they’d stuck to her breeches.
“She?”

Miss Scarlet gasped and covered her mouth with her paws, then drew up her skirts to hide her face.

Jane stared at me in amazement. Before I could move she jumped beside me, grabbed my shirt, and tore it open. I recovered myself in time to slap her and yank my shirt closed; but not before she had seen beneath it. She collapsed back onto her haunches and cursed so loudly that the sambar started, looking over its shoulder with mild questioning eyes.

“Sweet mother of us all! It’s
you
they’re after.”

“Don’t hurt her, Jane,” begged Miss Scarlet, running to Jane and throwing herself upon her. “Please, please—”

Jane didn’t move, only continued to look at me in astonishment. I stood a few feet off with my hands clenched at my sides.

“She
couldn’t hurt me!” I sneered. To prove it I shut my eyes, drawing up those last images once more, the Boy ghastly white and laughing, that rush of ecstatic pleasure and terror as He turns to me—

“No, Jane!”

Abruptly I was knocked down again. I grunted, opening my eyes to see Jane straddling my chest, holding her pistol like a bludgeon. I hissed in disappointment: had she broken my concentration, or was I losing control of the thread that bound me to Him, subject now only to His whims and desires and not my own?

“Tell me your name,” Jane ordered. She nudged my cheek with the butt of her pistol. “Your
real
name.”

I twisted to see Miss Scarlet plucking at Jane’s sleeve. She gazed at me. Then, suddenly defeated, she fell back and clasped her paws.

I turned back to Jane and recited, “I am Wendy Wanders, Subject 117, neurologically augmented empath specializing in emotive engram therapy.” As I spat the last word I shoved Jane from my chest and sat up. We glared at each other across the grass.

“Oh, stop,
please,
” Miss Scarlet pleaded. She knelt beside Jane, a small pathetic creature in crinoline and lace. Jane let out her breath in a long frustrated sigh, then stuck her pistol back into her pocket.