A FEW ODD SOULS – Ch. 15

[image error]

GENDARMES

Previous Chapters:

Chapter1  Chapter2  Chapter3

Chapter4  Chapter5  Chapter6

Chapter7  Chapter8  Chapter9 

Chapter10   Chapter11 Chapter 12

Chapter 13  Chapter 14

——————————–

Chapter 15. 

The Urbille

The entry porte to the Urbille looked like any other along the Greater Thoroughfare: a pair of towering obelisks engraved in swirls of ancient sigils. The black sky was studded with stars, but a colossal orange moon blotted out most of the night. It took up half the sky and hung low enough to drop at any moment and pulverize everyone travelling on the road. Svetlana hadn’t seen a moon so large anywhere else along the Nexus.

What set this porte apart was the orderly nature of its guardians. Twenty-one soldiers stood in a triple row before the gate, each one wrapped in a dark overcoat with a rifle resting against his shoulder. Beneath the brims of their cylinder hats clusters of oval lenses shifted in all directions at once. They looked more like the faces of spiders than those of men.

“The final porte will be well-guarded by gendarmes,” Bruno had said. “We don’t have the paperwork to enter the Urbille ourselves, but if we hire on to an incoming caravan it’ll be up to our employers to provide it. They’ll pay a permit tax to the guards, deduct it from our wages, and we’re in.” It wasn’t hard to find a Beatific merchant caravan in Oblivione. There was brisk trade being done between the City of the Potentates and the City of the Goblin Queen. Oblivione provided a rich tribute to the Urbille every calendar year.

“Do all the cities on the Nexus pay such tributes?” Svetlana asked.

“All the ones that wish to remain standing do,” Bruno said. “Except for…”

“Except what?”

“Forget it. It’s not even real.”

“Aphelion?”

Bruno nodded. They stood in the great basalt plaza of Oblivione amid bustling crowds of goblins, Clatterpox, and horse-drawn carriages. The Beatifics always used mechanical horses, but the coaches of wealthy goblins harnessed living horses, which the drivers whipped mercilessly as a matter of general custom. Svetlana didn’t like it here. She was eager to leave the goblin city as soon as possible.

“According to the tales I’ve heard,” said Bruno, “Aphelion lies at the farthest point of the Nexus from the Urbille. Some claim it was destroyed ages ago, others say it never existed. Others say it still exists at the distant edge of the Potentates’ domain.”

“Is that true?”

“I have no idea,” Bruno said. “But I like to think there is one place along the Nexus where sentients can live in peace. One place where men don’t kill each other.”

“Sounds like a dream to me,” Svetlana said.

Bruno snorted through his flared nostrils. He sold the doorless iron carriage to a goblin scrap-dealer. Domo’s books brought a nice stack of golden coins from a Oblivione bookseller. Each coin had the hideous face of the Goblin Queen on one side with the sigil of the Potentates on the other. Svetlana replished her satchel with fruits, acorns, raisins, and freshwater for her canteen. She took no meat while in Oblivione. Bruno had warned her of the goblins’ taste for human flesh, as well as their tendency toward cannibalism whenever meat became scarce.

Great, gutted boars hung upside down at the butchers’ stalls, along with the skinned carcasses of unidentifiable creatures. An alley of seafood merchants made Svetlana wretch as she passed. Goblins preferred to buy their fish half-rotten. They ambled along on their private business, shoving handfuls of raw oysters and clams down their gullets.

Svetlana held the green tiger on a leash, now that the carriage was gone.

“We can’t take him to the Urbille,” Bruno said.

Svetlana stroked the big cat’s fur while it gnawed on a boar bone.

“We can’t just leave him here,” she said. “He’s a warrior like us.”

Bruno looked at her strangely, the visor of his helm raised in the grey light of morning. The chatter of goblins filled the air, and Svetlana had almost grown used to the reek of the place. Bruno’s vertical pupils closed and opened as he regarded her. Svetlana got the sense that her words about the cat had impressed him.

“The goblins will eat him,” said Bruno, “unless we hire someone to take care of him.”

“Luckily we have a bag of gold and a chest full of Creep City jewels.”

Bruno found a family of Clatterpox innkeepers willing to take the tiger into their stable for a hefty fee. He paid them enough to keep the tiger in meat for a month, then convinced them that one of the Beatifics who patronized their business would buy the tiger eventually. Beatific visitors knew well enough to stay away from goblin-owned inns. Each Beatific carried a tender human brain inside his silver skull, and goblins would crack open those skulls to feast on the grey matter. Or they could sell stolen brains on the black market for a small fortune. Beatifics engaged in commerce with goblinkind, but they were under no illusions about the dangers involved.

The Clatterpox innkeep referred Bruno and Svetlana to a caravan stuffed full of crossworld goods and about to depart for home in the Urbille. After acquiring a handsome porcelain mask for Svetlana, the pair approached the caravan master. A trio of carriages, wooden coaches supported by iron wheels, lined up behind the inn while a crowd of Beatifics inspected their cargo. The leader, a powder-wigged Beatific named Charles Chevallier, had already hired two Beatific guardsmen. Svetlana stared at the bronze faces which set the two hirelings apart from those who employed them. Lord Chevallier and the rest of his companions wore typical porcelain faces painted into serious, comical, or serene expressions.

Bruno crafted a clever lie while Svetlana stood behind him in her own porcelain mask. Would they truly think her a Beatific? Or did they have some kind of sixth sense that would alert them to her humanity? She wore Domo’s purple cloak pulled close about her shoulders, and a broad-brimmed hat shadowed her eyes. The hilt of Takamoto’s sword rose above her shoulder, marking her as a warrior. Bruno would do the rest.

Lord Chevallier nodded and rubbed the buttons of his coat with rubbery fingers. The expression on his porcelain face–one of wisdom and privilege–never changed. Neither did those of his porcelain-faced family. Svetlana felt a sick urge to tear off their masks and see if their skulls were really made of silver as Brono said they were. She could peel back the synthetic skin of their graceful bodies to see if their entire skeletons were made of that same metal. Her morbid thoughts were interrupted by the stern visage of Lord Chevallier inspecting her.

“Good Lady,” he said with a polite nod. “That is hardly the face to wear for this kind of work.”

“I’ll be fine,” Svetlana said.

Chevallier’s wrists were hidden behind lacy ruffles. He waved his hands in an expression of mock defeat. “Tell me, Sir,” he said to Bruno, “is she any good with that sword?”

Bruno smiled, a crocodile stalking a meal.

“The best,” he said.

Lord Chevallier clapped his hands once and hired them both. Bruno and Svetlana would serve as a vanguard marching ahead of the caravan, while the two Beatific guards would bring up the rear. The lord and his six family members, the youngest a newly Converted daughter and the rest including his wife and four sons, piled into their carriages. Crates, chests, and barrels were stacked securely on top of each roof. Three pairs of mechanical horses were led from the stables by a trio of Clatterpox coachmen. Each one harnessed his steeds and climbed into the drivers’ seat. The caravan rolled through the sweltering streets of Oblivione for about an hour and finally exited through the Beatific Arch. Svetlana was glad to leave behind the stink of goblins. Even the dangers of the road were preferable to spending another hour in Oblivione.

The company crossed nine Affinities, at times passing other Beatific caravans heading the opposite direction. Nobody said anything about stopping or resting, and Bruno noticed Svetlana’s exhaustion as they marched into the tenth realm after Oblivione. It was a rainforest of yellow ferns, purple palms, and mountains the color of bone rising above it all. Bruno pretended to inspect one of the front coach’s wheels and casually slipped it off its axle. The carriage groaned with the screeching of metal and stopped.

Lord Chevallier stuck his head out the window. “The wheel’s gone out,” Bruno reported. “We’ll need a couple of hours to fix it.” The Clatterpox driver seemed perfectly willing to let the reptoid do his work.

Svetlana struggled to stay on her feet. She had been marching for at least fifteen hours without a break. Bruno gave her a covert nod as he took tools from an iron strongbox. “Find a dry spot under one of these ferns and get some sleep,” he said. “If Chevallier asks, I’ll tell him you went on patrol.”

Svetlana nodded. “Work slowly,” she said, and moved into the underbrush.

Bruno woke her up a short time later. She was still exhausted, but he reached into his satchel and took out one of the vials from Domo’s travelling bar. He hadn’t sold any of the serums in Oblivione. “Just a sip,” he said. Svetlana tipped the vial. Its colorless contents poured into her belly like slow fire. Not a biting, burning flame this time, but one that warmed her and burned away her fatigue. They resumed the journey a few moments later.

Twice more during the trip she drank that serum, unable to stop the coach a second time without raising suspicion. In the mornings when the Chevalliers gathered at sunrise to turn their heart-keys, she kept her cloak closed and mimicked their actions. Another save by Bruno, who gave her the idea. By the time they reached the porte leading to the Urbille, she had fooled House Chevallier into believing she was a typical Beatific.

She ate and drank very little, afraid to give herself away. She subsisted mainly on the raw energy of Domo’s potion. She carried a hollow sensation in her belly, but still was not hungry thanks to the serum. Bruno said the hunger and weariness would hit her when the last dose had worn off. She wasn’t looking forward to that, but as long as she made it into the Urbille first, she could find a place to regain her strength.

The Thoroughfare had offered no threats to the caravan. This close to the Urbille bandits and outlaws were rare. Still, she heard the Chevallier children talking about a highwayman who robbed Beatifics along the road. Chevallier and his wife, ignored such talk. Yet they had doubled the amount of bodyguards on their return trip, and that act alone said they too feared the highwayman.

Now the final porte lay directly ahead beneath the enormous orange moon. The squad of gendarmes encircled the carriages as they approached the obelisks. Between the two great stones, the road came to a dead end. There was only gray rock and sand beyond the arch. This was the Greater Thoroughfare’s ultimate destination, the doorway to the Urbille itself. Beyond those two stone pylons lay the center of an empire spanning thousands of worlds. And somewhere beyond them Svetlana would find little Dima. She dared not think anything less hopeful. Her son was beyond that gate, alive and well. She had crossed universes to find him. She would kill every last one of these spider-faced gendarmes if she had to.

A guard walked by her, his eye-lenses swiveling at her. He paused for a moment, and she thought he might turn his rifle on her. But his blue-green lenses shifted and he continued his circling of the caravan. Each gendarme scanned the carriages, ignoring the Beatific faces staring back at them through the windows.

Chevallier’s slim arm and lacy cuff emerged from the carriage door. A small leather bag clinked into the hand of the lead gendarme. “That’s for the two additional mercenaries we picked up in Oblivione,” said Chevallier, his finger pointing at Bruno and Svetlana. The gendarme captain nodded and gave his men a signal. They stood back to let the caravan pass.

The captain walked up to Bruno. “Offworlders are restricted to the Commercial and Outland Zones. You’d best remember that.”

Bruno waved a big claw at him .”Yeah, yeah. I’ve been here before, chief.”

Svetlana held her breath as she and Bruno stepped through the plane of the porte. The sensation of falling when she used these gateways had left her long ago. It was nothing special now, just a transition from one state to another, one moment of time to the next moment of time in another space. But taking that final step had her dizzy in the head for another reason today. A flutter of fear rose from her stomach into her chest. She clamped it down as the Urbille appeared before her eyes.

The porte opened on a broad ridge overlooking the whole of the Potentates’ city. The Thoroughfare led directly down the slope into an expanse of jagged metal, gleaming glass, and curved silver spires. Clouds of red dust floated in the sky, and a million smokes wafted from the tangled cityscape. A range of green hills stood at the center of the metropolis, an ancient forest dwarfed by concentric rings of urban decay, rusted ruins, and bizarre construction. The architectures of various ages blended together like the rings at the core of a god-sized tree.

At the epicenter of the woodland core stood a second walled city built of dark stone with a mass of vine-smothered towers. This single citadel stood taller than any other structures in the Urbille. It was a massive fortress, even when seen from this great distance. Up close its size must be terrifying. Bruno didn’t need to tell Svetlana this was the Palace of the Potentates; the twinge of fear returned when she squinted at it. The sky above the Urbille was a wash of purple, crimson, and grey. Dancing auroras sprang up like fireworks and disappeared seconds or minutes later.

The sky is unstable.

She wished she knew what her thought meant. A cold wind blew across the ridge, which was made of stone and black ash. Bruno prodded her, and she realized she had stopped walking. She moved aside so the first carriage wouldn’t run her down, and jogged a little to regain her place at it’s front.

The first settlements alongside the road here were little more than shanties built from discarded sheet metal, or tents sewn from plastic tarps. Rusting Clatterpox milled about the outer slums, spewing black and pale smokes from their exhaust tubes. Some had run out of precious coal long ago, so they sat or leaned like ugly statues among the refuse and rubble.

The city itself was all shades of grey, black, and crimson. There was no green anywhere outside the emerald core. The sun stood high in the sky, but still the Urbille lay in shadow. A cloud-canopy of copper rust and industrial smokes kept sunlight from reaching the streets. Yet golden shafts of light fell through the clouds to warm the central forest, as if the clouds were not permitted to shadow the woodland.

The stone-and-metal buildings of the city rose on either side of the caravan. It entered the Urbille proper via the Avenue of Copper Lungs, which led directly through the city to its opposite side. According to Bruno there were three additional gates to the Nexus here: Two leading to the Greater Thoroughfare, which becomes the Avenue of Copper Lungs, and two for the Lesser Thoroughfare, which becomes the Avenue of Industry. The two Thoroughfares crossed the city in a perpendicular arrangement, but each one skirted the edge of the Potentates’ forest by circuitous and complicated routes.

The population was mostly Clatterpox and Beatifics, with scattered crowds of goblins and alien entities. Bruno and Svetlana parted ways with Chevallier when the caravan reached the Plaza of Polished Bones. Chevallier whispered something to Bruno through the window of his carriage as it rolled away. Bruno showed her a pouchful of Urbille coins the merchant lord had given him.

“What did he say?”

“He knows you’re not a Beatific,” Bruno said.

“Will he betray us?” she asked. Her face sweated behind the porcelain mask and she wanted to take it off. She glared at him through its eye holes.

Bruno met her eyes. “He will say nothing unless they interrogate him.”

Svetlana nodded. Good enough for now.

“Let’s rent a room so I can take this mask off,” she said. “I need food and sleep. Then we’ll find Dima.”

The first inn she recognized as such sat in the corner of the bustling square. Svetlana coughed. “They should call this the Plaza of Choking Smokes,” she said.

Bruno grunted. “I’m hungry too. We’ll have to find an inn that caters to Organics. Otherwise no food.”

He led her past several likely venues to a stone building that might have once been some kind of holy temple. The sign above it read SKIN AND BONES in the language of the Urbille. “This is the place,” said Bruno. Inside the clientele was entirely alien. Rubbery-limbed beings with pastel hides stared at her as she entered. Svetlana would be the only human staying here, but they must believe her Beatific disguise. Bruno paid the Clatterpox in charge, paying extra to avoid questions.

The barrel-bodied man of iron led them upstairs to a room he had prepared especially for them. The tubes along his shoulders and neck expelled acrid vapors as he made his way up the steps. He showed them to a big wooden door set with iron bolts, then he lumbered back down the steps.

Bruno opened the door and she followed him inside. Only after they had set their bags on the floor did they notice someone else was in the room. Two gendarmes stood in the far corner, one on either side of a rectangular window. Their clustered opticals gleamed like turquoise jewels in the gloom. Each one held a rifle, one pointed at Bruno and one at Svetlana.

A third gendarme stepped through the door behind them. They looked exactly alike to Svetlana, but somehow she knew this was the captain from the gate. The one who had warned Bruno not to wander. Had Chevallier let their secret slip to this man? It seemed certain that he did. The captain held a pistol of black metal in his fist. He pointed it at Svetlana’s belly.

“Good evening,” he said. “Take off the mask, please. Slowly.” There was no mouth visible among his rows of nine eye-lenses, but maybe it was hidden below the high collar of his coat.

Svetlana sighed. “My pleasure,” she said. She removed it and threw it on the bed. The pistol followed her every movement. Bruno stood firmly in the sights of both riflemen now. A rumbling sound in his throat reminded her of the green tiger. Bruno’s clawed fingers flexed into fists. His scaly tail slapped the floor.

The captain turned his attention to the reptoid. “Settle down,” he said. “We’re only asking questions here.”

The nine lenses swiveled back to Svetlana, and the captain cocked his head.

“How is it that you are a living human being in the Urbille?” Svetlana heard the genuine awe in his voice. The captain’s fingers rose up to caress her cheek with a light touch. “You are like the young ones, but you are no child. Where did you come from?”

“A long way from here,” Svetlana said.

“Why?”

“To find my son. One of your Harvesters stole him. But he is mine.” She grit her teeth and stared into his nine lenses. The captain tilted his head the other way, a spider-face considering something that amused it.

“This is the Urbille,” he said. “Everything here, and everyone here, belongs to the Potentates. Now you do too.”

“We are free citizens of the Nexus,” Bruno said.

“You may go, reptoid,” said the captain. “Stay in the zones designated for your kind and you’ll have no trouble with us.”

“What about her?” Bruno said.

“Oh, the Tribune will want a few words with her,” said the captain. “It’s highly illegal to enter the city under false pretenses. The most likely outcome is a swift execution. If you’re lucky.”

The captain’s free hand reached for Svetlana’s arm. She pulled Takamoto’s blade from its scabbard and sheared off his arm at the elbow. It fell sparking and leaking fluids, trailing severed wires and spilling tiny cogs.

“Right, then,” Bruno said. He charged head-first into one of the riflemen, knocking him backwards through the glass window. A rifle exploded into Bruno’s chestplate as the glass roared outward. Reptoid and gendarme fell into the street below with a shower of gleaming shards.

Another sweep of the blade severed the captain’s legs as Svetlana ducked the second rifleman’s shot. It blew a hole in the wall above her head. She spun and lunged, Takamoto’s blade slicing through the rifleman’s neck. His head fell to the floor with a thump, nine eyes swiveling in blind confusion.

“Extraordinary…” said the captain. He lay on his side now, aiming a revolver at her with his last intact limb. She jumped onto the bed as he blasted three new holes in the wall, then she took his head off too. It mumbled something unintelligible as it rolled hissing and popping across the carpet.

The wounded Beatifics didn’t spew blood, they leaked oil, wires, and tiny cogs. Svetlana felt sick. She had grown used spilling blood a long time ago. Why should dismantling these mechanoids be so distasteful? Maybe it was her empty stomach.

The door exploded and more gendarmes rushed into the room. She jumped through the broken window into the alley below, where Bruno was stuffing the gendarme he killed into a rubbish bin. Shouts fell from the window above. Other windows began to snap open.

Svetlana and Bruno ran. Bruno had taken the gendarme’s rife. He slung it across his back and pulled the silver pistol from its holster. They ran around a corner, passed a Clatterpox lying half-dead among the trash cans, and slipped into a busy street. A Beatific coach came rolling through the crowd of Clatterpox and aliens. Bruno ducked and led her into another alley across the street. A group of muddy-faced children were playing with scraps of metal in the alley. They stopped their mock duel to the death when the lizard-man and Svetlana raced by without explanation.

The duo moved through a foul green fog that choked the alleys, coming at last to a broad avenue lined with warehouses and foundries. The only witnesses here were a few Clatterpox moving among the loading docks. A six-wheeled lorrie rolled down the street. Bruno observed it for a few minutes from the alley’s mouth, then motioned her forward.

“We’ll hide in one of those warehouses,” he said. “They’ll be looking for us in lodging houses and taverns.”

“Where are we?” she said.

“The Rusted Zone,” Bruno said.

“You’ve gone outside your restricted area.”

“Nobody tells me where to go,” Bruno said.

They crossed the broad avenue quietly, but never reached the opposite curb. A series of lights flared to brilliance down the street. They stood caught in the white-hot glow of spotlights held by six gendarmes. A dozen more soldiers stood behind the glaring lamps, rifles already raised to their shoulders. Ready to shoot down the fugitives.

“Drop the weapons.” A metallic, amplified voice.

Svetlana weighed her options. She could run and risk a hail of bullets, or stand here and trust them not to shoot her. Bruno was dumbfounded, as if the lights had blinded him. His slitted pupils blinked madly, but he didn’t move.

“Drop the weapons and get on the ground, Organics!” said the voice, louder now. “Or we shoot you dead right here.”

A wind blew across the street. Svetlana’s blonde hair flapped about her face. The braid had come undone while she was running. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up, and the smell of ozone filled her nostrils. She held Takamoto’s blade ready. She would die before she gave up looking for Dima. If this was to be her death, she would take as many of them with her as she could.

A strange pressure filled her ears. What was wrong with Bruno? He twitched, but did not move or fire. A bolt of blue lightning fell somewhere beyond the tops of the warehouses. The wind scattered leaflets, trash, and old newspapers along the avenue.

The air between Svetlana and the gendarmes crackled and ripped itself apart. Bruno had warned her about the Urbille’s strange weather. Suddenly she was falling, but not to the ground. A swirling hole of crimson light hung suspended in midair, pulling her toward it. She fell sideways toward the fissure. Beyond the rip in reality another world raged with lava and leaping flames. A deep valley with a molten river lay surrounded by oozing volcanoes. Bat-winged creatures flapped between the peaks, some of them soaring near to the fissure on its opposite side.

Svetlana couldn’t stay on her feet. She fell toward the vacuity as the gendarmes braced themselves against its overwhelming gravity. Something grabbed her right ankle as she hurtled toward the volcanic world beyond the breach. She looked back to see Bruno holding her by the leg. Additional vacuities had opened up along the street, pulling in loose debris with sudden bursts of gravity. Strange worlds glimmered beyond each crack in reality.

“Hold on,” said a voice she did not recognize. Suddenly she lay in Bruno’s big arms, her loose hair and cloak still trailing toward the fissure. If she let go of Takamoto’s blade, it too would fly into the molten world. If Bruno let go of her, she would fall into it herself. She wrapped her arms about the big reptoid’s neck.

The gendarmes gripped their weapons and waited for the rabidity to pass. As soon as it died away, they could fire at will, and she was sure they would.

A dark flame moved among them. Or it might have been a shadow. Svetlana could not tell which. A blade of dark metal gleamed with rabid light, then disappeared again and again and again. When the vacuity stabilized and the hole in space closed itself, the wind died down and the gendarmes literally fell apart. Heads, arms, and rifles fell to the pavement, shuddering and spewing oil. The headless, often armless, torsos still stood upright, still waiting for the rabidity to pass. Some of them wandered aimlessly, bumping into one another and falling into heaps.

A single dark figure stood among the wrecked soldiers now. Bruno still clutched Svetlana in his arms. She felt ridiculous in the new calm, so she jumped out of Bruno’s grasp. The man in black walked closer, the heels of his boots click-clacking on the flagstones. The blade of his greatsword dripped with black oil. He removed his triangular hat to reveal a face of finely sculpted bronze, handsome in its own crude way. His eyes were twin black lenses. He bowed to her, cap in one hand, sword in the other.

“Welcome to the Urbille,” he said. “My name is Wail.” It was the same voice Svetlana had heard seconds earlier, when the gendarmes had still been alive. If mechanical men were truly alive at all.

“Please forgive the rabidity,” Wail said, “it was the best way to distract them.”

Wail sheathed his weapon, replacing the hat on his smooth hairless head. A pistol of strange design hung at his hip, but he had not drawn it. Eighteen gendarmes had fallen to his blade in as many seconds. Even Takamoto would have been impressed.

“By now the Tribune knows you’re here,” Wail said. “So you’d better come with me. More gendarmes are on their way.”

Svetlana looked at Bruno, who seemed to have regained his senses. Was it the lights or the rabidity that had paralyzed him? He nodded at her.

“Why should we trust you?” Svetlana said.

“A little bird told me all about you,” said Wail. “I have lots of little birds fluttering here and there about the Urbille. Lots of eyes and ears who know how to stay out of sight. Whatever you’re looking for I can help you find it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Yeah,” Bruno said. He was already back into protective mode. “Why would you do that?”

“Many reasons,” said Wail. “Firstly, I am a gentlemen.” He looked at Svetlana. “Secondly, you are the only human above the age of sixteen to set foot in the Urbille in over a thousand years. Thirdly, I’m quite fond of humans. I used to be one myself.”

Sirens moaned in the distance. Night was falling on the Urbille. The sky had faded to shades of violet, and dark clouds moved in from all sides. She could not see the green forest from here, but she knew it must lay in shadow now too.

They followed Wail through a maze of alleys, across wastelands of junk metal, and crossed a stone bridge above black water thick with serpents. The sirens grew louder behind them, but Wail moved swiftly and always along obscure routes. Sometimes he made them lay back against a wall, and they stood unnoticed as squads of gendarmes marched down the adjoining street. Other soldiers piled into the backs of steam lorries that rumbled through the streets shaking down Clatterpox pedestrians.

Eventually Wail led them into a sunken basement beneath a ruined structure in the Reclaimed Zone. Svetlana’s weariness caught up to her now. She saw only blurs of black and silver on either side of her head as she walked. She was glad for Bruno’s inhuman endurance. Wail might have led her anywhere, for any purpose, as weak as she was now. She needed sleep and food.

Wail opened a rusted door that led to a metal grate in the floor. He lifted the grate and they climbed down using the rungs of a metal ladder. The flickering of candlelight filled the chamber into which they descended. A stone-walled sewer complex, unused for centuries, had been converted into a secret den. One wall was covered by shelves lined with ancient books. More books and scrolls lay upon six workbenches littered with bits of mechanical bodies. Another wall was stocked with liquids and serums in rows of multicolored flasks. The third wall was a stained mass of flat stone, yet someone had carved a great face in it. It was the face of a wise old man with eyes and lips closed. Svetlana wanted to examine it closer, but the need for sleep overtook her.

She collapsed on a pile of blankets, one of many scattered about the place. Sleep took her away as Bruno and Wail conversed in low voices. She dreamed of a sunswept meadow trapped inside eighteen rings of shadow. She lay on the fragrant grass, sunlight warming her skin. Dima was there, nestled in her arms. Takamoto was a shadow, rushing out of the sunlight to join her. He wrapped his long arms about her and Dima, but he was something horrible now, something bestial. His tendrils ripped at the baby, and she rose up, stabbing at him with empty hands. She jerked awake on the pile of blankets, unsure how long she’d been out.

Wail sat on a chair at his workbench, tinkering with a collection of wires and gears. Bruno lay slumbering nearby. Her throat was parched and sore. She reached for her canteen, then remembered it was lost back at the SKIN AND BONES. She asked Wail for water. He brought her a tin cup full of it. She drank it down and sat with her back against the brick wall.

“You live down here?” she said.

“Sometimes,” he said. “When I have to.”

“Are you alone?”

Wail rubbed his bronze chin with a black-gloved hand.

“Most of the time,” he said. “But I have some friends arriving soon. They’re out preparing for a little job.”

“What is your business?” Svetlana said.

Wailed chuckled behind his bronze face. “Revolution? Evolution? Modern Mechanics? Take your pick. I am a proud thorn in the side of the Potentates. That is my current business, although I used to be a Surgeon right here in the Urbille.”

“You said you used to be human.”

“Yes.” She heard him sigh.

“What happened?”

He looked at her, his expression static. “You might say I was a victim of tradition. A tradition I am working hard to destroy.”

“You’re an outlaw,” she said. “Like me.”

“Bruno told me why you’re here,” said Wail. “Your courage amazes me. What is your son’s name?”

“Dima.” Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn’t let them fall.

“You say he was taken by a Harvester? A silver-winged mechanoid, no face?”

Svetlana nodded. The stubborn tears insisted on falling anyway.

“I’ve rescued many a child from those bastards in the last few years,” Wail said. “But I’ve never had the chance to reunite a stolen baby with its true mother.”

Svetlana’s heart skipped a beat. “Can you find my Dima?”

“It will be my pleasure to try,” Wail said. “Do you recall any distinguishing marks or features? Too many Harvesters still get by me these days. I’m working on a solution to that.”

I will know my baby when I see him. When I touch him.

“There’s a birthmark,” Svetlana said. “A purple blotch on his upper thigh. Here…” She showed him the spot on her leg where Dima’s mark was. She had never told anyone else about the birthmark. Nobody cared anyway. Nobody but Takamoto, who knew already. And his caring had led him to his death.

Wail placed his hand on her shoulder. “I intercepted a child with a mark like the one you describe. A healthy male. It was only a few months ago by the Urbille calendar. His abductor was returning from the Outer Affinities.”

“Where is he?” she said. “What did you do with him?” She almost grabbed Wail by the collar and shook him. He was impeccably calm as he delivered his revelations. He took her hands in his own. His touch was surprisingly gentle. Perhaps he was more surgeon than swordsman after all.

“I took him somewhere safe,” Wail said, “with green trees and blue skies, and people who would love and care for him as if he were their own. A world called Gaeya. He is in good hands. I will take you there, and you will see this for yourself.”

Svetlana hugged him to her. There was little warmth in his mechanical bones, but he returned the embrace. She let the weeping claim her body for awhile, wracking sobs of relief mingled with gratitude. No joy yet. She would not allow herself that until she held Dima in her arms. But there was no gratitude greater than this.

She pulled away from Wail and wiped her eyes. Bruno snored loudly on his cot.

“When can we go?” she asked.

“Soon,” Wail said. “As soon as we’re done here.”

“Who’s we?” said a new voice. Svetlana turned her head. Two Beatifics in longcoats and top hats had climbed down into Wail’s sanctuary. She reached for Takamoto’s blade almost by instinct.

Wail stood up and adopted the manner of a servant making formal introductions.

“Lady Svetlana of the Outer Affinities…” He waved a hand at the new arrivals. “May I present to you my associates: Master Skiptrain of the Rude Mechanicals, and Inspector Crag of the Ministere de Justice.”

Skiptrain and Crag peered at her. Their faces–one golden, one bronze–leaned forward on their slim necks. Their eye-lenses glared at her.

“Shards of Aphelion,” said Skiptrain, “She’s an Organic.”

“A fully grown one too,” Crag said.

“Gentlemen,” said Wail. “Our list of assets has grown by two sizable factors tonight.” He indicated Bruno, still snoring in the corner.

“A reptoid,” Crag said. “Not bad for muscle, Wail. But do you really think she can cut it?” He poked a mechanical thumb at Svetlana. He didn’t say the next words, but she could almost hear them inside her head: She’s only a woman. She’s no warrior. She’d heard it all her life, defied it just as long. All men, flesh or mechanical, were the same in this way.

Wail turned his amber opticals on her.

She felt his smile, although his bronze face didn’t move.

“Oh, yes,” Wail said. “I think she’s just what the Surgeon ordered.”

 

NEXT: “The Operation”

Send your feedback to: johnny-nine@comcast.net 

_____________________________

—  A FEW ODD SOULS Copyright 2019 John R. Fultz  —