Darkwalker: A Tale of the Urban Shaman (16 page)

“
Sorry there’s no light,” Bill said as he held out the flashlight, and Pa took it. “You sure you don’t want to wait ’til tomorrow, do this in the daylight?”

“
We gotta be in Freno tomorrow night,” said Pop. “May’s well git ’er done. Not much of it worth keeping anyway. Can you an’ Patty do anything with the furniture?”

“
Yeah, I s’pose,” said Bill. “That club chair would bring a buck or two, and you don’t see many of them old carved headboards anymore. Sure, we can unload that for you. We make anything on it—”

“
You keep it,” my father interrupted. “Call it rent on the storage space.”

“
We couldn’t—”

“
Sure you could. Betcha Patty would agree with me.”

Bill smiled and shrugged. Pop went to the top box on the pile, lifting a flap with one finger and shining the flashlight inside.

“
Well, I’ll leave you to it. Give a holler if you need anything,” Bill said, and headed back to the house. Pa began pulling the boxes out of the shed and going through them.

Soon his previous life was spread out on the grass under the flashlight’s beam, all sorts of the things that go to make up a household: dishes, pots and pans, clothes, papers, books, discs, even some actual printed photographs. He sorted through it quickly, retaining only two small boxes, one not quite full of papers and things; I didn’t quite catch what they all were. Another box held some of the clothing. The rest he repacked, some to be burned, some for Bill and Patty to sell.

I looked into one of the boxes of discards. It was mostly papers, a few old photo prints sitting on top. I leafed through the pictures. A couple showed my father as a younger man, horsing around with some guys I didn’t recognize. Another showed the same group gathered around an ornithopter. In a third my father sat on the hood of an older styled runabout. There were a couple of postcards from Freno and Two Suns. And one picture of a woman.

The photo had been taken outdoors, near the zones. I could see buttes and scrub-brush and cactus in the background. She was wearing a white blouse, the collar turned up. Her light-brown hair was being lifted slightly by the wind. She looked at the camera with a rueful smile, as if she didn’t really want her picture taken, but was fond of the photographer and knew she couldn’t dissuade him from taking it. Although the picture was in color, she looked to me like a movie star from one of those old black and white pre-Crash movies. Something tingled in my gut.

“
Pa? Who is this?” I asked, holding the picture up.

When his eyes alit on the photo, he looked like he’d been kicked in the stomach by a horse. He dropped the paper he’d been reading back into the box and sat up straight. Took a deep breath. “That’s your mother,” he said.

Now it was my turn to feel like I’d been kicked in the stomach. There must have been some suspicion in my young mind as to who this was, but my world still turned on its side to have the suspicion confirmed. My mother was a strictly forbidden subject. I gripped the photo a little tighter, with both hands now, afraid he was going to rip it out of my hands and burn it before my eyes or something. I took a step backwards.

“
Can I keep it?” I asked, sure he was going to refuse.

He sighed, then looked at me silently for a long time. Sighed again. “Yeah,” he said. “Just don’t ever let me see it again, okay sport?”

I nodded gravely.

I still carry that picture of my mother, rolled up in my crane bag, what the Indios call a medicine pouch. Regular folks don’t often see a Railwalker’s crane bag, but we all carry them, generally on a thong around the neck. The formal tunic even has an inside pocket that the crane bag slips into, so it rides right where it usually hangs, in the hollow of your breastbone, and doesn’t move around or cause a bulge. Mostly your crane bag is filled with pebbles, little feathers, tokens and fetishes—small objects that hold a piece of your memory, a piece of your magic. The rolled-up picture in mine was a little larger than most such fetishes, and I could feel it riding there under my tunic as I stepped through the doors of the big function room on the fifth floor of the CA Tower, into the noise and motion of the Bay City Summersend reception.

The reception was typical, if larger in scale and more glittery than most I’d attended. You didn’t see many tuxedos or ball gowns at Summersend in the zones. Fortunately we’d been in the city long enough for me to get the dress tunic cleaned and pressed, so I looked almost as respectable as Rok. I enviously watched Rok and Morgan slide out onto the dance floor.

The Allworlder Tyburn was rambling on about the city’s zoning ordinances. One of the other officials there, I think it was a fellow from the Crafter’s Guild, started hectoring Tyburn about dual-purpose zoning (he thought crafters ought to be allowed living space as well as sales and manufacturing in the same building). As their dispute heated up, a new voice said, “We would welcome the arriving stranger.”

It was the first line of the really formal version of the traditional greeting. I hadn’t heard it in years. I turned to face an elder woman, white of hair and pale of skin. Thin as a starving zone wolf, she stood as straight as any of the guardsmen there. She wore a floor-length gown of scarlet and black, and on her breast was a cloisonne pin with the sigil of the Harlot’s Guild.

“
Come you from the east?” she continued.

“
I come as the crow flies, and would not remain a stranger. Wolf am I, Walker of the Rails Between the Worlds, charged by Ianeh, seventh of her line from Brick, the Red Crow. Twenty-three blessings of Soul-Are upon you and yours, sister. Say your need.”

She smiled, stepped forward and took my arm. Despite her age she was a handsome woman, and had no doubt been in great demand when actively working for her guild. I was sure better men than I had been overwhelmed by that intimate, quietly glowing smile.

“
Hannah Caine am I, Guildmadam of the city’s Harlot’s Guild.” I had guessed as much. There were younger members of the guild in attendance, most on the arms of various city functionaries, but she was the only older guildswoman I’d seen, likely to have been officially invited as one of the guild’s officers. “Welcome to our city, Railwalker,” she completed the formula. “Come freely, go safely, and bless our homes with your corvine wisdom.” She sighed and smiled again. “As to my need, no more than some pleasant and diverting conversation in the midst of a boring social function full of self-important people. And perhaps a few minutes on the arm of a handsome young man, to remind me of the glories of days past.”

“
Not so young, I fear,” I said. “Nor do I believe for one moment, looking at you, that your glories are all in days past.”

She laughed. Her laugh wasn’t silvery; it was more like the rattle of ice cubes in a glass of fine bourbon.

“
Ah, the Railwalkers were ever well spoken. We’ve not seen a Railwalker in Bay City these many years. It was a true delight to see the Blessing of the Harvest performed in the traditional manner. Tell me, how is it you return just now?”

“
We don’t get here often, but technically, Bay City is on our usual round,” I said, “and it’s not often we arrive just in time for one of the great festivals.”

“
Or that you arrive to find the city so desperately requires your corvine councils?” She raised a quizzical eyebrow at me. “Tell me for a truth, Railwalker Wolf: Roth summoned you to help with the problem of the Beast, didn’t he?”

“
If he said so, Lady, I would not contradict the word of the city boss.”

“
Oh, pshaw.” She laughed again. “Roth said no such thing, nor would he—though I imagine I could coax that admission from him, if I had a mind. No, Railwalker, Micah Roth is far more subtle than you give him credit for. He would not be seen running to the Railwalkers for help, as if he and his government could not keep the peace in their own city. He would much rather the general public see the arrival of the Railwalkers as a fortuitous synchronicity—as if the gods themselves, noticing their favored Bay City was troubled, had arranged things to our advantage.”

“
He didn’t seem to me a particularly religious man,” I said. “Or a secretive one, for that matter.”

“
Oh, I don’t doubt he would confess he called you here, if anyone questioned him directly on it, yes or no. But consider your own answer to my question just now. You would not have answered me with such careful circumspection if you had not noticed how he explained—or did not explain—your presence at the Ritual of Summersend this afternoon.”

I had to allow as how she had me there. “You think this is a bad decision on his part?”

“
What, summoning you here? Or do you mean concealing—perhaps I should say neglecting to reveal—the fact that he has done so?”

“
Either.”

She thought that over for a moment. “These are terrible days, Railwalker,” she said. “Not just with regard to the crimes of this killer, horrible though they may be. Our city may be flourishing economically, but it is rotting away inside. We struggle to resurrect the technology of our ancestors, with no regard for the disasters that technology wrought in their time. Our youth have no respect for their elders, or for the traditions and customs that made our city great. Civility, honor, fair dealing, common courtesy, even good sense and serious reflection fall before the onrushing juggernaut of commercial progress. Look to the newsfeeds and you will see it. Journalism and reportage give way to huckstering and sound bytes, serious consideration of important issues is nowhere to be found, only the shrill caterwauling of partisan pinheads, lashing the public with shallow sloganeering.”

It sounded a little like a speech, and one she’d given before. The smile was gone now, replaced with a look that reminded me of a raptor. Not one on the hunt, but one who had sensed an invader in its territory. Then she sighed. “There was a time,” she said, “when there was order in the world, and sanity. Honor and nobility meant something; breeding, manners, customs and traditions were not just empty forms.”

“
And you think,” I asked, “that Micah Roth contributes to this degeneration? That the People’s Takeover and the creation of more democratic institutions signaled the downfall of honor and nobility?”

“
Micah Roth is a man of his time.”

“
Perhaps so. But do honor and nobility exist in an institution, in a form of government, or in the hearts of the individuals who make up a society?”

“
The efficient function of any form of government requires good intentions, honor, and honesty in the hearts and minds of those at the top. History has shown us that a corrupt democratic leader can do as much damage as any hereditary monarch.”

“
And you would have me believe that Roth is corrupt?”

She looked at me for a long moment, her head cocked to one side. “I did not say so,” she said at last. “But if I were you, Railwalker, I would go carefully, with both eyes wide open. Corrupt or not, no politician is without his agendas. The Walkers of the Rails have a reputation for integrity and incorruptibility. If some in this city do suspect Micah Roth to be corrupt, the appearance of a close association between him and your order might well persuade them otherwise. Have no doubt the city boss is cognizant of this.”

The music had turned to a waltz, and Hannah Caine gestured toward the dance floor. “Will you dance, Railwalker?” she asked. I said I’d be honored.

I’m no great dancer, though I know the steps to the traditional dances of most regions and can manage not to trip over my own feet. Guild harlots were trained in far more than sexual skills, of course, so it came as no surprise that the guildmadam should be a marvelous dancer. As we moved across the floor, she compensated for my little inadequacies so smoothly and subtly, if I’d been just a little less self-aware I might have thought I’d discovered a previously unknown natural ability for dance. I had little doubt that her skill at manipulation extended to other areas as well, and it was unlikely she’d have to take a city official to bed in order to lead him around by the nose. And the guild was a powerful force in Bay City.

I put those thoughts aside. There would be enough time for grim and suspicious musings on the morrow. For the moment I let myself go and just enjoyed dancing as I seldom had before.

At midnight a bell summoned us out to the penthouse terrace to watch the burning of the Bay City Corn Guy. I made my way to the railing, looked down. Many stories below I could see Central Square, where the draped parachute had been removed, revealing the huge Corn Guy set up in the dry fountain. On the stage the band was playing, traditional seasonal tunes interspersed with what I assumed was their own original stuff, since I hadn’t heard it before. They weren’t bad, actually. The square was still crammed with people, some of them dancing, some of them just standing around. Here and there people held up smaller Corn Guys of their own, or little Corn Dollies, which they’d toss on the bonfire once the big Guy went up. For the moment, guards on watch at the sawhorses kept the crowd back from the fountain and its giant figure. I was thinking the leaves and stalks on the Guy looked kind of oversized when I became aware of a tall presence beside me.