The Dragons of Babel (18 page)

“No, no, no,” Nat clucked, shaking his head reassuringly.

“The transit codes, the ports of origin—all wrong!” The winged bull turned from the passport ape to another who was holding open a book the size of a telephone directory. “According to this, you should have been taken to Ur.”

“It wasn't
my
choice to come here,” Will objected. “They put me on the train, and this is where it took me. These are the papers that the DPC officials at Camp Oberon gave me—if they're wrong, then that's
their
fault and not mine.”

“It is your responsibility to make sure that any documents issued you are correct and that you're legally entitled to them.” The bull nodded his head and his ape shuffled another passport to the fore. “The girl's papers don't list her year of birth.”

“We don't know it,” Will said.

“Oh? How can that be?” The agent turned to Nat. “Surely you, being her father, ought to know that.”

“I wasn't present when she was born,” Nat said smoothly. “I travel a great deal. But it should be apparent that my daughter is nine years old. Just put down Year of the Grasshopper.”

Esme sat atop their piled luggage, playing quietly with a corn husk doll. Now she looked up, beaming, and said, “I like grasshoppers.”

“It is not our job to assist in your forgeries, but to examine them for inconsistencies. Your own passport, for example, is a treasure trove of such. It is printed on a grade of paper never employed for official instruments. It lacks the requisite watermarks. The typeface is laughable. The transshipment stamps appear to have been applied by an ineptly carved raw
potato. Even the photograph is suspect. It doesn't look a bit like you.”

“Really,” Nat said, looking at his watch, “I don't know why we're still here. You're being unnecessarily obstructive. I'm a citizen, and I know my rights.”

“Rights?” The first winged bull snorted. “You have no rights. Only obligations and privileges. I define the obligations, and the privileges are contingent upon my goodwill. They can be revoked without explanation or appeal at my whim. Remember that.”

“Further,” the second winged bull said, “there is more to being a citizen than mere arrogance. You might as well save the act, auslander. We've seen it all.”

For an instant, Nat seemed at a loss for words. Then, with an urbane
tsk
, he said, “This can all be cleared up easily enough.” He drew several bills from his wallet and placed them between two mounds of yellow flimsies. “I am certain that if you examine these papers, you'll find…”

Will had not thought the bulls' eyes could open wider than they were, nor that their expressions could be any more outraged. Now he saw that he was wrong. As one, the two bureaucrats reared their heads back, nostrils flaring with horror. They stamped their hooves and flapped their wings angrily. One brushed against a file cabinet, almost dislodging the folders stacked atop it.

“Place this really quite insulting attempt at bribery in an evidence envelope,” one said to the nearest ape.

“Then place the evidence envelope in an accordion file!” commanded the other.

“Add photocopies of all the paperwork introduced so fa r.”

“Open a new case number.”

“Cross-reference and send copies to all appropriate offices.”

“Get the forms preliminary to swearing out a criminal complaint.”

“Document each step and every form in the case log.”

As the apes ran wildly about, slamming file drawers open and shut, working the photocopier, and assembling great masses of paper, one man-bull brought his face quite close to Nat's and menacingly said, “You will find that an attempt to suborn agents of His Absent Majesty's governance is not taken lightly here in Babel.”

“‘Suborn' is such a harsh word,” Nat protested. “I was only—”

“Since you are transparently
not
a citizen,” the other bull said, “you do not have the right to a lawyer. Should you have the money for one, it will be removed from you. Anything you say, think, or fail to admit can and will be used against you. You will not be told under what charges you are being detained, nor allowed to confront such witnesses as may be subpoenaed to testify to your guilt, nor be informed as how much they were paid to do so. While incarcerated, you will be required to pay room and board at market rates. If you cannot afford to do so, you will be beaten. You do not have the right to medical care. You do not have the right to convalesce. You do not have the right to a funeral. Do you understand?”

“Perhaps I was insufficiently generous. Should I throw in some silage? I've got excellent connections for some prime alfalfa mixed with clover.”

Esme tugged Will's sleeve and, when he bent down to the level of her mouth, whispered, “I smell something burning.”

Now Will did, too. Craning his neck about, he saw a wisp of smoke rising from the mound of papers on the table. “Um…” The others were arguing furiously. He waved his hand in the air. “I think we've got a problem, here.”

With a
whoosh
, the papers burst into flames.

The man-bulls reared up in alarm. Simultaneously, Nat shouted, “Look out!” and lunged at the table, whacking at
the fire with his hat. His wild efforts, however, managed only to knock the burning papers onto the file-crammed cardboard boxes behind the table.

The fire spread.

A smoke alarm went off. The apes screeched and leaped from table to filing cabinet and back, kicking piles of forms onto the floor in their animal panic. The man-bulls stumbled blindly about the room, flapping their wings noisily. In the sudden confusion, Will almost missed seeing Nat slip out the rear.

Will snatched up his passport, seized Esme's hand, and followed after, unobserved. Only at the last instant did he remember to close the door softly behind him.

N
at was already down to the end of the hall, where two bronze doors were sliding open. He ducked into a freight elevator and hit a button. “Wait for us!” Will cried—but softly, lest he be heard back in room 102. He and Esme jumped into the elevator, the doors closed, and they began to descend. Nat reached out to hug them both. “Oh, children!” he gasped. “Was that fun or what?”

“You're completely mad,” Will said angrily. “There was no reason to travel on forged papers—they were
giving
them away at Oberon. Now we're illegal, undocumented, and guilty of who knows how many crimes?”

“We had a good laugh. That's worth a lot.”

“To say nothing of losing our luggage.”

Nat flung out his arms. “And what a relief to not have all that baggage to carry around!”

The elevator opened into a drab foyer. They pushed through the swinging doors and stood outside on the sidewalk, blinking at a street paved with blue glazed bricks as mastodons in red-and-orange livery lumbered past, followed by camels, bagpipers, kettle-drummers, and a brace of serpent blowers playing a Sousa march. Esme clapped her hands. “It's a parade!” Nymphs danced naked behind
the musicians, ivy woven through their hair and about their horns, short goat tails bobbing. Poldies, haints, and hytersprites darted from sidewalk to sidewalk waving long silk pennants, and swan-mays turned somersaults in the air above. Here was splendor greater than anything Will had ever imagined, and it extended down the street in either direction as far as the eye could see.

“What's all this about?” he asked.

Nat shrugged. “It's always something. A festival or an election campaign, it hardly matters. When you live in the big city, you just have to put up with it.” He seized Esme's hand and began striding briskly down the avenue.

The city dazzled Will. It was in equal measures exhilarating and terrifying. Forget the stilt walkers, bell ringers, and sprites with hair aflame tumbling past—he didn't recognize half the races he saw watching the parade from the sidewalk. Also, there were costumed paraders, their part already done, returning down the sidewalk with painted faces and cans of beer in their hands, and viewers who had daubed themselves with blood or dressed for the occasion in seven-league hats and pink feather boas, so that he could not make out who properly belonged to the procession and who did not. It was as if all Babel were one great celebration.

Will wanted to be a part of that celebration—without, he was beginning to think, the inconvenient and troublesome presence of Nat Whilk.

“Why is your hand twitching?” Esme asked.

Will looked down in surprise. His hand was moving with a life of its own. Now both his hands rose up before his face, and the one urgently traced out letters on the palm of the other. There was a
T
, an
H
, an
E
, a
Y
, and an
R
and an
E
… “They're coming,” Will read.

“Who's coming?” Nat said.

L -A -N -C
… “Lancers.”

A company of mounted soldiers burst through the double
doors of the building they themselves had earlier emerged from. They had to duck to get through, and once out they straightened and clattered to a halt. Their high-elven leader stared up and down the street. Will felt an almost tangible thrill when their eyes met. Then the commander gestured with his saber—straight at Will.

“Soldiers!” Esme said happily.

“Shit,” Will added.

The soldiers formed ranks, then lowered their lances to clear the walk before them. At a barked order from their commander, they started forward at a light canter. The crowds parted with alacrity. Their leader, who alone among them did not carry a lance, lifted his hand. A bright light shone from his palm and his lips moved in incantation. Will felt his limbs growing heavy, the air thickening about him.

“Don't panic,” Nat said. “I have a cantrip worth two of his.”

His hand darted into his jacket and emerged with a wad of dollar bills held together with a rubber band. He cocked his arm as if he were holding a hand grenade, and then, snapping the rubber band with his thumb, flung the lot into the air.

At the top of his voice, he yelled,
“Money!”

Pandemonium.

The parade broke up as the marchers converged to snatch at the bills floating down upon them. Those already on the sidewalk fought for space. Dwarves scurried about on all fours, scavenging the bills that had evaded capture on their way down. And the lancers came to a disorganized halt as the mob surged around them. Some, indeed, had to struggle to keep from being pulled from their mounts.

“Follow me.” Nat sped down an alley and ran to its end. A trolley rattled by with a clang of its bell and a blue spark of electricity, and he raced across the tracks. Puffing, because he carried Esme on his back, Will managed to catch
up just as Nat ducked down a stairway. He set Esme on her feet and they clattered down in his wake.

At the bottom of the stairs was a public elevator platform. They vaulted the turnstiles and squeezed into the Downtown express.

They emerged in the Lower East Side, a neighborhood that was sunken in a twilight gloom, though outside it was brightest midday. Its streetlights were on, and if they were on now, then surely they were never turned off. The buildings to one side of the street were conventional brownstones but those on the other looked to have been carved from raw stone. “In here,” Nat said, and ducked down a dingy stairway under a neon sign reading the duchess's hole.

The saloon smelled of stale beer. Two video poker machines sat unattended in the empty room, flashing and chuckling to themselves. The walls were roughly dressed stone painted black and hung with neon beer signs and framed posters of Jack Dempsey and Muhammad Ali. A silent TV hung in one corner.

Behind the bar—indeed, filling up almost the entire space behind the bar—sat an enormous toad. She was heavy lidded and thick lipped, with vast, soft, waggling chins, bulging eyes, and an expression that went beyond mere skepticism into outright disdain. One corner of her tremendous mouth twisted upward and she said, “Help you, gents?”

“You must be the Duchess. My name's Nat Whilk.” He hooked an elbow over the bar. “You look like a sporting lass.”

“Don't let my girlish good looks deceive you, donkey-boy. I'm older than I look and I know every scam, glamour, and tuppenny magic there is.”

“Not this one. I just invented it.” Nat pulled a metal washer out of his pocket and laid it down on the bar. It was a thick chunk of metal with a hole in it the size of a nickel. Alongside it he plunked down a quarter. “Ten dollars says I can push this quarter through this washer.”

The toad squeezed the washer between thumb and forefinger. Then she held it to her eye and stared through it. She examined the quarter with equal care. Finally, she said, “All right. You're on.”

Nat picked up the washer and, sticking his finger through it, pushed the quarter.

For an instant the Duchess said nothing. Then she laughed and started to haul out a cigar box from under the bar.

“Just put it on my account,” Nat said. “I'm thinking I might eat here on a regular basis. Lunch, to begin with. For three.”

“A'right.” The Duchess picked up a stub of chalk and wrote “NW: #8.45” on a cluttered slate on the side wall.

Nat leaned forward and erased the forty-five cents with his thumb. “For a tip,” he said. “Say, do you happen to have a fresh deck of cards?”

The toad produced a deck from under the bar. “Three bucks.”

“No, I mean a cold deck.”

“Two bits.” She replaced the deck with what looked to be its exact double, and adjusted the tally. Nat borrowed the chalk and changed the final five to a zero.

The Duchess smiled.

She waddled into the kitchen, and after a few minutes emerged with two baskets of toasted cheese sandwiches and drew them a beer apiece. When lunch was eaten, Nat bought a pack of Marlboros, rounding down the tab by an additional nickel. Will lit up gratefully. “First I've had since we hit town,” he commented.