The New Weird (52 page)

The terrorist came abreast of a large humming factory of pleasant aspect, set behind an iron fence: an immaculate, sprawling, sand-colored building of some three stories, its open windows affording fine ventilation to its workers, the whole complex, including a plashing fountain, shaded by tall pipal trees.

After a second, the terrorist recognized the sound of scores of sewing machines, powered no doubt by a stomach in the basement. His trained eye soon discovered the fart-pipe venting that stomach's exhaust, as well as a chute for biomass deliveries. It was well to pay attention to the details of the enemy's infrastructure.

A plaque on the factory read:

VALVAY’S GARIAL HIDES

FINEST QUALITY

12000 POONMA WAY

In one window on an upper floor, just a few yards from the street, a self-important-looking man could be seen sitting at a desk, shuffling papers and string-bound folders. A beautiful woman entered the office and addressed the man, and he replied. But their words were lost amidst the factory hum.

Possibly, thought the terrorist, that man was the proud owner Valvay himself, one of the class of commercial exploiters who had so oppressed Dardarbji. What would it be like, to command flocks of people ― including such a splendid woman?

As the terrorist passed the building, a piercing whistle blew. Workers, mostly other young women, began to pour out the doors. End of shift already! The afternoon was well advanced. The terrorist could feel his hours of hypothetical leisure slipping away. He determined to forget about seeking directions to his rendezvous until tomorrow, and concentrate on finding lodgings, a bath and food.

But now a few hundred yards further on, Poonma Way was all industry, with no signs of what he needed. Reluctant to backtrack ― he was constitutionally averse to ever overturning his own decisions or retreating, a trait which had worked in his favor during the tough competition to carry out this mission ― the terrorist instead looked for a cross-street that would bring him to livelier commercial precincts.

Ahead, a dim alley loomed between big windowless warehouses. The terrorist hesitated at its mouth. Light and almost abstract colorful motion at its distant far end betokened another avenue. No other obvious route toward what he sought offered itself.

He ventured down the dimly lit narrow passage.

A heap of noisome rubbish halfway down the alley urged the terrorist over toward the far wall.

As he sought to navigate past the midden, three four-legged shadows arose from the pile.

The terrorist's heart skipped ―

But they were just dogs ― middling yellow-furred mutts. Wild dogs, yes, but surely no real threat ―

And then he saw the salps.

Clinging to the fur of each dog at the base of its upper neck was a gelatinous translucent blob, inside of which an embryonic entity could be vaguely seen. The terrorist had been warned in his briefings of such amphibian threats, to be encountered in some of the city's canals less well tended by cleaning squads.

Its nervous system intertwined with that of the dogs, the parasitic salps were the true predators, sentient and merciless.

The lead dog growled puppet words: "Man, lie down and feed us."

"No!"

The terrorist lashed out with an expert kick, but the salp-driven dogs were even wilier than their feral natures normally allowed. They ringed him just out of reach, then began to close in.

The terrorist leaped high over one dog, landed, stumbled, and felt teeth graze his calf. Then he was up and running, back the way he had come.

He almost made it to the alley mouth. But then his broken sandal sent him sprawling.

The dogs were on him, snarling, slavering. He writhed, sought to protect his neck, stomach, groin all at once ―

"Make him quiet!" one dog ordered.

Another dog gripped a blunt heavy stick in its mouth. The mutt swung, and the stick connected with the terrorist's head.

Hrangit climbed down off the portable stage as the crowd dispersed. "Break this down," he ordered. "We have to be set up in Sringla's Yards by eight tonight!"

His troupe swung into efficient action as he watched with approval, stroking his mustache. All was going well in this early period of their

long engagement during the Festival of Chuzdt. Riarnanth was always a rewarding venue.

So why then did he feel so uneasy, as if some vague doom loomed just around the corner? He had been happy and cheerful until a few moments ago. Some indefinable aura from the most recent crowd, a malign presence?

Hrangit resolved to pay a visit to the shrine of his sept's god, Yeshe. Surely he would get answers from her. . . .

Doumani hoisted his vina aloft like a baton. His lads looked so splendid, he could hardly decide which to bed tonight.

"Now, boys, 'The Potter's Lament'! And don't let it lag! Practice is the key! We have to sound good if we're playing at the Factors' Dance tonight!"

Goza left the yogurt vendor behind, and headed straight for the nearest constabulary headquarters, at the corner of Preem and Lall. The farther he got from his usual haunts, the more his appearance changed. His burly limbs seemed to unkink, his manner became less deferential. On the steps of the official building he began peeling fake scars and sores from his body, throwing the rubber prosthetics into the street.

By the time he approached the front desk where a fat uniformed constable sat reading a cheap pulpish magazine, Goza the beggar showed forth as a virile fellow, all self-assurance and wit.

"Chalch! Listen up! It may be nothing, but I just encountered the most unlikely pilgrim. He swore at me using a Dardarbji epithet. What would one of his kind be doing here for Festival?"

Valvay sipped at a fresh cup of tea, his tenth that day, and fingered a sample garial hide from the latest lot. Exquisite, supple, beautifully patterned. This would make some rich woman a fine pair of shoes or handbag or belt. And enrich Valvay considerably in the process.

All was right with the world.

The door to Valvay's office opened, and Safiya looked in. Her short

black hair framed an intelligent face the shade of Valvay's tea.

"Any last task, sir? I'll be going shortly."

Valvay waved his assistant on her way. "No, no, I wouldn't keep you on the first night of the Festival. Go, and have a good time."

The familiar whistle sounded just then, signaling the end of the shift.

Safiya said, "Thank you, sir. You enjoy yourself as well. I understand the Factors' Dance will be extra-special tonight."

"Yes, Septon Anjai Mace is the sponsor this year. He beat out Septon Majin Panaranja in the Trials of a Thousand Delicacies. I understand there were some hard feelings, but I anticipate nothing but jollity."

"I am happy for you and the other Factors."

As she turned to leave, Valvay said, "Do you have that protection I gave you? You persist in living in that horrible neighborhood, even though I've offered to find you better lodgings."

"I can't leave my parents, sir, and they absolutely refuse to move."

"Oh, all right. But the offer stands!"

Safiya closed the door.

Valvay sighed, and wondered if he'd ever manage to seduce the girl.

Safiya walked down Poonma Way, at ease with her thoughts. Valvay was so transparent. He was only after one thing. Maybe she should give in. But he was married, and so much older -

Ah, well, she needn't decide now!

She considered how she'd spend her evening. She had to shop for supper first, for her parents, Ratna and Karst, and herself. Cook and serve it, of course. Chat with her folks. Then there were a few accounts she hadn't finished, and which she had taken home. She patted her big garial shoulder bag ― one of the poor-quality castoffs, sold cheap to employees ― to feel the sheaf of papers within. But after all that, she'd be free to go out and celebrate with her friends.

Growling noises broke into her imaginings.

Dogs! A familiar nuisance.

Safiya took down her bag and thrust a hand within.

There, in the alley mouth -

Three salp-ridden curs, working at a victim!

The boom from Safiya's pistol echoed like a thunderclap. Manfully, she worked the chambers to line up another round with the firing pin.

But the dogs were already gone running. If she had even hit one, it hadn't hindered them.

Safiya bent over the unconscious bloody man. Some poor pilgrim. What to do? She couldn't just leave him. But no one else was about. Get him out of the alley anyhow..

She reached down, gripped him under his arms, and pulled him out to the street.

This was really going to put a crimp in her evening.

VIEW 2

Cornflowers Beside the Unuttered
| CAT RAMBO

AT THE END OF the longest summer days, the light stretches thin as lace until it breaks to release the blue shadows swelling insistently beneath it. Along the many-named canals, swallows and bats flicker and flutter over the turgid waters.

A madwoman swayed at the tiled edge of the Canal of the Unuttered, a string plucked by indifferent glances. Her gown was smeared with rust and black oil, and a mysterious scattering of blue cornflowers, wilting, heat-crumpled, lay around her filthy toes.

Her shadow pooled like liquid on the hot pavement and wrinkled in the cracks. Ants crawled from it like bits of darkness, going about the evening's business. The salps watched her from the safety of the alley's mouth, measuring the rates of the passersby, calculating the angle to grab a wrist or ankle. They spoke in guttural whispers, words shaped to the needs of their mouths, the cartilage whistle and squeak and thrum. She smelled of heat and cheese, iron and vinegar, a smell that called to the dog bodies and lured them forward, nipping and jostling at each other. One whined, a high-pitched need in the gathering shadows, but the woman did not turn even as they scuffled and slunk their way back, an erratic pendulum swinging closer, closer.

She did turn at the sound of whistling, a lethargic melody that only the whistler would have recognized as "Riarnanth's Dirge."

Hrangit barely saw her through the shadows. His mind was automatically cycling through the song, lips shaping the notes of their own volition, giving himself time to think, to puzzle out the source of the pall lying over him. At the intersection, the only light between the high buildings was provided by a battered crank lantern that no one had turned recently. Wishing he had a knife or gun, he reached out and swung the handle halfway through its arc as he passed. It shuddered brighter, just enough for him to glimpse the form, like a puppet dangling on invisible cords, on the edge of the canal.

"Here now!" He grabbed an elbow and found it unpleasantly pliant, almost rubbery as she swayed back toward him. At the contact, the gloom that had been pursuing him clenched hard and fast as an unexpected blow, so like a vise that he thought "Better hire an exorcist," thinking for a moment that he had been ambushed by one of the little doom-ghosts that haunt the canals at night, the suicide wraiths who usually lie like moonlight on the water and only ensnare those who look directly at them.

He heard yelps and whispers behind him, a forward scuffle that made him pull her sideways, into the brighter light of the lantern and let go, letting her spill, cornflower petals drifting from her hands while he grabbed the crank and spun it with a panicked, ratcheting whir so fierce he expected sparks to fly out from the gears. It came apart and bits of metal flew across the ground with a clash and jingle, others plinking one by one in crescendoing arcs, in the turgid canal water, never to be seen again.

The salps conferred in their alleyway, whining and peeing against the cool bricks as they talked. One, mouthing his stick, was silent, eyes and ears attention-twitched back and forth between the words of the others.

It had been the smell, the elusive, alluring smell of her. Dropping his stick beside the oily bricks, the silent one licked up the blue petals beside the canal and came back with them clinging to his whiskers, brilliant against the dirty fur.

They were confused, and in the globes where the parasites swam, they stirred and coiled and the salty fluid around them tasted of steel and confusion. One became so overloaded by conflicting signals that the dog body flopped to the ground and convulsed in the dust, spasming back and forth while the others whined sympathetically. Finally the fit passed and the salp spun in its chamber, bruised but relieved to find the membrane surrounding it intact.

They pushed forward, following Hrangit as he shed cogs and gears in his frenzy to tug the madwoman away toward a broader, better-lit avenue, where the crowds resumed. The salps curled close to the shaggy necks ― as long as the dogs did not move too purposely, there was a good chance they would not be noticed, and any pursuit would be slow and two-footed.

All he had wanted was to visit Yeshe, to go into the courtyard that always seemed quieter than it should be, and to sit in the shadow of the god, half spider, half elephant, half something else. The statue had been carved decades ago, maybe as long as a century. His father claimed to have figured out whether or not he wanted to marry (the answer was no) while sitting there, and his great-uncle claimed that while he was sitting there, the god had spoken to him ― "Quite a long conversation, and so pleasant spoken, you would have thought him an old friend." The old man had been given to speaking to the god in his later years, and Hrangit remembered being lectured, the rheumy eyes fixed on a point just beyond his shoulder with a terrifying fixity that had given him the constant urge to spin and confront whatever ectoplasmic wonder the senior was witnessing. But the few glances he had stolen had revealed only air transfixed by the pinpoint glare, and in time he had come to think of the habit with false nostalgic fondness, forgetting the stomach-twitching anxiety the old man's stare had always induced in him.

It had always seemed conceivable to him that the god might choose to talk to him in turn, and that he would be a far better conversationalist than any other member of his family. Indeed, he had saved away two or three very funny but tasteful jokes and several anecdotes of the sort he thought that a female god might enjoy, steering away from the topics of politics and the divinity of rulers and toward the absurdity of toads and clouds. Every time he had sat beside Yeshe, he had felt the silence seep down into his very bones and then assume a waiting patience, as though this, this might be the day in which the god would at long last open her eyes and greet Hrangit in tones mild but familiar.