Tower of Mud and Straw

by Yaroslav Barsukov

  You’ve screwed it all up.

  ‘Queen Daelyn sent her servant—

  To oversee the deed;

  The servant wasn’t smart enough,

  And he got promptly killed.’

  He’d avoided the assassination attempt, narrowly, but the rhyme’s penultimate line had the right pitch.

  The mongrel dog snapped its jaws in the air.

  “I wanted it so badly.” Brielle lowered her head. “Never want anything badly, Ashcroft. I thought, maybe—maybe—it would even land me a job at the capital. At the Red Hill.”

  Shea considered the room, the chipped bricks, the curtains, the bland finger of the council tower outside.

  “I know how you feel.”

  He wandered to the wine cabinet. Opened it. Took out two glasses.

  “How about a drink?” he said.

  II. THE ADVERSARY

  1

  The hammer fell in an arrhythmic pulse, like an old man’s heart, skipping a punch each time the chisel it hit dropped another inch into the device. And each time, the sheath’s halves spread wider, the pink glow which seeped along the expanding crease thickened, and the man in the protective mask shrank back.

  “It’s dangerous, you do realize that,” Shea said. “The thing could implode.”

  Brielle stared, without blinking, in front of her. “Now I understand why you call them ‘tulips’. They blossom, don’t they?”

  They blossom all right, he thought. They jump seasons while we remain here, in this autumn.

  The wind rose and combed through the crown of the old overgrown oak, hurling a handful of leaves at the Drakiri devices arranged in rows at its foot. We, too, throw dirt on coffins—only ours don’t have pointed ends. The ‘tulips’ stood upright, taking aim at the sky. The man with the hammer and the chisel was human, but the two figures frozen beside him were Drakiri—Shea had learned to recognize them by now, the slightly elongated physique, the too-relaxed posture. None of them would work at the construction site, Lena had said—apparently, supervising the dismantling of the devices was a different thing.

  A strange threesome—with many other such threesomes scattered across the field among the egg-shaped things.

  “It’s like attending a mass funeral,” Shea said.

  “Do you want to say a few words, then?”

  “Bad time of the year to develop a sense of humor, Brielle. How much longer before it crumbles?” It, and what remains of my life.

  The giant tower was an apparition now, pastel-gray and watery past the fields.

  “What, you can’t count days anymore?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you in a while—when did you last leave your new quarters?”

  Shea shrugged. “A week, maybe. I don’t know.” He glanced at her. “Wait a second—you’re judging me, aren’t you? As if you weren’t drinking yourself.”

  “I drink just enough to keep my sanity.”

  “Well, perhaps my sanity requires a higher dosage.”

  The tulip let out a loud crack, making a flight of black birds disperse from the oak’s branches and the man with the hammer start back. The chisel remained lodged in the crease: a knife in a wound.

  One of the Drakiri said something in a reassuring tone.

  “Do you know what’s inside?” Brielle asked.

  “No. Ten years ago, we had no method for disassembling them.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Buried them.” His thoughts darted to the room with soot stains, but this time didn’t stay there: he remembered the cellar underneath the rosewood trapdoor, the memory answering in dull tones as though someone had picked at a scab. He shook his head. “I don’t understand why they can’t have the Drakiri do the procedure.”

  “That’s the crux of the joke: we have a lighter touch. I heard one of them say—”

  “We were born to destroy these things.”

  “—we were born to disassemble them.”

  The sheath fell apart in eggshell pieces.

  Inside, the tulip was almost empty. A thin stem stretched the whole height of the device, swelling with purple that squirmed like air in a heatwave, widening in the middle to form a…

  “It’s a figure, isn’t it?” Shea said, or thought he had.

  The contour of a leg, a hint at a hip, maybe an armless torso. Or maybe it was his imagination going wild. The Drakiri who’d spoken earlier produced something resembling a pair of pliers which he fastened, simultaneously, to both ends of the ‘silhouette.’ He held the pliers while the purple and the quivering died down, then, the stem at arm’s length, wandered off to the tree line, to a funeral pile of other thin, long things.

  The man in the mask picked up the chisel and moved toward the next tulip.

  “And that’s how the mundane trumps the beautiful,” Shea said. “Let’s go. Nothing more to see here.”

  He turned when he heard a quiet, “I’ll fix the tower.”

  “What? You said the foundation was too small.”

  “It is. But I did some calculations yesterday—maybe, if we fortify the walls…”

  “You don’t believe it yourself.”

  “I’ll try fortifying the walls.”

  “Brielle, listen to me.”

  “What do you want me to do, Shea?” She leaned toward him, and, through clenched teeth, her breath came out in a miniature cloud. “Sit back and see it crumble? Not even attempt to save the work of my life?”

  He took her by the arm. “Think of the builders’ safety.”

  “They’re safe, trust me. The strain on structure won’t start taking its toll for two months.”

  “Okay. Okay. Listen, Brielle, I give you—us—two months. Then we turn ourselves in to Queen Daelyn.”

  He immediately regretted not having phrased it differently—Brielle’s anger dissipated the way air leaves a balloon, and, as with the tulip, what remained behind was a vulnerable stem.

  “Please don’t tell anyone until then, Shea. Please. Don’t tell them… of the mistake I’ve made.”

  It’s not your fault, he wanted to say, it was probably the time pressure, and nobody is infallible—but at that moment, Brielle chuckled.

  “Look, the asshole’s coming.”

  Through the rows of devices, a tall, hunched figure moved like a tired priest, fed up with performing the final rites.

  “Did you know the duke has put him in charge of the disassembling? It’s like a penance for all that talk that amounted to nothing, about the saboteurs.”

  Patrick, the duke’s military counselor, strolled toward them, beating the wet out of the flaps of his coat. He stopped in front of Brielle and glanced at her.

  “Destroying the devices is a waste of time.” He smiled only with his lips. “A pure waste of time and money. Whatever he says, the damage to the tower was a result of sabotage.”

  “Hey, I’m right here,” Shea said.

  Patrick shifted his gaze to him, and his mouth opened and closed as though the body were looking for the best way to pour out contempt.

  “There’s a special type of capital swine,” he said, “that comes to our lands and shits on them.”

  “How did Shea shit on your land, Patrick?” Brielle sighed. “You’re not even originally from Owenbeg.”

  “And you, you should know better, Brielle. Are you sleeping with him?”

  “That’s enough,” Shea said. “Just because we’re standing here and talking, man and woman, you automatically presume that we share a bed?”

  But Patrick didn’t accept the challenge; he simply shrugged, straightened his coat, walked past them.

  Shea turned to look at him. “He sounds depressed more than anything. The duke’s displeased with him, right?”

  Brielle nodded. “Some important task that Patrick has failed.”

  The one where he had to dispose of me, probably.

  “Besides,” she said, “he’s been promising to catch the Dumian saboteurs for months.”

  “There are no saboteurs.�
�

  Against the swollen gray sky, Patrick’s figure stuck out like a finger, and, with surprise, Shea realized he couldn’t bring himself to hate him.

  Brielle sighed. “I still have my doubts—and, as you can see, Patrick does, too.”

  How could he hate the bastard? Daelyn’s power eroded me, the duke’s—him. Patrick simply had less substance to begin with.

  “I’m going,” Shea said. “If you wish, let’s meet at the tavern and discuss our situation.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “No. The day after. I will be incapacitated tomorrow.”

  In the new quarters he would no doubt have to vacate soon, Shea opened the wine cabinet and looked at the empty bottles. Tuesday, they were called, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Tuesday had been his first in years—he’d bought it himself, same as Wednesday; the rest had come in linen sacks a boy from the village carried.

  With the Drakiri devices destroyed, the tower’s collapse became imminent, and it was time to send for stronger stuff.

  2

  She appeared at his doorstep clad in a gray hunting suit, and although the brandy’s kerosene aftertaste still corroded his mouth, he smiled.

  Will you join me?

  Sure, sure I will. It was okay. The room wasn’t spinning, so the alcohol the boy Daniel had brought must’ve been thinned with water.

  It was only three miles later, halfway between the castle and the forested hillside, that Shea realized how wrong he’d been.

  “Are you okay?” Lena’s voice came from somewhere to his right.

  “Yes. I think so.”

  His own words echoed as though emerging from the bottom of a huge metal bowl; the world around him, streaming past, adjusting itself to fit the curves and turns of the trail they followed.

  “I thought you could use a distraction—Brielle said you haven’t left your quarters for a week.” Her voice wrapped around him like a scarf snatched and tossed by the wind. “We need to pick up speed. The deer is getting away.”

  A wave of dizziness washed over Shea. I think I’m about to fall. He would fall, Brielle would fall, the tower would fall, his career would give its final death jerk.

  The trees ahead parted—from between them, as if responding to his thoughts, the giant tower stared at him, bluish in the haze.

  I hate you, he thought, I hate you, all the thousand feet of stone and metal, the artillery portals and the embers of the little worlds scattered across the spiral climb, how I hate it all now.

  Lena stood in the stirrups. “There it is!”

  Their prey darted into a clearing fifty feet ahead, a gray curve under a crown of bones.

  For a moment, there were only the deer, the tower, and the beautiful woman, clinging to the horse’s neck, shouting something into the wind.

  Then the deer vanished.

  That’s it, they must’ve mixed something into that brandy.

  The deer had disappeared like an object tumbling into the eye’s blind spot, never to emerge on the other side.

  He realized he wasn’t imagining things when Lena’s horse went mad. It slipped into a wild, erratic dance, the bucks and rears of a rocking toy, shaking its head in a motion that made it appear as if it were wagging its own body.

  Lena pulled on the reins.

  She needs to dismount. Did he say it out loud? Lena, Lena, you need to…

  “Get off the horse!”

  Of course she didn’t listen. She leaned back, pushing against the stirrups, stretching the reins, her horse’s mane a dark reflection of the wave of her own hair.

  Shea kicked his mare into a gallop.

  “Dismount!”

  Still, she didn’t listen. And when he got close enough to grab her by the arm, shook him off.

  “Get off of it!”

  Drakiri strength doubly worked against her now: it allowed her to brush Shea off and stressed her horse even further—a product of generations of breeding, it must’ve preferred a lighter, human touch.

  Shea’s belly spasmed, and he almost puked.

  I need to do something, and fast.

  Lena was at least twice as strong as him, true—but he weighed more.

  He rammed his shoulder into hers, sending them both to the half-frozen autumn ground.

  “Why did you do that?” She pushed him away, and he rolled off her and into the grass. “I would’ve gotten him under control. I would’ve calmed him.”

  “Shhh,” he said, pointing to the horse, who dove under an elm’s branches and disappeared behind the trees.

  “What?”

  “I haven’t seen a purebred that spooked.”

  His own mare grazed peacefully nearby.

  “Never do that to me.” Lena slapped his arm. “Are you drunk?”

  “It could’ve thrown you off and trampled on you. Or your foot could’ve slid through the stirrup, and it would’ve dragged you into the woods like a sack.”

  After a series of long breaths, she said, “Where did the deer go? Did it run back into the trail?”

  It vanished, he wanted to say—but now, with the brandy loosening its grip on him, he was no longer sure. He closed his eyes and tried to recall the scene, but the kerosene taste in his mouth kept getting in the way.

  “I’m not certain, Lena.”

  “You were behind me. If it returned to the trail, it should’ve passed you.”

  He shook his head.

  “So you are drunk—how much did you have? Wait, don’t tell me. I can’t believe I went hunting with you.” Staring at the sky, she drew in her knees, suddenly vulnerable. “I saw something. In a flash. Different colors.”

  “What, rainbows?”

  “No. Forget it. I think it was a hallucination—or something like that. I got distracted, and that’s when the deer ran away.”

  Lena rolled onto her side and started to get up, only to fall back, this time on top of Shea.

  “Damn it.” She laughed. “My hip hurts like hell, I must’ve pulled a muscle.”

  “You’re the only woman I know,” he said, “who would find it funny.”

  She smelled of bonfire and tasted of strawberries.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll never do that again.”

  “I told you to never knock me off the horse. I didn’t tell you not to do what you were doing right now—rather, I posed a simple question.”

  When their mouths separated again, he said, “You’re the most beautiful… anything I’ve seen in my life.”

  “And you reek of brandy.”

  And then all the other pieces of the puzzle faded—the deer, the tower, the vanishing—leaving only the wave of black hair, the eyes, the lips, and the body pressed against his.

  3

  They rode his mare back to the castle—she rode, Shea sitting behind—and slipped into his quarters the way a pair of kids slip out of the house to play a dangerous game.

  The sex was violent. She didn’t let him kiss her anymore or even help her undress—they tore their clothes off like two fighters at separate corners of the ring, after which she pushed him on his back and thrust her hips into his.

  It was a voyeuristic but at the same time strangely intimate experience—the sense of pleasure being done to his body, and yet he answered every push, their gazes locked. She closed her eyes only in the end, when something exploded in them both.

  Later, lying on her side with her back to him, she said, “I’m not that way. I’m not that way, Shea.”

  Euphoria sliding into an echo, he studied the sotto in sù ceiling, the badly painted plump angel extending an olive branch, in twilight, to a bewildered-looking hunter. He could’ve asked her to elaborate, but what good would it do? She wasn’t like that in the sense that sex with her was normally tender? Or she wasn’t likely to sleep with someone while being the lover of another?

  He traced with his finger the curve of her hip, and bitterness rose in him—at her, at the duke, at himself: he thought how
he envied that stupid angel, how he wished he could live in that painting, too, in the season of sunsets, forever postponing the minute the light would disappear.

  She stood, picked up her pants, and peeked inside them. “I think I’ve got a dandelion in there somewhere.”

  “You’ve got one in your hair, too. Let me help you.”

  “Thanks, I can manage.”

  She strolled to the wine cabinet; opened it. “You didn’t drink all those bottles alone, did you, Shea?”

  There would have been something deeply wrong with lying to a woman he’d just slept with. “The boy Daniel has been supplying me.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what—why is he supplying me or why am I drinking alone?”

  “Why are you drinking.”

  Words pushed at his throat, and, unable to contain them, he rose on his elbow and said, “I’ve destroyed the tower, Lena. Well, not literally, but I helped ruin it. The queen sent me here to make sure it gets built, and I failed. Ruined myself in the process.”

  Her face was an emotionless mask when she turned to him. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The tower will crumble within two months.”

  And then the mask melted, sunset reverted to dawn: she jumped onto the bed to squeeze him in an embrace. She didn’t hold back.

  “You’re going… to crush… me.”

  “Sorry.”

  He sucked in air, her face coming into focus, reddened cheeks, a wide smile—and jealousy prickled him, the fact that, minutes after they’d had sex, something else was the source of that unfiltered joy.

  “I had no idea you hated the tower that much.”

  She squinted at him. “But I showed you the book. I thought that was the reason…”

  “It was a very vivid tale, Lena, but no. I came here, I saw problems. I believed I could fix everything, like that.” He snapped his fingers. “I didn’t take time to truly understand what was happening.”

  “You mistook me for someone else—I don’t read tales, Shea. Problems—I presume Brielle or one of her engineers made an error?”

  “It’s not my place to tell you.”