Weeds Among Stone (Jura City Book 1)

by Douglas Milewski

  “Maran, hon, you need some liquor. Take a bottle from the shelf over there. There’s also a ham bone downstairs in the ice box.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Maran took a flattened bottle of an amber-colored liquid which smelled volatile.

  Rem took out a tube containing a red substance, putting it upon her lips. “Masks are funny things. Did you realize that mimes wear masks? That’s how we become mimes. As long as we have that mask on, we are not ourselves. We are the thing that we seem to be, as foolish and unwise as we fear ourselves. In becoming masked, we become invulnerable.

  “In a way, when I put on my mask, I die. I become pale as death. Yet, my lips are red and I am alive. I am a contradiction. I am not me, but I’m also not anyone in particular, but I still am. I am not really alive, but I move. I tell stories, but I have no words. Does that make sense? I hope it makes sense.”

  Maran shook her head.

  “You are too literal, hon. Similes and metaphors. If you want to walk in dreams, you need to understand them.”

  Rem took out a brush and began painting black around her eyes.

  “If poetry could not be spoken, but only moved, then miming would be poetry. There’s no difference. Both poets and mimes seek to move the souls of our audience. The right movement, as well as the right word, will bring them to tears, or make them hold their sides in laughter, or bore them to death, depending on the person.

  “You can also say things that no essayist could erudiate in ten thousand words. Is ‘erudiate’ even a real word? I don’t remember. I’ll have someone coin it, then it will be real.”

  Rem looked over to Maran with white-white face and red-red lips, making a silence motion. After motioning throwing and drinking, she pointed to the door, so Maran left, walking slowly down those narrow steps. As she entered the cafe, brightening in the predawn, she saw the river and the bridges out the window. One bridge was turning. A deep whistle blew low, then loud. The train approached.

  Maran’s mind raced back to the dream on the water. She remembered the story that Rem told. She remembered Jack, and his bridge, and the bottle, and the bone. She would need all those things to cross the bridge ahead. Maran retrieved the ham bone from the ice box, then exited the cafe.

  Across the river ran the bridge of iron.

  Even as Maran walked down the street, she heard another train whistle, for it must have been a train whistle. Even so far away, it sounded so close. How loud was it? How could anything be so loud?

  Maran found the rails that she sought, leading toward the river, and walked down the gravel, amid the tracks, where the weeds grew and the occasional broken bottle glinted. Paper and trash decorated the landscape. Sometimes bricks or wooden ties lay scattered about. The rails themselves were shiny on top and rusty beneath.

  Something moved in Maran’s brain. Something began making sense. If Rem were a mime, then all of the dreamworld was her mask, and this was her mummery. Everything before her wordlessly told a story or expressed some meaning, but those things escaped her at the moment. The train blew its whistle again. There was no time to think and understand. There was no time to fear the water. There was no time.

  As bridge turned to open, Maran ran, her feet slamming across the gravel and the wood, until the gravel fell away, leaving nothing but wood and steel and air. She was above the water. Below, Maran saw the river and the turtles, those great and awful turtles the size of wagons. Now she knew why those kids didn’t swim the river. Even the turtles were made of iron in this place.

  The train blared ever closer. It came fast. Maran dared not look behind. Any delay could mean death.

  Perfect step upon perfect step, Maran’s mountain-trained feet never failed, each step finding the wood that she sought, each step taking her further from the shore and closer to the shore. She felt that she was in a dream where she was running, always running, where something chased her from behind, but she did not fear this time. She would feel that fear no more. The difference now was hope. She had hope. Jack’s control booth was hope. Jack’s control booth beckoned like a heaven beyond. Maran slammed into that booth, setting Jack to curse.

  “Who the hell are you,” he demanded, pulling a cigarette out of his red plaid shirt.

  “Passing through,” Maran replied, the train whipping by, stealing any additional words.

  Following the awful sound, there was silence.

  “You got something for me?” Jack demanded.

  Maran dug about her apron, retrieving the bottle.

  Jack nodded, accepting it. He turned away, ignoring her. “Careful of the dogs. I’d toss that ham into the river. That’s what really keeps them busy.”

  “Sure,” replied Maran, not knowing what to say. Was Jack a god, a spirit, or something else? He did not seem like a god.

  Maran edged out onto the tracks as Jack was opening the great drawbridge again. She could not go back. Turning toward the shore, Maran saw Jack’s shack and his dogs. The shack was as small as she expected, but the dogs were nearly the size of that damned bear's shadow.

  The dogs eyed Maran as she approached, barking as loudly as that train. When she was close enough, but not too close, she tossed the ham bone into the water. The dogs immediately chased it, hurling themselves down the steep bank.

  Maran hurried onward, moving past Jacks’ shack and through a rusting fence into a field of railroad tracks, each moving in some strange direction, but mostly concentrating on the giant octagonal house in the middle. To her dismay, on the wall of the octagonal house, blackened corpses moved. All were nailed to the wall though through the left eye-socket, and each writhed in agony. A few wailed. Their sufferings echoed in cacophony.

  “Flee!” one warned.

  “I could not best him!” warned another.

  “He is all powerful!” shouted some others.

  The others could only scream.

  Kepi brought Maran to a section of wall with a corulant corpse. Maran recognized something of the Missus there; a great iron spike standing where her eye did not stare back. That was the eye where the Missus felt her headaches. The remaining lidless eye looked down upon Maran as she approached.

  “It is time for your soul to depart, ma’am,” Maran said with a respectful curtsy.

  The Missus responded with an agonized laugh. “The joke is on you, cockroach. You have fulfilled his wishes. I promised that I would deliver a Loam to him. Three times I tried to deliver you, but three times you escaped. Yet, here you are, delivered by your own will. There is no escape from him. There is no mercy. There is only the Iron Duke, and he does not yield.”

  The woman laughed, swinging on her iron spike.

  Whatever the Iron Duke was, she had to face him.

  Through great iron doors, Maran entered a fantastical workshop. In all her life, Maran had never imagined one being so big. The Iron Duke himself was like a snake built of sections, each section the size of a house, each one bearing iron wheels. The Duke's rivited head was cylindrical and immense, steaming and smoking from the sides. At the front of his snout blared his single eye.

  With a metallic squeal, the Iron Duke lifted his body high up in the workshop, like a dragon in his lair. He turned his shining eye upon Maran.

  “You have come to me, mortal,” he grumbled and snorted, steaming and billowing. “You stand before me, small and helpless. Know that I am Number Twenty Six, the most powerful of my kind, One-Cee-Cee-Three. Seventy five hundred horsepower. No greater horsepower has there ever been or will ever be again. I stand, the perfected blending of the four elements: fire, earth, air, water, and wood. Kneel and I shall spare you.”

  Without hesitation, Maran knelt.

  The great bulk angled towards Maran, then stopped, the great eye-light blazing directly upon her. “I am angry with the Loam. Your people have not sacrificed to me in fifty years. Explain yourselves.”

  This confused Maran. “Good Duke, we sacrifice bull-goats to you every year.”

  “I DO NOT CARE FOR GOATS! I demand H
ORSES. Who thought that a goat would satisfy the Duke of Iron? I taught you a lesson. I stripped your people of your rights, but you did not sacrifice to me. I stripped you of your homes, but you did not sacrifice to me. I now strip you of your crops, but you still do not sacrifice to me. Why do you offend me so flagrantly? Why have you ignored my messenger?”

  Maran saw the problem now. “We gave our horses away, good Duke. We now use bull-goats.”

  “I don't care what you have or don’t have. I demand my horses. I demand their bones burnt to ash among the coals.”

  Maran sat with that for a moment, in humility. “What do you require, my Duke? How shall we make amends?”

  “I demand that you sacrifice horses. I want a good stallion, every day, all year long. It shall not be lame or marred in any way.”

  How were her people going to get that many horses that quickly? “My Duke, we don't have any money to buy stallions. Our coffee crop is failed. We need to raise funds. All we do is feed people, and we can hardly keep up.”

  “You grow poppies. You could sell them.”

  That was not a place to go. “That would be blasphemous, my Lord. The White Lady would frown upon us.”

  “What about the wild horses to the east? Why do you not round them up?”

  “The bridge is closed, my Lord. The Malachites hold the far side. None may cross.”

  “What of the Horsebreakers? They have horses.”

  The conversation was now going somewhere. “We might be able to trade knives. Maybe. I'll talk to them.”

  “That is acceptable. But where shall you sacrifice them? I don't want sacrifices hidden away where no one will notice. I am the Iron Duke and all shall heed me. You shall construct an altar of wrought iron for my sacrifices, and you shall place that altar in a newly build house in Langurud, your capital. The house shall be as large and fine as the house that the White Lady dwells in.”

  This was getting worse again. “My Lord, my people will agree, I am sure, but our elders need time to talk. If we may get some small boon from you, so that they know that the Iron Duke is truly the one responsible, and these actions will truly ease their woes, then they will move quickly to accept this agreement.”

  The Iron Duke turned his head. “What would make them agree more quickly?”

  Maran thought. Who could she help here? She thought of all the gardens in the city, and all the hungry people there. She would help them.

  “My Lord, many gardens surround your forge. If you lift the blight around the forge, for several miles, then all should know that the Iron Duke is pleased with his own people, but displeased with the Loam.”

  The Duke snorted. “False. I am not pleased with my people. Look at the wonders that I have created for them. They need but learn and make. All who dwell in the Stone City dream of here. Yet, they do not implement what they see, except for a few, such as yourself, or Strikke, or Kurfurst Svero. The others act from weakness, not strength. They are not admirable. Do you know who I admire? I admire the Malachites. They have won an empire and you have not.”

  Maran felt the world slipping out of her sense.

  The Duke withdrew a bit. “I see that you awaken. Go. Return to me soon and we will continue this discussion. In the meantime, I will lift my curse around the forge so that many will know my power.”

  The Project

  Maran awoke near the foaming mouth of the Missus. As Maran stirred, she heard steps. Lord Gamstadt knelt down.

  “Are you good?” he asked, showing genuine concern.

  Now awake and in her own body, Maran felt the opium surging through her. Everything seemed hazy again. “What happened?”

  “The wrath of our god has happened. I had warned Forsythe of this, but she was too damned stubborn, and the Iron Duke has struck her down in her blasphemy. Now she is half-dead and all is undone. Word is bound to get out that the Missus is failing. Lord Jasper will come and discover what has happened. He will bring his reckoning.”

  Maran stared at Gamstadt but did not speak, trying to understand the situation. Gamstad patted her on the back.

  “My dear, you must be confused. This is all new to you. Let me explain. The Missus threw some sort of spell on you. She made you forget all the horrible things that she did to you. I don't know why , but three times she tried to sacrifice you to the God of Iron. Despite his fierceness, he is no bloodletter. We have never offered him such sacrifices before. Iromongers follow the Alliance.”

  Maran rose as she could. “He did not want my sacrifice,” Maran exhaled dreamily. “He wanted to yell at me. The Iron Duke wants us to create an altar for him in Langurud, as fine as the house of the White Lady. One good stallion a day. But our crops are failed, and we have no money, and we can’t pay you to build the altar.”

  “Don’t mind that,” said Gamstadt. “If it's the will of the Iron Duke, then I'll see it done myself. I don’t want to be anywhere near here when Jasper gets elected. I’ll happily take my retirement in Loam country.”

  Gamstadt paused. “I’ll need to hide you for a bit, too. Right or wrong, Jasper will come here and hold you accountable, and you’ll take the punishment for her crimes. I won’t have that. Let’s get you dressed and out to the Project.”

  “What about Annalise?”

  “Don’t worry. Nobody cares about a drifter. The reckoning won’t start with her.”

  Gamstadt picked up the Missus’s shiny cane. “This has been a curse on this house since it came here. Good riddance. You can take it.”

  Maran examined the steel sections of that cane. She had always assumed that it was a spine. On closer inspection, the cane was an imitation of the Iron Duke, Number Twenty Six, his great head forming the handle.

  Gamstadt sat to the Missus’s writing table and wrote out the orders. “Gamstadt, Lord Protector of the Ironmonger Guild, recognizes Maran Zarander as Honorable Meister Cook, and commissions her to oversee the kitchen for the Project. Do not harm her without the consent of the Eighth Rod.”

  Maran did not understand this generosity. “Lord Gamstadt, why are you helping me?”

  A sadness overcame Gamstadt. “A long time ago, I was a protector for Kurfurst Kavre, our late and honorable Kurfurst. One day, he hired a new Loam cook and I fell in love with her. Her name was Yasaman. In time, we secretly married despite the laws against it. I was happy with her. Twenty years back, when the Loam sat down, she went up with your king and sat down with him. She died there, of course, and I wasn't there to save her. I failed my husbandly duties because I was afraid of losing my position.

  “Then the Missus found out. She had an uncanny way of finding out things that she wanted to know. She used that fact to control me. If I didn't cooperate, she'd tell my story to the Iron Duke. I'd be condemned. I wouldn't be melted down and reforged. I let my fear rule me again.

  “With you here, I remembered my courage. I stood up for you. I couldn't directly disobey the Missus, as I would be disgraced and discharged, but I could enforce the rules. With her gone, I can now help you without caution. Go put on your things. When you come back, we'll leave.”

  Maran head had begun clearing, but she still floated. “I only have a few things: my knives, another dress, and my bag.”

  As Maran drifted back to her own room, Gamstadt’s truth rolled about her altered mind. After dressing, she picked up her bag and walked back out, picking up her knives. She also took the Missus’s private supply of coffee, her box of cigars, and a bottle of port.

  “The way is clear,” said Gamstadt. “We’ll take an alternate way down.”

  They walked down the corridor to a small door which accessed some pipes. Behind those was a ladder which they descended into the boiler room. From there, they slipped out the laundry entrance, walking across the courtyard to the foundry building. They avoided the main doors, opting instead to enter a heavily locked side door.

  “We’re avoiding the guards,” Gamstadt explained.

  Once inside, Lord Gamstadt paused. “Normally, I would blin
dfold you, as only a full member of the Ironmonger guild is admitted to these rooms. However, as you have been initiated and are of the Eighth Rod, this is open to you. Even so, we must keep the area clean. Have you had any sexual relations in the last week?”

  The question mildly offended Maran, but she accepted Gamstadt in his earnestness. “No, sir, I have not.”

  “Then enter.”

  Gamstadt opened the door to the second largest room that Maran had ever seen. Sitting cold and silent in the center was a gigantic iron pitcher on a massive hinge. Gamstadt knelt down there. Maran did likewise.

  “This is the Womb of the Dragon; the Holy of Holies; the converter, which turns iron into steel. This is the only one of its kind. Kurfurst Kavre saw how to make it in a dream, just like he saw the guns. This is what won him the guild master post. It is our greatest secret. Those who are not initiated to its secrets are killed for even looking upon it.”

  Gamstadt prostrated himself to the converter, touching his forehead to the ground. Maran followed his example.

  They both arose, walking backward until they exited the forge. Gamstadt then led her deeper into the building, stopping at a steel door which had twenty heavily armored dwarves standing guard. They saluted Gamstadt, opening the door for him. Their captain looked at Maran with disgust. “My Lord, she has no blindfold on!”

  Gamdstadt didn't meet the soldier's eyes. “Keep your goddamn mouth shut and forget that she was even here.”

  “But my Lord Protector, you must do your duty.”

  “I know my duty. She is where she needs to be. I saw her initiantion. Now do your duty.”

  The captain saluted, opening the great steel door.

  “It used to be a vault,” Gamstadt noted. “We used to keep our gold here. Now we have something more valuable. Come in.”