Gears of the City

by Felix Gilman

  Those who escape—they fall, their minds shredded by the Mountain, by the old man’s defenses. They fall at the foot of the Mountain. They stumble through your world like ghosts. They never escape for long. Soon enough the Hollows catch them, or the police.

  You have loved a few of those fragile ghosts. They were doomed from the start. You have loved me, and I have always been a monster. No ordinary life is possible in the shadow of the Mountain, in the killing fields of Shay’s war on himself.

  I thought your sister might finally be the one to kill the old man. At least that would be a change! I dreamed she might destroy the Mountain. What would happen to the city then? It could hardly be worse. Without that darkness on the horizon we might lead real lives.

  As it talked, the Beast walked up and around the slopes of the quarry’s walls. It set a punishing pace, and Ruth struggled to keep up. With every turn they approached the stars, and the Beast unburdened itself of another secret. The sky paled with the dawn. The quarry filled with cold mists, and the Beast pressed on into the grey, its voice hollow and distant. At last they reached the top of the path, where the signs warned of blasting IN PROGRESS and NO TRESPASSING and the wagons were parked. The Beast was gone, and Ruth was alone. The Mountain darkened the horizon.

  The Missing, After the War-The Hero

  of Fosdyke-Secret Files-More Flags-

  The Choir

  Arjun

  Carnyx Street lived!

  A couple of houses were in ruins, in whole or in part— cracked gaps in its defiant grin. Otherwise it was intact. Windows still caught the morning sun. Laundry hung like pennants. The street breathed—front doors were open and people went from house to house. The wild scrub behind the houses had been repur-posed into fields; green was starting to show through the black earth. Arjun and Inspector Maury came across the fields, one smiling, the other scowling.

  Who watched them? Two men worked in the fields, bare-chested in the warmth of the morning—a third stood guard. The guard carried a rifle and a bell round his neck. For a moment, seeing the newcomers approach over the fields, he looked frightened, raised his gun—then he lowered it again. Whatever he’d been frightened of, Arjun and Maury weren’t it. He watched them go by carefully, but without fear—almost with a kind of cautious welcome. Of course, Arjun thought, Carnyx Street would be welcoming to refugees. He smiled and showed his hands were empty.

  He’d made Maury throw away his long black coat—it identified him as a Know-Nothing, a Night Watchman, a dangerous man. Without it Maury looked, and apparently felt, naked. Stripped of his last vestiges of authority, he hunched like a snail. The sun made him squint.

  The Low sisters’ house still stood.

  Arjun bounded the last few yards to the door, banged on it, peered in through the smoky windows of the shop, calling, “Ruth, Ruth, are you in there?”

  A stranger answered the door, and the smile vanished from his face.

  They both said, “Who are you?”

  The man at the door was tall, pale, grey-haired. Behind him, the shelves and tables of Ruth’s shop had been cleared away—the books and maps and records and paintings were gone—four young women and one man sat in a circle stitching something together out of canvas—sails? Coats? Tents? The floor was littered with off-cuts and needles. Lamps burned. They’d thrown out all Ruth’s wonderful and mysterious treasures and put a workshop in their place! She was gone. Dead? Gone to the Mountain, with Ivy? He’d known she might not be there when he returned, but he hadn’t believed it. His mouth hung open. He forgot why he’d come back. His blood ran cold.

  His mouth was making strange unhappy noises. Tears stung his cheeks. When the tall man in the doorway, a little frightened, asked him who he was again, Arjun said aggressive and unpleasant things that he didn’t mean, and that didn’t make any sense. When the man asked him to leave, Arjun refused to go. “What have you done with her? What have you people done with her?”

  The tall man laid a hand on Arjun’s shoulder; sobbing, Arjun shoved him away. Almost instantly Maury came charging up, headbutted the tall man to the floor, and proceeded to start kicking. Why? No obvious reason. The Inspector was mad. Those were his skills, those were his habits. Arjun tried to pull him away and he snarled.

  “Stop right there!”

  The guard from the fields stood at the other side of the street, pointing a gun.

  They were apparently under arrest.

  The guards seemed unsure what to do with them. What law applied here? “This is all a misunderstanding,” Arjun said. After that he stayed silent. The guards searched them both, took Maury’s gun, not without a struggle. An official was summoned—a mechanic with oily hands, who spoke for the Committee for the Emergency. He shrugged—this wasn’t his responsibility. There were further communications, there was further confusion. A red-faced woman with flour on her skirts ordered Arjun and Maury separated.

  They locked him in an underground storage room beneath a machine workshop. The little space echoed and droned with the noise of industry. He sat cross-legged. Hours passed. The machines above went silent, and the workers went home.

  Arjun wondered briefly what the workers were paid in—food? Shelter? Did Fosdyke’s Committee for the Emergency print money now? Were they paid at all—did they work for fear of the whip, or out of public-spiritedness? An economy was a hard thing to rebuild. He’d seen the aftermath of a hundred catastrophes in the city, he’d seen a hundred ways of rebuilding. Some worked, some failed. Perhaps he should offer his services as a consultant! He laughed. The tears dried on his cheeks; he could still taste them in his throat.

  The shock of it—Ruth Low gone! —the hurt of it had taken him by surprise. Some losses hurt more deeply than others. The ebb and flow of his emotions was often a mystery to him. Sitting in the dark, breathing deeply, he sought to master himself again.

  Hours passed. It was Arjun’s habit when he became hungry to think of music; to develop and elaborate melodies in his head. It stilled his hunger, and it calmed his turbulent emotions. He sat in silence; in his head the room resounded. What did he care what happened to him now? He could become forgotten, down in that little dungeon—he could pass into memory, into unreality. Like the Beast! He could come unstitched from time and reality. Become a vague music, a fresh breeze in the dungeon’s stale air. Strangers would move into the houses above. Their children and their children’s children would forget all about the War, and the Know-Nothings, and the Night Watch and the Lamplighters and the Low sisters. He’d lie there, turned to crystal and music, something wondrous to be dug up and marveled at in future centuries. He didn’t belong anymore. Time to wake in a better time.

  The door opened with a clang and a rattle of bolts, and Arjun jolted awake, scrambled blinking to his feet, wiping drool from his chin. Where was he?

  Marta Low came into the room. Two unfamiliar women at either side of her each brought in a chair.

  Marta sat. Arjun looked at her in astonishment.

  “You’re alive,” he said.

  “So are you. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “What happened to Ruth?”

  “Ruth? What do you mean? Have you seen her?”

  “What? Her shop is gone. Her house is full of strangers. Is she dead? Did she go with Ivy?”

  “You haven’t seen her?” Marta rolled her eyes in relief. “She’s not dead—as far as I bloody well know. She was alive last week, and doing well, as well as she ever does. Nine days ago she just upped and walked out, off the job. Out into the Ruined Zone.”

  “Ah.” Arjun flushed. He ran a hand through his hair, which was long and filthy. “Ah.” He sat down. “I misunderstood. Ah. My apologies to the man in that house. Is he badly hurt?”

  “He’ll mend.”

  “I’m sorry.” He suddenly laughed. “She’s alive?”

  “She lived through the bombs. Is she alive today? Who knows? This is a bad time to be walking around alone.”

  “If she lived through th
e bombs,” Arjun said, “she’s alive now. I have a great deal of faith in her judgment. Yours is a remarkable family.

  “Ivy,” he said.

  “I don’t want to talk about Ivy.”

  “Ivy …”

  “I don’t want to talk about Ivy.” Her voice dropped into deep registers that had the force of law.

  They sat in silence for a while.

  “So,” she said, “your friend Maury—nasty bit of work. I don’t know why you keep bringing those sort of people round here. It doesn’t make me warm to you.”

  “Hah. No. I don’t suppose it does.”

  “Do you want a drink?”

  “Very much, please.”

  “We have coffee. We have more coffee than we know what to do with. Coffee all right?”

  Coffee was brought in. He asked, “Where did she go?”

  Marta didn’t answer for a long time. At last she said, “She left a note. She went out—she went out looking for the Beast. She left her job behind and went out after a rumor.”

  “It’s alive?”

  “I don’t know. She thinks so.”

  “Can I see the note?”

  “No.”

  “Where did she go?”

  “Not just yet. Not just yet, Arjun.”

  Marta folded her arms and sat back in her chair. She looked at Arjun sternly, and without a great deal of affection. Embarrassed, he scratched at his filthy tramp’s beard. He wondered if she might bring him a razor, and soap. Did they have razors here, or soap? It probably depended on what the old regime had left behind in their warehouses, and where they’d left it. Quite possibly Fosdyke had an overabundance of razors, and Fleet Wark had an overabundance of soap, and with the Ruined Zones dividing them there was no commerce yet. Someone would have to open the way—some explorer, some pioneer.

  It would be someone with the same shrewd and tough expression as Marta Low.

  “Are you in charge here, Marta?”

  “As much as anyone,” she said. “It’s complicated. Day-to-day. Do you really want to hear how things work here?”

  “Not really.” He sipped his coffee. “You’re doing very well. I saw your fields. It may work—you may survive. It’s very impressive.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Thank you.”

  “The Gods have returned. You haven’t gone mad. That’s good.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Inspector Maury’s mad, I’m afraid.”

  She nodded. “We noticed.”

  “Marta, have you heard of a God of music that …”

  “No.”

  “Ah.”

  Her voice softened a little. “We have lights, birds, some big drunken bastard with a beard, and this horrible stretched-out long-fingered thing they call the Tailor. The mad women who worship it snap their scissors all day, they sound like crickets. No music. Sorry.”

  She leaned forward and stared at him. “You don’t know what happened any more than we do, do you?”

  “On the Mountain?”

  “Look, I don’t like talking about this. Just give me a straight answer, will you?”

  “I don’t know, Marta. Maybe Ivy found her way there, maybe she didn’t. I don’t know what she found.”

  “Is all this her fault? The war, is it because of something she did?”

  “Maybe. Who knows? No one’s ever made it past the Mountain’s defenses before. It should have been me. Or maybe the same thing would have happened whoever went.”

  Arjun leaned forward, too. “I’ve thought about this a lot, Marta, while walking in the Ruined Zones. Over all the Ages of the city, a thousand explorers have gone up the Mountain. A thousand thousand pilgrims, thieves, and madmen. The Mountain exists everywhere, everywhen. It is the central puzzle of the city. It anchors the Metacontext. Who made it? I don’t know. Who rules it? No one can be sure. Shay, the Beast said—but how can that be true? This city is an unnatural place, and the Mountain is at its heart. More than a thousand thousand. You’ve never traveled, Marta—you can’t understand the age of the city, its size, the numbers involved, the shadows and reflections.”

  “You sound like Ivy. You sound like my father. I don’t mean that as a compliment.”

  “This has never happened before. The Mountain has never been provoked like this before. It holds itself aloof. It doesn’t make war on the city—that would be absurd, like the moon invading us, or the sun taking someone to court. I think it’s a sign of weakness—it feels like a sign of fear. Did Ivy hurt it? Did she hurt Shay? That doesn’t matter—I know you don’t want to talk about the Mountain. What I mean is that something’s different this time. She did something different from a thousand thousand thousand climbers before her, who failed, who fell, who were forgotten. What happened? I don’t know. I don’t think it would have happened if I’d gone in her place. I don’t think I’m clever enough to hurt the Mountain, or make it afraid. I don’t think I’m cunning enough to hurt Shay in his place of power. I think … Marta, has Ivy come back down?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “I didn’t think so. Marta, will you let me go free? I’ll go after Ruth. I’ll go after the Beast. I’ll begin again. I’m not suited for rebuilding, or farming, or working, the way you are. The only way I can put this right is on the Mountain.”

  “No.” Marta sighed. She leaned back and rubbed her neck. “Ruth made her choice. And we need you here. I’m not bloody happy about it, mind you.”

  Fosdyke was in peril. The Committee for the Emergency was out of its depth.

  In the bright mornings, in the long summer afternoons, Fosdyke hummed along nicely, rebuilding, reknitting the delicate webs of commerce and government, dismantling the ruined buildings and making fields in their place. In a strange way life was better now. It was hard work but people were working for themselves, for their futures, for their children’s futures. The work had a purpose. Men and women who’d slaved mindlessly and resentfully in the factories were learning the habits of free people. Refugees came, and were housed. Fosdyke was a great glorious thumb in the eye to the Mountain. It was a yell of defiance to the bombers. A slap in Shay’s face.

  By day.

  At night the Hollows came.

  The invasion was in full swing. As the sun set they gathered at the borders, in the Ruined Zones, in the long shadows of broken masonry and charred and leafless trees. Dark suits, pale faces, fluttering nervous hands—the awkward sly sidle of beggars, homeless schizophrenics, child-snatchers. Their numbers seemed limitless. They all looked the same—like mass-produced parts. Pale faces scarred and loose, badly made. Sexless, unhappy—if there were women the women looked like the men. Identical, like something mindlessly mathematical—they reproduced themselves like columns of numbers in the ledgers of a failing business. When straggling refugees trailed in from the Ruined Zones, the Hollow Men attached themselves to human families like shadows. They bred suspicion. They disappeared people who went walking alone. They occupied abandoned houses and made them haunted. Bit by bit they subtracted life and energy. Clean-up crew; an unpleasant chore—you could tell they resented it. They were made of resentment. When everyone in Fosdyke was finally dead or gone, the Hollows would take the place of human life. The city below would be nothing but the shadows of the Mountain. “This Shay person,” Marta said. “Soon he’ll never have to worry about us disturbing his peace again.”

  “Creatures like that have chased me,” Arjun said, “since I first came down from the Mountain.”

  “I know.”

  “Brace-Bel had a kind of weapon, a device that unmade them. He stole it from Shay himself. I just used to run away from them.”

  Marta nodded. “Bells, music, fire, loud noises drive them back. They’re shy. They’re pathetic. But you can’t hurt them. They just sneak around behind you, and kill …”

  “Do you have any hope of stopping them?”

  Marta reached forward and put a firm hand on Arjun’s shoulder. “That’s up to you, isn’t it?” Grima
cing, she brushed a strand of his long and filthy hair out of his face. “You’re the only magician I see here. What are you going to do about all this?”

  Arjun shaved and washed. Fosdyke had both razors and soap, not to mention running water. He changed his clothes. Where did the water come from? Perhaps it was best not to ask. Razors, soap, and water; what more did one need to fall in love with a civilization?

  Ruth would survive, he decided. She was probably as safe in the Ruined Zones as she would be in Fosdyke. She was almost certainly safer out of his presence than in it. He had interfered in her life quite enough; let her be. In the meantime he could make amends by ensuring that if and when she returned she would have a home to return to. He would play the hero—not his favorite role, but one he’d worn before. Yes. He examined himself in the mirror, and was pleased with his decision. Everything made more sense clean shaven.

  Over a long lunch he met with the leading lights of the Committee for the Emergency, and was fully briefed on the situation—the distribution of the attacks, the vectors of the Hollows’ approach. It was more than he could hold in his head. The Mountain and its servants throve in conditions of a complexity that was beyond ordinary understanding. The maps weren’t helpful— there was no particular front, no relevant borders. It was no ordinary invasion. More like a plague. More like an unpleasant rumor. He nodded and tried to look confident.

  In the afternoon he went walking through the sunny streets. A bodyguard followed at a discreet distance. He listened. He tried to imagine the Hollows drifting murderously through those streets at night. It was almost unbearably painful to contemplate. He had no idea how to stop it.

  Children came to stare at him. The rumor was out that he was a wise man. Probably Marta had leaked the news, to boost morale. Very wise, Arjun thought—despair would only strengthen the Hollow Men. They were at home in despair and humiliation.

  A small redheaded boy grabbed at his sleeve and said, “Mister, is it true? Mister, where are you from?”