by Felix Gilman
He would be back soon, he said. In the meantime he had made arrangements with Mrs. Rawley from the Tearoom down the street; she’d look in on them from time to time, and make sure that they were fed, and bathed, and schooled.
Mr. Low left that afternoon. As promised he took Ivy, who looked very grave and serious in the grey raincoat he found for her—which was to say, Marta’s raincoat.
Mr. Low’s promises regarding Mrs. Raw ley unfortunately turned out to be false. It turned out that he’d told her he would be away for two nights, maybe three, and she was entirely unprepared for his long absence—which stretched out into a week, two weeks, a month, two months, and still there was no word from him, or from Ivy. After two months Mrs. Rawley passed the girls off to Mrs. Guip, who one month later handed them into the care of old Mrs. Thay er, and so on, all down Carnyx Street, until after six months had gone by, Marta insisted that they were quite capable of looking after themselves, and they returned to the drafty and dusty old house Mr. Low built.
By that time, Ruth’s evening schooling was finished, and she and Marta both worked making boots; and Marta had decided that the Dad was clearly dead—no matter how Ruth cried, Marta said, the fact was that the Dad was clearly dead. It was better if he was dead than if he’d just decided to walk out. Less hurtful. And Marta had ideas about how, with all the strange stock the Dad had left behind, heaped in boxes in the cellar and the attic, it might be possible to keep some of his odd little businesses going…
Eleven months after he’d walked out the door Mr. Low returned. He sauntered in through the kitchen door while the girls were eating, and at first they took him for a Know-Not hing or a burglar and Marta reached for the shotgun over the mantelpiece, but then they saw Ivy with him.
He said, “What are you eating? Smells good. “ It seemed he expected the girls to be delighted to see him, to rush at him with hugs and kisses; when they only stared coldly at him, he scowled, suddenly furious, and stomped down into the cellar. And Ruth felt terribly guilty.
Isn’t that ridiculous?” she said. She wiped her eyes and laughed. “I felt guilty.”
The Beast nodded and gave an eager grunt.
Outside the owl called again.
Marta—older, harder—swore. “Son of a fucking bitch.”
And Ivy laughed.
Mr. Low had lost weight on his travels. He had always been plump; now he was wiry, hollow eyed and hollow cheeked, and his old brown coat didn’t quite fit. “Fucking hard out there, “ he muttered. “You don’t know. “ He had acquired a scar on his scalp, and a number of rings for his fingers. His manner was changed—his jokes had turned needling and vicious. He had developed a habit of baring his teeth when annoyed, and he was frequently annoyed now. His hair, which he now wore long and tied back like a horse’s tail, had gone stark white.
And Ivy was changed, too. She’d grown precociously beautiful, but also hard, and wild. Her hair was cut in an exotic style, straight and severe. She seemed in some ways much older now than her sisters, while in other ways she was like a nasty and cunning child. For instance:
Marta refused to talk to the Dad for weeks, and Ruth, in solidarity, stayed silent, too—and anyway the Dad showed no inclination toward saying where he’d been—and so the only possible source of information was Ivy. And Ivy was mean about it. She teased and held the information out and demanded promises and favors and self-abasement for it.
But finally Ivy laughed prettily and gave in, and said: we went to the edge.
To the farthest edge of the city, where everything ended. It was the proof of a theory—so Ivy said the Dad had said. It was important to understand the density of things, which required a trip to the limits of space. And frequently they got lost—it was, Ivy said, a complex navigation problem. All the street signs and numbers and directions always changed. Little Ivy showed off her mastery of all the foreign dialects in which she could now curse.
Before the world could be escaped, it had to be measured. Before entering the City Beyond, the City-to-Hand had to be fully apprehended. What the fuck does that mean, Marta asked; Ivy was vague, sly.
A complex navigation problem, Ivy said; and so the Dad would not have made it without her. The Dad was a genius at getting things out of the people they passed—shelter, food, directions, secrets, free passage, protection, weapons. At first by smiling and joking, but more and more often—as they were hounded by Know-Nothings and police and gangs and worse south from district to district—by threats, and mockery, and humiliation, and blackmail. But for all his gifts the Dad needed Ivy to navigate. The mathematics were too complicated for him, or so Ivy said.
They traveled under a dozen different names. They went hungry. Tough decisions had to be made. They cheated, were cheated in turn. The Dad hardened, got thin. When it came right down to it, there was nothing he wouldn’t sacrifice. He bargained Ivy away, stole her back. Once, Ivy teased, she had seen the Dad kill a man; but that story would cost extra—and in fact she never did tell it.
And so eventually they reached the edge of the city, where the slag heaps and ash and weeds simply piled up infinitely on the border, and there was no point in going further, because there was nothing left to see, and there never would be.
For a few hours Mr. Low took observations. It was like it was nearly night but there were no stars.
Then they went home. “Obviously, “ Ivy said, “it was quicker going home. “
Two months later the Dad vanished again. Marta would always insist that he must have walked out during the night, but—Ruth said—both the back door and the front were bolted from the inside, and the Dad had gone down into the cellar, and no one ever saw him come back up.
He took most of his notes, his maps, his collection of signs and keys. He left most of his experiments and devices—though it seemed he destroyed a few critical machines, leaving little piles of ash and tangled wire.
Ivy screamed and sobbed with red-faced rage: he promised he promised to take me with him. Her shrill voice echoed up from the cellar, where she paced among her father’s discarded experiments. She pored frantically over the last few scraps of paper. She drew on the walls—designs that were abstruse, mathematical, painfully incomplete.
“Come on, Ivy, “ Ruth said. “It’s dark down here. You need to sleep. “ “Forget it, Ruth,” Marta said. “You can’t help her.” Once in the middle of the night Ivy woke her sisters screaming: he closed the way behind him, he closed the way! He never came back.
A sad story,” the Beast said. It sat very close, now; its scarred hand was on Ruth’s knee.
“That’s my sob story.” Ruth laughed. “Marta doesn’t like my telling people—but you’re not really a person, are you?”
“I don’t really know if it’s sad or not. Your eyes are a little wet, Ruth. I am deficient in sympathy. I am a monster—had you forgotten?”
“Is he?”
“Is who what?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, Ruth.”
She sighed. “You’re sure?”
“Generally, my master went by Shay, or Hangley, or Cuttle. Occasionally, he used the alias Lemuel. Once, just once, I witnessed a transaction where he had no choice but to give his true name. He thought he’d banished me to the shadows, but I was disloyal, I spied. Later, on my master’s orders, I hunted the man who now possessed my master’s name, and murdered him. Tore out his throat with my teeth. Rich blood! My master’s true name was Low.”
The Beast was close enough now to kiss her.
“He didn’t like it. He didn’t like to be reminded of everything he’d left behind. Everything he’d sacrificed to become what he was. Everything, as he put it, that had held him back for so long. The unforgivable mediocrity of his origins. Everything that had contained and stifled that impossible ambition of his. I don’t mean to be cruel, Ruth, but he is what he is. And that was whenIknew him, and he and I were young! The one who rules the Mountain is so old, now. I wonder if he remembers you at al
l?”
The Beast smelled nothing like a living thing—its breath was dust, spirits, dried blood, electricity. The hiss and echo of its voice drowned out the noise of something heavy clattering in the distance.
“When you were a little girl, and you wandered into my vault in the Museum, I knew at once what you were. I smelled your extraordinary blood. You were happy. For you, it had not happened yet. My head spun. I had drifted, over the centuries, into a kind of dead thing, a never-alive thing: slowly, I began to wake! Extraordinary blood in you. You and your father, you and your sisters. I knew you could accomplish wonderful things, I knew I could do wonderful things with you. Your father was still with you, then. I heard his voice, calling after you. I considered killing him—but then what would become of me? Would I be never-made? These are difficult calculations, and I am a simple creature.”
The Beast’s fierce eyes were paralyzing. Ruth tried to stand but couldn’t. No—she tried to try to stand. She tried to try to try … Her will failed at every hurdle.
“I waited. I woke slowly. I shook off the dust of years of nonbeing. My blood was cold and I was slow—the Know-Nothings made me a prisoner. That complicated matters. Caged in the darkness I planned. I called to the ghosts who fell down the Mountain, and sometimes, when I was lucky, I drew them to me. Like a frog catching fireflies. I reached out into their dreams—those who are drawn to the Mountain are fools for dreams. I sent them to you. I hoped … It amazes me that Arjun, of all of them, was the one to free me. I tell you these things because we have the same father, and I am sorry, as much as something like me can be sorry.”
The Beast placed its hand on her shoulder. “You freed me. Ivy went up. I hoped she would kill him. It seems she failed. But oh, how it must have hurt him to see her! To see his past invade his sanctuary! His bitter isolation! She would have been unkind to him. She had a sharp tongue.”
The Beast licked its lips. “The blood is important. The flesh. The face you wear. Ivy wounded him. What would it do to him to see you?”
“I won’t …”
“No. I will wear your flesh. I will hide in it and drive him mad.”
For the first time Ruth noticed the knife in the Beast’s hand.
“I’m sorry, Ruth. To the best of my abilities. This isn’t fair. None of this has been fair for anyone. But it will be better for you this way. When I kill your father, when I take the Mountain—well, you would not want to live in a city remade in my image.”
Some Deaths-The Road-Speed
and Noise-The Trap Closes
Now all the strays in the tent perked up their ears, shifted into solidity, let their black eyes shine. They hissed and whispered. Leaning forward, the Beast opened its mouth wide, and the stitches all along its jaw stretched and ripped. Wider and wider: yellow teeth caught the light, and behind the cage of those teeth there were more teeth, and more. Its eyes were no longer human at all.
She kicked it in its belly as hard as she could. It doubled over, grunting in pain. The knife waved vaguely at her as she scrambled back. She slid and tangled herself in the silk pillows. She fell. The cushion beneath her face was embroidered with a green dragon, curling around and around and around its own tail … A hand gripped her leg. She kicked back and it let go; there was a snarl of shock and outrage.
It’s not used to being human, she thought, it’s not used to being weak.
A glance behind. Its eyes blazed. Its back rippled as it raised itself on all fours. Stitches opened. Delicate work was undone. It reverted to savagery. It opened its mouth to say something, some threat, some promise, and nothing but strangling and hissing emerged. A look of irritation crossed its face. Impatiently it pushed its jaw closed with its left hand. The right hand boasted long claws. There was a constant banging at the back of the room, loud now and wild, as if someone was beating a harsh drum. The Beast lunged, grabbed her, sank sharp fingernails into the thin flesh of her upper arm. It spun and hurled her, as if she weighed nothing, as if she’d left everything behind in the wilderness, so that she flew through the dark and landed lightly in a drift of silk. When she sat up, the Beast stood over her, the knife raised to strike. Behind it one of the tall lacquered cabinets was shaking. Its scrollwork of gold and jade flickered in the light of the lanterns. The door lurched again, and again, in time with the banging, then suddenly burst off its hinges, and Arjun came tumbling out, falling facefirst into the cushions. He wore grey flannel and carried no weapon that Ruth could see. The Beast started to laugh.
Ruth ran for the tent’s mouth. The Beast lunged for her. Arjun got to his feet, and, laughing, the Beast turned back toward him. Something heavy and scaled lashed across the floor and swept Ruth off her feet—a tail?—then a moment later it was gone. The Beast’s form was swelling, indistinct. Through its vague flesh Ruth saw Arjun dive for the operating table, snatch up a scalpel, and turn back to the Beast. He jabbed with the scalpel and found only shadows. The strays shrieked and called out nonsense: Swithin! Sewer! Dowry! Embers! The Beast raised its claws over Arjun’s head— knife? claws?—and swung. Ruth threw a vase at its back and it spun round to face her. Arjun scrambled toward the tent’s flap. He shouted, “Ruth!” She thought,^, what?
“Ruth, you’re alive!”
The Beast kept laughing.
They changed places again.
“Enough, Ruth.” The Beast was hard to look at now.
Ruth threw open the heavy slick door of the tent, and the cold night blew in. Wings beat around her head and Flitter’s owl hooted like an engine. A flash of dark eyes—then it rushed past her and into the tent. Behind her, the Beast roared. She turned back again, caught a glimpse of scales and feathers and rending claws, two shadows struggling …
Arjun grabbed her wrist and dragged her out into the night.
“That thing, like a bird—did you do that?” he said.
“No, it’s …”
Outside in the quarry, the Beast’s followers stood in a vague mass. They hovered around the oilcan bonfires like tramps, bony, shiftless, confused. The tent bulged and rippled, and horrible shrieks emerged from it. Flitter, hands over his mouth, tears streaming from his face, ran into the tent, whimpering pretty girl, please, pretty girl, no … He screamed once and went silent. Silt—Ruth thought it was Silt—some bony sexless skeleton in rags and bird-bones—picked up a hammer and dumbly considered its possibilities as a weapon. Arjun held her close and said, “Ah.” Someone shouted and someone else moaned.
Excuse me!” A new voice, echoing around the quarry. “Excuse me? Would you all please shut up?”
Down the slope and into the quarry came a little procession of men. They carried guns. They fanned confidently out, spacing themselves around the Beast’s little camp. One of the Beast’s people complained and was knocked efficiently to the floor. The man at the lead of these new intruders approached the tent. He said, “Thank you.” He paused to collapse a brass instrument that might have been a telescope and hand it off to one of his men. He passed by one of the fires and Ruth recognized his smile, his golden hair, his handsome unpleasant face. He said, “We’ll take it from here.”
Arjun let go of Ruth’s arm. He said, “St. Loup.”
St. Loup grinned enormously.
St. Loup turned to the Beast’s followers with what appeared to be genuine surprise. “Why are you still here? Things are difficult enough already. Piss off.” They did.
“Good,” he said, and sat on the hood of one of the Beast’s black motorcars. “What a beautiful machine. It has good taste for a monster.” He clapped his hands. “Quick, quick.”
His men surrounded the tent. Who were they? They didn’t look local. They had dark brown skin and neat little ginger beards—an unappealing combination. Their clothes were plain and black and their guns—which they now slung over their backs—were heavy and complicated and distinctly unusual. They pulled strange implements from boxes.
St. Loup wore a loose shirt of shimmering duck’s-head green, open-necked, and beneath it
a gold necklace. His own gun, which he began toying with, was a sleek little thing, blue and white, like a bird. The bruise on his temple was fading to yellow.
He saw Ruth watching him, and winked.
She said, “Arjun, who is this?”
“We’re the best of friends,” St. Loup said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Arjun said. “Leave her alone, St. Loup, she’s not important, I’m here for the Beast.”
“Oh shut up. I know exactly who she is. I’ve been watching her for Ages. When I got here the first thing I did was research all your little friends. I may look like a fool but I didn’t get where I am today without doing my homework. When did you work it out?”
Arjun shook his head. “Just now. I just found out. It was in the Know-Nothings’ files, but I was busy with other things.”
“Who is this?”
“We’re family,” St. Loup said. “Your father made us all who we are. That awful thing, too.” He gestured toward the tent. “I wanted to know what it was going to say to you. Now I know. So now what I am going to do with you all?”
The Beast’s erstwhile followers scrabbled and slipped up the slopes of the quarry and their grunts and footsteps echoed. In the heart of the quarry the tent had gone still and silent. It slumped in the windless night, cautious, turtlelike. Encircling it, St. Loup’s men now brandished a variety of items. One had a dogcatcher’s net. One had an immense hunting rifle, another a crossbow. Three carried what appeared to be icons of religion or witchcraft—a spoked wheel, a cross with a little naked wooden man on it, a big rod with dead birds and rats attached by wire and string. One held what looked remarkably like the cane Brace-Bel used to carry, with its eerily glowing crystal. One had a machine that Ruth simply could not comprehend. It had wires and dials and valves and a glowing green window, and it hummed.
