The Dragons of Babel

by Michael Swanwick

  "Knew him personally, did you?" Nat said, amused.

  "I was not always as you see me now," the Duchess said haughtily. "Long ago, I was young and guileless. To say nothing of being small enough to fit into a teacup. I lived in a crevice in the rock on the upper slopes of Ararat then, beside a narrow path to its top. Every morning King Nimrod strode up that path to sing the mountain higher, and every evening he came down again. Such was his habit, and I thought nothing of it for I was then but a dumb beast and innocent of speech or reason.

  "One day Nimrod did not climb the mountain. Oh. what a day that was! Great storms fought like dragons in the sky, and lightning lashed the rock. The earth shook to its very foundations, and the mountain danced. There are no words to describe the fury of it. That was the day — but it was many a century before I figured this out — when, in his direst peril, Nimrod called up the sea to destroy his enemies. Ararat rang like a bell then, when the ocean waters struck it fiercer than any hammer, drowning the marshlands at his command and creating the Bay of Demons, which even now is our port and the source of Babel's wealth. But I suppose you already know that story."

  "Yes, Will said." Solemnly, Nat intoned:

  "Before history existed, before time began, King Nimrod led the People from Urdumheim. Across the stunned and empty world they fled, To the place of marshes in the time of flood..."

  His stentorian boom lapsed into a normal speaking voice, and he said. "If you want, I can recite all eight thousand lines."

  "Whose tale is this, yours or mine?'' the Duchess snapped. "The next day Nimrod came slowly up the mountain. All discontent was his expression and his glance went everywhere, as if he were looking for something he could not find. Chancing upon me, he stopped and of a whim picked me up. Holding me to his face, he addressed me thus: 'Look upon my works, small natterjack, and despair.' His cheeks were streaked with tears, for the price he had paid for his people's emancipation was death. They had been born immortal and he had made them subject to the great wheel of time.

  "I, of course, said nothing.

  "But Nimrod was soliloquizing, and the Mighty need only the slightest excuse for an audience — which I was — and no sign of comprehension from it either. 'Diminished,' said he, 'are my powers. The mountain that was to be our fortress. I cannot raise another span. Better freedom and death, thought I,. than endless life as a slave. Now I am not so sure. What point is there to building, when all must someday come undone? And if I must die someday, then why wait? Tomorrow is no better than today.' He stopped and eyed me critically. 'You ken not a word of this, d'ye? Brute animals know death only when it comes to them. Well, power enough do I yet retain to make you understand.

  "Then his fingers, which to then had held me lightly, closed about me like a cage. Slowly he contracted his hand, and began to crush the life from me. I struggled but could not escape. Great then was my terror! And in that instant did I indeed comprehend the nature of death."

  "What did you do?" Will asked

  "I did what any self-respecting toad would do. I pissed in his hand."

  Nat winced. "That was perhaps not the wisest possible action, given that Nimrod was not only a mage but a Power." "What did I know? I was a fucking toad!" "So what happened?"

  "Nimrod laughed, and put me down. 'Live, little toad,' he said. 'Grow and prosper.' So I crawled as deep into the rock as I could go, and there must have been some puissance yet remaining in his words, for here I've been ever since."

  "It must be hard on you to be trapped in a bubble of rock and unable to leave," Will said.

  "I have my newspaper. I listen to my little radio. Most years I make enough money to keep myself fed, and when I don't I go into hibernation. It's a life."

  At that instant there came a clattering like an avalanche of kitchen-ware from the stairs. The door burst open, and with a thunder of hooves and a spray of splinters, a spidery black nag pulled itself to a violent stop. Behind it, the stairway was steep and winding. The horse must have had double-jointed legs to run so cannily down it, and sinews of steel to come so quickly still. In one fluid motion, its rider leapt from its back. He was the captain of lancers they had seen before.

  Will froze in the act of lighting a cigarette. Across the table, Nat looked shocked and saddened. "You dimed us out, Duchess."

  The toad grimaced. "You're a pretty young thing," she said, "and I like pretty things. But the hunt for you was all over the police scanner, and I didn't live to be the age I am by taking chances."

  The horse straightened its legs and shook itself. Its rider had lost or left behind his saber in the chase and his troop of lancers as well, but he still carried an automatic pistol at his side, and the effortless way he had unsnapped the holster flap as he dismounted suggested he could draw it quickly.

  He bowed slightly. "Captain Bagabyxas at your service." He was elegantly lean, with a sharp and narrow face. "I'm afraid I'll have to take you in for questioning."

  Will exhaled a mouthful of smoke. He dipped two lingers into his pocket and drew out his passport" You'll be wanting this, I suppose."

  "I will, thanks." Tin-captain accepted the passport without lowering his glance. He tucked it away in his jacket. "You look to be intelligent fellows, and anybody with halt a mind finding himself in your situation would be giving thought to escaping." Esme reached up from Nat’s lap to stroke the horse's nose, and Bagabyxas smiled faintly. "I advise you not to try. It will count in your favor if you come along peacefully."

  Will glanced at Nat and saw his eyes Hick once toward the kitchen door. Out that way, then, there would be a back entrance, and a service passage, and once through that, myriad ways to go. All they needed was a moment's distraction.

  Under his breath, he murmured. "...schwa."

  The lancer's coat burst into flame.

  Like leaves before a storm, they blew through the kitchen and out the back door. Nat went first with Esme on his shoulder, her wild laughter trailing behind them. Will followed after. "Are... are all your days this exciting?" he putted when they finally stumbled to a halt. They were in a service corridor whose walls were painted industrial green.

  "Too many of them, I fear. It comes with the territory when you're a confidence trickster." Nat chuckled. "Ahh, but how about that Duchess? She was quite the gal, wasn't she? What a pity we couldn't work together."

  "Stop! Freexe!"

  Far down the corridor stood Bagabyxas, his jacket and hair engulfed in flames, and yet — somehow, madly — still determined to stop their escape. His gun arm rose up.

  A bullet sizzled through the air between Will and Nat. An instant afterwards came the gun's report, loud enough in the enclosed space that Will could hear nothing else for several minutes.

  Again, they fled.

  Bagabyxas followed.

  They ran down one nightmarish hallway after another without losing the burning lancer. He fired at least three shots, each one a blow to Will's ringing ears. But then, as Will ran past a steel access door, chained shut but slightly ajar in its frame, his hand of its own accord lashed out to the side and grabbed it, almost wrenching his arm from its socket.

  He found himself lying on the floor, staring up at a narrow triangular opening between door and jamb, where the door had been wrenched out of true.

  "Freeze!" Bagabyxas cried again.

  Frantically, Will squeezed through the space and tumbled down a short set of metal stairs. As he lurched to his feet, he heard the burning man yanking furiously at the door. The chain wouldn't hold long at that rate.

  He ran.

  Rats scurried away at his approach. Roaches crunched underfoot. He was in a great dark space, punctuated by massive I-beams and lit only by infrequent bare bulbs whose light struggled to reach the floor. Somehow, he had made his way into the network of train tunnels that spiraled up through Babel Tower.

  Careful to avoid the third rail, he followed one curving set of tracks into darkness, listening for approaching trains Sometimes he heard their thunde
r in the distance, and once a train thundered past, mere inches from where he pressed himself, shivering, against the wall, and left him temporarily blinded. When he could see again, the tunnels were silent and there was no light behind him, such as the Burning Man must surely cast if he were still on Will's trail. He was safe now.

  And hopelessly lost.

  He'd been plodding along for some time when he saw a sewer worker—a haint—in the tunnel up ahead, in hip waders and hard hat. "What you doing here, white boy?" the haint asked when Will hailed him.

  "I'm lost."

  "Well, you best get yourself unlost. They's trouble brewing." "I can't," Will began. "I don't know—"

  "It's your ass," the haint said. He faded through a wall and was gone. Will spat in frustration. Then he walked on.

  He knew that he'd wandered into dangerous territory when his left hand suddenly rose up of its own volition to clutch his right forearm. Stop! he thought to himself. Adrenaline raced through his veins.

  Will peered into the claustrophobic blackness and saw nothing. A distant electric bulb cast only the slightest glimmer on the rails. The pillars here were as thick as trees in a midnight forest. He could not make out how far they extended. But by the spacious feel of the air, he was in a place where several lines of tracks joined and for a time ran together.

  Far behind him was a lone set of signal lights, unvarying green and red dots.

  He was abruptly aware of how easy it would be for somebody to sneak up behind him here. Maybe, he thought, he should turn around and go back

  In that instant, an unseen fist punched him hard in the stomach.

  Will bent over almost double, and simultaneously his arms were seized from either side. His captors shoved him forward and forced him down onto his knees. His head was bent almost to the ground.

  "Release him." The voice was warm and calm, that of a leader.

  The hands let go. Will remained kneeling. Gasping, he straightened and looked about.

  He was surrounded.

  They—whoever they were—had come up around him in silence. Will's sense of hearing was acute, but even now he couldn't place them by sound. Rather, he felt the pressure of their collective gaze, and saw their eyes, pair by pair, wink into existence.

  "Boy, you're in a shitload of trouble now." the voice said.

  8

  Jack Riddle

  The speaker's eyes glowed red. "Well? Bast got your tongue? I'm giving you the opportunity to explain why you have invaded the Army of Night's turf. You won't get a second one."

  Will fought down his fear. There was great danger here, but great opportunity as well — if he had the nerve to grasp it. Speaking with a boldness he did not feel, he said. "This is your territory. I recognize that. It wasn't my intention to trespass. But now that I'm here, I hope you'll allow me to stay."

  Calmly dangerously, the speaker said, "Oh?"

  "I m broke, paperless, and without friends. I need someplace to be. This looks as good as any. Let me join your army and I'll serve you well."

  "Lord Weary knows you're a fugitive." said a whispery voice. "You can't hide a thing like that. Not here in the dark. There are no distractions here, no sunlight to dazzle the eye."

  "Who's chasing you?" asked Lord Weary.

  Will thought of the political police, of the lancers, of the Burning Man, and made a wry grimace. "Who isn't?"

  "He kinda cute," said somebody female. "If we can't fight, maybe we find some other use for him."

  Several of her comrades snickered. One murmured, "You bad, Jenny."

  "Lord Weary is amused," said the whisperer, "and thus inclined to be merciful. But mercy does not extend far here. You will be beaten and driven away, lest you bring your pursuers down upon the Army of Night."

  A new voice said, "That's bullshit! The Breaknecks sent him here to spy on us. He dies. Simple as that."

  "That's not your decision, Tatterwag," Lord Weary said sharply.

  "Siktir git!" Tattcrwag swore. "We know what he is!"

  "Are we savages? No, we are a community of brothers. Whatever is done here will be done in accordance with our laws." There was a long pause, during which Will imagined Lord Weary looking from side to side to see it any dared oppose him. When no one did, he went on, "You brought this upon yourself."

  Will didn't ask what Lord Weary meant by that. He recognized a gang when he encountered one — he'd run with enough of them as a boy. There was always a leader, always the bright kid who stood at his shoulder advising him, always the troublemaker who wanted to usurp the leader's place. They always had laws, which were never written down. Their idea of justice was inevitably the lex talionis, an eye for an eye and a drubbing for an insult. They always settled their differences with a fight.

  "Trial by combat." the Whisperer said.

  Somebody lit a match. With a soft hiss, a Coleman lantern shed fierce white light over the thronged I-beams, making them leap and then fall as the flame was adjusted down again to a soft near-extinction.

  "You may stand now," Lord Weary said.

  Will stood.

  A ragged line of some twenty to thirty feys confronted him. They were of varied types and races, tall and short, male and female, but all looked beaten and angry, like feral dogs that know they can never triumph over the village dwellers but will savage one who is caught alone and without weapons. The lantern shone through several, but dimly, as if through smoked glass, and by this Will knew that they were haints.

  Directly before Will stood a tall figure whose air of command made clear that he could only be Lord Weary. He had the pallor, high cheekbones, and lanceolate ears of one of high-elven blood, and the noble bearing of a born leader as well. Will could not pick out the owners of the other two voices.

  But then a swamp-gaunt rushed out of the pack and. pointing a reed-thin arm at Will, cried, "He's one of the Breakneck Boys! I say we kill him now. Just kill him!"

  So he had to be Tatterwag.

  Will stepped forward, throwing a hard shoulder into the gaunt to knock him aside. "Kill me if you think it possible," he said to Lord Weary." But I don't think you can. If you doubt me, then name your champion. Make him the biggest, strongest mother you've got. so there won't be any doubt afterward that I could defeat any one of you if I had to. I do not brag. Then, if you'll take me, I will gladly pledge my loyalty and put my powers at your service."

  "That was well spoken," Lord Weary said mildly. "But talk is cheap and times are hard." Raising his voice, he said, "Who shall be our champion?"

  "Bonecrusher," somebody said.

  There was susurration of agreement. "Bonecrusher... 'Crusher... The big fella... Yeah, Bonecrusher."

  The figure that shambled forward was covered with fur, wore no clothing, and carried a length of metal pipe for a club. It was a wodewose — a wild man of the forest.

  Will had seen wild men before, out in the Old Forest. In some ways, they were little more than animals, though articulate enough for simple conversations and too cunning to be safely hunted. They were stuck forever in the dawn-times, unable to cope with any way of life more sophisticated than a hunter-gatherer existence nor any tool more complex than a pointed stick. Machines they feared, and they would not sleep in houses, though occasionally an injured one might take shelter in a barn. He could not imagine what twisty path had brought this one so far from his natural habitat.

  The wodewose's mouth worked with the effort of summoning up words. "Fuck you." he said at last. Then, after a pause, "Asshole."

  Will bowed. "I accept your challenge, sir I'll do my best to do you no permanent harm."

  A mean grin appeared in the wild man's unkempt beard. "You're bugfuck," he said, and then, "Shithead."

  This was another thing that every gang Will had ever been in had: Somebody big and stupid who lived to fight.

  Lord Weary faded back into darkness and returned bearing a length of pipe, much like the one the wodewose carried. He handed it to Will. There are no rules," he said. "Except
that one of you must die." He raised his voice. "Are the combatants ready?"

  "Fuck, yeah."

  "Yes," Will said.

  "Then douse the light."

  All in an instant, darkness swallowed Will whole. In sudden fear he cried, "I can't see!"

  There was a smile in Lord Weary's voice. "We can."

  With a soft scuffle of bare feet, Bonecrusher attacked.

  Though Will felt himself as good as blind, there must have been some residual fraction of light, for he saw a pale glint of pipe as it slashed downward at his head. Panicked, he brought up his own pipe just in time to block it.

  The force of the blow buckled his knees.

  The wodewose raised the pipe again, then chopped it down, trying for Will's shin. Will was barely about to leap back from it in time. There was a clang as the pipe bounced off the rail, striking sparks. He found himself panting, though he hadn't even struck a blow yet.

  Will knew how to fight with a quarterstaff — every village lad did — but the wild man was not fighting quarterstaff-style but club-style. It was a sweeping, muscular fighting technique the like of which he had never faced before. The club slashed past him again, inches from his chest. Had it connected it would have broken Will's ribs. The wild man followed through, as if he were swinging a baseball bat, and brought it smoothly back, hard and level. Will ducked low, saving his skull from being crushed.

  Will swung his pipe wildly and felt it bounce off the wodewose's ribs. But it didn't even slow the wild man down. His club came down on Will's shoulder.

  Just barely, Will managed to twist aside so that the club only dealt him a glancing, stinging blow to his arm. But that was enough to numb him for an instant and make his fingers involuntarily release their hold on one end of his weapon. Now it was held only by his left hand.