“Any progress with Wiclov’s history?” she asks.
“We think so,” says Pitry. “You were right about the loomworks. He is the confirmed owner of three of them in eastern Bulikov. But we noticed that at the same time Wiclov started buying the loomworks, he also started purchasing materials from a Saypuri company: Vidashi Incorporated.”
“Vidashi…” The name is only vaguely familiar to her. “Wait….The ore refinery?”
“Yep,” says Pitry. He wheels the car around a winding curve. “It seems Wiclov has been buying very small increments of steel from them. Every month, like clockwork. Very arbitrary amounts, too—within one thousand five hundred pounds and one thousand nine hundred pounds every time. We’re not sure wh—”
Shara sits forward. “It’s the weight check.”
“What?”
“The weight check! The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has automatic background checks on purchasers of large quantities of materials! Oil, wood, stone, metal…We want to know who we’re selling to, if they buy large enough amounts. And for steel, the weight check amount must be—”
“Two thousand pounds,” realizes Pitry. “So the Ministry has never checked on him.”
The drugged boy in the jail cell confessed that they’d gone after Vohannes for his “metal.” Which leads Shara to wonder—why try to kidnap Vohannes if you’re already purchasing steel through legitimate means?
Unless I spooked them, she thinks. I wanted to stir up the hornets’ nest, didn’t I? They must not have acquired enough steel for whatever it is that they’re making….So when Pangyui was killed, and a Ministry operative arrived, they got nervous, and desperate.
She stares out the window, her mind racing. What could they possibly be building? What use could someone have for so much steel?
She keeps thinking on it until she sees something peeking over the rooftops at her: a huge, black tower, a ten-story stripe of ebony against the gray night sky.
Her heart twitches.
Oh, no, thinks Shara. They can’t be taking her there. Not there…
She has not been to see this place yet. It seems unreal to believe it still exists.
Of all the things the Kaj threw down, why did he leave that still standing?
* * *
—
Pitry parks in an alley. The darkness in an old doorway trembles; Sigrud emerges from the shadows and paces across the street.
“Please do not tell me they went in there,” says Shara as she climbs out.
“Into where?” asks Sigrud.
“The bell tower.”
Sigrud stops, bemused. “Why do you ask?”
Shara sighs and readjusts her glasses. “Show me,” she says.
The streets of Bulikov are almost impenetrably dark at night in quarters most affected by the Blink: no one has been able to lay gas lines here, as the disturbances reach deep down into the earth. One construction company made a valiant attempt, only to discover a sheet of iron three feet thick, forty feet tall, and (they estimated) a quarter-mile long simply suspended in the loam below the streets. No one could logically explain its existence: eventually, like so many aberrations, they assumed it was one of the unintended and inexplicable consequences of the Blink. Though the iron sheet could be dealt with, the company withdrew its bid, perhaps out of concern about what else might be buried below Bulikov.
At the center of this damaged neighborhood is a wide, empty park. Sapling firs grow in the damp soil: recent transplants, as all the natural vegetation in Bulikov died when the climate abruptly changed. Behind these is a long building with one huge tower at the north end, a belfry with a very curious, skeletal structure at the top: a metal globe-like frame that appears to have once held a carillon, but is now empty. The base of the structure is rambling clay walls with a flat roof to which time has not been kind: the roof dips and curves like a field marred by a glacier.
“They went in there?” asks Shara.
“No,” says Sigrud. He points to a long, dismal-looking municipal structure at the edge of the park. “Wiclov and one other man took her in there. Just adjacent to it. Why do you worry so?”
“Because that”—Shara nods at the bell tower—“is the oldest structure in Bulikov, after the walls. It was at the center of Bulikov, originally, though the lopsided effects of the Blink considerably changed that. The Center of the Seat of the World. Normally just called the Seat of the World, though outsiders called Bulikov the same.”
“A temple?”
“Something like that. Supposedly it was like Saypur’s Parliament House, but for the Divinities. Though I always imagined it would look much grander—it is quite shabby, I must say, and I remember reading it had amazing stained glass—but I’m told the Blink did not leave it unscathed. Apparently the tower was originally much, much taller. Each Divinity had a bell housed there, and the ringing of each bell had different…effects.”
“Such as?”
She shrugs. “No one knows. Which is why I’m reluctant to be here. So it was Wiclov who came?”
“Wiclov and one attendant. They came and took Torskeny to that little building. Then, forty minutes ago, Wiclov and his attendant departed. No sign of Torskeny.”
“That’s rather bold of them to operate in the open. Where did they go afterward?”
Sigrud’s face darkens.
“Let me guess,” says Shara. “They took a series of turns throughout the streets, and then they suddenly—”
“Vanished,” says Sigrud. “Yes. This is the third time. Yet I have remembered”—he taps the side of his head hard enough for it to make a noise—“each place where these people have disappeared. The only pattern I see is that they are all within this quarter, and the one to the west.”
“The ones most damaged by the Blink,” says Shara. “Which supports a theory I’ve just now halfway confirmed.” She runs a hand over the scarred brick wall behind them. “They are exploiting some damage or effect of the Blink for their own ends.”
“How are you so sure?”
“A piece of silver,” says Shara, “changed into lead not more than an hour ago as it passed through the alley where the surviving attacker disappeared. This sort of thing was only ever witnessed immediately after the Blink.”
“How are you so sure it wasn’t a miracle?”
“Because I used all the tricks I knew of to look for miracles,” says Shara, “and found none. No Divine workings at all, leaving only the Blink as a possible cause. It is worth noting, though, that no one has ever been able to adequately study the Blink. The Continent protects its damages like a bitter old woman does grudges. I plan to do so, when we have time—for now, let’s investigate what we have.”
When they near the municipal building, Shara hangs back to allow Sigrud to inspect. He stalks around it, then shakes his head and gestures to her to come. “Nothing,” he says as she joins him. “Door is unlocked. No one in the windows, from what I can see. But much of the building has no windows.”
“What is this place?”
“Something the city had built. Think it might have been intended for development—make the neighborhood into something better. But then they gave up, maybe.”
I would have, too, thinks Shara.
Sigrud goes to the door and pulls out his black knife. He peers inside, then silently enters. Shara waits a beat and follows.
The interior of the building is almost completely devoid of furniture and ornamentation. The rooms continue on through the building’s length, connected by a series of small doors. The building’s most remarkable attribute is that unlike nearly every structure nearby, this one has gas: little blue jets flick along the ceiling, allowing the barest illumination. “They left the lights on,” mutters Shara, but Sigrud holds a finger to his lips. He cocks his head, listening, and makes a queer face, like he’s hearing an upsetting noise.
“Cannot quite say.”
Sigrud stalks forward into the building, peering into each room before Shara follows. Each room is like the one before it: small, bland, empty. Mrs. Torskeny is nowhere to be found. The doorways, Shara notes, all line up, more or less: look through one door, and you look through all….
Except the door at the very end, which is shut, and its keyhole flickers with a faint yellow light.
I like this less and less, thinks Shara.
Again, Sigrud stops. “I hear it again. It is…laughing,” he says finally.
“Laughing?”
“Yes. A child. Very…quiet.”
“From where?”
He points at the closed door.
“And you can hear nothing more?”
He shakes his head.
“Well,” says Shara. “Let’s proceed.”
As she expects, all the rooms leading up to the closed door are empty. And as they near, she hears it, too: laughter, faint and soft, as if behind that door a child is having a merry game.
“I smell something,” says Sigrud. “Salt, and dust…”
“How is that remarkable?”
“I smell them in remarkable quantities.” He points at the door again, then squats to peer through the keyhole. His squinted eye is spotlit; his eyelid trembles as he strains to see.
“Do you see anything?”
“I see…a ring, on the floor. Made of white powder. Many candles. Many. And clothes.”
“Clothes?”
“A pile of clothes on the floor.” He adds: “Women’s clothes.”
Shara taps him on the shoulder, and she takes his place at the keyhole. The light pouring through the keyhole is staggering: candelabras line the walls in a circle, each holding five, ten, twenty candles. The very room is alive with fire: she can feel the heat on her cheek in a concentrated beam. As her eye adjusts, she sees there is a wide circle of something white on the floor—Salt? Dust?—and at the edge of her vision she thinks she can see a pile of clothes, just on the opposite side of the white circle.
Her heart sinks when she sees that the dark blue cloth is almost the exact shade Mrs. Torskeny was wearing when she last saw her.
Then something dances into view….Something gauzy and white, moving in drifting sweeps—the hem of a long white dress? Shara jumps, startled, but does not take her eye away: she sees a head of hair at the top of the cloth, thick black locks that shine in the candlelight, before the white thing trots away.
“There’s someone in there,” Shara says softly.
Again, the childish laugh. Yet something is wrong….
“A child,” she says. “Maybe…”
“Step back,” says Sigrud.
“But…I’m not sure…”
“Step back.”
Shara moves away. He tests the knob: it’s unlocked. He squats down low, knife in hand, and eases the door open.
Immediately the laughter turns to shrieks of pain. Shara is positioned so she cannot see what’s inside—yet Sigrud can, and he drops any suggestion of threat: he glances at her, concerned, confused, and walks in.
“Wait,” says Shara. “Wait!”
Shara bolts around the open door and inside.
* * *
—
Things move so fast that it’s difficult for Shara to see: there is a blaze of light from the candelabras, which are so densely crowded she has to dance around them; a wide circle of white crystals on the floor—salt, probably; and sitting in the center of the ring, dressed in a huge, shining white dress, is a little girl of about four, with dark black locks and bright red lips. She sits in the ring of salt, rubbing at her knee…or Shara thinks she rubs her knee, for almost all of the little girl is hidden below her white dress. Shara cannot even see her hands, only the kneading motion under the white cloth.
“It hurts!” cries the little girl. “It hurts!”
The scent of dust is overwhelming. It seems to coat the back of Shara’s throat.
Sigrud walks forward, uncertain. “Should we…do something?” he asks.
The salt.
“Wait!” says Shara again. She reaches out to grab his sleeve and hold him back; Sigrud is so much larger than her that he almost knocks her over.
The little girl spasms in pain. “Help me!”
“You don’t want me to do anything?” asks Sigrud.
“No! Stop! And look.” Shara points down. Two feet away is the outer edge of the circle of salt.
“What is that?” asks Sigrud.
“The salt, it’s like a—”
“Please help me!” begs the little girl. “Please! Please, you must!” Shara looks closer. The dress is far too big for such a small girl, and there is a lump under it, as if her body is swollen and malformed….
I know this, thinks Shara.
“Just stop, Sigrud. Let me try and…” She clears her throat. “If you could, please,” she says to the little girl, “show us your feet.” Sigrud is bewildered. “What?”
“Please!” cries the little girl. “Please, do something!”
“We will help you,” says Shara, “if you show us your feet.”
The little girl groans. “Why do you care? Why do you…It hurts so bad!”
“We will help you quite quickly,” says Shara. “We are experienced in medicine. Just, please—show us your feet!”
The little girl starts rocking back and forth on the ground. “I’m dying!” she howls. “I’m bleeding! Please, help me!”
“Show them to us. Now!”
“I take it,” says Sigrud, “that you do not think that’s a little girl.”
The girl lets out of a long, tortured shriek. Shara grimly shakes her head. “Look. Think. The salt on the ground, ringing her in…Torskeny’s clothes, which look to have been dropped on the ground just where she crossed the salt…” The little girl, still shrieking in pain, tries to crawl over to them. Yet her movements are so odd: she doesn’t use her hands or arms at all (Shara thinks, Does she even have any?), but the girl appears to kick over to them, crawling on her knees. It’s like she’s a cloth puppet with a hard little head on top, yet her cheeks and her tears and her hair all look so real….
But she never shows her feet. Not once throughout this strange rolling motion.
The taste of dust thickens: Shara’s throat is clay; her eyes, sand.
There is something under the dress. Not a little girl’s body—something much larger…
Oh, by the seas, thinks Shara. It couldn’t be…
“Help me, please!” cries the girl. “I’m in so much pain!”
“Step back, Sigrud. Don’t let it get close to you.”
Sigrud does so. “No!” shouts the girl. Worm-like, the girl crawls to the very edge of the salt ring, mere inches away from them. “No! Please…Please don’t leave me!”
“You’re not real,” Shara says to the little girl. “You’re bait.”
“Bait?” says Sigrud. “For what?”
“For you and me.”
The little girl bursts into tears and huddles at the edge. “Please,” she says. “Please just pick me up. I haven’t been held in so long….”
“Drop the act,” says Shara angrily. “I know what you are.”
The little girl shrieks; the sound is razors on their ears.
“Stop!” shouts Shara. “Stop your nonsense! We’re no fools!”
The screams stop immediately. The abrupt cessation of sound is startling.
The girl does not look up: she sits bent in half, frozen and lifelessly still.
“I don’t know how you’re still alive,” says Shara. “I thought all of you died in the Great Purge….”
The thick locks quiver as the girl’s head twitches to one
side.
“You’re a mhovost, aren’t you? One of Jukov’s pets.”
The little girl sits up, but there is something disturbingly mechanical about the motion, as if she’s being pulled by strings. Her face, which was once contorted into a look of such heart-piercing agony, is now utterly blank, like that of a doll.
Something shifts under the dress. The little girl appears to drop into the cloth. There is a sudden rush of dust.
Cloth swirling around it, it stands up slowly.
Shara looks at it, and immediately begins to vomit.
* * *
—
It is man-like, in a way: it has a torso, arms, and legs. Yet all are queerly long, distended, and many-jointed, as if its body is nothing but knuckles, hard bulbs of bone shifting under smooth skin. Its limbs are wrapped in white cloth stained gray with dust, and its feet are like a blend between a human’s and a goose’s: huge and syndactyly and webbed, with three fat toes, each with tiny perfect toenails on them. Yet its head is by far the worst part: the back is roughly like the head of a balding man, sporting a ring of long, gray scraggly hair around its skull; but instead of a face or jaw, the head stretches forward to form what looks like a wide, long, flat bill—like, again, that of a goose, though it has no eyes. Yet rather than the tough keratin normally seen in ducks or geese, the bill is made of knuckled human flesh, as if a man’s fingers were fused together, and he brought both hands together to form a joint at the heel of his palms.
The mhovost flaps its bill at Shara, making a wet fapfapfap. Somewhere in her mind she hears echoes of children laughing, screaming, crying. As its fleshy bill wags Shara can see it has no esophagus, no teeth: just more bony, hairy flesh in the inner recesses of the bill.
She spews vomit onto the floor again, but is careful to avoid the salt on the floor.
Sigrud stares blankly at this abomination, pacing in front of him like a bantam cock, daring him to attack it. “Is this,” he asks slowly, “a thing I should be killing?”
“No,” gasps Shara. More vomit burbles out of her. The mhovost flaps its bill at her—again, the echoes of ghostly children. She thinks, It’s laughing at me. “Don’t break the ring of salt! That’s the only thing keeping us alive!”
The Divine Cities Trilogy: City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles, With an Excerpt From Foundryside Page 25
