by Frank Tuttle
The old stories about comets’ tails and plagues hadn’t lost their power. Half the Church mainholds still proclaim the horrors in statuary and stained glass murals. The papers even played up plague news, no doubt at the behest of the Regent.
So when ghosts began to wail from the rooftops, and all manner of sprite, pixie, fairy, and will-o-the-wisp emerged from the alleys to scratch at the doors and tap at the windows, when even the halfdead halted their nightly predations on luckless Curfew-breakers, the Army refused to patrol, and the Watch followed suit.
The comet hung lower and the tail grew brighter each evening. Darla, Buttercup, Slim, and I watched the Slilth dance and cavort beneath it one night. Even Buttercup watched in solemn silence, gripping her whispering skull tight and staying close to Darla and me.
“Quite the show,” I said.
The Slilth leaped. Though it was probably eight miles distant and a couple of thousand feet tall, its movements seemed dainty, oddly feminine. It landed with a sound like muffled thunder, its silvery tentacles waving and curving, and the hidden part of me tainted by sorcery knew, just knew, that if I would but concentrate, if only I would see, I’d understand what the Slilth was doing and why.
I pushed the thought away. Darla squeezed my hand. Slim grunted and spat over Dasher’s rail, which led to Buttercup’s attempt to emulate him a moment later.
“They claim a blood oak started singing in the Park today,” said Darla.
“They happen to name the tune?” I asked. “I bet trees sing about nothing but bugs and the weather.”
“No one could make out the words,” Darla replied. “Do you think we could fit a third rotary gun by the smoke stack?”
“Was the oak tree’s singing voice that bad?”
Buttercup giggled. Darla watched the Slilth dance its thousand-foot dance. “Are we all set to head West?”
“Nearly,” I replied. I glanced at Buttercup, but she was engrossed in a fit of giggling with her pet head-bone. “Eager to see the vast untamed wilderness, are you, dear?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s just the heat,” I said, putting my arm around her. “Nothing more. It drove everything a little crazy. Birds, bees, flowers, trees—but as soon as summer ends, everything will be back to normal. You’ll see.”
“Liar.”
“I am a Captain in the army and an admiral of the high seas,” I said. “I do not lie. I am never mistaken. Mighty men, men of renown, follow me into glorious battle, sure of my wisdom and discernment. Slim, stop laughing. That isn’t polite.”
“Change which comes too quickly,” muttered Slim, speaking the words slowly and carefully. “My people have a word for this thing. We call it um.” He made a wet grumbling deep in his chest. “We have no love for it.”
“We just call it life,” I said. “Love it or loathe it, it’s all we’ve got.”
Overhead, the comet was briefly obscured by some great winged beast that chose that moment to begin its nightly haunting of Rannit’s troubled skies.
Darla and I rose without another word, and took to our bed. Buttercup and Cornbread slept fitfully between us. Slim remained on deck all night, clutching a sword that might have cut me in half but wouldn’t have scratched the fireworm in the heavens.
“I don’t love um either,” Darla whispered, before she too drifted off. “Not one little bit.”
In the distance, I heard the shrill keening of the fireworm, heard the leathery snap and crack of its wings, followed by the thud and whistle of cannons being fired.
The fireworm’s wings beat. The cannons boomed and roared.
I lay awake a long time listening, wondering if the three thousand miles of desolate prairie between Rannit and Railsend would be far enough away, or just a good start.
Chapter Five
Regent’s new train station looked like something out of a pre-War story book.
The ceilings were high and arched, fixed with skylights that let in plenty of good bright sun. The glass was still so new the soot from the crematoriums hadn’t had time to darken it.
The floors were white tile, perpetually swept by an army of smiling rail stewards in crisp black uniforms who rewarded floor-spitters with whacks from their sturdy railroad brooms. People waited at the ticket counters in orderly lines marked off by red velvet ropes, and the Watch had uniformed officers at every hand to remind railway patrons that decorum and deportment are matters held in high regard by sophisticated Rannites.
The station was noisy. Whistles blew. Criers bellowed out arriving trains or warned of imminent departures. People exchanged tearful goodbyes or greeted long lost loves with shouts and embraces.
Darla and I arrived a half-hour early, saw our bags and Mama’s loot loaded safely aboard, and then found a bench near the departure gate to watch people and bide our time.
“That man is up to something,” Darla whispered, her gaze fixed on a tall skinny fellow in a dented hat who seemed anxious to see his tearful lady aboard a train—any train. I laughed.
“See the brunette peeking out from behind the Watch stand about halfway to the doors?” I asked. “That’s what he’s up to. She’s been following them since they got here. No bags, hasn’t even looked at the ticket counter.”
“Cheating husband?” Darla asked.
“If I had to guess. Such is the flawed nature of Man. Surely the Angels above weep. Let us offer a pair of coppers as a prayer for his repentance.”
“Let us shoot him in his ass,” Darla replied. “For does not the Church proclaim, ‘through pain and suffering does Man learn righteousness?’”
“Remind me never to stray,” I said. “Not that I am ever tempted. The beauty of my wife outshines all others.”
Darla chuckled and laid her hand on mine. “You are never more eloquent than when you are full of—”
“Train 337, the Western Star, departing for Innis, Copeland, and Railsend,” shouted a strolling crier, right behind us. “Now boarding! No refunds if you miss your train!”
We rose. “That’s us,” Darla said, smoothing her skirts. The man with the dented hat saw his lady off as his paramour stamped her foot impatiently from afar.
I adjusted my own hat—a wide-brimmed affair Darla assured me was popular out West—and together we boarded the Western Star’s brand-new bar car.
I steered us toward a booth in the back. We were barely seated when a steward greeted us, dropped a carefully folded note by my elbow, and toddled off in search of our drinks.
Darla saw, and lifted an eyebrow.
“That’s Rowdy,” I replied, not whispering because the mob was boarding at the sleeper cars and no one had made their way back to join us yet. I unfolded the note. “He’s a very helpful young man when he sees encouragement.”
“How much encouragement did he see?” asked Darla.
“A handful of coppers. We have a late arrival. A Mrs. Krait, traveling alone, one way ticket to Railsend.”
“You mean Hogstown,” corrected Darla.
“It’s Railsend until we pay for it.” I tore up the note and burned it, shred by shred, in the candle that adorned our table. “One way ticket, as far West as she can go. Sounds like a lady with a colorful past.”
Darla smiled. “May I assume you’ve already made yourself familiar with each of our fellow travelers?”
“I have. Young Rowdy is keen to impress. We will start out with twenty-eight paying passengers, each one a paragon of virtue and pluck. By the time we reach Railsend, soon to be Hogstown, there will only be six of the original twenty-eight aboard. Most are bound for hardy little frontier towns with amusing names like Mule Snort and Busted Heel.”
“You made those up.”
“Did not.”
Rowdy returned with a pair of drinks. A tall glass of beer for me, a red wine for Darla.
“You’ve seen to my property?” I asked Rowdy.
He nodded. “Locked in the locomotive safe, Mr. Markhat,” he said. “Saw it go in myself, just lik
e you said. You don’t have to worry about that.” He beamed a little bit. “Nobody has ever managed to rob a C&E strongbox, sir. Ever.”
I nodded, but back the word yet. But I was glad to know Mama’s money was locked away in a steel box bolted to the locomotive’s frame.
The doors at the front of the car opened, and a loud trio of riders barged in, all speaking at once at the tops of their lungs.
“The brothers Bardo,” whispered Rowdy. “Drunk and mean. I’ll seat them well away from you and the lady, Mr. Markhat.”
Darla slipped him a coin. Rowdy met the red-faced threesome halfway down the car and managed to herd them back at least part of the way they’d come.
As the brothers argued over what to drink and who was to pay for it, a few other passengers straggled in. There were two couples, each with one child.
“Those have to be the Cowens and the Piddins,” I said, to Darla. “Only passengers on my list with a single kid each aboard. Not sure which is which, though.”
“The slow ones are the cows,” replied Darla. “The tall bug-eyed nervous ones are the pigeons.”
“If I said that, you’d kick my shins.”
“I said it with love. Bet you a crown I’m right.”
I grinned. “You’re on.” The doors opened again, and both Darla and I nearly burst into open laughter as the next fellow paraded inside.
If the Piddins and their darting big eyes were pigeons, this one was a crow. Crow-beak nose, black coat, beady crow eyes swiveling this way and that under a hat adorned with honest-to-Angels black feathers.
Darla’s hand fell upon mine. “No one wears capes anymore,” she whispered. “Not even halfdead. Certainly not before dusk.”
But there he was, swirling his cape around as if in search of a balcony to pose majestically upon.
The brothers Bardo broke into hoots and cheers. “When’s the play start, yer worship?” barked one.
“Whose neck you plan on biting?” inquired another.
The caped man halted before them and fixed them each in a brief but piercing glare.
Darla’s hand squeezed mine. The hair on the back of my neck stood up.
The Bardo brothers lapsed into an abrupt, uneasy silence.
The man continued past them, seated himself by a window, and stared out of it.
“Did he…?” mouthed Darla.
I nodded. I’d felt it too, that unmistakable sensation of something fat and wet and possessing too many hairy little bug-legs crawling suddenly up my spine.
Ridiculous cape or not, he was a whammy-man, or worse.
I lifted my drink to whisper behind it. “And I was afraid this trip would be boring.”
Darla, no fool, produced a small notebook and a pen. Who is he? she wrote, before quickly scribbling across the letters.
No idea, I wrote back, before I crossed out my own words. Too many male names traveling alone to guess.
Corps?
I shook my head no. That much I was sure of—even mild insults aimed at a member of Rannit’s military magic-using community tended to result in sudden rains of body parts and significant damage to the landscape.
Rowdy marched right up to the boogeyman and inquired if Sir would care for a drink. I couldn’t hear what was said, but it appeared Sir did, because Rowdy’s head bobbed up and down in an eager affirmative and he sped off, a man on a mission.
Next to enter were two ladies who must have mistaken the Western Star for the opera house on King Street. Both were dressed in old-fashioned hoop skirts so wide they each required a push from behind to get past the door frame.
“Those two I can name,” Darla said from behind her wine glass. “Dames Corniss and Fabbers. Patrons of the arts. Ladies of leisure. Where in heaven’s name can they be going?”
“As far away from their creditors as they can manage,” I replied. “Seems they took to patronizing casinos more often than artists the last couple of years. Neither one of them is any damned good at table games.”
“They have a five-story mansion on Marching Lane.”
“They had a mansion. The auction starts tomorrow morning at dawn,” I replied. “They should have stuck to financing bad stage plays.”
“The poor creatures. Would you mind terribly if I had drinks sent to their table? Anonymously, of course.”
I nodded. “Drinks and sandwiches. Why not? We can afford to be generous.”
Rowdy reappeared, a tray of drinks held aloft. Darla waved for him, and he nodded, winking at me as he distributed beverages.
“Got a last minute passenger,” he whispered, as he refilled my beer mug. “Raised quite a stink at the ticket counter. No luggage. Something off about this one, Captain, or I’m a chorus girl.”
“Get a name?” I asked.
“Jerle Mistorm Cooper,” he replied.
I guess he saw my expression change. Darla did too, because she lost her easy smile.
“Want I should have him thrown off, sir?” Rowdy asked. “I can speak to the engineer.”
“No,” I said, smiling, not a care in the world, in case anyone was watching. “But thanks for letting me know. Your bonus just got bigger.”
“Anytime, boss,” he said, and someone yelled for beer, and he was off.
“Jerle Mistorm Cooper?” asked Darla. “Why is that name so familiar?”
“Mr. Cooper invented the cotton gin,” I said. I’d used the Cooper moniker myself, many a time, when I was up to activities likely to culminate in a dark alley and a blunt object. “He’s been dead for so long I’m surprised he could afford a last-minute ticket.”
Darla’s eyes lit up. “So we have a man of mystery joining us, boarding under a false name. How exciting!”
I shrugged. “As long as he isn’t after Mama’s box of loot, I don’t care what he calls himself.”
The doors opened again, and this time a woman marched in. And I do mean marched. She sent lesser beings scurrying out of her path, and even the Bardos lowered their voices as she passed.
“The Lady in Red,” I said, knowing Darla would understand.
A painting by that name was hung in the High House right after the War. The lady in red, her hands on her hips, her face twisted in a furious scowl, has glared down at visitors since.
“Where in heaven’s name did she find that ensemble?” Darla whispered.
I shrugged. It was quite a get-up.
The Lady in Red depicted in the painting wore a gown the color of a just-bloomed fireflower. Bright red, strident red, painters call the hue.
Our lady on the train’s gown was the darker shade of fresh-spilled blood. A high old-world collar rose up from the back, framing the woman’s dark pile of hair and pale face. Her hat was old–world, too, plain and swept back to a peak. A black veil hung from it, obscuring all but the right corner of her mouth.
“I would pay dearly to know where she got that,” Darla said.
“You like it?” I asked.
She actually shivered. “I loathe it, dear. The cut is all wrong. That fireflower pattern is hideous. Look at the stitch work—why, I’d not only fire any seamstress who dared present that to me, I might be compelled to spank her as well.”
“Only if I can watch.”
She ignored me. I dared a long glance at the gown as the woman stalked toward an empty booth, but I couldn’t find any visible stitching, unacceptable or not.
I mentally shuffled through my list of passengers. There were a number of women travelling alone, and the woman in the red gown might be any one of them.
Next to enter was a burly, sunburnt fellow still wearing his work-clothes and twisting his shapeless felt hat into knots. He darted into the first empty booth he saw and hunkered down, jamming his hat over his eyes.
The train’s lone clown arrived next. Custom, of course, dictates that a clown must precede travelers across any bridge spanning more than a hundred paces. The way the Western Star’s red-nosed clown was wobbling and shuffling, I wasn’t sure he had a hundred steps left i
n him.
He must have shared my appraisal, because he fell sideways into a booth and managed to right himself only through considerable grunting and cursing. His first act upon achieving a sitting position was to produce a comically large flask and set about emptying it with the deadly intensity of a lifelong drunk.
I alternated between watching him and stealing glances at the Lady in Red, so when Darla tensed and took in a quick sharp breath, I had to turn to look.
Gertriss. My junior partner, who had failed to mention any plans she had concerning train rides. She breezed inside, all smiles, that air of guileless innocence she wore so well surrounding her like a cloud.
She took three steps inside before she saw us and came to an abrupt halt.
“Damn you, Mama,” she said, loud enough for the whole car to hear.
Darla groaned. The clown lowered his flask long enough to turn and look.
I emptied my beer. Then I rose and moved over to Darla’s side of the booth and motioned for Gertriss to join us.
“We’ve been had,” I said as she stomped over.
The Western Star blew her steam whistle, three times, long and loud.
“All aboard!” shouted a conductor. “Last call! Final boarding for the Western Star!”
Gertriss sat. Her expression suggested she was eager to bite someone and chew, and I was sincerely glad it wasn’t me.
“Boss, I swear, I had no idea—” she began.
I forced a laugh. “I know you didn’t. Neither did I. For all her talk about getting old and retiring, Mama hasn’t lost her touch.”
The whistle sounded again, and then the Western Star set forth.
Booze and beer sloshed in glasses. People still on their feet grabbed for straps or booths. I heard one shriek, followed by a loud slap, followed by guffaws and a muttered apology.
Iron groaned. Steel wheels began to turn. The Western Star’s steam engine roared to life, and emitted a great long hiss as the pistons began to pump.
I’d heard something very much like that hiss before, when the sea serpent settled down for its leisurely transformation to stone.
“We’re in for it now,” said Gertriss, and the steam whistle screamed, and we pulled away from Rannit, and oh how those iron rails sang.
