Boots for the Gentleman

by Augusta Li

  He began climbing the ruined wall, planning to travel up the tower and then swing down into the hole. It would be difficult if not impossible, but he saw no other choice. Ascending the hill of stone proved easy enough, but when Querry reached the wall of the tower itself he found the black substance even slicker than it looked. His feet slid like he stood on ice, and he dropped to his hands and knees and tried to crawl. After almost sliding off of the edge, he finally sunk to his belly and shimmied along slowly. Now and then he managed to grip one of the spikes and move a little more securely, though once one of them erupted at his left side and tore through his vest and the skin beneath. It hurt and bled, but the wound was minor. Querry shuddered to think what might have happened had it emerged another few inches from where it did. He inched arduously on, his limbs aching and trembling from holding tight to the stone. His hope of finding Reggie unharmed waned with every second that passed, but he couldn’t move any faster.

  Finally he reached the place opposite the hole. He found a little good fortune in that a row of spikes stretched down the side of the tower, almost like stairs. While he knew they could disappear at any moment, Querry wasted no time. He slid over the side of the tower until his foot caught on the black rock. He crouched down, bending almost in half, and wrapped his arms around it before swinging his legs down toward the next. Though he could barely trust his muscles, the opening soon came into view. It was much further away than Querry had estimated. Carefully he clutched the outcropping and let his lower body drop into the open air. His hands started to slip almost instantly. Hysterical, he reached out with his leg and found that it missed the opening by at least three feet. He looked at the ground as his hands lost another inch. The fall might not kill him, but it would render his already injured body useless and steal his chances of getting to Reggie and Frolic.

  He pressed his thighs together and began swinging his body back and forth like a pendulum, trying to build enough momentum to propel himself into the hole three feet away and two feet below him. The motion pulled his hands down the side of the spike quickly. When he could hold on no longer, he closed his eyes and aimed his body as best he could.

  Querry’s back met stone, and he laughed out loud with relief. Opening his eyes, he saw disarray to rival what had happened outside. He wondered whether to make his way up or down. Everything looked the same: wrecked blocks dotted with puddles of bubbling black ooze. Magic sparked and crackled unchecked. Querry felt it in his teeth. He hoped he wouldn’t find Reggie changed by the energy coursing through the tower.

  “Reggie?” Querry shouted. “Anybody?” Only silence and the crash of the emerging tines answered him.

  As Querry carefully navigated the remains, he saw grisly evidence of the toll Thimbleroy’s attack had taken: arms and legs sticking out from beneath massive heaps of stone, rusty smears on the walls and floor, wet chunks of what had once been human bodies. The increase of these sights as he moved lower told Querry the marksmen had been trying to get down, to get out. They also told him few, if any, had succeeded.

  He saw a glowing, white shape ahead in the shadows and moved toward it. His heart leapt. Reggie was alive!

  “No,” Reg said, shaking his head, “I’m not. I’m dead. Dead because of you. You sent me here to die.”

  “No. I sent you here because I thought you’d be safer here than on the ground. Reggie—”

  “You selfish bastard. You always put your own desires before my happiness. Always mucking up my life. Now you’ve destroyed it. I wish I’d never met you. I’d have been better off on my own in the factory. Why couldn’t you let me go? Why did you have to drag me into this when I had a decent life? Querry, why did you let me die?”

  Querry shivered and sobbed as he looked at Reg’s pale face, his hazel eyes hidden within the shadowed sockets. He tried to respond, to defend himself, but he couldn’t because he knew Reg was right. “I- I’m sorry.”

  “It’s too late for that now.”

  “No, it can’t be! It can’t!”

  “What will you do, Querry? Repair me like Frolic so you don’t have to feel guilty? Ruin my life all over again?”

  Querry dropped down on his knees and reached out for Reg’s pant leg, but the shade stepped back out of his reach.

  “You ruined Frolic as well,” the specter continued, “with that evil damned faerie’s heart. But you had to have him for yourself, in spite of what was best for him. You never think about the consequences of your actions. Look at the trouble you caused us by going to that faerie ball, then expecting us to tend to you while you had your fever.”

  Tears streamed down Querry’s face; he felt like he’d be sick. He thought about the dagger in his belt and considered turning it on himself. He deserved no better. Reg, gone. Frolic, irreparably damaged. He deserved to die and go to hell for the life he’d led. He fell forward, his forehead on his knees, as cries and gags wracked his body. Then something clicked in his memory. Images flooded his mind. Faerie ball. Dancing. Making love with his gentleman. He’d never told Reg about that. He hadn’t remembered it himself until just then. He sat up and faced the sneering, ghostly Reg. He felt for his faerie sight and let it snap into place, just like one of the lenses of his goggles. Looking through this new glass, he saw not Reg, but himself standing in the shadows. He stood up and lifted his chin. “Go away,” he commanded, and the transparent figure dissolved.

  Querry heard someone muttering in a language he didn’t understand, and he moved cautiously toward the sound. Behind a section of fallen stairs, he saw a young, Xianese woman lying on her back.

  “Hello?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  In response she lifted a pistol with a speed that impressed Querry and aimed at his head. He held up his empty hands and said, “I’m a friend.”

  Groaning, she dropped her arm to her side as if the pistol weighed a ton. “Yes, I remember you. You were with the clockwork and the shen.”

  “Shen?”

  Her eyes squinted shut in thought. “Is a- a spirit being? Nature spirit?”

  “Oh, right,” Querry said, understanding. “Are you all right? What can I do?”

  She grabbed her calf and pulled on it. “My foot is trapped.”

  Querry knelt down to investigate. He shifted a few pieces of stone and soon released the woman. Her ankle was swollen and bruised. Querry ran his fingers over it gently and guessed nothing was broken. “Is that better?” he asked. “Do you think you can walk?”

  She nodded. “Do you know a way out of here?”

  “I’ll get us out. I need to find somebody first. Check for other survivors.”

  “I’ll go with you.” She pulled herself up and tested her weight on her injured foot before following Querry deeper into the tower. She gasped and clapped her hands over her mouth when she saw the carnage, which only grew worse as they got lower. She whispered nervously in her native tongue. Querry wondered if he should hold her hand, but he decided against it. Every few feet he called out to his Reggie. He heard nothing for so long that he started to slip into despair.

  Then, near the base of the tower, he detected a low groan, barely discernible above the gunfire outside and the crumbling stone within. Looking around, Querry saw an arm sticking out from beneath a slab of flat stone. The fingers were moving. He didn’t know if it was Reg underneath that rock, but it was a person needing help. “Come on,” he told the young woman. They both knelt down and grasped the edges of the stone sheet. The piece of rock turned out to be long and awkward, though not very heavy. Querry guessed it had been a section of veneer that had covered the tower’s block foundation. After a few minutes of work they removed the stone. Querry couldn’t help his disappointment when he saw the freckled, young man with the overbite. He grasped his hand and helped him to his feet. The fellow seemed disoriented, but not so much that he couldn’t manage a charming smile for the Xianese woman.

  Querry cleared his throat, and the two of them looked away from each other at last. The freckled man rubbe
d the back of his neck and said, “Reginald! Reginald was right beside me! He must be close.”

  Querry began tearing away at the stones. He felt his knuckles bleed inside his gloves, but he didn’t stop. In his desperation and fear he flung aside blocks that he’d never have been able to lift before. The others joined him and in a few minutes they’d uncovered a pallid, dusty body. Despite the torture he’d inflicted on his muscles, Querry lifted Reg and carried him clear of the rubble. He sat on his heels and held Reg’s face to his chest, then pressed his face to Reg’s face. Maybe his morbid vision would prove true after all. “Reggie, please be all right,” he said in a weak and cracking voice. He touched the side of Reg’s neck and felt a pulse. “Reggie,” he said again, shaking the other gently. At last, after an eternity, Reg’s eyes fluttered open. “Reggie!” Querry gasped, pressing his lips hard against his partner’s forehead, not giving a second thought to the opinions of the others. “Are you all right? Are you hurt at all?”

  “My head hurts,” he said. “Arm’s broken, I think.”

  “I look,” the young woman said. “Mother was—” she struggled to find the word, “—doctor.”

  She peeled back Reggie’s eyelids and examined his wrist. “Broken arm,” she confirmed. “But he is all right. Let’s get us out of here.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Reg said, holding his hand out to Querry to help him up. “By the way, what are your names? I didn’t get the chance to ask before.”

  “Mei-Gwai,” the woman answered, smiling. Querry felt awkward at not having asked her earlier.

  “I’m just Jack,” said the freckled man, shaking Reggie’s hand vigorously.

  The four of them hurried back to the opening in the tower wall.

  “How the bloody hell are we supposed to get down?” Jack asked.

  Querry had planned to hang by his arms and drop. He realized now that the strategy might be more difficult for his companions. He thought. “Reggie, take off your pants.”

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “Jack, you too.”

  “What are you on about, mate?” Jack asked.

  “Gentlemen,” Querry said, “I certainly don’t intend to ask this lady to disrobe, and we need to make a rope to lower ourselves down. Now please, don’t be shy.” He waited until Jack wasn’t looking and winked at Reg.

  The three men removed their trousers and Querry used his dagger to cut them up the center, making six strips of cloth from the legs. He tied these tightly together. When they lowered them, their rope reached nearly to the ground.

  “Ladies first,” Jack said, grinning and blushing at Mei. He and Querry held the end of the rope as she climbed down.

  “Now Reggie,” Querry insisted. “Will you be able to make it with your arm?” he asked him.

  Reg nodded and gripped the makeshift rope tightly between his knees and in his good hand. He inched his way down very slowly. When his partner was safely on the ground, Querry said, “Go on, Jack.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’m used to this sort of thing. Go on.”

  Querry watched him make his way to the ground, and then he dropped his boots, held on to the ledge, and swung his feet over. He dropped and landed softly.

  “What now?” Jack asked.

  “Hide,” Querry said. “Wait until this is over and get away from here. Look out for each other.”

  “What will you do?” Mei asked.

  “I need to find my friend Frolic,” Querry said, more for the benefit of Reg and himself.

  “Good luck,” Jack said, shaking Querry’s hand. “And thanks.”

  “Go on then. I’ll see you two again soon.” They hurried toward the back end of the ruined cathedral, and Querry turned to Reg, who cradled his wrist in obvious pain. “Reggie, you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. You could say I kidnapped you back at the prison. You could have your life back. I don’t want to ruin it for you.”

  “Did you crack your head?”

  “No, I just, I just want you to do what’s best for yourself. I don’t want to interfere, if you want to raise a family, and all of that.”

  “Querry love, shut up.” Reg stroked the side of Querry’s hair and kissed him softly. Then, with a smile in his eyes, he said, “Let’s go get our Frolic.”

  “All right,” Querry agreed. They moved around the front of the cathedral and then to the side. Querry saw the magic-siphoning machine standing among the gravestones. When he approached it, he found it not broken or damaged, but just in need of winding. “Where on earth are Frolic and the others?” he wondered aloud. He didn’t notice anyone about: not Thimbleroy nor his human or clockwork soldiers. The eerie quiet unnerved Querry. “We need to get out of here,” he told Reg.

  Before they could retreat, a dozen soldiers and twice as many clockworks emerged from the demolished buildings to surround them. They had no escape in any direction. Querry drew his dagger anyway. The men drew their guns and herded Querry and Reg into the street, smacking their backs with the butts of their rifles if they went too slowly.

  “On your knees,” one of them commanded, hitting Reg so hard between the shoulders that he pitched forward and fell.

  Irate, Querry slashed at the man with his knife. He cut the back of his hand before another soldier grabbed his wrist and removed the weapon. He twisted Querry’s arm behind his back and forced him to the ground. “Hands behind your heads,” he snarled.

  With rifle barrels pressing into their hair, Querry and Reg had no choice but to comply.

  Soon the flying disk carrying Thimbleroy and his angels made its obligatory appearance. The soldiers backed away, but kept their weapons trained on the two kneeling men. Querry and Reg looked at one another as it neared the ground. That glance felt so hopeless and final that Querry wanted to cry. Instead he grabbed Reggie’s hand, and the sorrow within him converted to anger at what would be stolen.

  “You cowardly son of a bitch!” he cried. “Come down from there and face me like a man, if you even know what that means!”

  “Oh, I know,” said Thimbleroy’s tinny, amplified voice. “I have suffered for what I have gained.” He held up his disfigured arm. “But it will all be worth it. Angels, make them both into something awful. Make them pray for death for the rest of their days.”

  Querry braced himself for the magic, but it never came. Thimbleroy couldn’t command the clockwork creatures; he wasn’t the one meant to do so, despite the sick modifications he’d made to his body. Querry laughed out loud and showed Thimbleroy his fingers. “You charlatan! You know you can’t do it! You’re not the one.”

  “Perhaps. But I can do this. Shoot them!” The guards raised their rifles to their shoulders and took aim, but a clear, pure voice halted them.

  “Don’t do it.” Frolic pushed through the ring of armed men and stood before Thimbleroy and his creatures. He spoke not to Thimbleroy or the soldiers assembled around him, but to the clockwork angels and creatures. “Listen to me,” he pleaded. Most of the men laughed out loud as he approached the disk. Undaunted, Frolic continued to speak, his open hands lifted toward the angels as if in offering. “I’m the one you’re supposed to be listening to. Not him.”

  The angels didn’t move or respond. “Take that thing into custody,” Thimbleroy told his men. “Be careful not to damage it. I’d like to dismantle it later and see what we can learn from its interior construction. Perhaps I can incorporate some of its parts into my own mechanical supplements. I’m especially curious to dissect the head and examine its sensory perceptions.”

  Hearing Thimbleroy talk this way about Frolic enraged Querry. Instinct took over, and he lunged for the aristocrat. He heard a shot, felt a searing pain in his calf, and dropped to the street, unable to stand up again. He snarled with helplessness as the two soldiers secured Frolic’s hands behind his back and dragged him off toward the ruins of Thimbleroy Manor. With his speed and strength, Frolic might have escaped, but he didn’t bother to resist.

&nb
sp; “I have no further use for these two,” Thimbleroy said, indicating Reg and Querry with his grotesque claw. “Shoot them in the heads.”

  “No!” Querry screamed. It couldn’t end like this! He tried to get back on his feet as blood gushed from the wound in his leg. He felt cold and shaky. His vision began to dim.

  “Querry?” Reg’s frightened voice asked. He still believed Querry could save him, but Querry couldn’t. He heard a single shot and looked over his shoulder even though he dreaded what he knew he’d see. To his surprise, he saw not Reg, but the soldier nearest him fall, fatally wounded. Three more shots rang out and three more men fell.

  “Where is that coming from?” they shouted, darting for cover as Thimbleroy’s claw moved among the tower of gears. The angels flung sparkling balls of raw magic into the sky. Some dissipated, one caused the clouds to rain gold dust over a small patch, and another lodged in the branches of a tree and caused the leaves to transform into birds that sang with human voices.

  Reg got to Querry and they tried to shield each other’s heads with their arms. In their retreat, the soldiers had abandoned Frolic. Reg called out to him, but he just stood staring up at the disk, completely transfixed. The shooters, presumably reinforcements for the resistance, continued their assault and eliminated a few more men. By now the soldiers had collected themselves and fought back, though not very effectively as they couldn’t locate their assailants. The clockworks spewed energy with a variety of bizarre results.