Sidhe-Devil

by Aaron Allston

  "That's just my war-face, Noriko."

  "Never mind," she said. "Ah—here is our first shop."

  The sign read EAMON'S BALLISTERIUM and a piece of posterboard in the window said, LIGHT, DARK, DUSKY WELCOME.

  * * *

  They spent their morning and afternoon progressing down Wrightway, moving from shop to shop, sometimes doubling back to check out leads and recommendations given them by shop owners and craftsmen. Zeb and Noriko passed Harris several times as their research carried them along the craftsmen's district.

  Most of the people they talked to admitted to no knowledge of dart-guns, though some described crossbows used by scientists on Dark Continent safaris that carried large, ungainly hypodermics.

  "So the fair world already has a device that would do the same thing," Zeb said. "But these people had a gun made special for the purpose. Why?"

  "I can only guess," said Noriko. "But it is probably for purposes of concealment. It is legal and common to carry rifles."

  "I've noticed. It's kind of unsettling."

  "My point is that no one notices rifles, but a crossbow would attract attention and be remembered. Long blades are also memorable, which is why I have my pistol and not my sword with me today."

  "I am obviously not going to get used to fairworld logic anytime soon."

  They stood near a vendor's wagon, having lunch. Zeb watched the traffic—youthful-looking fair folk in their garish, antiquated clothes and the brightly-painted cars for which he was quickly developing an appreciation—and dubiously ate at a tasteless, greasy mass wrapped in paper. It seemed to have been created from a potato-and-beef hash formed into a dense ball and refried. He decided that it would never replace the hot dog. He threw the last of it away.

  Noriko, already finished with her sweet cakes, said, "Harris says our worlds are alike in an important way. You eat `street cuisine' at your own risk."

  "He's right." He turned with her and they began their return to the street of wrights. He ignored the frequent suspicious looks of lights and darks. "Mind if I ask you something?"

  "No, you may ask."

  "Last night they said you were a princess. Is that right?"

  "In a manner of speaking. My husband was Jean-Pierre Lamignac, prince of Acadia. He used to do for Doc what Harris now does—arrange, coordinate. He died early this year. One of the friends Harris spoke of burying."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Thank you. But since his royal parents never cared for me, since I never bore Jean-Pierre a royal heir, since his estate is very valuable and they want me to have none of it, since circumstances demanded—"

  Zeb heard a little catch in her voice, the first emotion he'd detected in her.

  "—that I miss even his funeral, they are prevailing on the judge who wed us to annul the marriage. When that happens, not only will I no longer be a princess, I will never have been one. Or a citizen of Acadia."

  It was startling to Zeb how that faint display of emotion humanized Noriko. He'd wondered, the previous night, if she were as dispassionate as she appeared; now, the pain in her words cut through the image she obviously worked hard to project. "That's a raw deal."

  She managed a faint smile. "Another grimworld phrase that must mean something other than what it sounds like. I am not sad about losing the title, Zeb. I was never welcome there, never lived there. Doc is arranging for me to have citizenship in Novimagos; I will not be set adrift. I am only sad that the law chooses to pretend that I was never Jean-Pierre's wife."

  "Why are you in Amer— I mean, in the New World instead of back in, uh, was it Wo?"

  She nodded. "Wo."

  "If that's too personal a question you can tell me to just go to hell."

  She stared at the sidewalk and managed a slight frown. "Not too personal. Just rare. I am unaccustomed to speaking about it." She walked in silence for a long while. "Do you know the story of Cinder Ella? The girl with the fur slippers?"

  "Glass slippers."

  "No, fur."

  "I'm sure it's glass."

  "Perhaps on the grim world. Is that not a grim detail? Wearing slippers of hard, unforgiving glass instead of soft, comfortable fur? That seems like something grim folk would imagine. But you know the story."

  "Sure."

  "In the land of Wo, it is a somewhat different story than here in the west. There, Cinder Ella is a spoiled, selfish girl. Only when she begins to demonstrate proper gratitude to her stepmother and proper manners to her stepsisters does her guardian spirit come to help her become happy again, and to convince her stepmother to provide for harmony in the household."

  "That's a pretty weird version."

  "From a western perspective, perhaps. So. I was Cinder Ella. My father was very modern, very western. He was once an aide to our ambassador to the League of Ardree and was very well-travelled. As were we all; I learned the language of Lower Cretanis when he was posted in Verway."

  From what Harris had insisted he learn of the maps of the League of Ardree, roughly the U.S., Zeb knew Verway to be a state-sized region including the city that was the counterpart of Washington, D.C. Like the U.S. capital, Verway was an important center of international politics. Zeb nodded.

  Noriko continued, "I was indulged in most ways. When my brothers took up the study of the Sword of Wo, what we call ken-jutsu, I begged and insisted until I was allowed to, as well. Wrestling. Driving. I was allowed to see film plays from the League of Ardree, which we could see in the Foreign Sector after we returned to Wo. I was very spoiled.

  "Until my parents and brothers died. Murdered by an anarchist from Shanga; Wo had just invaded one of their territories." She was silent a long moment. "I went to live with my aunt and uncle."

  "And had to abandon everything you'd done before? All your interests and studies?"

  She shook her head, eyes still downcast. "No. I had to do them all more than before."

  "That's not very Cinderella-ish. I don't get it."

  Noriko managed a slight smile; Zeb could barely see the curve of her lip. "My uncle was in the Foreign Office, too. He clearly saw advantages in having a niece who could speak Lower Cretanis, had lived among the people of Ardree, who could fight . . ."

  "You were trained to be a spy."

  "Yes. All that had been enjoyable before became work. Like Cinder Ella, I was selfish and resented this. But I did it to retain my father's respect. Though he was dead, I knew he would smile on a loyal daughter of the Empire. But then, when they began to teach me to assassinate rather than kill in honorable fashion, to use poisons and cutting garrotes and tiny, sharp knives meant only for the throat, I knew I would lose my father's respect. So I fled. Unlike Cinder Ella, I remained selfish, and never met my guardian spirit. I accepted help from diplomats my father had known and I went back to Verway, where I met Doc and Jean-Pierre."

  "And the rest, as they say, is history."

  She smiled again. "I have heard Harris say that, too. It is a common phrase among the grimworlders?"

  "Too common, maybe." He took a deep breath. "It must be tough for you, being separated from your whole nation."

  "I am not simply separated from it, Zeb. I am loathed by it. I am a traitor to all of Wo who know of me . . . except my father and my mother. I would not have it the other way around." She finally looked up and around, then abruptly turned and headed back the other way. "We have passed by our destination."

  * * *

  In the craftsmen's shops, Zeb saw an even wider variety of fairworld humanity than he had on the street. Some of these wrights were tiny, the size of midgets; some had skin that was as rough as tree bark and limbs as gnarled as branches. In some of these shops, the ones that displayed jewelry in glass cases, thick-bodied men stood as guards and traded flat, unfriendly stares with Zeb while Noriko did the talking.

  One shop had a guard dog instead, an enormous brown beast that looked, Zeb decided, like a cross between a mastiff and the First National Bank. It lay stretched out beside the main counter
as though it had lowered itself to be saddled. It kept friendly but close attention on all the customers. Zeb stayed on the far side of the shop from it, beside the windows, while Noriko talked to the proprietor.

  Zeb saw a trio of black men talking out on the sidewalk. They were dressed in pinstriped suits and merry-hats, and they weren't just the European duskies he'd seen so often; their features were African, or the fairworld equivalent.

  He glanced back at Noriko, who was still in deep conversation with the head craftsman. She didn't look like she'd need any help here. He headed out to the street.

  The three men stopped their conversation and turned as he approached them. "Hallibo," said one.

  Zeb blinked. "Sorry, I don't get you."

  The three looked at one another. Zeb saw both amusement and suspicion in their eyes. The one who'd spoken said, "Can't down to trail?"

  "Look, I'm from kind of a long way away. Could I get you to—"

  The speaker smiled. "Lapbo of light 'n dark, can't down to trail." His accent seemed half-English, half-Caribbean lilt; pretty, but unfamiliar. "Sadbo, go back to lap." The others laughed. The speaker jerked his head and the three turned to walk away, still chuckling among themselves.

  Zeb stood there feeling stupid. He was still there minutes later when Noriko emerged from the shop.

  "I think we have something with this one," she said.

  "Good."

  "You sound angry."

  "I am. Just with myself. What did you get?"

  "Rospo, the owner, was asked by a light gunsmith to put together a set of four barrels. This gunsmith had too much work and had to spread some of it around, though he wasn't supposed to. Rospo was to make big, heavy-caliber barrels to very precise specifications. Unrifled. And not so heavily devised that they'd need to withstand the pressure of a normal hunting round of the same scale."

  "So you're talking about a rifle that fires big rounds slowly and not too accurately. Meaning it's probably built for short-distance targets."

  "Yes."

  "That could be it."

  "Let's find Harris."

  * * *

  Across town, the Bergmonk Boys assembled in the stairwell between up thirteen and up fourteen. Otmar wore a bandage across the bridge of his nose.

  "Kerchiefs and gloves," said Albin.

  All five took oversized red handkerchiefs from their pockets and tied them around their faces, then donned gloves.

  "I suggest we not do this," Rudi said. "It's stupid."

  Albin glared at him but did not reply. "Fire," he said.

  The five men produced six handguns—four big revolvers and Rudi's twin semiautomatic pistols.

  "I mean, we could just call him from a public talk-box. That's all it takes."

  "No," Albin said, his voice rich with forced patience. "The whole city has to look to him for salvation, and he has to fail before all their eyes."

  "How is he going to fail? We can't actually do what we're talking about, can we?"

  Albin ignored him. "Script."

  Otmar fumbled around in a coat pocket, then produced a folded and crumpled piece of paper. It was rough with tiny holes where the typewriter keys, especially punctuation symbols, had struck it too hard. He handed it to Rudi, who pocketed it.

  "And why even bother with the kerchiefs?" Rudi asked. "They're going to know it was us. We might as well go out there with faces bare, singing and dancing."

  "Shut up," Albin said, and drew back his gun hand as if to hammer Rudi with his revolver butt.

  Rudi pressed the barrel of his own gun into Albin's cheek, beside his nose.

  The other three tensed, looked at one another, and decided to stay out of it; they kept their weapons out of line.

  Albin's face flushed red. Then his eyes crinkled and the cheeks beneath his kerchief rose. Rudi knew he was smiling. He knew which smile, too—the false one, the glad-handing political one. "There, now," Albin said. "You wouldn't be shooting your own brother, would you?"

  "No more than me own brother would be hitting me," Rudi said, keeping his voice level. He took his barrel away from his brother's cheek and waved it toward the door out of the stairwell. "Albin, let's walk away from this. This isn't us, isn't the Bergmonk Boys. It's not about money and good living."

  Albin lost his smile but nodded. "That's right. But we have a higher calling now—"

  "What calling? You never say who this is for—"

  "Can't, yet. But trust me. There'll be plenty of money and good living, and we're making the world a better place as we earn it. And never forget . . ." Albin leaned in close, his eyes brighter than Rudi could remember ever having seen them. "I run the Bergmonk Boys. As long as you wear the name Bergmonk, you stick with us and do as I say." He looked at Rudi's pistol. "I'll forget about that . . . because I was a wee bit out of line, too. Now you get back in line. We're on Bergmonk business. That's it, lads. Let's go." He pulled the door open and charged through.

  Rudi swore to himself and brought up the end of the line.

  They emerged onto the floor up fourteen. There were people in the hall, moving between offices; seeing the band of armed men, most threw up their hands and shrank away.

  The Bergmonks ignored them and charged past to the doorway marked AETHER GOLD. Jorg charged through, gun at the ready, covering the secretary in the outer office, shouting over her shrieks, telling her to quiet down. The brothers moved past, through the side door, down the business' long corridor. Workers flattened against the hallway walls to let them pass and were kept in place by the unwavering attention of Egon, who remained behind.

  Big glass windows let them see into some of the station's offices. In one, a man with a thin mustache, his coat off and sleeves rolled up, sat with a bulky headset on. He looked alarmed as he spotted the bearded men in the corridor, but continued talking into his microphone. The lit sign over his door read AETHERBOUND.

  "That one," said Albin.

  Jorg kicked that door in. He could have just turned the knob and opened it, but that would not have been as impressive. He stayed outside while the other three men swept in. Otmar yanked the headset from the announcer's head, then gave the man a push; the announcer slid to the floor and scrambled back, away from the gunmen. Albin kept his own gun trained on the thickset technician in the next chamber—who was protected from stray sounds, but not from bullets, by the big window between the rooms.

  Rudi donned the headset, sat, and unfolded his paper, trying to quell his sense of unease. "We interrupt this broadcast for a special announcement," he read, adjusting his voice to sound like an upper-class light. That was one of his gifts, but this time he took no pleasure in it. "In precisely two hundred beats, we will have an announcement for Doctor Desmond MaqqRee and the Sidhe Foundation. Lives are in the balance. Please inform the Sidhe Foundation immediately." He kept his voice crisp. "In precisely one hundred and eighty beats, we will have an announcement for Doctor Desmond MaqqRee and the Sidhe Foundation. Please inform the Sidhe Foundation immediately. In precisely one hundred and sixty beats . . ."

  * * *

  The room's overhead lights were out, but Doc put on a set of smoked-glass goggles before joining Alastair at the table.

  Set into the tabletop was a crystal disk nearly Alastair's height in diameter. Nor was it ordinary crystal; it glowed with bright, wavering light. Alastair also wore goggles against the glare.

  Atop the crystal was the rubber man the grimworlders had brought from California. It still yammered mindlessly. Occasionally it would twitch. Though the material it was made of should have been thick enough to stop all light, the glow from the crystal disk shone through it. Tendrils of yellow, blue and red light played about on its surface.

  "Anything new?" Doc asked.

  "Yes. It's a puppet."

  "In what sense?"

  "It has strings." Alastair struck at the moving tendrils of color, mashing them into the rubber man's chest. Just for a moment, much finer tendrils of color, connected to the thing's limbs
and head and stretching up into the sky, were illuminated. "It literally is a puppet. A very simple one, too. No sensory attachments, no self-will, and no outgoing flow of energy to the controller—thus he can't know what it's doing at a distance."

  "So it's only for use in the presence of the controller."

  "That's what I'm trying to find out now. Am I recording?"

  Doc looked at the adjacent table, where a large box sat waiting. "No." He reached over to switch it on. "Yes."

  Alastair looked at the clock on the wall. "Time, about a chime short of three bells. Subject, Milord Airtube. In this test, we'll detach some of the control tendrils and reattach them to organ samples." He indicated a jar in which floated a pair of eyes attached to what looked like a brain stem.

  They heard a mechanical pop and crackle from behind them. They turned to see the talk-box in the corner of the room activate itself. Gaby's face quickly swam into focus. "Doc," she said, "something's up. The broadcast from the Aether Gold station keeps mentioning you."

  "Go ahead."

  Her face did not disappear, but there was another crackle over the speaker, and words spoken by someone unknown, a man with a pleasant Old World accent: "Please inform the Sidhe Foundation immediately."

  A silence of several beats followed, then the voice returned. "This message is for Doctor Desmond MaqqRee and the Sidhe Foundation. Yesterday we took the criminal Doctor MaqqRee into our custody, but he escaped the punishment to which he had been condemned. To retaliate for this gross transgression, we will destroy the Danaan Heights Office Building and everything in its vicinity at precisely four bells today. We invite Doctor MaqqRee to try to stop us. Should he die in the attempt, the rest of Neckerdam will no longer have to fear any further justice on our part."

  There was a faint clatter from the speaker, then a long moment of silence.

  "This is not good," said Alastair.

  Another voice began speaking: "This is Red MacOam returning to the air." His voice sounded hushed. "The men who seized control of the Aether Gold offices have left. There were three of them—four? Four of them, with fire in their hands and fire in their eyes. I think that—I'm getting reports that they're gone. Five? Five men, all lights in ordinary street dress with red kerchiefs over their faces, they— I'm being told that our offices are now trying to get in touch with the Sidhe Foundation to get their reaction to this challenge—"