Conspiracy of Ravens

by Lila Bowen

  The clouds were pressing down, the air wet with men’s sweat and the ground even worse. Rhett slogged down the knee-deep mud and filth of the thoroughfare, marveling at how different it was from the dusty thoroughfare of Gloomy Bluebird, which was too dry for even a tumbleweed, most days. As he watched, a feller flopped out his pizzle and added to a puddle under a rogue cow, and Rhett kept his face a mask as he walked on. For all the different folks he’d met thus far, with their different customs, he didn’t find much to recommend a railroad camp.

  The same group of Irish lads from the foreman’s line had made an identical line outside a large tent planted directly against the last car of the train. Rhett instantly recognized it from Earl’s descriptions and his own scouting: This was Trevisan’s lair. The damn thing was pitch-black and slick as a wet horse with that godforsakenly fancy BT business painted on it in gold and bone white. It made Rhett’s skin crawl, really. The car, from what he could see, had no windows at all, and the tent before it loomed large like a flapping maw. For no reason he could reckon, Rhett did not want to go in that tent. But he would, anyway, so he got in line to wait, using his time to make a mental map of the filthy little city.

  All the while, men went into the tent, and they didn’t come back out. That would’ve worried Rhett, except that…well, it’s not like they were killing fellers in there. The railroad needed workers—they’d said that even in Gloomy Bluebird. Then, they’d spoken of the Yerba Buena railroad stretching from the west coast out to the Messourita River. But it was the same for any railroad, even if other companies treated their men like men instead of animals. Tracks didn’t lay themselves. And he wasn’t hearing screams. And that meant that there had to be another door to the tent besides the front one, which made damn sense, because a tent wasn’t even made of wood, was it?

  Man after man went in. These fellers couldn’t have known what they were truly facing, as they were relaxed and joshing, if annoyed by the wait. Rhett couldn’t pick up much of what they said to each other, between their accents and some foreign words the likes of which he’d heard Earl muttering or singing to himself from time to time. No man stood behind him in line, and nobody talked to him, either. Which was just as well, as Rhett was right jumpy and unpleasant of temperament when he wasn’t sure what he was walking into.

  “Next,” someone called.

  Ducking under the flap, Rhett stepped into the tent, squinting his eye against the brighter lights within. The room had several lamps, all centered around a nasty-looking chair with straps on the arms and footrests.

  “Welcome to Trevisan Railroad Holdings. Your paper?” The voice was fancified and bored.

  There were three fellers waiting, staring at Rhett. One was tall and broader than Bill the Sasquatch and a hell of a lot meaner looking—he had his arms crossed over his all-black suit and wore a hungry smile, and there’s no way those fancified words could’ve come out of those bullet-like teeth. This had to be Trevisan’s second in command, Adolphus.

  The feller to his side was smaller and scrappy-looking with off-putting eyes, a bright yellowish green with black knives for pupils. He had his hands up like he was getting ready for a gunfight, even though he wore no guns, and Rhett had never seen a feller who looked like him, with gold skin and straight ink-black hair. The third feller was the scariest one, though. For one thing, he was the fanciest dresser Rhett had ever seen, even fancier than Boss Kimble at the Double TK, and far less likely to have eaten half a chicken with his bare hands while riding a horse.

  The man was of middling height and weight, but he was pale as a milk-white stone, with ice-blue eyes and white-gold hair slicked back and curling up over his high collar. His outfit only made him look paler, considering it was all in shades of black and pink. Rhett didn’t know much about fashion, especially not about what folks chose to parade about in back east or in Europa, but he figured this feller knew and deeply cared. Even his black boots were polished like mirrors.

  It had to be Trevisan.

  “Paper,” he said again, but not in an angry way. Like he was so patient that snow wouldn’t melt on his tongue.

  Rhett nodded and handed over the slip that Griswold the dwarf had given him. The man took it in pink-gloved hands, stretching it and tilting his head to read it.

  “Ned Hennessy. Tell me, Ned. Which do you favor—your hands or your feet?”

  “I’m right fond of them all, actually.”

  “But which do you use more?”

  “Well, a man’s gotta walk, I reckon. Am I hired?”

  “Have a seat,” the man said.

  Rhett didn’t want to have a damn seat, but they didn’t give him a chance to protest. They moved like a machine, the big one grabbing Rhett around the chest and the smaller one capturing his ankles as they forced him into the chair and strapped down his arms and legs. Rhett fought as hard as he could, but there wasn’t a goddamn thing he could do. His doctor’s bag had fallen to the ground, where everyone ignored it.

  “Are you healthy, Ned?”

  “I was until you strapped me into this chair. Now I’m feeling a bit shifty.”

  “Do you have the cough? Are you costive? Have you ever had fainting spells?”

  “No to all.”

  Well, and so what if he’d fainted a little when Delgado had shot him full of lead and silver and the harpies had carried him to the Cannibal Owl’s lair? That didn’t count. A man with that much metal in him was bound to get sleepy.

  The man in the gloves—Trevisan—knocked off Rhett’s hat and pulled back his eye kerch and gently tugged his skin this way and that, looking in his nose and ears and even forcing Rhett’s mouth open by pinching his cheeks. Rhett had never felt so violated and furious, which was saying a lot, and it had been a long time since he’d felt so helpless. Tied down, with the other men grinning on, there was nothing he could do but thrash and growl at the unwelcome investigation.

  “What are you, Ned?”

  Goddamn the man for his calm, silvery voice and his strange accent.

  “I’m angry is what I am. Did I pass my physical evaluation or not?”

  The gloved hand slapped his cheek in warning—not so hard as to make a bruise, though.

  “No, Ned. What’s your magic? I know you have it, and you know I have need of it in my camp, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I was just told you needed bodies and paid a good wage.”

  “Then you’re a terribly unlucky fellow, aren’t you? What do you become?”

  “Well, when people slap me around, I turn into a—”

  He was going to say asshole, but the hand was poised to slap him again, and the tension in that goddamn pink glove told Rhett it would hurt a lot more this time.

  “I turn into an animal. Not the sort that can build a railroad, so I don’t see how that’s important, but there you have it.”

  “What kind of animal?” That voice, cold as the snow Rhett had never felt.

  Rhett swallowed hard and looked away. “Big bird. Don’t know what kind.”

  The man nodded and smiled, serene as a churchman. “That explains the eye. Vulture?”

  “No.”

  “How interesting. We’ll have to test it and find out.”

  Rhett’s heart jumped into his throat. “Oh, well, now, that’s a private thing, ain’t it? You don’t need to watch that. I can just…go behind a screen, or…”

  The man looked down at Rhett’s bound hands and feet as if to remind him. The big feller snickered. The smaller feller put his hands on Rhett’s boots as if to remove them.

  Before they could start stripping him, Rhett did a stupid thing, a thing he’d never done before. Reaching deep inside, he pulled that golden cord and turned himself inside out, into…whatever he was. The bird surfaced furious, tangled in a pile of fabric and screeching. Its eye met that of the man with the pink gloves, and then he was Rhett again, his clothes a mess but still mostly on. His chest wrap was a wreck, but the shirt was roomy, so he just wriggled down d
eeper into his pants and pulled his eye kerch and hat into place, wishing his boots hadn’t fallen to the floor and glad to be out of the restraints.

  Of course, the next thing that happened was that they strapped him right back down.

  Trevisan leaned closer, his face alight with happiness. He put the cold palm of his glove against Rhett’s cheek, and it was everything Rhett could do not to turn away in disgust.

  “You are a lammergeier,” the man said softly. “The lambhawk. My first one. A fierce bird from Afrika and the Caucasus. In Persia, they call you Homa, and to be touched by your shadow is good luck. Eating your meat is forbidden. A fortunate creature. One of your parents was from Afrika, yes?” Whatever went over Rhett’s face as he learned this news told the man what he needed to know. “Poor creature. Both the orphan lamb and the lambhawk, aren’t you? We’ll give you work. Idle hands are the devil’s playthings, are they not?”

  “Work would be good,” Rhett said, hating the shakiness of his voice. “I was told I’d be on the cut line after lunch?”

  The man pulled a glittering silver pocket watch from his pink waistcoat, popped it open, and snapped it closed.

  “Ah, well, that will depend on Grandpa Z, won’t it? And how good of a patient you are.”

  Rhett nodded. “Real good. Good enough to unbuckle me, I reckon.”

  The man smiled, and it was like being caught in a tornado of ice. “You will call me sir, but to you I will be a god. I’m Bernard Trevisan, and this is my railroad. And you said feet, didn’t you?”

  “Feet?”

  “Feet, sir,” said the big man as his hands clamped down on Rhett’s shoulders.

  Panic shot through Rhett like a rabbit writhing in a snare as the smaller man caught his knees in an iron grip. Mr. Trevisan—Mr. Trevisan, by God—kneeled at Rhett’s feet like he was worshipping at a pew. He yanked Rhett’s right sock off with the tips of his gloved fingers and reached for something that made a sloshing noise. Too late, Rhett recognized that part of the warm heat of the tent and the sweat on his brow was a cauldron of water boiling over a brazier.

  As Rhett opened his mouth to holler his fool head off, the big man slid a leather-wrapped stick between his teeth.

  “Best bite hard, friend,” he said, but not like he meant the friend part.

  Hot liquid gushed over Rhett’s foot, and he growled wordless screams around the leather, his toes clutching painfully together. Something cool sloshed over them next, a welcome respite, and the scent of red wine filled the room, reminding him so much of Buck’s drink that his head swam a little.

  “This little piggy went to the market,” Trevisan said, wiggling Rhett’s big toe. “Did they teach you that rhyme, where you grew up?”

  Rhett’s head thrashed back and forth.

  “And this little piggy stayed at home.” Trevisan wiggled Rhett’s second toe. “This little piggy had bread and butter.” He wiggled the third toe, and Rhett’s skin crawled as he realized what was about to happen, what Earl had told him would happen. But Earl, that goddamn bastard donkey, had not said when it would happen, because then Rhett might not’ve walked into camp like a goddamn fool. Earl had described it like a punishment, not an initiation.

  Trevisan wiggled Rhett’s fourth toe. “This little piggy had none. I suppose you have had none, too, have you not, Ned? Very skinny. Don’t you think, Adolphus?”

  “Pretty skinny, sir,” the big man agreed.

  “And this little piggy,” Trevisan said, his fingers delicately grasping Rhett’s little toe, pinky up as if he held the handle of a dainty teacup, “went wee wee wee, all the way home. Good-bye, little piggy!” With terrifying gentleness, the man cupped Rhett’s wine-wet foot, slid a midnight-black stone knife against his little toe, and sliced it clean off into his waiting hand.

  Rhett made himself a liar by passing the hell out.

  The next thing he knew, he was in someone’s arms and swaying. He squinched his eye shut and tried to ignore the raging pain in his toe and act asleep, or maybe dead—at least until he understood what was going on. The light was different, and cold rain splattered and sluiced down his skin, soaking his clothes. So he was outside the tent, back in the thoroughfare. Slumped against Adolphus’s chest, the hard thing was not yarking all over the feller, who smelled like he’d sewed himself into his drawers a year ago and wouldn’t emerge for a bath until next year. The man said nothing, and Rhett forced himself to remain limp. His toe stump throbbed in a peculiar-type way, and he realized that was his heartbeat.

  Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

  How the hell did Winifred live with it?

  Well, by reaching out to feel something of her own choice, maybe.

  Canvas scraped his face as the light went dark.

  “Last one today, Z,” Adolphus said. “Here’s his belongings. If there’s something you can use in the doctor’s bag, big boss says it’s yours.”

  The only response was a grunt, but the grunt managed to say quite a bit about how put upon it was and how it was damn sick of doing whatever it did and that stolen leftovers in a black bag wasn’t about to make up for it.

  With more care than Rhett would’ve expected, Adolphus transferred him to a rough, narrow cot with a scant pillow for his head. The sound of canvas flapping shut told him Adolphus was gone. A few seconds later, he opened his eye just the tiniest fraction.

  This tent smelled much better than the last one, although it was likewise moist with boiling things. Herbs hung from the ceiling, giving off a fresh, hay-like scent. A squat old woman with a long gray braid, a funny hat, and a floor-length green dress edged in yellow stood with her back to Rhett across the tent, working at a table—probably the source of the grunt. In a low, rushed voice, it spoke, but not in a woman’s voice and not in any language Rhett could reckon. Someone spoke back in a younger, softer voice, and soon a boy dressed in gray was popping open the Captain’s doctor’s bag, his back to Rhett and his black hair in a stubby ponytail. Rhett mightily wanted to shout at him or punch him in the snoot for rudeness, but he reckoned he’d learn more if he pretended to be asleep.

  The boy pulled out the needles, the thread, and the leather roll of instruments, gabbling at the older man in triumph. The old man grunted again and nodded, and the boy disappeared, probably to squirrel away his find.

  When the old man spoke again, it was more of a bark, and there was some urgency to it. Soon they stood, the old man behind Rhett and holding down his shoulders as Adolphus had, and the young man kneeling at Rhett’s feet. When Rhett dared another glance through his lashes, he realized it wasn’t a boy at all—it was a girl in boy’s clothing. She had golden skin and black hair like the smaller feller who worked for Trevisan. Her eyes were strange and hypnotizing, like blue-green skies sparked with lightning and an angry black sun in the center, the pupils deep as hatchet marks. But the twist of her fine lips—well, that was something altogether different. She was looking at him the same way he looked at a particularly fine horse that needed breaking, as if she were the only one who could do the job right.

  Tenderly, she wiped Rhett’s toe with something cold and soothing that had a sharp smell, and his foot twitched without him meaning it to. The old man barked again, and the girl did something he couldn’t quite see with his toe and muttered in a clear, sweet voice, “Yap yap. Like a dog. I know, Grandfather. I know. He’ll be awake soon. I’m hurrying.”

  When she looked up again, her eyes met Rhett’s only eye. She knew he was awake. The tiniest smile almost gave her a dimple. Almost.

  Rhett’s eye slammed shut. Almost.

  But he had to watch what she was doing, because he understood now that this had to be Grandpa Z, and this was his granddaughter Cora, and they were about to seal his lopped-off toe. This was the magic he needed as much as he needed Trevisan to die. This was the way to help Winifred live a normal life without pain. So he watched through his eyelashes, ignoring his own agony and buzzing with more excitement than he cared to contemplate to discover their sec
ret. Earl had been asleep every time he’d lost a limb, but Rhett was awake and watching avidly.

  The girl shoved her hair out of her eyes, briefly holding a finger over her lips. Then she looked down and took a deep breath. When she breathed out again, hot air billowed over Rhett’s foot, and he smelled…smoke? Cora’s delicate fingers were cold, though, and as he watched, they grew bright orange scales, like a snake, tipped with curved talons. He’d never seen anything like it, the way her scaled hands flowed into her human wrists—unless you counted how a Lobo could howl with a wolf’s head on a man’s body.

  With dainty, exacting care, Cora pinched the skin around where his pinky toe used to be, holding the edges of flesh together like she was going to sew a seam on a shirt—which Rhett knew wouldn’t help the skin heal at all. But she didn’t sew it. She put her lips so, so close, and blew on it, a gentle sigh. What came out wasn’t air this time, but a smoky sort of fire.

  And goddammit goddammit goddammit, but it burned, as if his whole damn foot was melting off and dripping onto the floor. Despite himself, despite his dedication to feigning sleep, Rhett bucked against the old man’s grip, his teeth snapped together, and his body bowed up off the cot.

  “Shhh,” the girl breathed, and it was a deep, unnatural sound.

  The already-warm tent filled with the scent of cooked meat, and the girl pulled away and dashed a pot of cold water over Rhett’s foot, instantly cooling it. When he looked again, she was just a girl, round faced and smiling sweetly, blinking eyes that still burned with the dragon’s fire. The scales and the smoke and the deep, godlike voice of the dragon had fled. Rhett had heard of this, once—that the Chine could turn into beasts far more powerful than anything in the Federal Republic. But if they could be dragons, why the Sam Hill did they stick around here? Why not set the whole damn camp on fire and fly away?

  The old man grunted, and the girl nodded. “Yes, Grandfather. He is awake now. How do you feel?” This last question was directed at Rhett.