Crosswind

by Steve Rzasa

  The Ifan spike was etched onto the back.

  Winch smiled and nodded. Suddenly the biplane’s engine fired up, and he heard Cope holler. “Ifan keep you,” Winch said.

  “You too.” Maddy shoved her hands in her pockets. “And don’t break my glass.”

  • • •

  The rest of the flight to Trestleway passed uneventfully, so much so that Winch could actually relax. As he watched the clouds drift by far overhead and let the morning sun warm his face through the cockpit, his eyelids grew heavy as metal type on a printing press.

  At one point, Cope yelled something about seeing railroad tracks below, but Winch heard his words only as a droning slur, as if he were conversing underwater. The dreams came soon afterward—fragmented, frightening dreams, of running, of falling, of anger and jealousy and mockery. All were blurs of color and muddles of sound. Save one.

  He was in a place—it looked oddly familiar. The inside of an aeroplane? Yes, only one much larger that Cope’s biplane. It was a passenger liner with a tan fuselage, wooden and metal interior braces, and seats on either side of a narrow aisle. A half dozen windows on either side let in light.

  There wasn’t much light to be let in, though. Thick, dark clouds blotted out the sun. Wind howled outside the fuselage, and rain pummeled the skin of the aerocraft like a drunk demanding back into a closed tavern. Winch sweated, and his stomach knotted. Men seated here and there cussed. The smell of their sweat and fear filled the cabin. It had to stop.

  Only one man could save him now. And that man was asleep in the back of the plane.

  Winch bent over him, his movements slow as tar. He grabbed Ifan’s shoulder. Brown eyes, simultaneously full of compassion and fire, opened. They stared right through Winch. Right into the depths of his mind and his heart.

  “Save us!” Winch was embarrassed by the panic that reached his ears. “Don’t you care that we’re going to crash?”

  Ifan shook his head, but his expression remained kind. Winch almost couldn’t look at his face full on. It was like staring into the noon sun. “Why are you afraid?” Ifan asked. “Don’t you have faith? Don’t you believe me?”

  Suddenly everyone was laughing. Cruel, taunting laughter. Winch wanted to hit the other men, and he tried his best. But his fists might as well have been wrapped in cotton and his arms bound in quilts. He was powerless.

  Only Ifan did not laugh. Instead, he repeated, “Don’t you believe me?”

  Winch awoke with a start. His hands flailed about for security. They slapped hard against the cold inside walls of the cockpit.

  He was back in Cope’s aeroplane. The rumble of the engine was most welcome now. The sun was still out, the sky was still clear—no storm. No mocking laughter.

  “You all right back there?” Cope sounded concerned.

  “Yes.” His voice shook with anger and shame. He did all he could to restrain himself. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a bad dream.”

  “Oh. Huh.” Cope rapped the cockpit glass. “Well, if you’re up to it, we have a mighty fine view coming up. As good a view as you could want of a snake’s pit. Look to the right.”

  “Snake’s pit?” He looked—and whistled low. “Oh. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a city quite like it.”

  “Welcome to Trestleway.”

  • • •

  The city spread out before them at the mouth of the Wright Valley, sprawling on the plains with the wide Cobalt River cutting right through it. Trestleway was a mass of buildings, streets, and black rails—lines overlapping lines at the foothills of the south end of the Sawteeth. It reminded Winch of a quilt he’d received from his mother a few years ago, only supremely ugly, done in tans and greys and muted reds of brick, with blacks and browns for the roads.

  A heavy pall of thick, grey smoke hung over the city. It billowed into the air from massive factories on the far east side, and steam sprayed from countless chimneys and stacks all over Trestleway. Winch spotted similar but smaller smoke trails tracing their way along the rails. Trestleway had a very square shape to it, with the more ramshackle tenement district surrounding the teardrop-shaped center of the Old City. The Cobalt River bordered one side of the Old City, with a straighter ribbon of blue—a canal, Winch supposed—forming a moat on the east.

  Then there were the rails. They outlined the city in a rough octagon, looping around the tenements in a wide circle, crossing over the tenements in a massive X, and reaching out from Trestleway in eight long arms. Winch imagined he could see the city actually growing.

  Winch shook his head. The smoke was appalling. What would it be like to breathe it in day after day?

  “You head south another hour and a half or such, and it’s the Sea of Lucerne,” Cope said. “Makes a man pine for ol’ Przystan, eh?”

  Winch nodded. “We should get back there to see Father and Mother sometime.”

  Cope was silent for a spell. “Sometime.”

  “Do you miss the ocean as badly as I do?”

  Cope shrugged. “Not with the skies to sail.”

  The aerodrome was, as Cope had hinted, a pale shadow of Perch’s fine facility. Cope brought the Buzzard smoothly down for a landing on the largely deserted runway. Winch saw only eight other large planes parked to one side, and he couldn’t tell how many might be tucked into the five modest-sized hangars. There wasn’t a single dirigible or even a barn big enough to hold one.

  No sooner had they pulled off onto the tarmac than a short, rotund man in a tan uniform strode up. At least, Winch thought he attempted to stride—there was a hint of swagger, but since his body resembled that of a diprotodon, it became more of a waddle.

  “Don’t say a thing, Winch.” Cope cut the engine. He pulled off his flight cap and goggles. “Follow my lead, all right?”

  Strange. “All right…”

  Cope hopped out and walked toward the man. Winch hopped down from the cockpit, rucksack in hand, and stood by the left wing next to Cope. It must be a serious affair—Cope didn’t crack a joke, let alone show his customary grin.

  “Welcome to the city-state of Trestleway.” By the way the attendant said it, in his reedy voice, Winch didn’t feel particularly welcome. The attendant puffed out his chest. “Your travel folios, please?”

  Cope dug the papers from his rucksack and handed them over wordlessly. The little man squinted over his bifocals. “Copland Rogers and Walter Rogers. Very good. Length of stay?”

  “A few days. Probably three.” Cope smiled. “We aim to spend that time in the Old City. Depends on how friendly the lady-folk are in your burg, right?”

  The attendant made a sour face. He produced a stamp from one of his pockets and slapped it down on both travel folios before handing them back to Cope. Then he dug into yet another uniform pocket. This time he yanked free a green cloth. He waved it over his head. A trio of mechanics in drab coveralls ran toward them from the nearest hangar.

  “We will secure your aeroplane here for the duration of your stay,” the attendant droned. Here is your claim chit.” He gave Cope a rusty metal chit with the number 0291 scratched on it. “Present it at the terminal and again at the hangar to regain admittance.”

  “Thanks.” Cope made no move to depart. Instead his body tensed, as if he were anticipating—what, fisticuffs? Winch squirmed. He wanted desperately to ask Cope what was going on.

  The attendant fixed them with a surprising glare. “Do you require a map?”

  It seemed to Winch not that serious a matter. Cope nudged him. Right, the map Maddy gave them. He dug it from his own rucksack. He gave it to the man, hoping all the while his hands were not trembling.

  The attendant perused it. “Hmm. It’s two years old—not badly dated. Ah!” He turned it over and ran a chubby finger across an embossed seal that Winch had not noticed. “It is official and valid. Good. You may enter the Old City—present it at the gates, along with your hangar chit.”

  He gave the map back to Winch, and then wiped his hand on his uniform. His smile was less th
an enthusiastic. “Enjoy your visit to Trestleway.”

  Before long, one of the mechanics hustled them away from the Buzzard.

  Cope gave one despairing glance at his aeroplane as they walked to the terminal building. “She’ll be fine, won’t she?” he asked.

  Winch sighed. “It’s an aeroplane, Cope, not your wife. It will be fine.”

  “She’d better not have a scratch or grease stain on her, or so help me…”

  Winch tugged on his arm. “Come along, Mr. Rogers.”

  The terminal building looked like it had been someone’s farm house decades ago. The white paint and green trim were faded and peeling. The mechanic led them right passed the main entrance and headed instead to a makeshift branter pen off to the right.

  The attendant here, a skinny man in coveralls stained with what Winch hoped wasn’t branter dung, haggled with them over the price for two suitable branters.

  Cope grumbled mightily. “Way too much coin for a pair of old mares,” he said. A few minutes later, they rode off the tarmac onto the main road.

  Their branters were older, but Winch liked their docile nature. They were virtual twins: Both had mottled charcoal patterns on light grey hair and pearly horns. Winch opted not to speak as they rode from the aerodrome into the nearest of the tenement neighborhoods. The buildings were crammed together as closely as boxes in a freight yard. The smell was awful. “Doesn’t Trestleway practice proper sanitation?”

  Cope snorted. “Too expensive to keep it fixed all the time, or so they say. Honestly, you’d think, after the plagues that toppled the Commonwealth, every city-state in Galderica would know how to keep things clean enough so disease can’t thrive.”

  Winch reckoned it would have been sunnier out save for the smoke and soot overhead. Far in the distance, a set of train whistles hooted. The black and brown trestles of the nearest overhead rail loomed ahead. The purple flag of Trestleway flapped in the wind under the trestles. Winch didn’t like the rails pointing out in a double cross from the black hawk at the center—it reminded him of the city-state’s expansion.

  Winch decided it was time for some answers from his abnormally taciturn brother. “Everything all right?”

  “Now it is.” Cope blew out a breath. “See, if we’d said we did need a map, our dear attendant would have gladly provided one—and then he’d sic the Citizen’s Peace Branch on us. They won’t let anyone wander around the Old City all by their lonesome unless they have a map with an official seal. And guess how you get one?”

  “By visiting here once and submitting to Branch review?”

  “Branter’s-eye.” Cope grinned. “So now they figure we’ve been here before.”

  “But what about our folios?”

  “Pre-stamped.” Cope shook his head. “Didn’t you look at them when Keysor had them fancied up?”

  “Er, no.” Truth be told, he’d been too anxious to notice.

  The faint smell of smoke drifted to them on the wind. Winch pulled his branter to a stop. About a mile down the flat road, he could see beyond the crumbling brick and mortar tenements a man-height wooden gate set in two weathered stone gatehouses. Soldiers in tan uniforms—but much more physically fit than the roly-poly attendant—awaited.

  “You are sure about this plan, aren’t you?” Cope asked.

  “Not in the slightest.” Winch took out his pocket watch: It was ten past ten in the morning. What would grandfather think of this whole mess? He’d probably laugh heartily and commend them for their adventuresome souls. “I only pray to Thel we don’t get ourselves arrested or shot.”

  “That’ll work.” Cope slapped the reins. “Let’s go find our man.”

  Thursday

  “Halt!” The taller, burlier of the two guards waved his lever-action carbine at Winch and Cope as they slowed their branters. He had a sour expression and a drooping moustache that looked like it should impede his speech. “Present your folios.”

  They stood just outside the gates. Winch tried to ignore this imposing figure in tan jacket and brown trousers, this guard with red rank insignia on each shoulder and brass buckles that were impossibly shiny. Instead, he turned his attention to the line of five motorwagons of all shapes but only one color combination—black metal and brown wood—waiting for entry on the opposite side of the street.

  The second guard, who wasn’t nearly as sour and looked almost like a facsimile of Winch, politely waved the motorwagons through the open gate one at a time as he gave the drivers’ folios a cursory glance. He also accepted their Trestleway currency, and doffed his slouch cap at one elderly couple dressed in business finery.

  “I don’t suppose we get the special treatment,” Winch whispered to Cope.

  The guard tromped closer.

  “Button up.” Cope lit up a grin. “Hello, there, Sergeant! Nice morning in your dear city, I’d wager. Once we get out of these dingy tenements, that is.”

  The guard scowled. He snatched the folios from Cope’s fingers with such force Winch feared he’d rip them. But he only glowered over the impeccably forged document. Meanwhile Winch cast an uneasy glance about the dilapidated, four-story buildings of the same drab stone and wood construction that loomed all around. Broken windows mended with newspaper seemed to be the norm. A few women hanging laundry on long lines that crisscrossed overhead gave him looks about as comforting as the expression on the sergeant’s face.

  “All right, there, Mr. Rogers.” The sergeant tossed the folio back to Cope, who caught it easily. “Hospitality Row is up two blocks. Follow Straight Street as it bends, and take the second right. Firearms use is prohibited in the city limits, unless you have the proper permit. Show them papers again whenever you leave or enter the Old City. Just don’t make it a habit. This gate ain’t a revolving glass door.”

  Cope nodded affably. “Will do, Sergeant.” He tossed off a jaunty salute and nudged his branter forward. The animal snorted and plodded on through the towering gate. Winch followed. He decided against waving farewell to the guards.

  Inside was as different from the tenements as the Tirodani ice wastes were from the Golden Desert. Most of the buildings here were single or multi-story cream-colored structures with red stucco roofs. They wore their ancient décor like a man wears a finely-tailored suit. More modern buildings of brick towered up four, five, and six stories overhead, several blocks away. Winch saw them as the men-in-charge clustered together for a conversation of utmost import.

  The streets were clean and paved, the sidewalks of wood were in decent condition. The rank stench of the tenements was absent—evidently this was where Trestleway spent the bulk of its sanitation budget. People passed on every side, riding on branters or motorwagons or on foot. They were all well-dressed—or were wearing the uniform of the Trestleway Militia.

  “Proper permit for my gun.” Cope said it as if someone had insulted his mother’s virtue. “Blue skies. You’d think they don’t trust a man with a weapon anymore.”

  “You have to have a permit in Perch too,” Winch said.

  “Yes, but there it’s general. It’s not like I have to produce one on demand!”

  “There’s no point in fussing.” Winch shook his head. “You still have your gun, and something tells me you won’t be following that particular statute—even if I tried my best to persuade you.”

  “You’re blamed right. Huh—this looks like our turn up here.” Cope pointed to an intersection as they came around a bend. There were so many carriages pulled by branters and diprotodons—not to mention multi-passenger motorwagons—that Winch wasn’t sure they could fit through the mass.

  He sidled his branter close to Cope as they meandered through the congestion. Branters brayed, diprotodons bellowed, and motorwagons honked. Steam hissed from engines. The rumble and roar of people’s discontent contributed to the cacophony. “Not exactly the quiet life, eh?” Winch nearly shouted to be heard.

  Cope shook his head. “Now up ahead—this is more like it!”

  The Hospit
ality Row stretched along Haupt Avenue for three blocks. The buildings here were painted gaily in white and rose and blue, sporting awnings striped in all manner of colors. People crowded around vendor stalls set up in the street as well as on the sidewalks. Here and there they sat at tables, newspapers in hand and cigars and coffee nearby. Men with serious faces deep in discussion—women visiting the shops.

  “Would you like a souvenir, Winch—er, Walter?” Cope asked.

  “What I would like is to see Mr. Oneyear Hines.” Winch unfolded his map. A motorwagon honked, making him nearly leap from the saddle. Winch’s branter brayed in dismay. He pulled his branter aside as the vehicle trundled by, and its owner shot Winch a nasty look. “Easy. Cope—ah, Copland. It looks as if Joyce Lane is up a block to the left—that alleyway you can see beyond the twin oak trees in front of that café.”

  Cope didn’t answer. Winch wheeled his branter about, only to find Cope leaning over his mount to converse with three quite lovely ladies selling flowers and sundry fruits.

  “This is one of my rare visits to your fair Old City, and a more personal tour would be appreciated.”

  One of the girls tittered.

  “Copland!” Winch called. He put into his voice all the fatherly impatience he reserved for his children’s misdeeds.

  Cope rolled his eyes. “Coming, Mother Hen.” He grinned at the women. “Ladies, may we meet again under fairer skies.”

  He was certainly right about the sky. A sooty cloud had drifted in, blocking the sun and casting a shadow over the bustling avenue. Winch grabbed Cope’s arm. “Will you kindly rein yourself in? Come on, this way.”

  “Yes, yes, don’t make such a fuss. After all, we’re supposed to be tourists, correct? What better cover story than to enjoy the local sights?” Cope waved back to the women.

  Winch sighed.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something that sent a chill straight down his back: a man in a black suit speaking with a grocer out on the sidewalk. For a moment he feared it was Captain Crittenden Beam—but no, this man was shorter and wider around the middle. He had a neatly trimmed brown beard, and his face looked nothing like Beam’s—however, the red tie that fairly glowed against his dark clothing was identical to Beam’s.