Jane's helplessness was perfect. Caught in the crush, pressed tight, she was unable even to fall—the mob upheld her. Briefly she was lifted off her feet and carried along. When the road widened, her feet touched pavement and she had to run to keep from falling and being trampled under.
Another roar. The front edge of the mob had found something. It was, Jane discovered when she pushed close enough to see, a behemoth. They had trapped it in a cul-de-sac and were rocking it back and forth. It toppled over with a bellow of frustrated rage, and its conquerors swarmed up over its hindquarters. They sprang the hood and driver-side door and began yanking out its guts. Seats, cables, spark plugs, a plastic dashboard statue of the Great Mother were thrown out into the crowd. "Bastards!" the behemoth roared. "I kill you! Crush you! I stomp you flat!" It was terrifying that so great a beast, so mighty a machine, could be mastered so easily.
Terrifying and just a little magnificent.
The front of a tavern had been ripped away and its bar broken up. Bottles were being handed out to whoever passed by. Jane found herself clutching a pint of peppermint schnapps. It tasted dreadful. But after a while she got used to it.
Smashing and looting, the mob flowed forward until something up ahead—a dead end, a split in the road—made it pause in indecision. Slowed to a walk, Jane again spotted Linnet. She was arm in arm with an enormous, misshapen wight. Jane tapped her shoulder.
Linnet looked up blankly. "What are you doing here?" Without waiting for an answer, she released her companion's arm. "This is Bone Head."
Bone Head certainly looked the part. His skull was enormously thick, lopsided, and deathly white under close-cropped hair. Blackwork sun wheels were tattooed onto his forehead and cheeks. His eyes were lifeless, pits of ash.
He grinned loutishly and fingered his balls.
Desperately ignoring him, Jane said, "Do you have any idea where we are? You don't have to come with me. Just point me in the right direction and I'll find my own way home."
With withering scorn, Linnet said, "You don't get it, do you? You just don't get it." Wings flapping, she pulled her sweater over her head. She wore nothing underneath. Her breasts weren't particularly large, but her nipples were enormous, as large as plums and the color of apricots. At the sight of them, a cheer went up.
Linnet flung the sweater into the air. A hunchbacked musician bent to stick his head between her legs, then stood again. She rose up on his shoulders, a figurehead for the mob.
"The Barrows!" somebody shouted. Linnet waved her arms, urging them onward. "The Barrows!" she screamed. With the hunchback playing his flute beneath her, she led them away.
They moved at a fast stride, almost a trot. The intoxicating smell of their sweat surrounded Jane, like rotting fruit. The mob was not chanting now, but making an extraordinary noise, a surf of voices with occasional high cries lifting up from the surface in sonic spikes, and a bass rumble that vibrated in the pit of her stomach and never stopped. It buzzed and crackled in her head like an amphetamine high, constant, unchanging, and yet complexly varied, a symphony to chaos.
Jane ran a hand through her hair. It crackled. She no longer wanted to get away. What was happening was too exciting, too vital in an awful way, to relinquish. She had to see what came next. Weightless, a charged particle in the current of the mob, she let it carry her away, offering not the least resistance to its will.
Abruptly Jane was inside an appliance store. Everywhere dim forms were snatching up camcorders, CD players, minifridges. A box was dumped into her arms. Bewildered, she took it.
A soot black imp jumped from the shadows and cheerily shouted, "Fire! Fear! Fire! Get out! Get out!"
Flames leaped up behind him.
Everyone tried to squeeze out the front at once. For a fearful instant Jane thought she was going to be crushed and feared for her life. She was blocks down the road before she thought to look down and see what she had.
A microwave oven.
It really was a remarkable bit of luck. She had a serious need for a microwave back in her room, and because there was no way she could ever shoplift anything so large, she decided to keep it.
* * *
Lugging the oven, though, Jane found she could not keep up. By degrees she lagged behind, steadily slipping to the rear of the mob. Until finally, arms and shoulders aching, she had to sit down on some steel-and-concrete steps by an old industrial canal. She felt exhausted.
The last of the mob flowed away. The air chilled. The roar of voices sank to a mutter, one that rose sporadically from different parts of the City, as if the mob were a monster that could exist in several places at once. She stared down at her feet, at the litter of rusty metal scrap, plastic crack vials, and cigarette butts. Her head was still buzzing.
The mob had sucked up all vitality from the streets and buildings as it passed. In its train paint blistered, popped, and released spores of rust in tiny puffs. Asphalt buckled. Stucco fell away from brick in patches. Trash multiplied by the curbs and bobbed in the oily waters of the canal. Walls crumbled.
From the interiors of gutted buildings, weeds sprouted with necromantic speed. As Jane watched, a vine pushed its way from a crack at the base of a concrete bridge pier, and grew into a labyrinthine tangle of thorns. Deep in its heart roses bloomed whose attar, like spoiled milk, drew in some species of winged sprites no larger than her fist.
With a tinkling of small bells the sprites sped over the canal. They traveled in pairs, hauling equally diminutive prisoners at the ends of twin ropes no thicker than threads. Headlong they plunged into the gloomy thicket.
Tiny screams pierced the night.
As an alchemist-to-be, Jane understood natural processes. Balance had been destroyed; it had to be restored. But she didn't have to watch. She had caught her breath. It was time to go. She stood, leaving the microwave on the steps. She didn't really want the damned thing after all.
A gout of vomit splashed the road. She danced back, but still flecks of it spattered her shoes.
Three hyena-headed creatures leaned over the rail of an overpass above her. "Hey, watch it!" she shouted.
One, the sick one, appeared not even to notice her. A second brayed at her distress. The third stepped up on the rail, unbuttoned his fly and shook his prick at her. "Bite on this, honey!"
"Shitheads!" she yelled.
"This bitch," the prick-waggler said coldly, "needs to be taught a lesson." His friend was already casting about for a way down. "Over there!" he cried. Leaving their drunken comrade clutching the rail, they ran toward a stairway on the far side of the bridge. Terrified, Jane ducked into a doorway and discovered that it was the entrance to a less obvious stairway up to the street they had just vacated.
At the top she paused as first a dozen and then a hundred misshapen creatures raced by. Her tormenters had been front-runners of one arm of the mob. It was not the same group she had left—she recognized no one, and there were faces among these she would have remembered. But it didn't matter. She stepped into their hurrying number.
Safe again.
* * *
Jane had not run far when an enormous roar exploded up ahead. Abruptly the street opened into a great five-sided square. Like gas molecules escaping from compression the mob sped up and spread out to fill the new space. With a thrill of fear, Jane realized where they were.
This was Oberon Square. On four sides were taverns, record outlets, hardware stores, haberdasheries, and the like. On the fifth the massive obsidian front of the single most infamous penitentiary in all the Great Gray City jutted over the plaza like the massive prow of an ominous black freighter.
The Long Barrows.
Confronted with the place itself, the mob proved oddly reluctant to attack. It broke into smaller groups on the other four sides, ignoring the obvious target. The storefronts were covered with security grates and blast screens but there were unprotected windows higher up. The mob pelted them with stones and brickbats.
On an impulse too swift
for apprehension, Jane picked up an empty beer bottle, cocked her arm, and threw. Her window shattered. She tossed her head and crowed. A troll patted her back, making her stagger.
It felt great.
The madness of the fairy host engaged her fully then, wrapping about her like a pair of gauze wings. She took a deep breath, drawing the swirling, effervescent feeling deep into her lungs and abdomen. Once done, it was inevitable. She was one of them now, body and soul, a citizen of the mob.
A drunk stumbled against her and she shoved him hard with both hands. "Out of my way, you fucking yob!"
And that felt great too.
When they had shattered all the windows, peeled the grates from the shops, looted the interiors, and torched two of the stores, there was a pause. Several burly dwarves tried to smash the hinges of the great gate of the penitentiary. But for all their strength and cunning, they had to step down in disgrace.
The mob almost stalled out then. To keep up momentum some of its number turned to a boutique winery that had heretofore escaped their attention. Leather chairs and spider plants flew into the street. Oils of naked ogres crouching on toilets were thrown into the flames. Then three gargantuan casks rumbled onto the paving stones, pushed by straining lamies. One leaped atop the lead hogshead and waved his feathered cap in the air. "Goodfellows!" he cried. Derisive laughter. He hoisted an ax. "Our beloved masters, the Lords of the City, have imprisoned—for its own good!—this lawless and defiant liquor. Many a long and festering year has it been confined within these oaken walls, maturing, mellowing, losing its harsh edges, aspiring to become a clement and obedient drink, fit for the noble gullets of our most worthy owners." He was the center of all eyes. The lamie puffed out his chest, mugged, and shouted, "Has it matured?"
"No!!!"
"Has it learned its lesson?"
"No!!!"
"Has it mended its unruly ways?"
"No!!!"
"Fair spoken. 'Tis clearly recalcitrant and no suitable glug for the likes of our betters." He brought the ax down on the cask's bunghole. Wine gushed across the square. Laughing grotesques rushed to the gutters to kneel and drink.
A pump was liberated from the hardware store and used to fill an empty fountain at the center of the plaza. Revelers—Linnet was one—splashed naked in it, drinking from cupped hands and pouring bloody liquid over one another. The burning buildings and mercury-vapor streetlamps combined to cast a cheerless orange light over them all.
There was a shout from the outskirts of the crowd.
A construction giant lurched slowly into the square, directed by a grinning devil of a boggart who sat on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. They stopped at the prison gates and the giant lifted his massive fist. Three times he smashed the iron-clad doors. They splintered and held. Then on the fourth blow the gate gave way and crashed down.
A cheer went up that shook the stars.
Jane surged forward with everyone else. She found herself running down a dark and narrow corridor with Bone Head at her side. He seized her arm and hauled her to a stop before a cell door. "Hold this!" He thrust his jacket at her and spat a stream of yellow phlegm between his shoes. Then he rammed a pry bar between lock and jamb. Muscles bulged under his sweat-dampened T-shirt.
The door popped open.
Rotting teeth in a rotting mouth. A face that seemed to be twisted sideways. The creature stepped out of its cell and pinched Jane's cheek with fingers that stung like ice. "Is this for me?" it rasped, then chuckled at her dismay and hobbled away.
Bone Head snapped open a second lock. Something dark, like gritty shadow, flowed free. It glanced at Jane in passing. She had a brief impression of hate-filled eyes, like the tips of a thousand scorpion claws. Her heart leaped with fear.
"Don't just stand there!" Bone Head cuffed Jane's ear. "We got work to do."
But Jane did just stand there. Too involved to notice, Bone Head worked his way down the corridor, springing door after door, releasing horrors the like of which she had never seen.
She dropped the jacket and backed away.
* * *
Outside, a grinning pixie handed Jane a bottle of whiskey. She drank. A hytersprite was passing out pills. She popped five dry.
Too impatient to wait, arsonists had already started several blazes within. Rioters and prisoners emerged choking and gagging, drunk and giggling. Only the nearer cellblocks had been emptied. In no time at all the farther reaches were enveloped in flames hotter than any oven.
Escaping convicts issued screaming from the gate, running in frantic circles, their arms flapping and their heads ablaze. They were greeted with laughter.
Ash fell like snow. The flakes were as large as Jane's hand. She stared up, blinking.
As was commonplace in prison architecture, the gate was topped by a short bridge atop which was a small guard tower. The guards were long fled and the gates thrown down, but it yet bridged the gap over the space where they had been.
The bridge was black against the flames and on the short tower at its center feys capered, singing and pissing into the flames. They took no regard for their danger. This went beyond the merely suicidal. It was terrifying.
Suddenly the feys on the gate tower shouted. One pointed to a far street.
Elven warriors in black glass helmets marched into the square.
As if prearranged, blankets appeared at the foot of the wall, held taut at the corners. One by one the lookouts jumped, bounced on the blankets, and were down.
The mob grew curiously quiet.
The elven warriors formed up to one end of the square. They stood in tense ranks with riot clubs drawn and plexy shields slung over one arm. All wore the badge of the winged ronyon on their tunics.
Their captain rode a chrome destrier polished to so fine a gloss it was difficult to make out. Reflections of the mob, the warriors, the burning walls of the Long Barrows, swam silently over its cool surfaces, bulging up as the destrier paced forward, then being swallowed back into mystery as it shifted slightly to one side.
The ashes continued to softly fall.
The elf-captain stood in his stirrups and in a high clear voice cried, "This rabble is assembled against the conventions of the Teind. Your presence here is unseely and forbidden. You have two minutes to clear the square."
They jeered, but weakly. The mob was uncertain, hesitant. At its edges, some few of the fickler wights were beginning to slip away. Had the elven warriors stepped forward then, they could have swept the square clear with little effort. But their captain gave no order. A cruel smile played on his face.
The jeering grew louder. A rock flew and then a bottle. It exploded. At the sound a shock ran through the mob, a ripple of apprehension that crossed the square in less time than a shout. Jane trembled involuntarily. All about her, bodies tensed. "Oh shit," muttered a dwarf. They were actually going to do it. They were really going to go up against the elves.
The dwarf grabbed Jane's elbow and pointed. Heads swiveled. In a side street more warriors appeared. Then in another. They were blocking all the exits. Here was the reason why their captain had hesitated. He wanted the mob enclosed and unable to escape.
"If you don't disperse, force may be used against you." The elf-captain glanced casually at his wristwatch.
The hypocrisy of it steeled Jane's resolve. Her hatred of the high-elven flared to white heat. So they thought they could cow her? It wouldn't work. She might be terrified, but she was no coward. Here I stand, she thought. I will not be moved.
With a shout, the warriors charged.
* * *
The clash was all a jumble.
Everyone was pushing and screaming and cursing. There was no order to it that Jane could see. The charge was as brutally simple as the assault of the ocean on the land. But the mob faced it as boldly as the mountains did the sea. Just before the warriors reached the first rioters, their captain raised his club high and spoke a word of power.
All the streetlamps exploded. The square w
as plunged into a ruddy, firelit murk.
The new conditions favored the elves, who had been trained in night combat and by an ancient blessing of the Goddess would be ever clear-sighted so long as the least sliver of Dame Moon hung in the sky. Clubs flashing, they advanced, and the mob gave way before them. But so eager to get their blows in were the soldiers that the line quickly broke into ragged knots of violence, and much of that advantage was lost.
Jane was shoved one way and then the other. She saw a burly knocker throw himself on a shield and its warrior fall back with an agonized cry and a broken arm. The crowd swirled and he disappeared. It swung around again and Jane saw three elves clubbing her dwarf. His doublet had been torn off him. His body lay at their feet, bloody, half-naked, and unresisting. The head lolled freely on his neck. It jerked with each blow. His spine had been snapped. Jane stepped forward. Aghast, she realized that she was going to try and help him.
Stupid, stupid, stupid! she raged at herself. What the fuck am I doing here? This is pointless. The dwarf is dead. There's nothing I can do for him. Turn away, run, flee!
Like a sleepwalker she kept on going.
A warrior loomed up before her, helmet lost and his fine blond hair lashing. The battle-light blazed in his face. He raised his club against her. Then his foot fell wrong on a wine-slick paving stone and he stumbled to one knee.
In that instant an ogre was on his back, head down and braced between his shoulder blades, bandy legs scissoring his waist, knobby hands yanking back his chin. There was a sharp crack. The elf thrashed, and the light went out in his face. His club clattered to the stones.
Jane snatched it up.
The ashes were falling thicker than ever. Any more and it would be impossible to breathe. The smell of burning vinyl-wood-fabric-plastic from the torched buildings was everywhere; it stung her nose and lingered in the back of her mouth. Jane knew this should be the darkest moment of her life, but in a bizarre and distasteful way it wasn't.
It was fun.
"Get away from me! Get away get away get away!" The club was solid metal and as long as she was, with a short crosspiece on one side to make it amenable to skillful mob control tactics. Untutored, Jane grabbed one end and swung it back and forth like a great two-handed sword. Space opened up before and around her. She could breathe again. "Bastards!" she screamed. "Cocksucking elves!"
The Iron Dragon's Daughter Page 30
