Dancing with Bears

by Michael Swanwick

  He had realized that all this would happen even as he had struggled to awaken, for the duke’s tremendous brain was capable of miracles of extrapolation. Further, having lived only a shadowy half-existence erenow, the dreads and fears natural to a man knowing he was about to die did not rise up within him. Quite the opposite. For the first time, he found himself capable of feeling full human emotion, and he had given himself over to the experience.

  It had been, as he had known it would be, a brief life but a joyous one.

  Down on the street below, the duke saw an artillery crew swarming about their piece. They were as cunningly detailed as the very best of toy soldiers and he loved them as fully and uncritically as a little boy would have. There were tiny plumes on their shakos and all-but-invisible brass buttons on their jackets. They were tamping down powder and ball while their commander gestured with a sword that was the merest glint of reflected moonlight.

  Then his heart failed. In the instant before the world went dark, the Duke of Muscovy saw a puff of white smoke at the mouth of the cannon.

  Dying, he regretted that he would never know what came next.

  The first thing Arkady heard upon regaining consciousness was one of the Pearls saying, “Well, that was pleasant. What shall we do next?”

  He was, Arkady realized, lying on his back, with his trousers around his ankles. One of his shoes was gone, as were his shirt and jacket, but the helmet was still upon his head. Every muscle in his body ached as if he had been beaten with a cudgel. Further, he was utterly and completely exhausted. He could not so much as lift a finger. He had not the energy even to speak. Nor could he bring himself to open his eyes. Worst of all, he had no memory of whatever it was these six perfect Daughters of Ishtar had just done to him.

  “I want to see the face of our bridegroom,” Aetheria said. (He recognized that dulcet voice which he had once worshipped, and which still tugged at his heart.) His head shook from side to side as she tugged and tugged, before finally undoing the chin-strap.

  There was a brief, astonished silence.

  “It’s Arkady!” somebody exclaimed. There was a scuffling noise as the Pearls gathered around his prone body, looking down.

  Strangely enough, none of them died. Evidently the mental commands implanted in them by the Caliph’s technicians were not going to kick in. They had enjoyed sex (or so they had thought) with the Duke of Muscovy, and that act had freed them of their psychic shackles. Leaving them free to do whatever they wanted with whomever they wished, as was the birthright of women everywhere.

  “But why was he wearing a crown?”

  “And carrying a scepter?”

  “Look. Here in the pockets of his jacket: precious stones, jewelry, gold nuggets.”

  “He has become a thief!” Aetheria cried. “That is sort of romantic,” another Pearl said doubtfully. “Not romantic enough.”

  “Anything less than suicide is an insult, in my opinion.”

  “At any rate, these treasures belong to the Russian people and the State of Muscovy, so he cannot keep them,” Aetheria said. “Look at this cunning jeweled egg! We can’t simply leave him here to walk away with them.”

  “There’s a chest over there; place all these things in it. When the Neanderthals return, we can have some of them stand guard over it for the duke.”

  Somebody coughed. “Um…we’re back,” said a male voice and, almost simultaneously, another said, “We won the fight.”

  The Pearls shrieked. “Cover your eyes, we’re all disheveled!” “Don’t look.” “Where are my clothes?”

  Upon which, cursing his eyes for so steadfastly refusing to open, Arkady felt himself falling back into oblivion.

  Unhurriedly, Anya Pepsicolova dressed. When she had finished tying her shoes, she straightened and looked down on Darger’s naked body for a long, still moment. Darger stared warily back at her, clearly alarmed by the expression on her blood-caked face, but equally clearly still thinking, still scheming. Perhaps she should shave off all his hair, from head to foot, as well? That would bring a neat symmetry to her long, difficult journey through the underworld. She considered the possibility seriously, but then decided against it. Because, really, she’d done enough.

  Aloud, she said, “There. That’s taken care of.”

  “The pleasure was all mine,” Darger said with unctuous insincerity. But then, under the circumstances-post-coital and still bound hand and foot to the gurney-he was not exactly under oath. “So. Where, if I may ask, have you been all this time?”

  “Oh, out and about.” Pepsicolova tugged at her lapels to straighten her jacket. She shrugged. “You know.”

  “What did you do?”

  “This and that.” She slipped her cap onto her head and adjusted the angle. “Nothing of any particular note.”

  “Good, good, I’m glad to hear it.” A note of cunning entered Darger’s voice. “So, my darling Anya, now that we’ve experienced mutual ecstasy-I presume it was good for you, too?-we must discuss our future together.”

  “Future?” Anya was pretty sure that Darger hadn’t experienced anything at all like ecstasy. She would have noticed. But that was a matter of perfect indifference to her, one way or the other. What did matter was that her skin felt stiff and itchy. “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is to wash my hands and face. Then…I don’t know. Go for a walk, maybe.”

  She turned her back on Darger, on her career as a spy, on the City Below, on everything that had happened to her since she first encountered Chortenko, and started to walk away. Up ahead in the distance, she saw something waiting patiently for her. She could not help but smile.

  Darger laughed ingratiatingly. “You foolish, loveable thing,” he said. “The future of our relationship, I meant. Our feelings toward each other. Oh, I’ve been a blind fool! Wasting my time searching for tombs and books and libraries and tsars, when all the while there you were, right before me. But I shall make it up to you, my precious one, I swear.”

  His voice grew fainter behind her.

  “We have plans to make, my sweetness. Promises to make. An engagement ring to buy. We must… Surely you’ll…you’ll… Wait! Come back! You’ve forgotten to untie me!”

  But Anya Pepsicolova was no longer listening.

  Several long, bleak minutes later, Darger realized that Pepsicolova had left behind the big knife she carried in her belt. It had slipped from its sheath to the gurney when she doffed her trousers, and then been knocked to the floor in the course of her inexplicable passion. Afterward, she had not bothered picking it up. He could see it, just barely, out of the corner of his eye, tantalizingly near at hand.

  Darger eyed the blade yearningly. It might be just possible, he judged, that a desperate and determined man to, by shifting his weight vigorously and repeatedly, overtopple the gurney. Then, by various stratagems, he could draw the knife to himself and so cut through one of his restraints. After which, the rest would be a breeze.

  A harrowing, difficult, and suspenseful half hour later, it was done.

  Arkady was gone, and with him the bulk of what Surplus had managed to liberate from the museum cases.

  Worse, there came the sound of breaking glass as a second vitrine was smashed open. It was louder than the first had been, which meant that Surplus’s competitor was coming closer. It also indicated, Surplus feared, that whoever was at work was an amateur seizing the moment, rather than a professional who would be open to negotiation.

  He glanced about, sizing up his situation.

  There was only one exit from the Diamond Fund. Its display cases offered no hiding places. Not that Surplus particularly desired one. He was by nature a confronter rather than a slinker.

  A third vitrine smashed. It was just outside the entrance to the room.

  There was a moment’s silence. Then a shaggy figure, large as an ogre, filled the doorway. Heaped in its arms was a fortune in armor and weapons. It paused to peer about before entering.

  “How pleasant to encounte
r a compeer,” Surplus said, stepping into the light of a column. “I trust your endeavors have been fruitful?”

  With a tremendous clatter, the intruder dropped everything he held. Kicking the loot out of his way, he strode into the light and was revealed as a member of the Royal Guard. “All thish ish mine!” the bear-man cried. “If you try to take sho much ash a kopek of it, I’ll kill you.”

  The fellow swayed slightly. It was clear he had been drinking.

  Surplus brought his cane up to his mouth and delicately tapped its silver knob against his lips. “Split the swag fifty-fifty?”

  “Hah!” The guard shambled forward, stumbling and almost falling when he stepped on what appeared to Surplus’s tutored eye to be the ancient and indeed priceless Alexander Nevsky Helmet.“Shergeant Wojtek shares with nobody.”

  “I’ll go as low as one-third. In all fairness, there is far more here than the two of us can hope to carry off on our own.”

  Sergeant Wojtek rolled his neck, showing his teeth. Then he held up his paws, uncurling the fingers one by one to extend their claws. “Do you imagine for an inshtant that a former member of the Royal Guard can be bought?”

  He threw a punch at Surplus’s head.

  Surplus danced away from the blow. “Really, sir, there is no reason for us to fight. We are surrounded by an ocean of wealth. It makes no sense to quarrel over who gets to drink from it.”

  He barely managed to evade a second blow.

  “Nobody takesh whatsh mine!”

  “You make an excellent point, sir, I do confess it, a most excellent point,” Surplus said, searching desperately for an appropriate strategy. With each missed punch, the length of corridor behind him grew shorter. At its end, he could break and run, true. But the bear-guard was assuredly not only stronger but also considerably faster than he was. It was only his drunken state that had kept him from simply charging forward and seizing Surplus in a crushing hug. “Yet nighttime is a dwindling resource, and with the dawn we may expect a restoration of order. It would not do for either of us to be found here tomorrow morning.”

  “Shtand shtill sho I can kill you, damn it.” Sergeant Wojtek aimed a haymaker at Surplus and almost fell over when it missed. Clearly the alcohol had badly degraded his reflexes. This was a factor which could be used to Surplus’s advantage.

  “Is there to be no resolution other than death?” Surplus asked with genuine regret. He held his cane before him, one paw on the knob and the other by its tip, as if he thought it possible to fend off the gigantic animal-man chimera with it.

  “None,” the Royal Guardsman said truculently.

  “Then I must inform you, sir, that you are a drunken lout, a traitor, a thief, a murderous thug, a disgrace to your uniform-and quite possibly not even a gentleman.”

  With a bellow of rage, Sergeant Wojtek charged.

  All in one movement, Surplus stepped to the side, like a matador dodging a bull, pulled away the wooden sheath that was half of his sword-cane, and plunged the sword down the space at the side of the guard’s neck that was unprotected by bone.

  Deep the sword went, into the heart and through.

  …20…

  Countless acts of heroism and cowardice, opportunistic looting and saintly forgiveness, small cruelties and inexplicable kindnesses occurred within the disaster that was Moscow. The citizens of that great metropolis, caught up in what felt very much like the end of the world, were granted the rare opportunity of confronting their true selves.

  Thus it was, at any rate, for one young man who, weeping and bleeding, left the Hotel New Metropol by a rear window with a cask of rasputin wrapped in stolen hotel blankets. Through the maze of bewildered streets he limped. Column after column after column of black smoke rose up from the helpless corpse of the city behind him, and converged into a dark shroud overhead. Slowly, painfully, he fled.

  Hours later, when Arkady finally reached the outskirts of town where the city dwindled to nothing and weary farmlands began, he paused to take stock. He was penniless, horseless, and thoroughly ashamed of himself. All his connections in Moscow were either dead or extremely unlikely to want to see his face ever again. Further, his home was unimaginably distant and to reach it he would have to cross a howling wilderness filled with monsters. On foot.

  Well, what had to be done, had to be done. The demon machines had unintentionally given him a weapon that could be used to wipe their kind from the face of the earth. His father would know, far better than he, how to put the rasputin to good use. All Arkady had to do was make certain that it reached him.

  He squared his shoulders and set off.

  Baronessa Lukoil-Gazproma’s clothes were stained and disheveled and her spirit was in even worse shape when Irina found her at last. She was sitting on the stoop of a house whose shabby appearance testified that she probably did not even know whose it was, with her head in her hands. “I am so damnably tired of politics and society,” she said without looking up when Irina leapt down from her phaeton, crying out her name. “I want nothing more than to retire someplace out in the country, where I would never have to deal with people again. If only I could live in perfect solitude, just me and one or two dozen friends. No men. I am done completely with their entire gender.”

  Irina sat down beside her friend and took her hands in her own. “Well, who could blame you if you did? Still, I doubt your husband would approve.”

  “Nikodim Gregorovich? He would be elated. I have never told anybody this, precious one, but the baron wanted me to do…certain things. And when I did, he…Well. Our marriage must be counted a failure.”

  Irina did her best to look surprised by news which all of Moscow society had known for years. Luckily, the baronessa was too lost in her own unhappiness to notice the sardonic twist to Irina’s mouth when she said, “I am shocked. But never mind that. Come home with me, Dunyasha, and I will have my servants bathe you. Then I will dry you with my own two hands and lead you to bed, and pleasure you with my mouth. I will sing you a lullaby and watch over you until you fall asleep.”

  “Dear, sweet Irinushka,” the baroness said. “Whatever have I done to deserve such loving kindness from you?”

  “You honestly don’t know?”

  “No.”

  “Years ago, I was affianced to the baron at the time, and you stole him away from me. Surely you remember that.”

  “Oh, Irina Varbarova, I’m so sorry! That was such a strange and romantic summer, with all those parties and flirtations, and somehow I convinced myself that you did not mind.”

  “Nor did I,” Irina said. “It was to be a marriage of convenience. The baron had money and I had none. So my feelings toward him hardly mattered. But I was quite afraid of him. I believe that’s what attracted him to me in the first place. Really, I am indebted to you for saving me from a marriage I dreaded. Even if it did mean I lacked financial security as a result.”

  “Oh, Irina, you will never want for anything so long as I live. Anything I have, whatever you want, is yours.”

  “I know. That’s why I’m your friend.”

  Irina could say things like that to Avdotya, because she knew the baronessa did not understand how true they were.

  Anya Pepsicolova walked the streets of the burning city genuinely delighted with everything she saw. She was experiencing quite the most giddy joy imaginable. The gray, choking smoke that drifted through the streets-marvelous! The sound of cannon fire and of burning buildings collapsing-quite wonderful! The black snowflakes of soot that floated down through the air-a delight! She swung her arms up and down, like a little girl making imaginary angel wings in the air. She was free to go in whatever direction she cared. East, west, up, down, it didn’t matter. All ways were good when there was nobody to tell you no.

  She came upon a fire engine being pumped by three of the biggest, hairiest men she had ever seen in her life. They were putting out the last smoldering embers of what had once been somebody’s house. Atop the engine stood a woman of such tremendou
s beauty as to make Anya disbelieve her own eyes. She stopped to gawk.

  One of the apelike men squatted down and gently extended a grotesquely large and lumpish hand. “Heyyy, what a nice little fella. Is it yours?”

  “Yes, but be careful. Vera’s a rescue dog. She has a temper.”

  Vera bristled and showed her teeth but the big man held himself still, not flinching away, and clucked his tongue reassuringly. After a bit, she relented and let him rub her head. “Who’s a good girl?” he said. “You are. You are. Yes, you are.”

  “I shared my meal with her and we bonded,” Pepsicolova explained. Then, to the beautiful woman, “You look awfully happy.” It was particularly delightful to encounter somebody as joyful as herself. Everyone else in the city she had run across was strangely glum.

  “I am! Today is my wedding day and I’m celebrating it by helping to save my new city.” The beautiful woman hopped down and stuck out her hand. “My name’s Nymphodora. Dora for short. What’s yours?”

  “Anya Alexandreyovna Pepsicolova. Who’s the lucky man?”

  Dora gestured toward the three Neanderthals. “They are-Enkidu, Gilgamesh, and Rabelais. My sisters and I wrote their names down on slips of paper and drew three each. Except for Zoesophia. She sent a messenger and said she was going into politics so she didn’t need a husband quite yet. Which is good, because then we all got the same number.”

  Pepsicolova was sure she hadn’t understood half of what she’d just heard. “Three husbands?” she said wonderingly. “Can you actually satisfy all of them?”

  “Trust me, sister,” the nearest giant said with a shy grin, “she can.”

  Dora happily ruffled his hair. “Oh, you big galoot.” Then a sudden gout of flame made her shout, “Over there!” and off she and her mighty consorts sped.