All Maran saw were flashes of color.
A block past the black car, Jack turned sharp, sliding sideways then barreling down an alley hidden between two trucks. They hurtled down the narrow way, squeezing by boxy ramshackle houses, and veered through a number of unexpected forks, coming out by a ruined water tower and a brick road.
“Who were they?” shouted Maran.
“Featherheads. Ain’t been featherheads around here for a long time. Shoulda known.”
“Featherheads?”
“Red Lady thugs. They must have just died.”
Maran flashed back to those men that Altyn had killed inside her house. Altyn demonstrated that they had had something to do with the Red Lady. Did the Red Lady get her allies killed on purpose? That was certainly possible. The Red Lady loved self-sacrifice. She also liked lying to her own servants. Whatever there real reason, those featherheads were here on purpose.
Another turn, and Jack slid back onto a main road, dodging his way through traffic. Every moment felt like the final one as every moment flirted with multiple collisions. Yet, flowing along the crowded road with intended ease, they never touched another car. Somehow, Jack just kept on finding that gap between the cars that let him dash forward, or maybe it was Maltida who found the gap and Jack who just hung on.
For a few minutes, Jack relaxed, letting the car drive itself. Its engine descended from its white thunder. Yet it twitched. Matilda let Jack know that she wanted to run.
The car crossed a concrete bridge over the river. To their left, Maran saw a line of iron cannon on an old wall, which she surmised must be Battery Park. Those cannon looked more like showpieces rather than weapons of war. Children climbed across them.
What kind of weapons could make perfectly good cannon obsolete? That question struck fear into Maran’s heart. She did not want to know the answer.
From there, the traffic dispersed, letting Jack pick up speed. Once outside the city, Jack shifted up again, this time driving for passion rather than for haste, hurtling between vehicles with nothing to spare and nothing to care.
Jack pulled a bottle out of his jacket and took swigs.
After some time, Jack slid off the main road, forking onto a dirt road bordered by endless fields of roses. “Almost there,” he said, slowing down.
Those were awful words. Maran was almost there.
With a twist, Jack turned off his car, which sputtered down like a cat scorned. Silence returned like a shock. All sound seemed quiet and far away.
Jack put another cigarette in his mouth, then pointed up the road, between the epic piles of debris, to a fence of woven metal. “I’m stopping here. I ain’t getting closer. Tythia has a few beefs with me and I have a few beefs with her, too. I’ll let you figure out who would win. So out with you. Walk. I’ll be here when you get back.” Jack punched the lighter again. He threw his empty bottle out the window.
Maran said, “This place looks hideous.”
“That’s where all men go, or are supposed to go,” commented Jack. “Nothing ever works right around here. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Over the years, I’ve met too many lettered folks who expect to leave the incomprehensible mess of the world behind and celebrate the harmonious afterlife. I hate to disappoint them, but earth is a reflection of the more perfect heaven. That means we’ve got a more perfectly incomprehensible mess up here. You understand?
“Now get out. I’ll wait a bit. Come back if you get scared. Nothing wrong with getting scared. Fear keeps you alive.”
The crow woman said nothing. She sat straight up, looking at nothing, possibly even perceiving nothing. Maran was curious. She had to know.
“Jack, what is she? What’s a crow?”
“They’re the forgotten dead. Unburied. Unmourned. They wander until they forget everything. They are the shadow of a shadow and emptier than empty.”
Maran found the idea heartrending. The unmourned dead should not exist, but they did. Could they be led to Endhaven? If so, she could do something about this. Maran would have to find out one day, when she had time. Today, she did not have time.
“What becomes of them?” she had to ask.
“Mostly nothing. Wander about. Sometimes they congregate, sometimes they don’t. I like ‘em. They look pretty and don’t say anything.”
The idea repulsed Maran, so she tried to get out. She pulled the silvery handle up and pushed, but the door did not move.
Jack pointed. “It sticks. Crawl out the window.”
Maran stood on the seat, then pulled herself out the window and dropped. Her feet touched the gravel and weeds.
Jack waved. Maran waved back. The crow woman sat still, staring forward, forgotten. Maran turned and walked away, unready to face Justice.
The Knackery
Leaving the field of roses behind, Maran walked to the Court of Tythia between gigantic mounds of junk. Those piles were composed entirely of usable things. She saw shirts, pants, shoes, swords, coins, and other such things all tossed together. The whole conglomeration rose higher than a four story building. Behind that was another mound, equally tall. And behind that, yet another. It occurred to Maran that all these items meant something to someone. There were mountains of memory.
Beyond those mounds were horrors. Walls of headless corpses circled the court like battlements. The bodies were piled up neatly, like cordwood, one next to another, into endless walls, all fresh, never decaying, never blackening. They dripped blood as if all had just been decapitated. Red blood filled gutters.
Maran stood at the stream a long time, just looking at it. There was no better way across. There were several more streams like this ahead. This was it. She had to conquer her fear or turn back, so Maran lifted her skirts and waded across. The blood was still warm.
Between the walls stood thickets of poles impaling the severed heads. Their eyes still moved, looking about and trying to speak, but the heads could only mouth words. Maran found them even more disturbing than the spirits nailed to the Iron Duke’s wall. The profanity of those spirits had made them more human. Here, the silence of these spirits only made them more pitiful.
Maran did not like this human afterlife any more than she liked the Ironmonger one. Was getting nailed to the wall through the left eye and never working any more or less gruesome than being beheaded and forced to look at your own corpse? She had no answer for that question.
Maran kept walking, eyes downward. She needed to leave that scene behind her. Every time that she crossed a bloody stream, she cursed that drug called Red Snake and those guards who had shot those people. She never, ever wanted to do anything like this again.
Eventually Maran passed the last wall of dead and approached a gate set in the chain link fence. Two guards paced there, wearing bland green uniforms with roundish green helmets. Upon those helmets was painted the rose of Justice.
One guard held up his hand. “Halt. Identify yourself.”
“I am Maran, working for the Ironmongers, here to beg an audience with Justice.”
“Stay where you are.”
One guard pointed his gun at Maran while another took a device out of a box and spoke into it.
“Duty officer.” The soldier said, then waited. “Sir. Post one. Visitor. Messenger from the Iron Duke.” He then listened. When done listening, he restored the device to its small box.
“Open up,” the soldier yelled to the guards inside the gate.
The gate was really two gates, one behind the other. Guards opened the outside set first. Maran walked through. When the first gate closed, they opened the inside gate. Maran walked through again.
Once inside, a higher ranking soldier approached Maran. Instead of a uniform, she wore a white button-down shirt and a remarkably short blue skirt. How could you work in a skirt like that? She also carried a small square gun hanging on a shoulder strap. For her, it seemed like a beauty accessory.
On closer inspection, the woman was not a human, but a dryad. According to Maran’s mot
her, a dryad was one kind of female elf. Mother had once tried explaining the elf genders to Maran, but it had become clear that Maran’s mother didn’t really understand those genders either. As far as Maran understood, each gender-role constituted its own people and culture, and that made Maran’s head hurt. In practice, it was just easier to say “elf” and “dryad” and ignore all the subtleties. Let the elves figure our who could conjugate and what to call the babies.
The dryad put out her hand, pronouncing her words with a heavy but musical accent. All her consonants seemed far too soft and her lilt mildly garbled. “Bonjour. I am Ebol Sol, assistant to Justice. Follow me, s'il vous plaît.”
Ebon’s name meant something to Maran. She had to think for a bit, but finally remembered the name as a minor character in history. “Weren’t you the herald for the Prophet? Didn’t you die at Lagan, the Battle of Knessex?”
Maran knew that part of the story. The Prophet had been overwhelmed by the Relentless Legion, so the White Lady had taken to the field and everyone had died, enemy and ally alike, including the Prophet.
Ebon eyed Maran. She spoke plainly and factually. “I was there, madame. I died. You are not my friend, so I will say no more. I work here now. Follow me.”
Ebon turned and led them past tar paper buildings, all seemingly identical, sited at exacting intervals. On the other side of the buildings, across a fence, they approached a train station where a company of soldiers herded people off trains and pushed them into pens. On seeing Maran, some of those people pushed at the fence, begging for release. “I’m innocent. I swear I’m innocent!”
Maran recognized some of the faces. They had died on the street outside the Ironhaus Food Bank.
Ebon spoke. “If they are ordinary, they will never face Justice. If they are wicked, we strip them of their clothing and their goods. We shear their hair. We lock them in irons. They then go before Tythia, where they are sentenced.”
“So this is everyone’s fate?”
“Usually, unless they escape. Some do.”
“Have any escaped recently?”
The dryad stopped. “What would you know about that?”
“I was chased by some featherheads on the way in.”
“We had some Red Lady cultists escape. The goddess is, as you say, in a tizzy. If we are to have peace of mind, then we must recapture them.”
They continued walking towards a large building made of wavy metal sheets. Reddish streaks stained the walls in places, flowing down like blood from rusting iron bolts. Roses bloomed there, too, as if the blood sprouted where it dropped.
Parked alongside the building were two large lorries. One was filled with severed heads, while the other was filled with headless corpses. Once again, Maran averted her eyes.
“This is where Tythia judges the wicked,” said Ebon. “It is the Knackery.”
Maran looked at the faces lined up there, naked and weary. Were the ordinary people truly so wicked?
Ebon led them up gray painted steps, chipped and worn from so many feet upon them, and opened a gray metal door, just as worn, painted many times over. The door had an unexpected pull, trying to close of its own accord from a mechanism at the top.
Inside the building, they entered a smaller room, bleak feeling even with colorful slogans pasted upon the walls. A clerk in a brown uniform sat there at a desk.
“Introduce yourself,” said Ebon. “Say your name and beg an audience. You must be the one to do that.”
“I am Maran of Zarand Agricultural Territory and I beg an audience with the goddess.” That was easier than Maran had expected.
“Who are you representing?” asked the clerk.
“Ironmongers,” replied Maran.
The clerk flipped through several drawers of cards. “I don’t see you. Could you be with someone else?”
“The White Lady?” asked Maran.
“A Fossor? I haven’t seen one of you lot for a while. Let’s see. Yes, there you are.”
Ebon got a more respectful look on her face. “You’re an excavateur? You don’t act like one.”
“How am I supposed to act?”
“Unnerving. You are not very unnerving to me.”
Maran did not understand that at all. “Since when are we unnerving?”
“Since always.”
With the clerk’s blessing, Ebon opened yet another metal door, taking them inside the court. Maran entered the court just in time to see Tythia lop off a head.
Gigantic in size, Tythia grabbed a woman, plopped her onto a wood block, then stepped on her neck, exactly in the same manner that you would step on a chicken. One quick stroke of her knife severed the woman’s neck in a great spurt of blood. Tythia tossed the corpse onto a flat yellow cart and the head into a red wheelbarrow.
Maran nearly fled at that point. She had never seen an execution, especially one where a person was dispatched like a chicken. If not for the door behind her closing of its own accord, she would certainly have run.
The bailiff announced her. “Visitor. Fossor Maran representing the Ironmongers begs an audience. Will you receive her?”
Now Maran felt trapped.
Tythia nodded her assent. She took a moment to wipe her bloody hands on a cloth so fully soaked with blood that wiping seemed a futile gesture. She tossed the rag onto the table with the same absent habit. Blood dripped off it like water off a washrag.
Behind Tythia, prisoners moved in with hoses, washing down the concrete floor. Rivers of red flowed into drains. The corpses were wheeled outside to the lorry, presumably dumped there unceremoniously.
Justice knelt down to view Maran more closely. She stared for a while. Maran could not look directly back. She looked at the goddess’s red kerchief, where her black hair struggled to escape, or at white buttons on her rough blue shirt, or at her thick arms covered with rose tattoos, but she could not look Tythia in the eye.
Tythia now spoke softly. “You should have no fear of me, Maran of Jura City. You and your people keep the ideal of the Alliance, and we need more of that. If anything, you should be more aggressive. We have need of everyone, for always and always, and especially now.”
Maran waited. Elders always spoke first.
Tythia waited as well, and expectantly. Eventually, she motioned to Maran. “This is the part where you greet me and state your case.”
Maran fumbled for the words. “Good morning, your umm, your, um, immenents? I have come from the Ironmongers to plead their cases.” Maran was sure that she said that word completely wrong. How much more stupid could she look?
“As if you could plead their cases, but I speak cynically. Continue.”
Now Maran needed to actually say something. This part almost panicked her. She had come all this way to resolve some troubles, and if she messed up, she would make those troubles worse.
Maran breathed in, then spoke a little too fast. “Ma’am, I am from the Ironmongers. Soldiers of ours shot and killed people during the Feast of All Gods. That is a time of peace. Even during the war, neither Union nor Malachite fought during those days. That we did kill during these days is blasphemous. My Kurfurstin sent me to you to learn what amends we should make.”
The goddess nodded. “Thank you. I barely followed that, but I know what happened, so there is no need to repeat your ramble.” Tythia sat her broad hips onto the floor and and leaned on her knees, showing her considerable cleavage.
“Let us go over the real situation. The Ironmongers have a list of crimes filling two file cabinets, most of that being Svero Saargi. That’s a problem for them. It is also an opportunity for me.
“If I am to remain relevant, I need a new court, for the people are hungry for justice. I don’t care that yhe Iron Duke stands in my way. I am the leader of the Alliance of the Sun. I will call upon my allies if necessary. There must be justice in Jura City and there will be justice.
“Find my idol hidden in your town. I placed it here for safekeeping. The time has come to reveal it. But before
I reveal it, you must find the truth of Fera Nea.”
Finished, Tythia stood and yelled, like a cook might yell in the kitchen, “Next soul!”
A Kitchen for a Cook
Maran opened her sleepy eyes. The smell of charcoal filled the air. When she licked her dry lips, they tasted of charcoal as well.
“You’re awake,” said Gamstadt, sitting near her. He idly whittled an iron axe head, carving a battle scene into it. “You were out a long time. It’s good to have you back.”
Through the skylights, golden evening light splayed across the converter. Bits of dust floated through that light, like snow burning through fire.
Words came slowly to Maran. Her body rebelled against her return, not eager to move again. “It’s good to be back.” The words came out hard and slow. “Thank you for watching over me. It wasn’t necessary.”
Gamstadt smiled warmly. “It was my pleasure. Having someone to protect makes me happy.”
Maran smiled a little, too. It felt like forever since she had smiled. Did she ever smile while she dreamed of the Steel City? Could she? Was such a thing possible in such a place? Maybe if there were a god of happiness, it would be possible, although she could not think of such a god either living or dead.
The Steel City already seemed a bit fuzzy, yet so real. Maran concentrated, recalling where she had been and what she had learned. What was important? What did she need to remember? There was just too much there to decide. All of it seemed important.
What did the gods think was important? Tythia had said something. Fera Nea was important. Already everything else seemed faded.
Maran felt a bit awkward breaching the subject, but she had to ask. “Uncle, I learned a lot while I was gone, but some things were just little pieces, important pieces. What do you know of Fera Nea? Were you ever posted there?”
“Me? No. I was Lord Protector for Kurfurst Verum. Svero was posted there, though. That’s how he brought great riches back to the guild and seized the Uma gate stone.”
The thought of interviewing Svero seemed rather foolish. She did not like him even with his charm. “Was anyone else there?”
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