City of Stairs

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  An idea strikes Shara, and she grabs an old newspaper from another table. She flips through the pages until she finds an article with the headline CITY FATHER WICLOV OPPOSES IMMIGRANT QUARTERS. Below this is a picture of a man with a round face pinched in a stern expression, and a mountain of a beard. To Shara, he looks like the sort of man who must constantly debate whether he should yell or merely talk very loudly.

  “Why are you reading about Wiclov?” asks Mulaghesh.

  “You know him?”

  “Everyone knows him. Man’s a shit.”

  “It was suggested to me,” says Shara, “that he might have some connection to Pangyui’s murder.”

  “Did Votrov tell you that?”

  Shara nods.

  “I would watch yourself, Ambassador,” says Mulaghesh. “Votrov might just be giving you his personal shit list.”

  Shara continues staring at the picture, but Mulaghesh has voiced one of her deepest concerns: I’m flying blind, she thinks. Usually I have six months or six weeks to prepare an operation, not six hours.…

  She drinks more tea and chooses not to admit to Mulaghesh that she only inhales caffeine at this rate when her work is going very, very badly.

  Captain Nesrhev—who is quite handsome, and at least ten years Mulaghesh’s junior—finally arrives at five-thirty in the morning. At first he is not amenable to much of anything, as is common among people awoken at such an hour; but Shara is skilled at the shell game of badges and paperwork, and after using the term “international incident” a few times, he reluctantly consents to “one hour, starting now.”

  “That will do,” says Shara, who fully intends to ignore the time limit. “What’s happened to Votrov?”

  “After he gave his statement, his little girlfriend bundled him up and took him home right away,” says Nesrhev. “That man, you could lead him around by the dick, if you got a good grasp on it.”

  He seems to expect a chuckle, but Shara doesn’t even bother to try to pretend.

  * * *

  The captured man, as it turns out, is hardly more than a boy: Shara gauges him at around eighteen when she walks in. He sits up behind the big wooden table in the cell, glowering at her and rubbing his wrist, and says, “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”

  “Mostly to give you medical attention.” She holds the door open for the doctor, who is quite fatigued by now.

  The doctor grows appalled as he examines the captured boy. “Did this child fall through a pane of glass?”

  “He was struck repeatedly with a chandelier.”

  The doctor grumbles and shakes his head: These people find such stupid ways to harm themselves. “Most of this is superficial, it looks like. The wrist is sprained pretty badly.”

  When he is finished, the doctor bows and excuses himself. Shara sits across from the boy and puts her satchel down beside her. It is quite cold in the room: the walls here are made of thick stone, and whoever designed the building opted not to place any heating in here.

  “How are you feeling?” says Shara.

  The boy does not answer, content to sulk.

  “I suppose I could simply be direct,” says Shara, “and ask you why you attacked me.”

  His eyes flick up, hold her gaze for a moment, then flick away.

  “Was that what you were sent there to do? Your colleagues did have ample opportunity.”

  He blinks.

  “What’s your name?”

  “We don’t have names,” says the boy.

  “You don’t?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He considers answering, but is reluctant.

  “Why not?”

  “Because we are the silenced,” says the boy.

  “What does that mean?”

  “We do not have a past. We do not have a history. We do not have a country.” His words have the beat of highly rehearsed lines. “These things are denied to us. But we do not need them. We do not need these things, to know who we are.”

  “And what are you?”

  “We are the past come to life. We are what cannot be forgotten or ignored. A memory engraved.”

  “You are Restorationists, then,” says Shara.

  The boy is silent.

  “Are you?”

  He looks away.

  “Your weapons, your dress, your car,” says Shara. “All very expensive. Money like that getting moved around, people notice. We are looking now. Who will we find? Wiclov? Ernst Wiclov?” No reaction. “He’s a well-funded supporter of the Restoration, isn’t he? His political posters tend to feature a lot of weapon-oriented imagery, I understand. Will we find him at the back end of this, child?”

  The boy stares into the table.

  “You do not seem to me,” says Shara, “a hardened, violent criminal. Then why act like one? Don’t you have a home to go to? This is all just unpleasant politics. I can make it stop. I can get you out.”

  “I will not talk,” says the boy. “I cannot talk. I am silenced, by you and your people.”

  “I’m afraid you are quite wrong there.”

  “I am not wrong, woman,” says the boy. He glares at her, and as he looks away his eyes trail over her exposed neck and collarbone.

  Ah. Old-fashioned, is he? “I do hope I’m not breaking any rules,” says Shara. “Will you receive some kind of punishment for being alone in a room with an unwed woman?”

  “You are not a woman,” says the boy. “You have to be human first. Shallies don’t count.”

  Shara smiles pleasantly. “If that’s true, then why are you so nervous?”

  The boy does not answer.

  Shara does not consider herself excessively attractive, but she is always willing to try anything. “I find it quite hot in here,” she says. “Don’t you? My hands sweat when I get hot.” She pulls off her gloves, finger by finger, delicately folds them, and places them on the table. “Do your hands sweat?” She reaches out to his injured hand.

  He pulls away as if she’s made of fire. “Do not touch me, woman! And do not try to ply me with your … your secret femininity!”

  It takes a lot of effort for Shara not to laugh. She has not heard that term spoken aloud outside of her history classes, and she’s never heard it spoken with such sincerity. “For someone who refuses to talk, you’re talking quite a bit now. But, I admit, you’re still talking less than your friend.” She pulls a file out of her satchel and consults it.

  “Who?” says the boy suspiciously.

  “The other one we captured,” says Shara. “He wouldn’t give us his name, either. Even though he was close to death. But he talked about many other things.” Of course, none of this is true—Sigrud very much killed all of the other attackers, except for the one who vanished—but she smiles at the boy, radiating cheer, and asks, “How does the disappearing trick work?”

  The boy flinches.

  “I know that’s how you get across the city,” says Shara. “Cars. People. They find some street or alley, head down it, and then poof. They’re gone. It’s quite … miraculous.”

  There is a gleam of sweat next to the boy’s ears.

  “He was rambling,” says Shara. “Weak from blood loss, you see. I wasn’t quite sure what was true and what wasn’t, but … I’m tempted to think almost all of it is. Which would be quite remarkable, really.”

  “That … that can’t be true,” says the boy. “None of us would ever talk. Even when dying. Throw us in Slondheim, and we still wouldn’t talk.”

  “I could make that happen, actually,” says Shara. “I’ve been to that prison. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

  “We would never talk.”

  “Yes, but if you don’t possess full control of your faculties … It’s perfectly understandable. What else will he tell us? If you tell us now, and tell it to us honestly, we’ll be lenient on you. We will make sure you get home. We can put all of this behind us. But if you don’t …”

  “No,” says the boy. “No. We could neve
r … We will be rewarded.”

  “With what?”

  The boy takes a breath, disturbed, and begins to chant.

  “What’s that?” says Shara. She leans in to listen.

  The boy is chanting, “On the mountain, by the stone, we will be rewarded, holiest of holies. On the mountain, by the stone, we will be rewarded, holiest of holies.”

  “Rewarded with jail, death …,” says Shara. “So many of you died already. I saw it. I know you did, too. Are they rewarded? Did they get what they wished?”

  “On the mountain, by the stone, we will be rewarded, holiest of holies,” says the boy, louder. “On the mountain, by the stone, we will be rewarded, holiest of holies.”

  “Are their families rewarded? Their friends? Or do they not even have these?”

  But the boy simply keeps chanting, over and over again. Shara sighs, thinks, and excuses herself from the room.

  * * *

  “I have need of you, soldier,” says Shara.

  Sigrud cracks an eye. He is slumped in the corner of his cell. His hand is wrapped in bandages, and he has been scrubbed somewhat clean of blood. Shara can tell he is awake, though: his pipe is still smoking.

  “They will be releasing you in just a short while,” she says. “I’ve managed to get all that arranged despite the … casualties. Hostages corroborate that you acted like a hero.”

  Sigrud shrugs, indifferent, contemptuous.

  “Right. Now. I asked you to send feelers out and look at hiring a few contractors. Did you have any luck?”

  He nods.

  “Good. We’ll need some thuggish assistance, if you please. When you’re released, I want you to snatch up that maid from the university. The one who worked alongside Pangyui, the one who was tailing us the other day. We should have done it immediately, but we were … occupied. Grab her, and get her to the embassy. I want to question her myself. I want your contractors to stay back and watch her apartment, and see if anyone comes or goes. I will need this done by …” She consults her watch. “… six in the evening. And you must be discreet. Assume both you and her are being watched. Understand?”

  Sigrud sighs. Then he pulls a face, as if mulling over his options and realizing he really had nothing better to do tonight. “Six in the evening.”

  “Good.”

  “The survivor,” he asks. “Is he talking?”

  “No. And I can tell he’s not the talking type.”

  “Then what?”

  Shara adjusts her glasses. “I’ve stalled for more time, but not nearly enough to crack him via the normal means.”

  “Then what?”

  “Well.” She stares off into the corner of his cell in thought. “I think I’m going to have to dose him.”

  Sigrud grows much more awake. He looks at her, disbelieving. Then he smiles. “Well, then. At least you will have entertainment.”

  * * *

  Shara stands at the cell door, watching the captured boy through the viewing slot. She checks her watch—forty minutes. The boy shakes his head as if shaking off a chill, then takes his cup of water and sips it. Seven sips so far, thinks Shara. If only he were utterly parched …

  The boy slowly droops forward more and more, as if deflating. She checks her watch again: it’s not going unusually slowly, but she wouldn’t mind if it were quicker.

  “This couldn’t possibly be all that riveting,” says Mulaghesh, joining her.

  “It isn’t,” says Shara.

  “Mm. I’d heard our survivor wasn’t talking.”

  “No. He’s a fanatic—unfortunate, but expected. I don’t think he’s the sort who’s afraid of death. He’s more worried about what happens after.”

  The boy in the cell raises his head to stare into the wall. His face is awed, horrified, fascinated. He starts to tremble a little.

  “What’s wrong with him?” says Mulaghesh. “Is he mad?”

  “No, no. Well, maybe, considering what he did. But that’s not what this is.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s an … unorthodox method I picked up in Qivos. It’s useful when you’re crunched for time, though I’d prefer it if we had even more for this.… Four, five hours at least. But it’s cheap. And it’s easy. You just need a dark room, some sound effects … and a philosopher’s stone.”

  “A what?”

  “Don’t pretend to be such an innocent lily, Governor,” says Shara. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “You drugged him?”

  “Yes. It’s a powerful hallucinogenic, and it’s actually common here, though it’s not used for recreational purposes, really. Which is understandable, as it has some history on the Continent.”

  Mulaghesh is still too aghast for words.

  “There are dozens of stories of people using it to communicate more closely with the Divine,” Shara continues absently. “Breaking down barriers, merging with the infinite, that kind of thing. It even amplified the performance of certain miracles: acolytes of the Divine used to ingest it before performing astounding miraculous feats. Powerful substance—but still just a drug.”

  “You just walk around with that kind of thing?”

  “I had Pitry run and get it from the embassy. What I usually like to do is make them feel like they’re at home, suffering a fever, with their family members nearby, or at least people claiming to be their family members, and most of the time they get so agitated they wind up telling us everything. I’m not sure if that’ll be the case here, however, as the jail cell may induce a delirium of a much more …”

  The boy gasps, looks at his arm, then up at the ceiling. Then he grabs the sides of his head and sobs a little.

  “… nightmarish sort.”

  “Isn’t this torture?”

  “No,” says Shara quietly. “I’ve seen torture. This is nowhere close. And besides, this gets somewhat accurate answers. Torture usually gets you whatever you want to hear. And people are usually much more forgiving of this method. Mostly because they’re never quite sure any of it really happened.”

  “I am so happy I chose to remain a soldier,” says Mulaghesh, “and never went into your line of work. This puts a bad taste in my mouth.”

  “The taste would be much worse if we did not get the information, which often saves lives.”

  “And this means we shed our morals at the door?”

  “Nations have no morals,” says Shara, quoting her aunt from memory. “Only interests.”

  “Probably true. But I’m still surprised you’d do something like this.”

  “Why?”

  “Well … I wasn’t in Ghaladesh during the National Party scandal. But no one needed to be, to hear all about it. Everyone talked about it. The man everyone assumed would be prime minister going down in utter flames … Not to mention the party treasurer attempting suicide—nothing more ignoble than a failed noble exit. But most of all, I remember hearing about this girl who caused it all, who rocked the boat so much.”

  Shara blinks slowly. Down the hall, a conversation between three policemen grows into outraged bickering.

  “Not really her fault, they said,” Mulaghesh says. “Just passionate, and very young. Twenty at most, they said. She didn’t know that there were just some corruptions you don’t try and drive out, some rocks you don’t turn over.”

  A furious secretary stomps out of her office and shushes the three policemen, who cast ugly looks at one another before separating.

  “She let her heart guide her,” says Mulaghesh, “rather than her head. And mistakes were made.”

  Shara stares into the room at the twitching boy, who now seems torn between laughing and crying.

  “I always imagined,” says Mulaghesh, “that that girl just happened to be a good sort in a rotten line of work. That’s all.”

  The boy leans back and rests his head against the stone wall, staring forward with blank, glassy eyes. Shara shuts the viewing slot in the door.

  Enough.

  “If you will excuse me
,” says Shara, and she opens the door, slips in, and shuts it behind her.

  Never has she been so happy to walk into a jail cell.

  * * *

  The boy tries to focus on her, and asks, “Who’s there?”

  Shara shushes him. “Don’t worry. It’s me. You’re fine.”

  “Who? Who is it?” He licks his lips. He’s drenched with sweat by now.

  “You need to relax, please. You’re in recovery now.”

  “I am?”

  “Yes. You had a bad fall. Don’t you remember?”

  He squints as he thinks about it. “Maybe. I think I … I fell during that party.…”

  “Yes. We had to put you in a cool, dark place, for you to relax. You were very agitated, but you’re going to be fine.”

  “You’re sure? You’re sure I’ll be fine?”

  “We’re sure. You’re at the hospital. We just have to keep you here for a little bit longer, to make sure.”

  “No! No, I need to go! I have to … to …” He fumbles with his seat, trying to stand.

  “What do you have to do?”

  “I have to make it back to everyone.”

  “To who? To your friends?”

  He swallows and nods. He’s almost panting now. Shara imagines he is seeing blinding bursts of color, rippling shadows, cold fires.…

  “Where would you need to go?” she asks.

  He struggles with this question. “N-no … I have to … to go.”

  “You can’t, I’m afraid,” she says soothingly. “We have to take care of you. But we can send word to your friends. Where are they?”

  “Where?” he says, confused.

  “Yes. Where are your friends?”

  “They’re … they’re in another place. It’s a place from another place. I think.”

  “All right. And where is this place?”

  He rubs his eyes. When he looks back at her, she sees he has burst several blood vessels in them.

  “Where?” she says again.

  “It’s not … not like that. It’s an … older place. Where things ought to be.”

  “Ought to be?”

  “How things ought to be.”

  “But how do you get to this place to see your friends?”

  “It’s hard.” He stares at the light in the ceiling. He looks away, like the sight of it pains him. Then he says, “The world is … thread-barren. Threadbare.”