The Daemon in the Machine

by Felicity Savage

  She turned a puzzled face to him, lips trembling.

  “You’ll be stripped as fast as a cherry tree in a town square, if they don’t just chop off your head and hands without even bothering to rip the shit off first. Queen! Ashie, give me a hand—” Zouy resisted with surprising persistence, but between them they managed to get her head down and remove most of the jewels. She started to cry again, softly, as Crispin distributed the weight among their pockets. “Now!” The stress had caused the flames in his vision to multiply. He could hear voices and hurrying feet outside; he didn’t know whether his senses were playing more tricks, or whether the residents of the surrounding streets had got the wind up long before he had expected them to. Alarms were common, but if rumors of fire had spread, too, everyone in the city might be galvanized the way Ashie and Zouy were. It was something he hadn’t anticipated, something else that would make it harder to beat the odds. “Zouy, hold on to my hand. Left.” He’d transferred a fish knife from the kitchen into the sheath on his right hip. “Ashie, you hold on to her on the other side.”

  “Where are we going?” Ashie asked in a low, controlled voice. “Crispin?”

  Don’t depend on me. You might as well depend on a corpse with strings on to make it move! “To the old city. To the mansion. Remember? That’s where Fumia and your mother and Mi—and Yozi are.” Belatedly, he wondered if that might not have been the worst possible place he could have told them to wait. “Then the Veins. It ought to be relatively safe in there even if it turns out too many other people have had the same idea for us to be able to use the tunnels as a way out of the city. The flames won’t go in where there’s nothing to burn.”

  “But ought we go to the mansion? I mean, it’s so far. And the streets—oughtn’t we—oughtn’t we just head straight for the Veins?”

  “Significant. Your mother! Your sister and brother!”

  “I don’t want to die,” Zouy sobbed, and buried her face in her sister’s shoulder. Her two remaining necklaces tinkled as her shoulders shook. “I can’t die. Help me—save me—”

  “You fucking self-centered little bitches,” Crispin said furiously. “ ‘Don’t want to die’ indeed! You selfish brats! You’ll come along while I find your mother and brother and Fumia, and—and—and like it!” Blind with disgust and flames, gripping Zouy’s wrist, he dragged them outside. Dragyonne Street had become as dangerous as a racetrack—the four-wheeled vehicle prohibition ignored, pakamels bellowing, dogs barking, people yelling. To the north, the sky shone fitfully. Crispin reached across and pulled Ashie to his other side, so that he could hold on to them both. He wished he had tied their wrists; rope would have provided better purchase for his fingers than skin. They couldn’t move three yards without being bumped into. Luminous Way 15 was congested with vehicles, some moving, some stalled, some deserted by owners who’d decided they would make quicker progress on foot. There seemed to be no consensus as to whether to flee uphill or downhill; to Crispin, the choice was obvious—yes, the fires were downhill, but to congregate on the top of the mountain was to flee straight into a trap. Nevertheless he supposed that Okimakoans found it natural to run to Significance for shelter. And who knew? (ignoring the vision that blended now with a-few-hours-from-now) the fires might not get that high. Reassuringly, he could hear the bells of Disciplinarian fire trucks mixed in with the din.

  In this mess, however, it seemed unlikely the trucks would get anywhere they could do some good. The continuous collisions between the traffic trying to get downhill and that trying to get uphill amounted to gridlock. Actual movement was only possible on foot, and as more and more people realized this, currents gradually formed, so that by following the man ahead, you made slow, frustrating progress. Crispin refused to settle for this. Because of the necessity of getting uphill and then back downhill again (he had, of course, been lying about hiding in the Veins: for one thing, the “bat people” would probably do their damnedest to keep everyone else out of their refuge, and for another, the fires would get that high, and block the mouths of the tunnels even if they didn’t enter them) he ignored the etiquette of calamity. He towed Ashie and Zouy straight through, shouldering the abuse and occasional blows, once letting go of Ashie to whip out his knife and knock aside a blade threatening his face. Some of the Okimakoans looked furious, some terrified, a few were putting a good face on it with laughter and bravado; and a good many (incredibly) looked bored stiff. The girls kept their heads down and clung to his arms like leeches. Their faces were pinched. Once, when his aggressive headway separated him and Ashie from Zouy, he located her by the piercing scream that rose above all the noise.

  The crowds surged suddenly back. Crispin retained his balance with difficulty. Light flared up ahead. Water droplets hit his face. As everyone around them scattered, he yanked the girls across the road, into the shelter of the axles of an overturned draycart. Wrapping his arms around them, talking nonsense, he saw that they were on the corner of Luminous Way 15 and Chimera.

  Chimera and 15: where there was a Mansion of the Glorious Dynasty.

  Some of Mickey’s Easterners, at least, were carrying out their stated objective.

  A boxy black fire truck had pulled up in front of the Mansion. A single hose sprayed ineffectively at the blazing roof. Rafters crashed in and sparks sprayed. Crispin’s view was blocked by a crowd of people surging toward them, pursued by a squad of oblivious blackcoats carrying the end of a hose they must mean to plug into a water main in the center of the street. If Crispin, Ashie, and Zouy stayed where they were, they would be squashed against the chassis of the draycart. He wrenched them to their feet. “Move it! This way! Quick!”

  “But the Mansion’s burning,” Ashie shrilled, jerking away, a petulant note in her voice. “I’m frightened. I’m not going that way!”

  “In the name of the Queen!” He yanked her and Zouy into the open street.

  The surge hit.

  He found himself on his hands and knees on the cobbles, alone. In a moment of pure stillness he saw dark drops landing between his fingers. His nose was bleeding. As he regained consciousness he realized he was uphill of the burning mansion, borne here and dropped by the urgent vicissitudes of the crowd. He stumbled to his feet.

  A huge, gray thing was galloping downhill at him, trampling everyone in its path, letting out dopplering bawls. He threw himself out of the way. As it galumphed past, close enough for him to smell its blood, he realized it was a real live elephant, the first he’d seen since leaving Smithrebel’s.

  “Ashie!” he wheezed. “Zouy!”

  The girls had been wrenched away, swirled off in a current of terrorized humanity as powerful as any river in flood. The grip of hands hadn’t been sufficient. That mob could have torn a man in pieces without even knowing what it was doing.

  He searched the constantly changing faces flooding through the intersection, oblivious to the water from the hoses that splattered him on its way to the bonfire. He sneaked over to inspect the charred bodies and shivering survivors the firemen had extracted from the mansion. He inspected the mangled unfortunates whom someone with a streak of compassion had dragged out of the crowd before they were trampled completely to death. After rushing round and round, yelling the girls’ names, knocking aside anyone who got in his way, he realized he wasn’t going to find them.

  His lungs gave out. He couldn’t run any farther. He doubled over, gasping and wheezing, but the flames rushed to his brain, and he straightened up to dispel the dizziness. He was in a crescent of posh town houses. He stumbled behind a tall flight of steps in order not to get knocked down. All the time he felt something detaching him from his own mental processes, splitting his consciousness down the middle like a surgeon’s blade, splitting him into Crispin-now and—and—Crispin-now: two selves, one crazed with fear, guilt, and distress, one a cool observer of the other’s plight. He was standing in a street. It was night. He could feel the pavement under his boots, smell smoke in the air. There was a saliva-sweet taste in the
back of his mouth, as if he had drunk a cup of bitter tea. All around him, people were running and screaming and crying and trying to establish order and failing. Their clothing billowed around them. Monstrously tall buildings huddled over the pavement, blocking out all but a thin orange strip of sky.

  They were all fleeing. A moment ago he, too, had been fleeing. But he was going in the wrong direction (thought the puzzled young trapeze artist, thought the QAF officer, that prize buffoon). Why was he fleeing back into the city; when it was on fire?

  The obvious question shattered the stream of images. He gathered himself and stumbled back into the street. This was Venom Close. Next came Radiant Path 98. Then Luminous Way 10. Then Summit Street, which led up to, and through, the gates of the old city. He knew where he was going—although he wasn’t sure why anymore.

  How am I going to tell him I’ve lost them?

  (They’ll turn up, they can look after themselves—)

  (No, they can’t.)

  A bright light like a daemon glare suddenly switched on engulfed him. He withstood it, teeth gritted, eyes squeezed shut, although that did no good since the light was inside his head. After an agonizing moment it vanished. Another of the daemons he had left on Fleur Street had died. A spark had hit its wing, or it had bumbled straight into a blazing building. None of the six had dematerialized after escaping the cage. They had forgotten how to dematerialize except on his command. He’d learned this after experiencing the first of their deaths.

  Fleur Street wasn’t far off.

  Just because I left them on Fleur Street doesn’t mean they’re still there—

  Come on. How smart do you think they are?

  —doesn’t mean Fleur Street’s burning—

  Even though there’s a Mansion next door to Kiza’s Body Salon.

  —doesn’t mean—

  It’s all my fault! I should have held on to them tighter; shouldn’t have let them believe I was capable of protecting them—

  —doesn’t mean they’re dead—

  But Ashie and Zouy weren’t linked to him the way Indele, Favis, Mishime, Belamis, Kendris, and Akele had been; he had no way of knowing whether they were dead. He clung to that slender hope. Venom Close opened onto Radiant Path 98; he picked up his pace, dodging and shoving indiscriminately. No matter how pointless it might ultimately turn out to be, he had to try to reach Mickey. He couldn’t afford to act differently than he would have without this dismal foreknowledge.

  But how would he be acting if not for this knowledge? Would he still be here, fighting his way uphill? Or would he be long gone from Okimako? The flames obscuring his vision had thickened to the point that he could no longer tell whether the buildings on either side were really on fire, or whether the destruction he saw was as yet only a promise of what was to come: the first draft of the contract between himself and Okimako. The foreknowledge goaded him in two directions at once—to do what he still could for Mickey and his family as a last gesture in the face of a hopeless situation, and to do what he could for himself. The only thing that stopped him from turning and plunging downhill was, ironically, the foreknowledge itself. Whatever he did, he was doomed anyway.

  Get out while you still can! The instinct to escape was stupid and blind, but it niggled at his determination. They aren’t your people! This isn’t your city! It makes no sense! Get the hell out!

  —but it’s already too late!

  His heart sank as he surveyed the standstill mob that clogged Summit Street. Two blocks uphill, the gates of the old city rose locked and forbidding. The crowds, restless, hysterical, surged back and forth in front of the heights of wrought iron. Now and again the noise of gunfire revealed that the gates were still manned. Nonetheless, a trickle of people could be seen helping each other up makeshift ladders of overturned trucks, spidering up and over the wall, out of sight. Crispin grinned inwardly. If anyone was showing that much initiative, the gates couldn’t stand for long. A man with tattoos on his tail turned to scream something at him, his face stretched blank with terror. Crispin wouldn’t have needed to understand him to know what was meant. It’s getting closer! The windows in the tops of the buildings on the other side of Summit Street flickered redly with the light coming over the roofs.

  Fleur Street was on fire, then. And this time there’d been no fire truck to stop the conflagration spreading from the mansion to the old, proud wooden houses on either side.

  So why was he standing still? Why wasn’t he afraid?

  Galvanized, he plunged into the mob.

  Images of past and future blurred together, picking him up and carrying him along. Sometimes the tide of sight and sound and smell drowned out the things his senses were really picking up. This tide of visions threw him repeatedly against a wall, as the surging mob of Kirekunis threw the people in front against the gates, except that the wall in his head had no analogue in reality—it merely represented the limits of the future he had seen. It was the poorly defined point perhaps one hour from now, perhaps two or three, after which there were no more images, after which he had always woken up. He could think of only one way for that point to translate into reality. And so, of course, yes, Herve, Old Gentleman, Jacithrew, Commandant Vichuisse, sir; I’m afraid, I’m fucking well terrified out of my fucking wits, all right? All right? He managed to fight his way about half a block uphill before the gates gave way. The mob surged grimly forward, clutching children and belongings. The arch of stone passed like a dream over Crispin’s head. One last shot echoed, and then the gunmen must all have been overpowered.

  And a new different current of images infiltrated Crispin’s head. Classically perfect features carved of white marble... a sharp, cunning face that was like hers only in the depth of the desire he had been privileged to see in both of their eyes... lush lustful thighs—and he’s as skinny as a whipcord... her breasts, her smooth white stomach— Queen, but I’ve never, ever, ever felt anything like the way his hands—and the way she held on to my back while I—the way he—and both of them have the same eyes; they have the same eyes; the little girls, too (Ashie and Zouy, whirled away by their own people in that chaotic intersection), their eyes; the looks they used to give me: Queen, what is it, what is it about them? Long black hair blowing across an orange sky—

  For an instant he knew.

  And then it was gone again, slipping away like a fish into the cold still water of things that didn’t matter as he snapped, into awareness of a fire dead ahead, and people screaming and backing up. The Easterners had penetrated the old city, too! Or no, it wasn’t even that! The Disciples—Queen, how stupid can you get—they’re using flamethrowers—flamethrowers against their own people!

  He had never been confronted with quite so devastating an example of the lengths powerful rulers will go to to protect themselves from their own subjects. Shortsighted, incredibly shortsighted! But from his firsthand experience of the mob that had flooded into the old city, he understood. What would happen when the crowds reached the top of the mountain, jamming the avenues the Disciples had to have open if they were to do anything about saving Okimako? When you came down to it, the mob was shorter-sighted yet. He avoided a bunch of Fugue folk and ducked into an alley, mentally mapping the path he would need to take to the Forty-Eighth Mansion. His stint in the Haverhurst gave him the advantage of knowing the old city better than most Okimakoans did. He’d planned to continue up Summit Street, but it was obvious that the Disciples didn’t intend to let anyone do that. Very well! Asphodel all the way up, and if that’s impassable, then Mandrake and Hood. He set off at a run, no longer trying to ignore the wall of flames that receded before him, concentrating only on keeping his feet moving. Anyway, now that he’d seen the real thing up close, spurting out of the Disciples’ flamethrowers, it was easy to tell the visions weren’t corporeal. Real fire was yellow flashes, illuminating brief tableaux of frightened faces and lashing tails in the darkness, whereas the flames of the visions licked over doorsteps and window ledges and stray dogs in a
blaze of orange, deceptively voracious, appearing only where he happened to look, like an actor in a drama rushing from cue to cue always a beat too late.

  For the first time he understood that his visions weren’t literally flames, but syndromes, private warnings of an approaching event which was far more terrible than fire, for which his mind’s visual vocabulary had no equivalent.

  Was fire really the best metaphor?

  They say it’s like a shadow...

  Far away the multiplicity of alarm gongs doomed, an incessant, throbbing disharmony that had ceased to bear any relevance to anything. It took so much concentration to keep moving, and to detect the gangs of Disciples coming toward him in time to avoid them. Before long he’d forgotten why it was important to keep moving. But his subconscious had a good sense of direction. The next thing he knew, he was edging cautiously along Hood to Summit.

  Long before he reached the Mansion at the intersection, he saw its roof on fire, gigantic tongues of yellow shooting toward the stars.

  His personal entourage of flames condensed on him, surging in so close he could feel the heat on his hands and face. Shuddering and sweating with fear, he fought them off. Not yet. Not yet! Nothing else except the Mansion was on fire, and it stood slightly isolated from the corner of Summit and Hood, so with any luck this conflagration, at least, would not spread. Summit Street, though littered with the debris of the day’s pilgrimages, looked utterly deserted. The Disciples must be holding the mob farther downhill.

  If Mickey and his family had been in there, they were charred to a crisp. Therefore, he had to hope they’d got out—and obeyed their Okimakoan instincts. He slipped out into Summit, crossed to the other side, and started uphill again, moving at a jog-trot. Behind him, the flames consumed the ancient timbers of the mansion’s roof, melted the windows, and blackened the stone walls. It was relatively quiet up here, and he could hear the fire sizzling like countless panes of glass shattering. The real thing once again identified itself without drama.