The Hod King

by Josiah Bancroft

  Ann tapped her fingernails upon the cooler door and spoke loudly into the seam. “Iren, dear! It’s me, Ann. I’m going to open the door now. Please, don’t crush me!”

  Hearing nothing for a moment, Ann unlatched the door and swung it open, releasing a puff of frigid air. Iren stood panting in the middle of the dim fur closet amid a great chaos of coats, stoles, and racks, the evidence of her recent raging.

  “Where is he?” Iren asked, her breath squalling from her mouth. “Where’s that muddy earl?”

  “There’s no time for him now. Prince Francis has gone after Voleta. I don’t know what he means to do, but I’m sure it isn’t good.”

  “Where’s the backstage?” Iren asked, stepping into the warmer hall.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea.” Ann saw that the sleeves of Iren’s uniform were split about the elbows.

  “Where’s the kid in the hat?”

  “The usher? He ran away.”

  Groaning in fury, Iren ripped the sleeves from her dress, tearing them at the shoulder, and threw them upon the carpet. Meaning to rend the constricting skirt as well, her hands went to her hips, where she felt the lump of the Sphinx’s mechanical moth.

  A revelation pierced her fury: If the moth had been able to find the little moon inside a sprawling city, then wouldn’t it be able to do the same inside the mazing halls of the Vivant?

  Gingerly, Iren extracted the fragile cylinder from her pocket while Ann looked on, amazed by her friend’s sudden composure. Iren turned the mechanism’s head until it gave a small click, and its wings unfurled. The paisley wings moved slowly, as if testing the air.

  “This is probably goodbye,” Iren said, glancing away from the clockwork insect long enough to look at Ann. The small governess bent, took the hem of Iren’s skirt in hand, and deftly split it along the seam up to the thigh.

  “There, now you can run,” Ann said, ducking Iren’s gaze, apparently to keep her from seeing the emotion in her eyes. “How easy it is to undo a day’s work!”

  Still holding out her palm to hold up the waking moth, Iren stooped and pulled up Ann’s chin with the side of one rough knuckle. Ann let her head be raised and forced a smile onto her face. “I think you enjoyed that,” Iren said.

  Ann coughed a teary laugh and threw her arms around Iren’s neck.

  The moth leapt from her hand and flew down the shapely corridor in a bouncing line.

  The two women parted, and Iren began to run.

  The doorman to the backstage shifted on his stool. His leg had fallen asleep yet again.

  There had been a time when he enjoyed music, a time when he sought out performances in the evenings and saved the programs in a little box under his bed, a time when he held opinions on whether the waltz had killed the cadenza and whether an etude should be passed off as a melodic refrain, opinions which he had argued from the deep couches of the salons, long into the wee hours of the night.

  But that was before he had sat down on the hard stool outside the backstage of the Vivant. He had discovered that listening to music through a wall was like kissing a woman through a pane of glass: It stripped away all the physical delight and left behind only the absurd shape of the thing, which was repulsive. Having to put up with the spoiled musicians and their entitled visitors only added insult to aesthetic injury.

  The two things that kept him sane were the cotton wads that plugged his ears and the evening dispatch that occupied his eyes. The combination turned torment into monotony, which was at least endurable.

  This particular evening had been slightly more tedious that usual. The writing in the Reverie was bad, and whoever was throttling the piano onstage was about to burst the dams in his ears. His thoughts were already drifting toward the bottle of tawny port waiting for him at home when the paisley moth landed on the top edge of his paper.

  He regarded it curiously, and then realized a very large someone was charging directly at him. There wasn’t time to react, though the music seemed to slow and thicken into a rumble. The doorman thought, Ah, well! I’ve been wanting to retire. Then a fist cleaved his newspaper and relieved him of the tedium of consciousness.

  Iren did not linger over the flattened sentry and his toppled stool. She pushed open the door to the backstage, letting the moth continue its homing pursuit. The backstage, dark and all but empty save for a few furtive stagehands, reverberated with the music being played on the other side of the curtain. It was so loud it made her insides quiver. Though it was not only the music that made her tremble, but the familiarity of this place. It reminded her of the Steam Pipe’s backstage. The association inflamed Iren, not just the memory of Rodion’s belligerence, egotism, and abuse, but the memory of her own inaction, her own complicity in the exploitation of so many women. Guilt stabbed at her, and she raised no defense.

  The moth fluttered onward like a fragment of a dream, leading her down a shrouded corridor that curved without apparent end. At last, the clockwork insect alighted on a dressing room door, distinguished by a glittering star.

  Iren did not test the knob before opening the door with her heel.

  The prince, covered from head to foot in talcum powder, stood smoking a cigarillo. He held one hand to his forehead like a man pondering a riddle. It looked as if someone had slung a bag of flour about the room. Everything from the floor to the coat-trees to the ceiling was swathed in white—all except for the red pool on the floor by the prince’s feet. Voleta’s head lay upon the crimson as if it were a cushion, and not her spilled life.

  “Oh, blast,” Prince Francis muttered.

  Iren grabbed the nearest coat-tree, shaking the robes off in the doing, and charged the prince with the rack leveled like a lance. The point caught him squarely in the chest, the force lifting him from his feet, carrying him over the dressing bench and the table, awash with spilled pots and paste jewelry, to the wide mirror, framed in yellow light. Though the prince could retreat no further, the pole did not stop.

  The mirror cracked under the stave. The shatter seemed to hold him like a spiderweb.

  Pinned to the wall with his feet off the floor, the prince could neither speak nor move. His eyes roved the dressing chamber as it filled with a numbing light. He felt a tepid wind blow upon his face. A scarf flew by, vibrant and familiar. The blue sky filled the room. A flock of scarves soared past, their corners flapping like wings. He looked down and found no ship below him and no earth beneath that. Everything was a darkening blue, a starless sky.

  He began to fall and fell forever.

  Iren crouched over Voleta.

  Suddenly, the girl who could never sit in a chair or stay in bed or walk past a tree without climbing it was lying very still. Her eyes were wide, but they did not look like her eyes any longer: They were dull and sapped of life. Blood brightened her lips.

  Iren found the small, round wound under her jaw. She searched tenderly but could not find a second hole. Voleta’s head rolled, unresisting, in her hands.

  She was filled with a sudden urge to start a blaze, to burn the music hall to the ground with everyone still in it. She’d bar the doors and let them all cook inside their boxes.

  That urge conjured up the memory of when she had caught Voleta and Adam conspiring in the stage curtains of the Steam Pipe. While the auditorium filled with smoke from a forgotten cigar, the siblings had been whispering so intently they had not noticed her discover them. When Iren yelled “Fire,” Voleta had startled like a deer and run.

  It had been the first word Iren had ever said to her. Fire.

  She felt like screaming the word again now. This felt like a fire. Everything inside her was burning and turning black.

  Then Voleta drew a whisper of a breath.

  Frozen by hope, Iren watched as the young woman’s chest rose, the movement small but definite. She was breathing. Where there was breath, there was life.

  Though what could any physician do to treat a bullet to the head? This sort of injury required a miracle, and Iren knew of only one
man who trafficked in miracles. If the Sphinx could save the Red Hand from a fatal fall, he could save Voleta.

  Iren knew that as soon as the music stopped, the dead prince would be discovered. The constabulary would be summoned. When they caught her, she would be shot, and Voleta would perish. No, Iren’s only hope was to get back to the ship and quickly.

  She snatched a cloak from a coatrack that was buried well enough to have escaped being doused in talc. She swaddled Voleta in the hooded cape, cradling her in her arms. All she had to do was outrun the news of the prince’s death. Considering the caliber of gossips that she was dealing with, Iren knew it was going to be a very close race.

  The piazza was no less crowded now. The mob cackled and sang and argued with itself, an insensible herd that milled between the city and the landmarks about the ringdom’s spine. Iren broke a path with her shoulder, glancing up at the stars to get her bearings. She had previously noticed that the wine bottle constellation pointed toward Port Virtue. She corrected her path before leaving the spacious mall and entering the tighter streets of the city.

  It was more challenging to follow the gas stars from the bottom of the urban valleys, but her sense of direction was good enough to guide her through unfamiliar turns and around abrupt dead ends she encountered. She avoided the most congested blocks, where mobs clotted about theaters, parlors, and salons. She had a run of good luck, where it seemed each blockage funneled her to some clearer path, but then she found herself boxed in by a brass band, which paraded through the street ahead of her and wove around to cut off the next street as well. She turned down an alley that was scarcely wider than her shoulders. She pressed Voleta’s head into her chest, afraid it might scrape against something in the gloom. Then, amid the compound shadows of that narrow passage, a rough voice rang out. It said, “Come the Hod King! Come the Hod King!” again and again like an inconsolable lunatic. Old bunting and rags tangled about her feet. She felt as if she were running in a dream. The alley seemed to grow longer, her feet heavier. She roared back at the madman shouting in the dark. The dry sound of flapping wings answered her.

  Then all at once, the alley broke upon a more brightly lit lane. The storefronts on either side of the road were consumed with racks and racks of shoes. The shops were closed for the night, which thinned the traffic out. Realizing she had begun to wheeze, Iren paused to catch her breath. The street was dotted with glowing discs. A young boy crouched upon one of the plates like a frog on a lily pad. A large sack sat on the ground nearby, bulging with what seemed an assortment of sticks. He held his hand flat against the light and studied the orange glow of his fingers. She saw that he was missing an ear. The scar that ran out from the bare hole and down his jaw seemed too old for one so young.

  Iren asked him, “Which way to the port?” It wasn’t until the question was out that Iren realized the boy wore the simple wrap of a hod.

  He looked up at her, towering and sleeveless, her immense arms clutching a bundle. “Her toes will get cold,” he said, pointing at the pair of dangling bare feet that jutted from the bottom of the cloak. Iren gathered Voleta’s feet back into her swaddle, wondering vaguely when her shoes had fallen off. Then the young hod pointed down the street and said, “The port’s that way.”

  “Thank you,” Iren said, already starting to move in that direction.

  “Come the Hod King,” the boy replied, and was smiling when Iren glanced back at him.

  Two navy-coated constables appeared at the end of the lane ahead of her. They nodded, signaling that they had taken note of her, but they did not seem overly concerned, which she took as a good sign. It meant she was still outrunning word of the prince’s murder. But then as she moved to one side of the street to pass them at a more comfortable distance, the uniformed pair seemed to reconsider. Perhaps they were curious to know why a woman in a torn uniform was running about with a person-shaped bundle in her arms. They moved to intercept her.

  Iren entertained a violent impulse—she could take them by surprise, bowl them down, perhaps steal their pistols. But she decided against it. Once she outed herself, things would happen very quickly, and she didn’t want to put the port guard on notice.

  “What have got you there?” one of the constables asked. The black strap of his cap had come loose from his chin and bounced upon his lip. He stretched his neck, peering at the cloak.

  Deciding it was better to tell the truth than show it, Iren said, “It’s Lady Voleta. She is tired from the party, and I am taking her home.”

  “Lady Vo … It’s the Leaping Lady, is it? I told you, Gaffo: Tonight had a lucky feel to it! Now we get to see if she’s pretty as the papers say.” The constable peered more curiously at the hood covering Voleta’s face. Iren twisted to hold her a little farther away.

  “The lady’s not feeling well,” she said. She forced a smile onto her face, though the result was a little more berserk than beguiling.

  The constable looked disappointed, but in a professional sort of way. He seemed to understand the lady’s governess was just doing her job. “Caught a touch of the champagne flu, I expect,” the constable said. “I hear she’s been having quite a—”

  He was cut off by the sharp tweet of a whistle echoing down the street. “Another bulletin. That’s our luck! Well, you get the lady home, and have a good night.” The constables snapped their heels together and began to trot down the lane in the direction of the whistle. Iren could see blue-coated men gathering in the intersection. She had little doubt what the bulletin was about.

  She turned the other way and broke into a run. She didn’t care about being inconspicuous or jostling Voleta, much as she feared making the wound worse. They had to get to the ship. She could feel the ringdom closing upon them like a trap.

  The city broke open and the crowd broke with it. The wall of the Tower, tiled in blue, rose darkly before her, curving overhead into the field of winking stars. The train station was near enough that she could see the steam rolling out of the tunnel. She reached it the same moment the night air came alive with the shriek of whistles.

  Rather than risk the platform, she ran down the narrow path between the engine and the tunnel wall, then leapt onto the tracks and sprinted over the railroad ties, her footfalls growing louder with the receding chug of the engine. It was night, and the mouth of the tunnel opened upon an overcast sky. In a moment, they would be safe aboard the ship; in another moment they would be under way, flying back to the Sphinx and his miracles. By morning, Voleta would be up and running about …

  Iren emerged from the tunnel, through city gates, and out into a deep and windy gloom. The port lights were out, a foreboding sign she did not immediately appreciate. She trotted down the steps that fanned out to the banks of lead soldiers.

  Iren didn’t notice that all the cannons of the lead soldiers were pointed at the tied-up State of Art, but she did observe that the ship’s main hatch stood open and saw the light of the interior pouring out.

  Three black moons filled the air behind the moored State of Art. The Ararat, which was lashed to the lip of the port, was almost indistinguishable from the starless sky. Iren had but a moment to marvel before the Ararat opened fire.

  The dreadnaught did not attack the State of Art’s gleaming hull. It volleyed instead at the ship’s envelope, that long regal pontoon of silk and hydrogen that held the vessel aloft. The arching missiles had fiery tails. Iren saw at once they were not cannonballs; they were burning lances.

  The fiery darts struck the immense envelope in a dozen spots. Waves of orange flame bled across the silken skin.

  Iren’s legs shook and gave way beneath her.

  The sun seemed to briefly rise over the beam of the Sphinx’s ship. The explosion warmed her face.

  From her knees and with Voleta pressed to her heart, Iren watched the State of Art fall from the sky.

  The Black Trail

  Hope is a dream. Despair,

  a nightmare. Only the

  nocturnal struggle is rea
l.

  —I Sip a Cup of Wind by Jumet

  Though Senlin was ignorant of the exact manner of Finn Goll’s fall from wealthy importer to beleaguered hod, he could only suppose that his devastating exit from his former employer’s port had played a part in the man’s downfall.

  Senlin suspected it was more than foul luck that had carried him back into Finn Goll’s orbit. No, Goll wasn’t one to rely upon coincidence. He was a man who preferred hedged bets and fail-safes and byzantine snares. Of all the people Senlin had crossed since arriving in the Tower, it was Goll who seemed the most likely to be petty in his grudges and patient in his revenge. And Senlin had little doubt that if the former lord of port thought that he was owed a debt, he would demand it be repaid, though whether Finn would prefer to be compensated in gold or gore remained to be seen.

  What was readily apparent was that the crimes of Captain Mudd were well known in the zealot camp. Mudd and his crew had invaded one of the movement’s essential encampments, touched off a keg of powder, and taken the lives of eleven hods, injuring twice as many, during their escape.

  Senlin briefly considered attempting to correct the record. The fact was, he had gone to the Golden Zoo in search of a fair and honest trade and had instead become the victim of Marat’s false hospitality. It had been Marat who dispatched his men to sack the Stone Cloud and pick it down to the ribs. Senlin and his crew’s only crimes were done in self-defense. They were otherwise innocent. Voleta’s raiding of the larder notwithstanding.

  But Senlin was not so foolish as to think he could reason with an angry mob. Seeing no better option, he continued to assert his reformation. He was a changed man. He was a hod now. Yes, he had been many despicable persons in the past, had led a number of lives under a variety of pseudonyms, but all of those personalities were dead. And had he not proven the earnestness of his conversion by his recent deeds in Pelphia?

  Seeing that the main of the crowd was still unconvinced, Senlin professed his desire to learn the new tongue and (doing his best to not flinch at the lie) shouted at the pressing masses, “The written word only makes idle minds idler and the corrupt more dangerous!”