Saturday, November 23, 2013

8. Making the Rounds

The clangor of the alarm bell cut through the list of needed supplies that Dr Darius Vonken had been making in his mind. Breaking into a run, he rounded the corner, expecting to have to chase the damned crabs away from the clinic again – Third time this year! Blast it, why don’t they install wards as I advised up there? – but instead confronted a more immediate crisis in the street: a young woman in black frantically swung a cane at a group of glittering black Cryptolithodes nigerus letus. The crabs clattered their claws uncertainly, but would certainly charge her in an instant. Vonken ran at them, thrusting forward his Coldspark talent like an aetheric net straight into their mass. The lead row toppled, but an hundred more surged forward. The young woman screamed, desperately slapping two of them with the cane, but her best effort only knocked them into their fellows pressing up from behind. Vonken dropped his doctor’s satchel, sucking in a breath sharply as he drew the Dust-energy of the horde of crabs into himself. It felt tainted, and salt and grime overwhelmed his thoughts as much as if he’d been able to smell them physically. Grimacing, he shouted, “Out of the way!” The woman turned, and he felt a moment of shock, of recognition, of anger; but then she dove to one side. Vonken threw the gathered energy at the crabs. Two or three dozen of them bowled over, carapaces shattering against the cobbles, legs crunching, high-pitched screeees making him wince.

The remainder of the horde milled about, not sure what had just happened, beginning to grow dazed as their gills slowly dried. Not fast enough, Vonken thought, and gestured at the street, the buildings, trying to draw in any speck of Dust-caused energy anywhere in the vicinity. He swept his arms toward his chest, conscious of the scant resources in this poor street; the river behind them certainly had more power to offer, but he was loathe to gather that poisoned sludge into his body. Especially this body. He’d worked too hard to ruin this over a simple crustacean attack! Irritated, he saw the crabs regrouping; all that could stand were orienting on him...and on the young woman who’d scrambled to her feet behind him.

“I need your energy,” he snapped at her. Holly Autumnson stared at him as if he’d spoken gibberish. He beckoned impatiently. “If you want to continue life with all your natural limbs, let me take it!” She looked from the clicking, lunging crabs to him, and quickly nodded.

Vonken reached into her with his mind, ignoring the swirl of emotion he found. Emotions distracted. Roughly he yanked out the power he found coiled in her core, surprised at the amount of it. Every person alive had a small inner reservoir of Dust-caused energy, but all save his fellow Coldsparks had no idea how to use it, much less any awareness of its existence. Miss Autumnson, however, possessed an abundance of it. He stopped himself from speculating on whether her brother’s ventures had contaminated her with Dust more than other residents of Concordia; time for that later. No finesse involved: he sucked up every bit of it and spewed it in a roar at the charging crabs.

Black, spiny limbs exploded in all directions. Stinking, sticky ichor splashed the nearby buildings, the front of Rumbaker’s especially. The ringing in his ears wasn’t quite loud enough to mask the clunks of shattered shells raining back down to the street. Vonken caught his breath, his pulse hammering, restraining the urge to expel the scones and cream he’d had for breakfast. He surveyed the carnage, checking to make sure nothing moved. To his dismay, he saw Miss Autumnson wasn’t moving either; she slumped just behind him in the street, unconscious. He wrapped his arms under hers and gently lifted her up, and she groaned, her head lolling, a long lock of soft dark hair slipping free of its pins.

“Oh for Dagon’s sake, Vonken!” Vonken looked over at the factory foreman standing disgustedly at the edge of the exploded crabs. “Didja really have to do that?”

Vonken replied curtly, forcing strength into his voice although it was hoarse after his bellow at the attacking monsters. “I have warned you more than once, Flanagan. Keep your blasted crabs in your factory, else I shall be forced to blast them!” He turned away as more of the workers crowded through the door, gaping and exclaiming at the ruin of so much of their supply. Miss Autumnson still wasn’t coming around. Vonken sighed, regretting his hasty decision to use all her power; the poor girl was going to have a devil of a headache. He didn’t feel too cheery, himself. Stolidly ignoring the cursing going on in the vicinity of the factory, he lifted the young lady against his chest and carried her carefully inside the clinic.

The nurse, one of the first constructs he’d built when he arrived in Concordia, made fussy motions as Vonken laid Miss Autumnson on the patients’ couch. Though it was no longer able to speak, it loosened the young lady’s corset and drew a warm blanket up to her pointed chin. “She fainted,” Vonken explained. He set his tall black hat upon a stand just inside the room, and opened his depleted physician’s satchel. “When she comes to, give her some of the willowbark tincture and send her home. Call the Watch for an escort.” The automaton nodded her copper head, at once moving to the pharmacy cabinet to retrieve a small phial of the tincture. Vonken looked through the boxes of supplies he’d brought down this morning from the hospital. “Blast it...Ratchet, have you seen the mercurous chloride? That idiot Calleux has got himself another case of French gout!” He stopped rummaging when the tall, rusting construct creaked over to him, holding out the very bottle he needed. “Ah. Thank you. Ever organized, my dear.” The greenlit eyes of the nurse flashed at him, meaning she was pleased with his compliment.

He’d built this first assistant along humanoid lines, and taught her manners and restraint; efficiency and a love of order she had developed on her own. He’d been forced to cannibalize her voice-box a couple of years back during a particularly trying time, needing the speech capability elsewhere, but Ratchet didn’t seem to mind being mute. He’d been promising her another larynx for some time now. Guiltily, he paused in his repacking of his satchel. “Whatever would I do without you here? You know, Dr Hodgson tells me you were invaluable in the amputation of the Brower boy’s leg this week.” The nurse gave one nod, returning to her sorting of bottles and packets of clean bandages into the cabinets covering one wall of the small surgery. Vonken patted her metal shoulder. “Now, it may take me the rest of the afternoon to finish my rounds, but if an emergency arises, turn on the beacon. I won’t be far.”

“Where are you going?” A weak voice, almost girlish, arrested his attention. How can she possibly be awake already? He turned to find Miss Autumnson groggily sitting up. One hand immediately went to her head. “Oooh.” She gave him a pained glare. “You didn’t say it was going to do that!”

Vonken took her wrist in his gloved hand, feeling her pulse, stronger than he’d expected after what he’d taken out of her. She looked askance at Ratchet. “You have an auto-matron for an assistant?”

“I find constructs often more honest and reliable than humankind,” Vonken replied mildly. He peered into her eyes; they showed only a little redness. Far less, in fact, than he’d displayed the first year or so he’d employed his Dust-given powers. “How do you feel, my dear?”

“As though a great tree fell upon my head,” she grumbled. Ratchet poured a neat spoonful of the willowbark tincture and offered it to her. Miss Autumnson eyed it suspiciously. “What’s that?”

“To counteract that tree.”

“Hmf.” She accepted the medicine, grimacing at its bitterness. Vonken continued stuffing items into his satchel. “Where are you going? I need to talk to you,” she said.

Vonken shook his head. “I have patients to attend, Miss Autumnson. I’ll have Ratchet summon the Watch for you, so you may have safe passage back to your home.” Struck suddenly again by the impossibility of her presence, he straightened his back and addressed her more directly. “How were you able to break my wards? Or did...someone else...” The thought that Villard might have an even more talented Coldspark in his employ was not one which had occurred to him before, but Miss Autumnson’s wan smirk reassured him even as it annoyed him.

“They’re still up, Doctor. I found the correct method of passing through them.” She scowled. “You might’ve told me how to get out! Did you expect me to sit like a caged sparrow and wait for you to return?”

“That was the general idea, yes.” Before she could protest further, he stepped closer, leaning over her to make his point. “You are damned fortunate to have found your way here without incident, I might add! What were you thinking, coming down Wharfside without even a guard? You could’ve been waylaid easily by any of the...the less savory populace here.” He wondered how on earth she’d managed to figure out his unconventional password spell, one he’d thought would prevent anyone but him from penetrating the wards. It was supposed to be simple, elegant, and impossible to simply guess.

“An army of berserk giant crabs doesn’t qualify as an incident?”

Vonken snorted. “Too common for remark, unfortunately.” He hefted the bag, ready to venture among the downtrodden for the second time today. “I don’t have time to chit-chat, Miss Autumnson. As you see, I am needed in this neighborhood.” Her blush pleased him; she’d caught the implication that it was her presence which was superfluous.

“Then I’m coming along,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. She slid off the couch, only then realizing her corset was loose. “Oh...”

“Ratchet, see to her needs,” Vonken commanded, and set his hat atop his head once more. He picked up his cane, but didn’t bother thanking her for returning it to him. At least it didn’t seem worse for wear after being used as a bludgeon against the crabs. He brushed the front of his charcoal-grey greatcoat, irritated at the tiny spots of crab ichor dotting it. Blast. Well, I can always dye the whole garment a deeper black, I suppose. He headed out, but hadn’t taken three steps before he heard the smart rapping of a lady’s boots on the street behind him. “Miss Autumnson, this is not suitable for a lady. You should go home.”

“Dr Vonken, you won’t be rid of me until I receive some answers,” Miss Autumnson said curtly, drawing abreast of him. She still appeared a bit pale, but was matching his stride despite her shorter legs. Vonken realized he wasn’t going to shake her, and perhaps it would be safer for her for him to allow her to tag along. He glanced at her through his habitual smoked spectacles: determination marked every line of her features, from her sharp little nose to the smooth, rounded brow; from firm, delicate jaw to the pout of her rosy lips. She didn’t seem to favor the garish painting of face the way many of the upper class now did; but then she was young, and rather isolated in her father’s manse on the hill. It made her appear innocent still, and he wondered just how much she’d seen of true life outside her refined neighborhood. To her credit, she’d come through half of Wharfside, apparently seeking him, and all on her own! Vonken quickly tempered his rising feeling of admiration; it wouldn’t do to show her any encouragement, or she’d think herself justified.

As he turned along a narrow, unpaved alleyway, he said, “I can’t imagine what you felt was so urgent that you risked your own safety, coming here.” The tenements crowded in overhead, four and five stories of teetering brick and salt-corroded mortar making the buildings lean toward each other at the top. Boarded-over windows did little to keep out the damp and the oncoming cold. He reminded himself it was time to mix extra doses of colocynthus, and to urge people to keep their living spaces as dry as possible to prevent pneumonia infections.

Miss Autumnson’s voice sounded subdued; she gazed up and around as they walked, and edged closer to him. “I...I didn’t know a Coldspark could take the very life energy of a person.” He could feel hers ebbing back, her pulse sensed easily now that he’d touched her. He felt as worn as a charwoman’s scrubbing rag, but made sure his steps trod with authority along the alley. In Wharfside, one ought never to appear weak... When he didn’t respond to her, she continued, “Have you done that often?”

“No.”

After a few more steps, she persisted, though quietly: “You could’ve warned me my head was going to hurt. And I feel as though...as though you’ve ripped something from my heart. As though it’s...empty.”

“That will pass.”

“But did you have to be so—“

“Miss Autumnson,” Vonken growled low, “would you rather have been torn apart like Rome before the Visigoths? I did what was required, no more, no less.” He continued on, taking a turn down an even narrower passage that anyone not familiar with the route would have completely missed, hidden as it was behind an overgrowth of curling black ivy. He paused long enough to hold the sooty vines away from Miss Autumnson’s unprotected head, gesturing her through, then dusting off his gloves against one another. Black ivy would cause severe itching on bare skin, although many of the urchins in the area seemed to have developed a partial immunity from constant exposure to it.

“Thank you,” Miss Autumnson murmured, and he gave her a curt nod. He made his way briskly between the crumbling hovels, heading for the home of his most recalcitrant patient. “Why didn’t Mikael ever tell me you and he had some sort of business partnership?” she asked, following directly in the wake of his long grey coat.

Vonken let out an irritated sigh. “I had asked him to keep our agreement discreet. Your brother had some unpleasant qualities, but happily the integrity of his word was—“

“So you told him not to tell me about something which has now ended up putting me in some sort of danger?”

“I do not know why he thought it would be prudent to send his discovery to you, my dear.”

Miss Autumnson continued badgering him. She must’ve been up hours pondering all this, he thought glumly. “He instructed you to look in ‘the usual place.’ Had you regularly been coming into my home for these secret projects, Dr Vonken?”

“It was, until recently, your brother’s home as well,” he argued.

“I find this lack of consideration on both your parts highly ungentlemanly! Is there anything in my house still which I should be aware of, whether you think it poses any danger or not?”

Vonken stopped, forcing her to halt just inches short of him. Clearly uncomfortable, she nevertheless stared coldly up at him, her mouth set in a pursed frown. “I am about to go into the home of a man whose dalliances with the Wharfside ladies have caused him some unpleasant consequences,” he told her. “I do not have time for your concerns, Miss Autumnson. I suggest you wait out here, as I’m sure your delicate sensibilities would be offended by the condition of my patient.”

“Why, is he covered in sores or pestilence?”

Vonken scowled at her flippant tone. He pulled down his green-grey lenses to fix her directly with a glare. The shadows of the alley didn’t hurt his eyes as the plain daylight did now, however overcast the weather. “He has syphilis, Miss Autumnson.” Satisfied with her blanch, he smiled. “Still want to accompany me?”

She swallowed, but braced her shoulders forward. “You won’t be rid of me yet, Doctor.”

“As you wish, then.” He knocked at a door made of nailed-together scraps of lumber. After a moment, a hoarse, accented voice called out.

“Get off, you mongrels! I have no money for you!” Something clattered within. “And if you try to force the door, I am waiting with mah rifle!”

“Gus, it’s Vonken. May I come in?”

“Oh!” More noises, and a dull thud, as of something heavy hitting the floor. “Oui, oui, come in!” Vonken gingerly pushed open the door; once, Gus had forgot to disarm the booby-trap of an iron balanced over the lintel, and the bruise took weeks to fully heal.

The single room, with old newsprint wedged into the cracks in the walls, stuffy from months without benefit of a sweeping and dim and smoky with krakenoil lamps, was fairly cozy for this district, but Miss Autumnson seemed taken aback. She waited just inside the door, shutting it behind her. Vonken watched her from the corner of his eye as he took the mercurous chloride and a clean dropper from his satchel; she seemed curious but possibly appalled at the dirty plates and empty bottles covering the small table, the crates used as seats, the ragged curtain thinly separating the bed and the chamber-pot from the rest of the room. Gus Calleux turned from using the pot, not bothering to button his trousers. “I think it’s not so bad this time; at least nothing is falling off...” He stopped, blinking blearily, upon seeing the young woman across the room. “Ahh! Vonken, your nurses get prettier every year! Did you finally give up on your ugly metal matron?”

“Ratchet is at the clinic, as always,” Vonken returned, gesturing for Calleux to sit on the bed so he could examine the man. “This is Miss Holly Autumnson. Miss Autumnson, Mr Gustavus Calleux, trapper and carouser.”

The old Frenchman laughed. “More of the latter, not so much of the former, I’m afraid.” He grinned at Miss Autumnson’s hesitant nod. “That’s a lovely sable you have on. One rarely finds the beasts now.”

“Thank you,” she replied, and Vonken grinned to himself. Would she actually attempt polite conversation under these circumstances? True to form, old Gus picked up a half-empty bottle of wine and gulped from it, ignoring Vonken’s ministrations below his loosened belt, rheumy eyes fixed on the young lady. “Do you...perhaps know where I might find a matching muff, Mr Calleux?” she asked; glancing over, Vonken saw she’d turned to face the door, her face flushed red. “Winter is almost upon us, and I haven’t anything suitable to warm my hands.”

Gus chortled. “Oh, oui, ma belle! I know something very warm you could—“

“Gus,” Vonken warned, though it was difficult to suppress a grin.

The Frenchman sighed. “Ah, I see, your new mistress, eh? Fine, fine, I behave.”

Miss Autumnson sounded as though she was straining to speak around a beehive in her throat. “I am merely an acquaintance of the doctor’s, sir.”

“Cover up, man; don’t you know how to comport yourself around a lady of quality?” Vonken chided Calleux. As the unrepentant old man tucked in his shirt and buttoned his trousers, Vonken held out the full dropper. “Open your mouth.”

“You sure I cannot have something sweeter?” Gus complained, but took his medicine. Vonken left the dropper in the bottle, on the battered dresser next to the bed.

“Take two dropperfuls of this morning and evening, and for heaven’s sake try to wash more often, Gus. And stay away from Miss Hattie’s!”

“I will, if you tell me where you found her,” Calleux said, his yellowed teeth bared happily beneath his white moustache. Vonken shook his head, but smiled with his back to Miss Autumnson.

“Hillside, my friend. Out of your range, I’m afraid.”

“A pity.” Gus leaned close, and whispered so loudly Vonken was sure Miss Autumnson heard: “Come back later and tell me what it’s like, eh? To slip your soldier into a sable fur that fine!”

“Take care, Gus.” Vonken started for the door, and Miss Autumnson hurried out ahead of him. She stood fuming in the chill air, wrapping her coat more tightly around her slender frame, as he checked to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything behind; Gus had once taken his pocketwatch and pawned it. Satisfied he had all he’d come with except the medicine he’d just dropped off, he headed up the alley again.

Behind him, she sounded decidedly angry. “How dare you imply I am some sort of concubine to that...that man!”

“I said nothing of the kind. Are you going to take offense at every character we encounter? If so, I recommend you stop your ears and put on blinders, and let me lead you like the mule you are, my dear.”

“That is absolutely enough!” He didn’t respond, walking on, when suddenly he felt a harsh yank inside his chest. Caught off-balance, he staggered, grabbing the nearest jutting corner. What the hell? The heartlink! Stunned, he looked back. Miss Autumnson strode toward him, brown eyes dark with anger, her hair falling free of its pins as a gust of wind forced its way through the alley. She appeared an angel of destruction bearing down on him, her coat blowing back, her hands clenched into fists, and Vonken stared at her in utter bewilderment. Did she just try to sever the heartlink? How in blazes

“How dare you humiliate me in front of a filthy old reprobate?” she shouted, planting herself directly before him, fists on her waist. “I don’t care if you were useful to Mikael, I don’t care if you think you’ll best protect me by sending me back to my house without answering my questions; to be honest, Doctor, I really don’t care what you think!” She stretched on her toes to shout in his face; he felt her words blowing his moustache against his lip. “If you ever again treat me, or allow one of your patients to treat me, as less than a proper lady, I will have you reprimanded by the Krampf Surgeon General!”

Vonken touched his chest, his hand shaking. His heart still beat, and the aetheric connection to that other heart seemed secure, but for an instant he had felt... He searched her face, confused. Is she not even aware what she just did? But how...? Could that have been mere coincidence? If so, than what could...?

She kept glaring at him. “Am I quite clear, Dr Vonken?”

He drew himself to his full height again, deciding whatever had just happened, this girlish woman had no clue whatsoever. “Very, Miss Autumnson.” He hesitated. Perhaps an apology would prevent another such painful incident, whether intentional on her part or not. He inclined his head to her. “I am sorry to have caused you any distress. I did warn you that this was not a place suitable for a lady of Society.”

She continued to silently fume, her eyes boring into his even through the tinted lenses, it seemed. “If you can agree to disregard the low opinions of the inhabitants of Wharfside, I promise to curb my tongue,” he offered, and meant it. Perhaps hearing the sincerity in his tone, she nodded, and when he wordlessly resumed his mission, she once again followed him.

“Where are you going next?” she asked.

“To check on Mrs O’Leary, just in the next tenement. She lost an infant recently to the pox, and I’m concerned she may be coming down with it as well. You might wish to remain at a healthy distance.”

He glanced back, and saw her nod. She tried to put her hair back up, though she’d lost at least one pin, and the wind had picked up. Her veil was askew, revealing more of her clear forehead and light olive skin. Vonken recalled that Mikael had told him their mother had been of Spanish descent; that explained the lovely, dusky hair and eyes both siblings had. Trying to repair the breach of decorum, she asked as she walked, “How many patients do you have in Wharfside?”

Vonken spread his hands to both sides. “All of them...those willing to be treated, at least. Some people refuse to let a Coldspark anywhere near them. Dr Hodgson also tends the free clinic when he can, and Ratchet is always there to dole out simple remedies or set broken bones.”

“Free clinic? So none of your patients pay you?”

He shrugged. “Some of them bring crabs from the canneries. I don’t eat them, but Dr Hodgson says they reserve some of the choice bits for us. Other than that, one charwoman sends her two daughters over to help clean the clinic every fortnight, and when repairs are needed to the exterior we’re never short of hands.” He paused to offer his hand to her at a broken-down cart which had been left to rot or be scavenged in the middle of the path, and helped her step over it. “You see their circumstances, Miss Autumnson. Only someone with the mentality of a leech would ask for payment for services so essential to their bare existence.” He paused, listening. When Miss Autumnson began to speak again, he held up a hand to shush her. He thought he caught whispers from a burnt-out building on their right. Wind moaned through the empty windowframes on the ground floor. No...there is someone there. Hazarding a guess based on the pitch of a voice he could not quite catch, he called out, “Jeremy, didn’t your mother tell you it was rude to spy on people?”

Giggles confirmed his guess. The boy popped up, leaning his bare elbows on the sooty stones of the window-hole. Dirty blonde pigtails and bright eyes peeping over beside him told Vonken the boy’s sister had tagged along. “Hi Doc. Who’s she?” Jeremy asked without preamble.

Vonken gestured gallantly at his determined companion. “This is Miss Autumnson. She’s from Hillside, come to visit about a...a charity venture. May I present Jeremy Pfisher and his little sister Annabelle, local scamps.”

Jeremy laughed, never taking his curious gaze from Miss Autumnson. “Why’s she trompin’ through the alleys? Ain’t never seen a lady do that afore.”

Miss Autumnson reacted genteelly, as though used to chatting with half-clothed, soot-stained urchins every day. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Pfisher, Annabelle. I...decided to accompany the doctor on his rounds in order to see what assistance he required in his good works. Perhaps I and my sisters can help.”

Jeremy squinted. “You got sisters too? They’s a pain.”

“Hey!” little Annabelle squeaked, but then shyly hid behind her brother as they ventured out of the ruined tenement.

“I meant my sisters in charity,” Miss Autumnson explained, but the boy frowned.

Trying to get this encounter over with so he could continue to his next patient, Vonken asked, “Is there something you needed, Jeremy?”

“Yeah. It’s Betsy, Doc.” Jeremy’s lean face drew even narrower when he frowned worriedly. “She ain’t well. Been coughing, and some of it’s...red.”

Red? Consumption, again? Dismayed, Vonken immediately changed his priorities. He thought he’d eradicated it from this neighborhood earlier this year, but apparently not. “Show me. Now.” He quickened his pace to follow the boy scampering through the deserted building, climbing carefully up a mostly-burned-away stairwell. He intended to tell Miss Autumnson to wait on the ground floor and be quiet, but there she was, skirts tucked up in her sash, daintily picking her way up from crumbling step to step after them. Shaking his head, Vonken focused on his own risky ascent. A fall wouldn’t hurt him much, but there were things he’d rather not reveal.

At the top of the fourth floor, less damaged by whatever fire had gutted the place months back, Jeremy led the way to a door and rapped upon it five times in a specific pattern. Vonken memorized the knock for future reference, and removed his hat as he ducked inside after the children. Inside, he saw where several of the orphans must have been nesting for some time: discarded, moldy cushions and stained feather mattresses had been piled near the coal-hearth, where a single lump smouldered. Box-sides and other bits of lumber were nailed over the windows, but the chill seeped in everywhere. Angrily, Vonken gathered up a swirl of sparking energy from the remnants in the building, and cast it at the hearth. The coal blazed up in a green flame, and numerous pairs of wide eyes turned from it to him. Ignoring their reaction, he knelt on the mattresses. In the center, a tiny girl cocooned in old blankets lay. Behind him, he heard Miss Autumnson murmur, “Oh...” in sympathy.

He felt the girl’s clammy forehead, checked her weak pulse. Spots of red gleamed on her lips. “How long has she been like this?”

Jeremy answered; the other children, all younger than him and in similar poor dress and poor health, gathered in a semicircle closer to the greenfire, their need for warmth overcoming their trepidation, watching and listening carefully. “’Bout a month, Doc. I told her she shoulda gone to your clinic, but she was too afraid, and I couldn’t get no one to help me carry her.” The boy glared at his companions. “I told you he’d help!”

The girl woke at Vonken’s touch, and shied away from him, uttering a frightened moan. He shushed her gently, stroked her hair, and concentrated a tiny spark between his hands. The girl stared at the tiny ball of golden light as he rolled it easily along his fingers, and then he held it out to her. The girl gulped. “It’s okay, Betts,” Jeremy said. Vonken had used this same trick to gain the boy’s confidence two years ago, while treating him for a nasty gouge in the leg from a pike-hook. Uncertain, Betsy held out her palm, and Vonken gently transferred the tiny ball of Coldspark energy to her. Her eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath at its unexpected warmth. Vonken smiled, and tapped the ball, making it break into a swirl of light which diffused around the girl.

Startled at first, she then began to smile when the warmth of it spread through her tiny body. She looked up at Vonken, this time with more acceptance. “Hello, Betsy,” he said. “I’m Dr Vonken. I’m going to see what I can do about this cough you’ve been having.” The girl nodded, and relaxed, and allowed him to check her pulse and put his stethoscope to her chest to listen to her lungs. It’s bad. I’ll be surprised if she lives out the week like this.

Jeremy, watching his expression closely, whispered, “How bad, Doc?”

Vonken sighed. “She needs a warm bed, Jeremy. Real food and a dry place to rest. And all of you should burn these cushions and find another place to bunk. This is contagious; you could all catch it if you don’t do as I say. Understand?” Frightened, several of them nodded, casting unhappy looks at the poor girl.

“Is it the White Plague?” Miss Autumnson asked. Vonken nodded, wiping his stethoscope with a flash of greenfire between his fingers. “Can you cure her?”

“I don’t know. It’s very advanced. This child should have been in the sanatorium months ago.” He turned to regard the huddled children. “I need to examine all of you. Anyone who’s been sleeping here.”

“Will Betsy die?” little Annabelle asked.

Vonken had no heart for lies to them. “She might. I’m sorry. I will do all I can. Now let me see each of you, please.” He beckoned, still kneeling. After a moment, Jeremy stepped forward, a brave look in his eyes. Vonken gave him a nod of thanks, and swiftly checked his tongue, his pulse, his breathing. “You’re fine. Come along, who’s next?” One by one, though some needed coaxing or even bullying from Jeremy, each child approached him to be examined. They were fascinated by the way he manipulated the aetheric energy to cleanse his stethoscope each time. One small boy wouldn’t stop crying, and Miss Autumnson crouched behind him, holding him still and whispering soothing words into his ear the whole time. Vonken put his tools away at last, thankful that only the one girl seemed to be infected. Yet. “All right. Now do as I’ve said: burn these mattresses, and better, find somewhere else to sleep from now on. If any of the rest of you begin coughing, or run a fever, or have chills, come to the free clinic at once, do you hear?” He looked around once, taking care to meet each of their eyes, his smoked lenses removed long enough to be sure each of them saw the serious cast of his own blue ones. “It is absolutely imperative that you see a doctor, either myself or Dr Hodgson, if you feel ill at all, as soon as you can. We will never turn you away, and we will help all we are able. Understand?”

Most of them nodded or murmured acquiescence, but then Jeremy argued: “But where we gonna bed down now, Doc? Big Leo’s been around a lot, and he...he ain’t real friendly to us. He hadn’t found us in here yet.”

“Big Leo?” Vonken rose to his feet, scowling. I thought the Watch had given him a good drubbing. Not enough of one. “He’s out of prison, is he?” At the scared little nods he received, Vonken’s expression darkened further. “You let me worry about Big Leo. All of you, scout out another place this very night. Here.” He shook a few coins from the soft purse hidden within his shirtwaist, handing them to Jeremy. “Buy some coal, and some broth. Go to Maddie May’s, she has the strongest broth in this part of Wharfside.”

“What about the girl?” Miss Autumnson asked.

Vonken wrapped the blankets more tightly around the child, who’d fallen asleep again, her breathing shallow. He hefted her up, worried at how light she felt. “I’ll see if the Granview Sanatorium has an extra bed.”

Miss Autumnson put a hand on his arm, alarmed. “Granview! But that’s where they take White Plague sufferers to...” Realizing her error, she shut her mouth, but the paleness on Jeremy’s face said he plainly understood what she’d been about to say. Trying again, she asked, “Is there no better place for her to...to recover?”

His voice soft and low, Vonken replied, “I do not have adequate facilities at my own home, and despite its name, All Souls’ won’t take children from the slums no matter how dire their circumstances. The only chance she has at all of survival is treatment at a place meant for this disease, where she can be tended constantly.”

“Bring her to my house.”

Vonken blinked at her, surprised. “Do you comprehend what this disease does?”

“I had an aunt who perished of it, before the Cataclysm. My father’s sister. He told me of her suffering.” Miss Autumnson’s gaze was steady, and he was startled to see actual compassion in it. Perhaps she could do some good here, after all, not just lip service to the cause like the rest of her ilk. “Can you treat her yourself?”

Trying to readjust his thoughts, Vonken looked at the peaceful face of the child in his arms. “I will begin administering the bacteriophagic serums, if you are to house her yourself, yes...but she may not recover, and you will have to destroy anything she coughs upon, and take precautions yourself to avoid contamination.”

She touched his arm, forcing his gaze to return to her serious dark eyes. “I...I have heard that a Coldspark can heal...”

Vonken frowned. “No. Absolutely not.”

“But I have read,” Miss Autumnson persisted, “Surely you are familiar with Jameson Millbush, the celebrated Coldspark? They say he cured a whole sanatorium in San Diego! Surely, with your talents, you could—“

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” Vonken growled, moving away from the children, who listened eagerly. “That imbecile glory-hound Millbush didn’t heal those people, he cursed them!”

“All their symptoms vanished! The newspaper said –“

“The newspaper did not tell of what is happening to those poor bastards now, these months later,” Vonken hissed. “Right around now, they will be experiencing the aftereffects of that energy so foolishly poured into them! Do you know what an excess of greenfire does to the human body? Do you?” When she stared at him, bewildered, he reminded her roughly, “I have lived through those effects, seen the people around me begin to change, to grow extra limbs or go blind or have their very organs seep through their skin! The Dust energy affects each person differently, but too much of it in every case only leads to horror! Do you understand?” The room was silent, even the fire in the tiny hearth seeming muted. “I will never, never use my unasked-for gift thus. You saw what I did to the crabs. Now imagine that happening to this poor girl...but so slowly as to allow her to feel every tingling agony of it a hundred times before she perishes!”

Miss Autumnson shook her head, tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry...I didn’t know...”

All the children were staring at him. Regretting his speech, Vonken carefully bundled Betsy in the blankets, making sure they wouldn’t come loose as he carried her even if the wind blew fierce. He lowered his protective spectacles once more, and gave the leader of the group a nod. “Jeremy. Please do as I’ve bid you. I’ll find Big Leo and have a little chat with him, man to man.”

The boy swallowed hard, but offered up: “Y’mean...troll to Coldspark?”

Vonken smiled. “If it comes to that. Yes.”

They left. Miss Autumnson preceded him down the half-destroyed stairs, glancing up in concern often, but he placed his feet cautiously and didn’t allow his grip on the girl to falter. In the upstairs hall above, his sensitive ears caught the frightened voice of one of the other children: “He’s scary.”

Jeremy replied, “Yeah, I know...but he’s on our side.”

Vonken couldn’t quite manage a smile. If they’re scared of me now, he thought, how much worse would it be if they knew all? Much worse. Especially if any of them thought to run and tell the Surgeon General.

Wrenching his mind from that ugly scenario, Vonken carried the sick child out of the chilly wreck of a building, and headed for the docks, where a hack might be procured to drive them to Autumn Hill. He was surprised at first at the light touch of Miss Autumnson on his arm, and looked down at her. She met his stare with a determined, silent one of her own, and he decided not to question her. She was helping, for now, and perhaps it was enough to use an ally wherever he could find one.


All alliances were temporary, he knew, but at least this one was so far interesting. 

Monday, November 18, 2013

7. All Who Heal Are Not Whole

All Souls’ Hospital, with its iconic steeple, had once been a church, before the Cataclysm. In the months following that horror, many new sects had arisen, and a few old ones had either splintered into quarreling schisms or disintegrated like their cathedrals in the blasted cities. The hospital’s staff, a mix of secular doctors with nuns of the Order of the Oncoming Storm as attendants, seemed to Holly to create an odd air of estrangement from the world outside. Stepping into the quiet anteroom, she was struck at once by the indifference of the staff to her presence. True, she was greatly reduced in social standing after paying her brother’s debts had erased the last of the family funds; but even so, a gentlelady entering a public building in her finest black dress with sable trim should have immediately telegraphed Society to everyone. Holly stood uncertainly for several minutes, but none of the men in long coats stopped to acknowledge her. Finally, she summoned up all the poise she had been trained to project, and approached one of the nuns. “I beg your pardon, Sister, but I am looking for a particular doctor whom I believe works here.”

The nun’s dark eyes regarded her impassively from the eyeholes of her mask. She made no reply. Nonplussed, Holly tried again. “I must speak with Dr Vonken. Is he available?”

The nun’s voice was flat, hoarse, and curt: “He is not here.”

Holly tried not to recoil, though that voice coming from what she had assumed was a woman behind the swirling metal inlays of the mask produced very disagreeable shivers down her back. “I’m sorry, he gave me reason to believe he –“

The nun spoke again, again sounding as though her throat had been ripped open and stitched roughly closed. “Doc-tor Von-ken does not work here on Fri-days.”

Holly managed a nod, and the nun immediately shifted her attention to a doorway through which other sisters came and went, spines hunched, hands buried in the folds of their ragged grey habits. As the sister resumed whatever errand she’d been pursuing, Holly thought, No, wait! I must find him; I must have answers. However, as she started after the nun, a passing doctor stepped in her way. Surprised, Holly drew herself up, holding her shoulders stiffly. The man’s white coat marked him as one of the hospital’s physicians, but Holly didn’t know enough about the stylized metal flower on his collar to guess what his area of expertise might be.

“You won’t get any answers out of them,” the doctor said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder at the nuns silently creeping past. He was broad of stature, with an equally broad belly beneath his white tunic. Rust-colored stains on his sleeves and midriff echoed the bright color of his thick beard. His eyes traveled down to Holly’s corseted bosom, lingering there.

Holly raised her voice, feeling sacrilegious about doing so in a place which had at least been holy ground in a past life. “It is imperative that I speak with Dr Vonken. Do you know where I can find him?”

The bearded doctor lifted his gaze to her face, his own puzzled. “Why, Madame? You don’t appear to me to require...augmentation.”

Heat spread across Holly’s cheeks. “I...I...Dr Vonken performed surgery on my late brother, Mikael. Mikael Autumnson.” As she fumbled for an excuse which would sound more urgent than giving the man back his cane, she saw a crafty expression suffusing the doctor’s face, giving him an even seedier aspect than when he’d assumed her a young widow moments before.

“My condolences, Miss Autumnson,” he murmured. He gave her an oily smile. “Are you here to lay claim to his prosthesis, then?”

Holly struggled to maintain her calm composure, anger rising. “I beg your pardon?”

“As a trophy. A memorial. Lots of families do, you know. Mount the leg or arm or whatever over the mantel.” The doctor moved closer, and Holly resisted the impulse to take a step back. Instead, she focused a glare right into his eyes. He checked his advance, reconsidering. “Well, if you’ve come to petition Vonken for your brother’s arm, it won’t work. He’s probably already dismantled it in his tinker’s workshop.” The man’s tone turned contemptuous. “He fights every claim on one of his mechanical chunks of armor. Man’s got no sense of patriotism. You know, if you want to petition the City Council for the right to keep your brother’s...arm, wasn’t it?...I could...advocate for you.”

Repulsed, Holly tightened her cloak over her shoulders. “That won’t be necessary, doctor. Can you tell me where I shall find Dr Vonken?”

“He’s one of those Pre-churched types,” the bearded doctor said, a frown creasing his deep brow. “Doesn’t work Fridays. Spends his mornings down Wharfside, probably picking out his next experimental urchin. Claims he’s ‘treating’ them. Personally...” The doctor glanced back at the nuns, who paid him no attention whatsoever, before leaning toward Holly to add, “I think he has a taste for the little ladies of the wharf. If he wasn’t so celebrated for his damned Dust-crafting gadgetry, he’d never be allowed to work here, you know. Pre-churched, Coldsparking freak!”

Holly drew back in distaste. “We could...draw up the petition in my office, if you wish,” the leering man continued. “It so happens I have an hour at leisure just now...”

“No thank you,” Holly snapped. “Good day, doctor.”

“Quinby,” the man supplied, even as Holly turned to go. “Dr Quinby, Miss Autumnson. Will Quinby. I, ah, regret I don’t recall your Christian name.” She looked back, and he offered a smile. It reeked of salaciousness to her.

“Good,” she said, and left.

*****

Wharfside: even the name of Concordia’s poorest district was apt to bring delicate shudders from most of Holly’s peers. When the Ladies’ Auxiliary Club, comprised of women from all the best families in the city, ventured down to that shabby neighborhood to give out donated coats or food to fulfill their vow of charity, they did so en masse and with a burly male escort or three. The warehouses and crab-canning plants crowded cheek to jowl at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers, and the air reeked of offal and dying sea-creatures. Holly paused once, surprised to see young children wading in the stinking water below a floodbreak; the sight of one of them pulling a battered tin to shore with a hooked stick made her realize that as wearying as her diminished fortunes felt, others would regard what she had as the height of luxury. Sobered, she continued down to the docks.

Where to even begin looking for Dr Vonken? She trod delicately on the slippery boards, trying to ignore the stares of the boatmen and lounging fishers by the skips and coastal trawlers tied to the lower pier. Somebody whistled behind her, and she blushed, but kept walking, head high. She wished she’d thought to bring her brother’s Indian knife. She had Vonken’s cane, but wasn’t sure how much strength she could put behind a swing if directly threatened. She wished she’d asked someone to accompany her...but whom could she trust with this sort of a mission? Almost everyone she knew, from her neighbor Chadwick Atherton to her father’s old friend Bartemus Flint, was in some way attached to the Northern Pacific Company. She shook her head as she walked. Is this to be my life now? Wondering evermore whom I can trust? Damn you, Vonken. You brought this nonsense into my life, and I still don’t even know what it’s all about! What could Mikael have found that others would want to kill for – that Henry Villard, of all people, would kill for? If your tale is even to be believed! Uneasily, she remembered the letter Vonken had shown her. That had absolutely been Mikael’s handwriting. If Mikael trusted Vonken with whatever secret he had, why send something to me and not him? Why involve me, even indirectly, and say nothing of it to me? Perhaps Mikael had writ to her, but his missive was lost, waylaid like the Courier which found Vonken had been? Holly frowned, then stopped, startled, as a young man clad in musty trousers and a striped vest stepped in her path.

“Why the sad face, girly?” he asked. “You lose somethin’?”

Holly took a step back, intending to choose another direction, but the young man moved with her to block her exit. “What’sa matter? Aw, all in black, your husband die or somethin’?” He pulled a mock-pout, and Holly noticed the scabs on his face. “Well, you know what they say, the grog’s the cure for all your woes! How’s about you come have a cup with me?” He gestured to a ramshackle tavern fronting the docks, a few paces away. From his miasmic breath, Holly surmised he’d already had quite a bit of grog for this hour of the morning.

“No thank you,” she said stiffly, and tried to turn away, but the young sailor countered again. “Let me pass, sir.”

He laughed. “Oh, it’s sir now is it? Hey Folly, you hear that?”

A beefy man also in a striped vest, though unbuttoned to reveal more of his hairy chest than could ever be thought seemly, grunted assent. He didn’t seem likely to rise from his sprawl on a pile of empty crab-traps, and he held a half-full brown bottle close to his belly. He squinted at Holly. “What you doin’ down here, Mrs Widow? Manny, leave her be,” he chided the younger sailor, who scowled.

Holly decided not to bother mentioning she’d never been married. “Sir, I am looking for a surgeon, Dr Darius Vonken. I was told he could be found in Wharfside today.” She did her best not to acknowledge the scabby young man still eyeing her, from her delicate veil to the black lace hem of her dress, as though she was some sort of foreigner.

Corpulent Folly scratched his stomach, eyes still narrowed against the light grey sky. “You come down here to find a doctor? Lady, you lost your noodles?”

“Whyn’t you come inside, and we’ll ask if anyone seen your doctor,” young Manny wheedled, reaching for Holly’s sleeve. She twitched it out of his reach.

“Manny, don’t be botherin’ the uppity folk. You want the Watch to come whip you?” Folly grunted, and Manny subsided, glaring. The older sailor gestured along the docks. “Lady, you shouldn’t of come here alone all gussied up like that. You won’t get ten steps further afore some a’ the boys pay even worse attention to ya than lil’ Manny here. Whyn’t you go on home.”

Unwilling to be shooed like a stray mongrel, Holly stared down at him as she’d seen her father’s friend Flint do to his staff. “I thank you for your concern, Mister Folly, but I really must find Dr Vonken. Have you perhaps seen him? He is a foot or so taller than myself, has dark reddish-brown hair and a full moustache; he perhaps carries this cane...” Both men glanced at the silver-tipped cane, and she realized it had been a mistake to point it out. The metal, if pried from the stick, could keep both of them in strong drink for a month. She clutched it tighter. “Never mind. Good day, sirs.” She turned again and began to walk away, relieved that the pushy young sailor didn’t insert himself in her path again, but Folly called after her.

“Never seen him, but if you want a charity doc, you best see ‘em at the clinic, three streets east. Next to Rumbaker’s.” Holly paused to nod her thanks, and shot a wary look at Manny, but despite his obvious surliness, he stayed by his friend on the dock. Holly left the immediate stench of the rivers behind, walking in the center of the street as there didn’t seem to be any sidewalks, and the gutters were both matted full of filth. She saw children running past, barefoot despite the chill, kicking an empty crab tin.

How can anyone live in these conditions? Do their fathers not have employment? Do their mothers not worry what diseases surely travel in these streets? A clanking sound behind her made her turn, and she almost squeaked in fear: a tall, chicken-legged construct belching black smoke nearly stepped on her! She scooted almost into the gutter to get out of its way, and saw the tattered banner in black and cyan trailing from its tail. NORTHERN PACIFIC COMPANY WAREHOUSE PATROL was stenciled on its side and back. As she tried to regain her composure, she heard jeering and thunks of rock on metal; the urchins hurled broken cobbles at the construct, then ran giggling into a nearby alley. The lurching iron thing never stopped, its driver no doubt used to this sort of harassment, impervious to any interruption of his patrol schedule. She watched it disappear around the next street-corner, where an enormous building of rough-welded steel and lead proclaimed itself CONCORDIA COLUMBIA FISHERY.

If the patrol had taken any notice of Holly, she couldn’t tell. The near-miss had seemed more indifferent to her safety than deliberately trying to harm her. More and more, she doubted the wisdom of this venture, but as long as she was here, she might as well continue. Her awareness of all the unfamiliar activity around her heightened. She checked the placards on each squat warehouse she passed, noting that a number of them had the words NORTHERN PACIFIC or CONCORDIA emblazoned in their names; she hadn’t stopped to consider before just what percentage of the industry in the city was owned or controlled by Henry Villard’s company. A few buildings did advertise themselves as separate by mere dint of the omission of those words, and after another block of walking, Holly decided to inquire the exact whereabouts of this clinic or of whatever “Rumbaker’s” turned out to be. Feeling that an independent business might be more prudent for this purpose than anything owned, even indirectly, by Villard, she approached the open carriage-doors of one such warehouse. I hope all this caution proves to be needless, but still...

“The clinic? Sure,” said the foreman, seated behind a battered wooden desk just inside the warehouse. He didn’t remove the cigar from his mouth as he spoke; Holly found herself actually thankful for the smoke he breathed in her direction, as it momentarily masked the permeating smell of fish. “Keep goin’ up this street another block, then turn left an’ head toward the Columbia. Clinic’s just before you reach the river.” He puffed thoughtfully as Holly thanked him, then asked, “Why you headin’ there, ma’am? Some kinda charity mission?”

“Yes,” Holly lied, realizing such a story would have been much more sensible to begin with. “The...the Hillside Association was thinking of contributing to the medical needs of...of this district. I have come to assess what is needed.”

The foreman snorted a laugh. “Down here? Everything, ma’am. They need everything. They only got a couple doctors who’ll even set foot outta their swell home districts, much less proper rooms to heal the sick. I don’t guess there’s many anymore that take the Good Book’s advice on things like that, though.” He gave Holly an appreciative look, his eyes warm, even kind. “Good for you, ma’am. I’m sure they’ll appreciate your help.”

Embarrassed, Holly merely nodded, and set off briskly in the direction the foreman had said. She’d given to charity often enough, of course; as a member of the Ladies’ Auxiliary Club of the Greater Concordia Assistance League, she had tithed regularly, but with little thought as to what exactly her monies paid for beyond the vague words “food” and “clothing.” As she walked, she considered the plight of those who had to live in this horrible neighborhood, where one never escaped the stench of the processing plants or the sewer chutes into the rivers, where all the homes she passed when she turned onto a narrower street could only be termed shanties or shacks, if that. She’d never been here. As an unmarried woman, traveling alone, it was completely unheard-of for her to even be here. Certainly Mikael would have been horrified...

But you went off into locales far more dangerous than this, she thought, slowing to watch a tiny girl sitting in a dirt yard before a shack with no window-coverings save tacked-up rags. The girl played silently with a headless wooden doll, and stared at Holly as she passed. Holly smiled at the girl, but no answering smile lifted the soot-stained cheeks. A skinny matron with a kerchief tied over her hair came to the doorway, giving Holly a suspicious glare, and Holly picked up her pace. She wished she hadn’t worn something so conspicuously wealthy...but mourning custom proscribed all black for months to come, and she only had three outfits of that hue, the others also in silk or satin. How could she explain to these people that she was fallen in status, in fortune? The monthly stipend the Northen Pacific Company was to pay her for Mikael’s death was probably more than what many of these people made in a year, and she never wanted for food or creature comforts. Unhappy and ashamed, Holly quickened her steps, wanting nothing more than to find Vonken and somehow force him to make sense of Mikael’s death. Perhaps I could indeed give something to this clinic, some small contribution? Even a few dollars surely would help some of these unlucky souls...if it is a real medical facility. She thought about Dr Quinby’s contempt for Dr Vonken. What if it’s not a clinic at all? What if it’s some sort of...of brothel, or worse? Surely there must be some reason why that doctor didn’t believe Vonken was truly doing good deeds here.

She wondered at Quinby’s use of the insult “Pre-churched.” She’d heard it whispered once, when Mrs Goldmann had applied to join the Ladies’ Auxiliary. Some members had voted against the newcomer, Holly knew, as she’d been one of the two ladies asked to tally the votes. When she’d brought up the curious antipathy later to Mikael, he’d snorted, and scoffed: “I guess some of your peers still blame the Jews for the Cataclysm, Holls. Don’t pay any attention to them.”

“It seems to me that everyone blamed everyone else,” Holly had replied, affronted. She rather liked the soft-spoken, unassuming woman who asked them all to call her Becca, even if her husband’s fortune had been made buying up several of the failed long-distance messenger services and turning a profit by staffing them with Courier constructs instead of humans.

Mikael chuckled. He was older than Holly by five years, and better able to remember the time immediately following the Cataclysm. “More or less. Did you know there was a sect calling themselves the Branch Malingerers, who believed the only way to atone for the sin which must have caused the destruction was by killing themselves?” At Holly’s shocked look, her brother had laughed. “Good thing they didn’t last long...”

Many religions were shattered; many new ones arose. Holly knew little about the pre-Christian Biblical faith, only that they had denied Christ as Saviour; but what difference did that make now? The Cataclysm hadn’t spared anyone, smiting people of all faiths and races and nations, as far as was known. She decided she wasn’t going to let Dr Quinby’s prejudices affect her dealings with Dr Vonken. Besides, her quarrel with him had nothing to do with religion, so whatever his faith prompted him to do was of no concern to her...unless it somehow prevented him from explaining to her why people were fighting over some “element” from the blasted Wastelands of the Interior. She scowled, seeing a tiny whitewashed building up ahead. A placard swung above the door, bearing the red shield emblem recognized throughout Columbia Pacifica as the sign for a hospital. It was overshadowed by a four-story factory with bright red letters painted between the second and third stories: RUMBAKER’S FINE GLUES AND CRUSTACEAN PRODUCTS.

All right, Doctor, Holly thought grimly, I’m not leaving until you explain to me why you felt it necessary to trap me in my own house. Then you can tell me what it is my brother died to procure, and why it’s so damned important.


Fully immersed in her thoughts, still walking down the center of the filthy street as it was by far the cleanest option, she roused at the unfamiliar sound of clacking, rattling things as she passed the glue factory. Turning her head, she nearly stumbled, eyes widening: a horde of black deep-sea Pacifica crabs hurtled out of a second-floor window. Shouts and an alarm bell clamored after them. Far from appearing damaged at the tumble, the crabs clicked their enormous claws and cast about with long eyestalks as if looking for someone upon which to unleash their anger at having almost been dismembered and processed. Holly froze. She’d never seen one of these alive. She suddenly realized that the stuffed specimens at the Museum didn’t fully convey how alien they were...how large, when they stood on their rickety ten legs to their full height. Several of them were taller than she was. As one, the skittering, clackety mass of them turned toward Holly...and with high-pitched screeches, rushed at her! Nothing at the Museum had suggested how fast the monsters were...

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

6. On the Privileges of Sex

The rapping awoke Holly just after sunrise. She frowned blearily at the papers and books surrounding her head, then shifted stiff muscles when she heard the sound again. Someone knocking on the window? He said they’d watch from the trees, she thought, a prick of fear confusing her until the past evening’s odd events coalesced in her memory. Cautiously she pulled the curtain open, and saw a large woodpecker startle at the motion and fly off. Annoyed, she opened the drapery further, and wan grey light filled the library. She blinked, clearing the sleep from her eyes; she’d succumbed at last to the exhaustion of her nerves while at the desk, and never even undressed, much less arrived at her own chambers for a more comfortable slumber. Everything felt creaky, as if rusted in place overnight. Holly peered to one side, then the other, searching the trees outside the second story, but saw nothing suspicious. Had she imagined what the doctor had said?

Then she tried to open the sash, and a blue spark of chilled air blasted over her arms. Drawing back and rubbing them, she stared dismayed as the energy of the ward subsided, ripples settling until the panes of glass appeared clear and deceptively unobstructed again. Damn him! Does he truly expect me to sit caged in here, like a docile canary? The more industrial uses of that bird came to mind, and she grimaced. Indeed, I am a canary for him, set to sing if Mr Villard’s men return...or to cease singing. She suppressed a shiver, more of the evening’s discussions returning clearly to her thoughts. Well. Which is worse, to venture out and see what may be seen by the light of day, or to remain holed up here alone, and await my fate? Uneasy, she returned her attention to the notes she’d made while digging through dictionaries and grammars last night. She’d done her best to recall the sound of the words Dr Vonken had spoken as he cast each of the wards, and searched through the books until she was reasonably certain of a translation, rough and stilted though the words appeared to her on the paper now. She’d then written out three possible passwords, but had no idea whether any of them would allow her to pass through the protections the Coldspark had cast on her house. And now she hesitated, paper in one hand, wondering if going out was really her most prudent course.

Take extra care while I’m gone, Mikael had said to her each time he left on one of his dotty expeditions – as if she, with servants behind the strong, storm-weathered walls of this old manse, in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods, should fear anything more than the brother she loved not returning from the savage wilderness of the Interior! She sniffed. And yet...what if that weaselly man with the gleaming red lens like an evil monocle was indeed still outside, watching for her? If Vonken was correct, and Villard’s employee did try to force his way into the house when she was out, these wards would certainly frustrate him. Would he then pursue her? Would he follow her if she ventured into the marketplace, or the plaza, or to Mikael’s gravesite?

Her only alternative, of course, was to await the doctor’s eventual return...assuming he hadn’t run afoul of bad company. Or someone from the Northern Pacific Airways Company. Which might amount to the same thing, if I can believe all he told me. But really, what had the enigmatic surgeon told her? She frowned. Damned little. Insulting a man of stature and power in my home, without telling me what nonsense my brother was engaged in, why he was killed, what Mr Villard even has to do with any of it...and then expecting me to sit tight like a child, unquestioning, and simply wait? Oh no. No, I think not. Holly had felt many times throughout her twenty-two years that her entire life was controlled and constrained by the men who, by mere dint of their gender, had legally sanctioned positions of authority over her. Her father was gone, her brother was gone...was she then to allow this usurpation of her new independence by some half-mad stranger who wouldn’t even grant her the right to know how she was involved in all this? Holly glared around the library. Her library now, in her home, where already men of questionable purposes had fingered her books, rifled through her desk, tracked dirt upon her rare Persian carpets...!

Her small jaw set in a scowl, and for a moment she clenched the paper in her fist. “This house is mine now,” she whispered, and hearing the words aloud made her nod in growing determination. “It’s mine, and it’s all I have to show for my life...so far...” The realization dismayed her. Though she might have an education to rival any of the students graduated from Concordia University, their strictly-male policy barred her from claiming the degree she had longed for as a child. She owned Autumn Hill only by the default of there being no blood male relation to claim it; had she even a distant cousin of the other sex, she could have been turned out in the street, as had happened to her friend Violet Constance. As a young lady of the wealthy merchant class, she was expected to marry some well-established widower probably twice her age who needed a young wife to bear the son his late lady of the house had failed to produce...assuming she herself didn’t expire in childbirth in such a venture. All that, of course, even hoping some complacent pillar of the community would be gracious enough to accept her, impoverished as she now was... What a hideous history I have had, she thought suddenly, feeling a wave of dizziness. She sat down. Her gaze traveled slowly over the books she had devoured through the years: history, geography, science, the arts, mathematics and myths. So many years, I have been just a silly bird in a cage. Doing as I was told. Reading, reading everything, storing up all these facts and figures, and to what end? So that I may sit here meekly while complete strangers fight over my future – over some mysterious thing my reckless brother is supposed to have sent me? What good has all my self-schooling been, if I do nothing with it?

She recalled, in sudden perfect clarity, a street-sermon given a few years ago by the local stump-preacher, one Reverend Pitheous Arrack. She and Mikael had been on their way home from a concert in the plaza, a Sunday afternoon in midsummer, when the rantings of the reverend had drawn a small crowd and the siblings found themselves jostled in among them by the movement of curious people around them. Arrack preached on one of his favorite subjects, the danger of emancipating the female mind, “which in its natural weakness poses an unwitting threat to all Society, if mistakenly encouraged to embrace those intellectual pursuits which only the minds of men have the capability to grasp and use as our Maker intended!”

For ten minutes, Holly had stood uncomfortably among the audience at the edge of the plaza, disliking every word out of the preacher’s mouth. Mikael had evidently been much amused and would have stayed for the entire sermon if Holly had not complained of the heat. Certain phrases had stuck with her, like itchy burrs upon her stockings: “females ought to diligently tend those matters which Nature has gracefully endowed them for: mainly, the bearing and nurturing of children!”...”we know much about the unfortunate sway of what the doctors of the mind call hysteria, upon the weaker sex; and it is this terrible tendency of females to exaggerate their own emotions in all matters which makes them unsuited for the business of law, politics, or faith. Our curse, this Dust upon our land, has only made these weaknesses worse”...and the one which had stung her most deeply, still ringing in her ears years later: “God will not forgive a woman who commits the prideful sin of wanting to be independent. Such a woman will bring ruin not only on herself but on her offspring, her parents, her siblings, and her husband, and she is the greatest scourge to our peace and happiness!”

Worst of all, of course, Holly had seen a number of women in the crowd...and most of them were fervently nodding agreement, sanctimonious in their accord, complicit in their subjection.

One of Holly’s favorite books, one which had been the property of her late mother, was Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman. Her father didn’t discourage her from reading it, and other tracts which the Reverend Arrack would have tossed into a bonfire on sight; but he did caution her about “expressing views in public which might lead your peers to label you a freethinker.” Such young ladies, Hubert Autumnson had stressed quietly to his daughter, “would never find a good match, and end up spinsters.” Holly wished to please her papa, and agreed never to voice her doubts about the superiority of the male brain. Not while he lived, at least.

Dr Vonken called me a scholar, she thought, and turned over the more startling idea: and he said Mikael implied I would have beaten him for his post if I’d been allowed to compete for it. All along...Mikael thought I was clever? More clever than him? She looked back at the notes she’d made, and began to smile a little. Clever enough to break your wards, Doctor? Let’s see.

Excited, nervous, she approached the window again. She silently read the words she’d painstakingly parsed from the Dutch language textbooks, trying to memorize the odd syllables, hoping she could mimic the accent she’d heard last night. She raised her left hand and began the intricate tracing gesture for unlocking a ward...another thing she, as a woman, wasn’t supposed to be dabbling in. She briefly wondered how women Coldsparks put up with the disapproval of their peers. Speaking as steadily as she could, she offered up the first possible key: “Open deze sluis!”

The ward shimmered, but she wasn’t sure it had worked. She reached for the window-sash and received the same shock of cold as she had before. Stepping back, she shook her arm, wincing, then steeled herself and tried the process again. “Laat mij!”

Another rebuff proved her research incorrect. One option left...or else she would have to go back to the books. The possibility sent a weariness all through her. She took a deep breath, gestured again, and snapped at the window: “Ontsluiten!”

An odd pause, a shimmer of blue energy, but then the rebuff yet again. “Ow!” Holly complained, jerking her fingers away from the sparking aetherfire. “Damn it!” Cursing, like many other privileges, was also in the domain of male authority, but Holly was too angry to care. Frustrated, she made as if to grab the energy surrounding the window, wishing she could just turn an invisible key and be done with it. “Vonken, you –“ she muttered...and the ward flashed golden.

Holly stopped. She stared. Cautiously, she made the grabbing, key-turning motion again. “Vonken?”

With an uncurling of golden tendrils, the ward parted from the window, gleaming and writhing around its edges, waiting for her. Holly placed her hands on the sash without pain, and slowly opened it. Cool, moist morning air swept into the room.

A laugh bubbled up out of her. She stood there, breathing in the October mist, a whole minute before she slammed the window shut, watched the ward turn blue and sweep over it again, and then ran from the room to wash and dress. She had an errand to run today. She’d noticed the good doctor had forgotten his cane in her parlor; certainly he’d want it back, and after all, she had no one left to do such a menial task for her. And while she was politely returning his property to him, she planned to make him answer a few questions.


She felt her female brain quite capable of comprehending whatever he had to say. 

Thursday, November 7, 2013

5. Lift Sightless Eyes, a Moment, Hopeless, to Inflaming Skies

The coast could not be far, Ridley thought; with every hoarse breath he could catch the whiff of sea-things dying, of salts in strange combinations collecting on a near shore. But the kraken labored to remain even skimming the tall pines, unable to soar as it used to. The once-majestic ruler of the skies, mortally wounded, keened silently at each stroke of its feathery tentacles, wheezed out each giant breath, and its bound-pilot, Ridley Fogchaser, once the Master Pilot of the fleet, found himself unable to ease the beast’s suffering or coax it higher above the forested hills. He himself was faint, unable to even cling to his beloved mount, wearily thankful he’d had the foresight to lash his limbs tight to the monster’s mantle days ago. If he could direct the kraken to the ocean, it might perhaps have a chance...although Ridley might drown, if it plunged to the depths upon entering the water. He wasn’t sure how far along his alterations had progressed, whether the changes would save him in such an event. Were it not for his precious cargo, he would yet give the beast its head, let it strain for the brine as it wished to, though it meant his death...

Ahead, he caught glimpses of tiny lights. They must be approaching the city at last. The homing sense of the kraken, ever reliable, had brought them nearly back to Concordia, but he wondered now what reception might await them. He had no regrets about killing the saboteur, but he knew whom had planted the spy in their crew. And after witnessing Mikael’s death...no one with a heart would judge him for his reaction, Ridley thought grimly. Yet we are dealing with a man without a heart, aren’t we, Dearie?

The kraken rumbled and wheezed, commiserating. It had no concept of jealousy, and had accepted the new lover in its Pilot’s life as a matter of course, even though it meant fewer opportunities to caress Ridley when the others were asleep, exchanging thoughts and touches in a language of tenderness no other humans would comprehend. Mikael had understood. Ridley had hoped, after reading the adventurer’s article on how closely entwined, mind and body, the krakenships and their Pilots became, that perhaps Mikael might become the third point of a blissful triangle. Their mission had ended abruptly in fire and pain before such a glorious joining could be consummated. Ridley forced his right hand, trembling from the cold, to stroke the rubbery mantle, offering what little comfort he could to the kraken. Almost there, Dearie, almost there...come on...see the lights? Go to the lights. Lights in the deep, oh yes, solemn and lovely, waiting...

He reeled as the beast turned, orienting its remaining limbs to the lamps glittering through the smog. Dimly it came to him that he was thirsty, desperately so. Lowering his cheek to the skin of his gigantic mount and only remaining friend, he licked it with a dry tongue. The condensation, admixed with the oil the kraken exuded to ease its passage through the air, tasted dark across his palate, like gin fouled by river sediment, but he swallowed gratefully. Ever closer, Dearie, ever closer to you...soon I will soar beside you, freed from this awkward form, graceful like you... He closed his eyes, exhausted. Shudders coursed down his helpless body, and the kraken rippled in concern as it felt his fingers clench in its mantle-skin. No, no, don’t worry...we’re almost home...almost home...

He tried not to let it hear his worry: would anyone welcome them back? What tales had been told of the expedition’s failure? What explanation given for the missing krakenship? The heavy buckles of Taftinnium still jangled as they swung loosely below the torpedo-shaped body, though the straps which had bound the cabin to the beast fluttered, frayed, useless now. Ridley had hacked the cabin free with a small axe, desperate to save the monster he was tethered to in spirit, when the soldiers attacked. Most of the party was dead by then, the cabin partially afire, and rather than risk certain death for himself and his alien beloved, he’d sent the remaining crew plummeting to the barren earth along with their assailants. Poor bastards good as dead anyway, he thought miserably. Gods below! poor Mikael. Poor Doctors and all them. “But we made it, eh, Dearie?” he whispered. One bulging eye swiveled slowly up to regard him, and he managed a smile. “You an’ me, eh? Inseparable!”

The kraken wanted to agree, he could tell, but the only sound it made was a high keening, pitched above the audible range of most humans but clear enough to Ridley. He winced. “Now, now...almost there...we’ll patch you right up, won’t we? Dump me off to take care of this little crumpet, like, and there’ll be fish an’ crabs aplenty for my Dearie, won’t there?” He giggled, and weakly wriggled his hips against the slimy skin beneath him. “An’ a little roll an’ cuddle, won’t we, soon as you’re feeling all better, my pet!”

The kraken wheezed again, and sank lower. Feebly it thrust its remaining tentacles ahead, drawing them back and under as if paddling through syrup, blowing air out its twin nostrils in the rear of its arrow-shaped head, but they continued to lose altitude. Worried, Ridley struggled to sit up, patting the kraken, trying to project reassurance. “Almost there, you can do it! See, smell the ocean? Just get me to the city, pet, and then it’s off to the briny lovely deep for you! Roll in the water and heal thyself, physician! Won’t we have good times then!” Desperately, he tried to sing, though his throat was hoarse from days of exposure, the skin of his lips cracked. “Oh, we’ll have such good times; won’t we all have good times; we’ll have such a gooood, tiiiime, theeennn!”

The kraken groaned, stuttered, its limbs flailing wildly, then dropped.

Ridley screamed, terror of falling competing with fear of the bond between them sputtering out. “No! No no no! Dearie!” The dying shriek of the kraken, agony shooting through its body as it vainly strove to heave itself aloft one last time, echoed through the forest and through Ridley’s brain, and he clapped both hands to his head, overwhelmed. The whip-arms grabbed tall pines, latched on, and slung them forward. Ridley felt the leftmost arm rip from the kraken’s body, and screamed in pain as though his own arm had been savagely cut from his shoulder. The rubbery, massive body flattened trees, hit the crest of a hill and sickeningly bounced, skin tearing, innards spilling. Its Pilot, helpless, howled in wordless terror as they careened down the far side of the hill, slamming trees askew, flesh ripping, dirt flying, plowing headfirst through the underbrush until at last the great body rolled to a bloody stop. Dew rained down from disturbed fir-needles, the surrounding trees waving like ladies’ fans for several minutes after the final impact.

Ridley sobbed, sprawled prone, his ankles and one wrist still lashed tight to the lifeless body of the kraken. He crooned to it, weakly stroking the unresponsive skin. The great eye nearest him stared outward, all spark of animation gone. The loss of the bond he’d spent years carefully tending felt as though his own heart had been plucked from his ribs, leaving a gaping void. He could no longer feel the creature’s thoughts, and hearing only his own in his head seemed wrong, seemed less than sane. “My Dearie,” he muttered, tears streaking the dirt on his gaunt cheeks. “Dearie, where did you go? Why didn’t you take me? Please take me,” he groaned, but no response welled up in his thoughts as it used to. The kraken entering his brain had felt, that first magical time, like seeing the mythical beast of sailor’s lore rising from the depths under wavering moonlight, terrifying and glorious. It had possessed him, and he it, from then on, for almost four years. He’d conversed with it more often than the humans around him; it had made more calm, perfect sense to him than they did, with their petty concerns, their politics and their love affairs and their wars. Kraken cared little for these things. There was the prey, and there was the mate, and there was the flight. Oh, they loved to fly, they did...the Cataclysm had awakened in the massive lords of the ocean a yearning for the skies, grey and thick almost as the seas where they were born, and a good Pilot understood this love of flying, nurtured it, used it to persuade the creatures to go where the Pilot wished. What most people didn’t understand was how Ridley and other krakenship Pilots experienced their bond: when the great beasts launched themselves into the sky, the men bound to them always felt their own hearts soar.

That was more than symbiosis; that was love.

He remained atop the corpse for some time. Gradually the night sounds of the forest resumed around him, stillness slowly transforming into the thin chirps of crickets, the occasional too-whoo of a nightjar, the noiseless swoop of an owl overhead. Finally Ridley reminded himself of why they’d come back to a city full of traitors, angrily rising from his grief. Dearie had perished slowly, agonizingly over weeks of flying without respite or refreshment, to bring him back here...only because Mikael had wished it. Because Mikael, before the shot which pierced his skull, had implored Ridley to help him subvert the Company men, to get this blasted chunk of rock back to someone. Ridley strained to remember who, and why. Rage overtook him, and he screamed at the blackness overhead. Dead, they’re all dead, and it’s the Company that done it, the bloody frigging Company innit everytime, every frigging time! He screamed, screamed again, again until only a ragged breath came out, his vocal chords too dry to go on. He collapsed, racked with soundless sobs.

Dearie would want him to do what was important to him. Mikael had begged him this favor; Mikael, who loved him despite his differences. Ridley paused, remembering the younger man’s curious touch, gentle fingers caressing the Pilot’s changed form where what had been the root of a man now writhed and stretched in sympathy with his kraken partner. Mikael had been amazed, eager, willing...the only human Ridley had felt any sort of connection to since his induction to the Krakenship Flying Guild. And Mikael Autumnson had asked him to bring this fool stone back to Concordia and give it to...to...

Ridley shook his head. Too many thoughts crowded there, now that the steadying influence of the kraken was silent. He remembered Mikael saying something about a sister. Sisters of the Oncoming Storm? No...not the nuns, why would he give a rock to the nuns, they’re all fools, aren’t they Dearie? Calling us abominations! Curse them, idiot women, all bound up in their scarves, what do they know... Angrily, he nipped at the strap binding his left wrist, sawing the cords with the fledgling beak behind human lips until the leather snapped. Groaning, he levered himself up, his arms weak. The vestigial limbs below his tunic wriggled feebly, unable to do anything useful but responding already to the impetus of his thoughts. Greedily he lowered his head to the cooling flesh again, and licked all the cold droplets he could reach, instinct guiding him to take whatever nourishment he could from the water and oil coating the dead skin of his partner in flight. He’d been so close to becoming one with the kraken! So close, and now never to be completed... Ridley whined quietly, rejecting the thought of finding another kraken-mate. Never be the same, wouldn’t be my Dearie, never the same...

Eventually he freed himself of the lashings, and slid ungainly to the ground. He lingered by the still head, staring at the lifeless eye, its diameter encompassing half his body. Were it wholly up to him, he would never leave, would guard the corpse until it rotted entire, but Mikael’s worried face rose in his thoughts. At last he straightened his shoulders and examined his clothing, making small adjustments to his thigh-length tunic, tightening the ragged belt, discarding the rubbery but ripped gloves, and tapping his feet uncertainly in the thick-soled boots. His cloak was long gone, and without his mask of office he wasn’t sure how people would react to seeing him. He had no way to judge his own appearance. Mikael wasn’t afraid, he thought, and pursed his lips. Maybe it’ll be all right. We’ll do it for our love, won’t we, Dearie? He loved us, didn’t he now? He frowned, touching his swollen throat. Dry. So dry. They’ll have water, won’t they, these sisters? Sister? Sister of autumn, funny name that, where does she live, is that a title or a person, don’t know... He rubbed aching temples, wishing for a comforting presence in his brain again. He felt so bloody empty. This is hard, Mikael, this is ridiculous hard, why did you make this so hard? Dearie is dead, and where do I go now, I ask you? Where do I take this thing?

A sibilant whisper made him turn his head. Wind, stirring the pines, produced a creaking, susurrant voice, just shy of his ears. “I’m coming, Dearie,” Ridley said, his voice barely a croak. “Where are you?”

Element. Sister. Love. Important. Mikael’s voice staggered in and out of Ridley’s memory, uneven echoes rippling over one another, confusing. Shaking his head, the bereft Pilot took an unsteady step downhill. He had not stood on true earth in years, not since his partnering with the kraken. Shaky legs barely bore him, and any observer would have thought him a newborn, falling footsteps only just saving him from a painful tumble one after the other, but he persisted, stomping over leafless bracken and needle-carpet as he traversed the high forest, heading down, heading toward the lights which now and then he could glimpse through the swaying trees.


Heading toward Concordia, and the last duty he had any heart for completing. Even if he couldn’t quite remember what it was.