The Ruined City Read online

  “They are being used to cause it. In time, their cumulative efforts will influence the Source itself.”

  “Then destroy them here and now. Blast them out of existence. You have the ability.”

  The answer was delayed, and when it arrived, unwelcome.

  “Pointless.” Innesq shook his head. “Do not trouble to contradict me. It is possible that my skills might serve to lay those four unfortunates to permanent rest, but the task would impose heavy demands upon our time and upon my reserves of strength. We would lose several hours, and at the end, the accomplishment itself is negligible.”

  “Their removal wouldn’t eliminate the disruption?”

  “It might eliminate this one small pocket of disruption, here and now, but that is the equivalent of treating a single pustule of the smallpox. What you see before you is symptomatic. In order to effect a cure, we must treat the underlying cause, and the sooner the better.”

  Aureste nodded. He signaled the driver, and the Belandor coach rattled off along a new route, leaving consternated citizens and mute undead behind to settle their own differences.

  At about the same time, events of note were taking place elsewhere in the city. The section of Vitrisi known as the New Houses, which were now quite old indeed, was traditionally respectable in character and conservative in outlook. The denizens tended to embrace traditional Faerlonnish virtues, which included honesty, industry, thrift, and family loyalty. Their lives were modest, and few households kept more than a single servant. Nobody owned a Sishmindri. Quite apart from all question of expense, the amphibians were regarded as treacherous, dirty, and distastefully foreign. The recent identification of Sishmindris as carriers of the plague only served to reinforce prevailing local opinion.

  Popular opinion had been ratified by the passage of a neighborhood resolution officially barring Sishmindris from the New Houses district. It signified little to its originators that their amateur legislation possessed no whit of official legitimacy. They were more than ready, as many fervently asserted, to fight to the death in defense of their homes, families, and innocent infants menaced by the Sishmindri peril.

  This resolution was put to the test upon the wintry morning that a lone Sishmindri appeared within the neighborhood. The amphibian, sporting an armband that identified her as property of the Challosa household, was spotted trudging along Hay Street, which marked the western boundary of the New Houses. Her errand was unknown and irrelevant. Quite possibly she was unaware that she had ventured into forbidden territory, but this, too, was irrelevant. Ignorance scarcely mitigated the offense.

  A party of the freshly established New Houses Guardians accosted her at once. Wasting no time upon warning or interrogation, the neighborhood protectors commenced beating her with their brand-new, iron-bound New Houses Guardians clubs. The trespasser’s efforts to flee were neatly thwarted; she could hardly be permitted to spread plague far and wide. A few sound strokes beat her to her knees. Spreading her alien webbed fingers defensively before her face, she attempted speech, but a well-aimed blow drove the croaking syllables back into her mouth. The beating continued.

  A curious thing happened then. Throwing back her hairless head, the Sishmindri loosed an unknown utterance. Something between a wail and a squeal, issuing in staccato bursts, it was a sound entirely unfamiliar to the ears of men.

  The response was equally novel.

  From out of nowhere, it seemed, jumped a pair of fully mature, sturdily built male Sishmindris. Amazingly, the creatures were unclothed, unmarked, and devoid of any identifying sign of human ownership. Even more amazingly, they were armed. One carried an ax, the other bore a sledgehammer. It might reasonably have been argued that the implements were mere tools of labor, suitable to Sishmindri use. In an instant this argument was conclusively refuted.

  One of the rogue amphibians swung his ax, striking the nearest Guardian’s neck. Blood spurted from the unmistakably fatal wound, and the victim fell. Almost at the same time, the second Sishmindri raised his sledgehammer and brought it crashing mightily upon the head of the nearest Guardian, who went down, dead before he hit the ground.

  The human witnesses froze, disbelieving, for it was impossible. Sishmindris were submissive, passive, and cowardly. This was their nature. The spectacle of two such creatures taking up forbidden arms and turning them upon their human overlords was unimaginable. For a moment, reality wavered.

  During this shocked lull, the two rescuers drew the crouching female to her feet, each taking one of her hands, and the trio fled down Hay Street.

  The incredulity paralyzing the human witnesses yielded to fury, and the surviving Guardians set off in yelling pursuit. Within moments their number was increased by public-spirited citizens eager to join in the defense of the neighborhood, and soon a sizable gang bayed on the heels of the fleeing Sishmindris.

  At first the long, leaping gait of the amphibians kept them well ahead of their pursuers. But presently the female began to falter; perhaps the beating had injured her. As the distance between fugitives and pursuers decreased, a new note of joyous anticipation sharpened the human voices.

  A few yards farther on, an open alley offered escape from Hay Street. The Sishmindris sped for the shadows, thus removing themselves from forbidden territory. Ordinarily the chase might have ended then and there. But this case was remarkable. These Sishmindri had not only armed themselves—a capital offense in and of itself—but had actually succeeded in killing two human beings; and both martyrs New Houses Guardians, at that. Such a crime could not go unavenged.

  Down the alley and through a tangle of twisting lanes known as the Briar Patch fled the three Sishmindris, with the citizens close behind—too close to evade, despite the tortuous complexity of the streets and walkways. The female was limping noticeably, slowing her male companions. But they, with the stupidity typical of their kind, failed to realize that their only possible hope of self-preservation lay in abandoning her. They remained at her side, and the humans gained on them with every step.

  Another sharp turn, and the citizens found themselves at the bottom of a cul-de-sac, confronting a tumbledown tenement whose door was crossed from top to bottom with a great red X. At sight of the quarantine symbol the citizens checked abruptly, for the most urgent bloodlust gave way before fear of the plague.

  The Sishmindris displayed no such prudence. Speeding straight to the front door, one of them kicked it open. The three amphibians slid through, and the door banged shut behind them.

  The citizens stood staring, thunderstruck for the second time within minutes. Nobody spoke, nobody moved. However keen their appetite for vengeance, not one among them dared to breach the red X.

  But the Sishmindris had dared. Just as they had dared to take up arms against their natural overlords and commit double homicide. They were cowardly and irresolute, but they did not fear the plague. They were weak and submissive, but they seemed to be losing their natural fear of human beings. It hardly seemed possible, but it had been witnessed by dozens. Probably it had been some wild aberration, an isolated event unlikely to repeat itself within the next millennium. But it had happened, it was real, and the implications were disquieting.

  SIX

  It’s happening. We’re actually going. Jianna could hardly believe it. She sat astride a smallish, sturdy, black-maned bay—the first horse she had mounted since the day of her flight, capture, and ignominious return to Ironheart. A horse of similar quality carried Falaste Rione. Initially he had refused the loan of the animals, deeming the Ghosts’ need the greater. But Poli Orso had insisted, citing the urgency of the mission, and in the end Rione had yielded, salving his conscience with a promise to hand the horses over to appropriate resistance activists in the city at the first opportunity.

  Thus they were to ride rather than walk, and Jianna could not suppress her pleasure, but had the good sense to conceal it. It was not easy, for today the world seemed to offer encouragement. This morning the mists had thinned to the verge of
transparency, permitting passage of tentative sunshine and affording a glimpse of pale blue overhead. It was not much, but sufficed to promise an eventual end to grey winter.

  Most of the camp had turned out to bid their doctor farewell. The faces in the group reflected a warmth exceeding mere gratitude or courtesy, which only confirmed her expectations. She had long since noted Falaste Rione’s ability to win friendship and respect wherever he went. What came as more of a surprise was the cordiality directed specifically at her. Perhaps it was only for the sake of the work she had performed as his assistant, but somehow it seemed more than that. The smiles, the handclasps, the expressions of appreciation and goodwill were heartfelt.

  “You’re a staunch lass, Noro Penzia,” Poli Orso informed her at the last moment. “And you’re always welcome here, with Rione or without him.”

  Coming from a fugitive Ghost, such an invitation meant much, and it brought a lump to her throat. She would miss them, she realized; at least some of them. Perhaps they in turn would miss her a little. But these kindly sentiments were unlikely to survive the discovery of Noro Penzia’s true identity.

  Farewells concluded, and they rode from the clearing into the damp quiet of the woods. Within moments, all sight and sound of the Ghosts’ camp were lost. Jianna’s mind raced like a rain-swollen river. She was going home.

  Ensuing days recalled the time she had spent traveling the woods with Rione following their flight from Ironheart. The same wet ground, the same stony trails and dead leaves underfoot, the same bare branches and dormant vegetation, the same long hours and monotony. But there were differences, now, and all of them welcome. Now, thanks to the generosity of Rione’s friends, they rode rather than walked. Now they carried adequate provisions, necessities of all sorts, even blankets of lined and quilted oilcloth. Now neither one of them needed to feel the cold, for weeks earlier Benna Ciosso had produced a warm woolen cloak, only slightly moth-eaten, once owned by a female Ghost, long dead of unknown complaints. This garment now wrapped Jianna. Better yet, there were shoes, sturdy and sound, and only a little too large; a bit of packing in the heels had solved that problem. Rione had reclaimed his own cloak, and now both of them traveled in relative comfort. And finally, there was the world itself—still raw and chill of atmosphere, still muted in color, but almost insensibly changing. The knife-edge of the wind was dulling, the air softening, the mists lightening, the days lengthening, and the sky hinting at renewed color—quiet signs everywhere that winter was in retreat.

  They were long, dull days, but not unpleasant. She was with Rione, she was traveling toward home, father, family, and Vitrisi. The discomforts and inconveniences of the journey were insignificant. From time to time a dark shiver at the bottom of her mind troubled her: As soon as you’re home again, he’ll go away. But she thrust such thoughts from her. When the time came, she would find a way to change his plans; she was Aureste Belandor’s daughter, after all.

  On a clear and unusually bright day, they emerged from the woods blanketing the hills to confront a broad, deeply rutted road that Jianna knew: the venerable VitrOrezzi Bond. They turned their course toward Vitrisi and presently passed a modest carriage drawn by a pair of greys, heading toward Orezzia. Its wheels rolled quite easily over a surface still coldly firm, but just beginning to soften to mud at the middle of the road. There was nothing remarkable about the conveyance, but it was the first proper carriage that Jianna had seen since the day of her kidnapping, a clear sign of civilization. She was back in the real world, and her spirits soared.

  They traveled on through the afternoon, and during those hours spied a mail coach, a mule-drawn cart, and a quintet of mounted Taerleezi guardsmen. At the end of the day, when the light was failing and the atmosphere chilling, they came to an inn whose name, the Glass Eye, struck Jianna like a message from another life. For it was at this very inn that she had expected to spend the second night of her ill-fated journey from Vitrisi to the house of her betrothed in Orezzia. She had very much wanted to dine in the common room among the ordinary folk, she recalled. She had expected to find interesting novelty there. It all seemed inexpressibly remote and distant now, yet it had only been this past autumn.

  And now, it seemed, that forgotten wish was about to be granted, for Rione suggested that they grant themselves the rare luxury of spending the night under a solid roof. Jianna assented readily, without questioning the expense. Throughout her entire life she had rarely been obliged to handle money and she had certainly never wasted a moment’s thought on it. She did not think to consider it now.

  They did eat in the common room with all the ordinary folk, and the single long table with benches on both sides, the communal pots and bowls in the middle, the elbowing and jockeying were not so novel after all. They reminded her of the servants’ table in the kitchen at Ironheart, only bigger and noisier, with more crowding and worse manners. The food was adequately abundant, filling, and undistinguished. Conversation, however, was lively, for these travelers carried news and stories—all of indeterminate reliability, but absorbing nevertheless.

  Jianna ached for news of Vitrisi. She inquired, and much information was forthcoming, little of it encouraging. Several Glass Eye patrons spoke of the plague raging in the city—of the spread of the pestilence, the inefficacy of the quarantine, the mounting fatalities, the ever-blazing pyres, the atmosphere of fear and despondency approaching desperation.

  Exaggeration, thought Jianna.

  They spoke of the increase in crime, violence, and generally erratic behavior; the correspondingly draconian controls imposed by the detested Governor Uffrigo; and the resulting popular resentment and unrest.

  There’s always popular resentment and unrest, thought Jianna.

  They spoke of astonishing disruptions among the Sishmindris, who had been conclusively identified as carriers of the plague. In response to the reasonable and necessary measures introduced in the interest of disease control, the amphibians had turned vicious. Finally revealing their long-suspected strain of malevolence, they had banded together into predatory gangs occupying quarantined territory, whence they periodically issued to kill and plunder. Or so it was generally believed. In sheer self-defense, the decent human residents of the city had been forced to strike back, and now Sishmindris—even those in proper livery—were being killed in the street on sight.

  Can’t be true, thought Jianna. Wild rumors.

  They spoke, too, in lowered tones, of the wandering dead—corpses unwilling to lie still, sometimes known to drag themselves from the pyre itself. Now these bodies were lurching around town in increasing numbers, and they were all but impossible to control, for their unseemly animation was proof against conventional weapons. Complete physical destruction offered the only sure means of halting them, but this goal was not easily achieved. Of late the undead had displayed a disturbingly intelligent tendency to seek safety in numbers. And where they congregated, certain sensitive or highly imaginative witnesses reported, the world changed and reality warped.

  Lunatic fancies, Jianna told herself stoutly, but noticed that Rione was listening to these accounts with close, frowning attention.

  After dinner there was nothing left but to retire to their respective chambers, at which point Jianna’s appetite for novelty was surfeited, for she discovered then that she did not lodge alone. The room to which she was consigned contained two big beds, each accommodating four women. Had she traveled as Jianna Belandor, daughter of a wealthy magnifico, she would have enjoyed a private chamber with a soft bed for her own use and perhaps a pallet for a maidservant. Now she tasted the experience of the ordinary wayfarer—that is, one so fortunate as to sleep beneath the roof of an inn at all. She greatly preferred privacy. Even among the Ghosts, she had always had a pallet to herself. Still, it would not have been so bad had not one of her three bedmates needed to seek the chamber pot repeatedly throughout the night. The weary traipsing to and fro, the vibration of the lumpy bedding, the sounds and smells, woke her repeatedly. Sh
e was wide awake at dawn, and more than ready to abandon the dubious comforts of the Glass Eye.

  The journey resumed, and around noon of the day after next, the air darkened. A dense blot loomed upon the atmosphere ahead, and Jianna caught the acridity of smoke on the breeze. At the inn they had spoken of Vitrisi’s perpetual, smoke-belching pyres, and she had dismissed the accounts as exaggerations. Now she began to suspect that she had been mistaken.

  Another hour of travel brought them to the verge of one of the villages clustering in the shadow of Vitrisi’s ancient wall. This one, called Jiocco’s Well, boasted a town square enclosing an exceptionally large public well, above which hung a sign of recent manufacture reading, GOOD HUMANS ONLY. A crudely daubed portrait of a Sishmindri marked with trilobed carbuncles of the plague, clasping hands with a human skeleton, underscored the message. An armed guard waited by the well, apparently prepared to enforce the edict.

  Jianna recalled Jiocco’s Well as a pleasant, bustling little community. Now the town center was all but empty, and several of the houses edging the square displayed boarded windows.

  They rode on and the VitrOrezzi Bond brought them to the gates of Vitrisi, where, for the first time in her life, Jianna saw the way blocked by Taerleezi soldiers. They were not impeding egress, she noted at once. Apparently anyone and everyone could depart the city at will. Admittance was another matter, however. Would-be entrants—pedestrian, mounted, and in vehicles—had formed a line, and the soldiers were interviewing each in turn. Jianna and Falaste placed themselves at the end of the line, which advanced at fairly good speed.

  Within minutes they reached the gate, where the bored Taerleezis on guard launched into a mechanical interrogation, clearly repeated countless times.