The Ruined City Read online

  Names?

  Rione answered truthfully.

  “Noro Penzia,” Jianna was surprised to hear herself reply, and Rione shot her a quizzical glance. It had slipped out easily, unthinkingly, through pure habit. But no, it was more than habit; her caution was founded in good reason. For one thing, her claim to the noble Belandor name would strike the guards as preposterous. They would see her as a dreamer or liar, there would be extra questions and delay, and they might just end by turning her away from the gate. Moreover, she had come to understand that the daughter of the Magnifico Aureste was a target in her own right—something she would never have believed in earlier carefree days.

  Age?

  Twenty-five and eighteen. Two accurate answers.

  Condition?

  “Physician,” Rione declared. “And the lady is my assistant.”

  “Oh aye, and I’ll lay odds she’s got magic hands,” volunteered one of the guards.

  Jianna kept her face a blank.

  Coming from?

  Treating patients in the Alzira Hills. Another truthful answer, so far as it went.

  Any cases of the plague among those patients? None.

  Any recent contact with plague victims? Shared lodgings with plague victims? Shared bed or board?

  No.

  State of health? Any recent instances of high fever, delirium or hallucinations, carbuncles, fainting, black bile, bloodspray, or invasive disembodied voices?

  No.

  Well, then. Neck and wrist check for telltale lumps.

  Swallowing her outrage, Jianna bared the requisite anatomy. A quick inspection was completed, and the guards waved them through.

  She was back in Vitrisi again. She had longed for this moment for months, but the reality scarcely matched her expectations. The streets, formerly so vital and colorful, were now thinly populated with humans and assorted animals, but no Sishmindris. There was not an amphibian to be seen. The merchants’ booths were closed and shuttered, their pennants and streamers gone. There were no street singers, acrobats, or entertainers of any description in sight. Even the majority of beggars had apparently gone underground. Refuse bulked in heaps everywhere, and a haze of gritty smoke darkened, smudged, and discolored the world.

  Jianna coughed. Her eyes watered and her throat scratched. What’s happened to my beautiful city? She did not open her mouth to ask the question aloud, for fear of inhaling additional smoke, but not all voices were similarly stilled. There was one nearby, impossible to ignore, uplifted in some sort of chant or song. It was a pleasant, strong, rather hoarse voice, momentarily unidentifiable as to age or gender, and it seemed to be rhythmically reciting some sort of incantation, or perhaps it was only a list. Jianna listened.

  “… Concentrate of chicory, oil of blifilnut, essence of skorry and donkeyweed, star seeds, dried punia, mandragola, powder of shernivus, gingerroot mash with truni, milkweed pods, aromatic distillations—all pure, all good. Troxius medals, fine cast. Fegri charms, new made and strong. Draughts Sanguinarius, to fortify the blood. The Circle of Strength, impossible to break. The Secret of the Proportionate Progression, guarded for centuries by the arcanists, now revealed. Protect your health. Protect your families, save your children. Safety for sale!”

  The voice approached, its owner finally breaching the dense vapors, and Jianna stiffened at sight of an eerie figure voluminously cloaked in black, hands gauntleted, face shadowed beneath a wide-brimmed hat and guarded by a mask of odd design—black leather, with holes for eyes and mouth, dominated by a huge beak projecting half the length of a forearm.

  “What is that?” She pointed discreetly. “Man or woman? And what’s that thing on his or her face?”

  “Woman, I think, but I can’t swear to it,” Rione returned. “Her clothing is fashioned to ward off contagion. That beak in the mask contains aromatic herbs meant to purify the air before it reaches the wearer’s nostrils.”

  “Ingenious, but does it work?”

  “I’m inclined to doubt it.”

  “Oh.” She frowned. “What about the other things she’s hawking? The powders, draughts, medals, and all the rest?”

  “Useless, so far as I know. Toys and trappings of primitive superstition.”

  “You don’t speak with such disdain of your own superstitions.”

  “I have none.”

  “Oh, really? What about the belief that your ritual of washing, scrubbing, or boiling everything in sight before performing surgery somehow helps? If that isn’t superstition—”

  “That, my little gadfly, is a reasonable conclusion based upon experience and observation.”

  “You started washing, and around the same time observed improved results. Does that necessarily mean that the one caused the other?” She teased for two reasons. One, she strongly suspected that Rione enjoyed it; the other, it helped to divert her attention from increasingly distressing sights and sounds of a stricken city.

  Before he could answer, the hawker reached them.

  “Safety, security, salvation,” she or he offered with enviable assurance, extending a black-gloved palm upon which lay a bright object. “Newcomers to the city, be good to yourselves. Buy a medal of Troxius, beautiful detail, gold wash, scientifically proven power. Walk Vitrisi without fear. One diostre.”

  “A whole diostre for that? It’s not even real gold!” Jianna objected.

  “It’s better than real gold, missy.” The hawker’s pleasant voice seemed to issue from the heart of a formless dark cloud. “It’s health, it’s hope, it’s life. It’s an anchor to hold you when the world thins out to nothing.”

  “When the world—what do you mean?”

  “Haven’t seen it yet? Don’t worry, you will. And then you’ll need something to hang on to, and you won’t be thinking about the cost. One diostre, cheap at the price.”

  Jianna shook her head, the hawker faded back into the mists, and progress resumed. Another twenty minutes of travel carried them into a better section of town, where her spirits began to revive. Here the signs of disaster were not so prevalent. True, the streets were dim and smoke-strangled. Great red X’s scarred several doorways, and there was still not a Sishmindri to be seen. Yet most of the houses seemed to be occupied, many windows glowed through the murk, and a few Scarlet Gluttons racketed from the rooftops. With but a little effort of will, it was possible to imagine an imminent return to normality.

  This illusion expired as they turned a corner and, for the first time, Jianna beheld the undead. There they were: three moldering bodies, grey-fleshed and milky-eyed, but upright and ambulant, exactly as described. A deep shudder rocked her body, before the sight had fully impressed itself upon her understanding. A sense of wrongness filled her to the brim; a blurred recognition of some vast, silent change whose nature eluded yet terrified her. She swayed a little in the saddle, her flesh went clammy, and for a moment she thought that she was going to faint. Ridiculous, she had never fainted in her life. The horse beneath her snorted and quivered as if sharing its rider’s qualm. She took a deep breath, and the dizziness receded.

  The three undead seemed peaceable enough. They stood grouped closely together, bony fingers interlocked, hairless heads sweetly inclined toward one another. An occasional tremor shook one tattered limb or another. Apart from that, there was no motion and no suggestion of aggression. Even so, the aura of disruption was all but tangible.

  Jianna’s frightened eyes flew to Rione, whose own gaze was fastened on the trio. Without turning, he extended a hand, and she stretched sideways to grasp it tightly for an instant. The quick, warm contact braced her, and she was able to take in the entire scene: the incomprehensibly purposeful corpses, the gathering of scared but fascinated observers, and a lone voice—male, strong, and confident. Not a hawker; something or someone else.

  “Friends, take heart,” the speaker advised, his clarion tones ringing above the dejected mutterings of the onlookers. “There is nothing to fear from the Wanderers. I have discovered the secret o
f their unnatural vitality, and I have learned how to quell it.”

  Jianna’s eyes sought the source and found it; a very tall, stout man, sporting a long violet cloak banded with rabbit fur and decorated with symbols worked in polychrome thread. His face was round and rosy. A narrow black mustache edged his full lips, and a wealth of glistening, carefully tended black curls framed his plump cheeks.

  The pink face was familiar. She had certainly seen it before, and it took Jianna no more than a moment to recall the owner’s name.

  “Etris Cruzirius,” she informed Rione. “My father once pointed him out to me, and told me that Uncle Innesq says Cruzirius is one of the few mountebank arcanists of the city who may actually possess a little talent.”

  Cruzirius’s flamboyant appearance and theatrical manner hardly inspired confidence, but Uncle Innesq’s judgment was reliable, and therefore Jianna watched with curiosity and some hope.

  “Our city’s cleansing commences here and now,” Cruzirius proclaimed with glinting assurance. “Friends, clear me a little space, if you please, and honor me with your attention. For the best use of the arcane powers with which Fortune has deigned to favor me rests largely upon the trust and support of my observers and well-wishers.”

  It all sounded peculiar to Jianna. Uncle Innesq, a highly gifted, legitimate arcanist of the Six, never spoke of relying upon the trust or support of anyone. As far as she knew, he relied entirely upon his own talents, and preferred to conduct his arcane experiments in solitude. Still, there was room in the world for more than one method, and she was prepared to grant Etris Cruzirius the benefit of the doubt.

  A path opened and Cruzirius advanced without perceptible fear, never pausing until he stood no more than a dozen feet from the undead. There he halted to assume a dauntless pose, allowing his audience ample opportunity to wonder and admire. The three undead were similarly motionless, grouped in a silent colloquy. It was impossible to judge their awareness, if any, of the self-styled arcanist in the gaudy cloak.

  Bowing his head, Cruzirius began to speak, so quietly at first that the cadenced syllables were inaudible. He made no use of the draughts, powders, or pills with which Uncle Innesq was wont to fortify himself prior to arcane exertion, and Jianna wondered at the omission, but strove to maintain an open mind.

  Cruzirius spoke on, resonant voice gradually rising in volume until the incomprehensible words crashed on the atmosphere like waves upon an alien shore. There were gestures dancing to the music of that voice, arm sweeps extravagant as any actor’s, and still Jianna wondered, for it was very unlike the concise grace displayed by Uncle Innesq upon the cherished occasions of her childhood birthday celebrations, when he had conjured transparent pastel fairies riding mythical winged beasts.

  Her fellow spectators seemed not to share her doubts. The faces about her were rapt and respectful. Their awe was not difficult to fathom, for Cruzirius’s voice possessed undeniable power. Her own pulses quickened responsively. Despite the vulgarity of his appearance and style, the man had some sort of genuine ability, she was certain. A curious electric tingle that she recognized shivered her nerves. She had felt it while watching Uncle Innesq at work, and she felt it now.

  Cruzirius’s practiced voice scaled the heights, and the surrounding mists seemed to thicken. Both arcanist and undead faded into the gloom. Jianna could see waving arms and billowing purple cloak; beyond them, three eerie, motionless figures. The air had gone indefinably bad. It did not stink or sting, but somehow seemed to have lost some of its life-sustaining quality. She drew deep breaths that failed to satisfy. Others about her did likewise; distressed gasps could be heard on all sides.

  Gasps gave way to shouts as the reality of Cruzirius’s talent began to reveal itself.

  Jianna leaned forward in the saddle, squinting to penetrate the veils of smoke and vapor. She could barely make out the three undead forms. They were no longer motionless, but stirring restlessly, as if troubled.

  “They crumble, my friends!” Cruzirius proclaimed. “The dust claims its own. From the ground up, they crumble!”

  Such a claim was not to be taken literally, yet the Wanderers were doubtless affected. All three were tottering and swaying as if on the verge of collapse. Presently one did collapse, and another, and then the last went down. She could no longer see them—too many bodies blocked her view—but the excited vociferation of the crowd implied success.

  The quality of human outcry, along with the character of the atmosphere, altered quite abruptly. Shouts gave way to screams. At the same time, a sullen, bruise-colored glow lit the vapors shrouding the undead, and the air began to bite. Jianna dropped the reins and her hands flew to her face, which burned and itched as if stung by a million gnats. Her eyes watered, and the shrouded world swam. Her horse whinnied and shied, nearly pitching her from the saddle, and a startled squeal escaped her as her legs instinctively tightened on the mare’s flanks. Hurriedly gathering up the reins, she resumed control of the horse, knuckled her streaming eyes, and looked about her.

  Worse and worse. The glow lighting the mists had intensified to a glare, within which arced small bolts of angry luminosity. The undead were presently invisible, and Cruzirius nearly so, but the arcanist’s voice rolled on richly. Few remained to listen. The coughing, watery-eyed spectators were retiring in droves. Jianna longed to follow them but, casting a glance at Rione, she saw that his interest focused intensely on the spectacle, and knew that he was unready to depart.

  Moisture beaded her forehead and prickled under her arms. She was bathed in sweat, the product of alarm and excitement, she assumed, until she noticed that the raw air had warmed in excess of season and reason, leaping at a bound into high summer and beyond. It was far too hot for this time of the year, too hot for comfort, too hot to be endured.

  “This Cruzirius fellow has bungled,” she opined aloud and coughed, throat chafed by the scrape of unwholesome air.

  Even in the midst of the uproar, Rione heard. Turning toward her, he began, “We’d best get out of—”

  A new burst of unwelcome activity cut him off. The atmosphere immediately surrounding the fallen undead seemed to catch fire, so riddled it was with small, speeding bolts of radiant force. For a few seconds these missiles whizzed and circled within a circumscribed area, as if confined by an invisible wall against which they struck and ricocheted.

  Etris Cruzirius’s resonant vocalization ceased. A single incredulous exclamation escaped him. “Impossible!”

  Breaking their invisible restraints, the brilliant spears of energy burst forth to fly in all directions. In a moment the air was filled with them. Where they struck flammable material, fire flared. Where they struck vital body parts, humans died. The ultimate fate of arcanist and undead was currently impossible to judge.

  What was left of the crowd fled screaming. Jianna’s terrified mare reared, and for the next few seconds, she strove hard to retain her seat and regain control. When she was able to dismount, she did so, seized the bridle, and quieted the trembling animal as best she could. Drawing the kerchief from her neck, she tied the cloth across the horse’s eyes, for she had been told long ago that such measures enabled grooms to lead their intractable charges from burning stables, and the present situation seemed analogous.

  Beside her Rione dismounted. She watched his eyes sweep the lightning-rent scene, and knew as surely as she knew her own name that he thought of staying to assist the injured. But it was madness; the victims were already dead, or nearly so. He could do nothing for them, and would only get himself killed if he lingered here. The thought was so insupportable that she plucked at his sleeve and, when he turned, threw him a shamelessly imploring look.

  “Please, Falaste,” she urged, voice soft but somehow audible through the surrounding din. “Take me away from here. Take me home.”

  He looked at her and his brows bent. Perhaps he was thinking of her safety. She hoped so. After a moment he nodded, and the two of them led their horses away from the site of the la
test arcane disaster.

  For a while there was no conversation. In silence they rode through the gloomy streets, each preoccupied with recent horrors. But when they reached the foot of the White Incline, Jianna’s spirits began to stir. As they climbed, her sense of anticipation did likewise. Everything around her was changed much for the worse, yet at the same time inexpressibly dear and familiar.

  Only minutes, now, she thought, and her mouth was dry with excitement.

  They reached the top of the high bluff overlooking the sea, and now they were in the Clouds; underpopulated, dim and dirty of atmosphere, with the rooflights burning oddly in the afternoon, and more than one of the great mansions marked with red X’s. But grand and imposing even yet, and above all, still hers.

  As they neared the end of Summit Street, she unconsciously urged her mare to a trot. The last few yards, the last few seconds, seemed endless, but then the pale stone wall that surrounded Belandor House was rising before her, its wrought-iron gate firmly closed, as the magnifico would wish, and beyond the gate, beyond—

  Ruin. Destruction. Devastation.

  For a moment she thought it some visual trick of the wavering mists shaped by her own imagination.

  No mistake. Belandor House had burned in the recent past. Not down to the ground, perhaps not beyond salvation, but the building had suffered immense damage. Jumping from her horse, she ran to the gate and gripped its bars with both hands. Her eyes rose in search of the central tower and found—nothing. The tower was gone. The remaining walls were charred and blackened, the ruined windows boarded. Even the grand front entrance, fully exposed to view by the collapse of the columned portico, was boarded. The south wing was worse yet—its roof entirely destroyed, its walls largely collapsed. Heaps of debris lay stacked atop the broken remains of a mosaic floor. The third main section of the building, the north wing, had not fared so badly, and was still probably habitable.

  Jianna stared, momentarily numb with shock and disbelief. The anesthesia lapsed too soon as the implications of the scene sank in. Belandor House had burned, and the loss of property was massive—but what of lost lives? How had the residents fared? Father? Uncle Innesq? Kinfolk, guests, servants, and Sishmindris? Father?