The Ruined City Read online

  A slight lift of Aureste’s brows communicated politely sardonic deprecation of the other’s ill breeding. “Am I to assume that you wish to add your party to our group, Master Pridisso?”

  “You assume right. We’re all going to the same place, aren’t we?”

  “Then I advise you to set up your camp without delay. You’ll find that we retire early and rise early. Be prepared to set forth at dawn if you expect to keep up with us. We’ve already dined, so it’s too late to invite you to share the evening meal. But the cookfire still burns, and you’re free to make use of it. You are both welcome among us, and I trust that your respective contributions will greatly increase our collective wealth of talent and ability.”

  Vinz’s jaw clenched. Just as he had feared, Aureste was taking command—addressing the newcomers as if he were acknowledged leader of the expedition, empowered to speak for all, to grant or withhold favors, to issue instructions and even orders. It wasn’t right, but it was happening right before his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it. Or perhaps there was, perhaps he should speak up, say something to undermine Aureste Belandor and put him in his place.

  He could think of nothing to say.

  But maybe there was no need after all, for it seemed that Ojem Pridisso did not relish the masterful airs of a Faerlonnishman devoid of arcane ability. With an air of lofty amusement, Pridisso returned, “I thank you for that very kindly welcome. But we won’t need to presume upon your hospitality in the matter of the fire. See here, fire’s no trouble to us.” Bowing his head, he spoke inaudibly and gestured smartly; whereupon the cookfire, hunkered low among the embers, suddenly shot to a height of some ten feet, and deepened in color to an improbable red.

  A couple of attendants squealed and drew back, while one of the horses loosed a whinny. Vinz shared their astonishment, but his emotion stemmed from a different source. The manipulation of the fire was a simple feat, well within the reach of a mediocre talent. But he had never expected to see it performed here and now. Since the journey’s first day, all arcanists involved had hoarded their power and energy like misers, refusing to spend the smallest scrap without good cause. But this Taerleezi practiced no such economy. He produced showy effects for his own satisfaction, apparently without the least fear of depletion. Were his resources endless—or was he a reckless spendthrift whose extravagance ought to be curbed?

  Innesq would probably know. He’d ask Innesq.

  Littri Zovaccio gave his head a small, mournful shake.

  Pridisso spoke and gestured again. The cookfire resumed its former size and color. He aimed a lazy smile at Aureste.

  “I see,” observed Aureste, returning the smile in kind, “that you are determined to lighten the tedium of our journey. We shall not lack amusement while you are with us, that’s clear. But you have offered lavish entertainment, and we mustn’t press for more this evening. You will wish to make camp and dine, and I would not delay you.”

  Pridisso’s look of satisfaction faded. “We’ll do that,” he returned. “And in the morning, at breakfast, we’ll get all the arcanists in this gang together, and we’ll sit down and decide how things should be run.”

  The arcanists. That wouldn’t be so bad, Vinz decided. The arcanists should be in charge. Not Aureste Belandor, but the people with talent, the people who mattered.

  He became aware that the Dowager Magnifica Yvenza, whose existence he had forgotten, was scrutinizing him, and he turned to face her.

  “Well.” She offered a genial smile. “An interesting development. Is it my imagination, or does it seem that Master Pridisso and our Magnifico Aureste don’t quite like each other?”

  “I believe that’s true, Magnifica.”

  “Isn’t life full of surprises?”

  ELEVEN

  The ground was moist and yielding, the air was misty and mild. A light drizzle of rain dampened the wiry hair and beard of a figure wending a solitary course across the largely trackless countryside. Raising a steel-jointed hand to a face neatly upholstered in the finest glove leather, the traveler wiped the droplets away.

  Pausing at the crest of a rise, the traveler surveyed its surroundings with eyes of amber glass. Directly ahead rose a small structure of sod, surrounded by patches of sketchily cultivated soil. Little more than a glorified hut, the place doubtless belonged to one of those antisocial self-sufficient eccentrics determined to wrest a livelihood from the wilderness. A low beep issued from the automaton. The grumble of internal cogs suggested cogitation. After a moment, it resumed progress.

  Advancing straight to the door, it rapped sharply. There was no reply. It rapped again, and still there came no answer. A short succession of irritable clicks preceded the automaton’s metallic utterance.

  “Denizens of this pathetic, primitive hovel, admit me, if you please. I want information, and it is my intention to question you. Open the door at once. My time is valuable, and I do not like to be kept waiting.”

  No reply, and the amber glass eyes glinted.

  “You inside the hovel, I am not to be deceived. My superior sensory apparatus tells me that you are there within. Admit me. Come, are you afraid? There is no need. I will not harm you, although I easily could, with my superior strength. I merely seek truth and knowledge. You will supply both.”

  Silence reigned, and the automaton lost patience. “I have addressed you with utmost courtesy, and see how I am rewarded. Now I am obliged to assert myself.” So saying, it dealt the door a mighty kick. The door flew open, and the automaton entered.

  The space within was predictably small, simple, and humble. Less predictable were the filth, the disorder, and the overwhelming stench. The atmosphere was abominably freighted with decay. An ordinary mortal would have gagged on it, but the automaton suffered no inconvenience. And neither, it seemed, did the inhabitants.

  There were three people—a man, a woman, and a small boy—all standing still and silent at the center of the dwelling’s single room. Their bodies were emaciated, and barely covered in moldering rags. The flesh that showed through the rents in the cloth was greyish in color. Beside the man crouched a large mastiff, as motionless as its master. The clay floor was piled with rotting garbage aswarm with insect life. Spiders had built palaces in the corners. Soot grimed every surface, but the hearth was dark and cold.

  The occupants, both human and canine, remained motionless as the automaton came bursting in upon them. Almost they seemed unaware of the alien presence. Only when it addressed them directly did their eyes—milky and curiously fixed—turn slowly toward the doorway.

  “Peasants of the reeking hovel,” the automaton greeted them, “no doubt you wonder at my presence among you. There is nothing to fear. I am Grix Orlazzu, the true and destined Grix Orlazzu, known as GrixPerfect to distinguish me from certain shoddily constructed, defective early drafts of the Grix design. As it happens, however, it is just such a defective draft that I now seek. Inferior though he is, yet he is my predecessor, possessed of information that must be transferred to my memory. But he has vanished prior to completion of this task, and I do not know what has become of him. Perhaps he has wandered off into the hills and lost his way. Perhaps he has received a blow to his fragile skull and lost his fragile wits. Perhaps he has fallen into a pit or ravine, and cannot escape. Something prevents him from fulfilling his obligation to me, but I will find him and set matters right. Therefore, you organics of low estate, I ask you now—have you recently seen a human, distinctly similar to me in appearance, though less well made and durable? Speak.”

  Silence.

  “He calls himself Grix Orlazzu,” GrixPerfect expanded. “He claims glory as my creator. This can hardly be, for how can a being of water and mud make something stronger and better than itself? There can be no question, however, that this organic Grix existed before me. His experience grants him knowledge that must be passed on to me. It is his duty, and he will fulfill it. He will talk to me. Have you seen him?”

  His listeners were
silent. Their filmy eyes communicated nothing, and the automaton’s forbearance began to fail.

  “Come, what is this? Are you haughty? Are you insolent? Are you mentally deficient? Or can it be that you are deaf and mute?”

  No answer, so sign of comprehension, and GrixPerfect surveyed its hosts closely.

  “Ah. Yes. I perceive the difficulty here.” Its look of affront faded. “My finely calibrated sensory apparatus detects no evidence of respiration, heartbeat, or flowing currents. Moreover, the temperature of your bodies does not differ from that of the atmosphere, a deviation from the normal state of humans and canines. I note too that certain portions of your anatomy have commenced decomposition. The essential processes of life do not take place, and therefore all of you must be regarded as not alive, or—as it is often termed—dead. Yes, you four organics are unquestionably dead. This accounts for your dullness and discourtesy. You should not be stirring, however—not so much as a blink of your filmy and peculiar eyes. It is incorrect and unbecoming. I advise you to desist.”

  The advice was sound, but the dead organics ignored it. Moving as one, as if in response to silent commands, the four of them advanced upon GrixPerfect. The automaton stood its ground as they drew near, their slow footsteps scraping over the clay floor. It did not object as the four of them clustered closely about it, in the manner giving rise to the popular belief that the Wanderers deliberately sought to spread contagion. Only when they ventured to touch did GrixPerfect voice an objection.

  “Remove your filthy, decaying, rat-nibbled hands, if you please. And command your dog to cease tonguing my ankle. I do not like to be touched. I will not endure familiarity.”

  The groping hands did not withdraw. Their touch was soft and limp, but persistent. A cold arm twined about the automaton’s shoulders. GrixPerfect shrugged it off.

  Evidently taking her cue from the dog, the woman leaned forward to lick the automaton’s leathern cheek with an oozing tongue. GrixPerfect shoved her away.

  “Dead peasant people, I do not wish to quarrel, but I must observe that your presumption is offensive. I have informed you once, with perfect civility, that I do not like to be touched. And yet you continue—but stop, what is this?” GrixPerfect paused a moment to survey its surroundings. “What is happening? I observe an alteration in the environment. It is sudden and extreme. There is a change in the properties of the light, and the norms of reflectivity have shifted. The pressure and composition of the atmosphere have changed. The attractive force of the world, or at least this portion of it, has transformed. Tremors rock the ground. And the solidity—or, if you would, the reality—of the material objects around us has been severely compromised. Dead people, are you responsible for this?”

  No answer.

  “If you are responsible, I must insist that you cease. It is not your place to change the world in ways whose consequences cannot be measured or predicted. You know not what you do—perhaps because you are organic, or perhaps because you are dead. Either way, it must end. Answer, if you please.”

  Silence.

  “This is intolerable.” Shaking itself free of all encumbrances, the automaton made for the exit. Decomposing creatures both human and canine shuffled in its wake, but it reached the door well ahead of them all. There it turned to address them.

  “You all should know that the treatment I have received here has been objectionable. Your manipulation of natural law has been impertinent and inconsiderate. You have not made me feel welcome or valued as a guest. In that, I judge you typical of humankind.

  “Understand that I will not endure it. I wish nothing more to do with you, and thus I take my leave, but not before I have offered you a word of sound counsel. Attend, if you please. These changes that you have worked upon the pattern of the world—they are not improvements. The dwindling solidity, in particular, must be regarded as an error. Perhaps you will reply that it is entirely a matter of taste, but if you are wise, you will trust my judgment and restore all to its former state. Dead peasants, I bid you good day.”

  So saying, the automaton exited the building and strode off into the mists, intent on resuming the quest for its missing creator.

  In the study of the private apartment situated on the second story of the Cityheart, the Governor Anzi Uffrigo sat at his desk. A spread of papers covered the surface before him, but one document among them monopolized his attention. It was a personal letter intended for his eyes alone. The arrival of pleading petitions was no uncommon occurrence, but this one was noteworthy in at least two respects. It had been written by a woman, and it offered exceptional reward in exchange for a large favor.

  For at least the twentieth time Uffrigo examined the missive, with its clear, decisive handwriting on plain stationery of good quality. No ornamentation, no perfume, no feminine witchery, but still—her gender and her circumstances caught his interest. The Maidenlady Strinnza Coranna, daughter of the late Recognized Voro Coranna, executed twenty years ago for crimes against the Taerleezi state. He remembered the case well enough; he himself had signed the Faerlonnish loyalist’s death warrant. He had witnessed the Recognized Coranna’s decapitation, and clearly recalled deploring the headsman’s dearth of skill.

  There had been a widow and some children who—owing to the promptness with which Coranna had volunteered a full confession—had gone unmolested. They had even been permitted to retain a measure of their wealth; although, to be sure, House Coranna had been stripped of its noble rank, and surviving members had been exiled from Vitrisi.

  Now one of them was back in evidence, requesting full reinstatement of the Coranna name, estate, and privileges. And she was willing to pay handsomely for these things. In token of her regard, she had written, she begged leave to present His Excellency the Governor with a brace of fully mature, well-grown male Sishmindris. Such a gift was remarkable in itself, but incredibly, there was more—and better. The maidenlady offered a collection of documents, property of her disgraced father and secretly guarded by members of the Coranna family for the past two decades. Personal messages for the most part, they revealed the names of many of the Recognized Voro’s co-conspirators and fellow criminals of the Faerlonnish resistance.

  Numerous Faerlonnish of high Houses had come under suspicion at the time of Voro Coranna’s downfall, but no evidence against any of them had been discovered, and their crimes had gone unpunished, to the Governor Uffrigo’s lasting dissatisfaction. For twenty years the guilty parties had lived free, comfortable, and insolent. Several of them enjoyed wealth and ease unusual among the conquered. But now at last the truth was coming to light; late, but not too late to take action against the enemies of Taerleez.

  The chimes in the clock tower above the Cityheart struck the hour, and there came a knock at the door. The governor looked up.

  “Come,” he said.

  The door opened, a guard’s face appeared, and then the announcement, “The Maidenlady Strinnza Coranna.”

  “Admit her.”

  The guard withdrew, and a woman entered. She was young—she must have been a small child at the time of her father’s death—and simply dressed. She could not have been described as a great beauty, but she was decidedly pretty, with a pale, fine-featured face framed in dark hair drawn back in a knot. Her eyes were quite exceptional—large, grey-blue, and intense in expression. As for her figure, it was completely concealed beneath a long, plain cloak colored the grey of winter tree trunks. Should her form prove as pleasing as her face, then it might be worthwhile to determine just how high a price she was willing to pay for the reinstatement of her House.

  In the matter of the Sishmindris, she had kept her word, bringing two of them with her. They were neither fashionably svelte and supple, nor fashionably garbed. Quite the contrary, they were broad and bulky with muscle—probably the largest and most powerfully built Sishmindris that he had ever seen. Their livery, if it merited such a title, was modest to the point of shabbiness. They could lay no claim to smartness or style, but were
doubtless capable of tireless labor. By any and all standards, the offering was impressive.

  “Maidenlady.” Uffrigo inclined his head with an air of gracious warmth, but did not rise from his seat. She was Faerlonnish, and the daughter of a criminal, after all.

  “Excellency. I thank you for receiving me, and I ask permission to present you with a gift in token of my gratitude and appreciation. Will it please you to accept the Sishmindri brothers, Zayzi and Frayz? You will find them strong, willing workers, and highly serviceable.”

  Her voice was low and melodic, yet possessed of an odd quality, something brittle and crystalline as winter’s delicate flowers of frost on glass.

  Nonsense. She was young, attractive, and in need of his favor. The best of all possible petitioners.

  “Brothers, eh?” He smiled, using his own mournful poet’s eyes to beam encouraging susceptibility. “There’s a pretty touch. They are certainly fine, well-grown specimens, and I thank you for the gift. But come, maidenlady. Will you not approach and seat yourself? I’ll order refreshment, and we shall chat at leisure.”

  “Your Excellency is most gracious.” Approaching, she took the chair he had indicated, directly opposite him. The Sishmindri brothers flanked her closely, in the manner of trained bodyguards. Evidently the amphibians had failed as yet to comprehend the transfer of ownership.

  Examined at closer range, her eyes were handsome as ever in size and color, but Uffrigo noted something displeasing in their expression, or rather their lack of expression. A rime of blue-grey ice seemed to conceal every trace of thought and emotion. Her pretty young face was mask-like, altogether unreadable. His initial impression had been favorable, but now he was beginning to decide that he did not quite like her. His air of cordiality, however, remained intact.

  “Shall I ring for some wine, maidenlady?” he offered mellifluously.