City of Stairs (28 page)

“They went in there?” asks Shara.

“No,” says Sigrud. He points to a long, dismal-looking municipal structure at the edge of the park. “Wiclov and one other man took her in
there
. Just adjacent to it. Why do you worry so?”

“Because
that
”—Shara nods at the bell tower—“is the oldest structure in Bulikov, after the walls. It was at the center of Bulikov, originally, though the lopsided effects of the Blink considerably changed that. The Center of the Seat of the World. Normally just called the Seat of the World, though outsiders called Bulikov the same.”

“A temple?”

“Something like that. Supposedly it was like Saypur’s Parliament House for the Divinities. Though I always imagined it would look much grander—it is quite shabby, I must say, and I remember reading it had
amazing
stained glass—but I’m told the Blink did not leave it unscathed. Apparently the tower was originally much, much taller. Each Divinity had a bell housed there, and the ringing of each bell had different … effects.”

“Such as?”

She shrugs. “No one knows. Which is why I’m reluctant to be here. So it
was
Wiclov who came?”

“Wiclov and one attendant. They came and took Torskeny to that little building. Then, forty minutes ago, Wiclov and his attendant departed. No sign of Torskeny.”

“That’s rather bold of them to operate in the open. Where did they go afterward?”

Sigrud’s face darkens.

“Let me guess,” says Shara. “They took a series of turns throughout the streets, and then they suddenly—”

“Vanished,” says Sigrud. “Yes. This is the third time. Yet I have remembered”—he taps the side of his head hard enough for it to make a noise—“each place where these people have disappeared. The only pattern I see is that they are all within
this
quarter, and the one to the west.”

“The ones most damaged by the Blink,” says Shara. “Which supports a theory I’ve just now halfway confirmed.” She runs a hand over the scarred brick wall behind them. “They are exploiting some damage or effect of the Blink for their own ends.”

“How are you so sure?”

“A piece of silver,” says Shara, “changed into lead not more than an hour ago as it passed through the alley where the surviving attacker disappeared. This sort of thing was only ever witnessed immediately after the Blink.”

“How are you so sure it wasn’t a miracle?”

“Because I used all the tricks I knew of to look for miracles,” says Shara, “and found none. No Divine workings at all, leaving only the Blink as a possible cause. It is worth noting, though, that no one has ever been able to adequately study the Blink. The Continent protects its damages like a bitter old woman does grudges. I plan to do so, when we have time—for now, let’s investigate what we have.”

When they near the municipal building, Shara hangs back to allow Sigrud to inspect. He stalks around it, then shakes his head and gestures to her to come. “Nothing,” he says as she joins him. “Door is unlocked. No one in the windows, from what I can see. But much of the building has no windows.”

“What is this place?”

“Something the city had built. Think it might have been intended for development—make the neighborhood into something better. But then they gave up, maybe.”

I would have, too,
thinks Shara.

Sigrud goes to the door and pulls out his black knife. He peers inside, then silently enters. Shara waits a beat, and follows.

The interior of the building is almost completely devoid of furniture and ornamentation. The rooms continue on through the building’s length, connected by a series of small doors. The building’s most remarkable attribute is that unlike nearly every structure nearby, this one has gas: little blue jets flick along the ceiling, allowing the barest illumination. “They left the lights on,” mutters Shara, but Sigrud holds a finger to his lips. He cocks his head, listening, and makes a queer face, like he’s hearing an upsetting noise.

“Someone’s here?” asks Shara softly.

“Cannot quite say.”

Sigrud stalks forward into the building, peering into each room before Shara follows. Each room is like the one before it: small, bland, empty. Mrs. Torskeny is nowhere to be found. The doorways, Shara notes, all line up, more or less: look through one door, and you look through all. …

Except the door at the very end, which is shut, and its keyhole flickers with a faint yellow light.

I like this less and less,
thinks Shara.

Again, Sigrud stops. “I hear it again. It is … laughing,” he says finally.

“
Laughing?
”

“Yes. A child. Very … quiet.”

“From where?”

He points at the closed door.

“And you can hear nothing more?”

He shakes his head.

“Well,” says Shara. “Let’s proceed.”

As she expects, all the rooms leading up to the closed door are empty. And as they near, she hears it, too: laughter, faint and soft, as if behind that door a child is having a merry game.

“I smell something,” says Sigrud. “Salt, and dust …”

“How is that remarkable?”

“I smell them in remarkable quantities.” He points at the door again, then squats to peer through the keyhole. The squinted eye on his face is spotlit; his eyelid trembles as he strains to see.

“Do you see anything?”

“I see … a ring, on the floor. Made of white powder. Many candles.
Many.
And clothes.”

“Clothes?”

“A pile of clothes on the floor.” He adds: “Women’s clothes.”

Shara taps him on the shoulder, and she takes his place at the keyhole. The light pouring through the keyhole is staggering: candelabras line the walls in a circle, each holding five, ten, twenty candles. The very room is alive with fire: she can feel the heat on her cheek in a concentrated beam. As her eye adjusts, she sees there is a wide circle of something white on the floor—
Salt? Dust?
—and at the edge of her vision she thinks she can see a pile of clothes, just on the opposite side of the white circle.

Her heart sinks when she sees the dark blue cloth that is almost the exact shade Mrs. Torskeny was wearing when she last saw her.

Then something dances into view. … Something gauzy and white, moving in drifting sweeps—the hem of a long white dress? Shara jumps, startled, but does not take her eye away: she sees a head of hair at the top of the cloth, thick black locks that shine in the candlelight, before the white thing trots away.

“There’s someone in there,” Shara says softly.

Again, the childish laugh. Yet something is wrong. …

“A child,” she says. “
Maybe
 …”

“Step back,” says Sigrud.

“But … I’m not sure …”

“Step back.”

Shara moves away. He tests the knob: it’s unlocked. He squats down low, knife in hand, and eases the door open.

Immediately the laughter turns to shrieks of pain. Shara is positioned so she cannot see what’s inside—yet Sigrud can, and he drops any suggestion of threat: he glances at her, concerned, confused, and walks in.

“Wait,” says Shara. “
Wait!
”

Shara bolts around the open door and inside.

* * *

Things move so fast that it’s difficult for Shara to see: there is a blaze of light from the candelabras, which are so densely crowded she has to dance around them; a wide circle of white crystals on the floor—salt, probably; and sitting in the center of the ring, dressed in a huge, shining white dress, is a little girl of about four, with dark black locks and bright red lips. She sits in the ring of salt, rubbing at her knee … or Shara
thinks
she rubs her knee, for almost all of the little girl is hidden below her white dress. Shara cannot even see her hands, only the kneading motion under the white cloth.

“It hurts!” cries the little girl. “It
hurts
!”

The scent of dust is overwhelming. It seems to coat the back of Shara’s throat.

Sigrud walks forward, uncertain. “Should we … do something?” he asks.

The salt.

“Wait!” says Shara again. She reaches out to grab his sleeve and hold him back; Sigrud is so much larger than she is that he almost knocks her over.

The little girl spasms in pain. “
Help
me!”

“You don’t want me to do anything?” asks Sigrud.

“No! Stop! And look.” Shara points down. Two feet away is the outer edge of the circle of salt.

“What is that?” asks Sigrud.

“The salt, it’s like a—”

“
Please
help me!” begs the little girl. “Please!
Please
, you
must
!”

Shara looks closer. The dress is far too big for such a small girl, and there is a lump under it, as if her body is swollen and malformed. …

I know this,
says Shara.

“Just stop, Sigrud. Let me try and …” She clears her throat. “If you could, please,” she says to the little girl, “show us your feet.”

Sigrud is bewildered. “
What?
”

“
Please!
” cries the little girl. “Please, do something!”

“We will help you,” says Shara, “if you show us your feet.”

The little girl groans. “Why do you care? Why do you … ? It hurts so
bad
!”

“We will help you quite quickly,” says Shara. “We are experienced in medicine. Just, please—show us your feet!”

The little girl starts rocking back and forth on the ground. “I’m
dying!
” she howls. “I’m
bleeding
! Please,
help
me!”

“Show them to us. Now!”

“I take it,” says Sigrud, “that you do not think that’s a little girl.”

The girl lets out of a long, tortured shriek. Shara grimly shakes her head. “Look. Think. The salt on the ground, ringing her in … Torskeny’s clothes, which look to have been dropped on the ground just where she crossed the salt …” The little girl, still shrieking in pain, tries to crawl over to them. Yet her movements are so
odd
: she doesn’t use her hands or arms at all (Shara thinks,
Does she even have any?
), but the girl appears to kick over to them, crawling on her knees. It’s like she’s a cloth puppet with a hard little head on top, yet her cheeks and her tears and her hair all look so real. …

But she never shows her feet. Not once throughout this strange rolling motion.

The taste of dust thickens: Shara’s throat is clay; her eyes, sand.

There is something under the dress. Not a little girl’s body—something much larger …

Oh, by the seas,
thinks Shara.
It couldn’t be
 …

“Help me,
please
!” cries the girl. “I’m in so much pain!”

“Step back, Sigrud. Don’t let it get close to you.”

Sigrud does so. “No!” shouts the girl. Worm-like, the girl crawls to the very edge of the salt ring, mere inches away from them. “No! Please … Please don’t leave me!”

“You’re not real,” Shara says to the little girl. “You’re bait.”

“Bait?” says Sigrud. “For what?”

“For you and me.”

The little girl bursts into tears and huddles at the edge. “
Please,
” she says. “Please just pick me
up
. I haven’t been held in so
long.
 …”

“Drop the act,” says Shara angrily. “I know what you are.”

The little girl shrieks; the sound is razors on their ears.

“
Stop!
” shouts Shara. “Stop your nonsense! We’re no fools!”

The screams stop immediately. The abrupt cessation of sound is startling.

The girl does not look up: she sits bent in half, frozen and lifelessly still.

“I don’t know
how
you’re still alive,” says Shara. “I thought all of you died in the Great Purge. …”

The thick locks quiver as the girl’s head twitches to one side.

“You’re a
mhovost
, aren’t you? One of Jukov’s pets.”

The little girl sits up, but there is something disturbingly mechanical about the motion, as if she’s being pulled by strings. Her face, which was once contorted into a look of such heart-piercing agony, is now utterly blank, like that of a doll.

Something shifts under the dress. The little girl appears to drop into the cloth. There is a sudden rush of dust.

Cloth swirling around it, it stands up slowly.

Shara looks at it, and immediately begins to vomit.

* * *

It is man-like, in a way: it has a torso, arms, and legs. Yet all are queerly long, distended, and many-jointed, as if its body is nothing but knuckles, hard bulbs of bone shifting under smooth skin. Its limbs are wrapped in white cloth stained gray with dust, and its feet are like a blend between a human’s and a goose’s: huge and syndactyly and webbed, with three fat toes, each with tiny perfect toenails on them. Yet its head is by far the worst part: the back is roughly like the head of a balding man, sporting a ring of long, gray scraggly hair around its skull; but instead of a face or jaw, the head stretches forward to form what looks like a wide, long, flat bill—like, again, that of a goose. Yet rather than the tough keratin normally seen in ducks or geese, the bill is made of knuckled human flesh, as if a man’s fingers were fused together, and he brought both hands together to form a joint at the heel of his palms.

The
mhovost
flaps its bill at Shara, making a wet
fapfapfap
. Somewhere in her mind she hears echoes of children laughing, screaming, crying. As its fleshy bill wags Shara can see it has no esophagus, no teeth: just more bony, hairy flesh in the inner recesses of the bill.

She spews vomit onto the floor again, but is careful to avoid the salt on the floor.

Sigrud stares blankly at this abomination, pacing in front of him like a bantam cock, daring him to attack it. “Is this,” he asks slowly, “a thing I should be killing?”

“
No,
” gasps Shara. More vomit burbles out of her. The
mhovost
flaps its bill at her—again, the echoes of ghostly children. She thinks,
It’s laughing at me
. “Don’t break the ring of salt! That’s the only thing keeping us alive!”