Winterlong (52 page)

There were other prisoners in the long file that made its way to Saint-Alaban’s Hill and the Engulfed Cathedral. I glimpsed them through gaps in the curtained palanquin that let in the snow and wind along with a shred of view. Paphians sobbing and sometimes falling to their knees, begging their captors for release; Curators walking silently, some still bearing their skeletal standards. The boy who had overseen my capture—Oleander, he introduced himself to me almost shyly—would occasionally stick his head through the palanquin’s drapery. He would start to speak. But fear or shyness would overcome him, and he would prod me (but gently) or brandish his knife before rejoining the horde of lazars and aardmen. When I could peer through the curtains I searched as best I could for Justice, Jane Alopex, or Miss Scarlet; listened for their voices among those weeping or cursing or laughing shrilly in the mob. But I heard and saw nothing; only once imagined Miss Scarlet’s voice wafting to me:

Whoever the searchlights catch, whatever the loudspeakers blare,

We are not to despair …

But surely this must have been my own imagining.

Now even breathing exhausted me. I coughed ceaselessly, my lungs still heavy with corrosive smoke and the painfully frigid air. But at last I must have dozed, despite the jarring of the palanquin, the aardmen’s howls and groans, and the Paphians’ piteous cries.

What woke me was silence. The palanquin had stopped, though its subtle motion told me that my captors still bore it upon their hairy shoulders. I sat up, pulled back a curtained panel to peer outside.

We stood on a barren heath near the top of a tall hill. In the darkness about me Paphians and lazars stood without speaking, without moving. Only an occasional cough floated back to me on the wind. The snow had stopped. Across the starless sky swept heavy clouds, so close it appeared they might settle upon the towers and spars of the great edifice looming above us.

From the Zoological Gardens, the Cathedral had appeared to me as a single column, a dark and broken spar much like the Obelisk. But it was not. A thousand spires and turrets and broken towers stretched across the leaden sky. Light rippled across immense windows of colored glass, their patterns shattered or twisted into horrible forms by the passing centuries. Within the soaring vaults of stone grinned fantastic figures, creatures lovelier than any Paphian or more horrible than the geneslaves who bore me to their master: the eidolons of a dead god, a god resurrected by a deranged Aviator and a kidnapped whore.

I shivered. What sort of men had built such a monstrous edifice, how many had labored to bring those stones to life and lift them’ to unimaginable heights above the black and hungry earth? Did they know that centuries hence it would still stand, that sacrifices would once again be offered within its dismal nave? Even the aardmen cowered at the sight of it, and Oleander stood between them, hugging his thin arms to his chest and shaking his head as though begging to go free.

From within the tallest spire of the Cathedral came a sound. A clang as of a single bell; magnified until the frozen air splintered with its clamor. One of the great windows shone brilliantly, lit by some inner fire. For an instant a dazzling figure glowed from within the labyrinthine patterns of scalloped glass. Young man or boy, one hand raised to grasp a flaming heart, the other clasping the neck of a small white animal. The bells pealed thunderously as it stared out into the night, the Ascendants’ abandoned god trapped within the embrasure.

There was a bellow, a deafening explosion. The glowing window burst apart, white flame and smoke tearing through iron mullions and melting glass. I clapped my hands to my ears. Captives and captors alike cried out, sheltering their heads from raining debris.

More shouting; then the flames subsided to a steady flicker. The palanquin lurched forward to the Cathedral’s South Gate.

He was gone from me now, the Boy in the tree; but I knew where He had fled.

We crossed the charred earth leading to the gate. Petrified trees littered the ground, and among them the bodies of the dead, their eyes still staring upward, hands clasping at the ground. The air was loud with a humming like that of many wasps. My guardians bore me carefully among these corpses, and thence into the Cathedral.

Inside wandered the numbed guests of the Masque Winterlong, their costumes torn and dragging in the half-frozen muck that covered the floor. Many still held masks before their faces; faces that had been burned or scarred in the conflict with the lazars. A few smoky fires burned from makeshift altars of fallen stone or overturned braziers. Figures milled about them, haggard children or their shriveled elders clad in rags. They scarcely acknowledged the newcomers, only glanced as they passed among them. Occasionally a soft cry or shout of recognition would flare up, to fade into sobbing or anguished shrieks. I thought I glimpsed Fabian, a tiny figure across the Cathedral’s vast interior; but before I could cry out the aardmen laid my palanquin to rest. The boy Oleander yanked back the frayed curtains.

“Come with me,” he said. He grabbed my arm, but I struck him and sent him reeling.

“Don’t touch me,” I spat.

I stumbled from the litter. The aardmen shied away. One regarded me with calm yellow eyes, and something like pity. I rubbed my cheek where the blood had stiffened and cracked. My hand brushed my throat; I still wore the necklace of golden vines. “Where are you taking me?” I croaked.

Oleander sucked at his teeth. “The Aviator would see you,” he said, fingering his blade. I glared at it disdainfully. “The Consolation of the Dead; and Lord Baal, the Gaping Lord.”

“He is here? Raphael Miramar?” My disdain withered. I thought of my friends. “What of those I asked about: Justice Saint-Alaban and Miss Scarlet Pan and Jane Alopex? And the others, the Players from the masque—”

Oleander looked across the nave to where a group of new captives huddled about a fire. “I told you, I don’t know. But: we were told to take prisoners, not to kill them. No more than we had to.”

No more than we had to …

How I longed to rend him, taste his blood and trace within it whatever path might lead me to my friends, my beloved leman! I groped at his hand. He pushed me away, fearful, and commanded the aardmen, “Follow me! To the Crypt Church—”

They led me down passages so dark that only the aardmen could tell where to step safely, the only sound our breathing and their loud snuffling as they sought the way. Candles glimmered here and there, throwing into sudden relief the hollow contours of a skull, a sleeping effigy’s calm face. Oleander turned to blow out each one as we passed. When I looked behind us I saw only darkness.

At last the passage ended. We stepped into an open space. It was still dim, but enough pale light glimmered from crevices and narrow windows and even torches that I could see. The ceiling rose above us in a series of vaults, leading north and south and east in an endless progression of archways. Rows of tiny candles lined one wall. As we passed, their smell assaulted me, burning fat or flesh.

Some subterranean furnace must have warmed that place. It was cold, but not so frigid as the nave above us. I recalled someone speaking of engines in the earth, was momentarily grateful if they still ran here. But my guards were not eased by it. I smelled the aardmen’s fear, and Oleander’s blunt terror as he walked beside me.

“What will he do with me?’

The boy jumped at the sound of my voice. I heard his knife slide from its sheath, then slip back again. “I don’t know,” he replied after a moment. He paused at the intersection of two passages, chose the one lit by rows of tapers set upon the floor, two by two. “We’re almost there now.”

The passage twisted. A doorway opened before us, iron grates’ pulled back to show a long room dim with smoke curling from crackling braziers. A raised dais was at one end; before it a sort of tub or basin of stone, stained black along the lip. Many people stood against the walls, children and Paphians and lazars and Curators, gaunt and unmoving. A column reared from the center of the room, pale marble wrapped about with vivid green vines, their leaves shining even in that murky light. Someone sat upon the dais, and something white crouched at his feet.

We hurried through the iron gates into a small alcove, from this into an adjoining alcove that hid us from those watching in the chamber, though we could see them by peering through the narrow doorway. Here Oleander turned and bade the aardmen hold me fast. Then he ripped a panel from my tunic and gagged me with it. He stared at me for a moment, then tugged at the necklace I wore until its clasp gave way and took it.

“Hold her here.”

He slipped out. A minute later I saw. him weaving through the lazars until he reached the dais. The figure there stepped forward, a small white shape coiling about his legs like a cat. His face was darkened with ash and he had bound back his hair. When he raised his hand to greet Oleander something glimmered there, the faintest lilac.

They spoke softly. I saw Raphael glance back at the alcove and smile. Then Oleander handed him something, a flash of gold in the firelight. Raphael dipped his head and Oleander fastened my necklace about his neck. Then the younger boy stepped back to disappear through a door at one side of the altar.

Raphael stood a little longer, fingering the necklace’s intricate turnings of leaf and flower. He stared back at where I stood hidden by the shadows. The aardman Trey whimpered at that look, and tightened his grip upon me. Then behind Raphael something else took shape in the darkness of the doorway. It remained there where I could not see it clearly. Silence, except for the crackling of the braziers, the hissing of tapers set about the floor, the soft stir of lazars shifting their feet where they watched.

Abruptly Raphael looked away, to another alcove oppo sitemine.

“Bring him here,” he said. “I want to see him.”

From the alcove two aardmen emerged, half-dragging a third figure. When they reached the center of the room the murky firelight touched his hair with a faint cast of gold. The aardmen pushed him forward roughly, so that he fell to his knees in front of the dais. I tried to cry out, the gag cutting my mouth as I fought against Trey and Fury.

“No, lady,” Fury growled softly.

At the foot of the altar Justice crouched, coughing. When he raised his head I saw a gash across his forehead still bleeding slightly. He blinked at the smoke, ran a hand across his eyes, and shook his head, dazed. Then he stumbled to his feet, swaying as though drunk, and looked up.

On the dais stood my brother, clad in torn red tunic, his matted hair pulled back. At his throat shone the necklace Justice had given me. Behind him in the doorway stood the Aviator. Two aardmen supported him, their slanted eyes vivid in the firelight.

“Wendy,” Justice said. He shook his head again, wincing, and looked back at Raphael.

“Yes, Justice,” Raphael called softly. He held out his hands and beckoned Justice toward him. About his wrist glowed a band of violet light.

Justice took a step toward the altar, stopped. At Raphael’s feet the white animal, dog or small Wolvish creature, stared with blazing eyes at my lover. A murmur passed through the chamber; several of the children turned away or covered their eyes. Still no one spoke or tried to warn him. I tried to scream, choking on the cloth in my mouth.

“Do not watch,” croaked Fury. He tried as gently as he could to twist my head from the sight. I kicked at him until he loosened his grip and I could turn to watch.

Very slowly Justice mounted the steps, slowly as someone in a nightmare. I shut my eyes and tried desperately to draw something up, tried to turn his steps as I had those of countless dreamers at
HEL
. But when I opened them again he had mounted the last step and stood unsteadily before Raphael, his hands open before him.

“Wendy! I was so afraid—”

He took one last step, reaching for Raphael’s hand. As he did so my brother embraced him, pulled him to his breast, and bowed his head so that their hair fell in tangled waves, mingled gold and russet. Raphael caressed him, murmuring. There was an uncanny lavender glow against Justice’s cheek.

My brother stepped away. For a moment Justice stood before him, confused. He touched his throat, as though to ease a bruise there. My twin gazed at him, toying with the gold chain around his neck.

“You are mine now,” he said.

Justice raised his eyes to Raphael and choked out a single word, his knees buckling.

“Miramar—”

He sank to the floor and was still.

Raphael turned to the shadows behind him, raised a shaking fist encircled by a band gone dark and gray. Without looking back he strode across the altar to the sanctuary. The white jackal sniffed at Justice’s body, then turned and darted after Raphael. The Aviator let him pass. He stared out across the nave to where I stood; Fury and Trey pressed close against me. He made a cutting gesture with his hand.

“Ungag her and bring her to the armory,” he called. He turned and followed Raphael.

Fury struggled with my gag. As it fell to the floor I commanded him, “Free me!”

The aardmen stared at me uneasily, tails switching.

“Free me!”

Trey crouched, growling, then dropped his hold and loped across the room to the sanctuary. Fury stared after him. “Please,” I whispered.

He let go of me. I stood shivering, rubbing my arms. Before me flames darted across the floor, licking at pools of melted tallow and dried grass and ruined cloth. I walked slowly from the alcove to where Justice lay upon the steps. In the shadows the silent lazars watched.

“Justice.”

I knelt beside him, brushing back his long hair to see a tiny mark upon his neck, like an insect’s bite. A drop of blood no larger than a bee’s eye pearled there. I touched it. brought it to my lips not caring if it were poison. Then I bent to kiss him, pulling oh so gently at his jaw still warm in my fingers. My tongue slipped between his teeth, his mouth unyielding now for the first time, the only time, as I kissed him, my Justice, kissed him and found nothing, nothing at all: only my own tears falling upon his lips and throat and he was not there, he was gone, gone past all redeeming. Justice Saint-Alaban whom I had loved was dead. The Gaping One had claimed him.