Elizabeth Hand - Icarus Descending

Finally even these grim reminders of the earliest Ascendants began to disappear. The terrain grew hilly, which made walking more wearying. Without the huge buildings to protect us, the cold wind raved in our ears and sent the bare branches of trees rattling and snapping. We passed small patches of snow in tree-bound hollows the sun had not struck for many days. The clouds faded from gold to red to indigo.

“Can we stop somewhere?” Miss Scarlet asked, yellow teeth chattering. “Or should we walk all night?”

“You can’t walk all night, Scarlet, and I’m too tired to carry you.” Jane bent to scoop snow from beneath a stand of alders. At their base, water had pooled and frozen, and she cracked off pieces of ice and handed them to us. “God, I’m hungry. If I’d known this was ahead of us, I’d have eaten more at your damn feast.”

Miss Scarlet’s red-rimmed eyes watered as she sucked at the ice. My entire face ached from the cold: good in one way, because it kept me from feeling the pain of a long scar on my cheek, where a flaming brand had struck me the night before. As long as we were moving, I could ignore my exhaustion and hunger; but even stopping now, for a moment, I felt as though I might faint. I leaned against the tree, pressed the shard of ice to my cheek, and closed my eyes.

“Wendy!” cried Miss Scarlet. “My poor friend—”

Jane made an impatient sound at the chimpanzee’s outburst. I smiled and opened my eyes.

“I’ll be all right,” I said. I did not tell them that I saw my lover when I shut my eyes like that; nor that I welcomed the numbing exhaustion, because it kept me from recalling his face in death where he lay at the feet of my murderous twin, the courtesan Raphael Miramar. “Miss Scarlet’s right, we should try to find some place to sleep.”

So we started once more. I staggered forward, stumbling after the others as darkness fell. The wind still railed at the trees, but it had shifted and was less cold than it had been. As the cold eased, I could smell things again—rotting leaves, the dusty scent of old concrete; but mostly just the bleak sharp smell of a midwinter night. Jane had gathered up Miss Scarlet and wrapped the ends of her coat around her. I tried to hurry, my feet snagging on broken tarmac and old roots in the growing darkness. The thought of sleep and whatever evil dreams it might bring did not ease me at all.

We had not walked for long before we saw a building to the right of the road. Ancient brick and masonry, gnawed and tumbled by the elements; but in places the roof still held, and its four corners were sturdy against the wind. We squeezed through a collapsed door frame so narrow, I was afraid it would crash down onto us. Inside we bumped into old furniture and tripped over lumps of rotting cloth.

“If I had some matches or lucifer, we could burn this,” Jane lamented, shoving at an old table until it crashed against the wall.

“At least there’s no wind,” Miss Scarlet said, shivering. She began pulling at oddments of old cloth and drifts of leaves, until she had made a pallet big enough for all of us. We lay down, groaning and trying not to think about food: Jane and I front-to-front, with Miss Scarlet in the middle and Jane’s coat draped over most of us. So we slept, until the Boy came to me with his lovely face and revenant’s hands and drove my sleep away.

It was a dismal rising we had that morning. Miss Scarlet was so weakened by fatigue and hunger that she could not move. In my arms she felt like a dead thing already. It was all I could do not to close my eyes and huddle deeper into the well of rags that was our bed. Only Jane staggered to her feet, groaning and rubbing her hands, her breath pocking the darkness with gray.

“Damn! We’d better get moving—”

I lay there for several minutes, trying to will the day away. Finally I stumbled up and followed her outside, carrying Miss Scarlet. Without speaking, we headed back toward the road and started walking.

Within minutes the cold had eaten through my soles so that my feet burned. But a little longer and I could no longer feel them at all. Miss Scarlet dozed fitfully in my arms, or else stared up at me with a child’s blank, miserable eyes. Jane went on bravely ahead of us. I could hear her muttering and swearing to herself. It was only when she glanced back at me that I could see the fear and weariness that stained her face.

The wind had shifted again during the night. Now it was bitterly cold. The broken tarmac glittered painfully at our feet, and the harsh light made it too clear that there was nothing before us but endless miles of the old highway. Overhead hung cinerous gray clouds, the color of sloughed flesh, but the light was strong, with a relentless midwinter clarity that made my eyes ache. I gritted my teeth and hugged Miss Scarlet more tightly to my chest.

“Got to be something along here,” Jane muttered. We were taking turns wearing her coat. She stopped to drape it over my shoulders, pulling it carefully around Miss Scarlet. “Ascendants still use this road sometimes, there must be some kind of way-station somewhere—”

I nodded, too weary to argue. I was thinking that yesterday we should have turned back and retraced our steps to the City. Now it was too late. We would die long before the janissaries had the chance to capture us. Jane seemed to read my thoughts. Silently she turned away.

I don’t know how long we walked. Hours maybe, certainly all morning and perhaps well into afternoon. I began to see phantom shapes at the corner of my eyes, threads of white like worms wriggling through the air. It wasn’t until I bumped into Jane that I was shaken from my reverie and realized the truth of it.

“Snow,” I whispered. I turned one raw palm upward.

“Don’t stop.” She tugged at my arm. Miss Scarlet’s eyes opened and she stared up at us blearily.

“Is it a full house?” she asked. “Is it my cue?” Jane gave me a warning glance and pulled me after her.

That was the worst journey of all. Exhausted beyond belief, with no hope of finding warmth or shelter or food, and still fighting through the wind and cold with the snow whirling all about us. A few steps ahead of me trudged Jane, head bowed against the wind, her back and shoulders white. I still wore her coat but could feel no gratitude, nor resentment when she took it back again. I felt nothing but lancing cold. Once I stumbled and fell, and would have lain there until I died had Jane not come back for me. I could see no reason to go on: with Justice dead, and the City taken, and the three of us to perish in the wilderness after having endured so much. But Jane pulled me to my feet and slung one arm over my shoulder, yanking her coat around us and taking Scarlet from my arms. For a long wordless time we staggered on like that. If we traveled more than a mile or two, it was a miracle.

And then a miracle did occur. Miss Scarlet suddenly opened her eyes and raised her head, then weakly pulled at my sleeve.

“Wendy,” she croaked. “The fire—mind the fire—”

I coughed and glanced sideways at Jane, wondering how to deal with this new delirium. But Jane had stopped. Her coat slid from our shoulders to the ground, unheeded.

“Jane.” I shivered, terrified that madness had seized her as well. “Jane—”

“…fire,” murmured Miss Scarlet.

“She’s right,” said Jane. Her eyes were wide and she shook like a dog, snow flying from her arms and shoulders. “Wendy! Look—”

I thought she was crazy, pointing to where eddies of snow whipped through the trees. But then I took a few shambling steps forward, and the smell came to me, so acrid it made my throat burn. My eyes teared as I turned to Jane.

“Smoke! But where—”

She began running, sliding through the snow and once falling to her knees. I bent to retrieve the coat and tried to run after her, but it was like running in a dream: it seemed I scarcely moved. Within a few minutes I had lost sight of them. But then I could hear Miss Scarlet’s plaintive voice and Jane shouting hoarsely.