Elizabeth Hand - Icarus Descending

“Wendy! It’s a house, come on —”

I kicked through the snow, following the road where it made a sharp tack to the right; and there it was. A many-storied house like a child’s sickbed vision of Home. Tall, of ancient red brick that had paled to pink over the centuries, its ivied eaves now hoary and rattling in the wind. Several long narrow clapboard ells ran behind it, and the myriad windows in its brick face glowed as though they had been cut from sheets of brass. From its roof a number of chimneys thrust defiantly at the storm, and thick smoke poured cheerfully from several of these.

I stood dumbfounded. Jane had stopped too and was staring at a sign flapping from a tall iron post.

SEVEN CHIMNEYS FINE FOOD AND LODGING SINCE 1818

I started to laugh. Jane looked back at me, her red face cracked by a grin.

“Come on,” she yelled, and headed for the door.

“This is insane,” I said through chattering teeth as I followed her. It was a heavy oaken door with an ancient brass knocker shaped like a hand. When Jane let it fall against the wood, it scarcely made a sound. I looked around until I saw a doorbell and pressed it, my finger sticking to the metal. From inside echoed a shrill, unhappy buzzing. Jane stamped like an impatient horse and kicked at the door. From her arms Miss Scarlet stared up in confusion, asking after performance times, until Jane had to shush her. “Fine food and lodging would be wasted on us—” I added through chattering teeth. “If—”

“Shut up. Someone’s coming.”

The door swung open. Without waiting Jane swept inside, gasping with relief. I stood for another moment on the steps, until through the snow and steam I could make out a dark figure there in front of me, shaking its head and hastily motioning me inside.

I stumbled after Jane and heard the door slam shut behind me. A guttural shout; the figure seemed to be calling for help. The voice was hoarse and somehow familiar, but I could focus on little besides warmth and the carpet beneath my feet, thick and soft as hay, and the snow dripping in streams from my legs.

Whoever had opened the door cried out again, wordlessly. Another moment and I heard a second voice.

“What on earth is it, Fossa—Sweet Jesus! Giles, come here, hurry!—Fossa, help get them into the parlor—”

This second voice was commanding but anxious. I was absurdly grateful at how worried it sounded. Strong arms gathered me up as though I were a bundle of rags. Uncommonly strong arms; I felt coarse hair bristling against my cheek, and a dusty sweetish odor like dry leaves. Then I was dropped someplace where all was hot and bright. Someone peeled off my ragged clothes—

“Good Lord! It’s a girl—”

—and wrapped me in a heavy soft blanket. Dimly I could hear Jane choking out some sort of explanation—

“Lost—storm—soldiers in the City—”

But that commanding voice quieted her, soothing, “Not now, not now, sleep, child, sleep—”

And then Miss Scarlet piped up, her voice delirious with fear and cold.

“The Cathedral! Oh Goddess, save us!”

“Geneslave!” came a hoarse cry from the great figure that had carried me, and Miss Scarlet whimpered.

“Hush, Fossa—” the other voice rang out. The guttural voice grew still. “Don’t worry, little one, you’re safe here, just try to sleep—”

More soothing noises; and finally, blissful silence.

It was the pain that woke me: my hands and feet felt as though they were being sawn off. With a moan I opened my eyes and found myself lying on a long, low couch in front of a huge open hearth where a fire was blazing.

“Ah! Another sleeper awakes!”

I blinked, shading my face from the fire and coughing a little. The sweet scent of burning applewood filled my nose, and a gray scrim of smoke hung over everything—obviously the fireplace didn’t draw very well. But after a moment I could focus enough to see my surroundings.

We were in a large room, with paneled walls of real wood and much furniture, large and ancient but very worn. Heavy tables whose elaborately carved legs were mended with metal struts and joints; kilim-covered hassocks balanced precariously upon three legs; a cracked fire screen leaning against one wall and behind it the blank black face of a video monitor. In the corners lurked more ghostly furniture, covered with white sheets that age had darkened to the color of weak tea. There were many windows, reaching nearly to the ceiling. Outside the storm continued, snow battering against the glass. The casements shook as the wind rose and fell. Looking outside, I shivered, and tore my gaze back to the room.

Over the fireplace hung a huge painted canvas, as tall as I was, showing a scene in the Romantic style of the twenty-third century. Riders in black and scarlet leaned over the heads of their mounts, tugging at the reins as they urged the animals in pursuit of a lumbering figure that seemed half-man, half-ape. Behind them a lurid crimson sky had grayed to pink, aided no doubt by that poorly vented fireplace. It was a disturbing painting, though at first I couldn’t pin down why. I stared at it, still half-asleep; then with a start I sat up. I had suddenly focused on the images, realized that the creatures bearing those hunters were themselves half-human, their faces distorted by the bits in their mouths. The effect was grotesquely crude but effective: a primitive form of antigeneslave propaganda. I grimaced and looked away.

My gaze fell upon the mantel beneath the picture. It was of black marble, and studded with a number of whitish globes, a little larger than my two fists. I couldn’t make out what they were—stones, perhaps, or maybe some kind of pottery, pocked with holes and cracks as though they had been hastily repaired.

“You admire our artwork?” a voice asked kindly.

I turned. In the middle of the room a man lounged in an armchair. Beside him, in another, smaller chair, sat Miss Scarlet, a tartan blanket wrapped around her so that only her wrinkled face showed. Without her accustomed crinolines and bonnet, she looked more like a small wild creature than she ever had, except for the tiny glass balanced daintily in one small black paw.

“Wendy! Are you better? Jane is still asleep, over there behind you, and—Oh!— forgive me—”

This was to the man, who looked from me to the chimpanzee with calm bemusement. “This is Wendy Wanders,” she went on in her best formal tones. She lifted her head; the tartan fell back to reveal a short stiff mane of black fur. “Wendy, this is Giles.”

I sat up, pulling the blanket around me and feeling overly conscious of how naked I was beneath it. “Giles,” I said. “You are very— oh —”

I gasped and drew back onto the couch. On the floor at my feet something moved: such an immense thing that at first it had seemed just a grizzled blur, a carpet or another blanket strewn before the fire. Now it gave a weird ululating cry that I realized was a yawn, stretched, and stood.

It was an aardman. Nearly identical to the ones that had acted as my guards in the Engulfed Cathedral—that was why it had sounded, and smelled, familiar to me. Man-size, but with powerful forearms knotted with muscle beneath short bristling fur. Its face was a canine mask: blunt snout, heavy brow beneath which intelligent dark eyes regarded me unblinking. Atop its skull small pointed ears ticked forward, as though it strained to hear. Recalling how its fellows had bound me and brought me before the Aviator, I began to shiver uncontrollably.

The aardman stared at me with those fulvous eyes. I could smell it, a ripe musky scent seeming to grow heavier, thicker, until it would choke me. Seeing my fear, the aardman made a low sound, deep in its throat, then extended its bent-knuckled hands toward me.