Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong

“They let him go; they escorted him to the Cathedral, and now they pay him homage. All this the aardmen told me when I caught them sniffing around the civets’ cages. I killed one of them, just to let the other know I meant business. Then whimpering he told me the last part of the story:

“ ‘ He looks for someone,’ the aardman said. He was afraid to tell me; terrified the Aviator would find out and kill him. ‘He is searching for one of their subjects, a girl kidnapped from the Citadel. He wants to find her and return her alive to the Citadel. For further processing,’ said the aardman.

“‘She has powers, this girl; she deals death with her mind, and contorts the dreams of men so that they go mad. Even the Ascendants feared her; and now they fear to lose her, fear that in the City she will find followers, and turn upon the Citadel and destroy them.

“‘But this Aviator is already mad, he has no fear! He wishes to avenge himself upon the City, and the Ascendants: upon everyone he feels betrayed him. To this end he seeks the girl. He would use her power to destroy anyone who will thwart him. And he preys upon the weakness of the Paphians, he claims that he will raise the god that they call the Gaping One. The aardman said he raved about ancient weapons in the earth that he will turn upon the City of Trees. He uses the lazars to work the earth beneath the Cathedral, seeking an arsenal buried there after the First Ascension. And still the lazars flock to him, and the aardmen. He will make an effigy of the hanged god to frighten your stupid whores, and they too will worship him.’

“So the aardman told me.”

She finished, wiping her brow. She seemed surprised to see the sun still shining and Miss Scarlet and myself there beneath the trees with her. I had begun shaking as Jane Alopex told her tale. I heard tiny sounds like insects boring into my ears. I clasped my hands and paced back and forth, back and forth, trying to think my way clear of this, trying to force back the Small Voices.

“Why doesn’t someone kill him?” I asked.

“Someone? Who?! There are no warriors in this City!” Jane exploded. She pointed her pistol at a rotting log, clicked its release. Nothing. “See? Everything is hundreds of years old, nothing works when it should! I had to slit that aardman’s throat to kill him because my other weapons are useless; and you think I’m going to creep into the Cathedral among a thousand lazars and aardmen and capture a NASNA Aviator by myself?”

She waved the pistol furiously above her head. It went off and a shower of bark rained onto us.

“Yes, of course, I understand,” I said hastily. I looked up at Miss Scarlet, hoping that she might come forth with some revelation, some word that would gainsay all that Jane Alopex had told us. But she only shook her head, as though she had perceived this a long time coming. Jane too stared at me, her eyes glittering.

“If he finds the ancient arsenal he will destroy us all,” she said at last. “It is as the Saint-Alabans and lazars are saying, it has come at last. The Final Ascension.” She slipped the pistol back into her pocket and turned to her mount.

I watched as she stroked its dark flank. Atop it sat Miss Scarlet, chewing on the fringe of her shawl. I thought of Justice and the others back in the theater. Tiny figures they seemed to me now, brightly colored and moving with jerky slowness, as though some great hand tugged and twitched at invisible strings. Words roared in my head, the Small Voices gathering force like some shrill whirlwind:

I can’t be responsible, I’m not responsible …

Find him, Wendy!

Something has happened, something is happening in the City—

And over them all a soft chanting, a child’s voice repeating again and again:

hang the boy and raise the girl

‘ til Winterlong is broken —

The roaring grew louder, became the voice of something huge and black, something pressing against my temples until I thought the blood would burst from there.

Then suddenly there was silence, utter silence.

And it came: the terrifying pulsing in my head that signaled the beginning of a seizure. I sank to my knees; clutched at my head as the air swam before me in motes of gray and black and I thrashed against the earth, trying to smash Him, rend Him, push Him back, His white hands reaching for me and eyes glowing like flowers, like stars, like great suns exploding above the City’s ruined spires—

“Scarlet! Stop him! What is it?!”

Other voices shouting but I could not stop, could not turn, He is there and He is too strong for me, I feel Him within me and the rage burns through my eyes, He has come at last, o come to me, come to me—

“ Aidan!”

A flash of crimson light; then nothing.

Gradually I heard voices again, and wind. It was the wind that told me I was not hallucinating. I blinked and sat up groggily, groping to feel the bump where I had knocked myself unconscious. Jane and Miss Scarlet squatted a few feet away, staring at me with drawn faces. Behind them the sambar munched upon some purple thistles.

“Aidan!” Jane exclaimed. “What happened? Are you all right?”

I rubbed my forehead, grimacing. “I think so,” I said. Miss Scarlet twittered in relief and ran to my side.

“Oh, poor Wendy,” she cried, her words tumbling back to the Zoologist before I could stop her. “She’s been so overworked, Jane, Toby won’t listen when I—”

“ She?” Jane Alopex stood, dead leaves falling from where they’d stuck to her breeches. “ She?”

Miss Scarlet gasped and covered her mouth with her paws, then drew up her skirts to hide her face.

Jane stared at me in amazement. Before I could move she jumped beside me, grabbed my shirt, and tore it open. I recovered myself in time to slap her and yank my shirt closed; but not before she had seen beneath it. She collapsed back onto her haunches and cursed so loudly that the sambar started, looking over its shoulder with mild questioning eyes.

“Sweet mother of us all! It’s you they’re after.”

“Don’t hurt her, Jane,” begged Miss Scarlet, running to Jane and throwing herself upon her. “Please, please—”

Jane didn’t move, only continued to look at me in astonishment. I stood a few feet off with my hands clenched at my sides.

“ She couldn’t hurt me!” I sneered. To prove it I shut my eyes, drawing up those last images once more, the Boy ghastly white and laughing, that rush of ecstatic pleasure and terror as He turns to me—

“No, Jane!”

Abruptly I was knocked down again. I grunted, opening my eyes to see Jane straddling my chest, holding her pistol like a bludgeon. I hissed in disappointment: had she broken my concentration, or was I losing control of the thread that bound me to Him, subject now only to His whims and desires and not my own?

“Tell me your name,” Jane ordered. She nudged my cheek with the butt of her pistol. “Your real name.”

I twisted to see Miss Scarlet plucking at Jane’s sleeve. She gazed at me. Then, suddenly defeated, she fell back and clasped her paws.

I turned back to Jane and recited, “I am Wendy Wanders, Subject 117, neurologically augmented empath specializing in emotive engram therapy.” As I spat the last word I shoved Jane from my chest and sat up. We glared at each other across the grass.

“Oh, stop, please, ” Miss Scarlet pleaded. She knelt beside Jane, a small pathetic creature in crinoline and lace. Jane let out her breath in a long frustrated sigh, then stuck her pistol back into her pocket.

“All right. But tell me—”

We did. Or rather, Miss Scarlet did, embellishing my tale so that even I held my breath at certain points, and wondered had it really all been so dramatic—the horrifying tenure at HEL , followed by dangerous flight and pursuit and finally success with Toby Rhymer’s Players, not forgetting my bosom friendship with that acclaimed thespian Miss Scarlet Pan?