Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

A door opened onto a steaming kitchen and a worker in a stained apron scurried out on an errand. A delivery man staggered by, bent under a side of raw beef. Them he ignored. But then a clutch of five ragged boys ran past.

“Young people!” Darger called after them. “Are you interested in earning some pocket money?”

The boys skittered to a stop, and stared at him with glittering, unblinking eyes, wary as rats. The biggest of the lot squinted skeptically, spat, and said, “What’s the pitch?”

Darger removed the factor’s money from his pocket and slowly peeled off several bills. He understood these slum-children perfectly, for he had been much the same as they in his boyhood. Thus, when one of the smaller ones surreptitiously eased closer, he tightened his grip on the money and favored him with a sudden sharp look. The imp hurriedly backed away.

“What’s your name?” he asked the ringleader.

The boy’s mouth moved silently, as if he were chewing over the implications of giving out this information. Then, grudgingly, he answered, “Kyril.”

“Well, Master Kyril, I have something to celebrate, and I wish to celebrate it by giving away all these crates of cigarettes.”

Kyril looked the pile up and down. There were twenty crates. “Okay. We’ll take this shit off yer hands.”

“Nice try, but no. I’ll be giving them away a pack at a time. What I want you and your comrades to do is to spread the word through the underground-to the Diggers, to the Outcasts, to pretty much everybody except the Pale Folk-that I’ll be handing this stuff out free. Come back in half an hour, and if you’ve raised a large enough crowd, you can help distribute it. For which, I’ll pay you this much”-he extended the bills, and young Kyril snatched them away-“up front, and an equal amount when the job is done. Are you up for it?”

Kyril’s face grew still as he mentally searched for a way to sweeten the deal. “Do we get some of the cigarettes, too?”

“If you must.” Darger sighed. “Though you really shouldn’t, you know. They are bad for you.”

The guttersnipe rolled his eyes in scorn.“I don’t fucking care.”Then he addressed his gang: “Dmitri-Diggers! Oleg-Psychos! Lev-Outcasts! Stephan-Bottom Dwellers!”

They scattered.

In less than the prescribed half an hour, a crowd had gathered, as uncertain and murmurous as the sea. Darger climbed to the top of the stack of crates to address them. “Good friends, congratulate me!” he cried. “For today I have made a discovery that will leave my mark in history. I have found that which everybody said could not be found…the books for which I have searched for so long…the lost library of Ivan the Great!”

He paused, and a puzzled, halfhearted cheer went up.

“In honor of which discovery, I will now give away three packs of cigarettes to everybody who steps forward to congratulate me.”

A much heartier cheer arose.

“Form a line!” Darger cried. Then, dragooning the slum-boys as his helpers, he pried open the first crate and gave a handful of cigarette packs to a drab woman at the head of the line. “They are yours if you say: Congratulations for finding the library.”

“Congratulations for finding the library.” “Excellent. Next. You must say…” “Congratulations for finding the library.”

“Good.”

Beside him, Kyril was handing out cigarettes and receiving perfunctory congratulations, as were his four comrades. Darger noted that their pockets already bulged with packs.

“Congratulations for the library.” “Congratulations.” “Good luck. Glad for ya.” “Um…books?”

“Close enough,” Darger said. “Keep the line moving.”

It took less time to give away the cigarettes than Darger had expected, and yet the experience left him wearier than he would have thought. Finally, though, all the crates had been opened, their contents distributed, and the troglodytes (and a certain number of habitues from the bar and nearby service workers who had come out to see what the noise was about) had gone.

Darger scrupulously paid out the promised money to his half-sized allies. He would have done so even if he hadn’t known how such young men repaid broken promises.

When they had been paid, four of the young men instantly scattered. Kyril, however, remained, looking unaccountably abashed. “Uh, sir,” he said. “What you said about finding the library…does that mean I have to move out of it now?”

Zoesophia was pleasantly surprised by Surplus’s performance. He had, as it turned out, extraordinary stamina for one not born of the breeding vats of Byzantium. It was not until the Way of the Wounded Crane that he gasped, “Enough! Pax! I am but mortal-I must… I have no breath! I can do no more!” And then, when she ignored his pleas and continued onward, he made it all the way through the Way of the Supple Monkey before turning pale and passing out.

“Well!” Zoesophia said, pleased.

Having gotten more of a gallop than she’d expected, Zoesophia found herself feeling decidedly fond of the ambassador. She scratched him behind the ears, and noted with amusement how his feet scrabbled briefly against the cushions. Then she gathered up all the scattered items of clothing and carefully smoothed and laid them out for the morning. She always carried a small mirror with her and this she used to make sure she had no scratches or bruises that would show when dressed. Her hair was a dreadful mess. So she commanded it to go limp and then flicked her head so that it flew out, undoing any snarls or tangles. Six passes of her hands and a command for it to resume its usual body, and she looked as if she had just spent an hour with a beautician.

As she always did before sleeping, Zoesophia took a mental walk into her memory palace and carefully sorted her day’s thoughts into three cabinets-one sculpted from fire, one of ice, and the third merely rattan. She was all but certain that the ambassador was nothing more than a confidence trickster, doubtless planning to run some elaborate scheme on the Duke of Muscovy. But that was tangential at best to her real mission, so she placed that thought in the rattan cabinet, which she reserved for whims, fancies, and idle speculations.

Finally, Zoesophia lay down alongside Surplus, with one hand around his root, so that he could not awaken without her knowing of it. The first thing in the morning, she would dictate terms. For now, she could enjoy her beauty sleep with a clean conscience and a sense of a job well done.

The carriage climbed toward the estate’s hedge-wall, swaying on its springs so that the manor house behind it seemed to dance in the starry night sky. Gentle strains of music could be heard in the distance, for the baronessa’s guests were dancing now, their eyes still afire with the divine Spirit and their souls at peace with all humanity. Arkady had climbed into the carriage with the warmth of the drug dying down within him and his back stinging from the comradely slaps of the men. He could still feel the swift farewell kisses and furtive squeezes of his stones bestowed on him by the women. The carriage cushions were soft, and there was a bucket of iced champagne, should he feel the urge for a drink on his way home. By slow degrees the last embers of indwelling sanctity were fading gently to ash.

How stupid of him to have taken the rasputin immediately after dinner, rather than waiting for the orgy to begin, as the others had! Had it only been otherwise, Arkady would even now be laughing, dancing, gossiping about the ways of angels with his erstwhile comrades in lust. He would be engaged in the pleasant apres-sex social activities with which the aristocracy customarily eased the transition from ardor back to everyday life.

He would not now be alone with his thoughts. With his memories. With the images that, try though he might, he could not dispel from his mind. He would not be tormented by the horrific knowledge of what he had done.