Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

“I can’t read Greek,” Kyril said. “Hell, I can barely read Russian.” He snatched the scroll from Darger’s hand and threw it roughly on the library table, where it buried the lantern under parchment, dimming the light considerably. “We gotta get outta here. Some kind of shit-ass bad stuff is coming down real soon.”

Darger assumed an expression of judicious wisdom. Then, carefully, he said, “A Phoenician wine merchant, a freedman, and an aristocrat all went to a brothel together. When they got there, they discovered that all the doxies were already taken, save for one ancient, crippled eunuch. So the Phoenician said-”

“This ain’t no time for jokes! We gotta leave right now, seriously. I’m not shitting you.”

“Oh, very well, very well.” Chuckling witlessly, Darger groped about on the table. “Just let me bring along something to read.”

“Here!” Kyril snatched up the nearest book and, flipping open Darger’s jacket, shoved it into an inside pocket. “Now move your fucking ass!”

Chortenko was in a towering rage. In all his years of service to Muscovy, no prisoner had ever escaped his custody. And now, today, in the course of an hour, he had lost two. Worse, they now knew things nobody outside his own service should know. And worst of all, though he had sent every agent he could spare out to look for them, both fugitives had managed to vanish completely off the face of the earth. A woman of such staggering beauty as to stop a man dead in his tracks and a dog who walked like a human being should not be able to do that!

Three of Chortenko’s subordinates stood at attention before him. They displayed no emotion, though they must have been keenly aware of the danger they were in. They were hard men all, who understood that were any one of them to show the least sign of fear, Chortenko would kill him on the spot for a weakling.

That pleasant thought helped to calm Chortenko and focus his thoughts. He drew in a deep breath, further stabilizing himself. Emotion was the enemy of effective action. He must restore his usual icy self-control.

Something, however, niggled and naggled at the back of his brain.

“Max, Igorek,” he said. “What have I forgotten?”

“You have forgotten most of the mathematics you learned in school,” Maxim said, “the combined and ideal gas laws, the names of the eighteen brightest stars in descending order of apparent magnitude as well as those of all the minor prophets in the Old Testament and most of the major prophets as well, the bulk of Mikhail Lermontov’s ‘The Sail,’ and the entirety of Anna Akhmatova’s ‘Requiem.’”

“Also,” Igor added, “the twenty-two major biochemical pathways of the human body, the proportions of the golden ratio, the formulae for green pigments, the names of most of your childhood friends, the location of your second-favorite fountain pen, and a vast effluvium of minutia and inconsequential personal history.”

“As well as-” Max continued.

With a touch of asperity, Chortenko said, “What have I forgotten that is not the common lot of others, I mean. Something I was supposed to do or look into.” This was, of course, too vague a set of parameters for the dwarf savants to work with, so they said nothing.

Vilperivich, who was one of his boldest and most trusted subordinates, chose this inopportune time to clear his throat. “We have not had the usual report from Pepsicolova today.” By the stiffness of the man’s delivery, Chortenko could tell that he was keenly aware of the danger he was in. That was good. He spoke anyway. That was even better. Taken together, the two facts would keep him alive long after his confederates were dead. “Perhaps that is significant?”

“No. I expected that,” Chortenko said. Then, thinking aloud: “I have ordered bleachers and a speaking platform erected on the street before the Trinity Tower entrance to the Kremlin. I have combed through my own forces and had everyone with a particular weakness for the pleasures of the flesh transferred to other departments. The rest I have put on full alert. I have dispatched my best assassin to take care of Lukoil-Gazprom. I have sent my regrets, which doubtless were received with enormous relief, to those politically ambitious enough to have invited me to their drug-fueled soirees tonight. I have compiled lists of those to be killed immediately after seizing full control of the government and those to be killed six, twelve, and eighteen months later, after their usefulness has been depleted. I have consulted with the Duke of Muscovy about…” Chortenko stopped.

“Oh, my.” This was as close to foul language as Chortenko ever came, but it was enough to terrify those who understood him well. “I forgot to order all artillery units away from the city.” Thinking furiously, he said, “Perhaps we can work around that, though. We could-”

A servile messenger chose that moment to scurry into the room and hand a sheet of paper to Vilperivich. He glanced down at it, and his face turned pale.

“Sir,” he said. “Wettig is dead.” “And Baron Lukoil-Gazprom?”

With barely a tremble in his voice, the man said, “Alive.”

The corridor dead-ended into a vast, extended darkness held up by regular iron pillars on which weakly bioluminescent lichen grew. This ghostly background flickered with motion. Kyril stepped into it cautiously, tugging the idiotically giggling Darger after him. Ordinarily, Kyril avoided the motorway as being too open and having too few ready exits. Today, however, haste was all, so he went by the most direct route.

“So you think me a noodle, do you, young man?” Darger gestured broadly toward the flickering distance. “As you can see, I am not the only one who is feeling uncommonly merry.”

The lichen-light was so feeble that Kyril had to stare hard to make out what Darger was talking about. With concentration, however, it became obvious: Shadowy throngs of ragged people were hopping, skipping, limping, twirling, and (some few) dancing past, all in the same direction. They were all mad with joy.

From around a bend in the motorway, light flared. An uneven line of bird-masked Pale Folk appeared, walking steadily, thrusting torches forward like prods to herd yet more of the tunnel-dwellers before them.

Their captives did not seem to mind this treatment. The torchlight threw up shadows on the walls above them that leaped and cavorted madly, as if in some unholy Neolithic Walpurgisnacht. It was an eerie glimpse into the murky hindbrain of Russian prehistory that made the little hairs on the back of Kyril’s neck stand on end.

There was a metal pillar almost touching the wall. Shoving Darger behind it, Kyril said, “Wait here. Don’t move. I’m going to get you a mask of your own. That’ll make things simpler for both of us.” Then he flung himself down on the filthy ground, and lay motionless. Corpses were not entirely uncommon down here. He did his best to look like one.

Above, to his intense annoyance, he heard Darger snicker.

The wave of people passed Kyril by unnoticing. One of them stepped even on his hand, but he managed not to cry out. Then, when the line of Pale Folk had gone beyond him as well, he rose to his feet. Stealthily, he ran after the hindmost of them and, wrapping arms about the creature’s chest, wrestled him to the ground. The torch fell to the side, atop a pile of rubbish, but the fire it caused seemed unlikely to spread, so he didn’t bother stamping it out.

Seconds later, he returned to Darger with the mask.

But when he tried to strap it on his mentor, the bastard pushed it away.

A murmur of voices rose up behind them, growing steadily stronger. A second wave of happy idiots was being driven their way. “Look, sir. What fun!” Kyril cried desperately, thrusting forward the filter-mask. “Why don’t you try this on?”