Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

A smudge-pot had been lit by the stairway entrance, and those with torches lit them from its flame.

One of the last to emerge was a gigantic bear-man stooping under the burden of a folded gurney. Once into the square, he swiftly snapped straight the gurney’s legs so it could stand on its own. Then he bent low over its occupant and shook an admonitory claw before the man’s face. “A word to the wise, friend: no more puns.”

Darger giggled.

There were lights in the windows of all the buildings surrounding the square, and the shadowy figures of their occupants, come to see what all the commotion was about, could be seen peering down.

One final figure emerged from the City Below.

At once, miraculously, out of chaos came order. The ambling and aimless forces from below swiftly organized themselves into brigades and lined up in parade formation facing down Tverskaya ulitsa. For a long, still moment, the drums and horns and makeshift noisemakers went silent. All voices hushed.

The last figure to arrive assumed his place at the head of the procession.

It was Tsar Lenin in his three-piece gray suit with the razor-crisp creases in his trousers. He lifted his goateed chin, looking confident and determined, like a man who could not be stopped by anything. Without saying a word, he raised one arm high and then brought it down and forward. Lenin strode straight ahead, and the procession followed in his wake.

Behind him, Pale Folk waved banners that were on the verge of collapsing into dust. Slogans reappeared that had not been seen since the rise of Utopia: WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE and FOREVER PRAISE THE NAME AND WORK OF VLADIMIR LENIN followed by LONG LIVE THE INDISSOLUTE UNION OF THE WORKING CLASS, THE PEASANTRY, AND THE INTELLIGENTSIA and BROTHERHOOD AND FREEDOM OF ALL WORKING PEOPLE! and PEACE, LAND, amp; BREAD! and LONG LIVE THE GLORIOUS COLLECTIVE FARM PEASANTRY OF KOLOMNA.

There were other banners as well, with messages like RIVERSIDE ARTS FESTIVAL and MEN’S SUITS AT LOW, LOW PRICES! and WINTER BONFIRE DISCO which, cryptic though they were, helped lend a festive air to the procession.

The Pale Folk shambled lifelessly forward, and when a banner ripped and its cloth exploded into shreds, they kept on walking and waving the pole to which its remnants were attached. Their captives capered and danced.

From every doorway, Muscovites poured into the street, abandoning sex and theology for the pageantry of history-in-the-making. When they confronted the actual procession, those in front stopped and even shrank away from its uncanny strangeness. But there were bird-masked Pale Folk at the edges wielding bellows-guns from which puffed clouds of black smoke, and those who were touched by the smoke stopped and then, with stunned expressions and eyes that shone with holy fire, joined the parade.

“Tsar Lenin has returned!” a louder-than-human voice roared. Only those closest to its source realized that it originated from Lenin himself, for his mouth did not move with the words. “Join the great man and restore the glory of Russia!”

The people cheered rapturously.

“Tsar Lenin has returned! Tsar Lenin has returned!” Spontaneous chanting began from those nearest to the front of the procession: “Lenin! Len-in! Len-in!”

The chant caught on. “Len-in! Len-in! Len-in!” It spread like wildfire. “Len-in! Len-in! Len-in!” Even the underpeople, who had begun to sober up on contact with fresh air, were caught up in the madness. Soon everybody was chanting. “Len-in! Len-in! Len-in!”

After the chant had run its natural course, other chants arose: “The Revolution is now!” and “Workers of the world, unite!” and “Mother Russia has been reborn!”

“Better Red than dead!” Darger shouted.

“No silly jokes, either,” Sergeant Wojtek admonished.

“What…what price?” a woman asked in a choked voice when the underlord had finished speaking.

“Blood,” the underlord said. “Half the blood in Moscow. Tonight.” Then: “Also, I will need a human body, so those who see me will not be alarmed.”

There was only one man in the room both large enough and expendable enough for the task. It was, in fact, the chief reason that Chortenko had chosen him to serve as his ringer in the first place. “Take him,” Chortenko said, pointing to Dubinin.

This was not in the script. Eyes bulging, the former union head opened his mouth-though whether to plead or to denounce or to argue his case would never be known. For the intelligence agent behind him deftly looped a garrote about Dubinin’s neck and with a minimum of fuss strangled him dead.

Chortenko watched impassively, knowing that the relative painlessness of this death would be yet one more mark against his account in the underlords’ reckoning. But he also knew that there was a tipping point where horrified obedience turned to hysteria, despair, and defiance. Even as it was, he was certain that the next several minutes were going to bring his nineteen new ministers right to the edge of that point.

As they did.

By the time the underlord had made room for itself in its new body and the flesh had been stitched shut around it, the blood wiped clean by Chortenko’s underlings, and a general’s uniform donned, several of those present had thrown up, at least one man was crying, and everyone was too terrified to even think of disobeying its or Chortenko’s orders.

“You do not know exactly what I am, and yet you fear me,” the underlord said. “As you should. I am faster and stronger than anybody here. If I decided to rip your beating heart from your chest, you could not stop me. Further, my hatred for you and your kind is absolute. I wish you nothing but suffering, pain, and a death that will come only long after you have despaired of its mercy. I am your every nightmare, and if you do not obey me, I will kill you. If you try to escape, I will kill you. If you displease me in any way, I will kill you.

“You have seen what happened to the man whose body I now wear. He was lucky, for his death came quickly. Imagine what I will do to you if you do not obey me.”

Chortenko went to the door leading to the City Below. The Royal Guard opened it, stepped outside to determine that the hallway was secure, and then nodded.

At Chortenko’s gesture, the underlord walked past him and through the door.

“Follow me,” the underlord said over its shoulder. They did.

The noble ladies of Moscow had, as it turned out, an astonishing aptitude and even more extraordinary appetite for the act of sexual congress in all its many varieties. Luckily for Surplus, a week’s tutelage under the preternaturally capable Zoesophia had taught him a suite of tricks for keeping pace with them. Just as a workman quickly learns to lift heavy objects using his legs rather than his back muscles, and to “walk” a particularly massive item across the floor rather than exhaust himself by pushing it, so Surplus had learned that for some positions it was best to ride lightly atop the action and for others to simply lie back and think of the Green Mountains of Vermont while letting his current partner do the brunt of the work. In this way, he was able to have quite a splendid time at Baronessa Avdotya’s little gathering without actually rupturing anything.

Nevertheless, Surplus was grateful to have come to an intermission, during which he might replenish himself with ice-water and platefuls of this and that from a table loaded down with zakuski. He scooped up a cracker’s worth of Osetra caviar and went idly to the window to admire the night view up Ilyinka ulitsa.

Irina came to the window as well and embraced Surplus from behind, pressing her breasts against his back and rubbing his shoulder with the side of her face. This pleasurable sensation was marred only by his strong awareness that in her current state, Irina might easily crack his ribs without intending to. “Are you certain,” she asked, “that you will not try the rasputin?”