Michael Swanwick - Dancing with Bears

The Pearls clustered together. Then Nymphodora stepped forward and timidly said, “Sir?”

Arkady looked up. Several of the Pearls gasped. Apparently they had not all been absolutely sure he was alive.

“Sir, I must ask. Who are you?”

“I…?” There was an answer to that question, he was sure of it. Arkady sought for it in the reeling corridors of his mind. It was all terribly confusing. But then he remembered his quest, his duty, the sacred errand that had sent him out into the terrible streets of Moscow on this most horrific of all nights. He must find the Duke of Muscovy. He had a message for the Duke of Muscovy. He must warn…

“The Duke of Muscovy.”

With screams of delight, the Pearls converged upon him.

Chortenko’s body was not recognizable by the time Anya Pepsicolova and her new friends were through with it. She stood, shaking her head, trying to will herself to think clearly and rationally. The basement door was open and the society lady gone-fled, doubtless, in horror of what she had seen. Already, some of the dogs were bounding up the stairs toward the open front door and liberty. Others, however, cowered, afraid to pass through the smoke-filled air that choked the rooms above.

“Hush now, don’t be afraid,” Pepsicolova said soothingly.“You don’t have to go upstairs if you don’t want to. There’s another exit right over here.”

She unlatched, unbolted, and threw open the door into Chortenko’s secret tunnel system. Several dogs streaked past her as she stepped through it.

Pepsicolova had no good memories connected to these tunnels. But they opened into not just the Kremlin but several buildings, public and private, along the way. She was considering which exit to take when she saw something in the tunnel ahead. It was, strangely enough, a piece of furniture. A kind of surgical table or cot which was used in hospitals, what was it called? A gurney. As she drew closer, Pepsicolova was astonished to see none other than the Englishman, Aubrey Darger, strapped down helpless upon it.

“Well!” she said, inexplicably amused. “Somebody expended a great deal of effort strapping you down.”

With a twitch of her wrist, Saint Cyrila appeared in her hand.

A relieved smile appeared on Darger’s face. “Good girl!” he cried. “Well done! Cut me free and we’ll-”

Then, as the knife moved not toward the straps but toward his groin, Darger said, “Um…excuse me, but… If I may ask… Exactly what are you doing?”

Which was, Pepsicolova felt, an extremely astute question. She considered its answer carefully, all the while staring down at Darger, hard and unwavering. “Something I’ve been wanting to do,” she said at last, “for a long, long time.”

Saint Cyrila cut through Darger’s belt as if it were made of paper.

Diving and soaring with a life of her own, the blade moved up and down and up again. Humming to herself, Pepsicolova proceeded to cut away first Darger’s trousers and then his shirt. Darger had a great deal to say during the process, but she didn’t bother listening to any of it. When he was completely naked, she kicked off her shoes, shucked her trousers, and climbed atop his prone body.

By now Darger was clearly convinced she was crazy. Which, Pepsicolova had to admit, was entirely possible. Eyes wide with fear, he babbled, “My dear young lady! This is certainly neither the time nor the place for such actions. You mustn’t… mustn’t…”

But Pepsicolova bent low over Darger and, tapped the flat of Saint Cyrila’s blade warningly against his lips. “Shhhhhh,” she whispered. Then she spat out a tooth and grinned.

“Giddy up.” She dug her heels into his sides. Savoring Darger’s protests, Pepsicolova rode him like a stallion. This day just kept getting better and better.

Yevgeny and his crew were engaged in blasting down burning houses in order to create a fire break to limit the spread of the conflagration.

“Awaiting your order, sir,” the sergeant said. “Fire,” Yevgeny said miserably. “Fire!” the sergeant barked.

The gun fired.

Thus did his men (and, temporarily, his women) show their displeasure with his indecision earlier. Everything was being done strictly by the book. There was no slack, no swagger, no camaraderie, none of the easy give-and-take natural to a well-run crew. Only a stiff adherence to the minutest detail of military protocol.

“Shall we load and fire again, sir?” The sergeant stood as straight as a ramrod, eyes unblinking and unforgiving.

“What is your advice, Sergeant?”

“Sir! No advice, sir!”

“Then we shall move the piece down the street to demolish the next house.”

There was the slightest pause. Enough to let Yevgeny know that he had guessed wrong-that he should have put another round into the smoking rubble or else moved the gun in the other direction-before the sergeant said, “Sir! Yes, sir!”

It was all Yevgeny could do to keep from weeping with humiliation.

Then, breaking with the script, one of the men shouted and pointed up into the sky. Turning, Yevgeny saw the most amazing sight of his entire life: a naked giant looming over the buildings before him. The unsteady light from the flames below reflected off its skin, making it shimmer. For the briefest instant he wondered if he were experiencing a mystic vision of one of the demons from the Pit.

The giant shifted against the stars. Moving slowly, it turned onto Teatralny proezd. It was coming straight toward Yevgeny’s gun crew.

A horse reared in terror. Several of the soldiers looked like they were ready to run. One of them had actually thrown down the swab he was holding and was about to bolt.

“Stay at your posts, damn you!” Yevgeny shouted, grabbing the panicky soldier and flinging him back toward the cannon. He drew his sword. “I’ll kill the first mother-violating one of you who breaks and runs. Sergeant, are you in control of your men or not? Get that gun swung around. Give me an elevation. Are you all hares and hyenas? Stand and fight like the Russians you pretend to be!”

“Sir,” the sergeant said, “there’s not the time for a precise-” “Do it by eye, then.” The gun was aimed and its elevation adjusted. “On your command, sir.”

“Let it get closer. We’ve only the time for the one shot.” “Now, sir?” “Not yet.” “We’ve got a good shot, sir.” “Just a little…” Yevgeny murmured.

“He’s getting pretty fucking close, sir.”

“Not until my command,”Yevgeny said. He waited until the last possible instant and then forced himself to count silently to three. “Fire!”

They fired.

The Duke of Muscovy’s great heart was hammering so hard it was about to burst. He had no illusions on that front. His body had been designed for a prone and sedentary existence. He could not long survive standing up and walking about like one of his own minuscule subjects. Already his mighty bones had sustained hundreds of small fractures from the stresses of his stroll through the city. His internal organs, crushed by forces they were never meant to withstand, were failing. In just a few seconds his heart would stop.

He had realized that all this would happen even as he had struggled to awaken, for the duke’s tremendous brain was capable of miracles of extrapolation. Further, having lived only a shadowy half-existence erenow, the dreads and fears natural to a man knowing he was about to die did not rise up within him. Quite the opposite. For the first time, he found himself capable of feeling full human emotion, and he had given himself over to the experience.

It had been, as he had known it would be, a brief life but a joyous one.

Down on the street below, the duke saw an artillery crew swarming about their piece. They were as cunningly detailed as the very best of toy soldiers and he loved them as fully and uncritically as a little boy would have. There were tiny plumes on their shakos and all-but-invisible brass buttons on their jackets. They were tamping down powder and ball while their commander gestured with a sword that was the merest glint of reflected moonlight.