Peter Higgins - Truth and Fear

The five remaining officers were staring at him. None of them moved. None of them spoke. They were waiting to see what he would do. He swept all Strughkov’s plans and charts to the floor, went over to the wall, tore down the large-scale map of the city and spread it out on the table.

‘You need to start again, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘From the beginning. Battles are won by killing the enemy. Anyone with a gun is a soldier. And we will not surrender Mirgorod to the enemy.’

‘But—’ a major of cavalry began.

‘Yes?’ said Rizhin mildly.

‘The Archipelago is only fifty miles away. We can hear their guns.’

‘You need to understand something, my friends,’ said Rizhin. ‘We are at war. War is not a conflict between soldiers, it is a conflict between ideas. Conflict is not an accident or an aberration, conflict is essential and fundamental. War is not a sign of failure but of success. The Vlast is conflict. The Vlast is war. War is the engine, the locomotive of history. There can be compromise and armistice between armies, but not between truths. In the realm of ideas there is only win or lose, existence or annihilation.’ He paused. ‘Here is the essential point. Live by it and die by it. Mirgorod must be saved. Not the soldiers, not the people, the city . The death of citizens and soldiers does not matter. The loss of the city does. The city is a symbol. Tell me, what is this city of ours? The people? No. The buildings? No. Mirgorod is an idea . It is a thing the enemy does not have. The idea is to prevent them from winning. We must have a victory. The fact of victory is all that matters.’

‘But the government is leaving,’ the major said. ‘Commander Chazia has already given the order to evacuate.’

Rizhin waved his hand dismissively.

‘Let her go. Mirgorod is mine. I intend to keep it.’

Back in his office Rizhin picked up the telephone. Dialled a long number. Transcontinental.

‘Get me Khyrbysk,’ he said when it was answered. ‘Professor Yakov Khyrbysk. Now.’

Bez Nichevoi stood in the centre of the empty office of Assistant Commander of Police Iliodor Voroushin. The items he needed were there, the room was in order. But he didn’t move. He was breathing. Listening. Opening himself to the place around him. Paying attention. A hunter’s attention. The trace of recent violent death brushed against him, exciting, prickling across his skin, making his jaw tense, his hungry belly stir. And there was something else. Dark animal pheromones on the air.

The scent of wolf.

There was a cardboard box on the table and a file of papers. Shaumian . He read the file quickly then turned to the box. Opened the lid and sorted through the things inside. Personal items from the Shaumian apartment. It was poor stuff: thin and much-worn undergarments, torn stockings and flimsy shoes marked with dried blood. Knotted balls of twigs and wax and animal bones that stank of the forest. They turned his stomach when he sniffed at them. It was enough. He fingered them idly for a moment or two, then put them back in the box, went across to the window, opened it and climbed out onto the sill.

He was only six floors above ground level: above him the huge flank of the Lodka rose into the night, spilling tiny splashes of lamplight from the occasional window where some official was working late. And below him was the slow breadth of the River Mir. The edges of the river were shut away under a crust of ice, but in the centre an open current still flowed darkly. Even above the stench of the city burning, the water smelled cold and earthy, like the mouth of a deep well. Bez heard the mutter and slap of little wavelets against the ice. He turned away from the river in disgust and scuttered rapidly up the outside of the building, climbing with wild easy leaps and swings until he reached the snow-covered roofs.

This was his world, a wide lonely landscape of ridges and slopes, slates and lead. Seen from up among the rooftops, it was obvious that the Lodka was many buildings jammed together and twisted. Where they collided, buildings rose out of buildings, extruding new turrets and towers, oriels, gables, corbels, parapets, catwalks, cornices and flagpoles; and where they pulled apart flagstoned quadrangles and courtyards stretched out, and ravines and canyons split open. Windows looked out across the Lodka’s roofworld, but the rooms to which the windows belonged could not be reached from inside at all. No staircases climbed to them. No doorways opened into them. The rooms had been built, then closed up and left. Bez knew this, because he had entered them all.

The tallest turret on the roof did have an iron staircase spiralling up inside it, though it wasn’t climbed any more. The observatory, a cupola of latticed iron and glass, still held the Brodsky telescope, built to watch the sky for dying angels. Occupied nightly for three centuries, abandoned a human lifetime ago. Bez climbed lazily onto the top of the rusting, snow-dusted dome and sat cross-legged to savour the night. He took off his shirt. The dark chill air fingered his ribs and his back. Kissed his small belly. He closed his eyes and held his arms wide, loosening the drapes of chalk-white skin that hung from forearm to waist, letting them hang relaxed and easy, windless sails unfurled, absorbing the cool of nightside.

Far below him lay the city by night. It was a good night. One of the best. A lid of thick low cloud shut out the moons and the stars and closed in the scent of fallen snow. The street lamps were extinguished. Fires started by the bombing raid still smouldered: the air was freighted with their fragrance. Reddening coals. Broken houses and apartment buildings spilled their intimate human smells. Under heaps of rubble unfound corpses were ripening.

The older city was wide awake. Doors that were often closed stood open: small, unnoticed doors. The things in the tunnels were moving and some of them were coming out. The wide cold waters of the Mir were alert and watchful. The rusalkas swam restlessly, nosing along the canals beneath the ice and sometimes breaking through. Hauling up onto river mudbanks and the ledges under bridges. Bez Nichevoi could hear their uneasy cries. There were quarters of Mirgorod that would be dangerous for Vlast patrols that night. Dangerous even for him.

Bez considered his choices. The last report of the Shaumian woman placed her north and east, in the Raion Lezaryet. But then there was wolf. Wolf had been in Iliodor’s office and killed someone there. Iliodor? Bez thought probably yes. And wolf had lingered. Read the papers. Sifted through the box. Wolf knew. Wolf interested him. Wolf would be a good kill. Bez held that thought for a moment. Considered it. Tested the air, the night and the city. Yes, he thought, yes. Wolf had left the Lodka and wolf had gone north. North and then west.

The choice was woman or wolf. And wolf was an enemy and wolf would be good killing. So. There was plenty of time. Connect purpose with desire. First, let it be wolf.

He bent to pick up his shirt, tied it round his waist and slipped from the roof of the observatory cupola, spreading his moth-pale wingfolds, letting the cold night air take him in a long and dream-slow fall across the river. One time in three he could land on his feet, but not this time. He stumbled when he hit the cobbles, fell and rolled lightly in the snow, picked himself up and began to run north, following wolf spoor.

Wolf was easy hunting. There was a strong taint of wolf threading north, a clear track easy to follow. Bez loped after him. Mostly, wolf had kept to the streets and alleyways. Bez found places where he had lingered. Quiet places where he had rested, perhaps. Not hurrying. The wolfpath took him away from familiar territories, the avenues and parks and prospects, and out into the shabbier quarters, deep into the cramped tenements and estaminets of Marosch and the Estergam. Following wolf, he passed along twisting streets, so narrow the opposing buildings almost touched, and crossed nameless insignificant canals by iron walkways. Always wolf headed north. Bez had expected the track to turn eastward at some point and head for the raion but it did not.