Daniel Polansky - Low Town

Thank the Oathkeeper for what blessings he provides.

I felt it coming and stepped into the stairwell, my stomach clenching in terror. The thing congealed from the wall behind her, and she gave me one last look, her eyes mournful and condemning.

Not everything needs to be chronicled. Suffice to say after that things got pretty terrible.

I was sitting on the top of one of Kid Mac’s houses a few days later, a block or so from the Aerie, watching Rigus mourn the Blue Crane. His body, carefully preserved and dressed in his finest robes-the kind I had never once seen him wear-lay on a golden pedestal atop a small stage. Seated on the podium were the cream of the city’s business and aristocratic elite, a few dozen nobles the Master couldn’t have picked out of a lineup. The stage was surrounded with security, not the hoax either-military men with halberds at the ready, scanning the crowd for any signs of disturbance. Around this core virtually the entirety of Low Town had come to pay their final respects.

It was still bitterly cold, but it hadn’t snowed since that last night. What remained had turned to the unattractive mixture of sleet, dirt, and shit that characterizes a city snowdrift. Mac and I passed a joint back and forth, adding graphite-colored smoke to the already gray sky. This last batch of dreamvine had been particularly dull-if things didn’t improve I’d start looking for another wholesaler.

The Patriarch was praising the virtues of the deceased on the platform below-at least that was what I assumed was happening. My hearing hadn’t fully recovered, and between that and the low murmur of the crowd I was having difficulty making out the speech. Mac didn’t seem impressed. I doubted I was missing much of substance.

“You knew him, right?” Mac asked. Behind us a couple of his whores were smoking cigarettes and sobbing quietly, happy for the opportunity to indulge their innate sense of melodrama.

“Yeah.”

“What was he like?”

“He was fairly tall,” I said.

Yancey was down there somewhere, surrounded by the sweaty assemblage that had filtered in for the ceremony. I called him back from hiding after it was all over. He said we were square, but I didn’t think he meant it. Regardless, he had been right about what he said that day on the roof-it would be a long time before I’d be invited back for lunch at Ma Dukes’s.

In retrospect I didn’t think the Blade would have gone so far as to hurt him. I had misread Beaconfield. I had misread a lot of people. The Old Man cleaned up the mess, and if he knew I’d gotten the wrong man he didn’t care, filing it away to use against me should the situation warrant. As far as he was concerned, the whole thing had wrapped up neatly enough. The murders in Low Town stopped and a famed but irrelevant member of the peerage had an unfortunate accident with his furnace. The Duke of Beaconfield was the last of his line, and in contrast to the glittering soiree only a few days prior, his funeral was sparsely attended. For all his celebrity he was not well loved, and outside of his creditors few mourned his loss.

Wren lounged against the railing. If it had been up to him, he’d be down there with the rest of the city, but ever since his return Adeline had been wary about leaving him unattended. If he remembered anything about being taken, or his time spent under Brightfellow’s spell, he never mentioned it to me. He was a tough little runt. He’d be all right.

I wasn’t so sure about Low Town. There had been talk of turning the Aerie into a free clinic, but we’d see how that went. The Crane had no family, and with Celia gone there was no one left to look after his estate. It was hard to imagine the government would dispose of his property in a fashion advantageous to the general population. Either way, Low Town would miss its protector.

As far as the wards went-we’d have to wait till summer to see what would happen. Not every year had brought the plague, and the city’s medical care and sanitation had improved since the epidemic that had orphaned me.

But some nights the dreamvine wasn’t enough and I’d wake up screaming in a sweat, thinking about the carts they’d sent to collect the dead, one-man traps piled high with rotting flesh. Nights like that, I’d nip a bottle of whiskey from the cupboard, sit by the fire, and drink until I couldn’t remember why I started. There wasn’t much else to do.

“I’m gonna head back,” I said. Mac nodded and turned to watch the proceedings. Wren looked up as I passed. “If I let you out of my sight, do you promise not to get killed?”

He laughed and sprinted downstairs. He’d be all right. Later, when I thought he was old enough, I’d get him the training his talents required. But not at the academy-he’d never have some government worm whispering counsel into his ear. There were still practitioners out there unaffiliated with the Crown, I’d find one.

The walk back seemed longer than usual, and not just because my boots were soaked through with slush. There wouldn’t be much call for me to come back to the Aerie, not anymore. My days of navigating that stone labyrinth were over. It would have been better for everyone if they hadn’t started up again.

The Earl was slow when I came in, Adeline preparing for the dinner rush and Adolphus leaning against the bar, roots going down through the cellar, a tired smile on his face. He waved at me and I waved back. Neither of us said anything.

I took a seat at a back table, and Adolphus came over with a pint of stout. I waited for the bar to fill up, pulling from my drink until it was gone. It didn’t help much, but I called for another one anyway.

Daniel Polansky was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He holds a B.A. in philosophy from Dickinson College. Low Town is his first novel.