Michael Flynn - On the Razor’s Edge

Gidula wore black, of course, accented with white trim and bearing the comet on breast and back. A round brimless cap sporting feathers of the black swan graced his head. On his hands, elbow-length leather gloves in dark gray; on his feet, matching felt shoes with black ankle stripes.

His magpies were variously accoutered. The most junior wore white, sleeveless surplices atop larch-green hose. Their comet badges were set in black squares on breast and back. Senior magpies wore black shenmats with Gidula’s mark patterned throughout in white. Donovan was surprised to note a full Shadow, who wore a blue shenmat adorned with daffodils and sporting Gidula’s comet on a brassard. Donovan guessed him the captain of Gidula’s ship. He had his own cloud of magpies—likely the bridge and engine crew—and these bore bouquets of daffodils stuck jauntily in wedge-shaped caps.

Donovan found himself outfitted in Geshler Padaborn’s colors by aggressively servile valets. A blouse of sky-blue with puffed and slit sleeves over tubular trousers of forest-green, topped with a white snap-brimmed hat called a fedora, which he was told meant “faith of gold” in the ancient Murkan tongue. A half dozen of Gidula’s magpies had been brevetted in Padaborn’s colors to provide him with an appropriate entourage. The large and dolorous Five looked especially incongruous in such gay garb, but he wore it with genuine pride.

“It is to me honor,” he told Donovan amidst the bustle. A single tear made its way through the bristles of Five’s cheek. Succumbing to an impulse whose origin he did not know, Donovan touched his forefinger to the tear and crossed his heart with it. “I think I will call you ‘Pyati,’” he said. At that, his physical therapist broke down entirely and the other five magpies clamored to touch Pyati as well.

Donovan looked to see if Gidula had noticed the interplay, and of course he had. But the Old One’s face had never revealed very much, and did not do so now.

Servants from across the river joined those from the ship and began to play on panpipes and tambourines, dancing in curious jerky steps as they did, swaying their upper bodies. The music never settled into anything Donovan thought tuneful, though it seemed always on the verge of doing so. The servants wore motley with comets on their sleeves. They hoisted banner poles with flags for Gidula, Geshler Padaborn, and Khembold Darling, the other Shadow.

Then the Shadows mounted peculiar one-man autogyros called siggies that raised them up above head level. These vehicles were controlled by motions of the knees and feet, and by body balance. Some of the senior magpies had similar, though less lofty, vehicles. Everyone else walked.

Or danced.

It was a peculiar assembly that exited the hangars under the cliffs of Mount Lefn: half procession, half parade, half dance, arranged in no particular order, save that the magpies always contrived to place Gidula foremost behind the musicians and Geshler and Khembold right behind him. Pyati pressed some metal tokens into Donovan’s hands before they exited.

Outside, a modest crowd greeted them with cheers and waves. Many wept. Some wagged little hand-flags of the three Shadows, as well as that of a fourth. Donovan heard cries of “Welcome back, Lord Gidula!” Gidula, for his part, smiled, raised his gloved hand in greeting, and tossed tokens to the crowd. These were eagerly snatched in the air, scrabbled for on the ground. None of it seemed orchestrated, all of it seemed sincere; and yet at the same time it all seemed very much routine.

“Silky,” whispered Donovan. “What was that business with Pyati’s tear?”

That was not I, said the Silky Voice.

I did it, said the young man in the chlamys. Our Pedant found some old memories of Shadow culture, and … It seemed the right thing to do. With that one sentimental gesture, we captured his loyalty. And probably that of our other magpies, as well.

“Crap,” said the Fudir.

Yah, said the Sleuth. If we are starting to remember stuff like that …

… then we probably are Geshler Padaborn.

Following Khembold’s lead, the scarred man joined in the token tossing. At first he worried that flinging his arm would throw him off balance, perhaps topple him from his high perch on the siggy he rode. But the gyros easily compensated for his motions and the Brute quickly learned to master its controls.

“Padaborn!” shouted a woman in the crowd, and when Donovan looked her way she opened her blouse for him. The Fudir leered, but the Silky Voice turned it to a polite smile and a wave.

“I could get used to this,” said the Fudir.

“So,” Donovan mused, “this is how Shadows comport themselves at home.”

The other side of the plaza funneled onto an ancient iron bridge across the River Tware. It was a cantilever bridge, the Pedant noted, but fashioned to resemble a suspension bridge for some long-forgotten reason. There was a plaque beside the entrance reading: She still stands! in the ancient Murkanglais and attributed to one Mayor Donna Sanjezz, otherwise unknown to history. As each member of the procession stepped on the bridge, he paused and touched the first right-hand suspender—a steel beam that had been polished smooth by the custom. Parts of the bridge had been quite evidently repaired or replaced over the centuries, and Donovan wondered sardonically whether any part of the original relic really did still stand.

The structure was unimpeachably ancient, and even the newer parts were old. It very likely dated from Commonwealth times, if not earlier. The piers were built of granite blocks, black with age. Plast-seal protected metal and stone from the elements, and the stresses were likely relieved by strategically placed gravity grids.

A juggler came up beside Donovan, entertaining the people lining the bridge. When Donovan tossed a token at the crowd, the juggler nimbly snatched it from the air and added it to the balls he kept cycling, to the applause of everyone, including Donovan himself.

“Nimbly done!” Pyati called up to him.

“I’m glad someone here knows what he’s doing,” Donovan answered.

“Oh ho!” said Pyati with a nod toward the right bank of the river. “A pasdarm!”

From the second pylon a deep-purple banner unrolled above the bridge deck. It bore a single teardrop in its charge. Beyond, on a grassy sward on the western bank, a pavilion had been erected and pennons flapped from its poles. The pennons bore a rose in a tan field with a comet in the canton. A Shadow in a black-and-tan shenmat stood akimbo at the far edge of the bridge.

“Eglay Portion,” Pyati told Donovan. “Who is for Gidula the seneschal. He runs the headquarters, like Khembold runs the ship.”

“And he stands in our way because…?”

Pyati shrugged. “That is depending on ground rules. Our earwigs will catch the narrowcast when closer.”

But another of Geshler’s magpies had trotted ahead and returned now excited. “Eglay will fight man-to-man with each of due rank—Shadows or senior magpies—until someone has defeated him. First fall. No bones or blood. Until then, none may exit the bridge.”

Pyati smiled. “May magpie fight magpie?”

“No side bouts. And Gidula doesn’t fight.”

“What! Is he then the Lady of Secret Isle?” The other magpies guffawed broadly. But Donovan already saw Gidula leading his paraperceptic office manager toward a pair of thrones mounted to the side of the bridge.

“Two is the Queen,” he told the others from his vantage point. “And the whole of her court, beside.”

Pyati looked at him for a moment before sputtering into laughter. Seventeen had a servant run back to the baggage train and dig into the wardrobe, returning with a coat of tears: the purple shenmat. “Here ya go, Geshler,” Seventeen said, holding it out. “Best ya not fight in them puffy sleeves. Too much for an edge to catch on.”