Richard Kadrey - The Grand Dark

It was winter and his breath steamed in the damp air. Largo ran to find Heinrich, who, he knew, would be by the stables, where the children often played. When he arrived, Largo found Heinrich surrounded by a gang of older boys from the Green. Largo crouched behind one of the stable doors so they wouldn’t see him, and was frozen there as the scene reminded him of the same one his father had endured. One of the gang demanded that Heinrich give them his heavy winter coat, and after some shoving and punching, he did it. Once they had the coat, he tried to run, but one of the boys hit him with a chain. He continued to beat Heinrich as the other boys kicked and hit him with pipes they’d hidden under their clothes. Once the gang had run off—and only then—had Largo crept from the stable to his friend’s side.

Heinrich lay in a pool of sticky blood. There was a crack in his forehead where part of his skull had caved in. Largo shook him and, stupidly, yelled his name. Across the road from the stables was a stand of withered trees, and the gang that had beaten Heinrich had been there, well within earshot. They came racing out, heading straight for him. Though Largo was small, he’d always been a fast runner. He darted away from the stables into Haxan Green’s back alleys and side roads. The boys chased him for what seemed like hours, but Largo kept ahead of them, ducking through basements, out through coal chutes, and doubling back on himself through the complex web of streets.

The sun had been going down when he finally managed to get home. Luckily, his mother hadn’t returned from the market yet. One of Largo’s chores in the evening was to start a fire in the old cast-iron oven so that she could cook them whatever she’d stolen that day. Instead, Largo hid in his room scouring Heinrich’s blood off his hands in a washbasin. After that, he didn’t fight when his mother told him to stay inside. He instead spent his time with old maps of Lower Proszawa he found in the attic, tracing the routes he’d taken on rides with his father and learning by heart the layout of the brilliant city, formulizing his paths of escape but also dreaming of life on those other streets.

After lunch, Herr Branca didn’t question him about the delivery in Kromium. He simply gave Largo another assignment right away in one of the few parts of town Largo didn’t know well—Empyrean.

It was one thing for a young man in shabby clothes to ride through Kromium without attracting too much attention. After all, that district wasn’t just for stuck-up bluenoses. It housed famous artists among the higher metals, along with scandalous bohemians within the lower alloys. Empyrean was different. Many of the best families from High Proszawa had migrated there during the early days of the war. It was a neighborhood of marble palaces, gleaming steel towers, and luxury flats in high-rises with facades of emerald and vermilion bricks imported from halfway around the world. At night they glowed brighter than the moon, and the people inside shone down on the rest of the city even brighter.

It was to one of those glowing buildings that Largo brought his last delivery of the day. At first, the uniformed doorman didn’t want to let him into the building and even tried to take the package away from him. When Largo wouldn’t let him, he threatened to call the police.

“Please don’t do that,” said Largo reflexively.

The doorman continued to stare at him. “Let me see your identity papers,” he said.

Largo took them out and reluctantly handed them to the man. He hated himself for doing it, but this was Empyrean, not Haxan Green. I can’t just bluff my way through this. If the police came, he knew that it would be a scandal for the company. He might get demoted for it, or even fired.

The doorman made a great show of studying Largo’s face and comparing it to the photochrome on his papers. Eventually the doorman said, “I’ll need to speak to your superior to allow you into the building.”

Feeling deflated, Largo grudgingly gave him Herr Branca’s caller number at the courier company. The doorman went into the lobby and picked up a gold-and-sky-blue enameled Trefle. It looked a little like a candlestick with a mouthpiece at the top. Twin listening pieces were attached to the base with thick green wire. It took him a full minute to get an operator to put the call through, and then it took several minutes more for Herr Branca to convince him that the “cheeky scarecrow” with a box under his arm was a legitimate courier. Finally, the doorman relented and let Largo inside.

“Go up to floor fifteen and come right back down again,” said the doorman. “I’ll be timing you. Take too long and no voice on a Trefle will save you from the bullocks.”

Largo wanted to say a lot of things to the doorman, but he knew that the call already guaranteed him a dressing-down by Branca, so there was nothing he could do about the officious prick at the door, the bullocks—any of it.

The lift he rode up in was larger than his flat, and with its crystal chandelier, golden fixtures, and pearl floor buttons, more opulent than most of even the well-off homes he often delivered to.

On the fifteenth floor he knocked on the door, hoping desperately that whoever opened it wouldn’t be as chatty as the gray-haired man or Frau Heller.

Largo got what he wished for.

When the door opened, he took out his receipt book, hoping to get business over with quickly with a servant. What greeted him instead was an elegant Mara. It was almost as tall as he was and decorated with silver and bright gems, by far the most spectacular Mara he’d ever seen. “May I help you?” it said.

The voice startled Largo. When most Maras spoke, the sound was small and tinny, but this Mara’s speech was soft and melodious. He pressed the parcel and receipt book forward.

“Delivery,” he said.

The Mara bent slightly, its eye lenses adjusting to take in Largo and what he carried. After only a few seconds’ hesitation, the Mara took the box and set it down gracefully on a nearby table. Yellowsheet scandal tabloids were piled high there and a few had fallen to the floor. A week’s worth of papers, at least. From another room, Largo heard laughter and music swelling from an amplified gramophone. The residents of the flat were having a party. He looked back at the pile of yellowsheets.

Has it really been going on for a week? Is that even possible?

As his pondered this, the Mara came back and held out its hands for the receipt book. He handed it to the machine without looking at its face. That was the most disturbing thing about the situation. The owners had placed a steel-and-leather mask on the Mara’s head, the kind worn by Iron Dandies. Largo didn’t think he could loathe Maras more, yet here he was staring at this monstrosity. He wondered how the owners had obtained the mask and what had happened to the Dandy who’d lost it. He thought of Rainer and wanted to snatch the mask off the automaton but knew that it would guarantee a beating from the police when the doorman called them. In the end, he took back his book and the Mara slammed the door in his face.

While waiting for the lift, Largo saw something he’d missed on his way up. Set into the wall was a large fish tank holding a colorful variety of chimeras—custom-made mutant creatures favored as work animals by the municipal services and pets by the well-heeled of Lower Proszawa.

Speckled black-and-white eels covered with long spines wriggled among a school of transparent bat-like fish. A pink lizard thing pulled itself across the bottom of the tank with bright red tentacles. Largo tapped the glass lightly with a fingernail. Ever since childhood, when a pack of wild hound-like chimeras had terrorized Haxan Green, he’d been fascinated by the strange creatures.