Asimov'sSF,December2006

LORD WEARY'S EMPIRE

by Michael Swanwick

Michael Swanwick assures us that he would update his biographical information for the following story if it were it not for the fact that my frequent requests for this data have reduced him in size to two and a quarter inches. He says he is being held captive in a terrarium on the desk of Gregor Samsa in a demented research institution. (Of course, this obviously isn't true, since if it were, we'd have to look for Robert Reed with a microscope.) Much as we may sympathize with Michael's plight, this predicament has nothing to do with his latest story. Consequently, Will, a continuing character from “The Word that Sings the Scythe” (Asimov's, October/ November 2004), must explore, without preamble, the treacherous subterranean reaches of...

Like a leaf before a storm, Will fled. The basement corridors of Babel careened and reeled nightmarishly by and still he could not lose his pursuers. Three times the lancers had a clear line of sight and fired, each shot a blow to Will's ringing ears. But then, just beyond a row of overflowing garbage cans, Will saw a steel access door, chained shut but slightly ajar in its frame. He stooped and, grabbing the lower edge of the door, yanked with all his might.

A bullet burned through the air over his head.

The door lurched open, wrenched out of true.

Frantically, Will squeezed through the triangular space and tumbled down a short flight of metal steps. As he stumbled to his feet, he heard the lancers, too large to squeeze through themselves, trying to break down the door.

Blindly, he ran.

Rats scurried away at his approach. Roaches crunched underfoot. He was in a great dark space punctuated by massive I-beams and lit only by infrequent bare bulbs whose light struggled to reach the floor. Somehow, he had made his way into the network of train tunnels that spiraled up through Babel Tower.

Careful to avoid the third rail, Will followed one curving set of tracks into darkness, listening for approaching trains. Sometimes he heard their thunder in the distance, and once a train slammed past, mere inches from where he pressed himself, shivering, against the wall, and left him temporarily blinded. When he could see again, the tunnels were silent. He had lost his pursuers. He was safe now.

And hopelessly lost.

He'd been plodding along for some time when he saw a sewer worker—a haint—in the tunnel ahead, in hip waders and hard hat. “What you doing here, white boy?” the haint asked when Will hailed him.

"Well, you best get yourself unlost. They's trouble brewing."

"I can't,” Will began. “I don't know—"

"It's your ass,” the haint said. He faded through a wall and was gone.

Will spat in frustration. Then he walked on.

He knew that he'd wandered into dangerous territory when his left hand suddenly rose up of its own volition to clutch his right forearm. Stop! he thought to himself. Adrenaline raced through his veins.

Will peered into the claustrophobic blackness and saw nothing. A distant electric bulb cast only the slightest glimmer on the rails. The support beams here were as thick as trees in a midnight forest. He could not make out how far they extended. But by the spacious feel of the air, he was in a place where several lines of tracks joined and for a time ran together.

Far behind him was a lone set of signal lights, unvarying green and red dots.

He was abruptly aware of how easy it would be for somebody to sneak up behind him here. Maybe, he thought, he should turn around and go back.

In that instant, an unseen fist punched him hard in the stomach.

Will bent over almost double, and simultaneously his arms were seized from either side. His captors shoved him forward and forced him down onto his knees. His head was bent almost to the ground.

"Release him.” The voice was warm and calm, that of a leader.

The hands let go. Will remained kneeling. Gasping, he straightened and looked about.

He was surrounded.

They—whoever they were—had come up around him in silence. Will's sense of hearing was acute, but even now he couldn't place them by sound. Rather, he felt the pressure of their collective gaze, and saw their eyes, pair by pair, wink into existence.

"Boy, you're in serious trouble now,” the voice said, almost mournfully.

For an instant, Will could not speak. But then the speaker's eyes glowed red. “Well? Bast got your tongue? I'm giving you the opportunity to explain why you have invaded the Army of Night's turf. You won't get a second."

Will fought down his fear. There was great danger here, but great opportunity as well—if he had the nerve to grasp it. Speaking with a boldness he did not feel, he said, “This is your territory. I recognize that. It wasn't my intention to trespass. But now that I'm here, I hope you'll allow me to stay."

Calmly, dangerously, the speaker said, “Oh?"

"I'm broke, paperless, and without friends. I'm being pursued and I need someplace to be. This looks as good as any. Let me join your army and I'll serve you well."

"Who's chasing you?"

Will thought of the lancers, of the customs agents before them, and of the political police even earlier, and made a wry grimace. “Who isn't?"

"He kinda cute, Lord Weary,” said somebody female. “If he can't fight, maybe we find some other use for him.” Several of her comrades snickered.

A third voice said, “Shut the fuck up, Jenny! The Breaknecks sent him here to spy on us. He dies. Simple as that."

"That's not your decision, Tatterwag,” Lord Weary said sharply.

"Siktir git!” Tatterwag swore. “We know what he is!"

"Are we savages? No, we are a community of brothers. Whatever is done here will be done in accordance with our laws.” There was a long pause, during which Will imagined Lord Weary looking from side to side to see if any dared oppose him. When no one did, he went on, “You brought this upon yourself."

Will didn't ask what Lord Weary meant by that. He recognized a gang when he encountered one—he'd run with enough of them as a boy. There was always a leader, always the bright kid who stood at his shoulder advising him, always the troublemaker who wanted to usurp the leader's place. They always had laws, which were never written down. Their idea of justice was inevitably the lex talionis, an eye for an eye and a drubbing for an insult. They always settled their differences with a fight.

"Trial by combat,” Lord Weary said.

Somebody lit a match. With a soft hiss, a Coleman lantern shed fierce white light over the thronged I-beams, making them leap and then fall as the flame was adjusted down again to near-extinction.

"You may stand now."

A ragged line of some twenty to thirty feys confronted him. They were of varied types and races, tall and short, male and female, but all looked beaten and angry, like feral dogs that know they can never triumph over the village-dwellers but will savage one who is caught alone and without weapons. The lantern shone through several, but dimly, as if through smoked glass, and by this Will knew that they were haints.

Directly before Will stood a tall figure whose air of command made clear that he could only be Lord Weary. He had the pallor, high cheekbones, and almost lanceolate ears of one of high-elven blood, and the noble bearing of a born leader as well. Will could not pick out the owners of the other two voices.

But then a swamp gaunt rushed out of the pack and, pointing a skinny arm at Will, cried, “He's one of the Breakneck Boys! I say we kill him now. Just kill him!"

So he had to be Tatterwag.

Will strode forward, throwing a hard shoulder into the gaunt to knock him aside. “Kill me if you think it possible,” he said to Lord Weary. “But I don't think you can. If you doubt me, then name your champion. Make him the biggest, strongest mother you've got, so there won't be any doubt afterward that I could defeat any one of you if I had to. I do not brag. Then, if you'll take me, I will gladly pledge my loyalty and put my powers at your service."

"That was well spoken,” Lord Weary said mildly. “But talk is cheap and times are hard.” Raising his voice, he said, “Who shall be our champion?"

"Bonecrusher,” somebody said.

There was susurration of agreement. “Bonecrusher ... ‘Crusher ... The big fella ... Yeah, Bonecrusher."

The figure that shambled forward was covered with fur, wore no clothing, and carried a length of metal pipe for a club. It was a wodewose—a wild man of the forest.

Will had seen wild men before, out in the Old Forest. In some ways, they were little more than animals, though articulate enough for simple conversations and too cunning to be safely hunted. They were stuck forever in the dawn-times, unable to cope with any way of life more sophisticated than a hunter-gatherer existence nor any tool more complex than a pointed stick. Machines they feared, and they would not sleep in houses, though occasionally an injured one might take shelter in a barn. He could not imagine what twisty path had brought this one so far from his natural habitat.

The wodewose's mouth worked with the effort of summoning up words. “Fuck you,” he said at last. Then, after a pause, “Asshole."

Will bowed. “I accept your challenge, sir. I'll try my best to do you no permanent harm."

A mean grin appeared in the wild man's unkempt beard. “You're bugfuck,” he said, and then, “Shithead."

This was another thing that every gang Will had ever been in had: Somebody big and stupid who lived to fight.

Lord Weary faded back into darkness and returned bearing a length of pipe, much like the one the wodewose carried. He handed it to Will. “There are no rules.” he said. “Except that one of you must die.” He raised his voice. “Are the combatants ready?"

"Yes,” Will said.

"Then douse the light."

All in an instant, darkness swallowed Will whole. In sudden fear he cried, “I can't see!"

There was a smile in Lord Weary's voice. “We can."

With a soft scuffle of bare feet, Bonecrusher attacked.

Though Will felt himself as good as blind, there must have been some residual fraction of light, for he saw a pale glint of pipe as it slashed downward at his head. Panicked, he brought up his own pipe just in time to block it.

The force of the blow buckled his knees.

The wodewose raised the pipe again, then chopped it down, trying for Will's shin. Will was barely able to leap back from it in time. There was a clang as the pipe bounced off the rail, striking sparks. He found himself panting, though he hadn't even struck a blow yet.

Will knew how to fight with a quarterstaff—every village lad did—but the wild man was not fighting quarterstaff-style but club-style. It was a sweeping, muscular fighting technique the like of which he had never faced before. Back the club slashed, inches from his chest. Had it connected it would have broken Will's ribs. The wild man followed through, as if he were swinging a baseball bat, and brought it smoothly back, hard and level. Will ducked low, saving his skull from being crushed.

Will swung his pipe wildly, and felt it bounce off the wodewose's ribs. But it didn't even slow the wild man down. His club came down on Will's shoulder.

Just barely, Will managed to twist aside, so that the club only dealt him a glancing, stinging blow to his arm. But that was enough to numb him for an instant and make his fingers involuntarily release their hold on one end of his weapon. Now it was held only by his left hand.

There was a murmur of admiration from the watchers, but no more. Which meant that Bonecrusher was not popular in the Army of Night, however much they might value his fighting skill.

The pain brought the dragon rising up within Will, a ravening wave of anger that threatened to wash over his mind and drown all conscious thought. He fought it down. Whirling the pipe around his head, he feinted at one shoulder. Then, when the wodewose brought up his own weapon to block it, he shifted his attack. The pipe slammed into Bonecrusher's forehead and bounced off.

Bonecrusher shook his matted dreadlocks and raised his weapon once more.

At that moment, a great noise rose up in the distance. A train! Will tucked his pipe under one arm as if it were a lance and ran full-tilt at his opponent. The pipe struck him in the chest and knocked him stumbling backward.

The train rounded a bend. Its headlight blossomed like the sun at midnight.

Will retreated to the far side of the track. He pressed himself against the nearest support beam, feeling its cold strength under his back. Across from him, Bonecrusher started forward, hesitated, and then turned away, one great hand covering his eyes.

The locomotive slammed past Will, a wash of air shoving against him like a warm fist. He had a momentary glimpse of astonished faces in the passenger car windows before he threw an arm over his eyes to shield himself from the painfully bright light.

Then the train was gone. When he opened his eyes again, he could see nothing.

Bonecrusher chuckled. “Yer blind, aintcha?” he said. “Motherfucker."

Now Will was truly afraid.

With fear came anger, however, and anger made it easier for him to draw upon the dragon-darkness within him. He felt it rising up in his blood and clamped down tight. He refused to give it control. It struggled against him, a fire running through his veins, an evil song lifting in his throat. It yearned to be let free.

He heard the whisper of Bonecrusher's naked feet on the railroad ties. He backed away.

Now an inner vision seemed to pierce the darkness. All was still shadow within shadow, but he knew that the shifting blackness directly before him was the wodewose padding quietly forward, raising his makeshift club for one final and devastating blow.

The dragon-anger was straining at its leash. So Will let slip his hold a little, allowing the anger to leap forward to meet the attack. He threw aside his own pipe and stepped into the blow. With one hand, he caught the wild man's club and wrested it from his grasp. With the other, he seized the wodewose by the throat.

Flinging away the wodewose's weapon, he stooped and grabbed his opponent by his thigh. The creature's fur was as stiff as an Airedale's, and matted with knots. Will lifted him up over his head. He tried to curse, but Will's hand clutched his throat too tightly for anything meaningful to emerge.

The bastard was helpless now. Will could swing him around and smash his head against a pillar or drop him down over his knee, breaking his spine. It would be the easiest thing in the world, either way.

Well, screw that.

"I don't have anything against you,” he told his struggling opponent. “Give me your word of surrender, and I'll set you free."

Bonecrusher made a gurgling noise.

"That's not possible,” Lord Weary said with obvious regret. “Our laws say: To the death."

Frustration filled Will. To have come so far, only to be thwarted by a childish warrior's code! Well, then, he would have to run. He doubted the Army of the Night would pursue him with much enthusiasm after seeing how easily he defeated their champion.

"If your laws say that,” Will snarled, “then they're not mine."

With a surge of anger, he flung the wodewose away from him.

"Fucking bas—!” The word cut off abruptly as the wodewose hit the ground. Electrical sparks flew into the air like fireworks. The wodewose's body arced and crisped. There was a smell of burnt hair and scorched flesh.

Somebody whistled and said, “That's cold."

Will had forgotten entirely about the third rail.

Lord Weary picked out four of his soldiers for a burial detail. “Carry Bonecrusher upstairs,” he said, “and leave him somewhere he'll be found, so that City Services will take care of the body. Be sure he's lying facing up! I don't want one of my soldiers mistaken for an animal.” Then he clapped a hand on Will's shoulder. “Well fought, boy. Welcome to the Army of Night."

When the burial detail had lugged Bonecrusher's body into oblivion, Lord Weary lined up those who remained and led them the other way. “On to Niflheim,” he said. Will joined the line and, shivering, managed to keep pace.

He'd walked for what seemed like forever and no time at all when the smell of urine and feces welled up around him so strong that it made his eyes water. Somebody lived down here. A lot of somebodies. Will found himself stumbling up a crumbling set of stairs and onto a cement platform.

A miniature city arose before him. There were perhaps a hundred or so shanties built one on top of the other from wooden crates and cardboard boxes, each one sufficient to hold a sleeping bag and little more. Wicker baskets, large enough to sleep in, hung from the ceiling. There were narrow streets between the shanties down which shadows flitted. The Army wove its way through them into a central plaza, where a cluster of haints and feys sat crouched around a portable television set, its volume turned down to a murmur. Others sat about talking quietly or reading tattered paperbacks by candlelight. High on the walls above was a frieze of tiles that showed dwarves mining and smelting and manufacturing. Deep runes in the stone arch over a cinder-blocked doorway read: NIFLHEIM STATION. By the newspapers and old clothes strewn about, it had been closed and abandoned long ago.

A hulder (Will could tell from her buxom figure and by the cow's tail sticking out from under her skirt) rose to greet them. “Lord Weary,” she said. “You are welcome here, and your army too. I see you have somebody new.” Most of those who rose in her wake were haints.

"I thank you, thane-lady Hjördis. Our recruit is so recent he hasn't chosen a name for himself yet. He is our new champion."

"Him?” Hjördis scowled. “This boy?"

"Don't be fooled by his looks, the lad's tough. He killed Bonecrusher."

Soft muttering washed over the platform. “By trickery?” somebody asked dubiously.

"In fair and open combat. I saw it all."

There was a moment's tension before the thane-lady nodded, accepting. Then Lord Weary said to her, “We must confer. Serious matters are afoot."

"First we eat,” Hjördis said. “You will sit with me at the head table."

To Will's surprise, he was included with Lord Weary in the invitation. Apparently the office of champion made him a counselor as well. He watched as tables were built in the central square, of boards set over wire milk crates, and then covered with sheets of newspaper in place of linen. A cobbley set out pads of newspaper for seats and paper plates for them to eat from. Another filled the plates with food. The thane-lady's table was set under the wall, beneath the tiled dwarves. She and her favored companions sat with their backs to the wall, so that the rows of lesser-ranked diners faced them.

The food was better than might be expected, some of it scrounged from grocery store dumpsters after passing its sell-by date and the rest of it from upstairs charities. They ate by the light of tuna-can lamps with rag wicks in rancid cooking oil, conversing quietly.

Will commented that the tunnels seemed more labyrinthine and of greater extent than he had thought they would be, and Hjördis said, “You don't know the half of it. There used to be fifteen different gas companies in Babel, six separate sets of steam tunnels, and Sirrush only can say how many subway systems, pneumatic trains, sub-surface lines, underground trolleys, and pedestrian walkways that nobody uses any more. Add to that maintenance tunnels for the power and telephone and plumbing and sewage systems, storm drains, the summer retreats that the wealthy used to have dug for them a century ago, bomb shelters, bootleggers’ vaults..."

Lord Weary shook his head in agreement. “There is no lore-master of Babel's secret ways. They are too many, and too varied.” His sea-green eyes studied Will gravely. “Now. Tell us what drove you here."

Here was another moment of danger. Will knew he must speak carefully and truthfully, or he would not survive the meal. Lord Weary's stern face convinced him of it.

He told his tale:

Long, long ago—though it could scarcely have been more than a year—a war-dragon had crashed in the Old Forest outside Will's village. His fuselage was torn and gashed and its half-elven pilot was dead. Yet he retained enough fuel to crawl into the center square of the village and declare himself its king. None of the elders dare oppose him, for he still had his armament and malice enough to touch it off if he were crossed. Yet he could barely move, and so he had chosen a lieutenant to represent him—male rather than female and young rather than old, for the village hags were far too wily for him to trust.

He had chosen Will.

Then had Will learned the terrible isolation of the collaborator. Though it was none of his choosing, he was despised by all and alienated from those who had been his friends. In the day, he walked about the village, observing. At night, he sat in the pilot's seat and long needles in the armrests slid into his wrists so that the dragon could slither into his mind and access his memories directly, seeing what he had seen and feeling what he had felt. Everybody knew of this, and so they shunned him.

He had thought that things could not get worse. He had been wrong. A rebellion arose among the younger citizens and to put it down the dragon had entered into Will's mind one evening and not left. Leaving footprints of flame behind him, he had walked through the village, terrorizing all and seizing the rebellion's ringleader.

Puck Berrysnatcher had been Will's best friend. Will had crucified him.

With a cunning and boldness he had not known he possessed, Will had finally managed to kill the dragon and by so doing free the villagers from his tyranny. But that had not changed anybody's mind about him.

"Since that time,” Will said, “I have been cast out of my village and ill-fortune has pursued me across Fäerie Minor all the way to the Dread Tower. Perhaps I have been cursed by the dragon's death.” He did not say that some fraction of the dragon remained within him yet. On that matter, silence was safest. “All I know is that from that day I have had no place to call home."

"You have a home here now, lad,” said Lord Weary. “We shall be a second family to you, if you will have us."

He laid a hand on Will's head, and a great flood of emotion washed over Will. Suddenly, and for no reason he could name, he loved the elf-lord like a father. Warm tears flowed down his cheeks.

When he could speak again, Will asked, “Why do you live down here?"

It was a meaningless question, meant simply to move the conversation to less emotional ground. But graciously, Hjördis explained that though those above dismissed the dwellers in darkness as trolls and feral dwarves, very few of them were subterranean by nature. Most of the thane-lady's folk were haints and drows, nissen, shellycoats, and broken feys—anyone lacking the money or social graces to get along in open society. They had problems with drugs and alcohol and insanity, but they looked after one another as best they could. Their own name for themselves was johatsu—"nameless wanderers."

"Are there a lot of communities like this one?"

"There are dozens,” Lord Weary said, “and possibly even hundreds. Some are as small as six or ten individuals. Others run much larger than what you see here. No one knows for sure how many live in darkness. Tatterwag speculates there are tens of thousands. But they don't communicate with each other and they won't work together and they are perforce nomadic, for periodically the transit police discover the settlements and bust them up, scattering their citizens. But the Army of Night is going to change all that. We're the first and only organized military force the johatsu have ever formed."

"How many are in the Army, all told?"

The thane-lady hid a smile under a paper napkin. Stiffly, Lord Weary said, “You've met them all. This is a new idea, and slow to catch on. But it will grow. My dream will bear fruit in the fullness of time.” His voice rose. “Look around you! These are the dispossessed of Babel—the weak, the injured, the gentle. Who speaks for them? Not the Lords of the Mayoralty. Not the Council of Magi. His Absent Majesty was their protector once, but he is long gone and no one knows where. Somebody must step forward to fill that void. I swear by the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, and the Golden Apples of the West, that if the Seven permit it, that somebody shall be me!"

The johatsu froze in their places, not speaking, barely breathing. Their eyes shone like stars.

Hjördis laid a hand over Lord Weary's. “Great matters will wait upon food,” she said. “Time enough to discuss these things after we eat."

When all had eaten and the dishes been cleared away, Hjördis lit a cigarette and passed it around the table. “Well?” she said at last.

"When last we were here,” Lord Weary said, “I left some crates in your keeping. Now we have need of them."

A shadow crossed the thane-lady's face. But she nodded. “I thought as much. So I had my folk retrieve them."

Six Niflheimers stood up, faded into darkness, and returned, lugging long wooden crates between them. The crates were laid down before the table and, at a gesture from Lord Weary, Taggerwag pried open one with his Bowie knife.

Light gleamed on rifle barrels.

Suddenly the taste of death was in the air. Cautiously, Will said, “What do we need these for?"

"There's going to be a rat hunt,” Lord Weary said.

"We're hunting rats?"

Lord Weary grinned mirthlessly. “We're not the hunters, lad. We're the rats."

The Niflheimers had been listening intently. Now they crowded around the main table. “We call them the Breakneck Boys,” one said. “They come down here once a month, on the day of the Toad or maybe the day of the Labrys, looking for some fun. They got night-goggles and protective spells like you wouldn't believe, and they carry aluminum baseball bats. Mostly, we just slip away from ‘em. But they usually manage to find somebody too old or sick or drugged-up to avoid them."

"It's a fucking hobby for them,” Tatterwag growled.

"Last time, they caught poor old Martin Pecker drunk asleep, only instead of giving him a bashing like usual, they poured gasoline over him and set it on fire."

"I saw the corpse!"

"Long have I argued against this course of action as a mad notion and a dangerous folly,” the thane-lady said. “Their sires are industrialists and Lords of the Mayoralty. If even one of their brats dies, they'll send the mosstroopers down here with dire wolves to exact revenge.” Then, with obvious reluctance, “Yet the Breaknecks’ predations worsen. I see no alternative."

"No!” Will said. He had eaten almost nothing, for his stomach was still queasy from the stench of Niflheim, and Bonecrusher's death weighed heavily upon him. If he closed his eyes, he could see the sparks rising up around the wodewose's body. He hadn't wanted to kill the creature. It had happened because he hadn't thought the situation through beforehand. Now he was thinking very hard and fast indeed. “Put the guns back."

"You're not afraid?” Lord Weary drew himself up straight, and Will felt his disapproval like a lash across his shoulders.

"I can take care of the Breaknecks,” Will said. “If you want me to, I'll take care of them myself."

There was a sudden silence.

"Yes. But to pull this off, I'll need a uniform. The gaudier the better. And war paint. The kind that glows in the dark."

Hjördis grinned. “I'll send our best shoplifters upstairs."

"And explosives. A hand grenade would be best, but—no? Well, is there any way we can get our hands on some chemicals to make a bomb?"

"There's a methamphetamine lab up near the surface,” Tatterwag said. “The creeps who run it think nobody knows it's there. They got big tanks of ethyl ether and white gasoline. Maybe even some red phosphorus."

"Do we have anybody who knows how to handle them safely?"

"Um ... there's one of us got a Ph.D. in alchemy. Only, it was back when. Up above.” Tatterwag glanced nervously at Lord Weary. “Before he came here. So I don't know whether he wants me to say his name or not."

"You have a doctorate?” Will said. “How in the world did you...” He was going to say fall so low but thought better of it. “...wind up here?"

Offhandedly, Lord Weary said, “Carelessness. Somebody offered me a drink. I liked it, so I had another. Only one hand is needed to hold a glass, so I took up smoking to give the other one something to do. I took to dueling and from there it was only a small step to gambling. I bought a fighting cock. I bought a bear. I bought a dwarf. I began to frequent tailors and whores. From champagne I moved to whisky, from whisky to wine, and from wine to Sterno. So it went until the only libation I had not yet drunk was blood, the only sex untried was squalid, and the only vice untasted was violent revolution.

"Every step downward was pleasant. Every new experience filled me with disdain for those who dared not share in it. And so, well, here I am."

"Is this a true history,” Will asked, “or a parable?"

"Your question,” Lord Weary said, “is a deeper one than you know—whether the world I sank through was real or illusory. Many a better mind than mine or yours has grappled with this very issue without result. In any event, I'll make your bomb."

It took hours to make the plan firm. But at last Hjördis rose from the table and said, “Enough. Our new champion is doubtless tired. Bonecrusher's quarters are yours now. I will show you where you sleep."

She took Will by the hand and led him to an obscure corner of the box-village. There she knelt before a kind of tent made of patched blankets hung from clotheslines. “In here.” She raised the flap and crawled inside.

To his surprise, the interior was clean. Inside, a faded Tabriz carpet laid over stacked cardboard served as floor and mattress. A vase filled with phosphorescent fungi cast a gentle light over the space. Hjördis turned and, kneeling, said, “All that was ‘Crusher's is yours now. His tent. His title...” She pulled her dress off over her head. “His duties."

Will took a deep, astonished breath. It seemed too awful to kill the wodewose and bed his lover all on the same day. Hesitatingly, he said, “We don't have to..."

The thane-lady stared at him in blank astonishment. “You're not gay, are you? Or suffering from the fisher king's disease?” She touched his crotch, “No, I can see you're not. What is it, then?"

"I just don't see how you can sleep with me after I killed your ... killed Bonecrusher."

"You don't think this is personal, do you?” Hjördis laughed. “Blondie, you're the most fucked-up champion I ever saw.” At her direction, he took off his clothes. She drew him down and guided him inside her. Then she wrapped her legs around his waist and slapped him on the rump.

"Giddy up,” she commanded.

Halfway through the night they galloped. In the morning (but he had to take Hjördis's word for it that it was morning), Will went out with two of Lord Weary's scouts to look over possible locales for the plan. Then he returned to the box city and sorted through the heaps of clothing that the Niflheimers brought him, some dug out of old stashes and some fresh-stolen for the occasion. Carefully, he assembled his costume: Biker boots. Mariachi pants. A top hat with a white scarf wrapped around the band, one end hanging free behind like a ghostly fox tail, with a handful of turkey feathers from the meat packing district splayed along the side. A marching band jacket with a white sash. All topped off with a necklace of rat skulls.

With the phosphorescent makeup, he painted two red slashes slanting downward over his eyes, a straight blue line along his nose, and a yellow triangle about his mouth to make a mocking, cartoonish grin:

/ | /

With luck, the effect would be eerie enough to give his enemies pause. More importantly, the elves would see the glowing lines on his face, the top-hat-feathers-and-scarf, and the necklace of skulls, but they wouldn't see him. Once he wiped off the makeup and ditched the uniform, he would be anonymous again. He could walk the streets above without fearing arrest.

"I'll just need just one last thing,” he said when he was done. “A motorcycle."

Two days later, the Army of Night's outposts came running up silently with news that the Breakneck Boys had entered the tunnels. Will had already scouted out the perfect place for a confrontation—a vast and vaulted space as large as a cathedral that had been constructed centuries ago as a cistern for times of siege. A far more recent water main cut through it at the upper end, but otherwise it was much as it had been the day it was drained. Now he sent out decoys to lure the Boys there, while he made up his face with phosphorescent war-paint and wheeled his stolen motorcycle into place.

Will waited alone in a niche behind a pillar at the lower end of the cistern. He'd stone-souped the johatsu by asking for first one small thing and then another, each incrementally larger than the one before, because there'd been no alternative. Had he asked for the motorcycle first, he wouldn't have gotten it. But this was as far as bluff would take him. Now he was either going to triumph or die.

For the longest time there was no noise other than the grumble of distant trains. Then, faintly, he heard drunken elven laughter. He watched as the decoys ran past his station, like two furtive shadows. The voices grew more boisterous and then suddenly boomed as the Breakneck Boys emerged from a doorway near the ceiling at the upper end of the cistern.

They began to descend a long brick stairway along the far wall.

They glimmered in the dark, did the elves, like starlight. They carried Maglites and aluminum bats. Some wore camouflage suits. Some had night goggles. They were nine in number, and uncannily young, little more than children. Their leader drained the last of his beer and threw away the can. It rattled into silence.

Will waited until they were off the stairs and had clambered over the water main and started across the cistern floor. Then he kick-started the motorcycle. It was a stripped-down Kawasaki three cylinder two-stroke, easy to handle and loud as hell. Pulling out of the niche, Will cranked the machine hard left and opened it up. The vault ceiling bouncing the engine's roar back at him, he charged at the elf-pack like a banshee with her ass on fire.

It felt great to be on a cycle again! Puck Berrysnatcher, back when he and Will were best friends, had owned a dirt bike, and they'd practiced on it, turn on turn, until they both mastered such stunts as young males thought important.

Will popped a wheelie and came to a stop not ten yards from the astonished elves.

Throttling down the engine so he could be heard, he cried, “I challenge thee by the holmgangulog, if thou hast honor! I am the captain and the rightwise defender of my folk. Present your champion that we may contest at deeds of arms."

A disbelieving look, followed by low, mean laughter passed among the elves. “So you know the politesse of challenge, Master Scarecrow,” said the foremost of them. Whatever else he might be, he was no coward. “Very well. I hight Florian of House L'Inconnu.” He bowed mockingly. “What is your name and what terms do you propose?"

"Captain Jack Riddle,” Will said, choosing the nom de guerre almost at random. “High explosives at close quarters."

The elf-brat rubbed his chin, as if amused. “Your proposal is scarce workable.” Casually, his hand crept downward between the lapels of his jacket. Doubtless he had a gun there in a shoulder harness. “For, you see, I have no explosives with me."

"Tough titty,” Will said.

With a muttered word, he detonated the bomb which earlier he had very carefully placed for maximum effect.

The water main, which was directly behind the Breaknecks, blew open.

A great wave of water struck the Breakneck Boys from behind, knocking them over and tumbling them helplessly before it. But not—and this was the crucial part of Will's plan—killing any of them.

Will, meanwhile, had spun around his bike and opened the throttle wide. He raced downslope ahead of the cascading water, cut a right so sharp he almost lost control, and was out of the cistern and roaring up a narrow electric conduit access tunnel without a single drop getting on him.

He would have liked to have seen the Breaknecks gather themselves together after the water washed them down to the bottom of the cistern. It would have been worth much to have heard their curses and witnessed their dismay as they pulled themselves up and began the long and soggy journey back aboveground. But you couldn't have everything.

Anyway, he was sure to hear of it. There was a slit-gallery, near the top of the cistern, that had been used for inspections, which was thronged with silent watchers, soldiers from the Army of Night and potential recruits from Niflheim and possibly even Hjördis herself. They'd have seen and heard everything. They'd have witnessed how he had routed their enemies without the least injury to himself. They'd want a share in his glory. They'd boast of his prowess. No longer was he merely their champion.

He was their hero now.

That evening the johatsu migrated several miles deeper into the tunnels. They moved silently and surely, and when they found their destination—an abandoned pneumatic train tube from an experimental line that went bankrupt in the Century of the Turbine—Lord Weary sent his specialists to tap into the electric and water lines. Even at this distance from the shattered main, the water pressure was lessened. But unlike the citizens above, they'd known to fill plastic bottles beforehand.

"Dockweed,” Will said. A hudkin snapped to attention. “Take a couple of likely lads and scout out a good location for latrines. Not too close to the encampment. That's unsanitary.” He caught Lord Weary looking at him, and hastily added, “If that's all right with you, sir."

Lord Weary waved a hand, endorsing everything. Then, placing an arm over Will's shoulder, so that it would be ostentatiously obvious to all that they two were conferring with perfect confidence, he murmured, “Dearer art thou to me, after your little escapade today, than meat and drink to a starving man. Stand by me and I shall raise you higher than you can imagine, so that my empire rests upon your shoulders. But if you ever again give orders in my presence without first deferring to me, I'll have you gutted and chained to the bedrock for the rats to eat alive. Do you understand?"

Will swallowed. “Sir."

"I would regret it, of course. But discipline knows no favorites.” He released Will. “Tell me something. What exactly have we accomplished today? Other than raising morale, I mean. In a day or three, the main will be rebuilt. The Breakneck Boys are still alive. By now they're probably fast asleep in their feather beds."

"We've cut off an entire neighborhood from water for however long the repairs last. They'll take that seriously up above. If their investigations turn up the Breaknecks’ involvement, it will be a political embarrassment for their parents. If not, the Breakneck Boys will still know what a close call it was. The smarter among them will realize they were given a warning. That I could as easily have killed them. We won't be seeing them back again."

"There'll be others."

Will grinned wolfishly. “Bring ‘em on."

Will adapted to the darkness. He learned its ways, learned to love the stillness and the silence of it. He grew familiar with the rumor of distant trains, the small dripping and creaking and scurrying sounds that were normal to the tunnels, and the fainter and more furtive noises that were not. He learned how to crouch motionless for hours, his eyes so thoroughly adapted to the dark that when a transit worker or a patrolman went by with a flashlight, he had to narrow them to slits against its glare. He learned how to move silent as a wraith, so that he could follow these intruders from the upper world for hours without them suspecting a thing.

Nighttimes, he went upstairs to dumpster dive and sometimes to steal. Just to keep in touch with his troops. It was important for them to know that he could do the work of any one of them and did not consider it beneath him. On deep patrols, when it was not possible to go topside for food, he learned to catch and roast and eat rats. Whenever they could spare the time, he sent his forces out to explore and to map, until he knew more of Babel's underworld than any individual ever had before. He would interview any wanderer who passed through Lord Weary's territory and those who were capable but solitary by nature he organized into a loose confederation of messengers, so that for the first time, all the johatsu communities were kept informed of each other's goings-on.

Volunteers arrived daily, anxious to serve under the hero of whom they'd heard so much. Most of them were turned away. Nevertheless, the Army of Night grew. Little by little, their territory was expanding. Bindlestiffs, sadistic cops, degenerate trolls, and other predators learned to avoid tunnels marked with the three-lines-and-a-triangle that had become the token of Captain Jack's protection.

Will knew his work was bearing fruit the day he ghosted up behind a transit cop, squeezed his upper arm in one hand, whispered softly in his ear, “My name is Jack Riddle and if you want to live, you'll place your revolver on the ground beside you and leave,” and had been instantly obeyed.

That same day, one of his runners brought him a wanted poster from up above. It had a crude drawing of a fey with his grinning face-paint, hat, and skull necklace, and read:

* * * * WANTED, FOR TERRORIST ACTIVITY, THE DEMON, SPRITE, OR GAUNT KNOWN AS JACK RIDDLE

Aliases: Captain Jack Riddle, Captain Jack, Jack the Lucky, Laughing Jack

DESCRIPTION

Date of Birth: Unknown

Place of Birth: Unknown

Height: Unknown

Weight: Unknown

Complexion: Pale

Citizenship: Unknown

Scars and Marks: None known

Remarks: A flamboyant dresser, Riddle's dramatic persona has led some to speculate that he may have formerly been involved in theater. By his bearing, he may once have associated with the aristocracy, possibly as a servant.

JACK RIDDLE IS BEING SOUGHT FOR HIS ROLE IN NUMEROUS TERRORIST ACTS PERFORMED IN CONNECTION WITH HIS LEADERSHIP OF A SUBTERRANEAN PARAMILITARY FORCE THAT HAS COMMITTED ASSAULTS UPON AGENTS OF HIS ABSENT MAJESTY'S GOVERNANCE AS WELL AS UPON INNOCENT MEMBERS OF THE CITIZENRY OF BABEL.

HE HAS A SAVAGE TEMPER AND SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ARMED AND EXTREMELY DANGEROUS.

REWARD

His Absent Majesty's Governance is offering the informant's weight in gold to any citizen in Categories C through G or a statistically derived equivalent for all others, for information leading directly to the arrest of Jack Riddle.

"How about that?” Will said, grinning. “And to think that a couple of months ago I was a nobody!"

"Don't you get cocky, Jack,” Hjördis said. “That's a lot of money. There are plenty who would turn you in for a fraction of that.” She fastened her brassiere over her stomach, then slid it right way around, put her arms through the straps and shrugged into it. “I'd be tempted myself, if I didn't have obligations to my people.” She wriggled into her dress.

Stung, Will said, “You shouldn't joke like that."

"You think I'm joking? That's enough wealth to buy anybody's way up to the surface."

"We don't need gold to do that. After we've consolidated the underworld, we can rise up from beneath and seize the neighborhoods above us. Then we'll take the Dread Tower, one level at a time, all the way to the Palace of Leaves."

"I realize that's Lord Weary's plan,” Hjördis said doubtfully. “But how likely is it—really? I fail to understand why you would buy so completely into a fallen elf-lord's delusions of glory."

For a second Will did not speak. Then he said, “I have been driven across Fäerie Minor by chance and events, helpless as a leaf in a storm. Well, no more! I needed a cause to devote myself to, one that would give me the opportunity to strike back against my oppressors, and Lord Weary provided me with one. It's as simple as that."

He returned to the poster. “Innocent citizenry. That would be the Breakneck Boys, you think? Or the drug dealers?” Enough of their soldiers were addicted to various substances that it would be foolish to think that drug trafficking could be stopped. But the dealers were territorial and well armed, and prone to sudden violence. Johatsu had been gunned down simply because they'd wandered into the wrong tunnel at the wrong time. So the dealers had been driven upstairs. Those who cared to sell nickel bags of pixie dust or Mason jars of moonshine close by the commonly known exits were tolerated. But when their goods were tainted—when they killed—they were subject to being snatched and hauled below for a trial by the dead user's peers.

There was a polite cough outside the box's entrance. It was Jenny Jumpup. “Sir. Lord Weary's respects, and he say pull your dick out the lady-thane and assemble your raiders. He want his horses."

The clanging began in the distance, regular and unrelenting, the sound of somebody hammering on water pipes with a rock. Beyond and fainter, a second set of clangs joined it. Then a third.

"We been spotted,” Jenny Jumpup said.

"Good.” Will did not slow his pace. “I want them to spot us. I want them to know we're coming. I want them to know that there's nothing they can do to stop us."

"What's to keep them from slipping through the walls?” Tatterwag asked. “They're haints, after all."

"Their horses couldn't follow. We'd get them all. And these guys practically worship their horses.” Lord Weary had sent ambassadors to the horse-folk, offering them full membership in his growing empire, immunity from taxation and conscription, a guaranteed supply of food, and other enticements in exchange for a small yearly tribute of horses. His advances had been rejected with haughty scorn, though the horse-folk were the poorest of all who dwelt in darkness, and possessed neither tools nor clothing.

"Then why don't they just saddle up the horses and run? That's what I'd do in their circumstances."

"They old haints,” Jenny Jumpup said. She was a haint herself, and proud of it. Her hair was done up in a cascade of slim braids, tied in the back in a sort of ponytail, and she wore a brace of pistols butt-forward in her belt. “They ancestors left the Shadowlands before fire was brought down from the sky. They can't farm, they got no weapons, and they can't ride horses."

"So why the fuck do they care if we take them?"

"They're all the horse-folk have.” Will called a brief halt to check the map. A muttered word and its lines glimmered like foxfire. The other raiders gathered about him. They were a good group—in addition to his two lieutenants, he had Radegonde de la Cockaigne, Kokudza, the Starveling, and Little Tommy Redcap. “We're on the bottommost level of tracks—but there are tunnels that delve even deeper, some of them natural and others not.” He led them some fifty yards down the track. A black opening gaped to one side. Cool air sighed out of it. “This was an aqueduct once, nobody knows how long ago. Looks like dwarven work."

"It older than dwarves,” Jenny Jumpup said scornfully. “My people remember. We built it. And we ain't never been paid for it neither."

"Jenny,” Tatterwag said. “Give it a rest."

A train went by and they turned their backs to it. When their eyes had adjusted to the dark once more, they walked some distance into the aqueduct. Will got out the map again. “If everything's gone according to plan, our other troops will be in position here and here,” he said. “That leaves only one way out—right through us. They'll stampede the herd in hopes of trampling us under."

Little Tommy Redcap chuckled nastily. “I'll rip the horses’ legs off if they try."

"You were all chosen because you know how to ride,” Will said. “Now space yourselves out and let's see if you can climb."

They swiftly scaled the walls. This was a new skill for Will, but one he had picked up easily. There was a narrow ledge just below the vaulted ceiling. The raiders took up positions there, some on one side and some on the other. All save Jenny Jumpup and the Starveling, who swarmed up the ceiling and drove in pitons so they could hang face downward, like bats, waiting.

After a long silence, Kokudza growled, “I don't get it. Horses. Caverns. Call me crazy, but I see a basic conflict here."

"The horses used to be wild,” Will said. “Back before Nimrod laid the foundations of Babel, they fed upon the grassy slopes of Ararat. Lord Weary told me he read a paper on this once. Scientists speculate that some of their number would venture into natural caverns to feed upon mosses and lichens. This would have been tens of thousands of years ago, minimum. Something happened, an earthquake maybe, that trapped a small breeding population in the caverns. They adapted to the darkness. You couldn't say they thrived, exactly—there can't be more than a hundred of ‘em all told. But they're still here. Albino-pale, short-haired, and high-strung. They won't be easy to catch."

Tatterwag patted his bandolier. “You know what I recommend.” Now that the Empire was a going concern, they had money enough, extorted from transit workers and the like, to buy materials that had never previously been available underground. Will had been the first to keep a string of magnesium flares with him always, and a pair of welder's goggles in a breast pocket. Tatterwag, who was not only his second-in-command but a notorious suck-up as well, had followed suit. There was no better indicator of how far and fast Will's star had risen.

Will shook his head. “That won't work on these horses."

"They're blind,” he said. “Now be quiet."

After a while, the clanging stopped. That meant the horses would be coming soon. Some time after that, Will was almost certain that he heard a gentle murmuring noise like the rumor of rain in the distance. It was less a sound than a wistful thought. But it was there. Maybe.

"Do not take the lead horse,” Lord Weary had told him quietly before they set out.

"Why shouldn't I?” Will had asked. “Surely the leader will be fastest and most desirable."

"Not so. It will be fast but callow. The wiser horses hold back and let the young stallions, their heroes, take the foremost with its attendant risks. They are expendable. The queen-mare, however, will be found at the very center of the herd, and it is she you want. Fleetest of all is she and cleverest as well, sure-footed on wet surfaces, cautious on dry, and alert to danger even when all seems safest. Wait and watch. You will know her when you see her."

Far down the tunnel, a gentle luminescence bloomed, faint as the internal glow of the ocean on a moonless night. There was a soft sound, as of many animals breathing deeply in the distance.

"Here they come,” Tatterwag said.

Like sea-foam, the horses filled the tunnel. Shadowy figures ran among them, as swiftly as the beasts themselves. These were the old haints, the horse-folk, running naked as the day they were born. Even at a distance, they could be sensed, for with them came fear. Though they could not plant or build or light a fire, the old powers were theirs still, and they were able to generate terror and use it as a weapon. Thus it was that they herded their horses. Thus it was that they fought, using the great brutes’ bodies against their enemies.

"Oh, baby!” Jenny Jumpup moaned. “I gone get me a young stud. I gone wrap my legs around him and never let go. I gone squeeze him so tight he rear up and scream."

"You're making me horny, Jen,” Kokudza said. They all laughed softly.

Then the herd was upon them.

The noise of hooves, near-silent a moment before, rose up like thunder. The horses filled the aqueduct like ocean waters surging. One by one, the raiders dropped down upon them, like ripe fruit falling from the trees.

Wait, Will thought. Wait ... wait ... not yet ... And then, just when he felt he could wait no longer, he spotted the queen-mare in the center of the herd, running as quickly as any but clearly not expending herself, holding something extra in reserve.

Briefly, he flew. Then, one astonishing second later, he slammed onto the back of the mare. He grabbed wildly for her neck and scrabbled to keep his legs on either side of her back.

The queen-mare rose up, pawing the air. Will's legs were flung clear, and he was almost thrown. But he clung to her neck, and by the time her forefeet were back on the ground, he had managed to get his own legs back in place.

Once, twice, she slammed into the horses running to either side of her. Each time, one of Will's legs was crushed briefly between the great beasts. But the impact was not quite enough to numb them, and Will was determined that he would not be stopped by mere pain. He hung on with all his might.

Then the queen-mare had broken free of the herd and was running ahead of them all.

Riding low on her back, concentrating on keeping from falling, Will began to sing the charm he had been taught:

"Your neck is high and straight,

Your head shrewd with intelligence,

Your belly short, your back full,

Your proud chest hard with muscles..."

His mount swung her head around and tried to bite him, but he grabbed her mane high on the back of her skull with both hands and was able to keep her teeth from closing on his flesh. And then the charm took hold and she no longer tried to throw him, though she continued to run in a full-out panic.

They were alone now, separated from the herd and galloping wildly down who-knew-which lightless tunnel. Though she was blind, somehow the queen-mare knew where the walls were and did not run into them. Somehow, she never stumbled. Whatever senses she employed in the absence of sight, they were keen and shrewd, and equal to the task. Will understood now, as he had not before, why Lord Weary so desperately wanted these steeds. Will's motorcycle was of only limited utility belowground; it could not be ridden along the ties of the train tracks, nor could it leap over a sudden gap in the floor of a tunnel if Will did not spot it in time. This beast could travel swiftly anywhere. It could traverse the distance between settlements in a fraction of the time a pedestrian could.

"Joy of princes, throne of warriors,

Hoof-fierce treasure of the rich,

Eternal comfort to the restless..."

There were hundreds of lines to this charm, and if Will were to skip even one, it would not work. He had labored hard to memorize them all. Now, as he neared the final stanzas, Will felt the thoughts of the queen-mare like a silvery brook flowing alongside his own. They were coming together now, moving as one, muscle upon muscle, thought on thought, a breath away from being a single shared essence in two bodies.

"Riding seems easy to he who rests indoors

But courageous to he who travels the high-roads

On the back of a sturdy horse."

She was breathing hard now. Horses could only run at a full gallop for brief periods of time, though those who did not know them imagined them continuing thus for hours on end. The queen-mare was winded—Will could feel a sympathetic pain in his own chest—and if she did not stop soon and walk it off, she would run until her great heart burst within her.

This was the moment of crisis. Will had to convince her that accepting him as a rider was preferable to death.

Laying his cheek alongside her neck, still singing, he closed his eyes and entered her thoughts. There was neither color nor light in the queen-mare's world, but her sensorium was wider and more varied than his own, for she was possessed of a dozen fractional senses. Riding her mind, he felt the coolness coming off of the walls, and the dampness or dryness of the ground before them. Tiny electrical charges lying dormant in the conduits and steel catwalks that flashed past tickled faintly against his awareness. Variant densities in the air slowed or sped sounds passing through it. Smells arrived in his nostrils with the precise location of their origins. Braids of scent and sound and feel wound together to give him a perfect picture of his surroundings.

Now Will thought back to the farmlands outside his old village, and recalled the dusty green smell of their fields and the way that in late afternoon the sun turned the seeded tops of the grasses into living gold. He pictured the cold, crystalline waters of a stream running swiftly through a tunnel of greenery and exploding under the hooves of his borrowed mount. He called up the flickering flight of butterflies among the wild flowers in a sudden clearing, and then an orchard with gnarled old apple trees and humble-bees droning tipsily among the half-fermented windfalls. This was something the queen-mare had never experienced, nor ever could. But the desire for it was in her blood and her bones. It was written into her genes.

He sang the last words of the charm. Now, he found himself murmuring into the queen-mare's ear.

"Ohhhh, sweet lady,” Will crooned. “You and I, mother of horses ... we were meant to be. Share your strong back with me, let me ride you, and I will show you such sights every time we travel together."

He could feel the tug of his words on her. He could feel her resolve weakening.

"I'll take good care of you, I promise. Oats every day and never a saddle nor a bit. I'll rub you down and comb your mane and plait your tail. No door shall ever lock you in. You'll have fresh water to drink, and clean straw to sleep on."

He was stroking the side of her neck with one hand now. She was skittish still, but Will could feel the warmth of feeling welling up within her. “And this above all,” he whispered: “No one shall ever ride you but me."

Gently, tentatively, he felt her pleasure at the thought. Joyously, confidently, he showed her his own pleasure that she felt thus about him. Self flowed into self, so that the distinction between fey and horse, he and her, dissolved.

They were one now.

Will discovered that he was weeping. It had to be for joy because the emotion that filled him now and that threatened to burst his chest asunder was anything but unhappiness. “What's your name, darling?” he whispered, ignoring the tears running down his cheeks. “What should I call you, my sweet?” But horses had no names, either true or superficial, for themselves. They lived in a universe without words. For them, there could be no lies or falsehoods, because things were simply so. Which meant that the task of naming her fell upon Will.

"I shall call you Epona,” he said, “Great Lady of Horses."

For the first time since he could not remember when, he felt completely happy.

Will was in no hurry to return to the Army of Night's current bivouac. Epona was the swiftest of her breed; he would not arrive last. “Take me where I need to be,” he whispered in her ear. “But slowly.” Then he gave the queen-mare her head.

They made their way home through pleasant and winding paths. Occasionally, a lone electric bulb or a line of fluorescent tubes flickered weakly to life before them, floated silently by, and then faded to nothing behind them. Once, Epona daintily picked her way up a long-forgotten marble staircase with crystal chandeliers that loomed from the shadows overhead like the ghosts of giant jellyfish. They went down a long passage of rough stone so low that Epona had to bow her head to get through. Twice the ceiling brushed against Will's back, as he clung tightly to her. Yet, though their path seemed roundabout, Will was the first to return to camp. He had but to picture their destination in his mind, and the queen-mare knew the fastest and safest way there.

They emerged from the catacombs under Battery Park and were home.

Radegonde de la Cockaigne arrived second. She had come from the contested lands of the West, as had Will, but a little of the blood of les bonnes meres flowed in her veins and she had grown up privileged. She had been taught to ride, rather than learning on stolen time, and as a result her horse-craft was far superior to his. He was not surprised to see that she had wooed and won a particularly mettlesome steed. After her came Kokudza and Jenny Jumpup, also mounted, and then the Starveling and Little Tommy Redcap, both afoot. Some time later, Tatterwag limped in, looking embarrassed. They had gained four horses and lost not a single life.

Lord Weary came out of Hjördis's box, buckling his belt.

Will made his report.

"Any fatalities?” Lord Weary asked. Then, when Will shook his head, he said, “Let's see the horses."

Will had commandeered a space that was said to have been used once as a holding pen for slave smugglers, and then sent forces aboveground to steal, scavenge, or, in last resort, buy straw to spread on the floor. Lord Weary touched the steel-jacketed door that Will hadn't yet ordered taken off its hinges and muttered, “Good. It'll need a bar, though."

Then Weary saw the horses and a rare smile spread over his pale face.

"They're magnificent!” he said. “I had hoped for five, and been willing to settle for three. Felicitas in media est, eh? It's a sign."

Seen together, it was obvious that the four steeds were from the same genetic line. The heads were gaunt and narrow, with large blue veins under pale, translucent skin. Their eyes bulged like tennis balls under lids that had grown together and would never open. All glowed faintly in the darkness. Yet equally clear was it that the one was queen and the others her subjects.

Lord Weary went straight to Epona and peeled back her lips to examine her teeth. “This one is best,” he said at last. “She shall be mine."

Will trembled, but said nothing.

"First things first. Measure her for a saddle and bit."

"Sir!” His aide-de-camp, a haint named Chittiface, clicked his heels and saluted.

"The others too, of course. They're still as wild as so many winds, and will need training. Have them broken and gentled. But take care to use no more force than is necessary. For they are my own precious children and I'll not have them scarred or disfigured.” He turned on Will and said, “Captain Riddle, I perceive that I have in some way offended you."

"How can a lord offend his captain?” Will said carefully. “One might as well declare that I have offended my hand, or that I act against the best wishes of my left leg. Can the liver and entrails resent the wise leadership of King Head? ‘Tis beyond my imagining."

The stables-to-be were swarming with soldiers, many busy, but the greater number merely curious to see the horses. Will noted that all of his fellow raiders were here as well. And every man-jack and lady-jill was pretending not to listen.

"Oh, glib, most monstrous glib indeed!” Lord Weary turned a stern face upon Will. “And yet such a litany of sighs and shudders and tics, of soft gasps and shakes of the head, of sudden winces and tightened lips and suppressed retorts have I seen from you as speaks louder than mere words ever could. You are displeased. With me."

"If so, milord, then I apologize most humbly."

"Humbly, sirrah? You defy me to my teeth and plead humility? I'll not have it. Lie to me a third time at your peril."

"Kneel!” Weary said, and then, when Will obeyed, “Both knees!"

Lord Weary was Will's liege, and Will had knelt before him often. But always, as became one of his officers, on a single knee. The ground here was wet and unclean, and the damp filth soaked through the cloth where the knee touched it. There was only one reason for Will to be made to kneel on two knees, and that was so that he might be humiliated.

"Now,” Lord Weary said. “As I am your liege and you owe me obedience, speak. Tell me what I have done."

"Lord, these words are nothing I would willingly say. But as you command, so must I obey.” Simply, then, and without recrimination, Will explained what promises he had made to Epona, and concluded, “What touches my honor is mine alone, and cannot entail yours. I ask only that you consider these matters seriously."

Lord Weary heard him through. Then he said, “Seize him."

Rough hands gripped Will by either arm. The soldier to his left was a new recruit, but the one to his right was Jenny Jumpup. She did not meet his eyes.

"Strip him to the waist,” Lord Weary commanded. “Give him five lashes for insolence."

Will lay on his stomach, eyes closed, marveling at the intensity of his own pain. He had retreated to his spare and soldierly nest, built of stacked cardboard, clothesline, and charity blankets on a rarely-used catwalk that swayed and rattled every time a train passed underneath. It vibrated now as footsteps noisily clanged up the metal rungs from below.

"We brought you water.” A refilled two-liter Pepsi bottle thumped down by Will's chest. Tatterwag sat down at the tent's entrance, folding his long legs beneath him. Jenny Jumpup sat down beside him. “I couldn't come see you sooner because Weary gave me double-shift guarding his new horses. I was dead on my feet by the time I was relieved, so I just crawled in my box and collapsed."

With a groan, Will sat up. He took a swig from the bottle and waited.

At last Jenny Jumpup blurted, “He got no right to do that to you!"

"He has every right. But he was wrong to employ those rights in this instance."

Jenny snorted and looked away dismissively. Tatterwag's mouth moved silently as he worked out the implications of that statement. Then, quietly, he said, “It's war."

"Lord Weary has closed the underworld to everyone but johatsu. Not just the police—transit, sewage, water, gas, and electrical workers too. If they refuse to leave, Lord Weary says, they're to be beaten. Orders are to mark them up good, so that if they return we'll know to kill ‘em."

"That's crazy. We've always kept on good terms with the maintenance crews. They can come and go as they wish. Even the cops we don't kill. We let them know who runs things down here, but we don't threaten their safety. That's been the keystone of our polity."

"Not any more,” Jenny Jumpup said. “Lord Weary say once we seize control of their transit and utilities, the uplanders ain't got no choice but to negotiate a peace."

"They'll have no choice but to exterminate us.” Closing his eyes made Will's head spin. When he opened them, he was still dizzy. “Has Lord Weary gone mad?"

"Maybe so.” Tatterwag leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Some of us think that. And if he's mad, what loyalty do we owe him? None! Maybe this is an opportunity. Some of us think that maybe it's time for a regime change."

"Regime change?"

"A coup d'etat. You think, Will! You're close enough to him. He trusts you. Slide a knife between his ribs and the problem goes away."

"It sounds simple,” Will said carefully. Particularly, he did not say, for those who need have nothing to do with the deed but to urge him on to it. “But I doubt its practicality. Lord Weary's troops would tear me apart if I pulled a stunt like that."

"You've got backing among the officers. We talked this through, didn't we, Jenny?"

"They're prepared to acclaim you. This is your moment, Will. You call the Army of Night together and give ‘em a speech—you're good with words, they'll listen to you—and Lord Weary is done and forgotten."

Will shook his head. He was about to explain that Tatterwag's idea wouldn't work because Lord Weary had just started a war and consequently was more popular now than he'd ever been before or would ever be again. But then a train slammed by underfoot, making speech impossible. By the time the catwalk stopped shivering and the diesel fumes had begun to dissipate, he found that he had slumped down onto his bed again and his eyes were closed and his mouth would not form words at his command.

A random thought went by and he followed it into the realm of dreams.

In his dreams, the commanders of the mosstroopers were gathered around a table, staring down at a map of the underworld that was nowhere near so detailed or accurate as his own, though reliable enough, he could see, on the major and more recent excavations. One of them indicated the mouth of the tunnel where the sub-surface route broke into the outer world and became a trolley line. “We'll enter here—” his hand skipped lightly down the map, tapping three of the larger subway stations—"and at Bowling Green, Tartarus, and Third Street Stations. The stations in between we can lock down to prevent Lord Weary's riffraff from retreating to the surface."

"That still leaves his rats a thousand bolt-holes, most of which are unknown to us."

"Let them break and run, so long as we shatter their army and account for their leaders."

They all bent over the map, their granite faces as large as cathedrals, their moustaches the size of boxcars. “What of Jack Riddle? He looks feverish."

Lying helpless beneath their stony gazes, pinned between parallel lines of ink, Will saw a hand come down out of the darkness, growing larger and larger until it filled his sight and then continued to swell so that it disappeared from his ken, all save one enormous finger. It was wreathed with blue flames so that the air about it wavered and snapped like a flag in a gale. “This bug?” said its owner contemptuously.

The finger touched the map and Will felt flames engulf him.

Will's eyes flew open. Tatterwag and Jenny Jumpup were gone and Hjördis knelt by his side. With hands sure and familiar she rubbed balm over his wounds. The pain flared up like fire where she touched him, and sank down to an icy residue where her hands had passed. The smell, flowery and medicinal, lingered.

"You are so good to me,” Will murmured.

"It's nothing personal,” Hjördis replied.

"Why do you always say things like that?"

"Because they're true. There is nothing special or privileged about our relationship. You are our hero and so I have body-rights over you, as I did with Bonecrusher before you, and as I have over Lord Weary even now. You in turn take tribute from each new community you conquer, yes? A lei of orchids, freely offered and freely taken. Settle for that."

Will stayed silent until Hjördis finished applying the balm. Then he said, “They say there's going to be war."

"Yes, I know. Lord Weary came for the crates of rifles we were holding for him. This time there was no brash young stranger to offer an alternative. So it's war. If you care to call it that."

"What else would you call it?"

"Idiocy. But I will not be here to see it. The johatsu are leaving. The tunnels are emptying out as all the communities up and down their lengths desert them for the upper world. I have sent ahead as many of my own folk as have the sense to leave. Now I am visiting the last holdouts, the obstinate and demented, one by one. When I have spoken to them all I will leave myself."

"Where will you go?"

"There are shelters above. Some will sleep in stairwells. Others in the streets. Come with me."

"You can't leave just because there is danger,” Will said. “This is your nation!"

"I have never believed in Lord Weary's fantasies. My folk are not warriors, but the weak and the broken who fled down below to find some semblance of safety,” Hjördis said. “As their thane, I cannot forget that."

"Tatterwag wants me to lead a revolt against Lord Weary.” Said aloud, it sounded unreal. “He wants me to kill Weary, win over the troops with a speech, and then take control of the Army of Night and lead them upward against our oppressors."

"Yes, Tatterwag would, wouldn't he? It's how he thinks."

"Perhaps I should give his plan some thought. It could be tweaked."

"You're overheated.” Hjördis rose. “I will leave the balm here; use it when the pain returns. Don't wear a shirt until the welts have healed. Avoid alcohol. Leave before Lord Weary's war begins."

"I can't abandon my troops. I've fought alongside them, I've—"

"My work here is done,” Hjördis said. “You will not see me again.” She started down the ladder. Before the sound of her feet on the rungs had echoed into silence, Will was asleep.

When he awoke, Lord Weary was sitting beside him, smoking. His pale, shrewd face looked oddly detached. Groggily, Will sat up.

"You could kill me,” Lord Weary said. “But what advantage would it bring you?"

He passed his cigarette to Will, who took a long drag and passed it back. His back still burned terribly, but the balm Hjördis had applied took some of the edge off the pain.

"You're only a hero, after all. I am a conqueror and someday I may yet be an emperor. I know how to rule and you don't. That's the long and the short of it. Without me, the Army of Night would fall apart in a week. The alliances I have formed and the tributes I demand are all imposed by force of my own personality. Kill me and you lose everything that we have built together."

"I don't think I could kill you."

"No,” Lord Weary said. “Not in cold blood, certainly."

It was true. Inexplicably, Will's heart still went out to Lord Weary. He thought he could gladly die for the old elf. Yet the anger remained. “Why did you have me whipped?"

"It was salutary for the troops to see you punished. You drew my Army's admiration and then their loyalty. Therefore it was necessary for me to establish who was liege and who his hound. Had you not defied me on the horse, I would have found another excuse. This is my delusion, not yours."

"You asked me once how I came to this sad estate, living in darkness, eating rats and stale donuts, and bedding gutter-haints, and you did not like my answer then. Allow me to try again. Anyone can see I'm high-elven. Most of my soldiers think my title was self-assumed, but I assure you it was mine by birth. How could one of my blood and connections ever end up,” he gestured, “...here?"

"It began one morning in the Palace of Leaves,” Lord Weary said. “I awoke early to find that the servants had opened all the windows, for it was a perfect day whose breezes were as light and comfortable upon the skin as the water of a sun-warmed lake. I slipped quietly from my bed so as not to disturb my mistresses and, donning a silk kimono, went out onto the balcony. The sun lay low upon the horizon, so that half the land was in light and half in shadow, and at the very center of the world, its focus and definition, was ... me.

"A vast and weightless emptiness overcame me then, a sensation too light to be called despair but too pitiless to be anything else. The balcony had only a low marble railing—it barely came up to my waist—and it was the easiest thing imaginable to step atop it. I looked down the tapering slope of Babel at the suburbs and tank farms below, hidden here and there by patches of mist, marveling that I could see them at all from such a height. It would be too strong a word to say that I felt an urge to step off. Call it a whim.

"But so illusory did the world seem to me in the mood I was in that it had no hold upon me whatsoever. Even gravity could not touch me. I stepped into the air and there I stood. Unmoving.

"And in that instant I faced my greatest peril, for I felt my comprehension expanding to engulf the entire world."

"I don't understand,” Will said.

"There is a single essence that animates all that lives, from the tiniest mite eking out a barren existence upon the desert-large shell of another mite too small to see with the naked eye, to the very pinnacle of existence, my own humble and lordly self. It informs even inanimate matter, a simple I am that lets a boulder know that it is a boulder, a mountain that it is a mountain, a pebble that it is pebble. Otherwise, all would be flux and change.

"The body, you know, is 90 percent water, and there are those who will tell you that life is only a device that water employs to move itself about. When you die, that water returns to the earth and via natural processes is drawn up into the air, where it eventually joins up with waters that were once snakes, camels, emperors ... and rains down again, perhaps to join a stream that becomes a river that flows into the sea. Sooner or later, all but your dust will inevitably return to world-girding Oceanus.

"Similarly, when you die your life-force combines with that of everyone else who has ever died or is yet to be born. Like so many lead soldiers being melted down to form a molten ocean of potential."

Will shook his head. “It is a difficult thing to believe."

"No, it is easy to believe. But it is hard, impossibly hard, to know. For to recognize the illusory nature of your own being is to flirt with its dissolution. To become one with everything is to become nothing specific at all. Almost, I ceased to be. I experienced then an instant of absolute terror as fleeting and pure as the flash of green light at sunset.

"In that same instant, I spun on my heel and took two steps down to the balcony. I left the Palace of Leaves and went to a bar and got roaring drunk. For I had seen beneath the mask of the world and there was nothing there! Since which time, I have distracted myself with debauchery and dreams. I dreamt up the Army of Night and then I dreamt a world for it to conquer. Finally, I dreamt for it a champion—you."

"With all respect, sir, I had a life before we met."

"You were chased into my arms,” Lord Weary said, lighting a new cigarette from the butt of the old one. “Didn't it seem strange to you how you were pursued by one anonymous enemy after another? What had you done to deserve such treatment? Can you name your crime?” He flicked the butt out into the air over the tracks. “I have been, I fear, your persecutor-general and the architect of all your sorrows. I am the greatest villain you have ever known."

"If you are a villain,” Will said, “then you are a strange one indeed, for I still love you as if you were my own uncle.” Even now, he was not lying. “I hate much about you—your power, your arrogance, your former wealth. I despise the way you use others for your own amusement. And yet ... I cannot deny my feelings for you."

For an unguarded instant, Lord Weary looked old and jaded. His fingers trembled with palsy and his eyes were vacant. Then he cocked his head and a great and terrible warmth filled him again. “Then I shall swear here and now that when I come to power, you shall be paid for all. What is it you want? Think carefully and speak truly, and it shall be yours."

"I want to see you sitting on the Obsidian Throne."

"That is an evasion. Why should that be more important to you than money or power?"

"Because in order for you to reach such a height would require a great slaughter among the Lords of the Mayoralty, such that the Liosalfar and the Dockalfar and even the Council of Magi would be depopulated."

Will ducked his head. In a small voice, he said, “My parents were in Brocieland Station when the dragons came and dropped golden fire on the rail yards. My life was destroyed by a war-machine that may have been on that very run. After I was driven out of it, my village was torched by the Armies of the Mighty. All these forces were in the employ of the Lords of Babel and the war itself the result of their mad polity.” He looked up, eyes brimming with hatred. “Kill them all! Destroy those responsible, and I shall ask for not a scintilla more from you."

"My dear, sweet Jack.” Lord Weary took Will in his arms and stroked his hair caressingly. “I can deny you nothing.” He rose to his feet. “Now my war has begun and whether it is real or not, you have your part to play in it. Stand."

"Yes, sir,” Will said. Painfully he stood. Bright spots swam in his eyes.

"Put your shirt and jacket on. I'll have the medic shoot you up with witchwart and lidocaine so you can fight."

Lord Weary established his headquarters in the catacombs. In a small room lined with bone-filled vaults and smokily lit by ancient lamps filled with recycled motor oil, he went over the maps with his captains, utilizing a cyclops skull as a makeshift table. They'd placed scouts at all the places where the mosstroopers might profitably begin their attack. There were countless ways in and out of the subterranean world, of course, but very few that would admit military forces in any number.

While the troops assembled rifles, made Molotov cocktails, and folded bandanas and soaked them in water so they could be tied about their faces as a defense against tear gas, their superiors planned an ambush and counterattack. Will had his doubts about the effectiveness of their forces, for he had seen soldiers snorting pixie dust and smoking blunts even as they prepared their weapons. Worse, the more he heard of his commander's plans, the less he trusted them. The tunnels were perfect for guerrilla warfare—wait for the enemy to be overextended and bored, then strike swiftly from the darkness and flee. Direct confrontation meant giving up that advantage. But Lord Weary's compulsion was strong upon him, and in the end Will had no choice but to obey.

So it was that Will found himself upon his motorcycle as part of a small advance force that watched from the shadows as the mosstroopers poured down from the Third Street platform and onto the tracks. The station had been closed, the trains redirected, and the power to the third rail cut. The troopers took up their positions in what looked to Will to be a thoroughly professional manner. They were every one of them Tylwyth Teg—disciplined, experienced, and well-trained. They wore black helmets and carried plexi shields. Gas grenades hung from their belts and holstered pistols as well.

The mosstroopers advanced in staggered ranks, with the dire wolves in the front row, straining at their leashes. It looked for all the world as if the wolves were pulling the troopers forward.

Will watched and waited.

Then, in his distant catacomb sanctum, where he sat scrying the scene in a bowl of ink, Lord Weary spoke a Word which Will could feel in the pit of his stomach.

A sorcerous wind came blowing up from the throat of the earth. It lifted the newspapers and handbills littering the ground and gave them wings, so that they flapped wildly and flew directly into the faces of the mosstroopers like so many ghostly chickens and pelicans. Ragged items of discarded clothing picked themselves up and began to stagger toward the invaders. Coming up out of nowhere as they had, the sorcerous nothings must have looked like a serious magical attack.

Two soldiers, both combat mages by the testimony of their uniforms, stepped forward and raised titanium staves against the oncoming paper birds and cloth manikins. As one, they spoke a Word of their own.

All in an instant, the wind died and the newspapers and old clothes burst into powder.

That was Will's cue. He held a magnesium flare ready in one hand and his lighter in the other. Now, before the mages’ staves could recharge, he flipped open his Zippo one-handed and struck a light. Then he pulled the welder's goggles over his eyes and shouted, “Heads down!"

The snipers, who did not have goggles of their own, covered their eyes with their arms. The five cavalry lit and threw their flares.

"Go!” Will screamed.

He opened the throttle too fast and his Kawasaki stalled out. Cursing, he kick-started it back to life.

The plan of attack was simplicity itself: In the instant that their defenses were depleted, hit the mosstroopers and their wolves with magnesium flares, then charge the center of their line while they were still blinded. There, the powerful bodies of the horses would break a way through, spreading confusion in their wake. They were to continue onward without stopping and around the bend beyond Third Street Station, disappearing up the tunnel. This would leave the enemy easy targets for Will's sharpshooters. Or so it was planned.

In practice, it didn't work out that way.

Will had lost only seconds by stalling his bike. But in that delay, the horses had outpaced him. Now he saw them overwhelmed by the dire wolves that the blinded mosstroopers had released. Relying on scent rather than sight, those fierce predators met the horses in the air, snarling and snapping, sinking their great teeth into pale throats and haunches.

The first to fall was Epona.

He heard her scream, and saw both horse and rider buried in black-furred furies. The rider, a nonentity named Mumpoker, died almost immediately but his noble steed bit and kicked even as she went down. Not far behind her, Hengroen and Holvarpnia were also overwhelmed. Will saw Jenny Jumpup leap free of Embarr, collide with a dire wolf in mid-air and fall with the wolf beneath her and both her hands at its throat.

Will opened the throttle wide. Yelling, he drove toward Epona and the fallen riders, hoping to achieve he knew not what. But then tear-gas canisters fell clattering to the ground and a wall of chemical mist rolled forward and into his troops. The bandana that Will wore provided little protection. Fiery tears welled up, and he could not see. Desperately, he tried to spin his motorcycle about. The bike skidded on its side and almost slid out from under him. His Zippo flew skittering away.

Will struggled to right the motorcycle.

All about him the dire wolves were fighting and hunting. Though the brutes could not see and their sense of smell had been neutralized by the tear gas, they were yet deadly to any combatant they chanced to stumble into.

A wolf's paws landed on Will's handlebars. All in a panic he raised his pistol and squeezed the trigger. Nothing happened.

He had forgotten the safety.

The dire wolf grinned, baring sharp white fangs. “If you're going to piss yourself, best do it now,” it said. “Because you're about to die."

The hideous jaws were about to close on Will's face when the wolf abruptly grunted and half its head disappeared in red spray.

"Some fun, huh, Captain?” Jenny Jumpup grinned madly at Will, then stuffed her pistol in her belt and reached out a hand toward him.

Will pulled her up behind him on the motorcycle. “Let's get the fuck out of here!” he shouted.

That was the war's first action. Will's snipers had retreated in disarray before the advancing mosstroopers without firing a single shot. The horses entrusted him were dead and their riders, all but one, dead or captured. It was a fiasco and, worse, it deserved to be one. Lord Weary's soldiers were only half-trained and their tactics were makeshift at best. They couldn't go up against a disciplined military force like the mosstroopers and expect anything but defeat. That was obvious to Will now.

The guttering flares died to nothing behind them and the dire wolves were called back to their handlers. Will pocketed his goggles. The mosstroopers would continue to advance, he knew, but at a cautious pace. Since they were no longer in immediate danger, he throttled down his bike to a less dangerous speed. Thus, he was able to react in time when Jenny Jumpup murmured, “I think I gone pass out now,” and started to slide from the pillion.

Will twisted around to grab Jenny Jumpup with one arm, while simultaneously slamming on the brake. Somehow, he managed to bring the Kawasaki to a stop without dropping her.

Pushing down the kickstand with his heel, Will dismounted and lowered his lieutenant to the ground. Semicircles of blood soaked through her blouse and trousers, more than he could count.

"Oh, shit,” he muttered.

Jenny Jumpup's eyes flickered open. She managed a wan smile. “Hey. You should see the wolf.” Then her eyes deadened and her face went slack.

He bandaged her as best he could and then, mating her belt with his, improvised a pistol-belt carry. Bent over beneath her weight, he staggered onto the cycle and got it going again. He dared not stay in the path of the mosstroopers, and he would not leave her behind.

Into the dark they rode.

Once, briefly, Jenny Jumpup regained consciousness. “I got something to confess, Captain,” she said. “When Lord Weary whipped you? I enjoyed it."

Shaken, Will said, “I'm sorry if I—"

"Oh, I didn't mean that in a bad way.” Jenny Jumpup was silent for a long time. Then she said, “It kinda turned me on. Maybe when this is all over, we can...” Then she was out again. Will twisted around and saw that her skin was grey.

"Hang in there. I'll have you to a medic soon."

Will rode as fast and furious as ever he had before.

Some distance down the tunnel, Tatterwag stepped out of the gloom in front of the Kawasaki. And so Will was reunited with those of his snipers who had not simply thrown away their rifles and fled but had retreated with some shred of order. Besides Tatterwag, they were Sparrowgrass, Drumbelo, the Starveling, and Xylia of Arcadia.

Carefully, Will lowered Jenny Jumpup's body to the ground. “See to her wounds,” he said. “They were honorably gotten."

Xylia of Arcadia knelt over Jenny. Then she stood and touched her head, heart, and crotch. “She's dead."

Will stared down at the corpse. It was a grey and pathetic thing. Jenny Jumpup's clothes were dark with blood and, deprived of her personality, her face was dull and ordinary. Had he not carried it here on his back, Will would have sworn the body was not hers.

After a long silence, Tatterwag stooped over the body. “I'll take her pistols for a keepsake.” He stuck them in his belt.

"I'll take her boots,” Xylia of Arcadia said. “They won't fit me, but I know somebody they will."

One by one they removed Jenny Jumpup's things. Will took her cigarettes and lighter and Drumbelo her throwing knife. The Starveling took her trousers and tunic. That left only a small silver orchid hung on a chain about her neck, which Sparrowgrass solemnly kissed and stuffed into a jeans pocket. They looked at one another uneasily, and then Will cleared his throat. “From the south she came."

"The bird, the warlike bird,” said Xylia of Arcadia.

"With whirring wings,” said Drumbelo.

"She wishes to change herself,” said the Starveling.

"Back to the body of that swift bird,” said Tatterwag.

"She throws away her body in battle,” Sparrowgrass concluded.

Already, freed of her élan vital and any lingering attachment to her possessions, Jenny Jumpup's body was sinking into the ground. Slowly at first, and then more quickly, it slid downward into the darkness of the earth from which it had come and to which all would someday inevitably return. Haints more literally than others, perhaps, but the truth was universal.

The staging area, when they finally got there, was in an uproar. The platforms swarmed with haints, feys, and gaunts, carrying crates, barrels, and railroad ties to add to the growing barricades, and moving guns and munitions to hastily improvised emplacements. One leather-winged night gaunt flew up the tunnel from which Will's company had just emerged, with a dispatch box in its claws. Will's heart sank to see how amateurish it all looked.

Porte Molitor Station had seemed a good base because it was located where the A, C, and E lines split from Routes 1, 2, and 3 and was not far downline from the sub-surface exit, thus giving easy access to all four potential war zones. But Porte Molitor was a ghost station, built but never used, and so it did not open to the surface. Now, with retreating soldiers converging from every front and scouts reporting that the enemy was advancing through all three tunnels, it seemed to Will like nothing so much as a trap.

"Who's in charge here?” Will shouted. “What are all these soldiers doing on the tracks? Isn't anybody in charge?"

"Lord Weary has placed Captain Hackem in command of the defenses for the left Uptown tunnel,” a weary-looking hulder said. “Chittiface is responsible for the right Uptown tunnel. And he himself commands the forces defending the Downtown tunnel. Hello, Jack."

"Hjördis!” Will cried in astonishment. “You're back."

"Everybody's back. All the johatsu who fled have returned to the tunnels, without exception."

"But why?” Earlier, Will had urged the lady-thane not to abandon Lord Weary's cause. Now he knew his counsel had been wrong. She had left and been right to do so. She should have stayed away.

"I don't know.” Hjördis looked stricken. “It defies all reason. Perhaps there is a compulsion on us. But if so, it is of a force greater than any I have ever known or heard rumor of, for it drives a multitude."

"Where is Lord Weary? If anybody understands this mystery, it will be he."

"Lord Weary charges you to consult with him before the battle begins. On what matter, he does not say.” Hjördis turned away. “Now I must go. I have a field hospital to oversee."

Will watched her leave. Then he turned to Tatterwag and held out a hand. “Give me your combat knife."

Knife in hand, Will clambered over the barricade and kick-started his bike. Then, though it broke his heart to do so, he plunged the knife into the fuel tank. Gasoline sprayed into the air and drenched the ground. Up and down the tracks he rode. The ties made it a teeth-rattling ride and spread the gasoline from wall to wall before the Kawasaki sputtered to a stop.

"There!” he roared when he was done. “Now, when the hell-hounds come sniffing after us, this will render them nose-deaf !"

That done, he strode off to confront Lord Weary, Tatterwag in tow.

The Downtown tunnel fortifications were simpler than the Uptown barricades—a single barrier that reached almost to the ceiling, without crenels or even a walkway along its top—but correspondingly more massive. He found Little Tommy Redcap overseeing the work there in Lord Weary's place. Johatsu carried box after box to the I-beams and duct-taped them to the foot of the supports. Others ran electrical wires from box to box. They could only be explosive devices.

"What the fuck are you doing?” Will demanded.

"What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?” Little Tommy Redcap lifted his voice: “Yo! I need more primers here!"

"It looks like you're preparing to bring half the buildings in the Bowery crashing down on our heads."

The haint who came running up with the box of primers was puffing on a lit cigar. Little Tommy Redcap snatched it from the johatsu's mouth and started to fling it away. Then he stopped and stuck it in his own mouth instead. “If you knew, why did you ask?"

"If this is done by Lord Weary's orders, then he's crazy,” Will said. “If you touch those things off, you'll kill us all."

"You think I'm afraid of dying?” Little Tommy Redcap laughed and then tapped the ashes from his cigar onto the primers for emphasis. “It's a good day to die!"

"You're crazy too."

"Maybe so, but I still got things to do. You got any complaints—” Little Tommy Redcap jerked a thumb upward—"take ‘em up with the Big Guy."

High overhead was a gallery that Will did not remember seeing before, in a wall that was taller than it could possibly be. (The station seemed larger too—but he had no time to worry on it.) Lord Weary's face was a pale oval afloat in the darkness like an indifferent moon gazing down upon the wickedness of the world. “I will,” he said. “How do I get up there?"

There was a stairwell that Will had never seen before. Two insect-headed guards in green leather armor uncrossed their pikes for him but recrossed them when Tatterwag tried to follow. Leaving his lieutenant behind to argue, Will took the steps two and three at a time. Heart pounding—when had he last rested?—he burst into the gallery.

Lord Weary was leaning over a marble balustrade, contemplating the scene below. He glanced up briefly. “Join me."

A strange lassitude overcame Will and all sense of urgency left him. It was as if in the presence of his liege he had no ambitions of his own. Unhurriedly, he joined the elf-lord. Together they gazed down on the scurrying johatsu. A salt breeze blew up, dispelling the stagnant air of the tunnels. It seemed to Will that he caught a hint of flowers as well. An unseen sun was warm upon his back. “What place is this?"

"A memory, and nothing more. My attention wanders, I fear.” Suddenly they stood in a clean, empty room of white marble. A light wind flowed through its high windows. A black absence sat at its center. From some angles it looked like a chair.

"Yes. You behold the Obsidian Throne.” The air darkened and the vision faded, returning Will to the stale smells and staler prospects of his life underground. Briefly, Lord Weary was silent. Then he said, “The final conflict approaches. Can you hear it coming?"

Will could. “What's that sound?” he asked. “That ... howling."

The howling grew until it became a quartet of train whistles shrieking almost in synch. Louder they grew, and louder still. The thunder of iron wheels filled the station. The ground underfoot trembled with premonition.

Then the Uptown barricades exploded. Fragments of beams, barrels, and soldiers were flung into the air as locomotives smashed through the hastily assembled defenses.

There were four of the great beasts, running in unison, with plows affixed to the fronts of their cabs, and they did not slow as they passed through the station. Shoulder to shoulder they sped, grinding troops under their wheels. At the Downtown tunnel, they crashed through the barricade and its defenders and, with final triumphant howls, rushed headlong into darkness, leaving hundreds dead in their wake.

Will clutched the balustrade, his eyes starting from his head. The screams and shouts of the survivors echoed and re-echoed in his ears like surf. He could not master his thoughts; they tumbled over each other in meaningless cascades. “You knew this would happen,” he said finally, fighting back nausea. “You arranged this."

Lord Weary smiled sadly. He leaned over the railing and shouted, “Redcap!"

In the wake of the trains had come the mosstroopers. Somebody fired a magnesium flare at the first squadron to arrive, setting afire the gasoline Will had sprayed throughout the tunnel. But it did not stop them. Burning and ravening, the dire wolves entered Porte Molitor and began killing the survivors. Behind them came the mosstroopers, weapons ready.

Yet amid all this confusion, Lord Weary's voice carried to its target. Little Tommy Redcap looked up from the smoldering body of a dying wolf. “Sir?"

"Are the explosives ready?"

"Sir! Yes, sir!"

"Stand by the igniter and await my command."

"Sir!” Little Tommy Redcap turned and disappeared into the fleeing, fighting, panicking mob.

So great was Will's befuddlement then that it did not surprise him to see Tatterwag leap from the stairwell with blood on his jacket and Jenny Jumpup's pistols in his hands. “Traitor!” he cried, and discharged them both point-blank at Lord Weary's head.

"Ah,” the elf-lord sighed. “Like so many things, this moment was far more pleasing in the anticipation than in its realization.” He opened a hand and there lay the two freshly fired pistol balls.

He let them drop to the floor.

All color drained from the swamp gaunt's face. Pleadingly, he raised his hands and shook his head. With neither hurry nor reluctance, Lord Weary reached toward him. His fingers closed not upon Tatterwag, however, but around a filthy old greatcoat. With a moue of distaste, he tossed it over the balustrade.

"What did you just do?” Will asked, shocked. “How did you do that?"

Hjördis stepped from the stairwell, as Tatterwag had a minute before. “He's a glamour-wallah,” she said. “Aren't you?"

Lord Weary smiled and shrugged. “I was the King's Master of Revels,” he said. “Not that His Absent Majesty ever called upon my services, of course. Still ... I had talent, I kept in practice. More than one member of the Court was of my devising. Once, I threw a masked ball at which half of those attending had no objective reality whatsoever. The next morning, many a lord and lady woke to discover their bed-mates had been woven of naught but whimsy and thin air."

"I don't understand."

"He creates illusions,” Hjördis said. “Very convincing ones. For entertainment. When I was living in a shelter near the Battery, the government sent a glamour-wallah down for the winter solstice and he filled the streets with comets and butterflies.” Then, sadly, “Was Tatterwag nothing, after all, but one of your creations?"

Lord Weary cocked his head apologetically. “Forgive an old elf his follies. I made him for a grand role, if that makes any difference. He would have shot me just as I was about to ascend to the Obsidian Throne, and then died in reprisal at the hands of our hot-blooded young hero here.” He indicated Will. “Then, lying in his arms, I would have begged Jack to ascend the throne in my place. Which, because he was ambitious and because it was my dying wish, he would have done.

"Alas, my interest in this game has flickered to embers long before I thought it would. What can one do?” He turned to Hjördis. “I suppose you are here for some reason."

"Yes. Your munitions teams have planted explosives on the support beams of the buildings above us. If they are set off, all the johatsu and all the Army of Night will die."

"And this bothers you, I suppose?” Lord Weary sighed. “Foolish child. They were never real in the first place."

Abruptly the cries, shouts, and other noises from below ceased. Hjördis stared over the balustrade down at the suddenly empty tracks and platforms. There were no corpses, no shattered barricades, no mosstroopers or burning wolves, no rebel army, nothing but the common litter of an abandoned subway station. “Then ... they were all, johatsu and ‘troopers alike, your creations? Only Will and I were...?"

Lord Weary raised an eyebrow and she fell silent.

At last, she spoke again. “I had thought I was real,” Hjördis said in a monotone. “I had memories. Ambitions. Friends."

"You grow maudlin.” Lord Weary reached for her. His fingers closed about a mop. This, like the greasy overcoat that had been Tatterwag, he tossed lightly away.

"I'm next, I suppose,” Will said bitterly. He clenched his fists. “I loved you! Of all the cruel and wicked things you've done, that was the worst. I deserved better. I may not be real, but I deserved better."

"You are as real as I am,” Lord Weary said. “No more, no less.” He was growing older before Will's eyes. His skin was as pink and translucent as a baby's, but loose upon his flesh. His hair was baby-wispy too and white. The tremor in his voice was impossible to ignore. “Take from that what comfort you can. For my part, I sought to put off enlightenment through treason and violent adventure. But now I see the unity of all things, and it seems that senility has come for me at..."

Lord Weary's eyes closed and his head sank down upon his chest. Slowly and without fuss, he faded away to nothing. With him went the balustrade, the gallery, and all the light from the air. Will felt the darkness wrap itself about him like the warm and loving arms of Mother Night.

He did not know if he existed or not, nor did he care. Lord Weary's war—if it had ever begun in the first place—was over.

Will awoke to find himself lying on the subway tracks. He staggered to his feet and then had to leap madly backward as a train came blasting down the tunnel at him.

When his vision returned, Will began to walk.

He'd been plodding along for some time when he saw a haint in the tunnel ahead, wearing the hip waders and hard hat of a sewer worker. “What you doing here, white boy?” he asked when Will hailed him.

"Well, you best get yourself unlost. You don't belong down here."

"Point me the way out and I'm gone."

The haint had started to fade through a wall. He hesitated, and leaned back. “Turn around the way you came. Look for a yellow light on the left. They's a door under it that leads out."

So Will did as he said. Vaguely, he remembered encountering this same sewer worker when first he had stumbled into the underground. He had no idea what that meant. Nor did he know how much of what he had seen and felt and done in the past however-many months had actually happened. Friends and foes alike had died—but had they ever existed in the first place? Were Bonecrusher, Epona, Jenny Jumpup, and all the rest real? And if not, did that free him of the obligation to care about them and to mourn their deaths? Try though he might, he could make no sense out of what he had been through.

But when he finally spotted the yellow light shining within its metal cage and the steel door beneath it, he felt a stirring and a rumbling deep within his blood and bones. It was the dragon, laughing. Louder and wilder that laughter grew until it filled up all his being and Will could not help but laugh as well. At what he did not know, unless it was the futility and pointlessness of life itself. He laughed until he cried.

In the silence that ensued, for the first time ever, he heard the dragon speak to him not in emotions but in words.

He began to listen.

Copyright (c) 2006 Michael Swanwick