The Suburb Beyond the Stars (14 page)

A
huge pile of broken saint and gargoyle lay on top of Gelt’s tendrils. The strands were still looped around the troll, but they were malfunctioning. They were weak and twitching.

“It’s like we’re holding hands,” said Kalgrash, “but this would be a really bad date.”

He unwrapped a few cords from around his wrist and threw them to the side. They reared up and then slumped. The weight on them was crushing the life out of them.

“This is the point,” said Kalgrash, “where I would excuse myself to go to the bathroom and I would start calling my friends to tell them what a jerk you were.”

There was a rattle. As Kalgrash picked off strands, a few plates of his armor had fallen off.

He was not looking good. He was covered in dust, bruised, and, he realized, he was sliced in several places on his arms where the cords had wormed through the mail and started to squeeze.

The troll struggled out of the erratic, flinching loops.

“You think about what you’ve done, and we’ll talk later,” he said.

He ran out of the courtyard gate, leaving Gelt trapped and tangled behind him.

Gelt glowered, but could not follow. The monster began rolling the stones off the pile.

Kalgrash worked his way through the house where Brian and he had hidden. “Brian!” he hissed. “Brian! Come here! Come on, if you can crawl! We only have about ten minutes!”

Brian was on his hands and knees, crawling up the stairs.

Kalgrash said, “Did your ancestors go through the whole trouble of natural selection and struggle up out of the muck just so you could crawl again? What are you doing? What would your mother say?”

“I can’t see,” Brian complained. “I thought it wasn’t you.”

“Who else would it be? Have you made other plans?”

“You told me to stay put.”

“Eh … no more staying put. Gelt is boiling mad. He’ll be back. We’ve got to get up to the palace.”

He heaved Brian up onto his feet and shuffled the blinded kid through the rooms and into the street.

“Back on the shoulders. Alley-oop.”

“Can’t I just use the light? Gelt is trapped, you said.”

“Temporarily.” Kalgrash shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”

Brian held up the magic lantern and said the Cantrip of Activation.

The street was flooded with light. Grimaces and scowls
of stone leaped into relief all around them — furrowed brows and bug eyes and fantastical chins.

The two began running up the hill.

There was no reason to stay out of the avenue now — not with the light on and time ticking while Gelt threw aside the rubble.

The boulevard leading from the cathedral to the quays no longer looked like a dead gala. The rich and intricate facades of the mansions that lined the street could not be seen because of the growths — the gray blobs, propped up with sticks and gutters, that leeched onto the flint and granite.

The growths were all the way up the boulevard — a forest of fungi.

Except, Brian suspected, they weren’t fungi at all, but Thusser nests, ready for habitation. These were the luxury units. The cheap suburbs were upstairs, where children hung half devoured by plasterboard walls.

The nests billowed all along the boulevard.

“What are we doing when we get to the palace?” Brian asked. “Do you know where the prison cells are? I don’t remember them.”

“I know. They’re down in the basements.”

“They’re probably guarded,” Brian said. “Maybe by more of those glassy monsters.”

“Kreslings. I hate them,” Kalgrash said. “They don’t kill easy.”

They slowed as they approached the belfry of the cathedral and the myriad turrets of the castle. Their breathing came heavily from all the exertion.

Only faintly could the lantern pick out the high towers of the palace, the serpentine pillars and crowded tympanum of the cathedral.

Please may Gregory and Prudence and Snig be in here,
Brian thought.
Please may we all get out alive.

Brian and Kalgrash prepared to cross the drawbridge into the palace.

Then they saw the guards.

The furrowed creatures of smoke and fluid glass stood, waiting, upon the battlements.

With his lantern, Brian made a perfect target. Suddenly, he looked at Kalgrash and saw how well-armored his friend was, and how soft and vulnerable his own human skin was.

I have,
he thought in the brief lull before the attack,
so very many inches of face.

He whispered, “If I don’t get through this, you’ll free Gregory, right? And try to get those kids out of the walls?”

Kalgrash looked at him, startled.

Perhaps the troll would have answered, had the arrows not started flying.

F
our of the kreslings knelt between the crenellations, firing longbows. Several more waited inside the portcullis gate.

Brian threw himself behind the armored troll. He fired his blunderbuss — but missed. The castle’s stone teeth fell into the bottomless moat.

“So I stand in front and repel the arrows — and you fire, huh?” Kalgrash asked. “Doesn’t that make me, tactically, a wall?”

Brian didn’t answer, but crouched behind Kalgrash’s knees, speaking the Cantrip of Activation again.

One of the ghastly archers exploded into shards of glass.

Brian trained Old Bess on another. Arrows whistled past his head.

There was a clang from above as one hit the troll’s armor. Kalgrash reeled from the strike. Brian ducked and fired again.

Brian had taken out three of the four archers when Kalgrash saw that the drawbridge was going up.

“DRAWBRIDGE!” he yelled. They’d be trapped on the wrong side of the gulf. They’d never be able to get to their friends.

Just visible in the gatehouse, a kresling cranked on a huge lever. Gears turned, pulleys swiveled, and the drawbridge rose.

Kalgrash yelled,
“I SHALL SMITE THEE!”
and hurled himself onto the edge of the drawbridge.

Brian suddenly found himself exposed, with no troll between him and destruction.

The troll landed on his knees and started to slide down the drawbridge, flailing.
“WITH VALOR!”
he added, somewhat after the fact. And then:
“VARLET!”

Brian darted backward to hide behind a buttress of the cathedral.

The fourth and final archer let fly at Kalgrash as the troll rolled and rattled down the bridge.

From behind the safety of the buttress, Brian aimed carefully at the battlements. He said the Cantrip of Activation.

There was a quick blare of blue fire. No dice. He was too far away to aim accurately. The stone was pocked where the fire had hit it, but no permanent damage had been done.

Kalgrash, meanwhile, faced off with the kresling near the gears. He swung his ax — but the creature thickened when struck. The ax clanged and slid.

The monster snarled and leaped for Kalgrash.

The troll blocked with his ax. The kresling fell.

Kalgrash, smiting left and right, drove the monster back to the edge of the cliff. Below them, the bottomless fissure echoed with their blows.

The claws swiped Kalgrash’s arm twice: once, a quick blow to harden the kresling’s own hand. By the second strike, the claw was frozen, sharp, and it tore the metal armor to shreds. Kalgrash buckled. His upper arm was deeply gouged. He saw spots. He heard Brian shouting the Cantrip of Activation. Saw blue fire. But Brian could not see him struggle with this monster. The gears were in the way.

The weights had taken over, and the mechanism now labored with no one to crank. Teeth spun and pulleys groaned and the chain flew along in its course.

The monster lunged at Kalgrash again. This time, the kresling’s claw knocked Kalgrash to his knees.

The pain from his arm was overwhelming. Through the oozing troll blood, he could see his own gears and rods. He stared stupidly, transfixed.

And then he looked up at his assailant.

And he swung his ax at the monster’s knees.

The thing leaped.

But the ax hit the knees.

The knees calcified, freezing the monster in a cheerleader leap.

And the blow, which had struck them clangorously, sent the monster flying backward.

The monster couldn’t compensate without its legs. It couldn’t stop itself from tumbling.

It ricocheted off the edge. It fell into the chasm, smacking the sides.

It shattered as it fell.

Kalgrash stood up. His breathing was labored. He trembled all over. Blood or some hydraulic fluid was swamping his metal sleeve.

He reached up and, exhausted, hauled on the lever to lower the drawbridge.

The gears spun in reverse. The wooden bridge fell.

It was down.

Brian stood at the end of it, the blunderbuss held at the ready, the lantern swaying beneath it. He had destroyed the other creatures of fluid and glass.

Kalgrash, wheezing, gestured. “Come on,” he said.

But Brian just stared.

“What?” said Kalgrash.

Brian did not answer, but looked past Kalgrash.

Into the courtyard.

Slowly, Kalgrash turned.

“Hi there, boys,” said Milton Deatley. “You both seem real interested in our three-bedroom units. That’s great. But I’m afraid they’re only for sale to the living. And in a few minutes, I’m afraid that won’t be you.”

B
rian pointed the blunderbuss at the dead man. He thought of everything that undead Deatley had done: the adults deluded; the children hypnotized; the kids who, terrified, ended up melding into their walls, nothing but fertile ground for the advance of the Thusser Horde. He thought of his friends, stolen from him.

“Take me to them,” he said. “Or I’ll — I’ll destroy you. I’ll do it. I’ll destroy you.”

Milton Deatley smiled and held up his hands. “That’s fine. Come with me.”

He turned and walked away across the courtyard. Brian walked carefully across the drawbridge. He and Kalgrash followed Deatley into the feasting hall. The light from Brian’s lantern dimly gestured at a tapestry on the wall that depicted elfin knights hunting some sniveling, doggish dragon through primeval caverns. Kalgrash groaned with pain. Brian looked at him, alarmed.

Kalgrash explained, “It’s an ouchy.” He displayed his torn arm. Brian winced in sympathy.

“Come on,” said Deatley. The undead developer led them through the kitchens where, centuries before, cooks’ boys had hidden nests of fried eels inside whole roast stags, and bakers had painted sweet glaze on confectionary warriors. The spaces were tall, dusty, empty. On the hood of the giant fireplace was carved the Norumbegan coat of arms. Someone more recently had scratched it out.

Kalgrash and Brian went watchfully with their dead host, suspicious of ambush. He led them to the basement stairs.

Deatley asked them, “Did you like the units down on the main boulevard? They’re luxury spreads. Really nice. We haven’t spared any expense. You and your friends will supply the human element. Rich, rich inner lives we can live off. I think when I arrive here — actually arrive, instead of just driving this corpse around — I’ll put a bid on one of the places on the boulevard. It’s got all the perks of city living with all the —”

“Be quiet,” said Brian. “I’ll say the Cantrip of Activation.”

“Just thought you’d like to know that you and your friends won’t go to waste.”

They wound their way down deep beneath the castle. The light from Brian’s lantern seemed to huddle in on itself. They walked through vaults where once the collection of imperial wines had been stored, gifts from far-flung duchies, from worlds of fire, from green lands across the sea.

They came, at last, to the dungeons. Bars had been driven into the stone of the pillars and low vaults. A rusty, padlocked door led into the holding cell.

“Your friends,” said Milton Deatley, gesturing through the bars. “We’re preparing them for colonization. They’re particularly fertile ground.” He began to undo the heavy locks.

Brian and Kalgrash stared in horror at the three prisoners on the other side. Sniggleping, Prudence, and Gregory were all lying insensate on the stone floor, helmeted, with flashes of light playing across their faces. Of the three, only Prudence still moved. She twitched. Gregory was motionless. His eyes were unblinking.

Brian rushed forward.

Deatley smiled and opened the door for him. Brian stopped short and gestured with the blunderbuss. “You first,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Deatley asked.

Brian’s hands shook. The blunderbuss quivered. “Go on,” he said.

Deatley said, “I think you want to step in before me.” Brian protested, “Don’t — don’t try your mind control on me!”

“All right,” said Deatley, stepping into the cell. He crossed his arms just inside the door. “But I wasn’t trying to use mind control.”

“Then it was a stupid suggestion,” said Kalgrash. “We weren’t born yesterday.”

“I just figured that you’d want a little more protection between you and Gelt the Winnower.”

At these words, silver cords slapped over Brian’s shoulders, wrapped around the blunderbuss, and yanked it from his fingers.

G
elt the Winnower was upon them. He had freed himself and followed them up the hill, into the castle, down to the vaults, and now he hung there, just a few feet behind Kalgrash, surrounded by a halo of darting threads.

The threads came out of his arms, his chest, his legs, and, most disturbingly, his eyes, which were nests of cords. His mouth hung slack, forgotten in the general hunger of his silver feelers.

Against this monstrosity, Brian was unarmed and Kalgrash was one armed. His other, torn severely, drizzled sparks whenever he moved. The battle-ax wobbled in the troll’s hands.

It was hopeless. Brian knew that. But this was the only confrontation that could actually slow the Thusser invasion. Deatley and his most dangerous servant had to be defeated. They were the most powerful servitors of the Thusser in the whole alien suburb. If it was hopeless,
Brian figured that he might as well go down with a fight.

And so he lunged past Milton Deatley. He ran to Prudence and began pulling at her camera helmet. The image joggled on its screen. Her mouth opened and closed.

Gelt was gathering his tendrils for a strike against the troll. Kalgrash grunted and raised his ax. Even as he did so, he could feel Milton Deatley’s smile behind him.

Gelt’s fronds pounced. The troll dodged, skirted around several stout columns.

The Winnower followed, trickling along on loops of wire.

The troll tried his earlier trick — slalom runs through pillars, entanglement. It slowed Gelt, but Gelt was getting wise. The monstrosity set himself down on his own white, ratlike feet, and observed Kalgrash’s dodges for a moment, waiting to strike again.

Brian had pulled off Prudence’s helmet, but Deatley was at his side, bending down to grab the thing out of his hand.

Brian swung it by its chinstrap. He hit Deatley as hard as he could.

Unfortunately, that was not very hard. Brian was not very strong. Had Deatley been alive, it would barely have bruised him.

Brian swung again, but now Deatley’s awful, reconstituted hands were in the way, clutching at him. Prudence didn’t stir, but lay by their feet, eyes open, somewhat more at peace.

Deatley seized Brian’s shoulders.

Brian panicked and kneed him in the groin.

Evidently, that didn’t work anymore. Deatley didn’t so much as grunt.

Brian flung the camera (which still shuddered, which still shot out its crazy blasts of color) at the undead man. It struck Deatley softly, forced the corpse back, but didn’t do any real damage. Though Deatley did lose his grip on Brian for an instant as he reeled.

Brian staggered toward Gregory.

Gregory’s chinstrap was too tight for Brian to pull the helmet off easily. As he struggled, Deatley came in behind him and tried to yank him away from his comatose friend. Brian’s fingers slipped on the nylon strap. The old camera whirred and cast brilliant shades across the rough prison walls.

Finally, the strap released. Brian went tumbling backward, taking Deatley with him.

Gregory was free.

But he didn’t move at all. The trance was too total.

Brian called their names — “Prudence! Gregory! Prudence, come on!” The two didn’t stir.

Milton Deatley stopped wrestling with Brian. He shoved the kid aside and crawled to his feet. He patted at the knees of his suit, wiping off the dust. “You won’t wake them up anytime soon,” he said. “You have to realize, there is no way you can win. The Thusser Horde is coming. This is to be our age.”

“This is our planet,” said Brian. “You have no right.”

“Who’s talking about rights? Have you ever seen them exercised? Take the Norumbegans. They claim a right to this castle, this whole kingdom, but they’re too weak to even recall their claim. Certainly too weak to stop us from taking what we need.” Milton Deatley grabbed Brian’s arm and twisted it cruelly. “Only the powerful have rights. The claims of the weak are quickly forgotten.”

Brian told himself he would not yelp, though the pain was intense. But Deatley pulled the arm back harder, and Brian couldn’t help it.

He screamed in pain and impotent anger. He couldn’t stop himself.

He knew, then, the meaning of weakness.