Nine Layers of Sky (8 page)

Four

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN, 21ST CENTURY

Last night’s foray to the pawnshop had seen a moderate degree of success: a few dollars from the gold chain and the watch. But the pawnbroker had not been interested in the ball.

“What is it?” he had asked, puzzled. “Is it made of metal?”

“Just a curio,” Elena had lied, glibly. “My father said it was some kind of relic.”

“I can’t see anyone paying good money for it. Sorry.”

Elena had then tried some of the market stalls, but though people were selling single boots and unworkable radios, the ball remained an object of curiosity, not desire. It rested once more in Elena’s pocket, still heavy, still obscure.

Now Elena stood at the top of Lenina, looking south. The mountains were blanketed in drifting clouds. Her coat was soaked and her shoes were sopping wet, but it was better than more snow. The deep gutters that carried excess water down from the mountains were running brim full, so that it seemed that every street was bounded by a narrow stream. The trees, freed of their weight of snow, were bowed down by raindrops. And the sky was darkening again, heavy with storms.

Elena stepped out into the road to flag down a lift, but everyone was rushing home before the next cloud-burst. Perhaps if she hurried, or found shelter . . . Then the thought of the cathedral snapped into her head. It was not far away. Elena set off again and was halfway across the park when the heavens opened. She dodged beneath the branches of a fir to catch her breath. The storm had come on so quickly, it must have raced down from the peaks. She hoped they weren’t in for a wet spring.

Above her, something rustled in the branches. Elena looked up, expecting to see a squirrel or a magpie, but there was nothing. A shower of dislodged raindrops scattered across her face, making her flinch. Elena peered into the tree and something hissed. Startled, Elena stumbled back. She saw a face in the branches, upside down: gleaming eyes with pinpoint pupils and a row of needle teeth. It was coming down the tree, sliding along the trunk like a polecat, but the size of a man.

Elena cried out with fright. Then she turned and ran, her feet carrying her away from the thing in the tree. She slipped on the wet path and almost fell, but she did not stop and look back until she reached the edge of the park.

There was nothing behind her. The park was wet and empty. A woman with a bundle of shopping was staring at her.

“
Dyevushka?
You all right?”

“There was someone in the trees. I thought they were going to attack me.” She abruptly sat down on the low wall that ran along the edge of the park. The woman clicked her tongue.

“The park’s full of drug addicts, drunks, who knows what. Probably after money. Did they hurt you?”

Elena shook her head.

“Well, don’t you go through there again, even in the daytime.” The woman was clutching her shopping bag as though Elena might try to snatch it away. “I don’t know what this town’s coming to.”

Still shaken, Elena nodded and the woman walked on. But she was right. It must have been some crazy person, driven by the mad impulse to climb a tree. Now that she thought back, the face had appeared female. Perhaps it had been one of the poor souls from the asylum, released because their families could no longer afford treatment. That seemed the likeliest explanation.

It was raining in earnest now, and Elena’s hair was plastered to her face. She bolted across the road, dodging the traffic, and into the area in front of the market. The place was lined with stalls selling all manner of things: flat dried fish from the Kyrgyz lakes, batteries, radios, a stuffed eagle. Trying to keep beneath the awnings, Elena hastened toward the main market building and through the door.

She found herself in the vegetable section, in front of stalls covered with herbs, peppers, eggplant, apples. She was instantly assailed by cries from the vendors: “What do you want,
dyevushka
? Sultanas? Oranges?”

Gold teeth flashed. Elena wondered how many of these women had university degrees. She would have bet that at least half were educated to the graduate level. Smiling, she shook her head and made her way through the vegetable section, past buckets of milk and piles of butter, toward the meat market. Beyond that were stalls selling clothes. She would just take a quick look. Perhaps by then the rain would have stopped.

To the left, high in the roof of the market, there was a sudden quick movement. Elena stared, but there was nothing there. It must have been a trick of the rainy light, filtering through the plastic covering of the ceiling. She was in the meat section now. A row of
kielbasy
sausages hung redly on hooks, surrounded by slabs of mutton. Turning the corner of a stall, Elena came face-to-face with the flayed head of a horse: the ears still pricked, the dark eyes startled against the exposed whites. The woman behind the stall gestured to it.

“Fresh today. You want some?”

Elena shook her head and crossed to the end of the row. She squinted into the dim vault above her head. She could see nothing but shadows. The scene in the park had unnerved her, making her edgy.
Get a grip on
yourself,
she thought.
Stop jumping at things that aren’t
there.

She went through the doors at the end of the market, to the crowded garment section. Elena looked at the merchandise, but there was little of interest: cheap Chinese goods from over the border, a few things from Russia. She was more interested in the pattern books, which promised a middle way between the shoddy imported garments and the expensive Western-style clothes that were sold in big stores like TSUM. Canadian cities, Elena had read, had more than one big store. It would be nice to have more choices.

Leaving the clothes behind, she went out into the passage that led to the street. The steps were slick with rain, but there was a brightness beyond the glass doors that suggested the storm had passed.

Elena stepped forward. Sharp fingers clamped tightly over her mouth and a hissing presence dragged her backward. She was drowning, going down into the rain, a river closing over her head, blood-red water banishing the distant stars.

Five

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN, 21ST CENTURY

The young priest had put ointment on the cut and bandaged it. Now Ilya sat, sipping tea and watching the rain pour down through the pines beyond the cathedral. The priest had excused himself, saying that he had services to perform. Ilya tried to remember what these might be, and failed. He could no longer recall clearly the offices of the Church, only the festivals, and even these were colored by memories of the pagan world of his childhood. But it was all the same thing in the end, Ilya thought, whether you tied a rag to the papery bough of a birch tree or lit a candle beneath a gilded roof.

Restlessly, he got to his feet and went to the door. His muscles ached and his nerves were wire-taut. He wondered how long it would be before withdrawal really began to take a hold. He had faced armies, but he was still afraid of this; scared that need would drive him to break the vow before he had even begun. He had to find a place that was safe, away from dealers and temptation, but he already knew that this was one of the worst cities in that respect. Afghanistan and the border could be no more than a few hundred kilometers away. Give it until nightfall and there would be a dealer on every corner. Maybe the priest knew a place to go—the dormitory of a clinic, perhaps. But then he would almost certainly have to pay. . . .

The sound was sudden, startling him from his reverie: a woman, crying out in terror.

I am here,
something whispered.

There was a flicker of movement in the pines, a shower of raindrops. Ilya ran down the steps and into the park.

A
rusalka
was moving through the trees as swiftly as a squirrel. It was chasing prey. At the point where the path branched off toward the war memorial and the eternal flame, a tall blonde in a raincoat was running. The
rusalka
swarmed down the tree toward her and Ilya cried out in warning, but his voice was hoarse. The woman stumbled once, and Ilya’s heart skipped, but then she was out of the park and into the street and he lost sight of her. He could still see the
rusalka,
however. It was crouching at the side of the war memorial, beneath a rearing bronze horse, holding its clawed hands out to the eternal flame in a mockery of hearth-fire warmth. Ilya ran down the path, trying to ignore the heaviness in his limbs. He felt as though he were running underwater, and as he panted up to the war memorial, the
rusalka
uncurled itself unhurriedly, like a cat, and slunk over the top, apparently without seeing him.

Cursing, Ilya looked around him. A young couple walked past him, laughing, but when the girl saw Ilya, her face changed and she clasped her boyfriend’s arm. He must look alarming, he thought: wild-eyed and disheveled, with the bloodstained bandage wrapped around his hand. No one would be looking to him to perform any heroics in the near future. Slowly, he walked over to the street.

The blonde woman had disappeared. But just as Ilya was starting to think that all might be well, he saw the
rusalka
again, scuttling underneath a market stall. No one else seemed to have seen it, but there was a curious sheen to the air, like a heat haze, and he wondered whether the creature was broadcasting some kind of interference around itself. Or perhaps it had to do with denial: People saw these things more easily in the old days, when they had believed.

Experience told him to look up, and there it was again, upside down on the ceiling. It was not looking at him, but staring into the market below. Ilya followed its gaze and saw the blonde woman once more. She was standing uncertainly among the vegetable stalls, her knuckles white around the strap of a shoulder bag. He was about to call out to her, but thought better of it. After the fright she must have had, the last thing she would want was some bloodstained maniac accosting her in the middle of the market. But why should the
rusalka
be so interested in this ordinary, attractive girl? Unless, of course, she had something it wanted. . . .

Ilya followed the woman through the main hall of the market and into a corridor filled with clothes stalls, keeping a wary eye on the ceiling. As the woman reached the end of the hall, the
rusalka
slid down the wall and disappeared. The woman went through the door. This time, Ilya did not hesitate. He ran to the doors, scattering startled shoppers, and into a passage. He glimpsed the woman as she turned. The
rusalka
was waiting for her.

Six

ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN, 21ST CENTURY

Elena lay gasping on the tiled floor of the passage. A cold shower spattered her face and she looked up to see a woman’s head flying across the vault. Its eyes were empty and its hair streamed out behind it like molten metal. It struck the wall and exploded into shards and fragments that spiraled away through the air.

A hand clasped Elena’s wrist and hauled her to her feet, so that she stood in a ringing silence. She looked numbly at the man who stood before her with a bloodied sword in his hand. A gleam of sunlight shot through the glass doors of the market. Elena backed against the wall.

“Dear God, what was
that
? And who are you?”

To her immense relief, the stranger lowered the sword.

“It’s all right,” he said quickly. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I think you just saved my life,” Elena said. Her voice was shaking. What kind of person went around with a sword in his hand? It looked like an antique. “And what was that
thing
?”

Her rescuer started to cough, leaning back against the wall, with a hand pressed to his chest. “Sorry,” he gasped.

Warily, Elena considered him. His black leather overcoat was scuffed at the hem, and she absently noticed that a button was missing from the sleeve. A pale, angular face—typically Slavic—beneath unkempt, greying hair. The eyes were a chilly, haunted blue, but you saw a lot of eyes like that these days. Looking more closely, she saw that there was a tilt to them, suggesting ancestry other than Russian, a touch of the East. One hand was bandaged. It was also obvious that he was ill. Elena edged away a little. Tuberculosis was rife in the prisons, and this man had the air of a convict.

“My name is Ilya Muromyets,” he said, recovering his breath. Odd, Elena thought, that he introduced himself in the Western manner. Didn’t he have a patronymic? “And that creature was a
rusalka.
”

“A
rusalka
?”

“Yes.”

Elena stared at him incredulously. “What, you’re telling me that was a water spirit?
Rusalki
are a myth.”

“So am I,” Ilya Muromyets said, smiling for the first time.

“What do you mean?” Elena asked with the anger of recent fright, but he did not answer. The name seemed familiar, somehow, but he was talking like a crazy person. She started to edge away toward the door.

“Why did it attack you?” Ilya Muromyets asked. “Do you know?”

“I’ve no idea.” But even as she spoke, her hand curled protectively around her handbag and Ilya Muromyets’ cold blue gaze fell upon it. Elena felt her face flushing; she was lousy at keeping secrets.

“What’s that you’ve got there?” Ilya Muromyets asked, very low.

“It’s nothing. It’s something I found ages ago.”

“Show me.”

“Why?” Elena demanded. Even in these odd circumstances, she didn’t see why she should comply with the instructions of a stranger.

“Because I’ve saved your life once already this morning, and I might have to do so again,” Ilya Muromyets said, sounding reasonable enough. Reluctantly, Elena reached into her handbag and took out the black ball. Ilya Muromyets stared at it.

“Do you know what it is?” Elena asked.

“Where did you find it?”

“In the snow,” Elena said, determined to tell him as little as possible.

“Here in Almaty? When?”

The cold eyes held her, and compelled. She said reluctantly, “On the road to Tashkent, about two weeks ago. There was a bad freeze, people died. The ambulance men were stealing things from the dead. I think this fell out of an ambulance driver’s pocket, but I’m sure he stole it from someone else.”

“Do you know who the original owner might have been?”

“There was a dead man in a car at the front of the line; he had a strange look about him. Maybe the thing belonged to him. But I don’t really know.”

“Strange? How?”

“I thought at the time that there was something funny about his eyes. But it must only have been that he had frozen.” She shivered at the memory, wrapping her arms around herself. “I tried to find out what this thing might be. I went to the library and the museum; I phoned everyone I could think of—I used to be a scientist, you see. Anomalies arouse my curiosity.”

Ilya Muromyets’ eyes narrowed. “Tell me more.”

“Stop interrogating me,” Elena said. “Who are you, anyway?” Surely he could not be from internal security, not with that down-at-the-heel appearance, not to mention the sword. Unless the armed forces had become too poor to afford guns. But his interest in the object was intriguing.

“I told you my name,” he said.

“Which means nothing.”

Ilya Muromyets smiled. “True. There’s no reason why you should have heard of me, not these days.”

“Were you famous or something, then?”

“Or something. And you haven’t told me your name, even.”

“Elena,” Elena said, after a pause.

“Just Elena?”

She did not answer.

“Well, if you don’t want to tell me . . . Or perhaps it’s Elena the Fair, like the story of the firebird?”

He smiled with sudden charm, and to her surprise, she found herself smiling in return.

“Do you live here?” Ilya Muromyets went on.

“I don’t know anymore,” Elena replied before she could stop herself.

It was a foolish thing to say, but he answered, “I know the feeling. Listen, Elena. What you are carrying is a danger to you; you’ve seen that already. Let me take it off your hands and you’ll never set eyes on me or it again, I promise.”

Elena felt suddenly as though she was standing back at the cosmodrome, gazing up at the stars, and she knew then that she was looking at the future. “If I give you this, it’ll come at a cost.” To her own ears, she sounded hard, like the new money-grabbing Russians she so despised. It made her add, “I’ve lost my job, my self-respect, and my family’s starting to fall apart. Even my country’s been abolished. All I have is a home I don’t belong to anymore.”

“I know what it is like,” Ilya Muromyets said with a curious diffidence, “to lose everything, and not to know any longer who you might be. But I also know what it is like to need to be the hero of one’s own life. If you wish, you can come with me, take your object to people who know what it is and what is to be done with it.”

She must have looked suspicious, for he added, “If I meant you harm, I’d have let the creature kill you, or done it myself before now.”

Elena looked into Ilya Muromyets’ face, but could not read anything from it. She did not believe him. She believed in rockets, not
rusalki.
She did not know what she had seen, but she was certain that it could not have been anything supernatural. Surely she had been attacked by some drug addict, and Ilya Muromyets had scared the girl away. She could not have seen that head, flying toward the wall and leaving no trace of blood and bone behind. And Muromyets wanted the black ball, or knew someone who did. Maybe it was valuable after all; an antique, perhaps.

“Then how much will you give me for it?” Elena asked.

Ilya Muromyets grimaced.

“I don’t have much money on me. Otherwise I’d buy it from you. But the people I know will be able to pay you for it, I’m sure of that.”

“And you don’t know what it is.”

She saw him hesitate.

“I’m not sure what it is, no,” he said. She could not tell if he was lying, or simply uncertain.

“So how much do you think they’ll pay me for this unknown thing?” Elena said. Her gaze locked with Ilya Muromyets’.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t even know if they really will pay, do you?”

“What do you think, Elena? Do you think it’s worth a chance?”

There was always the possibility, Elena thought, that it might be some kind of elaborate scam. God knows there had been enough of those over the years; she’d read about such things in the newspaper. What about that organ scandal in Tashkent? People had been told that they were being smuggled abroad to a new life, but they turned up in pieces in some village midden.

“Where are they, these people?”

“They’re out of town,” Ilya Muromyets said.

That settled it. “Tell them to get themselves into town, then,” Elena said. “I’m not going anywhere with someone I don’t know.”

“I could just take it,” Ilya Muromyets told her.

“But you won’t,” Elena said. “Will you?”

Ilya Muromyets shook his head, saying wearily, “No. I won’t take it from you.”

“Go to your friends, then. Tell them I’ll meet them tomorrow in”—she hesitated, trying to think of somewhere suitably public that had security guards—“the lobby of the Hotel Kazakhstan. Say eleven o’clock. Then we’ll talk.”

“Where can I find you?” Ilya Muromyets asked. “Just in case I can’t reach them?”

“There’s a cafe on Mamedova Street, by the old metro vent. You can leave a message there,” Elena said. She did not even want to give him her phone number, just in case. You never knew what contacts people might have, the extent to which they might be able to track you down. Ilya Muromyets nodded wearily.

“Very well. I’ll tell them.”

“Is there any way I can contact you? Where are you staying?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ve only just arrived in town.”

“If anything happens, and I can’t make it, I’ll leave a message at the cafe on Mamedova. Otherwise, I’ll see you tomorrow,” Elena said.

“All right. I’ll see you then.” He did not sound happy, but Elena was not disposed to further argument. She turned quickly and went out through the door of the market.

The rain had blown out over the city, leaving a washed pale sky in its wake. A group of old men had already clustered around a chessboard at the far end of the market, and Elena could hear the faint, discordant drift of karaoke from a cafe stall. She felt safer with people around. She walked swiftly across the wet concrete until she reached the edge of the trees, then looked back. The entrance to the market was empty; Ilya Muromyets was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he had gone inside. Elena fingered the ball in her handbag, relieved to find it still safely tucked away. The whole episode had made little sense: this talk of spirits and strangeness, Ilya Muromyets’ gaunt face and fractured manner. She wondered whether he was simply mad, but then she remembered the image of the girl, hanging above her with that needle smile. Involuntarily, her eyes lifted to the surrounding buildings, as though the girl might even now be crouching among the pigeons, but there was nothing.

Elena took a last look around, then hastened toward home.