Dancing with Bears (21 page)

The giant shifted slightly, tossing his head and throwing back one arm. His eyes did not open

Surplus’s heart sank. In a strangled voice, he said, “
This
is the Duke of Muscovy?”

Chortenko’s smile reached no further than his lips. “Now you understand why so few people are allowed to see him. The great man has cognitive powers superior even to those of the fabled Utopian computers. He is the perfect ruler for Muscovy in all aspects but one. He is orderly in his thoughts, analytic in his assessments, loving in his intentions toward his subjects, ruthless toward his enemies, decisive when it comes time to act, patient when all the facts are not yet in, and absolutely without personal interest or bias in his decisions. Alas, he cannot appear in public. The citizenry would reject him as a monster.”

Zoësophia sighed. “He is the most perfect expression of male beauty I have ever seen, not even excepting Michelangelo’s statue of David in the Caliph’s private collection. It is ironic. He is as desirable in his way as I am in mine—and yet he and I are perfectly useless to one other.”

“Does he never wake?” Surplus asked.

“Were he to stand, his great heart could only support the body for a matter of hours before bursting,” Chortenko said. “So, of necessity, the Duke of Muscovy reigns in a state of perpetual sleep.”

There was the sharp click of heels as a servile messenger hurried by and mounted the steps of a railed platform by the duke’s head. He leaned forward and in a rapid monotone began reciting a report. When he was done, the duke nodded wordlessly, and he left.

“Now that all of your questions have been addressed,” Chortenko said, “I shall go to learn the answers to my own. Do not attempt to approach the duke, for the guards will not permit it.”

As always, Chortenko felt a secret thrill of excitement as he mounted the stairs to the dais by the sleeping giant’s ear. There was no telling what he might learn, if only he asked the right questions. He gripped the wooden rail, worn smooth by many a thousand hands, and said, “Your Royal Highness, it is your servant Sergei Nemovich who speaks.”

“Ahhh… yes… the ambitious one,” the duke murmured quietly, as does one who speaks in his sleep. His voice was astonishingly small, coming from such a titanic body.“It was you who arranged matters so…that none of my other…advisors…could approach me.”

“True, Majesty. It was you who told me how.”

“I slept. Awake, I would not…have aided your conspiracy.”

“Since you will never awaken, that is irrelevant. I have brought with me the Byzantine ambassador, and one of the women the Caliph sent you as a present.”

“I have been dreaming… of food riots in Uzhgorod. Wheat must be sent… to prevent…”

“Yes, yes, that is most commendable. But it is not what I have come to speak with you about.”

“Then speak.”

To the far side of the room, Chortenko saw one of Surplus’s ears twitch slightly and had no doubt that, though an ordinary human could not have overheard him from such a distance, the dog-man could. The woman he was not so sure about. She appeared to be lost in thought. Well, let them eavesdrop. Nothing they heard would give them much comfort. Choosing his words carefully, he said, “Our friends below are coy about their plans. When will they make their move?”

“The market for tobacco is down slightly, while the demand for illegal drugs of all sorts has declined steeply.… Absenteeism in the officer class is up, prostitution is booming, and there are reports of vagrants seen pushing wheelbarrows full of human feces. Taken together with various promises that have been made, you can expect an invasion of Moscow within days. Possibly as soon as tonight.”

“Really!” Chortenko, who had thought it a matter of months at a minimum, could not have been more astonished. But he composed himself. “What preparations should I make that have not yet been done?”

“Eat well and rest. Move all artillery units out of the city and make sure that all known rakes and libertines have been flensed from your own forces. Have Baron Lukoil-Gazprom killed.”

“Good, good.” Chortenko rather liked the baron, insofar as he liked anybody, for the man’s blunt, bluff predictability. But he could see how the baron’s twin propensities for unthinking action and reflexive assumption of command in an emergency might get in his way.

The Duke of Muscovy’s preternaturally handsome face twisted briefly, as if in pain. “Your scheme…endangers…my city.”

“It is worth the risk. Tell me, would it cause trouble with Byzantium if its ambassador were to disappear?”

“I dreamed of Baikonur… and wolves…”

“Try to pay attention, Your Royal Highness. I spoke with Gospodin de Plus Precieux as you directed, telling him of the rumors that the lost library of Ivan the Terrible had been discovered. As you predicted, he showed no surprise. Then, when I proposed a conspiracy to defraud the state, he assented immediately, without requiring even an instant’s thought.”

“Then he is…nothing more than a confidence trickster who has somehow displaced the true ambassador. You may do with him as you wish.”

“He also brought a woman with him,” Chortenko reminded the duke. “One of the Byzantine sluts.”

“Only…one?”

“Yes.”

“Then she is a spy…and her, too, you may…do with as you wish.”

This pleasant news Chortenko received with just a touch of regret. More to himself than to his master, he murmured, “So it is nothing but a sad and shabby story all around. A pity. I would have liked to have found the Tsar’s lost library.”

“It is not…lost. I deduced the library’s…location…ten years ago.”

“What?”

“It lies below the Secret Tower, in a concealed chamber. There has been some subsidence there recently. Not enough to endanger…the tower… But perhaps it would be well to move the books to a more secure location.”

“You have known this for a decade and you never told anyone?” Chortenko said angrily.

“Nobody…asked.”

Chortenko drew in a long, exasperated breath. This was exactly why the time had come for the duke’s reign to come to an end. Yes, he could answer questions—but only if one knew which to ask. His strategies for expanding Muscovy’s influence were brilliant—but he had no aims or ambitions of his own. The goal of restoring the Russian empire had originated with Chortenko and a few others, such as the soon-to-be late Baron Lukoil-Gazprom. The duke was so lacking in intention that he even conspired in his own overthrow!

Worst of all, he could not appear in public. And a war—a true war, one involving millions—could not be fought with a leader who dared not show his face. The duke himself had confirmed this: Without a leader able to inspect troops, make speeches, and fire up the populace, the sacrifices required to raise an army of conquest simply would not be made.

No, the time had come for the duke to die. That had not been a part of Chortenko’s original plan. He had meant to let loose rumors that the duke had fallen ill, confirm those rumors, solicit the prayers of the Muscovian citizenry, declare a day of fast and penitence, orchestrate items in the newspapers:
Doctors Fear Worst
, followed later by
Duke in Decline
, a few variants of
No Hope, Say Kremlin Insiders
, a sudden and unexpected
Miraculous Rally!
and then at last
Duke of Muscovy Dies
, and
Nation Mourns
, and
Succession Passes to Chortenko
. After which, the still-sleeping former duke would have been quietly demoted to advisor.

However, his new friends were jealous allies, and viewed the Duke of Muscovy as a rival. The duke’s death was part of the price of their cooperation. Chortenko regretted that, for losing that brilliant mind would be a sacrifice equivalent to the slaughter of an entire battalion. But he was prepared to lose any number of battalions, if it meant gaining an empire.

“Just once, I would like… to see… my beloved city… of Moscow. I would be willing… to die… if that is what it cost.”

“Trust me, that will never happen.”

Chortenko descended from the dais with renewed confidence in the future. He rejoined his companions. Zoësophia’s expression was tense and distracted, as befit one who had just seen all her plans and future crumble before her face. Surplus looked unhappy and irresolute.

“This way,” Chortenko said, and led them down to the very bottom of the palace, to a door which none but he ever employed. “I told our driver not to bother waiting for us with the carriage. Instead, we will return through an underground passage that leads directly to the basement of my manor.”

Zoësophia nodded distractedly. She scowled to herself, lips twitching slightly, a woman in furious thought on matters that had little to do with her present situation. But if her reaction was disappointing, Surplus’s was not. He stiffened and looked about himself wildly, gripping his walking stick at its midpoint preparatory to using it as a weapon. His every muscle was tense. He was clearly terrified.

By prearrangement, six of the bear-guards closed ranks about the group.

At a gesture, Max unlocked the door. “After you, my dear Ambassador,” Chortenko said.

Surplus took a deep breath, and, when he exhaled, seemed to deflate. His shoulders slumped. His eyes dimmed and his gaze fell to the floor. All the fight had gone out of him.

With a shudder, he passed through the door.

...10...

E
verywhere he went, Arkady was joyfully received. Women kissed his cheek and men hugged him fervently. Always he was urged to stay for a glass of tea or a shot of vodka. No one ever said aloud that an orgy might be in the offing, but the prospect was inevitably in the air.

Arkady would have liked to linger, but his holy mission would not allow that. He had to deliver rasputin to everyone on Koschei’s endless list—to noblemen, army officers, and heads of government agencies, to firefighters and police officers, to doxies and courtesans who snatched the vials from his hand, to hard men with prison tattoos on their fingers who slipped the drug into their pockets without a glance and soft men who received it with wondering eyes, to stock speculators and shopkeepers and dealers in fiery spirits, to priests and pharmacists and genetic surgeons, to college professors and unkempt poets, to night watchmen and munitions manufacturers and private security guards, to torch singers and dream-brewers and longshoremen, to parliamentarians in the Duma and bohemians in the Arbat and grim lords of biology in their cloneries just beyond the slums and brothels of Zamoskvorechye. Rumor of his sacred cargo had spread through Moscow like wildfire, so that to Arkady all the city was a sea of smiles and outstretched hands. His rented carriage sped from Kitai-Gorod to the slums of Gorky Park and as far out of town as the birch forests of Tsaritsyno. Everywhere, he dispensed his drugs like a fairy-tale prince scattering rubies, and was received with thinly disguised greed.

He felt like Grandfather Frost distributing presents to the children on New Year’s Eve.

It was exhausting work, but whenever he felt his energies flag, Arkady would open his walrus-hide satchel and plunge his face within, inhaling deeply of the air above the vials. Those microscopic fractions of the drug that had managed to slip past the wax seals would flow into his lungs and blood and brain and muscles, filling him with the strength and benevolence his mission required. It was nothing like the effects of a full dosage, of course, but it was sufficient to keep him going.

Periodically he returned to the New Metropol to refill his bag. Already he had given away far more of the drug than Koschei could possibly have brought with him to Moscow. Yet, like the miracle of the loaves and fishes, the more he gave, the more remained. It was a mystery as inexplicable and astonishing as the fact that God in His perfection should nevertheless love His flawed and sinful human children.

Or so it seemed. The mystery was solved when, coming back yet again to the New Metropol, Arkady saw two dead souls with albino skin and colorless rags for clothing leaving his suite. Their faces were lifeless, their bodies so thin he could not tell if they were male or female, and when they passed by him, Arkady caught a strong whiff of excrement. He entered the room and saw Koschei, Chernobog, and Svaroži
č
prying open a newly delivered crate. Svaroži
č
took the satchel from him and began methodically filling it with vials, straight from the crate, smiling beatifically all the while.

Arkady’s back ached just looking at the bag. All his good mood fled.

“This is too much!” he scolded. “There is enough here to drug every man, woman, and child in Moscow ten times over. Surely there is no need for it all to be distributed today.” He could not help thinking of all the beautiful young women in the city who were at this very moment giving themselves freely to everyone but him. Earlier that evening, he had turned down Yevgeny’s offer to help in the rasputin’s distribution, though it would have cut his time in half, because the task had been entrusted to him alone. Now he regretted that bitterly. “We should call it quits and start over again tomorrow.”

“It must be done today,” Koschei said, the God-light glowing in his eyes. His voice was low and thunderous, and when he spoke electricity seemed to crackle in the air about his head and beard. “Tomorrow will be too late.”

“What do you mean, too late?”

“Our labors are at long last come to fruition, praise God and all the Cherubim! For on this very day we will bring about the Eschaton and history will come to an end.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“No one can know what it means until it happens. We can only accept that it will.”

“I still don’t—”

“The Eschaton,” Chernobog said, “is the transcendent, uncreated, and spiritual apotheosis of humankind, the unending instant when the finger of God touches the Earth and all the immanent and phenomenal world is swallowed up in such wild glories as are experienced in each and every instant by the saints in Heaven.”

“But what are you talking about? What will it look like?”

“You will know it when it comes,” Koschei said solemnly.

“Yes,” Chernobog said, “and it will come soon.”