Mechanique (11 page)

43.

The wolf tamer drove the beast up to camp ahead of him, snapping his whip above its head, calling out orders if the wolf strayed from the straight path. The whip-sound carried, and he was half a mile away when the circus started to gather and watch him approach. He whistled shrilly, let the whip sing. The beast cringed with ears back and moved faster.

When he reached the camp, there were nearly two dozen costumed performers waiting for him, and another dozen crew in drab colors. The wolf tamer was pleased; if the circus could sustain this many, it could sustain two more.

“Is the beast yours?”

The woman who had spoken was built like a tower of stone, and had her two lieutenants—one with brass ribs, the other with a brass hunchback—flanking her. So this circus had an order; another good sign.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, picking his next words carefully. This circus was more refined than the bickering cesspool he had expected, and words might matter. “I caught it myself in the woods outside the city. I trained it alone, and it obeys my commands and mine only. Heel!”

The wolf set back its ears and slid at once to his side, half-crouched, waiting for its next order.

“What can it do?” she asked.

“It can jump, and dance, and count to ten.”

The woman nodded. Then she half-smiled. “And is the whip for show?”

He had impressed them, then. He bowed and smiled.

“Oh no,” he said. “An animal learns best at the end of the whip.”

She nodded once, and the wolf tamer thought she was agreeing with him until he heard the whistle, a split second before the whip came down across his face.

(Jonah wielded the thin coil of wire—Boss knew he had the steadier hand, and the advantage of being dismissed when he stood beside Ayar.

Elena admired his aim.)

The wolf tamer thought for a moment that there must have been some mistake, but when he wiped the blood from his brow, he saw thirty stony faces turned on him.

Then Jonah struck again, just below his knee, and he went down screaming.

The wolf tamer stumbled away from the onslaught of the whip, first in shock, then mindless with pain and fear. He tripped and rolled down the hill, banging over rocks and hard ground, until he lay choking on the flat ground below. He staggered up and ran until the terror left him, and then he sank against the city wall and peered back up the way he had come.

He had left his whip behind; the animal had not followed.

The grey wolf lived with the circus for almost a year.

It was largely Jonah’s, padding a few feet behind him when Jonah crossed the camp, taking up a satellite position when Jonah was resting. It would not enter Ayar and Jonah’s trailer, but it slept on the ground just under the stairs.

As it came to realize that no harm would come to it, it became bolder and harsh, slinking around the edges of the trucks, baring its teeth at anyone it disliked.

It disliked Ayar most; Ayar was the one who had to lock it up at night when they were performing. Animals of its quality were in short supply, and it was too tempting a thing to leave unguarded. Ayar was the only one strong enough to hold the fighting wolf, and the claws seemed not to bother him, even when the wolf drew blood.

Sometimes, as if it missed cruelty, the wolf would follow Elena. It would last a day or two under her icy stares, and then bound away, skulking in the shadows for a week before appear-
ing again under Jonah’s trailer.

One day the wolf was wild enough to run into the forest near their camp, hunting something only it could sense. A week later when they pulled down the tent, the wolf had not come back.

“Call it, if you want,” Boss told Jonah. “We’ll wait.”

That night Jonah stood for an hour at the edge of camp, looking into the darkness of the woods.

He came back empty-handed.

Ayar frowned. “It didn’t come?”

Jonah said, “I didn’t call.”

Jonah still thinks of the wolf sometimes when he sees Stenos.

Stenos goes to Elena when he misses cruelty, too.

Jonah wonders if Stenos, too, will grow too hungry to hold; if he will disappear into the dark woods some night and never come out again.

44.

The first city we came to, after we left the city where the government man had seen us, had a name carved in stone above the wall (Phyrra). It had a magistrate, and close-paved walkways, and the only people who carried guns on the streets were the town militia.

When I came through the city with my posters, the magistrate asked me to make sure we kept our camp well clear of the city garden. There were children lining the streets when the parade came through. I’d never seen anything like it; even the peaceful cities and the standing cities weren’t like this.

“This is magic,” I said to Boss, swinging up into the truck as we drove away from the city up the hill where the crew was setting up camp.

It was the first I had seen of her since she had given me the ink. I had traveled with the dancing girls in their little trailer; we had lost one in the last city (the city needed a stonemason), and I could sleep in a real bunk.

She glanced at me and half-smiled, looking older than I had ever seen her look. She must have had a hard journey. “Most cities were, before the war,” she said.

The new griffin on my shoulder ached. (The blood was still drying, over the eyes and along the joints. Boss had tattooed my griffin with metal legs to match his wings, legs that looked like mine.)

“When was that?” I asked. “Before the war. How long ago was that?”

It was the first time I had ever asked her a question like that, and my voice shook.

She looked over. “Farther back than you think.”

We passed under the shadow of an oak tree, and in the moments of shade she looked hundreds of years old, like a statue battered by the rain and cracked here and there by a cold winter.

I had never seen her this way before, and I wondered why until I realized it was the tattoo; I saw, finally, there was magic at work here that was darker and deeper than I had imagined, that the tattoo was like putting a pair of spectacles on a child with poor vision.

I stared up at the camp hill, my heart in my throat, and wondered what everything would look like, now that I could see.

The government man came the next day, as the sun was going down, and we were setting up for the show.

His three cars climbed up the hill and slid into our camp, three black dogs come to feast. I feared him, suddenly, as I hadn’t thought I could fear anything. How could he have found us, unless he had followed us? How could he follow us and we not have known?

(The magistrate must have sent word when he saw us coming. One government man looks after another, and the magistrate had worked hard for his city’s peace.)

I was at the edge of camp in an instant, watching the cars. Boss came behind me. She glanced at their approach, then walked across camp, so that when the cars came over the hill, she would be framed by the tent. (Ringmaster habits; Boss believed in a good show, no matter what.) Then she folded her arms and waited.

The government man had brought more men with him this time—six of them, with jackets that seemed strained under the arms, where a holster would go.

I took a step towards Boss. “What should we do?”

“You’ll do what I tell you,” Boss said, lightly, and motioned me back with her left arm. Her griffin tattoo seemed to shrink back from the approaching men.

Around us, the performers were gathering.

“Madam,” said the government man when he was close enough not to have to shout. He smiled and inclined his head, as if they were alone and he was pleased to see her. “You left so soon.”

“We like to hit as many cities as we can before the frost,” she says. “The trucks run slow on the ice.”

His smile got wider. “Interesting. I would love to hear more about your operations. I’m always interested in examples of order. Would you mind coming with me? I’m always more comfortable having long chats when I’m safe at home.”

The two men nearest her shifted and slid their hands inside their jackets.

Boss looked from the government man to his backups. Then she shrugged, as if he had asked for the last glass of beer, and glanced coolly at me over her shoulder. “I’m going with the Prime Minister to discuss the circus. I’ll be back soon.”

She slid the workshop key off her neck and handed it to me, right in front of him, like it was worth no more than a bottlecap.

I thought, so it’s Prime Ministers these days. I thought, It’s a lie. You don’t come back when a government man takes you away to answer a few questions about your business.

“Yes, sir,” I said.

As soon as their backs were turned, I looped the chain over my neck and shoved the key out of sight.

Boss moved placidly through the camp alongside the government man. She walked slowly, though, as if the bulk of her body dragged on her (it was the first time I’d seen it, but a good scam for a rube), and by the time she had reached the cars, there was enough of a crowd that the Prime Minister frowned at us all. Gently, he took Boss’s arm and made her turn to face them.

“So they don’t worry,” he invited her.

She smiled and looked over at us. “I’ll be back in a day or two,” she said. “The Prime Minister has some questions about mechanics.”

Her voice shook on the last word.

No one spoke. From where I stood, I could see Ying, her face chalk-white, her hands balled into trembling fists at her sides. Nothing else moved.

Then, from the center of the knotted performers, Bird leapt out.

The jump was so high and fast that I thought someone must have launched her, but Stenos was too far away.

She spread her arms and curled up her legs as she jumped, her knees tight to her chest and her feet as hooked as a hawk’s talons, and I saw that she would land on the government man’s throat with her feet and knock his head clean off his shoulders—then we’d have to fight, kill them all before they could call for help.

She hung in the air for ages. Someone in our crowd started to call out.

Then came the gunshot.

Bird cried out and fell; I saw the blood pouring from her right ankle where the bullet had struck her. She landed in a heap, turned away from us, one arm extended and the fingers curled in.

I saw Alec, suddenly, in the crumpled body—as sharp as if I was back in the tent all those years ago, listening to the last trembling notes from his wings.

Mina screamed. The government man shouted an order, and his men converged on Bird, dragging her limp body to one of the three dark cars. Someone in the crowd shouted for the men to stop, and a few of the crew moved forward—they were answered with a volley of shots in the air. The crowd froze, but the murmur swelled.

“Don’t wait for me,” Boss said under the noise—she was looking right at me, my arm burned—and then she was being dragged after the Prime Minister to the black sedan that was standing open and waiting for them.

Stenos was already running after them when Ayar caught him.

He lifted and swung Stenos around in a single motion, so that when the government men turned, they saw only Ayar’s back.

The car’s engines roared to life.

“We’ve lost enough!” Ayar was hissing, over Stenos’ struggles. “What can you do?”

Boss’s dark head was silhouetted in the window of the black sedan as the three cars snaked away down the hill to the main road, headed east to the capital city.

The camp was shocked into silence, so quiet that I heard Elena’s labored breathing as the cars disappeared down the hill.

Stenos pulled at Ayar even after the cars were gone, kicking Ayar’s chest, shoving at Ayar’s face, aiming for his ribs—a man possessed, trying get some leverage to break out. The only sound in the frozen camp was the creak and bang of Ayar’s skeleton as Stenos threw himself against it.

Ayar shouldn’t have been concerned about stopping him (Stenos was strong, but Ayar was unstoppable), but I remember Ayar holding on for dear life, as if the moment he let go Stenos would be out of his grasp and flying after the car to murder them all.

(I wish he had let go.)

45.

This is why Elena is breathing hard:

She and Bird reach the gathering crowd at the same time. Boss has not yet turned back to them and spoken—it looks like everything is already settled for Boss, that Boss is already gone.

Elena knows what comes now, and trembles.

Bird asks, quietly, “Will they kill her?”

Elena has gone off with a government man before (perhaps Bird knows—Bird listens when you hope she isn’t), but that was a different government. That man felt stupid not knowing how the trick was done, and after Boss showed him he couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.

This man, she knows, is a different breed. She looks at his impassive face, the anticipation in his eyes.

“Yes,” Elena says.

They watch as the government man pulls Boss around to face them, and invites her to lie about where she’s going, as if she’s coming back.

Bird says without looking, “Can you throw me?”

Elena glances over at Bird, sizing her up. No reason to go on without the woman who can give her the wings, Elena guesses. Or maybe Bird has the most experience killing people. Some people find themselves very good at killing, once they get started. You do strange things out in the world before you join the Circus.

“You’ll die too,” she says.

Bird never looks away from the government man. She says, “All right.”

Elena doesn’t think any more about it. She crouches and laces her fingers, to give Bird a place to step.

The crew knows something is wrong, and the ripple of discontent distracts the government men, who don’t know where to look. Elena keeps her eyes fixed on where Bird will fly and knots her muscles around the copper bones; dimly she feels the solid weight of Bird’s foot in the sling of her hands (perfect balance), and then in a single motion so smooth that no one sees, Elena uncoils, stands up, lets go.

Bird flies five feet over the heads of the crowd, arms like a falcon’s wings, ready to strike, and Elena can’t hear anything but the blood pounding in her ears.

It’s not fear that makes breathing so difficult. She’s just unused to so much liftoff, is all. Elena has nothing to be afraid of. She’s not the one who jumped.

(She lowers her hands, so no one sees what happened.)

When the shot comes, Elena’s the only one who doesn’t jump at the sound.

Then Mina is screaming, and shots are going off, and Ying has cried out, and Elena has to step forward and grab Ying’s arm to keep her from running to Bird and getting dragged off, too.

(The problem with softhearted people is that they can’t control themselves in bad circumstances. She doesn’t know why Boss keeps letting them in.)

Elena watches Bird get shoved into one of the black cars and hopes that Bird is better at planning revenge than she looks, because right now Elena has her doubts.

(It isn’t true. Bird was born to plan revenge. It’s why Elena offered Bird her hands. Elena doesn’t believe in lost causes.)

As the crowd begins to disperse, Elena stands where she is, watching the cars as if Bird will fly through one of the windows and wreak havoc on them. Even after the cars are gone, she watches the horizon. It’s the closest she’s come to goodwill for Bird, to hope Bird kills them all.

Dimly, she hears Stenos and Ayar struggling, but she doesn’t turn to look. If Stenos is hoping to save his chance for the wings, he’s too late, and if he’s racing after his partner, it’s not the sort of display Elena would care to see.

Why make a fool out of yourself for someone you’re supposed to hate?

(That’s the problem with softhearted people. No control.)