Chapter 41
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The barrier between the waking world and the Asphodel Meadows is, for a thanatist, a sheer veil, which may, as a matter of perception, be drawn aside.
—Marcel Gerbau, Eminent Wayfinder, St. Paul’s
Madam raised her arms and called the angry Cinematograph crowd to silence. Semblances and vestiges on the floor near the stage still glared up at me as I peered down from the projection window.
“You’ve disrupted this evening’s entertainment, Mr. Solomon,” said Madam. “So, how’s about you join us here onstage, hmm?”
Cassius was holding the muscular woman against the back wall of the projection room with his sword. “It is a trap, Jack. You would be putting that entire crowd between us and the street.”
“Yeah, but I need information only she can give us.” I turned from the window. “Besides, I think she cares more about showmanship than the win.”
We told the cigarette man and the woman to stay put—they seemed happy to oblige—and stepped out of the booth onto the mezzanine.
“Lot of people pissed at you, Jack.” Chuey pointed his macuahuitl toward the theater rabble. “And you haven’t even sung for them yet.”
“Yeah, definitely not my crowd,” I said. “Have you a plan, Jack?” asked Church.
“More of an instinct,” I said.
I led my friends down the winding staircase and into the theater. The throng closed ranks behind us, sealing us in.
We mounted the left-stage stairs and stood opposite Madam on the boards. Beside her, Paul Rutherford and his Swing Kings glared at us, while several hundred vestiges and semblances fell quiet, as if waiting for a show.
Madam raised a hand, and from backstage, four vestiges in motley uniforms trotted out and formed a staggered line in front of her. The two in the middle held cudgels, the two on the ends had nets. Behind them, next to Madam, stood her giant spearman, in a loincloth.
Cassius sidled close to me. “Remember, stay behind us. Be our eyes.
Bracing strokes if you can. Clip every binding you are able.” “Let’s see if we can appeal to her lesser nature first,” I said.
Cassius nodded, then took position with Church and Lady between me and Madam’s line of vestiges. Chuey stayed next to me.
“Such a treat to see you again, Mr. Solomon,” began Madam. “May I ask how you came by my whereabouts?”
“You of all people should know anything’s available for a price, Madam.”
She smiled. “And you know my name, too. You’ve been busy, Mr.
Solomon.”
“More than you know,” I said. “By the way, thanks for bailing me out the other night. With the wraith, I mean.”
“Think I did that for you, do you?” “Who else?”
Madam laughed, right up from her gut. “You’re not here for a spot of retaliation, then, for that business with the nets. All’s forgiven, you’d say?” “That depends,” I replied. “I’m told this is Iron Horse ground. What are you doing here?”
“Oh, it most assuredly was, Mr. Solomon. But you see, like it or not, a spirit may choose for herself, which is to say, when presented with a better option, she may shift her allegiance.”
I was counting on it. “Without the least bit of encouragement from you, I suppose.”
Madam ignored the accusation and stepped up between her two cudgel-wielding vestiges. “These old cinemas, which you leave to decay in your world, are still vibrant here in the Strata.”
I recalled the chaotic song the Swing Kings had just been playing. “With new music.”
“Among other things,” said Madam. “These grand old theaters can be movie houses, playhouses, music halls—”
“But not all at once. That’d be the trick of your lantern, wouldn’t it?
” “The point is,” said the bandleader, Rutherford, “they share the same purpose. The very thing absent from your world’s music.
” His shadow swirled with countless occlusions in the light of Madam’s lantern. “And what is that?” I asked.
“A spark,” he said. “A spark from which a movement may grow. But instead, your world’s music is self-aggrandizing, exalting the performer; it isn’t meant to inspire people toward a common goal.”
“To refashion individual allegiance into something less . . . individual, you mean.”
“When I taught at the Guildhall,” said Rutherford, “my students were made to understand personal sacrifice.”
“Can it really be personal sacrifice if you’re making them do something?” “Love your idealism,” said Madam, “but I can hardly think, Mr.
Solomon, that this is why you came.”
“Fair enough,” I said, “I need to know about that wraith you had in your nets. Anything I could use to track it. It’ll save lives, and not just topside.”
Madam laughed again and shook her head. “Track a wraith? No wonder there’s such interest in you, Mr. Solomon: you’re quite mad.”
“There’s more.”
“Oh, this should be good,” she said, pushing back her hat.
“I need to know who Muster Brach hired to kill Henry Wilkinson . . .” I paused to watch her eyes, but she was too good. “Even if that someone is you.”
Madam’s smile faded. “Well then, Mr. Solomon, this is going to be a very disappointing visit for you.”
“Just tell me . . . I’ll even pay for the information. Church?” Church produced his bag of silver and held it toward her.
“I have a counteroffer.” Madam looked out at the crowd gaping at us and then back at me. “You stay here with us for a couple of days, hale and hearty until your chancery appointment, and I will let your friends walk out of here as alive as they were when they came in. How does that grab you?”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Lakshmi step out from behind the edge of the curtain onto the far side of the stage. She drew her tulwar and called out, “I suggest you answer Mr. Solomon’s questions.”
Madam bowed. “Nicely played, Mr. Solomon, but do you really believe you can defeat us all?” She drew her bow over one of her lantern’s rods, scraping out an earthy tone. Light flared, touching every semblance and vestige in the theater. They roared and tightened in front of the stage.
Cassius leaned in close. “Call for single combat.” “What?”
“One versus one,” Cassius explained. “My fourth-century binder, Theodosius, instituted the practice after dealing with bands of Picts and Saxons. I prefer it, anyway. It is more honorable.”
Still amazed me how long Cassius had been fighting. “I’m not sure Madam’s one to give up an advantage.”
“Most thanatists would not,” he said, “but single combat is still codified in Precedent Law. Most new thanatists are just not aware of the fact.”
I eyed Madam’s giant. “Her spearman’s got you by more than a foot.
Can you beat him?”
The centurion smiled like a madman. “I have wanted this opportunity since our contest outside your home was interrupted.”
I slapped his back and turned to Madam. “I cite Precedent and call for single combat to settle this. Assuming a freebooter like yourself has the scruples to honor the outcome, how about your spearman against my centurion? If your man wins, I stay here, and my friends walk free. But if my man wins, you tell me what I want to know, and we all go home.”
Madam looked Cassius over. “I don’t care much about Precedent. But I love a good show. I hope your man gives us one. I think, though, you will be washing his blood from our beautiful stage before we retire to await your trial.”
She laughed and cleared her crew back out of the way. Then she stepped to the far side of the stage, lantern and bow still in hand. My friends and I went to the other side. She gestured like a band conductor, and Paul Rutherford counted the Swing Kings into a lively carnival-style tune.
Cassius started forward, sword in hand. Madam’s spearman stepped toward him, spinning his eight-foot spear. They began to circle.
The spearman thrust his spear at Cassius’s chest. Cassius slipped it, cried “Bratros,” and rushed the spearman, his sandals pounding the boards like floor toms.
They went down on the old planks with a heavy thud. The spearman rolled over on top of Cassius and swung the butt of his spear at Cassius’s face. Cassius shifted his head away just in time, rolled onto the spearman’s arm, flipping the man over, then clamped a chokehold on him.
The spearman’s face flushed red, then started to pale. But before passing out he stood, Cassius on his back as if he weighed nothing. The spearman jumped and fell back, bringing his full weight down on top of Cassius and cracking the boards beneath them. Cassius went still.
The crowd roared and pounded their hands on the front of the stage as the carnival-swing music played on.
Madam laughed. “Oh, how the mighty fall. Right, Mr. Solomon?” “I really wish you’d shut the hell up,” I said.
The spearman wrapped his massive hands around Cassius’s neck.
Cassius still hadn’t moved. He needed a bracing stroke.
I’d seen it done, and even practiced a little, though not on anyone.
Got to be now. I took my lantern by its pistol grip, focused intensely on my friend, and pulled my bow hard and fast against one of my lamp’s frame rods.
Amber light shot out and hit Cassius directly in his wrist binding, but it was merely like shining a flashlight on him. The theater mob laughed and threw popcorn at me.
I was doing something wrong.
“Pair it with the idea of strength,” said Church.
I pulled another hard bow stroke and imagined Cassius standing against Roman legions to defend his family.
Amber light streaked again and flowed into Cassius’s bindings, wrapping him in a cocoon of light.
The shimmer inside his shadow flared with radiance.
His eyes widened, and his leg muscles bulged.
“Nicely done,” said Madam, clapping soft and slow.
Cassius broke the spearman’s grip on his throat, then swung his legs up and wrapped them around the spearman’s head and chest. He drove the giant back, his legs still holding him like a clamp, then pulled one of the man’s huge arms back until the elbow snapped with a loud crack.
The spearman screamed, and Madam raised her bow. “Lakshmi?” I pointed at Madam.
The raptorial’s hand flashed. A knife hit Madam’s lantern, knocking it from her hand. The theater crowd booed and tossed a few crumpled playbills onto the stage. They must have been running out of popcorn.
“Dirty move,” said Madam. “I love it.”
Cassius swung around, reversing his hold, and grabbed the spearman’s other arm.
The spearman flexed hard, lifting Cassius up over his head.
Cassius drove his boots into the spearman’s face and chest, but the spearman didn’t flinch and slammed Cassius’s head into the floorboards. Laughter and cheers rose from the crowd.
Cassius didn’t let up. He wrapped his legs around the spearman again and grabbed the giant’s good arm.
Clenching his teeth and pulling with all his might, he arched his chest for leverage, trying to snap the second elbow.
His sweat-beaded triceps bulged like thick snakes.
The spearman howled and writhed in the centurion’s grip, frantically jerking and twisting his arm to no avail.
At last, another loud crack sounded, and the spearman went limp in Cassius’s arms. A moment later, Cassius pushed the spearman’s body away, picked up his sword, stood, and pointed it down at the spearman’s chest. “Mercy?”
The spearman nodded and laid his head back on the stage. The frenzied crowd moaned and hissed.
Cassius limped back next to me. “You okay?” I asked.
“I miss honest combat like this.” “You’re a helluva wrestler.”
“I’m part Roman,” he replied, a wry smile on his face. “I will say, though, never in all my vestige years have I felt such a bracing stroke as that.”
“Sorry, I’ve never—”
“Most thanatists just push a vague idea of health,” he said. “It never occurs to them that a better, deeper brace would result from a memory of the vestige’s own strength.”
“Made sense to me,” I said. “Plus, there was a margin note about it in Henry’s journal.”
Cassius sheathed his sword. “Thanatists rarely take time to know the pasts of those who serve them.”
The crowd began to shout for a rematch. Madam stepped forward to hush them. The Swing Kings petered out.
“We should be grateful to Mr. Solomon,” said Madam. “He’s a shining example of what we must fight against. His topside arrogance brought him into our theater, thinking he could strong-arm information from us that would undermine the revolution that gives you hope.”
The crowd jeered at me and my friends.
My dad had taken me to dozens of Rollin’ 100s initiations—kids not much older than me.
He’d tell them joining meant safety, honor, and family.
Then he’d turn the ranking members loose on them.
I stopped counting how many of those boys’ funerals I’d been to.
Looking at their caskets, all I could think of was how Dad had lied to them, the way Madam was lying now.
Lakshmi stepped forward. “Whatever you think of Mr. Solomon, Precedent requires you to answer any questions that relate to violation of the law.”
Madam laughed. “Watch yourself, my dear.” The crowd laughed and fell into excited chatter, as though another fight was coming.
We weren’t getting what we needed by appealing to Precedent. At least, not here, where Madam had a small army as backing. Sometimes you had to get someone alone—for better or worse, Dad had taught me that.
I sidled up beside Lakshmi and whispered, “Can you take us out the way you came in?”
“I’ll go you one better,” she whispered back. “There’s a spiral staircase backstage that leads topside.”
“Be ready,” I whispered.
I grabbed Madam’s hand, whirled her around, and shoved her through the rear-stage curtain. “Take her topside,” I shouted to Lakshmi. The raptorial dashed through the drapes after Madam. “Follow her!” I told my friends, who hurried after the raptorial.
“That’s a Precedent crime,” cried the projectionist down from the box. “Assaulting a thanatist.” My strata trial was going to suck.
Madam’s crew circled in on me fast; the crowd began storming the stage.
I pulled my lantern, whipped my bow hard across a frame rod, and screamed as the light erupted from the stone.
A blinding flash and deep note shivered through the theater, giving me and my friends a full three-second lead before the crowd had reached the steps and began chasing up after us.