Chaos Trims My Beard: A Fantasy Noir, page 22
He flailed and pulsed, buried in the floor up to his thighs. The wood around him glowed with orange and yellow cracks. His arms wind-milled and swirled together sending streams of fire across the remains of the walls and ceiling. His head no longer had features and the rest of him wasn’t faring any better. If he'd managed to keep any of himself at all, I was sure I'd have been dead minutes ago, splashed apart by well-aimed, rolling fire. The floor around him collapsed and fell. There might have been screams from below. Jaery did not go with it. He floated halfway between my floor and the one beneath, drifting like a whale post-bender.
I pulled harder. The pain ran together into a novel sensation of pops and agony. The little bubbles of release stabbed out faster and faster with no rhythm. Seconds later I was screaming and holding a length of braided beard. A blue snap stung at my face as I pulled my hand away. The notion of death murmured beneath my thumping mind.
My arm whipped forward and the beardbraid spun through the air. The dark metal ring at its tip flashed in the firelight as it arced towards Jaery. The hairs hit with a magnesium flash. White light and a wall of beardsmoke ran over the glow and stinging char of flame. The big guy's fire got bigger.
A single dead scrap of my beardhair had pushed an all-night candle to burn out in seconds. I’d given dozens or hundreds of full follicles, root to tips, to the fire that had taken my friend. Fire overruns don’t last that long anyway, especially big ones. A full dose of beard would be downright catalytic.
The spot where the beardbraid hit burned blue edged in white. Jaery floated and twisted. His arms dissipated into a blanket of orange in a jerky expansion of heat and light. Before this new wall of conflagration could overtake the entire space, the fire swirled and gathered itself into a Jaery-reminiscent approximation. It wavered and morphed. Hybrid shape gave way to a giant bug with a dozen legs, then something bestial, then something winged. Each shift jerked and pulled at the licking, smoldering edges of the fiery form. Heat rolled over me. It did not hurt. A pleasant sensation, like air hissing from a tear in the forge bellows to warm chilled feet flooded over me. The force that rippled with it was less gentle and I found myself pinned inside the icebox. If I broke my neck getting folded up into the space where I normally kept my beer. . . well, I could think of a few things that were at least a little less dignified.
The blue patch of heat in Jaery’s shoulder spread, the beardfire taking over, burning out whatever it could find. His body shifted from orange down into red and his wavering flames turned in on themselves. The rapidly growing spot of beardfire stopped and shrunk down to a point no bigger than my coin. I had enough time for one lungful of hot air.
The blue dot in Jeary's shoulder exploded. It burst out and around, over and into. My eyes snapped shut and I rolled up into a ball. The icebox disintegrated and I tumbled. I went through wood and stone until my back thumped hard against the weightless sincerity of spellsteel. In my rattled head the impact rang out like a university bell tower, ancient and worthy of a brochure. I don't know what I landed on, or how far I'd gone. Something cold swirled around my head. I wanted to sleep as my skin smoked and the building burned.
A woman's voice, gruff and only known to me by imagination, spoke to me through a memory of a scribbled note in an old book; a book that had recently become ash.
You can't get burned by your own beard.
22
"This one is relieved."
"Yeah, I’m sure. You can put the gun away."
"Overruns make this one twitchy."
A wisp of air like a huff brushed up against my nose. My previous seconds—minutes, hours, whatever—had all been embers and ash. I didn't know where I was or how long I'd been there.
"Thanks. Or are you just waiting to shoot me in the back again?"
"This one makes no apologies. He was woken in a manner to which he is not accustomed. Weapons were at hand."
My eyes rolled and twitched beneath their lids. I tried to look around. Nothing on my face seemed to be working towards any common end. I focused on the voices. One was grating and stilted, the other ethereal and light.
"He's moving," the wispy voice said. Another bit of air, this one colder, longer, and more forceful, played at my face. The way it swirled around my chin and made the skin on my cheeks shiver sparked some recent memory, some familiar recognition of the lighter voice. I tried to groan but my chest lay dead and my throat was closed.
"This one will try."
My ears fought through the murk and heard a rasp of cloth, a mechanical click, and then a guttural one. Something far off sounded like water over metal. A feeling of warmth and relaxation edged in on my thoughts, though it was far away, hidden behind a gray fuzzy barrier. I was reminded of a similar feeling of relief that I'd first felt in front of The Bawdville. There was silence for a time. Jaery was dead, and I killed him. Or helped him die in a worse way. A dull heartbeat pulsed through a bare patch on my chin. I smelled fresh smoke.
"Quartz worked last time. This one has no other ideas."
"Well he's not dead."
"A notable observation from one who is legally dead herself."
"Shut up."
My ears were ringing. The voices floating above me faded in and out of my ears. I tried to groan again and found minor success. Jaery was dead, and anger rolled and spat in my gut.
Venrick and Elara seemed pleased with my continuing recovery and chattered back and forth. I decided to lay there for a few more minutes. Another blast of air hit my face. A few sharp lines followed it across my cheek. What was left to me for friends in this world were telling me that minutes of sleeping were up. I tried to rise up with my elbows. Something strong pulled at my chest and I found myself sitting.
After a few blinks I looked around. I was in a room that looked like it could have been an addition to my apartment. Brown wood ran over the walls and floors. The ceiling had a large fiery hole in it. There were chunks of broken wood strew about. Definitely felt like home.
The ratman stood to my right, and the air girl floated to my left. They both looked equally concerned and put out in their own ways. Venrick was dressed as I'd always seen him. Elara was still made of vapor.
"Jaery." My throat felt like gravel and my voice sounded like it. One of them asked who that was. I grunted my reply. "Big guy."
I looked from Elara to Venrick and back. The air girl shook her head softly and the ratman lowered his gaze. There was another silence. Venrick broke it. "This one has thoughts and condolences. Will share them in time."
A shudder ran through me. I couldn't tell if I was cold or hot, in terrible pain or just tired. Nothing was pleasant. There was a pressure inside my head, though it felt distant. I rubbed my temple with one hand and held up three fingers with the other. "Three times. A triple. In two days," I said.
"Three times what?" Elara asked.
"Passed out." My brain started grinding and thinking back. "After a fight. And then I was drunk. And now."
Elara made a sound like air through pitted brass.
"Yes, well, this one is glad he was here." Venrick's voice was high and tight. There was a noticeable pause before he continued. "He is glad for Elara's intrusion."
"Sure, buddy," I said. I didn't know if I was healthy enough to convey sarcasm. "Any more of those wonder shots?"
The ratman shook his head. "Only ever carry two. This one rarely needs them. And Edwayn has now be recently the beneficiary of both."
He might've emphasized the “this one”, as though getting beaten up every morning and afternoon wasn’t something that befell him, and he didn't need to constantly shoot himself with beneficial bullets. I sat up further and tried to wet my tongue and swallow the moisture. My thoughts swirled into focus soon enough.
"Well I'm a blood-quenching novelty, then," I said.
"This one will have to ask what that expression means some time. This one is angry."
"Yeah, well I apologize for your bad feelings or something." My voice was still overly hoarse but I was starting to feel slightly removed from death.
The ratman clicked and began to pace. I looked to Elara. She was sitting on nothing with one leg crossed over the other and playing with her nails, or at least miming it. "And sorry I wasn't around to introduce you two,” I said.
She didn't look up. "It was eventful. We worked it out." There was a pause. "Kind of."
That the suicidal girl made of air and the enigmatic ratman didn't immediately hit it off did not surprise me. They were probably the last two people in the city that I could even marginally trust, though. Well, Crum too, maybe. And Darmon. But they weren't here, nor would they likely have come if I'd invited them to my unplanned apartment-vacating bonfire.
Deep inside my anger and sadness churned and popped. As it had too many times in the last few days, the negative weight on my mind and heart settled into a heavy, consistent thump. "How'd you get here? Why'd you get here?" I asked the ratman with a tone that sounded accusatory in my head.
"This one was surprised by Elara. The master suite at this one's summer home will have to be repaired."
I nodded. The motion hurt. Elara chimed in. "And then some other stuff happened. This couple on a hopter suddenly flew into some really bad weather and had to land. He hitched a ride." She flicked a finger towards Venrick.
"Huh." I didn't mean it as a question and they kept talking.
"In case enflamed Edwayn is curious, he is three floors below his former residence."
I nodded. Jaery was dead, and most of me knew that something had sparked the flame that did it. The same singular purpose that had brought me back to my hammer now demanded that I set something right. "What happened after?" I asked.
Elara continued to pick at her conjured nails. "A couple of those gray guys were walking around on the bridge while I was waiting for you. There was a bunch of smoke and your time limit was up so I went looking and found you, uh, occupied. Couldn't even get close." She looked up at me and then over towards Venrick. "Then I went back to that pit to get 'this one'. The cops had barely gotten here when we got back."
"Not in time to arrest me. Or save my friend," I said.
A cold breeze hit my face and stayed there. Elara was standing with her hand on my cheek. "If you were close with him, I'm really sorry. But we have to leave."
Something burned my cheek. It hit my cracked lips and tasted salty. I managed to avoid any blubbering. I held onto that small bit of dignity as I silently gasped in my despair and rage for a time. The ratman wouldn’t judge me, and the air girl had bigger things to think about than a crying half-dwarf. Still, I wasn’t currently at my highest point.
After a time Venrick clicked and nodded. "This one agrees. He slipped in first and created a few more holes for investigators to look down. Still, a rapid departure would be prudent."
I pushed myself forward and tried to stand. My gut hurt, my knees hurt. The fabric of my pants covering my shins was burned and tattered and the skin on my legs was blackened. After a few abortive attempts, the ratman circled around behind me and with his sharp push I was up. That my clothing did not fall off in cinders as I was a nice surprise. In my half-delirium I decided that my jacket was definitely enchanted with something. My hands ran over the tough leather. It was warm and maybe a shade darker than it should have been, but even the fur at the cuffs and collar hadn’t lit up. I rubbed soot off my palms. The rest of my clothes were still wrecked and I remembered the ridiculous, pain-addled promise I’d made about dying in them when I had been getting dressed yesterday morning. Given all that had happened between then and now, I resolved to stop making promises about how and when I’d find my own end.
Elara looked me over and her face twitched. "You look terrible."
"Yeah, well I can't go all swirly and suddenly look my best."
The vague outlines of gray that formed her body seemed to harden in the low light and the slow seep of mist that surrounded her lessened. She didn't look happy.
I turned towards the ratman. "Did you find the hopter?"
He nodded and slipped his paws under his jacket. "Found this as well." He produced my hammer and held it out to me gripping it by the end of the handle. The tool hung in the air, unmoving in the ratman’s claw.
A small part of me cringed at the sight of someone else handling the thing, but Sunroot's goons had been all through my stuff and recorded everything, my hammer included, in intricate detail. That had been the bigger invasion, and my singular drive in going back to get it looked trite in the face of the great many injustices I had been involved in over the course of the weekend. The hammer’s head bobbed in the air before me. I waved it off with an open palm. "Hold on to it for me."
It disappeared beneath the ratman's jacket to parlay with his guns. I could make out the bottom of the haft poking against the green cloth. "This one will keep it. He hopes not for long. It is heavy."
"They're not easy things to own," I said.
Neither responded. I didn't blame them. It had been a weird thing to say.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"Edwayn's ornithopter is berthed down in Sketlin. Very close, if Edwayn can manage the stairs."
The notion of stumbling my way down an indeterminate number of old wooden flights slick with age didn't thrill me. But the sounds of stomping feet and voices drifting through the ember-edged hole in the ceiling ended up being motivation enough. Leaning forward and letting gravity do the work seemed like a viable option, and I stumbled and huffed and every part of my body shot with pain, but I somehow managed one flight, and then another. Elara didn't take the stairs with us.
My legs were in slightly worse shape than the rest of me when we walked through my building's lowest floor and out onto the dust-caked sidewalk of Sketlin Proper. A few groups of hybrids and trolls stood huddled across the street wrapped in blankets and wearing pajamas. I recognized some of them as fellow tenants as they stared blankly up at the smoldering wooden-and-silver line where our building joined the tower resting atop it. A few glanced at me with expressions I didn't care to read. I'd never really been neighborly. Venrick led me to a thin alley between the building that anchored the next tower over and a crumbling brick ruin. The hopter sat next to a wall that was midway through its transition into pile.
A few ratmen in plain clothes were skittering around our ride. Venrick clicked once and followed up with some squeaky, skittering vocalizations. The ratmen turned on him and made their own sounds back until Venrick flashed his badge and they scattered.
Elara materialized next to the hopter. "You didn't have to threaten them. I told them they could look."
Venrick muttered something and straightened his jacket. I looked at the air girl. "You've got some entourage there." Her eyes narrowed as I continued. "I mean, aside from this one, seems like you’ve got a way with the little guys," I said.
It was nominally interesting to me how a small gang of ratman had been on hand when I'd first met her and now with just minutes alone she'd found another group of them. But ultimately that was all just more willful distraction from my dead friend and destroyed home.
Venrick continued on with a disjointed series of clicks and growls. We stood for some moments, each of us grumbling or brooding in our way. The fire of Jaery's death kept welling up in the base of my skull and I wanted to get going, to put everything behind me in any way that I could.
The city was still muted in the deep night that begins a new week. Down in Sketlin Proper, the towers shone blue and gray against the sky. There might have been stars out, though none you could see from the dirt streets under the blanket crisscrossing bridges and luminous buildings. Maybe there had been some out in the desert, or over the bay. I couldn't remember.
"Bawdville," I said.
Venrick looked at me, Elara drifted closer. "This one does not think a drink will improve Edwayn's mood or health."
"It might. And we can't go back to your place without pointing a bright rainbow line straight to it."
Venrick took off his hat and ran a paw over each ear. "Yes. Vacation home is also less comfortable than when Edwayn previously enjoyed it."
Elara drifted over. "I said I was sorry."
"This one will need new pillows."
I was exhausted and in pain and a whole lot of other things and not willing to idle through another snippy confrontation between the two of them. My seat in the hopter beckoned. Through a few painful stretches I managed to get most of my restraints on and settle into the contoured, padded chair. It felt nice. By the time I was settled the spellsteel skin around my seat was littered with charred fabric. I picked at a blackened scrap and flicked it off into the darkness of the alleyway. My shoulder, the first injury I’d earned this weekend, flared with discomfort that was now too-familiar. The bare patch in my beard sung with a pain that I never expected to fully leave.
I cracked my knuckles and reached for the controls in front of me. The dust emitters sputtered when I clicked in the activator plate. I pushed it again, harder, and they whirred into function. Looking up from the controls I found Elara gone and Venrick walking to his seat. He climbed aboard and said that she'd meet us there.
The sticks and buttons in front of me twitched and turned as the hopter ascended up through the alley. In an act of more willful distraction I twisted to look at the rainbow, dust-made wings wondering how they were managing in the tight space. I found them wrapped around the boar's body and legs and pulsing with their multicolored light. The controls offered no clue as to how the ratman was manipulating our ride and I decided that I should find some time and look up how to fly these things. We snaked between towers and the buildings of Sketlin Proper. In a glimpse of the bridge that ran from my tower I saw a few sleek, parked hopters colored blue and white accompanied by a throng of moving bodies. Venrick didn't keep the scene in view for long.
