The Grand Dark Page 4

  Frau Heller laughed lightly. “Perhaps you will in the next one, then.”

  The next one?

  Largo felt a little jolt of panic. There were always rumors of war in the north, but did Frau Heller know something? He ached to ask her, but knew to keep his mouth shut.

  “Don’t be a stranger, Herr Moorden,” said Frau Heller, and she gave him a wink.

  Not quite sure how to respond, Largo smiled and put the Valda in his jacket pocket with the other gold coins. He wasn’t sure exactly what had just happened, whether Frau Heller had flirted with him or insulted him. However, he now knew he had a price for any similar future encounters.

  One gold Valda and you can say anything you like.

  As he got on his bicycle he laughed, thinking how odd the wealthy were, understandable only to themselves and others of their particular species.

  Riding out of Kromium, he turned and pedaled past the secondhand shops at Tin Fahrspur. The encounter with Madam Heller had been interesting, but not enough to convince him to spend his newfound wealth on a coat to please a woman he’d probably never see again.

  The sky darkened and a light rain fell on his way back to the office. Along Great Granate, one of the city’s new automaton trams slid by silently, guided by magnetic rails laid beneath the paving stones. Largo grabbed a protruding light fixture on the rear of the tram and let it pull him all the way to the Great Triumphal Square. There, Largo used some of his remaining silver coins to buy a steak pie from the bakery he’d passed earlier that day. None of the other couriers ate lunch in this part of the plaza and that was fine by him. His new deliveries had put him in a peculiar mood.

  He ate his steak pie, wondering if his parents had ever tasted steak in their whole lives.

  When he’d been a boy riding in the crate in the scrap wagon, his father had sometimes told him about his adventures scavenging the city for goods to sell. One story that always amused Largo was that he would sometimes steal scrap from one foundry, drive it across town to sell to another, then steal it back in the night and resell it to the first. His father always laughed when he talked about it, and, in his little box, Largo laughed too.

  What Largo’s father never talked about were his special deliveries. They could happen any time of the day or night and anywhere in Lower Proszawa. Over his mother’s objections, his father insisted that Largo come with him on the special trips because, he said, “The city at night and the city during the day are different beasts and you need to make friends with them both.” There was one particular delivery that Largo never forgot, no matter how much he drank or how much morphia he took.

  It had been late afternoon along Jubiläum, a long way up the stinking canal. There was a small crowd buying fish and meat from the moored boats. Soon after they arrived, Largo’s father had handed an envelope—not unlike the one Largo had just given to Frau Heller—to a man dressed in much finer clothes than Largo normally saw in the district. Once his father had turned over the envelope, though, he and the well-dressed man got into an argument. His father shouted something about being cheated out of his payment and when he grabbed the envelope back, a group of other men, who had been lounging on cargo crates nearby, rushed him. A scuffle broke out. Unlike scrawny Largo, his father had been tall and strong and he knocked two of the men down without any trouble. But three others were on him like a pack of dogs. Before Largo understood what was happening, he saw a flash of silver. The men ran away and his father lay on the ground bleeding from a knife wound in his side. Largo cried for help, but the people in the crowd just stood and stared before going about their business.

  Later, Largo’s friend Heinrich said that the knife had probably pierced his father’s lung. It took what seemed like hours for him to die, and the whole time he wheezed and gasped like a fish suffocating on the banks of the canal at low tide.

  No one called the police because that wasn’t done in the Green. People brought his mother back from the market and she took Largo home to their squat. Neighbors buried his father in the garden of a stately home that was once one of Lower Proszawa’s more elegant brothels, but that was the end of the community’s involvement.

  His mother seldom let him out of her sight after that. She taught him to keep quiet and not upset people. At first, Largo, who’d felt so free by his father’s side, fought with his mother about being locked in the house. He felt more confined there than he’d ever felt in the small crate on the wagon. One afternoon, while his mother was at the market, he’d sneaked out of the house.

  It was winter and his breath steamed in the damp air. Largo ran to find Heinrich, who, he knew, would be by the stables, where the children often played. When he arrived, Largo found Heinrich surrounded by a gang of older boys from the Green. Largo crouched behind one of the stable doors so they wouldn’t see him, and was frozen there as the scene reminded him of the same one his father had endured. One of the gang demanded that Heinrich give them his heavy winter coat, and after some shoving and punching, he did it. Once they had the coat, he tried to run, but one of the boys hit him with a chain. He continued to beat Heinrich as the other boys kicked and hit him with pipes they’d hidden under their clothes. Once the gang had run off—and only then—had Largo crept from the stable to his friend’s side.

  Heinrich lay in a pool of sticky blood. There was a crack in his forehead where part of his skull had caved in. Largo shook him and, stupidly, yelled his name. Across the road from the stables was a stand of withered trees, and the gang that had beaten Heinrich had been there, well within earshot. They came racing out, heading straight for him. Though Largo was small, he’d always been a fast runner. He darted away from the stables into Haxan Green’s back alleys and side roads. The boys chased him for what seemed like hours, but Largo kept ahead of them, ducking through basements, out through coal chutes, and doubling back on himself through the complex web of streets.

  The sun had been going down when he finally managed to get home. Luckily, his mother hadn’t returned from the market yet. One of Largo’s chores in the evening was to start a fire in the old cast-iron oven so that she could cook them whatever she’d stolen that day. Instead, Largo hid in his room scouring Heinrich’s blood off his hands in a washbasin. After that, he didn’t fight when his mother told him to stay inside. He instead spent his time with old maps of Lower Proszawa he found in the attic, tracing the routes he’d taken on rides with his father and learning by heart the layout of the brilliant city, formulizing his paths of escape but also dreaming of life on those other streets.

  After lunch, Herr Branca didn’t question him about the delivery in Kromium. He simply gave Largo another assignment right away in one of the few parts of town Largo didn’t know well—Empyrean.

  It was one thing for a young man in shabby clothes to ride through Kromium without attracting too much attention. After all, that district wasn’t just for stuck-up bluenoses. It housed famous artists among the higher metals, along with scandalous bohemians within the lower alloys. Empyrean was different. Many of the best families from High Proszawa had migrated there during the early days of the war. It was a neighborhood of marble palaces, gleaming steel towers, and luxury flats in high-rises with facades of emerald and vermilion bricks imported from halfway around the world. At night they glowed brighter than the moon, and the people inside shone down on the rest of the city even brighter.

  It was to one of those glowing buildings that Largo brought his last delivery of the day. At first, the uniformed doorman didn’t want to let him into the building and even tried to take the package away from him. When Largo wouldn’t let him, he threatened to call the police.

  “Please don’t do that,” said Largo reflexively.

  The doorman continued to stare at him. “Let me see your identity papers,” he said.

  Largo took them out and reluctantly handed them to the man. He hated himself for doing it, but this was Empyrean, not Haxan Green. I can’t just bluff my way through this. If the police came, he knew that it
would be a scandal for the company. He might get demoted for it, or even fired.

  The doorman made a great show of studying Largo’s face and comparing it to the photochrome on his papers. Eventually the doorman said, “I’ll need to speak to your superior to allow you into the building.”

  Feeling deflated, Largo grudgingly gave him Herr Branca’s caller number at the courier company. The doorman went into the lobby and picked up a gold-and-sky-blue enameled Trefle. It looked a little like a candlestick with a mouthpiece at the top. Twin listening pieces were attached to the base with thick green wire. It took him a full minute to get an operator to put the call through, and then it took several minutes more for Herr Branca to convince him that the “cheeky scarecrow” with a box under his arm was a legitimate courier. Finally, the doorman relented and let Largo inside.

  “Go up to floor fifteen and come right back down again,” said the doorman. “I’ll be timing you. Take too long and no voice on a Trefle will save you from the bullocks.”

  Largo wanted to say a lot of things to the doorman, but he knew that the call already guaranteed him a dressing-down by Branca, so there was nothing he could do about the officious prick at the door, the bullocks—any of it.

  The lift he rode up in was larger than his flat, and with its crystal chandelier, golden fixtures, and pearl floor buttons, more opulent than most of even the well-off homes he often delivered to.

  On the fifteenth floor he knocked on the door, hoping desperately that whoever opened it wouldn’t be as chatty as the gray-haired man or Frau Heller.

  Largo got what he wished for.

  When the door opened, he took out his receipt book, hoping to get business over with quickly with a servant. What greeted him instead was an elegant Mara. It was almost as tall as he was and decorated with silver and bright gems, by far the most spectacular Mara he’d ever seen. “May I help you?” it said.

  The voice startled Largo. When most Maras spoke, the sound was small and tinny, but this Mara’s speech was soft and melodious. He pressed the parcel and receipt book forward.

  “Delivery,” he said.

  The Mara bent slightly, its eye lenses adjusting to take in Largo and what he carried. After only a few seconds’ hesitation, the Mara took the box and set it down gracefully on a nearby table. Yellowsheet scandal tabloids were piled high there and a few had fallen to the floor. A week’s worth of papers, at least. From another room, Largo heard laughter and music swelling from an amplified gramophone. The residents of the flat were having a party. He looked back at the pile of yellowsheets.

  Has it really been going on for a week? Is that even possible?

  As his pondered this, the Mara came back and held out its hands for the receipt book. He handed it to the machine without looking at its face. That was the most disturbing thing about the situation. The owners had placed a steel-and-leather mask on the Mara’s head, the kind worn by Iron Dandies. Largo didn’t think he could loathe Maras more, yet here he was staring at this monstrosity. He wondered how the owners had obtained the mask and what had happened to the Dandy who’d lost it. He thought of Rainer and wanted to snatch the mask off the automaton but knew that it would guarantee a beating from the police when the doorman called them. In the end, he took back his book and the Mara slammed the door in his face.

  While waiting for the lift, Largo saw something he’d missed on his way up. Set into the wall was a large fish tank holding a colorful variety of chimeras—custom-made mutant creatures favored as work animals by the municipal services and pets by the well-heeled of Lower Proszawa.

  Speckled black-and-white eels covered with long spines wriggled among a school of transparent bat-like fish. A pink lizard thing pulled itself across the bottom of the tank with bright red tentacles. Largo tapped the glass lightly with a fingernail. Ever since childhood, when a pack of wild hound-like chimeras had terrorized Haxan Green, he’d been fascinated by the strange creatures.

  A gray starfish lifted from the bottom of the tank and affixed itself to the glass directly in front of him. As he leaned in close to get a better look, the starfish twisted its limbs and torso into a startlingly accurate imitation of Largo’s face. As he watched, the pink lizard crept up from behind and attacked it, dragging the twitching starfish to the bottom with its red tentacles and devouring it. Largo pulled back in shock. He shook his head—that was the one thing he could never understand about so many chimeras. If people could make them in any shape and with any temperament, why were they so often ugly and savage?

  I would make only beautiful ones.

  Pieces of the dead starfish floated to the top of the tank.

  On his way out of the building, the doorman wanted to check Largo’s pockets to see if he’d stolen anything. Despite being afraid for his job, this was too much. When the doorman reached for him, Largo shoved him back against the building and jumped onto his bicycle. As he pedaled away, he was sure he could hear the doorman cursing him all the way out of Empyrean. He couldn’t help but smile.

  The Secret Fete

  From A Popular History of the Proszawan Underworld by Stefan Kreuz

  Der Grandiose Kanzler had been an elegant establishment before the war, serving some of the finest food and wine in Lower Proszawa. However, it had fallen on hard times and closed for good after the owner embezzled the remaining funds and eloped with one of the serving girls. A series of lawsuits kept the place shuttered since then.

  But not out of business.

  Now dubbed Der Fliegende Schwanz, it was a thriving speakeasy on the edge of the Pappen district, where it served the best bootleg whiskey, cocaine, and morphia in the city. Der Fliegende Schwanz was mainly a working-class establishment, but members of the gentry would sometimes visit when they were in the mood to slum for an evening. They were always welcomed with open arms because they had better pockets to pick than the usual rabble.

  The bar was a merry place most nights, fueled by drugs and the ubiquitous postwar delirium. It was a gathering spot for war veterans, workers from the armaments factory, laborers from the docks, and prostitutes to drink, tell stories, and make love in the bar’s immense but empty wine cellar. Musicians played for coins all day and night. There was dancing and laughter, but seldom any fights, which was unusual for an underground saloon, with its heady mix of alcohol, drugs, and sex. Perhaps the reason the bar sidestepped so much random violence was a special sort of entertainment it offered its patrons.

  A makeshift ring stood at the center of Der Fliegende Schwanz. At the top of each hour two or more Maras—freshly stolen, their functionality modified—fought gladiatorial battles to the death. Most of the purloined Maras came from bluenose families in the city’s most expensive districts, so watching them beat each other with clubs was doubly entertaining. Bookies took bets on the battles and liquor sales always went up because the winners bought the losers a round and the losers bought even more rounds to soothe their aching egos. And the music never stopped. Neither did the laughter, the lovemaking, or the drip of morphia under happy tongues.

  Around midnight each night, everything in the bar stopped and the patrons sang obscene, drunken versions of patriotic songs. Many of the men were veterans and had fought in High Proszawa, so after the singing they played a game in which they spat streams of alcohol at photochromes of the Chancellor and the Minister of War nailed to the wall. The players stood behind a line on the floor and the one who came closest or hit the chromes the longest drank free for the rest of the night.

  Der Fliegende Schwanz never closed. The party never stopped. The delight never ebbed. Every night was a holiday and every morning a feast. And if, on some nights, the crowds got a bit out of control during the Mara fights and started breaking bottles and glasses, who cared? Like the Maras, they were stolen. Everything was fun and nothing mattered because everyone knew that sooner or later the cannons would boom again and nothing would be fun and everything would matter.

  Until then, there was always time for one more drink or o
ne more kiss or one more drop under the tongue.

  Chapter Three

  WHEN LARGO RETURNED TO WORK, HERR BRANCA SHOWED SOME COMPASSION by not bringing up the call from the doorman immediately. His only acknowledgment came when Largo turned in his receipt book. Branca said, “We’re going to have to do something about your appearance.”

  Largo touched his rain-soaked suit and looked at Branca. “Sir?”

  “Your clothes. We can’t have the chief courier roaming the streets looking as if he’s just escaped the penitentiary, can we?”

  “No. I suppose not.”

  “Good. I’m delighted that you approve.”

  “But I didn’t think my clothes were that bad.”

  Branca filled in some figures on a form. “What you think about these matters doesn’t concern the company.”

  “Of course,” said Largo, feeling like a prize pig on the auction block. “I didn’t mean to overstep.”

  “Never mind. I’ve arranged that you will soon receive a certain sum of money with which you will purchase clothes and shoes that look a bit less like you stole them from a . . . what was the word the caller used?”

  “Scarecrow?”

  “Yes, that’s it. As you saw today, some districts don’t appreciate the working classes begriming their streets. Arrogant bastards. When you’ve acquired your new wardrobe, I’ll want to see it. Under no circumstances will you wear the clothes except on company business. Is that understood?”

  “Completely.” Though both knew full well that he was lying.

  “Good. Now to the important part. Seeing as how you’re an adult apparently capable of feeding and bathing yourself, please tell me that there is no need for me to accompany you on this excursion.”

  Quickly, Largo said, “No, sir. Not necessary at all.” The thought of Herr Branca hovering around him as he tried on pants was horrifying. He remembered what Frau Heller had said. “I even know where to go.”