Blind Shrike

FIFTY EIGHT Roll Me a Smoke, John Wayne

“Eight legs good! Two legs bad!” Lulu shouted as they strode across the desert.

They were making great time. Cornelius never needed to rest or slow down, even when walking straight into a sandstorm. Spyder told him to head for Berenice and he started straight across the desert without hesitation. What had taken them days to traverse on the way out, they now covered in a few hours. When they caught sight of the city of memories, around mid-morning, it was strangely reassuring.

“One step closer to home,” said Shrike.

Something was happening around Berenice. Even at a distance, they could see it. A dozen airships were in port on the south side of the city. Spyder wondered if they should bypass the city and head across the open desert, hoping they could get a ride from a ship at the coast. But there was no telling when one big enough would come along. They had to go to Berenice.

“Damn,” said Spyder. “I should have asked Lucifer for some of those jewels lying around the construction site. We don’t have a penny to buy a ride.”

“We’ll be fine,” Shrike said.

“You think?”

Shrike leaned on Spyder’s back, running one of her hands through the hair on the back of his head. “The Count was right, you need to think bigger.”

They ran into the first spotter a couple of miles out from the city. The boy had been asleep, and his loose dun-colored robes blended into the sand. He awoke suddenly and screamed as Cornelius nearly stepped on him, startling Spyder, Shrike and Lulu almost as much as the giant spider had scared him.

The boy ran ahead for a few paces, shouting something to them before stopping, raising a pistol over his head and firing off a flare. He began running after them again, but fell far behind Cornelius’ relentless footsteps.

“You don’t think they’re a lynch mob, do you?” asked Spyder. “For me doing over that memory?”

“I don’t know,” said Shrike. “Let’s just check it out. If anyone tries anything, Cornelius will run us to the coast.”

There were other spotters as they closed in on the city, gawkers, too. It all made Spyder nervous, but as they rode past, each group smiled and waved at them, or ran alongside for as long as they could. No one seemed too upset to see them. Better yet, Spyder thought, none of them looked like cops.

A group of twenty or thirty dignitaries met them at a wadi just beyond the city walls. Spyder guessed that they were dignitaries. They had that self-important air about them, like the kind of crowd that gives a million dollars to the symphony so they can get a plaque and their name in a newsletter. Mostly, he thought, they looked like a bunch of old hippies who’d raided Frederick’s of Hollywood on the way to the Renaissance Faire. Just in case, he slipped Apollyon’s blade behind his back and kept his hand on the hilt. Shrike touched his arm.

“Relax,” she said. “It’s a party.”

“I guess time really is funny down there,” he said.

However time moved in the underworld, on Earth there had obviously been plenty of time for word to spread about what had happened below.

“I don’t guess it took Sherlock Holmes to figure it out,” Lulu said. “There’s a hole the size of Dallas in the middle of the desert and Hell’s at the bottom.”

To make an impression, they had Cornelius stroll right up to the Berenice officials. The dignitaries looked a bit nervous by the proximity of the giant spider, but they all smiled and applauded as Spyder and the others climbed off. A gray-haired man with fierce Maori-style facial tattoos embraced each of them as they came down. With his hand on Spyder’s shoulder, the tattooed man turned to the other dignitaries and began a quick speech in a flowing, melodious language.

Spyder looked at Shrike. “You got a clue what this guy’s saying?”

“He’s speaking Ubari. It’s an ancient city state built in the First Sphere, but spilled into the Second during a war between rival wizard kings a thousand years ago. I haven’t heard it spoken in a long time,” she said. “I think he’s calling us the ‘Saviors of Light.’ ‘Defenders of Light.’ Something like that.”

“If at any point he says ‘future prison bitches,’ you let me know,” said Lulu.

The Ubarian dignitary said something standing next to each of them, gesturing extravagantly, clearly enjoying his moment in the spotlight. The assembled bigwigs nodded and laughed politely. It occurred to Spyder that not all of them necessarily understood the man, and were just going along with the group. He spotted one of the men in the crowd rolling a cigarette. The man wore something like a gas mask and heavy royal blue robes that must have been cooking him alive, Spyder thought. He held up two fingers, miming smoking. The man nodded and handed Spyder the cigarette he’d just finished, then lit it with a small gray stone that emitted a jet of flame when stroked correctly. Spyder took a long puff and bowed a little thanks, then passed the smoke to Lulu, who took it eagerly.

“It’s their great honor to greet us after our battle with the Princes of Despair,” said Shrike.

“Who’s that? The Clerks, you think?”

“Maybe. He said ‘Shaitan’ earlier. That’s their word for the devil, so he’s probably talking about the Black Clerks now.”

“He going to shut up soon, you think?”

Lulu came up next to Spyder and handed the cigarette back to him. She dug in the sand with her boot, then half-turned away from the dignitaries.

“That tall blonde guy in the back look familiar?” she asked.

Spyder checked out the crowd discreetly, not letting his gaze linger anywhere too long.

“Should he?”

“Isn’t he that prince from the airship? The one Primo was talking to on TV?”

“Prince Bel. His ship got stuck to ours. I guess he didn’t die in the dogfight, after all.”

“Maybe we can get a ride with him. He owes us.”

“How d’you figure?”

“We saw him fuck up big time. And we’re the Power Rangers of Light or whatever. He’ll suck the cream out of our Twinkies if we ask him.”

“I’ll settle for a hot bath.”

“We’re invited to a banquet in our honor,” Shrike said. “All of Berenice, Ubari and the families of the Second Sphere want to honor us.”

Spyder smiled at the man and nodded. “Can we say No?”

“They won’t be happy.”

“Tell him we need to get your father,” Spyder said. “Tell him dad’s sick and we have to get there fast.”

“I’m better at translating than speaking this tongue.”

Shrike stepped forward and smiled at the crowd, with all the dignity she could muster. She spoke slowly, hesitantly, taking long pauses, groping for words. Spyder and Lulu finished the cigarette between them. The man in the gas mask came forward and gave them his bag of tobacco, along with his papers. Spyder accepted, nodding a sincere thanks.

“This hero thing doesn’t half suck,” he said.

“Roll me a smoke, John Wayne.”

When Shrike finished, the Ubari dignitary began chattering and gesturing again. His guests nodded solemnly and looked at Spyder.

“We off the hook?” he asked.

“I think so,” said Shrike. “He’s saying that we’re true champions appointed by god, god or some kind of giant bird. That we care so much for humanity that we can’t even stop to celebrate a victory when the war against darkness goes on.”

The Ubarian grew quiet. He turned and embraced Spyder and the others in turn. The dignitaries all rushed forward to shake their hands and kiss their cheeks, as the group made their way back to Cornelius.

When Bel came forward to shake, Spyder held on to his hand. “Ask this guy if he’ll give us a lift out of here,” he said to Shrike.

She spoke quietly to the Prince as the other dignitaries clustered around them, praising them in a dozen languages. They’re worse than demons, Spyder thought. Demons can’t help being creepy.

A moment later Shrike returned. “It’s set. We’re heading out now.”

“Not soon enough for me.”

When they’d all climbed on to Cornelius’ back, Spyder ordered him to rise as quickly as possible. The dignitaries gave a collective “Ooo,” as the man-machine set out around the city walls to where the airships were berthed.

They waited with the Prince beneath his new scorpion airship as he barked orders to a small group of deck hands waiting on the ground. The hands called up to the ship, then used an elaborate series of whistles and arms gestures to send orders back and forth. A few minutes later, a large cargo net was lowered to the ground. Cornelius stepped into the net and curled his legs under his body. With a jerk, the spider and his passengers were hoisted up and onto the Prince’s airship.

They banked gently and headed out to sea, sailing to Madame Cinders’ tower fortress in Alexandria, with a dozen airships tagging along. The morning sun turned the edges of the airships to fire, so that Bel’s was trailed by a burning swan, a school of fiery fish, a glowing snake skeleton and a perfect silver sphere that reflected the sky, sea and all the other ships nearby.

Prince Bel gave them his best rooms. They happily cleaned up and settled in. When they weren’t busy sleeping, crew members bought in a constant stream of food and wine. Shrike didn’t let on that she could speak the language, and enjoyed reporting what she heard while eavesdropping.

“It’s like a game of Telephone,” she said. “The rumors circulate, getting bigger and bigger with each telling. Spyder is an archangel or maybe the new Lucifer. I get the feeling that a lot of asylums emptied in all three Spheres when Hell came down.”

Spyder relaxed on a silk-covered fainting couch, with Shrike curled up next to him.

“That’s pretty silly,” he said. “But it’s nice to be well thought of for a change.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Lulu said, blowing smoke rings at the ceiling.

The trip was calm and slow, which was just what they needed, Spyder thought. He and Shrike sneaked into the unoccupied rooms in their part of the ship and made love as often as they could. At other times, Shrike went up on deck and practiced with her sword, getting used to having her sight back.

By the time Bel deliver them to Alexandria, they were growing restless. Shrike had spotted angels flying near the ship one night. They couldn’t decided if that was a good sign or bad, but decided it was time to get off.

The Prince, who’d kept his distance during the flight, appeared in full royal drag on deck when it was time for them to disembark. He said a few words that Shrike nodded at, but didn’t even bother to translate. With a wave of his hand the cargo net lowered Cornelius to the ground, in an open area near Alexandria’s main port. Spyder, Shrike and Lulu were already on the spider’s back.

“It looks like Brighton,” Cornelius said. “I think…”

What first struck Spyder about being back in an Earthly city with cars and humans, pollution and fast food joints, was how completely unremarkable it felt to be riding on the back of a giant mechanical spider borrowed from a friend in Hell, moving unseen through streets alongside spirits, angels and mythical creatures that inhabited the other Spheres. Shrike directed Cornelius to the tangled streets of the Medina, and they retraced the route Primo had taken them just days before. Seems like a century, Spyder thought, as Madame Cinder’s compound came into view.