Shadowbridge (24 page)

The stairs were difficult to navigate, in part because the head struck every step, and even though the man was dead the
thock
of each impact made Diverus wince. Behind them Abnevi muttered, “Are we going to wash him? I want to bathe, too. Reasonable and customary cleanliness is a clause I put in every policy. It’s healthful.”

At the bottom everything was dim, although the early-morning light cast enough of a glow beneath the span that the checkered pattern of the gate was distinct. They lay the body down; Bogrevil fetched keys from a cord around his neck and unlocked the padlock. Abnevi broke away from them and clambered down into the washing pool.

By then one of the behemoths had awakened and lumbered over to see what was occurring. He was nearly bald, and his head was deformed, as if the skull had developed bulbs beneath the skin. When he saw Bogrevil he grinned stupidly and grunted. “Yes, yes,” Bogrevil said, and patted him on the shoulder. “Good fella. We need to move that lock.” The simple giant stepped over the body as though it were a log, and with Bogrevil’s help raised the padlock. The two of them managed to hook it over one of the bars on the gate. The giant then pushed the gate open.

Bogrevil came back, and they picked up the body again.

Outside, the position on the ledge afforded a view in both directions. To the right the edge of the bridge pier was close enough that the joints between the blocks of stone were visible. It would have taken only seconds to reach the corner of the pier. Beyond it the surface of the sea shimmered with distant red splashes of dawn. To the left the ledge dwindled steadily, vanishing at last into the darkness of the span’s underbelly. A bright semicircle defined the opening on the far side. Above them the air was filled with only darkness and the flitting brightness of a few passing gulls. No platforms, nor people—the underworld from which he’d emerged would be on the opposite side of the tower. There were no boats near enough to see them.

Bogrevil set his end of the corpse on the ledge. He got down onto his knees and plunged his hand into the water off the side. It took him only a moment to dredge up a large stone. This he dragged to the body, where he threw back the cape, pulled loose the man’s trousers, and shoved the stone inside them. When he had done this three times, he cinched the belt again. “That’s good enough,” he said. Getting stiffly to his feet, he gestured his helper to come out onto the ledge.

The lumpish giant shuffled past the gate, round eyes darting from side to side. He made a whining noise.

“It’s all right,” Bogrevil said. “Nobody’s tryin’ to make you leave. You two, put down your end and come over here and take a leg with me.”

They obeyed. The giant picked up both arms. “Now we shall swing him three times. Third time we let go. You understand?” He was asking the giant, who nodded, but kept glancing fearfully at the sea, as though something might come out of it at any moment.

“One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

The body sailed out over the black water farther than Diverus had expected. It hit with surprisingly little sound, and sank immediately. The cape floated for a moment then disappeared. A stream of bubbles trickled up to the surface. The exotic mask bobbed up, expressionless without eyes behind it; it swiveled about as if looking for something, and then drifted out toward the open water.

“Right, then. Back inside, everybody,” Bogrevil ordered.

It wasn’t until the gate had closed that Diverus realized he should have run then and there. The ledge would have taken him someplace, and neither the behemoth nor Bogrevil could have caught him. Even had he dived into the sea, it would have carried him away—to a boat, to the pier of the next span—but now it was too late and he was part of the paidika again. Why hadn’t he run?

They slid the lock back onto its latch, and Bogrevil turned the key before turning to them. “Now, this did not happen. That gentleman, whoever he was, was never here, you never seen him, and you slept the whole morning through. Everyone slept.”

Behind them, Abnevi splashed and splashed and tittered in the pool. His head lolled back and his eyes rolled up at the ceiling. “Oh, that’s pretty,” he slurred, but almost immediately he raised an arm as if to protect himself from something in flight, and dove, crying, “No, no! Get away!” He remained underwater only a moment, but when he came up he was laughing.

Eskie said, “What about him?”

“It’s done sommit to him, hasn’t it? Dunno what, don’t care. He likes it so down here, I’d prefer he stay. Don’t want him babbling—we don’t know what he saw, do we? What he might tell if his mind were to come back. Down here, it won’t matter. He can tell everybody. They’re just like him.” He reached out and caught Diverus suddenly, dragged him close.

“It’s our anniversary tonight and we don’t want nothing to spoil that. Nobody answers no questions. You want to have a little fun being ‘enlisted’ in the wee hours, I don’t mind, see, ’cause
you
don’t take away from no customers. But no mistakes, pretty one, or what happened to Abnevi’ll be something you’ll wish happened to you.”

Diverus shook his head and drew a finger across his mouth to indicate he would say nothing. Bogrevil nodded that he understood. “Oh, yeah,” he said, “that’s right, you can’t say anything about
any
thing.” He released Diverus then, caught Eskie by the elbow, and started back up the steps with her in tow. “Can’t say a thing!” he called out, and vanished up into the dark.

The sound of Abnevi’s unmoored laughter followed Diverus up the steps like a curse.

 . . . . . 

Bogrevil took Eskie with him, so Diverus had no one to speak with, no opportunity to confess the terrible guilt he felt over Abnevi’s fate. He returned to the dormitorium, where everyone was asleep, and lay down, certain that he could never fall asleep again. Abnevi’s mind was shattered and it was his doing—he had interrupted the afrit at its feeding. He kept reliving the moment when the creature’s head turned, severing its connection, the blue tendrils snapping back into the helpless boy: his fault. Those round white eyes seared him with accusation.

The next thing he knew, he was crawling from the depths of sleep and uncertain that the events had been real. Two other boys lay asleep in the room, sunken-eyed and pale. Afrit victims. Everyone else had gone. He got up and hurried past the sleepers to bathe and eat.

When he returned to the dormitorium, Eskie was feeding one of the weak boys. With the spoon she pointed to his pallet. A costume of red crushed velvet and white silk lay there beside a long white band of cloth. He dressed while she finished ministering to the other boy. The sleeves covered his hands, and strings dangled off the cuffs. She came and tied the strings to loops at the shoulders. The sleeves were so full that he could freely move his arms, but they looked like wings. Then she took the cloth and wrapped it around his head, forming a turban, efficiently, as if she did this every day. She tucked the end of the cloth into a seam, and then fastened a cheap jewel to the front of it. “That looks very good, you’re becoming one of the more attractive boys here,” she said.

The comment so appalled him that he stepped back from her. “How can you be so—” he snarled, but got no further, as the façade she had been maintaining collapsed. Her eyes filled with tears. She put her arms around him and whispered in his ear, “Remember what I’ve told you. Stay out of his way, stay out of sight. Don’t do anything to call attention to yourself. He’s dressing you for them and tonight he might do anything.”

When she drew back and smeared the tears with her palm, he saw that her cheek was bruised and swollen. “He hit you.”

“I—” She sniffled. “It was my fault.”

If he’d had a knife just then he might have changed all their fates.

 . . . . . 

The celebration commenced. Corridors and parlors overflowed with guests, more than he’d ever seen. A trio of musicians had been given to Bogrevil as a gift for the evening. They stood back-to-back in the center of the middle parlor: One played a small drum dangling from a lanyard around his neck, another plucked a lute, and the third fingered a reed instrument called a shawm. The paidika’s musician sat on the floor in the corner behind them, watching with envious eyes.

The side parlors had been fitted with long tables of food, artistic displays that were quickly turned into skeletal remains as if by a horde of insects and as quickly replaced.

The other boys like Diverus had been dressed in gaudier costumes than usual—feathers and glittering scales, splashes of color everywhere.

Diverus carried tray after tray of drinks—in his arms for a change, instead of on his head. Guests snatched everything off each before he’d even reached the parlors, some on their way to the afrits’ chambers—as he now thought of the back rooms. The masked visitors gobbled and guzzled as if fearing they might be stranded without sustenance for days.

Bogrevil remained at the bottom of the stairs, dressed in regal violet embroidered robes. He bowed with great flourishes to each individual or group that descended, a sultan welcoming his guests. Initially people escorted their choices to him, but as the evening wore on and the guests came to outnumber the paidika’s stable, they came to him with names written on slips of paper, which he wrote down on a small parchment on a podium beside his mammoth guard. They understood that they would have to wait to take their turns. Later arrivals might not have anyone left to choose from at all. He might send in a second client while a boy still lay in the afrit’s perch, but not a third. Nobody could recover from three sessions in a row, and it wasn’t as if he was going out of business after tonight.

Early in the festivities one guest clutched Diverus as he was retreating with an empty tray. He looked at the hand on his sleeve, noting the polished nails, and glanced up at coal-black eyes fringed by long lashes behind a gold mask. Dragged before Bogrevil, he listened as the guest said, “I’d have this one.” It was a woman, as Bogrevil must have known, too. He expected to be let go.

Bogrevil closed his hand over hers. “He’s lovely, you know. Your taste is uncommonly fine.” He let this statement hang in the air for a moment—to tease, or to torture Diverus. “He is, however, of diminished capacity, and it might well be catching. Let me assure you, were he not, he wouldn’t be serving food. Now, let me offer you something else tasty,” and he led her away. Diverus didn’t see her again for some hours.

One by one boys were purchased and taken off while others milled about waiting their turn. Each time he watched one leave the room, he wanted to stop him. Didn’t anyone notice Abnevi’s absence? Didn’t they wonder what had happened? Could they read the guilt in his eyes?

He couldn’t help thinking of each of them in their curtained and candlelit chambers, lying beneath insubstantial monstrosities as their life was drained, their souls served up as refreshment. How could Eskie suggest that they desired such a thing?

As the evening wore on, other guests considered him. Their eyes spoke their interest. He wondered what they got from what they inhaled, and why any one boy was more appealing than any other. And why was it only boys—a preference of the afrits or merely less problematic than if the genders mixed? Would there be paidikas full of girls, or was there another word for such places? He knew so little of the world, so little that was of use.

Each time his tray emptied and he escaped to the kitchen, he stalled as long as he could, staying at the back of the line, remaining as invisible as possible, remembering what Eskie had said. Perhaps the fourth time he had done this, the cook placed small brass cups upon the tray as he held it, then filled each with a green distillation. As he filled the ones nearest Diverus’s body, he leaned across the tray and said, “Clever boy. Dressed so nice, have you become merchandise now?” At Diverus’s look of shock, he laughed. “Can’t dodge all night long, you know, no matter how you hang back. It’ll be
my
turn to choose eventually, when they’ve all gone. He’s saving you for me.”

Diverus flung the tray at him.

Thick green liquid spattered the cook from head to waist, most of it running down his filthy apron. Diverus shoved past those waiting behind him. The cook yelled at him then erupted in the sort of laugh that promised punishment, but Diverus didn’t stop. He ran out and into one of the back corridors full of afrit chambers.

A curtain parted, and the woman who’d earlier attempted to rent him stumbled out. Her dark eyes were slits, barely open, her features slack. A blindfold hung loosely about her throat on top of her gilded mask. So drunk on the essence she’d inhaled was she that she’d forgotten to put her disguise back on, or even all of her costume. She was barefoot now and bare-shouldered. The cape she’d worn must be in the room still. She kept to the wall to steady herself. As he passed her she called out, “Pretty boy,” reaching limply for him, but then slid down onto the settee as if the gesture had robbed her of all energy.

He eluded her easily and merged into the cramped halls leading to the parlors, wriggling through clusters of guests and boys, realizing that he should have gone the other way, down to the laundry, where at least he might hide until the anniversary was over, even at the risk of never leaving it again.

Instead he emerged in the foyer before the parlors and ran right into Bogrevil, who was escorting someone from the main stairs. “Well, well, escaped from a harem, have we? Where’s your tray?” He seemed to be drunk, but it only increased his malevolence. He turned to the guest behind him and asked, “May I recommend to you this handsome creature? He’s very quiet, but you can tell just by lookin’ that his essence is the stronger for it.”

The guest considered him for but a moment, then nodded. “Definitely,” he said, a deep, almost sultry voice.

“Good,” Bogrevil replied, and clamped onto Diverus’s wrist. “Time spent with an afrit will do you proper, my boy. World of good, take
you
down a peg and remind Eskie who she owes her life to.” He started forward as the besotted woman with the gold mask emerged out of one narrow corridor, still lacking half her costume. She pointed at Diverus, the blindfold hanging from her hand. “Pretty boy,” she repeated. Bogrevil turned to the client, grinning. “See there, he’s very popular.” He snatched the blindfold from her and snapped it to get the sentinel’s attention. The huge Kotul took the woman by the shoulder and guided her toward the stairs. Bogrevil called out, “Be sure someone retrieves—ah, ne’er mind, I’ll do it meself.” Then with an exaggerated wigwag he led the way down the narrow hall. Boys and clients stepped aside to let him through.