Fantastic Metropolis

Excepting the ghosts in her dreams, Raule hadn’t seen a face she knew, either friend or foe, for more than half a year. Though she thought about leaving then and there, life had been too lonely lately, and so she chose to stay. Wanting a drink, and water to wash with if any was to be had, she walked to the bar. No one was there. Her nose picked up a raw smell.

Looking over the counter, she saw the body of an elderly man who was no doubt the innkeeper. Something sharp and heavy had broken his skull open like an egg. The blood around him was still wet. A shelf behind the bar held a few bottles, but Raule decided to forgo alcoholic refreshment for the time being. There was a gap between two sheets of tin in the back wall, with another room visible beyond. Without looking at the men again, Raule moved towards the gap.

“Woman, stop.”

It wasn’t the voice of her acquaintance at the table. It was of iron and clinker. Raule halted.

“How would you say that man died?” the voice drawled.

“I would say,” Raule answered, not facing around, “that he fell and hit his head.”

There was ugly laughter, briefly. Then the shuffle and snap of cards signalled the resumption of play.

Just teasing.

Raule went through the opening, and found herself in a bedroom-cum-storeroom. The shelves held a few sacks of beans and some hoary sausages. On the floor lay a strongbox, broken open and empty. An unlikely leadlight door of yellow and green glass roundels led out to an open yard. Raule squinted in the sudden light. In a corner of the yard there was a pump with a bucket beside it. She tried the pump, which yielded brown water. She cupped some in her hands and splashed it on her head and neck. A muddy residue stayed in the lines on her palms. She wasn’t going to try drinking it, but in case the camel was thirsty she filled the bucket and walked back around the side of the building. The camel drank a couple of mouthfuls, then gave the bucket a disdainful kick, spilling the water, which the dry ground rapidly swallowed.

Raule drank from one of the several canteens she carried, then settled under the palm tree and let her eyes close. However, she kept her ears open.

The sun inched down the sky. Shadows lengthened. An emaciated, three-legged hound limped across the road. Brass-coloured ants that were half as long as Raule’s thumb came crawling out of a hole in front of her feet. She kept count of them.

Nine hundred and thirteen ants later, gunfire erupted indoors.

Even though Raule had been half expecting it, the sudden ear-splitting noise gave her a jolt. She jumped off the porch and lay flat. She heard what sounded like several pistols being rapidly emptied, and men bellowing like bulls.

Then all went quiet again.

Raule crept to the doorway. Squatting, she lifted the bottom edge of the blanket a little and peered into the room. Dark figures lay prone on the floor amid overturned chairs and broken glass. Only the veiled man was standing, wreathed in gunsmoke, lit by a cat’s cradle of thin sunbeams threading through new bullet holes in the walls and roof. He reloaded the pair of long-barrelled revolvers he had in hand and holstered them. Then from the curved scabbard he drew a yataghan, and swung it down three times, severing each fallen man’s head. That had always been his preferred way of making sure of a kill. Raule thought it was something of a comforting habit, too, like some people’s habits of straightening crooked-hanging pictures, or always wearing a certain item of clothing.

She got to her feet. As she went to move the blanket, the wire fell down. The man started, and brought the sword up. Seeing only Raule there, he lowered it again.

Raule stepped inside and took a few paces into the smoke, stopping several feet short of the man and the mire of sawdust and blood he stood in. She glanced down at the bodies. “Who was cheating?”

“Who do you think?” The voice from behind the dustveil was pleasant, with the slightly breathy timbre of a northern accent.

“It seems you’ve still got your sweet touch, Gwynn.”

“You use it or lose it,” he said with a slight shrug. He wiped the sword on the nearest corpse’s sleeve, and sheathed it. He removed his hat, then the domino and veil, disclosing foreign features: a white, finely tapered face, graced by an expression of urbane serenity. His eyes were waterish green, as though they held brine. His long black hair was tied back in a queue. “It’s good to see you, Raule,” he said. Locating an unbroken bottle and glass on the table, he poured himself a drink. “One for yourself?”

“Maybe later.”

When he had quenched his thirst, he stepped over the bodies and held out his hand, smiling. With that smile the strange peace in his looks dissolved, and a baneful quiddity showed itself.

Raule had a moment of hesitation. There were other people she would have preferred to meet. But Gwynn had once been a comrade, and in some ways one of her better friends. She didn’t have so many of those left that she could afford to be choosy. She took his grip.