Fire and Dust Read online

  Fire and Dust

  James Gardner

  «Fire and Dust» – один из немногих, к сожалению, романов, действующих в AD&D вселенной Planescape, и, без сомнения, один из лучших. Если Вы бывали в Сигиле, городе дверей, если Вы даже спросонья не спутаете гизерая с гизъянки, если среди Ваших знакомых найдется парочка бариауров – эта книга для Вас. Если же нет… все равно попробуйте. Может быть, именно с этого романа начнется Ваш путь в Мультивселенную.

  Fire and Dust

  from the memoirs of the right Honorable

  Britlin Cavendish, Esquire,

  Artist and Gentleman

  1. THREE BLAZING FIRES

  Mid-Afternoon; Rotunda of the City Courts Building, in Sigil, the City of Doors:

  «Ah,» said the centaur, looking over my shoulder «I see that you're painting.»

  «Yes,» I replied from behind my easel.

  «The hustle and bustle of what this city calls justice,» the centaur continued. «Prisoners hobbling by in chains. Litigants glaring at each other as they await trial. Judges in ermine passing sentence on ragged beggars. Certainly, this is fertile ground for an artist with an eye for irony… or tragedy… or simply the paradoxes of life. What is your theme, young man?»

  «My theme?» I asked.

  «What artistic statement are you making? How the law oppresses the powerless? Or perhaps, if you are an optimist, how the law, despite its flaws, is a majestic abstraction that reflects the best within us. Is that your statement?»

  «My statement is I wish there weren't so many curlicues carved over the entranceway. My hand is falling asleep trying to copy them all.»

  The centaur stared at me wordlessly.

  «This painting,» I explained, «was commissioned by Guvner Hashkar, Chief Justice of the Courts and Factol for the Fraternity of Order. He said to me, Cavendish, dear fellow, the wife's got a cousin getting married next week. He's a right berk of a boy, but family is family, don't you know. Need to give a present and the wife says a painting would be just the thing. Just the thing, yes. Three feet by five should do admirably, and go easy on the reds, there's a good chap – the boy tends to faint if he gets too excited. Why not take a bash at a picture of the court rotunda? Could be inspiring. Just the thing for the breakfast nook. Just the thing, yes.»

  «And you took this commission?» The centaur looked aghast. «You didn't spit in this man's face? You didn't lecture him about artistic integrity?»

  «You don't lecture factols,» I replied. «If they ask you to do something annoying, you simply charge more. That's why I have a longer list of wealthy clients than any other painter in Sigil; I talk their language.»

  The centaur gaped at me for another few seconds, then stomped away in disgust. I have to admit, if there's one thing centaurs are good at, it's stomping away.

  Shrugging, I continued to copy the curlicues, trying to ignore the distractions around me; and let me tell you, the City Courts are full of distractions. For example, lined up in front of a door beside me stood a cornugon – one of those reptilian horrors from the Lower Planes, nine feet tall, insect wings, a prehensile tail like three yards of razorvine… well, you must have seen them around. This one was waiting stoically, reading a scroll that had almost no words but dozens of bright orange ink drawings of humans and demihumans being grilled over pillars of flame. To a cornugon, such a scroll might be anything from a bedtime story to a menu-planner.

  In line behind the hell-monster, waiting just as patiently, was a deva from the Upper Planes: a handsome amber-skinned man, two feet taller than me and equipped with wings as big as the cornugon's. The deva's wings, however, were made from feathers of the purest gold. A single one of the feathers could have bought someone a nice night on the town… but as soon as my thoughts drifted to leaving work for the day, I botched one of the curlicues and had to dab away the error with turpentine.

  Unlike the cornugon, the deva hadn't brought anything to read, but that didn't leave him bored. He simply fixed his eyes on the sky outside the door of the rotunda, and soon his face settled into an expression of rapturous contemplation of the heavens… which, if you ask me, was a waste of good rapture, since Sigil is shaped like a ring a few miles in diameter, and the only thing you can see in the sky above the court building are the grimy slums of the Hive district. Still, gazing up on those filthy streets didn't bother the deva; and he even managed to maintain his serene expression when the cornugon in front shifted its weight and flicked its scaly wings across the deva's nose.

  For a brief moment, something inside me wanted to toss away my bland painting of the architecture and instead, work on capturing this little moment: creatures of heaven and hell, standing side by side and ignoring each other… or perhaps only pretending to. This little scene said something. I wasn't sure what it said, but you can't show an angelic being and a demonic one in the same picture without it being some kind of comment, right?

  On the other hand… I hadn't been commissioned to paint a deva and a cornugon. If I suddenly decided to paint something that interested me, who knew where it would all end? Muttering something about gold handcuffs, I went back to work.

  «Painting a picture, huh?» said a nasal voice by my elbow. «Do you really have to draw all those curlicues? Couldn't you kind of suggest them?»

  I turned to see a gangly boy in his late teens squatting and squinting at my canvas. His skin was caramel brown, but his hair yellow blonde, hanging haphazardly around distinctly pointed ears. One of his parents must have been human, the other an elf; and neither side of the family could take much pride in the result. «Do I know you?» I asked, trying to sound forbidding.

  «Hezekiah Virtue,» he replied, holding out a hand that was overly blessed with knuckles. Looking down at my paintbox, he read my name printed there. «Britlin Cavendish… well it's an honor to meet you.»

  «You've heard of me?»

  «Nope. But it's an honor to meet anyone in Sigil; I've only been here two days. Do you belong to a faction?»

  I sighed. My jacket clearly displayed the «five senses» symbol of the Society of Sensation, and the symbol was repeated on my signet ring and the top of my paintbox. However, that obviously didn't mean anything to this Clueless child. «I have the privilege of being a Sensate,» I told him. «Our society is dedicated to savoring all the abundance the multiverse can offer.»

  «Oh, my Uncle Toby told me about you guys,» he answered, his eyes growing wide. «You must have a lot of wild parties, right?»

  «Wrong. One wild party in a lifetime usually exhausts that field of experience. Then we move on to more refined pursuits.»

  «Oh.» Clearly, the boy had no idea what a refined pursuit might be. Then his face brightened, and he reached into a cloth bag he carried in one hand. «Have you ever tried swineberries?»

  The name made me wrinkle my nose. «Swineberries?»

  He pulled out a handful of greasy brown berries, each about the size of my thumb. They were flat and wrinkled, as if someone had stepped on them with spike-heeled boots. «I brought them with me from home,» the boy said. «My home plane. I'm not from around here. The berries aren't as fresh as they used to be, but they're still pretty good.» He popped one in his mouth and chewed vigorously. «You should try one.»

  «Yes,» I admitted, «I should.» A Sensate never says no to a new experience, even if it turns out to be some boring new prune from the Prime Material Plane. I told myself if the taste proved to be as lackluster as I expected – swineberries! – at least I'd have something t
o joke about the next time I had dinner with my fellow Sensates.

  Of course, I couldn't just pop the berry in my mouth and chew, like the boy did. You don't rush such things. You have to hold the berry lightly in your fingertips, testing the weight and texture in the fruit. Then you lift it to your nose and smell its bouquet – a light, sugary fragrance, with a teasing hint of musk. Then, and only then, do you slip it between your teeth and bite down gently… whereupon, you discover the sodding berry tastes like pure rock salt.

  I'd eaten pure rock salt before – it was part of the Sensate initiation ceremony. As any Sensate can tell you, once is enough.

  Reluctantly, I swallowed.

  «What did you think of the berry?» Hezekiah asked.

  «I hated it.»

  «Oh. But I guess that's all right, isn't it? Because Uncle Toby says Sensates want to experience everything, good and bad.»

  «Your Uncle Toby is a font of information,» I replied through clenched teeth.

  «Hey,» the boy said, «do you think these berries would go over big with the Sensates? Because I'd like to talk to one of your high-up men, to see what I have to do to join your group.»

  I nearly choked. «You want to join the Sensates?»

  «Uncle Toby says I should join some faction. A man has to have friends in the Cage, that's what Uncle Toby says. He calls Sigil the Cage, I don't know why. So I'm going around, talking to all the factions, to find out more about them. That's why I'm here in the courts, to talk to a Guvner. I love how Sigil people say Guvner, instead of Governor the way they'd say it back home. I love how people talk here: Stop rattling your bone-box, you Clueless berk, or I'll do you a slice-job. I hear that all the time. By the way, what's a slice-job?»

  «You're going to find out any minute,» I muttered.

  «On the other hand,» Hezekiah continued unstoppably, «I haven't heard you use any quaint local expressions yet. Are you from out of town too?»

  I looked down at the fine-tipped paintbrush in my hand and idly wondered if it would be ruined by plunging it into the boy's eye. Control, Britlin, control. My mother was the daughter of a duke and cozzled me all through childhood not to talk like the leatherheads in the street – to sound cultured and refined so that city aristocrats would admit me to their drawing rooms. She had never been heavy-handed about it («Yes Britlin, little Oswald next door is a berk; now how would we say that in real words?») but it was a matter of family loyalty for me to stay true to her ideals, and I did not need some Prime-world pippin insulting me on that score. I racked my brains, trying to produce some scathing remark that would send this Clueless boy packing; but before I could think of a devastating response, I noticed a trio of Harmonium guards enter in lock-step through the front doors of the rotunda.

  Of course, there's nothing unusual about Harmonium members in the courts building – as Sigil's police force, their duties often bring them to the halls of justice. However, this particular group stood out for several disturbing reasons.

  First, all three had made a mess of folding their gray neckerchiefs. Harmonium officers are fastidious about their neckerchiefs – when I painted the portrait of Harmonium Factol Sarin, he demanded that I reproduce every little tuck and fold precisely.

  Second, the three men in front of me didn't walk like Harmonium guards. Guards spend most of their time patrolling a beat through the city; even raw recruits soon acquire a measured gait that lets them walk all day while keeping alert to possible mischief. The men entering the rotunda had a more military edge to their pace – they didn't stroll, they marched.

  Finally, my keen Sensate's eye picked up one more out-of-place detail. In addition to swords, normal Harmonium guards always carry stout black truncheons, reserved for those rare occasions when their commander is struck by the whim to take a wrongdoer alive. The three men in front of me, however, had quite different weapons hanging from their belts; sleek white batons carved from ivory or bone, their surfaces speckled with a red glitter that might be chips of ruby.

  «What are you looking at?» Hezekiah asked.

  «I was just thinking, maybe I'll pack up now and take another crack at those curlicues tomorrow.»

  «Are you trying to avoid those guards?» the boy whispered, as he noticed me eyeing the newcomers. «Maybe you have some dark secret in your past, and those guys are a special elite team who might recognize you from former days?»

  «Why do you think those guards are elite?» I asked.

  «Because they're the first I've seen carrying firewands instead of truncheons.»

  «Those are firewands?»

  The boy shrugged. «Uncle Toby taught me all about wands and stuff.»

  I groaned.

  A rational man might have taken to his heels that very second – three impostor guards walking into the Courts with high-powered magical weapons meant big, big trouble. On the other hand, I had never seen a firewand in action; and if I could find a safe place to hide before anyone started shooting, I might witness something well worth remembering. If this turned into a major incident, maybe I could even paint the scene afterward. Those piking art critics couldn't accuse me of sterility if I made a perfect reproduction of some horrible disaster.

  Unfortunately, my first glance around the rotunda didn't reveal any good places to dive for cover. Factol Hashkar may have hired me to do a painting, but his most beloved artform was tapestry; as soon as he became leader of the Guvners, he had covered every inch of City Court wallspace with dusty old banners depicting the many planes of the multiverse. Those acres of cloth would blaze like tinder if the wands started blasting fireballs… and that could happen any minute.

  The three guards reached the center of the rotunda floor, and turned inward to face each other in a huddle. They wanted us to believe they were discussing private guard business; but I knew they were concealing their motions as they pulled the wands from their belts. Would they simply start shooting? Or was this a more complicated plan, «Lie down and give us your money!» or a scheme to grab hostages in protest of the latest tax hike? It didn't matter. I was at the rear of the hall, too far from the door to get outside before the pyrotechnics began, so I had to take the only cover available.

  «Come on, Hezekiah,» I commanded, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck. Then, crossing my fingers that this would work, I jammed the two of us directly behind the cornugon.

  «What are you playing at, berk?» growled the monster, as it whipped around to look at us.

  «Sorry,» I said, «but you're from the Nine Hells. You're flameproof.»

  Which was the precise moment when the first fireball struck the cornugon's back.

  * * *

  Even with the cornugon taking the brunt of the blast, huge tongues of flame splashed over me for a second, buffeting my face with broiling air. A few paces away, my paints and canvas blossomed with fire, followed a moment later by the turpentine can exploding into a fierce yellow blaze. Smoke was everywhere, people screamed throughout the great hall, and who knew how many other throats were too scorched to make more than a croak?

  In front of us, the cornugon hadn't suffered a single blister; after all, the creature came from a plane noted for its flaming infernos, so a paltry fireball was no more annoying than a mosquito bite. Still, the fireblast was an attack, and a completely unexpected one, since the cornugon had been glaring at Hezekiah and me when the false guards let fly. Angrily, the reptile-fiend raised a sharp-taloned hand as if it intended to claw off a strip of my flesh… but then second thoughts flashed through its beady black eyes and it swung around to slash the deva instead.

  I have no idea if the cornugon actually believed the deva was responsible for the attack, or if the monster simply seized the excuse to swipe at a species he hated. Either way, the cornugon's claws ripped two handfuls of feathers from the deva's wings, and a moment later, the monster's hellishly barbed tail lashed the deva across the chest like a whip. Beads of shining gold blood trickled out where the thorny tail broke the deva's skin.


  Until that moment, the deva had scarcely budged from his serene contemplation of the sky. Certainly, the fireball had singed off some wingfeathers, since a life of celestial bliss doesn't flameproof you like crawling through the bowels of hell; but the deva didn't react until the cornugon's attack had drawn blood. Then, with the speed of a whizzing arrow, the deva flashed out his fists, one, two – a jab to the cornugon's snout, and a beautiful palm-heel strike to its scale-covered gut.

  The cornugon wheezed once and buckled to its knees.

  «Wow,» said Hezekiah. «I always thought angels fought with magic swords.»

  «First,» I replied, «he's not an angel, he's a deva. Second, devas don't fight with swords, they use maces. Third, he's not going to whack a cornugon with his mace in the middle of Sigil unless he wants an all-out war that will get both sides ejected from the city. Finally, in case you haven't noticed, the one thing that was shielding us from the flames is now sprawled gasping on the ground.»

  Indeed, we were completely exposed to the rest of the rotunda, and a hideous sight it was. The three false guards must have stood back-to-back and loosed their fireballs simultaneously, launching bright orange flames in all directions. I could immediately identify the three points of impact from the bursts: those three areas were littered with dead bodies, the corpses' flesh roasted and split into hard red cracks. Farther out, some people had survived the initial flash… or maybe they were just taking longer to die. Their skin was puckered and oozing out fluid, their eye sockets empty pits running with melted jelly. A few made shrill whistling cries, the only kind of scream possible through a throat ravaged by fire. Most simply lay silent, squeezing themselves into balls of agony and shuddering with misery.

  The explosions had focused on the three interior walls of the rotunda. The fourth side of the room, the arch opening into the street, was still untouched, and people who remained on their feet had begun to mob the exit, crushing together in a panic. Shorter beings, gnomes and halflings, would surely be trampled in the stampede down the front steps… not to mention children and the elderly. After the first casualties fell, some of those jamming in behind would trip over the broken bodies, and they too would be battered by the feet of the crowd.