A City Dreaming by Daniel Polansky Read Free Book Online Page A

train should take you as far as Fourth Via Station. You want to get any farther, though, you’re going to need to find yourself a berth on the Alighieri Special.”
    â€œThat’s an ominous title.”
    â€œIt’s aptly named. If you’re set on going, I can tell you this much: The line goes through some of the . . . infernal regions. The train itself is safe—nothing can touch you while you’re on it. But the things that live round those parts are a tricky bunch—if you step out, you’re theirs. And that”—he shuddered—“doesn’t bear thinking about.”
    But they did think about it then, for a while, the three companions and probably the stranger as well, who added, “You sure you aren’t better off having a couple more oysters and then heading home?”
    Actually at that point M wasn’t at all sure of this fact, but there was no way at this point to bow out gracefully, and after a moment, Stockdale—who never missed an opportunity to utter an epigraph—answered for him: “Death or victory!”
    â€œI wish you the latter,” the man said, toasting their fortune.
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    They had been waiting on the platform of Fourth Via Station for about half an hour when a strange rattle could be heard moving toward them. Fourth Via Station looked like it was located in one of the realities that never got over having knights and so forth—the floor was cobblestone rather than concrete, the only illumination came from the flickering torchlight, and the name ofthe station was hung on an elaborately embroidered tapestry, complete with heraldry. Below it a filigreed hourglass hung from a wall arm, falling sand indicating the arrival of the next train.
    The platform was empty, except for M and his two companions. It seemed to be late in the evening. It was very dark, at least, but then torches don’t shed as much light as neon bulbs.
    It was these torches that revealed the source of the rattling. They looked at first like children, an impression aided by the fact that they coasted forward on old-fashioned roller skates, orange wheels sewed into burlap. But even by the dim light that conjecture faltered almost immediately. Their bodies were too thick, their skin a strange mixture of white and green, like a corpse that had been left in water. They wore heavy leather jackets and bright red ski caps, and their teeth were narrow, nasty little points.
    One had a length of chain in his hand that he swung back and forth in a fashion unsuggestive of amity. He called out in a language that seemed to have a lot of C’s and W’s stuck together. M didn’t speak it, but he understood a taunt regardless of the idiom.
    â€œWhat do we have here?” D8mon asked, though it was obvious enough in the broad strokes.
    â€œWe call them redcaps,” Stockdale informed him. Actually, Stockdale’s people would have called them Rakshasas or something to that effect, but M did not think this was the time to deal with his friend’s false consciousness.
    â€œI’d call them trouble,” M muttered.
    They circled the three travelers like a pack of wolves that had recently seen the film Xanadu , to torture a metaphor rather cruelly. One of the bogies took Stockdale’s lapel between two of his clawed fingers, rubbed at the fabric, and smiled rapaciously.
    â€œWhat ho, chap,” Stockdale began, stiff-arming the goblin back a step. “You’ve got some cheek, all right, to place hands on a gentleman.”
    Stockdale’s new admirer chattered fiercely in his unseemly tongue. One of his confederates stopped in front of M, staring like a hawk at a coney. He had a string of bone fingers on a chain around his neck, and the coat he wore was emblazoned with scenes of slaughter and cruelty. M was wearing only his street clothes, faded jeans and a leather jacket, and he didn’t have anyweapons