Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [143]
“I’m waiting for you,” said Arkansky.
Ajuakangilak swiftly unsheathed a knife and violently thrust it into Arkansky’s guts. Blood gushed out as he withdrew the blade. He stabbed again. Arkansky remained in mid-air for a while, arms apart, his eyes wide open in disbelief, as blood trickled from his mouth. Then his eyes closed and he fell down noisily, his real blood smearing the fake ice. Spencer Molson ran to the slumped body. Sybil and Phoebe fell in a swoon, as if suddenly unplugged. “No bloodshed, huh?” a sarcastic voice whispered in Brentford’s horrified brain. It was under his own responsibility that first blood had been drawn. He could only hope that it would be the last.
Ajuakangilak walked out of the circle, wiping his blade on his sleeve, and saying something to Brentford.
“Ajuakangilak says he does not show his powers to qallunaat,” Tuluk translated.
Molson was leaning over Arkansky, trying to look at the wound. As he undid the blood-soaked jacket and vest, he also revealed the copper bands, the metal wires, the compressed air tubes and other curious works that rigged the magician’s body. But it was insufficient body armour. The meteorite-stone blade of the shaman had pierced him all the way. Molson hung his head down and sobbed.
“Please. Let him go,” Brentford said to the Scavenger who kept watch over the old man. He turned his back to the scene, sighing, trying to conjure the image away.
The women were slowly coming back to their senses, Phoebe in Blankbate’s arms and Sybil faintly smiling at Tiblit, who had kneeled over her. Brentford felt relieved that they were safe and unharmed, but after some hesitation decided that he did not want to confront Sybil now, and turned away as quickly as he could.
“We have lost enough time,” he said nervously to Blankbate and Lilian. “We should hurry to the Blazing Building. Please, Mr. Blankbate, let the Inuit go home, and send a few men with them to make sure nothing happens on their way back.”
He turned toward the Inughuit:
“Consider this place as yours.”
Uitayok looked around the dome.
“This place? he said, with a barely hidden irony.
“The city,” said Brentford, almost bristling with emotion at this historical moment.
Uitayok seemed dubious, but thanked him politely.
Canals were the fastest way to reach the Blazing Building. The unlikely little army of Sophragettes and Scavengers ran to the embankment, where chasse-galleries and gondolas waited for them at the mooring posts. Brentford found himself wishing that everything in the city were as well organized as this upheaval had been so far.
A large icebreaking scow opened the way, and the overcrowded crafts followed it, like ugly ducklings, in a ruffle of feathery rifles. The city seemed tranquil enough. The crowd, impressed by the Scavengers, had scattered and gone home. A few shots cracked out from time to time, celebratory or lethal, Brentford could not guess, lowering his head all the same. He could not control everything, could he? They glided past the distant smoking ruins of the N.A.N.A., which made quite an impression, more of melancholy than of glory, but the city could use the space, after all. Build another greenhouse, maybe. Or a two-hundred-foot snowman. Everything was possible, that much at least was true.
At one point, Brentford thought he glimpsed a man leaping from rooftop to rooftop, but he had barely turned toward Lilian to point out the phenomenon when it disappeared. Stranger still, he was persuaded that it had been Gabriel.
As they approached the corner of Nicolo Zeno Canal, they saw a group of soldiers building barricades on the embankment in front of the Naval Academy. A thrill ran through the crowded gondolas, and rifles were cocked, ready to fire. However, the sailors saluted the gondolas with cheers, throwing their berets skyward. These were Navy Cadets, Nobles of the Poop, as they liked to call themselves. All rifles were lowered. A young officer in white spats and a navy blue uniform with little silvery snow crystals on his collar