Dancing With Bears - Michael Swanwick [121]
Tsar Lenin glanced at Surplus and Irina and said,“You should be wearing red scarves.” He produced two from his pocket, which they dutifully tied about their necks.
Sitting side by side with the legendary leader from Russia’s distant past and reasoning that he might never have such an opportunity again, Surplus said, “Pray tell me, sir—and you needn’t answer this question if you don’t want to—are you really Tsar Lenin?”
“No,” his companion said. “I am not even human. But the mob believes I am Lenin, and that is sufficient. It will give me all of Moscow in a matter of hours, and all of Muscovy shortly thereafter. Then I shall begin a war such as has never been seen before, not even in excesses of the Preutopian era. My armies will eradicate entire nations and reduce humanity to a fraction of its present pestilent self.”
“Excuse me?”
“There is no excusing you, for you have committed the first and greatest sin there is—you exist. All life is abhorrent. Biological life is worse. And intelligent biological life is beyond redemption.”
Surplus found it hard to contain his astonishment. “You are remarkably candid, sir,” he managed to say.
The tsar’s eyes glittered like steel. “There is no reason not to be. Were you to repeat my words, nobody would believe you. In any case, I am confident you will be dead within the week.”
“Does that mean you plan to kill me, sir?”
“If nobody else performs that service for me first—why then, yes, of course. We are entering into an tumultuous period, however. There will be riots tonight such as Moscow has never seen before. So the odds are excellent I will not have to.”
“I…I am speechless.”
“Then refrain from speech.”
The cheering about them was so loud and so constant that Surplus could barely make out Lenin’s words. So it was no wonder that the baronessa, much of whose attention was taken up by holding her three horses to a steady walk, continued smiling and waving to either side. She had not heard even a scrap of this conversation. But Irina, who had leaned in close to eavesdrop, had.
“You’re not God!” Irina cried in a wounded and disillusioned tone. “You’re not at all kind. You’re not one bit loving.”
Lenin favored her with a smile that contained not the least touch of warmth. “No, my dear, I am not. But I am great and terrible, and in the end, that comes to much the same thing.”
The wraith stalked the streets of Moscow, avid and dangerous, inchoate of thought, a creature without mercy, the void incarnate. She had no sense of purpose nor any desires that she was aware of, only a dark urge to keep moving. She had no identity—she simply was. Light and crowds she disliked and avoided. Solitude and shadow were her meat and drink. Occasionally, she came across somebody as friendless and isolate as herself, and then she played. Always she gave them a chance to live. So far, none of them had.
I am the bone mother, she thought. I am death and contagion, and I am the muttering voice in the night that freezes the soul with terror. My flesh is corruption and my bones are ice. I have teeth in every orifice. If you stick a finger in my ear, I will bite it off.
She came to a dark house and twisted the doorknob until the lock behind it broke. Like an errant breeze she wafted inside and up the stairs. On the landing was a little table with a vase of flowers. She paused to bite off their heads and swallow them one by one. Then she heard a gentle snoring from one of the rooms. She pushed open the door. In the moonlight that streamed through the window, she saw a man sleeping, a tasseled nightcap on his head.
Silently, she crawled into the bed beside him.
The sleeper’s head was turned toward her. She lightly brushed her nose against his to awaken him. He snorted but did not wake, so she did it again. His eyes fluttered open and focused vaguely upon hers.
“Boo,” she said.
With a scream, the man rolled away from her and crashed to the floor in a tangle of limbs and blankets. In a trice, she was crouched over him like an enormous