(eng) Michael Swanwick by Jack Faust

Author:Jack Faust [Faust, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

APES

With a clamor of bells that set the monkey screeching in terror, the parade began.

Across town, Jakob Treutwein heard the bells as he was placing a long ladder against one of the city wall's towers. A window opened above him and a pole with wet laundry upon it was thrust out into the air. "Hallo up there!" he called with bluff good humor. "Be careful you don't impale me."

"Who said that?" A housewife stuck her startled red face out the window. "What are you doing?"

"Installing lightning rods. I've got a contract from the city."

"Lightning rods!"

"Yes, for every tower. It won't take long at all. We'll be out of your way before you know it." His sons, Daniel and Max, stood by the cart with the great spool of metal cable, the rods, tools, and mounting spikes, shifting from foot to foot with impatience. The old woman was a renter (for the towers were, strictly speaking, military emplacements, and only the chronic lack of living space within the walls led to them being let out) and had no say over what would and would not be done with the structure. But Treutwein was all smiles and patience. He knew how to handle people, knew how much trouble even the lowliest tenant could cause, knew above all what profits he could expect from a commission that would take months to fulfill.

"Whatever you're up to, I can't be bothered!" the old woman snapped. "Take your lightning-trap away. I want no part of it."

Treutwein laughed respectfully and removed his hat. "It's not like that, grandmother. It's the simplest of devices, an iron finial that goes on the tip of the spire to intercept the lightning and channel it harmlessly along a cable into the ground, like rainwater down the spout. You need never fear lightning-fires again. Sleep through thunderstorms! You'll be proof against their worst."

"Well, I—"

"Best of all, it costs nothing. The city council pays for it all."

"Free, you say?" The old woman started to withdraw.

"Absolutely without charge."

She abruptly stuck her head out again. "This isn't one of Faust's devilish creations, is it?"

"Oh, no, no, no." Treutwein put on a shocked expression. "It was invented decades ago. In Munich."

There was confusion in the square before Saint Lorenz as the procession set out. But the chaos of human bodies pushing and stumbling into one another as they squeezed into the narrow street was momentary. Once out of the plaza, the marchers were swiftly metamorphosed into a living, rainbow-scaled serpent that glided smoothly and purposively through the city.

First came the thurifer in full ecclesiastical robes, worn backwards and inside-out. Solemnly, chains clanking, he swung a censer that contained not myrrh but sulfur, so that the incense it sent up every nostril instead of elevating minds to thoughts of sanctity, sent them straight to its opposite. Behind him came the cross-bearer, his burden held upside down, with crimson ribbons streaming from the stigmata. Then two horned imps prancing and snarling. They carried baskets fat with pamphlets, which they flung by ones and twos into the crowd of spectators.

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