City of Wolves by Willow Palecek

Author:Willow Palecek
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Chapter 13

THE CITY OF LUPENWALD was enormous. Poets called it the City of Cities, and they were not wrong. Lupenwald was home to fashionable neighborhoods full of gentry, burghers, cafés, shops, and theaters; even more distinguished neighborhoods home to the vast estates of the nobility; destitute slums where one could get knifed simply for walking down the wrong alley; giant factory wards blanketed with smoke and ash, cramped workhouses surrounded by tenements; and the Royal Palaces and the motley government buildings. A city of cities, indeed.

One of those cities was Mad Town, a city for the insane.

At the center of Mad Town was St. Madeline’s Hospital, popularly known as the Mad House, a dark, looming building home to the dangerously insane and criminally deranged. Surrounding the asylum was a variety of different facilities, compounds, apartments, hospitals, and the like; all of them catered to the various needs of the mentally unsound. Surrounding that were the hovels and tenements of those mad enough to live in Mad Town by choice. Tours of the more unfortunate and improbable sufferers was a leisure pastime for many Lupenwalders, both rich and poor. Even though Sergeant Brast was considered incredibly mad by the medical community, I had no problem securing a visitation with him.

“Alexander, my dear boy, thank you for coming,” said my host, brightening as I entered his chambers. He made as if to rise from his wheelchair, but I held out a hand.

“Please, no need to get up on my account,” I said. “How are you, Sergeant?”

“Pah, can’t complain, I suppose.” He lit up a pipe and motioned for me to sit. “Pension pays for the costs, and I’ve a little money tucked aside, so it’s comfortable, more or less. Three squares, pretty nurses, four sturdy walls, and a roof over my head. The doctors—don’t get me started on the doctors. But I find ways to keep busy. Let me show you my models.”

Before I could respond, he turned and wheeled himself into the next room. Sergeant Brast had lost both his legs in the war, though he did not seem to consciously recognize the fact.

“They don’t like me going out, you know,” he said in a low voice. “I’m a little surprised they let you in to see me. Must think I’m harmless now.” He gave me a conspiratorial wink.

The next room was dominated by a diorama of a wilderness scene divided by a mighty river, over which crossed a great bridge. Two armies of carved and painted figurines, complete with riflemen, cavalry, and artillery, fought over the bridge. Brast had made them all himself. Each was unique, the detail exquisite. The effort must have been enormous.

“Here’s you and me, Alex my boy, fighting the good fight.” He pointed to a corner where a scouting party had crept up behind their opposite number and were in the process of slitting their enemies’ throats. I could see my face captured in the wood, the severe jawline. A hatchet on the belt. For a moment, I was back there, and I could hear the fighting and smell the gunpowder.

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