City on Fire

SIXTEEN

The Adrenaline Monster rips Aiah from sleep—she sits up in bed, sucks in air, every sense straining for sign of danger. Her thoughts automatically perform a checklist: no explosions, no shellfire, no alarms.

No danger. The Adrenaline Monster is just keeping in practice.

She gasps for breath, her heart a trip-hammer beating against her ribs. A face with an ambiguous smile floats briefly before her eyes, a remnant of her dream, the Man who is the Sun.

She falls to the mattress, takes the pillow, crushes it to her chest. She tries to calm herself, to recapture the dream, her journey beyond the Shield, the Sun’s self-contemplative smile.

What is she to do? she thinks. Who can she tell?

Come to anyone babbling about the Ascended, she thinks, and she’ll get locked up. Or even worse, taken seriously…

Chosen. Charduq the Hermit insists that she is the redeemer of Barkazi, and even though he’s obviously been on his pillar far too long, there are people desperate enough to believe him.

And now she has apparently made the only visit beyond the Shield in millennia. And the terror of it is not what she saw there, but the thought that perhaps she was meant to see it. That the Ascended… or Someone… wanted her there, and that she has been chosen among all humanity to do… something.

And that doesn’t make sense, because she doesn’t know what she is intended to do, if anything. Any prophet she’s ever heard of knew what his visions meant—how to interpret them and how to act on what he knew. Aiah knows nothing: she saw things and people in the sky, and that’s all. If this is meant to have something to do with Barkazi, the connection eludes her.

But even if she doesn’t understand it, still the experience is hers. She doesn’t dare permit others to interpret it. Charduq would happily conclude that the gods, angels, and immortals all desire that she go forthwith and liberate Barkazi; and Constantine—well, Constantine would put it on video to subvert Landro’s Escaliers, or something.

So she doesn’t dare tell anyone. It must remain her secret until she can work out both what it means, and what it means for her.

A detonation slaps her awake. She was unaware that she’d even closed her eyes, that she’d lulled the Adrenaline Monster into letting her drift toward sleep, but now she’s awake again, counting the explosions as shellfire rains down somewhere close.

Four, five, six. She wipes sweat from the hollow of her throat.

Another series of shells begins to land, and she realizes she will get no more sleep this shift.

She rises from the bed, runs her fingers through her hair. It is another day, and it begins early.

The report on the dead cousin lies before Aiah and Ethemark in the meeting room. The mercenary captain who led the raid is there, and so is Kelban, who’d served on the commission when they had last had a catastrophe of this kind.

“I was there myself,” Aiah says, “with an anima configured to be sensitive to plasm. I saw nothing. No obvious attack.”

—You interfere overmuch with my pleasures, lady. Hearing that rumbling in your bones, a terrifying chill voice that whispers in your head, that is not seeing.

“It was Exploding Head Disease,” Kelban mutters. “It’s like the Party Sickness. It’s going around.”

He has been most thorough in his investigation. The mages involved in this case were different from those of the prior case, so there was no single secret assassin working within the PED. Each of the mages involved was interviewed, and background checks performed to make certain none was involved with the dead gangster or could have any reason to want him dead.

“Do we give everyone involved plasm scans?” Kelban says. “I’d hate to—there are potential dangers involved—but if we want to clear our own people of any suspicion, it’s the only way to do it.”

Ethemark and Aiah look at each other. She reads assent in him, considers the matter, finally shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “I have to trust our people. It was a mage from the Hand who outwitted us, some enemy of the suspect perhaps, or possibly some elaborate form of suicide.”

“Remember the time-bomb theory I mentioned before?” Ethemark says. “That somehow they managed to place in themselves a plasm device designed to kill if they are ever apprehended? Perhaps we should take it more seriously.”

“Perhaps we should.” Aiah is content enough that they should chase up this wrong alley.

“One of the witnesses had another idea,” the mercenary lieutenant offers. “I didn’t put it in the report because, well, it was just too wild.”

A warning tone sounds along Aiah’s spine. But Kelban turns to the lieutenant and says, “Which witness?”

“One of the whores. The older one. She said that she’d met the suspect before, when he was using another body, and that she’d probably meet him again.”

Kelban gives an incredulous laugh. “He jumps around from body to body? Had she just seen Bride of the Slaver Mage or something?”

The lieutenant gives an embarrassed smile. “Maybe. But she said that she’d met him twice before, in different, uh, incarnations. All gangsters. He called her agency, I guess. Once he took her to Gunalaht for a weekend. She said that his personality was, ah, repellent in a very distinctive way, so that she recognized him from one incarnation to the next, but that he paid very well and always provided plenty of liquor and food. And she also said she’d heard that at least one of his former incarnations had died, of that Party Sickness we keep hearing about.”

“The girl probably has so many repellent customers they all just seem alike,” Aiah says.

Kelban grins. “She thinks he’s a ghost?”

The lieutenant shrugs. “Something unnatural, anyway. Something that can jump from one body to another and kill it when he’s done. An ice man, maybe. Or even a Slaver Mage.”

There is a moment’s silence. Slaver Mages are a serious matter.

And the idea of an ice man, or hanged man, is not one Aiah wants anyone ever to mention again.

Aiah closes the file before her. “I don’t believe in ice men,” she says. “I’m not sure if I believe in modern Slaver Mages, either, but if there’s a Slaver working among the gangsters, it’s their problem. I propose to accept the report as written unless we have some more real evidence before us.”

There is silence.

The report is accepted, and goes into the files. Aiah thanks Kelban on behalf of the department, then adjourns the meeting.

She goes to her office and sags into her chair.

Perhaps, she thinks, she should find some way of telling Taikoen that he should vary his women a little more.

The Barkazil troops, flown with their equipment from Sayven into neutral Barchab, come across the border into Caraqui in their own armored vehicles, the column protected by a swarm of telepresent military mages alert for any sign of trouble. The bivouac is already prepared, a parking garage appropriated by the government, concrete walls and floors now covered with bronze mesh to keep out enemy mages. No incidents occur—perhaps security measures have worked for a change.

Aiah is sent as official government greeter, and she takes Khorsa and Alfeg, the only two Barkazils she knows of within three thousand radii. She wears her medal pinned to her lapel, in hopes it might establish another degree of com-monship. The War Ministry provides a full set of commissary specialists with a buffet meal for an entire brigade, and also a camera and soundman to record the event for posterity. Aiah also brings an amplifier, some speakers, and a platform to speak from, so when the first armored car rolls into the empty concrete parking bay, it is to the familiar sound of Arno’s “Barkazi Monday.”

Aiah has never been much of an Arno fan, but he’s the entertainer all Barkazils recognize—even in the oddly distorted version caused by the government music player’s ill-tuned tweaking of the celluloid etching belt—and so Aiah stands between the speakers, waving and smiling as the vehicles roar past and the soldiers, most of them sitting casually on the hatches, recognize the music and break into smiles and laughter.

The soldiers are mostly young, with a few older hands among them, and most of them show at least some Barkazil ancestry: the smooth brown skin, the brown eyes, the thick curls, or some diluted variation of these. But the three generations since the Barkazi Wars have left their mark, and there are many signs of the pale, light-eyed Sayvenese mixed with the Barkazil, mostly visible in cast of feature: longer heads, sturdier bodies, lantern jaws.

The armored cars and personnel carriers are not burning hydrogen, but a less dangerous, less explosive, hermetically created hydrocarbon fuel, and the stuff doesn’t burn cleanly: the garage fills with fumes and Aiah, half-deafened by the speakers on either side, tries not to shrink from the stench.

Khorsa is wearing her full witch regalia—red dress, starched petticoats, and gem-encrusted geomantic foci gleaming on her turban—and the soldiers recognize the costume, flashing magic finger-signs at her as they roar past. Many of them have good-luck foci worn as charms on caps or helmets, and weapons strapped with cult fetishes are waved benignly in Khorsa’s direction. The vehicles each bear a discreet yellow Holy League badge somewhere on the armor. Alfeg’s dress is more conservative—he’s still wearing his Jaspeeri wardrobe, with its heavy lace—and he smiles and waves with the assurance of a young politician shaking hands at a factory gate.

“I have done as you asked,” he says in an aside, voice barely audible over the booming music. “I’m trying to find employment for Barkazils. You may have a pair of mages applying for work later this week.”

“Mages?” Aiah raises her eyebrows. “You happened to find a pair of Barkazil mages wandering around Caraqui looking for a job?”

He waves as vehicles roll past. “They’re people I went to school with. I happened to know they were looking for opportunities, so I called them and let them know we had vacancies.”

“Well.” She considers. “It isn’t exactly what I asked you to do, but as long as these newcomers are qualified, I could use the hires.” And then she smiles. “They can help you find work for others.”

Alfeg gives a little wince.

The last of the vehicles enters and the bronze-mesh gate rolls shut behind it. The soldiers gather around the speakers, and Aiah is awed by their sheer numbers. Millions of Barkazils live in Jaspeer, mostly in little ethnic enclaves like Old Shorings where Aiah grew up, but she has never seen so many of the Cunning People in one place. Karlo’s Brigade has nine thousand soldiers, and although there isn’t room for all of them here, they’re crowded shoulder to shoulder as far as Aiah can see. She finds herself grinning down at them, lifted by the sheer joy of their presence.

Just then the Caraqui music player gives a final wrench to the celluloid etching belt, and the belt disintegrates, along with the instrumental on Arno’s version of “Happy as a Metropolitan,” the distinctive sound of the three-string Barkazi fiddle turning into a nerve-shivering screech. The soldiers give a good-natured laugh as Aiah slaps at the machine’s chrome on-off lever. The sound, echoing from thousands of throats, threatens to float her from the stage.

She reaches for a microphone and tries to ignore the gleaming lenses of the camera that whirs at her from below the platform.

“On behalf of the government and the Barkazil community of Caraqui,” she says, “I’d like to welcome you all to our metropolis.” There is a modest cheer and some applause, and Aiah finds herself grinning—these are her people, she thinks, and there are thousands of them, and even though she doesn’t know a single person here, she hasn’t realized how much she’s missed them until now.

Her usual terror of speaking in front of an audience has flown away. She feels at home.

“My name is Aiah,” she says, “and I’m director of the Plasm Enforcement Division of the Ministry of Resources, which”—she grins—“makes me a plasm cop. These are two of my mages, Khorsa and Alfeg. We’ll do our best to make sure that your mages have all the plasm they need to keep you safe and help you do your jobs.”

There is a more enthusiastic cheer at this. Keeping their military mages supplied with plasm is a task dear to the hearts of the brigade.

Now that the wind wafting through the bronze mesh is dispersing the engine fumes, Aiah can scent cooking smells wafting toward them from the buffet. “I mentioned a moment ago that the Barkazil community welcomes you. This was easy for me to say, because”—she glances at her two companions—“we three up to this point seem to constitute the entire Barkazil community of Caraqui.” There is a rumble of laughter from her audience, a few wild cheers.

“But now,” she says, looking out over the huge sea of faces, “I see there are thousands of us!”

A roar goes up, a sound loud enough to carry Aiah back to the Shield. She looks out at the surging storm of humanity and feels as if she could spread her arms and fly out over their heads, supported only by their goodwill.

“I’d like you all to know,” she continues, “that we’ll do what we can to make you feel at home, and to keep you well fed and supplied. If you’re not being provided with something you need and you can’t get it anywhere else, please have your commanders—your commanders—call me or my associates. We might have an idea who to talk to.”

Aiah hopes this won’t actually happen. Her knowledge of the intricacies of War Ministry bureaucracy is nil.

“I won’t keep you from your meal,” she finishes. “We welcome you to Caraqui—now go enjoy your dinner!”

She sketches the Sign of Karlo in the air, and there is the biggest cheer of the day. Aiah’s heart leaps for the sky. The War Ministry’s cameraman lowers his chromocamera and gives her a wink. Most of the soldiers stream off to their meal, and Aiah steps down from her platform to meet their commander, Brigadier Ceison. He is a thin, tall, stooped man with a bushy mustache, and he politely invites Aiah to dine with him as soon as he has his headquarters and staff sufficiently organized. He introduces Aiah to the brigade’s mage-major, a burly uniformed woman named Aratha whose short brown curls and light green eyes demonstrate mixed Barkazil-Sayvenese ancestry. She is pure soldier and all business, and she looks dubiously at Khorsa, with her bright colors and folk-magic jewelry.

“I need to get my people on patrol,” she says, “so they can help defend our position and familiarize themselves with Caraqui. And for that I need to get some workers up here to give me access to plasm.”

“That hasn’t happened yet?” Aiah says. “I’ll talk to the ministry and find out what happened.”

“Thank you. There’s usually problems of this nature at the start, and knowing someone to call in the right ministry is always a bonus.”

Well, Aiah thinks, I asked for this.

Duty calls, but Aiah finds herself reluctant to leave, so she wanders through the huge concrete space, talking to the soldiers. She gets asked out about twenty times, and groped twice, in a perfectly friendly, inquiring way; but she slaps the hands aside with a grin and declines all invitations.

“They are from the Holy League,” Alfeg declares after obligations finally drag them away. “After peace was imposed, the last of the Holy Leaguers withdrew to Sayven with their entire army. They became mercenaries. These are their children or grandchildren.”

They are sharing the backseat of the big armored automobile that the ministry has loaned them for this occasion. Aiah peers out at the city through thick plates of bulletproof plastic and sees no sign of war at all, nothing but people heading places on their business.

“The Barkazi Wars ended two generations ago,” she says. “And these are still soldiers?”

“Sayven exports a lot of soldiers. But it’s not the national industry, as it is in the Timocracy, so we don’t hear about it as much.”

If her grandfather hadn’t been captured, Aiah thinks, she might have grown up in Sayven, in a military family. She wonders if her life would have taken her into the army, if she would have found herself a military mage serving alongside Aratha.

“Does the Holy League still matter to them?”

“Oh yes.” Blithely. “They’re convinced we’ll prevail, given time, and that Barkazi will be returned to us—to the Cunning People.”

Aiah smiles. Alfeg hadn’t been lying when he accused himself of a sentimental attachment to his grandfather’s cause.

“Well,” she says, “I hope it happens.”

And then she catches Khorsa’s sidelong look, Khorsa who has come here—possibly—because she thinks Aiah will somehow bring all the exiles home and restore Barkazi, and Aiah feels her jaw tighten.

I do not want you to need me this way! she thinks in sudden fury, but she swallows it, and makes herself concentrate on business—PED business—until the armored car rolls across the gilded bridge to the Palace.

What waits in her office is not calculated to improve her temper: a Dalavan priest, young and burly, wearing the gray robes and soft mushroom hat of his order.

“I am the Excellent Togthan,” he says with a gracious bow, and presents Aiah with an envelope embossed with an ornate red wax seal.

“The triumvir and Holy, Parq, has kindly written this letter of introduction.”

Togthan’s voice, like Parq’s, is soft, and his expression gracious. It puts Aiah on her guard at once.

Aiah opens the letter and frowns at it. This will introduce Togthan, an Excellent of the Red Slipper Order—Aiah casts a surreptitious glance at Togthan’s footwear and discovers he is wearing black wing tips—who is, by my authority, appointed Advisor to the Plasm Enforcement Division. You are requested to provide him with an office and total access to any information he may require, including complete details on the scope and nature of all relevant PED activities.

Anger knots Aiah’s stomach, but she tries to keep her face immobile as she glances at Togthan over the letter. “Advisor?” she says. “What kind of advisor?”

“Advisor on spiritual matters,” Togthan says with another bow, “and of course on political direction. Triumvir Parq wants to see all government departments unified behind the triumvirate.”

“I see,” Aiah says. She wants to crumple the letter and fling it in Togthan’s face, but instead says, “I wish I had known you were coming. I would have had your office ready.”

“It was decided at the cabinet meeting just after shift change. Since the PED has become such an important part of government, I am one of the first advisors assigned.”

“Yes.” She glances around her receptionist’s office, looking for a way to escape. “Please take a seat for a few minutes, and I’ll try to arrange an office for you. Please have some coffee. There’s a meeting after quarterbreak, and I’ll introduce you to the department and division heads.”

“Thank you, Miss Aiah.” Togthan swirls his robes as he sits, a compliant smile on his face.

“What the hell is this?” Aiah demands as soon as she can get Constantine on the telephone. “Who is Togthan? What is Parq’s spy doing in my department?”

The unusual lack of emphasis in Constantine’s deep voice signals that he is choosing his words carefully. “The triumvirate honored Parq’s request for political supervision of all government departments—especially Resources and the War Ministry.”

“Those are your portfolios! This is aimed at you.”

“If the triumvirate is nervous about an outsider heading two departments crucial to the survival of the regime—one who is furthermore the head of a political party that may run in opposition to their own—I cannot entirely blame them. Try to work with Togthan if you can.”

“The triumvirate?” Aiah asks. “All three of them? All three of them voted to put Parq’s spies into your departments?”

“Hilthi was against it. But Parq can be persuasive, and Faltheg voted with him, after some hesitation.”

“What am I going to do with this man?” Aiah cries. “He’s going to be creeping around and—”

“You will work with him,” Constantine says. There is a steely edge to his voice. “Our government has concluded that he is necessary, and he will be far less of a danger to you if he is indulged. The best possible thing is for you to become his greatest friend in all the world.”

Aiah snarls silently into the mouthpiece and wishes she could tell some of her military police to chuck Mr. the Excellent Togthan off the roof into a canal.

“Right,” she says. “I’ll see what I can do.”

Constantine’s next question is artfully designed to prevent her from thinking of another protest. “Did things go well with Karlo’s Brigade?”

Aiah is still mentally enjoying Togthan’s arc into the canal, but follows Constantine’s shift well enough to answer.

“Oh yes. They seemed happy to see us. Their mage-major was complaining, though, that she hadn’t got access to plasm as yet.”

“I will make certain appropriate action is taken.” “Thank you.”

Aiah presses the disconnect button, then calls her department heads to tell them that the Excellent Togthan will be joining the department, and that they are all to treat him with the utmost consideration.

“It’s because your boss sold us out,” Ethemark says. Rage in the little man’s deep voice keeps throwing his voice into squeaky upper registers. “He spoke in favor of Parq’s proposal at today’s cabinet meeting.”

“Constantine?” Aiah asks. “Is that who you’re talking about?”

“Yes. Your damned Constantine. It was bad enough when he supported the Dalavan Militia. But now because of Constantine, Parq’s spies will be in every branch of government____________________”

Aiah struggles with bewilderment, tries to formulate a response. “Are you sure?” she manages. “Who is your informant?”

“Minister Adaveth,” Ethemark says. “And Minister Myhorn also. They were both astounded by Constantine’s attitude.”

“There must,” Aiah says, “must be a reason……”

“Constantine is allying himself with Parq. He and the Dalavans together can dominate Caraqui—neither of the other two triumvirs has a following. Adaveth and Myhorn are both considering whether or not to resign.”

“No.” Aiah’s response is instant. “There is—” Her mind stammers, and she tries to work out what is happening. “There has to be something else happening here. If Adaveth and Myhorn resigned, it would be giving Parq exactly what he wants.”

There is a grudging silence.

“This has to be some kind of stratagem,” Aiah says, and hopes she is right. “Give it time.”

“I have no choice but to ‘give it time.’ We of the twisted have been compelled to cultivate patience for many centuries now. ‘Giving it time,’ ” he snarls, “is what we know best.”

“Can we meet outside of the office?” Aiah says. “In my apartment, say? We can attempt to work out some strategies to limit Togthan’s influence.”

“Hm.” There is a brief silence, then, “Very well. Let’s do that.”

Aiah does some rearranging and gives Togthan an office with Alfeg. Put her own spy, she thinks, next to Parq’s spy. Then she calls Togthan in to see her.

“I apologize for the delay,” she says. “The war and our expansion has caused a good deal of disarray.”

Togthan seats himself in the offered chair with a graceful swirl of his gray robes. His voice is smooth and unhurried. “I understand,” he says, and sips delicately from his cup of coffee.

“Because of the shortage of office space,” Aiah says, “I’m afraid you’re going to have to share an office with one of our mages.” Togthan frowns—the first hint of disapproval he has allowed himself, so Aiah hastens to add, “But he will often be in the Operations Room or otherwise working through telepresence, and I hope he won’t be too much of a bother.”

“Well…,” Togthan says, “I suppose that if it will assist with the war effort, I daresay I can manage the inconvenience.”

If I can put up with you, Aiah thinks, you can put up with Alfeg.

“I observe,” Togthan says, “simply in walking through the corridors on my way here, that there are many of the polluted flesh working in this department.”

“I’m sorry?” Aiah says.

Togthan flashes an apologetic smile. “Beg pardon,” he says, “I introduced a Dalavan term. I refer of course to those who have been genetically altered.”

“Oh. I see.” Aiah hesitates, chooses words carefully. “When our department began we were underfunded, and had to hire those who we could. The, ah, altered were often the most available, because they were denied opportunity elsewhere.”

Togthan smiles and sips his coffee. “That is no longer the case, surely? Your pay is more attractive now, I have heard, and there are many more looking for work on account of the disruptions caused by the war.”

“Our policy has always been to hire the most qualified.”

“Miss Aiah, I’m sure no one desires that you hire the incompetent or deficient.” Togthan’s smile is all reason. “But there is much popular prejudice against the polluted flesh in Caraqui. I know that they are not to blame for their condition—our Dalavan faith is just in that regard—but nevertheless if there were too many of the twisted seen in this department, it might bias the people against you. Whereas if the population of your department more accurately reflected the composition of the population of the metropolis, I think you would find in the people a greater reservoir of goodwill toward your efforts.”

Aiah recalls Constantine’s wish that she become Togthan’s best friend, and compels herself to grace her clenched teeth with a smile. “I’ll give your wishes my best consideration,” she says.

Togthan sips his coffee again, his confiding smile an answer to hers. “I’m gratified that we understand one another,” he says.

Oh yes, Aiah thinks, / understand, all right.

The Kestrel Room faces the guns of Lorkhin Island and is closed on that account; and so Aiah’s luncheon with Aldemar takes place at Dragonfly, a restaurant on the other side of the Palace, with a view of the distant blue volcanoes of Barchab. Dragonfly is smaller than the Kestrel Room, without its intimate alcoves and private rooms, and without its luxurious wood paneling; but it is a brighter place, its white plaster walls featuring strips of dark glossy polymer. It looks out over Caraqui with multifaceted, insectlike eyes, each reflecting a slightly different Caraqui, a slightly different plane. Along the walls and between the tables are fish tanks filled with scaled, rainbow-colored exotica, few of which Aiah imagines are actually to be found swimming in Caraqui’s sea below.

The actress wears a russet-colored rollneck, gray pleated slacks with nubbles and a subdued russet stripe, tasteful gold jewelry, suede boots with high heels. Her skin is flawless—the result more of genetics and lavish care, Aiah suspects, than plasm rejuvenation treatments, though beneath carefully applied cosmetic Aiah can see evidence for the latter, a kind of eerie, ambiguous glow notable more for its absence of character than anything else. Aiah finds herself envying Aldemar her epidermis far more than her celebrity.

Aiah orders fried noodles with prawns, vegetables, and chiles. Aldemar asks for half a grapefruit.

“You eat worse than I do,” Aiah says in surprise.

Aldemar’s answer is matter-of-fact. “It’s my job.”

“I guess you’re paid well enough for it.”

A smile tweaks its way onto Aldemar’s features. “Yes. Otherwise I’d never eat another damn grapefruit as long as I live.”

“What has become of the chromoplay you were working on? The one you abandoned to come here?”

Aldemar blinks. “Ah.” A dissatisfied look crosses her face. “Shut down for six weeks, a deadline soon to be extended. They have very cleverly shot every scene that can be managed without me. There are wrangles over money—I expect I shall have to part with some—but it’s not a very good chromo anyway, and letting it age in the bottle will not do it harm, and may do some good. And since in the chromo we get as far as staging a revolution, I suppose I can claim that I’m here researching a sequel.”

“Why are you making this chromoplay,” Aiah asks, “if it isn’t very good?”

Aiah is relieved that Aldemar doesn’t seem offended by the question. “To begin with,” she says quite seriously, “good scripts are rare, and for the most part they go to other people. Those few that I have been involved with have all gone wrong somewhere—bad direction, bad editing, actors who didn’t understand their roles, or who demanded inane rewrites to make their parts larger or more sympathetic… well—” A dismissive shrug. “I have not been lucky that way.

“And while I am waiting for something good to turn up, I must remain bankable—I must remain popular enough for investors to wish to invest in my ’plays. And it may surprise you to learn that the most popular chromoplay, worldwide, is the sort in which people like me fly and fight and war against evil. The genre transcends problems of ethnicity, dialect, metropolitan allegiance—everyone understands them, and everyone buys a ticket.”

“Is it what you intended when you chose to be an actress?”

Aldemar blows out her cheeks, looks abstract, a bit melancholy. “Perhaps that is why I’ve become interested in politics.”

“Are you a believer in the New City?”

“I used to be, but I’ve grown more modest over the years.” The actress tilts her head, props her jaw on one hand. “I support those who are straight against those who are corrupt, those with dreams against those who have none. The details—the precise content of those dreams—no longer interest me, provided they are not absolutely vicious. I’ve heard it claimed that political visionaries have caused more destruction and havoc and death than those leaders with less ambition—true, perhaps; I have seen no statistics—but I wonder about those lesser figures, those managers who say, / have no ideals, no dreams, all I want to do is make things run a little more efficiently.” She shrugs. “What reason is that for us to give them anything? / am mediocre, I have never had an idea to which you could object, give me your trust. They appeal only to exhaustion. It is an emptiness of soul into which rot is guaranteed to enter. Phah.”

Amusement tugs at Aiah’s lips. “But what you do is something more than support, ne?” she says. “You’re tele-porting guns and spies and whatnot behind enemy lines. That doesn’t seem very much like disinterested idealism to me.”

Aldemar shrugs again. “Understand that I look at the world through a kind of aesthete’s eyeglass. Certain classes of people are offensive in a purely artistic sense—and that includes the Keremaths. Drooling, savage idiots, barely able to button their trousers unassisted, and running a metropolis! And this Provisional Government—gangsters, military renegadoes, thieves, and the Keremaths again, all propped up by the Foreign Ministry of Lanbola for no other reason than it gives them something to do, something to meddle in. Great Senko—I would teleport them all to the Moon if I could.”

The mention of the Moon sends a memory on a spiral course through Aiah’s thoughts, a slate-gray woman a-dance in the sky.

Aldemar continues, unaware of Aiah’s distraction. “Constantine deserves a chance to fix this place. If anyone can do it, he can.”

“So your loyalty is to Constantine? Not to the government?”

Beneath her black bangs, Aldemar’s eyes glimmer as they look into Aiah’s. “Miss Aiah, I do not know the government.” She shifts her gaze, looks moodily out one of the Dragonfly’s faceted windows. “Bad policy, perhaps, to support individuals this way—to expect a single person to change the course of a metropolis, a world—but ultimately who else is there? You either trust the person to do it or you don’t.”

Their luncheon arrives. Aldemar looks at her grapefruit, with its scalloped edges and the sprig of mint laid on top, sitting on fine china rimmed with gold and painted with delicate figures of plum blossoms, and says, “At least it’s presented well.” She picks up a silver-topped shaker and sprinkles left-handed sugar on the fruit.

“How long have you known Constantine?” Aiah prompts. The last thing Aiah wants is to talk about herself. Aldemar obliges her.

“Thirty years,” she says. “I was in school in Kukash, studying to be a mage with the intention of going into advertising. Constantine was there to get an advanced degree. We were lovers for, oh, two years or so.”

Blood surges into Aiah’s cheeks, catching her by surprise. Aldemar perceives it and narrows her brows.

“Are you jealous?” she says.

“It depends.”

“I see.” An amused smile dances across her face, and Aiah notes an echo of Constantine’s own amusement there, his own delight in irony. “One may judge the relationship by its outcome,” she says. “I became an actress, and Constantine a monk. He abandoned his degree and went to the School of Radritha. I finished my degree but never made use of it, went to Chemra, and began working in video.” Her smile turns contemplative. “Constantine is very good at finding the chrysalis within his friends. I had no more notion of being an actress than becoming a mechanic. But he turned me inside out and found an ambition that wouldn’t go away.” She looks at Aiah once again. “I imagine he has done much the same to you.”

“He’s certainly doing his best,” Aiah says, uncertain whether it is her ambition or Constantine’s that she serves. She glances down at her meal and discovers that she has forgotten to taste it; she picks up a fork and wraps a noodle about its prongs, then looks up.

“I have a hard time picturing what Constantine was like when he was young. He was… what, thirty when you met?”

“Just under thirty, I think. And I was just under twenty.” She smiles at the memory. “He was in headlong flight from his destiny—trying for a degree in the philosophy of plasm, forsooth, before bolting for the monastery and impractical religion.” Her bright eyes turn to Aiah again. “Are you still jealous?”

“Probably not,” Aiah decides.

“He and I enjoy each other’s company now, but we are both very different people than we were. Not that I wouldn’t bed him if he asked nicely”—a wry look crosses her face—“but I don’t think he’s interested in old ladies like me.”

“You look younger than I do.”

“Kind”—a brisk nod—“but untrue. I am practiced at seeming, but by now, inwardly at least, I’m afraid I am become a very constant and unalterable sort of person. In the future I will change slightly, if at all. But Constantine has always been intrigued by transformation—in politics, in plasm, in bed—and your transformation from what you were to what you are to what you shall be… well, that is what delights him in you.”

This analysis sends tiny cold blades scraping along Aiah’s nerves, and she wonders how often Constantine discusses her with Aldemar—or with others.

Amusement dances in the actress’s eyes, and breaks Aiah’s alarm. “Besides,” Aldemar says, “you’re an attractive couple. I can’t help but want the best for you.”

Aiah wants to ask Aldemar about more practical matters, about why Constantine is allying himself with Parq; but at that moment the maitre d’ sits a pair of Dalavan priests at the next table, and Aiah applies herself to her noodles.

Damn it.

After luncheon, Aiah steps to the insect-eye windows and gazes out at the city, at the teeming composition, repeated endlessly in faceted glass, of gray and green that has become her life and burden. Above it roils a flat gray cloud, scudding toward the Palace with surprising speed; and with a start Aiah realizes that the cloud is not a cloud at all, but a plasm projection, a fantasy of images, teeth and heads and eyes and vehicles, all vanishing and disappearing too fast for Aiah to follow, though a few of the icons seem to stick in Aiah’s retina: Crassus the actor, an old airship of the Parbund class, a spotted dog with its forefeet propped on a child’s tricycle…

Aiah stares as shock rolls through her. For there, repeated sixfold by the panes of Dragonfly glass, she recognizes an image, a long-eyed profile of a gray-skinned woman, her hair done in ringlets and an equivocal smile on her lips.

The Woman who is the Moon.

The image vanishes, folding into something else; and in a moment, the entire plasm display is gone.

She must visit the Dreaming Sisters, Aiah thinks, and soon.