City on Fire

NINETEEN

Aiah looks in surprise at her own face carved in stone. It gazes down at her with a serious expression, a little furrow of concentration between the brows.

The carving is called The Apprentice, and shows a woman at a kind of crude bench covered with equipment—retorts, burners, the sort of gear that might naively be assumed to inhabit laboratories. The figure looks down into a book for a recipe as she uncertainly holds a beaker in either hand.

Last time Aiah was here, the figure had another face.

“It changed two or three days ago,” says Inaction, the dreaming sister who guides Aiah through the winding corridors. “I recognized the face when I saw it.”

“You didn’t think to call me?”

The sister looks at her. “We meditate upon the imagoes. We do not phone them.”

Aiah looks at her, feels amusement tugging at her lips. “Have you ever met one before?” she asks.

The sister’s dark-eyed gaze is guileless. She looks about twenty, with flawless, silken brown skin that excites Aiah’s envy.

“In our meditations,” she answers, “we strive to meet them all.”

Aiah turns again to the image of herself. She had returned to the Dreaming Sisters’ retreat without quite knowing why, understanding only that she was due to go into Provisional territory within a few days and might never again have the chance to wander through the ancient maze that is the Society of the Simple.

The department’s monitors had failed to discover any sign that plasm was moving into the building in large qualities. But she hadn’t seen any of the Dreaming Sisters’ plasm displays since her last visit, so perhaps they were avoiding attracting any attention to themselves.

Aiah’s image looks back at her, frowning in concentration. It occurs to Aiah to wonder how Inaction recognized her face. She and Inaction haven’t met before; Aiah’s last guide through the Dreaming Sisters’ stone mazework called herself Order of Eternity.

“How did you recognize me?” she asks. “We’ve never met.”

Inaction frowns in thought and scratches herself under the left breast through the coarse gray fabric of her shift. “I don’t know,” she says. “Perhaps I saw you in our meditations.”

The Dreaming Sisters, Aiah has learned, specialize in answers that imply a great deal but don’t actually seem to mean anything. Aiah shrugs, steps back from the stonework imago, looks at it again. “Tell me its meaning.”

“The Apprentice follows upon the imago Entering the Gateway, which denotes she who has come to an apprehension of her own ignorance, and who therefore seeks knowledge. The Apprentice is she who strives to apprehend nature through the medium of a difficult art. The Apprentice strives at this stage not for meaning but for proficiency—full understanding is not implied, but may come at a later stage. There are associational meanings regarding youth, energy, enthusiasm, duty, joy in learning. There is also a great question, unresolved in this image.”

Inaction’s words don’t come as a set speech, aren’t rattled off: her voice is a bit dreamy, her dark eyes focused on something a thousand stades away. It is almost trancelike, a reflection of her own dream state.

“And the question?” Aiah asks.

“The Apprentice is a transitional figure, in movement from one place to another, from the gateway to the world beyond. The question involves the imago’s destination—will she surpass her teachers and achieve mastery, or will she find herself with no singular gift, her talent and art lost amid the great clutter of the world. Satisfaction or frustration—the imago promises one or the other, but does not resolve the matter within itself.”

Aiah frowns, looking at herself in the improbable act of balancing a pair of beakers. “There are other carvings of this figure, yes?” she says.

“Oh yes. The imagoes are repeated throughout our building.”

“Is my face on all of them?” Inaction looks blank. “I don’t know.” “May we look? I’m curious.” “If you like.”

Aiah follows Inaction down the stone corridor. Sorya appears as The Shadow no less than three times, and Aiah recognizes no one else but herself. No Constantine, she thinks in surprise. Her own face is repeated a half-dozen times, and she feels as if she has entered a hall of mirrors improbably constructed of stone.

For once Aiah catches Inaction in an expression of surprise. “Perhaps,” the dreaming sister says, “you have become important.”

The oval screen of Rohder’s computer is framed in a polished copper case chased with ornamental scallops and speed lines designed to make the viewer think that the screen, or at least data, is zooming from place to place with mighty efficiency. The ornament fails to convince anyone familiar with the ways of computers. The chief efficiency of the speed lines and ornamentation is to attract Rohder’s floating cigaret ash.

Rohder, Aiah, and Constantine sit before the screen and watch crude images, gold on gray, blink and shimmer as Rohder’s model of his work slowly moves pictured pontoons and barge outlines into new, ideal configurations. The computer is in the midst of a ponderous, labored dialogue with another, larger computer elsewhere in the Palace, for which it relies on data: Aiah thinks of prisoners laboriously transmitting messages from one cell to the next by beating on pipes. Gears hum, needles click back and forth on the computer’s yellow dials. Then there is silence as the final image lumbers up on screen, and the dials drop to the neutral position.

Rohder taps the screen with a nicotine-stained finger. “I’ve got about as far as I can with the current crews,” he says. “I started at a central location and moved outward, but as I expanded, the area to be covered increased geometrically, and in order to continue the work effectively at the current rate, I’ve got to increase my workforce by an order of magnitude.”

Constantine considers this, then nods. “It will pay for itself,” he says. “Send me a budget and I’ll sign it.”

Rohder nods and lights a new cigaret off the old. Aiah briefly considers taking advantage of Constantine’s generous mood to ask for an increase elsewhere in the PED, but she decides that this expansion will cause enough administrative headaches for the present.

One of the few benefits of Caraqui’s state of war is that many of the necessary government expansions and contractions have been accomplished without the usual amount of paperwork. But Aiah knows the paperwork will catch up sooner or later, and then there will be nothing but paper, pay slips, requisitions, and signatures for weeks and months, and possibly ever.

Constantine turns his eyes from the computer and asks the question that has brought him here. “How many days of full-out offensive can you give me?”

“Can you give me an approximate time frame? When do you intend to begin?”

There is a flicker in Constantine’s eyes as he considers how much of his schedule he is willing to entrust to Rohder, or even to speak aloud.

“Before your new crews can make a difference,” he says.

Rohder nods, looks at Aiah. “The figures won’t change that much, then.”

Aiah answers Constantine’s question. “Three days of full consumption using domestic resources only,” she says. “If our neighbors fulfill their commitments, we will be able to extend the offensive for another day, possibly two.”

Constantine nods. “Well,” he says. “We must hope to make a breakthrough early. A soldier cannot advance without a mage clearing the enemy ahead of him, and he can only hold an area if enemy mages are kept off his neck.”

“We’ve had some unanticipated side effects,” Rohder says. “Do you have a minute?”

“Of course.”

Rohder taps keys, the screen flickers and the computer makes a grinding noise as it gets up to speed, and then the crude images are replaced with columns of figures, gold on gray.

“There would seem to be a synergistic effect to the multiplication of plasm through the fractionate interval theory,” he says. The rest of the department has taken to referring to fractionate interval theory as FIT, but Rohder prefers the older, more elaborate term.

“This”—he taps figures again with his knuckle—“this is the predicted increase of plasm, by district, in line with theory… and this,” tapping again, “the initial increase. It is less than predicted, because the methods we used to move structures were less than ideal, and our estimates of the composition of the structures themselves were in most cases approximations. But now—note this third set of figures. These are very recent, based on meter readings conducted within the last two weeks.”

Constantine looks into the screen, columns of numbers reflected in his eyes. “Some are larger,” he says.

“In some cases,” Rohder says, “larger than theory predicts.

There must be another mechanism working here, something we have not previously observed. Since fractionate interval theory has never been tested on such a large scale before, some unanticipated results are to be expected, but this…” He taps the screen again. “This is different. Two weeks ago, some new effect was introduced.”

“Maybe it’s cumulative,” Aiah suggests. “You get a certain amount of mass into this configuration and then the effect multiplies.”

Rohder draws on his cigaret, lets the smoke drift slowly past his lips while he continues to contemplate the figures. “Could be,” he says. “We’re basing this only on meter readings, and the meters are not really designed to produce the more sensitive data we need to understand the phenomenon. However, I think I can promise you considerably more plasm for your Strategic Plasm Reserve than you anticipated.”

Reflected columns of gold figures glitter in Constantine’s eyes. “May we keep this information between us?” he says. “I see no reason to inform the government when all these figures are so preliminary.”

Rohder shrugs. “You’re the boss. But allow me to point out that if this phenomenon continues, and if you can postpone your offensive for a few months, I’ll be able to keep it going for a lot longer. Perhaps as much as a week.”

Constantine gives a minute shake of his head. “Not possible. There are time-dependent considerations.”

Aiah looks at the screen and feels a fist gently tighten on her throat. Those considerations have to do with the six days left on the Escaliers’ contract.

But Constantine is absorbed by another thought entirely. “After the war, I want to dedicate the Plasm Reserve to work with Havilak’s Freestanding Hermetic Transformations… and possibly even more.”

“Atmospheric generation?” Rohder’s watery blue eyes gaze thoughtfully at Constantine.

“Yes.”

“You’ll need some highly trained people.” “You’re talking about building things out of air?” Aiah asks.

Constantine nods. “Hermetics transforms one thing into another, base matter into food, say, or plastic. Why not a freestanding, plasm-generating structure assembled—reassembled really—out of thin air?” He shrugs. “It’s not a new idea… There are mages who specialize in such transformations, in places inaccessible or dangerous for people. Reactor cores, say.”

Rohder puffs as he muses on the notion. “Those mages are too specialized for what you have in mind. You’ll need to create teams of specialists from scratch.”

Constantine gives a shrug. “One thing a war leaves is rubble, and rubble would seem to be the perfect experimental medium. If things go wrong in training, we create only more rubble. It seems a safe enough experiment, well worth the risk.”

“If you say so,” Aiah says. “But it seems horribly complex.”

“Mathematics is complex,” Constantine says, “but it begins with one plus one.”

Aiah turns to the golden figures shimmering in Rohder’s computer display, and feels unease roll through her mind. “Some unanticipated results are to be expected,” she says, quoting Rohder; and the others nod. Constantine’s eyes are agleam.

“One plus one,” he says, “and then you keep going,” and he laughs, happy in the world of the unanticipated.

After the meeting, as they walk toward Aiah’s office, Constantine observes, “I understand you have paid two visits to Karlo’s Brigade and General Ceison.”

“Yes.” She glances up at him. “They are my army—my power base, as you would call it—and I want to know them better.”

“How well have you succeeded?”

“Somewhat. I have asked a great many naive questions and, one Cunning Person to another, General Ceison and Mage-Major Aratha have answered them without condescending too very much.”

He looks down at her, and the calculation in his glance belies the humor in his tone. “I hope you will let the government borrow your army for this offensive.”

Aiah answers the glance and not the voice. “Perhaps I will, if they are not simply to be thrown away. Ceison told me of your plans for the Dalavan Guard, hurled in a diversionary attack against the Island.”

“May we not speak so loudly when it comes to these matters?” Constantine cautions. He lifts one brow in thought. “I wonder where your friends heard that story. Surely not from any official briefing.”

Aiah smiles and keeps her voice low. “We private armies keep track of one another. I understand that Parq is very happy with his army’s prominent role in the offensive, but then Parq is very vain and not a general.”

“Whereas you are.”

“Whereas,” she corrects, “I hope to be, and I listen to those who are. My first lesson concerned the difference between an offensive and a suicide.”

Constantine sighs. “Assaulting Lorkhin Island is a job best suited to fanatics who do not measure the odds. And Parq has raised a unit of fanatics who will be very useful as long as the war lasts, and very inconvenient afterward. If they join their faith’s long line of martyrs, both they and I will have reason to be satisfied.”

Aiah tries to view this slaughter from the point of view of one of the Cunning People. A true daughter of Karlo and Chonah would have no qualms at two enemies massacring each other.

Looking through the twin organic lenses of a human being, however, Aiah finds the idea of the carnage more than a little horrifying.

But ultimately the Dalavan Guard is Parq’s worry, not hers. “As long as my army is not added to the martyrs’ list,” she says, “there will be plenty of satisfaction to go around.”

“Your army consists of motorized troops who will be used to exploit any breakthrough. They will capitalize on any victory won at the cost of others.” Sharply. “I hope that will satisfy you.”

“Yes, r think so.”

She wonders about another private army, Sorya’s Force of the Interior, a more nebulous organization than the Dalavan Guard, and far less inclined to self-immolation.

“I hope you will enjoy your army for the time being,” Constantine says. “You may not have it for long.”

She looks at him. “Yes? And this means?”

“Your mission to the occupied zone may be canceled.” He looks petulant. “We can’t seem to find a safe place for the meeting. For security’s sake it has to be within the area the Escaliers control. It can’t be in any of the buildings they actually occupy, because we can’t trust every single member of their brigade—it only takes one to inform. We had a safe apartment set up, but then Great-Uncle Rathmen moved a detachment of his tax collectors into the building—the Silver Hand is collecting the Provisionals’ taxes for them!” He shakes his head in disbelief, then mutters, “At least that means the Provisionals will never have any money.”

Relief dances along Aiah’s veins. She will not have to enter enemy territory after all—she can quietly vacate her unearned position as Queen of Barkazi and go back to chasing gangsters down Caraqui’s brackish back alleys.

But Aiah finds that the initial sensation of relief is followed by an unanticipated sense of loss. She had been, in some way, ready for the thing—for the negotiations, the tense bargaining under threat of capture and death, ultimate barter for ultimate stakes… Aiah the Cunning had almost been looking forward to it.

“We’re checking out other places for the meeting,” Constantine continues, “but the buildings not occupied by soldiers are filled with refugees, and that’s not a secure situation, either.”

They have reached Aiah’s office. She puts her hand on the doorjamb, sees Ethemark quietly waiting to see her, a file in his hand. “And the Sorya option?” she asks. The end run through Lanbola.

“Still undecided.”

Her eyes stray to Ethemark. “Have you considered the half-worlds for the meeting?” she asks, and in the hesitation that precedes Constantine’s reply, she knows the answer.

Aiah the Cunning, deep in Aiah’s mind, gives a cry of triumph.

“May I intrude on your meeting with Ethemark?” Constantine asks. “Strange how, under the pressure of duty, I seem to have forgotten one of my significant constituencies.”

The envoy Licinias moves through his final meeting with grace, concealing any disappointment he may feel. Perhaps he is not disappointed after all, Aiah thinks; perhaps he is too wise ever to have expected results. He has been through all this before.

“In view of the government’s inability to make further concessions,” Licinias says, “I must regrettably declare the negotiations at an impasse.”

Faltheg, speaking for the triumvirate, gravely thanks Licinias for his attempts at creating a settlement, and then goes on to offer his thanks to the Polar League for supporting his mission.

The government, indeed, had made few concessions. They had offered to postpone the elections for a further six weeks, and to allow the Provisionals to participate: but Kerehorn and his advisors, coldly looking at the numbers of votes they could expect from their remaining loyalists, rejected the terms, and instead demanded a place on the triumvirate and six seats on the cabinet. The government’s masterful, scornful reply, delivered by Constantine, is broadcast not only within Caraqui but throughout the world, in most places simply for its entertainment value.

“We are willing, in any case, to continue the cease-fire,” Faltheg continues.

Licinias takes formal note of this, then rises from the table. There will be a dinner afterward in his honor, with toasts and speeches by notables, but in the meantime there is to be a cocktail party. Aiah drifts through it, chatting to people she barely knows about things that within minutes she can barely remember—her mind is focused on Landro’s Escaliers—and then she finds herself near Licinias. He bows to her in his courtly way, and she approaches him.

“I’m sorry that your mission wasn’t successful,” she says.

Gentle regret informs Licinias’s tone. “It was not entirely unexpected. I anticipate another round of meetings, after the usual sad experience tarnishes the gleaming optimism of the participants.”

“You think the war will go on, then?”

“Experience suggests that most wars end in stalemate. Every building in our world is a fortress, and our world holds very little but buildings. It is too expensive in terms of both money and lives to capture them all.”

He glances over Aiah’s shoulder, and she turns her head to follow his gaze, directed at Constantine. “The Cheloki Wars stalemated repeatedly,” Licinias says, “despite your friend’s great military skill. He had the grace to negotiate an exile for himself, when it became obvious that his enemies would never give in.”

/ can’t let the nightmares loose again! Aiah remembers Constantine raving and weeping in the privacy of his office, the tears splashing on her hand, her own terror at seeing the wild fear unleashed in him…

She summons confidence. “I think that he may have learned a few things in the years since.”

Licinias gives a cold nod. “I hope that is the case.” There is a moment of silence, and then he looks at her with a kind of calculating glance that Aiah finds reminiscent of Constantine. “I have been giving thought to the subject of our last conversation,” he begins.

“I’m flattered that you remember,” Aiah says.

“It is difficult to forget. You remain singularly prominent on video, Miss Aiah.”

She smiles. “I don’t watch much video, I’m afraid.”

“Still, your prominence remains a fact. And then, in combination with this fact, I consider another fact—that the government is clearly preparing an offensive with both its mercenaries and its rebuilt army. And I further consider that when the military situation threatens stalemate, a natural reaction is to attempt subversion of the other side’s forces. And then lastly, when I consider the peculiar mix of troops on both sides, a reason for your sudden prominence begins to suggest itself……”

A cold fist closes on Aiah’s insides. She tries to keep her smile stuck to her face. “I wonder, Mr. Licinias,” she asks, “if you have shared this insight with anyone?”

Mild brown eyes gaze levelly from his lined copper face. “It is not my job to share insights with people at random. I am a listener, rather, and a conveyor of other people’s messages.”

She considers this—her smile is aching—and says, “That is not quite an answer, Mr. Licinias.”

“True.” He pauses for a thoughtful moment, then speaks. “Let us consider, therefore, what the future implies. If the war drags on, certain things, hitherto obscure, shall become more apparent. The Provisionals have sponsors whose naked interest becomes more and more obvious the longer the war continues. The more obvious their interest, the more their prestige becomes involved, and the more difficult it is to negotiate a retreat from their support of the Provisionals. Any attempt to resolve peace becomes multisided, counting all the Provisionals’ sponsors, and I assure you that it’s hard enough to stop a war when only two sides are involved. The more complex the matter, the more work for me, and in all probability the less desirable the outcome…” He gives another courtly bow. “And so I wish your video appearances all the success they so clearly deserve.”

She returns his bow. “Thank you, sir.”

He drifts away, an enigmatic smile on his lips, and Aiah stands for a moment watching him. A thrill sings along her nerves at the thought of playing this game at such a high level; though another, more anxious, level of her mind is carefully replaying the conversation to make certain it meant what she thinks it did.

She looks over her shoulder for Constantine, possibly to enlist his aid as interpreter, but finds he is talking to Sorya. Though she hadn’t appeared at any of the negotiations, she is nevertheless present, like some carrion bird, at their demise. She is dressed in her green uniform, polished boots light as slippers on her feet. She tosses her head with a swirl of blonde-streaked hair, and Aiah hears her tinkling laugh. Aiah scowls.

“Excuse me, miss.” She starts and discovers two men maneuvering a video camera into position. She makes way for it.

The negotiations weren’t shown on video, but their termination will be. If Licinias’s theory holds, there should be a great many long and uninteresting speeches.

Licinias is right. Aiah drowses through the lengthy platitudes, her mind elsewhere, in the faraway ruined landscape where Landro’s Escaliers, her distant kinsmen, hold ajar the gate to Constantine’s victory.

After the speeches are over, Aiah walks to the offices of the PED—they are on her way, and she might as well check on the next shift’s operations. When she goes to fetch a file she finds Constantine in the secure room, a stack of files on the desk in front of him. His skin is drawn taut over his face, and there is a haunted look in his eyes, as if he is gazing into an agony from which there is no escape.

Aiah’s mouth goes dry as she sees him, but his attention snaps to her as soon as she steps within his sight, and there is no way to withdraw… so she presses the day’s code into the pad, opens the barred gate, enters, closes it behind her.

Constantine does not speak, but watches her as she walks to the file drawer she wants, unlocks it, slides open the bronze-fronted door on its silent bearings, and finds the folder she needs. She takes the file, closes the drawer, and makes her way out. Her nape hair crawls beneath his steady gaze.

There was hatred in the twist of his lip, she saw. Hatred and contempt. Though whether for her, or himself, or the world itself she cannot tell.

Constantine embraces her, a fierce hug that drives the breath from her lungs. Then Aldemar, the copper transference grip already in her hand, gives her a gentler embrace. The briefest sensation of plasm tingles on Aiah’s skin. Aldemar seats herself, closes her eyes, focuses.

Constantine’s eyes burn into hers. “Come back,” he says, voice low, an earthquake rumble in Aiah’s bones. Aldemar tilts her head back, stiffens, throws out an arm. A surge of plasm startles Aiah, and she takes in a breath…

And expels it in another place. Warm, humid darkness surrounds her, strangely strung with holiday lights. The air smells of decay, brackish water, fecal matter. A generator’s hum is oppressively loud in the enclosed space.

A little gray man approaches, strung lights glowing in his huge eyes. He takes a cigar out of his mouth and speaks in a rasping voice. “I’m Sergeant Lamarath,” he says. “Remember me? Welcome back to Aground.”