City on Fire

TWENTY-ONE

Aiah lies in the scented bath and tries to let the warm water ease the cold in her bones, the numb and numbing sense of dread and sadness and hopeless failure. She stares at the ceiling, at a bright pattern of blue and yellow Avernach tiles; and her eye keeps following the pattern, up and left and down and then to the right across three tiles, then beginning again, the pattern repeating over and over and over without escaping the inevitability of its own design.

Her eyes keep following the pattern. She dares not close them. If she allows her eyes to close, all she can see is a shimmering surface, like water, aglow with angry fire.

And then all the guns around the Palace open fire at once, a rolling thunder that rattles the window for a half-minute at a time, deep concussions that drive up through her spine, releasing memories of explosions in the half-world, the flashes of blinding light, the acrid scent of used munitions. The dead man, arms splayed, drifting toward her on a red tether.

The war is on again.

There is a knock on the door, and without waiting for an answer Aldemar walks in. She kicks aside Aiah’s ruined, soggy clothing, then sits on a little gilt-legged stool and dangles her hands off her knees. The expression below the dark bangs is grave.

“I was unable to bring back the two guards who went out with you,” she says. “It doesn’t mean they’re not all right, it just means that I couldn’t find them in all that mess.”

Aiah sighs and tilts her head back, despair like a bitter drop on her tongue. Gunfire concussions thud in her ears.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Aldemar says. “The mission was betrayed somehow—probably on the other end.”

Aiah tries to say something and fails. Words do not seem adequate to the appalling scope of the tragedy.

“Those two had followed Constantine from the beginning,” Aldemar says. “For twenty years, beginning in Cheloki. He chose to risk them in this, because he thought it was important. He wanted the best to protect you.”

“They did,” Aiah says. Her tongue is thick, and a pain deep in her throat makes it hard to speak. “They kept me alive.” They, she thinks, and Dr. Romus.

Maybe, Aiah thinks absurdly, she will get them medals. Like Davath.

Aldemar leans back on the stool, looks down at her. “I would like to stay with you,” she says, “but I can’t. Now that fighting has started again, I’ll be needed.” She begins to stand, hesitates, then sits again. “Stay here as long as you want. I’d offer you my clothes, but they wouldn’t fit. I’ll try to find someone to fetch some clothes from your apartment.”

“Thank you,” Aiah says. She sits up in the tub, hair pouring down her back like rain, and looks up at Aldemar. “Thank you for getting me out,” she says.

“You’re welcome.” Aldemar reaches for Aiah’s hand, squeezes it briefly, then makes her way out. The window rattles to the sound of guns.

She’d thought she’d done it, she thinks. She’d won, she’d got the Cunning People on her side, had the contract worked out. She would be the hero who’d won the war. Even Barkazi had seemed within reach—She had half-seen the liberated metropolis, the homeland she’d never seen living free under her maternal care……

All dreams, she thought, had come aground in Aground. All gone, all betrayed, in that horrid burst of fire.

WAR RENEWED IN CARAQUI! GOVERNMENT FORCES ON ATTACK!

One of Aldemar’s people, a young bespectacled man, brings her a case of clothes he’d got from her apartment. She receives him wrapped in a towel, and he blushes becomingly.

The contents of the bag makes her smile even through her despair. Aldemar’s naive young man seems not to know what women actually wear, and for what occasions, and even in what quantity. He’d emptied out Aiah’s lingerie drawer and filled the bag with every item of silk, satin, and lace that Aiah possessed, as if she were off for a romantic weekend in Gunalaht rather than a war. There are also bright flowered skirts, scarves, and lace-ruffled blouses.

Well. At least she can wear some of this as far as her apartment, and then she can change into something more appropriate.

She hesitates for a moment as she leaves, seeing her ivory necklace lying on a tabletop, then decides she may as well leave it here. Aldemar is unlikely to run off with it.

A short while later, more conservatively clothed, she walks into the Palace’s command center, the cavernous room beneath the huge illuminated map. The place is full, and half a hundred uniformed communications techs sit with gold-and-ivory headsets clamped to their ears, relaying information back and forth. The overhead rows of video monitors all show views of skylines, smoke, silent flashes.

Here in the shielded silence, the sound of the guns cannot be heard.

Constantine stands near the front of the room, his casual civilian clothes—cords and a shirt open at the neck—a contrast to the uniformed officers standing around him. He spies Aiah the instant she enters, and though he continues speaking casually with his officers one eye remains fixed on Aiah as she walks down the aisle. The officers around Constantine fall silent as she approaches—respectfully, she thinks, while a comrade makes her report. Among them Aiah recognizes the former Captain Arviro of the Marine Brigade, the hero of the countercoup, who is now General Arviro of the Marine Corps.

“Statius and Cornelius weren’t brought back,” Aiah says.

There is a grim narrowing of Constantine’s eyes, then he shakes his head. “I am losing the old ones, one by one,” he says. “Statius was with me for thirty years, stood by me in everything I ever attempted.”

This is not, Aiah wants to say, about you.

Constantine’s look softens, and he takes her arm. “But he and Cornelius succeeded in their final mission, which was to preserve your life. If I had sent people I did not know as well, we might not have brought you back.”

Aiah can feel despair tighten in her chest. “But the whole thing,” she says, “was a botch.”

He looks at her and shakes his head. “Your part of the mission was a success. That there was a failure somewhere else was not your fault.”

She gives a little shudder. It did not feel like a success, not when she was in the water with bullets lighting the air above her.

Constantine gently draws her closer by her arm. “In any case, well, things are not as bad as we might have feared. You succeeded in panicking the Provisionals.” He points at one of the video screens, and Aiah’s gaze reluctantly follows his hand, sees buildings being battered by shell-fire.

“When the Provisional command realized you were on the verge of causing one of their frontline brigades to defect,” he says, “they ordered their nearby units to attack Landro’s Escaliers. Those gunboats that struck the half-world were among the first units to respond. But their command structure is not very flexible over there—they have dispersed their communications and headquarters units so that they are not, once again, all attacked at the same time—and the first attacks were uncoordinated and easily repelled by a unit as specialized in this sort of fighting as the Escaliers. The Provisionals still have not managed a proper assault, but when they started the shooting they did push the Escaliers over to us. We have a bridgehead into enemy territory; we now need only to funnel our troops over in sufficient quantity-”

Uncertain hope catches in Aiah’s throat. “Do you mean it worked? The mission wasn’t…”

“Not a total failure, no. Our forces went on two-hour standby as soon as you crossed to the other side. As soon as we received word of the enemy’s movement, we started the clock ticking. The guns are firing already, and as soon as everyone reports ready, we will launch.” His lips curl in a wolfish smile. “We have some surprises in store—the Sea of Caraqui provides an unconventional environment for warfare, and we will take advantage of it in ways our enemies will not expect.”

Aiah looks up at the screens, at the scenes of violence repeated in one video display after another, Aground multiplied a thousand times… Let it all be for something, she thinks.

“May I… watch?” she asks. The words just fall out, and Aiah regrets them at once. She does not want to witness the catastrophe of Aground all over again, and multiplied a thousand times.

Amusement glimmers in Constantine’s eyes. “Find a perch,” he says.

She begins to look for a chair, then hesitates and turns back to Constantine. “Where is Karlo’s Brigade?” she asks.

“Mobile reserve, well out of the fighting.” He points at a map. “We hope to shift them to exploit any breakthrough…” He bows toward her with mocking courtesy. “// you approve, of course.”

Aiah clenches her teeth. “Ask me when the time comes,” she says tartly, “and I’ll let you know.”

Aiah finds an unused chair and sits. Suspense gnaws at her insides as she watches the preparatory bombardment, the reports of Provisional units being hammered, of plasm stations hit, ammunition barges blown up by dolphin raiders, of the enemy net, almost all their reserves, being tightened around Landro’s Escaliers… the enemy response, actions not as certain as the government’s, nor as strong, but still finding chinks in the government armor, causing delays as units have to improvise their way around the trouble…

invisible mage attacks on both sides, perceived only in an occasional flash, or through a verbal report… and then an ominous glow, a towering figure of fire…

The Burning Man walks along the front, his body a raging holocaust. Aiah’s heart leaps into her throat. A mage out of control, buildings igniting at his touch… and she knows that the Burning Man consumes not only the world around him, but the mage’s own body.

The Burning Man withers and dies as someone cuts off the mage’s plasm source, but the district he walked through still burns… The battle seems to have slowed down, and despair invades Aiah again, a giddy sense of hopelessness that makes her sway in her chair… When the last unit reports its readiness, and Constantine gives the command to commence the bridging operation, Aiah wants to cry out in relief.

A thousand mortars near the front open fire, dropping smoke into the no-man’s-land between the forces, bright swirling splashes of green or purple or red. Government artillery increases its rate of fire, shells dropping right into the enemy front line. And then the soldiers begin to cross the water, thousands of small powerboats moving forward under the cover of smoke. The Dalavan Guard aims at Lorkhin Island, driving straight at the enemy’s strongest point, and the Marines cross elsewhere.

Aiah turns from the screens to watch General Arviro of the Marines. He has trained his corps, labored long on their operational plans, and as the powerboats begin to roar he looks up at the screens, chin tilted back, neck muscles taut with tension. He looks as if he is willing them across the danger zone.

They cross, most of them. There are too many for the enemy to stop. The boats of the Dalavan Guard drive ashore on Lorkhin, running right up onto the firm ground of the island, and the Guard spill out onto pathways that, it can only be hoped, mages and explosives have already cleared of mines and traps.

Elsewhere, avoiding Lorkhin and its strongholds, the Marines storm across the danger zone. Unlike the Guard, they do not assault the enemy strongpoints—the giant, fortified buildings on their tall pontoons—but instead bypass them, swarming through the dark watery passages beneath the startled, entrenched enemy. Then, grouping in rear areas, the Marines seize communications links, break electricity and plasm connections, and assault the enemy from behind.

At the same time the Army attacks from the front. The Provisionals, when they created the no-man’s-land in front of their position, did so by gutting buildings and pontoons, turning them into barges filled with rubble, and by sinking others to create lanes of open water. Instead of building bridges and roads across the danger zone, as the enemy expected, Constantine has simply built new pontoons, each more than a stade long, colossal structures shielded from magework by bronze plates and mesh, with highways built not along the tops, but safely through the interior. Seagoing tugs, guarded by telepresent mages, shove these massive structures into position, and military engineers link them together to create long tunnels that stretch toward the enemy.

Aiah goggles at the sight as, on video, she sees these monuments being driven along watery lanes and into position. Shellfire plunges down, fountaining high in the water or hammering the armored roofs of the bridging pontoons. Occasionally a tug is hit and explodes in bright flame, or—listing—is forced back. But still the long bridges, link by link, drive toward an enemy stunned by bombardment, confused and cut off by attacks in their rear.

The first bridge to be completed, because it was unopposed, links government forces with Landro’s Escaliers, and government mercenaries roll to the attack in an attempt to expand their bridgehead. Other bridges are, with much greater difficulty, at length fixed in position. Crossings begin, against ferocious opposition.

“Yes, Triumvir.” Constantine presses a gold headset to one ear as he replies to Parq’s pleas. “We are doing our utmost to get the bridges across to Lorkhin.”

He winces, then holds the headphone some distance from his ear. Parq’s hysterical voice, released from the cup of Constantine’s ear, cries its distress to the room.

The Dalavan Guard have stalled on the Island, cohesion broken, the soldiers huddling in whatever cover they can find. Parq screams for Constantine to rescue them.

“We will reinforce,” Constantine reassures. “I guarantee it, Triumvir.”

Aiah suspects that the bridges trying to reach Lorkhin may be used more for retreat than for reinforcement.

The Provisional command seems disorganized and slow to respond, but their mercenary troops are all good soldiers, more experienced than the expanded Caraqui army, and the response of the individual units is professional enough. Government casualties mount. Storms of blistering fire are hurled against Landro’s Escaliers and the bridgehead. And then—in another part of the line entirely, near the border with Lanbola—a tentative breakthrough occurs. A clear pathway to the enemy rear opens. All enemy reserves are already committed against the Escaliers—there is nothing to stop government forces from slicing into enemy territory and cutting them off from all support—but somehow there is a breakdown on the bridge-tunnel, and reinforcements cannot be got across in any quantity.

“What… hideous… treachery…” Constantine’s eloquence deserts him as he watches the impediments multiply, one after another. Aiah watches him roar, pump fists into the air, pace manically back and forth. There is a mad desperation in his eyes; he is reliving, Aiah thinks, some nightmare from his past, from Cheloki, some other plan that failed. Engineers work frantically on the bridge. Officers are shouting words like “utmost” and “at all costs.”

“Done,” someone reports.

“Roll them!” Constantine cries, and communication techs bend over their boards to give the orders.

Constantine sags, fists planted on a table, head bent. The nightmare, for the moment, has been averted. Aiah feels an impulse to walk over and comfort him.

But he thinks of her first. His head comes up, and then he turns to Aiah, straightens, and walks over to her. “I would like your agreement at this point,” he says. “Karlo’s Brigade has been in reserve all day. I would like to send them across the bridge and have them finish this war once and for all.”

“Yes,” Aiah says. “Of course.” She rises, and blackness invades her vision. She sways from sheer weariness, reaches a hand toward her chair for support. “I want to go to them.”

Constantine’s hand closes firmly on her shoulder. “Do not, I beg you,” he says. “You will contribute nothing to their effort, and your presence will only distract them. After things have settled, perhaps, a visit would be in order.”

Her will is not strong enough to resist. “May I speak to General Ceison on the phone?”

“Of course. If he can be found.”

He can’t: apparently the brigade is already in motion. Aiah sits. Weariness swims through her mind.

“Miss?” Aiah looks up to find a smiling, white-jacketed steward looking down at her. “May I get you a sandwich? A salad? Coffee?”

Aiah wonders how many shifts it has been since she last ate.

“All three,” she decides.

The steward smiles. “Right away, miss.”

Aiah watches the video while she eats and forgets to taste the food. Some of the images are being fed in from the bridgehead, showing vehicles filled with soldiers rolling out of the bridge-tunnel into newly won territory. And then, directly in front of the camera, someone flashes into existence from out of nothing, popping right onto the roadway. He is small and slight, shaggy-haired, with strange tall ears, and he carries a long glittering blade. He looks about, bewildered, for a second, and then one of the armored vehicles rolls him down.

Aiah stares for a moment at the strange, fated apparition. A teleport gone wrong, she thinks; someone popped a twisted person right into the war, armed only with a big knife.

Other, more jittery, images come from the front itself. The door is no longer open—the enemy have used the delay to reorganize their defense—but a strong push should finish them.

And then artillery begins to rain down on the bridgehead. A storm of plasm fire unfolds. Aiah can sense the attack losing momentum.

No! she thinks. Not now.

Constantine stands transfixed below the video images, big hands flexing helplessly at his sides. The nightmare is enfolding him again.

The vehicles rolling into the bridgehead slow, come to a halt. The bridge-tunnel itself is being hit repeatedly. Aiah watches as the attack’s momentum fades.

And then she looks up as Sorya, in her green uniform, comes striding into the command center. She is grim-faced, and flanked by a pair of aides. Without giving Aiah a glance, Sorya walks to Constantine and speaks without hesitation.

“Most of that gunfire directed against the bridgehead,” she says, “is not from the Provisional forces—most of their stuff has been suppressed. The firing is from the Lanbolan army, their regular forces. They’re firing at us from over the border, trying to seal off our breakthrough.”

In the sudden silence, Aiah can see calculations flickering through Constantine. “The rest of their army?”

“Latest report says they’re on alert, but in their barracks. But the Lanbolan government has also released its plasm reserves to the Provisionals… They’re beaming staggering amounts across the border to the enemy mages. We’re going to have to expect much more powerful sorcery to be directed against us.”

Constantine absorbs this. Rapid calculation glows in his eyes like a furious heat.

“The next decision is a political one,” he says. “I will need to see the triumvirate.” He turns to Aiah. “We will need you as well,” he says. “Get the latest figures on our plasm expenditure and report to the Crystal Dome at once.”

“Sir.” It is General Arviro, anguish plain on his face. “My Marines,” he says. “They’re behind enemy lines. Without a breakthrough to reinforce them…”

Constantine nods. “Yes,” he says. “I understand. I will raise the issue at the meeting.”

“It is not an insuperable position,” Constantine says. “We are likely still to win—we’re in a much better position than we were yesterday, and the Provisionals in much worse. Many of their units have been wrecked. But pressing the war will take time, and casualties on both sides—and among the civilian population—will be formidable.”

“Vengeance now!” Parq cries. “Invade Lanbola at once!” His face is gaunt, and his eyes are hollow. He laughs, tugs at his disordered beard. “Why do we bother to discuss this?” he says. “The Dalavan Guard is being wiped out even as we continue this pointless discussion. We must rescue them!”

“General Arviro has asked me to mention the Marines,” Constantine says. “They remain behind enemy lines. Many of them are cut off, and they are only lightly armed. Evacuating them will be risky, and we cannot supply them by teleporta-tion forever.” He looks at his notes. “Knowing this situation might arise, we have made plans for the invasion of Lanbola. Our mobile reserve alone can accomplish it within a day, should the triumvirate so order. We hope to be able to arrest most of the government as well as the Provisionals.”

“I will not support the invasion of another metropolis,” Hilthi retorts. “Hegemonism is insupportable at any time, for any reason. This war with the Provisionals is the natural price we pay for our centuries of misrule.”

“And the Lanbolan artillery?” President Faltheg speaks hesitantly. “Can’t they be said to have opened a war against us? How can we fight this without an invasion?” He shakes his head. “We could file another protest… I suppose.” He looks at Hilthi. “Mr. Hilthi? Do you have a suggestion?”

Hilthi looks troubled, but makes no reply.

Constantine turns to Aiah. “Miss Aiah?”

Aiah testifies as to the availability of plasm. Caraqui’s reserves have been cut in half by the first day of the offensive, and the ability of the government to support their assaults is fading.

Faltheg turns to Constantine. “Your recommendations, Minister?”

“I do not offer this advice lightly,” Constantine says. “But it seems to me that there would be far less suffering, less damage, if we went into Lanbola and ended the war at its source.” He gives an uneasy shrug. “The political problem of what to do with Lanbola,” he adds, “may be dealt with afterward.”

Aiah looks at her hands. It is the wrong move, she thinks, but she can’t explain why. And she has no acceptable alternative.

“Make them pay!” Parq says. “Make them pay for our suffering! Their wealth can make Caraqui a paradise!”

Hilthi sits stiffly in his chair, his eyes locked with Constantine’s. “I will not be a part of a hegemonist government,” he says. “I will not countenance the looting of another metropolis. If I am outvoted in this, I will resign.”

Faltheg’s tongue runs round his lips. He sighs heavily. “I must reluctantly agree with Triumvir Parq and Minister Constantine. The Lanbolans’ actions are intolerable.”

“You will have my resignation before the shift is over,” Hilthi says. “I will go into opposition.”

Constantine turns to him. “Triumvir, I am sorry about this, and I hope you will reconsider. But may I ask you to delay this action for another day or two? Disarray in the government now will only encourage our enemies.”

Hilthi hesitates, then nods. “I will do as the minister suggests.”

Aiah turns to Sorya, sees the triumph glittering in her green eyes. This is what she has wanted all along, and Aiah wonders if she has somehow managed it all.

The meeting ends. As they head back to the command center, Constantine takes Aiah’s arm. “I would like to use Karlo’s Brigade in the assault on Lanbola. They are near the border, ideally placed, and they are not yet committed to the bridgehead.”

It is, Aiah thinks, the only way to save Landro’s Escaliers and the others in the bridgeheads.

“Yes,” she says. “But I want to talk to Ceison personally.” “I will arrange it.”

And so, a half hour later, she finds herself talking to Brigadier Ceison, and giving him her personal assent to the invasion, along with her best wishes for its success.

Within another two hours, Karlo’s Brigade spearheads the assault into Lanbola, moving deep inland without opposition while assault troops are landed by helicopter on enemy buildings to seize control of the seat of government. Other airborne units engage and capture the Lanbolan artillery.

Within twenty-four hours, its political leadership dispersed or under arrest, the army of Lanbola surrenders without ever having left the vicinity of its barracks.

A day later, the Provisionals have collapsed and the war is over, and Constantine—because there was no one else, no one at all—has taken Hilthi’s place in the triumvirate.