City on Fire

TWENTY-TWO

Sea Mage Motor Craft—Take a Voyage to Victory!

The golden letters burn for a moment in the sky, a garish display, complete with a Marine striking a heroic pose in a motorboat. The sight makes Aiah want to cheer. Not because the Sea Mage company had contributed to the last, triumphant campaign, though they had, but because the plasm advert is there at all.

Peace. The price of plasm has fallen, and the sky is filled with the reassuring fires of commerce.

Another blaze floats up into the sky, happy people dancing with bottles of Snap! in their hands.

“Has the advertising improved in the last months, that you are so entranced?”

Constantine’s question turns Aiah away from her terrace window. “I would rather see that ad every minute for the next week,” she says, “than have the sky filled with artillery rounds.”

Constantine concedes the point. “Yes. I quite agree.” He pats the sofa cushion next to him. “Would you join me?”

She does so, leaning back against the warmth of his massive body. His puts an arm around her shoulder.

Outside, the sky blazes with the lights of peace.

On the table before them are the recordings of Aiah’s meeting with Holson and Galagas. The plastic casings are broken open, and the cellulose tape cut into coiled shreds by Aiah’s scissors. Tomorrow Aiah will throw the fragments out with the rubbish.

It will not be quite as simple to dispose of the memories of how those recordings were made. She is not as easy, leaning against Constantine’s strength, as once she had been.

/ shall guard my own back in future. Aiah had made that promise in anger; but now, soberly, she was keeping it. Sixteen bodyguards had been put on the payroll at the PED, and were now undergoing training in the Timocracy: in the meantime, when she left the Palace, she was accompanied by soldiers from Karlo’s Brigade.

“Are you pleased to find yourself a triumvir?” Aiah asks.

Constantine pauses a moment to consider. “There is less interference in my work,” he says, “but the company is not as congenial. In truth, I would prefer to take the place either of Faltheg or Parq, and to leave Hilthi in place.” His voice deepens as it grows thoughtful. “In the past it was others who made the compromises, while I resisted and spoke of principle; but now I must compromise my own beliefs, and make certain my people follow my lead…” A kind of self-disgust enters his words. “A particularly nasty compromise has just been made.” His arms fold around her, and he murmurs urgently into her ear. “I beg you, do not go outside without guards for the next week or ten days. The city may not be safe.”

The warning tingles along Aiah’s nerves. She pulls free of his embrace and glances over her shoulder, sees him looking at her somberly. “The war is over,” she says. “Why should there be danger now?”

Constantine’s gaze is directed toward the terrace window, where the sky blazes with one bright advertisement after another. “The war is over,” he says, “but the shape of the peace is uncertain.”

“You are a triumvir, one third of the government. Minister of War and of Resources. You can’t enforce order in the streets?”

His eyes shift away, and he rubs his jaw with one uneasy hand. “Not when I am opposed from within the government.”

“Parq, then,” Aiah judges. “Because I can’t see Faltheg behind any sort of violence.”

Constantine looks at her, eyes narrowing. “I cannot confirm your suppositions. But guard yourself—and if you are given an order, follow it.”

“There is no one who can give me an order but you.”

Again he looks uneasy. “That is not quite the case,” he says.

She will have to talk to Ethemark, she thinks. And if the orders are unacceptable, she can resign.

But what kind of threat, she wonders, is that resignation? Who, besides Constantine, would care? Who, besides herself, would lose? No one gives a damn, she learned long ago, about the high and noble principles of a girl from Old Shorings. She will just be replaced by one of Parq’s people, and that would deliver the PED right into the hands of his organization.

Constantine’s burning eyes hold her. “Do as your orders bid you,” he says. “I will do what I can for you, but it will take time. Remember our time in Achanos, and give me your trust.”

She looks at him narrowly, and—she must decide this now; it has come to that—she makes up her mind, for the moment, to trust him. It has nothing to do with any sentimental memories of their stolen hours in Achanos, either—very odd of Constantine to mention them—but everything to do with calculation.

He uses her—he has always freely admitted it, a disarming element of his charm—and he loves her, she supposes, insofar as she is useful to him. But what he really loves is something else, power perhaps, or stated even more grandly, his Destiny. One must keep one’s true end in view… She is not, she concludes, a part of that vision, whatever it is.

But Constantine has given her power. She did not want it particularly, nor had she asked for it—she had not considered it hers, had considered herself an extension of Constantine, and her power his on loan.

Now she is not so certain. The PED is hers—she built it, shaped it, hired every single member herself. Constantine wanted it to be loyal to her personally, and it is as loyal as she can make it. Rohder’s division of engineers and architecture students, madly making plasm, is hers. The Barkazil mercenary units are hers, at least informally—and she can attempt to make the arrangement more personal, if she desires.

Power. She can learn to use it, to acquire more, to impose her will on the world like an alchemist working with plasm-fired metal.

Or she can quit. Become Constantine’s mistress, an appendage of which he would soon grow weary; and then—or now, for that matter—become nothing at all, a private person with a little dirty money put away.

But if she chooses the road of power, she must learn how to use it.

And for that, she reasons, Constantine is necessary. As she once learned the ways of magic from him, so she must now learn the ways of command.

She must learn from him; and in order to do that, she must stay close to Constantine. Closer than she already has been, if possible.

“Very well,” she says. “I will do as you wish.”

The fiery intensity in his look is banked behind the lids of his eyes. “Thank you,” he says. He seems to recollect something, then reaches in his jacket pocket. “Aldemar gave me this for you before she left to finish her chromoplay.” He takes out an oblong box and hands it to her. “She said you left it in her room.”

She knows what it is before she opens the box. She fastens the ivory necklace around her neck. “Do you know Aldemar’s number in Chemra?” she asks. “I would like to wire her my thanks.”

“I will give it to you.”

His large hand reaches for the necklace, picks up the dangling Trigram, and lets the smooth ivory rest in his palm. He shares with her a smile of remembrance. “This is the best investment I have made,” he says. “You have exceeded all expectations.”

“I will thank you to remember it,” she says.

“You want rewards?” He lifts a brow. “Ask, and I will give it, if I can.”

She considers. “I will keep them as IOUs, for now.”

“Perhaps you trust overmuch in the generosity of the powerful, to trust that I will remember, in weeks or months, how much I owe you.”

“Had I ever known you petty,” Aiah says, “you would already have the list of what I want, each item numbered, on a sheet of paper.”

He smiles, lips drawn with a touch of cruelty, then closes his fist on the Trigram and brings it gently toward him, pulling her to him by the priceless collar. They kiss, and Aiah feels the little flutter in her belly that tells her that this is not entirely about power, about abstract desire for knowledge of political strategy.

“We have won a peace,” Constantine murmurs. “Our lives are changed, and we may have as much time for one another as we desire. It is a luxury I intend to savor.”

“I hope you will,” Aiah says, “but I should warn you that my capacity for luxury is very large indeed.”

He gives a knowing smile and draws her to him again. “Let us discover,” he says, “just how large it is.”

“I had suspected this,” says Adaveth. “We knew that Parq would make a move once there was a peace and the triumvirate didn’t need us.”

The twisted Minister of Waterways’ fingers drum angrily on the tabletop. “But none of the important things are talked about in the cabinet,” he says. “All we discuss is what to do with Lanbola, and that’s pointless, because we’re going to have to give it back sooner or later. The Polar League is up in arms, wailing about sovereignty—not that they cared about ours, when we were invaded.”

“Constantine says—implies, anyway—it will not last,” Aiah says. “That eventually he will be able to act to change things.”

Adaveth and Ethemark exchange scornful looks. “Constantine is keeping the War and Resources portfolios,” Adaveth says. “It was expected he would have to give up at least one now the war is ended. But in exchange for selling the twisted to Parq, he will keep both.”

Aiah feels a cold certainty, a draft of ice along her bones, that this is exactly the bargain that has been struck.

It is early service shift, and across the world people are sitting down to supper. Aiah, instead, hosts a meeting of her working group on the problem of Parq and the twisted, and serves soft drinks and krill wafers because she has not had a chance to cook in all the time she’s been here.

Ethemark looks at her. “Do you know what Togthan is up to?”

Alfeg still shares an office with the Excellent Togthan, but has had little to report.

“Togthan is spending a lot of time with personnel files,” Aiah says.

“Not surprising,” says Adaveth.

Ethemark’s eyes narrow as he gazes at Aiah. “If we are dismissed,” he asks, “you will resign?”

Aiah hesitates. “Perhaps not,” she says.

Adaveth and Ethemark exchange another look, and in it Aiah reads their scorn. “Resignation is your only weapon in matters of principle,” Adaveth says.

“We had assumed,” says Ethemark, “you would resign. The people of Aground died for you, and you will not give up your job for them?”

Aiah feels her insides twist. “I have thought about it,” she says. “And who would my resignation help? Not you or your people. Not the people in Aground. Who would my resignation harm? Only the department, because Parq would have a hand in the appointment of my successor. Would you like a captain in the Dalavan Militia to have my post?”

They exchange another look, and Aiah knows, heart sinking, that she’s lost them. She’s become one of those they can no longer trust, another bureaucrat who will not risk her precious position to help them.

How to win them back? she wonders.

And then she wonders whether it is necessary. They are not her natural constituency, nor necessarily Constantine’s: they are their own. In the future she should not depend on them—because she is sympathetic to them, it does not follow automatically that they will wholeheartedly endorse her…

It is the thought, she realizes, of a politician.

Aiah watches as her driver—pilot, rather—jacks wires in and out of sockets to reconfigure the aerocar’s computer. He glances at his checklist, gimbals the turbines, works the control surfaces. Then, after adjusting his headset, he puts a hand on the yoke and rolls up the throttles. Plasm snarls in the air. The turbines shriek, the nose pitches up, and the aerocar leaps for the Shield, punches Aiah back in her seat.

Aiah turns her head and watches Caraqui, flat on its sea, as it falls away. She has had much the same view while traveling telepresent on a thread of plasm, but the sensation here has a greater solidity than plasm’s hyperreality, a weightiness that places the journey into the realm of sensation: the tug of gravity, the scent of fuel, of lubricant and leather seats, and the cry of the turbines.

The aerocar pitches forward until its flight is level. The sensation of plasm fades—magic is used only during take-offs. Yellow dials glow on the car’s computer.

Alfeg, in one of the seats behind with Aiah’s guards, clears his throat.

Below, jagged buildings reach high for the aerocar like taloned fingers, but they fall far short: the car has left flat Caraqui and its low buildings and entered Lanbolan airspace. The aerocar glides lower, losing altitude: Aiah watches needles spin on instrument dials. The turbines sing at a more urgent pitch: tremors run through the car’s frame. Aiah feels webbing bite her flesh as whining hydraulics shove dive brakes into place. The aerocar slows, hovers, descends. For a moment all is fire as the car drops through a plasm display. The tall buildings rise on either side, and the car finds a rooftop nest between them.

The turbines cycle down and the aerocar taxies to a stop. Aiah sees her reception committee awaiting her: Ceison and Aratha in the deep blue uniforms of Karlo’s Brigade, Galagas in the gray of Landro’s Escaliers. Galagas commands the Escaliers these days: Holson was killed in the fighting.

The cockpit rolls open to the right, and the passengers exit to the left. Guards fan out over the landing zone, and Aiah descends more leisurely: General Ceison hands her down the last step.

“Welcome to Lanbola,” Ceison says, and gives a salute.

Aiah returns it. She has no military rank, but these troops are hers—in some as-yet-unclarified fashion—and so she might as well perform the appropriate rituals.

As she returns the salute, however, Aiah feels a faint sense of absurdity. She does not quite understand what one does with an army in peacetime. A peacetime army seems something of a contradiction in terms.

She introduces Alfeg to Galagas, then walks briskly across the windswept landing area. “How are things here?” Aiah asks.

“Lanbola is quiet,” Ceison judges. “People go to work, do their jobs, get paid. Money still circulates. The stock market is down, but not disastrously so. The army is disarmed but still in its barracks.” He shrugs his gangly shoulders. “The Popular Democrats were so authoritarian that once we swept their top echelon off the board, they were easy to replace.”

Plasm lights the sky, red-gold words tracking: Pneuma Scandal Widens: Fanger’s Name Linked. Details on The Wire.

The same tactics, Aiah recognizes, Constantine used in Caraqui. The former rulers would be discredited, along with their chief supporters—“Usually,” as Constantine told her, “all that is necessary is to publish the truth.” The top people—those few who had been caught—would be hauled back to Caraqui, stuck in prison, and put on trial whenever the political situation demanded it. Any Lanbolans raised into positions of power would be dependent on the new regime, with no local support, and therefore inclined to be loyal. In the meantime, any actual changes introduced would be very gradual—sudden shifts in law or tax structures would make the Lanbolans less inclined to accept the new regime—and rules against plundering and assault against civilians would be strictly enforced.

Galagas sprints ahead to open a battered metal rooftop door, and Aiah enters the military headquarters for the occupation forces, formerly the chief office complex for the Popular Democratic Party, with its bright white stone, gilt ornament, and sense of comfortable permanence, one of the grander buildings in Lanbola’s government district.

They move down a stair, then along a corridor flanked by plush offices and into a room with a long cantilever table of glass and polished brass. The paintings on the walls are bright abstracts, splashes of color intended to furnish a tasteful background to the dance of power, but to offer no disturbing comment on its meaning, its intricacies.

Aiah tosses her briefcase down on the desk. “Open your collars, people, and take a seat,” she says.

She opens her briefcase, takes out a pair of folders, slides one to Galagas and one to Ceison. “These are copies of the contracts that have been sent to your agents,” she says. “Five years, with an option for a lateral move into the Caraqui military at the end of that time. Pension options as discussed. You’ll note the signing bonuses are higher than we had previously agreed.”

Loyalty is most painlessly bought with someone else’s money, as Constantine had remarked when she’d negotiated this point. Occupation of the Lanbolan treasury had liberated a flood of cash from its bunkers. The Lanbolans’ cash reserves were paying for their own occupation.

“Thank you,” Galagas murmurs, his attention already lost in the maze of print.

Aiah waits for them to finish reading, then turns to Galagas. “The ministry has formally approved your promotion to brigadier and command of the Escaliers.” It was mostly an internal matter—mercenaries chose their own leaders—but the contract gave the government right of consultation.

“Thank you, miss,” Galagas says.

“I am happy also to announce the formation of the two units into a formal Barkazil Division, to be headed by General Ceison.”

Ceison nods, awkwardly pleased, and brushes his mustache with a knuckle.

“Miss Aiah,” Galagas says, “I’d like to raise the matter of replacing our losses. That last battle cost us almost half our men, killed or wounded, with particularly heavy losses among junior officers and NCOs. Not all the wounded will be able to return to the ranks. Since we are staying here rather than returning to the Timocracy to recruit, I’d like to send a recruiting party home… while the Timocracy will still permit it.”

The Timocratic government had announced an investigation of Landro’s Escaliers to discover whether deliberate treachery on their part had provoked the Provisionals into attacking them. Galagas, after consulting with Aiah, had decided the simplest option was to deny everything—there were no meetings in Aground, or if there were, then Holson, conveniently dead, had been there on his own. Aiah would keep silent—the Timocracy had no way of compelling her testimony—and the recordings of the meetings had been destroyed. Eventually, it was hoped, the investigation would die.

But the Escaliers’ contacts in the Timocracy were keeping a close eye on the investigation. The investigation might at some point reveal just who had betrayed them.

And Aiah wanted very much to know who that was.

“Send your party back, by all means,” she says, “and let me know what you hear.”

“I’d like to address the problem of recruiting, if I may,” Alfeg says. “I have contacts in the Barkazil community both in Jaspeer and in the Barkazi Sectors. Thanks to the Mystery chromoplay, there is great interest in Miss Aiah and Caraqui, and I think, General Galagas, I could fill your ranks for you, but I need your permission, ne?”

Galagas raises a brow in surprise. “Do you think you could find so many?”

“Oh, certainly. And if you sent recruiting parties to Jaspeer and wherever in Barkazi they were permitted, the job could be done all that much sooner.”

Galagas seems skeptical, but is willing to consider it.

“Your mention of recruiting in the Barkazi Sectors reminds me,” Ceison said. “I just heard—The Mystery of Aiah has been banned in the Jabzi Sector. And in the rest of Jabzi, for that matter.”

Aiah looks at him. “Banned? Me? In Jabzi?”

“Jabzi is particularly insistent that the Barkazil Sectors will never unite again,” Ceison says. “They seemed to find the chromo a threat. As a result, thousands of people who never heard of you are now clamoring for bootleg copies of the video.”

Amusement tugs at the corners of Aiah’s lips. “They aren’t very intelligent in Jabzi, are they?”

“No one is likely to mistake them for Cunning People, no.”

Aiah glances at her notes and finds the most urgent item on her agenda. The reason she is here, now, instead of paying this visit another time.

“I want to let you know,” Aiah says, “that there may be some disorder in the near future. I want you to be ready for it, and I want you ready to move.”

Sudden alertness crackles in the soldiers’ eyes. Their attention is firmly on her.

“Here?” Ceison asks. “In Lanbola?”

Aiah shakes her head. “In Caraqui.”

“Another coup attempt?” Aratha suggests.

“No. I don’t think so, though I suppose it may come to that if the government does not… react sensibly.”

Because if Parq isn’t stopped… somehow, by someone … he may find himself in power by default.

There is a moment of silence. Ceison gives an uncertain look. “May I have a clarification, please?” he asks. “Does this warning come from you or from the ministry?”

“It didn’t come from either one. In fact, you didn’t hear it.”

Ceison slowly nods, then rubs his long jaw. “I believe I understand,” he says.

The notion of a military force in peacetime, Aiah considers, is no longer quite so absurd.

It is a party. Impudent music from Barkazi rocks the dignified walls of the Popular Democrats’ former headquarters. A buffet spices the air, a piquant mix of cilantro, garlic, and fierce little Barkazi chiles. White-jacketed military stewards offer chilled glasses of kill-the-baby on silver trays embossed with the symbol of the Popular Democrats, and Aiah finds that the liquor’s ferocity grows more agreeable from the second drink onward.

Ceison proves, to Aiah’s surprise, a fine dancer. His lean body is unexpectedly adaptable to slippery Barkazil rhythms, the koola and the veitrento. And he pays attention to her, which is nice; she does not have the impression that she and Ceison are a pair of solo acts, but that they are actually dancing together, achieving some level of communication.Not that she dances with Ceison alone. The room is full of soldiers, most of them fit and healthy and happy to find a woman in their arms. The men outnumber the women, and Aiah finds herself pleasantly in demand. Breathless, she sits out for a moment, touches a handkerchief to the sweat on her brow. The dance is a joyous alternative to her activities during the previous shift, first the meeting with the Barkazil Division command and then, because of her insistent, dreaded sense of duty, her visit to its field hospitals. The Escaliers’ thousands of casualties were piled up in two hospitals in Lanbola, since the hospitals in Caraqui had long ago been filled, and the medical staffs, though doing their best, were clearly overtaxed. There hadn’t even been enough beds, not until thousands were liberated from nearby hotels.

Aiah hated hospitals, and she’d blanched at the scents of disinfectant, polish, old blood, and sickness. She hadn’t known what to say to these total strangers whose bodies had been torn apart on her behalf {your fault, an inner voice insisted), and entering the first ward, she’d hesitated.

Fortunately Galagas and Aratha talked her through it—they had been through this many times. “Ask their names and where they’re from,” Aratha said. “Ask what unit they’re in. Ask if there’s anything you can do for them.”

After the first few halting questions, Aiah relaxed, and it went well enough. Many of the wounded were well into their recovery, were lively and full of complaint against their condition. They were robust young men for the most part, they had volunteered for this unit, and they were not inclined to self-pity. Half of them were lying on big soft hotel beds, mingling absurdity with the tragedy of their wounds.

Her people. It was far less an ordeal than she’d anticipated. She admired the fashion in which, with such limited aid available, they helped each other, changing dressings and administering medication. She understood the tough faces they displayed, their lack of sentimentality, their denial of the pain that so often glittered in their eyes. It was sad, but in its odd way it was home…

For the people in Aground, she thought, there is none of this—no ambulances, no care, no medicine, no homes to receive them at recovery’s end. (Your fault.) She wondered what she could do for them, and concluded there was nothing. Aground had vanished, its survivors scattered into the darkness beneath the city…

There is a pause as the music fades. A polite warrant officer asks Aiah to dance, and she assents; he takes her hand and leads her onto the dance floor as the music booms out again. Aiah sees newcomers at the door, stiffens, whispers to her escort, “I’m sorry, I will have to postpone our dance, forgive me,” and slips away from his hand.

Sorya is dressed in silks, green and orange, and her chin bobs in time to the music. Her guards, attired more soberly, bulk large behind her: two huge twisted men with glittering, suspicious eyes. When she sees Aiah walking toward her, Sorya smiles brightly and advances to meet her. She embraces Aiah, kisses her on both cheeks. Aiah smiles in return, kisses in return—she is a politician now, after all—but wariness tingles up her spine at this unexpected display of sorority.

Sorya takes her arm and begins an unhurried stroll around the perimeter of the room. She gestures with her free hand at the party. “Your young men have done well for you.”

“Thank you.”

“And you have done well for yourself.” Sorya’s green eyes regard Aiah with frank interest. “I had not expected that. I may, after all, have to take notice of you.”

Aiah tilts her head graciously while, behind her mask of pleasantry, a shiver runs through her soul. “Ought I to fear such notice?” she asks.

Sorya’s throat flutters with her lilting laugh, and she speaks into Aiah’s ear over the throb of music. “Miss Aiah, our goals are similar: the elevation of Constantine. You, I expect, view him as an alternative to the wretched pettiness and persecutions of other factions; whereas I want his greatness to flourish, and mine with it.”

Sorya favors a nearby cluster of officers with a gracious smile, then speaks into Aiah’s ear again. “No—I meant that I must take note of your power, which though growing is hardly a threat to mine, and your method, which is unique. The religion racket, for instance…” She gives a bemused shake of her head, while annoyance shivers through Aiah’s mind. Religion racket, indeed.

“I wish I had thought of that,” Sorya continues, “harnessing such a powerful, arcane force as belief. It is a superstitious world, after all.” Her laugh lilts again in Aiah’s ear. “People need to believe in something, or someone. I shall find a hermit myself, I think, to proclaim me the savior of, oh, something or other, and see how I fare.”

“Be careful,” Aiah says. “Hermits are inconvenient people.”

“My hermit won’t be,” cynically. “And I gather one is expected to enact the odd mystery or perform the occasional miracle, neither of which is beyond possibility, given human credulity and plasm…” She regards the soldiers with a thoughtful expression. “I must say, you have backed yourself into a corner regarding Barkazi. They’ll want you to do something over there, and what, realistically, can you accomplish?” She gives the matter thought. “Well, the soldiers are still a good idea,” she judges. “Look at history. A prophet without an army is bound to fail, whereas prophets with an efficient military can do well. Look at Dalavos, for heaven’s sake.”

“And look how well Parq is doing,” Aiah probes, “with just his rabble militia.”

Calculation glimmers in Sorya’s eyes. “This is Parq’s chance,” she says. “Either he must seize all power now, or watch it slip away.”

“Which do you think he will do?” Aiah asks.

“He will be Parq,” Sorya says. She pauses, takes a slim cigaret out of a platinum case, strikes flame from a matching lighter. She takes a breath of smoke and lets it out with a toss of her head. She smiles.

“I would like to stay, Miss Aiah,” Sorya says. “It has been a long time since I danced.”

“I hope you have a pleasant time,” Aiah says. She pauses, observes her warrant officer waiting discreetly a few paces away, and joins him.

Sorya stays for hours, well into first shift.

She dances, Aiah observes, very well.

Aiah returns to Caraqui, bathes, has a few hours’ sleep, and reports for work an hour late. As she walks to work through the maze of the Palace, kill-the-baby pokes at the backs of her eyeballs with a sharp pencil.

The Excellent Togthan sits, not in the waiting room, but in her office, and Aiah pauses in the doorway and takes a breath, knowing that the moment has come.

He stands, bows formally, holds out a sealed note. Aiah observes that he is wearing red leather pumps. “From the Holy, Parq,” Togthan says. “A change is being made throughout government. The polluted flesh are forbidden to hold a position higher than F-3.”

Restricted, then, to manual labor, making repairs, and chauffeuring their betters. Aiah takes the note, breaks the seal, reads it. Effective immediately, it says.

// you are given an order, follow it. A memory of Constantine’s voice.

“Not only the government will be purified,” Togthan says, “but Caraqui at large. The Dalavan Militia will be given a free hand to enforce public order and the sumptuary laws, and to drive the defiled from the sight of the good people of the nation.”

Aiah walks around her desk, touches the glass top with her fingertips, and does not sit down.

“There are ninety-eight of the polluted in the department,” Togthan continues, and hands her another paper. “Here is a list. I will remain while you call them one by one into the room and dismiss them.”

Aiah looks at him, straightens her spine. “I do not think that will be possible,” she says. “I will make my own arrangements as regards compliance with this order.”

Togthan’s chin jerks up. Anger glitters in his eyes. “Miss Aiah,” he says, “this is a direct order from—”

“The order,” Aiah says, “makes no mention of you whatever, Mr. Togthan. It does not specify that you need to be present anywhere, for any reason. I will comply with the triumvir’s wishes, but I see no reason why I need take up your valuable time.” Still contemplating the order, she sits down, gazes up at Togthan, and then, dismissively, looks down at the paper again.

“You may leave, Mr. Togthan,” she says.

Togthan stands for a moment in silence—Aiah, calmly viewing the paper as her heart hammers in her ears, contemplates calling in some of her guards and having them shatter his knees with heavy sledges—and then Togthan turns and makes his exit.

Aiah looks at the list, opens a drawer for her department directory.

She calls all the victims to a meeting in the conference room at 11:00.

Get it all over with by lunch, she tells herself.

They know, obviously: Aiah can see it in their eyes as she walks into the room. Goggle-eyed little embryos, massive stoneface slabs, other twisted of a more ambiguous nature, oddly proportioned, odd-eyed. Ethemark sits in front, dwarfed by his high-backed chair, elbow propped on the table as he smokes a cigaret.

Aiah stands at the head of the table, plants her feet apart, clasps her hands behind her back. It is as strong a stance as she can manage, though behind her back the nails of her right hand are digging into the wrist of the left.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the news,” Aiah says. “The Triumvir Parq has signed an order that dismisses genetically altered from the civil service. I have been given this order this prebreak, and told to enforce it.”

She pauses, considers her audience. They are waiting, Senko only knows why. If she were one of them, Aiah thinks, she’d want to explode, go mad right here in the Palace, storm through the place destroying everything in her path.

Aiah jerks her chin high, takes a breath. “This is not what I fought for,” Aiah says. “This is not why I came here. This is not what any of us wanted from the struggle. But the struggle isn’t over.” She finds her voice rising. “And when it is over…” She looks at the roomful of people, tries to make eye contact with as many as possible. “When it is over,” she continues in a softer voice, “I will see that every single one of you has your job back. Because you have done this department credit, I have never had a complaint with a one of you, and you deserve to be here.”

Ethemark’s bitter tobacco stings Aiah’s sinus. Sadness floods through her, and she finds herself sagging. She leans forward and props her weight on her outstretched arms.

“I advise none of you to travel alone when you leave the building,” Aiah says. “And when you go out on the streets, be careful. The Dalavan Militia is going to be out there, and…” Sheer futility drags at her words; she has been unable to protect these people, their kindred in Aground, anybody. She straightens, raises a hand, and sketches the Sign of Karlo in the air. “Bless you,” she says. “Take good care, and go.”

She lowers herself into her chair, trying not to collapse.

The twisted people, murmuring, begin to leave. Ethemark, still in his chair, gazes at her without sympathy.

“Now that you see what it is like,” he asks, “are you going to resign over this?”

Aiah looks at him. “I don’t know. Would you really prefer that Togthan be in charge of this unit?”

There is a contemptuous curl to Ethemark’s lip. He stubs out his cigaret, drops it to the floor, and makes his way out without a word.

Ethemark aside, Aiah finds a surprising degree of sympathy in the twisted as they file past her. Some touch her arm or squeeze her shoulder. “We know it isn’t your fault,” one says, and the sentiment is echoed by others as they leave.

Aiah finds herself wishing she could agree.

Aiah doesn’t want to be alone after work shift, so she invites Khorsa over for dinner. This involves shopping, something she hasn’t done in months, but there’s a luxuriously stocked food store in the Palace, and at the moment she finds it comforting to walk the aisles with a cart and examine vegetables.

She makes a Barkazil salad with cucumber and cilantro, cellophane noodles, bits of grilled pork and a mild chile sauce, then prepares crisp beans in butter and garlic and a rice dish with vegetables, chicken, and bits of smoked ham. She chills some beer and wine and brews coffee.

When Khorsa arrives she brings bowls of her own: “roof-chicken”—squab—simmered in spices, coriander, and chiles, and a vinegary salad of sweet onion and assorted legumes.

Aiah calls herself an idiot as she views all the food. She has been living among the longnoses too long: she should know that a Barkazil never visits empty-handed.

“Maybe we should invite some more people,” she says.

Khorsa shrugs. “What’s wrong with eating leftovers for a week?”

The meal is splendid, but afterward Aiah makes the mistake of turning on the video, and it is full of Parq’s triumph, now called the Campaign of Purification. Adaveth and Myhorn have been dismissed from their cabinet posts. There are pictures of twisted people being turned out of their jobs and the Dalavan Militia driving the twisted off the sidewalks and tearing expensive jewelry off people who violate the never-before-enforced sumptuary laws. There is no indication the jewelry is ever returned. Automobiles deemed too expensive or flashy are scarred or heaved into canals unless their owners are on hand to pay “fines.” Organized bands of militia have attacked several half-worlds, driving out their inhabitants, sinking or towing off their dwellings.

They can’t live in the half-worlds, Aiah thinks, and they’re not allowed on the streets. Where are they to live?

Nowhere, of course. They are not to exist.

Aiah thanks Senko that Constantine had disbanded the censorship board, the News Council. The news organizations are at liberty to present alternate points of view, and they do so.

Adaveth and Myhorn speak with anger and regret. Hilthi is prominently featured, eyes burning with a conviction he never seemed to display in meetings of the cabinet. He denounces the purification campaign as inhumane, a betrayal of the revolution, a vile piece of political jobbery and gangsterism. He calls on the people to resist, and his denunciation of the triumvirate is particularly eloquent.

Constantine, Aiah notes, does not comment. He is visiting the army in Lanbola, and has nothing to say about anything happening in Caraqui.

Anger wars with sickness in Aiah’s heart. She presses the solid gold button on her media console that turns off the video, and looks dumbly at Khorsa.

“What can we do?” Khorsa says.

“Nothing. We don’t have enough power, not really. The Barkazil Division is only a small fraction of the army, and I don’t think they’ll go against the government even if I ask them to.”

“What of Constantine? He can’t approve of this. Can’t you talk to him?”

Aiah shakes her head. “He’s partly responsible, I think. He’s made some kind of deal with Parq. He gets to keep the army and Resources, and Parq gets his purification campaign.”

“And you and he—?” Khorsa asks. “Between you all is well?”

“I don’t know.” Aiah rubs her forehead. “He uses me for… for his projects. And he gives me things—the department, power, even an army. But he is… elusive. And he won’t return my calls, won’t tell me what he has planned with Parq or… or anyone else.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to think.”

Concern lights Khorsa’s eyes. “I have heard a story about him.” She hesitates. “I don’t know whether it’s true.” “Yes?”

Khorsa licks her lips, looks away. “There is a story that once each week he goes to the prison and interviews prisoners. And he orders some of the prisoners released. And then the prisoners die of the Party Disease.”

Despair gnaws at Aiah’s heart. She wants to deny the story, but it is so close to the truth that she doubts she’d be able to lie, at least convincingly. All she can say is, “Constantine isn’t in charge of the prisons. He doesn’t interview prisoners; he can’t order releases.”

She remembers Drumbeth giving the order. Unless, she thinks, Faltheg and Parq subsequently reversed Drumbeth’s policy.

“He’s triumvir,” Khorsa says. “Can’t a triumvir do that?”

“He’s only been triumvir for a matter of days. For that story to be true it would have to happen over months.” Has he, Aiah wonders, been visiting the prisons?

“He’s just been triumvir long enough,” Aiah says, as sorrow closes a soft hand about her throat, “to set Parq on Caraqui.”

She rises from the sofa, crosses to the terrace door. She looks out at the city, the sky alive with plasm fire, the distant volcanoes of Barchab. Silver cumulus clouds float beneath the opalescent Shield. Aiah crosses her arms and shivers.

“They cut us off, the Ascended,” she says. “They put the Shield between us, and denied us the sky. And now Parq wants to build a Shield below us, cutting off the twisted people. And it’s a tragedy both ways.”

“Everything recurs,” Khorsa says, her soft voice sounding from over Aiah’s shoulder. “That’s why the Shield is such a dreadful thing. Because it’s cut us off here, and all we can do is dance the same dance over and over.”

“I believed in him,” Aiah says. Tears burn hot in her eyes. “I thought he could change it all—change the dance forever. But now—” She gasps for breath. “I don’t even know why I’m here anymore. I don’t know—” The words die in her throat.

Khorsa approaches silently from behind, puts her arms around Aiah, rests her head on Aiah’s shoulder. “If you are staying only to protect me and the other Barkazils,” she says, “you should know that… well, we’ll get along without the PED. But I think you need to talk to Constantine before you do anything.”

“Yes,” Aiah mumbles. “I’ll do what I can.”

She can protest, she thinks, she can explain, but she fears the answer she may receive.

Her eyes drift to the plasm socket near the window, the copper t-grip sitting on the ornate table next to it.

“I’ll do what I can,” she repeats, and her thoughts whirl in a sudden wind. She has been granted a generous personal plasm allowance for the length of her time here; but the arrangement had been suspended for the length of the war, and her private meter disconnected. Now she is connected to the well again, and the state owes her a large amount of plasm.

Perhaps, she thinks, she ought to make use of it.

Gingerly she probes the idea, like a tongue probing the gap where a tooth once lay, trying to find the hidden source of pain.

Then she looks up at Khorsa. “I know what I can do,” she says. “It won’t be much, but—if you and I can trust each other absolutely, we can help people directly.”

Khorsa’s eyes gaze thoughtfully into hers. “I think we have a world of trust between us,” she says.

Aiah coasts over the city on a pulse of plasm. She doesn’t know where the militia are, or what they intend—there has not been time enough to make plans—but when her anima ghosts over an older, ramshackle neighborhood, one scarred with graffiti and despair, she discovers it isn’t hard to find them.

The Campaign for Purification is rolling over an apartment building: armed militia are driving families from their homes. The building circles a brick-floored courtyard with a pair of willows, and beneath the dangling willow branches a pair of goggle-eyed embryos lie in the court covered with bruises from butt strokes. Their children wail around them while their belongings are flung from windows. The trees and the court below are draped with fluttering clothes, and there is a growing pile of broken furniture. Others deemed impure—not all are twisted, so there is some other form of vengeance going on—are huddled in a corner, guarded with rifles by young men wearing the militia’s red arm- and headbands. Some of the guards are sorting through the belongings, picking out items of choice.

Aiah’s police experience stands her in good stead. There are no more than ten of the militia here, and no sign of a mage backing them.

A moment of concentration is needed for Aiah to form ectomorphic hands, and then she advances on a militiaman and slaps him down. He falls spinning, unconscious before he hits the pavement, rifle clattering on the bricks, but before he is even down Aiah is on the other guards, dealing out nicely judged slaps, each bringing a militiaman to the ground. Sometimes the first blow only stuns, and a second strike is needed, but never more than that.

The impure—the victims of the campaign—stand with wide-eyed surprise. Somehow it never occurs to them to run.

Aiah rises on an arc of invisible plasm to the militia plundering an apartment and slaps them reeling into the walls. She bunches their collars in invisible fists and hauls them out the window, then wafts them—not gently—to a landing.

She lifts rifles, pistols, and knives from holsters, sheaths, and nerveless hands, then piles them near the exit. Cartridge belts are added to the collection.

And then she wills herself to fluoresce, forming the same featureless female image she has used in the past, a blazing gold statue come to life. The huddled group in the courtyard shield their eyes against her brilliance. Aiah gives herself voice.

“Take what possessions you can,” she tells the victims, “and run. If you wish a firearm, take one. Otherwise just leave, and seek shelter where you can.”

Half of them simply take off, and others pause to snatch a few belongings from the wreckage before leaving. The half-conscious militia groan, rolling on the bricks, hands clutching broken jaws, blood-streaming broken noses. The flaming anima-image keeps them from protesting, even when one of the twisted, a grim-looking stoneface, methodically goes through their pockets and relieves them of all their money, then helps himself to a pair of pistols, an assault rifle, and several bandoliers of ammunition.

He is the only one of the victims who arms himself.

Aiah stands guard over the militia for a few minutes, then allows her anima-image to fade. When one of the militia staggers to his feet, she reaches an invisible hand to his ankle, yanks it, and dumps him to the pavement.

“I’m still here,” she booms. “Sit quietly and you won’t get hurt.”

She picks up the remaining firearms and throws them in the nearest canal. When she returns, the militia are still sitting quietly on the bricks.

She mentally counts out ten minutes—time enough for the refugees to make an escape—and then throws the switch on her t-grip. Her awareness returns to her bedroom.

Exhilaration choruses through her. She bounds from her bed and almost dances into the front room, where Khorsa is using another t-grip on a similar mission. From Khorsa’s exultant expression, she seems to be meeting with similar success.

“Militia roadblock on a bridge,” she says when she’s finished. “They were extorting money from everyone trying to cross. I threw them in the canal.”

Aiah bounds toward her, and they embrace in a moment of joy and triumph.

Then each returns to her t-grip, and for the rest of the shift, and the balance of first shift the next day, they soar on to thwart the militia.

Nothing proves quite as spectacular as her first rescue at the apartment building, but by the time she’s finished Aiah is pleased with her record of accomplishment. She breaks up roadblocks, disarms militia bands, shoves militia vehicles into canals. Her golden image shimmers into existence at many of these occasions: she wants the militia to know a powerful mage is opposing them.

She tells Khorsa about her golden anima, and Khorsa begins to use the golden form as well.

She is only opposed once, when she finds a purposeful band in four powerboats, heavily armed and obviously up to no good. Aiah’s anima dives under the surface of the canal and punches a hole in the bottom of each of the first three boats before she finds her consciousness swiftly dumped into her apartment again. Another mage has cut her sourceline. Quickly she shuts off the plasm before the enemy mage manages to track her to the Palace.

She checks her meter to discover how much plasm she and Khorsa have consumed.

At this rate, she thinks, the fun can’t last long.

The next day is more sobering. The Dalavan Militia numbers in the hundreds of thousands, and Aiah’s attacks were but a pinprick. There are hundreds of militia actions going on at once around Caraqui, and none of Aiah’s attacks seem to have attracted the attention of the video news writers, whose works feature nothing but discouraging images of militia depredations.

Once in her office, she tries to call Constantine, but is informed that he’s in a meeting. He doesn’t return her call, or any of her calls on subsequent days. Nor does she see him, or receive so much as a memo. Unlike President Faltheg, who appears on broadcasts every so often to make a hesitant, unconvincing defense of the government’s position, Constantine is rarely mentioned in the news, and seems to be hovering somewhere below the surface of public attention.

And while Constantine leaves Aiah in a vacuum, the situation both in the Palace and the streets grows worse. Togthan informs Aiah that he will be taking Ethemark’s place as her second-in-command; and he also presents her with a list of people to be hired in place of those she had been forced to dismiss.

Aiah manages to delay the implementation of this last procedure by insisting on a personal interview with every new hire, so that she knows how to best assign them. It is a depressing task, because they are generally less qualified than the people she’d been forced to dismiss. Many of them seem to have been included on the list solely because they have a close relative in the Dalavan Militia.

Outside the Palace, heavily armed groups of militia prowl the streets and canals. Shops owned by genetically altered people are vandalized or looted, as are pawnbrokers and moneylenders, who, in the terminology of the Campaign of Purification, are now declared “usurers” and “bloodsuckers.” Regional offices of the Altered People’s Party, the political organization of the twisted, are sacked; and offices belonging to several other parties are vandalized or attacked.

But the twisted swiftly recover from the surprise of the first day’s onslaught. Many acquired arms and military skills during the war, and their mages are not entirely without ability, or without plasm. Bloody battles are now waged in the darkness below the city as the inhabitants of the half-worlds try to defend their homes.

Aiah does what she can. She rearranges Khorsa’s schedule so that she works third shift and can fly against the militia during work shift, while Aiah is in her office.

Three days into the purification campaign Aiah observes the first graffito sprayed onto the side of a building: Long Live the Golden Lady! In the next few days she sees more signs that her anima has inspired hope: The Golden Lady Rules! All Glory to the Golden Lady! Five days into the Campaign of Purification, Aiah first hears of the Golden Lady on the news. Two days later, Parq announces a reward for information leading to the Golden Lady’s capture.

If only the Golden Lady’s plasm weren’t running out.

The stockpiled plasm allowance is being consumed fast, and by the end of the first week the Golden Lady is put on a strict ration.

After a few days, the news programs report an increase in sightings of the Golden Lady, and Aiah and Khorsa realize that they are not responsible for some of these appearances. Other people are finding the Golden Lady inspiring, and are using her image in resisting Parq.

While her covert activities are exhilarating, the situation at work sends despair sighing through Aiah’s veins. Togthan is running the department in all but name, and once Aiah’s plasm allowance runs out, she reasons, there will be very little point to staying, save her desperate, dwindling faith in Constantine, that and her stubbornness, a refusal to admit that it had all been a hideous mistake.

She decides that when she finally runs out of plasm, mere days from now, she will resign.

Perhaps it’s just as well, she thinks. It’s only a matter of time before the identity of the Golden Lady will be revealed. All it will take is for someone to backtrack her sourceline to the Palace, or for a clerk to go over her plasm records and wonder why she is consuming so much of her allowance all at once.

Ten days into the Campaign of Purification, as she prepares to leave the office at the 16:30 shift change, her receptionist puts through a call from General Ceison in Lanbola.

“Miss Aiah,” he says, “something curious has occurred. I wonder if it might be possible to speak privately.”

“Yes.” It has never been wise to send confidential information through the Palace switchboards, and it is doubly unwise now.

“I will be on the roof of the headquarters building in… will 16:50 be too soon?” “I can manage 16:50.”

Aiah finds the compass bearing to the Lanbola headquarters in her directory, calls the plasm control room, and arranges to have plasm delivered to her apartment and the use of a plasm horn set at 040 degrees true. She returns to her rooms, sits near a plasm connection, holds the t-grip in her hand.

Something curious. She presses the trigger.

The plasm sings a song of welcome in her veins. Aiah pauses for a moment to hear magic’s song of creation, destruction, and desire, the song of sheer reality running along her nerves. And then she lets herself surge along the Palace’s plasm lines and speed from the scalloped bronze horn on the roof.

The horn directs her on course 040, beaming plasm on a bearing to Ceison’s headquarters. Aiah pushes her consciousness slowly out along the beam, over the flat surface of Caraqui, the war’s great ruined scar that lies across the metropolis, then over the taller cityscape of Lanbola that falls below her as the world curves away. The clouds are low and dark and full of rain, and the plasm beam wants to fire straight through them; with an effort of will Aiah curves the beam, keeping it and her sensorium below cloud cover. Below, clouds and rain have darkened the city sufficiently for it to be illuminated by stormlights.

Rain drifts like a shroud over Lanbola’s government district, the proud white buildings erected by the Popular Democrats. Aiah dives like a questing falcon, finds the party headquarters building, and discovers Ceison standing quietly near a sandbagged mortar emplacement, wearing a hooded rain cape and calmly puffing a pipe. Delicate drops of rain cling to his mustache.

Aiah reaches toward Ceison with tenuous mental tendrils. Ceison stiffens, his lean face turning alert. He takes the pipe from his mouth and holds it, hand cupped around the bowl, by his side.

—General? Can you hear me?

—Yes.

Ceison’s mental voice sounds much like his speaking voice, reasoned and deliberate, possessing an undemonstrative kind of authority.

—You wished to speak with me?

—Yes, miss.

Ceison ducks farther into his hood as a gust of rain pelts down, frowns as he assembles his thoughts.

—Two days after you visit here, he begins, we had a visit from the War Minister. And he passed on a warning very similar to the one you gave us.

Surprise floats through Aiah at this news.

—Go on, she sends.

—I thought, well, it is good that you and the minister are in accord. But yesterday I received another visit from the War Minister, with very specific instructions, and I thought I should speak with you for… for purposes of coordination.

—What were the instructions?

—Karlo’s Brigade is to move at 02:00 tomorrow into Caraqui, and occupy certain sites: bridges, plasm stations, and several local headquarters of the Dalavan Militia. The Escaliers are to remain behind to make certain Lanbola remains calm.

Somehow Aiah is not surprised: comprehension falls solidly into place, as if the parts of the puzzle had already been assembled in her mind, and only needed Ceison’s words for her to become aware of them.

Parq, she knows now, had been set up for a great fall. Constantine had encouraged him to run wild, to set his mobs loose on the metropolis, to abuse his every authority; and now Constantine would bring him down with the support of every other element in the state.

The only question now, she thinks, is Constantine’s ultimate purpose. Is he doing this all on his own, with the intention of setting himself up as Metropolitan, sole commander of Caraqui; or is his goal somehow more modest?

Ceison’s mental voice brings Aiah’s thoughts back to the present.

—Do you concur in this program, Miss Aiah?

The answer is clear enough. In any struggle of Constantine against Parq, she must support the former, whatever else Constantine’s move may imply.

—Yes, Aiah sends. And furthermore I want to be with you when you move. Do you have camera crews on hand?

—Of course.

Cameras naturally accompany any military movement: their feed is used to help military mages orient themselves, project their animas and magic to the places where they are most needed.

Rain beats down steadily. Ceison empties his pipe, shifts it to a pocket.

—I want a camera crew with me at all times. I want us to be able to give the video news proof that the Barkazil Division and I are a part of this.

—Yes, miss.

—I will arrange to be here, in person, first shift tomorrow.

—Very good, miss.

—I want you to paint a new name on the side of the vehicle that I am to use. It will be called the Golden Lady. Understood?

Ceison’s eyes widen in surprise. The existence of the Golden Lady has not, it appears, entirely escaped his attention.

—I want you to see if you can find an artist, Aiah continues, who can paint a golden lady on the vehicle. Large as you can.

With an act of will she causes her anima to fluoresce, and Ceison shields his eyes against her brightness.

—This is what I want you to paint. Do you understand?

—Yes, miss.

Aiah permits the image to fade. Ceison lowers his hand and blinks his dazzled eyes.

Aiah’s ectomorphic sensorium observes Ceison, standing in the pouring rain with water sluicing off his hood and cape.

—Better get inside, she sends. We can’t afford to have you down with pneumonia at a time like this. Ceison smiles.

—Thank you, miss. I will see you first shift.

Aiah touches the off button and feels Lanbola fade from her vision. Plasm sings a song of triumph in her ears.

The Golden Lady will do her part to end the terror, she thinks. And she will be seen to do her part.

Her pilot takes Aiah to Lanbola through a lightning storm, the aerocar flying through great flashing sheets of electric fire that turn everyone in the cabin into pale, glittering-eyed ghosts. Green voltaic flame streams from the car’s stubby wings as it descends, and dances like a thing alive along the instrument panel.

The aerocar touches down on the landing pad, and the pilot pulls his headset off. His forehead is beaded with sweat. “I don’t want to do that ever again,” he says.

Aiah looks at him. Her mind was fully occupied during the flight; she had appreciated the spectacle, but her thoughts were elsewhere. “Were we in danger?” she asks.

“I would not have wanted to short out our instruments,” the pilot breathes.

“Glad we didn’t.” Her mind is already on other things.

She steps from the aerocar into pelting rain and blazing video light: the camera crews she’d requested are here to record her arrival. Her guards are prepared for combat, wearing bulky bulletproofs and carrying weapons openly; and Aiah herself is dressed practically, in boots, pants, and waterproof jacket.

Ceison offers her an umbrella and salutes. “Everything’s ready, miss,” he says.

“Thank you. Let’s get out of the rain.”

Armored vehicles jockey for place in the huge nearby garage, filling the air with unburnt hydrocarbons. The carrier Golden Lady is decorated impressively, with a fierce, fiery woman, hair ablaze, pointing ahead to victory with a commanding expression on her face. Aiah asks to meet the artist, and compliments him. “Can you paint me another copy of this?” she asks. “Put it on cardboard or something, so I can have it in my apartment? I’ll pay you for your work.”

The artist is a young man, and blushes easily. “I’d be happy to, miss. And no need for payment.”

“Of course I’ll pay you. It’s not your regular job, is it?”

He colors gratefully and Aiah moves on, greeting as many of the soldiers as she can. When Ceison tells her it’s time to move, Aiah joins the Golden Lady, and the vehicle commander hands her a pair of headphones and shows her how to stand in the hatch. Her guards file into the interior. The camera crews keep Aiah in their sights as the Golden Lady jerks, belches fumes, and lurches for the exit on its six solid-steel wheels. Enjoying this, Aiah breaks into a grin, and forgets to adopt for the cameras the stern expression of the Golden Lady painted onto the side of her vehicle.

Outside the rain has ended, though water still pours from drain spouts and fills the gutters. Shieldlight is breaking through dark cloud, and the stormlights are flickering off. The vehicle lurches into a higher gear and Aiah lowers herself behind the armored hatch combing to cut the chilling wind.

The convoy picks up speed once it gets on the Sealine Highway and rolls across the Caraqui border at 06:10, receiving waves and salutes from puzzled soldiers guarding the customs stations. Columns begin to split from the main body, aiming for different objectives. Well before 06:30, Ceison reports to Aiah that the first objectives have been seized, and that complete surprise has been achieved.

In brilliant Shieldlight, at 06:45, Aiah’s column rolls to a halt in front of the district militia headquarters, and soldiers and camera teams spill out. Aiah’s guards tug at her trouser legs to bring her down out of the hatch and behind the vehicle’s armor, but she insists on remaining in plain view, where the cameras and population can see her.

There is no resistance, no bullets, no plasm blasts, and the soldiers occupy the building without so much as a protest from its puzzled sleep-shift occupants.

And, when the militia members begin turning up for work at 08:00, they are quietly arrested and disarmed. Seized militia records provide names and addresses of those not present, and army combat teams move to their apartments to confiscate any weaponry they may possess.

But by that point Aiah has shifted to a local plasm station, where her PED identification gains entrance and where she can commandeer an antenna, dive into the well, and provide magical support for her soldiers. Since, commanding a station, she has practically unlimited plasm at her disposal, she crafts a blazing golden anima to fly above the steets and soar to her soldiers’ aid.

At 08:00, while the Golden Lady cruises above the city, Constantine appears on radio and video to announce that he and the president-triumvir, Faltheg, have ordered the army to suppress disorder and to disarm and disperse the Dalavan Militia. The sumptuary laws are summarily repealed. The reconstituted police forces, now ready under Randay, the Minister of Public Security, will assume all responsibility for public order.

When she hears the news some hours later, Aiah reflects that she had almost forgotten about Randay and the restructured civilian police. She has her doubts about how much better the new police will prove than the old, but concludes they could hardly do worse than the militia.

Within another hour, the camera teams are delivering their raw video to broadcast stations, where the Golden Lady’s identity is revealed for the first time.

There is remarkably little violence. The Dalavan Militia is used to pushing around helpless civilians, is short of competent magical support, and has received very little training. Its few members who attempt resistance prove hopelessly naive about the amount of firepower that can be generated by a well-trained, well-equipped combat team, and are either immediately blown from existence or so intimidated by the formidable response that they immediately surrender.

By 12:00, the situation is well in hand, and Aiah leaves the plasm station and returns to the Aerial Palace. She will dismiss Togthan, fire every person he appointed, rehire the twisted people he had forced her to send away.

When she arrives, she discovers she is famous. Her image has been playing on the video for hours. Togthan accepts his dismissal stonily, and many of his hires have either left already or not bothered to report to work, saving her the bother of firing them.

Parq, from his refuge in the Grand Temple, issues bulletins denouncing the other two triumvirs, and then—when the other two insist that he leave the Grand Temple for a meeting—sends his resignation instead.

Adaveth is recalled to the government—not to the cabinet, but to take Parq’s place as triumvir. Sweet irony, Aiah thinks, that Parq should be replaced by one of the polluted flesh.

Ethemark returns to the department late in the day. She cannot read the expression in his face, but she hears the anger still in his voice.

“You knew,” he says. “You knew this would happen.”

“I didn’t know,” Aiah says, and then adds a comforting falsehood. “I only hoped.”

He nods, reserving his judgment, and passes on.

In the days to come Aiah discovers that video is inter-metropolitan in nature and does not stop at borders. Her image finds its way around the world. Aldemar, calling a few days later, is the fifth person offering to buy the exclusive rights to base a chromoplay on her story. Many more calls come from journalists.

She hires an agent in Chemra to deal with it all.

She has to decide what she wants from fame before she can decide how to handle it.