Aestival Tide (30 page)

Coughing, Sajur covered his mouth and stumbled from his chair. The Redeemer seemed to follow him, its head swaying as rose-pink tendrils weaved in front of him, tapped tentatively at the glass, and left carmine smears a few inches from where his head had been. The Architect Imperator lurched down the hallway and out into the shadow of the Lahatiel Gate, gasping as he slammed the door shut and not even pausing for the human sentry who ran up to him, white-faced and gibbering something about his health. He stumbled until he reached the Imperators' gravator and punched in the grid code for the palace, and then collapsed.

“Orsina.”

The voice tore through his room as Nasrani Orsina cracked the door open. At first he had ignored the sentry's announcement; then lay in bed trying to ignore the voice calling his name—softly at first, then louder and still louder, until Nasrani covered his ears and knelt on his bed, praying for it to stop.

But it did not stop. He finally crept from his room, more frightened now of what might happen if he did not answer it.

“Nasrani,” the voice cried. “I must see her.”

In the doorway in front of him stood the
rasa.
There was no breeze, of course, but still his black robe stirred so that Nasrani could see the outlines of his legs beneath the flowing silk. Legs far too slender to support that tall frame; too slender and too sharp—the edge of one metal joint had slashed the cloth.

“Margalis.” Nasrani tried to keep his voice steady, affecting an air of cheerful surprise. “It's late. Or early,” he added, and rubbed his forehead.

Outside the window of his chamber on Coventry (the exiles' wing, an adjunct to the main palace presently occupied only by Nasrani and the former ambassador from Antarctica, who spent her days snorting morpha and her evenings weeping over polyfiles of blue ice) the nuclear CLOCK read thirteen-five, too early by several hours for upper-level visitors. Nasrani coughed delicately. “Can we talk about this over kehveh a little later?”

“No.”

Tast'annin pushed aside Nasrani as he strode into the room, hard enough to send the exile careening against the wall. “You had her before I left. You have her now. If you don't take me to her I will kill you.”

Nasrani slumped against the wall, trying to catch his breath. From the corner of his eye he watched the
rasa
stalk to the window, staring down to where the receding levels of Araboth gave way to the abyss that yawned beneath Archangels.

“What is it, Margalis?” he whispered. “What have you done?”

The
rasa
stared down at his metal hand. Without the glove it glittered brightly, a lethal sheen upon its fingertips. “I have killed your sister.”

Nasrani drew his breath in sharply. “Âziz?” He started for the window but the
rasa's
gaze stopped him. Nasrani wrung the edge of his gown.

“No. Shiyung.”

Nasrani shook his head. “Impossible.”

“No: true. I snapped her neck and left her on the floor of her chambers. If they have not found her yet she is there still.”

Nasrani stared in disbelief. Shiyung dead. He remembered her as a child, skinny as a rail, shrieking with laughter as she tricked him into playing some impossible game with her. And then each night, the four of them sharing a bed, forgotten by their parents (they shared a mother and three fathers between them) as they lay side by side by side by side, Nasrani spinning tales into the darkness like a web to snare their nightmares. And, long after, just himself and Shiyung, another impossible game of hers, over too quickly.

And now she was dead.

Nasrani sobbed, an awful sound like laughter catching in his throat. The
rasa
stared unblinking, then said, “Tell me where you've hidden the nemosyne.”

Nasrani's voice came out in a braying cough. “I knew you would.”

“The nemosyne, Nasrani.”

The exile tore at his face with his hands. “I told her when you broke with her, I told her you were a madman and she should have killed you then—”

“She was a fool not to.” The
rasa
turned once more to the window. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps even then she had this in store for me. I would rather have been dead. I wish I could die now.”

Suddenly he screamed, a thin, high shriek like a saw cutting through a sheet of tin. Nasrani trembled and fell back against the wall; but still the
rasa
wailed, longer than any human could have, until Nasrani clapped his hands to his ears and stumbled toward the door.

“No!”

The awful shriek turned into a shout. Nasrani staggered, reaching for the switch that would summon help from the palace. The
rasa
strode to his side and slashed at the wall. There was a flurry of sparks, the smell of melted plastic.

“No one will come help you, Nasrani.” His eyes swept over the cowering exile and he lifted his head disdainfully. “They will all be in Shiyung's chambers by now, discovering the body. Perhaps Nike will think to call you….”

Smoke curled from the tips of the
rasa's
fingers. He held them in front of his eyes, watching the thin gray trails turn to white and then disappear. The hollow voice cried, “You are all still children playing, aren't you? You have your petty disagreements, you take sides and banish each other to your little rooms, but this is all just a game to you.” He turned and paced across the room, smashed his metal hand against the glass. A single crack flowed across the pane, like a flaw in the heart of a crystal. “All of this, this city and everything Outside—you mold it and burn it and twist it to your liking. People too: you contort us as though we were your friend Planck's puppets, and then act surprised when we turn against you.”

Nasrani leaned against the wall. The
rasa
's anger seemed to calm him; if a dead Aviator could be undone by emotions, perhaps he could be undone, period. The color drained back into Nasrani's face.

“They will regenerate her,” he said, groping in his pocket until he found a pipe and a leather pouch. He stuffed a wad of kef into the bowl, lit it, and inhaled noisily. After a minute he glanced up at the looming shadow.

“As a
rasa
,” the dark figure said. “You would wish that on her? Your own sister?”

Nasrani's hands trembled as he tapped kef ash onto the floor. “How did you—how
could
you?” Tears spilled from his eyes again. “A
rasa
—it's impossible—”

“How did I kill her? Let us just say that I have not been myself lately.”

Nasrani sniffed. His rubbed his bloodshot eyes with an anguished expression. “Why do you want to see the nemosyne again?”

The
rasa
turned from the window. Below and all around them the daylights began streaming on, gold and blue and red, cascading down each level in sheets of light until the entire vast ziggurat shone and danced like a pyramid of blazing glass. For a few minutes they watched in silence.

Then, from the palace came a high piercing wail. Abruptly the daylights paled as overhead flames of white and blue swept the domes. Distress lights. Nasrani blanched. He had not seen them since the mass executions following the Archipelago Conflict.

The
rasa
said calmly, “You said that you believed the nemosyne knows things. Well, I have—
seen things
—that I would ask her about. You said that she had many secrets. Now I have secrets too.”

Nasrani joined him at the window, gazed up at the warning flares, the silhouettes of janissaries pouring like black water from their barracks.

“You really did it,” he said softly. He turned to the grim figure beside him. “You killed my sister. And now you want me to take you to the nemosyne.”

“Yes.” The
rasa's
voice betrayed nothing of entreaty, but the pale eyes were clouded. “I must see her. I am—haunted by something. From before—from before I died.
Someone.
I want to question the nemosyne about her.”

“And Shiyung?” Nasrani fairly shrieked. “What of her? You kill the margravine—my
sister!
—and you expect me to lead you around now, do whatever you wish—”

“Yes,” the
rasa
said softly. From a pocket in its silken robe it withdrew a black kidskin glove and carefully pulled it over its shining metal hand. “I do. And you will do it, because you have no choice.”

Nasrani's expression folded into defeat. He patted his pockets until he found his pipe again and smoked another bowl of kef. Outside the sirens wailed on; the distress lights arced back and forth across the domes. The
rasa
stood silently and waited, until Nasrani looked up and snapped, “I have never been able to speak with her. The interactive mode is dormant; she does nothing but go through her random access files and read from them. There is a way to activate that portion of her memory, though I have never learned it. But there are other things down there, I have seen them in the room with her—”

He laughed harshly. “Angels in the Undercity! I cannot speak to her, but those foul things cluster around her, and she hears them! And she speaks to them! Stories, poems—” His hands fluttered. “They call her Mother, and she answers. But she won't respond to my questions. I have no reason to believe she will answer yours.”

The
rasa
only nodded. Nasrani suddenly turned away, his eyes watering. He ran a hand over his face. “You didn't have to kill her,” he choked. The
rasa
tipped its head back so that the brilliant light outside the window flashed blindingly against its mask. “She could have left you dead but she didn't, she—”

“I care nothing about your sister,” the
rasa
hissed. “I want the nemosyne. Which one is it? One of the military units? A meteorological display?”

Nasrani wiped his eyes, then suddenly laughed shrilly. “Is that what you think? That you'll have another monster to command? No, Margalis! She's useless, utterly useless—women's stories and songs and bankrupt histories, that's all she's good for….”

“Then why do you hide her? Eh, Nasrani—”

He grabbed the man's arm. Nasrani felt the metal claws beneath the thin sheath of leather, their grip tightening until he gasped and then moaned. A dark stain spread across his sleeve.

“I must see her.” Nasrani whimpered. The
rasa's
touch was cold and foul as an open grave. “I need her to find the others, to see if any of the other units survived. I need them to track someone, someone Outside.
Take me to her now
—”

He shoved Nasrani from him. The man fell to his knees, groaning and trying to stanch the blood soaking his robe. “Yes,” he gasped. “I'll take you, of course I'll take you…”

The
rasa
nodded and extended his hand to help the man to his feet. “We will go then,” said the Aviator Imperator. His shadow filled the narrow doorway. “To the Undercity; to find the Mother of Angels.”

“Zalophus—oh, Zalophus,
please
—”

At the end of the zeuglodon's tank the gynander stood, panting. She had run all the way here, past the first shift of biotechs and vivisectors on their way to the Chambers of Mercy, past the white masked guards who hurried from the gravator as she rushed past them on her way down to Dominations. They all seemed too intent on their own business to notice her; news of Shiyung's murder had just reached the Orsinate's security staff. For the moment she was safe.

It was all too much, as though Ceryl's dream had grown to envelope the city and all within it; and Reive was in it, too, she could not escape no matter how quickly she fled. Only here did she feel she might somehow outrun it, that huge green serpent coiling about the domes and squeezing them until she could feel the floor beneath her buckling, the very walls bulging in upon her until she thought she would scream—

But that was just her heart pounding, her chest straining so that it felt as though stones bashed her insides. She stopped, panting, then began running again; because if she waited more than a moment, the Wave would overtake her.

Now Reive was in the main vivarium chamber, where biotechs padded on their morning rounds, drawing blood and brain tissue from the palingenic dolphins, checking the stress monitors on the gentle manatees, who wept like women when their calves were taken from them. A few of the workers eyed her curiously, but it was too early in the shift, there was too much to be done, to worry about a white-faced morphodite running aimlessly among the tanks.

“Oh, Zalophus, hurry, please—”

Her teeth chattered and she skipped from foot to foot like a child playing. “
Zalophus!
” she wailed.

An explosion; then a small island reared from the dark green surface. A single huge black eye stared at her, and teeth like a row of shinbones clashed as his voice boomed and filled the chamber.

“Oh, happy day, child of the morning, you have come to play with me?” Zalophus rolled onto his back, his huge fins splashing at the water so that a wave rolled over the side and soaked Reive.

“Zalophus,” she gasped, spluttering. “Oh, Zalophus, you must help us—”

“Of course,” the great whale crooned, “come here and I will sing to you, little thing, I will tell you about my sisters, and the icelands where they are waiting for us—”

“No, Zalophus! We need you, you must tell us where we can go to hide!”

Zalophus righted himself and stared at her with huge rolling eyes. “You have brought another siren,” he said hopefully. “That is so nice, sirens make such sweet companions.”

Reive shook her head, shivering. “No, we haven't. Zalophus, they will kill us, they think we murdered the margravine.”

Zalophus snapped his jaw. “A margravine would be just as nice.”

“No! She's not here, they—” Reive wrung her hands. “Zalophus, you know all the levels here, you've been beneath the domes. Tell us where we can go, where they won't find us. Tell us, please—we will come back, we will sneak here at night and bring you whatever you want—”