He dragged his mental processes back upwards, and pulled his lips away from Minori’s, settling his face against her neck, so he could look behind her, up to where the man on the balcony had been, hours before. Can you detect any intentions? Any changes in him?
. . . I can sense that he watches. But his sense shifts. Alters. Blurs. Lassair’s voice became more concerned. He may be using blood to hide himself. It’s not a spirit-mask. Then I’d either sense nothing at all, if the spirit was very skilled, or . . . just the spirit itself.
“Well, that’s not exactly against the law,” Kanmi muttered.
“But it is suspicious,” Minori replied, softly. He could feel the hitch in her breath, attributed it to fear, and moved them both indoors, reinforcing the heavy shielding he held over their bodies. Feeling her powers weave into his, two seamless layers of barriers. It had been a strain to hold them up for so long, and he’d need to eat like a horse at lunch and dinner, but he didn’t want to take any more risks.
“Once you’re in the room with Tren and Asha,” Kanmi told her, quietly, moving for the stairs, “I’ll go across the street and see if I can’t find our friend and have a little conversation with him.”
“Alone? That’s unwise. Take Trennus with you. Please.”
“That’ll leave you and Asha alone—”
“We’ll guard each other. You won’t be gone that long. And you’re not the only one who wants answers.” This, just outside the door of the room.
Kanmi, nodded, opened it, and stepped inside. Once they’d closed it behind them, he put his hands behind his back and noted, clinically, “Get it over with.”
Minori blinked up at him. “Get what over with?”
“Slap me, if you’re going to.”
“Why would I do that?” Her blank stare seemed genuine, and then she flushed. “Oh. Because of . . . oh. No. You were . . . improving the disguise. As I requested you to do.” She moved away, flushing more brightly, and Kanmi looked after her, a little puzzled.
“So . . . we’re all right then?” he asked, tentatively.
A quick, embarrassed-looking nod. He stared at her averted head for a moment, shrugged, and replied, “All right then. Thank you for not taking it amiss. I’ll grab Tren and go find this asshole now. And don’t forget, we have dinner with the son of the regional governor tonight.” He rolled his eyes, grateful that she didn’t seem inclined to put him on the rack with questions or concerns or the desire to talk about the incident, so he took that as a sign of favor straight from the gods themselves, and went to get Trennus, as promised.
Unfortunately, when they came back out again, the man watching them had vanished, beyond even Lassair’s ability to detect. Something that made them all very uneasy, indeed.
That evening, the four of them made their way into the noble’s district of town. The city’s highly stratified culture might have made it more difficult to know how to dress or what to expect, but, fortunately, Micos Cornelius was the son of a Roman patrician, although he’d been raised locally. “My father served here during the tenure of the last Sapa Inca as well,” Micos informed them as he ushered them into his triclinium, which had frescoes in the Roman style that depicted centaurs carrying away screaming human women.
Now there’s an inducement to appetite, Kanmi thought, and blanked his expression before glancing around again. He sighed internally. He’d never quite gotten adept at eating Roman-style, lying down and raised on one elbow. At least the Romans don’t send their women away during the meal, as the ancient Hellenes who started this whole fashion used to, he thought, but it was Trennus who asked, politely, “Forgive me, but surely there aren’t enough couches. Will the ladies be joining us? Why, I don’t even see a couch for your wife.”
Oh, shit. Good call, Tren. We don’t want to be separated from Minori and Lassair. Not after today . . . .
A flicker of expression crossed Micos’ face. “My wife Pitahaya is, unfortunately, at a medical facility to the south. Her condition doesn’t really allow her to enjoy company much, these days, I’m afraid.” He gestured at the three couches currently set up, and added, lightly, “I’m old-fashioned. The couches in my house are wide enough to accommodate three people each, and I see no reason to have the ladies leave us. Nor, I think, would you be thanking me if I had invited you all to dine with me, only to chase the loveliest members of our company away at once!”
Kanmi took the time afforded by Micos’ extravagant mannerisms to school his face once more as he escorted Minori to the couch that they would, apparently, be sharing as they ate. Two diners on one couch permitted one to choose between lying behind one another, spooned up, as new lovers generally chose to eat, or a head-to-toe configuration, generally favored by strangers, or those long enough married to appreciate the ability to converse with company without having to look over someone else’s head the entire time. He’d never gotten the hang of three people reclining on a single couch, and Livorus had never required his guests at the villa to triple up.
Still, given their cover, there was only one way in which he could eat with Minori. Thus, moments later, he found himself curled up behind her, his noses inches from her hair, his hips inches from her rounded backside, and doing his level best to ignore both facts. I am obviously being punished for something, Kanmi thought, tiredly, and focused his mind as entirely on the conversation flowing around him as he could. “I really must apologize for the lack of truly Roman delicacies,” Cornelius told them as servants brought in the first course, which appeared to be cuy, or roasted guinea pigs. “I’d offer dormice, but even with modern refrigeration, I find I just don’t trust them unless they’re brought live from the Italian Peninsula and killed and dressed here.”
Kanmi reached over Minori and pulled a tiny leg from a carcass, before rubbing it gently against her lower lip as if to entice her to eating straight from his fingers. Don’t stiffen up, don’t flinch, was his mental mantra, and he was relieved as she accepted the morsel, stripping some of the flesh from the bones with her teeth. “You’ll find that my friend Matrugena here is a Pict. That means that he truly will eat anything, except perhaps insects.” Through the general laughter, Kanmi tried to probe for a little information. “So you’ve lived here your entire life?”
“Yes, besides the eight years I spent in Rome at university. Studying sorcery and summoning,” Cornelius gestured. “And here I have four guests who bring all my favorite interests under my roof at once.” He smiled, but his eyes seemed to be lingering on Lassair at the moment. “Of course, I’ve diversified my studies over time. I’ve had to, as the Sapa Inca has turned to me for advice on this matter or that.”
“And what has he asked you for advice on?” Trennus asked, slipping an arm around Lassair to break off more cuy, and fed her, as well. The spirit’s eyes half-closed in appreciation of the food.
“Farming, and ways to improve crop yields, so that we can get our serfs off the traditional suka kollus farming methods. They can make use of incredibly marginal ground, but they’re exceedingly labor-intensive. Once we have a sustainable agricultural base that doesn’t require backbreaking labor by fifty percent of the population, we can put those people to work doing other things. We can free them.” Cornelius’ voice was earnest.
And what methods have you looked into, to improve the crop yields? Lassair asked, genuine interest in her voice, but the spirit looked uneasy about something. A whisper crawled through Kanmi’s mind, in Lassair’s silent voice . . . he is masked. He wears a lock of his wife’s hair, her life-essence amplified with magic. I cannot see him, not clearly. I cannot see his spirit.
Kanmi considered that, rapidly. Vials of blood and lockets (literally, cases intended for carrying locks of hair) were not uncommon among the nobility for their masking qualities. A governor’s son would be an excellent target for extremists, and there was unrest in Tawantinsuyu. He glanced around, and saw the shadows of bodyguards on the balcony, outside the room’s single window. It all made sense, certainly.
Out loud, Cornelius was explaining now, “Largely, to be honest, weather control, my dear.” His eyes lingered on Lassair, as many a man’s did. “I’ve been fascinated by the bumper crops being harvested in places like Rome and Judea of late, which local scientists are attributing to truly amazing weather patterns. Periodic storms that have yielded more rainfall in Judea in each of the past five or six years, than any of the past hundred on record. Similar patterns in the Italian Peninsula. It’s enough to get people there talking about microclimate change.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
Five years would also be the amount of time that Lassair’s been living with Trennus in Rome. And given the fact that every time Caetia frowns, I hear thunder in the distance . . . eh, could be coincidence. “See what I know?” Kanmi tried to force a chuckle. “I didn’t even know it had been a good growing cycle. I only notice if the price of chickpeas goes up at the market.” The servants had just brought in another course, this time a soft, white local cheese. Kanmi reached for a bite, but Minori beat him to it, and leaned back to offer it to him, turning to whisper against his ear, “I’m lactose intolerant.”
Of course, I’d know that if we actually were an item. Kanmi took the morsel of food out of Min’s fingers, and redirected his attention to their host. He went on, quickly, “Weather control seems as if it would be a huge energy cost, as opposed to better fertilizer and tilling methods. Plus, if you make it rain more here, it’ll result in desertification elsewhere, won’t it?” And with no way to be sure of where it would occur. Intent focus on the work and the words. Anything that let him not think about the smell of the good doctor’s skin and hair.
Micos shrugged. “Then that would be the problem of the people who lived there, would it not?”
The conversation was like that all night. It staggered to strange topics several times. Over wine, Cornelius admitted that his wife had Paredes’ disease, a congenital shaking illness that caused the muscles to spasm, and eventually caused paralysis and degeneration of the entire nervous system, including, eventually, the brain. He didn’t disclose how long she’d had it, or how far advanced it was, but admitted that he’d exhausted all that modern medical science had to offer, and that the gods and priests weren’t much help, either. His voice was tinged with bitterness as he added, “I’ve been researching alternative treatments for some time.”
Alternative treatments usually quack and fly south in winter. They were on the dessert course by now, and Kanmi was doing his best to feed Minori and himself sorbet, while ignoring the fact that his left arm, pinned under him for this exceedingly long dinner, was a mass of painful pins and needles. Not to mention the fact that every time Minori moved, she brought her backside right up against him. He tried to take his mind off it, by pushing Cornelius a little on the subject of the Sapa Inca, and the man modestly admitted to having become a more prominent member of the emperor’s inner circle than his own father, the provincial governor. “My father looks to the past, I’m afraid. Sayri Cusi looks to the future. As do I.” Again, his eyes lingered on Lassair.
Trennus, locking an arm around his spirit-wife, tried a few questions, himself. “What do you think of this recent spate of earthquakes in the region?” and “are you in favor of terminating the electric grid that exists here in Nahautl in favor of ley-power?” but Micos wouldn’t be drawn into many side tracks. He kept bringing the subject back to fertility in the land, fertility in the people, and fertility in the minds of the people. A period of rebirth was needed, he thought, for his people to take their true place on the world’s stage. And by his people, the middle-aged Roman clearly meant the people among whom he’d lived since birth—those of Tawantinsuyu.
As they left for the evening, none of them noticed that behind them, the various potted plants in front of Cornelius’ elegant villa were currently in full bloom, in spite of the persistent chill in the air.
Kanmi shook his head as they got into their car. “Well, that was probably something of a waste of time,” he admitted to the rest of them. “He might have Sayri Cusi’s ear and some surprisingly radical sentiments for a Roman patrician, but . . .” He grimaced. “He does have a surprising number of bodyguards, though.”
“To hear him tell it, Sayri Cusi doesn’t blow his nose without asking him if it’s a good idea,” Trennus replied from where he was driving their motorcar, with surprising dourness. “If he’s half as important as he thinks he is, maybe the bodyguards, the wards on his home, and the masking techniques to hide his spirit are justified.”
You didn’t like him, Lassair said, a saucy sort of smile on her face.
“I’m used to men and women staring at you, Asha.” Trennus shrugged, keeping his hands on the wheel and his eyes on the road. “That doesn’t bother me. His wasn’t the usual kind of staring. He was . . . evaluating.”
Back at their hotel, Kanmi took the longest, coldest shower he could remember taking in years, and leaned against the tile the whole time, trying to figure out if he’d be able to tell the good doctor no tonight, if she again told him that they needed to make their cover seem more real. And when he stumbled back out into the main room, the fact that she was already asleep on the couch was both a relief and disappointment at the same time. Mind on the mission, he told himself, and prepared to stare at the ceiling for a few hours. Caetia and ben Maor should be here soon enough.
___________________
Maius 20-21, 1960 AC
After twenty-four hours of travel, the last ten hours of which had been in an ornithopter ride so rocky that even Adam had looked a little strained, and Livorus’ famous composure had been tested, Sigrun wasn’t entirely sure if it was the ground that was moving, or if the fluid in her inner ears was still sloshing around. In either case, she had to concentrate to move properly. She slid on her smoked lenses as she preceded Livorus down the ornithopter’s stairs to the ground, warily watching their surroundings. Dark clouds loured over the city of Cuzco, and Sigrun’s mood matched them as they spat down speckles of frozen rain.
They’d called the ground team at the hotel from the Tenochtitlan airport, just to make sure nothing had truly changed. Tren had sounded agitated, and promised details when they got in. When they arrived at the hotel, and Livorus was set up in the best suite on the top floor, the four main lictors, along with Minori and Lassair, met there to debrief. Lassair threw her arms around first Sigrun, then Adam, relief washing out of her almost palpably. I am so glad you are here, sister, Lassair admitted, after a few explanations had ensued. I touched the mind of the god-born woman. I found no lies in her. We can trust what she says, but all of her words were founded on what her goddess told her. Her goddess . . . was in much fear, when she touched my mind. She may have been mistaken.
“If I had been trapped in a prison for two years,” Sigrun muttered, “The first thing I would do would be to attempt to end my captors. Perhaps the same holds true for this goddess.”
She sensed Adam shifting his shoulders, uncomfortably, and watched as Kanmi, as usual, paced the floor as he talked. The short man never stopped moving. And her mouth fell open as she listened to what they all had to say. Livorus’ eyes were heavy-lidded as he finally summarized, “So, we have an unknown form of technomancy, either emanating from the towers, to constrain the entities inside the Lines, or the entities in the Lines are being used to power the towers. We have spirit-based energy, flooding the ley-grid of Tawantinsuyu, in a geologically unstable area. And we have the Sapa Inca, unlike Emperor Achcauhtli in Nahautl, five years ago, apparently right in the thick of it. A good reason to call on me for diplomatic inveigling, I suppose.” Livorus rubbed at his chin, consideringly. “Matrugena, Dr. Sasaki . . . would you say that the region is in imminent danger of geologic activity if they were to have . . . what is that charming phrase so often used by Judean nuclear engineers?”
“A melt-down,” Adam supplied, grimly.
“Yes, that.” Livorus flicked his fingers. “Would such an event threaten other nati
ons in the region?”
Trennus and Minori traded glances. “Judging from the amount of energy in the grid? I can only compare it to someone flooding the aqueducts in Rome,” Trennus said, tersely. “Or ground, oversaturated with rainwater.”
“Or my aquifer analogy,” Minori put in quietly.
“Precisely. All that energy will need somewhere to go, sir. And until a few weeks ago, I would never have thought that you could add power to a ley-line. It’s never been tried, to my knowledge, before.”
Minori looked up now. “As to your other question . . . yes, dominus.” Her tone was respectful. “If an energy charge outside of Tenochtitlan could cause the Burgundoi earthquake of 1950, then we could see earthquakes resonating from here up to Tenochtitlan, easily. Into Quecha. Tsunamis in the Pacifica are certainly a possibility.”
Livorus looked out the window at the gray skies. “Then that is how I will begin my approach to the Sapa Inca,” he said, wearily. “I would hope that the ruler of thirty-six million people would have slightly more concern for their well-being, and the well-being of his neighbors, but people can be somewhat short-sighted at times.” He looked around. “And the only indication that we have, thus far, as to motivation is that he has attempted to make changes to the social structures of his empire?”
He wished to make his land bloom, Lassair volunteered, unexpectedly.
“Yes,” Kanmi muttered. “I spent a good part of last night going through his old speeches in newspaper accounts. He wasn’t just talking about jobs and the economy. He wanted a rebirth.” Eshmunazar put his hands behind his back and frowned, measuring the room with his strides. “He wanted national pride. He wanted his people to compete with other nations in natural philosophy, technology, and the arts. He wanted to change the social structure, and move away from suka kollus farming.”
“Bloom,” Sigrun muttered, and looked at Lassair. “Fertility.”
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