There was some confused discussion of Yuri's assassination. It was laid at the feet of Brendan Sheia, and two spies from Ravenon were named as accomplices. That explained why Calandria was currently disguised as a boy. She had cropped her hair and changed her voice and mannerisms. Right now she used the bag of potatoes to add swing to her shoulders as she walked, since otherwise her lower center of balance was harder to disguise.
People were also talking about Jordan Mason. No one knew his name, but some people had witnessed a confrontation between Turcaret and a young man. The controller had accused the youth of bringing the Heaven hooks down on the household.
Her shoulders itched as she walked—a familiar feeling that she was being watched, or followed. It had nothing to do with any townspeople who might glance at her on the way by. This was an older, and more fundamental, fear.
If she closed her eyes, Calandria could invoke her inscape senses: infrared sight and the galvanic radar that told of the presence of mecha or Winds. She couldn't help herself—every few minutes, she paused, closed her eyes, and looked around using these senses.
Ever since the night that the Heaven hooks came down, Calandria had refused to let herself be lulled back into thinking that Ventus was a natural place. She was trapped in the gears of a giant, globe-spanning machine—a nanotech terraforming system that barely tolerated her kind. This appeared to be ordinary dirt she walked on, but it had been manufactured; it took more than the thousand years that Ventus had been habitable for soil like this to form naturally. The air seemed fresh and clean, but that too was moderated by unseen forces.
Those unseen forces were a threat. They might yet kill her. So she remained vigilant.
Calandria turned into a narrow alley and went through a roughhewn door that had a latch but no lock. Up a flight of stairs, through another door, and she was home.
This was the safe room where they had intended to hide August Ostler. The room was about four by six meters. It had one window which let out on the street—not an advantage, because mostly it just let in the smell of the open sewer that ran down the center of the lane. The place was built of plaster and lath. Calandria could hear the landlady snoring in the room next door. But it was out of the elements, and warm at night. That was all that mattered.
Currently everything she had was in this room, or on her person. Their horses had been killed in the destruction of the Boros stables, and she never had recovered her pack with its supplies of offworld technology. That had complicated matters, over the past couple of days.
Axel Chan grunted something and shifted in his sleep. His face was still flushed from the fever that had gripped him since Turcaret's attack. His diagnostic nano were supposed to be able to handle routine infections. They didn't seem to be working. Without the proper equipment, Calandria couldn't determine why, though she suspected the local mecha were suppressing the offworld technology.
Would the same mecha contact the Winds and warn them of the presence of aliens here? Each night as she lay down, Calandria found herself imagining the harsh armatures of the Heaven hooks reaching down to pluck this small room apart.
It wasn't like her to be afraid. But then, she was never afraid of merely physical threats. This was something else.
She put the potatoes down on the room's one table. Axel coughed, and sat up.
"How are you feeling?" Calandria ladled some cold soup out and put it next to Axel. He drank it eagerly.
"As the good people of Memnonis like to say, I feel like a toad in a pisspot. Is this brackish swill best you could do?"
She sighed. "Axel, have you ever been truly ill in your life?"
"No."
She nodded. "Why?" asked Axel after a moment.
"Because your nurses would surely have strangled you in your bed, the way you carry on."
"Oh, ho," he said. "Leave then. I'll be fine on my own." He coughed weakly. "I'll manage somehow... I'll feed on the rats and bugs, and be sure to die somewhere out of the way, where no one will trip over my shrivelling corpse."
She laughed. "You do sound much better."
"Well..." He raised his arms and examined them. "I no longer feel like I'll leak all over if I just stand up. I should be able to ride in a day or two."
She shook her head. "It's going to take longer than that. We need you in top form when we go after Armiger."
He nodded, and sank back on the straw bed. "Any word on Jordan?"
"No one knows what happened to him, and I have no way to track him now. We used the Desert Voice's sensors to locate Armiger's remotes the first time. With the Voice missing, we don't have that option. Anyway, Jordan's probably on his way home. No reason he shouldn't be."
Axel shifted uncomfortably. "I don't like it. I still feel responsible."
"I know," she said. "But our first responsibility is to find Armiger and destroy him. If we don't do that, then Jordan won't be safe, no matter where he is."
Axel appeared to accept this logic. "I assume," he said, "that we're not going to take Armiger on ourselves at this point. Just track him down."
She nodded, coming to sit next to him. With the loss of the Desert Voice, they no longer had the firepower to destroy Armiger themselves. They would need help. At the same time, having the firepower wasn't enough: they had to find Armiger, run him to ground. Calandria wanted to be sure of where he was before they left Ventus for reinforcements.
Axel looked better, but was still pale. He'd lost weight. "As soon as we get a ping from a passing ship we'll try to get offworld," she promised. "Meanwhile, we can't afford to lose track of him."
"We may have already." He closed his eyes, wincing as he tried to turn on his side. "We don't know for sure that he's going after the queen."
"Yes. Well, it's all we've got." Axel didn't reply, and after a moment she stood and went to the window. His breathing deepened with sleep behind her, as Calandria looked out and up at a blue sky full of rolling white clouds. She fought the urge to look behind that facade at the alien machinery that maintained it.
Losing the Desert Voice was a catastrophe. She loved her ship, but more than that, they would have needed its power in order to destroy Armiger. Somewhere out there, beyond the rooftops and the clear air, he was hatching his schemes. She should be able to see him, like a stain on the landscape, she thought. It was horrifying that he should be invisible to the people he was setting out to enslave.
Calandria hugged herself, remembering what it had been like on the one world of 3340's she had visited. The people of Hsing had been traumatized to the point of madness; their only goal in life—more an obsession—was to win the attention and favor of 3340 by any means possible, so as to avoid destruction and win immortality as one of its demigod slaves. People would do anything, up to and including mass murder, to gain its attention. And once enslaved, they became embodiments of their most base instincts, in turn enslaving hundreds or thousands of innocents; or simply slaughtering them as unwanted potential competition.
And all the while, 3340 had eaten away at the skies and earth, rendering the planet progressively more toxic for the few unchanged humans who struggled to survive in the ruins.
Armiger might find the key he was looking for at any moment. Irrevocable change would come sweeping from over the horizon like a tsunami, and this time Calandria would not be able to stop it.
She sat down by the window, and forced her hands to stay still in her lap. There was nothing to do but wait. Wait—and watch the skies for a sign that the world was ending.
17
Megan had never seen so many books. They crowded on high shelves around all the walls of a large room on the third floor of the palace. All the shelves had diamond-patterned glass doors. She watched as Armiger walked from cabinet to cabinet, opening them in turn and gazing at their contents. This was their second day here, but as yet the queen had not found the time to speak to them. Armiger was getting restless.
The books didn't interest Megan, but the room itself was sumptuou
s. It contained a number of couches and leather-bound armchairs, with side-tables and many tall oil lamps. The entire floor was covered with overlapping carpets that glowed in the shafts of morning light falling from tall windows along one wall. She curled up in one of the armchairs, feet under her, to watch as Armiger prowled.
This room and the others in the queen's apartments provided a shocking contrast to the other parts of the palace she had seen. Below this tower, the palace grounds were crowded with the tents of refugees; children and the wounded cried everywhere, there was talk of cholera. The lower corridors and outbuildings bristled with armed men, and conversation there was strained and infrequent. Here, though, it was like another world—luxurious and calm.
Megan knew she would always remember their entry into these walls. Her first glimpse of the interior of the Summer Palace had been of torchlight gleaming off the helmets of a sea of men. Ragged banners hung from the facades of buildings half-ruined by Parliament's steam-cannon. The place reeked of fear and human waste. She had shrunk back on Armiger's arm as they were led along cordoned avenues between the tents, and into the vast tower that held Galas' audience chambers. And the moment they were inside its walls, they were in a minor paradise.
This contrast had disturbed her more than the misery itself. It still disturbed her, the more so since she found herself responding to the comfort of this armchair, the warmth of the nearby fire.
"Amazing," said Armiger.
She smiled. "You? Amazed? I doubt it."
He reached up to take down a very large, heavy and scrofulous looking volume. "I've been looking for this one since I arrived," he said. He waggled it at her as he went to perch on the edge of a desk. "Early histories relating some of the events immediately post-landing."
"Really?" She didn't know what he was talking about, but it was good to see him enthusiastic about something—something other than this queen Galas, anyway.
Armiger flipped through the pages quickly. "Hmm. Ah. There are major distortions, as one would expect from such a large passage of time."
"How large?"
"A thousand years. Not really very long; living memory for me, most of it. And on Earth there are complete daily records of practically everything that went on there from before that time... but Earth never Fell the way Ventus did. Miraculous." He shut the book; it made a satisfying thud and a waft of dust rose before his face.
"I take it you are glad we came," she said. "Despite the army outside?"
He waved his hand, dismissing either the dust or the besieging force. "Yes. I'm most likely to find out what I want to know here. In case they burn this library down, I'm going to read it."
"Read it? The whole thing? Tonight?" She didn't hide her disbelief.
"Well... maybe not all. Most, anyway." He smiled, an increasingly common thing lately.
"But why? This queen, she is important to you for what she can tell you. I see that now. But why is she so special? You want to talk to her. Her people want to kill her. What has she done?"
Armiger inspected another shelf. "Of course you wouldn't get much news living alone in the country as you did. Where to start, though? Galas has always been different, apparently.
"She was installed on the throne at a young age by the Winds. No one knows why. Whatever they wanted, she apparently didn't provide it, because they haven't lifted a finger to stop Parliament marching on her. But she's done extraordinary things."
He came to sit on the arm of a couch near her. "Galas is the sort of philosopher-monarch who arises once in a millenium," he said. "She may rank with Earthly rulers like Mao in terms of the scope of her accomplishments. People like her aren't content to merely rule a nation—they want to reinvent both it and the people who live in it."
Megan was puzzled, but interested now. "What do you mean, reinvent?"
"New beliefs. New religions. New economics, new science. And not just as a process of reform or nation-building. Rather as a single artistic whole. During her reign Galas has viewed her nation as an artistic medium to be shaped."
She shifted uncomfortably. "That's... horrible."
Armiger seemed surprised. "Why? Her impulse has been to improve things. And she's almost never used force, certainly not against the common people. Her actions are reminiscent of those of the Amarna rulers of ancient Egypt... sorry, I keep referring to things you can't know.
"Anyway, what she did was give her people a completely new, and all-encompassing, vision of the world. Nothing has been left unchanged—art, commerce, she has even tried to reform the language itself."
Megan laughed. "That's silly."
Armiger shrugged. "She's failed at a lot of things. In terms of language, she tried to ban the use of possessives when speaking of emotional states, motives and people. So that you could not say, 'he is my husband' for instance."
She glowered. "That is evil."
"But you could also not say that something is his fault, or her fault. She wanted to remove assignments of blame from speech and writing, and refocus expression on contexts of behavior. To eliminate victimless crimes, crimes of ostracization, for instance the 'crime' of being a homosexual. Also to move the emphasis of Justice away from blame and punishment to behavior management. Far too ambitious for a single generation. So it didn't work.
"But no one on Ventus has ever thought of these things before. Galas is entirely original in her thinking."
"So why are they out there?" She pointed to the windows.
"Oh, the usual reasons. She started threatening the stability of the ruling classes, at least in their own eyes. No ruler who does that ever stands for long. She'd built experimental towns recently, out in the desert. Each operated on some one of the new principles she espoused. Naturally most of them flew in the face of orthodox mores. Of course the salt barons will revolt if you display an interest in eliminating money from commerce!"
"You make me sound like a fool."
Galas stood in the doorway, in a blue morning-dress, her hair bound up by golden pins. Megan hurried to her feet and curtsied. Armiger languidly bowed, shaking his head.
"It is merely the voice of experience, your majesty. Humans become violent when they feel their interests are threatened."
Galas scowled. "They were never threatened! Parliament is a rumor-mill staffed by trough-fed clods who abuse the tongue of their birth every time they open their mouths. They all gabble at once and confuse one another mightily, and when this confusion is committed to paper they refer to it as 'policy'."
"I won't dispute that, having never attended," Armiger said.
The queen swept into the room. Two members of the royal guard followed, to take positions on either side of the doorway. "I had to try," Galas said bitterly. "For centuries no one has tried anything new! So what would be one more life in dumb service to tradition? Where would it get us, except back where we started when the wheel of this life had come around again? Someone had to ask questions men have been afraid to ask all that time. It has always been obvious to me that no one else would do it, either now or in the future. I had to do it all, even the things you call foolish. Else how could we know anything? Anything at all?"
Armiger said nothing, but he nodded in acquiescence.
"Sometimes one's responsibility goes beyond one's own generation," Galas said. She sat in the chair next to Megan's, and smiled at her warmly. "I trust you slept well, lady?"
"Yes, thank you, your highness."
"And you, Sir Maut? Do you even sleep?" Her voice held a teasing note.
He inclined his head. "When it suits me." Then he frowned. "I hope you don't view us a pair of jesters, here to distract you from what's waiting outside your gates. My purpose is quite serious—as serious as your own situation."
Galas' eyes flashed, but she only said, "I remain to be convinced. That is all."
"Fair enough." Armiger moved from his perch on the arm of the couch, to sit down properly. "So, who am I, and what do I want of you? That is what you would like to k
now."
Galas nodded. Megan saw that the moth-note Armiger had written her was stuck, folded, through the belt of her dress. Perhaps she had been rereading it over breakfast. For reassurance?
Megan couldn't begin to imagine what it must be like for her, with those men camped outside, waiting permission to brutalize and destroy everything. Servants killed, treasured possessions robbed... but Galas was outwardly cool.
She must be crying inside. It's cruel of Armiger to give her any hope now.
"Ask me anything," said Armiger. "Ask me something to test my knowledge, if you wish."
"Were all my mistakes obvious?" blurted the queen. "Is what I've fought for all my life trivially simple anywhere else? Am I a primitive, next to the people who live on other stars?"
"They might think so," said Armiger. "I do not."
"If you are what you say you are, then it makes all the pain I've suffered—and inflicted—pointless." Galas was not looking at them, but off into the middle distance. "I've been so busy since you arrived, making final preparations... the assault will come soon. But there hasn't been an instant when I didn't wonder why I was bothering. If everything I've tried to discover was learned millenia ago... I feel like the gods are laughing at me. I feel like an ant all puffed up with pride over having laboriously mapped out the boundaries of a garden. I don't think you can tell me anything to change that impression."
Armiger smiled. "I must be the fool, then, to waste my time talking to an ant."
"Don't make light of this!" She rose and went to stand over him. Megan was amazed at how Galas seemed to tower over Armiger, though the difference in their heights was such that even with him sitting, they were almost eye to eye.
Armiger was unfazed. "I was not. It is you who are belittling yourself."
Galas whirled and walked to the windows. "Then tell me I'm wrong! Tell me about the heavens—who lives there, what are they like? Have you walked on other planets? Talked to their people? Are they all-knowing, all-wise—or are they fools like us?"
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