Gradient

by Anders Cahill

  The statue opened her mouth wide and let out a fearsome jet of fire.

  Saiara and I both leapt back in surprise.

  The teenagers clapped and cheered with delight.

  The komodo woman bowed low, touching her long snout to the ground.

  Saiara laughed her vivid, joyful laugh.

  The komodo stood up and winked at us, smoke steaming from her nostrils.

  “Come on,” Saiara said, taking my hand again. “I’m famished.”

  It was well past lunchtime. Wandering through the hall was a feast for the senses, but our bellies were empty. At the far end of the park, we found a street cook selling fried arro and shredded poultra. We sat on the lip of a fountain, water misting the warm air, baskets of food perched on our laps.

  “I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier,” I said, licking grease off my fingers.

  Saiara’s mouth was too full to respond, but she nodded, a noodle hanging from the corner of her lip, and grunted her agreement.

  I wrapped my arm around her and planted an oily kiss on her cheek.

  She pretended to guard her basket of food from me as she swallowed her bite. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re really after, you greasy thief,” she said. “Go buy more poultra if you’re still hungry!”

  I laughed, then cupped my hand in the fountain and splashed water at her.

  She pretended not to notice and kept eating.

  I cupped some more water and used it to rinse the oil from my hands and lips.

  “Pardon me, fair travelers,” a cheerful voice said.

  A tall, pale-skinned man stood in front of us, leaning on a cane. He wore a curious suit with a long, dark jacket hanging to his knees. The jacket opened in the front, and beneath it, he wore a puffed white shirt with a high collar, layered under a slate vest striped with wire-thin charcoal. A length of garish fabric encircled his neck.

  His face was broad and friendly, with dark, wide-set, slender oval eyes. He wore a tall, piped hat on his head, and his hair fell out from the hat down to his shoulders. The thick, wavy strands could not hide his large ears from poking out.

  “I am terribly sorry to interrupt your feast,” he said, “but might you know the way to the amphitheater? These serpentine streets have me utterly befuddled.”

  He spoke the universal tongue, but with a strange, magnificent accent. Every word sounded gleaming and polished, a high, arched tone.

  We gaped at him.

  “Oh my, but where have I left my graces?” he said. “Please forgive me, fair travelers. Here I am, barging in on you without so much as single world of proper introduction.” He held out his left hand with a flourish. He was wearing cream white gloves the same color as his shirt. “I am Baron Eyel Dunsemai, heir to the empty coffers of the once mighty nobles of Semai. As I am sure you have no doubt heard, my family line fell on hard times some generations back. The crude provincials of this derelict arrondissement take great pleasure in the Semai family’s fall from grace.

  “This, of course, all happened long before I was born. If I had been in power then, we would have no doubt avoided this whole unfortunate mess. Still, I inherited the august and honorable mantle of my lineage, and though my antecedents cursed me to live as a penniless pauper, I comport myself with dignity, unbent by the stones and cudgels of those poor, uncultured commoners who traffic in the misery and scandal of galactic nobility.”

  I looked at Saiara, my eyebrows raised. She gave me a quiet shake of her head. I dried my hands on my shirtsleeves and then took his gloved hand in mine. “I’m Oren. Oren Siris. Of Verygone. This is Saiara Tumon Yta. Of Jarcosa.” It seemed right to share our full names with him.

  “Well met, sire Siris and lady Yta.” He touched his silken fingers to my wrist.

  There was an awkward pause, and worry creased my thoughts. The wild idea occurred to me that he might be waiting for us to share some equally personal facet of our lives, as if revealing one’s woes was a social courtesy that we were crudely ignoring.

  He coughed politely. “Now then…” he said. “The amphitheater?”

  “Oh right!” I said with relief. “Actually, yes, we do know the way. Someone told us earlier. We need to find the arch of… what was it, Saiara?”

  “Yincoln. In the north quarter.”

  “The great Yincoln!” Dunsemai said. “But of course. How foolish of me to forget such an obvious landmark. I know just the route to bring us between the stout old man’s legs.”

  “His legs?”

  Dunsemai chuckled. “Apologies. I am a risible comedian. The arch rises over the northern thoroughfare, and it has always made me think of a man squatting to loose his bowels.”

  Saiara laughed.

  Dunsemai gave her an appreciative smile, then turned on his heel, lifted his cane, and started walking away from us at a fast clip.

  Saiara and I looked at each other. “What just happened?” she whispered.

  “I have no idea.”

  “Ho there!” Dunsemai called back to us. “Why do you tarry? The suns are well past peak, and the day lumbers ever onwards. Come along now!”

  * * *

  The moment we arrived to Tulburn Hall, we promptly forgot about Weiono’s recommendation to seek out the performance. Now, thanks to Dunsemai, we were heading straight there. The baron was an entertaining companion, voluble and opinionated, and as we walked towards the amphitheater, he tipped his hat or waved his cane at almost everyone we passed. Some regarded him as if he were a madman, but many others seemed to recognize him, smiling, or waving, or calling out his name.

  The arch of Yincoln looked beautiful, its domed peaks rising above the thoroughfare, its veneer encrusted with sculptures that told of great histories from ancient eras. But Dunsemai had ruined it from me. Approaching from afar, it was all I could do not to see the bulk of the structure and think about his image of an old man hunching down to defecate.

  “You cannot unsee it, can you?” Dunsemai said, intuiting my thoughts. He wore a wicked grin.

  I shook my head and laughed. Dunsemai clapped me on the back, laughing with me.

  Soon, we passed beneath the arch. Hundreds and hundreds of people, too many to count, congregated in the shelter of its vaulting, peddlers and buskers and footstool preachers all vying for attention, their voices echoing above our heads.

  As we threaded the heavy foot traffic, I noticed a half-dozen men idling ahead of us. Two were crouched down, tossing copper ingots on the cobblestones in patterns too quick for me to follow. The rest stood, watching the game unfold. As we approached, one of the men turned, and a look of sly recognition lit up his face. He stepped forward, lifting his hand in greeting.

  “Weh heh heh,” he said, “if it in’t ol’ baron the dunce. Ne’er thought we’d see you in these parts again.” He was a short, stout man, dressed plainly, with a heavyset forehead and strong, wide hands.

  Dunsemai, who was looking in the other direction, turned at the man’s words and blundered right into him. His gloved hands came up against the man’s torso.

  The man reached his arms around the baron, trying to grasp him tight, but Dunsemai was surprisingly quick. He slipped the man’s grasp and jumped away.

  “Be gone, ruffian,” he shouted, brandishing his cane. “We’ve no time for your brutish posturing. The performance is starting soon.”

  “I’ll give you a performance you won’t soon be forgettin’, dunce,” the man said, cracking his knuckles, his face grim. “Yer debts are so deep, they owe debts o’ their own, and yer fancy noble name won’t be nothing more than werds for yer gravestone.”

  I stepped forward, raising my chest and shoulders. “We have no enmity with you, good sir, but baron Dunsemai is our companion and our guide. And we are running late. Best return to the game. I’m sure you can find another time to settle whatever business lies between you.”

  The man squinted, looking up at me. He had the bent nose and scarred knuckles of a brawler, but I towered over him. Dunsemai sto
od to my left, his cane at the ready. Saiara slid in behind my right flank, using her steely glare to good effect.

  The man’s eyes flickered between the three of us as he turned over his options. After another moment, he put two fingers behind his ear, flicked them toward us, then stalked back to his group.

  “I’m beginning to think that’s not a gesture of respect,” Saiara said.

  “You are most perceptive, lady Yta,” Dunsemai said. “That is Lurkur U’Atsa. He is a boor and a criminal, and respect is as foreign to him as personal hygiene. But you forced him to face his own inborn cowardice. That was well done.”

  “I knew a lot of people like him where I grew up,” I said. “Except they were twice his size. Lurkur wouldn’t last long on Verygone.”

  “Perhaps we can shuttle him there?” Dunsemai said with excitement. “Is it a lengthy journey?”

  “Quite.”

  “Excellent! That shall give him ample time to ponder the foolishness of crossing wits with Baron Eyel Dunsemai.” He pointed his index finger up in the air. “I know a deputy in interplanetary shipping who owes me a favor or three. I’ll speak with him after this evening’s performance and have the arrangements made.”

  Neither of us could tell whether he was serious.

  “These copper ingots should cover the costs,” he went on. He opened his palm, revealing a small mound of copper in his gloved hand.

  I looked at him, astonished. “Did you…?”

  Dunsemai waved his hand, dismissing my concern. “U’Atsa is a cheat and a cutpurse. I’ve no doubt he pinched this from some gullible sightseer or desperate gambler. A cretin and his coinage are soon parted. U’Atsa lives by that law, and so it is only fair that he is subject to it as well, no?”

  I shook my head, speechless.

  “You know, baron,” Saiara said, after a moment, “for a man who supposedly couldn’t find his way to the amphitheater, you seem to know your way quite well around these parts.”

  The baron gave her a shrewd look. “Never forget, lady Yta: masks do not make the man, but we all have our roles to play, in the end.”

  “What does that mean?” she said.

  But he was already ahead of us again, leading us out the other side of the domed arch. We came to a broad, manicured lawn. Dozens of people were lounging on blankets, eating and drinking. Dunsemai led us through them with confidence, always careful to keep his feet on the grass, never intruding in the invisible bubble of personal space surrounding each cluster of people.

  This public act of mutual disregard had fascinated me ever since coming to Manderley. I noticed it everywhere, the way thousands of individuals could all be alone together, crowded into streets or halls or canteens, ignoring everyone who was not in their immediate sphere of attention. Back on Verygone, we lived in close quarters, especially during the winters, and we developed our own ways of finding solitude when we needed it. The same was true on Transcendence. It was easy to sneak away to some quiet corner. But here, people were everywhere, on a scale I had never experienced. I felt awkward and self-conscious, intensely aware of my clumsy bulk as we navigated through the picnickers.

  Then we came to the lip of the amphitheater, and I forgot myself. The grass grew right up to the edge of the back row of seating, and hundreds more people filled the granite seats. The resonant acoustic bowl was alive with the hum of conversation.

  And every single person wore a mask.

  Each mask was unique. Some wore simple masks that circled the eyes and covered the nose. Others had exaggerated human heads with leering expressions and monstrous features. There were also inhuman masks, ursine and lupine, feline and reptile, a vast menagerie of totemic animals. A woman near us wore an aquiline feathered headdress with a sharp curving beak, and the man next to her had ophidian jaws sculpted with wicked fangs.

  I was so taken with this spectacle that I did not notice the woman until she was next to us. Slight of build, her cherry red hair was cropped and chunky, with a dusting of glitter. Charcoal makeup lined her eyes, and a golden face mask covered her nose and mouth. She held two more masks, one in each hand.

  “Ah,” Dunsemai said, “there you are.” He took the masks from the woman. “Most grateful, my dear.”

  She bowed, saying nothing, then turned and disappeared back into the crowd.

  Dunsemai handed us each a mask.

  Mine was a hooded naja snake. It was hyperrealistic, as if some hunter had traveled deep into an undiscovered jungle and hacked off the head of a gigantic thonidae. The scales of the snakehead were glossed in the late afternoon sunlight, and I could feel the individuation of each scale as I ran my fingers over them. The fangs were ivory white and tipped with brass. I touched the point of one with my index finger, then pulled away in surprise. A drop of blood sprang out of my fingertip.

  “Careful there, sire Siris. The sculptor who fashioned that mask is a fanatic for detail. You are most lucky we convinced him to leave out the poison.”

  I put my finger in my mouth, licking the pinprick wound. Saiara held her mask out in front of her with both hands, examining it. It was the mantle of some bird of prey, with fierce amber eyes and snow white feathers speckled with black. Where mine was intensely detailed, hers was more abstract. It did not look like any specific type of bird I had ever seen. More like the idea of one.

  “Go on,” he said, smiling at us encouragingly.

  We looked at each other.

  “You first,” Saiara said, a smile crinkling her eyes.

  I hesitated. “This day just keeps getting stranger… so, why in blazes not?”

  I slid the mask over my head until I could see out through the open mouth.

  It fit perfectly.

  “You look downright wicked,” Saiara said. She pulled hers on.

  “There you are,” Dunsemai said, nodding with pleasure. “Now we can begin.”

  10 The Myth of the Autarch

  “Where did he go?” My field of vision was limited by the mask. I swiveled my head left and right, but I saw no sign of the baron.

  “He’s gone,” Saira said, her voice muffled.

  We were still standing at the back of the amphitheater, and the sounds of the crowd were distorted by my mask. Much of the noise was unintelligible, but I kept catching snatches of conversation as if people were speaking right into my ear.

  “Manderley cannot last if the coven fails to address this,” someone said.

  “I heard she’d show herself here tonight,” someone else said.

  “Your fifth sounds flat,” said another.

  “Fortunes have been lost in a single toss.” Yet another.

  There was no logic to the conversation. They seemed to be talking over each other, not to each other. I tried to make sense of it, but the pervasive murmur of the crowd jostled all the noise together. I couldn’t find a coherent thread.

  Then a woman stepped out onto center stage and a hush fell over the crowd. We had a clear view of her down the aisle of stairs that led to the stage. She wore a classical dress, cerulean blue against powder white skin, the neckline plunging low. A crystal amulet shining with the colors of the rainbow hung from her neck, casting spots of color across the stage like a prism, and the train of the dress formed a watery pool of fabric on the ground, trailing behind her as she walked. She wore a bejeweled crown, gleaming chrome encrusted with rubies, and a veil of silver lace fell in front of her face.

  I don’t know why, but I was nervous. I took Saiara’s hand. The firmness of her grasp comforted me.

  The woman on stage started singing, unaccompanied, a gorgeous, lilting, wordless melody. Her voice resonated inside my mask as if I were standing right next to her, and that’s when I realized we were linked to an amplification system on the stage. The mingled voices from a moment ago were people near the front, speaking loud enough to get picked up by the system.

  The orchestra in the pit below front of stage came to life, picking up the singer’s melody, adding color and harmony and a driv
ing, staccato rhythm. Every instrument was crystal clear; the sustained swell of bowed cellofahns; the rattle of mallets on timpani skin; the reedy hum of clariphones. The music reached a rattling crescendo, but her voice came through pure and clear, vibrating above the instruments like a bird gliding on air.

  The wave of music broke. She stopped singing. The instruments quieted, trailing off into raindrop patters of percussion mingling with melodic fragments of brass and wind until there was nothing but silence.

  She stood as still as a statue, her arms at her side, her lace veil rising and falling with the flutter of her recovering breath. The creak of chairs and muted strings whispered in my ears. She bowed, a slight tilt of her head.

  The crowd broke into enthusiastic applause.

  She basked for a few long moments before walking off stage.

  As the applause died down, a man stepped out.

  Baron Eyel Dunsemai.

  “Welcome friends and visitors,” he said. “Tonight, you enter an ancient and dangerous world, where nothing is quite as it seems. As steward of this realm, I promise you safe passage. You can trust that, no matter what comes, you will arrive safely on the far shore. But it will not be an easy journey. When we are finished here tonight, you might never look at this fair world we call home in the same light again.”

  It was impossible to be sure from the back row, but I swear he was looking right at us. He reached up his left hand to his face and pressed his fingers against his cheeks and forehead.

  “What lies behind your masks?” he asked.

  He pulled his hand away, and his face came with it.

  There was nothing there but an empty blackness.

  * * *

  Figures floated above me, shadows coming in and out of focus. I reached up to take off my mask, but I could not find the seams. I started to panic, clawing at my neck. Someone touched my shoulder. My vision started to clear, and I saw a woman with the head of a vulture standing over me.