“I see nothing unusual,” she says.
Order of Eternity turns and walks through the arch on her silent bare feet.
“There is a political philosophy about plasm,” Aiah says, following, “called New City. Do you know of it?”
“No,” over her shoulder, “and I do not in any case believe that it is new. I have lived over four hundred years,” she says in her young girl’s voice, “and I have yet to see a new thing. And of course the world is far older than I, and has spun upon its axis many millions of times since last a new thing stood upon it.” The dreaming sister pauses before one of the carved allegories, The Architect, a noble-looking man with a protractor and a pair of dividers.
“The Ascended Ones isolated us here,” the sister says. “We do not know why, or where they are now, or whether the Shield shall ever fall. We are a limited people, on a limited world, and we are condemned to wait. True freedom is denied us—the most unlimited thing in the world is plasm, and even that cannot penetrate the Shield.”
Wrong, Aiah thinks, remembering dancing figures in velvet blackness, but she holds her tongue.
“We are condemned endlessly to repeat ourselves,” says Order of Eternity, “in a world of limited choice. Over years, over thousands of years, all things return. That is why we meditate upon these figures,” touching The Architect, “which we call imagoes. All human possibility, all activity and type and form, are symbolized in these images.”
“How many imagoes are there?” Aiah asks, recalling that she has seen duplicates.
“Eighty-one.”
Another Grand Square. The Dreaming Sisters are consistent in their numerology.
“This one,” the sister says, “The Architect … a lofty-looking fellow, isn’t he? But in our meditations, this imago represents failure. Because though an architect will build his dream, and his heart will thrill to the sight of the image that he held in his mind rising floor by floor in the world of the real, nevertheless the world will work its will upon dream. The brilliant new creation will grow old, and crumble, and one day join the architect himself in the dust. And so… failure.”
“Are all your imagoes failures?” Aiah asks.
“By no means. Some are wise, and have learned to accept the constraints of the world.”
Aiah looks at The Architect and folds her arms. “No change,” she says, “no improvement, nothing new.”
“No permanent change. No lasting improvement.”
“Your philosophy sounds very much like despair.”
In the dim light the sister’s blue eyes are chips of dreaming ice. “Not despair,” she says. “Acceptance. You will concede a difference?”
“And if the Shield is penetrated?” Aiah asks. “If someone gets outside your world of limitations, into the world of the Ascended—what happens to your philosophy then?”
As Aiah speaks she feels the throbbing acceleration of her heart, feels her feet grow distant, sees her vision contract, narrow to the merest point of photon contact with the dreaming sister. The universe seems to wait for the answer.
“Perhaps nothing will change at all,” says Order of Eternity. “Humanity may carry its limitations with it—perhaps the imagoes rule our actions beyond the Shield as they do beneath it. Or perhaps everything will change—who can say?”
/ have been beyond the Shield. That is Aiah’s next line. But now, the moment come, blood singing in her ears and her mouth dry with terror, she can’t say it. It is not as if she brought anything back, nor learned anything while she was there.
It is not as if the Dreaming Sisters claim to know what is beyond the Shield, or have any particular gift in interpreting what Aiah saw there. It is not as if what Aiah saw there resembled the imagoes she has seen here in the sisters’ building. It is not as if the Dreaming Sisters do not disclaim any responsibility for the aerial displays, including the gray-skinned dancer that Aiah recognized as the Woman who is the Moon. There seem to be no answers here.
It is not as if the Dreaming Sisters are not, in some way, stealing plasm.
The throbbing tide of blood recedes from Aiah’s ears. Her vision clears.
She will postpone the moment.
“Thank you,” she says politely. “I think I’ve seen everything I need, for the moment.”
Order of Eternity turns and pads away without a further word. Aiah follows. Tremors flutter through her. She feels as if she’s just fought a battle.
It is not clear to her whether she’s won or lost.
Imagoes float past on either side. Women lie in their dimly lit alcoves, limbs splayed as if their dreams had caught them unawares and dropped them in their tracks. The flagstone path winds up, down, curves left and right.
Aiah stops dead as an image strikes her like a thunderbolt. Her mind reels. “What…?” she can only gasp.
Order of Eternity stops, hesitates, returns. “This imago? It is The Shadow.”
Aiah has already read the inscription. “I know this person,” she says.
Sorya stares at her, carved in stone. She wears a high-collared gown that floats off her figure into the background, softening the outlines of her form, making it indistinct. In one hand is a dagger.
Aiah raises a hand, hesitates, touches the cold stone face. Sorya’s lips seem to curl in contempt at Aiah’s confusion.
Order of Eternity studies the portrait, head cocked. “The Shadow is she-who-follows, she who pursues the great so closely that she is invisible in their shadow.”
“Until she strikes,” Aiah says. A chill shivers down her spine.
“Just so.”
Aiah’s hand drifts along the line of Sorya’s chin. Dry rough stone, nothing more. No dust to indicate recent polishing, no cracks or weathering to testify to age. No tingle of plasm to indicate that magic was at work, or that a plasm-glamour has been placed on this image.
“How old is this carving?” Aiah asks.
The dreaming sister narrows her eyes as she looks at the stone figure. “This was not the face it bore when last I saw it,” she says. “The figure is no more than three or four days old.”
Aiah turns to her in surprise. “Someone carved a new face?” she asks.
“Oh no.” Order of Eternity shakes her head. “The figures… change… from time to time. Like the aerial displays, it is another consequence of our meditations, not willed by us.
Say rather that the plasm itself, perceiving an imago active in the world, makes the alteration of its own accord.”
Aiah strives to wrap her mind around this idea. “So Sorya—the original of this figure—Sorya has become an imago?”
“You misunderstand.” The dreaming sister turns on Aiah the cold gaze of her indifferent blue eyes. “Sorya—if that is this lady’s name—has always been an imago, one or another of the eighty-one. So have I. So have you. Not always the same imago, because our nature is not immutable, nor does our role in life remain constant. If Sorya’s face has appeared here, it is because she, and the imago of which she is an image, has become important, or powerful, or somehow key to a critical situation.”
They’re tricking me, Aiah thinks. This is some kind of manipulation; they found out I’m frightened of Sorya and changed the statue while this woman kept me busy—they’re in my head! Panic flashes through her. They’re manipulating my thoughts!
But Order of Eternity’s aloof blue gaze is calm—hardly friendly, but not menacing either—and Aiah’s panic fades. She’s familiar enough with plasm that if she were being attacked, she’d know it.
They are manipulating her, yes. But they didn’t need to get into her head to do it; all that was necessary was that they had seen The Mystery of Aiah on video.
Aiah looks at Sorya’s statue again, gives a remote nod. “Interesting,” she says. “I’m surprised, after all these years, you do not more clearly understand the phenomenon.”
“It is not our goal to understand phenomena,” says the dreaming sister. “We strive to live simply and in consonance with plasm.
That is all.”
Aiah follows Order of Eternity to the entrance. Whore is drowsing on her mattress, and Aiah’s bodyguards, and the inspection team, are clearly showing their impatience. Aiah thanks Order of Eternity for her time, then pushes her way out the heavy door.
She turns to the leader of the inspection team. “Anything?” she asks.
“The meter’s fine. No sign of tampering.”
“Tomorrow I want you to come back and put monitors on every plasm cable leading to this pontoon. Have a mage make certain there aren’t any hidden plasm cables under the surface of the water.”
The man nods. “Yes, miss.”
And then one of the other members of the team gives a gasp—“Look, miss!”—and Aiah’s gaze follows his pointing finger to the front door, to the huge cast bronze of Entering the Gateway.
A shiver of fear runs down Aiah’s back.
The figure on the door has changed. Where formerly the woman entering the door was facing forward, with the back of her head to the viewer, now she has turned her head to face over her right shoulder.
There is a sweet, knowing smile on her lips.
And the face is Aiah’s.
EIGHTEEN
“I observe,” says the Excellent Togthan, “that you have hired two more genetically altered mages.”
“Have you seen their qualifications?” Aiah asks.
“Impressive, surely,” Togthan shrugs, “but hardly unique. There were other mages fully as qualified.”
“I hired them as well,” Aiah points out.
“But still, in view of our understanding that the personnel of the PED would reflect the composition of our metropolitan population…” Togthan lets his words trail off while he sips his coffee, and then places the cup in its saucer with a delicate porcelain chime.
Aiah tastes at her own coffee while composing her answer. Togthan has been a presence in her office for three weeks. He has done little on his own other than announce a daily prayer meeting at the start of second shift—a few people attend, Aiah is told. Togthan appears at most of the important meetings, and he has asked to see the applications of all the new hires; but he has, till this moment, offered no comment on the way the department is being run.
Togthan’s lack of activity had not made Aiah any easier with his presence. She had dreaded the moment that she knew would come.
And now Togthan sits in her office, sipping coffee and directly challenging her decisions. Politely and smoothly, but then one can afford to be polite if one is in a position of strength. One of the triumvirs is behind him, and Aiah cannot be certain of her own support.
“My impression is that we are better reflecting the composition of Caraqui,” Aiah says. “Aside from some clerical staff, these are the only two of the twisted that have been hired.”
“I would not desire the population to grow offended by this department,” Togthan says. “There is much prejudice against the polluted flesh.”
“I am sure,” unblinking, “that the wisdom of the people’s spiritual leaders is capable of mitigating any prejudice on the part of the ignorant.”
“It is the wish of the triumvir and Holy, Parq, that the hiring of the polluted flesh cease entirely.”
Aiah sips her coffee again and frowns. “The triumvir’s requests shall of course be respected,” she says. “But in order that there be no more misunderstandings, I wonder if he will put his wishes in writing?”
Togthan tilts his head and favors Aiah with a reproving stare. “On this issue you may consider my words to be those of the Holy. Written communication is scarcely necessary.”
So this is how it’s done, Aiah thinks.
Up till now she’s only been on the other end of this issue. Back in Jaspeer it was scarcely necessary that anyone actually compose directives that Barkazils not get good housing outside their own neighborhoods, or good jobs practically anywhere. She’d never known how these things were decided… and now here she is, one of a pair of privileged people nodding in their civil way, sipping coffee out of fine porcelain, and deciding the fate of people whom they may never meet.
“Very well,” Aiah says. “I understand.” And she thinks, Time to talk to Ethemark.
TRIUMVIR FALTHEG JOINS LIBERAL COALITION, ENDORSES PARTY GOALS
Ethemark’s huge eyes darken as Aiah relates the substance of her conversation with Togthan, and he exchanges uneasy glances with Adaveth, the twisted Minister of Education.
“I would resign,” Aiah offers, “but I can’t think what good it would do. I would be replaced with someone friendly to Parq.”
Little folds appear in specific locations around the small man’s eyes—expressions of concern, Aiah has learned, and thought—and then he looks up at her. “He has not asked you to dismiss any of us?”
“No. I would resign in that case, and as publicly as I could.”
Ethemark’s coffee sits untouched by his elbow. They are meeting in Aiah’s apartment, where Aiah can control security, and where they are well away from the eyes of Parq’s spy.
“And,” Ethemark continues, “he hasn’t put his own people forward?”
“No, and I can’t think why.”
“I can think of two reasons,” says Adaveth. “First, talented Parq loyalists may be spread a bit thin at the moment. He’s organizing both the Dalavan Militia and the Dalavan Guard of regular soldiers. Both units require mages as well as other talent.”
“And the second reason?” Ethemark asks. Adaveth’s looks grow foreboding.
Aiah answers for him. “Parq may already have his spies in place.”
The three look at each other. “Watch,” Ethemark says. “Wait. What else can we do?”
“Win the war,” Aiah says. “Because then Parq will no longer be so necessary.”
ALTERED PEOPLE’S PARTY COMPLAINS OF PERSECUTION
ATTACKS OF DALAVAN MILITIA ON TWISTED CITIZENS DOCUMENTED
TRIUMVIR HILTHI RECEIVES REPORT
The claws of the Adrenaline Monster pluck Aiah from sleep, and she wakes, eyes staring and a cry on her lips, to discover herself stretched across Constantine’s barrel chest. She has thrown an arm over him and one of her legs is coiled about his thigh. Though her ears are alert to the sound of shellfire or alarm, she hears only the languorous throb of his heart, regular as a clock.
“You fell asleep,” he says, voice soft in the silent room.
Not for long, she thinks.
There is an ache in her throat where her frantic heart seems to have lodged.
They are in Constantine’s suite-of-the-day, enjoying one of their rare, scattered hours, pleasure snatched from the heart of duty and war. The room is dark, with the windows entirely polarized, and the only light filters from a single lamp in the next room. The Palace and the world outside are silent, and the rhythm of Constantine’s pulse is the loudest sound in the room.
Strange, Aiah thinks, that thanks to The Mystery of Aiah there are thousands of people who think she is living in some kind of continuous carnal delirium with Constantine, whereas the sad fact is that she hardly ever sees him in the flesh, and even then it is often only to exchange a few words and perhaps a kiss in passing.
Now, thanks to both of them wrenching their schedules out of shape, they actually have a few hours together. Aiah tells herself that she should be grateful.
“You are thinking,” Constantine says. He folds his arms behind his head and looks down at her over the foreshortened planes of his face.
“Oh yes.”
“Not about work, I hope.”
“Not exactly,” she says, and she tells him. He laughs, a deep rumbling earthquake that seems to propagate more through the bone and muscle of his chest than through the air. His big arms unfold and encompass her, holding her like a child against his big body.
“Come war’s end,” he says, “we shall try to exceed your viewers’ most sybaritic fantasies.”
“And when will that be?” she says, half-rhetorically, but he considers the questi
on and replies.
“The Polar League has sent a representative,” he says, “a man named Licinias—by repute a good man, but I don’t know what he can hope to accomplish here. There will be a cease-fire, and we will get some favorable propaganda out of it, but unless he can persuade the Provisionals to leave, or neighboring powers to stop supporting them, the war will go on. I will be using the cease-fire to prepare for a new offensive.”
She looks up at him. “Is a new offensive possible? Will it succeed?”
“Yes,” judiciously, “and very possibly. The new Caraqui army—built almost from scratch after the coup, and trained in the Timocracy—has completed its basic training. They are inexperienced, but perfectly capable of holding sections of the line. We will use the cease-fire to put these new units into the front line, then pull back our more experienced mercenaries into a reserve. It is they who will form spearheads for the actual offensive.”
Things are coming to a head, Aiah thinks. “When?” she asks.
“The cease-fire will begin in two days. Licinias will begin consultations with the Provisionals in Lanbola, and then he will fly to present their position to us. We will prolong the talks for at least a week, because it will take that long to put our new soldiers into the line.”
“And then?”
“Things will happen fast.”
“Has—” Aiah has difficulty forming the words. “Has Taikoen a part to play?”
She can feel a grim mood settle like a shroud on Constantine’s thoughts. “No,” he says. “We used him in our original coup, and in the battle for the Corridor. We cannot use him a third time, not without making it obvious that we have something of his nature working for us.” He sighs deeply. “Besides, the Provisionals have taken warning from what happened to their predecessors. Their headquarters and communications staffs have been dispersed to many different locations, to make a decapitation strike that much less likely.”
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