City on Fire m-2

by Walter Jon Williams

  “On another subject entirely,” she says, “what do you know about hanged men?”

  Surprise lights Rohder’s eyes. He rears back in his seat and cranes his neck to look at her, the discomfort of his position a reflection of the discomfort visible in his face.

  “Ice men, you mean?” he asks. “The damned?”

  “Yes.”

  Rohder frowns. “// they exist—and I am not entirely convinced that they do—then hanged men are very rare and highly dangerous. Toxic. If you ever encounter one, I would run as fast as possible and pray to Vida the Merciful while I ran.”

  “How do you kill them?”

  “It’s far harder than the chromoplays would suggest.” His frown deepens. “Why are you asking?”

  Aiah leans closer. “I trust this will go no farther?” He shrugs. “Who would I tell?”

  Were Rohder a Barkazil, his returning a question in this manner would tell Aiah that he was planning on telling everyone in the world; but Rohder is not a Barkazil, and Aiah reckons she can trust him with the falsehood she has carefully prepared.

  Even lies, she knows, require a degree of trust. She retrieves her story from the mental closet where she has stored it. “I’ve found… something… out there in the plasm well. The thing scares me—it’s cold and it’s strong, and it’s lurking around the Aerial Palace. I’m afraid it might be scouting for an attack.”

  Rohder’s look turns inward, calculating. He gropes in his pocket for a cigaret, remembers he’s run out, and instead gnaws a nicotine-stained thumbnail.

  “If it is a hanged man,” he says carefully, “and not some kind of plasm construction, I don’t know anything that can stop it should it decide to attack.”

  “If it isn’t a hanged man,” Aiah says, “it’s something else that can live and move in a plasm well, so we might as well call it a hanged man.”

  Rohder’s absorbed, thoughtful expression shows no sign that he’s heard. “If it is a hanged man,” he says slowly, “and it’s moving through the Palace plasm well, then it may be an ally of someone already in the Palace. Someone very powerful.”

  A series of barking curses chase each other through Aiah’s mind. Rohder wasn’t supposed to work this out, at least not yet.

  Vexed with herself for not anticipating this, she reminds herself that he is over three hundred years old. He may not be very worldly, but he’s done very little but deal with bureaucracy for all his professional life, and he understands the architecture of power.

  Aiah needs to remember that next time she tries to use him as her passu.

  “If this thing is a pet of someone in the building,” Aiah says, “that makes it worse. I don’t think anyone should have such a creature at his beck and call.”

  The fierce conviction in her words surprises her, and she sees Rohder’s eyes widen a bit at her evident fire.

  He sighs heavily, then turns to his computer display. “I will find out what I can,” he says. “There are some people I can contact at Margai University.”

  Aiah leans toward him, puts a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you, Mr. Rohder. This could be important.”

  Rueful humor settles onto his face. “I don’t promise results,” he says. His hands automatically search his empty pockets for cigarets.

  Aiah leans back, takes a pack of Amber Milds from behind the computer, and hands it to him with a smile as she heads for the door.

  It’s nice, she concludes, for once in her life to leave Rohder’s office without the stench of tobacco on her clothes.

  TIMETABLE FOR LANBOLA WITHDRAWAL TO BE NEGOTIATED

  POLAR LEAGUE AID TO BE RESUMED

  PRINCIPLE OF COMPENSATED DEMOBILIZATION ACCEPTED

  “Thank you for seeing me, Miss Aiah.” Dr. Romus sways into Aiah’s office, moving by throwing a thick loop of his body ahead of him, then pulling the rest after.

  Aiah wants to turn away from the sinuous, unnatural movement, but she compels a grave smile to appear on her face and rises to greet him.

  “You said it was important?” she says.

  The reedy voice echoes oddly from her office walls. “I can’t think it can be anything but important,” Romus says. Aiah sits, and Romus lowers his upper body to keep his head on a level with hers, his usual act of courtesy.

  Aiah had difficulty justifying his hiring, particularly in light of his plasm scan, which revealed a long life—he is over a hundred—rich with various crimes, major and minor. But none of the crimes were vicious—most concerned theft of state property, like plasm, electricity, or fresh water—and any violence seemed to be in the interests of defending himself or protecting his half-world.

  The plasm scan also revealed he had no intention of using his position in the PED for any illegal advantage. His criminality, he seemed to suggest, was in part justified by his desperate position in the world; once in a better position, there would no longer be a need for such activity.

  It was not a justification that sits easily with Aiah’s judgment. But it was one she used herself—it had brought her here, to her position in Caraqui—and so she’d decided to take a calculated risk.

  So far it seems to have paid off. Romus has been working for the PED for two weeks now, and reports from his superiors have been positive. He’s clever, they say, and he minimizes use of plasm. He’s very good at surveillance, very patient, and his reports are models of clarity.

  “What’s the problem?” Aiah asks.

  Shieldlight glitters in Romus’s yellow eyes. “I saw something first shift yesterday,” he says. “In the lobby of the secure room.”

  A warning cry sounds in Aiah’s nerves. “What were you doing there? You’re not authorized for the secure room.”

  “I was not in the secure room. I was in the lobby, resting. Sleeping, actually.” The cilia surrounding Romus’s face writhe uneasily. “I have no place to live, you see. I eat in the Palace restaurants using my meal ticket, and my other needs are few. So when I have no work, and if there is someone working in the office I share, I usually find a quiet place and sleep. The secure room lobby is quiet—the clerk on duty usually has very little business during sleep shift—and…” A little tongue licks his thin brown lips. “Because I am not shaped as the average human, my sleeping places tend to be where others might not expect to find a person… I am often overlooked. You have overlooked me yourself.”

  “Yes,” Aiah says. Dread settles cold into her bones; she knows what is coming. “Go on,” she says.

  “The triumvir came in around 02:30,” Romus says. “He came in with the giant guard, Martinus. He asked the clerk to leave and wait outside, then went into the secure room.

  He was there for twenty minutes or so. I could hear him opening drawers and looking through files. And then…” There is a look of fear in the yellow eyes. “And then something came. It didn’t come through the door, it just… it was just there.”

  “What sort of thing was it?” Aiah asks.

  “Unnatural. A presence… a creature of some sort.” His head bobs, turns away from Aiah’s glance. “I would have to invoke myth to describe it. A demon, an evil angel. A force. It was terror without form. My only instinct was to flee.” A trace of anger enters his voice. “I don’t understand how it got there. The secure room is fully shielded! It was—” Words fail him for a moment, and when they return, they grow increasingly dogmatic. “An impossibility. It should not have happened at all. It violates every law of—”

  “Tell me what happened,” Aiah interrupts.

  Romus’s head sways in agitation. “The thing spoke to the triumvir. It made demands of some sort… I could not quite understand what it wanted. The triumvir said that he was doing his best, that he was—I believe the word he used was searching. The demon was arrogant, threatening. It said that the triumvir was late. I began to understand that it was demanding… people. As if the triumvir was to sacrifice to it, as to an evil god. And then the triumvir said, Very well, these will do, but you must come to my suite, I can’t do i
t here. And then the creature left… just faded away.

  “When the triumvir left a few moments later, he called the clerk back and checked out a file. After a few hours, Martinus returned the file, and it was checked in.” Romus rapidly licks his lips.

  “I do not know if these things are usual. I do not know if I am permitted to speak of them. I come to you more for advice and—” He looks away again. “I wish to know if I am in danger for seeing this thing.”

  Aiah clasps her hands to keep them from trembling. Too many people know, she thinks… It only requires them to start talking to each other for the secret to be revealed. And once word gets out, Constantine will be ruined…

  Consorting with a demon. What would Parq and the Dalavans make of that?

  “Have you told anyone else?” Aiah asks.

  “No. I couldn’t make up my mind what to do. In the end I just came to you.”

  His head sways toward her on the end of his long neck. Aiah starts back, then catches herself. She presses her hands to the cool top of the desk.

  “Firstly,” Aiah says, “you must tell no one else. That will put you in danger.”

  Romus’s head bobs. “I understand.”

  “Secondly,” taking a breath, “please believe I am aware of the existence of this thing, and that I know it is very dangerous. The problem is capable of resolution, and steps are being taken. I can’t reveal what steps exactly, but I implore you to understand that this will take time. The nature of this creature is such that we cannot afford any mistake—if the strike against him misses, there will be no chance for another.”

  A grimace passes across Romus’s homunculus face. “I have had the strangest notions since I saw this thing. Now I wonder how many of these creatures exist in the world, if they all attach themselves to powerful men, and how much of the evil in the world might be explained this way…”

  For a moment Aiah considers this notion, the thought of a secret evil behind the veils of the world, Taikoen and his kin feeding forever on the weakness of the great.

  Romus continues, the reedy voice thoughtful. “I concluded, however, that there cannot be very many of these things, because otherwise they would not hide, they would move openly and prey on whomever they wished.”

  “There is only one that I know of,” Aiah says. She tries to put confidence in her voice. “And this one will be destroyed. But in the meantime…”

  “Silence.” Romus’s head bows. “I understand.”

  She has made Romus her passu, Aiah thinks. She has given him a version of the truth that may serve to keep him silent, at least for now, and perhaps given him a confidence that all this may be dealt with, that Aiah will see Taikoen destroyed.

  Perhaps, Aiah thinks, she has made a passu of herself, convinced herself that there is a solution to this problem, and that it is within her grasp.

  Taikoen, she thinks bleakly, might have made a passu out of everyone, from Constantine on down.

  GOLDEN LADY CHROMOPLAY ANNOUNCED PRODUCER OF METRO FLIGHT ACQUIRES RIGHTS OLLI PLANS CHROMO OF “EPIC SCOPE”

  And now, to Aiah’s strange, heterogeneous Caraqui family comes her real family—some of them anyway: her sister Henley and her cousins Esmon and Spano—riding the pneuma to Caraqui for Esmon’s marriage to Khorsa.

  Khorsa’s sister Dhival performs the rites, linking the couple to the Three Horses and spreading the Yellow Paper Umbrella, with its vermilion symbols, above their heads. As they share the marriage cup, drums roll, the audience breaks out in shouts of joy and congratulation, and a rolling barrage of firecrackers fills the room with its pungent scent.

  The Barkazil Division provides musicians for the reception, and the eerie sound of the vertical Barkazil fiddle floats above the throng. General Ceison takes his turn dancing with the bride. Rohder watches from the corner with an expression of amiable bemusement.

  Constantine stands tall amid the crowd, splendid in his black velvet jacket, brilliant white lace, and a glittering diamond stickpin in the shape of the fabled sea horse. He moves as easily amid the Barkazil throng as he does anywhere else.

  Aiah holds his arm, pleased that on a private occasion such as this there is no necessity of maintaining in public the formal relationship of the minister and his subordinate: they can be together as conspicuously as they like.

  “Esmon looks splendid.” Constantine nods toward Aiah’s cousin, who stands in a jacket of glittering jet beadwork that contrasts with both his billowing lace and the foolish grin on his face.

  Aiah smiles. “He’s always had a highly distinctive style sense.”

  Especially since he’s been seeing Khorsa, who almost certainly bought this coat and any other fine clothes Esmon may have brought with him.

  “He will take up residence here in Caraqui?”

  “He already has.”

  “Does he have a job yet?”

  Aiah cocks an eyebrow at him. “Do you have a vacancy?”

  “I don’t have one in mind, no. I don’t know what your cousin can do,” amusement invading his face, “unless it’s to model new uniforms for the military.”

  “I’m sure he’d do that very well,” Aiah says. “But until that opportunity arises, I’m sending him around to various government departments, along with my letter of recommendation.”

  “I’m sure that will obtain him a position.”

  The fact is, Aiah knows, that though Esmon is one of her favorite relatives, and a perfectly charming man, he isn’t suited to do anything in particular; his last job, before he was laid off almost a year ago, was as a janitor in a home for the elderly.

  Aiah waits for a few seconds to see if Constantine will make a point of offering Esmon a job, but he doesn’t; and she long ago promised herself not to ask Constantine for special favors for friends or relatives.

  Alfeg approaches and asks her to dance, and she steps onto the floor with him. He is technically a fine dancer, but the spirit is not quite there; he thinks about it too much. At one point she catches the look he gives her—awed, worshipful—and it makes her cheeks flame.

  He really believes, she realizes, what Charduq the Hermit has been saying. He truly believes she is an incarnation of Karlo or some other immortal, one of the Old Oelphil guardians of her people. It isn’t just a game; it isn’t just a notion he’s been playing with—Alfeg really believes it.

  No wonder the dance doesn’t feel quite right. He’s almost afraid to touch her.

  At the end of the dance, Alfeg returns Aiah to Constantine, who she finds chatting with her sister Henley. Henley is gesturing with her hands—lovely hands, long and graceful, once crippled by an Operation street lieutenant and then made even worse by arthritis, hands which Aiah, over the last months, arranged to have repaired.

  Henley catches Aiah looking at her hands. She flushes, smiles, breathes the words, “Thank you.”

  Aiah takes one of Henley’s hands and presses it. “I’m happy I was able to help,” she says.

  Constantine watches this with a benign smile.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Alfeg says.

  Constantine gazes down at him. “Yes?”

  “I thought I’d mention that we seem to be having no trouble at all recruiting replacements for the Barkazil Division. We’ve got swarms of applicants—more than we can use. We’ll have our pick of some very good men.”

  “Splendid,” said Constantine. “Carry on.”

  “But I feel I should mention—” Alfeg searches for words, then decides simply to say it. “If the government should ever decide to raise another Barkazil Division, or to expand the current division to a full three brigades, I would have no trouble finding recruits.”

  Constantine’s eyes narrow as he considers this. “The military budget is due for reduction, not expansion,” he says. “But if the need should arise, I will bear this news in mind.”

  Alfeg makes an effort to conceal his disappointment. “Yes,” he says. “Thank you, sir.”

  “One other thing.”

&nbs
p; “Sir?”

  Constantine speaks quietly, a little abstractedly, like a teacher giving a well-worn lecture to his students. “You should consider that a number of your recruits will almost certainly be spies, most likely from Jabzi, who will be inserted into the Barkazil Division with the intention of discovering whether our recruits will be used to subvert the arrangement whereby the Barkazi Sectors are partitioned. Or perhaps these spies will even be there to subvert us.”

  Aiah sees Alfeg’s astonished stare and knows it probably mirrors her own. “You know this?” he says. “Do you have any—anything concrete?”

  “I note simply that Jabzi, which had formerly maintained only an honorary consul just over our border in Charna—a local fellow who operated more as a tourist agent than a diplomatic representative—is now upgrading their presence to that of a full embassy, with a staff of over sixty people. Why should they do that in a metropolis half a world away, with which they do so very little trade? I assume that the entire purpose of this establishment is to keep an eye on what Miss Aiah and the Barkazil Division are doing here in Caraqui.”

  A kind of resigned amusement dwells in Constantine’s eyes, as if he could not expect anything better from his fellow creatures.

  “And though / know that the threat you pose to Jabzi is small,” he says, “perhaps nil, I also assume that by the time this new embassy finishes its reports, you are going to be a fullblown menace to the security not just of Jabzi, but of the world. The jobs of those sixty people depend on your being a menace, and as far as they are concerned, you will be a menace.”

  “When,” Aiah wonders thoughtfully, “did you discover this?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Is there anything we can do about it?”

  “I will have Belckon send someone to Jabzi to have what are usually described as ‘full and frank discussions,’ but I suspect their government has already made up its mind and is unlikely to alter its position anytime soon.” He scowls and allows an edge of anger into his voice. “I would hate for the Provisionals to get a new sponsor at this point, just as they’re losing their old ones.”