Khorsa sits below a framed blowup of the cover of Corona, Aiah smiling from the balcony of the Falcon Tower, her skin tones subtly tinged with gold. Khorsa tilts her head in thought. “This is where the Party Sickness comes from, isn’t it?” she says.
“Yes. It’s the hanged man trying to get the most out of his stolen body before it dies. The Party Sickness is always fatal, remember.”
“Ethemark is forming a task group on the Party Sickness. Does he know about this?”
Aiah looks at her. “No. Ethemark is a talented mage and administrator, but he is a political appointee with his own agenda. I do not wish to bring him into this, because there are political implications which I do not wish to see any party in Caraqui attempt to exploit.”
Alfeg seems surprised. “How is this a political issue?”
Aiah looks at him and unloads the half-truth she has ready. Risky, because she knows that Romus already knows more than she plans to tell the rest of the team.
“I have detected the hanged man in the Palace,” she says. Alfeg and Khorsa stare up at her with horror in their eyes.
“I don’t believe anyone in the Palace has suffered from the Party Sickness,” Aiah continues, “but everyone here is vulnerable not only to having our bodies possessed by this creature, but to physical attack as well.”
Alfeg stammers out a question. “Shouldn’t you tell—I don’t know—the army? The president? Someone?”
Aiah looks at him. “How do I know this isn’t the army’s creature? Or the ally of someone in the Palace? Or maybe spying on behalf of one of our own government departments?” She looks at them each in turn.
“Force of the Interior,” Khorsa murmurs.
Aiah gives Khorsa a look as if to say yes. Aiah has no objection to their all believing the hanged man is something of Sorya’s.
“We keep the existence of this thing entirely in this room,” Aiah emphasizes, “and we tell no one.”
“Not even—?” Khorsa ventures to suggest.
’Wo one,” Aiah says. Khorsa looks uncertain. “Who is the creature likely to be spying on, if it’s here to spy?” Aiah asks. “Exactly the person you’re thinking of, most likely. And we don’t know for certain how many of these creatures there are.” She shakes her head. “The matter stays here. And we handle it ourselves, and with the help of some others we can trust.”
Change the subject now, she thinks, before they have a chance to work up objections. She turns to Alfeg. “We’re going to try to lure Refiq to a place we can control, and then finish him off.”
“Just the four of us?” Khorsa asks.
“No.” A demonic little grin tweaks the corners of Aiah’s mouth. “No. We are going to be assisted by two hundred and fifty-six other mages.”
POLAR LEAGUE FREEZES FUNDS, DEMANDS DEMOBILIZATION
“Hanged man, eh?” Aratha says. She puts down her coffee mug. “I may have material on how to fight creatures of the sort—mind if I check something?”
Aiah looks at her in wonder. “Please do.”
Mage-Major Aratha is a solid woman, broad-shouldered and powerful, with deep cinnamon skin and surprising green eyes. Aiah had flown to Lanbola to meet her in her small apartment, before normal work hours, and found her in the middle of breakfast.
Aiah, who has not eaten for the last twenty-four hours, is finding the look and scent of Aratha’s toasted muffin very inviting.
Aratha steps into the living alcove, unstraps a military-looking trunk of battered gray metal, and opens the lid. She pulls out a series of plastic-bound volumes, finds the one she is looking for, and returns the others to the trunk. “Phantasm and Plasm Emanation Manual,” she says as she returns to the table. Aiah’s mouth quietly waters as Aratha bites into her muffin while leafing through the index.
“Does the military encounter hanged men often?” Aiah asks.
Aratha chews with gusto, shakes her head in answer, then swallows. “I don’t know anyone who ever has,” she says, “but since we encounter a lot of odd things in the course of our duty, we’re supposed to be prepared for anything. There’s usually a procedure for encountering anything you can imagine. See also vampires,” reading, narrowing her eyes. “I haven’t reviewed this since my academy days, so please forgive my poor memory.”
She flips pages and reads quietly while eating. When she is done, she puts down the book and looks up at Aiah. “You’ve got yourself a problem, all right. You couldn’t pick anything simple, like a flamer or an incarnate demon sword or anything, it had to be a hanged man.”
“The hanged man,” Aiah says, “picked Caraqui.”
“The biggest problem is going to be finding it—configuring your sensorium to detect not just plasm, but a modulation in plasm, which is what this thing is, according to what I read here. And if you can’t see it, you can’t confine it. Fortunately the manual has some ideas.”
“We’re going to lure it into an isolated plasm well, then use up the plasm. The creature will die when the plasm runs out.”
“The manual says that’s possible, but you want to know it’s in the plasm well.”
“I’d like to see the manual, if I may.”
Aratha shoves it across the table to her. Aiah looks with dismay at columns of fine print, a bewildering amount of jargon, and a large dose of acronyms. Configuration of the PMDS should be completed before arrival at the ASoO, she reads.
“You’re going to do this today?” Aratha says. “I’ll get a team together—two of my mages, people who survived the war, which means they’re both good and used to practically everything. And myself, of course.”
Aiah looks at her in surprise. She had not yet asked Aratha for anything. Aratha sees her look, misunderstands it.
“You won’t be wanting us?” she says.
“I will. I’m relieved that you’re so willing.”
“Oh.” Aratha shrugs. “You’re our Ministerial Assistant for Barkazil Liaison, after all. We’re under your orders.”
“This whole operation may be illegal. I can’t give you an order for it.”
Another shrug. “Verbal order will do. Then you class the whole operation as secret and no one will think about it ever again.” She gives Aiah a reassuring look. “Don’t worry. You have no idea how often this sort of thing comes up in wartime. I’ll pick trustworthy people.”
Aratha’s war, Aiah thinks, was probably very bad, all madness and terror and reflex. Practically all a military mage did involved the deliberate murder of the enemy, or alternatively, frantic attempts to keep her own people or herself from being killed. But Aratha had survived it, and survival had given her a kind of serene, uncomplicated confidence—she felt she^ould view anything, deal with anything, engage with any kind of enemy, and on short notice.
Aiah’s war, probably less perilous, had left her feeling isolated, with only the Adrenaline Monster for company. But then Aratha had all the other officers to support her, the entire military culture. Aiah had little support in her life, only crushing responsibilities that did not permit her any weakness.
“Thank you,” Aiah says simply.
“It will do us good,” Aratha judges, “to get away from routine for a while.”
NECESSITY IS THE WATCHWORD OF THE GODS.
A THOUGHT-MESSAGE FROM HIS PERFECTION, THE PROPHET OF AJAS
“Refiq?” Alfeg says. “This is Dulat. I wanted to remind you about the party. Third shift today, 21:00.”
He holds the heavy plastic headset to his ears as he listens, looks up at Aiah, mouths the words, “He’s drunk.”
“Everything’s laid on,” Alfeg says, when he gets a chance to speak. “The best liquor, the best pills, entertainment, and more girls than you can imagine. Do you have the address?”
Alfeg waits again, presumably for Refiq to find something to write with, then says, “100 Cold Canal. It’s a really strange building, all carved stone, off the Seahorse Waterway. Do you need directions, or will you just take a water taxi?”
Sweat is gl
eaming on his forehead by the time Alfeg finishes the call. “He believed me, I think.” He looks up at Aiah. “He—it—doesn’t have Refiq’s memories, right? He doesn’t know that Dulat is just someone we made up?”
“Refiq’s gone,” Aiah assures him. “There’s only that thing in there.”
Alfeg wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “I was terrified,” he says, “just knowing what was on the other end of the line.”
“If he was drunk,” Khorsa says, “do you think he’ll remember about the party?”
“We’ll have someone call later and remind him,” Aiah says. “Melko.”
She looks up at Melko, one of the two mages that Aratha has brought with her from Lanbola. He is tall, gangly, and wears black plastic-rimmed glasses tied around his ears with loops of elastic. He looks far too young to be the captain his collar tabs proclaim him to be.
Aratha’s other mage looks too young to be anywhere but in school. A silent, spotty girl, painfully thin, Kari sits atop a file cabinet with her legs drawn up and plays nervously with the dangling geomantic charms on her bracelet.
Combat mages tend to be young, Aiah has discovered. The young have a sense of invulnerability that is useful in that line of work.
“In the meantime,” Aiah says, “Khorsa needs to continue our surveillance to make sure Refiq doesn’t get away. I have reserved the small Operations Room for all third shift today and first shift tomorrow. And—”
There’s a knock on the door. Aiah goes to the door, unlocks it, cracks it open, and sees her receptionist, Anstine.
“The president’s on the phone for you,” he says. “I told him I’d see if you’re available.”
“I suppose I must be,” Aiah decides.
She walks to her office, where she picks up the delicate headset and places it over her ears.
“Yes?” she says.
Constantine’s deep voice rumbles in her ears. “Did you get the flowers?”
Aiah is suddenly weary. She folds into her chair. “You know I did.”
“And did you read the note?” “No. I haven’t had the time.”
There is a moment’s awkward silence, then, “What’s so urgent? I thought you were taking these days off?”
“An investigation coming to a head. I won’t bore you with detail.” She’s too weary to make them up anyway.
“The note,” Constantine says, “contained, I thought, a very well-phrased apology, eloquent yet humble, a model of its kind.”
“I’ll read it,” Aiah says, “when I have the time to appreciate such a piece of art.”
“I hope you will take its sentiments to heart.”
“I hope,” Aiah says, “that I may be able to.”
There is another moment’s pause, and then Constantine says, “Sorya is going to Charna. Tomorrow. I am dining with her late third shift to say good-bye. These things must be done properly—farewells gracefully said, closures correctly made.”
Aiah pictures the ransacking of files that must be going on in Sorya’s department now, information plundered to be carried off to Charna, or destroyed to keep from the hands of her successor. And then, she thinks, the gracious dinner in Constantine’s apartment while minions stuff secret after secret into Sorya’s trunks.
“Tomorrow, and after,” Constantine says, “I am available to you. I hope to see you as soon as you can find the time.”
Tomorrow, Aiah thinks, if this all goes wrong, she may be dead or hiding from Taikoen. If she is hiding, Constantine will have to decide between Aiah and Taikoen, could not keep them both, might decide that he loved her and turn against his monster.
For a wild, irrational minute she hopes that the attempt will fail, that this affirmation will come to pass.
The moment fades. She knows what Constantine is, what truly moves his heart… It is not tender affections that are important to him, but his dreams, realizing in stone and steel the glorious phantasm city that, all his life, he has constructed in his mind.
“I hope I will see you as well,” she says. If she is still alive.
“Remember,” Constantine says, voice kind and confident now, certain that he has won her, “remember that in less than four months’ time we have an appointment beyond the Shield. We will change the world together.” “I hope so,” Aiah says.
“I know we will.” Smoothly. Anger flares darkly in Aiah, anger at the cream in Constantine’s voice, at his confidence, his assumptions that she will remain his instrument forever.
She will show him otherwise, she thinks. He has made her a power, but she will not be the Apprentice for all time; the Golden Lady lives by other rules, she must have new arrangements, a new disposition.
“I have to go,” she says. “I’ll talk to you when I can.”
“I hope it will be soon,” Constantine says.
Soon, Aiah thinks. Soon I will have solved your greatest problem for you.
And then, as she returns the headset to its hook, she thinks, / wonder if you will be grateful.
“GOLDEN LADY SOCIETY” BANNED IN JABZI
“SUBVERSIVE THOUGHT” CONDEMNED BY SECURITY CHIEF
The sanctuary of the Dreaming Sisters stands gray beneath its gleaming copper dome, a maze within a maze. Aiah waits telepresent across Cold Canal, her PMDS, which turns out to be the plasm-modulation detecting sensorium, prepared to venture into the ASoO, the assumed site of operations. Aratha had called plasm into the small PED operations room, had a ball of bright reality dancing on her fingertips; she pulsed modulations through it, complex and shimmering patterns, and let the others tune their perceptions to it, distinguish it from a ball of undifferentiated plasm she was holding on the palm of her other hand.
Thus they hope to detect Taikoen once he is free of his mortal mask. If, of course, Taikoen is not some other modulation altogether, if he is not something entirely other than what they have been led to believe.
Ministry workers have cut the plasm mains around the sisters’ building, and once their little plasm accumulator is empty, there will be nothing more. It is hoped that Taikoen, battered by his pursuers, will be trapped in the plasm well as it drains, and die.
“The aerial tram is coming into Seahorse Station.” Alfeg’s voice, echoing through Aiah’s mind from the operations center. Alfeg has been following Refiq all day. Refiq had picked the fastest mode of transportation available for crossing the city, the swift-flying trams.
Aiah’s sensorium can see the swaying tram car sliding into its bay atop the silver tower, sees through windows the tiny figures crowding the exits.
Soon.
Aiah shifts her weight in her chair, t-grip held lightly in a damp palm. The song of plasm in her veins is louder than the snarl of the Adrenaline Monster, than her own doubts. She is the Golden Lady again, invincible, a perfect warrior, all reality at her call.
“Refiq’s taking a water taxi from the station,” Alfeg reports.
“Who’s that?” Khorsa’s voice, a little excited. “Over the temple—look!”
Aiah looks with ectomorphic eyes configured to see plasm, and beneath a sky flaming with adverts sees someone’s anima just hanging above the sisters’ copper dome. As if someone telepresent is gazing down at the neighborhood, or perhaps trying to work out the nature of the complex carvings on the Dreaming Sisters’ refuge.
“Is that one of ours?” Aiah asks, and receives only negatives from the people around her.
“Khorsa,” she orders, “backtrack the sourceline. See if it’s local.”
Khorsa flies off from her perch over Cold Canal, a silver track across the sky. “Not from the district,” she reports. “The sourceline tracks a good many radii to the southeast. Do you want me to follow it all the way to its origin?”
“No.” Aiah considers. She doesn’t want a bystander hovering nearby, no matter who he might be. Taikoen might well attack him, thinking him an enemy or simply not caring, and then the stranger could end up in some padded room, mind scorched to madness by the encounter.
“No,” she repeats, “I want you to wait where you are and cut the stranger’s sourceline as soon as the operation commences. Then return to the operations site and join the rest of us, ne?”
“Da.”
“Taxi turning into Cold Canal,” reports Alfeg. Aiah can see it, a dingy white motorboat with a cracked windscreen.
“Stand by,” she says.
The taxi motors to the sisters’ rusting pier. Refiq, Aiah thinks, looks like hell: he leans heavily on the gunwale, one hand swaying over the bright green water. His powerful body rolls listlessly with the waves, and the face beneath the shock of black hair is pale and slack, eyes wide and staring at nothing. For a moment Aiah wonders if he is already dead.
The little gray embryo cabman hops over Refiq’s outstretched legs to tie up the cab, and then Refiq rises slowly to his feet, takes several shuffling steps toward the cabman, pays him, and accepts the little fellow’s help getting to the pier.
Taikoen has nearly worn this body out. Refiq crosses the pier with quick tottering steps, like a man recovering from a stroke, and then takes his time climbing the metal stair to the paved area in front of the Dreaming Sisters’ retreat.
The cabman casts off and motors away. He moves fast, not bothering to look for customers in this battered neighborhood.
Refiq reaches the top of the stair and takes a few steps into the plaza. Once there he pauses and looks with a strange resignation at the mass of carved stone.
And then Aiah’s heart leaps into her throat as the stranger, the telepresent stranger hovering over the copper dome, descends on his plasm tether toward Refiq.
“What’s he doing?” Alfeg’s startled voice.
Refiq raises his ravaged face, as if he senses the approach of the stranger, and then the telepresent stranger touches him, coming into contact as if for communication.
Constantine, Aiah realizes. He is here to help Refiq leave this wrecked body and claim another one. No time to lose.
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