City of Fire (City Trilogy (Mass Market))

by Yep, Laurence

  Scirye slipped by a couple of museum staff wrestling a full-length photo of Emperor Kanishka XII into place. He was dressed in the uniform of a griffin warrior, complete with winged helmet and spurs. The girl and Kles bowed their heads respectfully as they passed.

  Then they made their way around the radio engineers huddled over the bulky equipment before the broadcast went on the air, Scirye nearly tripping over the long outer cloak that was part of her costume. Irritably, she dragged the hem up from the floor and then found she was standing in front of a display of ancient drinking cups made by gilding enemy skulls. “Ugh,” she said, making a face.

  Seeing her revulsion, Kles skipped the history lesson he had been about to give and simply murmured, “It was long ago, and the times were different then.”

  “They were savages,” Scirye declared.

  “They were also your ancestors,” Kles pointed out.

  “Only on paper,” Scirye argued. “I left the Kushan Empire when I was four. I’m… I’m a citizen of the world. That’s what I am,” she announced, snatching at a phrase she had overheard somewhere.

  Though Kles understood English, he could not read it well so he used it as an excuse now to further his mistress’s education. “What does the display card say?”

  Scirye read it obligingly in a soft voice. “For over two thousand years, the Kushan Empire in Central Asia has sat between the East and West. The silk in this case is from China, the ivory from Siam, spices from Malaysia, diamonds from Golconda in India, and felt tapestries from the northern steppes.”

  Kles nodded to the dozens of shining coins laid in rows like offerings before a statue of Kubera, the dwarf god of wealth. “And those come from China, the kingdoms of Alexander the Great’s successors, Persia, Rome, Byzantium, and on into modern times.”

  Scirye, though, cared little about money. “You don’t say?” She yawned.

  When he saw her lack of interest, Kles immediately dropped his lecture on the Silk Road. He glanced about and said, “I think the next case will be more to your liking.”

  Scirye perked up when she saw that it contained weapons and Kles adapted his instruction. “You know, ideas as well as trade goods traveled back and forth along the Silk Road. And your ancestors were great synthesizers, taking the best from the East as well as the West.” He gestured at a gilded, jeweled matchlock. “Kushan engineers improved Chinese gunpowder and used it in iron barrels cast with Byzantine techniques to create guns that kept the Parthians, Huns, Persians, Arabs, and Turks at bay.”

  However, Scirye’s attention was on weapons she could actually use. Her eyes swept from the matchlock to the rows of small golden spiked wheels next to it. Each was decorated with the dancing image of Oesho, the god of destruction whom the Hindus called Shiva but who also wore the lion pelt and club of the Greek hero, Heracles. Above them on the wall were throwing axes. Though the shafts had been decorated with gold and rubies, the axe blades were old steel—relics of a long dead Kushan king whose descendants had honored his memory by replacing the ordinary shafts with ornamental ones. Time and use had worn away the engraving on the blades but Scirye thought they were scenes of Oesho’s battles.

  “I wonder how these would throw?” she wondered out loud. Her sister, Nishke, had instructed her in the use of both stars and axes just last week, for she belonged to the elite guard, the Pippalanta. They were required to be proficient with all weapons from ancient to modern.

  Oblivious to the crowd, Scirye practiced with different throwing motions until Kles scolded, “Stop that. You almost knocked off the Archbishop’s miter.”

  Scirye eyed the tall cap and then looked about for something to throw. “I bet he’s got a snack stuffed inside that.”

  “Your mother will be back at any moment,” Kles suggested, “so it might be wiser to go on wondering rather than find out.”

  With a disappointed grunt, Scirye lowered her free arm and moved on.

  There were so many dazzling objects in the room that she would have walked right by the ancient, faded carpet that hung within a long case on the wall near the archway.

  “Wait,” Kles said.

  The carpet showed the legendary scene in which Oado, the god of the wind, raced Salene, the god of the moon, and Elios, the god of the sun. All three gods wore Indian robes and Persian slippers but had dressed their hair in Greek style. Darting about the borders of the carpet were griffins and leogryphs, creatures with eagle wings and parrot beaks but the bodies of lions.

  Scirye glanced at the placard next to the carpet. “You’re just interested in anything that can fly.”

  “I’ve only heard about something like this. Flying carpets are extremely rare,” Kles said reverently. “They say that the threads are woven from griffin wool. Some of it might even be from a distant ancestor of mine.”

  Scirye leaned forward to read more of the placard. “I think some fast-talking merchant invented that story. This says that flying carpets are only myths and not based in fact.”

  Kles pointed a claw at the border with the intricately woven gold thread. “That’s because the museum people think that’s just a design, but it’s a very ancient script.” It was the same script in which the griffin’s commandments were carved into the rock walls of the eyrie and which every griffin had to learn. “And I suspect you not only have to read that script, but you also have to be of the Old Blood.”

  Kles would have liked to puzzle out the spell, but his mistress turned to the huge statue of Nanaia who was seated upon her companion lion. The goddess carried out many tasks for her children, which was why the sculptor had shown her with four hands. In her upper right hand, Nanaia held the bowl of water that never emptied because she made the crops possible. Despite that, Scirye was not sure she would want to meet the goddess even when she was feeling benevolent. Divine flames rose from her shoulders and wreathed her head in a halo that suggested she could unleash a terrible power if she became displeased.

  “Did you ever see her, Kles?” she teased. “The Consul told me she wanders the palace hallways at night. I think it’d be fun.”

  “No.” Kles shuddered and then bowed his head to mighty Nanaia, loving Nanaia, deadly Nanaia. “And be glad you haven’t either.”

  Scirye

  “Guilty conscience?” teased Nishke. Like Lady Sudarshane, she, too, had been keeping a watchful eye on her little sister.

  Because both sisters had their father’s sharp nose and broad chin, they were pretty rather than beautiful like their mother. But those same features lent them an air of strength, which was especially useful to Nishke.

  The tall, dark-skinned Nishke looked every inch the Pippal guard in long trousers, and armor of iron plaques that looked like the scales of a dragon. Embossed steel disks, which doubled not only as decoration but as for defense, hung from crisscrossed straps over the armor. The face of Salene, god of the moon, was engraved on each disk. Nishke’s rich, black hair was hidden by a helmet decorated with golden griffins.

  All through Scirye’s early years, Nishke had been more of a mother to Scirye than the Lady Sudarshane, who was often busy with her consular duties. It was Nishke who read to her and put her to bed, Nishke who had played with her, Nishke who had taught her the secret ways a careful girl could have fun within a consulate. Even after Nishke had left to join the Pippalanta, she had sent back long letters to her little sister about the places she was seeing and the interesting people she had met. Scirye missed her sister terribly so she had been ecstatic when Nishke had been assigned to escort the treasures to San Francisco and then guard them here.

  In general, life in the San Francisco consulate had been far kinder than any other place her mother had been posted. And even better now that Nishke was here for a long stay.

  “Whose conscience,” Kles inquired, “my mistress’s or mine?”

  “Both of you delinquents,” Nishke joked.

  Scirye liked her sister’s laugh. It reminded her of small bells on the harness of a griffin as
it flew through the sky. In the privacy of her own room, she had even practiced that laugh.

  The Lady Sudarshane came through the archway, having left an enraptured Mrs. Rudenko by the griffin display.

  Scirye felt her throat catch as it did sometimes when she saw her mother. Lady Sudarshane had red hair like Scirye’s but it was so much fuller and curlier, falling like foaming waves to her shoulders. Her skin was as pale as alabaster, and her eyes, which had Asian folds at the corners, gave her an exotic look.

  Scirye’s mother made everything she did seem so elegant, while Scirye was always the opposite: clumsy, awkward, ugly. Where Lady Sudarshane seemed to float across the floor, Scirye felt like she stumped along.

  Lady Sudarshane’s ancient outfit only enhanced her beauty—as if a statue of one of the goddesses had come to life. The collar of her red-and-black robe was decorated with hundreds of tiny gold flowers while rows of gold hearts inlaid with turquoise filled the sleeve cuffs and tear-shaped gold pieces danced around the bottom hem.

  Even her odd cap seemed quaint when she wore it, rather than comical. The hat had stuffed horns, one of bright yellow silk and the other of dark violet. All sorts of mystical signs had been embroidered on them to indicate that Lady Sudarshane was a wise woman.

  “Really, Scirye,” Lady Sudarshane said in Kushana, “we simply can’t have you frightening the natives.”

  “Why, mother,” Scirye replied in the same old tongue, “whatever do you mean? I was entertaining Mrs. Rudenko with a little fairy tale.”

  Lady Sudarshane sighed. “I would prefer it if you bored the natives from now on, dear. And lift your chimiton. It’s dragging on the floor again.”

  Scirye found that the heavy cloak had slipped off her shoulder once more and she hauled it back up. “It’s not my fault that it won’t stay put. Why can’t I wear my normal clothes instead of all this stuff? You’re the one who’s always trying to convince the reporters that we’re a modern, civilized people. Why dress like barbarians?”

  “It’s not ‘barbarian,’“ Kles scolded her. “It’s a mixture of the best of Greek and Parthian.”

  “Don’t forget Indian,” Nishke added.

  “Only barbarians can’t make up their minds and stick with one style,” Scirye groused, indicating her long, red silk tunic with lavender-striped sleeves which was cinched by a bronze belt above her waist with a circular silver buckle with crossed axes beneath the moon. All the Kushan wore the symbol of their empire somewhere on their costumes. Draped over her left shoulder was a cloaklike piece of cloth that was wrapped diagonally around her torso and on which she kept tripping. Silk purple trousers with red chevrons were tucked into antelope-skin boots. She intended to keep the foot gear since they felt as if they had been molded to her calves and feet.

  The Lady straightened her daughter’s costume. “We need to be colorful enough to grab the front page. If we dress in our regular clothes, we’ll wind up on a back page next to announcements for the garden club.”

  “Then why don’t we just rent some clown costumes?” Scirye countered.

  Nishke joined her mother in trying to calm her sister. “The costumes are part of setting the right atmosphere,” she explained. “If you dress like any girl in San Francisco, how will they know you’re a Kushan?”

  Scirye felt as if her mother and sister were both ganging up on her. She already knew she would never be as noble as her sister or as exquisite as her mother.

  Scirye hunched her shoulders sullenly. “That’s easy for you to say when you get to dress like a warrior.”

  Nishke affectionately adjusted a curl hanging against Scirye’s cheek. “I happen to be a Pippal.”

  “And so will I,” Scirye mumbled. “Just you wait.”

  The Lady Sudarshane rolled her eyes at Nishke. “This is all your fault. You set a bad example for your little sister.”

  Nishke held up both hands as she laughed. “Don’t blame me. The sisters say you’re the one who set a bad example by quitting the sisterhood to join the consular corps.”

  The corners of Lady Sudarshane’s mouth slipped upward. “Well, if I hadn’t, I would never have met your father and then where would you two miscreants be? You’re going to turn my hair gray yet.”

  Actually, Nishke had never caused her parents any major worries. She had always known what she wanted and aimed for her goal by the most direct path—whether it was an aerial polo trophy or an appointment to the Pippalanta. Smart and well-liked, she was being groomed for an officer’s commission one day.

  Scirye, on the other hand, was a source of constant concern for her parents, for her mother often spoke long-distance with her father, who was His Imperial Highness’s very own Griffin Master. He carried out the traditional task of overseeing the imperial pride of riding griffins as well as the welfare of all lap griffins. However, in addition to his ancient responsibilities, he also carried out all the other duties that had become attached to the office through the centuries, including acting as the official liaison treaty negotiator between humans and griffins. Or as he put it, he smoothed out ruffled feathers, fur, hair, and toupees.

  On the rare occasions when his obligations permitted, he visited them wherever they were posted. Though it was clear he loved Scirye and she looked forward to being with him, it was always painfully obvious that they did not have much in common. This man, so adept at calming a rampaging griffin, didn’t have a clue on what to say to a young girl in general, let alone reason with her about her bad behavior.

  Even when Scirye was trying to imitate her sister, she always managed to warp it somehow. Where Nishke was cheerful, Scirye was sarcastic. Where the older girl was determined, the younger one was willful. Where Nishke always steered by some inner compass, Scirye wandered first in one direction and then another.

  Lady Sudarshane kissed the cheek of her prodigal daughter. “If you can’t even wear a costume for one day, how are you going to handle the strict discipline that the Pippalanta demand?”

  Scirye started to sputter in protest like the lid on a boiling tea kettle, but before she could explode, Kles joined in. “Lady Scirye, think of yourself as playing a role today, all right?” the griffin wheedled. “The point is to make the Kushan less mysterious to the Americans, and what better way than to show them what has made us a great nation?”

  “Okay, but I don’t have to like it. I feel like I’m drowning in silk,” Scirye grumbled, accepting her fate with poor grace.

  Lady Sudarshane gave Kles a grateful look. He always seemed to know the right thing to say to her daughter.

  “Now, now, dear,” Lady Sudarshane soothed. “If this was good enough for our ancestors, it’s good enough for us. Tradition is meant to be distinctive, not comfortable.”

  Scirye made an exasperated sound as she felt the cloak sagging from her shoulder again. “Argh! Why won’t this thing stay put? I could just bite the next person who says how quaint I look!” She started to pull off the cloak, ready to trample it, but Kles batted a wing against her cheek and she stopped at his cautionary touch.

  “Well, if you do”—Nishke winked—”make sure it’s not someone important.”

  Before Scirye could reply to her sister, they were nearly trampled by a large woman as she walked backward across the floor. She was gesturing with both hands for a group of newspeople to follow her.

  Over her shoulder, she wore a sash proclaiming that she was a museum docent. From her affected voice and mannerisms, she was a frustrated actress. “And we’ve saved the best for last.”

  “I’ll say,” a photographer said. He held up a big boxy camera. “Smile, honey.”

  A half-dozen other photographers peeled away from the group to cluster about Nishke.

  “Excuse me,” Nishke said to her mother and sister and then turned to the photographers. “I have to take up my post first.” She marched smartly to the center of the room and took her place by a corner of the case where the body of Lady Tabiti lay in honor upon a dais supported by elephants
of lapis lazuli. A Pippal stood at each of the three other corners, as well.

  Within the case Lady Tabiti rested in a suit of armor made from plaques of dark, apple green jade sewn together with gold thread. Gold inlays of Nanaia the Peaceful adorned each piece of jade. A mask, carved from a large matching piece of jade into the likeness of a beautiful woman, had been set aside to reveal the head of the owner of the armor.

  Her body had been preserved remarkably well by the desertlike climate where she usually lay in her mausoleum, so it was possible to see that her face at one time had matched the mask. Ropes of braided hair still showed some of their original fiery red tint, which might have matched Scirye’s.

  Camera bulbs popped and flashed, but the photographers seemed more interested in Nishke and the Pippalanta guards than in Lady Tabiti herself.

  “We should take our posts, too,” Lady Sudarshane said, and led her daughter and Kles to a seat in the roped-off area to the right of the podium.

  The cloak slipped down yet again so that Scirye tripped and nearly fell on her face. Scowling, she tugged the obnoxious piece of clothing back in place and then slumped in a chair until her mother tapped her shoulder. “Don’t slouch, dear. You look like you have a hump.” As her daughter sat up straight, Lady Sudarshane fussed with Scirye’s clothing. “Nishke should be teaching you how to sit properly in a chair rather than how to fight.”

  Scirye shot a guilty look at her mother. “What do you mean?” she asked, fearing the worst.

  Her mother pursed her lips in amusement. “I know what you two are really doing when you tell me you’re going out shopping,” her mother said. “You might at least have the decency to come back with a package or two to keep up the pretense.”

  Scirye desperately tried to concoct an alibi. “We were window shopping.”

  Her mother tapped her lightly on the head. “No, you’re going to the gym where she’s teaching you Tumarg. And I might add that fibbing to your mother is not Tumarg.”

  Tumarg was the Way of Light, the Way that Purifies. It embodied not only the martial arts of the Pippalanta but their code of honor, as well.