Ashes of Candesce: Book Five of Virga

by Karl Schroeder

  "So tell me, what was the plan?" When he didn't answer, Venera reached out and grabbed his chin, turning his face to hers. "Focus."

  A crash came from somewhere behind them and the ship shook. In his peripheral vision Jacoby saw another tier of houses slide up past the windscreen.

  He wasn't about to tell her his plan, but Inshiri's was another matter. "The hostages were bound for somewhere outside Virga," he said. "Derance called it the 'arena.' I'm unclear on the aeriography--"

  "That group we set free. Were they the only ones?"

  "So far, yes. But we were expecting another consignment."

  "From what nations? Name names, please."

  The yacht hooked a string of pipes and water exploded over the nose. The pilot cursed. There was another slamming crash from aft. Jacoby tried to hang on to everything all at once.

  Engines roaring, the yacht hovered for a moment, hesitant in the face of thick towers, a barrier of heavy cables, and an open canyon that was, unfortunately, crisscrossed by several layers of catwalk bridges. Muttering some mix of prayers and curses under his breath, the pilot slid them toward the bridges.

  "Really, Venera, you talk like you have the upper hand, here. But the fact is, the only thing keeping you alive--apart from him"--he nodded at the pilot--"is the fact that I am still alive. Why should I give you any details?"

  The yacht took out a bridge. Townsfolk were fleeing ahead of it, and so far at least they hadn't hit anybody. Jacoby heard the hatch behind him open, and the voices of a dozen soldiers all say "Ow!" in simultaneous sympathy as another bridge snapped.

  "Uh, Commander, not to, well, you know, overstate the obvious, but I thought you might want to know--"

  "Not now!" she snapped at the bomb expert. He ducked his head and closed the hatch.

  They were free-falling. Fanning's hair lifted like some black halo around her head. She put her pistol to his forehead and said, "Jacoby, I'm out of patience with you. Who are they? How many ships do they have? What sort of agreement are they making with these countries?"

  Buildings whipped by, faster and faster. If they hit anything now, the yacht would be smashed into kindling.

  Better give her something to keep her quiet. "It's about Candesce. They're mustering support for an incursion into the sun of suns. They promise they're not going to shut off the field, only tune it down--"

  "Ha!" she said. "You were never that naive. Besides, they would need the key to Candesce to get in, and Chaison gave it to a precipice moth. Last I saw it was flapping its ugly way into winter."

  He just looked at her, and Venera's eyes widened. "But that's impossible," she said. "How could they have it when it was given to..."

  "We're through!" whooped the pilot. Clear blue sky had broken across the windshield.

  * * *

  WITH A BRILLIANT flash, the yacht was knocked end over end. Jacoby tumbled, hit the wall, the ceiling. Spangled with shock and pain, he dimly felt Venera's feet on his chest; she pushed off, making him huff, and then he blinked and saw her strapping herself into the copilot's chair. The windscreen was cracked in a dozen places, and ahead and to starboard, another blossom of explosive fire lit the sky.

  "Who are they?" she demanded. "How many?"

  For a confused second Jacoby thought she was talking to him, but then the pilot pointed. "Six ships. That must be what chased ours away."

  "Not guns in the city. Ships! They've been laying in wait for us?"

  "Of course they've been laying in wait for you," huffed Jacoby. "You haven't realized that this was a trap all along?"

  He saw the dawning realization on her face. "Then the real Thavia of Greydrop--"

  "Works for me, damn it."

  "But the hostages, they were genuine--"

  "Of course they were! You wouldn't have fell for it if I'd used fakes."

  "Ma'am," said the pilot, "I think they're launching bikes. Ideas?"

  "Oh, yes," she said grimly. "I have an idea." Now it was her turn to point. The pilot groaned.

  "First you tell me to drop us through a city, now it's clouds of razor wire and mines?"

  "Don't forget the piranhawks," she said past a tight grin.

  "No!" Jacoby clawed his way forward. "Not that way!"

  The hatch behind them opened again. "Uh, ma'am? The boys were wondering--"

  "Tell them to brace themselves," she called. "We're going to lose those ships in the ruins of Spyre."

  She chuckled and rubbed her hands together. "Somebody's going to write a book about this," she said giddily. She leaned toward the pilot. "How's your penmanship?"

  "Venera, give up to me now," pleaded Jacoby. "The alternative is much, much worse!"

  "Bah," she said. "I'd rather die than be your prisoner again."

  "That's not what I mean!"

  Clouds lay ahead of them--but unlike the white and peach-touched thunderheads that dotted the sky above and to all sides, these were speckled and black, like thin smoke. Venera indicated the highlights of the view. "Spyre was an open cylinder twelve miles long," she said. "It had a lot of defenses. There's the razor wire, yes, but there were also clouds of caltrops, and of course the mines."

  The pilot nodded vigorously. "Yes, about those--"

  "I doubt we'll see any. They're navigation hazards; I can't see the neighbors tolerating them now that Spyre's gone. And it would be cheap to dispose of them; two men with machine guns could pick them off from a safe distance."

  "All right."

  "Venera, please! Don't go this way!"

  Something long and silvery shot past to port. "Razor," said Venera unnecessarily. "Oh, look--"

  "I see it, I see it." The yacht twisted, throwing Jacoby against the bulkhead again.

  Well, there went any chance he'd had of keeping this capture from Inshiri. With Derance dead, there was nobody loyal to her who'd seen what had just unfolded in Fracas--but that was about to change.

  "The old defenses made a kind of shell around Spyre," Venera was saying. "Egg-shaped, fifteen miles long by ten. Once we're in there it should be clear and we can take a more leisurely path out. Those big cruisers will have to circle around, they don't have our maneuvera ... What the hell is that?"

  A mist of spiked balls flew past, then a few strands of razor wire, and then they were into open air again. Venera and the pilot were suddenly silent, and Jacoby looked past them and saw that there was indeed nothing to hide anymore.

  "There must be ... hundreds," whispered Venera. For the first time, she looked afraid.

  Oh, more than hundreds. Jacoby had long ago lost count. He shook his head, defeated and resigned.

  "Run up the white flag," said Venera quietly.

  They glided, engines idling, into a cloud of warships miles in extent.

  17

  KEIR HESITATED, THEN reached out to rap on the door. It was ornately carved, and like everything else in Aerie's new capital city, smelled of wood shavings and fresh paint.

  "I said, just a minute!" Leal sounded frantic.

  "What, you're not even decent yet?" He heard the assurance in his own voice; back in Brink, he would never have teased an adult like this. But that time was increasingly a blur.

  "It's not that," she shouted. "I just can't--oh, hell." He heard her thumping, slightly ungraceful footsteps, and then the door flung open. "I don't know what to wear," she said in a defeated tone.

  "May I?" She ducked aside and he entered the gigantic bedroom they'd given her. It was so new its ceiling was only half-painted, with scenes of some epic battle in recent Virgan history. Garish, he thought.

  "I know how you feel," he said, spreading his arms to show off his dress uniform. "I was going to wear my clothes from Brink, but they don't fit me anymore."

  At that she smiled and ran her eyes over his uniform, which emphasized his broad shoulders. Leal herself was in loose pants tied up with a drawstring, and a plain white shirt. Laid out on her gargantuan four-poster bed were six complete outfits, ranging from a golden gown (with,
of course, ankle ties for freefall modesty) to a severe black pantsuit. Keir stood over them and rubbed his chin half-consciously. He'd had to start shaving lately, and the process had a reassuring familiarity to it; but he'd never been shaved by another man before, as he had this morning by the footman they'd assigned to him.

  "I have to dress to impress," she said. "The question is, how?"

  He pointed to the gown. "Too extreme. The rule here is, there'll always be a prettier woman in the room. But looks is all they have. You don't want to look pretty, you want to look important."

  She scowled in annoyance. "When in my life am I going to get another chance to be pretty?"

  He stepped up and took her hands. "When we've won, and the whole world comes to celebrate."

  She just stood there, smiling up at him, until he stepped back and said, "Today, you're here to dominate, and frighten. Think Venera Fanning."

  "But she always looks good!"

  "The two goals are not incompatible." He looked at the outfits again. "Which of these would Venera choose?"

  She bit her knuckle, concentrating. "Not ... any of them. But it's all they gave me!"

  "May I suggest we mix and match." He tapped the suit. "Too severe. But the trousers work." Next to it was a black top with corresponding harem pants. "The pants here are too much. But the top is off-the-shoulder, and the contradictions will be quite impressive." He handed her the black top and suit pants, and she stepped behind the screen to haul them on.

  "Well..." She stood in front of the mirror, obviously pleased. "But it's not quite there."

  "Gotta put your hair back and tie it off. Did they give you hairpins?" She nodded to the dressing table. He came back with two large red wooden pins and, stepping behind her, began tugging her hair into shape.

  "You've done this before," she said.

  "Apparently," he said past the pins between his teeth.

  He was peripherally aware that she was watching him in the mirror, her face serious now. "Keir," she said at last, "where is it going to stop?"

  "What?"

  "This ... transformation. These changes in you."

  He paused. "I don't know. All I know is I feel better. More myself."

  "And your memories? Are they coming back?"

  "Y-yes. And no. I know that I did more than just de-index myself. That's a scry thing, it doesn't affect your biological memories. Since I got here, I haven't had scry to lean on, so I've had to access that natural memory system just to function. So I'm getting better at it. But ... some things are just gone."

  "Sita?"

  He shook his head. "I remember her better every day. No. It's a period when I was in Brink. Something happened. I think I ... found out something. And it scared me, or something. So much that I wiped it from scry and my natural memory, and de-indexed and neotenized myself. It was a kind of suicide, really."

  He'd said this dispassionately, but his hands were shaking a little as he finished adjusting Leal's hair. "There," he said, moving his hands to her shoulders. "Done."

  "Yes." She was nodding. "I like it." The overall look was severe, but the top bared her shoulders and a plunge of skin between her breasts. Her hair was tightly drawn back, the two pins making a red X behind her head.

  "Does it make you feel confident? Sharpen your eyebrows, and we're ready." He turned to the door, but didn't make it a meter before she'd grabbed his arm and hauled him back. She kissed him strongly, and his whole act of competence fell apart.

  When they disengaged, he wobbled back a bit and she arched an eyebrow. "Yeah, it seems to work," she said.

  "Let's go."

  * * *

  THE SPIN-GALE OF the city of Aurora whispered in the corners as Keir and Leal made their through the Slipstream ambassadorial mission. The building was marble, conspicuously made of stone in a city that was otherwise metal-poor. They heard adding machines and typewriters clattering in the side offices, and pageboys and -girls raced past carrying envelopes of various sizes.

  An honor guard was waiting patiently by the bridge to the presidential palace. The red-and-gold-suited soldiers all saluted as they strolled up, and Keir grinned at Leal. She looked decidedly uncomfortable at the attention. "We're not even going outside," she whispered to him as they set out across the columned, covered bridge.

  "Oh, just enjoy it." He was determined to wipe away the memories that had assailed him this morning, and made a point of looking out at the city as they walked. There was little to see, though; the way was obscured by thick forest.

  The bridge connected to Aerie's new presidential palace, which was a fantasy in wrought iron, asteroidal pallasite, and glass. Beams of sunlight wheeled with majestic stateliness through corridors with polished floors and high arched ceilings. Workers were still buffing and painting here, too.

  "Atten-shun!" The honor guard stopped as one, and saluted. Another group was approaching from the left, this second knot of Slipstream soldiers surrounding Admiral Chaison Fanning and Lacerta, the Home Guard officer who'd been stranded in Aethyr with Hayden Griffin. Despite their fresh dress uniforms, both appeared grim and tired.

  "Any word on Venera?" Keir murmured to Leal, who shook her head. "Good morning, Admiral."

  Fanning nodded impassively. The two groups merged and began to make their way to the front of the palace. Officials and support staff were everywhere now, scurrying to and fro, pushing tables, consulting over clipboards. It was some sort of organized chaos, and all done without scry. Keir was impressed.

  Antaea Argyre waited alone at an intersection where white sunlight flooded in from the right. She wasn't the warrior today but the author, in a brocade jacket over a white blouse, dark knee-length trousers, and flats. There were no weapons belted at her hips.

  She bowed, and the honor guard accepted her inside of it. She glanced up at Fanning, but no one spoke as they traversed the short sunlit hall to stand at the top of a broad, balconied level from which a vast, wide sweep of stairs led down to gardens.

  Here, the front half of the palace became a single chamber walled by glass and supported by vaulting girders of iron. This part of the building was shaped somewhat like the inverted front of a ship, and the steps before them faced the prow. Sunlight poured in through the glass as if it wasn't there, flooding the trees and flower beds below. Outside, the forested city curved up on either side, and ahead rose and rose, to arch finally overhead in turquoise glory, its sweeping shape framed by two godlike wings of cloud.

  One figure stood silhouetted at the top of the steps. Hayden Griffin was looking out over the new city, in the light of the sun he had built. There were plenty of other people traversing the steps, but all gave him a wide berth. Some paused behind him, to look back at him in awe.

  His return from Aethyr had caused a frenzy of adulation in Aerie. They'd practically rioted in the streets, and even now, people were perched on buildings and in trees outside the palace, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. He'd responded to all of this with acute embarrassment, and had been hiding in his room.

  The honor guard had hesitated at the sight of him. Keir smiled and walked through them, coming to stand by Griffin's side. "They say the whole city is made of trees," he commented.

  Griffin stood with his arms crossed. Now he grinned at Keir. "Nothing like what your people could build, I'm sure," he said.

  Keir barked a laugh. "None of my people would have the imagination for something like this." New as it was, Aerie had few hard resources, so the single vast wheel of Aurora had been grown rather than built. Young trees and whole groves of ancient ones had been towed here from across the world, and twined and tied, lashed and spiked together around a supporting skeleton of cable and iron beam to make a single, ring-shaped forest. Speed ivy from the ruins of Spyre had been seeded all about its outsides, and then slowly, over many months, it had all been spun up. The meandering plank streets still creaked and groaned as weight and tension adjusted beneath them; but the forest was dotted now with houses and hotels and sh
ops. Many little lakes and ponds, spheres of water ranging from house- to block-sized, turned magisterially in the empty space within the ring. They threw rainbow refractions across the marble, a constant slow sweep of light like the passage of angels' wings.

  A rustle of sound reached them from the throng of people that had spread in tendrils and knots through the gardens below. At the far end of the space was a broad square paved in glittering pallasite, and attendants were just in the process of clearing away the breakfast tables they had placed there. Others were making final adjustments to the placement of row after row of chairs for the delegates attending this, the colloquy's opening ceremony.

  Someone appeared at Keir's shoulder; it was Leal. Her fingers found his hand. On the other side of Griffin, the admiral stepped up, the Guardsman next to him. On the end, still glancing up at Fanning, came Antaea Argyre.

  The honor guard had retreated. They were alone at the top of the stairs.

  Keir snuck a look at Chaison Fanning, too. His face was impassive, but Keir knew that the absence of his wife must be eating at his heart, especially on this of all days.

  "Eyes forward," said Fanning. "We've all sacrificed for this moment, let's do it proud."

  They walked together down the steps, under the gaze of a hundred nations.

  * * *

  CRICK, CRICK, CRICK . Leal was half-consciously twisting the pages of her speech, and she knew it was making a little noise, but she couldn't stop. Her mouth was dry and her knees felt weak, and if she could have turned and run from this stage, she would have.

  The last of the delegates had just taken their seats. These were not people used to sitting in an audience; they had all been informed that there was no order to the seating--it was first come, first served. Some potentates of richer principalities looked indignant at ending up in the back.

  The admiral stood with his hands behind his back, glaring them all into silence. He'd somehow draped himself with invisible Presence, and shortly, all eyes were on him.

  He ignored the podium with its conical bullhorn, but instead walked to the edge of the stage.