The Stars Askew

by Rjurik Davidson

  One of the anatomists turned to Rikard: “We’ll have to get the blood out of them quickly, but thaumaturgists—they usually have all kinds of inner decay. You think that the worst of it is the outside.” He gestured to the warped and knobby bodies, so common among those who used the Art. “But the real changes are running wild in the organs.”

  Kata forced herself to lean in and examine the two dead thaumaturgists. She gagged at the sight of their blistered and burned faces, the skin melted unnaturally.

  She steeled herself and turned back to Aceline, averting her eyes from her former friend’s face. The welt around the tiny woman’s neck was red and raw. She looked closer: a tiny blue thread was lodged in the skin—a piece of the material that had been used to strangle the woman. Kata turned to the nearby cart, took a pair of tweezers, and gently removed the thread, which she placed in a vial she took from the embalmer’s tray. The thread might have come from a strangling scarf, used most commonly by philosopher-assassins connected with the secretive Arcadi sect. These scarves were weighted, allowing the assassin to whip them around the neck of the victim from behind. And yet, they had found no such scarf at the baths.

  The doors burst open behind Kata and Rikard. A large bald man strode into the room, the dramatic entrance and the force of his personality drawing everyone’s attention. The irises of his eyes were an icy white, a trait common in the Teeming Cities far to the south. Kata had seen the thaumaturgist Alfadi before: he was the former prefect of the Technis thaumaturgists but had refused to attack the seditionist forces at the decisive moment of the uprising. Instead he had bravely led the thaumaturgists through Technis Complex’s great double doors and into the surrounding square. There he had embraced Ejan as the seditionists looked on. That was the moment everything had changed.

  Like most of the thaumaturgists, Alfadi now lived in the Marin Complex. Unlike most, his loyalties were clear: he frequently came to the Opera building to speak at the Insurgent Assembly. Kata was glad to have him on the seditionists’ side.

  Kata had never seen him up close, though, and now his presence—fueled by the uncanny power that resided within him—dominated the room. He was one of the few thaumaturgists who did not have any outward signs of the Art: none of the warping or sickly gleam that affected those who invoked its powers. Whatever changes it had made to him were chillingly hidden inside.

  Alfadi stood eerily still, his eyes settling on the bodies of the thaumaturgists. He looked slowly at the old men, then across to Kata and Rikard, who stood fixed by his piercing gaze. There was a measured quality to the man, but as he looked back at the melted faces of the thaumaturgists, a hundred little muscles seemed to give way. He reached out, his hand hovering over their bodies. “We’ll bring them back to the Marin Palace. Someone will recognize them.”

  In the background, one of the anatomists held a tube in one hand and whispered to the other anatomist, “We’ll start the drainage on the fat one. More blood.”

  Alfadi drew a deep breath. “You must be Rikard and Kata. Ejan told me he’d put his best people on this, that I should help in any way I can. What do you know?”

  “We’re looking for the new moderate leader, Thom,” said Rikard. “He might have more information.”

  Alfadi’s eyes fell on Kata. “Aceline was a friend of yours, wasn’t she? You poor thing.” The man smiled gently and reached out to Kata. His hand was soft, its touch gentle. There was a sudden darkness around his eyes, then he stepped back. “I’ll send a message once we’ve an idea of their identities.”

  As the former prefect left the room, Kata glimpsed two black-suited thaumaturgists waiting in the corridor. The sight of them reminded her of the days when thaumaturgists had struck fear into the citizens. Perhaps they still should, she thought.

  “This one has a tattoo,” said the younger anatomist, who had stripped the larger thaumaturgist and was examining his warped body. Above the man’s heart was crude art depicting two hands clasped together.

  “This one too,” the second anatomist said.

  “Does anyone know if it has a meaning?” said Rikard.

  No one seemed to know, so the anatomists continued with their work. Kata watched with horror as one of them started to massage the body.

  The embalmer grinned. “Breaking up any circulatory clots he might have.”

  * * *

  Kata and Rikard sat at a table at the corner of a tiny plaza. The eatery that served them was full of talking customers, both inside and at other tables on the square outside, though the spiced breads were exorbitantly priced.

  The long hot summer had given way to a cool autumn, and a gentle night breeze caressed Kata’s face in coy gusts. Once winter settled in, it would be too cold to eat outdoors, but even at this late hour, citizens were on the streets. Some made their way to a staircase that climbed to a first-story bar that overlooked the plaza. Excited chatter drifted through the cool air and down the alleyways. Others passed in little groups, still debating.

  Kata examined Rikard. She had to admit, the vigilants were dedicated, even if she didn’t like their certainty, Rikard’s cold calculations, the abstraction of their ideas. In the vigilants’ minds, if people had to die, then so be it. There was a purity to Rikard, and a consistency, but was the world itself consistent and pure?

  “Olivier was right,” she said. “Ejan would gain much from Aceline’s death.”

  Rikard took a bite of bread. “Olivier is a fool. Ejan thinks only of the seditionist movement, only of the new world we’re building. If the Houses and their agents joined us instead of resisting, think of the things we could achieve.”

  How simple it would be, if Kata could reach out and shake some sense into Rikard. She sighed. The world was not simple, and truth not easy to achieve. That was the point of being a moderate: to recognize that complexity, to realize you might need the input of others to see the world as it actually is.

  She engaged after all. “But when does that resistance simply become an excuse for carrying out repressive measures? At what point do you turn necessities into virtues? Your black-suited guards remind me too much of the Houses.”

  Rikard’s lips twitched. “Surely, you overlook the stylistic improvements. I mean … black leather.”

  Kata closed her eyes. “How could I miss that?”

  Rikard offered Kata a piece of the spiced bread. “Why would two thaumaturgists meet a seditionist leader in secret? Who were they hiding from, if the Insurgent Assembly is the highest power in the city?”

  Kata took a bite of the bread, struggled to get it down, placed the rest back onto the plate. Recent events had killed her appetite. She put her hand into her pocket, ran her fingers over the letter that lay within, then put her hand back in her lap.

  Rikard crossed his arms to keep himself warm. “Both thaumaturgists have the same tattoo on their chests.”

  How much should Kata share with the vigilant? Should she tell him of the letter? “Yes, but what does it mean? We’ll take the contents of the vials to a philosopher-assassin I know. She may be able to identify them for us. In the meantime, I’m going home. It’s late.”

  * * *

  Kata returned to her apartment to find Dexion on the floor with the street urchin Henri. The two threw their dice at the same moment. When they rolled to a stop, Henri barely flicked his eyes at them before wordlessly putting out his hand.

  Dexion groaned and pulled out several coins from a pocket. “That’s it—this is the last roll. After that, you’ll have bankrupted me! You’ll have to pay for everything now.”

  Kata sat at the table and pulled the letter from her pocket. She watched Henri’s devilish little eyes, alight with joy.

  “No! No, no, no, no, no!” Dexion groaned again. “That’s it—this is the last time, I tell you. The last time!”

  After Kata filled them in on her day, Henri pocketed the remaining coins and said, “I might be able to find Thom.” The urchins had complex networks throughout the city. It was true: they m
ight know where a man as famous as Thom hid himself away.

  “I won’t have you involved in this affair,” said Kata. “Someone has died. It’s not safe, and you’re not an adult.”

  “It’s just a few questions.” Dexion tossed his bull head, stretched his neck. The scent of the spices rubbed into his hide—ginger and cloves—drifted over to her.

  There it was: her anger again, at herself, at the world. “It’s never only questions.”

  Henri shrugged and turned to Dexion. “I’ll give you one chance to win these back. What have you got?”

  Dexion closed his huge black eyes slowly. “Let me think…”

  Kata watched them for a moment. She then looked down at the envelope in her hand and slowly unfolded the letter within.

  Armand,

  I know you believe the prism will be crucial for your task in Varenis, but surely it would be of more use here? Both of us agree on this. Remember that those who control the thaumaturgists control Caeli-Amur. Stay here, and it will make their task far easier. Without it, it will take too much time to reinforce our position, though our best plan should be realized by the Twilight Observance. Should you carry the prism north, given the support for the seditionists, we will be forced to be even more secretive and patient. If necessary, we will wait for your return, but I beg you to reconsider. I await your reply.

  D

  Later that night, as Kata lay in her bed on the top floor of her apartment, she listened to the boy and the minotaur arguing, and thought about the letter. She had known an Armand who had been an assistant to Boris Autec, the Director of House Technis. She remembered his calmness. He had always seemed honorable to her. But what had happened to him? Had he been killed in the assault on the Technis Complex? Kata closed her eyes. After the uprising, there had been chaos. Seditionists, citizens, all stomping through the Palace, seeing the great halls, the library, the section whose rooms moved around one another like some complex puzzle—a mobile maze built for the protection of the powerful. Vigilants and moderates had both rifled through the files. Kata had been among them, desperately shuffling through papers, looking for her own records, files that would condemn her as having been a House spy. She hadn’t found them, and even now the terror of their being discovered weighed on her. Whoever possessed them could destroy her in a moment.

  Kata pushed away the thought. She reasoned that Thom had found the letter in Technis Palace, and that it was from a third party—a certain D—who worked with Armand. Perhaps D had commanded the thaumaturgists to kill Aceline. What powers, she wondered, did this prism possess? And what, she wondered, were Armand’s plans for it?

  As she considered the possibilities, she felt Henri slip into the bed, as he was wont to do occasionally. He turned his back to her, and she threw her arm over the little boy. He coughed and shuddered a little. That damn cough, she worried. He seemed to have it constantly. She’d have to have it seen to.

  In no time, Henri was asleep. Sometimes he kicked out at whatever enemies he fought in his dreams. At these times she clasped him closer, and he relaxed. She knew those dreams only too well, for they visited her, too. They always had, ever since she had been on the streets as a child, just like Henri. As always, his presence calmed her, and soon enough she, too, drifted into sleep.

  THREE

  When he looked back later, Armand couldn’t be sure exactly when he knew someone was following him. The knowledge had started rattling around in his unconscious well before he arrived at the roadhouse at the edge of the small town of Scaptia a week after fleeing Caeli-Amur.

  Exhausted from the ride, Armand didn’t so much sit as collapse into a rough wooden seat in the roadhouse, his head tilting back, as if any effort were too much. For some time he looked blankly across the dingy hall. In one corner, a group of merchants leaned toward one another, discussing news of the revolution. Varenis had begun a blockade, and their group would be the last to make it to Caeli-Amur, they said. Other traders had been halted at the Palian Wall. Varenis’s grip on Caeli-Amur was tightening.

  “Be happy about it,” roared a merchant, whose beard was huge and wild like a mountain man’s. “Think of the profits we’ll make.” He slapped his hands on the table to emphasize his point, and his beard shook with the reverberations.

  “Until Caeli-Amur runs out of money, that is.”

  Another struck the table. “What will become of me after that?”

  Armand’s attention drifted. He thought about the following day, when he would take the road near the Keos Pass. Wastelanders had been streaming away from their homes, escaping the wasteland site where the forces of Aya and Alerion had clashed almost a thousand years ago. There the two gods had twisted time and space. Now there were rumors the site was growing inexplicably, engulfing everything around it. Armand shuddered at the thought of that strange zone, where the air warped under peculiar physics and creatures emerged, horribly changed.

  Even now a small group of wastelanders sat in a corner. One leaned back against the wall, seemingly weary. Hundreds of small tentacles wriggled energetically on his forehead. Beside him, a woman stared balefully through eyes that had dropped low around her nose. Her face had grown goatlike and terrible. They were headed to Caeli-Amur, it seemed.

  Only then was Armand suddenly aware of the shadowy figure watching him from the corner of the room. The man’s head was turned toward him, but his hood dipped deep over his eyes, obscuring his features. Armand felt a chill rush down his spine. Armand had been riding north alone, occasionally passing carts headed south. One cart had been carrying wool for the weavers in Caeli-Amur, and a handsome young man sat on the bales, carving a piece of wood. After the cart had passed, Armand had glanced back, his eyes following the young man. Yes, with his red lips and large brown eyes, the young man was dashing indeed. In another life, at another time, thought Armand. As he turned to watch the cart pass, Armand had barely registered the hooded figure behind him at the edge of his vision.

  Now, sitting in that lonely roadhouse surrounded by strangers, the reality of the situation struck him. The seditionists had sent a philosopher-assassin after him. Of course they had, for he had been seen rushing through Technis Palace by several officiates. Everything had been mad in those moments after the suicide of Technis Director Autec, with intendants crying in the corridors of Technis Palace, subofficiates trying to hide in cupboards or beneath desks, officiates spitting recriminations at one another. Officiate Ijem had used the sphere to connect with Varenis, but the Director had promised only damnation for the officials who had failed to contain the seditionists. Officiate Ijem had run from the room, laughing absurdly—he was always laughing—about how the seditionists would slaughter them.

  Armand had used the chaos as a cover to steal the Prism of Alerion, the lists of seditionists compiled by House Technis before its overthrow, and the maps of the tunnels beneath Caeli-Amur. When the letter from his supporters arrived, begging him to leave the prism in the city, he slipped it into a pocket and ignored it. Then he heard the seditionists were in the building. Dashing to the stables, Armand took the most valuable horse, a snow-white beast he had called Ice. Using the maps, he slipped through the underground passages, beneath the city, and to the road north. It was only then that he realized the letter of support had somehow fallen from his pocket. He cursed and railed, but there was nothing he could do.

  Ijem or one of the other officiates had clearly talked, and now a killer tracked Armand from the opposite side of the common room. The assassin would catch him alone on the road, tomorrow or the day after, and slip a razor-sharp stiletto between his ribs.

  Armand touched his bag, still hanging over his shoulder. Beneath its worn leather, he could feel the bulging of the prism, said to contain the spirit of the god Alerion himself. Armand shivered at the thought. The prism was the only item able to halt the deleterious effects of thaumaturgy. While all other thaumaturgists were warped and broken by their use of the Art, whoever controlled the prism could avoid that f
ate. He would have to guard it jealously. With the prism in his possession, Varenis would back him as the liberator of Caeli-Amur.

  Armand slipped away from his table and climbed the stairs up to his room. He slid the bolt on his door into its hole and examined it for a moment. Would it hold firm? he wondered.

  He spent the night sitting against the wall, expecting the assassin to silently unlock the door and slip the bolt aside with some delicate skill. He sat there running his hand compulsively over his ring, which had once belonged to his grandfather. Occasionally he looked down at the ideogram that hovered oddly in the air above its labyrinthine face. He’d worn it since his father had died, but he’d never known its use or function.

  Despite his fears, the night passed quietly. Well before sunrise, Armand slipped from the roadhouse and rode rapidly to the northern gate of Scaptia. Though he hated to do it to the poor animal, he drove Ice more quickly than before.

  What had these poor creatures done to be caught up in the sordid world of people and politics? These fine animals were more simple and noble than humans; they did as their nature demanded; they were incapable of the cruelty, mendacity, or vindictiveness of the kind of mob rule that had helped seditionism take hold in Caeli-Amur. It was clear to Armand that seditionist freedom meant tyranny: tyranny of the mob, tyranny of the lowest forms of culture. The more equitable things became, the more the crudest sensibilities ruled. What did they seek out as entertainment? The sordid spectacles of the Arena, cheap ale and dirty drugs, immoral sexual escapades. All things beautiful and delicate would be drowned by these base tastes, this recrudescence of sewerage.

  The horse continued, uncomplaining, and by midmorning the rugged hills to the west gave way to the Keos Pass. He thought of taking the road that branched left through the pass, and approaching Varenis the long way. The assassin would not expect such a turn, but Armand knew it would be a foolish plan.