The Stars Askew

by Rjurik Davidson

  “All right. All right.” Dexion stood a little straighter, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “I think I might go to the Arena. There are still fights happening there. I might even take part. Become a gladiator.”

  He turned and happily walked toward Via Gracchia. The waifs scuttled away from him, staring wide-eyed as he passed.

  When he was gone, Rikard said. “Who is Henri?”

  “No one.” Kata looked away from Rikard’s piercing brown eyes.

  “If you have a way of discovering where Thom hides, you had better use it,” he said. “Individual lives are insignificant at this point.”

  Kata pushed the young man back against the alleyway wall. She was suddenly aware of his face close to hers: the minute imperfections of his skin, the soft hairs of his mustache. “Individual lives are never insignificant. Every life has a weight. Henri is an innocent.”

  Rikard’s head tilted back, and he stared at her coldly. “There are no innocents. There are ignorant people, and ones who stand aside, and they’re just tacitly supporting the strong. You and I both know it. You must do your duty. We have to protect the city, no matter what the personal cost. After all, Aceline was your friend, wasn’t she?”

  Kata let go of him. “Don’t you have any heart, Rikard? There are innocents.”

  * * *

  When they got back to the Opera, word had come from Prefect Alfadi that the dead thaumaturgists had been identified, so Kata and Rikard headed quickly toward the Marin Palace. Citizens clutched the jostling sides of the tram as it chugged its way along Via Trasta. The steam-trams still moved despite the fall of the Houses, some tram drivers continuing to work out of some notion of civic duty, and relying on donations from the citizenry. Others lay immobile in the tram depots, for supplies of spare parts had stopped coming in from Varenis. Just like the factories, the trams were grinding slowly to a halt.

  “At least Alfadi is on our side,” said Rikard.

  “You mean the side of the vigilants. Anyway, how do you know?”

  “After the overthrow, Ejan had me examine the Technis files—well, as many as I could. There are rooms and rooms of them, you know. Each file contains everything they knew about that person. Alfadi was born out in the rocky mountains inland from the Teeming Cities. He was a village boy but was adopted by the Priests of the Dead, and there learned some of their primitive sorcery. Turns out he was outcast for liaising with one of the princesses of the Pyramids down there. Well, that was the official story—the priests were meant to be celibate. But the real reason was that the Head Priest feared Alfadi. Alfadi was too talented. Alone and exiled, he drifted for several years. He seems to have disappeared from view before he took the long journey by galley to Caeli-Amur. He’d heard about thaumaturgy and was quickly brought into Technis, rising through the ranks to become prefect. The other thaumaturgists respected him, so when he left Technis Palace after the overthrow, they followed him.”

  “A village boy from beyond the Teeming Cities. That was a long time ago.”

  “He understands we’ll have to crush the villas soon enough,” said Rikard. “Expropriate the grain. And to do that, we have to ensure that the thaumaturgists are loyal to the Assembly. They must become militarized, bound to us by force if necessary. Ejan will propose a motion at the next Assembly to resolve the situation, and Alfadi will support it.”

  Kata shook her head. “Didn’t the thaumaturgists join us so they weren’t bound by force to do the Houses’ bidding?”

  Rikard brushed back his black hair. “You sound just like one of the philosopher-assassins on Via Gracchia, Kata. Always debating, to what end?”

  Kata tensed. When he searched through the Technis files, had he found hers? Did he know about her past, that she had been hired by Technis to spy on the seditionists, that she had betrayed them? An icy feeling settled into her.

  Rikard grabbed Kata by the shoulder. “And you haven’t told me the message you had for Aceline on the night of her murder. You’ve kept it from me.”

  Kata hesitated. “Thom wanted me to fetch her. He didn’t tell me what it was about.”

  Rikard stared at Kata impassively. “That’s not what you said on that night.”

  Kata felt her skin begin to itch. Her entire face felt like it was about to break out in a rash. “Yes, it is.”

  Rikard leaned in close, his eyes challenging. “You don’t trust me, do you, Kata?”

  “We’re seditionists together,” said Kata. “We serve the movement, don’t we?”

  “Do we?” asked Rikard.

  Unable to continue the lie, Kata turned toward the Marin Palace. “Look, we’ve arrived.”

  EIGHT

  Where the Arbor Palace and Technis Complex had gardens, Marin had elegant water features, fountains and delicate interconnected pools and canals. Shrimp scuttled along one stony bottom; bright red crabs hid beneath equally red stones brought from Numeria; golden fish drifted between columns of kelp and seaweed. In another pool, gray fish floated weakly on their sides, giving the occasional flap of their tails. Many of these had chunks of flesh taken from them. The fish seemed to have become cannibals.

  A group of three black-suited thaumaturgists were attempting to scoop blue and yellow fish from one of the rock pools with a long-handled net.

  “That way. That way!”

  “Quick—no, wrong direction. Push them against the wall there.”

  “Yes!”

  A thaumaturgist pulled up the net, two fish flapping in it. One of them caught sight of Kata and Rikard. He shrugged. “Have to eat. Suppose these will all be gone soon enough.”

  The water palace rose high above Kata and Rikard, constructed of white marble, blue-and-yellow mosaics of beautiful ships on the wall. High up were great balconies where House Marin officials must have once overlooked the city. At several places in the wall, waterfalls cascaded from fissures: crashing water plunged into the moat that circled the massive palace.

  In the grand entrance hall, falling sheets of water formed liquid walls, rushing into channels of water that disappeared through archways. Gondolas were moored against the hall’s far wall. Around a circular desk stood a group of thaumaturgists.

  One of the thaumaturgists called Detis had been instructed to wait for them. Like many thaumaturgists, he gave off a sickly sheen. As they came closer, Kata saw that soft greenish patches seemed to drift beneath Detis’s skin, catching the light and occasionally shining softly through it.

  He led them to the gondola and paddled them beneath an arched tunnel and into the heart of the palace. The canal joined with others in a network of crisscrossing waterways that connected the many halls and rooms. Every now and then the delicately tiled walls of the tunnel became translucent, revealing great tanks filled with sea creatures: little clouds of orange and yellow fish, massive spider crabs the size of small children, huge mollusks attached to the glassy surfaces, their meaty interiors gray and brown. Occasionally, larger and more ominous creatures drifted in darker waters beyond.

  All the while, Kata was aware of Detis summing up her and Rikard, assessing them like an accountant concerned over numbers. She returned the favor. He had the look of all thaumaturgists: superiority mixed with desolation at the losses the Art had exacted from him.

  Deep inside the water palace, Detis brought the gondola to a halt before a wide platform. Waiting for them by the berth was the thaumaturgist Alfadi. Again Kata was struck by the whiteness of his eyes and his impressive presence. He moved like a retired athlete, confortable with his bearlike frame.

  “Look at this place. This is where the Director worked,” he said.

  At the far end of the room, a gigantic delicately curved desk—itself a fish tank—stood on a dais. The floor of the room was nothing but a glassy surface covering a prodigious pool. Beneath them floated a round creature, something like a massive cephalopod. Strong tentacles—some powerful and thick, others long and thin with stingers on their ends—emerged from its body. But the thing t
hat struck the most fear into Kata was its hundreds of ghastly eyes, packed together in two clusters and filled with malevolent intelligence. She knew the creature could take on the illusion of someone she loved, or something she hated, and for a moment she thought she saw Maximilian floating helpless in the water beneath. But then all she could see was the creature’s baleful eyes, rotating disturbingly.

  Alfadi looked down at it. “Terrifying, isn’t it? I wanted to get it out of here, but it turns out it would be too dangerous to move. The whole place has a kind of deadly beauty to it, doesn’t it? There are trapdoors in this floor beneath us. Apparently, during the overthrow of the Houses, the crowd fed the Marin Director to the leviathan. Brutal, really, but … well, I suppose it was war.”

  As they crossed the room, the creature gave a kick of its tentacles and floated beneath them, a dreadful image mirroring their movement below. To Kata’s relief, Alfadi led them away into a comfortable side room, perhaps used by the Director’s intendant. There were soft chairs and a chaise longue made from a spongy material.

  Alfadi and Detis took seats, leaving the chaise longue for Kata and Rikard.

  “The two dead thaumaturgists worked for Marin, so I barely knew them. They were my men, though, liberation-thaumaturgists: Ivarn—the skinny one—and Uendis, the heavy one. They wanted thaumaturgists to be bound to the movement and directed by it. Detis was the one who identified them.” Alfadi gestured to the second thaumaturgist.

  A green patch of color resembling some strange butterfly slowly drifted beneath the skin of Detis’s face. “They were like brothers, always together. But in recent days they seemed to retreat to themselves. They became skittish, wary. Their eyes darted, as if they were expecting an attack.”

  Kata did a rapid calculation. It was still possible one had turned, or was a double agent. “Did you see them on the day of the murder?”

  “Yes. They slept in the common room with all the others. In the afternoon they came in and collected some papers. I was just entering the room when I heard Ivarn say something to Uendis—and I remember the secretive way he said it. He was talking about a man called Armand, who was some Technis official. ‘If what Aceline says is true about the Prism of Alerion, almost all will follow Armand. He’ll use the prism and win over most of the thaumaturgists. No other motivation can overcome the desire to avoid the consequences of using the Art. It’s already happening, can’t you see? There are groups here, in the Palace…’ Then he caught sight of me and said no more.”

  Mention of the prism struck Kata like a blow. She tensed on the chaise longue. “What is this prism?”

  Alfadi leaned forward, elbows on his knees, white eyes lit up. “After Alerion defeated Aya, he himself was broken. The Aediles were said to have captured what was left of his spirit within the prism.”

  Kata nodded. “So this prism survived somehow, somewhere.”

  “Survived for nearly a thousand years.” Alfadi’s white pupils seemed to burn into Kata.

  “Can we see where these thaumaturgists slept? Perhaps there is more information in their belongings?” said Rikard.

  Detis pointed to a pile of clothes to one side of the room. “I’ve brought their possessions, but there’s nothing of interest.”

  Having learned all they could, they returned to the gondola. Before they followed Detis on board, Alfadi reached one hand out to each of Kata’s and Rikard’s shoulders. His touch was warm, his face open. “Let me know if I can help.”

  As they passed along the canal beneath one of the narrow tunnels in the Marin Palace, Detis stopped paddling and let the gondola drift, occasionally bumping against the stone walls. The thaumaturgist turned and Kata tensed, ready to draw the stilettos she kept hidden in sheaths beneath her shirt.

  The darkness seemed to bring out a sickly glow to the patches on Detis’s face. “Ivarn and Uendis were certainly not agent provocateurs. They were seditionists like many of us, dedicated to a new world. They were moderates. They believed thaumaturgists should be free, like any other person—free to join the movement or not, as they see fit.”

  “Why didn’t you say this before?” asked Rikard.

  “This place is haunted. There are eyes and ears everywhere. No one is safe. Not even Alfadi: he feels secure, but I think there are people watching him, too. Ivarn and Uendis came to me a day before their deaths.” Detis whispered the words rapidly. “They talked about secret meetings in the canals beneath the city. Someone here had accessed the Marin treasury. Chests filled with florens were exchanged. I wanted to tell Alfadi, but he’s too trusting. He’s never really understood the Caeli-Amur way, you know. He speaks to the wrong people. He—”

  At that point, the still-drifting gondola emerged into the entry hall. Detis fell silent under the watchful eyes of the other thaumaturgists. He moored the gondola, and the three of them crossed the floor.

  When they reached the open air, Detis looked behind him and whispered to them, “Ivarn and Uendis talked too much as well. Too many had heard their rumors.”

  He turned, but before he had taken two steps, Rikard grasped him, turned him around. With a rapid pull, he opened Detis’s suit and the shirt beneath. Buttons bounced onto the ground. An image of two hands clasping was tattooed on the thaumaturgist’s chest.

  “What is this?” said Rikard. “What does it mean?”

  Detis pushed him off, his face frozen in a frightened leer. Aghast, the thaumaturgist turned and rushed back into the Palace, leaving them standing there.

  “How did you know he had a tattoo?” Kata asked Rikard.

  “Instinct. There was just something about him.”

  Kata blinked as she assimilated the information. “Why was he hiding that from us, do you think?”

  Rikard’s face was now set with cold anger. “You would know why someone hides something from another.”

  “What do you mean?”

  This time Rikard grabbed Kata by the shirt. “What is this Prism of Alerion? What are you hiding from me?”

  Kata looked at the young man guardedly. She knew whatever she told him would reach Ejan. Could she risk telling him of the letter? But what if Ejan himself was mixed up in the murder? No, she thought. Surely not.

  “I don’t trust you,” Kata whispered.

  “Then I suppose I shouldn’t tell you what I know either,” said Rikard.

  Kata’s mind lurched toward a compromise. “Let’s make an agreement. Neither of us tells anyone—including Ejan—of our discoveries without the other being present.”

  Rikard’s usually calm face dropped. He let go of her shirt, took two steps away from her. She had never seen him so agitated in her life. He looked back at her, his face a study in conflict. Something gave way. “All right.”

  From her pocket, Kata produced the letter from Armand. She hesitated a moment. She still didn’t trust Rikard, yet she handed it over to him. “Thom gave me this in the Opera about half an hour before I saw you.”

  Rikard shook his head. “That’s impossible. That’s what I was about to tell you. Thom was in that room with Aceline and the thaumaturgists. I saw him enter perhaps half an hour before you arrived. Between the mist, the revelry, the half-naked couples, and of course that minotaur who causes so much ruckus wherever he goes, I’m not sure when he slipped out.”

  Kata shook her head. “He sent me from the Opera. It took me half an hour to reach the water palace. Are you saying he was there at the same time?”

  Rikard took the letter from her. “Perhaps it was an hour. Time stretches and distorts in the baths. That would have given him time to return to the Opera and give you this letter.”

  Kata shook her head. “But why would he send me to her if he were going himself?”

  Rikard spoke with certainty as he opened the letter. “Thom is a liar, then. We shall find him and extract the truth. Otherwise, we’ll catch him at the Insurgent Assembly in two days.”

  The young man’s tone frightened Kata. Her stomach churned from the fear that she had now p
ut Thom at risk. Thom, who was passionate and erratic. Thom, with the huge heart. Thom, who was now the leader of the moderates but was not cut out for leadership. Ejan could not break Aceline, but perhaps he could break Thom.

  “How do you know he’ll appear?” asked Kata.

  “He sent a letter to Olivier saying he had a revelation for the Assembly, a dark truth that would unhinge things. Ejan intercepted it before it reached Olivier.”

  Kata shook her head. “That’s unforgivable.”

  Rikard tilted his head back, as he did when he felt uncomfortable. “We wanted to find Thom’s hideout.”

  “And did you?”

  “No—the letter came from a courier who had been given it by an urchin. The trail was lost.”

  Kata stood wondering what dark truth Thom would reveal. She wondered if perhaps it was a secret about Ejan himself. With each day that passed, the less Kata trusted the vigilant leader.

  NINE

  Armand stood on the balcony of Valentin’s apartment, looking down over Varenis. The multiform towers decreased in size until they merged into the suburbs. Beyond that lay the farmlands surrounding the city. Farther still were shadowy forms of black on black, the hills that marked the beginning of the Etolian range, beyond which lay Caeli-Amur. A pang of grief struck Armand. Caeli-Amur: he missed its squares and plazas, the eateries on the Thousand Stairs and the bars and cafés along Via Gracchia. What visions he had for it: visions of a new order, where it would take its place next to Varenis.

  Valentin threw his arm around Armand and looked out onto the metropolis. “Look at the great city. It’s a long way from Caeli-Amur, isn’t it?”

  Armand had to admit the sight was awe-inspiring. “I miss my home.”

  “I felt the same way when I first arrived. I could barely understand this place. I yearned for the sight of the sea. I wished for the spiced breads, the baking sun, the white cliffs, even the philosopher-assassins. There is little room for philosophy here in Varenis, or for the other slow things in life. There was a reason this place was Alerion’s base. It’s the center of the world: fast, cold.”