The Stars Askew

by Rjurik Davidson

  They reached the apothecary’s clinic, a tall shop with a line of advertisements running down its side: ILLNESSES. TOOTHACHES. LIMB SETTING. AGUES AND FEVERS. LUMBAGO. CURES FOR ALL AILMENTS.” Inside sat three old women, a worker with burns on his arm wrapped in damp cloth, and a pregnant woman. They waited as the apothecary, a tall middle-aged man with silvery hair and a stern demeanor, called each into his room. He finally gestured to Henri. As Kata began to follow, he waved her away.

  The apothecary closed the door, and Kata returned to thinking about Ejan’s plans. Would Olivier and the other moderate leaders be able to resist them? In recent days Olivier had tried to put together a force of moderate guards, but they were loosely organized and confused. Olivier was better suited to being the editor of the Dawn than leading men.

  The apothecary threw open the door. “The little rodent is gone. I turned my back for a moment, and he took my poppy-paste and a bottle of laudanum.”

  At the rear of the apothecary’s examining room, Kata saw an open door. Kata tried to repress the smile, but it burst onto her face regardless. “The rascal. I’ll pay for your troubles.”

  The apothecary shook his head. “Yes, you will.”

  After tossing the man several florens, Kata headed for the Arantine, where she would no doubt find Henri, and where she expected the mob of protestors to be hard at work.

  * * *

  The fog had lifted, but now plumes of smoke rose over the Arantine, merged with one another into gray-black clouds, and drifted slowly south on the gentle breeze. At the outskirts of the grand suburb, a ragged couple carried a large statue of a Siren toward Via Gracchia. After them came more looters. Some had dug up furnace trees from the side of the boulevard; others heaved linen and chests. The smell of ash burned in Kata’s nostrils.

  Farther into the quarter, town houses close to the road were being raided. Many of the grand mansions were hidden behind walls covered with Toxicodendron didion—deadly vines that waved in the air, searching for their prey. Former House officials were no doubt cowering inside.

  The looters seemed to be the most downtrodden people in Caeli-Amur, the most hardened by life—those from the slums around the Arena and the Lavere Quarter. They possessed no sentimentality, no concern for fairness. Life for them had never been fair, so why should they be fair to others? She knew these people, for she came from them herself. Luck had offered her a path out of these lowest levels of society.

  Then she was in the thick of it. To her right, flames engulfed a building, the heat and smoke keeping Kata to the other side of the road. A group had set another house alight nearby. Already flames were licking up the walls. A red-painted wooden door burst open, and a family staggered out. A House official—a man of about forty, still slim but with a weathered and worn cast to his face—struck at the looters with a parasol while his wife and children scrambled away in a crouch. A servant ran for her life. The group got the better of the man as one of them struck him with a metal rod, and he went down. The official raised his parasol to defend himself, but two looters fell onto his arms, held them back. A third leaped onto his kicking legs. A moment later the rod came down again on his head with an awful crack, like wood striking wood. The House agent’s family screamed as they watched; horror and hurt burning in their eyes. Blood spurted from the official’s head like a fountain, but he retained consciousness. Again the rod came down. This time his eyes lost focus. A third time the rod struck, leaving a clear depression across the side of his head: his skull had given way; one eye was blackened and closed over.

  The family fled, and the group returned to their task of burning the house to the ground.

  Farther on, a group of women stood around a burning corpse lying by an open gate. The smell of burning flesh made Kata gag. She thought immediately of the thaumaturgists and Aceline. There was too much death. There was always too much death, but Kata couldn’t find herself blaming the looters—she’d be just like them under different circumstances. Her mentor, Sarrat, had taken her in, trained her as a philosopher-assassin. She had earned an apartment, and even an empty villa to the south, but hadn’t she done questionable things for them? She had left that life behind now, but did she have a right to condemn those who still lived it? Their actions repelled her, and there was no excuse for them, but there was at least an explanation.

  Kata listened in on the women’s conversation. The body was that of one Madame Eline, wife of an Arbor officiate. A baker woman had set her on fire. Madame Eline had died screaming, apparently. One of the women laughed. “Isn’t that dress radiant?”

  Another replied, “It really lights up the courtyard.”

  At that point, vigilant guards arrived. “All right, that’s enough. Out you get.” The women were ushered back onto the cobblestone street. In any case, Kata had seen too much. Out on the street, the vigilants were repossessing the stolen merchandise, arresting the most violent looters. There was no chance of finding Henri among the tumult, so Kata headed for the Opera. Before long, preparations for the Assembly would begin. She would wait there for Thom.

  * * *

  Citizens crammed into the Opera in a great steamy mass: delegates from factory committees, members of the philosopher-assassin factions, vigilants and moderates, all bumping and pushing their way toward the Grand Theater, where the Insurgent Assembly would sit. Above the entry hall, the animate lights flittered and danced excitedly.

  As Kata made her way through the crowds, she felt someone seize her arm and pull her to one side. Olivier backed up against one of the walls, his gentle face stricken. The muscles on one side of his face tightened. “Kata, thank the gods, you’re here. Ejan’s going to make his move tonight. The vigilants will entrench themselves as the city’s defenders, and without Aceline, the Moderate Committee is split about whether to support him or not.”

  “Thom will arrive,” said Kata. “We have to wait and see what information he has. He will know what to do.”

  So they watched as the crowd passed, many of the citizens waving at them or greeting them with cheers. Olivier and Kata searched for the garrulous Thom, with his great beard, his pendulous stomach. Slowly, the crowds thinned and the air lightened. The entry-hall lights retreated up to the roof or floated through to the theater itself.

  “He’s not coming,” said Olivier in a panic.

  Kata pressed her lips together. “You’ll have to speak for the moderates.”

  “Why don’t you take Thom’s place?” said Olivier. “The other moderates would support you. You’re proficient in rhetoric. I remember you facing up to Ejan back before the overthrow of the Houses.”

  Kata found herself clenching her fists, the day’s events leaking through her skin. “Find someone else. I’m just a foot soldier. That’s all I want to be.”

  She could not speak for the moderates. One day her files from Technis might surface, and if they did, she would be unveiled as a former spy, her group discredited.

  Olivier’s face seemed to collapse. “All right, yes. Right. We’ll see what Ejan proposes. I can do this. I will show them. Who knows? Maybe Thom will arrive.”

  A few stragglers drifted through the hall, leaving only guards lounging around, bored looks on their faces.

  People leaned in from the corridors outside the Grand Theater; others sat on the steps between the seats. The entire place was a massive heaving throng of humanity. By the time Kata pushed in and propped herself up against a wall—a blue-suited and grubby worker on one side of her, a maid on the other—the Insurgent Authority had already sat itself in one of the seating boxes, which disconnected from the walls of the vast hall and floated above the crowd like some physical manifestation of the relationship between the parties.

  On the Authority sat three vigilants—Ejan, Rikard, and a man called Georges, who had an air of exhaustion yet was said to be filled with unusual drive. He was in charge of cataloging the assets of the former Arbor Palace.

  Olivier represented the moderates. Aceline’s place had
been taken by a second moderate, Elise, but Thom’s position remained empty.

  Representing the thaumaturgists, Prefect Alfadi leaned calmly against the back of the box. What position would the white-eyed thaumaturgist take?

  The final representative was Dumas from Collegium Caelian, the representative of the three Collegia. Dumas’s head seemed too large for his body, as it sat low so that his neck was obscured. Deep lines were etched between the flaps of skin on his face.

  Shouts and calls already echoed around the amphitheater, and this raucousness would continue throughout the meeting. The place was a heaving mass of opinion, a steamy compact body with its own urges, its own moods. In the first weeks, the liberated air was breathtaking, as silenced subjects found their voices. Each meeting seemed a revelation, each debate vital and alive, each decision a wonder of democracy. Like the marches, things were now attaining a darker, more desperate air.

  Kata had seen Ejan’s gift for oratory before, but when the Northerner opened the meeting, she was again surprised by his skill and certainty. The man was born to be a leader—born to a chief in the ice-halls to the north. He spoke with a simplicity that summoned surety in the audience. Ejan’s cold certainty quelled all doubts in their minds. But this time his aim was different: now he roused them into a fury over Aceline’s death.

  “Today a mob ran through the Arantine, looting and killing, without any discipline, without any leadership, without any mandate. They only serve to discredit us in the eyes of our allies. And yet, they had cause, for our leader Aceline is dead. Our hero Aceline has been murdered, struck down by an assassin’s blow. Struck down by our enemies!”

  As Ejan spoke, the speaker’s box floated over the theater, dropping close to the voting delegates in the stalls at the front, drifting from side to side as he concentrated his focus, turning his head to address each section. The box then rose up to the back galleries, which were filled with the nonvoting citizens, languorous philosopher-assassins and seedy Collegia men. Kata looked on anxiously from their midst.

  Ejan argued that there was little doubt the murder was part of the Houses’ strategy to crush the movement and reinstall House rule.

  “Strike back!” voices called. “Crush them!”

  Ejan explained that the Houses had been blockading the city, and had now moved on to assassinating their leaders. It was time to halt the sabotage. As he finished talking, he demanded the passing of three resolutions: that a Criminal Tribunal be set up, led by the vigilant Georges, to try the enemies of the insurgency; that the Authority be given the right to command the thaumaturgists; and that the seditionist guards and thaumaturgists be instructed to break the blockade of the villas to the south and requisition the grain.

  The crowd called out, “Death to the Houses! Death to our enemies!”

  The voices against were weaker, less sure of themselves. Even to Kata, they sounded halfhearted and unconvincing. “Negotiate!”

  Kata had known these motions were coming, and there was a logic to them she couldn’t fault. But the logic didn’t warm her heart, for Ejan was appropriating power from the full Assembly and concentrating it in the nine-person Authority that even now floated above the gathering. This was the beginning of the militarization of the city. The vigilants stood on the brink of victory.

  By the time Olivier stepped forward, the crowd was full of frenzied passion. He began to speak, cleared his throat, and began again, his voice wavering. He clutched the side of the box as if he might fall.

  Olivier urged that there be no violence yet, that the thaumaturgists should be allowed to choose whom they served, just like any citizen. What use was freedom from the Houses if it was so rapidly denied? There should be no reprisals against the enemies of the Assembly, for such a process was open to abuse: to false reports of sabotage, to personal vendettas being played out. To resort to Ejan’s resolutions was a sign of the defeat of the seditionists’ ideals.

  With each word, Kata felt herself crumble. Her fists were clenched, a lightness clouded her vision. Olivier, she thought, you must win the people with your conviction as well as your arguments. His logic was sound, but it gained no purchase on the crowd. Were the moderates on the wrong side of history? Surely not, she thought. Yet fewer voices cried out in support. Was it that a call for rational debate was, by its very nature, less likely to inspire violent passions in its supporters, for violent passions were exactly what they were arguing against?

  And where was Thom? Why hadn’t he come? Perhaps he would be able to sway people with his passion, with his desire for a better world, with his insistence that they start to build that world now, with his certainty that you could not reach the goal of a just and peaceful society by means of violence. But he was nowhere to be seen. Had he abandoned them?

  When Olivier was finished, the floor was thrown open to the delegates. Again and again, men from the factories, men with rough voices and weathered faces, the poor maids with reedy tones, and fiery-eyed students spoke for Ejan’s resolutions. By the time Alfadi rose to speak in support of Ejan, Kata sensed that the debate was long lost. Ejan’s strategy had worked. He had released news of Aceline’s death just in time to sway the citizens. She saw a flash of impending death and was sickened.

  The lightness swirled in front of Kata’s vision. She became instantly aware of the pressure building within her. Oh no, she thought. She staggered toward the door, reached for her flask, and gulped the preparation as she bumped through the crowd and into the corridor. The passageway bent before her eyes. She fell against the wall, slipped down as a veil of whiteness came over her. The fit pulled her away on its white tide. Her body rattled and shook. She bit her tongue, tried not to breathe in the blood. Someone grasped her, but she couldn’t see through the veil. She was sucked away by the tide.

  Then she was aware of Rikard above her. He pressed a belt between her teeth. Her body was filled with a deep ache. He brushed her hair back gently with his hand. “You’re okay. You’re okay, Kata.”

  When she came to her senses—her tongue swollen, her body filled with dull pain—she found herself lying on a four-poster bed, complete with its own rod and curtains. She was in a bedroom, decorated with deep solar hues popular in the east: burgundy, cerise, vermillion. A crimson sheet with tiny mirrors embroidered into its surface billowed from the roof. Stained-glass lanterns hung in opposite corners. A barred window afforded a view of the city.

  “I was worried,” said Rikard.

  Kata felt an appalling vulnerability. She pushed him away, staggered to her feet.

  “Kata,” he said. “You’re not well. You’ve had convulsions.”

  She reached a corridor and staggered on, her body aching. She found her way back into a group of milling citizens, barely aware of their protests, unsure if the Assembly continued or not. She burst out from the Opera and into the cool night air. The stars above shone with unusual brilliance, their light cold in the autumn.

  Kata found herself walking alone along Via Persine, Caeli-Amur’s greatest thoroughfare, where the seditionists had faced the House Technis forces and where the philosopher-assassins had unexpectedly joined them, spinning and rolling out of the alleyways and shops and falling on the Technis guards’ flanks.

  How long ago that seemed! It had been a time of such promise, where anything felt possible. How quickly that time had closed off. The world of justice and freedom seemed to her like a mirage in the desert, forever receding as they approached. Now desperation clutched her, for she knew what she was about to do was wrong, but what other choice did she have? She needed to find Thom.

  She returned to her apartment to find Henri and Dexion playing a game of Pierre’s Blindness, Henri laughing as Dexion—blindfolded—failed to act out the moves. Instead the minotaur tripped, fell to his knees, and cried, “Ahhh!” as Henri gave him the customary kick on the backside.

  Kata could not smile, for her chest was constricted by anxiety. When Henri turned to her, his eager eyes bright, she said, “Talk to your
friend Pol. Find out where Thom’s garret is. We need him.”

  The boy nodded, kicked Dexion (who was still struggling to his feet) in the backside again, and ran to the door.

  “Hey, not fair!” said Dexion, pulling off the blindfold. But the boy had slipped off into the night.

  Despite the pain in her body and the lightheadedness from her fit, Kata could not sleep that night, for she was racked with guilt. What had she done? She had dragged Henri into the affairs of the city. Who knew what dangers she had exposed him to. She wanted to rush out of the apartment, find him, stop him. But it was too late. He would be long gone. Instead she lay in bed, tossing and turning, waiting for him. When the sun rose to the east, he still had not returned.

  FOURTEEN

  Dexion had fried up slivers of spiced meat for breakfast, but Kata couldn’t eat. He quietly looked at her. In these moments she became aware of his magnificence, of the shining alien blackness of his eyes. He shook his head, and the dozens of tiny colored beads braided into his mane danced in the air. The scent of cloves and ginger drifted over from his hide.

  She saw a glimpse of his future maturity, all his bursting passions transformed into a deep intensity. Minotaurs never lost the force of their feelings, but as they aged, their infectious joy gave way to more profound emotions. Now she felt the energy of Dexion’s emerging gravitas, and it silenced her, too.

  Dexion buckled on a belt and a serrated short-sword and strapped on battered bronze armor. He was readying himself for the Arena, where he intended to participate in the Autumn Games, a season of spectaculars leading up to the Twilight Observance.

  Dexion went down on one knee and buckled on a dented thigh guard. “You should see the preparations. The Collegia have really thrown their weight behind the games. There’s talk that they might flood the Arena and have gladiators battle giant squid, or create a Numerian jungle complete with crocodiles and monkeys. They’re recruiting and training cohorts of fighters.”