The Encoded Heart

by Peter J Evans

  She drew in a breath, through her nose; she could smell oil, antiseptic, pomade. A doctor or nurse, she thought to herself, and a soldier. Very close, just outside the door.

  The handle turned. Silently, so as not to wake the sleeping captive. Red felt it move.

  She launched herself from the bed, sheet flying, and ripped the door open. The two sylphs were behind it, one male and one female; she struck the man first, the hard edge of her hand catching him where his shoulder met his neck. The blow would have killed if she'd invested it with a quarter of her normal strength, but something about the sylphs made her hold back. Their silence, she had decided, was not through choice.

  The man fell over sideways. Red stepped alongside the woman and hit her in the temple with her elbow, then followed through with more vicious kicks to the moustached physician and the guard behind him. No lives were taken - her restraint was intentional, as no one in this place had yet done her harm, but it was hard not to break a bone or two.

  The female sylph was unconscious from the elbow blow, but hadn't quite fallen over yet. Red caught her as her knees finally buckled, and swung her over to the bed.

  She was tall, this one, a little taller than Red herself, and catwalk-slim. Like all the sylphs Red had met she wore a simple uniform of pale green, with black leather boots and a long coat of heavy satin.

  None of it was very difficult to remove, and when Red put the uniform on she found it fitted surprisingly well.

  Moments later, Durham Red opened the door to the villa and stepped out under an artificial sky.

  She hadn't been exactly sure of what she expected to find outside; the villa's few windows were translucent, letting in light but no detail, made of a substance that had more in common with steel than glass. She had given up trying to break them, or even catch a glimpse of what lay beyond. But her conversation with Losen and his boastful talk of strata and towers had made her think of something enclosed, like the interior of Biblos. Chambers connected by networks of tunnels and corridors, dotted with the occasional assembly hall. Elevator shafts and ladders and stairwells.

  Nothing like this. She wandered away from the villa, letting her eyes drink the place in.

  She was standing in a vast, open space. The ceiling soared above her, a hundred metres or more, hazed by artificial clouds and sending down a warm noon light. Behind her, close to what must have been one of the stratum's boundaries, rows of villas ranged around in a long, shallow curve, ranks of them sloping upward as if set inside a crater. The spaces between them were a mass of greenery, and here and there small trees grew, overhanging the balconies and balustrades.

  Ahead of her, past lawns and tiled squares and white marble fountains, rose a huge column of iron and gold, a central support so vast that the lower half of it was home to a great cone of buildings. Layer after layer of brightly painted structures hugged the column and spread out into a series of paved walkways beneath.

  Between the ceiling and the ground, slender bridges spanned the space between the distant walls and the column.

  Red suppressed the urge to whistle, remembering that she was supposed to be mute, and moved on. There were hundreds of people in sight, some dressed as Losen had been, others even more outlandishly. Many were sylphs, clad in green, hurrying about on their wordless errands. On the lawns, between the feet of gilded statues, children played.

  No one spared her a second glance.

  She could lose herself here, she realised, with no effort at all. Sylphs would probably be restricted as to where they could go, being a servant class, so she would need to ditch the uniform soon and move up in the world. After that, she would find her way to the nearest spaceport.

  She headed away from the villas, towards the column. It was obvious that the stratum was circular, even though she couldn't see more than a part of the outer wall at any one time. Long streets led inwards between wedge-shaped lawns, and the suspended walkways arched overhead from their apex like the legs of a particularly huge and spindle-limbed spider.

  It didn't take long to reach the outskirts of the column. The stratum was large, but not remarkably so, perhaps a kilometre from edge to edge. Smaller than Seebo Zimri's library, although it certainly didn't seem that way.

  Walking between the shops and eating places, Red was so entranced that she almost didn't notice she was being followed, until she spotted, in the reflection from a café window, someone ducking out of sight.

  She cursed, startling several passers-by, and bolted. Back in the villa surprise had been on her side. Since she was being actively hunted things might turn out very differently. She didn't know if she was followed by only one sylph, or by many. They might have been the local equivalent of a police force. If things went very badly, some idiot might even start shooting.

  Had the idiot in question been her, she could have dealt with that. But she'd not held a gun since Biblos.

  There was a crowd up ahead. She headed towards it, hoping to lose her pursuers there. It wasn't a chase she could keep up for long: while her strength had largely returned, her stamina had not. She was puffing already.

  The crowd she had joined were moving toward the entrances in the tower's flank, filtering through large, glass-fronted doors and into the chambers beyond. The interiors of the boxlike rooms were so exquisitely decorated that, for a moment, Red didn't even realise they were elevators: silk wall hangings and polished brass seemed oddly out of place, in a device designed simply to get people from one level to another. Red found a place and stood still, watching with some satisfaction as the doors closed in the face of a pursuing sylph.

  She tried not to pant, but her breath seemed reluctant to stay in her lungs.

  The elevator chimed softly, then rose. Red closed her eyes for a moment, trusting that no sentient creature on an elevator ride would look at another until they got out again. Her respite, however, was short. In less than ten seconds the elevator slowed and stopped. The chime sounded again and the doors swung open.

  Red cursed inwardly, and let herself be carried forward by the crowd. No one stayed in the chamber. It emptied in moments, and was then filled by several dozen Magadani waiting patiently to take the reverse journey. All she had done was move herself up to bridge-level.

  She set off along the bridge, keeping to the centre like the other sylphs she could see. The outsides of the bridge seemed to be reserved for those capable of speech. Exotically dressed Magadani crowded the spaces between the centre and the safety wall, enjoying the height and the view. Only the sylphs, with their complete lack of curiosity, walked with any degree of purpose along the bridge. Everyone else meandered, chattering idly or enjoying the sights, as if hurrying was a coarse, uncultured thing.

  She increased her pace, heading for the stratum wall. It rose up in front of her like a waterfall, an endless curve of startling white stone, meeting the ground in a foam of villas and markets. At its top it curved over her head to become the domed sky-roof of the stratum, and the space between was home to row upon row of windows and balconies. Red could see, that the wall was only an inner surface. Dozens of floors lay behind it, connected by long stairways and ramps.

  Light, cooler than that from the artificial sky, poured in through the windows ahead. It flowed over Red as she passed through the door at the end of the bridge, and into the cavernous space beyond.

  The air was suddenly cool. It was the crisp, echoing coolness of cathedrals and museums, mansions and palaces. The floors here were dark marble, gleaming in the harsh light, and the ceilings high. Red stumbled forwards, across the expanse of polished floor, her pretence at sylph-hood forgotten. There was just too much to see.

  To her left, mighty staircases curled up to meet three separate balconies, crossing tens of metres above her head. To her right was a series of enormous arches, carved columns soaring up to frame huge statues of robed men and women in gleaming stone, chased with gold. And before her, across the marble floor, was a solid wall of glass.

  The base of t
he wall was a mass of people, ten deep at least. Most had their backs to Red, staring entranced at what lay beyond.

  That crowd was Red's final chance of concealment. She used the last of her strength to reach it, then began edging her way in. She drew disapproving looks, and the occasional hostile word - sylphs were obviously an unwelcome sight here - but she ignored them. If she could get to the glass, behind these hundreds of gawping tourists, she might be able to stay hidden long enough to catch her breath. If she could just stay a while and rest, she was certain that she could recover fully enough to continue her journey away from the stratum.

  Finally, after an age of insistent, silent shoving, she made it to the base of the transparent wall. The last layer of people parted for her, and the scene outside was revealed in all its glory.

  Past the glass, the Grand Keep reared in every direction.

  Red gave up all pretence, and gasped. Losen had mentioned the five towers to her already, their profusion of strata and the magnificence of their contents, but nothing he said could have prepared Red for what she saw.

  From there, she could see all four of the other towers. The glass wall faced inwards, to the centre of the Keep, and the great citadels of Magadan were clustered about her. They were close together, only a few hundred metres between them, but each one was gigantic. Cylinders of glossy blue stone, each one several kilometres across, rising up so far that they extended past the boundaries of the window, and almost as far downwards. Thousands of metres below her the towers became one, widening into a sea of detail: scaffolding, at a distance, turned into a tangle of silvery threads. Cranes rose above them, and past that, hugging the rim of the vast main cylinder, were the clouds.

  She was in the sky.

  The sight, the perspective, was dizzying. Red stumbled away from it, shutting her eyes tight as vertigo swept over her, cold and terrifying.

  It was then that her pursuers found her. They swarmed about her in a cluster, taking her arms and leading her gently away, but she saw nothing.

  All she could feel, until the touch of a needle, was the yawning distance between her feet and the cloud-shadowed surface of Magadan.

  8. MASQUED

  "That," Losen told her later, "was foolish."

  "What did you expect?" Red tipped the chair back on its rear legs with her boots on the bed. "You locked me up and spied on me. I don't take kindly to that."

  Losen sighed. He was languishing on the bed, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. A sylph, Annia, lay blankly next to him, and two more waited by the door. "You were locked away for good reason, my lady. My people got to you only just before those from a rival citadel. Believe me, had the Cadosi reached you first, your present surroundings would be considerably less pleasant than these."

  "What, they'd lock me up too?" Red snorted. "Big deal. Prison's prison."

  "You are not in prison."

  "Well, that's what it snecking feels like! Ow!" She winced, rubbing her shoulder. "Sneck, that's sore."

  "I'll have Compasso look at that for you." Losen's expression darkened for a moment. "As soon as he comes out of the infirmary."

  "He was in my way."

  "You broke three of his ribs!" For a moment, Losen looked almost as though he was going to get angry. Then he took a breath and calmed himself. Anger, Red thought to herself, must have seemed as far beneath the upper-class Magadani as haste.

  She felt his eyes on her. "What are you staring at, Losen?"

  "The uniform. I do wish you'd take it off."

  She snapped, glaring around at him, "What did you snecking say?"

  He gave a sort of facial shrug, as if using his shoulders would be too much trouble. "It's a sylph's uniform. To see someone wearing it, and speaking - it's, well, unnatural."

  "You're kidding me," she said flatly. "Christ, I've heard some excuses to try and get me naked, but that's got to be the lamest ever."

  Losen carried on as if he'd not heard her. "Besides, as my guest at the Masque, I'd hoped you would wear something more striking. I know that nothing we supplied took your fancy, but I'm sure we can do better next time."

  "Next time? Masque?" Red jumped up, sending the chair over backwards again. "What, did I fall asleep during that part of the conversation?"

  The Magadani sat up straighter, looking ever so slightly stricken. "Did we not discuss this?"

  "We've discussed exactly two things about my attending anything, Twinkletoes. Jack and shit."

  "My lady, this is devastating. I cannot believe I've been so remiss." He swung himself off the bed and got to his feet, bent over in a bow. "Please forgive me."

  "Oh, stow it." Losen's insipid politeness was grating on her nerves. "Just tell me what the sneck you're on about."

  "Of course." He nodded sideways to a sylph, who stooped to right the chair. "There is a masked ball tonight on one of the common strata. It is a regular event, a time for domini from all the great citadels to gather." He smiled, rather wolfishly. "It's terribly exclusive."

  Red put her hands on her hips. "Let me get this straight. You and Cados, normally you bastards are one stage shy of outright warfare. But every two weeks someone puts on a running buffet and suddenly it's all handbags and glad-rags?" She shook her head, chuckling. "Christ, talk about blood on the dance floor. Does anyone survive these things?"

  Losen seemed pained. "My lady, you do us an injustice. There hasn't been open conflict in the Grand Keep in living memory. There are systems of behaviour laid down by the Magister himself, just to prevent any such thing from taking place. And as for the Masque, it is far more than a buffet. It is the beating heart of Magadani society, an antidote to the stagnations of petty rivalry and mistrust."

  "Right," said Red slowly. "And you want me to be your date for the prom, eh?"

  "You could put it like that."

  "Um, actually I can put it like this." She folded her arms. "No. Snecking. Way."

  "But my lady, the Masque is unmissable!" He put his arm to her shoulder. She felt the heat of his fingers there and a sudden itch. If he moves that hand a millimetre in the wrong direction, she though sourly, he's going to take it home in a carrier bag.

  "A spectacle beyond compare!" he went on. "Certainly something with which to regale your friends when they arrive. And weren't you saying earlier about how much you disliked your imprisonment here? Wouldn't it be the perfect opportunity to leave these walls, and see the best of Magadan?"

  Red frowned. If she was honest with herself, the idea of spending another night cooped up in the villa was pretty intolerable. And even if things at this Masque got ugly, she was in good enough shape to handle herself.

  And when had she last been to a party anyway? "I don't know... Maybe. If..."

  "If?"

  She rounded on him. "I choose my own costume. None of this bustles and bows shit, but something I'll look good in, okay? And I get to wear a mask? Like in the vids?"

  "They are required."

  "Cool." She puffed out a breath, feeling quite cheerful. "Okay, you got a date. How long have I got?"

  "About four hours. If we hurry, we can be dressed and ready by then."

  Red waited a second for the punchline, but then realised he meant it. "Christ. Okay, you go powder your wig, I'll do mine."

  "I'm delighted." He smiled, and bowed again. "At eight, then?"

  "Eight. And no dancing."

  "It is far from compulsory."

  Losen arrived late, but Red was expecting that. She had used the time to put the finishing touches to her costume.

  By the look of things, the dominus had used every second of his four hours plus getting into his attire. Red had never seen such a combination of layers and textures; from the white silk of his ruffed undershirt to the topshirt, waistcoat, jacket, coat and sash, he looked more like an exotic bird than a man. His hair was swept back in a jewelled clasp, a narrow sword swung from his belt, and the lace of his cuffs almost entirely concealed his hands.

  "Bloody hell," muttered R
ed, as the sylphs showed him in. "It's the dandy highwayman."

  His reaction to what she was wearing was no less derogatory. He bowed as soon as he came in, carefully sweeping the sword back behind him, but as he rose his eyes widened. A second later, he threw his head back and roared with laughter.

  Red's eyes narrowed. "What?"

  With some effort, he recovered his composure. "My lady," he began, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with a silk handkerchief. "By the Prime, that really is the most wonderful costume. Pray, what are you supposed to be?"

  She looked down at herself. "It's not that bad, is it?"

  "Bad? Of course it's not bad! It's merely unique " He began walking around her in a slow circle. "After all, who else would combine the armoured boots of a guard-sylph with the silk leggings of a pageboy? A courtesan's bustier with a soldier's breastplate? And who, but you, would round off the ensemble with the coat and gloves normally worn by the artisans concerned with the cleaning of paintwork?"

  Red threw a glance at the nearest mirror. Unique it might be, but the outfit was practical in the extreme. The boots were high, covering the knee-length cuffs of the leggings, and nicely capped with a good, solid steel toecap and heel. The bustier wasn't that different from what she normally wore, but the breastplate was chased silver over a woven polycarbonate mesh, and would stop bullets, lasers, and even the slender needle-guns of Trawden's guard-sylphs. As for the coat and gloves, they were well cut and flexible, no hindrance if she needed to punch her way out of trouble.

  Okay, she could have doubled as a shiny space-pirate. But she actually looked considerably more masculine than Losen did.

  "Lucky for you, Twinkletoes, men and women wear different masks. That way no one will mistake me for a guy and get any funny ideas about you."

  He smiled languidly. "Variety is the spice of life."