Unwrapped Sky

by Rjurik Davidson

  Maximilian stood up, aware of the intrigued eyes of the seditionists shifting to him. He stood to one side, close to the kitchen area in the center of the hall. “Enough of these theatrics. Of course we should respect Kamron and everything he’s done for us. He built this group and dedicated his life to the struggle against the Houses.” Max looked over at Kamron’s pained eyes and felt a sudden flash of doubt. Could they not all work together?

  Before Max could continue, Josiane spoke again. “You see. He has no respect for the Veterans. He endangers us. Even now squads from Arbor, or Marin, or Technis might burst into our hideout, might take us by storm, might drag us to their dungeons and feed us to their beasts or their machines. We all feel frustrated. We all feel angry. We all feel that we should do more. But when we are strong: that is the time to reach out, to fight.”

  Kamron himself stood up slowly on the side of the group opposite from Max. “I’ve spent my life dedicated to change. To changing the Houses’ control of everyone’s lives. I never felt isolated from the rest of the citizens. Though why we call them citizens I don’t know: Citizens have rights, citizens have a voice. Well before the rise of the Houses that was true. But in any case, I love the people, for I know in their hearts stirs a yearning for the liberation we fight for. But already we have seen the result of openly fighting the Houses. Only yesterday the Furies were loosed on the tramworkers. By the time it was over, the workers’ bodies were nothing but charred corpses, their very life force drunk into the Other Side by the creatures. That is what awaits us if we turn outward. To me you are my children. What parent would sacrifice his children?”

  Max looked around the circle. Karma and Eli, Aldrus and Philippe—they all looked at Kamron with respect. And didn’t he deserve it? Max’s eyes roved over the crowd. How could he have thought that he knew better than this grand old man who had fought the Houses for thirty years? Wasn’t Kamron’s argument the more compelling? Hadn’t the tramworkers been rent asunder when they tried to fight? Despair took him. Yes, he was arrogant as they all claimed. And yet there also were some of his circle: Oewen and Ariana, arm in arm, their faces sad, hoping for something.

  Farther back in the shadows he caught a glimpse of Ejan’s face, the light illuminating one side of it like a shadow puppet. Max considered that face, the coldness of it. Ejan was a man with a drive that Max understood. They both were prepared to act for the cause, sacrifice for the cause.

  Max looked at the Veterans: at Josiane with her quick movements, at Iniria with her soft eyes, at Kamron with his kindly old face. When he spoke, his voice rang out, louder and more certain than it had been. He felt that the force of history itself was coursing into him, that the future was seeking a voice and that that voice was his. “Old man. You have given this group much. But it is bigger than you. The cause is bigger than your concerns. The group feel it too. It is time for you to step aside with dignity, for we have reached a new stage, a new phase, as has the world outside. Yes, the tramworkers were crushed, and the printers before them, but these are just the beginning. There are small molecular processes occurring among the citizens, and we would be fools to sit in here alone playing with these ancient machines. No! We will not do that, will we, Ejan?”

  Max looked at Ejan, who now stood at the rear of the group, icy and frightening. Behind him the cavern was shadowed in darkness. His movements were slow and calm as he walked across to where Max stood. He put his arm around Max’s shoulders. “We will not.”

  Silence reigned as the meaning of events dawned on the seditionists. Together Ejan and Max’s circles were the majority of the group. Kamron blinked in confusion; Iniria smiled a soft confused smile; Josiane’s face was cold and impassive.

  There was no need for a vote, but Ejan insisted on one anyway.

  When it was done, Kamron stood and silently walked away, leaving Max and Ejan looking over the group.

  Late in the evening, Maximilian squatted beside Omar, who lay on his makeshift bed close to the center of the room. “We have done it, Omar. We can do what we want. We are free of Kamron and his old ways. I made alliance with Ejan.”

  Omar opened his eyes and they were clear, for the first time. “Max, I know it—I know the code for the librarian. I know—” He threw his arm out toward the ceiling. It was a dramatic gesture. “I know things that I didn’t know before.”

  “You know the code.” Max whispered. “How? What is it?”

  “I have knowledge, things I never dreamed of, strange … from the machine. I don’t know how. Leave those machines alone, Max, there’s no way for you to control them. You must have ancient knowledge to do so.”

  Max nodded. “Tell me this code.”

  Omar recited a long series of zeros and ones. It continued for several minutes.

  “That’s it? Numbers?”

  “I don’t understand it either, it’s a different language. Baycetoo it’s called. Let me write it down.”

  Max fetched a notebook from his possessions and passed it to Omar, who lodged a pen in his blistered hands. They shook as he wrote and he groaned occasionally as he steadied them. Every now and then he stopped, looking out into the darkness, his eyes darting around as he remembered. “Zeros and ones,” he said. When he was done he added, “Max, you never recognize your mistakes. Listen to me. Ejan supports no one. Only himself.”

  “Removing Kamron and the Veterans was a historical necessity. They belonged to an earlier time, a time of preparation. That’s how history moves, Omar. People have their moment and then are bypassed.” Max took hold of the notebook. Omar still held on to it.

  “History … is that all you think of?” said Omar.

  Max was troubled. He tugged the notebook from Omar’s hand and stood up, “I’ll talk to you when you’re in a better mood. We’ll talk more about these things you know.”

  But later Omar had lapsed again into a state of semiconsciousness, and again he spoke in strange words about long-forgotten destinations, and about a journey through a wilderness where he was harried by unknown creatures that threatened him from all sides.

  Late into the night, Max sat alone in the semidarkness near his bed. Kamron had retired to his room, ashen-faced, as if he had foreseen his own death. Max wanted to go to him, to make some kind of compromise, but harsh necessities forbade him. Events marched ruthlessly on. Kamron’s time was over. That did not mean he had not been important. Just because something is temporary does not mean it had no value. In fact, a temporary thing, Kamron’s life work—the collecting of his books, the establishment of the hideout, the accumulation of rebels around him—was all the more valuable when its time was over. It was a precious and fragile thing, thought Max. Still, Max was more than troubled. A heavy blanket of guilt covered him and he couldn’t shake it off. Was he really so certain?

  Still hurt by Omar’s words, Max sat in the dark, staring out at his empire of freedom. In his mind, a plan was slowly developing. He would learn as much about Caeli-Enas as possible. He would learn as much water magic as he could. Then he would employ the Xsanthians to help him reach the vast store of knowledge held in the Great Library beneath the sea.

  Max felt a shape slip beside him. He tensed as he turned to see Josiane squatting low. But she stopped and looked out into the darkness with him, as if the two of them were looking into the future, unknown and dark and full of possibility.

  “I’m at your service. What do we do now?” she said.

  Max could feel the barely suppressed energy in her body. He examined her. How strange that she would switch sides so easily. She was not one to be trusted. But she would serve for a while.

  Max looked her straight in the eyes. “Now we contact the other groups and bring in new seditionists. Now we grow like a creature in the dark, ready to emerge fully formed against the Houses. Now we accumulate knowledge—knowledge of thaumaturgy. Now we travel to the only place where such stores are hidden—the Sunken City.” In his hands, he held the notebook with the precious code.

 
PART II

  BEGINNINGS

  If prior to the cataclysm each part of society lived in harmony with the others, what was thaumaturgy’s place in this? Was it dispersed throughout society in the manner in which creativity is in ours—everyone can be said to have a modicum of it? Or was it specialized, as we segregate the professions (e.g., apothecaries)?

  Once post-cataclysmic fragmentation occurred, thaumaturgy underwent its own separation. Where once the Magi were able to deploy the Art as a unified practice, where matter could be dealt with at the level of complexity required, now it broke into its various streams (illusionism, transmutae, weaving, chymistry, etc.). No longer could practictioners work the deep structure of things. Instead each stream operated according to its own logic, its own laws—laws which were often in direct conflict with the laws of the others. A thaumaturgist might interweave one stream with another, but to operate all of the logics at once was impossible. The thaumaturgist would lose control of the forces and instead become controlled by them. Death was usually the result. In those days, the secret of unification was forever lost. The Magi were no more.

  —from Thaumaturgy and History by Kamron Andrenikis

  THIRTEEN

  For days after Aemilius’s death, Kata lay in her bed, memories washing over her like a vast ocean. She felt as if she were drowning. She wished she was drowning. Her arms and legs felt leaden and she didn’t have the strength to leave her bed. There was blood on her hands that would never be washed away, damned spots of it all over her like a rash. The things she might have done with Aemilius, the places they might have seen. It had all been a delusion they had engaged in together, to both their loss. She tossed and turned in her bed. Thoughts came at her like bolts thrown by a mechanized thrower. One after the other: barbed and cruel.

  Her door was thrown open in her parlor below, followed by the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. She turned in her bed, throwing her limbs out and staring disconsolately. The same gray officiate that had organized the clean up after Rudé’s death entered the room.

  He looked down at her. “Sick?”

  “Sick of you.”

  He looked impassively. “I’m Rudé’s replacement, Boris Autec. I have a task that will help you repay your debts to the House, not least for the death of my predecessor.”

  “Rudé’s death was of his own making. How was I to know he would drink the poisoned wine?”

  Autec opened the doors onto the balcony, and looked out over the city. “Accident, conscious design, what does it matter? It’s the effect of your actions that the universe finally weighs up, isn’t it?”

  “The universe doesn’t weigh anything,” said Kata staring at the wall. “It’s yourself that you have to make peace with, if you can.”

  “Well, in any case, it is time we put an end to these seditionist groups that are spreading these radical ideas. They lead the citizens astray with wild notions, manipulate the impressionable, use legitimate grievances for their own malign ends.”

  Kata expected to feel dread at the thought of more deception and lies, but found nothing inside. She was an empty vessel, an empty bottle of poisoned wine. She didn’t care anymore, one way or the other. “You don’t understand. There’s nothing left of me. Why don’t you have me sweep the floors of the Complex? Something menial, something meaningless?”

  “Because you’re better than that. It certainly looks as if you fed both my predecessor and the minotaur the poison together. But I know it wasn’t entirely your fault that Rudé died. It was more a matter of disregard than design. Help me capture these seditionists and not only will you be forgiven, but you can have whatever you want. What is it you want, Kata? A villa in the country perhaps?”

  Kata looked up at the officiate. She felt a flicker inside her. It was as if he understood her deepest desires. A villa in the country: not one of the pleasure palaces along the Dyrian coast where the House officials retired, but beyond the summer villas of Arbor, to the south perhaps, or in the western mountains. A tiny dash of hope flickered in her, like a candle far away in the distance.

  “A villa,” she said. “I will hand you these seditionists and you will give me a villa.”

  Autec came over and sat on the bed. He placed his hand on hers. “We do difficult jobs. We don’t always choose our actions. We cannot always predict their outcomes. It hurts us, sometimes. And yet we do them because of duty, because—what else could we do? It hurts sensitive souls like ours.”

  Autec’s face looked strained. Though he appeared soft and round, there was sheen to his skin, and a lightly yellow tinge to his eyes. He did not look well. He stood again and walked to the balcony. Looking out over the city he said, “Things wash away, don’t they?”

  That afternoon Kata listlessly raised herself from her bed and began to prepare. She was broken, but if she was not going to kill herself, then she only had one path she could follow: the path she had always followed. She would do as Technis demanded and earn herself a villa in the country, away from Caeli-Amur. She would always be wounded by Aemilius’s death, but this at least might bring some solace, and some independence. One had to survive.

  She washed herself in the communal bathhouse, pouring cold water over herself with a bucket. She strapped her knives to her body, dressed herself in her shirt and loose-fitting pants. Finally, left her apartment and walked to the Technis Complex.

  In the Library deep beneath the Technis Palace, a vast hall with lines of catalogs, books, filing cabinets, she researched the seditionists and their theories. At first she constantly heard the sound of a saw in her head. But as the days passed, she concentrated more, and the sickening feeling became a slow ache. She studied the various radical theories: their internecine differences, their debates, their philosophical lineages. She intuitively understood the subterranean anger at the Houses that lay beneath the theories: Didn’t the Houses control everything, didn’t they destroy everything? But the idealism also repelled her. The Houses were in control and always would be. And what kind of crazed ideas did these groups have? Many believed in simple reforms: better conditions for workers, for thaumaturgy to be placed at the will of the people, for a return to the days when Caeli-Amur was ruled by a senate. But at their most extreme, these notions of equality merged with visions of worlds where everyone lived in great warrens without personal space, where thaumaturgy created direct mind-to-mind communication which would eliminate the need for speech altogether. For Kata, the latter ideas only served to further discredit the former.

  Kata helped create an issue of a radical broadsheet that she called, The New Tomorrow. She chose an apocalyptic theory for its overarching outlook: she was attracted to the visions of disintegration and prophecies of doom contained in such doctrines. She composed articles about the influx of wastelanders into the city, strange radical poems composed of couplets, calls to action. Though the broadsheet was only four pages long, she held it in her hand as if it were genuine. She had it printed in the House’s private printing room, a vast dusty room filled with the cacophony of machines that whirred and clunked and poured out the House’s internal documents like water from a waterfall.

  During the daytime she felt that things were fine, but when she returned home at night, there was the faintest smell of blood in the air. She wandered around the apartment sniffing but the smell disappeared, only to return when she turned her mind to other things. As she drifted off to sleep, Aemilius would flash into her mind, accompanied by the sounds of sawing. She would awake with a start, her heart beating rapidly, and step onto the balcony and look out over the city to calm herself. Each morning she forced herself to walk the long streets to House Technis. During these days, even little Henri avoided her, his vital eyes examining her from the end of the street before looking away for more likely customers.

  Later in the week, Kata visited the University of Caeli-Amur. Nestled on the northern edge of the Quaedian, between the cliffs and the incline on which Via Persine climbed, it was a rambling structure o
f closely packed towers and villas. At more than ten stories high, it rose above the surrounding area, a little city of its own. Walkways crisscrossed the university’s many buildings like a complex of spiderwebs between the many branches of thick brush. Classes were held in wide halls or atria, nestled among the ivy-covered towers. In the midst of these buildings perched on the incline, a library overlooked the sporting fields where students threw javelins and discuses, wrestled and boxed.

  Many of the university’s windows were stained glass: blues and reds and golds, depicting scenes of the ancients. But in the oldest parts of the university, other windows were thaumaturgically charged. These showed images of long-past scenes, which one might have seen through the window ten years or twenty or even hundreds of years earlier. One moment, the viewer would look through the glass onto the present-day Caeli-Amur. A moment later, that image would dissolve into the city 150 years before. On the field lying below, the viewer might see long-dead student lovers, hand-in-hand, turn and kiss each other, or the ancient Arcadi and Semerillion sects battling in strange combat rites against each other. Sometimes the sun would glitter on white ancient buildings; at others the city would be pitch black and barely distinguishable from the present day. Some claimed to have seen murders performed long ago, others images of the youthful gods themselves in the days before the cataclysm. It was a common pastime of students to organize window-viewing parties where they would congregate with flower-drafts and fruit and watch as images of the past appeared and dissolved.

  As Kata passed along an ancient and extended corridor, she glimpsed through the windows to her left—organized so that their images synchronized with each other—a long-gone Caeli-Amur in the twilight. The Quaedian lay below, its buildings cleaner, simpler, spacious and regal. No trams ran along the streets toward Market Square, though the Opera overlooked the city, impressive as always. A festival seemed to be taking place on the fields below, as a thousand figures held candles, perhaps in memorial. Kata gazed through the windows and wondered at the changes that history had wrought upon the city. For below the world seemed quieter and more peaceful, a long-lost wonderland without machines chugging and pumping and grinding their gears. No soot or smoke drifted across the sky. Kata felt a wash of melancholy flood into her at the sight of this vanished past. She then turned away and continued on, for she was not safe here.