Unwrapped Sky

by Rjurik Davidson

  “Apprentice thaumaturgists,” said Maximilian, looking at the well-dressed group.

  The apprentices opened their ranks and a heavy, muscular student walked through from the rear. He held against his hip what looked like a large bolt-thrower: a box-shaped chamber, from which jutted a long barrel. Hushed silence hung over the street before the apprentices broke into sinister laughter. The second ragtag group close to Maximilian and Kata turned and scattered. The air burst with a huge explosion. Whatever the mechanism was, it was no bolt-thrower.

  Students dashed past Kata like a herd of deer. She dodged between them as they ran, their faces twitching and fearful, hats falling to the cobblestoned street. One of them collapsed in front of her, screaming. He looked over his shoulder, rolled onto his back and started clawing senselessly at his face, as if some unseen enemy were attacking him. Another screamed nearby and began tearing at the skin on his legs.

  Knocked from his feet by one of the students, Maximilian sprawled on the ground beside her. He got to his knees but was knocked down again. She grabbed him and with a surge of strength lifted him across to the wall. Standing between him and the rushing crowd, she looked for Quadi, but the New-Man was gone.

  When the rushing mob had dispersed, the street was littered with students clawing at their faces and arms and screaming hideously. Kata stood, Maximilian sprawled on the ground behind her.

  Sneering apprentices stepped through the bodies, laughing at those on the ground, kicking them absentmindedly. One of them came toward Kata and Maximilian, who dragged himself to his feet.

  A tall apprentice with a scar that ran along one side of his imperious face examined them. The square, muscular one fell in beside him and pointed the thaumaturgical machine at Maximilian.

  Kata stared at the student. “We’re not involved in this dispute.”

  “Likely story. Make them scream,” said the tall one.

  There was silence as the heavy apprentice looked coldly on them, still pointing the barrel of the contraption.

  Kata dropped to the ground and in an instant rolled to her left, her two knives already in her hands. A fraction of a moment later, she stood next to the tall apprentice. Her daggers pressed into his chest. “We’re not a part of this.”

  There was silence as the apprentices sized up the situation.

  “Leave them alone.” A third apprentice ran his hands through his sandy hair.

  The group began moving on, and after another moment of silence, the tall one, with knives still against his chest, nodded. The heavy apprentice walked away and the tall one backed out and followed him.

  Kata brushed the dust from Maximilian’s clothes, aware that she had betrayed herself. She was unable to look him in the eye. “Are you all right?”

  He looked at her and didn’t respond. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a seditionist.”

  “There’s only one seditionist I know who can do things like that. Josiane.” There was a challenge in his voice.

  Kata tensed and her thoughts seemed to freeze. No explanations rose to her mind, and she became terribly aware how much rested on this moment. Her body was awash with conflicting emotions. She didn’t know where her loyalties lay: with Maximilian, with House Technis, with only herself only. Her mind kicked into gear. “It’s true: I was once a philosopher-assassin. But I didn’t think I should advertise the fact.”

  Still she could not look at him, but she knew he was sizing her up. She could almost hear the thoughts rattling through his mind. She prepared herself to flee in disgrace. Waves of fear and guilt flooded through her. She kept her face impassive, unemotional. She hid inside herself.

  “I revealed myself for you.” She looked up into his brown eyes.

  His eyes softened a little, with a touch of confusion, as if he felt something that surprised him. He reached out and touched her face with the back of his hand. “We should get back.”

  TWENTY

  On the way back to the hideout, Kata could still feel Max’s touch on her face, a tingling warm spot. Quadi had fled with the crowd of students. Kata and Max found him in the Communal Cavern entertaining a group of seditionists with stories of Tir-Aki. “In Tir-Aki there are machines that do everything for you. They tie the laces of your boots, they pluck your eyebrow hairs, they even carry you everywhere you want to go.”

  “Really?” asked Oewen.

  Quadi glanced at Maximilian mischievously and continued apace. “And there are places where it is illegal to wear clothes, and other places where you must not run or walk but instead must dance, no matter what else you’re doing.”

  He rolled a cigarette and looked surprised as the audience, a moment before enraptured, took to their feet and scampered away.

  “Everyone believes there are House spies among us, and it will not be long before one of the Houses raids us,” said Max. Again his eyes seemed to be sizing her up. He was testing her, after she had revealed that she was a philosopher-assassin. Kata was conscious of the ball still sitting up on the pillar in the center of the room, Officiate Autec’s third eye bearing down on them. Always she felt its presence.

  The storm of guilt and anxiety rushed into her again. Why did she want him to think so well of her? Why did she want him to approve of her? “How would the House know where we are? Only the trustworthy can come and go as they please.”

  Maximilian nodded. “And all our work on the ca—”

  “Anyway,” interrupted Kata, eager to keep him from discussing his plans for the cart. She must keep him safe from Autec’s spying eyes. “Perhaps we should prepare for such a raid? We have no real escape plan, only Ejan’s guards, no real method of defense.”

  “Ejan would have us stay and fight to the death. And who can say that he is wrong?”

  Kata reached over and touched Maximilian on the arm. She needed reassurance. She needed— No, she wouldn’t admit it. But she had seen the effect she’d had on Louis and she knew with this touch she was trying to marshal the same forces in her favor. Maximilian didn’t tense this time, but let it rest there. “Some of us must escape. Some of us must continue on if the group is arrested. The most important of us.”

  Maximilian looked at her, puzzled. “But each of us is important. Each one of us as important as the other.”

  “You know that’s not true,” said Kata. “You know that your survival is critical to our success. You are a thaumaturgist, but you are also a dreamer. The world needs dreamers, as things are falling apart. Not just for the overthrow of the Houses, but think of the world after that. What can be done for the wastelanders and the wasteland itself? How will the influence of the New-Men affect Caeli-Amur? Who thinks of these things, even here? Not Ejan. Perhaps Aceline. Few of the others.”

  “Do any of us really know what role we will play in this history?” Maximilian spoke reflectively, as if his inner life were now being bared to her. He looked over the other figures, each playing his little role. “But then perhaps you’re right. I am often surprised by the narrow-mindedness of people, even seditionists. It’s as if they can’t see beyond their own petty horizons. They’re caught in their own little worlds.”

  “You must be prepared to save yourself,” she said.

  “And we must try to save the cart from—”

  “We must,” said Kata, interrupting him again, “save all our important possessions.”

  He placed his hand on top of hers. The two of them rested on his arm. “You are a good seditionist.”

  She felt a swell of pride within her, and as he walked away, again she felt a stab of fear. With great effort, she cut off the feelings within her: she had no room for them, no room for him. A second later the feelings returned. In her mind she did the calculations. The group was doomed, but perhaps she could save him. But how?

  On the pillar the scrying ball looked on, recording everything. The way to protect Maximilian would be for Louis to move it.

  But Louis did not move it. In the following days she worked on the cart with
Quadi and Maximilian and each time she wandered down the long straight corridors and emerged into the central cavern, the ball was sitting at the top of the pillar, where she had placed it, like an eagle watching its prey on the fields below. Each day she became increasingly angry with Louis, who nodded his head and smiled greasily at her from across the communal area, or from the doorway of Ejan’s workshop, as if he had forgotten entirely about moving the scrying ball. Finally, as she watched the seditionists move obliviously around the cavern, she snapped.

  In a fury, Kata walked toward Ejan’s workshop. She stopped at the door, taken aback as she looked over the room filled with cobbled-together weapons, bubbling chemicals in great vats, and various ceramic receptacles and canvas packages. The place smelled bitter and acidic. Black boxes stood along one side of the room, with crude levers on the top. Dressed in thick gray or blue work clothes like factory workers, several seditionists wandered about moving liquids or powders from bowl to bowl. Ejan did seem the most dangerous of the group, and this seemed the place where things were happening.

  “Have you come to spy for Maximilian?” asked Ejan from the far side of the room. His face was smudged with a brown substance, which only highlighted his severe beauty.

  Louis looked over at her from a table. Before him were laid many wires of different colors: reds, yellow, copper. His darting eyes lit up at the sight of her.

  “Because we don’t take well to spies here,” said Ejan brushing his hands against his tunic. “What’s the penalty, do you think, Louis?”

  Louis shrugged, looked down shyly, continued connecting wires together.

  Ejan smiled a brilliant smile. “But of course Maximilian wouldn’t stoop to spying, would he? He’s too pure for that, and a good thing, too.”

  “Maximilian wants me to assess the state of things in the city. Perhaps I could borrow Louis for a while. It’s been long since we talked, isn’t it, Louis? Would I be able to take him out to the city, Ejan? He is my former comrade, after all. We became apocalyptics together.”

  Louis turned to Ejan, who gave a rapid nod.

  Gliders hung above the city as they emerged into the bright light. The heat of summer was on them, and there were occasional wafts of city smells: refuse and fish, smoke from factories and fires.

  “Come. I’ll show you something.” Louis headed northward through the narrow streets. She could feel the heightened focus he kept on her, his awareness of her every step.

  “It’s about time you moved that scrying ball, don’t you think?” said Kata. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “Of course,” said Louis. “But I’ve not had a chance. You know how difficult it is. I’ll do it as soon as I can. But you understand I must be careful. And people are paranoid. I’ve seen them looking at each other, with these squinty eyes. I’ve seen them looking at you.”

  “Who?”

  Louis looked over his shoulder along the narrow street, as if someone might be following them. “Josiane, for one.”

  They came to to a large burned-out factory in the Factory Quarter. Dirty children sifted through the ash and ruins. In the center of the building stood the shell of a blackened steam tram.

  Louis nodded. “Ruined.”

  “Not—”

  “Yes,” said Louis. “But a long time ago. This was one of the first attacks. We struck at House Technis and look what we’ve achieved. The tramworkers were spurred into action. There was a strike. It may have been crushed, but in retaliation someone set fire to the factory. We’ve shown the House that things can’t just go on as usual.”

  “This is madness,” said Kata.

  Louis grasped her hands. “No, Kata. Don’t you see, this is the most effective of the seditionist methods. It’s a war between us and the Houses. It must be fought with weapons.”

  “There could have been deaths.”

  “In a war, there are no neutrals. Everyone is complicit is some way. If they stand aside from the cruelties of the Houses, then they de facto support them. If they oppose the Houses, then they must fight them with everything they have. They cannot still participate in this charade.”

  “Just whose side are you on now, Louis?”

  Louis looked over the brick factories that ran down the hill. Smoke billowed from chimneys, then back at her with impassioned eyes. “Kata, you said that we were in this together, you and I. Well, come and join Ejan and we can be together—truly together. You and I.”

  Kata fought the urge to recoil. “Are you suggesting we shift allegiances, we abandon the House for the seditionists?”

  Louis stepped in to her, so that his leering face was close to hers. “If we side with Ejan, we align ourselves with the strongest of the seditionist factions. If the seditionists are victorious, we’ll be well positioned. If the Houses win, well, we’ve already been on the side of the Houses. Either way, you and I are victorious. You. And. I.”

  Kata struggled to contain her revulsion, but she could not. She felt her distaste for this man fix on her face. Her lip curled and she spoke coldly, pushing his hands away. “Move the scrying ball.”

  Confusion settled on Louis’s face, then sudden bitterness. He became aware of her rejection. His eyes narrowed. “You bitch.”

  Kata kept her voice calm. “I have taken all the risks so far. Now it is your turn.”

  Louis brushed a hand across his face and spat out. “You were the one the officiate gave the order to. I don’t see why I should have to do it—whore.”

  Kata grabbed him by the back of the neck and he tensed. “I think you’ve forgotten who I am, what I can do.”

  Louis tensed and up looked at her; now there was fear in his eyes. He knew that she was no everyday agent but a philosopher-assassin. She had killed; she could kill again.

  His eyes darting once more from side to side, his voice rose to a higher register. “Fine. I’ll move it. Fine.”

  Kata pushed him away and Louis fled up along the street, through the sooty air. Squatting in a nearby alleyway was the urchin Henri. A dirty blond boy squatted next to him while a third leaned alone against the wall. She glared at them and they, too, scuttled away.

  Kata returned to the hideout, her anger bubbling within her like a brew. Her hands shook, and her teeth were clenched. But shortly afterwards, the anger was replaced with the cold grip of anxiety. She had let her dislike of Louis get the better of her. Threatening him had been a mistake. It was possible that he would betray her somehow, and that way gain more respect in the group. Suddenly she was aware of her dangerous position. She should not underestimate these seditionists. She had grown too lax and comfortable in recent days. All day and all night, anxiety gripped her like a clamp.

  The next day Louis did not move the scrying ball and Kata realized that she would have to. After all, she needed to protect Maximilian. It was a fine line between Technis and the seditionists that she was treading, but some part of her knew that she wanted to take the risk.

  As she stared at her feet late in the evening, she considered when would be the best time to move the scrying ball: late at night, when the seditionists were asleep.

  Aware of a figure beside her, she looked up, from her feet at Maximilian. Her heart skipped: Had she been discovered? Had Louis betrayed her? She sprang up, prepared to strike out, run.

  “I wanted to say, thank you,” he said. “You’ve been a great help to me. You’re busily making yourself indispensable to me.”

  Kata looked at him, that lanky man with his curly hair, who could have been a librarian or scholar, but who chose to be a seditionist and fight the Houses. She could look at him all day, with those curls. He was softer on the inside than he presented himself. She had seen the way he looked at the urchins in the street, the broken and elderly, even the skinny stray dogs that darted through the Factory Quarter. He felt compelled to defend the lost and alone. She could see now the man he might become. Now she wanted to reach out and hold him. But by the time she took a step forward he had already turned and began w
alking away. He stopped, turned back to her, and said, “Was there something?”

  She stepped forward and grasped his hand as he looked at her blankly. With a gentle step she leaned in, her heart pounding, her lips opening a little as she craned her neck up, up toward his face.

  As she moved to kiss him, he blinked rapidly and took a step back. “Anyway, I must get back.…” He shook her hand from his arm.

  Ashamed, Kata looked down at her feet. As he walked away, she felt tears in her eyes. He’s rejected you in the way you rejected Louis, she thought bitterly. He’s never been interested and never will be. You’re nothing, she said to herself. Nothing.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Six House Technis officiates sat in a large carriage, two sets of three facing each other.

  Boris sat next to the door facing forward, looking out at the streets of Caeli-Amur and thinking about the Siren, Paxaea. The last time he saw her, a week and a half earlier, he had left her crying on her bed. How she had manipulated his emotions; how she had appeared pathetic before him. Yet in that prostration he had seen something and he had taken pity on her. Everything had turned out wrong: he wanted her to like him; he wanted her to want him. But when he had visited her the following day, she had been as cold as when he had first met her, and had turned away his affections as one would those of a lowly attendant. Furious, he had concentrated on his work—the Elo-Talern had given him license to unite the Houses against the rising insurgency—but each day his thoughts of Paxaea had become more intense.

  From the carriage he stared out into the darkness at the warm lights in the apartments, at citizens moving around with their families, each in their own little comfortable world. Then they had passed onto Via Gracchia whose late-night cafés and bars were brimming with clientele. The area’s famous cats sat on the eaves of the buildings, were silhouetted in the windows, or scuttled along the alleyways.

  Sitting opposite Boris, the skinny Officiate Matisse waved his insectlike arms in small circular motions without any apparent reason. “You’d better be right about this, Autec. Imagine if this is an Arbor trap and we’re all massacred. You’ll go down in history as the one who presided over the death of the entire House Technis leadership.” Matisse grinned nervously.