“Ah.” Paxaea walked to her window and craned her neck.
Boris walked behind her, and stood close. They were silent. He touched her lightly on the shoulder. She started—her entire body convulsing—and then she was still.
“Can you forgive me?” asked Boris. “I want you to forgive me.”
“There’s nothing to forgive, Director Autec,” said Paxaea.
He took her hand and turned her around. He held her for a long time, though her arms hung loosely at her sides.
He pulled her to the bed and held her there against him, his desire growing in him. He held it at bay, but it welled up in him irresistibly. He kissed her. She still had a strange passivity; she was away somewhere, in a world far from this one. Perhaps it was just her spirit, her nature, to be detached. She must have developed that nature as a defense against the world and its demands. He kissed her again, and his desire grew greater for this magnificent creature before him. He put his hand on her thigh and pulled up her dress. She trembled again, perhaps in anticipation. Slowly he unbuckled himself and pushed himself closer to her.
“Paxaea,” he said.
She trembled but did not move.
“I saw your rehearsal.”
She closed her eyes—her nictating membrane followed momentarily afterwards by her main eyelids—as if she hadn’t heard.
“You never sing like that to me,” said Boris, moving slowly.
“I did not know you would like it.” Great tears squeezed themselves through her long black eyelashes. A second later a strange trilling sound came from her throat, accompanied every now and then by clicking, as if she were a lizard out on the rocky foothills to the north.
When they were done, he walked to her window and looked out. It was true, if a person craned his neck, he could see a little patch of the sea, blue with little crests of white.
“I came to take you away,” he said. “Let’s escape this nightmare city. Let’s go. Let’s go to Taritia after all. Let’s get away.”
She didn’t respond.
“Paxaea. Let’s escape.”
Eventually her answer came, soft and passionless. “It’s not escape if you bring the horror you’re escaping from with you. You can have me. You always could. But I will not defile my homeland with you.”
He turned and looked at her, lying there on the bed, her eyes open now and staring still into some faraway place in her mind. “I’m offering you freedom. I’m saying let’s escape this place, this death-filled place.”
“You belong here.” Her words were short and sharp and spoken with disdain.
“Let’s escape,” he said again without conviction. He comprehended her words, her contempt.
“No.”
“I’ll kill you,” Boris whispered. He walked to the bed and looked down at her.
She looked up at him. “Or I’ll kill you.”
He grabbed her by the hair, pulled it backwards. He yanked back her head. “But don’t think you’ll ever escape my grasp. Don’t think you’ll ever be free. You’re mine now, to do with what I will. And you’ll like it, damn it! You’ll grow to love it.”
He stormed from the room, his teeth clenched, his nostrils flaring. Despair filled him. All his dreams of escape were delusions, Paxaea nothing but a deceitful creature who had allowed him to love her. Something broke within him, changed irrevocably. He felt it give way deep within and knew it could never be repaired. He headed to the Technis Complex. He had a city to rule.
TWENTY-EIGHT
As Boris strode through the Technis corridors, Tonio slightly to one side behind him with bolt-thrower in one hand, subofficiates, intendants, thaumaturgists, and all stood aside. Filled with rage—at Paxaea, at the seditionists, at himself, at life itself—Boris moved with an newly discovered force.
He entered the Director’s offices, his voice booming at a group of secretaries. “Summon the officiates. I want those reports on the state of the House guards, the House thaumaturgists, the state of the factories. I want them now!” He looked out over his new grand balcony down at the city twinkling below him. “I want to know everything that occurs in Caeli-Amur.”
He placed his scrying ball on the dark-wood desk and surveyed the room. In the corner of the room, close to the desk, stood the memory-catcher, bolts clipped in to its sides. Tonio stood to one side of the room, next to the scrying ball whose twin lay in Varenis.
Boris sat behind the desk and read through each officiate’s records, which Armand had left for him. There were twelve officiates and he skimmed through their histories. Mostly they had come from the House families, having been raised by their fathers to inherit their positions. There were the usual privileges and luxuries: the best lycées, time learning the Classics at the university beside the elites of Arbor and Marin, drifting and misspent youths, then a sudden turn to serious affairs, marriage, fingers to the grindstone. Then the usual combination of political machinations: here a betrayal, there an unexpected death, here a rapid rise, there a terrible descent. Amid all this two histories stood out: Armand’s grandfather had been an Arbor official, many years earlier. But Arbor had expelled him and the family had fallen on hard times. Armand’s grandfather had died a broken man; his parents had struggled. But Armand had known where the future lay: He joined Technis. The other file that stood out was Boris’s own. As a tramworker, he would never be one of the inner circle. He would need to reaffirm his authority, and these men understood only one thing: naked power.
The officiates entered Boris’s office, something suspicious and animalistic in their eyes—all except Armand, who stood calmly.
“Director Autec,” said the sluggish Fournier, his angry eyes drooping. “You have been indisposed for some days.”
“You think I should spend all my time with you?” Boris’s voice rose slightly.
“Of course not, Director, but events move quickly.” Fournier blinked slowly. He was from one of Technis’s oldest families, who had been responsible for the forging of new agricultural equipment, which seemed appropriate to Boris. The man himself seemed about as interesting as a plow.
“Events? I make them,” said Boris.
Officiate Matisse, who stood behind the others, smirked and clasped his long fingers. “Let’s hope they don’t unmake you in return.”
“I think you forget whom you are talking to.” Boris stood up from his seat behind his desk.
Matisse smiled again knowingly. “We all know that you are the Elo-Talern’s favorite. That there was no good reason to promote you—you—above anyone else. All these years they avoided interfering in House affairs, and when they do, they favor…” As he let his words peter out, Matisse looked Boris up and down with contempt.
Boris smiled grimly and said in a soft voice, “Matisse, would you come a little closer, perhaps.”
Matisse took a few steps toward Boris.
“A little closer yet, Matisse. I have something to say to you in private.”
Matisse took another step forward.
“Just a few more steps. Just up to the desk here please, Matisse.”
Matisse took one more step and Boris struck the trigger beneath his desk. There was the sound of air rushing—phhht—and then something struck Matisse, who took a step back and looked down at the little bolt that protruded from his stomach.
Matisse looked up again as if he couldn’t believe what Boris had done. He laughed. “The bolt is too small, Autec. It’s like a child’s weapon.” Matisse reached for the bolt. But before he touched it, its sides burst apart, like the rapid blooming of a flower, and a thousand and more little black antlike specks rushed onto Matisse, who looked in horror. He tried to brush them off, but they climbed and crawled, a swarm of tiny mites. He laughed again, this time in fear, as the things seemed to multiply and climb higher up his chest, and higher still to his neck. Laughing hysterically now, he brushed feverishly at the swarm coursing up his neck like a wave. He struck at them and as he opened his mouth to scream in fear, the mites coursed
into his mouth like water. Farther up they moved, and plunged into his nostrils, his ears. They rushed over his eyes, and he gurgled, twisting and shaking like a madman in some strange dance. The scream became horrible: not so much of fear as of pain, and the things entered him, a black seething mask disappearing into his face. He fell to his knees, crying piteously, the sound of someone so lost in his own experience that the world dropped away to nothingness. He gurgled again and his entire body trembled. He collapsed onto the floor, still convulsing and shuddering, and finally was still. The swarm of black things emerged from his mouth and nose and descended back into the bolt as quickly as they had emerged. The bolt’s sides closed back around the mites.
Boris looked at the others. “Now, let me have your reports.”
When they were done, Boris turned to Armand. “Bring the Siren Paxaea to me.”
Boris turned away and looked coldly from his window over the city over which he now had so much control. Even if it resisted, he would bend it to his will. Kata, where are you? He wondered. It all rests on you. As he looked out over the twinkling lights, he straightened his back and stood rigidly, his head held high as was befitting the House Technis Director. It would not be long now, until Paxaea arrived.
TWENTY-NINE
Maximilian strapped himself to the top of the air-cart, which the boatman winched over the water from a lobster boat. Farther out, a cutter headed across the seas, toward Numeria. A steamer headed north, smoke billowing from its chimneys, its great wheels crashing against the sea. Dotting the horizon were many fishing boats of a similar size to theirs. If any of them were equipped with telescopes, they would have no trouble making out the air-cart hovering above the water.
Max grasped the metal chain as the whole thing lurched from side to side. Through the glass faceplate, the rest of his group stood gazing intently at him. His breath was loud in his ears, amplified by the heavy helmet. Before he had climbed onto the cart, Kata had stood before him, her face a jumble of emotions. She had tried to say something, but it had caught in her throat and instead she stood forward and hugged him a little too long. He had been moved by the softness and warmth of her, pressed against him.
When they had tested the suit the day before, in the underground lake near the hideout, it had sprung a leak where the helmet joined the rest of the suit. His boots filled with cold water unnervingly quickly. By the time he dragged the cart from the lake, his entire lower body was submerged. They had made repairs and the second time, the cart and suit had seemed to work well, but Max was keenly aware of the danger he was heading into.
Now water splashed around the cart as it crashed into the sea, rose again as the lobster boat rocked on its side, then plunged down once more. This time the water rushed over the top of the cart, where Maximilian sat strapped, holding grimly on to the chain. He could feel the coolness of the water through the thick mesh suit. A few seconds later it rushed up over his legs, up to his waist and finally over his shoulders. He looked out at the figures on the boat and they were momentarily obscured, visible once more briefly as his head bobbed up over a wave, and then gone.
Currents moved against him, but he held tight as he descended. He looked down and took a deep breath. The water was rushing over the gills of his cart, providing him with oxygen. Far below, like some hallucinatory dream, the decaying city was a ghostly memory of its former self: there in the center, stately buildings of white marble, gleaming and somehow intact; farther out, broken spires pointed to the surface, surrounded by thousands of crumbling buildings; elsewehere, the city was entirely buried beneath silt and coral or had fallen into vast open chasms. Cobblestoned streets sprouted swaying seaweed forests. Beams of light broke the water at an angle, weakening as they descended, casting dark and surreal shadows. Here and there schools of blue and gray fish swam. Maximilian did his best to forget about sharks and sea serpents.
As he descended, Maximilian’s breath, loud in his ears, measured the time like a clock. Through the faceplate, everything seemed as if viewed from a tunnel. The lack of peripheral awareness disturbed him. He kept turning his head, expecting that something might be lurking just a little out of view, watching him. His heart beat with fear and exhilaration.
Beneath him the city became clearer, though the green water was thick with motes of submarine matter. Miniature carriages lay collapsed on the streets, skeletal horses lying half-buried gently before them, harnesses still strapped to their bones. Far into the distance was a spectral port, complete with decomposing ships moored to the piers. Along the larger boulevards, odd-shaped street-vehicles pushed up against one another like a row of ants heading to honey: old, lost technology. Perched on a hill at the center of the city, not far away, the circular dome of the Library beckoned him. Like the Opera in Caeli-Amur, the Library was constructed classically. It was one of the best preserved of the buildings and he thought of Ukka’s claims in Before the Cataclysm: The Library was thaumaturgically protected from fire, earthquake and flood, external assault and internal decay. In front of it lay a grand circular plaza, surrounded by walkways. Boulevards spread like a spider’s web from the plaza while surrounding the Library were buildings built of white marble and equally preserved, yet others were towers of strange metals and stones side by side with crumbling mansions.
Halfway to the ocean floor, the cart jerked to a stop. Quadi had explained that he would need to adjust to the pressure beneath the ocean. Even now his suit was clamped around him like embracing arms. He waited, like a little balloon in the sky above Caeli-Enas.
Sometime later, the cart jerked once more and began descending. Max was at the same level as the Library’s great dome. Again he examined the city below. Caeli-Enas had been a planned city, with its Library at its center. But the city had torn and broken as it sank, so that some sections now lay on top of others. Its thoroughfares and walkways now lay scrambled. Yet more seemed to have descended into chasms in the ocean floor. It was now a city of cliffs and abysses.
Finally, Max came close to the ground. He could see clearly into the ruins of buildings, where the decayed remains of their interiors lay rotting, covered with silt and sludge. Underwater weeds and vines overran others. Schools of golden fish darted through broken walls while large gray ones hovered watchfully in the water above.
The wheels of the air-cart struck the cobblestoned streets of the Sunken City, which stood before him, shadowy and magnificent. Around him billowed a cloud of sediment, obscuring his vision. He climbed off the air cart and unhitched the chain. He stood on a narrow street, the walls of roofless buildings running down to a main boulevard—one of the radial arteries that led to the library.
It took effort to walk down the street—its cobblestones jutting up at odd angles as the sandy floor had shifted beneath them over the years—and he set off slowly, dragging the air-cart behind him. Each step took effort, the cart heavy in the water, its wheels striking the uneven cobblestones. The only thing he could hear was the sound of his own breath.
The water was cold. As he walked, he occasionally looked upward, toward the fractured light playing on the ocean surface far above. Foot-sized crabs scrabbled along the walls beside him, while little black fish darted around his legs. Small streets led off to either side, crumbling buildings visible in all directions.
Breathing heavily he reached the boulevard, looked right, toward the ruined carriages and horses. There he saw, splayed out on the floor of the Sunken City, his first human skeleton. Its bones had collapsed on themselves. Its jaw lay open as if it was caught in one last desperate scream. The remains of leather clothes hung over it, decaying in the water. To the left of him, towering above a seaweed forest, stood the Library, its monolithic structure hulking in the semidarkness. He looked back at the skeleton. Though its ligaments and tendons had been nibbled away long ago by fish, still its bony hands looked tense and expectant.
He headed up a gentle incline toward the forest, thick and dark and rising from what might have been a park or a city squar
e.
As he neared the forest, the forty-foot-long seaweed tendrils blew over, as if pushed by an enormous current of water. He froze. A rush of water hit him with physical force and he staggered to his left. He glimpsed something immense from the corner of his eye, but when he turned, it was gone. A gigantic cloud of silt billowed up into the sky. He turned the other way: only ruined houses, their windows gaping like empty eyes. He drew his knife from the scabbard attached to the side of the cart. It seemed pathetic in his hand.
Maximilian stood still, his heart pounding, his breath now fast. He would have to move, for the cart’s gills needed the water to move through them in order to draw oxygen. He took a step forward just as the house-sized head of a sea serpent passed directly overhead, followed by its gigantic dark-gray body, its white underbelly. He collapsed to the ocean floor, breathless, as the colossal beast passed over him. The rush of water stirred the sand around him, and he was pulled to his right. He let out a little groan as the serpent’s tail flicked, sending it on its way. He lay there, momentarily paralyzed by fear. He could make himself and the cart invisible, but it would drain his strength, sicken him, and he could not afford that yet.
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to his feet and trudged on toward the seaweed, until he reached the first small stalks at the forest’s edge. Inside, the forest was dark and shadowy. His breath was ragged in his ears; his heart thumped like a drum; his nerves tightened to breaking point.
Bracing himself, Max walked on. The seaweed was surprisingly soft and supple. The cart passed through it, only occasionally catching on a stalk, which he would sever quickly with his knife. Before long he was deep in the darkness, the stalks close around him. With vision in front of him now obscured, he expected at any moment the giant head of the sea serpent to burst through the seaweed, its jaws open, its great mouth revealing its yellow teeth, each one tall as a man.
He emerged breathless from the willowy seaweed.
Unwrapped Sky Page 29
