Unwrapped Sky

by Rjurik Davidson

Ejan leaned close and to Kata’s shock, dropped to his knees in supplication. He looked up at her. “I know many people think me cold and calculating. My father taught me to be this way. For when you live in the ice-halls, surrounded by mountains and snow, you are forced to calculate chances of survival at every moment. As a child, he would take me out onto the glaciers and leave me to find my own way back. Do you know what that is like, at ten years of age, with the snow cold enough that it is like powder? When snow giants roam through those mountain passes? I assumed it was because my father didn’t love me, but then I saw that it was his way of loving me. He taught me, you see, that the end justify the means.”

  “But not all means lead to the same end,” said Kata.

  “I need you, not just for your skills, but as a symbol. If you accept, then the group will be unified. The group agreed last night, voted to accept my plan, and the rest of Maximilian’s group have agreed. This is what Max would have wanted: a united group. I know you understand the reasons for it. Without unity, why be in a group at all? To say no would be to say that you aren’t really a part of the group. What would that mean?”

  “It wasn’t a true decision. I could not make my arguments against you.”

  Ejan pleaded, “But you know that even had you made them, you would not have gained the majority. I know you won’t force us to exile you, as we exiled Kamron. I know you won’t fail us, will you?”

  Kata knew the truth of his words. Even had she put her arguments to the group, she would not have been able to sway the other seditionists. Ejan was now undisputed leader of the seditionists. To oppose him would be to lose her place, to be cast out. Or worse, face imprisonment at Ejan’s hands. Yes, he impored her on his knees, but she knew the consequences should she say no.

  Kata looked away into space. “No. I won’t fail you.”

  Not long after her conversation with Ejan, Kata slipped away from the base and walked the streets of Caeli-Amur at a loss. She felt detached, like a boat that had broken away from its anchor and floated adrift on the sea. She had slowly been seduced by these seditionists, but now that Maximilian was gone, she realized how fragile the entire enterprise was. Questions buzzed in her head. Would Aya’s Day be the beginning of the wave of actions that the seditionists hoped? Would the code that Omar had provided allow Maximilian to drink the knowledge of the Library of Caeli-Amur, as the Histories would have it? If he returned, would he be able to shift the strategy of the seditionists away from the confrontation which Ejan proposed? Ejan’s coming attacks on the House, his wave of assassinations, would surely provoke a violent response. Meanwhile, Autec would be waiting for her at Technis, waiting to discover the location of the hideout. If she did not return, soon he would send in another agent. Perhaps he already had. Would she return to Technis? Or would she once and for all throw her lot in with the seditionists? The moment of no turning back was approaching fast.

  As she walked along the boulevards, she was amazed to see the graffiti across the walls calling for the manifestation on Aya’s Day. The entire city seemed to be caught in the grip of an ominous tension. She could see it on the faces, hear it in the voices of those who scurried around the streets attempting to avoid the stifling heat and burning sun. In the endless summer, the atmosphere seemed overheated, overcharged. Buildings shimmered in the air, perspectives warped, painted walls became sheets of brilliant white.

  To escape the unpleasant mood, Kata passed along the white cliffs, up along the narrow staircases to the Artists’ Square, where it was always peaceful.

  Kata approached a small huddled figure sitting on one of the benches that overlooked the city beneath. The sun was baking and the day was bright, but many years earlier the artists had constructed great sail-like covers that could be extended to cover the square in shade. They flapped now in the light breeze.

  “Kamron. Escaping the heat up here?” She sat beside the old man who had been banished from the seditionist in what seemed to be an entire age ago.

  He looked up at her and smiled a gentle smile. “Look at the city. Magnificent isn’t it? Terrible and beautiful. Look at all the people moving about their lives, all the activity. Things move on, don’t they? They pass you by.”

  “We can always choose to participate, though. To throw ourselves into the maelstrom.”

  Kamron again smiled softly. “That’s a youthful thought. Sometimes the maelstrom won’t have you. Sometimes it rushes away and you can’t catch up with it. Maximilian will learn that, you know.”

  Kata shifted on the seat. “I know Maximilian treated you badly, but he did what he thought was right.”

  “Some of the gravest injustices have been done by those who thought they were doing right. No matter, I bear him no ill will. My exile was hardly one of those injustices. We must each learn to accept our place the world. Dreams and realities rarely align. Some years ago, I ventured to Varenis. In the center of that vast city stand twelve towers. You should see them. Like mountainous pinnacles they are, soaring above the world. Each tower belongs to one Sortilege, the greatest of thaumaturgists. To live in Varenis is to feel that their eyes are always on you, looking down from those black and glittering towers. It’s as if their very dark power radiates from the stones like cold from ice. During those days, one of them had died and another was elevated to take his place. It happens rarely, for they have the knowledge to extend their lifespan. The dark festival was extraordinary. For the first time in fifty years the population was allowed three days of freedom to do as they wished, free of the tendrils of the Directorate. Well, I remember that feast. It was as if all bonds had been released from the most animalistic of impulses among the population. Drugs drove people into heightened states of arousal. They coupled in the dark corners of the parks, vendettas came to their final bloody end on the city’s high walkways. All of it was looked upon by the Sortileges up in their towers. I imagined them up there, laughing. I had never seen them, for their ceremony was held in secret and they abandon their names when they are elevated. I fear that one day soon they will come down upon a free Caeli-Amur with their full darkness, as they have to so many other cities of the world.”

  “Perhaps they will, but what alternative do we have? If you do not fight, what are you? You’re not moving: you must be dead.” Kata looked around the square. Sitting and playing chess on the far side was a tall and young minotaur, laughing occasionally as he played. Kata was knocked off balance by the sight.

  Kamron kaughed. “Spoken like a true woman of action.”

  Kata placed her hand on Kamron’s forearm. “You should be assured of your place in history. You should not grieve, but be content.”

  Kamron’s old eyes filled momentarily with tears. He blinked them away. “One does the best one can.”

  Kata left him then, just as the minotaur was standing after the end of the game. She walked quickly across to the creature. “Dexion.”

  Dexion took several great steps toward her and she was afraid. He towered above her, the compressed energy in his body radiating. She stopped, waited for him to crush her. And then she found herself high in the air as he laughed, “Kata!” He then held her to him, crushing her in a bear hug, still laughing, and finally placed her down.

  She looked up into his inky black eyes. “I thought you’d left.”

  “The island of Aya awaits.” He placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “But now I stay in Caeli-Amur, bejeweled city.”

  “You don’t miss the others?”

  “Yes. But now is my time to see the world. You know how it is: to stand alone, to travel where no one knows you.”

  The words cut at her like a razor. To stand alone: the very thing she had tried to avoid; the very thing she could not avoid.

  “And you,” he said. “I thought you had perhaps left with Aemilius. He spoke of it, you know.”

  She looked down at the ground. No longer could she look him in the eyes. “He spoke of it?”

  “Yes. He hoped to take you across the sea to Aya, a
nd from there he said he would build a boat on which you would both sail the seas, to Numeria perhaps, I don’t know.”

  Kata buried her face in her hands, as if in the hope that if she shut out the light, the world would disappear also.

  “I’m sorry he left you here.” Dexion spoke quietly. “But I am surprised. The way he spoke of you…” His voice became lighter. “Anyway, we still have Caeli-Amur!” He laughed.

  Kata took her hands from her face. There was a joyfulness to the minotaur that she couldn’t resist. “It’s good to see you, Dexion. It is good to see you well.”

  He did a jig on the spot, to show how excited he was. It was ludicrous, given his size, and he stopped suddenly, looked around to see if anyone had seen.

  Kata could not stop herself laughing.

  THIRTY-TWO

  In the quiet of the night, Kata walked into the machine room and moved among the great sleeping conglomerations of pipes and plates. The lamp hung from her hand, swaying and casting great looming shadows. She felt at peace there, among the lost machines, like hibernating creatures, waiting for spring to come so that they could awake.

  She passed along line after line of machines until she reached the middle of the cavernous room. She heard something move in the darkness. She froze and listened: the sound of feet padding somewhere behind her.

  Kata turned the knob on her lamp and in a second the light guttered, leaving her in the dark. She placed it on the floor, drew her stilettos from their scabbards and slipped across the floor, silent as a cat.

  The footsteps stopped, but the sound was enough for her to locate them: they came from behind a nearby machine.

  She moved silently circling around a silent figure that stood in the dark. With rapid movements she crept behind the figure, so that she could hear his breath. “So Ejan had you follow me.”

  The figure flinched slightly and faced her. “No, I chose to follow you myself. There are those that say you are untrustworthy.” Rikard spoke matter-of-factly. His honesty appealed to Kata, and frightened her.

  The young man looked around the room. Somehow he looked in his element. There was something brooding and dark about him, something both troubled and romantic in his dark eyes. “What is this place? What are these machines?”

  Kata looked at crouching machines. “They’re the dead dreams of the past. When a dream has nowhere to live, it comes here and collapses in on itself, becoming one of these creatures.”

  Rikard’s face was impassive. “Your thoughts are feverish.”

  “No. It is the world that is in a fever.”

  “Well, we need calm heads. House Arbor is having a feast in one of the parks to the south of the city. It is a perfect chance for us to strike. They will be far from the Arbor palace. They will be unprotected.”

  “What’s the occasion?”

  “Director Lefebvre’s birthday.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow.” He tilted his head, challenging her.

  “Who are you, Rikard?” she asked.

  “My father was a tramworker, well respected, at the head of their strike. After Technis crushed it, my father was little more than a blackened ruin. The tramworkers were buried in a mass grave on the other side of the mountain, out of sight of Caeli-Amur. There was not even space for him in the necropolis here. He had a friend in Technis, a certain Officiate Autec, who betrayed him. He had once been a tramworker, but now is nothing but a House apparatchik. As we threw lime over the bodies, my mother weeping with the other widows, I vowed to avenge my father. I vowed to kill this Autec.”

  Kata yearned to explain to Rikard that she knew the monstrous Autec. “Yes, the Houses have much blood on their hands.”

  “Now, Kata, who are you?”

  “Just a seditionist.”

  “You love Maximilian, don’t you?”

  Kata breathed deeply. “Yes, I do.” There, she had said it. The truth.

  “He won’t return, you know.”

  “I know,” she said.

  The following day, the cart rattled along the cobblestoned roads just south of the city, whose walls stood ominously nearby. Here the sun beat down on little shantytowns, which sat on the dry and dusty slopes. Smoke rose miserably from hovels. Kata held a shirt over her head to protect her from the sun. Beside her, Rikard wore a wide-brimmed black hat. The summer burned on, with no sign of abating. The stink of refuse rose from piles of waste around them.

  Josiane, in charge of Kata’s group, sat at the rear, spinning her weighted chain expertly.

  “You change allegiances easily,” said Kata.

  “Yet you’re on this mission also,” Josiane waved the chain in front of her face, to scare away the flies that had descended on them the moment they’d entered the area.

  “Sometimes I wonder if there’s anything you stand for at all.”

  Josiane stopped spinning the chain. Her sudden smile was shocking to Kata, who was so used to seeing the seditionists serious and grim. Josiane’s entire face changed; her cheeks rose, her eyes shone; she looked younger. “Think of life as a game. I was a child once, you know. Children play games to learn the skills that they will use as adults. What games to they play? War. Hide-and-seek. Dice and other games of chance. That is exactly what all of life is like. It’s fun and exciting. People maneuver around each other, allegiances shift, but there’s always one goal. And behind it all, I do what I think is right and necessary. And what is it you stand for?”

  Kata looked away as Josiane’s words reverberated within her. What did she stand for? A hand closed on Kata’s and she looked up to see Josiane quietly withdraw her own hand, lean back against the rear of the cart and look out over the landscape.

  The cart descended from the slopes of the mountain. Bushes and copses of trees punctuated the landscape. Before long, they passed through an ancient iron gate into the water-parks, which were so cleverly irrigated that they were lush and green, even in the relentless summer.

  Josiane directed them to an embankment, which overlooked the small, delicate bridge, its sides built with wooden planks and iron lacework. It was a beautiful thing. Beneath it, Josiane placed barrels filled with explosives.

  Kata could hear the sounds of the preparation for the party not far away. Lefebvre’s carriages would carry the revelers from the city and along the path through the park to this very bridge. When they arrived, the bridge would explode, killing those in the first carriage. The survivors would be slain by the seditionists waiting in the groves of trees or hidden behind hedges or embankments.

  To Kata’s right, not far away, lay Rikard. Kata gripped a short-sword in her hand. Rikard had an old bolt-thrower and a short-sword in a scabbard.

  She looked behind her. Towering on a nearby embankment stood a statue of Iria, godess-lover of Aya. Before the gods went to war, Iria and Aya had walked the pleasure gardens of the world together. But the war had driven them apart, and after Aya’s defeat she had retreated to a fabled Tower—now long lost—there to renounce her immortality and grow old and die. Who knew how much truth there was to these myths. Still, the statue looked out at the world in stern sorrow, tall and magnificent and frightening.

  Kata looked back at the path, but there were no signs of the carriage. She looked back at the statue of Iria. Had the statue moved? It looked as if it had shifted slightly: its head cocked a little more, its arms moved just slightly across its body, its weight a little more on one marble foot. Kata pressed her eyelids together, hard, and opened them again: no, she was only imagining it.

  “Here they come,” said Rikard.

  Kata looked down from the embankment toward the path. Four carriages pulled by magnificent white horses emerged from the copse of trees to their right. The horses pranced joyfully along the path, their legs rising high like those of dancers, their heads shaking, their powerful musculature rippling with their movement. They seemed so beautiful to Kata, obliviously galloping toward the bridge. She could barely look. They were now halfway toward the bridge a
nd she could see silhouettes through the windows of the four carriages. She closed her eyes, concentrated on her breathing. But she could not keep them closed. When she opened them, the carriages were three quarters of the way from the copse to the bridge.

  Kata looked back up to Iria, who now seemed to be looking at the bridge with imperious curiosity, like a parent watching children, uncertain of their actions. Kata looked back at the carriages, the first only seconds away from the bridge. Everything seemed to slow down: one of its horses tossed its head, its long mane rippling like a wave crashing on the shore; Kata blinked, her eyelids dropping languorously, rising again like a curtain at the theater. The carriages seemed to be standing still, even as the horses pranced, as if the ground was moving beneath them, rather than they over it. The bridge seemed no closer, and then they took a leap forward, and they rushed toward the bridge. The lead horses had just placed its hooves onto the planks when Kata heard the terrible explosion. Somehow things seemed all mixed up: the sound of the blast first, then the splintering of the planks as debris and shards of bridge burst upward, and finally a great ball of flame. The horses were thrown back like children’s toys, the carriage behind them tossed into the air by the force. The second set of horses ran headlong into the falling carriage as the second crashed into them from behind. The third set of horses veered leftward at an acute angle, and the third carriage lurched onto its side while the final horses came to a halt safely.

  The seditionists were already rushing from their hiding places toward the carriages, intent on pressing their advantage.

  Kata staggered after them, vaguely aware of Rikard moving to her right.

  There was a pall of smoke now over the scene, affording only glimpses of the action within: the figure of a horse, standing motionless, a scattered carriage wheel, figures milling around. Everything seemed silent, even though Kata was aware of screams and yells. A man burst from the pall, red blood splattered across his green arbor uniform, blackened with soot. He raised a ceremonial sword, took two steps before a bolt struck him in the middle of the chest. He dropped to his knees, leaned back, and collapsed to the ground, his hand scrabbling ineffectually against the bolt.