Unwrapped Sky

by Rjurik Davidson

  Now the seditionist army had the upper hand and the House forces fled. On and on the seditionists surged, back up Via Persine toward the Technis Complex. Still the House thaumaturgists were nowhere to be seen. Kata killed again. Again she was lost in the clamor of battle, the jostle of arms and legs and steel, the screams. Twice she slipped on the wet cobblestones and found streams of water running over her hands. Yet still she fought, with citizens beside her. And then they were at the square in front of the Technis Complex. The remaining guards retreated inside and the vast doors closed behind them. The crowd did not call out in joy, but looked wet and weary.

  Word came that Marin was holed up in its palace. Its guards had not appeared on the streets. But there was bitter fighting in the Arantine around the Arbor Palace. Rumors came that the Arbor Palace had been overrun, then that the seditionists had been defeated and Arbor’s thaumaturgists were marching at that very moment toward them. No one seemed to be sure of anything. Everything was confusion.

  Jostled as she stood watching, Kata looked at the huge man next to her. It was not in fact a man but a minotaur, powerful.

  “Dexion,” she said.

  “Ah, to see this,” he said. “Something new!”

  His voice snapped Kata from her reverie. “Soon the House will release their creatures upon us, their thaumaturgists will come out and crush us.”

  Dexion looked at her, his great eyes twinkling. His hide was wet, but he clearly didn’t care.

  She found herself smiling back at him. “But at least we’ll die doing something.”

  “At least you will,” he said.

  Kata nodded and looked at the sealed gates: great black doors covered by a portcullis.

  Already the crowd was building barricades or carts, furniture, planks of wood. Soon a great wall mirrored the complex’s walls.

  Whispers rumbled among the crowd. “Will the thaumaturgists come?” Where are the Furies?” The crude barricades, made of broken carts, torn fences, rocks dug up from the road, would be slight protection against their powers.

  Again Kata imagined Director Autec up in the complex, his cronies around him, working out his plans scientifically: so many guards to recapture this section of the city, this number of murders of seditionists required, this number of arrests, the ratio of torture exactly one to every twenty citizens. He was always so certain of himself, so decisive and cruel. A rush of thoughts ran through her head. Did she dare hope that the Houses could be conquered? What arms did the citizens possess? Homemade weapons. A few bolt-throwers. The weapons of the philosopher-assassins that had come over to the seditionists’ side—and certainly this did not number all the philosopher-assassins in the city. Was Maximilian right, after all? The Houses possessed thaumaturgy, and what could withstand that?

  Maximilian—the thought of him struck at her like a knife. Maximilian—he was somewhere underneath the complex there. Right at this moment his limbs were probably being burned and broken, his skin stripped like that of an animal as he watched. Dared she hope that they could save him?

  “Come, let’s help.” Dexion took her wrist in his mighty hand and led her to the barricades, which formed a semicircle around the front gate.

  All the time the whispers came from the crowd: “Where are the thaumaturgists? When will they come for us?”

  Around them blew a cool breeze.

  FORTY-FIVE

  Alone on the balcony of House Technis, Boris looked over the city where only a day ago he had been the highest power. The storm had raged with frightening intensity but passed quickly, leaving a cold wind blowing. Now campfires burned in the dark squares and a seditionist militia patrolled the night streets, meting out whatever justice they desired. There was no order to it, he imagined, just bands of brigands and fools, their hearts filled with bloody vengeance. He had known, in his deepest recesses, that this would happen. He had once been a tramworker and had once known the very men and women who were encamped out there in a show of strength. These formed the backbone of these rebels, misled by outsiders like that Ejan.

  At first the officiates and subofficiates had come scurrying in, warning of a immense crowd gathering. Their eyes were filled with doubt. That was always the way in times of crisis: The strong kept their heads, the others vacillated. The world seemed to them incomprehensible, as if gravity had reversed and objects had begun to fall up to the sky. Boris had sent an order for the thaumaturgists to summon the Furies and join the House guards. But they had not obeyed. Boris had prepared himself to face Alfadi, the bald prefect of the thaumaturgists. But he continued to put off the confrontation. The reports kept coming: The crowd in Market Square was prodigious; seditionism was openly being advocated from stages in the square; they had marched toward the complex and been beaten back. Rather than confront Alfadi, Boris sent the instruction that the apprentices, who had been summoned from the university, should march forth. Then the terrible report, given by a trembling subofficiate: The philosopher-assassins had thrown themselves into the battle; the guards had been routed and the complex was surrounded.

  The only officiate who had any presence of mind was Armand. As usual he was unflappable, calmly walking in and out of the office. Boris sent him to ensure that the guards, rattled from their grievous losses in the street battles, were ready to strike once more. The rest of the officiates and intendants he waved away. He then retreated to his balcony. There he looked out over Caeli-Amur, the city that had made him the man he was.

  A little while later, Armand returned and leaned against the balcony rail next to him. In one hand he held several scrolls. His voice remained calm as ever. “I have copied the maps of the tunnels beneath the city, in case we need to send them to Varenis.” He held them toward him.

  Boris clasped his hands together, released them and rubbed his face. “It’s like a volcano.”

  Armand turned Boris by the shoulder. “I think it may be time to meet Alfadi, don’t you?” He stepped back, his eyes wide. “Director—what has happened to your face? It’s such a strange color.”

  The words barely registered. Instead, Boris looked at Armand. “You’ll never understand the citizens, will you? You’re like a spear-bird flying high above the land. The rest of us seem far below to you, don’t they?”

  Armand’s face remained unmoved. “I come from a long line of House officials. I belong here, Director. I had hoped that you did, too, but I see that you were not raised for this position.”

  Boris looked at the younger man. “It is true. I’m not. I never was.”

  Boris walked away. He felt ill, as if something were sitting in his stomach. Images of Mathias came to him. In his mind he spoke to his old tramworker friend. “See, Mathias, see what strikes and actions bring us to.” But the Mathias in his mind did not agree. Boris angrily pushed the picture away. He felt like crying. He couldn’t think. He tried to locate the feeling inside him, swirling like a mist. Annihilation: that was the name for it. Look how far I have fallen, he thought. There is no way out.

  He would need to press the thaumaturgists into action. But moments passed and still he put it off. Was it the fact that the thaumaturgists were increasingly intractable? What bargain would he have to strike in order for them to act? Already Marin had lost control of theirs. And Arbor—who knew?

  Boris made a small keening sound, as if he was about to cry. Perhaps he was. Then, once more he mustered his fury, for he knew it was his anger that drove him on, and he stormed from his office toward the thaumaturgists’ hall.

  The corridors of the complex were filled with scurrying but silent agents. As he came into view, they lowered their eyes. Embarrassment, fear, confusion—he could read all these in their faces. He wanted to smash them, break their teeth, have them spit out the fragments onto the floor.

  Boris stormed into the thaumaturgists’ hall. Only a few sat at their desks. Where were the rest of them?

  Prefect Alfadi watched them from his platform across the room. “It was only a matter of time.”

/>   “Before what?” Boris apprioached.

  “Before you arrived to force our hand.” Alfidi’s white pupils bore into Boris.

  “It’s time to strike. It’s time, now, in the middle of the night, to bring down the wrath of the House onto these seditionists. Loose them—the Furies. I command you.”

  The thaumaturgist pursed his lips and looked at the side of Boris’s face. A puzzled expression passed briefly across his features before he settled back into impassivity. “They won’t.”

  “What?”

  “For years they have served the House, and for what? Yes, they learn; yes, they have some level of power—but don’t you understand, these things are not enough. They want something more. We all do. Meaning, give them that. Purpose.”

  “You’re the prefect. Convince them.”

  “I won’t.”

  Somewhere lurking inside him, Boris had known that this would be the case. His life seemed like one revelation after another; time after time a veil was ripped from his eyes. Boris felt sick once more. What did he feel now? Desperation, self-pity? His voice shook. “What can I offer you?”

  The thaumaturgist chief smiled. “What can you?”

  “Anything you want.” Boris dropped to his knees. He wanted to be away from all of this. He wanted someone else to be in his stead. “Everything.”

  The thaumaturgist smiled. “Director, you are on your knees.”

  Boris put his head in his hands.

  Alfadi stood up, stepped from behind his desk, took several steps away, and turned back to Boris. “It’s too late Director. I warned you, but you would not listen. There’s change in the air.”

  Boris staggered through the Palace in a haze. The corridors seemed to tilt and sway. Faces loomed toward him and fell away again. Here a pair of eyes, massive and accusing, there a shadowed figure who refused to look at him. People—who were all these people?

  He tried to imagine ways he could sway the thaumaturgists. There was only one option: He would have to face the Elo-Talern, who thought that he had everything under control. A feeling of shame washed over him. A failure—that’s what he was. He had wanted to make things better for everyone, and now this.

  He came to the throne room disheveled, but she was not there. He continued on, down the long corridor and into the never-ending bacchanalian feast of the Elo-Talern. He stood at the door to the vast chamber and there looked on at the scene. From a group that sat along the wall sucking smoke from pipes attached to the wall, she came to him, swaying like a drunkard—Elo-Drusa.

  “Look at you.” She creaked her way toward him and took his hand. She pulled his elongated arm up. It looked like the great forearm of an insect, thick blue veins glowing under the skin. “It’s reached your face and soon will touch your brain. The ascension has begun.”

  “I’ve failed.” Boris hung his head.

  “No. Look at you. You’re magnificent. You’re on the path to even greater magnificence.” She lifted his head with her free hand and looked down on him.

  “The city. We’ve lost control of the city.”

  “I know,” said the Elo-Talern.

  “How? How do you know?”

  “I know everything,” she said. “I’ve always known. I never needed your information Boris. It was all to test you, Boris. To see if you’re the right one.”

  “But the Elo-Talern—you’re the powers behind the city.”

  She gestured at the orgy of eating and drinking before her.“You think they care? Look at them, Boris. The world could burn and they would not notice. No, the Elo-Talern have not cared for hundreds of years. When you live between the two universes, you lose connection to both. You become dissociated, uncaring and unfeeling. Life itself loses its luster. The Magi understood this, for that was the fate that awaited them. That’s why I need you—I need you to keep me alive.”

  “We’ll never be alive again,” said Boris.

  “Yes, we will, my love. You are filled with everything that’s human: love and grief and hope and despair. We’ll be more alive than anyone! Together!” Her face flashed into its deathly skull. “I’ve only ever wanted you.”

  “No.” Boris sobbed.

  “Yes. You are becoming one of us, Boris. In just the same way we changed all those years ago. But you’re not like all of these old ones. You’re a new generation of Elo-Talern!”

  “You were once human.” Boris said to himself, looking down at the ground.

  “We were the Aediles,” said the Elo-Talern. “We spent our time ensuring the smooth working of the world. We measured the seas, we tested the air, we ensured that we lived in a world where each was given what they needed. Others played, but we worked for the greater good. After the cataclysm, we protected what we could. We saved lives, we preserved knowledge where we could, we placed what we could find in the Great Library of Caeli-Enis. But it was a losing battle. Entropy—there’s nothing you can do to resist it. And when Caeli-Enis descended beneath the sea, we sank with it, such was our grief. Nothing was left of our beautiful world, and so, we sought to save the last thing we could—ourselves. If our carefully designed world was broken, then we would save it in our memories, we would be the living enbodiment of our lost utopia. But then this…” She looked around at the other Elo-Talern.

  Boris looked up at her, “Can I be killed?”

  “Not by age.”

  “Just by violence?”

  “Or accident.”

  The despair was black inside Boris. “Then I’m more alive than I’ve ever been.”

  “Your transformation is not yet complete. But it will be soon, my love. And here—” She led him to the pillar that stood near to the great door. There sat the prism that Boris had noticed when he first entered the Undercity. Elo-Drusa reached up, took it from its resting place.”

  “Do you know what this is?” Elo-Drusa asked.

  Boris stood speechless.

  “The Prism of Alerion.” She looked around at the other Elo-Talern. Some watched her with distant curiosity. A couple seemed to whisper to each other. But then they turned back to their abandoned revelry, lost to the world of the living.

  Elo-Drusa held the hexagonal-shaped crystal prism in her hands. Unlike the scrying ball, at its center was not some mechanical device but instead a misty swirl of fog, occasionally billowing into shapes that suggested something alive. “Alerion’s essence itself was encased in here and it possesses the knowledge of the Magi. It is the only object known to stop the thaumaturgical illness, to stop the warping of body and mind. Use it to bribe the thaumaturgists, to win them over.”

  Boris fancied he saw a stern and frightening face looking out from the prism. Then the mist billowed back into a cloudy ball. Boris looked up blankly at Elo-Drusa. He had to escape this charnel-pit, for he did not have much time before his transformation would be complete. He took the prism, perhaps the most valuable item in Caeli-Amur, in his hands. It was cold and did not warm with his touch. “Thank you, my love. I must go and quell those rebels.”

  “When you return to me, I will show you the wonders of the world. Such beauty.”

  “Such beauty.” Boris looked up into her horselike skull-face.

  FORTY-SIX

  Back in his office, Boris sobbed uncontrollably. He punched his fist against the wall again and again. Despair churned and ate away inside him. He stopped sobbing, leaned his head against the wall, breathed deeply, began moaning and punching the wall again. The prism sat before him and again the face seemed to emerge inside, to look at him grimly. He was sure of it: it was a terrible and sinister face, and yet he found himself gazing intently as the form dissolved mesmerizingly back into shifting mist.

  Stopping suddenly, he pulled himself together, straightened his clothes. There were some final things to do. First: Varenis. He uncovered the great scrying ball. He pulled the lever, and the great tower of the Sortileges projected into view around him.

  A man Boris had never seen sat at a desk, which, since the last time he spoke
to the Director, had been placed in front of the sister scrying ball. On the balcony overlooking Varenis, Boris could just make out an eerie green smudge on the edge of the image. Whatever it was, the ball could not focus on that region of space. Fear shot momentarily into Boris. There was something wrong with that smudge, something eerie and unnerving.

  The man at the desk looked up: “Ah, Director Autec. What has occurred in Caeli-Amur? We’ve heard rumors.”

  Boris looked blankly at the man. “Who are you?”

  “I’m the Director of Varenis, of course.”

  Boris blinked a little: the new Director. It made sense, for the Directorship of Varenis was a keenly contested position. While in Caeli-Amur, the feuding had become mostly between the Houses, in Varenis it came within the Directorate. Stories abounded about the vicious struggles for the position, the sudden ascents and the precipitous falls of each Director.

  “I warned you,” said Boris, “the rule of the Houses is over.”

  The green smudge moved. Boris started: now he could just make the smudge on the balcony out as a frighteningly tall figure, just on the edge of the scrying ball’s range. The figure turned to face him. A strange luminescent darkness shone around it—that same light that Boris had seen previously. The image unraveled and distorted—freezing in a coagulation of pixels—so that Boris could barely see the shape. He looked away, frightened. “Damn you. Damn you all to the land of darkness.”

  He looked up to see the figure had moved inside the tower, but now the ball could not capture its outline at all. A great seven-foot fuzzing whiteness blotted out the room.

  Boris spoke bitterly. “Leave Caeli-Amur alone. Let it find its own path out of these troubles.”

  Boris heard a voice, deep and loud. The ball cracked and popped, as if struggling to reproduce the sound. But beneath the distortion, the voice was ancient and full of menace. The Sortilege said, “No, Autec, we will not. We will come to your city, and when we arrive, we will scourge the place of seditionists. We will take it for our own, strip it of all its wealth and glory. And when we are done, we will take you and show you what real pain is like.”