Unwrapped Sky

by Rjurik Davidson

  Rikard stood beside her and looked down at the corpse. “He took his life before I reached him.”

  “Are you disappointed?”

  Rikard looked out over the city. “Yes. He had bested me again.”

  Beyond the balcony lay Caeli-Amur. From this height it did not seem to have changed much at all.

  Rikard led a group of four seditionists through the through the labyrinthine corridors of the palace, and Kata decided to accompany them. As they marched deeper, one of the seditionists hastily drew the corridor on a makeshift map, a squiggle of lines, curves. Two others carried lamps. Great pipes and tubes twisted and coiled along the walls and roof here, in places joining, though they lay silent and dead. Interpersed along them were wheels and levers of unknown function.

  A sign read, ZONE RESTRICTED TO OFFICIATES. KEEP OUT. There were no lamps to light the way so she returned and unhooked one from the wall and then continued on into the darkness.

  In an empty corridor, they came to an elevator, and Kata pulled aside the accordion doors. The elevator rattled and groaned as it carried them up to vast and empty hallways leading to empty ballrooms, lit with natural light from shafts cleverly cut into the ceilings. In alcoves along the walls stood statues of trunk-faced creatures, insect-men and ancient mechanical devices, all latticework of metal, cogs, wheels, miniature pistons. The deserted spaces were filled with a ghostly melancholy. All the time, the seditionist sketched his crude maps, moving from one sheet to another as they moved or climbed.

  They were now filled with a sense of foreboding. Kata kept fancying that she saw Maximilian’s body on the floor, but each time it was only piles of refuse and rags. Great seas of cobwebs coated the walls of some of the rooms, or hung in ropy strands from the roof. A wispy gray mist hovered in the air and everything seemed soft and blurry.

  Eventually, they heard a sound echoing through the hallways. At first it seemed like the sound of a broken engine, a relentless arrhythmic coughing, but then it rose high into a whine, a keening backed by a torrential downpour. Kata’s skin crawled at the unnatural nature of the sound, for now it seemed to be the wailing of a creature.

  Fearfully, the group followed the sound; with each step, it became stronger, more unnerving. Doubt crept into the eyes of Kata’s companions. Rikard pressed his lips—the top lightly dusted with hair, he had become a man in these last weeks—together and marched more resolutely forward.

  Before them stood a great double door; on its face were pressed ornate, spiraled bands of metal. Spirals and geometric shapes and ideograms seemed to drift off the doors’ surface and float in the air.

  From behind the door came the terrible cry of an inhuman creature: the cough-cough-cough of a shuddering bawl, then a wail too high to belong to any human, and behind it all, an unnatural sound that to Kata seemed to be that of a waterfall, or perhaps of rustling paper.

  Rikard touched the doors, which seemed to moan as they swung themselves open.

  Collapsed before a scrying ball in the middle of the marble lay a creature, its insectoid limbs sprawled desolately outward. It’s an Elo-Talern, thought Kata in horror. Its inhuman cries ran spikes of ice down Kata’s spine; her skin crawled as if spiders ran over her.

  The creature turned its horselike head toward them, then flickered out of existence. As it vanished, Kata caught a glimpse of a decaying image somehow beneath the form of this one. In an instant the Elo-Talern flashed back into existence.

  “I forgot that to be human means to betray,” she spat. “Life—I wanted to rejoin the living. I wanted to…” But her words—croaking and whispery—trailed off.

  The group stood fixed to the spot, overwhelmed by revulsion and fear.

  The Elo-Talern attempted to push herself to her feet, collapsed back onto them, and crawled to the throne. Halfway there, she collapsed again, pushed herself up with one arm and looked back at the others. “Now I have to return to the rest of them. They’re all dead, lifeless, ruined! It’s your fault!” As if drawn up by a cord above her, in an instant she was on her feet, her face twisted and filled with anger. Again she flickered out of existence.

  Beside Kata, one of the seditionists fled.

  But the Elo-Talern again crumpled in on herself as her anger was exhausted. She turned and walked toward great double doors behind the throne. She touched them, they opened, and shortly afterwards they boomed closed behind her. Something shimmered in the doors and they took on a more solid look, locking the Elo-Talern once again away from the world.

  FORTY-EIGHT

  Maximilian sat before a great underground lake. Around him, lichen lit the gloom with an eerie glow. How long had he sat here? He couldn’t be sure, but he thought it might have been a day or two. It reminded him of fasting on the rocky hill when he was young. Back then—no, that wasn’t him. He remembered passing through the dungeons of Technis like a silently gliding spirit. Through the corridors he had walked, accessing some deep knowledge. As if he sensed his way, he knew which turns to take to venture deeper into the dungeon, past the cells and into the ancient tunnels and caves beyond. He had come eventually to this underground lake. It appeared as if once again the way was barred.

  He relaxed, breathing in and out. The great skill of the Magi was a discipline almost impossible to achieve—it had taken him almost forty years to master, and even then it was a constant task. First, to learn the formulae and equations, then to allow the conscious mind with its self-centeredness to drop away, to dissolve oneself into the universe. From there, the Art, like any art: creativity and flow and imagination and the use of the equations without self-consciousness. He remembered Iria had been angry with him in those days. She had wanted him to spend more time with her. He had been torn. They had ventured up to one of the satellites orbiting the world. They had even talked of leaving it, of returning back to the Unity, but they were not allowed. That had been part of the condition of staying, of building their very own world the way they wanted it. Hubris—that’s what it had been. Looking down on their world, their own Eden, he and Iria had held hands.

  “When I’m with you, I’m completely with you,” he said. “That’s all I can offer.”

  “But you’re not,” said Iria. She tossed her head and her hair had hovered in weightlessness. “That’s the price of the Art. None of us are now, and none of us will be again. Not properly. The more we use it, the further it drives us apart.”

  That’s how it started, he remembered. They were fighting when they returned and he had left the others, gone across the sea to the great jungles that he loved.

  “You can’t shut everyone out,” they said. “You must come back.” They wanted to force themselves together with laws and coercion. He was an embarrassment to their planes.

  “Isn’t that what we did?” He replied. “Didn’t we break away from he Unity? Why can’t I break from you?”

  Angry, they came for him, and they fought, and war had begun.

  Max held his head. Behind his eye the jabbing pain like needles. Ever since his return, he had been blinded by terrible headaches. He felt his mind had been shattered like a glass vessel, and now that it had been reconstructed, there were pieces missing, and the remaining fragments did not sit flush against each other. He squatted to the ground and groaned. Nausea rose within him, and he fell back onto his haunches. Finally, the most severe pain passed, leaving only resonances fluttering from behind his eyes to the back of his neck.

  Max stepped into the cold water, first to his knees, then to his waist. The black liquid swirled around him, revealing nothing beneath. On he waded. When he was halfway across the lake, the waters had risen to his chest.

  —Aya—he said.—I need the equations again.

  Aya lay within him, gathering strength by the hour. Even now Max could feel Aya slipping around, probing his mind, collecting stray memories and knowledge, integrating them. But with each absorption, Max perceived some of Aya’s mind drift also into his.

  Aya withheld the equations. I offer y
ou these only because I need this body also.

  The equations drifted again into Max’s mind in all their austere beauty.

  —This cannot go on forever—said Max.—You and I will have to somehow reach a compromise.

  Perhaps you should allow me control of this body. After all, I am Aya.

  —What will become of me?—said Max.

  I’ll absorb you, integrate you.

  —You mean destroy,—said Max.

  Max dived beneath the silent waters, feeling the coldness rush over his body. In the blackness he swam, reaching out with his mind, roving across the wall to where the aperture lay. As he had done when he escaped from Caeli-Enas, he opened his mouth and took in the water, taking from it the oxygen he needed. It coursed into him uncomfortably; there was a little pain as his body initially rejected it. Yet he continued on, down through the black waters and into the subterranean tunnel. On he swam, until the tunnel rose and he burst through the water into another great empty chamber.

  He stepped from the water and found that he was in the ancient pleasure palaces beneath Caeli-Amur. Here travelers had come to spend months in the honeycombed labyrinth, living in great communal worlds generated by their minds. He had been here an aeon ago.

  He stepped from the water onto a set of stairs that led to a platform. He collapsed. He was exhausted—from his time beneath the sea, his time in the dungeons. He could not use the Art without great strain. He fell onto the ground and again the pain returned to his head. He lay there, alone in the dark with only the piercing pain for company. He lay there for some time.

  Nearby a great round door stood closed. Beneath the closed door ran tracks. Along one wall stood great tanks from which pipes and pumps ran into the wall. This was probably one of the supply rooms for the cells, where nutrients were mixed into the tanks and pumped into the pleasure seekers. But it had all come apart during the cataclysm, and this whole palace had been twisted beneath the ground.

  Maximilian started. Above him, hovering some ten feet above the ground, a figure sat in a chair. Over the figure’s head a helmet was clamped. But the small man sat as motionless as the skeletons that lay scattered around.

  After a while spent staring at the figure, Max stepped to the control bank. He touched the bank and it hummed slowly, little lights glowing in the gloom. He searched for the controls: here was a series of pads to open doors, there a readout for the cells—dead, dead, dead, it read, cataloging the death of the pleasure seekers. But this one: he touched the pad and dragged his finger along it. The chair above him clunked into gear and lowered itself. Max swiveled his fingers across the pad and the helmet opened like an inverted bulb.

  The figure fell forward from the seat.

  “Omar,” said Max.

  The little man looked up at Max and smiled gently. “I was having such nice dreams.”

  Not long afterwards, the two figures, supporting each other like injured soldiers, passed through the hall of machines. Still the machines lay dormant, creatures in the depths of a long hibernation.

  My carapaces! said Aya. A burst of excitement rose within Max. Oh, how we fought Alerion. We danced and struck at his armies on the plain. What we could have achieved! And here they are, waiting for me.

  Maximilian ignored the voice, and they continued on to the seditionist base. Strewn across the floor were the remnants of personal possessions. Black patches of blood stained the floor. Maximilian lay Omar onto the ground, found one of the cooking pots, some dried beans and powdered spices. He cooked up a barely edible paste and the two men ate slowly in silence.

  Finally, Max said, “I need to see the city. I need to feel the air on my face.”

  Omar nodded. “I’ll rest here. I’m too weak. But you go ahead. You usually do, anyway.”

  Maximilian trod the familiar path along the tunnels until he stepped out into the bright morning sun. At first his eyes were blinded by the brilliance of the sun, but slowly his eyes adjusted and the forms of the city appeared before him: a vast sweep from the Factory Quarter along Via Gracchia, with its cafés across to the luxurious Arantine. Below the Arantine, the great Arena and the Lavere nestled in the arms of the Southern Headland. There he could just make out the crisscrossing of the Thousand Stairs. Closer to him lay the Ancient Forum, covered in fog, closer still the cramped Quaedian with its narrow alleyways—his quarter. The Opera towered over the piers, with their steamers and cutters. Finally, the canals nestled in the arms of the Northern Headland, its water palaces gleaming. Fires burned in the city’s squares, perhaps because it had been cold, though there seemed to be less smoke billowing from the Factory Quarter. Otherwise it seemed much the same, a busy city, a city filled with life.

  Aya’s voice was horrified, Caeli-Amur, my city. What have you done to it? You’ve ruined it!

  The scent of smoke drifted up to Maximilian. “Caeli-Amur is alive. Full of possibility. I hope it never changes.”

  PART IV

  FUTURES

  01010100011100100111010101100101001000000110101101101110011011110111011101101100011001010110010001100111011001010010110000001101000010100100100101110011001000000111010001101111001000000110101101101110011011110111011100100000011110010110111101110101011100100010000001101001011001110110111001101111011100100110000101101110011000110110010100101110000011010000101001010100011100100111010101100101001000000111010101101110011001000110010101110010011100110111010001100001011011100110010001101001011011100110011100101100000011010000101001001001011100110010000001110100011011110010000001110101011011100110010001100101011100100111001101110100011000010110111001100100001000000111100101101111011101010111001000100000011000110110111101101110011001100111010101110011011010010110111101101110001011100000110100001010010101000111001001110101011001010010000001101010011011110111100100101100000011010000101001001001011100110010000001110100011011110010000001101100011000010111010101100111011010000010000001110100011011110110011101100101011101000110100001100101011100100010111000001101000010100101010001110010011101010110010100100000011100000110111101110111011001010111001000101100000011010000101001001001011100110010000001110011011010000110000101110010011001010110010000100000011101110110100101110100011010000010000001101111011101000110100001100101011100100111001100101110000011010000101001001001001000000110001101101111011011010110010100100000011010010110111000100000011100110110010101100001011100100110001101101000001000000110111101100110001000000111010001101000011010010110111001100111011100110010000001001001001000000110100001100001011101100110010100100000011011010110100101110011011100110110010101100100001011000000110100001010010010110110111001101111011101110110100101101110011001110010000001110100011010000110000101110100001000000111010001101000011001010111100100100000011000010111001001100101001000000110111001101111011101000010000001110100011010000110010100100000011101000110100001101001011011100110011101110011001000000100100100100000011101000111001001110101011011000111100100100000011100110110010101100101011010110010111000001101000010100101001101110101011000110110100000100000011010010111001100100000010101000110100001100101001000000101011101100001011110010010000001101111011001100010000001110100011010000110100101101110011001110111001100101110001000000000110100001010

  —the Library’s Code, as written by Omar

  FORTY-NINE

  Kata sat in the rowboat and pulled on the two oars. She insisted this time that she row. Like a night not so long ago, the oars creaked against the wooden oarlocks and splashed subtly as they entered the water. Behind her, the child leaned over the prow looking down into the water. Facing her in the boat’s rear, the minotaur Dexion sat, looking up at the sky.

  “On a night like tonight, you can see the Sunken City,” Kata said to them.

  Henri stared at her with his great round eyes. Dexion laughed, and said, “No!”

  “It’s true.”

  The water was glassy, like the sea so many nights before. The sound of the citizens of Caeli-Amur echoed over the water. As in most of the squares of the city, a great bonfire burned in the center of Market Square. The citizens had come into the streets and now it seemed that they would not
leave them. A strange vitality had overcome the city in these last few days. No one was sure of anything, and that meant that everything was questioned, everything discussed. People talked and talked.

  History had proved to be more fickle than she thought. Where once history had held her in its iron-tight grasp, clenched and immovable, now it seemed more like floodwaters rushing toward the sea: it found hidden channels and swept all things up in its tide. At places it was a deadly torrent, in others as gentle as a lake. Before long it would take them all into the vast ocean of the future. And was that future ocean a blue green idyll or did monsters lurk beneath its surfaces? What it all meant, Kata could not be sure. A million pathways seemed to open up before her. And yet, up there in the dark recesses of the mountain, the Elo-Talern waited. For now, she was content to breathe in the crystal air, to bathe in the gleaming stars above, to close her eyes and feel her heart beating, steady.

  “You can see it! You can see it!” Henri said.

  Kata pulled the oars into the boat and looked down into the water. Beneath them, Caeli-Enas glittered in the water. White marble spires shifting and twisting. Its splintered beauty struck Kata. She thought of Maximilian. Where was he? She still held on to hope that she might find him, somewhere, alive. Hope—she had no right to it, and yet there it was, hope, beating within her for the future.

  “The city sank before I was born,” said Dexion, looking down. “But the older minotaurs speak of it. The old world, gone now.” He sighed. “The perfect world, they used to call it, where each gave what they could, and each took what they needed. Would we ever be able to build that again?”