City on Fire (Metropolitan 2) (37 page)

Aiah presses herself against his weight. The need in his voice frightens her. She must be strong, it seems, even for him, even for the strongest thing she knows...

And then cold terror floods her spine. She can feel her nape hairs spring erect and gooseflesh prickle her arms. Constantine stiffens, suddenly alert, and she hears his heart crash in his chest. There is suddenly a
presence
in the room, a terror, and the lights seem to go dim, as if viewed through a thickening fog.

“Metropolitan,” says a voice, “I have done the thing you bade me.” The voice is deep and resonant, as if from out of the earth, as if it were calling through rock and magma and clay.

Aiah’s knees go weak. Constantine supports her with his arms, shielding her protectively from the terror, from Taikoen the Great. There is a strange shimmering on the metal walls, swift and indistinct sensations of prismatic color, and Aiah doesn’t know if it is something Taikoen is somehow projecting, or his body, his being, somehow expanding through the room.

“This is not a good time,” Constantine says firmly. “We are not alone.”

“
I have met the lady before,” says the creature—
ice man, hanged man, the damned
— and from around Constantine’s shoulder Aiah catches a glimpse of the heart of him, a deep shadow in the room’s corner, a shadow strobing with lines of silver and of color, as if plasm itself had taken on both form and evil intent... This place is well shielded, but not against a creature of plasm like Taikoen, who can creep through plasm mains at will, who can appear anywhere that plasm can be found.

“I have come for my reward at the time appointed,” Taikoen says. “I have killed as you desired, Metropolitan, and now I desire my delight.” His voice turns silky. “I have delayed my reward to do this thing, and I would not delay any longer.”

“I can’t help you now," Constantine says. "I do not have the means at present. Give me some few hours to prepare, and I will give you what you need.”

“Do you think, Metropolitan, that I enjoy killing?” The creature’s voice is petulant. “I do your bidding for one thing only— I wish to clothe myself in flesh. I wish the joys and pleasures of matter. I wish to have on my tongue the gladness of a feast, to sense in my mind the delirium of liquor, to feel in my loins the ecstasies of love.”

Aiah shivers uncontrollably in the cold that the creature seems to project, and she expects to see her breath blossom out in frost; but she can see sweat standing out on Constantine’s forehead as he faces his ally.

“So you shall,” Constantine says firmly. “But I must have some time to prepare. I do not have a subject ready for you.”

“This is the time appointed,” Taikoen insists. “Give me this girl, if you have no other.”

Aiah gives a cry, her mind quailing, a shudder quaking through every limb. Constantine holds her upright through main strength.

“I will not,” Constantine says. “I will give you someone, and in a short time, but this lady is vital to my purpose, and you cannot have her.”

“It is the time appointed,” the creature insists.

“
Come back in three hours!” Anger snaps in Constantine’s voice. “Come to my apartment then. I will have someone for you— but not
now
!”

Taikoen hovers for a moment and seems to swell, as if threatening to engulf them, and then he subsides, seems to slip away like mist, fleeing as if from reality itself.

“As you wish,” the creature says finally, and adds, with a touch of disappointment, and perhaps even sorrow, “It was the time appointed, Metropolitan.”

Then Taikoen is gone, and Aiah can hear nothing but the uncontrollable chattering of her own teeth. Constantine walks her to the winged armchair, lowers her gently into it. She draws up her legs into a fetal posture, still shuddering. Constantine caresses her cheek, her forehead.

“I am sorry,” he says. “I had lost track of time; I had forgot he would be seeking me.”

“You must get free of him.” The words shivering out of her.

Constantine looks at her sorrowfully. “It is not possible.” He touches her cheek again. “Besides, he may be useful yet.”

She turns her head away, unable to bear his touch. He looks down at her pensively, teeth worrying at his lower lip, and then turns and walks to the door.

“I must find Taikoen a villain to live in,” he says. “While I satisfy him, prepare a presentation for the cabinet meeting— as optimistic as you can make it.” He looks over his shoulder. “Optimism is in short supply, and therefore valuable. Make what fortune you can.”

He walks away on his— on Taikoen’s— errand, and leaves Aiah in his armchair with only her terror for company.

LANBOLA CLAIMS NEUTRALITY

NO ATTACKS LAUNCHED FROM LANBOLI TERRITORY, MINISTER INSISTS

The War Cabinet meets in the Crystal Dome two days later. The delicate glass structure has withdrawn for the duration into an armored vault, lowered on huge hydraulics into the depths of the Palace. Now Aiah knows how the room survived the violence of Constantine’s original coup.

Smooth polished steel surrounds the cabinet room, forms a roof overhead. Fresh flowers in cut-crystal vases, placed at intervals along the table, serve only to make the room even more bleak by contrast. The War Cabinet is a reduced version of the entire cabinet, and consists of the three triumvirs as well as Constantine, Sorya, and Belckon, the aged Minister of State, all of whom cluster at the head of the long glass table. The effect is a sense of isolation, a cluster of defeated people, hiding behind slabs of armor in a room designed for three times their number.

Aiah reports that Rohder’s teams are making good progress with their untested theories, that she expects they will pay for themselves and much else, and that if the teams were enlarged, the plasm supply would be as well.

Aiah is told to increase Rohder’s division as fast as she can, after which Constantine makes his report on the failure at the Corridor. He describes how his soldiers had the Provisionals on the verge of cracking until Lanbola had permitted a force of mercenaries to cross the border and attack his flank, and sent his troops reeling back.

“
And then the Provisionals
halted
,” Constantine says. “Our units were in disorder— there was some panic— but the enemy didn’t press their attack home.”

“Could that be because of the disorganization of enemy command?” Hilthi asks. This being the current euphemism for the mysterious way that Radeen, Gentri, and their entire staff were killed in their headquarters.

“
It is clear by now that the Provisionals are taking direction from Lanbola,” Constantine says. “Their forces halted when they didn’t have to, and that shows us Lanbola’s strategy. Lanbola doesn’t want the Provisional Government to
win
; Lanbola wants— by squeezing first one side, then the other— to dictate the peace. They can attack our flank at any point, and that makes us vulnerable. And the Provisionals are dependent on them for supplies and political support.”

Faltheg, the new president and triumvir, is a spare, balding man with the eyes of a man drowning. He looks hopelessly down the table and murmurs in a voice almost too low to hear, "What is the status of the army now?”

Reports from the military commanders are bleak, Constantine informs him. Since the failure at the Corridor, enemy mages have been unleashed on Caraqui, plasm raging through the disputed no-man’s-land between the two forces, setting unquenchable fires, tearing the bottoms out of barges and pontoons, creating a watery, ruined desolation between the contending armies. It is a brand-new atrocity, unknown within living memory. Tens of thousands of refugees, dispossessed of everything they own, flee from twin threats of fire and water, and the world’s compassionate statesmen bleat in sympathy but do nothing.

If Constantine is to attack again, his forces will have to make their way across open water or masses of rubble, all within the scope of pre-sited artillery.

Belckon the diplomat reports that he filed a vigorous protest to the Lanbolan government, which simply denied everything— denied the mercenaries, denied the invasion, denied the atrocities, denied its support for the Provisionals— after which Belckon also lodged a protest with the Polar League, which will place the matter on the agenda for its scheduled meeting next month. The World Council has expressed its concern, and is considering sending humanitarian aid, but has otherwise deferred to the Polar League.

Sorya tilts her head back, her eyes narrowing as a satisfied smile plays across her features. Languidly she places one polished boot on the crystal table. Among all the people here, she alone seems satisfied with the situation outside this steel shell.

“They strive for stalemate,” she says. “We fight to win. Despite appearances, the advantage still lies with us.”

She reports on the enemy army, the makeup of its new leadership and command staff. She also produces some neat figures showing who is paying for the enemy’s efforts, Lanbola principally, money siphoned through its Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Trade, with more money coming from Nesca and Charna and Adabil, all people who got along well with the Keremaths in their heydey.

Hilthi’s gold pen hovers over his pad. “Great-Uncle Rathmen?” he asks.

“He produces a little money now and again, to demonstrate his sincerity,” Sorya says. “Why should he pay for his war, when others are so willing?”

“Willing to feed with Rathmen off our corpse,” Hilthi mutters.

“
All these people— the Lanbolans, the Nescans, and so on— are also pouring money
here
, into free Caraqui. They have each started their own political party and are recruiting as many adherents as they can buy.”

“Good,” Constantine says.

The others look at him. Constantine smiles back. “It’s so much easier to keep track of foreign agents when they print newspapers and attend conventions,” he says. “And at any point we can bring them down, just by revealing they work for a foreign power.”

The others nod sagely. The new president and triumvir Faltheg gazes grayly down the long crystal table. Aiah has never seen him actually meet anyone’s eyes. “What can we do?” he mutters. “I need recommendations. I need . . .” Dull light gleams off his bald scalp. “I need
something
.”

Sorya gives a superior smile. “Lanbola has signed its own death warrant,” she says. “Their own army is insignificant, a couple divisions of ill-trained militia, badly emplaced. Their border with us is largely unguarded except for police— they are confident that their neutrality, which they themselves violate daily, will protect them.
They
may invade
us
, but to them, the opposite is unthinkable. Two corps swung round our right flank, with sufficient air and mage support, can take Lanbola in a matter of hours. Not only will it rid us of a vexatious neighbor, but it will cut the Provisionals off from their source of supply and their biggest provider of cash. And it will give our other neighbors a lesson they would do well to heed.”

“No,” says Hilthi. His voice is loud, echoes harshly from surrounding steel. “Invading another metropolis can only make matters worse. Our other neighbors will learn a lesson indeed, but the wrong one. The only thing the Polar League ever accomplished was demilitarizing the region a couple centuries ago— if we invade and conquer a neighbor, that’s the end of stability for the whole region.”

Sorya’s ambiguous smile does not fade: destabilizing the region is not a problem for her, but rather a solution. “Wars, once begun, generate their own logic,” she says. “The opportunity exists now. At some point— soon, I imagine— Lanbola will awaken to the fact they are in danger, and act to correct the situation.”

“But neutrality...” Faltheg murmurs.

“
All neutralities are imaginary,” Sorya says. “When a third party to a war chooses neutrality as a policy, in reality the neutrality always favors one side or another. Our neighbors’ neutrality in the present conflict favors our enemies— it demonstrates that neighboring states have
already
taken sides against us. We should show our neighbors that such a neutrality is more dangerous for them than they believe.”

Sorya’s genius, Aiah realizes, consists in doing just what she always says she will do. She wants to enlarge her scope, increase her power.
All neutralities are imaginary... All truces are temporary.
It is all of a piece, a perfectly consistent view of the world.

It’s
other
people, she thinks, who see something else in Sorya, who think she is something other than what she has always said she is.

“
I agree with Miss Sorya’s premises,” Hilthi says, “but not her conclusions. Wars
do
have their own logic, and the logic of war is to grow ever larger and more destructive, and for war’s energies to engulf entire nations, entire economies. Occupation of Lanbola would create a cascade of events that would soon run outside our control— the entire region could be endangered.”

“
I support the idea," Parq says. His normally silky voice is forceful, angry. “The Lanbolans have caused enormous harm to our people, and our people demand justice and punishment for the criminals. If our neighbors object, we can point out that
they
initially invaded
us
, albeit by proxy.”

“The Polar League can put the Lanbolans’ protest on their agenda for next month,” Sorya mocks. Parq laughs, and there is a rumble of amusement from Constantine.

Belckon gazes uneasily at the room from beneath his shock of white hair. “I must say that, diplomatically, this action would create insuperable difficulties for us. Our perpetual difficulty is in convincing our neighbors that our regime has any legitimacy, and if we prove ourselves not only illegitimate but hegemonist, we can expect only hostility from people who were formerly our friends.”