The Stars Askew (16 page)

Aya's breath was crushed from his body. He tried to pull himself out from beneath the beast, but the thing was too large, too heavy. Pain shot up his leg as one foot was twisted against the ground. He tried to draw a breath, struggled to take in the air.

“Get it off me. I can't breathe.” Aya's voice sounded panicky, disturbed, not just by the creature but at his inability to fight it. He was a great mage, wasn't he? And yet the equations had fled from him.

Max heard the coughing of an engine, and one of the figures approached. He hadn't noticed it before, but the figure was encased in a strange metallic exoskeleton, a metal birdlike thing powered by engines strapped to his back. Steam and smoke coughed up into the air behind him. The man rolled the creature off Aya, and he could breathe once more.

When he had gathered himself, Aya got to his knees and looked at the dead Cerberus. “I knew we should never have grown those things. Stupid idea.”

Five New-Men looked down at him, one standing in an exoskeleton. Like all New-Men, they were slim and slight. They looked like bandits, hands on hips, bolt-throwers—chunky contraptions with short barrels—held across their bodies or down by their sides. Everything about them—the dirty clothes, the shaggy hair—suggested toughness, but this was offset by their diminutive size.

“Whatever are you talking about?” said one of the five. Max realized she was a woman, her shaggy hair and boyish looks belying the fact that she was clearly a leader.

“He says strange things. I wouldn't worry about it,” said the Pilgrim. “By the rapidity of your speech, I'm guessing you're men from Tir-Aki.”

The New-Men glanced at one another quickly. “Very good.”

Their leader looked at the fading horizon, then back to the dead Cerberus. “We'd better set up camp. Maybe a bit down the road, though. This thing's going to stink before long.”

“Oh, it stinks already, I assure you.” Aya wiped the thing's spittle off his face.

*   *   *

Soon the fire was crackling, and the leader of the Tir-Akians, whose name was Kari, settled down to talk to Aya and the Pilgrim. She laid out a thin silk shift in front of her and began to dismantle her bolt-thrower to clean it. Max was fascinated to see the inner workings of the mechanism, comprised of a compression chamber, a cartridge containing thirty bolts, and internal pins and wheels. He'd seen new automatic bolt-throwers in Caeli-Amur, but this was more complex than those.

Elsewhere, another New-Man adjusted things on the exoskeleton. “Why do I always have to tune it?”

“Because you're the one who gets to wear it,” said two others in unison.

The New-Men were renowned for their innovative technology. Max thought of Quadi, his New-Man friend who had helped him construct the air-cart Max used in his journey to the Sunken City. What had happened to Quadi? He'd been gone by the time Max returned from Caeli-Enas.

“We were tracking that beast for a week. Whenever we got close, it sensed us and slipped away. Until it started hunting you, and we could finally catch up with it.”

“Why were you tracking it?” said the Pilgrim.

“The creature took seven of our men out in the mountains.” Kari gestured into the darkness. “We were sent to kill it so the workers would be safe.”

“Workers, out there in the mountains?” said the Pilgrim. “What are you doing?”

“Building a railroad, of course. Straight through the mountains, to Caeli-Amur.”

No one said anything until Aya asked, “But why?”

“Progress.” The little woman's face lit up with excitement. “The adventure of development. To build new wonders. To change the world.”

“That sounds awful,” said Aya.

Kari shrugged. “We
are
Tir-Akians, you know. Anyway, the Prince of Tir-Aki has thrown his weight behind the railroad. He wants to see it finished before long. Where are you headed?”

“To the Teeming Cities,” said the Pilgrim. “I have spiritual work to do there.”

Kari frowned, began to reassemble her bolt-thrower. “Such a strange idea, the spirit. Do you really think there is something other than the material?”

“It's a metaphor,” said the Pilgrim. “But the material world won't help you when the next cataclysm comes. At that point, your railroad will be thrown into the air, torn apart. Your machines will fall to the earth. Their gears will grind until they no longer work.”

Kari gave a bemused frown.

“Don't worry,” said Aya. “He's always like this. Probably would have been better if you'd let the Cerberus tear him to shreds.”

“You would have missed me,” said the Pilgrim.

Aya and Kari both laughed. It seemed the Pilgrim had a sense of humor after all.

*   *   *

In the morning they watched as the Tir-Akians left the road for the journey north into the mountains, where the railway was being built. Aya and the Pilgrim continued. Low foothills ran to their right, along the southeastern side of the Etolian range. Behind them the mountains rose up high, their peaks always capped with white. As they journeyed on, the Pilgrim spoke much of Caeli-Amur and its fate. Aya listened eagerly, grasping at the details, attempting to reconstruct the city's and world's histories. The Pilgrim indulged him for some time, then said, “Did you never receive any education, stranger?”

Aya said, “I come from a foreign country where they do things differently. Everything seems new and strange here.”

“I sense a deep purpose to you.”

“How can you be sure you will reach these Teeming Cities?” said Aya. “We barely survived one attack. Without the New-Men, we would both be dead. The wilderness is a dangerous place.”

“Not as dangerous as Caeli-Amur,” said the Pilgrim. “Out here, the threats are clear and obvious. Back there, everything is hidden. It always has been. When the Houses were overthrown, the seditionists claimed they would build a fairer new world. One of the seditionist leaders, Georges, made me lead him through the Arbor Palace and evaluate each of the objects there. In the north wing of the palace, hanging over the lake, he has a treasury he set up, filled with goods he clearly planned to steal. He was already buying town houses in the city, accumulating a private fortune. Not once did I see evidence of this new world they were promising.”

Again these truths rattled against Max's beliefs. The mention of Georges sparked the memory of that strange empty pleasure palace beneath the mountain, where he had seen him with a second figure. Both were headed toward the Elo-Talern.
Who was Georges accompanying and what was he doing?
Max wondered.

Aya nodded. “Power corrupts. I have seen it myself. I myself have felt the lure and pull of that fool's gold. Alerion felt it too, and he capitulated.”

“Alerion? The god?” The Pilgrim was confused.

“He wasn't always a shit, you know,” said Aya.

—You were friends!—said Max. —You and Iria and Alerion together. You were close!

“Well, I wouldn't go that far. Iria liked him more than I did,” said Aya aloud.

“What?” said the Pilgrim, now thoroughly puzzled.

—No wonder the war was so bitter—said Max. —No wonder you're so cold-blooded. There's nothing worse than the betrayal of someone close to you.

“There's nothing worse than listening to you and your amateur speculations,” said Aya.

“Who are you talking to?” said the Pilgrim.

“Oh, just another little shit,” said Aya. “Kind of like a memory you can't get rid of. But all memories fade in the end. Then they're forgotten.”

 

THIRTEEN

The garrulous Thom had vanished into the ether, and despite scouring the Quaedian for several days, Kata and Rikard had found no traces of him. Kata pictured him squirrelled away in his garret, afraid of his enemies, afraid of what he knew, waiting for the Insurgent Assembly.

She pieced together what she knew: the Technis official Armand had escaped to Varenis with the Prism of Alerion, said to contain the dying spirit of the god. Aceline and Thom must have discovered the letter in the Technis Complex. Thom was supposed to meet her at the Opera, but he had missed the rendezvous. Terrified of whatever else he'd discovered, he sent Kata with the letter to the baths. There Aceline was meant to show it to the thaumaturgists as evidence that there was a conspiracy afoot. Meanwhile, the thaumaturgists knew someone had been stealing funds from the Marin coffers and smuggling them through the canals beneath the city. To whom? And what was the dark truth Thom would reveal at the Assembly?

Kata could ask Henri to find Thom, but she wanted the boy to have a better life than the one she had grown up in. She remembered the brutality of her days on the streets. So instead she asked another urchin, a young girl called Rikki, to find him. The whole time Kata had felt the guilt of it: to protect one child and not another, was that what it was to be a parent in the world? Something had changed within her. No longer could she treat lives in the same cold and calculating fashion she'd been used to. When Rikki returned, she said there was a boy in the Quaedian who Thom had sometimes used—a boy called Pol—but Pol had disappeared. Kata told Rikki to stop searching. She couldn't bear the thought of her disappearing too.

As she mulled it over in her apartment, Henri said, “I know Pol. I could find him.”

“If Rikki couldn't, then neither could you.” Kata tried to convince herself.

“I could, you know. I know where he hides. I know everything.” Henri broke into his unstoppable cough, which Kata decided she finally had to act on.

She led him through the factory district and toward the apothecary on Boulevarde Karlotte. Morning fog hung over the city and showed no sign of lifting. They climbed up the cold alleyways and stairs, past half-empty and barely functioning factories. Varenis now refused to trade with anyone who traded with Caeli-Amur. This had immediately closed off all imports and exports to the Dyrian coast, Numeria, the Northerners. Now bedraggled workers lurked around their former workplaces by habit, as if they might find their machines miraculously repaired. Others lay empty, ghostly remnants of industry in the hovering gloom.

Henri grumbled, “Don't need no apothecary.”

Kata threw her arm around the boy's shoulders and pulled him toward her. “Years on the street. We need to have that cough checked out.”

Henri pushed her away. “Don't. Anyway, it's you who should see the apothecary, what with you having fits.”

“That's something I've had for years,” said Kata. “You know I drink a preparation for that.”

A group of urchins darted toward them from a side alley. They moved like a flock of birds, sensing one another's positions and adjusting their scurrying as they went. Several of them broke away from the main body, rejoined. Kata tensed briefly at the sight of them, for she knew their sly smiles were just as likely to hide deadly intent.

“Henri,” said a girl of about twelve years old, evidently the leader of the group. Her shoulder-length hair was lank and almost a gray color. “Aceline's been murdered by the Houses. People are all worked up. There's a big mob marching on the Arantine. Going to be good pickings up there.”

Henri took a little step away from Kata; she sensed his embarrassment at being caught with a mother figure.

The girl turned to one of the other urchins, a boy of about six with a dirty face and red hair who was pissing against the wall. She snarled in disapproval, revealing a crooked line of teeth in her pretty but severe face. The boy backed away, still pissing, as the girl turned back to Henri. “Who's this?”

“My friend Kata,” Henri said.

“You want to come?” said the girl.

Henri took a few steps toward the group but was halted by Kata's quickly grabbing his arm.

“We've got somewhere to go, Henri,” Kata said.

The girl shrugged and kicked the little redheaded boy's dirty shorts. “Jacques! No pissing in public. Come on, let's go.”

The group scurried across the street, up another alleyway toward Via Persine.

Kata did a quick calculation: Ejan had released the information about Aceline's death. The Assembly was scheduled for that night. Using the citizens' anger would give his proposals greater force against their enemies.

They reached the apothecary's clinic, a tall shop with a line of advertisements running down its side:
ILLNESSES. TOOTHACHES. LIMB SETTING. AGUES AND FEVERS. LUMBAGO. CURES FOR ALL AILMENTS.
” Inside sat three old women, a worker with burns on his arm wrapped in damp cloth, and a pregnant woman. They waited as the apothecary, a tall middle-aged man with silvery hair and a stern demeanor, called each into his room. He finally gestured to Henri. As Kata began to follow, he waved her away.

The apothecary closed the door, and Kata returned to thinking about Ejan's plans. Would Olivier and the other moderate leaders be able to resist them? In recent days Olivier had tried to put together a force of moderate guards, but they were loosely organized and confused. Olivier was better suited to being the editor of the
Dawn
than leading men.

The apothecary threw open the door. “The little rodent is gone. I turned my back for a moment, and he took my poppy-paste and a bottle of laudanum.”

At the rear of the apothecary's examining room, Kata saw an open door. Kata tried to repress the smile, but it burst onto her face regardless. “The rascal. I'll pay for your troubles.”

The apothecary shook his head. “Yes, you will.”

After tossing the man several florens, Kata headed for the Arantine, where she would no doubt find Henri, and where she expected the mob of protestors to be hard at work.

*   *   *

The fog had lifted, but now plumes of smoke rose over the Arantine, merged with one another into gray-black clouds, and drifted slowly south on the gentle breeze. At the outskirts of the grand suburb, a ragged couple carried a large statue of a Siren toward Via Gracchia. After them came more looters. Some had dug up furnace trees from the side of the boulevard; others heaved linen and chests. The smell of ash burned in Kata's nostrils.