The Stars Askew (41 page)

“Mechanism's broken. Same as the other one.” A vigilant inspected the Bolt housing Max. “Too much wear, I'd say. Third one will probably go soon.”

Maximilian's eyes roved, locked on Kata, widened with hope.

Kata turned to the gray-suited force behind her. The crowd was hushed now. They watched the moderates, uncertain about the meaning of their arrival.

“We're going to free him,” Kata said quietly to her captains.

She strode forward and became instantly aware of the black-suited vigilant guards surrounding the Standing Stones, pikes in hand. There were perhaps a hundred of them, many standing up from where they had watched the entertainment around the palisade. Her forces outnumbered the vigilants by almost two to one, but would they stand up in combat? There had been so little time to train them, even with Sarrat's expertise.

The vigilant captain marched toward Kata. She had seen him before, pronouncing judgments, stirring the crowd to a fever pitch. “I don't know who you are, but back away.”

Kata heard the sound of rapiers sliding from scabbards behind her. The determination in her tone surprised even her. “That man is the seditionist leader Maximilian. He has been wrongly imprisoned. We're here to free him.”

“The tribunal says he is to be put to death.” The captain gestured dramatically at the crowd. “What do we think?”

“The Bolt! The Bolt!” the crowd howled. They didn't like the idea of their entertainment being canceled. Kata wondered if, in the event of a clash, they would be prepared to join on the side of the vigilants.

“I am Kata, one of the moderate leaders. And I say he is to be freed. Who are you to oppose me?”

The executioner captain gestured to the crowd. “And so the moderates' true views emerge. Like rats they are brought out into the light. They would have us abandon the Bolt, capitulate before our enemies without a fight.” He turned back to Kata. “Gutless, I say you are. Weak and indecisive. Let us do the real work of the revolution.”

Kata took two steps toward him. He looked at her curiously first, then blinked rapidly with realization as he reached up to the two knives Kata had plunged into his neck moments before. His eyes took on a somewhat plaintive look.

“Indecisive, you say?” whispered Kata into his ear as his legs gave way, leaving her gripping her two dripping daggers.

For a moment no one spoke or moved. Then the vigilants charged. The clash of steel rang out. Kata loosed one knife, which struck a vigilant between the ribs. He staggered back, a moderate guard already piercing him with a rapier. A pike arced waist height at Kata, and she leaped into the air, heard the sound as it wooshed beneath her. A second later her other knife drove up through the attacker's jaw, pierced his palate, and lodged into his brain.

On all sides, her guards engaged the vigilants. Some were felled by pikes. Elsewhere they ducked and danced and fought at close range. It was not pretty to watch: their skills were rudimentary, but they were tougher than anyone the vigilants had ever faced. Once at close range, the action was short and decisive. One moment the battle was on. A second later the vigilants had broken and fled in all directions.

Kata leaped onto the platform, halted before Maximilian. Neither of them spoke for a moment. She was taken aback by his matted hair and scruffy beard, but there was still life in his eyes.

Kata cut the gag from his mouth. “I suppose we had better get you out of this, then,” said Kata.

Max took a breath. “If you insist.”

It took a moment before she could work out the strappings. Once he was free, she helped him back to the carriage. The crowd watched, confused. None called out. Then, suddenly, a great cheer went up. It seemed they'd had their entertainment after all.

“Where are we going?” asked Max.

“To the Technis Palace,” said Kata.

“I can't seem to get away from that place,” said Max.

“None of us can,” said Kata.

“Why there?”

“\We are preparing for civil war.”

“Against who?” said Max.

“Ejan,” said Kata.

Max nodded. “I see.”

*   *   *

Moderate leaders and activists flooded into the Technis Palace, carrying whatever they could, fear in their eyes. Across the city, moderates had fought a series of rearguard battles as they retreated to the Technis Complex. The moderate-controlled factories immediately went on strike; the vigilant ones made calls for restraint by all. Most of the factory committees called for unity, though the basis for this was fuzzy. Should the Bolt still function? Whose guards should be considered the real representatives of the citizenry?

Once back at Technis Palace, Elise stood before Kata, angry. “Olivier's been taken hostage. So have most of the editors of the
Dawn
. They tried to escape the Opera, but Ejan moved too quickly. This is your fault, Kata.”

Kata ignored the complaints and raced to the balcony of the Director's office, where she surveyed the city. Vigilant guards had begun to surround the Technis Complex, building barricades in nearby streets and squares. Their captains surveyed the scene: directions were given, defenses organized. The moderates were under siege.

Maximilian washed in one of the communal bathrooms and returned to the Director's suite. Kata followed him into the bedroom, watched him stare at the water-sphere that filled an adjoining room. Steps led up to its opening, which was like the lid of an immense circular bottle. Once inside, you could swim through superoxygenated liquid just as in the Marin water palaces. The sphere would present worlds of fantasy to the swimmer, but they were also used for torture in the dungeons below. They could reflect back your own inescapable nightmares too.

Max drifted past her, back into the offices, and looked coldly at the egg-shaped machine behind the desk. The sight of him, after all this time wondering about his fate, filled her with a kind of surreal relief. He was alive, and a great guilt was lifted from her. But he had changed. His single-minded focus, his belief that striving for humanity was the most important thing in life, was tempered by a kind of watchfulness. His suffering had eaten away at his ambition, rounded him like a stone beneath the water.

She had changed also. Her yearning for him was gone. She had grown up, it seemed, and now stood on her own two feet. She didn't need to cling to someone else's ambitions to provide meaning in her own life. In fact, she didn't need anyone. Now it was a matter of what she
wanted
, and she couldn't be sure of that. The image of Dexion had begun to haunt such thoughts, but she wasn't sure how she felt about the minotaur, either.

None of this mattered, anyway. She had other responsibilities, a siege to face. All personal concerns had to be swept aside. And in that moment she realized how much like Max and Rikard and Ejan she had become. That, it seemed, was the price of leadership.

“Memories,” Max spoke, almost as if to himself. “Why do you want to remember everything? Alerion, the time before the overthrow of the Houses—when everything seemed so simple. It would be better if we could forget it all, don't you think? We wouldn't have to carry around the load of the past. Yet we hold on to our memories. We save them up and replay them.”

“The load of the past makes us who we are,” said Kata. “We replay memories to make sense of ourselves.”

She followed him out onto the balcony. Some of the vigilants were preparing fires for the night.

“Look at us, trapped up here,” he said.

Yes,
thought Kata. She thought of the Technis Director, Boris Autec. He had once stood up here, besieged by a surrounding army. She now knew how he felt, looking out over an enemy city.

 

THIRTY-THREE

Armand examined the roof of the tent. Droplets of moisture hung from the fine material. Blankets covered all three of them, though the tent was meant for only two people. He closed his eyes again, rested in the warmth of the two bodies. How long since he had felt warmth like this? He couldn't remember. It must have been back in Varenis, an epoch ago.

“Your friend seems better this morning.” The woman called Giselle stretched her hands up over her head, let them lie flat on the ground. Armand's ally Dumas had employed the philosopher-assassin to follow him, report back on his activities, keep an eye on the prism, protect him as he rose through the upper echelons of Varenis—and perhaps kill him if necessary. She did not say this last part, but Armand imagined it was the case.

Irik lay sleeping on his side. His face had lost the slippery sheen of fever. In those first hours after their rescue, Irik had raved deliriously, reaching out and trying occasionally to sit up. The illness had hit a crisis point, and the oppositionist had begun to shudder relentlessly, like a broken engine. Then, suddenly, he stopped. Armand thought the man dead, and his heart sank, but Irik took a lurching breath, seemed to collapse in on himself, and fell into a deep deathlike sleep. For the rest of the night they had huddled there, safe in the warmth of the tent as the snowstorm whirled around them.

“It took me days to find where they had sent you,” said Giselle.

Armand nodded. “You might have come quicker.”

“You might have let me know you planned to escape,” shot back Giselle.

Giselle shuffled to the tent's door flap, slid on her thick pants and her woolen coat, which lay at the foot of the tent, and stepped out into the air.

Armand glanced at the sleeping Irik and followed Giselle into the cold. The snow had taken on a crystalline blue color, and the sun twinkled on the icicles that hung from the trees. Nearby, a blanket of snow had covered the immense corpse of the Cyclops, so that he might almost have been a sculpture made by children. There was something tragic about the sight, that frightening and majestic creature so far from his warm and rocky home.

Giselle pulled a second coat from her long backpack and passed it to him. “I only have one coat. One other pair of gloves. I thought I'd only be rescuing you.”

Armand glanced back at the tent. “You would not have found me alive if it hadn't been for him.”

“Well, we'll have to head back west. We can't pass through the mountains, and I've left provisions a day's march from Camp X.”

“We're heading east,” said Armand. “There are ancient roads through the mountains.”

Giselle laughed at the risky suggestion. “Do you always want to make things hard for yourself? Winter hasn't set in yet, but we won't survive its worst storms.”

“Even so, we cannot pass by Camp X again.” Armand spoke with a firm edge to his voice. “We'll all be caught. Anyway, we still have weeks before winter settles in.”

Giselle shook her head. “I've made it this far. I can face any Cyclops, any guard.”

A voice came from the tent. Irik had swung his legs out and was preparing to stand up. “You can leave us if that's your wish, but it seems a waste after having gone to such trouble.”

Giselle rubbed her ball of red hair, which sprang back from her hands. “It will take far too long. Dumas sent a message just before I left. They're sending reinforcements to Varenis. By the time we return, there will be people waiting for us, Armand.
Our people.
I'm not sure why, but he said it was crucial that we meet up with them. The quickest way is back past Camp X.”

Armand smiled. “That's good, but I have another plan to carry out. I'm going to visit the Augurers. When I enter the Embrace, I will see the future. Then we will have a
real
advantage. Think of how I can tailor my actions, once I know what history has in store.”

Giselle began to dismantle the tent. A moment later she stopped. “Seeing the future is proof of nothing. Yes, you'll see what lies ahead, as it is at the very moment of seeing. But after that, the future changes with each of your actions, until nothing is certain anymore. You can only ever see a future that will not be. Why do you think so few visit the Augurers now?”

Armand pulled the blankets from the half-collapsed tent and began to pack them into the bags. “Because the trip is too long and difficult. And, even still, there
are
pilgrims. Officiates from Caeli-Amur often made the journey before the overthrow.”

“Did they return the better for it? Visiting the Augurers is always a curse.” Giselle slipped the tent pegs into a small bag.

“We must take the curses we are offered.” Armand squatted beside the bags as Irik handed him the tent poles.

“You're a pompous fool,” said Giselle.

Irik looked to Armand and turned his palm up, his lips twitching with humor as Giselle echoed his own words. Seeing Armand's dark face, he simply smiled and turned away.

*   *   *

The sun shone brilliantly on the snow. Armand was forced to keep his eyes half closed as they followed animal trails close to the side of the slope, avoiding any snowdrifts. Across the valley, goats perched impossibly on the sides of cliffs, eyed the travelers disinterestedly, hopping from perch to perch. When they spied more of the beasts on a slope nearby, Giselle brought one down with her bolt-thrower. They butchered it inexpertly and stashed away as much as they could.

The valley cut between two mammoth peaks that reached like ragged claws into the sky. Great eagles hovered on the drafts around the craggy tips. Their graceful flight so far above, right beside sheer and smooth rock faces, gave Armand vertigo.

In the afternoon they came through the pass and halted at a precipitous descent to a valley far below them: the copses of trees, their branches weighed down with snow, the racing river they would have to cross. They would need to climb down to the valley and find a path up over the vast mountain range facing them.

“This was a mistake,” said Giselle.

The height of the summits struck fear into Armand. How could they climb those sheer faces with their snowy drifts, overhangs, and vertiginous peaks?