Now, in three weeks’ time Makkathran would vote on Edeard’s candidature for Chief Constable. Please, Lady! Everyone, especially the Grand Families, saw each new crime in Makkathran as part of some vast subversive semirevolutionary network of evil. It was an inevitable result of the success that the constables and his own committee had secured over the years in cutting the overall level of crime in the city and out on the Iguru so spectacularly. Consequently, any crime that was committed these days became noteworthy, from missing crates of vegetables to the theft of cloaks from the Opera House. The perpetrators had to be organized and therefore required the immediate appointment of the Waterwalker himself to head up the investigation.
Three weeks, he thought as he walked across the Liliala Hall. That’s all I’ve got to put up with this Lady-damned rubbish for. Three weeks. And if I lose, they might even expect me to resign. It wasn’t a thought he’d shared with anyone, not even Kristabel, but it was one he’d considered a few times of late. Certainly there was precious little for the special Grand Council committee to do these days. The number of constables assigned to the committee was barely a quarter of what it had been fifteen years ago, and most of those remaining were on loan to provincial capitals or winding up cases that had dragged on for years.
One way or another, it needs to close down. I need to do something else.
Above him, a vigorous hurricane knot at the ceiling’s apex spun faster and faster. The racing bands of cloud grew darker as they thickened. At first he didn’t really notice the center; it was just another patch of darkness. Then a star shimmered within it, and he stopped and stared up. The center of the storm whorl was clearing, expanding to show the night sky beyond. He’d never seen the ceiling do that before, not in all the years he’d walked beneath it. Clouds were draining away rapidly now, abandoning the ceiling to leave a starscape in which the Void’s nebulae glimmered with robust phosphorescence. Then Gicon’s Bracelet appeared, each of the five small planets spaced neatly around the ceiling and shining with unwavering intensity, so much larger than he’d ever seen them before. The Mars Twins, both angry gleaming orbs of carmine light, still devoid of any features. Vili, the brightest of the five, with an unbroken mantle of ice reflecting sunlight right back through its thin cloudless atmosphere. Alakkad, its dead black rock threaded with beautiful orange lines of lava, pulsing like veins. And finally, Rurt, an airless gray-white desert battered by comets and asteroids since the day it formed to produce a terrain of a million jagged craters.
Edeard gaped in delight at the celestial panorama that the ceiling had so unexpectedly delivered in such wondrous detail. He took his time, familiarizing himself with each of the Gicon worldlets. It had been a long time since he’d bothered to look through a telescope—decades, back before he ever set foot in Makkathran. As he went around the sedate quintet formation, he realized that something new had appeared amid them. A patch of pale iridescent light was shimmering beside Alakkad. “What is that?” he murmured in puzzlement. It couldn’t be a nebula; it was too small, too steady. Besides, the ceiling was showing him the entire bracelet, which meant the patch was close to Querencia. There was no tail, so it wasn’t a comet. Which meant …
Edeard dropped to his knees as if in prayer, staring up in awe at the little glowing patch. “Oh, dear Lady!” He’d never seen one, never imagined what one would look like. But even so he knew exactly what he was looking at.
Edeard put his eye to the end of the telescope again, making sure the alignment was right. Why the lens stuck out vertically halfway along the big brass tube was a mystery to him. The astronomer he’d bought it from had launched into some long explanation about focal length. It made no sense to Edeard; that the contraption worked was all he required. He’d spent most of the afternoon setting it up on the hortus outside the study where Kristabel kept her desk and all the paperwork she used to manage the estate. By now the ziggurat all the way down to the third floor knew of the Waterwalker’s new interest, not to mention every astronomer in Makkathran, gossipy clique that they were. It wouldn’t take long before the entire city was aware. Then life might get interesting again.
And that’s my real problem with this world. Too damn neat and tidy.
He stood up, arching his back to get the kinks out. His farsight swept out across the gloaming-cloaked city. Someone was observing him. Not the secretive newcomer; his knew this mental signature only too well. His farsight stretched all the way down to Myco and that four-story building fronting Upper Tail Canal, the one with a faint violet glow escaping from its upper windows.
“Hello, Edeard,” Ranalee longtalked. She was standing in the office that had belonged to Bute and Ivarl before her. When he employed the city’s own senses to look into the room, he saw she was dressed in a long silk evening gown with flared arms. Large jewels sparkled in her hair and around her neck. Two girls were in attendance. They looked like junior daughters from some Grand Family, the kind she usually ensnared in her various dynastic breeding schemes; their robes were certainly more expensive than those of the courtesans on the lower floors, and their admiration for Ranalee was painfully obvious. A lad was also in there with them, a dark-haired youth in his late teens, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. Edeard guessed he was of the aristocracy; his self-confidence incriminated him. For him to be there was somewhat unusual for Ranalee but hardly unique.
Edeard sighed at finding the trio, but then, charging into the House of Blue Petals with a squad of constables to rescue innocents from her clutches didn’t work. He’d made that mistake before. Once it had been so bad, he’d gone back in time to make sure it never happened.
There was only one way to rid Makkathran of Ranalee, and he wouldn’t do it. As she so often said, that would make him one of her own. So he endured and did what he could to thwart her legitimately.
To add to the ignominy, she’d aged extremely well, presumably thanks to some deal made in Honious, he told himself sullenly. Her skin remained firm and wrinkle-free, and she managed to maintain an impressive figure even after four children. You had to get right up next to her and look into those hypnotic eyes to know the true age and calculating ingenuity that the body contained, a position he tried to avoid as much as possible.
“Good evening,” he replied equitably.
“Interesting new toy you’ve got there.”
“As always, I’m flattered by your attention.”
“Why do you want a telescope?”
“To watch the end of your world approaching.”
“How coy. I’ll find out, of course.”
“You certainly will. I’ll be announcing it very loudly in a few days.”
“How intriguing. That’s why I always liked you, Edeard. You make life exciting.”
“Who are your new friends?”
Ranalee smiled as she looked around the office at the youngsters. “Come and join us; find out for yourself.” She signaled the girls, who immediately went over to the lad and started kissing him.
“No thank you.”
“Still holding out against your true self? How sad.”
“You’re really not going to enjoy my announcement. I’m about to turn even those with the weakest of wills away from your kind of existence.”
“You’re very bitter tonight. Were those livestock certificates so desperately important to you?”
Every time. She could do it Every Single Time. Edeard pressed his teeth together as he tried to quash his anger.
“At least the animal markets is one enterprise you haven’t contaminated yet,” he told her. It was petty, but …
“Poor Edeard, still jealous after all these years. You never expected me to be so successful, did you?”
He refused to rise to the bait. But Ranalee’s business ability had surprised him. She’d invested wisely, unlike the previous owners of the House of Blue Petals, who had simply squandered the money on their own lifestyle. Today, Ranalee owned over two dozen perfectly legitimate businesses and had a considerable
political presence on the general merchants council and in the Makkathran Chamber of Commerce. Nowadays, she was completely independent of the old faltering Gilmorn family. He knew of course that she’d used her vile ability for dominance to sway unsuspecting rivals at opportune moments and to build unseemly financial alliances, yet he could never prove anything. And of course, her children had been married off selectively, gathering more wealthy families into her dominion.
“That’s Makkathran for you,” he replied. “Equal opportunity for everyone.”
Ranalee shook her head, seemingly tired of the argument. “No, Edeard. It’s not. Nor—before you start—are all of us born equal. You got where you are because of your strength, just as I foresaw. And I am where I am because of my strength, and you resent that.”
“Are you saying you used illicit methods to gather your new wealth?”
“Did you achieve your position legitimately? Where is my father, Edeard? Where is Owain? Why has there never been an inquiry into their disappearance?”
“Is an inquiry needed into their activities?”
“Would it ever be an impartial one?” She reached up and began removing the jeweled pins from her hair so it could fall free.
“You don’t want that.”
“No,” she said simply. “The past is the past. It’s done. Over. I look to the future. I always have.” She regarded the youngsters dispassionately. The ardent girls had taken the lad’s shorts off. They giggled as they pushed him down on a big couch.
Edeard couldn’t watch the lad’s enraptured, worshipful face as Ranalee moved over to the side of the couch and stared down at him. Too many memories. “Why do you do this?” he asked. “You’ve achieved so much.”
A victorious smile twitched across Ranalee’s lips. “Not as much as you.”
“Oh, for the Lady’s sake!”
“Would you like to linger tonight, Edeard? Would you like to remember how it was? How much you lost?”
“Good night,” he said in disgust.
“Wait.” She turned from the couch.
“Ranalee …”
“I have some information for you. It’s something she would never come to you with.”
“What’s this?” he asked, though with a falling heart he knew exactly who she was talking about. Ranalee would never attract his attention simply to taunt; she always had some way of inflicting harm or worry.
“Vintico has spent the day answering uncomfortable questions in the Bellis constable station,” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t know about it. Apparently, they’ve detained him overnight so formal charges can be drawn up tomorrow.”
“Oh, Lady,” Edeard groaned.
Vintico was Salrana’s oldest child and one of the most worthless humans ever to walk Makkathran’s streets. His father was Tucal, Ranalee’s brother. That despicable pairing had finally made him realize that there would never be a truce between him and Ranalee, that their war would continue until the bitter end.
“What this time?” he asked in despair.
“I believe he made a bad choice of business partners. Something about a deal falling through and a large debt to established merchants. Apparently they get quite serious about such things. Especially nowadays, what with the city being run so efficiently. After all, law and order must prevail.”
“I can’t help.”
“I understand. You have standards. But it will break his mother’s heart if he’s sent to Trampello; it might spell the end of her engagement, as well. That single fragile chance to bring some happiness into her life. I only mention this because he’s family.”
“Then why don’t you offer to help your family if it’s so important?”
“If only I could. I don’t have any spare cash right now. All my money is tied up in new enterprises, investing in the future for my own children.” She smiled lecherously and turned back to the lad sprawled across the couch. “Are you going to watch now?”
A furious Edeard wrenched his farsight away, but not before her vicious amusement had infiltrated his perception. “FucktheLady!” he spit.
Salrana! The one name he could never mention again in the Culverit ziggurat. Kristabel’s patience on that topic had run out decades ago. Salrana: He’d tried to help her time and again over the years. He’d watched and waited, believing that her old self would one day reassert itself, that Ranalee’s mental damage would wither away. It was never to be. Ranalee had been too skillful at the start, while his opposition was too crude, helping the new false emotions establish themselves in her thoughts until they were no longer false. Salrana hated him.
The battle had lasted for years before he admitted defeat. Eventually even Ranalee had moved on to more rewarding endeavors. The five children Salrana had borne for men Ranalee selected proved unspectacular, especially their psychic ability. So Ranalee administered the final indignity by discarding her. Now Salrana was engaged to Garnfal, a carpentry Guild Master more than sixty years her senior. Edeard was fairly sure Ranalee had nothing to do with it, so the attraction (whatever that was) might just be genuine. Ranalee could have been truthful; it was a chance for Salrana to be happy on her own terms.
I can’t interfere.
But Salrana was his fault. She always would be. That meant she was his responsibility, too: a charge that would never end.
Just for a moment he thought of going back a couple of weeks, warning Vintico off whatever ridiculous deal he’d gotten himself involved with. That would mean another two weeks of electioneering, of parties he’d already been to, of reliving the whole livestock certificate debacle.
Edeard groaned at the notion of it. Impossible. He directed his longtalk toward a specific little house in the Ilongo district. “Felax, I have a job for you.”
Edeard sensed Kristabel’s thoughts while she was only on the sixth floor. He grinned at the tone. She was in a foul mood again, something he found amusing now that his own temper had abated. He had good reason to be confident again: Felax was clever and discreet, and the Vintico problem would vanish before dawn. Not that it would ever do to let Kristabel know of his reaction to this particular temper, but the predictability was entertaining. Their children must have known of their mother’s disposition, too. All of them had contrived to be out of the Culverit ziggurat this evening, at parties or just “meeting some friends”; even Rolar and his wife were absent with their children. Don’t blame you, he blessed them silently.
“What are you doing out there?” Kristabel’s longtalk lashed out, suffused with anger.
“Stargazing,” he replied mildly. When he looked into the study through the tall external doors, she was silhouetted in the doorway from the hall. The fur-lined hem of her purple and black ceremonial Grand Council robes was held off the floor by her third hand, and its hood flopped back over her shoulder. That allowed her to jam her hands on her hips.
Edeard remembered the first time he’d seen her strike that pose: the day Bise refused to sign their wedding consent bill in the Upper Council. She had stormed out of the chamber with a face set in a mask of fury. Nervous district masters crept out of the door behind her and got the Honious out of the Orchard Palace as fast as they could. Even Bise had looked apprehensive.
“Well, that’s useful just before an election,” Kristabel snapped as she walked through the study. “And why is it so dark in here?”
“Light sewage,” he told her.
“What?”
“It needs to be properly dark out here for the telescope to work at its best. Something to do with the eye contracting. You can’t pollute the night with light.”
“Oh, for Honious’s sake, Edeard. I’ve got real problems, you’ve got obligations, and you’re out here wasting time with this genistar crap.”
“What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” She reached the hortus. Her hair was shorter these days, and her maids had their work cut out each morning to try and rein it in. Tonight it had frizzed out of the elegant curls and ringlets arrangem
ent she’d started the day with, as if the sheer heat of her anger had pushed it into rebellion. “That little tit, Master Ronius of Tosella, slapped a whole lot of amendments on the trade bill. Five months I’ve steered that through the Council. Five Lady-damned months! Those tariff reductions were vital for Kepsil province. Has someone stolen his brain?”
“The bill was never popular with some merchants.”
“There were balances,” she growled back. “I’m not stupid, Edeard.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“Don’t patronize me!”
“I—” He made an effort to calm down. You know she’s always like this after an Upper Council meeting. And a lot of other times, too, these days, he added regretfully. “I have something to show you,” he said, with the excitement rising in his voice and mind. “Come.” He led her across the strip of hortus to the telescope. It was truly dark now. Makkathran was laid out below them, a beautiful jewel of glimmering light stretching east toward the Lyot Sea, where the orange-hued buildings sketched their amazing shapes against a cloudless night sky. The canal network cut rigid black lines through the illumination. He could see the gondolas in the Great Major Canal at the foot of the ziggurat, their bright oil lanterns bobbing merrily across the water. Occasional snatches of song slipped up through the balmy night air. The city was a vista he never tired of.
Kristabel bent over the telescope, her third hand pushing her hood aside as it slid around. “What?” she said.
“Tell me what you see.”
“Alakkad, but it’s off-center; you haven’t got the telescope aligned properly.”
Every second sentence is a criticism these days. “It is centered correctly,” Edeard persisted stoically. He permitted a hint of excitement to filter through his mental shield.
Kristabel let out a sigh of exasperation and concentrated on the image.
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