“Yes, if you have it,” Roscha answered, and the woman beckoned to her.
“Well, come aboard, then.” She looked up at Lioe, tilting her head inside the painted mask. “And you too. Are you here for a mask?”
“I don’t know,” Lioe began, and Roscha answered for her.
“Yes, probably.” She dropped down onto the deck–not a long drop, not much more than a meter–and the boat rocked under her. Gelsomina kept her balance effortlessly, and beckoned for Lioe to follow. Lioe hesitated, but lowered herself more carefully onto the unsteady planks. The boat rocked anyway, and she steadied herself against the mast. It shifted under her hand, and the faces danced, seeming almost alive in the streetlight’s glow.
“These are beautiful,” she said, and didn’t quite realize she’d spoken aloud until Gelsomina bowed to her.
“Thank you. But then, I enjoy my work.”
“Do you have any Avellars left, Na Mina?” Roscha asked, and Gelsomina shook her head.
“No, child, not a one. There’s some off‑worlder doing a scenario with him at the heart of it; I sold my last one before noon.”
“Damn,” Roscha said, and then, belatedly remembering her manners, “Na Mina, this is a friend of mine, Quinn Lioe. She’s the one who wrote that scenario.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Gelsomina said. She tilted her head to one side, studying Lioe from behind the mask. “What were you looking for, do you know?”
“Thanks,” Lioe said, and heard her own uncertainty in her voice. “I didn’t really have anything in mind. I’ve never been on Burning Bright during Storm.” She scanned the rows of masks in the hopes of finding something, and, to her surprise, one face seemed to leap out at her from the row crowded on the mast. It was a full mask, with a heavy, elaborately braided wig covering the back of the head. One half of the face was plain, smooth, a bland collection of planes and angles, pleasing enough, but nothing out of the ordinary; the other was deformed and distorted like the carvings on a ritual mask, the cheek eaten to the bone, the mouth drawn down by a scar like a sneer, the eye hidden by a painted patch. And the rest of the scars were decorated, too, layered with color so that they became almost an abstract painting of a face. Lioe reached out to touch it, drawn and repelled at the same time, and Gelsomina nodded.
“That’s from one of LaChacalle’s novels–Helike, from The Witch‑Vizier. Do you know it?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Lioe answered, and didn’t know if she was glad or sorry. The new name, the last name on the session list, had been LaChacalle. “Is LaChacalle a Gamer?”
Gelsomina shrugged one shoulder. “She used to be. I haven’t seen her much lately–she quit about when Ambidexter did. They were old friends.”
“She’s playing tonight, I think,” Lioe said. “Or someone with that name is, anyway.”
“There’s only one of her,” Gelsomina said.
“What about Hazard?” Roscha asked, and Gelsomina shook her head.
“No, but I do have Cor‑Clar Sensmerce. I remember you used to play her.”
“Thanks,” Roscha said, and Gelsomina turned to the lines of masks, running her staff idly along the rows until she found the one she wanted.
“There you are. It’s twenty real. Or we can make a trade.”
Roscha stopped, her hand on the purse inside her belt. “What trade?”
“You needn’t sound so suspicious,” Gelsomina said. “Are you going to watch the parade?”
“We were, yes,” Roscha answered, and despite Gelsomina’s words still sounded wary. Lioe grinned, and then wondered if she should be more cautious.
“I’d rather watch it from the Water, myself, with all the stock aboard,” Gelsomina went on, “and I wouldn’t mind having some younger bodies to help me get this cow down to the canal mouth. I’ll trade you each a mask, and bring you back to your club–is it Shadows you’re playing at? as close as I can get, then–before the session starts.”
Roscha relaxed visibly. “That would make life easier.”
Lioe shrugged. “Can we get back in time?”
“When is the session?” Gelsomina asked.
“Twentieth hour,” Roscha said, and looked at Lioe. “It shouldn’t be a problem. The parade starts at dark–seventeenth hour.”
Lioe glanced sideways, checking the time, and shrugged again, willing to let herself be overruled. “If you’re sure, why not? It should be worth seeing.”
“It always is,” Gelsomina answered. “There’s nothing quite like our Carnival, not anywhere in human space.”
Or anywhere at all, Lioe thought. Under Gelsomina’s instructions, she and Roscha stowed most of the masks and costumes that cluttered the decking in the storage cells that ran along the gunwales, but left the ones that lined the mast. Then Roscha freed the mooring lines while Gelsomina took her place in the steering well. Lioe, knowing nothing of boats, crouched beside the mast and waited to be told what to do. The motor coughed and caught, settled almost instantly to a steady purr. Roscha shoved them free of the embankment, and the barge swung out into the channel, heading toward the Inland Water.
The people on the banks were moving toward the Water, too, knots and groups of them in bright matching costumes, a few who walked alone, families with strings of children going hand in hand under an elder’s watchful eye. There were more boats on the canal, too, some smaller than Lioe had seen before, little more than a shell with a racketing motor slung over the stern, and, of course, the inevitable mob of gondas. A Lockwardens’ patrol boat moved silently through the crowd, its flashing light sending blue shadows across the water and along its own black hull. The civilian craft all carried bright lights at stern and bow–the littlest shells had handlights rigged to the motors–and even as Lioe noticed that, lights blossomed along the sides of Gelsomina’s barge. They were directed outward, shielded from the boat’s occupants, but Lioe could see their brilliance reflected in the water. It was a beautiful effect, the shape of the barge outlined in light, but she guessed it was as much precaution as decoration. There would be a lot of traffic on the canals tonight: it was a good time to be visible.
Horns sounded as they came up on the wide feeder channel that carried local traffic down to the Water, and Lioe jumped as Gelsomina sounded their own horn in answer. The barge swung over, stately, Roscha standing ready in the bow, boatpole in hand to fend off any unwary craft, and then Gelsomina had tucked them neatly into the line of traffic. The canal was jammed with barges and gondas, and here and there a bigger commercial boat–heavy barges and seiners in about equal numbers–loomed above the crowd, their sides dripping with strings of chaser lights. A heavy barge swayed past, set Gelsomina’s boat rocking in its wake, the strings of lights dipping into the water as it heeled over slightly to avoid a passing gonda. Its open deck was crowded with people of all ages, from babies in flotation suits to old men and women in support chairs. Families of the regular crews? Lioe wondered, but it was too noisy to ask.
Blatting one‑note trumpets sounded from the walkways that lined the shore–children, mostly, carrying the brightly colored horns that were a full meter long, taller than some of the children who sounded them–and were answered by another clutch of children on the heavy barge’s deck. Other boats took up the sound, and Lioe covered her ears, wincing, until the boats had passed and the shore children had admitted defeat. People called to each other, their words drowned in the general din, and a man dressed all in bells danced on a bollard, the clanging all but inaudible as Gelsomina’s barge slipped past only a few meters from the wall. A disk of light swept across the crowd, and Lioe looked up to see the familiar shape of a hovering security drone scanning the crowd. The Lockwardens’ insignia was picked out in lights on its stubby wings. A cheer, ironic but not hostile, rose from the crowd as the light touched them.
Farther up the canal, there were whoops, and then a splash, the sound distinct and chilling even in the uproar. Lioe turned her head sharply, even though it had been too loud to have been a child,
saw Roscha’s body a tense shadow against the shore lights. Then, as suddenly, she saw her relax as two drones flung their lights onto the source of the sound. Caught in that double disk of light, a dripping boy hauled himself back onto a fingerling dock, shaking water from the ruined feathers that decorated his mask. He shook his fist at another boy, but a third grabbed his shoulders, and hustled him away. One of the drones followed the group for a moment longer, then turned away, taking the light with it. As the bright circle swung briefly aimless along the buildings that fronted the canal, it hit a doorway where a man and a woman were locked in blind embrace, her skirt rucked up to her waist, and flashed away again. Lioe blinked, not sure if she’d seen the woman reaching not for her partner but for his wallet, but there was nothing she could do about it if she had.
The feeder widened suddenly as it opened onto the Water. Gondas were clustered in flotillas along either bank, filled and overfilled with masked and costumed figures, standing shapes balanced precariously against the chop where the two currents met. The Water itself was black and empty, except for a few speeders that carried the blue lights of the Lockwardens; another Lockwardens’ speeder, throttled back so far that it barely made headway against the chop, moved along the line of gondas, a tall man calling instructions from the pilot’s well.
“Which way?” Gelsomina called from her place in the stern, and Lioe saw Roscha look right and left before she answered.
“It looks clearer down toward the Warden’s Channel.”
“Right.” The boat swung left as Gelsomina answered, pulling out around the mob of smaller boats, and Lioe felt rather than heard the beat of the engine strengthen as they picked up speed.
“Do you see a buoy?” Gelsomina called.
“No, not yet–wait.” Roscha leaned precariously out over the bow, one hand clinging tight to the mast. “Wait, yes, past that seiner there’s a free point.”
Gelsomina did not answer, but Lioe felt the boat surge again, as though she’d opened a throttle. The barge passed two more ships–another barge filled with people costumed from the Game, several Avellars among them, and then a seiner, its nets spread to let a horde of children climb to a better view–and then started to slow. They were almost on top of it before Lioe saw the mooring point. Roscha had had it in view long before, however, and caught it easily with the boatpole’s hooked end. Gelsomina saw the movement, the swoop and jerk of the pole against the shore lights, and reversed the engines. The barge slid neatly up to the orange‑painted buoy, coming to an almost perfect stop against its scarred sides. Roscha looped a cable into place, tugged twice to snug it home. Flares blossomed in the distance, toward the entrance to the channel.
“They’re coming,” Roscha called, and Gelsomina pulled herself up out of the steering well, came to sit on the unstepped mast. Lioe seated herself beside the older woman, careful of the masks and the barge’s unpredictable roll, and Roscha joined them a moment later, tucking the boatpole neatly under their feet. A larger Lockwardens’ boat, a slim needle of a ship twice as long as a gonda, slid past down the center of the channel, a tail of spray gleaming behind it.
“In that compartment there,” Gelsomina said, “you’ll find a bottle of raki.”
Roscha grinned, and rummaged in the shallow space until she had found the bottle and three small, unmatching cups. She poured a cup for each of them, and came back to sit beside Lioe. “Health,” she said, and the three touched cups.
They did not have to wait long for the parade to appear. Lioe sipped cautiously at the bitter drink–it tasted of anise, a flavor she didn’t like–and looked south again just as another flare blossomed in the darkness over the Warden’s Channel. A trio of speeders, all with Lockwardens’ lights and markings, swept into view, and another group of three followed more slowly, peeling off to take up stations just inside the line of spectators.
“Soon now,” Gelsomina said, and Roscha said, “Mommy…” She caught a five‑year‑old’s whine so perfectly that Lioe laughed aloud.
“Five more minutes,” Gelsomina said.
Lioe looked south again, still smiling, toward the light at the point of Mainwarden Island, and saw a dark shape eclipse the light. The parade? she thought, and Roscha whooped beside her.
“There they are!”
Gelsomina fumbled in the folds of her costume, and produced a slim set of night glasses. She laid her staff aside and used both hands to work the focusing buttons. Lioe narrowed her eyes at the dark platform, wondering how anyone would be able to see anything on that distant deck. And then a giant figure unfolded itself from the barge, a woman in a full skirt and low‑cut bodice, a giantess with a crown of blue‑white stars, and more stars draped and scattered across her dress. She stood for a moment, a sketch in light and shadows, and then spotlights came on, revealing her full glories. There was a gasp from the crowds on the banks and on the boats to either side, and then shrill applause. It had to be some kind of puppet, Lioe knew, an enormous automaton that swept into an astonishingly graceful curtsy as the sound of the cheers reached it, but the illusion was nearly perfect. The face was serenely beautiful, elegantly proportioned; as Lioe watched, the features shifted, rearranging themselves into a gentle smile.
“Oh, they’re not going to like that,” Gelsomina said. “Half the crowd will miss the lighting.”
“No, look,” Roscha answered, pointing as the spotlights faded again, leaving the giantess wreathed in her own lights. “Oh, very nice.”
Gelsomina nodded, fumbling again with her glasses.
“It must be, what, ten meters tall,” Lioe said, and Roscha nodded.
“Between ten and twelve. Whose is it, Na Mina?”
“Who pays for them all?” Lioe asked.
“Civic groups,” Gelsomina answered, not taking her glasses from her eyes. “That’s Estens there–one of the Five Points Families, Na Lioe. They, the Five Points Families, I mean, and the Merchant Investors Syndicate, the Five Points Bank, cartels like Yardmasters and Fishers Co‑op, and the Lockwardens, of course, each one sponsors a barge. Once a group’s bought the framework, it’s just a matter of dressing it each year.”
“It’s a way of proving your importance,” Roscha said.
Gelsomina went on as though she hadn’t spoken, lowering the glasses into her lap. “I used to dress for Yardmasters, a long time ago, and then for the MIS. Before it got so political.”
Lioe nodded, not really understanding, and a second barge swept into view. This one carried a massively muscled male shape, naked except for a blue‑and‑gold loincloth and heavy golden bracelets running from its wrists almost to its elbows. Its head was the head of a bull, the horns tipped with gold as well, and its body glittered in the spotlight, as though its skin were sheathed in some kind of faintly mottled coating, a gold iridescence like tiny scales. It threw back its head as the crowd’s noise reached it, massive mouth opening in a silent roar, and beat the air with its fists.
“Five Points Bank?” Roscha said, and Gelsomina nodded.
“More money than sense. But that’s always been their problem.”
“It looks,” Roscha said slowly, frowning, “you know, it looks almost hsaia, with that skin. I wonder if they meant it?”
“I doubt it,” Gelsomina said. “I heard talk about this. They hired Marrin Artisans to come up with a new way to make the sheathing, out of sequensas–rejects and scrap, mind you, but still. You can imagine what that cost.” She stared at the figure for a long moment, and added, grudgingly, “Still, it does look pretty good from here.”
“It still looks hsaia to me,” Roscha said. “And the FPB does a lot of business with HsaioiAn.”
“And that,” Gelsomina said, “is what’s wrong with the parade these days. Remember the year the Five Points Families each did one of the Four Judges? That started it, once their candidate got elected that year. Everything’s got a political angle, some kind of message–even when you don’t mean it to, somebody’s going to see it. The old days were a lot better.�
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Roscha looked away, her expression at once embarrassed and mulish in the dim light, and Lioe said hastily, “Who’s that coming?”
Gelsomina adjusted her glasses again, focusing on the third barge that was just coming into view its deck still empty of its puppet. “MIS.”
Merchant Investors’ Syndicate, Lioe translated, and leaned forward a little. On the distant deck, a dark figure lifted its head, rose forward as though to its knees, and hung there for a moment, an indistinct shadow against the thin bank of light that was the far bank of the Water. Lioe caught her breath, heard a shocked murmur from the people filling the seiner to her right, and the same questioning noises from the crowd on the bank behind her. Gelsomina smiled faintly, said nothing. Then the figure straightened fully, and the lights came on, revealing a shape in a nipwaisted coat and the blood‑red shoulder‑cape‑and‑hood of Captain Rider. She was a familiar template in the Game, one of the heroic almost‑pirates who defended the Scattered Worlds against the Imperium, and Lioe waited eagerly for her to lower her hood. The puppet lifted both hands–light glinted from the ring, Captain Rider’s seal, worn on its right forefinger, and Lioe smiled at the careful detail–and slipped the hood back. There was something not quite right about the face, though, something unfamiliar, added or taken away from the template. Lioe frowned, puzzled, and realized that the puppet’s eyes didn’t match, one blue, one brown. Behind her, the crowd cheered.
“Holy shit,” Roscha said, “that’s Berengaria.”
“More politics,” Gelsomina said, but did not sound particularly displeased this time.
“The governor?” Lioe said.
Roscha nodded, grinning, and raised her voice to carry over the cheers and shrill whistles from the crowd. “She’s one of theirs, the MIS’s, I mean. And they’re proud of her.”
“She’s favored them enough, you mean,” Gelsomina said.
For all she hates politics, Lioe thought, she knows a lot about what’s going on. Still, it was a clever move, associating Governor Berengaria–who from all accounts supported Burning Bright’s freedom from both the metagovernments, and leaned to the Republic, her friends said, only because they were less of a threat than the HsaioiAn–with Captain Rider, protector of the Scattered Worlds. Not subtle, admittedly, but clever.
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