City on Fire m-2

by Walter Jon Williams

  “Barkazils in Sayven?” Aiah frowns. “That’s nowhere near Barkazi. And Karlo’s Brigade—I wonder if that means they’re Holy League people.”

  “Do those old factions still exist?”

  “In Jaspeer the Holy League and the Fastani have become gangsters in Barkazil neighborhoods—they extort money from businessmen in the name of their old causes—but any actual veterans, unless they could afford life extension, would be ancient by now. They were always sitting in cafes when I was growing up, discussing the bad old days……”

  “There are Barkazils on the Provisional Government’s side, too. Landro’s Escaliers, specialists in urban vertical assault and sniper work, from the Timocracy.”

  Aiah gives a grimace. “I’m sorry to hear they’re on the wrong side. But whoever they are, I’ve never heard of them.”

  Constantine shrugs. “I will send you to Karlo’s Brigade, and perhaps you can find out.”

  “I will ask.” She considers. “I had a Barkazil apply to me today for a mage’s post. Came all the way from Jaspeer.”

  “Will you give him the job?”

  “He’s a young man—well, my age, actually. Wealthy family. He’s flying the nest in search of, oh, real meaning, or anyway the real something.” She shrugs. “I don’t know. Perhaps I won’t hire him. He’s getting scanned tomorrow; I’ll wait for the report.”

  Constantine gives her a meaningful look. “I should think that any Barkazil in your division would be grateful to you for the job. Personal loyalty is not a small consideration, things being what they are.”

  “He’s too rich and good-looking to have loyalties to a bureaucrat like me.”

  Constantine’s laugh barks out. “He’s good-looking? You hadn’t mentioned that. Send him home!”

  Aiah offers him an ambiguous smile. “Well. Perhaps I’ll hire him, then. If he makes you nervous, he may have his uses.”

  Constantine gives a mock scowl. “I think I may learn to dislike this young gentleman.”

  She takes her wineglass, rises, and walks to the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling window. “Do you think it would be unsafe,” she says, “if we looked out? You must be tired of blacked-out windows, and so am I.”

  Constantine follows her, sweeps aside the deep blue drape at one side to look at the window mechanism, and nods. “It’s silvered on the outside,” he says. “I wish I could say the same for windows in the Palace.” He presses buttons, and with a stately electric purr the drapes pull back, revealing the window in its brushed-bronze frame. Aiah looks out through the almost-invisible bronze grid set into the glass, and a sudden singing pleasure makes her smile.

  They are high in a granite tower, one of a cluster of white spears pointing at the Shield, each tipped with bright bronze transmission horns and ornamented with extravagant carved arabesques gilded with shining bronze. Shieldlight glows from tall columns of mirrored windows, and far below avenues stretch off into infinity, shadowed by tall brown-stone buildings crowned by roof gardens. A bright red aero-car, turbines rotating in their shrouds, descends slowly toward a pad below. Traffic fills the streets even at this late hour, Shieldlight winking from glass and chrome, and the walkways are full of people walking, browsing, shopping.

  No gunfire, she thinks; no one hiding from shellfire or rockets. No plasm glow on the horizon to mark where mages are wrestling in midair.

  And no water, either. The view is all brick and concrete and stone, like the vistas Aiah had known in Jaspeer.

  How many of these people, Aiah wonders, have ever heard of Caraqui or its struggles? How many dream of the New City?

  Practically none, she imagines. Everything she does, everything she fights for, is less than a dream to the people here, more unreal than the people in a chromo.

  Constantine’s arms circle her from behind. She tilts her head back against his shoulder.

  “I wish I could give you that month here,” he says. “Perhaps after the war. It’s something you deserve.”

  She sips wine from her gold-rimmed glass. “After the war you’ll just give me another twenty jobs, and I won’t have time.”

  “Am I that demanding a boss?”

  A low chuckle invades her throat. “Oh yes, Minister. You are.”

  “You must learn to delegate, as I do. After all, I trust you with some of the most important tasks.”

  “And that’s precisely why I must do them all myself. If something goes badly wrong, would you accept my explanation that I delegated the job to someone else and he failed?”

  He considers this a moment. “I would hope the situation did not arise.”

  “So would I. That’s why I do everything myself.”

  “And I appreciate your dedication.” He kisses her at the juncture of neck and shoulder, and pleasure shimmers along her nerves.

  “I think I would like to sit and watch the world for a while,” Aiah says.

  They drag a sofa to the window, and Aiah reclines against Constantine as she gazes at the city below. She looks at him from the slant of her eye.

  “I’ve talked to you about my family,” she says, “but I don’t really know anything about yours. Who was your grandmother?”

  He considers for a moment. “She was the mistress of my grandfather. She lasted a few years, but in the end he lost interest in her, so she had a child in hopes of getting a hold on him.”

  “Did it work?”

  “Of course not. He was a politician who won a rigged election with the help of the military, then betrayed his allies and seized sole power for himself. He would never have let a matter of sentiment get in the way of what he really wanted. But he was decent enough by his lights, acknowledged my father and brought him up well.” She turns, takes one of his big hands in both her own, looks up at him.

  “Did you know your grandfather?”

  “Oh yes. He was a complete political animal, all hunger and corruption, no humanity at all. Tall and thin, lived very modestly—he wanted all the power and wealth in the world, but wouldn’t have known how to enjoy it once he got it.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Let me tell you a story. After he had been Metropolitan for twelve or fifteen years it seemed everyone had finally had enough of him, and there were strikes and unrest. He could see people maneuvering to replace him and thought it possible he might not win… so he gave up!” He laughs. “He announced he would step down and arrange for an orderly succession. He entered into a power-sharing arrangement with the people who wanted to replace him, allowing for the most inept of them to have the most power. They failed miserably, of course—he still had enough power to insure that they would—and their infighting paralyzed the country. So then, with the blessings of the people who had once wanted him gone, he stepped in to ‘save’ his beloved Cheloki, and ruled absolutely from that point on.”

  Aiah turns to the view, gazes out at the granite towers, the countless people. “And your grandmother?” she asks.

  “Very grand, very beautiful, very mercenary. I do not believe I ever saw her on the arm of any man who wasn’t worth fifty million dalders at least. But I didn’t know her very well—once she saw that having my father was a tactical error, she lost interest in him and left him to be raised by his father’s tutors.”

  She frowns. “I am almost sorry I asked. They sound like a dreadful bunch.”

  He smiles at her. “My father was more sympathetic. He was a complete mediocrity, but he tried to do well—he worked very hard at the government departments he was given, but the harder he worked, the worse the departments got. So he settled for being a sportsman—he played polo, if you know what that is.”

  “I’ve seen it on video. It’s played on horseback.”

  “It’s the most posh sport in the world. Horses cost millions, and my father had the best. You’ve got to rent huge rooftops for the horses to live on—that alone costs a fortune.”

  “I’ve seen horses in zoos.”

  “Polo was the only thing my father was good at. Polo and women.” />
  Aiah skates fingernails along the rim of her glass. Outside, a plasm advert, an image of a platinum Forlong necklace glittering with diamonds, winds like a ribbon between the granite towers. How long has it been since she’s seen a plasm advert? she wonders, one that wasn’t a government announcement or propaganda. She never thought she’d miss them…

  “Do you know what?” she says. “None of these people sound like you. You don’t seem like any of your ancestors at all.” She turns, looks at him. “So where did you come from? Your genetics?”

  “I would deny my ancestors if I could. I cannot admire a one of them, though perhaps I am more like my grandfather than you suspect.” He looks out at the bright city below, face thoughtful. “Possibly I am my mother’s child. She was supposed to be brilliant when she was young—beautiful, witty, played half a dozen instruments. She used to give concerts. But by the time my sisters and I grew up she had already… withdrawn.”

  Aiah frowns. “If your father was only good at polo and women, that must have been hard on her.”

  “The men in my family did not value women. Just bought them, and when they were tired of the first lot, they’d buy more. My father needed an ornament to cheer him at polo matches, and so he got one—and the fact she was very good at music was just a bonus, something else to brag about to his friends.”

  “Why didn’t she leave?”

  He tilts his head, considers. “She had a comfortable life. Lots of money, and nobody really cared what she did. She spent a great deal of time with me and my sisters—they were pleasant hours—and she drank, and had dozens of lovers, and over time the music she played got sadder and sadder. Toward the end she became very fond of morphine. Eventually she rode one of my father’s ponies right off a building and fell eighteen stories to her death. She was drunk. I was nine years old.”

  Aiah looks at him in concern. “Suicide?” she asks.

  He purses his lips in thought. “Probably not a deliberate one. But there are indirect ways of killing oneself, not with a knife or a gun. One of these is alcohol and morphine together, and that was her choice.”

  “What about your sisters? How many were there?”

  “Five, if you count the two cousins who came to live with us when they were young and were brought up as part of the family. We spent all our time together, were even schooled together, by a tutor.”

  Aiah thinks of the young Constantine brought up as the adored only son amid this household of women. She sees sadness cross his face. “Two of my sisters are dead now. The others do not speak to me, not after my betrayal of the family.”

  Who are his family now? she wonders. Martinus, Sorya, herself… and Taikoen.

  Sadness drifts through Aiah’s heart, and she impulsively kisses his cheek. She had not wanted to provoke these memories, this sadness. She puts her arms around his neck and kisses him again. “I forgive you,” she says.

  He looks at her, intelligence burning in his glance, and his lips twist in a mocking smile. “For everything?” he asks.

  She kisses his smile. “Of course.”

  “For I am using you, lady, and everyone else, and sometimes I confess I no longer know why.”

  “I forgive you,” she repeats, and he smiles again, sadly this time, and returns the kiss with a ferocity that takes her momentarily aback, but then she returns it, nerves answering to his need.

  They kiss and caress, and the fiery hunger grows and kindles into flame while the Metropolis of Achanos goes about its life on the other side of the bronze-sheathed window. Eventually they move to the bedroom, and Aiah takes off her red dress, flirting with Constantine as he watches, using little tricks that she’s seen on video, pirouettes while half-undraped, showing him glimpses of her body, giving him little pouting kisses over a bared shoulder, flashing him every provoking look in her repertoire… Eventually she turns down the bed and reclines on pearly satin, forearm beneath her head, wearing only the Trigram necklace, and looks at him. Constantine turns and searches in a drawer, smiles, raises his hand with a copper t-grip. “Oh no,” she says.

  He looks at her with a predator smile. “It has been too long, lady, since I had the leisure to truly pleasure you. And since through Aldemar’s kindness we have this opportunity, I wished to make it as memorable as possible.”

  Aiah has experienced this once before, the Fifth of the Nine Levels of Harmonious and Refined Balance, and reckons she would just as soon never experience the Sixth through Ninth. The Fifth is intense enough.

  “Well,” she says, and laughs, “perhaps just this one time…”

  Constantine sits on the bed and touches her cheek with his free hand, plasm-warmth tingling along the tracks of his fingers. Aiah looks up into his glittering eyes, sees the power there, the intensity, the plasm coiled in him, all of it focused on her… and the warmth spreads, touching her nerves, the sensation making her give a nervous gasp.

  He kneels over her, hand and lips browsing along her body. The plasm pours over her skin like a sheet of fire, a burning that makes her cry out; she feels his kisses between her breasts, and seizes his head with both hands, pressing him to her heart. Her body shudders at the plasm onslaught, and she drives her legs up around him, heels digging into his back, demanding pleasure. She feels as if her lungs are filled with molten fire, and fire burns in her throat. The fire fills her, and she feels it scorch her bones, consume her organs, blacken her nerves; she can feel her skin split open, molten metal bursting from her, turning the room to flame.

  After it is over she lies with Constantine, her lanky body, curled into a fetal shape, fitting spoonlike within the compass-arc of his larger frame, her head resting on his biceps. “Sometime,” she gasps, “I am going to do that to you.”

  “I will look forward to it,” he says, and kisses her sweat-moist nape.

  His arm circles her from behind, and she takes his hand and places it on her breast, feeling herself filling his palm, wanting the intimate touch of him there.

  “I’m glad we don’t do that every time,” she says.

  His chuckle comes in her ear. “A pity. We could do it again now.”

  A startled laugh bolts from her throat. “Vida’s mercy!” she says. “Give me time to catch my breath!”

  “All right,” he says, amiable enough.

  She gives him a look over her shoulder. “Are you serious? You must have just burned ten thousand dinars of plasm.”

  His look is serious. “What I can give you in the next few hours I will give you.”

  “Who’s paying for it?”

  “Aldemar and I will settle between the two of us.” He kisses her neck again. “You are worth the expense, lady.”

  Pleasure tweaks the corners of her mouth. “I hope Aldemar agrees,” she says, and pillows her head on his arm again.

  His body steals closer to hers, stretching flesh against flesh. “Have you caught your breath yet?” he asks.

  She laughs. “No,” she says.

  “A pity. We have only a few hours left.”

  “Hours.” She laughs again, then looks back at him. “Perhaps we could try the Fourth level,” she says, “if it’s less intense.”

  “It isn’t,” Constantine says. “It’s just intense in a different way.”

  “Well,” she says, “as long as we’re here…”

  AN EMPTY SOUL OFTEN SCORNS WISDOM

  A THOUGHT-MESSAGE FROM HIS PERFECTION, THE PROPHET OF AJAS.

  Before they leave the apartment they bathe together, fitting their tall bodies with a certain deliberation into a long, oval tub that would have been ample for one. The scented water floats over Aiah like a milder version of the plasm fire that Constantine has called to aid her pleasure. The stress knots in her neck and shoulders, which had already begun to loosen their grip over the last few hours, are dissolved entirely by soap, scent, and Constantine’s powerful hands. Aiah dries her hair, then puts on her little red dress while in the other room Constantine calls Aldemar on the phone.

  “S
he is the only person who knows we’re here,” he says as he hangs up the headset. “If something happened to her, I would be embarrassed to find a way back to Caraqui.”

  He gives Aldemar a few minutes, and then slides open the patio door to let her plasm sourceline enter. A cool breeze floats in, along with the sound of traffic. He and Aiah fall into one another’s arms, Aiah pressing herself to his massive chest, his ruffled shirt against her cheek. She closes her eyes, wanting to prolong the moment, and keeps them shut as the power snarls around her.

  “I brought you back to my apartment,” Aldemar says as Aiah blinks at the surroundings. She sits on a sofa with her feet up, elegant as possible considering she is dressed in a bathrobe with her hair wrapped in a kind of turban.

  Aiah turns to her. “Thank you,” she says. “That was wonderful of you.”

  “These days I seem to be using my talents mostly to move spies and munitions about,” she says. “I’m pleased to use my abilities in the service of love. And I would be happy to do so again.” She casts a skeptical look at Constantine. “//the two of you ever have another free moment.”

  Constantine bends to kiss Aldemar’s hand, then her cheek. “Thank you,” he says.

  Aldemar looks at Aiah. “We’ll have lunch soon, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  Constantine straightens, sighs. A kind of weight seems to settle onto his shoulders, and a distant crash of artillery rattles the windows. “And now,” he says, “we must return to our lives.” A kind of resentment enters his face. “Our military, militarized lives.”

  Aiah’s heart sinks. She had not wanted a reminder.

  Criminals and war and refugees and horror.

  The windows rattle again.

  Time to go back to work.

  POLAR LEAGUE OFFERS MEDIATION GOVERNMENT CONSIDERS OFFER

  Aiah and Constantine hold hands as they walk down the corridors of the Swan Wing. There is a thoughtful look on Constantine’s face.