Æstival Tide w-2

by Elizabeth Hand

  “You,” Ceryl stammered. She would have fled, but the gynander had already stepped forward and was staring at her intently, her eyes slitted.

  “You are troubled by a dream,” she said softly, her tone still oddly commanding for a morphodite. Ceryl shrank from her as Reive stretched one powdered hand to touch the other woman’s forehead. “ There —we can feel it, there—”

  Reive murmured the traditional greeting to a client, hoping it would calm this woman. She was accustomed to people being startled by her eyes, but this woman seemed terrified. Reive thought maybe she had heard of Reive’s unhappy experience with the diplomat, but no; the woman seemed genuinely frightened.

  That could be very good for Reive. If she gave this woman the right kind of reading, she might reward the gynander generously. At first, when the rickshaw passed her Reive had ignored it. She was ravenous, and wanted only to get to one of the shrimp stalls by the Dominations gravator. But then she had seen the woman leaning from the cab. Tall and pale, with yellow hair clipped elegantly short and curling about rubicore earcuffs, she wore a midnight-blue catsuit and bronze leather boots that reached above her knees. Around her neck hung a pendant with Prophet Rayburn’s crucifix and another, the heraldic eye and letter O that marked her as a member of the Orsinate’s pleasure cabinet. If Reive could impress this woman with her scrying, she might take the gynander to her chambers; might even bring her along to one of the Orsinate’s dream inquisitions.

  “We are very experienced with nightmares,” she murmured soothingly, “very good, very reasonable…”

  Ceryl swallowed. It might be an evil omen—it must be an evil omen—but then her nightmares were evil too. Maybe this green-eyed morphodite could exorcise her horrible dreams, before she was forced to share them with the Orsinate. “Reasonable,” she repeated, stalling.

  Reive bit her lip, her mouth filling with the chalky taste of rouge. She hadn’t had a client this wealthy in weeks, not to mention one with access to the very highest levels of the city. She blurted, “Free! We’ll do it for free, for the honor of Prophet Rayburn and the Saints—”

  Ceryl sucked in her breath. It was an omen, damn it! The venal morphodites never did anything for free. She toyed with the pendant around her neck, thinking. From behind her she could hear the traceman muttering to himself, his voice rising angrily. In a few minutes he’d refuse to take her any farther.

  “Get in,” she said abruptly. “My workchambers are here on Dominations. But hurry.”

  Reive frowned. This would be no immediate passport to Cherubim after all. For a moment she looked down the corridor, debating whether she should leave. But then Ceryl grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the rickshaw. Reive tossed her head and flopped in, making a face at the rug covering the seat. When the rickshaw jounced forward she started, drew her hand up smeared with blood. Beside her Ceryl stared through the slits in the bamboo cab, crimson light winking from her earcuffs as they headed down the avenue.

  Ceryl Waxwing’s workchamber was at the outermost rim of Dominations Level, near the Amazonian dioramas. It was not a coveted spot. You could see the flat gray surface of one of the domes from here, and hear the boom of the ocean rolling against it. Because of its proximity to these reminders of Outside, the chambers had been empty for years before Ceryl was assigned to them. And since her promotion to the Orsinate’s pleasure cabinet, Ceryl herself should be in her new quarters up on Thrones. Every week she told herself she would move, that this would be the end of it; and every week she spent as little time as possible where the Orsinate might find her. She hated giving up her workchambers, although even she had to admit they were nowhere near as spacious or comfortable as her new quarters. When pressed, she said that she needed access to the plants and animals of the vivarium level for her work as a pharmacologist.

  But the truth was, Ceryl couldn’t sleep on Thrones. She would never admit it, but she missed the sound of the sea. She wondered sometimes if that had something to do with her nightmares—knowing it was so near to her Outside, that constant crash and sigh that surrounded her as she worked.

  But then, even Shiyung Orsina had been stirred by it.

  “Does it keep you awake at night, listening to that?” she asked Ceryl the first time they’d met. The margravine stood staring out the workchamber’s strip of window, a glass of Ceryl’s cheap brandy in her hand.

  This was not long after Ceryl’s lover, Giton Arrowsmith, had died. Shortly before his death, Giton had become involved with the cult of Blessed Narouz’s Refinery. Ceryl suspected that the Orsinate had him killed, ordering the destruction of the block of flats where he and several other disciples of Blessed Narouz lived. When Shiyung suddenly appeared at her door, Ceryl was convinced she was about to be hauled off by the Reception Committee. Instead she ended up being promoted to the pleasure cabinet.

  She’d heard scuffling outside, and then the sweet yet commanding tone of the most popular of the margravines. Then someone had started banging on her door. When she’d opened it, there was Shiyung, with a full retinue of guards and ’filers following her, taping her official visit to the Amazonian vivarium for broadcast that night. In the crowd Ceryl glimpsed her supervisor, her white face belying her confident words.

  “…Waxwing is our best pharmacist, I’m sure she can do something for your migraine—”

  Ceryl tried weakly to explain that she was not a pharmacist, but the subtleties of her work were lost on the margravine. Shiyung drifted into the room clutching her forehead, gesturing dramatically for the others to leave. They did so, casting sympathetic glances in the stunned Ceryl’s direction.

  The margravine was taller and even lovelier than she appeared on the ’files. As always when she made one of her highly publicized tours of the lower levels, she wore laborer’s clothes—in this case, a biotech’s yolk-yellow robe and high rubber boots. Her sleek black hair was pulled through a copper loop. At her throat the Orsinate’s heraldic eye glittered wickedly.

  Ceryl stared at her, speechless. It was as though the dreaded Zalophus had appeared at her door.

  “Thank god! A pharmacist!” The margravine moaned and sank into a chair, shielding her eyes from the dim light. “Please—the migraine—help me—”

  With shaking hands Ceryl had mixed a nostrum combining tranquilizing neurots and a strong anaesthetic (cheap brandy laced with alomine) along with a mild hallucinogen (datura), followed by a few minutes of massage therapy. To her amazement (and eventual dismay) the philter worked. After an hour Shiyung lifted her head, batting her eyes weakly.

  “It’s gone,” she whispered. She fingered the pendant at her throat and gazed at Ceryl with huge black eyes. “My god, you’ve saved me—”

  Ceryl nodded, moving quickly to help the margravine as she got unsteadily to her feet.

  “That’s a remarkable cure,” said Shiyung, her voice a little slurred. “Amazing. Nothing else has ever worked. You —” She pivoted and pointed at Ceryl, the tip of one long finger resting on the pharmacologist’s nose. “You are a miracle. Come.”

  “Come?” Ceryl stammered.

  The margravine nodded. “I hereby appoint you my Personal Pharmacist and Healer.”

  “But—”

  The margravine wiggled her fingers in Ceryl’s face. “Oh, please—don’t be obsequious. I can’t bear it when they’re obsequious.” She shook her head, wincing, then turned to the door. “But I must get back to the others! There was a rumor of a strike by the Amazonian staff—I must make them feel needed again—”

  She extended her hands toward Ceryl, closed her eyes and murmured a blessing in which Shiyung’s own name figured prominently. Then she reached for the doorknob. When she hesitated Ceryl swallowed and took a wary step backward.

  “A word of advice,” whispered Shiyung. She cracked the door open. “Hire your own Personal Taster before you move. You’ll need one up there.”

  The margravine’s new Personal Pharmacist watched in disbelief as Shiyung floated back into the hallway
, her headache transmitted to Ceryl. From her desk Giton’s holoed image stared at her accusingly.

  That had been six months ago. She still hadn’t spent more than a few days in her new appointments. She was terrified that the Orsinate would discover she was nothing more than a low-ranking pharmacologist who sold quack remedies and bootleg narcotics to the other menial toilers on Dominations. Even with her promotion, there was no way she could afford her own food taster. Whenever possible she avoided her duties in the pleasure cabinet—which consisted mostly of attending parties and dispensing cures to hungover cabinet members—and fled back to her old workchamber. Ceryl Waxwing’s apartment on Thrones remained empty. Now she watched uneasily as the gynander stared out the grimy little window.

  “What’s that?” Reive pointed outside as Ceryl rummaged in her tiny refrigerator for food.

  “The dome.” Triumphantly she held up a jar of dulse jam and some crackers. “Hah! I knew I had something—”

  The gynander continued to gaze out the window. “The sea’s out there?” she asked, trying to clear a spot on the glass.

  Ceryl handed her the food and looked away, embarrassed. “I guess so.”

  “Oh.” Crumbs fell to the floor as the gynander pressed her face up to the glass. “Right there? Right outside your window? The ocean?”

  Ceryl cleared her throat and pretended to read a monitor on her desk. Perhaps this had been a bad idea after all. This morph had no manners whatsoever—imagine mentioning the ocean to a stranger! Ceryl fiddled with her monitor, glancing sideways at the morph. She’d be wasting her credit and, worse, her time. At the thought of another night plagued by bad dreams she sighed and rubbed her temples.

  The gynander ate noisily but without further conversation. Finally she dropped the empty dulse tin and wiped her hands on her pantaloons. Ceryl watched her with distaste.

  “All right,” the gynander pronounced. She cast a last curious look at the window. “Please tell us of your troubles.”

  “I—I’ve been having these dreams.”

  Reive nodded solemnly, as though she had never heard the words before.

  “Nightmares,” Ceryl went on quickly. “I—they’re not the sort of dreams I can talk about easily at an inquisition when there’re others around. I’m—in the pleasure cabinet,” she added. She tapped nervously at her monitor. “You understand…?”

  The gynander nodded. “It is, perhaps, a treasonous dream?”

  Ceryl raised her eyebrows at the gynander’s bluntness. “We-ell,” she stammered, then nodded. “Yes, I think—well, someone might think it was treasonous,” she said lamely.

  Reive stepped across the room to a chair and settled into it, drawing her feet up demurely beneath her and cupping her chin in her hands. She lowered her eyes so that Ceryl couldn’t see her expression.

  A treasonous dream! Better and better—if this woman proved to be a stingy patron, Reive could always blackmail her. The gynander coughed delicately. “Please,” she said, closing her eyes and tilting her head so that Ceryl could see her face, painted with that mask of studied innocence. “We would like to help you.”

  Ceryl took a deep breath. This is it, she thought, then said, “For the past year I have been having these terrible dreams….”

  It came out hesitantly. Ceryl had thought it would be easier, telling it alone like this. Instead she found herself in a bizarrely intimate situation, sharing her worst secret with a stranger. She paused.

  It wasn’t too late. She could throw the morph out and never tell anyone; though that would mean suffering from the nightmares, perhaps forever. Or she could expose her secret at the next inquisition and face the consequences.

  The thought made her cringe. She hated the dream inquisitions. She had of course attended them before her promotion, with other biotechhicians and once even with a group of drunken Aviators slumming down on Dominations. But these were small homey gatherings, brisk with vivarium gossip; not the perilous intrigue of the Orsinate’s inner cabal. There, a faltering confession or a spiteful morphodite could result in one being dragged off by the Reception Committee.

  She hated it all. The hermaphrodites with their languid expressions and voices slurred from smoking kef. The margravines watching with keen narrow eyes for the merest hint of treachery, as one by one their guests recited their nighttime journeys. Diplomats confessing to fitful reigns in imaginary kingdoms; Imperators intoning childish humiliations; the tedious minutiae of countless dark inexplicable passions and coughing sounds in the dark. Then the margravines themselves would speak; and the only remarkable thing about their dreams was that they were just as dull and absurd as everyone else’s.

  Ceryl never told them about her nightmares. When it was her turn to speak, she made up dreams. So far no one had noticed the difference. She created oddly wistful scenarios—eyeless children in blue-lit alleys, sexual hijinks with aardmen—or else she repeated dreams she had heard at those simpler gatherings on the vivarium level. But after a few months she ran out of ideas. Then she had desperately gone through old cinemafiles and even crumbling books in the Orsinate’s library. Anything to come up with ideas to satisfy the grinning curiosity of ziz and Nike and the others who sprawled in the Four Hundredth Room, smoking kef or prodding each other with morpha and endope, drinking the Orsinate’s wine and patting the creepily quiescent morphodites all the while.

  She hated it because it was so banal; and so dangerous. The scrying morphodites could reduce the most lurid nightmare to a bad meal, twist an innocent fancy into betrayal. The angelic boy in one’s arms became a herald of senility and death; the bronze-winged hippogriff an assassination plot. Through it all the margravines listened and nodded among themselves, rewarding this fantasy, condemning that. And Ceryl cursed whoever it was had resurrected this ancient mania for probing one’s sleeping secrets, and prayed for another kind of game to become the Orsinate’s next fad.

  She kept her dream to herself. Because in a way it was a beautiful thing, the only beautiful thing she had, maybe. Even though she knew it was as foolish as Tatsun Frizer’s account of the rubber wheel or Shiyung’s recurring vision of the whistling head.

  To herself, Ceryl called her dream the Green Country. That was another reason she could never speak of it. Because everyone knew what the Green Country meant: the forbidden place and color, the horror of sky and plains unshackled. The world Outside, so dreadful that it could only be looked upon once every ten years, and then only to remind the people of Araboth of their good fortune to dwell beneath the nurturing domes.

  But in Ceryl’s dream the world was not a firestorm of poisonous ash and viral rain. In Ceryl’s dream she was walking toward the fouga hangars, the steel and plastic warehouses on Seraphim where the dirigibles waited like sullen clouds, until the Orsinate ordered yet another strike against the enemies that crouched Outside. In the dream Ceryl walked through the hangars until she found a fouga just starting to waft upward. She ran to the ladder dangling from its gondola and climbed, until the choking chemical air inside the hangar gave way to the fouga’s metallic chill.

  Once inside the steering cabin she was not surprised to find herself alone, or to hear the computer navigator whispering to itself as the airship floated silently toward the skygates. She stumbled as she walked along the narrow strip of uneven rubber flooring. From overhead came the insistent whine of the fouga’s propeller gears.

  And then she was standing by a window in front of the gondola, and the skygates were opening before her; the shields parting like the struts of an ornamental silver fan to reveal the vastness behind them. Ceryl cried out as the fouga floated free into a sky thick with smoke and soot, ashes flung against the window so that she drew back, afraid the glass would break.

  But it did not break, though she saw blue lightning lash against the curved horizon of the domes beneath her, and lightning like shining water streaming down the sides of the fouga as it rose up and up through the air.

  And then (and this was the part she woul
d never be able to tell them. It was their greatest taboo, the sublime imago that lurked behind all the excesses of the Orsinate, all the ordered horrors of timoring)—

  And then she saw it. The darkness pared away as the fouga rose through the sunless air until there was nothing but sun, a radiance that blinded her so that she clutched at one of the metal pillars inside the gondola, as abruptly the fouga’s upward trajectory snapped and the airship plunged earthward.

  And there it was, an endless country rising through the darkness like a mountain from the sea. Green everywhere, from the pale yellows and nearly blue washes of the dawn sky at Æstival Tide to the deepest most occult shades of emerald, lanced here and there by lakes and rivers that glowed in that painful light like the brightest of the Orsinate’s numinous sculptures. And even though there was more to the dream—a wave like the sky crashing down upon the city, the sight of the domes crushed and splintered into black, a fissure splitting the Undercity like a blade drawn through sand—even though the dream went on until Ceryl woke shivering in her bed, it was that color that tore at Ceryl’s stunned consciousness.

  Because in all of Araboth she had never seen so much green. It was the color of death, the forbidden color; the color worn by fainting young artists and by the mob screaming into the surf once a decade at Æstival Tide, the color of the sea itself as it smashed against the Lahatiel Gate and sent the revelers laughing and screaming at the horrors of the natural world.

  The color—and her hands grew cold as she stammered to a finish and stared into the mantic’s face—of the gynander Reive’s eyes.

  He had never seen Night before. Hobi assumed that was what this was—an impenetrable, fetid darkness everywhere save behind him, where the gravator glowed softly. But even as the boy whirled to dart back inside, the chamber began to rise, and the machine started its journey (longer and noisier than its descent) back to the upper levels.