Æstival Tide w-2

by Elizabeth Hand

  But it was too late for that. He lingered another minute, tracing the edges of a monitor, then left.

  Hobi’s bedroom was at the end of a long corridor, behind the bathing chamber and the rows of steel cabinets where the replicants recharged during their offtimes. It was a large bedroom, larger even than Sajur’s, but looked smaller because of the clutter. To reach his bed Hobi had to step over mounds of clothes and unwatched ’files, and pull aside a curtain of raw silk that drooped from the ceiling in silvery folds. Hobi hated seeing the walls or ceiling or floor of his chamber. He hated it because no sooner would he grow accustomed to a particularly nice line of molding, painted lemon-yellow perhaps, or an airy expanse of billowing muslin or a mosaic of black and white rubber on the floor; no sooner would he find himself waking and turning expectantly to gaze upon an ochre stucco wall but he would find that while he slept the silent and efficient Architects had changed it. Black industrial girders would have replaced the muslin (later bright orange bricks would replace the girders), the stucco had given way to a mirrored surface so sleek he half expected it to be wet, and instead of the rough but comforting sisal flooring his feet would fall upon fine soft sand.

  “Can’t you stop it? Can’t you say something to them?” he had demanded of his father. But Sajur Panggang only shook his head, sighing.

  “I don’t control the Architects, Hobi, you know that. I read them and keep them running, but they take care of themselves.”

  Hobi would stalk off in a fury, to glare at the new walls of exposed artificial wood and dig through the sand to discover the naked flooring beneath (he never did). But gradually he did find a way to fight back. Gradually things began to fill Hobi’s room. Empty Amity decanters and bottles of wine, jacquard robes filched from his father’s closets, heaps of prosthetic arms bartered from a friend who knew a friend who knew a moujik, candle-ends, expired lumieres, broken light bulbs, computer circuitry, chessboards, empty candicaine pipettes and morpha tubes, tobacco tins and snuff envelopes, more pidgin-lettered posters torn from the walls outside (PRAY THE HEALING WIND! BLESSED NAROUZ SAVES!), ’files of military formations and the atrocities of the Archipelago Conflict and one (black market) ’file showing scenes of a place Outside called the Zaragoza Mountains.

  All of it heaped around Hobi’s bed in an attempt to give some sense of permanence to the room. His mother had detested it, of course—

  “Clean this up! It’s filthy, it will make you ill—”

  But his mother was dead now, and his father had never (to his son’s knowledge) set foot inside the muddle that was Hobi’s room.

  Hobi settled into it like a tapir in its lair. Lying in bed he would let one hand fall to rest upon a stack of ’files, or fondle the desiccated stalks of a tiny and utterly illegal bamboo he had tried to grow from a stolen cutting; and it would comfort him.

  Now he kicked his way through the clothes and broken vials. Dead bamboo crackled beneath his foot. An immense book lay open on one side of the bed, an ancient atlas he’d stolen from his father’s library. Hobi shoved it onto the floor and flopped down on the bed, closing his eyes.

  From somewhere far overhead he heard faint cheering, and smelled the faintest breath of the sea. He thought of the Undercity and Nasrani’s hidden children, of the festival a few days hence. He thought of the hole he had seen, that gaping mouth of the underworld; of his father hunched over the ancient monitors in his office. He thought of these things, and of the nemosyne. Slowly he brought his hand to his face and inhaled, breathing in the smell of that livid darkness, the unmistakable raw taint of earth.

  The new Aviator Imperator had finished speaking. As the throng on the boulevard cheered and the assembled Aviators gave him a final salute, the rasa turned and walked stiffly back to his palanquin. Ceryl was close enough that she could hear the grating sound his legs made as he moved. The aardmen stumbled to their feet, waited until the Aviator had climbed back onto the palanquin before raising it once more. Then they all waited as the three margravines passed, ziz first and then Nike and Shiyung last of all. As she walked by him the rasa raised his head and gazed at her, but Shiyung ignored him. The margravines disappeared inside the doors of the palace, the Imperators close behind them; then all the rest of the Orsinate’s entourage, cabals and cabinets and diplomats all crowding the entrance and talking excitedly. The aardmen remained standing beneath their heavy litter as though confused, growling softly as the last members of the Linguistics Cabal shoved their way inside.

  On the colonnade Ceryl remained silent, staring at the aardmen. She was afraid to walk past them—not afraid of the aardmen, but of what they carried. She saw the rasa Aviator Imperator there upon the palanquin; but she remembered Margalis Tast’annin. Several years earlier, the supposed details of his affair with Shiyung had been broadcast nightly on the ’files. The official word was that the affair ended when Tast’annin was sent to the front to command the Archipelago Conflict; but a professional courtesan who had been an intimate of Shiyung’s told Ceryl that the break had been the Aviator’s desire, and not the margravine’s. His subsequent posting to the Archipelago had been intended as an exile of sorts, but of course he had triumphed there. Afterward there had been his long sojourn back on the HORUS stations, and then the disaster in the Capital.

  He had been a handsome man, rumored to be brilliant and even charming. Certainly his arrogance matched that of the Orsinate. Seeing him now, all vestiges of his humanity gone save for his corpse’s hand and his revenant’s eyes, made Ceryl’s throat tighten with fear. This was what happened to those who fell out of favor with the margravines. She waited until almost all of the others had filed into the palace, waited for the aardmen to bear their terrible burden inside. But still they remained, snarling at each other, while the Aviator stood in silence, waiting.

  And now Ceryl had no choice but to go: she was the last person on the colonnade, save for the Aviator and his bearers. She gave a little gasp and darted in front of them, head down. The aardmen’s snarls grew louder as she passed but she did not look up. She fairly ran to the gate.

  Only when she reached the portal she stopped, her heart rocketing inside her chest. Very slowly she turned to look back.

  Within his palanquin the Aviator stood, staring at her. For an instant his eyes met hers. As from some unfathomable depth she saw a spark within them, a brilliant flash of gray, then nothing but that dead gaze in its crimson metal cell.

  Ceryl turned and staggered inside. The aardmen wailed as she fled.

  The crowd on the boulevard began to break up.

  “You’re a morphodite?”

  The woman from the Toxins Cabal sounded doubtful. On her shoulder the puppet snorted, shaking its narrow head and sneezing. Cold air flowed up from the ventricles now, an astringent odor, not unpleasant. All around them people were stretching and rubbing their eyes.

  “Yes,” Reive replied reluctantly. She didn’t feel like talking. Her ears still rang with the Aviators’ shouts and the harsh voice of the rasa. “We’re—we have a friend—just visiting—”

  The woman continued to stare at her, her gaze darting from Reive’s breasts to her groin, then back to her face.

  “But you are a morphodite?”

  Reive glanced around nervously, thinking perhaps the woman was actually a member of the Reception Committee. But she continued to stare at Reive, so intently that the gynander finally realized she must be confused because Reive’s face was not hidden beneath the customary layers of thick bluish-tinged powder.

  “Yes,” Reive replied, her own relief apparent when the woman brightened. “We are a gynander—visiting here, only visiting—”

  “Who could care?” shrieked the puppet. The woman struck its nose and it slunk behind her neck. She turned back to Reive, adjusting her fez.

  “I think I’ve been to one of your sayings,” she said. “When Nike Orsina had that nightmare about the runcible spoon—”

  Reive shook her head. “We don’t think so.” She’d ne
ver attended an inquisition with the Orsinate, and started to say so when the woman cut her off.

  “I’m certain of it. I had dreamed about a flying boat the night before,” she insisted. “Nike said it was a gorgeous dream, that was the word she used. We’re very close, Nike and I. All the margravines are my good friends, actually. I never miss one of their dream inquisitions.” She leaned forward, peering at Reive’s eyes, then made a little grimace of distaste. “Although I had forgotten about your—um— eyes. But I’m sure it was you.”

  Without looking she reached for a tiny metal purse hung about her neck, the pleasure cabinet’s sigil dangling from it on a silver chain. She withdrew a long narrow card and shoved it into Reive’s hand. “Here: tonight in the Four Hundredth Room. Twenty-seven o’clock. Nike will remember, she’ll be pleased I found you. Bring a guest if you’d like—”

  This last said airily, as though unknown hermaphrodites were always welcome in the Orsinate’s sanctum. Reive nodded stupidly and stared at the card.

  Tatsun Frizer, it read in small neat letters printed on a thin sheet of allurian. When she tilted it the scowling image of Blessed Narouz appeared, his hawkish profile silhouetted against the flaming refineries of Archangels. She raised it to her face and sniffed: petroleum. She slipped the card into her pouch.

  “This evening, then,” said Tatsun Frizer. She gave a last puzzled look at Reive’s face, then headed for the palace, her yellow boots making a slapping sound against the pavement, her puppet peering back at Reive and flicking its tongue licentiously.

  The gynander stared after them, lifting her eyes to take in the sweeping columns, the lapis-crowned gates and golden statues surmounting it all. She took a lock of her hair and pulled it, until tears filled her eyes, just to make sure she was awake.

  An invitation to a party given by the Orsinate! Let Drusilla hear about that !

  She dismissed a fleeting thought for Ceryl and ran back to the gravator, heedless of how this might look to the few surly aristocrats still arguing over matters of protocol and invitations or the lack thereof. She dodged servers as they rolled about the boulevard, sweeping up ashes and broken pipettes, and at the gravator entrance bumped into the vicar of the Church of Christ Cadillac and didn’t even say Excuse Me. If only she could get back to Ceryl’s chambers, find some new clothes and be gone before Ceryl returned….

  But when she reached her chambers, Ceryl was waiting.

  “Where have you been?” she exploded. “I ran back here as soon as I could—”

  Reive sank onto the divan. “We attended the Investiture,” she said sullenly. She raised her head, adding in a haughty tone, “We have been invited to a party this evening. With the Orsinate in the Four Hundredth Room.”

  She dug into her pouch and held out the allurian calling card.

  “Tatsun Frizer and the Orsinate and the Four Hundredth Room,” Ceryl read, disgusted. “Lovely.” She tossed the card onto the floor and stared at Reive coldly. “So you went to the Investiture.”

  Reive nodded once, her mouth tight.

  “And did you have a lovely time there? A wonderful time, watching the wonderful margravines parade their latest victim in front of the mob?” She spat the last word and crossed the room, yanked open a cabinet and poured herself a glass of brandy. Once back in her own chambers, her fear had disintegrated into anger. “They sicken me—it all sickens me. And three days from now is Æstival Tide and we get to watch some more torment, when they loose their damned monster onto the beach. Well, you know what? I’m sick of it, all of it. Sick, sick, sick.”

  Reive huddled deeper into the divan and watched her through slitted eyes. It was very unwise for someone to talk like this. Ceryl seemed to read her mind: she turned and glared at her, downing another brandy. “Oh, pardon me. I forgot—bad form to talk treason in front of houseguests.”

  She stared at the bottle on the counter, then poured another brandy and drank it. Afterward her tone was calmer, but her voice still shook as she spoke.

  “Reive—I’m sorry. It’s just—I was worried, that’s all. It’s the time of year, it always puts me on edge. And—well, just thinking about the timoria. Do you have any idea how many people died ten years ago, during the last Æstival Tide? Do you?”

  She began pacing the room and went on before Reive could answer. “Two thousand. Out of a total population of, say, twenty thousand. Several hundred trampled to death on the strand when the Gate is opened, another hundred fed to the Compassionate Redeemer for their pleasure. Then of course Shiyung ordered that boat race, and of course all the contestants drowned. A boat race! No one here has ever seen a boat in her life! And then the hecatombs, and the babies sacrificed—it’s madness, absolute madness!”

  She stopped and stared at Reive. The gynander only shrugged, then reaching from the divan snatched back Tatsun Frizer’s card from the floor. Ceryl sighed, defeated.

  “What am I doing, talking to you? Look at you—you’re just a—a child, really,” she said. She paused in front of the brandy bottle, then shoved it back into the cabinet. “Every ten years a few of us recall the last time, and maybe we get angry, or frightened, but nothing ever happens. Nothing ever changes. Four hundred years of Orsinas. I don’t suppose it will ever end. I guess I’d better decide what to wear to this evening’s atrocity.”

  She disappeared into her bedroom, reappeared a moment later holding a long sleeveless tunic of brilliant jade-green satin. Reive’s mouth hung open in surprise, but Ceryl only shrugged and started across the room.

  “Well, it’s the damn Feast of Fear, right? Might as well wear green.” She stopped abruptly and looked at the gynander. Her voice dropped.

  “You won’t say anything, about—about my dream? Reive?”

  Reive shook her head slowly. “We had forgotten about it,” she admitted. Ceryl smiled wryly.

  “Well. That’s just as well.” She gazed with distaste at the tunic in her hands. “I guess if we’re going to make it by twenty-seven o’clock we’d better get dressed.” At Reive’s expression she added, “I can’t let you go alone. Whether or not Tatsun Frizer invited you. It would be like throwing a baby to the Redeemer.”

  Reive nodded, tipping her head so that Ceryl wouldn’t see her smile, and reached for her cosmetics box.

  By the time they reached Seraphim Level, Ceryl’s mood had shifted from aggrieved resignation to barely concealed anxiety. A dream inquisition in the Four Hundredth Room! That would mean all three margravines, and most of the pleasure cabinet, and she, Ceryl, having to convince them of the innocence and beauty and originality of some dream she’d never had. Not to mention carefully worded praise for the afternoon’s Investiture, and feigned delight at the pleasures of Æstival Tide still to come. Twice she had stopped, breathing deeply while reciting a calming verse a galli had taught her. She wondered what would happen if she just didn’t show up for the inquisition.

  But then, of course, Reive would go on alone; and at that thought Ceryl’s breathing became a tortured gasp and she hurried after her companion.

  Fortunately the gynander seemed subdued. Ceryl had watched, intrigued, as Reive carefully removed mascara and rouge and powder. She had never seen a hermaphrodite’s face unpainted; the effect was unsettling. Like most people, Ceryl thought of the hermaphrodites as she or her or sometimes it. But, as Reive blotted off the last traces of rouge, for the first time Ceryl noticed how strong her jaw was; how her mouth without its carmine pout was in fact thin, and might even seem cruel were it not for a certain perplexed twist of the lip. And her eyes, with no penciled brows arching above them, were, despite their color, quite gentle. She no longer had the childish mien associated with the hermaphrodites. Except for the lack of eyebrows and her rounded shoulders, she looked like a young man or thoughtful boy. In fact, she resembled one of the unsmiling busts of Orsina ancestors that lined the corridors of the Seraphim’s palace. Ceryl had nearly commented on this peculiar resemblance, but decided it would only make the gynander conceited. Inst
ead she sat in silence while Reive painted her face chalk-white, with only a small green whorl upon each cheek as a token of Æstival Tide.

  Now Ceryl wished she had said something. With her face dead-white save for those green spirals and her eyes and mouth unrouged, the gynander looked disturbingly corpselike. There was little foot traffic headed for the palace, and only a few rickshaws. In one of these another hermaphrodite sat giggling on the lap of a drunken diplomat, and stared back amazed as they passed. Ceryl glanced at Reive, but the gynander didn’t even look up as the rickshaw rattled by; only stared straight ahead with her cool emerald eyes.

  The truth was, Reive was nervous, even frightened. Everything looked different than it had that afternoon. Servers had spent the last few hours adorning the boulevards for the upcoming festival. The water frothing in the fountains was now green, lit by hidden lanterns. Some of the sculptures had been replaced with bizarre representations of the world Outside—trees of steel and iron, grotesquely twisted and covered with thorns; huge skeletal figures of winged creatures with gaping mouths and dripping talons; naked figures of men and women cowering before the holographic image of an immense wave, its curling edge flecked with blood. There was the inevitable holo of the Compassionate Redeemer, its lamprey’s mouth opening and closing in eerie silence while the ventricles at its feet pumped out the choking scent of charred roses. And seeping into everything the smell of the sea, thick and rank and warm, growing heavier as the air pressure dropped Outside. Some of the other guests wore linen masks over their mouths. Reive regretted not having bought one for herself—the briny smell nearly choked her, like having viscous water poured into her nostrils. Silently she wandered along the boulevard, twisting her head to stare at the marvels the Orsinate had arranged for the festival.