And then there was her dream; and all of this on the eve of Æstival Tide itself. Even as she stood, her bare arms prickled with cold and fear, she could sense it all Out There, whatever It was—poisoned ocean, devouring sunlight, monstrous typhoon—gnawing at the Quincunx Domes, or else circling Araboth like one of the Orsinate’s regenerated thecodonts grown to massive size, seeking a way to grind the city between its Luciferian teeth.
I’m going mad, thought Ceryl. I should consult a seer; but then she recalled that the present bizarre confluence of events derived from her doing just that.
She bit her finger. Maybe she should leave, go back to her chambers, lock the doors and refuse to come out until Æstival Tide was over. Just leave, like that, and let Reive flounder through the evening as best she could.
But then from down the hall she heard Nike’s booming hoo-ha laugh. A moment later she listed into the room, followed by a rather worried-looking serving girl. ziz started in her chair; the rasa withdrew his hands and stepped back silently, drawing his sable coat around him. ziz stood and went to greet her sister. Ceryl took a deep breath, then quickly made her way to where a trio of young boys were pouring wine from glass kraters. She drank hers too fast, scanning the room for Reive and shivering. The dwarf had been right. It was starting to get cold—another chance for the margravines to show off. All around the room guests ostentatiously tugged at capes and mufflers, garments made from the pelts of suricatas and martens and lynx specially bred on Dominations for the pleasure cabinet. The smell of the sea, ever-present even in this sanctum, was overlaid with a sudden burst of scent—the odor of fir trees, so thick and so obviously chemical in origin that Ceryl’s throat burned. She swore beneath her breath and rubbed her bare arms. Now that Nike had arrived it would be ill-considered to be seen leaving the room, especially if one wasn’t properly dressed. She grit her teeth and wished she could find the gynander.
Too late she glimpsed Reive on a divan on the far side of the room, sitting between two other morphodites. One had painted her face in complex pyramidical patterns; the other had small darting piggish eyes within a geisha’s mask and wore a towering blond wig of corkscrew curls. Ceryl recognized her as a former favorite of Nike’s, now gone to fat.”
The blond morph lifted her head, the wig teetering on her brow, and stared at Ceryl. Echion, that was her name. As Ceryl watched, she leaned over Reive and whispered to her, still looking back at Ceryl, while Reive sipped at her wine and stared about the room with her long green eyes. Whatever Echion was saying seemed to dismay her somewhat. When Nike bounced past with ziz, the two hermaphrodites looked up. After a long moment, Reive tore her gaze from the margravines and stared across the room at Ceryl. Ceryl motioned frantically for the gynander to join her, but instead Reive looked back at Echion. She glanced up once more at Nike and ziz, then nodded slowly. Beside her Echion smiled.
That smile turned the wine to vinegar in Ceryl’s mouth. She put down her glass, and had started toward Reive when ziz clapped her hands.
“Well! This is an exciting group—Kai Kaeng, you look so dashing!—”
The soprano with the eyepatch bowed and blushed.
“—and I know we are all honored to have our new Aviator Imperator with us this evening—”
Strained yet enthusiastic applause. The rasa bowed stiffly, ruddy light spilling from his face. Then ziz was beckoning them all to come close, to form the customary circle so that the inquest could begin.
Ceryl made one last effort to get across the room to Reive. She pushed through the crowd, nodding coldly at Tatsun Frizer, when a small strong hand grabbed hers—
“Sit here with me, Ceryl,” Rudyard Planck rasped cheerfully. His blue eyes guttered as he tugged her toward the middle of the room. “Here, Tatsun, you too.”
“Oh, but—”
Tatsun Frizer laughed, her vocoder sparking green and yellow. “I know just how you feel,” she oozed, shaking a finger at Ceryl. “Morphodites are so fickle. Best surrender gracefully and scold her when you get home.” She settled beside Ceryl, pulling a heavy silken throw from a divan and draping it over her knees. “Isn’t this enchanting? I can’t imagine why Shiyung isn’t here. Nike said they were going to have it chilly here tonight, but I never dreamed… ”
Tatsun Frizer prattled on. Ceryl thought of snatching the throw from her lap. It was freezing now. On the other side of the circle, Nike sat resplendent in a fox-fur coat, the thick pelts flaming about her pallid face. Every few minutes she leaned over the serving girl, who would hand her a morpha tube or a small agate kef pipe. Next to her ziz sat stiffly, two brilliant splotches, like crimson thumbprints, on her cheeks. The Aviator had removed his long sable coat and draped it about her shoulders. There was a spurting sound as more of the pine scent was pumped from hidden vents. The lights dimmed to a cool blue, and from the ceiling snow began to fall.
“Oh, great ,” Ceryl swore, shuddering. All around the circle people applauded and laughed delightedly, holding out their hands and exclaiming as the snow hissed against their skin.
Rudyard Planck patted her knee. “My dear, would you like my cape?”
Ceryl glanced down to see if he was joking, but the dwarf had already begun to peel off the heavy woolen garment. “No, no,” she said hastily, “thank you—”
“Just a taste of winter,” ziz was saying. Beneath the Aviator’s sable coat, she wore only a simple gray tunic and trousers, her dark hair pulled back through a gold ring. “Once upon a time, this would have been the first day of summer, and I thought, Why not celebrate our freedom from the tyranny of the seasons?”
Beside her sister, Nike nodded happily, tapping her feet and waving her kef pipe. ziz lifted her face so that the snow glistened on her brow. She stayed like that for a long moment, snow frosting her dark hair.
Then, “Enough,” she said softly. The snow stopped, a few last flakes falling as people murmured their disappointment. Warmer air flowed from the vents, and another heavy dose of Lovey’s Prescient Chypre. Ceryl tried her best not to gag. Beside her Tatsun breathed deeply, eyes closed, and murmured the seven names of Blessed Narouz.
“We have a number of interesting guests this evening,” announced ziz. “Margalis Tast’annin, whom many of you already know of course.”
Faint applause. Rudyard Planck snorted softly.
“Sajur Panggang and his little friend Rudyard Planck…”
(A few snickers: ziz’s dislike of the puppeteer was well known.)
“Kasim Havid, the ambassador from the Medaïn Desert…”
Kasim tried his best to smile; like the other ambassadors he had been hostage in Araboth for a dozen years or more.
“… even several guests who are strangers to my sister and myself.” ziz’s voice rose sharply. Ceryl cowered, pulling Rudyard Planck’s cape up to her chest.
Nike beamed groggily around the circle as ziz explained, “My sister’s trusted augur Echion has informed us that we have a new mantic here tonight, a visitor from the lower levels.”
Murmurings from the guests. An untried hermaphrodite was always a minor occasion. Ceryl shut her eyes. This was it, then. She thought of her dead lover Giton, of her failed effort at timoring. She should have been kinder to the morphodite; she should have killed her immediately.
But maybe this would be one of those inquisitions you heard about, where everything was wonderful, and Nike and ziz would be so taken with Reive they would take her into their private cabal of mantics, and Ceryl could disappear on Dominations among the vivariums, this time forever. It was such a pleasant thought that she never wanted to open her eyes again, but of course she did. Rudyard Planck was staring at her, his blue eyes wide with concern. He cocked a thumb to where Reive crouched beside Echion, looking as though she wanted to bolt.
“She’s never been here before, has she?”
Ceryl nodded miserably at his hoarse whisper. The dwarf swore. “They’ll eat her alive. Who’s the fat toad with her?”
“Echion,” Ceryl
whispered. The dwarf nodded.
“That’s right—damn her, one of Nike’s panderers—”
From across the circle came several indignant ssshhes. ziz raised her head and frowned slightly. The dwarf fell silent.
Nike began speaking, her husky voice slurred.
“Delightful… see all these familiar faces… most important… dreams during this time…” Her head fell forward. At her side, the serving girl anxiously snapped a candicaine pipette in two and waved the pieces beneath the margravine’s nose. Nike started, let out a long whoosh of breath, and turned to her sister.
“ziz?” Nike furrowed her brows. “Um—is there something…?”
ziz sighed and let the Aviator’s heavy coat drop back from her shoulders. “As my sister was saying,” she began in a ritual fashion, “our dreams are especially important during Æstival Tide, when the world Outside encroaches so closely upon our own. We are blessed here in Araboth to have dream-mantics of great subtlety and perception, to help us chart those dangerous territories we sometimes plumb in our sleep.”
Nike nodded happily at her sister’s words. ziz glanced at her and said, “Nike? Would you care to go first?”
“Me?” Nike tittered, then shook her head. “I am afraid—dreams—can’t recall—”
“Of course not, you sotty cow,” hissed Rudyard Planck. Ceryl stared fixedly at the margravines, ignoring angry stares and whispers of “Shame!” and “Heed the margravine!”
ziz’s expression seemed to align her with the dwarf in this matter. She turned from Nike, just as Sajur Panggang suggested, “Perhaps the margravine ziz would share with us her dreams?”
ziz shook her head. Her face looked drawn as she said coldly, “I prefer to keep my dreams to myself for the moment.”
There was silence all around the circle.
Ceryl’s heart began to pound. This was the part of the inquisitions that she most hated. Either some eager volunteer would call out her dream—actors and artists in particular were prone to such reckless folly—or else the margravines would choose someone at random. Ceryl tried to compose her face into a disinterested mask, as if to show that her dreams were reassuringly commonplace. She let her eyes focus on ziz’s left shoulder, to indicate she had nothing to hide from the margravines; but then, horrors! ziz seemed to find this interesting. The margravine’s eyes narrowed, she leaned forward, staring directly at Ceryl, and said, “Now, you there—Shiyung’s healer—”
But then another voice sounded, softer than the margravine’s but no less commanding. “I would have my dream read.”
The voice was so low that for a moment the terrified Ceryl thought she had willed it into being; but then she saw ziz turn slowly to the dark figure at her side.
“Of course, Margalis.”
The soft voice went on, “I’m not sure of the protocol, I’ve been away so long….”
He stood and walked to the center of the circle, which was not the Way it was done at all. But not even ziz motioned for him to sit again; others in the circle bowed their heads or looked nervously at the margravines. Across the room Reive glanced around cautiously, unsure of what was happening.
Ceryl could not look away from the Aviator. Within his seamless face his eyes gaped black and ragged, the pale irises swallowed by the dim light. Ceryl swallowed, feeling faint. Rudyard Planck murmured something reassuring and squeezed her knee. More than anything, she wished not to hear this thing’s dream. But already the rasa was speaking.
“I dreamed I stood in a great pit…” he began. His voice was so low that everyone in the circle moved forward to hear him, as though huddling around a fire in the darkness. “It was night, and there were scorched clouds running through the sky. All around me were flames. At my feet were the bodies of children, contorted into horrible shapes—they were children I had slain—and the ruins of machinery. There was a wind blowing, a very cold wind. I could feel it picking through my clothes, it was the kind of wind that gets into your bones, and I felt it inside me, as though my ribs might crack from the cold.
“Then I looked up, and for a moment the clouds broke, and I could see the stars. Who knows?—perhaps I might have seen the pallid lights of HORUS, or the ruins of my own command station, if only I had known where to look. But it had been a very long time since I had seen the sky, and I no longer recalled the configurations of the stars. I gazed up there for a very long time.
“When I looked down again the bodies of the children seemed so small to me, so—fragile. And suddenly the horror of where and what I was overwhelmed me and I began to weep, knowing I had murdered them. And then I woke. And when I woke I wanted to weep still, but I could not. And that was when I knew it was only a dream. Because you see, I had dreamed that I was a man.
“And, of course, I am no longer a man. But when will I be rid of this dream?”
His voice rose when he began to speak of the stars, and when he said But when will I be rid of this dream? the words came in a sort of brazen shriek, like the clamor of some great engine grinding against stone. Ceryl shivered, while beside her Rudyard Planck covered his ears. Tatsun Frizer whispered the names of Blessed Narouz. Reive sat bolt upright, her eyes wide as though bewitched. ziz stared resolutely at the floor.
Only Nike seemed unperturbed. Without a word she held out a hand to her white-faced serving girl, who gave her a candicaine pipette. The margravine snapped it and inhaled. She shook her head, as though snow still clung to her hair.
“Well, isn’t that interesting,” she began, when another voice cut her off.
“This is not a true dream,” the voice said, clear as a child’s.
Oh, god, no, thought Ceryl.
You never accused someone of lying at an inquisition.
Tatsun Frizer pawed at Ceryl’s knee. “Isn’t that your little friend? ” she whispered in disbelief. Ceryl pushed her away and watched, horrified, as the gynander walked into the circle.
“No?” The Aviator’s terrible eyes fixed on her.
“No,” replied Reive. Her hair had fallen to her shoulders in loose, oily-looking coils, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked like a demented child, not the mannered scryer one usually saw at inquisitions. ziz raised her eyebrows, beckoning a serving boy to refill her wineglass, and leaned over to say something to Sajur Panggang. Echion smiled very slightly.
Please, please stop, Ceryl prayed. Very faintly she could hear Rudyard Planck whispering her name. She glanced at Nike, still holding the broken ends of her candicaine pipette. The margravine was staring at Reive entranced.
The gynander continued, her voice oddly toneless.
“It is not a true dream, because you are no longer a true man. It is the last memory of your last life. Somehow it has entered your regenerated consciousness. Because it is not a dream you will never be free of it.”
The Aviator stared at her, motionless. Finally his voice rang out, so loud and deep that Tatsun Frizer gave a little shriek.
“You are right! It is not really a dream, because I am no longer a man.” He nodded at ziz and Nike. “This is a very clever creature you have here, Margravines. Perhaps it will scry your dreams for us?”
ziz coughed, wiping her mouth with her hand and pushing away the serving boy as he offered her a towel. She nodded slowly, and stretched her long hands out toward Reive.
“Yes. Of course.” Her eyes narrowed. “My dreams of late have been so— unusual —that I did not trust them to our usual seers. But you appear to be a rather unusual mantic, strange child.”
Murmurings and excited glances from the crowd. ziz smiled a twisted smile and crooked a finger at Reive. “Come here, then, child. What’s your name?”
Reive blinked and looked around the room, as though just waking up. She glanced back at Echion, who nodded, and then across the room at Ceryl, who pretended not to see her. ziz watched her patiently, still moving her hands to beckon her closer. Warily Reive crossed the circle to stand before her.
“Our name is Reive.”
“Reive.”
ziz drawled the syllable, wrinkling her nose. Relieved laughter from the circle. “Well, Reive. You’re quite a talented thing. I’m surprised we haven’t met before.”
She reached to touch the gynander’s chin, tilted it so that Reive gazed back at her. ziz drew her breath in sharply.
“Your eyes.” Reive struggled to look away, but the margravine’s hand held tight to her. “Where did you get such eyes?”
Reive’s reply was so low it could scarcely be heard.
“We were born with them, Margravine.”
“Born with them?” snapped ziz. She let go of the gynander and turned to her sister. “Gynanders are generated on Dominations! They never have such eyes—”
Nike nodded. She said thoughtfully, “Shiyung has eyes like that—”
“Enough!” ziz’s voice cut her off. She turned back to Reive, regarding the gynander’s slim figure in its filmy costume. Raising her eyebrows ziz reached to stroke the edge of Nike’s fur cape.
“Here, Reive—you look cold.”
ziz tugged at the cape; it slid from Nike to the floor, where she pointed at it, staring all the while at Reive. At first the gynander did nothing; then with a slow nod she took the cape and wrapped it around her shoulders.
ziz stared at her through slitted eyes. “Very striking. I have not seen you here on Seraphim before.”
“We have only been here this week.”
“Are you Echion’s guest?”
Reive looked uneasy, finally shook her head.
“No.”
All around the circle people were whispering and glancing at each other. Many of them were staring at Ceryl. She coughed and looked around the room fiercely, trying to avoid the gynander’s eyes. Now Reive was staring at her. The powder on one cheek had been smeared, so that the green whorl there looked like a bruise. Beside Ceryl, Rudyard Planck whispered, “Don’t worry, there’s help if you need it.”
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