“ Rasas ,” the boy breathed. His teeth chattered as he realized that the one leading them was a rasa as well. He would have run but Nefertity held him. The figures paced slowly up the hill, heedless of the rain streaming around them and the gale tearing at their clothes. Their leader walked the last few steps until he stood upon the plateau. When he raised his eyes to meet Hobi’s the boy saw that he was what remained of the Aviator Imperator.
“Commandant Tast’annin,” he gasped. He thought he might be sick.
“Horemhob Panggang,” the rasa said in a low voice. He turned his gaze to Nefertity. “You have her. The nemosyne. Nasrani’s metal woman.”
Hobi nodded dumbly. Behind the Aviator the other rasas had stopped. They stood, shuffling and silent. The rain where it struck some of them seemed to leave a soft impression on their skin.
“Yes,” the boy whispered at last. He coughed, tried to make his voice louder but succeeded only in raising it to a croak. “Nefertity—that’s her name—”
“Nefertity,” the Aviator repeated. He stepped forward, until he stood directly in front of the nemosyne.
“Commandant,” Nefertity said, her voice cool and uninflected. Her eyes and throat began to glow deep blue.
“I heard much about you, many years ago, from my friend Nasrani Orsina,” the rasa went on. “He said you were more beautiful than any real woman he had ever known, excepting of course his youngest sister. At the time I did not believe him. I see now he was right.”
He bowed, the rain spilling from the cusps of his leather jacket.
The nemosyne stared at him, her gaze implacable, almost cruel. “I think it is a pity you did not perish with the rest of your people down there,” she said, gesturing to where Araboth lay somewhere beneath the sea’s flow. Her voice had the husky, drawling edge of Loretta Riding’s.
“Oh, but I have already given one life to those people,” the Aviator replied, raising his head and glancing back at the waiting figures behind him. “As have these others. Araboth’s forgotten ones, The Fallen—Hobi knows about them, don’t you, Hobi? Forgetful revenants, corpses who stray away from their prams when their nannies aren’t looking. Military commanders who don’t linger long enough in the beds of imperious mistresses.”
The nemosyne stared at him before replying coolly. “Let us go free. Let the boy go, at least—there may be others who survived, let him go and see if he can find them.”
The Aviator swept his arms out, sending up a plume of silver spray from his jacket. “I won’t harm him. His father was a friend of mine, once. And I have had enough of killing, for a little while.” He gestured at the other rasas. “They were in the Undercity—they were following you, the light you shed as you passed through the tunnel. They followed me, and I followed you. We made it halfway up the hill before the gale struck. They are all that escaped from the city.”
He laughed mirthlessly, light glinting from his black teeth. Behind him the rustling of the waiting rasas grew louder. The rain was slowing. Overhead the clouds lightened to the color of verdigris, and on the eastern horizon sunlight darted from gaps in the clouds.
“I am not a military nemosyne,” Nefertity said, her voice harsh. “I belonged to the radical wing of the American Vatican. I am a folklore unit. I am useless to you. Let me go.”
The Aviator shook his head. “No. You can link with the others—you were all designed to interface with each other.”
“The others are gone.”
“I believe they still exist.” He stepped closer to her, took her gleaming metal hand in his dark and sanguine one. “Shiyung believed that as well, that’s why she sent me to the Capital. The Military Tactical Targets Retrieval Network. It is somewhere out there still. HORUS was receiving random transmissions from it, before the raid by the Commonwealth destroyed their satellites.”
Nefertity’s eyes darkened to cobalt. Hobi could smell something faint and metallic, like ozone, as she withdrew her hand from the Aviator’s.
“Metatron,” she said, and recoiled. “The primary military unit—that’s what they called it. Loretta said it was destroyed when Wichita fell.”
“I think it is still there. Somewhere. It broadcasts on a shortwave radio frequency. If we were to find an area where the airwaves were not contaminated, we might be able to find its range. You might be able to find it.”
The rasa’s hollow voice had grown low, almost wheedling. Hobi started to back away from him, when suddenly the Aviator’s hand shot out and grabbed him.
“Aaagh!” The boy yelled and tried to pull away, then stumbled to the ground. The rasa ’s hand cut into his flesh like ice.
“Let go of him,” Nefertity commanded. Her entire body blazed, the mist around her glittered blue and green and gold. Behind the Aviator the other rasas murmured and crept forward; some of them fell to their knees. “He is innocent, let him go.”
“Come with me, then,” said the Aviator. “Else I will kill him—and you will be responsible.”
Nefertity was silent. At the Aviator’s feet Hobi writhed, his arm held taut in the rasa ’s grip as a single long tear of blood ran from wrist to elbow.
Nefertity looked down at Hobi, her eyes glittering. “Let him go,” she cried. “Yes, I will go with you.” Anger flared in her voice. “But how dare you harm him, how can you break the laws that bound you from harming your creators—”
The rasa grinned horribly, the splintered light making a tortured skull of his goblin face. “I am not truly a rasa, Mistress Nemosyne, nor am I human. Nothing commands me but myself, and, perhaps—”
He raised his hands, letting go of Hobi so that the boy collapsed, moaning, at his feet. For an instant a shaft of sunlight struck the Aviator, setting his crimson jacket aflame. His pale eyes were lost in shadow as he cried out words the boy did not understand. Then the sun was gone, the rain hissed once more upon the broken ground.
“Master—”
A thin voice called from behind the rasa. Hobi looked up. In the gray-green sky something glimmered, a spark that seemed to flicker more brightly and grow larger, until he saw that it was an aircraft of some kind, and as it plummeted toward them he made out the unearthly grace of one of the Ascendant’s Gryphons.
“Kesef!” The Aviator’s voice rose in command. Abruptly the Gryphon’s wings folded back and it plunged to earth like a javelin. Hobi cried out; but at the last second the Gryphon hovered, seemed to stutter in the air; and then its six jointed legs descended, followed a moment later by a folding stair delicate as a gentleman’s fan.
“What—” Hobi began, turning to Nefertity; but before he could speak something fell from the aircraft’s belly. A tangle of arms and legs on the silver stairs, resolved into a single person struggling with some sort of ornate costume rife with spikes and lumens. A moment later and the stranger was on her feet, tearing at her face as though something clung there. When she turned, shaking rain from her cheeks, he saw that it was ziz Orsina.
“Margravine!” Hobi exclaimed, and would have run to her if the rasa had not stopped him.
“Help, dammit, is this the frontier? Have we reached a substation?” The margravine tore the last bit of her Æstival garb from her and flung it to the ground, then turned and kicked furiously at one of the Gryphon’s legs. “Where are we, dammit?”
From the rasas waiting on the hillside came a low sound, a sound that became a hiss. ziz turned, startled. “Oh! Oh— ”
Looking back, she saw Hobi and the nemosyne and the Aviator Imperator. She bit her lip, rubbed her chin, and then tossed her head back defiantly.
“Margalis! I might have thought you’d find a way out! Well, come on, then, you know the way—where’s the nearest substation, we’ve got to get out of here—”
Behind her the hissing grew louder. Hobi shrank closer to Nefertity, as slowly the rasas began to creep the last few feet up the hill to where the margravine stood, glaring at Tast’annin.
“—this bloody thing doesn’t listen at all, I thought they wer
e supposed to respond to direct emotive input, let’s go now while the storm’s let up—”
Tast’annin shook his head. “I don’t think so, ziz,” he murmured. Her eyes blazed and she took a step toward him, was stopped by a hand on her shoulder. “I think some of your— people —have need of you….”
Behind her the rasas had gathered, crooning and sighing and mumbling among themselves as they surrounded the margravine. ziz saw them and gave a small cry, tried to push her way through them but was borne off, as first one and then another grabbed her, handing her over their heads until finally she disappeared in a weaving thicket of white arms and hands and mouths.
Hobi looked away, covering his eyes. ziz’s shrieks grew louder, were nearly drowned by the sound of tearing and many soft voices crooning to themselves. The boy crouched against the nemosyne, weeping.
“It’s all right, Hobi, it’s all right,” she said gently, stooping over him. Above her the Aviator Imperator stood, brooding in the gathering dusk. She raised her face to his and said, “We must find others for him. Other people. Otherwise he will go mad. I’ve seen it happen before,” she ended sadly.
The Aviator nodded. “We will find them. There is a girl, a girl I left for dead in the Capital—she knows things, she can deal death with her mind. I would find her.”
“Nothing but death,” the nemosyne said bitterly, hugging the weeping boy to her. “You have seen where it brought them, and still you would have nothing but death.”
The Aviator shrugged. “I have questions, that’s all.” He turned to the Gryphon and lay his hand upon the edge of its steps. When he glanced back at Nefertity a spare ray of light glinted in his pale eyes. “I have always tried to keep an open mind about these things.”
The nemosyne said nothing. She waited until he climbed into the aircraft, then murmured, “Hobi, it’s all right now. We will go from here, we will find another place….”
Hobi shuddered, wiped his eyes, and looked up at her. “I’m ready,” he said at last, his voice hoarse. He looked over his shoulder, to where the eastern horizon was banded with streamers of gold and violet and red.
“It’s over,” said Nefertity. “The storm is gone, it’s passed over us now. That’s the sky, the sun breaking through—”
The boy looked in the other direction, down the hill. He could just make out shadowy figures moving in the distance, and hear scuffling noises in the brush. Before he could turn away a voice called down from the Gryphon.
“Come now—it’s ready, I had to clear away the mess she’d made, but there’s room now for both of you—”
The boy stood, wincing at how much his legs ached. Gingerly he touched the raw gash on his arm where the Aviator had cut him. “Is it safe?”
Nefertity shook her head. “What is ‘safe,’ now? It’s not safe to stay here alone; it’s not safe to have him murder you.” She walked stiffly to the stairway, turned to Hobi, and bowed slightly. “I thank you anyway, Hobi, for waking me. It’s better not to sleep, I think.” Without saying more they climbed into the Gryphon.
He had always thought it would be exciting to fly in one of the Aviator’s biotic craft; but then he had thought it would be exciting to see clouds, too, and mountains. Now Hobi knew that one grew accustomed to things Outside very quickly.
He felt queasy at first, as the Gryphon accelerated impossibly fast and burst into the air like a flame. There was only one biotic hookup, for Tast’annin. Hobi and Nefertity sat in two narrow seats behind him, and peered out a series of round windows at the tor receding beneath them in a rush of gray and brown. Then the Gryphon banked and shot out over the ocean, seeming to bounce across cusps of air like a rickshaw over uneven transway. Hobi bit his thumb and hummed nervously. After a minute or two he felt easier, and leaned closer to the windows.
Below them the ocean purled almost gently against sheer rock, all that could be seen of the precipice that had once sheltered Araboth. Of the domes he could see nothing; only a few bits of flotsam floating in the dark water. As they skimmed above the coast the rock gave way to sandy beach, nearly as smooth as the water itself. There was nothing here either, save for uprooted trees, a torn length of white cloth wrapped around a spar, two sodden bags that almost looked like bodies…
“Hey!”
Hobi yelled so loudly he was surprised the Gryphon didn’t halt, the way a rickshaw would. The Aviator scarcely stirred where he reclined in front of them, only raised a single finger warningly.
“Hey,” Hobi repeated, a little desperately now, “I think those are people there—”
Beside him Nefertity leaned to gaze out her window, then without a word placed her hand upon the Aviator’s shoulder. Abruptly he sat up, glanced down at the beach, then back at Hobi. Still saying nothing he settled back into his seat; but the Gryphon immediately began to descend.
Hobi held his breath, waiting for the jolt when it landed; but he felt nothing, was stunned when the floor slid sideways beneath his feet and the airy steps unfolded. “Wait here,” the Aviator commanded, and climbed out.
Hobi crossed and uncrossed his legs. A gust of warm air shot up from the opening in the craft. If he slanted his head just right he could see one of the Aviator’s booted feet and what might have been the ragged hem of a linen garment. Then abruptly the Aviator’s grim form filled the opening. Hobi crouched back as the rasa climbed inside, carrying something in his arms. The nemosyne slid from her seat onto the floor, folding her long legs under her.
“Move,” the Aviator said sharply, shaking his head at Hobi. The boy hunched into a corner beside Nefertity. The rasa lay a slight figure on the seat where Hobi had been, then silently turned and went back outside. He returned after another minute, this time with an even smaller form that he set in Nefertity’s seat. Without another word he slipped back into his place. The steps slid up and disappeared. With a heart-stopping rush they were airborne again.
When Hobi was sure the Aviator was linked with the Gryphon he leaned forward. In his seat lay a slender figure. At first he thought it was a boy, a boy with shaven head; then with a grimace he drew back.
A gynander. She was breathing heavily, with a slight rattle in her chest. As he watched she suddenly turned to one side and vomited a great quantity of water onto the floor.
Hobi leaned back hastily and turned to the other figure. A dwarf. With a spurt of elation he recognized him—Rudyard Planck, a friend of his father’s.
“Rudyard!” he cried, pummeling the back of the seat. The Gryphon swooped in a long slow arc and he fell back. “Rudyard, it’s me, Hobi—”
The dwarf stirred, groaning. Beside him the gynander whimpered, then suddenly shot up.
“Where are we—we don’t know, let us go, please—”
Hobi fell silent, noticing her green eyes widen with terror as they took in the cramped curve of the aircraft, the dwarf coughing beside her, the nemosyne glowing like a corpse-candle in the back of the craft. Finally he said, “You’re safe—whoever you are. At least as safe as we are.” His tone sounded defeated, and he pointed to the rasa, motionless in the front seat. “That’s the Aviator—this is his Gryphon, there’s no way out. I’m Hobi, that’s Nefertity—”
The nemosyne nodded.
“—and I know Rudyard Planck, I think, and who are you?” He tried to sound polite.
The gynander shook her head. “We are Reive,” she announced, coughing and wiping seawater from her chin. “Reive Orsina.”
“Orsina?” Hobi sucked his breath in, then said, “I thought they were all dead.”
“We are alive.”
Hobi groaned: it was too much to ask of him, really, to survive a typhoon and then be polite to a lying morphodite. He closed his eyes, pretending he was asleep.
But in a few seconds he opened them again. The gynander was sitting with her face pressed against one small round window, staring transfixed at the ocean below and paying no attention to him whatsoever.
“Hobi Panggang,” the dwarf said hoarsely, as tho
ugh noticing him for the first time. “Bel’s balls, you look just like your father after a toot.” He reached out and prodded Hobi uncertainly with a damp finger. “Sorry to hear about that, Hobi, very sorry.” He turned to the nemosyne and said, “Rudyard Planck, odd circumstances.”
“Nefertity,” the nemosyne replied softly.
“Huh?” Hobi shook his head and wriggled across the crowded floor until he was beside the gynander. “What’s out there, can you see something?”
Reive nodded, so excited the words caught in her throat. Her finger stabbed the gritty window specked with salt and dirt, and pointed to the luminous sea below. Hobi rubbed his eyes, looked down and then behind him.
Through the small windows on the other side of the Gryphon he could glimpse green, shivering blades of green and blue as they soared above the coast and the setting sun speared the sides of the craft. Then, looking back through the window where Reive pointed he could see the ocean, so tranquil now that it all seemed a dream—Ucalegon, Araboth, the evil margravines, his father and mother and Nasrani, everything but that endless sweep of turquoise a dark and fitful dream from which he had just awakened. He might almost fall asleep again, now, with his head resting against the cool glass, only someone was jostling his elbow and crying in a shrill voice, “Look! Look!— ”
—and pointing to where something moved through the gentle swells, something that even from here he could see was ponderously huge and dark. Only there wasn’t just one; there were four of them, and they seemed to be playing, great clumsy things somehow taking to the air of this new green world just as he was, twisting in impossible arabesques as they swam in and out and between each other—
“—he was right,” Reive was babbling as the Gryphon banked to the west and she craned her neck to see the last of them, four vast creatures leaping and crashing back into the sea with a bellow they could hear even from this distance; “he said they were waiting for him, he said his sisters would come and they did, oh, they did! ”
And wondering, Hobi pressed his face close to hers against the glass, watching the great whales until they were gone, swallowed like the rest by the sea.
Æstival Tide w-2 Page 38