The Grand Ellipse

by Paula Volsky

The two men traded glances, and Papa remarked, “Seven-fifteen.”

  AT EIGHT O’CLOCK the big cargo vessel Rhelish Mercenary steamed into the Lanthian harbor, only forty-five minutes behind schedule—an exceptionally fine run. There was a moderate delay as the Grewzian inspectors at the waterfront came aboard to check over the relevant documents, but the Mercenary’s paperwork was in order, and official approval quickly granted. Unloading commenced.

  The ship carried but a single passenger, a female Szarish national. She was escorted at once to the customs office, where her passport, her various travel permits, and her scant personal belongings were examined with care. Thus occupied, the Szarish woman was unable to oversee the transfer of her cargo from the ship’s hold to the dock.

  Few workers or loiterers upon the wharves took any notice of the big, tarpaulin-wrapped bundle issuing from the depths of the Rhelish Mercenary. The bundle was exceptional in size and irregular in shape and yet, amid such a welter of crates, barrels, and gigantic bales, attracted no attention.

  Almost no attention.

  A couple of inconspicuous dark-clad masculine figures, lounging in the shadows since seven o’clock or so, had watched the ship’s unloading from the start. When the out-sized, oddly shaped bundle hove into view, borne on the backs of six grunting stevedores, the observers perked up.

  The stevedores deposited their burden and withdrew. While his companion maintained vigil, the man calling himself Papa advanced smartly, but without conspicuous haste. When he reached his goal he halted briefly to scan his surroundings. The wharves were busy, but nobody seemed to be looking his way. Lifting a tarpaulin to reveal a section of a low-slung metallic structure, he leaned in, deposited a package beneath the driver’s seat, withdrew, and allowed the canvas covering to fall back into place. Once more he cast his eyes about him, discovered nothing amiss, and calmly rejoined his comrade. Together the two men departed the spot, swiftly vanishing into the populous depths of the city.

  WHEN SZETT URRAZOLE’S PASSPORT had received the requisite stamp—an embossed Lanthian civic seal, contained within the circular Endless Fire of the Grewzian Imperium—the Szarish inventor went forth from the customs office in search of her vehicle. Upon presentation of her signed and stamped bill of lading to the supercargo, she was permitted to reclaim her property.

  Urrazole stripped away the canvas coverings to reveal the Miracle Self-Propelling Carriage, silvery body agleam in the morning sun. And now the loiterers indifferent to an eccentric anonymous bundle were caught by the spectacle of the outlandish conveyance and its equally uncommon inventor. Many gathered to gawk as Urrazole climbed in, hoisted the metallic sail, adjusted a couple of flanges, then settled down into the seat. Expectantly they watched on as she busied herself with unseen internal control mechanisms, and their patience did not go unrewarded.

  Seconds later the vehicle came alive with a deafening roar, and then exploded with an even more deafening blast. Fire flared, smoke billowed, while chunks of metal, glass, and wood, interspersed with body parts, went flying in all directions. The explosion obliterated the Miracle Self-Propelling Carriage, tore a sizable hole in the wharf, and killed Szett Urrazole instantly, along with some twenty or so unlucky bystanders.

  4

  THE KARAVISE REACHED HARBOR around midmorning, and Luzelle was up on deck along with her fellow Ellipsoids, as the racers had taken to calling themselves, all of them itching for the first glimpse of legendary Lanthi Ume.

  And there she was, dead ahead, rising from the sea like some gorgeous aging harlot of a queen from her bath. There were the shamelessly fantastical towers and jewel-hued domes, the glittering bridges and archways, the spires crowning palaces of fable, the numberless boats and barges, the general excess, the polychrome exuberance that was so hard to justify and so famously impossible to resist.

  Letting her eyes drink, Luzelle drew a deep breath of the mild, humid breeze sweeping the harbor, felt her spirits soar, and remembered once again why she loved to travel, despite all discomforts and inconveniences.

  A shadow touched her and she turned to find Girays at her side. He was studying the city, dark eyes filled with a pleasure that was all youth despite the whisper of grey at his temples, and she recalled then, with a pang, exactly why she had once looked forward to spending her life with him. Her hand wanted to reach out to him, and she controlled the impulse with an effort.

  Almost as if he divined her thoughts, he turned to look at her, and her gaze dropped at once for fear of what he might read in her eyes. That would hardly do, so she forced herself to counter his regard squarely and to inquire with a convincing air of indifference, “Well, and what do you think of it all?”

  “Marvelous sight,” he answered, smiling. “A dreamer’s whim caught in crystal.”

  Worse and worse. She’d expected some sort of formerly-Exalted superior sarcasm out of him, but his expression reflected the kind of unaffected warmth that had melted her insides at age nineteen, and now, six years later, still seemed to exert the same effect.

  Remember the quarrels, she commanded herself. Remember all the rotten things he said!

  “All the better, with you here to share it,” Girays added, so lightly that he might have been joking.

  We might have shared a whole world full of marvelous sights, she thought painfully, and was immediately furious with herself, because of course he was making fun of her, trying to goad her into making a fool of herself. She wasn’t about to oblige. A caustic retort rose to her lips, but died unspoken, for that look in his eyes was confusing her badly.

  “A fine view, alone or in company,” she replied, taking refuge in quiet dignity. “But I may share it no longer, for I must go collect my luggage. The boat is about to land.”

  THE KARAVISE DOCKED and the passengers disembarked. Suitcase in hand, Luzelle made for the customs office. As she went, she noted that a wide stretch of the wharf was cordoned off, the area guarded by monolithic Grewzian soldiers. Behind the barrier gaped an impressive hole, its edges jagged and freshly charred.

  She wanted to stop and ask a dozen questions, but forced herself to pass by. No time.

  The customs office was adorned in typically exuberant Lanthian style, with paint in three different colors and a roof of glossy green tile. Luzelle went in and took her place at the end of a queue that already included several fellow Ellipsoids. No sign of Girays as yet. No Karsler. The Festinette twins were present and noisy. The line inched toward a low counter at the back of the room. Her turn came at last, and she presented her passport and luggage to the bored official seated there. Scarcely wasting a glance on the contents of her valise, he stamped her passport and motioned her on with the jerk of a thumb.

  Done. Another stamp upon her passport—an emblem marred with the Imperium’s Endless Fire, but a tangible milestone nonetheless. In any case, the next port of call along the Grand Ellipse lay in the land of Aennorve, where the Grewzians dared not venture. Yet.

  Next order of business—book passage to Aeshno, the great port city at the southwest extremity of Aennorve. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had reserved a stateroom for her aboard the Lanthian passenger liner Nine Isles, but the vessel had embarked yesterday afternoon. No great matter—she need only seek out the dockside Isle Line agent, who would certainly exchange her ticket. Or better yet, she might check the various agencies for the next eastbound steamer of any description.

  Brain clicking, she exited the customs office, emerged into the sunlight, and halted to stare, for the wharf had transformed itself within the space of minutes. The broad expanse now supported a close-packed throng of restless humanity centering about the great hole that she had noted earlier. The crowd was motley, comprising old and young, male and female, rich and poor, clad in the garb of assorted nationalities. Despite the visible dissimilarities, a common sense of nerve-strung, hostile tension seemed to unite the group. The immediate source of displeasure was obvious—the area swarmed with Grewzian soldiers—but the underlying cause rema
ined obscure.

  Luzelle stretched to her best height, straining to see over hundreds of heads. No use. Some sort of suppressed commotion around the hole in the dock, a buzzing uneasiness animating the crowd, a daunting collection of Grewzian troops—that was all she could make out.

  “What is this?” she demanded of her nearest neighbor, a well-dressed woman of a certain age, perhaps some captain’s wife. She spoke unthinkingly in her own tongue, and was favored with a faintly startled glance. For a moment she thought her words unintelligible to the other, then the answer came in tolerably fluent but heavily Lanthian-accented Vonahrish.

  “They are drowning Cezineen.”

  “What are cezineen?”

  “His Preeminence Perif Neen Cezineen, the master of the Select. The Grewzians, they are drowning him.”

  “What, you mean there’s to be an execution? In public? Right now?”

  The other nodded.

  “What is the crime?”

  “Crime?” The Lanthian woman’s mouth pursed, as if to foil the escape of indiscretions. She won the battle, and replied circumspectly, “The Grewzians, they blame the resistance for the explosion yesterday morning. They know not who makes go the bomb, but they do know that the savants of the Select support the resistance. So the Grewzians do what they can, and they drown His Preeminence Cezineen here upon the site of the crime, for warning to all, and also for revenge.”

  “A bomb set off by the Lanthian resistance caused the big hole in the dock?”

  “So say the Grewzians. But—” The Lanthian woman cast a sharp eye about her, then lowered her voice and continued, “I say to you, I say to any and all, that this is not like the resistance. These Lanthian patriots—I mean to say, you understand me, these criminals—these people do not make war upon their own. This explosion that damages the wharf and kills the Szarish woman racer in her strange carriage—this same explosion also destroys good Lanthians. The men of the resistance, they do not stoop so low.”

  “Szett Urrazole? Killed? Are you telling me that Szett Urrazole was killed yesterday, and her vehicle destroyed?”

  “Yes, and many others, many Lanthians. I do not think that the resistance does this. But the Grewzians, they must solve the crime and punish the guilty, for they are the rulers, all knowing, all powerful, you understand me. So now they drown Preeminence Cezineen, and surely all of us profit greatly by the lesson.”

  “If the Lanthian resistance didn’t kill her, then who did?”

  “What difference shall it make? I cannot believe it Lanthian work. Perhaps this Urrazole woman’s rivals are behind it. A woman should not race. This northern Szarish creature had herself to blame, she thought herself so great, bringing her own fate upon her own hard head, and now we Lanthians must pay the price of her folly. I say she should have stayed at home, and blameless lives would have been saved, but what is that, to such a very great woman?”

  “But you’re quite certain that Szett Urrazole is really dead?” The query evidently merited no reply, and Luzelle continued, “What of this Preeminence Neen Cezineen? Have the Grewzians any solid proofs against him?”

  “You do not understand me,” the Lanthian woman answered with a hint of impatience. “The Grewzians, they do not need proofs. They do not care if Preeminence Cezineen is involved in the affair, or if he is not. That is all—how do you say—trifled? Trifling. The Grewzians, they care that all shall know that a crime against the Imperium must always bring punishment upon Lanthian heads. This is the lesson they teach.”

  “But the master of Lanthi Ume’s Select—that’s a fairly significant personage, a man of some power. The Grewzians don’t fear this savant’s Cognition?”

  “Only watch,” the other advised, “and you will see how greatly they fear.”

  Easier said than done. The crowd was thick, and she could not see a thing. In any case she hardly relished the spectacle of a public execution. Of all the revolting, barbaric anachronisms—so typically Grewzian.…

  Another few weeks, and scenes like this one may be repeating themselves in Vonahr.

  Luzelle made for the stand of ticketing agencies clustered at the lower end of the dock, but the jittery density of the crowd foiled her efforts. Several increasingly uncivilized attempts to force her way through failed, a couple of retaliatory elbow jabs thrust her off course, and presently she found herself, disheveled and breathing hard, wedged into a niche indenting a wall of stacked wooden crates. The way out was blocked, unless—

  Her eyes rose. The great pyramid of crates, serving as makeshift bleachers, supported scores of spectators. The heap looked easy to climb. Valise in hand, she began to ascend, scrambling nimbly from box to box, careless of the flashes of petticoat and stocking glimpsed by interested strangers. By the time she reached the fourth big tier of crates, she had a clear view of her surroundings. She had not meant to linger, but paused without thought, unwillingly transfixed by the scene playing out alongside the jagged new hole in the wharf.

  The Grewzians had cleared the perimeter, pushing the crowd back from the charred edges, and now the area was bare of all save grey-clad military figures and a lone prisoner, presumably the doomed Preeminence Neen Cezineen. She did not know where he had come from or when he had arrived, and the rush of shocked sympathy that filled her at sight of the elderly, silver-haired man decked in massive chains drove all such considerations from her mind. Shackles notwithstanding, Preeminence Cezineen remained an impressive figure, tall and still straight-spined, clad in the traditional black robes of a Lanthian savant. His wrists were tightly bound behind his back, and a heavy gag stopped his mouth. The facial features visible above the gag were swollen and bruised.

  The crowd growled and the Grewzian soldiers tensed visibly.

  They beat that old man, those Grewzian pigs. Did they have to gag him as well? What do they think he could say? Then she remembered a scrap of information culled from some long-ago text; the magical Cognition of Lanthi Ume’s savants was verbal in nature, dependent upon the spoken word. The gag suppressed Preeminence Cezineen’s arcane powers, such as they were.

  The ranking Grewzian officer, grey uniform blazoned with the insignia of an undercommander second class, was reading the order of execution aloud in halting Lanthian. The crowd was preternaturally intent, and Luzelle told herself that she should leave this place, but found herself paralyzed, unable to tear her eyes from the condemned savant’s face. All but impossible at such a distance to read Cezineen’s expression above the gag, but the old man held his head high.

  The undercommander concluded. Without further ado a couple of his subordinates stepped forward, seized the prisoner, and unceremoniously slung him forward into the hole in the dock. Preeminence Perif Neen Cezineen hit water with a splash easily audible in the midst of that appalled silence, and the weight of his chains dragged him under at once.

  His struggles, if any, were invisible. The bright morning sunlight danced on calm waters. It looked as if nothing had happened at all.

  Such casually professional efficiency seemed to gall the watching Lanthians, and a mutter of bitter indignation arose. The mutter sharpened to a snarl, hostile agitation stirred the crowd, and somebody threw a reckless insult:

  “Grewzian pustules!”

  A flying rock underscored the sentiment. The missile missed the undercommander second class by a hair. Instantly closing ranks, the Grewzians raised and leveled their rifles. The intensity of noise and popular fury mounted. Stones flew, along with empty bottles and bits of stink scooped up from the dock. The undercommander spoke, and his men fired into the heart of the crowd.

  Luzelle felt the air sing. Her nearest neighbor—a poorly clad, pink-faced adolescent, no more than thirteen or fourteen years of age—squealed, clutched at his chest, and toppled from his place, slack body rolling down successive tiers of crates to land with a conclusive thud on the wharf below. Four or five others in her immediate vicinity likewise shrilled or grunted, grabbed at themselves, and fell.

  S
he looked down at herself almost disbelievingly, scanning her own garments in search of spreading red stains. Nothing. She remained untouched. But for how much longer? The Grewzian soldiers, notoriously intolerant of foreign petulance, were already reloading. The crowd around her was boiling, half its members screaming for blood, the other half desperate to flee the docks. She herself belonged to the latter category.

  But where to go? Her mind seemed to have slowed to a crawl.

  Ticketing booths. Book passage to Aennorve. That had been her original intention.

  How to get there?

  The wharf swarmed with howling humanity, she could never force her way through that throng. Moreover, the Lanthians—some of them, at least—had gone quite mad, and now, instead of beating a prudent retreat while they could, were deliberately provoking the Grewzian troops, pelting them with filth and refuse, screaming obscenities, waving their furiously impotent fists in the air.

  The Grewzian undercommander spoke, his soldiers fired, and fresh shrieks arose. Luzelle scrambled down from her perch, vanishing into the mob as Preeminence Neen Cezineen had vanished beneath the harbor waters. She was less of a conspicuous target now but, having abandoned her elevated vantage point, found herself packed tightly amid countless bodies, unable to move, unable to see, and all but unable to breathe. Anonymous humanity pressed her on all sides, someone’s elbow was digging into her ribs, and the clamor of frantic voices was unendurable.

  She heard the crack of gunfire, and then something like a whistle or a siren followed by another volley. For a few endless moments all was lunacy, pressure, and noise. At last, when she felt herself in real danger of suffocation, the dense surrounding mass rippled. The pressure eased a little, she sensed movement around her, and then she, too, was moving. A human current was carrying her along, and she could not have resisted if she had tried. She had no idea where she was going; she had lost all sense of direction, and the howling uproar had not diminished in the least.