He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again and reached out to her. “You don’t have to feel alone.”
“Oh, but I do,” she said. “I do have to feel alone.”
He lifted her up in both hands and held her close. She could hear his heart beating in his chest, and felt the warmth radiating into her cheek.
“Look over there,” he said. “Can you see how the color of the sea changes as it passes over the Sunken City? There are many who still lie on those marble streets, with skeletal horses and crumbling carriages around them. They are the only ones who should feel alone. But we—you and I—we are alive.”
“Come back with me,” she said. “Come back to my house and never leave. Never go to Aya.”
Later, when he was asleep in her bed, she watched as his eyes moved beneath their lids in sleep. Sometimes he groaned and half lifted an arm, as if there was something to fend off in his dreams. She did not sleep that night, but lay awake thinking of how they would spend their last day together. And what she would tell Rudé.
Perhaps there was a chance to convince Aemilius to stay; they would not have to live in Caeli-Amur. They could escape the city and find somewhere quiet. But in her heart she knew it to be a dream, for he was a child of Aya. But she would struggle for it, just as she had for everything in her life.
In the morning she left him asleep. As she walked along the alleyway, little Henri scampered after her, in his hands a dirty pouch of Yensa fudge.
“What’s he like, Kata?” His giant eyes, their pupils like black saucers, stared up at her. He reminded Kata of so many of the street urchins. First they sold their drugs or preparations bought from a criminal or one of the Collegia in the Lavere Quarter. Then they slowly sampled them. By the time they were teenagers, their bodies would be emaciated, their eyes forever wide and staring, their teeth rotten. Their deaths would not be far away. This, she knew, would be the fate of Henri.
“Go away.”
“Aww, come on, tell us something. Does he know how to do it?” Henri grinned lasciviously.
Kata stopped walking, raised her hand to slap the boy. Henri danced away, and said, “Let me know when you want some fudge. Best Yensa fudge in the district!” He scampered off.
Kata wandered through the Factory Quarter, drawing in the soot and grime that rose from those square gray buildings or from the chimneys that led from the underground factories. The workers wandered to and fro like cogs in a machine—each with his little role to play in a greater logic. Just like her, she thought. She walked and walked, for how long she couldn’t tell. Hours perhaps. But she found no answers on the streets. She thought of visiting Sarrat. But she didn’t wish to hear Cajiun platitudes about patience, simplicity. Eventually she turned around. She had nowhere to go but home. There she would convince Aemilius to run away with her. Again a voice in her head laughed cynically. There was no room for dreams.
When Kata returned to her house she found Aemilius and Rudé sitting at the table eating olives and melon. Three flagons of wine stood on the table before them. She stood in the doorway, aghast.
“We’ve brought sustenance,” said Aemilius.
“Ah,” said Rudé, “the woman of secrets returns. I must say, I expected I’d find a minotaur here, but I thought you might be here also.” Rudé grinned, his teeth red with wine.
Kata walked to the table and looked at the flagons. They were empty. “Yes,” said Aemilius, “I brought Anlusian hot-wine also.”
She released her breath.
“So,” said Rudé, rubbing his stomach gently. “We’ll have to find some more work for you, as you’ve clearly failed at your last task.”
“Are you in an enterprise together?” asked Aemilius, throwing a slice of green melon into his mouth.
Kata turned away from them and saw the empty cupboard.
“What’s the matter?” asked Aemilius.
Thinking the question was directed at him, Rudé, who was now looking white, said, “That hot-wine doesn’t agree with me. I think I need some air.”
“I’ll show you the balcony,” said Kata, leading him toward the stairs.
“I know where it is.”
“Even so.”
She led him up the stairs; he doubled over when he reached the balcony. “Oh,” he groaned. “That wine. The one we took from your cupboard, was it—?”
Before he could finish speaking, Rudé dropped to his knees on the balcony and vomit came streaming and red from his mouth, dribbling down his shirt, onto the floor.
“The wine, did you drink it all?” she asked.
“We shared it,” he said. “Why?” He slumped onto his side.
“It was poisoned.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Help me.” Rudé fell forward onto his hands, breathing quickly and shallowly, drool coming in long lines from his mouth.
“No. There is nothing that can be done.”
“You bitch. You filthy—”
She leaned in over him: “You’re nothing, Rudé.”
“I fought to be where I am. Like you, I struggled.”
“No, you did exactly what the House wanted. You’re an appendage.”
Only a gurgle came from his white-frothed lips.
She ran back to the stairs, descended as quickly as she could, and found Aemilius standing by the table, steadying himself with one hand.
“No,” she said.
“What?”
She stood there, the room between them, looking at his towering presence.
“You,” he said. “You didn’t.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So it’s true, you murdered Cyriacus.” He staggered backwards, unsteady on his feet. “I would have done … whatever I could. I would have … helped you.”
“You wouldn’t have. You would have left for Aya with the others. You would have sailed off, leaving me here, alone.”
There was froth around his mouth, and his magnificent eyes had lost their edge. They were clouded, as if a white substance were billowing into them.
He collapsed to the floor, his legs, once so powerful, at awkward angles beneath him. “I fought in the Numerian Wars. I defended Caeli-Amur when Saliras’s fleet of a thousand ships appeared from the winter’s fog.”
She sat next to him. “It wasn’t meant to be this way. If only you hadn’t drunk the wine.”
He snarled, a sudden burst of energy lighting his face. “This is how the city repays me. There is no justice.”
She took his massive head in her lap and looked down on him. “I’m sorry.” She refused to cry.
He looked up at her, his words slurring as he spoke. “The New-Men will take this city, break it down and rebuild it. Then you’ll know what it’s like to be overtaken, to be obsolete.” Finally he lost consciousness, quietly dying in her arms.
When the new officiate arrived at Kata’s apartment, a round and middle-aged man with a cold, efficient manner, he surveyed the scene. “You shall have to pay for Rudé’s death, you know. There must be payment.”
She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sound of the saw as the Technis workmen cut up Aemilius. Still, she did not cry. In her heart she knew it was time to leave Caeli-Amur—she had struggled enough.
When the men were gone, Kata stood on the balcony, watching over Caeli-Amur. She stood there, motionless. The night stars shone down over the water until dawn broke over the horizon and the sea changed from blue to green with little crests of white.
In the morning the minotaurs stepped down to the piers, one by one, their hulking bodies small against the ships. So, after a week, the Festival of the Bull was ending. From her balcony, Kata watched them leave, these godlike creatures, powerful and mysterious. When the last of the minotaurs embarked, the ships hoisted their sails and made their way over the Sunken City and out to sea.
NINE
For Boris, the Festival of the Bull had been exhausting. Not only the troubles at the Tram Factory, but also the untime
ly demise of Rudé, the day before, had disturbed him. Even now, as Boris stood in the shadows of the towering Opera building, insects hovering around him in the evening air, the image of Rudé dead on the assassin’s floor fixed in his mind. When they had cut up the minotaur, for some reason Boris had felt defeated. In the morning the minotaurs had left, but they seemed to have sparked something in the city. There had been discontent before, but now the air possessed a new vitality and charge. People glanced at each other with greater intent, conversations were rushed and whispered, citizens walked tensely, as if about to break into a run.
Boris met Mathias in front of the towering Opera building, its great dome rising above them, tapering at the top with a circular balcony far above on which stood a mysterious statue. Boris smiled discreetly at the sight of Mathias, dressed in a faded brown suit. Around the tramworker, who stood like a student undergoing an examination, walked black-dressed gentlemen, their beards trimmed just so, and white- or red-gowned ladies from the upper echelons of the Houses. Mathias’s eyes darted around, wide and a little fearful.
They filed into the stately building, across the wide marble entrance hall. High above a hundred balls of light circled around the domed roof. Like head-sized little suns, their swirling colors shifted from scarlet to orange to gold and back again. At times individual globes broke away from the others and floated toward the ground before rising once more. Every time he entered the hall, Boris looked in wonderment at the globes; this time he had to take Mathias by the arm to ensure the tramworker didn’t walk into anyone else, so entranced was he by the lights.
They walked up a staircase, and into the stalls at the rear of the Opera. Boris allowed Mathias to take in the opulent surroundings: the burgundy curtains, the glittering candles hanging on the chandeliers, the statues of Caeli-Amur’s heroes: great stone rulers with flowing robes, towering minotaurs defending the city from Saliras’s fleet, augurers peering into the future from their rocky outcrops.
House Technis traditionally sat at the rear of the stalls, while the seats at the front belonged to House Marin. House Arbor, befitting its traditional power, dominated the ground floor seating near the stage. But things were changing now, and officiates from Technis were demanding better positions.
Boris directed Mathias to their seats, and the tramworker was silent as he surveyed the scene.
“Impressive, no?” said Boris. Attending the Opera always awed him: the power of the ancients, inherited now by the Houses. The very place itself seemed to radiate might and influence. It washed over him, bathed him, permeated him. He was a part of it now, close to the center of things.
Mathias looked up at the roof, from which hung oddly angled geometrical shapes that reflected and magnified the music. “What wonderful workers they were in the old days.”
Boris’s vision of the building shifted with Mathias’s comments. He hadn’t thought of it before, but Mathias was right, workers had built the place. Boris imagined, long ago, the builders on mighty networks of scaffolding, far above. Somehow the thought took away from the majesty of the place. He preferred to think of it as eternal.
Trumpets sounded. The opera was about to begin. Boris glanced to his right and in the shadowy darkness of the boxes he caught a glimpse of a decaying face leaning forward into the light and then retreating again into darkness. The Elo-Talern sat ever watchful, shadowy figures behind the scenes—seeing but remaining unseen, as they always did in this city. Like cruel and negligent parents they allowed the Houses to make their own dangerous or deadly mistakes. For years indeed, as Rudé himself had said, the Elo-Talern had retreated from the affairs of the city. But in the minds of the citizens, the Elo-Talern always threatened to assert their authority. Perhaps they were beginning to assert it now?
The curtain rose and Mathias sat motionless, engrossed as the chorus opened in complex harmony. Soaring strings and booming drums joined them. Finally strange electronic music—deep shuddering mechanical sounds—engulfed the theater, and green globes of light hovered around the performers as they moved across the stage. The stage itself seemed to shift, for the floor was not one solid piece, but a complex mechanical construction of interlocking ones. The boxes detached themselves from the walls and shifted above the action like clouds on the air, allowing the Elo-Talern and the other notables to adjust the angle of their view.
Mathias grasped Boris’s arm. “The ancients. Their technology.”
Boris leaned close to Mathias. “Can you see her, third from the left? It’s Saidra.”
“She looks just like her mother, when she was young.”
Boris nodded vigorously. “She’s beautiful. We were all beautiful back then, too, weren’t we?”
“Age has a beauty all of its own,” said Mathias.
“I can’t see it,” said Boris.
“Do you see Saidra often?”
“No.” Boris searched for the words, but shame silenced him. Eventually he settled for: “The young are restless, impatient. They have explosive emotions.”
“And they’re full of life,” Mathias kept his eye on the stage as he spoke. “Not unlike the tramworkers.”
Mention of the tramworkers filled Boris with a rush of guilt. He had failed to convince the Elo-Talern of the tramworkers’ cause, and that failure burned deeply within him. He wanted to chart a path in which all views were taken into account, all voices heard, all feelings acknowledged. But these thoughts were cut short.
“Look! Look!” Boris clenched his fists in excitement. “The new Siren has taken the stage.”
They were silent then, as she strode across the stage, her green eyes, enormous and inhuman, like emeralds in the sun. Her proportions seemed impossible: her hips too wide and voluptuous, her waist too narrow. When she opened her mouth, her jaw dropped down too far, like a serpent’s as it swallows its prey. The sound came more powerfully than any human voice. At times it sounded like the low hum of an engine, at other times the high lonely cry of a whale calling to its lost calf. She broke into quarter tones and trills reminiscent of the exotic music of Numeria. Around her neck sat a golden torc.
Half the audience, men and women alike, sat forward as one. Some even stood, only to be dragged down by those around them. Boris felt something stir within his stomach, a nameless emotion he hadn’t felt for years. He wanted to call out, to act, to come to his feet. He had not seen this Siren before. What was her name? He hadn’t taken the time to find out.
Before long, she added a second, higher note to accompany the first, and the two melodies rose from her throat to intermingle with each other. One climbed and the other fell, intermingled in complex harmonies. At times one was clear and powerful, the other a tremulous vibrato that hovered first a fraction above the first note, then below. But as they entwined themselves, distinguishing one from the other became impossible.
Boris knew the story: the tragedy of Sarina and Karmal. It would end with the wax earplugs melting in his ears and he—hearing the sadness of her song—throwing himself onto the rocks in an effort to reach her. Boris did not care for the plot. He was happy just to sit there, to watch the Siren with the clinging green dress that shifted itself around her, changing its form as if it were composed of small constantly moving segments, perhaps driven by some incantation or charm. Looking at her he felt as if he were coming back to life after a long and dreamless sleep.
After the performance had concluded, Boris took Mathias through the vast building’s labyrinthine corridors, lit by yellow beads that hung from the roof in intricate geometric constellations. Like complex fernleaves, the constellation’s smaller component parts were reproductions of the larger formations of which they were part. The aesthetics of these ancient buildings unnerved Boris: there was something abstract and cold about them, something weird and otherworldly. They made him feel insignificant, a speck in an immense universe of angles and planes, a geometry that he could not fathom.
As they approached the cast’s changing rooms, an uneasy feeling rose within h
im: as if from far away he could feel his heartbeat rattle. He swallowed. They pushed past people hurrying along busy winding corridors. A guard stood in front of the door to the cast’s rooms.
“I’m subofficiate Autec,” said Boris to the guard. “Saidra Autec’s father.”
The guard opened the door, “Saidra, your father.”
There was silence from within the room followed by the mumble of voices. “Tell him to wait.”
Boris and Mathias stood there uncomfortably.
The door opened and Boris opened his mouth. But he closed it again, like a beached fish, dying on the sand.
The Siren passed by them, her dress curling up over her shoulder and narrowing over her breasts as she walked. From nearby, her features seemed slightly changed. Where at a distance her immense eyes and lips had seemed strangely beautiful, now they were unnatural and alien: too large for a human, they evoked a sense of something deeply wrong. As if he had seen someone with a terminal illness, he felt fear and repulsion rose in him. She passed them without a look and walked down the corridor to an elevator.
Saidra opened the door. Her hair was braided and she wore an evening dress in the style that was fashionable—hoops creating an internal structure so that it billowed out in places, one shoulder strapless—carefully arranged to look as if it had just been thrown on. She had her mother’s deep-set eyes, which made her look perpetually tired, and detracted from what would have been a beautiful round face. “What do you want?”
“I’ve come to see you,” said Boris.
“Why?” A an almost imperceptible sneer appeared on her face. Something had changed all those years ago. After she had reached her teens, they fought regularly, and she had said such cruel things. One day she had stood before him, veins bulging on her forehead as she thinned her lips: “I wish it were you who had died.”
“This is Mathias. Do you remember him?” Boris said.
Saidra’s expression softened. “From the factory.”
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