Mathias nodded and they stood in silence, each waiting for the other to speak.
“Oh, you may as well come to the soirée.” She walked past them, turned. “Come on then.”
They followed her to the elevator. It rose with the quiet sound of rushing air, not at all like the elevator that clunked and shuddered in the Technis Complex. This was ancient technology, smooth and sleek.
The doors opened to a vast domed room; once again Boris felt distanced from the ancient aesthetic. Though it was a hall, four great platforms hovered in the air, on which stood chattering figures, suited and dressed, sipping Ayan flower-liquor from tall thin flutes. Much like the boxes in the Opera, these platforms moved gently. Smaller platforms detached themselves from the larger ones and carried several guests from one group to another. At the far end of the room, great windows opened out onto a view of the Market Square, the docks and the sea beyond.
Saidra stepped onto one of the smaller platforms sitting on the ground nearby. Boris and Mathias followed and gripped the handrail. The platform rose in the air toward one of the large ones, where a collection of officiates and administrators chattered, their deadly vendettas unspoken beneath their civilized discourse. They laughed falsely at one another’s jokes, all the time eyeing others’ wives or husbands, their own lovers or favorites.
When the three of them stepped into the assembly, a waiter offered them flutes from a great silver platter.
“So what are you doing here?” Saidra asked Mathias.
“Boris brought me. He thought I might enjoy it. He wanted to show me your performance.”
“He wanted to show off his influence to you.”
“Saidra!” said Boris.
“Father, all you’ve cared about is your status. All you’ve ever cared about is whether my success would bring you glory.”
Boris pursed his lips and turned away from her. He pulled his flask from his pocket and took a long draft. To hell with Saidra, he thought: to hell with the both of us.
As Boris replaced the flask, he spied the Siren across the platform with a coterie of finely suited men around her: Eduard from House Arbor, with his lanky frame among them, Strazny from Marin, the little hunchback, several more he didn’t recognize.
The surge of strength coursed through Boris’s body and he was overtaken by a light-headed confidence. He liked that about the hot-liquor, the way it emptied the world of consequences and meanings, leaving only the remnants of them, like empty shells.
Taking no notice of Saidra and Mathias, he crossed the floor to the Siren. When he arrived he could hear Strazny’s compliments. The Siren’s face was blank with boredom.
Charged with his unnatural daring, Boris reached over to her, took her hand, and pulled her away. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but the star has a previous engagement.”
Now the Siren’s face changed. The huge eyes lit up with interest, her lips parted revealing her bright white teeth.
He led her to the cold metal railing. The platform had drifted high in the room. From their vantage point, Boris could see onto the Market Square below; there a group of gymnasts performed before a small crowd: tumbling and spinning, flipping and rolling. Just like us, Boris thought.
“A previous engagement, I see.” The Siren’s voice was quiet and husky; though she spoke in one tone, the soft reverberations of her second voice could be heard beneath the first. This seemed to be her natural method of speaking: one voice predominating, the other silent or deep in the background. The golden torc around her neck was made of fine, intertwined spirals. Two bloodstones were set where it joined at the front of her neck. No doubt they had been bound with the proper protection, though the bloodstone’s metallization cancer would not affect the Siren in any case. Ancient creatures were immune to the affliction, just as they were immune to thaumaturgy’s deleterious effects.
Her inhuman features again struck Boris; again he felt the mixture of attraction and repulsion. “Well, you looked like you needed rescuing.”
She smiled, again revealing brilliant white teeth. One of her front ones was pushed back and half-hidden by the others. “And you’re the man to rescue me, I see.”
“Well, someone had to. I’m Boris.”
“Paxaea. So you are an officiate?”
“Subofficiate.”
She nodded and looked away, her face falling once more into disappointed boredom.
Panicking, Boris said the first things that came into his head, “I had to meet you. You are so beautiful. No, not like the others. There’s something in my heart. I’m not like those other man. I’m not—”
“You’re just a cliché aren’t you?” she said. She closed her eyes: first a thin nictating membrane closed horizontally, a thin milky layer through which the eye could still be seen, and then the main eyelids.
Boris was struck silent, his mind blank. He wrestled for the right thing to say, the thing that would unlock her. “What can I say that will make you think otherwise?”
Boris stared through the window to the square below. A contortionist had squeezed his head and arm through a small wooden frame. In order to do so, he’d dislocated his shoulder. His arm now jutted up at an unnatural angle. Around him, the remnants of the Opera audience spilled out into the night.
Boris was disoriented. Why was he alone on one of the smaller platforms, drifting so close to the windows? He tried to reconstruct it in his memory. He had been talking to Paxaea the Siren, and she had said something to him; she had spoken using both her tones something emphatic. It had been strange, eerie to hear those two notes speaking in unison. What had she said? He looked back to the where Paxaea was again surrounded by the other sycophantic officiates.
She had used her voice, her power of suggestion. He could have her punished for it, taught a lesson. But he wouldn’t do that to her. He would charm her, open himself to her. He wanted to rush back and grab her by the arm, to turn her and make her understand. He touched a pad on the front of the platform, which drifted slowly back toward the group. He would walk to the Siren the moment he arrived. But as he stepped into the assembly, he couldn’t make himself do it. He felt ashamed that she had sent him away to begin with.
Defeated, Boris walked back to Saidra and Mathias.
“Your mother would have wanted the best for you. All parents do, ultimately,” said Mathias.
“Not all parents,” said Saidra.
“All parents,” repeated Mathias.
“We’d better go.” Boris grabbed Mathias by the arm.
Mathias shook him off and, leaning in gently, kissed Saidra on her cheek. “Take care of yourself,” said Mathias.
“Good-bye, father.” Saidra turned away, leaving Boris standing awkwardly.
As they drifted back toward the ground, Mathias said, “Your daughter loves you yet.”
“You are wrong.” A bitter taste rose in Boris’s mouth. Defeat hovered around him, wherever he looked.
“No. It is you who are wrong.”
TEN
Boris and Mathias left the Opera, slipping through the bustle of society ladies and stiff-suited gentlemen, down into the Market Square, where the performers were now sitting in what seemed to be an exhausted circle, counting their florens. Boris still felt the sting of Saidra’s words, the Siren’s rejection of him. Family, love—this was where they had led him.
Boris said, “Let’s stay away from the boulevards; let’s climb the cliffs.”
They passed through the narrow streets and squares of the Quaedian, past the manuscript shops and the ornament vendors. Boris had never liked the area: it was filled with students and intellectuals, artists and bohemians. In one of their ill-fated attempts at reconciliation, he had once gone with Saidra to one of the little galleries that dotted the area. The exhibition contained works with an avant-garde theme: a retro-ancient installation stood in one corner, all geometric angles and shapes. A woman and man had come out and begun chanting nonsense words in a repetitive manner. It was all gibberish as far as Boris was concerned. Sai
dra seemed to like it, but they both instinctively understood that it was one more instance of the size of the gulf that had opened between then.
When Boris and Mathias reached the cliff, they began up one of the narrow stairs.
Halfway up, they sat on a little ledge. High in the sky to the south, a cable car swung on its wire as it descended from the cliffs toward the cyclopean tower near the south side of Market Square. Beneath its path lay Caeli-Amur’s necropolis, a black canvas with shadowy forms, and beyond that, even darker, the ruins of the Ancient Forum, where Aya and Alerion had fought in single combat, breaking the buildings around them, shattering the little squares, throwing the colonnades and arches to the ground. Now, as always, a spectral fog hovered over the ruins, a cemetery of its own.
“The strike will begin tomorrow.” Mathis said flatly. “At first I thought to stop it. I thought that these young ones, they were too impulsive. But then I realized, no, it is I who is too slow to act. If not now, when?”
Boris chose his words carefully. “Mathias, you are my friend. The House will mobilize its guards to crush you and I will not be able to stop them. I would not lose you to this.” He thought of the words that the Elo-Talern had used: “The workers want a new life, do they? We’ll give them a different life, or the Furies will.”
“I know you will help us, help the House to see that we have rightful grievances.” Mathias rubbed his face with his hands.
“I will. But it will take time,” said Boris. “Patience. We will move in small steps, make change in increments. A realistic assessment of what’s possible. You were right the first time: You must halt this strike, then we can show the House that you have acted in good faith.”
“Good faith!” said Mathias. “Look! Look!” he pulled open his shirt to reveal a strange pattern on his skin. Boris looked closer and grimaced. Scales were growing on Mathias’s skin, and at points dotted around his chest little lumps, like eyes, seemed to be emerging. “I have used too much uncontrolled thaumaturgy. Now another universe enters me and I am being remade. Boris, make them see!”
A second cable car climbed slowly out of the darkness to the south of the Opera and was silhouetted against the sky. Clouds moved high above, now blacking out the stars, now revealing them in their milky glory. For a moment things were bright and clear; a moment later they were dark and troubled.
After a while Mathias spoke. “Think of what Remmie would say.”
“Don’t use guilt against me, Mathias. Anyway, she’s part of my past.”
“We all stand on our past, Boris. Without our past, who are we?”
“Come on.” Boris climbed the staircase again. His mind whirred with thoughts: he stood between the House and the workers but could not see a way to halt the conflict. Both sides were implacable; that was the problem.
When they reached the top of the cliff, Boris looked down at the city below, a thousand twinkling lights, the suggestions of buildings in the darkness, like the obscure outlines of everything in his life, half-hidden in shadow and difficult to see.
Mathias reached out and grabbed his arm and looked feverishly at him. “Take me to the Technis Complex. Let me talk to them. Look at me!”
Boris looked at his friend’s chest and repressed a shudder. “Delay the strike. I will take you tomorrow to see an officiate. Together we will make a case.”
He pulled out his bottle of hot-wine and took a swig.
The following day, Mathias appeared strangely small in the Technis Complex, though he held himself with a certain calm. Boris, fueled by hot-wine, tired to his bones, and yet possessing a frantic energy, led him through the corridors, filled as usual with a thousand scurrying people: workmen carrying ladders and toolboxes, officiates yelling orders, the occasional thaumaturgist, suited and reserved, gloves covering his warped hands, his facial features all a little askew, or else possessing a strange sheen, or more unnerving still, appearing eerily and suggestively normal.
Rudé’s office was empty: the machine gone, the plaque removed from the door. Boris had hoped another officiate had taken up the office. Or if no one had replaced Rudé, then he had planned to find the laughing officiate Ijem, or the grim Olevski.
Instead, on the table lay an envelope addressed to Boris Autec. Boris broke the seal. The letter read: “Subofficiate Autec, when you are ready, press the black pad on the wall behind the desk. We shall meet.” It was signed, “Elo-Drusa, of the Elo-Talern.”
Boris stood, rooted to the spot. He could skip the officiates and bring Mathias directly to the Elo-Talern. It would be a bold move, and yet it lay before them like an open road. Together they could convince her; she would see the justice of the tramworkers claims. But he hesitated, for the situation unnerved him. He didn’t want to bring her and Mathias together. Better for him to make Mathias’s case, for he could interpret it, soften it if necessary. But no, it was time to say things plainly.
Boris’s hand hovered over the black pad. He pressed it, heard a clunk. “Come on. The Elo-Talern has summoned us.”
As they entered the elevator, Boris could see the shapes and shadows everywhere. He gripped his flask tightly in one hand.
As they passed along the cold corridors, Mathias asked, “What is this place?”
“The older reaches of the ancient palace. From before House Technis took it over.”
“And these statues, what are they? And these strange implements?” said Mathias.
“Ancient technology: forgotten, or hidden.” Again things moved at the edge of Boris’s vision, like shadow-beasts circling their prey.
When they reached the great throne room doors, Boris halted for a minute. He tried to prepare himself for what would occur within, but he could not imagine what that might be. How would Mathias act? How would the Elo-Talern react?
“What?” asked Mathias.
Boris looked up at the other man, who returned the glance. They stood there, like images of each other, two rounded, heavy men, face-to-face.
Boris straightened his suit, turned, and entered the hall. Coldness engulfed him. Ghostly mist hung thighly in the air, obscuring everything.
On the throne, the Elo-Talern waited, her long and bony body sprawled out languorously. She sat up in the throne and her torso elongated to the sound of cracking. For some reason she began to laugh, a hacking and alien sound like wooden planks breaking. She clapped her hands together several times and then let out a sigh.
Boris could sense Mathias tense. They walked through the damp clammy air, their feet clapping on the marble floors.
Elo-Drusa said, “So, this is one of the tramworkers, come to beg forgiveness? Tell me, little man, what injustices have you undergone? Have you been forced to work too long? Do you have children to feed? Is there a sick wife?”
Shocked by her tone, Boris’s eyes remained wide and unmoving.
Mathias stepped forward and with his hunched shoulders straightened unnaturally said: “Who are you, to sit up here and tell us how to live our lives?”
Boris struggled to find words, but none came.
“I admire the young.” The Elo-Talern leaned back on the throne. With a series of small crackles, she stretched her arm out languidly. “So much feeling.”
“Boris,” said Mathias, “tell her.”
Boris looked to the floor. Tension gripped his body like a vise. He could hardly bear this confrontation. His certainty had deserted him and he stood frozen, an animal under a hunter’s gaze.
The Elo-Talern blinked slowly. “I’ve met a thousand like you. I’ve seen you come and go, for … years. Go back to your home, live your little life, and be happy. Take what life gives you.”
Mathias’s voice hardened. “I have taken as much of that life as I can, and I will take it no longer.”
“Well, you know what that means.” She leaned forward, her mouth tiny and pinched beneath the vaulting forehead and cavernous eyes.
“But I fear that you don’t,” said Mathias. “But you will come to know it.”
She laughed her raven laugh. “Subofficiate Autec. Take this amusing man back to his factory and set him to work.”
Boris struggled once more to speak. Failing to conjure any words, he turned and took two steps before realizing that Mathias hadn’t moved. “Mathias.”
Mathias turned, his eyes falling darkly on Boris, who averted his gaze. Together they stepped from the hall and passed silently through the labyrinthine corridors. Mathias strode furiously, his body tense with repressed energy.
Boris was filled with a deep and sickening feeling of failure. “I couldn’t speak,” said Boris. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t say anything. I just froze.”
“I thought I could count on you.”
“We’ll find a compromise. It can be worked out by talking.”
Mathias stopped walking, turned and faced him. “Boris. Does your word mean nothing?”
Angry now, and filled with regret, Boris felt a burning in his throat. “You’ve always been rash, hotheaded.”
When they returned to the bustling corridors of the Complex, Mathias turned to Boris. “You were always weak. You always blew in whatever direction the wind was strongest. Don’t come back to the factory. It’s no place for you.”
Boris reached out to touch Mathias’s arm, but the tramworker turned away. Anger rose in Boris again. “We must be realistic! We can’t demand an entirely different world! Think of what we risk. Think of our families!”
“You have no family,” Mathias, some feet away, turned back and spat out. “You were right. Your daughter loathes you.”
“It’s not true,” said Boris. “Everything I did was for her.”
But Mathias had already marched away.
Early the following morning, word of the strike came from the Tram Factory. Boris put his head in his hands. The standing order against strikes would be enacted, the House guards would be mobilized, the thaumaturgists roused and, he shuddered, the Furies would be loosed.
Boris sprang into action. He took a swig of hot-wine to strengthen his resolve and rushed from the Technis Complex. He would personally convince the tramworkers to return to work. Even if some like Mathias refused to listen, his words would move the rest of them. The conflict would be avoided. Then, slow patient work to make the tramworkers’ conditions more bearable. Regulations could be drawn up, compromises reached—the gradual path to progress.
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