by Jeff Wheeler
Charlie is also a board member for the Deep Magic e-zine of science fiction and fantasy.
THE WAXING DISQUIET
By Tony Pi & Stephen Kotowych | 6,000 words
METEMIS TOUCHED RED honey to Gilani’s lips, hoping play would distract his love from the worries of recent days. “The Wicks foretold that we’d share a sweeter kiss.”
His jest coaxed a smile from her. “Did they?” Gilani spun out of reach, leaning coy against their shywood tree. Her dress of white linen danced with the breeze. The orchard atop the terraced hill was their usual trysting place, and the bright pink blossoms filled the sultry air with perfume. Here, they could escape the waxing disquiet in the city, the rumors of war, and indulge instead in one another . . . if only for a breath. “Did they also augur that I’d ask you to serenade me?”
Metemis laughed. “Shall I praise your smiling eyes? No, I sing of them too often.” He pushed a dark curl behind her ear, and was pleased she wore the earrings he’d given her, mosaics of greenstone and opal, signifying devotion.
But then, over her shoulder, he saw the city in the distance.
Ziroi was fringed by the fire of the setting sun. Farmland ringed the city like petals, while aqueducts and gardens checkered it like a rushlight board. From the hive pyramid at its heart, paper lanterns rose by the thousands, slow and silent like a plume of fireflies.
The beacons tore Metemis from his flirtatious mood. Did they signal war at last with Tekura?
No, war lanterns would burn sunflower yellow. These glowed lavafruit red.
Gilani tightened her grip on his arm. “The queen.”
All Ziroi whispered that Her Royal Grace would soon succumb to her long illness, and of late, the tallies of the Wicks had tipped toward the same conclusion. Crimson meant the moment was nigh.
Buoyed by the west wind, the lights wended between the Hundredhand Pillars and disappeared beyond the terraced hills. By morning they would summon all the queen’s subjects to the city for her last Grand Census.
“I must return to the pyramid.” Metemis pulled his feather-fringed cloak around his bare shoulders. “There will be many tests to oversee in the coming days.”
Gilani sighed. “Go, Tallyminder. And I will to my own tasks.” She replaced her beaded headdress. “My roads will soon grow fat with travelers, and too many are in ill repair.”
“No, come with me.” Metemis took her hand. Gilani was a sixth-cell hundredhand, so it was Metemis’s prerogative as a like-ranked tallyminder to administer her test in private, safeguarding state secrets from the masses. “I’ll speed us through so that we may deal with the myriads at leisure.”
* * *
Already, citizens gathered in the Plaza of Two Moons to pray, to mourn, and to make report. Swarms of people milled around the hexagonal base of the hive pyramid, a sea of humanity from the lance towers to the north and the bazaar domes to the south. The crowds sang mournful praise songs for the queen as dozens of breechclouted hawkers peddled honey sticks with their calls.
“How do you think this Grand Census will influence the next queen?” asked Gilani.
“Same as the lesser ones, I suppose,” said Metemis, thinking of the surveys he proctored in six-week, six-month, or twelve-month cycles as he rose through the ranks. He shook loose a pebble from his sandal. “The Wicks will reckon and augur the brightest future for us, and the new queen will use this tally to guide us. There will be suggested alliances, trade pacts.Wedding matches made.” He squeezed her hand.
Centuries of knot-histories had shown that the candle equations matched strength to strength and mind to mind with great foresight, as they were sure to do shortly for him and Gilani. Even strangers called to marry soon discovered they fit each other like the Wedded Moons now rising above Ziroi. The Wicks had paired Metemis’s own parents that way.
Together they climbed the pyramid’s steep outer steps, past hexagonal cavities set into concrete and stone. The Queen’s Sting were lighting signal fires in some cells, while other cells housed humming beehives.
“What will your Wicks say about Tekura?” Gilani asked.
Metemis stiffened. They had argued over this twice before. “The Wicks perceive patterns that escape us. If they say we must war with Tekura or Somaros or some other city, then it must serve our best interest.”
Gilani frowned. “Not everyone in Ziroi agrees. The Wicks have more and more to say about how we live our lives. Is it any wonder that factions have sprung up to oppose the queen?”
“Oh? Revolutionaries in every shadow?”
“Don’t mock. If the new queen doesn’t make changes, then resentment will only fester.”
“And what would you have Her Royal Grace change?”
“In the early days, people lived their own lives and made choices without relying on projected outcomes. The Wicks did nothing more than help farmers calculate the best time to plant and when the rains would come.”
“Why endure such chaos when there’s order?” answered Metemis. They stood midpoint between the royal tiers above and the lesser rings that served the myriads below. He took Gilani’s hand, but thought better of kissing her cheek. “Such a fierce spirit! But think of the heights our city has reached thanks to the guidance of the Wicks over the centuries. Think of where they’ll lead us.”
* * *
Ventilation shafts peppered the floor of the sixth ring, each wider than a man. The scent of sweet candle smoke wafted from the holes, as did the rumbles and creaks of giant fans, and the waterwheels that powered them.
At the gate, Metemis grazed palms with a pair of Queen’s Sting guards in greeting. They lowered their venomlances and allowed Metemis and Gilani to enter the honeycomb corridors. At the sanctum door, Metemis placed a combination of weights on a mahogany balance lock. When the hands of the scales pointed to the right symbols chosen for the day, the gatekeeper rolled open the door.
In the quizzing chambers beyond, Metemis’s acolytes were already testing citizens of the upper echelon. His own such chamber was grand, large enough to administer two tests at once. The two quizzing tables backed one another like the slopes of a single mountain, lit by caryatid candles.
This chamber was for the Grand Census only, and had more questions than the cyclic surveys. Each question was carved into its own stone pan, awaiting answer candles of the right weight and burn speed. Even the order in which the test taker chose to answer questions and the time taken meant something to the Wicks.
Metemis dismissed his acolytes. He removed Gilani’s necklace and unbraided her namestone into its three unique parts, placing them on their respective name pans to mark her identity. He lit her calendar candle with flame from the caryatids and set up her initial candles for her.
As Gilani started in, Metemis prepared his own tallyboard and began with the questions of love.
Single still, yet seeking. In love, hoping for children. He retrieved the answer candle he wanted from the proper bin, and touched flame to its wick. The balance pan dipped as he placed his answer. The strings and scales hidden underneath the tallyboard began to slowly feed the Wicks their information.
Next, questions of loyalty, of his personal wealth and status, and of his faith in the four castes. Unlike the tests taken by the myriads, there were no questions about harvests or livestock. The last questions he took were about what the next queen should champion.
Metemis couldn’t help but glance at Gilani on the sly, wondering how she answered. But she never looked away from the tallyboard, her brows drawn together in concentration.
When he lit his last candle, Gilani was still searching the bins for more. He retreated to the calculation antechamber, where the tallylooms worked unceasingly.
Click-clack went the wooden hooks, tying knots in coarse hemp twine, the knot-history of their answers. Some answers would be visible to Metemis here before being sent to deeper wickwork chambers, there to be woven into a greater plan. He didn’t think of it as cheating; his servants were there to ensur
e against a chance breeze blowing out a candle, or an accident knocking something out of alignment. Such acolytes were everywhere, keeping the Wicks lit and calculating.
Gilani set her last candle.
Metemis was pleased to see that his own knot-history was woven together with a red silk marriage thread, signaling he was finally to wed. And Gilani’s—
His stomach lurched. The Wicks were never wrong, but . . . it just couldn’t be. Gilani’s knot-history was being woven with a white chastity thread.
It took a few moments for Metemis to trust that his legs wouldn’t give out if he took a step, but he soon emerged from the calculation antechamber. He kept his face and manner calm. There was no need to alarm Gilani.
Yet.
Surely they were meant to marry. Who had the Wicks chosen for him?
* * *
The hive pyramid was abuzz with people of upper-cell ranks, including several members of the Inner Circle draped in their distinctive jaguar pelts. A cacophony of voices from below wafted up the great air shafts. The tally was well underway, and in days, the results would be set. Their fate would be final.
Gilani squeezed his hand, bringing Metemis back to himself. “I said: ‘When shall we have the answers, do you think?’ ”
He had missed her first query, and had led her on a circuit of that level of the pyramid. “Oh, soon enough,” he said. “There’s still much tallying to come.”
He should take her home. He needed time to think.
They descended three rings to the Arcade of Hanging Flames. The stone chamber was long and valley-like, busy with first-cell acolytes leaping and climbing ledges and ropes as they maintained the heart of the Wicks.
Narrow stone bridges ran above Metemis and Gilani, allowing the acolytes access to swinging candle pendulums and knot-history hooks. The arcade reverberated with the whoosh of flame relays, the bobbing of scales, the snap and twang of countless strings.
Their fates could already be burning their ways through this hall to the marriage looms.
Metemis helped Gilani cross the gulf of candle flames. Once a first-cell acolyte himself, working the catwalks and the high candles had given Metemis strength, balance, and agility that he worked hard to maintain, though he was now sixth-cell and long separated from such demanding physical tasks.
“Should we have our union ceremony in the Plaza of Two Moons?” asked Gilani. “Marry where we met. Pleasing symmetry, no?”
Until that moment, Metemis would have agreed.
They’d met in the rain. Metemis was escorting several heavy wagons bound for the hive pyramid with a shipment of upgraded parts for the tallylooms. As a hundredhand and Mistress of the Roads, Gilani was overseeing the repaving of several large sections of the Plaza of Two Moons, and with the cobbles torn up, Metemis’s wagons became stuck in the mud.
As they stood yelling in the downpour, enumerating each other’s shortcomings and those of their respective castes, he fell in love with this passionate, challenging, talented woman.
He’d never doubted that love, or that the Wicks would match them for marriage when the time was auspicious. But now? How could the Wicks not pair them? How could there be any woman he was more suited to than Gilani?
“I’ve always dreamed of marrying atop the hive pyramid.”
Gilani laughed. “Why did I even ask? I knew you’d insist on a pyramidion ceremony. Such a stickler for tradition.”
Metemis smiled, and hoped it didn’t betray his sadness.
* * *
His bride-to-be was named Lawa. That was all he knew of her, save that she belonged to the Queen’s Sting.
Wedded to a stinger. What would that be like?
Metemis had deduced which loom would braid his marriage record, and it was early enough in the census that he hadn’t needed to comb through ten thousand pairings. He memorized the measurements of the woman’s identity weights as his knot-history was married to hers, and found the matching name in the archives.
He’d made inquiries among contacts in the hive-pyramid guards, and discovered that Lawa was well-known within the ranks and something of a rising star. She was rumored to be in line for the rank of Inner Circle, guarding the new queen herself.
She was known to frequent the Plaza of Games on her off-duty hours, and that was where Metemis found her the following morning, playing rushlights.
He watched her for three-quarters of an hour, beating one opponent after another. She beat one old codger in six turns—six turns! Metemis had never seen the like. He wondered why they kept lining up to play.
Lawa’s honeyed hair and musical laugh might have been the reason, or how she glowed even when wrapped in the simple blue tunic of a Queen’s Sting. Her sash, fringed with ocelot fur, marked her as sixth-cell of her caste.
She was beautiful, yes. But could he love her?
Metemis slipped the gamesmaster a few extra honey sticks to play next, and walked away as the gamesmaster shouted down the objections of the old men.
“I wondered when you’d work up the courage,” she said, setting up the board afresh. “You’ve been watching me long enough.”
“I didn’t blend in as I’d hoped, then?”
Lawa laughed. “Don’t worry. I study my opponents beforehand, too. I’m Queen’s Sting, sir,” she said, with mock officiousness. “Nothing escapes us. Mind if I make the first move?”
“If you need such advantage, I won’t object.”
She lit the fresh rushlights and began her turn, angling some lights in their brackets to slow their burn, marching others upright down to the next tier of the board and toward Metemis’s rushes.
“What brings you to the games today, Master Tallyminder?”
Metemis adjusted the angle of his defender lights, and moved several others from the corner tower of the board to the lower tiers. “It’s the Grand Census.” His gaze lingered on Lawa’s namestone necklace, and its obsidian eye beads peering back at him. “I’ll be busy with the tally for the foreseeable future. I thought an early-morning game might clear my head for the day’s work.”
“Even if you’re sure to lose?”
“Am I?”
She made a combination move across the east quadrant of the board, sacrificing two rushes to burn down four of his, and gaining the right to tip two of his defenders horizontal across the board so they burned faster. The rest of his rushes were now in danger of conflagration as flame crept along the length of the horizontal pieces.
He frowned and thought of the game she’d won in six turns.
“Do you want to bribe Tzisu now for our rematch,” she mock-whispered, nodding to the gamesmaster, “or wait until you officially lose?”
He did like her sense of humor, and her competitive streak.
He made what he knew was a futile attack on her western quadrant, losing rushes in a two-for-two trade. She countered with a smoke defense, blowing out her own nearest rush and trading it for his farthest rush. He was vulnerable now in his center and on three quadrants as flames began to lick at his remaining rushlights.
She’d have him in eight turns.
Metemis laughed and doused the board with white sand. “I concede, Mistress Stinger. You have the better of me.”
“Lawa,” she said, extending her hand formally. Protocol required Metemis to kiss her hand, but he surprised himself with a moment of giddiness as they touched for the first time. He laid a soft kiss on her knuckles; her skin was perfumed with nicte flowers.
“I’ve enjoyed our game, uh—”
“Forgive me. Metemis.”
“You must excuse me, Metemis. I’ve business in the plaza.”
“I must be getting back to the pyramid. May I accompany you?” he asked.
Lawa nodded. Smiling, they linked arms.
* * *
They spoke of the weather as they made the short walk to the Plaza of Two Moons, and of the myriads from outside the city now swarming the square, standing in long queues to answer the census. They spoke of the d
ying queen and which of her daughters would replace her.
“What do you make of talk of factions opposed to the queen?” Lawa asked as they passed a group of hivemasters and their families arguing loudly about which was their proper queue.
“Truthfully, I don’t know much about politics or what such factions want,” said Metemis as they stopped by the central candle clock in the plaza. All he knew of such groups was speculation that some agitators sided with Tekura or Rheb to stir trouble in advance of war. “And I was just the other day saying to someone, ‘Without the queen what do we have?’ The Wicks help guide her in leadership—who else can claim that? To do otherwise would be . . .” He searched for the word.
“Chaos?” Lawa ventured.
“Exactly.”
Lawa smiled.
He thought order must be important to a Queen’s Sting, sworn as they were to protect the queen and her realm. He knew his own inclination to order was a trait that made him an ideal tallyminder. It came as further proof of the Wicks’ verdict about him and Lawa.
The candle clock read the fourth hour since sunrise. Metemis had to return to the tallylooms. “When you come to the pyramid to take the census, ask for me,” Metemis said by way of leave-taking. “I am Her Royal Grace’s Chief Tallyminder. I will conduct your tally personally.”
“Alas, I’ve already taken it,” said Lawa. “On the first night, while the lanterns were still in the air.”
She had been in the hive pyramid as he completed his census, Metemis realized. She could have been in the next quizzing chamber. No mistake or confusion by the Wicks, then. This was the woman he was to marry.
The attraction wasn’t like it had been with Gilani, not as sudden or intense, but he’d be lying to himself pretending it didn’t exist. Could you feel giddy and guilty, excited and in mourning all at once?
But Gilani! The Wicks were all so unfair to her.
“I do hope we will meet again, Tallyminder,” said Lawa. Rising to tiptoe, she pressed her lips gently to his cheek. The sweet scent of nicte lingered when she withdrew.