Elizabeth Hand - Æstival Tide

Shiyung Orsina. Not the ruler in name of Araboth, but the beloved of the people, the idol of the Aviators and the Children of Mercy, the lover of all those princes and women and soldiers whose ashes now mingled with the fine sandalwood powder she brushed upon her shoulders each evening, before she took into her bed the next of her countless lovers. She stood before them with her arms upheld triumphantly and let the lightning play in the air above her head, laughing as the crowd cheered her and the Aviators shouted “ Shiyung!” until finally Âziz stepped forward and with a tight little smile took her sister’s hand. Nike remained a few feet away from them, gazing distractedly up at the domes. Âziz cleared her throat. Then,

“Greetings, Seraphim! Cherubim and Thrones and Dominations, Virtues and Powers and Principalities!”

Her heavily amplified voice rang out, and the cheering subsided.

“We are here today to celebrate a triumph—to celebrate two triumphs. One of them a military conquest, and the other a scientific victory, no less than a triumph over death itself.”

Her words were swallowed by a tremendous roar from the Aviators. Âziz looked startled and glanced at Shiyung. But her sister only smiled. Nike remained standing by herself, nodding thoughtfully.

“A triumph over death itself,” Âziz repeated. For an instant Reive thought she glowered at Shiyung; but then Âziz continued, “You will recall that, nearly a year ago, our military forces set out to retake the ancient capital from those barbarians who have held it from us for nearly four hundred years…”

Reive recalled no such thing. She had thought the last military expedition was to the Archipelago—or was it the desert?—but then janissary forces went out on maneuvers so often that she had lost count. As for the ancient capital, she could remember only vague rumors. A great weapons storehouse had been there once, but the entire city was guarded by monsters, feral mutated creatures far worse than anything the Ascendants had created in their laboratories.

But these, of course, were rumors. Now it seemed that Âziz was telling them the truth of the matter.

“… have always known the Capital City to be of unparalleled strategic importance, in addition to the ancient weapons holdings there. Now those weapons are ours: thanks, in large part to the bravery and cunning employed by someone who is well known to all of you.

“Single-handedly, this brilliant military hero entered that ghastly place, after his accompanying battalion was slain by traitors within the City itself.”

The gynander stood on tiptoe, striving vainly to see this military paragon. Âziz’s voice rang out like a clarion, so full of pride and wonder that Reive’s scalp prickled.

“There, in the ruins of the ancients, he feigned madness and battled hordes of ghouls—”

Âziz’s voice dropped, and she drew a shaking hand to her cheek—

“—there, he was slain by an assassin’s bullet.”

Âziz lowered her gaze. Behind her the other two margravines stood soberly, Nike staring blankly at the mob, Shiyung so pale beneath her conical crown that it seemed she might faint. In the long silence that followed, the Aviators stirred, their heads moving restively as though seeking the assassin within the crowd, and Reive cowered beneath their probing eyes.

At last Âziz raised her head again. “But we were not defeated. By sheerest fortune, a janissary troop and Aviator battalion had been dispatched from Araboth, and arrived just hours after our hero’s death. Our troops found no resistance from the cowards and monsters within the City. Those troops are there now, having found and restored the ancient armories and reclaimed the Capital as part of the Ascendant Empire.

“As for the man who made all of this possible— his tragedy has been turned into the greater victory. As you well know, my sister, the margravine Shiyung, has long toiled in the Chambers of Mercy, where she has made it her duty to learn all that our Sciences can teach her of the mysteries of life and death. As a new Capital will be born under the Ascendants’ rule, so from Shiyung’s hands a still greater hero has emerged, our new Aviator Imperator!”

At this a terrible wailing cry raked the air, as the Aviators shrieked and raised their black-clad hands, fingers curling and uncurling in their raptor’s salute while lightning flickered in the domes. For a full minute their outcry drowned all other sounds, until Reive felt deafened by it and covered her ears, staring at the ground and trying to keep from weeping with fright.

Then abruptly the Aviators were silenced. Reive looked up warily and saw that Âziz had stepped back on the platform, a helpless expression on her face. Shiyung paced forward, making calming motions toward the Aviators. She stopped and stood with her hands at her sides, her beautiful face lifted so that indigo shadows edged the planes of her cheeks and her eyes were lit by the lightning playing overhead. Behind her Nike and Âziz were silent.

It had grown so quiet that Reive could hear the breathing of everyone around her, the woman with her wheezing puppet, the nervous whispers of the galli. On the colonnade the Aviators slowly raised their fists. As though moving in a dream, one by one the margravines returned their salute, and turned to face the main gate.

In the great doorway behind them something appeared, a shadow that resolved into cadaverous figures framed by the gold and lapis columns. The figures paused in the doorway: six aardmen stooping beneath the burden of a long palanquin of jet and steel. About their necks gleamed the monitors that all the Orsinate’s personal geneslaves wore, thorns of steel and glittering ampules forming a corona about their anguished faces. Saliva fell from their muzzles in long streams. Even from the boulevard Reive could smell them, carrion and the acrid scent of chemicals draining from their sedative ampules, the cloying smell of the jasmine oil that had been laved onto their flanks. As they waited they tossed their heads, and one howled as the long barbs on its collar tore its neck. Then they stalked onto the plaza, their sloping shoulders raw beneath the palanquin’s weight. Reive could feel the woman next to her whispering an imprecation to Blessed Narouz, and somewhere in the crowd a man cried out as the aardmen staggered to the very edge of the raised colonnade.

The palanquin that they carried was tall, set with columns of metal wrapped with shining spikes that branched up like the limbs of a stricken tree. In the center of the litter stood a man. He held two of the columns for balance, and swayed as they bore him forward. Reive shook her head—was this a prisoner? Then she saw that he was not bound. What she had thought were cuffs about his wrists and ankles were actually some sort of enhancers. His face too was covered by a sensory enhancer, its blank black surface whipped with reflecting light. A tunic of crimson leather hung to his knees. One hand was sheathed in crimson leather, but the other was not. It was at that second hand that Reive stared, a hand so pale it had a greenish cast. It was large, with tapering fingers, the skin shiny as though it had been burned and the grafts had not taken well. Blue light winked from a ring as the man raised his hand to adjust his enhancer. He was a very tall man, but somewhat stooped, as though he had for a long time been trapped in some enclosed space. It was an Aviator’s enhancer that covered his face, and on his breast shone the Aviators’ blighted moon.

When they had reached the end of the plaza the aardmen halted. They lowered the palanquin clumsily, their huge-knuckled paws fumbling over its narrow struts and spars. The margravines watched in silence, though Shiyung’s eyes glittered and she smiled rapturously. Several children in the Orsinate’s cortege began to cry.