Walter Williams: City on Fire

“Your principal duty will consist of intelligence gathering,” Sorya says. “I trust you will share any intelligence with my department.”

Aiah gropes for an answer. “I will if my minister consents,” she says.

Her minister is Constantine, or so she presumes. Let him take the heat, one way or another.

The elevator doors scroll open, revealing an interior of mirrors and velvet plush. Aiah and Sorya step inside. The elevator control handle is brass and wrought in the shape of an eagle’s claw closed about a glittering crystal egg. Sorya sets the handle to the desired floor and the elevator begins to move. Then she leans one shoulder against the mirrored wall as she regards Aiah from beneath the brim of her cap.

“You have put yourself in a dangerous position,” she says.

A cold river floods Aiah’s spine. The elevator, moving unevenly along its shaft, causes little flutters in Aiah’s inner ear.

“Are you a danger to me, madame?” she asks.

Sorya’s mouth lights with a cold, cynical little smile. “Why should I concern myself with your destruction? I have repeatedly told you that I have never borne you any animosity—whether you care to believe this is scarcely my concern. Besides”—she gives a lazy shrug—“ I reserve my power for dealings with the great and for enhancing my own scope of action—it would be a contemptibly small exercise to destroy you, and I have no inclination to think myself either small or contemptible. Give me credit for pride at least, Miss Aiah.”

There is a delicate chiming chord that hangs in the air for a moment. The elevator comes to a stop and the doors open. Sorya reaches out a hand, twists the brass knob that locks the doors open, and turns to Aiah again. Her brows are lightly furrowed, as if she were contemplating a minor problem.

“I mean only that Constantine’s friends, speaking generally, do not live long. Those who do not have their own share of greatness do not survive for long in the company of the great.”

Aiah steels herself, holds Sorya’s gaze. The elevator seems very small. “You have told me this before,” she says.

“And you had the sense to follow my advice,” Sorya says. “You took our money and went your way. But now…” She shrugs again. “You are in the line of fire. Do not claim you were not warned.”

“Line of fire?” Aiah says. “The fighting is over.”

Sorya slits her eyes. “The fighting is never over,” she says. “All truces are temporary. All wars are the same war, with occasional pauses for readjustment. War and politics are different facets of the same phenomenon, which is the conflict of human will, the will for power, for greatness, for enlarged scope… The rest, the medium through which one will challenges another—war or peace, law or politics-—that is mere mechanics.” Her green eyes glitter. “Learn that if you wish to survive.”

Aiah takes a breath, clears her throat against the smell of cinders. “Do you think there will be a war?”

“There will be conflict. I cannot say what form it will take.” She cocks her head, her look going abstract with thought. “Consider: Constantine knows what he wants, but this new government does not—not surprising, with all the factions it represents—the triumvirate is divided and does not speak with one voice, or act with one will. There is a Keremath party still, though there are precious few Keremaths left to lead it. The Caraqui army is being supplemented by mercenaries long loyal to Constantine. That is opportunity… for someone.”

“You think Constantine will take power himself?”

“Only if he must. Only if the triumvirate fails. Constantine is a foreigner and cannot hope to seize a metropolis that is not his own, not unless…” Sorya shows white teeth in a smile. “Unless the metropolis asks, from lack of any other palatable alternative.” Her eyes flicker to Aiah. “So build your department, find your plasm. It will increase Constantine’s power… and opportunity.”

Thoughts scurry from place to place in Aiah’s mind, alarmed but with no place to run. Sorya seems amused. With an unconcerned roll of her shoulders, she pushes herself from her leaning posture against the elevator wall and steps into the hall outside. Aiah follows. The wood paneling here is beautifully, intricately carved with patterns of fruit and flowers. They pass through two sets of the bronze-strapped airlock doors, which open automatically at their approach and close behind them.

“We’re in Crane Wing now,” Sorya says. “Some of the junior Keremaths lived here, with their dependents and loyalists. All chucked out now, or sent to the Shield.” Her hand dips into one of the greatcoat pockets, comes out with a key on a silver chain. She puts it in a door, pushes the door open.

“Your suite,” she says. “Have a pleasant sleep shift.”

“Thank you,” Aiah says. Sorya drops the key in her hand, tips her cap mockingly, as if in imitation of a uniformed doorman, and strides away.

Aiah stands for a moment looking into the dark room, then reaches in to find a light switch. Her fingers touch cool metal. She turns the knob and the lights come on.

The room glows, all polished woods and gleaming metal and soft, sumptuous fabric. Aiah steps in and her feet sink into deep carpet. The room is three times the size of the apartment in Jaspeer she shared with Gil. Wonderment tingles in her nerves. This place is hers? Hers alone?

She puts her bag down and closes the door behind her: it moves in silence on brass hinges, with a push of the finger. Aiah explores the suite in wonder—the gleaming kitchen, the luxurious lounge, the bar with its shining crystal decanters. There is food in the refrigerator, stores in the cabinets, fruit trees blossoming on the terrace. Her fingertips brush over the smooth, polished surface of wood tables, and she wonders if she will ever get used to so much wood around her.

There had been a revolution, a complete readjustment of power; but it had not touched this room.

There are plasm connections everywhere, as available as electric power outlets. Aiah checks the communications array, the headset with its priceless ivory earpieces and gleaming silver keys, and finds it doesn’t work.

Not everything, she reflects, can be perfect. She opens the door into the bedroom—

—and smothers a scream with her fist.

She slams the door and staggers away on a wave of nausea. The room swims around her, and she sinks into a chair. Soft leather receives her.

The suite’s previous occupant had died in bed, and he had not died well.

Clearly magecraft had killed him. The sheets and mattress were crusted in dried blood, and there were sprays of red on the walls, floor, even the ceiling. The body had been removed, but the mess had not.

Sorya, Aiah thinks. Sorya chose this room for her.

All truces are temporary. The words echo in her mind.

Aiah jumps up from the chair, walks to the door, puts her hand on its bronze handle. And then wonders where she’s going to go.

Beneath a lovely carving of grapes, outside in the hall, Aiah finally catches a few hours’ rest, sleeping on the carpet with her jacket for a pillow.

“Hello, little bird.”

Aiah looks up and sees Charduq the Hermit gazing down at her. He has been there all her life, on his pillar at the Barkazi Savings Institute, with rain and Shieldlight falling alike on his head, and the wind blowing his long beard up in his eyes.

“Hello, old crow,” says Aiah.

Charduq smooths his beard with a gnarled hand. “A little bird should have more respect for the older birds of this world,” Charduq says.