Peter Hamilton - The Evolutionary Void

Gazing over at her in the dusky light that crept around the curtains, he wondered when all that had ended. Not that it had finished; they still made love several times a month. Whereas it used to be several times a night . Kristabel was still beautiful. She was not girlish anymore, which he didn’t want, anyway; her hair was starting to lighten, and there were a few lines around her eyes. But physically she was still very desirable. He could remember only too well all the cursing and misery after each child about how much weight she’d put on during the pregnancy and how she’d never look good again. Then there’d be the long fight to get back in shape, with fierce discipline over what she ate and then the kind of exercise that put his morning run to shame.

But she no longer wore the short lacy negligees he used to adore, and they showered separately and didn’t talk and shout each other down; nor did they laugh, not the way they used to. Developing dignity, he’d thought; at least that was what he told himself. The kind of dignity that comes with growing up and taking responsibilities seriously. And their ever-increasing burden of duties and how tired that always left them. Though it shouldn’t; all they had to do was delegate.

We’re just not the same people. That’s not a fault thing. Live with it . Even so, his traitor mind nearly sent his farsight creeping out to the House of Blue Petals. Ranalee would doubtless have that bewitched lad performing his strenuous best for her, corrupting him beyond salvation. Her love life had never ebbed.

No! It wasn’t fair to blame sex for everything. Attitudes, too, had hardened over the years. Edeard had always favored moving the city toward a full democracy, slowly reducing the power of the Upper Council and expanding the authority of the representatives. It would never be a swift transition; he fully expected that he wouldn’t live to see its conclusion. But as long as the process could be started, he would be content. However, with all the other changes and reforms within the city and the strengthening of bonds with the provinces, that seemed to have been delayed year after year. Kristabel hadn’t helped, not as he’d assumed she would. When she finally had taken her seat in the Upper Council as mistress of Haxpen, there had been too many other, more immediate, causes to support. As part of Finitan’s voting bloc she was expected to advance the Mayor’s new legislation and budgets and taxes. None of them had been focused on expanding general democracy.

He knew he shouldn’t confuse personality with politics. But it was hard not to blame her for being part of the Grand Family setup, which she bitterly resented.

Edeard hated himself for having such doubts about himself and Kristabel, doubts and questions that had only increased since the appearance of the Skylord. That was the real root of his sleepless nights. Since the afternoon when the Liliala Hall ceiling had cleared for him, he’d been striving to sense the Skylord’s thoughts, and he’d failed miserably.

Now the frustration was starting to cloud his thoughts, making him prickly and despondent. Worse, everyone close to him knew it, which annoyed him even more, especially as he couldn’t tell them the reason.

He let out a frustrated sigh and rolled cleanly off the bed without waking Kristabel. His third hand snatched up the clothes he wanted, and they drifted silently through the air behind him as he tiptoed out into the corridor. Once he was dressed, he pulled his black cloak about him and marched off to the central stairs. When he reached them, he threw a concealment around himself and simply vaulted over the banister rails to plummet the ten floors down to the ground. It was stupid, and exhilarating, and he hadn’t done anything like it for years.

Makkathran buoyed him up as he asked, controlling his fall. When he reached the floor, his boots landed with a gentle thud. He strode through the deserted cloisters of the ground floor to the ziggurat’s private mooring platform. It was long past midnight, which left very little traffic on the Great Major Canal. He waited for a minute as a gondola slipped into the High Pool, its lantern disappearing around the curving wall. Then, with the waterway clear, he reached out with his third hand and steadied the water. Another thing he hadn’t done in years.

Edeard ran straight across the canal. When he was halfway across, the farsight caught him. It was so inevitable , he was almost ready for it.

“I’ll find you one day,” he longtalked down the strand of perception that stretched across the city to Cobara. “You know I will.”

The farsight ended so fast, it was as if it had been broken. Edeard grinned to himself and reached a public mooring platform, where the wooden steps took him up to Eyrie.

The crooked towers stretched away ahead of him. Around the lower quarter of each one, slender streaks of orange light shone out of their dark wrinkled fascias, illuminating the deserted streets that wove between them. But the upper sections were jet black, cutting sharply across the nebula-swathed sky.

It was instinct that drew him there. The Lady’s scriptures spoke of how the ill and infirm and old used to wait atop the towers; then, as the Skylord flew above the city, their souls would ascend to be guided away from Querencia. He reached the tower close to the Lady’s grand church, where so many years ago conspirators from the families had thrown him off the top. It was one of the tallest in Eyrie, which would put him as close to the Skylord as anything in Makkathran. Pushing aside any reservations about the location and its resonances, he walked up the central staircase, spiraling around and around until he finally reached the top and stood on the broad circular platform that crowned the tower. Eight spikes stuck up from the edge, their twisted tips stretching a further forty feet above the platform itself.

The nostalgia he was feeling now wasn’t good. This was where Medath had waited after luring him up. This was where the other Grand Family conspirators had overpowered him and-He grimaced as he stared over at the section of the lip where he’d been shoved over. After so long, over forty years, he really shouldn’t have been bothered by it, yet the memory was disturbingly clear. So much so that he even searched with farsight to make perfectly sure no one else was around.

Stupid , Edeard scolded himself. He abruptly sat down cross-legged on the platform and tipped his head back to gaze up at the sky. Gicon’s Bracelet was visible above the spikes in the western hemisphere, the planets gleaming bright just off the border of the Ku nebula’s marvelous aquamarine glow. Even though he knew exactly where to look, the Skylord wasn’t yet visible to the naked eye. Instead Edeard called to it. All of his mind’s strength was focused into a single thought of welcome, one he visualized streaming out through space.

And eventually the Skylord answered.

Finitan had retired to one of the houses the Eggshaper Guild maintained in Tosella for its distinguished elderly members who’d retired from active duties. It was a big boxy structure with a swath of delicate magenta and verdure Plateresque-style decoration running around the outside of the third floor. There were no guards posted outside, only a ge-hound curled up beside the gate, which took one look at Edeard and yawned. Back when Edeard had arrived in the city, every large building had had some kind of sentry detail. Families and guilds had maintained almost as many guards as the city regiments. Now their numbers were dwindling, with old duties like the door sentry handed over to genistars once again.

Edeard walked through the open wooden gates into the central courtyard, where white and scarlet flowering gurkvine grew up the walls to the upper balconies and a fountain played cheerfully in the central pond. Several ge-chimps were tending the heavily scented flower beds, with another sweeping the gray-white flooring. He went up the broad central stairs to the third floor.