City on Fire

NINE

Constantine comes into the Palace command center laughing, his deep voice booming out like an echo of the bombardment. It is not relief, Aiah suspects, but a kind of homecoming: Constantine has been from necessity a commander, a great one, and war is a thing like home. Sorya greets him with a kiss.

“It is Radeen behind this,” she says. “The Second Brigade is with him—his old command—they are on their way to Government Harbor. The First Brigade and Marines are in their barracks, I am told—not that the First Brigade matters in any case, since it has not recovered from its mauling in our coup. And there is word of police roadblocks going up here and there, so Gentri or someone high in his ministry is also a part of it.”

“Radeen the Minister of War,” Constantine says. “Trying to do what Drumbeth has done. And Gentri…” He utters the shadow of a sigh. “Gentri, well, too late.”

Guilt stabs Aiah to the heart. If she had investigated Gentri properly, if she had simply done what Constantine had asked, then perhaps all this would not be happening…

Her head swims, and she gropes her way to a chair and collapses into it. The others in the room pay her no heed, a fact for which she is deeply grateful.

The white glow of video monitors burns down on everyone, outlining cheekbone and brow, casting eyes into shadow. Sorya glides to a chair, sits in it, flicks a bit of fluff off her uniform tunic.

“I had a little advance warning,” she says. “They have done a more than competent job of keeping their plans secret—better than we did in our time, truly, but then their conspiracy is smaller. I managed to keep the assassins off your neck, but not Drumbeth’s.”

Constantine glances sharply at her. “He’s dead?”

“Yes. Killed in that ceremony reopening the bridge over Martyrs’ Canal… was standing with all his aides in the middle of the span when a mage attacked with a power blast… They’re all dead.” She shrugs. “I could save one of you, not both. It was not plasm I lacked, but personnel. We didn’t have enough mages on duty.” A superior, amused light glitters in Sorya’s eyes. “Forgive me for concluding you were the indispensable one.” Her tongue visibly fondles the irony in this phrase. She tosses her hair, gives her lilting laugh. “You may have me indicted if you wish.”

Constantine’s brooding eyes gaze up at a blank video monitor. “Drumbeth dead. That is ill news. He could carry a good many soldiers and officers with him.”

“Pfah.” Disdainfully. “Soldiers and officers are readily bought… here and elsewhere.”

The voices are swallowed by the vast silence. They are deep in the Aerial Palace, in a cavernous command center tucked amid the giant brass-and-black-ceramic plasm accumulators and capacitors, the conduits of command nestled in perfect union with the font of military and magical power. The room is paneled in dark wood and lit by fluorescents set in long, scalloped brass chandeliers. On three walls are paintings of scenes from the military history of Caraqui, such as it is. Oval video monitors are mounted high on all sides, mostly set to outside views of the Palace, dull views of bridges and roadblocks, here and there a pockmarked wall or a wisp of smoke.

A map of the metropolis and its environs, three times Aiah’s height, occupies one wall. The map is painted on translucent plastic and is divided into sectors, with colored lightbulbs behind each sector to show whether it is held by friendly or enemy forces. Friendly is blue, neutral is white, and the enemy shows as a pale pink stain, blotches of a bad complexion.

Most of the city is white, there being no information one way or another. But the only blue light on the map is the Aerial Palace, and there is more pink than blue.

The Avians built the map decades ago, precautions against a war that never happened. It has waited unused till now.

Tables and chairs are set up in front of the display. Elaborately styled telephone headsets, white ceramic with gold wire and gold ear- and mouthpieces, are placed at intervals along the table. A silver vase filled with red carnations sits on one of the tables. In the back of the room are two carved wooden doors, set in brass frames, that lead to a communications center. A side door leads down a short passage directly to the plasm control room, with its glowing dials and its icon to Two-Faced Tangid.

Constantine paces as he thinks, hands locked behind his back, eyes shifting from the map to the video monitors to Sorya. Aiah watches in silence. Everything is collapsing into war and ruin, and it is all her fault.

There are two dozen people in the command center, though several of them, like Aiah, seem to have no particular job to do. Half of them are in uniforms, and the rest are civilians, mostly clerks. Sorya is perfectly at home in her tailored green uniform, and sits with one polished boot thrown up on a table while jotting in a notepad on her lap. Constantine stands in front of the city map, his eyes brooding on the symbols, gauging times, distances, forces.

“What of the cabinet?” Constantine asks.

“You and the Minister for Economic Development seem to be the entire cabinet at this point,” Sorya says. “He was in his office when things started—Faltheg is a banker and of limited use in this crisis, but I have him in the communications center trying to rally people to us. He has tried to contact the other ministers, but I suspect they are under arrest, in hiding, or with Colonel Radeen.”

“Hilthi? Parq?”

“The aide I sent to call Hilthi said there was no answer at his residence. I have not sent anyone to go in person. The young gentleman who phoned Parq could only get a secretary, but was told there had been shooting in the Grand Temple, so I suspect the comforts of religion are to be denied us.” She laughs and tosses her head. “It was you and Drumbeth they were afraid of. You and he they wasted plasm over. They knew who could stop them, and who could not. They knew the journalist had no army, and that Parq’s Dalavan Guard is a collection of pensioners in splendid uniforms.”

“We’ve lost the aerodrome. And Government Harbor will be gone soon.”

My fault, Aiah thinks dully.

Constantine looks up at the map. “How about Broadcast Plaza?”

“The guards report no disturbances.”

“We have how many people there—half a company?”

“A little less than that.”

“They should be reinforced. If we have radio and video, then we have a way to inform the people that resistance is possible.”

Sorya gives a cynical laugh. “How many guns do the people have?”

“People, I remind, make up the army. Perhaps they do not know what their commanders are about, and would refuse if they knew.”

“Ah.” Sorya shows teeth. “Yes.”

“Miss Sorya.” It is one of her aides, a smart young man in one of her green uniforms. “I have a call from Hilthi. Shall I switch it to your phone?”

“Put it on the speakers.” She takes one of the headsets from its hook, sweeps her long hair back, settles the gold earpieces on her ears, and speaks into the conical golden mouthpiece.

“Mr. Hilthi,” she says. “This is Sorya. Do you know what is going on?”

“They tried to kill me!” Electronic distortion mars Hilthi’s voice as it booms from overhead speakers. The voice mingles excitement and anger with sheer resentment at the assassins’ effrontery. Constantine winces, motions to turn down the volume.

“Are you safe now?” Sorya asks.

“I suppose so. We’re at… another place. The police came to my home to arrest me, but I told them no and… there was violence.” A tremor shakes Hilthi’s voice. “My bodyguards killed all the police, and moved me to a safer location.”

My fault, Aiah thinks. Gentri’s men. If she had only done as Constantine had asked…

Constantine gestures at Sorya for the headset, and she passes it to him. He doesn’t bother donning it, just holds the mouthpiece to his lips.

“This is Constantine. I’m very pleased you are safe, Triumvir.”

A howl of feedback whines from the speakers. Constantine claps his hand over the mouthpiece and the sound ceases.

“What is going on?” Hilthi asked.

“Radeen is trying to overthrow the government. He has one brigade of the army and at least some of the police. Drumbeth is dead, but I am in command here in the Palace.”

“Radeen.” There is a thoughtful pause. “What can I do?”

“Are you near Broadcast Plaza? That would seem to be your natural place in an affair like this. If you could get on video and issue a proclamation…”

Hilthi leaps on the chance. “Yes! But we’ve seen roadblocks everywhere.”

“I will send soldiers to escort you, Triumvir, but I need to know where to send them.”

There is a moment of silence. “How can I be certain you are not behind this?”

Constantine laughs, teeth flashing in amusement. “Sir—don’t you think I’m more competent at this sort of thing than Radeen? If I wished you harm, believe me when I say that you would be harmed.”

There is silence.

“Besides,” Constantine says, “you are the only member of the triumvirate known to be alive. I am willing to place myself under your orders and do as you command.”

Sorya scowls at this willing subordination, but it seems to bring Hilthi around. “Very well,” he says. “I will go to Broadcast Plaza.”

He gives his address, and Constantine makes note of it. “I will send soldiers as soon as I can,” he says. “In the meantime, be of good cheer—I believe their strike has miscarried.” He returns the headset to its hook. “Where is Colonel Geymard?” he asks.

One of the Cheloki soldiers answers. “Out inspecting our positions. I expect him back any moment.”

The steward pours coffee into a fine gold-rimmed porcelain cup with geometric Keldun designs. The coffee’s scent sends a bittersweet tang through Aiah, a familiar perfume rising amid the sour scent of the day’s disasters. Her stomach growls and Aiah remembers that she hasn’t eaten today: the banquet aboard the boat had all gone to waste.

And then she remembers her department, and another sick sensation of guilt flashes through her… at least eighty of her people would be on duty this shift, working in the Owl Wing as the rebel helicopters swung closer. She should have checked with them as soon as she arrived.

She drops her coffee cup into the saucer, splashing warm droplets on the tabletop in her haste, and reaches for one of the headsets. She settles the earphones around her ears and flicks the gold-plated switch that opens the line; rapidly she punches the number for her department on the twelve-key pad.

The ringing signal sings in her ears for some time, and then there is a click, the answering words “Enforcement Division” spoken in a whispering voice that suggests the speaker is afraid enemies might be lurking just around the corner.

“Ethemark,” Aiah says. “This is Aiah.”

“It’s Miss Aiah!” Said to a third party. Then, to Aiah, “Miss Aiah, what’s happening?”

“An attempted military coup. Is everyone all right?”

“First thing we knew of it, a helicopter fired a rocket right into the clerical office. Marberta and Grundlen were killed, and some others were injured by debris.”

“Great Senko.” Aiah sighs. Marberta and Grundlen were clerks, an older woman with children to support and a young twisted man just out of school, working to earn money toward a college degree. Aiah had hired them both personally.

There is no reason in the world why either of them had to die.

“I sent everyone else down to the shelters,” Ethemark says, “but since the explosion triggered the sprinkler system, Heorka and I stayed behind to try to save the paperwork and files. We’ve been hiding in the secure room; it seemed the safest place. And the sprinkers turned off in a few minutes—I think they lost pressure, with all the fires in the building.”

“There doesn’t seem to be anything happening right now,” Aiah says. “You should probably go back to the secure room. Maybe I’ll join you in a while.” She looks up at the uniforms clumping beneath the big illuminated map. “There doesn’t seem to be anything happening here.”

“Miss Aiah, who is behind this?”

“Radeen, apparently. And probably Gentri.”

“Radeen.” Ethemark’s tone turns bitter. “I doubt he is staging this for the benefit of the twisted.”

“I doubt it,” she says, a sensation of weariness ghosting through her. Agendas, she thinks; everyone has an agenda.

But at least Ethemark’s is where she can see it.

Unlike Radeen’s.

“Miss Aiah, we want to fight.” Ethemark’s sudden volume makes Aiah wince: she twists the volume knob on the headset.

“I’m a mage,” Ethemark continues, “and so are many people here. I’m sure we will all be willing, the entire department, to do our part.”

“You’re not a military mage,” Aiah says. “And neither am I.”

“There are some things we can do, even if we’re untrained! We’re telepresence specialists, most of us… we can scout the enemy if nothing else.”

True, Aiah thinks, and clouds lift a little from her heart. “We might be able to free military mages for more important work.”

“Exactly!”

“I will tell Constantine,” Aiah says. “In the meantime, go back to the secure room and keep safe.”

“May I send Heorka to the shelters to find our mages?”

“Yes. Go ahead. Find out how many are willing to assist us, and then call in a report to me in the military command center.”

“Very good, miss.”

Feeling less hopeless now that she has something to offer, Aiah hangs the headset on its hook and looks up. Constantine is in conference with Colonel Geymard, the Garshabi professional whose mercenary soldiers have fought on Constantine’s behalf ever since the Cheloki Wars. Geymard is an erect, crop-haired man in battle dress, with a lined, weathered face and cold ice-blue eyes. It was his brigade that dropped from the sky to confront the Metropolitan Guard of the Keremaths, and now his unit, reinforced, defends the Aerial Palace.

“… and mortars in place,” he says. “I’m setting men on the rooftops around the Palace—the Palace overlooks the roofs, so they’ll be of limited use to the enemy, but when the enemy comes for us we’ll be able to set up a kill zone.”

“I need you to send a detachment to rescue Triumvir Hilthi. Armored vehicles, I think—drive through some of those police roadblocks, liberate the streets around the Palace so that more of our folk can join us. And then you need to take the triumvir to Broadcast Plaza so that he can make his appeal to the people.”

“If you will give me his location, I will arrange it.”

Constantine and Geymard make the necessary plans while Aiah sips coffee, and then Geymard leaves to give the orders. Aiah stands up, says “Minister,” but Constantine waves her back to her seat.

“In a moment, if you please. I have business more urgent.”

He takes a headset and tries to contact the Marine Brigade. Whoever answers puts him on hold, and Aiah can see Constantine trying to control his impatience, lips pressed to a thin line, free hand clenching and unclenching in his trousers pocket. Eventually he picks up another headset. “Put me through to somewhere else in the Marine Brigade. Try—” He tilts his head to one side as he thinks. “Try the gunboat maintenance pool.” A grin spreads wide as someone answers.

“Sergeant Krang?” he repeats. “I am pleased to be able to speak with you. This is Constantine, the Minister of Resources.” His grin broadens and amusement lights his eyes, another of those lightning shifts of mood, from trucu-lence to pleasure, that take Aiah’s breath away. “I am very well, thank you for asking. How are you?” Another pause, and Constantine’s eyes glow with delight. His grin beckons everyone in the room to share in his relish of this conversation.

“I am sorry about the sciatica,” he says, “and I hope the new treatments will be effective. The reason I call is to discover if you have been attacked. Some part of the Second Brigade has been trying to overthrow the government that you Marines helped us install a few months ago.”

The light in his eyes turns somber as he listens to the answer, and his grin fades. Aiah’s rising hope falls. “I see,” Constantine says. “Is there anyone to argue the other case? Anyone who speaks for the government?”

Another long pause. Constantine begins to fidget, his thick fingers idly spinning a gold-plated pen on the polished tabletop, watching it bob as it whirls in silence…” And the troops are not inclined? That is good.” He frowns. “Is there anyone I can send to you? Obvertag. Very good… Will you do me the favor of remaining on this line, Sergeant Krang? I thank you.”

He looks up, gestures at an aide as he covers the mouthpiece. “Get me Colonel Obvertag. He is deputy advisor to—” “Dead,” Sorya says.

Constantine looks at her, brows lifted. “Yes?”

“We tried to contact him early in the game,” Sorya says. “He was valuable—brought the Marines to us before, after the Keremaths forced him to retire for the crime of being an efficient officer. But his… widow …” A little smile flashes catlike teeth. “His widow said some officers visited him earlier today, in hopes he would join them, and when he refused them there was a scuffle, and he was killed. A bungle, apparently—they hadn’t meant to harm him, but when he began to call them avaricious incompetents and greedy fools, they defended their honor and professionalism by filling him full of lead.”

“You did not tell me this before?”

She looks at him with a degree of patience. “It has been a complex day, Constantine. A few things, now and again, may escape my memory.” She rises, tugs her tunic into place. “I will go to Plasm Control. We should organize a counterattack soon, just to see how good these rebels are.”

Constantine uncovers the mouthpiece. “I regret to inform you that the rebels have killed Colonel Obvertag. Shot him down in his own apartment, in front of his wife. You may confirm this simply by calling her. Will you share this news with your comrades?” Pause. There is a glow of triumph in his eyes.

“Thank you, Sergeant Krang. Please leave this line open and return to it when you have confirmed Obvertag’s assassination to your satisfaction. I hope I may use you as a conduit to the other Marines.” He flicks the switch that places the sergeant on hold, glances over the line of uniforms in the room.

“That may swing things our way—if the Marine Brigade loved anyone, it was Obvertag. His last service to us might have been the foolish fashion in which he died.” He glances up at the map, reflected coordinates glittering in his eyes, and then turns to his assembled staff.

“Several of the Marines’ officers, including their brigadier, ordered them to embark and head for Government Harbor,” he tells them, “but the soldiers have the scent of them and do not like it, and have so far refused. But neither will they declare for us, and I must find someone to bring them over. Do we have someone here willing to make the journey? Preferably a Marine, or someone else who will know their people?”

The uniforms glance at each other. A youngish man, bull-necked and bespectacled, steps forward. “I’ve served with the Marines. Gunboats and bellyachers, both.”

“Your name, Captain?”

“Arviro, Minister.”

Constantine nods. “Very good, Captain Arviro. May I ask—I realize this is a delicate question, but—when you served with the Marines… did they like you? I understand that one may be a fine officer, taut and meticulous, and nevertheless not have the soldiers in love with you, so if you answer in the negative I will not hold it against you.”

The captain considers this question. “My platoon gave me a party when I married, so I suppose they liked me well enough. There are always discipline problems, even in a good unit, but I don’t think I gave them cause to hate me.”

Constantine straightens and looks down at the officer, his voice like an incantation, magic to work his will on the world. “I will give you a boat, then,” he says, “and an escort. I would have you go to the Marine compound, talk to the soldiers, and bring them back to the government. Arrest any rebel officers—if they resist, you may shoot them—then report to me.”

The captain nods, very serious, oblivious to any notion of high drama. “Very good, sir.”

“In the absence of any loyal senior officers,” Constantine says, “you may consider yourself the commander of the Marine Brigade. But you will have to win the brigade to you, and that will not be easy.” He looks at Arviro with steady eyes. “It is not given to many officers to earn their command this way.”

The captain blinks behind his spectacles. “Yes, Minister. I’ll do what I can.”

“I will write an order confirming your authority, and then arrange for an escort with Geymard when he returns.”

The captain hesitates for a moment, then speaks. “Beg pardon, Minister, but Marines will not be gratified to see me escorted to them by foreign mercenaries. If I could arrange for an escort of Marines…?”

Constantine is surprised. “Are there Marines in the building?”

“There’s an honor guard at the Ministry of War. It’s only a squad, but they have combat gear available. Besides, if we’re seriously opposed, we’ll be killed no matter what our force, and if there’s only light opposition or none, the squad and the boat’s crew should suffice.”

Constantine nods. “Very well. Let me write out your orders, and then I will leave you to your work.”

As he bends over a sheet of paper and picks up his golden pen, one of Sorya’s aides approaches to murmur in Constantine’s ear. Understanding glimmers in his eyes, and as he presents the captain with his orders, urgency underlies his voice.

“I have received word that planes are landing at the aerodrome and discharging troops. So your first task, on taking command of the Marines, is to move to the aerodrome and retake it.”

The captain nods. “Very good, sir.”

Arviro leaves and Constantine looks after him, a thoughtful frown on his face. He turns, looks at the others, and murmurs, “Well, between Sergeant Krang, Captain Arviro, and the late Colonel Obvertag, we may be able to throw a fistful of diamond dust in our enemies’ gears.” He looks up. “How many combat mages do we have available? We may be able to create some mischief among these troop transports as they land.”

Aiah glances up sharply—perhaps this is the time she should mention her mages in the shelters.

“More are reporting, sir.” Another aide. “Perhaps a dozen, though not all are trained.”

“And sufficient plasm for them?” He turns and glances at Aiah, sitting alert in her chair. “Miss Aiah, I believe I need you now.”

Aiah puts down her coffee—she has almost emptied the cup, she sees, all without realizing she had been drinking—and rises. “Yes, Minister?” But Constantine is already in motion, his broad back to her, and she has to trot to keep up.

Words fly to her lips, the words she’s been wanting to speak this last hour. “Minister,” she says, “I’m sorry about Gentri. You were right and—”

He dismisses her apology with a wave of one big hand as he dives into the tunnel that leads to Plasm Control. The passage is claustrophobic despite the cheerful brass fixtures and vermilion carpet: Aiah can sense the huge plasm reservoirs on either side, the vast weight of the concrete and armor, holding back the infinite patient power of the sea…

“It is not your fault that Gentri was clever,” Constantine says. “I suspected something, and Sorya could not find an answer, and I asked you to help… I had not the right to expect you to find a thing when the experts could not.”

“But this…” I am to blame, she wants to say, but her tongue trips on the words.

Constantine booms out the door at the end of the tunnel, and the vast space that is Plasm Control swims into giddy perspective. People sit intent before banks of glowing dials and brass levers. The icon to Two-Faced Tangid glowers down at them with red electric eyes.

Poised like a dancer with one foot turned out, Sorya stands leaning against a console, intent in conversation with Captain Delruss, the stocky engineer who had given Aiah her first tour of the palace. Constantine and Aiah approach.

“These reinforcements landing at the aerodrome,” Constantine begins. “Our friends in the Timocracy did not warn us that these people were mobilizing?”

Sorya looks disturbed. “I have heard nothing.”

Delruss—born and raised in the Timocracy of Garshab—speaks in a soft voice. “We are very good at operational security. Possibly the destination was kept secret until the units were actually in flight. So unless someone very high up was sympathetic to the current government here, or had a friend here he wished to warn, it isn’t surprising you were caught off guard.”

“Who is paying for them?” Sorya wonders. “I do not think that Radeen or Gentri have that kind of money, and the soldiers of the Timocracy do not move without ready coin.” Her eyes narrow. “I suspect our neighbors. Lanbola does not love us, nor does Charna. Barchab wants the Keremaths back, but their government is so disorganized I doubt they could keep something like this secret.”

“We shall find out in time,” Constantine says. “But until then we need to deal with the soldiers themselves. Sorya, I think we need to make their landing considerably less pleasant.”

Pleasure glitters in Sorya’s green eyes. “May I have free use of the available mages?”

“So long as security here is not imperiled, yes. At the very least, try to crater the runways.”

Sorya gives an elaborate, ironic bow. “Your servant, sir.”

As Sorya glides away, Constantine turns to Delruss. “How much plasm can we call on? Can we afford to go on the offensive?”

“We’ve ordered all the plasm stations in the city to cease non-emergency use and to prepare to send us any stored plasm beyond that required for station defense, but three have not responded. We have thrown emergency switches to take them off the well, but these did not answer properly and have probably been sabotaged. Four other plasm stations reported that police tried to talk their way past security, but were turned away by the military police guards without violence.”

“So the other stations probably made the mistake of letting the police inside?”

“Very possibly.” Delruss looks apologetic. “There was no alert, of course. No reason to suspect them.”

Constantine’s eyes light with calculation. “Three stations,” he muses. “And of course the Second Brigade’s own headquarters plasm. That isn’t enough to breach our defenses, but it can raise a lot of mischief and will probably be supplemented with plasm purchased abroad. If our enemies can afford foreign troops, they can certainly afford foreign plasm. But—” He smiles. “They tried to take seven plasm stations and got only three. They attempted to bring all the army with them and got only a single brigade of infantry and the Aerial Brigade, which seems to be somewhat less than enthusiastic. At least one of the triumvirs is still at large, and their attempt to murder me was foiled by Sorya.” He puts a large, warm hand on Aiah’s shoulder. “And they have not had Miss Aiah to provide a well of plasm vast beyond reckoning, as we did in our own strike. And that is where they are at a disadvantage.” At his words, Aiah feels a welling of pleasure that wars with the despair in her heart.

“Minister,” she says. “My department has mages in the building. Not trained for military work, but—”

“How many?” Constantine’s response is immediate.

“A dozen or so. I should be getting a report very soon.”

He nods briskly. “We will see if we can put them to use.”

He leans closer to Aiah and speaks in a low rumble. “In the meantime, I need you to organize some ministry employees—form teams—and get out into the city. Find the plasm connections to those three stations, and cut them. Destroy them, so that they cannot be repaired with any ease.”

Aiah’s heart gives a lurch. “I—” She hesitates. She will need maps, she thinks, equipment for manipulating plasm connections. Boats. How many teams? And Constantine wanted the plasm connections destroyed—how? Demolitions? No—not unless Constantine can give her people who know how to use them.

Acetylene torches, she thinks. Close the switches and weld them shut.

Constantine’s eyes, cold and commanding, glitter down at her.

“Yes, Minister,” she says.

He nods. “Very good. You may draw what you need from our ministry supplies here in the Palace. Take food from the cafeterias—you may be gone for some time.”

Aiah’s head whirls. “Yes.”

He looks at her gravely, and to her immense surprise sketches the Sign of Karlo over her forehead with his thumb.

“At once, Miss Aiah,” he says, his voice surprisingly gentle, and turns away.

Marine engines rumble in the darkness beneath the city. The combined reek of floating garbage and floating humanity is clenched in the back of Aiah’s throat like a fist.

The boat’s spotlights carve a misty tunnel in the darkness. Rusting hulls, strange scaffoldwork, misshapen bodies, and dully glittering eyes loom on either side. The boat is passing through one of the uncharted half-worlds, a far more primitive place than Aground, a randomly assembled collection of human and nautical rubbish. Edged by the spotlights, perceived only in fragments, the rusting barges and silent, unresponsive people have a nightmarish jigsaw quality, eerie fragments assembled at random in some huge, unguessable formation.

It had taken several hours for Aiah to assemble her teams—to find them in the shelters, to persuade them to volunteer, to locate the necessary equipment, and to plan the operation on ministry maps laid out over the tables in the Operations Room. And all the while the situation outside was changing, the balance of power shifting as more elements entered the volatile situation……

Sorya’s team of mages failed to significantly damage the mercenary units landing at the aerodrome—they were well guarded by their own mages—but she succeeded in cratering the runways to prevent further reinforcements. The incoming mercenaries were forced to divert their flights to neighboring Lanbola, where it is presumed they will be interned. Hilthi was plucked from his hideout by Geymard’s troops and delivered to Caraqui’s broadcast center, where radio and video began to air his appeals to the population. And to everyone’s surprise the third member of the triumvirate, Parq, phoned in from his office in the Grand Temple. He had survived a brawl between his guards and police sent to arrest him, and several people had been killed. He had thought the plot aimed against himself alone—perhaps initiated by a band of religious dissidents—and had only belatedly discovered the extent of the countercoup.

He was declaring for the government, he said, and was mobilizing his Dalavan Guard and would soon be making a broadcast on his own Temple-owned communications channels.

Constantine seemed pleasantly surprised by this. In view of Parq’s history of treachery, he clearly had anticipated a great deal of bargaining before the triumvir chose one side or another; but apparently the assassination attempt had frightened him—“He cannot be encouraged by the thought that our opponents find him dispensable,” as Constantine remarked—and Parq was now firmly in the government camp, even if his Dalavan Guard was a lightly armed joke.

Following this news came another strike by the Aerial Brigade—much more timid this time: the helicopters darted from the aerodrome, fired their rockets at extreme range in the general direction of the Palace, then raced back to safety. The rockets rained down everywhere but the Palace, setting fires in the surrounding district* and Geymard’s military mages and antiaircraft weapons managed to bring two of the helicopters down in spite of their caution.

Aiah had packed her teams into their four official ministry powerboats and waited for the all-clear. It was all, she suspected, her fault. Now she had a chance to repair some of the damage, and the only way to be certain of success was to do the job personally. A mage’s place, she realized, is probably in the Palace, but unless she was in the field with her teams, she could not make sure the job would be done right.

But it was an ominous sight, as the day eased into its third shift, that greeted Aiah as her motorboat slid from the government marina—low gray clouds obscuring the Shield, a cold wind shouldering its way between the buildings, columns of black smoke rising from the city on fire. The sky was empty of plasm adverts—all plasm had been diverted to other purposes—and there were no people to be seen other than soldiers huddling behind barricades. There was a strange silence in the air—none of the usual noises, the hiss of motor traffic or the roar of boats. Even the sound of helicopters, so prominent earlier in the day, was gone. There was a sense of wariness, of hidden eyes looking down at Aiah’s boats from darkened windows. It is as if her little flotilla is the only thing moving in the whole city, the only thing alive, the only target…

As if the metropolis was waiting to discover who would be its master.

Motoring out of sight in the half-submerged world beneath the city’s structures is like cruising down a huge flooded sewer, the hulking barnacle-encrusted concrete pontoons looming huge on either side, overhead a distant, shadowy roof or the narrow slit of Shieldlight permitted by overhanging buildings. Here the turnings are largely unmapped, and navigation is largely by instinct and by compass. Uncharted half-worlds filled with equally uncharted humanity block the channels and impede progress.

Now something large and black runs along a half-world gangway on Aiah’s left, then disappears into a darker piece of shadow. Aiah’s heart leaps, and her eyes strain into the gloom. Nothing moves. Whatever—whoever—it was remains hidden.

Ahead, a bright patch of Shieldlight transects the channel. Aiah gnaws her lip, looks hopelessly at the map pinned to the table in front of her, then takes one of the boat’s spotlights and trains it on the side of the pontoon near the splash of light. Every pontoon is required to have identification numbers painted on each end, and there are also supposed to be hanging metal signs giving the names of the various nautical lanes and channels; but the usual Caraqui slackness has been applied to the regulations, the signs have been scavenged for their metal, and what inspector would ever visit the underworlds anyway?

Aiah motions with her hand and the boat slows while she scans the pontoon, and then the pontoon opposite. Narrowing her eyes, she can faintly make out the flaked, weathered paint, centuries old, only visible because there is no real weathering down here. Each numeral is twice her height, and the pattern is only visible at all because it’s so huge. 4536N: a coordinate. She returns to her map, squints down at it, looks at the boat’s compass, then back at the map.

“Left,” she says, hoping she’s worked the compass deviation correctly—this close to the Pole, the deviation is enormous—and that the new course will take them all west, to their target at Fresh Water Bay.

The turn takes the flotilla into a narrow alleyway overshadowed by tenements of brown brick. The place actually has a name: Coel’s Channel. The sky is a long, narrow slit directly overhead, dark cloud skimming low overhead. Far above, laundry strung on lines floats gray in Shieldlight. Arrangements of guy wires and planks, sometimes at dizzying heights, connect the buildings over the little canal. A female hermit, long gray hair shrouding her face, hangs like the laundry from a wire in what looks like an old flour sack.

One of the boat’s crew has been listening to the radio, earphones pressed to his head, turning knobs as he stares fixedly at yellow glowing dials. He looks up with a start.

“Listen to this,” he says, and turns another knob, and an official-sounding voice comes from the buzzing metal grid of the speaker.

“—al Government of Caraqui,” it says, “was formed in order to unite those patriotic citizens determined to free our metropolis from the pernicious foreign ideas of the ex-Metropolitan Constantine and his gang of outland mercenaries.”

“Who is this?” growls Davath—large, twisted, a stoneface with features like pitted concrete. The answer to his question is obvious enough.

The enemy has finally declared himself publicly.

“I will now surrender the microphone to our president, Kerehorn.”

“Keretora?” asks Prestley. “Which Keremath’s that?” “Kerethan’s son,” Aedavath says.

“No, Kerethan’s son was Keredeen, and they both got killed.”

“Kerethan’s other son.” Stubbornly.

“No, he’s dead, too.”

“Hush.”

Kerehorn’s voice is reedy and uncertain. “Greetings, fellow citizens. The day of liberation is nigh.”

“Nigh?” someone offers. “Who wrote this?”

The speech is a vitriolic personal attack on Constantine, along with his “gang of foreigners and oppressors.” Other major figures in the government, Drumbeth and Parq and Hilthi, are not even mentioned. But Kerehorn is not much of a speaker, and the whole speech falls flat, interrupted every so often by the rustle of paper as he tries to find his place in his prepared text.

Aiah looks at the others as they all listen: their faces show skepticism, amused contempt, grim humor. They’ve lived under the rule of the Keremaths, and she hasn’t: they know better than she how to take this. Apparently their respect for Kerehorn, or any of his family, is limited.

“We pledge ourselves to the restoration of the ancient liberties and traditions of the Caraqui people,” Kerehorn says, and cynical laughter floats from one team member to the next.

“Why does he even bother to justify it?” someone says.

Cold certainty suddenly floods Aiah’s mind: Kerehorn is not the real leader. This unprepossessing a character could never have organized something as dangerous as the coun-tercoup. He is a figurehead, intended to provide a degree of legitimacy for the coup’s genuine leaders. But whose figurehead is he? Radeen’s?

Perhaps Radeen is using the Keremaths’ money to wedge himself into power. Perhaps they are both pawns of someone else. Or perhaps there is no real leader, only a group of people, each with different reasons for wanting to destroy the current government…

Coel’s Channel comes to an end up ahead, and the waters of a wide canal open out, its water bright green with algae and home to a flock of pelicans preening themselves in the unusual stillness. The boat’s helmsman throttles back. Aiah looks at the map again.

Ideally she wants to go straight on, but looking ahead she can see nothing but the gray slab wall of a pontoon on the far side of the canal. Obviously they will have to traverse the open canal for at least a while before turning west again.

The helmsman reverses the engines briefly to bring the boat to a complete stop, its prow barely jutting out beyond Coel’s Channel. Another crewman airily steps out onto the foredeck and peers left and right past the high concrete walls on either side. Aiah can tell from the sudden stiffening of his spine that he sees trouble. He returns to the cockpit, and Aiah’s mouth goes dry as she sees his grim expression.

“There’s a bridge to starboard, right in our path,” he says. “I can see a police roadblock on it, several cars, maybe a dozen cops.”

“Armed?” Aiah asks.

An unreadable expression passes across the crewman’s face. “Of course.”

An idiot question: Aiah doesn’t know what she’s going to do, what she can do, and is just playing for time. She delays further by going onto the foredeck herself, moving far less surefootedly than the boat’s crewman; she peers gingerly around the corner, heart pounding, and sees the bridge a few stades away. Suspension wires curve in a graceful arc, and the iron uprights are covered with an untarnishable black ceramic impressed with the oval cameo profiles of long-dead Caraquis. Square in the middle of the span is the roadblock: cars drawn across the span with their lights flashing in silence, uniformed men standing with long weapons in their hands. Should they choose to fire down into boats passing beneath them, they could cause a massacre. But getting around them will require an endless amount of backtracking, with little assurance of not encountering another roadblock somewhere else along the way.

“Long live the Provisional Government!” The chorused words ring out from the radio. Aiah gnaws her lip and tries to figure out what to do.

Pelicans drift in the canal ahead, mocking her with eerie pebble eyes.

“We now take you live to Government Harbor,” the announcer says, “where officers and men of the Caraqui Army will swear allegiance to President Kerehorn and the new government.”

There is a pause, a howl of feedback—apparently people in Government Harbor are listening to the broadcast with their speakers turned up—and then a commanding voice, speaking a bit too far from the microphone.

“This is War Minister Radeen!” he says, and immediately afterward, as the techs sense his distance from the mike, his volume cranks up a bit. He has a tendency to shout every phrase and then stop, breaking every sentence up into little exclamations. “I have before me the officers! And the soldiers! Of the Army of Caraqui! Soldiers—!” The volume goes up again as the proclaiming starts. “I will now lead you! In the oath of allegiance to your new government!” He takes a breath. “/, a soldier of Caraqui…”

“I,” a great chorus roars, “a soldier of Caraqui…”

Aiah is struck by the idea of Radeen, far before the issue is decided, actually lining up the soldiers of the Second Brigade—or a large number of them, anyway—in Government Harbor square in order to swear an oath that, judging by the Second Brigade’s adherence to past oaths, isn’t worth a brass hundredth…

“Here in the sight of the gods and immortals…,” Radeen continues.

Government Harbor is a symbol—it’s the official seat of government, with the Popular Assembly and offices for most of the government departments—but it has no real military value. True civil and military power is concentrated in the vastness of the Aerial Palace. During the coup of Drumbeth and Constantine, Government Harbor had been seized, but the Marines then pushed on to aid in the storming of the Palace. Now Radeen seems content with the seizure of deserted office buildings and the mouthing of empty oaths.

Aiah has no military background, but in the past months she has seen real soldiers at work, and if she were in charge of the Second Brigade her soldiers would already be hammering at the doors of the Palace.

She snarls. These people do not deserve to win.

“/ swear allegiance to the Provisional Government, representing the people of Caraqui…”

And then over the radio comes a whistle and an explosion, and then another and another, and then shouts and screams. There is the crackling sound of rolling thunder, and Aiah remembers plasm heat on her face as she recognizes the sound of telepresent mages doing invisible combat. More cries and explosions buffet the microphone. She pictures neat parade formations dissolving in blood and chaos. Perhaps this is the ordinary soldiers’ first clue that they are not unopposed.

Government Harbor, she concludes, is entirely within the range of the mortars that Geymard had readied on the Palace roofs, and Radeen’s mages can’t keep out every round.

She looks back over the boat’s crew and sees their grins—twisted Davath throws back his head and laughs, cold amusement bubbling from his vast trunk—and then quite suddenly she knows what she will do.

“Turn on the flashers,” she says. “Lean on the horn. Everyone put on your hard hat, and stay in plain sight.” A strange, daring humor courses through her, and she gives a reckless smile. “When we see the police, everyone wave!”

The crew looks at her in surprise, then obeys. She puts on the official red hard hat that marks her as a member of the ministry’s Plasm Bureau. The emergency lights flash on, tracking yellow and red across the narrow concrete walls of Coel’s Channel. The helmsman leans on the air horn, and the blast startles the flock of pelicans into sudden flight. He throws the throttles all the way forward, and the boat’s stern digs into the murky canal water and leaps forward on a sudden boil of white foam…

Wind blows Aiah’s hair back as she sees the bridge sway into view. Police in black shiny helmets look down at the small convoy of motorboats driving a flock of frantic birds before it. Aiah senses their eyes on her and feels a defiant blast of fire in her heart, burning as fierce as if it were plasm. A grin drags her lips back from her teeth, and she raises a hand to wave at her fellow civil servants on the bridge above.

There is a moment of hesitation. Then black gloves lift and wave in answer. Some of the gloves carry weapons, but the barrels are pointing at the Shield.

The bridge passes, a black shadow like the wings of death, and then the boats are past. The police have not been instructed to impede emergency vehicles.

The helmsman gives Aiah a hollow graveyard laugh, and there is a hot glow of reckless terror in his eyewhites as he turns to Aiah. “Go west again?” he says.

Aiah shakes her head. “Stay in the main channels. Faster that way.” The helmsman laughs again, defying his own fear.

“Aye aye, miss,” he says.

The carnage on the radio ceases as switches are finally thrown in Kerehorn’s headquarters. Someone puts on music, something with a lot of violins.

Aiah’s teams pass half a dozen police roadblocks on the way to Fresh Water Bay, but the police never do anything but wave.