The Stars Askew (10 page)

Kata had left the two vials of material with a philosopher-assassin for analysis the day before. Now she returned to the tiny alleyway, Rikard stepping lightly after her, Dexion's huge bulk moving behind. The minotaur had been bored and decided wherever they were going was the cure to this ailment.

Here the streets became so narrow that Kata, Rikard, and Dexion could only walk single file. As they strode on, Kata examined the tiny apartments, the garrets and rooming houses. Thom's workshop would be hidden somewhere up there. Kata was plagued by the fact that Henri might well be able to discover its location if she asked. One of the waifs had surely worked for Thom, but she would never be able to find that child. Of course Henri knew the patterns of power on the streets, where to find each gang or lone urchin, but when she asked him, he refused to name names. There was a kind of urchin code, not unlike that of the philosopher-assassins. Even with their bitter territory wars, they wouldn't betray or name one another. Her only option would be to ask Henri to make the inquiries in her place, and that was impossible. She would not endanger him.

She knocked on an absurdly narrow door. The squarish matriarchist called Greta let them in, looking up over her spectacles in alarm at Dexion as he squeezed through the doorway. Greta's short gray hair and eyepieces lent her the air of a scholar, but Kata knew that they obscured the fact she had killed more than twenty men in the House wars.

A trapdoor hidden beneath a brilliant red carpet led to her small underground workshop. Dexion came last, the ladder creaking under his weight. The workshop's walls were covered with shelves packed with bottles and vials of brilliantly colored liquids and powders, jars and vials, siphons and funnels. Kata had known Greta since Technis had hired them both to poison a Marin officiate. He had died cruelly on the deck of a cutter headed for a holiday at the Dyrian coast. Apparently, his wife and children had looked on as he collapsed, frothing on the ground, kicking out and smashing his head on the deck in his death agonies. Kata had called on the matriarchist several times since for her expertise in chymistry.

Now the squat woman hunched over the glass plate under the powerful magnifying glass on the workshop's central table. “You'll have to see it—amazing.”

Before Kata could step forward, Greta turned quickly and pointed at Dexion, who hovered close to the ladder with Rikard. “Don't touch anything!”

“I never—” Dexion slowly placed a round bowl back onto the shelf, as if nobody would notice.

Irascibly, she turned back to the magnifying glass, spun the wheel on the side of the instrument, and nodded to herself.

“Look,” she said to Kata. “These are the grains from Aceline's nose.”

Kata placed her eye to the microscope, and the tiny particles came into focus. Magnified, they appeared as mechanical mites with six tiny metal legs, intricate latticework constructions of cogs and wheels, hundreds of tiny eyes in their black heads. “Ancient technology.”

Greta nodded. “Brain mites—extremely rare. They climb up through the nose and are used to drain someone's memories, or to add new ones. They come from a storage machine, which you need to access the memories. Gods know where you might find one.”

Greta turned to the second vial, scraped the black smudge onto a plate, and sprinkled a fine yellow powder onto it. It began to smoke. “This is the remains of bloodstone, used in some thaumaturgical conjuration.”

From behind them came a crash. Dexion stood rooted to the spot. Between the fingers of one huge hand he held the glass stopper from a bottle. At his feet lay the remains of the bottle, smoking liquid spreading out in a puddle around it.

Dexion shrugged, as if to say,
Who, me?

“Out—you men, out.” Greta pointed to the ladder. Rikard didn't need further encouragement. He scaled the ladder and disappeared up through the trapdoor.

“Perhaps I should clean…,” Dexion started.

Greta's eyed him unforgivingly. He turned like a chastened child, the ladder again creaking dangerously as he climbed into the room above.

Greta returned the mites to a vial, passed them to Kata. “Come back if you need more help, or if you find one of the mite machines. I'd love to see it.”

Rikard and Dexion had been leaning against the alleyway wall, waiting. At the far end of the alleyway, a group of urchins were playing dice against the wall, laughing and cheering, but Kata felt their little eyes glancing at them surreptitiously.

Dexion said, “Well, that went well, didn't it!”

Kata looked at him for a moment.

“Anyway,” he added, “I don't think you'll need any more of my help today, so I'll be off. But you should ask Henri to find Thom. It's the quickest way.”

Kata stood fixed to the ground, aware of Rikard listening in beside her. “There's more to the murder than Aceline and two thaumaturgists. The mites were used to implant memories in Aceline or, more likely, to retrieve them. So what did she know? There are too many unanswered questions to risk Henri.”

“All right. All right.” Dexion stood a little straighter, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. “I think I might go to the Arena. There are still fights happening there. I might even take part. Become a gladiator.”

He turned and happily walked toward Via Gracchia. The waifs scuttled away from him, staring wide-eyed as he passed.

When he was gone, Rikard said. “Who is Henri?”

“No one.” Kata looked away from Rikard's piercing brown eyes.

“If you have a way of discovering where Thom hides, you had better use it,” he said. “Individual lives are insignificant at this point.”

Kata pushed the young man back against the alleyway wall. She was suddenly aware of his face close to hers: the minute imperfections of his skin, the soft hairs of his mustache. “Individual lives are never insignificant. Every life has a weight. Henri is an innocent.”

Rikard's head tilted back, and he stared at her coldly. “There are no innocents. There are ignorant people, and ones who stand aside, and they're just tacitly supporting the strong. You and I both know it. You must do your duty. We have to protect the city, no matter what the personal cost. After all, Aceline was your friend, wasn't she?”

Kata let go of him. “Don't you have any heart, Rikard? There
are
innocents.”

*   *   *

When they got back to the Opera, word had come from Prefect Alfadi that the dead thaumaturgists had been identified, so Kata and Rikard headed quickly toward the Marin Palace. Citizens clutched the jostling sides of the tram as it chugged its way along Via Trasta. The steam-trams still moved despite the fall of the Houses, some tram drivers continuing to work out of some notion of civic duty, and relying on donations from the citizenry. Others lay immobile in the tram depots, for supplies of spare parts had stopped coming in from Varenis. Just like the factories, the trams were grinding slowly to a halt.

“At least Alfadi is on our side,” said Rikard.

“You mean the side of the vigilants. Anyway, how do you know?”

“After the overthrow, Ejan had me examine the Technis files—well, as many as I could. There are rooms and rooms of them, you know. Each file contains everything they knew about that person. Alfadi was born out in the rocky mountains inland from the Teeming Cities. He was a village boy but was adopted by the Priests of the Dead, and there learned some of their primitive sorcery. Turns out he was outcast for liaising with one of the princesses of the Pyramids down there. Well, that was the official story—the priests were meant to be celibate. But the real reason was that the Head Priest feared Alfadi. Alfadi was too talented. Alone and exiled, he drifted for several years. He seems to have disappeared from view before he took the long journey by galley to Caeli-Amur. He'd heard about thaumaturgy and was quickly brought into Technis, rising through the ranks to become prefect. The other thaumaturgists respected him, so when he left Technis Palace after the overthrow, they followed him.”

“A village boy from beyond the Teeming Cities. That was a long time ago.”

“He understands we'll have to crush the villas soon enough,” said Rikard. “Expropriate the grain. And to do that, we have to ensure that the thaumaturgists are loyal to the Assembly. They must become militarized, bound to us by force if necessary. Ejan will propose a motion at the next Assembly to resolve the situation, and Alfadi will support it.”

Kata shook her head. “Didn't the thaumaturgists join us so they weren't bound by force to do the Houses' bidding?”

Rikard brushed back his black hair. “You sound just like one of the philosopher-assassins on Via Gracchia, Kata. Always debating, to what end?”

Kata tensed. When he searched through the Technis files, had he found hers? Did he know about her past, that she had been hired by Technis to spy on the seditionists, that she had betrayed them? An icy feeling settled into her.

Rikard grabbed Kata by the shoulder. “And you haven't told me the message you had for Aceline on the night of her murder. You've kept it from me.”

Kata hesitated. “Thom wanted me to fetch her. He didn't tell me what it was about.”

Rikard stared at Kata impassively. “That's not what you said on that night.”

Kata felt her skin begin to itch. Her entire face felt like it was about to break out in a rash. “Yes, it is.”

Rikard leaned in close, his eyes challenging. “You don't trust me, do you, Kata?”

“We're seditionists together,” said Kata. “We serve the movement, don't we?”

“Do we?” asked Rikard.

Unable to continue the lie, Kata turned toward the Marin Palace. “Look, we've arrived.”

 

EIGHT

Where the Arbor Palace and Technis Complex had gardens, Marin had elegant water features, fountains and delicate interconnected pools and canals. Shrimp scuttled along one stony bottom; bright red crabs hid beneath equally red stones brought from Numeria; golden fish drifted between columns of kelp and seaweed. In another pool, gray fish floated weakly on their sides, giving the occasional flap of their tails. Many of these had chunks of flesh taken from them. The fish seemed to have become cannibals.

A group of three black-suited thaumaturgists were attempting to scoop blue and yellow fish from one of the rock pools with a long-handled net.

“That way. That way!”

“Quick—no, wrong direction. Push them against the wall there.”

“Yes!”

A thaumaturgist pulled up the net, two fish flapping in it. One of them caught sight of Kata and Rikard. He shrugged. “Have to eat. Suppose these will all be gone soon enough.”

The water palace rose high above Kata and Rikard, constructed of white marble, blue-and-yellow mosaics of beautiful ships on the wall. High up were great balconies where House Marin officials must have once overlooked the city. At several places in the wall, waterfalls cascaded from fissures: crashing water plunged into the moat that circled the massive palace.

In the grand entrance hall, falling sheets of water formed liquid walls, rushing into channels of water that disappeared through archways. Gondolas were moored against the hall's far wall. Around a circular desk stood a group of thaumaturgists.

One of the thaumaturgists called Detis had been instructed to wait for them. Like many thaumaturgists, he gave off a sickly sheen. As they came closer, Kata saw that soft greenish patches seemed to drift beneath Detis's skin, catching the light and occasionally shining softly through it.

He led them to the gondola and paddled them beneath an arched tunnel and into the heart of the palace. The canal joined with others in a network of crisscrossing waterways that connected the many halls and rooms. Every now and then the delicately tiled walls of the tunnel became translucent, revealing great tanks filled with sea creatures: little clouds of orange and yellow fish, massive spider crabs the size of small children, huge mollusks attached to the glassy surfaces, their meaty interiors gray and brown. Occasionally, larger and more ominous creatures drifted in darker waters beyond.

All the while, Kata was aware of Detis summing up her and Rikard, assessing them like an accountant concerned over numbers. She returned the favor. He had the look of all thaumaturgists: superiority mixed with desolation at the losses the Art had exacted from him.

Deep inside the water palace, Detis brought the gondola to a halt before a wide platform. Waiting for them by the berth was the thaumaturgist Alfadi. Again Kata was struck by the whiteness of his eyes and his impressive presence. He moved like a retired athlete, confortable with his bearlike frame.

“Look at this place. This is where the Director worked,” he said.

At the far end of the room, a gigantic delicately curved desk—itself a fish tank—stood on a dais. The floor of the room was nothing but a glassy surface covering a prodigious pool. Beneath them floated a round creature, something like a massive cephalopod. Strong tentacles—some powerful and thick, others long and thin with stingers on their ends—emerged from its body. But the thing that struck the most fear into Kata was its hundreds of ghastly eyes, packed together in two clusters and filled with malevolent intelligence. She knew the creature could take on the illusion of someone she loved, or something she hated, and for a moment she thought she saw Maximilian floating helpless in the water beneath. But then all she could see was the creature's baleful eyes, rotating disturbingly.

Alfadi looked down at it. “Terrifying, isn't it? I wanted to get it out of here, but it turns out it would be too dangerous to move. The whole place has a kind of deadly beauty to it, doesn't it? There are trapdoors in this floor beneath us. Apparently, during the overthrow of the Houses, the crowd fed the Marin Director to the leviathan. Brutal, really, but … well, I suppose it was war.”