Silk fire, p.21
Silk Fire, page 21
“He said—”
“A lot of dzaxa make violent threats against my district.” She ground her heel. Starlings hopped and leapt clear of the trembling sandstone. “I’m a Fire Weaver. I’ve studied history. I hate how this bullshit is still happening, and I want it stopped. But I also know that facts matter. Truth matters.”
“I could tell you truths about him that would flood your throat with bile.”
“Can you put solid evidence of his guilt in my hands?” When I shook my head, Ria began marking points on her fingers. Sun glinted off the gold-trimmed straps of her fajix, warm and welcoming as the brown of her eyes. “Vashathke threw the envoys a parade to win their friendship. We can assume they weren’t allied at that point—after all, for the afterparty, they went straight to the High Kiss. Tamadza spent the next few days evading branding for Stonefire’s murder. But Geshge signed that contract at the state banquet. So when, in that time, did Vashathke first connect with the envoys?”
“It could have happened any moment, out of sight. My father employs hundreds of personal heralds. No one could monitor each communication he makes.”
“Okay,” Ria allowed. “But remember what happened at the state banquet? Not only did he trash the Fire Weavers, he insulted the envoys for befriending Päreshi. Why rock the hovercraft if you’ve agreed on this master plan together?”
“So that no one will suspect my father of signing a secret deal. He’s a practiced liar.” Dimly, I recalled Vashathke’s argument with the judge after the banquet. How frustrated he’d been by the envoys’ indifference towards him. But my father had mastered pretence long before my conception. We couldn’t trust his words, only his intentions: he would burn down buildings just to light his cigarette.
“All we know for sure is a magistrate—okay, probably your father—wrote them a whiny letter complaining that Geshge is dead and they’re not doing enough to support him. Vashathke could have sent that same note to every dzaxa on Victory Street. Yes, Tamadza said their plan ends in conquest, but I couldn’t translate well enough to judge culpability; if the magistrate is their willing partner or just a useful idiot. So Tamadza’s the one we need to capture and question. This is bigger than politics.”
Vashathke is just as dangerous as a necromancer. She saw only an irrational man and a boy scared to confront him. Our lovely masks hid our truths. Vashathke was as cruel and bitter as all our murderous ancestors combined. And the fire of revenge flamed my heart, urging me to scheme, lie, and fuck over whoever it took to undo him.
If Ria knew of my twisted past, of my unmanly desire, she’d hate me. And I needed her too much. But she didn’t need to agree with me to aid my goals.
“I’m going home,” Ria continued, “to report Tamadza’s plot to the Fire Weavers and our judge. We’re responsible for stopping her and preventing this war. She’s brought her Reclaimer to the border. When she gets this rudzav dusa, whatever that is, she’ll unleash something terrible.”
On my father’s behalf. If he took the crown, he’d find a way to start the war he wanted, even without Tamadza. Stopping him mattered just as much as stopping the envoy. That meant promoting Akizeké, at any cost. This plot mattered far beyond politics—but politics was the road down which it rode. The politics mattered.
We could achieve two goals at once.
“I’ll come with you to Engineering,” I said, fighting to sound like this was a recent idea and not the reason I’d befriended her to begin with, “and I’ll vouch for everything you’ve witnessed. We’ll gather support to stop the necromancers for good. Together.”
I opened my holdfast safe. With trembling fingers, I drew out the opesero, and offered it to her. She hadn’t asked for it back; she’d trusted me enough to leave it in my hands. She has feelings for me. I can play those. I can play everything and everyone.
“Perfect!” Ria flung her arms around me. “And I’ll get to show you a decent party!”
I hugged her back. My heart sank under a prickling weight of guilt.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Street of Inversions
22nd Dzeri, Year 92 Rarafashi
“As one, we rise.”—motto of the Engineering District
“You owe your clients nothing beyond what you’re willing to sell. No acts, no comfort, no honesty. The first priority is your health and wellbeing, the second is their enjoyment. Creatively wielded, a lying tongue pleases body and mind”—High Kiss employee handbook
Dzaro expertly steered the helicopter between two broken pillars. The snow-capped pyramids of Armory Street fell away beneath churning rotors. The helicopter, with the sail-like fans protruding back from its nose, and the blocky patterns engraved on its steel shell, resembled an unwieldy beetle in the cloudless sky.
“Nice to see my nephew has a… friend?” Dzaro cast a puzzling eye on Ria.
“He’s a sweet man,” Ria said.
No, I’m not. I buried my face in my book, wishing I could fall between the bench’s cushions and disappear.
While Dzaro gave Ria flying lessons in the cockpit, I reviewed the history of the Engineering District: struggles between magistrates, major plagues and building collapses, the history of the Fire Weavers as scholars and adventurers worked to repair the damage of the ancient wars. ‘Nothing lies beyond us,’ was their motto, ‘not healing nor Jadzia’s heart.’ A fit order for Ria. People who don’t understand some things are broken beyond fixing.
My target was Judge Źeposháru Rena, age one hundred and thirty-two, mastermind of inter-district infrastructure construction. Like all the judges of Engineering, she’d earned her crown through business merit, and she’d recently selected her own heir: Toźätupé, who’d built her fortune in the reja racing industry. Akizeké was shipping me twelve tons of holdspark to use as a bribe, but Źeposháru Rena had substance to spare herself. I’d have to convince her with words, not money, to back my candidate.
Holdspark engines thrummed under my feet. Holdweight strips on the undercarriage pulsed as they devoured gravity’s light pull. Ria pulled me into the cockpit as we accelerated. “The Street of Inversions. My home.”
A vertical loop of road rose from the city-planet’s surface, supporting a domed lattice of iron, bone and copper scaffold, woven in a billion messy stitches. Abstract mosaics of holdweight ran in waves along the street and its crossways, holding reja and runners at impossible angles. Steam, sparks and fire leapt from whirling bronze machines that ran along the dome’s outer surface.
Another world. Brimming with possibility and motion. The sky quivered where massive holdair arches locked in atmosphere. Flocks of archaeopteryx, feathers flashing white and black, watched us from craggy nests in concrete. Built for change and motion. For fitting life, not towering over it. The clockwork brass cubes of apartments in their millions crawled across a spiral steel lattice. A street changing shape as needed. Not like Victory Street, where monuments to past atrocities cast human lives in shade. The fruit of conquest and genocide. A world where nothing grows.
A thousand miniature robots swarmed into an arrow, guiding Dzaro to a crack in the dome’s side. As we entered, I glimpsed the Lost District hovership floating above the eastern border ruins. Waiting, I thought, but not patiently. And certainly not ready to hear the word no.
“Here’s where I leave you,” Dzaro said once she’d landed. “Any further and the gravities will wreck the internal gyroscope.”
“I’ll hire a reja,” Ria said. Bug-eyed machines clacked and hummed as she leapt down to the platform, dragging my chests one-handed over to the waiting traders.
“Is it her or Faziz?” Dzaro wrapped an arm around my shoulders. The green light of the helipad entrance gave her face a knowing pallor.
“What?”
She elbowed me. “I saw how you looked at Faziz on the hovership. Are you falling for him or Ria?”
I coughed and stammered before words came out. “Neither. They’re just part of our plan to stop Vashathke.” I didn’t trust Dzaro with the truth of my hatred for my father. I couldn’t trust anyone with my heart.
“Do they know that?”
This question had no good answer. “I… I…”
“Slayer! Stop!” My aunt’s terrier had tackled a small robot. The brass bug hissed, its gears grinding in the little monster’s teeth. Dzaro pried them apart. “Good luck, Koré. Get the endorsements. Embarrass Vashathke. Enjoy your life.”
Enjoy your life, I thought scornfully as I climbed in the rented reja. I hadn’t enjoyed life since I’d hit Bodzi with a ripe plum at age six.
Treacherous nerves tingled where Ria had touched me as we’d flown over Victory Street. Joy like sunlight flashing on quartz, made to dim and die at sunset. Though being happy with her feels natural and right.
The judge’s palace hung like a pendant from the street’s center. Three hundred stories cascaded in teardrop tiers, its towers crowned in holdlight like falling suns. Clocks and gauges on the walls traced the paths of stars and planets, bells chiming with each click of gears. Steam slunk from the throats of massive pipes, warped in its course by intersecting gravities. Blue-feathered birds flocked between windows, message scrolls clipped to their talons. Marvel upon living marvel.
My stomach churned as the main access crossway flipped upside-down.
“You’ll get used to it.” Ria patted my green cheek. “Look down there.”
An enormous bronze globe lay near the bottom of the Street of Inversions, crawling with njiji-armed robots and giant dragonflies. Pipe-like tunnels snaked from its heart, threading their way past the street’s boundaries. A map of the city-planet lay chiseled into its surface.
“That’s the Hive. The headquarters of the Fire Weavers, where I grew up.” She sighed. “If we’d gone there first, we’d be drinking with my friends now.”
And you’d lose days in a hangover. Which was why I’d insisted we visit the palace first, though I hadn’t said as much to her face. I needed her standing to get me the endorsements I’d come for.
A strange shadow flickered at the building’s base, then vanished. I rubbed my eyes and shivered. Just the shadow of my guilt.
The entry court of the judge’s palace lay in a yellow glass globe. Ria flashed the gold foil of our official invitation as we dismounted. The guards took my luggage and escorted us to a brass-walled elevator big enough to hold a bronto. Holdweight shimmered in its sides as it lifted us. The guest apartment they led us to boasted a luxurious sitting area, a balcony opening onto the street, and—mercifully—two separate beds.
“We’re on floor three hundred and seventy-two,” I muttered when I emerged from the bath, switching to the common Engineering tongue. “Does that symbolize anything?”
“It means they had an open room. Stop overanalyzing.” Ria wore a silver jumpsuit embroidered with piping teapots, cinched at her ankles and left wrist with white leather cuffs. She fastened her opesero on her right. “Relax. This will be fun.”
Stop overanalyzing. I huffed. Blood and the fate of districts hung on the line. “I don’t like fun.”
“Really? Why bother waking up in the morning?”
To send the tears of my father washing down Victory Street to the sea. “I provide the pleasures others dream of for a fee. Fun is a commodity.”
“There’s other fun things besides fucking.” She flicked one bronze-painted fingernail against my navel. “After you talk to the judge, let’s get drunk, rent a private theater, and watch bad movies.”
“I’m not practiced enough in your language to appreciate terrible dialogue.”
“Don’t worry.” She grinned, pulling me to smile along. My whole being ached to be what she saw: a normal man, if a bit of a slut, who could turn off his worries for an evening and just be. “I’ll sit on your lap and explain every stupid joke and plot hole. If your thevé chains don’t get stuck in my hair.”
I’d dressed in stylized armor. Triangles of ruby-edged scale mail draped the front of my skirt. A full-pauldron thevé sat on my left shoulder, steel plate linked by electrum chains to my bracer. Red paint bordered my eyes. “I don’t look too much like my father in this, do I?”
“Why would that bother you? Isn’t he, like, famously beautiful?”
“Never mind.” Home filled her with a relaxed glow, a calm certainty in her place and future. I wouldn’t snatch that from her with my pain.
Ria frowned, but didn’t push me. “Right. Time to be cool.”
My head spun as we entered the banquet hall. The chamber was a cylinder, faces lined with brass mirrors, sides tiled in holdweight mosaics. Chefs and servants ran across the top and bottom. Smoke billowed from grills and ovens, cascading over the table that wrapped along the shaft. I caught the complex notes of a curry: sharp cumin, thick turmeric, heady paprika, and chicken crisped to perfection.
A herald announced our names. The judge’s eyes fell on us like lightning. Tall, thin and narrow-shouldered, Źeposháru Rena and her three-tiered bronze crown imposed over the table. Her eyes were liquid leather; her long fingers tapped a tablet’s screen. Though not as forcefully bright as Rarafashi, her gaze still set my knees trembling. A thousand calculations flashed behind her eyes, weighting our value.
I snatched a mango juice from a walking tray, downing it to settle my nerves. Cool, creamy, and utterly non-alcoholic. Shit.
“We’ve missed you at court, Riapáná Źutruro.” She spoke in a voice smoother than a polished gem. “Just because your father keeps his distance from politics doesn’t mean it’s wise to follow his example.”
“Not to worry. I’m pretty obviously not my dad.”
“Speak formally. We’re at court.”
Ria’s slippers shuffled on the holdweight-imbued mosaic, tiny copper petals gleaming under her toes. “My apologies, Honored Teacher. My errand tonight is quite urgent. I need your guards to detain the Lost District hovership and arrest its pilot.”
“You ask me to detain a foreign dignitary?”
As smoothly as she could—and I assumed the urge to rush or swear rose several times on her tongue—Ria laid out what she’d witnessed of Tamadza, from Stonefire’s murder to the fight on the hovership. “You must act immediately,” she concluded. “The Fire Weavers take no evil as seriously as necromancy.”
“And yet, you, a mere novice, with a known… habit… of overindulgence, are the one to bring such important charges before me?”
Ria winced. I stepped forward, lowering my eyes. “Honored Teacher, I too witnessed the diplomats practice necromancy. I swear by my own business investments.”
“You see?” The judge gave me a brief glance, then turned back to Ria. “You bring a prostitute before me as a witness. I speak with your best interests in mind when I tell you—”
“He’s not just a prostitute,” Ria said, balling her fists. I would have kissed her, would it not critically undermine her point. The judge needed to hear what I’d come this far to say.
“I… I am Koreshiza Brightstar, son of Vashathke Faraakshgé Dzaxashigé, proprietor of the High Kiss, and herald of Akizeké Shikishashir Dzaxashigé. I came to testify to Tamadza’s perfidy, and to seek your aid to soothe a rising tide of violence on Victory Street. My father swore violence against Engineering if he ascends, but Magistrate Akizeké understands peace is prosperity. For your people, and for the sake of the Treaty of Inversion, I humbly plead you endorse Akizeké’s campaign!”
“Endorse her?” Źeposháru Rena’s voice cut like a sword. “Akizeké hasn’t paid interest on her loans from me in six years! I’m tempted to hold you hostage for repayment. Don’t speak of treaties when your own people break sacred contracts.”
I flinched as my rhetoric crumbled. Why hadn’t Akizeké paid off her loans? Even the holdspark bribe she was sending couldn’t cover that debt. How had she expected me to secure the alliance when she’d already handicapped me?
But I couldn’t make excuses. Akizeké could have done it. Any woman on the judge’s council could have done it. Vashathke could have done it. I simply wasn’t worth trusting.
“Sit down,” Źeposháru Rena commanded me. “Tell Akizeké we can discuss endorsements when I’m paid. And Ria—you’re no longer a child. If you want me to take you seriously, realize not every pretty boy who smiles at you is your friend.”
I bowed and backed down the table, head ringing with self-shame. Ria pulled me into a seat and passed me a tray of samosas. Some experimental chef had supplemented chickpea stuffing with orange zest. Flavors clashed.
“Well, that sucked,” Ria murmured, shaking her head. “And since when are you working for Magistrate Akizeké?”
“It’s just some light volunteering.” I bit my lip before I could spill the truth of how I’d used her. “Is all well with your father? The judge seems displeased with him.”
“Yeah, sometimes she’ll ask Dad to dig up historic documents that justify some controversial policy.” She shrugged. A chickpea nearly tumbled from her stuffed cheek. “So he just pretends he didn’t get her message. It gets awkward. Glad it’s his job and not mine.”
“Ria!” A woman in a high-necked blue jumpsuit bent to kiss Ria’s forehead. She was in her mid-thirties, with thin features and silver tattoos ringing her pale arms. I could have kissed her in gratitude for the distraction. “Welcome home!”
“Koré, this is my old girlfriend, Toźätupé reru Źeposháru Rena.” Ria smiled. “Voro’s tits, that name feels strange on my tongue. Congratulations on your appointment!”
Toźätupé laughed. “Źeposháru Rena interviewed fifty candidates before choosing me. All fine women—and a few men!”
Źeposháru Rena considered men. Engineering looked to the future, instead of yearning for a bloody past. They’d never fall into petty squabbles because a judge had only young sons. War could have an heir with Toźätupé’s intelligence and spark, not discord threatening to tip into violence.
