Aestival Tide (24 page)

“But you're a pantomancer, surely you are aware of the significance of a dream of the Green Country?”

The gynander nodded slowly.

“We've known that dream,” she said. She glanced at the
rasa
staring at her sideways, like the cormorant in Zalophus's tank, his eyes glittering feverishly. She turned to Shiyung. “We have scryed it twice now.”

“
Twice?
”

Reive cowered on the bed. “Yes.” It was as Ceryl had warned her, she would be executed at once, or used as one of Âziz's
timorata
—or, worst of all, given to the Compassionate Redeemer in the festival's propitiary rites.

Shiyung turned to the
rasa.
“She says she's scryed it twice.”

“So I heard.”

Shiyung clasped her elegant white hands, looking around the small room as though she expected it to disappear in a mist. “But—this is incredible! The same dream,
that
dream, twice? Margalis, this could—what does this
mean?
”

Tast'annin shrugged, his kimono sliding to reveal the ribbed metal cage of his chest. “It could mean nothing. Or it could mean this morphodite is lying. Or it could be a harbinger of evil things not predicated by your Architects. What do
you
think it means?”

Shiyung bit her lip. “The 'file of Fasidin the Depraved says that to dream of the Green Country is to dream of the
el-bajdia,
the engulfing wilderness. It is a terrible omen.” She reached for the gynander and pulled her toward her and for the first time Reive clearly saw the margravine's eyes: wide and childlike and an alarming shade of emerald. “Come, Reive—we'll talk someplace safer.”

The gynander cast a final, longing look at her empty plate. “If anyone passes us you're to keep your head down and say nothing,” whispered the margravine. The three of them left the Howarth Reception Area and hurried down the private gravator that would bring them to Shiyung's chambers.

Shiyung's quarters were larger than any Reive had ever seen, larger and hotter and filled with animals, great soft-bellied cats that skulked about the corners and seemed as intent as Reive upon finding something to eat. On the walls hung antique tapestries in somber shades of brownish-red, like dried blood or dung. The room smelled of sandalwood and damp fur, and a faint breeze blew down from vents in the ceiling.

“But why would you say these things about my sister?” Shiyung asked softly. She sat very close to the gynander and stroked her thigh absently as she spoke, tracing the imprint of a bruise on Reive's white skin.

“Because it's true,” Reive said sullenly for the tenth time. “We saw the Green Country in her dream. It is in her eyes as well, you have only to look to see it. Please, can we please have something to drink?”

Shiyung pursed her lips in annoyance, then clicked her fingers. Her server listed into the room, and the caracal moaned softly. “Me-suh, bring us some of that aquavit and whatever else there is—fruit or something.”

Frowning, the margravine stood and paced. Behind Reive stood the
rasa,
so silent that the gynander held her breath, to see if she could hear him breathing; but she heard nothing. His pale eyes glittered as he watched her, and it seemed that his irises bloomed a deeper blue as Shiyung grew more agitated.

The margravine stopped and gazed sharply at Reive.

“Now I can tell you, morphodite, that my sister Âziz would be the last person in Araboth to have that dream. Unlike me she has no interest whatsoever in theological matters, and she is not—shall we say—superstitious. Now I would have thought this was a more commonplace dream, an omen perhaps of unrest during the upcoming holiday. But I find it very interesting that you interpreted it so differently, especially on the eve of Æstival Tide. There are
many
interesting things about you. For instance, how is it that you came to this level without a sponsor? You were not on the guest list for that inquisition—”

“We were invited—” Reive tugged at the small mesh purse hanging about her waist and pulled out Tatsun Frizer's allurian calling card. “See?”

Shiyung took the card and read it, then tossed it aside. “Frizer. She's in Blessed Narouz's Refinery. How do you know her?”

Reive started to explain about that morning: the walk along the boulevard, the Investiture, and the woman with the puppet who had given her the card. But as she started to speak Tast'annin's face trapped her, like the black mirrors set by moujiks to capture the souls of the dead. “We—we don't know,” she stammered.

“She will not harm you, Reive,” the
rasa
said softly. He moved closer to her and placed one gloved hand upon her knee. He stroked her leg gently, as Shiyung toyed with her caracal. “If what you said was true—if Âziz really did have a prophetic dream—why that is quite an unusual circumstance, and you must understand better than we do what that portends. Don't you, Reive?”

His voice had grown soft, its monotone and the scent of sandalwood lulling her so that her eyelids drooped and she let herself sink backward into the pillows. She said nothing, her mouth shaping a silent O as the
rasa
continued.

“You read my dream without any difficulty—perhaps a
rasa's
dreams are not so challenging as those others—and so now I will tell you something, Reive. I think you were right. I think Âziz
did
have the dream of the Green Country.”

Shiyung made a small noise, whether of disapproval or restrained excitement the gynander couldn't tell. Tast'annin's hand upon her thigh tightened, squeezing more and more forcefully until Reive cried out. But he did not seem to notice, only went on. speaking in his calm toneless voice.

“You must understand, I have seen before what happens when people do not pay attention to their dreams. Âziz and her clever siblings have been supporting research in distant places, facilities in the wilderness where it was thought safe to perform some rather cruel acts—upon children, among others. I daresay Shiyung has forgotten all about that little project of hers—”

Shiyung blinked her calm green eyes and shook her head. “Children? Which one was that?”

“The Human Engineering Laboratory, The Harrow Effect, that was what they called it. A method of inducing multiple personalities and then using the subjects in emotive engram therapy. Psychic vampires, capable of reading the emotions and memories of others. They would make ideal spies and terrorists for the Orsinate, perhaps even help them to escape their servitude to the Ascendant Autocracy. Only the subjects were so unstable that they often went mad and killed themselves, or induced suicide and madness in others.”

Shiyung furrowed her brow, her little mouth pursed into a frown. The
rasa's
voice rose slightly.

“See, Reive! She doesn't even remember. But
I
recall when Shiyung was so excited about the Harrow Effect that she couldn't—well, she couldn't do much of anything. She and her sisters had great plans—the Human Engineering Laboratory would be a testing ground, they would go on to have child farms where they would raise entire armies of disassociated terrorists, ready to kill and be killed without a single thought. Certainly without a single thought from the Orsinate. They would seize control once more of the ancient capital—ah, see, Reive, she remembers
that
part—and install a new Governor there, someone chosen expressly for that purpose from the highest ranks of the NASNA Academy. And of course, eventually the Orsinate would move there, at least one of them would—the youngest, perhaps, she was known for a certain recklessness that sometimes passed as foresight. She would not be afraid to go into the wilderness and live in the ruins, once the ruins had been cleaned up a bit—she may be feckless, but she is also a fastidious young woman.”

The
rasa's
voice had grown quite loud. When he fell silent its echo filled the room like a bell clanging. Beneath his fingers dark welts had sprung up on Reive's leg. She covered her face with her hands, biting her lip to keep from crying out again. Abruptly he let go of her. With a cry she backed away from him until she bumped into the wall.

From where she reclined against a stack of pillows, Shiyung stared at Tast'annin, her needle-thin eyebrows raised above guileless eyes. “I
had
forgotten about that project,” she said. “Whatever happened to those people?”

“They are all dead,” the
rasa
replied. Reive huddled against the wall, shivering. How could the margravine stand it, listening to it—
him
—talk like this? The sound of his voice was enough to drive Reive mad; and the way he looked at Shiyung… Reive crossed her hands across her chest and prayed the
rasa
would forget about her, forget she had ever come here.

The
rasa
crossed the room to stand above Shiyung. With one gloved hand he reached to caress her hair, letting it slide between his fingers in a long black stream. “Or most of them are, at any rate. A few escaped; at least one that I know of. It's ironic, isn't it? That little diversion of yours caused so much misery and destruction; and yet you don't even remember it…”

Shiyung closed her eyes, arching her neck against the rasa's hand. “I remember it now,” she said, her voice thick with a dreamy petulance. “I got the idea from the dream inquisitions, it all seemed to tie in somehow….”

The
rasa
stared at her with his bloodless gaze. “It
does
tie in,” he agreed. Shiyung's hair gleamed within the fingers of his leather glove, jet against ebony. “I like it when things connect like that: I have a rather Jesuitical predilection for order. The Academy does that to one,” he added.

Shiyung gave a small sharp gasp. Not, as Reive first thought, because of what he had said, but because the
rasa's
hand had moved slowly, almost lovingly, from her hair to her neck. His fingers lay across her throat, dull black against her moon-white skin.

“Margalis,” Shiyung choked. At first Reive thought she was teasing, but then she saw that one of the
rasa's
hands had tightened around her throat; the other was pulling her up by her hair, until she staggered to her feet.

“Mar-ga-lis
—” she said again, thickly, swallowing the name so that Reive could barely hear her.

“Wait—” the gynander said hoarsely, clutching her hands in her lap. “No—we—please,
no
—”

The
rasa
stood beside Shiyung now, like a shadowy figure manipulating a life-size puppet. With his gloved hand he tugged her head back, her hair flowing through his fingers like dark water. His other hand clenched her throat until a rivulet of blood sprang from between two metal fingers, sending a fine red spray upon his robes. The margravine's eyes bulged, her mouth twisted as she stared at Reive, hands slapping frantically at the air. Reive fell back against the floor, gasping, and still it went on, the
rasa
tightening his grip upon Shiyung's throat as he tugged slowly and steadily at her scalp.

And then, with a sound like shears cutting through very heavy cloth, he yanked sharply at her head. Reive shrieked and covered her mouth. The
rasa
let go of that cascade of ebony hair, pushed the head forward until it lolled crookedly upon one shoulder so that she stared dully at the gynander. The emerald irises were swallowed by watery red. A fine line of spit ran from the corner of her mouth to her chin, joined the thin stream of blood that trickled from between dark bruises upon her throat. Gently the
rasa
shook her by the shoulders; a sudden gout of blood poured from her mouth to splash his boots.

“There,” said the
rasa.
He pulled the corpse heavily across the room and propped it against some pillows. He moved Shiyung's hands to her breast, then crouched to spread her hair in a jet fan across her shoulders. “You could almost imagine she is a real woman.”

The gynander clutched her stomach, Shiyung's name catching in her throat. Shiyung's caracal crossed the room, nosed at the corpse and growled plaintively. It grew unbearably hot. Sweat pooled beneath Reive's breasts and trickled onto her stomach. There was a faint sound, like a far-off explosion. The tapestries on the wall shivered as though a figure moved behind them.

The
rasa
stood, his limbs creaking, and let one hand linger upon Shiyung's cheek. Finally he said, “I must go now.”

Reive choked back a scream. “
Go?
But where will you take us, what—”

“You must stay here.” As he stared down at her Reive saw her own face reflected in that horrible blank mask. “If you try to flee they will only find you that much sooner. Here you might have time to get something to eat.”

Reive's teeth chattered so that she could barely speak. At her feet the caracal licked Shiyung's eyes. “B-but if we stay they will blame
us,
they will think we killed her—”

The
rasa
shook his head. “You must admit, it does seem rather strange—your apocalyptic reading of Âziz's dream and then your escape from the Reception Area, and whatever are you doing here in Shiyung's chambers?”

Reive began to weep, as the
rasa
went on, “But they would not blame me, even if I stayed. Because, you see, a
rasa
has no volition of its own: no will to love, or hope, or seek vengeance. It would be impossible for me to kill the margravine, or anyone else.”

“But then how…?”

The Aviator Imperator gazed down at the shivering gynander, the corpse with its long black hair spilling onto the pillows. He raised one hand to his face, and by a trick of the light glancing from his sleek mask it seemed that he had a mouth, and that mouth smiled.

“But how could I kill her, when by my own admission such a thing is impossible?” He stepped over Shiyung's body to the door and paused there, his blue eyes huge and brilliant. “Perhaps, after death, we are controlled by a will even stronger than our own.”