Empire of Bones (6 page)

At last she slid into real sleep, waking only when the dawn began to come up over the river. The ghat came back to life, holy men splashing noisily about in the shallows. She could hear voices raised in prayer and a bell tolling out; the funeral ceremonies were beginning again. Restlessly, she left the ghat and the smoldering pyres and wandered back into the maze of Goudalia. The pain was still there but it felt muted, as though someone had turned down the volume of a radio.

Life began early in Varanasi, in the cool of the morning, and the lanes were filled with people. Jaya passed a boy on a bike with a basketful of watermelons, an office worker in a suit and high heels, a group of ancient women in ochre saris. Their faces were silvered with Selenge and their hands were clawed. They huddled together as if for protection. The office worker gave them a wide berth, and the boy on the bike veered away as he saw them and made a sign against evil. The old women drew back into a filthy alley and hastened away.

Jaya followed them into the shadows, and it seemed to her that she saw the blood-colored word of plague written on the doors and death in the air. Jaya's caste passed reviled or un-seen, but now she was invisible even to herself. She did not know what she had become. She flattened herself against the wall to let one of the sacred cattle go by, and saw with a shock that it looked at her with golden eyes.

Toward noon, Jaya found herself crouched against the wall of the Temple of Durga. The stone was red like desiccated flesh. Within, the great bell tolled. Altliough she knew where she was, the town was becoming increasingly insubstantial, as though she were watching a film. She was no longer con-cerned about the soldiers, about Anand, and somewhere deep within she felt dimly surprised that this should be so.

The sweat and heat on her skin seemed separate from her-self; she had become no more than a shell, a carrier for another consciousness. It seemed to Jaya now that she was traveling farther and farther beyond the net of satellite communica-tions, far from Earth to the edge of the system. She opened her eyes and saw with a start that the
raksasa's
insubstantial form was once more sitting by her side, watching her. She could hear the voice more clearly now, calling to her in opaque sym-bols across the void. And now, after all these years, the voice told her at last what it was: not a god, or a vision produced by sickness, but a ship.

"What are you?" Jay a whispered, fighting panic, but the
ra'tsasa
only smiled her curled smile. "Where have you come from?"

Watch
, the
raksasa
said blandly.
Integration has commenced
.

And Jaya looked through the
raftsasa's
eyes as the ship slowly turned, out beyond the warmth of the sun, and began to move into the boundaries of the solar system—ice frosting its ancient sides, its organic systems resurrected into life, viral nexi filamenting within its cores. And she listened to it singing as she summoned it in, singing of what she did not yet under-stand: the progenitor of plagues, made by our Makers, sailing down to Earth.

MASASATMA

i.

Ixnatkurriye/ Kasasatran system

Jrf/*
The immense expanse of the city was rosy with sunset
wKsTl
light, causing the arches of the caste-domes to glow, as if fn| lit from within. The ribbed walls of Rasasatra's huge liv-¦yf ing buildings flexed and stirred as the light faded, releas-jP ing pollen into the evening air. The crimson sun was JHB

balanced on the horizon like an eye, highlighting distant pylons, and a red wind was blowing up from the desert parks of the Zher, stirring a singing vine into agitated life and rat-tling the quills at the back of Sirru's head.

The walls of the little domed house, however, remained as closed as a disapproving moutJi. Sirru leaned forward and whispered impatiently to the house, "But I've already ex-plained it to you half a dozen times.

I have an appointment with your mistress. At least let me send her a
message
."

He had tried any number of verbal modes, none of which had been successful. It seemed that the house was not open to persuasion. Despite the protection of the nanoscale that filmed Sirru's skin beneath his robe, the house seemed to sense both his insecurities and his hopes, which were already becoming more than a little forlorn. His quills drooped. The palm of his hand still tingled with the message that Anarres had pressed into it the previous night at the Making celebration: her loca-tive address and a time, elegantly inscribed in pheromonal sig-nature across his tingling skin. It was only the third time they had been out together, but Sirru was already incapable of thinking about anyone else.

Even though he was nothing more than a civil servant, Anarres seemed genuinely interested in him, and her invita-tion to visit had appeared sincere. Now, however, he couldn't help having doubts.
What if
Anarres didn't really want me to come? Maybe she's got bored with me. Maybe she was just being
kind
... In terms of caste, after all, Anarres was out of Sirru's league. Wasn't she an
apsara
, a highly regarded courtesan-interpreter, whereas he was merely a minor functionary ?

But that lowly status could soon change, Sirru reminded himself. He reached into the folded pocket of his robe and took out the sliver that contained the message, reassuring himself once more that it was real.

We have an urgent matter to discuss with you. Kindly present yourself before us, Third-Day,
Fifth-Hour-First-Morning
. That was tomorrow. The message was signed:
EsRavesh
.

Clearly, the message had come from a
khaith;
he would have been able to determine that even without the locative and the signature. The
khaithoi
might have been only a couple of castes above his own, but they gave themselves enough airs and graces to suit the most elevated echelons of society. It was typical of the constant jockeying for position among the castes.

Sirru wished he could place EsRavesh. The name had a nagging familiarity, and yet he was sure that he had never met this particular
khaith
before. He had no idea why he had been summoned. Perhaps the family was being offered a raise in status, and in that case, his relationship with Anarres could only be strengthened. It was a comforting dream, especially after the terrible events of the past year, but Sirru couldn't bring himself to believe in it.

He looked back at the stubbornly closed house and sighed.

Doubtless he was just being naive in entertaining these vain hopes. The walls were prickling with distaste, but he refused to be so easily defeated.
Time to try more unorthodox methods
. He reached beneath the wide, loose collar of his robe and touched the nanoscale implant. He felt the sudden cool flush of the nanoscale over his skin as its modulation changed to the specifications that Sirru's friend in the emergency services had previously programmed in. He'd always tliought that the specs would come in handy, ever since the friend had offered to trade him the codes. You took power where you could get it, these days.

The house sensors glowed in the growing dusk. Sirru stood on the entry platform, as nonchalantly as he could manage, and let his clothes lie for him. He tried to suppress the rush of satisfaction as a small slit appeared in the wall. The house had believed the lie:
Emergency! Permit access immediately
! The wall manifolded back to let him in and Sirru stepped quickly through before the house realized that it had been tricked.

Inside, the place was as beautiful as he had expected. Mesh webbing outlined ceiling and wall, and the floor was covered with soft black matting. The house was filled with its symbi-otic flowers, which rustled and whispered as he passed. Sirru walked quickly through and found Anarres sitting outside on a little terrace, surrounded by night lilies. The flowers were slowly opening as the sun sank. Anarres glanced up as Sirru stepped out onto the balcony, her leafgreen eyes alight.

"Sirru! I thought you weren't coming."

"I'm sorry I'm late," Sirru said. "I had a few problems with your house."

Anarres face was dismayed. "Wouldn't it let you in? Oh, I'm sorry. It's been like that for
weeks
. I keep changing the pa-rameters, but they never seem to stick. How did you get in?"

"I lied."

"
So
embarrassing…" Anarres murmured, flustered. But Sirru had already forgotten his problems with the house and was gazing at her in admiration. Either she had just been entertaining another visitor, or (a more flattering explanation) she had taken pains solely for him. Her long rustling quills were bound in a glistening web of wire, and a subtly expensive aura of pheromones surrounded her like a mantle. Thus en-hanced, she seemed to glow. Every gesture she made was filled with meaning: limklessly seductive.

He swallowed.

"I'm so glad you've come." Anarres said, undulating up to him. "You see, I've been having a few—well, not
problems
, ex-actly, but a bit of a difference of opinion with someone. It's up-set me." She placed her hand intimately on the inside of his elbow, beneath the loose sleeve of the robe.

Sirru's breath stopped short in his throat. Anarres was not as tall as he, and was also more sinuous than was usual among her caste, suggesting some expensive modifications. Silver wire bound her elbow spurs and the prominent vertebrae of her spine, revealed under the mesh of her garment. She was darker than Sirru, her skin dappled with the colors of storm cloud and rain. She reached up and touched the tip of a jade green tongue to the implant below his collarbone. The scale vanished; Sirru's skin was suddenly cool beneath the robe.

"Now you'll know what I'm thinking," he told her, embar-rassed.

She leaned her head against his shoulder.

"But I want to share things with you."

"You'll think I'm an infant," he said. "An infant who can't control its own thoughts… And compared to your
hhaithoi
af-filiates, it's probably true."

Anarres shivered in his arms. "But that's exactly my prob-lem. You see, I've been doing some work for a
hfiaith
—a per-son called EsRavesh. And he's somehow got the idea that I'm his exclusive
apsara
, that I shouldn't be sleeping with anyone else. But of course that's simply unreasonable. After all, it's my job as a courtesan-interpreter. Anyway, EsRavesh has no right to tell me what to do in my private life, has he?"

She glanced up, and Sirru realized that without the scale, she had felt his sudden alarm.

'Sirru? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Sirru said, firmly. "I'm just worried about you, that's all." Gently, he released her and went to stand at the edge of the balcony.

EsRavesh: the
ftfiaith
whom he had been summoned to see on the following morning. It could not be coincidence. Was that why the name was so familiar? Sirru tried to stifle his dis-may. Had Anarres mentioned EsRavesh before? No, he was certain she had not. But was he being brought before the
kfiaithoi
for his involvement with Anarres? It seemed un-likely—higher castes rarely concerned themselves with the sexual entanglements of their social inferiors. But if, as Anarres had said, EsRavesh was being unreasonable…

He hoped this wasn't going to turn into some horrible po-litical complication. What with poor IrEthiverris and the dis-aster on Arakrahali, the past montüs had been bad enough already.

"Sirru, you don't know what it's like, dealing with the
khaithoi
," Anarres said behind him. "It's like being sur-rounded by mirrors. You never have any privacy. They can feel everything you think. They won't let me wear scale, of course; it's as though I'm raw, all the time. When I'm inter-preting for them, they just reach out and take my thoughts."

Now that Sirru's own scale had been deactivated, he could feel the frustration emanating from Anarres like steam. He wondered what her suppressant prescriptions might be. Her honesty was startling.

"I'm sorry," Anarres said abruptly. "It really isn't fair to ask you to listen to all my problems. But you're so easy to talk to…"

"I'd been wondering what you see in me."

Anarres looked a little startled. "You're kind. And you lis-ten to what I'm saying instead of looking at me as though I was some kind of ornament. Anyway, all the people I ever seem to meet are politicians, and it's nice to spend time with someone uncomplicated for a change."

Sirru was not sure whether to regard this as a compliment or not, but Anarres' mood was changing. She was broadcast-ing
I attraction!affectionlregard
! and a promise beyond all these that made him gasp.

He felt her tongue slide across the sensi-tive skin of his throat, trailing excitement in its wake. His quills prickled, rising slightly from his scalp. He managed to say in a reasonably normal voice, "Actually, my own status may be undergoing a revision. I have an appointment with the
'thaithoi
tomorrow." He did

not mention the name of EsRavesh. "I've been given to understand it's important, but who can feel?"

"You're representing your caste? Or just your clade?"

Sirru smiled. It was a compliment for her to think that he might be representing the millions of people and subspecies who comprised his caste, but he knew she was just saying it to flatter him.

"The latter. Usually my family wheedles me into rep-resenting them, but this time the
fyaithoi
asked for me per-sonally."

The leafgreen eyes blinked up into his own. "Be careful when you go to see them," Anarres said, emanating anxiety.

"I intend to be," Sirru replied, and kissed her.

She responded with enthusiasm, then drew back. "Sirru— do you know whether you'll be engaging in sexual mode widi the
'thaithoiV

"I don't know. I don't think so." He frowned. "We've com-municated in the usual combinations up until now: I speak with words and modes; they're just patronizing. I suppose if they have anything very complex or lengthy to discuss, they'll convey it sexually. Hope not, though." Sirru sighed. It was not an enticing thought. He had secrets that could prove danger-ous if he let them slip at the wrong moment.