The Stars Askew (40 page)

“And you've been well, Odile?”

“Well, to be honest, not so great.”

“That goes for everyone. What are you doing here?” said Kata.

“Looking for you, as it turns out.”

Kata brushed back her hair. She was distracted for a moment by the two forces below, caught in deadly battle. It seemed inevitable that the forces of Saliras would win, for eventually their numbers would show. The cats had been slaughtered but had sown death and despair among many of the defenders, who were now scrabbling back under the weight of Saliras's forces. Several had grouped up in little clumps, defending the streets tenaciously, but already they were surrounded, beset on many sides. At any moment they would be wiped out.

At that moment a great figure burst from the miniature cliffs. Dexion stood on a ledge, great hammer in hand, and roared. His horns seemed to glint in the light, his mane was braided, and he wore a great bronze breastplate, itself with a red-horned head pressed into it. For a moment all seemed silent. Then, for the second time that day, Kata heard a tremendous roar.

The crowd erupted with cheers and cries. The man and his son beside her were in rapture. They took to their feet with the rest of them. “Minotaur! Minotaur!”

Kata put her face in her hands. She could barely look.

Odile grabbed her arm. “One of our group returned last night and told me a curious fact. He said a man calling himself Maximilian was captured out in the villas to the south.”

A chill ran up Kata's back. Surely, that was impossible, unless Max had been imprisoned in one of the Technis villas down south all this time. “Was the man liberated from a dungeon?”

Odile shook her head. “Apparently, he fought with the vigilant guards, tried to stop them from destroying property.”

“It can't be Maximilian. He died in the dungeons.”

Dexion fell onto the rear of one of Saliras's columns. He crashed into them like a catapult stone; they were thrown in all directions by the force of his onslaught. This was the decisive moment. The tide was turned. Madness came upon Saliras's forces. They fled, screaming.

“Anyway, I have more than enough to worry about.” Odile brushed herself off anxiously.

The comment piqued Kata's attention. “What?”

“You recall Detis, a liberation-thaumaturgist. He had met you once, not long ago, he said.”

“I met him at Marin's water palace. He was condemned to death by the Bolt for smuggling.”

“Yes, but it wasn't true. Detis was one of us. A fair man. He told us that should something happen to him, you would be the most trustworthy person in the seditionist movement. I thought that might be the case anyway, having met you before.”

“Us. Who do you mean?” Kata's senses were alive now. “I thought you were an intellectual, unconcerned with seditionism.”

“Max was right after all,” said Odile. “I thought I could stand aside, assess from on high, but I was wrong. Before the overthrow, the Houses cracked down on seditionists. There were fights in the courtyards of the university. Spies and agent provocateurs infiltrated the ranks of the radicals. One day the House thaumaturgists, in their black suits and death masks, came for me when I was in the university library. You can't imagine the terror their appearance struck in me. They had discovered I'd passed the binding formulae to Max, and I was destined for the terror-spheres in their dungeons. They chased me through the courtyards. But a thaumaturgist named Detis saved me, and I'll forever be in his debt. He had formed a group of thaumaturgists fighting for seditionism called the Brotherhood of the Hand. I joined him, but we are underground, because it's not safe out in the open. Too many of us have died already. Anyway, I thought you should know about Maximilian. If it
is
Max, perhaps you can do something. I always liked that curly-haired dreamer.”

Odile stood up to leave, but Kata grabbed her arm. “Wait, why is it so dangerous?”

Odile shook Kata off, glanced anxiously around the crowd. “There are enemies in the highest places. We're constantly being watched, all of us. I have to go.”

Odile walked off, stopped several feet away, looked back for a moment as if she might say something more, and then was gone.

On the Arena floor below, the defenders' victory was complete. Men swam back toward the arches while Dexion climbed the miniature Opera building. He raised his hammer in the air to chants of “Minotaur! Minotaur!”

Kata's mind raced as she rushed out of the Arena. She needed to see if there was any truth about Maximilian. She could head straight for the dungeons at House Arbor, but there was no certainty that the vigilant guards would let her in. The only way to be certain would be to approach Ejan.

The cold wind whipped around the streets surrounding the Arena. Inside, the roar continued.

*   *   *

As she hurried toward the Opera, Kata tried again to piece together events. She tried to keep her mind from running away with itself. The Maximilian in the Arbor dungeons was probably an impostor. He had been caught resisting the vigilants, attempting to defend one of the House agent's properties. The prisoner had probably once known Max and was using his name to try to escape judgment.

And yet the flame of hope sprung up in her. Maximilian's body had never been found. He had simply disappeared. She felt the pull of her former love. Love, like a vast sea into which you've stepped gingerly, only to realize you're caught in deadly currents that drag you out into its vastness. She would not step into that ocean again. Not now, perhaps not ever. Yet perhaps she was not responsible for his death after all?

In the southern wing, Ejan stood behind his desk, a map before him. He had adorned one of the walls with even more weapons: pikes and rapiers, blue-and-red assassins' scarves, throwing stars, rope darts, and other paraphernalia of death. In the corner, a fire burned, warming the room against the outside cold.

“Ejan, I must—” She stopped herself. On one side of the room, looking out at the pedestrians on Via Attica, stood Dumas, the leader of Collegium Caelian.

Dumas turned around and stared at her, the pink insides of his lower lids dragged down by his heavy cheeks. Two points of red emerged on Ejan's face.

“Ejan, I've heard there's a man claiming to be Maximilian in the dungeons of Arbor,” said Kata.

The spots of red disappeared from Ejan's cheeks, and he regained his icy complexion. “According to Georges, the man's an impostor, a criminal attempting to save himself.”

“Ah, Maximilian, I remember him,” said Dumas. “Young idealist, from what I remember. Hotheaded. Filled with ideas. Ideas—what attracts you so much about them? Life is a practical affair, don't you think?”

Ejan sat on a chair and kicked his feet up onto the desk, an unconvincing show that all was well. “Alas, we're on the opposite sides of things there. Ideas are all we have. All the rest are but base and material delusions. You won't take your goods when you go, Dumas.”

“And you won't take your ideas, either.” Dumas grinned.

“Kata here agrees with me, don't you?” said Ejan.

Kata was still trying to connect the disparate information in her mind. “Yes.”

Ejan sat up again, rolled the map up on his table. “Delicate things, these maps. I like delicate things, you know: flowers, vulnerable people. There's something tragic about a flower, don't you think? The way it only lasts for a short time. Mortality. That's what gets to me the most.”

“I was just at the Arena,” said Kata. “You'd have trouble there, Ejan.”

“Oh, I don't think he'd have trouble at all,” said Dumas. “He'd celebrate the fights, if they were for the right idea.”

“Can you organize them for the right idea, then?” said Ejan. “But that wouldn't bring in enough money, would it? You prefer to put on spectacles like—what was it today, Kata?”

“A reenactment of the battle against Saliras,” Kata said. “Caelian is organizing the fight season?”

In the corner, the log collapsed on itself, and the fire died a little. Dumas wandered over to it and stared into the embers for a moment before turning his back to the fireplace. Various expressions crossed his face, coming in rapid succession. Kata could only read one, a kind of resentment.

“Yes, since the Houses are gone…” Dumas held both hands palms up, as if to say,
Who else will organize them?

Pieces were coming together in Kata's mind. Dumas was organizing the fights at the Arena.
He was the one who had written to Armand,
she thought. The letter had claimed he would have something ready by the Twilight Observance, which would be the finale of the gladiator games. Snatches of a conversation with Dexion came back to her now.
The Collegia have really thrown their weight behind the games.… They're recruiting and training cohorts of fighters,
the minotaur had said. There was evidence Dumas had been involved in smuggling funds from the Marin treasury. A question bubbled up in her mind: Was this money being used to recruit a gladiator army? The Collegia had chosen a replica of the battle against Saliras as their first spectacular: a perfect training ground for city fighting. She remembered Dexion saying something else:
And those who survive are to be promoted to gladiator captains!
She sprang for a new conclusion: this was the meaning of the letter, in which the mysterious D had written,
Our best plan should be realized by the Twilight Observance.

And here was Dumas, free as a spear-bird circling the sky, fraternizing with Ejan. Why hadn't Ejan moved against him? Ejan, who was usually so decisive, so rigid and unbending, not one to compromise? She looked around at the weapons on the wall, including the assassins' scarves: some red, others blue. Weighted blue scarves like those used by philosopher-assassins connected with the secretive Arcadi sect. Weighted blue scarves like the one that had been used to kill Aceline. Kata felt suddenly afraid: she was in the presence of enemies. Maybe Maximilian
was
alive. If so, she would need a force of her own to save him from the Arbor Dungeons.

She muttered some excuses to the two men and left as quickly as she could. All the time she felt their hostile eyes on her.

 

THIRTY-TWO

Kata dashed along the corridors of the Technis Palace, skipping past other moderates carrying foodstuffs and weapons, avoiding those calling out messages to one another, and ducking past the little circles and congregations deep in discussion. Pneumatiques above had begun to whir through the air again, though others were broken and still hung like ruined lamps.

As she headed for the meeting room that had been set up as a center for the captains she had been training, an arm shot out from one side, grasped her. Twisting rapidly, she prepared to strike out. A familiar young man cowered before her. It took a moment to place him: it was Oewen, one of Max's old followers. Oewen had disappeared with his lover, Ariana, before the overthrow. That wasn't unusual. Militants came and went, Kata had learned. The revolution was a great devourer of people.

“Oewen? I thought you were gone from the movement,” she said.

“I am, Kata. I am. But I'm here for Maximilian. Is there nothing that can be done?”

She felt the shock of certainty. Her voice quavered. “You've seen him in the Arbor dungeons?”

“Yes, I've seen him, but not in the dungeons, though. I saw him in a prison cart on the way to the Standing Stones. He's headed for the Bolt.”

Kata grabbed the man by the shirt. “The Bolt?”

The man nodded desperately.

Kata burst into a run. Her mind leaped from conclusion to conclusion. Ejan was the key. He stood to benefit from the death of Aceline; he was allied with Dumas; and now, through his henchman, Georges, he was allowing his enemies to be wiped out one by one.

She burst through the door and to where her captains were sitting, overlooking a map of the city. They looked up in unison.

“I need a force of two hundred guards—now!” she said. “Into the carriages and to the Standing Stones.”

If Ejan wanted a display of power, he was about to get one.

*   *   *

The carriages sped along Via Gracchia. Pedestrians dashed to the side to avoid the oncoming column. Sitting beside the driver of the first carriage, Kata felt the cold wind rushing across her face. They reached the Arantine and were caught behind a steam-tram. Kata cursed out loud. With each moment that passed, Maximilian would be closer to death.

The tram clattered as it turned a corner, and then they were past it, rushing along the Southern Headland. At the Thousand Stairs they careened to a halt, for the way was blocked by a crowd of spectators, newly arrived from the Arena and come to see more death.

Kata pointed ahead and shouted at the driver. “Straight through them!”

The driver pulled on the reins. “I can't.”

Kata leaped from the carriage and waved at her captains. “Come on!”

They pushed their way through the screaming crowd. Someone shoved back, and Kata lashed out, struck something hard, plunged on.

She heard a great cheer from the Standing Stones, and her heart sank. A round of hooting followed. Her mind filled with awful images. Then she was through, and into the open path between the wooden palisades. Crowds packed the terraces of the ampitheater. Collegia flags flapped in the cold wind.

Several dirty, downtrodden men looked out morosely from the bars of the prison cart. Maximilian was not among them. Bodies wrapped in sheets were piled up to one side of the Standing Stones. Despair clutched at Kata. Her eyes were drawn to the three Bolts standing on the dais. One was broken and unoccupied. In the second, a man's shattered body was held upright by straps and restraints. Kata did not recognize his square face. Beside him stood the final Bolt.

A vigilant guard struggled with the second body, momentarily obscuring Kata's line of sight. As he dragged the corpse to one side, Kata glimpsed a mop of matted curly hair, then a dirty wiry beard, and between them, the large eyes of Maximilian looking out in shock. He was gagged but still very much alive.