only an afterimage remains. When she can see again, there is a man with the face of one of the Station gods standing on the platform.

Tawaddud curtsies. The man fixes his gaze on her with a sudden jerk of his head. The pale blue eyes and their tiny pupils feel like a blow. His skin is even darker than Tawaddud’s own, except for a purple cluster of rough scars across his nose and cheekbone.

‘My lord Sumanguru of the Turquoise Branch,’ Tawaddud says. ‘Please allow me welcome you to the city of Sirr, on behalf of the Muhtasib Council. I am Tawaddud of House Gomelez. I have been assigned to be your guide.’

She speaks out the words of the Seal, moving her hands in the ritual gestures of a muhtasib. In the athar, her fingers paint swirls of golden letters in the air. They swarm around the Sobornost man like insects and settle on his skin. For an instant, he is tattooed with fiery characters, spelling out the unique Name given to the Seal that only the muhtasibs know.

Sumanguru flinches, looking at his hands. His massive chest heaves beneath the featureless black Sobornost unif that looks like paint on his skin.

‘I have given you one of our Seals. It will protect you from wildcode for seven days and nights,’ Tawaddud says. ‘Hopefully your task will not require more than that.’ Besides, the Accord modification vote goes ahead in two days.

Sumanguru’s nostrils flare.

‘I thank you,’ he says. ‘But a guide . . . a guide will not be necessary.’ He speaks slowly, with a rumbling voice, and smacks his lips as if tasting the words. ‘I am fully briefed and capable of carrying out my task. I will interface directly with the Council if necessary.’

Tawaddud’s neck prickles. The uploads and the vasilev on the platform are frozen, staring at Sumanguru with a look of abject terror.

‘Perhaps there has been a miscommunication. The Council feels that—’

‘There has. I will require your assistance no further.’ Sumanguru takes a step forward. He looms in front of Tawaddud, two heads taller than her. Like the Station, he is built according to a different scale. His skin has the same dark sheen as the floor, and the rain does not seem to cling to him. Tawaddud’s heart pounds.

‘But you may find the city strange,’ she says. ‘And there are many customs you will not be familiar with —’

‘You have a problem. Tell your masters I will solve it. Is that not enough?’

He pushes Tawaddud aside with a movement so quick it feels more like a blow, a stinging impact just below her left collarbone that makes her lose her balance and fall down. There are bright flashes in front of her eyes.

Tawaddud the diplomat. Stupid girl.

She shakes her head to clear it. There is something familiar about the clumsiness in Sumanguru’s movements. The realisation almost makes her smile.

Sumanguru looks down at her for a moment, impassively. He turns to leave, but Tawaddud holds his gaze with her own.

‘It is strange, isn’t it?’ she says.

‘What?’ His shoulders shift slightly.

‘The jinni say they become different when they wear bodies. They say there is a craving that comes, afterwards. It must be very strange for you to have a body again, after so long. Being poured into a different cup.’ She struggles to get up. ‘A hsien-ku told me it is a privilege amongst your people to wear flesh again.’

‘The hsien-kus say a lot of things,’ Sumanguru says. His mouth is a grim line, but there is something in his eyes that Tawaddud recognises. Fascination. Curiosity. ‘Flesh is the enemy.’ Slowly, he extends a hand and pulls Tawaddud up, fingers engulfing hers. His grip is just a little too tight, but his fingers are warm.

‘And do you know your enemy?’ Tawaddud winces at the fresh bruise in her chest, gritting her teeth. ‘Because I do.’ She inserts a deliberate note of pain into her voice.

Sumanguru frowns. ‘Are you . . . hurt?’

Speak their own language, Kafur said. Tell beautiful lies with it.

Tawaddud slaps him, across the cheek with the scars, as hard as she can. It feels like hitting a statue, and the sting of the blow almost makes her cry out. But Sumanguru flinches, takes a step back and lifts one confused hand to his face.

‘Not anymore,’ Tawaddud says. She flexes her tingling fingers. ‘I don’t know where you come from, Sumanguru of the Turquoise Branch,’ she says softly. ‘But you do not know flesh like I do, or the stories it tells. And Sirr is a city of stories made flesh. Can you read them? Did they teach you that in the guberniya?’

Sumanguru takes a step closer and bends down, staring at her as if looking for his reflection in her eyes. She looks away from his gaze at the craters of his scars, strangely beautiful against his otherwise perfect skin. She can feel the warmth emanating from his body. His breath smells faintly of something that reminds her of machinery, engines or guns. The young man in orange said that the Sobornost cannot make more-than-human bodies in Sirr without being eaten by wildcode, but Tawaddud wonders if that’s entirely true.

The corner of Sumanguru’s mouth twitches.

‘Guide me to the enemies of Sobornost and I will destroy them,’ he says slowly, a rumble in his chest. ‘Flesh or otherwise.’

‘In that case, you had better come with me.’

Tawaddud starts walking away from the platform. For a moment she has no idea where she is going, but then the road of light appears beneath her feet, and carries them away. She feels the wind in her wet hair and resists the urge to look back. Behind her, the lightning of the scanning beam comes down again, taking the frightened boy with it.

9

THE THIEF AND THE TIGER

A discontinuity. A new world slaps me in the face, and I fall to my knees in the sudden gravity. Chilly air fills my lungs. It smells of wet earth and smoke.

I am standing in the middle of a clearing in a white forest. There are straight trees with pale, birchlike bark and impossibly symmetric foliage shaped like crowns or hands in prayer. Dark, ragged creatures with fluttering wings dart amongst the branches. The sky is grey. The ground is covered in white particles too grainy to be snow, a few centimetres deep. The Realmgate is behind me, a silver arch – a perfect flimsy semicircle. Good. At least I still have a way out.

I get up and wince at the sudden pain at the soles of my bare feet. The white stuff feels like powdered glass. I grunt and scrape some of the particles away. They look like cogwheels with sharp teeth, spilled innards of tiny clocks.

The sting reminds me that I have changed, too. Zoku Realms do not just transfer, they translate, turn you into a software construct that best approximates you in whatever constraints the virtual world imposes. Here, it seems to mean my shipboard attire of a jacket and slacks, barefoot – and no trace whatsoever of my Sobornost body’s more superhuman capabilities. At least my lost hand is back, even if it quickly goes blue and numb in the cold.

My stolen Realmspace sword has also translated – as it should have. Made by the Martian zoku whose specialty is raiding lost Realms, it adapts to whatever environment you transfer it into. I blow at my hands, rub them together, and pull it out from its scabbard.

Here, its blade is white bone, curved like a claw. The hilt is an intricate spiky design made from cold iron, heavy and uncomfortable in my hand. When I raise it, it whispers to me in a voice that is like chalk screeching on a blackboard. Small Realm. Archetypal objects and avatars. Generative content. Damaged. Dying. It makes sense. My clumsy attempts to open the Box have left the environment here broken. I wonder what it was originally: some sort of fairy-tale forest, perhaps.

Then I realise that Perhonen’s butterfly avatar is missing: it should have come

Вы читаете The Fractal Prince
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