The Fractal Prince

used to be a mutalibun and brought mementos with her from the desert. With her experience, she must have been aware of the consequences of such an act. The infection must have taken hold in seconds. In other words, effectively the lady Alile committed suicide.’

‘How was the infection contained?’ Tawaddud asks. She remembers the drills Chaeremon made her go through as a child, the Secret Names to speak if her father’s palace ever experienced a wildcode attack.

‘The housekeeper jinn Khuzaima – who you are welcome to speak to – alerted us and the muhtasibs,’ Rumzan says. ‘The spread of the infection was slow and restricted to the Councilwoman’s body, as far as we can determine. That should not be surprising: after all, this is the residence of a muhtasib, with several layers of Seals everywhere.’

‘Are you sure you cannot provide a more accurate reconstruction than that?’ Sumanguru asks. He is staring at the walls, frowning. ‘Could anyone have brought in the wildcode from the outside?’

Rumzan spreads his hands: his fingertips flutter like candle flames. ‘My Repentants are good, but there are limits to what we can do with the athar. Especially now that the ambient wildcode levels are much higher than normal. Athar traces decay quickly. However, as for outside access, like with all Council members, the palace is under constant Repentant surveillance. All comings and goings of both jinni and humans are accounted for. But we do not know what happened inside.’

Sumanguru narrows his eyes. ‘My branch would call this a locked room mystery,’ he says. There is a strange note of amusement in his voice.

‘My sister said this was a possession,’ Tawaddud says. ‘How can you be sure of that? Have you found a possession vector?’

‘Nothing,’ Rumzan says. The jinn turns his glowing symbol at her like an eye. ‘Nothing forbidden. No books, no athar stories. Of course, the athar here is very complex, so we may have missed something. Given the circumstances, a suicide is a natural hypothesis, although there is no suicide note – and it seems unlikely, given the ardour with which she has been preparing for the Council voting session, according to her aides. That would seem to support the conjecture that when taking her own life, the Councilwoman was . . . literally not herself.’

‘So it is just speculation?’

‘Yes. However, it appears to be the only line of enquiry that fits the facts. Another complication is that we have not been able to find her qarin.’ Rumzan’s face tiles arrange themselves into something that looks like the facepaint of a sad clown.

Sumanguru runs his fingers along the Seal haze at the door.

‘How long do they last?’ he asks.

‘What?’

‘How long would my Seals last in there?’

‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Tell me,’ Sumanguru says.

‘I don’t know. Two to three minutes? They tell me sobortech is more vulnerable to wildcode than we are, so perhaps less. But you should wait for the muhtasib, they can—’

Before she can finish, Sumanguru steps through the Seal wall.

A faint aura shimmers around him in the athar. He walks past the remains of Alile, head turning, looking everywhere. Tawaddud wonders what kind of range of senses he has beyond human. He touches things, the empty jars on the high tables, traces the arabesque patterns on the walls. His movements seem different, not so much a clumsy, unstoppable machine but a cat, looking for something.

Then he stops in front of a wall with an ornate pattern of graphical representations of Secret Names, geometrical shapes on a four-by-four grid, made from multicoloured ceramic tiles the size of a palm, inlaid with gold.

In the athar, Tawaddud sees a black stain marring his Seals, spreading. Wildcode.

‘His Seals won’t hold!’ Tawaddud shouts. ‘Lord Sumanguru, get out! Rumzan, get help!’

The Sobornost gogol starts pressing the tiles. They move under his fingers. The Alile thing’s sapphire tendrils coil around his limbs but he is immersed in his work. There is a click, and a part of the wall slides aside, revealing a dark space. Sumanguru reaches within, brushing aside a sapphire tendril with his other hand. Then he is back through the Seal wall, clutching something in his arms: a metallic bird.

It looks smaller than Tawaddud remembers, but still large for a bird, the length of her forearm, a hawklike, graceful thing with a forked tail. Its eyes are closed, covered by tiny golden lids.

‘Arcelia?’

Tawaddud holds the bird in her arms. She expected it to feel cold and metallic, but the feathers of its back are almost alive, sharp but warm, and the flywheel in its chest hums steadily, like a rapidly beating heart. She strokes it to soothe it, but with no effect. Whatever happened to her, she had time to hide it. The sensible part of her.

‘Explain a qarin to me,’ Sumanguru says, pointing at the creature. ‘In simple words.’

‘A qarin is . . . a jinn companion, entwined with a muhtasib,’ Tawaddud says, voice shaking slightly. ‘A qarin and a muhtasib are one being, brought together as a child by an entwiner.’

‘What you describe is a forbidden act to us, only for the Primes,’ the Sobornost gogol says. ‘Perhaps there are even more reasons to cleanse your city than I thought. Why is this thing done?’

‘It is a custom,’ Tawaddud says. ‘A symbol of the alliance between our two peoples. But it also allows the muhtasib to regulate the economy of the city. To see athar like the jinni do, to watch the flow of information, the shadows of everything in the athar, money, products, labour, people.’ She looks at Rumzan. ‘Directly, not through a primitive instrument like athar glasses.’

Sumanguru laughs, a resonant, barking sound. ‘Matter and mind. Dualism. Primitive distinctions. All is information. Are you saying that this creature, this qarin, contains remnants of the Councilwoman’s mind?’

‘No,’ Tawaddud says. ‘I’m saying that the qarin is a part of the Councilwoman’s mind.’ There is something wrong here. Why does he not know all this?

‘Perfect,’ Sumanguru says. ‘Repentant Rumzan, is there a quiet space in this palace? Somewhere where we would not be disturbed?’

‘Lord Sumanguru, if you don’t mind,’ Rumzan says, ‘in the capacity of the official investigator here, I am compelled to ask what it is that you are intending to do? I cannot let you—’

Sumanguru draws himself to his full height. ‘Perhaps your Council has not explained the situation to you,’ he says with a rumbling voice. ‘We are not all like my sisters the hsien-kus: not all gentle. There are those who say that the Great Common Task demands a cleansing here. If I can’t find the enemies of the Task, those voices may be heard. Do I make myself clear?’

Ripples run through Rumzan’s thought-form. ‘Lady Tawaddud—’

Suddenly, she remembers how she met the jinn. He had started to identify with his thought-form, and so she wore a mask and body paint that duplicated his tilings, to match his self-image. She took him out to her balcony. He liked the feel of sunlight on his skin.

‘If there is a problem,’ she says slowly, ‘you also have a problem with me and my father. I may not have an official position in the Council, but I assure you I have my father’s trust,’ she holds up the jinn ring, ‘as well as that of the Council. Not to mention the fact that Mr Sen is a close personal friend.’ She gives the jinn the sugary sweet smile Duny always uses when making threats. ‘Do I make myself clear?’

Rumzan makes a little croaking sound. ‘Of course,’ he says. ‘My apologies. I just had not been briefed properly, that’s all.’

‘Lord Sumanguru,’ Tawaddud whispers, ‘it would be useful if you were to share what it is that you intend to do.’

‘Just the obvious,’ Sumanguru says. ‘Interrogate the witness.’

Alile’s palace is even larger than Tawaddud’s father’s residence – a maze of transparent cylinders, bubbles and projecting pyramids.

As the Repentant takes them through a large, sunlit gallery of sculptures, another thought-formed jinn