House of Reeds

anger at the fools who run squeaking in empty halls, pretending to be the kujenai of old? Should I weep for what you've destroyed?'

Gretchen ran a hand through her hair and grimaced at the gritty feeling. She desperately needed a shower. Should I tell this old one what I saw? About the ghosts?

She gathered her thoughts, looked Malakar in the eye and said: 'The stone floor holding the root of the tree was a particularly pure, seamless marble. These readings show it was all of one piece. Marble, you should be aware, does not conduct heat, vibration or electricity well. The domed chamber around the tree also served to dampen electromagnetic waves or currents. I think the chamber was completely enclosed. It was a tomb.'

The Jehanan hooted questioningly. 'Why would they hide the -'

'Because they thought the tree was dangerous!' Gretchen stared at her grimy hand. Her fingers were trembling. Are there scorch marks from the green fire that washed over me? Is this how Hummingbird feels every day of his life? Merciful Mary, please keep my thoughts from sin, drown my curiosity, still my reaching hand. 'Because they knew it was dangerous. So they built a prison in their strongest fortress, and they set a particularly devout order – the mandire – to guard the cell and keep it safe.'

Malakar's eye-shields rattled. 'Safe? Safe from what?'

'From other Jehanan? From the last of the Haraphans?' Anderssen clenched her hands together. 'Whoever they captured it from…'

The gardener hissed, confused. 'You are filled with riddles. My snout is cold from all these twisty thoughts. The only matter to claw is – did any life remain in the cold metal? Was aught revealed to the Masters when they embraced the kalpataru down through these endless years?'

Taking a deep breath, Gretchen tucked the comp away. 'I believe…' she said in a ragged voice, thinking of the fuel-cell generators. 'Without power the tree slept for millennia. I believe the machine was very, very old. Older than the arrival of the Jehanan, older than the Haraphans. Once, the kalpataru had a power source of its own, but that mechanism failed long ago.'

Malakar peered at Gretchen, turning her long head from side to side, letting each eye gaze upon the human. 'Without power…and those whining boxes, they were feeding the tree? Would it have woken to life?'

'For an instant – Mother Mary bless and protect me! – for less than the blink of an eye, it did.' She smiled grimly. 'Don't worry about the Master of the Garden and his propaganda. If he had truly beheld the visions of the device, his mind would have been destroyed long ago.'

'No loss!' The Jehanan hooted in amusement, rattling old, yellowed claws on the floor. 'He might gain some wit thereby!'

Gretchen shook her head sharply, feeling a curdling, acid sensation stir in her stomach. 'He might gain more than wit – if something filled his broken mind with new thoughts. You would not like what happened then -' She stopped, wondering if Hummingbird would tell the gardener of the cruel powers which had shattered lost Mokuil and still lay in dreaming sleep on desolate worlds like Ephesus. 'You were right to mistrust the kalpataru and feel its worship unwholesome.'

'But,' Malakar said, 'without rain and sun, it lay fallow.'

'Yes,' Anderssen allowed, rubbing her face with both hands. She was beginning to feel truly exhausted. 'But not dead, only dormant. Waiting for meddling fools to come along and give it life again.'

'Hrrr…' Malakar fell silent, watching the human with an intent expression. Anderssen grew nervous, wondering if the Jehanan would attack her again. After a long time, the gardener stirred. 'This slow old walnut suddenly realizes even rich asuchau humans must spend shatamanu to buy tasty food, to travel the iron road, to stay in tall khus where the wind is always cool in the windows – but the rich never get their claws soiled with dirt, or split by toil. Never.'

Malakar's fore-claw extended, gently touching the scars on Gretchen's hand. 'These are not the claws of a rich woman,' the gardener said softly. 'Yet you are here… Who paid to send you so far? Someone who heard of a divine tree standing in an ancient Garden, this old walnut thinks. Do they desire the kalpataru? Will they dig in the ruins with greedy claws? Will they fall down and worship it? Will they feed it?'

Anderssen squared her shoulders and forced herself to not bite her lip. 'They – the Honorable Chartered Company – sent me to Jagan to look upon the kalpataru, to take the readings I have in my comp now, and to bring them back. No more.'

'Hoooo! Well, you've twisted my tail, sure enough.' Malakar's jaws gaped. She hissed angrily. 'Everything you wished, I've done, haven't I? What a good servant this old one proves! The Master of the Garden would be stricken dumb to see me bow and scrape!'

'Here.' Gretchen held out the comp. 'Everything is in here. If you take this, then I will return home with empty hands. The secrets of the kalpataru will be safe. No one will ever return to disturb the Garden. Go on, take it.'

Malakar stared suspiciously at the comp and hesitated, just for an instant.

A howling, shrieking noise pierced the triangle-leaved trees and the stone screen. Malakar jerked back her claw and both she and Gretchen stared towards the terrace with alarm.

'What was that?' Gretchen blurted. 'That sounded like…no, that's impossible…'

'I have never heard such a noise before,' the old Jehanan said, striding down into the passage out onto the overlook. Anderssen hurried after her and they both stepped out into the ruddy sunshine of Bharat. Takshila lay before them, the sprawl of the apartment buildings and factories and refineries half-hidden under a dirty yellow haze. There was a distant, rippling boom.

Gretchen tugged the goggles down over her eyes and scanned the horizon. After only a second she pointed, stabbing her finger. 'There – in the sky to the southeast! A silver flash!'

'Hrrrr!' Malakar shaded her eyes. 'I see – a yi of enormous size, racing faster than the wind! Trailing smoke and fire!'

'Not a yi,' Anderssen said, alarmed and puzzled by turns. 'That looks like an old-style jet fighter – but they've not been used by the Empire for hundreds of years…'

The distant dot swept low over the sky, flashing through the rising fume of hundreds of smokestacks, then darted skyward. Below, there was a bright flash among the buildings. A sharper roar trembled across the city to reach their ears. A black smudge billowed up, lit from below by the red-orange glow of flames.

'What are they attacking?' Gretchen zoomed the magnification of her goggles, but the haze in the air obscured everything. 'The train station?'

'No…' Malakar pointed off due south. 'The iron road is there… That fireis where the asuchau merchant houses stand.'

Gretchen pushed back her goggles, heart thudding with fear. 'I have to get back to my friends right now. If Imperial citizens are being attacked, they are in danger.'

Without waiting for a response, she turned and bolted down the passageway, goggles jammed down to her nose, the filter keyed into ultraviolet. There was a startled hooting from behind her, and then the slapping of leathery feet on stone. Anderssen didn't wait, plunging down the ramp at the end of the perforated hall, survey comp clutched to her breast.

Near the Boulevard of Stepping Cranes

District of The Wheel, Parus

The hue of sunlight falling through the back of the truck changed, even as the driver swerved into a narrow lane between two buildings of painted brick and plaster. Itzpalicue looked out, puzzled by the shifting light, and then two things happened at once: her earbug roared painfully with static, making her flinch, and the dappled shadows beneath the trees lining the lane shifted wildly.

Another attack? My hand-comp!

Queasy with fear, the old woman wrenched out her earbug with a gasp of pain. The Arachosian stared at her, puzzled himself, and watched in concern as she snatched out her comp, saw the machine was showing wild, fragmentary garbage on its screen, and then hooted with surprise as she vaulted the tailgate and bolted across the