City on Fire

Drumbeth’s policy.

“He’s triumvir,” Khorsa says. “Can’t a triumvir do that?”

“He’s only been triumvir for a matter of days. For that story to be true it would have to happen over months.” Has he, Aiah wonders, been visiting the prisons?

“He’s just been triumvir long enough,” Aiah says, as sorrow closes a soft hand about her throat, “to set Parq on Caraqui.”

She rises from the sofa, crosses to the terrace door. She looks out at the city, the sky alive with plasm fire, the distant volcanoes of Barchab. Silver cumulus clouds float beneath the opalescent Shield. Aiah crosses her arms and shivers.

“They cut us off, the Ascended,” she says. “They put the Shield between us, and denied us the sky. And now Parq wants to build a Shield below us, cutting off the twisted people. And it’s a tragedy both ways.”

“Everything recurs,” Khorsa says, her soft voice sounding from over Aiah’s shoulder. “That’s why the Shield is such a dreadful thing. Because it’s cut us off here, and all we can do is dance the same dance over and over.”

“I believed in him,” Aiah says. Tears burn hot in her eyes. “I thought he could change it all—change the dance forever. But now—” She gasps for breath. “I don’t even know why I’m here anymore. I don’t know—” The words die in her throat.

Khorsa approaches silently from behind, puts her arms around Aiah, rests her head on Aiah’s shoulder. “If you are staying only to protect me and the other Barkazils,” she says, “you should know that… well, we’ll get along without the PED. But I think you need to talk to Constantine before you do anything.”

“Yes,” Aiah mumbles. “I’ll do what I can.”

She can protest, she thinks, she can explain, but she fears the answer she may receive.

Her eyes drift to the plasm socket near the window, the copper t-grip sitting on the ornate table next to it.

“I’ll do what I can,” she repeats, and her thoughts whirl in a sudden wind. She has been granted a generous personal plasm allowance for the length of her time here; but the arrangement had been suspended for the length of the war, and her private meter disconnected. Now she is connected to the well again, and the state owes her a large amount of plasm.

Perhaps, she thinks, she ought to make use of it.

Gingerly she probes the idea, like a tongue probing the gap where a tooth once lay, trying to find the hidden source of pain.

Then she looks up at Khorsa. “I know what I can do,” she says. “It won’t be much, but—if you and I can trust each other absolutely, we can help people directly.”

Khorsa’s eyes gaze thoughtfully into hers. “I think we have a world of trust between us,” she says.

UNREST BRINGS ELECTIONS INTO QUESTION

“BALLOTING WILL COMMENCE AS SCHEDULED,” INSISTS FALTHEG

Aiah coasts over the city on a pulse of plasm. She doesn’t know where the militia are, or what they intend— there has not been time enough to make plans—but when her anima ghosts over an older, ramshackle neighborhood, one scarred with graffiti and despair, she discovers it isn’t hard to find them.

The Campaign for Purification is rolling over an apartment building: armed militia are driving families from their homes. The building circles a brick-floored courtyard with a pair of willows, and beneath the dangling willow branches a pair of goggle-eyed embryos lie in the court covered with bruises from butt strokes. Their children wail around them while their belongings are flung from windows. The trees and the court below are draped with fluttering clothes, and there is a growing pile of broken furniture. Others deemed impure—not all are twisted, so there is some other form of vengeance going on—are huddled in a corner, guarded with rifles by young men wearing the militia’s red arm- and headbands. Some of the guards are sorting through the belongings, picking out items of choice.

Aiah’s police experience stands her in good stead. There are no more than ten of the militia here, and no sign of a mage backing them.

A moment of concentration is needed for Aiah to form ectomorphic hands, and then she advances on a militiaman and slaps him down. He falls spinning, unconscious before he hits the pavement, rifle clattering on the bricks, but before he is even down Aiah is on the other guards, dealing out nicely judged slaps, each bringing a militiaman to the ground. Sometimes the first blow only stuns, and a second strike is needed, but never more than that.

The impure—the victims of the campaign—stand with wide-eyed surprise. Somehow it never occurs to them to run.

Aiah rises on an arc of invisible plasm to the militia plundering an apartment and slaps them reeling into the walls. She bunches their collars in invisible fists and hauls them out the window, then wafts them—not gently—to a landing.

She lifts rifles, pistols, and knives from holsters, sheaths, and nerveless hands, then piles them near the exit. Cartridge belts are added to the collection.

And then she wills herself to fluoresce, forming the same featureless female image she has used in the past, a blazing gold statue come to life. The huddled group in the courtyard shield their eyes against her brilliance. Aiah gives herself voice.

“Take what possessions you can,” she tells the victims, “and run. If you wish a firearm, take one. Otherwise just leave, and seek shelter where you can.”

Half of them simply take off, and others pause to snatch a few belongings from the wreckage before leaving. The half-conscious militia groan, rolling on the bricks, hands clutching broken jaws, blood-streaming broken noses. The flaming anima-image keeps them from protesting, even when one of the twisted, a grim-looking stoneface, methodically goes through their pockets and relieves them of all their money, then helps himself to a pair of pistols, an assault rifle, and several bandoliers of ammunition.

He is the only one of the victims who arms himself.

Aiah stands guard over the militia for a few minutes, then allows her anima-image to fade. When one of the militia staggers to his feet, she reaches an invisible hand to his ankle, yanks it, and dumps him to the pavement.

“I’m still here,” she booms. “Sit quietly and you won’t get hurt.”

She picks up the remaining firearms and throws them in the nearest canal. When she returns, the militia are still sitting quietly on the bricks.

She mentally counts out ten minutes—time enough for the refugees to make an escape—and then throws the switch on her t-grip. Her awareness returns to her bedroom.

Exhilaration choruses through her. She bounds from her bed and almost dances into the front room, where Khorsa is using another t-grip on a similar mission. From Khorsa’s exultant expression, she seems to be meeting with similar success.

“Militia roadblock on a bridge,” she says when she’s finished. “They were extorting money from everyone trying to cross. I threw them in the canal.”

Aiah bounds toward her, and they embrace in a moment of joy and triumph.

Then each returns to her t-grip, and for the rest of the shift, and the balance of first shift the next day, they soar on to thwart the militia.

Nothing proves quite as spectacular as her first rescue at the apartment building, but by the time she’s finished Aiah is pleased with her record of accomplishment. She breaks up roadblocks, disarms militia bands, shoves militia vehicles into canals. Her golden image shimmers into existence at many of these occasions: she wants the militia to know a powerful mage is opposing them.

She tells Khorsa about her golden anima, and Khorsa begins to use the golden form as well.

She is only opposed once, when she finds a purposeful band in four powerboats, heavily armed and obviously up to no good. Aiah’s anima dives under the surface of the canal and punches a hole in the bottom of each of the