City on Fire

“He might have done it to himself,” Ethemark says. “We know he had access to plasm. And some Handmen are simply crazy.”

“Well,” Aiah says, “if the Silver Hand possesses a mage capable of such a difficult piece of work, then we shall discover it soon enough. The next time…”

Kelban finishes her sentence. “The next time one of our suspects blows up.”

And then he laughs and shakes his head.

Aiah does not find herself amused. She has a suspicion that more than one Handman is going to die this way.

“Finish your report,” Aiah says, “and have it on my desk tomorrow.”

GARGELIUS ENCHUK ON TOUR NEW RECORDING BREAKS RECORDS “NEW CITY WORLD” TOPS CHARTS

A week later, the first sheaf of typed interrogation transcripts arrives on Aiah’s desk. An eerie sensation creeps up her spine as she reads them.

All of them are in the first person. There are no questions included, as if the Handmen were dictating lengthy confessions rather than responding to interrogators. The typed pages are all in the same format.

My name is such-and-such… On such-and-such a date I committed the following crime… This was at the instigation of so-and-so, and assisting me were the following accomplices… I am aware of plasm houses at the following locations…

The last information, she decides, she can check. She does, and her mages discover it is all perfectly accurate.

The transcripts keep arriving, a new bundle every few days.

Military courts move briskly through the long line of cases.

Eventually soldiers draw lots, and the losers are assigned to the firing squads.

SIX

The balcony rail of the Falcon Tower is a huge bronze likeness of a peregrine, gazing fiercely over the Palace and the city below, wings outspread to shelter those who stand on the balcony. Constantine, standing behind the peregrine with no less fierce an expression, looks as if he is riding the falcon’s back, aimed like an arrow at the city. A brisk wind rattles the air around him and he clearly rejoices in it, in its cold perfect vigor.

“Governing,” he murmurs. “All contradictions, all paradox.”

The city spreads out below him: green sea, rooftop gardens, glittering mirrorglass. In the distance, the spikes of Lorkhin Island sit on the horizon like a strange, alien crown.

“Plasm makes everything more intense,” he says. “It fills the world’s political history with turbulence even as it opens realms of political possibility. Plasm is transformative in this as in everything else.”

He gives his cynical demon grin. “How many of our histories—hah! our legends, our chromoplays and operas—how many concern a leader, a Metropolitan or king or general, who is destroyed by some bright spark who gets lucky with a plasm strike? And then this spark becomes the new leader-absolute power leaving a greater vacuum than other sorts—

and our young hero gathers dominion until he has it all, is able to wave a transphysical hand and give foundation to his dreams, and perhaps he achieves wisdom as well as glory… ah, but then, death at the hands of some other political entrepreneur.”

“That tale describes you, except for the ending,” Aiah says. “You survived.”

He looks at her, raises a thoughtful eyebrow. “In a sense, I did not. The man that I was did not survive. All that sustained him died—friends, family, nation, ideals. I had to make a new self afterward.” His look turns inward. “I am wiser now, but it is the kind of wisdom that turns a man bitter. I do not know if I am better for having achieved it.”

He looks down at the city again. The blustery wind paws at the lace at his throat. He throws out a hand, encompassing the world below, and then closes a fist, takes possession. Irony tugs at his lips. “To be the one man is dangerous. When I was Metropolitan of Cheloki, when the whole state rested on my shoulders—what happened to my dreams then? I wanted to change the foundations of everything, but it was all I could do to keep my head safely on my neck. But to give up power—that is dangerous, too, because to surrender power is to surrender the ability to create change…”

He nods, looks out to the southwest, to the distant metropolis where Aiah was born. “That is the solution of the Scope of Jaspeer, to divide the power sufficiently that no one strike can threaten the survival of the state. The assembly, the senate, the powerful intendants, the premier, the president, the council of ministers…” He shakes his head. “But with division of power comes division of responsibility. No one in Jaspeer possesses real power, and no one is really responsible for anything, least of all positive change—a certain discrete flow in the negative direction is permitted, a calcification of the public arteries… But while the decay slowly sets in, it is the boast of Jaspeer that nothing has changed there in hundreds of years.” Amusement sparkles in his eyes, and he gives a low laugh. “Perhaps not boast, perhaps rather a self-satisfied little moan, we are as our grandfathers were, and want nothing more.”

Aiah’s laugh echoes Constantine’s own. She worked in the faspeeri government for years, and her impression of her superiors is no more positive than Constantine’s.

“And so the cycles continue,” Constantine says. “Despots follow despots, bureaucrats follow bureaucrats, each condemned to do the job of his predecessor, sometimes a little better, usually only a little worse. When the decay gets too pronounced there’s revolution or war, but then a new despot or faction takes control and begins the game all over again. Can it be changed, I wonder, without bringing it all down?”

“You’ve changed it,” Aiah says. “You’ve got rid of the Keremaths and replaced them with something better.”

“I’ve done as well as could be expected,” Constantine says. He looks pensive; this self-deprecating mood is not a natural one for him. “One person can change little,” he muses, “but a person’s idea … an idea tested, perfected, demonstrated, shown to be true… that is real power. Ideas—the good ones, anyway—can be immortal.”

His hard raptor eyes gaze down at the city, looking at it as an opponent, a thing to be subdued and brought to heel. “This Caraqui is the testing ground,” he says. “Here, with a little luck, things can be made to happen. Here, the ideas may meet their proof. But the place is poor, desperately poor, the workforce has little education and few skills, and I have little time…” He frowns.

“There is a recipe for creating wealth,” he says. “It is simple enough. Reduce tariffs, reduce state spending, reduce controls on borrowing and lending. Protect the value of the currency while allowing free exchange, permit the citizens free access to foreign currencies. Permit the citizens to keep any wealth they earn—no confiscations or extortions, such as were practiced under the Keremaths—and tax with a light hand, with a tax code renowned for its evenhandedness and a revenue bureau renowned for its incorruptibility…”

He laughs. “Incorruptibility in Caraqui! But it is necessary: one must be seen to do all this, because it works only when it can be seen that you can be trusted, and to build full trust requires at least a generation. There are plenty of other places to put money where one can get a good return, and an investor wants guarantees…

“And in the meantime, to make certain the wealth is not so completely concentrated at the top, one encourages trade unions, one promotes safety standards and discourages child labor… but that is all one can do at this point, for there is no money yet, nothing for good universal education, nothing for housing, and that places the most vulnerable portion of our population in jeopardy, isolated, hopeless, confined to slums or in half-worlds, subject to extortion by the Silver Hand…”

He looks at Aiah. “That is where you come in. You must show the people that the