City on Fire

“I turned it down,” he says.

“Yes, and I wondered why. Because she seemed to make sense—but now—” The words come reluctantly from her throat. “Now I realize,” she says, “that it was because you knew the coup is hers.”

She feels him stiffen, and there is a dangerous edge to his words. “How can you know this? Do you have evidence?”

“No. I just know it, that’s all.”

“And so do I.” His words are meditative. “My dear one,” he says, “I wish you had not come to this realization. Because it is very, very dangerous for you.’”

“You’ve got to get rid of her,” Aiah says.

He gives a tight-lipped smile and a little shake of the head. “Firstly, I have no proof of any of this, nothing but an insight that whispers to me that I am right. Perhaps evidence more concrete will turn up in time.” He takes a breath. “But more significantly, I can’t afford to act against her now. She miscalculated, you see—she must have intended that the coup miscarry, and then the perpetrators be disposed of, clearing the field not just of Drumbeth but Radeen and Gentri and everyone else that could possibly stand in the way of my ascension. But elements of the plot must have eluded her—she couldn’t have known the full strength of the enemy, or that the government of Lanbola would permit an invasion from their territory, that it would turn into a real war.”

He stands back, rubs his chin. “But now that it is a war, I cannot afford to fight it without her. Having miscalculated and permitted this conflict to come about, she will do her best to win it. I can trust her to do that.”

“But she’ll turn it to her advantage.”

A calculating gleam enters his eyes. “So shall we all.”

“You’ve got to look out for yourself,” Aiah says. “What if she decides that you’re standing in her way?”

“That will not be anytime soon. Aside from her department, which no one trusts, she has no base of support here that does not come from me. She wished me to rise so that she could follow in my wake and gain power and adherents.” He ponders for a moment. “We will watch,” he says. “The war will provide us opportunity to build our own power, and it will also compel her to reveal her tools, her sources, and her methods. We will take note, and use the information when the time comes.”

“Get rid of her now!” Aiah cries.

He gives a minute shake of the head. “Unwise.”

“And I suppose,” Aiah says, “you’ll be fucking her in the meantime.” For some absurd reason her eyes sting with tears.

Constantine looks at her. Not coldly—not quite coldly—but appraisingly, objectively. “This has not bothered you in the past,” he observes.

Heat flashes red before Aiah’s eyes. “It’s always bothered me!”

“The details of the arrangement were known to you before you entered it,” he points out—then shakes his head, throws up his hands. “But what does that matter? Arrangements can change……”

He considers again, head down and frowning, and then raises a hand and points to the polarized window, the featureless black glass set into the wall. His dark reflection in the window confronts Aiah’s. “I am hiding in this building,” he says, “because there are enemy forces who would be glad to kill me. I cannot even look out a window for fear of some mage flinging a bomb or rocket or plasm blast. And in that world outside, which I dare not look at, there are nightmares forming. Familiar nightmares. Because I have been through all of this before.”

He licks his lips. A vision of fear seems to haunt his expression as he stares at the black glass, and there is an unfamiliar wildness in his eyes.

“If I misstep,” he says, “then Cheloki happens all over again here in Caraqui. Endless war, endless misery, a metropolis turned to wreckage, the destruction of all that I sought to save. I failed once—” Bitterness crosses his features. “Great Senko,” he cries, “I can’t let the nightmares loose again!”

Aiah watches him in astonishment. She has never seen him like this, terror and rage so plain on his face. In battle, even while the assassins’ plasm rattled and boomed overhead, he had been cool and detached, ironic phrases falling from his lips as easily as commands. Now he almost seems someone else, a man overwhelmed…

He turns toward her and advances, huge and powerful as a battleship, and then to her utter surprise falls to his knees in front of her, bent over like a supplicant, and takes her hands. “If I am to win this war,” he says, “if I am to keep the nightmares out, then / need my generals! Sorya is one, and you are another. I can trust her to fight well, if not faithfully, and you—” He kisses her hands. “You I trust absolutely. You are necessary to my success, to all that I hope to accomplish. You must let me arrange things, for now, the way I need them.”

Aiah stands in wonder at the massive figure huddled before her. Hot tears splash onto her hands. “Yes, of course,” she murmurs. “Of course I will.”

He puts his arms around her, pressing his head to her abdomen; she caresses his head, gazing down with a growing sense of astonishment, of a strange rising tenderness at this evidence of his need.

There is a discreet knock on the door.

Constantine disengages himself and rises, a startled look on his face. “Is it 17:00?” he asks. “I’m supposed to make a broadcast.”

Aiah looks at her watch. “16:51,” she says, “yes.”

“Damn.” He sighs. “I haven’t even worked out what I’m going to say.”

“You’re good at this,” she says. “You’ll think of something.”

She reaches for him, wanting to touch him again, to feel again that fragile tenderness. He holds her wordlessly for a long moment, then murmurs into her ear that it is time for him to go. She raises her head, feels his lips press hers, and then he is gone, walking away with his usual decisive tread.

She looks at herself in the black mirror of the window, and wonders what thing it is, newborn and vulnerable as a child, she sees there.

“WHAT FOOLS ARE THESE WHO FIGHT HISTORY?”

CONSTANTINE’S BROADCAST RALLIES FREE CARAQUI

Rohder is in her office when she returns, smoking the last of a pack of cigarets; the rest of the pack fill Aiah’s ashtray. He is in his shirtsleeves, with circular salty crusts under his arms, but otherwise seems unchanged by his time in jail.

“Thanks for acting so promptly,” he says.

“All I needed was to threaten every cop in the station with death,” Aiah says.

“You seemed to have engaged their attention.”

Aiah glances out the window for a moment—her office doesn’t face Lorkhin Island, and it’s safe enough to let in light—and then she sits in her chair and glances at the pages placed on her desk: a complete list of every plasm house in the files, a note from Ethemark clipped to the front reporting, “All we need now are some troops.”

She looks up, sees Rohder watching her with his mild blue eyes. “Constantine wants you to get your team together and start moving buildings around,” she says. “Hire as many people as you need, and Constantine will also make certain you get enough computer time to complete your calculations.”

“The calculations are already complete for the district where we made our first attempt,” Rohder says. “I can send our team in there tomorrow. But if I’m going to be closing off bridges, stringing up cable, and rerouting traffic, I’m going to need police, or people like police, to handle that for me, and as I understand it the police are not our friends.”

Aiah runs her hands through her hair. “Perhaps we could call the Public Maintenance Department.”

“I imagine they’re going to be busy repairing bridges and public services wrecked by the war, but I will call and see what can be arranged.”

Aiah makes a note to herself. “I’ll have Constantine call their minister.”

“That may help.” Dryly. “And the computer time will be useful. I will also need a large number of structural