City on Fire

the use of such a weapon comes with a cost…” He looks at Aiah over his shoulder, and his face is a mask of self- loathing. “I will be giving him lives, month after month, for years, and all for nothing, for worse than nothing: a military offensive that killed thousands and ended in stalemate.”

He breathes deep, shoulders lifting as he fills his lungs, and then lets the air out. “I must report to the cabinet,” he says. “They have given me their trust, their resources. What can I tell them?”

Aiah takes a step toward him. “Tell them that you couldn’t anticipate everything. Tell them you had the battle won, but Lanbola intervened. Tell them that you have learned, and that the next battle, you will win.”

Constantine listens, his head cocked, and then he turns. The dangerous brilliance is gone from his eyes, replaced by mere exhaustion. “Yes,” he says, “I will tell them exactly that. What can I tell them but that?” He sighs again. “I will bring you to the meeting, and you can report on Rohder’s progress. I may as well season the bad news with a little good.”

He walks toward her, wraps his arms around her, holds her against his barrel chest. Aiah closes her eyes, inhales the scent of him, flesh and hair oil and sweat, the scent of a man who has worked for days at a frenzied pitch and now is close to the end of his endurance.

“I need you now, and desperately,” he says. There is a kind of mourning in his voice. “I can trust you, and there is no one else, no one to help me stand against the nightmares… all the dead of Cheloki who haunt me, and now the dead here, too, in their thousands…”

Aiah presses herself against his weight. The need in his voice frightens her. She must be strong, it seems, even for him, even for the strongest thing she knows…

And then cold terror floods her spine. She can feel her nape hairs spring erect and gooseflesh prickle her arms. Constantine stiffens, suddenly alert, and she hears his heart crash in his chest. There is suddenly a presence in the room, a terror, and the lights seem to go dim, as if viewed through a thickening fog.

“Metropolitan,” says a voice, “I have done the thing you bade me.” The voice is deep and resonant, as if from out of the earth, as if it were calling through rock and magma and clay.

Aiah’s knees go weak. Constantine supports her with his arms, shielding her protectively from the terror, from Taikoen the Great. There is a strange shimmering on the metal walls, swift and indistinct sensations of prismatic color, and Aiah doesn’t know if it is something Taikoen is somehow projecting, or his body, his being, somehow expanding through the room.

“This is not a good time,” Constantine says firmly. “We are not alone.”

“I have met the lady before,” says the creature—ice man, hanged man, the damned—and from around Constantine’s shoulder Aiah catches a glimpse of the heart of him, a deep shadow in the room’s corner, a shadow strobing with lines of silver and of color, as if plasm itself had taken on both form and evil intent… This place is well shielded, but not against a creature of plasm like Taikoen, who can creep through plasm mains at will, who can appear anywhere that plasm can be found.

“I have come for my reward at the time appointed,” Taikoen says. “I have killed as you desired, Metropolitan, and now I desire my delight.” His voice turns silky. “I have delayed my reward to do this thing, and I would not delay any longer.”

“I can’t help you now,” Constantine says. “I do not have the means at present. Give me some few hours to prepare, and I will give you what you need.”

“Do you think, Metropolitan, that I enjoy killing?” The creature’s voice is petulant. “I do your bidding for one thing only—I wish to clothe myself in flesh. I wish the joys and pleasures of matter. I wish to have on my tongue the gladness of a feast, to sense in my mind the delirium of liquor, to feel in my loins the ecstasies of love.”

Aiah shivers uncontrollably in the cold that the creature seems to project, and she expects to see her breath blossom out in frost; but she can see sweat standing out on Constantine’s forehead as he faces his ally.

“So you shall,” Constantine says firmly. “But I must have some time to prepare. I do not have a subject ready for you.”

“This is the time appointed,” Taikoen insists. “Give me this girl, if you have no other.”

Aiah gives a cry, her mind quailing, a shudder quaking through every limb. Constantine holds her upright through main strength.

“I will not,” Constantine says. “I will give you someone, and in a short time, but this lady is vital to my purpose, and you cannot have her.”

“It is the time appointed,” the creature insists.

“Come back in three hours!” Anger snaps in Constantine’s voice. “Come to my apartment then. I will have someone for you—but not now!”

Taikoen hovers for a moment and seems to swell, as if threatening to engulf them, and then he subsides, seems to slip away like mist, fleeing as if from reality itself.

“As you wish,” the creature says finally, and adds, with a touch of disappointment, and perhaps even sorrow, “It was the time appointed, Metropolitan.”

Then Taikoen is gone, and Aiah can hear nothing but the uncontrollable chattering of her own teeth. Constantine walks her to the winged armchair, lowers her gently into it. She draws up her legs into a fetal posture, still shuddering. Constantine caresses her cheek, her forehead.

“I am sorry,” he says. “I had lost track of time; I had forgot he would be seeking me.”

“You must get free of him.” The words shivering out of her.

Constantine looks at her sorrowfully. “It is not possible.” He touches her cheek again. “Besides, he may be useful yet.”

She turns her head away, unable to bear his touch. He looks down at her pensively, teeth worrying at his lower lip, and then turns and walks to the door.

“I must find Taikoen a villain to live in,” he says. “While I satisfy him, prepare a presentation for the cabinet meeting—as optimistic as you can make it.” He looks over his shoulder. “Optimism is in short supply, and therefore valuable. Make what fortune you can.”

He walks away on his—on Taikoen’s—errand, and leaves Aiah in his armchair with only her terror for company.

LANBOLA CLAIMS NEUTRALITY

NO ATTACKS LAUNCHED FROM LANBOLI TERRITORY, MINISTER INSISTS

The War Cabinet meets in the Crystal Dome two days later. The delicate glass structure has withdrawn for the duration into an armored vault, lowered on huge hydraulics into the depths of the Palace. Now Aiah knows how the room survived the violence of Constantine’s original coup.

Smooth polished steel surrounds the cabinet room, forms a roof overhead. Fresh flowers in cut-crystal vases, placed at intervals along the table, serve only to make the room even more bleak by contrast. The War Cabinet is a reduced version of the entire cabinet, and consists of the three triumvirs as well as Constantine, Sorya, and Belckon, the aged Minister of State, all of whom cluster at the head of the long glass table. The effect is a sense of isolation, a cluster of defeated people, hiding behind slabs of armor in a room designed for three times their number.

Aiah reports that Rohder’s teams are making good progress with their untested theories, that she expects they will pay for themselves and much else, and that if the teams were enlarged, the plasm supply would be as well.

Aiah is told to increase Rohder’s division as fast as she can, after which Constantine makes his report on the failure at the Corridor. He describes how his soldiers had the Provisionals on the verge of cracking until Lanbola had permitted a force of mercenaries to cross the border and attack his flank, and sent his troops reeling back.

“And then the Provisionals halted,” Constantine says. “Our units were in disorder —there was some panic—but the enemy didn’t press their attack home.”

“Could that be because of the disorganization of enemy command?” Hilthi asks.

This being the current euphemism for the mysterious way that Radeen, Gentri, and their entire staff were