City on Fire

killed in their headquarters.

“It is clear by now that the Provisionals are taking direction from Lanbola,” Constantine says. “Their forces halted when they didn’t have to, and that shows us Lanbola’s strategy. Lanbola doesn’t want the Provisional Government to win; Lanbola wants—by squeezing first one side, then the other—to dictate the peace. They can attack our flank at any point, and that makes us vulnerable. And the Provisionals are dependent on them for supplies and political support.”

Faltheg, the new president and triumvir, is a spare, balding man with the eyes of someone drowning. He looks hopelessly down the table and murmurs in a voice almost too low to hear, “What is the status of the army now?”

Reports from the military commanders are bleak, Constantine informs him. Since the failure at the Corridor, enemy mages have been unleashed on Caraqui, plasm raging through the disputed no-man’s-land between the two forces, setting unquenchable fires, tearing the bottoms out of barges and pontoons, creating a watery, ruined desolation between the contending armies. It is a brand-new atrocity, unknown within living memory. Tens of thousands of refugees, dispossessed of everything they own, flee from twin threats of fire and water, and the world’s compassionate statesmen bleat in sympathy but do nothing.

If Constantine is to attack again, his forces will have to make their way across open water or masses of rubble, all within the scope of pre-sited artillery.

Belckon the diplomat reports that he filed a vigorous protest to the Lanbolan government, which simply denied everything—denied the mercenaries, denied the invasion, denied the atrocities, denied its support for the Provisionals—after which Belckon also lodged a protest with the Polar League, which will place the matter on the agenda for its scheduled meeting next month. The World Council has expressed its concern, and is considering sending humanitarian aid, but has otherwise deferred to the Polar League.

Sorya tilts her head back, her eyes narrowing as a satisfied smile plays across her features. Languidly she places one polished boot on the crystal table. Among all the people here, she alone seems satisfied with the situation outside this steel shell.

“They strive for stalemate,” she says. “We fight to win. Despite appearances, the advantage still lies with us.”

She reports on the enemy army, the makeup of its new leadership and command staff. She also produces some neat figures showing who is paying for the enemy’s efforts, Lanbola principally, money siphoned through its Foreign Ministry and the Ministry of Trade, with more money coming from Nesca and Charna and Adabil, all people who got along well with the Keremaths in their heydey.

Hilthi’s gold pen hovers over his pad. “Great-Uncle Rathmen?” he asks.

“He produces a little money now and again, to demonstrate his sincerity,” Sorya says. “Why should he pay for his war, when others are so willing?”

“Willing to feed with Rathmen off our corpse,” Hilthi mutters.

“All these people—the Lanbolans, the Nescans, and so on—are also pouring money here, into free Caraqui. They have each started their own political party and are recruiting as many adherents as they can buy.”

“Good,” Constantine says.

The others look at him. Constantine smiles back.

“It’s so much easier to keep track of foreign agents when they print newspapers and attend conventions,” he says. “And at any point we can bring them down, just by revealing they work for a foreign power.”

The others nod sagely. The new president and triumvir Faltheg gazes grayly down the long crystal table. Aiah has never seen him actually meet anyone’s eyes. “What can we do?” he mutters. “I need recommendations. I need…” Dull light gleams off his bald scalp. “I need something.”

Sorya gives a superior smile. “Lanbola has signed its own death warrant,” she says. “Their own army is insignificant, a couple divisions of ill-trained militia, badly emplaced. Their border with us is largely unguarded except for police—they are confident that their neutrality, which they themselves violate daily, will protect them. They may invade us, but to them the opposite is unthinkable. Two corps swung round our right flank, with sufficient air and mage support, can take Lanbola in a matter of hours. Not only will it rid us of a vexatious neighbor, but it will cut the Provisionals off from their source of supply and their biggest provider of cash. And it will give our other neighbors a lesson they would do well to heed.”

“No,” says Hilthi. His voice is loud, echoes harshly from surrounding steel. “Invading another metropolis can only make matters worse. Our other neighbors will learn a lesson indeed, but the wrong one. The only thing the Polar League ever accomplished was demilitarizing the region a couple centuries ago—if we invade and conquer a neighbor, that’s the end of stability for the whole region.”

Sorya’s ambiguous smile does not fade: destabilizing the region is not a problem for her, but rather a solution. “Wars, once begun, generate their own logic,” she says. “The opportunity exists now. At some point—soon, I imagine—Lanbola will awaken to the fact they are in danger, and act to correct the situation.”

“But neutrality…,” Faltheg murmurs.

“All neutralities are imaginary,” Sorya says. “When a third party to a war chooses neutrality as a policy, in reality the neutrality always favors one side or another. Our neighbors’ neutrality in the present conflict favors our enemies—it demonstrates that neighboring states have already taken sides against us. We should show our neighbors that such a neutrality is more dangerous for them than they believe.”

Sorya’s genius, Aiah realizes, consists in doing just what she always says she will do. She wants to enlarge her scope, increase her power. All neutralities are imaginary… All truces are temporary. It is all of a piece, a perfectly consistent view of the world.

It’s other people, she thinks, who see something else in Sorya, who think she is something other than what she has always said she is.

“I agree with Miss Sorya’s premises,” Hilthi says, “but not her conclusions. Wars do have their own logic, and the logic of war is to grow ever larger and more destructive, and for war’s energies to engulf entire nations, entire economies. Occupation of Lanbola would create a cascade of events that would soon run outside our control—the entire region could be endangered.”

“I support the idea,” Parq says. His normally silky voice is forceful, angry. “The Lanbolans have caused enormous harm to our people, and our people demand justice and punishment for the criminals. If our neighbors object, we can point out that they initially invaded us, albeit by proxy.”

“The Polar League can put the Lanbolans’ protest on their agenda for next month,” Sorya mocks. Parq laughs, and there is a rumble of amusement from Constantine.

Belckon gazes uneasily at the room from beneath his shock of white hair. “I must say that, diplomatically, this action would create insuperable difficulties for us. Our perpetual difficulty is in convincing our neighbors that our regime has any legitimacy, and if we prove ourselves not only illegitimate but hegemonist, we can expect only hostility from people who were formerly our friends.”

“Have we any friends?” Sorya wonders aloud.

Belckon looks at her. “Sympathizers, yes.”

Faltheg looks in Belckon’s direction—not at Belckon directly—and ventures to ask a question. “Our neighbors considered the Keremaths legitimate, but not us?”

Belckon considers his words before answering. “They were used to the Keremaths. It is not a characteristic of diplomacy to enjoy change for its own sake.”

A deep laugh rolls out of Constantine. “Seize power, and it makes you a bandit,” he says. “Hang on for twenty years, and you become a statesman.”

A perplexed look crosses Faltheg’s face. “What would we do with Lanbola?” he mutters.

“Civilize them, of course,” says Parq, head of the Dalavan Militia.

“Make them pay.” For once Sorya is not smiling. “They supported the countercoup—one understands their motives, I suppose, but once their little adventure was defeated, they didn’t quit the field like gentlemen, they started a war. And I think the Lanbolans should not cease to pay until every damaged building is rebuilt better than before, every orphan is guaranteed an education, and our treasury has overcome any