City on Fire

She does not see Constantine in person, but only as a presence in video or memoranda or news reports. He floats in a circle far above hers: his fight is in the clouds, and hers in the bog below.

She tries not to think of him, not to judge him. The endless worry and activity make it easier.

Her department grows. For once she has her pick of candidates—the war has disrupted enough lives that plenty of qualified people are willing to take a secure government job, even an underpaid one, and even a job in a building that is regularly the subject of enemy attack. Because many of the Handmen are now in hiding, Aiah hires squads of detectives, many former police, people familiar with Caraqui and the ways of the Hand, investigators who can interview witnesses properly and track down the Handmen in their hiding places. She is surprised to discover that many of the ex-police pass their plasm scans: apparently there were honest cops out there, trying to do their best but compromised by the corrupt system in which they worked.

She is interviewing a candidate for a clerical position when her receptionist tells her that Constantine is on the line. She finishes making an appointment for the young man’s plasm scan, sees him out of the office, then picks up the headset.

“Yes, Minister.”

“I’m sorry,” he says at once.

“For what?”

“For handing you a thousand impossible tasks. For showing you the worst of my character. For neglecting you for weeks in an unforgivable fashion.”

There is a moment’s silence.

“Miss Aiah?” Constantine prompts. “What are you thinking?”

Aiah feels a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “I’m thinking it’s a start.”

“I am willing to apologize at greater length, midbreak third shift, if you can clear your schedule.”

“I’m supposed to be plasm angel for my troops.”

“Get someone else.”

She sighs. “I’ll try.”

“20:00.1 will give you dinner. And, if I can beg a favor of you, may I ask you not to dress as you would at the office? I see nothing but suits and uniforms all day, and something soft would be a pleasure.”

“I’ll make an effort.”

“And I will try to make your effort worth your while.”

Aiah puts the headset on its hook and scrubs her fingers through her hair. Constantine clearly has a romantic interlude on his mind, and she is not certain if she has any romance left in her.

Not without a month’s vacation in some resort, anyway.

She throws the switch on her communications array and tells her receptionist to send in the next candidate.

When he walks in there is a flash of recognition, and Aiah’s heart lifts. Perhaps one of her family…? But no: the new candidate is a stranger.

And, she thinks, she knows much about him, even if she’s never met him before.

He is Barkazil, almost certainly. Smooth brown skin, brown eyes, curly black hair, a home-district smile. He’s dressed Jaspeeri-fashion—shiny gray polymer suit and big swatches of lace dripping from wrists and throat—and he carries himself with a self-confidence almost impudent in someone this young.

He shakes her hand. “Alfeg,” he says, then adds, “of the Cunning People,” before she can ask.

“Aiah,” she says. “The same.”

“I know.” His white, confiding smile suggests that he and Aiah share a great many secrets.

Guns thunder outside, and Aiah’s window, divided for safety’s sake into diamonds by a crosshatching of masking tape, gives a sympathetic rattle.

She sits behind her desk and pulls his file off the stack. Citizen of the Scope of Jaspeer, sure enough. Degrees in chemistry and plasm use from Margai University. Age: twenty-three. Single. Current employer: United Polymer, Arsenide City Complex, Jaspeer. Current salary: 38,000 dalders per annum.

He wants to become one of her mages. Aiah looks up.

“I don’t think we can afford you,” she says.

“Money isn’t of the first importance,” Alfeg says. “Do you know the Gar-Chavan Bakeries in Old Shorings?”

“Yes. I grew up in Old Shorings.”

“My father is Mr. Chavan. Money is not so much a necessity as a way of keeping score.”

“Ah.” A rich boy: so that’s where he got his self-confidence. “Well, if it’s your only way of keeping score, you’re not going to get a lot of points in Caraqui.”

He looks at her with a composed, sincere expression, though there is still a degree of amusement dancing behind his eyes. “I want to do something meaningful before I die,” he says. “If that’s not a foolish thing to admit.”

Perhaps it is, Aiah thinks, in the circles he’s used to.

The guns boom again, and again the windows rattle.

“Your search for meaning could get you killed,” Aiah points out. “We’re fighting a war.”

“That makes it more interesting, from my point of view.”

“You’re not experienced in police work, I take it?”

“No.”

“And though you work with plasm, your experience is in chemistry, which would not seem to be of great relevance.”

He nods. “But I have considerable experience in telepresence. Dangerous hermetics are always initiated at a distance.”

“I see. You haven’t ever created or worked with a plasm hound?”

“I’m afraid not.” He smiles apologetically. “I never had a reason to track anything.”

She frowns, looks at the file again while the guns boom out. Young, rich person seeks meaning. And once he’s had his little adventure in relevance, he can always return to his social niche.

An option, Aiah reminds herself, not available to herself.

But even so, she finds herself aching to hire him. He is of the Cunning People, and possibly the only Barkazil in all the Metropolis of Caraqui other than herself. The only thing she finds herself missing about Jaspeer is the ability to bathe in her Barkazil identity.

In fact, she thinks, being a Barkazil here might have its advantages. In Old Shorings, she’d have to cope with her family. Here, she does not.

“When can you start work?” she asks.

“Right away. Within the hour, if you like. I can wire my resignation back to United Polymer before they know I’m gone from my desk.”

The ease with which he proposes to dispose of an extremely lucrative job seems improbable. And, to someone brought up on legends of Chonah, the immortal so successful at confidence games that she had given her name to a whole species of dubious endeavor, it seems more than a little suspicious.

She puts down the file and regards him. “You’re not an agent of the Jaspeeri government, by any chance?”

The question seems to startle him. His eyebrows lift. “No,” Alfeg says. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

“Or any other government? Or institution? Or criminal enterprise?”

“Immortal Karlo, no!”

There is a bang, a lurch, a rumble. The other side of the Palace, facing Lorkhin Island, has taken a hit from something big.

“You will have to undergo a plasm scan to verify you’re telling the truth,” Aiah says. “It will be very thorough, and is certain to discover any secret allegiances. Do you have a problem with this?”

He looks uncomfortable for a moment. “I suppose not,” he says.

“We look for absolute commitment,” Aiah says, “absolute honesty, and absolute discretion.”

“I suppose my romantic, futile attachment to the lost cause of the Holy League of Karlo will prove no impediment?” Alfeg says. “My grandfather fought for them.”

The Holy League was one of the many factions that finished off the Metropolis of Barkazi, one of a