City on Fire

Aiah bites down on her alarm. / already have enough impossible jobs, she thinks. “We were created to handle plasm thefts only,” she says, “and that’s what we’re set up to do.”

“But we are in a position to alter your mission,” Hilthi says.

“We can’t police the entire metropolis,” Aiah says. “We’re not big enough. We’d have to start from scratch —we’d be in a worse position than Mr. Randay.”

“Besides,” Constantine adds, “there is the expense. The Dalavan Militia are all volunteers, and serve at no cost to the state. Were we to add a force the size of the Militia to the public payroll in addition to the large and expensive force of mercenary soldiers for which the Treasury is now responsible…”

“Impossible,” says Faltheg the banker, “Besides, the police already have a budget.”

“I concur,” said Constantine.

Hilthi sighs, throws up his hands. “I want these abuses to cease,” he says.

Aiah, relief flooding her at this escape, finds herself looking at Constantine, whose head is turned toward the triumvirs at the head of the table. There is a smile of cold satisfaction on Constantine’s face, and Aiah wonders why it should be there, what there has been in this matter of the Militia that has pleased him.

She doesn’t get a chance to ask, and by the time the meeting is over, she has forgotten to.

VOTE LIBERAL COALITION—FOR DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM!

After the meeting Aiah takes a bite of lunch, then returns to her office—and there, as she turns into her receptionist’s office, is the feeling again: a lift of the heart, a surge of warmth through the soul. Another visitor from home waits in Aiah’s reception area, a blaze of scarlet and gold among soberly dressed job-seekers. Aiah drops her briefcase and folds the short, sturdy woman in her arms.

“How are you?” she says. “How is everyone?”

Khorsa busses her on both cheeks. “Very well. Esmon and I are going to be married next month.” Esmon is one of Aiah’s many cousins.

“Congratulations! I know you’ll be happy.”

Aiah looks at the hopefuls waiting for their interviews, all of whom are trying not to look curious, a difficult act because they’ve probably never seen a Barkazil witch before. Khorsa’s long dress is alive with color, and she wears a red turban decorated with gemstones set among geomantic foci.

The hopefuls, Aiah thinks, will just have to wait a little longer for their interviews, and she tells her receptionist to hold all her appointments. Then she fetches her briefcase and shows Khorsa into her office.

“You’re the second Barkazil face I’ve seen this week,” Aiah says as she drops into her office chair.

“Well,” Khorsa says, a dubious look in her eye, “I may not be the last.”

“Are more of the family coming to look for work? I need people with specific skills, you know, and I don’t think many of the family would qualify.”

“More than that,” Khorsa says. “I’m afraid, well, it’s a religious thing.”

“Oh?”

Khorsa should know religion if anyone does: she and her sister run the Wisdom Fortune Temple back in Aiah’s old neighborhood of Old Shorings. The temple is a place where people come for small magics in hopes of healing the sadness and misfortunes that come with being human, and Barkazil, and Jaspeeri, and living in a place like Old Shorings. Khorsa deals with plasm; her sister Dhival goes into trances and talks to spirits.

Aiah had helped them out once, when Esmon was beaten by Operation thugs because Khorsa wouldn’t buy their bootleg plasm. Aiah had used twice-stolen plasm to deal with the situation—stolen once from the Jaspeeri authorities, and then again from Constantine—and she’d been terrified every instant.

“What sort of religious thing?” Aiah asks. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No thanks. Do you remember Charduq the Hermit?” “Charduq? Of course.”

Charduq, the fixture of Aiah’s girlhood, still—last she knew—on his fluted pillar at the Barkazi Savings Institute. She had waved at him, she remembers, as she fled the city. He was one of the last sights of home.

“I suppose I should start by saying that you’ve become sort of famous back in Old Shorings,” Khorsa begins.

Aiah is startled. “How?”

“Lots of people know what happened. The police interviewed anyone who had anything to do with you, and you have a large family, and… well, they talked.”

Alarms clatter through Aiah’s mind. “What did they say?” she asks carefully.

“Well, nobody really knows anything,” Khorsa says, “so they just make things up.”

“That’s comforting!” The alarm is getting louder.

“But they know you had access to illicit plasm. They know you used plasm to help the temple out when the Operation was after us, and they know you were involved with Constantine’s activities. They know the police were interviewing a lot of people about you, and they know that you’re here in Caraqui now, in what seems to be a pretty influential position.” She gestures with her hands, taking in the Aerial Palace, the Owl Wing, the view through Aiah’s windows of the city below, the plasm tap visible on the wall, available whenever Aiah feels the need…

“So they figure you ran the most brilliant chonah of the century,” Khorsa says. “Stole a whole well of plasm from the Authority while you were working there, gave it to Constantine’s revolution, got yourself rewarded with a place here.”

“It wasn’t that simple,” Aiah says. And it presupposes that Aiah knew all along what she was doing, which she didn’t—in her memories of that period she is far from purposeful, but is filled instead with anxiety, indecision, adrenaline, and terror.

“I’m sure it wasn’t,” Khorsa says. “But it’s all meat to the Cunning People, you know that. It’s exactly the sort of story we all want to hear, how one of us fooled the cops, fooled the Authority, fooled the Operation, fooled everybody, and got away with it and lived happily ever after. And of course the story of how you fought the Operation on our behalf got all exaggerated, with scores of Operation men lying dead in the street, and they’re saying you won the revolution single-handed and that you’re Constantine’s lover…”

Khorsa’s brown eyes absorb Aiah’s change of expression in this last remark, and she nods, half to herself, and says, “Well, perhaps not every story is an exaggeration.”

Aiah feels a flush prickling her cheeks. “So I’m a hero in Old Shorings. What’s it got to do with Charduq?”

“Quite simply, he’s saying that you’re the deliverer. That you’re an incarnate immortal, or the immortals sent you, and your purpose is to liberate the Barkazil people, and give us our metropolis and our power back…”

“Great Senko!” Aiah sags stunned in her chair.

“And he’s saying it to everybody,” Khorsa says. “Most won’t believe him, or won’t pay attention, but there are those who will listen. You’re going to be seeing a lot of Barkazils in the next weeks.”

“Alfeg?” Aiah wonders. “Could Alfeg be one of the people who paid attention to what Charduq was saying?”

“Old Chavan’s son?” Khorsa thinks for a moment. “It’s a devout family. Chavan is a big supporter of the Kholos Temple and the old Holy Leaguers—wish I had him at my services.”

“But a rich family like that—even if they are devout, one of them wouldn’t listen to some smelly old street sage, would he?”

Khorsa hesitates. “I don’t know enough about Alfeg to be able to say. But in my experience, a person will listen to anybody, provided he has the message one wants to hear.”

Aiah stares for an endless moment at the wall above Khorsa’s head, and then the frustration in her heart boils over. “What am I to do with these people?” she demands. “Even with the expansions my department has less than a thousand people. Most of the jobs require specific skills. Any Barkazils throwing up their lives to come to Caraqui are likely to be the ones with nothing to lose… They’re just going to end up on the dole here, and the dole in Caraqui is far worse than the dole in Jaspeer.”

“Not everyone will be without skills,” Khorsa says. “Alfeg isn’t.” Her calm eyes hold steady on Aiah. “Neither am I,” she adds.

Aiah looks at her. “You’re here to apply for a job?” “Yes.”