City on Fire

pauses before one of the carved allegories, The Architect, a noble-looking man with a protractor and a pair of dividers.

“The Ascended Ones isolated us here,” the sister says. “We do not know why, or where they are now, or whether the Shield shall ever fall. We are a limited people, on a limited world, and we are condemned to wait. True freedom is denied us—the most unlimited thing in the world is plasm, and even that cannot penetrate the Shield.”

Wrong, Aiah thinks, remembering dancing figures in velvet blackness, but she holds her tongue.

“We are condemned endlessly to repeat ourselves,” says Order of Eternity, “in a world of limited choice. Over years, over thousands of years, all things return. That is why we meditate upon these figures,” touching The Architect, “which we call imagoes. All human possibility, all activity and type and form, are symbolized in these images.”

“How many imagoes are there?” Aiah asks, recalling that she has seen duplicates.

“Eighty-one.”

Another Grand Square. The Dreaming Sisters are consistent in their numerology.

“This one,” the sister says, “The Architect … a lofty-looking fellow, isn’t he? But in our meditations, this imago represents failure. Because though an architect will build his dream, and his heart will thrill to the sight of the image that he held in his mind rising floor by floor in the world of the real, nevertheless the world will work its will upon dream. The brilliant new creation will grow old, and crumble, and one day join the architect himself in the dust. And so… failure.”

“Are all your imagoes failures?” Aiah asks.

“By no means. Some are wise, and have learned to accept the constraints of the world.”

Aiah looks at The Architect and folds her arms. “No change,” she says, “no improvement, nothing new.”

“No permanent change. No lasting improvement.”

“Your philosophy sounds very much like despair.”

In the dim light the sister’s blue eyes are chips of dreaming ice. “Not despair,” she says. “Acceptance. You will concede a difference?”

“And if the Shield is penetrated?” Aiah asks. “If someone gets outside your world of limitations, into the world of the Ascended—what happens to your philosophy then?”

As Aiah speaks she feels the throbbing acceleration of her heart, feels her feet grow distant, sees her vision contract, narrow to the merest point of photon contact with the dreaming sister. The universe seems to wait for the answer.

“Perhaps nothing will change at all,” says Order of Eternity. “Humanity may carry its limitations with it— perhaps the imagoes rule our actions beyond the Shield as they do beneath it. Or perhaps everything will change —who can say?”

/ have been beyond the Shield. That is Aiah’s next line. But now, the moment come, blood singing in her ears and her mouth dry with terror, she can’t say it. It is not as if she brought anything back, nor learned anything while she was there.

It is not as if the Dreaming Sisters claim to know what is beyond the Shield, or have any particular gift in interpreting what Aiah saw there. It is not as if what Aiah saw there resembled the imagoes she has seen here in the sisters’ building. It is not as if the Dreaming Sisters do not disclaim any responsibility for the aerial displays, including the gray-skinned dancer that Aiah recognized as the Woman who is the Moon. There seem to be no answers here.

It is not as if the Dreaming Sisters are not, in some way, stealing plasm.

The throbbing tide of blood recedes from Aiah’s ears. Her vision clears.

She will postpone the moment.

“Thank you,” she says politely. “I think I’ve seen everything I need, for the moment.”

Order of Eternity turns and pads away without a further word. Aiah follows. Tremors flutter through her. She feels as if she’s just fought a battle.

It is not clear to her whether she’s won or lost.

Imagoes float past on either side. Women lie in their dimly lit alcoves, limbs splayed as if their dreams had caught them unawares and dropped them in their tracks. The flagstone path winds up, down, curves left and right.

Aiah stops dead as an image strikes her like a thunderbolt. Her mind reels. “What…?” she can only gasp.

Order of Eternity stops, hesitates, returns. “This imago? It is The Shadow.”

Aiah has already read the inscription. “I know this person,” she says.

Sorya stares at her, carved in stone. She wears a high-collared gown that floats off her figure into the background, softening the outlines of her form, making it indistinct. In one hand is a dagger.

Aiah raises a hand, hesitates, touches the cold stone face. Sorya’s lips seem to curl in contempt at Aiah’s confusion.

Order of Eternity studies the portrait, head cocked. “The Shadow is she-who- follows, she who pursues the great so closely that she is invisible in their shadow.”

“Until she strikes,” Aiah says. A chill shivers down her spine.

“Just so.”

Aiah’s hand drifts along the line of Sorya’s chin. Dry rough stone, nothing more. No dust to indicate recent polishing, no cracks or weathering to testify to age. No tingle of plasm to indicate that magic was at work, or that a plasm-glamour has been placed on this image.

“How old is this carving?” Aiah asks.

The dreaming sister narrows her eyes as she looks at the stone figure. “This was not the face it bore when last I saw it,” she says. “The figure is no more than three or four days old.”

Aiah turns to her in surprise. “Someone carved a new face?” she asks.

“Oh no.” Order of Eternity shakes her head. “The figures… change… from time to time. Like the aerial displays, it is another consequence of our meditations, not willed by us.

Say rather that the plasm itself, perceiving an imago active in the world, makes the alteration of its own accord.”

Aiah strives to wrap her mind around this idea. “So Sorya—the original of this figure—Sorya has become an imago?”

“You misunderstand.” The dreaming sister turns on Aiah the cold gaze of her indifferent blue eyes. “Sorya—if that is this lady’s name—has always been an imago, one or another of the eighty-one. So have I. So have you. Not always the same imago, because our nature is not immutable, nor does our role in life remain constant. If Sorya’s face has appeared here, it is because she, and the imago of which she is an image, has become important, or powerful, or somehow key to a critical situation.”

They’re tricking me, Aiah thinks. This is some kind of manipulation; they found out I’m frightened of Sorya and changed the statue while this woman kept me busy—they’re in my head! Panic flashes through her. They’re manipulating my thoughts!

But Order of Eternity’s aloof blue gaze is calm—hardly friendly, but not menacing either—and Aiah’s panic fades. She’s familiar enough with plasm that if she were being attacked, she’d know it.

They are manipulating her, yes. But they didn’t need to get into her head to do it; all that was necessary was that they had seen The Mystery of Aiah on video.

Aiah looks at Sorya’s statue again, gives a remote nod. “Interesting,” she says. “I’m surprised, after all these years, you do not more clearly understand the phenomenon.”

“It is not our goal to understand phenomena,” says the dreaming sister. “We strive to live simply and in consonance with plasm. That is all.”

Aiah follows Order of Eternity to the entrance. Whore is drowsing on her mattress, and Aiah’s bodyguards, and the inspection team, are clearly showing their impatience. Aiah thanks Order of Eternity for her time, then pushes her way out the heavy door.

She turns to the leader of the inspection team. “Anything?” she asks.