Tawaddud rubbed her eyes. Abu had summoned a carpet to take them home – he did have jinni bodyguards, after all – and she had collapsed on her bed. She smelled of sweat and Banu Sasan, and a faint warm echo of his touch still clung to her skin. It made her smile even at Duny.
‘Good morning, to you too, sister.’
Duny did not turn around. Her hands were at her sides, squeezed into fists.
‘Tawaddud,’ she said slowly. ‘This is not a game. This is not sneaking away from Chaeremon to flirt with wirer boys. This is not some role you play for a lecherous jinn who cannot bear the phantom pains of his lost manhood. This is about the fate of Sirr. You don’t understand what you are dealing with, what you will have to do. Whatever deal you made with Lord Nuwas, I beg you to let it go. If you don’t want to marry him, so be it. We can find somebody else. If you want to play politics, we can find a way. But do not do this. I ask you in the name of our mother’s soul.’
Tawaddud got up, wrapping a sheet around her.
‘Don’t you think this is what Mother would have wanted?’ she said softly.
Dunyazad turned her head and looked straight at Tawaddud, her eyes two pinpoints of ice, and in the morning light, she did look like their mother. But she did not say a word.
‘Don’t you think I can do it, Duny? A boring babysitting job, is that not what you called it? I was taught everything you were, and more besides. But how would you know? You only ever come to me when you need something.’ She allows herself a half a smile. ‘Besides, it sounds like Father has made a decision.’
Dunyazad’s mouth was a straight line. She squeezed her qarin bottle in one hand, hard.
‘Very well,’ she said. ‘But there is no room for mistakes. And there is no running away from this one. That’s what you like to do when things get difficult, don’t you?’
‘I will have you to catch me if I fall, sister,’ Tawaddud said. She lowered her voice. ‘I think it’s going to be fun.’
Without another word, Dunyazad took her to one of the muhtasib admin buildings at the top of the Blue Shard. They climbed long, winding stairs to an austere chamber of white stone, with low couches and athar screens, where a dry-lipped, shaven-headed young man in orange robes – a political astronomer, Duny said – told her what she needed to know about the Sobornost.
‘We are confident that the Sobornost power structure is unstable and fragmented,’ he said, staring at her intently. ‘Grav-wave interferometry shows that the guberniyas go through periods of conflict and consolidation.’ He showed her images that looked like eyeballs, heat maps of the planet-sized diamond brains of the Inner System. ‘We know about the hsien-kus, of course. But it is the chens who seem to be the dominant power at the moment. It is them that the hsien-kus are trying to keep happy.’
‘So is it a chen they are sending?’ Tawaddud asked.
‘Probably not. It is more likely that they will send a sumanguru – or several, it could be a bodyship. They are warriors and enforcers of some sort. Policemen. Like Repentants.’
The young man’s voice was eager and breathless. ‘I must say that I envy you this opportunity. To interact with a Founder from the Deep Time. To find out more about all the big questions, even hints – the Cry of Wrath and why they are so vulnerable to wildcode, why they allow our city to exist, why they are building the Gourd, why they haven’t already uploaded Earth—’
The young man’s eyes gleamed with something akin to religious awe. It made Tawaddud’s skin crawl, and she was glad that her sister interrupted him.
‘There is no need for any of that,’ Duny said. ‘Whoever it is, you will start with Alile. You will give the envoy temporary Seals and take them to the Councilwoman’s palace: they know to expect you. All the Repentants there are with House Soarez: they are sympathetic to our cause, as is the Councilwoman’s heir, Salih. Let the envoy investigate as much as they want: I doubt they will do any better than the Repentants. But be careful: we don’t want to alert the rest of the Council to our guest’s presence just yet.’ She turned back to the young man. ‘What do we know about the sumangurus?’
‘Well, our hsien-ku sources are . . . afraid of them.’ The athar screens fill with ghosts of a black-skinned man with a shaved head and scarred face. ‘If what we know about the original is anything to go by, there is a good reason. He escaped a black box upload camp when he was eleven. Became a Fedorovist leader in Central Africa. Single-handedly wiped out gogol trade there.’ The young man licks his lips. ‘Of course, that was before he became a god.’
Dunyazad gave Tawaddud a dark look. ‘Sounds like you two should get along just fine.’
She feels foolish for mocking Duny now. She is not going to forget that. There was more, speculation about alliances between hsien-kus and vasilevs and instructions on how to operate the Repentant jinn ring the young man gave her for safety, Secret Names for emergencies, a Seal for the envoy. Inside the Station, all of it feels absurd, schemes of ants trying to understand the thoughts of gods. Her head aches with fatigue and anxiety.
A river of light flows to the upload platform she is standing on, carrying a group of twenty people or so: upload converts in black Sobornost unifs. Their shaved heads gleam in the rain, and they flinch at every thoughtwisp thunderclap, every scan beam lightning strike. A vasilev – an impossibly handsome blond young man she recognises from statues – shepherds them, moving quickly from one person to the next, touching their shoulders, whispering in their ears.
They all stare at the scan beam target markers – dull metallic circles on the floor in front of them – except for a skinny boy who steals a look at Tawaddud, a hungry, guilty glimpse. He cannot be more than sixteen, but his hollow temples and the grey hue of his skin make him seem older. His lips are blue, and his mouth is a thin line.
Why did you go to the temple where they told you of Fedorov and the Great Common Task and immortality? Tawaddud wonders. Perhaps because they said you were special, that you were clean of wildcode. They taught you exercises to prepare your mind. They told you they loved you. That you would never have to be alone again. But now you are not sure. It is cold in the rain. You don’t know where the thunder is going to take you. Tawaddud smiles at him. You are braver than I was, her smile says. It’s going to be all right.
The boy’s back straightens. He takes a deep breath and looks ahead with the others.
Tawaddud sighs. At least she can still tell lies that men need to hear. Perhaps the envoy won’t be any different.
The air booms like the skin of a drum. The ethereal machinery beneath the Station’s dome moves, coalesces into a whirlpool. A pencil beam comes from above, incandescent finger of a burning god. Tawaddud feels heat on her face as if from a furnace. The ray flickers back and forth, as if writing in the air. She squeezes her eyes shut against the unbearable brightness, but the light only becomes red, filtering through her eyelids. Then it is gone, and only an afterimage remains. When she can see again, there is a man with the face of one of the Station gods standing on the platform.
Tawaddud curtsies. The man fixes his gaze on her with a sudden jerk of his head. The pale blue eyes and their tiny pupils feel like a blow. His skin is even darker than Tawaddud’s own, except for a purple cluster of rough scars across his nose and cheekbone.
‘My lord Sumanguru of the Turquoise Branch,’ Tawaddud says. ‘Please allow me welcome you to the city of Sirr, on behalf of the Muhtasib Council. I am Tawaddud of House Gomelez. I have been assigned to be your guide.’
She speaks out the words of the Seal, moving her hands in the ritual gestures of a muhtasib. In the athar, her fingers paint swirls of golden letters in the air. They swarm around the Sobornost man like insects and settle on his skin. For an instant, he is tattooed with fiery characters, spelling out the unique Name given to the Seal that only the muhtasibs know.
Sumanguru flinches, looking at his hands. His massive chest heaves beneath the featureless black Sobornost unif that looks like paint on his skin.
> ‘I have given you one of our Seals. It will protect you from wildcode for seven days and nights,’ Tawaddud says. ‘Hopefully your task will not require more than that.’ Besides, the Accord modification vote goes ahead in two days.
Sumanguru’s nostrils flare.
‘I thank you,’ he says. ‘But a guide . . . a guide will not be necessary.’ He speaks slowly, with a rumbling voice, and smacks his lips as if tasting the words. ‘I am fully briefed and capable of carrying out my task. I will interface directly with the Council if necessary.’
Tawaddud’s neck prickles. The uploads and the vasilev on the platform are frozen, staring at Sumanguru with a look of abject terror.
‘Perhaps there has been a miscommunication. The Council feels that—’
‘There has. I will require your assistance no further.’ Sumanguru takes a step forward. He looms in front of Tawaddud, two heads taller than her. Like the Station, he is built according to a different scale. His skin has the same dark sheen as the floor, and the rain does not seem to cling to him. Tawaddud’s heart pounds.
‘But you may find the city strange,’ she says. ‘And there are many customs you will not be familiar with—’
‘You have a problem. Tell your masters I will solve it. Is that not enough?’
He pushes Tawaddud aside with a movement so quick it feels more like a blow, a stinging impact just below her left collarbone that makes her lose her balance and fall down. There are bright flashes in front of her eyes.
Tawaddud the diplomat. Stupid girl.
She shakes her head to clear it. There is something familiar about the clumsiness in Sumanguru’s movements. The realisation almost makes her smile.
Sumanguru looks down at her for a moment, impassively. He turns to leave, but Tawaddud holds his gaze with her own.
‘It is strange, isn’t it?’ she says.
‘What?’ His shoulders shift slightly.
‘The jinni say they become different when they wear bodies. They say there is a craving that comes, afterwards. It must be very strange for you to have a body again, after so long. Being poured into a different cup.’ She struggles to get up. ‘A hsien-ku told me it is a privilege amongst your people to wear flesh again.’
‘The hsien-kus say a lot of things,’ Sumanguru says. His mouth is a grim line, but there is something in his eyes that Tawaddud recognises. Fascination. Curiosity. ‘Flesh is the enemy.’ Slowly, he extends a hand and pulls Tawaddud up, fingers engulfing hers. His grip is just a little too tight, but his fingers are warm.
‘And do you know your enemy?’ Tawaddud winces at the fresh bruise in her chest, gritting her teeth. ‘Because I do.’ She inserts a deliberate note of pain into her voice.
Sumanguru frowns. ‘Are you . . . hurt?’
Speak their own language, Kafur said. Tell beautiful lies with it.
Tawaddud slaps him, across the cheek with the scars, as hard as she can. It feels like hitting a statue, and the sting of the blow almost makes her cry out. But Sumanguru flinches, takes a step back and lifts one confused hand to his face.
‘Not anymore,’ Tawaddud says. She flexes her tingling fingers. ‘I don’t know where you come from, Sumanguru of the Turquoise Branch,’ she says softly. ‘But you do not know flesh like I do, or the stories it tells. And Sirr is a city of stories made flesh. Can you read them? Did they teach you that in the guberniya?’
Sumanguru takes a step closer and bends down, staring at her as if looking for his reflection in her eyes. She looks away from his gaze at the craters of his scars, strangely beautiful against his otherwise perfect skin. She can feel the warmth emanating from his body. His breath smells faintly of something that reminds her of machinery, engines or guns. The young man in orange said that the Sobornost cannot make more-than-human bodies in Sirr without being eaten by wildcode, but Tawaddud wonders if that’s entirely true.
The corner of Sumanguru’s mouth twitches.
‘Guide me to the enemies of Sobornost and I will destroy them,’ he says slowly, a rumble in his chest. ‘Flesh or otherwise.’
‘In that case, you had better come with me.’
Tawaddud starts walking away from the platform. For a moment she has no idea where she is going, but then the road of light appears beneath her feet, and carries them away. She feels the wind in her wet hair and resists the urge to look back. Behind her, the lightning of the scanning beam comes down again, taking the frightened boy with it.
9
THE THIEF AND THE TIGER
A discontinuity. A new world slaps me in the face, and I fall to my knees in the sudden gravity. Chilly air fills my lungs. It smells of wet earth and smoke.
I am standing in the middle of a clearing in a white forest. There are straight trees with pale, birchlike bark and impossibly symmetric foliage shaped like crowns or hands in prayer. Dark, ragged creatures with fluttering wings dart amongst the branches. The sky is grey. The ground is covered in white particles too grainy to be snow, a few centimetres deep. The Realmgate is behind me, a silver arch – a perfect flimsy semicircle. Good. At least I still have a way out.
I get up and wince at the sudden pain at the soles of my bare feet. The white stuff feels like powdered glass. I grunt and scrape some of the particles away. They look like cogwheels with sharp teeth, spilled innards of tiny clocks.
The sting reminds me that I have changed, too. Zoku Realms do not just transfer, they translate, turn you into a software construct that best approximates you in whatever constraints the virtual world imposes. Here, it seems to mean my shipboard attire of a jacket and slacks, barefoot – and no trace whatsoever of my Sobornost body’s more superhuman capabilities. At least my lost hand is back, even if it quickly goes blue and numb in the cold.
My stolen Realmspace sword has also translated – as it should have. Made by the Martian zoku whose specialty is raiding lost Realms, it adapts to whatever environment you transfer it into. I blow at my hands, rub them together, and pull it out from its scabbard.
Here, its blade is white bone, curved like a claw. The hilt is an intricate spiky design made from cold iron, heavy and uncomfortable in my hand. When I raise it, it whispers to me in a voice that is like chalk screeching on a blackboard. Small Realm. Archetypal objects and avatars. Generative content. Damaged. Dying. It makes sense. My clumsy attempts to open the Box have left the environment here broken. I wonder what it was originally: some sort of fairy-tale forest, perhaps.
Then I realise that Perhonen’s butterfly avatar is missing: it should have come through the gate with me. Damn. I look around. Something moves among the trees, through the black-and-white patterns of the shadows. Instinctively, I raise the sword, but the shape is already gone.
‘Perhonen?’ I shout. There is no answer. But near the trees, there are bare footprints in the cog-snow, leading into the woods.
With slow, painful steps, I follow them.
‘And what are you supposed to be?’ the butterflies whisper to Mieli. ‘You don’t look like his creature. Too simple. Too plain. Who do you work for?’
‘Myself,’ she says and flips into the spimescape. The ship’s systems are a chaotic tangle. A web of commands stretches through all of Perhonen’s Sobornost systems, originating from a new vir running in its Oortian smartcoral brain. And there is a dense datalink between the ship and the router, with traffic flowing back and forth—
She blinks back to her body and reaches for the zoku jewel. A q-dot bubble seizes it and pulls it away from her grasp.
The butterfly face gives her a grin that is not entirely human, more like a snout with fangs.
‘You lie badly,’ it says.
Mieli? whispers Perhonen in Mieli’s head. Her heart beats faster with sudden relief. But then she hears the pain in the ship’s thought-voice. It got me. Help.
‘Who are you and what have you done to my ship?’ she hisses.
‘I am Sumanguru, eighth generation, Battle-of-Jupiter-that-was branch, a warmind and a Founder of Sobornost,’ the
butterfly beast says. ‘And as for your ship, I am eating it.’
I push tree branches aside, and they whip my face and back painfully. My feet are thankfully numb. My breath feels ragged: it feels like I’m breathing in the tiny cogs, and they are tearing the soft tissues of my lungs. It is darker now, and the stark contrast of the white and the black is blended into twilight greys and blues.
The prints lead to another clearing. There are roughly hewn stone statues in the middle: squat animals that could represent a bear and a fox, although I’m not sure. At their feet, where the tracks end, is a dark puddle, with something glittering in it. I approach carefully and squat down to have a closer look. Blood, and a piece of jewellery: a glass hairpin, shaped like a butterfly. Perhonen. My guts tie themselves into a knot. Bile burns my throat, and I have to take a deep, shuddering breath.
A whisper. A gust of wind. Something goes past me. A light touch on my back, like a teasing finger. The sound of fabric tearing. Then, a whiplash of blinding pain. The force of the blow hurls me against the bear statue and leaves me sprawling on the ground. More red stuff spatters on the ground, and this time it’s mine. The Realmspace sword flies from my hand. I try to get up but my legs give way, and I end up on all fours.
That’s when I see the tiger, watching me.
It is half-hidden by the trees, back arched. Its stripes blend with the shadows of the branches. It is a monochrome creature, absences of colour and dashes of darkness, except for the blood on its muzzle. Its eyes are mismatched, one golden, one black and dead.
It lifts one paw and licks it with a pink tongue.
‘You . . . taste . . . different,’ the tiger says. Its voice is a deep, halting rumble, like an engine starting. It pads softly into the clearing, tail swaying back and forth. I edge my way ever so slightly towards the fallen sword, but stop when the tiger lets out a growl.
‘You taste younger. Smaller. Weaker,’ it purrs. As it speaks, its voice becomes more human, familiar. ‘And you taste of her.’