Nasrani slumped against the wall, trying to catch his breath. From the corner of his eye he watched the rasa stalk to the window, staring down to where the receding levels of Araboth gave way to the abyss that yawned beneath Archangels.
“What is it, Margalis?” he whispered. “What have you done?”
The rasa stared down at his metal hand. Without the glove it glittered brightly, a lethal sheen upon its fingertips. “I have killed your sister.”
Nasrani drew his breath in sharply. “Âziz?” He started for the window but the rasa’s gaze stopped him. Nasrani wrung the edge of his gown.
“No. Shiyung.”
Nasrani shook his head. “Impossible.”
“No: true. I snapped her neck and left her on the floor of her chambers. If they have not found her yet she is there still.”
Nasrani stared in disbelief. Shiyung dead. He remembered her as a child, skinny as a rail, shrieking with laughter as she tricked him into playing some impossible game with her. And then each night, the four of them sharing a bed, forgotten by their parents (they shared a mother and three fathers between them) as they lay side by side by side by side, Nasrani spinning tales into the darkness like a web to snare their nightmares. And, long after, just himself and Shiyung, another impossible game of hers, over too quickly.
And now she was dead.
Nasrani sobbed, an awful sound like laughter catching in his throat. The rasa stared unblinking, then said, “Tell me where you’ve hidden the nemosyne.”
Nasrani’s voice came out in a braying cough. “I knew you would.”
“The nemosyne, Nasrani.”
The exile tore at his face with his hands. “I told her when you broke with her, I told her you were a madman and she should have killed you then—”
“She was a fool not to.” The rasa turned once more to the window. “Or perhaps not. Perhaps even then she had this in store for me. I would rather have been dead. I wish I could die now.”
Suddenly he screamed, a thin, high shriek like a saw cutting through a sheet of tin. Nasrani trembled and fell back against the wall; but still the rasa wailed, longer than any human could have, until Nasrani clapped his hands to his ears and stumbled toward the door.
“No!”
The awful shriek turned into a shout. Nasrani staggered, reaching for the switch that would summon help from the palace. The rasa strode to his side and slashed at the wall. There was a flurry of sparks, the smell of melted plastic.
“No one will come help you, Nasrani.” His eyes swept over the cowering exile and he lifted his head disdainfully. “They will all be in Shiyung’s chambers by now, discovering the body. Perhaps Nike will think to call you….”
Smoke curled from the tips of the rasa’s fingers. He held them in front of his eyes, watching the thin gray trails turn to white and then disappear. The hollow voice cried, “You are all still children playing, aren’t you? You have your petty disagreements, you take sides and banish each other to your little rooms, but this is all just a game to you.” He turned and paced across the room, smashed his metal hand against the glass. A single crack flowed across the pane, like a flaw in the heart of a crystal. “All of this, this city and everything Outside—you mold it and burn it and twist it to your liking. People too: you contort us as though we were your friend Planck’s puppets, and then act surprised when we turn against you.”
Nasrani leaned against the wall. The rasa ’s anger seemed to calm him; if a dead Aviator could be undone by emotions, perhaps he could be undone, period. The color drained back into Nasrani’s face.
“They will regenerate her,” he said, groping in his pocket until he found a pipe and a leather pouch. He stuffed a wad of kef into the bowl, lit it, and inhaled noisily. After a minute he glanced up at the looming shadow.
“As a rasa ,” the dark figure said. “You would wish that on her? Your own sister?”
Nasrani’s hands trembled as he tapped kef ash onto the floor. “How did you—how could you?” Tears spilled from his eyes again. “A rasa —it’s impossible—”
“How did I kill her? Let us just say that I have not been myself lately.”
Nasrani sniffed. His rubbed his bloodshot eyes with an anguished expression. “Why do you want to see the nemosyne again?”
The rasa turned from the window. Below and all around them the daylights began streaming on, gold and blue and red, cascading down each level in sheets of light until the entire vast ziggurat shone and danced like a pyramid of blazing glass. For a few minutes they watched in silence.
Then, from the palace came a high piercing wail. Abruptly the daylights paled as overhead flames of white and blue swept the domes. Distress lights. Nasrani blanched. He had not seen them since the mass executions following the Archipelago Conflict.
The rasa said calmly, “You said that you believed the nemosyne knows things. Well, I have— seen things —that I would ask her about. You said that she had many secrets. Now I have secrets too.”
Nasrani joined him at the window, gazed up at the warning flares, the silhouettes of janissaries pouring like black water from their barracks.
“You really did it,” he said softly. He turned to the grim figure beside him. “You killed my sister. And now you want me to take you to the nemosyne.”
“Yes.” The rasa’s voice betrayed nothing of entreaty, but the pale eyes were clouded. “I must see her. I am—haunted by something. From before—from before I died. Someone. I want to question the nemosyne about her.”
“And Shiyung?” Nasrani fairly shrieked. “What of her? You kill the margravine—my sister! —and you expect me to lead you around now, do whatever you wish—”
“Yes,” the rasa said softly. From a pocket in its silken robe it withdrew a black kidskin glove and carefully pulled it over its shining metal hand. “I do. And you will do it, because you have no choice.”
Nasrani’s expression folded into defeat. He patted his pockets until he found his pipe again and smoked another bowl of kef. Outside the sirens wailed on; the distress lights arced back and forth across the domes. The rasa stood silently and waited, until Nasrani looked up and snapped, “I have never been able to speak with her. The interactive mode is dormant; she does nothing but go through her random access files and read from them. There is a way to activate that portion of her memory, though I have never learned it. But there are other things down there, I have seen them in the room with her—”
He laughed harshly. “Angels in the Undercity! I cannot speak to her, but those foul things cluster around her, and she hears them! And she speaks to them! Stories, poems—” His hands fluttered. “They call her Mother, and she answers. But she won’t respond to my questions. I have no reason to believe she will answer yours.”
The rasa only nodded. Nasrani suddenly turned away, his eyes watering. He ran a hand over his face. “You didn’t have to kill her,” he choked. The rasa tipped its head back so that the brilliant light outside the window flashed blindingly against its mask. “She could have left you dead but she didn’t, she—”
“I care nothing about your sister,” the rasa hissed. “I want the nemosyne. Which one is it? One of the military units? A meteorological display?”
Nasrani wiped his eyes, then suddenly laughed shrilly. “Is that what you think? That you’ll have another monster to command? No, Margalis! She’s useless, utterly useless—women’s stories and songs and bankrupt histories, that’s all she’s good for….”