After he left the fougas drifted out of sight. The empty room grew dark and the smell of burned paper gradually faded away, though the scent of orangeflower and jasmine lingered a little longer.
The Reception Committee brought their new guests to the Four Hundredth Room. Theirs was not to be the first sentencing that evening. The other guests in attendance at the dream inquisition had all been sent to Principalities, as volunteer donors for the medifacs. Tatsun Frizer screamed and called upon Blessed Narouz, then fainted loudly, resulting in her being borne down immediately via vacuum capsule. As the Committee brought Ceryl and Reive and Rudyard Planck to the Four Hundredth Room they passed Echion in the hallway, shrieking as she was led to the special chamber where she would be administered excitatory hormones, the better to prepare her for her role in the Feast of Fear. When she saw her, Reive began to cry.
“Don’t worry,” soothed Rudyard Planck, ignoring the Reception Committee’s baleful glances as he gazed up at the gynander. “Sajur Panggang will be there and he’ll intervene for us. Tomorrow we’ll all be drinking sake with Nike on the beach—”
Reive nodded miserably as her guard tugged at the chain about her neck. Behind her, in the arms of two of the stronger Committee members, Ceryl moaned. Across her forehead a swollen purplish bruise showed where the cudgel had smashed against her; she had been unconscious ever since.
The Reception Committee shoved their way through a ’file crew crowded around the door to the Four Hundredth Room. Their monitors and catoptics were trained upon a small dais that had been rolled out for Nike and Âziz. The margravines sat in ornate chairs of bronze and steel, decorated with the automotive motifs the Orsinate was fond of. There were two other chairs, conspicuously empty, beside them. At Âziz’s feet crouched the yellow-haired serving girl Petra. The margravine stroked her hair absently, murmuring; but her face held a cold expression and her gaze lingered upon Reive. Beside her Nike yawned, her pupils dilated from morpha, and sucked at a bulb of kehveh. Both of them wore simple shifts of white linen and their conical crowns of office, and over these heavy capes of shining black and yellow rubber. Everyone looked miserably uncomfortable; the room was so hot that condensation trickled from the metal arms of the margravines’ chairs.
Once inside, the Reception Committee shuffled about, adjusting their ties and their guests’ chains and maneuvering to avoid the catoptics focused upon them. Âziz tapped one sandaled foot upon the marble floor and tugged at Petra’s hair until tears welled in the girl’s eyes. Another girl tiptoed about the perimeters of the chamber, adjusting the vents until jets of cool air hissed into the room.
The Head of the Reception Committee cleared his throat.
“May I introduce your guests,” he began. The catopticians turned, their machines whirring, and began to ’file the prisoners. They hastily switched their focus back to the dais as Âziz waved the Head away impatiently.
“I know who they are.” She stood and held her arm out. Petra wiped her eyes and assisted her from the dais. The catopticians scurried to ’file them, the crew leader speaking softly but excitedly into a vocoder as he followed the margravine across the room. Âziz shoved Petra away. She stopped in front of Rudyard Planck and peered down at him, frowning.
“Rudyard Planck. This is a surprise. Now, if your patron Sajur Panggang were here—”
The catopticians tripped over each other as she did a graceful turn, her long pale hand indicating the empty beds and divans at the far end of the room.
“—but, he is not.” Her tone as she turned back to the dwarf was questioning, but Rudyard only shook his head, his ruddy face gone quite pale.
“I—I don’t know where he is, Margravine, but there’s something you should know, surely we can wait a little longer—”
“We cannot,” snapped Âziz. On the dais Nike smiled absently and waved at the dwarf. The vents made a popping sound; the flow of cool air stopped, and a barely perceptible tremor shook the room. The two serving girls exchanged frightened looks.
Âziz strode to where Ceryl moaned in the guards’ arms. “What’s wrong with her? Is she ill?” She tipped Ceryl’s chin back with one finger. Ceryl groaned and her eyes rolled open, then closed again. Âziz dropped her finger; Ceryl’s head flopped against her chest. The margravine grimaced. “Wake her up, I want her to understand the terms of her sentencing.”
She turned to Reive. The gynander had composed herself, and stared back at the margravine with clear green eyes. She looked at Ceryl, limp in the arms of her guards, and blinked to keep the tears from spilling. She gazed back at the margravine. Hatred like a philter ran through her entire body, hot and strong. Very slowly, she smiled.
At that smile Âziz suddenly went cold.
Shiyung. She looks just like Shiyung.
She remembered her sister’s bastard, dead at birth… Or no—there had been something wrong, they had sent it down to the Chambers of Mercy because it was sick, there was something wrong with it, it—
It had been a hermaphrodite. Âziz caught her breath and gazed back at the gynander.
The Four Hundredth Room had grown very still. Reive could hear Rudyard Planck beside her, his breath coming in quick agitated gasps, and next to him Ceryl groaning as one of the Reception Committee pasted an amphaze tab to her temple. Alone on the dais Nike sucked noisily at her kehveh bulb, then dropped it to the floor and slumped back in her seat, eyes closed as she welcomed her morpha dreams. A few feet away the ‘filing machines whirred and clicked as Âziz stared at her prisoner, and the prisoner, her smile a rictus of pure loathing, stared back.
An odd feeling had come over Reive, a sort of vertigo; as though she leaned over the restraining wall that circled the palace and looked down upon the receding levels of Araboth to the lugubrious depths of the Undercity. At first the margravine’s face frightened her—like the rasa’s, utterly blank and unlined, as though no emotion had ever touched her deeply enough to leave a mark upon that white skin. But now something had changed. The margravine’s mouth remained set in that grim smile, but her eyes flickered with something else—fear, Reive realized.
She’s afraid of me …
And suddenly she thought of the sentry by the Seraphim’s gravator, scanning her retinafile and saying, Reive Orsina: pass. And the sentry at the palace reading her genotype: Reive Orsina. And the mad zeuglodon’s thick voice booming, One of the margravines had a baby once… I think you must be that monster ….
In the arms of his captors Rudyard Planck struggled. After a moment he gave up and sank to the floor, the cuffs biting his wrists as the guards tightened their hold on his chains. He winced. The floor of the Four Hundredth Room was warm—more than warm, hot. It would be just like Âziz to roast the place before a sentencing. But even the margravines looked uncomfortable. Could it be that this was an unanticipated change in temperature? Such a small thing; but it would fit into the complex and seemingly meaningless pattern he had seen these last few days, a pattern that seemed to be disclosing a single fact:
The margravines were no longer in control of the city.
Twisting around he stared up at Ceryl, her eyes huge and black from the amphaze, her expression witless. A single ’filer had his optics focused on her, and swiveled to get Planck looking at her. The dwarf mouthed an obscenity and turned away.