Beside her, Nike stared out over the balcony at the throng gathering below. She was unusually silent. Âziz attributed this to morpha, and in fact Nike had swallowed so many vials that her tongue was blue and she had difficulty speaking. But the truth was she had not recovered from freeing Shiyung’s corpse from the regeneration tank. For hours now all she had been able to see, floating between her inner eye and the ghostly shapes of things in the real world around her, was that bloated face and its ghastly staring eyes. And she was unable to stop brooding about the gynander. She was certain it was a thing of ill omen, but whether it would be worse to kill it or let it live, she couldn’t decide. Probably Âziz was right, and the ritual sacrifice to the Redeemer would both propitiate the storm and rid Araboth of an unlucky heteroclite. But still, the gynander was a true Orsina, with as much pure blood as Nike herself; and there were no other heirs. With the entire city shaking all around them like a jelly, it was hard to believe that anything good would come of whatever was to be enacted.
From below came a long wailing cry like that of the muzzein, taken up by the thousands of people gathered at the foot of the Lahatiel Gate. The Redeemer had stirred to full wakefulness. Braziers and incense burners circled the perimeter of the Narthex, sending up spirals of blue and white smoke, and the air was so thick with the smell of joss that Nike breathed through a handkerchief. The Quir had seated himself with two retainers and all three of them hunched over a hubble-bubble, inhaling through long transparent tubes and growing red-faced and giddy in the process. In spite of these precautions the Redeemer’s scent perfumed the air, stronger now and with overtones of ylang-ylang and that civet rumored to drive pregnant women mad. The guards patrolling the crowd were having difficulty keeping people from storming the entry to the Redeemer’s cage. Nike was terrified that one of the nearly continuous shocks battering the levels would send the walls toppling, and free the Redeemer to run amok.
“We should begin,” she said anxiously, raising her handkerchief to talk.
Âziz nodded crossly, grimacing as one of the spikes on her collar poked her neck. “Well, we can’t very well start without the sacrifice, and they’ve only just arrived—”
She pointed to the door. The gynander and the dwarf stood there. With her head shaven and her green shift flapping loosely about her legs, Reive looked like some bizarre overgrown infant. From here the wards tattooed upon her scalp stood out boldly, although the blood made them look crude. A sudden chill swept Âziz. She recalled her dream, the gynander’s high voice as she scryed it and her wide clear eyes, green as shallow water. Perhaps this was not a good thing.
Of course she knew that Reive had not really murdered Shiyung. Even now, Âziz could grant her a reprieve, and condemn the dwarf as sole perpetuator of the crime. But that still left the matter of the gynander’s lineage—a true Orsina, even the less sophisticated scanners had been able to deduct that from her genotype. If Nasrani had been here, Âziz might have conferred with him. But god only knew where her brother had gone—to a party with his crude friends, no doubt. But she didn’t need to consult with Nasrani to know that it was too dangerous to introduce a new, unknown heir to the palace. There would be fawning admirers, and clever cabal members, and ambitious courtesans, all eager to educate a young morphodite and explain to her the many reasons it would be necessary to eliminate her aunts. Especially once word of Âziz’s disastrous dream got out; especially now that the Architect Imperator was dead, and the city falling to bits without him.
No. The sacrifice must take place. The crowd would demand it, and the clergy. Âziz felt distinctly uncomfortable around the latter. She lacked Shiyung’s facile enthusiasms for the new and strange, her unabashed delight in the bizarre rituals that made life on the lower levels bearable to those who lived there. To Âziz, the avatars of the city’s main religious orders—the castrati of the Daughters of Graves, Blessed Narouz’s penitents, even the traditionally stable Church of Christ Cadillac and the Seraphim’s own Saints—all were unhappy reminders of the world’s dark and superstitious past, before the First Ascension began the long centuries of purgative destruction that not only made the sterile domes of Araboth possible but absolutely necessary. Âziz had no religious feelings whatsoever. For her, Æstival Tide was a practical matter, a means of both controlling and satisfying the crowd’s appetite for mayhem; nothing more.
And see where it had brought them. She ticked away a thought, to be mulled over later, in the Gryphon. Wherever she settled next, there would be no festivals.
From across the balcony she saw the Archbishop of Christ Cadillac staring at her expectantly, her lips moving. Next to her the Quir giggled over his hubble-bubble and beckoned several of the Daughters of Graves to join him. Someone had given the dwarf something to drink, and surely that was not permitted? Âziz turned away, annoyed, to gaze down upon the crowd. She wished Shiyung were here. Âziz had never performed the opening ceremonies without her. The balcony shook ominously as she leaned over it, trying to escape the haze of incense. From below a cheer rippled through the throng, and she heard her name chanted.
“Well,” she said hoarsely, turning back and nodding at the Archbishop. “I guess we should begin.”
“Excellent brandy!” Rudyard Planck coughed, as the plump galli poured him another glass from a small flask he had hidden within his robes. “Can this possibly be Roseblood 402?”
The galli nodded, pleased. Rudyard Planck beamed and raised his glass to him. When he saw the Archbishop descending upon him he gulped the rest and hurriedly returned it to the eunuch.
“You’re supposed to be fasting,” scolded the Archbishop. “Where’s the hermaphrodite?”
Reive had tried to edge toward the balcony, to see what was beneath them; but the sight of the Aviators there like so many grim statues frightened her. She ended up near the Quir, momentarily forgotten.
“Greetings, little sacrificial sisterling,” lisped the Quir. He pulled the hookah’s tube from his mouth with a pop. His aluminum shields had been arranged carefully around him, so that his narrow face grinned at her from every direction. “Have some kef, holiest of hapless children.”
“I don’t think it’s allowed,” Reive said, eyeing the hookah doubtfully.
The Quir raised one dyed eyebrow and gazed at the Archbishop glaring down at Rudyard Planck. “If you’ll forgive what is most certainly an unintentioned slur, you and your companion are both rather small to be offered to our most Compassionate Redeemer. Not to mention your stature would seem to have made it a most challenging experience to garrote the unfortunate margravine. How did you do it?” He lowered his voice and leaned toward her conspiratorially.
“We didn’t,” Reive replied anxiously. “Is this it? Are they really going to kill us?”
For a moment the Quir sucked noisily at his pipe, his eyes watering. Then he coughed and said, “Literature pertaining to the rites of propitiation for Ucalegon and Baratdaja state that an unworthy sacrifice is not a satisfactory sacrifice. An innocent person convicted of a heinous crime, such as a margravine’s murder, would no doubt rouse the storm to fury rather than placate it.”
The Quir paused to readjust one of his aluminum screens, smiling at his reflection and displaying two rows of evenly filed teeth. He arched his eyebrows and tilted his head, so that his reflection stared directly at Reive with an expression of gross complicity.