“Yet it is said that the Preservers will return from the future, so there can only be one future, as there is only one past.”
“Our world has only one past, but there are many possible worlds arrayed in the future. Some say that every step we take creates new worlds, which contain all the directions in which we could have turned. When looking into the future, a pythoness must encompass all these possible states and choose the most likely, which is to say the one which is most common. But the past is a straight road, because the world has traveled along it to reach the present.”
“You do not speak of Luria, do you? You speak of Daphoene.”
Syle nodded. “Daphoene has true sight. The business of this Department is to tell people what they want to hear, or what they most need to hear, which is not always the same thing. And so most of our business is concerned with collecting intelligence about our clients, so that we can satisfy their inquiries.”
“You are very candid.”
“If you will not help us, then what I tell you will do no harm, for the Department will cease to exist. If you do help us, then you will need to know these things. Some say that we practice magic, but in truth ours is a rational science.”
Yama thought of the buzzing confusion in Daphoene’s head. Perhaps she was able to scry a path through the sheaves of possible futures because she was many people inhabiting a single mind, or perhaps what he glimpsed within her were futures continually appearing and dying.
Syle said, “Daphoene tells only the truth, and that is what scares Luria. She sees our clients driven away by the truth. Oh, do not think that Luria does not believe in her own powers. Of course she does. If her predictions come true, then she is satisfied; if not, then she will find some condition of the ceremony to be at fault, or she will say that something more powerful intervened to change events from the course she had divined. There can never be any blame on her part if what she predicts does not happen. But Daphoene is always right, and needs no ceremony. She speaks directly. I brought her here, Yama. I am responsible for her. I had hoped that she would be a true pythoness, and it seems that she is much more than I had hoped. Daphoene frightens Luria, and I fear that because of that Luria will destroy her. I would rather die than bear that.”
No doubt this confession was supposed to win Yama’s trust, but instead it made him wary. Syle was so accustomed to deceiving the clients of the Department of Vaticination that he habitually deceived himself, too, by pretending that everything he did was for the good of the Department and never for his own gain. But Yama suspected that Syle wanted to use him for his own ends. If Syle had been a little less clever, his motives might simply be venal, but nothing Syle did was simple. This seemed to be a straightforward bargain—a miracle in exchange for information—but Yama remembered the plot Pandaras had uncovered, and Tamora’s harsh words. These old departments are rats’ nests of poisonous intrigues and feuds over trifles.
He said, “If Daphoene can see into the future, then what does she say about the Department? Will it be saved?”
“She knows, but will not say. Do not think I have not asked, but she has set her heart against revealing what she knows. She says that if she speaks, then the future may be changed, and the fate of the world with it. All she will say is that it will not be saved by force of arms. I understand that to mean that you will intervene.”
“But if I asked her, would she speak plainly of my fate? Would she look into the future and see where I might meet my people?”
“She has already said something. That is why you must help us, Yama. If you do not, then yours will be a tragic fate.”
There, in the windy dark high above the oldest city in the world, Yama knew that Syle had baited a hook to set in his heart. But he had to ask.
“Tell me what she said, and perhaps I will know whether I should help you.”
Syle turned to regard the panorama spread far below.
The darkling plain of Ys, the wide ribbon of the Great River stretching away toward the vanishing point, where the Eye of the Preservers had risen a finger-breadth above the edge of the world. He inclined his head, and said, “There are two parts. The first is that you will either save the world or destroy it. She said that both things were connected. Do not ask me what she meant—she would not explain it to me.”
Yama said, “Perhaps the first is more likely than the second. The world will continue as before, but some might say that I am responsible. I think that people have more faith in me than I have in myself.”
“Then it’s time you learned to trust yourself,” Syle said briskly. “The second part is this: if you do not help me, then you will be betrayed to those you have already escaped. As I said, if you do not help the Department, then yours is a dark fate.”
Yama felt a chill of presentiment. His stepfather had sent him to Ys to become an apprentice to the Department of Indigenous Affairs, the same department he was now contracted to fight against. Although he had escaped Prefect Corin, the man to whom the Aedile had entrusted him, he had never escaped the fear that the Prefect, cold, ruthless, implacable, would find him again.
He said, “That seems more like a threat than a prediction.”
“You do not have to give me your answer now, but it should come before the Gate of Double Glory opens tomorrow. Think hard on this, Yama, and remember that I am your friend.”
“The future is uncertain, but you must know that I will discharge the duty for which Tamora and I were hired.”
“To act merely as a cateran will not be enough,” Syle said. “You know it is not enough. As a friend, I beg you to help us. I cannot be responsible for what will happen to you if you do not.”
Yama would have asked him what he meant, but Syle suddenly pointed toward the city below. “Look there! How brightly they burn!”
Near and far, rockets were shooting up above the streets and houses and squares of the endless city, red and green and gold lights streaking high into the night air and bursting in fiery flowers that drifted down in clouds of fading sparks even as more rockets rose through them. The noise of their explosions came moments later, like the popping of kernels of corn in a hot pan.
Yama thought again of Daphoene. Her mind like the night sky full of sparks constantly flowering and fading.
Rising faintly on the cold wind came the small sound of trumpets and drums, of people singing and cheering. A flight of rockets terminated their brief arc in a shower of golden sparks a few chains beneath the walkway on which Yama and Syle stood. Bats took wing from crevices in the rock face below, a cloud of black flakes that blew out into the night and swept across the red swirl of the Eye of the Preservers.
Chapter Three
The Day Market
As soon as the inner door of the Gate of Double Glory had sunk into its slot in the roadway, the thrall who had been waiting in front of it walked beneath the round portal into the darkness of the tunnel. Yama left the doorway of the Basilica and, with Pandaras trotting at his heels, crossed the plaza. He hailed the gatekeeper and asked for the name of the man who had just gone through.