“One!” they shouted. “Two!”
At the first stroke of the ram the door rang like a drum and a cloud of bats burst from the upper window of the tower. The bats stooped low, swirling above the heads of the crowd with a dry rustle of wings, and the men laughed and jumped up, trying to catch them. One of the whores ran down the road screaming, her hands beating at two bats which had tangled in her conical wig. Some in the crowd cheered coarsely. The whore stumbled and fell flat on her face and a militiaman ran forward and slashed at the bats with his knife.
One struggled free and took to the air; the man stamped on the other until it was a bloody smear on the dirt. As if blown by a wind, the rest of the bats rose high and scattered into the blue sky.
The ram struck again and again. The bravos had found their rhythm now. The crowd cheered the steady beat. Someone at Yama’s shoulder remarked, “They should burn him out.”
It was Ananda. As usual, he wore his orange robe, with his left breast bare. He carried a small leather satchel containing incense and chrism oil. He told Yama that his master was here to exorcise the tower and, in case things got out of hand, to shrive the dead. He was indecently pleased about Dr. Dismas’s impending arrest. Dr. Dismas was infamous for his belief that chance, not the Preservers, controlled the lives of men. He did not attend any high day services, although he was a frequent visitor to the temple, playing chess with Father Quine and spending hours debating the nature of the Preservers and the world. The priest viewed Dr. Dismas as a brilliant mind that might yet be saved; Ananda knew the doctor was too clever and too proud for that.
“He plays games with people,” Ananda told Yama. “He enjoys making people believe that he’s a warlock, although of course he has no such powers. No one has, unless they flow from the Preservers. It’s time he was punished. He’s been reveling in his notoriety too long.”
“He knows something about me,” Yama said. “He found it out in Ys. I think that he is trying to blackmail my father with it.”
Yama described what had happened the night before, and Ananda said kindly, “I shouldn’t think that Dismas has found out anything at all, but of course he couldn’t return and tell the Aedile that. He was bluffing, and now his bluff has been called. You’ll see. The Aedile will put him to question.”
“He should have killed Dr. Dismas on the spot,” Yama said. “Instead, he stayed his hand, and now he has this farce.”
“Your father is a cautious and judicious man.”
“Too cautious. A good general makes a plan and strikes before the enemy has a chance to find a place to make a stand.”
Ananda said, “He could not strike Dr. Dismas dead on the spot or even arrest him. It would not be seemly. He had to consult the Council for Night and Shrines—Dr. Dismas is their man, after all. This way, justice is seen to be done, and all are satisfied. That’s why he chose volunteers from the crowd to break down the door. Everyone is involved in this.”
“Perhaps,” Yama said, but he was not convinced. That this whole affair was somehow hinged about his origin was both exciting and shameful. He wanted it over with, and yet a part of him, the wild part that dreamed of pirates and adventurers, exulted in the display of force, and he was more certain than ever that he could never settle into a quiet tenure in some obscure office within the Department of Indigenous Affairs.
The ram struck, and struck again, but the door showed no sign of giving way.
“It is reinforced with iron,” Ananda said, “and it is not hinged, but slides into a recess. In any case we’ve a long wait even after they break down the door.”
Yama remarked that Ananda seemed to be an expert on the prosecution of sieges.
“I saw one before,” Ananda said. “It was in the little town outside the walls of the monastery where I was taught, in the high mountains upriver of Ys. A gang of brigands had sealed themselves in a house. The town had only its militia, and Ys was two days’ march away—long before soldiers could arrive, the brigands would have escaped under cover of darkness. The militia decided to capture the brigands themselves, but several were killed trying to break into the place, and at last they burned the house to the ground, and the brigands with it. That’s what they should do here; otherwise the soldiers will have to break into every floor of the tower to catch Dismas. He could kill many of them before that and suppose he has something like the palanquin? He could fly away.”
“Then my father could chase him.” Yama laughed at the vision this conjured up: Dr. Dismas fleeing the tower like a black beetle on the wing and the Aedile swooping behind in his richly decorated palanquin like a hungry bird.
The crowd cheered. Yama and Ananda pushed to the front, using their elbows and knees, and saw that the door had split from top to bottom.
Sergeant Rhodean raised a hand and there was an expectant hush. “One more time, lads,” the sergeant shouted, “and put some back into it!”
The ram swung and the door shattered and fell away. The crowd surged forward, carrying Ananda and Yama with it, and soldiers pushed them back. One recognized Yama. “You should not be here, young master,” he said. “Go back now. Be sensible.”
Yama dodged away before the soldier could grab him and, followed by Ananda, retreated to his original vantage point on the broken bit of wall, where he could see over the heads of the crowd and the line of embattled soldiers. The team of bravos swung the ram with short brisk strokes, knocking away the wreckage of the door; then they stood aside as a pentad of soldiers (the leader of the militia trailing behind) came forward with rifles and arbalests at the ready.
Led by Sergeant Rhodean, this party disappeared into the dark doorway. There was an expectant hush. Yama looked to the Aedile, who sat upright under the canopy of his palanquin, his face set in a grim expression. The white feathers which trimmed the high collar of his sable robe fluttered in the morning breeze.
There was a muffled thump. Thick orange smoke suddenly poured from one of the narrow windows of the tower, round billows swiftly unpacking into the air. The crowd murmured, uncertain if this was part of the attack or a desperate defensive move. More thumps: now smoke poured from every window, and from the smashed doorway. The soldiers stumbled out under a wing of orange smoke. Sergeant Rhodean brought up the rear, hauling the leader of the militia with him.
Flames mingled with the smoke that poured from the windows, which was slowly changing from orange to deep red.
Some of the crowd were kneeling, their fists curled against their foreheads to make the sign of the Eye.
Ananda said to Yama, “This is demon work.”
“I thought you did not believe in magic.”
“No, but I believe in demons. After all, demons tried to overthrow the order of the Preservers an age ago. Perhaps Dismas is one, disguised as a man.”
“Demons are machines, not supernatural creatures,” Yama said, but Ananda had turned to look at the burning tower, and did not seem to have heard him.
The flames licked higher; there was a ring of flames around the false spire that crowned the top of the tower. Red smoke hazed the air. Fat flakes of white ash fell through it. There was a stink of sulfur and something sickly sweet. Then there was another muffled thump and a tongue of flame shot out of the doorway. The tower’s spire blew to flinders. Burning strips of plastic foil rained down on the heads of the crowd and men yelled and ran in every direction.
Yama and Ananda were separated by the sudden panic as the front ranks of the crowd tried to flee through the press of those behind and dozens of men clambered over the broken wall. A horse reared up, striking with its hooves at a man who had grabbed hold of its bridle. The steam wagon was alight from one end to the other. The driver jumped from its burning cab, rolled over and over to smother his smoldering clothes, and staggered to his feet just as the charges on its loadbed exploded and blew him to red ruin.