The road opened onto a square lined with flame trees just coming into leaf. On the far side, a high wall rose above the roofs of the buildings and the tops of the trees. It was built of closely fitted blocks of black, polished granite, with gun platforms and watchtowers along its top. Soldiers lounged by a tall gate in the wall, watching the traffic that jostled through the shadow of the gate’s arch. The magistrate led Prefect Corin and Yama across the square and the soldiers snapped to attention as they went through the gate. They climbed a steep stair that wound widdershins inside the wall to a wide walkway at the top. A little way along, the wall turned at a right-angle and ran beside the old bank of the river, and a faceted blister of glass, glittering in the sunlight, clung there.
It was warm and full of light inside the glass blister. Magistrates in red cloaks stood at windows hung in the air, watching aerial views of the road, of ships moored at the docks or passing up and down the river, of red tile rooftops, of a man walking along a crowded street. Machines zipped to and fro in the bright air, or spun in little clouds. At the center of all this activity, a bareheaded officer sat with his boots up on a clear plastic table, and after the magistrate had talked with him the officer called Prefect Corin over.
“Just a formality,” the officer said languidly, and held out his hand. The eight-legged machine dropped from the Prefect’s neck and the officer’s fingers briefly closed around it.
When they opened again, the machine sprang into the air and began to circle the magistrate’s head.
The officer yawned and said, “Your pass, Prefect Corin, if you please.” He ran a fingernail over the imprinted seal of the resin tablet Prefect Corin gave him, and said, “You didn’t take return passage by river, as you were ordered.”
“Not ordered. I could have taken the river passage if I chose to, but it was left to my discretion. The boy is to be apprenticed as a clerk. I thought that I would show him something of the country. He has led a sheltered life.”
The officer said, “It’s a long, hard walk.” He was looking at Yama now. Yama met his gaze and the officer winked. He said, “There’s nothing here about this boy, or his weapon. Quite a hanger for a mere apprentice.”
“An heirloom. He is the son of the Aedile of Aeolis.”
Prefect Corin’s tone implied that there was nothing more to be said about the matter.
The officer set the tablet on the desk and said to the magistrate, “Nym, fetch a chair for Prefect Corin.”
Prefect Corin said, “There is no need for delay.”
The officer yawned again. His tongue and teeth had been stained red by the narcotic leaf he had wadded between gum and cheek. His tongue was black, long and sharply pointed.
“It’ll take a little while to confirm things with your department. Would you like some refreshment?”
The tall, red-cloaked magistrate set a stool beside Prefect Corin. The officer indicated it, and after a moment Prefect Corin sat down. He said, “I do not need anything from you.”
The officer took out a packet of cigarettes and put one in his mouth and lit it with a match he struck on the surface of the desk. He did all this at a leisurely pace; his gaze did not leave the Prefect’s face. He exhaled smoke and said to the magistrate, “Some fruit. And iced sherbet.” He told Prefect Corin, “While we’re waiting, you can tell me about your long walk from—” he glanced at the tablet—“Aeolis. A party of palmers has gone missing somewhere around there, I believe. Perhaps you know something. Meanwhile, Nym will talk with the boy, and we’ll see if the stories are the same, What could be simpler?”
Prefect Corin said, “The boy must stay with me. He is in my charge.”
“Oh, I think he will be safe with Nym, don’t you?”
“I have my instructions,” Prefect Corin said.
The officer stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. “You cleave to them with admirable fidelity. We’ll take care of the boy. You’ll tell your story to me. He’ll tell his to Nym. Then we’ll see if the stories are the same. What could be simpler?”
Prefect Corin said, “You do not know—”
The officer raised an eyebrow.
“He is in my charge,” Prefect Corin said. “We will go now, I think.”
He started to rise, and for an instant was crowned with a jagged circle of sparks. There was a sudden sharp smell of burnt hair and he fell heavily onto the stool. The little machines calmly circled his head, as if nothing had happened.
“Take the boy away, Nym,” the officer said. “Find out where he’s been and where he’s going.”
Prefect Corin turned and gave Yama a dark stare. His shoulders were hunched and his hands were pressed between his knees. A thin line of white char circled his sleek black head, above his eyes and the tops of his tightly folded ears. “Do what you are told,” he said. “No more than that.”
The magistrate, Nym, took Yama’s arm and steered him around the windows in the air. The machines quit their orbits around Prefect Corin’s head and followed the magistrate in a compact cloud. In the hot sunlight outside the dome, Nym looked through Yama’s satchel and took out the sheathed knife.
“That was a gift from my father,” Yama said. He half-hoped that the knife would do something to the magistrate, but it remained inert. Yama added, “My father is the Aedile of Aeolis, and he told me to take good care of it.”
“I’m not going to steal it, boy.” The magistrate pulled the blade halfway out of its sheath. “Nicely balanced. Loyal, too.” He dropped it into Yama’s satchel. “It tried to bite me, but I know something about machines. You use it to cut firewood, I suppose. Sit down. There. Wait for me. Don’t move. Try to leave, and the machines will knock you down, like they did with your master. Try to use your weapon and they’ll boil you down to a grease spot. I’ll come back and we’ll have a little talk, you and me.”
Yama looked up at the magistrate. He tried not to blink when the machines settled in a close orbit around his head. “When you fetch refreshments for my master, remember that I would like sherbet, too.”
“Oh yes, we’ll have a nice talk, you and me. Your master doesn’t have a pass for you, and I’ll bet you don’t have a permit for your knife, either. Think about that.”
Yama waited until Nym had gone down the stairway, then told the machines to leave him alone. They wanted to know where they should go, so he asked them if they could cross the river, and when they said that they could he told them to go directly across the river and to wait there.
The machines gathered into a line and flew straight out over the edge of the wall, disappearing into the blue sky above the crowded roofs of the stilt shanties and the masts of the ships anchored at the floating docks. Yama went down the stairs and walked boldly past the soldiers. None of them spared him more than a glance, and he walked out of the shadow of the gate into the busy street beyond the wall.
Chapter Sixteen
The Cateran
At first the landlord of the inn did not want to rent a room to Yama. The inn was full, he said, on account of the Water Market. But when Yama showed him the two gold rials, the man chuckled and said that he might be able to make a special arrangement. Perhaps twice the usual tariff, to take account of the inconvenience, and if Yama would like to eat while waiting for the room to be made up…? The landlord was a fat young man with smooth brown skin and short, spiky white hair, and a brisk, direct manner. He took one of the coins and said that he’d bring change in the morning, seeing as the money changers were closed up for the day.