CHAPTER 7

  The palace of Acragas was ablaze with light, and busy with revelers in their hundreds and servants in their thousands. It was a vast brawl of people: the oligarchs on horseback, surrounded by retainers with their torches, their women in gilded litters that glowed red in the flame; other people of importance coming by barge, the prows carved with the images of sea serpents, dragons, or the mallanto of Arrandal, the long-winged seabird with its fierce beak and wise, pale-gold eyes. It was the Fête of Pastas Netweaver, the god of judgment who had learned wisdom from the dragons of the Farthest Isles, and who, not coincidentally, was Acragas Necias’ patron deity, appearing with his curragh and net-of-souls on the Acragas banner.

  Fiona, with her urchin hired to help her carry her trunk of tricks, came quietly in the tradesmen’s entrance, a dark cloak over her scarlet performing gown. There were Brodaini guards in addition to the militia, which surprised her, and she was further surprised by being taken aside to a small room so that her baggage and then herself could be searched. The Brodaini seemed particularly interested in her trunk and insisted on inspecting all her paraphernalia, and on her making clear the function of each device. The spindle she claimed as a musical instrument, and produced sounds from it to prove it — the rest, her various props, she claimed privileged, though she let them examine each to prove to themselves it could not be used as a weapon. Then the males left and she was forced to undress under the businesslike eyes of the two women Brodaini, who turned her gown inside out, looking for secret pockets — they found many, though none of them were yet filled with her tricks. They insisted on her stripping completely, and for a moment she felt unease as she slipped out of the privy-coat that protected her, and which she’d never removed except for her visits to the public baths, where she’d sat in a cabinet tub while hot water was poured into it by brawny women working behind the screen. The Brodaini searching the garment scowled at the unfamiliar catches and the strange material, but let it pass. They even combed her hair for strangling-wires, and probed elsewhere, intimately elsewhere, looking for poison capsules. No one else seemed to have been accorded this treatment. Fiona tried to submit with a good grace. It was, after all, a sign that she’d aroused their curiosity.

  Afterward they summoned a maid to help her get laced into her gown again — they didn’t seem to have any experience in that area themselves — and bade her a polite farewell. The maid was young and intoxicated, though whether with wine or excitement was not apparent. Making her way to the Great Hall, Fiona passed among a glittering forest of armor, halberds, and two-handed swords.

  Once inside the Great Hall of the Acragas, however, there seemed little security at all. Servants, performers, guests, all milled about attracting little attention from the Acragas militia posted about the room. Fiona went backstage to prepare her act, made all ready, and then, since she would not be on till late, stepped out to watch the crowd as they entered. The privileged guests moved to the dining room for a feast, and the rest dined informally. She supped on a surprisingly good fish-and-porridge pie, sipped her ale, and talked with a pair of jugglers who were also awaiting their cue.

  Then the trumpets cried out, filling the great room to the rafters and stilling all talk, and Acragas Necias walked into the room with his train of wives and cousins. Cheers and applause drowned the trumpets. Fiona stood on a bench for her first good look at the merchant-king of Arrandal, the man who had created the Elva and brought the Brodaini from their cold and violent northern land.

  He was impressive, in spite of rather than thanks to the elaborate, lace-decorated, jeweled doublet and the fur-embroidered short jacket worn over one shoulder. The clothing was far too gaudy to be in good taste, and he did not wear it comfortably — it constrained him; there was an immense vitality in the man that was not to be inhibited by mere fashion.

  He was tall enough to look a tall Brodainu in the eye, broad-shouldered, and barrel-chested, and was still a powerful figure despite the great pendulous belly that was roped in, with little success, by his wide belt. He walked with an assured, unconscious swagger, his first wife on one arm; she, a thin, hatchet-faced, cunning-looking woman, awkwardly matched his long-legged paces. He did not bother to match hers, but moved massively around the room at speed, bellowing greetings, laughing loudly, seeing friends across the hall and rushing to embrace them, his wife dragged along on his arm like a doll in the hands of a heedless child.

  Necias’ round face with its fringe of dark hair, small eyes, and multiple chins bespoke a fierce animal vitality, bold self-reliance, and a confidence that seemed near-inspiring. A perfect example, Fiona thought, of a man of this time. A self-made man, of course: the Acragas had been a minor family before Necias had made them the most influential of all.

  There was a group of Brodaini that followed, their upright bearing and simple clothing and armor standing out in this mob of embroidery and jewels. There was a lot of bowing and deferring to an old grey-haired Brodainu, and suddenly Fiona realized she was looking at Tegestu, their chief — a fierce-looking fellow still, tall, lean, and broad-shouldered in his armor. He must have been a terrifying warrior in his day, Fiona thought, though now he seemed to walk carefully, and with a hint of weariness. There were a pair of older Brodaini with him, a strapping woman about Tegestu’s age and another younger, though graying, man: the rest were all eagle-eyed young men, the Brodaini and their servants both, and Fiona recognized among them some of those who had searched her. The Brodaini stayed near Necias, she saw, and some of their liveried servants mixed with the oligarch’s hangers-on. A sensible precaution, she thought, in this atmosphere of war: she wondered if Necias even realized such care was being taken.

  Necias and his party made a circuit of the room, greeting his guests, ending up at Fiona’s bench last of all. She stood to greet him, bowing with a flourish, and saw two Classani step quietly to either side of the Abessu-Denorru, ready to intercept a weapon. Necias simply nodded at her, a broad smile creasing his face, and said: “A lovely gown, young woman. Scarlet suits you. I like the hood as well. Isn’t it a lovely gown, Brito?” Fiona suddenly realized that his front teeth were artificial, ivory tied into place with silver wire.

  “Very appropriate,” said the eldest wife in an uninterested tone, and the party passed on.

  Necias returned to his place, and at a signal the many lamps that lit the entire hall were all extinguished, leaving only a thousand candles flickering outside the footlights on the stage. An orchestra began to play for its gallery. The music was intricate and compelling, the bass carrying a theme forward while the alto and tenor embroidered their way around it: and then a full-voiced chorus began to sing out from above, and Fiona realized this was a hymn to the god Pastas, of how he had learned wisdom from the dragons, who had created the world and stars, and how he had eventually surpassed even the dragons in knowledge, such that he counseled the dragons against beginning their war with the great sea-demons, who had created the watery universe and the things that dwell there — a war that destroyed the world and the deep and most of mankind, that resulted in the extinction of the sea-demons and the decimation of the dragons, who now, few in number, have retired to their hidden islands and dream away the eons, leaving the universe to the gods and their pets, the humans.

  Was it memory of a great catastrophe, Fiona wondered, that had prompted this myth? Were the ancestors of these people, and of Fiona herself, disguised as the wonderworking, too-wise, and dreaming dragons? Or was there simply something in the nature of humankind that demanded a catastrophe myth? Her own world had them in abundance, different in detail though somehow alike in flavor: there were always a few virtuous chosen who survived the disaster, whatever it was — here it was inundation by the sea that seemed most universal; on her own world it was a holocaust of fire.

  The choral hymn slowed, then came to an end; it was followed by a clear counter-tenor, with minimal accompaniment from the orchestra, who sang bell-like praise to the god; and then the chorus and orchestra boomed back in for a splendid fortissimo finale that had the hall ringing with applause. The composer, a chinless, shock-haired wonder, came out for his bow, and Necias gave him a jewel from his finger, while others flung him purses.

  There followed a mechanical marvel, a metal mallanto that cocked its head, raised a very real shellfish between its webbed front toes and opposable claw, and bit down with an audible crunch from the curved beak; it then spread its wings and gave a great inspiring cry while its eyes winked golden fire. More applause, and a purse from Necias for the inventor.

  Acrobats, then, and jugglers; afterwards there was a noisy intermission followed by the poet Campas. He was about thirty, small and slightly-built, with curling dark hair worn longer than that of most of the men present. He dressed simply, in somber colors — to stand out, Fiona supposed — but there was a white scarf thrown dashingly around his neck, and he wore a multitude of rings that flashed as he turned the pages of his manuscript.

  The poem was clearly a part of a larger work, written to the specifications of some poetic tradition or other, and Fiona lost interest quickly amid a hopeless array of muses, minor deities, allusions to other poems in the cycle, appearances by past poets operating under a bewildering array of pseudonyms, woebegone shepherds longing after shepherdesses of ethereal beauty and cast-iron chastity... and then, just as she was prepared to go to sleep for the duration, something made Fiona sit up and take notice. His use of language was beautiful, Fiona thought, even though his subject matter was dead as the mechanical mallanto; his rhythms were perfect, his word-order exact and not over-clever, the vowel sounds ringing changes throughout the verse that echoed and sang: and sometimes, even when describing something as hackneyed as a young swain’s sighs for his mistress, or the disillusioned ’prentice abandoning the corruption of the city for the blissful simplicity of a shepherd’s life, he managed to introduce an invigorating breath of life into it. This man is good, she thought, excited, and applauded madly when he was done.

  There were a pair of purses flung from the audience; Campas picked them up, bowed again, and stepped from the light. A fussy grey-haired man introduced the mimes of Fastias. Fiona was next, so she slipped backstage again, made certain she was ready, and waited for the introduction.

  Backstage watching the mimes, she felt the blood pounding in her ears, and realized that, oddly, it was not fear she felt, but simple excitement. At last these people would know who she was, and why she had come.

  She started with standard tricks, clear glass jars of water disappearing, reappearing empty, the water itself appearing inside a cap she had acquired from a member of the audience — good stuff, guaranteed to start the act with laughter. There were more tricks along those lines, then she began to cut things up and make them whole again, and this was followed by the first major spectacle. A small icon, the Amil-Deo, was placed on a table, and suddenly it appeared, much enlarged, on the curtain behind her. She could hear the audience shifting in their seats, and a sudden murmur of astonishment: then enthralled gasps as the Amil-Deo began to move, raising kings on high, each more splendid than the last, before casting them down again. When the trick faded the applause was deafening, and she felt the thud of purses landing on the stage. She ignored them, instead picking from her table a pair of gleaming hollow tubes. She brandished them over her head, feeling her back arch as she crossed them, rapping one on the other.

  “Good people, I beg your leave to tell a story,” she cried. “A story that may seem strange, a story full of wonders, a tale that may even seem impossible.” She lowered her arms, standing plainly in front of them; she lowered her voice as well, making them listen. “It is a story, however, that is absolutely true.” Her quiet voice, her simple stance — it was all guileless, without artifice or staginess, the more to convince them of her sincerity. Fiona raised the tubes again and a white mist shot from them, spouting high into the air as her audience gasped in wonder. The fog hung between the audience and the rounded arches of the ceiling, a pale translucency that obscured the candles that flickered there; and then, as Fiona lowered the tubes and switched on her projectors, it seemed to those below as if the roof suddenly opened to reveal a cloudless, pitch-black sky, ablaze with the great glittering stars. The audience moaned in wonder.

  “Behold the stars!” Fiona called. “The stars as the dragons first made them, the stars as they first glittered in the vault of the heavens on the first night of the new-born world. Here they sparkle, new-made, as they move in their courses.” The stars were registered at local perspective: any navigator in the audience would have recognized them. They began to rotate, as if with the motion of the planet.

  The Arrandalla were good astronomers and navigators; a hundred years ago they’d abandoned the Demro-centered concept of the universe and adopted the notion of their planet circling a star, with the laws of gravitation and planetary motion springing up a generation later, discovered simultaneously in half a dozen places. This understanding would make Fiona’s explanation easier.

  The stars slowed again, then stopped. The stars faded, and dawn began to blaze across the eastern sky. The sky lightened, turned to day. There was some scattered applause from people thinking it was the end of the trick.

  “Let us take to ourselves the wings of the mallanto,” Fiona said, stifling the applause before it could begin. “Let us take wing, and soar into the sky.” And suddenly the perspective of the display changed; there was a lurching sensation, and then, coming into view, was the horizon, with Acragas’ palace squatting recognizably in the foreground, the city stretching beyond, and after that the blue, gleaming water. There were cries from the audience, an audible buzz; and there was suddenly movement as a number of them bolted for the exits, making the sign against the evil eye.

  The perspective swung dizzyingly as the view gyred, circling higher over the Acragas palace, catching here a glimpse of sky, of cloud, of the city walls, of the plains and rivers beyond. “Let us mount higher with the wings of the mallanto,” Fiona chanted. “Let us climb into the sky and look down upon the creation of the dragons and of man.”

  The viewpoint looked down, at the shrunken palace and the city; and then it suddenly pulled back, the city fading away into a mosaic of brown plains, green wetlands, blue sea, all dotted with a scattering of cloud. There was a low moan from the audience, some overcome with vertigo — and there were the snowcapped peaks to the south, and lying across the smoking sea the greybrown land of the Brodaini, broken by mountain-teeth and the snaking white forms of glaciers. Still the perspective drew back until all of Demro hung in the void, snow-capped north and south, the white cloud contrasting with seas of the deepest blue, the dull-brown continents almost insignificant in the display of shocking colors. And around the glowing bluewhite globe burned the steady, suddenly nonflickering stars.

  “Here we have mounted, above the world,” Fiona said. “From here we can see the dragons’ creation, all of Demro laid out below us. The creation of mankind, all the great cities, all the fields and nations and alliances — from here they are invisible, lost in the totality of the universe.”

  The perspective began to move again, Demro fading away into the midst of the stars, Demro’s sun appearing in a blaze of white, both fading now with distance. “We journey now among the stars,” Fiona said. “Higher even than the wings of the mallanto can take us. Here only the encompassing mind of the dragon can bring us. Demro fades to a distant speck of blue, and vanishes. Even the sun fades in the cold distance, until it is no more than a star. The dragon’s dream is cold and lifeless, here in the barren spaces between the stars.”

  In a slow moment the perspective changed again, rotating through 180 degrees until the viewpoint was dead ahead, the stars moving past as the simulation forged onward. This was not, Fiona knew, how the starfield moved at near-light speed — the reality was more spectacular, the stars refracting as they bent around the speeding mass of the ship — but this was straining her audience’s understanding enough, without her delivering a disquisition on relativity physics.

  A star moved into center view, growing brighter, its white light somehow bluer, fiercer. “Here,” Fiona said, “a small star, another star of the dragons’ making. But even at this immeasurable distance the dragons build true — for around this other star circles a world, another world. And it is a world where the dragons have, as here on Demro, created humanity.”

  The new world appeared, a brown speck at first, hardly visible in the hard glare of the new star, then growing rapidly until it filled the display. There was much less water here, that was obvious: the brown areas greatly outnumbered the blue, and the patches of white around the poles were much smaller.

  “The dragons made a harsher world here,” Fiona said, “a warmer world, where water is rare, and greatly prized. Here the humans, battling the harsh conditions of the land, were forced to dig great networks of canals to water their land — not canals as they have here, to regulate the flood and speed commerce, but canals to bring water to thirsty crops.” She showed her audience scenes of the other world: the great flatlands; the giant, branching canals reflecting the ruddy hues of the sky; the grey upthrust stone of the mountains, cleft with black shadow; the deserts and semi-deserts with their strange beasts.

  “The people grew wise in the ways of their land, in the ways of artifice. Their ambition grew, as did their knowledge; and they yearned to move among the stars with the wings of dragons.” Here the simulation showed, for the first time, the inhabitants of the other world: brown-skinned, lithe, sturdy people, swift to laugh and swifter to smile, draped in robes of bright color, moving among their low, earth-colored houses — and Fiona’s heart lurched, seeing these carefully selected, carefully edited scenes of home. A sudden, overwhelming yearning filled her as she viewed this world she had so carelessly left behind, her world, the world she could never expect to see again, except in these dreams created for the enlightenment of these savages, for if she ever returned to her homeland centuries would have passed, and everything she knew would be gone... She fell silent for a moment, swaying on the stage, her prepared speech gone from her mind; but she steeled herself, breathed carefully in and out, and then spoke, her words coming swiftly as she tried to recover lost ground.