For the first time since the marina, Layanna spoke. Her voice was not cold, but it was cautious: “Are we prisoners of the Army?”
The general seemed shocked. “You’re not prisoners at all. Why, you’re honored guests.”
They fell into silence as the procession wended its way toward the Parliament Building. The grim black buildings of the Ysstral Empire, bedecked with sinister arches and nightmarish gargoyles, loomed all around, infesting the city with their presence, but more modern art-deco buildings stood amongst them. Hissig was a city known not just for its bloody history but also for its art and poetry, and there were art galleries and taverns where writers would gather, all silent at this hour. Temples to various gods hunched here and there, some quite ancient, dating back to times even before the advent of the Atomic Sea.
The changes to the city amazed Avery.
“It’s so empty,” he said.
It was true. He judged that over half of the refugees that had flocked to Hissig during the war, awaiting transportation over the sea or the means to purchase it (however desperate), seemed to have vanished, leaving their detritus behind. They had erected shantytowns in markets, plazas, alleys and sidewalks, and though the refugees had disappeared, their shantytowns remained. Avery saw a group of elderly folk, retired volunteers perhaps, already out sweeping up leftover garbage and knocking lean-tos down. He wondered how long it would take to completely remove the refugees’ traces. Perhaps forever. Some scars just didn’t heal.
“Yes,” the general replied. “The sparrows have gone back to their roosts—most of them. We’re still trying to get rid of the rest. They’ve turned to thievery, murder for hire, drug trafficking, prostitution. It’s how they’ve survived so long. Many starved to death, or sold themselves or their children into slavery to foreign ships off the coasts. The ones still around found ways to make it, but they’ve had to become parasites to do so. Some were doctors and lawyers back home, but here ... killers, drug dealers, peddlers of flesh, whether their own or someone weaker. They’re a blemish on the city, and we’d like ‘em gone, but the fact is Octung still occupies many territories, and they don’t all have places to go.”
“Octung’s still around, huh?” Janx said. “I thought we got ridda ‘em.”
“Oh, they’re much reduced, but they’re still around, rest assured.”
“I feel ...” Layanna said. Gazing around, she blinked slowly.
“What is it?” Avery asked.
“Something ...” Suddenly she clutched her head, a gasp at her lips.
“Layanna! What’s wrong?”
“It’s—” She let out a sound almost like a growl. “It’s a ray.”
Avery’s head snapped up. For a moment, he saw nothing. But then, appearing from around a building, drifted the vast dark wedge-shape of a creature much like a manta ray, its wings stretching a mile to either side and its long, barb-tipped tail trailing miles behind it. Air blurred around its wings as it moved, cleaving dimensions like a man would cleave ice cream with his tongue, and though it must be flying miles above the city it still seemed huge.
Avery let out a hiss. “I’d hoped they were all dead.”
“There’s still that one,” said the general. “Grand Admiral Haggarty’s favorite pet. It, or the psychic working through it, can strike fear into the hearts of my troops, make them seize up or even go mad. Some just fall to the ground. That’s when Haggarty’s troops attack, when we’re helpless.”
“Can’t believe there’s open fighting between the Army and the Navy,” Janx said.
“It was rare until recently, but the incidences are increasing. Soon it will be all-out war.”
To Layanna, Avery said, “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine. But he’s aware of me now. The psychic. He’ll be bombarding me whenever he can.”
“Can you fight him?”
“I can hold him off for now.”
The jeep ascended into the hills where the wealthy lived, the great Parliament Building rearing from the largest of them, the orange stained-glass of its tower aglow with dawn light. Built after the Revolution some fifty years ago, the building was free of the ominous architectural flourishes typified by the Ysstrals and the Drakes, but it was still baroque, built to look commanding and prestigious. Guards at black gates let the procession in, and as it trundled up to the marble steps, men in livery waited expectantly. General Hastur hopped out and showed Avery and the rest up the steps to meet the retainers.
“I’m to lead you to the Prime Minister,” one said.
Avery dusted himself off, drawing attention to the fact that their clothes had been caked with grime when they’d hit the ground back at the docks. “Perhaps we could wash and dress first,” he suggested.
“I’m most sorry, but I’m to lead you straight to her.”
“Like I said, you’re eagerly anticipated,” General Hastur said. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. It’s been a pleasure.”
They said their good-byes and she climbed back into her jeep and motored away, the military procession following, but not going far. Avery realized he had seen numerous Army vehicles near the Parliament Building as the convoy had approached it. Did they surround it? Was the Parliament Building under a sort of siege and they its defenders?
“Please, if you would,” said the aide.
As other aides took their few bags, he showed the group past the rearing granite pillars and inside. Their footfalls echoed on the marble floors and off the elaborate mosaics along the walls. It had taken ten years to complete this building, Avery knew; it had been started shortly after the Revolution, and two governments had collapsed before it was ready to house the third. Avery remembered the various coups and executions from his boyhood, the sound of gunshots and screams echoing through the city, and it awed him that the woman who had put all that behind Ghenisa, who had ushered in a new age of solid, benevolent government and rife optimism—the New Dawn—was the very person they were about to meet.
“Denaris,” he breathed. “The Granite Rock herself.”
They were just passing a long silken banner with Prime Minister Denaris’s proud face staring out from it, bold chin aimed like the prow of a warship, eyes like searchlights.
“A fan, eh?” said Janx.
“She transformed the country.”
“Yeah, but you could get away with a lot more before she did.”
The aide led up a wide and winding staircase, then another, and Avery gaped at the wide open space of the Parliament Building’s dome, visible every time the spiral stairs wound around. Part of him wondered that no one objected to his presence; after all, he was infected, a mutant. How dare he tread upon the marble floors of the Parliament Building—that was the old way of thinking. But no one stopped him, no one lifted an eyebrow; they must be anxious indeed. Or perhaps the war had changed things, readjusted people’s priorities. If so, that was at least one positive thing the conflict had brought about.
Finally they reached the highest floor of the main structure and the aide led the way into the tower, then to a well-appointed conference room with an amazing view over the city. Through the thick, antique windows the red sun rose over the sea in a haze of firelight.
Standing at the windows with her back to the visitors was a thin woman with a familiar profile.
She turned, still just a silhouette against the sun, and said, “Come in. Sit down, I know you must be tired. Your things will be brought to your rooms. Mark, see to it. Arrange for breakfast and tea. Our guests must be starving.”
