Steel Sky (14 page)

The Director of Security shouts into the microphone: “Open the goddamn doors! All of them!”

The fifty doors of the Discroom slide open, revealing barriers of protective webbing. People blindly squeeze through. On the other side, they stumble over one another, some turning to wait for friends or family members, some rushing to the elevators and stairs. Back in the Discroom, the pressure of bodies begins to ebb. The webbing is now secure across the face of the giant window. The Winnower is nowhere to be seen.

Cadell picks himself up off the floor and grabs a respirator dropped during the panic. He holds it to his face. The gauge on the side indicates that the percentage of poisonous gasses in the vast room never even came close to dangerous levels.

The registers rattle and hiss as clean air is pumped into the Discroom. The last remnants of the crowd continue to push through the doors. The webbing snaps shut after each one with a loud
pop!

The floor is littered with spilled drinks, overturned chairs and tables, ripped clothing, discarded personal effects, and here and there a body. Some of the bodies are still breathing, some are not. Cadell hobbles through the wreckage, looking for Amarantha. Someone stepped on his foot during the rush; pain shoots up his leg with every step. He can’t tell if anything is broken or not.

Thraso drops down from his perch. “Quite a scene, eh, Cadell?” he calls, momentarily forgetting his affectation.

Cadell nods absently and continues walking, heading in the direction where he last saw Amarantha. After a while, he finds her. The corridor is empty except for the three bodies of the Orcus servants. Amarantha is sitting on the floor in a corner, her arms around her knees. She is wrapped in Second Son’s pinioned cape.

At first she doesn’t even notice him. When he speaks her name, she jumps, staring at him with eyes that are red, but dry. As he kneels beside her, she collapses against him, wordlessly burying herself in his arms. He holds her tight, stroking her hair and feeling the warmth of her breath on his chest, instinctively knowing he should ask no questions.

LEGEND

The Atrium is the largest enclosed space in the Hypogeum. A ribbed glass roof stretches from one row of rooftops to another. In the wide thoroughfare below, people are milling about — talking, buying or selling from one of the merchant carts, engaging in political dialogue, or listening to tales of adventure that have survived, however warped, from the old world.

The largest crowd is gathered around a white-haired man, naked but for a loincloth, who balances precariously on a bench, waving his scrawny arms. He speaks tirelessly, pausing only to extend his ident to accept donations. The Revelator, as he is known, is the most popular speaker in the Hypogeum.

“And the Time Barons sat in richly decorated rooms in their clocktower fortress . . .” Despite the apparent weakness of his frame, the Revelator preaches in a voice like the roar of a great river. “And they laughed and drank while, outside, people starved and fires burned.”

Above him, in the girders, the Winnower stops to listen to the familiar fable.

“And the clocktower struck. And the Barons were sore amazed, for they had not declared the hour. And they ran to and fro inside the tower trying to silence the bells. They were blinded with rage, for they believed they had achieved a mastery no men had ever before possessed: they thought they were the masters of time, not it of them. But try as they might, they could not silence the bells. And the clock continued to strike, signaling the end of their day, and the dawn of a new era.

“And suddenly among them was the Winnower, with the face of a man long dead and the claws of a demon. He came like a thief in the night, unannounced, uninvited, to their innermost sanctuary. And as he walked among them their eyes closed, their hearts stopped, and they fell in tangled piles upon the cold marble floors.

“And the locks burst open at his touch, and he offered the people entrance, taking from their mouths the bitterness of justice long denied and returning to them the sweetness of bloody vengeance.

“And the people rose up against the Time Barons. And they slaughtered the men in the clocktower, whether they worked or slept, whether they fought for their lives or pleaded for mercy. All were slaughtered, yes, even the women and children. And their blood painted the walls. And their screams filled the ruined corridors. And the dynamos failed, and the lights flickered out. And the ivory clocktower was razed to its foundations. And the Sky was stained black with the smoke of a thousand fires.

“And the horror began.”

A man’s philosophy is the surest way to judge his character. Few men are dedicated in this respect — most switch continuously from one level of awareness to another, depending on which is most convenient at the moment — but men who are primarily consistent, who apprehend the world in a certain way and act accordingly, these are the ones who determine the course of human history, with flickers of support or opposition echoing them in the inconstant souls of others.

Renata Penn (Year 297)

THIRTEEN

A single beam of light slices down through the darkness to strike the man below, making the glossy fabric of his coverup shine with the intensity of a magnesium flare. The beam is so fine that it does not touch the chair on which he is sitting or illuminate the room around him in any way. His cheekbones, nose and eyebrows cast long shadows down his face. He prefers the room dark this way.

“Thirteen men dead now,” he says. “Funny, it doesn’t sound like that many when I say it out loud.”

“Only twelve.” A woman’s voice comes from somewhere over his shoulder. “One of the Orcus servants is permanently disfigured and blind in one eye, but otherwise healthy.”

The man does not turn his head. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”

“I’m only being precise. I thought you appreciated precision.”

The man puts his head in his hands, so that only disparate pieces of him are visible in the spotlight. “I just wish there was an easier way . . .”

“There is. You can stop at any time.”

“Don’t mock me. It’s gone too far for that.”

“There would be repercussions, it’s true. Vast repercussions. But they are not your concern. You have no obligation to bear this burden.”

“No? Who would take my place if I quit?”

“All I’m saying is that you have a choice. Whichever choice you make, you must make it wholeheartedly. If you are to be a man, throw away the armor and go back to your life, never looking back. If you are to be the Winnower, summon up the rage of the city until you feel it like a fever in your blood. There can be no half measures.”

The man inhales through his teeth. “You’re right. Of course. It’s just that . . . I’m so tired . . .”

“Beware of self-pity, my friend. It will destroy you.”

PINKY

Second Son sits in his room and stares out the window-wall. He sits slumped forward, wincing every time he shifts his weight. He cannot lean back for fear that he will reopen the welts across his back. The scars are two days old, but still deep. His father made the marks in Second Son’s back with a cane the day after the party. As Orcus brought down each stroke, his face was deep red with rage and shame, his breath hot and labored on the back of Second Son’s neck. The cause of his father’s anger was not that Second Son had broken the law, nor even that he had disrupted the party, but that he had been so careless as to have been
caught
. For a member of the Orcus family to have been
exposed
so ignominiously was more than his father could bear.

“Excuse me, sir.” Second Son’s thoughts are interrupted by the voice of Image, or rather, one of its domestic subroutines. The feminine voice, more familiar and comforting than any of his own family’s voices, issues from a speaker set low in the curved wall.

“What is it?” Second Son asks, closing his eyes. He wants only to be left alone.

“There’s someone at the door.”

Second Son sighs. The subroutines aren’t very bright. “
Who
,” he asks, “is at the door?”

“Your sister, Second Daughter.”

“Let her in.”

The door slides open and Second Daughter walks in. She is fourteen years old, with a round face and straight, brown hair. Like Second Son, she is shorter and plumper than average. These qualities, as Second Son has observed before, look better on a girl than on a boy. In fact, Second Daughter might be considered pretty, if not for the way she suffered in comparison to Dancer.

“Hello, Pinky,” Second Son says.

Pinky smiles, a small cautious smile. Her nickname was given to her not for her complexion, Second Son suspects, but for the fact that she — like the finger — is pleasant to have around, but not altogether necessary.

She moves in that quick, uncomplicated way she has, and leans against Second Son’s desk. She looks at him from under her bangs, Second to Second. “Father still won’t come out of the Sensorium,” she says. “He’s pretty mad about what happened at the party.”

“That’s clear enough,” Second Son replies. “The question is, is he still angry at
me
?”

“I don’t know. He was caught by surprise. He doesn’t like that.”

“Is the wedding still on?”

Pinky nods. “Sorry. You’re not looking forward to marrying her, are you?”

“I’d rather have my testicles cut off.” He smiles grimly. “Hell, she probably would, too.”

Pinky laughs, and the clear plastic table creaks ominously under her weight. Null-class aesthetics require all furniture in the Chandelier to be designed in thin, transparent curves. Beautiful, but not very sturdy.

“Maybe you won’t have to marry her,” she says. “Maybe she’ll have an accident.”

“What?” Alarmed, Second Son starts to rise, but his back warns him to stay where he is. “Why do you say that?”

Pinky’s smile disappears. “No reason. I was just talking, trying to make you feel better.”

“Well, don’t. Don’t say something like that. Not even as a joke.”

“Sorry.” Pinky looks around, nonplussed. “I was just thinking it would be nice, is all. If you didn’t have to marry her.”

“But I do. So there’s no point thinking otherwise.”

Pinky stands and moves closer to him. “Don’t you ever think about the way you’d like things to be? Just once or twice, lie in bed and roll the thoughts around in your head, just to see what they look like?”

“No. I stopped doing anything like that a long time ago.”

“I do it. I do it all the time.” She is standing right next to him now, and Second Son leans forward to rest his forehead against her stomach. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be married?” she says. “The way it was supposed to be?”

Second Son nods, feeling the smooth, gray cloth of her dress against his cheek. Her scent is simple, clean, and comforting.

“They owe us that much,” Pinky says, running her hand down the back of his smooth head. “All you have to do is say, ‘
No
.’ All you have to do is tell Father you won’t marry her.”

Second Son lets his head rest against her stomach for a moment longer. Then he grabs hold of her wrist and pulls himself to his feet. A ripping pain in his back tells him he has moved too quickly. He stumbles forward, ignoring the pain. He stands in front of the window, his feet planted wide, in imitation of his father. He feels a tear of blood slide down his spine.

“No,” he says finally, his voice bitter and low. “I will not forfeit my position. I can make it without Stone, and I can make it without you. I can control Dancer myself. I’ve grown since Stone died. I can be her master as well as he could. Maybe better.”

“No one can control her. She’ll crush you.”

“No. I can handle her. You’ll see,” Second Son says, without turning. “Everything is laid out before me. I only have to grasp it.”

Pinky walks toward him. Her eyes are cast down, but her voice is steady. “If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for me. Do you want me to be forced to marry outside the family?”