The Evolutionary Void (25 page)

“Edeard!” Macsen opened his arms wide and hugged him enthusiastically as
if they’d been parted for years. Edeard gave him a slightly stiff response.
After all, they had seen each other at least twice a week most weeks for the
last forty years.

“Lady, this wine is dross,” Macsen complained, holding up his glass to
the twilight seeping through the crescent windows.

“Stop whining; one of my potential voters donated it,” Edeard replied.

“In which case I’ll be honored to quaff a few more bottles for the fine
chap.”

Lady, we even talk like the aristocrats these days
.
“Don’t bother. I don’t really care if I make Chief Constable. Face it, we’ve
had our day.”

Macsen gave him a startled look. From the corner of his eye, Edeard saw
Kanseen frown, but as always her mental shield allowed no knowledge of her
feelings.

“Speak for yourself, country boy,” Macsen said; he was trying for a jovial
tone but couldn’t quite reach it. “Anyway, from what I gather, you’re well
ahead of our glorious current incumbent. Makkathran needs you to take a more
prominent role.”

Edeard nearly said
Why?
but managed to hold
his tongue. “I suppose so.”

Macsen draped his arm around Edeard’s shoulder and drew him aside with
several insincere smiles directed at the group he’d been chatting with. “You
want us to return to the old days? After everything you did?”

“No …” Edeard began wearily.

“Good, because I for one am not prepared to see everything we’ve achieved
shit upon from a great height just because you’re menopausal.”

“I am not …”
Okay, maybe he hasn’t changed that much
.
“All right, I’m a little sour myself right now, I admit that I went to see the
Mayor three days ago to press for the livestock certificate expansion.”

“I heard. So he said no? You’ll be Chief Constable in under three weeks.
You can apply some pressure in the Grand Council, push it through yourself.”

“I won’t do that though,” Edeard said forcefully. “Because Trahaval was
right, wasn’t he? You must have seen it. We can’t extend the livestock
certificates to sheep and pigs, for the Lady’s sake. It was an idiotic idea.
Who wants that much paperwork? Don’t you remember the time we drew up the one
hundred list? We didn’t see daylight for weeks on end, we were so busy with all
those forms and reports and chits. A great bunch of extra certificates is
simply pushing the job off on clerks. Our job! If rustling is to be stopped, it
should be by constables enforcing the law. What was I thinking?”

“Ah. Yes. Definitely menopausal.”

“I was letting things slip. It’s complacency, and it was stupid of me.
But not now, not anymore.”

“Oh, Lady, so now what? You want to go back out there with a couple of
regiments? Take the city’s finest and haul the provincial militia along so you
can catch sheep rustlers? Is that what it’s come to?”

“It hasn’t come to that. You don’t get it. We’ve been sailing along these
last few years; we have no goals anymore. It was never just about winning,
beating Owain and Buate; it was always about what happened afterward. Well,
this is afterward and it matters to me. It matters a lot.”

“All right, then.” Macsen heaved out a big sigh. “I’ll kiss the mistress
of Sampalok goodbye and ride out with you again. But you’ve got to admit it,
we’re really getting too old and fat for this kind of thing. How about we just
sit in the headquarters tent and leave the glory bits to your Dylorn, my
Castio, and all the other youngsters?”

Edeard’s eyes automatically gazed down on Macsen’s belly.
We’re not all so old and fat, thank you
. In fact he was
rather proud of himself for keeping his daily run going all this time. Today he
could still climb the stairs in the ziggurat without getting out of breath. There
were even running clubs in the city now, and the big autumn race from the City
Gate across the Iguru to Kessal’s Farm and back was an annual event, with more
people entering each year.

“No,” Edeard said. “That’s not the way to handle this. We have to change
the way station captains and sheriffs operate. They need to gather more
information, maybe put together some dedicated teams of constables who don’t
just spend their days out on patrol.”

“More special Grand Council committees?”

“No, not like that. Just a group of officers, those with some experience
and a little smarter than average, who’ll devote more of their time to
investigating all the aspects of a crime, trying to build up a pattern. Like we
used to do. You remember how I spied on Ivarl to find out what he was up to?”

“I remember what happened to you when you did.”

“All I’m saying is we need to get smarter, to adapt. Life is different
now. It would be the worst kind of irony if we’re the ones who can’t keep up
and benefit.”

Macsen gripped Edeard’s shoulder, smiling broadly. “You know what your
real trouble is?”

“What?” Edeard asked, though he’d already guessed the answer.

“You’re a glory glutton.”

———

It was the third night Edeard had lain awake in the big bedroom on the
tenth floor of the Culverit ziggurat. He really should have been able to sleep.
The room was perfect for him; he’d spent years altering it, expanding the
arching windows that led out onto the hortus, changing the lights to circles
that shone with a warm pink-white radiance, reducing the ceiling height,
producing alcoves for which Kristabel had commissioned furniture that fit
exactly, toning the walls to a subtle gray-blue so they matched the specially
woven carpet. Even the spongy bed mattress had been adjusted until it achieved
exactly the firmness both he and Kristabel wanted. They’d argued over her
fondness for draping all the furniture in lace, compromising with a few
tasteful frills. Even the curtains were a stylish pale russet, although they
did have thick jade piping and tassels. The tassels had been one of the things
he’d compromised on, but he really couldn’t blame them for his not being able
to sleep.

Kristabel shifted beside him, pulling the silk sheets about. He held his
breath until she was sleeping deeply again. There had been a time, not all that
long ago, when he would have nuzzled up to her when she did that and they’d
start caressing and kissing. There would be giggles and moaning, then sheets
and blankets would be flung aside, and they’d work each other’s bodies to that
wondrous physical pinnacle they knew exactly how to reach.

Gazing over at her in the dusky light that crept around the curtains, he
wondered when all that had ended. Not that it had finished; they still made
love several times a month.
Whereas it used to be several
times a night
. Kristabel was still beautiful. She was not girlish
anymore, which he didn’t want, anyway; her hair was starting to lighten, and
there were a few lines around her eyes. But physically she was still very
desirable. He could remember only too well all the cursing and misery after
each child about how much weight she’d put on during the pregnancy and how
she’d never look good again. Then there’d be the long fight to get back in
shape, with fierce discipline over what she ate and then the kind of exercise
that put his morning run to shame.

But she no longer wore the short lacy negligees he used to adore, and
they showered separately and didn’t talk and shout each other down; nor did
they laugh, not the way they used to. Developing dignity, he’d thought; at
least that was what he told himself. The kind of dignity that comes with
growing up and taking responsibilities seriously. And their ever-increasing
burden of duties and how tired that always left them. Though it shouldn’t; all
they had to do was delegate.

We’re just not the same people. That’s not a fault
thing. Live with it
. Even so, his traitor mind nearly sent his farsight
creeping out to the House of Blue Petals. Ranalee would doubtless have that
bewitched lad performing his strenuous best for her, corrupting him beyond
salvation. Her love life had never ebbed.

No!
It wasn’t fair to blame sex for
everything. Attitudes, too, had hardened over the years. Edeard had always
favored moving the city toward a full democracy, slowly reducing the power of
the Upper Council and expanding the authority of the representatives. It would
never be a swift transition; he fully expected that he wouldn’t live to see its
conclusion. But as long as the process could be started, he would be content.
However, with all the other changes and reforms within the city and the
strengthening of bonds with the provinces, that seemed to have been delayed
year after year. Kristabel hadn’t helped, not as he’d assumed she would. When
she finally had taken her seat in the Upper Council as mistress of Haxpen,
there had been too many other, more immediate, causes to support. As part of
Finitan’s voting bloc she was expected to advance the Mayor’s new legislation
and budgets and taxes. None of them had been focused on expanding general
democracy.

He knew he shouldn’t confuse personality with politics. But it was hard
not to blame her for being part of the Grand Family setup, which she bitterly
resented.

Edeard hated himself for having such doubts about himself and Kristabel,
doubts and questions that had only increased since the appearance of the
Skylord. That was the real root of his sleepless nights. Since the afternoon
when the Liliala Hall ceiling had cleared for him, he’d been striving to sense
the Skylord’s thoughts, and he’d failed miserably.

Now the frustration was starting to cloud his thoughts, making him
prickly and despondent. Worse, everyone close to him knew it, which annoyed him
even more, especially as he couldn’t tell them the reason.

He let out a frustrated sigh and rolled cleanly off the bed without
waking Kristabel. His third hand snatched up the clothes he wanted, and they
drifted silently through the air behind him as he tiptoed out into the
corridor. Once he was dressed, he pulled his black cloak about him and marched
off to the central stairs. When he reached them, he threw a concealment around
himself and simply vaulted over the banister rails to plummet the ten floors
down to the ground. It was stupid, and exhilarating, and he hadn’t done anything
like it for years.

Makkathran buoyed him up as he asked, controlling his fall. When he
reached the floor, his boots landed with a gentle thud. He strode through the
deserted cloisters of the ground floor to the ziggurat’s private mooring
platform. It was long past midnight, which left very little traffic on the
Great Major Canal. He waited for a minute as a gondola slipped into the High
Pool, its lantern disappearing around the curving wall. Then, with the waterway
clear, he reached out with his third hand and steadied the water. Another thing
he hadn’t done in years.

Edeard ran straight across the canal. When he was halfway across, the
farsight caught him. It was so
inevitable
, he was
almost ready for it.

“I’ll find you one day,” he longtalked down the strand of perception that
stretched across the city to Cobara. “You know I will.”

The farsight ended so fast, it was as if it had been broken. Edeard
grinned to himself and reached a public mooring platform, where the wooden
steps took him up to Eyrie.

The crooked towers stretched away ahead of him. Around the lower quarter
of each one, slender streaks of orange light shone out of their dark wrinkled
fascias, illuminating the deserted streets that wove between them. But the
upper sections were jet black, cutting sharply across the nebula-swathed sky.

It was instinct that drew him there. The Lady’s scriptures spoke of how
the ill and infirm and old used to wait atop the towers; then, as the Skylord
flew above the city, their souls would ascend to be guided away from Querencia.
He reached the tower close to the Lady’s grand church, where so many years ago
conspirators from the families had thrown him off the top. It was one of the
tallest in Eyrie, which would put him as close to the Skylord as anything in Makkathran.
Pushing aside any reservations about the location and its resonances, he walked
up the central staircase, spiraling around and around until he finally reached
the top and stood on the broad circular platform that crowned the tower. Eight
spikes stuck up from the edge, their twisted tips stretching a further forty
feet above the platform itself.

The nostalgia he was feeling now wasn’t good. This was where Medath had
waited after luring him up. This was where the other Grand Family conspirators
had overpowered him and–He grimaced as he stared over at the section of the lip
where he’d been shoved over. After so long, over forty years, he really
shouldn’t have been bothered by it, yet the memory was disturbingly clear. So
much so that he even searched with farsight to make perfectly sure no one else
was around.

Stupid
, Edeard scolded himself. He abruptly
sat down cross-legged on the platform and tipped his head back to gaze up at
the sky. Gicon’s Bracelet was visible above the spikes in the western hemisphere,
the planets gleaming bright just off the border of the Ku nebula’s marvelous
aquamarine glow. Even though he knew exactly where to look, the Skylord wasn’t
yet visible to the naked eye. Instead Edeard called to it. All of his mind’s
strength was focused into a single thought of welcome, one he visualized
streaming out through space.

And eventually the Skylord answered.

Finitan had retired to one of the houses the Eggshaper Guild maintained
in Tosella for its distinguished elderly members who’d retired from active
duties. It was a big boxy structure with a swath of delicate magenta and
verdure Plateresque-style decoration running around the outside of the third
floor. There were no guards posted outside, only a ge-hound curled up beside
the gate, which took one look at Edeard and yawned. Back when Edeard had
arrived in the city, every large building had had some kind of sentry detail.
Families and guilds had maintained almost as many guards as the city regiments.
Now their numbers were dwindling, with old duties like the door sentry handed
over to genistars once again.