Force Majeure (13 page)

Xan waved her objection away. ‘Prospero will continue after the party.’ He put his tumbler on the floor. He was barefoot and he couldn’t keep himself still. Kay imagined that he would forget the glass existed and accidentally crush it underfoot. She imagined her own soles, lacerated and bloody, flecked with glass splinters. ‘Prospero’s going on and on forever. This party is Prospero’s coming of age do. It’s when he inherits. Prospero, that’s a good name. I’d claim credit for it myself, but it wasn’t me, it was the powers that be. Good name.’

‘Beats Candida,’ Mae muttered.

‘Only a city run by slappers would chose a name like that, or maybe Doctor Arkadin was thinking of Voltaire. There was a man educated beyond his ability.’ Xan inspected Kay’s unamused, blank, impatient face and returned to the point: ‘What I have in mind for you is undignified. You’re a very proud woman and I’ll understand if you say
no
, walk away, no mark on your card. I need people to work at the party. I need Club members and I need Club members I can trust and who are going to make an impression on my guests, and that’s
you
, Red. I told you you’re important.’

She finished her water and carelessly placed it on the floor at her feet, more broken glass waiting to happen.

‘You want me to be … what?’

‘A waitress.’

‘A waitress.’ She tasted the word.

‘For one night only.’

‘I can be a waitress.’ It sounded no worse than some of her work at the old free house; besides, this was an invitation to something serious, somewhere she needed to be. He wanted her to crawl to get there. ‘I’ll need a uniform.’

On my knees if need be.

‘Delivered tonight. That’s why I mentioned it now. There’ll be something to fit you. You’re very tall, you know?’

‘So are you.’

‘Not as tall as you.’ His eyes went to Mae, who had fidgeted during their exchange and fidgeted again in the crush of his sight, even as he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, Mae, I don’t see you as a waitress. Red, I’ll be taking this one away from you.’

‘That’s more pressure,’ Kay said.
So I go from doing the work of four to doing the work of three.

‘It won’t be. These will be a quiet few days, the calm before the storm.’ She clicked her tongue, shrugged.
I can live with it.
‘Why don’t you take the rest of the day off?’ he suggested.

‘I’d prefer to get back to work,’ she replied. ‘Without me … Well, the work has to be done. You understand?’

She blinked. It lasted. Grey paste coated the inside of her mouth. Ozone. Smouldering hair. Azure rising into the morning on newly-sprouted wings, the light falling through grey baby-feathers, a bird, a
voladora
. Kay lifting her hand to shield her face from the alien dawn. Precise light, fresher and brighter than the grubby streams that wheedled through the clubhouse windows. Azure shedding blood and offal from the sky, wetting Kay, baptising her.
The voladora can return to her human body only once she has changed and changed utterly
. Kay watching her closest friend wheel through the clouds, all the while sweating and murmuring in the care of the-Lady’s favourites on the bunk in the grim lazaret.

Grey paste. Ozone. Burning hair. She was in Xan’s war office, poised exactly halfway between the Candida model and the exit, like an action figure, like she’d been moved into position by a great cosmic hand. No, she wouldn’t believe that. She had left Xan and Mae to return to work, but she didn’t remember. She had lost time. She inspected her thoughts and found that, in spite of what she’d told Xan, she wanted to give the afternoon’s work a rest and walk for a time in the city, while it was still unspoiled.

She had tried to move out of the old free house when she had joined the Club, but it had drawn her back. She hadn’t been able to sleep in her Club quarters on the first night, and that had blunted her game the following day. She had felt ashamed. She had felt failure. Xan had visited her that evening and spoken sympathetically, but even so, the next night, she’d lain impossibly tired among ruffled sheets, her body spasming but never finding the comfortable shape to sleep in. She had gone back to the old free house, where Flower-of-the-Lady had welcomed her. Kay had done enough, she said, to be allowed to stay for longer. Hadn’t she sat vigil while Azure became a bird? She had earned
trust
.

Kay turned away from the model city and went back to the room where Xan had served them drinks. The door was ajar, and through the gap she saw Mae stretched forward on her front on the couch. She was naked below the waist, her stubby hands clawing at the cushions. She was being screwed precisely from behind, from behind the door. Her body shuddered to one rhythm, her gasping breaths made another. In her native land, she would still be a child in law. Whoever was mounting her – and Kay felt disappointed at herself for even entertaining the possibility of doubt – was invisible behind the jamb. Kay inched into the gap to see and confirm the inevitable.

Yes.

Shit.

Kay took off her shoes then went on tiptoes back to the model of Candida. She stared at it for several minutes, neither moving nor thinking, and finally she decided she would not smash it, she would go out into the world and leave it be.

‘Do you know who the Fedayeen were?’

‘No.’

‘Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. Can you cope with a lecture? I’ll keep it short.’

‘I’ve got the whole evening and I’m getting used to this wall. Gathering moss, I am.’

‘
Okay
. Once upon a time, in ancient Iran, there was a Muslim ascetic, some say a Sufi, known as the Old Man of the Mountain. His name was Hasan-i-Sabah, and his warriors were the Fedayeen, also called the al-Assas. This is where the word
assassin
comes from.’

‘I thought that was from hashish.’

‘It’s the same story as this one. It’s always the same story. The Fedayeen were fanatically loyal to Hasan, and he used them to destroy his enemies in the Caliphate. Now here’s the point I want to make. Do you know how he kept the Fedayeen faithful? He fed them hashish, and while they slept, he’d spirit them away into a secret valley in the mountains, sealed from the outside world behind a huge wall. When they woke, they were still off their heads on weed and imagined they were in Heaven, because this place is
beautiful
, it has
everything
they could possibly want, and their every desire is attended to by
houris
, the most beautiful women in the world.’

‘So how’d he get
them
to stay faithful?’

‘Good question. I don’t know. Anyway, when Hasan needed someone killed, he would whisk an assassin or two out of the valley and set them to work – and they’d do what he wanted, because he was the
only
one who knew how to return them to paradise. That’s got to be a major hold you can have over someone; that’s got to be real power, a force greater than which nothing can exist. He was like a god.’

‘Where did you get all this from? Luis?’

‘Oh no, no, no, I knew this long before I got to Candida. I had a mate back in the old days. She’d come out with this stuff, usually when she was high. She was pretty quiet the rest of the time. They found her body in a ditch, long time ago now, long time. That’s all I’m going to say about it.’

‘I wasn’t going to ask.’

‘No. You’re a good person. At heart, you’re good. What do you think of the story?’

‘I think Hasan was an idiot. Why did he bother? If he knew there was a place where he could have everything he wanted, he should have stayed there and been happy.’

‘That’s
good
. I reckon it’s got to be some big ego-trip. People like Hasan, they’re tricky bastards. I can understand that. What I
don’t
get is why the assassins obeyed him. If someone took
me
away from paradise I’d want to kill
them
, and if I was a trained killer on drugs in a total berserker frenzy, I probably would.’

‘But would they let a woman join in the first place? Assassins sound like the Boy Scouts. Y chromosomes only.’

Her friend laughed. Her hair, albino white, had almost spilt Kay’s blood, but now it fluttered harmlessly on the night breeze. ‘You know we’re being followed? Godma January told me, but I’d already picked it up on the way – and it’s not me he’s after, it’s you.’

Kay rolled her eyes. ‘How can you
tell
?!’

Earlier, she traipsed through the passages of the old free house towards the library. She had entered the house through a side door, partly because it was comfortable, partly because she’d never mastered the route from the bridge without help. It didn’t connect with the geography of her mind. Even through the familiar door, it was becoming harder to locate her old workplaces as they receded into the past. The library was still welcoming, and Luis always seemed pleased to see her.

This evening she had an assignment, and she found her way there without confusion.

The War in Heaven table was set up in the middle of the library with a half-played game spread across the board. Evening was drawing in as Kay arrived, and Luis had abandoned play to close the tall shutters on the windows and lay out the lights. Azure sat on the second stool, contemplating her move. She didn’t notice as Kay entered, as she crossed the room to join her, as she took up Luis’ seat to consider the board. Azure was black, Luis red. Azure’s hand looked strong, Luis’s slightly stronger. Azure was a good player, better than Kay.

Azure had bleached all her hair white after she became a bird. Her skin, now clean, was ruddier than before, but only by contrast. She wore the same heavy brown bikeskins, now with confidence. No, not confidence,
collection
. She had changed not at all, she had changed completely, the world had changed around her. She adopted a carved, serious expression as she inspected the board. She tapped a minor piece with the point of her little finger, jabbing it forward by one place, moving it almost imperceptibly from one room to another.

‘That doesn’t change much,’ Kay murmured.

‘It’s not supposed to. Hello stranger.’

‘Are you enjoying it?’

‘The game?’

‘Being a bird.’

‘You can’t imagine. I wouldn’t say
enjoy
exactly.’ Her eyes met Kay’s. They were solemn. Kay could no longer remember what colour they had been before, but now they were hazel. ‘I lie. I enjoy it. Are you on for tonight still?’

Kay nodded. Luis returned, taking plodding steps and bearing miraculous unasked-for cups of tea. ‘You’re still with us then?’ he chortled, placing the tray on the board’s Southern Hemisphere in such a way that, had it been a playing piece, it would have thrown the game into confusion and doubt. ‘I could have done with you as an assistant. One day, all this could have been yours.’ He threw an arm out to describe the room he had never seen.

‘I’m not one of nature’s librarians.’

He laughed again. ‘Neither was I till I got here. We were all different back in the day. Azure has her story and so have I.’ (Azure shuffled embarrassed on her seat, slipping back for a moment in time to before she was a bird.) ‘Maybe she’ll tell you.’

‘Maybe I will. I’m losing this,’ she said and swatted. Her black dynasty piece toppled. ‘I’ll get you next time. Is this all?’

‘For Godma January, out on the boundaries. She and I go back to the Jazz Age. Say hi to her from me.’

With the tray and the tea, Luis had brought a pouch decorated with the red seal of the house of dragons, a coiled crocodile-face in wax. ‘It’ll be a quiet night,’ Azure observed, slipping her package into one of the larger pouches at her midriff. She looked to Kay, her face losing a little of its sobriety. ‘The dragon lines connect the house with former residents who’ve moved out into the city.
Voladora
’s just a jumped-up messenger – that’s what I am now. I carry messages to the dragons and back again. Do you still want to come flying?’

Kay nodded. She bade farewell to Luis, promising herself quietly that she would seek him out for another game when she had some free time. That would have to be after Xan’s party. Luis could wait; she knew she could rely on him for that. He would always be here, as massive and enduring as the mountain. He was the least transient person she had ever met.

Azure went ahead of her, but she had to skip to stay in front of Kay’s impatient strides.

‘You know why I’m doing this?’ Kay asked, trying to sound pleasant.

‘Because you don’t want to lose touch with me?’

That was a surprise. ‘You guessed?’

‘You’ve been away from home, and you’re still not properly settled. You’re going to value new friends more. Anyone would.’ She led them out into the evening, which was already dark. The air was half-cold and scented by distant bonfires. This must be high summer, Kay thought, somewhere near the Solstice, somewhere near the hot Southern Christmas. Azure’s bike was chained to a drainpipe at the side of the house. The young bird rattled her keys. They were new.

‘If you need a helmet, now’s the time to say. I’d hate for you to get hurt.’