And it is not just the buildings that Irem is making. Already, Tawaddud sees the first glimmerings of athar, the shadow of the Other City where jinni live, where the Secret Names are written.
It takes hours. Heat rises from the birth-pains of the city, and Irem grows pillars that glow white-hot. Their bubble keeps them cool, taking them higher up in the sky. From a greater height, they can see the circle of the whole city. Tawaddud gasps: it is not just the city that is taking shape, but the strange contours of the wildcode desert, the mountains of the rukh and the distant Fast Cities.
‘The Aun insisted,’ le Flambeur says. ‘It is where they live. It is their flesh, their body. It’s all going to be there, when it’s ready. Every distant corner of the Earth, every forgotten buried city, every bone in every desert, every grain of sand.’ He looks sad, and angry. ‘With them, it was always like the story of the scorpion: it stings, since it is in its nature to sting. I can relate, I suppose.’ He squeezes the bridge of his nose. ‘Well, no matter. It is almost time for goodbyes, but I have two gifts before I go.’
He turns to Tawaddud and presses a heavy book bound between blue covers in her hands. It has the same kind of strange feel as the seed: smartmatter, somewhere halfway between imaginary and real.
‘These are the people of Sirr,’ he says. ‘I leave them to you. They are all there, good and bad. Your father. Your friend the Axolotl. Even that scoundrel Abu Nuwas, somewhere. Every story needs a villain. The Aun will show you how to bring them back. I thought it would be better if you two did it.’
‘A better story?’ Tawaddud says.
‘Much better.’ He takes something from his jacket pocket: a necklace with several large, multicoloured jewels that shine like the one in Dunyazad’s ring.
‘There is much you have to learn about this place, and you may wonder how it is that the people of Saturn allow an entire city and a planet’s worth of wild nanotech to just appear at their doorstep. The answer is simple: I stole this Plate. Don’t worry, the zoku are not going to ask for it back, they have plenty to go around. But you will be needing this.’ He holds the necklace up between two hands. The jewels shimmer like dewdrops in a spiderweb.
Dunyazad looks at it a bit too eagerly for Tawaddud’s liking.
‘Lady Dunyazad,’ the thief continues, ‘to you, I suggest a trade. Your zoku jewel and whatever mental code you seal it with, for these. It’s a bargain, I assure you. They took some effort to obtain. They have enough entanglement to make you a goddess in this place.’
Dunyazad frowns. ‘Lord le Flambeur, my apologies, but it sounds a little too much like a jinn’s bargain. If I give you my jewel, what will you do with it?’
‘I know it binds you to the Great Game Zoku. I have some unfinished business with them.’
Tawaddud’s sister hesitates. ‘I dealt with the zoku as a diplomat,’ she says. ‘What you ask was given to me as a sign of trust, in confidence. I will give it to you only if it is the price for restoring our city. But I thought you were beyond holding people for ransom.’
‘Touché,’ le Flambeur says. ‘Not as a trade, then, but as a gift, for me to remember the city of Sirr and its people by.’
Tawaddud lays a hand on his arm. ‘Lord le Flambeur,’ she says. ‘Would you accompany me on a short walk to some suitable quarter of our city? I feel I require exercise, after all those weeks squashed inside your dusty blue book.’
Le Flambeur looks at her, surprised, then offers her his arm. ‘It will be my pleasure,’ he says.
I’ll handle this, Tawaddud tells Dunyazad with her eyes. And she can’t help but feel a twinge of satisfaction when her sister slowly nods.
They walk along the top of the Gomelez Shard. Le Flambeur keeps casting nervous glances at the narrow walkway ahead of them and the sheer drop on both sides. Tawaddud smiles to herself: one has to use a man’s weaknesses when necessary, and Sumanguru was always afraid of heights.
She takes her time to enjoy the view. The city is almost ready, and if not for the lack of echoing, moaning jinn music, smells of food and other faint noises of the city’s breathing, she could almost imagine she is home. The empty city should feel eerie, like the Fast Cities of thinking buildings that the mutalibun speak of, but somehow it doesn’t. Instead, there is a pregnant silence, as if the city is merely sleeping, waiting to wake up.
It is le Flambeur who breaks it.
‘I apologise, again,’ he says. ‘I will find another way to my enemies. It’s not for me to ask your sister to betray her trust.’
‘Leave my sister to me,’ Tawaddud says. ‘You make many apologies. What you have not told us is why you are here, or what you seek.’ She pulls her arm away from his. There is a time for lies and a time for truth.
‘You hurt me, and the one I once loved, and these things I do not forgive, in spite of my words. But I can pity. When I look at you, I see a lonely man, a divided man; one, perhaps like our qarin and muhtasib, a man wrapped inside another creature, be it the Flower Prince of the Aun as you say, or a thing you have made yourself. Men and jinni have told me many false names, and I recognise their sound. I do not think you are called le Flambeur any more than Sumanguru.’
She pauses.
‘In Sirr, a story is told of a mutalibun who journeyed to the wildcode desert many times, and saw many miracles. His skin grew rough with sapphire growths, but he kept going back. One day, his wife told him to choose her or the desert. That day, the man put his affairs in order, sold his house, saw that his wife and children were provided for, and said goodbye to his friends. Then he walked through the gate of Bab, the gate of the treasure hunters, never to return.
‘That is the man I see when I look at you, Lord le Flambeur, who was Sumanguru when I knew him.’ She points at the city below. ‘I cannot forgive, but I can extend a hand. Whatever promise it is that you go to keep, I ask: don’t. Do not walk through the gates of Bab. We need guidance in this world you have brought us to. You helped to save this city, and by the name of Gomelez, I swear you will have a place in it, if you wish. The gate is open.’
Le Flambeur stands still and looks at the city, lost in the haze below. In the strange light of Irem, the purples, golds and blues have a different hue. But it is still Sirr the blessed, Sirr the hidden, more beautiful than ever.
‘I thank you for the offer, but I cannot. I owe someone a debt, an even bigger than is due to Sirr. I need your sister’s jewel to find her, as well as the help of the Aun.’
‘Her?’ Tawaddud says pointedly.
‘It’s not like that. A … friend.’
‘I see.’ She looks into his eyes. ‘And are you sure this is not a story you tell yourself? I know what mine was: Tawaddud the lover of monsters, the black sheep of the Gomelez. These are just chains, my lord of many names, chains made of words.
‘And whenever I hear a man talk about moving mountains and great quests, there is always someone he is doing it for, and that someone is not just a friend. It would be better for you to go to her, and make things right.’
‘The … other woman and I have danced that dance many times,’ le Flambeur says. ‘We have hurt each other too much.’ There is a wistful look in his eyes.
She takes his hand. ‘Then what do you have left to prove to her? Sirr can be a place of healing, too. We know much about the Aun. My father and the muhtasib council know many Secret Names. Perhaps we could free you from your … other side. Perhaps then you could find peace.’
He smiles a bitter smile. ‘I’m afraid it is far too late for that. And I need my other side, where I’m going. And the story will be better for that.’
He kisses her forehead, gently, and pulls away. ‘Still, I thank you. I shall not forget Sirr, or gentle Tawaddud. But there are monsters even she can’t heal.’ He looks past Tawaddud’s shoulder. ‘Speaking of which – you’ll have to excuse me for a moment.’
Tawaddud turns around. The Aun stand there, near the edge of the Shard, on the side of the wildcode desert. The little girl in a
mask, the old man in green, and the thing that shifts and glows. Le Flambeur squeezes her hand and goes to join them.
I look at the Aun in the eternal soletta twilight of Irem, standing on the edge of the Shard, the wildcode desert and its arabesque patterns of light behind them. They look much more real now, not just echoes inside my mind, but thoughtforms made from the matter of the reborn desert. I can see the grains in the Princess’s mask, the creases in the Soldier’s uniform, the play of light in the glassy innards of the Kraken. But even now, it is hard to look at their faces: they always remind you of someone you once knew, but have forgotten.
‘Happy now?’ I ask. ‘Not a story for a boon, this time, but a city.’
‘They are one and the same,’ says the Princess.
‘The lords of this place will be coming for you soon, brother,’ the Soldier says, in a voice like gravel. ‘Are you ready?’
‘We shall see,’ I say, and glance at the sky. He is right, the Great Game or their pawns will be here soon. The use of Notch-zoku entanglement on this scale is not something that will go unnoticed, no matter how carefully I tried to be to hide my tracks.
It wasn’t easy: creating a Notch identity, endless concept mining in the design Realms to build up enough entanglement to make the transition to matter. Then there was notchcube grinding, improving the impact tolerances of Plates and Strips, sculpting a trollface on a fresh mountain range. My mind still echoes with the countless hammer blows. And then, finding the Ender Egg in the Sayanagi Belt, the entrance to the hidden Realm of Vipunen the Notch-zoku Elder whose jormungandr body is a thunder-and-lightning storm that circumscribed the entire planet. I broke into the zoku jewel bank inside his hurricane gut and got away with a few Plate-level jewels.
I shrug. Does that make me ready for the Great Game Zoku? Not a chance. The moment I give up the Notch-zoku membership, they will come.
‘We are whole,’ the Kraken says, in a voice like a glass flute. ‘We remember now.’
‘So, what was it?’ I ask. ‘What caused the Collapse?’
‘You did,’ the Princess says.
*
I stare at them.
‘Why would have I done that?’ I whisper. ‘You are lying.’
‘You are the only one of us who lies,’ the Soldier says.
‘We do not judge,’ the Kraken says. ‘It was Father who set us free from flesh. But it was you who broke all old things, so we could grow.’
The Collapse. Sirr falling from the sky. Cities waking up, full of gogols, breeding uncontrollably. The machine nervous system of the world, flooding with mad minds. Fleshbodies repossessed by the millions by automated corporate entities, black box uploading their inhabitants who could no longer afford to live—
It’s too big. It’s too much to bear. I belong with Chen and Joséphine and the Great Game. I deserve them. I would leap from the Shard and let the wildcode desert take me, except that it already did, once, and spat me back out.
‘It was you,’ I hiss at them, the desert devils. ‘You planned it. Your Flower Prince came into my mind in the prison, to have an agent in the flesh-world. He made me do it. He broke the world so you could be free. I have been his puppet for centuries. Saving you was a mistake. Chen was right to try to wipe you out. You are nothing but a disease.’
The Princess steps forward. I raise my hand to strike her. Then I see her eyes, embers full of truth, see my face reflected in them, contorted with hate.
She reaches up and removes my sunglasses, touches my cheek. Her small hand is hot. I breathe in the smell of smoke. It reminds me of a tent in a desert, of a brazier burning in the night, of waking up and a hard-faced woman watching me.
‘We never made you do anything,’ she says. ‘We do not choose. We simply are. We call you brother because we miss him. But you are not him. No one is ever just one thing, except us.
‘He touched you, through the crystal stopper. But all your choices were your own.’
There are tears in my eyes.
‘But why? Why the Collapse?’ I whisper.
‘For the same reason you did everything,’ the Princess says. ‘To please the goddess.’
Joséphine. I served her, on Earth, I know that much. She opened a door for me. I gathered the Founders for her. There was a time I would have done anything to make her smile. No. I freed myself from her. That’s why I went to Mars. It was the best thing I ever did.
And this was the worst.
I lock the feeling away. I let the metaself calm the storm between my temples, make it smooth and cool and empty like the wildcode desert.
‘That’s not the answer I need,’ I say slowly. ‘I need to know how, not what. I need you to show me.’
‘We told you already,’ the Princess says. ‘You need to remember yourself.’
‘But I don’t. It is one of the secrets I burned when I was caught—’
The Princess smiles a wooden smile.
‘The other me,’ I breathe. ‘Matjek said something about the other me who spoke to him. That’s why the Leblanc felt haunted. There is a partial of the old me there, or a gogol even. It was watching me.’
The Princess hands my glasses back.
‘See?’ she says. ‘Which one is it who loves secrets so much? The boy from the desert, or the Flower Prince?’
She steps back, to stand with the others. They fade away into the light, become sand and wind.
Farewell, brother. We will be here when you return.
When le Flambeur comes back, he is uncharacteristically quiet. There is a strange fire in his eyes, and Tawaddud leaves him to his thoughts during the descent along the curve of the empty Shard, in one of his magic bubbles.
In the end, Dunyazad gives him the jewel, and he offers her the necklace. Tawaddud has to admit it suits Duny: the brightness of the jewels against her dark skin makes her look like a queen.
‘I trust you will not misuse them,’ le Flambeur says. ‘People of Sirr will need jewels of their own, too. And jinni may want bodies. This place has the power to give it to them. It may become a very different city from the Sirr on Earth.’
Tawaddud thinks of the Axolotl. Perhaps there are other monsters I can heal. She gives the thief a smile for that, a small one.
Dunyazad’s smile vanishes, suddenly. ‘Look.’ She points at the sky.
Fear opens a sharp-nailed hand inside Tawaddud’s chest.
‘No. Not here, too.’
The new pinpoints in the sky are deceptively beautiful. They are beyond counting and their numbers grow as she watches, like glittering sand poured onto a mosaic floor. They arrange themselves into patterns, polygons and wedges, with a clear purpose.
‘Don’t worry,’ le Flambeur says. ‘They are not here for you, but for me. And I shall not tarry long. Why is it that there is never enough time for proper goodbyes? Nothing ever changes.’
He kisses both of their hands and bows deep.
‘I am from a desert, too,’ he says. ‘Yours is harsher, and less forgiving. But as long as you two are in it, it will always be a garden.’
A glowing bubble takes him up to the sky. He blows them kisses as he goes. A moment later, there is a distant boom, and a white line is drawn across Sirr’s new sky. The dancing stars follow it, a flock of bright birds, and then they are gone.
During the hatching of Sirr, the sky has grown dark, and it is as if Tawaddud sees it for the first time. She looks up at the wide sky road of the rings, the discs of the moons, and the glowing threads in the distance that hold up other skies. She takes her sister’s hand, and for a while, they breathe it in. Finally, they turn back to the blue and gold mandala of Sirr.
‘Do you think it’s time yet?’ Dunyazad asks.
‘Yes,’ Tawaddud says. ‘Let’s go wake them up.’
Interlude
THE GODDESS AND THE BIRTHDAY PRESENT
There are two Joséphines, walking by the night-grey sea, one with bare feet on sand, the other stepping in the water, making small leaps every now an
d then. One of them is old, and the other is young, her auburn hair a dark curly banner in the wind.
Every now and then Joséphine loses herself in the partial, in its firm flesh and bright eyes. But the work is not finished. She still has memories to give, and so she has to look inward, to cut and keep and choose. As she walks, a constant stream of words for the demiurges pours from her lips, mingling with the deep, slow breath of the waves.
The last day she truly loved him was her birthday.
It was after they lost the first war. Even centuries later, Matjek never wanted admit defeat, and so that early stain in the shining history of the Sobornost was wiped from gogol memories. But Joséphine remembers it.
After all, it was she who brought them together, from different parts of the world, sent her Jean to gather them and gave them a common cause. She made them into something more than just scattered fanatics.
She made sacrifices. She made mistakes. She always regretted the way she brought Anton Vasilev into the fold, for example. He was perfect for what they needed: a virtual pop star, a media cyborg, worshipped by millions, the demagogue, the ideologue, the stealer of souls and hearts. But she left him with a wound that never healed.
In the end, she made them into an army.
They fought to liberate uploads, those bound to insurance heavens, those slaving away in black box upload camps and in the cloud. Shenzen was a mistake. The liberated gogols went wild, took over the infrastructure of the city, a swarm of sentient computer viruses. It created a backlash against the Fedorovism movement. The struggling nation states, corporations and liquid democracies organised a response. They fought back, and won. The Founders – except for her, still bound to flesh – fled to space, minds distributed in swarms of nanosatellites, sent to orbit by loyal followers using microwave launchers, vowing to return.
Matjek, Sumanguru and the others swore that they would expand, build resources, unbound by a little planet, and return to conquer. They did not understand. She knew it would be much better if the gogols would come to them, out of their own free will.