The Causal Angel by Rajaniemi Hannu

Author:Rajaniemi, Hannu [Rajaniemi, Hannu]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi, pdf
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates
Published: 2014-07-14T21:00:00+00:00

10

TAWADDUD AND THE BOTTLED CITY

Tawaddud, Dunyazad and the thief Jean le Flambeur stand on Saturn, on the newborn Plate of Irem, ready to plant the seed of Sirr.

It is Tawaddud who carries it: an intricate snowflake shape inside a transparent bubble. It is heavy, and she has to hold it with both hands against her chest. She wonders if this is how the women of the Banu Sasan feel, holding their infant children, shielding something unutterably precious from the world. Then she remembers that by carrying the seed, she is carrying all of the Banu Sasan as well. It is difficult to let go.

‘Come now, sister,’ Dunyazad says impatiently. ‘The hour grows late.’

Le Flambeur smiles, and the strange, diffuse sunlight of the vast gleaming plain glints in his blue sunglasses. It is still difficult to see the small, slim man in a white jacket and trousers as the Sumanguru she knew – a towering, dark-skinned giant, a warlord of Sobornost – but every now and then, he makes a small gesture that feels familiar.

‘You should take your time,’ he says, smiling a little sadly. ‘You want to do it properly. In the future, in the Palace of Stories, perhaps they will tell the tale of two sisters who saved the city of Sirr.’

‘And what about you, master thief?’ Dunyazad asks. ‘Will they tell stories about you?’

‘There are enough stories about me already,’ he says. ‘I don’t think I’ll be needing any new ones. Besides, I like the one about the sisters better.’

It was only hours ago that le Flambeur brought Tawaddud and Dunyazad back, from the pages of a book, he said. One moment Tawaddud stood in the razor whirlwind of a wildcode desert storm, drowning in the voices of the Aun, and then she opened her eyes in a dusty bookshop that felt real, but wasn’t. Then they stepped through a silver gate that Duny claimed made them real, turned quantum information into matter, wrote the Names of their atoms into reality, like the bright beams of the Sobornost Station in Sirr.

They are on Saturn, a thought that makes Tawaddud dizzy, on an artificial continent larger than the entire Earth. A part of her wonders if le Flambeur can be trusted as a guide in this place. But she is Tawaddud, daughter of Cassar Gomelez, trained in many arts in the House of Kafur, and if there is one thing she can do, it is reading men. Besides, Duny claims a connection to the zoku who rule here, and now wears a ring like a jinn ring, but with a bright purple jewel that glows with an inner light of its own. While Tawaddud has had her differences with her sister in the past, she knows that Duny will always think what is best for Sirr, and deal swift death to those she deems its enemies. Now, she is starting to look impatient, running the jewel of her ring back and forth along her lips.

Tawaddud kneels on the strange,

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